Saturday, 23 April 2011

Israeli occupation soldier injured in confrontations in occupied Jerusalem

[ 22/04/2011 - 08:39 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Clashes broke out Friday afternoon between IOF troops and Palestinian youth in different neighbourhoods of the occupied city of Jerusalem.

In the Eisaweyah suburb of Jerusalem young Palestinians clashed with occupation forces and burned a military vehicle after it overturned by throwing petrol bombs at the vehicle. Eyewitnesses said that an IOF soldier suffered burns.

Meanwhile, in the Silwan suburb of Jerusalem Palestinian youth hurled stones and empty bottles at occupation soldier who responded by firing teargas canisters and rubber-coated bullets without reports of any injuries.

These clashes are the results of daily raids carried out by the IOF and the fanatic settlers into various neighbourhoods of occupied Jerusalem and the harassment of the Palestinian population that usually accompanies such raids.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Syria after Ministry says rallies must be licensed

Demonstration at University
SYRIA- “The new government in Syria has taken action to meet the demands of the Syrian people,” Nidal Kabalan, Syrian Ambassador to Turkey, said on Wednesday, commenting on the latest developments in the protest-hit Middle Eastern country.

The ambassador said the lifting of emergency rule in the country, as well as a transition to a multiparty system and a law on media, was among those demands.

A new era of reforms has begun for Syria and all segments of the society are excited about the process, Kabalan said, adding that the violence should be stopped in order to ensure the effective implementation of reforms.

Regarding the role Turkey may play in the ongoing process in Syria, Kabalan said his country was thankful for its neighbor’s support on the matter and “eager to benefit from Turkey’s experiences concerning the multiparty parliamentary system.”
 
The Globe and Mail said that 4,000 university students from Daraa and surrounding areas protested near the city's al-Omari Mosque.

The news website added “Activists also said dozens of students protested Wednesday at Aleppo University in the country's north, adding there were confrontations on campus between pro and anti-government students.”

AP reported “Syrian Authorities has coupled its crackdown with a series of concessions, including an end to the state of emergency, which gives authorities almost boundless powers of surveillance and arrest.”
“Homs has been tense since clashes between protesters and security forces killed at least 12 people Sunday. On Tuesday, security forces there opened fire with live ammunition and tear gas on hundreds of anti-government demonstrators during a pre-dawn raid that killed several people.”

On Wednesday too, human rights activists said Syrian authorities arrested an opposition figure at his home during an overnight raid, hours after the government announced an end to emergency rule.

Syrian Human Rights League chief, Abdul-Karim Rihawi, said security agents picked up Mahmoud Issa from his home in the central city of Homs after an interview he gave to Al-Jazeera satellite TV late Tuesday.

Rights activist Mazen Darwish said the interview Issa gave to Al-Jazeera angered relatives of a Syrian brigadier general who was killed along with his two sons and a nephew Sunday in Homs.

The government says they were gunned down by “armed gangs” that authorities blame for the violence during anti-government protests of the past month.

Darwish said Issa, in the interview, said he didn't know who was behind the killing and called for an investigation, enraging bereaved relatives who reportedly threatened Issa before alerting the police.

Issa, who spent years in prison for his pro-democracy views, was picked up from his home shortly afterward.

Britain's Foreign Office on Wednesday said U.K. nationals should consider leaving Syria on commercial flights, after it upgraded warnings about unrest there. In a statement, the ministry said it had changed its advice “in light of the deterioration in the security situation in Syria.”

British diplomats had warned that violent clashes are anticipated between local security forces and demonstrators.

The U.S. response to the recent events in Syria reveals that the Arab revolts have not completely shaken President Obama’s faith in a misguided policy of engagement with anti-American authoritarian regimes. To date, over two hundred pro-democracy protestors have been slaughtered in a government crackdown in Syria. The U.S. response offers little to be proud of in terms of promoting American interests and ideals. Instead, it compromises both.

