Divestment: from the campus to the streets

Mohammad Talaat, The Electronic Intifada, 8 September 2010

 



Following a sharp increase in divestment efforts across North American college campuses last spring, this academic year promises an even greater number of initiatives. The success and near-success of efforts at several campuses last year, coupled with Israel's attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla this summer, has inspired new efforts among peace and justice activists to target companies that profit from and abet Israel's apartheid regime.

Perhaps the largest divestment initiative is taking shape in California. The California Israel Divestment initiative is seeking to put a ballot measure to California voters that requires the state pension funds, the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), to divest from companies enabling or profiting from Israeli occupation and systematic violations of Palestinians' human rights. Although not a university-based effort, it is being led in large part by faculty members and students. Their goal is clear: faced by stonewalling from university administrations, the case is being taken directly to California voters.

Students from the University of California (UC) and California State (CSU) campuses are coordinating a major drive to collect the 440,000 signatures required for the ballot initiative, and the list of volunteers keeps growing. The initiative has already received the support of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Professor Noam Chomsky, a number of other public and religious figures, and CalPERS and CalSTRS members.

Meanwhile, campus divestment efforts continue to grow in number and scope. University administrators, typically beholden to conventional donors and afraid of the "anti-Semitism label," have moved to limit the "damage" of the mushrooming boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Hampshire College, for instance, sold its State Street fund but publicly denied that it was motivated by divestment from Israel. Some other administrations have tried to ignore the issue, wishing it away. However, these attempts have only backfired.

The response of the University of California (UC) administration to campus divestment initiatives is a prominent example of how desperate the status quo forces are, and the shrinking moral and intellectual ground under their feet.

Last spring, student governments at two UC campuses introduced measures calling for divestment from companies profiting from Israel's occupation and war crimes committed during its winter 2008-09 invasion of Gaza. In response, UC President Mark Yudof, together with the chair and vice-chair of the UC Board of Regents, issued a formal "UC Statement on Divestment" which rejected the singling out of Israel, even though the bills exclusively focused on US companies providing material support to Israel's illegal occupation and documented war crimes. The statement also referred to the pain the divestment initiatives brought upon the Jewish community, despite the strong support that the bills received from local and international Jewish individuals and organizations. The statement ignored the 41 student organizations, 86 UC faculty members, not to mention five Nobel peace laureates, who publicly supported the resolutions. In addition to attempting to minimize the scope of the divestment initiative's support on campus by its dismissive language, the statement declared UC opposition to considering any divestment measures to the regents unless the US government declares that the state in question is committing genocide.

However, the notion that an academic institution can follow a socially responsible investment policy only after the US government has made a finding that acts of genocide -- no less - are taking place goes against UC's legacy and the values of citizen-led democracy and activism. It ensures inaction in the name of unspeakable horror and surrenders human conscience and responsibility to the calendar and temperament of American politicians. After all, Washington has yet to make a determination on the Armenian genocide of the First World War!

According to this policy of deference to the US government, UC would have found it unacceptable to divest from companies supporting the Nazi occupation of Europe and the extermination of civilians in death camps prior to the US declaration of war -- or even the official recognition of genocide after the war ended. Moreover, had Yudof been UC President in 1986, he would not have voted to divest from companies supporting South Africa's apartheid regime when the UC Regents memorably did, to ground-breaking success. As an academic and presumed defender of free speech, the UC president should be protesting this policy, not advocating it.

These proclamations by university administrators aim to empty academic conscience and activism of any substance, and to reduce them to empty slogans and colorful parades. The policies they advance are a thinly-veiled effort to incapacitate university campuses from leading any effort to challenge racism and social injustice. As autonomous actors, universities and independent citizens should retain the right to influence the policy of their government. If what is going on in California is any indication, authoritative attempts by campus administrations to muzzle or stonewall the exercise of this right on campus will likely result in their constituency taking their activism to the street! It is this right that faculty and students alike will be exercising this academic year and every year on campus and off campus, until Israeli apartheid is dismantled.

Mohammad Talaat is Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Cairo University and a UC Berkeley Alum. He currently is on academic leave in the San Francisco Bay Area.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

STOP the presses: "Netanyahu on burning books & Eid al Fitr..."

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

'Eid Mubarak...'

"...Netanyahu said that the burning of religious books is wrong and undermines religious tolerance and peace,...; urges that such irresponsible actions not be taken.

Earlier, Netanyahu spoke on the phone with Palestinian President Abbas and the two leaders exchanged greetings for the Jewish New Year and for the Muslim holy day of Eid-ul-Fitr."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 6:45 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Israeli admits responsibility for Aqaba rocket attack

[ 10/09/2010 - 07:31 AM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)-- Jordanian reliable government sources revealed that Israel has tacitly admitted responsibility for the rockets fired from the Sinai desert and hit targets in the Jordanian port of Aqaba killing one Jordanian citizen.

One other rocket fell on an open area of the occupied Palestinian city of Um al-Rashrash (Eilat).

The source said that a high ranking Israeli official was informed of that Jordan believes Israel was behind the firing of the rockets which took place twice in the past few months and that if such attacks are repeated Jordan will declare these accusation officially.

The source added that Israel aimed by these attack to put pressure on Jordan to agree to joint patrols on the borders between Palestine and Jordan especially in Aqaba and the Jordan valley, something which has been rejected by Jordan more than once.

The Israeli occupation, immediately after the attack, accused Hamas of firing the rockets at Aqaba from the Sinai desert to cause tension between Hamas and Jordan and to increase the tension between Hamas and Egypt.

Source: Baheth for Studies

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Zionist congratulates people of Gaza on the advent of Eid

Five Israeli airstrikes against Gaza on the eve of Eid

[ 10/09/2010 - 07:35 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation has escalated its aggression against the Gaza strip on the eve of Eid al-Fitr (end of Ramadan festivity) as its airforce carried out five airstrikes late Thurday evening against Gaza and Rafah causing structural damage and some light injuries.

Security sources told PIC correspondent that F-16 warplanes bombed a landing strip that belongs to the security headquarters in to the west of Gaza City. The landing strip was targeted by the Israel airforce in the past and was already damaged and out of use.

Adham Abu Selmeyya, the military medical services coordinator told PIC that the airstrikes did not result in any casualties, while other sources talked of light injuries that were treated at the scene.

Meanwhile, the Israeli airforce carried out three airstrikes against the tunnel area in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

PIC correspondent said that F-16 warplanes fires three rockets at two tunnels, one near the Salahuddin gate and the other near the cattle market about 200 meters to the east of the gate. No casualties were reported at the time of preparing the report.

A fifth airstrike targeted a position for the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

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How to Kill Goyim and Influence People: Israeli Rabbis Defend Book's Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews (with Video)

The Vineyard of the Saker

By Max Blumenthal for AlterNet

When I went into the Jewish religious book emporium, Pomeranz, in central Jerusalem to inquire about the availability of a book called Torat Ha'Melech, or the King's Torah, a commotion immediately ensued. "Are you sure you want it?" the owner, M. Pomeranz, asked me half-jokingly. "The Shabak [Israel's internal security service] is going to want a word with you if you do." As customers stopped browsing and began to stare in my direction, Pomeranz pointed to a security camera affixed to a wall. "See that?" he told me. "It goes straight to the Shabak!"

As soon as it was published late last year,Torat Ha'Melech sparked a national uproar. The controversy began when an Israeli tabloid panned the book's contents as "230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew." According to the book's author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, "Non-Jews are "uncompassionate by nature" and should be killed in order to "curb their evil inclinations." "If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder," Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: "There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults."

In January, Shapira was briefly detained by the Israeli police, while two leading rabbis who endorsed the book, Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, were summoned to interrogations by the Shabak. However, the rabbis refused to appear at the interrogations, essentially thumbing their noses at the state and its laws. And the government did nothing. The episode raised grave questions about the willingness of the Israeli government to confront the ferociously racist swathe of the country's rabbinate. "Something like this has never happened before, even though it seems as if everything possible has already happened," Israeli commentator Yossi Sarid remarked with astonishment. "Two rabbis [were] summoned to a police investigation, and announc[ed] that they will not go. Even settlers are kind enough to turn up."

In response to the rabbis' public rebuke of the state's legal system, the Israeli Attorney General and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept silent. Indeed, since the publication of Torat Ha'Melech, Netanyahu has strenuously avoided criticizing its contents or the author's leading supporters. Like so many prime ministers before him, he has been cowed into submission by Israel's religious nationalist community. But Netanyahu appears to be particularly impotent. His weakness stems from the fact that the religious nationalist right figures prominently in his governing coalition and comprises a substantial portion of his political base. For Netanyahu, a confrontation with the rabid rabbis could amount to political suicide, or could force him into an alliance with centrist forces who do not share his commitment to the settlement enterprise in the West Bank.

On August 18, a pantheon of Israel's top fundamentalist rabbis flaunted their political power during an ad hoc congress they convened at Jerusalem's Ramada Renaissance hotel. Before an audience of 250 supporters including the far-right Israeli Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari, the rabbis declared in the name of the Holy Torah that would not submit to any attempt by the government to regulate their political activities -- even and especially if those activities included inciting terrorist attacks against non-Jews. As one wizened rabbi after another rose up to inveigh against the government's investigation of Torat Ha'Melech until his voice grew hoarse, the gathering degenerated into calls for murdering not just non-Jews, but secular Jews as well.

 

Watch the video (article continues below):

"The obligation to sacrifice your life is above all others when fighting those who wish to destroy the authority of the Torah," bellowed Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, head of the yeshiva in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. "It is not only true against non-Jews who are trying to destroy it but against Jewish people from any side."

The government-funded terror academy

The disturbing philosophy expressed in Torat Ha'Melech emerged from the fevered atmosphere of a settlement called Yitzhar located in the northern West Bank near the Palestinian city of Nablus. Shapira leads the settlement's Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, holding sway over a small army of fanatics who are eager to lash out at the Palestinians tending to their crops and livestock in the valleys below them. One of Shapira's followers, an American immigrant named Jack Teitel, has confessed to murdering two innocent Palestinians and attempting to the kill the liberal Israeli historian Ze'ev Sternhell with a mail bomb. Teitel is suspected of many more murders, including an attack on a Tel Aviv gay community center.

Despite its apparent role as a terror training institute, Od Yosef Chai has raked in nearly fifty thousand dollars from the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs since 2007, while the Ministry of Education has pumped over 250 thousand dollars into the yeshiva's coffers between 2006 and 2007. The yeshiva has also benefited handsomely from donations from a tax-exempt American non-profit called the Central Fund of Israel. Located inside the Marcus Brothers Textiles store in midtown Manhattan, the Central Fund transferred at least thirty thousand to Od Yosef Chai between 2007 and 2008.

Though he does not name "the enemy" in the pages of his book, Shapira's longstanding connection to terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians exposes the true identity of his targets. In 2006, Shapira was briefly held by Israeli police for urging his supporters to murder all Palestinians over the age of 13. Two years later, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, he signed a rabbinical letter in support of Israeli Jews who had brutally assaulted two Arab youths on the country's Holocaust Remembrance Day. That same year, Shapira was arrested under suspicion that he helped orchestrate a rocket attack against a Palestinian village near Nablus. Though he was released, Shapira's name arose in connection with another act of terror, when in January, the Israeli police raided his settlement seeking the vandals who set fire to a nearby mosque. After arresting ten settlers, the Shabak held five of Shapira's confederates under suspicion of arson.

Friends in high places

Despite his longstanding involvement in terrorism, or perhaps because of it, Shapira counts Israel's leading fundamentalist rabbis among his supporters. His most well-known backer is Dov Lior the leader of the Shavei-Hevron yeshiva at Kiryat Arba, a radical Jewish settlement near the occupied Palestinian city of Hebron and a hotbed of Jewish terrorism. Lior has vigorously endorsed Torat Ha'Melech, calling it "very relevant, especially in this time."

Lior's enthusiasm for Shapira's tract stems from his own eliminationist attitude toward non-Jews. For example, while Lior served as the IDF's top rabbi, he instructed soldiers: "There is no such thing as civilians in wartime… A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail!" Indeed, there are only a few non-Jews whose lives Lior would demand to be spared. They are captured Palestinian militants who, as he once suggested, could be used as subjects for live human medical experiments.

Otherwise, Lior appears content to watch Palestinians perish as they did at the muzzle of Dr. Baruch Goldstein's machine gun in 1994. Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinians and wounded 150 in a shooting spree while they prayed in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs mosque, was a compatriot and neighbor of Lior in the settlement of Kiryat Arba. At Goldstein's funeral, Lior celebrated the massacre as an act carried out "to sanctify the holy name of God." He then extolled Goldstein as "a righteous man." Thanks to Lior's efforts, a shrine to Goldstein was constructed in center of Kiryat Arba so that locals could celebrate the killer's deeds and pass his legacy down to future generations.

Though Lior's inflammatory statements resulted in his being barred from running for election to the Supreme Rabbinical Council, according to journalist Daniel Estrin, the rabbi remains "a respected figure among many mainstream ZIonists." By extension, he maintains considerable influence among religious elements in the IDF. In 2008, when the IDF's chief rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Ronski, brought a group of military intelligence officers to Hebron for a special tour, he concluded the day with a private meeting with Lior, who was allowed to revel the officers with his views on modern warfare -- "no such thing as civilians in wartime."

Besides Lior, Torat Ha'Melech has earned support from another nationally prominent fundamentalist rabbi: Yaakov Yosef. Yosef is the leader of the Hazon Yaakov Yeshiva in Jerusalem and a former member of Knesset. Perhaps more significantly, he is the son of Ovadiah Yosef, the former chief rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of the Shas Party that forms a key segment of Netanyahu's governing coalition.

Yaakov Yosef has brought his influence to bear in defense of Torat Ha'Melech, insisting at the August 18 convention in Jerusalem that the book was no different than the Hagadah that all Jews read from on the holiday of Passover. The Hagadah contains passages about killing non-Jews and so does the Bible, Yosef reminded his audience. "Does anyone want to change the Bible?" he asked.

Bibi buckles

Only days before direct negotiations in Washington between Israel and the Palestinian Authority planned for early September, Yaakov Yosef's 89-year-old father, Ovadiah delivered his weekly sermon. With characteristic vitriol, he declared: "All these evil people should perish from this world… God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians."

The remarks have sparked an international furor and earned a stern rebuke from Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. "While the PLO is ready to resume negotiations in seriousness and good faith," Erekat remarked, "a member of the Israeli government is calling for our destruction."

Palestinian Israeli member of Knesset Jamal Zehalka subsequently demanded that the Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein put Yosef on trial for incitement. "If, heaven forbid, a Muslim spiritual leader were to make anti-Jewish comments of this sort," Zehalka said, "he would be arrested immediately."

Here was a perfect opportunity for Netanyahu to demonstrate sincerity about negotiations by shedding an extremist ally in the name of securing peace. All he had to do was forcefully reject Yosef's genocidal comments -- a feat made all the easier by the White House's condemnation of the rabbi. But the Israeli Prime Minister ducked for political cover instead, issuing a canned statement instead of a condemnation. "Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef's remarks do not reflect Netanyahu's views," the statement read, "nor do they reflect the position of the Israeli government."

By refusing to cut Yosef loose, his party remains a central actor in the Israeli government. Thus the statement by Netanyahu was not only weak. It was false.

Max Blumenthal is the author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books, 2009) has just been released. Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.

Posted by VINEYARDSAKER: at 16:45

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

"The Hariri Tribunal is 'wrecked', unless you bring back Detlev Mehlis..."

"Via Friday-Luch-Club

Young, writing the Epitaph of the 'Tribunal' unless, he suggests,, we bring back Mehlis, and end 'the prime minister's interference with the investigation'... Brilliant!

"... Hariri’s calculation was probably to retain some semblance of leverage over Hizbullah.... It is difficult to see how Hariri can come out of this convoluted maneuvering with anything in hand.

His comments this week, particularly on the “false witnesses,” were early steps on a slippery slope that can only wreck the tribunal’s effectiveness. The prime minister may want to retain leverage, but his chances of succeeding are diminishing by the day, and the Syrians win either way. What weakens Hariri helps them; what weakens Hizbullah helps them; and a dispute between Hariri and Hizbullah helps them, too. Indeed, today they find themselves indirectly, and agreeably, mediating between the prime minister and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah through Walid Jumblatt, whose reference point in Damascus is Mohammad Nassif, one of the late President Hafez Assad’s closest collaborators.

This brings us back to Daniel Bellemare. With admirable blitheness, the prosecutor continues to insist that he will not allow politics to enter his investigation. However, he is also an official in a mixed Lebanese-international tribunal, and to ignore the fact that Lebanese politics are steadily overwhelming his work, as they most definitively are, is a sign of his inexperience. Lebanese state institutions form the implementation arm of the tribunal; Lebanese judges sit on the panel; Bellemare’s deputy, Joyce Tabet, is a Lebanese magistrate. Of course the Canadian prosecutor can sit in a remote office and craft an indictment, as he should, but if the Lebanese state is not on board, his work could well end up being an empty intellectual exercise....

Don’t expect much. Bellemare’s communication skills have been appalling. His understanding of Lebanon and its complexities has been no less unimpressive. ....

Bellemare’s options in addressing Hariri’s comments are limited, but that doesn’t mean he can afford to do nothing. When a prime minister interferes in your inquiry, it’s really time to threaten to resign, and say so publicly. Of course, there is nothing that Hizbullah would like more, and it would be a mistake for the prosecutor to actually carry through on the threat, at least initially. But what Bellemare must do is cause a stink, then compel the Security Council to take a position and perhaps issue a resolution affirming confidence in his investigation.

At this stage, Bellemare is out of his league. His only hope for salvation is to return to the international body that created the special tribunal in the first place, and use that as a stick to warn the Lebanese of the consequences of failing to cooperate with his efforts...."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 10:25 AM

Hariri stresses Tribunal should not be used for political means

By Elias Sakr

Daily Star staff

Friday, September 10, 2010

BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday voiced trust in Lebanon’s capability to challenge looming internal and foreign threats under the current regional circumstances.

Hariri spoke from Saudi Arabia where he was performing the Umrah rituals.

“The Lebanese are capable of surmounting all looming dangers – whether internal or foreign – by holding on to the principles of truth, justice and national coexistence and strengthening their national unity by overlooking narrow tensions and joining hands to face attempts to stir strife,” Hariri said.

Lebanon is expected to witness a flurry of diplomacy following the end of the Eid al-Fitr holiday as media reports said assistant US Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs, Jack Wallace, and French Special Envoy for Lebanese Affairs, Jean Claude Cousseran, are expected to land in Beirut next week.

Their visit comes as part of a tour of the region to follow up on Israeli-Palestinian direct peace negotiations, in which they will hold talks with the Syrian leadership in Damascus in an attempt to revive Syrian-Israeli peace talks.

While Hariri, along with the leadership of the March 14 camp, stresses that the failure of US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would help fuel extremism in the region, Hizbullah and opposition parties have condemned the negotiations as a renouncement of Palestinian rights and sentenced talks to failure.

Media reports said Thursday that the Lebanese scene is expected to witness heated debate over the issue next week as Lebanese parties continue to deliberate over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and the issue of false witnesses.

Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc leader MP Mohammad Raad reiterated Thursday the need to put false witnesses on trial while Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra stressed that the issue of “false witnesses was tied to a legal study being prepared by the justice minister.”

“We heard in the last few days stances which we will not rush to comment on until we see how these stances would be made practical,” Raad said in reference to Hariri’s remarks to Saudi pan-Arab daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat.

Hariri said Monday he made a mistake when he accused Syria of involvement in his father’s murder and condemned false witnesses for misleading probes and “politicizing the murder.”

Minister of State Adnan al-Sayyed Hussein said Thursday that “no dates or time commitments were set for the justice minister to finish the task delegated to him by the Cabinet regarding false witnesses.”

Commenting on the relation between Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Hariri, following the premier’s remarks to Asharq al-Awsat, Zahra said no divergence in stances existed between Hariri and Geagea. “What concerns us is Hariri’s continued support to the STL,” Zahra said.

Though he condemned false witnesses, Hariri continued to distance the course of the UN-backed tribunal from political accusations. “I do not want to talk much about the STL but I will only say that the court has its course – one that is not related to previous hasty political accusations,” Hariri told Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, in reference to previous accusations against Damascus.

A Criminal: " “What concerns us is the shape of Hariri’s support to the STL... ”... says

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Posted by G, Z, or B at 4:25 PM

__

... says the Member of Parliament, who once commanded the Lebanese Forces in North Lebanon, and better known for his 'feats' on the infamous 'Berbara Crossing' & for dousing hapless villagers with gasoline before they were torched! As for Hariri's 'previous hasty accusations':

Do you remember Mehlis's 'Mr. X' (Nabih Berri) who (allegedly) discussed 'whacking' Rafic Hariri with Rustom Ghazaleh?

Do you remember how Elias Murr's name was 'suddenly' erased from Mehlis's report (on financing the assassination) when he 'suddenly' accused Ghazaleh of 'threatening him'?

And finally, do you remember the Mehlis-Lehmann 'offer' to Gen. Jamil Assayed to deliver a 'worthy Syrian' to them in exchange for Assayed's freedom. (Details (recorded in Audio by Assayed) elaborate on Lehmann's 'offer' & the ensuing scenario whereby the 'worthy Syrian' would be found dead!)...

Gerhard Lehmann with Siniora

"Sunni FUTURE Supporter: "The STL is not as air-tight as Mr. Hariri & his allies kept insisting ..."

LATimes/Blog:

"... Hariri, who for years blamed Syria for his father's death, dropped a bombshell on Monday when he told the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that it was a mistake to accuse Syria in the giant truck bomb that killed ex-Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri along with 21 others near the St George Hotel on the Beirut waterfront on Feb. 14, 2005, claiming that the charge was politically motivated .....

Lebanese blogger "Mustapha" suggested in a post on his Beirutspring blog that Hariri's full-out apology to Syria will likely not go down well with many of Hariri's supporters ... "There will definitely be a sense of betrayal with many of the Future Movement rank-and-files who spent the last 5 years of their lives burning bridges with Syria and Syrians and wasting energy on convincing people that the Syrian regime is pure evil," he wrote in a post.

So what could have pushed Hariri to say what he did?

"Mustapha" reflected on a couple of what he thought could be reasons, including domestic and regional political pressure and issues related to the controversy-riddled international tribunal which is believed to be issuing indictments in his father's murder before the end of this year.

"Could Mr. Hariri have sold-out justice for his father to political expediency (or Saudi pressure)?," asked the blogger. "Does Mr. Hariri know something about the upcoming STL (Special Tribunal for Lebanon) indictment? Wouldn’t that mean that the Tribunal is not as air-tight as Mr. Hariri and his allies keep insisting?"....

Another Lebanese blogger, Oussama Hayek, who describes himself as a "Lebanese Libertarian Atheist," expressed a dose of skepticism over Hariri's apology to Syria, writing in a blog post that Hariri's choice of words shows he has given in to domestic political pressures over the tribunal.

"Hariri is playing into the hands of those (Hizbollah) who are attempting to discredit the entire investigation," he wrote.....

Mroue, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of Hariri reconciling with Syria for the future of the Lebanese democratization process as well as for his own stature as prime minister. "This dramatic burying of the hatchet with Damascus brings into sharp focus his role as leader of the government. Saad Hariri is extricating himself from heavy political shackles, and he has created the opportunity to undertake the construction challenges that have been holding back the maturation of Lebanon’s democracy," he wrote.

Commenting on Hariri's statements, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said that Hariri is convinced of his ties with the Syrian president and the political relationship with Damascus, according to local media reports.

"This is his conviction and it is better than letting anyone convince him about it," Jumblatt told the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 5:10 PM 0 comments


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Clinton Says Latest Mideast Talks Could Be Last Chance for Jewish Peace

"Shalom" can be achieved, if the parties will overcome "initial obstacles" otherwise talks could be last chance for "Peace"  Thus said Clinton in a clear hints, the settlement freeze set to end on September 26, Jerusalem set to be the eternal capital of the Jewish state, and Uprooted Palestinians set to stay out of their homeland.

"The world - Aipac is counting on us. When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms -slavery- need a champion -a-cowboy-, people turn to us," she said. "When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to  - accuse- us."

Please try to digest and connect the dots

• With pundits in most capitals predicting failure for the US-brokered Palestinian-Israeli "Shalom" talks, Thanks to Brother Gilad Atzmon for clarifying the difference between Shalom and Peace - Shalom = Jewish Security.)
• The failure of PR Campain lauched by Ramallah Traitors "Shalom to you in Israel, I know we have disappointed you, I know we have been unable to deliver peace for the last 19 years, Shalom, I am your Partner"
• With Netanyahu demanding Palestinian recognition of “Israel” as the homeland of the Jewish people, that the future Palestinian state be demilitarized, and  Nabil Sáath in Ramallah claiming  "The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as the Jewish state because such a declaration will negate the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their home," 
• Meanwhile, Terry Jones is preparing to burn a set of Qurans on the advent of September 11 in an action which is deemed to be a remonstration against what is introduced as “Islamic extremism”
• Economist " ruling out the possibility of forging a Shalom agreement between the PA in Ramallah and Israel without the consent of Hamas
• And Hamas picking its resistance out of its three hats, (a ruling elected party, a popular semi-underground movement and a military organization), accusing Fatah of Treason, vowing more strikes against the Zionist Enemy as Israel resuming its air strikes on Gaza.
• Ánd khalid Mishaal, who has predicted the failure of this shalom process from the start, confirming that Resistance is a realistic option for Hamas. It has succeeded in removing the occupier from southern Lebanon and Gaza and is clearly effective in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Despite Clinton's optimistic remarks on Wednesday, progress in the area of American-guided Israeli-Palestinian Shalom talks seemed to be in question," and needs the help of the Saudi King, "the most important Muslim leader in the world" who missed the Shalom circus, in order not to spoil his relation with Syria's Assad.

So Thomas L. Fredman jumped pleading Support from Saudi king to give Shalom Peace a chance, “It is time to bring it out of the air. King Abdullah should invite Mr. Netanyahu to Riyadh and present it to him personally.....Abdullah need not go to Jerusalem, as Anwar Sadat did, or recognize Israel. He can, though, still have a huge impact on the process by simply handing his plan to the leader for whose country it was intended.....The Saudis can’t just keep faxing their peace initiative to Israelis. That has no emotional punch. It actually says to Israelis: if the Saudis are afraid to hand us their plan, why should we believe they’ll have the courage to implement it if we do everything they suggest? Israelis are isolated. Seeing their prime minister received by the most important Muslim leader in the world in Riyadh would have a real impact." like they did after seeing Arafat (Father Palestine) and Rabin sharing the Nobil Shalom Prize, they killed Rabin and Later Poisoned Arafat.


Clinton Says Latest Mideast Talks Could Be Last Chance for Peace

09/09/2010

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday the direct talks launched between the Israelis and Palestinians could be the last chance to secure a peace settlement in the long-running conflict. Peace can be achieved, she said, if the parties will overcome "initial obstacles" – a clear hint the settlement freeze set to end on September 26.

Clinton expressed confidence that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are committed to negotiating a peace agreement. "Both sides and both leaders recognize that there may not ever be another chance," Clinton said at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

Clinton hosted Netanyahu and Abbas at the State Department last week for the first direct negotiations between the two sides in nearly two years. Clinton plans to attend a second round of talks on September 14 and 15 in Egypt.

Clinton cast aside those who doubt the prospects for success as "wrong" and said the process has gained momentum with backing from Arab states willing to accept a two-state solution. "There's a certain momentum," she said. "You know, we have some challenges in the early going that we have to get over, but I think that we have a real shot here."

As for Abbas, Clinton said that "he was probably the earliest and at times the only Palestinian leader who called for a two-state solution, going back probably 20, 30 years. And for him, this is the culmination of a life commitment.

"And I think that the Arab League initiative, the peace initiative, put the Arab – most Arab and Muslim countries on record as saying that they could live with and welcome a two-state solution – 57 countries, including some we know didn't mean it, but most have followed through in commitments to it has changed the atmosphere," she continued.

Despite Clinton's optimistic remarks on Wednesday, progress in the area of American-guided Israeli-Palestinian peace talks seemed to be in question.

Earlier in the day, a member of the Palestinian Authority negotiating team participating in the peace talks announced that the PA does not intend to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

"The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as the Jewish state because such a declaration will negate the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their home," said Nabil Sha'ath in Ramallah on Wednesday.

He also reiterated the PA position that if Israel permitted the continuation of building in its West Bank settlements after the expiration of the government’s building freeze the PA would walk out of the peace talks. "If Israel goes back to settlements, we will not stay in the negotiations," Sha'ath said.

Concerning America’s foreign policy, Clinton asserted at the meeting that the Obama administration's approach to foreign policy was beginning to pay important dividends."We are advancing America's interests and making progress on some of our most pressing challenges." "Today we can say with confidence that this model of American leadership works, and that it offers our best hope in a dangerous world."

"The world is counting on us. When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us," she said. "When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to us."

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

Flashback: Peace is not 'shalom' and 'Shalom' is not Sharon





Gilad Atzmon 

November 23, 2005

For the past few days we have been reading some flattering reports concerning the latest political moves of Sharon undertaken in his newly born peace loving persona. Sharon, a notorious war criminal, a man who has managed to prove time after time that he is totally lacking in any sense of moral guard or ethical consideration, has now managed to convince the Western media that he is the Israeli ‘voice of responsibility’.

Make no mistake, Sharon and the Israeli people are indeed devoted ‘peace’ lovers, yet, it is rather critically important to mention that the Israeli notion of peace is pretty remote from any notion of peace familiar to the rest of humanity. When we think of the Hebrew word for peace we traditionally refer to the word ‘Shalom’. But apparently, shalom and peace aren’t exactly the same. In fact they are very different. While shalom refers to the freedom from conflict while achieving a general sense of security, peace has a far broader meaning. Peace is a true resolution. Peace is the search for harmony between people. Peace is all about reconciliation.

It is very sad to admit that the broad realisation of the notion of peace in terms of harmony and reconciliation is totally lacking within the Israeli mindset. For the Israelis, shalom means applying a strategy that would guarantee personal and national refuge to the Jewish people. For the Israelis, shalom means living in peace, nothing more or less than that. How shalom is achieved or maintained isn’t a real concern for the Israelis. The fact that millions of Palestinians are subject to state terrorism in a form of major war crimes committed by the IDF isn’t a practical concern either. In short, rather than harmony and reconciliation, shalom is a set of political and military manoeuvres that silence the enemy of the Jewish people.

This very ‘shalom’ philosophy stands in the very core of the Zionist left school. It is this very perception that led the Israeli left to believe that ‘two states for two people’ is a viable option. Clearly the two state solution promises shalom: it pledges personal security as well as a refuge to the Jewish people. A year ago, in the days leading towards the unilateral disengagement from Gaza, Sharon declared: “we (the Israelis) want shalom but we want to define its terms and conditions”.

Sharon’s idea is not that remote from Shalom Now’s agenda (‘Shalom Now’ is an Israeli left shalom seeking movement that is mistakenly translated into “Peace Now”). Sharon’s comprehension of the term shalom isn’t that different from Peres’s philosophy and in categorical terms, it isn’t that far from Uri Avnery’s Gush Shalom perception.

The Israeli shalom seekers always want to ‘define the terms and conditions’. True, Avnery’s, Peres’s and Sharon’s ‘terms and conditions’ are varied, yet, they all believe in partitions between people. They all believe in two states for the two people. They may dispute the borders, but they all aim to resolve the Jewish question both in personal and national terms.

The entire shalom movement is concerned with different methods of division between the Jew and the goy. This is the real meaning of the Israeli shalom. Sadly enough, just as separateness is the central purpose of Zionism, this bizarre self-centric political worldview stands at the core of Israeli left thinking. This is the logic behind the Israeli shalom movement’s collective dismissal of the Palestinian cause, i.e. “the right of return”. One may ask how it is possible that the Israeli left ignores the cause of their foes, the people they intend to make shalom with. How can the Israelis ever establish harmonious relationships with their neighbours? The answer is simple: the Israeli left isn’t interested in reconciliation and harmony. They are interested in shalom and shalom is not peace.

Six months ago Bush called Sharon a ‘man of peace’. Apparently, Bush was not that wrong, he was just lost in translation. Sharon isn’t a man of peace, he is a man of shalom. Being a militant nationalist Jew as well an experienced tactician, Sharon managed to grasp the biggest paradox within Zionist political thought. Within the Zionist discourse, it is the left who are leading towards a hard-core national and racist state. The hawks, on the other hand, push forwards towards a multi-national reality of ‘one state’. As bizarre as it may sound to some, it is the Jewish settlers who engage in the creation of an indivisible social reality of a single state, albeit with a vast Palestinian majority. It is the settlers who are bringing the Jewish national state down. Sharon, himself a historic mentor of the settler movement, has managed to diagnose this very flaw within the settler philosophy. The old man now realises that the maintenance of the Jewish state and its salvation from a demographic catastrophe is totally dependent on the immediate disengagement from the Palestinian population. Sharon and the shalom camp want a solid Jewish state with a clear Jewish majority. This realisation matured recently into a pullout from Gaza, it would mean a withdraw from the West Bank as well in the near future.

Sharon has indeed joined the Israeli shalom movement but this isn’t to say that he has become a peace lover. As it seems, the real meaning of the word peace doesn’t translate into modern Hebrew. The meaning of peace doesn’t translate into the Israeli reality.

Furthermore, not only does peace not translate into ;shalomt; the sincere Israeli aim towards shalom guarantees nothing but the continuation of war. If the outcome of shalom is indeed the division of the land between two peoples, it can never bring harmony and reconciliation to the region. The reasons are obvious. Shalom can never address both the Zionist and the Palestinian causes: it fails to address the morally grounded Palestinian right of return. But it fails as well to address the outrageous Jewish nationalist demand to settle in the entire land of greater Israel at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians. Shalom is thus the continuation of war. Sharon is certainly a shalom seeker. This is probably the reason that Blair and Bush are so excited about him. With Sharon in power, and it looks as if Sharon will remain in power, shalom will prevail. A unilateral shalom will be imposed on the Palestinians. Shalom that would allow the endless merciless bombardment of the Palestinians who insist upon returning to their homeland. Those who decide to live in peace will do a merciless shalom kill in what is left of the Holy Land.

Also see:

• ALI ABUNIMAH: Hamas, the I.R.A. and Us
• Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of Obama - Pumped -

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of Obama - Pumped -

Link

Hamas must make a difficult choice between recognition and legitimacy. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 6 July 2009

In a major policy speech on 25 June 2009, Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, tried to do what may be impossible: present the Islamist Palestinian resistance organization as a willing partner in a US-led peace process, while holding on to his movement's political principles and base. [1]

This is the dilemma that every Palestinian leadership, and perhaps almost every liberation movement, has eventually had to confront. It is a choice, as political scientist Tamim Barghouti has pointed out, between recognition and legitimacy. [2]

Meshal's nearly hour-long "address to the Palestinian people and the world" was billed as a response to the speeches of US President Barack Obama in Cairo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in June.

"we appreciate your words, but actions speak louder"

In his Cairo speech, Obama called for Americans and Muslims to engage in a "sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground." If he is serious about that, he -- and others -- should pay close attention to what Hamas is saying to domestic, regional and international audiences. Meshal's goals -- very much in tension -- were to show that his movement is ready to do business with the US, set out political red lines, reassure the movement's supporters and Palestinians generally and deal with internal Palestinian divisions.
To begin with, the speech sought to present Hamas as a nationalist movement whose Islamism fits within a mainstream Palestinian consensus. Meshal used an explicitly ecumenical message to counter Netanyahu's exclusivist Jewish claims to the land of Palestine. According to Meshal, Palestinians' roots stretched back thousands of years "in this blessed land of prophets and messages, of [Muhammad's] night ascension, of Muslim and Christian holy sites -- al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, the Nativity Church and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre."

More generally, he sought to portray Muslims as representing the very values Westerners claim to cherish most and dissociating Hamas from lurid and false comparisons to such groups as the Taliban. "We [Muslims] are the ones who introduced the world and humanity to science, civilization, culture and lofty humanitarian values," Meshal declared, "values such as justice, freedom, equality, compassion and tolerance, and the values of interaction between civilizations and not a confrontation between them."Meshal welcomed a "change of tone" from President Obama but emphasized repeatedly that only a change of policy would matter. He nevertheless claimed the new tone as the fruit of the "stubborn steadfastness of the people of the region, while resisting in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan." Such resistance, according to Meshal, frustrated the former US President George W. Bush administration's plans for regional domination, prompting American voters to seek a different path to extricate their country from mounting crises and quagmires.
He chided regional leaders who had "marketed and promoted" Bush's policies. "Had the people of the region listened to them," Meshal said, "the policy of Bush and the neoconservatives might have succeeded and the region's situation would be worse than imaginable." Meshal voiced the widespread skepticism and perhaps hopes that Obama's promises amounted to more than the similar words about Palestine heard from the Bush Administration.

Responding to Obama's recital of history, Meshal did not seek to deny the Nazi Holocaust but to appropriate it. He took Obama to task for dwelling in detail on the "suffering of the Jews and their holocaust in Europe, while ignoring our present suffering and Israel's holocaust against our Palestinian people that has been continuing for decades."

Meshal emphasized that even though Palestinians have heard only words, they were prepared to judge the US by its actions, which would have to "begin with reconstruction of Gaza and the lifting of the blockade, lifting the oppression and security pressure in the West Bank, and allowing Palestinian reconciliation to take its course without external pressures or interference."
The "only thing" that can convince Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, Meshal stated, "is genuine American and international will and efforts to end the occupation and lift the oppression from our people, to allow them to exercise their right to self-determination and the fulfillment of their national rights." When the Obama administration makes such an initiative, Meshal said, "then we and all our people's forces will be ready to cooperate with it and with any international effort in that direction."
Obama's "new language toward Hamas," Meshal underlined, "is the first step in the right direction towards direct dialogue without conditions." And that is the crux of the matter. Dealing with Hamas, Meshal said, must be based on the recognition of its democratic mandate and not via the imposition of arbitrary conditions such as those of the Quartet which call on the movement to recognize Israel, abandon violence and commit by previously signed agreements.
Meshal reasserted Hamas' political red lines while maintaining a sense of flexibility. In particular, Meshal:

•Rejected the Palestinian state envisaged by the Israeli leader as a "deformed entity, a large prison for detention and suffering, and not the national home a great people deserves."

•Rejected Israel's demand to be recognized as a "Jewish state" -- and warned against any Arab or Palestinian acquiescence -- "because it means canceling the right to return to their homes of six million refugees, and the forced expulsion of our people in the 1948 areas [Palestinian citizens of Israel] from their cities and villages." Israel's demand, according to Meshal, is no different than racist demands made by fascist Italy and the Nazis.

•Reaffirmed Hamas' previous acceptance of "the program that represents the minimum demands of our people," for "the establishment of a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem with complete sovereignty on the borders of 4 June 1967, after the withdrawal of the occupation forces, and the dismantling of all the settlements, and the realization of the Right of Return."

•Reaffirmed that "the refugees' Right of Return to the homes from which they were expelled in 1948 is a national right and an individual right held personally" by the refugees "and no leader or negotiator can waive it or compromise on it."Meshal also offered a nuanced response to Obama's call on Palestinians to abandon "dead end" violence in favor of nonviolent resistance. "We reaffirm our adherence to resistance as a strategic choice to liberate the homeland and restore our rights," Meshal said, citing armed European resistance to Nazi Germany, American resistance to British rule and the Vietnamese and South African anti-colonial struggles as precedents for Palestinians.
"Nonviolent resistance is appropriate in a struggle for civil rights," Meshal argued, "But when it comes to a military occupation using conventional and nonconventional weapons, such an occupation can only be confronted with armed resistance." Palestinians were forced to take up arms, Meshal said. He could also have been implying that if Palestinians changed the definition of their struggle as being one for civil rights then the appropriate means of resistance would also change.

"Resistance is a means and not an end," Meshal said, "and it is not blind. Indeed it perceives the changes underway." Yet, while staunchly defending the right to armed resistance -- and even threatening new operations to take Israeli soldiers prisoner if it was the only way to free Palestinians prisoners -- Meshal also recognized other forms of struggle. He called for increased Palestinian, Arab and international solidarity efforts, including ongoing efforts to break the siege on Gaza, to resist the apartheid wall and settlements and to prevent home demolitions and "Judaiziation" in Jerusalem.

For Hamas leaders, the dangers of submitting to western preconditions can be seen merely by looking at the trajectory of the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership which recognized Israel in 1993, renounced armed struggle and signed the Oslo accords. Since that time, Meshal argued, the occupation and its oppression deepened as the number of Israeli settlements and Palestinian prisoners grew.

As Meshal put it, "These conditions do not end; as soon as the Palestinian negotiator commits to one, more conditions are imposed. For example, first the condition was to recognize Israel, now it is to recognize the Jewishness of Israel. Then, that Jerusalem is its eternal capital, giving up the Right of Return, accepting that settlement blocks will remain. Then [Palestinians] must not only abandon resistance, but themselves work to oppress, pursue and disarm the resistance."

The latter point was a reference to the arrest campaign in the West Bank and what Meshal called other "oppressive measures undertaken by the [Palestinian] Authority and the government of Salam Fayyad and its security forces under the supervision of the American General [Keith] Dayton." Meshal presented this ongoing cooperation between the Ramallah security forces, Israel and the US as the biggest obstacle to Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo aimed at restoring a unified national leadership.

After Hamas won the 2006 legislative election, the Bush administration began a program overseen by Dayton to arm and train anti-Hamas militias nominally loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The campaign has been accompanied by what Hamas and some human rights groups have described as a systematic crackdown on politicians, professors, charities and journalists suspected of sympathy or links with Hamas. Hamas has often retaliated by arresting Fatah-linked individuals in the Gaza Strip. In recent weeks, the Dayton-supervised militias have killed several members of Hamas in the West Bank ostensibly while trying to arrest them. Meshal cleverly drew attention to the external role in fueling Palestinian divisions -- and how little has actually changed from the Bush Administration -- by "calling on Obama to withdraw Dayton from the West Bank and return him to the United States, in keeping with the new spirit of change."

Throughout the speech, Meshal sought to reassure Palestinians that Hamas would not abandon its core principles in pursuit of recognition and power. "The land is more important than authority, and liberation before a state," he said at one point, and "no Palestinian leadership has the right to waive Palestinian national rights and interests as the price for recognition."Some Palestinians worry that despite such assurances, Hamas has already set off down the very path Meshal warned about and risks squandering the sacrifices Palestinians made, especially in Gaza. Haidar Eid, an independent analyst in Gaza, wrote before Meshal's speech that some of the early enthusiastic Hamas responses to Obama's Cairo speech, as well as acceptance of the two-state solution, indicated "the beginning of a process of deterioration -- even Osloization -- not only in rhetoric, but also in action." This writer has heard similar fears voiced by Palestinians from the West Bank and recently in Amman. Given that many Palestinians consider that a previous generation of resistance leaders turned their backs on their people's most fundamental interests and rights -- all the while claiming to uphold them -- such fears are far from irrational or uncommon.
Another analysis of Hamas' shift currently circulating argues that Hamas has accepted the Palestinian "consensus" position of a two-state solution on every inch of the 1967 occupied territories with removal of all settlements and with the Right of Return. But it knows that no potential peace deal coming from the Obama initiative will ever reach even these minimal conditions, and that if Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could not reach even the outlines of an agreement after two years of negotiations, the chances of any deal with a Netanyahu-Lieberman government are even tinier. In this scenario, Hamas need not stand in the way of a two-state solution because it will fail anyway. But by saying it would accept that minimalist outcome, it would avoid blame for the failure and its adherence to resistance would be vindicated.
What we do know is that Hamas' leaders, and the Palestinians generally, have been placed under intense pressure, occupation, blockades, starvation sieges and recurrent Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the vast majority so far has not submitted to Israeli conditions. But while emphasizing the role of resistance and struggle to achieve liberation, Hamas has not offered a clear vision of what liberation looks like other than the unconvincing and increasingly unrealistic two-state vision (leaving aside its long, outdated, though much-cited charter that offers no guide to the movement's current thinking).

Meshal's speech confirms Hamas' long-term shift away from Islamist rhetoric toward mainstream Palestinian nationalist discourse. It indicates that Hamas is highly sensitive to international and Palestinian public opinion and is aware that Palestinians need to build real international solidarity as part of a strategy to level the glaring power imbalance with Israel. But it is not prepared to seek recognition at any price. All this has implications for the movement's message and methods.

This leaves the field open for an urgent debate among Palestinians about what that future vision should be and what role resistance in all its legitimate forms should play. No group of leaders, whether from Hamas or any other organization, could or should carry the burden of restoring Palestinian rights by itself. Hamas, like other Palestinian organizations, can only be a guardian of fundamental rights to the extent that it is embedded in a broader movement mobilized in Palestine and globally to defend those rights.And if Hamas' potential interlocutors are sincerely seeking ways to recognize the democratic mandate of the movement without trying to force it to forfeit its legitimacy, there are precedents. South Africa's African National Congress and the Irish Republican Army were both able to take part in successful political negotiations that got their respective countries out of disastrous political and military stalemates without being required to submit to unacceptable preconditions. That took a measure of leadership, foresight and political courage by others that has been notably absent in international dealings with Hamas.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Abunimah also co-founded The Electronic Intifada. This analysis was originally published by the Palestine Center.

Endnotes

[1] The speech is in Arabic. All excerpts quoted in this article are the author's translation. A transcript and recording of the speech were made available by the Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas-affiliated website. See: http://bit.ly/mK7kS.

[2] In a paper given at the Annual Symposium of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University on the theme: "Palestine and the Palestinians Today," 2-3 April 2009, Washington, DC.

At 8:52 PM 0 comments

Labels: Hope and "Change", Separatism
The speech was puplished in all palestinian sites except PP, because it is just Hot Air From Chief Windbag of Hamas.

When asked: "Btw, where is Mashaal's Speach??"

He PREYED

"....It is made of wind and it has gone with the wind. Why should I post it just because the wind-bag-in-chief made it?

There was nothing new or of real substance in it. A rehash of the same old positions mixed with praise for Obama.
Sorry "Uprooted" (for I think that it is your comment) I am not, unlike you, a cheerleader for anyone. I judge content and policy, not plain old and worn out cheap rhetoric.

Tony Sayegh Homepage 06.27.09 - 10:36 am # "


Flashback

Check this Hot Air From Hamas (Monday, April 30, 2007) and read the Tony's Anal-ysis

QB announces full readiness to block IOF invasion into Gaza Strip,
After about 20 months: QB DID blocked IOF invasion into gaza for 22 days.


YOU SEE WHY TONY IS STILL MY FAVORITE ANAL-YSIST