People’s Lawyer Goes to Jail

by TMO 

By Karin Friedemann, TMO

File:  Attorney Barry Wilson.

Boston–“The fiery attorney who represented former Boston city councilor Chuck Turner in his bribery trial is now headed to jail himself,” the Boston Globe reports.

Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady sentenced famed “people’s lawyer” Barry Wilson to 90 days in the South Bay House of Correction in Boston for contempt of court for being “loud, abusive, insulting and disruptive.”

On May 15, 2012, Wilson was escorted off to jail in front of a courthouse crowded with his supporters.

Attorney Wilson was attempting to ensure that his client, a 22-year-old African-American man on trial for his life, had a jury of his peers in a first degree murder trial. Wilson protested when the prosecutor struck off all young people and people of African-American descent from serving on the jury. Wilson then “went ballistic” after the judge then empaneled a white man who had worked many years for Homeland Security. David Boeri of WBUR reports that Wilson’s “pyrotechnics” went on for six minutes.

“You’re going to sit him. Lock me up now. Just lock me up, lock me up and declare a mistrial,” Wilson ranted. “That’s ridiculous. Fifteen years a federal agent and he’s going to be unbiased — are you kidding me?”

As Wilson strongly objected, the judge found him in contempt. The Judge then stayed the sentence until completion of the trial and ordered Attorney Wilson to proceed. As a result, Wilson said he was under the sword during the whole trial and therefore distracted from defending his client fully.

Two days after the jury found the defendant guilty of first degree murder, Judge Brady sentenced Attorney Wilson to ninety days in jail.

Barry Wilson has a 36 year long history of defending political activists, labor organizers, immigrants and minorities. He was lead counsel in the Plymouth 25, Marcus Jean and Amer Jubran cases, the first lawyer for the Boston School Bus Drivers, Steelworkers Local 8751 in the 1970s, and counsel for framed African-American City Councilor Chuck Turner. Wilson served six months in federal prison in 1985 for refusing to violate attorney-client privilege.

According to Wilson’s lawyer, Judge Brady had dropped “a nuclear bomb” without warning, “chilling the advocacy” of defense attorneys.

Associate Appeals Court Justice David Mills, in reviewing Wilson’s alleged misconduct, considered it a clear breach of decorum. “He screamed at the judge and made a scene,” Mills said.

“All I’m trying to do is stand up for my clients’ rights,” Wilson said. “You got to be in those pits to understand what you have to do.

You’re standing between your client and a jail cell. And you have an ethical, professional obligation to be a zealous advocate.”

On Thursday May 3, 2012, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied Attorney Wilson’s motion for further appellate review, thus upholding the Court of Appeal’s March 20, 2012 decision denying Attorney Wilson’s appeal. The Appeals Court called Wilson’s conduct “without parallel” in a 21-page rebuke.

During the contempt hearing, Wilson was defiant.

“Mr. Wilson, your behavior before me two weeks ago was atrocious,” said Suffolk Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady, calling Wilson’s conduct “the worst I’ve seen in 20 years on the bench.”

“I don’t think my conduct was egregious or out of line in terms of what occurred in court,” the criminal defense attorney replied to the judge in his well-known booming voice. “In 2011 an African-American man cannot get a fair trial.”

“Wilson has a right to his own opinions but he has no right to interrupt the proceedings and turn the courtroom into a platform from which to hurl disrespectful words at the judge and the criminal justice system because he did not agree with the judge’s ruling,” the Appeals Court concluded.

“This flagrantly reactionary repression — which comes from the same poisoned well that jailed people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart (who represented the blind Shaykh Omar Rahman) — is designed to send a threatening message to the progressive movement and to all defense lawyers who stand with it,” comments Kirshbaum in Workers World.

Larry Pinkney writes on BlackCommentator.com, “On February 10th, 2005, attorney Lynne Portia Stewart, after having been targeted for many years by the US Government for her vigorous defense of the rights of Black and other people of color, found herself convicted of a despicably and conspicuously bogus ‘conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism’ charge.”

This was “an obvious attempt by the U.S. government to silence dissent, curtail vigorous defense lawyers, and install fear in those who would fight against the U.S. government’s racism,” state her supporters.

Prior to sentencing, Stewart wrote a letter to the judge pleading for mercy: “What might have been legitimately tolerated in 2000-2001, was after 9/11, interpreted differently and considered criminal… The government disparages the idea of zealous advocacy because it has never practiced criminal defense law as I did, with heartfelt concern for my clients. I tested the limits of what the courts and law would allow for my clients because I believed I was, as criminal defense lawyers often say, “liberty’s last champion.”

Unfortunately the rules of ethics have moved away from excusing zealous or intemperate behavior and language. 90 days in the county jail for Wilson still seems quite extraordinary, when the customary penalty for an attorney’s contempt of court is normally a fine, but jail time for zealous attorneys seems to be occurring more frequently, especially in political cases.

Michigan criminal defense attorney Scott Milliard found himself in jail for four days after being held in contempt by District Court Judge Kenneth Post because he told a client at arraignment not to answer the judge’s questions about personal drug use because the client might incriminate himself.

Kentucky attorney Amelia Adams got 6 months in jail after she refused to disclose to District Judge Karem the name of her 17 year old client who had sought permission from the court to have an abortion without her parent’s consent.

