Jewish terror state Welcomes New Year With Home Demolition, Invasions And Arrests

Wednesday January 02, 2013 09:10 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies 

The Palestine Public Broadcasting Cooperation reported Tuesday that Israel started the new year with a series of invasions, attacks and destruction of Palestinian property, and with arrests targeting local residents; injuries were also reported.

Image By http pbc.ps

The army invaded the Al-Esawiyya town, north of occupied East Jerusalem, and demolished a home that belongs to resident Rafat Tareq Al-Eesawy, 40, under the pretext that his home was built without a construction permit.

Rafat is the brother of detainee Samer Al-Eesawy, who went on hunger strike more than 176 days, and suspended his strike last week for ten days following medical advice due to very serious health complications.

He said that Israeli military bulldozers, and several armored military vehicles, invaded Al-Esawiyya and demolished his 145-square/meter under construction home. The army and the Jerusalem municipality never handed him and warning, warrant or citation regarding his property.

“Israel regards the land we live on to be public property, and wants to use the area to build national and biblical gardens”, he said, “therefore, the city council does not grant the Palestinians any construction permits, I’ve been living in my small house with the three children and wife for 10 years, I cannot expand my house, I cannot build another house for my children due to Israeli restrictions”.

The army also demolished, on Tuesday morning, three hothouses that belong to two families in the village, also under the pretext of being constructed without permits.

It is worth mentioning that since early dawn hours of the first day of 2013 the army conducted various invasions into different parts of the occupied West Bank, broke into several homes and kidnapped a number of residents.

The soldiers invaded Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem , broke into and searched several homes before kidnaping two residents identified as Amer Mohammad Taqatqa, 20, and Mousa Na’im Taqatqa, 19.

Soldiers further invaded Beit Ummar and Sa’ir towns, in the Hebron district in the southern part of the West Bank, kidnapped four residents and installed several roadblocks.

The Palestine New and Info Agency (WAFA) reported that the soldiers kidnapped Nour Yousef Awad, 18, Mohannad Mirshid Awad, 15, and Yousef Ibrahim Sabarna, 18, after breaking into and searching their homes in Beit Ummar, and also kidnapped Adham Jaradaat, 27, in Sa’ir town.

The army further invaded several neighborhoods in Hebron, installed roadblocks at the entrances on Sa’ir, Halhoul, Ithna, and the Al-Fawwar refugee camp, stopped and searched dozens of vehicles and interrogated dozens of residents while inspecting their ID cards.

In occupied Jerusalem, the army kidnapped Amer Ziad Zeidani, 17, Samah Maher Sahran, 19, and Ibrahim Mouse Odah, 23, after invading Silwan town, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Majdi Al-Abbasy of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center told the WAFA News Agency that the army kidnapped the three residents from their homes in Ayyoub and Al-Bustan neighborhood, and moved them to an interrogation center in the city.

In Jenin, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the army kidnapped three children from Zabbouba village, and held them at the Salem military camp, and also invaded the nearby villages of Az-Zababda and Msalya villages, south of the city.

Local sources told WAFA that the army detained Mohammad Jaradaat, 15, Allam Maqalda, 16, and Ahmad Amarna, 16, after invading Zabbouba village, interrogated the three children for several hours and handed them to the Palestinian District Coordination Office.

In Tammoun village, near the central West Bank city of Tubas, five Palestinians have been injured by military fire, one seriously, after undercover forces of the Israeli army infiltrated into the village and broke into a home before kidnaping one resident identified as Morad Suleiman Bani-Odah.

Head of the Tammoun village council told WAFA regular units of the Israeli army invaded the village and clashed with local residents; the soldiers fired dozens of rounds of live ammunition wounding five residents identified as Dia’ Bani-Odah, Jadallah Jaradaat, Mohammad Bisharaat, Anas Bani-Odah, and Amin Bani-Odah’’ dozens of residents were treated for the effects of teargas inhalation.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

New York Times & the Jewish Terror State

BY OMISSION, THE NEW YORK TIMES WIPES ISRAEL’S CRIMINAL RECORD CLEAN

    

Truth, Lies, and Omissions

*

According to The New York Times, there is no siege of Gaza, no occupation of the West Bank, and never was there a Nakba (the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine). Three recent articles erase these key Israeli crimes from the historical record.

*

How The New York Times erases Israel’s crimes

Robert Ross*

*

The New York Times keeps the American public in the dark about the true nature of Israel’s occupation.
(Nedal Eshtayah / APA images)

According to The New York Times, there is no siege of Gaza, no occupation of the West Bank, and never was there a Nakba (the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine). Three recent articles erase these key Israeli crimes from the historical record.

In a 13 December 2012 article entitled “Hamas Gains Allure in Gaza, but Money is a Problem,” Steven Erlanger explores the reasons for Gaza’s increasingly debilitating poverty. Never once in this 1,300-word piece does Erlanger even mention the Israeli siege on Gaza or the 2008 and 2012 Israeli bombardments as factors (much less the principal causes).
Instead, Erlanger goes through a long list of regional developments (the weakening of the Assad regime in Syria, sanctions on Iran) and, most emphatically, decisions by Hamas(new taxes and fees), which have supposedly left Palestinians in Gaza not only increasingly impoverished but also more resentful than ever of Hamas. “Gazans recognize that there is more order here,” Erlanger explains, “more construction and less garbage. But many resent the economic burden of financing Hamas and, implicitly, its military.”

No siege

So to the extent that the most recent Israeli onslaught is considered at all, it is Hamas’rockets, once again, that are blamed for Gaza’s misfortune. As if to prove his point, a 43-year-old butcher says to Erlanger, “things have steadily declined in Gaza.” Another Gaza resident adds, “it is a life of depression and deprivation.”
Erlanger does include the word “siege” in his analysis, but only amidst a quoted laundry list of problems Palestinians in Gaza now endure: “poverty, mismanagement, siege,unemployment, little freedom of movement,” Mkhaimar Abusada is quoted as saying.
And the siege, among these other conditions, is implicitly attributed not to Israel, but to Hamas: “If it can’t deal with these same issues,” Abusada concludes, “Hamas will find itself in the same position as it was before the war.” While Abusada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University, certainly knows the origins of these conditions, Erlanger’s placement of his quotation makes it seem that even Abusada blames the siege on Hamas.
Either way, Erlanger does not provide any sense of how totalizing and devastating a ground, air and naval blockade (much less the two recent military assaults) of the densely populated territory actually is. An uninformed reader could easily conclude that the siege is something for which Hamas is responsible, not an imperially-imposed form of collective punishment foisted upon Palestinians by Israel, and not something that is directly responsible for Gaza’s poverty and “little freedom of movement.”
Thus, according to The New York Times, Hamas is responsible for Gaza’s problems; Israel has nothing to do with it.

No Nakba

A Times article about Palestinian refugees in Syria published three days after Erlanger’s Gaza story obscures the reason that Palestinians are refugees in the first place (“A Syrian airstrike kills Palestinian refugees and costs Assad support,” 16 December 2012).
With just eight words, the Times absolves Israel of any responsibility for the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to make way for a Jewish state.

Reporting on the Syrian regime’s recent attack on Yarmouk camp in Damascus, home to thousands of Palestinian refugees, the Times explains that the Palestinians there were “refugees from conflict with Israel and their descendants.” The Nakba, the original sin ofZionism and the State of Israel, is thus smeared into obscurity. It is transformed into something it is not, changed from the wholesale removal of one group of people by another to a conflict between two presumably equal sides, from which a bunch of Palestinians evidently fled.

The newspaper of record does not, of course, go on to explain that while UN Resolution 194 specifically grants the Palestinians in Syria (as well as those in Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere) the right to return to their homes in what is now Israel, the Israeli government has always — and, at times, violently — denied this right.

No occupation

An article published the following day, on the so-called E1 land east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, fails to mention that this land and the broader territory of which it is part, is considered by international law to be a Palestinian territory currently under Israeli occupation (Steven Erlanger, “West Bank land, empty but full of meaning,” 17 December).
Reporting on Israel’s recent declaration to build settlements on E1, Erlanger reproduces the oldest Zionist myth in the book: that this is an “empty” land, over which now the “two sides” are struggling: “E1 [is] a largely empty patch of the West Bank,” Erlanger writes. And the “fight” over E1 “speaks to the seemingly insurmountable differences, hostility, and distrust between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” Erlanger informs us.

Thus, the occupied Palestinian West Bank, with all its illegal Israeli settlements, Jewish-only roads, Israeli checkpoints, Israeli military incursions and Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes, is reduced to a territory to which two different groups are laying equally legitimate claim. The closest Erlanger gets to even hinting at the occupation is where he writes toward the end of the article that E1 is “largely state land.”
But this, like the unidentified and unexplained “siege” in Gaza, is far too vague for an uninformed reader to understand which “state” controls this land, under which conditions, and against whose rights, livelihood and sovereignty.

So there you have it: no siege, no Nakba, and no occupation. Such reporting is, at best, delusional. At worst, it is intentionally misleading. In any case, The New York Times serves Israel’s interests by keeping the American public in the dark about the true nature of Israel’s occupation.
It is easy to understand why so many Americans find the situation so apparently confusing when the people who report on it are themselves confused about the very basic historical, geographic and political realities.
*Robert Ross is an Assistant Professor of Global Cultural Studies at Point Park University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus upon the political-economic geographies of Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and the United States. He is also a member of the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Israel-Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

A Palestinian village under apartheid

Sorce

It's the last day of the year and I have wanted to publish this video for over a month. If anyone questions whether there is apartheid on the West Bank, well, look at this video. "Apartheid on steroids," as the Nation put it.

The man in the video is Abu Ibrahim 'Attalah, 52, a father of seven who lives in the small Palestinian village of Beit Iskariya in the occupied West Bank southwest of Bethlehem.

Beit Iskariya is surrounded by Israeli settlements. Indeed, the most crushing part of the video occurs at about 3:50 when I ask him to name the settlements that surround him, and he moves around the compass, beginning on the north, naming nine or ten Jewish settlements by their Hebrew names. And he describes the efforts to choke his village so that the people leave: this is the ethnic cleansing that has been going on in Area C for many years now.

At the beginning of the video, you will see him comparing the little school in Beit Iskariya, which is under a demolition order, to the fancy school in the settlement center across the way, which serves all the Jewish settlers of Gush Etzion bloc. He points out a college there, and a swimming pool, which the Palestinian villagers can't go to. The translator is Fadi Kattan.

And at about 1:40 of the video, he talks about his one meeting with Tony Blair three years ago, when Tony Blair promised to make a solution for Beit Iskariya, and -- 2:40-- nothing happened. At 3:20, he describes the lack of media attention for the village.

In the shorter video below, I pressed Abu Ibrahim to understand the segregation of the children of Beit Iskariya and the children of the settlements. Could his children go to the school across the way? My question is so idiotic to him, he cannot answer at first. Equality? Wait for his explanations at the end of the video.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Dr. Ashraf Bayoumi: Syrian Arab army, popular steadfastness and Assad... critical components to face conspiracy and aggression ...

الجيش العربي السوري والصمود الشعبي والقيادة السياسية…المكونات الحرجة لمواجهة التآمر والعدوان ...

محمد أشرف بيومي

قوى الصمود العربية الباقية (سورية الدولة وأغلبية الشعب السوري والمقاومة اللبنانية والمقاومة الفلسطينية الباقية ومجموعات من الشعب العربي) تواجه عدواناً شرساً متعدد الأطراف لا يقل خطورة عن العدوان العسكري المباشر الذي منيت به العراق،

ولا شك في أن التآمر كان مبيتاً منذ 2003 عندما أدرجت سورية في قائمة الدول المارقة وأضيفت لمحور الشر قبل درعا وإدلب وجسر الشغور وحمص وحماة.. هل يعني ذلك أن النظام السوري كان منزهاً من الأخطاء؟

بالتأكيد لا، بل إن أخطاء محلية ساهمت وكانت عاملاً مساعداً ومحفزاً استغلته القوى المعتدية، الأهم أن هذه الأخطاء كان من الممكن تجنبها إذا اتسعت دائرة الحكم وشملت كل القوى الوطنية وإذا كان المسار الاقتصادي أكثر اهتماماً بالفقراء ومواجهة مشكلة البطالة وإذا كان اعتماد النظام على المنظمات الشعبية وليس فقط على المؤسسات الأمنية، إن تلافي هذه الأخطاء المهمة لم يكن ليمنع العدوان ولكن وبكل تأكيد كانت الجبهة الداخلية تكون أكثر صلابة ولكان العدوان يكون أكثر صعوبة، هل يعني هذا أن أخطاء النظام تبرر التخلي عنه؟

نعم، لمن لا يكترث كثيراً بمستقبل الوطن، وألف لا لغير ذلك، إننا يا سادة نتحدث عن وطن سوري ومستقبل عربي ولا نتحدث عن شخص أو نظام.

هذا هو الواقع الآن فماذا نفعل وما موقفنا؟ هل نصمد وندافع ونتكاتف ونتحمل المآسي أم نهاجم بشار ونتمنى سقوط النظام ونسعى لذلك؟ هل نقول بحجة الاستبداد وغياب الديمقراطية تعالوا يا إسرائيل وأميركا ويا إخوان استلموا الحكم وحققوا مشروعكم الشرق أوسطي والالتزامات التي وافق عليها البعض بحجة الرغبة في استقرار وديمقراطية وأمن؟

سقوط سورية: دولة تابعة و«سلام» مع اسرائيل

ها هنا تكون المفارقة، ستكون سورية دولة تابعة وستوقع معاهدة سلام مع إسرائيل ويعود الجولان صورياً كما عادت سيناء وستغنى إحداهن أو أحدهم «الجولان رجعت لينا وسورية اليوم في عيد» كما غنت شادية لعودة كاذبة لسيناء وسيزداد الفقر والبطالة ولكن ستنتشر المواد الاستهلاكية وتزداد البطالة ويغدق صندوق النقد بقروضه المشروطة حتى تتمكن قوى الهيمنة من تكبيل سورية أعواماً طويلة، هذا ليس خيالاً، فمصر تشكل نموذجاً عملياً لما حققه الانفتاح الاقتصادي قرين اتفاقية كامب ديفيد من تبعية اقتصادية وسياسية وثقافية، التوقعات الموضوعية لهذه السياسات هي تعمق وانتشار مزيد من المآسي والخراب ولكن لا تحزنوا فستنعمون بديمقراطية الإخوان المسلمين التي تتمتع بها مصر حالياً.

هناك من الانهزاميين الذين يقولون: لا يمكن مواجهة جحافل المعتدين، ونحن نتساءل: ألم تنتصر فيتنام؟ ألم تنتصر كوبا في حرب خليج الخنازير، وصمدت رغم الحصار الاقتصادي لأكثر من خمسين عاماً؟

نعم الانتصار ليس ممكناً فقط بل هو ضروري لأنه يحدد مصير وطن وأمة.

ربما إذا كانت الظروف في سورية غير ذلك أي إن سورية ليست معرضة لعدوان أجنبي مسلح يلعب فيه إرهابيون دوراً أساسياً وإن سورية الشعب والوطن والدولة ليسوا مهددين لكنت من الناقدين بشدة للرئيس بشار الأسد والنظام السوري من أجل الحريات والعدالة الاقتصادية، أما في الوضع الذي نحن فيه فالالتفاف حول رئيس الدولة كرمز للسلطة يصبح واجباً لحماية الوطن ليس هذا هو الموقف المبدئي الصحيح فقط بل هو أيضاً الاختيار العملي والمنطقي لحماية الذات أي الوطن والشعب والدولة، فمن بين كل الاحتمالات المتصورة يصبح استمرار النظام مع الالتزام بإصلاحات راديكالية هو البديل الأفضل حتى ننتقل إلى مرحلة أكثر استقراراً وأكثر ديمقراطية،

يظن البعض أنني كمصري ليس من حقي التدخل في الشؤون السورية، وأنا أقول: هذا هراء، إن الذي يجب منعه هو التدخل بالسلاح والمال لقلب النظام وتدمير سورية لكونه جريمة كبرى وانتهاكاً للسيادة الوطنية، أما المشاركة في مشاكل وهموم الوطن فهي واجب ومسؤولية عربية، إن التخلي عن سورية في مواجهتها للعدوان هو خيانة وطنية وقومية لا يمكن غفرانها كما أنها نذالة أخلاقية وعدم وفاء.

يقول بعض الفلسطينيين المقيمين بسورية: يجب عدم التدخل وكأن القضية الفلسطينية غير متداخلة بشدة في الأحداث وتهم كل فلسطيني وطني بالذات ليس فقط لأن النظام قام بواجبه نحوهم ولكن لأن أحد الأسباب الرئيسية للعدوان على سورية هو موقف سورية العنيد من القضية العربية ولا أقول الفلسطينية، فالذي يقف على الحياد إضافة إلى من يؤيد الإرهابيين أو المتمردين هم في صف القوى المعتدية أي أمريكا حلف الناتو إسرائيل قطر السعودية وحكومة الإخوان الملتزمة بكامب ديفيد. هذا هو الموقف الصحيح ليس من الوفاء فقط وإنما من الدفاع عن القضية.

تأييد بشار الأسد ضرورة وطنية كما عبد الناصر 1956

لقد قابلت الرئيس بشار الأسد منذ حوالي خمس سنوات وكان لقاء ممتداً مدة ساعتين جمعنا نحن الاثنين فقط وبناء على دعوة منه، شمل النقاش مواضيع عديدة وكان صريحاً للغاية وتبادلت معه الرأي في شتى الأمور واختلفنا في قضايا محددة أهمها موضوع الحريات السياسية وحقوق الإنسان التي أؤمن بها، وتحذيري من استغلال قوى الهيمنة الأجنبية هذه القضايا ضد سورية.

أصبح رأس النظام والجيش الوطني المقاوم مع شرائح واسعة من الشعب السوري الصامدة، المكونات الحرجة في البناء السوري حيث إذا غاب أحد المكونات الثلاثة ينهار البناء كله، هذا لا يعني أن الدولة ستنتهي وإنما سنحتاج عقوداً حتى نصل إلى ما نحن عليه الآن.

أتساءل كيف ولماذا أصبح الرئيس من اللبنات الحرجة؟

السبب الرئيسي هو طبيعة النظام الذي ركز السلطة في شخص الرئيس وهنا تقع مخاطر هذه المركزية الشديدة على الدولة والوطن ولهذا لا نؤمن بها.

ولكن هناك عامل آخر وهو كيف أن المعتدين دائماً أبداً يسعون لشيطنة رئيس الدولة المعتدى عليها ولا ننسى أنهم لقبوا ناصر بهتلر النيل كذلك يسعون لاختزال المشكلة في شخص الرئيس، فجمال عبد الناصر هو العقبة في عام 1956 ولابد من القضاء عليه والآن بشار هو المشكلة ولابد من إزالته. وأصبح ترديد الأعداء مقولة بشار لازم يمشي أو بالإنكليزية بشار مست جو وكأنها تسبيحة. وكأن إسقاط بشار سيصنع المعجزات وسيجلب السعادة والرفاهة والحب والسعادة لكل سوري وسورية.

هذه الشخصنة المفرطة ساهمت في جعل بشار لبنة حرجة في سورية. هذا يزيد من الأمر خطورة وفي المقابل يجعل تأييد الرئيس السوري من الضرورات الوطنية في هذه المرحلة بالذات بالضبط كما كان جمال عبد الناصر اللبنة الحرجة في مصر عام 1956.

في ذلك الوقت لم أتردد لحظة واحدة لتأييد ناصر والوقوف ضد العدوان رغم أن والدي كان معتقلاً سياسياً من أجهزة الأمن الناصرية في السجن الحربي آنذاك.

وبطبيعة الحال يكون الجيش الوطني الذي يتصدى للمعتدين والإرهابيين لشهور طويلة لبنة حرجة أساسية فتماسكه وصلابته عامل حرج في حماية الوطن. كما أن صمود ووعي أغلبية الشعب السوري العامل الحاسم في هذه المعركة رغم المعاناة الشديدة التي يتحملها لشهور متواصلة.

توسيع دائرة الحكم لتشمل كل القوى الوطنية

ولكون بشار جزءاً مهماً من اللبنة الحرجة فهذا يضع عبئاً أكبر عليه فهو الرئيس السوري الذي يجب أن يقوم بمزيد من الخطوات الجريئة والسريعة وأن يقوم بجهد خارق لتوسيع دائرة الحكم لتشمل كل القوى الوطنية التي لم تتورط في تأييد الإرهابيين وأنصار القاعدة أو المنادين بالتدخل الأجنبي بصوره المختلفة، وفتح الباب أمام المخدوعين للتراجع عن مواقفهم وتصحيحها.

لابد من تفعيل أقوى لدور الشعب وهو المتضرر الأكبر من مستقبل يحكم فيه من يسمون أنفسهم أصدقاء سورية وقد لمس البعض في حلب ودمشق مذاق هذا الحكم. لابد من مزيد من الثقة في الشعب وقدراته ولكن لا يعني هذا مطلقاً المساومة باسم الحوار مع الإرهابيين والمصرين على العنف من المسلحين بل لابد من مضاعفة الجهد لمحاصرتهم والتصدي لهم.

* مواطن مصري عربي - الوطن

100 Palestinians Injured as Zionist Forces Invade W.B. Village

Local Editor

An arrest raid by undercover Zionist commando force ignited rare clashes in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, residents said, leaving at least 100 Palestinians wounded. The clashes began early Tuesday after Zionist forces disguised as Arab merchants in a vegetable truck arrested a local Islamic Jihad member. Regular army forces then entered the town, prompting youths to hurl rocks to try to prevent more arrests. Palestinian security sources told AFP 30 people in Tamoun village were lightly injured by rubber bullets and one was moderately wounded when a live round hit his hand, while dozens more suffered from tear gas inhalation. The Zionist military spokesman's office had no immediate comment but army radio said three soldiers were hit by stones. "A special forces squad went in on an arrest operation," it reported. "It seems that family or local residents spotted the force and then very big disturbances started... Three soldiers were very lightly injured from stones." Zionist forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition, as youths set tires and bins on fire to block the passage of military vehicles. In several hours of clashes, dozens of masked youths hid behind makeshift barriers, hurling rocks and firebombs at soldiers. River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Velayat 91 Unfolds ‘Qader’: Long Range Ground-to-Sea Missile

Local Editor

Qader Sea Cruise missile has been successfully launched on the 5th day of the Velayat 91 Navy drills, Iranian Mehr news agency reported Tuesday. With a long range of 200 km and rapid response capabilities, Qader is capable of targeting and destroying marine objects such as frigates, warships, as well as on-shore targets. Among the main features of this new military product are its high destructive power against all fixed and mobile targets, flight maneuverability, automatic guide and control systems, firing capability on warships and fixed land bases, as well as its rapid preparation and response. “Qader was successfully launched minutes ago and hit its target,” the Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari told local media outlets. In the last phase of Velayat 91 naval drills, the Army Navy has launched its super-advanced surface-to-surface missile from an Iran’s Army ship. Noor tracked the target, hit and destroyed it successfully. The tested missiles are the product of national expert knowledge of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army Naval Force and research and development centers of the defense industries. “Yesterday also Nasr and Ra’ad were launched successfully and hit targets,” he added, indicating that the last stage of the final operational phase of the drill will end Tuesday. Iran Navy Warns Foreign Planes, Warships Approached Drill Region Local Editor   Iranian navy issued on Tuesday dozens of warnings to foreign planes and warships that approached its forces during a five-day sea maneuver near the Strait of Hormuz. Mehr news agency quoted Rear Admiral Amir Rastgari, spokesman for the exercise, as saying that oreign and international reconnaissance units had displayed different reactions, the main being collecting information on the Islamic Republic’s Army capabilities. “The foreign force reconnaissance units were entering the drill regions, and we issued 30 warnings against their entering,” he added. “These warships were collecting information on Army Navy’s capabilities,” he said. Rear Admiral Rastegari also said that foreign forces received warnings by Army’ Navy units and Khatam Al Anbya Air Defense unit. “They received the warnings and remained afar the drill zone,” he said. The five-day naval drill, dubbed Velayat-91. Related Articles Cyber Defense Used for First Time in Velayat-91 Drills Iran Navy Begins 6-day Specialized Naval Drills Iran Schedules Naval Drills in Hormuz for Regional Security “Iranian Navy Controls any Movement in Caspian Sea” “Iranian-made Drones more Sophisticated than US ScanEagle” Iran Opens ‘ScanEagle’ Production Line Iran Unveils 2 Domestically Manufactured Helicopters River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

WE WILL WIN WITH YOU / UNIVERSAL PRAYER 2013

 

 

May we have the discrimination that makes us prefer and choose what is good for us . Our heart is partially turned to that which is good and our heart is growing bigger and sometimes we think we have been following the way of our heart, while we are actually following the way of our mind and reason. We have become like a part of a larger thing, a wo...rldly extended family. Hizbullah has been a silent protector in Lebanon from civil war and from the attack of Israel and an antidote to sectarian hatred. In the Arab world Sayyid Hassan was the Hujja for the struggle of people and an insurmountable barrier against Israel.

Hizbullah became a great source of security to all. Hizbullah’s victories over Israel made China and Russia go over their previous positions and policies and develop a new stand altogether regarding the world struggle . Iran also rose above all to prove that a country, any country , can enjoy autonomy and independence and develop ethically and otherwise and help other countries develop and grow and discover their potential and live up to it . That is why Iran backed the Lebanese Resistance and backed Lebanon , Iran helped all regardless of religion and sect . In Lebanon they let help reach all factions indiscriminately without religious differences .

Iran is rushing to the help of Syria and trying to get the opposition and regime together . It is lending a helping hand to many and starting to create an axis of good intentioned countries to try to encounter the evil schemes of the evil ones . Chavez is trying to do the same in Latin America helped by Castro , Morales and Correa and others, to unite and bring together and rely on oneself and distribute equally and fairly the resources of the country and embrace right causes all over the world and defend- as a real brother- the Palestinian and Lebanese causes , a real brother to Syria as well and to all .

These righteous presidents and good human forces that are ruling countries make a big difference , they add a different color of hope and purpose that we thought non existent . Look at Syria and the people of Syria and the president of Syria who are facing the whole world, the whole establishment that has rallied against them and gathered all the thugs of the world to have the Syrians killed and massacred. These are the forces of good that are playing in this decisive battle and many other forces will join them soon , they are the hope for each person and country and the alternative ; they have inspired other countries like Russia and China and India and Brazil , they want to live with dignity and use their own potential for the good of all . Let us salute the forces of Good and let us support them in our daily prayers and ask God to help them in their battle and endeavor and make them reap its good fruits which are nothing else other than success and victory for the whole of humanity over the forces of darkness and evil.

 Ours is a universal prayer for all people .We pray God that president Chavez recovers quickly and goes back to his country and his people.

 And may God bring victory to Syria and its president



River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

With leaders like Netanyahu, Israel doesn’t need enemies

Source

In 1949, Israel lied to gain membership in the United Nations, but by the skillful use of blackmail, murder, bribery and Holocaust® guilt it has been able to inhibit the “civilized” world from doing anything about it. As a result, the UN, that great forum for world peace, has by inaction been co-opted in the slow, systematic genocide of Palestine. The most pernicious example of this collusion is the refusal to do anything about Israel’s systematic destruction of Arab homes to build illegal colonies for Jewish Europeans.

For the most part, this crime is invisible because it is actively ignored by the corporate media. If it is reported at all, the coverage is usually perfunctory, devoid of context, and often told from the Israeli point of view. This self-censorship has made life relatively easy for Western governments because it allows them to feign ignorance or impotence, and so not have to comment publicly for fear of zionist reprisal.

However, thanks to Benjamin “Baby” Netanyahu’s tantrum over the UN’s recognition of Palestinian statehood, willful ignorance is no longer possible, and active punitive steps against Israel might be unavoidable. When Netanyahu declared that Israel would retaliate by building 3,000 more colonist homes, he effectively did to the legitimacy of the Jewish State [sic] what the Jewish State (and numerous well-placed mini-hydrogen bombs) did to the World Trade Centre. Let’s sift through the rubble and estimate the fallout:

First, Netanyahu conceded that Israel is not really a Jewish State; it’s an Arab dispossessionist state. Building homes for Jewish colonists presupposes the existence of Jews to occupy them, but Jews had nothing to do with this decision.

Netanyahu threw a tantrum at the U.S. government and the UN for recognizing the reality of Palestine, but it is Palestinians who are being made to suffer. It is more important for Netanyahu to kill and dispossess Palestinians than to provide stability for Israel’s existing Jewish population. In this, Netanyahu parallels Adolf Hitler, who sought to rid Europe of its Jewish population.

Second, the sheer number of these gratuitous dwellings invites questions into just how much colonial construction is necessary, and just how many Jews really live in occupied Palestine. Israel, understandably, keeps this information secret, but we can sense the lack of immigrant demand for housing from a few sources.

For one thing, there is little reason for any Jew to move to Israel. Israel has the second highest poverty rate among OECD countries—almost 25 percent—and a predatory caste system that allows Israel-born EuroJews to exploit and abuse non-Europeans and even European immigrants. Many immigrants find life so intolerable that they leave to find a better, more secure life. Within the last two weeks, former Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin acknowledged that 40 percent of Israelis would emigrate if they had the chance. He blamed this attitude on crises in economics, morality and political leadership. He might as well have blamed Netanyahu.

Ironically, Germany is a prime destination for Jews wanting a better life. In September 2010, Ynet news reported that as many as 15,000 young Israelis moved to Berlin to escape the militarism and to find tranquility and a sense of cultural belonging. So, if so many Jews are anxious to leave, what rational, economic reason is there to build houses that will obviously remain empty?

Third, the outcome of the UN vote was a foregone conclusion, thus making a farce of this whole episode. In late August 2011, Israeli’s UN envoy Ron Prossor admitted that Israel had no chance of stopping recognition of a Palestinian state, so the rational thing for Netanyahu to do would have been to recognize this inevitability and support it, but because he’s a fascist, he cannot act rationally.
Fascists are really little different from overprivileged adolescents or sociopathic gangsters: they believe the world is theirs to despoil as they see fit, and opposition to this belief is not handled well. Fascists do not see themselves as a part of humanity; they think themselves superior to it, and from this height of arrogance comes an active, contempt for what we call the rules of civilized society.

So, if a fascist should suffer a public setback of any sort, as happens from time to time, he will invariably interpret it as a personal attack and explode in a paroxysm of verbal or physical abuse. He will defy the lawful judgment, blame others for the setback, and make himself out to be a victim of “unfairness.”

The cruel irony here is that Netanhayu’s violent tantrum against an innocent party (Palestine) merely reinforced the validity and legitimacy of the UN’s judgment. However, as any parent knows, a tantrum is an admission of defeat, an inability to face reality.

In a sense, Netanyahu is a typical gangster-child. From an early age his mind was warped by the coiling miasma of Jewish exceptionalism, Jewish fascism, Jewish terrorism, and Jewish victimhood, leaving him with a Jew vs. non-Jew view of the world. Such an irrational mentality does not allow for compromise, moral sense, or anything resembling civilized behaviour.

Finally, Netanyahu depends on the servility of Western governments to provide rhetorical and diplomatic cover for its destruction of Arab homes, but even these governments have to maintain at least a fig leaf of credibility among their own people. As a result of the “3000 homes” announcement, many furious European nations called in the Israeli representatives for “talks” and the U.K. and France, and are considering recalling their ambassadors. That might not sound like much, but never has this measure even been contemplated before.

In the U.S., the State Department bluntly accused Israel of engaging in a “pattern of provocative action” that runs counter to statements from Israeli leaders claiming that they are committed to peace. Leaving aside the fact that the “two-state solution” is a fatuous concept that never had a chance of succeeding, the U.S. openly called the construction “provocative” and effectively called Israel a liar. Notwithstanding The Lobby’s vice-like grip over U.S. politics, the willingness of the U.S. to be pushed around and humiliated is reaching a critical limit.

A sign that the U.S. may be willing to reassert some degree of political independence can be seen in Obama’s selection of former senator Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary, which has given rise to another tantrum in the wake of Hagel’s famous declaration of U.S. loyalty: “The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here…but I’m a United States senator, not an Israeli senator.… I take an oath to the Constitution, not to a president, not to a party and not to Israel.”

In response to this factual statement, The Lobby, the existence of which zionists officially deny, has gone into full berserker mode to spread a co-ordinated vilification campaign against Hagel. Despite his record of pro-Israel votes in the senate, Hagel has been accused of being “anti-semitic” (of course!), and harbouring a secret anti-Israel agenda for even having mentioned the Lobby and its intimidation. The Times of Israel even admitted that the Hagel nomination was calling attention to the role of AIPAC and other zionist groups: “[It is] crystallizing into a battle over the ‘Israel lobby’ and its ostensible [sic] influence on the U.S. national agenda.” If the growing Jewish-American disaffection for Israel and propensity to vote Democrat are also considered, tantrums like Netanyahu’s confirm that Israel is a failed, parasitic, criminal state, and that the world is no longer willing to ignore or tacitly sanction dispossessionist zionism.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Syria swings between hell and dialogue

Tue Jan 1, 2013 8:43AM GMT

By Ismail Salami

Indeed, Syria is by slow gradation descending into hell whose flames are devouring the innocent and the guilty alike and even on a more appalling scale as Mr. Brahimi has predicted, tens of thousands of people will die soon and as long as there is resistance to any peace-inspiring proposal in the country, Syria will inch towards an eventual Balkanization."

Related Interviews:

Admittedly, it is not hard to imagine how someone can predict a vision of hell in a country like Syria which has become a hornet’s nest of terrorism and that which is tumbling into further chaos and bloodshed.

Lakhdar Brahimi, who represents the United Nations and the Arab League, has predicted as 100,000 people could be killed  “in the next year as Syria moves toward Somalization and rule by warlords.”

Apart from his foreboding tone, his remarks are testimony to a broader gamut of interference at the hands of those who have infiltrated into the country from abroad. In point of fact, what is corroding Syria is not an internal unrest but a ‘foreign-made’ crisis.

The Syrian opposition group insists that the start of dialogue would be made possible only with the departure of President Assad and says that it would not be ready to engage in any dialogue with Russia without any clear agenda.

“If Russia has a proposal to stop the bleeding in Syria, it should submit it and we will respond,” Mouaz al-Khatib, head of the main bloc of Syrian opposition groups, has told Al Jazeera. “We can’t meet with the Russians without a clear agenda.”

Russia and Iran are playing pivotal roles in preventing a human catastrophe in the country and seeking to resolve the crisis through diplomacy.

After talks in Moscow on Saturday with Lakhdar Brahimi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia could not press Assad to give up power. Besides, he has once again clarified his country’s stance on Syria and said Russia “isn’t in the business of regime change. He has repeatedly said, both publicly and privately, including during his meeting with Lakhdar Brahimi not long ago, that he has no plans to go anywhere, that he will stay in his post until the end, that he will, as he says, protect the Syrian people, Syrian sovereignty and so forth. There is no possibility of changing this position.”

The implication is very simple. Russia does not want a regime change in Syria as there is supposedly no point in seeking such a solution. This policy is also strongly shared and seconded by Iran which has already set forth a six-point peace plan for Syria. Hossein Sheikholeslam, an advisor to Iran’s Majlis speaker for international affairs has said that Tehran’s six-point peace plan would be the only solution to the unrest in Syria and that no country should intervene in the internal affairs of the Arab country.

“The six-point plan presented by Iran is a very appropriate solution to the crisis in Syria because it has been prepared based on international principles.”

The proposal was originally announced on October 14, when Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi submitted it to Lakhdar Brahimi during a meeting in Tehran.

According to Iran’s six-point peace plan, the Syrian nation has the legitimate right to decide their fate and future through an internationally-recognized democratic process.

In brief, the plan urges:
- an immediate end to any armed actions;
- ushering in a UN-monitored democratic process;
- Damascus and the opposition to cooperate with UN and its special committee to stop armed operations especially in the residential areas to restore peace and stability;
- an immediate, serious and just distribution of humanitarian aids to Syrian people;
- the lifting of economic sanctions on the Syrian people in order to prepare the ground for the return of all Syrian refugees to their homeland;
- the resumption of comprehensive national dialogues by different opposing social and political parties and Damascus to rapidly form a national reconciliation committee in order to unanimously form a transitional government;
- a free and competitive election for the formation of a new parliament and senate and the composition of a constitution;
- the immediate release of all political prisoners from all parties by the government and opposition groups, and establishment of a competent court of justice to investigate cases of those who committed crimes in that country.

The plan also urges that media stop spreading wrong information about Syria.

Though a comprehensive plan which can technically and practically put an end to the ongoing crisis in Syria, it was looked upon with an eye of pessimism and cynicism by the opposition group in Syria.

In a statement, the Syrian National Coalition slammed Iran’s initiative as a “last-ditch bid to save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad”.

"As the free forces of the Syrian people accomplish one decisive political and military victory after another, the regime and its allies keep on launching lackluster and overdue political initiatives," said the National Coalition.

"The Iranian initiative represents one example of these desperate attempts to throw a lifeline to the inevitably sinking ship of the Assad regime," it said in a statement.

Despite all this, Syria says it will respond to any initiative meant to solve Syria’s 22-month-old crisis through talks

While impertinently attributing the crisis in Syria to “the brutality and ruthlessness of ruler Bashar al-Assad and the family clique around him, and their supporters in Iran and Russia”, an editorial on Washington Post which, evidently reflects Washington’s policies, lashes out at the West for its “massive failure”, and “particularly American leadership” and implicitly encourages the West’s prompt action against the government of Assad.

After all, the materialization of a meaningful peace in Syria cannot and should not be pursued through irrational anger and abortive resort to any brute means such as hiring and infiltrating mercenaries into Syria, psyching public mind about the possibility that the government of Assad may use chemical weapons against its own people.

Instead of ignoring Iran’s constructive and effective initiative to put an end to the bloodbath in Syria, the opposition group could have seized the chance, looked at Iran as a regional well-wisher and resolved the crisis in the country.

What is vitally important at this juncture in time is that a tragedy of immeasurably inhumane proportions is taking place in Syria and a rapid solution should be carved out before it’s too late.

Indeed, Syria is by slow gradation descending into hell whose flames are devouring the innocent and the guilty alike and even on a more appalling scale as Mr. Brahimi has predicted, tens of thousands of people will die soon and as long as there is resistance to any peace-inspiring proposal in the country, Syria will inch towards an eventual Balkanization.

IS/JR

• Vatican Envoy Praises Iran Plan for Syria

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Mustafa Sheikh the head of the military junta in Darya in Damascus country side and other members Arrested

Dam-Press:

القبض على رئيس المجلس العسكري في داريا بريف دمشق مصطفى الشيخ وأعضاء آخرين

دام برس: قالت مصادر عسكرية سورية مطلعة إنه تم القاء القبض على رئيس المجلس العسكري في داريا بريف دمشق مصطفى الشيخ وأعضاء آخرين بعد محاصره الجيش العربي السوري لهم وإيقاعهم بعملية محكمة   River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

The Achievements of Hugo Chávez

Source

While Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez is fighting for his life in Cuba, the liberal press of both sides of the Atlantic (e.g., El Pais”) has not stopped  trashing his government. The significance of his victory (12 points ahead of his contender) has yet to be analysed properly, with evidence. It is remarkable that Chávez would win, sick with cancer, outgunned by the local and international media (think of Syriza’s Greece election) and, rarely acknowledged, an electoral map extremely biased towards the middle and upper classes, with geographical barriers and difficult access to Ids for members of the working classes.

One of the main factors for the popularity of the Chávez Government and its landslide victory in this re-election results of October 2012, is the reduction of poverty, made possible because the government took back control of the national petroleum company PDVSA, and has used the abundant oil revenues, not for benefit of a small class of renters as previous governments had done, but to build needed infrastructure and invest in the social services that Venezuelans so sorely needed.  During the last ten years, the government has increased social spending by 60.6%, a total of $772 billion [i].
Poverty is not defined solely by lack of income nor is health defined as the lack of illness. Both are correlated and both are multi-factorial, that is, determined by a series of social processes. To make a more objective assessment of the real progress achieved by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela during the last 13 years it is essential to review some of the key available data on the social determinants of health and poverty: education, inequality, jobs and income, health care, food security and social support and services.

With regard to these social determinants of health indicators, Venezuela is now the country in the region with the lowest inequality level (measured by the Gini Coefficient) having reduced inequality by 54%, poverty by 44%. Poverty has been reduced from 70.8% (1996) to 21% (2010). And extreme poverty reduced from 40% (1996) to a very low level of 7.3% (2010). About 20 million people have benefited from anti-poverty programs, called “Misiones” (Up to now, 2.1 million elderly people have received old-age pensions – that is 66% of the population while only 387,000 received pensions before the current government.

Education is a key determinant of both health and poverty and the Bolivarian government has placed a particular emphasis on education allotting it more than 6% of GDP. UNESCO has recognized that illiteracy been eliminated furthermore, Venezuela is the 3rd county in the region whose population reads the most. There is tuition free education from daycare to university; 72% of children attend public daycares and 85% of school age children attend school. There are thousands of new or refurbished schools, including 10 new universities. The country places 2nd in Latin America and 5th in the world with the greatest proportions of university students. In fact, 1 out of every 3 Venezuelans are enrolled in some educational  program.[ii] . It is also a great achievement that Venezuela is now tied with Finland as the 5th country with the happiest population in the world.[iii] .

Before the Chavez government in 1998, 21% of the population was malnourished. Venezuela now has established a network of subsidized food distribution including grocery stores and supermarkets. While 90% of the food was imported in 1980, today this is less than 30%.  Misión Agro-Venezuela has given out 454,238 credits to rural producers and 39,000 rural producers have received credit in 2012 alone.  Five million Venezuelan receive free food, four million of them are children in schools and 6,000 food kitchens feed 900,000 people.  The agrarian reform and policies to help agricultural producers have increased domestic food supply. The results of all these food security measures is that  today  malnourishment  is only 5%, and child malnutrition  which was  7.7% in 1990 today is at 2.9%. This is an impressive health achievement by any standards.

Some of the most important available data on health care and public health are as following [iv],[v],[vi]: infant mortality dropped from 25 per 1000 (1990) to only 13/1000 (2010); An outstanding 96% of the population has now access to clean water (one of the goals of the revolution); In 1998, there were 18 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, currently there are  58, and the public health system has about 95,000 physicians; It took four decades for previous governments to build 5,081 clinics, but in just 13 years the Bolivarian government built 13,721 (a 169.6% increase);

Barrio Adentro (i.e., primary care program with the help of more than 8,300 Cuban doctors) has approximately saved 1,4 million lives in 7,000 clinics and has given 500 million consultations;
In 2011 alone, 67,000 Venezuelans received free high cost medicines for 139 pathologies conditions including cancer, hepatitis, osteoporosis, schizophrenia, and others; there are now 34 centres for addictions,

In 6 years 19,840 homeless have been attended through a special program; and there are practically no children living on the streets.

Venezuela now has the largest intensive care unit in the region.

A network of public drugstores sell subsidized medicines in  127
 stores with savings of 34-40%.
51,000 people have been treated in Cuba for specialized eye treatment and the eye care program “Mision Milagro”; has restored sight to 1.5 million Venezuelans
An example of how the government has tried to respond in a timely fashion to the real needs of its people is the situation that occurred in 2011 when heavy tropical rains left 100,000 people homeless. They were right away sheltered temporarily in all manner of public buildings and hotels and, in one and a half years, the government built 250,000 houses. The government has obviously not eradicated all social ills, but its people do recognize that, despite any shortcomings and mistakes, it is a government that is on their side, trying to use its resources to meet their needs. Part of this equation is the intense political participation that the Venezuelan democracy stands for, that includes 30,000 communal councils, which determine local social needs and oversee their satisfaction and allows the people to be protagonists of the changes they demand.[vii]

The Venezuelan economy has low debts, high petroleum reserves and high savings, yet Western economists that oppose President Chávez repeat ad nauseam that the Venezuelan economy is not “sustainable” and predict its demise when the oil revenues stop. Ironically they do not hurl these dire predictions to other oil economies such as Canada or Saudi Arabia. They conveniently ignore that Venezuela’s oil reservoir of 500 billion barrels of oil is the largest in the world and consider the social investment of oil revenues a waste or futile endeavour. However these past 13 years, the Bolivarian government has been building up an industrial and agricultural infrastructure that 40 years of previous governments had neglected and its economy continues to get stronger even in the face of a global financial crisis.

An indication of the increasing diversification of the economy is the fact that the State now obtains almost as much revenue from tax collection as from the sale of oil, since it strengthened its capacity for tax collection and wealth redistribution. In just one decade, the State obtained US$ 251,694 million in taxes, more than its petroleum income per annum. Economic milestones these last ten years include reduction in unemployment from 11.3% to 7.7%; doubling the amount of people receiving social insurance benefits, and the public debt has been reduced from 20.7% to 14.3% of GNP and the flourishing of cooperatives has strengthen local endogenous economies.  In general, the Venezuelan economy has grown 47.4% in ten years, that is, 4.3% per annum. [viii]. Today many European countries would look jealously at these figures. Economists who studied in detail the Venezuelan economy for years indicate that, “The predictions of economic collapse, balance of payments or debt crises and other gloomy prognostications, as well as many economic forecasts along the way, have repeatedly proven wrong… Venezuela’s current economic growth is sustainable and could continue at the current pace or higher for many years.”[ix] .

According to Global Finance and the CIA World Factbook ,the Venezuelan economy presents the following indicators.[x]: unemployment rate of  8%; 45,5% government (public) debt as a percent of GDP (by contrast  the European Union debt/GDP is 82.5%); and a real GDP growth: GDP per capita is $13,070. In 2011, the Venezuelan economy defied most forecasts by growing 4.2 percent, and was up 5.6 percent in the first half of 2012. It has a debt-to-GDP ratio comfortably below the U.S. and the UK, and stronger than European countries; an inflation rate,  an endemic  problem during many decades,  that has fallen to a four-year low, or 13.7%, over the most recent 2012 quarter. Even The Wall Street Journal reports that Venezuela’s stock exchange is by far the best-performing stock market in the world, reaching an all-time high in October 2012, and Venezuela’s bonds are some of the best performers in emerging markets.

Hugo Chavez’s victory had an impact around the world as he is recognized as having spearheaded radical change not only in his own country but in all Latin America where progressive governments have also been elected, thereby reshaping the global order. The victory was even more significant considering the enormous financial and strategic help that the USA agencies and allies gave to the opposition parties and media.  Since 2002, Washington channeled $100 million to opposition groups in Venezuela and this election year alone, distributed US$ 40-50 million there. [xi]  But the Venezuelan people disregarded the barrage of propaganda unleashed against the president by the media that is 95% privately owned and anti-Chavez. [xii]. The tide of progressive change in the region has started to build the infrastructure for the first truly independent South America with political integration organizations such as Bank of the South, CELAC, ALBA, PETROSUR, PETROCARIBE, UNASUR, MERCOSUR, TELESUR and thus have demonstrated to the rest of the world that there are, after all, economic and social alternatives in the 21st century.[xiii] . Following a different model of development from that of global capitalism in sharp contrast to Europe, debt levels across Latin America are low and falling.
The changes in Venezuela are not abstract. The government of President Chávez has significantly improved the living conditions of Venezuelans and engaged them in dynamic political participation to achieve it [xiv]. This new model of socialist development has had a phenomenal impact all over Latin America, including Colombia of late, and the progressive left of centre governments that are now the majority in the region see in Venezuela the catalyst that that has brought more democracy, national sovereignty and economic and social progress to the region.[xv] . No amount of neoliberal rhetoric can dispute these facts.  Dozens of opinionated experts can go on forever on whether the Bolivarian Revolution is or is not socialist, whether it is revolutionary or reformist (it is  likely  to be both ), yet at the end  of the day these substantial achievements remain. This is what infuriates its opponents the most both inside Venezuela and most notable, from neocolonialist countries. The “objective” and “empiricist” The Economist will not publicize this data, preferring to predict once again the imminent collapse of the Venezuelan economy and El Pais, in Spain, would rather have one of the architects of the Caracazo (the slaughter of 3000 people in Caracas protesting the austerity measures of 1989), the minister of finance of the former government Moises Naim, go on with his anti-Chávez obsession. But none of them can dispute that the UN Human Development Index situates Venezuela in place #61 out of 176 countries having increased 7 places in 10 years.

And that is one more reason why Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution will survive Venezuela’s Socialist leader.

Carles Muntaner is Professor of Nursing, Public Health and Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He has been working on the public health aspects of the Bolivarian Revolution for more than a decade including Muntaner C, Chung H, Mahmood Q and Armada F. “History Is Not Over. The Bolivarian Revolution, Barrio Adentro and Health Care in Venezuela.” In T Ponniah and J Eastwood The Revolution in Venezuela. Harvard: HUP, 2011

María Páez Victor is a Venezuelan sociologist, specializing in health and medicine.
Joan Benach is a professor of Public Health at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. He has collaborated in a number of studies on the public health policies of the Bolivarian Revolution.

[i] Páez Victor, Maria. “Why Do Venezuelan Women Vote for Chavez?” Counterpunch, 24 April 2012
[ii] Venezuela en Noticias
[iii] Gallup Poll 2010
[iv] Muntaner C, Chung H, Mahmood Q and Armada F. “History Is Not Over. The Bolivarian Revolution, Barrio Adentro and Health Care in Venezuela.” In T Ponniah and J Eastwood The Revolution in Venezuela. Harvard: HUP, 2011 pp 225-256; see also 4, Muntaner et al 2011, 5, Armada et al 2009; 6, Zakrison et al 2012
[v] Armada, F., Muntaner, C., & Navarro, V. (2001). “Health and social security reforms in latin america: The convergence of the world health organization, the world bank, and transnational corporations.” International Journal of Health Services, 31(4), 729-768.
[vi] Zakrison TL, Armada F, Rai N, Muntaner C. ”The politics of avoidable blindnessin Latin America–surgery, solidarity, and solutions: the case of Misión Milagro.”Int J Health Serv. 2012;42(3):425-37.
[vii] Ismi, Asad. “The Bolivarian Revolution Gives Real Power to the People.” The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor , December 2009/January.
[viii] Carmona, Adrián. “Algunos datos sobre Venezuela”, Rebelión, March 2012
[ix] . Weisbrot, Mark and Johnston, Jake.  “Venezuela’s Economic Recovery: Is It Sustainable?”  Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, D.C., September 2012.
[x] Hunziker , Robert. “Venezuela and the Wonders of Equality”.  October 15th, 2012
[xi] Golinger, Eva. “US$20 million for the Venezuelan Opposition in 2012”
[xii] Páez Victor, Maria. “Chavez wins Over Powerful Foreign Conglomerate Against Him”, Periódico América Latina, 11 October, 2012
[xiii] Milne,Seumas.  “The Chávez Victory Will be Felt Far Beyond Latin America” , Associate Editor, The Guardian, October 9, 2012:
[xiv] Alvarado, Carlos, César Arismendi, Francisco Armada, Gustavo Bergonzoli, Radamés Borroto, Pedro Luis Castellanos, Arachu Castro, Pablo Feal, José Manuel García, Renato d´A. Gusmão, Silvino Hernández, María Esperanza Martínez, Edgar Medina, Wolfram Metzger, Carles Muntaner, Aldo Muñoz, Standard Núñez, Juan Carlos Pérez, and Sarai Vivas. 2006. “Mission Barrio Adentro: The Right to Health and Social Inclusion in Venezuela”. Caracas: PAHO/Venezuela.
[xv] Weisbrot, Mark.”Why Chávez Was Re-elected”. New York Times. Oct 10th 2012
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Happy new year

 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

In Syria: A New Hope of Political Solution

Dr. Ibrahim Mousawi

The latest developments in Syria, in both the political and military fields, have sparked speculations about the future of the situation there. The Western-backed media outlets intensified their campaign to mislead the public about the accurate ongoing situation in battlefield. They went as far as to replay the old scenario of putting definite dates for what they call "the regime collapse".

The first shock Assad's opponents received was the outcome of Lakhdar Brahimi recent talks with the Syrian president; though Assad has expressed willingness to reopen the dialogue and discussion over the constitution and its articles, the formation of a new expanded government, however, he categorically refused to discuss his presidential term, to step down, or to accept any conditions dictated by any party about the structure of the army and the intelligence apparatuses.

The echoes of Assad's strong stances were heard again in Moscow after the meeting that took place between Russian Foreign Minster Sergei lavrov and Brahimi during the weekend. Lavrov was very transparent and outspoken in translating Assad's position. He urged the Syrian military opposition to drop down its aspirations to oust President Assad; or to inflict a substantial defeat to the Syrian government and its military forces. Moreover, he urged opposition leaders to accept to set down to a negotiation table, and start serious talks without attempting to put conditions that would definitely lead to sabotaging the efforts to reach a political solution. For its part, Moscow reiterated the same positions it has been declaring since the very beginning of the crisis eruption:

- Russia staunchly opposes any military action or intervention by the Western powers in the Syrian crisis.
- Russia refuses all calls and attempts to issue a Security Council resolution against the Syrian government and asserts readiness to use the veto power against it.

- Russia considers Geneva understanding with the Americans the starting point and the basis for any future solution in Syria; this understanding does not include any item about the Syrian president term, contrary to what some Western and Syrian opposition sources have been circulating

- Meanwhile, on the ground, the Syrian government forces have been able to achieve new military breakthroughs. In different provinces in Syria, especially in Homs, and around in the areas the capital Damascus, they inflicted heavy losses on the militant groups.

All estimations do not mirror any possibility for the military opposition to make strategic gains against the government forces, this would put the whole confrontations in a war of attrition mode, which does not give a decisive capability for either parties to make an easy victory. Now , all the parties concerned have a new date to wait, and that is the mid of next month to see what will come out of the new American-Russian talks that will take place in Geneva. Analysts and observers are anticipating tangible results as the military groups may have reached a conclusion their war is not going to lead them anywhere, and as the Syrian leadership is showing more flexibility to help finding a political solution.

 

ماذا بعد الحراك السياسي حول سورية .. الحل أو الفوضى الشاملة ؟

سوريا ...اختراقات سياسية مهمة قريباً على المستويين العربي والدولي..سامي كليب

سورية ترسم المعادلات الجديدة ...غالب قنديل

«جبهة النصرة».. إرهابيّة.. ماذا عن أخواتها؟ ..د. عيسى الشمّاس