We Are Many: a unique documentary about the Iraq war worldwide protests

Yesterday I went to watch the only screening in Montreal of the documentary about the worldwide protests against the Iraq war on February 15, 2003. The documentary is directed by Amir Amirani.  The main producers are Wael Kabbani & Omid Djalili.

I still don't understand why the producers chose to screen their documentary at the Montreal Just for Laughs festival, because one of the producers, Omid Djalili, is a comedian? It hurts the documentary more than anything else.

I have to admit I was looking forward and waiting to see this movie and think it is a necessary movie.

The documentary lasts one hour and 50 minutes.  It starts with 911 and ends in 2013 with the vote in the UK not to authorize war on Syria. It is well documented and edited.  It describes well the run up to the Iraq war and the social forces that brought us the protests on this unique day of Februray, 15, 2003.

The director and producer had access to the main protagonists in the anti-war movement and to many prominent experts and politicians who voiced their opposition to the war, some before, others, after the war. It has footage of parliamentary sessions about the Iraq war in the UK.

For someone who went to the protests, recalling this moment through the doucmentary can be quite emotional as the documentary succeeds in recreating the context.

The documentary is flawless as long as it stays within the main subject, but it does not stay within the limits of its main subject, and this is an error in my opinion because it misses on some aspects of the Iraq war and the anti-war movement that were not adressed.

The documentary does not adress the failure of the anti-war movement to act on the Libya invasion in particular and the failure of their movement in general.  It does not even mention Libya.

The documentary does not address Israel’s and the Neocons’ role in the push for the war on Iraq.  It even manages to show an Israeli flag in an anti-war protest at the end when Israel’s anti Iraq war protests were marginal.  Israel and its role in this war are totally absent from the movie.

The documentary rightly attributes the vote in UK not to go to war on Syria in 2013 as being a consequence of the changing public mood after the Iraq war. Although this is partial since it is Libya and its Islamist winter that were on the minds during this vote.

The documentary branches to the Arab Spring and the protests in Egypt and tries to establish a link between the Iraq war protests and the 2011 protests in Egypt.  This attempt is unconvincing and part of many attempts to own the Arab Spring. 

Highlights:

Footage of the protests on February 15, 2003.  Although they were insufficient in my opinion.

The resignation of Robin Cook in the house of parliament before the Iraq war vote.

John Le Carre saying about the Iraq war : This is a crime of a century

Bush jocking about Iraq’s WMD at the 2004 Correspondants' dinner association with the press hilarious is a sordid reminder of the complicity of the press in the Iraq war crime.

I recommend this documentary and hope it will gain a larger audience. 

Israel leaving dangerous munitions near Palestinian homes

The Israeli army has been accused of leaving dangerous munitions near Palestinian homes after two boys were seriously burnt when they picked up a mysterious silver canister which exuded toxic white fumes.

A second canister, discovered nearby less than a week later, was destroyed by the army in a controlled explosion.

The army does not deny leaving the devices, but would not identify them and suggested they were left over after training exercises. But the area where they were found does not feature on an army map of designated training areas and the canisters appeared new and unweathered.

Israeli crimes go unnoticed and when noticed and published they go unpunished. We won't hear a statement from secretary Clinton about that. The UN won't convene and we wont hear a condemnation from them. The US, Israel and the UN are busy promoting democracy in the ME except in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Jordan and few others. So why should we complain?

Israel buries the Goldstone report with Goldstone's approval

The Goldstone report has infuriated Israel who launched a sustained attack on the report and on the south African judge (read also 'Anatomy of a smear campaign').

Finally, this sustained attack has come to bear fruit and make Goldstone discredit his own report by retracting some of his most damaging accusations against Israel.

Goldstone has caved to pressure and he should not have been appointed in the first place but we know that his appointment must have been decided because as a Jew and a lifelong zionist Goldstone might have spared the UN the accusation of anti-semitism or anti-Israel bias. And because he is a south African Jew, and south African Jews and Israel are known to have collaborated with the Apartheid regime, the UN has introduced, intentionally or unintentionally, the possibility for the report to be questioned based on the moral grounds of his main author.

Israel can now dream of restoring its credibility through a PR campaign but I am not anxious about that because the only purpose of the backtracking of the report is to make Israel's leaders and soldiers immune to international prosecution, not to change the image of Israel.

Angry Arab has commented this news item and he makes two interesting points:
- Goldstone as a man is different from the Goldstone report who was made by a team. And so even if Goldstone retracts, its does not mean that the report should be retracted. It only tell you that Goldstone is morally corrupt, hence his initial appointment by the UN with the full knowledge of his ambiguous moral status: Jew to be credible and south African Jew to become less credible when time comes
- Israel has come to exist because of war crimes committed by zionists and Israel continues to commit war crimes. It is not only in this instance covered by the report that Israel committed war crimes.

UPDATE: The NYTimes refused to publish Goldstone's retraction which he submitted to the Times before publishing it in the washington post.

UPDATE: Goldstone's Gaza report stands according to a UN lawyer who sat with Goldstone on the committee investigating war crimes in Gaza.

More on Goldstone:
Paving the way for more Cast lead style operations by Israel: but will they find another Apartheid era judge to endorse the Israeli Apartheid state in its crimes?

Alain Gresh on Goldstone (in French).

UN human rights council backs the Goldstone Report

Just in...

Goldstone's report accused both sides of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity and said there may even be individual criminal responsibility over the killing of civilians. Around 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the three-week war.Goldstone's recommendations were that the human rights council should endorse his findings and then pass his report to the UN security council, the general assembly and the prosecutor of the international criminal court. He said both Israel and Hamas should be given six months to conduct their own "appropriate investigations that are independent and in conformity with international standards". If either side failed to investigate properly, he said, the security council should pass the case on to the prosecutor of the international criminal court.

From NYT's Roger Cohen:The ordinary Israel

Israel threatening the international community with war unless the Goldstone report is discarded by the UN

Zionists are quick to blame others for the lack of peace prospects in Palestine. They blamed Arabs, Palestinians, terrorists, the UN, and now they are blaming a 575 pages report for the UN on Israeli war crimes in Gaza. They wanted to bury it with the help of Mr. Nobel peace prize 09 and the collaboration of the illegitimate Mahmoud Abbas but they did not succeed. Palestinians were so angry with Abbas that he had to reverse his position in order to retain a semblance of legitimacy among his people.
Palestinians' thirst for justice can only be measured by the amount of injustice that was inflicted upon them by the zionist state and its acolytes. This time they are determined and hey want a clear condemnation from the international community of war crimes. A Jewish south african judge wrote a report for the UN on war crimes in Gaza with one concern, justice, not politics. But this is precisely what is infuriating Israel. Israel's attitude toward war and peace has become so extreme that it is alienating many in the Jewish diaspora and creating fracture lines. I can't wait to see these Israeli soldiers, commanders, politicians, judged for what they have done to the people of my region...And I don't care if Hamas has to be judged too. I have never been for any party, I am only for those who were dispossessed and are being daily oppressed by Zionists...

Israel says that if the case against it gains steam, the Jewish state will not be able to make the wide-ranging concessions necessary for any peace deal.

This is a bad argument since everybody can argue, based on the history of the Jewish state, the contrary: that Israel was never interested in peace. However, if Israel is genuinely determined to make peace, which comes with land concessions, so let them deliver first and then see what to make of the report.

Human rights and USraeli bullying

The UN human rights council in Geneva had been due to vote today on whether to pass the Goldstone report to the UN security council for further action.

That vote will now be delayed until the council meets next, in March next year.

Israel had strongly rejected the findings of the Goldstone report as biased, even though it also criticised the actions of Hamas.

The US administration said it had "very serious concerns" about Goldstone's recommendations, which included a call for the UN security council to investigate and raised the possibility of investigation by the international criminal court and judges from individual countries.

The Palestinians do not have a seat on the 47-member human rights council, but Arab and Muslim countries with council seats had been expected to push for the report to be endorsed.

The Palestinian reversal came after "intense diplomacy" by Washington, which told the Palestinians that going ahead with the vote would harm efforts to restart peace talks with the Israelis, according to diplomats quoted by news agencies.

Another fresh evidence for Israeli war crimes in Gaza

"On the way we saw tanks and soldiers," said Omar Abu Halima, 18. "When we saw them [the Israeli soldiers] they told us to stop. After we stopped they fired at us. They killed my cousin Mattar. My cousin Muhammad was wounded and later died."

In another case – also in al-Atatra – two women holding white flags stepped out of a house that the IDF was demolishing to tell the soldiers that civilians were inside. "We opened the door and a sniper fired at us from a house," said Zakiya al-Qanu, 55. "Ibtisam was hit and I turned to go back inside and another bullet grazed my back. Ibtisam died in the doorway."...
..."These casualties comprise a fraction of the Palestinian civilians wounded and killed," the report says.

"But they stand out because, in each case, the victims were standing, walking or in slowly moving vehicles with other unarmed civilians, and were trying to convey their non-combatant status by waving a white flag."

HRW's press release

Complete report