Cutting Through the Confusion About Israel/Palestine

Richard Forer – Cutting Through the Confusion About Israel/Palestine
June 25, 2010
By Richard Forer*


In the spring of 2009, I was a member of a group that put up a billboard criticizing Israel's lethal use of force during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. A year later, the group received a letter from a college student – referred to as "J" below – asking it to remove the billboard. The student said that he had researched the Gaza invasion and had concluded that both sides were equally responsible for its consequences. He felt that the billboard unfairly placed the blame for all of the destruction solely at the feet of Israel. I replied to the student with the following letter, some of which contains passages from my forthcoming book.

Hi J,

Thank you for your letter. First, I assume you are Jewish. Is that correct? Before I get into the specifics of your letter I want to talk about a few things you might find interesting. I do so because everyone involved in the Israel-Palestine issue has the potential to change the world from an arena of Us against Them into one of peace and respect. But that requires undeviating self-honesty, which leads to compassion, clarity and understanding. Most people do not take up the challenge of looking deeply within for fear of what they might find. They revert to the safety of their presumed identity and the beliefs and images that make up and reinforce their identity. Attachment to a limited or exclusive identity always carries with it the consciousness of Us against Them. The consciousness of Us against Them requires that there be unending conflict.

Perhaps you have it within yourself to look beyond what you currently see as all sides of the issue. I hope so because the lives of those who suffer on either side of the conflict depend upon people like you. Peace is only possible when we care for people on both sides equally. We do not have to like the other but we have to recognize that he is just as entitled to self-determination as us, that he has the same human needs for respect and dignity as do we. We also have to begin to understand and ask why the other acts as he does. Does his motivation arise in a vacuum or does it arise in relationship to our own behaviour. Have we played roles in inciting his behavior? Until we take responsibility for the parts we play in the drama of human suffering and as it relates to the Israel-Palestine conflict, peace has no chance; and the people we claim to care about will continue to suffer and die, now and into the bloody future, in Israel, in Palestine and throughout the world. They will die and suffer because our true goal is not their wellbeing; our true goal is to maintain our presumed identity; it is to confirm the beliefs and images that we incorrectly associate with our personal and collective identity.

As long as we believe in a world of Us against Them we will see a world of Us against Them. Our emotions, our attitudes toward others, the way we interpret events, what we notice and what we don't notice will mirror our world view, thereby confirming and reinforcing it. In short, individually and collectively, we create the world we live in. Thus, the great struggle all of us must take on, if we truly want peace and respect between peoples, is to transform our consciousness from Us against Them to one of tolerance and understanding.

To be honest your letter can only fully be answered with a comprehensive look at the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The book I have completed would be a good reply but that is beyond the scope of our discussion for now. Obviously you are very passionate and concerned about this situation. With that in mind I have included at the end of this letter a list of some well-researched books on the subject. Most of these writers have come to similar conclusions. Most of them are Jewish. Cypel and Hirst are famous journalists from France and England respectively. Cypel lived in Israel for 10 years and his father was a Zionist leader. Ben-Ami, a historian and former minister of foreign affairs and internal security, was Barak's chief negotiator at Camp David. [Ilan] Pappe, [Avi] Shlaim, [Tom] Segev and [Benny] Morris are all famous Israeli historians and among the group known as "new" or "revisionist" historians because of their access to the primary archives and their refutation of common Zionist myths. [Tanya] Reinhart and [Baruch] Kimmerling were two of the most renowned and courageous sociologist/historians in Israeli academia. [Mary Elizabeth] King is an expert on collective non-violent action who has worked with Martin Luther King (no relation) and Jimmy Carter. [Clayton] Swisher was a VIP security guard at the Camp David talks in 2000. He interviewed many of the participants. [Anna] Baltzer, an American, is one of the most compassionate people I have ever had the honour to meet. She is brilliant, fair and honest. She cares about Israelis as well as Palestinians.

And even though he is particularly controversial, Norman Finkelstein, despite his blunt critique of Israel's defenders, is included because of his genius and meticulous research. You can watch him on YouTube. I researched a great deal of the claims he makes by reviewing his sources. In every case he checks out perfectly. I saw no distortion, obfuscation or deceit. Additionally, one cannot ignore the sources he cites. Truthfully, if one wants to criticize Israel, deceit is unnecessary. The words and confessions of Israeli leaders are more than enough.

Again, before I respond to the points you make about Gaza, let me tell you a little about me. I was born a few months before Israel declared its statehood. Both of my parents were first generation Americans. My mother lost 17 relatives in the Holocaust. My father and his family never discussed anything about that horror. My younger brother is president of one of the largest Jewish congregations on the east coast. My identical twin brother is an ultra-Orthodox Jew who lived for a few years in Israel. Both of his daughters are married with children and live in Jerusalem. Some of their friends are militant Jews from Hebron and other messianic communities, who believe that the sixth commandment, which they translate as "Thou shalt not commit murder," cannot be violated by killing any Arab, since Arabs are inherently predisposed to want to murder Jews; and Arabs are not human anyway. One of my brother's sons recently served in the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]. I have a friend who lives in Ma'ale Adumim, in occupied territory outside of Jerusalem. She was a member of Kach (Meir Kahane's group) for 15 years. She now holds Palestinian-Israeli dialogue groups and prefers a one-state solution.

I was extremely "pro-Israel" my entire lifetime. I was utterly supportive of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006. I joined AIPAC and donated to the Jewish Federation. Midway through the war in Lebanon, after arguments with close friends who were critical of Israel, I decided to actually engage myself in a real study of the Israel-Arab conflict. My purpose was to alleviate my suffering and to find more historical arguments to refute the claims my friends were making. Up to that point in time I had only read Joan Peters's highly influential book From Time Immemorial, a book that I learned has been universally debunked and called a "hoax", "phony", "worthless", "recycled Zionist propaganda", "previously modified and discredited Zionist propaganda", etc. by scholars from Israel, Europe, the US and the Jewish World Congress. I had used Peters's research to justify my claim that there never were a Palestinian people; that Israel had always treated the so-called Palestinians kindly and had always bent over backwards for peace.

During my research that began in the midst of the Second Lebanon War I chose to study Jewish scholars only, knowing that if I studied the subject from the perspective of any Arab or Muslim scholar I would suspect bias. My study became a full-time and daily practice to this very day. As mentioned above, many of the scholars I studied had access to the most primary of sources, among them the Israeli state, IDF, Ben-Gurion, Haganah, Palmach and Central Zionist archives. I read the arguments of many Israeli officials, including a number of heads of Shin Bet (Israel's internal security agency) and I read numerous respected international publications (none Arab), including the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz and Yediot Ahronoth. I also studied the websites of the Israeli ministries of defence, internal security, foreign affairs and health as well as respected human rights organizations such as B'Tselem, HaMoked (Centre for the Defence of the individual), Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, OCHA (the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), UNICEF, the International Red Cross, National Lawyers Guild, Goldstone report, etc., all of which (including the two Israeli NGOs) at one time I would have suspected of being anti-Semitic. I read from both sides of the divide, including Alan Dershowitz, Aaron David Miller, Dennis Ross, Shlomo Ben-Ami, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and more. If I wasn't sure who a source was I checked it out. I discarded anyone whose claims I could not verify through further research and I discarded anyone who appeared anti-Semitic and/or seemed to be promoting their own prejudices without, at the very least, solid proof from reputable sources. I also randomly checked the sources of virtually all of the articles, books and publications I examined to make sure the author was not taking quotes out of context, was not distorting the real message his source was conveying or was not simply lying. All of the actual historians checked out well; and the human rights organizations, independent of each other are of a very similar mind. I doubt there has ever been a more solidly documented conflict in world history than the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Other than Peters the one author who was clearly distorting history for his own purposes is Alan Dershowitz. Anybody can debunk The Case for Israel. At one time Dershowitz was someone I admired but his spiteful and slanderous participation in the Israel-Palestine issue has only inflamed Zionists and given them apparent justification for their unjustified verbal attacks against not only Palestinians but honest and courageous scholars as well as Jimmy Carter, who is committed to a fair peace between both sides and without whose help in brilliantly brokering the Camp David Accords Israel would not exist in its present form. Remember, Dershowitz is not a historian; he is an attorney and his book is written with the mind of an attorney. He ignores and distorts evidence that could convict his client; and he obfuscates where obfuscation clouds any issue that could also convict his client. Unlike historians who start out with a hypothesis and do research to confirm, modify or deny the hypothesis, and who allow the facts to determine their conclusions, Dershowitz decides on the conclusions and then researches (or not) accordingly. To cite only two examples out of many, on page 184 [of The Case for Israel] he quotes Raji Sourani:

Even Raji Sourani, the director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza and a strident critic of Israel, says that he remains "constantly amazed by the high standards of the legal system [sic]." [Dershowitz cites Greg Myre, "Trial of Palestinian leader focuses attention on Israeli courts," New York Times, 5 May 2003].

