Sawalha: The Siege on Gaza must end now

[ 22/10/2010 - 03:05 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Mohammed Sawalha, the deputy-head of the international committee for breaking the siege on Gaza, said on Thursday that the lifeline 5 convoy came to Gaza to deliver clear and sound message to the world that the blockade must end immediately.

In an interview with the PIC, Sawalha said that the free people of the world support the lifting of the oppressive siege and back the Palestinian struggle for independence and freedom.

"As we arrive in Gaza we forget all the pain [of an arduous journey]. We will always be ready to come to Gaza because Gaza leads the international struggle for freedom and deliverance from [the control of] Zionism. Victory and dismantlement of the racist state are near," Sawalha said.

He said that activists participating in the aid convoy were determined and convinced that they will enter the Gaza Strip, and they kept praying for that, adding that they all enjoyed very high morale despite the hurdles on the way of the convoy.

He expressed disappointment at the Egyptian decision to ban former British MP George Galloway and some other activists from entering Egypt on their way to the Gaza Strip and asked: "Why were those people barred from entering the Gaza Strip? They only came to support the weak and besieged [people of Gaza]".

He called on the international community to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip and to open all border crossings for the residents of the Strip.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ahmad Yusuf, the undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry in Gaza, said that his government was preparing for an official reception in Rafah on Friday, but they were taken by surprise when the Egyptian authorities allowed the activists to enter on Thursday.

He thanked Egypt for facilitating entry of the convoy, adding that this move will hopefully encourage other aid conveys to travel the same route.

He also thanked all those who participated the convoy, especially, George Galloway and said that even though George was not present, he is ever present in the hearts and minds of the people of Gaza




Lifeline 5 enters Gaza Strip amidst big jubilation

[ 22/10/2010 - 02:17 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Members of the lifeline 5 convoy have arrived Thursday to the besieged Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing point after the Egyptian authorities allowed them entry following marathon negotiations full of Egyptian preconditions.

Local Palestinian sources said that a couple of days is needed for the ship carrying the humanitarian assistance anchoring in the Egyptian Al-Areesh port to unload the shipment before sending it to the besieged Strip through the Rafah crossing point.

An atmosphere of Jubilation was engulfing the activists once they stepped into the occupied Palestine as many of them fell in prostration to Allah for enabling them achieve their mission.

"We are with you oh people of Gaza and Allah willing you will win and emerge victorious over your enemies", chanted the activists as they embrace Palestinian officials receiving them at the borders.

"Thanks to Allah that we arrived to Palestine and the land of Gaza after an exhausting five weeks of suffering, and we indeed enjoy very high morale now in Gaza that deserve more than what we are doing for it", said one of the activist as he spoke to the PIC correspondent.

Well-informed sources confirmed that Qatar, which funded the transportation by air of the convoy's activists mediated with the Egyptian authorities to allow the activists and the ship into AL-Areesh.

Egypt had imposed a number of preconditions on the activists and the ship to allow them into Gaza through Egypt, causing delay to the ship's departure from the Syrian port as scheduled, in addition to forcing the activists to travel by air to Egypt instead of accompanying the ship via sea.

Qatar, according to the sources, joined efforts with Syria to convince Egypt not to block the aid convoy. Egypt conceded at last to the two Arab countries mediation.

The ship carries around 140 truck and cars loaded with humanitarian assistance with the aim to alleviate the suffering of the 1.6 million Palestinians blockaded in the Strip for the fifth year now.

Organizers of the convoy asserted that they want to deliver a message to the "civilized" world that the siege on Gaza must end immediately, and the will of the Palestinian people must be respected.


Birawi: Lifeline carries 5 million dollars worth of aid

[ 22/10/2010 - 11:39 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Spokesman for Lifeline 5 aid convoy to the Gaza Strip, Zaher Birawi, said on Thursday that the convoy carries with it 5 million US dollars worth of aid for the besieged people of Gaza, including medical, humanitarian and educational aid.

In a statement to PIC Birawi said that the arrival of Lifeline activists into Gaza as an indicator that the Egyptian authorities have rectified its earlier fault with regard to the aid convoy.

He added that the activists will remain in the Gaza Strip for three days and will be leaving on Sunday morning and that they will be making field visits to areas destroyed by the Israelis during the war on Gaza and meeting some of the affected families.

Birawi said that the Egyptian authorities allowed 342 activists from 30 different coutries, 12 of them Arab countries, into the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian authorities however barred 17 activists, including the leader of the convoy George Galloway, from entering Egypt on their way to the Gaza Strip.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Can Zionism be abandoned? A comment from Mirror site

One Response to Zionism is immoral …

Peter A. Belmont


pabelmont | October 21, 2010 at 4:36 pm |

Can Zionism be abandoned?

Perhaps Zionism is like Wittgenstein’s ladder (that is, is like philosophy) which you use to climb the wall and then kick down when no longer needed. Perhaps, like the children of robber-barons who inherit the money but not the criminality (or excessive acquisitiveness), Zionists now living in Israel could agree to a roll-back (in the interest of fairness), so long as there was, at the end of it all, a country in which they could safely live.

The population of New York City is greater than the Jewish population of Israel and NYC occupies only 305 sq mi. Perhaps it also uses less water. It can be done. And NYC has great theater and concerts, too.

Of course, current facts are against this idea, as the Ahad Ha’am’s and Judah Magnes’s are fewer now and the Jabotinsky’s more numerous, even wall-to-wall in Israel. Before 1930 there were discussions of morality that seem rather dated today. It is a strange fact that the stronger Israel has grown militarily the more fearful its leaders have proselytized its people to be and the more land it has seen as necessary to its safety and fulfillment.

