More Excellent News

Remember how I said earlier that the selection of John Berry to head OPM might be a sign of the beginning of the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell at the Pentagon?

Well, guess what:

President Obama will end the 15-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that has prevented homosexual and bisexual men and women from serving openly within the U.S. military, a spokesman for the
president-elect said.

Obama said during the campaign that he opposed the policy, but since his election in November he has made statements that have been interpreted as backpedaling. On Friday, however, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, responding on the transition team’s Web site to a Michigan resident who asked if the new administration planned to get rid of the policy, said:

“You don’t hear politicians give a one-word answer much. But it’s ‘Yes.’ “

There you go. It’s not really correlation implying causation — for one thing, Obama has maintained for some time now that DADT had to go — but simply indicative of the fact that times and attitudes (and presidents) are changing, and the GLBT community now can expect friendlier conditions in the Federal government.

Gaza, day 19

DemocracyNow featured both Avi Shlaim, an expert on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Mads Gilbert, the physician who treated the wounded in Gaza. There was one encouraging point. Although Mads Gilbert said that he had heard from colleagues that there had been inhalation and burn injuries due to the use of white phosphorus, he had not seen them (meaning we may hope they were rare). Also, Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch said that what he had witnessed from the Gaza border with Israel looked like the appropriate use of white phosphorus as an obscurant.

A brief excerpt from Avi Shlaim:

But 1967, the war of June 1967, was a major turning point in the history of Israel and the history of the region. In the course of the war, Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan and Sinai from Egypt. After the war, Israel started building civilian territories in the occupied territories in violation of international law. So Israel became a colonial power and an imperial power.

And I, for my part, have never questioned the legitimacy of the Zionist movement. I saw it as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Nor did I ever question the legitimacy of the state of Israel within its pre-1967 borders. What I reject, what I reject totally, absolutely and uncompromisingly, is the Zionist colonial project beyond the 1967 borders. So we have to distinguish very clearly between Israel proper, within its pre-1967 borders, and Greater Israel, which began to emerge in the aftermath of the June ‘67 war and has completely derailed the Zionist project.

The Mads Gilbert/Marc Garlasco interview is here, but the transcript is not yet up.

Excellent, Excellent News

President-Elect Obama has appointed an openly gay man, John Berry, to head up the Office of Personnel Management. OPM is the part of the Federal government responsible for determining how employees are dealt with.

The Feds have fallen behind the leaders of private industry in acknowledging and honoring their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers. Now it looks like they’re gearing up to play catch-up. It may even signal the beginning of the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” at the Pentagon.

In addition, Obama’s transition team named three more key gay hires yesterday: Karine Jean-Pierre, who will be the White House Liaison to the Department of Labor; Dave Noble, the White House Liaison to NASA; and David Medina, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Office of the First Lady. This is just excellent, excellent news.