THE ARROGANCE OF JEWISH POWER

Zionism just doesn’t give a damn! It’s as simple as that. They do what they want, when they want and to whom they want to. No one has stopped them in their quest to rid the entire area of all non Jews. No one has made a move to create sanctions against the state that has violated everything sacred to humanity, including the Declaration of Human Rights. To them, it’s nothing but a joke whenever there is criticism of their foul deeds.

An image appeared on many of my posts that I was forced to remove due to copyright law, it simply stated that “zionism is unhealthy for children and other living things”. I would have used that for this post as well, but it is forbidden. But the message is not forbidden! Zionism is unhealthy! We know that now after almost 63 years of the most brutal occupation of another nation in the past century. We know that now after the massacre of thousands of Palestinians in the name of “fighting terrorism”.

As I write this, ‘Brown Shirts’ are gathering at the tomb of one of the most despicable zionists to ever live here. And what is being done about this? Aside from these fascists getting police escorts and protection, NOTHING IS BEING DONE! Not here, not anywhere!

Regarding the Goldstone report; The UN General Assembly approved Friday an Arab League proposal by which Secretary-Genral Ban Ki-moon will report on progress made by both Israel and the Palestinians in independent investigations of Operation Cast Lead, following the Goldstone report on the conflict.

The resolution is aimed mainly at keeping the Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel of war crimes, on the agenda. Three of the five permanent members of the Security Council – the US, Britain, and France – are opposed to its being brought before the council.

The above is an indication that not only is nothing being done, but that the West will not allow anything to be done.

Adding insult to injury 16 years to the day of one of the most brutal massacres inflicted on the Palestinian people, the Israeli Prime Minister announced his intention to add the scene of the massacre in a ‘Heritage Investment Programme’. Can you imagine the outrage in the United States if the Texas School Book Depository was turned into a national shrine?

But wait…… there are ‘concerns’…….. let’s wait and see if anything will come of them. Somehow I doubt it. These are concerns that the US taxpayers should be dealing with, it is them that will be ‘footing the bill’ of 107 million dollars.

Concerns over Israel heritage list

Al Ibrahimi mosque, also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs, is one of the sites on Israel’s list [AFP

The United Nations’ culture and education body, Unesco, has expressed concern about Israel’s plan to rehabilitate religious sites in the occupied West Bank.


Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he intended to include the Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs, and several other contentious sites in the West Bank in a $107m heritage investment programme.


The decision sparked anger in the Islamic world and drew international criticism, as it was seen as a move to stamp Israel’s authority on sites which are not recognised as Israeli under international law.


Irina Bokova, Unesco’s director-general, expressed her concern at the announcement that the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and Bilal bin Rabah Mosque (Rachel’s Tomb) would be included in the plan, the organisation said on Friday.


The European Union (EU) also voiced concern over the decision, saying the move would not help the peace process.


Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign-policy director, “regards the recent decision…as detrimental to attempts to relaunch peace negotiations,” her spokesman, Lutz Guellner, said in a statement.


The EU “calls on Israel to refrain from provocative acts …recognise the importance of these religious sites to all three Abrahamic faiths and support the principle of access for all,” the statement said.


‘Holy land-grab’


Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the UN, speaking on behalf of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), also condemned the “illegality and illegitimacy” of the Israeli decision.


Mark Toner, a US state department spokesman, called Israel’s heritage site list on Friday a “provocation” and an obstacle to peace.


Palestinians are calling the move an attempt to seize land and holy sites on illegally-occupied land.


Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ representative in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera: “When it comes to religion, Israel has a plan in changing the nature of Islamic sites and turn them into Jewish sites in a way that serves what they call the Judaisation of the state (of Israel).


“The process of swallowing the Ibrahimi Mosque started with a request to put a candle holder inside it.


“After the massacre that took place in the mosque in 1994 by the Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein, they divided the mosque between them and the Palestinians. Today, they are confiscating the whole mosque. So we can see there is a pattern.”


The Cave of the Patriarchs is sacred to Jews and Muslims as the traditional burial place of important religious figures.


Hebron and the shrine itself have long been flashpoints of violence in the West Bank – territory Israel’s government calls by its biblical names Judea and Samaria.


Violence


Protests in Hebron on Thursday turned violent following Netanyahu’s announcement about the heritage programme.


Clashes continued on Friday, with Israeli forces dispersing crowds with tear gas.
Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, attended prayers at the tomb of Abraham on Friday, in a symbolic move to assert a Palestinian presence there after days of violence.


Speaking to reporters after prayers, Fayyad accused Israel of “annexing” it.
Israel has said that it had added the sites to a list of Jewish shrines due for restoration. It promised that Muslims would still be free to worship there.
Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, said on Friday: “There are many places that are holy to all of us so we are not monopolising.


“And in the Cave of the Monarchs, a holy site for Jews and Muslims as they call it, we even made arrangements that everybody will pray.”


Source

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Hamas calls for intifada in West Bank - A day of rage in al-Khalil in defence of the Ibrahimi mosque

Resheq calls for intifada in West Bank

[ 27/02/2010 - 07:15 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Ezzet Al-Resheq, political bureau member of the Hamas Movement, has advocated a sweeping intifada in the West Bank against the Israeli occupation and its violation of holy shrines.

Resheq, in a statement to the PIC on Thursday night, said that the confrontations that took place in Al-Khalil between Palestinian young men and the Israeli occupation forces over the past couple of days should continue.

He urged the Ramallah authority to free all detained Mujahideen and to stop curbing resistance against occupation.

The Hamas leader asked Islamic religious scholars to mobilize the Arab and Islamic masses against the Israeli decision to annex Ibrahimi mosque and Bilal mosque to its alleged list of Jewish historical sites.

He hoped that the Organization of Islamic Conference and the Arab League would adopt more practical measure in support of the Palestinian people and in face of the Israeli racist practices.

Meanwhile, addressing a march in Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus on Friday to protest the Israeli decision, Resheq said, addressing the Arab regimes, "We had enough condemnations".

He called for firmer dealing with the "Zionist arrogance".

A day of rage in al-Khalil in defence of the Ibrahimi mosque

[ 26/02/2010 - 10:26 PM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Violent confrontations broke out on Friday afternoon between Palestinian protestors and IOF troops in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil near the Ibrahimi mosque and in the southern part of the city.

Residents of al-Khalil were protesting the Israeli inclusion of the Ibrahimi mosque on the list of Jewish heritage sites and to mark the 16th anniversary of the Ibrahimi mosque massacre, when an extremist American Jewish settler broke into the mosque during the dawn prayers and opened machinegun fire at Muslim worshipers killing 30 of them and wounding tens others.

Scores of Palestinian youth threw stones and set tyres alight closing the main road to block IOF troops who fired tear-gas and rubber-coated bullets at demonstrators.

More confrontations took place after the Friday prayers at the mosque when more than 3000 Palestinians participated in the protests.

More protests are expected on Saturday because of the intention of extremist Jewish settlers to enter the Ibrahimi mosque to commemorate the death of Barukh Goldstein who committed the massacre at hands of survivors who attacked him with fire extinguishers when he paused to load his machinegun with another magazine.

Abdolmalek Rigi: A "Good" Terrorist Captured by Iran

Destabilizing Iran?

By RAY McGOVERN

The Iranian government is celebrating the capture of Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of a violent group called Jundullah (Arabic for Soldiers of God), which Tehran says is a terrorist organization supported by the United States, Great Britain and Israel.

Jundullah is one of several groups that have been conducting bombings and other violent attacks against Iran’s Islamic regime with the aim of knocking it off balance.

In a July 7, 2008, article for The New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh quoted Robert Baer, a former CIA clandestine officer who worked in South Asia and the Middle East for nearly two decades, as saying that Jundullah was one of the militant groups in Iran benefiting from U.S. support.

Hersh also reported that President George W. Bush signed an intelligence finding in late 2007 that allocated up to $400 million for covert operations intended to destabilize Iran’s government, in part, by supporting militant organizations.

Hersh identified another one of the militant groups with “long-standing ties” to the CIA and the U.S. Special Operations communities as the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK, which has been put on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

But Jundullah has been spared that designation, a possible indication that the U.S. government views it as a valuable asset in the face-off against Iran, or in the parlance of the “war on terror,” as one of the “good guys.”

Gen. Mizra Aslam, Pakistan’s former Army chief, has charged that the U.S. has been supporting Jundullah with training and other assistance. But the U.S. government denies that it has aided Rigi or his group.

Since his capture this week, Rigi has been weaving intricate, though inconclusive, stories about his contacts with American officials. According to Iran’s Press TV, Rigi said the United States promised Jundullah military aid in support of its insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Rigi described contacts in March 2009, claiming that U.S. representatives “said they would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan next to Iran."
Destabilize Iran

Rigi asserted that the U.S. representatives said a direct U.S. attack on Iran would be too costly and that Washington instead favored supporting militant groups that could destabilize Iran.
"The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran… not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran,” Rigi said, according to Press TV.

"One of the CIA officers said that it was too difficult for us [the United States] to attack Iran militarily, but we plan to give aid and support to all anti-Iran groups that have the capability to wage war and create difficulty for the Iranian (Islamic) system,” Rigi said.
Rigi added that the Americans said they were willing to provide support “at an extensive level.” However, in Press TV’s account, Rigi did not describe any specific past U.S. support for his organization.

Iran's security forces announced that they had arrested Rigi on Tuesday by bringing down his plane over Iranian airspace, as he was onboard a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan, where he said he was expecting to meet with a “high-ranking” U.S. official.

Rigi’s capture represents an embarrassment for Western and Israeli intelligence, which have tried to stir up Iran’s minorities, comprising almost half of the population. Jundullah contends that it is protecting the rights of Sunnis in Shiite-dominated Iran.
Reflecting Priorities

The unwelcome spotlight on Rigi and Jundullah threatens to bring out of the shadows a broader U.S. and Israeli strategy for regime change in Tehran, a goal that dates back at least to President Bush’s “axis of evil” speech in 2002.

According to this analysis, the fear about Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon in a few years – if it decides to restart the weapons part of its nuclear development program – is largely a synthetic rationale for ratcheting up tensions, much as Bush’s claims about Iraq’s non-existent WMD were a pretext for regime change in Baghdad.

Under such a scenario, “good guy” terrorists like Jundullah could be enlisted for purposes other than simple violence and disruption. For example, they could be used to sabotage any favorable Iranian response to President Barack Obama’s efforts toward engagement.

And this precisely is what Jundullah did last October, right after the Ahmadinejad government gave tangible proof that it was ready to engage on the nuclear issue in response to Obama’s call for negotiations.

On Oct. 1, 2009, Tehran shocked virtually everyone by agreeing to send most (as much as 75 percent) of its low-enriched uranium abroad to be turned into fuel for a small reactor that produces medical isotopes.

Even the New York Times acknowledged that this, “if it happens, would represent a major accomplishment for the West, reducing Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon quickly, and buying more time for negotiations to bear fruit.”

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, gave Tehran’s agreement “in principle,” at a meeting in Geneva of representatives of members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, chaired by Javier Solana of the European Union.

Reversing the Bush administration’s allergy to talking with “bad guys,” Obama had sent Under Secretary of State William Burns to the Geneva meeting. A 45-minute tête-à-tête between Burns and Jalili marked the highest-level U.S.-Iranian talks in three decades.

Jalili also expressed Iran’s agreement to open the newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qum to international inspection within two weeks, which Tehran did.

Enter Jundullah

However, on Oct. 18, 2009, Jundullah detonated a car bomb at a meeting of top Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders and tribal leaders in the province of Sistan-Baluchistan in southeastern Iran and mounted a roadside attack on a car full of Guards in the same area.

A brigadier general who was deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, the Revolutionary Guards brigadier commanding Sistan-Baluchistan, and three other brigade commanders were killed in the attack; dozens of other military officers and civilians were left dead or wounded.

Jundullah took credit for the bombings, which followed years of lethal attacks on Revolutionary Guards and Iranian policemen, including an attempted ambush of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s motorcade as he drove through Sistan-Baluchistan in 2005.

The Oct. 18 attack – the bloodiest in Iran since the 1980-88 war with Iraq – came one day before talks were to resume at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna to follow up on the Oct. 1 breakthrough. The killings surely raised Iran’s suspicions about U.S. sincerity regarding better relations.

It’s a safe bet that the Revolutionary Guards went directly to their patron, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, with evidence that the West cannot be trusted. Khamenei issued a statement on Oct. 19 condemning the terrorists, whom he charged “are supported by certain arrogant powers’ spy agencies.”

The commander of the Guards’ ground forces, who lost his deputy in the attack, charged that the terrorists were “trained by America and Britain in some of the neighboring countries,” and the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards threatened retaliation.

A lower-level Iranian technical delegation did go to Vienna for the meeting on Oct. 19, but Iran’s leading nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili stayed away. The Iranians began to raise objections foreshadowing backsliding on their earlier commitment in principle to the export of most of their low-enriched uranium.

New Alternatives

Still, since then, the Iranians have broached alternative proposals that seemed worth exploring — for example, sending for further enrichment smaller quantities of low-enriched uranium in stages.

However, the Obama administration has rejected these alternative proposals out of hand, reportedly at the instigation of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel and neocon regional emissary Dennis Ross, whose apparent priority is to avoid anything that might strengthen Ahmadinejad.

In other words, despite the rhetoric about the need to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, regime change appears to remain the transcendent goal of neocon-lite Democrats at the White House and in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

These neocon-lites seem to have adopted the benighted view that the Iranian regime will crumble, if enough outside pressure is applied.

Add to the mix, the constant harping about the “fraudulent” election last June and support for regime opponents who will not accept the election results, which non-propagandistic and reputable polls indicate Ahmadinejad really did win. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “US Media Replays Iraq Fiasco in Iran.”]

Oh, yes; “crippling sanctions” are also in the picture.

Tehran Still Ready to Negotiate

Despite these obstacles, Iran’s post-October 1 proposals on the nuclear issue strongly suggest that Tehran is still willing to negotiate. But it appears that Secretary Clinton and others inside the Obama administration, whether neocons or neocon-lites, don’t actually want a deal.
The way they seem to see it is that an agreement on the nuclear issue would make regime change that much more difficult.

Which raises the question of who provided Jundullah the kind of intelligence and direction that enabled the bloody attack of Oct. 1 — and why?

Cui bono? Who profits from the kind of violence that hardens the attitudes of the Revolutionary Guards and their patron Khamenei, and enables the West to portray them as reneging on the October agreement in principle.

Answer: Israel's right-wing government, the American neocons and others who won’t give up on long-cherished dreams of regime change in Tehran, which would then supposedly lead to a cut-off of Iran’s support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas.

The truth be told, few well-informed analysts in either the United States or Israel actually believe there is an imminent nuclear threat from Iran, which has encountered technical problems refining uranium even to low levels that are suitable for generating nuclear energy.
But that doesn’t stop the gamesmanship toward Iran anymore than the lack of WMD evidence stopped President Bush from whipping up an alarm about Iraq in 2002-03.

Does Secretary Clinton really expect to be taken seriously with her Rumsfeldian demand that Iran prove a negative — that it is NOT working on a nuclear weapon?

In a major speech last week in Doha, Clinton decried the fact that Iran “has refused to demonstrate to the international community that its program is entirely peaceful.” Remember when the Bush administration demanded that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein prove he didn’t have chemical and biological weapons?

In that same speech, Clinton let slip that Iran “doesn’t directly threaten the United States, but it directly threatens a lot of our friends, allies, and partners” — read Israel, which itself possesses an estimated 200-300 nuclear weapons in its undeclared arsenal.

Like other senior U.S. officials – and all major U.S. news outlets – Clinton forgets to mention that on Sept. 18, 2009, the IAEA member states formally voted to call on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and submit its nuclear facilities to the same oversight that nearly all other nations do.

Israel issued an official statement that it “deplores” that vote, and U.S. Ambassador Glyn Davies rejected the resolution, claiming that it unfairly singled out Israel.

In her Doha speech, Clinton insisted that it is the Iranian “nuclear weapons military program” that all should be concerned about. She bemoaned “the rise of influence and power by the Revolutionary Guard — which is really tragic.”

Well, Madam Secretary, you might want to talk to CIA Director Leon Panetta about putting the reins on Jundullah and other violent groups so as not to empower the Revolutionary Guards still further — unless the hardening of lines on both sides suits some grander purpose.

Iraq Redux

We know from official British documents (the “Downing Street Memos”) that, on July 20, 2002, former CIA chief George Tenet told the head of British intelligence that President Bush had decided to make war on Iraq for regime change and that the war would be justified by spreading fear that Saddam Hussein might give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

The British intelligence chief, Richard Dearlove, explained to Tony Blair and his top national security officials that, according to Tenet, the intelligence would be “fixed” around the policy.
Not only full-scale neocons but also wannabe neocons like Secretary Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice are now taking the same line and doing the same “fixing” about Iran.

Ambassador Rice recently charged that Iran is pursuing “a nuclear weapons program with the purpose of evasion.” Clinton professes to be “deeply concerned” over what she calls “Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

Clinton and Rice should check with National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, who is still using the subjunctive regarding the possibility of a restarted Iranian nuclear weapons program.
As for me, I’m deeply concerned at the widespread impression that the Secretary and others have fostered. A CNN poll last week indicated that 70 percent of Americans are in the same indicative mood, believing that Iran already has a nuclear weapon. That’s downright eerie — a flashback to Iraq.

If memory serves, that’s about the same percentage of Americans who were convinced that Saddam Hussein had WMD on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.

Condoleezza-Type Whirling

During her final year as Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice was racking up so many frequent-flyer miles jetting back and forth to Israel that wistful Arabs decided that the definition of “condoleezza” must be perpetual motion signifying nothing.

Now, her successor – joined by other senior U.S. officials – is engaged in similarly peripatetic endeavors.

Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser James Jones, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen have all visited Israel since January, and Vice President Joe Biden will be there next week.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is visiting Washington this week, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will arrive next month.

Perhaps, we should hope that this is just pointless whirling about, rather than something more serious. But these high-level meetings are occurring against a continued backdrop of U.S. and Israeli disdain for international law.

Senior American officials, dating back at least to the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal, deemed aggressive war to be a war crime. Although I don’t recall anyone rescinding the Nuremberg principles or amending the U.N. Charter, one hears cheerful talk from both American pundits and some U.S. officials that “everything is on the table” regarding Iran.
One asks: including another war of aggression? The answer: Don’t you know what “everything” means?

This is profoundly unsettling for those of us who thought that disdainful trashing of post-World War II agreements would stop when Bush and Cheney rode off into the sunset. Even if couched in the Orwellian language of “preventive” or “preemptive” war, “a public threat to engage in aggressive war” is itself a violation of the U.N. Charter. Does no one care?

Neoconning Forward

Neocon pundits continue to stoke these fires. In Tuesday’s Washington Post, for example, columnist Anne Applebaum listed a number of utilitarian reasons why President Obama will not bomb Iran. (International law was not one.)

Applebaum suggests, though, that Obama’s “defining moment” could come when he is awakened at 2:00 AM by a call from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who tells him “Israel has just carried out a raid on Iranian nuclear sites. What then?”

“If that ever happened,” Applebaum writes, “I do hope that this administration is ready, militarily and psychologically … for an unwanted war of necessity.”

The message? Disregard the intelligence that doubts the Iranians are building a nuclear bomb: no, better still, “fix” it to suggest that they are.

Then, turn loose the Jundullahs to worsen tensions and to strengthen the hands of Iran’s hardliners who will cite violent provocations as proof that the United States is not acting in good faith; that will add to the impression of a gathering threat; next institute crippling sanctions to further ramp up the anger.

And be ready, in case Netanyahu starts something the United States will have to finish.
If this kind of scenario is allowed to play out, hostilities with Iran will make the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like volleyball games between Mount Saint Ursula and Holy Name high schools. Can President Obama be so naïve as to be unaware of the stakes here?

Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is a contributor to Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso). He can be reached at: rrmcgovern@aol.com

A shorter version of this article appeared at Consortiumnews.com.

Abdolmalek Rigi Confession Snitches USA Terror Ops

Press TV

Posted by VINEYARDSAKER: at 7:55 AM

Labels: Abdolmalek Rigi, US covert operations

River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian

Behind Brand Israel: Israel’s recent propaganda efforts

Intifada Voice

Ben White, The Electronic Intifada

The Israeli government and global Zionist groups are mobilizing to fight the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. (Oren Ziv/ActiveStills)

“The Delegitimization Challenge” report from the influential Israeli think tank the Reut Institute has put the spotlight on efforts by Israel and the Zionist lobby to counter the growing movement for justice in Palestine, and specifically, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign.

The work done by Reut has rightly attracted attention, but it is only one (particularly prominent) example of a wider trend, as the Israeli government and global Zionist groups mobilize to fight the threat to the apartheid system.

It was an issue discussed when Israeli policymakers convened for the recent Herzilya Conference where there was a session called “Winning the Battle of the Narrative: Strategic Communication for Israel.” There was also an associated working paper, prepared by a team that included Ido Aharoni from Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), along with senior officials from the prime minister’s office, public relations firms and two key lobby groups — The Israel Project in the US, and Bicom from the UK (“Winning the Battle of the Narrative” (PDF)).

An additional working paper produced for the Herzliya conference was called “The ‘Soft Warfare’ against Israel: Motives and Solution Levers,” produced by a mix of academics and representatives from the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-SE), the Institute for Policy and Strategy, NGO Monitor and Israel’s MFA (“The ‘Soft Warfare’ against Israel: Motives and Solution Levers” (PDF)).

At the end of last year, another significant conference was convened by Israel’s MFA in Jerusalem, called the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism. Convened by far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Likud Minister of Knesset and settler Yuli Edelstein, included in the program was a working group called Delegitimization of Israel: “Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions.” The aim was to “come up with imaginative, effective and success ful solutions to counter this evil [of BDS],” forging strategies of “defense” and “offense.”

Co-chaired by Mitchell Bard and Professor Gil Troy, director of the Jewish Virtual Library and McGill University professor, respectively, the anti-BDS group included figures like Canadian lawmaker Irwin Cotler, the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, and right-wing pressure group NGO Monitor’s Gerald Steinberg. From North America, there were representatives of the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress and the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism. UK-based participants in the anti-BDS group included members of the Jewish Leadership Council, the Fair Play Campaign Group, the Union of Jewish Students, and the President of the National Union of Students, Wes Streeting.

The participation by key lobby groups outside of Israel is indicative of a growing concern. At the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in November last year, there was a special “forum” on “The International Campaign to Delegitimize Israel,” specifically focusing on BDS. As described on its website, the forum sought to “explore effective strategies that can be utilized by the North American Jewish community, including through the Jewish Federations/JCPA Israel Advocacy Initiative” in response. Speakers at the meeting included senior figures from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).

Delegates at the assembly passed a motion entitled “Resolution Against Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement.” The resolution declared that “that the BDS movement be regarded with the utmost urgency,” and emphasized “the importance of solid relationships with decision leaders.” It also called for “an effective response and [to] devise a proactive strategy to the BDS movement through appropriate vehicles within the system, especially the Israel Advocacy Initiative, a joint project of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and The Jewish Federations of North America.” AIPAC’s “Policy Conference” to be held in Washington, DC in March is also going to host sessions on the “delegitimization campaigns” and the pro-Israel student lobby.

There are further, smaller organizations and groupings that have been set up in large part to counter BDS. These include Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Fair Play (UK) and Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP). The names of these groups are themselves indicative of a realization that being seen to purely promote Israeli interests is no longer viable — rather, in the words of the UK’s Trade Union Friends of Israel (TUFI), the key is to stress “co-operation” and “links” in contrast to the “the counter-productive and damaging ‘boycott Israel’ calls.”

The main tactics

In October 2005, the Forward reported that directors from the Israeli foreign ministry, prime minister’s office and finance ministry met to work out “a new plan to improve the country’s image abroad — by downplaying religion and avoiding any discussion of the conflict with the Palestinians.” Although the “Brand Israel” initiative was launched in 2006, its origins can be dated to 2001 when Boaz Mourad, the founder of the Insight Research Group, and Ido Aharoni of the Israeli Foreign Service, “pulled together a branding team for Israel” (including a partner from public relations heavyweight Burson-Marsteller).

During her term as foreign minister, Tzipi Livni appointed Aharoni as head of the “Brand Israel” project, as well as assigning $4 million for the first two years (which is additional to the annual $3 million budget for “hasbara” or propaganda). When it was launched in October 2006, the Israeli MFA promised that Brand Israel would “advance several objectives” including trade, tourism and strengthening “Israel’s positive image” for political reasons.

On 16 March 2008, The Jerusalem Post reported that Brand Israel identified cities like Toronto, Tokyo, London, Boston and New York as locations for “pilot” programs, which could include “organizing film festivals, or food and wine festivals featuring Israel-made products.” Accordingly, by the end of that year billboard advertisements appeared in Toronto promoting Israel as a leader in technological innovation. At the time, Aharoni voiced his expectation that the plan would be rolled out in 2009.

The use of public relations agencies has continued to grow. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, in October 2008, it was the turn of British firm Acanchi, hired by the foreign minister “to craft the new image” (“Foreign Ministry, PR firm rebrand Israel as land of achievements,” 6 October 2008). The firm’s founder toured Israel as part of the mission “to create a brand disconnected from the Arab-Israeli conflict that focuses instead on Israel’s scientific and cultural achievements.” At last month’s Herzliya conference, another leading public relations professional, Martin Kace of Empax, was on stage alongside Aharoni discussing “delegitimization.”

In that session, the Israeli government announced that its central Brand Israel message would be “Creative Energy.” Aharoni presented the concept, described in the “Winning the Battle of the Narrative” paper as repositioning “Israel away from an image of a country in a state of war and conflict to a brand which represents positive values and ideals like ‘building the future,’ ‘vibrant diversity’ and ‘entrepreneurial zeal.’” The idea is to shift the weight “from what Israel wants to say to what audiences abroad are interested in consuming.”

A 21 January 2005 article in The Jewish Week explained that the “Brand Israel” campaign then is all about “fewer stories explaining the rationale for the security fence” and “more attention to scientists doing stem-cell research on the cutting edge or the young computer experts who gave the world Instant Messaging” (“Marketing A New Image, 21 January 2005). Another important group is “Israel21c.” According to its website, Israel21c’s “mission is to focus media and public attention on the 21st century Israel that exists beyond the conflict.” The rationale being that by “promoting positive images of Israel and Israelis, people will come to view Israelis as more like themselves and understand the relevance of Israel to their own lives.” According to a 14 October 2005 article in the Forward, Israel21c was working with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) “on a plan to generate collaborative content” for the lobby group (“Israel Aims To Improve Its Public Image”).

Delegitimizing the delegitimizers

There is also an “offensive” element to Israel’s strategy, one that is currently less developed than Brand Israel tactics, yet likely to come increasingly to the fore. In a 14 December 2009 Jerusalem Post article, Shimon Samuels, the director of international relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, suggested that “propagators of deliberate slurs targeting Israel and, by association, world Jewry, must realize that they may incur a price.” He urged that “a consortium of the best Jewish and pro-Israel legal brains should be on call,” and ready, among other things, “to use the courts in ad hominem defamation.”

A key strategy discussed at the Herzilya conference and the MFA’s Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism is “delegitimizing the delegitimizers.” In addition, the “soft warfare” working paper presented at Herzliya included the recommendation that “research to identify all the key players that initiate and generate hate (as compared to those that disseminate it), with a breakdown by country, religion and ethnicity, in order to analyze their motivations and objectives, estimate the threat and consider possible ways of handling each” (“Delegitimization of Israel: ‘Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions’” (Word document)). One of the purposes of this kind of “systematic, ongoing research, of all anti-Israeli publications, including media analyses, reports, boycotts and on campus activities” is to facilitate the “identification and exposure of and levying pressure on the sponsors of the inciters.” The paper also endorsed legal action “by the Israeli government and by independent entities in Israel and abroad, against media networks, publications, NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and individuals that make defamatory reports.”

This aggressive dimension was also included in the Global Forum’s BDS Working Group document, which included in its vision for a five year plan the proposals to “name and shame” nongovernmental organizations, and meeting “lawfare” with “lawfare.” (In that regard, see “The Lawfare Project” and its upcoming conference in March, where neocon and right-wing Zionist lobbyists, academics, and diplomats, will discuss how to shield Israel from the “abuse” of human rights law: http://www.thelawfareproject.org/about/program.) There is also the idea to form “groups of Jewish/pro-Israel professionals within various national and international professional association/organizations/unions,” in order to pass “anti-discrimination bylaws within the organization that are general in nature, and that do not mention Israel per se, but rather oppose discrimination on the basis of race, religion, nationality, etc.”

Students on campus

Unsurprisingly, given the increasing strength of the Palestine solidarity movement amongst students, campuses are a target of the anti-BDS battle plan. One element of this is the role played by Zionist “ambassadors” like the Jewish Agency’s emissaries (or “shlichim“) scheme. In a 16 December 2009 Jerusalem Post article, Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency, expressed his desire to increase “the number of young Israelis sent to communities in the US and especially the more than 100 shlichim based at universities there.” He also raised the possibility of the likes of Irwin Cotler and US lawyer and Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz “teaching the shlichim before they go [to the US].”

The Herzilya “soft warfare” paper also discussed university campuses (and schools) as the subject of a suggested “proactive public relations” drive. It added that “such public relations should cover both the subject of Israel and its history, and the subject of radical Islam and the dangers it unfolds.” Yet as has been evident for a while now, the anti-BDS push on campus is just as — if not more — likely to emphasize “dialogue” and “narrative-sharing,” as opposed to openly pushing an “Israel first” line. In other words, instead of far-right former-MK Effie Eitam we’ll have the dovish pro-Israel advocacy group J Street “Invest, Don’t Divest” campus programming and two-state solution-peddling One Voice tours.

The reported response of campus Zionists in Canada to Israeli Apartheid Week is instructive and encouraging. Apart from promoting Israel’s “global renown in science, medicine, technology, business, humanitarian aid” and culture, public talks are being scheduled (“Students get ready to counter ‘apartheid lie,’” The Canadian Jewish News, 18 February 2010). There are apparently talks scheduled in Toronto by a Sudanese human rights activist, Arab reporter Khaled Abu Toameh of the The Jerusalem Post, and a self-proclaimed “ex-terrorist” whose mission is to “wake up the body of Christ” to the danger of “radical Islam” (“Students get ready to counter ‘apartheid lie.’”
It is also worth noting the Global Forum’s BDS Working Group’s recommendation that “more money needs to be spent on the programs that already exist in countries like Canada to send non-Jewish student leaders (members of student government, campus organizations, campus newspapers etc.) to Israel to learn the facts on the ground.”

A call for coordination

A common theme in the recently intensified discussion by the Zionist lobby is the perceived need for improved, and centralized, organization and coordination. The Reut Institute’s “Delegitimization Challenge” report pointed to the imperative of reorganizing “the foreign policy establishment” in Israel, including “comprehensive reform within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

The “soft warfare” paper urged the creation of “a state-led, integrated capability,” reflecting what they described as a “broad consensus that a sufficiently-funded government agency is required in order to manage the battle against hate incitement.” The two specific options put forward were “a special unit under Israel’s National Security Council” to run a public relations strategy in association with “pro-Israeli organizations and activists abroad,” or “an entity within the Israeli intelligence community, which would collect, analyze and distribute information, and initiate ‘operations’ in areas relevant to Israel’s public relations campaign.” This latter “entity” could cooperate with groups like Middle East Media Research Initiative (MEMRI), as well as “direct the intelligence agencies to thwart anti-Israeli propaganda efforts.”

The Global Forum’s anti-BDS group talked of the “Jewish community” needing “a war room” that would be “tracking this movement, sharing best practices, coaching communities.” It mentioned that “in North America, the Federation system is talking about launching a coordinating body to fight BDS.” One of the group’s co-chairmen, McGill professor Gil Troy, commented on his blog on The Jerusalem Post’s website earlier this month that there was a new initiative “rumored to be in the works in North America and Israel to help galvanize and centralize pro-Israel sentiment.”

For all those involved in some capacity in the international campaign for justice in Palestine/Israel, and the growing BDS movement, these state-backed efforts can appear rather daunting. The Israeli government and its allies in lobby groups are not short of powerful contacts and money, and there is now a concerted effort to think “strategically.” However, for all the research, conferences and working papers, there is a comical ignorance shaping these responses. A great example of this is can be found in the Global Forum’s BDS paper, which includes the idea to “circulate information on Muslims acting contrary to Islam.” This is on the basis that “if the people of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia knew their ‘pious’ leaders were really alcoholics, gamblers and perverts, they might hasten regime change.” As if the people in the Middle East are not fully aware of the corruption of their autocrats and dictators — many of whom, of course, enjoy US and Israeli support for their antidemocratic “moderation.”

Moreover, all of this strategizing and energy is needed in order to avoid the manifestly unimaginable truth — that Israel is increasingly unable to maintain a regime of ethno-religious exclusion, apartheid separation and colonial violence without paying a price. Its supporters are also unable to see that it will prove to be unsustainable.

Special Thanks to Electronic Intifada

Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer whose articles have appeared in the Guardian’s “Comment is free,” The Electronic Intifada, the New Statesman, and many others. He is the author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide (Pluto Press).

He can be contacted at ben A T benwhite D O T org D O T uk.

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February 26, 2010 Posted by Elias

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First Summit of Its Kind: Intimacy, Power and Courage…

Almanar
26/02/2010
The picture is more expressive than the words…

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bachar Assad were finally united in one and only one picture…

At the time Israel violates all rules and don't stop its daily threats against Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Palestine, one mere picture can do a lot…

It's, no doubt, the "event," the event that constituted the top of the headlines in Lebanon and the region, but also in the Zionist entity where the Israeli enemy expressed its "serious concerns" over the meeting that took place and raised multiple question marks…

It's the first meeting of its kind, at least in public, since the Israeli war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006…

Here comes the first "strength" of the "historic" meeting that joined the Iranian and Syrian leaderships with Hezbollah leadership… But it's not the whole story of the meeting believed to be important in its form as well as its content…

In form, the meeting seemed to be a strong response to all "desperate attempts" to "separate" the resistance and opposition powers in the region…

In content, it's, no doubt, a natural and direct reaction to the Israeli ongoing threats, the threats that seemed to be the main "dish" in the "dinner" that joined the three leaderships, mainly in discussing the ways to face the Israeli arrogance…

SYRIAN SOURCES: DINNER INTIMATE, FRIENDLY
Syrian well-informed sources told Al-Manar that the dinner that joined Sayyed Nasrallah with Presidents Assad and Ahmadinejad can be described as "intimate and friendly."

The sources said that the meeting confirmed the solidity of the alliance that joins Syria, Iran and the resistance groups in the region, especially in one of the most difficult and sensitive circumstances like those witnessed nowadays…

ANY AGGRESSION ON LEBANON IS AN AGGRESSION ON SYRIA
According to the sources, the conferees agreed that any aggression against Lebanon would be the same as an aggression against Syria and vice-versa. "As for Iran, it was and would always remain supportive for Damascus and the Resistance in the face of any threat or aggression," the sources pointed out…

DINNER ANTICIPATED BY GENERAL MEETING
The presidential dinner was preceded by a special meeting that joined Hezbollah leadership delegation with President Ahmadinejad.

The meeting was attended by Hezbollah Secretary General at the head of a delegation that included the head of the Hezbollah legal committee Sheikh Mohamad Yazbek, the head of Hezbollah politburo Sayyed Ibrahim Amin Sayyed, Hezbollah Secretary General political advisor Hajj Hussein Khalil. It was also attended by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Iranian Ambassador to Damascus Sayyed Ahmad Moussawi.

The meeting discussed the general situation in the region in light of the Israeli daily threats against Lebanon as well as its aggression against the sacred and holy sites, aggressions that are not even condemned from the so-called international community.

IT'S OUR RIGHT TO FACE US-ISRAELI STRATEGIC ALLIANCE!
An official Syrian source told Al-Manar in this context that the Damascus trial summit was a natural and evident right for the region's nation.

"Why is it possible for the United States and the Israeli enemy to establish a strategic alliance that's public directed our region and people and at the same time we're forbidden from facing this alliance?" the Syrian official source wondered.

"When the enemy's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that the Ibrahimi Mosque is more important for him than the Israeli army, he's speaking of an existential conflict with Arabs and Muslims," the source noted. "Therefore, there are necessities that require from us to take measures to face the Israeli threats with all possible ways," the source concluded.

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Ehud Barak: "... We cannot accept these artificial differentiations between the terrorists of Hezbollah & the state of Lebanon & their sponsors ..."

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Ehud Barak at WINEP/ here

"... Israel is the strongest nation thousand miles around Jerusalem, but we are realistic and open-eyed. There will be no peace in the Middle East before the other side, all our neighbors and rivals, will realize that Israel cannot be defeated by the mere use of force, cannot be entreated through terror and cannot be dragged through political naivety (a jab at President Obama?) into diplomatic honey traps.......

We cannot afford making any compromises regarding the security of Israel, but we have to notice the changes on the other side. One cannot ignore the gradual transformation of the Arab dialogue vis-à-vis Israel. From the four (sic: three) no’s of Khartoum, some 40-odd years ago, no negotiations, no recognition, no peace – what had been taken by force will be taken back by force – into the present day’s almost contest among the Arab players who will provide the peace plan that will be adopted by the international community and become the cornerstone of the final agreement between us and the Arab world.

A successful peace process – especially with the Palestinians – is not just in the interest of Israel. It is a compelling imperative for the state of Israel. And that’s why I say it’s the uppermost responsibility of any Israeli government. Not as a favor to the Palestinians, but out of our own interests – out of strength and without compromising our security......

And I can tell you that having – talking about the opportunities, I cannot ignore the issue of Syria. It’s not a secret that in Israel, both myself as defense minister in the past and now, as well as the Israel defense establishment on all its levels, believe that we have – in the Middle East – have strategic interest in putting an end to our conflict with Syria. We have been in negotiations in this city and in the other places regarding to this issue under Rabin and during Peres’ government, Netanyahu previous government, my government and Olmert’s government. .....

Having said that, I can tell you that we are strong enough to face a deterioration if it happens on our northern front, but we are not interested in it; we will not initiate it; and I don’t believe that anyone in the region – in the immediate neighborhood of Israel – really needs it.

We follow carefully what happens in Lebanon and I think that the time has come to deal with it in a much more straight and real manner. The essence of 1701 – the U.N. Security Council resolution following the last war in the north in 2006 – was to put an end to this anomality (ph) of the existence of Hezbollah in Lebanon. And instead of solving the problem, it just allowed it to become more complicated. There is a bizarre anomaly there. Lebanon is a member state of the United Nations. It happens to have a militia. The militia happen to have members in parliament, even ministers in the cabinet with a veto power over the decision of the Lebanese government.

Now, it is supported and equipped by two other member states of the United Nations, Syria and Iran, technologically and with equipment. And many civil servants in uniform and without uniform of both member states of the United Nations are serving in Lebanon within the chain of command of Hezbollah and giving orders stemming out of the interests not of the Lebanese people but of other players.

And it happens to be that this militia doesn’t just develop a new long bow or more effective arrows, but it happened to have 45,000 rockets and missiles that happen to cover all Israel ...... a weapons system that some – many sovereigns do not have.

We cannot accept it. We cannot accept these artificial differentiations between the terrorists of Hezbollah and the state of Lebanon and their sponsors. And we keep saying, we do not need any conflict there; we will not lead it towards one. But if attacked, we will not run or chase any individual Hezbollah terrorist –.......

So we make it clear: We don’t need this conflict but if it is imposed upon us, we will not run after every individual terrorist but we will take both the Lebanese government and other sources of sponsorship, but mainly the Lebanese government and the Lebanese infrastructure as part of the equation facing us....

And last word about Iran. Iran is not just a challenge to Israel. I believe it is a challenge for the whole world...... And I think that we can like it or not. I believe that most of us do not like it, but we cannot close our eyes to what’s really happened in a such a delicate corner of the world. If Iran will not be stopped from moving there, it will reach at certain point nuclear military capability and one can close his eyes and see what it means. A nuclear Iran means the end of any nonproliferation regime because Saudi Arabia and probably another two or three members of the Middle Eastern community will feel compelled to reach nuclear capability as well. And it will open the door for any third-grade dictator who has a nuclear ambition to understand that if he is strong enough mentally to defy any kind of threats from the world, he will reach nuclear military capability.

I don’t think the Iranians have North Korea as their example – probably some certain example of how easy it could be to defy and deceive the whole world, but basically they probably think of themselves as another Pakistan and probably they started it totally independent from the issue of Israel (reminding us of the Shah?).

But they gradually adopted us as a major cause for their hegemonic intentions ....

And you will realize how intensive, concrete and conclusive we should be in regard to this threat before it materializes. And it’s not just about hegemonic, nuclear capabilities. I don’t think that the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, they are going to drop it immediately on some neighbor. They fully understand what might follow. They are radicals but not total meshuganas. (Laughter.)

....... they have quite sophisticated decision-making process and they understand realities. But it’s not just in the nuclear arena. It’s also in the hegemonic intentions: They might intimidate neighbors all around the Gulf....

.....I feel that the administration is doing an utmost effort to deliver an effective set of sanctions; we appreciate it and we hope it will be successful.

But we also should carry certain skepticism and always think thoroughly and in a consequential manner about what should happen if, against our hopes, wishes and dreams, it won’t work. We are all aware of the certain tensions simmering underneath the surface in Iran and especially following the elections and what happened recently. We see that the grip of the regime on its own people and even the cohesion of the leading group of ayatollahs are both being cracked and probably the countdown, historic countdown toward the collapse has already started (Israel?), but I don’t know of any serious observer who can tell us whether it will take 2 years, 4 years, 6 years or 10. And it’s clear to me that the clock toward the collapse of this regime works much slower than the clock which ticks toward Iran becoming nuclear military power....."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 6:09 PM

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 Uprooted Palestinian

A PEEK AT ISRAEL’S SETTLEMENT ‘FREEZE’

DesertPeace

February 26, 2010 at 12:05 pm (Ethnic Cleansing, Illegal Evictions, Illegal Settlements, Israel, Occupied West Bank, Palestine, zionist harassment)

Settlement freeze: death by a thousand cuts(Hassan Bleibel)

Israel planning to build 600 more homes in East Jerusalem

More homes are intended to be built near the Pisgat Zeev neighbourhood and the Palestinian area of Shuafat, but that the original plan had been scaled back to 600 from an original 1,100 when it was learned some of the land was owned privately by Palestinians.
More than 200,000 Israelis already live in East Jerusalem and nearby areas of the West Bank that Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and considers part of the biblical city it sees as its it sees as its
eternal and indivisible capital.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu excluded Jerusalem from a 10-month moratorium in settlement building he ordered in November.
The World Court has ruled that all the settlements Israel has built in these territories are illegal.

The above is taken from THIS report….

Meanwhile, in Sheikh Jarrah the struggle continues…..

Once a vibrant Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, through the Israeli government’s surrogate “settlers” and its corrupt judicial system is now receiving the full, virulent ethnic cleansing attentions of that rogue criminal state.

On 24 February 2010 Sheikh Jarrah witnessed a riot that resulted in the arrest of one Palestinian man, pepper spray of one Palestinian woman and her child and the injury of two Palestinian children.

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WHY IRAN? Give Iran a Break!

Intifada Voice

Debbie Menon for Salem-News.com

Iran has not invaded or threatened any country for two and a half centuries.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Courtesy: axisofjustice.org

(MELBOURNE, Aust.) - Iran has not attacked another country militarily. The track records of the US, Israel, the UK and France are very different.

These so called “democracies” have a bloody history of invading other countries on flimsy excuses.
There are parallels, between the western media rhetoric about Iraq’s nuclear threat prior to the US invasion and the rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear programme today. In repeatedly misinterpreting the statements of Iran’s Ahmadinejad, the US-Israel media paints him as the Hitler of the Middle East. There was no reality check before Iraq and there is no reality check now.

Iran has been a consistent supporter of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and called for a nuclear weapons free Middle East.

The comments of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Israel have been repeated by some of Iran ’s leaders since 1979 and constitute no practical threat. A tit-for-tat response.

The statement attributed to him that “Israel should be wiped off the map” is a distortion of the truth and has been determined by a number of Farsi linguists, amongst them, Professor Juan Cole, to be a mistranslation.

What he actually said was that “the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.
Ahmadinejad has made clear that he envisions regime change in Israel through internal decay.
The classic lie in the western Media, of course, is the lie that he had stated that: “Israel must be wiped off the map.”

Most media groups in the west fall in line with that thinking.

Janet Daly of the London Telegraph repeated this lie on a BBC programme when it has been exposed as such for well over two years. Larry King did the same, during his interview with Ahmadinejad, then cut to a commercial break before giving him time to respond, then, of course, he moved on to another subject, after the break. This has been their way for decades.

If you do not already know, Ahmadinejad was quoting Ayatollah Khomeini who actually said:
…this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods)
must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).

Iranian leaders have said consistently for two decades that they will accept a two-state solution in Palestine if a majority of Palestinians favour that option. This is in sharp contrast to the explicit threats by Israel and the US leaders against Iran, including aid to separatist movements to disintegrate and wipe Iran off the map, as reported by Seymour Hersh and Reese Elrich.

There is considerable evidence of clandestine operations by the US, British and Israeli agents who are arming, training and funding terrorist entities such as Jundollah in Baluchistan, Arab separatists in Khuzestan, and PJAK in Kurdistan.

These concrete attempts at disintegration of Iran, as well as the 100 million dollars congressional funding for ‘democracy’ promotion in Iran, constitute aggression and are interference in Iran’s domestic affairs and the Iranian people’s rights of sovereignty.

They violate the bilateral Algiers Accord of 1981, in which Washington renounced any such actions in the future.

Iran is no match for Israel, whose security and military needs are all but guaranteed by US taxpayers, most of whom are not even aware of this fact. Iran is surrounded on all sides by the US Navy and American bases. Iran has not invaded or threatened any country for two and a half centuries.
Give Iran a break!

Source: Salem-News
Read Also
CAN OBAMA ESCAPE THE DOMINATING INFLUENCE OF AIPAC AND THE AMERICAN JEWISH/ZIONIST LOBBY? –
by Debbie Menon

About the Author: Debbie Menon is an independent writer based in Dubai. She can be reached at http://uprootedpalestinians.groups.live.com/debbiemenon@gmail.com.
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February 26, 2010 Posted by Elias

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 Uprooted Palestinian