Kathy Kelly: From Gaza to Pakistan - The Cost of War Abroad and at Home (2 Parts)

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Essential Dissent - Kathy Kelly: From Gaza to Pakistan - The Cost of War Abroad and at Home:

"Two time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly discusses her experiences in Gaza and Pakistan, and helps evaluate the costs of war-making from the perspective of those who bear the brunt of suffering caused by war.

Kathy Kelly co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare, and co-founded Voices in the Wilderness, a group which had openly defied economic sanctions from 1996-2003 by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq.

Sponsor: St. James Church Peace and Justice Committee"

Part 1


Part 2


Palestine Video - A Palestine Vlog

Rabab’ah: Israel’s future wars will be over water resources

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[ 07/11/2009 - 04:58 PM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)-- Dr. Ghazi Al-Rabab’ah, a professor of political science at the university of Jordan, stated Saturday that Israel’s future wars against Arab countries would be over water resources.

In a press statement to the Jordanian Al-Arab Alyawm newspaper, Rabab’ah said that the first war would be in the Jordan basin area in the Lebanese Shebaa farms.

He added that Israel also steals Gaza water resources and sends salt contaminated water from Tiberias lake to Gaza.

The professor stressed that Israel also steals 350,000000 cubic meters of water from Litani river in Lebanon, noting that Israel rejects any settlement with the Arabs which does not take into account the issue of sharing water supplies.

The professor also pointed out that Israel is one of the poorest countries in water resources in the world and its water supplies will run out in the coming years which portends that Israel will resort to the strategy of waging wars over water recourses in other places.

He also expected that another war could take place in the coming seven years against Egypt to control the Nile water.

Israel Depressed: Arms Shipment 'Story' Ineffective!

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07/11/2009 Once again, the Zionist entity seemed to be "depressed" after another attempt to hit the Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance was found to be useless.

On Wednesday, Israeli Navy commando force, that reached the deep sea in small boats, boarded the Francop, a cargo ship owned by charter company UFS traveling under an Antiguan flag. According to Israeli media, the crew of sailors did not resist the commando and said that they did not know what was in the large container on board. The commando force opened the container and revealed missiles, rockets, shells, grenades, and small arms.

The Israeli "novel" doesn't end here. The main point is the following: the weapons are Iranians, they are destined to Hezbollah. Concentrating in this point, the Zionist entity sought to influence the international public opinion and "fabricate" a new story against the Resistance.

But, "unfortunately," Israel failed in just convincing this international public opinion of the "accuracy" of its "novel."

According to Israeli daily Yedihot Ahronot, the Zionist entity felt depressed by its failure especially that the most important and prominent dailies and newspapers of the world didn't deal with the news as Israel has wished. The Israeli daily said that the capture news did not produce any "choc" within the international media panels, unlike the Hezbollah denial that made the headlines.

Indeed, top US dailies such as New York Times and Washington Post didn't believe the news was a big deal. They published it in the secondary news. It didn't get any priority in other UK dailies such as Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. Moreover, the Western dailies that published the "story" referred it to its initial Israeli sources without adopting it, at the time many of them openly said that the whole issue was an Israeli "fabrication".

Bahar calls for endorsing Goldstone report at UNSC

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[ 07/11/2009 - 04:43 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council, has asked the Arab and Islamic countries to exert more efforts when the Goldstone report is tabled at the UN Security Council.

Bahar in a statement on Saturday welcomed the UN General Assembly's endorsement of the report's recommendations, describing it as a victory for Palestinian determination in face of "Zionist oppression and terrorism".

He regretted that the western countries' "ugly image" was evident when they voted against the report while majority of the world countries sided by values of right and justice.

The deputy PLC speaker said that Arab, Islamic countries along with friendly and peace loving countries in the world should rally for the sake of ensuring a successful vote before the UNSC.

He warned that the USA's use of the veto against such a decision would blow up its remaining credibility and would display its complete bias in favor of the "Zionist entity and its aggressive policies against our Palestinian people and their just cause".

Bahar said that the European Union is also before a "decisive test" when the report is tabled with the UNSC, either to side by objectivity, political honesty and democratic basis and thus vote for the report or at least not to vote against it or to side by the Zionist aggressive policy which would only end up with the EU in the same trench with the "criminal enemy".

The main goal of tabling the Goldstone report with the international institutions was to curb the unrestricted Zionist aggression and Israel's ability of launching future wars against any people or country, he concluded.

Zionism's Jewish Enemy

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Alan Hart Interviews Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel's leading "new" or "revisionist" historian.

Like all Israelis, Ilan was brought up, conditioned, to believe Zionism's version of the history of the making and sustaining of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It wasn't until he went to England to continue his academic studies that he had access to documentation which enabled him to understand that Zionism's version is a propaganda lie.

Part 1:

Part 2:

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

Israeli court turns down appeal by two detained PLC deputies

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[ 07/11/2009 - 10:45 AM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- The Israeli military court in Ofer has turned down an appeal by two members of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC) against extension of their administrative detention.

The Ofer court said that the six-month administrative detention against MPs Dr. Azzam Salhab and Nizar Ramadan should be enforced.

The Israeli occupation forces arrested both MPs seven months ago only few weeks after serving almost 40 months in incarceration and held them in administrative custody that was renewed recently

IPA separates Palestinian detained twins

[ 07/11/2009 - 09:59 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Ezzat family appealed to the human rights groups and all those concerned with prisoners' affairs to pressure the Israeli prisons authority (IPA) into bringing its two twin sons to one jail.

The family said in a statement on Friday that Ibrahim was detained in Negev jail while Saad was carried to Ramle prison hospital for treatment of injuries during his arrest in the latest war on Gaza then to Beersheba prison.

The statement said that the family members were very much concerned with the health of Saad and do not know anything about his condition.

They asked all those concerned with the affairs of Palestinian prisoners in IPA jails to exert all efforts possible to bring the twin brothers together in one jail and to appease their fears about their health conditions.

Ra'fat Hamdona, the director of the prisoners' center for studies, has said that detaining brothers in one jail was always the norm in jails.

Hamdona further said that the lives of tens of Palestinian detainees were in jeopardy because of the IPA medical neglect of their diseases.

The director asked human rights groups to pressure the IPA into revealing the condition of Saad Ezzat, who has been suffering from fracture in his shoulder's bone as a result of the cruel interrogation rounds.

Hamdona asked the media to expose the IPA practices against Palestinian captives and to demand international intervention to save their lives.

Families in Al-Khalil appeal for transferring political prisoners from Jericho

[ 07/11/2009 - 03:35 PM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Five families of Palestinian political prisoners in the city of Al-Khalil appealed to all officials and human rights organization to intervene with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah and get their imprisoned sons and husbands transferred from its jails in Jericho to Al-Khalil in order to alleviate their travel suffering.

The mother of prisoner Ahmed Al-Aweiwi said that she and her family suffered greatly after their son was detained in Jericho as a result of the long destination which need three hours of costly travel from Al-Khalil.

The mother of two other prisoners called Muhannad and Musab Nayroukh also complained about the same thing, adding that she is suffering from difficult financial conditions and living a miserable life after the Israeli occupation authorities demolished her home and the PA kidnapped her only two sons.

For her part, the wife of prisoner Wa’el Al-Beitar complained about the harsh living conditions she is suffering from after her husband was kidnapped by the PA and her health deteriorated badly making her unable to support her family.

All the families called on the PA to release their sons and husbands from its jails and stop alleging that there are security reasons behind their detention.

In another context, it was reported that Mahmoud Abbas’s militias kidnapped during the last two days nine Palestinian citizens affiliated with Hamas in the districts of Al-Khalil, Tubas, Qalqiliya, and Salfit.

UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO,

Link,
Part 1
Welcome to Pashtunistan
By Pepe Escobar

There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief - Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower

PARIS - Something's happening in AfPak, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr Beltway think-tanker?

As Washington mashes up the "Taliban" - be they Afghan neo-Taliban or Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) - in Empire of Chaos logic to justify perennial United States/North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops stationed in AfPak, an increasing number of Pashtuns living on both sides of the border have seized the opportunity and started to look to the Taliban as a convenient facilitator for the emergence of Pashtunistan.

But the Pentagon, make no mistake, knows exactly how to play its New Great Game in Eurasia. Balkanization of AfPak - the break-up of both Afghanistan and Pakistan - will engineer, among other states, an independent Pashtunistan and an independent Balochistan. Empire of Chaos logic is still British imperial divide-and-rule, remixed; and, at least in theory, yields territories much easier to control.

Don't mess with Pashtun nationalism

Tribal Pashtuns (from eastern Afghanistan to western Pakistan) have never given up on being united again. Everyone familiar with AfPak knows the region is still paying the price for the fateful and - what else - divide-and-rule British imperial decision in 1897 to split tribal Pashtuns through the artificial Durand Line. The line remains the artificial border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Anyone who ever crossed it at, for instance, Torkham, at the foot of the Khyber pass, knows it is meaningless; people swarming on both sides are all cousins who never stopped dreaming of a pre-colonial, Afghan Durrani empire that straddled a great deal of contemporary Pakistan.

Few have noticed that Pashtuns were recently insisting on a very basic demand - that North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan have its name changed to Pakhtunkhwa ("Land of the Pashtuns"). The demand was shot down this past September by the dominant Punjabis in Pakistan. Pashtun nationalists protested en masse in fabled Peshawar, the NWFP capital. Pashtun national liberation is at fever pitch. Pashtun Guevaras are already issuing a call to arms.
But as much as Washington, now with a little help from its friend/client government of President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad, has been conducting essentially a war on Pashtuns since 2001, this is no monolithic movement. It all goes back to the early 21st-century maxim that virtually every Taliban is a Pashtun, but not every Pashtun is a Taliban. There are significant strands of secular Pashtuns that shun the TTP and its brand of Islamic fundamentalist dystopian dogma, even while the Pashtun masses may see in the TTP the ideal vehicle for the advent of Pashtunistan.

If we follow the money, we see that the TTP in Pakistan is now being financed mostly by wealthy, pious Gulf businessmen and not anymore by Islamabad. The financiers are more interested in jihad than in Pashtun nationalism, and that undermines the legitimacy of the Taliban as vehicles for Pashtun nationalism. At the same time, if the TTP and its Pashtun allies manage to establish full control over a strategic corridor straddling eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, with or without jihadi support, and for example with a partial control of Peshawar thrown in, the public relations coup couldn't be bigger: that means an Islamic emirate for all practical purposes constituted as Pashtunistan.

Other factors apart from the TTP facilitate the drive towards Pashtunistan. The West's economic and aid packages to AfPak are pitiful and never trickle down to the average Pashtun. The "revelation" in the US of what was never a secret in Afghanistan, that Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the "winner" of the soiled Afghan presidential election, has been on the Central Intelligence Agency's payroll for years, erased any possibility of Pashtuns believing in anything emanating from Kabul.

United States corporate media dabbles on the Afghan presidential election kabuki (with rice) while ignoring that what passes for US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intelligence is bribing top warlords for on-the-ground "security" (a swell business for them) coupled with bribing the Taliban for a license not be killed by their explosive devices. And bribing itself just won't do; the Taliban, via their former foreign minister, Mullah Muttawakkil, have just refused an American offer of eight permanent NATO bases for six provincial Taliban governorships. They want their Kabuli rice - and eat it too.

Islamabad's military and security establishment, a state within a state, remains an annex of Washington's; Pashtuns see the current offensive in Waziristan as Zardari selling out to Washington - same as "Busharraf", president Pervez Musharraf, before. A Pakistani failed government, this one or any other one, has zero chance to control what are de facto Afghan lands on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line. In 2009 alone, more than two million Pashtuns have been forced to become refugees; there's ample talk of a "Pashtun genocide".

So it would be so much easier, and infinitely less bloody, for Washington to adopt the Pentagon line all the way: let's pull another Yugoslavia; let's Balkanize; let's restore the Afghan Durrani empire.

The second coming
A rough beast, its hour come at last, Pashtunistan is already being born.

To start with, those "cousins" on both sides of the border are all tribal Pashtuns, mostly rural. They follow the same conservative religious rituals, enshrined by the ultra-reactionary South Asian Deobandi school of Sunni Islam and propagated by a vast network of made-in-Pakistan madrassas (seminaries). Their business is thriving, as can be attested by a visit to Spinbaldak, in southern Afghanistan, on the way between Kandahar and Quetta; the big fish thrive on smuggling and the narco-trade, and everyone else thrives on transportation or the timber business. The cash flow, in and out, is massive, especially out of remittances from Pashtun workers toiling around the Gulf and beyond.

Politically, the Pashtuns are represented by parties such as the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islami (JUI). Diplomatically, they are very well connected to the Persian Gulf and to most of the Organization of the Islamic Conference countries. From a military point of view, they are represented by myriad Taliban groups, not only the TTP. And strategically, they perform a delicious irony: a rural, ultra-religious, nationalist movement fighting tooth-and-nail a corrupt, urban-based government as if they were a post-colonial fantasy of the noble tribal savage - a la Rousseau - fighting the colonialist West.

This may not be what leftist, relatively secular Pashtun intellectuals had in mind; they maintain that the Punjabi-infested security agencies control both the Taliban and the Pakistani army, and they would rather get rid of both. A nationalist group such as the Pashtun Awareness Movement believes Pashtuns themselves should get rid of the Taliban, not the Pakistani army under the boot of the Pentagon. As for the predominantly Pashtun Awami National Party, which is in power in NWFP and has to compose somewhat with Islamabad, its dream of a more balanced Pashtunistan is still a long way away.

There may be only one thing missing for Pashtunistan to come of age: a passport. It's not hard to see who will profit from it.

Next: Breaking up is (not) hard to do

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.


UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2

'Iran Will Not Exchange Uranium with West'

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07/11/2009 Iran will not exchange its domestically low-enriched uranium with the West to supply Tehran's reactor fuel, the Chief of Iran's Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Saturday.

"Iran is not to give any of its 1,200 kilograms fuel to the other party to receive 20 percent enriched fuel and whether gradually or at once, this will not be done and is called off," Boroujerdi told the ISNA news agency.

The Iranian official was referring to a recently drafted UN proposal that calls for Iran to transfer 1.2 tons of low-enriched uranium produced in its nuclear site Natanz to Russia, where it would be enriched to 20 percent, then to be transferred to France for industrial processing, after which it would be returned to the Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes.

Boroujerdi also stated that Iran and fuel supplier countries must find a new way to provide Tehran's reactor fuel. "Presently, Mr. Soltanieh is in talks to find an approach for the issue," Boroujerdi added, referring to Tehran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

Referring to remarks by some Western officials that Iran must respond to the IAEA brokered deal regarding purchase of fuel in two days, Boroujerdi said, "The West cannot see a deadline and we are not committed to their remarks."

Meanwhile, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signaled that Moscow could back sanctions against Iran if it fails to take a constructive stance in international talks over its nuclear program.

Medvedev said in an interview with Germany's Der Spiegel magazine that Iran must abide by the international rules and not try to hide its nuclear facilities. His comments were released by the Kremlin Saturday.

Medvedev said it would be better to avoid sanctions, but they can't be excluded if there is no progress in the talks. The comments follow up on Medvedev's statement in September that sanctions are sometimes inevitable.

Medvedev's remarks contrast with the words of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has warned that the threat of sanctions could thwart talks with Iran.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan–The “Inglourious Basterd” Of Fort Hood?

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Published November 7, 2009

“Since the Mossad had all the security arrangements in hand, it would not be a problem bringing the killers as close as they wanted to President Bush and then staging his assassination. In the ensuing confusion, the Mossad people would kill the ‘perpetrators,’ scoring yet another victory for the Mossad. With the assassins dead, it would be difficult to discover where the ‘security breach’ had been, except that several countries involved in the conference, such as Syria, were regarded as countries that assisted terrorists.”

—Ex-Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky, describing in his book ‘The Other Side of Deception’ how the Mossad planned to assassinate President George Bush at the Madrid peace conference in October of 1991 for the purpose of blaming it on Arab extremists.

Those who know me are now doubt asking themselves confidently–“Ok, how long before he blames this latest atrocity on the Jews?” waiting to see what kind of complex conspiracy theory I am able to weave out of the Fort Hood massacre…

Well, never one to disappoint, as a matter of fact, I do believe (and with all my heart incidentally) that the Jews/Zionists/Neocons were involved in it. Up to their eyeballs, as a matter of fact. As far as I’m concerned this (the notion that this latest massacre was/is the result of the Jews and their criminal behavior, both in the Middle East and beyond) is not as much a conspiracy theory as it is a conspiracy fact. For me, it is as settled and irrevocable as 2+2 = 4 and the laws governing gravity.

However, I don’t (as of this moment) believe the Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a Manchurian Candidate programmed to do this. I don’t (as of this moment) think someone from Mossad, CIA or anything else snatched him, took him to some far away place, subjected him to psychotropic drugs and hypnotism and turned him into a ticking time bomb so that he would go and do something like this so that they could have their made-to-order high media profile event.

Not that those who do believe this are out in left field for doing so. After all, both the timing and the parameters associated with it are, well, impeccable. As far as Jewish interests are concerned, what could be better than something like this? It is a winning lottery ticket that will pay out week after week for who knows how long. If there was ever a time they needed to “change the subject” as it were and get the stupid gentiles re-fixated on “Ahab the Ayrab” instead of their own criminal behavior it is now.

We have Bernie Madoff and his infamous multi-billion dollar heist still a topic of household discussion. We have the organ-trafficking Rabbis, Roman Polanski’s rape and sodomizing of a 13 year old, the Gaza war crimes report in the UN and much, much more. Definitely not one of Jewry’s stellar moments in history.

Furthermore, Israel’s favorite pit bull–meaning the US– is worn out as far as the fighting goes. As a result of fighting Israel’s wars for her the land of the free and home of the brave is bankrupt and just doesn’t have the bite she did 8 years ago when this whole mess began. Iran sits over there smoldering and Jewish interests are crapping their collective pants in panic over the possibility their genocidal plans might have to be shelved for yet another decade or–Yahweh forbid–that they may have to be abandoned altogether.

So certainly this latest incident carries all the hallmarks of one of Israel’s “By way of deception, thou shalt do war” false flag events that she utilizes with the same frequency as a priest makes the sign of the cross. And after considering what Israel did in murdering 34 Americans aboard the USS Liberty June 8, 1967 (in the interests of getting a war started between the US and the Soviet Union) the Lavon Affair and her involvement in the 1983 US Marine Barracks bombings in Beirut we can dismiss the idea she wouldn’t sink THAT low.

I admit that initially my instinct was to “go there” and assume it was another op in gettin’ the God-fearin’, red-blooded ‘mericans whooped up to go ‘n kill some sand niggers for Geeeezus and to do the dirty work (yet again) for the Chosenites. In fact, as soon as I had heard the news report that a bunch of GIs had been gunned down at an army base I said to myself “Ok, let’s see now…don’t tell me, let me guess…no, no, no, no, don’t tell me, IT WAS AN AY-RAB, RIGHT?”

But as of this moment, the fact is that it doesn’t take extraordinary means to bring something like this about. In this case it really could be as simple to explain as one pissed off Arab-American who decided to settle a few scores, not unlike what took place in the recently-released movie “Inglourious Basterds”.

Yes, that’s right, just like that movie that was all the rave amongst the Jews and their brain-dead Christian Zionist worshippers worldwide, where Jewish characters decided they had “had enough“ of their fellow Chosenites being treated so shabbily by the Nazis and decided to settle the score by bashing their brains in with baseball bats, collecting scalps, carving swastikas in human flesh and all sorts of other methods of “divine justice” the sick mind of Quentin Tarantino could conjure up after drinking a bottle of Mogen David wine and reading the 1st 5 books of the Old Testament.

No, again, AS OF THIS MOMENT it appears to be a case of an Arab-American–sick of being pushed around and degraded because of his religion–saying “no mas”…It doesn’t require any “Manchurianism” to push a man into doing something desperate when faced with the prospect of being shipped overseas so that he can be a cog in the big war machine. Faced with (a) killing fellow soldiers about to depart to Iraq where they will each take their turn in gang-raping the country and blowing innocent women and children into tiny bits, VS (b) him resorting to desperate/irrational measures, why then would such a man NOT step into the role of the “Bear Jew” in Tarantino’s film?

This is to say nothing of the fact that as an army psychiatrist his job was dealing with all the head cases coming back after fighting two wars against Muslim countries. How many times does a psychiatrist hear GIs telling stories about gunning down women and children (who look just like his mother, father, brothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, nephews, etc) before he snaps?

Nevertheless, despite the fact as of this moment it appears to be nothing more than a person reaching his limit and going over the edge, Jewish interests will of course make the most of it as if it WERE one of their “babies”. They would just as soon pass up an opportunity like this as a sailor at sea for six months would pass up a visit to the local brothel having a “buy one get one free” sale.

“YOU SEE???“ will be the chorus–“WE TOLD YOU WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE LIKE…NOW GET SUITED-UP AND GET BUSY WITH THE BOMBS AND BULLETS”. All the usual suspects will use this as prime efface evidence that Islam is inherently violent, that it produces savage killers and that all Muslims–top to bottom–cannot be trusted in civilized societies. These same traitorous, war-mongering criminal elements working in the service of Jewish interests in bringing about the sick, genocidal fantasies contained in the Old Testament will be given yet another platform to begin anew their misquoting of the Koran as they did following 9/11 and how this latest is just an all-too-predictable/religiously-mandated script that “infidels” must be killed if the Muslims are to get their “72 virgins“.

More worrisome though is how this latest will be used in putting the heat on Obama, as Jewish interests will no doubt claim that it is because of his “reluctance” in “getting tough” with Islam (re, widening the war against Israel’s enemies to include Iran et al) that brought it about. At a time when the world teeters on the edge of America going to war against Iran, something like this could easily tip the balance in Israel’s favor if the right propaganda is used, which most certainly it will.

And we can forget all about the American people learning from past mistakes, applying some sense of reason to this and not flying off the handle. As far as they are concerned, it is the morning of 9/11/2001 and 2 planes hijacked by a bunch of camel jockeys have just crashed into the Twin Towers. The lines at the recruiting stations throughout the country will start getting a little longer in the following days as young men sign up to go and get even with the “towel heads” and “hajjis” responsible for this latest atrocity. Americans who yesterday were grumbling over the fact that they are being bled dry as a result of Uncle Sam fighting these wars in the Middle East will grumble no more, or at least for a while.

In the Jewish community, the reactions are just as predictable. Following Netanyahu’s shtick immediately after 9/11 when he said that what took place on September 11 was “good“ because it would generate “immediate sympathy for Israel”, so too will Jewish interests affect a collective face of sorrow, cry a river of crocodile tears while inside their hearts they laugh and cheer over this latest Gentile bloodbath in America in the same way as the 5 Mossad officers did on the morning of 9/11 in Liberty State Park New Jersey as the Twin Towers came crumbling down.

And in the meantime, the very thing that caused this individual to take a leave of absence from his sanity and go on a killing spree (meaning the holocaust of Muslims in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan for Israel’s benefit) will get wider and bloodier, leading to even more events such as what took place.

And even though (as of this moment) I see no reason to believe it was anything other than one man reaching his limit, this isn’t to say I believe the powers-that-be don’t possess the ability to brainwash individuals into doing such things.

After all, if they were able to program 300,000,000 Americans into murdering over a million Iraqis, why could they not get one guy to kill a few dozen?

© 2009 Mark Glenn

nomorewarsforisrael@gmail.com

Gen. James Jones: "'Afghanistan Will Swallow Them Up'"

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(Full interview later) Spiegel online, thanks to Guthman, here

In a SPIEGEL interview, the national security adviser to the White House, General James Jones, has expressed strong skepticism regarding the request of General Stanley McChrystal for another 40,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan.

US President Barack Obama's national security adviser, General James Jones, has expressed strong skepticism regarding the request of the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for another 40,000 troops to be sent to the country.

"Generals always ask for more troops. Take it from me," Jones told SPIEGEL in an interview. "I believe we will not solve the problem with troops alone. The minimum number is important, of course. But there is no maximum number, however." General Jones explained: "You can keep on putting troops in, and you could have 200,000 troops there and Afghanistan will swallow them up as it has done in the past."

Instead of nation building, he brought up the idea of transferring responsibility to Afghanistan as soon as possible. General Jones said: "We need a better plan with the allies to gradually turn over responsibility for the country to Afghan institutions and organizations in as short a time as possible." When asked about when US troops will be withdrawn, he answered: "I don't know when that will be. But I do know that our president and other leaders are very insistent on doing everything that we can to make sure that it happens sooner rather than later. That we can in fact, begin to turn over responsibility to the Afghans."

General Jones emphasized several times during the interview that it's time for the Afghan authorities to take care of their country. "If they want the promise of a democratic society and peace and stability, better opportunities for their children then this government and all of the governors have to do a much better job than they have done so far," he said...."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 7:47 AM

1001 WAYS THAT ZIONISTS USE TO TAKE OVER LAND AND DISTRACT ATTENTION AT THE SAME TIME…..

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November 7, 2009 at 9:13 am (Associate Post, Israel, Occupation, Palestine)

Image by Abonoon

Sad week in review

By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

One of these days, I would like to write a book to document the 1001 ways that Zionists use to take over land and distract attention at the same time. In history we had false flag operations like the Lavon Affair (Israeli agents attacking Western Interests to blame it on Arab nationalists) and countless other incidents of creating mayhem to ensure distraction. More recently as more ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem goes on, the Lebanese government reveals collaboration between Israeli intelligence in South Lebanon nurtured and worked with extremist groups to fire Katyusha’s at Israel to keep the Northern front humming and give a bad name to Hezbollah. Israel pirates a ship in International waters it claims were destined for Hezbollah. Israeli agents infiltrate demonstrations wearing masks and insult Christians. Israel recruits agents among sick Palestinians in Gaza desperate to leave to get treatment and use trickery to capture Palestinian men in compromising position and use the pictures to blackmail them into collaboration. But mostly now, it is enough to keep scaring the Israeli public to stay on board with eth elites making billions off of impoverishing the average person (Israel builds massive security industries while more than 1/3^rd of its population lives below the poverty line).

As Gideon Levy put it in Haaretz yesterday: “Every few weeks you have to sow fear, every few months you need to make threats, and once every year or two you have to have another little war. Blind cooperation between the defense establishment and the media holds the promise of another round of fighting. In that way, it’s possible to escape some of the blame from the Goldstone report and wallow in the conditions we love best: being the victim, feeling threatened and uniting in the face of the great external danger allegedly in the offing”[1]

Though he did not explain why the victimhood card is used: because without it, this whole project of bringing Jews from around the world to settle on stolen Palestinian land collapses. It would collapse because the truth would come out. The truth that Zionism not only victimized the Palestinians (70% of us are refugees or displaced people) but also Jews [2]

The US State Department declared this week that “Israel dismally fails the requirements of a tolerant pluralistic society “[3]. Yet the US gives Israel the largest share of foreign aid, billions/year even as this is contrary to US law to support human rights violators. The Israel-first lobby in Washington ensures the US arm-twists smaller nations to vote against International law. Yet, even Israel’s endless distractions and the US power and might seem unable to stem the bad news for the racist apartheid regime. The UN General assembly voted overwhelmingly to support the Goldstone report 114 votes in favor, 18 opposed and 44 abstentions.. Those of you in different countries should check how your country voted and write to thank them if voting yes or to ask for explanation for those spineless ones who voted no or abstain. History will not be kind to sweeping war crimes under the rug. Goldstone had written to congress to correct the distortions, outright lies, and inaccuracies that were in the resolution that was drafted for them by AIPAC trained congressional aids in fascist congressmen offices (Like Ross-Lehtinen) but the Goldstone letter was ignored. Even the Gladstone report that they were condemning was not incorporated into the congressional record (otherwise future historians might see how stupid Congress is or maybe how stupid Congress thinks the public is). So the AIPAC resolution condemning the Goldstone report (and thus supporting war crimes) passed by 9:1. 36 brave congressmen stand out and should be thanked for showing some backbone. (Action link [4])

Here in Palestine, we commemorated with sadness the November 2, 1917 horrific Balfour Decalration in which Britain promised Palestine to the European Zionist movement in order to secure help in getting the US to join WWI.

In other news, a US army officer who as a psychiatrist treated patients suffering after return from illegal wars on Iraq and Afghanistan (and was scheduled to be shipped there) went berserk and shot 13 of his comrades and injured 31. The Zionists in the media are having a field day with this. No one even mentioned on the religious persuasion or family background of the many hundreds of other Americans who engaged in similar kinds of mass-killing. In this case had he been Jewish American, Mexican American or anything else his background or religious beliefs would never have been mentioned. I found it rather disgusting that outfits like the Associated Press engage in such smear campaigns. All major Muslim American organizations issued statements condemning the attack. This is indeed a sad event; killing should be condemned by ALL but is also sad that some are allowed to exploit such events for political purposes.

In yet other news, Mahmoud Abbas declared that he will not run for the upcoming elections. In essence he is telling the US an Israel: you did not want to have a two state solution based on the road map to peace that you yourself drafted (and that calls for full freeze on settlement activity including “natural growth” and including occupied Jerusalem). He is saying to them further that “if you do not want that, then my line of negotiations with you has indeed reached a dead end (he has actually been engaged in informal and formal negotiations for nearly three decades). And let Fatah come up with a different line.” Now we could of course see a Fatah candidate who is more compliant with Israeli demands or we could see a more sober and realistic approach. My recommendation to Fatah is to give up on the “authority” and on the illusionary “two states” and begin the (yet hard) process of educating friends and foes about the value of a democratic secular state in all of historic Palestine. As I argued in my last book, that will bring a durable peace instead of the charade of the current “peace process” (I know the peace process industry will not be happy with us finally beginning to choke off their main source of income and power).

On more uplifting news, on the anniversary of the Berlin wall collapse, Palestinians breached the apartheid wall knocking down one of its concrete segments (video here [5]). And residents of Aida refugee camp got to see the rest of Palestine. Rich Wiles wrote: “Um Qassim was born over 70 years ago in the village of Al Kabu. Her early childhood was spent amongst the clean air and fresh water of this Palestinian village. In 1948 everything changed for Um Qassim as it did for all Palestinians, and today she is one of the 4,500 residents of Aida Camp…I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here forever. It’s so, so, beautiful, and it’s still ours…”[6] And a final action, please sign the petition Sign the petition to Norway’s University of Trondheim to Boycott Israel (sign at link below [7].

A luta continua–the struggle goes on.

Notes

[1] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126077.html

[2] see Lenni Brenner’s article “The Zionist Operation Was A Success, The Jewish Patients Died” http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/10/the-zionist-operation-was-a-success-the-jewish-patients-died/

[3] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126286.html

[4] http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=3517 and see how your congressperson voted and write to them all http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll838.xml

[5] see Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xh4ouc8Lac

[6] more at http://hullpsc.blogspot.com/

[77] http://www.petitiononline.com/boycott9/petition.html

'US foreign policy is straight out of the mafia'

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Noam Chomsky is the west's most prominent critic of US imperialism, yet he is rarely interviewed in the mainstream media. Seumas Milne meets him

Noam Chomsky: 'Obama's campaign rhetoric was completely vacuous' Photograph: Rex Features

Noam Chomsky is the closest thing in the English-speaking world to an intellectual superstar. A philosopher of language and political campaigner of towering academic reputation, who as good as invented modern linguistics, he is entertained by presidents, addresses the UN general assembly and commands a mass international audience. When he spoke in London last week, thousands of young people battled for tickets to attend his lectures, followed live on the internet across the globe, as the 80-year-old American linguist fielded questions from as far away as besieged Gaza.

But the bulk of the mainstream western media doesn't seem to have noticed. His books sell in their hundreds of thousands, he is mobbed by students as a celebrity, but he is rarely reported or interviewed in the US outside radical journals and websites. The explanation, of course, isn't hard to find. Chomsky is America's most prominent critic of the US imperial role in the world, which he has used his erudition and standing to expose and excoriate since Vietnam.

Like the English philosopher Bertrand Russell, who spoke out against western-backed wars until his death at the age of 97, Chomsky has lent his academic prestige to a relentless campaign against his own country's barbarities abroad – though in contrast to the aristocratic Russell, Chomsky is the child of working class Jewish refugees from Tsarist pogroms. Not surprisingly, he has been repaid with either denunciation or, far more typically, silence. Whereas a much slighter figure such as the Atlanticist French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy is lionised at home and abroad, Chomsky and his genuine popularity are ignored.

Indeed, his books have been banned from the US prison library in Guantánamo. You'd hardly need a clearer example of his model of how dissenting views are filtered out of the western media, set out in his 1990's book Manufacturing Consent, than his own case. But as Chomsky is the first to point out, the marginalisation of opponents of western state policy is as nothing compared to the brutalities suffered by those who challenge states backed by the US and its allies in the Middle East.

We meet in a break between a schedule of lectures and talks that would be punishing for a man half his age. At the podium, Chomsky's style is dry and low-key, as he ranges without pausing for breath from one region and historical conflict to another, always buttressed with a barrage of sources and quotations, often from US government archives and leaders themselves.

But in discussion he is warm and engaged, only hampered by slight deafness. He has only recently started travelling again, he explains, after a three-year hiatus while he was caring for his wife and fellow linguist, Carol, who died from cancer last December. Despite their privilege, his concentrated exposure to the continuing injustices and exorbitant expense of the US health system has clearly left him angry. Public emergency rooms are "uncivilised, there is no health care", he says, and the same kind of corporate interests that drive US foreign policy are also setting the limits of domestic social reform.

All three schemes now being considered for Barack Obama's health care reform are "to the right of the public, which is two to one in favour of a public option. But the New York Times says that has no political support, by which they mean from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies." Now the American Petroleum Institute is determined to "follow the success of the insurance industry in killing off health reform," Chomsky says, and do the same to hopes of genuine international action at next month's Copenhagen climate change summit. Only the forms of power have changed since the foundation of the republic, he says, when James Madison insisted that the new state should "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority".

Chomsky supported Obama's election campaign in swing states, but regards his presidency as representing little more than a "shift back towards the centre" and a striking foreign policy continuity with George Bush's second administration. "The first Bush administration was way off the spectrum, America's prestige sank to a historic low and the people who run the country didn't like that." But he is surprised so many people abroad, especially in the third world, are disappointed at how little Obama has changed. "His campaign rhetoric, hope and change, was entirely vacuous. There was no principled criticism of the Iraq war: he called it a strategic blunder. And Condoleezza Rice was black – does that mean she was sympathetic to third world problems?"

The veteran activist has described the US invasion of Afghanistan as "one of the most immoral acts in modern history", which united the jihadist movement around al-Qaida, sharply increased the level of terrorism and was "perfectly irrational – unless the security of the population is not the main priority". Which, of course, Chomsky believes, it is not. "States are not moral agents," he says, and believes that now that Obama is escalating the war, it has become even clearer that the occupation is about the credibility of Nato and US global power.

This is a recurrent theme in Chomsky's thinking about the American empire. He argues that since government officials first formulated plans for a "grand area" strategy for US global domination in the early 1940s, successive administrations have been guided by a "godfather principle, straight out of the mafia: that defiance cannot be tolerated. It's a major feature of state policy." "Successful defiance" has to be punished, even where it damages business interests, as in the economic blockade of Cuba – in case "the contagion spreads".

The gap between the interests of those who control American foreign policy and the public is also borne out, in Chomsky's view, by the US's unwavering support for Israel and "rejectionism" of the two-state solution effectively on offer for 30 years. That's not because of the overweening power of the Israel lobby in the US, but because Israel is a strategic and commercial asset which underpins rather than undermines US domination of the Middle East. "Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the US in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil."

Half a century later, corporations like Lockheed Martin and Exxon Mobil are doing fine, he says: America's one-sided role in the Middle East isn't harming their interests, whatever risks it might bring for anyone else.

Chomsky is sometimes criticised on the left for encouraging pessimism or inaction by emphasising the overwhelming weight of US power – or for failing to connect his own activism with labour or social movements on the ground. He is certainly his own man, holds some idiosyncratic views (I was startled, for instance, to hear him say that Vietnam was a strategic victory for the US in southeast Asia, despite its humiliating 1975 withdrawal) and has drawn flak for defending freedom of speech for Holocaust deniers. He describes himself as an anarchist or libertarian socialist, but often sounds more like a radical liberal – which is perhaps why he enrages more middle-of-the-road American liberals who don't appreciate their views being taken to the logical conclusion.

But for an octogenarian who has been active on the left since the 1930s, Chomsky sounds strikingly upbeat. He's a keen supporter of the wave of progressive change that has swept South America in the past decade ("one of the liberal criticisms of Bush is that he didn't pay enough attention to Latin America – it was the best thing that ever happened to Latin America"). He also believes there are now constraints on imperial power which didn't exist in the past: "They couldn't get away with the kind of chemical warfare and blanket B52 bombing that Kennedy did," in the 1960s. He even has some qualified hopes for the internet as a way around the monopoly of the corporate-dominated media.

But what of the charge so often made that he's an "anti-American" figure who can only see the crimes of his own government while ignoring the crimes of others around the world? "Anti-Americanism is a pure totalitarian concept," he retorts. "The very notion is idiotic. Of course you don't deny other crimes, but your primary moral responsibility is for your own actions, which you can do something about. It's the same charge which was made in the Bible by King Ahab, the epitome of evil, when he demanded of the prophet Elijah: why are you a hater of Israel? He was identifying himself with society and criticism of the state with criticism of society."

It's a telling analogy. Chomsky is a studiedly modest man who would balk at any such comparison. But in the Biblical tradition of the conflict between prophets and kings, there's not the slightest doubt which side he represents.

The Jewish Final Solution

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This comment by LudolfVieken is spot on. The Israelis went out of their way to use weapons - white phosphorous, DIME, depleted uranium, etc. - and methods of attack - human shields, bombing houses and schools, blowing up buildings they had instructed Palestinians to take shelter in, etc, - that were genocidal in intent (and the poisoning and environmental destruction were directed at causing birth defects, miscarriages, etc., thus continuing the destruction). This is the start of their 'Final Solution' to the 'demographic problem'. Then they went out of their way to decimate the economy in Gaza by systematically destroying factories, something which doesn't even fall under their bogus reason of stopping the rockets (which, of course, had already stopped). They are preparing for the one-state solution by using genocide and economic warfare to ensure that the Palestinians will be in the minority. The process will continue - I guarantee it (and do you really want to hear me tell you 'I told you so' when the next Jewish atrocity occurs?) - with increasing gruesomeness, until the world puts a stop to it by eliminating the Jewish-dominated state in the Middle East. Since the atrocities are inevitable, why not stop them now?

Tony Blair and the Emperor's New Clothes

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Dear friends,
please find below, in case you missed it, a wonderful article which appeared on the website of Bethlehem based Palestinian News Agency, Maan News.

The article is an interview with the Alexandra Darby, the niece of Tony Blair (former British PM now Middle East Quartet Envoy) and her mother, Lauren Booth (Blair's sister in law). In August 2008, Booth, who is a journalist and broadcaster, was one of the participants on the Free Gaza boats, which helped break the siege of Gaza. Booth subsequently spent a month or more in Gaza working as a human rights volunteer and reporting on the siege. She has since returned to Palestine to participate in the Peace Cycle, bringing her daughter with her.

During their visit to Hebron, Booth and her daughter, just happened to cross paths with Tony Blair's cavalcade which had been in Hebron as well. Alex notes, after her and her mother spoke with local Palestinian residents, that her uncle visit reminded her of the Hans Christian Andersen fable of "The Emperor's New Clothes".

Alex told Maan: “Do you know the story of the emperor’s new clothes?" she asks, "Well the emperor is blinded by what they do, because for real there is nothing there. And I think that’s what they are doing, because when he went to visit the Old City, and well, the Israelis didn’t make him go through the metal bit to get into the mosque; he went through the wide bit. So he thinks, ‘Well, then it's right what they say, these people aren’t poor, these people aren’t under an occupation.’ That’s what they are trying to make him see, so he can make others see the same.”

What a wonderful comment from such a young person!

In solidarity,
Kim


**

Quartet envoy's eight-year-old niece sees the real Palestine
published 22/10/09 and updated on 27/10/09

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=234091

Bethlehem - Ma’an - Eight-year-old Alexandra Darby, the niece of Quartet envoy Tony Blair, toured the West Bank this week on a bicycle, peddling an estimated 200 kilometers from Amman to Jerusalem.

Asked what she will tell her school friends about the Peace Cycle journey, Alex reflected, “I’ll tell them that the people here are very nice, not like they say in the newspapers.”


Alex Darby - photo by Maan News.

The West Bank is not a usual vacation site for most eight-year-olds. But, as mother, journalist and activist Lauren Booth explained, “She’s been asking me for the last five years why she can’t go to Palestine, and despite the fact that the Israelis can make it bloody trying to get in and out, the greeting here I knew would be so sensational for her that I didn’t have a reason not to bring her.”

Why doesn't Alex think other kids get to come to Palestine? “Because, of course, the telly, which says Palestinians are not like us, that they are a revolting people, a violent people, a nasty people, it’s mad. In fact it’s the exact opposite, it’s the Israelis.”

Alex and Tony visit Hebron

On Tuesday, Alex visited Hebron with the Peace Cycle Group. As she entered the streets leading to the Old City, she saw her uncle’s motorcade drive away.

While in the city, mom Lauren had heard the Quartet envoy, and husband of her sister, may be in the area. “We tried to wave them down,” she said, but “they thought we were just waving at them [as fans] so they just waved back. They thought people on the streets were waving at them, which was a bit frustrating.”

But it meant Alex had the fortuitous experience of meeting the people who had just escorted Blair around the city. His visit was reported as a chance for Blair to hear about the troubles of Palestinians in Hebron so he could better inform the decisions of the Quartet as it pushes its Middle East peace Road Map.

“As soon as Blair left, we arrived and got to speak to the local dignitaries and to the police who had been part of showing him around, and their disappointment was total,” Lauren explained.

“He was shown into the mosque and cheered in by Israeli soldiers. He went not through the cattle grid and the humiliation of checkpoints that the local population has to go through to get to their own mosque; he went in through open doors used only by Israelis. How is he going to learn, and make any judgment about what the Palestinian people need, if that’s the sort of trip he makes?”


Tony Blair - former British PM and now Middle East Quartet Envoy.

Touring the area with her mom and the group, listening to the way people talked about Blair’s visit, and what he was supposed to be doing, reminded Alex of the Hans Christian Andersen fable The Emperor’s New Clothes. The tale is of a leader who hires swindlers to make him new robes and is fooled into believing they are made of a magical fabric that only the worthy can see.

“Do you know the story of the emperor’s new clothes?" she asks, "Well the emperor is blinded by what they do, because for real there is nothing there. And I think that’s what they are doing, because when he went to visit the Old City, and well, the Israelis didn’t make him go through the metal bit to get into the mosque; he went through the wide bit. So he thinks, ‘Well, then it's right what they say, these people aren’t poor, these people aren’t under an occupation.’ That’s what they are trying to make him see, so he can make others see the same.”

“The Palestinian Authority is culpable in this as well,” Lauren adds, “they arrange these visits so that he doesn’t have tea with a local family; they go along with these supposed security issues that allow Israel to protect foreign diplomats from the supposedly violent Palestinians and they never get to see the real situation.”

Alex, however, saw the real Hebron.

“I felt a bit scared in Hebron,” she admits, tucking her legs up into the chair, “You never really could be alone. When you came in there are Israelis looking down at you, then we got to one bit, there was this big thing the Israelis could look through just to see far-er, and he had a big gun,” Alex said describing the guard towers that dot the Old City.

“She has been afraid twice,” Lauren explained, “both times because of settlers, and that’s disappointing that she had to feel that. I never want any child to have to go through that, but she did… and it really affected her.”

Going home

Wednesday was the last night for Alex and Lauren in Palestine, so thoughts turned to what would happen when she returned to class.

What did she tell her friends before leaving? “I’ve told them about the siege, but they don’t listen, my best friend listens though.”

What will she tell them when she gets back? “I think it’s a mad idea to build a wall, to think of people getting guns and building a giant wall around France and saying ‘This is England;’ it’s mad.”

Does she think her visit will prompt them to come and see the place for themselves? “I don’t really think they will, because if I tell them about the soldiers they’ll be scared… I think their parents would come first, to get to know some people and make friends, then when they know the people quite well and that they’re nice, then perhaps they’ll bring their children.”


Peace Cycle - photo by Maan News.

That comment prompts an idea in Lauren, who, along with the other members of the Peace Cycle Team, has used the trip to make connections with local initiatives, hoping to pair them with organizations in the UK and Europe. “You need to know the people first, you’re right. Do you think your classmates would want to Skype with the kids in Jenin that you met?”

Alex nods, excited about the prospect of keeping in touch with some of her new friends.

“I have brought the most precious thing in my life to Palestine with the knowledge that she will be loved and cared for,” Lauren says as the buss rolls up to take the group to a school for the blind in Beit Jala, “and that she has found this to be a place where children are adored and not in the least like she would have expected it to be as a child exposed to the news.”

Getting nervous about the visit, Alex asks if we want to hear the song she will share with the children at the school.

“Are you ready?

Free my people Palestine - Sing it loud
We will never let you die - Sing it loud
Palestine West Bank Ramallah Gaza, this is for the child that is looking for an answer
I wish I could take your tears and turn them into laughter
Long live Palestine, Long live Gaza!”

Posted by Kim at 10:16 AM

Labels: Alexandra Darby, Emperor's new clothes, Hebron, illegal occupation, Israel, Israeli occupation forces, Lauren Booth, palestine, Tony Blair, West Bank

Declassified FBI File Alleges an Israeli Intelligence Agent Worked at AIPAC

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Thu Nov 5, 2009 8:20am EST
Israeli Espionage part 1 of 4

See Parts 2,3, and 4 below
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — An agent of the Israeli
intelligence service worked on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) according to a newly declassified FBI file.
An August 13, 1984 secret communication from the FBI Washington Field Office
(WFO) to the FBI director states, “WFO files disclose that AIPAC is a powerful
pro-Israel lobbying group staffed by U.S. citizens. WFO files contain an
unsubstantiated allegation that a member of the Israeli Intelligence Service
was a staff member of AIPAC.” The newly declassified document may be
downloaded from the Israel Lobby Archive at:
http://www.irmep.org/ILA/economy/08131984_WFO_DFBI_REPORT.pdf
The secret FBI file was declassified and released to the Institute for
Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) under a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request. IRmep sought the FBI files to file a third amicus brief urging
Judge T.S. Ellis not to dismiss charges against two AIPAC staffers under the
1917 Espionage Act. The DOJ dropped espionage charges against former AIPAC
staffers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman on May 1, 2009.
According to the newly released IRmep book “Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby
Undermines America’s Economy,” the 1984 and 2005 espionage incidents were not
isolated events. Using declassified documents, “Spy Trade” documents Israeli
covert actions against US military and industrial targets from the 1940s
through the present.
“Spy Trade” also presents a damage assessment for the 1984 AIPAC industrial
espionage incident: US $71 billion in lost exports, equivalent to 100,000 jobs
over the last decade. “Spy Trade” may be purchased at MiddleEastBooks.com,
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores.
The Israel Lobby Archive, http://IRmep.org/ila, is a unit of the Institute for
Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington. The Archive digitizes
declassified documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act filings
with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The Archive facilitates
permanent direct citizen access to critical records that briefly enter the
public domain but vanish for lack of warranted mainstream media coverage.
SOURCE Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy
Grant Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy,
+1-202-342-7325
Source: America-hijacked.com
Posted in Zionist Threat
« Dennis Ross and Iran: The Fox Guarding the Chicken Coop Why Does AIPAC Spy on Americans?

Israeli Espionage part 2 of 4
 
 
 
Israeli Espionage part 3 of 4
Israeli Espionage Part 4 of 4

November 6, 2009 Posted by Elias

Ministry of prisoners holds IOA responsible for lives of Nafha prisoners

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[ 07/11/2009 - 07:40 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The ministry of prisoners in the Gaza Strip has held the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) and its prisons authority responsible for the life of Palestinian prisoners in the notorious Nafha desert prison.

Riyadh Al-Ashkar, the ministry's spokesman, said in a statement on Friday that the IOA particularly targets Nafha prisoners because they include tens of senior prisoners who are responsible, according to the IOA, of issuing decisions that all prisoners abide by.

They are therefore pressured and humiliated to make them preoccupied with the Israeli prisons authority's (IPA) arbitrary measures, he opined.

Ashkar noted that the prisoners in Nafha have lately complained of the intensification of the storming of their rooms and provocative night searches during which they are insulted and forced to undergo humiliating strip searches.

He said that the prisoners went on a single day hunger strike in protest against those measures but the IPA punished them by depriving them of visits and moved some of them to isolation cells.

The prisoners are discussing retaliatory choices in face of such measures including an open-ended hunger strike, Ashkar underlined.

He asked the international institutions topped by the Red Cross to send representatives to investigate the IPA repressive measures against prisoners in Nafha and all other IOA jails and to end their worsening incarceration conditions.

New Petition for Mahmoud Abbas to resign

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Posted by Ali Dahmash Saturday, November 07, 2009 Labels: Palestine, Peace

I created the following Petition online calling for Mahmoud Abbas to resign and step down.

Read below and kindly sign the Petition.

To: U.N, U.S Congress, The Arab League

This is a petition calling the current Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his government to resign and step down. The Palestinian People have had enough with the failures of this government and the disclaimer of Palestinian rights by putting the Goldstone report on hold. The Goldstone Report which has accused Israel for the first time in committing War crimes and human rights violation that is supported my most European countries.

Abbas has put the Peace Process in danger by appointing the current corrupted government, ignored Israel’s atrocities and ethnic cleansing in Occupied East Jerusalem and the continuous building of the Illegal settlements in the West Bank all because of his personal interests.

It is time for new leadership in Palestine that will lead the Palestinians to Peace and Prosperity. We need someone like Mustafa Barghouti and Hanan Ashrawi.

Sincerely,

Ali Dahmash

To sign the Petition Click Here!

IOF troops wound two Palestinian children during an anti-wall demonstration

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[ 06/11/2009 - 11:03 PM ]

BETHLEHEM, (PIC)-- IOF troops wounded two Palestinian children during the weekly anti-wall demonstration in the village of al-Masara to the south of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank.

Local sources said that Obada Breijeyyah (8years) and Zaid Zawahrah (12 years) were wounded in confrontations with the IOF after the Friday prayers during the anti-wall demonstration which takes place every Friday to protest the apartheid wall and the expansion of Jewish settlements on confiscated Palestinian lands.

Muhammad Breijeyyah, a member of the popular committee against the wall said that IOF troops fired teargas at the demonstrators and tried to kidnap Zaid Zawahrah after beating him up was not for the local residents who took him off the army truck.

Demonstrators participating in this and other anti-wall demonstrations in the West Bank also marked the Balfour Declaration which was made on 2nd November 1917.

VIDEO: Mohammed Omer on the hell that is Gaza

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- November 7, 2009

uruknet.info – 5 November 2009

On Nov. 5, 2009, at the Palestine Center, in Washington, D.C., an award-winning journalist, Mohammed Omer, discussed the desperate human rights situation in Gaza–the result of Israel/s recent siege and military offensive. His presentation included his personal observations, interviews with the people of Gaza, his photographs and a video. Mr. Omer, now 25 years of age, was born and raised in the Rafah refugee camp. He spoke for over an hour, including the Q&A session.

MAKDISI: Good riddance, Abbas

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November 7, 2009

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was no good for Palestine. And his exit will make a peaceful solution more likely.

by Saree Makdisi - Foreign Policy - 6 November 2009

The announcement that Mahmoud Abbas has decided not to stand for re-election as head of the Palestinian Authority should come as a relief to all Palestinians. In fact, Abbas’s departure will open a much-needed opportunity to take stock of where things stand and assess the future course of the Palestinian struggle.

Never an appealing or charismatic figure, Abbas has been losing popular support since his first day in office five years ago (his term technically expired in January 2009). Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, in which he played a prominent role, the official Palestinian leadership has been pursuing a formula for peace — the two-state solution — that has yielded nothing more than the intensification of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Those 16 years have been characterized by the further immobilization and immiseration of the Palestinian people, and an ever-growing list of civilian casualties, most recently in Gaza.

We are left with no other conclusion than this: that the so-called peace process with which Abbas has been indelibly associated, albeit as the Israelis’ junior assistant, was calculated to produce exactly these results. The very first step of the Oslo process, undertaken with Abbas’s assent in 1993, was to fragment and separate the occupied territories into shards of land, disconnected from each other and from the outside world, under total, institutionalized Israeli domination. Take one look at a map and you can’t miss the separation of Gaza from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the further internal splintering of the West Bank, all of which is the direct result of Oslo.

Today, the Palestinian Authority (PA) over which Abbas presides is seen as a puppet. It has become the manager of the day-to-day burdens of military occupation, responsible for the hassle and expense of administering a restless population. All this is done on behalf of the Israelis, who have meanwhile gone on expropriating Palestinian land, bulldozing Palestinian homes, and building exclusively Jewish settlements in violation of international law (doubling the population of settlers since peace talks began). To all Palestinians other than the tiny clique who benefit from this arrangement, the sight of Abbas’s U.S.-trained and Israeli-armed PA militiamen cooperating with Israeli forces — if not taking direct orders from them — is nothing short of grotesque. And when Abbas recently succumbed to Israeli and U.S. pressure and dropped his support for the Goldstone report, a U.N. Human Rights Council-mandated investigation into last year’s Gaza incursion, many Palestinians saw it as the last straw both for Abbas — and for the PA itself.
What, then, are the alternatives?

Hamas stands for nothing other than, at best, defiance for the sake of defiance. It has no blueprint, no formula, no vision capable of unifying Palestinians and moving them closer to the achievement of their goals. Moreover, its religious rhetoric repels those Christian and secular Palestinians who have always been in the vanguard of the national movement and has little to offer to Muslim Palestinians either.
But to get bogged down in a discussion of other alternative candidates for the PA presidency, whether from Fatah or other parties, is to miss the point: The PA is irrelevant to the future of the Palestinian people as a whole.

To really grasp this, we have to remember something that the language packaging the peace process since the early 1990s has taught us to forget: Only a minority of Palestinians live under occupation. It is that minority on whom the world’s imagination has been focused since Oslo.

The single largest component of the Palestinian people consists of those who were driven from their homes during the 1948 creation of Israel and their descendants. They were never, even theoretically, addressed or represented by the PA. Nor were the 1.5 million Palestinians who live as second-class citizens in Israel and who suffer from systematic and institutionalized discrimination because they are non-Jews inhabiting a state that wants to be Jewish.

As PA president, Abbas never represented the majority of Palestinians — he never even claimed to, and no successor would either. Nor does the current, PA-pursued two-state solution offer anything to the majority of Palestinians (and to the minority it offers only an illusory “autonomy”). The vast majority of the Palestinians, who do not live in occupied territories, would not be eligible to vote if and when Israel allowed elections to be held.

Peace will only come when the rights and needs of all Palestinians (not only the minority who suffer under occupation) and all Israeli Jews are fully addressed. The demise of Abbas, and with him, hopefully, the PA and the illusion of the two-state solution, opens up the possibility that Palestinians will once again embrace the one-state solution and demand the creation of a single, democratic, and secular state in which Israeli Jews and Palestinians live as equals. That is the only way to a just and lasting peace. Abbas’s departure is a start.
Comments

lu said...

Masri also says that Abbas step-down will help the Palestinian cause, and even elevate it to the next level (see: http://www.presstv.ir/new/detail.aspx?id=110613&sectionid=351020202) He obviously speaks from a different perspective than Makdisi.

However, Abbas has not stepped-down so far. He only said he did not want to run for the elections, that is, he was only sending an indirect message to the USA so that she asked him to stay. But she did not. Neither Abbas stepped-down from any of the 5 posts he had grabbed. It remains to be seen if he does, given his lust for power.

Clinton said she is willing "to work with him in any new capacity". So, this seems fishy, doesn't it?. I wonder what the machinations are they cooking behind the curtains. It's clear the USA favours Fayyad-Dahlan (as Presi and PM ?) and may even think of Abbas to control de PLO so that Hamas -whom he deeply hates- cannot set foot on it. I wish he left, but for the moment I cannot believe it. He has been the most poisonous thing for Palestine ever. He left everything shred to pieces. What a disgrace of a man!.

What do you think UP?

3:29 AM, November 07, 2009

lu said...

I have just read a piece on the Independent UK, and also signals the possibility of Abbas focusing on the PLO. In the coming days things will become clearer. The media over here speak clearly of his attempt at chantage the US.

You know, when I was younger (than I am, LOL) there was a tv-serie (yeah american) where the characters melted down once their function had ended up. Couldn't this happen to him? Vanish now. At least he would do no more harm. He can go play with his grandchildren in his villas over the Gulf.

3:08 PM, November 07, 2009

Comment: By UP
Lu
Yes I agree with Masri Abbas stepping down will help the Palestinian cause, but his exit will not "make a peaceful solution more likely" as Makdisi claimed. It would help to demise the illusion of the two-state solution, but I doubt it may opens up “the possibility that Palestinians will once again embrace the one-state solution and demand the creation of a single, democratic, and secular state in which Israeli Jews and Palestinians live as equals" as Makdisi hoped.

He said Once Again referring to the fact that PLO “Christians and Secular Palestinians” embraced the one-state solution since sixties. So I would ask Sari: why they failed achieve the one state solution goal, before Hamas and Likud stepping into the stage. Their failure paved the way for Hamas.
We failed let them try. Thus Said Habash to the angry arab.

I agree with Sari that the two state solution was an illusion, and would add that the one state solution is another illusion and shall lead to nowhere until the collapse of Zionism.

Makdisi asked: What, then, are the alternatives?

He answered: Not Hamas having no “vision capable of unifying Palestinians and moving them closer to the achievement of their goals”, because "its religious rhetoric repels those Christian and secular Palestinians"

In general, It is expected from a secular like Sari, to put the blame on Hamas, rather than the Christian and Secular Palestinians, who, once upon a time “have been in the vanguard of the national movement and has little to offer to Muslim Palestinians either”, and turned at the end to vanguard PA.

A dreamer would think ABBAS would resign or dissolve the PA, or would repel and stay in Mokataa shouting: Shaheedan, Shaheedan, Shaheedan. He knows what Happened to Arafat who dared to do that, so he would accept any position offered to him by his masters,

Usreal, PA, and moderate Arabs are in a mess. They know that West bankers shall not accept easily a Gazan Traitor as president, so I would say Mahmoud Abbas, in his decision not to stand for re-election as head of the Palestinian Authority, is testing the waters of both Usrael and Fath/PA.
Though I knew from the very beginning the Palestinian Dialogue shall lead to nowhere, politically I supported Hamas calls for union government, because it’s the best way to expose the traitor, and it did, and spoiled the plans to corner Hamas.

I don’t believe Ramalla mafia would abandon the illusion of the “two state solution”. Most likely the elections shall not happen, especially in Gaza. And the coming government in Ramalla, shall be a sub-contractor for occupation.