Friday, 20 January 2012

Helicopter Crash Kills Six US Troops in Afghanistan - Over 40 Israeli Paratroopers Injured during Exercise- Four French Troops Killed 16 wounded in Afghanistan

Local Editor
Six US occupation troops were killed on Thursday as their helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan.

Officials said the helicopter, a CH-53 Sea Stallion, went down in the volatile Helmand province, adding that the crash was not a result of enemy fire.
"Initial indications are that this was not hostile fire”, US official indicated.

The dead were members of the US military, another US official told Agence France Press.

In a brief statement, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the cause of the crash was "under investigation."
"However, initial reporting indicates there was no enemy activity in the area at the time of the crash," it said.

The Sea Stallion is a heavy transport aircraft capable of carrying about 40 people. The US officials did not say whether anyone else was on board, other than the six victims.

An ISAF spokesman told AFP in Kabul that the crash occurred late on Thursday local time.
Source: AFP


Over 40 Israeli Paratroopers Injured during Exercise
Local Editor
More than 43 Israeli paratroopers were moved to Soroka Medical Center in the Israeli settlement of Beer Sheeva, after they were injured while practicing parachuting, Israeli Channel 10 reported Wednesday night, indicating that some of them were suffering fractures in various parts of their bodies.

“More than 35 soldiers are still suffering injuries in their backs and other parts, and 40 of them are lying in the hospital,” Channel 10 added.

A Zionist military spokeswoman had earlier stated that “over 1000 paratrooper in the army took part in Tuesday and Wednesday’s military maneuver that included parachuting in the Al-Naqab desert.”

“The goal out of this maneuver is to examine the soldiers’ potentials in airdropping around 1000 soldier in 70 minutes,” she added.

Four French Troops Killed 16 wounded in Afghanistan

Local Editor
Four French soldiers were shot dead and 16 were wounded by a member of the Afghan army in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, a NATO spokesman and Afghan officials said.
A spokesman for NATO forces said four NATO troops were killed and the shooter had been arrested, but did not give the nationality of the troops.
Later Friday, France suspended all training and joint operations in Afghanistan and President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was mulling an early withdrawal.
"The French army is alongside its allies but we cannot accept that a single one of our soldiers be wounded or killed by our allies, it's unacceptable," Sarkozy said.
He dispatched Defense Minister Gerard Longuet to Afghanistan.
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe also said that France wants "credible assurances" about Afghan recruits or the withdrawal of French troops will be accelerated.
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Asia-Pacific and coming US war for oil/gas


Un-noticed under the Zioncons’ war drum-beating against Syria and Iran – the Ziocon think tanks like Center for a New American Security (CNAS) are preparing groundwork for Obama administration’s new deadly war against China for the control of South China Sea. The Washington-based CNAS in its latest report stated: “The geostrategic significance of the South China Sea is difficult to overstate. To the extent that the world economy has a geographical center, it is in the South China Sea.”
Nearly 50% of the goods transported between continents by ship go through the South China Sea, accounting for $1.2 trillion in US trade annually. The area has vast, largely untapped natural resources – including oil reserves of seven billion barrels and an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Early this month, after America’s defeat in Iraq – Obama announced US military focus away from Iraq and Afghanistan and renewed commitment to assert America’s position in the Asia-Pacific region. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Asia-Pacific region is growing in importance for the US economy and national security, so the nation needed to maintain “our military’s technological edge and freedom of action”.

China was quick to warn the US to keep its dirty fingers away from the South China Sea. Our national defense modernization serves the objective requirements of national security and development and also plays an active role in maintaining regional peace and stability. It will not pose any threat to any country,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.

Numerous US submarines, both nuclear and non-nuclear have long been guarding US interests in South China Sea for a long time. However, recently, China has declared its presence as an act of aggression in China’s territorial water. In March 2010 Chinese assistant minister of foreign affairs Cui Tiankai told visiting US deputy secretary of state James Steinberg and the US national security council’s Jeffrey Bader that China viewed the South China Sea as part of China’s “core interests”, on a par with Taiwan and Tibet.