Wilson told his supporters, “I’ll go do my 90 days, I’ll smile through the whole 90 days. I’ll go out the way I came in… No I don’t regret anything. I did what I was supposed to do.”
Wilson plans to retire after he does his time. “I’m gone,” Wilson says. “I don’t want any more part of this. Why would I want to do this job any more and be surrounded by judges who are idiots? I legitimized a bankrupt system, and I was very good at it. I achieved everything I ever wanted.”

The Business of Lobbying in American Politics

A lot of aging leftists invite us to march in the streets. Some say, “Mass action will defeat the empire.” Will protesting stop war? Everyone who has been paying attention probably already knows that marching on Washington will not even disturb President Obama’s breakfast.

In fact, by causing havoc on the streets we actually distract the public’s attention from the real crimes taking place like AIPAC’s lobbying of Congress to bomb this or that country or like Haliburton’s pocketing of our tax money. Americans and their politicians need to understand that invading other countries hurts America. This approach is the only way to get the anti-war movement into the mainstream and away from the fringes of society.

The Israel Lobby has made sure the Zionist perspective permeates American discourse from grammar school through the highest levels of government. No child is too young for brainwashing.

An official diverging one iota gets 
his knees shot metaphorically. Holocaust Studies in the public school curriculum can start as early as Pre-K. Anyone that wants to discuss the role the Holocaust plays in US policy-making is an insane Holocaust denier. The Israel Lobby makes no distinction between national, transnational, and international politics.

Obama told AIPAC, “... the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and 
forever.” As long as Zionist subversives dictate to Obama, patriotic Americans will not make much headway in attempting a direct effort to change US policy. Activists need to change tactics by focusing on the danger that the Israel Lobby represents to the American political system and by attacking the discourse on which the Israel Lobby stands.

The pro-Israel lobby operates on every level of American society. Holocaust propaganda serves to shield the most privileged group in America from just criticism of many of its members and of its collective conduct—especially in relation to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and the destruction of America’s Constitutional liberties.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was one of the main proponents of the Patriot Act, which monitors the reading history of library patrons. Zionist organisations are heavily involved with Homeland Security and they use book banning and far worse methods to squelch criticism of Israel. While there is no limit to the amount of hate speech against Muslims or Christians that is tolerated now in the western world, the mere suggestion that Muslims and Christians should have equal rights with Jews in the Holy Land, or that the Hollywood version of the Holocaust is not entirely accurate, have in recent times resulted in the deportation, imprisonment, and even assassination of the speakers, writers, or publishers, and in the banning of their books or films because of Zionist pressure on western governments to abandon the principle of freedom of expression.

How about a turn-around in rhetoric? Instead of trying to make Americans care about Arabs—too hard—we need to increase their awareness that Jewish Lobby is undermining American democracy and costing taxpayers money. Since activists can destroy a movement if they dwell upon who the good guys are (there are various opinions), we should concentrate on what we can all agree on: The Lobby needs to be stopped. That’s the only way to stop war and war taxes. The Israel Lobby is the enemy of all Americans. I would suggest a public rhetoric campaign against all Israel lobbyists suggesting prison. It should be social suicide to participate with Hillel or other pro-Israel organizations training future lobbyists.

There are plenty of ways to address this issue in town meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and other mundane ways. Causing a huge stir at a Martin Luther King school assembly or sending a mass mailing to all the high school students will create a lot more word-of-mouth grassroots pressure than a protest in DC, which doesn’t even get discussed. We are at war because we allowed our country and our minds to be taken over by Zionists and other opportunists. We refused to take responsibility for our country or for our children’s education.

Every town has a web of pro-Israel groups that work together to undermine American democracy to promote their personal interests. Pro-peace advocates need to identify the Zionist individuals who are pushing their agenda in the local school system. As soon as you start engaging in anti-Israel activism, all the Israel lobbyists will come crawling out of the woodwork to try and discredit or stop you.

Once you know who these individuals are, then you will be able to protest directly to the local leadership and law enforcement specifically about those who are personally responsible for pushing Americans to die for Israeli interests. You probably know where they live. If Americans started talking to their neighbours we could probably stop this insanity.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women

Another Harsh Winter in Gaza Awaits

Winter is coming, and it will be bitterly cold in Gaza. Many Gazans, whose houses were destroyed by the Israeli Defence Forces, have no shelter and will suffer terribly. Families still live amid the rubble of their homes with no resources to fix the damage.

With the sea blockaded illegally by the Israelis, the people of Gaza are literally imprisoned by these actions. Not only is Israel preventing building supplies from entering Gaza but also coffee, tea, paper, school books, toys for children, and thousands of other items. Palestine is not a poor country, and Palestinians are not a poor people. They are being forced into poverty.

"The blockade, although initiated by Israel, could not be successful if world governments, including Arab governments, were not complicit with Israel. At the Rafah crossing, aid was denied entry by the Egyptian government. Egypt destroyed the food and medicine by setting it on fire. This is proof that the purpose is to ethnically cleanse Gaza, allowing its people to die from starvation and curable disease as in Iraq where approximately 650,000 children died from the
results of economic sanctions," says Anisa Abdel Fattah, Chairperson of the Committee to Ban Economic Sanctions, whose conference in Washington, DC is planned for September 29.

The continuing failure of the international community to protect the Palestinians demands that we, as private citizens have to directly intervene to solve the crisis.

"When governments fail to protect human rights, civilians must step up. Civilians have a very important role to play, especially when government institutions fail to do their job in upholding the law and human rights," said Huwaida Arraf, Chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, during a talk at the American University of Beirut. Ms. Arraf described how she was approached by an
elderly Gazan man who stopped her in the street.

"He had tears in his eyes. He said you gave us hope that our people, our family outside have not forgotten us."

A year ago, 44 ordinary people from 17 different countries sailed to Gaza from Cyprus in two small wooden boats. They did what our governments would not do: they broke through the Israeli siege.

During the last year, the Free Gaza Movement has organised seven more voyages, successfully arriving in Gaza on five separate occasions, bringing in journalists, human rights workers, parliamentarians and other concerned people. They took out dozens of Palestinian students and medical patients, and helped to reunite families separated by the siege. They remain the only ships to sail to Gaza in over forty-two years.

On three occasions, including the most recent attempt in June, the boats were blocked from entering by the Israeli navy.

Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories declared, "The landing of two wooden boats carrying human rights activists in Gaza is an important symbolic victory ... Above all, what is being tested is whether the imaginative engagement of dedicated private citizens can influence the struggle of a beleaguered people for basic human rights, and whether their courage and commitment can awaken the conscience of humanity to an
unfolding tragedy."

Former Malaysian prime minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who met members of the Free Gaza Movement in Cyprus, was shocked at how tiny was the only fishing boat that they still have for future trips to Gaza. "Yet 25 people dared to sail in this tiny boat, sleeping on the open deck, being seasick, without proper food, and being made to face Israeli attacks… I don't think I would be able to endure the kind of discomfort and dangers faced by the activists of the Free Gaza
Movement. All I can do is give moral support to them…"

There is definitely urgency in raising funds for the purchase of the vessel because with winter approaching, the people of Palestine will be affected. "We want to carry building materials as we need to rebuild houses, because they (Palestinians) are now living in tents and when winter comes, it will be terrible for the old, sick and children. Many of them may die because of the
winter."

Ms. Abdulla, a banker from Bahrain who travelled by sea to Gaza with the group in 2008, said, "I think Arabs in particular should go. At the very least they should support the movement financially. Everyone is obliged to do something to stop this tragedy." Those who want to help the cause can visit www.freegaza.org.

Regardless of Israeli threats and intimidation, Free Gaza volunteers will continue to directly challenge the Israeli military with their small boats, concretely demonstrating that this siege has nothing whatsoever to do with security and is simply an illegal act of collective punishment.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women

Disengaging America from the Israel Lobby

"No taxation by a foreign government without representation" is a basic American principle. Yet, the taxation currently endured by US taxpayers because of the Israel Lobby far exceeds the level of taxation by the British that led to the American Revolution. Pro-Israel organisations do everything possible to prevent Americans from openly discussing the fact that they are being taxed without consent.

Through subversion Israel advocates have orchestrated passage of the Patriot Act, Homeland Security abuses, and other erosions of civil liberties. Pro-Israel organisations file lawsuits to keep the question of Israel investments off local ballots. Jewish communal organisations bribe elected public officials with free trips to Israel to gain their support — even against the will of the majority of their constituents!

Financing Israel at the expense of basic American values victimises every citizen to benefit a very small sub-group of the population and also creates worldwide anti-US hostility, which puts all Americans at risk of terrorist retaliation. Obeying the Israel lobby goes against all logical American self-interest. Obeying Zionist pressure to invade several countries at once means watching America commit suicide, economically and politically, for the sake of Israel. Zionist activists are a real and present danger to the USA. They should be stripped of their US citizenship and sent to Guantanamo for interrogation.

America’s free press, justice system, and democracy are dependent upon the separation of American from Israeli interests. To survive, America must disentangle itself from the Zionist web of control. The common Zionist argument that Jews should get to keep what they stole just because they’ve been sitting on other people’s property for so many years is not a valid legal argument. International law as defined by the post-WW2 Nuremburg Tribunals does not confer upon occupiers any entitlement to “security.” Zionism is nothing less than a criminal ideology that completely rejects the fundamental American principle of sacred 
property rights.

America stands for equal rights, which applies to property and residency rights and other legal norms such as use of public transportation and voting. The US has acknowledged the injustice involved in colonising America at the expense of the native population. Even though economic disparities still remain, Native Americans have US citizenship and are allowed to rent, buy and sell property just like other citizens. This is not true for millions of Palestinian refugees who are denied any passports while they live under Israeli curfews and martial law. It is even against Israeli law for sympathetic Jews voluntarily to reconvey stolen property that they currently hold without legitimate title to the original, rightful owners. In general, Jews cannot even sell homes to Arabs. Yet Germany returned homes stolen from the Jews in World War II to their descendants.

Many Americans are aware that the subsidisation of the Israeli military at the expense of the US taxpayer puts all Americans at risk of retaliation. Yet the criminal acts begin right under our noses here in America by bankers and real estate agents. With the deep enmeshment of Israeli agents in the United States political spectrum, the Israel Lobby acts as a mafia facilitating the looting of billions of dollars via US military acquisitions from Jewish-owned defense corporations like General Dynamics and via capital transfers including ongoing complex beneficiary-obscuring transactions. In addition to ongoing US foreign aid for weapons purchase, the USA buys billions of dollars of weapons, declares the weaponry to be obsolete and then consigns it to Israel at practically no charge. Using full-scale militarised equipment supplied and paid for by the United States, the Israeli government uses US tax money to pay the IDF to force the non-Jewish Palestinian rightful owners to vacate their own property so that subsidised real-estate magnates can bulldoze the place to build suburban-style condos for foreigners outfitted with supplies from Home Depot and JCPenney.

