Tuesday, 7 July 2009

PA militia transfers detainee to hospital due to torture


PA militia transfers detainee to hospital due to torture

[ 07/07/2009 - 04:46 PM ]

NABLUS, (PIC)-- Informed sources said that 45-year-old detainee Samih Aleiwi, kidnapped seven months ago, was transferred to the intensive care unit at the national hospital in Nablus on Monday as a result of his exposure to excruciating torture at the hands of PA security officers in Juneid prison.

Aleiwi family members said that elements of PA security militia prevented his family from seeing him despite being in the intensive care unit, and physically assaulted his son Mutasem, adding that they forced the family out of the hospital and iterated blasphemous remarks against God.

The sources noted that this was the seventh time Aleiwi was transferred to hospital because of torture, affirming that he is in very poor health condition.

The sources also said that the PA militia also closed Aleiwi’s jewelry store and confiscated its contents.

In the context of the PA-Israeli security collaboration, PA militia kidnapped pharmacist Omar Al-Hanbali immediately after his release from Israeli jails on Monday.

Sources reported that the PA militia rounded him up in an Israeli-controlled area near the village of Laban, east of Nablus, on his way back home after he was released from Negev prison.

The same militia had taken the wife of Hanbali hostage on Sunday in order to pressure him to turn himself in immediately after his release from Israeli jails.

The PA security apparatuses also reportedly kidnapped a young man called Mohamed Halayka from the town of Shuyukh in Al-Khalil after they summoned him for interrogation.

His family said that Halayka was working in the 1948 occupied lands and returned to his village to get married.

The PA militia always targets Halayka clan, the biggest family in the town of Shuyukh, where the security apparatuses carry out daily arrests in the ranks of the family at the pretext of their affiliation with Hamas.

In a context related to the issue of political arrests in the West Bank, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri categorically denied that the PA in Ramallah had released 185 detainees affiliated with Hamas during the past few days, affirming that the PA statements in this regard were only made for propaganda purposes and to mislead the public opinion.

GAZA ~~ RELIVING THE NAKBA

LINK

July 7, 2009 at 4:46 pm (Ethnic Cleansing, Gaza, Genocide, Israel, Nakba, Palestine, War Crimes)

Palestine 1948~~Gaza 2008-9

Gaza: A Story

by Marryam Haleem

They lived in a place called Peace. But then came the tanks and the guns. So they left, the white flag waving in the air.

Nestled in the north of Gaza, close to the Israeli border, Hay As-salaam (Peace Neighborhood) was in nature as in name: A quiet area outside the city. The land owned by a wealthy Palestinian (extended) family, the Abu Eida family. Their 10 family houses gave life to the neighborhood. All were new and large and beautiful, the oldest only built in the early 2000‘s.

Surrounding these beautiful villas were about 400,000 square meters of farm and orchards. Lambs grazed the land. Chickens pecked the ground. Throngs of varied trees stood tall all round: nuts and palms, citrus and orange–some over a hundred years old. Just down the lane were the family factories. These concrete mixing factories included the first and oldest ones in the Gaza Strip.

Situated as it was, on the border, Peace Neighborhood was one of the first places the Israeli army occupied during the December-January Massacre of 2009. Until that point of the Massacre, the families stayed in their homes, afraid to leave–as all in Gaza were.

On the 12th of January, Jihad Abu Eida received a phone call from his brother, telling him that the Israelis would let them leave their houses if they held up the white flag. So Jihad collected his wife and six young children and they left carried nothing with them but the clothes on their back and, naturally, the white flag.

They waited out the next week of terror, away from home and anxious to return. When the day of relief finally arrived, Jihad once again gathered up his family, this time with uplifted spirits, for they were headed home.

But home was never to be found again.

They returned to a graveyard. The entire land all around, as far as the eye could see, lay flattened. It was as if a giant plow came through and raked everything through.

“This was my home,” Jihad tells me as we stand in front of a heap of rubble. I look around, trying to detect some of the beauty he described. I see nothing. Just destruction. Not one tree still stands. There are heaps of rubble that used to be houses. Only the elevator shafts still stand in some.

One house stands, however. It is quite a handsome house. Or rather I can tell it used to be handsome, despite the broken brick walls and bullet holes, despite the broken pillars and crumbling balcony.

“The Israelis used it as a command post,” Jihad explains. That is why it remained standing. They were considerate enough, however, to leave their mark before they departed. The walls on the inside of the house are covered with maps of the area. They are also trashed with swear words and vulgarities. It was ransacked and looted of all valuables.

“They took all our gold and money and valuables before they bombed them,” Jihad explains as we walk around his “house.” Jihad picks out a bent and torn text book.

“That was one of my engineering books,” he says, fingering it delicately. And I wonder vaguely at the horrible misconception people back home have of the people here whose lives our money has destroyed.

Jihad studied engineering in San Diego, CA in the late 80‘s and 90‘s. He is an avid Lakers fan until now (he is still rooting for them to win now!). And he even named his oldest son Kareem after Karim Abdul Jabbar. This is the kind of person who American media vilifies.

“That was my driveway,” Jihad says as we walk on some rubble. I see bits of beautiful tile among the debris. A little way off I spot chunks of engraved columns.

“We have nothing left. Not one photo. Not my diplomas. Nothing. Everything is gone,” he says as we walk slowly among the destruction,

“That was my uncle’s house,” he points to another mount of rubble.

“Remember,” says a friend who is with him, “remember when we had breakfast their that time?” They laugh at the personal memory. I smile weakly, wondering at the their ability to still laugh amid the ruin.

Our media gets worse and worse by the minute here in Gaza. What sort of military “defense” bombs, with F-16, residential homes? Do people who supposedly fear for their safety occupy a house, loot it, desecrate its wall and shell it with tanks when done? Do they shoot and kill the harmless livestock and chickens? Do they uproot hundred-year-old trees? (Environmentalists, do you care?)

I watch in numb disbelief as Jihad tells me of that dreadful day they returned. This middle aged man’s voice shakes with grief. He was overcome with shock when he saw the place. They, none of them, could believe it. It was absolutely devastating. He thought he was going to have a heart attack from the horror. And all the family there with him. It was awful, he kept saying.

He never thought they would destroy the place at all, let alone destroy everything so completely. Because they are on the border, Jihad explains, the Israelis came to their place three or four times before in the past few years. Just last year they came and forced his family to stay in one room while they used the rest of the house.

“When they left, the only thing they destroyed were the fences,” he says. This time, he thought, it would be like that. But he was wrong. The destruction was total. The family lost everything. For the Israelis not only destroyed their places of residence and farms and orchards and animals, but also all their factories.

Jihad told me the estimate of their loss is 15 million dollars. That, I am sure, is an extremely conservative estimate. He said others are saying it is over 20 million and I think that is closer to the mark. But he holds 15 million, for he knows that for sure it is that much that is lost.

“It’s the tax we pay for being Palestinian,” he says. A heavy tax, indeed.

“We are fine with them are our neighbors,” he told me when I asked about the Israelis, “let us live together! But they don’t want us as neighbors. They are trying to drive us out. They want the land and not the people.”

When I asked him if this terrible loss made him want to leave Gaza. He just looked at me and stated simply, “Gaza is the only place for me. I have no other place.”

We visited one of the factories. Heaps of rubble and metal are scattered around. Jihad said it is much cleaner now than it was. They are trying to rebuild. But it is a slow process because of the siege. I asked him why they are rebuilding after this absolute loss.

“We must rebuild,” he said, “and if they come and destroy again. We must rebuild. We cannot just sit and cry and think about the past. We must look to the future.”

After touring the destruction of the once-upon-a-greener-time factory, we sit with his father and brothers and nephews and have tea. The talk is light and happy. I don’t understand how it could be so, with the signs of their grief all around. But they are a strong people, and inclined toward optimism. So we drink and talk and laugh.

As we get up to leave the “factory” and go back home, Jihad shakes hands with his father. When we get into the car and head out, he remarks on his parting.

“You see how I shook hands with my father just now to go home?” he asks. “I never had to do that before. We lived in the same house. But now he lives here and I live in middle of the crowded city. In a small, rented flat.”

The desolate land goes by in a blur. It wasn’t just the loss of property, and fortune, and future, I think to myself. They ripped the family asunder.

What is the excuse, I ponder now in the silence of a Gazan night, what is the excuse for a people who destroyed that place called peace?

Source


CYBER WAR FARE~ May be Used to Attack Iran

Link




Israel-US-British Deadly War Games

Well, this just keeps getting more deadly. I’m talking about the Israel-USA-British pact to re-make the Middle East. This just out today; Israel may use Cyber War Fare to attack Iran’s nuclear facility.

This opens up a whole big area of potentially "Whoop-Ass" warfare worry, as the “Un-Holy Group of Three” have the capability to create utter mayhem in the Middle East for centuries to come. If they choose this path, Al Qaeda will become child’s play in contrast to what they will create by continuing to meddle in the affairs of other countries they don’t like. All these groups have already been involved in an attempt to overthrow Iran’s recent elections, I wrote about that here and here where the Obama Plan is to soften the American public up for an attack on Iran.

Back to the Cyber War Fare plan: For instance,using Cyber War Fare they could create a fake missile launch, and then blame Iran to justify an all out Israeli-American attack on Iran. That’s just one evil scenario. Or they could create some nuclear disaster at Iran’s facility, killing many Iranians. Something like Chernobyl perhaps. Another worrying thing is that not only are US sources being quoted in this article, also British sources from the Janes Publishing Group, AKA MI5, and more here. They are the equivalent of the American CIA. Have a read of these statements below, and then ask yourself if you support the “Change” Obama brings to US foreign Policy. What an absolute joke and utter marketing campaign he ran. He’s a Bush in Obama clothing, and a dangerous one at that. Report below:



The appeal of cyber attacks was boosted, Israeli sources say, by the limited feasibility of conventional air strikes on the distant and fortified Iranian atomic facilities, and by U.S. reluctance to countenance another open war in the Middle East.

"We came to the conclusion that, for our purposes, a key Iranian vulnerability is in its on-line information," said one recently retired Israeli security cabinet member, using a generic term for digital networks. "We have acted accordingly."
Cyberwarfare teams nestle deep within Israel's spy agencies, which have rich experience in traditional sabotage techniques and are cloaked in official secrecy and censorship.

They can draw on the know-how of Israeli commercial firms that are among the world's hi-tech leaders and whose staff are often veterans of elite military intelligence computer units.

"To judge by my interaction with Israeli experts in various international forums, Israel can definitely be assumed to have advanced cyber-attack capabilities," said Scott Borg, director of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, which advises various Washington agencies on cyber security.

Technolytics Institute, an American consultancy, last year rated Israel the sixth-biggest "cyber warfare threat," after China, Russia, Iran, France and "extremist/terrorist groups."

The United States is in the process of setting up a "Cyber Command" to oversee Pentagon operations

Asked to speculate about how Israel might target Iran, Borg said malware -- a commonly used abbreviation for "malicious software" -- could be inserted to corrupt, commandeer or crash the controls of sensitive sites like uranium enrichment plants.

Such attacks could be immediate, he said. Or they might be latent, with the malware loitering unseen and awaiting an external trigger, or pre-set to strike automatically when the infected facility reaches a more critical level of activity.

"Cyberwar has the advantage of being clandestine and deniable,"

"But its effectiveness is hard to gauge, because the targeted network can often conceal the extent of damage or even fake the symptoms of damage. Military strikes, by contrast, have an instantly quantifiable physical effect."
Israel may be open to a more overt strain of cyberwarfare.

Tony Skinner of Jane's Defense Weekly cited Israeli sources as saying that Israel's 2007 bombing of an alleged atomic reactor in Syria was preceded by a cyber attack which neutralized ground radars and anti-aircraft batteries.

"State of War," a 2006 book by New York Times reporter James Risen, recounted a short-lived plan by the CIA and its Israeli counterpart Mossad to fry the power lines of an Iranian nuclear facility using a smuggled electromagnetic-pulse (EMP) device.

A massive, nation-wide EMP attack on Iran could be effected by detonating a nuclear device at atmospheric height.source
I am reminded of that old Country Joe and the Fish song from Woodstock era. The chorus goes like this:

Five, six, seven, eight
Open up the pearly gates.
Ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopie! We're all going to die.
Posted by Free Palestine Writers at 2:37 PM


BAKER: Neutralising a Nation

Link

July 7, 2009

by Joharah Baker for MIFTAH

PHOTO: Rina Castelnuovo, New York Times

PHOTO: Rina Castelnuovo, New York Times


It is not always about overt political displays when it comes to what defines our conflict with the Israelis. It is easy to become wrapped up in the grandiose issues such as borders, settlements, the separation wall, refugees, Jerusalem, water and so on and so forth. After all, these are the disputes that must ultimately be resolved in order for this conflict to end justly and permanently. But let us put such matters aside for the purpose of this article. There is an underlying, extremely insidious and equally effective rationale that Israel uses in regards to the Palestinians of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem that is a sort of preparation, a way of setting the stage for the imposition of their own terms regarding the abovementioned issues.

As much as this conflict is about the political dimensions everyone knows all too well, it is also about the forced transformation of the Palestinians from a revolutionary, resisting people to a nation that must submit to Israel’s dictates in order to survive. Basically, because the Palestinians live under Israeli military rule, it is Israel that ultimately calls the shots, not only on the bigger issues but on aspects of everyday life.

Take for example, applying for a permit to enter Jerusalem or Israel proper. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians who apply for day permits are workers who cannot find jobs in the Palestinian territories or opt for construction or other skilled work with an Israeli employer because of better pay. Many others also need permits, mostly because their places of work require crossing into east Jerusalem. Obtaining a permit is a long, arduous and frankly humiliating process. The first step is applying for a magnetic card, which then enables you to apply for any of the multitude of permits (work, airport, medical, business, family reunification, etc.).

This magnetic card is basically a police report, complete with mug shots and fingerprints. Anyone can get a magnetic card as long as you have a Palestinian ID card and the proper application. The catch is in applying for a permit. If this police record shows any “black mark”, that is a stint in Israeli prisons for political activity, political affiliation or even a relative who has taken on a life of “struggle,” your application will be duly denied. This is not to mention that once you are “in the system” your record can be pulled up at any given time with a simple electronic hand check or swipe of the almighty magnetic card.

What’s worse, Israel has newly enforced a “law” that obligates all those with permits (and magnetic cards) to punch in at the electronic stalls at checkpoints while reentering the West Bank. Most permits are from 5:00 in the morning until 7:00 in the evening, which are about the hours needed for a laborer to travel inside Israel, work his shift and cross the line again into Palestinian territory. If the permit-bearer does not punch in his/her magnetic card, their permit will be revoked for an unlimited amount of time the next time they try to cross into Israel. The rule, Israel claims, was set so as to avoid any Palestinians “illegally” overstaying their permit hours.

As a result, between five and seven in the evening (the lines can be long), one can witness a heart-wrenching scene at Qalandia or any other checkpoint between Israel and the Palestinian territories – dozens of weary, dust-covered workers scurrying to make the cutoff time for swiping their cards lest they reach a minute late and have their permits revoked. For them, a minute after seven represents the fine line between putting a meal on the table for their families and plunging into a life of abject poverty.

The same Israeli policy applies for Palestinians living in Jerusalem, who have been lucky enough to obtain a residency permit (but not a Jerusalem ID card). Each year, their residency application is scrutinized and reviewed before it is renewed for another 12 months. If, for any reason, the person in question decides to engage in any kind of political activity, has a spouse or relative involved in “anti-Israel” activities or fails to meet the zillion requirements demanded, their residency permit is simply cancelled and they are ousted from the city.

What Israel is so cleverly doing is neutralizing an entire people, reeducating them to believe that the only way to survive is to submit to its dictates, to follow their directions so they can have jobs, feed their children and live in their own homes. Israel by some twisted logic, is trying to convince the Palestinians that they are their best option for freedom.

In a meeting with Palestinian and Israeli journalists in Geneva last winter, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, in all earnest, told the group that “Israel was the Palestinians’ best chance for reaching their goals.” As outrageous as this may sound, this is what Israel wants the Palestinians to believe, so they give them limited permits to travel in and out of Israel or the even scarcer residency permits to live in Jerusalem and then hold it over their heads forever.

There are two dangerous pitfalls to this rationale. One is that these are basic rights that should not need a permit or a magnetic card to exercise. Second is the notion that we as Palestinians must depend on Israel to live our lives and forfeit any ideas of resistance in order to do so.

We may not see it but this is a battle Israel has been waging for years. Palestinians at checkpoints hush those who dare raise their voices in protest of the long queues or of a soldier who decides to take a lunch break while dozens of tired Palestinians wait behind iron bars for their turn to cross. Laborers will gladly refrain from political activity or resistance against the occupation if it means they are granted a three-month day permit to enter Israel and therefore support their families.

Some may say the Palestinians must play by the rules of Israel’s game in order to survive. While this may be true to an extent, we must not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of believing this is our only lifeline. Instead, the Palestinians should see this stage as a transition, a means of reaching our real goal of independence and sovereignty where we are not bound to Israel like a lost puppy but are free to make our own choices and create our own destiny. In order to do this, we must not, cannot, lend an ear to people like Leshno-Yaar who say Israel is our best choice. Most importantly, even while we stand for our mug shots and fingerprinting, even as we swipe our cards at checkpoints, we must always keep in mind that Israel may be able to neutralize our actions but never our minds.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.

LINK: http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=20005&CategoryId=3

BREAKING NEWS: Israel Foils Potential Terrorist Plot

Link

Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel

Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel



Thanks to Israel’s very quick thinking, a plot to annihilate Israel via the Erez border crossing was averted. The threat in question, was a 5 month old Palestinian baby, who was accompanying the mother and 5 year old sister who were traveling to Israel for medical treatment. As the IDF policy is to consider all Palestinian children as potential terrorists, the threat from the tiny but possibly dangerous 5 month old was deemed to be far too dangerous for the Israeli officials to allow the baby to pass through into Israel alongside the Mother and sister. An IDF spokesman stated that it's not about size, it's about the danger of the tiny baby's ability to spew deadly baby spit-up onto Israelis. A threat Israel was just not willing to risk.

Israel refuses to let 5-month old baby from Gaza leave the Strip with his mother and sister

Israeli forces at the Erez crossing stopped a 5-month old baby from crossing into Israel. His mother and five-year old sister both had a permission to leave the Strip, so the 5-year old girl could receive medical treatment in Israel.

As Israeli troops refused the infant to enter Israel, the mother and both her children were forced to turn back home without receiving medical treatment and might be unable to receive another permission to enter Israel.The five-year old girl needed medical help in Israel, as doctors in Gaza were unable to diagnose why the girl has been suffering from chronic fevers.The mother decided to take her baby with her, because she didn’t know how long the treatment would take, assuming that a five-month old infant didn’t constitute any threat for the state of Israel.The permits the mother and her daughter received were only valid on Tuesday and they had a hospital appointment for Tuesday afternoon in the Al-Maqased hospital in Jerusalem.

Posted by Free Palestine Writers at 12:10 PM

BREAKING NEWS: Israel refuses to let 5-month old baby from Gaza leave the Strip with his mother and sister July 8, 2009

The dream of returning home

Link

Mary Pole writing from al-Buss refugee camp, Lebanon, Live from Lebanon, 7 July 2009



Fadi (center) with his three sisters, brother in-law, niece and nephew in the family's home in the al-Buss refugee camp. (Mary Pole)

Fadi looked up and pointed at the rain. "This is like our life. We hate the rain. But we can't change it so we will stay under it."

This rain appeared all the more invasive when picking lemons in winter. It is a cold, wet and miserable task, for the equivalent of $7 a day. A task only perceived to be fit for Palestinians in Lebanon. Despite Fadi's postgraduate qualification in accounting and fluency in English, he rightly pointed out, "I can't be a lawyer, I can't be a doctor ... Seventy-two jobs I can't do."

Until 2005, 72 professions were off-limits to non-Lebanese citizens, including Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon. This includes those working in managerial positions as well as lawyers, doctors and pharmacists and skilled vocational labor. Although 50 of these professions have now been removed from this list, the legislation requiring Palestinians to obtain yearly work permits has ensured that little has changed in practice.

Fadi is from the al-Buss refugee camp in southern Lebanon. The camp's dusty tracks, conveniently marked in a grid system unlike some of the other camps, are heavily built up on either side by two- to four-story properties. Fadi's father died when he was a boy and left his mother with virtually nothing. He has worked from scratch to build a modest two-bedroom, one-story house near one of the non-manned entrances of al-Buss. In addition to several non-manned entrances there are two main entrances to exit and enter the camp which are the cause of much discontent. Residents of the camp are regularly checked upon entering and leaving by Lebanese soldiers, and cars face tighter restrictions. Fadi explained, "all the camps of Lebanon have one way to enter and another one way to exit from it. So I am not in the camps, I am in a big prison." This sense of confinement is heightened by the fact that legislation currently forbids Palestinian refugees from owning property outside the demarcated refugee camps, leaving Fadi and his neighbors little choice but to stay.

His bedroom contains three striking features. The first is a photo that hangs above the bed, the only item to adorn the bare walls aside from Quranic recitations. This photo is of Fadi overlooking his homeland, representing the only "alive dream" that his circumstances have afforded him.

He explained that "I can't have any other dreams for the future. There are no dreams for any Palestinians in Lebanon. I dream to have a good home, a good job, a good family and a good wife, but is there a way to receive my country and my homeland? We have dreams but they are dead dreams. If you lived in this way, what could you dream for your future? Would you have any dreams? I don't think so. All our dreams are dead, apart from this one dream: the alive dream to return to my home and country, this will not die."

The second immediately apparent feature of Fadi's room is a veritable library of books in English and Arabic, on subjects ranging from physics to English literature. As I admired this collection, I was reminded of Chafic, a 24-year-old I met from the neighboring Rashidieh camp outside of the southern city of Tyre. Chafic is currently studying at the Beirut Arab University. We met for a water pipe and coffee in one of the thriving nightspots of Beirut frequented by a new generation of Lebanese with money, seemingly a million miles a way from the poverty stricken camps of the south.

Chafic's father works for Fatah, the leading Palestinian political party, and has been able to save for his education. As the oldest son it is imperative that he be able to support his family. The tragedy is that despite an excellent training as an accountant, Chafic is reduced to bribing his boss and working day-and-night in order to illegally obtain a work permit. After all, his status as a Palestinian refugee prevents him from being employed as an accountant. Palestinians can learn, attend top-tier schools and universities, but are then forced to put the books back on the shelf and turn instead to other means of achieving equality and stature.

Back in al-Buss camp, he third item in Fadi's room that stands out is a gun: a 10-year-old Kalashnikov in pride of place complete with case knitted by his mother.

"I have this machine gun to save our rights in the camps. I don't want Lebanese citizenship. I want to go back to my country. I don't want to stay here. This gun protects me and all refugees from being picked up like sheep and taken to another land," he said, adding, "It's just an idea but we think it because we are a big problem for Lebanon and a big problem for Israel and for all the world. If they finished us like this there is a big problem solved. It will even solve their problem of our living near to Palestine. Our home."

It is not only the Israelis that Fadi wants to protect his family from. He remembered with anger the massacres in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the 1982 Israeli invasion. While the Israeli army surrounded the camp, members of the Lebanese Christian Phalange militia killed between 800 to 3,000 Palestinians, including women and children. This was compounded by the "Camp Wars," when Amal, the Lebanese Shia militia backed by the Syrian army, laid siege to the Palestinian refugee camps of Shatila and Bourj al-Barajneh. Fadi explained, "I will not throw my weapons down. I need them to save the refugees in Lebanon and save our lives. We are not terrorists, we have peaceful minds, but we have no choice."

Mary Pole is a 24-year-old British writer, reporter and humanitarian relief worker currently based in Kyrgyzstan. She spent two months in the Palestinian refugee camps of southern Lebanon in 2008 working with UNIPAL, a British Universities Educational Exchange program. Having studied the Palestinian refugee situation in detail during her Masters Degree in Forced Migration at Oxford, she is looking forward to returning to the Middle East to work in an advocatory capacity.

Qassem: Kidnappings in West Bank linked to PA agreements with Israel


Qassem: Kidnappings in West Bank linked to PA agreements with Israel

[ 07/07/2009 - 11:18 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Professor of political science Abdelsattar Qassem stated Monday that the kidnappings taking place in the West Bank are related to the agreements signed by the PA with Israel especially the Oslo agreements, which stipulated the elimination of the Palestinian resistance.

In a press statement, Qassem said these kidnappings would continue as long as the PA in the West Bank remained dependent on the funds coming from the donor countries which chained it and made it hostage to the Israeli occupation authority and the external interventions.

He expressed belief that the PA security campaigns would go on even if Hamas and Fatah reached a reconciliation agreement during the coming days.

In his reply to a question about Netanyahu’s condition of freezing settlements in exchange for Arab relations with Israel, the academic underlined that Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu wants to normalize relations with Arabs publicly instead of the secret relations with some Arab countries.

DESTROY IRAN BEFORE ISRAEL DESTROYS YOU

Link




~ THUS THREATENS NETANYAHU

by Mark Glenn
22 April 2009 19:08

What would serve the Jew-hating world better as repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a nuclear winter? Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?” ~ Professor David Perlmutter, Los Angeles Times, April 7, 2002
“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…We have the capability to take the world down with us, and I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.” ~Martin Van Creveld, Israeli Historian ~ ISRAEL A MAD DOG TOO DANGEROUS TO BOTHER.

In early February 2009, a mere few days before the elections in Israel that delivered into Benjamin Netanyahu’s hands the launch codes to several hundred nuclear weapons aimed at every major capital in the Western world, former U.S. Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller predicted that, upon assuming the seat of power, Netanyahu’s first priority would be “strategic conversation” with America’s new president, Barack Obama.

Miller further predicted that the aim of this “very serious” conversation would be to “scare the daylights out of the president”, the ultimate objective of which would be mobilizing ~ not only the United States, but indeed the entire “international community” ~ into addressing the Iranian situation in a manner deemed “acceptable” to the Jewish state and her agenda.

Now, almost as if Miller were some wizard with a magic crystal ball, indeed Netanyahu ~ the same former Israeli commando-turned politician who gloated over the deaths of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 saying the event was “good” because it would generate “immediate sympathy” for Israel ~ has made good on the former diplomat’s predictions and delivered his threats, and not only to America but as well to the entire Western world.

MISSING LINKS explains his absolute glee over 911.

Rather than do it face to face with the US President, however, he chose instead to use his own personal emissary, none other than writer Jeffrey Goldberg, pro-Zionist fanatic, propagandist, de-facto disinformation agent for a foreign power and more-than-willing accomplice to Israel’s war crimes, both in the Middle East and beyond.

Appearing in last month’s Atlantic magazine, Goldberg’s piece entitled “Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran ~ Or I Will” features newly-made capo di tutti capi “Bibi” dishing up a whole smorgasbord of goodies for a world sick to death of Israel’s nauseating wars. With all the grace of an overweight mob boss sticking a gun in the face of one of his would-be extortion victims, Netanyahu makes it clear in the interview he views the American president as his boy out to do the bidding of the Jewish state and little more.
“I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." ~ Israeli Prime Minister, the Butcher Ariel Sharon

According to Netanyahu, the “two great missions” facing President Obama are:

(1) fixing the economy, and

(2) that he “must” stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and “quickly”.

As if he were a cub scout den leader telling scary stories to a group of boys seated around a campfire he theatricizes the urgency of it all by saying “You don’t want a messianic, apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

He then one step further in saying the Iranian nuclear challenge represents a “hinge of history” and that Western civilization “will have failed” if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

This is by no means the first time “Bibi” has been found talking like some mad, incoherent armageddonist out of some Stephen King novel. In Paris recently he was quoted saying “We have never had a situation in the history of the world in which a radical regime with a retrograde ideology and apparently known ambitions on the use of force will get access to the weapons of mass death” adding that “a terribly dangerous threshold will be crossed” if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, while urging world leaders to make sure it does not happen.

Nor is the frantic tone of Netanyahu’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb…bomb, bomb Iran” ditty anything new. Since stumping to become the Jewish state’s newest incarnation of King David several years ago, he has shock-and-awed audiences the world over with dire predictions of what Iran ~ a nation that has not attacked anyone in a thousand years ~ not only might do, but will do if not holocausted by the US.

From his “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany“ to his “Ahmadinejhad is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state” to his “Iran poses the greatest threat to our existence since the war of independence”, like some crazy street preacher wandering up and down the sidewalks of a major metropolitan city waving placards reading “the end is near” and handing out tracts to passersby, “Bibi” has used the most effective weapon in his arsenal in corralling supporters to his side ~ terror.

Do the Israelis know any other way to get what they want?

Not that this should be in the least bit surprising. Given his established devotion for the teachings of Vladimir Jabotinsky ~ one of the godfathers of Israeli terrorism who always advocated using the gun first in settling any disputes and then diplomacy if anyone remained alive ~ Netanyahu understands the value of terror.

And so he should. He has been killing Palestinians for years!

Although using fancy, coded language ~ as any gangster would ~ nevertheless none should make the mistake of thinking that just because he comports himself in expensive suits and meticulously-manicured nails that somehow he is above resorting to the tactics of professional criminals, meaning terror and violence, including on a mass scale.

Of course, fixing the economy is certainly something of supreme importance to Israel. Being the largest foreign welfare program in the yearly federal budget, the money she receives from America ~ anywhere from 15-30 million dollars a day ~ represents something in the neighborhood of 25% of her total net worth. Without American money and arms, God’s chosen people would be reduced to slinging stones like the young lad David, leaving the Jewish state to whither and die like a strand of poison ivy yanked from the ground by its roots.

(Oh what a glorious vision!)

His 2nd assertion though, that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons, is interesting and important for 2 reasons.

In the first case, it demonstrates the raw, ugly, elitism permeating Zionist thinking, and all the byproduct of a backwards, predatory mindset disguising itself as the religion known as Judaism.

Although carefully-worded and masked in what appear to be deeply-philosophical musings, what Netanyahu really means in his statement is that the Western world, with its thousands of years of history and achievements ~ exists for one purpose and one purpose only ~ to suckle the Jewish state and protect it from all enemies (including those of her own, deliberate making) and that all other accomplishments up to this point are secondary in importance.

You mean there is another reason to exist than love and protect poor lil Israel from the mean bad people of countries it alienates through its greed and racist mannerisms? Oh and thieving banking ways. This is, actually, Talmudic thinking.

An idea appearing first in the Old Testament Torah ~ where those conquered by the Israelites were reduced to becoming “hewers of wood” and “carriers of water” ~ and then later distilled and made even uglier in the Talmud, it is a dogma that Netanyahu and his fellow citizens (both in Israel and beyond) have adopted as an article of faith ~ that Gentiles are beasts in human form created by God to serve the Jews in a Judeo-centric universe where everything orbits around Israel and her people.

Those who assume this is some weird, aberrant idea espoused by only a few nutcases should allow such pleasant fiction to die the death it deserves. The term “God’s chosen people” is the bedrock of Jewish thinking and of the Jewish religion and the aforementioned “center of the universe” thinking is as intrinsic to what being “Jewish” is as tomatoes are to tomato sauce.

In a very telling statement, well-known Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi once wrote that his “view of history” was that “billions of people who lived and suffered and died were no more than “extras” in a big Jewish drama,” and that “human experience” was really just “Jewish experience.”

As much as his comments concerning Western civilization “failing” appear to be the mere ramblings of someone with an overblown sense of his own people’s importance however, it is wise for rational persons to assume that the latest version of Herod the Great was in actuality choreographing something much more dire in its nature to the Western world ~ meaning a threat.

Israel ~ through her leaders and various spokesmen over the years ~ has made it clear she is not like other nations. Indeed, much like Jim Jones and his infamous “People’s Temple”, the Jewish state is cut from the same cloth as other cults envisioning themselves as being divine in nature, who are unable to function in the real world in a rational way and determined to go out in a blaze of glory.

From Ariel Sharon’s infamous “Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy, that we might go wild and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East, or that we might start World War Three just like that” to Moshe Dayan’s “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother” to Prime Minister Golda Meir’s “This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself…It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy”, one thing the Jewish state has made clear since her inception is that she is not playing with a full deck, and the few cards she does possess are jokers.

Dangerous jokers with humongous egos!

This being the case, concerned, rational people have every reason to assume Netanyahu’s remarks concerning the “failure” of Western civilization is not as much a comment as it is a veiled threat, similar in its style to the famous line from the Godfather “I‘ll make him an offer he can’t refuse“.

It is the language of professional terrorists who, for reasons of liability, know they cannot be clear on certain matters except when speaking with each other. In an age when information circumnavigates the globe literally in a matter of seconds and when quotes and sound bites are grabbed and permanently plastered on thousands or even hundreds of thousands of websites in all four corners of the world, criminals these days know they must mind their ‘p’s and ‘q’s lest their “frankness” come back to haunt them.

Nor is the idea of Israel destroying Europe, the epicenter of Western civilization, some mad, conspiracy theory rabbit pulled out of some anti-Semitic black hat. Besides Judaism’s organic hatred for all things Christian ~ as demonstrated not only by the sham trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago but as well the by-now incalculably high number of attacks on Christian institutions throughout the West by for-the-most-part organized Jewish groups ~ there are the remarks of Martin Van Creveld, Israel’s most respected military historian to consider ~

“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…We have the capability to take the world down with us, and I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”

To this day, not one person of note within the Zionist community, be they Prime Minister, propagandist, pundit, professional loudmouth or otherwise ~ has refuted Creveld’s statement. Rather, much like the “ambiguity” Israel maintains with regards to her status as a nuclear power, neither admitting nor denying such, she simply allows the idea of destroying the world with atomic weapons to remain “out there” as a warning to all.

This being the case then, the fact that the present Prime Minister of Israel has gone on record saying “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany“ and that “Ahmadinejhad is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state” and “Iran poses the greatest threat to our existence since the war of independence” means he views it as highly likely that Israel will indeed “go under” in the event Iran is not stopped.

However, the “dangerous threshold” the wide-eyed believer Netanyahu (as well as others in Israel) fear is not annihilation at the hands of an Iranian nuclear weapon, but rather disintegration of the Jewish state resulting from her people being forced to live by the Golden Rule lest “unfortunate” repercussions ensue from her organically-murderous/religiously-inspired activities.


Like a deeply-entrenched crime family who fears the likely-election of a particular prosecuting attorney well-known for his honesty as well as being immune to bribes, bullying, and blackmail, so too is Israel terrified that Iran joining the nuclear family will result in an evening-out of the odds in the Middle East where the Jewish state will no longer be free to murder indigenous Semites in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon ~ as commanded of them by their Old Testament god Yahweh ~ without fear of blowback.

No, what those who fancy themselves as the progeny of Torah-inspired war criminals such as Moses, Joshua, Saul, David et al fear more than anything else in a nuclear Iran is what all professional thugs fear ~ that their victims are not left defenseless in the face of an aggressor.

It is a well-established rule of history that all slaves are disarmed by overlords who have obvious much to fear if the oppressed are given the means of fighting back. Not only would a nuclear-armed Iran never go the way of Iraq ~ a country completely decimated at the behest of the Jewish state ~ but as well she would serve as a rallying point (despite it being Shia) for all Arab countries, something Israel fears more than anything else.

Israel knows full well that puppet states such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia ~ all kept subservient by American money and fear of what the Jews would do to them militarily ~ would see better fortunes by cozying up to an oil-rich, nuclear-armed nation with strong ties to Russia and China, a fact Netanyahu himself admitted in the article when he stated that a direct result of a nuclear Iran would be that “Washington’s Arab allies would drift into Iran’s orbit.”

And with this in mind therefore, why then would Netanyahu not threaten “Western civilization” and all the “European capitals” with Israel’s “several hundred atomic warheads and rockets” in what is referred to as Israel’s Samson Option?

Given the fact that worldwide Jewry sees Europe as the headquarters for their greatest period of suffering ~ the Holocaust ~ added to the fact that the Twin Towers of Jewish thinking is “never forget” and “never again”, why then would they not see things in the same light as Jewish writer David Perlmutter when he wrote in the Los Angeles Times ~

“What would serve the Jew-hating world better than repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a nuclear winter? Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?”

Readers will recall that back in May 2008, when George Bush made his first trip to the Jewish state in helping celebrate 60 years of uninterrupted, good, old fashioned Torah-type butchery of the non-Israelite peoples living in the Holy Land, that he was met at Ben Gurion airport by a delegation of Orthodox Rabbis closely affiliated and aligned with Netanyahu and his party.

The lovely fanatical Chabad Lubovitch who run the countries for Israel from behind the scenes.

After thanking Bush for decimating Iraq at the behest of the Jewish state, the men in black then handed him a scroll that ~ in addition to referring to Israel as the “joy of the entire earth” ~ also made clear that it is the God-ordained role of the Gentile nations “to strengthen the nation of Israel”, to “remove from her any threat” by going to war against “Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon”, that the refusal to do such would result in “certain doom” and that the fate of the United States (and all those associated with her) “hangs in the balance” of Israel’s well-being.

The final indicator that indeed the maddest of the mad have ascended to the most important and dangerous positions in what is undoubtedly the maddest and most dangerous political creation in history ~ Israel ~ lies in the aforementioned comments by the new Prime Minister with regards to Iran.

As the old saying goes, “even a broken clock is right twice a day“ and in this case “Bibi“ is correct, even if accidentally, for indeed “You don’t want a messianic, apocalyptic cult (the Jews) controlling atomic bombs.

When the wide-eyed believer ~ Netanyahu and others like him ~ gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying. We have never had a situation in the history of the world in which a radical regime ~ the Jewish state ~ with a retrograde ideology ~ Judaism ~ and apparently known ambitions on the use of force (Israel and her various wars of aggression and genocide) will get access to the weapons of mass death."

COURTESY OF THE UNITED STATES!!!

Indeed, just as Netanyahu said, the world does have much to fear these days, not simply in the possibility that a “messianic, apocalyptic cult” of “wide-eyed believers” tied to a “radical regime with a retrograde ideology” and historically-proven ambitions on the use of force “might” get hold of “weapons of mass death”, but rather that it already has.

However, in this case the country in question, whose name begins with the letter “I” and which should cause humanity to lie awake at nights in terror is not Iran, but rather Israel, the name also given ~ coincidentally or not ~ to the angel of death.

Also See:

Zionist Jews Ready To Attack Iran ‘In Hours’

“Release Madoff or Risk War”, Israel Warns US

Israeli Mossad linked to 9/11 attacks: Report

ISRAEL A MAD DOG TOO DANGEROUS TO BOTHER


Barack Obama Worse Than George W Bush

Israeli Spokesman Says We Control Stupid Americans

The Mossad’s Infiltration Of America

“We, The Jewish People, Control America”

No One Talks About Israel’s Spying On America!

Israel’s American Chattel

The International Jew – by Henry Ford

Who are the Israelites & Jews and Who is their real Target

Six Jewish Companies Own 96% of the World’s Media

Video: How American News Media Works In Favor Of Israel

Israel Is Nobody’s Friend

Zionist, Jewish Hollywood’s Brainwashing Of America

Project 2012: Predictions Coming True? Nuclear War Begins Soon? Updated


Iran’s President Ahmadinejad spoke the truth and racist Israel’s apologists turned their backs

What’s the Big Deal about the Holocaust?

Gaza Horror: Updated Large Photo Gallery of Gaza Massacre by Israel

Israeli Army T-Shirts Mock Gaza Killings

In Pictures: Israel’s Brutal Attack on UNRWA School in Beit Lahia

Must Read: Torturous Wounds of Gaza: Report by 2 UK Surgeons

Testimonies of Israeli Crimes in Gaza

Video: I’m A Zonist States Joe Biden

Zionism: A Disease of the Mind

The Tribe That Controls America

Who are the Israelites & Jews and Who is their real Target

Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them

THE MESSIANIC JEWS KILLED CHRISTIANITY

Zionist Jews ~ Godfathers Of Terrorism

September 11th, 2008 ~ America’s Economic 9/11?

Zionist Militants Surround Obama

The ‘Jewish Question’ Now A Global Issue

Israel Is Nobody’s Friend

True Jews Are NOT Zionists

Gaza War: A Project to Test Israeli Radars

Israel Censor Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Blogger

Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims

Unconventional Weapons against The People of Gaza

Israeli nukes threaten world

Israel switches to Iran after Gaza

The Hidden Nation of the Jews

The Israeli Global Military Beast

Posted by Barbara L at 6:19 AM

The wheels come off “the good war” in Afghanistan

Link



by Robin Beste, Stop the War Coalition, 6 July 2009

We have had weeks of government and army propaganda selling the “good war” in Afghanistan as being for the benefit of the Afghan people and as necessary to Britain's interests. There have been:

Endless stories in the tabloid media about "our boys" heroism bringing "stability and security" to Afghanistan;

Armed Services Day on 27 June, with army parades and other events up and down the country glorifying mass murder as a career;

The sponsoring by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of toys depicting British soldiers as "action heroes";

The rigid control of journalists reporting the war to ensure only the MoD's version of events gets media coverage.

All of this has been aimed at portraying the war in Afghanistan as an honourable cause on its way to being won. It was meant to culminate in a major British offensive in Helmand Province codenamed Operation Panther's Claw.

Biggest military operation

The biggest military operation by the British military since the invasion in 2001 was always as much a propaganda exercise to sell the war to the British people, two thirds of whom oppose the war in Afghanistan, as a military exercise with coherent aims. As even the pro-war Observer newspaper commented, "The reality is that the war in Afghanistan is increasingly aimless and lacking in coherent strategy."

It was utterly predictable that the wheels would come off the propaganda wagon trying to promote the "good war" with a troop "surge" in Helmand, not least because the Taliban were understandably not too keen to hang around to be incinerated by the horrific firepower used by the US and British military. They simply melted away.

Occasional hit and run tactics were still enough to inflict image denting casualties on the British army. Within the space of four days, from 1-4 July, five British soldiers were killed, including the highest ranking army officer to die in battle since the Falklands War in 1982. A number of others were seriously injured, adding to the statistic which we never read about in the mainstream media, that a British soldier has a one in eight chance of being seriously injured or contracting a serious illness when deployed to Afghanistan.

"For the good people of Afghanistan"

The latest British fatality brings the number killed in Afghanistan to 174, only five short of fatalities in Iraq.

According to the army commander of the latest dead soldier, "He laid down his life for his country and for the good people of Afghanistan". This is simply nonsense. He laid down his life for a war which many senior British officers say privately — and a few publicly — is unwinnable.

He sacrificed his life because Gordon Brown — as much a warmongerer as his predecessor — is determined to hold on to the coat tails of America's imperial strategy, wherever it takes British foreign policy, whatever the costs in the lives of those sent to kill and be killed in foreign lands, and whatever the financial cost to a British economy now so indebted that essential services such as the NHS, education and social services face draconian cuts.

Perhaps even the pro-war media is realising the game is up. The Observer now says there has to be "a final burying of the 'war on terror' rhetoric and the idea that what happens in Afghanistan presents a serious security threat that challenges us in an existential way... What is needed is a serious debate about what we are doing in Afghanistan".

The Observer concludes that without this debate, "the war in Afghanistan can only drag on, with deaths on all sides". Such a debate can only reach one conclusion: there is no possibility of stability or security in Afghanistan while a single foreign soldier remains in the country.

It is for this reason that the anti-war movement needs to maintain the highest level of active opposition to a war that is killing Afghan civilians at double the rate of a year ago and bringing endless devastation to country ravaged by the invading armies.

http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/1337/1/

London Public Meeting: Monday 13 July: The good war? Afghanistan in the Media...



Astal: The last arrests in Gaza were carried out against new spy rings


Astal: The last arrests in Gaza were carried out against new spy rings

[ 07/07/2009 - 10:37 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- MP Dr. Younis Al-Astal, a member of the legal committee at the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), said Monday that the latest arrests which took place in the Gaza Strip were carried out by the internal security apparatus against spy rings that confessed to providing PA security leaders in Ramallah with information about new targets in Gaza.

Dr. Astal noted that members of an active spy ring confessed to sending three batches of reports on fixed and mobile targets in Gaza, adding that the reports generally talk about camping locations of Palestinian fighters, areas of tunnels, places believed to be for storing or manufacturing weapons, security headquarters and the movement of many political and national figures.

He affirmed that the information sent by those rings to the PA in Ramallah reach the Israeli occupation authority, but he said that some spies are directly linked to the Israeli occupation.

The lawmaker recalled that the confessions obtained by those who had been arrested during the last Israeli war confirmed that 90 percent or more of the targets bombed by Israel in the first three days were based on intelligence reports sent to the PA in Ramallah.

Dr. Astal did not rule out that the intelligence reports on new targets sent recently by the arrested spy rings had reached Israel, pointing out that all confessions indicated that the spy rings were commissioned to do this type of work by Fatah leaders who fled Gaza and settled in Ramallah.

He underscored that the Palestinian authorities in Gaza would deal with everyone involved in spy activities according to the law, saying that Palestinian prosecutors are preparing files to level charges against those involved in a court of law.

Barghouthi warns against Netanyahu's manipulations


Barghouthi warns against Netanyahu's manipulations

[ 07/07/2009 - 09:41 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- MP Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, the secretary general of the national initiative party, has condemned Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu's call on the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a "Jewish" state, saying that it indicates the absence of an Israeli peace partner.

Barghouthi in a press statement on Monday added that Netanyahu offers in return an impotent autonomy for the Palestinians with no sovereignty.

Netanyahu's endorsement of the Jewish nature of Israel entailed the dismissal of the historic rights of the Palestinian people, in addition to deciding before hand the negotiation results by saying no to Palestinian refugees' right to return, by refusing to negotiate over Jerusalem and by rejecting to freeze settlement building and confiscation of Palestinian land, Barghouthi explained.
He opined that Netanyahu was interested in complete normalization of ties with Arabs without ending occupation or establishing a Palestinian state, while retaining vast Palestinian areas and keeping control over the airspace, crossings and borders.

The MP warned that Netanyahu's deceptions and racist policies should be exposed, advocating a unified Palestinian and Arab position to impose penalties on Israel.

US Occupation of Iraq Continues Unabated


Link

Monday 06 July 2009

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t Perspective

At Camp Victory, Vice President Joe Biden speaks to soldiers. (Photo: Khalid Mohammed / Reuters)

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
- George Orwell

On July 4 in Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden, who campaigned with Barack Obama on a platform of ending the occupation of Iraq, found himself in one of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's lavish buildings, the Al-Faw Palace. While one of Saddam Hussein's thrones sat on the side of the room, Biden presided over a swearing-in ceremony for 237 soldiers, who were becoming US citizens. Speaking of the ceremony, Biden said, "We did it in Saddam's palace, and I can think of nothing better. That S.O.B. is rolling over in his grave right now." Perhaps the irony of both the scene and his statement were lost to Biden. For if Saddam Hussein was rolling in his grave, the reason would have less to do with one of his palaces being used as a naturalization center for US soldiers, and more to do with the fact that the US government has no intention of withdrawing from Iraq anytime soon.

We have passed the June 30 deadline that, according to a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed between US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on November 17, 2008, was the date all US forces were to have been withdrawn from all of Iraq's cities. Today, however, there are at least 134,000 US soldiers in Iraq - a number barely lower than the number that were there in 2003. In addition, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified on June 9 that the United States would maintain an average of at least 100,000 troops in Iraq through fiscal year 2010.

The SOFA is a sieve, and the number of US military personnel in Iraq is remaining largely intact for now. Add to the 134,000 US soldiers almost the exact number of military contractors (132,610 and increasing), 36,061 of which, according to a recent Department of Defense report, are US citizens.

While the military and most corporate media would like you to believe that from now on no US soldiers will step foot in Iraqi cities, US military patrols in them are ongoing and will continue.

In addition, there has been an assumption that all US military bases within Iraqi city limits would be moved. For example, US Army Forward Operating Base Falcon, home to 3,000 US troops, is clearly within the city limits of Baghdad. But US military officials, working with Iraqis in the US-supported Iraqi government, have other ideas. "We and the Iraqis decided it wasn't in the city," a military official told the Christian Science Monitor. Thus, city lines are redrawn, to the convenience of the US military, to render certain bases and forward operating bases "outside" of Iraqi cities.

While military commanders claim to have handed over 142 military outposts around Iraq to the Iraqis, US troops will continue to occupy 320 other outposts around Iraq.

Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled Congress just passed a war-spending bill that allocated over $100 billion more for the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military (and military contractors) in Iraq is busily expanding and augmenting new bases in rural areas of Iraq. In fact, they are even building new bases in Iraq.

Furthermore, at least 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq until at least the end of 2011, despite the fact that, according to the SOFA, all US "combat" forces will leave Iraq by December 31, 2011.

A July 30 referendum vote on the SOFA is scheduled to take place in Iraq. Despite attempts by the Obama administration to postpone the referendum, it appears as though the vote will take place. Considering the fact that according to recent polls, 73 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of US forces, the referendum, if legitimate, will put the Obama administrations long-term plans for Iraq in jeopardy as the vote could force US forces out of Iraq as they would no longer be under the legal "protection" of the SOFA.

Although we can only speculate as to whether the referendum will actually reflect the will of the Iraqi people, there will be one of two outcomes:

1. Due to Kurdish and Sunni opposition to the withdrawal of US forces, Maliki postpones the referendum. The US, which is also interested in maintaining the SOFA, supports Maliki in the delay they (Obama administration) have previously pushed for.

2. The Maliki regime overcomes this opposition and does not interfere with the carrying out of the vote or the results of the referendum, which will most likely reflect the will of the Iraqi people to have US forces withdraw from Iraq completely. This would mean the Maliki regime does not want US forces to remain in Iraq, feels strong enough to finally stand on its own and is prepared to settle scores with the formerly US-backed Sahwa forces (Sunni militia), to establish absolute control in Baghdad.

Regardless of the outcome, it is clear that Iraq is further down the road of Balkanization, a plan that Biden has supported for years -to have Iraq split into three rump states. There is already evidence for this - for as Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan have been forced to return home due to funding to support them having been cut due to the Maliki regime pressuring hosting countries, as well as the UN, to have them return. Those returning have been unable to return to their homes. Instead, they are being forced to relocate to either Sunni or Shia areas. Moreover, the Iraqi government has been making no effort to help them return to their original homes, which indicates the Maliki regime is interested in supporting the Balkanization of Iraq.

Nevertheless, again we find the US policy of long-term, indefinite occupation of Iraq to be at loggerheads with the will of the vast majority of the Iraqi people.

From June 28 to July 5, at least 82 Iraqis were killed and 225 wounded, which amounts to another typical week of US occupation of their country. Let us watch how the Obama administration reacts to the referendum at the end of this month, since President Obama is clearly not interested in withdrawing from Iraq anymore than he is interested in a withdrawal from Afghanistan.»


Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for eight months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last four years.