War Criminals are not welcome in San Francisco!
Write to World Affairs Council’s President Jane Wales:
War Criminals are not welcome in San Francisco!
Watch Citizens Arrest Ehud Olmert video!
Take a few minutes to contact Jane Wales (JWales@wacsf.org) to express your outrage that the World Affairs Council invited former Israeli Prime Minister to speak last night!
Write a short, personal note. Here are some possible talking points:
Olmert ordered brutal attacks on Gaza last winter, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, which killed over 1400 Palestinians, about a third of whom were children.
The recently published Goldstone Report, which was endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, found Israel guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians and civil society infrastructure in Gaza. It recommends further criminal investigations into possible crimes against humanity.
The 3-year siege on Gaza has left 80% of the population in poverty, with more than 400,000 people without regular access to clean drinking water.
In 2006, under Olmert’s leadership, Israel attacked southern Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 civilians, and displacing about half a million people.
Israel is an apartheid state — Palestinians are denied their basic human rights on a daily basis, by checkpoints, land-seizures, settlements, and other daily attacks and humiliations.
Israel does not act in self-defense, but is deliberately aggressive in attempting to remove Palestinians from their homeland.
Olmert should be held accountable for these crimes — not welcomed (or paid!) to speak on them. War crimes are not free speech!
War criminals from other countries would not be invited to speak at the World Affairs Council. Israel’s leaders must be held to the same standard.
Please also help spread the word about our action — you can stay updated at http://twitter.com/ProtestOlmertSF
October 28th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I wrote to Jane Wales as you suggested and got a stiff reply. She does not or cannot acknowledge the difference between someone justifying human rights abuses such as happened and are happening in Gaza (which is a pretty stiff test of freedom of speech, but OK, that is an opinion) and someone who is the perpetrator of human rights abuses, namely Olmert in this case. However, the World Affairs Council has to be aware that there was tremendous public opposition to their paying and honoring Olmert after the horrors of “Operation Cast Lead” and I was happy to write the letter.
November 26th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Thanks for the informative information – I enjoyed reading it! I always love your blog.
December 1st, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Dec 1, 2009
Dear Ladies,
Please allow me to begin by saying that having read numerous immature, unintelligible and noxious blogs and comments on this website, I struggled deeply with the decision to begin my post with the above salutation. Forgive me, but strictly defined, many women who blog and post on this website cannot be accurately described as “refined, polite or well-spoken.” In fact, a few comments I encountered could only be described as vile.
However, in the spirit of my greatest wish – that peace and love may one day grace us all – I suspect that even the most vitriolic and malevolent women among us may derive at least a
fleeting moment of joy from a polite word or two spoken by a stranger.
Having been exposed to so many radical ideologies, outrageous and unsupportable allegations and audacious perversions of both fact and truth on this website, I’d like to comment on a frequently-employed tactic I often encounter while reading various CODEPINK blogs and posts.
Additionally, I would be very grateful to receive one or more responses from CODEPINK members and anonymous site surfers alike. It is my hope that we can engage each other calmly, reasonably, as civil human beings are capable of, rather than spinning-up a simple discussion into a whirlwind of insults, character attacks and sterotyping. I intend to engage anyone who responds, no matter how much I may dispute your thoughts and ideals, with a basic kindness in my heart, and I shall expect no more than that from you in kind.
First, I’ve noted in countless CODEPINK articles in which various *statistical data* are included to support the writer’s points or arguments, that specific values and numbers included by the author often contradict common knowledge and widely-accepted (and often
throughly proven) facts.
In an effort to support my observation while keeping my comments brief, I’ll refer only to the above CODEPINK blog entitled, “War Criminals are not welcome in San Francisco!”, posted above by ‘Rae’ on Fri, Oct 23, 2009.
The author, Rae, in an attempt to bolster CODEPINK participation in a letter-writing campaign targeting World Affairs Council’s President Jane Wales, and with the explicit intent to:
“…express your outrage that the World Affairs Council invited former Israeli Prime Minister [Olmert] to speak last night.”
claims that:
“Olmert ordered brutal attacks on Gaza last winter, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, which killed over 1400 Palestinians, about a third of whom were children.”
The number Rae uses comes directly from a UN-sanctioned investigation, subsequently published by a panel led by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, and dubbed ‘The Goldstone Report.’
Now, if the Goldstone Report is to be believed, then such a figure – 1400 Palestinians killed – would constitute an outrageous act of brutality, even between two peoples who have been more-or-less constantly killing one another since the 1940’s, and who have both suffered terrible acts of indescribable violence perpetuated by both sides for over three-score years.
However, in an Al Jazeera news report dated Wed, Nov 11, 2009 (reprinted on the WORLDNEWS website wn.com Tues, Dec 1, 2009), author Rae’s fatality count is substantially contradicted.
According to Al Jazeera (arguably the most well-known, pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli news organization in the world, whose newspaper and website are read daily by millions of Muslims
and non-Muslims alike):
“‘The number of Palestinians who have died as a result of the Israeli siege on Gaza [which began in 2007] has passed 360′, a statement released by the health ministry of the deposed Palestinian government in Gaza has said.”
That’s quite a discrepancy – 360 killed – not 1400, as Rae asserts. More interestingly though is that the former, lower figure was compiled and released by the Palestinians themselves.
According to my calculation, that leaves 1040 out of 1400 Palestinians who are apparently still alive.
Moreover, author Rae fails to include in her one-sided rebuke of Former Prime Minister Olmert (quite intentionally, in my opinion) the following enormous blow to the credibility of the entire Goldstone Report (notably, this was also reported by Al Jazeera):
“The U.S. House of Representatives, on Tues, Nov 3, 2009, voted unanimously, ‘…344 to 36 in favour of a non-binding resolution calling on Barack Obama, the US President, to maintain his
opposition to the [Goldstone] report.’ Additionally, The House rejected as ‘irredeemably biased’ the findings of the UN-sponsored report which says Israel committed war crimes during its military assault on the Gaza Strip.”
Now, is it just me, CODEPINK? Or does something smell rotten here? I could write pages upon pages disputing Rae’s other allegations in her post, all the while supporting my claims with
hard evidence, such as consistent news media reports, interviews with key players from all sides, hospital records, death certificates issued during and after the period in question,
etc. All such data is easily accessible, if one is willing to dig deep enough, be resourceful and patient. But I don’t have time for that right now…and I’m sure you don’t want to read it anyway.
In any event, that’s not my goal. My goal is to expose individuals who manipulate others with highly-questionable claims they like to call *facts*, incomplete data…and/or flat-out lies.
That said: Does anyone else out there suspect that the author, Rae, has at a minimum:
A) Failed to systematically and properly ‘do-her-homework’ with respect to fact discovery surrounding ‘Operation Cast Lead’ and ‘The Goldstone Report’ (and arguably, with mindful intention to avoid such in-depth research)
B) Presented woefully-incomplete, highly-biased data only, which tend to demonize Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and ‘Operation Cast Lead’ without hard evidence
C) Excluded other highly-relevant facts and data that would tend to strongly counter her allegations against Prime Minister Olmert and the Israelis
D) Used incomplete and non-factual data as the driving force of her solicitation to compel CODEPINK members to participate in a letter-writing campaign directed toward World Affairs Council President Jane Walesto
E) Attempted to manipulate other human beings in order to advance her personal political agenda
I believe that Rae has done all of the above.
What say you, CODEPINK? All thoughtful responses are welcomed…but spare me the ‘you’re just a war-monger’ argument. I’ve been called worse, and I want peace around the globe as much as any of you.
Respectfully yours,
Buster
Washington, D.C.