The discovery of huge oil/gas reserves has started under-water arms race among the other South China Sea littoral states, like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and Brunei. China has over 60 submarines including nine nuclear-powered – to counter US Navy exploiting some of these states’ claims against China.

On the larger scale, the US by challenging China in the South China Sea has created tens of billion dollars business for armament industry. Australia is spending $36 billion to upgrade its Navy. North Korea is expanding its large fleet of mini-submarines. Japan is adding another eight to its existing 16 boat-fleet. South Korea is selling mini-submarines to Indonesia. Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and Bangladesh. Germany has sold three submarine to Israel. India has bought submarines from Russia and Israel.

On January 3, 2012 – former US Jewish ambassador to Australia, Ronald S. Lauder, in his column in the New York Post, wrote: “It’s time the Israelis “went deep”. That is, it’s time they took their submarine force and reinvented it as a strategic deterrent against a potentially nuclear-armed Iran and its terrorist surrogates seeking to literally wipe Israel off the map“. Could someone, please, tell the Zionist bigot that the only country “literally wipe off the map” – is 5,000-year-old Palestine, and the miracle was achieved by Lauder’s Jewish terrorist brothers from Europe and Australia.

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Jewish student: ‘Why I stopped defending Israel?’


Jessie Lieberfeld is 11 grade student at Winchester Thurston School, a private coeducational school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylania. The school has been named a national leader among college preparatory independent schools for innovative teaching, gifted and talented education and distinctive campus setting.

Two WT juniors, Jessie Lieberfeld and Erika Drain, tied for the first place at Carnegie Mellon University’s Martin Luther King Day Writing Awards on January 16, 2012.

The title of Jessie Lieberfeld’s essay was Fighting a Forbidden Battle: How I Stopped Covering Up for a Hidden Wrong.

“I once belonged to a wonderful religion. I belonged to a religion that allows those of us who believe in it to feel that we are the greatest people in the world—and feel sorry for ourselves at the same time. Once, I thought that I truly belonged in this world of security, self-pity, self-proclaimed intelligence, and perfect moral aesthetic. I thought myself to be somewhat privileged early on. It was soon revealed to me, however, that my fellow believers and I were not part of anything so flattering,” wrote Jessie Lieberfeld.

I was forever reminded how intelligent my family was, how important it was to remember where we had come from, and to be proud of all the suffering our people had overcome in order to finally achieve their dream in the perfect society of Israel,”wrote Jessie.

This last mandatory belief was one which I never fully understood, but I always kept the doubts I had about Israel’s spotless reputation to the back of my mind. “Our people” were fighting a war, one I did not fully comprehend, but I naturally assumed that it must be justified. We would never be so amoral as to fight an unjust war. Yet as I came to learn more about our so-called “conflict” with the Palestinians, I grew more concerned. I routinely heard about unexplained mass killings, attacks on medical bases, and other alarmingly violent actions for which I could see no possible reason. “Genocide” almost seemed the more appropriate term, yet no one I knew would have ever dreamed of portraying the war in that manner; they always described the situation in shockingly neutral terms. Whenever I brought up the subject, I was always given the answer that there were faults on both sides, that no one was really to blame, or simply that it was a “difficult situation.” It was not until eighth grade that I fully understood what I was on the side of. One afternoon, after a fresh round of killings was announced on our bus ride home, I asked two of my friends who actively supported Israel what they thought. “We need to defend our race,” they told me. “It’s our right,” says Jessie.

We need to defend our race.” Where had I heard that before? Wasn’t it the same excuse our own country had used to justify its abuses of African-Americans sixty years ago? In that moment, I realized how similar the two struggles were—like the white radicals of that era, we controlled the lives of another people whom we abused daily, and no one could speak out against us. It was too politically incorrect to do so. We had suffered too much, endured too many hardships, and overcome too many losses to be criticized. I realized then that I was in no way part of a “conflict”—the term “Israeli/Palestinian Conflict” was no more accurate than calling the Civil Rights Movement the “Caucasian/ African-American Conflict.” In both cases, the expression was a blatant euphemism: it gave the impression that this was a dispute among equals and that both held an equal share of the blame. However, in both, there was clearly an oppressor and an oppressed, and I felt horrified at the realization that I was by nature on the side of the oppressors. I was grouped with the racial supremacists. I was part of a group that killed while praising its own intelligence and reason. I was part of a delusion,” wrote Jessie.

It was different not being the ideal nice Jewish boy. The difference was subtle, yet by no means unaffecting. To hold unchallengeable beliefs, and to contrive illusions of superiority to avoid having to face simple everyday truths. That illusion was nice while it lasted, but I decided to pass it up. I have never been happier,” concludes Jessie Lieberfeld.
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"Jewish state" is euphemism for Jewish fascism

By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine

Benyamin Netanyahu, the notorious liar-prime minister of the apartheid Zionist regime, has been regurgitating his characteristic racist venom of late. He has been quoted as saying that the root-cause of the Palestinian question is "the persistent Palestinian refusal to accept a Jewish state."

Speaking at a synagogue in the Netherlands during a recent visit during which he reportedly discussed "mounting international hostility to Israel," Netanyahu argued that Israel was a "beleaguered democracy, confronting great threats and challenges.

"There are those who cast Israel as a pariah state every time we exercise the inherent right of self defense."

Well, for those people who are closely aware of the basic realities of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, Netanyahu's words are tantamount to fornicating with words and truth.

The fact that Netanyahu's mendacious words find their way to publication in the media doesn't alter this fact. A publicized big lie is still a big lie, even if and when uttered and repeated by famous people.

The truth of the matter is that Israel is a huge crime against humanity, a thoroughly deformed entity that is based on genocidal ethnic cleansing, brash racism, sheer brutality, oppression and mendacity. It is a psychotic country that views every conceivable crime and violation of international laws and norms as "legitimate self-defense."

Take for example the incessant demand that Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. One would get a cacophony of answers as to the exact meaning of a "Jewish state" depending on whom you ask.

However, it is amply clear that the most credible and authentic answer one would get is that a Jewish state is one that rules according to Halacha, or Jewish religious laws as codified in the Talmud.

Hence, it would be a mockery of language and an insult to common sense to claim that Israel can be both a democratic and Jewish state.

The two are simply an eternal oxymoron since one constitutes the anti-thesis of the other.

One of the most fundamental aspects of democracy is that all citizens, irrespective of their races, sexes, ad faiths, are treated equally under the law. However, according to halacha, non-Jews living under Jewish religious law are viewed as water carriers and wood hewers. In other words, full-fledged slaves.

Often ignorant and naïve westerners don't always fully understand this matter and may be prompted to view Jewish racism even in an anecdotal manner. However, one should always be unflinching in viewing facts as facts, and Jewish racism, with all its ugly and virulent manifestations, is a solid fact of life that only people who lack intellectual honesty would deny or downplay.

Some Israeli apologists would strive to argue that Talmudic laws, which establish inherent and intrinsic superiority of Jews over non-Jews, can be moderated to give a semblance of justice to Gentile citizens of the state.

However, it is clear that such an argument is a tendentious evasive tactic at best and a deliberate and malicious lie at worst.

In fact, Israel is already applying the spirit if not the letter of Talmudic laws in many spheres against non-Jews in both " Israel" and the "occupied territories."

Indeed, whether we are talking about budgets for local councils, water allocation, and basic treatment before courts, citizenship laws, or any other conceivable aspect of life, institutionalized discrimination and racism against non-Jews is the modus operandi of that treatment.

In short, non-Jews can't find equality or justice in a Zionist let alone a Jewish state.

Today, Israel is drifting into a convulsive mood of religious fascism and right-wing secular jingoism. The alliance between these two conspicuous trends in Israel puts Israel in a situation resembling Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s whereby blatant and violent racism is the prevalent model.

When invoking the German-Nazi paradigm, we have to keep in mind that the holocaust didn't start with Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Bergen Belsen but with something that was ostensibly much less nefarious, like for example the anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws, Mien Kampf and the virulent Nazi indoctrination, e.g. the Hitler Youth organization. Kristalnacht, which occurred in November, 1938, was a delayed effect of a cause that had evolved steadily and gradually throughout Nazi Germany.

We can easily draw many genuine similarities between Nazi Germany, especially in the 10-15 years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, and Israel today, especially under the current premiership of Netanyahu.

This week, the Israeli and foreign media reported that Israel has effectively expelled as many as 10,000 Palestinian children form East Jerusalem because one of their parents didn't possess residency rights in the occupied Arab town.

No similar or even remotely similar action has been taken against Jews. This means that draconian and highly vindictive measures, such as violent ethnic cleansing, are reserved for non-Jews in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories just as was the case in German prior to the holocaust.

In addition to that, Israel is beginning to apply brashly discriminatory laws against whoever wishing to obtain the Israeli citizenship. According to one law, approved by the Knesset and government last year, anyone seeking the Israeli citizenship would have to recognize that Israel is a Jewish state and that non-Jews can't hope for equal rights and treatment.

But the said law can actually lead to much harsher ramifications and repercussions not sufficiently expressed in its rather euphemistic wording.

The law can enable law-enforcing authorities to harass, evict and even deport a Gentile, e.g. Arab citizen. Some Jewish religious authorities have already produced Talmudic interpretations that would allow a Jew to even murder a Gentile in order to extract his or her organ if the Jew needed one.

It is true such morbid and sickening ideas are not widespread among the religious elite in Israel. But it is also true that equally nefarious practices and beliefs are condoned and readily accepted by Talmudic sages who are wielding excessive political power in the Jewish state, including the army.

Take for example, Ovadia Yosef, the charismatic spiritual leader of the Haredi party, Shas.

Last year, this man was quoted as saying during a Sabbath homily in West Jerusalem that non-Jews, whether Muslim or Christian or even Hindu were actually beasts of burden, such as donkeys, whom the Almighty created solely to serve Jews, the master race, the chosen people. His comments raised no eyebrows among the religious or political establishments in Israel. Those few people who criticized him did so on the ground that his offensive statements constituted a public relations disaster. But virtually none, rabbis or otherwise, disputed the halachic validity of Yosef's utterances.

Yosef is not a marginal figure in Israel. He commands the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of ultra-fundamentalist Jews. He is also the undisputed guru of the Shas party, an ultimate kingmaker in the Israeli government and Knesset. The current Israeli minister of interior Eli Yeshai is answerable to Yosef.

It is really sad and dangerous when we see much of the international community pays little attention to Jewish fascism, and instead pay disproportionate attention to fragmentary incidents of Muslim extremism.

Yes, all kinds and forms of extremism must be dealt with, mainly by examining and treating underlying causes and often legitimate grievances. However, the often pornographic hypocrisy of giving Israel a virtual carte blanche to practice apartheid and fascism against a helpless people while exerting unrelenting pressures on Muslims will not solve any problem. On the contrary, it would confound and complicate existing problems.

Israel's days of infamy are too many to count, and no amount of America's criminal connivance with the Jewish state can obliterate this fact.

But the worst is yet to come as Israel is sealing the door to any dignified peace settlement with the Palestinians by making the establishment of a viable Palestinian state virtually impossible.

In conclusion, Israel today is Nazi Germany of yesterday. The tools and ideas are strikingly similar. In Germany, they had the master race mantra, and in Israel they invoke the Chosen People in order to arrogate the rights of non-Jews.

In Germany, they had the lebensraum (breathing space) and in Israel they keep talking about Erez Yisrael hashlema or Greater land of Israel.

In Germany, the main tool of attaining hegemony was military force. The same thing is being done in Israel where military might, not justice, is what makes things right or wrong.

I know that the Jewish clout in America and Europe makes it hard for a popular uprising against the Nazis of our time. However, the world, including the United States, Israel's guardian-ally, would suffer disastrously if it didn't move, sooner than later, to stem the tide of Jewish Nazism.

IOF Aresst Palestinian Speaker to prevent the PLC from convening

Dweik: I was arrested to prevent the PLC from convening


AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Dr. Aziz Dweik, said on Friday that his arrest by the IOF aimed at stopping Palestinian reconciliation and to continue to disable the PLC.

Dr. Dweik added, in a letter he sent with his lawyer from the Ofer military prison, that the IOF arrested him to stop the PLC convening in early February as was planned.

He called on PA President Mahmoud Abbas to call the PLC to convene and to open it for West Bank members of the PLC to discuss the occupation’s breaches against representatives of the Palestinian people and take necessary measures.

The PA in Ramallah kept the PLC gates closed since the split between Fatah and Hamas took place and it was hoped that as the reconciliation starts taking effect the PLC will be able to function as normal as possible despite the fact that over 20 lawmakers are jailed by the Israeli occupation.

Dr. Dweik was detained on Thursday evening by IOF troops at the Jaba’ roadblock near Ramallah while on his way with his family to his home in al-Khalil.

Local Editor

Israeli occupation forces arrested on Thursday Palestinian Parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik in the West Bank.

Dweik, a senior politician and a member of Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, was arrested at an army checkpoint, his chief of staff, Bhaa Youssef, told Agence France Press.

The arrest happened in Jaba between Ramallah and Jerusalem as Dr Dweik was travelling by car to Hebron, Youssef added.

Witnesses said that Israeli soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded Dr Dweik before taking him to an unknown destination.

The Zionist entity has confirmed the arrest, with Israeli border troops claiming Dweik was detained for "involvement in terrorist activities".

Occupation forces have targeted Dweik before. In 2006, after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas during a cross-border raid, the Zionist entity arrested Dweik and others and kept him in jail for nearly three years.


GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya demanded the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah city to halt its peace talks with the Israeli occupation state in response to its kidnapping of legislative council speaker Aziz Dweik.

In his Friday Khutba (sermon), premier Haneyya described the kidnapping of Aziz Dweik as a crime and called for responding to it through allowing the Palestinian legislative council to convene in the West Bank.
The premier also condemned the PA's talks with Israel as failed and frivolou, and said Palestinians should not shake hands with Israelis who kidnap their legitimate representatives.
He stressed that the PA should be serious about achieving national reconciliation with its rivals and end its security cooperation with the Israeli occupation.
In another context, premier Haneyya received in his house on Friday afternoon a delegation from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and occupied Jerusalem who came to express their support for Gaza people and their legitimate leadership.
Haneyya hailed the Arab peoples for their ongoing support for Gaza people, especially during the hegemony of some tyrants over their countries.
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Some Jews Are Offended By The Truth!!! (must watch)

DateWednesday, January 18, 2012 at 4:56PM AuthorGilad Atzmon
The wandering who- Gilad Atzmon
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Israel Plans Major Gaza War

by Stephen Lendman


My PhotoIsrael already threatens war on Iran. It’s also involved with Washington, Turkey, Jordan, and other rogue Arab states behind Syria’s externally generated insurgency.

Gaza’s also threatened. On January 1, Haaretz writer Amos Harel headlined “Will 2012 bring another Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza?” saying:
Repeated Israeli air strikes and incursions target Gaza. Perhaps they precede a broader offensive. Israel’s IDF chief Benny Gantz “said on Army radio that ‘Operation Cast Lead was carried out in a professional, determined manner, and significantly strengthened Israel’s deterrent strength.’ ”
At the same time, he suggested another round of fighting is likely. “Particularly worrisome (are the alleged) weapons smuggl(ed) into the Gaza Strip. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have….many thousands of rockets; hundreds” able to reach central Israel, said Harel.

As a result, “the IDF is preparing itself for the possibility of a land operation in another few months.”
On January 16, Jerusalem Post writer Yaakov Katz headlined, “IDF preparing for major Gaza action within months,” saying:
“The IDF General Staff has ordered the Southern Command to prepare for a possible large Gaza operation that could occur within the next few months, the Jerusalem Post has learned.”
If true, preparations have been ongoing much longer. Three years ago, Southern Command head General Yoav Galant trained forces for two years prior to Cast Lead. Plans involved inflicting major damage while limiting Israeli casualties.

Now, said Katz, operational plans are being finalized and distributed to IDF units to be deployed against Gaza.

During Cast Lead, brigade units were used. They combined armor, infantry and combat engineer forces. Cast Lead’s model will be replicated. Gaza Division head General Yossi Bachar plans “significantly larger” operations than last time.

“Every officer will need to know where he needs to be with his troops and what his mission will be,” according to an unnamed senior IDF official. “Gaza has changed and the weaponry in Hamas’ and Islamic Jihad’s hands has significantly grown in quantity and quality.”
Katz said Hamas’ military wing is over 20,000 strong in five brigades. Each has a number of battalions. “(S)pecial teams” have “anti-tank missiles, mortar and rocket fire and anti-aircraft shoulder-to-air missiles.”

Orders to attack aren’t issued. Preparations are ongoing to be ready “at a moment’s notice and if needed.”

According to an unnamed General Staff official, “Gaza is possibly Israel’s most volatile front today. It is a front that can explode at any given moment.” In fact, Hamas and other resistance groups respond only when attacked. Israel does it belligerently. Victims are blamed.

Perhaps more slaughter’s coming. If so, civilians will suffer most. Israel calls them legitimate targets. International law prohibits attacking them. Doing so constitutes crimes of war and against humanity. Nonetheless, they’re standard Israeli policy. Lawlessness and brutality define its agenda. War strategy embodies them.

Israel notoriously uses false flag incidents to justify attacks or all-out war. In June 1982, Arafat was falsely blamed for Abu Nidal militants’ attempted assassination of Israeli UK ambassador Shlomo Argov.

War on Lebanon followed. Around 18,000 Palestinians were massacred. Israel occupied South Lebanon until May 2000. It still illegally holds Sheba Farms, a 14-square mile water-rich area near Syria’s Golan. It’s also been lawlessly occupied since 1967 along with Ghajar, a bordering Lebanese village.

If Israel plans Cast Lead II, expect one or more manufactured incidents preceding it. The possibility is real. Like Washington, Israel chooses confrontation, not diplomacy; hostility, not conflict resolution; and war, not peace. The business of both countries is war. Expect new theaters opened in 2012.
At the same time, sham peace talks continue in Jordan. Two rounds were held. Two more are planned on January 21 and January 26. Nothing’s been accomplished. Israel doesn’t negotiate. It demands. Longtime collaborator Abbas never represented Palestinian interests and doesn’t now.

WikiLeaks cables disclosed Israel informed him of Cast Lead before launching it. During the slaughter, his silence showed complicity. Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s telegrams to US deputy ambassador Luis Moreni said Israel asked if Egypt and Fatah would take over Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas.

At issue now is what do they know about possible new attacks, and how will they respond if launched?

A Final Comment

On December 26, Israel’s High Court ruled that state and private Israeli companies may plunder Palestinian West Bank quarries. Doing so violated international law and past Supreme Court decisions.
Expect Israel to take full advantage. At issue is controlling all Palestinian resources and valued land. In March 2009, Yesh Din human rights volunteers petitioned the High Court to prevent it. On January 10, they requested another hearing for reconsideration. It posed the following questions:

(1) What are Israel’s boundaries with respect to Palestinian resources? In addition, under military occupation, how do 1907 Hague Convention Articles 43 and 55 apply?

Article 43 says occupiers “shall take all the measures in (their) power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.”
Article 55 stipulates that occupiers are regarded only as administrators with temporary possession over “public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct,” reflecting temporary possession only.

(2) Have long-term occupiers authority to grant its citizens or corporations exploitive power over territory not their own?

(3) May occupiers exploit the principles of “continuity” and “reasonableness?”

(4) Do Israel quarries employing Palestinians justify exploiting them?

Yesh Din said the High Court decision “revolutionizes the international law of belligerent occupation, in its ruling that the State of Israel, as an Occupying Power in a prolonged occupation, has the authority to grant Israelis and Israeli corporations the right to quarry (Palestinian) natural resources, including in quarries that did not exist prior to the occupation – and with only limitation being the reasonableness of the use of the natural resource.”

In other words, what right has Israel to exploit Palestinian resources lawlessly? None whatever.
In the mid-1970s, Israeli West Bank quarry operations began. Ten sites exist. Eight remain active. Israel declares them all “state land.” They produce 12 million tons of mined material annually. Nearly all of it goes to Israel.

In 1983, Israel’s High Court ruled occupied areas off-limits for “open field….economic exploitation.” In its December decision, President Dorit Beinisch said the Court called the quarry issue political to be settled under final status negotiations. She also claimed Yesh Din’s petition 40 years after quarry operations began justified denying it.

Twisting international law, she said Israel may “utilize natural resources in a reasonable manner” despite no legal basis for doing so. She also claimed Israel’s decades-long occupation justified it. She called it the “reality on the ground.”

In fact, occupiers only have temporary trustee authority. It excludes exploitation. It requires administering natural resources for the benefit of occupied people, not the occupier. Ruling otherwise effectively justifies Israel’s illegal settlements and all stolen Palestinian land.

In this and other rulings, the Beinisch court trampled on international law and lost legitimacy in the process.


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NO SOPA: 'American Censorship Day'


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Thursday, 19 January 2012

Terence McKenna: Culture is not your friend

Simply put...
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Hezbollah and Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine Stress Resistance Choice


Local Editor
Head of Hezbollah Political Bureau Sayyed Ibrahim Amin Sayyed discussed with a delegation from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine the latest developments in the Palestinian field.

A statement issued by Hezbollah Media relations Thursday stated that "the talks covered the internal Palestinian political situation, the dangers of Judaization, specifically in Al-Quds, and the conspiracy that the Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine are facing."

"Both parts expressed their appreciation to the efforts made for achieving national Palestinian unity, and tackled the movements in the Arab world, stressing the importance that the Arab people recognize the centrality of the Palestinian cause, and the ways of supporting resistance against the occupying Zionists," the statement pointed out.

"The two parts further condemned the conspiracy that is targeting Syria and the axis that is opposed to the Zionist enemy in the region, and called upon the Arab people to be more aware of the fragmentizing project led by the United States in order to preserve its domination as well as its benefits and those of the Zionist entity," it added.

For his part, the delegation spokesman Maher Taher assured that “the relation with Hezbollah is of deep roots and is based on struggle and resistance.”

In contrast, Sayyed Ibrahim Amin Sayyed emphasized "the importance of unity and the centrality of the Palestinian cause," stressing the resistance choice for liberating land and sanctities.

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Most Syrians back President Assad, but you'd never know from western media

Jonathan SteeleAssad's popularity, Arab League observers, US military involvement: all distorted in the west's propaganda war

Jonathan Steele
Pro-Assad demonstration
A demonstration in support of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Damascus.
'Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war.'
Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP
Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favour of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news? Especially as the finding would go against the dominant narrative about the Syrian crisis, and the media considers the unexpected more newsworthy than the obvious.

Alas, not in every case. When coverage of an unfolding drama ceases to be fair and turns into a propaganda weapon, inconvenient facts get suppressed. So it is with the results of a recent YouGov Siraj poll on Syria commissioned by The Doha Debates, funded by the Qatar Foundation. Qatar's royal family has taken one of the most hawkish lines against Assad – the emir has just called for Arab troops to intervene – so it was good that The Doha Debates published the poll on its website. The pity is that it was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go.

The key finding was that while most Arabs outside Syria feel the president should resign, attitudes in the country are different. Some 55% of Syrians want Assad to stay, motivated by fear of civil war – a spectre that is not theoretical as it is for those who live outside Syria's borders. What is less good news for the Assad regime is that the poll also found that half the Syrians who accept him staying in power believe he must usher in free elections in the near future. Assad claims he is about to do that, a point he has repeated in his latest speeches. But it is vital that he publishes the election law as soon as possible, permits political parties and makes a commitment to allow independent monitors to watch the poll.

Biased media coverage also continues to distort the Arab League's observer mission in Syria. When the league endorsed a no-fly zone in Libya last spring, there was high praise in the west for its action. Its decision to mediate in Syria was less welcome to western governments, and to high-profile Syrian opposition groups, who increasingly support a military rather than a political solution. So the league's move was promptly called into doubt by western leaders, and most western media echoed the line.

Attacks were launched on the credentials of the mission's Sudanese chairman. Criticisms of the mission's performance by one of its 165 members were headlined. Demands were made that the mission pull out in favour of UN intervention.

The critics presumably feared that the Arab observers would report that armed violence is no longer confined to the regime's forces, and the image of peaceful protests brutally suppressed by army and police is false. Homs and a few other Syrian cities are becoming like Beirut in the 1980s or Sarajevo in the 1990s, with battles between militias raging across sectarian and ethnic fault lines.
'Free Syrian Army'
As for foreign military intervention, it has already started. It is not following the Libyan pattern since Russia and China are furious at the west's deception in the security council last year. They will not accept a new United Nations resolution that allows any use of force. The model is an older one, going back to the era of the cold war, before "humanitarian intervention" and the "responsibility to protect" were developed and often misused. Remember Ronald Reagan's support for the Contras, whom he armed and trained to try to topple Nicaragua's Sandinistas from bases in Honduras? For Honduras read Turkey, the safe haven where the so-called Free Syrian Army has set up.

Here too western media silence is dramatic. No reporters have followed up on a significant recent article by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer who now writes for the American Conservative – a magazine that criticises the American military-industrial complex from a non-neocon position on the lines of Ron Paul, who came second in last week's New Hampshire Republican primary.

Giraldi states that Turkey, a Nato member, has become Washington's proxy and that unmarked Nato warplanes have been arriving at Iskenderum, near the Syrian border, delivering Libyan volunteers and weapons seized from the late Muammar Gaddafi's arsenal. "French and British special forces trainers are on the ground," he writes, "assisting the Syrian rebels, while the CIA and US Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers …"

As the danger of full-scale war increases, Arab League foreign ministers are preparing to meet in Cairo this weekend to discuss the future of their Syrian mission. No doubt there will be western media reports highlighting remarks by those ministers who feel the mission has "lost credibility", "been duped by the regime" or "failed to stop the violence". Counter-arguments will be played down or suppressed.

In spite of the provocations from all sides the league should stand its ground. Its mission in Syria has seen peaceful demonstrations both for and against the regime. It has witnessed, and in some cases suffered from, violence by opposing forces. But it has not yet had enough time or a large enough team to talk to a comprehensive range of Syrian actors and then come up with a clear set of recommendations. Above all, it has not even started to fulfil that part of its mandate requiring it to help produce a dialogue between the regime and its critics. The mission needs to stay in Syria and not be bullied out.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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