*SEXUAL POLITICS*

*JENIN SHOWDOWN*

*REFUGEE CRISIS*

Connie Chung (ex CBS, NBC, ABC and now CNN) is on the case, covering the Sex Summit in Rome with the Pope offering an apology, according to the New York Times headline, and “Solidarity and concern” for the victims according to the Pope. Samething? Who Knows? Even Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was confused. “It wasn’t clear to me was whether the Pope was saying he endorsed the Zero Tolerance Policy.” Not clear!

What is clear these days? The Church’s concern over sexual abuse, while long overdue, is now getting attention, but the Church’s stance and lobbying and statements and policies and practices encouraging the notion that sex is dirty or a sing and discouraging safe sex, demeaning homosexuality and undercutting birth control affects so many more people worldwide and is not on the agenda. Here again, we see the power of media at work, blowing up a long known and serious problem into a prime time titillating SCANDAL while the more serious sexual politics of the church go undiscussed by the red hats of the church and the no hats in the media.

THERE IS MORE UNDER THE SHEETS

Writing today in New York Press, Michelangelo Signorile comments: “Who’d have thought that the Pope would ever call an emergency meeting in Rome of the American cardinals to discuss the topic of sex? Sure, the issues that have forced the Vatican to make this extraordinary move, we’ve been told through much of the media, are pedophilia and sexual abuse. But under the surface it’s also–if not more so–about consensual sex:”

This writer than goes on to make a stunning and honest confession of a type we have yet to see in the media anywhere. “When I was 17, I had sex with a Catholic clergyman on Staten Island, a man in his 20s. He was not someone from my church (I met him at a flea market), so this was not someone in a position of authority over me. There was nothing abusive or coercive about it. In fact, I saw the incident as something exciting, as part of my own sexual evolution and growth as a teenager, discovering my sexuality–and I felt sorry for this poor soul, walled off in his self-imposed prison. I knew he was hungry for it and had limited options. And I knew he’d be easy to get. If anything, one could say that I was the one targeting him. Yes, some will say that kids can be very pushy, and that that doesn’t absolve the adult in such a situation. But when we’re talking about people just on the cusp of legal adulthood, it all gets pretty murky. So these are the kinds of issues that lie just underneath the surface of the crisis that has brought the cardinals to Rome.”

UN V SHARON: SHOWDOWN IN JENIN

Last night at around seven, I learned that Kofi Anan has already dispartched his investigative team to Israel to look into what happened at the Jenin Refugee camp. Israel had been downplaying the seriousness of the charges of massacres being reported all over Europe and by Palestinians themselves. The incident has become a symbol for both sides. When US and UN officials began talking about the horror that they found there, Israel was forced to agree to an international probe. Kofi Anan quickly dispatched a team headed by a former President of Finland, and two humanitarian experts. Israel began questioning the composition of the group, insisting it did not want anyone hostile to its policies. Late yesterday Israel criticized the Secretary General’s appointees and viewed to delay the team’s arrival. Kofi Anan brushed the objections aside and said the team begins work on Saturday. Let’s see what happens. Will he have any more success with Sharon than Colin Powell?

ISRAEL’S OBJECTIONS

Ha’aretz, the Israeli newspaper reports: “One of Israel’s main criticisms - the absence of a military man on the inspection panel - was answered when Annan upgraded U.S. Maj. Gen. William Nash from military adviser to the team, to a full-fledged delegate. Nash commanded a multinational force in Bosnia in 1996 and was the U.N. administrator in northern Kosovo in 2000.

“The official Israeli sources were critical of the composition of the team, saying they were “surprised that the secretary general did not consult Israel about its makeup. We expected the fact finding about operations would be done by military experts.” But they reiterated comments by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to Annan, that “Israel has nothing to hide.”"

ISRAEL INSISTS” THERE WAS NO MASACRE

From the Israeli perspective, there were no crimes committed, no massacre in Jenin. I have been sent many new stories from pro-Israeli sources to this effect. Here’s one by Sara Bedein: ” How Reporters were Forced to Downgrade the Report of a “Massacre.”

“After two weeks of screaming headlines that proclaimed “Massacre in Jenin!”, the news story from Jenin is slowly emerging…. In a press briefing last week, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said: “There wasn’t a house that wasn’t booby-trapped and there was no way to neutralize the danger without demolishing the structure…Yet the fact that for almost two weeks no reporter - Israeli or foreign -was allowed into the refuge camp to give a first hand account of what was really going on only served to fuel the tales of horror, which spread like wildfire. According to Israeli officials, the reason for the refusal to allow the media into Jenin until the fighting ended was fear for their safety since booby trapped explosives were scattered everywhere… No mass graves were uncovered; the number of Palestinians killed in the battle has been reduced by all the media to dozens as opposed to the reported hundreds. So there you have it. The media was forced to cope with the fact that an alleged massacre was turned into a few dozen casualties. Some reporters just could not bring themselves to “adjust” their story to the facts on the ground.Better luck next “massacre.”

And so that’s one side. No Massacre. All Lies. See. See. The media is against us. Amnesty International sent a team in to find out what it could. Their “preliminary report” was distributed on the Globalvision News’s Network’s “News Shadow” (gvnews.net) yesterday:

AMNESTY REPORT: “SERIOUS BREACHES OF HUMAN RIGHTS”

The Amnesty delegation visited Rumaneh village, Jenin city, Jenin City Hospital and Jenin Refugee Camp. “The evidence compiled indicates that serious breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed, including war crimes, but only an independent international commission of inquiry can establish the full facts and the scale of these violations,” said Javier Zúñiga, Director of Regional Strategy of the organization’s International Secretariat.

“The delegation received credible evidence of such serious violations including:

1. Failure to give civilians warning or time to evacuate Jenin refugee camp before Apache helicopters launched their first attacks.

2. Failure by the Israeli Defence Forces to protect the people of the refugee camp, who are “protected people” under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilians Persons in Time of War.

3. Allegations of extrajudicial executions

4. Failure, for 13 days, to allow humanitarian assistance to the people in the camp who were trapped in the rubble of demolished houses or running out of food and water.

5. Denial of medical assistance to the wounded in the refugee camp and deliberate targeting of ambulances.

6. Excessive use of lethal force and using civilians as a “human shield”.

7. Ill-treatment, including beatings and degrading treatment, of Palestinian detainees.

8. Extensive damage to property with no apparent military necessity.

Commenting on his preliminary findings following the autopsies he carried out in Jenin Hospital, Professor Derrick Pounder said :

“What was striking is what was absent . There were very few bodies in the hospital. There were also none who were seriously injured, only the ‘walking wounded’. Thus we have to ask: where are the bodies and where are the seriously injured?'’

ISRAEL’S URI AVNERY: “IT STINKS”

Uri Avnery, one of the best Israeli writers on current politics, although an avowed peacenik, says that what is important goes deeper than what the eyes can see. He focuses on what the nose can smell: “There is full agreement between all those who were in the Jenin refugee camp on only one thing. A week after the end of the fighting, foreign journalists and IDF soldiers, UN representatives and hired hacks in the Israeli media, members of the welfare organizations and government propagandists all report that a terrible stench of decomposing bodies lingers everywhere.

“Apart from that there is no agreement on anything. The Palestinians speak about a massacre amounting to a second Sabra and Shatila. The IDF speak about hard fighting, in which “the most humane army in the world” did not intentionally hurt even one single civilian. The Palestinians speak about hundreds of dead, the Minister of Defense asserts categorically that exactly 43 were killed.

“So what is the truth? The simple answer is: nobody knows. Nobody can possibly know.

“The truth lies buried under the debris, and it smells atrociously.”

“But some facts are uncontestable. They are sufficient for drawing conclusions.

“The most damning evidence about what happened is the fact that immediately after the end of the fighting, top government and army officials started to discuss ways of preventing a shock reaction in Israel and abroad once the facts became known. This was no secret discussion, it was held in public, in the media talk shows. All of us heard….

“The decisions made were extremely effective in Israel, and extremely ineffective abroad…, IIn Israel, however, the government propaganda machine, in which all the media are now voluntarily integrated, did everything possible to prepare the public in advance. It was said beforehand that the Palestinians were about to spread a horrible lie, that they were ready to heap dead bodies (from where?) in the streets. It got almost to the point of saying that the Palestinians had blown up their houses over their families in order to create a blood libel…”

A DEEPER QUESTION: WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON?

Forget Jenin for a moment. Let is return to a deeper question, What is this the real objective if this military operation? Is it to go after terrorists who kll innocents? If so, it could be considered self-defense and that is the dominant media frame whatever the debate over tactics. Yet Israel’s best reporter on the West Bank is questioning this perspective. Amira Hass is arguing that the world and the press has been had if it believes that this war is about what it is said to be about. She writes:

“Let’s not deceive ourselves; this was not a mission to search and destroythe terrorist infrastructure. If the forces breaking into every hard disk of every bank and clinic, commercial consultant’s office or PA ministry, thought that a list of weapons or wanted men was inside the disk, all they had to do was copy the information and pass it on to the Shin Bet. If they thought incriminating evidence was hidden in the Education Ministry and the International Bank of Palestine and in a shop that rents prosthetics, the soldiers would have examined document after document, and not thrown the files on the floor without opening them.

“This was not a whim, or crazed vengeance, by this or that unit, nor a personal vandalistic urge of a soldier whose buddies didn’t dare stop him. There was a decision made to vandalize the civic, administrative, cultural infrastructure developed by Palestinian society. Was it an explicit order or one given with a wink? Was it an order or was it the result of permission given to soldiers to do what they want? Did the order - or wink - come down from the battalion commander or from the brigadier? Was it from the headquarters of IDF forces in the West Bank or from IDF Operations? Did it come from the general in command of the Central Command or from general headquarters?

“Either way, the scenes of systematic destruction show how the IDF translated into the field the instructions inherent in the political echelon’s policies: Israel must destroy Palestinian civil institutions, sabotaging for years to come the Palestinian goal for independence, sending all of Palestinian society backward. It’s so easy and comforting to think of the entire Palestinian society as primitive, bloodthirsty terrorists, after the raw material and product of their intellectual, cultural, social and economic activity has been destroyed. That way, the Israeli public can continue to be deceived into believing that terror is a genetic problem and not a sociological and political mutation, horrific as it may be, derived from the horrors of the occupation.”

AFGHANISTAN: OFF THE FRONT PAGES

On Monday, I watched Defense Secretary Rumsfeld spar with a reporter who asked why the United States is not coming “to the plate” by helping to strengthen security patrols in Afghanistan’s cities. There is a British-led international presence in Kabul, soon to be replaced by Turkish forces. But Washington, while providing technical support, has avoided getting involved even though everyone who knows anything about the challenge of redeveloping the country says there must be security and stability. This military stance seems to contradict President Bush’s recent proposal to proclaim a “Marshall Plan” for the reconstruction of a country which went through several stages of destruction, by the Soviets, the Afghan resistance, The Taliban, and then the United States Air Force.

Yesterday, these issues were discussed in a room dominated by portraits of great white men (and only men — something the Taliban would have approved of) on New Yorks posh East Side. I was there, alongside the only Afghan-American in the room that I knew about, Khorshied Nustattly of WABC-TV, who began the evening lamenting that Afghanistan seems to have dropped out of the news. “There was nothing in the New York Times today,” she said, with concern. Later, she asked how the country’s people could be helped unless more was done to assure security. She specifically wondered about how that might effect US government plans to rebuild the country.

“MISSION IMPOSSIBLE”

“If there is no security, any Marshall Plan will be “Mission Impossible” responded Arthur Helton, an expert on refugee and humanitarian polices, who was there to talk about his just published report on all the controversial debates about refugee policy in a new book called the Price of Indifference (Oxford University Press). Helton’s study was unveiled at a special on-the- record session at the Council on Foreign Relations. It was moderated by the always sensitive Barbara Crossette of the New York Times, in a packed room filled with policy wonks, some journalists and others concerned about the consequences of world attention.

Helton spoke of the 1990’s as a “decade of shocks” as the number internally displaced people and others fleeing war zones grew worldwide. He explained how the traditional idea of what a refugee has changed. Once considered simply a by-product or war, it is now clear that in some conflicts, Kosovo. being one, war makers deliberately created and used refugee flows. Helton catalogued failures in the response by the US government, the UN and international agencies. He described chaotic, underfunded and ineffective agencies often at war within their bureaucracies and between each other. As they fight for turf and resources, people die.

I asked Helton about the human scale of the catastrophee on the ground in Afghanistan, and how he rated the press coverage. He took on the press first, calling coverage episodic, flashy, and inattentive. No one from the New York Times rose to object, although Crosette said she thinks that stories on the suffering of children might be the most effective. As for Afghanistan, it seems to be getting worse not better, with fully 20% of the population there displaced and milions at risk. Iran and Pakistan are both pushing refugees to return, and yet the famine in that country is not getting any better and so they may be forcd into starvation zones and uncertain futures. Helton’s best case scenario is for Afghanistan to become a new Cambodia, poor but stable.

I had no sense of any real optimism on his part because US policy is still driven by the military campaign. The idea of a Marshall Plan, as envisioned by President Bush, seems far-fetched. According to Helton-and his is a book that the President should read– we don’t need more “administration of misery” he says, we need effective humanitarian action.

NEW CRISIS THREATENS

Meanwhile Asia Times online reports that political tensions in Afghanistan are far from over even if the world press is not paying attention to them, and their possible implications. They report: “In a recent interview, ethnic Tajik Rabbani, who was president of Afghanistan from 1992-96, the first non-Pashtun to rule in 250 years, said that Afghanistan would be plunged into a new crisis if Islamic parties continued to be sidelined in the political reconstruction of the country. “Efforts are under way to sideline the role of the mujahideen. People don’t want war, nor do the mujahideen, but the lack of government cooperation with the people and the mujahideen, who form the majority of the Afghan people, will create distrust and a new crisis,” Rabbani said. His warning came on Friday, the day after the return of Zahir Shah. Also significantly, Rabbani was not at the airport to welcome back the 87-year-old former monarch.”

THE CASTRO CONUNDRIM

Our regular correspondent Janet from Washington is back with another riposte on my Middle East media critiquing which she finds unfair, noting: “I hesitate to remind you that Arafat was democratically elected in a one party election with no opposition, run by a dictator who hangs his dissenters..” But skewering me or Arafat was not the main topic today. She writes about that strange incident when Fidel Castro showed up at Monterrey Mexico for a finance summit, only to quickly disappear before President Bush arrived, largely through the aggressive intervention of Mexican president and Bush buddy Vincente Fox.

She writes: “Let’s talk about the recorded telephone conversation between Castro and President Fox of Mexico regarding Castro’s participation in the UN Conference in Monterrey not long ago.(See Washington Post today and broadcasts from CNN Espanol.) Fox asked Castro to make a quick showing and not do anything to embarrass Mexico. Castro rebutted indignantly that he had 43 yrs. experience in politics and that he knew what he was doing.(Castaneda, Mexico’s Secy of Foreign Affairs - rebutted that saying that Castro does not have 43 yrs…experience…).

“The conversation between Castro and Fox was recorded by Castro and used this weekend in a news conference to the Cuban people. He was a bit ired over Mexico’s vote against Cuba’s human rights record Saturday in Geneva. Obviously, pulling off a Castro version of political suicide bombings, he decided to castigate his Mexican buddy, Fox and air the dirty laundry….. I am no fan of Castro’s but I do question how much pressure Bush had applied to Fox to keep Castro out of the program. Mexico’s history of relations with Cuba have been steadfast since Castro took power.”

WHAT FIDEL HAD TO SAY?

Now that you raise this matter, I’d like to share a selection from what Castro actually said in Mexico, as opposed to the story of his being unceremoniously ejected from the proceedings. It is far more damning. Ironically, I just received his comments at the same time your note came in. It is not surprising that many of the bigs in the room didn’t really want to hear what he had to say about the world they are trying to run:

“The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the people believe less and less in statements and promises. The prestige of the international financial institutions is rated at less than zero.

“The world economy is today a huge casino. Recent analyses indicate that for every dollar that goes into trade, over one hundred end up in speculative operations completely disconnected from the real economy.

“As a result of this economic order, over 75 percent of the world population lives in under-development, and extreme poverty has already affected 1,2 billion people in the Third World. So, far from narrowing, the gap is widening.”The revenue of the richest nations that in 1960 was 37 times larger than that of the poorest is now 74 times larger. The situation has reached such extremes that the assets of the three wealthiest persons in the world amount to the GDP of the 48 poorest countries combined.”The number of people actually starving was 826 million in the year 2001…..”

EMAIL IN: CLOSING RANKS AND CLOSING MINDS

I have often feeling rather isolated, if not under some form of siege of late for my reporting on the coverage of the war in Palestine. Katy Abel, an old radio colleague and fine TV reporter in Boston wrote in about yesterday’s weblog: “danny - a note to say thanks for your writings on Israel — and for the smile you brought to my face this morning with the observation that “85% of Jews can’t agree on the need for an air conditioner on a hot day.” The smile was quick to fade, however, as I considered the fact that 98% of my liberal Jewish friends and family members have decisively agreed to close ranks and minds in defense of Israeli aggression.

“I send my children to a liberal Jewish day school and have been delighted to see my boys learning and practicing mitzvot, to see them attuned to the values of tikkum olam and tzedakah in so many ways. Theirs is perhaps the only school in the U.S. with a fulltime social justice director. During Pesach they learn about child labor, sweatshops, slavery in Sudan…”once we were slaves in Egypt, but lest we forget, the evils of slavery persist to this day.” On MLK’s birthday the school corridors are used to recreate the march from Selma to Montgomery and the role of Jewish activists during the civil rights movement is duly noted. At Hanukkah children raise money for Seeds of Peace. And now — to hear not a single voice raised in protest against what has happened in Jenin and elsewhere — to walk a gauntlet of Israeli flags into the school on Yom Ha’atzma’ut with no discussion of Palestinian losses and despair, only the endless suffering of the Jewish people — oh it is so disheartening. To see this level of intellectual dishonesty from people who pride themselves on their ability to debate, discuss, decipher, disagree is a despicable irony. We can wrestle with God, it seems, but not with Sharon.

“My home, in the after school hours between basketball practice and Little League, is becoming a re-education camp.

“B’Kavod,

Katy

I AM NOT A MORON ANYMORE

Also heartening to me was another email, from Dave Fowler, the person who wrote in yesterday to denounce me as a “moron,” and that was just for starters. Despite the rage in his letter, I wrote him back expecting that would be the end of it. I was happy to find people willing to sharply disagree. Late yesterday, he responded with a sensitive note indicating an openness for a real discussion or dialogue. I respect that:

“I thought I had learned that being angry is no excuse for being a childish jerk, apparently I am still a child. Mr. Schechter. I am sorry for sending insults to you instead of a request for dialog on something in which I believe you are seriously mistaken. None of my friends would ever watch any modern network news program with the exception of emergencies. We know what we have seen up to the 90s was horribly slanted. The percentage of journalists who are liberal democrats makes it impossible to receive unslanted reporting from them. It caused me to be angry and I slung a childish and thoughtless tirade your way, please forgive my manners, they were atrocious. It was not worthy of anyone who hopes to eventually be thought of as a nice guy.

“If you would like to engage in a thoughtful dialog on the subject I would be open to that despite feeling that for us it would be hard given our respective positions. Again, very sorry for being a jerk. It is a shame because maybe we each could learn something I believe most of what you write below is wrong and you believe it is right. It is possible that we each might get one thing we did not believe before. However I am sure you are busier than I am and probably don’t have time. Good luck with your writing and take care.” Mr. Fowler, I have no more time to debate right now, but will be happy to respond thoughtfully in the next few days. Thank you for responding the way you did.

Finally I was wrong to suggest that no Member of Congress spoke at the April 20th rally in Washington. Cynthia McKinney, the embattled member from Georgia was there. She said in part:

“We come here today to chart a new course for our communities and for America. To fight against bigotry, we stand together as one and we must. To fight against injustice, we stand together as one and we must. To fight against poverty, we stand together as one and we must. To fight against the destruction of our environment, we stand together as one and we must. To wage peace instead of war, we stand together as one and we must….”

THE NEED FOR SKEPTICISM

Also I wanted to return briefly to Chip Berlet’s challenge to a Guardian article tieing the Administration to the coup in Venezuela. Sociologist Al Specto commented on the PSN List Serv “Chip makes a very important point here. Just because someone is skeptical about a particular anti-US government statement does not mean that the skeptic is pro-U.S. We have to remember that governments themselves sometimes plant fake stories against themselves in order to them ridicule and discredit those who spread those stories! Not paranoia– historical fact. I personally find it quite reasonable to believe that the U.S. government was somehow involved in the Venezuela coup attempt. But I was also very skeptical when I read that article, exactly because it really was just an opinion about “who knows who.” I can say to my acquaintances that I have reasons based on history to believe that the US government may have been involved in the coup. But I can’t use that particular article as a source for that. Not without something a little more solid.

Chip’s original post was more extensive than I had seen or quoted. His critique challenged the sourcing of the article: “It is all based on gossip at the OAS offices. What I am calling for is more skepticism. The Subject title makes a false claim. it should read: “Unverified allegations from unnamed sources imply that the Venezuela