TOON OF THE WEEK ~~ OBAMA BOYCOTTS RACISM SUMMIT

Source
April 20, 2009 at 6:29 am (Associate Post, Barack Obama, Cartoons, History, Israel, Racism)

Is this the ‘change’ we were promised?

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

The Obama administration quietly announced this weekend that it would
boycott United Nations international conference about racism and
discrimination because of concerns that the conference unfairly
singles out Israel for criticism…

**********************************************


Based on the Thomas Nast cartoon, “Worse than Slavery”, published in
Harper’s Weekly, October 24, 1874:

Worse than Slavery - Nast Cartoon

As shown in this Thomas Nast cartoon, Worse than Slavery, white groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White League used every form of terror, violence, and intimidation to restore a “white man’s government” and redeem the noble “lost cause.” (Harper’s Weekly, October 24, 1874)

ISRAELI NAZISM IS A CLARION REALITY

Source

April 20, 2009 at 12:24 pm (Associate Post, Israel, Palestine, Racism)

Jews ought to deal with it, not deny it

By Khalid Amayreh

Dershowitz

Barak

Zionist supremacists from California to Occupied Jerusalem to Sydney are quite nervous these days as they watch many people around world getting themselves freed, slowly but definitely, from the shackles of Zionist propaganda.

For over sixty years, classical Zionist lies about the crime against humanity, otherwise called Israel, prevailed to a large extent. The black was turned into white, the white into black, the big lie was transformed into a “truth” glorified by millions. The impoverished and thoroughly tormented Palestinian victims were portrayed as “terrorists and murderers, even anti-Semites who were trying to finish what Hitler had started.”

As to the real Nazis, the Zionist Jews who committed one of the biggest crimes in the history of humanity, namely the virtual destruction and obliteration of the Palestinian community, they were often depicted as progressive pioneers who turned the desert into bloom, a light upon the nations, and the only democracy in the Middle East.

Now it seems, the Zionist magic has outlived its usefulness and been rendered stale and ineffective. The world is finding out that it has been deceived, duped and cheated all these years. And it is time to wake up to see things as they are.

The Durban conference, which is taking place in Geneva, is meant to foster peace, equality and justice around the world. Needless to say, doing so requires that the peoples and governments of the world fight and try to eradicate oppression, racism and aggression.

This is exactly what is infuriating the Zionist leadership everywhere, and not without a strong justification. We all know that fighting racism and oppression means challenging Israel, a country that is based on ethnic cleansing, land theft, oppression and lies.

Indeed, even espousing the most elementary principles of equality and justice puts Israel on an inevitable collision course with the rest of humanity.

In short, you can’t be truly human, let only humane, without opposing Zionism. This is what many people around the world are discovering. This is also what Israel and her supporters are dreading, since Zionism and humaneness are an eternal oxymoron.

This is why the shipyard dogs of Zionism from Commentary, to the New Republic, the New York Post, the Jerusalem Post, to Dershowitz, Wiesel, Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Peres and the numerous other paragons of mendacity and racism, are panicking these days. Just look at their faces and you will see how anxious, how insecure they look.

This is also how most criminals and thieves react when they sense that their crimes are about to be discovered and they are about to be apprehended.

But like all criminals and thieves, Israel and her often tribal supporters will not just raise the white flag and surrender to truth, however clear, however overwhelming.

Zionists often claim that they have the highest IQs of any people on the face of earth. Well, it is said that many criminals are extremely intelligent and this is why the police are often unable to get their hands on them.

But is this real intelligence? Is this real smartness? Indeed, if a criminal or a thief was truly intelligent, he or she wouldn’t be indulging in criminal behavior in the first place. An intelligence that eventually gets you to the gallows or the electric chair is the ultimate stupidity.

The same logic undoubtedly applies to Israel, an evil state that has transformed many Jews into either practitioners of evil or supporters of evil.

Let us take for example a person such as Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, who has filled the world’s ether with all sorts of hypocritical and sanctimonious proclamations about the uniqueness Jewish suffering, as if non-Jewish suffering were any less genuine.

This is the same man who has been saying for decades that Israel has the right to commit crimes against the Palestinians and that the entire world is in no position to criticize Israel’s Nazi-like behavior.

Wiesel’s “Night” had ended and his people were able stood on their feet again, but he is hell-bent, even to the point of death, to utilize even the last breath of his life and the last vestige of the holocaust memory to justify, prolong and perpetuate the Palestinian “Night” in order to satisfy his depravity and whims of ethnic superiority and self-absorbedness.

This is the same Wiesel who is now harrowing to Geneva to defend the extermination by Israel of innocent and helpless children in Gaza on no other account than the helpless victims being weak and not belonging to the “holy tribe.”

You see how Zionism has metamorphosed and is metamorphosing the victims of the Nazi beast into satanic liars, immoral thugs and nefarious murderous, thoroughly embracing a state that thinks like the Nazis, behaves like the Nazis and acts like the Nazis.

But the depravity seems to have no limits. This is the nature of a demonic sickness that has come to grip a whole group of people who think the world ought to allow them to do whatever others are not allowed to do.

This is a people who argue that they have to kill other people’s children to make sure that their children won’t be killed, a people who think they have to kill other people’s mothers in order to make sure that their mothers won’t be killed. A people, sick to the bone, who think they have to commit a holocaust to prevent the recurrence of another holocaust.

