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22 apr 2009
Boycotting Geneva is unwise
Jewish students shout during the speech of Iranian president Ahmadinejad at the UN anti-racism conference.
Published: 20 April 2009
It is a pity that the Dutch government would rather boycott the UN anti-racism conference than engage in a debate about Zionism.
By Roel Schrijvers
Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen said the UN anti-racism conference is "too important to be hijacked for political purposes" - and promptly withdrew from the conference. It was nicely put: the government comes off sounding so reasonable that you almost don't notice that it is being entirely unreasonable.
A bit of history is required. The closing resolution of the 2001 Durban conference was also widely criticised for being anti-Semitic. I have gone through its 63 pages in detail and there is nothing there that wasn't already established by the UN at some point: the Palestinians live in occupied territory and they have a right to self-determination. And all countries, including Israel, have a right to security.
What's more, the 2001 closing resolution was welcomed by Israel at the time. Shimon Peres, then president of Israel, called the statement "a very important achievement, an accomplishment of the first order for Israel and Israeli democracy".
The statements in the resolution were all correct. But even if they weren't: they form the basis of every two-state solution that has ever been proposed. In short: there was no reason not to sign it in 2001, and there is no reason not do so now.
As with every major anti-racism conference there are parties wanting to define Zionism as racism. It is often forgotten that the UN has already done this. A "Zionism is racism"-resolution was adopted by the UN general assembly in 1975. It was revoked in 1991 under pressure from the US, in part because the Madrid peace conference at the time brought hope of a lasting peace.
But there can be no question that Zionism is discriminating. In a nutshell, Zionists want a country with a Jewish identity that would be safe for Jews. There is nothing wrong with that except that implementing it is fraught with problems.
The facts go back some time, but they are important because they form the very basis of the organisation of the state of Israel.
In 1950 the development authority law was adopted, giving the Jewish National Fund property rights over 92 percent of the land - most of which was taken from its Palestinian owners - and making it the inalienable property of Jewish people worldwide. The final result of this law - combined with later laws - was that non-Jews are not allowed to buy, lease or work the land.
In 1952, Israel adopted the Jewish nationality law, offering Israeli citizenship and the Jewish nationality to all Jews (and only Jews) from the minute they set foot on Israeli soil. This distinction between citizenship and nationality is unique in the world. It is the legal basis for the institutionalised discrimination that gives Jews with the Jewish nationality access to privileges and services provided by the state of Israel.
That same year saw the creation of the Jewish Agency. Its task is to develop the country. Because of the nationality law thousands of Israeli citizens without the Jewish nationality were not eligible for a number of nationality-based privileges: they could not work on 'national' land, take part in 'national' housing schemes or apply for educational or agricultural grants.
On December 25, 1989, the Israeli supreme court ruled that a Jew who converts to another religion is no longer considered a Jew and is therefore excluded from the Jewish benefits that come with citizenship and nationality. The verdict was important because it underscored the legal basis for discrimination by equating nationality with religious persuasion.
Eleven days later, one of the supreme court judges confirmed that in Israeli society Zionism is preferred over other, universal values such as non-discrimination. "The essence of a Jewish state is to give pre-eminence to Jews as Jews. Anyone who asks, in the name of democracy, for equality to all its citizens - Jews and Arabs - must be rejected as one who negates the existence of the Israeli state as the state of the Jewish people," the judge declared on January 5, 1990. (From the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, cited in News from Within, April 3, 1991.)
Zionism comes down to the expropriation and marginalisation of non-Jews in general and Palestinian Arabs in particular. The state of Israel is a fact, but it is clear that Zionism and democracy are ultimately irreconcilable in the event that Jews should become a minority within the state of Israel. The logic of Zionism implies apartheid and discrimination and this is confirmed in practise.
That our government should refuse to engage in a debate about this is regrettable. Minister Verhagen is absolutely right when he says an anti-racism conference is too important to be hijacked for political purposes. He would do well to take a look in the mirror.
Roel Schrijvers is a lawyer specialised in international and European law at IUS-consult.
21 apr 2009
Schwarzenegger Opens California Fairgrounds to Homeless Camp
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said a make-shift tent city for the homeless that sprang up in the capital city of Sacramento will be shut down and its residents allowed to stay at the state fairgrounds.
Schwarzenegger said he ordered the state facility known as Cal-Expo to be used for three months to serve the 125 tent city residents, some of them displaced by the economic recession. The encampment may be shut down within a month, said Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. The move comes after the Sacramento City Council last night agreed to spend $880,000 to expand homeless programs.
“Together with the local government and volunteers, we are taking a first step to ensure the people living in tent city have a safe place to stay, with fresh water, healthy conditions and access to the services they need,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “And I am committed to working with Mayor Johnson to find a permanent solution for those living in tent city.”
California, home to one of every eight Americans, has been particularly hard hit by the housing market collapse after many residents turned to exotic mortgages to afford homes. The tent city, which has long existed along the banks of the America River, gained national attention last month when some of its recently homeless residents were featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
The state has one of the highest rates of foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of real estate data. California home prices dropped 41 percent last month from a year earlier, more than double the U.S. decline, as surging foreclosures drove down values, the state Association of Realtors said today.
State Unemployment
The state’s unemployment rate rose to 10.5 percent in February, as construction, financial and manufacturing companies eliminated jobs, leaving the most-populous U.S. state with one of the nation’s worst job markets.
The shelter at Cal-Exp currently houses about 150 people. It will be expanded by another 50 beds, and will include facilities for families with children.
Dick Cheney slammed President Obama again
Former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Obama again on Monday night during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity at Cheney's home in McLean, Virginia.
Cheney pointedly questioned the president's leadership, criticized Obama's overseas trips as "disturbing," said his handshake with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was "not helpful," and strongly disagreed with the release of the torture memos.
"I've been concerned at the way we've been presented overseas... What I find disturbing is the extent to which he's gone to Europe and seemed to apologize profusely, been to Mexico and seemed to apologize there," said Cheney. "The world out there, both our friends and foes, will be quick to take advantage of that... I don't think we have much to apologize for."
Describing the Bush administration's policy as to "ignore" Chavez, Cheney said that Obama's handshake was "not helpful... You have people all across South America who are watching how we respond." He added, "The president needs to provide leadership... needs to distinguish between good [guys] and bad guys."
Finally, Cheney defended the use of waterboarding and other interrogation techniques, saying, "It worked. It's been enormously valuable in terms of saving lives and preventing another mass casualty attack on the US."
Cheney formally asked that the Obama administration to release what he claimed are memos that demonstrated the success of those techniques.
"One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort," Cheney said.
While former President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have withheld comment on the new administration, Cheney has been outspoken in his criticism.
In his first TV interview last month with CNN's John King, Cheney said that Obama's policies had raised the risk of a domestic terrorist attack.
And the criticism doesn't seem to bother the president - during a February rally in Austin, Texas, Obama dismissed the former vice president, saying "When Dick Cheney says it's a good thing, you know that you've probably got some big problems."
Did he have any problem with dictators all over the world during his 'service' in public office?
20 apr 2009
New Hope for Senator John McCain
First compound for receptors in schizophrenia and Alzheimer's holds promise
April 20th, 2009 in Medicine & Health / Research
For almost 20 years, pharmacological companies have known that certain compounds that activate two specific CNS receptors, causing them to release the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, are effective in treating the cognitive and motor problems related to both schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease (AD).
But because the compounds are "dirty" - scientific lingo for a lack of selectivity - they activate not only the essential M1 and M 4 muscarinic receptors but also the other three members of the family, designated M2, M3 and M5, resulting in unacceptable gastrointestinal and other side effects.
That may soon change, thanks to the discovery of a truly selective agonist that targets only the M1 receptor, known to be central to cognition and thus implicated in diseases like AD and schizophrenia.
On April 20, speaking at the Experimental Biology 2009 meeting in New Orleans, Vanderbilt graduate student Evan Lebois in the laboratories of Dr. David Weaver and Dr. Craig Lindsley describes the complex, labor-intensive screening and discovery process that allowed Vanderbilt scientists to pinpoint what big pharma's computers and robots could not, and the process now underway to move the compound toward becoming an effective drug to treat AD and schizophrenia. The presentation is part of the scientific program of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
In stage one, the search for the appropriate molecule, Dr. David Weaver, director of the Vanderbilt Chemical Biology's High-Throughput Screening facility and co-director of the Molecular Library Screening Center, painstakingly ran high-throughput screens of every compound in the molecular library to see which ones activated the M1 receptor. Most such studies are done on computers with robots and automatic scoring mechanisms. By looking with his own eyes at the waveform reactions of every compound in the library, including those already rejected by the robotic systems, Dr. Weaver identified the molecule the scientists dubbed VU019467.
It was now time for stage two, and therefore the turn of Dr. Craig Lindsley, head of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Vanderbilt Specialized Chemistry Center for Accelerated Probe Development. His task was to create an effective probe compound.
"There is no point optimizing a molecule's potency in vitro if it turns out not to work in vivo," says Lindsley. His probe works in both. The team now is trying the compound in mouse and rat models of Alzheimer's and schizophrenia to determine what dose range restores the appropriate level of signaling through the targeted receptor. In addition, this compound provides a tool of unprecedented selectivity that will allow the researchers to tease apart the basic role of the M1 and M4 receptors in CNS function and disease states to degree that has never before been possible.
The team hopes that within a year they will have a compound ready to license to a pharmacological company that can continue with preclinical development and then onward to human trials.
Source: Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (news : web)
18 apr 2009
Keith Olbermann: "President Obama's Mistake"
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