‘US textbooks misrepresent Jews, Israel’

Jerusalem Post is not pleased with how Islam and Muslim are presented in text books in the US: “The same glossary describes the Koran as a “Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from God” – without a conditional qualifier.” And what do they mean by conditional qualifiers? Like the setence should add: and Muslims are a bunch of blood-thirsty terrorists?
Posted by As’ad at 9:27 AM

Zionist Historiographical Trickery: Benny Morris and 1948.

Asad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab News Service

Saturday, September 27, 2008

When I read Benny Morris’ massive study, 1948, I became convinced that many of the reviewers in the press did not probably read the whole thing. I say so because even reviews in serious publications, like the Economist–the best magazine there is–did not note the racist and disturbingly political biases of the author. The agenda of the author (who at least has revealed his true colors when he expressed his acceptance of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians) is not hidden if you bother to read the book and the endnotes.

But at least one thing made me laugh: Israeli historians now have a habit: they of course continue to ignore and disregard Palestinian narratives from their histories, but they include a token account, that of the diaries of Khalil As-Sakakini, and only those diaries. The diaries have been published in Hebrew so it does not require knowledge of Arabic: even Tom Segev in his really massive, One Palestine: Complete, ignores Palestinian but manages to include that Sakakini account. Morris does the same, but it is hardly surprising.
In fact, it is very clear in the book by Morris that he really does not think that Palestinians amount to humans. He not only ignores their sufferings but ignores their deaths. Only Zionist victims are mentioned and counted. Now you are by now wondering (assuming that you have not dosed off) about the trickery I mention in the headline: you see, I have encountered this feature in Israeli historiogrophy, like in Yehoshua Porath in his history of the Palestinian national movement. You would be reading some analysis of account on Palestinian public opinion or even sentiments and feelings, and then you look at the endnotes only to find a Jewish Agency’s report, or some report by some Zionist organization.

Do you see what I am saying. For example, Morris is keen in this book to assume throughout that Palestinian Christians and Muslims were at each other’s throats since the beginning of the Zionist invasion of the land. So keen, that I encountered only one reference to the Muslim-Christian associations when they were the nucleus of Palestinian national organization in Palestine. On p. 13, he goes on about fears and hatred between Muslim and Christian Palestinians (and slogans that were invented by agents of the Zionist organiztion), and then you go to the endnote and you find some silly reference to a silly report by some silly agent of the silly Zionist organization at the time. No evidence, whatever, at a time when a Christian Palestinian (Emile Ghuri) was chosen to lead the party of the Mufti (Hajj Amin Al-Husayni).
Morris also typically identifies any Palestinian opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitic (p. 8; he finds some obscure article by some obscure person and yet he does not cite the thousands of Palestinian statements, poems, flyers, and proclamations that clearly expressed opposition to anti-Semitism. He could have bothered checked the private collection of Akram Zu`aytar which contains all that and more, but he did not. And Zionist discussions about the explusion of Arabs from their land is discussed casually by Morris (see pp. 18-19).
His account of how Palestinians fared under Zionism is as fictious as was the account in Herzl’s work of fiction, Alteuland. Morris says that Palestinian assets “grew substantially” under Zionism (p. 25). And when he cites outrageous statements by Zionists, he never offers any comments, when he is unrestrained if any Palestinain said anything that bothered him. He again casually cites Ben Gurion when he said about Arabs: “And it is better to expel them than jail them.” (p. 52) And what is hilarious about this book is that–typical of Zionist accounts–there is such love expressed for the Hashemites, presumably due to the their services to Zionism over the decades. (He says that the Jordanian regime “flourishes” (p. 419) under King PlayStation). He even maintains that all Arab leaders at the time suffered from a crisis of legitimacy..except King `Abdullah (p. 66), as if he died from high cholesterol.

And the notion that Plan D did not intend to expel Arabs because it did not say so on paper (p. 121) is as ridiculous as the claim by anti-Semitic David Irving when he talks about the smokin’ gun and the Nazis. He admits in the book (twice) that Zionists killed more POWs than the other side did but he always finds excuses to justify the deed and to justify the FACT that more prisoners were killed by Zionists than by the Arabs by talking about Zionist military victories and control of more lands.(p. 153)
The conclusion of this propagandistic book is clearly written for the readers in the West in post-Sep. 11 world. He goes on (in a section that is written by the style you read by anti-Islam haters in neo-con media these days) to elaborate on the “Jihadi impulse.” (p. 395) He wants to convince the reader that Palestinian Arab opposition to Zionism was rooted in religious bigotry: as if the Palestinians would have acted differently if their lands were stolen and occupied, say, by Buddhists or Hindus or atheists.

But then Morris has to contend with the fact of Palestinian Christian opposition to Zionism. He has to explain it. So what does Morris do here. I kid you not, he says this: “Even Christian Arabs appear to have adopted the Jihadi discourse.” (p. 395) I kid you not. Is that not funny? So George Habash and Nayif Hawitimah and Edward Said and `Azmi Bisharah are all motivated by Jihadi impulses. Thus is Zionist historiogrophy.

It is also equally comical when he maintains that the Arabs were stronger than the Yishuv in Palestine. To bolster his case, or to make it sound less ridiculous, he says that they were stronger in “geopolitical terms”(p. 398)–whatever that means. Maybe by that token, Panama is stronger than the US in “geopolitical terms”. He does not shy away from invoking the racist arguments of Patai and others about Arabs: he talks about Arab traditions of “disunity, corruption, and organizational incompetence.” (p. 399) I guess that Olmert is resigning due to the Arab tradition of corruption. And is Morris trying to make us laugh when he refers to the Zionist forces as “ragtag Jewish militia”(p. 400). Ragtag in comparison to what? The Arab forces with their 19th century rifles in some cases? He does admit that both sides killed civilians but he argues that the Arabs killed civilians “deliberately” while the Zionists did so accidentally or recklessly but provides no evidence for the claim (p. 404). He then adds that massacres decreased after the transformtion of forces on both sides into regular armies but then adds casually “except for the series of atrocities committed by IDF troops…” (p. 405). Is this guy for real?

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/09/zionist-historiographical-trickery.html

Both Arab nationalism and Islam have failed, and failed badly.

Thus Said the Anal-ysist at PP

“I judge movements, leaders and parties by results not rhetoric”

“When I look at what has happened, and is still happening, in the region in general and in Iraq in particular, I see the clear failure, even the death of the two major competing ideologies in the region.,two major competing ideologies in the region.”

Comment: I wonder why the PP anal-ysist failed to see the clear failure, even the death of the third competing ideology in the region. I mean Left-Marxism-communisms, Most likely because he consider himself a leftist dreaming that his left would be the new force after the death of Arab nationalism and Islam .

“On the one hand we see that the one party, the Ba’th, which preached Arab unity and Arab nationalism, could not even unite one country, Iraq, let alone the entire Arab world. First the two branches of the party (the Syrian and Iraqi branches) fought each other, literally to death.”

“each branch of the party could not and would not create the model state that could be an inspiration for the promised Arab unity and something to inspire and give a boost to Arab nationalism. They instead ruled by an iron fist and by using the policies of divide-and-conquer and encouraging tribalism.”

Comment: Neither Iraq, nor Syria were true representatives for Arab nationalism, Saddam was the true respective of Arab racism. The anal-ysist ignored Nasir, the true representative of Arab nationalism. He failed to mention how Arab masses, 52 years before Hugo Chavezago, from the Gulf to the Atlantic ocean reacted when UK -France and Israel attacked Egypt to topple Nasir, how they reacted when he resigned after 1967 defeat, and after his death.

Moreover, the Anal-ysist ignored that while Saddam and his Iraqi Baath was fighting the American war against Iran, Only Sadam’s “Comrade” Hafez Assad and his Syrian Baath stood with Iran, and his son is still standing with Iran.

Hezbollah is the LEGAL SON of the Syrian- Iranian Marriage, the marriage of Islamic Ideology and Syrian Nationalism.

“If indeed most Iraqis felt so strongly that they belonged to and benefited from the Ba’th regime and that they had a strong stake in preserving the Iraqi state, why has the majority not fought the occupation? Why, at the earliest opportune moment, major sections of the Iraqi population opted to side with the occupiers and with Iran instead of fighting for Iraq? That tells us something about the prevailing state up until the invasion.”

Comment: Indeed it tells about the prevailing state and its racist version of Arab Nationalism that fail to unite even Anbar tribes.

“The majority of the Shiites sided with Iran against their own country and the majority of Kurds decided that they are not Iraqis! So, Iraq is no more; hardly the model of Arab unity to be presented to the rest of the Arabs.”

Comment: Iraq was never the Model of Arab unity

“Then we were told that the problem was in Arab nationalism itself, that the Arabs have to transcend this to something higher and that Islam was the answer. The Iranian revolution was to be the vanguard of this new force: the Islamic revolution.”

“Of course it was not an accident that the two countries spearheading these two major ideologies fought a vicious and bloody war for eight years that killed about a million (Muslims I may add) from each side. We know that the US imperialists wanted both sides to destroy each other, and Henry Kissinger used to say — “we want them to kill each other!” But why did the two fools cooperate so well with Kissinger against their own interests?”

“Just as the US wanted both sides to destroy each other, Iran sought to use the US to destroy the Ba’th regime in Iraq…”

“Along these same lines I saw the Syrian regime recently establish full diplomatic relations with the occupied Maliki “government;” something it has not done since the eighties. Some Arab unity and some Syrian “steadfastness”!”

Comment: Here the “Objective” PP anal-ysist, to please the Baathi thugs at PP, he ignored that it Sadam not Iran who launched the 8 years war and Iran was simply defending itself, that Saddam who clamed defending the eastern gate of the Arab world, opened all the gates to Usrael, including the gates of Baghdad.

Consequently, the defeated PP anal-ysist who left Gaza 40 years ago, is waiting for a new force:
“For those who will survive they will have to wait for a new force, a new movement. Both Arab nationalism and Islam have failed, and failed badly.”

I accept facts, mentioned above, and in the comments below mainly written by Lucia, and saker, despite difference about Arab nation, and Muslim Umma..
I said on several occasions, the west used Nationalism against Islam represented by Ottoman empire, then used both reactionary Islam, and Nationalism against communism, Used reactionary Islam to destroy Naser the most prominent representative of true Arab nationalism.

YES, Arab movements, nationalists, Islamists (Muslim brothers) and leftists failed to recognize who is the main enemy, and to put secondary difference aside. Nationalist failed to recognize that Islam was the first nationalist movement the united Arabs, that racism against non-Arab Muslims, paved the way for the failure of Amaweyades and Abasades empires.

On the other hand Leftists failed to recognize that Islam was the first Arab leftist movement.

As far as I m concerned, I don’t feel any conflict, being Palestinian by birth, Arabic by Nationality, Muslim by religion, and leftist by Ideology.

Comment at PP;

I like your comment. I only have minor discrepancies on some details.
I always wondered -perhaps because I am not an arab- about two concepts:

-the “arab nation”, that is panarabism
-the “Muslim unity”

I try to respect them, but honestly, cannot grasp them. If –by making a traspolation– someone spoke to me of “hispanism” in the sense of uniting all spanish speaking countries, or “christian unity” to unite the various different religions and sects under the christian branch, my eyes would roll. Yet more, I’d think it is an eccentric idea. Every country, or more specifically, every state has interests of its own, and in all probability will not coincide with those of any other “brother” country.

So, as I do not completely understand the ideas of panarabism and umma, I can’t help but asking to myself if the different arab peoples should be just more focused on the own country, rather than expecting from others sharing a language or a religion to come and lend a hand, specially when perhaps this “other” has problems similar in size.

Perhaps it is a desiderata, and as such belongs in the realm of utopia por the time being, given the bad shape in which most of arab countries are nowadays.
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Lucia 09.28.08 – 10:01 am #

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When the US tried to topple Hugo Chavez, and partially succeeded in a coup, millions of poor Venezuelans took to the streets demanding the release of their president. They were ready to fight and die for something they believed in, something they had created, something they had a stake in. That was not the case in Iraq. Tony
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And could never be the case in Iraq, because the Venezuelans took to the streets to reclaim their leader, and I mean *their leader*, whom they chose, and had won 9 or 10 (I lost count) consecutive democratic polls, and who did wonders for the people there.

How did Saddam come to power, if not by the CIA’s hand, and causing a bloodbath? Whose iraqis would defend him, after he slaughtered kurds, shias, and “disafected” sunni in the hundreds of thousands? Yet mass-graves are being unearthed to this day.

The charisma of Chavez has nothing to do -thank god- with Saddam’s, even though his worshippers would say he was the “new Salahuddin”

So, the iraqis would not take to the streets to shield him, right on the contrary, millions of them wanted him dead. Only staunch baathists who profited from the regime would say otherwise. But, expect them to blame it on Iran. Driven by the partys cliches. they’re even unable of the mimimun of self-criticism.
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Lucia 09.28.08 – 10:39 am #

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As America sinks into the sunset no longer a so-called “super-power,” it is time for the people of the Arab nations to rise up as one. What you have had to this point are regimes propped up by Western design, but those forces are no longer viable. As the support fails from Imperialism an opportunity arises, my recommendation is that the oppressed people of these regions take advantage of it.
v Homepage 09.28.08 – 10:51 am #

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further to my 10:39, the Palestinians who are the most courageous people in the Middle East, did something similar when Arafat was besieged in the Mukata. They took to the streets, in defiance of curfews and tanks, and went to shield him – I think more out of compassion than due to his own merits as a leader. But they did it, in spite of being under a nazi-like occupation for 60 years.

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 11:08 am #

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Lucia

About the Muslim unity , before the skyes picot divisions , there were no borders between Arab countries and Most felt that islam United them , (than these regimes that were the creation of foreign powers ). and You ll be suprised to hear so many people (on Live tv ) almost daily , dreaming about the Khilafa and islam being the unificator of all Arab countries . more and more Arab and Muslim Youth talk and dream about that (something that scares the hell of the Neocons and Bush )and breaking the “false” Borders as they call them.
fatima 09.28.08 – 11:15 am #

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Thanks for your explanation Fatima. I’m aware of many people talking about it, and I can read about it too in articles by authors even from the left, Samara to mention one who I respect. But I fail to see it working. I mean, what have the people of Qatar to do with the Egyptians, or the Saudis, or the Algerians, or… any other arabic-speaking or Muslim people?

Other than unelected governments -ruthless for the most part- who rely on the USA to remain in power while they opress their people.

So, it seems to me that religion and language is not a glue strong enough as to show solidarity when most of them (perhaps Qatar fares much better) are undergoing big social problems and “difficult” times.

I second “v”‘s idea as the moment is ripe, but… where is the “arab che”? And when there is one, the shitty little state eliminates him. Scores of popular leaders have been liquidated. The only that wasn’t for the moment is Nasrallah. Let’s wish him a long life. But who is to be counted in other arab countries?

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 11:33 am #

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 10:39 am

I agree partially, Lucia. However, it goes well beyond Saddam. Why have the Iraqis not stood up for THEIR Iraq? Not for Saddam or for Ba’th.

My point is that the majority, apparently, did not believe that they had a state worth dying for.
Tony Sayegh Homepage 09.28.08 – 11:34 am #

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The kurds never felt iraqis, they feel and always felt kurds, and were promised a state at the same time the Palestinians were, and with about the same results… (this led them, but this is another story, to very unwise engagements throughout the years, and being betrayed once and again. They finally bet on the americans, so they will be left aside again. The americans use proxies and then abandon them as used toilet paper)

So the iraqi state was forced upon them. And yet, saddam massacred them. So thwy wouldn’t be expected to take to the streets to defend the Saddam who slaughtered them, or to defend an state which they did not feel their own. Thus the alliance with the invaders under the promise of having their kurdish state and their own oil-wells.

Would the south-shia defend saddam? They’d rather queue, jointly with the kurds, to be allowed to hang him.

Saddam only relied on his tribe, and a few staunch saddamists who lived very well under his rule, and looked the other way -if not applauded- his massacres. These same people is very concerned now by the presumed shia drillings. Were was the outrage when the shia were drilled, and were driven nails through their heads by Saddam’s henchmen?
Lucia 09.28.08 – 11:45 am #

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Lucia,

To elaborate a bit on the point Fatima made:

It is true that under the Ottoman Empire, the artificial boundaries between Arab states did not exist; those were drawn up by the colonial powers.

However, Fatima forgets that the Arabs were suckered into rebelling against and fighting the nominally Muslim Ottomans and aligning themselves with their new colonial masters.

Another point is that Islam, unlike the two other monotheist religions, advocates the concept of the Muslim Umma. Islam, at least in theory, is supposed to transcend nationalism.

Arab nationalism and unity is not just a romantic idea; in the fifties and sixties some strides were taken in that direction, especially under Nasser of Egypt. For a few years, Egypt and Syria even formed one nation and the expectation was that Iraq would also join. Nasser also played a significant role helping liberation movements in other Arab countries, in particular in Algeria. The defeat (of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967) marked the end of that rising wave of Arab unity and Arab nationalism. Of course that was the main objective of that war to defeat and humiliate Nasser.

Comment; Here, like the asshole who considered the end of cold war as the end of history, the PP Anal-ysist, consider Nasir’s defeat in 1967 the end of the wave of the arab nationalism.

One last point. You made analogy to Spanish culture and the non-existence of unity among Spanish-speaking countries. Not quite true. The situation of the Arab countries is more analogous to Latin American countries. You have the same language, with the exception of Brazil, very similar culture and definitely a shared history. On top of that you have the same colonial domination for so long. The big difference is that Latin America has finally awakened with popular, leftist leaders forging real political, cultural, military and economic unity among their respective countries. It is the vision and policies of leaders such as Chavez, Lula, Morales, etc which you do not find in the Arab world, not even on the horizon.
Tony Sayegh Homepage 09.28.08 – 12:00 pm #

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The big difference is that Latin America has finally awakened with popular, leftist leaders forging real political, cultural, military and economic unity among their respective countries
Tony Sayegh Homepage 09.28.08 – 12:00 pm
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This is the KEY!
The response to the questions you pose in your article, and the response to the problems the people in arab and muslim countries are undergoing.

Awakening!
And some leadership is necessary too. There have been leaders, I mean good popular leaders in ME, but have been liquidated by the big powers or by their surrogates. All of them, except Nasrallah. But more Nasrallahs are needed – at least one per country – to lead the uprising. Any moment one may appear, as it did in the Argelian revolution.

As to what you say about umma, catholicism also predicates unity and solidarity and so on. Actually the word catholic derives from latin catholicus and this from greek katolikós which means universal. But this universality is left for the religious/spiritual context, and translates -as does in Islam- in scores or charities and such.

Yes, Hispanidad does exist, as you indicated, (even with Portuguese-speaking Brasil) and translates into cooperation programs, etc. But what I meant is, other than these programs, or commercial/political treaties -as with any other country- the problems we have over here difer 180 degress from those of, let’s say, the Argentinean, or the Cuban. So, yes, there is solidarity, f.i. now with Cuba with the disaster they have suffered, but.. we are two worlds appart, even though we have many things in common, language among others. And we love them.

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 12:36 pm #

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Very interesting and timely comment Tony. I fully agree on your assessment of the Baath so I will skip this. On Iran I think that you might be conflating two (or more) things:

Iran is not an ideology, it is a country whose government claims to represent, and act in accordance with, an Islamic ideology. You can have a highly critical view of Iran’s behavior and performance, but does that reflect on the Islamic ideology? Do I need to mention here that Hezbollah has EXACTLY the same religious AND political ideology? Do I need to remind anyone here that Nasrallah as a person and Hezbollah as a movement are not followers of the Lebanese Sheikh Fadlallah (who is *erroneously* identified by the corporate media as “Hezbollah’s spiritual leader) but that the are the followers of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei? Even Hezbollah’s structure mirrors the one of the Iranian state! So which is the best example of the Shia Islamic ideology, Iran or Hezbollah?

Then, Iran is far more diverse, pluralistic and decentralized than the Zionist-inspired Western corporate media likes to portray. Ahmadinejad represents only one of the various factions inside the Iranian polity. Should Iran be judged by Ahmadinejad’s actions?

Also, keep in mind that Iran is *literally* surrounded by US forces whose political bosses make no secret of their desire to attack Iran. Does that not explain why they would be very, very cautious in their actions. Would openly throwing all their weight behind the Sadrists really be the smart thing to do? What hurts the American Empire more, a double tag-team of headaches like Sadr and Maliki (whose only powerbase is the Iranian controlled Badr forces) or a clear cut insurgency?

Please get me right – I am very much “less than impressed” by Iran’s current policies in Iraq (which I, frankly, do not understand) and I am equally “less than impressed” with Ahmadinejad. But the man which I respect most in the entire Middle-East, Nasrallah, is firm in his unwavering support for, and alliance with, Iran. Does that not tell us that he might know, or understand, something which we are missing? Every time somebody criticizes Iran I bring the example of Nasrallah and say “explain this!”

What is the “Islamic ideology” which you say has failed? I submit that the Iranian Islamic Revolution is one thing and the Shia ethos is something quite distinct which cannot be reduced to, or conflated with, the former.

For all the ignorant views of the incurable secularists to the contrary, even a cursory acquaintance with Hezbollah and Nasrallah will show any non-prejudiced person that Shia Islam, its spirituality, its ethos and its worldview (in other words its ideology) are not only at the core of everything which Hezbollah is or does, but in fact defines and directs all the aspects of Hezbollah’s existence. Simply put, there is no way to understand anything about Hezbollah outside this “ideological” Islami
vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 12:44 pm #

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More:
The Hispanoamerican countries fought their anticolonial wars, and won. Spain left the last colonies by the 1800. So, two hundred years have passed since the colonial power was evicted, however popular power is starting to take shape now, at least in some countries (I wouldn’t consider Lula on this lot, he follows free-marketism by the book and the poor and “sem terra” are still neglected).

There have also been popular leaders over there previously, but much the same as it happened in the arab countries- they were liquidated by
USA interventions or USA surrogates. Repression has been absolutely BRUTAL there, in special throughout the XXth century. And as you see, the empire continues at it. Look at the sedition recently sowed in Bolivia, Venezuela…

Hence, the process of education to awakening can never stop, for the greedy don’t stop either. Be eit in Hispano América, be it in the Arab world, be it in East Asia.

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 12:54 pm #

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Hi Saker,

Re Iran I’m closer to your views than to Tony’s, as I have been commenting in older posts. These are the minor differences I have with Tony’s article, that I mentioned earlier, and call them minor because I think they don’t significatively change the general overview the article presents. But it is good you intervened, since you’ve got a good analysis over the situation in Iraq, and Iran’s role. I agree with you that Iran’s image is very deformed in the western media and is a far more sofisticated and complex country (and so are its policies and diplomacy) than many people are lead to believe.

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 1:18 pm #

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Tony,
I believe that it was the 1967 defeat that was the end and death of Arab nationalism. What took place in 1991 when Syria and other Arab countries actually sent troops to Destroy another Arab state was just the official funeral. Arabs never recovered from that defeat and in reality the Fall of Baghdad in 2003 was the last effect of the 1967 cause.
Zarathustra 09.28.08 – 2:55 pm #

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VS,

As I said in my piece, I am a simple man from the proverbial state of Missouri; I judge by the things I see on the ground. And what do I see on the ground? Let me count the ways:

– I see Muslim Palestinians in Iraq being slaughtered and expelled by Shiite death squads which Iran easily controls.

– I see ethnic cleansing going on where entire sections of Baghdad have been ethnically cleansed.

– I see Iran’s closest surrogate, Hakim, calling for the splitting of Iraq by having a separate Shiite “federal” region in the south.

– I see Iran’s surrogate, Maliki, giving away Iraq’s wealth for generations to come by signing “deals” with American oil robbers.

– I see Iran’s man, again Maliki, concluding a so-called SOF agreement that guarantees the permanent occupation of Iraq.

– I see Hizbullah, with all of my admiration and respect, still refusing to criticize the Maliki puppet or the Shiite death squads, because of sectarian reasons and also in order not to displease Iran. As is repeatedly asked, why is it that the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon was fought, ferociously, and those who cooperated with the occupation were treated as traitors, but the same does not apply to Iraq?

I can go on and on. I do not have your sophistication to analyze the various power centers in Iran or the essence of the motivation of the Shiite theology; as I said I judge by the results I see.

Speaking of Hizbullah, and in spite of my admiration, I can’t forget that it continued to praise the Lebanese “army” while it was systematically destroying the Nahr El-Bared camp over the heads of some 30,000 Palestinian refugees. Most of those refugees have no homes to return to now. What has Hizbullah done about that? For political reasons it looked the other way and praised the Lebanese army’s heroism! Let us be as objective as we can be here.
Tony Sayegh Homepage 09.28.08 – 3:39 pm #

Comment; It is Fath Al-Islam who destoyed Nahr Al-barid

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Tony, independently of Saker’s reply to you which I’ll read with interest, let’s see the other side of the coin (my two cents):

-Fact is that the oil wealth of Irak has not fallen yet into US/multinational hands thanks to Iran’s opposition. Muqtada, regardless all criticisms that can be made of him, has aborted the “oil-law” in several occasions. China’s deal had been already signed by Saddam’s cabinet.

-Same happens with the SOFA and with the permanence of foreign troops on Iraqi soil, what Iran opposes.

-Ethnic cleansing has gone in several directions. Mainly foreign death squads vs iraqis. Then shia-sunni, sunni-shia, kurds-iraqis, so called al-Q vs iraqis and you may add some. Proved that Iran helped stop bloodshed.

I can provide with links for all the above.

Now 3 questions to ponder:

-Could Hezbollah at that very difficult moment, and having in mind the higher interests of their own country, have acted other way when Hezbullah proper was under the radar?

-Isn’t it abundantly clear that Hezbollah DOES support the Palestinians?

-Could Iran, being submitted to pressure and threats by a crazied empire that did not hesitate dropping atomic bombs on another country after it *had surrendered*, could Iran act more defiantly that it did, or would it be oughtright suicidal?

Politics has more to do with the body of the iceberg that with its tip. I mean, declarations, photos and saking hands are for the most part for “consumption”; meanwhile real deals are played behind curtains out of the people’s sight.

“News is what someone wants to supppress. Everything else is advertising” – former NBC news prez Rubin Frank

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 4:23 pm #

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Hi Tony,

Thanks for your reply. Let me, if I may, take your points one by one:

I see Muslim Palestinians in Iraq being slaughtered and expelled by Shiite death squads which Iran easily controls.

As far as I know this kind of stuff has largely stopped. But that is neither here nor there really, the real issue is what control, or lack thereof, Iran has over these militias. Not only that, but its not like Iran has many alternatives to the Badr forces and the Sadrists which, as far as I know, have both been involved in anti-Palestinian and anti-Sunni terror operations. Are we to assume that Iran could have prevented these things from happening or that Iran instigated them? I do not know, but ask yourself: does Iran even care about Palestinians in Iraq? I think that not. It is far more likely that the Iraqi Palestinians have paid the price for their support of Saddam and his terror state. “He who sows the winds reaps the storm as the French say”. I am not justifying anything, only pointing at the obvious causes and asking whether the blame for this can be laid on Iran?

– I see ethnic cleansing going on where entire sections of Baghdad have been ethnically cleansed.

Tony, Iran is not in charge of stopping the Iraqis of butchering each other, that is simply not Iran’s responsibility. I do not think that “Iraqi Shia = Iran”. There is plenty of Iraqi Shia extremism out there without any need for Iran to add fuel to the fire.

– I see Iran’s closest surrogate, Hakim, calling for the splitting of Iraq by having a separate Shiite “federal” region in the south.

And you see Sadr opposing this. So which of the two gets to speak for, or embody, Shia Islam and its ideology?!

– I see Iran’s surrogate, Maliki, giving away Iraq’s wealth for generations to come by signing “deals” with American oil robbers.

Now that is not serious. Iran totally and unequivocally opposes the SOFA and, last time I checked, the oil laws. I think that Maliki, as a typical prostitute, is doing the bidding of whomever promises him more power and money. Right now, this is the USA and not Iran. To simply blame anything and everything Maliki does is simply based on the mistaken assumption that Maliki is “Iran’s puppet”. Maliki happens to be the head of the only Shia government in Iraq and its not like Iran can ignore or, much less so, openly oppose that. But that does not mean that Iran like the guy or his policies. Do you really think that the Iranians don’t realize that Maliki is a prostitute willing to sell himself and his country to the highest bidder? Of course they know that, but they do not have an “Iraqi Nasrallah” out there, the only alternative is Sadr, not exactly a dream come true either…

I see Iran’s man, again Maliki, concluding a so-called SOF agreement that guarantees the permanent occupation of Iraq.

As I said, Iran totally opposes this and that, in turn, begs the question of why you blame everything Maliki does on Iran.

– I see Hizbullah, with all of my admiration and respect, still refusing to criticize the Maliki puppet or the Shiite death squads, because of sectarian reasons and also in order not to displease Iran.

You really think Tony that this sounds like Nasrallah? Being silent over a fundamental issue in order not to antagonize a country whose support he counts on? I really don’t think so, this is not at all in sync with the character of the man.

Tony, Nasrallah fears nothing other than God. I know, nowadays this is hard to believe used as we are to fully unprincipled politicians, but Nasrallah is a totally different creature from the typical modern politician.

As is repeatedly asked, why is it that the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon was fought, ferociously, and those who cooperated with the occupation were treated as traitors, but the same does not apply to Iraq? Because the main threat to Lebanon is external whereas in Iraq the external invader is just one factor in a much more complicated situation.

I agree with you, as far as I am concerned the occupiers of Palestine and the occupiers of Iraq are the soldiers of the same Empire – but the Iraqis have a lot of housecleaning to do before coming to realize that.

The problem here is not some “Islamic ideology” but the Iraqis lack of unity if purpose.
Look at how the former Baathists and Sunni turned into some “concerned citizens” and “sons of Iraq”! Is that not a disgrace? What does the Iranian revolution have to do with this?

!vineyardsaker
Homepage 09.28.08 – 4:48 pm #


Tony, as to the splitting of the shia-south, Iran and Muqtada (who is above all an iraqi nationalist) oppose it.

Let’s wait and see, because my impression -to the luck if iraqis- is It will be Iran’s bid snf not american’s bid, since america is within a trap of its own creation. US troops quitting Iraq safely depends on Iran.

In case the americans play the card of a free kurdistan, and its oil-wells, then it this partition cannot be avoided, maybe the segregation of the shia part could be accepted, as preferable to live again under the conditions they lived formerly. But Iran opposes partition and has said it loud and clear. The last Iran+Turkey+Syria want is a free Kurdistan. There won’t be partition.

Lucia 09.28.08 – 5:01 pm #

@Speaking of Hizbullah, and in spite of my admiration, I can’t forget that it continued to praise the Lebanese “army” while it was systematically destroying the Nahr El-Bared camp over the heads of some 30,000 Palestinian refugees. Most of those refugees have no homes to return to now. What has Hizbullah done about that? For political reasons it looked the other way and praised the Lebanese army’s heroism! Let us be as objective as we can be here.

Look, I am sorry for the innocent victims of this one, but you can hardly house Fatah al-Islam (which seems to be a CIA backed local franchise of the wider Salafist movement) and not expect that bad things will happen. To put it bluntly, I do not think that the Shias can afford to allow CIA backed Salafists to take root anywhere in Lebanon or anywhere else where the Shia live (I would even argue that everybody on the planet should strive at rooting out the sick and evil Salafist ideology wherever it sticks out its ugly head). We all know what future the Salafists envision for those they call “rejectionist idolaters”. That the Lebanese Army botched its operation there should not come as a surprise either as the “Lebanese Army” is more of a bad joke than a real fighting force. Serving tea and actually fighting are different things. What did you want, Hezbollah to go into Nahr El-Bared and kick the Salafists out? Sure they could do that, except that they try to avoid shooting at other Lebanese. So they let the Army do the dirty job and praised them for it. You expected them to denounce the Army?

And what does Iran and its ideology have to do with this mess anyway?
vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 5:04 pm #

vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 5:04 pm
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Exactly.
CIA backed, and Saudi funded.

Saker I enjoyed your whole analysis and agree practically 100 per cent with it. Thanks for sharing your views

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 5:10 pm #

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As you know, Turkey Iran and Syria have their own kurd population, courtesy of Sykes Picot. Allowing partition of kurdistan in Iraq would imply kurdish separatist problems would be exacerbated in their countries. Those three states don’t want it (regardless what we, as individuals, may think about kurdish people’s right to secede and form their own state)

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 5:25 pm #

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VS,

I don’t have the time to answer all your replies, but on the last one you are totally wrong, my friend.

To start with, the Palestinians do not control the entry or the exit from their camps in Lebanon; the army does. Those Salafis you refer to, were brought into the camp by the Hariri people with the full knowledge of some branches of the Lebanese government security. The Palestinians in the camp did not want these people, but they had no power to get rid of them.

The next point is that the Lebanese army systematically destroyed the entire camp, not just the isolated pockets where the Salafis were.

I posted articles written by Marcy Newman (among others) from inside the camp documenting the atrocities of the army and the outright racism towards the Palestinians. I also posted videos showing how that “heroic” army systematically torched those Palestinian homes that remained standing, after stealing all their contents. The videos even showed the racist, anti-Palestinian slogans scrawled on the walls by the heroic army.

It was none other than Hizbullah who, early on, warned the army that attacking the camp and entering it was “a red line!” Then when the systematic slaughter and destruction proceeded, Hizbullah fell silent.

Don’t forget that the bulk of the rank and file foot soldiers in the Lebanese army are Shiites; they could have refused orders to attack innocent Palestinians if Hizbullah asked them to; just a thought.

At any rate your rationalization of what happened in Nahr El-Bared is simply that and it is wrong.
Tony Sayegh Homepage 09.28.08 – 5:29 pm #

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if Hizbullah asked them to
–

could Hizbullah have issued those orders to the army at that moment?
In my humble opinion they could not.

The attack was ruthless and completely out of proportion. There was no reason to send the army in, with tanks and everything, for a problem that would have to be solved by the police.

Lucia 09.28.08 – 5:38 pm #

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@Lucia: thanks for your kind words.

@Tony: you might be correct and I might be wrong. I am not expert at all and I did not closely follow the events in Nahr El-Bared. However, even if the Palestinians should not be blamed for having Fatah al-Islam next door, nor should Hezbollah for the crudeness of the Lebanese Army’s tactics under the pretext that many soldiers are Shia. There are plenty of non-Hezbollah Shia in Lebanon (Amal for one thing) and, as far as I know, Hezbollah soliders do not fight inside the Lebanese Army. You say that Hezbollah should not have praised the Army for its Hun-like tactics and I agree. But I suspect that the praise was more directed at the will to take on the Salafists than for using smart tactics in the process.

Look, there is, in my opinion, no worse ideology out there than Salafism and I do find it essential, crucial, to crush it wherever it shows up, be it Chechnia, Iraq, Afghanistan or Lebanon. I wish the Palestinians (or any other innocent bystanders) would not get slaughtered in the process, but I have to grant some degree of recognition to anyone trying to eradicate the Salafists anywhere.

My 2cts.
vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 5:45 pm #

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Maybe, Tony, this botched operation by the army urged Hizbollah to push for the issuing of residence cards for the Palestinians, so that they could be somehow protected. They were “invisible”.

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 5:46 pm #

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@Tony: one small comment about Baathism: you know, it reminds me of Communism in modern Russia. Its not really an ideology any more. It more of a psychopathological syndrome for a butch of have-beens which failed at all they attempted and are now angry and bitter at the entire world for not recognizing what they think of as “great achievements”. Baathists and Stalinists have a lot in common, at least in their mental makeup and bizarre behavior, at least in Russia, nobody takes them too seriously. I would not pay too much attention at their rather childish insults. Remember that first and foremost – they are *losers*; and, second, well, how shall I put it – they ain’t too bright. And third, they are also totally irrelevant and *they know that*. So they do the only thing they know how: spew hatred. Let them – it gives them meaning.

Cheers!
vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 5:57 pm #

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Lucia and VS,

When we start using terms such as “botched operation” and “lack of discipline” (on the part of the army), are we not using exactly the same propaganda and rationalization the US military used when it destroyed Fallujah?

No, the total destruction of the camp and the expulsion of the Palestinians in it were intentional and it was a decision taken at the highest level. There is a theory that the Salafis were brought in to justify the attack on the camp. Why was the camp destroyed? Many theories were floated including a story (by Franklin Lamb) that the US wanted to build a US air base in the area. At any rate, the US military flew in “emergency” military gear for the Lebanese army to use in destroying the camp. Does that tell us something?
Tony Sayegh Homepage 09.28.08 – 6:04 pm #

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Tony, I had read Lamb’s article on the plans for the base. For me it was more than that, it was -like in Irak- “solving the refugees problem the zionist way”, i.e., ethnic cleanse, mass murder. Choose the term you see fits it best.

I used botched operation to put it a name, and certainly the term is not very accurate. Attempt at mass murder gets closer.

This is -again, in my view- a replay of the chasing of Palestinians that was done in Iraq. Detonate a car bombing in a crowded market, blame it on the Palestinians, parade two or three “suspects” on TV to pit the local population against them. And the chasing will be “approved”. Yesterday’s car-bombing in Syria follows the same pattern. Now it is being blamed on the Palestinians, go figure! But it does not benefit the Palestinians, I agree with Muallem on this one, that it only benefits the zios. So I tend to think that, since El-Assad refused the zionist condition to expel Meshaal and I.Jihad, the zios have orchestrated this from behind the curtains to arm-twist him. I don’t think it works. Not now.

The root problem is the Palestinian refugees are being chased. Zion has sent abbas to Lebanon to that they were given nationality and absorbed there, what Lebanon refused, stating they must return to Palestine. Zion does not want, at any rate, to assume this problem; and on the other hand is well aware it is an inalienable and *individual right that noone can sell out, as Abbas is willing to do, lest Israel loses its “jewish” character. But anything he signs, if he does it, is wet paper.

The Palestinian problem, in a special manner the refugees problem makes one’s heart bleed. And to make matters worse, they have been neglected for too long.

All Palestinians, anywhere, must be very careful, unless they have “papers”, residence or naturalization. They are being targeted.

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Lucia 09.28.08 – 6:29 pm #

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@Tony: the total destruction of the camp and the expulsion of the Palestinians in it were intentional and it was a decision taken at the highest level.

Interesting. First, may I ask you what sources of facts you base this statement on?

Second, if presume that if you are correct in your analysis, then Hezbollah (who has the best intelligence capability in the entire Middle-East) must have known this too. In that case, why would they support what is, in your words, an anti-Palestinian bloodbath concealed under the guise of an anti-Salafist operation? Are you seriously claiming that Hezbollah is anti-Palestinian?! Are you saying that Hezbollah wanted to clear the camp to let a US base replace it?!
vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 6:36 pm #

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@Tony: “botched operation” can be used to conceal a deliberate attempt to massacre people.

However, there are real botched operations out there. And when I see the kind of “army” the so-called “Lebanese Army” is, I think “incompetence” long before I think “mission”. Actually, and this might shock you, I also mostly think “incompetence” rather than “mission” when I see the US Army’s dismal performance in Iraq. (Now, with the Israelis its mostly a combination of both).
vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 6:40 pm #

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VS, I think Tony does not mean Hizbulah when he mentions the highest level. Remember had left their seats, and Siniora ruled unconstitutionally, on behalf of the zio-cons. Hizbullah had, then, its tents set up in protest to form an equitable unity gov.
Lucia 09.28.08 – 6:41 pm #

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@Lucia:I think Tony does not mean Hizbulah when he mentions the highest level.

Yes, I understand that. But if he, Tony, knows about the real goal of the operation it is safe to say that so does Hezbollah. Hence, they praised what was an anti-Palestinian operation. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Nor does, by the way, the idea that the US would put a base in Lebanon, by the way.
vineyardsaker Homepage 09.28.08 – 6:44 pm #

NASRALLA to BARAK: BRING 9 DIVISIONS TO LEBANON NOT JUST 8 AND WE SHALL DESTROY THEM

‘We Must Arm Our Army, Even Through Black Market’
Mohamad Shmaysani

27/09/2008

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah on Friday told participants marking Al-Quds Day that Jerusalem and Palestine would soon be returned to their rightful owners. His eminence added that the very presence of Palestinian families within Jerusalem is a form of “resistance against the occupation.”The International Day of Al-Quds was first initiated by late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. It has since been observed by Arabs and Muslims as a way of support for the Palestinians and emphasizing the importance of Quds to Muslims and Christians alike.

The event was attended by representatives of the Lebanese president and army commander, the parliament speaker, diplomats and other supporters. It was held in the Sayyed Al-Shuhada compound in Dahiyeh.

“Palestine, from the sea to the river, is the property of Arabs and Palestinians and no one has the right to give up even a single grain of earth or one stone, because every grain of the land is holy. The entire land must be returned to its rightful owners,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.

His eminence added that the event is to revive the cause, not to cry on the ruins of a “Nakba or a Naksa” (Catastrophe of 1948 and Setback of 1967). “It is an event to mark in our minds, hearts and conscience and an emphasis on determination and will.”

