Is Erdogan worried about Strategic Relationship with Syria? He should

Erdogan, should worry, Turkey has the same Syrian, religious/ethnic political landscape. So, if Syria falls, Turkey could be NEXT. If Syria survive (IT will), Turkey would lose everything build via the Syrian Gate.

In Arabic we say in Arabic, those who have a Glass home should avoid throwing stones on neighbors.

It's not about democracy, it has never been.

It's about dividing the divided,

"As the Arab Spring enters its fourth month, it faces challenges but also presents opportunities. Despite setbacks in Libya, Yemen, and Syria, the democratic wave has already begun to change the Middle East’s political landscape." Thus said Erdogan's advisor who ignored or failed to see the RISKS so far presented by "Arab Spring", a civil war in Libya, and may be in Yemen,

To stop loss, yesterday Erdogan called Assad to express keenness on Strategic Relationship with Syria.

And yesterday Syrian customs seized 36 automatic rifles inside a truck coming from the Turkey.

I am not saying that Erdogan stands behind smuggling arms to Syrian "outlaws" but according to Ibrahim Kalin his senior adviser, "Over the last decade, Turkey has developed different types of relationships with the countries of the Middle East, targeting improved relations with both governments and the public. Indeed, Turkey is probably the only country that has been able to promote relations at the two levels in the Arab world."

Translating, Kalin's statement on Syria, Turkey developed improved relations with Exiled Muslim Brothers, and ignored its “Zero Problem” Foreign Policy, with its neighbors, and main gate to Arab world. Muslim Brothers are now meeting in Istanbul instead of London.

Blinded by the 4 months old " Arab Spring ", and despite the setbacks, Kalin, is still hoping the Syrian unrest may present an opportunity for Turkey. What opportunity??

The opportunity to engage Muslim brothers, and their offspring, Hamas, "publicly and directly, as Turkey has done, with USA and europe. After all, they are now part of the emerging political order in the Arab world"
He concluded "A democratic and prosperous Arab world will make Turkey’s standing in the region stronger, not weaker."

Again, what opportionity, what change, and what political landscape??


Let us connect the Dots


After Jully war , 2006, Saad El-Hariri predicted "In a week, two weeks, when it starts raining, and the economy's crumbling. Then people will be annoyed with Hizballah." Even the Shi'a will begin looking around and realizing that "their society has been pulverized," and while "it's fine and dandy to have 10,000 dollars, where are the jobs?! What will they eat?!" Plus, it will be hard to encourage any kind of investment in Lebanon as long as Hizballah remains armed and dangerous."


Saad urged that now is a golden opportunity for the international community to "weaken" Bashar. The USG needs a clear, new policy to isolate Syria. "My belief is, if you don't isolate Syria, if you don't put a blockade, they will never change." By subduing Syria, you remove Iran's main bridge for playing the troublemaker in Lebanon and Palestine. "If you weaken Syria," Saad suggested, "then Iran has to work alone." The Saudis and other Arab states have all had enough of young Bashar, according to Saad, and no longer want to try a conciliatory approach to the Syrian regime. After Bashar's recent speech threatening civil war in Lebanon, they are no longer interested in "talking" with Damascus. Saad said he had hear this directly from the Saudis, and that Prince Bandar is delivering this message in Washington now (Comment. It is also interesting that Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal made similar comments, but about Iran specifically, during an 8/22 meeting with Ambassador Oberwetter, as reported in reftel. End Note).


"The Saudis and Egyptians have turned. Look into that." When Talwar asked what the United States could do to increase the pressure on Syria, Saad suggested forging ahead on the special tribunal with international character on the Hariri assassination and organizing international sanctions on Syria. "


"Getting a little more animated as the conversation continued, Saad argued that the Syrian regime needs to be gotten rid of entirely. "

"If the regime were to fall in Syria, who would be there to fill in the vacuum?..., Saad suggested that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, in partnership with ex-regime figures like Abdel Halim Khaddam and Hikmet Shehabi ("though he's still close to the regime"), could step into the void. Saad claimed that the Syrian Brotherhood is similar in character to Turkey's moderate Islamists. "

"They even support peace with Israel." Saying that he maintains close contact with Khaddam (in Paris) and Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader-in-exile Ali Bayanuni (in London), Saad urged us to "talk to Bayanuni. See what he's like. You will see wonders."

Let us check the wonders of of Bayanuni, and the new middle east landscape:

• "The head of the Syrian MB, Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni, told Reuters that should the MB reach power in Syria, it would be ready to open peace talks with Israel."
•  "if talks lead to withdrawal from the occupied lands and grant Palestinians their rights, then where would be the problem? There is no problem."
• "The Reuters report contrasted Bayanouni's statement with Hamas' position which does not even recognize Israel. The implication is that the Syrian MB may not necessarily share the position of the Palestinian Islamists (Hamas) or Egypt's for that matter
• Update: Bayanouni followed up on his interview and denied saying that his group is ready to assume power in Syria. Instead he called for a national coalition government.He did repeat however that in principle his group does not reject restoring Syrian rights from Israel through negotiations and a political settlement, provided the other side is willing.
• In his denial he followed the steps of Egypt Brothers, who boycotted last friday demonstrations. I wonder if they after riding the revolution's tide may show us their wonders????

The So-called "Syrian revolution"  after failure to atract the Syrian masses, turned into violance, and failed again. They failed in both attracting or dividing the Syrian army.

What's left??


The last card:"humanitarian intervention",


Most likely, Russia shall not burn it's fingers as it did in Libya, instead it will burn the zionist's last card, so there would be no "No Fly Zone"

Moreover, the fall of Syria, would pave the way towards the fall of Tehran, and that would be the last step in changing the "World's Political Landscape". Therefore, I claim both Russia, and China, would do everything to keep Resistance Axis a main player in the "Middle East’s political landscape" fighting both Condi's new middle east and new world order


Again, Erdogan should be worried, and should at least change his political advisors. Palestine, the resistance option is the only way to "make Turkey’s standing in the region stronger" 
Ask  Ahmadinejad , Mubarak, and Bashar.
Palestine saved Bashar, and kicked the ass of Pharaoh.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

President al-Assad Receives Call from Erdogan Expressing Turkey's Keenness on Strategic Relationship with Syria
May 28, 2011
<><><><></></></>

The underground diplomacy

DAMASCUS, (SANA)- President Bashar al-Assad on Friday received a phone call from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey expressing Turkey's keenness on the strategic relationship between the two friendly countries and people and preserving the level of this relationship and developing it in the future.
President al-Assad and Erdogan discussed the situation in the region and in Syria, with Premier Erdogan stressing Turkey's standing by Syria and keenness on its security, stability and unity.


Both sides reiterated determination to continue the warm and transparent relationship between their countries and upgrading it in the interest of both countries and people and the region as a whole.


Last March, President al-Assad received a phone call from Erdogan.


During the call, Erdogan affirmed the solid Syrian-Turkish relations, lauding the reformative decisions taken by the Syrian leadership and stressing Turkey’s support to Syria.


Turkey and the Arab Spring


(Ibrahim Kalin is senior adviser to the prime minister of Turkey. | DP-News- Project Syndicate)

Ankara – As the Arab Spring enters its fourth month, it faces challenges but also presents opportunities. Despite setbacks in Libya, Yemen, and Syria, the democratic wave has already begun to change the Middle East’s political landscape.


The national reconciliation agreement in Palestine between Fatah and Hamas, signed in Egypt on May 3, is one of the major results of this sea change. Other substantial developments are certain to follow – and Turkey stands to gain from them. Indeed, the Arab Spring strengthens rather than weakens Turkey’s position in the Arab world, and vindicates the new strategic thrust of Turkish foreign policy.

Turkey’s policy of engaging different governments and political groups in the Arab world has transformed Middle Eastern politics. Turkish officials have stated on various occasions that change in the Arab world is inevitable and must reflect people’s legitimate demands for justice, freedom, and prosperity. Moreover, change must occur without violence, and a peaceful transition to a pluralist democracy should be ensured.


Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sought to achieve this in Libya before the ongoing fighting in that country broke out. Erdoğan’s quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy sought to ensure a peaceful transition to a post-Qaddafi era. This gradualist approach complements Turkey’s principled position on the need for reform in the Arab world, including Syria, with which Turkey shares a 900-kilometer border.


Over the last decade, Turkey has developed different types of relationships with the countries of the Middle East, targeting improved relations with both governments and the public. Indeed, Turkey is probably the only country that has been able to promote relations at the two levels in the Arab world.


This engagement policy has paid off in several ways, in the process raising Turkey’s profile in the region. Arab intellectuals, activists, and youth leaders of different political inclinations have taken a keen interest in what some describe as the “Turkish model.” Turkey’s stable democracy, growing economy, and proactive foreign policy have generated growing appreciation of the country’s achievements, which has augmented its “soft power” in the region.


This is reflected in the Arab world’s lively debate about how Turkey has been able to reconcile Islam, democracy, and economic development. That debate, more importantly, is about how Arab countries should restructure themselves in the twenty-first century. The growing gap between governments and people in the Arab world has become an unsustainable deficit – a point that has gained new significance as the Turkish experience has gained greater salience in these countries.


As the Arab Spring unfolds at different speeds in different countries, Turkey continues to urge Arab governments to undertake genuine reform. Arabs deserve freedom, security, and prosperity as much as any other people, and Turkey stands to gain from a democratic, pluralist, and prosperous Arab world.


A democratic era promises to give the Arab world a chance to be the author of its own actions. It will also enable Arabs to develop a new paradigm for relations with the West, based on equality and partnership – a position that Turkey has come to symbolize.


Finally, Turkey’s policy of engaging various actors in the Middle East – repudiated by some as controversial, extreme, and even terrorist – has played a significant role in bringing at least some of these forces into mainstream politics. Given the new political realities in Egypt, Tunisia, and the Palestinian territories, as well as in Lebanon, Libya, and elsewhere, the more important of these actors are no longer secret or illegal organizations.


Simply put, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Nahda Movement in Tunisia, and Hamas in Palestine will all play important and legitimate roles in the political future of their respective countries. This means that Americans and Europeans will need to engage these groups publicly and directly, as Turkey has done. After all, they are now part of the emerging political order in the Arab world,


A democratic and prosperous Arab world will make Turkey’s standing in the region stronger, not weaker.

• On Khalid Amayreh, Syrian Brothers "revolution" and the great day for Palestine
• TURKEY'S ERDOGAN IS JEWISH?  

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Israel Denounces Rafah Opening, Blames Netanyahu

Israeli opposition party Kadima has described the opening of Rafah border crossing by Egypt as a diplomatic failure for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a statement on Saturday, the Kadima party reacted to the reopening of the Rafah border crossing to Gaza by Egypt's interim government and blamed Netanyahu's cabinet for failing to prevent the move, Ha'aretz reported.

“The breaking of the blockade, with no coordination with Israel, and against its will, constitutes a diplomatic failure of the Netanyahu government - that because of its diplomatic weakness and inability to create coordination and cooperation with international parties, has left Israel isolated, in a position of weakened security, while Hamas has gotten stronger,” a statement released by the party said.

Egypt opened its Rafah border with the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip on Saturday, allowing people to cross freely for the first time in four years. The border had been closed since 2007, when Hamas took control of Gaza.

"The Rafah border was opened for the first time [Saturday] in direct opposition to Israel's interests," the statement continued.

The Israeli opposition party said the reopening of the border "breached the blockade that the Kadima government had brokered with international assistance against Hamas."

The new Egyptian government says that the permanent opening of the Rafah border crossing will ease the Israeli siege on the sufferings of Gazans.

• Egypt Permanently Opens Rafah Crossing, Facilitates Transportation

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

US Congress Becomes a Mob of Mindless, Cheering Sycophants

- 30. May, 2011

Anyone who has ever been a delegate to a decision-making gathering like a national Democratic or Republican national nominating convention, knows this drill.

By James M. Wall / My Catbird Seat

Scenes like the one above evoked veteran Jewish activist Uri Avnery to write this harsh description in his weekly Israeli-based column, Gush-Shalom:

It was all rather disgusting.

No one has said it better, nor with greater passion. It was, most certainly, as Avnery described in painful detail, a disgusting exhibition of congressional subservience to the leader of a foreign power.
This Congress is also guilty of a despicable act of defiance of the President of the United States, who is currently engaged in delicate negotiations to find peaceful solutions to the Middle East quagmire.
The American mainstream media found nothing out of the ordinary as the US Congress enthusiastically embraced the words of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, in a refutation of the long-standing American understanding that “partisanship stops at water’s edge”.
In this instance it was not a partisan deviation. It was, instead a total capitulation of both parties to a foreign leader who stood before the members of Congress and ignored the ugly and costly results his own country’s policies have brought to both the Middle East and to the United States.

It was, indeed, disgusting.
Avnery, a veteran of Israel’s Irgun who also fought in the 1948 war that created the state of Israel, watched the spectacle on television from his home in Jerusalem. This is how he expressed his disgust:

There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu. . . .

The sight of these hundreds of parliamentarians jumping up and clapping their hands, again and again and again and again, with the Leader graciously acknowledging with a movement of his hand, was reminiscent of other regimes. Only this time it was not the local dictator who compelled this adulation, but a foreign one.

Avnery writes that while Bibi’s speech was “finely crafted”, it can be summed up in one word, No.

NO return to the 1967 borders. NO Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. NO to even a symbolic return of some refugees. NO military withdrawal from the Jordan River – meaning that the future Palestinian state would be completely surrounded by the Israeli armed forces. NO negotiation with a Palestinian government “supported” by Hamas, even if there are no Hamas members in the government itself. And so on – NO. NO. NO.

The aim is clearly to make sure that no Palestinian leader could even dream of entering negotiations, even in the unlikely event that he were ready to meet yet another condition: to recognize Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” . . .

Netanyahu, along with his associates and political bedfellows, is determined to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state by all and any means. That did not start with the present government – it is an aim deeply embedded in Zionist ideology and practice.

Franklin Lamb, an American retired diplomat, now working in Washington and in Beruit, Lebanon, knows the American political scene from the inside.

Lamb is a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee. He has been a Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics.

He is currently the director of Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Beirut-Washington DC.

Lamb wrote an analysis for the Dubai-based site, My Catbird Seat, which examines the speech before the US Congress where members enthusiastically embraced Netanyahu and the policies of his right-wing Israeli government.
He also identified, however, potential signs of hope among what could be a growing number of congressional staff members who reacted quite negatively to Netanyahu’s speech.

His conclusion:

The effects of the Arab Spring are being felt in both Houses of Congress as well as in numerous support agencies such as the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress”.

Staffers with whom Lamb has communicated “understand that the Arab Awakening of 2011 is an historic game changer”, a change with which these staffers “are often deeply sympathetic and supportive.”
Lamb’s investigation also led him to conclude that “virtually all Congressional staffers who objected to Netanyahu’s appearance before Congress expressed rejection of his following assertions as ludicrously false”.

Those statements were applauded by those members of Congress so limited in their knowledge of the narrative Netanyahu was selling, that they believed him. Those few who did know the assertions were false, also applauded, on demand.
Here is the “ludicrously false” Netanyahu list Lamb found in his discussion with staff members:

“Of 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.”

“Throughout the millennial history of the Jewish capital, the only time that Jews, Christians and Muslims could worship freely, could have unfettered access to their holy sites, has been during Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.”

“In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.”

“In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli prime ministers to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six-Day War.”

“We have helped the Palestinian economic growth by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable.”

“The Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel.”

“They (Palestinians) continue to educate their children to hate.”

“A nuclear armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”

Lamb also found that the applause moments that “erupted” during the speech, according to two staffers who work with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were organized by AIPAC.
AIPAC, as it always does with visiting Israeli officials, edited Netanyahu’s speech to identify points that assured “most favorable local consumption”. These points were marked as “applause lines”.
Key Members such as Eric Cantor (R-VA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) were designated as floor leaders and were seated in strategic locations in the Chamber.

Once Bibi began his speech, the floor leaders would leap up at the indicated cue phrases and begin to applaud enthusiastically.

Anyone who has ever been a delegate to a decision-making gathering like a national Democratic or Republican national nominating convention, knows this drill.

I have served as floor whip for several Democratic conventions. From those experiences, I can report that it works this way: the delegate chief in the trailer calls in and instructs the whip, “Lift up the signs and cheer”.

(A young man named Tom Donilon, who now has a much bigger assignment as Barack Obama’s National Security advisor, was in one of those trailers, relaying instructions to me during Jimmy Carter’s second nominating convention.)
During Bibi’s speech, the Big Four of Cantor, Hoyer, Schumer and Reid, had their carefully marked speech text. When they jumped up to cheer and applaud, all members of Congress followed their lead. Failure to do so could be costly in the next primary election.

MJ Rosenberg writes this weekend about a 1988 experience he had as a Senate staffer. The story appears on the blog, Political Correction, a “Project of Media Matters Action Network”.

(Media Matters was initially created by David Brock, the former right wing political operative, who repented of his role as the “attack dog” against Bill and Hillary Clinton. The current issue of New York magazine has the detailed account of Brock’s conversion and his repeated apologies to the Clintons.)

Rosenberg begins:

It was in 1988 and I was a foreign policy aide to Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). One February day, Levin called me into his office to say that he was disturbed at a quote he saw in that day’s New York Times. An article quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir saying that he rejected the idea of withdrawing from any of the land Israel captured in the 1967 war:

Mr. Shamir said in a radio interview, ”It is clear that this expression of territory for peace is not accepted by me.”

Levin instantly understood what Shamir was saying. He was repudiating UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 (which Israel had helped draft) which provided for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent [1967] conflict” in exchange for peace and security. Those resolutions represented official U.S. and international policy then, and they still do.

But, in 1988, Shamir tried to declare them null and void. Levin asked me to draft a letter to Secretary of State George Shultz stating that it was the view of the Senate that the U.N. Resolutions remained the policy of the U.S. whether Shamir liked it or not.

In great detail, Rosenberg continues with the story of his exciting journey through the jungle warfare that is the Israel Lobby, the Congress, the media (most notably, the New York Times‘ William Safire), and the White House.

Rosenberg concludes by linking his 1988 experience to this past week’s Congressional craven conformity to Israel:

So what’s the moral? It is this: Criticizing Israel is dangerous business. On what other issue would a New York Times columnist call a Senate staffer and threaten to destroy his career? None. And why was a New York Times columnist acting as if he was working for the Israeli government? Safire wasn’t a journalist that day; he essentially was a representative of the Israeli government.

Accordingly, is it any wonder the whole Congress abased itself the other day by jumping up and down and hurling love at Netanyahu? Who wants to mess with an 800-pound gorilla? Certainly not members of Congress.

We conclude this narrative of a nation’s legislative leaders as they wander in the wilderness with a short clip of the Bibi Netanyahu performance before the US Congress.

The picture above of the Congress applauding for one of 29 times is from Palestine Uprooted. The picture of Franklin Lamb is from My Catbird Seat. The clip of parts of Netanyahu’s performance before Congress is from C Span and is available on Youtube.

JAMES WALL is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine. He has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region. Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF (inactive) reserve. Jim launched his new personal blog Wallwritings, on April 24, 2008. He can be reached at: jameswall8@gmail.com

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

“A foreign intervention in Syria means disaster for both Turkey and the region.

Syria deployed tanks in the border village, witnesses said,
ignoring growing pressure from Washington which called on
 Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad to stop trying to
crush popular unrest or step aside.

Think tank report says Turkey should focus on Syria

26 May 2011, Thursday / TODAY'S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL 

A report released by an Ankara-based think tank indicates that as the Syrian regime faces hardships with the continuing public uprisings for a more democratic regime, Turkey should develop policies to influence the process to evolve democratically, since Syrian matters are “family matters” to Turkey.

The report released on May 9 by the International Strategic Research Organization (USAK) titled “The Name of Walking in a Mine Field: Forcing Change in Syria,” indicates that Syria is in need of “urgent change” and Turkey needs to develop policies in the direction of democratic change, as human rights groups say the death toll from Syria's crackdown on a nine-week uprising has exceeded 1,000.

The report states that Turkey's priority should be preventing a foreign intervention.

“A foreign intervention in Syria means disaster for both Turkey and the region. A solution is necessary before it reaches that point. Turkey should focus on Syria with all of its power. If the issues in Syria are not solved as soon as possible, Turkey's initiatives in the region will fail,” the report said and continued: “Turkey's assertion to be a model state in the region will weaken in particular. A Turkey that cannot be influential in solving matters in Syria will lose its positive image in the eyes of the Arab public. The situation in Syria could be seen as a foreign policy problem in other countries, but it is a family matter for Turkey. Events in the region will greatly affect Turkey.”

Among the short-term policy recommendations of the report edited by Osman Bahadır Dinçer and Gamze Coşkun are:

• Instead of sending messages to the Syrian public to appease them, the Syrian government should be persuaded to pursue judicial and political reforms
• Turkey should not make statements of encouragement to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's regime
• Ethnic pluralism in the country may be dangerous since it can lead to social conflict and all segments of the society should take part in the government to prevent this from happening
•  If there are only cosmetic changes and the regime does not truly change, the public's anger will never subside and a bloody conflict will not be far
•  Scenarios on Syria's future should include possible war in the country and the region
• All ethnic and religious groups, not only in Syria but in the entire region, should be contacted and mechanisms should be established to evaluate the results of those meetings.

The USAK report also has mid and long-term policy recommendations, including:

• Syria's unity and stability should be a priority and opposition groups should be closely followed
• Projects should be developed for ethnic and religious groups that have been excluded from power [Moslem Brothers]
• BBC has been broadcasting in Arabic in the region for years. Russia and France have Arabic broadcasts, too. Although late, it is positive that Turkey has started Arabic and Kurdish broadcasts to the region and it should continue to do so
• Turkey needs to cooperate with Syrian security authorities closely, especially in regards to the activities of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
• Turkey should work for the integration of all people in Syria to protect the unity of the country
•  Turkish businesspeople should be encouraged to invest in the regions close to the Turkey-Syria border, as production costs are not high in the area and those investments will facilitate Kurds' integration in Syria and Turkey. Turkish investment in Syria means that eventually Turkey will not have to buy arms to fight the PKK problem
•  Policies should be carefully expressed without using insulting language
• Comprehensive media and civil society projects in Syria will continue to make the Turkish system attractive for the region's people

The report highlighted the words of former Foreign Minister Yaşar Yakış, who said that a big part of the Syrian public feels a close affinity to Turkey and the two governments should use the mutually friendly feelings of their people for the benefit of both countries.

=========
In case you missed it: read my yesterdays comment:
Is Erdogan worried about Strategic Relationship with Syria? He should
==================

"Washington & Ankara formulate Joint Initiative for Handling Syria"

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

A Palestinian in Deutchland

A Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

At speeds that at one time reached 208 km/hour we drove the length of historic Palestine in about three hours on the Autobahn between Fulda and Munich.  Idyllic villages appeared occasionally between the endless green and fertile fields. I was with three men who had idealism and youth and energy. Six of us had slept last night on floors and couches in the student service center of The University of Applied Sciences in Fulda after a talk to some 50 students and faculty.  Then onto Munich, where I gave a talk to some 100 people.  Tomorrow I go to Berlin, then Stockholm, then Rome. It is strange to be in this land hearing the language that reminded me of my graduate career (I studied German reading as part of my needed skills for the research on mammals).  But it also reminded me that this is the language of all early Zionist leaders The vision of a Jewish state freed from its original non-Jewish inhabitants was articulated so clearly in those early writings and protocols of the World Zionist Congress.  “Die Judenstaadt” by Theodore Hertzl remains a classic. Ironically, the fastest growing Jewish population in the world today is right here in Germany.  I wondered why among those prospering in Germany of all places cling to the lies of Zionism. But Germany is a land of contradictions.

It is not only a contradiction between the modern reality of today and the horrors of WWII.  Here is a modern democratic country where free speech and historical examination is open but it is forbidden and punishable to examine the historical record of the Jewish holocaust. Here where the economy is booming and the country beautiful but the government seems content to obey whatever is dictated by the US state Department (itself obeying orders from Tel Aviv).Here where the lessons of violations of human rights are learnt well but exceptions are made for the massive violations of human rights of millions of Palestinians.   In my answer to a Zionist at Fulda, I stated that he is engaged in Nakba denial and that this is just as bad as denial of the Jewish holocaust (a crime in Germany).

In the last few years, I gave talks to tens of thousands of people in hundreds of cities around the world.  I had interactions with hundreds of Zionists, many who have worked hard to prevent my appearance but who then had to come and try to make their points.  Not one of those Zionists was honest; their talking points being the same tired ones intended to deflect attention from and not have to deal with facts of ethnic cleansing, colonization and land theft.  How do you justify the largest post WWII refugee population and sleep at night?  The desperate attempts involve regurgitating easily dispelled myths.  In all cases, they try to use and abuse Jewish history in Europe to garner sympathy.  But even this lost its effectiveness as a fig-leaf to cover for war crimes and crimes against humanity directed at a people who had nothing to do with what happened in Europe. Even her in Germany and despite a guilt complex, facts seem to trump the Zionist perfidy.  It is not even possible anymore to hide the Nazi-Zionist collaboration of the 1930s and early 1940s let alone to hide what they did to 12 million Palestinian natives.  It is not possible to hide the fact that Zionists and Jew-haters share the same goal of attributing to Jews what Zionists and their racist apartheid state is doing.  Hence Zionists insist on using Jewish symbols on their racist state. 

People around the world are now aware of how damaging Zionism is and was (including to Jews around the world). How do you justify the fact that a beautiful ancient land was raped and pillaged and cleansed of its natives to be transformed to that last apartheid system on earth? Most know that Zionism is to Judaism what Crusaderism was to Christianity and BinLadism to Islam. What Zionists promised fellow Jews was safety and security but not morality or justice.  But even in this simple promise they lied.  Because, as an ex-Zionist once remarked: a Jew in Tel Aviv today is certainly less safe than a Jew in Berlin or anywhere else in eth world.  So while Zionists try to justify themselves to non-Jews based on myths about the history of Palestine, they try to convince fellow-Jews by using the primal human emotion of fear (in this case of the goyim/gentiles).  But even that emotional tribalism is long outdated.  More and more Jews are seeing that safety and prosperity do not arise from oppressing others or from replacing the small ghettos in Europe with the large ghetto called the “Jewish state”.  Germans had learned the lesson that repression and oppression of others  does not work long term. Other people have learned this lesson.  Zionists will invariably have to internalize this lesson just like many anti-Zionist Jews have internalized it.  Only then will these Jews rise “out of the ashes” (the title of a great book by Jewish Theologian Marc Ellis.

In the meantime, our tasks as Palestinians and all people of conscience is to assess our own roles and expand them to tell truth to power and to engage in resistance to tyranny for example by using boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. That is what the many people I talked to in Fulda, in Munich, and those I will talk to in the next few days in Berlin, Stockholm, and Rome are doing.  As the global intifada unfolds, we collectively shed apathy and reclaim our humanity.

I got interviewed over 8 times in the past week about supposed political developments (speeches and plans to go to the UN).  Questions about what Obama, Netanyahu, and Palestinian "leaders" had to say.  My answers are that what these folks say is very predictable and why would we want to waste time dealing with it.  Netanyahu is a colonialist racist and can only say what all colonialist racists have to say.  Obama is a politician beholden to the lobby and can only try to cajole the lobby as he tries desperately to hide the reality of US hypocrisy and war mongering.  And many prominent Palestinians have given up on the liberation struggle a long time ago and replaced it with the struggle to hold on to their seats.  None of them really take into account people power.    See the article by Ali Abunimah “What happened to Palestinian "reconciliation"?” and especially the three links within them that show how some key leaders of the Palestinian authority (Fatah) had engaged in what would be considered treasonous behavior in other circumstances

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/what-happened-palestinian-reconciliation

Reviews of my book on Popular Resistance in Palestine:

By Theresa Wolfwood http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16885

By Asa Winstanley http://electronicintifada.net/content/book-review-popular-resistance-popular-history/9936

Open letter to the people of Palestine from South African theologian Dr. Farid Esack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1skU_nVaMl8

Join us in Palestine July 8-16 http://palestinejn.org

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

http://qumsiyeh.org

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Every President and Congress Are Complicit in Israel’s “War Crimes”

Every President and Congress Are Complicit in Israel’s “War Crimes”

- 29. May, 2011

“He (Netanyahu) thinks he is the superpower and we are here to do whatever he requires. Who’s the (expletive) superpower here”?”

–President Bill Clinton after meeting with the newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu

Under International Law and America’s War Crimes Act, all U.S. Presidents and the 535 members of the U.S. Congress are “complicitors” in Israel’s long history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; and as such are “war criminals”

1922’s Congressional Adoption and Support of the illegal Balfour “Declaration” gifting Palestine to European Jews as “A”, not “The”, national homeland for Jews, Congress and every Administration have either remained silent or directly and indirectly supported Zionism’s use of terrorism and force to ethnically cleanse Palestine’s indigenous inhabitants and strongly supported the establishment of an illegal nation that was founded by terrorism and lives by terrorism. By being complicitors in such war crimes they are under International Law guilty of war crimes themselves.

Under the U.N. Charter member states must promote: “Universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.” The U.S. and Israel are signatories to the U.N. Charter and as such violate this fundamental principle of the Charter. Israel is also in violation of the U.S. War Crimes Act which states, “An Act to amend title 18, United States Code, to carry out the international obligations of the United States under the Geneva Conventions to provide criminal penalties for certain war crimes”

Upon signing the law President Clinton said “Today I am pleased to sign into law H.R. 3680, the “War Crimes Act of 1996.”

This bill, in furtherance of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, extends U.S. criminal jurisdiction over certain war crimes and provides the United States with clearer authority to prosecute violations of the laws of war. … It applies to U.S. nationals or members of the Armed Forces who are perpetrators or victims of war crimes. This expansion should address war crimes committed by any person who comes within the jurisdiction of the United States courts, including crimes committed by non-U.S. persons against non-U.S. victims;

Under the Arms Export Control Act all U.S. arms transfers and military aid to any nation are to be used only for defensive, not offensive, purposes.

The Act is intended to prevent weapons from being misused to commit human rights abuses. The Foreign Assistance Act states that “No assistance may be provided… to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

Given that neither Presidents nor Congress have ever enforced these laws, among others, against Israel as it continues its genocidal war crimes and clear violations of Humanitarian and Human Rights law against Palestinian civilians, both the Presidents and every Congress are in violation of the very “War Crimes Act’ they passed into law as well as in violation of International Law.

In a column in the Israeli paper, Haaretz, in an article titled: “U.S. taxpayers are paying for Israel’s West Bank Occupation”, November 16, 2010. Akiva Eldar writes “According to a June 2010 fact sheet on the USAID Internet site, last year American taxpayers funded the paving of 63 kilometers of asphalt roads in the West Bank.” Such payments are a gross violation of International and U.S. Criminal laws and are a clear indication of America’s complicity and guilt in Israel’s commission of “war crimes” against the Palestinians.

In March 2008, Attorney Charles Judson Harwood, Jr. sent an email to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees titled: “Prosecuting U.S. complicity in Israel settlement war crimes” The email contained a “legal memo” attachment. In it he asks the Committees “To consider, once again, creating an Independent Counsel to prosecute U.S. complicity in this (Israeli Settlements) war crime, specifically, multiple criminal acts, enterprises, and conspiracies, by U.S. nationals and residents, to incite, aid and abet, facilitate, a war crime by Israel:—“To examine the U.S. criminal law of complicity, to ensure, it reaches all complicit acts under international criminal law and applies to all complicit acts in this particular war crime, by U.S. nationals and residents and others, such as members of Congress and their staffs, officials in the State Department (including its Legal Advisers), White House, congressional witnesses, think tank advocates, lobbyists, fund-raisers, contributors, settlement real estate agents, settlement house buyers, settlement house mortgage lenders, editorial/Op-Ed writers, broadcasters, preachers, professors, paid propaganda contractors, Israeli government officials, and such.”

In summary, based on the above and the findings of many legal organizations and experts on domestic and international laws, the U.S. Administration and Congress, among others in the public and private sectors, are guilty as complicitors in Israel’s long standing war crimes and violations of all international treaties, humanitarian and human rights laws. That is why Israeli governmental and military officials fear traveling to Europe as they may be arrested and prosecuted for “war crimes”

Here are some comments from the war criminal Netanyahu, America’s man of peace, the “generous compromiser” willing to cede “some” land to the Palestinians from the Jewish homeland, biting and insulting the very hands that feed his genocidal country and military.

To me the most shocking statement in Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was his statement that Israel is not a “foreign occupier” in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as it is their Jewish homeland in the first place, thus making the Palestinians the foreign occupiers of Jewish land.

According to the Washington Post’s article on Netanyahu , “America is a thing you can move very easily”, July 16, 2010.

A video recording of Netanyahu reveals his contempt for the sovereignty of the U.S. government and people and the ease which he can manipulate both. In the video, which is from 2001, Netanyahu -speaks frankly in Hebrew about relations with the Clinton White House and the peace process. He boasts of his knowledge of the U.S. by saying, “I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in their way.” He also boasts of manipulating the U.S. in the ongoing peace process “They asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo accords],” he said. “I said I would, but. I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ’67 Borders.”

In his web site “Tikun Olam” Richard Silverstein posted the article “Bibi in 1989 Supported Palestinian Mass Expulsions”. January 14, 2011 in which he quotes Netanyahu as saying “Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of the demonstrations in China [Tiananmen Square], when the world’s attention was focused on what was happening in that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the Territories. However, to my regret, they did not support that policy that I proposed, and which I still propose should be implemented.”

According to the Israeli paper, Haaretz, in “Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel”, April16, 2008, Netanyahu is quoted as saying “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq, adding that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.”

Thus to Netanyahu, the murder of 3000 Americans, requires no sympathy or solidarity with the American people but is simply viewed as a golden opportunity for Israel to once again manipulate an American tragedy to Israel’s benefit. If he is this heartless to the U.S. imagine how blood thirsty a war criminal he is toward the brutally occupied Palestinian civilian population.

In 1998 President Clinton asked Netanyahu to live up to Israel’s agreement with the Palestinians and withdraw from13% of West Bank land as per the Interim Agreement of 1993. Netanyahu was furious with Clinton but given his arrogant confidence in the total subjugation of Congress to Israel’s demands he knew he had Clinton at a disadvantage. (Sounds Obama familiar)

The Chicago Tribune on May 19, 1998 (“Netanyahu Denies Pullback Agreement. Israel’s Leader Scuttles Report of Progress as Albright and Arafat Talk’) reported that:, “Netanyahu felt confident enough about his position during his five-day U.S. tour to threaten privately to aides that he would “BURN” Washington if Clinton tries to lay blame for failure of the talks on Netanyahu’s government”
Prior to his May 1998 meeting with President Clinton in Washington, Netanyahu exclaimed “We do not accept dictates…They cannot dictate to us on issues that only we can decide on.” –Washington Post, “Netanyahu: U.S. Cannot Dictate to Us” May 7, 1998

During Bill Clinton’s second term Newt Gingrich in 1994 became the Republican Speaker of the House. Given the rift between Clinton and Netanyahu over the 13% withdrawal from occupied land in the West Bank, Speaker Newt Gingrich and a large bipartisan Congressional delegation went to Israel to celebrate its 50^th founding anniversary. In Israel Gingrich told Netanyahu to stand up to Clinton and he can count on the entire Congress to support him to the hilt against the President.

Here’s how a Washington Post article titled, “Netanyahu’s Backers on Capitol Hill Foment Split with White House”, May 23, 1998. “No Israeli Prime Minister can afford to be indifferent to Israel’s ties to the White House. But during Netanyahu’s U.S trip last week, even members of his entourage were amazed at the willingness of prominent members of Congress, notably House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), to denounce their own government and express support for the leader of a foreign power that receives $3 billion in U.S. aid each year.”
It went on to say that: “the legislators are prepared to do everything in their power to ensure that he wins such a confrontation.”

In another paragraph in the same article, we read “Netanyahu has no peer when it comes to understanding the American arena,” said Nahum Barnea, a leading political commentator for the Israeli daily paper.Yedioth Ahronoth, “”He knows that U.S. officials, from (Madeleine) Albright down, are angry yet helpless. But he also knows he can always beat them because he owns the U.S. Congress”

It’s troubling that Washington D.C.’s institutions from the government, to think tanks, to the media, AIPAC, and other lobbyists, are more Zionist and Jewish than Jews in Israel. They have ensured that the United States of America only serves Israel, and only Israel, damn the American family.

Here’s a comparison between the rabid Zionist columnist Charles Krauthammer’s column in the Washington Post versus a column in the Israeli paper Haaretz by an Israeli Jew.

Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post in a column titled “What Obama did to Israel”, May 26, 2011 (during Netanyahu’s visit) “The only remaining question is whether this perverse and ultimately self-defeating policy is born of genuine antipathy toward Israel or of the arrogance of a blundering amateur who refuses to see that he is undermining not just peace but the very possibility of negotiations.”

Here’s a column by Meray Michaeli in the Israeli paper, Haaretz, titled “The Israeli reality that Obama doesn’t understand”, May 23, 2011

“It’s hard to understand a reality in which a prime minister sits and, contrary to all logic and every code of conduct, arrogantly lectures his host, the president of the United States. It’s hard to understand a reality in which a day before their scheduled meeting, a prime minister responds to the speech of the U.S. president, who is about to host him, with an announcement that is as good as spitting in his face.”

With the exception of the great majority of the American people, the entire world knows that Israel and its lobbies run the U.S. Government, and no President or Congressman will dare challenge or swerve from the path AIPAC draws for their subservience.

America, Israel is suffocating your freedoms, your government, your Constitution, and your destiny and future. Will you ever care again about this nation, who’s running it, what’s happening to it, and where it’s heading?

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.–Abraham Lincoln

Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim born in the Middle East. He is political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

READ MORE BY THIS AUTHOR:

• Israel Again and Again Slaps a Cowardly America

• MOHAMED KHODR: VETERANS – AMERICA NEEDS YOU ONE MORE TIME..

span style="font-family: arial;">River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Time to tear down the fences

Rahela Mizrahi

The Electronic Intifada

Tel Aviv

28 May 2011

Israeli soldiers patrol the fence between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams.

(Oren Ziv ActiveStills)

I spent a part of my youth in a kibbutz very close to southern Lebanese village Maroun al-Ras, where the historic march of return of Palestinian refugees took place earlier this month.

The kibbutz was surrounded by fences and more fences. Every night in the children’s house, another member of the kibbutz was guarding us, sleeping with an Uzi gun nearby his bed. In this house, away from our parents, boys were raised Spartan tough to be the next pilots and elite unit warriors of the Israeli army, and the girls were raised very freely, in order to supply the needs of the future warriors. Growing up in such an unorthodox environment appears to be natural if you do not know any other type of life.

Living on the lands of the Palestinian village Kafr Birim, some information about its expelled inhabitants was leaked to us through the demonstrations that demanded the right of return. Hanna and Atallah, expelled from the village, actually built the kibbutz. Atallah’s handsome sons, who worked with him, were transparent to us. We were raised not to see them. I noticed the elder because he looked exactly like my cousin from Jerusalem.

As a teenager I was distressed by the Ikrith and Birim expulsions. The Israeli military occupied the two villages toward the end of 1948 and asked the inhabitants to leave for a period of two weeks only, and then come back. They left their villages and were never allowed to return.

It was obvious to me that the villages’ residents should be allowed to return. Meanwhile, nothing was mentioned about the other refugees, the vast majority who were expelled during the Nakba — the expulsion of approximately 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. Some said that Birim and Ikrith residents could return, for they are Christians. But what about the “legal precedent?” Precedent for what? That was not a question to ask. Ikrith and Birim functioned as a perfect camouflage over the entire story: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Last week, images from Maroun al-Ras took me back to my youth, when after learning exactly what happened since 1948, my solidarity crossed all the way over to the “other” side. Visiting my remaining family in the kibbutz, I am now met by electric fences, and the automatic gates no longer look natural. By committing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the kibbutz’s founders predestined their grandchildren to live behind fences forever. According to an Arabic proverb, a thief does not sleep at night, and will not allow anyone else to sleep.

Last week, behind the fence of my childhood, Palestinian refugees gathered to demand return. They protesters looked and sounded exactly like the revolutionaries of Cairo’s Tahrir square. As with the uprising that began in Egypt on 25 January, I could not stop watching the exciting events in Maroun al-Ras, Majdal Shams, Qalandiya and Gaza, wishing I was part of it. Just take down the fences, I thought.

The refugees will one day return, but I am afraid that rivers of blood will be flooded by then. Declaring the immediate return of all refugees and replacing the apartheid state with a democratic state looks to me the most reasonable thing to do right now. But the supremacist will never give up his privileges voluntarily.

And that is exactly what one of the bravest refugees that we saw this month, Hassan Hijazi, told the Israeli press: Palestine will return to its owners only by force.

Hassan Hijazi crossed the Syrian border to the heart of the Zionist project: the white city of Tel Aviv. For a day he wandered around his hometown, Jaffa, a few years before its expected complete Judaization (gentrification) by demolition, expulsions, kicking out its Arab residents — most of them already displaced from the neighboring villages that Israel demolished in 1948.

The new residents are liberal Ashkenazi Jewish Israelis. Fake co-existence projects were the first steps of this latest invasion, serving the new white inhabitants of Jaffa. Now these new residents complain about the voices of the mosque muezzin and the Orthodox church band.

Hassan Hijazi reminded Israelis that he is not going to give up his hometown of Jaffa. For now, Tel Aviv exists as a European colonial bubble protected by the human shield of Sderot, the violent settlers in the West Bank and Jewish-Arab Mizrahim pushed by white gentrification to settlements such as Maale Adumin and Pisgat Zeev. But that bubble, surrounded by fences and more fences, is soon to pop.

Welcome home to Jaffa, Hassan Hijazi — the first returning refugee!

Rahela Mizrahi is a member of a family of Arab Jews which has lived for several generations in Jerusalem. She has a degree in fine arts from the Betzalel Academy in Jerusalem and a degree in Arabic literature and language from Tel Aviv University. In 2006 she signed the petition calling for the cultural boycott of Israel. She lives and works in Tel Aviv.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Lebanon’s Political Honeypot: What’s Behind the Telecoms Spat

Posted by Qifa Nabki

The following commentary is by a well-informed reader of this blog who goes by the pseudonym “Charles”. He was one of the authors of the excellent Lebanese Political Journal blog (largely defunct since about 2007, but a must-read during the post-Hariri assassination years), and his intervention provides some much-needed context on the larger issues behind the telecoms showdown in Lebanon.

Reader Commentary by “Charles”

It appears that the basic problem is a lack of state accountability. Two oligarchic factions are standing off against one another.
The discussion to privatize Ogero goes back to the days of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri (and Finance Minister Fouad Siniora) who had the political and economic clout to privatize Ogero and make it his own. From 2003-4, the Syrians severely limited Hariri’s privatizations, which resulted in Moody’s downgrading Lebanon’s bond rating, as the government was not following its own debt restructuring program according to the guidelines set out in Paris II, which included promises to privatize the telecommunications network, the electrical grid, MEA, amongst other things.

Of course, the re-election of Lahoud and the removal of Hariri put everything else on hold, but Hariri’s men remained in their positions in the ministries waiting for their leader to return to power. Omar Karami’s (and Finance Minister Elias Saliba’s) failures alongside Syrian heavy handedness almost guaranteed Hariri’s return to power and a return to privatizations.

When M14 won the 2005 elections and then negotiated Paris III, the privatizations were supposed to continue, but did not because of opposition from Jumblatt, Berri, and Hezbollah, who humiliated Hariri and Siniora by rudely making their opposition to privatization known during the PM and Finance Minister’s meetings in New York and DC (something we saw them do once again to topple Hariri’s gov’t in 2011).

The telecoms privatization continued to fester under Marwan Hamade who, despite his affiliation with the March 14th coalition (M14), also had problems with Abdel Monem Youssef who was still waiting to become the director of the newly privatized Ogero and make his millions. The M14 appointed and affiliated director of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) Kamal Shehadeh had major problems with both Hamade and Youssef.

The transfer of telecoms to Gebran Bassile was a remarkably intelligent move by Michel Aoun. Without a financial power base of his own, Aoun needed a source of wealth to finance his politics, and he went to the same sources of money that finance a huge portion of Lebanese government operating costs: (1) foreign backers; (2) and the government owned telecommunications networks that allow Lebanese to do what we do best: talk on cell phones.

Since then, both specific interests within the Future Movement (not the entire party, and definitely not all of M14) and specific interests within the FPM (not the entire party, and definitely not all of the March 8th coalition [M8]) have determined the debate over telecommunications. This debate went from being nasty under Gebran Bassile to being an all out war under Charbel Nahhas, under whose tenure the esteemed technocratic TRA head Shehadeh resigned in disgust (Shehadeh’s personality and political disposition is remarkably similar to Ziad Baroud).

Hariri/Siniora provide political backing and will reap the profit; Rifi provides enforcement; and Youssef holds the fort. Aoun/Bassile provide the political backing and will reap the profit; Nahhas, OTV, and the ISF Embassy division (this division swears allegiance to the FPM?) provides the enforcement; and Aoun holds the fort through tedious negotiations over cabinet formations.

In the mean time, Hezbollah established their own network, thus by-passing the squabbling over privatizations, making millions (if not billions) using its own telecommunications network, weakened the Lebanese government through depriving it of one of its greatest sources of revenue (receipts from telecommunications traffic), provided cheaper and better communications for its partisans and others, and defending its own interests with its weapons.
Sure, there is espionage stuff going on – which Future, the FPM, Hezbollah, Israel, etc. like to play up because once it is brought up Lebanese brains stop behaving rationally, but its really about who reaps the spoils from the biggest honey pot in the country.

The current squabble is over the privatization of Ogero and the possible creation of a third mobile network. Aoun and Bassile refused to play the Lebanese political game in which they would have made a deal with Hariri and received a cut (Lebanon’s system of creating consensus), and have been trying to take the candy away from Hariri/Youssef for years. Nahhas has been the most effective at dismantling the Hariri/Youssef network, which is why the relationship between the two factions has become so nasty. They don’t understand why Aoun isn’t playing by the corrupt rules of Lebanese politics with them, even though he does with almost every other faction.

Youssef hunkering down created a stalemate to be resolved in the future. Nahhas is trying to resolve the situation now, because…

Enter Najib Miqati, and the situation becomes an emergency for both FM and FPM, which is why they are behaving so badly at this precise moment. The Miqati billions were created through telecommunications. Taha Miqati was a small time construction contractor in Khaleej until he established his satellite communications up link, which created enough profit for the Miqati brothers to make their billions. Their business relationships with the Assad regime (and more specifically with Rami Makhlouf) involve telecommunications.

If Miqati gets the telecoms portfolio in the next government, Hariri will cut a deal and Youssef will get his pay out (and he’s been waiting a long, long time). Aoun and Bassile get screwed. However, Hariri has a much worse hand with which to negotiate if Youssef doesn’t have a full network and doesn’t have a large base of operations that he controls.

Miqati has the political might to privatize the telecoms networks, or at least upgrade them, but he will have to cut deals all around, including with HA, Berri, and Jumblatt. Hariri is in a much better position if Youssef is in a dominant position. Youssef can throw a wrench in the works of any future privatization deal.

Nahhas technically had the right to take his action with the equipment, but the FPM isn’t following the “no victor, no vanquished” consensus model of Lebanese politics. They made it personal, and Future is responding in a surprisingly immature manner given how much they have to lose in this.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

How NATO Killed Qaddafi Family Members

Via MCS

- 29. May, 2011

ED NOTE: Ms. McKinney has an uncanny sense of the value of human life in the eyes of God, and the magnitude of the crime of taking it wantonly from innocents and children.

And, the Empire, with all of its Black Knights, its voodoo-modern magical witchcraft and high tech death-devices, missed its primary target because he was out back feeding his camel or his crocodile.
***

Anatomy of a Murder: How Many Times Must a Parent Bury a Child?

by Cynthia McKinney

Well, in the case of Muammar Qaddafi it’s not only twice: once for his daughter, murdered by the United States bombing on his home in 1986, and again on 30 April 2011 when his youngest son, Saif al Arab, but yet again for three young children, grandbabies of Muammar Qaddafi killed along with Saif at the family home.

Now, I watched Cindy Sheehan as she bared her soul before us in her grief; I cried when Cindy cried. Now, how must Qaddafi and his wife feel? And the people of Libya, parents of all the nation’s children gone too soon. I don’t even want to imagine.

All my mother could say in astonishment was, “They killed the babies, they killed his grandbabies.”

The news reports, however, didn’t last more than one half of a news cycle because on 1 May, at a hastily assembled press conference, President Obama announced the murder of Osama bin Laden.

Well, I haven’t forgotten my empathy for Cindy Sheehan; I haven’t forgotten my concern for the children of Iraq that Madeleine Albright said were OK to kill by U.S. sanctions if U.S. geopolitical goals were achieved. I care about the children of Palestine who throw stones at Israeli soldiers and get laser-guided bullets to their brains in return. I care about the people of North Africa and West Asia who are ready to risk their lives for freedom. In fact, I care about all of the children — from Appalachia to the Cancer Alley, from New York City to San Diego, and everywhere in-between.

NATO BOMBING TRIPOLI – AFP/ AL JAZEERA

On 22 May 2011, I had the opportunity to visit the residence of the Qaddafi family, bombed to smithereens by NATO. For a leader, the house seemed small in comparison, say, to the former Clinton family home in Chappaqua or the Obama family home. It was a small whitewashed suburban type house in a typical residential area in metropolitan Tripoli. It was surrounded by dozens of other family homes.

I spoke with a neighbor who described how three separate smart bombs hit the home and exploded, another one not exploding. According to the BBC, the NATO military operations chief stated that a “command and control center” had been hit. That is a lie. As anyone who visits the home can see, this home had nothing to do with NATO’s war. The strike against this home had everything to do with NATO adopting a policy of targeted assassination and extra-judicial killing — clearly illegal.

The neighbor said he found Saif Al-Arab in his bedroom underneath rubble; the three young grandchildren were in a different room and they were shredded to pieces. He told of how he picked up as many pieces as he possibly could. He told us that there are still pieces there that he could not get. He asked us to note the smell — not the putrid smell of rotting flesh, but a sweet smell. I did smell it and thought there was an air freshener nearby. It smelled to me of roses. He asked me why this was done and who was going to hold NATO accountable.

Muammar Qaddafi was at the house. But he was outside near where the animals are kept. It is a miracle that he survived. From the looks of that house and the small guest house beside it, the strike was a complete success if the goal was to totally and thoroughly demolish the structure and everything inside it.

NATO wants us to believe that toys, items and clothing, an opened Holy Koran, and a soccer board game are the appointments found in military command and control offices. I wonder if we could find such articles in NATO’s office in Brussels.
The opened Holy Koran seemed to be frozen in time. In fact, there was a clock dangling from its cord — dangling in space. And indeed, for the four young people in that house at the time of NATO’s attack, time had stopped.

The concussion from the bombs were so great that eerie tile on the walls and floors of the home had been knocked from the walls. Black burn marks scorched the walls. The force broke a marble or granite countertop. The bathtub was literally split into two parts. Shards of the bomb were everywhere. I wondered if the place was now contaminated with depleted uranium.

Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney

The Qaddafi home is a crime scene — a murder scene. The United States prisons are full of men and women who are innocent — even on death row. I wonder where the guilty who are never prosecuted go.

Now, if the International Court of Justice were really a repository of justice, it would be investigating this crime. Instead, it is looking for yet another African to prosecute. We in the United States are familiar with this: on our local news every night, we are saturated with photos of Black and Brown criminals with the implication being that White people don’t commit crime. The moment the face of someone arrested is not shown, then we know that the culprit is White. It’s the unwritten code that we people of color all live by wherever in the world we might happen to be. Global apartheid is alive and well and exists on many levels.

I left the house sick in my heart. As I was about to depart, the neighbor begged me, asked me over and over again, why had this happened? What had they done to deserve this? He seemed to not want me to leave. Honestly, I think I was his little piece of America, his little piece of President Obama and I could help him to understand why this course of action was necessary from my President’s point of view. He said NATO should just leave them alone and let them sort out their problems on their own.
I did leave his presence, but that man’s face will never leave me.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

In response to my previous article, I received the following quite about Buddha from Shiva Shankar who excerpted Walpola Rahula’s What The Buddha Taught:

… The Buddha not only taught non-violence and peace, but he even went to the field of battle itself and intervened personally, and prevented war, as in the case of the dispute between the Sakyas and the Koliyas, who were prepared to fight over the question of the waters of the Rohini. And his words once prevented King Ajatasattu from attacking the kingdom of the Vajjis. …


… Here is a lesson for the world today. The ruler of an empire publicly turning his back on war and violence and embraced the message of peace and non-violence. There is no historical evidence to show that any neighbouring king took advantage of Asoka’s piety to attack him militarily, or that there was any revolt or rebellion within his empire during his lifetime. On the contrary there was peace throughout the land, and even countries outside his empire seem to have accepted his benign leadership. …

Please don’t allow special interest press and war mongering gatekeepers of the left to blot out the tragedy unfolding in Libya. Please don’t allow them to take away our chance to live in peace throughout our land and with countries inside and outside our hemisphere. Congress should vote to end NATO’s action in Libya and barring that should assert its Constitutional prerogatives and require the President to come to it for authorization of this war. And then, Congress should heed the wisdom of the people of our country who are against this war and vote for peace.
Source: Dissident Voice

Cynthia McKinney was a presidential candidate for the Green Party in the 2008 election. Read other articles by Cynthia, or visit Cynthia’s website.

• U.S. Policy Rooted in Lies, Injustice, and War

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian