Motorola drops bomb fuse unit following boycott campaign
Motorola has sold a controversial unit that produced bomb fuses and other equipment for the Israeli military, according to the Israeli financial newspaper Globes. The sale rids Motorola of some activities that had made it the target of a growing boycott in the U.S. and worldwide. No explanation was offered in the media reports for the sale by Motorola Israel — a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola — of its unit called Government Electronics Department (GED) to the Israeli company Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd.
The sale came just days after a March 30 protest in Brooklyn by The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI) kicking off a city-wide campaign to boycott Motorola over its support for Israeli apartheid. Ryvka Bar Zohar from NYCBI commented, “We are heartened that Motorola has eliminated at least its production of bomb fuses for bombs that Israel dropped on the Palestinian and Lebanese people. But we will continue our campaign to boycott Motorola until it is clear that it has eliminated production and sale of all products used to support Israeli apartheid.”
Human rights advocates in Boston and California also recently protested against Motorola. These campaigns build on the national “Hang Up on Motorola” campaign initiated by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, as well as initiatives by the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. University students have also recently taken up the call to boycott Motorola, achieving a divestment success at Hampshire College. Previously, Motorola had been the target of a successful boycott campaign for its support of the government of apartheid South Africa.
In 2005, following 13 years of fruitless negotiations that were accompanied by continued Israeli human rights abuses, hundreds of Palestinian civil society organizations called on the world to implement campaigns of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli institutions and businesses. Supporters of the growing worldwide BDS movement argue that a moral campaign of nonviolent public pressure like that used to topple apartheid in South Africa will pressure Israel to change its treatment of Palestinians. Adalah-NY, a member group in NYCBI, has carried out a highly successful New York campaign to boycott diamond mogul and Israeli settlement-builder Lev Leviev.
Editor’s note: On May 4th, a delegation from Dearborn/Ann Arbor will go to Chicago to protest Motorola’s production of products used by the Israeli military against Palestinians. The event will take place at the company’s annual shareholders meeting. For information contact Linda Wotring at 734.665.4010 or Lwotring@comcast.net.
Carter Center sends election observation mission to Lebanon
ATLANTA — The Carter Center launched an international election observation mission to Lebanon last week by deploying six long-term observers to cover all of the country’s qadas (districts). The observers represent a diverse team from six countries: Portugal, Belgium, Iraq, the United Kingdom, Albania, and the United States.
Observers will monitor the electoral process leading up to parliamentary elections anticipated on June 7. Their assessment will focus on the administration of the elections, the campaign period, voting and counting procedures, electoral complaints and appeals mechanisms, and other issues related to the overall electoral process in Lebanon. The Center’s evaluation will be made against Lebanese electoral law, the constitution, and the country’s international commitments regarding democratic elections. The Carter Center received formal accreditation from Lebanon’s Ministry of Interior and Municipalities on March 31.
A Carter Center office was established in Beirut in late-January and is led by Field Office Director Adolfo Cayuso. Observers will meet with election officials; political party and civil society representatives, including domestic observation groups; members of the international community; and other stakeholders to form an assessment. The Center’s long-term observers will be joined by some 40 short-term observers from various nationalities around election day.
Espionage, property theft triggers call to end Israeli access to U.S. markets
WASHINGTON — A major legal filing urges the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to suspend preferential Israeli access to the U.S. market.
In 1983 the Israeli prime minister and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbied the Reagan administration for preferential Israeli access to the U.S. market. In spite of overwhelming opposition from U.S. agricultural, industrial and citizens groups over Israel’s weak protection for intellectual property rights, the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Area was signed into law in 1985.
Intellectual property violations tainted negotiations of the agreement in 1984 when the FBI discovered that AIPAC obtained a copy of the secret report “Probable Economic Effect of Providing Duty Free Treatment for U.S. Imports from Israel, Investigation No. 332-180.” The still classified 300 page report was compiled from business confidential market share, cost, and other closely held information solicited by the International Trade Commission for USTR use in negotiations.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s U.S. counterintelligence agencies uncovered Israeli networks illicitly acquiring and transferring intellectual property on U.S. weapons systems. Purloined intellectual property for missiles, imaging technology and other weapons was subsequently incorporated into Israeli manufactured systems. Some Israeli systems were exported to rogue regimes and rivals American manufacturers avoided under U.S. arms export prohibitions.
For each of the past three years the Israeli Ministry of Health and pharmaceutical manufacturers have been placed on USTR watch lists for practices that cost U.S. manufacturers billions of dollars. But calls for warranted enforcement of trade rules have generated no results. Worse, proceeds from ballooning Israeli cut diamond exports to the U.S. have been used to finance illegal West Bank settlements in contravention of Obama administration policy.
According to IRmep director Grant F. Smith, “This fatally flawed agreement didn’t simply facilitate intellectual property theft costing U.S. industries billions of dollars. It is the product of intellectual property theft.”
A downloadable copy of the 92 page USTR filing to suspend the U.S.-Israel trade agreement under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 is now available at //www.IRmep.org.
Senate panel releases timeline of torture approvals
WASHINGTON— The CIA first sought in May 2002 to use harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding on terror suspects, and was given key early approval by then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, a U.S. Senate intelligence document said.
The agency got the green light to use the near-drowning technique on July 26, 2002, when attorney general John Ashcroft concluded “that the use of waterboarding was lawful,” the Senate Intelligence Committee said in a detailed timeline of the “war on terrorism” interrogations released Wednesday.
Nine days earlier, the panel said, citing Central Intelligence Agency records, Rice had met with then-director George Tenet and “advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaydah,” the agency’s first high-value Al-Qaeda detainee, pending Justice Department approval.
Rice’s nod is believed to be the earliest known approval by a senior official in the administration of George W. Bush of the intelligence technique which current Attorney General Eric Holder has decried as “torture.”
The Senate panel narrative is the most comprehensive declassified chronology to date of the Bush administration’s support for the highly controversial tactics.
Muslim group seeks release of American journalist
WASHINGTON — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is preparing to send a delegation to Iran to seek the release of American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was recently sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison.
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Roxana Saberi |
Earlier this month, CAIR called on Iran to release Saberi as a “gesture of reconciliation” to help improve relations between America and Iran.
In an April 22 letter to President Obama making him aware of the delegation’s mission, a copy of which was sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad wrote in part:
“As an American Muslim organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is concerned that the case of American journalist Roxana Saberi has become a roadblock to greater dialogue between the United States and Iran…We hope our efforts may help secure Ms. Saberi’s release and contribute to promoting peace through constructive dialogue between nations.”
CAIR also arranged to deliver a letter to President Ahmadinejad from the family of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who has been missing in Iran since 2007. The delegation is additionally prepared to discuss the case of Esha Momeni, an Iranian-American graduate student currently prevented from leaving Iran.
White House and State Department officials will be offered briefings on the results of the trip.
In 2006, CAIR sent a similar delegation to Iraq to appeal for the release of American journalist Jill Carroll.
CAIR, America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, has 35 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
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