Mishaal: Hamas has new initiatives in store

[ 19/02/2011 - 06:26 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Hamas politburo chief Khalid Mishaal said his party has in store new initiatives relating to developments in Palestine after consulting with Palestinian factions.

The announcement comes after the US used its power of veto to strike down a resolution put to the UN Security Council that would have condemned Israeli settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as illegal.

"In upcoming days we have a word we will say, an act we will do, and initiatives we will launch,” Mishaal said to mark the opening of the Zahr Hanoun center for women and Palestinian heritage in the Damascus Yarmouk refugee camp.

"I need not say more than that these developments and changes around us with the curse of failure and standstill we have tasted and what Palestine suffers on all levels, we are forced to review the situation in Palestine beyond the headlines that some are trying to drown us in,” he added.

"The depth of the crisis made in recent years at the hands of people who have chosen a crooked path in light of Zionist arrogance and what it is doing to our land, and in light of American bias, we must make a radical review of all the issues and details of the situation in Palestine.”

"We in Hamas and the resistance factions and many of the respected Palestinian officials are keeping that in mind and will discuss our options. All of that will soon be before our people, who alone possess the cause, the legitimacy, the decision and the choice.”

Separately, Mishaal expressed Hamas's joy over the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, saying they roused a spirit in Palestine and embodied the will of the people.

"We are happy Egypt returned to its natural state. The [Muslims] yearn for an Egypt that knows its affiliation, its allies, its duty, its enemies and knows who conspires against [it]. Change happened in Egypt and I wish it reaches its full objectives to be enjoyed by the people of Egypt, Gaza and Palestine, so Egypt will become on the side of its sister states in the region.”

Speaking before hundreds at the Zahr Hanoun women's and heritage center opening ceremony, Mishaal said: ”Heritage is not far from the battle. He who has no heritage has no present and no future.”

"Our struggle is over the land, man, holy places, decision, independence, sovereignty, culture, history, identity and symbols; and Israel wants to steal our heritage like it stole our land,” Mishaal said.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Why Egypt worries Israel

Many Israelis see the uprising as a sign of a dangerous new instability in the Arab world

 

by Paul Wells

By Monday Ephraim Sneh had heard quite enough talk about democracy in Egypt.
“I am not interested in democracy in this region,” the former Israeli deputy minister of defence told a conference room full of dignitaries at the annual security conference in Herzliya, a Mediterranean Sea resort north of Tel Aviv. “Personally I prefer to have stability.”

Sentiments like Sneh’s are easy to find in Israel these days, although the wiry 66-year-old expressed them more bluntly than most. Just look around, he said. Everywhere Israel’s neighbours get the vote, things get worse. Take Gaza, or as Sneh called it, “Hamastan,” after the ruling Hamas party’s 2006 election victory. “Based on a democratic, free election, we are facing now some of the worst terrorists.”

Or consider Lebanon, where a Hezbollah-backed candidate became prime minister in January. “Lebanon is democracy, so-called,” he said. “Lebanon is a constitution without a state. But it’s very democratic. You have an elected president, you have an elected prime minister, you have a speaker of Parliament, you have all these institutions. But the country is losing itself. We call it Hezbollahstan.”

Democracy, Sneh concluded, “is not only voting. If there is democratic process in the Middle East, it will bring, for sure, dictatorships that will make this area like hell.”

It doesn’t take a visitor to Israel long to figure out that the euphoria accompanying most North American coverage of the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt is in short supply here. Sure, everything could work out for the best. Few are inclined to bet that way. There is widespread concern that the people’s revolution in Egypt might stall, or that the regime could fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. Israel’s 30-year “cold peace” with Egypt, the fruit of a 1979 peace treaty between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, would be at risk.

Some observers are more than just nervous. There is a bitterness to some Israeli commentary that contrasts starkly with the amazing images from Tahrir Square in Cairo. “From an Israeli perspective, the most depressing and worrying overview of this staggeringly rapid shattering of regional certainties is that it reverses a generation’s momentum,” the Jerusalem Post’s editor David Horovitz wrote in his column. Peace with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 could have given Israelis the feeling their country was growing safer in a dangerous neighbourhood, he wrote. “Now, for the first time in more than 30 years, we see the spectre of our gains being rolled back, of the adjacent countries we thought we had grudgingly won over, slipping away again into hostility.”

Officially the Israeli government is saying little about events in Egypt. The only detailed comments so far came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Knesset on Feb. 2. He took note of the elation “in Washington, London, Paris and throughout the democratic world” at the news from Cairo, and was careful to admit it might not be misplaced. “It is obvious that an Egypt that fully embraces the 21st century and that adopts these reforms would be a source of great hope for the entire world, for the region and for us.”
The optimism didn’t last long. “Far away from Washington, Paris, London—and not so far from Jerusalem—is another capital in which there are hopes,” Netanyahu went on to say. This capital is Tehran. “The Iranian regime… wants an Egypt that returns to the Middle Ages. They want Egypt to become another Gaza, run by radical forces.”

Netanyahu’s pessimism isn’t universal. In the liberal newspaper Haaretz, commentators have been lining up to make fun of it. Columnist Anshel Pfeffer put it this way: “We’re all suffering from Orientalism, not to say racism, if the sight of an entire people throwing off the yoke of tyranny and courageously demanding free elections fills us with fear rather than uplifting us, just because they’re Arabs.”

What about the Muslim Brotherhood, lingering in the shadows around Tahrir Square? “We also have religious fundamentalists in the government,” Pfeffer wrote. “That is the price of a parliamentary democracy.”
Pfeffer was writing from Cairo, where he asked “hundreds of Egyptians” about the peace treaty between their country and his. Almost all favoured maintaining diplomatic relations, he said.

And yet a lot of Israelis remain unpersuaded. On my way to the airport to catch a flight to Jerusalem, I had lunch in Ottawa with a visiting Israeli scholar, Jonathan Fine. An ordained conservative rabbi, Fine lectures on diplomacy and strategy at the Lauder School of Government in Herzliya. He described a Middle East where Israel’s prospects for peace can only go from bad to worse.

“The tragedy and the problem with Egypt that I think your readers have to understand is that, with all the happy feelings about very populistic striving for democracy, there ain’t no democratic force to step in,” he said. “They went from a monarchy with King Farouk, to Gamal Abdel Nasser, which was anything but a democracy, to Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak. Now, Sadat and Mubarak were nice guys because they were pro-Western, but they weren’t democratic. And who are the forces that can take over? That’s the $1-million question.”

Fine is pretty sure it’s the Muslim Brotherhood that’s waiting in the wings, and that Western commentators who downplay the Brotherhood’s predilection for violent extremism are misguided. “And of course what happens in Egypt will have a tremendous impact on the Arab world,” he says. “See what’s happening in Yemen. Yemen is already an al-Qaeda playground. Has been in the past 10 years. There’s no strong central authority there. And with all this mess that is going to come up, the rioting and everything, it might be even worse. You’ll find Yemen turning into Somalia Number Two.”

Why so gloomy? Because, Fine said, Israel has tried optimism before and it never works. At the beginning of 1979 there was the peace treaty with Egypt. At the end of that year there was the Islamist revolution in Iran. Like many Israelis, Fine thinks the future will look more like Iran in 1979 than Eastern Europe after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

“Four questions will decide the future for our region,” he said. “First of all, how will the war in Afghanistan turn out? Second, what happens when Iran has the [nuclear] bomb? What are the implications? Three, what is the significance of Islamists taking over Lebanon? Four, where’s Turkey going?”

As for the war in Afghanistan, Fine says, “nobody cares about the Afghans. The issue is Pakistan—168 million people, a very heterogeneous, fragile society which the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been trying to rip apart by stirring up a civil war. And nobody would have cared about that, except they have 165 nuclear warheads. What the Taliban and al-Qaeda want to do is take over. You don’t have to be a great expert in arms control to understand what that would imply,” Fine adds.

“Second thing, Iran and the bomb. Would they throw a bomb at Israel the next day? The answer is no. They’re radical but they’re pragmatic. And they know what the reaction would be. Fighting to the last sheik in Lebanon and fighting to the last Palestinian in Gaza is one thing”—Iran is widely believed to have proxy regimes among Hezbollah and Hamas, which fought quick, nasty, losing fights against Israel in 2006 and 2009—”but sacrificing Iran itself is another issue. Why do they want the bomb? As an insurance policy. The revolution is a total flop and the only guarantee that can keep it afloat is the bomb. They’ve got a wonderful example, which you know very well, which is North Korea. They get away with everything. Nobody’s daring to touch them because they have the bomb. That’s exactly what we’re afraid of with Iran.”

As for Lebanon, other powers have tried to control that country before, including Israel and Syria. They soon found they couldn’t. Hezbollah won’t have any more success, Fine said, and in seeking a scapegoat will turn again against Israel. It would be like the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, but more violent.

“Turkey? Doesn’t look good,” Fine says. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has seemed an enlightened leader for a large, Muslim democracy. Fine believes that’s just about over. “At the end of the day he has a very, very clear objective of moving eastwards. He’s finished with Europe. The Europeans will never admit Turkey into the union in the next 500 years. And Turkey is becoming very dangerous.”

Many observers believe Israel could reduce all the tension in its violent neighbourhood by reaching a peace with the Palestinian Authority. James Jones, Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, showed up at Herzliya to call a peace settlement “the one thing that, in my personal opinion, drives nearly everything else that threatens us, everything that happens in this region, and has global ramifications if not addressed.”
Tzipi Livni, Israel’s fiery centrist opposition leader, addressed the conference in similar terms. “People in the region look at us with Al Jazeera eyes. They will always see Israel as a tank against a Palestinian child.” A peace accord would put Hamas on the defensive instead of Israel, she said. “I want Hamas to have to decide: are they going to side with Iran and Hezbollah against the majority in the Arab world and against a new Palestinian state?”

Conservatives like Fine don’t buy it. “Assume theoretically that tomorrow we would have a full peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority and we would dance with Hamas and the PA in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv,” Fine said. “It would be great. Will this change in any way al-Qaeda and the Taliban’s objectives in Pakistan? No. Would it stop Iran from racing for the bomb? No. Would it stop Hezbollah from taking over Lebanon? No. They are too allied with the Iranians. Would this change Turkey’s strategy? No. So whatever happens between us and the Palestinians, the impact isn’t going to be that great.”

Soon after I arrived in Jerusalem, I caught a Number 18 bus at the Damascus Gate and rode it through an Israeli military checkpoint into Ramallah in the Palestinian West Bank. At Manara Square, around a fountain decorated with four concrete lions, a listless pro-Egypt demonstration began. The demonstrators, perhaps 300 in number, exclaimed their support for the anti-Mubarak forces in Cairo. Soon a young man climbed onto one of the lions and set fire to an American flag. The crowd cheered and whistled. A U.S. flag burning is a welcome addition to just about any political statement in Ramallah.

Just before the demonstration began I visited Sam Bahour, a successful Palestinian-American businessman, at the comfortable Ramallah home he inherited from his grandparents. What was interesting about the demonstration, he said, was that the Palestinian Authority police had shut one just like it down only days earlier. The same thing happened in Gaza: Hamas cut a pro-Egyptian democracy protest short. They were finally letting sympathy demonstrations go ahead, on a modest scale, because the strangeness of suppressing them was getting noticed.

“The Palestinian Authority seems to be very hesitant to allow any expression of non-support of Mubarak,” Bahour said. “Which is rather interesting, because it’s a complete mismatch with the mood of the city.” But this is one of the strange ways the Egypt ball may bounce. Ordinary Egyptians have concluded they can no longer stand the way the regime treats them. The sympathy of Palestinians is a danger for the Palestinian regime at least as much as for the Israelis. “People are seeing that the regime that is being created in the West Bank is not much different from the Mubarak regime that’s being kicked out [in Egypt],” Bahour added.
Like Jim Jones and Tzipi Livni, and unlike much of the Israeli security establishment, Bahour believes Israel could improve its chances of living in peace with its neighbours if it reached a durable peace with the Palestinians.

“I’m a business planner. I do business plans. If Israel was given to me today as a business plan, my recommendation would be that it’s an infeasible project. You cannot continue to act as though you don’t belong in the region that you exist in. When they built that wall [between Israeli and Palestinian populations in the West Bank], they became, on the other side of it, imprisoned just as much as us.”

Quietly, some Israeli government officials say there’s real reason to see hope in what’s happening in Cairo. They note that when millions of Egyptians took to the streets, they weren’t bothering to complain about Israel because they had more immediate concerns. Maybe, once free, the region’s populations will learn they have more in common than they ever believed. It will be excellent if that happens. A lot of Israelis aren’t holding their breath.

Source

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

GORDON DUFF: 9/11 AND THE TWO STAGE “KHALEZOV EFFECT”

FINALLY, TESTIMONY.....

February 19, 2011 posted by Gordon Duff

THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY, WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT, WHO OR HOW?


By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER

Two years ago, the 9/11 Truth movement was unheard of by most Americans.  Reviled by the mainstream press, insulted by politicians and looked on as a fringe group by many, it lived in a virtual backwater, powerless, frustrated and brimming over with righteous indignation.

That is no longer the case.  Today, with 4 of 5 Americans turning to the alternative media, having lost all confidence in the phony “right v. left” dialog espoused by the media giants, 9/11 doubters are mainstream.

With polls typically showing “Truther” backing at between 60 and 80 percent worldwide, the mainstream media now appears as it should, a source for press releases from governments that have begun to crumble around the world, even in America as we are now seeing in Wisconsin and Ohio.

The most disturbing aspect of this shift in perspective is that influence over public opinion has fallen to those who don’t understand “the game.”  Alternative media fought for attention through exploiting mistrust in government and the “sex” of conspiracies, real and provable and, too often, insubstantial distractions.

The spotlight fell on those unprepared.  The alternative media giant, Huffington Post, demonstrated by its merger with mainstream giant AOL, that telling the truth is both lonely and unrewarding.  Huffington had shed itself of “truth tellers” long ago.

The “corporate” media, during the “post Kronkite generation” had been lulled into trading complicity for access, alternatively receiving press releases and selling them as “journalism” or peddling misdirection as “leaks” and investigative journalism.

The press had become as complicit as the kidnappers and torturers they kowtowed to.
People were looking for answers.  The corporate press didn’t have them.  It was tasked with selling ‘status quo’ beliefs that didn’t explain the economic devastation, the endless scandals, the purposeless wars and the eventual debunking of the very foundations of government and society.  The magic 80% that looked to the alternative media knew, and very rightly so, that the plots were real and the villains more dastardly than any TV bad guy.
Three individuals brought down “the system.”

1. David Ray Griffin
2. Christopher Bollyn
3. Richard Gage

One individual utterly discredited the mainstream media, more through his own duplicity and deception than anything else.  History is about results, not intentions and toward that end, our next name, though ineptitude alone, helped change the world.

1. Julian Assange

In a just world, these three and maybe a dozen more would wear the Medal of Freedom.  Few people since the crucifixion of Christ have suffered as these three.  In the end, our age will carry the marks of these four more than any Bush or Obama.  One name will be added here, one few know.

1. Dimitri Khalezov

DIMITRI
Khalezov is a former Soviet Army officer who worked in the highly secretive world of nuclear detection.  The doors he opens threaten our view of the last decades, revealing a secret world of deception too devastating for most to accept.  However, as bizarre as his stories may seem, of everyone discussing 9/11, only Dimitri Khalezov has the resume that places him at the forefront.
The rest of us talk about 9/11, profess our theories and connect “dots,” real or imagined, moving the public toward a truth that may well be what the public wishes to believe than what is real.
That has been the trap.

Only Dimitri can testify, not “connect.”  When Dimitri tells us that Mossad Operations Chief Mike Harari admitted planning 9/11, it is because Dimitri was there.  This is testimony, not conjecture, backed by a willingness to take a lie detector test.

No other 9/11 evidence carries this weight.  Science shouldn’t be objective, but we all know better.  After 9/11, the National Institute of Standards produced a lengthy document, thousands of pages, filled with junk science and ludicrous conjecture.  The 9/11 Commission went even further than that, although most members now admit such, to their credit.

Khalezov says, “Arrest that man, he did it and I will testify.”

This is why his name is listed.

Khalezov also states, backed by an offer of a lie detector test, that, while a Soviet Officer in their nuclear services, he was briefed on the placement of large nuclear demolition charges under the WTC and Sears Tower.

Thus, Khalezov brings two things to the table, admissible testimony in a criminal conspiracy trial that includes Israeli intelligence in the planning and execution of 9/11 and the presence of nuclear demolition devices as known to the Soviet government in accordance with treaties between the two states.

Please not that these “demolition charges” are thermonuclear, buried many meters under the sub-basement and virtually radiation free.

These were not, are not “micro-nukes.”

I have sat trough hours of debriefings of Dimitri which included American nuclear weapons specialists.  Mostly I learned of my own ignorance.  So much of what I believed about weapons and radiation was very wrong and I am not entirely unfamiliar with such things.

Below is a 2002 article from USA today.  There are many such articles that are “out there” which some should wish were not.

In this article, dots are connected that lead many places, some support Dimitri Khalezov and some support Richard Gage, both of whom espouse different scientific theories for the purposeful destruction of the World Trade Center by something other than ‘terrorism.”

Richard Gage proved that jet fuel can never weaken or melt steel.  Debunkers attempt to show how forms of thermite would be difficult to apply.

Those same “debunkers” are a “piece of work.”  If thermite or “nanothermite” is, as “they” claim, unable to destroy the massive structural steel beams that resist thousands of degrees of heat, how could a relatively cool kerosene fire (jet fuel is kerosene) that would have trouble burning a steak on a grill, be so much more powerful?

By the same measure, if a diesel car caught fire, it might just melt through to the center of the earth, according to the wild conjecture represented by the National Institute of Standards in their report on 9/11.  Junk science, nothing more.  Ever hear of a kerosene torch used in welding?
End of story!

Read the censored story below.  See if you can figure why it has been hidden so long.  What deadly errors are exposed in it?  Look for the mistakes and the lies meant to cover them up.

Some World Trade Center victims were ‘vaporized’

01/15/2002 – Updated 08:28 PM ET USA Today

NEW YORK (AP) — Three months after the World Trade Center attack, victims’ families are being forced to face the ghastly possibility that many of the dead were “vaporized,” as the medical examiner put it, and may never be identified. So far, fewer than 500 victims have been positively identified out of the roughly 3,000 feared dead.

Sixty were identified solely through DNA. The city and state have allowed victims’ families to obtain death certificates without proof of a body, but many families place great importance on an ID based on actual remains. “Until you have something tangible, you just keep hoping — maybe there’ll be some sort of miracle,” said Jeanne Maurer, whose 31-year-old daughter, Jill Campbell, is presumed dead. “You can’t accept it until you have something. “I still say, ‘My daughter’s missing,”‘ Maurer said. Many victims will undoubtedly be identified. Nearly 10,000 body parts have been pulled from the mountains of mangled metal and matchstick-size splinters at ground zero.

But Dr. Charles Hirsch, the chief medical examiner, triggered an angry response two weeks ago when he told grieving relatives that many bodies — no one is sure how many — had been “vaporized” and were beyond identification. Hirsch declined to be interviewed.

But spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said he meant that bodies were consumed by blazing fuel from the two crashed airliners, or “rendered into dust” when the 1,100-foot skyscrapers collapsed, one concrete slab floor onto another. Dr. Michael Baden, the state’s chief forensic pathologist and a top expert in the field, said in September that most bodies should be identifiable because the fires — while hot enough to melt steel — did not reach the 3,200-degree, 30-minute level necessary to incinerate a body.

(Editor’s note:  Steel melts at 2800 degrees Fahrenheit , reached in sustained immersion during a smelting process.    Crematoriums typically reach a temperature of 1600 degrees Fahrenheit.  Jet fuel fires are unable to sustain temperatures in excess of 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.  Aluminum melts at 1200 degrees Fahrenheit and aircraft aluminum turns to vapor long before steel would begin to weaken from heat.   Please check on this yourselves.)
Borakove said her office agrees with Baden’s calculation — as applied to a full body. “But when the planes hit the buildings, the bodies that were in the planes as well as some of the bodies that were in the buildings were fragmented upon impact, and those fragments burn more quickly,” she said.

The combination of fire and compression from tons of rubble could reduce a human body to a small amount of tissue and bone, said Dr. Cyril Wecht, a top forensic pathologist in Pittsburgh. And finding such small samples of DNA in 1.2 million tons of rubble spread over 16 acres is a difficult proposition. “There are pieces,” he said. “But how do you identify and extract it from other similarly appearing pieces at the site — bricks, mortar, rubble?”

Marian Fontana, president of the Sept. 11 Widows and Victims’ Families Association, said: “My fear is that financial incentives will cause the city to clean up the site quickly, rather than to treat it as a retrieval site and do things in a dignified way.” Her firefighter husband, Dave, is among the missing. In particular, families are worried that remains will end up at the Staten Island landfill where trade center debris is taken and sorted.

“The remains shouldn’t end up in the garbage heap,” Maurer said. Forensic pathologists are trying to match the DNA of tissue taken from ground zero with the DNA of known victims. Victims’ families have supplied clothes, hairbrushes and other personal items from which DNA could be lifted for comparison. Hirsch’s task is unprecedented in size.

After the Oklahoma City bombing, all 168 people killed were eventually identified. But even after four years, some of the recovered tissue and bone were never linked to any of the victims.
Borakove said recently developed computer software enables more efficient DNA identification. In the meantime, some families, like the Maurers, are waiting to schedule services. “We’re not ready really for a memorial,” said her father, Joseph Maurer. “We’ll do a funeral with remains — if we find them.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Palestinians jailed in Egypt announce hunger strike demanding freedom

[ 19/02/2011 - 06:20 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinians held in a prison in Egypt announced Saturday they will go on hunger strike after hopes for freedom under the new hold of power were crushed.

All of the 19 Palestinians detained at the Al-Aqrab Prison in Hilwan (Greater Cairo) kicked off a hunger strike on Saturday amid demands for improved conditions at the facility and their freedom as ruled by the courts, the coalition of families of Palestinian detainees in Egyptian prisons said.

The Palestinian detainees in the Aqrab Prison have rejected breakfast and lunch and are determined to continue the strike until their demands are met, Emad al-Sayyid, the coalition's spokesman told Quds Press.

"[The coalition] has followed developments in Egypt and was very hopeful at the January 25 revolution which removed the unjust regime that tortured our children and expected they would be released in light of statements issued by the military council when the new phase in Egypt began,” Sayyid said.

"But we were surprised that our children were arrested by the army after they left the prison and were tortured another time...and held in isolation cells filled with filth and bugs and have refused them permission to bathe or change clothing since January 29, which has caused a number of skin diseases and refused to transfer the ill ones among them to the hospital.”

The coalition called on rights groups to defend the detained Palestinians and called for efforts to have the Palestinians detained in Egyptian jails released.

Eight of 39 total Palestinians jailed in Egypt have managed to reach the Gaza Strip after the revolution broke out. The courts have ruled for the release of most of those detainees.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Protests death toll rises in Libya

Doctor tells Al Jazeera that at least 70 people were killed during rallies calling for the ouster of long time leader.
Last Modified: 18 Feb 2011 16:11 GMT
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Crowds have taken to the streets in Libya demanding more representation and the overthrow of Gaddafi

Security forces in Libya have killed at least 70 pro-democracy protesters in the country's second-largest city as demonstrations demanding the ouster of Col. Moammar Gaddafi, the long time ruler, increase across the country.

A doctor in Benghazi told Al Jazeera that he saw the bodies at the main hospital on Friday in one of the harshest crackdowns against peaceful protesters thus far.

"I have seen it on my own eyes: At least 70 bodies at the hospital," said Wuwufaq al-Zuwail, a physician. He added that security forces also prevented ambulances to reach the site of the protests on Friday.

The Libyan government has also blocked Al Jazeera TV signal in the country. And people have also reported that the network's website is inaccessible from there.

Protesters shot

Marchers mourning dead protesters in Libya's second-largest city have reportedly come under fire from security forces, as protests in the oil-exporting North African nation entered their fifth day.

Mohamed el-Berqawy, an engineer in Benghazi, told Al Jazeera that the city was the scene of a "massacre," and that four demonstrators had been killed on Friday.

"Where is the United Nations ... where is (US president Barack) Obama, where is the rest of the world, people are dying on the streets," he said. "We are ready to die for our country."

Verifying news from Libya has been difficult since protests began, thanks to restrictions on journalists entering the country, as well as internet and mobile phone black outs imposed by the government. But Human Rights Watch has reported that at least 24 protesters have been killed so far, and sources on the ground have said that number could be as high as 70.

Live Blog

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters seeking to oust Gaddafi took to the streets across Libya on Thursday in what organisers called a "day of rage" modelled after similar protests in Tunisia and Egypt that ousted longtime leaders there. Gaddafi has ruled Libya since 1969.

Funerals for those killed, expected in both Benghazi and the town of Bayda on Friday, may be a catalyst for more protests.

Pro-government supporters also were out on the streets early on Friday, according to the Libyan state television, which broadcasted images labelled "live" that showed men chanting slogans in support of Gaddafi.

The pro-Gaddafi crowd was seen singing as it surrounded his limousine as it crept along a road in the capital, Tripoli, packed with people carrying his portrait.

Deadly clashes on Thursday

Deadly clashes broke out in several towns on Thursday after the opposition called for protests in a rare show of defiance inspired by uprisings in other Arab states and the toppling of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The worst clashes appeared to have taken place in the eastern Cyrenaica region, centred on Benghazi, where support for Gaddafi has historically been weaker than in other parts of the country.

Libya's Quryna newspaper reported that the regional security chief had been removed from his post over the deaths of protesters in Bayda. Libyan opposition groups in exile claimed that Bayda citizens had joined with local police forces to take over Bayda and fight against government-backed militias, whose ranks are allegedly filled by recruits from other African nations.

Political analysts say Libyan oil wealth may give the government the capacity to smooth over social problems and reduce the risk of an Egypt-style revolt.

Gaddafi's opponents say they want political freedoms, respect for human rights and an end to corruption.

Gaddafi's government proposed the doubling of government employees' salaries and released 110 suspected anti-government figures who oppose him - tactics similar to those adopted by other Arab regimes facing recent mass protests.

Gaddafi also has been meeting with tribal leaders to solicit their support.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Confrontations in Silwan after Friday congregation

[ 19/02/2011 - 07:42 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli security men used tear gas to disperse rallies that followed the Friday congregation in Silwan, occupied Jerusalem, causing breathing problems among tens of citizens.

Local sources said that the confrontations occurred following the Friday congregation in the sit-in tent in the Bustan suburb in Silwan town, south of the holy Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli policemen arrested the Palestinian teen Muhanad Qawasme in central Silwan, locals said, recalling that he had lost an eye when he was hit with a rubber bullet on 28 June 2010 during violent clashes with Israeli security forces.

The leader of the Islamic movement in 1948 occupied Palestine Sheikh Ra'ed Salah said during a visit to Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah suburb on Thursday that the Palestinian people are the real owners of occupied Jerusalem.

He said that the Israeli occupation would come to an end sooner or later.

Salah stressed that Palestinians should remain steadfast, explaining that their steadfastness in Jerusalem would inspire steadfastness for the entire Arab and Islamic countries.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Political science professor: Abbas and his entourage must leave

[ 19/02/2011 - 07:57 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Dr. Abdul-Sattar Qasem, a professor of political sciences at the Al-Najah National University, called on Palestinian de facto president Mahmoud Abbas to step down from office, describing steps Abbas has taken to thwart West Bank settlement activity as ”worthless”.

"There is an attempt to disparage the people's minds, ” Qasem told the PIC in an interview on Friday night. ”What is the value of a resolution from the United Nations regarding the illegality of settlement activity when there are already many resolutions stating settlement activity is illegal and not consistent with international law?”

Abbas has gone before the UN Security Council to pass a resolution condemning settlement activity, a move the US used its veto to thwart.

"Whether they go or do not go [before the UN] … nothing will change, and settlement activity will not be stopped,” Qasem said, adding that the PA has nothing left in its power.

An attention turner

Discussing marches Fatah called for Friday night in support of Abbas's position, Qasem said: ”This is something trivial. Why are they gathering staff and security men and rallying them in marches similar to what Arab regimes that are beginning to fail have used to do?”

He said the move was designed to ”divert the attention” of movements in the Palestinian street which has rejected the concessions made by Abbas and Palestinian negotiators.

They must go

Qasem shed light on what is expected of the Palestinian Authority in coping with the current wave of change sweeping the region. ”What is required is that he (Abbas) leaves us along with his group. It is enough what they have engaged in throughout 23 years (in leadership).”

This is the demand of the general public throughout occupied Palestinian land especially the West Bank, he said. ”The Ramallah authority has insulted our people and made us a laughing stock and has caused havoc in the land and renounced our people's rights and committed many acts our people are not pleased with.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Dr. Ashraf Ezzat: THE EGYPTIAN TORAH

In case you missed it;

On Top of the Ten Reasons East Jerusalem does not belong to Jewish-Israelis: "The Bible Came From Arabia",

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Dr. Ashraf Ezzat: THE EGYPTIAN TORAH

February 19, 2011 posted by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

James Henry Breasted

Why did the ancient Israelites lie about ancient Egypt?

By Dr. Ashraf Ezzat/ Staff Writer

We prefer to define ourselves in terms of where we are going, not where we come from.  Man is so much smarter now than he was before that anything from the past is outdated and irrelevant to us. Our ignorance of the past is not due to a lack of information, but of indifference. We do not believe that history matters.

The concept of history plays a fundamental role in human thought. It raises the possibility of “learning from history” And it suggests the possibility of better understanding ourselves in the present, by understanding the forces, choices, changes and circumstances that brought us to our current situation.  It is therefore unsurprising that historians and philosophers have sometimes turned their attention to efforts to examine history itself and the nature of historical knowledge. These reflections can be grouped together into a body of work called “philosophy of history”

The American historian, archeologist and Egyptologist, James Henry Breasted (1865-1935) is one of those historians who examined history and did not merely stop at the dates and names of predecessors and their recorded events in the remote past but he worked his intellectual chisels way beyond the surfacing appearances and embarked on a deeper journey into the enshrouded historical truth which took him to the then still mystified world of ancient Egypt where he came to discover for the whole world that this where human conscience first emerged in the history of mankind.

Dawn of conscience

In his masterpiece book “Dawn of conscience” Breasted wrote ..

“Like most lads among my boyhood associates I learned the Ten Commandments. I was taught to reverence them because I was assured that they came down from the skies in the hands of Moses, and that obedience to them was therefore sacredly incumbent upon me. I remember that whenever I fibbed I found consolation in the fact that there was no commandment, “Thou shalt not lie”. In later years when I was much older, I began to be troubled by the fact that a code of morals which did not forbid lying seemed imperfect; but it was a long time before I raised the interesting question: How has my own realization of this imperfectation arisen? Where did I myself get the moral yardstick which I discovered this shortcoming in the Decalogue? When that experience began, it was a dark day for my inherited respect for the theological dogma of “revelation.” I had more disquieting experiences before me, when as a young orientalist I found that the Egyptians had possessed a standard of morals far superior to that of the Decalogue over a thousand years before the Decalogue was written”

The after-life

In a book of instructions, Amenemhat, an Egyptian king, advised his son, Sesostris, to attain the highest qualities, because upon his death he will see his whole lifetime in a single instant and his performance on earth will be reviewed and evaluated, by the judges. In recent years, numerous books addressed the near-death experiences of many people. In this phenomenon, it is reported that seeing the person’s whole life span in an instant, is a recurrent theme for all persons with near-death experiences. Death is not the end, but rather it is a transitional state. Such an experience matches exactly the Egyptians’ belief of the afterlife process, which starts with the Day of Judgment where the life of the person is evaluated.

Judgment day

This detail scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer (ca. 1375 B.C.), shows Hunefer's heart being weighed on the scale of Maat against the feather of truth, by the jackal-headed Anubis. The Ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods, records the result. If his heart is lighter than the feather, Hunefer is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If not, he is eaten by the waiting chimeric devouring creature Ammut composed of the deadly crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead

Ancient Egyptians were the first to believe in a day of judgment. According to the recorded rituals, the spirit of the deceased denied committing each sin/fault before its assigned judge, by reciting the forty-two negative confessions (analogous to the famed Ten Commandments). A lot of historians and Egyptologists believe that the Ten Commandments were transcribed by the Israelites from These Egyptian negative confessions which come from The Book of the Coming Forth by Day (commonly and wrongly known as The Book of the Dead.)

In the judgment of the dead the heart, as a metaphor for conscience, is weighed against the feather of truth, to determine the fate of the deceased. The seated God of afterlife —Ausar (Osiris)—presides in the Hall of Justice. The jury consists of 42 judges/jurors. Each judge has a specific jurisdiction over a specific sin or fault; each wears a feather of truth on his/her head. The assigned juror/judge will declare his/her acceptance of the deceased following his reading of the 42 negative confessions by declaring Maa-Kheru (True of Voice/Action).

Tehuti (Thoth), scribe of the neteru (gods), records the verdict, as Anbu (Anubis) weighs the heart against the feather of truth. The outcome is either:
If the pans are not balanced, this means that this person lived simply as matter. As a result, Amam (Ammit) would eat this heart. Amam is a protean crossbreed. The unperfected soul will be reborn again (reincarnated) in a new physical vehicle (body), in order to provide the soul an opportunity for further development on earth. This cycle of life/death/renewal continues until the soul is perfected, by fulfilling the 42 Negative Confessions, during his life on earth. This if you have not noticed is reincarnation.

If the two pans are perfectly balanced, Ausar/Osiris gives favorable judgment, and gives his final Maa-Kheru (True of Voice). The perfected soul will go through the process of transformation and the subsequent rebirth. The outcome of his/her evaluation will determine which heavenly level (2-6) a person reaches.
By maintaining the conditions of the physical vehicle, the body mummifeid, the soul was able to continue its existence in the unknown world of the Duat. As a result, the soul was eventually capable of working towards its own resurrection, and thence, excluding the necessity of another physical reincarnation. The perfected soul will go through the process of transformation, and as the Egyptian writing describes it, “becomes a star (goes to Heaven) and joins the company of Ra, and sails with him across the sky in his boat of millions of years”.

“Though thou goest, thou comest again.
though thou sleepest, thou wakest again
though thou diest, thou livest again”
                                                         verses from the Egyptian funerary texts

The “negative confessions”

from the Papyrus of Ani

 The Declaration of Innocence from the Book of the Dead
Translated by E.A. Wallis Budgec.1240 BCE

 Hail, Usekh-nemmt, who comest forth from Anu, I have not committed sin.Hail, Hept-khet, who comest forth from Kher-aha, I have not committed robbery with violence.Hail, Fenti, who comest forth from Khemenu, I have not stolen.Hail, Am-khaibit, who comest forth from Qernet, I have not slain men and women.Hail, Neha-her, who comest forth from Rasta, I have not stolen grain.Hail, Ruruti, who comest forth from heaven, I have not purloined offerings.Hail, Arfi-em-khet, who comest forth from Suat, I have not stolen the property of God.Hail, Neba, who comest and goest, I have not uttered lies.Hail, Set-qesu, who comest forth from Hensu, I have not carried away food.Hail, Utu-nesert, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have not uttered curses.Hail, Qerrti, who comest forth from Amentet, I have not committed adultery, I have not lain with men.Hail, Her-f-ha-f, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have made none to weep.Hail, Basti, who comest forth from Bast, I have not eaten the heart.Hail, Ta-retiu, who comest forth from the night, I have not attacked any man.Hail, Unem-snef, who comest forth from the execution chamber, I am not a man of deceit.
Hail, Unem-besek, who comest forth from Mabit, I have not stolen cultivated land.Hail, Neb-Maat, who comest forth from Maati, I have not been an eavesdropper.Hail, Tenemiu, who comest forth from Bast, I have not slandered [no man].Hail, Sertiu, who comest forth from Anu, I have not been angry without just cause.Hail, Tutu, who comest forth from Ati, I have not debauched the wife of any man.Hail, Uamenti, who comest forth from the Khebt chamber, I have not debauched the wife of [any] man.Hail, Maa-antuf, who comest forth from Per-Menu, I have not polluted myself.Hail, Her-uru, who comest forth from Nehatu, I have terrorized none.Hail, Khemiu, who comest forth from Kaui, I have not transgressed [the law].Hail, Shet-kheru, who comest forth from Urit, I have not been wroth.Hail, Nekhenu, who comest forth from Heqat, I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.Hail, Kenemti, who comest forth from Kenmet, I have not blasphemed.Hail, An-hetep-f, who comest forth from Sau, I am not a man of violence.Hail, Sera-kheru, who comest forth from Unaset, I have not been a stirrer up of strife.Hail, Neb-heru, who comest forth from Netchfet, I have not acted with undue haste.Hail, Sekhriu, who comest forth from Uten, I have not pried into matters.
Hail, Neb-abui, who comest forth from Sauti, I have not multiplied my words in speaking.Hail, Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have wronged none, I have done no evil.
Hail, Tem-Sepu, who comest forth from Tetu, I have not worked witchcraft against the king.Hail, Ari-em-ab-f, who comest forth from Tebu, I have never stopped [the flow of] water.Hail, Ahi, who comest forth from Nu, I have never raised my voice.Hail, Uatch-rekhit, who comest forth from Sau, I have not cursed God.Hail, Neheb-ka, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not acted with arrogance.Hail, Neheb-nefert, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not stolen the bread of the gods.Hail, Tcheser-tep, who comest forth from the shrine, I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the Spirits of the dead.Hail, An-af, who comest forth from Maati, I have not snatched away the bread of the child, nor treated with contempt the god of my city.Hail, Hetch-abhu, who comest forth from Ta-she, I have not slain the cattle belonging to the god.

Conclusion

Breasted concluded in his book “It is now quite evident that the ripe social and moral development of mankind in the Nile Valley, which is three thousand years older than that of the Hebrews, contributed essentially to the formation of the literature which we call the Old Testament. Our moral heritage therefore derives from a wider human past enormously older than the Hebrews, and it has come to us rather through the Hebrews rather than from them”

But then, why ancient Egypt was portrayed in the israelite holy scriptures as the seeds of all things evil and immoral while history is telling us a different and truer story . And if modern history and archeology have refuted the inaccurate Israelite narrative about Egypt, including the exodus, what does that say of the accuracy of the overall narrative of the Old Testament? Why did we follow the alleged Israelite Exodus out of such a refined and morally elevated civilization?
Even more why did the ancient Israelites lie about ancient Egypt?  Ancient Egypt, the land where man first learned to discern between right and wrong, where the God of truth resided and where uttering lies was conceived as a grave sin.
For more articles by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat visit his website:http://ashraf62.wordpress.com/
Related articles:

- DR. ASHRAF EZZAT: Power to The People of Historic Egypt

- Dr. Ashraf Ezzat: Egypt to Central Park: We Want Cleopatra’s Needle Back

- The exodus from Egyptology

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How Zionism infiltrated the US [EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

MCS

- 20. Feb, 2011

Mark Bruzonsky, a Jewish, American Scholar and Journalist, has been a key member behind the scenes of the Israeli Palestinian peace initiative in the 1980s, meeting with Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and with Palestinian officials.

Interview with Scholar and Journalist, Mark Bruzonsky



In this exclusive interview with Press TV’s Autograph, Mr. Bruzonsky talks about the challenges and missed opportunities he witnessed first-hand, and how Zionist groups infiltrated American politics, US institutions and organizations.

He goes further to explain the specific time and day Obama sold out to the AIPAC (American- Israeli Public Affairs Committee) lobby, and how President Obama would never dare oppose the stronghold of the Zionist, Israeli Lobby in the US.

Press TV: In 1982, Mr. Bruzonsky, you authored the Paris Declaration- a breakthrough event that greatly contributed to political developments of the time. Please tell us about that.

Bruzonsky: In the 1980s, in a sense, a lot of us knew there was this political cancer; it was very bad, it was eating up the patient and needed to be dealt with and cured. I was in Paris sitting in a hotel room, a big event in my life, with four very important people – I was there to do the work and write the document.
These people were the former president of France – Pierre Mendis France; the founder of the World Zionist Organization and the World Jewish Congress – Nahem Goldman; his successor, who was the only Jewish leader in America who had ever been president of B’nai Brith and World Jewish Congress and Secretary of Commerce. The man who inspired it was the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Isam Sartawi, the head of the PLO in Europe. They signed this document called the Paris Declaration, I wrote it and it was on the entire front page of Le Monde newspaper; Arafat responded and that was on the front page also.

But then we ran out of steam. The organizations that had founded were not willing to even entertain a discussion on what they had signed; they disassociated themselves from the people who founded their own organizations.

So then the Donahue show asked me to be on their show. The Donahue TV show was the only talk show in America at that time, there was no other competition and I went on it after no other Jewish leaders would accept to go on the program. The timing of the show was pre-intifada, pre-apartheid and there were very few Israeli settlements on Palestine occupied land at the time and the discussion was all about how to bring peace to the region. The two-state solution (with ‘Solution’ emphasized) was in fact a possible solution – it wasn’t going to be totally fair, the Palestinians were going to get a small piece of territory compared to their homeland, but at least there was a lot of support from political people to make it happen. That world is gone. The two-state solution is now dead with the possible exception that you would have to roll back a tremendous number of things that have happened; that’s not going to happen.

The reason that is not going to happen is not because President Obama is not a smart man, not because he doesn’t know that cancer has gotten a lot worse; he knows all that. He also knows that politically he is totally blocked. There is no way in the world he can come up against the Israeli Jewish lobby and their great group of institutions, personalities and foundations – no way. He knows it.

So he continues to talk the language of two-state solution, but that’s largely to keep Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) from being totally discredited.

Press TV: During his inaugural as US president reports were circulating that his administration was going to move away from the Bush doctrine of rejecting Hamas into talks. Where does Hamas stand in the equation? Can there even be talks with the Palestinians when Hamas is sidelined?

Bruzonsky: In my cable TV program that I ended in 2003 I interviewed Musa Abu Marsuk the No.2 leader in Hamas. He was in New York under arrest at the time. I think it was 1996 and the Israeli Jewish lobby got the congress to pass a law outlawing Hamas and so Abu Marsuk, who was living in America as a successful businessman, was imprisoned. I got permission to interview him and do three reality TV programs. I don’t think the Obama people ever said anything positive about Hamas; I think they did say they were going to re-invigorate the peace process – but those are just words, slogans, the devil is in the detail and all that meant was that we (the US) are going to say they have to stop building settlements.

Well, Obama made a joke and a fool out of himself. Didn’t anyone tell what was going to happen the moment he tried to get the Israelis to stop building settlements? There is a whole history that goes back to Camp David and US President Carter who also told the world that he had got the Israelis to agree to stop settlements and then the Israelis at that time made a fool out of that president by saying they had discussed freezing settlements, but only for 90 days. And then after that they escalated their program and we now live in the world we live in.

The story of how Obama became president, how he got support is important here. Obama is a different kind of president and we were all relieved. It was very embarrassing for eight years and more so for people throughout the world that suffered and were being killed by a US president who frankly (it’s not said in Washington and it’s not the kind of thing said at meetings, but many of us consider them as war criminals and we consider Chaney and Bush; they fit the definition of war criminals).

When Obama ran for president he stood for human rights, he was bright and principled, but then during the campaign certain things happened.
First of all the top financiers of the Democratic Party half of them are Jewish and almost all of those are quite Zionist and quite involved with the Israelis. At the time when Hilary Clinton and Obama were competing for support AIPAC had its annual convention. On that day Obama gave a speech and he gave more than what was expected. Lee Hamilton who was on Obama’s advisory board said to me that he went too far – he shouldn’t have said what he said about Jerusalem – we’re going to be correcting it. After the speech, behind the scenes, he was taken to meet the Board of Directors of AIPAC. Rahm Israel Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff escorted him upstairs to the hotel room.

This is very unusual, presidency candidates don’t usually get interviewed by boards of directors like this, but AIPAC is different. The way the Israeli community signaled that they were going to support Obama, without actually announcing that they had even had a meeting with him, was to have Rahm endorse Obama. So a few hours later Rahm came out in public and did that, which was the signal to the rest of us that Obama had made his peace with this lobby and that he wasn’t going to be able to do anything they weren’t going to approve of.

Press TV: You mentioned that it was well-known to you that the Arab-Israeli conflict will be political cancer if it was not resolved, and at this point it has become the cancer that you mentioned. What has been the main obstacle of not reaching a solution?

Bruzonsky: America is the super power – American money; American arms; American UN vetos; American military support at critical times. The Israelis took a decision way back in the 1940s – and it goes back to the holocaust and back to Jewish impotence; there’s lots of factors it’s not black and white. It was a powerless community, I was part of it – born into a family that my mother and father would tell me we lost all of our relatives nobody knows where they are or they were all killed or maybe some escaped to what had become Israel.

The US has prevented a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict because the Israelis set up such powerful institutions, lobbies, publications, personalities and control in various ways of political parties and of the media making it impossible for American leaders to do what they knew they should do to solve this cancer; and it goes way back to General Marshall the secretary of state. When President Truman told Marshall that he was going to accept a Jewish state, Marshall was going to resign saying it’s not in the interests of the US it is going to be war, which we won’t be able to end; it’s going to get worse; it’s going to unleash forces we won’t be able to control – he was exactly right.

At every critical moment since: Eisenhower tried to do things in the 1950s, carter tried to do things in the 1970s, but they were blocked. There are plenty of books and academic information about this.

The Israelis then realized since they had control of the US, and Sharon said it bluntly back in 2001, he and Peres had a little debate in a cabinet meeting and the word that leaked out from that meeting was that Peres said that we’ve got to be careful, the Americans aren’t happy with what we’re doing and Sharon said stop worrying about the Americans we control things in America, I’ll take care of things there don’t worry about it. – And he was right.

I’ve been watching all this. I did a lot of traveling for a lot of years through the Middle East while the US has been my home base; and it’s been outrageous.

Bruzonsky: I was a kid journalist just out of school. The Egyptian Embassy in Washington read something I had written. It was a movie review about a film called, “Children of Rage.” And they called me and said it was very interesting and asked if I would like to be the first Jewish journalist that has ever been invited by our government. Of course I said yes. So I went for three weeks and I met everybody: the Foreign Minister, the Minister of State, and then they said to me that they knew the three weeks were up but they wanted me to stay longer because the President wanted to meet with me. And they were so surprised when I said I could stay one more day, but I really have other places I have to go. So I said to thank him so much and it was a great honor and so nice to meet all of them, and I took off.

I went to Oman and then I went to Israel. There was going to be a big peace conference and you will see the connections in just a minute. There was going to be this big peace conference. So I get to Israel and I go to the new outlet magazine, which was sponsoring the conference and George Ball, the most important under Secretary of State, the man who helped resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis was going to be the speaker. And they said to me Mark where have you been. And I said I’ve just been to Egypt. I said I’m here because they wanted me to stay and meet the President but I’m at your peace conference. And they said oh my god don’t you know what has happened. And I didn’t because I had been traveling and it wasn’t like you could tune in to Al-Jazeera in those days. They said the President gave a speech and said he is willing to go anywhere and do anything to bring peace. They said you were supposed to have a meeting with him, and I said yes.

I was in Israel for about six hours. They gave me a whole bunch of cash and wrote a letter and said Mark go back to Cairo and meet the President and invite him to come to our peace conference. So later I’m sitting with the President of Egypt and am given him this invitation, and he was asking me about my three weeks in his country. So there I am and it’s a little hard for me to believe that I’m sitting with the President of Egypt all alone. Maybe forty to fifty feet away there is someone from the Minister of the Interior or somebody to protect, but he can’t even hear he was so far away. And I was so disappointed because at the end of the meeting which was very nice he said I’m very sorry but I will not be able to come to your peace conference. Then I suppose I was just looking sad. I don’t remember saying anything. But he said I have decided I will send a telegram to this conference. And I already knew that leaders in the Arab world do not send telegrams to Israel. I had never heard of such a thing. There wasn’t a procedure. I figured it was just his way of being polite to me. I literally had to leave on the first flight in the morning, and I went to a travel agent that was recommended to me, but at the moment I whispered Israel it was don’t say anther word about Israel.

We can’t talk about Israel and there is no way we can get you to Israel. He said first flight in the morning goes to Athens and that is all I can do. So I said okay and I’m on my flight to Athens. I’m dog tired and I’m half asleep. I traveled so much in those days the moment anybody asked me anything I would say orange juice and English. When I woke up on the plane, there was this newspaper in front of me, The Egyptian Gazette. And I wasn’t sure if was hallucinating or dreaming because as my eyes cleared I said good god that’s me. There is this big picture of me and Sadat on the front page at the top of the paper. But there was no story. It was just Journalist Mark Bruzonsky meets President Sadat. There was no story; no nothing. A day later I’m called aside by the Chairman of the conference. He said Mark in one hour there is a press conference and all the media will be here.

You have to come sit up front and you have to tell everybody about your meeting with the President. And I said what’s going on, what’s going on. He said you know the office is closed but we are all at the hotel. We sent somebody back to get some papers and under the door is this telegram. It wasn’t just oh, hope you had a nice conference. It was a whole page of the importance of peace to the region and what this conflict has done. It was a very long statement which I learned later was written for him. And for 24 hours I was the guy who met the President! It was I that had arranged this telegram and then on Thursday morning came the unbelievable announcement. The President of Egypt arrives to Israel on Shabbat (Saturday) as soon as the sun goes down. And it’s like something out of some dream, as people starting arriving within hours. A press center was set up in almost minutes. There were free phones. Anybody could pick up a phone and call anywhere. And on Saturday night he arrived and I went to the airport with the Egyptian press delegation. We all thought the world was going to change now.
The Israelis would feel accepted, the Palestinians would have their homeland, for at the time it was called a homeland and we weren’t even talking about a state. Then unfortunately everything started to deteriorate, and three years later Sadat was assassinated and it has been downhill ever since.

Press TV: So the postphonement on the decision on settlements led to the fact that it termed from an occupation issue in the eyes of the international community, and everyone who was observing the settlement issues thought it was a contested issue. At that point the issue of settlement could be contested after Oslo. Before that it was an occupation and it wasn’t even discussed.

Bruzonsky: Once the Israelis got the PA (Abbas was the man who actually signed the document) at the White House. Once that got them to sign this agreement and become their collaborating regime without having to agree to stop the settlements. That’s symbolic. If the Israelis weren’t going to stop enlarging the occupation, how could we possibly consider this a major step on the way to a peace settlement? So it was the symbolism of it. Not the actual settlement here or there. The Israelis never intended to stop the settlements.

Rabin in my judgment never attended for what he was signing to end up being a Palestinian state. For them it was autonomy we packaged under different names and they were hiring Arafat and his people to control the Palestinian people. That of course is the origin of the growth of Hamas because many non-religious people and many who had been supporters of Fatah and of more secular things decided we are going to support Hamas. At least they are honest and dignified. At least they have principals and are not corrupt. And Fatah has sold us out. That’s the origins of how in 2006 Hamas was elected.

Press TV: I’m going to dare ask this question to wrap up. Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Bruzonsky: It’s a very long, dark tunnel now but hopefully saner, wiser policies will prevail down the road. And we can’t afford this anymore. Our own empire is collapsing financially, morally, and spiritually in terms of the credibility of American institutions. We don’t feel it so much in Washington, but around the country, the Tea Party and the other movements is representative of a feeling that our future is dissolving in our place in the world, and our standard of living and what we are providing for our children. There is big conflict here and we don’t have the resources to continue these policies even if you want to argue the policies are right.

Press TV: Mark Bruzonsky, thank you very much for joining us on the Autograph.

Bruzonsky: Thank you Susan.

NM/PKH
Mark Bruzonsky holds dual advanced degrees in international affairs and law from Princeton University and New York University where he was a Root-Tilden Scholar. He is a journalist and international affairs consultant and the publisher of MiddleEast.org as well as the now under development WashReport.  He writes and speaks frequently about world affairs, U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, the underlying realities of policy-making in Washington, and U.S.-Israeli relations. [Read more]

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