Lebanon’s Palestinian Civil Rights Campaign moves into the Christian heartland

 
Franklin Lamb


Shatila Camp, Beirut, Lebanon


Even though not even one work permit has been issued to one Palestinian in Lebanon since the August 17, 2010 “right to work” law passed in Parliament and even though Palestinians are still forbidden from owning a home, the cause of Palestine Civil Rights in Lebanon endures.

Leila El-Ali, executive director of Najdeh, a Palestinian advocacy group that has long campaigned for civil rights for refugees in Lebanon is pleased that the new law has at least provoked real debate among Lebanese about the plight of Palestinian refugees but agrees that it will have no impact on the ground. ''All of the professions - doctors, lawyers, engineers, pharmacists, academia - will remain closed to Palestinians,'' she says. ''There is no syndicate here that will admit Palestinian members. And to actually be allowed to work legally in other jobs, the new law says you need specific guarantees from your employer - things that in the end make it very difficult for Lebanese to employ Palestinians.”

The August 17, 2010 ‘cave in’ by progressive forces in Parliament that allowed Parliament to do essentially nothing towards granting internationally mandated basic civil rights for Palestinian refugees, was obviously a bitter disappointment but it was not entirely unexpected. The reason is that current political pressures here in Lebanon, internal and external, eroded the requisite political will in Round One.

As wounds are cleaned from last summer’s arliamentary debacle, NGO’s and human rights activists regroup, tactics and projects are being discussed and readied to forge ahead. Neither the Palestinian refugees here nor the growing international coalition to secure these rights has been daunted. This, despite the fact the more than two months after the meek and fairly meaningless Ministry of Labor gesture of cancelling work permit fees for Palestinian refugees, nothing has changed in the camps employment wise and all the other barriers to Palestinians working remain in place. By law and prejudice.

 The currently being launched Round Two of the struggle for Palestinian Civil Rights in Lebanon is concentrating on developing much more international involvement in the campaign to secure the right to work and to own a home.

Prominent endorsers of Palestinian Civil Rights for alestinians in Lebanon who have signed an Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Lebanon’s Maronite Patriach Nasrallah Sfeir include:

• Dr Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury,

• Archbishop Tomasz Peta, of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan

• President Jimmy Carter

• Joseph Zen, Roman Catholic Cardinal of Hong Kong,

• Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

• The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson

• Nelson Mandela

• Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cardinal Archbishop of Havana, Cuba

• The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd, Dean of the National Cathedral, Washington, DC

• Mary Robinson, former President of the Irish Republic

• Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow

• Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, Moscow
• Cardinal Simon I. Pimenta, Archbishop Emeritus of Bombay, India
 A major effort is being undertaken to take this civil rights struggle to the rightist Christian community in Lebanon who constitute the only real barrier to enacting meaningful rights in Parliament. Christian support, at least one quarter of the Lebanese Forces, Phalange party or Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement is vital in convincing their members in Parliament to help Lebanon by allowing its economy to benefit from Palestinian involvement and by lifting the growing international outcry over Lebanon’s violations of basic rights that all refugees are guaranteed by international law and local regulations. Certainly the endorsement of the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, is very important.

The following Open Letter has been delivered to Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and is now released to the public.

_____________________________________________________________________

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE

PALESTINE CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGN-LEBANON

Embargoed until October 22, 2010 9 a.m. Beirut time EET (GMT + 2)

 he Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon and the Washington DC-Beirut based Sabra Shatila Foundation have released a copy of the Open Letter that was delivered this morning in Rome to representatives of Pope Benedict XVI and Lebanon’s Marionite Patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir on the occasion of the VATICANS 2010 SPECIAL SYNOD ON THE MIDDLE EAST

Supporters of civil rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, from 105 countries have signed hard copy and online Petitions, totaling more than 430,000 signatures urging Lebanon’s Parliament to support the immediate enactment of elementary civil rights, including the full right to work and to own at home, in Lebanon’s Parliament.

The personal appear to the Pope and Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch is part of the recently launched campaign to achieve civil rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees, the largest and oldest refugee population and the one depraved of the most basic civil rights in Lebanon.

According to PCRC spokeswoman, Ms. Ghada Jiliani, “As the Palestinian civil rights struggle continues in Lebanon, following the disappointing results of the August 17, 2010 Parliamentary vote, the focus will shift to two fronts.

One is seeking to involve in a major way the Lebanese Christian community in this critically important human rights cause. Secondly, and this is crucial, we must achieve the participation of the international pro-Palestinian, pro-peace activist community through education and awareness to dramatically broaden the global campaign to encourage Parliament to act for the good of Lebanon and her refugees pending their return to their country, Palestine.

During “Round one” of our campaign we found that most of the international community had no idea about the squalor and lack of civil rights Palestinian refugees are subjected to nor the big gap between what international law requires and what Lebanon prohibits by law, in terms of elementary civil rights.

Round Two of our struggle will include building support here among Christians and involving the international Christian and human rights community.”
_______


On the Occasion of the Vaticans 2010 Special Synod on the Middle East

An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir from students and families in Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut, Lebanon

In the early days of his Pontificate, in April of 2004 in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his strong desire for a “pilgrimage to the heart of the Christian East” and “to examine and to resolve together, in a Plenary Congregation for the Eastern Churches and in the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, human rights problems of significant importance with solutions anchored in the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Accordingly, Pope Benedict XVI has summoned a Special Synod of Archbishops and Patriarchs for the Middle East to convene in Rome during October, 2010 on the theme: "The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness,” and he asked for communications from Lebanon regarding issues of concern including, "the importance of Muslim-Christian dialogue and brotherhood.”

We are mindful that the Pope’s faithful Lebanese brother, the Patriarch of Antioch, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, has repeatedly and nobly expressed his devotion to the teachings of Jesus from Palestine and to the missionary work and human rights teachings of the 5th century Syrian Christian monk, St. Maron from "Kefar-Nabo," who devoted his life to his quest for nurturing and healing the "lost souls" of both non-Christians and Christians of his time.

The Patriarch of Antioch has also issued periodic urgent petitions for Christians to return to and remain in Lebanon and to live in peace and charity with their neighbors. Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir has also earnestly counseled Maronite clergymen and all faithful congregations of all religions, on the urgency of healing Lebanon and bringing all citizens and temporary refugees closer together and rejecting racist ethnic and confessional speeches that encourage strife.

We have studied that in 1997, Pope John Paul II visited Lebanon to give hope to Lebanese who are downtrodden and discriminated against and who said, "Lebanon is more than a country, it is a message from Calvary to love thy neighbor as thyself." John Paul II reminded us of the divine Sheppard’s plea, "Care for my lambs. . . . Care for my sheep" (John 21:16-17).

