The Occupy Oakland protest took another violent turn in the dusk hours today when protesters went head-to-head with riot police after a series of defiant actions.  According to the Associated Press, some of the protesters  “broke into a vacant building, shattered windows, sprayed graffiti and set fires” as well as “threw concrete chunks, metal pipes, lit roman candles and Molotov cocktails.” Police indicated that an estimated 3,000  protesters had gathered earlier in the day at the port, the 5th busiest in the nation, “effectively shut[ting it] down.”

Many of the Occupy Oakland movement protesting at the city’s port declared their solidarity with the Longshoremen’s union in Washington state.  In September, longshoremen Port of Longview in Washington stormed a grain shipping terminal, cut the brake lines on rail cars and held security personnel hostage, resulting in violent clashes between union workers and police.  The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on August 31st had issued a complaint against the union, condemning its “violent and aggressive” actions.

From the Monthly Review, John Hamilton interviews Oakland, CA International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10 member and co-chair of the Million Worker March Movement, Clarence Thomas (not the SCOTUS Clarence Thomas), who explains why the Occupy movement is supporting the ILWU and closing of the port:

The partial transcript from Monthly Review is below:

“One of the reasons why they are doing it is because they are trying to defend ILWU workers in Longview, Washington, who are facing a behemoth of agribusiness, EGT.  The driving force behind EGT is a leading agribusiness concern called Bunge. . . .  Longshoremen have a debt of gratitude to the people who have organized this action today. . . .  30% of the funding of our pensions comes from that grain operation in the Pacific Northwest.  This is an attempt to rupture the jurisdiction of longshore workers that we’ve had for over 77 years in this country.  Wall Street is on the move, on the waterfront, looking for new profits, and the community are standing with the ILWU.

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Big Government has already established that Lisa Fithian is playing an integral part in the planning, organization,and execution of the nation-wide “Occupy” protests and other union demonstrations and “direct actions.”

The Chicago Teachers’ Union has reported that Fithian trained its members, together with the Teamsters, for the Occupy Chiacgo protests. Evidence on the UAW website also shows that Fithian recenlty led members in a march to “close” a branch of designated villain, Bank of America. Fithian is also referred to as an “SEIU Commander” leading activists in a recent march on bankers in Boston.

Now, Big Government’s continued investigation of Lisa Fithian’s activities reveals another badge of dishonor to add to her shameful resume:  Israel-hater.

The “Occupy” protests have already shown startlingly brazen and unapologetic displays of antisemitism, and this newly-discovered footage of Fithian, a key driving force behind the protests, may help explain why hatred toward “Zionist bankers” keeps bubbling up to the surface at Occupy demonstrations across the country.

The footage above was shot on May 31, 2010 and features Lisa Fithian shouting through a megaphone, accusing the state of Israel of “slaughter[ing] Palestinians every single day.”  As Fithian, organizer of the Democratic Party’s new favorite mass protest, looks on, a menacing man decked out in a Palestinian keffiyeh leads her activists in the chant:

“Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea!” (more…)

I was invited to speak on 21st century missile threats and defenses at the recent 7th annual Jerusalem Conference, 2010, held at the Regency Hotel on Mt. Scopus, in the city of David, but I was pleased as well to hear a wide variety of experts (speeches are delivered in English and Hebrew with convenient wireless earphone translation headsets).

This gathering is rooted in historic Zionism, the meaning of the land of Israel, and the spiritual meaning of Jerusalem. Many Israeli statesman and American political leaders come to address current security crises, as well as existential questions ever-present for the Jewish state still facing war.

The Palestinian Front

On the Palestinian front, many now believe that the idea of a small PLO state within the 1967 borders, to include Gaza, major parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, has lost its appeal within Araby.

Radical Islamism, unrealistic expectations, and daily incitement against Israel in mosques, the media, and madrassas, have all added up to another era of Palestinian intransigence and irredentism.

Unfortunately, the drive for Palestinian independence has not been equated with responsible state building leading to the kind of sovereignty that would help the Palestinian people themselves.

Palestinians universally wish to cast Israel off their shoulders, but this does not mean they support a fair division of land, or a desire to live in peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state in the middle east.

Israeli journalist and commentator Ehud Ya’ari stated that the Palestinians have now fully collapsed into the unwilling arms of the Israelis, and that Israel must urgently solve the seemingly unsolvable.

Israel is today faced with a reverse annexation: It is the Palestinians who have decided to annex Israel, because Israel did not annex them first.

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