Hamas: Mabhouh was assassinated by the Israeli occupation

PIC

[ 29/01/2010 - 11:56 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Izzat al-Resheq, member of Hamas's political bureau, said on Friday morning that the Zionist enemy was behind the assassination, on 20 January, of one of the movement leaders in Dubai, stressing that the blood of martyrs will not go in vain and will be a curse that haunts the occupation.

Resheq told PIC that the body of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh arrived at Damascus airport at a late hour on Thursday night where he will be buried after the Friday prayers.

He added that the movement along with the concerned authorities in the United Arab Emirates were investigating the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Mabhouh.

Resheq said that the martyr was a founder of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and that he was behind the capture of two Israeli occupation soldiers, Ilan Sa'doun and Avi Sbourts to exchange them for Palestinian captives in occupation jails.

Hamas: Israel Assassinated a Senior Hamas Commander in Dubai

QB: Assassination of Mabhouh won’t pass unpunished

[ 29/01/2010 - 08:22 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas Movement in occupied Palestine, has officially accused Friday the Israeli occupation of assassinating Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of QB, in Dubai city in the UAE Wednesday last week, vowing the crime won’t pass unpunished.

In a brief statement it issued, the Brigades revealed it would publish details of the investigations it had conducted in coordination with the concerned authorities in the UAE.

The QB mourned its leader and vowed to avenge the killing “in the proper time and place”, vowing not to relax the path of resistance and to continue on the path of martyr Mabhouh.

Mabhouh was the first Palestinian resistance fighter to have his home demolished by the Israeli occupation during the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987.

There were many attempts to assassinate him while he was in the Gaza Strip and after he left.


River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

All those Holocauts !!

Frustrated Arab's Diary

Gaza ??......... or Jennin ??
what is
the race or religion of Fascism ??

When someone has survived 
the Nazi´s Holocaust,does this allow him, now,
to make his own ??

When the Holocaust were to have been exaggerated,
the massacres of the Palestinians are not !!

Gaza is not , exactly , the Warsaw-Ghetto
but a slower-starvation is worse than a fast one !!

Sabra,Chatilla , Jennin and Deir Yassin
are not Dachau, nor Treblinka nor Mathhausen
bu all kind of deaths give us the same results:
death !

Palestinians are starving since 61 years
while the Nazi-Holocaust lasted 5 years
and has ended since 64 years !!

 

Should we not condemn all the Holocausts

and
Should we not , first of all,
 stop the on-going-Holocaust  ??


Raja Chemayel

Posted by Тлакскала at 11:34 PM 2 comments Links to this post 

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

'2010 Will See Us Beat the Occupation'

Almanar

28/01/2010 The recent clashes in the Ramallah-adjacent village of Nabi Saleh, which is the newest addition to the list of confrontation locales between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank, are bolstering the position of those fighting against the separation fence.

Tuesday saw the Ofer Military Court arraign the 14 protestors arrested in the latest clash – including a 14-year-old teen, two women and a member of the Naalin village committee.

The village of Naalin, also near Ramallah, is the stage of near-weekly clashes between military forces, local residents and left-wing activists supporting them.

All detainees, but one, were released on their own recognizance. Another group of detainees will be arraigned on Thursday.

But while the clashed in Naalin and the West Bank village of Bilin focus on the route of the constructed fence, the riots in Nabi Saleh are of a different nature and the protests' initiators claim that as a result of their effort, security forces are now truly concerned that the violent protests may find their way to other locations in the West Bank.

The fight, said Muhammad Khatib – who is considered by many the protests' leader – "has proven itself in Bilin and Naalin and has become a model that goes beyond the boundaries of the West Bank. Thousands arrive (at the villages) to take part in our demonstrations."

Khatib, a senior Bilin councilman, added that much of the effort "is geared towards turning international pressure on Israel. Our activists have beaten Israeli propaganda with photos of them beaten and injured while being arrested during demonstrations."

Khatib believes that "the fight will soon spread further, partially because of frustration over the political standstill, but mostly because of the settlers' badgering and the fact that the Israeli army does nothing to stop it."

Khatib told Ynet he believes that his people will be able to stir the entire area by the end of the year. "We are on the eve of an intifada," he predicted. "The resistance will spread, like it did in the (1987) Intifada, but this one will be much more creative.

"We're positive 2010 will see us beat the occupation. We see it in the fact that the Israeli military is nervous about the fact that it can't curb (the protest)."

Khatib and the anti-separation fence committee, with the help of some international groups, are also trying to promote various worldwide bans against Israel. "International groups that support us help fund detainees' legal fees. It's a prominent tool in the fight against the occupation," he said.

Israel, he continued, has hardened its policies against rioters arrested in the West Bank, and Israeli troops have become more violent. "There are nightly raids and arrests," he said, adding that 34 people have been arrested since last June and that since December, the Israeli occupation army has carried out 16 nightly raids in Naalin alone.


River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

From Haiti to Gaza.....and from Zionism to Abbas

Frustrated Arab's Diary

 

 The Mummy of Ramallah

 I switched on ,today, my TV

and I saw some soldiers in Haiti

preventing the hungry population

of looting some already destroyed supermarket.

The same soldiers were shown later on

distributing first-aid food-rations

to that same population.. ...

which was forbidden to loot the lost and destroyed Supermarket.

 I wonder what difference is there

between Gaza and Haiti ?? today . 

The Earthquake of Haiti could be compared to Israel

and the absurd task of the Haitian-soldiers,

could be compared to the role of  the Egyptian-Regime

who wants to prove and to confirm its criminal-absurdness .

As for that destroyed and useless supermarket in Haiti ,

it is, as absurd and as useless as , the Zionist-ideology.

A Mummy of a Pharaoh is and remains a dead person

whether it is mummified or not......... ...

Zionism has died when the sun has risen on the Truth

so why keeping Zionism mummified or alive artificially ???

Why mummifying Zionism, Mr. Abbas and Mr. Mubarak ??

If you want peace....... get for yourself ,first , a victory !!

Raja Chemayel

Posted by Тлакскала at 11:32 PM

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

"Together we can end this occupation"

Link
Jody McIntyre writing from Beit Hanoun, occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 29 January 2010

Saber Zanin volunteering in an orchard. (Beit Hanoun Local Initiative)

The Israeli military recently dropped hundreds of leaflets warning Palestinian residents from the village of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip not to travel within 300 meters of the border -- the distance of Israel's so-called "buffer zone." In response, local activists marched to and nonviolently demonstrated inside the "buffer zone" against the illegal action. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently spoke with demonstration organizer Saber Zanin.

Jody McIntyre: Can you tell us about yourself?

Saber Zanin: My name is Saber Zanin. I am 31 years old, living in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. I am a Palestinian who loves life, peace, justice and equal rights for all.

I come from a poor family, around 20 of us in all, from Beit Hanoun. In November 2006, our house, the house I lived in my whole life, was completely destroyed by Israeli air strikes, and then by a tank which came to finish the job. We don't know why they chose to target our home, but this is an example of the collective punishment we face living in Gaza.

I had the idea to create a group of volunteers, to work together in the local community, to resist Israel's occupation through nonviolent methods, and to encourage others to do the same. In September 2007, the "Local Initiative" was formed. Rather than relying on governmental institutions or foreign agencies, we work in a personal capacity, and rely on ourselves for everything we need. Altogether the group now consists of around 60 young men and women, from 17-35 years of age, and although we have no political affiliation, we all agree on socialist principles of helping those most in need, and on each individual's freedom to express their own views.

The group works with all sections of society: women, children, people with disabilities and teenagers. In particular, we give priority to the farmers and residents working and living in the so-called "buffer zone." As a group, we visit the residents and offer them aid brought by charities to Gaza (although this is small in amount, and limited in effect) for nothing in return, and we accompany the farmers who continue to work on their land, despite regularly being shot at by the Israeli military for doing so. We also work with the young kids in their area, taking them presents, playing games with them and making parties for them, as well as practicalities such as not going out onto the street in certain areas.

The people living in the "buffer zone" are the foundation of the Local Initiative. If there are any farmers who want help working on their land, we will go to help them. We have also organized protests against Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank and the "buffer zone."

We are always looking for ways to encourage others to join us in our popular resistance against the occupation, and as part of this we try to teach the local community about the human rights they possess: the right to freedom of expression, the right to live freely, the right to an education, to work, to health care, and to a home. We want people to know about their rights so that when they are taken away from them, they will fight for them.

JM: As someone who used to participate in armed resistance against the occupation, what made you adopt nonviolent resistance?

SZ: Any occupied people have the right to resist, and Palestinians are occupied by the Israelis. It is our fundamental right to resist against this occupation. I used to participate in armed resistance, but armed resistance isn't everything. I am convinced that popular resistance, and protesting against the occupation through nonviolent methods, can actually achieve more than armed resistance, by gaining the sympathy and support for our struggle from people around the world. When we go to protest against Israel's wall in the occupied West Bank, as they do in the villages of Bilin and Nilin, and now here in Beit Hanoun in Gaza as well, we have international activists marching with us, and the whole world is watching. Our demonstrations are nonviolent, so the Israeli army has no excuse to shoot at us and to kill us. I believe that this is one of the noblest ways of protesting against the occupation.

Last week, the Israeli military dropped hundreds of leaflets near the "buffer zone," instructing residents not to go within 300 meters of the border. We reject this illegal de facto land grab, and in response organized a march to the "buffer zone" on Monday [11 January]. The march was under the slogan: "With popular resistance, we challenge the decisions of the Israeli occupiers." We protested against the occupation through nonviolent means.

We will now be marching to the "buffer zone" every Monday. We will not be intimidated by the Israeli army's threat, and we will never give up until the occupation is over.

JM: How can people living abroad support your struggle?

SZ: As we move into the new year, the Local Initiative is in urgent need of funds, in order to continue supporting the families living in the "buffer zone," and to purchase materials in order to document the ongoing crimes of the Israeli occupation forces.

We truly hope that activists from around the world will support us. They could also write in the media against Israel's crimes, organize demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy -- some governments have even expelled the Israeli ambassador! In the UK an arrest warrant was issued for Tzipi Livni for the war crimes she committed against the people of Gaza, and this should serve as an inspiration for others to follow. Together, we can end this occupation.

Jody McIntyre is a journalist from the United Kingdom, currently living in Beit Lahiya in the occupied Gaza Strip. Jody has cerebral palsy, and travels in a wheelchair. He writes a blog for Ctrl.Alt.Shift, entitled "Life on Wheels," which can be found at www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk. To contact Jody, and for more information about the Local Initiative, email jody.mcintyre AT gmail DOT com.
River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

What to call it ??

Frustraited Arab's Diary

the right-Jew... .. !!

If it has no name yet , call it
" Al Kayda"

If it suits your propaganda ,call it
 "Terrorism"

If it boost your weapons-industries , call it
" Global War of Terrorism"

If it allows you to invade Iraq, call it
" Weapons of Mass Destruction"

If it helps electing you as President , call it
" time for a real-change"

If it legalises your occupation of a country , call it
"God gave this land to me"

If it hides your inborn racism , say:

" God has chosen us" (but not them)

If you already are, anyhow, an ugly-monster , say :
"They hate us for what we are "

If you want to collect the insurance money , say :
" they blew-up the Twin-towers"

If you want to fool any believer , say
"in God we trust"

If you want to loose again our time , say :
" We are committed to Peace"

If you want Israel to be safer bigger and stronger ,

say :
" we support the Arab-moderate- leaders"

And ,

if you do want to boycott Cubaand especialy ,the Cuban-cigars  :
Do not smoke it ,
 just sit on it !!

Raja Chemayel

call me what you wish !
But ,in the meantime ,I keep my gun , at reach ....

 

Posted by Тлакскала at 11:26 PM 0 comments Links to this post

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

"Our community is at risk": An interview with Ittijah's Ameer Makhoul

The Electronic Intifada,

Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 29 January 2010

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Ameer Makhoul (Adri Nieuwhof)

Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community Based Associations, was founded in 1995 in response to a widely felt need for increased cooperation and exchange between Palestinian Arab organizations in Israel. Ittijah's member organizations are engaged in a variety of issues from human rights to social and economic development as well as culture and the arts. The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof recently interviewed Ameer Makhoul, the general director of Ittijah.

Adri Nieuwhof: Please introduce yourself and Ittijah.

Ameer Makhoul: I am the general director of Ittijah, the network of Palestinian civil society organizations within the borders of Israel. Ittijah unites the majority of the organizations of the Palestinians who remained in the homeland. One major goal is to organize Palestinian community efforts in the context of creating unity among Palestinians. We have succeeded in uniting 81 Palestinian no-governmental organizations from around the whole country. I also chair the Palestinian Committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms in Israel that was founded in 2003 in response to increasing political persecutions. The committee is composed of civil society organizations and all of the Palestinian political parties in Israel.

AN: What is life like for the Palestinian community inside Israel?

AM: I would say our community is the most organized compared to other Palestinian communities. Our community is at risk because of the systematic, colonial, racist practices and policies of Israel [imposed] to weaken this group and to try to disconnect it from the other Palestinian communities. I witness an increase in our role in the debate about how to obtain our rights as a community and as a people. At the same time, the Israeli persecution increases. There are attempts to delegitimize our work and to disconnect us morally from our homeland and from the responsibility we feel for our homeland. Israel uses its legal system and its laws on citizenship and loyalty to the Jewish state to achieve this. Even having contacts with the outside world can be considered illegal. Any speech or essay can be judged by Israel law as illegal or as a sign of maintaining relationships with the enemy. Israel is a Jewish state, it is not our state. So we Palestinians are marginalized and delegitimized by this society. And Israeli policy is that we have to accept this.

AN: Do you see parallels between the conditions of Palestinians in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and the Diaspora?

AM: I always see the connection, always. Look at the nature of Israel. They make this connection, but they do not allow us to make it. For example, the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was not for peace; it served the campaign for a Jewish state. Israel wants to influence the demographic balance by Judaizing the Galilee [region of northern Israel], the Negev and East Jerusalem. Most of the Palestinians live in those places. There is a right of return for Jews, but our right for return is blocked by Israel.

Israel's projects in Nazareth Illit and Maale Adumin [in the occupied West Bank] are aimed at the same goal: to disconnect the Palestinian population, to gain control over Palestinian land. The infrastructure of the Palestinian people must be destroyed. The aim has not changed since 1948. We Palestinians in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Diaspora are facing the same nature of policies. All of us have a lack of control over our sovereignty, our land and our education. And now with the new legislation on loyalty we have a lack of control over our thinking and even our feelings.

AN: You attended a court hearing on 13 January in the case against Sheikh Raed Salah. Can you tell us about the case and the hearing?

AM: Sheikh Raed Salah is the leader of the largest Palestinian extraparliamentary movement in Israel, the Islamic movement. He is a very active, credible and highly respected leader. The movement's al-Aqsa Association aims to protect religious property of both Muslim and Christian all around the historic Palestine and in particular in East Jerusalem. They revealed plans for the construction of a synagogue and archaeological plans around the al-Aqsa mosque. Sheikh Raed made it difficult to implement these policies and was involved in protests against home demolitions and home evictions. He and other leaders of the movement received orders from the Israeli military not to come to Jerusalem. Sheikh Raed Salah was accused of attacking a policeman -- by spitting on him -- during one of the campaigns in occupied East Jerusalem. Bishop Atala Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Church attended the court hearing, as did leaders of all other political parties. I also attended. The verdict was nine months imprisonment and six months suspended sentence. The justification was that the sheikh does not recognize Israel's sovereignty in East Jerusalem, which Israel considers as its capital. But under international law it is occupied territory.

AN: Are Palestinian youth in Israel actively involved in improving their situation?

AM: Yes, and three youth organizations are members of Ittijah. Youth are targeted by Israel. Israel wants to disconnect Israeli Arabs from the Palestinian cause, homeland and history. [Israeli President] Shimon Peres and others say that we should "forget about the past." But he is looking back millennia to try to justify the Zionist enterprise, to claim Israel as "my father's land." The last year more than 1,000 youth were invited by the Shabak, the Israeli security agency, and were interrogated and intimidated for hours. Israel does not want Palestinian youth to be active. Family is used to put pressure on them. The message is to choose your career, perform civic services and become an informant for the Shabak. I call it state terror.

Israel has a system of compulsory military service. Serving in the army gives certain benefits in life, for example loans, housing, etc. By law Palestinians are not called to perform this military service. Thus Palestinians in Israel are excluded from these benefits. Yet members of the ultra orthodox religious groups who do not serve in the army still enjoy these benefits automatically as Jews. At the same time, Palestinian Druze Arabs who must perform compulsory full military service are treated as Palestinians in terms of rights. This is racial discrimination. Above all the most colonial and racist law in Israel is the law of return and law of citizenship which is the basis for all discrimination.

AN: How do you think this institutional discrimination can be challenged?

AM: Israel is pushing the Palestinian community to a big confrontation, in order to harm the whole community. We must look at the whole of the Palestinian community since 1948. We need to include the 1.4 million Palestinian people living in Israel in our efforts for just solution. The international community looks at us as part of the Israeli problem. International solidarity should be based on the root causes of the problem, meaning the situation since 1948, which includes Palestinians inside Israel.

Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant based in Switzerland.

The indigenous Olive-trees

Fustraited Arab's Diary

 

 An Icon,for a symbol, of a tragedy.

What is wrong with olive trees ?Why does the Israeli army cut them off ??

I wonder why olive trees are hated and bannedby this "most humane army",,,,,,, ,,,,

No army in history ,

regardless of its degree of civilisation,

has destroyed so much and so often Olive-Trees ,

as much as those grand-children- of-Attila the Hun.

Could it be that those Olive-Trees perhaps are ;

anti-Semite ?

anti- Jews?

anti- Zionist?

terrorists?

Muslim-fanatics?

al Kayda in disguise ??

Hamas- members ??

Hidden-Swiss- Minarets ??

DFLP or PFLP fighters ?

Hezbollah-sympathis ers ??

or simply because those trees are indigenous ??

(while the Israelis are not !!!)

To my knowledge ,

neither  Abraham , nor Moses

nor Jesus , nor Mohammad

have ever prohibited olive-trees.

But obviously ,

the Israelis have nothing to do

with either four of them .

Beside that ,

The Olive trees carry a lot of Olive-branches

which cannot be useful ,  for any criminal-projects.

Raja Chemayel

who never believed in Olive-branches ,

nor in any other Fairy-tales , anyhow.

Posted by Тлакскала at 11:21 PM 0 comments Links to this post

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Resheq: The IOA wanted deportation deal not prisoners’ swap deal

PIC

[ 29/01/2010 - 06:36 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Izzat Al-Resheq, member of Hamas’s political bureau, said on Thursday that the Israeli occupation authority put the German mediator in an embarrassing situation after it reneged on earlier obligations it made to the Germans regarding the prisoners’ swap deal.

He explained that Hamas Movement informed the German mediator its amenability to initially releasing 270 of the 450 captives it had demanded and who serve now long imprisonment terms in Israeli jails, and accepted to deportation of 80-86 of the West Bank on the list to the Gaza Strip as the Germans requested based on Israeli suggestions.

However, Resheq pointed out, the IOA reneged on this and refused to release PFLP secretary-general Ahmad Sa’adat and Fatah prominent leader Marwan Al-Barghouthi and other high-ranking Hamas members as earlier agreed on, thus putting the Germans in an unpleasant situation.

Furthermore, Resheq revealed that the IOA wanted 209 of the West Bank captives on the list be deported to the Gaza Strip instead of 86, which Hamas rejected because the deal would become a deportation deal not prisoners’ swapp deal.

Abbas in a dilemma:

Moreover, Resheq reacted to the recent mobilizations from the USA, Europe, and regional powers to revive the stalled peace process, adding that the Israeli occupation wanted only a nominal process to display itself as the party that strives for peace while in fact it had never believed in making peace with the Palestinians.

“The IOA is put conditions to restart the process; including recognizing the Zionist entity as Jewish homeland and that there was no room to discuss the status of Jerusalem”, Resheq said, adding that such Israeli conditions put Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader, in true dilemma after he publicly vowed not to resume the negotiations with the Israelis unless settlement activities are completely stopped, a condition that the Israeli occupation categorically reject.

“He (Abbas) thought that [US president Barack] Obama would remain firm on his stand to have the Israeli settlement activities halted before restarting the peace negotiations, but when Obama regressed on that stand, Abbas faced a serious dilemma”, Resheq highlighted.

Hamas’s tour:

The Hamas official also confirmed that the tour of Hamas’s delegation, led by Khalid Mishaal, the bureau’s head, of a number of Arab countries was meant to shed light on the real stand of Hamas Movement as far as the Egyptian reconciliation paper was concerned, and to muster as much Arab momentum as possible to push the wheel of the Palestinian national reconciliation forward, and to break the unjust siege on the Gaza Strip.

He added that most of the Arab leaders understood the stand of Hamas, especially in the matter of national reconciliation, stressing that Hamas was and still is keen to achieve the national reconciliation but Egypt must take Hamas’s reservations on the paper into considerations before signing it.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

What to call the Zionists ??

Link

The Mafia ?? 
No Sir !!   simply some Zionists from Europe

How come that the Christians of  West Europe
came up with the idea of a Crusade
to allegedly  "liberate"  Palestine  ????

How come the Christians of the East
never thought it were ever necessary ??

Who would have been more capable
of assessing the necessity to "liberate" Jerusalem ,
a Byzantine King  ??
or some ignorent-lost- backward- Kings along the Rhine
or the Seine or the Thames ??.

How come it happened that when the Crusaders
reached to the walls of Jerusalem ,
one third of Europe was still not even Christianised yet
and Jerusalem has had more churches in it ,
than Barcelona or Warshaw  ????

What allowed to the Crusaders to wear any Cross ??
and what allowed
to the Zionist to use the Star of David ??

How come when ,
Polish-Russian- Hungarian- Romanian- Ukrainian- European- Jews
decided to organise Zionism into an ideology-of- colonial- power
the Arab-Jews of  Damascus,Cairo, Baghdad,Beirut, Aleppo,Casablanc a,
Sanaa,Alexandria ,Tehran and Tunis never  though that it were necessary
to create a State of Israel , on the tomb of  Palestine ????

We all agree, today ,that the Crusaders were nothing but
adventurers- robbers seeking the silk,the spices and the treasures
of the Orient...... ...
so let us also ,finally , agree on what to call the Zionists ?? !!

Religious-thieves
or
Robbers misusing a Religion ??


Raja Chemayel

Posted by Тлакскала at 7:16 PM 5 comments Links to this post  

Labels: christian-zionist, crusaders

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

‘Corruption will let Hamas take W. Bank'

Link

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
29/01/2010 03:25

Dramatic warning delivered by Abbas’s former corruption-buster Fahmi Shabaneh.
Talkbacks (23)  

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and that’s why Hamas will one day take control of the West Bank, Fahmi Shabaneh, who was appointed by Abbas four years ago to root out corruption in the Palestinian Authority, said on Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Shabaneh, who until recently was in charge of the Anti-Corruption Department in the PA’s General Intelligence Service (GIS), warned that what happened in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, when Hamas managed to overthrow the Fatah-controlled regime, is likely to recur in the West Bank.

“Had it not been for the presence of the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, Hamas would have done what they did in the Gaza Strip,” Shabaneh told the Post. “It’s hard to find people in the West Bank who support the Palestinian Authority. People are fed up with the financial corruption and mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority.”

Shabaneh said that many Palestinians in the West Bank have lost hope that the PA would one day be reformed. “The Palestinian Authority is very corrupt and needs to be overhauled,” he said.

Shabaneh cited several specific cases of alleged corruption within Fatah and the PA in the course of the interview, including asserting that Fatah personnel stole much of a $3.2 million donation given by the US to Fatah ahead of the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, won by Hamas, which had been intended to improve Fatah’s image and boost its chances of winning.

Shabaneh, a resident of east Jerusalem who worked as a lawyer before joining the GIS as its legal adviser after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, said he was forced to quit his anti-corruption job several months ago after exposing a sex scandal involving one of Abbas’s top aides in Ramallah in 2009.

Video footage and other documents presented to the Post by Shabaneh show the aide lying naked in bed after being lured to an apartment in Ramallah by an east Jerusalem woman.

The footage shows Shabaneh and other armed security agents storming the bedroom, much to the surprise of the Abbas aide who is heard uttering: “Thank God it’s you and not the Israelis.”

Shabaneh said in the interview, the first of its kind with a high-ranking PA security official, that he and his men had been operating on instructions from their boss, Gen. Tawfik Tirawi, the former head of the GIS. Tirwai, for his part, denied that he had authorized Shabaneh to spy on the Abbas aide.

The top aide, who is one of the closest advisers to Abbas, was caught on tape making derogatory remarks against Abbas and Arafat. “President Abbas has no charisma” and is “not in control,” he was quoted as saying. The aide was also caught on tape denouncing Arafat as one of the biggest dajjals (swindlers).

After the revelations, which were brought to Abbas’s attention and were embarrassing for the PA president, Shabaneh was removed from his anti-corruption post and reassigned as head of the GIS’s internal security force. More recently, he was promoted to overall commander of the GIS in the area.

Shortly afterwards, however, Shabaneh was arrested by Israeli police on suspicion of recruiting east Jerusalem residents to the GIS, spying on Israel, chasing suspected “collaborators” and Arabs involved in real estate deals with Jews, and threatening and blackmailing the senior Abbas aide.

Shabaneh has since been released from prison and most of the charges against him dropped. Today he remains under house arrest and is banned from entering the West Bank. The only charge he faces today is membership in a Palestinian military organization – a charge he claims is absurd given the fact that about 1,200 residents of east Jerusalem serve in the various security branches of the PA.

Shabaneh said that he had no doubt that his arrest by Israel was carried out at the request of “someone high in Abbas’s office to punish me for fighting corruption and exposing sex scandals involving not only the senior aide, but many other officials as well.”

He said that the decision to arrest him and prosecute him was also absurd because was always aware of his work and status in the PA security forces and never did anything to him.

“For many years I worked as legal adviser to the General Intelligence Apparatus and no one ever asked me anything,” Shabaneh noted. “When I was commander of the force in the area the Israelis even used to coordinate a lot with us.”

Shabaneh insisted that the decision to pursue corrupt officials in Abbas’s inner circle was part of the PA president’s declared policy to combat financial corruption. “In his pre-election platform, President Abbas promised to end financial corruption and implement major reforms, but he hasn’t done much since then,” he said. “Unfortunately, Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the thieves and officials who were involved in theft of public funds and who became icons of financial corruption.”

Shabaneh said that as head of the anti-corruption unit he and his men succeeded in exposing dozens of cases involving senior officials who had stolen public funds but were never held accountable.

“Some of the most senior Palestinian officials didn’t have even $3,000 in their pocket when they arrived [after the signing of the Oslo Accords],” Shabaneh said. “Yet we discovered that some of them had tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in their bank accounts.
Until today we didn’t hear about one official who was brought to trial for stealing money from the PA, although we had transferred many of the cases to the Palestinian prosecutor-general.”

Questioned as to why he had decided to go public now, Shabaneh said: “I’m not criticizing the Palestinian Authority simply because I like to criticize, but because I want to see a state of law, one with no room for corruption. I was offered $100,000 not to expose the last sex scandal, but I chose not to accept the bribe. I’m the one who resigned after my arrest, because after all that I’ve seen I no longer believe that Abbas’s authority can be reformed.

Asked whether PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is working to establish good government, Shabaneh said: “Salam Fayyad is a good man and I have a lot of respect for him. He’s really working to build professional institutions and good government, but the corrupt Fatah people around Abbas are doing their utmost to thwart his efforts.”

He added: “Even Abbas tried in the beginning, but the corrupt officials working with him didn’t allow him to make progress.”

Shabaneh also said he had managed to track down some of the financial aid that went missing during and after the period of Arafat’s death.
“I discovered, for example, that several senior officials had taken millions of dollars from the Palestinian leadership under the pretext that they wanted to purchase land that would otherwise be confiscated by Israel,” he said.

“Our investigations revealed that many of the purported land deals were fictitious transactions and we even forced one official to return more than $800,000. We had another case where a senior Fatah official and his brother pocketed about $2.5m. which they took from Arafat under the pretext that they wanted to purchase land in the West Bank before Israel lays its hand on it.

Asked whether he believed outside donors should stop channeling funds to Abbas, he said his advice to the donor countries “is to follow up on their donations to examine how and where the money is being spent. We caught some officials who stole about $700,000 from the donors to study the atmosphere in . Why do we need to spend such a huge amount of money on something trivial like this when many people are suffering and have nothing to eat or feed their children?”

Was he serious about Hamas taking over the ? “Yes, no question about that,” he said. “It will happen one day if the state of corruption and anarchy continue in the West Bank .

“Why do you think Hamas kicked us out of the Gaza Strip? Because the people there were fed up with the corruption and bad government of Fatah. What do you think the people in the Gaza Strip used to think when they saw a colonel in the Palestinian Authority driving in a big motorcade and surrounded by dozens of bodyguards and assistants?”

Did he see no chance that Fatah would reform? “As long as the same corrupt guys are running the show we shouldn’t expect real changes,” said Shabaneh.

“Before the 2006 parliamentary election, the Americans gave Fatah $3.2m. to improve the party’s image and boost its chances of winning. But the Fatah people even stole most of the money that was intended to help them improve their image and reputation. These corrupt officials know no limits. They even used to forge Arafat’s signature to obtain money by fraud,” he said.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Bombay, Beirut and Baghdad

Bombay, Beirut and Baghdad

The first-Double- Agent.... .
who founded
a double-faced- dynasty.

The Jordanian double-agent who blew himself up
(Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi)
at a CIA  lunch-party in Afghanistan ,
was indeed a Double-agent. ......

As per definition , a double-agent
must do all his things,  double,
like in a double traffic street
where  cars drive away and or do come back , also.

So most probably , this double agent
was asked to place bombs in a busy-coffee- shop
in Baghdad or in Beirut...... ..... or anywhere else
but now, came the time for him,  to act in reverse,

Because he would not be a Double-agent
if he would plant his bombs only on one side.

So why to be surprised or chocked ,  to hear that
a Double-agent went back to blow up
his own CIA Masters   ??


Therefore ,
it is highly  recommendable for the CIA,  from now on,
to use only "simple-Agents" when they want to  bomb
Beirut ,Bombay or Baghdad .....or anywhere else.



Eng. Moustafa Roosenbloomofficial-double-agent
working for the Truth and for the Capitalist-Media.
 

Posted by Тлакскала at 11:16 PM 0 comments Links to this post 

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Israel Committed Cultural Massacre, Destroyed Palestinian Books

Almanar

29/01/2010 Israel plundered and destroyed tens of thousands of Palestinian books in the years after the State's establishment, according to a doctoral thesis to be submitted next month by a Ben-Gurion University researcher.

In an interview with the researcher published on al-Jazeera's website Thursday, he said that Israel destroyed the Palestinian books in the framework of its plan to "Judaize the country" and cut off its Arab residents from their nation and culture.

According to the doctoral dissertation, Israeli authorities collected tens of thousands of Arab books in occupied Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and other towns that were home to Arabs. Israeli officials proceeded to hand out about half the books, while destroying the second half, characterizing them as a "security threat," the researcher said.

In his al-Jazeera interview, the researcher said that, based on Israeli archives, Israeli occupation troops plundered the books from the homes of Palestinians expelled during the "Nakba" and handed them over to authorities. The State proceeded to establish a library in Jaffa and other towns for the books, he said.

The researcher told al-Jazeera that according to documents he possesses, Israel destroyed 27,000 books in 1958, saying that they were useless and threatened the State. Authorities sold the books, most of them textbooks, to a paper plant, he said. "This was a cultural massacre undertaken in a manner that was worse than European colonialism, which safeguarded the items it stole in libraries and museums," the researcher charged.

He added that some books were sold at discounted prices to Arab schools, while the others were transferred to the Hebrew University's library in occupied Jerusalem.

The researcher estimated that about 6,000 Palestinian books are currently available at the National Library at Hebrew University. However, he said that many other books in Arabic, English, and French were not recorded, charging that most of them are being held in the library's warehouses and cannot be accessed.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

DID HAMAS CARRY OUT A COUP IN GAZA IN 2007? TESTIMONY OF AN EYE WITNESS

DesertPeace

January 29, 2010 at 8:37 am (Associate Post, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine)

By Khalid Amayreh

Ellen Rosser, Professor of English and a veteran peace activist, maintained an office in downtown Gaza from September 2006 to June 2007. During that period she was an eyewitness to the events which eventually culminated in the violent clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the summer of 2007, ending with Hamas routing Fatah’s American- armed militias and ousting them from the Gaza Strip.

In a recent testimony on her experience in Gaza, Rosser asked herself the following question: Did Hamas stage a coup, a planned overthrow of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip? She gave a straightforward answer: “Definitely no.”

Sister Ellen, as she is known, is neither pro-Hamas nor anti-Fatah so her “third party” testimony sheds light on the highly-contentious claims of guilt and innocence made by both groups, claims that continue to have a detrimental effect across Palestinian politics.

When I spoke to her, she didn’t dwell much on the special relationship between Fatah’s former Gaza strongman Muhammed Dahlan and the Bush administration, mainly via US General Keith Dayton. (A thorough expose of Dahlan’s American connection was published in the American magazine Vanity Fair in April, 2008.

However, she did point out that it was Dahlan’s men who tried to assassinate Prime Minister Ismael Haniya on 14th December, 2006, as he was returning to the Gaza Strip via the Rafah border crossing. Sister Ellen spoke of bullets flying and people fleeing for their lives. Moreover, her testimony does suggest that certain elements resumed the shooting every time a truce was reached between the two factions. She also shed light on the killing of a PA soldier which Fatah blamed on Hamas.

Here are some excerpts from Sister Ellen’s remarkable testimony:

“Some months later, the next events that I personally was aware of in the tragic series occurred when the Hamas Minister of the Interior, Said Siyam, wanted a video tape showing who had killed a Palestinian Authority soldier and wounded two others. It (the video tape) had been in the possession of Jad, who was killed, and then in the possession of Major Baha Balousha of Fatah, who refused to give it up.

“Subsequently, Major Balousha was threatened, and a few days later his two [actually three] young sons were killed when gunmen opened fire on the car with dark windows in which the children were being driven to school.”

Rosser doesn’t say who threatened Balousha and killed his children. However, it was obvious that whoever did it had an interest in silencing him and preventing him from disclosing the contents of the video. Other sources spoke of Balousha possessing information on CIA money transfer to Fatah leaders in Gaza.

Continuing her testimony, Rosser writes, “I went with a Fatah friend to offer condolences to Major Baha Balousha, and while we were there a man came from Prime Minister Haniyeh, who was waiting at the Rafah border to return from Egypt, and said that the Prime Minister wanted to come to offer his condolences and wanted to know if that would be alright. Major Baha said, ‘Yes.’

“In other words, Prime Minister Haniyeh knew nothing about who killed the little boys and wished to express his sorrow at the tragedy. A few days later, however, he may have heard indications that Hamas members were involved, for on television he said that if ‘we [i.e. Hamas] have done anything wrong, we will pay diyya’ (blood money, a traditional Palestinian way of resolving such an issue).
“However, that night when Haniyeh was entering Gaza after being held at the border for eight hours while Egypt decided what to do about the millions of dollars he was bringing with him, there was an assassination attempt on his life by some men who guarded the border, Mohammed Dahlan’s men.

“Haniya was not hit by the bullets shot from the roof of the border crossing terminal, but his son and Ahmed Yusuf , who were next to him, were wounded. Haniyeh did not dwell extensively on the attempt, saying merely on television that he was willing to be a martyr.”
Rosser said she is sure that President Mahmoud Abbas was not aware of the attempted assassination of Haniyeh any more than Haniyeh was aware of who killed Major Balousha’s boys.

Recollecting the nightmarish moments, Rosser said: “I had to wait in my office/apartment until the shooting moved away from my area, then hurry down to the street to go to the nearby bakery and vegetable stores to stock up on food for a few days. Usually an armed man on the corner I never knew whether he would be Hamas or Fatah would look up and down the street for me and then wave me across. Both sides were courteous and helpful to the old, American woman.”

The Dayton connection

Rosser goes on to describe the role played by Gen. Dayton in the mini-civil war in Gaza and how he was pushing constantly for escalation, both by bullying the PA to attack Hamas and also by supplying Muhammed Dahlan’s militia with truckloads of weapons.

“At one point, while the bullets were volleying back and forth down the main streets in Gaza City and elsewhere, the US or more precisely, I’m sure, Gen. Keith Dayton, tried to intervene on behalf of Fatah, by sending in a truckload or more of weapons. Hamas learned of the shipment, however, seized it and used it.

“One night I heard from my office window someone reciting through a very loud speaker what sounded like a poem. But in the middle of it I heard Mohammed Dahlan, Israelian, Americaniya. In other words, Dahlan because of his previous actions was considered to be an Israeli and an American (agent) not a Palestinian nationalist. One wonders what would have happened if Dahlan had not been the Head of Security for the P.A.; would the conflict in Gaza have happened?”

I asked Rosser if she thought Dayton consciously and deliberately pushed for the civil war in Gaza.

“Yes, Gen. Keith Dayton is still getting Fatah police to arrest Hamas affiliates in the West Bank because Hamas is wrongfully called ‘terrorist’ and the roadmap says the PA must root out the ‘terrorist infrastructure’. Obviously Dayton wanted Fatah to eliminate the Hamas influence in Gaza since Hamas is a ‘terrorist organization’ according the lily-white United States.”

Rosser argued that she didn’t think that Hamas planned to overthrow the PA. “I think it was fighting Dahlan and then preventing his men from overthrowing Hamas with the help of Dayton.”

Finally, I asked Rosser why she thought the western media continued to call Hamas’s defensive action “a coup”, thus ignoring the fact that the movement was democratically elected by a majority of Palestinians.

She said that the western media have been very biased against Hamas as they once were against the PLO before 1991. They presented Hamas negatively and unjustly as a “terrorist” organization instead of as the elected government of Palestine.

“If they had known the truth   that Hamas has offered a two-state solution since 2004 and is excellent at observing ceasefires they probably would have protested against the bloodshed. The media have a great responsibility to tell the truth so that the people can act on correct information.” 

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Ahmadinejad: Iran Will Foil Enemy Plots in Region

Ahmanar

29/01/2010 Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that imperialist powers are trying to seize control over the energy resources of the Middle East. Addressing a group of officials in Tehran, President Ahmadinejad said that Iran, together with other freedom-loving countries in the region, will never allow imperialism to succeed.

“They (imperialist powers) seek to dominate energy resources of the Middle East, but the Iranian nation as well as other nations will not allow them succeed,” he emphasized. The President also reiterated that the Iranian nation is making a lot of progress and the enemies are confused about it.

President Ahmadinejad said the Iranian people will foil enemy plots against the country by massively turning out for this year's events celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He added that the nation's participation in the nationwide rallies commemorating the Islamic Revolution will be a show of solidarity.

The president fiercely criticized the ban imposed by some western countries on wearing the Islamic headdress, the Hijab, as well as minarets.

President Ahamidnejad's comments came in response to the imposition of a constitutional ban on minarets in Switzerland in late November and fresh efforts by French politicians to impose a ban on wearing of the Hijab by Muslim women in the country.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian