Thousands protest in US cities against India citizenship law

Indian Americans, joined by civil rights groups, hold demonstrations in 30 US cities demanding repeal of CAA.

by Mohammad Ali 27 Jan 2020

Protesters have accused the Modi government of waging a war against Muslims, students, Dalits and marginalised sections of society [Mohammad Ali/Al Jazeera]

New York, United States - Thousands of Indian Americans, joined by several civil rights organisations, have staged protests across dozens of US cities against policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that critics say undermine the country's secular constitution.

On Sunday, which marked India's Republic Day, Mohammad Mustaqeem and his eight-year-old son, along with thousands of others, gathered outside the Indian embassy in New York to protest against the recently passed citizenship law that makes faith a basis for attaining Indian citizenship.
More:

Protests mark Republic Day celebrations

India's anti-CAA protesters launch postcards to PM Modi campaign

India's Supreme Court refuses to strike down citizenship law

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) coupled with a plan to implement a nationwide counting of citizenship (National Register of Citizens or NRC) by India's Hindu nationalist government has triggered widespread protests in the South Asian nation.

In the northeast Indian state of Assam, nearly two million people were dropped from the citizenship list in 2019 and many fear a nationwide NRC will possibly render millions of Indians stateless.

Mustaqeem from the eastern Indian state of Bihar says his nephew Mohammad Irfan was among those injured last month when police stormed the library inside Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi.
'Modi has started war against Muslims'

Mustaqeem says his nephew's left leg and right hand were fractured in the police action, which caused a public outcry. The students were protesting against the CAA and the NRC that activists say discriminates against India's Muslims.

"I can't go back to India right now. But I have come here to protest against the war Modi has started against India's Muslims," Mustaqeem told Al Jazeera.

He accused the Modi government of waging a war against Muslims, students, Dalits and marginalised sections of society.

"Instead of studying, my nephew is under treatment in Araria [Bihar state]. Is this the India we want to hand over to our next generation?" Mustaqeem asked.

India American protesters hold banners at an anti-CAA demonstration in New York City [Mohammad Ali/Al Jazeera]

Waving hundreds of Indian flags, protesters raised banners against Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The New York protest was part of nationwide protests and marches organised by the recently formed Coalition to Stop Genocide - a broad coalition of Indian Americans and US-based civil rights organisations such as the Indian American Muslim Council, Hindus for Human Rights, Equity Labs, Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha of New York, Black Lives Matter and the Jewish Voice for Peace.

The protesters demanded the repeal of the CAA in India, and called for action by the US government, including possible sanctions on India's Home Minister Shah, as recommended by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

"What is happening in India, is happening in the name of Hinduism. But the Hinduism that we practise is inclusive and has love at its centre. Whereas the Hindu nationalism is exclusive by definition and seems to have hatred at its centre," said Sunita Viswanath from Hindus for Human Rights.

The protesting men, women and children of all ages held banners and shouted slogans against the Indian government's right-wing policies. They unfurled the Indian flag and recited the national anthem to mark their Republic Day.

A poster said "Hindu + Muslim = India’s greatest love stories. You can't change that," while another said, "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Many posters referred to "Martin Luther King’s dream vs India's Nazi vision".
'We, the people of India'

With a banner flaunting Dalit icons like Saint Ravidas along with Baba Bhimrao Ambedkar – the architect of India's constitution - Sitaram joined the protest along with his friends from Connecticut.

"It is wrong to assume that the CAA is only against Muslim community. Laws like CAA and provisions like NRC and NPR represent the destruction of the constitution brick by brick by Narendra Modi," the 52-year-old said.

"If we don't speak now, there will be nothing and no one left to speak for," said Sitaram, who is associated with the International Bahujan Organization - a Dalit group.

He and other protesters read the preamble of the Indian Constitution reminding Modi that India belonged to "We, the people of India", as Modi has been accused of pushing a Hindu supremacist agenda.

Shaik Ubaid, one of the organisers, said that protests were happening not only in India but around the world and it represented a global consensus against the "draconian" policies of the Modi government.

"They are also a clear indication that the world will not stand idly by while Hindutva's supremacist worldview takes India down the path of fascism," said Ubaid who was part of an initiative which led to a ban on Modi's entry into the US after the 2002 Gujarat religious riots.

Reverend Chloe Breyer, Executive Director of the Interfaith Center of New York, said that Martin Luther King Junior, who was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, "called to speak for the voiceless".

"The CAA makes an enemy of India's own precious people, damaging the pluralistic democracy that has existed since 1947 and has been such an inspiration to the world," Breyer told Al Jazeera.

Hope

Students of Harvard University and representatives from the Indian diaspora also staged a 24-hour protest at Harvard Square in Boston to coincide with India's Republic Day.

"A lot of times I get tokenised because of my Dalit identity. It becomes almost a vulgarised presentation of Dalit body on a stage. But this protest I feel like I have agency and I am part of a larger dialogue," said Suraj Yengde, a researcher at Harvard University.