 It is as if to say, “We need Zionism now more than ever. In 1948 the Holocaust was over and the remaining danger to Jews was comparatively nil. Today there is nothing but danger, which we manufacture and re-manufacture in war after unnecessary war.” And as if to say, further, “We like danger. We thrive on it. It is our life-blood. We do not wish to be safe, but to exist perpetually in danger, and to that end we will keep our neighbors maximally enraged with us.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The Four Israels

The Four Israels

Peter A. Belmont ESSAY 104 2010-05-07 © 2010 by Peter A. Belmont, Brooklyn, New York In Roshomon style, I describe four Israels. The First Israel is the dream Israel, to which no one (some believe) can rightly object, comforting to liberal Jews. The Second Israel is the illegitimate Israel, to which everyone must object (others believe), a frightening bogey especially to militarist Zionists who speak of it constantly in response to BDS. The Third Israel is the Israel of wars and occupation and human-rights violations, with which the Palestinians must grapple, the target of the BDS movement. The fourth Israel is the peaceable kingdom for which the world waits, ever so long, the Israel no longer at war, the Israel that lives at peace with its Palestinian neighbor. Like anything else more complex than tic-tac-toe, Israel is a social construct. Because of its history and the dreams and nightmares woven around it, however, it is not just one social construct, or even two. There are three principal Israels. A fourth beckons on the horizon. The First Israel The First Israel is the dream Israel, beloved of liberal Zionists in the USA, Israel, and elsewhere. The dream is the guilt-free solution to past European anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, a guilt-free place to escape present and future anti-Semitism, a guilt-free home for the Jews who want to live there (non-Israeli believers in the First Israel don’t, for the most part, want to live there), a guilt-free place of artists, authors, scientists (yes and Nobel Prize winners), and water-conserving farmers, a place which came into existence at some slight cost to another people, but, hey, the Palestinians should have been welcomed in 1948 by their Arab brethren. The war of 1948? Israel was attacked by the Arab states! The Palestinian refugees? There are always discomforts and dislocations after wars, and the fact that the Palestinian refugees of 1948 didn’t disappear into the woodwork, as they properly should have, isn’t Israel’s fault. The fact that the Palestinians are still complaining after all these years is certainly not Israel’s fault and is an unfair attack on the legitimacy of the First Israel. Gaza? Shmaza! Israel had a right to fight back against all those rockets! The Goldstone Report? Just legal mumbo-jumbo. Settlements and a Wall in the West Bank? Israel won the war in 1967, and therefore owns the land. It’s just using its own land. Jews have a right to live anywhere in Mandatory Palestine. The Mandate said so. (And, as some say, God said so.) And, always, Israel has a right to its security against the threats and attacks of these people who have no legitimate complaint. In the First Israel story or “construct”, it is the Palestinians who are somehow illegitimate, not Israel. The First Israel is a sort of “teddy bear” which liberal Jews carry around with them, of particular use as a comfort toy whenever the news (i.e., vibes of the Third Israel, q.v. below) reaches within their coddled consciousness. Keeping the Third Israel at bay is not so hard, however, as it is the settled policy of the US main stream media (“MSM”) (and especially, and most shamefully, of the New York Times (“NYT”), which hid the Holocaust in the 1940s) to hide unpleasant realities of the Third Israel today. Cherishers of the First Israel largely ignore the actual present in favor of a mythical past. The Second Israel The Second Israel is a rather different idea or “construct”, the nightmare of right-wing, human-rights-be-damned Israelis and other Zionists. It is the First Israel turned on its head, the critur that should have been aborted or strangled at birth. It is the idea of an illegitimate creation, born of terrorist rebellion against legitimate authority and aggressive war against an unoffending people by robbers, thieves, monsters! You might suppose that this Second Israel would be the nightmare of the Palestinians, but they are too busy trying to cope with the Third Israel, to which I will soon turn, to have time to dwell on the Second Israel. The Second Israel is the bogeyman which Zionists imagine, fear, detest, and have fully internalized, and against which, in a spasm of “denial”, they cry out, as many have been doing during the recent surge of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activity, complaining to the heavens that people are trying to “delegitimize Israel”. The idea of the Second Israel is the flip side of the idea of the First Israel: it is the idea you get by a small change of moral or ethical perspective based on the well-known facts of Israel’s founding, but still largely ignoring the present. The Second Israel is the delegitimized Israel, the Israel that is and always was illegitimate. A bad seed. The Zionists recognize this Israel, because the idea that the a country could be created only by expelling the legitimate government, the British, who from 1922 to 1948 were the legitimate government of Mandatory Palestine—by application of terroristic force—is an idea that had to be imagined and accepted and acted upon by the early Zionists. (They see the proposed creation of a New Palestine within Israel/Palestine as a replay of this script, with Palestinian armed national self-assertion seen as “terrorism” threatening themselves.) The Zionists recognize this Israel, because the idea that a country could be created inside another people’s country by force of arms is an idea that had to be imagined and accepted and acted upon by the early Zionists. (They see the proposed creation of a New Palestine within Israel/Palestine as a replay of this script, but now threatening themselves.) They recognize this Israel, because the idea that a country could be created by expelling the residents (or most of them) from that people’s own country is an idea that had to be imagined and accepted and acted upon by the early Zionists. (They see the proposed expulsion of the settlers from the West Bank—and the often mentioned “pushing of the Jews into the sea”—as a replay of this script, but with Jews being the proposed expellees.) There was “no space between” these Zionist ideas and what in other circumstances is called criminality—not a comfortable thought for anyone wedded to the dream of the First Israel, but a commonplace for anyone acquainted with the history of Israel. This is what Israel-apologists mean when they say that “you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs”, a sly suggestion that what happened to the Palestinians was a slight inconvenience and, more importantly, a sly elision of the entire question of whether the omelet should ever have been made in the first place (what with the need to break eggs quite well understood up front). The Second Israel is not a bogey of believers in the First Israel, for if the thought, “Whatever have we done?” edgily threatens to creep into any mind wedded to the First Israel, it is quickly swept out, a thing unclean, like breadcrumbs before passover. The Second Israel is not a bogey of believers in the Third Israel, for the horrors imposed by present-day Israel upon Palestinians living in the occupied territories is the reality with which human-rights activists and Palestinians must deal, in the here and now, and it leaves no time for philosophical ruminations about the Second Israel. The Third Israel The idea of the Third Israel is the idea of the Israel with which Palestinians and others must live today, the on-going reality as perceived, the Israel of intense oppression of the Palestinian people. This is not only the perception (or idea or construct) of Palestinians and their most natural colleagues. It is also the idea of increasing numbers of young American Jews, such as these Jews at Brandeis.: This is where we are today. For many young American Jews, the only association they have with Israel is the conflict with the Palestinians. Israel is the country that oppresses Palestinians, and nothing more. No longer is Israel the country that managed to forge a future for the Jewish people when it was left in tatters after the Holocaust. * * * Nor is Israel the place where Jewish cultural creativity is exploding with newfound energy * * * No, Israel is none of those things. For many young American Jews, it is only the country of roadblocks and genocide, of a relentless war waged against the Palestinians for no apparent reason. The Third Israel is the Israel which went beyond its difficult birth and said, we are not satisfied, we want more. It is the Israel that said, we do not accept the small place proposed for us by the UN in 1947 (55% of Mandatory Palestine for 1/3 the population). It is the Israel that said, we do not accept the larger but nevertheless small place we gained by the warfare and ethnic cleansing of 1948 (78% of Mandatory Palestine, with 85% of the Arabs removed and never allowed to return). This is the Israel which said, hey, force of arms works so well that we should really keep using it. Let us refuse to make peace and there will be war forever, which we will win. War is our metier. With peace we would not know ourselves. We are warriors and evermore shall be so. This is the Israel that seeks to expand to occupy all of Israel/Palestine by gradually expelling the Palestinian people now living under occupation and replacing them with Israel’s illegal settlers. This is also the Israel which said that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, and which said that the people who call themselves Palestinians are a threat to us and must be forever denied—and which says, we will never give them an inch. This is the Israel which, in 1967 (at age 19) destroyed the Egyptian Air Force on the ground in a few hours and defeated the armed forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in 6 days—and yet constantly cries out its fear and insecurity as justification for further war (now looking to attack Iran and attack Hezbollah, again, in Lebanon). This is the Israel which invaded Lebanon, without cause, in 1982 and soon performed the encirclement (without exits) of the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps and then ushered in the Maronite militia for a massacre which was carried out under Israeli supervision, a massacre that killed hundreds if not thousands of unarmed Palestinians, chiefly women and children, “like fish in a barrel”. This is the Israel which began a blockade of Gaza in 2000, intensified it in 2007, continues it today with deadly effect, and, in late-2008 / early-2009 invaded Gaza (see here), again an operation like “shooting fish in a barrel”, the events which brought on the UN’s Goldstone Report, which identified what it called war crimes by Israel (and also by Hamas). This is the Israel which continues to build settlements on land within occupied territories expropriated from Palestinians—in clear and constantly reiterated violation of international law—and settles Israeli citizens within occupied territories—also in clear violation of international law. This is the Israel that kills Palestinians, internationals, and perhaps Israelis at peaceful political demonstrations often using so-called “live ammunition” in situations where shooting any sort of ammunition should not be allowed. This is the Israel that arrests its own citizens for political dissent and places “gag orders” on its press so that such events will not become widely reported even or especially within so-called “democratic” Israel (see here). This is the Israel that protects its settlers in the West Bank and rarely punishes them, creating for the settlers—what the US’s indulgence has created for the Third Israel as a whole—a culture of immunity and impunity, leading to recent burnings of Mosques by settlers, usually unpunished, (see here). In some cases the settlers are taking out on Palestinians their rage at proposed Israeli governmental limitations on settlement building and land grabbing for settlement expansion: Jewish settlers have declared a “price-tag” [1]policy, under which they have targeted Palestinians or their property in retaliation for any Israeli government measure they see as threatening settlements. The Third Israel is an on-going reality, a horrible reality. Knowledge of the Third Israel is getting into the American mainstream, not much thanks to the US MSM, and this knowledge accounts for the gradual shifting of American opinion from blanket acceptance of Israel (heretofore near-universally considered under the idea of the First Israel) to critical complaints against current Third Israeli policies and practices. The divestment projects springing up on college campuses in America are a sign that knowledge of the Third Israel is replacing the comfortable belief in the First Israel among American Jews, especially perhaps among the young. How Second Israel and Third Israel differ. Complaints against the Third Israel are not to be confused with the blanket delegitimization implied by belief in the Second Israel. Those who decry Third Israel are not calling for the obliteration of Israel—they are calling for an end of Israel’s on-going crimes, especially for an end of the occupation and the creation of a (new) Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem. They call for a fair sharing, in other words, of land and water in Israel/Palestine between Israel and Palestine; and for national and human rights, at long last, for the Palestinian people. Some call for a “right of return” of Palestinian refugees from 1948 into Israel (that is, into the Israel of 1950-1966) on the unobjectionable ground that Israel’s continued refusal to allow this return (called for by annual UN resolutions from 1948 onward) is an on-going crime against the Palestinians, an on-going crime which should be ended. This particular claim is especially threatening to Israelis who foresee that a general return of Palestinians to Israel would make non-Jews a majority of the population, removing either the Jewish character of Israel (if it no longer has a majority Jewish population and majority Jewish electorate) or its democratic character (if the returning Palestinians were not allowed to vote). This is a vexed question which I have treated elsewhere.. Conclusion Perhaps because of the internet, news of the Third Israel is getting out—in spite of the efforts of the US MSM and NYT to keep it secret—and it becomes hard for Americans (including American Jews, brought up on the First Israel) to ignore it. The hard-right Zionists are fighting this bad news (how criminals hate sunshine!) by pretending that those who seek to publicize and to stop Israel’s on-going crimes and human-rights violations are trying to delegitimize or even to destroy Israel. Although delegitimizing the Second Israel should not be thought of as a bad thing (it is clearly not anti-Semitic to identify and describe a crime just because the criminals are Jews),[2] the program of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) and of others who shine the light of day on the Third Israel and thereby seek to correct its worst excesses is neither to delegitimize Israel nor to destroy it but, rather, to restrain it and to make possible a normal national existence for the Palestinian people free of the deadening repressions with which Israel has treated the Palestinians since 1947. With luck, the Palestinians will soon have an opportunity to live their lives, to raise families and conduct normal lives free of oppression. With luck, Israel will have a chance to find out what a normal national existence may be like free of the soul-deadening activities required (especially since 1967) by the need to repress and suppress the Palestinians. Some think the new Israel (the Fourth Israel?) and the new Palestine will get along just fine. Why not? [1] ”Israeli settlers on horseback set fire to fields of olive trees and stoned Palestinian cars in the West Bank yesterday, apparently in response to the Israeli army’s removal of an illegal outpost in the area. At least 1,500 Palestinian-owned trees were destroyed and two Palestinians were injured in the attack, near the city of Nablus, by about 30 settlers, security officials said. Farmers fought fires late into the afternoon, as fears grew that the flames would spread across the dry summer fields. It was the most recent example of the “price tag” policy, in which settlers seek revenge by attacking Palestinians for every outpost that is demolished. “The goal is to create a price for each evacuation, causing Israeli authorities to think twice about carrying them out,” the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said.” ----------- [2] It has become fashionable, today, for Zionists to demand a “right” to a “Jewish State” by which they seem to mean a territorially-large super-majority-Jewish State. They never explain where this “right” came from (apart from their own dreams and desires). Most importantly, they never claim that the 1947 UNGA Partition Resolution (or the Mandate or the Balfour Declaration) granted them this “right”, nor that anything in law or otherwise granted them the right to expel even a single Palestinian—much less 85% of the Palestinians of 1948-1967 Israel. In fact, they deny that Zionist forces expelled anyone! A “divine wind” (or something similar) is credited with removal of all those Palestinians in 1947-50! It is quite recent that any Israeli at all admitted that Zionists deliberately expelled Palestinians in the 1947-50 war—see “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949” by Benny Morris. But however the Palestinians were removed, and whatever the UNGA may have demanded by way of their repatriation, Israelis now refuse repatriation and claim that this refusal is “of right” and not merely a continuation of a crime. On the question of whether expulsion was thought likely before 1947, here is President Truman: In supporting the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine the United States had no thought of embarking upon a policy which would be prejudicial to the interests of the indigenous population of Palestine... We would be firmly opposed to any solution of the Palestine problem which would permit a majority of the population to discriminate against a minority on religious, racial, or other grounds... I am convinced, furthermore, that the responsible Jewish groups and leaders interested in developing the Jewish National Home in Palestine have no intention of expelling now or at a later date the indigenous inhabitants of that country or of using Palestine as a base for aggression against neighbouring Arab States... No people have suffered more than the Jews during recent years from aggression and intolerance. No people stands more in need of world sympathy and support at the present time. It is therefore inconceivable that responsible Jewish groups or leaders could be contemplating acts of intolerance and aggression against Arabs in Palestine or elsewhere which would be sure to arouse public opinion and to provoke indignation throughout the world. From President Harry Truman’s letter to the King of Saudi Arabia, January 24, 1947, from a US government publication quoted in Victor Kattan’s great book, From Coexistence to Conquest, International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891-1949. from here

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Carter: Hamas Keen to Discuss Shalit Swap with Israel

21/10/2010 Former US President Jimmy Carter said on Thursday that Hamas activists are "very eager" to resume talks with Israel over a prisoner exchange which could see captured soldier Gilad Shalit being freed.

"They let us know... they are very eager to proceed," Carter told reporters in occupied Jerusalem several days after meeting Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip.

"They are very glad that the German negotiator has been back on the scene lately and that Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu has made some positive statements about a prisoner exchange."

Carter, on a visit with a delegation of retired world figures called The Elders, said he had urged the group "to do everything they could to expedite the exchange of prisoners" so that Shalit could return home.

"They maintained that they are very eager to have a swap but they are demanding the release of some prisoners that are not acceptable to the Israeli negotiators," he said.

Hamas leadership holds in-depth discussions with a delegation of the Elders

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

A Letter from Daniel McGowan (DYR) to Abraham Foxman (ADL)

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 at 8:43AM Gilad Atzmon

October 19, 2010

Mr. Abraham Foxman

Dear Mr. Foxman:

We were quite disappointed to have not qualified for your so-called Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in America

Surely our annual commemorations since 1995 of the Deir Yassin massacre by Jewish terrorists on April 9, 1948 should have warranted inclusion in your top ten. Some of our commemorations have even taken place at Deir Yassin in clear sight of the Children’s Museum at Yad Vashem. You may like to review footage of one of them at http://video.google.com

While for you that should have been outrageous enough, our books, websites, lectures, vigils, and especially our scholarship program should surely have brought us into your top-ten. Perhaps you have seen our newest video?

No need to buy a copy; you may view it for free at
Why 9/11? from Daniel McGowan on Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/15528714

And need I remind you of our website honoring Jews (and former Jews) who believe in one state with equal rights of citizenship for all? RighteousJews.org is growing as more and more people see that in spite of all the lives and money lost in the name of Zionism, Israel today is no more a Jewish state than was South Africa a White state under its apartheid regime.

We note that your list also ignores the persistent, indomitable work of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends in Ann Arbor Michigan. This group of mainly Jews has led weekly vigils in front of the local synagogue for over 7 seven years to protest the criminality of Zionism and the distortion of prophetic Judaism that organizations like yours foment endlessly.

Kindly notice that our Board consists of Jews and non-Jews. We are neither anti-Semitic nor self-hating, but we do oppose Jewish supremacy and we support human rights for all people living in Israel/Palestine.

Sincerely,

Daniel McGowan

Executive Director

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Viva Palestina 5 arrives in Arish after lengthy delay

Jano Charbel

Thu, 21/10/2010 - 10:17

Photographed by Jano Charbel

Arish--The first of two passenger airplanes--part of the fifth and largest Viva Palestina convoy--arrived in Egypt Wednesday evening on its final stop before heading on to the Gaza Strip. The arrival in Arish port city follows an 18-day clearance delay in Latakia, Syria.

The second passenger airplane is scheduled to land at Al-Arish on Thursday. Each aircraft carries 155 delegates and activists from around the world. An aid ship with a cargo of 30 delegates and several tons of humanitarian aid is also set to dock at the Egyptian port city Thursday.

Viva Palestina describes itself as "A Lifeline to Gaza."

The convoy hopes to unload and transport its aid cargo to Gaza on Thursday. Egypt previously denied entrance to 18 members of the convoy, including former British MP George Galloway.

Following lengthy negotiations, Egyptian authorities agreed to grant the Viva Palestina activists access into the Gaza Strip for three days. From Colorado, independent activist Guy Benintendi, one of three Americans partaking in the convoy, said "we are pawns in the hands of the Egyptian government." He blamed the 18-day delay on "diplomatic and bureaucratic obstacles." Israel and other states may be behind this delay, he added.

One of the convoy's chief organizers, the Palestinian-English Zaher al-Berawi, said Viva Palestina, international institutions, the Egyptian government, the Egyptian people, and all the free people of the world, hope and strive to end the siege on Gaza. He praised "the Egyptian government's efforts, and its coordination with us to make this dream a reality."

The convoy includes 140 vehicles and a total of 340 delegates from 30 countries, according to al-Berawi. He added that over 80 percent of the aid is in the form of medical supplies, 10 percent in educational material and school supplies, and another 10 percent are emergency and relief equipment. The supplies are valued at US$5 million.

"The aid does not include any building materials [concrete, reinforced steel, pipes, etc.] as it was not allowed according to the agreements we had concluded with the Egyptian Embassy in Damascus," al-Berawi told Al-Masry Al-Youm. Jordanian associations and trade unions intended to deliver construction materials as part of the convoy but were not permitted to join, he added.

Israeli authorities have explicitly prevented the entrance of all such construction materials into the besieged Gaza Strip since 2007.

Even after its devastating war against Gaza from December 2008 to January 2009, Israel maintained its stance.

Egypt had similarly closed off its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip after Hamas seized power in 2007. Egyptian authorities re-opened the Rafah border following the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, in which eight Turks and one Turkish-American were killed by Israeli commandos.

One of the 115 Algerian activists participating in the convoy, former Algerian MP Mohamed Douibi was previously part of the Freedom Flotilla. He was aboard the ship that bore the brunt of this Israeli attack, the Mavi Marmara. He pointed to his injured eye and said, "Israeli commandos boarded the ship I was on and fired a rubber bullet at my face. It hit me in the eye, and I'm still being treated for this injury I sustained."

"This assault made me even more adamant in my decision to defy Israel's siege on Gaza. This is why I am participating in this convoy."

This is the first Viva Palestina convoy in which he has participated. He said that he intends to partake in forthcoming Viva Palestina convoys "until the siege is lifted."

John Hurson, from Tyrone Ireland, one of eight Irish delegates partaking in this convoy, described Egypt's decision to deny entrance to 18 activists as "ridiculous."

"The Egyptian government told the world that it would open its border with Gaza indefinitely," said Hurson. "It has now become obvious that this announcement is a lie." Egypt's decision to bar these activists "puts more of a spotlight on Egypt as being a party complicit in this siege," he added.

George Galloway is considered persona non grata by the Egyptian government.

He was barred from entering Egypt during the Viva Palestina 3 convoy attempt which arrived in the Port of Arish in January, 2010. Having waited for several days in the Jordanian Port of Aqaba, for clearance from Egyptian authorities, it was then ordered to be rerouted to Latakia. The convoy arrived in the Syrian port only to be delayed for several more days.

Upon arrival in Arish, the convoy waited again for clearance. Impatience and frustration led some activists to break down one of the port's gates. Clashes between Viva Palestina activists and Egyptian police ensued. More than 20 members of the convoy were injured, along with around 10 policemen.

Mahmoud Khaled, one of 90 Viva Palestina 5 activists from Jordan said, "we're happy to be in Egypt, but we'll be even happier when we get into the (Gaza) Strip and are able to deliver our aid to that besieged populace."

He added that nine Jordanians were denied entrance into Egypt, including 83-year-old Ismail Nashwan. Egyptian authorities reportedly claimed that Nashwan is a Turkish troublemaker, "although he is not a Turk, and is too old to be a troublemaker," according to Khaled.

The Viva Palestina 5 convoy originated in London. It departed Saturday, 18 September and drove southwestwards through Europe and Turkey, and arrived in Latakia on Saturday, 2 October. In Latakia, the convoy was joined by two other contingents from Algeria and Morocco.

Viva Palestina's convoy reaches Gaza

Press TV

Thu Oct 21, 2010 1:46PM

Activists with the Viva Palestina-organized convoy chant slogans before their departure from Istanbul, Turkey on September 28, 2010.

Lifeline 5, the fifth aid convoy organized by the UK-based charity Viva Palestina, has crossed Rafah, the border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, the aid mission of 150 vehicles entered the coastal sliver, carrying around $5 million in food, medicine and basic supplies.

The move signified disruption of Tel Aviv's siege of Gaza, which has been depriving its 1.5-million population of food, fuel and other necessities for more than three years.

Headed by former British lawmaker George Galloway, the convoy departed from London on September 18. It crossed France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt on its way to the enclave.

The trip was made despite the likelihood that the activists come under the attack of the Israeli military, which had killed nine activists in May during an assault on Freedom Flotilla, a convoy of the same mission.

Israeli paper The Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday that the Israeli forces were awaiting the arrival of the activists.

Citing a source with Israel's military, the paper wrote, "The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is prepared" for the convoy.

There, however, has been no news yet of Tel Aviv-ordered aggression on the activists.

The convoy was also fearful of confrontation by the Egyptian authorities. In January 2010, the Egyptian riot police injured 55 people in the port of El Arish during clashes with the Viva Palestina's previous aid convoy.

Speaking to a Press TV correspondent, however, Lifeline 5's spokesman, Zaher Birawi, said that the Egyptians had refrained from imposing any conditions on the mission's entry into the sliver.

"The Egyptians are facilitating and making easy and smooth the entrance to Gaza," Birawi said.

HN/MGH

  

Viva Palestina convoy reaches Gaza

Pro-Palestinian activists enter Gaza through Rafah crossing with $5m of aid for residents of Israeli-blockaded strip.

Last Modified: 21 Oct 2010 17:26 GMT

Hundreds of peace activists have arrived in Gaza carrying humanitarian supplies [Reuters]

Pro-Palestinian activists in more than 100 cars and trucks have crossed into the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip through Egypt's Rafah crossing with aid worth nearly $5m.

The multinational "Viva Palestina" ship arrived at Egypt's port city of al-Arish from Lattakia, Syria, earlier on Thursday.

About 300 activists then flew into al-Arish airport and converged with the ship's passengers before entering Gaza.

The activists had initially joined up in Syria from Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, and more than two dozen other countries.

The convoy, which was organised by George Galloway, a British politician, originally departed from London on September 18 and arrived in Syria two weeks later.

The activists then waited for over two weeks in Lattakia for permission from the Egyptian authorities for the shipment, which includes medical supplies and school equipment, to be allowed to enter al-Arish port.

The aid does not include any building materials, which the Egyptian authorities did not allow, as part of the agreement permitting the activists to enter Gaza for three days.

Israel has kept Gaza under a blockade since 2007, saying it is a necessary step to stop arms reaching the Hamas group running the strip.

Several dozen survivors from the Israeli attack on May 31 on the Turkish aid ship the Mavi Marmara were among those in the "Viva Palestina" convoy.

'Summary executions'

Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists when they boarded the Mavi Marmara, the main vessel in a 'Freedom Flotilla' also attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.

Israel's leaders said their troops opened fire in self-defence after being set upon by activists.

However, a UN inquiry last month found that Israeli troops broke international law by boarding the flotilla and found that the killings of activists on-board were comparable to "summary executions".

After an international outcry over the Mavi Marmara raid, Israel relaxed its embargo but construction materials remain restricted.

Gazans have limited freedom of movement and Israel still enforces its naval blockade.

RACHEL CORRIE CASE: ISRAELI SOLDIER TO TESTIFY ANONYMOUSLY

Via My catbird Seat

- 21. Oct, 2010

Family criticises decision to allow soldier who drove bulldozer that killed daughter to give evidence from behind screen

American peace activist Rachel Corrie being interviewed in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza Strip a few days before she was killed by a bulldozer. Photograph: Getty Images

The Israeli soldier at the controls of a bulldozer that crushed to death 23-year-old Rachel Corrie in Gaza in March 2003 is due to give evidence tomorrow in the civil lawsuit brought by the American activist’s family.
However the judge hearing the case in Haifa has ruled that, for security reasons, the soldier can testify anonymously from behind a screen, denying Cindy and Craig Corrie the opportunity to face the man who directly caused their daughter’s death.
Israel‘s supreme court refused to hear an appeal by the family challenging the judge’s ruling. However, the unit commander in charge that day will testify in full view of the court as his identity is already known.
“I’ll be grateful at least to be able to hear [the bulldozer driver's] words but I won’t get the complete picture and I’ll be disappointed by that,” Cindy Corrie said in an interview in Jerusalem last week.

“They’ve said it’s the security of the witnesses they are trying to protect. I can understand it would be uncomfortable for the soldiers to have to see us, but I can’t understand how our family is a threat to their security.”

Corrie, from Olympia, Washington state, was killed while attempting to protect the home of a Palestinian family in the Rafah area of Gaza from being demolished by Israeli troops seven and a half years ago. A posthumous book and play based on the graphic and moving emails she wrote to friends and family made her an iconic figure.
An internal Israeli military investigation, which was never published nor released to the US government or the Corries, concluded that the bulldozer driver had not seen Rachel and that no charges would be brought. The case was closed.

The family brought a civil case – “absolutely our last resort” – against the state of Israel, which opened in March this year and is expected to conclude early next year. Among the early witnesses was a fellow activist, Briton Richard Purssell, who described how Corrie disappeared from view under the advancing bulldozer.

The driver’s evidence will be a key moment in the case but the Corrie family has been careful not to invest too much in his evidence. “While the driver is very important, to me he is not the only person who has responsibility,” said Cindy Corrie. “Responsibility is shared with a lot of people. My focus isn’t entirely on the driver.”

Sarah Corrie Simpson, Rachel’s older sister, said: “Ultimately the individual had the ability to stop that act. However if you only hold responsible the individual, you’re losing the broader context of what’s going on. You have to look at the chain of command and what sort of orders were being given at that time.”

The family, while wanting an acceptable end to their battle for justice, was wary of the concept of closure. “It’s hard to conceive of that,” said Craig Corrie. “People talk about it, but it’s real hard to define what closure would be when you’ve lost a child, lost a little sister.”

Corrie Simpson said closure was difficult to define: “I’m not sure how you ever get to a place where you even feel close to that when you know there are people out there on the other end of what happened to Rachel, and you’ve never even been able to see their faces. Mum talks about being able to see the humanity of the person that was on the other end – and now the majority of soldiers will get to testify behind a screen, and that takes that away from us.”

At the very least, the family hoped their legal battle would shine a light on the Israeli Defence Force’s (IDF) investigative process.

Cindy Corrie said if the IDF were, as it claimed, the most moral army in the world, “they should be willing to look at a system that is much more transparent than what exists right now”.

Last month, a colonel responsible for writing operating manuals for military bulldozers, testified that there were no civilians in a war zone.

Cindy Corrie said: “It’s a window, hearing that coming from these people, a real window into the mindset – and it’s very, very concerning. And I think every Israeli should be really concerned.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/20/rachel-corrie-case-soldier-anonymous

Please visit rachelcorriefoundation.org/trial for trial updates, changes to the court schedule and related information.
For press related inquiries and further information, please contact:
Stacy Sullivan
stacy [at] rachelcorriefoundation.org
Phone (Israel): 972-54-280-7572

Rachel Corrie – Interview

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Netanyahu: No return to 1967 borders, OJ to remain under Israeli sovereignty

[ 21/10/2010 - 11:19 AM ]

Netanyahu: No return to 1967 borders, OJ to remain under Israeli sovereignty

Abbas : Yes Sir I am Born to Serve

In June 2003, Edward Said called him "Israel's sheriff," saying he's "colorless, moderately corrupt, and without any clear ideas of his own, except that he wants to please the white man," his Washington and bosses.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated his rejection of Palestinian demands for a lasting peaceful settlement mainly a Palestinian state on 1967 land with Jerusalem as its capital.

Netanyahu, speaking on the 15th anniversary of the assassination of former premier Yitzhak Rabin on Wednesday night, said that Israel would never return to the pre 1967 borders and that Jerusalem would remain united under Israeli sovereignty.

He said that the settlement building, which caused a stoppage of direct talks between him and the Ramallah authority, did not contradict with the political process.

The premier renewed calls for establishment of a disarmed Palestinian state that recognizes Israel as a state for the "Jewish people".

Meanwhile, Settlers started building 600 housing units at end of freeze


The Israeli anti settlement organization "Peace Now" announced that Israeli settlers had started to build more than 600 housing units in the West Bank since the end of the settlement freeze last September 26.

Hagit Ofran, the director of Peace Now's Settlement Watch, said that 600 to 700 housing units were being built since that date, which is four times the construction pace before the freeze.

She said that purchases of 2,000 houses were made out of the 13,000 houses that obtained construction permits.

The Israeli government refused to renew the ten-month construction freeze in the West Bank, despite Palestinian and international calls.

• More than an olive branch
• PJC asks PLO to sack Abbas over recent statements
• Abbas suspends PFLP financial allocations
• Hamas: Abbas offering free concessions to IOA
• Hamas MPs: Abbas's readiness to waive the Palestinian rights disgraceful
• Islamic Jihad slams Abbas's remarks about waiving all historic rights
• Netanyahu is "eagerly awaiting" the results of the US elections to have his Republican friends "repell Obama..."

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Ahmadinejad galvanizes Lebanon’s Palestinians

Franklin Lamb,
Shatila Camp

“The only solution to the Palestinian issue is for the invaders (Israelis) of the occupied Palestinian land to leave, and give the Palestinians their rights and return all the Palestinian refugees to their original land. Iran supports Lebanon’s bitter struggle in confronting Israeli assaults. We demand with all seriousness and insistence the liberation of all occupied land in Lebanon and Syria”.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bint Jbeil 10/15/10

In the days since Iran’s president Ahmadinejad completed his visit to Lebanon, and given the continuing lively discussion across the local and international political spectrum evaluating the impact of his historic appearance, one thing appears fairly clear.

US State Department official Jeffrey Feltman who came to Beirut quick from Saudi Arabia on orders from the White House to “do something!” to offset the Iranians unprecedented reception, may have been a bit wide of the mark in his evaluation. Feltman repeated this past weekend the March 14 pro-US and Saudi prediction that: “ I don’t think Ahmadinejad’s” visit will have a lasting effect. It’s not something extraordinary. Its impact will remain for a couple days and that’s it.”

One largely unnoticed achievement of the Iranian President’s visit remains among the Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon. Close to a quarter million of whom are “ living in cages” to borrow President Carter’s description during his meeting this week with Hamas leader Khaled Mashall in Damascus, to describe how their sisters and brothers are forced to exist in Gaza.

Apart from the Shia community, the largest number of the approximately 750,000 who, waited at various events to greet and hear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were Palestinian refugees. It is the Lebanese Shia, living in south Lebanon, the Bekaa and in Dahiyeh, who are the primary beneficiaries of the more than one billion dollars in recent reconstruction aid from Iran.

This infusion of funding contributed to Hezbollah’s increase in political power and its ability to achieve public services in its neighborhoods which were previously ignored by the state. The massive rebuilding projects created pockets of thieving construction economies, mainly in the Hezbollah areas of Ghouberi Municipality, Bir Abed and Haret Hreik, near the Palestinian refugee camps of Burj al Barajeneh, Mar Elias and Shatila. This area saw, since the 2006 war, the rebuilding of 235 multi unit apartment buildings (80% completed as of 10/19/10 in probably the most efficient building project of its kind in history according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The Iranian largess has quietly benefited thousands of Palestinians in these areas even though they are forbidden by law to travel to south Lebanon to visit or work and must remain north of the Litani river on penalty of arrest and imprisonment.

During a 10/18/10 morning tour of nearly completed Waad (promise) residential buildings, bombed into smoldering mountains of rubble during the 2006 war, this observer interviewed several Palestinian laborers and craftsmen working side by side with equally skilled and hard working Syrian workers.

What was learned is what Hezbollah officials have revealed, regarding Waad (Promise) and Jihad al Bina (struggle construction company) both now firmly on US Terrorism lists solely for political reasons. Both organizations have discretely hired, in addition to laborers, hundreds of Palestinian engineers, craftsmen, architects, and “syndicate professionals.” These job offerings go to Palestinian refugees despite being forbidden to them by Lebanese laws enacted by a government that does not even pretend to comply with internationally mandated civil rights for refugees.

Nearly a week now since Ahmadinejads departure, the 12 Palestinian camps and two ‘gatherings’, especially among the young people, are still abuzz with often excited discussions of his visit.
This reaction, despite much that is being erroneously reported these days about the current “lost” generation of Palestinians in Lebanon resulting, so it is said, from the devastation that beset this community following the August 1982 departure of the Palestine Liberation Organization. These are legitimate concerns with sociological studies on the subject often presenting shocking indices of social decline, ennui, passivity, and hopelessness. It is well known that Lebanon’s camps have deteriorated and that the quality of life continues to disintegrate. But the young people still appear resolved to follow the spirit of their elders who founded the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Discussions among many in the camps here inevitably turn to questions of “what went wrong?” and “how can we fulfill our parents dreams and take up the mantle of Liberation and Return that we heard from our elders”, “how can we unite Hamas and Fatah”, and “how to confront the expanding apartheid regime in Palestine”?

What President Ahmadinejad brought to the under 30 generation in the Palestinian camps is more hope, energy and self confidence.

Lacking unified leadership of their own, many Palestinians in Lebanon have been looking to Hezbollah and Iran as a model to revive the Palestinian liberation movement. The veteran American journalist Jonathan Randel, in Lebanon this week finishing a book on Palestinians in Lebanon suggests that Hezbollah’s 1985 removal of Israeli occupation forces from one-third of Lebanon’s southern villages was likely one of the factors that gave those under occupation in Palestine confidence to achieve the first intifada,1987-93.

Iran’s President easily connects with young people and is unquestionably committed to the full right of refugees return to their country. In a side meeting with representatives of the refugees camps community and some of their allies, Iran’s President could not have been more emphatic and clear about this.

Included in his counsel to young Palestinians during his visit were the following:
• “Stay in school and help care for all members of your family. It is you who will join the villagers of south Lebanon and liberate Palestine. People like you make revolutions”;
• Do not become discouraged by what might appear to be a bleak period in occupied Palestine and in Lebanon’s camps. Ignore those who say the Palestinian revolution belongs to the past.
• Palestine will be liberated. It is a scientific certainly that this criminal occupation will end and that all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be able to go back to their ancestral lands
• The splintering of the Palestinian body politic has been caused largely from external forces but increasingly with internal dimensions that must be resisted;
• It is the duty of the international community to help you secure basic rights in Lebanon until your certain return to Palestine. Iran is prepared to fulfill its duty in this regard;
• “Lebanon is the focus point of the resistance and standing against occupiers and oppressors and is playing an excellent role";
• “Your return to Palestine may happen sooner than you think and is only a matter of time and perhaps the coming war will achieve this”;

Mohammad, a young Palestinian dentist allowed only to practice inside Shatila Camp due to Lebanon’s discriminatory labor laws explained: “President Ahmadinejad has been a hero to many of us here in the camps since he first became President of Iran. Unlike most Arab leaders, he is committed to the liberation of Palestine as if he were himself a Palestinian. He encourages us and speaks like our leaders used to speak before they seem to have given up our national struggle. If fact, he is more Palestinian than many Palestinians I know. We trust him and feel we have someone to support and protect us. Like Hassan Nassrallah he has bolstered our confidence to struggle to return to Palestine. Both of these great men are like uncles to the Palestinian generation now becoming adults.

Published originally in bitterlemons-international.org

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com
Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon


PLEASE SIGN HERE!

http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html

“Failure is not an option for the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, our only choice is success”

15 year old Hiba Hajj, PCRC volunteer, Ein el Helwe Palestinian Camp, Saida, Lebanon
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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The War on Terror: What’s It All About?

The War on Terror: What’s It All About?

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Prisonplanet.comOct 16, 2010

Does anyone remember the “cakewalk war” that would last six weeks, cost $50-$60 billion, and be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues?

Does anyone remember that White House economist Lawrence Lindsey was fired by Dubya because Lindsey estimated that the Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion?

Lindsey was fired for over-estimating the cost of a war that, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, has cost 15 times more than Lindsey estimated. And the US still has 50,000 troops in Iraq.

Does anyone remember that just prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the US government declared victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Does anyone remember that the reason Dubya gave for invading Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, weapons that the US government knew did not exist?

Are Americans aware that the same neoconservarives who made these fantastic mistakes, or told these fabulous lies, are still in control of the government in Washington?

The “war on terror” is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?

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The bottom line answer is that the “war on terror” is about creating real terrorists. The US government desperately needs real terrorists in order to justify its expansion of its wars against Muslim countries and to keep the American people sufficiently fearful that they continue to accept the police state that provides “security from terrorists,” but not from the government that has discarded civil liberties.

The US government creates terrorists by invading Muslim countries, wrecking infrastructure and killing vast numbers of civilians. The US also creates terrorists by installing puppet governments to rule over Muslims and by using the puppet governments to murder and persecute citizens as is occurring on a vast scale in Pakistan today.

Neoconservatives used 9/11 to launch their plan for US world hegemony. Their plan fit with the interests of America’s ruling oligarchies. Wars are good for the profits of the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us in vain a half century ago. American hegemony is good for the oil industry’s control over resources and resource flows. The transformation of the Middle East into a vast American puppet state serves well the Israel Lobby’s Zionist aspirations for Israeli territorial expansion.

Most Americans cannot see what is happening because of their conditioning. Most Americans believe that their government is the best on earth, that it is morally motivated to help others and to do good, that it rushes aid to countries where there is famine and natural catastrophes. Most believe that their presidents tell the truth, except about their sexual affairs.

The persistence of these delusions is extraordinary in the face of daily headlines that report US government bullying of, and interference with, virtually every country on earth. The US policy is to buy off, overthrow, or make war on leaders of other countries who represent their peoples’ interests instead of American interests. A recent victim was the president of Honduras who had the wild idea that the Honduran government should serve the Honduran people.

The American government was able to have the Honduran president discarded, because the Honduran military is trained and supplied by the US military. It is the same case in Pakistan, where the US government has the Pakistani government making war on its own people by invading tribal areas that the Americans consider to be friendly to the Taliban, al Qaeda, “militants” and “terrorists.”

Earlier this year a deputy US Treasury secretary ordered Pakistan to raise taxes so that the Pakistani government could more effectively make war on its own citizens for the Americans. On October 14 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered Pakistan to again raise taxes or the US would withhold flood aid. Clinton pressured America’s European puppet states to do the same, expressing in the same breath that the US government was worried by British cuts in the military budget. God forbid that the hard-pressed British, still reeling from American financial fraud, don’t allocate enough money to fight America’s wars.

On Washington’s orders, the Pakistani government launched a military offensive against Pakistani citizens in the Swat Valley that killed large numbers of Pakistanis and drove millions of civilians from their homes. Last July the US instructed Pakistan to send its troops against the Pakistani residents of North Waziristan. On July 6 Jason Ditz reported on antiwar.com that “at America’s behest, Pakistan has launched offensives against [the Pakistani provinces of] Swat Valley, Bajaur, South Waziristan, Orakzai,and Khyber.”

A week later Israel’s US Senator Carl Levin (D,MI) called for escalating the Obama Administration’s policies of US airstrikes against Pakistan’s tribal areas. On September 30, the Pakistani newspaper, The Frontier Post, wrote that the American air strikes “are, plain and simple, a naked aggression against Pakistan.”

The US claims that its forces in Afghanistan have the right to cross into Pakistan in pursuit of “militants.” Recently US helicopter gunships killed three Pakistani soldiers who they mistook for Taliban. Pakistan closed the main US supply route to Afghanistan until the Americans apologized.
Pakistan warned Washington against future attacks. However, US military officials, under pressure from Obama to show progress in the endless Afghan war, responded to Pakistan’s warning by calling for expanding the Afghan war into Pakistan. On October 5 the Canadian journalist Eric Margolis wrote that “the US edges closer to invading Pakistan.”

In his book, Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward reports that America’s puppet president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, believes that terrorist bombing attacks inside Pakistan for which the Taliban are blamed are in fact CIA operations designed to destabilize Pakistan and allow Washington to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

To keep Pakistan in line, the US government changed its position that the “Times Square Bombing” was the work of a “lone wolf.” Attorney General Eric Holder switched the blame to the “Pakistani Taliban,” and Secretary of State Clinton threatened Pakistan with “very serious consequences” for the unsuccessful Times Square bombing, which likely was a false flag operation aimed at Pakistan.
To further heighten tensions, on September 1 the eight members of a high-ranking Pakistani military delegation in route to a meeting in Tampa, Florida, with US Central Command, were rudely treated and detained as terrorist suspects at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport.

For decades the US government has enabled repeated Israeli military aggression against Lebanon and now appears to be getting into gear for another Israeli assault on the former American protectorate of Lebanon. On October 14 the US government expressed its “outrage” that the Lebanese government had permitted a visit by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who is the focus of Washington’s intense demonization efforts. Israel’s representatives in the US Congress threatened to stop US military aid to Lebanon, forgetting that US Rep. Howard Berman (D,CA) has had aid to Lebanon blocked since last August to punish Lebanon for a border clash with Israel.

Perhaps the most telling headline of all is the October 14 report, “Somalia’s New American Primer Minister.” An American has been installed as the Prime Minister of Somalia, an American puppet government in Mogadishu backed up by thousands of Ugandan troops paid by Washington.

This barely scratches the surface of Washington’s benevolence toward other countries and respect for their rights, borders, and lives of their citizens.

Meanwhile, to silence Wikileaks and to prevent any more revelations of American war crimes, the “freedom and democracy” government in DC has closed down Wikileaks’ donations by placing the organization on its “watch list” and by having the Australian puppet government blacklist Wikileaks.
Wikileaks is now akin to a terrorist organization. The American government’s practice of silencing critics will spread across the Internet.

Remember, they hate us because we have freedom and democracy, First Amendment rights, habeas corpus, respect for human rights, and show justice and mercy to all.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously an editor for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian