FLASHBACK …. ASSASSINATION OF ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ~~ LIVE ON VIDEO

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October 31, 2009 at 9:29 am (History, Israel, Peace Process)

shir l shalom...bloody The 4th of November 1995 is known as ‘The Day The Music Died’ in Israel. It was on that day that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered in cold blood just minutes after singing the praises of peace, a photo of the blood stained sheet music which was taken from his pocket can be seen at left….

The words to the song can be seen HERE

It was not only Yitzhak Rabin that was murdered that day, it was the Oslo Agreements as well. Since that time the right wing has usurped power in Israel making the concept of a real peace nothing more than a distant dream, but one that we hold onto and work towards nevertheless.

A new technology enables viewers to get a clear view of what transpired on Nov. 4th, 1995: The three bullets that changed history, the video from that evening can be viewed HERE….

A Ynet report can be read below…

Special: Video of Rabin’s murder as never seen before

(Video)Twelve years after, new technology enables viewers to get a clear view of what transpired on Nov. 4th, 1995: The three bullets that changed history

Ynet

“On November 4th, 1995, the prime minister was murdered.” This was the headline we awoke to, as if to a nightmare. The three bullets fired at the prime minister during the peace rally changed the face of Israel forever. Each of us harbors that moment within us, the moment we heard of the murder at the square.

Twelve years on, the enhanced video now clearly shows the moments of the murder.

It was 9:40 pm, and the security personnel accompanied the participants of the peace rally down the back stairs of the municipality building on the way to the prime minister’s car. At first, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres descended the staircase waving to the crowd with a smile. The prime minister descended next, with an assured step.

Suddenly out of the darkness the image appeared. The door of the prime minister’s car had already been opened. Rabin approached the back seat; the first shot was sounded, then another and another.

Yitzhak Rabin’s last steps were captured by the lens of Ronny Kempler’s camera. Now, thanks to new technology, for the first time viewers can see exactly what happened at the square on that night: The unbearable ease in which the prime minister was murdered from point-blank range.

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THE DAY BILL CLINTON SAID ‘SHALOM CHAVER’

(Ben Heine © Cartoons)

Remembering my friend Yitzhak Rabin

Written by Bill Clinton

Throughout history, human beings have found meaning in our lives through positive identification with what we know: our family, our tribe, our community, our nation, our culture, our politics, our religion – and by negative reference to “others.”

In the 21st century, as our world grows increasingly interdependent, and local challenges and opportunities relate increasingly to the groups we once knew as “them,” the walls that divide us are getting thinner, less important, and ever more transparent. We are compelled to expand the definition of who is “us,” and shrink the definition of who is “them” understand that, as important as our differences are, our common humanity matters more. The inability to embrace this fundamental value lies at the heart of peace and conflict throughout the world today, and of course in the Middle East.

Yitzhak Rabin understood this. My friend knew that the Middle East is highly interdependent, that there could be no final military victory: it would come only through peace and reconciliation based on our shared humanity. He worked tirelessly to forge a just, secure, and lasting peace with the Palestinians, and his ultimate sacrifice proved it.

While the events of the last several years have delayed the dream for which Yitzhak Rabin sacrificed his life, they in no way undermine the logic of his vision, the power of his faith, or the beauty of his gifts to us. Since his life was taken, we have seen the resolution of seemingly intractable conflicts in other regions of the world. In each instance, the parties decided that their interdependence compelled them to lay down their arms and embrace a concept of security through dialogue and cooperation, based on respect for our interesting differences, and the possibility of cooperation rooted in shared values, shared benefits, and shared responsibilities.

No one was more committed to the security of Israel than Yitzhak Rabin. No one understood better that maintaining that security requires a resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians, and a commitment to share a peaceful future with them.

In this spirit, the words of the late King Hussein at Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral resound as powerfully today as they did several years ago:

“Let us not keep silent. Let our voices raise high to speak of our commitment to peace for all times to come. And let us tell those who live in darkness, who are the enemies of life and true faith, this is where we stand. This is our camp.”

We must remember and honor both Yitzhak Rabin and his mission. The future must belong not to those who live in darkness, but to those who stand with Yitzhak Rabin for life and peace.

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Both of the above posts are from the archives

End Water Siege

Water Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop to Drink

29/10/2009
October 27, 2009 – Amnesty International

Al-Manar.com.lb is not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author’s alone.

Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.

These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.

In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.

Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.

The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.

While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.

In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations.

Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater.

In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools.

Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.

In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.

Stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point.

To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price.

Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development.

“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera.
Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.

It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.

Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even just to distribute small quantities of water.

Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water.

In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.

In comparison, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun in nearby Israeli settlements, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground.

In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.

“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Donatella Rovera.

“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.”

Agha: AI report ascertains IOA robbery of Palestinian water resources

[ 31/10/2009 – 08:35 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– Dr. Mohammed Al-Agha, the minister of agriculture in the Gaza Strip, has said that the Amnesty International’s report on the Israeli occupation authority’s (IOA) exploitation of Palestinian water resources is an important document that should be used in suing the IOA.

Agha, in a terse statement on Friday, said that the AI document should be utilized by the Palestinians to demand compensation and file lawsuits at international courts over the IOA robbery of their water.

He pointed out that the Gaza Strip is in need of 200 million cups of water annually, adding that water is being transferred from the West Bank to Gaza to overcome the shortage there.

The London-based AI said in a report that the IOA was curbing the Palestinians’ use of their own water resources while allowing its settlers to tap whatever quantities of water they wish from those resources.

The report published last Tuesday said that the Israeli individual’s water consumption is four times more than that of the Palestinian individual.

Shallah urges PA to stop wagering on the peace process with Israel

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[ 31/10/2009 – 08:29 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)– Dr. Ramadan Shallah, the secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad Movement, on Friday called on Fatah faction to stop obstructing the reconciliation efforts and wagering on the peace process with the Israeli occupation authority (IOA).

During a ceremony held in support of occupied Jerusalem and the national unity, Dr. Shallah stressed that the option of negotiation would never create the Palestinian state, noting that if the IOA had wanted the establishment of a Palestinian state, it would have given it to late president Yasser Arafat.

“The Zionist entity creates wars in the region and not peace. We must not mistake this at all. The making of wars is one of the requirements of maintaining the legacy of colonialism, the equation of Sykes-Picot, and the reality of hegemony and control over the Nation,” he underlined.

The Islamic Jihad leader also shed light on his Movement’s relationship with Hamas and Fatah, saying that his Movement is biased in favor of these two factions as much as they are biased in favor of Palestine and the resistance.

For his part, Sheikh Nafid Azzam, a member of the Islamic Jihad political bureau, stated during the ceremony that the option of negotiations pursued by the Palestinian Authority (PA) proved its futility and called on the PA to return to the national dialog aimed to restore the unity.

Sheikh Azzam highlighted that the resistance is the most correct and feasible option for the defense of the Palestinian people and the protection of their rights.

“We confirm the sterility of the so-called peace process, and Barack Obama who was unable to force Israel to freeze settlement activity, would be unable to make it withdraw (from occupied Arab lands),” the Islamic Jihad official added.

CNN EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Syria’s first lady on Gaza

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– October 30, 2009

After Lebanon War Devastation, Hezbollah Suburb Now Booming

After Lebanon War Devastation, Hezbollah Suburb Now Booming

29/10/2009 October 23, 2009 – Haaretz

Al-Manar.com.lb is not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author’s alone.

Dahiyah – meaning the suburb in Arabic – is the Hezbollah stronghold that was heavily targeted by Israel during its war with the militant Shiite group during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The bombardment leveled Hezbollah’s headquarters as well as entire blocks across the neighborhood.

Now, the sprawling Shiite suburb of south Beirut has made a comeback after the destruction from the 2006 fighting, a symbol of the community’s resilience at a time when its political patron, Hezbollah, is seeking a greater voice in Lebanon’s government.

Dozens of newly built or repaired apartment blocs stand in place of those destroyed, the result of a reconstruction program led by Hezbollah, which receives millions of dollars a year in aid from its ally Iran.

Property prices are soaring. The district’s main streets are congested bumper-to-bumper with cars, while uniformed Hezbollah members direct traffic. Commerce is thriving, restaurants are packed.

“Dahiyah will be more beautiful than it was before,” read billboards at the construction sites that remain.

Beyond the district’s ties to Hezbollah, Dahiyah is a source of pride for Lebanon’s Shiites. For them, it exemplifies how the community has shaken off years of discrimination at the hands of the country’s traditional powerbrokers – Christians and Sunni Muslims – and has established itself as a powerful political force.