I FEEL SHAME THAT PALESTINIANS ARE DYING OF HUNGER
Sayyed Nasrallah urged Arabs and Muslims to keep in mind that the occupation of Palestine and the sanctities of Muslims and Christians was carried out by a group of racists and to consider what happened then as the biggest insult to the nation during the 20th century.
He also blamed elements in the Arab world for not acting against Israel. “Unfortunately, there were those among the Arabs who took advantage of the conflict within the Palestinian people to wash their hands off the Palestinian issue. If the Arab nation does what is needed, the liberation of Jerusalem will be possible, maybe even soon.”

“The Palestinian nation expects Arab nations to act in order to bring the blockade on the Gaza Strip to an end,” said Sayyed Nasrallah. “However,” he added, “only foreigners are sailing on the ships to Gaza. As a Lebanese Arab and Muslim I feel great shame that the Palestinians are dying of hunger,” he added.

WAY TO RETURN PALESTINE IS THROUGH DETERMINATION OF RESISTANCE
The Hezbollah Secretary General went on to blame Britain and its allies at the beginning of last century for planting this entity in the region. His eminence said that it wrong to believe that Israel is ruling the world and influencing the United States. “Israel is a functional entity founded by Britain and its allies in the region for certain purpose. The succeeding US administrations inherited this. Israel is a functional entity that is carrying out its mission in the framework of the US-Western colonial project that aims at dominating our nation and its riches. Israel is the spearhead in this project… We do not deny the influence of the Zionist lobby in the world, but Israel does not control the US. When we understand this, we have to understand also that our holy lands will not be liberated through begging the Americans, the West, those who founded Israel and have been using it to divide our region in the framework of a new Middle East. The Lebanese foiled this project in the July 2006 war. The way to return the lands and liberate the Palestinian people is through the will and the determination of the resistance and sacrifices of the peoples of this region who can impose their will on Israel,” Sayyed Nasrallah stressed.

His eminence added that Israel was the enemy of all Arab and Islamic states. “Israel is not only the enemy of the Palestinian people, but also of Lebanon, all the Arab people and all the Muslim nations. Israel is a cancerous tumor, as Imam Khomeini said.”
“Today the time of the Zionists’ dreams has passed and the time of our dreams has begun. Today we don’t just dream, we implement our dreams. After the year 2000 and following the historic victory in southern Lebanon, the blessed al-Aqsa Intifada broke out. It was a historic golden opportunity to realize these hopes. Unfortunately, the entire Islamic nation did not stand by the Palestinians, who were forced to offer sacrifices.”

TWO THIRDS OF ISRAELIS FEEL INSECURE
Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation, the Hezbollah Chief said, “Olmert, although he naturally should have stepped down following the Winograd Commission report, remained in his seat thanks to vigorous US involvement.”

“The post-war Israel is facing a leadership crisis. One of the most important developments was that Olmert admitted that the Greater Israel dream has come to an end, after (Likud leader Benjamin) Netanyahu admitted that Zionism was dying in Israel’s new generations.

“Out of all these things, the public’s lack of faith in this entity and its future is the most important. Polls released in Israel recently say two-thirds of the public believe they are living in an area where they feel insecure.”

Sayyed Nasrallah went on to say that the Zionists had come to Palestine with promises of the land of honey, security and protection. “They were promised to become the dominant, tyrannical, hegemonic and despotic state in the region…But today, they feel insecure and they lost faith in their country. There is no visible horizon for a settlement with the Palestinians and what happened after Annapolis was worse that before it. The resistance in Lebanon and Palestine has passed the stage of existential threat. Syria and Iran got past isolation conspiracies and proved their essential roles in the region and the world. The US project was blocked in many countries in the region. What happened in the Caucasus (Georgia and Russia) constituted a defeat to the US-Israeli axis. The dangerous financial crisis in the US proves that the world is heading towards a multi-polar political, military and economic system…We see in these developments doors of hope opening to a future where the interests of the peoples of this region are fulfilled,” the Hezbollah S.G. emphasized.

BRING 9 DIVISIONS TO LEBANON NOT JUST 8 AND WE SHALL DESTROY THEM
Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that backing the resistance was essential because “the resistance is the only way to liberate Palestine and lands occupied by Israel.”
He warned Israel not to attack Lebanon. “I have always said that the way of the resistance is not a classic war. We are ready to help the resistance of the Palestinian people. But those who attack Lebanon – we shall face them.”

“(Defense Minister) Ehud Barak spoke in the past about five divisions which would invade Lebanon, and today he talks about eight. Okay, he may have made new calculations. But you should know that your eight divisions will be destroyed on our territory by our fighters. If you (Barak) ask me I would tell you to send nine divisions. Sending eight division is better than sending five. I understand that if Israel made this mistake, it will lead to its end. Imagine five destroyed divisions. Israel will no longer have an army there will be no state left. Then what would be the case if Israel sends eight divisions? The enemy and the friend know these things are promises from the Arab victory periods and are not taken from the times of past defeats,” the leader of the resistance firmly said.

WE MUST ARM LEBANON ARMY EVEN THROUGH BLACK MARKET
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that Lebanon should arm its army even “by obtaining arms from the black market as the resistance does.”
“Following the reports in Lebanon that Israel objects to the US equipping the Lebanese army with a number of arm systems, can we maintain the sovereignty of Lebanon and its people this way? Must we really wait for permission from the US and Israel to equip our national army and give it all it needs to carry out its secret missions? This is unthinkable. As for the resistance, they (weapons) were angered by it because it did not need anyone’s permission to arm itself, and thus this weapon is one of the reasons for power. If we wait for the United State’s permission, we might receive trucks, weak armored personnel carriers, etc, but we will never get weapons which will allow us to face the Zionist enemy. A national force is not built through an external entity, but through national determination. We need the unity government to make a brave decision that we do not need anyone’s permission and we will equip our army. We will establish a special cabinet of ministers, and in this framework the state will purchase weapons, even in the black market, as the resistance does.

WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT RECONCILIATION
He also said on Friday that Hezbollah is ready for whatever it takes to implement peace and stability in Beirut, but ruled out new alliances with the anti-Syrian majority. “We are ready to do whatever it takes to reassure all the Lebanese and especially the citizens of Beirut,” his eminence stressed, adding “we are serious and devoted to the reconciliation.”

“We are serious, real, and cautious in all reconciliations that aim to create a positive atmosphere. Details are not important. We are ready to comfort all Lebanese, especially in Beirut. Reconciliation does not mean new political alliances. We assure this and so do they. Their aim is to create a positive atmosphere and pave the way to the democratic 2009 parliamentary elections, which will be the deciding factor. We have always sought these elections. People will make their choices in these elections,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.

He added that if the opposition wins a majority in the 2009 elections, “Hezbollah will be committed to a national unity cabinet that makes others partners in the decision making process. We do not want to deny anyone a voice, we must learn from the past. Lebanon cannot be ruled on a majority/minority principle, this principle is not suitable to resolve issues.”

LET THE COUNTRY TAKE A CHANCE TO RELAX AND REVISE MATTERS
The Hezbollah chief spoke of national unity and easing down tension in Lebanon. “National force cannot be built from the outside; it can only come from national will. We have always said we were cautious in preserving peace and stability. We have always talked of national unity and demanded dialogue. Let the tense political language stop for a while. Let this country take a chance to relax, to rethink and revise matters. An electoral law will be adopted and elections will occur on time.”

NOT SUFFICIENT TO OPPOSE NATURALIZATION OF PALESTINIANS
Sayyed Nasrallah said that it is not sufficient to oppose naturalization of the Palestinians in Lebanon. “We had made a proposal to amend the constitution so that a decision to normalize Palestinians can only be adopted unanimously in parliament. It was refused. Today the other bloc has made the same proposal, this is very good. We support any amendment of the constitution that forbids naturalization, which is an American-Israeli project financed by the Arabs.
We must make every effort, at every level, to preserve the Palestinian’s right to return to their country. It is Lebanon’s responsibility is to improve the situation in the refugee camps. I hail the wise and correct Palestinian decision in Lebanon to remain neutral toward Lebanese divisions and disputes.

Read Also: Sayyed Nasrallah: Hezbollah was Born Victorious

السيد نصرالله لباراك:فرقك ال8 ستدمر عند اقدام مجاهدينا

موقع قناة المنار – محمد عبد الله /

اكد امين عام حزب الله السيد حسن نصرالله ان يوم القدس العالمي وبعد 30 عاماً على اعلان الامام الخميني لهذا اليوم ما

زال فاعلاً وقوياً ببركة التأييد الدائم لخليفة الامام ومواصل دربه الامام السيد علي الخامنائي. واشار السيد نصر الله انه وبفعل التزام وحب وإيمان شعوبنا بالقدس وفلسطين، فان يوم القدس هذا منذ بداية الإعلان كان دائما يهدف للتأكيد على جملة من المعاني تترسخ وتتركز مع مضي النسين.وحمد سماحته الله على توفيقه جيلنا ليشاهد بأم العين مساوء وجوه الصهاينة على وجوه المقاومين في فلسطين ولبنان.
كلام الامين العام لحزب الله جاء في كلمته التي القاها في المهرجان الجماهيري الذي اقامه حزب الله بمناسبة يوم القدس العالمي في مجمع سيد الشهداء في الرويس بضاحية بيروت الجنوبية وذلك بحضور حشد كبير من الشخصيات السياسية والعسكرية والدينة والفعاليات الشعبية وممثل رئيس الجمهورية اللبنانية ورئيس المجلس النيابي وممثل رئيس التيار الوطني الحر العماد ميشال عون.
وقد اوضح سماحته في كلمته أن الهدف الاساسي ليوم القدس هو أحياء لهذه الذكرى لأنها تعرضت للنسيان. وقال: “هناك مسؤولية تاريخية على الامة تجاه القدس وفلسطين وشعب فلسطين، ومن المعاني في هذا اليوم أن فلسطين من البحر والنهر هي ملك للعرب والفلسطينيين ولا يملك أحد تفويضاً للتخلي عن حبة تراب ولا عن حائط او حجر لأن كل ما فيها مقدس. وهذه الأرض يجب أن تعود الى أصحابها كاملة وغير منقوصة، وهناك ايضا تصحيح مفهوم الاشتباه القائل أن اسرائيل تحكم العالم أو ان اسرائيل تحكم الولايات المتحدة، هناك تأثير للوبي الصهيوني، ولكن الفهم الصحيح هو أن اسرائيل كيان وظيفي أوجدته بريطانيا وحلفائها لأهداف وأكملته أميركا، وهو يؤدي مهمة للمشروع الأميركي والغربي للسيطرة على بلادنا، واسرائيل تؤدي رأس الحربة في هذا المشروع، وتحرير أرضنا لا يتم من خلال التوسل للأميركيين ولا الغربيين، وانما طريق استعادة الأرض والمقدسات يأتي من خلال ارادة وعزم ومقاومة وتضحيات شعوب هذه المنطقة التي تستطيع ان تفرض نفسها على هذا الكيان الوظيفي”. واعتبر الامين العام لحزب الله ان من جملة المعاني التي يجب التأكيد عليه في يوم القدس هو التأكيد على ان إسرائيل هي عدوة الشعوب العربية والإسلامية كلها، وأن إسرائيل هي غدة سراطانية طبعها وماهيتها الفتئ بمن حولها، موضحاً ان هذا الإحساس بهذه الثقافة يجب أن يبقى حاضراً.
وشدد السيد نصر الله على التأكيد على ان الطريق الوحيد لاستعادة الارض والمقدسات هو المقاومة معتبراً انه اليوم انتهى زمن أحلام الصهاينة وأبتداء زمن تحقيق أحلامنا. الامين العام لحزب الله اعتبر انه وبعد العام الفين وبعد الانتصار في الجنوب اللبناني انطلقت إنتفاضة الأقصى وكانت فرصة ذهبية لتحقيق هذه الآمال، لكنه اوضح قائلاً: “لكن وللأسف، لم تقف الأمة بالشكل المناسب إلى جانب فلسطين مع العلم ان هذا الشعب أبلى بلاء حسنا، اليوم لم تضع بعد هذه الفرصة، الشعب الفلسطيني ما زال في قلب المحنة، في كل يوم يقتل الفلسطينيون وغزة في الحصار، والشعب الفلسطيني لم تسقط بندقيته، اليوم هذا الشعب يصر على المقاومة والتحدي وعدم التنازل عن حقوقه، وإن اختلف على أشياء إلا أنه جمع على عدم التخلي عن القدس وهذا موقف يجب أن تتحمل الامة مسؤوليته”. واكد السيد نصر الله انه لم يطلب أحد من الحكومات العربية أن ترسل جيوشها لتحارب إسرائيل ولم نطلب منهم دعمنا في تموز 2006.
واوضح السيد نصر الله ان العائلات الفلسطينية العربية في القدس الشرقية تتعرض لأبشع أنواع التهجير بحجج مختلفة، داعياً لدعم هذه العائلات لتبقى في القدس، لأن بقاءها في القدس هو مقاومة، وإن وجودها في القدس، ونومها وبقاءها وأكلها وهدوؤها هو مقاومة، بل من أشرف أنواع المقاومة الذي يجب أن يقدم له الدعم ومطالباً العرب الذين يملكون الدولارات قادرون على دعم هذه العائلات. وتحدث السيد نصر الله عن الضفة الغربية التي تشهد حالات مماثلة، وان قطاع غزة يحاصر وما زال تحت الحصار ويمكن أن يمد له يد العون، مشيراً الى ان مسؤولية الأمة هو فك الحصار عن غزة ويمكن القيام بهذا، معتبراً ان الأمر بحاجة فقط للإرادة.
وقال السيد نصرالله: “الشعب الفلسطيني يتطلع الى أمته لتنزع عنه الحصار فلا يجد الا بعض الاجانب، فأشعر بخجل شديد من جراء ذلك لأن أحد من الأمة لم يبادر الى ما فعلوه هؤلاء. هذا جزء من المسؤولية، الدعم الإعلامي والسياسي هي من واجبات الامة، ومن أهم الواجبات ان تعمل الأمة على إجراء مصالحة بين الفلسطينيين، وللأسف بعض العرب استفاد من هذا الامر لنفض يديه من القضية الفلسطينية، ما هكذا تكون العروبة ولا الشهامة ولا الإسلام”.
واكد الامين العام لحزب الله انه وبالنظر الى المعطيات فان تحقيق هدف إستعادة القدس وفلسطين لم يعد بعيداً عنا مشيراً الى ان يوم القدس يأتي متزامنا هذا العام مع مجموعة هامة من التطورات: منها سقوط كبار قادة حرب تموز، اولمرت، مع العلم انه كان من المفترض ان يسقط بعد تقرير فينوغراد، ولكن خطط له أن يسقط في هذا التوقيت.
وتابع : “من جملة التطورات ان إسرائيل بعد تموز 2006 تعيش أزمة زعامة، واعتراف أولمرت بانتهاء حلم إسرائيل الكبرى وكان قد سبقه نتنياهو من عامين، بالإضافة إلى التخبط الإسرائيلي بمسألة النووي الإيراني، وأزمة الثقة بين شعب هذا الكيان ومؤسساته، إستطلاعات الرأي التي نشرت أظهرت ان ثلثي الشعب الإسرائيلي يعتبرون أنهم يعشون في أرض قذرة لانهم لا يعيشون فيها بأمان”. وقال الامين العام لحزب الله: “الصهاينة جاؤوا الى فلسطين على اساس ان يكونوا آمنين وفي أرض تدر لهم اللبن والعسل، أما اليوم بعد المقاومة أن المنطقة لم تعد تلك المنطقة الموعودة التي جاءوا على أساسها.
ومن جملة هذه التطورات، إنسداد افق أي تسوية سياسية مع الفلسطينيين وما جرى ما بعد أنابوليس كان أسوأ مما قبله، وعلى مستوى المنطقة، من التطورات المهمة تجاوز المقاومة في لبنان وفي فلسطين مرحلة الخطر الوجودي، لا يوجد من يمكنه ان يهدد هذا الوجود، تجاوز دول الممانعة مؤامرات العزل وإثبات حضور هذه الدول في المنطقة. ومن جملة التطورات تعثر المشروع الأميركي على مستوى المنطقة وفي أكثر من بلد هذه العوامل تزيد من قدرة تأثير دول المنطقة على الاحداث، أما دوليا فهزيمة جورجيا والأزمة المالية التي تعاني منها أميركا من الواضح أن العالم يسير نحو حكم متعدد الأقطاب وهذه التطورات كلها تلعب لصالح المنطقة.
ان هذه التحولات على مستوى إسرائيل والمنطقة والعالم نرى فيها فتحاً للكثير من أبواب الحل نحو مستقبل تتحقق فيه مصالح هذه المنطقة وتبتعد فيه عن سياسيات الهيمنة التي تمارسها أميركا وتوظف فيها إسرائيل. ان المفروض في هذه المرحلة المزيد من الصمود في مواقعنا لأن ما نحن مقبلون عليه يبشر بالمزيد من الانتصارات انشاء الله”.
وحول الموضوع اللبناني قال سماحته: “أتحدث في الموضوع اللبناني عن شقين، شق فلسطيني وشق لبناني، في الشق الفلسطيني من مسؤولية لبنان النضال ومواصلة العمل إلى جانب الفلسطينيين لإنجاز حق العودة، لا يجب فقط أن نرفض التوطين بل يجب المساهمة في إنجاز حق العودة للاجئين الفلسطينيين. لبنان معني برفض قاطع للتوطين وكان فريقنا السياسي قد طرح أمراً على الحوار الاول تم رفضه من الاخرين. شاهدنا قبل مدة في وسائل الإعلام ان الفريق الآخر تقدموا بطلب تعديل دستوري لتحصين الموقف اللبناني في مواجهة خطر التوطين الذي أعرف وتعرفون أنه مشروع اميركي صهيوني والتمويل العربي جاهز لذلك، مع الإشارة أننا في الحوار الماضي كنا قد عرضنا سابقاً لتعديل الدستور. الاسرائيلي موجود بلبنان بأشكال وألوان متعددة ومن واجب الفلسطينيين واللبنانيين التصدي للمشروع الاسرائيلي في لبنان”. ونوه الامين العام لحزب الله بموقف الفصائل الفلسطينية في لبنان التي أجمعت على الحياد فيما يتعلق بالمسائل اللبنانية”.
وفي الشق اللبناني قال الامين العام لحزب الله: “نحن دائماً ما نتطلع إليه في لبنان، أنا أقولها في الخطابات الداخلية، نطمح لأن يكون بلدنا قوياً قادراً سليماً معافاً آمنا، ونحن نقول لإخواننا وأخواتنا أننا لا نريد السيطرة على لبنان ولا الإمساك بالسلطة بل نؤمن ان مصلحتنا في لبنان أن نكون سوياً ونعمل سوياً وأن نبني سوياً وأن نواجه التحديات سوياً، طبعا إذا تخلى أحد عن مواجهة إسرائيل فهذا لا يعني أننا سنتخلى أيضاً ولكن هذا ما نطمح إليه. نحن قاومنا وقاتلنا العدو وما زلنا في هذا الموقع وذهبنا الى الحوار الوطني ليكون هناك تلاقي لبناني لبناء قوة لبنان الحقيقية،
واليوم بعد الانباء الصحفية عن ممانعة اسرائيلية للأميركيين لتزويد الجيش ببعض انواع الاسلحة، هل يمكن أن نبني جيش لبناني قادر ويدافع عن لبنان بهذه الطريقة؟ في مسألة المقاومة، هنا شكلت لهم المقاومة الإزعاج لأنها لا تطلب إذناً من أحد للحصول على السلاح ولأنها تخفي سلاحها لأن إخفاءه هو من أسباب القوة، وهي لا تخشى أحداً عندما تقوم بواجبها. هل يجوز ان ننتظر اذن من اسرائيل واميركا لكي نسلح جيشنا الوطني، كلا لن ننتظر اذن من احد بل قمنا نحن بالمقاومة بذلك دون انتظار احد. نحن على مستوى حكومة الوحدة بحاجة الى قرار شجاع يقول نحن في لبنان نريد أن نسلح ونجهز جيشنا ليتمكن من الدفاع عن لبنان ولسنا بحاجة الى اذن من احد ونشكل فريقاً وزارياً ليؤمن السلاح ومن المشروع للدولة أن تشتري السلاح للجيش حتى من السوق السوداء كما تفعل المقاومة. إذا كنا نريد ان ننتظر رايس لتأذن لنا بالحصول على الاسلحة فلن نحصل إلا على ملالات ضعيفة ولكن لن نتمكن من أن يحصل جيشنا على القدرة لمواجهة الخارج. ان القوة والقدرة الوطنية لا تبنى بإذن من أحد بل من صميم الشعب وقوته.
أنطلاقنا من ذلك نحن نبحث في الحوار عن التلاقي ونقول لاصحاب المقالات لا تبحثوا في قاعدتنا عن أمر تريدونها للفتنة. دائما كنا نتحدث عن الوحدة الوطنية واعتصمنا لأجل حكومة وحدة وطنية وكنا نطالب بالتكاتف والتلاقي، حتى بعد حرب تموز دعوت لأن نحمي لبنان سوياً، القاعدة الشعبية التي تسمع هذا الخطاب عندما تشاهد الناس تتلاقى ستعتبر أن ما يجري منسجم مع طموحاتها”. السيد حسن نصرالله اكد ان المصالحة لا يمكن ان تكون بقرار طرف واحد بل هي قرار طرفين، وقال : “نحن في المصالحات جديون وحريصون وحاضرون لكل ما يعزز هذا المناخ الايجابي في البلد وطمأنة الناس في كل المناطق اللبنانية وخصوصاً في عاصمتنا العزيزة بيروت وأهلها الكرام”. وتابع الامين العام لحزب الله قائلاً: “بالتأكيد، عندما نتحدث عن مصالحات لا نتحدث عن تحالفات، هم يؤكدون ذلك ونحن أيضاً، نحن إلى جانب حلفائنا الذين نحفظ لهم الود والإلتزام، المصالحات تهدف لإيجاد مناخ إيجابي للتهدئة ووقف مسلسل التوتير والأجواء المذهبية، وإيجاد مناخات سليمة للذهاب إلى منافسة سلمية في الإنتخابات المقبلة.
نحن نتصالح ونحن نقبل أن الحكم هو الانتخابات المقبلة وخطابنا كان منذ الاعتصام كان للرجوع الى الناس الذين نحترم إختيارهم. معنيون جميعاً لأن نؤمن المناخ الإيجابي لمنافسة سياسية شريفة تؤدي إلى إنتخابات نيابية تنتج سلطة جديدة، لست ممن يبدل في الوعد، أقول لكم من الآن، إذا حصلت المعارضة على الغالبية، فحزب الله سيؤكد دعمه لحكومة لوحدة الوطنية يحضر فيها الفريق الآخر للمشاركة في حكم البلد. نحن لا نتطلع الى انتخابات جديدة لإلغاء أحد لان لبنان بلد خاص ولا يحكم بأقلية وأكثرية. لا يمكن معالجة الازمات الا بذهنية تعاون وتعاضد وتكافل وطني بين جميع القوى التي تمثل الشرائح المختلفة، وفي المدى المنتظور
هذه هي تركيبة بلدنا، وليس علينا ان نذهب الى خيارات مثالية تعمق الازمة، بل نتصرف بواقعية نحتكم الى الانتخابات وننتج اقلية واكثرية ولكن لبنان لن تعالج ازماته بهذه العقلية. اقول ما أنجز من مصالحات وما عقد من لقاءت وما سيعقد أيضاً هي تعزز هذا المناخ عسى ان تأخذ القوى السياسية فرصة والحكومة فرصة لتفرغ لبعض الأزمات خصوصاً مع قدوم الشتاء والعام الدراسي، والفقر هي الصفة التي تجمع أكثر من ثلثي اللبنانيين، لذلك يجب معرفة كيفية مواجهة المشاكل الاجتماعية، وفي ظل حكومة الوحدة، ومجلس نيابي، والحوار الوطني، فلنأخذ فرصة في هذا البلد لنبذل جهوداً إيجابية، والوضع السياسي سيوضع على السكة السليمة بإقرار قانون إنتخاب خلال أيام وباللجوء إلى الإنتخابات في موعدها المحدد. وقال الامين العام لحزب الله: “عندما نتحدث عن الشق اللبناني تبقى عيوننا مشدودة الى الجنوب الى تلالنا وجبالنا التي نشتم منها عبق فلسطين لنؤكد في يوم القدس أننا هنا في المقاومة والى جانب الجيش اللبناني لن نغفل عن أي تحدي هناك اياً تكن ازمات الداخل وانشغالاته”.
وتحدث السيد نصر الله عن التهديدات الاسرائيلية وقال: “اليوم سمعنا من بعض المحللين الإسرائيليين نقلا عن رئيس اركان الجيش الإسرائيلي أنه لا يتوقع حرباً مع لبنان في هاذين العامين، ما السر؟ فمنذ أيام كانوا جميعهم يهددونا، أنا كنت أقول أن المقاومة ليس مشروعها مشروع حرب، حتى في موضوع تحرير فلسطين، فواجبنا كلبنانيين دعم هذا الموضوع، مشروعنا ليس حرب كلاسيكية، عندما يعتدى على لبنان لن تقف المقاومة مكتوفة الأيدي.
التعديل الاخير لايهود باراك بانه يعمل على قاعدة 8 فرق نقول أن فرقك الثماني هذه ستدمر عند جبالنا وقرانا وعند أقدام مجاهدينا. أقول له بالعكس، الكلام عن 8 فرق أفضل من الحديث عن 5 فرق، فإذا ارتكبت إسرائيل هذه الخطيئة فهذا يؤدي إلى انهيارها، إذا دمرت 5 فرق، فماذا بقي من الجيش الإسرائيلي من معنويات؟ إذا قال لي: أحضر 5 أو 8، أقول له أحضر 9!
باراك يعرف والصديق يعرف أن هذا الكلام ليس خطابات من ايام الهزيمة العربية بل هو وعود والتزامات من ايام النصر العربي، وفيما كان الناس مشغولين بالأزمة الداخلية كان هناك رجال في المقاومة لا ينامون الليل منذ انتهاء حرب تموز وعلى رأسهم الشهيد عماد مغنية، وما زالوا حتى اليوم يعملون لتحقيق الحلم”.وختم الامين العام لحزب الله بالقول: “في يوم القدس، عندما نمتلك العزم والإرادة نمتلك القوة والقدرة، وعندما نصبح أقوياء في مكان لا يبقى فيه إلا القوي، تعود إلينا مقدساتنا، هكذا ننظر إلى القدس ونحن اليوم أقرب من أي زمن مضى إلى كنيسة القيامة والمسجد الأقصى ، سيكون جيلنا هذا هو الذي سيشهد العودة الى قدسنا الحبيب وارضنا في فلسطين”.
وسنكون مع نص كلمة الامين العام لحزب الله كاملة فور جهوزها …

 

all innocents are equal……but the bombers are not !!

A Bomb in Islamabad kills 56 innocent-souls.

A fortnight before , another bombing in Pakistan
has killed another 96 innocent-souls.

Can we assume that all innocents are equal ??
While assuming that all bombers are criminals ??

But let us not forget that there are Criminal-actions
and Criminal-reactions. …….

The reaction blames the action
while the innocents do die unaware whether the action killed them
or the consequent-reaction .

One fact is undeniable and relevant:
those who died in the Marriott Hotel were probably or presumably
richer than those 96 who died in the poor Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

While if there were any arms-dealers among those victims
one would logically find them in that 5 Stars Hotel and not
among the poor farmers in East-Pakistan- Provinces.
The same goes for the dealers in nuclear technologies ,
they love 5 stars Hotels…… .

In the eyes of God and of humanity ,
all living and all dead are equals
but there are rich-dead and also poor-dead.

My condolences to both….
but my sympathy declines a bit to one side…..

Raja Chemayel
equality brings justice brings peace
21St of September 2008

AL-Quds…Allah’s Endowment

26/09/2008

The International Day of Al-Quds is an initiative started by Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Quds Day is held annually on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and calls for Jerusalem to be returned to the Palestinians.

Friday night, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah will mark the event with a televised speech in the Sayyed Al-Shuhada complex in Dahyieh (Beirut’s southern suburb). There will not be a weapons-free military parade due to the delicate security situation in the country. Hezbollah’s media activities unit chose “Al-Quds…Allah’s Endowment” as a slogan for this years event.

Comment:

The Palestinian Thug shall not like the TITLE: Allah’s Endowment

Hezbollah and the Palestinians

Hezbollah and the Palestinians

A Hezbollah fighter salutes the coffins containing the remains of Hezbollah and Palestinian fighters at the Naqoura border point with Israel July 16, 2008. (Photo: Reuters)

By Franklin Lamb – Beirut

“The response to the massacre at Sabra-Shatila was for the resistance to become active in Lebanon. If the Lebanese people had given up on the resistance, they too would have been complicit in the massacres of Qana and Sabra and Shatila.” – Hasan Nassallah June 4, 2002

“We renew our pledge to Jerusalem, to the Palestinians, and to the cause and Imam of Jerusalem; their city will forever remain in our souls, and will continue to be our cause, our battle, and our ultimate objective.” – Hasan Nassallah October 28, 2005

The fundamental consequences of the 1982 Massacre at Sabra-Shatila and the founding of Hezbollah are two seismic events from the same time and place which some argue are locked in an embrace that will return Palestine to the Palestinians.

In fewer than 45 minutes following the explosion in Islamabad at the 315-room Marriott Hotel during the Ramadan Iftar mealtime, Saturday, Hezbollah security units nearly invisibly secured the area of the 162-room Beirut Marriott Hotel. One of the embassies they secured was that of Palestine, which opened last year.

The security precautions were less out of love for the Bush administration, or love for the Zionist-owned hotel chain, than the fact that the Marriott is within one of Hezbollah’s densely populated base areas. Dahiyeh, which includes several southern Beirut neighborhoods, often erroneously referred to as “suburbs”, is less than a mile from the Palestinian refugee area known as Sabra-Shatila.

Hezbollah works regularly to intercept elements openly boasting of or secretly planning on attacking its neighborhoods. Some being watched and infiltrated are Al Qaida inspired Sunni Salafist cells, who consider Shia Hezbollah more their enemy than they do the US or Israeli governments. Contrary to Robert Fisk’s recent reports, these groups are indeed growing in Lebanon and inside the Palestinian Camps, particularly Ain el Helwe, Bedawi. They are trying to launch in the so far peaceful camps near Tyre. This observer would agree with Fisk that it will not be easy for Al Qaida to find enough supporters and adherents of the Salafi-Jihadi ideology to challenge the strength of Hezbollah’s well-organized partisans. Yet, no fewer than 11 Al Qaida-inspired groups, eager to destabilize Lebanon, and sometimes related to US-Israel projects, have been organizing according to Palestinian Popular Committee Representatives inside the Camps. Some of their goals are being telegraphed by the rising campaign of threats coming from their sometime-sponsors in Tel Aviv and Washington.

The Angry Bear Returns to the Levant
When the rest of the story is able to be told concerning what really was happening during the late April and early May events in West Beirut, the facts will support a very different conclusion than the narrative offered by the Welch Club. Researchers expect to elucidate contents of ten and one half hours of taped conversations between Washington and its Lebanese surrogates. Conversations are referred to during a meeting between Hezbollah’s number two, Sheifk Naim Qassim, and a former US Ambassador with his American delegation during a July 2008 dialogue in Dahiyeh. A full report of the May events will also document details of what is known by many here, that every incoming and outgoing communication at the US Embassy is carefully monitored, analyzed and contemplated. The same with Israeli Sunday Cabinet meetings.
This week the Israeli Army’s Information Security Chief, Colonel Ram Dor, complained in the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot (Latest News) that Russia is relaying intelligence information to Hezbollah. Dor said Russian Navy spy ships and Russian personnel serving at monitoring stations on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights carry out intercept and hacking missions and relay Israeli secrets to Hezbollah.

“My evaluation is that such facilities can cover most of Israel’s territory,” Dor said.
The US intelligence unit in the American Embassy in Beirut also blames the hacking and sharing of its ‘most secured communications’ on the Russians while others claim its tit-for-tat for what the Mossad and CIA did early last year in Georgia.

US Embassy Internet security experts are unclear to what extent the Russian military is directly responsible for “communication compromises,” but they claim that the traffic patterns and servers used in the operation are definitely coming out of Russia and result from increased Russian activity in the Middle East.

Some in Beirut speculate that this explains why the meticulously planned US/Israeli “May Surprise” turned out to be a ”May Surprise” for its sponsors and their local teammates, who were dropped like a bad habit when the project imploded.

To counter this problem, the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s newly created Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center is authorized for the first time to carry out “strategic offensive counterintelligence operations” in Lebanon and against any group anywhere which the Bush administration considers “terrorist,” according to Mike Pick of the DEA, who will direct the program.

Covert offensive operations will be carried out in Lebanon and abroad against people known or suspected to be connected to foreign intelligence or international terrorist activities, according to Toby Sullivan, Director of Counterintelligence for James R. Clapper, Jr., the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

According to Walter Pincus, who covers counterintelligence for the Washington Post, these sensitive, clandestine operations are “tightly controlled departmental activities run by a small group of specially selected people” within the Defense Department. The new unit is designed to thwart what groups like Hezbollah might be trying to do to us and to learn more about what they’re trying to get from us,” Sullivan said. In the case of “terrorists,” the object would be to identify people who might be “trying to do harm, collect information about us, and keep them from doing that. So far we don’t know if Hezbollah is trying to do anything to us but we will watch them,” he stated.

“You stop, we stop,” is the Putin offer to the next US administration, according to Congressional staff sources on the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Many in power in Moscow also consider the Bush administration a “terrorist cabal” and are awaiting the November election results, hoping Obama wins.

The Student Laptops and the KKK Kid
Hours before the Marriott was attacked in Pakistan, Fairouz Husseini sat with her girlfriends in the courtyard outside Haifa Middle School across the road from Shatila Refugee Camp, which is administered by UNWRA in Bir Hassan. Fairouz and her friends were giddy two days after receiving laptops at the 26th Anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre Memorial.
“I love it! I can’t believe it’s mine to keep!”, Fairouz exclaimed as she protectively dusted off the pale green cover of her new XO laptop, and recorded an interview with the screen sized video and built-in camera. The XO laptop is part of an advanced teaching tool developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that some believe can revolutionize education in developing countries.

“That American man told us that if we used it properly it would open the doors to the Great Library of Alexandria for us and we can learn as much as any student at the best schools anywhere in the World!” she added.

Amal, a very loquacious 13 year old friend of Fairouz chimed in, “We are making a laptop club at our school. We call it: Learn for our Return! Is that a good name? What do you think? Our friend Ahmad says it’s a silly idea. Anyway, Ahmad does not behave properly and is sort of wild. He is what we call a KKK kid – Kalashnikov, Kassem and Katyusha. Anyhow, most students in the camps are peaceful and we want to rebuild our country when we go back and we need lots of knowledge to do it!”

Fairouz and her Ramadan-fasting pals were already out of school for the day even though it was not yet noon. Lebanon’s camp Palestinians are severely challenged by a shortened school day due to overcrowding. On average around there are 35, but sometimes there are as many as 50 students per class, and because UNWRA must run two shifts daily. Student and teacher absenteeism is high, standards are low, text books insufficient, infrastructure poor, and dropout rates increasing.

Of the 59 Palestinian camps in the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon) only the camp schools in Gaza are as bad, indeed worse, as those in Lebanon.

Gaza Director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) John Ging reports that up to 60 percent of Gazan children at UNRWA schools had failed their math exams last year, while 40 percent failed their Arabic exams at the beginning of the year.

UNRWA provides schooling for Palestinian refugee children from grade 1 through 9, but offers limited secondary education and, as in Lebanon, these schools are forced to operate double shifts due to overcrowding. ”Many children come to school hungry and unable to concentrate,” according to Ging.

Haifa Fahmi al-Agha, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Education Ministry’s Director General in the Gaza Strip, has documented that failure rates at schools in Gaza were deliberately lowered the past few years to cope with overcrowded classrooms, too few schools and limited educational funds. The same “lowering of the bar” trend is creeping into Palestinian schools in Lebanon.

Shatila Camp, as well as its sister, Burj al Baraneh, is located in Ghouberi Municipality, whose Council is now controlled by Hezbollah, whose party members won all 21 Council seats in both the 1998 and 2004 elections. Hezbollah security protects the whole area around Shatila Camp, and Haifa and other Palestinian Schools with their Shia, Sunni and Christian students. The Sabra-Shatila area is an increasingly close-knit area bringing together the Sunni Palestinians and the Shia Hezbollah.

More than 90% of Lebanon’s Palestinian students interviewed recently, in an admittedly unscientific poll, appear to believe that Hezbollah holds out their best hope to return to Palestine, and insist their parents would vote for Hezbollah in next year’s critical election if Palestinians were allowed to vote in Lebanon.

Before leaving for home, Fairouz introduced this observer to her lovely mother, Nour. Nour is a community organizer who had come to collect her daughter. She elaborated on why the Sunni and partially secular Palestinian community of Bir Hasan (where the first killers assembled 26 years ago before being sent into the Camp) have come to support the Shia Party of God despite a sometimes troubled past relationship.

The Non-ID Issue and Palestinian Gratitude

Besides shared values regarding education, Hezbollah supports the project that is now finally happening to give Palestinians identification cards for the first time.

“This is so important to our people in Lebanon. Actually Hezbollah worked quietly with Prime Minister Siniora’s people to achieve this much needed progress,” the community organizer explained. “They do a lot for us but they don’t announce it to the public so much.”

Many Palestinians credit pressure and dialogue from Hezbollah with the announcement last month that the government of Lebanon will finally issue temporary identification cards to perhaps as many as 5000 Palestinian families (around 20,000 individuals) who have no documents and who habitually hide from the authorities or risk imprisonment.

PM Fouad Siniora, in bed with the Bush Administration, wins kudos for his work on this issue. Siniora appears to reject the Bush/Cheney and Israeli intense antipathy toward Resistance supporting Palestinians.

The Lebanese authorities have thus agreed after 40 years to give temporary ID cards to “non-ID” Palestinian refugees. Palestinians without any ID documents are subject to more capricious treatment by authorities than those holding UNWRA ID or Ration Cards or NR (”Non Registered”) cards.

Most non-ID Palestinians are either former “Fedayeen” or descendants of the Palestinian fighters who came to Lebanon in the 1970s after being driven from Jordan during the “Black September” conflict with the Jordanian monarchy.

To qualify for the new IDs these individuals need to get a residence notice from a Mukhtar and submit it to the Lebanese General Security. The Non-ID card will help settle the legal status of thousands of Palestinians living in Lebanon and is about the only good news for the Palestinians here since their PLO protectors left Beirut in 1982, when the camp’s steep descent into misery accelerated. Lebanon’s new PLO “Embassy,” which was allowed to open in May of 2006, has already received 2,600 names of applicants.

Like all Palestinians, the new ID-holders will still not be allowed to work in professional vocations or to own property, but at least their marriages will be legally registered and, theoretically, they can no longer be rounded up by the authorities at whim.

Sidon Mukhtar Mohammad Baasiri explained that dozens of Palestinians were flocking into his office on a daily basis seeking IDs. “I have hundreds of applications from Palestinians who want to get a residence notice as a starting point toward getting an ID,” Mukhtar Bassiri noted.
Over the past two years, more than 350 non-ID refugees had been arrested in Sidon alone and more than 200 students were denied the right to access its schools and universities. To its everlasting credit, UNRWA often allows non-ID children to “sneak” into its schools – but they cannot pass their examinations at age 18 and gain qualifications because that requires legal papers. As reported by Daily Star’s Fayez Najjar, an unregistered Palestinian father of 14 children from Ein el Helwe Camp explained that his sons had been arrested for lack of ID several times as they stepped outside the autonomous security system of Palestinian-controlled camps. Hezbollah is credited with helping advance this project.

Fatima Khalife’s Quadruplets and Hasan Nasrallah
This is another example of Hezbollah “good neighborliness” mentioned by Hajjah Nour, which this observer had actually learned about earlier while conducting research in Mar Elias Camp in Beirut.

Many foreigners may not be familiar with the 6000-resident Mar Elias Palestinian Refugee Camp located just to the Northwest of Sabra and Shatila. It is small, one of the original camps set up in 1948. It is heavily made up by Christians from Nazarath and surrounded by Gulf-funded high rise construction projects. Salivating investors eye its boundaries and prime location near the sandy beach of Ramlet al Baida and Hamra.

Last month, this observer, en route to an appointment inside the Camp, was negotiating the sharp turns of alleys so narrow and dark that they have likely never been warmed by direct sunlight, barely enough space to advance along on a motorcycle.

Suddenly I noticed a gaggle of squealing pre-teens lining up for motorcycle rides and practicing their English with “hello!”, ‘how are you?”, “welcome!” The kids apparently recognized me and the trusty steed “Silver” from an earlier visit. But this time it was necessary to apologize and explain in very weak Arabic what “next time” meant because I was rushing to an appointment with a camp social worker, who told me yet another “Hezbollah story” which affords insight into the Party’s relationship with Palestinians in Lebanon:

On August 9, 2005, a Palestinian mother named Fatima Khalife gave birth to Quadruplets in Shatila Camp. One of the four babies, Omar, was very ill and not expected to live. He needed life-saving surgery and his family inquired at the nearby Safah Hospital. Being Palestinian, Lebanese law forbids any assistance from the National Social Security Fund, meager as it is. UNRWA contributed around $2000 and some local NGOs another $1,500. Still about $37,000 shy, the family was very happy when an article about the boy’s plight was published in the local daily, As Safir. Two wealthy humanitarian Lebanese women came forward and offered to help the infant by paying for his surgery.

The Palestinian community was ecstatic and prayed for success with the delicate operation. Shortly before the scheduled surgery, a call was received at the hospital business office that caused its cancellation. When it was learned that Omar is a Palestinian, the well-to-do Lebanese ladies, perhaps with memories of the civil war and lost loved ones, withdrew their offer of medical assistance.

Word of what happened circulated in the crestfallen community. A local TV station, New TV, ran a story about the Khalife family’s desperate plight as Omar’s brain infection took a virulent turn. Within minutes of the program being aired, the office of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called Omar’s father. Hezbollah said it would like to pay for the boy’s surgery and all subsequent expenses until the boy was well. And it did. Nasrallah had watched the program and was deeply moved. Today, Omar is healthy, sweet, rambunctious, beautiful, three years old who just learned how to press the ignition button and start a foreigner’s motorcycle.

Hezbollah cannot solve all the Palestinian’s problems in Lebanon pending their return to Palestine, but with no one to rely on but themselves, Palestinians appreciate enormously such gestures as saving Omar.

At the risk of over-simplification, one concludes that these kinds of “Robin Hood” stories have created a broad admiration for the Hezbollah-led Resistance in Lebanon’s Palestinian community – as do Hezbollah’s straight-dealing with the Shatila and Burj al Burajneh Camps in the Ghoberi Municipality, where it helps with infrastructural, sewer and water projects (probably against “the law” and wishes of many in Lebanon).

This is not to say that there are no lingering personal grudges within Lebanon’s Shia/Palestinian community from individuals who suffered at the hands of the other over the past four decades during the civil war and Zionist occupation. Yet, one Palestinian friend, Samer, a Mar Elias Camp social worker, reported that both communities want to let bygones be bygones. He points out that marriages between Shia and Sunni and Christian Palestinians are increasing (his wife is Shia). He also pointed out and that he personally has more Hezbollah friends than Palestinian, as he introduced me to his best friend, Ali, a Shia and Hezbollah party member.

– The SabraShatila website is http://www.sabrashatila.org/
– Franklin P. Lamb, PhD is the director of Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Wash. DC-Beirut and is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Middle East Policy Dialogue, USA. His book “The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel’s use of American Weapons against Lebanon (1978-2006)” is available at: Amazon.com.uk. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at: fplamb@gmail.com.

fplamb@gmail.com.

Only 15% of Jews are "Semitic"

Every time someone criticises the Apartheid State Zionists wail it’s “anti-semitic” Frankly I don’t care about this, as we say here in the UK “it’s like water off a duck’s back” because dumb remarks certainly aren’t going to stop my support for the Palestinians and that would be in any way I can and that will continue until Palestine is cleansed. This stupid term “anti-semitic” has been used so often to try and avoid criticism of the Apartheid State it no longer has any value.

In fact it appears that in reality it doesn’t even have any meaning. The Palestinians themselves are more “semitic” than the evil imposters who now temporarily occupy most of the State of Palestine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os0Lu2ByVCI

nice legs

How could I complain about any “nice legs” ??
but , it seems to be
the only thing “nice”……about her !!

Yesterday she said :
” I never hesitated one second about going to war
into Iraq” …unquote

Would you have her as : “Vice-president”
or simply as
the President of all the vices ??

Eng. Moustafa Roosenbloom
private phone-number: 00 708 65 85 99 12
12 September 2008

PS :
With her as Vice-President ,
John Mac Cain will be shot down within a week !!
With her as Vice_President .
the body-guards cannot complain………

——————————-

with such a vice…….you still needs a President ??

Many anti-imperialist, many progressives persons
many anti-capitalist and anti-US-hegemony
all of them wanted in the past to :
f… the US President !

But the times have changed now
and they should review their previous intentions
(or rather review their pretencion’s)
because in case John Mac Cain might win this election
they would be much better off if they :
f… the vice-president !!.

Eng. Moustafa Roosenbloom
anti-imperialist , and anti-anything in her case !!
forth of September 2008

the Super-Terrorist

The Spy who came from the secret-slaughterhouse…………

Israel gets, today, a new Prime Minister
she did not massacre Palestinian- children in Sabra and Chatilla
like her row-model did……
she did not accept bribery’s like her predecessor did
she never did get a Nobel Peace Prize for initiating five wars
like Rabin and Perez…

No sir !! she is completely different !!
she is Lithuanian just like Isaak Rabin was , but
her father was a certified-Irgun- terrorist,
son of another renowned-Hagganah terrorist
which makes her a third-generation-terrorist.. …

and why do I dare call her ” terrorist ” ???

Elementary my Dear Watson !!!
she is, herself ,an ex-Mossade-agent- lieutenant
which makes her a supper terrorist.

Sherlock Hommos
Terrorist’s biographer ,
20Th of September 2008

PS :

By the way if Mrs. Livni is a “Semite-person ”
then my Siberian-Husky- dog…… is a Doberman-dog

The Israeli Gulags

During the Soviet Bolshevik era Jews ran the gulags resulting in an estimated loss of 30 million Christian lives. Now they inflict all their expertise on the unfortunate Palestinians. The Infinite Violation of Human Rights Throughout the decades of Israeli military occupation, Palestinians from all walks of life have been illegally detained by Israel. Since the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, over 650,000 Palestinians have been detained by Israel. This forms approximately 20% of the total Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Considering the fact that the majority of those detained are male, the number of Palestinians detained forms approximately 40% of the total male Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The arrest and detention of Palestinians living within the OPT is governed by a wide-ranging set of military regulations that govern every aspect of Palestinian civilian life. There are now over 1,500 military regulations governing the West Bank and over 1,400 governing the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military commander of the region issues military orders, and the issuance of new orders often remains unknown and become apparent when they are implemented, as the military commander may issue new military regulations at any moment. Palestinians are tried within Israeli military courts located within Israeli military centers in the OPT. These military tribunals are presided over by a panel of three judges appointed by the military, two of who often do not have any legal training or background. These tribunals rarely fall within the required international standards of fair trial. In addition to the over 5000 Palestinians who were being held in Israeli prisons by the end of 2002, a large number of Palestinians have been wallowing in Israeli prisons for a number of years prior to this. For example, Ahmed Ibrahim Djbara, Abu Sukker, is 65 years old and the father of six grown children. He has spent the last 26 years of his life in prison. His crime was to fight to bring an end to the occupation. Wives and children of these men, as thousands of others before them, live now in constant fear and agony. For every Palestinian arrested, the story of a life is torn apart and an entire family broken. Yet the international community remains relatively silent in the face of Israel’s illegal detention of Palestinians and the fact that these detainees are often subjected to torture.

There is no doubt that peace in the region will never be attained as long as Palestinians are continuously denied their inalienable, fundamental rights. It is difficult to imagine that the sons and daughters of these thousands of Palestinians will one day forget what they suffered when their loved ones were thrown behind prison bars. The Geneva Conventions, the International Convention for Political and Civil Rights and the Convention against Torture and Cruel and Inhuman Treatment, all prohibit the use of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, without exception. Israel has consistently violated international laws in this regard. Detention conditions enforced by Israel do not conform to the UN Minimum Standard Rules of the Treatment of Detainees, nor to the Principles of the Protection of all persons under all form of detention or imprisonment, or the Basic Principles of Treatment of Prisoners. These legal instruments bind Israel as they form regulations to treaties to which Israeli is a signatory. Instead of applying these laws formed by the community of nations, Israel blatantly continues in its systematic policy of torture of Palestinian detainees. Rather than hide this fact, it openly discusses it within its parliament, the Knesset.

In addition, Palestinians are tried in military tribunals in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, according to military regulations governing the area, often by soldier judges who do not hold adequate legal experience. In November 2001, UN Committee Against Torture reminded Israel that there is no justification for the use of torture in any circumstances. Use of torture is an grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention (articles 31-32, 146-147). Furthermore, the 4th Geneva Convention forbids the transfer of detainees outside the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Article 76 states that “all protected person accused of an offense must be detained within the occupied country and if they are sentenced, they have to serve the sentence within it.” However, Israel has continued to detain Palestinians in prisons throughout Israel, far from their families, who almost never obtain the necessary permits to leave the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which have become a large prison for the entire Palestinian community. Thousands of Palestinian men, women and children are in prison because of their refusal to accept foreign occupation. They must be released and allowed to rejoin their families in order to reintegrate their political and social life within the Palestinian State-to-be. Anyone who holds that ‘reforms’ or political negotiations can be effective without including all sectors of the Palestinian society fool themselves into missing a historical opportunity to allow for real, lasting reforms in Palestinian society. The time has come to open the prison gates, and allow Palestinians to decide their own future. The Process of Arrest The mass arrest campaigns conducted by the IDF beginning March 2002, within just a few months, resulted in the detention of approximately 15 000 Palestinians, mostly men, but also women and children. In a blink of an eye, entire villages were emptied of all men over the age of 15. Israeli imposed curfews also prevented those whom had been released from reaching their families for several days, leaving many families unsure as to whether their loved ones had been released, rearrested or killed. Arrest can happen anywhere and everywhere: at home (often followed by the ransacking of family homes, threats against family members and sometimes the destruction of the house), on streets or roads, at Israeli checkpoints, and, as was witnessed during the most recent Israeli invasions, in any public or private place.

Upon arrest, detainees are usually handcuffed and blindfolded. They are not informed of the reason for their arrest, nor are they told where they will be taken. Physical abuse and humiliation of the detainee by Israeli forces is common. Based on numerous sworn affidavits, detainees have reported that they have been submitted to attempted murder, rape, thrown down stairs while blindfolded, amongst many other forms of physical abuse. During the arrest, detainees have often been forced to strip in public before being arrested. Family members have also been forced to remove their clothes in house to house arrest campaign raids. Conditions of detention Regulations Governing Detention and Arrest The Israeli Prison Ordinance (revised 1971) consists of 114 clauses. However, there is no clause or sub-clause defining prisoners’ rights.

The Ordinance provides a legally binding set of rules for the Minister of Interior, but the Minister formulates these rules himself by administrative decree. There is no provision stipulating obligations incumbent upon the authorities, nor is there a clause guaranteeing prisoner’s minimum standards of life. In Israel, it is for example legally permissible to intern 20 inmates in a cell no larger than 5m long, 4m wide and 3m high. This space includes an open lavatory. The minimum standard in American and European prisons is 10.5 square meters per detainee. Prisoners may be confined indefinitely to such cells for 23 hours a day. The Shabas – Israeli prison service – is in charge of investigating cases of abuse in prison but it is difficult to determine whether their intervention helps or worsens the situation. Infrastructure There are approximately 24 detention centers in which Palestinian political prisoners are held in Israeli custody, scattered throughout the 1948 borders of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. There are a total of 5 interrogation centers, 7 detention/holding centers, 3 military detention camps, and 9 prisons in which Palestinians from the OPT are held. The location of prisons within Israel and the transfer of detainees to locations within the occupying power’s territory are illegal under international law and constitute a war crime. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly states that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.” (Article 47) There are only two military detention centers and one military detention camp located within the OPT. Some of these detention centers are buildings, while others are merely tents erected within military camps. Archaic prisons from the British mandate period have been reopened, such as the Ketziot Military Detention Camp in the Negev desert. Old, threadbare tents have been set up within this detention camp, exposing detainees to extreme weather conditions. Zinc huts house rudimentary hygiene facilities. At Ofer Military Detention Camp, located south of Ramallah, oil soiled hangars formerly used for military vehicles serve as holding areas for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Negev, Ofer and Megiddo are all infested with flies, parasites, rats and other vermin.

All of these detention centers are extremely overcrowded. Detainees sleep on wooden planks covered by thin mattresses. Covers are rare and often provided by the families of detainees and human rights associations when items are allowed to enter the detention facilities. Electricity is sparsely provided and all movement is prohibited after sundown. Food Article (20) of the regulation of prisoners’ treatment, lower division, under the heading “food” states: “the administration is to provide each prisoner, during the regular hours, with sufficient, good quality, well prepared nutritious meals that should maintain the health and strength of the prisoners.” The prison’s administration is responsible for feeding all prisoners and all prisoners have the right to equal amounts of food. During the past few years, Israel has been encouraging detainees to obtain food from families or to purchase food from the prison canteen. However, the purchasing power of prisoners is radically divergent, and such encouragement by the Israeli authorities is immoral as they are ultimately responsible for providing sufficient food for prisoners. In most cases, it is the prisoners’ responsibility to provide more than half of their necessary food, which is problematic as most prisoners come from poor families. The food provided to Palestinian detainees is insufficient in both quantity and quality. Detainees are usually in charge of preparing their own meals with very little kitchen facilities and utensils. Only wooden and plastic spoons are allowed. The food is of poor quality and provided in small quantities. Between March and May 2002, for example, detainees in military detention camps were provided with frozen food that they were only able to defrost by sunlight. Hot drinks and meals are very rare. Basic food necessities such as olive oil, coffee, and sugar, are provided by detainees’ families and human rights associations, when possible. Getting these supplies through Israeli checkpoints is extremely difficult, and it is often lawyers who are able to carry these items in with them to detainees. Palestinian minors and women are served meals prepared by other detainees. This has resulted in numerous protests from Palestinian women who are being detained with Israeli criminal prisoners.

There are no special dietary considerations made for detainees who suffer chronic illnesses such as diabetes or high blood pressure. Other detainees often share their portions in order to provide them an adequate diet to meet their specific needs. Hygiene Detainees are not provided a change of clothing by the prison administration. Those injured during their arrest are forced to stay in blood-soiled clothing for several months, and those who were detained in their night clothes or underwear also do not receive a change of clothing. Soap is rationed by the prison administration, and other personal hygiene items are offered infrequently and are often unsanitary. Hot water is seldom available. For example, each section of 120 detainees at Ketziot Military Detention Camp receives one bar of soap each day, and none on Friday and Saturday. Mattresses used to sleep on are extremely worn, often from second hand military equipment, with some infested with vermin. Supplies to clean prison sections are offered infrequently and are insufficient. Garbage is removed irregularly, and the sewage system is in extreme disrepair. Health conditions A large number of detainees currently imprisoned are either wounded or ill. Many detainees taken in the arrest campaigns starting in March 2002 were injured by bullets during their arrest, particularly those held in Ofer Military Detention Camp. Prison clinics have become renown for offering only aspirin for all health treatments and physicians within the clinics are all soldiers. Health examinations are conducted through a fence, and any necessary surgery or transfer to hospital for additional medical treatment is usually postponed for long periods of time. Demands made by Israeli organizations to provide health care to detainees have consistently been refused, in addition to petitions made by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). As a result of the sub-standard conditions of detention, detainees who are released are often faced with chronic health problems such as skin diseases, weakness, kidney pain and ulcers. Family Visits Since the beginning of the current Intifada in September 2000, all family visits to detainees from the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been prohibited by Israel. All Palestinian citizens of the West Bank and Gaza Strip require special permits to travel within the 1967 borders of Israel. No such permit has been issued to families of detainees in the past two years. Several petitions have been submitted to the Israeli High Court, but have been systematically rejected.

The ICRC has organized group visits in the past, but with great difficulty. In some instances, for example with detainees in Ketziot prison, during the last months of 2002 the ICRC refused to comply with Israel’s restrictions on visits and therefore was not been able to organize these visits. Palestinian detainees are isolated from the outside world, with access to books, TV, and radios usually prohibited. Mail is strictly controlled. Telephone Calls The majority of prisons throughout the world ensure the basic right of prisoners to make phone calls to their families and lawyers. In Israel, a common criminal has the right to make such phone calls, but Palestinian or Arab security prisoners are deprived from such a right for security reasons. Even in humanitarian situations such as bereavement, prisoners are deprived of the right to pay their respects by phone. Prisoners have demanded this right many times but their requests have continuously been rejected. The Use of Torture during Interrogation and Detention The ruling of the Israeli High Court of Justice on 6 September 1999, following a petition by human rights organizations to ban the use of torture during interrogation, does not forbid the use of torture but rather allows that interrogation methods deemed as torture may be used in the “necessity of defense” and in situations where a detainee is deemed a ‘ticking bomb’. At most, it offers the victim of torture a small opportunity to submit a complaint if an abuse can be clearly proved. As Israel can legally hold detainees incommunicado for several weeks, GSS interrogators are able to use methods of torture without impunity. Legalized torture includes, for example, sleep deprivation and shackling for extended periods of time, amongst others. A Palestinian detainee can be interrogated for a total period of 180 days, during which he/she can also be denied lawyer visits for a period of 60 days.

After the 180 day period, charges must be brought against the detainee, or he/she must be released. During the interrogation period, a detainee is often subjected to some form of torture ranging in extremity, whether physical or psychological. In some instances, detainees have died while in custody as a result of torture. Confessions extracted through torture are admissible in court. In practice, Palestinian detainees are submitted to the following forms of torture: Routine: sleep deprivation, shabeh (position abuse), in which detainees are shackled to a chair in painful positions, squeezing of handcuffs, beatings, slaps, kicks, physical and psychological threats and humiliation; Special methods: the body tied in a contorted and extremely painful position, pressure on different parts of the body, strongly shaking the detainee after being shackled for a long period of time, head covered with a filthy, soiled sack, strangulation and other means of suffocation, pulling of hair, multiple humiliations; Inside the cells: sleep deprivation, handcuffed to the bed, exposure to extreme temperatures, prolonged and continuous exposure to artificial light, solitary confinement, tear gas inside the cells, inhuman detention conditions. GSS agents can act with full impunity. If a complaint is lodged, investigations are confidential and led by a GSS agent under the authority of the State Attorney. No agent has been charged since the responsibility for investigations was transferred to the Ministry of Justice in 1994. Other bodies like the IDF, Border Police, Police and others also use torture and inflict ill treatment upon detainees during arrest, interrogation or detention. Legal system governing detention Under Israeli military regulations a Palestinian can be detained for up to 12 days without the Israeli military informing the detainee of the reason for his/her arrest and without being brought before a judge. Between April and June 2002, Military Order 1500, issued on 5 April 2002, increased this period of time to 18 days. The army is also not obliged to inform the detainee’s family of their arrest or the location of their detention. After or within this period, the person is sent to an interrogation center, placed in administrative detention, or held in custody awaiting a charge sheet and trial.

According to Israeli legislation, interrogation can last for up to 180 days. After the period of interrogation, military judges can extend the detention for the time needed for the public prosecutor to provide charges against the detainee. What can follow is either the judgment of the detainee, or more frequently, his/her transfer to administrative detention. In the case of administrative detention, lawyers and detainees face charges based on secret evidence. These secret files are prepared by the GSS. This element violates International Law and Human Rights Charters but is congruent with the legislation in force in the State of Israel. In these conditions, it is impossible to exercise the right of defense. Theoretically, administrative detention can be extended indefinitely. Detainees do not know when they will be released and or why they are being detained. In many cases, arrest and detention are renewed at the prison’s gate. Palestinian detainees have spent up to 8 years in prison without being tried under administrative detention orders. The current longest serving Palestinian detainee in administrative detention has been held for three years without charge or trial. Deportation, abroad or to another region of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, following detention can be ordered as a result of either a military or High Court ruling or as a political compromise, as was the case with the 13 Palestinians who were deported to various European countries and 26 Palestinians deported to Gaza in a political negotiation to end the siege on the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Judicial Structures Military orders are the main components of Israeli legislation in force in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that govern Palestinian detainees and prisoners, and are issued by the Israeli military commander of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Within the courts, military orders always take precedence over Israeli and International law. Israeli military courts refuse to apply international laws and conventions, and no legal claim whatsoever is possible in order to protect individuals under military occupation.

All Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories are submitted to Israeli military courts, even in the case of civil incidents, such as a car accident involving an Israeli. Military courts of appeal are the last instance. The case of Marwan Barghouti is unique in that it is taking place within a civil court. Military courts apply legislation in force in an arbitrary manner, with no consistent application of regulations. The military legislation in itself is discriminatory. Confessions made under torture, for example, are enough to sentence a child to several years of imprisonment. Discriminatory Laws A Palestinian can be held in custody for 8 + 18 days before being brought before a judge. An Israeli citizen, however, can be held in custody for only a maximum of 48 hours before being brought before a judge. A Palestinian can be held without charge, by order of a jurist-judge, for an initial period of 30 days, which can be extended for 6 months by the legal advisor for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, via a military court of appeals (this does not include the possibility of administrative detention, in which case no charges are brought against the detainee who will never be tried). An Israeli citizen can be held without indictment for an initial period of 15 days, which can be extended for only another 15 days. Lawyer visits can be prohibited for up to 90 days after the day of arrest for a Palestinian detainee . The meeting between an Israeli detainee and his attorney can be delayed for a total of 15 days. The maximum allowable civilian sentences are considerably less severe than those allowable in the military tribunals, a major reason for the significant differential in sentences passed upon Israelis and Palestinians. For example, a Palestinian convicted of manslaughter by a military tribunal is subject to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, while an Israeli convicted of manslaughter in a civilian court faces a maximum of 20 years.

The difference in sentencing structures is reinforced by regulations in the two penal systems regarding the early release of prisoners. Under the Israeli penal code, prisoners may be released after serving two-thirds of their sentence. The military orders under which Palestinians are judged do not allow for early release for any reason. Separated and unequal before the law, the different penal codes under which Palestinians and Israelis are governed takes place in different courts; application of the law is systematically discriminatory. Comparative Case Studies Sanaa, 14 years old, from Hebron was arrested after her older sister had attempted to stab a settler in the street. She was found guilty of planning to stab a settler, however the court agreed that Sanaa did not carry out her plan and, in fact, at the time of her arrest was standing alone and unaware of what was happening around her. Five months after her arrest, a three-judge court, after 3 hours of deliberation, sentenced her to 1 year in prison with an additional 4 years suspended sentence if she should commit any offence during the next 5 years. The court did not take into account her age or the fact that she did not carry out any violent act. During the whole day at the courtroom, she was not given food and her legs remained shackled. Her hands were handcuffed whenever the judges left the room. Her father was not allowed to speak to his daughter. (DCI-PS) Nahum, 37 years old, from the illegal settlement of Bitar Ilit, was sentenced to 6 months of community service for the brutal slaying of an 11-year-old Palestinian boy. According to the eyewitnesses, Nahum brutally assassinated the boy by kicking him in the head and beating him with the butt of his rifle. Originally acquitted by the District Court of Jerusalem, the Israeli Supreme Court found him responsible for the vicious murder after an appeal by the prosecutors. However, Nahum received a sentence of only community service and a fine of $17,000 US. Between December 1987 (the beginning of the first Intifada) and March 2001, Israeli settlers killed 119 Palestinians, including 23 children under the age of 17, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. From the serious deficiencies evidenced in investigations, or merely the lack of investigation itself, to the low sentences passed by courts, the complicity of the Israeli legal system in the cases of murder of Palestinians becomes evident. Of 89 cases monitored by B’Tselem over this period, only 22 were convicted: 6 of murder, 7 of manslaughter, 7 of negligent homicide, and 2 charged with firing in a residential area and possession of a weapon without permit. Only 3 convictions resulted in life sentences, from which 2 were reduced to 13 and 11 years respectively of imprisonment. Although the expected sentence for manslaughter is 20 years, the 7 settlers convicted received sentences ranging from 6 months to 7 and half years of imprisonment. While the normal sentence for negligent homicide is 3 years, of the 7 cases mentioned above, 5 received community service sentences and 2 received 5 and 18 months prison sentences. 39 files were closed without legal actions. Between December 1987 and March 2001, 115 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In each case, an investigation has been opened. Only 10 cases have been closed. 33 Palestinians were convicted of murder and all received life sentences, without the possibility of clemency or reduction of their sentence. One Palestinian was convicted for complicity of murder. No Palestinian was convicted for manslaughter or negligent homicide, rather than murder.

No Palestinian was acquitted because he had acted in self-defense. Israeli security forces killed 15 suspects before they were brought to trial. In 22 cases, in addition to the prison sentence, suspect’s family house has been demolished or sealed. Description of offenses In addition to administrative detention allowing in practice the detention of every Palestinian, to the free interpretation of ” security reasons ” and the application of the law ruled by arbitrariness, acts defined as crimes in Israeli legislation also provide wide possibilities for sentencing and imprisonment. For example, participating in an exhibition to benefit a charity organization linked to Hamas is a crime of ” terrorist association “. Carrying or placing a Palestinian flag is a crime in itself. Removing the rubbish put in the middle of a road by Israeli soldiers after they have left is another crime. Fire in the air during a wedding, as is the tradition, constitutes a danger for Israel’s national security, although it happens in the autonomous territories (area A). A student of a Hamas Koranic school can be sentenced to 14 months of prison for his participation at the lesson. Participation in a demonstration is a case of disrupting public order. Pouring coffee for a member of a declared illegal association is support to a terrorist organization. Palestinian national security forces are an illegal association. Main difficulties faced by lawyers and human rights associations: Human rights activists, in the current situation, faces the risk of arrest by Israeli occupation forces; The obstacles to freedom of movement within the West Bank, Gaza Strip and outside it, curfews and other forms of collective punishment inflicted upon the Palestinian society by the Israeli military occupation considerably hinders everyone’s work, among others, to collect information concerning human rights violations and verify them. Organizations are not allowed to enter the prisons, nor are they allowed to visit prisoners; The number of lawyers is limited to defend an increasing number of detainees; Palestinian lawyers can only defend their clients before military courts located in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; for the High Court they must be members of the Israeli Bar association;

The difficulties faced by lawyers in the exercise of their work are mainly related to the arbitrary nature of occupation and impunity. Very often, lawyers are not informed of the date of a hearing. Their access to the prisons is limited and they are searched there. The use of confessions made under torture (under legal as well as other forms of torture) and of submission of secret files allows only a purely superficial defense. The refusal to implement and abide by international laws diminishes all possibilities of ensuring the respect of basic rights.

This Is Zionism: Talmoud at Work

Palestinian woman beaten to death by Israel terrorist
Contributed by Lucia

A Palestinian woman in her 60s was beaten to death during a raid by the Israeli terrorist army near Occupied Jerusalem.

The director of the clinic where Mariam Ayyad was taken says she arrived dead, with a broken skull and possible internal bleeding. Relatives say the woman tried to block Israeli terrorist as they stormed her home to arrest students lodging in a property she owned in the village of Abu Dis. They said that Israeli terrorist beaten and pushed her out of the way, causing her to fall down stairs.

“She went outside in order to prevent them arresting someone from her house,” one of the students said. “They knocked her down and there was blood on her head.”

The Israeli terrorist army said the woman fell on a stairway but attributed the fall to an apparent heart attack. It denied that any Israeli terrorist shoved Ayyad or caused her to fall. Meanwhile doctors said Ayyad succumbed to her injuries from the shove. “The cause of death was being pushed to the ground and being struck in the head.”

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Twilight Zone / Dead on arrival
By Gideon Levy

Hawara Checkpoint

“A Palestinian woman died of injuries on Sunday after she was shoved to the ground by Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducting an arrest raid in a West Bank village, witnesses and a medical official said.
Palestinian sources said Mariam Ayyad, in her sixties, had tried to block the path of IDF soldiers who came to Abu Dis, near Jerusalem, overnight to detain students lodging in a property she owned. They said IDF soldiers shoved the woman who then hit the pavement.

The director of the clinic where Ayyad was taken says she arrived dead, with a broken skull and possible internal bleeding…..”

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This Is Zionism:

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Video: Israel shoots dead nine-year-old boy
Jul. 30th, 2008 at 10:21 AM

Shooting Back: Israeli occupation filmed by 100 Palestinian cameras
Mourners to protest murder of 10 year old boy

Added: July 29, 2008

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers have shot dead a nine-year-old Palestinian boy, near the village of Ni’lin, according to witnesses.

It happened at the end of a demonstration against the separation barrier Israel is building.

The Israeli military say they will conduct a full investigation.

Jacky Rowland reports.

Tags:activism,children,deaths,israel,palestinians,video

The Birds Shall Return

Beauty is truth, truth Beauty,
That’s all ye know on Earth,
And all ye need to know. John Keats”

A land without a people for a people without a land,” the usurpers dissembled.

And Fadwa Toqan retorted:

Never! Not with our red streams flowing forever,
not while the wine of our thorn limbs
fed the thirsty roots,
Arab roots alive tunneling deep,
deep, into the land!

And Mahmoud Darwish joined in;

I come from there and remember,
I was born like everyone is borne, I have a mother
and a house with many windows.

As Golda Meir bellowed:

“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”

And Fadi Abu Sada was scared because seqestered in his Bethlehem house he thought that the noise from the firecrackers of the settlers celebrating their independence were bombs destined for his house, and the metaphor is apt…they dance on our graves.

Do these settlers care about the effect of their revelry on the indigenous population?
Do they feel remorse for actions of the past and present Zionists?
No!

When the hurricane swirled and spread its deluge of dark evil
othe good green land
‘they’ gloated.

They would be wise to heed the words of Dr. Salmon Abu Sitta:

In the years to come, I think the history of the Jews will probably not be marked by their historical role in the fate of Jesus Christ. That was a matter of religious interpretation of an event which took place 2000 years ago.

The history of the Jews will also likely not be marked by the Nazi atrocities in the Second World War. That was a black chapter in European history in which millions of many nationalities died in the heat of the war. It all stopped after the war.

Any reckoning of Jewish history will be indelibly marked by what they have done to the Palestinians. Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinians, seized their homes and property and obliterated the landscape — both historical and physical — that they had inhabited. For more than half a century this has been done during both war and peace, not by individual criminals but systematically by the state. It is still being done. There is no remorse, no atonement. On the contrary, there is more and more of the same. The tragic history of the Jews seems to have contained no lessons. It is as if their own suffering was in vain.

The old will die, and the young will forget, speculated David Ben Gurion.

But Laila Halaby and Rashid Hussein answered,”

Teach the night to forget to bringdreams showing me my village.”
And teach the wind to forget to carry to me
the aroma of apricots in my fields
And teach the sky, too, to forget to rain.”
My father closed his eyes.”
Only then, may I forget my country.”

And Abdelnasser Rashid echos his elders:

Palestine is my land, and I won’t let you take it – and while you put the world to sleep, I try to wake it.

And Fadwa Toqan elegantly concurs:

When the Tree rises up, the branches
Shall flourish green and fresh in the sun
the laughter of the Tree shall leaf
beneath the sun
and birds shall return Undoubtedly, the birds shall return.
The birds shall return.


# posted by umkahlil @ 9:31

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From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948
by Walid Khalidi 1971, with a second printing in 1987

1947 UN Partition Plan
Anti-Semitism and Zionism
British Mandate period in Palestine
Historiography of the Israel/Palestine conflict
League of Nations and Palestine
Nakbah/Naqba (Arabic, “the catastrophe”) — expulsion of Palestinians in 1948
Palestinian refugees
Ethnic cleansing (euphemistically called “transfer”)
United Nations and Israel/Palestine
Brith Habirionim or Brit HaBiryonim (Hebrew “the Covenant of Thugs”)

Timeline event(s) mentioned in this item:
31 Aug 1945:
Truman asks Attlee to admit 100,000 Jews into Palestine
29 Nov 1947:
United Nations General Assembly approves UNSCOP partition plan for Palestine

Commentary: Book published by Institute for Palestine Studies; ISBN: 0887281559; (Second printing, October 1987). This is an anthology edited by Walid Khalidi. Authors of the articles included in the anthology are: Ilene Beatty, Alfred Guillaume, Burhan Ad-Din al Fazari, Miguel Asin, Cecil Roth, Stanley Lane-Poole, Elmer Berger, Zia Al-Khalidi, Oskar K. Rabinowicz, L. M. C. van der Hoeven Leonhard, Herbert Sidebotham, Edwin Montagu, Leonard Stein, Frank E. Manuel, J. M. N. Jeffries, Chaim Weizmann, Arthur Balfour, Louis D. Brandeis, Eustace Percy, Felix Frankfurter, W. F. Stirling, C. R. Ashbee, Chaim Arlosoroff, Michael Ionides, Vincent Sheean, Sir John Hope Simpson, Kingsley Martin, Alan Bullock, Ernest Main, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Nevill Barbour, Michael F. J. McDonnell, R. J. Manning, Sir Alec Seath Kirkbride, Frances E. Newton, Mahatma K. Gandhi, David Ben-Gurion, Leonard Mosley, A. Granott, Thomas Reid, Jon Kinche, David Kimche, Robert Briscoe, Stephen Wise, Morris L. Ernst, William Ernest Hocking, William A. Eddy, Kermit Roosevelt, Lieut.-General Sir Frederick Morgan, Francis Williams, Robert A. Divine, James V. Forrestal, Walter T. Stace, Abba Eban, Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, General Carlos P. Romulo, Arnold Krammer, Lieut.-General Netanel Lorch, Jacques de Reynier, Harry Levin, Major R. D. Wilson, Lieut.-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, General aage Lundstrom, Erskine B. Childers, Hans Kohn.Abstract: From the Book Description: Now a classic in its field, From Haven to Conquest is a unique compendium of difficult-to-obtain or out-of-print material on Zionism and the history of Palestine to 1948. Eighty documents and first-hand accounts are supplemented by an introduction by Professor Khalidi, 22 maps and 30 pages of appendices providing detailed demographic and military statistics.

Extracts available online include:
On the Anti-Semitism of the Present Government, by Edwin Montagu, August 1917

To refer someone else to this item, use this URL: http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=1184

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Right Of Return

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PALESTINIAN REFUGEE INFORMATION
Over 5 million Palestinian refugees scattered all over the earth demand the right to return to their homes in Palestine! Existing international law is solidly on their side.

Please read: The Palestinian Refugee’s Right Of Return Under International Law
Let us return home, let us return home!!!!

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(10 December 1948)
Article 13.2

– Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
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United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948

Article 11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;
Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations. See full Resolution HERE
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The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966
Article 12.4 – No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.
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Our strength is in the camps & No peace without an end to exile

Article: The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined
Palestinian Refugees Right to Return and Repatriation
Open letter from Dr. Salman Abu Sitta to Yasser Arafat Regarding Dr. Sari Nusseibeh’s Challenging The Palestinian Right Of Return
Debate Between Salman Abu Sitta and Michael Lerner of Tikkun on The Right of Return
Holding on to hopePalestinians keep dream of return aliveLaila El-Haddad
ON-LINE BOOK: “Palestinian Refugees and their Right of Return”
Al Awda Colorado – Palestinian Right of Return Coalition

The Myth of Jewish Refugees from Arab Land

The Myth Of Jewish Refugees From Arab Land http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/04/myth-of-jewish-refugees-from-arab-land.html April 23, 2007 By Dr. Elias Akleh

Victimizing the Jews has been the successful old political trick Zionists have been using to gain international political sympathy for the Israeli cause, and to justify all aggression and terror the Israeli army perpetrates on Palestinians and on the neighboring Arab countries. Whenever the international views turn against Israel, due to its aggression, a new Jewish victimizing story pops up. One such late story I happened to come across on page 106 of March 19th. 2007 issue of U.S. News Magazine, was titled “You deserve a factual look at… The Forgotten Refugees. Why does nobody care about the Jewish refugees from Arab lands?” The article was published as an advertisement by FLAME (Facts and Logic About the Middle East), who claims to “publish the truth about Israel and the Middle East conflict in advertisements and letters to editors nationwide.” The advertisement claims that there exist what it called Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and makes some comparison between these Jewish refugees and Arab refugees in an attempt to point to alleged international injustice when the UN spends “… many billions of dollars” on the Arab refugees while forgetting the Jewish refugees. The advertisement tries to avoid calling the Arab refugees by their true name: Palestinian refugees, in an attempt to deny any moral and legal responsibility of Zionist Israel in violating Palestinians’ human rights and creating Palestinian refugee problem. The advertisement attempts to refute “A myth that Jews had an easy life in Muslim/Arab countries”. It claims that Jews under Islam were treated worse than second class citizens “governed by a system of discrimination intended to reduce Jews … to conditions of humiliation, segregation and violence”. The truth is that Jews were treated, under Islam in the Arab World, better than any other place they had lived in the whole world at the time. They were treated like any other ethnic groups, e.g. Christians, with full citizenship that included freedom and rights like the rest of the citizens. They were allowed to live and worship freely in Jerusalem, where they were barred entrance by ancient Romans and European Christian Crusaders. When European Jews faced persecution since the start of Crusaders campaigns, they did not find any safe haven for themselves except in Islamic and Arab countries in North Africa and in the Middle East.

Many of those Jews fought along side Muslim and Christian Arabs against the Crusaders, who called for the slaughter of every Jew for crucifying Jesus. In his book “Bitter Harvest” Palestinian scholar Sami Hadawi described this Jewish haven as follows: “During the Middle Ages, North Africa and the Arab Middle East became places of refuge and a haven for the persecuted Jews of Spain and elsewhere… In the Holy Land they lived together in harmony, a harmony only disrupted when the Zionists began to claim that Palestine was the ‘rightful’ possession of the ‘Jewish people’ to the exclusion of its Moslem and Christian inhabitants”

The Jewish writer Dan Peretz described this situation in his book “The Arab Israeli Dispute” as follows: “Most Jews in Palestine belonged to old Yishuv, or community, that had settled there more for religious than for political reasons. There was little of any conflict between them and the Arab population. Tension began after first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880’s” Although given freedom like any other citizens a group of the Jews, believing themselves to be the elite God’s chosen people, who should not mix and mingle with the others, “Goyims”, as been taught by their prophets, had isolated themselves into ghettos the same way they had lived throughout Europe. Those, who had the courage to venture out of the ghettos, had flourished and reached high employment positions in Arabic governments and societies. Many had become the financial and trade centers of the Arab World.

This fact contradicts the advertisement claims that Jews “… were excluded from society, from government, and from most professions … They were barely tolerated and often… were victimized by vicious violence” Some extremist fundamentalist Jews, who had their noses up in the sky believing themselves to be the chosen people and better than all other nations, had invited rejection and intolerance from all nations, not just from Arabs, to such snobby racist attitudes. The advertisement goes on further to claim that Jews in the Arab World were subjected to systematic violence and persecution after the establishment of Israel in 1948 and after Six Days War in 1967.

“When Israel declared its statehood in 1948, programs broke out across the entire Arab/Muslim world. Thousands died in this violence… The vast majority of those Jews fled from where they had lived for centuries. They had to leave everything behind. Most of those who were able to escape found their way to the just-created state of Israel” The programs, the advertisement does not clarify, were terrorist acts perpetrated by Zionists against Jewish communities in the Arab World, as well as throughout European countries to coerce the Jews to immigrate to Palestine to establish the alleged safe haven; Israel, on usurped Palestinian land. Zionist zealots and some mercenaries had fire-bombed Jewish synagogues and shops, damaged Jewish cemeteries, and painted hate graffiti to create anti-Jewish climate. Zionist offer of free transportation, free housing, and free salaries had encouraged a lot of Jews to surrender their fate to the Zionist plan.

Those, who immigrated, had plenty of time to sell their properties before leaving. The Arabs, contrary to the claims, did not subject their long-time neighboring Jews to violence since they distinguished between a Jew and a Zionist. Yet those Jews, who were disillusioned by Zionism and became “enemy combatants” and spies within the Arab World, had to be dealt with as such. The advertisement brags about “Israel received every one of those Jewish refugees from Arab countries with brotherly open arms; it housed, fed and quickly integrated them into Israeli society”.

It is true that Zionist Israel had received immigrant Jews, paid all expenses including transportation, rent, and monthly salaries until they were integrated in Israeli society. Yet this reception was not out of brotherly love. Those immigrant Jews were, deliberately, drowned into financial debt so that they could not leave Israel, after discovering the trap set for them, without repaying all the expenses plus interests. Young Jewish immigrants, and every new generation of their offsprings, have been conscripted into the Israeli terrorist army to kill and to be killed for the interests of rich pro-Zionist corporations of the West.

The advertisement repeats the old myth, that had been told and refuted so many times, that Palestinians had fled from Palestine after the Israeli occupation “… following the strident invocations of their leaders …so as to make room for invading Arab armies”, who according the advertisement will kill all the Jews so that Palestinians “could return to reclaim their properties and that of the Jews, all of whom would have been killed …” by Arab armies. Palestinians, like any other people, would never leave their homes voluntarily, and Arab leaders had never invoked them to leave. Sami Hadawi refuted this claim in his book “Bitter Harvest” stating the fact that “British Broadcasting Corporation monitored all Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout 1948. The records, and companion ones by a US monitoring unit, can be seen at the British Museum. There was not a single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine in 1948.

There is a repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put”. This myth aims to erase guilt and moral responsibilities off Jewish shoulders for perpetrating the cruelest and ugliest massacres against mostly unarmed Palestinian villagers, and parading their women and children in the streets of Jerusalem to terrorize the rest of the Palestinians into fleeing out of their villages for their lives and for their honor when Zionist terror organizations, such as Irgun and Hagana, spread the rumors of their plans to attack Palestinian villages.

Jewish historian Ilan Pappe, in his book “The Link”, mentions this fact: “The Israeli forces expelled the Palestinians from every village and town they occupied. In some cases, this expulsion was accompanied by massacres of civilians as was the case in Lydda, Ramleh, Dawimiyya, Sa’sa, Ein Zietun and other places. Expulsion also accompanied by rape, looting and confiscation”. During wars people panic and flee their homes searching for safety. Yet they have always been able to return to their homes when danger subsides.

Military conquest does not abolish private rights to property, nor does it entitle the victor to confiscate properties of civilian population. Even if the claims were true that Palestinians left their homes on the commands of their leaders, they still have the right to return to their homes and properties that had been stolen by Zionist immigrants. This right is protected by international law as noted by the noted Jewish writer and thinker Professor Erich Fromm “In international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his right of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the Jews”.

Israel’s rejection of Palestinians’ right of return has been on the top of their political agenda, which led them to break all UN resolutions regarding this matter, break all international laws, violate Palestinians’ human rights, and reject all Arab peace initiatives. The advertisement continues with its allegations “… the Arab countries resolutely refused to accept Arab refugees into their societies. They confined them into so-called refugee camps …to keep them as a festering sore and to make solution of the Arab/Israel conflict impossible. These refugees, whose number has by now miraculously increased from their original 650 thousands to 5 millions, are seething with hatred toward Israel, and provide the cadres for terrorists and suicide bombers” The Arab countries, mainly Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon, had received the majority of Palestinian refugees, who became a burden on the already impoverished economy of these countries, who, unlike Israel, were not receiving three billions of Dollars annually from the US.

The majority of these refugees (now numbers about 7.5 million and not only 5 million) want to go back to their own homeland and their homes that were illegally occupied by terrorist Israelis. They fight to regain what is rightfully theirs, unlike the terrorist Israeli army, who fight to usurp lands of other people. As for the solution of the Arab/Israeli conflict, the Arabs had offered Israel many peaceful solutions, yet Israelis categorically rejected them because without the conflict they could not keep usurping more lands to build “Greater Israel”. The latest Arab peace initiative of last month, March 2007, offered Israel to keep 78% of Palestine for permanent peace and normalization of diplomatic relationships with all Arab countries. Yet Israel, as usual, rejected this offer.

The advertisement acknowledges that “since 1947 there have been over 100 UN resolutions concerning Palestinian refugees, but there has not been one single resolution addressing the horrible injustice done to the nearly one million Jewish refugees from the Arab states” This paragraph refutes the advertisement’s claim by showing that the international community has recognized and acknowledged the existence of a genuine Palestinian refugee problem, and the non existence of the false called-for Jewish refugees from Arab countries. That is why “a special branch of the United Nation (UNRWA) exists for the maintenance of those refugees” (created by Israelis) as the article notices.

Israel, backed by successive American administrations, had ignored those UN resolutions that aimed to solve the Palestinian refugees’ problem, rather than spending billion of Dollars “contributed by the US” as the advertisement objects. It, also, totally ignores the attention the world had focused on the issue of the Holocaust, the compensation in hundreds of billions of Dollars to Israeli Jews, making even the study of the Holocaust an international crime, and sentencing, fining and imprisoning all the renowned historians, who questioned some of its details. The advertisement criticizes the Arab’s justifiable right to ask for compensations, and the Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right to return to their homeland, “what has been Israel for almost 60 years”, where Palestinian tribes had lived for over than three thousand years. It concludes by stating “But if there is to be any compensation, those forgotten Jewish refugees are certainly entitled to such compensation as much as the Arab refugees. Anything else would be an outrage and a great injustice”

The advertisement neglected to mention the most important point in this refugee issue, namely that the Palestinian refugees were forcefully ejected from their homes according to the Zionist ideology that is based on the idea of “people substitution”; the expulsion ‘transfer’ of Palestinians out of Palestine, and the implanting of Jews in their place. The idiom of “Jewish state is unthinkable without compulsory transfer of the Arabs to the Arab states” had been adopted since the first Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897, and had been repeated by notorious Zionist leaders such as British Zionist Israel Zangwill, Haim Weisman, Theodor Herzl, Nahman Syrkin (founder of Social Zionism), Selig Soskin (director of Jewish National Fund), and many others. On the other hand the so-called Jewish refugees (Zionist Jews) from Arab countries had plenty of time to plan their leave and to liquidate all their properties, and to be fed, resettled and compensated directly by American tax money, where the annual three billion Dollars financial aid pays almost $3,000.00 monthly for every Israeli, not mentioning all the economic aid and tons and tons of military equipment that are given freely to the terrorist Israeli army to inflict terror on Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians.

Finally the advertisement gives a comparison between bogus numbers of the Jews in some Arab countries before and after 1948; countries where Zionists had successfully transferred their Jewish population to occupied Palestine (Israel). It ignores to mention the large number of Jews, who are still living, flourishingly, in Northern African Muslim Arab countries, in Turkey, and even in Iran (the so-called extremist Islamic and terrorist supporting country), that houses the largest Jewish population, 25,000 of them, in the Middle East outside Israel, and are represented by a Jewish MP, Maurice Mohtamed. The publishing organization (FLAME) of this so-called “factual look”, whose claimed purpose is the research, publication of facts, and exposing false propaganda about the Middle East, seems to do the exact opposite; it distorts the facts and spreads false propaganda instead. The simple truth of the Arab/Israeli conflict had been reflected by Indian leader and peace teacher Mahatma Ghandi when he stated: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English and France belongs to the French”

The tale of two Talmuds

The tale of two Talmuds
“Running two sets of books” is a term generally used in regards to false accounting, something perhaps a company would do to avoid paying tax or something you would associate with US Treasury Accounting Department in regards to inflation, money supply or the cost of wars to control ME oil. But no in this case my title was prompted by something a Zionist wrote in a forum which I’m not even a member of, he wrote “Here is an accusation that the Talmud has been hid and changed. Though I am not going to waste my time verifying, I believe their are early versions of the Talmud that are older than the oldest version of the Koran, that have only been changed by translation.”Now whether that’s a deliberate lie or simply a case of ignorance I’m not sure. Consider this website http://www.lee-achim.de/html/HebBooks.htm , it’s not a site that is motivated by politics, simply a site where someone is trying to sell old copies of the Talmud. It states “Old Talmud editions, the first uncensored Amsterdam edition; I quote “The first Amsterdam edition of the Babylonian Talmud in the printing house of Emmanuel Benbenisti 1645/48 was the first Talmud edition without the Christian censorship after the three classical Venice editions of the 16th century that were almost completely burnt.

All the missing parts on Jesus, his disciples and early Christianity are restored in this edition, and also the dismission of words as goim, nokri, kuti and alike. After this edition all Talmud editions are again censored till the 20th century, including the following Amsterdam editions of Proops and the classic Wilna edition more than 200 years later.

“In other words parts of the Talmud regarding the Jews natural hatred of Christianity, in fact any religion apart from their own, were censored out for 300 hundred years or so but now have been re-introduced into this book of hate. The Jews are in fact running two separate books, two versions of the Talmud, one which has been sanitised for goy eyes, without the Judaism Uber Alles and the superiority of Jews over lesser creatures and the version which is actually used by Rabbis all over the word in corrupting the minds of Zionist Youth. So next time when you quote back to a Zionist some of the extremely offensive and anti-Christ sections of the Talmud, only to be told that that doesn’t even appear in the book, just ask them which version do they mean.

Racism, Propaganda and the Palestinians Right to Return

Racism, Propaganda, and The Palestinian Right to Return

Max Kantar September 17, 2008

Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas has recently issued statements in accordance with a framework agreement reached with Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, surrendering the inalienable right to return of roughly five million Palestinians to their land and homes that they were driven from primarily between the years of 1947-49, coinciding with the creation of the state of Israel. Although the Palestinian right to return is guaranteed under Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as in United Nations Security Council Resolution 194, which also affirms their right to compensation, the right to return has been thrown off the negotiation table by Israel at every opportunity. Mahmoud Abbas now joins Zionist tyrants of past and present in disregarding perhaps the most crucial Palestinian issue.

Thanks to US/Israeli/Zionist propaganda, there are currently many misconceptions, racist assumptions, and blatant lies floating around that distort a very simple reality. Using uncontroversial sources and facts, we can easily form an morally and legally irrefutable justification for the return of Palestinian refugees. Before outlining these historical and moral truisms in an effort to articulate a just resolution to the Palestinian refugee problem, we must first examine certain ideological conceptions of history and justice that have over the years prevailed in substantial sectors of thought in the West and in Israel. According to the Zionist doctrinal historical record, the UN, in accordance with international law partitioned the country of Palestine fairly, giving land to peace loving Jewish settlers to form their democratic country, and land to the ‘Arabs’ to form a nation of their own. T

he Arabs, (calling them Palestinians would signify some kind of natural right to Palestine, which of course should be avoided) consistent with their inherent irrationality stemming from an unexplainable predisposition to anti-Semitism, of course rejected this benevolent and just proposal in favor of driving the Jews into the sea. The Zionist settlers on the other hand, who of course accepted this proposal and only wished to coexist peacefully with their neighbors, were left with no choice but to fight off several crazed Arab armies who, despite their differences, all united under the banner of finishing Hitler’s final solution. Miraculously, with God watching over in approval, hopelessly outnumbered, “tiny Israel” succeeded in driving the Arab Nazi forces out and declared independence in May 1948. In an act of pure altruism, the newly formed state of Israel welcomed the Arabs who happened to be residing in the new Jewish state by awarding them full equal rights and citizenship. Of course, some Arabs did voluntarily leave the land that became Israel, as they followed strict orders from their belligerent Arab commanders who instructed them to vacate the land.

By 1949, the green line was established leaving Israel with nearly 80% of Palestine while generously conceding the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem to the Arab savages. After all, God promised the land to the European Jewish settlers, and the Arabs shouldn’t have been squatting there. The terrorist Arabs who chose to leave Israel before its official establishment of course cannot simply come and go as they please. Israel has to consider the security of its citizens and make sure that its immigration policies reflect that priority. Also, perhaps most importantly, Israel has a divine and natural right to protect its sacred Jewish character, to ensure that Israel remains the state “for the Jewish people” which includes Jews in every corner of the globe.

That being said, an overwhelming Jewish majority must be made permanent and cannot be jeopardized by unscrupulous Arab ‘immigration’ and the anti-Semitic propaganda advocated by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Israeli human rights groups and scholars, most of the world, and other self-hating Jews. In the real world, free from the ideological constraints of Zionist fantasy, the UN 1947 partition was rejected by both Palestinians and Zionists. The difference is that the UN Special Committee On Palestine (UNSCOP) was comprised of 11 members, none of which were from Arab nations, none of which had specific background knowledge in the Middle East, and none of which was a native of the country being partitioned.

As author and human rights activist, Mazin Qumsiyeh notes in his book, Sharing the Land of Canaan, the committee was privy to well organized and “significant lobbying by Zionist and US [leaders and organizations]” which included David Ben-Gurion, a open advocate of Palestinian ethnic cleansing. The committee “spent considerable time interviewing European Jews” but did not consult one native Palestinian. According to the UN Charter, the UN is officially committed to “developing friendly relations among nations based on respect for…self determination of peoples.”

As Qumsiyeh points out, the partition was fundamentally illegal as it marked the first instance in the history of the United Nations of “the people of the land being partitioned not being afforded self-determination.” Consistent with the proclamations of every early Zionist leader, the Zionists rejected the majority of the 1947 partition proposal’s content, despite the fact that the partition granted the Jewish minority the majority of the country, including its most arable land. Nevertheless, they dismissed the prohibition of the removal of the native population, the internationalization of Jerusalem, and the proposed borders among other things.

It is at this point in history, in regards to the subsequent events following the UN partition proposal, that the ideological constraints of Zionist propaganda have reached perhaps a peak of shamelessness. Based on uncontroversial facts documented by mainstream and respected Israeli historians such as Benny Morris, during the time between November 29th, 1947 and Israel’s declaration of “independence” on May 15th, 1948, 213 Palestinian villages and towns were cleansed by Jewish-Zionist militias, making refugees out of 413,794 Palestinians. These pre-1948 independence war ‘land clearing’ operations, which accounted for 52% of Palestinian refugees, were all carried out, well before any outside Arab force entered Palestine, and as Qumsiyeh notes, “under the ‘protection’ of the British mandate.”

After the mandate expired, another 339,272 Palestinians were driven out of Palestine, constituting a cleansing of 264 additional native villages or towns, and accounting for 42% of the refugees. We should also note the nature of these cleansings, which not surprisingly, hardly resemble the claims Zionists have made for decades in attempting to offer an explanation for the enormous Palestinian refugee population. As cited by Qumsiyeh, pulling directly from Morris’ research, as well as other Israeli historians (whose research consists of declassified Israeli government and military sources) 122 Palestinian localities (towns, communities, or villages) were cleansed by “expulsion by Zionist/Jewish forces.” 270 localities were cleansed by “military assault” by Zionist militias. This amounts to 88% percent of the Palestinian refugees being forcibly “expelled” or driven out by “military assault” by Zionist militias.

Palestinians fled from at least 12 known localities because of “fear of a Zionist attack.” Of the 33 documented massacres of Palestinian civilians in 1948 alone, the massacre of Deir Yassin is the mostly widely known today, where at least 254 Palestinians civilians were slaughtered by Zionist forces. Like hundreds of other villages Deir Yassin was literally wiped off the map, as if it never existed. Qumsiyeh notes that during the massacre, “more than 20 villagers were taken to a nearby Jewish settlement, paraded, and then killed to incite panic among the local Palestinians.” After the fact, Prime Minister to be, Menachem Begin, explained the benefits of the massacre: Deir Yassin helped us in the conquest of Haifa…Arabs began fleeing in panic, shouting ‘Deir Yassin’…

In all, less than 1.5% of the inhabitants of the Palestinian localities evacuated due to orders from outside Arab leaders. (It is noteworthy though, that even if the Palestinian refugees had left by their own free will, independent of Zionist coercion, international law still guarantees, under the Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that “everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”) Of course, none of this should come as a surprise to anyone interested in the origins of Zionism and the theories and philosophies put forth by every major Zionist leader, from Vladimir Jabotinsky, Yitzhak Rabin, David Ben-Gurion, Joseph Weitz, and countless others. By the time Israel’s borders reached the Armistice green line, the Zionist forces had succeeded in removing 80% of the native population from the newly established state of Israel.

Without massacring thousands and driving out nearly one million native Palestinians, the Jewish state of Israel could never have been established. Indeed, it was established primarily on extreme aggression and terror, creating a the largest refugee population in the post WWII world. Within a month of its independence, the Israeli Cabinet issued a law banning the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland. Israeli leaders then proceeded to pass laws regarding “Absentee Property” referring to the legalization of confiscating millions of dunams of Arab land, thousands of truck loads of stolen goods, thousands of Arab businesses, and thousands of Arab homes. We should also be aware that 300,000 more Palestinians were made refugees during the 1967 war as they were driven out of the West Bank of Palestine.

In all, Palestinian refugees and their descendants, the biggest refugee population in the world, number upwards of five million people today, many of whom live in atrocious conditions in refugee camps in unfathomable poverty, oppression, and desperation. Because the vast majority of Palestinians have consistently made clear that any peaceful resolution to the Israel/Palestine conflict must include the Palestinian right to return, and because their right to return is uncontroversially articulated under international law, and reaffirmed by UN member states year after year, this issue should have been solved a long time ago. What is standing in the way of justice and compensation for the refugees is Israel’s claim to its “right” to maintain a “Jewish majority” in the “Jewish state.”

The self proclaimed Jewish state, within its armistice borders, artificially maintains a roughly 70% Jewish majority. Israel is a state only for the Jewish population, as its Palestinian-Arab citizens (often referred to as ‘Arab-Israelis’) are subject to several racially discriminatory laws. Arab communities are deliberately prevented from developing or expanding, while municipality policies are erected to clear space for Jews, despite the horrendous housing crisis Israeli Arabs are currently facing. Israeli-Arabs are virtually without political representation as government social services are severely disproportionately allocated to Jews, and scarcely even attempt to address the needs of its Arab citizens. These are the 2nd class Arab citizens of Israel. We already know how Palestinians are treated who live in the occupied territories. (The Association for Civil Rights in Israel:

“The State of Human Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories” 2005) The idea of artificially maintaining a demographic Jewish majority should, as noted by Palestinian journalist, Khalid Amayreh, “constitute a brazen moral insult to every human being that values justice and honesty.” Furthermore, to test this argument on the grounds of universal morality, we might ask how Jews in the US would react to an American policy that denied future Jewish immigration to the states on the basis that the United States of America needs to retain its “Christian character.” What if British lawmakers stated that no more Black Africans would be allowed to immigrate to Great Britain because they felt it necessary to maintain a “white majority?” As repulsive as these hypothetical situations would be, they do not even begin to approach the racist moral cowardice of Israeli-Zionist policy which guarantees citizenship to any Jewish person in the world including religious converts, but systematically denies the human right of return to the indigenous Palestinian human beings that it forcibly removed from the country it took over.

Israel should be held to the same standards as any other state that seeks democracy and justice, and therefore cannot in good conscience be a state for one religious demographic, while banning millions of rightful citizens from returning and while undermining the very existence of the minority Arab population that escaped expulsion and death in the nascent hours of Israel’s establishment. Simply put, racist and exclusive assertions cannot be accepted as a justification for the continued illegal denial of human rights to millions of people. The only just solution for the question of Israel/Palestine will be a resolution that recognizes human rights, international law, and one that transcends racist ideology, providing equality for both Jews and Arabs. For all those concerned with justice and universal moral principles, this is non-negotiable. Max Kantar is an undergraduate at Ferris State University. He can be reached for comment at: maxkantar@gmail.com.

Read other articles by Max. Link: www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/09/racism-propaganda-and-the-palestinian-right-to-return/

Palestinians never sold their Land, Others did it

All Lebanese (at least) should read this: Saqr Abu Fakhr teaches `Awn Minister, Jubran Basil, a thing or two about the Palestinian cause.

Assafir

لم يبع الفلسطينيون أراضيهم، غيرهم فعلها

صقر ابو فخر

سمعنا وشاهدنا الوزير جبران باسيل في ١٠/٩/٢٠٠٨ يقول في مؤتمر صحافي: ان الفلسطينيين »خسروا وطنهم عندما باعوا أراضيهم«. ثم عدنا فقرأنا الكلام نفسه في صحف اليوم التالي (»السفير« و»النهار«، ١١/٩/٢٠٠٨) من غير أي تعديل، الأمر الذي يشير الى أن أحدا لم ينبّه الوزير على معلوماته المغلوطة من ألفها إلى يائها. ولو كان بين المحيطين بالوزير نبيه واحد في هذا الميدان، لربما كان في الإمكان تدارك الأمر، وتعديل كلامه كي لا تُؤخذ عليه قلة المعرفة بهذا الشأن الحساس. وكان على الوزير، قبل أن يُقدم على نثر هذه الأقاويل، أن يتأكد من مواقع قدميه حتى لا يتعثر في دهاليز التجارة الانتخابية الهاذية المنتعشة الآن في لبنان، والتي لم تنجح إلا في اختيار العناوين المثيرة للدعاية، وما هو بائس ومكرور مثل خرافة »التوطين« ورهاب »تملك الأجانب« وعودة »الفارين الى اسرائيل«، وبين هؤلاء عدد لا يستهان به من العملاء والقتلة والأوباش. ويبدو أن فن استجلاب الأصوات بدغدغة غرائز الدهماء ليس ابتكارا لبنانيا بلديا بالتأكيد، لكن المثل البلدي اللبناني ينطبق عليه تماما، وهذا المثل يقول: »البلد يللي بيعبد العجل حِش وارميلو«. وهنا بالذات تنمو وتنتعش عناصر »الفهلوة« المحلية و»الزعبرة« السياسية الفاشية في هذا البلد منذ أمد طويل، والتي أتمنى ألا يكون الوزير قد انزلق اليها بوعي أو من دون وعي، وألا يُدخل الفلسطينيين في هذا المنزلق، فيكفيهم الكلام العنصري الذي ما برح يغير عليهم من الجهات كلها، والقوانين الجائرة التي تمنع عليهم تملك حتى منزل العائلة، وتمنح العنصريين ذرائع لرفض تشغيل الطلبة الجامعيين في بعض مقاهي الحمراء ولو بالساعة، وفي فصل الصيف فقط، هذه المقاهي التي نستعد لفضحها والدعوة الى مقاطعتها جراء عنصريتها المنحطة.

هؤلاء مَن باعوا الأرض نقترح على الوزير جبران باسيل أن يحفظ بقوة المعلومات التي سنعرضها هنا باختصار شديد. وقد أوجزنا هذه المعلومات، العلمية والدقيقة والتاريخية، كي لا نثقل على ذاكرته قط. إن ٩٤٪ من الأراضي التي امتلكتها الوكالة اليهودية والصندوق القومي اليهودي (الكيرين كاييميت) في فلسطين حتى سنة ١٩٤٧ باعها لبنانيون بالدرجة الأولى من عائلات سرسق وسلام وتيان وتويني والأسعد وقباني وبيهم وغيرهم. فالسيد ميشال سرسق ومحمد بيهم باعا أراضي الحولة من اليهود، وهذه الأراضي كانت تستوعب ١٥٠٠ أسرة فلسطينية شُردت كلها. وآل سرسق باعوا أيضا مرج ابن عامر، وكانت مساحته ٤٠٠ ألف دونم، وفيه نحو ٢٠ قرية تقطنها ٢٥٤٦ أسرة أو ما يساوي ٢٦ ألف فلسطيني تقريبا. وهؤلاء جميعا طردوا من مرج ابن عامر الذي عاشوا فيه مئات السنين. وباع آل تيان (ميشال وأنطون) حصتهم من وادي الحوارث في سنة ١٩٢٢ (٣٠٨٢ دونما يقطن عليها ٢٤٠٠ فلسطيني)، ثم أقدم أنطون تيان على رهن ٥٣٥٠ دونما ثم عاد وباعها مع حصة ميشال تيان من الصندوق القومي اليهودي في ٢٧/٥/.١٩٢٩ وباع آل تويني وآل صباغ ما كانوا يملكونه في السهل الساحلي. علاوة على ذلك، باع أفراد من آل سلام أراضي الحولة التي حازوا من الدولة العثمانية امتياز استصلاحها وزراعتها فقط، لكنهم باعوها من اليهود، الأمر الذي أدى الى تشريد ١٥ ألف فلسطيني. وباع آل قباني ٤ آلاف دونم مما كان يُعرف بـ»وادي القباني«. وفي سنة ١٩٣٧ أسس خير الدين الأحدب وصفي الدين قدورة وجوزف خديج وميشال سارجي ومراد دانا (يهودي) والياس الحاج شركة عقارية. وتمكنت هذه الشركة من شراء ١٠٠ ألف دونم في قضاءي صور وصيدا، ثم باعتها من شركات يهودية. لعلم الوزير، وغيره استطرادا، أن اليهود لم يمتلكوا عند صدور قرار التقسيم في ٢٩/١١/١٩٤٧ إلا ٥,٧٪ من مساحة فلسطين، ومع ذلك منحتهم الأمم المتحدة ٥٦٪ منها بما في ذلك منطقة النقب الممتدة بين بئر السبع والعقبة، والتي لم يكن فيها يهودي واحد. لكن، حتى هذه المساحة، لم يستطع اليهود شراء أكثر من ٣٠٠ ألف دونم من الفلسطينيين بين ١٩١٧ و،١٩٤٧ أي طوال ٣٠ سنة تحت سلطة الانتداب البريطاني.

وهذه المساحة التي تعادل ٦٪ من الأراضي التي اشتراها اليهود انتقلت اليهم بالاحتيال، ومن خلال سماسرة كانوا يشترون الأرض من العرب ثم يعودون فيبيعونها من اليهود. وقد قُتل الكثير من هؤلاء السماسرة إبان ثورة .١٩٣٦ قصارى القول ان الفلسطينيين لم يبيعوا أراضيهم، بل ان أفرادا من عائلات لبنانية معروفة، وأشخاصا من عائلات سورية مثل آل الجزائرلي والشمعة والقوتلي ومارديني واليوسف، هم من تسبب بتشريد الآلاف من الفلسطينيين جراء تلك البيوع الوضيعة، ثم طرد معظم الشعب الفلسطيني من بلاده جراء خطة استعمارية بعيدة المدى.

وهؤلاء البائعون الأرذال الانذال، الذين لا يستحقون اليوم إلا اللعنات، إنما كانوا يلعبون دور المسهّل لتلك الخطة الاستعمارية، والمتعاون معها بوعي كامل، والتي يمكن تأريخ نشوء قضية اللاجئين بها، أي منذ ذلك التاريخ الأسود فصاعداً. »تاني يا أستاذ؟« في أيلول ١٩٩٥ وصف الوزير نقولا فتوش الفلسطينيين بـ»النفايات البشرية«. وقد دفعنا الكلام »الملووق« للوزير فتوش آنذاك إلى أن نعدد له عداً وأن نكيل له كيلا، وقد كدّر كلامنا أيامه طويلا بحسب علمنا.

وبعد ثلاثة عشر عاما، ها هو الوزير باسيل يطل علينا بكلام عجب وبيان من خشب و»معلومات« تثير الغضب. إنها سنون منحوسة وأيامها معكوسة تلك التي ما انفك الحديث عن الفلسطينيين في لبنان يدور في الشرنقة ذاتها. كأن لا شيء يتغير في ميدان المعرفة في هذا البلد، فالكلام دائما غث، والخطاب رث، والأقوال معادة البث.

قبل ستين سنة أو أقل، كان أطفال المخيمات حينما يتعاركون مع أطفال الأحياء اللبنانية المجاورة، يعيّرون بأنهم باعوا أراضيهم ولجأوا الى لبنان. كان ذلك كلام فتية الشوارع. ويلوح لي، بعد نحو ستين سنة، ان الأمر لم يتغير حتى مع هذا الوزير من هنا أو ذاك الوزير من هناك. ويبدو لي أيضا ان بعض الزعامات وأصحاب المواقع والمناصب والرتب لا يختلفون كثيرا عن حمالي القِرَب. انه »داء بلا دوا وعماء على عمى«. وقد رغبت، في هذه المعلومات التي عرضتها هنا، بأن أضع بين يدي السياسيين، ومنهم الوزير باسيل، ذخيرة معرفية بسيطة وأولية كي لا يعود الى مثل هذه الأقوال ثانية. لكن ما أخشاه هو أن أصبح مثل أعمى يلقي محاضرة في جمهور من الصم. ومع ذلك، فأنا أكيد من أن الحقائق العلمية والتاريخية لا بد أن يكون لها صدى، مثلما أنا متأكد من أن الفلسطينيين مثل كيس الملاكمة: كلما وجهت إليه اللكمات ارتد عليك بالقوة نفسها.

The Killing of Count Folke Bernadotte

60 Years Later

By STANLEY HELLER
CounterPunch

“….This year September 17th is the 60th anniversary of the anniversary of the assassination of Swedish Count Folk Bernadotte. He was the Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross during World War II…..

Wikipedia states: “Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on 20 May 1948, Folke Bernadotte was appointed the United Nations’ mediator in Palestine, the first official mediator in the UN’s history. In this capacity, he succeeded in achieving a truce in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and laid the groundwork for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.”….

Enter the Stern Gang (or the Fighters for Freedom of Israel as they called themselves). They were one group of what were called “Revisionist” Zionists. They were opposed to the Ben-Gurion Labour Party types. They were so fanatical in their demand for a Jewish state (from the Nile to the Euphrates) that in the 1940’s they came up with a novel idea about foes of the Jews. Hitler was a “persecutor” of Jews, but the “enemy” of Jews was the power that occupied Palestine, the British. There would always be persecutors until Jews vanquished “the enemy” and took over their rightful turf. So logically the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel had to ally itself against the British and with Hitler!

Unfortunately I’m not making this up……”

Sayyed Nasrallah: We’ve Destroyed Israel’s Dreams

17/09/2008 Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said at an Iftar held by Islamic Resistance Support Association on Tuesday night that if the Americans and the Israelis are seeking to rebuild the Georgian army on Hezbollah’s model and added that even the US army command is studying forming army units Hezbollah style.

Sayyed Nasrallah began his speech by reminding that there are some five million people around the world starving to death. “We are talking about human beings regardless of their religions. These are women, children and elderly people…But little if no action is being taken to confront this. This means that the world is dead on the humanitarian level and has lost its values. On the one hand, millions of people are starving to death while on the other hand, there are big sums of money, gold and silver and only a group of wealthy people.
There is one Arab country, which I will not name, has 3 trillion dollars in the United States banks. Of course this figure is 16 months old, long before the rise oil prices. What are they doing with this money? Look at the people in Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere. How can they live with these sums of money when a very small portion of it can solve many economic and social problems in this region and the world?”, his eminence said.

Sayyed Nasrallah chose this introduction to illustrate the role of the resistance “that is proud of your support.” “The resistance, its practice and its beginning were a normal result of a high sense of responsibility and sublime human-centered sentiment. There does not exist a resistance that survives for 26 years, just because its members get their pay-check every month – this is a resistance that faces liquidation and tough confrontation everyday – but because they feel responsible for defending their country,” he added.

The Hezbollah chief stressed the state must protect its citizens.
“They wanted us to live under the slogan: The strength of Lebanon lies in its weakness!’ What is this strength? It is one that cannot protect anyone in Lebanon. Our state institutions should be strong to protect the country and the people. Unfortunately, at some stages, the state was not only weak; it lacked the will to confront and sometimes colluded with the enemy in the early 1980’s – and I don’t wish to talk about other stages. Those young men who feel their country is in peril, leave their homes, families, schools, universities to live in mountains and valleys. They don’t lack a mind or a personality…They have a great sense of responsibility and humanistic values that require them to be in this position; they can’t stand humiliation and they refuse that their country be usurped by the Israeli enemy,” Sayyed Nasrallah underlined.

Sayyed Nasrallah explained there were three different models of Israel. “The first Israel is the vast one stretching from the Nile and to the Euphrates. The second is the mighty Israel, which does not include Lebanon and Jordan but settles for historic Palestine, but it is a mighty country that forces its decisions on the region. And there is Mediocre Israel,’ within still unclear and unknown borders.”

Just days after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said “those clinging to the notion of Greater Israel are deluding themselves,” Sayyed Nasrallah lauded Hezbollah’s role in ‘destroying that dream’

According to Yediot Aharonot, “Olmert received an unusual vote of confidence on Tuesday evening from Hezbollah Secretary-General (Sayyed) Hassan Nasrallah as the latter reveled in Olmert’s comments from earlier this week in which he said the idea of Greater Israel was no longer relevant.”

“If the mighty Israeli army cannot stay in a security zone in Lebanon, how can it occupy and control a vast region between the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers. The Lebanese resistance pounded the last nail in the coffin of ‘Greater Israel’ after the defeat it (Israel) suffered in 2000,” his eminence declared. He explained that the project of ‘mighty Israel’ within Palestine’s borders vanished when the second Intifada broke out and the resistance developed. “The Israelis were forced to withdraw from Gaza and build separation walls. This means that lands outside these walls are negotiable and can be relinquished.
The mighty Israel fell in the war of 2006, and it has now become as the Arabs once were – making speeches and threats in vain. Today we face ‘Mediocre Israel’ and its foremost concern is some resistance fighters in Lebanon and Palestine. This Israel acknowledges that these resistance movements create a balance with it…Therefore, we have reached a very advanced and historical stage in this (Arab-Israeli) conflict,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.

The Hezbollah chief continued that “Olmert had told his cabinet that regional balance is disturbed and that the only way to stop this imbalance is by talking to the Palestinians and the Syrians.” “Therefore, Olmert did not suggest a military step to stop this imbalance in the region. Olmert also told his ministers that time is not on our (Israel) side and we will regret everyday that passes. I’m not inventing this; this is what Olmert told his ministers. The question is why did Olmert say this during a cabinet meeting? Is it because the world has become multi-polar? No, because we have had a multi-polar before and Israel was growing stronger under it. Is it because Arabs were weak and have strong? On the contrary, unfortunately Arabs are the most prominent absentees from regional and international developments. There is nothing new on the Arab official level that scares Olmert. The main development that has been taking place since 2000 is the achievements and victories of resistance movements in the region.”

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed Israel has failed to harm the resistance after 25 years of security work. “I can tell you that will never harm the resistance. The resistance would not surrender to assassinations, but on the contrary would be strengthened by them to defend the land and stand up to Israel. The resistance surpassed political leaders and authorities because it is a real popular state capable of producing leaders. This means that Israel’s option (to assassinate leaders) has failed. As to the military option, they have tried their utmost in 2006 and they failed. What’s next? Isolating the resistance. But they failed in this as well. They sought to drag the resistance to internal fighting under many slogans. But we have surpassed this even on the seventh of May. The Lebanese view the events of May in different ways…but what really happened then saved Lebanon, its people and its army from the worst seditious conspiracy against our country.”

In this context, Sayyed Nasrallah mentioned an “important and specialized Israeli website that quoted an American military source as saying that that the Georgian army should be rebuilt on Hezbollah’s model, because Hezbollah had demonstrated how a small army can win against huge military forces, which means that the American are convinced of Hezbollah’s powers.”

Sayyed Nasrallah insisted that “the military example that the Resistance presented is a Lebanese creation.. I tell military leaders that the Resistance presented a Lebanese experience because it was made in Lebanon. Those who adhere to sovereignty should be biased to everything that is made in Lebanon including the experience of the resistance.”

The Hezbollah Secretary General welcomed Lebanon’s national dialogue and regretted his absence for security reasons. “The Israelis are serious about their threats. They lie in wait for us but at the same time they are anxious. They either call in Israeli businessmen from around the world, ban their ministers from traveling or they evacuate tourists from certain places as they did yesterday in Sinai. Those who kill hajj Imad Moghniyeh should be worried.”

Sayyed Nasrallah said Hezbollah respected “every person present in the dialogue.” However, he added that “we call for and we insist on increasing the number of participants in the dialogue.”
“We do not want to obstruct it, but we want to make it successful,” he said. The S.G. added that the July War “changed a lot on the internal, regional and international levels. Some parties totally supported the Resistance during the war, and we are loyal to them, that’s why we insist to including them over the dialogue…when everyone is present, we will be able to discuss all controversial issues seriously and positively. Ethics and national values demand that we call for those who supported the Resistance to be present,” he stressed.

His eminence went on to praise the ‘responsible and accurate’ speech of President Michel Suleiman that expressed unity and the will to unify to address sensitive and decisive issued in Lebanon.
Nasrallah hailed Suleiman’s speech during the opening session of the dialogue. President Suleiman had called for the adoption of a defense strategy based on our armed forces and benefiting from the resistance capabilities.

Sayyed Nasrallah called on the media not to publish misleading information to spare the people further incitement.
“If we agree to tone down political speeches, we will end the incitements and the attempts to create sedition,” he said.

His eminence also discussed last Wednesday’s assassination of Democratic Party official martyr Saleh Aridi. “The assassination was intended to create conflict between the Resistance and other parties because some have no interest in the agreement between the PSP and Hezbollah that has been mediated by Youth and Sports Minister Talal Arslan.”

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed putting a stop to sedition helps in solving problems, strengthen reconciliations and continue to work toward reconciliation in Beirut and elsewhere. “This does not mean a change of alliances. What we want from reconciliation is not to shoot at each other, not to conspire against each other, not to kill each other and not to tense up the atmosphere. We will always be rules by political and democratic means. Reconciliation cannot be aimed to isolate other groups,” his eminence added.
Posted by uprooted Palestinian at 1:39 AM 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: Hezbullah, Lebanon, Zionism
The idea of a two-state solution should

============

HOW HEZBOLLAH DEFEATED ISRAEL
PART 1: The Intelligence War
PART 2: The Ground War
PART 3: The Political War

By Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry

Israel army chief resigns over failures in Lebanon war
Halutz resignation spurs calls for Olmert, Peretz to quit too
Hezbollah Celebrates Halutz’ Resignation with Fireworks
A Visit to Hizbullah’s Tunnels
Netanyahu: Barak “brought Nasrallah to our fence”
The Second Lebanon War, A Year Later
Israeli Intelligence: Hezbollah Stronger Than Before
Israeli war tactics criticised
Mofaz Also at Fault for Lebanon War Failures
Leading article: A disastrous war and a weakened leader
Winograd Report on Lebanon War an Earthquake
From Stalingrad to Winograd
Hail of Criticism against Olmert over Lebanon War
U.S. Learns from Israel-Hezbollah War
Israel Scorns Itself after Hezbollah Victory
Israel and Hizballah Ready to Rumble?
Sayyed Nasrallah:Resistance Capable of Achieving Historic Victory
Sayyed Nasrallah Conducts Largest Mass Military Drill
The Message: If You Can Exercise, So Can We
Sayed Nasrallah: Drill Shows Resistance Full Readiness
Hezbollah Has Tripled Its Land-to-Sea Missile Arsenal
Hezbollah’s victory has transformed the Middle East
Nasrallah: Resistance stronger than ever
Sayyed Nasrallah: Ready for Confrontation, New Victory
Israel Fears Double Hezbollah Revenge Attack
We Choose How, When, Where to Punish Murderers
Sayyed Nasralla’s Speech Attracts Israeli Media
Lebanon Marks 40thDay of Mourning for Martyr Moghniyeh
Nasrallah Pledges “Grand” Victory Against Israel
Nasrallah’s New Pledge
Sayyed Nasrallah: Honored to Be Bush’s Enemies
Nasrallah: Hezbollah ready to fight
Hezbollah: We’re Prepared but Will Not Start War
Mofaz to Rice: Hezbollah Controls South Lebanon
Hizbollah builds up covert army for a new assault against Israel
Sayyed Nasrallah ‘Most Admired’ Arab Leader
Nasrallah appears in person at Beirut celebration for prisoners
Hezbollah Anti-Aircraft Missiles Could Threaten Israel
Sayyed Nasrallah: 2006 Victory Reshaped the Nation
Lebanon Shows Israel’s True Face
Paper tiger Israel on verge of collapse

Nasrallah: Next Victory Unequivocally Decisive

Nasrallah: Hezbollah was Born Victorious

 

Lucia: To "baathist -saddamite pundit".

Tony, I told you some time ago that this guy would ruin your site. There is one person, only one, behind all these pro-saddamite pro-baath iranian-phobic nicks. This person should visit a medic, instead of jumping from blog to blog trying to ruin all those which don’t toe to his baath-saddamite line. This person, “the nephew”, likes to hide behind women and western’s nicks too. Don’t be surprised if his posts appear under more than one IP (Of course, he’ll deny it). That’s an easy trick for someone who is trying, as the zionist agent he is, to deceive people. Needless to say, all this is done from his US-taxpayers-money payed for safe-haven in Texas… He is a traitor to his country.

He obliges his paymasters, by praising the america that destroyed his country; even says he enjoys of freedom of speechthere. He he. An iraqi? Sure! … provided that he smears Iran, HAMAS, Hizbullah, Nasrallah and chants the “secularist wonders of zionstan”. He smeared each and everyone he desagreed with, be it journalist, writer or analyst informing -often first hand- on the situation in Iraq. Lately he’s engaged in deriding Islam too, offending the sensibility of the Muslim visitors of your site. Iraq occupied by Iran. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I wish were it true. The iraqi people would be much better off than they are.

This sums up his task in the net, either in blogs or in his own website (under one of his multiple nicks).

He *highly contributed to ruin* the Angry Arab’s forum section, forcing As’ad to close it, which was a loss because there were some interesting opinions and/or links. You are next. I long ago warned you, and regret to remember this. (Maybe he ruined more I’m anaware of, since I don’t visit many blogs)

Well Tony, I wish you good luck. I feel saddened for you, because it takes many hours to have a great blog like yours updated daily; just for some (fill in the adjective of your choice) to come undermine it, forcing people to quit, out of the nausea he causes.

Maybe there is no solution for what he is doing. I mean, when a zionist agent wants to f__k something, consider it a done deed. Unless you first get rid of him, that is. But I understand that monitoring the comments section is time consuming, a time that is better used if dedicated for other things.

See you. Regards.

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Lucia 09.14.08 – 7:32 pm #
Lucia 09.14.08 – 8:42 pm #