We stand with our Maronite sisters and brothers, and all Christians in Lebanon in their growing and certain belief that by turning the page from the past, we can protect Lebanon and achieve a national, sisterly and brotherly, and comprehensive reconciliation that would allow Lebanon to solve all issues, achieve justice, solidify stability, and provide a new hope for the new generation and the return of many from the Diaspora.

Christian-Muslim relations in Lebanon today can benefit from the letter and the spirit of the civil rights enactment guaranteed to Christians in 628 C.E.

when Prophet Muhammad granted the Charter of Privileges to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai. The Charter consists of several clauses enacting civil rights for Christian refugees including freedom of movement, freedom from arbitrary arrest and confinement, freedom to work and to own a home." There is magic when the power of the people comes together.

We can overcome whatever the obstacle is, whether it’s a tyranny or discrimination or lack of basic civil rights for some. When we come together we can overcome.

We respectfully petition the Vatican and the Patriarchy to urge and advocate that all Christians in Lebanon to the Lebanese and international movement to enact meaningful civil rights legislation for Palestinian refugees in compliance with international law and Christian morality. We respectfully and humbly urge the Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to condemn the racist and anti-Palestinian language and graffiti that has polluted public discourse for the past half century in Lebanon and has undermined dialogue.

Examples such as “ the duty of every Lebanese is to kill a Palestinian,”

“Palestinians are a bacillus,” “Lebanon must not be a dumping ground for human waste,” and similar hate speech. Cardinal Sfeir has stressed the importance of the role of clergymen in bringing Lebanese closer and rejecting ethnic and confessional speeches that encourage strife.

We beseech the Apostolic See and the Patriarchy of Antioch to address those in Parliament who to date have prevented the enactment of the most elementary civil rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees forced from the homeland of Jesus Christ. We urge you to take the required and sincere stances and preach and use your moral and political authority to implement here in Lebanon the Gospel’s words, as Christ has taught us “to defend the wronged, the poor, the hungry, the sick.” We ask you, on the occasion of the 2010 Special Synod to demand civil rights for all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who are forbidden employment and who are not allowed home ownership. Jesus identified all his love for them. Matthew the Apostle’s gospel urged equality for “These who are viewed as lesser individuals.”

Some in Lebanon report to Palestine Civil Rights Campaign volunteers that many in Christian areas do not care and will not heed pleas for elementary justice and civil rights mandated by international law and Christian morality.

Some will say, “We do truly care but is there anybody willing to hear?”

We remember what St. Maroun taught us all as he preached the Gospel, “Christ came to his special people, but at first they didn’t understand him or accept him. But in spite of rejection, Jesus spoke, and he advocated for justice for refugees, the downtrodden and those facing discrimination, and he spoke Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. And what Jesus said, nobody had ever said, and nobody must ever ignore and nobody must rest or be silent from trying to achieve.”

Civil rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees have been denied for too long.

These days are pregnant with potential new tragedies that nobody wishes upon anybody else. We petition Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to command their faithful to support the earliest possible enactment of Civil Rights legislation for Palestinian refugees currently pending in Parliament. *

We urge words and acts from Rome and Antioch which are sympathetic, strong and courageous towards the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and those under occupation that Zionism had been subjugating for more than sixty years to a terrible and continuous uninterrupted Holocaust, with unlimited Western support.

We respectfully urge Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to heal the wounds and prevent civil strife, international sanctions, obviate the need for massive peaceful civil rights movements and protests, international boycotts, sanctions, and divestments, and prevent the currently pending termination of all foreign aid from the USA as required by the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act which forbids American aid to countries that engage in serial violations of civil rights.

We respectfully invite Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir to visit Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, to conduct a meeting of the Lebanese Bishops in our youth center, to teach the children, to listen to the adults, to sleep a night in our home and share our life as Jesus of Nazareth did and will ask upon his return.

As faithful Christians and Muslims we humbly and respectfully offer with all our love and importunity, our supplications.
_______


In addition to the 432,000 combined hard copy and on-line Petition signers from 195 countries who, as of mid-October 2010, have chosen to ‘twin’ in solidarity with a Palestinian Refugee in Lebanon the following high-profile personages are among the endorsers of the Palestinian Civil Rights Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Sfeir are the following:


• Dr Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury,

• Archbishop Tomasz Peta, of Maria Santissima in Astana, Kazakhstan

• President Jimmy Carter

• Joseph Zen, Roman Catholic Cardinal of Hong Kong,

• Bishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

• The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson

• Nelson Mandela

• Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cardinal Archbishop of Havana, Cuba

• The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd, Dean of the National Cathedral, Washington, DC

• Mary Robinson, former President of the Irish Republic

• Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, Moscow

• Cardinal Simon I. Pimenta, Archbishop Emeritus of Bombay, India

* The draft bill introduced in Lebanon’s Parliament in July 2010 by the Syrian Socialist National Parry most closely mirrors the requirements of International law


Media inquiries:
PCRC office, Ms. Ghada Jiliani,
01-352-127/71-899-164/70-497-804


Email: fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

Haneyya: Prisoners issue must be made international

[ 23/10/2010 - 04:09 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneyya announced he will assume all expenses of an Arab-international tour by a delegation from the families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention aimed at publicizing their cause to the world.

Speaking at the international Palestinian POW conference held by the “Innovation” foundation for consulting and training in part with the Palestinian prisoners ministry Saturday morning in Gaza, Haneyya called on Arabs to turn the prisoners issue from a Palestinian issue into an Arab, Islamic, and international issue.

Liberation is the goal

“All of the Palestinian factions work for one goal, which is to free the war prisoners in Israeli jails, and this conference comes in this context: to serve the cause and discuss all of the means to achieve this goal,” Haneyya said.

“It is true that we are looking for a decent life for prisoners and their families, but this is a secondary goal, and the major objective is to achieve freedom and liberation for these heroes,” he added.

“We cannot feel full freedom and dignity unless these heroes are freed,” he went on to say.

Political arrests in the West Bank

The Prime Minister said it is shameful that there are Palestinians imprisoned over politics, and resistance.

Haneyya called on the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to free political prisoners detained in their jurisdiction over politics or for affiliation with Palestinian resistance groups.

“It is a shame to talk about war prisoners in Israeli jails, while there are hundreds of them in the [Palestinian] Authority jails, among them women,” the Palestinian PM said.

“There must not remain any Palestinian person in any prison over his work for the sake of Palestinian liberation, especially since our security is part of Arab security, and we do not have any thought of meddling with Arab security.”

Internationalization of the issue

“Every delegation from Western countries who comes to Gaza talks about Shalit to resistance factions. In contrast, who speaks about the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners?”

“How can one captured soldier be given worldwide attention, and the issue of 8,000 prisoners be ignored?”

Haneyya said it his government’s responsibility to turn their issue into an issue of international concern.

He announced the government will assist travel of this delegation to other countries to clarify the war prisoners’ cause.

Release of prisoners

The Palestinian Prime Minister decided today to free a group of detainees in Gaza in honor of the Lifeline 5 humanitarian aid convoy that came to break the Gaza siege and take part in the international conference for war prisoners.

Palestinian Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Al Ghusein told the PIC by phone that the Palestinian government in Gaza decided to free 20 prisoners in Gaza in honor of the convoy.

Ghusein said the government will hold a press conference at 3:00pm Saturday to implement the Prime Minister’s decision to the prisoners who served two-thirds of their full sentences.

“The government’s objective is only to detain people as much as would give them guidance and direction,” the interior spokesman said, expressing hope that the detainees have benefited from the time they served.

He assured that there are no political prisoners in Gaza jails, and that the prisoners who were released were detained for legal violations.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

‘ ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO EXIST AS A JEWISH STATE’ - "Better late than never," Somebody said

Green Comments are mine - UP

21. Oct, 2010

By Hasan Abu Nimah

Who pushed who to the Sea?

In 1993, the PLO recognised Israel’s “right to exist in peace and security” as part of the Oslo Accords that established the Palestinian Authority (PA) and that were supposed to lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. Now Israel is demanding that Palestinians additionally recognise Israel as the “nation state of the Jewish people” as a condition for extending a largely fictitious moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank for a mere 60 days.

De facto PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has lately been responding to questions regarding the issue, saying that it is Israel’s business alone to choose the name it desires for itself. He further said that Israel could go to the United Nations and ask formally for a name change. [And they can relly on our support like we did before]

Last week, one of his chief advisers, Yasser Abed Rabbo, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the PA would consider accepting Israel’s condition if Israel accepted the pre-1967 armistice line as the final borders for the envisaged Palestinian state. Both hints were seen as introductory moves towards a new PA concession recognising Israel as the state for the Jewish people, in the hope that the 60-day freeze extension would restart the stalled direct negotiations, desperately needed by Abbas and his Ramallah authority.

Any such recognition by the PA would be catastrophic to Palestinian rights. Since it was created, Israel has been referred to as a “Jewish state”, in the mere sense that that it has a manufactured Jewish majority within the pre-1967 borders as a result of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. It is also “Jewish” in the sense that it discriminates in favour of Jews in the economic, social and political life, has an army that is in effect a Jewish army, and allows Jews from anywhere in the world to settle on the land of expelled Palestinians, while denying the true owners of that land the right to return home.

These very discriminatory policies and practices lie at the heart of the conflict created by the Zionist project. To ask the Palestinians to recognise and accept them is to ask them to accept defeat and adopt Zionism.

Israel – and its supporters, including the US administration [and Our Deperate"Friend Alan hart, Desperate to close the Palestinian file"] - offer a very twisted logic to justify its demand. It claims that it will be the state of the Jewish people and the Palestinian state will be the state for the Palestinians.

But if Palestinians recognise an Israeli “right” to oppress and discriminate against them, the next logical step will be for Israel to “enforce” its “right” to be a “Jewish state” by getting rid of Palestinians from within its borders, which is in fact precisely what Israeli Foreign Minister proposed in his recent “population exchange” speech at the United Nations.

He was referring to the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel who make up 20 per cent of the population within the pre-1967 borders. These Palestinians, who have steadfastly remained on their land, face increasing campaigns of incitement and persecution by Israel, which views them as a hostile alien presence, spoiling its dream of Jewish purity.

Accepting the Israeli demand would open the door for another wave of ethnic cleansing by Israel, but this time with Palestinian consent. This can never be allowed to happen.

The loud wave of Palestinian protests in response to Abed Rabbo’s steep descent into new humiliating political lows has forced the PA to deny his statement. But no denial was ever made of Abbas’ statements to Jewish organisations in the United States or in his recent press statement with the president of Finland, affirming that Israel can define itself any way it wants.

Israel, of course, wants to secure Palestinians’ acquiescence to its usurpation of their land and rights, and hopes to squeeze this endorsement from weak Palestinian leaders such as Abbas. But even if Abbas resists, Israel still hopes to gain. By pressing this demand now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to embarrass the PA into either submitting to a new humiliating condition, or – if the PA refuses – shouldering the responsibility of yet one more collapse of the continuously collapsing pea?e talks.

[For Brother Gilad Atzmon its "Shalom" talks = Security for Jews talks"]

Apparently Abbas has for a while been seriously contemplating acceptance. He did offer very serious concessions before and probably one more for him is not going to make a big difference. Neither would anyone exclude the possibility of Abbas’ full knowledge of the consequences. In addition to placing Palestinian citizens of Israel in immediate danger of ethnic cleansing, any acceptance of the Israeli demand would also annul the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes and lands from which Israel now excludes them under the racist pretext that they are not Jews.

Neither Abbas nor any of his advisers have the right to concede Palestinian rights this way. Abbas has no legitimacy, not only because his legal term as PA president expired long ago, but also because he has decisively broken with the Palestinian national consensus. His constituency today is not the Palestinian people, but the self-appointed peace process industry operators including the Quartet (the UN, the US, Russia and the EU), the Arab League and to a certain extent the Israelis.

 

Palestinian support for Abbas has been steadily dwindling, narrowing the circle around him to a bunch of beneficiaries and political parasites who greedily feed on foreign money, offered generously as the price for submission.

[Read Joseph Massad: Oslo and the end of Palestinian independence and PA is pregnant; is awaiting child .  Actually a twin Bastard, and a Jewish State]  

Yet even if Abbas were, despite all this, to surrender to the Israeli demand, no one should be under the illusion that Israel would be satisfied or that this would be the key to Israel fulfilling its obligations.

We can already anticipate the next Israeli demand: now that the Palestinians have recognised Israel as the state of the Jewish people, they must recognise that the land itself belongs only to the Jewish people.

In that case, Israel would be doing the Palestinians a favour to tolerate their continued presence on any part of Palestine, even in the so-called Palestinian state if it is ever established.

Abbas’ constant bets on the Israelis and Americans have failed a thousand times. He cannot keep rushing from one failure to another. He should live up to his repeated threats to step down. He should apologise to the Palestinian people for the time, the rights, the sacrifices and opportunities he has squandered over the years of his miserable and disastrous leadership. This would be the greatest service he could now do for his people.

Source: The Jordan Times

More:
Jewistan: Finally Recognizing Israel as the Jewish State

Israel retracts earlier approval to build 8 UNRWA schools in Gaza

[ 23/10/2010 - 03:56 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has charged Israel with backtracking on earlier decisions allowing the construction of eight new schools in the Gaza Strip.

The Jerusalem Post on Friday said that the Israeli war ministry refused an UNRWA request to build a number of schools in Gaza at the pretext of their proximity to Hamas "military bases" and because the Gaza government supplied UNRWA with the land to build those schools.

UNRWA's media advisor Adnan Abu Hasna told Quds Press that the Agency had requested Israel's approval over building eight new schools in Gaza and Tel Aviv agreed, yet when UNRWA started to lay down plans for the building Israel backpedaled on its decision and refused the construction for trivial reasons.

He described Israel's pretexts for refusing the construction of those schools as insignificant and untrue, explaining that the schools would be built on vacant land not in the vicinity of any buildings or "military bases" and on land lots which originally had schools on them.

Abu Hasna said that contractors had already started the digging process and were waiting for the Israeli approval to allow entry of necessary construction material.

UNRWA will not give in to the Israeli rejection and would continue talking with Israel over the entry of those materials, he elaborated.

The UNRWA advisor said that the agency was used to such Israeli stands, adding that pressure should continue on Israel to allow entry of those materials.

Abu Hasna said that the Israeli rejection would only complicate the educational problems of UNRWA where its schools are crammed with pupils and could not accommodate 40,000 new Gaza students this year due to non availability of places for them.



River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

GORDON DUFF: HO HUM, MORE WIKILEAKS “CHICKENFEED”

October 23, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff ·

LAMEST WIKILEAK SO FAR…IS ISRAEL BEHIND IT?

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

The new Wikileaks claims the US undereported by 15,000, the deaths of Iraqi “civilians.”  With the numbers listed by the military as little as 10% or less of the actual deaths, bumping up the numbers must be a joke.  More leaks about torture and killings, Iraqi torture and the US “looking away?”  More idiocy.  With the US sending “suspects” around the world on rendition flights, sent to secret prisons and obvious to anyone with a brain, to shallow graves, this Wikileak is simply another sideshow, more “chickenfeed.”
Things have already come apart in Iraq.  Why leak this now?  Regular news stories are actually going much further than these “leaks.”  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the agenda here, an agenda with absolutely nothing to do with enlightening the world.

What does it prove, any of it?  For sure, we see one thing.  Everything leaked is carefully screened to have nothing of real value.  With Mossad running around Mosul, operating out of Erbil, supplying and advising the terrorist PKK, not a word is mentioned.  Instead, poor Iranians are swimming the Euphrates with explosives strapped to their chests.

Get real.

Thousands of tons of explosives were “mislaid” in Iraq.  The US failed to secure Saddam’s weapons depots which were looted.  These stockpiles were vast.  The idea that anyone would need to bring weapons into Iraq is insane, simply another Israeli ploy to pre-stage an attack on Iran.  Any fool can see this in seconds.

In fact, there are more assault rifles in Iraq than people.

While trying to blame Iran, is Wikileaks reporting the hundreds of thousands of weapons bought by the US that simply disappeared in Iraq?  It is easier to buy an assault rifle or RPG in Iraq than to get potato chips.  This need to blame Iran, the idea that “secret agents” are smuggling ordnance into Iraq, a country loaded with explosives, is insane.  Who would believe it?  The idiotic controlled press?

What will we see if we watch the stories coming out?  Where will the press be told to manipulate the public to look?  Americans proved long ago that they were immune to guilt about torture and killing.  In fact, polls show that the more religious an American, the more willing they are to accept brutality, and few countries are as “religious’ as America.  No other country in recent times has killed as many people as America, even overshadowing the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and Bosnia or the “situation” in Israel.

As with the earlier “leak,” Wikileaks has the ability to go through hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, carefully eliminating any blackmarket dealings, drug running or, as with Iraq, the massive corruption and theft of oil.

There are dozens of subjects that seem to be carefully screened from any Wikileak.  Even the Department of Defense, not so secretly, thanks Wikileaks for holding back really embarrassing information.  “Held back” information is, of course, blackmail.

Who is Wikileaks?

Is Wikileaks Israel?

Only Israel has the penetration of the Department of Defense that would allow this kind of spying.  Not only can they do it, they also have so many spies in the American chain of command, they could easily prevent it.  Who has the facilities to gather and filter this much data?  Who would want to?

With the biggest story in Iraq the falsified intelligence on “weapons of mass destruction,” why didn’t Wikileaks get us documents on this?  We know that the military had orders to try to falsify documents showing that they found fully operating nuclear, biological and chemical warfare facilities.  These would have made good reading along with the thousands of pages of reports about how these stories would be fabricated.  Even the “controlled press” wouldn’t touch them although they are still out there.

The lies.

Exposing this real Iraq scandal would so some good, except for one thing, friends of Israel inside the Pentagon were the creators of this program.  Is this why Wikileaks dodges the real issues?  Is it because the trail for much of what happened in Iraq heads directly to Tel Aviv?

Who even cares about Iraq this many years later?

Look at the watered down reports about American support of Al Qaeda.  The US is blamed for accidentally helping Al Qaeda by organizing the Sons of Iraq.  In truth, the US actually reorganized the Baathists, something far worse than the imaginary construct “Al Qaeda.”  Not a word is said about this.
One of the biggest scams of the Iraq “experience” was the looting of oil resources.  Most easily verified is the theft of oil from the Kirkuk fields through the Kirkuk/Ceyhan pipeline, which goes to the Mediterranean through Turkey.  Ships that load oil are shown on locator sights run by insurance companies and even the US Coast Guard.  Their tonnage is available, how many ships, how long.  When doing the math, how much oil is loaded compared to how much is paid for, billions and billions of dollars of oil is missing.

When Americans were paying $4 a gallon for gas, how many knew the oil that made the gasoline was “free” to the oil companies?  Who spit the take on this?  Who was paid?  How much was stolen through Basra?  Were the British involved?

Then we have Fallujah.  We are told America “carpet bombed” civilians and “ethnically cleansed” the area, as we are now informed, for no reason.  The version the Army told is being debunked along with the phony stories of the “embedded” press.  Nothing on this hit Wikileaks either.

We are also noting high levels of radiation there and a health crisis that can only be described as shocking.  Where is wikileaks on this REAL story?

There is little doubt that Wikileaks is a “sideshow’ run by an intelligence agency with dozens of agents inside the Department of Defense.  Only Israel has this capability, having penetrated Defense to such a degree they run it as their own.  What is the agenda of Wikileaks?  Is it revealing the truth?  If so, why is the truth censored and watered down to such a degree as to be “non-news” as the earlier leak had been.  In fact, most stories about leaks are simply speculation and most “leaks” are little than “chickenfeed.”

The last leak was an attack on Pakistan.  Wikileaks tried to make a case for Pakistan running the Taliban in Afghanistan.  However, the Taliban are Pashtun and don’t care much for Pakistan, they are “blood enemies.”  Because of this, Israel and India have found them useful allies against Pakistan, the only Islamic nuclear power.  Aid of all kinds gets to the Taliban from the Mossad and RAW, something Wikileaks worked hard to keep secret.

Real leaks by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds proved that documents exist showing that rendition flights were used to ferry terrorists around, move drugs and tons of cash.  With bales of cash leaving Afghanistan every day, why is it that not one page, not one word of any of this, things we know are in American files, hit Wikileaks?

Why does Wikileaks spend more time hiding things than revealing them?  When the story dies down, are the Julian Assange rape allegations going to be dragged out again to give the story more play?  Last time they “double dipped” on that one, first charges, then no charges, then charges.  It was like a badly written “soap opera.”

What about this new “leak?”

This one may be aimed at Iran.

Anyone surprised or shocked to find that Iraqi security forces killed or tortured people is living on their own private planet.  These were Saddam’s killers and torturers first.  Then they became ours.  What do killers and torturers do?

There was one reason for the invasion of Iraq with all the lies, all the killing, all the corruption.  Israel wanted Iraq destroyed.  Will Wikileaks ever get to something real?



River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Prisoner Abu Shakhdam almost lost eyesight due to medical neglect

[ 23/10/2010 - 02:17 PM ]

Al-KHALIL, (PIC)-- The Palestinian prisoner society said that Palestinian prisoner Firas Abu Shakhdam is in serious health condition and almost lost his eyesight as a result of the deliberate medical neglect policy pursued in the Israeli Negev prison and Ramla hospital.

The prisoner told the society that he is suffering from serious problems in his eyes and not provided with proper medical treatment, adding that the doctor in Ramla hospital told him he needs cornea transplants, although the medical devices he used to examine him were very old and its results are undependable.

He added that he became deprived of reading and writing because of his eye problems resulting from the medical neglect.

The prisoner also suffered from acute pain in his abdomen after one of the Israeli doctors proscribed him a medicine without medical tests which led to an acute rupture of his intestines and caused him to bleed a lot of blood and yellow pus.

The prisoner said he asked the prison administration many times to have his stomach x-rayed but to no avail, which made his health condition badly deteriorates.

The society considered the policy of medical neglect as part of an Israeli plan aimed at killing Palestinian prisoners and undermining their steadfastness.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

INTERVIEW WITH JAMAL KRAYEM KANJ: AUTHOR CHILDREN OF CATASTROPHE

Via P-I

22. Oct, 2010

Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America

Author Jamal Kanj talks about life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. In his recent book “Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian refugee camp to America,” provides an account of life from Palestine to refugee camps in Lebanon and the events leading for the creation of the state of Israel.

INTIFADA PALESTINE – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – With Jamal K. Kanj: Author Children of Catastrophe


A great deal has been written over the years addressing the Palestine–Israel conflict, and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem. However, few works on the subject really present the personal aspect: What is it like to be a refugee? What propels a decent human being to take up arms, to become a freedom fighter or a “terrorist?”
This book tells the remarkable story of one such refugee, following his journey from childhood in the Nahr El Bared Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, becoming a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), through to eventual emigration, a new life as an engineer in the United States, and a ‘return’ trip to historic Palestine.
Jamal Kanj joined me in an exclusive interview to discuss his book Children of Catastrophe:  Editor Elias Harb

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ELIAS HARB: In your book you convey the personal aspect of the life of the refugees. Can you tell us what inspired you to write Children of Catastrophe?
JAMAL K. KANJ: The Americans and the West in general are not well aware of the Palestinian experience. On the surface and at an emotional level, they are generally more sympathetic towards Israel, but this is mainly due to their lack of understanding or total disconnect with the human side of the Palestinian story.
Also one must recognize that the peculiar relationship between Israel and the West is deeply rooted in a long history of abhorrent Western anti Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Hence, it was a mix of sympathy, guilt, and religious institutions in America and Europe which played an important role in shaping the lopsided view towards the Palestine Israel conflict.
Having lived in the US for thirty years after leaving the camp, I discovered that most people tend to switch off when trying to make an intellectual or historical argument explaining the Palestinian position. At the same time, I observed that the majority can better connect and listen when the intellectual or the historical argument is framed within the personal experience. During those 30 years, almost everyone whom I came to know at a social level consciously or subconsciously became more sympathetic with the Palestinians.
To sum it up, the main impetuous for writing this book remains my strong conviction that we, as Palestinians have a powerful story to share with the rest of the world, especially in the West. Throughout the pages of this book, I hope to connect with all those whom I have not, or may not have the honor meeting personally, to share with them the personal aspects of the Palestinian side of the story.

EH: Can you briefly tell us of the British role facilitating the Zionist colonization of Palestine ?

JKK: While the World Zionist Organization (WZO) was founded in Europe in the late 1800s, their plan to colonize Palestine did not start to take shape until the 1920s and 1930s. One major reason, up until 1917 and in addition to Palestine , the Zionist movement contemplated other options for this “Promised land” such as Uganda , Cyprus , Sinai and parts of Argentina .
They basically were willing to take any “real estate” property a colonial power was willing to sell them. But in November 1917, and to sway the purported “influential” Jewish opinion in the US on the war (at the time, WZO had very close relation with the German Kaiser and maintained its headquarter in Germany ) the British Foreign Ministry issued a letter to a Jewish banker, Baron Walter Rothschild, promising the banker with a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In 1920, and as the new occupying power, Britain appointed Herbert Samuel, a professed British Zionist as the high Commissioner for Palestine. Under his reign, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased exponentially and unlike the old Jewish residents, the new wave of European immigrants chose exclusive Jewish communities, segregated from the Native Palestinians and even from the old Jewish neighborhoods. With a lush of funds provided by the international Jewish National Fund (JNF), the new immigrants attempted to purchase land at any cost. Much like the extraneous prices they are willing to offer today for properties in East Jerusalem and Hebron.

As then and now, the Zionist organizations failed to acquire much, if any Palestinian owned properties. It is worth noting here, the JNF owned less than 7 per cent of Palestine when the UN voted to partition the land between its Natives and the new Jewish immigrants. Most of the properties the Zionists eventually purchased were from absentee landlords, mainly large feudal Lebanese land owners in the northern part of historical Palestine.

The aggressive land ownership program, combined with new exclusive communities, created a political and cultural chasm between the Native and the new settlers. At that point, it got even more complicated as this new European community closely allied itself with the despised colonial power. In response, the Palestinians waged in 1936 one of the longest civil disobedient strikes in the history of Palestine, lasting for more than six months protesting the mandate power and its policies of transforming the demographics from the local Native population with the new European colonists. After failing to quash the civil protest, Britain promoted, enabled, and armed Jewish military groups to help repress the local population. These same Zionist military groups metamorphosed into the Jewish Haganah, the nuclei of the future Israeli army, and became officially part of a joint contingent of British/Jewish military force suppressing the Native Palestinians.

To give you a good idea on the level of Palestinian resistance against the British colonial power and its Zionist instrument, before its departure from Palestine, England had more military forces in Palestine than they had in the entire Indian continent.

EH: How were the Zionists successful in driving Palestinian from their homeland?
 JKK: In short, well organized systematic terror campaign by the Zionist paramilitary groups. The terror campaign resulted in the expulsion of 805,067 Palestinians and the destruction of 531 indigenous villages, representing roughly 85 per cent of the native population and the seizure of 92 per cent of the land.