Here is the actual quote from the New York Times:

Despite his many frustrations with the Israeli courts, Mr Sourani says he remains "constantly amazed by the high standards of the legal system". "On many issues," he said, "when the courts are dealing with purely Israeli questions, like gay rights, I admire their rulings. But when it comes to the Palestinians, these same people seem to be totally schizophrenic." [emphases added]

On page 42 Dershowitz says the following without citing source material:

The developing clash between the Jews of Palestine, led by David Ben-Gurion, and the Muslims, led by the uncompromising Jew-hater, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was not over whether the Jews or Muslims would control all of Palestine… Instead, it was – realistically viewed – whether the remainder of Palestine was to be given exclusively to the Muslims of Palestine or whether it would be fairly divided between the Jews and the Muslims of Palestine, each of whom effectively controlled certain areas.

What is particularly egregious about this quote, which is nothing more than Dershowitz's own made-up version of history, is that his primary source, Benny Morris, shows that Ben-Gurion's intention was the opposite of what Dershowitz attempts to deceive his reader into believing. Dershowitz quotes Morris's Righteous Victims 59 times in the first 83 pages of his book. He quotes Morris a total of 87 times within the 244 pages of the book. Here is what Morris (who is a Zionist and believes that Palestinians are "psychopaths" and "serial killers") says in Righteous Victims, p.138:

[Weizmann and Ben-Gurion] saw partition as a stepping stone to further expansion and the eventual takeover of the whole of Palestine… [Ben-Gurion] wrote to his son, Amos: ‘[A] Jewish state in part [of Palestine] is not an end, but a beginning… Our possession is important not only for itself … through this we increase our power, and every increase in power facilitates getting hold of the country in its entirety. Establishing a [small] state … will serve as a very potent lever in our efforts to redeem the whole country.

The above passage by Ben-Gurion expresses a common intention that he and the majority of Zionists shared for more than a decade before 1948. Confirmation of this can be found in many books on the subject.

Even though I am going to disagree with you I appreciate the fact that you are doing your own research. One bit of advice that I think is important for everyone is: Do not believe a thing anyone tells you about this issue. Find out for yourself through the most objective research possible, as I did and be sure to do it out of a sense of integrity. Do not demean yourself by selectively researching the subject in order to prove to yourself that what you believe is accurate. Otherwise you will never discover your role in the suffering of others, nor will you discover how to alleviate that suffering. And you will never resolve your own anxiety and suffering. As a Jew you will always be left with the dilemma of victimization: Why does the world not understand my people and why is the world anti-Semitic juxtaposed against compelling evidence that is impossible for all but the willfully deaf and blind to ignore.

J, all that I am going to say here can be found in the many sources I list above or in sources available in my forthcoming book. I cannot divulge these readily available sources at this time because I want to protect the integrity of my book. I also want you to know that I have provided more than 20 Jewish supporters of Israel with evidence similar to what I provide in this letter. I have asked them to examine my evidence and to read one book to either confirm or deny the beliefs they take for granted. Not one has been willing to read a book. Not one was willing to challenge his beliefs. All claim concern for their Jewish brethren, yet none have compassion for the Palestinians. I try to impress upon them that as long as people continue to distort the history of the Israel-Palestine problem and character-assassinate the Palestinian people – as has been going on for over 60 years – peace will not be possible. Their response is to ignore me or accuse me of being anti-Israeli. Denying reality, perpetuating an illegal and brutal occupation, character-assassinating the people you need to make peace with is a road to more suffering, not just for the weak but also for the strong. Acknowledging the truth and working to restore integrity is indeed a road to peace. Who really cares about Israel and who really cares more about holding onto false and unexamined beliefs?

You start your letter with the statement that "we must look at both the Palestinian side and the Israeli side". I agree but you have not really looked at the Palestinian side. Take, for example, the letter you quote from Tom Adam of Sderot. Yes, he has had to deal with fear of rocket attacks but why? Without condoning these rocket attacks we have to ask: Why have Palestinian groups launched these rockets? Has Israel incited them? Is the launching of these primitive rockets the only way they know to let the world know that their parents, grandparents and children are being oppressed from birth to death? What about Palestinian children, whose lives are at the mercy of the Israeli military? Many of these kids have seen their fathers beaten by Israeli soldiers, their mothers humiliated and called "whores", have seen violence committed by Israeli soldiers or settlers on a regular basis, yearn for a glass of uncontaminated drinking water, are malnourished, maimed, deaf, blind, paraplegic, amputees, have endured Israeli sonic booms that cause all kinds of trauma, including bedwetting, nausea, miscarriages, nosebleeds, anxiety, muscle spasms, temporary loss of hearing, heart and breathing problems. These Palestinian children are the lucky ones because they are not dead, the victims of rockets, bullets, white phosphorus and Israel's common refusal to allow medical supplies into Gaza. Also, you should know that Israel fortified public buildings and constructed shelters to protect its Jewish population in the line of rocket attacks. You should also know that Israel did nothing to protect its Palestinian-Israeli citizens in their villages in the line of these same attacks.

You say the Billion Coalition "depicts Israel as the perpetrator and sole cause of the atrocities committed during Operation Cast Lead". I do not agree that the coalition depicts Israel as the "sole cause of the atrocities", the vast majority of which were in fact perpetrated by Israel. Rather they see Israel as the primary cause. Israel, as military and civil and illegal occupier, whose force is thousands of time more powerful than the Palestinians, is the party that has the power to make peace. What is particularly counter-productive is Israel's refusal to abide by international conventions and laws, which are designed to bring about a degree of civility between peoples.

Speaking of peace, I will mention only one example of Israel's continual sabotage or ignoring of peace proposals since 1948. That is the 2002 Roadmap for Peace that the Palestinians accepted in full. Israel "accepted" but with 14 prerequisites. Among them:

[C]essation of incitement against Israel, but the Roadmap cannot state that Israel must cease violence and incitement against the Palestinians." "The waiver of any right of return of refugees to Israel; No discussion of Israeli settlement in Judea, Samaria and Gaza or the status of the Palestinian Authority and its institutions in Jerusalem; No reference to the key provisions of UN Resolution 242.

Any objective research leads to the inescapable conclusion that Israel has never wanted peace; what Israel has always wanted is more territory. Israel's greed has necessitated the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in order to grab their territory.

You may not be aware, for example, that Israel conspired with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in 1987 to create Hamas. Israel also armed Hamas. It wanted an alternative to the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization]. The first Intifada began in 1987. It was primarily nonviolent on the part of Palestinians (not Israelis). Israel arrested or deported most of the nonviolent leaders while allowing Sheikh [Ahmad] Yassin, Hamas's spiritual leader, to distribute anti-Jewish hate literature calling for the violent overthrow of the Zionist government. It is far easier for Israel to portray the Palestinians as psychotic killers in order to divert the world's attention from its strategy of land theft and ethnic cleansing and thereby deceive the world into believing the Israeli army is merely defending itself than it is to justify land theft and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians when their resistance is nonviolent.

You need to do a lot more research if you want to discover, as close as possible, the truth. Your research looks like it comes from either public Israeli government sources, which are notoriously unreliable, or Israeli apologists who have a record of justifying virtually anything Israel does. You also need to more carefully review the Goldstone report. Israel committed terrible atrocities against civilians. Just because Hamas is also guilty of terror (to a significantly less extent than Israel) does not exonerate Israel of anything.

Israel has a National Information Directorate whose purpose is to coordinate the various sectors of the government apparatus into disseminating self-serving messages (propaganda) to the public. I do not trust the Israeli government to publicly admit to their crimes. To do so would hurt their image to Jewish supporters around the world who still believe in Israel's "purity of arms" and it would implicate its leaders in war crimes for which they could eventually be prosecuted. Israel has always lied about its actions. Its history of lies is astonishing. I prefer to rely on sources that have nothing to gain and everything to lose with their admissions of honesty. Benny Morris:

For decades Ben-Gurion, and successive administrations after his, lied to the Israeli public about the post-1948 peace overtures and about Arab interest in a deal. The Arab leaders (with the possible exception of [King] Abdullah [of Jordan]) were presented, one and all, as a recalcitrant collection of warmongers, hell-bent on Israel's destruction. The recent opening of the Israeli archives offers a far more complex picture.

Akiva Eldar:

Without lies, it would be impossible to talk about peace with the Palestinians for 36 years while at the same time seizing more and more Palestinian land. Without lies, it would be impossible to claim that there is no partner for the road map, while at the same time injecting more and more money into outposts that the road map calls for dismantling. Without lies, it would be impossible to promise "painful concessions" in exchange for peace, while at the same time terming people who concluded such an agreement "traitors".

Former Israeli Chief of Military Intelligence General Yehoshafat Harkabi:

We must define our position and lay down basic principles for a settlement. Our demands should be moderate and balanced, and appear to be reasonable. But in fact they must involve such conditions as to ensure that the enemy rejects them. Then we should manoeuvre and allow him to define his own position, and reject a settlement on the basis of a compromise position. We should then publish his demands as embodying unreasonable extremism.

Moshe Dayan:

[The state of Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no – it must – invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge… And above all – let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space.