As the Israeli government orchestrates increasing demand for Palestinian property, ordinary American Jews wishing to escape their credit card debts buy up stolen Palestinian property by means of mortgages that roll in existing indebtedness at subsidised interest rates. American Jewish purchasers can then resell the stolen properties at a profit and return debt-free to the USA with cash in their pockets. This outrageous criminal conspiracy takes place in broad-daylight generally under the aegis of taxpayer subsidised Zionist “charities” that encourage “Aliyah” (Jewish ascension to Israel).

Are American law enforcement officials investigating this racist organised crime network operating in full daylight? The Jews who move into this stolen property are participating in an international crime. The FBI should be attending all the Pro-Israel training workshops that take place on US soil and that promote both the subversion of all our basic national beliefs and also the looting of the US economy. The United States has no choice but to start investigating, arresting, charging, prosecuting, convicting and incarcerating American citizens participating in the Zionist settlement process.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National 
Association of Muslim American Women. Joachim Martillo contributed to this article

Prisoners of a Special Kind

Not much is known about the new federal prisons that house primarily Muslims and political activists, that are called Communications Management Units (CMUs), except that they are located in Terre Haute, Indiana and Marion, Illinois.

Although the US government refuses to disclose the list of prisoners to the public, inmates include Enaam Arnaout, founder of Islamic charity Benevolence International Foundation, Dr. Rafil Dhafir, physician and founder of Iraqi charity Help the Needy, Ghassan Elashi, founder of Holy Land Foundation and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Randall Royer, Muslim civil rights activist, Yassin Aref, Imam and Kurdish refugee, Sabri Benkahla, an American who was abducted the day before his wedding while studying in Saudi Arabia, and John Walker Lindh, an American convert to Islam who was captured in Afghanistan, plus some non-Muslim political activists. Most of these prisoners were falsely accused of terrorist offenses and then imprisoned for lesser charges but given sentences meant for serious terrorism-related crimes.

Carmen Hernandez, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said, “The primary problem with the opening of (the CMU) is that no one knows the criteria used to send the person imprisoned to that unit.”

What the prisoners have in common is that they were well disciplined, studious, and often religious compared to those in the general prison population, they maintain strong commitments to various causes, and for some reason the government wants to keep them separate, to restrict their communication with the outside world.

Prison officials claim, “By concentrating resources in this fashion, it will greatly enhance the agency’s capabilities for language translation, content analysis and intelligence sharing.”

Attorney Paul Hetznecker stated, “These Communication Management Units are an expansion of a continued war on dissent in this country... of using that word “terrorism” to push a political agenda and to really dominate and to control—attempt to control these social movements.”

Andy Stepanian, an animal rights activist who is the first to be released from a CMU, called it “a prison within the actual prison.” He said that the prisoners “are not there because they harmed anyone. They’re not there because they approach anything that most reasonable people would consider even close to being terrorism.”

He further stated, “From what I observed, about 70 per cent of the men that were there were Muslim and had questionable cases that were labeled as either extremist or terrorist cases. But when I grew to meet them, I realised that the cases were, in fact, very different. What it appears to be is that they don’t want people that are either considered to be fundamentalist in Islam or more devout than your average American in Islam to be circulating amidst the regular prison populace in the Bureau of Prisons. Whatever their objective in doing so, I mean, that would have to come from the Bureau of Prisons. But one can surmise it’s because they don’t want the spread of Islam in the prisons or that they’re trying to silence communications from these individuals, because perhaps their cases are in question themselves, and they don’t want to allow them access to the media.”

He concluded, “At the end of this prison sentence, I’ll look back on the fact that I had a tremendous opportunity to meet people from different cultures, to be exposed to the Islamic world and understand that it’s not something 
to be feared, it’s not something to 
be vilified.”

Daniel McGowan, a non-Muslim political activist in “Little Guantamo” wrote: “The most painful aspect of this unit, to me, is how the CMU restricts my contact with the world beyond these walls. It is difficult for those who have not known prison to understand what a lifeline contact with our family and friends is to us. It is our link to the world - and our future (for those of us who are fortunate enough to have release dates).”

The US houses 2.3 million domestic prisoners. Conditions are far worse in some of the other prisons. Within the CMU, Muslim prisoners are at least safe from violence.

However, the discrimination against prisoners at CMUs, in addition to the severe limitations on visits, phone calls and letters, includes a lack of access to vocational training and paying jobs that are available to other prisoners. More than half of the men face deportation after their release, and the difficulty in obtaining law books makes it difficult to prepare for an immigration hearing.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed lawsuits on behalf of several prisoners challenging the CMUs’ “violation of federal laws requiring public scrutiny” as well as the prison’s restrictions on Islamic group prayer. This legal struggle must be supported by increased activism on the outside to demand the release of the innocent either falsely convicted or 
intimidated into pleading guilty to bogus charges.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women.

SPLC vs. Karin Friedemann

My response follows. -Karin
Demand for immediate retraction and publication of correction
Saturday, May 16, 2009 1:13 PM
From: "Mark Potok" mark.potok@splcenter.org


This is for Karen Friedemann and regards your May 16 "Letter From America"article in the Khaleej Times Online entitled "Americans Divided by HateCrimes Bill." http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2009/May/opinion_May80.xml&section=opinion&col=


You make the following claim in your article:

"The ADL, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is alreadyheavily involved in Homeland Security's locally based 'fusion centres,'which collect personal data for intelligence databases that synchronise national intelligence collection with local police. ADL and SPLC have arecord of illegally spying on American citizens and providing falseinformation to law enforcement officials."

The statements about the SPLC -- that we have a record of "illegally spying"on Americans and "providing false information" to authorities -- are both materially false and also libelous and defamatory. Both statements containno shred of truth -- apparently, you've attributed the ADL's problems in the Roy Bullock case to the SPLC. We have never been charged or convicted oreven accused of these things.

As I noted above, these statements arelibelous and false. As a result, I write to demand that you immediatelywithdraw these statements from wherever they have been published, including the Khaleej Times, and publish a correction making clear that SPLC has not done the things you falsely accuse us of. I have written a similar note to the editor of the Khaleej Times and expect action to be taken by this Monday afternoon at the latest.

Mark Potok
Director, Intelligence Project
Editor, Intelligence Report/Hatewatch
Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Ave.
Montgomery, AL 36104

===

Response to Mark Potok
Karin Friedemann


The US Department of Justice released FBI documents indicating that the Southern Poverty Law Center engaged in undercover surveillance of Oklahoma militia groups in 1995 before and after the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The local FBI team, which should have obtained a warrant to dispatch real FBI agents, criminally conspired with SPLC agents to get around Attorney General Janet Reno’s legal limitations on domestic spying. Because the conspiracy was criminal, the espionage was illegal.

In “The Watchdogs: A close look at Anti-Racist ‘Watchdog’ Groups,” Laird Wilcox documents the SPLC’s extensive intelligence networks monitoring editorials, observing meetings, and compiling files on people they consider offensive. Wilcox told WorldNetDaily: “By alleging ‘dangerousness’ on the basis of mere assumed values, opinions and beliefs, they put entirely innocent citizens at risk from law enforcement error and misconduct.”

Mark Potok himself admits the SPLC criminally spied on the Animal Rights 2001 Conference by secretly recording attendees. “We were at that conference, we collected the quote ourselves, in person and on a videotape to boot,” he wrote in response to complaints from Friends of Animals President Priscilla Feral about misleading SPLC characterizations of her organization.

In an article libeling Muslim clerics, the online SPLC Intelligence Report links videos apparently made in violation of federal wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes.

Many organizations and individuals accuse SPLC of publishing false and misleading information and manipulating crime data and terminology. Federal law enforcement agencies and Homeland Security Fusion Centers were issued a warning against relying upon faulty and politicized SPLC research reports.

The Turkish American Legal Defense Fund is currently suing the SPLC for defaming an 85-year-old emeritus professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts.

Harper's Magazine accused the SPLC of scare mongering to fund relatively lavish lifestyles for the organization's directors.

Why Arabs are Backing Sudan's Bashir

10 April 2009
Khaleej Times


Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir, despite being indicted on March 4, 2009 on seven counts of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, was given a “hero’s welcome” by the Arab League Summit hosted by Qatar last week. The 22 nations warmly supported Al Bashir with a resolution opposing the dubious ICC arrest warrant.

Bashir called the ICC an “undemocratic institution that ... applied double standards, targeted the weak and gave a blind eye to the criminals.”

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, also present at the summit, likewise objected to the ICC. “Why do they not order the capture of Bush? Why not order the arrest of the president of Israel?”

“If anything happened to Omar Al Bashir and Sudan ended up in chaos, the whole of Africa will sink into chaos,” warned Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Amir of Qatar.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League Secretary-General, said that the arrest warrant was aimed “at undermining the unity and stability of Sudan.”

In response to the arrest warrant, which was issued at behest of “Save Darfur,” an activist coalition mobilised by pro-Israel organisations committed to pressuring the US administration to treat Sudan like Iraq, Al Bashir evicted 13 western NGOs from his country.

Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report comments, “Any government in the world that believes it has been targeted for regime change by the United States and its allies would be foolish to allow western-based nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to operate freely in its territory.”

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Almost the entire Arab and African world supports Sudan against the ICC, arguing it is a biased and political 
tool that only targets Africans and infringes sovereignty.”

“The allegations at the ICC have nothing to do with reality, and we will use our friends in the United Nations to stop them,” says Abdel Malik Al Naiem, spokesman for the Sudanese Embassy in Cairo.

“In one year we will Sudanise all the aid on the ground and we can fill the gap in food distribution within one year because the Sudanese Red Crescent already distributes 45 per cent of the food in Darfur,” Al Bashir promised during a recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

China and Russia back the central government in Khartoum and support local peace agreements between Sudan’s warring tribes while the US, Britain, Israel and France materially support insurgent militias and promote increased foreign intervention with massive, internationally coordinated propaganda. Michel Massih, Al Bashir’s leading attorney points out, “I have never heard in my legal career of a chief prosecutor that launches media campaigns against a defendant, regardless of the nature of the charges.”

Columbia Professor Mahmood Mamdani, whose new book ‘Saviours and Survivors’ just came out, says he began to look at the issue of Darfur in 2003. He was struck by the rapid globalisation and the fact-indifference of the Save Darfur movement, which consistently misrepresented the facts 
in a media blitz.

Mamdani points out in a recent IslamOnline interview with Ismail Ikashkash: “The Save Darfur movement does not educate the people… about what issues drive the conflict. So they know nothing about the politics of Darfur, the history of Darfur, the history of the conflict. All they know is that … Darfur is a place where ‘evil lives.’”

In his book, Professor Mamdani describes in detail how the Save Darfur Coalition presented itself primarily as an inter-religious coalition promoting Islamophobia by implicitly creating a division of responsibility among faiths:

“The Christian faith packets were the most explicit: They spoke of ‘divine empowerment’ and ‘the burden to save’…The Jewish faith packets emphasized the special moral responsibility of Jews as ‘quintessential victims’ to identify genocide whenever it occurs…Muslims were asked to fight oppressors in their midst.”

Save Darfur board chairwoman Gloria White-Hammond, an African-American Christian minister in Boston who has been groomed to promote Zionist politics by Israel advocacy group “The David Project,” met with President Obama and his Sudan envoy General Scott Gration, before their recent trip to Sudan. She and Save Darfur president Jerry Fowler pressured Obama to revive Sudan’s internal conflicts and to threaten Khartoum with further international isolation.

America imposed economic sanctions on Sudan in 1997, but peace in Sudan requires foreign investment and political reform. Sudan has the largest underground freshwater lake in all of Africa. With some technology, Sudan could become the Breadbasket of Africa. Bush made it illegal for American-allied businesses to invest in life-saving infrastructure, and even threatened a delegation of African-American businesspeople with criminal prosecution for discussing investment ideas with President Al Bashir.

President Obama will have to choose between continuing Bush’s policies, which leave millions of Sudanese civilians in mortal jeopardy, and which have earned America international scorn, and reconciling with an international community whose support for the people of Africa is destined to grow.


Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based 
writer on the Middle Eastern affairs

The Emotional Violence of Jewish Advocacy

Gideon Levy a Ha’aretz newspaper reporter recently asked: “If Israelis were so sure of the rightness of their cause, why the violent intolerance they display toward everyone who tries to make a different case?”

In "Survival Instinct or Jewish Paranoia?" my favorite shrink, ex-Israeli Avigail Barbanel writes that, “The implications of seeing the conflict from within the lens of Jewish trauma are very serious. Can we really negotiate with this? Can we explain to Israelis that their perspective on life and on the conflict is seriously flawed? If we tried will they listen, and do the Palestinians have time to wait until they do?”

It seems that Americans are kind of in an abusive marriage situation with Israel, where because love and friendship are assumed to be there, the abused partner keeps feeling guilty and acting hyper-responsible, and tries even harder to please the abuser. Many Americans maintain friendships with pro-Israel Jews and simply decide not to discuss politics; however there is an emotional blackmail going on because if you did mention Israel or Jewish-American genocidalism, the relationship would be over.

I was just thinking today about the aspect of emotional violence within Israel advocacy techniques that are used to shut down discussion about Jewish destructive behavior patterns or the State of Israel. This method is used against Gentiles primarily. Sometimes there is even a good cop-bad cop routine, with groups ganging up on someone to try and make the person feel ashamed for their alleged anti-semitism.

A Gentile in America, even a child, is raised to accept a very heavy sense of personal responsibility that far exceeds anyone else's normal sense of personal responsibility. It creates a neurotic personality who is always feeling guilty and thus is too weak to stand up to Zionist criminal behavior and the comical, obviously non-factual Zionist ideology.

Jews in America are socially empowered to go way beyond the learned trauma of the Jewish experience that results in typical reactionary behavior. They actually participate in group behavior that is deliberately manipulative and abusive - aimed at punishing activists who stand up for human equality and justice. Over the years, US Jews have become increasingly nutty not only due to current events but due to the internet "alerts" coming to them from Jewish lobbyists, who solidify their brains in this self-righteous fantasy world where Hamas is a terrorist organization, where Israel has some kind of right to kill and rob non-Jews.

So we are dealing with not only dangerous reactions based on past trauma - actually learned trauma based on a glorified and fictionalized past - but American Jews are actually being trained since childhood to interact with non-Jews in a deceitful and arrogant manner, in coordination with each other, to emotionally destroy Gentiles and Israel critics, in addition to wrecking their careers and interfering with their social relationships. This is actually deliberate, wicked, planned behavior motivated by a narcissistic self-righteous fury.

I think it's impossible to help heal Jews from Zionism without first somehow snapping off that connection with the Lobbyists. Mainstream gullible Jews and their dishrag friends tend to naively believe anything racist against Muslims – even from someone as disloyal to the United States Constitution like Charles Jacobs of CAMERA or the psychotic racist freaks at HonestReporting - who send them some unsubstantiated talking points memo - and people never even do any fact-checking.

American Jews tend to enforce blind conformity, bullying and shaming people into agreeing with a bogus sham written by a Polish immigrant funded indirectly by US taxpayers whose money was illegally laundered through the JCRC. Whatever happened to “Question Authority”?

So many Gentiles fall into this trap and start doing the work of the Zionists, attacking people if they deviate from political correctness. If we could focus on the emotional violence of Israel advocacy techniques we might be able to empower Gentiles to stand up to the psycho Zionists without enduring quite as much emotional pain.

The problem is that Gentiles are taught through emotional pressure and violence via the media and the school system to be very sensitive to Jewish suffering so when a Zionist becomes outraged at them for challenging their world view, the Gentile really has to fight against his own inner self in a huge battle against his "inner Jew" making him feel inadequate and intimidated. But the Jew doesn’t care how much he or she hurts others. Jews only care about what's good for the Jews.

The world needs to intervene to save Jews from their murderous selves, and to save the Palestinians. However, sending in the UN as an occupation force would be an insult to the Palestinians especially given the UN's past record of backing up Israel and neocon wars in general and the previous example of Bosnia. Instead of helping Bosnians, NATO dismantled their country and now uses it as a CIA base for kidnapping white prostitutes to sell to Israel.

Intervention involves convincing world leaders to do the right thing, which seldom happens and does not empower us to action other than begging them.

What is possible and in fact quite easy is to find a way to deal with Zionist Jews in our local area, especially those who are involved in the organizational structures of Zionist organized racism.

Obviously, prosecuting Zionist organizations also requires convincing the establishment to define Zionism as a criminal ideology, like we do Nazism, and going after the leadership.

However, meanwhile, there should be a way for ordinary people to wear down ordinary Jews and their leadership by engaging them in arguments, and so on. The nicey nice "interfaith dialogue" routine is not working to help the situation as it just teaches Gentiles to be friends with Jews by never mentioning Israel's crimes against humanity.

One occasionally effective path for helping Jewish friends snap out of their ideological programming is to simply state the facts over and over again.

Obviously, coming up against a Jewish narcissist is always a painful experience and yet - as with a child molester - you have to intervene. If a person is walking around believing lies that enable violent crime, you would be a BAD person not to mention it to them.

If the Zionists on the local level could be made to feel a bit less comfortable with their ideology, and they were robbed of the freedom that comes with privacy and non-discussion, things could change very fast.

Most people in Israel who want peace say it's the American Jews and other Diaspora lobbies raising the money for the hate propaganda and the campaigns to elect war criminals in Israel and so on. Getting rid of Israel would not solve the problem of this Jewish international crime network. If they lost Israel they would just find something else to mess up. The American Jews are arming the rebels in Darfur now.

Something has to be done to break the spell of hypnosis that these Israel advocacy organizations have put on the local Jews and their intellectually deficient so-called friends. Discrediting the people who are spreading Israeli propaganda to the American public is absolutely paramount.

Part 2

I can't express how much more at peace I feel since I decided not to engage Zionists as friends anymore, but to treat them like people treat any other member of a racist criminal organization like the KKK. I consider a Zionist anyone who believes that Israel must exist as a Jewish State, especially if they are emotional about the issue, because that means they believe Jews have a right to steal from non-Jews, and they believe Jews have more rights than others, which is an indefensible position to maintain.

In the past it was always the other way around. I mention Palestinians, and they would act like I did something bad and not talk to me for some months or years. I used to feel very hurt because I was not trying to offend them. I had actually spoken politely to them. From now on I'm just ignoring them.

Many people deal with Zionists by making light talk and never discuss politics, but I think we should stop doing that since it normalizes their support for racist genocide.

Many Zionists don't call themselves Zionists but to me, a Zionist is someone who would deny Palestinians equal rights in order for the Jews to keep what they stole and call it Israel. They are very brainwashed so it's usually not useful arguing with them. Jewish organizations and synagogues teach classes in linguistic martial arts tactics (how to confuse your opponent etc.) to deflect blame from Jews and Israel. It's extremely dishonest and manipulative. According to the David Project, an organization which teaches these Israel Advocacy techniques and also disseminates Islamophobic misinformation to the public, states that their goal is to diminish the impact of Israel's detractors.

Obviously, those Zionists who are simply ignorant, if they are willing to hear my point of view and to ask questions in a polite way, that's different. But normally they act manipulative and do everything to prevent a normal discussion on Jews/Israel. I once reduced a 50 year old man to hysterical sobbing tears because I told him gently and lovingly that Jews were not that unique. I just told him the Jews, like everyone else, have had good times and bad times. Times when they were slaughtered and other times when they slaughtered others. Just like everyone else. Guess what he did next. He emotionally abused me in an insulting way and then cut off all further communication. Jewish behavior is so predictable that it's truly scary.

Most of the Zionists claim to want a Palestinian State side by side an Israeli state, but as Israel Shamir points out in his book, Flowers of Galilee, it's a political maneuver: a bluff. They are simply taking advantage of your good faith to keep you engaged, to give Israel more time to steal more land. What I tell them is, even if the Jews just stole half of Palestine instead of the whole thing, it's still stealing and they need to give it back and let the refugees come home, according to legal and ethical norms. The UN definition of "genocide" says destroying a people "in whole or in part" so even if they just took part of the land, it's still considered genocide.

The two-state Zionists show their true colors when the issue is cutting off US funding to Israel. They are very attached to the idea of a racist apartheid state for Jews paid for by non-Jews. If you mention cutting off the money or if you mention the possible compromise of living with Palestinians as equals in one state they become very angry and start using bullying tactics, unless they have some reason to fear you, in which case they shun you and complain about you to the authorities, try to get you arrested or try and destroy your career or social status through character assassination.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is a good example of this type of racist. He believes that Jews need to take care of the Palestinians and teach them how to become civilized. He considers stealing Palestinian land as "affirmative action for Jews."

Zionists all believe in the myth of "1000 years of Jewish suffering" and feel that the world owes them compensation for their ancestors' "unique" suffering. It's a criminally insane viewpoint. They cope with the contradictions between their belief that they are the good guys and what Jews are actually doing to their neighbors, both in the Middle East and in the US, by developing mental health issues. Most Zionists are functional schizophrenics.

A few Zionists are not schizophrenic. If you say, "You stole their country," they just say, "Yeah, so? And what are you going to do about it?" I'm actually more willing to deal with those kind of Zionists because at least they are honest, and this does leave some room for discussion. But why. Just as Americans are not required to support Israel, we are not obliged to interact with racists.

Hate Incited in Somerville

Hate-mongers do not represent Somerville residents.


Hate Incited in Somerville
Karin Friedemann, Boston, MA
Saturday, August 6, 2005


An unknown person scrawled "KILL ALL ARABS" on an electricity pole
down the street from the Broken Yolk cafe. This expression of
genocidal racism is unusual in Somerville. While the majority of
Somerville residents support equal rights for Muslims, Christians and Jews in America and in the Holy Land, a small minority believes in the existence of an exclusively Jewish State funded by American tax dollars. Very worrying is the fact that Somerville city employees' 401K plans are invested in Israel - a scam perhaps explained by the gifts the mayor of Somerville received from the Jewish Lobby.

Despite Israel's ongoing human rights violations including the
bulldozing of Palestinian Muslim and Christian homes, Somerville city employees are not even given the option to opt out of their personal investments in these Israel bonds which are continually losing value. This irresponsible investment has lost the city a lot of money.

The hate crime committed in Somerville is a wake-up call to the city of Somerville not to let pro-Israel advocates dictate the use of Somerville public money to line their own pockets.

Genocidal racists do not represent Somerville. It's time to divest now.

Boston NeoCons to Wiretap Mosques

Boston NeoCons to Wiretap Mosques
by Karin Friedemann
Sept. 16, 2005
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/41763/index.php


The Pro-Israel lobby gave MA Governor Romney payola. Now he is
revoking the Constitution to help Israel spy on American Muslims.


Boston Jewish groups were given $2.1 million of US tax money to "beef up security."

They used some of this money to give the governor and several mayors free trips to Israel. Now our elected officials are accepting strategy from neocon advisors to spy on Muslim Americans.

In order to fight against being wiretapped, the local community must do more than protest. They must pinpoint and prosecute those
individuals and organizations involved in the treasonous advising of our elected officials to drop the Constitution. The treasonous Neocons want to go after American Muslims simply because the Jewish
organizations don't agree with them on certain issues. The decision to give Homeland Security to Israeli security companies has all to do with the Israel Lobby funneling public money into private pockets.

Boston Zionist organizations have millions of dollars but what they don't have is public support. They have successfully controlled the "slant" of any discussion about Muslims but they cannot stop
Somerville from divesting from Israel. Less than 5% of Somerville supports Israel's US-subsidized existence. 70% strongly support the divestment ballot petition up for vote in 2007.

Will the Boston Jewish organizations destroy all that America stands for? Wll the Boston Muslim community stand up and defend America alongside their neighbors? If you want to help the Muslims you have to help America get rid of these subversive pro-Israel fanatics trashing democracy.

I am sure that there is no question in anyone's mind that bulldozing Palestinian homes, bombing Iraq and Afghanistan, the
normalization of torture, sending tax money to Israel instead of
repairing New Orlean's levee before the hurricane hit, wiretapping
American mosques, etc are pure evil. But Somerville has made the
neocons vulnerable. A handful of Americans can take their country back one city at a time. Please make the decision to help Somerville Divestment Project defeat the pro-Israel lobby one day this week. Or talk to your church or synagogue encouraging them to boycott Israel.

You don't have to be a citizen or a Somerville resident
to help. See divestmentproject.org for info

Time to Change Tactics

Time to Change Tactics

by Karin Friedemann

Getting Americans and the politicians to understand that invading Iraqis bad for US is probably the only way to get this movement into the mainstream and away from the leftist progressive fringes of society. I advocate a turn-around in rhetoric. The group of people responsiblefor the Iraq war are the Israel-Firsters. Instead of trying to makeAmericans care about Arabs - too hard - we need to increase their awareness that the Jewish Lobby is the enemy of all traditionalAmericans. Especially since activists can destroy the movement if they dwell upon who the good guys are (there are various opinions), we should concentrate on what we can all agree on: The Jewish Lobby is undermining American democracy. The Jewish Lobby needs to be stopped. That's the only way to stop the wars. I would suggest a public rhetoric campaign against all Jewish lobbyists suggesting prison. On campus, target the Israel advocacy groups. Smear them. Make it social suicide to participate with Hillel or other pro-Israel student organizations training future lobbyists. The pro-Israel lobby operates on every level of American society.

This year they are introducing Holocaust Mythology in the public school curriculum starting in Pre-K. There are plenty of ways to address this problem in PTA meetings, parent-teacher conferences, and other mundane ways. Causing a huge stir at a "MLK" school assembly will create a lot more word-of-mouth grassroots pressure than a protest in DC which doesn't even get discussed. In each small town, pro-peace people need to identify the Zionist individuals who are pushing Holocaust curriculum in the local schools. As soon as you start circulating a petition, all their Zionist supporters will come out of the woodwork. Every town has a web of Jewish groups that work together to undermine American democracy to promote their personal interests. Once you know who the participating individuals are, then you will be able to protest directly to these local people who are personally responsible for pushing Americans to die for Israeli interests. You probably know where they live. If Americans started talking to their neighbors we could stop this war.