Saturday 24 October 2009

DUBYA DEFENDS HIS ‘PERSONAL SALVATION’ AS CANADIANS PROTEST

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October 24, 2009 at 5:17 pm (Activism, Canada, Corrupt Politics, War Crimes)


Shoes fly as Bush tells audience, ‘I did not sell my soul’

By John Byrne

edmonton

A day after an effigy of the Grim Reaper stalked his speech in Edmonton, Canada, former President George W. Bush was on the defensive over his personal salvation.

Speaking to a $400-a-seat crowd in Montreal, Bush told the roughly 1,000 attendees that his presidential decisionmaking was principled and moral.

“I am confident that I made decisions based on principle, that I made calls as best I could, and I did not sell my soul,” Bush said.

Outside his speech, the scene was anything but calm. A throng of protesters burned a flaming effigy of the former president, who’s taken his stump speech on the road across Canada. He’ll speak in three Canadian cities over a period of as many days.

Did he have regrets? an audience member asked.

“I spend a lot of time thinking about Katrina, and whether I could have sent in the federal troops right away, even though it was against the law,” Bush replied. He added he regretted the “Mission Accomplished” banner that accompanied him during a speech on an aircraft carrier after the early stages of his invasion of Iraq.

Protesters outside had more concrete opinions. A protest organizer encouraged Bush opponents to bring old shoes, in reference to an Iraqi who threw a shoe at the President during a speech late in his presidency.

Speaking to the Vancouver Sun, an immigration lawyer who was among the protesters said Bush was responsible for numerous deaths in the Middle East.

Bush is culpable for “cynically causing a war that is responsible for so many deaths and so much destruction,” lawyer William Sloan was quoted as saying.

“He set back international law into the 1700s,” Sloan added, “violating every convention possible and seeming to revel in it.”

Five protesters were reported to have been arrested.

In Edmonton, where Bush spoke earlier this week, a protester toted a representation of the Grim Reaper, which boasted a sign saying, “GWB I am your biggest fan” and “Thanks for 8 great years.”

The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where Bush spoke in Montreal, is also known for a popular peace anthem: John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.”

"Shadowland"

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Syria Damascus
National Geographic looks at Syria, here

"... The Assad regime hasn't stayed in power for nearly 40 years by playing nice. It has survived a tough neighborhood—bordered by Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey—by a combination of guile and cozying up to more powerful countries, first the Soviet Union and now Iran. In a state of war with Israel since 1948, Syria provides material support to the Islamist groups of Hezbollah and Hamas; it's also determined to reclaim the Golan Heights, a Syrian plateau captured by Israel in 1967. Relations with the United States, rarely good, turned particularly dire after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, when George W. Bush, citing Syria's opposition to the war and support for Iraqi insurgents, threatened regime change in Damascus and demonized Syria's young president as a Middle Eastern prince of darkness.....
Continue, here"

Posted by G, Z, or B at 2:28 PM

Seymour Hersh: 'Military Is Waging War Against The White House'

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The Huffington Post, here

"In addition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States military is also fighting a war against the Obama administration at the White House, Seymour Hersh said in a little-noted speech at Duke University on October 13. The military is "in a war against the White House -- and they feel they have Obama boxed in," he said.


Hersh, a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, sees an undercurrent of racism in the Pentagon's dealings with the White House. "They think he's weak and the wrong color. Yes, there's racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it's true and we all know it."


As Neil Offen writes in the Durham Herald Sun:

"A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble," he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.

"If he gives them the extra troops they're asking for, he loses politically," Hersh said. "And if he doesn't give them the troops, he also loses politically."

Hersh considers the worsening situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the principal test of the Obama presidency, which will require the cooperation of the top military brass. Obama must face up to the military, Hersh said. "He's either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon." If he doesn't, according to Hersh, "this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 9:43 AM

"It must be buried"

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'Shalom & what's his name ...'
YNETnews, here

"... After the meeting Shalom told Ynet, "I am more optimistic that Ban won't pass the report on to the Security Council."....."Our army is a moral one. We paused combat every day in order to allow for the delivery of aid to Gaza's civilians, we phoned people at their homes in order to warn them before striking terrorists that took shelter among them. No other army in the world would do that. "I told him that I request the report not reach the Security Council. The secretary-general responded saying, 'You know it can reach the assembly (via a third party country). I answered saying there is a difference between him taking it forward to the General Assembly and a country like Libya doing so."...


During their meeting, the two also discussed the agreement proposed by the West to Iran regarding its nuclear program. "Iran will not change its ways. Iran's intentions are beyond a nuclear program – it aspires to revive the Persian Empire, and for Iran, this is just a way to buy time," Shalom claimed....
According to Shalom, Ban shares Israel's concerns with regards to Iran's nuclear program.... "

Posted by G, Z, or B at 8:44 PM

Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject any unilateral step beyond the national consensus


Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject any unilateral step beyond the national consensus

[ 24/10/2009 - 09:44 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- The Movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have stressed their adherence to the Palestinian national reconciliation and their rejection of any unilateral steps taken beyond the national consensus.

This came during a meeting held in Damascus between Khaled Mishaal, the head of Hamas political bureau, and Ramadan Shallah, the secretary-general of Islamic Jihad on Thursday night.

Both sides also discussed the latest political developments in the Palestinian arena and the avenues to strengthen bilateral relations that serve the interest of the Palestinian people and their national cause.

In the same context, Mohamed Nazzal, a member of Hamas political bureau, said Friday that Mahmoud Abbas’s edict to hold presidential and legislative elections next January has no practical value, noting that there is political division between Gaza and the West Bank that does not allow such elections to take place without a national consensus.

Nazzal told Al-Aqsa satellite channel that Hamas would never allow these elections to take place in the Gaza Strip in the absence of national unity.

He stressed that Abbas wants elections according to his mood that does not involve any fair competition and delegitimize Hamas, accusing him of having intentions to carry out widespread electoral fraud.

For its part, the Movement of Hamas said that Abbas is no longer the chief of the Palestinian Authority (PA) after his term in office expired last January, so he has no right to issue any addicts or decisions, affirming that his edict to hold elections is illegitimate.

Hamas stated Friday that it respects the democratic choices and its results, but such elections must be a fruit of the national reconciliation and not a replacement as Abbas wants, noting that this edict was issued in response to Zio-American pressures.

It held Abbas and his aides fully responsible for the consequences of this decision which would deepen the internal division and convert it to a historical rift politically and geographically.

For his part, Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council, said Friday that any elections held without a national consensus would be rejected by the Palestinian people because it would entrench the internal division.

In a ceremony held in Gaza to honor memorizers of the holy Qur’an, Dr. Bahar stressed the importance of the national dialog to restore the unity on the basis of the Palestinian constants and the Palestinian independent decision away from the American interventions and the international quartet’s unjust terms.

Dr. Yousuf Rezqa, the political advisor to the Palestinian premier, also said that Abbas’s edict to hold elections next January is a decision issued by a former PA chief and thus has no constitutional value, affirming that the government would hold a meeting to discuss this decision which buried the Egyptian reconciliation efforts.

The popular resistance committee, for its part, strongly denounced Abbas’s edict, saying that Abbas is not the representative of the Palestinian people after the expiration of his term in office and his decisions, therefore, have no constitutional or legal value.

Abbas’s edict was also deplored by the Hamas change and reform parliamentary bloc which said in a statement issued on Friday that the decision to hold elections next January is illegal and an unconstitutional step aimed to create illusive legitimacy.

In a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC), Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that this edict was issued in response to the American demands which call for not conducting any reconciliation with Hamas before it accepts the international quartet’s terms.

Spokesman Abu Zuhri pointed out that the timing of this decision is linked to the phone call which Abbas received Friday afternoon from US president Barack Obama.

In a televised statement to Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Friday, Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas political bureau, said that the elections which Abbas wants to hold next year would not take place in Gaza or anywhere else because there is no Palestinian reconciliation, stressing that his Movement has several options that would be used to respond to Abbas’s unconstitutional edict.

For his part, senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan stated that Abbas, through such a step, confirmed that he only responds to the American pressures as he did with Goldstone’s report and does not care about any reconciliation effort, warning that Abbas’s electoral edict, although he has no right to make such a decision, would inflame the Palestinian arena.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian reconciliation, Elections, ABBAS,
Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject any unilateral step beyond the national consensus

Abbas threatened with aid being stopped if he signs an agreement with Hamas


Abbas threatened with aid being stopped if he signs an agreement with Hamas

[ 23/10/2009 - 09:59 PM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)-- The Jordanian al-Ra'i newspaper revealed on Friday that the US administration has sent the PA in Ramallah a message that any agreement signed with Hamas without the latter agreeing to the Quartet conditions would expose the PA to punitive measures, including the cutting off of financial aid to the PA.

The paper said that Washington told Abbas that excluding the Quartet's conditions from the agreement means succumbing to Hamas. The paper also said that the US-Egyptian relations stand to be strained because of latter's support for a Palestinian national reconciliation without reference to the Quartet's conditions.

The paper also said that the Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told the US representative at the United Nations, Suzan Rice, that Israel will not agree to a Palestinian government that includes anyone from Hamas.

Al-Quds newspaper revealed a few days ago that US threats were behind the Egyptians last minute change of the text of the agreement.

Palestine in Pieces

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An Interview with Bill and Kathleen Christison
Palestine in Pieces
By JEFF GORE

In 1979, Kathleen and Bill Christison retired from the CIA, where they worked as analysts. Ever since then, they've had an unorthodox retirement, to say the least. With only a couple relatively brief interludes, they've dedicated what could have been years of relaxation to fighting perhaps the most uphill battle imaginable: trying to bring the plight of the Palestinians to the public eye. The newest addition to the Christison canon is Palestine in Pieces: Graphic Perspectives on the Israeli Occupation, published in August by Pluto Press. During this decade the Christisons have made a habit of visiting Palestine at least once per year; they returned from their most recent trip earlier this month. Since the couple warned against the potentially endless nature of a conversation over the phone, I elected to send them a few questions via email, which they were gracious enough to answer.

Jeff Gore: Kathleen: In a recent interview with Laura Flanders on GRITtv, you said that based on your travels to Palestine over the past half-decade or so, you believe the situation of the Palestinians “has gotten worse, every year.” Given that the interview was conducted before your latest trip, would you still say this today, considering the downgrade or closure of several checkpoints this year, and, according to the New York Times, “a sense of personal security and economic potential...spreading across the West Bank?”

Kathleen Christison: This is an extremely important question. The supposed closure of checkpoints throughout the West Bank and what is being widely touted as an opening of economic potential are a fiction—a huge scam perpetrated by Israel and the U.S., intended to make it look to the world as though Palestinians are now prospering, that the Palestinian economy is thriving and Palestinian society is now content, all thanks to the beneficence and good will of the Israelis. The media—not just the New York Times, but other print and electronic media and various opinion-molders like Thomas Friedman—have fallen for this scam and indeed have been knowingly participating in it.

The objective is to delude us all, including the Palestinians, into thinking that a new era of peace and prosperity is dawning in the West Bank because Palestinians have stopped terrorism and Israel has responded in good faith by easing restrictions, all in contrast to the situation in Gaza, where all the misery is supposedly the fault of Hamas because it refuses to recognize Israel and refuses to end violence. We are meant to forget that the occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem continues and is continually being reinforced, that Israel launched an unprovoked murderous assault on Gaza early this year, that Israel continues to dominate ever aspect of Palestinian daily lives.

In actual fact, things are no better for Palestinians in the West Bank, and in many cases they are worse. We’ve made two trips to Jerusalem and the West Bank this year, in April-May and October, and we’ve seen no substantial improvement in the situation Palestinians face on a daily basis. Despite the supposed removal of many checkpoints, most remain, and all can be reimposed at a moment’s notice. OCHA, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which has kept careful track for the last several years of Israeli movement obstacles, just issued a report indicating that the numbers of obstacles, which include checkpoints, roadblocks, earth mounds across roads, and gates blocking roads, had been reduced in recent months hardly at all—from 618 earlier in the year to 592 now. OCHA also suggests that there’s a good deal of subterfuge in Israeli reporting: although the Israelis promised the removal of 100 roadblocks by the end of Ramadan and issued GPS coordinates for these supposedly vanishing obstacles, OCHA did an on-the-ground survey and could confirm the removal of only 35. In numerous instances, the Israeli GPS locations weren’t even in the West Bank.

It’s true that there has been some improvement in a few showcase locations. The cities of Jenin and Nablus are rebuilding after the terrible destruction there during the Israeli siege of 2002 and 2003, and there’s a bit more economic prosperity. Even in Hebron, which lives under siege from the most vicious of Israeli settlers, some market areas are reopening. The most notorious checkpoint, Huwara just south of Nablus, has been opened up somewhat so that Palestinian cars may now drive through and people no longer have to walk through. But this is classic colonialism, designed to make things just enough better to take the edge off the anger of the colonized: you fill the natives’ stomachs and hope they become tame, that they won’t want to resist your oppression, that they’ll forget that they have no freedom, that they still live under oppression, always at the mercy of a colonialist oppressor who has no intention of relinquishing his domination or ending his exploitation of the oppressed and their resources.

The “model cities” in Jenin and Nablus and the “model checkpoints” such as Huwara are the exceptions in the Palestinians’ grinding life under occupation. Movement from one area to another is still severely restricted. Most West Bank Palestinians still cannot visit Jerusalem. Those who have work permits to enter Jerusalem must still wait for hours in endless lines to enter the city and pass through multiple security checks, including biometric checks that leave a record of when they entered the city and whether they have exited by the end of the day. Israeli settlements continue to be built and expanded on confiscated Palestinian land. The road network connecting the settlements to each other and to Israel, on which Palestinians may not drive, continues to be expanded, cutting off increasing numbers of Palestinians from each other. Palestinians are still harassed and physically attacked by aggressive Israeli settlers. Olive groves and other agricultural land continue to be confiscated, destroyed, burned, either by settlers or by bulldozers clearing land for more settlements or for the Separation Wall. Construction of the Wall is proceeding, cutting off more Palestinian land from its owners.

Non-violent protesters who demonstrate regularly against the Wall continue to be shot and killed or imprisoned. While newly trained, spiffily uniformed Palestinian security forces patrol city streets during the day, Israeli forces control the night and therefore control the entire territory. They conduct middle-of-the-night raids in villages throughout the West Bank, arresting young Palestinian men on suspicion merely of being Palestinian, beating or even shooting anyone who resists. In Jerusalem, where the Netanyahu government is currently concentrating its harshest oppression, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues quite openly. Palestinian homes continue to be demolished for no other reason than that they are in Israel’s way—in the way of the Wall’s advance, or of the next new or expanding Israeli settlement, or of Israel’s efforts to depopulate the land of Palestinians and create a Jewish majority. Palestinian families continue to be evicted from their homes so that Israeli settlers can live in them.

The catalog of horrors is long, and it is not ending, despite the hypocritical claims by the New York Times and others of an increased “sense of personal security,” despite all efforts by Netanyahu and the Obama administration to make us think peace has come. The occupation continues, and more harshly than ever. As Israeli journalist Amira Hass recently put it, the occupation “completely shrinks people’s lives,” and this has not changed.


JG: What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a white Westerner traveling in the Occupied Territories?

Kathleen & Bill Christison: Although we feel very comfortable among Palestinians, and have always felt very welcome, at the same time we always feel some embarrassment because we’re there basically as voyeurs watching other people’s misery. In fact, we feel we’re helping by bringing the Palestinians’ story, the facts of the occupation and what it means for Palestinian daily lives, to public attention in the West, but it’s still hard to get away from the feeling that we’re invading other people’s privacy by watching them line up at checkpoints and taking pictures of them, or watching them sob as their homes are demolished. Or, as happened to us once, talking to a man scheduled for surgery in Jerusalem who had been waiting for days for an Israeli permit to get into the city and who cried as he told us his story and asked us to take a picture of the medical certificate that attested to his need for surgery and should have provided his entrée to the city. We’ve told his story, but we knew, and he knew, that we couldn’t do anything to help him and that we would ultimately be able to go home to our comfortable lives in the U.S. while he waits—waits for his permit, waits for his freedom, waits for a decent life.

This is the principal reason, incidentally, that we’ve decided we won’t take any royalties or other profits from our new book, but will donate them to organizations that we feel most benefit the Palestinians. No book on the Palestinians will ever make much money in the first place, sad to say, but the idea that we personally should make any money because we’ve been witness to other people’s misery is unacceptable to us.

JG: I've always thought that the strongest argument for the two-state solution -- and against the one-state solution -- was Michael Neumann's assessment of Israel as unwilling to “abolish itself.” On the other hand, Kathleen, you've written critically about Neumann's remarks and advocated a single democratic state in Palestine. Ruling out any precipitous fall in American power, any miraculous surge in power of the Palestinian governing body, or God forbid, any catastrophic regional war, in what scenario can you envision Israeli Jews consenting to a binational secular state; to changing their flag, national anthem, even the name of their country?

KC: I have to say I object to the premise of Michael Neumann’s argument—that we should or should not pursue one or another solution simply on the basis of whether it meets Israel’s desires. I think, on the contrary, that we should pursue a solution for no other reason than that it is just, for both Palestinians and Israeli Jews. A two-state solution—which at its very best would give Palestinians a state in less than one-quarter of their original homeland and at its most likely would give them a non-viable, non-contiguous state in little pieces constituting quite a bit less than one-quarter—is simply not just. I recognize that realists like Michael disdain “dreamers,” as he’s called one-state advocates, as naïve and maybe other-worldly to be talking about unrealistic, impractical concepts like justice. But I don’t think, first of all, that it’s really so naïve or even futile to advocate and work for justice—justice does prevail on occasion. And, secondly, I think perpetrating gross injustice is ultimately totally impractical and cannot endure: a two-state solution, to my mind, is so grossly unjust—not to say also unlikely because Israel doesn’t want that either—that it is also impractical.

So my preference, if we’re faced with a situation in which Israel is not willing at the moment to “abolish itself” but is also not willing to give the Palestinians anything, not even a non-viable, cantonized state, is to work for the most just solution, which is a single democratic state in which Palestinians and Jews would live as equal citizens with equal access to the instruments of government and a constitution that would guarantee the equality of everyone. (I would not, by the way, call this a “binational” state, which I see as a state that maintains some de jure separation between the two peoples. This is something I fear would perpetuate the power imbalance and perpetuate Jewish domination of Palestinians. Although nothing would be easy for the Palestinians no matter what solution is pursued, a single integrated state with constitutional guarantees of equality would more readily assure them of some kind of political and economic parity.)

Those like Michael who argue on the basis of what Israel would not want to do are arguing from the premise that might makes right, that might makes a reality that we cannot counter, and that simply because the powerful party in this conflict doesn’t want something, it won’t come to be and none of us should even speak about it. This is absurd. Who would have expected in the mid-1980s when liberals throughout the world were fighting a seemingly futile battle of sanctions against apartheid South Africa, that the very powerful white leadership of that country would decide in the next few years to “abolish itself”? Who would have expected at that same time that the very powerful Soviet Union would “abolish itself”?

My crystal ball isn’t clear enough to be able to lay out a precise scenario, but I believe that Zionism and the racism and injustice inherent in it simply cannot endure and that Israel will collapse of its own weight at some time in the future, hopefully in our lifetime. No empire has lasted in history, and gross, systematic injustice does not last either. I also give Jews greater credit for having a conscience, for caring about justice and caring about the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinians in the name of world Jewry, than Michael or others like Uri Avnery do, who criticize us one-staters because we don’t seem to realize, as they say, that Israeli Jews will always want to screw the Palestinians if they all live in the same state. I just don’t buy that. If white South Africans and Soviet appartchiks could relinquish power voluntarily and non-violently, then I believe Jews will ultimately be led by their consciences to do the same.

My bottom line is, I don’t think we can or should shut our mouths about a just peace settlement—or, even more importantly, deliberately limit Palestinian options by refusing to speak about the possibilities—simply because Israel might not happen to like it, which is what I see as the principal argument of the anti-one-staters.

JG: Similarly, in your travels, what impression have you gotten from Palestinians as to which solution they advocate?

KBC: It’s hard to make a definitive judgment on this, but it is fair to say that support for a one-state solution is growing among Palestinians. Polls of Palestinian opinion still show this support in the minority, but growing. Many Palestinians whom we’ve talked to still favor two states and specifically reject one state, either because they fear Jewish political and economic domination in a single state or because they are closely enough connected to the Palestinian Authority that they are unwilling even to think of any alternative to the PA’s official support for two states, which is the position that gives them entrée into negotiations and whatever favors are bestowed by the U.S. But an increasing number of our acquaintances now more explicitly favor one state. They are increasingly dissatisfied with the PA’s position and its acceptance of the two-state solution, all of which they see as collaboration with the Israeli oppressor and a betrayal of fundamental rights in return for no benefit whatsoever for the Palestinians.

Much of Palestinian thinking is formed more around the possibilities than strictly on the basis of preferences, which is to say that as long as the two-state solution was the only alternative held out to the Palestinians, support for this option was quite high, but the more the possibility of a one-state solution is talked about—and, of course, the more the likelihood of a real, independent Palestinian state ever being formed in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem has receded—the more Palestinians are willing to think about and advocate a single state. As it has become clearer and clearer to the Palestinians that Israel under its current leadership has no intention of ever withdrawing from the occupied territories and no intention of allowing Palestinians any sovereignty in Jerusalem, support for a single state in all of Palestine has grown. More importantly, Palestinians increasingly recognize that their demand for the right of return is ultimately incompatible with a two-state solution, in which only limited numbers of refugees, if any, would be allowed to return to their homes and land inside Israel and the vast majority would have to be accommodated inside the tiny Palestinian state. It’s unlikely that an enduring peace settlement will ever be forged that does not address and provide a fair solution of the refugee issue and the right of return.

JG: In my recent interview with Jonathan Cook, he spoke highly of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement, saying that in his view, “there is no way to end the occupation unless Israelis are made to see that they will pay a heavy price for its continuance.” Would you agree with this? If so, how would you respond to criticism about harming “innocent” Israelis with a blanket boycott or sanctions? Or is there even such a thing as an “innocent” Israeli when it comes to the issue of Palestinian suffering?

KBC: We do indeed agree with Jonathan on the wisdom of BDS and the notion that Israelis must be made to pay a heavy price for continuing the occupation if there’s to be any hope of ever ending it. As to whether “innocent” Israelis might be harmed by a blanket application of BDS, we would ask where one should draw the line on what harms Israelis. Does it harm innocent Israelis to cut off or cut back U.S. aid to Israel—which would be the ultimate sanction? Under a long-term ten-year agreement, the U.S. gives, not lends, Israel $3 billion of military aid every year—in cash, at the beginning of each fiscal year—plus additional increments of economic aid and loan guarantees on a year-by-year basis. Aid of this magnitude and given under these terms obviously greatly helps the Israeli economy. It also gives Israel virtually total impunity to commit whatever atrocities it wants against the Palestinians without fear that the U.S. will cut it off. So if we’re worried about harming individual Israelis, we have to worry about the guy in an electronics shop who is harmed economically because he no longer gets the subcontract for some airplane or tank part, but we also have to worry about the innocent Palestinians—the literally millions of innocent Palestinians—in Gaza particularly, but elsewhere as well, who are being killed by those airplanes and tanks and other military equipment that Israel uses with the impunity granted it by the U.S. If blind justice weighs these two groups of innocents and the harm done to them on her scales, we believe she would conclude that the “innocent” Israeli is after all not so innocent.

Although it may be clearer how the scales should balance when we’re talking about military aid, the same factors must be weighed when we deal with boycotts of non-military products and academic and cultural boycotts, and we think the same conclusions must be reached: ending Palestinian suffering at Israel’s hands is a more worthy, more just objective than saving the economic hide or the jobs of any Israelis. Maybe you’re right that there is no such thing as an “innocent” Israeli when it comes to Palestinian suffering. In a democratic state—democratic at least for Israeli Jews—all Jewish Israelis are responsible for the injustices and the killing and the atrocities visited upon the Palestinians. They elected the governments that have carried out these policies and actions; they have failed to put an end to them; they live in a state established on the suffering and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians over 60 years ago. We Americans are just as responsible for the killing and atrocities visited by U.S. forces on Iraqi and Afghan civilians and in past eras on civilians in places like Vietnam, and we would not claim that sanctions against the U.S. were unfair, even if these caused us to suffer personally. Perhaps this should be the criterion: that innocence lies in greater measure with the people being oppressed and bombed and occupied, and we must be more concerned with ending harm to them than with causing incidental harm to individuals in the oppressor-occupier nation.

JG: In your new book you briefly compare Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the U.S's treatment of Native Americans. That said, I was wondering if you had an opinion on how to respond to one of the peskier questions addressed specifically to Americans that nobody seems to be able to answer. The question is: what right do I have to criticize Israel as a “colonial” or “settler” state when I am a descendant of colonists and settlers myself, enjoying the spoils of theft from an indigenous people?

KBC: This is indeed a difficult question to answer, and there is for sure a measure of hypocrisy in criticizing Israel without also rectifying our own nation’s sins. But we don’t believe that one injustice, even when perpetrated by our own country, imposes an obligation to remain silent about another injustice or requires that we stop working on Israel’s injustice until we’ve resolved the United States’ unjust policies. In fact, having acquired a conscience about what our country did, and continues to do, to our own native population has given us, we feel, a bit more moral authority from which to demand that the United States stop giving Israel the means—the political, military, and economic support—with which to commit a similar atrocity against the Palestinians.

We all pick our battles in this life, and we happen to have picked support for Palestinian rights as our battle. We did this initially from a position of considerable—and, we would acknowledge, shameful—ignorance about the history of U.S. treatment of Native Americans, but our focus on the Palestinians has helped open our eyes to the Native Americans’ situation, and we’re now more conscious of the need to work for justice for both peoples. If we personally continue to devote more of our attention to the Palestinians, this is because it’s a more easily resolvable situation and because we’ve already invested 30-plus years of our education and work in it. But to repeat, whatever inequity exists in our own allocation of attention, whatever hypocrisy exists in demanding of Israel what the U.S. has not done for its own native population, does not put any obligation on us to give Israel carte blanche to continue its oppression unopposed.

JG: Kathleen, in the GRITtv interview you described losing interest in the conflict for a few years before returning to it due to its "haunting" nature. Could you describe that in more detail, or in other words, what has compelled you to keep writing on behalf of the Palestinians for three decades, despite their situation growing increasingly worse over that time period?

KC: Maybe it’s precisely because the Palestinians’ situation has grown worse that I’ve been so “haunted” and so compelled to continue working on this issue. Although I had worked on the Palestinian question for several years before Bill and I left the CIA in 1979, I never actually met a Palestinian until the late 1980s, when I began interviewing Palestinian Americans about their attitudes toward Israel—which ultimately led to my book The Wound of Dispossession. It was only by doing these interviews, and doing a lot of reading on the history of Palestine-Israel, that I really learned the Palestinian story. And I was and continue to be shocked at how horribly that story has been distorted in the United States and the rest of the West. For me—and for Bill too—it’s been a kind of crusade to bring this story to greater public attention. The Palestinians are such a graceful people and the injustices perpetrated against them for six decades and more have been so horrific—and so deliberate—that we both feel we can’t give up.

JG: For those who don't have time or means to visit Palestine, but want to help the Palestinians, what would you suggest is the best thing that they can do?

KBC: This may be the most difficult of your questions to answer. The usual route, talking to one’s congressmen, is an almost totally futile pursuit on this issue. The Israel lobby, in all its aspects, has Congress so sewed up that it’s almost impossible to get any attention if one is talking about Palestinian rights or demanding concessions from Israel or advocating anything other than the current so-called international consensus on two states. We both think that at the popular level in the U.S. there’s been an upsurge in support for the Palestinians and a greater willingness to criticize Israel. This has been particularly true since Israel’s assault on Gaza early this year. But so far this change in viewpoint hasn’t reached up to the political level, meaning in the administration and Congress, because there simply aren’t enough people willing to mobilize, visit congressmen, write letters to the editor, etc. But this is what’s needed. We need to educate ourselves on the issue so that we can educate others, join whatever solidarity organizations exist in our areas, gain some political muscle by increasing our numbers, work together, lobby congressmen in numbers, write letters to the editor, force the media to pay attention to what’s happening on the ground, call out Israel’s supporters everywhere for their moral blindness, sign on to the many petitions and letters to politicians that circulate on the internet. In general, make ourselves known, make our position known, and make noise!

Jeff Gore is a freelance journalist based in Athens, GA. He is a frequent contributor to the Athens weekly Flagpole Magazine and has also written articles for Dissident Voice and The Comment Factory. His journal of his summer spent in Palestine can be read at holylanddispatches.blogspot.com. He can be reached at jgore00@gmail.com.

Islamic-Christian Committee: IOA investing millions to judaize Jerusalem


Islamic-Christian Committee: IOA investing millions to judaize Jerusalem

[ 23/10/2009 - 07:13 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Islamic-Christian Committee said on Thursday that huge sums of money were allocated by the Israeli occupation authorities for the judaization of the occupied city of Jerusalem.

Dr. Hassan Khater, the secretary-general of the committee, pointed out that the Israeli budget for the fiscal year 2009-2010 included hundreds of millions of dollars that were purposely allocated to distort the Arab identity of Jerusalem and the surroundings of the Aqsa Mosque.

He noted that an Israeli report published recently revealed that around 50 million dollars were specified to expand the Israeli settlements of Ma'ale Adomim and Jabal Abu Ghunaim, which were established on usurped Palestinian lands, in addition to nearly 106 million dollars to link settlement centers with the heart of the occupied city where Jews constitute the majority.

In addition, Khater pointed out that an amount of 20 million dollars were also included in the Israeli budget to Judaize a number of sacred places in the city, underlining that those published money figures were only the tip of the iceberg of what the IOA and other Jewish organizations with international links have indeed allocated for the purpose.

Furthermore, Khater warned that private Jewish groups have even superseded the Israeli occupation authorities in their efforts and money to judaize Jerusalem, and to distort everything in it that is linked to the Arab and Muslim heritage and history.

In this regard, Khater urged the rich Arab countries and businessmen to participate in the battle of Jerusalem and to enhance the steadfastness of the Palestinian Jerusalemites who refused to sell their properties and blocked the Israeli plans.

"Our Arab and Muslim brothers have the sufficient wealth and potential that they could utilize in defending Jerusalem if they indeed want to do so because Jerusalem wager much on the Arab and Muslim role in this crucial battle", Khater underscored.



The Aqsa Foundation warns that extremist Jews intend to desecrate Aqsa on Sunday

[ 23/10/2009 - 07:57 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Aqsa Foundation for Awkaf and Heritage warned of new attempts by extremist Jews to desecrate the Aqsa Mosque on Sunday to commemorate what they call the "Rambam ascent to the temple mount."

The Foundation said, in a statement on Thursday, that it views with concern calls by extremist Jewish organisations to desecrate the Aqsa Mosque under various pretexts, adding that these groups have recently tried to desecrate the Aqsa and conducted a quick tour of the Aqsa last week.

These renewed calls come after Muslim worshipers foiled attempts by extremist Jewish groups to desecrate the Aqsa mosque during recent Jewish holidays.

The foundation called for continuous presence of Muslim worshipers at the Aqsa Mosque to protect it against the evil schemes of those extremist groups.



Abu Mahfooth: The Aqsa floats on a network of tunnels under it

[ 23/10/2009 - 07:02 PM ]

KUWAIT, (PIC)-- Saud Abu Mahfooth, the expert on Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque, has warned Wednesday that the holy Aqsa Mosque is floating on an ever expanding network of tunnels dug by the Israeli occupation authorities and fanatic Jewish groups under it.

Abu Mahfooth's remarks were made in a lecture he delivered at Al-Islah Al-Ejtima'e society in Kuwait as part of the society's pro-Jerusalem activities.

He added that more than 25 Jewish organizations were relentlessly working day and night with the aim to destroy the Aqsa Mosque and to build the alleged temple on its ruins.

"Indeed, the Arab and Muslim Ummah wouldn’t enjoy independence and freedom unless Jerusalem is liberated and returned back to the Muslims because "whoever controls the city of Jerusalem could play an influential role on the international level."

He also warned that the Israeli occupation governments started to target the Palestinian land and geography after it targeted the Palestinian demography through massacres and ethnic cleansing, adding that destroying the Aqsa Mosque would entail a third "wild and endless world war".

During his speech, Abu Mahfooth exhibited a number of pictures showing how the Aqsa and the city of Jerusalem were seriously targeted by the Israelis, and how are they (Israelis) preparing to build the alleged third temple on the ruins of the Aqsa Mosque.

He also noted that the city of Jerusalem were surrounded by more than 32 Israeli settlements where 280,000 Israeli settlers, including 12 Israeli lawmakers including Avigdor Lieberman, the extremist Israeli foreign minister, are living.

However, Abu Mahfooth praised the uprising of the Palestinian Jerusalemites last September as they foiled a plan by mischievous Jewish groups to desecrate the holy place, urging Arab and Muslim leaders and peoples not to abandon the Palestinian people and not to leave the burden of protecting the Aqsa Mosque on them only.

For his part, the well-known Kuwaiti preacher Sheikh Ahmad Al-Qattan seconded Abu Mahfooth's remarks, attacking the policy of "humiliation" that a number of Arab and Muslim leaders were adopting.

"Those traitor leaders are more dangerous to our holy places than the Jews themselves", Qattan stressed, urging Arab and Muslim peoples to "clean" the Arab and Muslim land of those traitors.

For his part, Esa Al-Shaheen, the chairman of the forum, underlined that boycotting the Zionist entity was a must and a religious duty, noting that a number of European officials started to call for boycotting the Hebrew state.

He explained that in Belgium alone, around 14 municipalities have withdrawn their assets from a local bank after they discovered it was financing the construction of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.

Lieberman to Ban: Don’t Let Goldstone Report Gain Ground in UN


by Hanan Awarekeh, al manar

23/10/2009 Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has asked United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to keep the Goldstone Commission’s report on Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip from advancing to further votes within the international body.

The damning report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, was endorsed the Human Rights Council last week despite opposition from Israel and its allies.

In a telephone conversation late Thursday, Lieberman reiterated his stance that bringing the report for vote in the Security Council or at a General Assembly would harm Middle East peace talks. He said the Palestinians should not be allowed to hold negotiations with Israel on a local level while fighting against it in the international sphere.

The Israeli FM complained to Ban of a distorted reality being created, in which countries which are far from caring about human rights have an automatic majority in every international forum. According to Lieberman, the international arena has become hypocritical and is motivated by prejudices. “We must think about ways to fix this situation,” he told Ban.

South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who authored the damning report, earlier this week accused Lieberman of using the probe to cover his own desire to see the Israeli-Palestinian peace process stall.

Goldstone said that in a conference call on Sunday with 150 U.S. rabbis from left-leaning organizations. “That just is a shallow, I believe, false allegation,” he said. “What peace process are they talking about? There isn’t one. The Israeli foreign minister doesn’t want one at all.”

Lieberman, a right-winger, has drawn fire for criticizing Israel’s past efforts in seeking a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Goldstone’s report accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the 3-week campaign, but mainly focused on Israeli offenses. It set off an uproar in Israel, and Israeli officials have largely dismissed it as biased. During that war, more than 1400 Palestinians were killed, including 420 children and over 5300 others were injured.

Meanwhile, US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell said Thursday night that the Goldstone Report was “one sided and deeply flawed.” He added that the report was one of the setbacks in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Earlier, Goldstone has challenged Barack Obama’s administration to justify its claims that the report is one-sided and flawed.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera on Thursday, Goldstone said that he is still waiting for the U.S. to clarify its claim that the report has a number of flaws. “The Obama administration joined our recommendation calling for full and good-faith investigations, both in Israel and in Gaza, but said that the report was flawed,” Goldstone told Al Jazeera.

The commission chair said that once Washington points out the flaws, he would be ready to respond. “I have yet to hear from the Obama administration what the flaws in the report that they have identified are. I would be happy to respond to them, if and when I know what they are,” he said.

Abbas Should Face Trial for Usurping Power: Hamas


Abbas Should Face Trial for Usurping Power: Hamas


24/10/2009 Hamas on Saturday accused Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas of usurping power after he called presidential and legislative elections for January.
Abbas, whose presidential term expired in early 2009, "must be tried for usurping power," deputy Palestinian speaker Ahmed Bahar told a news conference in the Gaza Strip.
Late on Friday Abbas issued a decree calling elections on January 24, in a move seen as turning up the heat on Hamas to sign an Egyptian-brokered deal for Palestinian unity.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum swiftly rejected the move, branding it illegal and unconstitutional.

In the last parliamentary elections in January 2006, Hamas won a sweeping victory over the previously dominant Fatah, something that upset Abbas’ camp, the Israeli, the Americans and some Europeans, and led to the blockade of Gaza.

The decree calling elections "has no value whatsoever from a constitutional point of view," Bahar said, noting that Abbas's tenure expired in January.

Abbas was elected on January 9, 2005, for a four-year term. The Palestinian Authority extended his presidency by one year so that the next presidential and parliamentary elections could be held on the same date.

According to the Palestinian constitution, once the president’s term expires, authority moves to the Parliament Speaker, which meant to Hamas.

Hamas has consistently rejected the extension granted to Abbas by the Arab League and does not consider him the legitimate president of the Palestinian people.



Seriously who is Abbas’s advisor? Fire him! Where do they get these ideas?

Oh wait right they come from the Israelis and the US admin.

There is no amount of threatening, treason or collaboration will ever let Abbas and his lot get rid of Palestinian rights or force the Palestinians to give up their rights. You can’t have an election where you don’t control. The absurdity never ends!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009, Press TV

Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmud Abbas announces presidential and legislative elections will be held on Jan. 24 in both the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

The announcement came in a Friday statement by Abbas’ office, inviting the Palestinian people in Jerusalem (Al-Quds), the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip to “take part in free and direct presidential and legislative elections on Sunday January 24, 2010.”

Hamas has refused to sign the reconciliation deal due to serious issues missing in the agreement, and urged further talks on the reservations it still has with Egypt.

The decree is viewed to be aimed at rushing the rival Hamas movement into signing a Cairo-brokered unity deal with the Fatah faction led by Abbas, whose presidential term expired in early 2009.

In the last parliamentary elections in January 2006, Hamas won a sweeping victory over Fatah.

However, the Western-backed Fatah later launched a coup against the democratically elected Hamas government and established its own rule based in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

The move prompted Hamas to limit its rule to the Gaza Strip under mounting pressure from the US and Europe to step down, and despite a crippling blockade on the populated coastal sliver.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject any unilateral step beyond the national consensus


Hamas and Islamic Jihad reject any unilateral step beyond the national consensus

[ 24/10/2009 - 09:44 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- The Movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have stressed their adherence to the Palestinian national reconciliation and their rejection of any unilateral steps taken beyond the national consensus.

This came during a meeting held in Damascus between Khaled Mishaal, the head of Hamas political bureau, and Ramadan Shallah, the secretary-general of Islamic Jihad on Thursday night.

Both sides also discussed the latest political developments in the Palestinian arena and the avenues to strengthen bilateral relations that serve the interest of the Palestinian people and their national cause.

In the same context, Mohamed Nazzal, a member of Hamas political bureau, said Friday that Mahmoud Abbas’s edict to hold presidential and legislative elections next January has no practical value, noting that there is political division between Gaza and the West Bank that does not allow such elections to take place without a national consensus.

Nazzal told Al-Aqsa satellite channel that Hamas would never allow these elections to take place in the Gaza Strip in the absence of national unity.

He stressed that Abbas wants elections according to his mood that does not involve any fair competition and delegitimize Hamas, accusing him of having intentions to carry out widespread electoral fraud.

For its part, the Movement of Hamas said that Abbas is no longer the chief of the Palestinian Authority (PA) after his term in office expired last January, so he has no right to issue any addicts or decisions, affirming that his edict to hold elections is illegitimate.

Hamas stated Friday that it respects the democratic choices and its results, but such elections must be a fruit of the national reconciliation and not a replacement as Abbas wants, noting that this edict was issued in response to Zio-American pressures.

It held Abbas and his aides fully responsible for the consequences of this decision which would deepen the internal division and convert it to a historical rift politically and geographically.

For his part, Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council, said Friday that any elections held without a national consensus would be rejected by the Palestinian people because it would entrench the internal division.

In a ceremony held in Gaza to honor memorizers of the holy Qur’an, Dr. Bahar stressed the importance of the national dialog to restore the unity on the basis of the Palestinian constants and the Palestinian independent decision away from the American interventions and the international quartet’s unjust terms.

Dr. Yousuf Rezqa, the political advisor to the Palestinian premier, also said that Abbas’s edict to hold elections next January is a decision issued by a former PA chief and thus has no constitutional value, affirming that the government would hold a meeting to discuss this decision which buried the Egyptian reconciliation efforts.

The popular resistance committee, for its part, strongly denounced Abbas’s edict, saying that Abbas is not the representative of the Palestinian people after the expiration of his term in office and his decisions, therefore, have no constitutional or legal value.

Abbas’s edict was also deplored by the Hamas change and reform parliamentary bloc which said in a statement issued on Friday that the decision to hold elections next January is illegal and an unconstitutional step aimed to create illusive legitimacy.

In a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC), Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that this edict was issued in response to the American demands which call for not conducting any reconciliation with Hamas before it accepts the international quartet’s terms.

Spokesman Abu Zuhri pointed out that the timing of this decision is linked to the phone call which Abbas received Friday afternoon from US president Barack Obama.

In a televised statement to Al-Jazeera satellite channel on Friday, Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas political bureau, said that the elections which Abbas wants to hold next year would not take place in Gaza or anywhere else because there is no Palestinian reconciliation, stressing that his Movement has several options that would be used to respond to Abbas’s unconstitutional edict.

For his part, senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan stated that Abbas, through such a step, confirmed that he only responds to the American pressures as he did with Goldstone’s report and does not care about any reconciliation effort, warning that Abbas’s electoral edict, although he has no right to make such a decision, would inflame the Palestinian arena.

Isra-hell : Zionism =Aparth Racism

Link

Ahead of the beginning of a new school year, some private Israeli schools are refusing to enrol children of Ethiopian origin, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.

This time it is the residents of Petah Tikva who face discrimination. Around 100 Ethiopian schoolchildren are still waiting to be enrolled less than three weeks before the new academic year.

Haaretz.com writes that only several weeks ago these private schools demanded the funding they are entitled to under the law. At the same time they are unwilling to take up their obligations to the state, namely helping to absorb immigrants, the edition quotes Rabbi Shay Piron.

Responding to the criticism, Yigal Amitay from one of the private schools, Darchei Noam, said they had accepted fourteen Ethiopian-origin children. The student body of the school amounts to 600. Another Petah Tikva private ultra-Orthodox school, Da'at Mevinim, said they had enrolled seven students of Ethiopian origin.

The other private schools of the city have declined to make any comments, haaretz.com says.

The Education Ministry has stepped into the conflict. It ordered the municipality to check the situation of all schools in the city

“It is the obligation of the local authority to assure the enrollment of all students living in its jurisdiction. The ministry will demand that the students also be enrolled in the 'recognized but unofficial schools.' If this is not done, the ministry will take all the educational and administrative steps at its disposal,” the Education Ministry said on Wednesday.

The discriminatory treatment against Ethiopian Israelis has long been a problem in the country. Humanitarian organizations for the rights of Ethiopians in Israel receive hundreds of complaints annually concerning racist attitudes towards the ethnicity.

Thus, in 2007, four young Ethiopian Israeli girls in Petah Tikva were segregated from other students and put into separate classes. Back then the case caused great controversy and received extensive media coverage in Israel.

Also this year, a Hadera elementary school came under the spotlight for its decision to single out certain students of Ethiopian origin for extra Hebrew lessons.

In response, outraged parents have sent a letter to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

“Giving separate lessons to a group from a specific origin, that is not based on academic criteria, and hurts their right to equal education,” the letter said.

The Education Ministry reacted by calling it “poor judgment”.

Ethiopia's Jews first came into spotlight in the 1980s. Back then thousands left their famine-stricken birthplace, heading for the Biblical “promised land”. Over the last three decades, immigrants continued to arrive in the country, which was considered in Israel as fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of a gathering of Jewish exiles to Zion.

However, in 2008, the government ended the policy of immigration, saying it wanted to focus on integrating Ethiopians already in the country instead. The move caused a wave of criticism from the Ethiopian Jewish groups.

http://www.russiatod...rimination.html/

They wanted to populate Isra-hell with people as they are trying to import some 13rd Zionist Jews lost tribe from south east Asia, since they failed, now they don't want these imported "jews" anymore.

Posted by Faisal Tehrani at 3:46 AM

Fayyad Optimistic; Netanyahu: Palestinans Must Recognize Israel as Jewish State


Fayyad Optimistic; Netanyahu: Palestinans Must Recognize Israel as Jewish State
Readers Number : 46

24/10/2009 Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said, in an interview published Saturday, that his government was determined to complete building a structure of a future Palestinian state by 2011.

"We've committed ourselves to a path of completing the task of institution building," he told The Washington Post.

He said the institution building meant "the capacity to govern ourselves effectively in all spheres of government within two years."

Asked if Palestinians should declare an independent state in 2011, Fayyad said: "I said this will be the program of the Palestinian government -- it will commit itself to deliver the state in terms of capacity within two years."

In another interview with the Post, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Palestinians needed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in order to resolve their conflict. "Israel is not a bi-national state," he explained. "It's the homeland of any Jew. And there is a very broad consensus in Israel that the Palestinian refugee problem should be resolved outside Israel's borders."

Netanyahu said Palestinians will have to make a final peace deal with "the Jewish state of Israel."

"Jews come here and Palestinians will go there. So choose.

That's the basis of a solution," the Zionist prime minister said.

Friday 23 October 2009

The Palestinian dilemma


{Sleeping: constricting siege on Gaza, Israeli plan to juadize al Quds, war on Gaza leave thousands of victims-Awake: million of dollars to reconstruct Gaza: Im the authority it is my money!} by Ala Laqta-Palestine newspaper-Palestine

{Sleeping: constricting siege on Gaza, Israeli plan to juadize al Quds, war on Gaza leave thousands of victims-Awake: million of dollars to reconstruct Gaza: I'm the authority it is my money!} by Ala' Laqta-Palestine newspaper-Palestine


While Fatah looks to use Palestinian elections as a means to destroy Hamas, it is the Israeli occupation that ultimately uses elections to control the Palestinian struggle, writes Khaled Amayreh, source.

Reeling from the so-called “Goldstone scandal”, Fatah has been waging a fresh war of words against Hamas, accusing the Islamic movement of sabotaging chances for Palestinian reconciliation.

The decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership to seek to defer the adoption by the UN Human Rights Council of the Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip, which nonetheless the PA successfully reversed, created an unprecedented storm of criticism among Palestinians at home and in the Diaspora.

Seizing the moment, Hamas castigated the PA leadership, accusing it of colluding with Israel against Palestinian national interests and arguing that the PA was no longer fit to represent the Palestinian people and cause.

This week, Fatah leaders and spokespersons sought to settle scores with Hamas, accusing the Islamic group of hindering and thwarting Egyptian-mediated reconciliation efforts.

Fatah leader Mohamed Dahlan, a member of Fatah’s Executive Committee, spearheaded verbal attacks against Hamas. During tours of the West Bank, Dahlan charged that Hamas was “hostage to the Muslim Brotherhood” in Jordan and Egypt and that as such the group was subservient to foreign powers.

A pivotal figure in the Fatah-Hamas standoff, Dahlan also warned that Fatah would organise general and presidential elections in the West Bank with or without Hamas’s consent. Hamas official Ahmed Youssef dismissed Dahlan’s remarks as “futile rhetoric”.

“I think our brothers in Fatah should put an end to these verbal theatrics and stop fabricating accusations against Hamas,” Youssef told Al-Ahram Weekly. He added that Hamas was awaiting clarifications with regard to some aspects of the reconciliation document. “We want to know if the international community, including the Quartet, will accept the agreement once it is signed. We also want to know if the upcoming elections will be fair and free and accepted by the international community.”

Asked if Hamas was worried about possible unilateral elections in the West Bank, Youssef warned that such a step would consolidate the division between Gaza and the West Bank. “I think such statements by Abbas and Dahlan are merely balloon tests. It is a kind of pressure tactic on Hamas, and Hamas is not going to be intimidated by these silly games.”

Youssef added that any elections organised by Fatah in the West Bank would be boycotted by a large segment of the Palestinian people. “Besides, there is no Arab or international consensus supporting such a step,” said Youssef. “If Abbas decided to unilaterally organise elections in the West Bank, such elections would be more of a referendum on Fatah than true Palestinian elections.”

Meanwhile, Moussa Abu Marzouq, deputy head of the Hamas politburo, was quoted as saying in interview Tuesday, 20 October, that Abbas “won’t be able to hold elections in the West Bank alone, and all that we hear in this regard is nothing more than psychological pressure on Hamas. If he decided to go ahead with elections, then we will have our choices that we will declare in due time.”

Abu Marzouq said Hamas would sign the reconciliation document forthwith if certain terms and stipulations dropped from the document were reincorporated into it.

Meanwhile, the stipulation on Hamas that it recognise Israel and accept to honour past agreements — particularly the Oslo Accords — reached between Israel and the Palestinians has resurfaced as a supposed precondition for Hamas’s participation in elections.

However, Palestinian writer Hani Al-Masri dismisses the thought of excluding Hamas as both destructive and impractical. He pointed out that the fact of Israeli occupation and the absence of Palestinian sovereignty make Palestinian national unity a sine qua non condition for the organisation of successful elections.

Moreover, Al-Masri argues that in the light of the bitter experience of the 2006 elections, Hamas has the right to demand that the outcome of the upcoming elections be respected not only by Fatah but also by Israel and the international community.

“For these reasons, it is essential that national unity and national reconciliation precede the organisation of elections. The elections are, after all, by no means a magical wand that would solve the problems of the Palestinian people in one fell swoop.”

In addition to disagreements over whether elections should precede or follow national reconciliation, Hamas and Fatah also differ on the purpose and goals of elections. Hamas views elections as part of an overall resistance platform aimed at wresting freedom and liberation from Israel. Fatah appears to view elections as a means to re-impose its hegemony over the Palestinian masses.

Some Fatah leaders, who view Hamas as a strategic enemy whose danger supersedes that of Israel, would like to use the elections as a means to avenge the ousting by Hamas of Fatah militias in Gaza in 2007. What seems to be forgotten is that the storm between Fatah and Hamas is all taking place under Israeli military occupation.

Indeed, according to Al-Masri says, holding elections under Israeli occupation is a heresy “of our own making” that was supposed to be a one-time event pursuant the Oslo Accords and would lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. But via Oslo process Israel continued to control nearly all aspects of Palestinian life while stealing more Palestinian land for Jewish-only settlement expansion.

Hence many ordinary Palestinians, as well as intellectuals, are beginning to question the logic of holding elections if these elections are not going to contribute to ending the Israeli occupation. Since Israel has the final say in matters pertaining to the elections, it is unlikely to tolerate the participation of Hamas and other Palestinian factions whose main goal is ending the occupation.

This is the crux of the Palestinian dilemma.

PALESTINIAN BEATEN FOR SAYING “YOU ARE A TERRORIST, GO HOME!” TO TONY BLAIR

Link

October 23, 2009 at 8:48 am (Associate Post, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Palestine)


Palestinian who tells Blair “you are a terrorist, go home” is beaten for his outburst.

' “I think I was reflecting the feelings and views of the vast majority of Muslims. After all this is the man whose policies led to the destruction of two sovereign Muslim countries and caused the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He is more than a war criminal. He is satanic.”


From Khalid Amayreh in al-Khalil, occupied West Bank

Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, had an unpleasant experience Tuesday, October 20th, when during a visit to the ancient Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, a young Palestinian worshiper shouted at him “you are a terrorist, you are not welcomed in Palestine.”

The mosque, the most ancient in occupied Palestine, was the site of a 1994 massacre when an Israeli settler terrorist from the nearby colony of Kiryat Arba, murdered 29 Muslim worshipers as they were praying at dawn during the holy month of Ramadan.

Blair, the special Quartet envoy to the Middle East, was touring the southern West Bank town as part of his efforts to reactivate the Palestinian economy, effectively paralyzed by stringent Israeli restrictions.

However, his efforts seem to have so far achieved no concrete results on the arduous road of Palestinian independence from the enduring Israeli military occupation.

Nonetheless, Blair’s failure to make any real progress in Palestine doesn’t seem to be the main source of the nearly universal anger at him among Arabs and Muslims. The pivotal role he played in the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and his close collaboration with the Bush administration earned him widespread indignation amongst Muslims all over the world.

“You are a terrorist, you are not welcomed in Palestine, go home, you are a war criminal,” shouted Ali Hasan Hamdan, a young communications engineer from a small hamlet called Khursa, located 15 kilometers south west of Hebron.

The young engineer, 23, was praying when Blair and his entourage, which included several Palestinian officials, entered the Mosque. He says he had not pre-planned his verbal protest as he didn’t know beforehand that Blair was coming to the Mosque.

“It was a spontaneous reaction to seeing this war criminal enter the Holy place. I didn’t do it as a Palestinian nationalist, but rather as a Muslim who has been deeply offended by the huge crimes that Blair committed against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine,” Hamdan intimated to this writer.

Hamdan was immediately subdued by Blair’s Palestinian guards who dragged him to a corner inside the Mosque before taking him to the offices of the local Preventive Security headquarters where he was badly beaten.

During the fracas, Blair maintained his composure telling Palestinian security officials and reporters that the man had the right to protest.

“You know, he’s made his protest, and that was fair enough.”

However, the Quartet envoy remarked that what happened was an individual behavior and didn’t reflect the views of the whole Palestinian population.

But Hamdan strongly disagrees.

“I think I was reflecting the feelings and views of the vast majority of Muslims. After all this is the man whose policies led to the destruction of two sovereign Muslim countries and caused the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He is more than a war criminal. He is satanic.”

Hamdan says that had he been allowed to speak further, he would have made Blair angrier.

“I wanted to tell him that the Islamic Umma (worldwide community) is waking up and that Muslims will be soon emancipated from enslavement to West. I wanted to tell him that Arab and Muslim regimes didn’t represent the Muslim masses and that Muslims were seething with anger toward criminal western powers such as Britain and the United States. I wanted to tell him that sooner or later Muslims will reinstitute the political authority of Islam and re-establish the Caliphate.”

Hamdan, said that his outburst against Blair was not particularly motivated by the former British prime minister’s pro-Israeli stance.

“I think he is one of the most evil tormentors of Muslims in our time. He played a key role in the American-led invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. And in Palestine it is amply clear that he is conspiring and conniving with Israel against the Palestinians.”

“What has he done for the Palestinians? Nothing.”

When Hamdan was dragged to the Preventive Security building nearly three kilometers from the Ibrahimi mosque, he was asked to sign a pledge stating that he wouldn’t indulge in such behavior again.

“Four officers ganged up on me, beating me savagely on the head and on my hands. I know the identity of three of them. They told me that if I didn’t cooperate with them, they would let me bleed a pool of blood.”

“They told me that what I did insulted and embarrassed the Palestinian Authority. I retorted by telling them that I didn’t recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, which made them very angry.”

After five hours of threats, beating and verbal abuse, Hamdan was released, apparently following intervention by local notables.

During the interview, I asked Hamdan if he didn’t fear for his life when he booed Blair, he said he didn’t think about it.

“We are Muslims, and as a Muslim, I believe that one’s life expires only when God decides.”

Widely despised

Blair, who travels in the West Bank, in a bullet-and-bomb proof Jeep provided by the United Nations, normally avoids holding press conferences, probably in order to avoid being asked embarrassing questions pertaining to his erstwhile alliance with the Bush administration.

Several months ago, during a visit to the Hebron City Hall, this journalist asked him how he thought future Arab and Muslim generations would view him in light of his role in the American-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Noticing that the question was a little “fishy,” Blair said he apologized for not answering the question because he didn’t have enough time for a detailed answer.

Blair had refrained from speaking up against Israel ’s genocidal invasions of Lebanon in 2006 and the Gaza Strip in winter.

He also has been reluctant to challenge Israel on the settlement-expansion issue, perhaps in order to keep his good-paying job for as long as possible.

I asked a Palestinian shopkeeper, not far from the Ibrahimi Mosque where Blair was visiting, what he thought of the “British guest.”

The elderly man, after a moment of silence, said the following:

“We have to constantly remember that it was Blair’s country that gave our homeland to the Jews on a silver platter. That was the original sin.”

“As to Blair, I think he has more Muslim blood on his hands since Hulagu and Gengiz Khan. He is an evil man.”