"But I would also hope that now that Dalits are coming for Muslims, there will be reciprocity in future," Yengde, author of a recent book, Caste Matters, told Al Jazeera by phone.

The protesters in Washington DC marched to the Indian Embassy.

"The brutal crackdown by government in India on the anti-CAA and anti-NRC protests has created a situation in which women in large numbers have come out on the streets to challenge the divisive-communal-fascist agenda of the government," said rights activist and Magsaysay Award winner Sandeep Pandey, who travelled to Washington, DC from India.

"It gives a hope that democracy and constitution can ultimately be saved by the common people from a government which is bent upon destroying them," he added.

A protest was also organised outside the Indian consulate in San Francisco.

"Indian Americans and people of conscience in the US are seeking accountability from the Hindu nationalist regime that wants to turn Indian Muslims into foreigners and render them stateless," said Ahsan Khan, President of the Indian American Muslim Council.

‘I’ll destroy your family’: India’s activists tell of false arrest and torture in custody

Uttar Pradesh’s leading protesters against new citizenship law believe they were rounded up to quell further dissent

The Observer
India
Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi and Shaikh Azizur Rahman in Lucknow
Sat 1 Feb 2020 
 

Police officers confront protesters in Lucknow on 19 December. Photograph: STRINGER/Reuters

At 73 years old, Mohammad Shoaib had grown used to harassment from police. As one of India’s highest-profile activists, he had made a name fighting for Muslims falsely accused of being terrorists by the police, earning him powerful enemies.

But in late December, as he was brought into the police station in Lucknow, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, in the middle of the night, he felt something had shifted. “Police officers abused me badly while I was in their custody and they threatened me in many ways,” he said. “One [senior officer] said to me at the police station: ‘I will fuck your mother. I am going to throw all your family members in jail where they will rot for life. I will destroy your family’.”

As India erupted in protest over a controversial new citizenship bill late last year, Shoaib was among dozens of leading social and legal activists who began to be systematically and illegally targeted, rounded up and detained by police, with several tortured and most kept in prison on fabricated charges, without ever being presented to a magistrate, as the law requires.


While the BJP government is notoriously intolerant of critics, the systematic crackdown on some of the most recognisable civil society activists has been unprecedented in both scale and fervour. It has also been concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP government led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, known for his anti-Muslim and staunchly Hindu nationalist rhetoric, vowed “revenge” on those who had taken to the streets to protest at the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Police have been accused of firing on protesters, rounding up hundreds of innocent Muslims in the state and torturing men, women and children in custody.

In seven cases recounted to the Observer, activists alleged they had been detained on entirely falsified charges by police. For Shoaib, his detention was particularly farcical. He stands accused of leading a protest that turned violent in Lucknow on 19 December, despite the fact it occurred while he was under police house arrest, having been detained the night before. “Police kept my house under watch and restrained me from going out. How could I possibly be present at the protest site, away from my home that afternoon?” he said. “Yet, the police charged me with attempted murder, arson and rioting. For years many police officers have viewed me as their enemy and now they are portraying me as a conspirator and violent rioter, without any basis.” 

FacebookTwitterPinterest Mohammad Shoaib, 73, was accused of leading the Lucknow protest while he was under house arrest Photograph: Shaikh Azizur Rahman

After police failed to produce any evidence before a judge, Shoaib was bailed last month, following weeks behind bars. But the charges have not been dropped. “Activists are facing an increased level of pressure or crackdown,” he said of the past three months. “The government is trying to silence all types of dissent and shrink the space for activism. It is trying to break the backbone of activism in the state.” Sadaf Jafar, another prominent activist in Uttar Pradesh and spokesperson for the Congress political party, wept as she recounted the torture she says she endured when arrested on 19 December.

She says she was arrested while protesting peacefully at the Lucknow rally against the new citizenship law, and was among those later facing 20 charges, including inciting violence and attempted murder. She was detained until early January, when a judge granted her bail due to lack of evidence. While in the police station, Jafar said, officers subjected her to relentless racist and Islamophobic slurs. “They started slapping and beating me, calling me ‘Pakistani’ and other language I could never repeat.

“One of the female officers, who was filled with this anger, shouted: ‘I am going to beat you so hard I draw blood’,” said Jafar. “She pulled my hair and clawed my face and hands. And then another senior male officer told me he had seen me ‘talking big’ at the protest and that he would teach me a lesson; that he would charge me with attempted murder and make sure I ‘rotted in prison’. He pulled me down by my hair, kicked me in my stomach and knees… I have spent my life fighting for people’s rights but I never imagined the police would act in this way.”