But as I pointed in the book, equally important to the Zionist campaign of terror, was the fact that more than 50 per cent (413,790) of the refugees mentioned earlier were forced out of their homes by the Zionists’ terror while Palestine was still ostensibly a British protectorate. As an example, the infamous Massacre of Deir Yassin took place on April 9 1948, over a month before the departure of the British army form Palestine. When according to UN investigation reports the Jewish Irgun organization, under direct orders from Menachem Begin, slaughtered a large number of the Palestinian civilians in the village. To justify murdering women and children, Begin explained that “The massacre was not only justified, but there would not have been a state of Israel without the victory at Deir Yassin.” Alas, Begin became a future Israeli prime minister and won the Noble “peace” prize!

But the overall Zionist campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestine was led by Ben Gurion, (first Israeli Prime Minister) who consciously or unconsciously assigned to their military operations jargons tantamount with ethnic cleansing, from names such as matateh (broom), tihur (cleansing), biur (a Passover expression meaning “to cleanse the leaven”) and niku (a Hebrew word for cleaning up).
This was a plan which Joseph Weitz, the head of the National Jewish Fund, described earlier in his diary on 20 December 1940 that “Not one village must be left, not one [Bedouin] tribe. The transfer must be directed at Iraq , Syria , and even Transjordan .”

EH: What happened to old Palestinian towns and villages?

JKK: Since 1948, the Jewish National Fund (which owns 85 per cent of land in Israel ) has led an international scheme to cover up the destroyed Palestinian villages with a specious environmental forestation campaign promoting the planting of trees in Israel. The JNF boasts that it “… has planted over 240 million trees in the land of Israel ”. The JNF does not, however, disclose to its unsuspected donors that at least eighty-six of these forests and parks are built over the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages. As an example, the well-known Israeli Canada Park was built on the ruins of the ethnically cleansed villages of Emmuas, Yalu and Bayt Nuba; the trees in Biriya Forest grow over the foundation of the village of Amuka ; the town of Reihaniyeh is buried under Ramat Menashe Park and the remains of Ajur are fertilizing the greenery in Park Britain.

Wherever the JNF did not reforest what were once peaceful villages and as part of Israel ’s conjured history, Israel bestowed Hebrew pseudonyms replacing the Native names of Palestinian towns. Thus, Tel Rabi became Tel Aviv, Lubya turned into Lavi, Al Zeeb transpired into Gesher Haziv, Saffuriyya into Tzippori and Beit Jala metamorphosed into Gilo.

EH: Following the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) did Israel leave the Palestinian Refugees alone?
JKK: The Zionists consider the mere existence of Palestinians whether under occupation or in refugee camps represent a negation to their ideology which denies the Palestinian people as a collective national identity. As mentioned in the book, the camp or camps became to symbolize Palestine away from home, it became little Palestine . I expounded extensively on this parallel which was very well understood by the Zionist ideologues. Hence, Israel maintained a terror campaign against camps and repression under occupation to force Palestinians into capitulation and self defeat. Israelis always tried to make the point: we won and you lost, just accept it.

However, Israelis fail to understand people’s connection to the land, for other than their religious patrimony, the people of Israel never in modern history have they had to experience that kind of relationship. I suspect that throughout their history of oppression in Christian Europe, Jews had accepted defeat and lived psychologically as a defeated community all the way through the Holocaust. While I am not a psychologist, I suspect by tormenting Palestinians under occupation and in refugee camps, Zionists are attempting to mirror their own experience of psychological defeat on the people of Palestine.

To their chagrin however, the refugees’ identity became an expression of nationhood and defiance, rather than privation and compliance. As Israeli writer Danny Rubinstein described the Palestinians in his book: Every people in the world lives in a place. For Palestinians, the place lives in them.

EH: Can you describe what is it like to be a refugee?

JKK: Aside from Israeli terror, and on the economic level, I am not sure I understood at the time, what it was like not to be a refugee.

However on the political level, it was very clear, and like all young children who were born in the camp, I realized at very young age that I was a victim of human injustice. I was reminded every day that I was born in Lebanon, a foreign country with no citizenship rights. And I don’t necessarily blame Lebanon for this, for the blame should fall on the entity that took my parent’s home and made me a stateless person. My parents’ only fault was that they belonged to a different religion. Unlike Israel,  Lebanon gave us a place to call temporary home.

I do however fault Lebanon for depriving the Palestinian refugees from their political and economic rights. Palestinian refugees, who lived or were born in Lebanon , could not own a property and were not allowed to work in over 70 trades. The law was amended recently reducing the number of prohibited trades.

As I elaborated extensively in the book, at the emotional, we lived relatively a normal life in the camp. The strong family structure made up for life’s hardships and shortcomings. With as little as we had in the camp, I have no memory of lacking any of life’s intuitive pleasures. Philosophically speaking, it is not possible to lack what you have never experienced. In other words, you do not miss what you never had. In short, life as a refugee was normalized by what we had and not by what was lacking.

EH: Why did you believe your parents avoid conversations at home about the Nakba (Catastrophe)?

JKK: For Palestinian refugees in general and mine in particular, losing home was an experience beyond description. Deep inside they must have felt guilty, shamed and blamed themselves for leaving and not dying on their land; but more importantly they believed that they were hoodwinked by the Zionists and for believing in the sense of international justice.To them, talking about the Nakba was like adding salt to injury. I was not sure if they were trying to suppress their memory hoping to lessen their anguish, or simply avoid it.

At the same time, they were much happier talking about Palestine , the land and life before becoming refugees. They seemed more at peace and complete when reminiscing the little details about what it was like “back at home.” A person would have to be in their shoes to be able to comprehend or appreciate their life long trauma.

EH: In Children of Catastrophe you write that Palestinian refugees in Lebanon represent a special and unique case. Why are refugees in Lebanon different than Palestinian Refugees in other Arab countries?

JKK: As I indicated above and elaborated at length in the book, while all Palestinian refugees suffered the same terrible problem of adjusting from statehood to statelessness, unlike other Palestinian refugees, the refugees in Lebanon represented a special and unique case. From the outset, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were treated as foreigners with no social, labor, or political rights. Unlike refugees in the West Bank and Jordan who were granted citizenship, and Syria where refugees were accorded full residency privileges, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were prohibited from working in more than 70 trades and professions (the law was amended recently reducing the number of prohibited trades.) The Lebanese government instituted also special regulations restricting the movement of refugees within the state and limiting their ability to build or to own property in the country.

The confessional Lebanese democracy between various religious sects (18) certainly contributed to this complexity. For the presence of the Palestinian refugees was considered by some Lebanese as an upsetting factor in the balance of power in this small country. This is an important area, which is addressed at length in the book.

EH: In the summer of 2007, your camp, Nahr el Bared was completely destroyed following a raging battle between the Lebanese army and a little known group Fatah al Islam. Were there other reasons to destroy the camp and what happened to the camp residents?

JKK: Destroying the more than 6000 homes could have been easily avoided, but as I surmised in the book, the destruction of the camp must have been an end by itself.

The camps with a very high population density, over 40,000 inhabitants living in an area less than one square mile. Fatah al Islam numbered less than 300 fighters (a spokesman of the organization claimed in the Lebanese press the number at 98 fighters). Their defending positions were located at the north end of the camp. However, from the onset of the fighting, the Lebanese army bombarded the camp proper indiscriminately and did not limit the shelling to Fatah al Islam fighting positions.

According to Amnesty International and other Human Rights organization, the Lebanese army deliberately set some homes on fire and several houses were destroyed in the weeks after the end of fighting.

I have concluded in the book that there were at least three reasons for the destruction of the camp: Middle East peace process; 2^nd Lebanese sectarianism and 3^rd Economic reason. Not to mention the possible Israeli hand via its spy network within the Lebanese army. In 2009, Lebanon arrested an army Major, who played an important role in directing the battle of Nahr el Bared for working on behalf of Israel.

Now more than three years later, the camp residents are still homeless and awaiting the Lebanese government and the international community promises to rebuild the camp and return them to their homes.

EH: There was a tearful meeting of yours cousins (Amsha’s daughters) who you never met, when you were checked in at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Can you tell explain why you have never met them?

JKK: I must say that meeting was a climax in mine and I am certain in their life too. Like many Palestinian families, my grandfather was forever separated from his only sister (Amsha) in that May Day in 1948. They both died later, she in her country that became no more, and he in a refugee camp in other lands. Amsha left behind three daughters who remained in what became Israel.Despite a UN resolution calling on Israel to allow for the return of refugees back to their homes. Israel did not comply with the UN resolution, thus leaving many families forever separated from their loved ones and from their homes.

Our reunion was not planned, but it was destiny for us to meet after 50 years since they were split forever from my father. In late 1996 I was checked in at the emergency room at the Hadassah hospital, and when my cousins (Amsha’s daughters) found out, they were next to my bed in no time. It was our first ever meeting. A section in the book details how even under a semi comatose condition, I recognized them before they had a chance to introduce themselves to me.

Sadly, they lived less than 200 miles from the camp, but when I met them at the emergency room, my travel was via the US over 10,000 miles away. Yet, I may have been the lucky one, for others have never had a chance to be reunited with their loved ones gain.

EH:  Do you think there will be light at the end of the tunnel for Palestinian refugees in general, and in Lebanon on in particular?

JKK: Meeting with the refugees, I can attest to the Israeli writer whom I quoted earlier, that Palestine lives inside every one of them. However at this period in time, I am not very optimistic with a light at the end of the tunnel. Israel far right hard liners have hijacked Israeli politics, not that their left was much better off. It is clear, the more the Palestinian leadership is willing to compromise, the more Israel moved to the far right, which has manifested today by the call to recognize Israel as a Jewish democracy (theocracy).

The light at the tunnel will come when the international community can live up to its commitments for a just peace that takes into heart the right of return for the Palestinian refugees and allow the Palestinians to exercise their God given right in a country they can call their home.

EH: Thank you Jamal for your interview with Intifada Palestine, and congratulations on your new book Children of Catastrophe.

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CHILDREN OF CATASTROPHE

Journey From A Palestinian Refugee Camp to America

Author Jamal Kanj talks about life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. In his recent book “Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian refugee camp to America,” provides an account of life from Palestine to refugee camps in Lebanon and the events leading for the creation of the state of Israel.

(Short 3 min version)

Link to Interview (Full Length)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJy0mvnwygk&feature=player_embedded

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Qassem: The PA-Israeli talks are only aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause

Qassem: The PA-Israeli talks are only aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause

[ 23/10/2010 - 02:07 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Professor of political science Abdelsattar Qassem said that the Palestinian authority's negotiations with the Israeli occupation state are only part of a long, old process aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause and serving the Israeli interests alone.

In a press statement to Quds Press on Friday, Qassem added that since the balance of power is unequal and in favor of the Israeli occupation, the peace talks will always serve its interests, noting that all those who think they can depend on these talks to restore the usurped Palestinian rights do not understand history at all.

"For years I have mistrusted the Palestinian negotiator and considered his political attempts part of the process of eliminating the Palestinian cause, and unfortunately this conviction becomes stronger everyday."

"Now they are talking about stopping the direct negotiations while the security coordination is ongoing, and in fact what the negotiations are intended for is the security coordination and as long as this was realized, the occupation is already in no need for the negotiations," the professor stressed.

"So if the Palestinian side was sincere in stopping the negotiations and rejecting settlement expansion, it would have to end the security coordination first, or else there would be no sense if it already stopped these talks," the professor added.

As for the inter-Palestinian division, Qassem said it does not need mediation efforts or long discussions for its solutions are crystal clear to anyone genuinely willing to achieve the national reconciliation in the Palestinian arena.

"I do not think there could be reconciliation as long as there are two opposite trends, and I do not think the reconciliation will be meaningful if it is with a party recognizing, normalizing ties and having security cooperation with the Zionist entity; if all this stopped, there would be automatically reconciliation without mediation," he underscored.

For his part, Hamas spokesman Yousuf Farahat stated that the PA security apparatuses in the West Bank turned into exclusive agents for the Israeli occupation protecting its security and savage settlers.

In a press release on Saturday, Farahat emphasized that the PA's security cooperation with the Israeli occupation is a big treason, condemning this level of collaboration while the Israeli government is persistent in its settlement activities and waging an eradication war against the people of occupied Jerusalem.

Hamas slams PA officers for visiting Rabin center in Tel Aviv

[ 23/10/2010 - 02:20 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement strongly denounced security officers from the Palestinian Authority (PA) for visiting Rabin center in Tel Aviv, saying the security apparatuses in the West Bank stooped to a serious level in its relations with the Israeli occupation.

In a statement on Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stressed that such visits and meetings have repercussions on the internal front and the Palestinian people's right to resist the occupation.

Spokesman Barhoum said that the national reconciliation poses a threat to the leaders of the PA security apparatuses who enjoy great advantages thanks to their relations with the Israeli occupation, warning that the fall of this group into this quagmire caused damage to the unity of the West Bank, the national cause and the inter-Palestinian reconciliation.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that head of PA security apparatuses paid on Thursday evening a secret visit to Rabin center located in Ramat Aviv neighborhood in Tel Aviv.

In a separate incident, the PA security militias still prevent many Palestinian families from visiting their sons in their jails, according to different local sources on Saturday.

Prisoner Saleh Al-Qawasmi has been in solitary confinement for more than one month and a half in Al-Khalil city and his family is still banned by the PA security apparatuses from seeing him.

Another prisoner called Ala'a Al-Jabari is also prevented from seeing his family, especially after he was transferred to hospital in serious health condition as a result of his exposure to severe torture in PA jails in Al-Khalil.

A number of detainees who were released recently from Al-Khalil jails said on condition of anonymity that many prisoners suffer from frequent nervous breakdowns because of the excruciating torture inflicted on them by interrogators.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Good-Bye Uncle Sam‏

Thanks Oscar

March 24, 2010

Good-Bye

Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.

Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.

Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”

Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.

Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.

Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.

Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it. “Free market economists” are paid to sell offshoring to the American people. High-productivity, high value-added American jobs are denigrated as dirty, old industrial jobs. Relicts from long ago, we are best shed of them. Their place has been taken by “the New Economy,” a mythical economy that allegedly consists of high-tech white collar jobs in which Americans innovate and finance activities that occur offshore. All Americans need in order to participate in this “new economy” are finance degrees from Ivy League universities, and then they will work on Wall Street at million dollar jobs.

Economists who were once respectable took money to contribute to this myth of “the New Economy.”

And not only economists sell their souls for filthy lucre. Recently we have had reports of medical doctors who, for money, have published in peer-reviewed journals concocted “studies” that hype this or that new medicine produced by pharmaceutical companies that paid for the “studies.”

The Council of Europe is investigating the drug companies’ role in hyping a false swine flu pandemic in order to gain billions of dollars in sales of the vaccine.

The media helped the US military hype its recent Marja offensive in Afghanistan, describing Marja as a city of 80,000 under Taliban control. It turns out that Marja is not urban but a collection of village farms.

And there is the global warming scandal, in which NGOs. the UN, and the nuclear industry colluded in concocting a doomsday scenario in order to create profit in pollution.

Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money.

Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job.

I remember when, following CIA director William Colby’s testimony before the Church Committee in the mid-1970s, presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan issued executive orders preventing the CIA and U.S. black-op groups from assassinating foreign leaders. In 2010 the US Congress was told by Dennis Blair, head of national intelligence, that the US now assassinates its own citizens in addition to foreign leaders.

When Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that US citizens no longer needed to be arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of a capital crime, just murdered on suspicion alone of being a “threat,” he wasn’t impeached. No investigation pursued. Nothing happened. There was no Church Committee. In the mid-1970s the CIA got into trouble for plots to kill Castro. Today it is American citizens who are on the hit list. Whatever objections there might be don’t carry any weight. No one in government is in any trouble over the assassination of U.S. citizens by the U.S. government.

As an economist, I am astonished that the American economics profession has no awareness whatsoever that the U.S. economy has been destroyed by the offshoring of U.S. GDP to overseas countries. U.S. corporations, in pursuit of absolute advantage or lowest labor costs and maximum CEO “performance bonuses,” have moved the production of goods and services marketed to Americans to China, India, and elsewhere abroad. When I read economists describe offshoring as free trade based on comparative advantage, I realize that there is no intelligence or integrity in the American economics profession.

Intelligence and integrity have been purchased by money. The transnational or global U.S. corporations pay multi-million dollar compensation packages to top managers, who achieve these “performance awards” by replacing U.S. labor with foreign labor. While Washington worries about “the Muslim threat,” Wall Street, U.S. corporations and “free market” shills destroy the U.S. economy and the prospects of tens of millions of Americans.

Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.

Americans have bought into the government’s claim that security requires the suspension of civil liberties and accountable government. Astonishingly, Americans, or most of them, believe that civil liberties, such as habeas corpus and due process, protect “terrorists,” and not themselves. Many also believe that the Constitution is a tired old document that prevents government from exercising the kind of police state powers necessary to keep Americans safe and free.

Most Americans are unlikely to hear from anyone who would tell them any different.

I was associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I was Business Week’s first outside columnist, a position I held for 15 years. I was columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers. I was a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. I was a contributor to the New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times. Today I cannot publish in, or appear on, the American “mainstream media.”

For the last six years I have been banned from the “mainstream media.” My last column in the New York Times appeared in January, 2004, coauthored with Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer representing New York. We addressed the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Our op-ed article produced a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A debate was launched. No such thing could happen today.

For years I was a mainstay at the Washington Times, producing credibility for the Moony newspaper as a Business Week columnist, former Wall Street Journal editor, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. But when I began criticizing Bush’s wars of aggression, the order came down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my column.

The American corporate media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government.

America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based.

These trillion dollar wars have created financing problems for Washington’s deficits and threaten the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency. The wars and the pressure that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s value have put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Former Goldman Sachs chairman and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is after these protections for the elderly. Fed chairman Bernanke is also after them. The Republicans are after them as well. These protections are called “entitlements” as if they are some sort of welfare that people have not paid for in payroll taxes all their working lives.

With over 21 per cent unemployment as measured by the methodology of 1980, with American jobs, GDP, and technology having been given to China and India, with war being Washington’s greatest commitment, with the dollar over-burdened with debt, with civil liberty sacrificed to the “war on terror,” the liberty and prosperity of the American people have been thrown into the trash bin of history.

The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Haneyya: The arrival of Lifeline 5 in Gaza is a historic moment

[ 23/10/2010 - 10:24 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya hailed the participants in the fifth aid convoy Lifeline for the risks they endured in order to arrive in the besieged Gaza Strip and described their arrival as a historic moment.

"This is a historic moment, and it will be recorded in the history that the [Palestinian] cause is strongly returning to the (Islamic) nation, and that the nation is strongly going back to the cause," Haneyya said in a ceremony held on Friday evening to honor participants of the convoy.

He stressed that the goal is not only to break the blockade but also to end the Israeli occupation because the essence of the Palestinian cause is to eliminate the occupation from Palestine.

The premier highlighted that such convoys are an extension to Al-Furqan victory which was achieved by the Palestinian resistance during the Israeli war on Gaza.

"In the name of the Palestinian people, the government and the resistance factions, we salute you, dear brothers and sisters in the fifth convoy Lifeline, and we express our great appreciation, thanks and pride to you as you continue this blessed march for the sake of Gaza, Jerusalem and Palestine," the premier said.

Earlier on the same day, premier Haneyya warned in a Friday Khutba (sermon) attended by Lifeline activists in Gaza of attempts to dwarf the Palestinian cause and taking it away from its Arab and Islamic depth.

The premier also reiterated his rejection to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying such recognition would eliminate the right of return and displace the Palestinians in the 1948 occupied lands.

He pointed, in another context, to the international conference on the issue of Palestinian prisoners to be held soon in Gaza and called for actively participating in it.

For his part, Dr. Ahmed Bahar, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), received yesterday Lifeline activists at the PLC headquarters in Gaza.

He hailed the efforts they made to break the political siege imposed on Gaza, and said their arrival reflected the Arab and Islamic depth of the Palestinian cause.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian