Thorn of 2000 Pullout from Lebanon Still Giving Israel Rough Times

Mohamad Shmaysani

22/05/2010 In Israel, the scene of the May 2000 pullout from most of occupied territories in south Lebanon has never easy to digest. Ten years after the pullout, the Israeli media used this event to deeply assess the Zionist entity’s status today.

"It wasn't a withdrawal and it wasn't a retreat...We ran away, pure and simple."
These were the words of Col. Noam Ben-Tzvi, the last commander of the Israeli occupation forces western sector in south Lebanon, to Haaretz.
He said that staying in Lebanon was an ongoing failure, “we had to get out."
"We left vehicles and equipment behind...In some instances soldiers looted military equipment. There was the disgraceful scene of South Lebanon Army (of Antoine Lahed) crowding at the Fatima gate. This was running away, it was unplanned, with Hezbollah hardly even shooting at us.
Ben-Tzvi recalled telling SLA members in the months leading to the withdrawal that “we're going to leave, and we're going to leave without an agreement. Don't tell me that you'll last without us... Israel won't even give you a bullet after we withdraw.”

Some in Israel believe that the cost of the “temporary calm” on the northern front was creating easy conditions for Hezbollah to prepare for the 2006 war.
“The cost of the temporary calm was Hezbollah's propitious opening conditions. Our dead in that war numbered six times more than the annual average in the final years we were present in Lebanon,” wrote Ephraim Sneh, deputy defense minister during the pullout, which he strongly opposed.
I his article in Haaretz, Sneh says he believes that the unilateral pullout from Lebanon has two other repercussions. “One was the abandonment of the SLA, whose soldiers had linked their fate to ours and many of whom had fallen in combat, but were left to live in poverty in Israel or in humiliation and suffering in Lebanon. Their cynical abandonment is a moral stain on the State of Israel, a warning signal to anyone considering an alliance with us in the future. The second repercussion was the dissemination of a message of weakness to our surroundings: We run away from places where we bleed. On June 30, 2000, one month after the withdrawal and three months before the outbreak of the second intifada, Yasser Abed Rabbo told me: "With you Israelis, one should only speak in 'Lebanese.' It's the only language you understand."

Other journalists however sought to justify the pullout but without highlighting the ‘negative” aspects of such a move.
Haaretz’s military affairs analyst Amos Harel says the occupation of south Lebanon should have ended anyway. “With zero international legitimacy, no political objective, no long-term political plan, and with a minimum attempts to understand the hearts and minds of south Lebanon residents, this was not a war that could have been won, so ending it was better,” Harel explains.
He even highlights the reasons why the “way the dramatic and heroic pullout happened should be praised.” “It happened within two nights and not one soldier was injured” in the process.

But Maariv’s Ben-Caspit deeply disagrees with Harel. He wrote an article titled “Crying for generations,” in which he describes the pullout as a withdrawal scare adding that Israel had lost a chance to get out of Lebanon in an honorable manner.
Ben-Caspit goes on to say that then Prime Minister Ehud Barak brought a cumbersome disaster on Israel. “True, pulling out of Lebanon was a necessity, but not the way it took place because the way the withdrawal was announced and executed resulted in all of the problems that emerged in the years following the pullout.” Caspit asks in his article: Who has eventually won after the pullout from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2003? He responds: Surely not us.

On Sunday, Israel will begin its drills dubbed “Turning Point 4” which will see millions of Israeli moving into shelters at a time when the Lebanese will be taking part in municipal elections in the south. “We will be celebrating while they will be in shelters,” Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said on Friday during the inauguration of the Resistance landmark site in the town of Mlita, as part of efforts to enhance resistance and jihadi tourism in Lebanon. "Armies that emerge victorious from wars display their exploits in museums," Sayyed Nasrallah said in his inaugural speech.

Israel has been threatening Lebanon with war over allegations of Scud missiles transportation from Syria to Hezbollah. The Resistance vowed to deal Israel a severe blow if it carried out its threat. According to analysts, Israel in a frustrating hammer and anvil condition; it could not be ready for war at the time being because of the balance of power that Hezbollah has imposed, however, between the risk of letting the resistance in Lebanon grow even stronger and waging war, Israel might choose the second option, and in this case, war will become regional and no one would want to be in Israel’s shoes.

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Iran Threatens to Pull out of Nuclear Deal over new UN Sanctions

Iran Threatens to Pull out of Nuclear Deal over new UN Sanctions

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Juan

Iranian member of parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar warned Thursday that “If (the West) issues a new resolution against Iran, we will not be committed to Tehran’s statement and dispatching fuel outside Iran will be canceled.”

Turkey and Brazil, with full backing from Washington DC and in close cooperation with the Obama administration, had apparently succeeded by Monday morning in negotiating a deal whereby Iran would send over half of its low enriched uranium to Turkey, which would then send it on to (presumably) France and Russia for enrichment to 19.75 percent for use in Iran’s medical reactor for the production of medical isotopes. The deal was nearly identical to the one sought last October in Geneva by the Obama administration. Iran had agreed to something like this arrangement, but then reneged.

In the meantime, the Obama administration determined to seek a further round of United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran. Even as Brazil and Turkey were working overtime to get an agreement from Tehran, Washington had finally persuaded Russia and China to accept a new round of relatively weak sanctions. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more or less rejected the Turkey-Brazil deal as soon as it was announced, in favor of increased sanctions.

Veteran Iran observer Gary Sick predicted this course, calling it “moving the goalposts”– an email observation. Yesterday Roger Cohen wrote an op-ed for NYT to the same effect. Obama would no longer take ‘yes’ for an answer.

One sticking point was that Iran did not offer, in the deal struck with Turkey and Brazil, to cease enriching uranium. But this goal is the primary one of the Obama administration and Gareth Porter argues that even last October’s negotiations were viewed in Washington as a step toward ending the enrichment program. (The Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty gives Iran the right to enrich for peaceful nuclear reactors to generate electricity, but the US and the Security Council have attempted to amend the NPT ex post facto).
Brazil’s foreign minister said, according to the USG Open Source Center translation of an article in the Portuguese Agencia Brasil for Thursday, May 20, 2010:

‘According to the minister of foreign affairs, who spoke with reporters at Itamaraty in Brasilia today, no one will be able to ignore the agreement signed in Tehran. “. . . I feel that ignoring that agreement would reflect an attitude of disdain for a peaceful solution. I don’t believe it is possible to do that.”
Amorim said that before traveling to Tehran with Lula, he had already learned that permanent members of the UN Security Council were drafting a resolution proposing new sanctions against Iran but that they would await the results of Lula’s trip. According to Amorim, there has not yet been time to analyze the document. “If you have a result and the next day someone presents a resolution proposing sanctions, the wait was in fact purely formal.”
The minister said the announcement that Iran would continue its uranium enrichment program even after the agreement was signed with Brazil and Turkey was a matter to be dealt with in a second phase.
“We were not intending to solve all the problems at once. That requires a conversation not with Brazil but with the permanent members of the UN Security Council, and I am optimistic about its results. We put the ball in the goal area, but the goal will have to be scored by the permanent members of the council and the representatives of the IAEA.”
Amorim emphasized that continuing the uranium enrichment program was not part of the negotiations leading to the agreement signed yesterday. “I am trusting in people’s common sense and feel that we have helped give a peaceful negotiation a chance. It was not we who invented the agreement. It had already been proposed by the UN Security Council and the IAEA.”

Amorim is likely to be disappointed by all sides, and in my view the reason lies in part in domestic US politics.

There are four domestic political forces affecting Iran policy. The War Hawks, including the more hard line of the Israel lobbies, would like to see the US back on the war footing with Iran characteristic of the late Bush administration. The pragmatic hawks such as US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, aware of how ruinous entering a third war would be for the US at this point, would at least like to see the imposition of robust sanctions. The Realists, exemplified by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, would like to see engagement and negotiation with the regime in Tehran, even at the cost of ignoring the Islamic Republic’s crackdown on the Green Movement and massive human rights violations. The Democratic left and the National Iranian American Council (the most effective Iranian-American lobby) would like to see a rapprochement with Iran, but urge continued pressure by the West on the regime to open up and to cease its authoritarian measures.

The Obama administration came into office talking like the Realists, and the Realists, most Iranian-Americans and the left wing of the Democratic Party would have liked to see him take the Brazil-Turkey deal. But through congressional pressure and that of the Israel lobbies, the pro-sanctions faction has come out on top. Adopting the position of the pragmatic hawks and seeking tighter sanctions has the advantage that it blunts the arguments of the War Hawks. It is a better platform for Democrats to run on in the November midterms than open, direct negotiations with Iran. Ironically, Obama has allowed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and SecDef Gates to continue to build up Iran as a supposedly major security challenge to the US, making it harder for him to follow through on his original plan of direct negotiations with Tehran. (How unlikely a candidate Iran is to play major foe of the United States is clear if you look, as Stephen Walt has, at the basic economic and military realities; Iran is poor and weak.

Unhelpful linkage with other Middle East policy may be in play, as well. The slight increase of sanctions may be intended to mollify Israel and forestall a disastrous military strike by that country on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz near Isfahan. Promising stricter sanctions may also be important to the US negotiations with the Likud-led government of Israel over a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That is, horsetrading over Israel-Palestinian issues may be driving Iran policy in the White House.

Those pragmatic hawks eager for stronger sanctions seem to envisage restrictions on Iran’s finance sector in its interfacing with the rest of the world.

Likewise, they wish to forestall further Russian arms deals with Tehran. Vedomosti Online reported on Thursday, May 20, 2010 (according to the translation of the USG Open Source Center):

‘Konstantin Makiyenko, expert of the Center for Analysis of Strategy and Technology, says that the adoption of this resolution would terminate the military-technical cooperation of Russia and Iran, except, probably, merely for deliveries of transport helicopters, and would directly affect deliveries to Iran of S-300 missile systems. . . The first contract for the delivery of Tor M-1 air-defense missile systems was signed in 2006, and for deliveries of the S-300, in 2007, but the contract has still not been executed. Russia is citing technical problems.’

In contrast, Aleksey Arbatov of the Russian Academy of Sciences World Economy and International Relations Institute said, “The delivery of the S-300 never was planned since it would have provoked an Israeli military attack on Iran, now Israel is taking a time-out to asses the effectiveness of the new sanctions, and in the event of noncompliance with them, could strike in the fall or spring. . .” He added that Iran’s lack of the S-300 minimizes the number of casualties on the attacking side . . .”

Nevertheless, Arbatov thinks the West is flailing around on the sanctions issue and is unlikely to be effective: “The sanctions are being imposed as a conscience salve, they will have no effect, like the previous ones . . .’
Obama mysteriously has ceased leading on the Iran issue and is instead showing himself willing to be led. Thus have the pragmatic hawks (with the war hawks waiting in the wings) defeated the Realists and the liberal internationalists. Obama stabbed Turkey and Brazil in the back after asking them to risk their face for him. Obama is giving Iran the impression that he is indecisive. All of this backtracking for the sake of a sanctions regime that is highly unlikely actually to change Iran’s behavior, contrary to the express hopes of Secretary Gates. Obama’s current Iran policy cannot be explained in the terms of US-Iranian relations. It must be driven by something else. The Israel lobbies and dealings with the Netanyahu government are the likeliest candidates in explaining the abandonment of a Realist approach.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

'Walking in the path of fascism'

Israel's denial of entry to Noam Chomsky is but the latest in a long list of attempts to silence critics of Zionist oppression and violence, writes Khaled Amayreh

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Click to view caption

Noam Chomsky

Fearing that he would further expose Israel's anti-peace stance and its oppression of the Palestinian people, the Israeli government this week barred Noam Chomsky from entering Israel-Palestine.

Chomsky, a world-renowned intellectual and linguist, was detained briefly at the Palestinian side of the Allenby Bridge on Sunday 16 May. There he was told by Israeli authorities that the Israeli government didn't like his writings and that he was viewed as persona non grata.

Chomsky, 81, had been scheduled to lecture at the Birzeit University in the West Bank. Following his deportation, the non-conformist American Jewish intellectual told reporters that he concluded from the questions of the Israeli official at the border terminal that the fact that he came to lecture at a Palestinian and not an Israeli university led to the decision to deny him entry.

"I find it hard to think of a similar case in which entry to a person is denied because he is not lecturing in Tel Aviv. Perhaps only in the Stalinist regime."

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor of linguistics and philosophy is a well-known critic of the Israeli occupation of Arab lands. On many occasions, Chomsky compared Israeli policies and practices in the West Bank with those of the defunct white minority apartheid regime in South Africa.

Chomsky also castigated the genocidal Israeli onslaught on Gaza last year along with the ongoing blockade of the coastal enclave's 1.7 million people initiated by Israel more than three years ago for the purpose of pushing Gazans to rise up against Hamas. Hamas won a landslide victory in the 2006 general elections, which infuriated Israel and its guardian-ally, the United States, prompting them to impose draconian sanctions on Gaza.

"The young man [the Israeli border official] asked me whether I had ever been denied entry into other countries. I told him once, to Czechoslovakia, after the Soviet invasion in 1968," Chomsky said, adding that he had gone to visit ousted Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubcek, whose reforms the Soviets crushed.

According to Haaretz newspaper, Chomsky, who was accompanied by his daughter and several other friends, was questioned on the nature of his lectures, whether he was going to criticise Israeli policies and whether he had spoken with Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. He was further asked why he didn't have an Israeli passport since he was Jewish. He reportedly answered, "I am an American citizen".

Chomsky supports the two-state solution but he rejects the Israeli concept of the two-state solution strategy: namely, ceding the Palestinians some isolated cantons cut off from each other and that could never be a "viable and territorially contiguous state".

In recent years, especially with the rise to power in Israel of religious and rightwing anti- democratic parties, the Israeli political establishment became more sensitive to criticisms of Israeli policies abroad, especially from such Jewish intellectuals such as Chomsky.

In 2008, Israel refused entry to Richard Falk, an American Jewish academic, for comparing the Israeli occupation with Nazi crimes against Jews. In 2007, Falk, a Princeton University professor of international law, was quoted as saying that Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip was "a Holocaust in the making". Falk was later appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel defended its decision to deport Falk, arguing that he indulged in "shameful comparisons to the Holocaust".


Similarly, nearly, two years ago, Israeli security services deported Norman Finkelstein, another American Jewish intellectual and critic of the Israeli occupation. The Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, said that Finkelstein was not permitted to enter Israel because of suspicious involvement with hostile elements in Lebanon, and because "he didn't give a full account to interrogators with regards to these suspicions".

Finkelstein remarked on that episode, saying: "I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn't much more to say for myself -- no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organisations."

Finkelstein, 57, had accused Israel of exploiting the holocaust for political ends and in order to justify its crimes against the Palestinian people. In 2000, Finkelstein wrote The Holocaust Industry on the exploitation of Jewish suffering.

Mounting international criticism of the repressive Israeli treatment of Palestinians, as well as the extensive havoc and destruction wreaked on civilians in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, generated strong reactions by intellectuals and human rights activists around the world. Such criticisms seemed to push the political class in Israel towards stonewalling with the Israeli government resorting to deportation as a method to silence vocal critics of Israeli practices.

In 2008, Israel refused Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu entry while on a UN fact-finding mission in the Gaza Strip. Israel apparently feared that Tutu would file a damning report, indicting Israel for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, as did Judge Richard Goldstone a year and a half later, following the Israeli blitzkrieg against Gaza that killed and maimed thousands of Palestinian civilians and inflicted widespread destruction.

Subsequently, Israel and its supporters repeatedly accused Goldstone of being biased against, and hostile to, Israel. Some "Israel-Firsters", especially in North America, have gone as far as calling Goldstone an "anti- Semite" and "self-hating Jew".

The abovementioned intellectuals are mere examples of how Israel, which claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East, is drifting towards Jewish fascism. On 18 May, one Israeli journalist wrote, commenting on the deportation of Chomsky: "Denying Noam Chomsky entry to Israel puts an end to the myth that Israel is a democracy. It is a state where the police arrest demonstrators protesting the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and expel a pregnant non-Jewish woman so that she won't give birth to her child in Israel. I will not argue whether Israel is fascist or not. But in reality, Israel is walking in the path of fascism."

******

International condemnation for barring Chomsky from entering WB


Reporters Without Borders organization has expressed astonishment at the Israeli authorities step of barring entry of renowned Jewish-American scholar Noam Chomsky into the West Bank last Sunday.

US wants regime-change within Hizbullah

Rehmat's World

May 22, 2010 ·

Humilation Never

Barack Obama’s Homeland Security advisor and former senior CIA official under Dubya Bush, John Brennan, wrote  in July 2008, in the ANNALS magazine of the ‘American Academy of Political and Social Science’ that “Washington should soften its rhetoric toward Iran without relenting on its demands for Iran to cut ties with terrorists” (Hamas and Hizbullah).

On May 18, John Brennan told a Washington think tank that Hizbullah a very interesting organization, has improved from “purely a terrorist organization” to an entity that now counts members in Lebanese parliament and even cabinet posts.

However, Brennan likes Washington to bring a regime change within the organization as it did within the Palestinian Authority (PA) by projecting pro-USrael corrupt Mahmoud Abbas over duly elected Hamas government. “What we need to do is to find ways to diminsh their (Sheikh Nasrallah and clerics) influence within the organization and try to build up the more moderate elements,” he said.

Reacting to Brennan’s comments published in Jerusalem Post, Major-General Yaakov Amidror, former commander of Israel’s National Defense College, told CBN: “I think it’s a joke…..I don’t believe there is anyone in the (US) administration who is naïve enough to believe there are moderate elements within Hezbollah that might act against Iran……. I don’t believe this naïveté exists in Washington, I think that this is something that Jerusalem Post has to go and to find where a mistake was made, maybe in the translation to what is going on in Washington to the front page of Jerusalem Post because if the Jerusalem Post is right something wrong has happened in Washington…”

To some political analyst, Brennan’s statement is Obama administration’s admission that Hizbullah cannot be defeated by the Zionist entity on the battle-field, but must be destroyed from within.

And once the US succeed in replacing the religious leadership with secularist leadership like Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who in his autobiography wrote: “In regard to Israel, I have always been moderate, who wishes for the freedom of Palestinians but will not sacrifice too much Lebanese blood to obtain this freedom. My main objective is to remove Israel from its nine mile wide security zone in South Lebanon”. Hizb’Allah under such a puppet leadership would certainly be acceptable to ZOGs both in Washington and Tel Aviv.

John Brennan speaks fluent Arabic and recently got into trouble with the Jewish Lobby for calling Jerusalem by its Islamic name Al-Quds (watch video below).

The latest Israeli ‘smoking gun’ against Hizbullah was published in German daily Spiegel (May 17, 2010), which claimed that Hizbullah (like Mossad) has brought ‘sex’ into espionage: “Hizbolla is supposed to have infiltrated the elite unit with a faked Facebook profile. With the photo of a pretty young woman who logged in with an Israeli name, the Shiite military is supposed to have built up contact to elite soldiers and elicited secret information.  The facebook page of Reut Zuckerman, who is lying on a sofa beaming into the camera in her profile photo went online about a year ago. The people behind the site made contact with numerous Israeli army soldiers. MySay reports that about 200 soldiers and reservists were on Zuckerman’s friends list. Zuckerman concentrated particularly on an elite unite of paratroopers. Apparently many of the men suspected that the woman was herself an Israeli soldier in a special unit. The people behind the site worked slowly to gain the confidence of the soldiers and are reported to have gained key information regarding the activities of the unit in question……”

If that’s true – Well done Hizbullah.

Abdar Rahman Koya wrote: “From a rag-tag band of guerrillas in the 1980s, the Hizbullah have become a near-professional army capable of resisting the Israelis on several fronts for prolonged periods. But they are far more than simply a military force. They are also a popular political movement in Lebanon, capable of transcending the country’s fractured communal politics, and the main providers of education and welfare services to Lebanon’s poorest people. It is not only for their military strength that they are massively popular with Arab and Muslim peoples everywhere – and regarded with fear by Israel, the West and Arab governments alike.

Hizbullah is perhaps the most successful non-governmental social, political and military movement in the world today”.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Israel (and America) need better than Obama!

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

USNews&WR/ here

"..... If the Obama administration wants to leave any kind of decent mark in history for its handling of the Middle East—pretty poor so far—it should do something right now that would clear the air and save Mitchell the four months he's allocated. It's simple. Just invite the Palestinians to do what the Israelis have done for decades, which is to declare in the language of their own people that both sides have genuine claims to this land (not really!), that both sides have the right to live in peace, and that a viable compromise is possible....

The Israelis are clearly prepared to live with a Palestinian state along their borders. The trouble is precisely that the Palestinians are not..... Decades of terrorism have left Israelis demoralized about the potential of negotiations.....

What will make it difficult for the Israelis to be forthcoming in the brokered negotiations with the Palestinians is the widespread concern that this administration, unlike others going back to the Truman years, lacks a basic commitment to Israel, or sympathy for it.... the Israelis no longer believe that the American commitment to Israel is rock-solid. They have witnessed the erosion of U.S. support for Israel at the United Nations and more recently at the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States has taken public positions on the settlement freeze and Jerusalem that enhanced the expectations of the Palestinians, who cannot be less pro-Palestinian than the White House and, therefore, cannot climb down from the positions taken by the U.S. administration.

... When the Israelis left Lebanon (UNDER DURESS!), Iran operated through its proxy, Hezbollah; when the Israelis left Gaza, Iran went in through Hamas, and all the U.N. and international guarantees failed to stop the attacks....Obama clearly wonders whether the current Israeli prime minister is serious about making peace......"

Posted by G, Z, or B at 8:20 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Truth, Non-Violence and the Palestinian Hills

JNOUBIYEH | 3:04 PM |

By Samah Sabawi

(Based on a presentation given at Melbourne University Australia on April 30, 2010. The event was sponsored by Students for Palestine. )

Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? I get this question at the end of almost every presentation I’ve given on Palestine. This fascination with finding a Palestinian Gandhi has been reflected time and again in newspapers commentary, and political discourse. Obama has promised in his Cairo speech [1] that should Palestinians renounce violence peace will find its way.

Singer Bono wished with all his heart for Palestinians to find their Gandhi or their King [2]. A slew of bleeding hearts said it, wrote it, preached it and insisted on it.

The search for the Palestinian Gandhi even manifested itself in well-intentioned projects that end up being incredibly patronizing and condescending to the Palestinians. Take the Gandhi Project [3] for example; an initiative by the Skoll foundation that aims to teach Palestinians non-violence by translating the movie Gandhi and projecting it in cities camps and villages throughout the West Bank. This project - as well meaning as it appears to be - reflects an almost insulting level of ignorance of the existing Palestinian culture of non-violence and the challenges Palestinians face when protesting non-violently against the brutal apartheid State.
For generations, Palestinians have adopted in their daily lives a culture of non-violent “Sumud”, an Arabic word that means to be "steadfast" and to "persevere”. Through Sumud, Palestinians have been able to protect their identity and to refuse not to exist. After all, since its inception, the Zionist project denied Palestinians their existence. Who can forget the false claim that Palestine was “a land without a people”?
Although Sumud was always part of the Palestinian story, it came to a full bloom as a distinct feature of Palestinian life during and in the aftermath of the six-day war in 1967. Having learned from their 1948 experience, more Palestinians were urged to show sumud and chose to be steadfast remaining on their land regardless of Israel’s war and occupation. Many believe that Palestinian steadfastness and Sumud and their refusal to leave in huge numbers during and after the 1967 war contributed to the reason why Israel wasn’t able to annex the West Bank and the Gaza strip as they had a very high Arab Palestinian population [4] which could have undermined the purity of the Jewish state.

Palestinians exhibit Sumud in their daily lives as they perform what would amount to normal everyday tasks in other places. Palestinian children resist succumbing to the will of their Occupiers non-violently as they make their daily journey to school despite the long waits at the checkpoints and the harassment by Israeli illegal settlers [5].

Palestinian men and women non-violently challenge their occupiers when they continue to go to work even if it means riding a donkey using back mud roads because they are denied access to the main streets in their villages as well as denied access to the Jewish only roads[6] which Israel has built illegally to connect the settlements. It is worth mentioning here that to build these Jewish only roads Israel has confiscated and carved up pieces of Palestinian land fragmenting and isolating hundreds of communities.

Palestinian families non-violently resist the imposed isolation by the occupiers when they insist on doing their family visits, even though what should be a 10 minute walk at times can take an entire afternoon of waiting for permits, submitting to body searches, waving IDs and waiting and waiting and waiting…. [7]

Even when Palestinians get married and have babies under occupation they are challenging their oppressors in a place where birth registration, family reunification, marriage certificates and building permits are controlled by a state that has one thing in mind – reducing the number of Arabs and paving the way for Jews to colonize their land.

But Palestinians still preserver not only as individuals or families but also as organized communities! Palestinian NGOs today play a big role in helping the people deal with these issues. Through the method known as Reverse Strike – a non-violent method of resistance that focuses on community building - Palestinian civil society has created alternatives for the people to help lessen their dependency on their oppressors. Palestinian civil society has also successfully built an infrastructure of resistance. Inside the Occupied Territories, non-violent resistance shines through as villages and various Communities take on direct action to protests Israel’s continued assault on their rights, their freedom and their dignity. The protests of the communities of Jayyous, Budrus, Bil’in, Ni’lin and Umm Salamonah have now become known as the white intifada. The organization of these protests reflects a healthy and determined Palestinian Civil Society.

Palestinian Civil Society initiated the calls for the BDS campaign and is also working closely with international organizations and individuals to support the Free Gaza campaign. Both campaigns aim at engaging international solidarity groups giving them an important role to play in the liberation struggle. This month, the latest BDS victory was Elvis Costello’s refusal to play in Israel. This happened while the Freedom Flotilla’s three cargo ships and five passenger ships set sail to Gaza. The ships are carrying 5,000 tons of construction materials, medical equipment, and school supplies, as well as around 600 people from 40 countries. They will once more challenge Israel’s illegal hold over Gaza’s borders, air and sea. We are seeing a fantastic rise in a people to people movement that is inspiring hope for a better future.

In Diaspora as well as inside the OT, Palestinian academia, artists and human rights activists do their part in Palestinian Sumud as they document Israel’s atrocities, write about the injustices, paint pictures, publish articles, sing traditional songs, write books and recite poetry that keeps the Palestinian narrative alive. People like Sari Nussiebeh, Ramzy Baroud, Ismael Shamout, Rima Bana, Mazin Qumsiah, Sam Bahour, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Dr. Sari Makdisi, Ali Abunimah and thousands of others who are hard at work non-violently protecting the Palestinian narrative. They have built the pillars of resistance that have kept the Palestinian identity and culture alive.

As I have shown so far, Palestinian culture of Sumud and non-violent resistance has encompassed direct action, reverse strike and civil disobedience over decades of oppression. There is so much evidence to show that the Palestinian non-violent resistance is and has always been central to the Palestinian struggle. But if that was the case, then where is that Palestinian Gandhi? The answer to that is simple: You are asking the wrong question.

There is no shortage of Palestinian Gandhis in Israel’s jails, at checkpoints, and in refugee camps. There are even Gandhis as young as five years old walking to school holding on to their backpacks, to their pride and to their dignity while they get stoned and showered with settler garbage. There are scores of Gandhis in Palestine, young, old, men and women. The problem is how to make these Gandhis visible to a world blinded by ignorance and by prejudice. The correct questions to ask are how do we make the work of the Palestinian Gandhis effective and visible? Can non-violent Sumud ever fulfill its goals of liberation and justice? What are the challenges facing the Palestinian non-violent movement and how can we help overcome these challenges?

There are two major challenges to Palestinian non-violence; the first is Israel’s reaction to peaceful protest. Israel is a country that views itself as being above international universal laws rights and jurisdictions. It often reacts violently to non-violent protests, spraying protesters with chemicals, rubber bullets and tear gas at times claiming their lives. Israel crushes political dissent by arresting political activists even those who hold Israeli citizenship. Israel holds activists on administrative detention without fair trial for indefinite periods of time. In short, Israel doesn’t respond and is not phased by non-violent protests simply because it views all Palestinians peaceful or not as a threat. The minute a Palestinian baby is born, it is automatically a dangerous threat to the nature of a state that defines itself by its Jewishness. All Palestinians are seen as demographic bombs, they are enemies of the state and therefore no matter what methods Palestinians use - violent or non-violent, Israel will not change its course. It will still view them as enemies that must be fought, crushed and ethnically cleansed.

The other challenge to the Palestinian non-violent movement is that it remains invisible to the international community. Palestinian daily hardships in going to school or work or visiting relatives are all daily acts of non-violent resistance that go by completely unnoticed by Israelis and by the International community. The media is hungry for blood…a peaceful protest that occurs on a weekly basis with civilians sprayed with sewerage water or injured or even killed doesn’t make the news. A child’s journey to school, head held high as Jewish settlers' children throw garbage at him and stones never makes the headlines.

This pattern of Palestinian invisibility feeds into Israel’s impunity. Soldiers and settlers are not held accountable for their actions and rarely, if ever, has any soldier been punished for degrading, humiliating, or taking the life of an innocent Palestinian. Even when Israel’s impunity reaches extreme levels as it did when they attacked Gaza, committing a long list of war crimes and human rights violations there was not enough international outcry to hold it accountable and to change the course of its actions.

So, where do we go from here? It is clear that the Gandhis of Palestine cannot succeed in their liberation struggle without the help of the international community. Palestinian civil society has called on people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel. This idea was inspired by the South African struggle against apartheid. BDS has been endorsed by over 170 Palestinian parties, organizations, trade unions and movements representing the Palestinian people in the 1967 and 1948 territories and in the Diaspora. I urge you to visit the Global BDS website (www.bdsmovement.com) for ideas on how any one of you can help.

Finally, I’d like to say that it is a fallacy to assume that non-violent resistance is not a natural human reaction to oppression, especially when you’re dealing with unarmed civilians, families and communities. Non-violence is not a doctrine that has to be taught, preached, projected on large screens and stuffed down the throats of an indigenous people trying to survive and to have normal lives. Gandhi himself has refused to be seen as an inventor of the methods of non-violence, saying [8]. “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills.” If Gandhi was to visit the West Bank and Gaza Strip today, I am sure he would agree that truth and non-violence in Palestine are indeed as old as the Palestinian hills.

- Samah Sabawi is a writer and a human rights activist from Gaza. She has published numerous articles and poems on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. She is the co-author of "The Journey To Peace in Palestine: From the Song of Deborah to the Simpsons"

Notes:

[1] See White House website.
[2] Ten for the Next Ten by Bono Guest Oped.
[3] “As part of its vision to empower people to create a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world, the Skoll Foundation has partnered with the Global Catalyst Foundation to sponsor the Gandhi Project in the Palestinian Territories.” See here.
[4] Waleed Mustafa, Former Dean of Arts Talking About the Concept of Sumud to Palestine-Family Bethlehem University.
[5] AT-TUWANI: Settler youth harass Palestinians and international human rights workers CPTnet23 April 2010.
[6] B’tselem The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights: Restrictions on Movement.
[7] Palestine Monitor: Exposing Life Under Occupation.
[8] Brief outline of Ghandhi’s Philosophy - by Stephen Murphy.

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Winep: " Hizballah's partner meets President Obama"

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

WINEP's Schenker at his best ... here

".... Given the current power dynamics in Beirut, a less overtly pro-Western line from Lebanon's ruling party is to be expected. But some of the government's recent rhetoric seems gratuitous. For example, in April 21 remarks to the Italian daily La Stampa, Prime Minister Hariri derided Israel's claims that Syria transferred Scud missiles to Hizballah, comparing the accusations to faulty U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

More problematic for Washington, however, are the increasing signs of Syrian influence in Lebanon that may eventually affect the direction of Beirut's policies. Just as Syrian officials routinely visit Tehran prior to meetings with U.S. officials, for example, Hariri stopped off in Damascus for consultations with Asad en route to Washington. Similarly, Syria recently assigned Deputy Vice President for Security Affairs Muhammad Nasif as a liaison to Walid Jumblatt -- a particularly audacious appointment given that the U.S. Treasury Department designated Nasif in November 2007 for "furthering the Syrian regime's efforts to undermine Lebanese democracy."

In another notable development, Hizballah has begun targeting Washington's agreement with the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, particularly the standard end-use clause that prohibits the transfer of U.S. equipment to terrorist organizations. During an April interview on al-Manar, Nasrallah called the agreement "insulting" and criticized it for applying a U.S.-defined terrorist label to Hizballah. This controversy may constitute Hizballah's initial salvo against Washington's burgeoning defense cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

The change in fortune for America's pro-Western allies in Beirut raises questions about the future of U.S.-Lebanese ties.....

Yet maintaining financial support at current levels will prove increasingly difficult if the Lebanese government no longer appears committed to UN Security Council resolutions (e.g., 1701 and 1559) that call for disarming militias such as Hizballah and ending foreign (i.e., Syrian) meddling in Lebanon. Although no one is under the illusion that the government is capable of taking positive steps on these fronts, Beirut should at least be expected to avoid making statements that undermine these important resolutions. In this regard, statements by Murr and President Michel Suleiman in support of Hizballah's armed status are particularly problematic.

Lebanon remains important to U.S. interests. In addition to being a key battleground between pro-Western moderates and advocates of the Syrian/Iranian resistance model, Lebanon is current chairman of the UN Security Council and may therefore play a central role in the process of sanctioning Iran for its nuclear endeavors.

Given the constraints on Hariri, the Obama administration is likely to ask little of him on Monday. But a discussion of Lebanon's stance on Iran sanctions -- with an eye toward convincing Beirut to, at minimum, abstain during the UN vote -- would be beneficial. Notwithstanding comments this week by President Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor John Brennan suggesting Washington's affinity for "moderate elements" within Hizballah, the administration should also encourage Hariri to downplay his coalition's recent enthusiasm for the resistance. Although such rhetoric may be intended to insulate the prime minister from Hizballah attacks at home, it shakes confidence in Washington and undermines UN resolutions that are critical to Lebanon's future as an independent, democratic state."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 3:05 PM

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IOF troops arrest a whole family in southern Jenin

[ 21/05/2010 - 01:32 PM ]

JENIN, (PIC)-- More than 10 military vehicles raided, at dawn Friday, the village of Kafr Rai to the south of the northern West Bank city of Jenin and arrested a whole family after ransacking their home.

Eyewitnesses said that the IOF troops commandeered homes overlooking the house of Majed Saleh Dallah (55 years) and took positions on the rooftops of those houses then they surrounded and raided his house.

The occupation troops ransacked Dallah's house and used police dogs during their search of the house.

The occupation troops arrested Dallah and four of his children aged 17 to 35 and left summonses for the other three ordering them to surrender themselves to the occupation security services at Salem military post.

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Sayyed Nasrallah: On Sunday We'll Celebrate and The Israelis Will Go to Shelters

Mohamad Shmaysani

21/05/2010 “On this day, ten years ago, the residents of the Qonaytra and Ghandouriyeh, were gathering for the funeral of a woman from occupied Qonaytra. On this day, the first decisive step was taken on the path of liberating the south. Those people took the initiative to storm into the crossing and remove all roadblocks to return to their occupied town.

When this really took place, every other fence tumbled down on 22, 23, and 24 May 2000. By the 25th of May, the battle had settled,’ Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said Friday afternoon as he officially inaugurated the resistance landmark site in the southern town of Mlita, as part of the efforts to enhance Jihadi toursim in Lebanon.

Lebanese political and security officials attended the inauguration as well as Ambassadors and Hezbollah and Amal Movement leaders.

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed the history of any people or nation is part and parcel of its identity that expresses its past ans certainly has an impact on its present and future.
“Today we are trying to make a modest step compared to the history of our country and our people as well as to the history of the resistance in terms of the sacrifices and the historic victories that have been achieved. One of our top responsibilities is to safeguard the history of the resistance; Lebanon’s history is very complicated because of its sectarian considerations. There was a resistance that had started in 1948; not in 1978 or in1982. It had started ever since the Zionist entity occupied Palestine. It has been a long history of resistance, challenge, and steadfastness. It’s been a long history of occupation, threat, and aggression as well. At one stage the residents of the southernmost parts of south Lebanon manifested their resistance and so did the Lebanese army and the security forces that had been deployed there. At another stage, the resistance took a more advance form; from the Palestinian resistance factions to the formation of Lebanese resistance factions. The beginning was with Imam Sayyed Moussa Sadr’s introduction to the Lebanese Resistance Factions (AMAL). This went on until a new resistance was born based on all this heritage and all this history and all these achievements and sacrifices. The Islamic Resistance came to light with Hezbollah being the main faction in the resistance movements,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.

His eminence tackled the municipal election in south Lebanon due Sunday saying that Hezbollah and the Amal Movement’s top priority was to preserve the resistance through the preserving the populace and the social structure across Lebanon. “This is why we’ve called for agreement and we’ve actually established this by signing a detailed agreement with the Amal Movement over the municipal election. It was not an easy task for both leaderships…I reiterate what one of our brothers said a few days ago: Our residents in south Lebanon, the best gift that Hezbollah and Amal can offer to the people in the municipal election is agreement. Indeed it is the most wonderful gift to offer.”

Speaking about Mlita’s resistance landmark site, Sayyed Nasrallah said the town was chosen because it is one of the old posts of the Islamic Resistance that was founded in the Iqlim El-Toffah region to face the Israeli occupation army and their collaborators’ fortified outposts. “Let us write down the history of the resistance from its many perspectives. Until now, everything that has been achieved was based on individual efforts. There are reports, articles, books about the resistance and its leaders. We need to make every effort to write down the history of the resistance as it is.”

On Sunday, the municipal election will take place in south Lebanon. On the same day, Israel has decided to hold drills dubbed Turning Point 4, which will see Israeli settlers in north occupied Palestine evacuated into shelters due to rocket attacks from Hezbollah.
“We will witness a different scene on both sides of the border: celebrations for victories in municipal elections in Lebanon while on the other side, millions of settlers will move into shelters in the framework of an emergency plan out of fear from the resistance.

On Sunday, you will not be afraid from anyone.

You will celebrate the Liberation Day and you will turn this referendum into a festival while resting assure that the resistance is ready for every equation. Inshallah I will see you May 25, when we mark the Resistance and Liberation Day.”

Hezbollah on Alert ahead of Israel Drill; Warns 'Israelis Have No Place to Hide'

21/05/2010 Thousands of Hezbollah resistance fighters have been ordered to maintain a heightened state of alert ahead of a large-scale Israeli occupation army exercise which begins Sunday, the group's representatives in southern Lebanon, Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, told the AFP news agency on Friday.

Sheikh Qaouk said, "The Hezbollah fighters have (been instructed) to be completely ready to confront Israeli maneuvers on Sunday. A few thousands of our fighters will not go to the polls (to participate in municipal elections in southern Lebanon) and are ready (for anything) today."

Israeli officials have stressed that the week-long drill was planned in advance, however Sheikh Qaouk clarified that "in the event of a new aggression against Lebanon, the Israelis will not find a place to hide in Palestine."

Sheikh Qaouk made the remarks during a meeting at his home in Tyre with Jewish American intellectual Noam Chomsky, who was denied entry to the Zionist entity and the occupied West Bank earlier this week.

Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai held a press briefing this week on the "Turning Point 4" exercise, which is aimed at preparing the home front for a possible military conflict.

"The scenario we are referring to includes the firing of hundreds of missiles at Israel from different places and targets," Vilnai said, stressing that the drill was preplanned and would include an air raid siren across the country on Wednesday.

Israel believes that Hezbollah has built its cache to more than 40,000 rockets since the Second Lebanon War, and that the resistance group has developed the capability to reach the center of the occupied country with its weapons.

Last month, Israeli President Shimon Peres accused Syria of providing Scud missiles to Hezbollah, charges that Damascus has denied.

Syria and Hezbollah both went on alert anticipating an Israeli attack on Lebanon in January, Arab-language media reported then.

Hezbollah's deputy secretary general, Sheikh Naeem Qassem, said the group was preparing to retaliate if Israel decided to attack.


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Palestinian children tortured in Israeli occupation jails

[ 21/05/2010 - 11:47 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Hiba Masalha, a Palestinian lawyer who visited child-prisoners at the Majedo and Rimonim prisons said that a number of them were subjected to barbaric torture before being questioned or charged.

Masalha said on Thursday that she met with 17-year-old Ahmad Farouq Jaara from Nablus who was arrested on 14 January 2010 at the Za'tara roadblock. He told her that he was subjected to a harsh interrogation at Betah Tekva detention centre where he was tied to a stool with both hands and feet tied. He was interrogated and tortured for 21 days causing his health to deteriorate.

She also met with 16-year-old Salama Abdel-Jawad from the Askar refugee camp who was arrested at the Hamra roadblock on 14 February 2010. He told her that on his arrest the soldiers kicked and beat him mercilessly using rifle butts bruising him all over and causing him to bleed from the face and legs.

She also said that Mahmoud Yaziji, 16 years, from Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, told her that he was arrested at the Erez crossing by special forces who beat him severely, causing bruises all over his body. He was detained for one whole night at the crossing before he was taken to Askalan prison.

Meanwhile, 16-year-old Atef Jaradat, from Sair, in al-Khalil told the lawyer that IOF troops arrested him on 2 February 2010 him to the Keryat Arba settlement where he spent one night. He was then taken to Atsion detention centre where he was interrogated while tied to a stool in the cold and under the rain, during the interrogation an interrogator going by the name of Imran, beat him on his face, his arms and legs, then gave him electric shock making him fall each time he was subjected to the electric shock. He is also being denied family visits since his arrest.

Masalha also met with Muhammad Rashid Abu Shahin (16 years), from the Balata refugee camp, who told her that he was arrested on 3 January 2010 on the Hamra roadblock where he was manhandled and beaten by the occupation soldiers using rifle butts. He was then taken to the Hawwara detention centre where the interrogater used a plastic pipe to beat him with so that he confesses. The child is suffering chronic back pain as a result of being hit on the spine. He has not been provided with any medical attention apart from being given pain killers.

Zakerya Waddah Awada, 16 years, from Nablus told her that he was arrested on 2 March 2010 and that IOF troops beat him up inside the military jeep. At the Hawwara detention centre soldiers took him out of his cell during the night to the yard where he was forced to strip naked and stand in the cold for the rest of the night. He was denied visits since his arrest.


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Holocaustism vs. Islam

Contibuted by Michael

Holocaustism vs. Islam
http://rehmatpedia.islamunity.net/?p=1049

The writer of the following article is Dr. Kevin James Barrett (b. 1959). He is an Arabist-Islamologist scholar and one of America’s best known critics of the “War on Terror”. From 1991 to 2006 Dr. Barrett taught at colleges and Universities in San Francisco, Paris and Wisconsin.

In Summer 2006, Dr. Barrett was attacked by a group of Republican state legislators who called for him to be fired from his job at the University of Wisconsin-Madison due to his political opinions. Since 2007, Dr. Barrett has been informally blacklisted in teaching in American colleges and Universities. Dr. Barrett ran for Congress in 2008.

Currently he authors books , work as a radio talk show host, writes a blog and is founder of the Muslim Jewish Chriatian Alliance for 9/11 Truth (MUJCA) , a nonprofit organization. Dr. Barrett is son of Olympics sailor Peter Barrett and professor Laurie Barrett, both Unitarian.

He converted to Islam in 1992. Dr. Barrett lives in Wisconsin with his wife, two sons and a dog named Salman Rushdie

Sometimes it seems like there are only two major religions left: Holocaustism and Islam.

According to Gilad Atzmon , “The Israeli Philosophy professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz was probably the first to define the holocaust as the ‘new Jewish religion’.”
But as the persecution of Bishop Williamson makes clear, Holocaustism has replaced Christianity as well as Judaism.

You can tell which story is sacred and which one isn’t by the reaction you get when you commit sacrilege. Nowhere in the West is anyone being brought up on charges of denying the crucifixion-resurrection. People can blithely doubt the crucifixion and the resurrection and the virgin birth and the trinity other tenets of Christianity and still work in the great universities of the West. In fact, if they don’t doubt these things, they might have a harder time getting hired. Admit at a faculty luncheon that you don’t doubt the resurrection or the virgin birth, and you’ll get some very strange looks.

But admit that you doubt any aspect of the sacred Holocaust narrative–six million Jewish victims, most killed in gas chambers, as part of a pre-conceived effort to eliminate Jewry from the face of the earth–and you’ll never work in this town again. Thus we are treated to the spectacle of a Catholic bishop being tried by a new Inquisition for a heresy that has nothing to do with Catholicism.

My wise old kabbalah professor, Jacob Needleman, once pointed out that the Holocaust caused a great many Jews to lose their faith in God. How could a good God let this happen? Abandoning God, these Jews joined the atheist Zionists who were colonizing Palestine. They began worshipping the state of Israel, and its power, instead of God, the true source of all power. So it’s easy to understand why Holocaustism, the sacred foundation of secular Zionism, became the majority religion of today’s ethnic Jews.

But why has Holocaustism replaced Chrisitianity?

I suppose it is because Christianity has been in slow decline for several centuries. By the 19th century, neither the thinking nor the ruling classes really believed in God any more. ( A.N. Wilson, God’s Funeral .) The reaction against Christianity in post-Christian Europe reached the point that by the post-World War II period, a residual Christian guilt complex met growing Jewish-Holocaustist power in the media …and the result was Holocaustism replacing Christianity as the core sacred narrative of the West.

Islam vs. Holocaustism

Islam, the world’s fastest-growing religion, is immune to Holocaustism for two reasons.

First, Muslims understand and oppose the Holocaustist atrocities in Palestine. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” said Jesus, peace upon him…and the fruits of Holocaustist Zionism — millions of people ethnic-cleansed, children shot for sport with impunity , white phosphorus dropped on the world’s most densely-populated space, and on and on — are as visibly evil to Muslims as they are invisibly evil to Westerners.

Second, Islam is built around the core teaching of tawhid: the absolute, eternal oneness of God as the only appropriate object of worship. The worst possible sin, from an Islamic perspective, is worshipping something other than God.

So Muslims are not easily drawn into worshipping alleged sons of God, crucifixions, trinities, chosen peoples, or even holocausts.

Since Muslims stubbornly persist in worshipping God rather than the Holocaust, the 9/11 false-flag attack was orchestrated in order to launch a Holocaustist crusade against Islam. Just as the sacred story of the Holocaust was used to brainwash Jews into believing they had been victimized and thus had the right to become vengeful victimizers, the sacred official story of 9/11 was used to brainwash Americans and Westerners into believing that they too had been victimized, and that thus they too must become vengeful victimizers. In both cases the target of vengeance was Arabs and Muslims — though why Holocaustists would take vengeance against Germans by mass-murdering and ethnic-cleansing Arabs and Muslims has never been explained. Le coeur noir a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point.

The Future of an Illusion

The 9/11 truth movement has already succeeded in desacralizing the official myth of 9/11. The question of what really happened and why on 9/11 has become a legitimate topic of debate. As time goes on, it will grow more and more difficult for the high priests of the official myth to do to other skeptics what was done to me , Steven Jones , and Kevin Ryan

Meanwhile, the world’s Muslims will persist in worshipping God alone and refusing to kowtow to Holocaustism. They will continue to view the Jewish holocaust, small h, as just one of a great many holocausts and genocides, some of which continue today in places like Palestine , Iraq , and Afghanistan.

They will continue to insist that the Jewish holocaust, like all other holocausts and genocides, be the subject of free and fearless historical debate in which all viewpoints are welcome, and issues decided on the basis of reason and evidence, not emotion or intimidation or fines and jail sentences

And they will continue to insist that Palestine be returned to its rightful owners.

When the dust settles, insha’allah, I think more and more Westerners will come to realize that the Muslims were right all along — not only about history and politics, but more importantly, about God

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