It is not just Muslim activists who report torture. Deepak Kabir, 46, a prominent Hindu poet and activist, said he had been arrested and badly beaten after he went into a police station to look for fellow activists. “They are going after activists because we are willing to fight,” he said. “It’s a very thought out process to target well-known faces because if they crush us, then everyone else is immediately intimidated.” SR Darapuri, 76, a former senior police officer turned activist, who has long irritated authorities in Uttar Pradesh with his outspoken comments about extrajudicial killings by police, alleged the police had gone to “extreme lengths” to arrest and then charge him with rioting, attempted murder and criminal conspiracy related to Lucknow protests that turned violent. “For 46 hours they kept me without food,” he said. “I am a retired senior police officer from the rank as high as inspector general and I was forced to endure such torture.” Darapuri described how, after his arrest at home on 20 December, police brought him before a magistrate, as is legally required before he could be sent to jail. But the magistrate refused to grant permission, citing lack of evidence, and criticised the officers for Darapuri’s “wrongful arrest”. But that did not stop them. “After taking me back to Hazratganj police station, the police officer recorded a report in which he stated that I had been taken to a magistrate but he was not available,” he said. “This was not the truth. The magistrate refused to remand me in custody because he believed I was innocent. 

”
\Activist Sadaf Jafar says she was kicked in the stomach and knee by a senior police officer and told she would ‘rot in prison’. Photograph: Shaikh Azizur Rahman

The same day, Darapuri was taken to jail where he was kept until 5 December, when he was bailed. At the hearing the Uttar Pradesh police failed to produce any evidence against him, claiming video footage of his alleged offences was “too hazy or grainy and none of the people there could be identified”.

The Uttar Pradesh police and government have denied any wrongful and illegal arrests and torture in custody. Uttar Pradesh BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said: “Bail doesn’t mean that Sadaf and Darapuri have been given a clean chit. They will have to face trial in court. The statements made by them after release are objectionable, baseless and provocative.”

Yet the arrests of activists have continued. Last Wednesday, hours before he was due to address an anti-CAA rally in Mumbai, activist Dr Kafeel Khan was arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police Special Task Force for allegedly delivering a “provocative” speech in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, at a rally on 12 December. On Friday, police filed new complaints against Shoaib, Kabir and several other activists after they staged a peaceful candlelit vigil against the act.

Sandeep Pandey, another prominent Lucknow-based activist involved in the anti-CAA protests described the escalation in attacks on critics. “My emails and phones have been kept under surveillance by the government,” he said. “We have been jailed before for activism-related activities but we used to get bail and come out of jail. Police didn’t misbehave with us. Now, in recent months, police have changed their attitude towards us and we are being badly abused by them… The rights activists are facing the worst crackdown in Uttar Pradesh; in no other state in India is the situation is as bad,” he said. “This is out and out a fascist regime.”

The passing of the citizenship amendment act in December has led to India’s greatest unrest for more than four decades. The law says all Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh migrants who arrived from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan before 2014 can claim citizenship. But the same does not apply to Muslim migrants. Many believe the act brazenly discriminates against Muslims and could tear apart the secular foundations of India. There are also fears that associated plans for a national register of citizens will require only Muslims to produce evidence of their nationality, and could lead to detentions and deportation. Over the past month, millions have taken to the streets every week in the first backlash against Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP government, and the response has increasingly been one of force, with public gatherings banned and peaceful student protesters met with violence and openly communal and anti-Muslim rhetoric used in the BJP campaign for the Delhi state elections which will be held next weekend.

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BREXIT; THIS SAYS IT ALL

Police called in after poster tells residents of flats to speak English

‘Happy Brexit Day’ sign in Norwich block said foreign tongues would not be tolerated

PA Media

Sat 1 Feb 2020 22.52 GMT

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 Brexit poster seen in a block of flats in Norwich Photograph: Anonymous via Twitter

A poster telling residents of a block of flats “we do not tolerate” people speaking languages other than English in the building has been reported to police.

The typewritten poster, bearing the title “Happy Brexit Day”, was reportedly found stuck to fire doors in Winchester Tower in Norwich on Friday morning. The discovery came hours before the UK officially left the European Union at 11pm later that day.

A photo of the poster shared in news reports and on social media revealed that it declared: “We finally have our great country back.”

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 Brexit poster seen in a block of flats in Norwich. Photograph: Anonymous via Twitter

Addressing Winchester Tower residents, it said the “Queens (sic) English is the spoken tongue here” and suggests that people wanting to speak a language other than English should leave the country.

Writing on Twitter on Saturday, Norwich city council said: “You may have seen a photo of a poster that has appeared in one of our properties.

“Norwich has a proud history of being a welcoming city, and we will not tolerate this behaviour. As soon as we became aware of this incident, we reported it to Norfolk police and they are investigating.

Racism rising since Brexit vote, nationwide study reveals

 

Read more

“We take this very seriously and encourage residents to contact us or the police if they have any concerns.”

According to the BBC, which spoke to a resident, the signs were left on fire doors across all 15 floors of the block of flats before being removed by the caretaker.

Mike Stonard, a cabinet member on Norwich city council, told the Eastern Daily Press: “I absolutely condemn this abhorrent poster. Whoever put it there has committed a hate crime, it is as simple as that.

“Many people voted for Brexit for a range of different reasons, however I am sure not many of them will condone this kind of thing.”

Norfolk police have been contacted for comment.

Protesters who demanded Huawei CFO's release revealed to be paid actors

More than a dozen people outside Vancouver courtroom with ‘Free Meng’ signs were promised C$100 for two hours’ work on a movie


Leyland Cecco in Toronto and agencies
Wed 22 Jan 2020 The Guardian
 

Protesters stand outside a Vancouver courtroom 

on 20 January 2020. Photograph: Alia Dharssi/AFP 

via Getty Images

Protesters calling for the release of a senior Chinese telecommunications executive arrested in Canada have admitted they were paid actors, in the latest twist in a closely watched extradition case that has chilled relations between Ottawa and Beijing.

More than a dozen people joined a demonstration on Monday outside a Vancouver courtroom where the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is fighting extradition to the US for alleged fraud related to sanctions against Iran.

The protesters held handwritten signs that read “Free Meng” and “Trump stop bullying us” – but it soon emerged that they were actors who had been promised C$100 ($76) for two hours’ work on a movie.

In a Facebook post, one of the actors, Julia Hackstaff described the fake protest as a “filthy cheap scam” that has resulted in her receiving hate messages online.


Huawei CFO's extradition would let US criminalize behavior in Canada, say lawyers

Hackstaff said she had been offered work as a movie extra, but soon after arriving at the court realized she had been duped into attending a real event.

“I feel cheated, used, abused, angry, deeply saddened and emotions that I don’t even have words to describe,” she wrote. It was unclear who had recruited the actors.

A Huawei spokesman told the AP that the company had no involvement with the protest. China’s embassy in Ottawa did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Another protester, Ken Bonson, gave an identical account to the Toronto Star, saying she “had no idea what I was going into”.

“I’m honestly pretty ashamed and embarrassed,” she said, explaining that she had not known about Meng or her legal saga.

The revelations came as Canadian government lawyers returned to court for the third day, to argue that Meng – Huawei’s chief financial officer – should be extradited because she was guilty of fraud – and not because she violated US sanctions against Iran.

Meng’s legal team has argued that she was caught up in a US effort to use its extradition treaty to get Canada to enforce US banking sanctions against Iran.

The US alleges Meng lied to HSBC about Huawei’s relationship with its Iran-based affiliate Skycom, putting the bank at risk of violating US sanctions against Tehran.

“Lying to a bank in order to get banking services that creates a risk of economic prejudice is fraud. Fraud – not sanctions violations – is at the heart of this case,” Canadian prosecutor Robert Frater told the court on Wednesday.

In order to win extradition, lawyers for Canada’s attorney general – acting on behalf of the US justice department – must demonstrate that the US accusations against Meng would be considered a crime in Canada if they had occurred there.

Meng has maintained her innocence, saying the alleged conduct was not illegal in Canada. Unlike the United States, Canada did not have sanctions against Iran at the time Canadian officials authorized commencing with the extradition, her lawyers have said.

The proceedings are expected to conclude on Friday, but a ruling is not expected this week.

BEST HARVEY WEINSTEIN HEADLINE

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP DEPT.

Weinstein Accuser Says He Has No Testicles

Jessica Mann testified in a Manhattan courtroom Friday that Harvey Weinstein engaged in forced oral sex and raped her in early 2013...

As Mann tearily described alleged incidents, she also made the bombshell claim that Weinstein doesn’t have testicles and appeared to have a vagina, saying she thought he was “intersex” the first time she saw him naked.

The first time I saw him fully naked,” she said, “I thought he was deformed and intersex. He has an extreme scarring that I didn’t know, maybe [he] was a burn victim …”

“He does not have testicles, and it appears that he has a vagina,” she claimed, saying she had oral sex with Weinstein.

As Mann claimed that he had deformed genitals, Weinstein dropped his head

Here is what #HarveyWeinstein had to say when asked if #jessicamann's description of yr body accurate: pic.twitter.com/jdT2JDK7ZI

— Victoria Bekiempis (@vicbekiempis) January 31, 2020

Greensboro Sit-in: The US civil rights activists who sparked nationwide protests against segregation

Google commemorates 60th anniversary of protest with Doodle

Tom Embury-Dennis @tomemburyd

Google marks the 60th anniversary of the Greensboro Sit-in in North Carolina ( Google )

The “Greensboro Four”, a group of civil rights-era activists, are being remembered on the 60th anniversary of their iconic stand against segregation in the US.

Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr’s nonviolent protests for racial equality, four black college students in 1960 requested service at a “whites-only” café at a local Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, North Carolina.

After being refused, the students – Ezell Blair Jr, David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil – remained in their seats and refused to leave until the store closed for the evening.

Despite being met by aggressive counter-protesters, the students were in the weeks following joined by hundreds of fellow demonstrators.

Willing to repeat the sit-ins for as long as necessary, by July the activists had forced Woolworths to integrate their canteen.

The protest ultimately helped spark a nationwide nonviolent sit-in movement, and contributed to the banning of segregation of public spaces in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Part of the Woolworths counter where the men sat is now housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, while the department store has been converted into a civil rights museum.

To commemorate the sit-in, Google are marking its 60th anniversary with a Doodle created by Los Angeles artist Karen Collins of the African American Miniature Museum.

“Creating art honouring the Greensboro sit-in (and the Civil Rights Movement it was part of) is my way of giving back to today’s generation, especially to those who are in desperate times and troubles – to lift them up and teach them about their history,” Ms Collins said.


Saturday Marks 60th Anniversary of Historic Greensboro Four Sit-In

JAN 31, 2020


Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the Greensboro Four sit-in protest at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. On February 1, 1960, four freshmen students at North Carolina’s A&T State University — Ezell Blair Jr., Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and David Richmond — refused to leave the whites-only lunch counter after being denied service. Their action inspired a nationwide wave of sit-ins aimed at desegregating businesses and public spaces. Within weeks of their action, sit-in protests spread to over 250 cities and towns across the country, sparking a nationwide movement that saw more than 400 protests by the end of the year.
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Civil Rights

Race in America

“Yet Another Declaration of War on Palestinians”: Rashid Khalidi on Trump’s Middle East “Peace” Plan

STORY JANUARY 29, 2020

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GUESTS

Rashid Khalidi

Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. He’s the author of several books, including his latest, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to annex about 30% of the occupied West Bank, after Israel was given the green light to do so by the United States. On Tuesday, President Trump — with Netanyahu by his side — unveiled a so-called Middle East peace plan that was drafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinians. Under the plan, Israel will gain sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem would be under total Israeli control, and all Jewish settlers in the occupied territory will be allowed to remain in their homes. The plan also calls for a four-year settlement freeze and the possible creation of a truncated Palestinian state, but only if a number of conditions are met. Palestinians responded to the U.S. plan with protests in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the deal. Only hours before the plan was announced, Netanyahu was indicted for corruption, marking the first time in Israel’s history that a sitting prime minister will face criminal charges. We speak with Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept, and Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. Khalidi’s latest book is titled “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to move ahead with annexing about 30% of the occupied West Bank, after Israel was given the green light to do so by the United States. On Tuesday, President Trump stood by Netanyahu to unveil the Middle East “peace” plan that was drafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinian leaders. The plan was introduced just hours after Netanyahu was indicted for corruption and in the middle of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.

Under the plan, Israel will gain sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem would be under total Israeli control, and all Jewish settlers in the occupied territory would be allowed to remain in their homes. The plan also calls for a four-year settlement freeze and the possible creation of a truncated Palestinian state, but only if a number of conditions are met.

This is President Trump.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My vision presents a win-win opportunity for both sides, a realistic two-state solution that resolves the risk of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security. Today, Israel has taken a giant step toward peace. Yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu informed me that he is willing to endorse the vision as the basis for direct negotiations — and, I will say, the general also endorsed, and very strongly — with the Palestinians. A historic breakthrough.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the U.S. deal.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: For too long, far too long, the very heart of the land of Israel, where our patriarchs prayed, our prophets preached and our kings ruled, has been outrageously branded as illegally occupied territory. Well, today, Mr. President, you are puncturing this big lie. You are recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, large and small alike.

AMY GOODMAN: Palestinians responded to the U.S. plan with protests in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the deal.

PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS: [translated] I say to the partners Trump and Netanyahu: Jerusalem is not for sale. All our rights are not for sale and are not for bargain. And your deal, the conspiracy, will not pass.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in New York by Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, the author of several books. His latest is just out. It’s called The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Khalidi. Can you start off by responding to this plan? The scene yesterday at the White House: President Trump, in the midst of the Senate impeachment trial nearby in the Capitol, standing next to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had just been indicted yesterday for corruption.

RASHID KHALIDI: Right. Well, what these two miscreants have done, one of them impeached and the other indicted, is to roll out an Israeli peace plan, a peace plan that was dictated to young Jared Kushner by his Israeli mentors, and who have fulfilled the wish list of the extreme Israeli right ever since they conquered the West Bank in 1967 — and I would even say going back even further. This is meant to end the Palestine question. This is meant to expand “Greater Israel” from the river to the sea. There’s no state in this for the Palestinians. Sovereignty will reside solely in Israel. Control will reside solely in Israel. And in fact what it means is not just annexation and so on and so forth; it means that the United States and Israel are going to dictate the terms, or try to dictate the terms, of a settlement.

We will never see this thing come to pass. It is so unrealistic. It is so at odds with not only international law, but everything everybody has put forth, except the extreme Israeli right and their friends in Washington, since the beginning of this conflict. It is, in my view, yet another declaration of war on the Palestinians, in this 100 years’ war that’s been going on since the beginning of the 20th century.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Trump’s plan a “conspiracy.” And the prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said, in advance of its release, it’s “nothing but a plan to liquidate the Palestinian issue.” If you can say more how this plan came into being? I want to turn, though, first, to the voices of some Palestinians who took to the streets on Tuesday to protest the U.S. deal.

FARID ALBERIM: [translated] Regarding the plan of the century, we say to Trump and the American administration that our people are united behind our Palestinian leadership, represented by President Abbas. We reject this plan, the plan of shame that has nothing to offer Palestinians.

MOHAMMED ALBAKRI: [translated] I think that this speech came to support Benjamin Netanyahu, to help him to pass his internal crisis. It is also part of the election campaign for Donald Trump in the coming election. It is nothing more than an election campaign for both.

JIHAD ALQAWASMEH: [translated] This plan is a gift from a big thief to a small thief.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khalidi, those are voices of Palestinians, from Gaza to Hebron. So, what exactly does it mean when the U.S. stands with Israel at the White House and puts this forward, developed by the young developer Jared Kushner?

RASHID KHALIDI: Yeah. Well, I don’t think Jared Kushner has an idea in his head about anything to do with Palestine or Israel. He knows what he’s told. And this is dictated to him by his Israeli mentors, and it is meant to be an Israeli diktat to the Palestinians, telling them, “You will not have Jerusalem. You will not have sovereignty. You will not have any of your national rights. And you will get what we choose to give you, when we choose to give it to you.”

And the United States has now endorsed that position. In so doing, the United States actually separates itself from every country in the world, except a few client states in the Arab Gulf. It puts itself in a position completely at odds not only with past American positions, but every aspect of international law. We heard Netanyahu call — the description of the Occupied Territories as “illegally occupied,” we heard him call that a lie. The liar here is Netanyahu. International law is not determined by an indicted — an impeached president and an indicted Israeli prime minister. It’s determined by others. And others have long since determined that those territories are illegally occupied, that what Israel does in Jerusalem — everything it does in Jerusalem — is illegal.

And so, this is a — I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy. This is something cooked up by two political leaders trying to escape the plight that they’re both in, in order to increase their chances at the next election. There’s one in Israel in a little more than a month and a bit, and there’s one in our country in November. And both of them think that this will help them in that regard.

It won’t see the light of day. But the things that it includes, such as annexation and so forth, will go ahead — and they were going to go ahead in any case. So, I don’t think this is a momentous plan, in any way, shape or form. It simply represents, as I said, the wish list of the extreme Israeli right, which has now been endorsed by the American president. It has actually no valence beyond that.

AMY GOODMAN: This is President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner speaking on CNN.

JARED KUSHNER: I come from a real estate background. It was very, very difficult to draw these lines and to get a map where you could have contiguity to a Palestinian state. And again, this isn’t because of something that we — that we developed. This is something that we inherited, the situation where Israel continues to grow and grow. And what the president secured today was Israel agreeing to stop, for four years, more settlements, to give the Palestinians their last chance to finally have a state.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khalidi, your response? And then, put it in the context of history.

RASHID KHALIDI: Right. I mean, one actually has to look at this ludicrous plan, the 181 pages, and look at the map and see that either Jared Kushner is blind or he’s a liar. There is no contiguity for the Palestinian — so-called Palestinian state. There are five or six chunks, separated by swaths of Israeli territory, which is part of a plan that goes back to almost the beginning of the occupation: to chop up the West Bank so there can be no Palestinian state, so there can be no contiguity. If he can’t see that, or is lying to the people on CNN, that’s his problem. We should not be taken in. I suggest everybody have a quick look at that plan, because what is clear is that this is something that — I mean, you can talk about it in terms of Bantustans, you can talk about it in terms of any other kind of humiliating imposition on the rights of the indigenous population by a settler colonial regime, which is what we are seeing here. And Mr. Kushner is aiding and abetting this in his ignorance and in his passion for the extreme Israeli right’s positions.

AMY GOODMAN: So, your book, which talks about the hundred years’ war on Palestine, this is yet just another moment in history.

RASHID KHALIDI: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Put this into context of that century.

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, and one of the things that I point out is that this is not a war waged just by Israel or by the Zionist movement on the Palestinians. This is a war that was aided, abetted, endorsed and made possible at every stage by the greatest power of the age, whether that was Great Britain at one stage or the United States and the Soviet Union in 1947 or, today, President Trump. Israel could not do this without external support. The Zionist movement could not have established itself as it did without Great Britain.

And so, as you suggest, this is yet another stage in a very long process whereby not just Israel and the Zionist movement, but a whole range of collaborators or people in collusion with Israel have enabled Israel to do what it has managed to do. And it is a war on Palestine. This is not a struggle between two equals. This is not simply a struggle between two national movements. There are two peoples involved, but one of them has enormous support from the outside, and the other, the Palestinians, are an indigenous people faced with this Moloch-like colonial settler movement, which is grinding up their country, taking as much of it as it can, and only able to do this because of support from great powers like the United States under President Trump.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to break, and we’re going to continue with professor Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His new book is just out, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. And Mehdi Hasan will also join us, of Al Jazeera and The Intercept. We’ll continue to talk about the — what President Trump calls the Middle East “peace” plan, but Palestinians call everything from a conspiracy to simply reject this plan about what will happen in the Middle East. Then we’ll talk about the impeachment trial, with Mehdi Hasan, that’s going on now in the Senate. And finally, what’s happening in South Dakota targeting trans youth? Stay with us.

Mehdi Hasan: Trump’s Middle East Plan Is a Policy of Apartheid & Settler Colonialism

STORYJANUARY 29, 2020

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GUESTS

Mehdi Hasan

senior columnist at The Intercept and host of their Deconstructed podcast. He’s also host of UpFront on Al Jazeera English.

Rashid Khalidi

Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. He’s the author of several books, including his latest, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

LINKS

Mehdi Hasan on Twitter

"The Hundred Years' War on Palestine"

We continue our discussion of President Trump’s long-awaited Middle East plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he has described as the “deal of the century.” The plan was drafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinians and would give Israel sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, control over all of Jerusalem, and keep all illegal settlements built in the occupied West Bank. We speak with Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept, and Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. Khalidi’s latest book is titled “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren responded to President Trump’s so-called Middle East peace plan.

Sanders issued a statement saying, quote, “Any acceptable peace deal must be consistent with international law and multiple UN Security Council resolutions. It must end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent, democratic, economically viable state of their own alongside a secure and democratic state of Israel. Trump’s so-called 'peace deal' doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict, and undermine the security interests of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians. It is unacceptable,” Sanders tweeted.

Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Trump’s 'peace plan' is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state. Releasing a plan without negotiating with Palestinians isn’t diplomacy, it’s a sham. I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form—and reverse any policy that supports it,” Senator Warren said.

Well, we go now to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept and host of the Deconstructed podcast. He’s also host of UpFront at Al Jazeera English. And still with us in New York, professor Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His new book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

Mehdi Hasan, if you can respond to the presidential candidates responding to the Middle East plan, and then how the media has covered it?

MEHDI HASAN: I’m glad that some of the presidential candidates, Amy, have come out strongly. Elizabeth Warren came out very quick, Bernie Sanders referring to it as “annexation.” Obviously, I would like them to go further, but I know the limits of U.S. political discourse when it comes to Israel-Palestine. It’s good at least that in this election cycle you have two candidates, Warren and Sanders, talking very explicitly about Netanyahu’s racism, about annexation, about this “peace plan,” quote-unquote “peace plan,” being a sham. In fact, I think anyone who describes this as a, quote-unquote, “peace plan” — and, there you go, I just fell into the trap, because we keep hearing this phrase all the time — it’s malpractice. This is not a peace plan. When you hear any political candidate for office, any journalist referring to it as a “peace plan,” you really need to stop and think twice about that, because this is a plan for apartheid, this is a plan for settler colonialism, as Professor Khalidi mentioned earlier, before the break. And I think we need to be clear about our terms.

And, of course, you know, The New York Times put out a tweet yesterday when the plan came out, a breaking news tweet, where they talked about the Palestinians being asked to make more concessions. Just that language that we have here in the U.S. about Israel-Palestine, the idea that an occupied people, who have had their land stolen from them, are expected to concede that land to the people who have occupied them and stolen their land, it’s madness. It’s not language we would use in any other walk of life or in any other conflict. We don’t use it in the context of Crimea, Ukraine and Russia. But we do use it, and we have used it for years, in the Middle East in relation to the Occupied Territories.

What’s so interesting about the current moment, of course, is that Donald Trump — there’s always a silver lining to Donald Trump’s awfulness. And that is that he takes any issue, and he’s so extreme on it — he’s so extreme even by American presidential standards — that he forces people off whatever fence they were sitting on. And I think what he’s done in the last 24 hours, with the help of his son-in-law, with the help of Netanyahu and MBS of Saudi Arabia, who has also endorsed this plan, is the he’s forced people to basically take off the blinkers and recognize this for what it is. The conflict now is no longer Israel versus Palestine, as it’s often set up — as Professor Khalidi pointed out, it’s not; it’s a one-sided war — but it’s apartheid. And Americans now have to decide: Do they support apartheid, or do they not support apartheid? There’s no more nonsense about two-state solutions and all of that rubbish. That’s gone. That’s finished, finally over. No one pretends it’s still there on the table. It’s: Do you support apartheid, or do you not support apartheid? That is what we should be asking Democratic presidential candidates, and that is what journalists should be discussing in the media, in their op-eds, in their cable news discussion panels.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Mehdi, talk about American opinion polls. They’re very interesting on the issue of Israel-Palestine.

MEHDI HASAN: Yes. So, we are often told by supporters of the Israeli occupation in Washington, D.C., especially Republicans, that the reason the United States backs Israel so blindly, gives it billions of dollars, turns a blind eye when it massacres children in Gaza, is because American public opinion is behind Israel, because Americans want to support the, quote, “only democracy in the Middle East,” as it’s often sold, which is not actually true. Going back many, many years, if you look at the polling on this subject, most Americans, the majority or plurality of Americans, say they don’t want the United States to take the side of Israel or the Palestinians. They want the United States to be what it claims to be, but of course is not, and that is an honest broker, an impartial outside force, which it’s never been, of course.

And what’s so interesting is, about — I think it was about a year ago, at the University of Maryland, Shibley Telhami, who’s a great academic and pollster, carried out some polling of Americans on the Middle East, which found that there was almost an even split between Americans on whether they support a two-state solution, as is framed by the establishment, 36%, I think, of Americans, versus a one-state solution, a democratic, binational, secular state in which Palestinians and Jews all have, you know, one vote — one person, one vote — equal rights, and that was around 35%. It was almost even. It was a third of Americans were two-state, a third of Americans were one-state. And here’s what’s so interesting, Amy. When you tell Americans that there is no two-state solution, that option is gone, the vast majority, two out of three Americans, say, “We support a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone,” because Americans — shock, horror — like the idea of one person, one vote. That’s what this country is supposed to be built on. And they don’t like the idea of saying, “You know what? We’re going to take a people and put them under occupation and disenfranchise them in perpetuity.”

And that’s what this Kushner plan does. It basically says, “You’re never getting anything else. This is what you get.” Israel gets to annex what it likes, takes over whatever part of the West Bank it likes. And the Palestinians know they don’t get any rights. What’s so astonishing about this plan — and, you know, Americans, I would argue, the average American, would not support this idea — that a Palestinian refugee not only loses their status as a refugee under this plan forever, but Israel gets to veto Palestinian refugees from returning even to a Palestinian state, not just to Israel. Forget the right of return to Israel. Under this plan, if you look at the small print, they can’t even return to a Palestinian state without an Israeli veto.

So, I think this is all a reminder once again that — you know, Edward Said said it best back in 1978. He said, here in the United States and in the West, amongst establishment types, the Palestinian person politically does not exist. They have been completely obliterated. And I think we saw that in the last 24 hours, where you have a White House press conference, at which no Palestinian spoke, a White House meeting with the Israeli leadership but not with any members of the Palestinian leadership, and a plan put forward by the White House which had no Palestinian input whatsoever. It’s the complete and utter erasure of the Palestinians by the U.S. political establishment, by the U.S. administration.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mehdi Hasan, before we move on to the issue of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump that’s taking place at the same time — it seems to have motivated a great deal in President Trump, from January 3rd, the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, to his setting precedent last Friday speaking at a “right to life” march in Washington, D.C., the first sitting president ever to do this, and then suddenly announcing he’s releasing a Middle East “peace” plan — I wanted to turn back to Rashid Khalidi. You had talked about some Gulf states perhaps supporting the president. If you can talk about the significance of Saudi Arabia, perhaps one of the most closest allies with the United States, along with Israel?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I think this brings up something that people don’t think about very often. The only reason that Israel is able to maintain its regional superiority is because most Arab states are not democratic. The only countries that could or would buy into this are countries which can suppress their domestic public opinion. So, the absolute monarchies of the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, whose ambassadors were at this shameful ceremony yesterday in Washington, are countries, like a few others in the Arab world, Egypt and so forth, ruled in different ways, but in ways that completely exclude representation, democracy, parliaments, public opinion, a free press, and so on and so forth. In those Arab countries where those things do exist, countries like Lebanon or Kuwait or Tunisia, you have popular outrage at what is being done in Washington. The absence of democracy in the Arab world is a precondition for this kind of thing happening. Only regimes which completely — which are capable of completely suppressing their public opinion would support such an outrageous derogation of international law, Arab rights, Arab dignity, as, unfortunately, a few of these governments have and, I’m afraid, will.

But it’s vital to represent, and it’s vital to understand, these are not the Arabs. These are a group of kleptocrats who control their countries absolutely, against the will of their people, and who are able to get away with this partly because they’re protected by the United States. So, you have had a few Arab governments that have either squeaked their approval or failed to indicate their disapproval or shamefully sent their ambassadors to this sham ceremony. But it is vital to understand what they are and who they are and what they represent. They don’t represent anybody except the elites which dominate those countries.

AMY GOODMAN: Rashid Khalidi, we want to thank you for being with us, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His latest book, just out, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

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