In other words, the world has to allow them to exterminate the Palestinian people, the Lebanese people and probably the Iranian people as well in order to give them a sense of security.

And the moment anyone criticizes their murderous behavior, such as starving the people of Gaza or incinerating civilians with White Phosphorus or confining millions of tormented Palestinians to modern-day concentration camps, the Zionists will shout vociferously and uncontrollably Auschwitz! Gestapo! Kristallnacht! Hamas! Suicide bombers!, utterly ignoring the brutal ugliness of their mindsets and murderous evilness of their actions.

This is what makes racist animals like Avigdor Lieberman, who combines the ruthlessness of Joseph Stalin and hatefulness of Adolph Hitler, criticize the Durban conference for not protesting human rights violations in countries other than Israel.

It is like a despicable whore preaching on morality and chastity.

But the pornographic hypocrisy is by no means confined to the former Moldovan thug. Well, is Shimon Peres any less hypocritical, any less criminal? Or Netanyahu? Or Barak? Or even Ovadia Yosef? We are speaking after all of an entire breed of pathological criminals whose criminality and lies know no limits.

My friend Gideon Levy, who I immensely respect for his moral courage and rectitude, has written that it is wrong to compare the Palestinian plight with the holocaust. However, he admitted that Israel today looks very much like Germany in 1933.

Well, then do the Palestinians have to wait a few more years until Lieberman and his Judeo-Nazi cohorts act on their evil doctrines as Hitler and Eichman and their Aryan-Nazi cohorts acted on theirs a few years later?

It is a positive sign that the Durban conference is taking place. This is in itself a step in the right direction because holding the conference against the will of demonic Zionism shows that the world, or at least most of the peoples of the world, are willing to look Israel in the eye and say “you are racist, you are criminal, you are evil; and we are not going to be intimidated by your incitement and hate-mongering.” This is what is scaring Zionists and making them lose their composure.

As to other peoples in Europe and North America, whose governments are still languishing under the Zionist stranglehold, there will come a day when they too will wake up and free themselves from the shackles of Zionist lobbies and Zionist lies.

That day will not be far off.

9/11 Mastermind’s" Children Were Tortured With Insects

Link

John Byrne - Rawstory
April 17, 2009


Bush Administration memos released by the White House on Thursday provide new insight into claims that American agents used insects to torture the young children of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In the memos, released Thursday, the Bush Administration White House Office of Legal Counsel offered its endorsement of CIA torture methods that involved placing an insect in a cramped, confined box with detainees. Jay S. Bybee, then-director of the OLC, wrote that insects could be used to capitalize on detainees’ fears.

The memo was dated Aug. 1, 2002. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s children were captured and held in Pakistan the following month, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

While an additional memo released Thursday claims that the torture with insects technique was never utilized by the CIA, the allegations regarding the children would have transpired when the method was authorized by the Bush Administration.

At a military tribunal in 2007, the father of a Guantanamo detainee alleged that Pakistani guards had confessed that American interrogators used ants to coerce the children of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into revealing their father’s whereabouts.

The statement was made by Ali Khan, the father of detainee Majid Khan, who gave a detailed account of his son’s interrogation at the hands of American guards in Pakistan. In his statement, Khan asserted that one of his sons was held at the same place as the young children of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

“The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs and were denied food and water by other guards,” the statement read. “They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.” (A pdf transcript is available here)

Khan’s statement is second-hand. But the picture he paints of his son’s interrogation at the hands of American interrogators is strikingly similar to the accounts given by numerous other detainees to the International Red Cross. The timing of the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s son — then aged seven and nine — also meshes with a report by Human Rights Watch, which says that the children were captured in September 2002 and held for four months at the hands of American guards.

“According to eyewitnesses, the two were held in an adult detention center for at least four months while U.S. agents questioned the children about their father’s whereabouts,” the report said.

The use of insects isn’t mentioned in a recently leaked International Red Cross report, in which Red Cross officials questioned detainees about their treatment at the hands of US forces and ultimately judged them to have been tortured. A second memo released Thursday, dated May 10, 2005, says the CIA told the White House insects were never actually used in interrogations.

“We understand that — for reasons unrelated to any concerns that it might violate the [criminal] statute — the CIA never used the technique and has removed it from the list of authorized interrogation techniques,” Steven Bradbury, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in a footnote.

It’s worth noting, however, that the Red Cross was denied access to individuals held at CIA black sites. Khan’s son, Majid, was among those President Bush moved from the CIA’s secret prison network to Guantanamo Bay.

The techniques Khan says were employed against his son also match those approved in the Bybee memo.

“What I can tell you is that Majid was kidnapped from my son Mohammed’s [not related Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] house in Karachi, along with Mohammed, his wife, and my infant granddaughter,” Khan said in his military tribunal statement. “They were captured by Pakistani police and soldiers and taken to a detention center fifteen minutes from Mohammed’s house. The center had walls that seemed to be eighty feet high. My sons were hooded, handcuffed, and interrogated. After eight days of interrogation by US and Pakistani agents, including FBI agents, Mohammed was allowed to see Majid.

