يُفترض أنّ الانتخابات تنافسٌ بين برامج سياسية اجتماعية، أو بين مسلكيات الحكم على الأقل. والانتخابات تُجرى في دول ديمقراطية، أما إجراؤها في دولة استبدادية، أو في ظل نظام عسكري قمعي، فهو اسم بلا مسمّى، وبالتالي، لا تستحق هذه التسمية. وربما اتخذت الانتخابات أشكالاً مشهدية، وشخصانية، في الدولة الديمقراطية، في عصر حضارة الاستهلاك، وقد تفرّغها من مضمونها في كثير من الحالات. ولكن، من الناحية الأخرى، لا تؤثّر نتائج الانتخابات على الحقوق المكتسبة للناس، لأن الحريات والحقوق الأساسية مُمَأسسة في العرف والمسلك والدستور. فهي، بالتالي، لا تضر إذا لم تنفع. ولكنها في الحقيقة تنفع. فإجراؤها دورياً، إضافة إلى الضوابط الحقوقية والآليات الأخرى المتوفرة والمكتسبة، تمنع نشوء الاستبداد على الأقل. كما أنه لا ديمقراطية من دون تمثيل، ولا تمثيل من دون انتخابات دورية. وهي ذاتها آلية ضبط ورقابة. وتبقى مفترقات تاريخية، يجري فيها تغيير حقيقي في السياسة، نتيجة للانتخابات ذاتها. ولا يحصل ذلك كل أربع سنوات، بل يتاح في مناسباتٍ، تفصل بينها فترات زمنية، أكثر طولاً، كل عشرين أو ثلاثين سنة مثلاً، حين تنضج بدائل اجتماعية سياسية حقيقية، يجري حسمها انتخابياً. وحتى يكون ذلك ممكناً، يجب أن تجري الانتخابات بشكل دوري. ومهما بلغ تشويه الانتخابات بسوق الدعاية وخطاب الاستهلاك، يبقى في نواتها ما يلي: 1. إنها خيارات. فلا انتخابات في غياب حرية الاختيار. ويمكن التفصيل في الشروط اللازمة لتوفير حرية الاختيار، وليكون لها معنى. 2. تجري الانتخابات داخل دولة ممأسسة، كتنافس بين خيارات حول كيفية إدارة الدولة، أو على معاقبة ومكافأة مسلكيات معينة في الحكم. 3. يفترض أن تكون أجهزة القمع من جيش وشرطة محايدة في الانتخابات. 4. يفترض أن يكون القضاء محايداً. الاستفتاء على الديكتاتور مهزلة، وليس انتخابات. وكذلك الانتخابات بعد زج المنافسين، كأشخاص وقوى، في السجون، ومثلها الاختيار الوهمي بين العسكر ومَنْ نادى بعودة العسكر، أو بين العسكر ورجال العسكر في ظل حكم العسكري في عصر الثورة المضادة، التي تتميز بالركاكة الخطابية والشعوذة الإعلامية، وتحويل الإعلام إلى جوقةٍ، تحرض على الكراهية. هذه مهزلة، أو مأساة، وللدقة "مأهاة" (جمع بين مأساة وملهاة، كما في تراجي- كوميدي). أما من يقصف الناس بالبراميل المتفجرة، ويجوّعهم، ويشرّدهم، ويسطو على أملاكهم... ويعرض نفسه للاستفتاء بعد ذلك، فهو كمن ينتخب له شعباً بتقتيل الأغلبية وتشريدها. كان من شأن التخويف، وحده، أن يفعل فعله في الماضي القريب في كسر إرادة الأغلبية. أما، هنا، فيختار الديكتاتور "الأغلبية" التي تلائمه، بدل أن تختاره؛ وذلك بتشريد الأغلبية، وقتلها وتجويعها. ليس شعبه من ينتخبه، بل ينتخب هو لنفسه شعباً بالمجازر. هذه ليست انتخابات، ولا تصلح لها حتى اجتهادات في تركيب التسمية مثل "المأهاة". كل هذا لا يكفي. لأنها ببساطة أسوأ من ذلك. إنها استمرار المجزرة بوسائل أخرى. وليس من حقّ أحد أن يتعامل معها بشكل آخر.
"As the violence in Syria rages on, rebel forces struck another blow against the government by detonating a 60-ton bomb below an army base, according to reports.
Video of the massive explosion shows an obliteration of the government stronghold. Rebel leaders say they used a tunnel more than a half-mile long to pack explosives below the Wadi al-Deif base, according to Reuters.
Syria's devastating civil war has raged for years, pitting government forces representing President Bashar al-Assad against rebel fighters. Reuters reports the rebels have stepped up guerrilla attacks against army strongholds, including the base and a hotel base where government fighters stay.
Control of strategic locations has volleyed between the sides since the civil war evolved from a peaceful Arab Spring protest movement in 2011.
But it's the civilians who are paying the true price. An estimated 200 people are killed every day, with about 150,000 killed overall, and 2.7 million people -- an astounding 12 percent of Syria's population -- are refugees from the fighting."
Statement by Civil Society Organizations on Need for Justice
(New York) – Over one hundred civil society groups from around the world issued the following statement today to urge the United Nations Security Council to approve a resolution to refer the situation in Syria to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court:
We, the undersigned civil society groups, urge United Nations Security Council members to approve a draft resolution supported by a broad coalition of countries that would refer the situation in Syria to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
More than three years into a conflict that has claimed well over 100,000 lives, according to the United Nations, atrocity crimes are being committed with complete impunity by all sides in the conflict, with no end in sight.
Neither Syrian authorities nor the leaders of non-state armed groups have taken any meaningful steps to ensure accountability for past and ongoing grave human rights crimes. The failure to hold those responsible for these violations to account has only fueled further atrocities by all sides. Against this background, we believe the ICC is the forum most capable of effectively investigating and prosecuting the people who bear the greatest responsibility for serious crimes and of offering a measure of justice for victims in Syria.
The latest report from the UN’s Syria Commission of Inquiry, published on March 5, 2014, also found that all sides to the Syria conflict continued to commit serious crimes under international law and held that the Security Council was failing to take action to end the state of impunity. The commission, which has published seven in-depth reports since its establishment in August 2011, recommended that the Security Council give the ICC a mandate to investigate abuses in Syria
The need for accountability in Syria through the ICC has likewise been supported by more than 60 UN member countries, representing all regions of world, including 10 of the current members of the Security Council. We urge all Security Council members to heed this call for justice. Other countries should publicly support the draft resolution and warn Russia and China against using their veto power to obstruct accountability for violations by all sides.
As a permanent international court with a mandate to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity when national authorities are unable or unwilling to do so, the ICC was created to address exactly the type of situation that exists in Syria today. Though the court's work can be only one piece of the larger accountability effort needed in Syria, it is a crucial first step.
We therefore strongly urge Security Council members to urgently act to fill the accountability gap in Syria. The people of Syria cannot afford further disappointment or delay.
Co-signing organizations in alphabetical order
Action des Chrétiens pour l'Abolition de la Torture, France
Advocates for Public International Law, Uganda
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, Egypt
Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Australia
Act for Peace, Australia
Arab Coalition for Sudan, Sudan
Arab Program for Human Rights Activists,Egypt
Arab-European Center Of Human Rights And International Law, Norway
Arab Foundation for Development and Citizenship, United Kingdom
Andalus Institute for Tolerance and anti-Violence Studies, Egypt
Benin Coalition for the International Criminal Court, Benin
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Egypt
Campaña Colombiana Contra Minas, Colombia
Center for Media Studies and Peacebuilding, Liberia
Child Soldiers International, United Kingdom
Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Belgium
Club des Amis du Droit du Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo
Coalition Ivoirienne pour la Cour Penale Internationale, Cote d'Ivoire
Colombian Commission of Jurists, Colombia
Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, South Sudan
Conflict Monitoring Center, Pakistan
Congress of National Minorities of Ukraine, Ukraine
Comité Catholique Contre la Faim et Pour le Développement - Terre Solidaire, France
Comision Mexicana de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos, Mexico
Comision de Derechos Humanos, Peru
CSO Network, Western Kenya
Dawlaty Foundation, Lebanon
Democracia Global, Argentina
East Africa Law Society, Tanzania
Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, Egypt
Elman Peace and Human Rights Center, Somalia
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network
FN-forbundet / Danish United Nations Association, Denmark
Franciscans International
Fundación de Antropología Forense, Guatemala
Friends For a NonViolent World, United States
Georgian Young Lawyers Association, Georgia
Genocide Alert, Germany
GlobalSolutions.org, United States
Global Justice Center, United States
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, United States
Gulf Centre for Human Rights, Denmark
Horiyat for Development and Human Rights, Libya
Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation, The Netherlands
Humanitarian Law Center Kosovo, Kosovo
Human Rights First, United States
Human Rights Watch
International Justice Project, United States
International Commission of Jurists, Kenya
International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law, Nigeria
International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, United States
International Federation of Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture, France
International Center for Policy and Conflict, Kenya
Insan, Lebanon
Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, United States
Justice Without Frontiers, Lebanon
Kenya Human Rights Commission, Kenya
La Coalition Burundaise pour la Cour Penale Internationale, Burundi
Lira NGO Forum, Uganda
Ligue pour la Paix, les Droits de l'Homme et la Justice, Democratic Republic of Congo
Media Foundation for West Africa, Ghana
Minority Rights Group International, United Kingdom
National Youth Action, Inc., Liberia
No Peace Without Justice, Italy
Norwegian People's Aid, Norway
Optimum Travail du Burkina, Burkina Faso
Open Society Justice Initiative
Pakistan Body Count, Pakistan
PAX, The Netherlands
Pax Christi International
Parliamentarians for Global Action
El Equipo Peruano de Antropología Forense, Peru
Physicians for Human Rights, United States
Pak Institute for Peace Studies, Pakistan
REDRESS, United Kingdom
Reporters without Borders, France
Rencontre africaine pour la défense des droits de l’homme (Raddho-Guinée), Guinea
Reseau Equitas, Cote D’Ivoire
Samir Kassir Foundation, Lebanon
Southern Africa Litigation Centre, South Africa
South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law, South Africa
Syrian Network for Human Rights, United Kingdom
Syria Justice & Accountability Center, The Netherlands
Syrian Nonviolence Movement, France
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, United Kingdom
Synergie des ONGs Congolaises pour la lutte contre les Violences Sexuelles, Democratic Republic of Congo
Synergie des ONGs Congolaises pour les Victimes, Democratic Republic of Congo
The International Federation for Human Rights, France
The Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, Sierra Leone
The Association of Political Scientists, Greece
The Sentinel Project for Genocide Prevention, Canada
The Igarape Institute, Brazil
The Arab World Center for Democratic Development, Jordan
The United Nations Association of Sweden, Sweden
United to End Genocide, United States
Vision GRAM-International, Canada
Violations Documentation Center, Syria
Wake Up Genève for Syria, Switzerland
West Africa Civil Society Institute, Ghana
West African Bar Association, Nigeria
World Federalist Movement, Canada
World Federation of United Nations Associations
Womens's International League for Peace and Freedom, Switzerland
A closer look at the diplomatic playing field ahead and the South African history behind – plus blunt statements from a rising set of Israeli right-wingers – reveals a different blueprint
John Kerry said he was sorry for claiming that Israel was at risk of becoming an 'apartheid state' and that it was 'a word best left out of the debate'. But is it? Photograph: Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty
The howls of outrage from the pro-Israel lobby are probably the best indicator that John Kerry and his chief Middle East mediator, Martin Indyk, had it right.
Organizations claiming to speak for America's Jews – mostly too far to the right to be representative of most of them – reeled in horror after Kerry dared to say it two weeks ago: if Israel doesn't reach a deal on an independent Palestine it risks becoming an "apartheid state".
The second blow came a week later, when Indyk said that Binyamin Netanyahu's government had "sabotaged" the latest negotiations with another surge in Jewish settlement construction in the occupied territories and large-scale expropriation of land that does not belong to Israel.
Israel called the envoy a hypocrite and blamed him for the failure of the latest talks. The secretary of state apologized for using the A-word, saying it was "best left out of the debate" in the US – even if it is used in Israel itself, including by two former prime ministers to sound similar warnings to Kerry's.
But is "apartheid" really a word best left forgotten?
Kerry's comment injected some unusually blunt and much-needed honesty to the public debate in his own country about what is really going on in Israel. Tellingly, Kerry's carefully worded apology said he accepted that Israel does not intend to become an apartheid state, which is not at all the same thing as saying it won't become one.
After years of traveling through the West Bank and South Africa, it's blindingly clear to me: the ever-expanding settlements are, indeed, carving out the geography of West Bank apartheid. And if Kerry was wrong, it was only in casting his warning as a prediction rather than about a present reality.
Israel's intent in the West Bank is an issue that has largely been off-limits in Washington. The pro-Israel lobby, with some help from Congress, has played an important role in determining the boundaries of criticism. It works tirelessly to portray Israeli governments as moderate and deeply committed to a just peace – if only the Palestinians were, too. Those who suggest otherwise are accused of "hating Israel" (or worse).
With their forthright statements, Kerry and Indyk cut some of the ground from under the weary mantra that settlements are not an obstacle to peace, that anyone who dares utter "apartheid" is an anti-semite. Kerry's use of the A-word stung because it challenged Israel's bedrock insistence that the occupation is solely driven by security and not an intent to discriminate or dominate.
But Israel needed challenging. For all their public professions of horror, influential members of Netanyahu's party and its allies were happy enough to see the peace talks collapse – and to have an excuse to scorn Kerry. They see an opportunity to diminish the American role, abandon lip service to the two-state solution and, eventually, move toward the very outcome Kerry warned about.
Danny Danon, the increasingly powerful chairman of the central committee of Netanyahu's Likud party and Israel's deputy defence minister, called Kerry's comment "unacceptable". But Danon openly opposes his own prime minister's professed support for a two-state solution – as, apparently, do a majority of Likud members who made him party chairman because he promised to stop Netanyahu from agreeing to a Palestinian state. Strange as it may seem, Israel's prime minister isn't trusted by much of his own party. Last week, Likud activists voted to increase Danon's powers as party chairman.
In an interview late last year, Danon told me that there is not going to be a Palestinian state, and that Netanyahu shouldn't worry what the Americans think:
I think that's why we have to do what is good for Israel and not to think about what sounds good in Washington.
Danon spoke of "managing the conflict" in the short term by maintaining the occupation, while "improving the way of living for the Palestinians".
After that, his aim might be drawn straight out of the South African playbook: Danon says bluntly that he wants to take the bulk of West Bank land – Judea and Samaria, as it's known in Israel – while ridding the Jewish state of responsibility for governing the mass of Palestinians. "Long-term, I am not talking about annexing the Palestinians. My goal is to annex – or 'apply sovereignty', as I prefer to call it – to the land in Judea and Samaria with the minimum amount of Palestinians," he told me. "So, if I am doing the map, yes, I want the majority of the land with the minimum amount of Palestinians."
That was, essentially, South Africa's 1960s blueprint for the supposedly self-governing Bantustan homelands intended to rid white South Africa of millions of black people while taking the best of their land. I saw that plan in force in South Africa so I put it to Danon that not only is his policy similar but that the end result might look much the same: a patchwork of Arab towns and cities in the West Bank surrounded by Israel. He didn't deny it.
"As long as there is enough place to develop, then it doesn't have to look good," Danon said. "You want the well-being of Palestinians to be good, so I would look at the actual life of the people rather than how it will look on the map."
Danon is not alone in this vision. Other members of Netanyahu's coalition, such as the economic minister Naftali Bennett, are equally determined there will not be a Palestinian state. By comparison, the voices countering them, such as the justice minister and chief Israeli peace negotiator, look increasingly beleaguered.
Others on the Israeli right would rather bring the Americans around to their way of thinking. Dani Dayan is the former leader of the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories, the Yesha council, and now its foreign affairs envoy. He happened to be in Washington when Kerry made his controversial remark, working to wean American politicians off the "peace process".
Dayan tells me that Kerry is "damaging American interests" by pursuing talks that will inevitably fail and, in doing so, that he's making the US look weak. That plays well with some Republicans.
But Dayan admits the next step is a difficult sell in Washington: he wants the US to abandon what he describes as the illusion of a two state solution. He said that what Palestinians want more than a country is a better lifestyle. So, according to the plan, Israel should keep the occupation going for another couple of decades or more, just do it better– by improving living standards with better education, job opportunities and development. Then everyone can get back to talking about a political future. In the meantime, the expansion of the settlements will have marched on.
"Of course we will keep building," he said.
To be sure, Danny Danon is not Israel's prime minister, and Dani Dayan represents settlers, a group that accounts for only about one in 10 of Israel's 6m Jews. But their visions of a future for Israel – and the occupied territories that, like it or not, bear many of the hallmarks of apartheid – is gaining ground. Now it has the kind of political energy behind it that once drove the left and peace groups in Israel.
The powerful lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), led the attack on Kerry, calling his apartheid comment "offensive and inappropriate" and conjuring up a Disney-fied version of Israel as a "shining light for freedom". With the Republicans piling on, Kerry bowed to the political reality and took a step back.
But the US secretary of state saw the future far more clearly than his critics.
"In the final part of our extended interview, Glenn Greenwald reflects on the Pulitzer Prize, adversarial journalism and the corporate media’s response to his reporting on Edward Snowden’s leaked National Security Agency documents. "We knew that once we started publishing not one or two stories, but dozens of stories … that not just the government, but even fellow journalists were going to start to look at what we were doing with increasing levels of hostility and to start to say, 'This doesn't actually seem like journalism anymore,’ because it’s not the kind of journalism that they do," Greenwald says. "It doesn’t abide by these unspoken rules that are designed to protect the government."...."
Please, tell me more about your "Resistance" project, and how you are fighting the good fight against imperialism and occupation and cultural hegemony. About how you think the necktie is a remnant of the uniform worn by the old Knights Templar (it's not but I like to see you keep bringing that up). Tell me more about how the freedom of the individual, this so-called negative and positive freedom you keep liking to invoke, is so, so, very important to the historic struggles of the brown man as he shakes off the yoke of his oppressor. Tell me about your amazing plan to liberate Jerusalem, for the dignity of all Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims (no dignity to any of them until then, of course). Tell me about your glorious leaders and martyrs, about "keeping your word" with a brutal dictator who has butchered the Syrian people just so that he can be a president like his Daddy.
You'll only be happy to, I am sure. But right now there is something you're not telling me. Right now the so-called "Zionist Enemy" has, through their courts and laws, imprisoned a former president on charges of rape, and that there is a former prime minister who will now serve six years in prison on charges of bribery. Maybe they're not as good at picking their leaders as you are. And you definitely don't want to tell me about how your torture chambers make anything the villainous "Empire" can think of, including Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib - yes, especially them - look like Disney land in comparison. You don't want to tell me that your pet dictator and the militias you send to support him have killed more Syrians than everybody killed by US drone strikes since 2001. That they have displaced in three years more Syrians than the "Zionist enemy" ever did when it took part of Palestine in 1948, and then the rest of it in 1967. I guess these are things you don't want to tell me about...
On Reality Asserts Itself, Ali Abunimah, founder of Electronic Intifada, says that Palestinians need to know that even in a country with formal legal equality, the reality can mean mass incarceration, economic inequality and racism
A wounded man is treated at a makeshift hospital following a reported bombardment with explosive-packed "barrel bombs" by Syrian government forces. Photograph: Zein Al-Rifai/AFP/Getty Images
Syrian government forces have systematically attacked the healthcare system in opposition-held areas of the country over the past three years, resulting in the deaths of more than 460 health professionals and widespread destruction to hospitals and clinics, according to a major study.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a US-based international NGO, has found that government forces were to blame for 90% of the confirmed 150 attacks on 124 facilities from the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011 to March 2014, as plotted on an interactive map that will be regularly updated.
"The systematic nature of these attacks reflects the government's indifference to the health and life of civilians, which has created a public health crisis that will haunt Syria for years," said Erin Gallagher, PHR's director of emergency investigations and response. "Doctors and nurses who are committed to caring for everyone, regardless of political beliefs, are being killed while trying to save lives under gruelling circumstances."
According to UN estimates, 245,000 people in Syria are living in besieged areas, cut off from food, water, and medical supplies. Almost half of all public hospitals have been partially or totally destroyed. The overall death toll in the crisis so far exceeds 150,000. Up to 2.5 million people have fled abroad and 9 million people inside Syria need help in what the UN has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis in modern times.
"As doctors, we are often perceived to be the enemy because we treat everyone regardless of their political views," said a physician in Aleppo, who did not want to be identified for security reasons. "We take great risks to do our jobs at a time when our skills are greatly needed. War has ravaged our country's health system, and attacking hospitals and doctors has made this horrible situation even worse."
Attacks on medical professionals, facilities, and supplies during armed conflict violate the Geneva conventions. When the attacks are widespread or systematic, they constitute a crime against humanity.
"Syria is among the worst examples of targeting medical care as a weapon of war," said Donna McKay, PHR's executive director. "We must not allow these rampant abuses to become the new norm in conflict."
PHR said it hopes the information in its map will prompt the UN security council to implement the resolution demanding increased humanitarian aid to people living in besieged areas, including medical supplies. PHR also calls on all parties to the conflict to demilitarise hospitals and honour international humanitarian laws protecting medical personnel and facilities.
Syrian government forces are responsible for the majority of violations, but the map indicates that attacks by anti-government rebels are increasing, with nine of the 10 attacks committed by opposition groups occurring since March 2013.
PHR collected the data from sources inside Syria as well as open sources in English and Arabic, including UN, government, and non-governmental reports; news articles; and social media. Given the volatile conditions on the ground, PHR was unable to collect comprehensive data on all the attacks and killings of healthcare providers. PHR identified 150 attacks using multiple sources to corroborate the data.