There have been two major moments in the U.S. approach to Syria over the course of the past several weeks. First, there were Secretary of State Clinton’s remarks which cited comments characterizing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a reformer. “Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer,” said Clinton on March 27th. Next was President Obama’s condemnation of violence on April 8th in response to the killing of approximately 20 Syrian protestors in one day.

The Obama administration needs to get a grip on two key points.

One, Assad is not a reformer. His March 30th speech confirmed as much. To be sure, Assad has made a few concessions as a result of the protests. He issued a decree granting citizenship to Kurds, lifted the government ban on teachers wearing face veils, and closed a casino. More recently, he formed a new cabinet. But the continued violence in Syria suggests his actions are not necessarily evidence of reform so much as they are attempts to placate unrest. Syrian activists are justified in continuing to push for freedom and democracy.

Two, the U.S. has little interest in Assad retaining his grip on power in Syria. President Obama’s efforts to distance Syria from its ties to Iran and Hezbollah have failed. Besides, if the ultimate goal of that policy was to weaken Iran and Hezbollah, the current situation presents a fresh opportunity to do just that.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

'Influential' voices: We should 'lend a muscular support to Syria's revolution'!

Via FLC



"... Some influential voices have been raised in protest. David Schenker, (WINEP) Levant director at the Pentagon in the Bush administration, argued in New Republic that fear of what might follow should not deter the US from pushing for Assad's departure – since nothing could be worse than him....  
Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby (presented by the Zionist Organization of America with its Ben Hecht Award for Outstanding Journalism) urged the White House to lend muscular support to the pro-democracy movement....  Elliott Abrams (no introduction necessary!), Middle East director of the US national security council under Bush, said Assad's departure was desirable because, if for no other reason, it would be a serious blow to Iran, which is said to use Syrian territory and ports to transport arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza...."
Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 3:51 PM
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Four Palestinians wounded in Gaza by IOF fire

[ 22/04/2011 - 07:29 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Three Palestinians were wounded Friday morning in IOF shelling targeting warehouses near the Mintar crossing to the east of Gaza City, while a farmer was shot and wounded on Thursday evening by IOF troops.

Spokesman for the emergency services in Gaza, Adham Abu Selmeyah, said that three Palestinians were wounded when IOF troops fired an artillery bomb towards workers in one of the factories.

The wounded men who are in their 30’s and 40’s were taken to the Shifa hospital suffering moderate wounds.

A Palestinian farmer was wounded on Thursday to the north of Beit Lahya when IOF troops opened fire at him, his wounds are moderate.

The IOF bulldozed on Thursday a number of warehouses in the industrial area near the Mintar crossing.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Mullen: 'Very soon' Iraq needs to ask us to stay ...

(Reuters)- "Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on a visit to Baghdad that Iraq would need to begin talks very soon if it wanted to alter that plan in order to avoid "irrevocable logistics and operational decisions we must make in the coming weeks."  
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said the country's police and army are ready and U.S. troops will not be needed beyond the year's end. ..."
Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 12:58 PM
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Friday, 22 April 2011

"A shift in power in Egypt hasn't changed much of the geopolitical map. A shift of power in Syria would have tremendous consequences.........."

Via FLC

Malley on NPR:
(...)
SIEGEL: Now, I understand that you did not meet directly with President Assad, but I wonder what your sense of him is. After all, he was regarded at the outset as being interested in big reforms. Then he pulled back. Does he actually want to reform things, do you think?
Mr. MALLEY: Well, in my impression, it's twofold. First of all, I think he understands the economic plight that his country faces. I mean, one would have to be blind not to see it. And to that extent, he knows that he's going to have to reform the country. On the other hand, the notion that some people have had over the years that he could reform the country against his own regime, that was the illusion, that he could turn against the very pillars of support of his regime and become a revolutionary that would lead a revolution against those who brought him to power. And that's not going to happen. And so it's not a matter of him being stuck. It's that he is part of the very regime that today is trying to save itself, and it's not going to save itself by committing suicide.

SIEGEL: How would you describe what the U.S. interest in all this is, to help the Assad regime save itself and maintain a stable Syria; to help them be thrown out so that it would thwart Iran's influence? What is the U.S. interest here?
Mr. MALLEY: I think this is one of those very complicated cases. And one could judge the complexity by the ambiguity of what the administration and the shifting tone of the administration. I don't think that they saw it as to their advantage to have instability in Syria, partly because they didn't know what's going to come next. And, you know, we don't know what's going to come next. It's not a society that the U.S. knows that well. There is a history of Islamist activism. On the other hand, of course, if you were to tell anyone in the administration that tomorrow you'd have a government that would be less pro-Iranian, that wouldn't be providing weapons to Hezbollah, that would be prepared to make peace with Israel, I think they would take it. So it's really a question of fearing the unknown, fearing instability, which could come, you know, at a great cost to many, many Syrians. You have a community of minorities, religious and ethnic minorities, who could suffer greatly. So I think the administration was hoping that the regime would reform enough. As the toll mounts every week, they're inching towards a much tougher position.
SIEGEL: You've worked in the Middle East and followed the region for years. How do you place what's happening right now in Syria in the context of the history of the region and also of uprisings in nearby countries?
Mr. MALLEY: Well, first of all, I think once again it goes to prove that nobody's immune and that it could happen anywhere, and we just will only know it after it happens. I think the paradox of the Syrian situation is, on paper, Syria's much less important than Egypt. I mean, the fact that Mubarak fell should be more significant than whether or not Bashar Assad falls. And yet, because Egyptian foreign policy basically didn't have much of a role over the past several years, the shift in power in Egypt hasn't changed much of the geopolitical map. A shift of power in Syria would have tremendous consequences for the U.S., for Iran, for Lebanon, for the rest of the region, and that's why so much is at stake..."
Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 10:54 AM
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Was it for the oil after all?

Via FLC

Anon reader sent this link:

"... Let’s not be too simplistic. In a leader the Independent was careful to point out that these documents “do not prove that the British government’s invasion was primarily motivated by a commercial desire to profit from Iraq’s oil.” And it would be “too simplistic” to present any single factor as the motivation “for this calamitous misadventure.” The only thing these documents do make clear is that oil was something that ministers were thinking about in those months prior to the invasion, contrary to their pleas otherwise. Most importantly, the Indie added, is that these documents were not reviewed by the Chilcot inquiry, which has been tasked with investigating Britain’s involvement in the Iraq invasion. “That is manifestly unsatisfactory.”..."
Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 10:40 AM
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Nuno: Our relationship with Egypt strategic

[ 22/04/2011 - 03:20 PM ]
GAZA, (PIC)-- Tahir Al-Nuno, the spokesman of the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip, has stressed Thursday that his government was and still is keen on building strong and healthy relationship with Egypt, describing the Palestinian-Egyptian ties as strategic.

"We understand the priorities of the Egyptian government at this point of time as it focuses on arranging the Egyptian internal home after the great developments that had occurred, and we believe that Egypt carries very important files as far as the Palestinian issue is concerned," Nuno said as he met with Baha'a Al- Dusoki, the chairman of Palestine department in the Egyptian foreign affairs ministry, in Cairo where they discussed a number of issues, including the Rafah crossing point.

In this regard, Nuno expressed the confidence of the Palestinian government in Egypt's ability in dealing with the Palestinian reconciliation file, stressing his government's keenness on achieving that reconciliation.

"The Palestinian people and government totally support Egypt till it reaches the state of complete stability," Nuno said, stressing the urgency of taking a number of measures to facilitate travel across the Rafah crossing point being the only gateway that links the Gaza Strip with the rest of the world.

For his part, Dusoki stressed Egypt's keenness on achieving the Palestinian reconciliation and to restore Palestinian unity and that won't relax till such things are realized.

On the issue of the Rafah crossing, Dusoki explained that Egypt was mulling a number of measures that could facilitate the movement of the Palestinian people through it without giving Israel any chance to benefit from it, saying that such measures won't take long time although they were linked with certain factors that Egypt is trying to achieve.

Palestinian gov't urges Cairo to enhance travel through Rafah crossing
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

PASSOVER: Remembering The Holocaust of Ancient Israelites

The Exodus from Egypt, a story refuted
by historians and archeologists.
April 22, 2011 posted by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

“Even With archeology aside and relying only on your sane mind you would still reach the same conclusion; the exodus never happened”

Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

History is passed over at the Jewish Passover

What is Passover?

Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, is an eight-day spring holiday that celebrates the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.

What is the Exodus?

It is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.
The Hebrew Bible is the pride and joy of every Jew. It is the book of Yahweh, their chosen God, as they are his chosen people.

In Judaism, all the tales of kings and prophets, of conquests and defeats, of captivity and Diaspora and of a united kingdom and some holy temple, it all depended on this ancient story of enslavement and suffering of the ancient Israelites in Egypt under an allegedly ruthless and heathen Egyptian king, or what the Hebrew Bible mistakenly called Pharaoh.

But strange enough, and according to historians of the ancient Near East, Egypt was no land of the heathens, On the contrary, it was exactly in Egypt where the human conscience dawned on earth. The ancient Egyptian civilization which sprouted along the banks of the river Nile, had been mostly of religious and ethical legacy that heavily influenced the way religion had evolved on earth.

This story of exodus is the corner stone of the Israelites’ narrative throughout history; it is their favorite ancient melodrama upon which they claimed divine rights to the land of ancient Canaan.

They simply stripped the fertile portion of the land from its indigenous Canaanites and proclaimed it theirs by Yahweh’s decree. This has gloomy echoes of the present day story of the land grip and the ethnic cleansing of the descendants of Canaanites, the Palestinians, by the modern Jews, the Israelis.

Following the WWII, the modern Jews used, or rather exploited, the story of the calamity of the mass killing and the concentration camps as a non- negotiable pretext to displace the Palestinians and take their land to be their new Zionist state declared by a biased UN decree.

Likewise, the ancient Israelites embarked on their imaginary narrative of an ancient kingdom after they had successfully fled out of the horrors and years of alleged torture and persecution in ancient Egypt.
Two million Israelites exited Egypt without
leaving any archeological trace

Ancient holocaust

In a way, the Exodus after years of unbearable suffering and humiliation on the hands of the Egyptian empire seemed as if it was the Holocaust of the ancient Israelites but with sparing the ovens’ part.

But while we have historical evidence of the holocaust, which the Zionist media managed to augment dramatically, the suffering of the Israelites in ancient Egypt and the exodus stand refuted and totally unsubstantiated as far as history is concerned.

A century of research by renowned archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence, what so ever, which can be directly related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels, for 40 years, through the wilderness of Sinai.

Even more, throughout the entire and long span of the ancient Egyptian kingdom (3100-332 BC) there had been absolutely no mention or any evidence of Egyptians mistreating or isolating foreigners in certain ghettoes. On the contrary Egypt was the world trade center of the ancient times with its markets and trade routes replete with foreigners from the Far East, the Mediterranean coast and the African horn in the south.
According to Exodus 12:37-38, the Israelites numbered “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children,” plus many non-Israelites and livestock. Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550. The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the “mixed multitude” of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people.

A crowd of that multitude couldn’t have passed through the peninsula of Sinai at the eastern Egyptian borders uncommented upon or without leaving an archeological trace. But that what we have on hand, as modern archeologists- including Israelis- have declared after failing to find any shred of historical evidence of the exodus or the encampment for 40 years in Sinai. They found not a piece of broken pottery or a small bone or even a left behind vessel, absolutely nothing.

And while history is unable to recall any memories of the Exodus and archeology refutes it ever happened in the first place, the Hebrew Bible laden with historical anachronisms remains the only source of information behind this imaginary mega-event.

Even With archeology aside and relying only on your sane mind you would still reach the same conclusion; the exodus never happened.

Zombie revenge

Playing back the catastrophic scenes of the unbelievable ten plagues that hit Egypt by the avenging god of the israelites, you would wonder how such a horrendous scale of devastation could have taken place without being mentioned in the scrolls of ancient Egypt, which apart from all ancient world civilizations, is recognized for its meticulous documentation of its history and state affairs.

Egyptian scribes with their inscriptions on the temples and papyri kept a fairly accurate record of the chronicles of ancient Egypt.
But never a reference to such alleged Exodus had been mentioned in the Egyptian records.
Not even once, the Exodus or the ancient Israelites were mentioned in the Egyptian documents while the Exodus is referred to around 150 times in the Bible with pharaoh mentioned alone around 20 times.
What does that tell us?
May be the Israelites were so insignificant and unessential the Egyptians never noticed their existence or bothered to. As a matter of fact, and according to modern archeology, the Israelites were a bunch of herders at the eastern borders of the kingdom with the Egyptians referring to them as the filthy and impure Asians for they were known for their unhygienic outlook and practices and by their notorious reputation as plunderers.
According to the zombie revenge type of Yahweh, the river Nile turned into blood, the land of Egypt had been menacingly fraught with the perils of flocks of frogs, lice, flies, locusts and wild animals and under the abrupt and total shutdown of daylight the first-born of all humans and animals were mercilessly killed by the passing over angel of death.

And amidst that horror and disaster the Israelites were busy looting Egyptian treasures while their god was joyfully watching. They had to leave Egypt in a hurry before the pharaoh and his army could catch them and impede their majestic exit.
Egyptian empire at the time of the Exodus.
Egyptian empire at the time of the Exodus.


The exodus from and into Egypt

And now to the funny part of this exodus story.

Due to the Hebrew scribes’ lack of geographical knowledge concerning the borders of the Egyptian empire and its sovereignty at the time, and lacking any GPS satellite technology, it somehow slipped their attention that going out of Sinai and entering Canaan did not necessarily mean exiting Egypt, as Canaan was just another Egyptian territory with fortified Egyptian garrisons and check points everywhere.

Reviewing that horror stories of the Passover you can’t help but to wonder how ancient Egypt – in the absence of anything like the UN relief efforts in our modern times- ever managed to escape total annihilation and collapse.
If those natural disasters ever stroke the land of the Nile simultaneously and in that extreme manner that had been depicted in the Hebrew bible, ancient Egypt would have been wiped off the map permanently or at least collapsed as an economical, military and political power.

Historians are inclined to place the exodus at the middle 15 century BC, but curiously enough, Egypt at that time- the new kingdom time- was at its pinnacle of strength and prosperity. During that period of time, ancient Egypt with great kings like Thutmose III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun reigned over an empire reaching eastward to the borders of Iran and Syria and southward to the sources of the Blue Nile in Sudan.
Simply, Egypt was the super power of the ancient world at that time and for centuries to follow.
To cut a long story short, and according to archeologists and geologists; the Passover environmental disasters along with the presence of those hundreds of thousands afflicted Israelites is nothing but a myth that runs counter to the archeological truth, environmental geology facts and chronicles of ancient Egypt.
And if history stands skeptical about this tale of the Exodus from ancient Egypt, what does that say about the rest of the ancient Israelites’ narrative that happened to depend primarily on this story and regard it as self-evident and totally axiomatic.

After thousands of years, the exodus memory had transformed, for modern Jews, into matzah snacks and gathering around the Seder meal while telling the story of the exodus to the children so that it would grow up with them to be retold again to their children.

And this is how historical authority is being systematically undermined every passing year at the Passover. And this is why the Jews are absolutely the best storytellers ever.

For more articles by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat visit his website
Related articles:

- DR. ASHRAF EZZAT: The Egyptian Torah

- The exodus from Egyptology

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Ban: ‘Hizbullah needs to be disarmed’

Posted on April 22, 2011 by rehmat1

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon submitted the 13th Biannual Report on Resolution 1559. The report was prepared by Ki-Moon’s special envoy Terje Rod Larsen. In the report he tells Lebanese how to run their national affairs in order to be accepted by the US-Israel-UN occupied ‘civilized world’.

Terje Rod Larsen PhD (born 1947), is a Norwegian diplomat and politician. Since 2004, Larsen has been the president of the International Peace Institute, a neocon think tank. He is one the most fanatic Zionist among the UN staff.

The report insists on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which was adopted in 2004, that the presence of armed Resistance groups in Lebanon continues to threaten security in the country as well as the region, urging a formal border delineation with Syria. However, the report doesn’t mention the fact that it is the Zionist terrorist state which has been a threat to the security of Lebanon and its other Arab neighboring countries – by military invasions and occupation of parts of those countries.

Interestingly, the report calls Beirut for the “formal border delineation with Syria” but doesn’t mention Israel, which is only country in the world with no internationally recognized borders with all its neighboring countries.
Ki-Moon also insisted the importance of the implementation of the judgement (not known to anyone except the US and Israel) of the UN Special Tribunal on Lebanon (STL). Hizbullah and some Christian leaders have called STL an Israeli Project.

Ban issued an appeal to the Hizbullah leadership to “disarm and transform into an exclusively political party.” Ban also called on regional states to “support and assist” Hizbullah in its disarmament, “in the best interest of regional peace and stability.”

In response to Ki-Moon’s rant, Hezbollah said, “it is not new to UN Secretary General to take unjust and unfair positions in its point view of the situation in Lebanon, particularly to hold Hezbollah responsible for all the problems facing Lebanon is the nature of the task that the U.S. administration and some Western governments have entrusted and that applies with accuracy.”

Hezbollah described the UN special envoy to the Middle East, Terje Roed Larsen as “international official servant in the Zionist media system that reflects the full participation of hostility towards the Resistance, Lebanon, Arabs and all just causes in the world.”

Last year, Terje Rod Larsen, in his report to Ki-Moon had asked Lebanese government to disarm Palestinian resistance groups in the Bekaa and stop arms smuggling from Syria to these groups – based on the claim made by a reputed liar, Israeli President Shimon Peres.

So, why the western powers insist on disarming Hizbullah – because it’s the only Arab force which had defeated Jewish Army in Summer 2006.
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"peacefull" protests



تحت ستار "سلمية سلمية" يندسون بين المواطنين ليقتلهم ويزرعون الفتنة

 



River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Rising above

عصفور طل من الشباك



By Nahida the Exiled Palestinian


Rising above



Soaked in humiliation
Standing in the corner
Of the -security check- cubical
All alone
No mum to hold my hand
Or calm down my fear
No dad to hide my shame
And wipe my tears away
No shoes, no socks, no clothes
Not even underwear
After being stripped
By her…





The stern face
Of this woman soldier
Was looking down at me
In fury and contempt

She started her interrogation:
Where are you going to?
Palestine, my little shaky voice replied
Where are you going to? louder and firmer
Palestine, swiftly this time
There is no Palestine, do you understand
No more Palestine
Where are you going? shouting with rage
Palestine, assertively
Determined to deny her the pleasure
Of hearing the word
She wanted to hear

A refugee, visiting my stolen Palestine
For the first time
Since the occupation
A little girl of nine
Defiant, full of dignity, I leave
Holding in my heart
My very own victory


Shouldn’t Libyan rebels be thanking Israel?

America's unrequited love for Israel

From the New York Times:

U.S. Sen. John McCain, one of the strongest proponents in Congress of the American military intervention in Libya, said Friday that Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi’s troops are his heroes.

The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee made the remark after arriving in Benghazi, a city that has been the opposition capital in the rebel-held eastern Libya.
McCain said he was in Benghazi “to get an on the ground assessment of the situation” and planned to meet with the rebel National Transition Council, the de-facto government in the eastern half of the country, and members of the rebel military.
“They are my heroes,” McCain said of the rebels as he walked out of a local hotel in Benghazi. He was traveling in an armored Mercedes jeep and had a security detail. A few Libyans waved American flags as his vehicle drove past.
If the democracy training programs of the National Endowment for Democracy’s GOP half, the International Republican Institute, fail to achieve the desired outcome, its chairman can always help “expand the frontiers of freedom” with promises of drone strikes. But if the grateful Libyans knew anything about where McCain’s allegiance lies, shouldn’t they have been waving Israeli flags instead?



Written by Maidhc Ó Cathail
April 22, 2011 at 11:59 am

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Jews Expressing Their Love for Jesus

By Richard Edmondson

On this very day, almost 20 centuries ago, Jesus, a man who said love your enemies, was put to death in Jerusalem. It was a criminal act engineered by a Roman governor as well as Jewish collaborators on the Sanhedrin. And while Jesus, to be sure, had a large number of followers, his execution seems to have been much approved of by a fairly good-sized crowd on hand that day, a crowd that probably was representative of a significant percentage of the population. As I argued in two recent posts (see here and here ), Jewish racism, the very same racism we see in Israel today spewing forth from a number of rabbis, played a significant role in these events.

Jesus’ message was one of peace and equality amongst all peoples and nations, and his telling of certain parables, particularly that of the Good Samaritan, would have riled sensibilities and aroused to fury those convinced of Jewish “chosenness.” Such people yearned not for a prince of peace, but a warrior-messiah, a “king of the Jews,” who would conquer and destroy their enemies and turn the Gentile nations into their “footstools,” as Psalm 99 so niftily puts it. The teachings of this Galilean, and particularly those teachings given voice in the Sermon on the Mount and the Good Samaritan parable, would have been viewed contemptuously by these nationalist and staunchly segregationist Jews, some of whom preached that a Jew became defiled by the mere act of entering a Gentile’s house. Other aspects of Jewish law (the so-called “oral law” that Jesus denounced) reinforced this same sense of superiority and separateness. For instance, if a knife had been handled by a Gentile it had to be reground, while pottery vessels touched by Gentile lips were disposed of.

What it boils down to is this: as Jesus went about speaking to the crowds, he encountered Jews with “ears to hear,” and who very much were able to detect the melisma of sublime bliss in the flow of his words; these Jews, in many cases, became his followers. Others, however, grew into his most vociferous enemies. And as the videos below show, today, some 20 centuries later, there are still Jews who detest this Holy Man and everything he stood for.

Mannerly Israeli settlers pay a courtesy call...



A warm sense of humor...




Zionist hospitality and tolerance for other religions...



Jesus portrayed on late night Israeli TV...




Crucifixion comedy...




The right to mock--"because we are Jews"




Jesus finally defended--on Al Manar, a Lebanese TV station operated by Hezbollah...




The same Al Manar report, with English subtitles...




Muslim girl says, "I love Jesus."




***

It is time for American Christians, who make up 80 percent of the U.S. population, to wake up and realize who their real friends are in the Middle East, and to come to understand that our friends, most assuredly, are NOT the Israelis.

Peace with justice!

End aid to Israel!

Christians and Muslims unite!


It is also time American Christians began giving some serious thought to the following…


A question that begs to be asked:

The territory into which I’m about to venture normally, here in America, will get you branded an “anti-Semite” in a heartbeat, with the resultant side effects that that customarily entails (the “Helen Thomas” treatment, job loss, being shunned from polite society, etc.). But given claims over Palestine asserted by Zionists with no previous connection to the land, based upon Old Testament narratives about conversations between God and Moses purported to have taken place more than 3,000 years ago—claims which we hear made to the point of redundancy and which have resulted in bloodshed for the last 60-plus years—it becomes a legitimate question to ask. No. Scratch that. With Palestinians dying on an almost daily basis, with our own country embroiled in multiple wars in the Middle East and North Africa, hostilities all being fought, coincidentally, against Israel’s enemies, this is a question which begs, which literally cries out to be asked. The question is this:

If God gave “the land of Israel” to the Jews—and once again we hear this claim made over and over—what happened? Why did God allow the Jews to be crushed by the Romans in 70 A.D. and again in 135 A.D.? Is it possible the Jews may have done something to offend God, and if so, what, pray tell, might it have been? Following the defeat of 135 A.D., a good many Jews remained on the land (and later converted to Islam), but the “Jewish homeland” at that time went out of existence. It remained out of existence all the way up until the year 1948—a time span of more than 18 centuries. How is it God would have allowed the Jews to suffer such a debacle?

To borrow a somewhat crude but applicable modern day colloquialism, “they must have f#@ked up really big time.”


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Qabaha urges Abbas to release Natsheh from jail

[ 22/04/2011 - 01:59 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Former minister of the prisoners and ex-prisoners Wasfi Qabaha has urged Thursday Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to immediately release Palestinian businessman Nabil Al-Natsheh from PA jails.

According to Qabaha, the persistent detention of Palestinian leaders and prominent figures in the Palestinian community in PA jails contradicts the allegations of Fatah Movement of being keen on ending the Palestinian internal rift, stressing that Natsheh has an honorable record in serving the Palestinian people.
"Indeed, I expected that Abbas would order the release of all Palestinian political prisoners incarcerated in his jails across the West Bank on the Palestinian Prisoner Day, but sad to say it didn’t happen," Qabaha said in a statement he issued on Thursday.

He said that he passed a message of appeal through Palestinian prominent figure and businessman Munib Al-Masri on two occasion urging him to release Natsheh and other Muslim figures in Al-Khalil city, including Nedal Al-Qawasmi, Anas Rasras, Bilal Al-Muhtaseb, Zain Shabaneh, Anwar Haerb, Mohammed Al-Kharoof and others but to no avail.

Natsheh, according to Qabaha, suffers of neck cancer and that his health was badly deteriorating while in solitary confinement where he lives in extremely harsh conditions, underlining that the bad treatment and humiliation he received at the hands of the PA security forces couldn’t be grasped and imagined by the Palestinian people.

"The fact that the detention of Natsheh persisted despite all those appeals and in spite of his clean record indicates that there was indeed a group that doesn’t want to achieve the Palestinian national reconciliation.

In this regard, Qabaha called for the establishment of a wide and comprehensive national campaign to pressure the PA in Ramallah into releasing all political prisoners from jail, stressing that "chivalry and the principle of supporting the oppressed call on us to do so. "We can't accept the humiliation of the symbols of the Palestinian people at any cost," he stressed.

For their part, families of the kidnapped Palestinian citizens in Abbas’s jails didn’t buy the allegations of Fatah that it was striving hard to end the Palestinian internal rift, underscoring that he who indeed want to achieve national reconciliation shouldn’t arrest and torture his fellow Palestinians just because they oppose him politically.

Palestinian legislator MP Mohammed Abu Juhaisha, for his part, condemned the detention of Natsheh, stressing that Natsheh should be honored not denigrated, calling on high-profile and family leaders in Al-Khalil city to join hands in pressuring the PA into freeing him immediately and unconditionally.

Natsheh, who spent years in Israeli occupation jails and was among the 415 Palestinian leaders deported by the Israeli occupation authorities to south Lebanon in 1992, was kidnapped on December 7, 2010 at the hands of elements of the infamous preventive security apparatus in Al-Khalil city. No charges were tabled against him till now.
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