“Majhid looked terrible and very, very tired,” Khan continued. “According to Mohammed, Majid said that the Americans tortured him for eight hours at a time, tying him tightly in stressful positions in a small chair until his hands, feet and mind went numb. They re-tied him in the chair every hour, tightening the bonds on his hands and feet each time so that it was more painful. He was often hooded and had difficulty breathing. They also beat him repeatedly, slapping him in the face, and deprived him of sleep. When he was not being interrogated, the Americans put Majid in a small cell that was totally dark and too small for him to lie down in or sit in with his legs stretched out. He had to crouch. The room was also infested with mosquitoes. The torture only stopped when Majid agreed to sign a statement that he was not even allowed to read.”

Later in his statement, Khan alleges that the Pakistani guards revealed other abuses by American agents.

“The Americans also once stripped and beat two Arab boys, ages fourteen and sixteen, who were turned over by the Pakistani guards at the detention center,” he said. “These guards told my son that they were very upset at this and said the boys were thrown like garbage onto a plane to Guantanamo. Women prisoners were also held there, apart from their husbands, and some were pregnant and forced to give birth in their cells. According to Mohammed, one woman also died in her cell because the guards could not get her to a hospital quickly enough. This was most upsetting to the Pakistani guards.”

One blogger notes, “The first indications the children may have been tortured were reported in Ron Suskind’s 2006 book The One Percent Doctrine.”

“When KSM was being held at a secret CIA facility in Thailand, apparently the revamped Vietnam War-era base at Udorn, according to Suskind, a message was passed to interrogators: ‘do whatever’s necessary,’” Kevin Fenton writes at History Commons. “The interrogators then told KSM ‘his children would be hurt if he didn’t cooperate. However, his response was, ’so, fine, they’ll join Allah in a better place.’”

Fenton has two questions: “Did the Khans invent the allegations or garble them in some way and then ‘get lucky’ two years later, when it was revealed the CIA was, at least, contemplating the techniques they alleged it used at the time in question?” and “Given that nobody heard of the CIA using insects for another two years, why would they invent these specific allegations, which sounded bizarre when they were made?”

Obama Channeling Cheney

Obama Channeling Cheney
Nat Hentoff – ocregister.com
April 19, 2009

The president's broken promise of transparency has earned him the Donald Rumsfeld Obfuscation Prize.

Very soon after taking office, President Barack Obama ringingly pledged: "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented openness in government. … Openness will strengthen our democracy." However, as with an increasing number of his promises to repair the Bush-Cheney administration's deep cracks in our rule of law, Obama is giving defenders of the Constitution less and less hope they can believe in.

For a glaring example, with regard to the pervasive secrecy of his predecessors, Obama has stunningly not only continued to invoke "state secrets" to order judges to close down lawsuits. He has gone further than Bush by actually claiming total government immunity from litigation by citizens protesting illegal spying on our communications by the National Security Agency.

On April 3, Obama's Justice Department filed an answer to a federal lawsuit against warrantless wiretapping of Americans brought by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been the lead litigator concerning these violations of our privacy.

In Jewel v. NSA, five plaintiffs charge that their telecommunications carrier, AT&T, gave the NSA – with its vast surveillance technology – information about their communications. (There are also other lawsuits by indignant Americans in state courts against telecoms cooperating with NSA.)

Attorney General Eric Holder – who certainly didn't act on his own initiative – began Obama's response by insisting that just allowing the case to continue "would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security." But Obama, during his presidential campaign, vigorously complained that the Bush administration "invoked a legal tool known as the 'state secrets' privilege more than any other administration to get cases thrown out of civil court."

But now the Obama administration – explains Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation – "has for the first time claimed sovereign immunity against the privacy-protecting Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. In other words, this administration is arguing that the U.S. can never be sued for spying that violated federal surveillance statutes, whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Wiretap Act or the Stored Communications Act."

Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer, has become a persistently valuable analyst of the insatiable unconstitutional overreaching of the executive branch for the past eight years – and during Obama's first few months. On April 6 in salon.com, Greenwald confronted this "brand-new 'sovereignty immunity' claim of breathtaking scope – never before advanced even by the Bush administration – that the Patriot Act: Bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is 'willful disclosure' of the illegally intercepted communications" by the government.

What does that mean? We have to prove somehow that the Obama team has "willfully" disclosed information it has lawlessly obtained on us? But how can we know that it has? All of this dragnet electronic surveillance is secret.

Obama's solemn vow that his administration will be the most "transparent" in our history qualifies him, through his trumping of George Orwell's "1984" – in this and other invocations of absolute government secrecy – for the Donald Rumsfeld Obfuscation Prize. For another example of this "new" Obama, to be followed up here later, we still have CIA "renditions" of terrorism suspects to other countries – with their assurance they won't torture the suspects we send.

That's the very same false promise Condoleezza Rice used to ritualistically intone.

Ahmadinejad Denounces Israeli Racism, Sparks UN Walkout

Ahmadinejad Denounces Israeli Racism, Sparks UN Walkout

Readers Number : 398

20/04/2009 Dozens of delegates have walked out of a United Nations conference on racism after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, described the Israeli cabinet as a "racist government".

The summit had already been badly undermined by a boycott by the United States and some of its major allies over concerns that it would be used as a platform for attacks against the Zionist entity.

Several demonstrators were ejected as the Iranian president began his speech at the conference in Geneva and soon afterwards delegates from the European Union quit the conference room in protest at some of his comments, just because he said that the Israeli government was a racist one.

The Iranian President criticized the creation of a "totally racist government in occupied Palestine" in 1948, calling it "the most cruel and racist regime".

"Following World War II they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering," Ahmadinejad told the conference, on the day that Jewish communities commemorate the Holocaust. "And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and mother parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine," he said, according to the official translation. "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."

But while the speech from the Iranian leader, who has also described the Nazi Holocaust as a "myth", was shunned by Western powers, other delegates who stayed to hear him speak greeted his words with applause.

His address came after he held talks with UN chief Ban Ki-Moon, who had kicked off the conference by criticizing countries who decided to stay away from Geneva.

In his speech, Ban decried Western boycotts of the conference. "We speak of finding a new unity, as the times demand. Yet we remain weak and divided and stuck in old ways," Ban said as he opened the meeting in Geneva.
"Some nations, who by rights should be helping to forge a path to a better future, are not here," he said, telling delegates that he was "profoundly disappointed." "I deeply regret that some have chosen to stand aside."

Poland became the latest nation Monday to boycott the meeting after the United States, Israel, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
France decided to attend the event but warned that Europeans would walk out if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was due to address the conference, made "anti-Semitic accusations" during the event.

Ahmadinejad launched a new broadside against Israel before heading to the meeting, saying "the Zionist ideology and regime are the flag bearers of racism."
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told France Info radio: "We will have to be very clear. We will not tolerate any slips."
"If he utters racist or anti-Semitic accusations, we will leave the room immediately," Kouchner said.

The five-day Geneva follow-up has angered Israel, with the Zionist entity describing the event as a "tragic farce" even before it started.
Israel recalled its ambassador to Switzerland on Monday over the Swiss president's meeting with Ahmadinejad and the start of the conference.
"Israel's ambassador in Switzerland is recalled for consultations following the start of the Durban II conference and the meeting between the Swiss president with his Iranian counterpart," an Israeli foreign ministry official told AFP.
"This is not a break in relations, but an expression of Israel's discontent for the lax Swiss attitude towards Iran," he said on condition of anonymity.

The Paris-based European Jewish Congress said in a statement that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presence at the conference meant the United Nations had "put the fox in charge of the hen house".

The US government's decision Saturday to join Canada and Israel in staying away from Geneva snowballed as Australia, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands followed.

US President Barack Obama defended Washington's stance, saying that despite progress in negotiations in recent weeks, anti-Israel language in a draft final communiqué was "oftentimes completely hypocritical and counterproductive".
"If we have a clean start, a fresh start, we're happy to go" to a future meeting, he told reporters at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.

The European Union's traditional show of unity on international human rights unraveled, as Britain, France and Ireland decided to attend.

Pope Benedict XVI said the conference is needed to eliminate racial intolerance around the world.

The Geneva meeting is meant to take stock of progress in fighting racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance since the 2001 Durban World Conference Against Racism.
But the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, who was "shocked and deeply disappointed" by Washington's decision, underlined recently that the international goals set in Durban had simply not been achieved.
"Eight years on, anti-racism pledges and measures have not yet succeeded in relegating discriminatory practices and intolerance to the heap of history's repugnant debris," said Pillay.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch faulted boycotting states for "turning their backs" on victims of racism.
Juliette de Rivero of Human Rights Watch said that without Washington there, the meeting could lack diplomatic gravitas.
"For us it's extremely disappointing and it's a missed opportunity, really, for the United States," she said.
"If the U.S. fails to participate, it will disappoint many who invested hope in the Obama administration's commitment to engage internationally to protect human rights."

Israel 'a Totally Racist Government'

Press TV

Addressing a UN anti-racism confab Iran's president minces no words in calling Israel 'a totally racist government' formed on the back of 'military aggression'.



Snubbing Monday warnings by the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the post-World War II military invasions on Palestine which preceded the propping up of the entity, were explained by 'Jewish suffering'.

"They resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Judaism," he said.

"They sent migrants from Europe, the United States and other parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine."

Kouchner had earlier warned that all European envoys would leave the UN anti-racism summit, should Ahmadinejad level 'racist or anti-Semitic accusations' against Israel.

Ahmadinejad's comments were followed by the walking out of the delegates from several European supporters of Israel. Iran's president, however, continued his speech and was applauded by the audience.

France, which had sent its representative to the event, also reportedly condemned the presentation as a 'hate speech' after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed those who had boycotted 'this festival of hate'.
Following hectic Tel Aviv efforts to criminalize the event, the United States was the first to impose the boycott opposing the language the conference's draft document used to characterize Israel

The two had also slammed the previous conference held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, for being anti-Semitic because it brought into focus Israel's ill-treatment of the Palestinians and attempted to pass a resolution likening Zionism to racism.

A protesting European official was quoted by DPA as saying that the delegations were offended by the 'inflammatory remarks'.

As the president was walking up to the podium, some three clown impersonators attempted at obstruction shouting 'racist, racist'.

They were ejected by the guards and Ahmadinejad commenced his presentation saying, "I would like to ask the respected audience to forgive these people. They are misinformed."

Posted by JNOUBIYEH at 1:18 PM

Labels: Conference on Racism, Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas, Zionism

Palestinian olive oil's Fairtrade journey

Palestinian olive oil's Fairtrade journey


Sarah Irving, The Electronic Intifada, 20 April 2009




An olive press in Gaza City, October 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

In spring 2008, several years of careful negotiations finally culminated in the first Palestinian olive oil being awarded Fairtrade status. The oil, sourced from the Palestine Fair Trade Producers Company (PFTPC), based in the West Bank city of Jenin, is both the first Palestinian product to receive Fairtrade certification, and the first olive oil to be allowed to use the mark.

The accreditation means that PFTPC's oil can now carry the distinctive green and blue mark, used as a guarantee of fair conditions for producers by schemes which are members of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLOI). FLOI member groups operate in the UK, US, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand and 14 European countries, so the move could be a major boost for the Palestinian olive oil market. Surveys show that the label is recognized by 70 percent of British consumers, and total UK sales of Fairtrade labelled products such as coffee, tea and fruit topped 700 million British pounds ($1 billion) in 2008.

The Fairtrade olive oil story

The effort to persuade the British Fairtrade Foundation that Palestinian olive oil was worth accrediting is largely the work of Zaytoun, a social enterprise founded in London in 2004 by a pair of women who had visited the West Bank with the International Solidarity Movement and the International Women's Peace Service.

"It was an accidental business," said Heather Masoud, one of those women. "We thought we'd bring in a few hundred bottles as an experiment, for friends and family, but we got a really strong response through word of mouth, then had people chasing us for Palestinian olive oil. So we thought we'd better make it happen properly."

Zaytoun was established as a Community Interest Company, a structure which includes an "asset lock," meaning that profits are plowed back into the firm.

By 2007, Zaytoun's turnover was around 260,000 ($380,000). Its product range has extended beyond olive oil to include almonds, couscous, dates and Nablus soap, and it is involved in the Palestine Fair Trade Association's Trees for Life olive planting scheme. But moving outside the Palestine solidarity and politicized fairtrade markets proved a challenge. The help of mainstream health food wholesaler Equal Exchange proved invaluable in getting the oil into independent retail outlets.

But while several of the olive oil suppliers Zaytoun sources from have organic certification, the Fairtrade accreditation process -- which includes several site visits by FLOI and scrutiny of the ways in which money is transferred to producers -- has taken a lot longer.

Fairtrade accreditation has been a big new step for Zaytoun and the Palestinian olive oil it wholesales. From its beginnings on stalls at Palestine solidarity events, the label has meant that the oil can now be found on the shelves of mainstream supermarkets. The Co-operative, a chain which has 2,500 stores across the UK and is the country's fifth biggest food retailer, is now stocking the oil. A British government minister joined Jenin farmer Mahmoud Issa and Zaytoun, Equal Exchange and Co-operative Group staff at the oil's London launch, and the Fairtrade Foundation's press release included a personal commendation (without a touch of irony) from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Benefiting Palestinian farmers

Of Zaytoun's turnover, around 40 percent goes directly to the farmers who produce the olive oil. Another 20 percent is spent on processing the product -- bottling, packaging, labeling and transporting it. A high proportion of this value stays in the West Bank, and the company is also looking into having leaflets and posters printed in the West Bank, ensuring that the money goes to a wide range of economic sectors, not just olive farmers.

But the difficulty of guaranteeing supplies that have to come through Israeli security means that warehousing costs in the UK are also high, because Zaytoun always has to keep large stocks in reserve.

"The suppliers have to go through a lot of bureaucracy to get movement certification to have the oil picked up from the West Bank and taken to Haifa to be shipped, and it changes all the time," said Masoud. "So Canaan Fair Trade, for example, have to stack their pallets at a height where a sniffer dog can jump over them, and this is not a very commercially viable thing -- you want to be able to stack pallets as high as you can. Another problem is that the nearest checkpoint, Jelameh, is pretty much permanently closed, so they have to go via Tulkarm."

Shipping the oil via the container port at Haifa has also presented problems in the past.

"It's not something we can definitely say is intentional," said Masoud. "But we've had a couple of containers go astray, one ended up in the Netherlands and one in Italy. And because pretty much all of the people at our suppliers have West Bank IDs, no one can go to Haifa and see what's happening when things go wrong," said Masoud, referring to Israel's permit regime that controls Palestinian movement.

As well as benefiting a variety of West Bank industries, Zaytoun is also committed to working with different groups in Palestinian society. Its couscous is produced by a women's cooperative, and the jarred olives it's been trialing in the UK are also processed by women. While the olive oil comes mainly from the Jenin, Nablus, Salfit and Tulkarm areas, Zaytoun's dates come from the Jordan Valley, and couscous from Jericho.

"We did have one delivery of couscous from Gaza, via PARC [the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees]," said Masoud, "but that's impossible at the moment. We'd like to have more products from Gaza in the future."

Fairtrade and the Palestinian economy

Fairtrade has, believes Masoud, a significant role to play in improving the health of the Palestinian economy. PARC has also applied for accreditation, although this is likely to take some time to approve.

"In terms of not being a donor-dependent economy, we think that Fairtrade has a really important role," said Masoud.

"There's a lot of charitable focus on Palestine, especially from a lot of the Muslim charities, but we think the trade focus is so important in building a long-term future."

Zaytoun's work has not just been about buying olive oil from Palestine, but helping to increase the capacity of the farmers' cooperatives which produce it. European Union regulations, for example, include strict requirements for the chemical composition of extra virgin olive oil, and this has meant that the plastic storage vessels used for domestic storage had to be replaced with stainless steel processing equipment.

Cooperatives have also had training to strengthen their collective voices, empowering them to reject Israeli traders who often paid individual producers below the cost of production for their oil. And the social premium which is a condition of Fairtrade accreditation will help programs like educational scholarships for the children of farmers to continue.

But, Masoud stressed, real support for the Palestine economy needs major changes in how Western governments view Palestine.

"There was a conference in December 2008 with Gordon Brown and [Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East] Tony Blair and all this talk of private sector investment saving the Palestinian economy. But these dialogues go on in a vacuum where no one talks about the occupation and the fact that Israel is pretty much intentionally destroying the Palestinian economy," she said.

"If you look at ethical trade initiatives they are driven by awareness of what Israel is doing, so these small-scale projects have a real place in addressing that. The large-scale negotiations are just talking in another world where we don't have checkpoints and Israel controlling all the sea, land [and] air borders."

Sarah Irving is a freelance writer from Manchester, UK. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2003-04. She now writes full-time on a range of issues, including Palestine.

Related Links

• Zaytoun Community Interest Company

Our Kuffieyeh

by Mattia Massolini

Link

20 April 2009 by الفلسطينية

check out this important initiative below. we need to save our kuffieyeh!



THE KUFIYEH PROJECT LAUNCHED

New Orleans Palestine Solidarity and Palestine Online Store are proud to announce the launch of The Kufiyeh Project. This not-for-profit endeavour aims to promote the kufiyeh as a symbol of resistance and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, while at the same time saving the only kufiyeh factory in Palestine from shutting down. Income from this project will be rechanneled towards these objectives, under the guidance of an advisory board.

The Kufiyeh Project has just launched its website, which includes some background information on the kufiyah (for example, how it was adopted by the entire Palestinian population in the resistance against British colonialism in 1936, links to news, multimedia, and comedy about the kufiyeh, and a peak at the factory in Hebron.)

Your support is essential for making this project succeed. We are about to place an order with the factory, and hope that you will join us in placing an order. We have set the retail price of the kufiyeh at $12, while a dozen is discounted by $24 (to $120). For orders of 6 dozen or more, the discount is 33%, coming out to $8 a piece, plus the actual cost of shipping and handling, not to exceed $100.

The website is at: http://www.thekufiyehproject.org/ - please make sure to check it out! And you can reach either of us at: info@thekufiyehproject.org

In solidarity,
Mai Bader and Haithem El-Zabri.
The Kufiyeh Project.

Keffiyeh Not an Israeli Scarf

By Will

I am posting this Reuters video about the growing popularity of the keffiyeh/kuffiyah/kufiya among Israelis as a preemptive strike against future claims that it is an Israeli scarf. If I had the foresight and was alive then, I would have done the same for falafel and hummous. They take our land, claim our food, and now our aesthetics. What next?

On a separate note pertaining to the domestic political context, Fayyad commented:

The college girl raises an interesting point I had not thought of before. She wanted a stylish Kuffiyah and one that is not associated with Fatah, Hamas, or PFLP. Given the polarization and division on the street in Palestine, no wonder that "salata" kuffyiahs, as the shop keeper called them, are taking off.

[tarboush tip: Um Mazen]

PERSECUTION OF REVISIONISTS ~ THE HOLOCAUST UNVEILED

Source

THE TRUTH DOES NOT FEAR INVESTIGATION!

This is a film to educate and truly shock your friends, family, and community with a fresh look at the "inalienable truths" that were fed to us in our mothers' milk.


WHY HAVE SOME people (described hereafter as the "Thought Police") incessantly attacked revisionist historians ~ meaning historians who question the Establishment version of events, and who use research, scientific tests, and original documents to more closely approach the truth ~ of all different backgrounds ~ from Gentiles, to Jews, to Christians, to Muslims, to freethinkers, to Whites, to Arabs, etc .~ in some of the most horrible ways imaginable?

If you have been reading the series I have been posting on The Unveiling of the B'nai B'rith, you will know what types of people are involved in stifling the truth whilst they continue their rein of terror and propaganda. You will also know just what is at stake for them if the facts of the matter are released to the general public.


The Thought Police have not just merely suppressed the revisionists' findings by boycotting them, but have also censored them by promoting laws to make their honest findings punishable by jail time. They have committed arson against the revisionists. They have committed murder.


They have thrown acid on revisionists' faces, beat them, destroyed their homes, and engaged in other acts of mayhem.

David Irving, Ernst Zundel, Germar Rudolf, Pioneers of Holocaust Revisionism

Ernst Zundel was taken away from his American wife, with whom he was living in the hills of Tennessee, and thrown in American, Canadian, and German dungeons. Zundel was imprisoned without charge for three years and is now on trial in Germany for questioning the Holocaust story.

Just a note. Ernst Zundel was my neighbour in the 1970's and early 80's. His home was a few doors down the road from my walk up flat in downtown Toronto. Every week, the roads became clogged by the groups of angry Jewish people who mobbed around his home. This I remember clearly. I was still "holocaust sensitive" in those days and had no idea of the details but was shocked by some of his words. If only I knew then what I know now, I might have offered to help him in these endeavors!


Germar Rudolf, a PhD-level chemist, was also taken away from his wife and their child in Illinois ~ and deported to Germany to stand trial for daring to publish scientific findings that cast doubt on WWII Jewish claims.

David Irving, a best-selling author and world-renowned historian, was just sentenced to three years in jail in Austria for uttering merely one single sentence 15 years ago!


The Thought Police will stop at nothing to silence these brave men. We truly do live in Orwellian Times. Please share this information and do your research. Don't just go by the things you find here, make sure, do some of your own research!

Posted by Barbara L at 12:49 AM Links to this post

Labels: a, Concentration Camps, freedom of speech, Holocaust, NWO, truth, Zionism

INSTANT GREATER ISRAEL – JUST ADD WATER,

PART 2
April 20, 2009

By Damian Lataan

I wrote part one of ‘Instant Greater Israel: just add water’ in July of last year to demonstrate how important water is to the Zionist dream of a Greater Israel. The aim of this follow-up piece is to emphasise the importance of water to the Israeli dream of a Greater Israel in order to show the reasons why Israel is so intent on keeping the West Bank for itself and why Israel continues to covet south Lebanon up to the Litani River using the existence of Hezbollah as an excuse to continually attack Lebanon and eventually manipulate affairs in such a way that, one way or another, it will have access to the Litani River.

The Zionist dream of a Greater Israel that stretched from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq wasn’t so much the land promised by God to Jews but the dream of the far more down to earth aspirations of early Zionist leaders who saw a Greater Israel more as a geographical entity bounded by the convenience of abundant supplies of water; a resource that in this part of the world is even more important than oil.

Modern Zionists, however, have modified their aspirations somewhat. They realise that actually occupying the land between the Nile and the Euphrates is probably a bit too ambitious; the land between the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the Jordan River in the east and from the Sinai to the south and the Litani River in Lebanon to the north is today a far more realistic though still risky ambition.

While today’s Zionists know they’ll never occupy the lands dreamed of by Zionism’s founding fathers, at least one of the rivers that were to bound the Promised Land, the Nile, is still in modern Zionists sights as a much needed resource of water for Israel’s southern deserts.

Back in the late 1970s Egyptian President Anwar Sadat proposed a pipeline to take water from the Nile to the Negev desert in southern Israel as a peace gesture. The idea didn’t go down too well with Egyptian planners who reminded the President that there was barely enough Nile water as it was to supply Egypt’s needs let alone giving some away to Israel just as a gesture. While many Israeli’s thought it was a great idea, the hardliners among them didn’t feel happy having to rely on water being supplied to them by a former enemy.

But that was back in the 1970s and Egypt and Israel, or at least their respective governments, still enjoy a peaceful though occasionally strained relationship. Since then Egypt has built a tunnel under the Suez Canal to feed water up to the Northern Sinai and within 50 kilometres of the Gaza Strip. However, the project seems to be headed for disaster as was prophesised some three decades ago and, while the Israelis are desperate for water, they would be unlikely to pursue Nile waters knowing that it could be cut off at any given time.

Israel’s biggest source of water supply at the moment, some 40%, is from two giant aquifers that are located in the West Bank, but which extend into pre-1967 Israel. It is this that explains why Israel is so reluctant to give up the West Bank to the Palestinians as part of a sovereign Palestinian state and is so determined to build settlements in so many places where the aquifers are more easily accessible inside the West Bank.

Israel’s other main source of water, around 35%, comes from the Jordan River which has headwaters originating in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel. However, Israel is slowly using up more water than the river can supply annually diminishing it by an unsustainable estimated 15%. Israel’s desalination plants don’t go anywhere near making up for the lost water.

These resources then are not enough for Israel’s growing demands for water especially as they have become so acutely aware of how valuable water as a resource is during this current drought period in the region.

Over the years there has always been one water source that Israel has coveted more than any other for its quality and abundance and that is the Litani River in southern Lebanon. The entire flow of the Litani river is within Lebanon from its rising in the northern Biqa’a Valley, south toward Beaufort Castle and then west to where it flows into the Mediterranean in south Lebanon north of Tyre. The nearest it gets to Israel is where it turns westward in south-east Lebanon just four kilometres away from the Israeli border and five kilometres from the Hasbani River in north-east Israel.

Successive Zionist leaders have always had an eye toward having its waters. Chaim Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) wrote to the British government in 1919 and 1920 arguing that Lebanon was only using the Litani waters in the north of Lebanon and that much of south Lebanon should be considered as part of the new frontier for the proposed state of Israel. Weizmann said that the WZO considered the Litani Valley for a distance of 25 miles above the bend of the river toward the west essential to the future of the Jewish ‘national home’.(1) The British and French mandate powers were not impressed by Weizmann’s plea.

Border proposals for a Jewish state, 1919–1947. Click to enlarge

~

The Zionist’s tried again in 1941. In that year David Ben-Gurion who was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from 1947 and who went on to became Israel’s first prime minister, suggested to the international commission on Palestine that the Litani be included in the borders of a future Jewish state. While the commission did not recommend that the Litani and the lands south of the river become part of Israel, it did recommend that seven-eighths of the rivers waters be leased to Israel.(2) The recommendation was not taken up by the UN in 1947 when partition conditions and lines were finally delineated.

The diaries of a later Israeli prime minister, Moshe Sharett, showed, however, that Ben-Gurion together with then Chief of Staff and Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan, remained strong advocates of Israeli occupation of south Lebanon up to the Litani River.(3) After the 1967 war Dayan, still showing ambitions on pushing Israel’s borders up to the Litani, said that Israel had achieved “provisionally satisfying frontiers, with the exception of those with Lebanon”.(4)

In March 1978 Israel launched Operation Litani by invading Lebanon ostensibly to push Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) forces located close to the border with Israel back to positions north of the Litani River. UN Security Council resolutions 425 and 426 insisted that the Israelis withdraw which they did but only after handing over power in the south of Lebanon to their allies, the South Lebanon Army (SLA) who managed to keep the PLO at bay for the Israelis. In June 1982 Israel again invaded Lebanon, this time to push the PLO out of Lebanon entirely which it eventually succeeded in doing. Israel stayed on in south Lebanon until June 2000 when it finally withdrew. While during the period of Israeli occupation it was widely surmised that Israeli engineers had or could have secretly diverted waters via a tunnel or tunnels from the Litani to the Hasbani, which goes on to feed the Jordan River it seems that this never actually occurred. This may be because Israel would unlikely take on such a project without having absolute security over its future.

In 2006 Israel once again found casus belli to invade south Lebanon, this time to destroy Hezbollah. Again, ominously, the Israelis targeted the Litani River. While Hezbollah control the south of Lebanon there will be no chance that Israel would have access to the Litani River either by seizing it or trading for it with the Lebanese government. As it turned out, the Israelis failed to defeat Hezbollah and succeeded only in exposing itself as ruthless aggressors willing to indiscriminately kill innocent civilians in a war that internet and mobile telephone technology gave the world mass exposure to. Had they defeated Hezbollah, Israel may have been able to negotiate with the Lebanese government a peace deal that could have included giving Israel access to some of the Litani’s waters.(5) The failure, however, of Israel to defeat Hezbollah has not forced Israel to give up any hope of ever having access to the Litani. Israel no doubt will at some time in the future confront Hezbollah again – preferably after Iran has been neutralised from supporting and supplying arms to Hezbollah by having had regime change in Iran thus weakening Hezbollah to the point where it will capitulate to Israeli demands.

Rather than being from the Nile to the Euphrates, Israel’s dreams now seem to be bounded by the Jordan and the Litani Rivers with Greater Israel being supplied via a vast network of piped waters from wherever its wars against the Arab and Palestinian peoples can get it from. Water is the essence of Israeli survival. It is also the essence for the survival of the other peoples of the region which is why the one state bi-national solution in the end can be the only solution for all the peoples of the region – including the Israelis.

NOTES

(1) Weisgal, M.W., (ed.), The letters and papers of Chaim Weizmann, (Jerusalem, Israel Universities Press, 1977.) p.267.

(2) Saleh, H.A., “The water wars between the Arabs and Israel”, Arab Affairs, 1988, Issue 55, pp. 55-68.

(3) Amery, Hussein A., “The Litani River of Lebanon”, The Geographical Review, Vol. 83, No. 3, July 1993. pp. 229-238.

(4) Hof, F.C., Galilee Divided: The Israeli-Lebanon Frontier, 1916-1984, (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1985.) p.36.

(5) Murphy, Kim, “Old Feud over Lebanese Waters Takes New Turn”, Los Angeles Times, 10 August 2006.

at 8:23 AM

Labels: Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel

Outrage over Israeli It Ain't Half Hot Mum-style show

Link

April-20-09, 10:28:02 PM Iqbal Tamimi

Critics condemn London show featuring Israeli Defence Force dance troupe as 'ghoulish and retrograde'

* Haroon Siddique
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 20 April 2009

An Israeli Defence Force song-and-dance troupe is to perform in London at a show to commemorate the founding of Israel, provoking anger among groups that campaign for the rights of Palestinians.

The IDF group was likened by the event organisers, the Zionist Federation, to the troupe portrayed in the 1970s BBC comedy It Ain't Half Hot Mum – but not everyone sees the funny side.

Human rights groups accused the IDF of committing war crimes during the three-week invasion of the Gaza Strip, which began in December – allegations denied by the Israeli government – and the army is the subject of a UN investigation.

"This is akin to singing and dancing on the graves of the 400 Palestinian children that the IDF was responsible for killing in January," said Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding.

"We should not be permitting a dance troupe from an army currently under a UN investigation for possible war crimes to be coming to the United Kingdom. It is sick."

The family show, an annual event run by ZF, was due to be held at the Bloomsbury theatre in central London but was moved to a new venue, which is being kept under wraps, after the Bloomsbury pulled out last week on discovering that the IDF troupe was on the bill.

"Obviously we couldn't have them perform here," said a theatre spokeswoman. A number of groups had contacted the Bloomsbury theatre to protest about the show.

Dan Judelson, from Jews for Justice for Palestinians, which claims to be the UK's largest Jewish peace group, described the event as "ghoulish and retrograde".

"The Zionist Federation, with their support for the occupation of Palestinian land, seem massively insensitive to the reactions of most people, who want an equitable settlement for Israelis and Palestinians alike and who will be appalled by the involvement of the IDF in such an event," he said.

Yael Khan, from Islington Friends of Yibna (a Gaza refugee camp), said: "It's grotesque to think that they would invite the Israeli army to perform in London after the massacre in Gaza."

She said protests would be directed to the new venue once it was identified.

A new poster on the ZF website for the event makes no mention of the IDF troupe but a ZF spokesman confirmed it would be performing. He refused to reveal the new location for the event – advertised on the poster as in north London.

"We don't want it spoilt by a group of people who transfer from a climate camp celebration to an animal rights protest to a dance troupe protest," he said.

"How sad that once again a small group of people have politicised an arts and culture event. Freedom of expression has become selective in this country."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/20/israeli-dance-troupe-london