You say that the "fundamental truth is that this is a two-way conflict". The Palestinians could end the conflict by lying down and allowing Jewish settlers, with the support of their government, to overrun them, allow them to take the remainder of their agricultural lands, their villages and their homes, and drive them out of the country into generations of poverty and homelessness. Is that a real peace? The fundamental truth is that Zionism, and the lies perpetrated by its founders, leaders and supporters from the days of Theodore Herzl on, has initiated and perpetuated this conflict. If someone attacks you, tries to steal everything you own, abuses and humiliates your children and then tells the world that you are a liar who never owned the land in the first place would you accept that?" I do not know any person or country in the world who would passively accept the theft of their land. In 1948 Jews owned about 6 per cent of the land of Palestine. They now control 78 per cent of the land outright, which both the PLO and Hamas have de facto accepted as irreversible. Additionally, Israel has illegally seized or controls about half of the West Bank. And Israel maintains land, sea and air control over the Gaza Strip. In short, the Palestinians subsist on about 10 per cent of their indigenous homeland.

Mostly Ashkenazi Jews fought the British and the Arabs for a Jewish national home. Their connection to the land called Palestine was far less than the connection Palestinians had and still have to that same land. Yet I know of no Jewish supporter of Israel who does not applaud the acts of the Haganah, Irgun and even Stern Gang for their roles in establishing Israel. I know of no Jewish supporter of Israel who resents the uprising of Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto against their Nazi oppressors. In order to dissociate Palestinian resistance from Jewish resistance Israel supporters have to make up myths to portray the Palestinians as not a real people, as inherently anti-Semitic, as murderous and hateful, as not the real owners of the land, as a psychotic society, etc., etc. These myths are designed to deceive all of us. They deprive Jews and others of their natural intelligence and compassion. Palestinian resistance, while mostly nonviolent, is similar to the resistance of any occupied people throughout history.

Israel did kill almost 400 children in Operation Cast Lead. I am not saying that Israel's leaders said "let's go kill Palestinian children" but there is no question that Israel's leaders knew perfectly well that hundreds of Palestinian children and other civilians would die. Gaza is, after all, the third most densely populated place on earth, with 50 per cent of its inhabitants less than 16 years of age. Gaza has been a closed military area since 1967. Its citizens have nowhere to go to flee Israeli bombs and rockets. I suggest you look up Israel's Dahiya Doctrine (or strategy), which is designed to punish a civilian society for the actions of its leaders (a war crime). As General Gadi Eisenkot said after Lebanon:

We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases. This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized.

Israel's most eminent military strategist, Zeev Schiff, said: "the Israeli army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously… the army … has never distinguished civilian [from military] targets … [but] purposely attacked civilian targets." Former Chief of Staff Mordecai Gur, a moderate, admitted that Israel always targeted civilians (see [David] Hirst). Rafael Eitan, chief of staff during Israel's destruction of Lebanese society in the early 1980s, was an extreme hawk who served for years as Ariel Sharon's second-in-command. He was responsible for the murders of hundreds of Egyptian PoWs at the end of the Suez War. He proposed that for every incident of stone throwing Israel should build 10 settlements. He said "the only good Arab is a dead Arab". He was founder of the extreme right ultra-nationalist Tzomet party (Movement for Zionist Renewal). Later in life he admitted ordering his troops to brutalize prisoners and impose collective punishment upon Palestinians (both war crimes). He said: "I don't believe in peace, because if they had done to us what we did to them we'd never agree to make peace." Think of the implications of that statement. Yitzhak Rabin admitted that "ruling over another people has corrupted us".

Operation Cast Lead was not "a reaction due to the Islamic Resistance Movement". It was collective punishment designed to intimidate a people into rejecting Hamas; and it was a re-establishment of the deterrent force Israel relinquished to a certain extent in Lebanon. Ephraim Halevy, former head of Mossad and former National Security Director, said: "If Israel's goal were to remove the threat of rockets from the residents of southern Israel, opening the border crossings would have ensured such quiet for a generation."

Yuval Diskin, head of Shin Bet, acknowledged that Hamas is willing to accept a long-term ceasefire on the 1967 borders.

Amira Hass reported in Ha'aretz: "The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said on Saturday his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders."

Jimmy Carter:

But one of the things that they [Hamas] committed to me that was very significant, and they announced it publicly, by the way, to al-Jazeera and others, was that they would accept any agreement that's negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians if it's submitted to a referendum in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinians approve it. That means they would accept Israel's right to exist if that's in the agreement and so forth.

Roger Cohen of the New York Times:

Henry Siegman, the president of the US/Middle East Project, whose chairman is [Brent] Scowcroft … told me that he met recently with Khaled Meshal, the political director of Hamas in Damascus. Meshal told him, and put in writing, that although Hamas would not recognize Israel, it would remain in a Palestinian national unity government that reached a referendum-endorsed peace settlement with Israel.

Regarding Hamas's use of hospitals, the Goldstone report states: "The Mission did not find any evidence to support the allegations that hospital facilities were used by the Gaza authorities or by Palestinian armed groups to shield military activities and that ambulances were used to transport combatants or for other military purposes."

In 2006 Israel made a similar claim that Hezbollah embedded their forces within civilian areas in order to attract Israeli firepower. That claim was debunked by Human Rights Watch, which clarified that most of Hezbollah's rockets were "stored in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys".

You are correct that "Eighty per cent of the weapons used were precision guided, and 99 per cent of all strikes hit their targets." Yes, these precision guided rockets destroyed or killed civilians, whole neighbourhoods, minarets where there was no room for any fighter to hide and launch rockets, and UN buildings. B'Tselem reported: "Whole families were killed; parents saw their children shot before their very eyes; relatives watched their loved ones bleed to death; and entire neighbourhoods were obliterated."

A United Nations General Assembly report quoted the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross): "The Israeli military ‘failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.' Israel made no effort to allow civilians to escape the fighting."

The Goldstone report is particularly damning. Again, please read through it. Goldstone rejected the HRC's [UN Human Rights Council] request to investigate possible war crimes by Israel until they altered the wording to include Hamas as a possible perpetrator. The Israeli government acknowledged his "record of impartiality". His findings are in line with the numerous human rights groups I mentioned earlier in the letter. IDF soldiers have testified to deliberately killing civilians, just as they have testified to similar brutalities in Hebron. The evidence is overwhelming. If Goldstone had not been head of the Mission there is a high likelihood that the report would have been even more critical of Israel.

Goldstone, as any reasonable person knows, is not an anti-Semite. Eliyahu Yishai was deputy prime minister during Operation Cast Lead. At the beginning of the invasion he urged the IDF to "bomb thousands of houses, to destroy Gaza". Nine months later, as minister of the interior, Yishai slandered Goldstone as an "abominable anti-Semite" for heading a mission that concluded that the IDF did exactly what Yishai wanted them to do. Yishai is not a reasonable person.

Israel's internal investigations were designed to cover up their atrocities. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi is not going to implicate himself or other Israeli officials in possible war crimes and crimes against humanity. Amnesty International responded to the IDF "internal investigation":

The information made public only refers to a handful of cases and lacks crucial details. It mostly repeats claims made by the army and the authorities many times since the early days of Operation "Cast Lead… It does not even attempt to explain the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths nor the massive destruction caused to civilian buildings in Gaza… [T]he army's claims appear to be more an attempt to shirk its responsibilities than a genuine process to establish the truth. Such an approach lacks credibility.

Regarding rocket and mortar fire, from 2000 through 2008 Palestinian groups launched 8,088 unsophisticated rockets and mortars against Israel. From 2001 through 2008 eighteen Israelis were killed as a result of these attacks. Contrast those figures with the 7,700 sophisticated rockets that Israel launched against Gaza in nine months, between September 2005 and June 2006. From 2005-2007, 1,290 Gazans, including 222 children, were killed as a result of these kinds of attacks. Who is the perpetrator and who is the victim?

Your statement that "Israel warned the Palestinian people that election of Hamas to the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA) would only cause more conflict" is a reflection of an authoritarian mentality that places one party in control over the lives of another. It is the same mentality that is at the root of this conflict. Hamas was elected in a fair election that the US pushed for. Who is Israel to decide for the Palestinians who their leaders should be? Hamas is not monolithic, is not particularly corrupt as is Fatah, and is not a collaborator with the Israeli government. That is why they were elected and that is why Israel wants them removed. Hamas makes the continued dispossession of the Palestinian people more difficult. What you call Israel's warning was actually a threat. Hamas has repeatedly stated its willingness to establish a long-term truce. Ephraim Halevy and American strategists said that Israel and the US have the ability to strengthen Hamas's moderate wing and engage them in a peace process. But, as Moshe Dayan states above, Israel is not interested in a peace process.

If you honestly are looking for the truth your study of Operation Cast Lead is simply not thorough or objective enough. With regard to the ceasefire, if you read the analysis of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre at the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Centre (IICC) you will learn that "The lull was sporadically violated by rocket and mortar shell fire, carried out by rogue terrorist organizations, in some instance in defiance of Hamas (especially by Fatah and Al-Qaeda supporters). Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire."

Israel never really adhered to the ceasefire. They only allowed the average number of trucks entering Gaza to increase from 70 per day to 90, not the 500 per day that crossed before Israel instituted its blockade. On 4 November 2008 IDF troops entered Gaza and killed six or seven Hamas soldiers because they were allegedly digging a tunnel for the purpose of kidnapping Israeli soldiers. Hamas said its members had been digging the tunnel for defensive purposes. On 5 November Israel sealed all crossing points into Gaza. Yossi Alpher, former Mossad official and former adviser to then Prime Minister Ehud Barak:

[The blockade is] collective punishment, humanitarian suffering. It has not caused Palestinians in Gaza to behave the way we want them to, so why do it… I think people really believed that, if you starved Gazans, they will get Hamas to stop the attacks. It's repeating a failed policy, mindlessly.

On 14 December a high-level Hamas delegation met with Egyptian Minister of Intelligence Omar Suleiman who, as mediator, had helped negotiate the June to December ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Hamas offered to end all rocket attacks in return for Israel ending its raids into Gaza and re-opening the border crossings. Suleiman conveyed Hamas's proposal to Israeli authorities. On 19 December, Robert Pastor, a senior adviser at the Carter Centre, met with Khaled Mashaal, who made the same offer. The next day Pastor passed Mashaal's offer on to a "senior official" in the IDF, who told Pastor he would get back to him. He never did. As for the Egyptian offer, it is unclear whether Israel ignored the offer or rejected it outright. At an Israeli cabinet meeting on 21 December, Yuval Diskin, said: "Make no mistake, Hamas is interested in maintaining the truce." Diskin said that if Israel ended the blockade, Hamas would restore the ceasefire.

If you've gotten this far, I can tell you the billboard you object to was taken down by Lamar Advertising on 28 April 2009. It was designed to provoke reaction from a mostly apathetic public in the wake of a brutal invasion. Calls from AIPAC supporters influenced Lamar's decision. Rather than seeing themselves and Israel as victims, these AIPAC people would be far more effective if they took the time to actually look at the evidence. None whom I have met have any intelligent knowledge of the actual history. For them, the childhood myths they were raised with supersede years of honest and objective research. Their attitude is identical to fundamentalist Christians who believe non-Christians will go to hell for their failure to accept Jesus Christ into their lives. They claim to care about Israelis but their continued support of a brutal occupation only demeans an entire people and perpetuates conflict for both sides of the issue. It also paints Judaism, once known for its commitment to ethics and justice, as a religion and culture of hypocrisy and bigotry.

Please do not fall into the trap that so many who remain unconscious of their participation in the suffering of others have fallen into. Please do not allow bigotry to influence you as it has influenced them. I urge you to avoid losing your humanity. Commit yourself to the truth. It is the only path that will free you of your own suffering and free others less fortunate than you of the suffering imposed on them by others.

Sincerely, Rich Forer
Book list
Anna Baltzer, Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories

Anna Baltzer, DVD: Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories and Photos
available at www.AnnaintheMiddleEast.com. Excerpts on YouTube.

Shlomo Ben-Ami, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy

Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Sylvain Cypel, Walled: Israeli Society at an Impasse

David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East

Norman Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Norman Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History

Baruch Kimmerling, Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians

Mary Elizabeth King, A Quiet Revolution: The First Palestinian Intifada and Nonviolent Resistance

Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999

Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Tanya Reinhart, The Road Map To Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003

Tanya Reinhart, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948

Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: Israelis and the Holocaust

Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis

Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall

Clayton Swisher, The Truth About Camp David: The Untold Story about the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process

* Richard Forer is a former member of AIPAC. His identical twin brother is a prominent member of an Ultra-Orthodox sect of Judaism. His younger brother is an attorney and President of one of the largest Reform synagogues on the East coast. Forer is a practitioner of the Meir Schneider Self-Healing Method, a unique system of healing developed by an Israeli. His book, Breakthrough: Transforming Fear into Compassion – A New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine Conflict will be available in the Fall. He can be reached at rich_forer@yahoo.com.

Haneen Zoabi: Arab-Israeli Parliamentarian Fights Death Threats

Arab-Israeli Parliamentarian Fights Death Threats
Sun 20 June 2010
by Mel Frykberg | Inter Press Service
http://www.truth-out.org/arab-israeli-parliamentarian-fights-death-threats60587
Ramallah, West Bank - "I stopped counting after I had received 50 death threats. I told my secretary not to tell me about them any more," Arab-Israeli Knesset (parliament) member, Haneen Zoabi told IPS.

"As a result of the death threats I’ve been given personal body guards both within the Knesset and outside," adds Zoabi.

Zoabi, a member of the Arab-Israeli political party Balad, was on board the ‘Mavi Marmara’, part of the Free Gaza (FG) flotilla, when it was attacked by Israeli commandos in international waters as it tried to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza several weeks ago.

Following her arrest, interrogation and subsequent release Zoabi returned to a very hostile Knesset where she was subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse, including that of a racist and sexist nature. Some of the comments were so degrading and insulting that they were wiped from the Knesset record.

Another Knesset Member (MK) was prevented from assaulting Zoabi following the physical intervention of other MKs.

For video from Knesset confrontation, see Democracy Now's interview with MK Zoabi here.

Zoabi has been labelled a "terrorist" and a "traitor" and the Knesset House majority has called for her parliamentary privileges to be withdrawn. The Israeli interior ministry has also called for her citizenship to be revoked.

"I intend to take the matter to court, if necessary, to fight to keep my parliamentary privileges and citizenship,’’ Zoabi told IPS.

Zoabi says that she and her fellow Arab-Israeli MKs have become the subjects of a witch hunt by a majority in the Knesset, but she has no regrets about joining the FG flotilla and would not hesitate to repeat her action.

"It’s hard working in such a hostile environment where every move I make and every word I utter is subject to intense scrutiny,’’ she says.

Zoabi recalls the horrifying ordeal the activists endured after the Israeli naval seals had boarded the ‘Mavi Marmara’ when nine activists were shot dead and dozens wounded.

Survivors have accused the commandos of deliberately shooting some of the activists in cold blood. Turkish autopsies revealed that several of the dead had multiple gunshot wounds to the head.

Zoabi did not witness any of the shootings or beatings of the activists but she questions the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

"The Israeli soldiers had taken command of the ‘Mavi Marmara’ within 20 minutes of boarding. Yet it was an hour-and-a-half before they told all the passengers that the situation was under control and ordered us all to go downstairs. I wonder what happened in that hour," says Zoabi.

"I was treated fairly carefully because they knew I was a member of the Knesset. They also kept me away from other passengers who were beaten and abused as they didn’t want me to be able to bear testimony to this,’’ Zoabi said. "They also deliberately withheld medical treatment from the seriously injured passengers during the first few hours.’’

"I went and held up a notice written in Hebrew to the window where the commandos were standing, calling for medical help. I also called out to them in English and told them there were critically injured passengers who needed urgent medical attention, but they ignored me. Two seriously injured passengers, who were bleeding, died after 40 mins,'' Zoabi told IPS.

"Minutes after the attack began, the wounded and the dead were being brought inside from the deck,’’ Lubna Marsawa, another activist, told Electronic Intifada (EI), the not-for-profit, independent online publication which covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective.

‘’We were then held for several hours with four bodies and dozens of wounded, some in critical condition. Blood was pouring from the bodies of the victims. We wanted to help them, but we had no medical equipment. There was nothing we could do," Marsawa told EI.

Zoabi also accuses the Israeli authorities of trumping up charges against the passengers. "When they interrogated me in Ashdod port they accused me of attacking the soldiers, of threatening their lives and being in possession of knives. I just laughed in their faces, it was so ludicrous."

Zoabi was released quickly due to her parliamentary immunity and the Israeli police have not tried to charge her with attempted assault against the navy commandos.

She doubts whether the self-appointed Israeli investigation into the flotilla fiasco will be either credible or legitimate.

"They will not question any of the commandos involved or allow the survivors to testify. Furthermore, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has already reached a conclusion before the investigation even gets under way.

"He said the inquiry would prove that the commandos acted in self-defence and that Israel’s raid was in accordance with international law. What kind of legitimate inquiry is that?"

The feisty Knesset member now believes that the relationship between Israel’s Palestinian-Arab minority and the Israeli-Jewish majority has reached a point of crisis and that the two communities are on a collision course.

"The situation started deteriorating following the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada or uprising in 2000 when 13 Israeli-Arabs were shot dead by Israeli security forces during a protest against land expropriation," says Zoabi.

As Israel’s increasingly right-wing Knesset tries to pass more draconian legislation, much of it with racist overtones, against dissenters and what it labels "traitors", Israeli-Arabs are being placed in an untenable situation.

"They are forcing the Palestinian minority to choose between loyalty to Zionist values or being labelled "terrorists and traitors".

‘’This either or situation is not only undemocratic but will also backfire on Israel. Israeli-Arabs can’t be expected to follow the Zionist narrative or disassociate from their Palestinian roots," says Zoabi.

Rumor Schlumberger Exits Deep Horizon

http://adropofrain.net/2010/05/rumor-schlumberger-exits-deep-horizon-hours-before-blowout/
Hours Before Blowout

Posted: May 14th, 2010 by: h-1

This may or may not be the story ROCKMAN referred to (read down a bit for the quotes I included towards the end of the posting) in the current oildrum Deep Horizon blowout thread.
javascript:void(0)
AlanfromBigEasy on May 14, 2010 – 3:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Story circulating in New Orleans

With appropriate caveats:

BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you’ll see why.

SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.

SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still
kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the
“company man” (BP’s man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo’s scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you’re here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB’s corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB’s expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.

6 hours later, the platform explodes.

Pick your jaw up off the floor now. No CBL was run after the pressure tests because the
contractor high-tailed it out of there. If this story is true, the company man (who
survived) should go to jail for 11 counts of negligent homicide.

Alan
….
AlanfromBigEasy on May 14, 2010 – 8:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | [Parent subthread ] Comments top

This story did come from within the industry. I agreed to keep the source(s) confidential.

Alan


This is almost exactly what ROCKMAN was hinting out, and he further noted these guys won’t say this in public now for fear of legal reprisals, but they certainly will say it under oath.

If true, things are going to be very very bad for BP, since that makes this event not only avoidable, but deliberately done almost, at least the decision to not stop, if this report is true, was deliberate.

Keep in mind that BP was celebrating the completion with high ups at the day the blowout happened, which would give credence to the idea of the BP supervisor not wanting to stop the well just when the top brass were on the rig. Human all too human indeed…

ROCKMAN has been hinting that the causes here were human error all along, but he since his sources I assume are company insiders, he can’t say more. But this might be the explanation…

ROCKMAN on May 14, 2010 – 8:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | [Parent subthread ] Comments top

The “ordered the company” is the one part that doesn’t fit at all. No matter the disagreement a subcontractor will never order a coman to do anything. He might refuse an order or he might tell the coman to go screw himself. I seen and done both. But never gave one an order. Perhaps it was a misinterpretation. Perhaps the SLB gave the coman an ultimatum. That I’ve seen first hand a number of times.

But soon we’ll be able to judge the validity of this story. Now that the MSM has the smell of blood we should be seeing SLB in the spot light very soon. They’ll have to respond in some form. Any form of confirmation will be solid gold proof IMHO. An absolute and clear denial would offer the same. SLB would never cover-up such an event. NEVER for a variety of reasons. A “no comment” will be subject to interpretation but could make me assume some level of truth to the story

As I responded to another TODer I consider the story 100% true or an absolute lie. No room for anything in between IMHO.

[[Update]]Part of this story has now been confirmed, that is, Schlumberger was on the Rig but was sent back 11 hours before it blew.

However, this is still early in the information phase, and as nola notes:

BP spokesmen did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the decision to send Schlumberger home without conducting a cement bond log or on the cementing schematic Probert gave the Senate committee. And Halliburton didn’t respond to questions about the accuracy of Probert’s diagram.

Since the original story was probably either partly untrue, totally true, or partly true, we’ll have to wait a bit more to get the actual details.

One thing however worth noting, ROCKMAN when discussing a rumor he’d heard but would not himself reveal, stated that it was unlikely you’d hear the truth until the actual parties were under oath, in court, for what should hopefully be somewhat obvious reasons.

So keep a watch on this one, but really, the 60 minutes expose on BP safety, or rather lack of safety, practices, is in a sense all you really need. This Schlumberger story, while interesting, is just a side-note, though I admit to wondering about it, it has a ring of truth to my ears, and I think the guy who leaked it was told it by an insider, with much better information than this new story of May 19. We shall see.

Overall it’s not looking very good for BP legally though. Hopefully the top kill will work this Sunday, this blowout is too severe to engage in any type of schadenfreude, this is a significant part of the planet’s ecosystem under attack by our insatiable desire for more consumption, more people, more driving, at any price… sad really to watch as a world sucks itself dry in a desperate attempt to achieve… what exactly?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 18:20 and is filed under Currents of the Peak. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
76 Responses to “Rumor Schlumberger Exits Deep Horizon Hours Before Blowout”
« Older Comments

1.
eddytheeagle says:
June 6, 2010 at 02:39

Yes, it’s a terrible shame seeing the nationalistic side of this disaster. We need to focus on stoping the spill and cleaning up the mess (I think BP is doing all it can on both counts).
When that is achieved we can look for the cause.
Both mud engineers killed in the blowout? while displacing with sea water??
The BOP total failure?
Many questions to be answered.
h-1 thanks for keeping on the right heading.
2.
john S says:
June 6, 2010 at 02:59

Let’s pray for the departed 11 crew and there families,i believe justice will prevail !!!! if it’s a case of negligence,the person or persons involved should be treated like a common criminal,we need to know who these people are they may end up on your installation / rig
think about that SCARY!!!!
3.
john S says:
June 6, 2010 at 03:08

Let’s not forget people “quote what one area manager said to me it’s called business”
shareholders/ managers on bonus schemes / cutting corners saving money for top management,yet the workers on the rig suffer no parts,unsafe equipment,conditions and yet we are expected to keep everything running,and not complain a right gong show!!!!
you know what iam talking about….
4.
Brace yourself says:
June 6, 2010 at 05:51

I have worked in the UK sector for many years, Piper Alpha demonstrated many areas rerquiring improvements, I would brace yourselves in the U.S. sector for much of the same, yes we can never say something will bnever again happen here, but I firmly believe the severity will be reduced
I have a freind who works in the U.S. training personnel for the Gulf, he said that the first days on the job and the first offshore guy he encoutered actually said ” don’t bring your North Sea S*#T here ” There lies the root of the problem.
Too gung Ho, U.S. government can’t come out of this smelling of Roses either, regulatory agencies will crawl over the industry going forward, no more cosy relations with Oil Companies.
BP will be ultimately held responsible as operators always are, Transocean and the US Government must also stand up to their responsibilities.
Don’t for one minute think the problem is with BP alone, don’t you think all the other Oil companies have been very quiet through all this, ” There but for the grace of God go I ”
Thoughts go out to the victims and Families.
5.
Reddy says:
June 6, 2010 at 19:35

Thanks to every one here for your good discussions.
Keeping the reasons for the blowout aside, my concern from that minute was to fix the leaking well. I am a offshore pipeline engineer with 13yrs experience. I have sent 6 concepts to BP hotline to consider and implement. I do not know who approved the LMRP design to do it? As I understand the LMRP concept has more risks and possibility of worsening the leak.
As I involved personally with ROV’s working in the similar water depths, fixing leak might have been handled in much better way and much sooner than what it is taking.
There is no lack of technology its rather a innovative engineering concept that solves the leak problem. FYI here are the concepts I proposed:
1) Cut 21″ casing and 6″ pipes together and fit 24″ adjustable clamp with a valve and pup piece, close the valve once it is fitted well
2) Right on leak fit a adjustable clamp with a thick liner
3) Downhole insertion tube
4) Use of subsea separation unit
5) Similar to 40′ hight and single outlet containment dome used; did BP think about using rectangular or circular dome (orifice) placed in plan dimension (say 12 ft length x 4 ft width/diameter x 4 ft height; ~34.2 bbls capacity) with multiple outlets to assist with either chemical injection or oil withdrawal. Also thoughts of having 2 or more chambers with perforations or cavities between chambers
6) Apply pipeline hot tapping technique to divert/stop flow.
Many Thanks.
6.
Chris B says:
June 6, 2010 at 20:40

My thanks to billthedrill. Your apology and support was much appreciated, people do strange things when they are angry….
I started my offshore work in North Sea in the summer of the Piper Alpha disaster, the Cullen Inquiry led the way to changes throughout the Oil Industry as I know it and the Lessons Learned have helped to form my guiding principals through the rest of my working life.
I sincerely hope that when the leak is contained andt the US Governement hold their inquiry that the full findings will be submitted ” without prejudice” There will be grief for companies who have to retrain and rethink their methods, but none of that grief will measure up to that of the families who lost their loved ones, and the people who survived but who will live with it for ever.
7.
h-1 says:
June 7, 2010 at 13:36

New information coming out all the time. Just posted this one, The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen!, that’s a signed statement by one of the rescue ship’s sailors, confirmed by another sailor, about Harrell’s phone call to parties unknown as of now right after the rig burst into flames.

Harrell was screaming, “Are you f#cking happy? Are you f#cking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”

Food for thought, no?
8.
Diogenese II says:
June 7, 2010 at 22:30

I worked in the oil and drilling industry in Alberta back in the 70′s and 80′s so I only have an idea of what is really going on and I have a good idea when I see or hear or read BS.

But I don’t understand some of the jargon and acronyms used in the posts on this page.

I find what is being reported on the media here in Canada is plain stupid and mind numbing to those who have some knowledge of such things.

I don’t get or subscribe to CNN, so I don’t know what they are reporting.

I seen the CBS 60 minutes program a couple of weeks ago, and that was very telling and the best that I heard so far. But it looks like it has been taken down off their website as I could not find it the other day when I went to look. Probably were told to take it down by BP lawyers and 60 minutes was canceled this last Sunday.

They started showing the clock ticking and then went to show a movie.

I wondered why?

But it is so easy to see that BP is giving out lies and BS to the media.

I have been looking for some intelligent information on this problem.

I was glad to come across this forum.

I would like to know how much pressure is in this hole?

What size was the casing?

By knowing this it is easy to calculate the amount of oil flowing out.
Or at least get a very good educated guess.

How deep is the well?

Where is the rig laying in relation to the well?

I imagine there is drill pipe inside the crumpled casing.

So how can they run anything into the hole, even if they cut it.

All this topkill and junk shot stuff is just nonsense as far as I can tell.

What kind of formation is between the ocean floor and the oil?

I seen one video that seems to show the oil flowing up through the ocean floor.

That simply means that the oil is coming up out around the casing probably from the bottom unless the casing is bust somewhere.

How much pressure is used in pumping mud and cement down these holes?

Surely someone knows the answers to these questions on this forum.

I am quite sure BP had this well tested by this time and knows exactly how much pressure there is in the well and how much it is producing or and could potentially produce and how much oil is in the formation.

And I am sure there are many well experienced experts on this forum who have a very good idea of how much pressure there is in the well and all the answers to the rest of the questions.

Please educate us.

Then as far as what BP has been doing since the explosion has also been amatuerish.

Right from pumping sea water on the fire with gun boats does not seem to be the most intelligent thing to do and load the platform with water and sink it.

And all the flow stopping methods they have used till now have been ridiculous ideas. Even I had my doubts if they would work as I mentioned above.

Why wasn’t there more intelligent ideas used? Where are the brains?

It looked like amateurs were handing the mess.

Next:

How about some discussion on other clean up options.

I just seen this video using bacteria:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VfypUzx1tI&feature=youtube_gdata

Based on the information given, it appears to make sense and work, since it has been proven before, why are they not using it?

Surely you experts know a lot about this and other options to deal with the oil.

I would like to see detailed discussion, comments and input on clean up methods.

Then there is this video:

http://pesn.com/2010/05/27/9501657_Gulf_oil_gusher_conspiracy_cover-up/

I know that there is quite a bit of plain nonsense on it but the video seems to show oil flowing out of the ocean floor.

Please comment on the points that you experienced guys know may have some validity and ignore the obvious conspiracy nonsense and other stupidity.

I thank you in advance and look forward to your comments and answers.

Diogenese II

Diogenese was a Greek philosopher back in the old days who was alleged to go around from house to house in his community peeking in the houses with a lantern looking for a sane man.

It would be a good idea to find a lot more sanity and honesty being told about this mess.
9.
h-2 says:
June 7, 2010 at 23:54

Diogenes, I’ve moved my response to this BP gulf oil spill summary because this is not really topically related the original Schlumberger/BP topic. But the questions themselves are good.
10.
mad dog says:
June 8, 2010 at 09:55

heard at bp headquarters about 1 week after accident
11.
h-1 says:
June 8, 2010 at 10:31

mad dog, heard what? Are you referring to the schlumberger story or to the story just linked to about the eye witness account of Harrell saying he told the person the rig was going to blow?
12.
Trout 579 says:
June 8, 2010 at 21:16

Wow, there are a lot ideas floating around out there. It is all speculation right now. I use to work for Schlumberger in Canada and USA for 8yrs as a well cementer. I have successfully completed thousands of casing cement jobs. There are many different senarios that can happen before and after cementing the production string or liner to create a potential blowout. I have also worked for BP Canada. They are one of the better companies to work for in Canada. They in my opinion and experience have and do put safety 1st on all the many number of jobs that I had completed for them over my 8yrs of service. Trust me, they are going to have their BEST COman on this well, conducting the day-day operations. I keep hearing that this well was the 1st to be drilled at such a depth of water. So do you really think BP is going to cut corners? Anyone ever work on a wildcat drill? I have, well here in Canada and the steps and safety precautions that an oil company has to go through and take are enormous, everything is under the microscope. But the pay offs are many fold the costs. So maybe chaulk this one up to mechanical failure, underestimating the pore pressure of the pay zone whatever it may be. I highly doubt human error on this one. Lets get our focus on the NOW! While we still have a chance.
13.
h-1 says:
June 8, 2010 at 21:26

I have read that BP USA is the problem, apparently the other BP units are better run. If you read all the comments you’ll find a wide range of what I trust is actual personal direct experience, which shows an equally wide range of views of how these companies are run.

If you’re asking me, yes, of course I think BP is going to cut corners, and so do quite a few other people. The well was late, they had BP brass on the rig, and they wanted to move it to the next location. Very few people I’m following at this point think this was mechanical failure alone, including some GOM drilling types who seem to know what they are talking about. Tony Hayward listed not 1, but 7 distinct failures that occurred on this blowout. I’m sorry, but if you have that many problems, coupled with ongoing large numbers of safety violations, I’d say, yes, in fact, this was almost certainly the result of unsafe practices. 7 failures points to an overall pattern of unsafe operations, not just one glitch or mechanical failure.

And let’s not forget the political / economic relationships between the Bush era MMS and the drilling industry, that allowed many major regulations to not be enforced or enacted. You know, the ones that Norway and Brazil deepwater insist on…

One thing is for sure, you’re going to see radically higher safety standards. Keep in mind, despite your words, BP assured the MMS here that there was basically no chance of such a deep water blowout. Apparently they were mistaken in their assumption. Also don’t ignore the evidence that is now starting to rise, I quoted one recent bit a few comments down, I think that one is quite interesting. So yes, in fact, I do think that macho attitudes and sloppy cost cutting could easily exist in a company like BP, they have afterall been directly convicted of precisely that problem, and Tony Hayward was in fact brought in to try to reign in that safety attitude in 2007. So yes, I do think that BP is not what you think it is, at least it isn’t in these parts of the world. But several people have pointed out that BP USA is maybe suffering from some type of US type attitude that maybe other BP units don’t suffer from, which would sync your experience with other views here.

By the way, if you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe the dad of one of the dead guys on the Deepwater Horizon:

The highest-ranking crew member to perish aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig warned his family that BP Plc was pressuring him to sacrifice safety for the sake of time and money, his father said.

Jason Anderson, one of 11 rig workers presumed dead after an April 20 explosion and fire sank the Deepwater Horizon and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history, told relatives in February and March that BP was urging him to accelerate work on the Macondo well off the Louisiana coast, said his father, Billy Anderson.

On previous wells drilled with the same rig, Jason Anderson, a 35-year-old employee of vessel owner Transocean Ltd., had been able to convince BP representatives to eschew shortcuts that he believed would compromise safety, his father said. But in the eight weeks preceding the disaster, BP stepped up the pressure and overruled safety objections, Billy Anderson, 66, said.
BP Pressured Rig Worker to Hurry Before Disaster, Father Says

Clearly, you can’t discuss with the guy who is dead, but I guess you could talk to his dad, but I imagine he’s probably not in the mood to talk too much at this point.

I’m not sure where you heard this was the first to be drilled at 5k feet, that’s not right, in fact I think the deepwater horizon had just finished a much deeper well prior to this one. At least in deeper water. Latest drill ships can go to 10k feet of water and 40k feet down, so no, that is just wrong report you read somewhere.

I do believe though I’m not certain that this is however the first deepwater well to blowout at 5k feet ocean depths, that might be what you’re thinking about.
14.
Diogenese II says:
June 9, 2010 at 09:47

h-2
Thanks for your reply to my questions.

Yes, you are correct that I did not look else where.

This forum was the first I came across and did not know where else to look at the time.

Since then I have viewed Oil drum and a couple other sites and learned a lot.

Maybe this is not really important, but just out of curiousity I would like to know where the rig is in relation to the well?

That information I did not come across.

I heard one comment that the rig is on top of the well, but I don’t think it is, otherwise there would be no way to access the well to work on it. If not thank God that it is not. Unless everything we see and hear is not true.

And what kind of rock is generally beneath the ocean floor sediment and the oil in the gulf or more accurately the area?

And I could not find any discussion on alternative clean up techniques where I was,

Of which the bacteria method seems to be best.

Is there anyone on this post or others who worked on the incident where the bacteria was proven as referred to described in the video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VfypUzx1tI&feature=youtube_gdata

On a side note:
I would also like to say that your ( referring to h-2 and h-1 as well ) sensible candidness (intellectual and perceptual honesty/ integrity) and clarity of thought/ professionalism and objective writing is a breath of fresh air and much appreciated amidst so much that is not.

So many people need to learn to not say anything unless it is intelligent, factual, scrutinized/ evaluated and they can prove it or back it up with verifiable facts.

In other words they need to develop an honest and critical thought and speaking process.

Mental fabrications, propaganda, myths, misinformation, beliefs, opinions, hearsay and gossip are not part of that function.

Are you guys the moderators of this list?

I would like to add a few words that someone sent me a few years ago:

“We can have capitalism or a planet to live on but not both.”
15.
h-1 says:
June 9, 2010 at 11:42

I moved the response to Diogenes II to its own posting, Thoughts and Summaries of the BP Spill, it’s too far off topic for this thread.

If you have comments or questions not particularly related to the original question here, BP / Schlumberger, please use one of the response threads I just created for Diogenes questions. This comment thread I want to reserve only for people who have views or inputs that might clarify the situation around this topic.

But thanks for the kind words, it’s not easy trying to maintain those standards you mention. I am certain I will fail now and then, but it’s a good target anyway.
16.
h-1 says:
June 10, 2010 at 10:00

I’d missed this May 31 anonymous (probably insider) report on what happened, read it and decide for yourselves if you feel this adds anything meaningful to the question.
17.
Bob says:
June 11, 2010 at 05:40

This was halliburtons fault I tell you, they did the same thing in the Timor Sea off Australia only 12 months earlier.
BP’s decision to not hire SLB to do the whole cementing process, which they are experts at.
And use the cheaper Halliburton, is what caused this one as well.
This is the same reason Chevron had the blowout in the Timor Sea, SLB is the only know expert never to have a problem in deep water well cementing, yet they cost a hell of a lot of money.
Cut costs don’t hire the best guys for the job, and you get this chaos.
18.
rattman691 says:
June 16, 2010 at 23:44

In my opinion, most people writing comments here do not have a clue about oil wells, much less drilling and completing one. The log that was run or not run, which ever is true, has nothing to do with the well blowing out. The biggest fault lies with our goverment (MMS) giving BP the approval to replace the backup set of Shear Rams with just another set of pipe rams. I doubt both sets of rams would have failed at the same time. The BOP stack normally as a backup set of rams and annular, just in case one fails.
19.
h-1 says:
June 17, 2010 at 12:27

ratttman, you have to do a better than this comment. Demonstrate that most of the drilling guys who took the time to post don’t know what they are talking about, and demonstrate it by proving that you do. I was going to delete your comment, but I’ll give you a chance to show that you’re not just typing some words and hitting enter.

My current best understanding is that the primary actual cause of this blowout was the failure to continuously and actively monitor the mud returns.

Trying to blame the MMS for this, while correct in a certain sense that Bush/Cheney did in fact follow the insane ideology that industry should/could regulate itself, so what better place to put industry people than the MMS, and also correct that the Obama group didn’t act quickly enough to unravel the corruption in the MMS, enabled/generated by the Bush / Cheney ideologues, anyway, trying to then blame the ‘government’ for what almost all serious oil industry guys I am reading agree was very very bad drilling practice on this well by BP, well, you know, that sounds like a typical right wing refusal to assign and take responsibility for actions, I’m sorry to say..

There’s a reason the MMS is being redone to avoid such conflicts of interests, now. That is, the entire structure of industry self regulation promoted by the right wing in the USA is being undone before it destroys the rest of this country. Not undone enough, not undone fast enough, but definitely being corrected to some degree.

So give it another try, but this time try to demonstrate that A: you actually know what you’re talking about, ideally because you do drilling for a living and haven’t followed various blogs who are trying to reassign blame as a form of damage control for your primary information, and B: show explicitly based on the understanding you should have from A: where the posters, and which posters, are wrong or have no clue about what they are talking about.
20.
john says:
June 18, 2010 at 05:49

A: all procedures have to be pre-approved by MMS before work can proceed. so that means the Government is partly to blame. B. The people that died are responsible for well control at all times so that means transocean is to blame . the BOP that failed is also owned and operated by transocean employees only again transocean is to blame. The sad fact is and that is why rattman tells you that most people on here posting do not have a clue what happened , but those of us who drill wells for a living do know and understand what happened. the rest of you can just keep guessing and fabricating crap
21.
john says:
June 18, 2010 at 06:03

By the way I pushed tools on rigs for 15 yrs. and was drilling superintendent for 5 drillings rigs in the water for 5 yrs. and now run my own business drilling wells for the last 5 yrs. and no company man ever made me do something i did not want to do. and if any of your drilling guy’s care to debate this blowout and cause anytime just let me know. that is any one but the socialist Diogenese II
22.
john says:
June 18, 2010 at 06:10

“My current best understanding is that the primary actual cause of this blowout was the failure to continuously and actively monitor the mud returns”

This statement isTRUEin a sense and is the only statement that is in your whole discussion board. the rest is just gibberish, although not the actual cause it is the warning sign that trouble is coming. the cause even i would need more info on the steps that took place proceeding the mud flowing.
23.
h-1 says:
June 18, 2010 at 10:26

Technically on point A you are correct, but you are absolutely ignoring the massive corruption generated by the Bush/Cheney whitehouse that basically neutered the MMS. Since, as you may or may not be aware, the USA has been undergoing a massive economic crisis since about 2008, the result of deregulation of the financial sector, it’s possible, if you extend yourself out of your core competence levels into areas you may be less comfortable in, anyway, it’s just possible that the MMS reform didn’t get a high enough priority in the new administration’s to-do list. But given that the MMS had from what I understand basically evolved into an industry run self-regulatory body, almost totally corrupt in nature, saying the MMS didn’t do x or y is basically the same as saying that the industry, when given the chance to self-regulate, failed to do so. In other words, the industry needs to examine itself, and realize that it is, like all other industries, totally unable to engage in serious self regulation. This doesn’t mean individual companies don’t do great self regulation, they can and do, but the overall industry cannot do this, because anyone at any time can do exactly what BP did should they decide to cut a few corners because the well is late and over budget.

Speaking for myself, the main guys I’m listening to all also are drilling for a living, now, the guys over at theOilDrum.com and gCaptain and a few other places. So you’ll have to step in line and talk it over with them. You’re the only one, by the way, who states this in the way you do, just so you know.

Now whether the other posters here have a clue or not, I’ll leave that up to posterity and the hearings to say.

But all clearly thought out views are always welcome.
24.
h-1 says:
June 18, 2010 at 10:36

Re diogenes II, merely because someone uses the word ‘capitalism’, that is, the current economic system we live under, doesn’t mean they are a socialist. I have no idea what his politics are. Can we also exclude neo-conservatives from any discussion, to keep it balanced? Given that many prominent old school conservatives, such as Barry Goldwater before he died, think the Bush type neo-cons are technical political fascists, that would seem reasonable, no? So we can just have the centrists in the discussion. Although what passes for Centrism here in the USA would be considered right wing in most of the rest of the world.

Personally I tend to give someone credit for correctly identifying our economic system in a discussion, you know, it’s like saying, that’s a well bore when you’re examining a well bore. I also give them credit for seeing possible shortcomings in it, ie, a process known as thinking for oneself.

Re the company man, you’ll have to argue that with other drilling guys, who have been told this, and who in fact say the exact opposite. So clearly there is a wide range of experience possible in the oil services industry, like anywhere else in life. In fact, one of the most explicit statements I came across was specifically that one problem with the initial rumor report was that they had never seen anyone tell the company man to do anything, ie, their word was final. This is certainly the feeling I’m getting from the ongoing investigation, where apparently even Haffle (I think that’s his name) yelled at some higher up in BP from the rescue ship via satellite phone, saying, are you fucking happy? I told you it was unsafe… and Halliburton also warned against unsafe conditions from what I gather.

Now, clearly here, what you have to identify, since we are in fact discussing the specific actions of a specific company, is if you have worked for BP yourself, in the GOM, BP USA that is. You’ll note in this single discussion thread there are several people who say they have done this. If you have not done this, then it’s unclear to me where your experience re working for BP has come from. But also, as we all know, companies can and do change their internal cultures, and the pressures on any one job, costs, budgets, overruns, might change any situation, unless the company has ultra strict rules internally, like supposedly Exxon does now… after the Exxon Valdez of course.
25.
h-1 says:
June 18, 2010 at 10:44

Re the specific information on the well: The information is out now, deepwaterhorizonresponse.com has all the paper work in pdf form. That information is being analyzed daily over at theOilDrum.com in the daily discussion threads. Check out today’s Deepwater Oil Spill – the BP CEO and Congress – and Open Thread: comments for a sample. Also take the time to read the summary of the initial findings re cause of the blowout, but if you don’t have the time, it was sloppy drilling practices. Today’s thread also features a real live retired lawyer (retiredL) who specialized in oil field law, which adds a delightful flavor of actual reality in terms of what is actually going in inside of BP right now.

There’s about 10 active drilling guys there, just so you don’t embarrass yourself, the main ones are ROCKMAN, aliilaali, Heading Out (I believe he’s active, though he may be teaching now, not sure), toolpush, shelburn, R2-3D, plus a bunch of retired drilling guys, whose nicknames usually indicate that, so you can bat around some experiences if you like, I think you might learn something to be honest. (MichaelWSmith is a BP pr shill, he’s on all the main blogs now trying to do damage control.) There’s a huge range of styles out there from what I can see, but there is a general agreement that BP really really screwed up here, and there’s also a general view that the blame lies with BP primarily, and a screwed up regulatory system secondarily. But see my notes on just why that system got screwed up. Remember, you cannot have both deregulation, dismantling and corruption of regulatory bodies, and strong regulation, it’s one or the other, but if you vote for parties that promise to remove it, restrict, denature, it, then don’t be surprised when the sh#t hits the fan years later, and for God’s sake have the decency to take some of the personal responsibility for the results of your votes, if that’s not too much to ask… or is taking personal responsibility just something that applies to other people, never oneself, especially when it comes to the results of supporting a certain type of ideology?

By the way, most of the useless comments in this discussion thread were removed, I left only the ones I thought raised interesting questions in some way or other, and I left all the ones that seemed to indicate that the person posting it had direct personal experience. You might find it useful to ask yourself if your personal direct experience covers all possible types of personal direct experience in the drilling sector, ie, you’ve worked for every single company, dealt with every company man, worked on every job, with every services company, every year, over time. If the answer to this question is no, which I assume it must be, then I’d have to ask you where your dead certainty that everyone else is wrong comes from?
26.
h-1 says:
June 18, 2010 at 14:20

i want to give just one example of why what one person knows reflects only their own company/direct local experience, not a general rule, and I assume such an example should be all that anyone who is reasonably intelligent needs to demonstrate this point.

ozamerican on June 18, 2010 – 10:51am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

My question is bigger, about process:

What role does the CEO have in risk management?

I will say that I work for a former Halliburton subsidiary, and there’s NOTHING we do that doesn’t go up the chain of command and get signed off on at the highest level.

I can’t BELIEVE that BP didn’t have a similar risk management system in place, and that ultimately, Mr Hayward didn’t sign off, too, or one at least of his very close delegates.

RISK management is EVERYthing to companies like this. Anyone who’s been there will know how front and central this is.
===
PassingThrough on June 18, 2010 – 11:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

A CEO will head up the process that sets the Risk Management rules for the company. Procedures will be developed and written up, perhaps a proprietary software system, a Permit System, a Safe System of Work, will be bought in. You often find a unique safety culture has been developed in a major corporation, Zero Tolerance, No Excuses, Golden Rules, that sort of thing. The CEO often signs it off.

But on a day-to-day basis, the signing off of the actual permit-to-work will go to a fairly low level manager. Very few processes or procedures will get anywhere near the attention of the CEO in a large corporation (imo).
====
[-] ozamerican on June 18, 2010 – 11:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

I disagree. In the (former hallburton subsidiary) company I work for, I often had to get (even small) contracts signed off on by the person reporting to the equivalent of the person directly reporting to Tony Hayward. No “fairly low level manager.” I don’t know where you work, but I know what it’s like where I work and my email address is still begins with “HALHOUSTON”.
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[-] ozamerican on June 18, 2010 – 11:44am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

Sorry, not my email address, but my intranet login begins with HALHOUSTON.

No big deal but I know how the sign-offs work.
====
PassingThrough on June 18, 2010 – 1:32pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

ozamerican, sorry, I should have said my comments are based on my experience here in the UK. It may be different where you work. I work in literally hundreds of different places (I carry out safety inspections and audit maintenance work).

Note that what the first poster ‘knew’ only reflected what existed in his company, while what another poster ‘knew’ only reflected what was the case in the UK. Now, both guys have learned that there are differences in this and an absence of absolutes. Now can we move along and try to resume a civil intelligent conversation minus the pointless chest thumping and ‘everyone but me is wrong’ type babble?

BP Press Suppression = Cover-Up

Gaza Flotilla Massacre Comment: A Doggerel Too Ignorant to Languish

I'll preserve this unreservedly stupid bit of scrap from Kay for the day we see some IDF free information come out of this tragedy. Jonathan's idiocy may amuse in another context, but I fail to see the humour. These people killed, "thugs" we would be convinced, all have families, friends, and lives as productive and valuable as any are no more. Dead mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons, needlessly killed. None were there for glory or money. Most to bring aid to ameliorate in some small, mostly token way, the indefensible siege of Gaza.

Over the next week, as more of the still incarcerated surviving participants are released and their stories told, and proven true, I'll bring this back to Mr. Kay for his doubtless feckless comment. - ape

The Canadian on the Gaza flotilla was a genuine peacenik

By Jonathan Kay May 31, 2010 – 4:24 pm
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/05/31/the-canadian-on-the-gaza-flotilla-was-a-genuine-peacenik/
Earlier today, I blogged about the violent “activists” who provoked the deadly treatment they got at the hands of Israel’s military off the coast of Gaza. Since then, we’ve learned that one of the activists participating in the six-boat flotilla is Kevin Neish, a 53-year-old pro-Palestinian activist from Victoria, B.C.

For what it’s worth, Neish — unlike the violent thugs who sparked the confrontation with the Israelis — seems to have been a genuine pacifist. Here’s a snippet of an interview he gave, from Crete, with Rabble.ca about the (then) upcoming flotilla:

[My role on the boat is that] I’m supposed to delay the [Israeli] commandos enough — non-violently, of course — that [a] film crew can get their footage … I’ve been tasked with basically standing in a passageway that leads to the upper deck, and being in the way, non-violently.

I hope he wasn’t hurt in the encounter. If his words here are sincere, then he seems to have been duped by the violent elements in the Free Gaza convoy as much as everyone else.

No Press Allowed: BP Owns the Air, Sea, and Ground it Soils

BP's Photo Blockade of the Gulf Oil Spill
Photographers say BP and government officials are preventing them from documenting the impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
source

Jean-Michel Cousteau (center) was turned away from a wildlife sanctuary by the U.S. Coast Guard after they discovered that an AP photographer was on board.

As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials—working with BP—who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.

Last week, a CBS TV crew was threatened with arrest when attempting to film an oil-covered beach. On Monday, Mother Jones published this firsthand account of one reporter’s repeated attempts to gain access to clean-up operations on oil-soaked beaches, and the telling response of local law enforcement. The latest instance of denied press access comes from Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc., which was scheduled to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer for a flyover on Tuesday afternoon, and says it was denied permission once BP officials learned that a member of the press would be on board.

“We are not at liberty to fly media, journalists, photographers, or scientists,” the company said in a letter it sent on Tuesday to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). “We strongly feel that the reason for this massive [temporary flight restriction] is that BP wants to control their exposure to the press.”

The ability to document a disaster, particularly through images, is key to focusing the nation’s attention on it, and the resulting clean-up efforts. Within days of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, pictures of dead otters, fish, and birds, as well as oil-covered shorelines, ignited nationwide outrage and led to a backlash against Exxon. Consumers returned some 10,000 of Exxon’s 7 million credit cards. Forty days after the spill, protestors organized a national boycott of Exxon. So far, no national boycott of BP is in the works, despite growing frustration over the company’s inability to cap the leaking well. Obviously, pictures are emerging from this spill, but much of the images are coming from BP and government sources.
Tim Boyle/Getty Images

Click to View a Timeline of the Gulf Oil Spill
A Timeline of the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

The U.S. Coast Guard insists that they and BP have gone to great lengths to accommodate journalists and “roughly 400 members of the media have been given tours of the spill on either BP-contracted aircraft or Coast Guard helicopters,” says U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer David Mosley, who is based at the BP command center in Houma, La. (BP referred all questions to the command center). “I understand there may be some frustration [among the press], but there is a constant ongoing effort to fulfill media requests.” Mosley defended flight restrictions as a necessary safety precaution. Since the flight restrictions were expanded on May 11, private aircraft must get permission from BP’s command center to fly over a huge portion of the Gulf of Mexico encompassing not just the growing slick in the Gulf, but the entire Louisiana coastline, where oil is washing ashore. If a request is denied, aircraft must stay 3,000 feet above the restricted area, where visibility is minimal.

Photographers who have traveled to the Gulf commonly say they believe that BP has exerted more control over coverage of the spill with the cooperation of the federal government and local law enforcement. “It’s a running joke among the journalists covering the story that the words ‘Coast Guard’ affixed to any vehicle, vessel, or plane should be prefixed with ‘BP,’ ” says Charlie Varley, a Louisiana-based photographer. “It would be funny if it were not so serious.”

The problem, as many members of the press see it, is that even when access is granted, it’s done so under the strict oversight of BP and Coast Guard personnel. Reporters and photographers are escorted by BP officials on BP-contracted boats and aircraft. So the company is able to determine what reporters see and when they see it. AP photographer Gerald Herbert has been covering the disaster since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20. He says that access has been hit or miss, and that there have been instances when it’s obvious members of the press are being targeted. “There are times when the Coast Guard has been great, and others where it seems like they’re interfering with our ability to have access,” says Herbert. One of those instances occurred early last week, when Herbert accompanied local officials from Plaquemines Parish in a police boat on a trip to Breton Island, a national wildlife refuge off the barrier islands of Louisiana. With them was Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of Jacques, who wanted to study the impact of the oil below the surface of the water. Upon approaching the island, a Coast Guard boat stopped them. “The first question was, ‘Is there any press with you?’ ” says Herbert. They answered yes, and the Coast Guard said they couldn’t be there. “I had to bite my tongue. That should have no bearing.”

Local fishermen and charter boat captains are also being pressured by BP not to work with the press. Left without a source of income, most have decided to work with BP to help spread booms and ferry officials around. Their passengers used to include members of the press, but not anymore. “You could tell BP was starting to close their grip, telling the fishermen not to talk to us,” says Jared Moossy, a Dallas-based photographer who was covering the spill along the Gulf Coast earlier this month. “They would say that BP had told them not to talk to us or cooperate with us or that they’d get fired.”

Some Gulf Coast watermen find BP’s desire to limit press access obvious. “If there was a major fire in a warehouse, would you let reporters go inside and start taking pictures?” asks Peace Marvel, a charter-boat captain in Venice, La. Job one, he says, is to clean up the spill, and running members of the press around only gets in the way and makes things worse. “Nobody wants this marsh saved as much as we do.” Since the spill, Marvel has turned his 15 years of experience into helping coordinate the logistics of ferrying BP officials around the Gulf Coast to deal with the spreading disaster. His current contract with BP lasts for 30 more days, and he says he’s making more money working for BP than he did as a charter-boat captain. “I’m hustling for business,” he says.

So are the reporters and photographers trying to cover the worst environmental disaster in the history of the U.S. waters. They’ll have to do it without the help of people like Peace Marvel, and against the will of BP.