Uprooted Palestinian: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM – سلام القدس عليكم

Friday, 24 September 2010

ALAN HART: OBAMA SPEAKS AT THE UN….GOODBYE TO PEACE - commented

I wounder why you look so surprised with Obama's Complete Surrender to Zionism??

Zionism, since founded said: "GOODBYE TO PEACE"

You know that "Peace" has never been on the zionist table, and it you who warned that "the zionists threaten the world to take it down with them if they go down".

On the table we have Samson option, and the only option to save the world peace, is to kill the Zionist beast.

In a previous article you aked: Do most Israelis and many other Jews NEED to feel persecuted?
You concluded: "Yes, Jews (most of them) do need to feel persecuted."

You told your readers how your jewish accountant. and your "best friend in the world, for more than 40 years", who after meeting "Mother Israel refused to believe you "saying that the war in 1967 was a war of Israeli aggression, because if he do “everything crumbles”

I would say everything crumbling now.

The "Sons of Mother Israel", who learned from their mother to deny the existance of Palestinians, are frightened by the change of the tide, the truth that "Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing", the hard realities of demography and the international efforts to De-legitimize Israel.

Therefore, using your words, "it’s hard to see what Barack Obama or anyone else can do to move the Israelis toward a just peace, one that would be acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians"

Obama, in his complete surrender to Zionism, thinks he would save America from going down with Israel, putting Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims, between two bitter options, complete surrender to Zionism, or War. Obama to UN: More Blood Will Be Shed if Peace Talks Fail

"It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States...... "

Yes Alan, Obama may bribe and bully the discredited Palestinian Authority (Actually the bribe started in Oslo) into accepting crumbs from Zionism’s table, and he hopes that such acceptance may provoke a Palestinian civil war on the long way to close the Palestine file.

You asked: Could that be what Zionism really wants, in order to have a pretext for completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine?

Abbas – ‘The double agent’ in his meeting with Leaders of American Jewish Community expressed his understanding of Israel’s security concerns, " the security of Israel is our security" Abbas said.
In response to a question about Hamas, Abbas said, “we have a problem with Hamas. Leave this problem to us. Let us focus on the final agreement between us and the Israelis and after that we will handle this issue internally.”

In my opinion, the effotrs to egage Hamas under the slogan of Palestinian reconciliation, (Quartet conditions) has lead and shall lead to nowhere. The palestinian stage in Jerusalem and West bank is ripe for a third Intifada against the Palestinian Authority's security apparatus created "to serve and protect the occupier and relieve the Israeli army as much as possible of the burden of occupation".

In my view the most appropriate response to Obama from the Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and Humanity would be: Kill the BEAST.

Obama’s UN speech ‘nothing new’

Posted September 24, 2010 by bandannie in Ali Abunimah.

Lessons of resistance from southern Lebanon

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ALAN HART: OBAMA SPEAKS AT THE UN….GOODBYE TO PEACE

24. Sep, 2010

On marks out of ten for his speech to the UN on the subject of ending the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I’d give President Obama minus five.

Earlier this month (on 4 September) I wrote a piece with the headline Obama has signalled his coming complete surrender to Zionism and its lobby. That surrender, it seems to me, is now effectively a fait accompli.

“After 60 years in the community of nations, Israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate,” Obama proclaimed. “It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States.”

Leaving aside the matter of whether Zionism’s monster child is legitimate or not (I say it’s not), only a complete idiot would deny that Israel exists.

The question is – WHICH Israel must not have its existence debated?

Israel inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war or the greater Israel of today? That’s not a question Obama is prepared to ask let alone answer.

In my view the most appropriate response to Obama from the Arab and wider Muslim would be something this: All American presidents who refuse to demand (with the promise of sanctions if necessary) that Israel end its occupation of all Arab land grabbed in 1967 will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of all Arabs and other Muslims everywhere.

We now know what Obama himself expects of those Arabs who “count themselves as friends of the Palestinians”. They “must seize the opportunity for a peace agreement that will lead to a Palestinian state.” They can do that, Obama added, “by supporting the Palestinian Authority financially and politically and by coming to terms with Israel’s existence.”

Again the question – the existence of WHICH Israel must the Arabs come to terms with?

To Obama I say, “Mr. President, until you are prepared to answer this question, you will have no credibility whatsoever in the Arab and wider Muslim world, at least far as ‘the street’ (the masses) is concerned.”

Obama’s notion that there is an opportunity for a peace agreement to be seized can only be the product of desperate and deluded wishful thinking on his part unless he believes that he can bribe and bully the discredited Palestinian Authority into accepting crumbs from Zionism’s table. It’s not totally impossible that he might be able to do so, but that would only provoke a Palestinian civil war.

Could that be what Zionism really wants, in order to have a pretext for completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine?

Perhaps most depressing of all was Obama’s statement about the need for an independent Palestinian state. It is required, he said, to provide Israel with “true security”. No mention of it being needed to go some way to righting the terrible wrong done to the Palestinians in Zionism’s name.

Yes, President Obama did call on Israel to continue its moratorium on new settlement activity. The question is – What is he going to do when, in a few days or three months from now, Israel defies him?

We know the answer. Nothing.

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Uprooted Palestinian

GORDON DUFF: WHAT AHMADINEJAD ISN’T TELLING US

September 24, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff ·

AHMADINEJAD CALLS FOR UN INVESTIGATION OF 9/11

TERROR CONFERENCE IN TEHRAN WILL FALL SHORT OF THE MARK

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

When President Ahmadinejad announced, before the United Nations that most people in the world believe that the U.S. government was involved in the planning and execution of the 9/11 attacks, he told the truth. In America, groups have been popping up for years, not “fringe” types, but military and professional organizations, architects, engineers, pilots, intelligence officers.

There is a vast underground that is never reported, never spoken of in the news and continually threatened. The FBI and Homeland Security have infiltrated these groups, illegal surveillance has been on a massive scale and, as the groups have grown and their reach has touched millions of Americans, the government, in the usual whispers, is talking about mass arrests, “unplugging” the internet, all those things the militia movements of the 90′s said would happen.

Outside the United States, not in the Middle East, but Canada, Europe, Latin America and the Far East, finding people who accept the Bush and Obama administration’s “party line” about “box cutters and hijackers” is difficult. No one wants to risk the public scorn of seeming like an imbecile.

However, back here in the “good ole’ USA,” even comedian Jon Stewart, normally an outspoken critic of government insanity, has agreed to lead a march on Washinton to quell “rumors” about 9/11, rumors of wrongdoing by people he despises.

What is the difference? Why do those outside the United States see things do differently? The answer is freedom of press, the first of the hasty additions to the constitution, a guarantee provided for in the 1st Amendment. There had been assaults on freedom of the press before, particularly during wartime but never anything on the scale seen after 9/11. Across the board, not just the news but even movies and television shows, fiction, censored, propaganda, peddling ignorance, fear and screaming “conspiracy theory” at anyone trying to get word out.

America is a dictatorship.

It isn’t just corporate lobbyists or two broken political parties. Elections are rigged, government agencies meant to provide for national security are now doing little but spying on Americans, our military is spread across the planet, tasked with everything but serving the United States. All the while, the “news” is everything but. Americans, to a one, know something is terribly wrong, totally out of control and, even their attempts to get at some semblance of truth are turned against them. The news is censored. With the country embroiled in two failed wars, obviously illegal, proof of war crimes piling up, financial collapse, citizen’s rights trampled on, nary a word is said about any of it.

“The president is a Muslim.” “Healthcare is socialism.” “The rich need their tax breaks, the same ones that pushed the country into 13.5 trillion in debt.”

The real message is always the same if you listen carefully, “be afraid, trust in government.” What are they really saying? “Greed is good.” How is that working out for you?

Ahmadinejad, as of the count yesterday, had 950 stories condemning his “outrageous” statements at the United Nations. Please note that a total of 27 nations walked out, not the people of those nations but representatives of the governments.

What we fail to note is that 163 nations stayed.

A few years ago, Ahmadinejad had a conference to discuss the holocaust. Scholars from around the world came, some openly hostile to Israel, some because they were scholars. It was called “outrageous” and Israel threatened to break up the meeting with a nuclear attack. What happened there, what were the findings? We will never know.

Censorship in the American press, the same censorship that prevented evidence proving Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction from reaching the public, the same censorship that should have told Americans that Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11, was imposed.

The truth never benefits from censorship. Censorship is dictatorship. Dictatorship is when those in power no longer trust the people. A government that doesn’t trust its own people can’t serve its people, its people serve it. This is the America of today.

9 years of censorship now clouds 9/11.

When President Bush announced that he saw the first plane crash into the World Trade Center, live TV, it was shown once and hidden away. TV never showed that, not real TV, not the kind the public sees. Bush may have watched it, but if he is telling the truth, it means he knew in advance. Does this explain why he simply sat there? When Larry Silverstein said that he ordered one of the World Trade Center buildings, number 7, “pulled,” meaning “blown up” did it mean that explosives had been planted in all the buildings? It sure looked like it to me.

YouTube - Veterans Today -

How about when Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, said a missile hit the Pentagon? Oh, did he say that? Well, yes he did, live television, you can find the statement on video all over the internet, any normal person can.

The 9/11 Commission couldn’t, however.

Same with Rumsfeld telling us that Flight 93 was shot down. Did he say that? Yes he did, live TV, all over the internet. They couldn’t find that either.

Nobody told the 9/11 Commission anything about Building 7. It is as though it escaped into another dimension.

It isn’t just these statements or Vice President Cheney’s orders to allow the planes to go unhindered, testified to on the video above, that make Ahmadinejad much less than “outrageous.” It is the hard science, the witness testimony and years of intelligence reports that prove conclusively that “no Muslims were involved in the making of this picture.”

What have we proven “conclusively?” One thing for sure, one thing a vast majority of Americans will now consider, that America is a dictatorship.

What they don’t know is how it happened or who is running things. The propaganda machine has 200 million people chasing their own tails, blaming each other.

Maybe Muslims did it.

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Uprooted Palestinian

Jewish settler fires at Palestinian youth 15 wounded in confrontations with IOF

[ 24/09/2010 - 03:14 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- A Jewish settler on Thursday afternoon fired at a Palestinian youth in Silwan suburb of Jerusalem, less than 24 hours after a Palestinian youth was killed by a Jewish settler in the same neighbourhood.

Israeli radio said that the settler fired live ammunition after an argument with a Palestinian. The radio did not mention if there were any casualties.

Furthermore, confrontations broke out in Jerusalem on Thursday evening between Palestinian youth on the one hand and IOF troops along with extremist Jewish settlers on the other.

Local sources said that IOF troops along with settlers raided a number of Jerusalem neighbourhoods, including al-Bustan, Wadi Helweh and Batn al-Hawa provoking the Palestinian residents who confronted the invaders.

The IOF troops responded by firing rubber-coated bullets and teargas canisters.

Fifteen Palestinians were wounded and dozens suffered breathing problems as a result of inhaling the teargas which was fired extensively at the protesters and at Palestinian homes terrorising women and children and causing breathing difficulties to many.

The same sources said that the IOF did not allow ambulances to reach the injured.

Meanwhile, confrontations were also reported in the northern Jerusalem suburb of Eisaweyyah after IOF troops raided a number of homes in the suburb.

IOF troops also raided the orphans school in Jerusalem at the pretext that stones were thrown at them.

Muslim-Christian Committee warns of increasing influence of Jewish extremists

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Uprooted Palestinian

"Why aren't the Bedouin treated like Jewish citizens?"

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours, The Electronic Intifada, 24 September 2010

Bedouin residents of al-Araqib watch as Israeli police destroy the village for the fifth time. (Oren Ziv/ActiveStills)

The Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib was destroyed for the fifth time in two months on 13 September. Villagers and their supporters watched as it took less than an hour for three bulldozers and at least a hundred police officers to raze the entire community, located just outside of Beersheba in the Negev desert. Jillian Kestler-D'Amours interviews Ismael Abu Saad, Associate Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the founder of the university's Center for Bedouin Studies and Development, about the history of Bedouin communities and Israeli policy in the region, and the strength of resistance in al-Araqib.

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours: Tell us about the Palestinian Bedouin community in the Negev.

Ismael Abu Saad: The Bedouin community is the poorest community among the Palestinian minority in Israel and even it's the poorest community in the whole country. Historically they lived in the desert. They had their own land. They grazed sheep. They engaged in traditional agriculture and they practiced their life peacefully for thousands of years.

They were not interested in real interaction with the central governments throughout history because all they wanted was to practice their way of life without any disruptions and interference from the government. Traditionally, the Bedouin never registered their lands, not because they didn't want to register their lands, but because it wasn't part of their traditional way of life. They dealt with it in their own traditional law system. They buy and sell all other things without documentation. That wasn't part of the culture.

JK: In the late 1960s, the Israeli state began moving Palestinian Bedouin into seven urban townships in the Negev. What impact has this plan had on Bedouin communities in the area?

IA: The seven planned towns are the poorest towns in the country. Unemployment is very high. Those towns are dormitory towns: people only sleep there. There are no jobs. There is no economic infrastructure. There are no facilities. I live in [the Bedouin town of] Lakiyeh; there are close to 10,000 people living there and there's no bank. To cash a check, you have to drive to Beersheba. It's crazy.

We see now that half of the Bedouin community doesn't live in the townships that the state planned for the Bedouin because those towns really didn't solve the problem. Urbanization failed. It was a very destructive way of life. You can't bring people from a traditional way of life into urbanization. The experience, the seven towns that they built, I call them government land towns, they failed.

Why don't we learn from our mistake, from the government's mistake? Why do the Jews have the right to live in agricultural villages, in kibbutzim, in urban towns [and the Bedouin don't]? Why don't you open this option for the Bedouin? Why don't you treat the Bedouin Arabs like the Jewish citizens? The Bedouin are in a catch-22 now. They can't maintain their way of life and the government is offering them only one option and this option doesn't suit their way of life.

JK: Is what's happening in al-Araqib a test of Bedouin resistance?

IA: I think [the Israeli government is] trying to send a message. If they succeed there, they will scare the others. There's another problem because the community in the south, the Bedouin community, is a very weak community. There is no unity and I can understand the lack of unity because people are afraid. People want to survive and find ways not to upset the government, but I don't think that's working well for the community itself. But I don't think the lack of unity will help the government get rid of those unrecognized towns. Why? Because the people have the right to live in their own lands even though it's not registered like Uncle Sam wants it to be.

JK: Could you suggest any solutions?

IA: The main thing is that the State of Israel used power and believed that power is going to solve the problem. I don't think power is going to solve the problem. They have been practicing different methods of power and didn't solve the problem. Why don't you have a dialogue? Why don't you recognize the way of life of the people? You can't ignore it.

I know that they're interested in the land but there is enough land in the Negev for both sides. The Bedouin are not claiming the whole Negev. And also, in the policies that really have been very clear through the last more than sixty years, we see that Jews have the right to live wherever they want in the Negev, even though the land doesn't belong to them. They go and live and the government supports them: gives them water and electricity. While the indigenous people, the owners of the land, don't even have that option.

Also, the suggestion that, why don't you give us another way of living? Why just urbanization? Why don't you offer Bedouin agricultural villages? Why is it given to a segment of people, to the Jewish people, but not for the Bedouin people? We live in a so-called democracy. Both are citizens. So if there is a way of trying to find solutions, I think the solutions are there. Solutions always come when two sides sit and talk and agree on something. It's not one side. And the whole government policy from 1948 until now is always one-sided policy. It's always enforcing the laws that are against the will of the people, against their way of life.

JK: Do you think the residents of al-Araqib and other unrecognized Bedouin communities will ever give up?

IA: I don't think people will ever give up. I am saying it openly and I have said it so many times, about the stupidity of the government. If they improved the quality of life in the [planned] towns, at least it may motivate somebody to leave. But the problem is that the alternative is even worse than being in an unrecognized village. Here it's hell and there it's hell. You can't trade hell by hell.

Today, people will resist and I'm quite sure they're not giving it up, whatever it will cost them. I think people will stay. And I think people have learned how prejudiced the government is against them. I don't think they will give it up because the alternative is even worse. They don't have anything to lose.

You have to give people services and it's time for [the Israeli state] to recognize the traditions of the others. It's time for the state to change its way of trying to solve problems by power. It's time to use their brains rather than their muscles. Having 3,000 policemen [demolish al-Araqib]: it's a show. I think it's stupidity also, you know. That costs a lot of money. By the money they wasted in those forces, they could build schools or other projects. We need social workers. We need counselors. We need educators. We don't need policemen to come and solve the problem. Power doesn't solve any problem.

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D'Amours is a human rights activist and multimedia journalist currently based in occupied East Jerusalem.

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Uprooted Palestinian

Gilad Atzmon: On Gaza and Chutzpah

Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 8:07PM Gilad Atzmon

The UN probe into the Israeli massacre in high seas concluded yesterday that Israeli forces violated international law and showed ‘incredible violence’ when they raided a flotilla attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. The UN fact finding mission also argues that Israel's naval blockade of the Palestinian territory was unlawful because of the humanitarian crisis there, and described the military raid on the flotilla as ‘brutal and disproportionate.’

According to the UN probe, there is "clear evidence to support prosecutions" against Israel for "willfull killing" and “torture”.

One would expect that after a publication of such a harsh report, Israel would self reflect, repent and vow to change its attitude toward international law and humanism in general.

Do not hold your breath, this is not going to happen. It is far from a coincidence that the word chutzpah, which stands for boldness coupled with supreme arrogance, was borrowed initially from Jewish dialect (Hebrew and Yiddish). Here is what the Israeli Foreign Ministry had to say about the UN probe "biased, politicized and extremist approach." In a statement released following the publication of the UN probe’s conclusion, the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that “ Israel is a democratic and law abiding country that carefully observes international law and, when need be, knows how to investigate itself”. Indeed, by now we all know what the Jewish State stands for. We know all about their democracy and what kind of laws they are abiding to. We also know how much they’d rather investigate themselves.

If there is any decency in the Jewish State or in the Jewish national project, I clearly fail to see it. I must admit that I find it impossible to turn a blind eye to the fact that the commando soldiers who performed this massacre were proud Hebraic soldiers, they were dropped from helicopters that were decorated with Jewish and Hebraic symbols, they followed orders made by a democratically elected cabinet that claims to operate ‘in the name of the Jewish people.’

This is very concerning, especially considering the fact that our Western politicians are funded by the ‘friends’ of this deadly state.

Why Mitchell Said ‘No’: Hamas is Not Ready to be ‘Engaged’

Via Silver Lininig

Posted on September 24, 2010 by realistic bird

by Omar Abdel'laat

by Ramzy Baroud, source

One key difference between Hamas and its rival, the Fatah movement in the West Bank, is that Hamas is accountable to a much more complex set of priorities and expectations. While Fatah is effortlessly co-opted, Hamas remains confined by ideological standards and the stringiest political space. Although, on one hand this represents Hamas’ greatest strength, on the other it shows just how truly arduous is its political undertaking.

The difference is relevant in light of the resumption of talks between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, followed by another round of talks in the Middle East. Both once more raised the question: can Israel and Fatah achieve peace without Hamas’ involvement?

The question itself can be interpreted in more ways than one. Dan Murphy, writing in the Christian Science Monitor on September 16, asked: Can ignoring Hamas lead to Israeli-Palestinian peace? Murphy, unlike many in the US media, had enough insight to see the issue as worthy of discussion. His use of the word ‘ignoring’, however, is greatly misguided.

“But there’s a crucial missing element that will undoubtedly trouble the Israeli-Palestinian talks as they move ahead. Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement, is not at the table,” Murphy wrote. With that he offered his version of what not ‘ignoring’ Hamas requires. Far from ‘engaging’ the party, it simply means placing Gaza, that lonely enclave ruled by Islamic Hamas, on the table.

Gaza, however, is not merely one issue among many. It represents the heart of the matter. The Gaza Strip was placed under siege due to the Hamas’ victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections, which robbed Abbas and his movement from any legitimacy in holding negotiations with Israel. The suffocating siege on that resilient and overcrowded strip was Israel’s attempt at quashing what could have been a promising democratic experience, with the potential to inspire many more democratic revolutions in the Middle East. Israel’s action was supported by the US and much of Europe, as well as some Arab countries.

Yet, considering the layers of meaning that Gaza and Hamas represent in any future settlement in the Middle East, it seems utterly bizarre that US President Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, answered with a simple “no” when he was recently asked whether Washington will reach out to Hamas.

“No” seems both too simple and too harsh, considering the gravity of the situation. Even if the US administration wishes to write off Palestinian democracy altogether, one would think that a sensible foreign policy would at least wrangle with the Hamas dilemma. The Obama administration cannot be serious about a lasting peace while continuing to play the same nonsensical good guys/bad guys, carrot and stick political games that were also employed by Bush.

On the other hand, the resumption of talks between Fatah’s Abbas and Israel is a blessing in disguise for Hamas. Very few in the Middle East, and even fewer Palestinians will see in Abbas a legitimate and representative leader. If anything, Abbas’ constant appearance with the very Israeli leader who is robbing Palestine’s land and subjugating and exacting racist laws against its population will further diminish his discredited profile. Naturally, Abbas’ political loss is Hamas’ gain.

In fact, it was this very ‘peace process’ that destroyed late Palestinian leader Yasser’s Arafat’s political resume. It tarnished his reputation and split his party.

Arafat is remembered fondly because of his last stance and death under Israeli siege in Ramallah. His political failure through the years, however, gave Hamas its real birth as a mainstream political movement. Abbas is simply boosting Hamas’ already high political stocks. His future failures will deposit even more credit into Hamas’ account.

But that too represents a serious challenge to Hamas. Politically isolated abroad, physically besieged and constantly derided by the media, Hamas can hardly use its rising political profile among Palestinians, or translate its gains into any tangible returns in or outside Palestine.

Abbas knows this fully, which explains his interest in Israel maintaining its siege on Hamas and Gaza. Netanyahu understands this as well, which explains his government’s insistence on holding still, despite the PR disaster that Gaza has earned his country. The US also fully agrees, thus Mitchell’s callous, yet telling “no” regarding a possible engagement with Hamas.

Abbas, despite his authority’s lack of legitimacy and shrinking popularity among Palestinians, remains the best option of a ‘Palestinian leadership’ as far as the US is concerned. He is flexible, both morally and politically. His Authority’s bread and butter are US funds and US-Western political validation. Abbas gleaned from the Gaza experience that popular democracy is worthless in the age of draconian sieges and Blitzkriegs. In fact he used both the siege and the Israel war on Gaza to strengthen his political stance and to bargain with the US. But his language and action will remain predictable.

While ‘engaging’ Hamas, however that is interpreted, is the only right option if the US is truly interested in locating a legitimate Palestinian leadership, Hamas is likely to prove a much tougher bargainer.

Not only is Hamas ideologically grounded – based on firm nationalistic and religious dictates – but its target audience is not just a few heads of states.

Hamas’ audience is Palestinians at home and abroad, Arab and Muslim populations and to lesser degree civil societies elsewhere. This is a complex demographic, which requires an articulate political thinking and language, which Hamas is not yet able to offer.

Fatah under Arafat was held accountable largely to Arab governments, and later to the US and Western donors. At the same time, it valiantly resented Israeli pressures. Under Abbas, Fatah is held accountable to all the above with little resentment. While Hamas factors all of these players into its political calculation, it is also liable to its commitment to its Palestinian constituency as incorruptible, uncompromising and committed to resistance.

In order for Hamas to become politically manageable, from the US point of view, it would have to depart from these commitments, and become as politically flexible, predictable and controllable as Fatah and Abbas. The US can only work with a weak Palestinian leadership which it can easily manipulate.

Hamas, thus far, doesn’t fit the criterion, thus the lack of any prospect of ‘engagement’, and the continued betting on Abbas and Netanyahu, despite the predictable – and possibly disastrous – outcome of their talks.

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

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Uprooted Palestinian

Abbas May Recognize Israel as A "Jewish State": Report

24/09/2010 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would recognize Israel as a Jewish state, after he hinted out that he would stay in "Peace" talks even if the settlements freeze was resumed, Israeli reports said as the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas accused Abbas of selling the Palestinians.

Israeli daily Maariv reported the army radio as saying that Abbas was also "willing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state if the Knesset voted on this issue".

On the other hand, the Israeli electronic site Ynet reported on Friday that the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hinted Tuesday during talks with Israeli leaders in New York that he would not quit the talks even if the settlement construction was resumed.

Palestinian Authority officials have said in recent days that they would have to accept a resumption of the construction. The officials said they might also have to accept a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the end of the freeze.

The Israeli site added that officials in Ramallah have confirmed that the American efforts and the administration's desire for a peace process are much stronger than the Palestinians' intention to quit the talks on the backdrop of Netanyahu's refusal to continue the freeze.

The opposition to Abbas is expected to speak out in light of this situation. The different organizations comprising the Palestinian Liberation Organization are demanding that the PA quit the talks.

For its part, the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" said that Abbas has proved he plans to sell the Palestinian interest with a declaration that the negotiations will continue even if the settlements freeze ends.

"The Americans have clarified that the negotiations must continue under any condition, and this is the reason they weren't halted following the attacks, the killing of a senior Hamas man in Tulkarem, the events in (occupied) Jerusalem or the strikes in Gaza," one of the sources said.

"Peace is in my pocket ..."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 5:44 PM

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Uprooted Palestinian

Abbas – ‘The double agent’

Posted on September 24, 2010 by rehmat1|

“Mahmoud Abbas is arguably the most extraordinary the double agent in the Middle East…. Most of what he does for Israeli and the US masters he does in plain sight,” Jefrey Blankfort

When Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) called Israeli President Shimon Peres to wish him ‘Happy Rosh Hashana’ – Peres pleaded with Abbas to trust Benji Netanyahu, calling him the best ‘negotiating partner’ the Palestinians living under Jewish boots ever had. ” Don’t abandon the talks before peace is achieved. There is no one more suited than you to achieve peace for your people, and for the entire region,” Peres told Abbas on the phone.

During his recent meeting with Benji Netanyhau at the White House, Ben Obama had asked Benji to extend the 10-month moratorium on building new Jewish settlements on the stolen Arab land – which expires on September 26, 2010.

However, Benji told the Quartet envoy, ‘Islamophobe’ Tony Blair: “The Palestinians want that after the 26th of September there will be no building in Judea and Samara (the West Bank), and that will not happen”.

So, why the US, EU and even some Israeli leaders want the ‘two state” dead horse keep breathing?

Well, the answer came from no other than prime minister of the Zionist entity, Ehud Olmert, who in an interview, published by Israel daily Ha’aretz on November 29, 2007, he said: “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapse, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (both foreign Jew settlers and the Native Palestinian Muslims and Christians), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished”.

The US-Israel-EU sham Middle East Peace Process has been going for more than two decades now.

In the meantime, the Zionist entity has been building more and more new illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem on the Natives’ land in order to change the Arab-majority areas into demographically Jewish areas for merging it with the Zionist state of Israel.

The US and Canadian Jewish-owned mainstream media is in the habit of blaming the Palestinian and the Arab leaders for not showing the courage to recognize the Jewish occupation as a “reality” which they have no other choice but to live with – so why not recognize it, sooner the better. Recently, Washignton has warned the Arab governments that if they joined with Islamic Iran and the NAM countries to call for the inspection of Israel’s nuclear facilities by the international nuclear watchdog IAEA – Israel may change its willingness to carry-on its negotiation with the unelected Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

The Zionist entity and its poodle rulers in the western countries refuse to talk to Palestinians’ elected government of Hamas, because they know that Hamas leadership, like the Hizbullah and the Islamic Republic is not for sale.

Therefore, they prefer to project a sell-out leader like Mahmoud Abbas, whose term of office expired in January 2009 – as the “negotiating partner”. They’re hoping that since Abbas’ submission to Israeli terms would not be acceptable to the great majority of the Palestinians and Hamas – it could generate a civil war and thus will give the Zionazi thugs an excuse to re-occupy both Gaza and the West Bank.

A nation-state needs people, land, military and internationally guaranteed sovereignity and borders. Israel and its ‘helpers’ don’t want none of those four ingredients for the proposed new ‘state of Palestine’.

What they wants is that Palestinian must elect a government acceptable to Israel; a country without even a conventional Armed Force (land, airforce and navy); its borders and airspace be controlled by Israel and US-puppet rulers of Egypt and Jordan; the Natives to share the land with the illegal Jew settlers who will be protected by Israeli army – and the five million Palestinians currently living in foreign lands would forfeit their rights to return to their ancestral homes under Zionist-rule from where they and their ancestors have been rooted out by the Zionist terrorists since 1948.

And please, save me from the Israel Hasbara crap such as Hamas fires rockets at Israeli civilians or Arabs want to drive Jews to the Sea or Hamas wants to ‘wipe Israel of the map’, etc. Let Hamas receive tanks and jet-fighters from Iran as Israel receives those and more from United State – so that Hamas doesn’t have to fire non-guided rockets on the ‘combatant Jewish civilians’ (every Israeli Jew over the age of 16 is a military-trained killer). It’s the Native Muslims and Christians who have been thrown out of their land to make space for the foreign Jews. The only country which has been ‘wipe of the map’ in the modern times – is over 5,000-year-old Palestine.

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Uprooted Palestinian

Ahmadinejad at UN: US Orchestrated 9/11 Attacks

24/09/2010 US orchestrated the September 11 attacks in order to boost its economy and to save the Zionist entity, the Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President told the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

During the speech, US and other Western countries delegations walked out to express their protest.

"Some segments within the US government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime."Ahmadinejad said.

"The majority of the American people as well as most nations and politicians around the world agree with this view," he added.

"To this day, it hasn't been proven that the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers," he said, adding that "many questions have remained open and calling for a "thorough inquiry" into the attacks.

The Iranian president later said that even if Muslims were behind the attacks, the US exploited them to further its own aims.

The first to walk out following the American representative were German, France, and British delegates, followed by all members of the European Union. However, low-level Norwegian and Swiss officials chose to remain in their seats and listen to Ahmadinejad's entire speech.

IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM

On his country's nuclear program, the Iranian President said that some members of the Security Council have "equated nuclear energy with nuclear bombs."

He accused the US of building up its nuclear arsenal instead of dismantling it and reiterated his call for a nuclear-free world.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad condemned some of the permanent members of the UN Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the US - for monopolizing nuclear power.

He said the criticism of Iran comes "at the same time they have continued to maintain, expand and upgrade their own nuclear arsenals."

The UN Security Council in June imposed a fourth set of sanctions against Iran and the European Union and the US have added even more extensive sanctions targeting its foreign trade.

Iran accuses the West of adopting double standard policy as it confirms that the nuclear program is its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) while Israel, which is believed to be the sole nuclear power in the Middle East with more than 200 nuclear heads, is not a signatory for this treaty.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its previous reports had confirmed that Iran only enriches uranium-235 to a level of "less than 5 percent."

Uranium, which fuels a nuclear power plant, can be used for military purposes only if enriched to high levels of above 90 percent.

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Uprooted Palestinian

Israel's settlement industry under boycott pressure

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 23 September 2010

Israeli and international activists in Jerusalem protest the construction of the Museum of Tolerance atop Mamilla cemetery, April 2009. (Meged Gozani/Activestills.org)

Palestinian activists in the occupied West Bank have called for the boycott of the popular Rami Levy Israeli supermarket chain which has several stores inside Israel's illegal settlements. Activists say they will call on fellow Palestinians to "avoid supporting the occupation and settlements' economy by boycotting Israeli goods and settlement stores."

A vigil was to be held today outside the Rami Levy store inside the Sha'ar Binyamin settlement south of Bethlehem, along Route 60 which connects Jerusalem to settlement blocs in the southern West Bank. Activists with the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC) said in a press release that the chain is "popular among some Palestinian shoppers, attracting its clientele through cheap pricing" ("Palestinians to Call for Boycott of Israeli Goods in front of Settlement Supermarket," 22 September 2010).

In its press release, the PSCC stated that "demonstrators will also remind Palestinians that Rami Levy, the owner of the supermarket chain, is a member of the Jerusalem municipality, and as such is directly complicit in Jerusalem house demolitions and city-sponsored settler takeovers of Palestinian homes."

Mohammed Khatib, a PSCC organizer from the West Bank village of Bilin, said in the release that "the Palestinian market is one of the main export markets for Israel. It is absurd for us to support our own repression in this way, especially when viable alternatives exist. Every shekel to Rami Levy is a shekel to the continuation of the occupation. This must stop."

Cultural figures pledge to boycott settlements

Meanwhile, a growing cultural boycott movement against the settlement industry by Jewish and Israeli artists and actors is gaining international support. World-renowned architect Frank Gehry and composer Daniel Barenboim have signed on to the boycott statement, which was written by a group of Israeli actors who last month publicly refused to perform in a new center for performing arts located inside the Ariel settlement ("Israeli actors say no to normalizing settlements," 27 August 2010 [PDF]).

Drafted by US group Jewish Voice for Peace, the statement has already been signed by "over 200 theater and film professionals representing some of the most respected and renowned artists in theater and film -- including Oscar, Tony, Grammy and Pulitzer prize-winner Stephen Sondheim, Julianne Moore, film director Mira Nair, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner, 21-time Tony winner Harold Prince, star of the film Yentl, Mandy Patinkin, Fiddler on the Roof star and Cameri co-founder Theodore Bikel, Jennifer Tilly, Harry Potter's Miriam Margolyes, Ed Asner, Wallace Shawn and Focus Films' James Schamus among many others," JVP stated in a press release ("Breaking: Architect Frank Gehry supports Israeli settlement boycott," Jewish Voice for Peace press release, 20 September 2010).

JVP reported that earlier this year, Frank Gehry stepped down as the architect for the Museum of Tolerance in West Jerusalem, which is being funded by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. The Museum is being built atop the ancient Muslim cemetery of Mamilla, where graves are being regularly destroyed as museum construction pushes forward.

JVP's Deputy Director Cecilie Surasky said, "It is particularly critical for architects to speak out against the ongoing construction of Jewish-only communities on Palestinian land. Architects and planners are the key implementers of the Israeli policy of taking and brutally occupying Palestinian land in violation of international law. For Mr. Gehry to take such a moral stand once and for all ends the mythical firewall between architecture, policy and human rights. We hope Israeli architects will be inspired to launch their own campaign to refuse to work in the settlements."

US grocery boycott proposal thwarted

Also this week, United States boycott activists in Port Townsend, Washington, reported that on 21 September the Board of Directors for a local food co-op had rejected a proposal to pull Israeli products from its shelves. The decision followed an intervention from the Israeli Deputy Consul for the Pacific Northwest earlier in the week ("Port Townsend Food Co-op rejects proposal to boycott Israel on technicality," JeffCoWA BDS press release, 21 September 2010).

On 19 September, Israeli Deputy Consul Gideon Lustig, who is based in San Francisco, traveled to the city in an attempt to pressure the co-op into rejecting the growing call for boycott. Lustig reportedly met privately with board members to explicitly discuss the boycott campaign. Organizer Dena Shunra commented after the decision by a vote of 4-2 against the boycott, "In five, ten, or fifteen years, when the full impact of what happens in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel becomes as known to the world as earlier crimes, I want to be able to look my daughter in the eye and say we did everything we could to stop the killing."

According to the Jefferson County boycott group, five member-owners of the food co-op presented a proposal to the board of directors "asking the store to pull seven products from its shelves until Israel complies with UN decisions regarding occupied territories and lifts both the siege on Gaza and apartheid on Palestinians." Supporters of the boycott move have gathered hundreds of signatures in support of the proposal, the committee added in a press release earlier this week ("Israel's Consul-General interferes in boycott process," 20 September 2010).

The Port Townsend Co-op's boycott initiative follows a groundbreaking move by the Olympia Food Co-op, also in Washington state, earlier this summer. Olympia Food Co-op board members voted to pull Israeli-made items from store shelves and refused to meet with the Deputy Consul General in private after his attempt to do so. Boycott organizers in Port Townsend say that despite their co-op's decision against the boycott proposal, the "momentum will continue."

Boycott momentum grows in US and UK

In California, the Israeli Divestment Campaign (www.israeldivestmentcampaign.org) launched a ballot initiative on 8 September which would require public and state agencies, including teachers' investment funds, to divest from Israeli companies that violate Palestinians' human rights. Organizers say the initiative "prohibits state retirement funds from investing in companies engaged in certain business activities in Israel," and that "public pension funds in Norway and Sweden have already divested from one of the companies identified by the initiative organizers."

The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) meanwhile announced that more than 500 academics have signed on as endorsers to its initiative. "When originally founded in 2009, only a handful of academics called for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel," USACBI said in a statement ("Over 500 academics have endorsed USACBI," 20 September 2010). Referring to Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Israel's Bar-Ilan University and co-founder of the anti-boycott International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom, USACBI stated: "The call was dismissed as having little to no significance and was reflected in the statement from Gerald Steinberg. For Steinberg and others, the power of an academic and cultural boycott would be achieved with a critical mass of 500 endorsers."

After the US academic boycott initiative began with 15 signatories of academic and cultural workers, Steinberg told the New York-based Jewish Daily in February 2009 that "the danger is not these 15; the danger is if the [boycott] becomes 500."

"This is a major victory for the growing academic and cultural boycott of Israel," USACBI said. "There is a growing shift in the tide of public opinion in the US which has only swelled in the wake of Israel's massacre of international activists and relief workers on humanitarian aid flotillas off the coast of Gaza in international waters on 31 May."

Additionally, in the United Kingdom, trade unions have "thrown their weight" behind a broad-based divestment and boycott campaign from companies which profit from the Israeli occupation (www.palestinecampaign.org/). Organizers said in a press release on their website that "trade unions voted unanimously [on 14 September] at the Trade Union's Congress (TUC) annual conference for a motion put forward by the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, seconded by the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union, and supported by [trade union] UNISON, the Public and Commercial Services Union, and the Fire Brigades' Union."

Organizers added: "the motion called for the General Council to work closely with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to actively encourage affiliates, employers and pension funds to disinvest from, and boycott the goods of, companies who profit from illegal settlements, the Occupation and construction of the Apartheid Wall."

And finally, internationally-renowned folk musician and social justice activist Pete Seeger is being pressured by global boycott groups to cancel a planned appearance for 14 November -- over the Internet -- during a virtual event coordinated by an Israeli environmental group, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. Billing the event as a "rally for a better Middle East," Arava has been identified as an organization in partnership with the Jewish National Fund. In a press release directed at the boycott initiative, Arava stated that Seeger is "absolutely committed to his participation in the virtual rally."

The Israeli activist organization Boycott From Within drafted a public letter to Seeger appealing to him to cancel his appearance and involvement with the event: "It is clear that you believe you are heading to an event that will be promoting peace," the letter stated. "This 'virtual rally for a better Middle East' will be promoting a mainstream Israeli institution that claims to promote cooperation and peace. However this is done in a non-political context while ignoring the imbalance of power and the daily injustice the Palestinians are enduring. Just very recently in the Negev, Israeli Bedouins had been evicted by force from their lands to make room for whatever seems best to the Jewish majority and authority. This is sadly a common event, one of many faces of the Israeli Apartheid," the statement added ("

".."The hard realities of demography will take hold. More blood will be shed.."

On 7 September Friedman in his column for the New York Times called king Abdullah to invite Netanyahu to Riyadh.

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

"...The U.S. president defended Israel's right to exist, and expressed the United States' support for its ally.

"Those who long to see an independent Palestine rise must stop trying to tear Israel down, ......israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate.
Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people," Obama said. "It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States...... And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people – the slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance, it is injustice.

Make no mistake: the courage of a man like President Abbas – who stands up for his people in front of the world – is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children." ..."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 9:13 AM

Clinton: "...Arab Peace Initiative is now of utmost importance..."

"... Clinton sent a message to Saudi King Abdullah to mark the Saudi national day on Thursday, and applauded Abdullah's backing of the initiative, calling it a "far-sighted vision for comprehensive regional peace."....

King Abdullah has backed the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority launched earlier this month. Meanwhile PA President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly threatened to walk away from talks, if Israel resumed building in its West Bank settlements after a 10-month moratorium expires on Sunday...."

Posted by G, Z, or B at 9:21 AM

Obama to UN: More Blood Will Be Shed if Peace Talks Fail

In case you missed it:
Saudi King Abdullah Should invite Netanyahu to Riyadh

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Uprooted Palestinian

PRESS RELEASE: JUDGE SENTENCES RAPE VICTIM TO 86 YEARS IN PRISON

September 23, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff ·

JFAC STATEMENT ON SENTENCING OF AAFIA SIDDIQUI

Editor’s note: “The entire staff of Veterans Today and her sister publications are outraged at Judge Berman’s abuses, not just in sentencing an innocent victim but in staging an unjust trial. Serving the United States with honor has now become much more difficult. Every American serving in Afghanistan is now facing new enemies because of this outrage. I can think of nothing that could have been done to endanger the United States more than the actions of this court.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
23 September 2010www.justiceforaafia.org

On the afternoon of 23rd September 2010 Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three Aafia Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years on five charges by Judge Berman in a Manhattan courtroom.

The Justice for Aafia Coalition released the following statement:
“We are deeply saddened by the harsh sentence passed on Dr Aafia Siddiqui by Judge Richard Berman today. At such a difficult time, our thoughts and prayers are with Aafia’s family, who have been separated from her since March 2003.

It has now been over seven and a half years since Dr Siddiqui was abducted with her three young children by Pakistani and American agencies. She has since been separated from her children and family, detained in a series of secret prisons and physically and psychologically abused by her captors. Following a blatantly prejudiced and unfair trial in which little conclusive evidence of her guilt was presented, she was found guilty.
We hoped that Judge Berman would have opened his eyes to the manifest injustice that has been committed against Dr Siddiqui and repatriated her to her country. But it seems that Judge Berman was adamant in his position despite the enormous level of public support for Aafia. Last week, Iran, in a goodwill gesture, released Sarah Shourd, an American woman accused of espionage, a crime against the state punishable by death. We are disappointed that the United States has been unable to exercise a similar degree of mercy and leniency in the case of another innocent woman who stands accused of crimes against its government.
While we are disappointed by Judge Berman’s decision, we condemn in the strongest terms the stance of the Pakistani government towards this beloved daughter of the nation. While we must never look to the wolf for protection, we expect the shepherd to care for his flock. The Pakistani government has from the outset been complicit in Aafia’s disappearance and detention, and has displayed nothing but contempt for its people and dignity through its cowardly stance in requesting her repatriation. They are a stain upon the honourable reputation of the country.

JFAC will continue the struggle for justice for Dr Aafia to try and secure her freedom and unite her with her family and loved ones. We remind Aafia’s supporters that this struggle may seem tiresome but as Imam Ahmad advised his student, we will only find rest when our feet set foot in paradise.”

EVEN INDIA, LONGTIME FOE OF PAKISTAN, CONDEMNS U.S. ACTIONS IN THIS VIDEO: