ADC Thanks 36 House Representatives who Opposed H.RES 867

[Iqbal Tamimi]

Iqbal Tamimi

Yesterday, the US House of Representatives voted 344-36 in support of the remarkably biased H. Res. 867 which called on the President and the Secretary of State to unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. During the debate on the House floor, it became increasingly clear that the Members of Congress who voted for H. Res. 867 had not read the report, and instead were relying on inaccuracies and deeply flawed arguments made around the Report. By passing this resolution, Congress sent a message yesterday that it does not stand for the accountability of war crimes committed in Gaza, the protection of civilians, and/or the restoration for peace.

Though the vote was very one-sided, 36 Members of Congress – 33 Democrats and 3 Republicans- courageously voted to oppose H. Res. 867, and correctly pointed out that the opportunity of holding a hearing on the Report did not even exist, and that such resolution does nothing to promote peace and accountability. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) urges you to recognize and thank these 36 US House Representatives for exhibiting real leadership by contacting them TODAY. Please see below for the list.

Arizona: AZ-4: Edward Pastor (D), AZ-7: Raul Grijalva (D)
Arkansas: AR-2: Victor Snyder (D)
California: CA-6: Lynn Woolsey (D), CA-7: George Miller (D), CA-9: Lee Barbara (D), CA-13: Fortney Stark (D), CA-23: Lois Capps (D), CA-35: Maxine Waters (D), CA-51 Bob Filner (D)
Indiana: IN-7: Andre Carson (D)
Kentucky: KY-4: Davis Geoff (R)
Louisiana: LA-7: Charles Boustany (R)
Maryland: MD-4: Donna Edwards (D)
Massachusetts: MA-1: John Olver (D), MA-3: James McGovern (D), MA-9: Lynch Stephen (D)
Michigan: MI-13: Carolyn Kilpatrick (D), MI-15: John Dingell (D)
Minnesota: MN-4: Betty McCollum (D), MN-5: Keith Ellison (D)
Missouri: MO-1: William Clay (D)
New York: NY-11: Yvette Clarke (D), NY-22: Maurice Hinchey (D)
North Carolina: NC-4: David Price (D), NC-12 Melvin Watt (D)
Ohio: OH-10: Dennis Kucinich (D)
Oregon: OR-3 Earl Blumenauer (D)
Texas: TX-14: Ronald Paul (R), TX-25 Lloyd Doggett (D), TX-30 Eddie Johnson (D)
Virginia: VA-8: James Moran
Washington: WA-3: Brian Baird (D), WA-7: James McDermott (D)
West Virginia: WV-3: Nick Rahall (D)
Wisconsin: WI-2: Tammy Baldwin (D)

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which is non sectarian and non partisan, is the largest Arab-American civil rights organization in the United States. It was founded in 1980, by former Senator James Abourezk to protect the civil rights of people of Arab descent in the United States and to promote the cultural heritage of the Arabs. ADC has 38 chapters nationwide, including chapters in every major city in the country, and members in all 50 states.

[Andrea Breuer]

Like Paul Craig Roberts put it: "The US House of Representatives has just voted to show the entire world that the US House of Representatives is nothing but the servile, venal, puppet of the Israel Lobby..."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23908.htm
So I really appreciate the courage & integrity of those 36 voting "Nay"!

[Miriam]

thanks for posting the ADC list....and I too spent much of yesterday calling to thank those who voted against 867 or who voted 'present'....we know that either way they will gain the animosity of the lobby! as another writer pointed out...it was not as horrid as the January vote...we see a small but steady incremental shift in votes...It would be interesting to learn what prompts their shifts. There is growing sense by many that the Zs continue to do themselves damage so slowly one by one there is a CHANGE coming! it is inevitable...the pendulum swings BOTH ways...AMEN!

[Jody Arafat]

My rep., Tammy Baldwin from WI, voted against it. I know many people, from the city I live in, that called her to oppose it, including me. In the past she has went on junkets to Israel, paid for by the Israeli government and has voted pro-Israel on issues, so it's good to see that she is listening to her constituents wishes instead of bowing to the Zios. Apparently, more people are speaking up about their anger at Israel's actions towards the Pals.

[Ghyslaine ROC]

HAARETZ: "...a UN report Tuesday that accuses Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of committing war crimes in Gaza..."

Palestinian militants committing war crimes in Gaza..." ??? Interesting!

[Gail Alfar]

It is great to thank the 36 Congress Reps who voted against the Resolution, but also please take the time to email your Congressman who voted for the Resolution, my email to him went like this:
We are DISAPPOINTED that you voted for H. Res. 867: Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict" in multilateral fora.
You DO NOT have our districts continued SUPPORT because you did not vote the way the people here would have wanted you to vote. YOU do not represent the people.

What can you do to show you do represent the people of this district?

I'm not lucky enough to live in one of the 36 Districts with a Congressman who voted against it. But that's okay, I'll work tirelessly so that Michael McCaul (District 10-Texas) is replaced by someone who cares what the people think.

[eileen fleming]

Even worse was House Res. 34, of January 9, 2009, a Pelosi/AIPAC collaboration which recognized only Israel's right to defend itself, reaffirmed the United States' strong support for Israel and the so-called Israeli-Palestinian 'peace process'

Which has yet to address what is required for peace: justice, equal human rights and an end to the occupation.

HR 34:
Yes-390
No-5


HR 867:
Yes-344
No-36


The good news is that there were 46 fewer Yes's and 31 more No's since Jan. 2009 shielding Israel from accountability, which is progress.

During the 23 days of attack on Gaza, the UN Security Council, Amnesty International, International Red Cross, and global voices of protest rose up and demanded a ceasefire, but both houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed resolutions to support a continuation of Israel’s so called "self defense."


The US is the largest arms supplier to Israel and under a Bush negotiated deal with Israel; the US also agreed to provide another $30 billion in military aid to Israel over the next decade.


During the 23 days of Israeli assault on Gaza, "Washington provided F-16 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, tactical missiles, and a wide array of munitions, including white phosphorus and DIME. The weapons required for the Israeli assault were decided upon in June 2008, and the transfer of 1,000 bunker-buster GPS-guided Small Diameter Guided Bomb Units 39 (GBU-39) were approved by Congress in September. The GBU 39 bombs were delivered to Israel in November (prior to any claims of Hamas cease fire violation!) for use in the initial air raids on Gaza. [1]

In a 71-page report released March 25, 2009, by Human Rights Watch, Israel’s repeated firing of US-made white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes.

"Rain of Fire: Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza," provides eye witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza.

"Human Rights Watch researchers found spent shells, canister liners, and dozens of burnt felt wedges containing white phosphorus on city streets, apartment roofs, residential courtyards, and at a United Nations school in Gaza immediately after hostilities ended in January.

"Militaries officially use white phosphorus to obscure their operations on the ground by creating thick smoke. It has also been used as an incendiary weapon, though such use constitutes a war crime.

“In Gaza, the Israeli military didn’t just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops," said Fred Abrahams, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. "It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren't in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died."

1. http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/9-us-arms-used-for-war-crimes-in-gaza/


Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"

[jerry gates]

Thanks to the Arab American anti discrimination committee for their vigilance and to Al Mezan, and Palestinian civil society for their support of this legal path to justice for Palestine and it's people.

Adoption of documented evidences, acceptance of corroborated and correlated findings, and the will to face these stark realities is dependent on an open mind, especially for those trained during their careers that Zionist Israel is the king of politics in the United States, where less than 1% of the people espouse support for Zionist ideals that require illegal actions to manifest on the ground, as Operation Cast Lead has.

The thought that breaking laws is vital to victorious "self defense" is cited by the highest courts in the USA by the Patriot act's obfuscation of it's upholding of the United States Constitution and by the Israel charter as a democratic partner, in the Middle east to western idealists in the UK, EU and Arab nations complicit in the Occupation of Palestine and it's functions with these Nato Allies.

What NATO does when it forces Afghanistan's police and Military to kill Afghanistan's Taleban and "self defense forces" is treason in the eyes of the main body politic of Afghanistan, just as Abbas shelving of the Goldstone report asked the PA leadership to be traitors to the people of Gaza and greater Palestine.

Demanding complacency concerning war crimes investigations is tantamount to exonerating state sponsored terrorism at a time when the US and Israel are fearful of this menace to Israel, from Iran. The Israel ranting and fearfulness of Iranian strength is "self defensive" as was Israel's Operation Cast Lead, according to the Ross leightnin/Berman resolution, but the ranting from Goldstone and Gaza, from massacres implemented as a direct strategy of murderous assault on civilians including innocent school children and infants, in cold blood, is"one sided", "singles out Israel" and is "a threat to peace", according to Israeli "friends" in the US congress.
Whose peace, we might ask of Congress, is threatened when war crimes are called scurrilous and biased accusations, when it is certain that the structure of Goldstone's report is as Granite, when the structure of Congress is soap and water, trying to wash off the blood that is indelibly etched into the very hands of Congress save for thirty or so honest lawmakers. Zionist apparatchiks for Israel are murderously guilty of washing off Palestinian blood from their own hands, which, to me is a self indictment of the most grave crime on any law book. aggression with intent to colonies and occupy while hiding this secret desire with ribald and blatant lies and false assertions in resolutions.

Thanks, genuine and sincere , loving and considerate thanks to those in the US congress who had the courage to read the petitions sent them, understand the long term implications and ramifications of injustice toward poverty and disenfranchised peoples and for standing up among fearful and lazy lawmakers and showing them what integrity is.

The planet reels in intractable conundrums born of such lazyness and lack of intellectual prowess and curiosity from it's elected leadership. Nowhere is the situation as dire and debilitating as in the US congress, the shame of which shakes the very foundations of good governance to their molten cores. The inner core of this nation, depends wholly on observance of it's laws, honest apraisal of infractions and the will to adjust, for the betterment of the nation and it's planetary partners, to growing concerns of US aggression towards eastern peoples bent on domination by military might that exonerates "victors" of war crimes by their victory, which is such even over world body courts, as it looks to the world of witness.

Thugish, stupid, agressive, maniacal, nepotistic, clannish, criminal and conspiratorial, which are terms not of endearment, such as honest, forthright, considerate and self effacing, but terms which bare the hallmarks of a world of indictment, of harsh critique and of resolve to weather whatever obfuscations come from the west towards their injustices to eastern peoples and their nations, to South Americans, Somalians,and to Pakistan, Indonesia, and to all civilised peoples in any life or place, what the US congress accepted is a false report in rejecting the recommendations of a true report, which is not God, my friends, but the :other", good luck, not hardly, You freaks just stepped into it and the stench is indelible.
Not having done their homework, leaving this task to AIPAC and Ros Leightnin and Berman, the US congress just stepped into a massive pile of burning excrement and the foul brown phosphorus is stinking up the United States to the more intelligent and inquisitive acedemic audience of this curious lack of foresight and jurisprudence against state sponsored terrorism with US weapons, support, funding, media advancement and incitment from paid US lobbyists. What is now firmly established is the willingmness of both US and Israel intelligence communities and their military attaches to skirt laws that investigate war crimes by subsuming them in committees which act not on their recomendations but accept the content of this report only marginally and render it's useless as a court dossier with shared findings from all investigative parties, submitting case findings and futhering them to the ICC prosecutor should Israel fail in it's investigations to bring justice and reparations to Gazan's injured and within their rights to be compensated and such compensation and proceeding compliance monitored by independent counsel with a mandate to reain as such until justice is fully accomplished by the standards set by the Goldstone report.

[David Gould]

This result was a totally predictable given the strength of the Israeli Lobby on the hill. But it should encourage us that 36 brave souls flew in the teeth of the gale to stand up for principles rather than funding from this questionable source. Even better that some republicans joined them. Standing up for Human Rights has become the outsider's choice in a country that still runs the biggest concentration camps for Muslims on earth, a country whose murderous troops are still in countries uninvited and are still killing innocent citizens of those countries where they are not welcome. The greatest shame is that the UK still also supplies troops to these invasions.

We always knew that Goldstone was going to have an uphill struggle on the hill. The fact that the report exists at all is a major advance in the murky world of Human Rights and his stand against all that was wrong about the Gaza onslaught has had world wide publicity for the brave folk of Gaza who won the love and admiration of the entire civilised world.

[Fakhri Dweik]

Israel, the proxy state, in the thrall of stale old myths poisoned the American view. Americans politicians are reluctant to speak the truth about the Palestinian question because, if they do, the ruling Khazars are going to give them hell.

36-344 vote is not a bad score.

[Fakhri Dweik]

U.S. HOUSE CONDEMNS GOLDSTONE REPORT ON 344-36 VOTE

3 November 2009

BY NATASHA MOZOVAYA and BARAK RAVID
Haaretz

The U.S. House of Representatives condemned a UN report Tuesday that accuses Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of committing war crimes in Gaza early this year as irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.

On a 344-36 vote, the House passed a nonbinding resolution that urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to oppose unequivocally any endorsement of the report. Twenty-two representatives voted present.

The report, commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, accuses both Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group of war crimes but presents Israel’s actions as much more serious.

The Ros-Lehtinen/Berman resolution defines the report as “biased and unworthy of further consideration,” U.S. Representative Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, said recently at the Jerusalem Conference.

The report “paints a distorted picture,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

It “epitomizes the practice of singling Israel out from all other nations for condemnation.”

Democratic Congresswoman Nita Lowey, Chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, warned lawmakers that further consideration of the Goldstone report could seriously harm Middle East peace negotiations.

“Israel, like all sovereign nations, has the responsibility to respect human rights and adhere to international law,” she said, “However, its defense of its citizens against attacks by Hamas militants simply cannot be conflated with terrorist actions.

“Facilitating a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is among our most important foreign policy priorities, and further consideration of the Goldstone report could hinder movement toward peace negotiations,” said Lowey.

However, opponents of the House move warned that although the resolution was non-binding, it would hurt U.S. credibility as a broker of Middle East peace.

The National Jewish Democratic Council urged Democratic members of Congress to support the resolution and denounce the commission’s report.

“The Obama administration has made it abundantly and repeatedly clear that they stand with Israel against the distorted Goldstone Commission report. And as this legislation correctly asserts, the report is indeed ‘irredeemably biased,’” the JDC said in a statement.

“We concur with the findings of the Ros-Lehtinen/Berman resolution that this report is deeply flawed, and that the U.S. government should do all in its power to stop this report in its tracks at the UN, lest it be used to undermine Israel’s fundamental right to self-defense in the future.”

Israel urges West to reject Goldstone report

Meanwhile, Israel has called on Western nations to speak out against any endorsement of report when the matter comes up for deliberation at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.

Israel has told the countries of the European Union and other friendly nations that it expects them to vote against any resolution proposed by the Arab states on the report.

The deliberations will revolve around a draft resolution by Arab states
calling for the adoption of the report and the transfer of the debate from the General Assembly to the Security Council. The resolution also calls for an independent inquiry by Israel into Operation Cast Lead and the presentation of its conclusions in three months.

Senior officials at the Foreign Ministry described the Arab resolution as very extreme and said it constitutes an escalation of the attacks against Israel in international forums.

A vote is not expected immediately, but Israeli sources say one is likely by the end of the week.

On Tuesday, Britain and France, representing the EU, held talks with
representatives of the Palestinian Authority and Arab states at the United Nations in an effort to soften the proposed resolution.

Accordingly a Franco-British document representing the EU has been drafted, describing “red lines” that the resolution should not cross if the Arab states and the Palestinians expect Western support.

Essentially, the offer seeks to avoid the transfer of deliberations from the General Assembly to the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The Europeans are asking Israel and the Palestinians to agree to an independent inquiry into the war and a return of the matter to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

A notable element in the Arab draft resolution is a failure to mention Hamas; it refers only to the Palestinians, even though the original Goldstone report mentions Hamas and accuses it of carrying out war crimes along with Israel.

Whatever form it takes, the Arab resolution is expected to gain a majority with 130 votes. However, if it remains extremist and the Europeans refuse to support it, there is a chance that around 60 countries will vote against it or abstain.

Foreign Ministry director general Yossi Gal told ambassadors on Tuesday that any further support for the Goldstone report would have a negative effect on the peace process and undermine democracies’ right to self-defense.

ADL director to Goldstone: As a good Jew, repudiate report

Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman of ADL called on Goldstone to repudiate his report: “I have had great respect for you over the years. Your work at the head of the South Africa Reconciliation Commission and in helping to find a just solution to the Bosnian conflict deserves the highest commendation.

“Moreover, I know you to be a proud Jew who serves on the Board of Trustees of Hebrew University and who has a daughter living in Israel.”

“With this background, I wondered in the first place how you could take on the chairmanship of the investigation of the war in Gaza mandated by the UN Human Rights Council,” he said. “After all, the Human Rights Council has repeatedly demonstrated its bias against Israel and in its stated mission for the investigation began with assumptions presuming Israeli guilt.”

 

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