CAPITALISM COULD RUIN HUMANITY ENTIRELY BY 2050. HOORAY!

01/05/2017

Are you worried about Brexit, Artificial Intelligence or World War Three?

The collapse of society and the end of humanity?…Trump?

Don’t be – we might all be dead by 2050 anyway.

Forbes has just published this cheery article by Drew Hansen, entitled: ‘Unless it changes, capitalism will starve humanity by 2050.’

OK, we’re intrigued.

This new voice of doom is based on these findings:

• Species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than over the previous 65 million years. The Harvard Medical School Centre for Health and the Global Environment call it ‘The Extinction Crisis’.
• 6 million hectares of forest have been lost annually since 2000 – almost the size of West Virginia, according to the 2010 report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN
• 15 per cent of Americans live below the poverty line – and 20 per cent of under 18s, according to US census data
• The UN predicts that the world’s population will reach 10 billion by 2050
• Timber extraction, agricultural practices and infrastructure development are contributing to habitat loss, accelerated extinction and climate change
• Continuing reliance on fossil fuels and a lack of real investment in renewable energy is further contributing to climate change

According to the 2015 book Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations, public corporations and businesses respond to consumer demand by increasingly exploiting resources.

The authors, Professors Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg, wrote:

Our book shows how large corporations are able to continue engaging in increasingly environmentally exploitative behaviour by obscuring the link between endless economic growth and worsening environmental destruction.

Yale sociologist Justin Farrell studied 20 years’ worth of scientific data and published a report in 2015, which suggested that corporate money plays an enormous role in American views on climate change.

That is to say, corporations with an interest in suppressing the idea of human responsibility for climate change use their money to bolster scepticism.

Farrell said the results revealed “an ecosystem of influence”, with corporate money “creating a united network within which the contrarian messages could be strategically created”.

Corporations have used their welath to amplify contrarian views [on climate change] and create an impression of greater scientific uncertainty than actually exists.

The problem with corporate capitalism, Hansen argues, is that it is “committed to the relentless pursuit of growth, even if it ravages the planet and threatens human health”.

So when Brett Easton Ellis satirised corporate greed and 80s capitalism in the form of its eponymous ‘American psycho’ Patrick Bateman, a sociopath serial killer who represented moral decay and offered annihilation, he may have been onto something.

Incidentally, Bateman was obsessed with Donald Trump and worshipped him as his consumerist psycho-hero.

Make of that what you will.

HT: Forbes

Why Sarath Fonseka is good enough to confront strikes

2017-05-02

Cabinet Spokesman and Minister, Rajitha Seneratne earlier confided to the media that President Maithripala Sirisena had asked Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to take over the army for two years to ‘discipline’ the country. The government ministers are now competing with each other to deny this.   
 Their explanations are contradictory and ridiculous. Minister Seneratne stands by his remarks and insists that he acted ‘with full responsibility with the blessings of the President and the Prime Minister’.   
Social Empowerment Minister S.B. Dissanayake believes the president was only joking when he asked the former army chief to take over the army. Rural Economy Minister P. Harrison thinks it was a joke blown out of proportion. Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera says there was neither a proposal by the President nor a request by Fonseka. Labour Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne goes a step further to insist that the president had ‘not even dreamt of offering’ Field Marshal Fonseka the post of commander of Army.  
Apparently, it had struck the government a little too late that reappointing the former army chief to the army to prepare it to tackle civil exigencies would be tantamount to reversing democratic reforms that it had embarked upon. A respectable distance between military and civilian affairs is in the interest of the democratic health of any state. Using the army to ‘discipline’ the country blurs that separation. Nigeria’s current president Mohammed Buhari when ruling as a military dictator in the early 80s was known to deploy whip-cracking soldiers to make the public queue up for buses. His era of discipline did not last long, he was ousted in a counter coup and Nigeria went to make a name for its ingenuity in scamming and corruption.   

However, in Sri Lanka, a government which promised (and to a certain extent undertook) to dismantle the strongman rule of its predecessor is now handicapped by the relative freedom it ushered in is patently clear. This government strengthened constitutional restraints on its power which effectively limited its maneuverability and has shunned extra judicial means that its predecessor used with brutal efficiency in dispute resolution between the government and other stakeholders. But, it did not lead to social stability.   
The recent spree of protests is often misconstrued as an outburst of pent-up emotions that were held back by the former oppressive regime. Perhaps a more dispassionate explanation of the current unrest is that it is a manifestation of numerous vested interest groups with or without party affiliations exploiting the limited state power and political will of the current administration to advance even the most minimalist of their interests. These are not protests, but blackmail. Some of these protests are purely opportunistic.  

"The bottom line of state power, in any state, be it democratic or authoritarian, lies in its ability and willingness to use coercive means to achieve legitimate ends, when a negotiated solution is not forthcoming. For instance, had it not been the declaration by a presidential decree of garbage disposal as an essential service, residents of Colombo would by now be living amid heaps of rubbish"

Under the Rajapaksa regime, it would have taken just one phone call from Gotabaya Rajapaksa to make doctors of the Government Medical Officers Association to amend their ways. Back then, villagers did not dare to protest against the government’s development initiatives. Squatters moved to alternative houses, having only waged a nominal protest. University students did protest, but not as recalcitrantly as they do now. There is an explanation for that manifest moderation then because any attempt to override the then limits entailed a heftier retributive cost.   
Political institutions need to be both accountable and efficient if they are to be sustainable in the long-run. However these two properties entail a trade-off. In a blunt example, India’s is an accountable government with a fragmented authority across the states and the Centre and checked by a myriad of independent institutions, a merciless media and a civil society. But, at the same time, the evolution of its institutions is such that India has been widely acknowledged as one of the least efficient for the most part of its independent history. On the other hand, China is none of the above: It is authoritarian, with no pretense of established norms of checks and balances and highly centralized with an enhanced level of social control. At the same time, China is one of the most efficient states, an efficiency unprecedented for its demographic size.  
Trade-offs between efficiency and accountability do not necessarily need to be as black and white as above. But, a government that constrains itself by limits often stipulated in the Constitution has to bargain and negotiate with numerous stakeholders, trade unions, student activists, ethnic minorities, etc. However, how successful this process would be is a function of existing social, political and cultural dynamics of a given society. Some social structures such as the strains of Confucianism dominant in South East Asia is more amenable to respect a centralized authority than South Asians. This is however not unique to us. Margaret Thatcher is both loathed and applauded for decimating the British trade unions which had a penchant to hold the government to ransom. Having done that, she went to make Britain the financial capital of Europe. JR Jayawardene might have had the same objective when he sacked hundreds of thousands of strikers in 1980. But, he failed in the long-run.   
There is a general realization within the government that it has failed to confront the rising wave of protests. The explanation for this failure lies in the government’s failure to use (legal) means at its disposal to reestablish the status quo. It is the mumbling of different things at different times and offering contradictory solutions. It has failed to act uniformly and cohesively. It tends to think that acting decisively would place it on par with the Rajapaksa regime, from which it seeks to distance itself.  

 The bottom line of state power, in any state, be it democratic or authoritarian, lies in its ability and willingness to use coercive means to achieve legitimate ends, when a negotiated solution is not forthcoming. For instance, had it not been the declaration by a presidential decree of garbage disposal as an essential service, residents of Colombo would by now be living amid heaps of rubbish.   
When faced with future social troubles, the government should evolve a cohesive and effective strategy. Setting up an emergency mechanism to confront strikes would be a good idea. And Field Marshal Fonseka would also be an ideal candidate to head that. Some institutions which are meant to come to a collusive course with certain elements of public need to derive legitimacy not just from the law, but also from the people who run them, if they are to function forcefully and effectively. That is why it was Gotabaya Rajapaksa and not Sajin Vas who could relocate slum dwellers in Colombo with a minimum protest. Similarly, Sarath Fonseka can derive from his legitimacy as the war winning army chief.   
The alternative to this is the gradual breakdown of governance, which to put bluntly, for a country at our economic and social level, is more dangerous than the breakdown of democracy. Indeed, the majority of people, especially those in the South are sickened by the spree of strikes than they were in the past by white vans. The government should do something to fix this mess, if not, it would not last much longer in office.  

Follow RangaJayasuriya @RangaJayasuriyaonTwitter  

Unmasking The Trinco MOU: Have The PM & India Trapped Sri Lanka?

By Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka –May 1, 2017

Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka

The Government of Sri Lanka has just signed an MoU with the Government of India (GOI), on a wide range of projects in Trincomalee, extending from Oil Tank farms and Highways, Water management, Agricultural and Livestock development, Industrial and Special Economic Zones to the Trinco Port itself. Minister Malik Samarawickrama and the Foreign Minister of India Sushma Swaraj, were the signatories to the MoU dated 26^th April 2017.

What exactly is an MoU? Could such thing pose a danger? This was my first thought on hearing that our PM was going to sign one in Delhi during his visit.

His track record did not inspire trust. Every time he is in an ungodly hurry to sign a piece of paper with other governments, even if it is the self-declared government of Tamil Eelam, we the citizens have reason to get nervous since an enduring feature of the PM’s actions is unilateralism. What was the PM getting us into this time? Should we be worried?

Not being a lawyer, I rushed to the internet. I found out that an MoU, although it is commonly believed to be a non-binding instrument, is not necessarily so.  Apparently, “what matters is the words used in the document itself; it is important to notice that the title (designation) of the instrument is irrelevant”. So, depending on the words contained within the document, even an MoU could amount to a treaty, which is  “an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law” .

The UK government’s guidance on practice and procedures on MoUs and Treaties warns that:

“…in order to ensure that MoUs are not worded in such a way as to amount to treaties, care should be taken to avoid the use of “treaty language”….”  It further exhorts that “Certain words should never be used.”

Well, what do you know! The MoU that was just signed by Sri Lanka with India, has several words that should never be used’ if it is meant to be a ‘non-binding’ document!

Didn’t the PM assure the CPC trade unions that he was not, repeat NOT, going to sign any document with legal implications? I hope an independent lawyer not working for the PM’s office or the government will take this MoU apart and assure the public that this unity government has not imposed a legally binding treaty on an unsuspecting public! Or even a suspecting public, such as the likes of me.

The list of words that “should never be used” but are in fact used in the MoU between India and Sri Lanka, include the following– and I produce those, together with the alternative words that are meant to be used in a non-binding MoU:

At first glance at the MoU between GoSL-GoI, one can see that the two governments are referred to as “Parties” and each of the paragraphs are referred to as “Articles”. All of the words I have shown above in DO NOT USE have been used in this MoU!

It says grandly and tellingly at the end, “In witness, whereof, the following representatives duly authorized by their respective Governments, have signed this MoU”.

“Duly Authorized”? Who authorized the signing of this MoU, where and when? It says “their respective governments”. So did the segment of the SLFP, forming a part of the Unity Government under the able leadership of the President and leader of the SLFP himself, authorize the signing of this very suspect MoU, along with the UNP?

Since to my untrained mind, there is the serious eventuality that we may have signed an agreement which carries with it legal obligations, let me summarize what we have actually agreed to. 

The following are some of the things that are contained in the MoU.

Actually it says “Both the Governments have agreed to complete the following joint projects in Sri Lanka.”

I’d like to know how both Governments have agreed to anything at all, when we the citizens are under the impression that the Prime Minister has only come to an ‘understanding’ with the Government of India and any ‘agreement’, especially on such strategic sectors as Water Management, Ports, Natural Gas and Roads can only be agreed on after the matter is adequately discussed in Parliament, and arguably, where necessary, after a Referendum.

• Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) fired 500 megawatt capacity LNG Power
• An LNG Terminal / Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) in Kerawalapitiya/Colombo
• piped gas distribution system; retail outlets for supply of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to the transportation sector;
• Upper Tank Farm in Trincomalee
• A Port, Petroleum Refinery and other industries in Trincomalee,
• Roads in Sri Lanka including Mannar-Jaffna and Mannar-Trincomalee Highways and Dambulla-Trincomalee Expressway under Indian investments
• A Container Terminal in Colombo Port as a Joint Venture
• water management and promotion of agro-based industries,
• Any other areas mutually agreed between the Parties

This is not the exhaustive list of all that has been ‘agreed’ on by ‘both governments’ but you get the general idea! 

Read More

Reform of exchange controls – Part II: Bringing exchange controls to the permanent law book 

Tuesday, 2 May 2017

The Central Bank implements ECA as the agent of the Government and for that purpose has to create a separate department called the Exchange Control Department

Exchange controls to fight a war

In Part I of this series (available at: http://www.ft.lk/article/610886/Reform-of-exchange-controls--There-is-a-need--but-do-it-correctly-%E2%80%93-Part-I), it was presented that Sri Lanka which had enjoyed a control free environment from time immemorial had clamped exchange controls on its citizens in 1939.

Reform of exchange controls – Part II Bringing exchange controls to the permanent law book.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

What Dr. Batagoda says about CEB chairman’s resignation!

May 01, 2017

Trouble at the Ceylon Electricity Board renewed following the resignation of its chairman Anura Wijepala recently. As usual, fingers continue to be pointed at each other. Some suggest that his resignation was influenced by the CEB engineers’ union, subject minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya and ministry secretary Dr. Suren Batagoda. He had resigned reportedly after being told to bring the CEB’s internal audit division, which functioned under the chairman and the board of directors, under the general manager. That issue had been brewing for some time and the chairman resigned after a deadline was given for the handover.

The CEB is not short of problems and many a hitherto unheard of stories started to make rounds after the chairman’s resignation. Before going into those, Lanka News Web asked Dr. Batagoda about the matter at hand.

 

He is of the view, and the general view of the ministry, that the CEB internal audit division should function independently for it to carry out its intended purpose. “An audit is done to find out, if any wrong had been done. Solutions can be found if wrongs are identified. Correcting wrongs will lead to development. Those that need to be independent should remain independent. It is one thing for everybody to assist in the administrative affairs. But, in such a scenario, all should work with one stand.”

 

It is known that the CEB engineers’ union has a big say in the institution. Other trade unions are displeased with the engineers’ union due to its inflexibility. According to CEB sources, everything is done, and should be done, according to the wishes of the engineers’ union. That is why there is no end to problems at the CEB.

 

This is what the secretary has to say, “Anyway, there is a clash among the trade unions, director board and the chairman. That is due to the conduct of the engineers. They are no flexible. In such a scenario, it is not an easy task to solve problems. The chairman too, is an engineer. Why should the independently functioning internal audit division be brought under the general manager? That makes the engineers’ intention clear. Some accuse us of siding with the engineers. That is completely wrong. We want to solve this problem. The CEB has conceited people. It is not flexible to solve a problem there. Not even the chairman can control them. The media reported that we had instructed the chairman to bring the internal audit department under the general manager before May 02. Wrong things are communicated. As the ministry, we are on a correct stand. Mainly the clashes among the engineers’ union, other trade unions, director board and the chairman have aggravated problems at the CEB.”

 

According to what the secretary says, everybody wants to increase their share. That is why there is no end to the problems at the CEB. Almost every time, the finger is leveled at the engineers. A collective workplace should have a collective responsibility. Everything should be faced collectively and resolved collectively. That exactly is what is not happening now. Doesn’t such a conflicting situation breach the services of one of the leading institutions in the country?

 

Ashika Brahmana

Sri Lanka navy detains suspected Rohingya refugees

Navy announces detention of 32 people, half of them children, believed to be Rohingya refugees and two smugglers.

Myanmar has been accused of ethnically cleansing Rohingya minority [Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters]

01 May 2017 09:37 GMT
Sri Lanka's navy has arrested 32 people suspected of being Rohingya refugees and their Indian traffickers off the country's northern coast.

Chaminda Walakuluge, a navy spokesman, said a coastguard patrol observed the boat entering Sri Lankan waters on Sunday.

The 30 passengers from Myanmar included 16 children, among them a baby just 15 days old and a four-month-old child.

Myanmar army chief rules out Rohingya citizenship

The two Indians were suspected of being their traffickers.

Walakuluge said the suspects had been handed over to police for further inquiries.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state since the military began a security operation last October in response to what it says was an attack by Rohingya armed men on border posts, in which nine police officers were killed.

Last month Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's leader, denied reports saying security forces carried out ethnic cleansing of the country's Rohingya Muslims, despite the United Nations and human rights groups saying a crackdown by the army may amount to crimes against humanity.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate whose international star as a rights defender is waning over the treatment of the Rohingya, has not condemned the crackdown and has not spoken out in defence of the persecuted minority.

Instead, she has called for space to handle the issue in a country where the more than one million Rohingya are not recognised as an ethnic minority and widely vilified as "illegal" immigrants from Bangladesh - even though many have lived in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for generations.

READ MORE: Myanmar's major ethnic groups and where they live

A UN report released in February said the army's campaign targeting the Rohingya involved mass killings, gang rapes and the burning down of villages, likely amounting to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, where more than 75,000 Rohingya have fled to escape the crackdown, people have recounted grisly accounts of horrendous army abuse, including soldiers allegedly executing an eight-month-old baby while his mother was gang-raped by five security officers.

"What kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother's milk," Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN rights chief, said in a statement at the time.

"What kind of 'clearance operation' is this? What national security goals could possibly be served by this?"

Trump’s Israel-Palestine Negotiator Isn’t Qualified

And that might be exactly why he pulls off a peace deal.

BY ARMIN ROSEN-MAY 1, 2017

This week’s meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas may be an important public step toward restarting a Middle East peace process that has been stalled since 2014. It may even mark the first step toward making “the ultimate deal,” the lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians that Trump has said he wants the chance to secure.

But it’s important to note that the White House meeting won’t mark the first point of contact between the 82-year-old Abbas and the Trump administration. A low-profile but potentially influential White House official by the name of Jason Greenblatt already met with Abbas in Ramallah, in the West Bank, on March 14 as part of a wide-ranging listening tour to Israel and the Palestinian territories — and then met with him a second time at an Arab League summit in Amman, Jordan, later that month. A former Trump Organization chief legal officer, Greenblatt has the official title of the White House’s representative for international negotiations. But unofficially he’s the administration’s Middle East peace envoy. If an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached during the Trump administration, it will be Greenblatt — who earned his new position by virtue of his personal relationship with the president, despite little experience with his new duties — working to bring the parties to the table and keep them there.

Greenblatt has been placed at the very center of the radical political experiment Trump came into office promising. In the president’s view, the entrenched political establishment was one of the primary sources of America’s problems, and the country’s social and political ills could only be remedied if people from outside the alleged Washington “swamp” were finally allowed to have a crack at them. The job performance of people like Rex Tillerson, who became secretary of state after years as an ExxonMobil executive, or school choice activist-turned-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a real-time test of one of the central value propositions of Trump’s presidency: That America is in need of bold new approaches to national governance that only Trump and his team of outsiders can provide.

Greenblatt is one of those outsiders. But unlike most of his colleagues in the West Wing and cabinet, he has been off to a strong start, at least judging by bipartisan accounts from policymakers and observers in the United States and the Middle East.

“What’s impressed me about Mr. Greenblatt’s early forays into Middle East diplomacy is his interest and willingness to listen to a broad range of voices,” said Daniel Shapiro, who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador in Tel Aviv between 2011 and January of this year. “He seems to understand that the success or failure of Middle East peace efforts is not going to depend only on the decisions of the leaders.”

Peace advocates have seen encouraging signs out of Greenblatt as well. “I think we’ve been positively impressed with the foundation that he’s laid,” said Jessica Rosenblum, the vice president of communications for J Street, which describes itself as a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” advocacy group.

Greenblatt’s success so far reflects well on his own diplomatic abilities, but it may have as much to do with the nature of his assigned task.

Greenblatt’s success so far reflects well on his own diplomatic abilities, but it may have as much to do with the nature of his assigned task. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process seems especially primed for a newcomer’s fresh thinking. After all, a quarter century of careful, deliberative, and well-intentioned professional U.S. diplomacy hasn’t resulted in an Israeli-Palestinian agreement or even a clear path toward one.

So far, the former real estate lawyer’s record suggests that the peace process is one area where a fresh approach could actually pay off — assuming Trump has the focus and patience needed to seriously take on one of the world’s most infamously intractable conflicts.
***
Greenblatt began working at the Trump Organization in 1997, after a career that included time as a real estate lawyer for a New York-based firm and a short-lived foray into the cappuccino-making business. Over the next two decades, the Yeshiva University and New York University law school graduate would work his way up to executive vice president and chief legal officer at the Trump Organization. As one of the top lawyers in the company, Greenblatt oversaw due diligence, contracting, and other legal dimensions of Trump’s real estate deals — including some of the more controversial ones. Israel never came under Greenblatt’s portfolio for the simple reason that Trump has still never taken on a project in the country and has no documented business interests there.

Greenblatt is an observant Jew and tweeted a photo of his tefillin bag while en route to the Middle East in March. As Greenblatt told me during an interview last July, Trump respected his religious observance and always wished him a restful Shabbat even when a tough negotiation came up against the weekend holiday.

Greenblatt’s career as a Middle East hand began less than a year ago. During the campaign, Greenblatt was one of the co-chairs of candidate Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee, along with David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who is now serving as the U.S. ambassador to Israel. In contrast to the notably outspoken Friedman, who was also a fundraiser for a West Bank settlement, the soft-spoken Greenblatt had never tried to participate in Middle Eastern affairs and had never even publicly commented on the region until the campaign kicked off.

Early in the general election, Greenblatt’s elevation to the height of the Middle Eastern policy firmament appeared to be just another example of Trump’s reliance on dubiously qualified people who were already within his orbit — in April 2016, The Forward ran a Jewish Telegraphic Agency profile of Greenblatt with the headline “No Experience Necessary.” When I interviewed him last July, Greenblatt candidly admitted just how much he still had to learn about his subject area and acknowledged that he wouldn’t even have been involved in politics if his longtime boss weren’t running for president.

Today, Greenblatt’s closeness to Trump and his lack of previous diplomatic experience are actually starting to look like assets. Greenblatt’s listening tour in March took him to places that few other people in his position have been — like the Jalazone refugee camp, outside of Ramallah, where he met with local youth leaders. No American Middle East envoy had visited a West Bank refugee camp since the early 1990s. Greenblatt met with a range of political and civil society figures in the West Bank, as well as a “cross section of folks from Gaza,” which is currently under the control of the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas. Later that month, he attended an Arab League summit in Amman, a relative rarity for a senior American official. At the summit, he had a second meeting with Abbas, whom he has reportedly impressed, and sat down with a number of Arab foreign ministers.

Greenblatt’s visits with Israelis displayed a similar broad-mindedness. He met with settlers, generals, and students and tweeted a picture with Gershon Edelstein, the head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva, one of the most respected religious academies in Orthodox Judaism. Someone more conscious of diplomatic convention, working for a more cautious or traditional administration, might have veered away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s thornier territory during a first official visit to the region. And a more traditional diplomat might not have seen the public diplomacy value in dropping by the Ponevezh fresh off a visit to a Palestinian refugee camp — or of visiting either place at all.

Trump’s envoy approached the region with fresh eyes and won fans on both sides of the Green Line as a result.

Trump’s envoy approached the region with fresh eyes and won fans on both sides of the Green Line as a result. Greenblatt “conveyed a very good impression that he is curious, that he wants to understand different people, their take on the situation, their aspirations, and their aspirations and their concerns,” said Nimrod Novik, a former foreign-policy advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum.

Greenblatt is only in the world of Middle East diplomacy because his longtime boss was elected president, but in the context of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, the appearance of favoritism might actually help him. As Novik explains, both the Israelis and Palestinians are adept at gaming the negotiating process and at exploiting any perceived distance between an envoy and the administration back in Washington. It’s harder to stall an envoy, or to go behind the envoy’s back and appeal to other, friendlier administration officials or congressional allies, when the sides believe that the mediator is a direct extension of the president. “When the parties know that the envoy speaks for the president and directly with the president, they are very careful not to play games,” Novik said.

That isn’t always the case. Shapiro said both the Israelis and Palestinians tried to come between Middle East envoy George Mitchell and the White House during Obama’s first term. “The Israelis looked for other channels besides Senator Mitchell, and even at a certain point the Palestinians weren’t certain if he was the authority they should be speaking to.” During Obama’s second term, Secretary of State John Kerry’s dogged peace efforts suffered from the perception on both sides of the Green Line that he cared about reaching a Middle East settlement more than his boss did.

Greenblatt is about as personally close to the president as someone in his position could be. And Trump has been remarkably and even uncharacteristically consistent on Israeli-Palestinian peace, repeatedly saying he wants to be the one to broker “the ultimate deal.” Closeness with an engaged president is a powerful tool for an envoy — as long as there’s a policy vision and a sustained commitment from the Oval Office underlying his work.

It’s far from obvious that that’s currently the case. Trump’s policies on the peace process have been broadly in line with previous U.S. administrations, and the new president publicly put his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, on notice about settlement construction during a joint press conference after their meeting on Feb. 15, telling the prime minister he’d like to see him “hold back on settlements for a little bit.” But that hasn’t yet translated into the kind of clear-cut U.S.-Israeli understanding on settlement construction that will need to be reached before Trump can really attempt to relaunch the peace process. Trump would also need to reassure an ever skeptical and often recalcitrant Abbas that entering into negotiations with Israel really is in his best interest — an objective Trump could advance by explicitly endorsing the U.S. government’s official preference to date for a two-state outcome to the conflict. The president hasn’t done that yet, though this week’s meeting presents an ideal opportunity to change course.

Inevitably, the measure of Greenblatt’s work is whether it actually brings the sides back to the negotiating table, creating space for the kind of diplomatic breakthrough that can change the dynamics of a now-static process. The Trump administration is up against the same challenges as its predecessors, obstacles like Israeli settlement construction, Palestinian terrorism and incitement, and a regionwide security vacuum. Traditional diplomacy hasn’t had the answers to any of these problems. As to whether a Trump-style alternative will fare any better, a lot depends on the president’s notoriously fickle intentions and commitment — regardless of how admirably his envoy performs.

Photo credit: ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images

Fordham students sue university over SJP ban

Ahmad Awad is amongst a group of students suing Fordham University over its refusal to allow the establishment of a human rights group. (Fordham SJP)

Nora Barrows-Friedman-27 April 2017

Students have sued Fordham University over the New York institution’s refusal to allow them to establish a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

The lawsuit, filed in state court on Wednesday, alleges that the private Jesuit university violates its own free expression policies and is engaged in viewpoint discrimination.

Students say they were subjected to a year-long investigation when trying to start the SJP chapter. They were questioned repeatedly about their personal political views, affiliations with outside human rights and Jewish organizations and their opinions about the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

In December, a university official informed students seeking to start an SJP chapter that he had unilaterally decided to deny their request.

Dean of students Keith Eldredge’s ban overturned a November vote by the student government approving the formation of SJP.

Attorneys with Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights are representing the students in their case against the university.

“If Fordham’s guarantee of freedom of inquiry means anything, it’s that students who want to advocate for Palestinian rights must be able to start an SJP club and host events, invite guest speakers, distribute flyers, and post materials just like any other group,” Maria LaHood, deputy legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, stated on Wednesday.

The legal groups warn that Fordham’s “treatment of SJP is part of a broader pattern of repression” against activists, particularly on US campuses.

“This is yet another example of the Palestine exception to free speech, where supporters of Palestinian freedom are singled out for differential treatment and censorship,” Palestine Legal’s Radhika Sainath told The Electronic Intifada.

Her group says that between 2014 and 2016, it has responded to 650 such incidents of suppression targeting Palestine advocacy, mostly on college campuses.

Punishment

In January, students at Fordham held a rally demanding that the dean reverse his decision and lift the ban on SJP.

Instead, Eldredge charged senior student Sapphira Lurie, who co-organized the rally, with violating the university’s demonstration policy and summoned her to a closed-door meeting to determine her guilt and punishment.

Eldredge later sanctioned Lurie after she refused to attend the meeting because he would not allow her attorney or faculty advisor to accompany her. Attorneys with Palestine Legal are appealing the punishment.

Lurie is one of the four students suing Fordham.

Hearsay

Fordham claims in response to the lawsuit that the “behavior” of other SJP chapters and of National Students for Justice in Palestine, an umbrella organization, were a determining factor in banning the group.

Based on media reports, Fordham alleges that SJP’s actions, “if true, are not in keeping with Fordham’s values,” according to a statement sent to The Electronic Intifada.

The university acknowledges that “Fordham officials aren’t in a position to know the truth of these reports,” an admission, in effect that it is restricting the rights of its own students based on hearsay about students on other campuses.

Given that Israel lobby groups devote enormous resources to smearing SJP chapters around the country, this is tantamount to handing Israel advocates a heckler’s veto on speech at Fordham.

The university says that it “believed that a student club bearing that name is not in the bests [sic] interests of our students on either side of the debate, or would serve to foster reasoned discussion on these very difficult issues.”

Fordham says it would “grant the club status under a slightly revised version of [the] constitution they had proposed,” including requiring students to change the name of the club and to overtly state its independence, financial and otherwise, from National Students for Justice in Palestine.

In January, the administration claimed that SJP exhibits “a singular focus” on the “political agenda of one nation, against another nation” and that the group “encourage[s] disruptive conduct” – citing the interruption of public speaking events – which would contradict the college’s values of “civility.”

“We have your back”

FIRE, a free speech watchdog, designated Fordham as one of the top 10 worst universities in the US for free speech based on its SJP ban.

More than 100 Fordham professors, along with dozens of Palestine solidarity groups, civil rights organizations and Catholic clergy and scholars have admonished the university’s behavior towards the students.

The outcome of the Fordham lawsuit could have a significant impact on student activism, especially as Israel advocacy groups and state and federal lawmakers broaden their efforts to repress Palestine solidarity campaigning.

“This lawsuit is for all the students around the country who face ongoing suppression,” Palestine Legal’s Radhika Sainath said.

“We will not tolerate attempts to censor support for Palestinian rights. For students who want to start SJP chapters or expand your organizing – we have your back, you have legal recourse.”

Hamas recognises PLO as 'national framework' for Palestinians

Movement says Palestine Liberation Organisation should serve national project and ensure Palestinian rights in new political document

A supporter and daughter commemorate the 29th anniversary of Hamas in Gaza in December (AFP)

David Hearst-Monday 1 May 2017

Hamas has officially recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the "national framework" for the Palestinian people, but calls for it to be "rebuilt on democratic foundations to safeguard Palestinian rights".

The historic recognition is contained in a new "reference" document unveiled in Doha on Monday, and stands in stark contrast to its original charter which was written as an alternative to the PLO.

Hamas calls for the PLO to be rebuilt. It states: "It should therefore be preserved, developed and rebuilt on democratic foundations so as to secure the participation of all the constituents and forces of the Palestinian people, in a manner that safeguards Palestinian rights."

It should therefore be preserved, developed and rebuilt on democratic foundations

- Hamas document

In addition Hamas affirms the role of the Palestinian Authority "to serve the Palestinian people and safeguard their security, their rights and their national project".

For the first time, too, Hamas has formally accepted the borders of 4 June, 1967 for a Palestinian state. The acceptance falls far short of a two state solution, as Hamas refuses to recognise Israel, or "any alternative to full and complete liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea."

It also rejects the Oslo Accords and all agreements that stem from them.

It says it is only accepting the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital and return of refugees to their homes, as a "formula for national consensus".

Speaking in Doha after the unveiling of the document on Monday, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal said the document aimed to make "crystal clear" what Hamas actually believed.

“Hamas movement is a viable, renewable developing movement in their ideologically awareness and political performance as much as it is developing in its struggle and fighting aspects," he said.

“It is a natural outcome of the development of Hamas as a movement.”

He added that Hamas was "developing without losing the core principles or waiving the established rights and demands of our people.”

A Hamas source told MEE: "This is not the two-state solution, because each state will not recognise each other. Maybe some Arab states will be happy to hear about the '67 borders, but the conditions made to accept this will not be accepted by the Arab Peace Initiative."

"When we talk about the right of return, not accepting Israel's right to exist, not surrendering any part of Palestine, Israel will not be happy with this. This is not made to please any one of these external actors. This is made for and by the people of the movement to express themselves."

Israel immediately rubbished the document. David Keyes, a spokesman for the prime minister's office, said: "Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed.

"They build terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. This is the real Hamas." 

Hamas says international and divine law allows resistance 'by any method or means' (Reuters)

The third major pledge of the document issued on Monday is to state that Hamas's fight is with Zionism not Judaism. This is the biggest departure from its original charter, which was widely condemned both by liberals inside the movement and critics outside as being crudely anti-Semitic.

The new document states: "Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine."

Although it continues to add the caveat that Zionism refers to Judaism and the Jews in identifying the land of Israel.

The status of the new document has been the subject of internal debate. Hamas officials say the document is meant as a new "reference point", although it does not replace its original charter which was written in 1988 when the movement was establishing itself.

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion

- Hamas document

A source with knowledge of the internal process which produced the document said: "Hamas is very sensitive because of the PLO's history, when the PLO was pressed into cancelling its charter.

"Hamas will not do so under pressure. This is why it is sensitive to say that the document is replacing the charter."

However the source said that unlike the charter, which was written by one man, Monday's document was the product of four years of internal debate and has reached a wide consensus throughout the movement.

There are a number of other departures in the document which is attempting to modernise Hamas's political vision and objectives.

The document makes no mention of the Muslim Brotherhood, which in effect abandons the connection which was stated explicitly in the 1988 charter.

It only says that Hamas is a Palestinian, national movement "with an Islamic reference".

Hamas says women 'play a fundamental role in building the present and the future' (AFP)

It also mentions Christian Palestinians and their holy places, and is clearer about the importance of women and youth.

The document states: "Palestinian women play a fundamental role in the process of building the present and the future, just as they have played a fundamental role in the history of the Palestinian struggle. It is a pivotal role in the project of resistance, liberation and building the political system."

Whereas the Hamas charter took armed struggle as the basis of resistance to the establishment of Israel, the new document also refers to non-violent resistance.

It says: "Managing resistance, in terms of escalation or de-escalation, or in terms of diversifying the means and methods, is an integral part of the process of managing the conflict and should not be at the expense of the principle of resistance."

Compensation to the Palestinian refugees... goes hand in hand with their right to return

- Hamas document

It also refers to the role of Palestinian civil society in achieving an end of the occupation: "Palestinian society is enriched by its prominent personalities, figures, dignitaries, civil society institutions, and youth, students, trade unionist and women's groups who together work for the achievement of national goals and societal building, pursue resistance and achieve liberation."

On one seminal point, the new document hardens Hamas's official language. It says that Hamas rejects all attempts to erase the rights of the refugees, including the attempts to settle them outside Palestine and the projects of the alternative homeland.

"Compensation to the Palestinian refugees for the harm they have suffered as a consequence of banishing them and occupying their land is an absolute right that goes hand in hand with their right to return," it says.

"They are to receive compensation upon their return and this does not negate or diminish their right to return."

The document is regarded as the last act of Meshaal, who is stepping down as leader of Hamas's political bureau.