Dahiyah literally brought Shiites closer to the center of power: It grew from nearly nothing over 30 years to become a densely packed region of apartment towers and homes for 700,000 Shiites on the southern doorstep of Beirut, historically a mainly Christian and Sunni city.

“In Beirut, people are arrogant and think the world of themselves,” said Nagat Gradah, a bookstore employee in the district who, like many of its residents, migrated from Lebanon’s mainly Shiite south. “But Dahiyah? It’s very special.”

Dahiyah’s revival comes as Hezbollah is seeking to bolster its credentials as a mainstream political power.

For months, it has been in negotiations with Sunni-led pro-Western parties over the creation of a new government, in which Hezbollah and its allies would have a sizable role. The negotiations have been deadlocked, however, in a dispute over who will get which positions, fueled by suspicions in the pro-Western bloc that Hezbollah and its allies will seek to impose Syria’s and Iran’s agenda in the deeply divided nation.

Hezbollah is strongly backed by Syria and Iran, and it touts a powerful armed guerrilla force. But the movement also runs an extensive social welfare network and is the main political representative for Lebanon’s Shiites, who make up about a third of the country’s population of 4 million.

Dahiyah itself may be a sign that Shiite power is not necessarily an omen of Lebanon’s “Iranization” as Hezbollah’s opponents fear.

Despite its undisputed lock on Dahiyah, Hezbollah has not tried to enforce its strict interpretation of Islamic teachings in the district, a show of pragmatism perhaps aimed at casting doubt on the extremist tag critics slap on the group and increasing its appeal to secular Shiites and other sectarian groups.

Billboards advertising women’s couture compete for space with billboards of bearded clerics and images of the young Hezbollah guerrillas who died fighting Israel over the years.

Women in tight pants and low-cut tops shop at boutiques with names like Pascale and La Verna where bikinis, miniskirts and hot shorts are on display in windows – much like in the more liberal districts of Beirut.

“Here in Dahiyah, we have managed to have resistance, freedom and fashion all at the same place,” said Hussein al-Zein, a 40-year-old resident who runs a women’s casual wear store.

“People think Lebanon is either about fighting Israel or whoring with nothing in between. In Dahiyah, we have freedom, but it has boundaries,” he said at his store.

That said, the majority of women in Dahiyah dress conservatively in Islamic headscarves in public. There are no bars or liquor stores and certainly no nightclubs. European nonalcoholic beer ads in the streets don’t mention the word beer, using instead the term barley drink.

Hanein Estiatieh, a graphic design student, says she has no worries about going out in jeans and a tight top in Dahiyah, her birthplace.

“I will cover up only when I marry,” declares the 18-year-old.

“I don’t mind her not covering up,” said Aliyah Sohoura, daughter of the owner of the women’s clothes store where Estiatieh works. “But I pray for her to see the light of faith,” added Sohoura, who wore a headscarf and a bulky coat. The two giggled.

Dahiyah was not always a Shiite stronghold. It was once an area of small villages south of Beirut that were home to Christians and some middle-class Shiites. During Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, tens of thousands of Shiites poured into the area from the impoverished, more rural south and east to flee fighting. The Christians largely moved out, though pockets remain.

Beirut itself is sharply divided between Sunni and Christian districts, with very few mixed areas. In the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel almost exclusively targeted Dahiyah and Shiite areas in the south and east, while largely steering clear of Sunni and Christian regions – which in turn fed distrust between the sects.

In May last year, sectarian tensions turned violent when Hezbollah fighters clashed with Sunni rivals and briefly seized Sunni districts at the height of a political dispute with the U.S.-backed government. Fistfights and stone-throwing have broken out occasionally since between youths from Dahiyah and adjacent Sunni districts.

Shiites’ sense of solidarity in Dahiyah is reinforced by what residents see as neglect from the central government. The district gets only 12 hours of city electricity a day, compared to 19 in Beirut. Authorities blame large-scale power in Dahiyah, while residents call it discrimination.

Hezbollah handles security in the district, managing traffic and even handling crime cases like drug offenses. The group says it has no choice, saying central authorities ignore the area.

“We don’t try to be a substitute for the state but we just try and come up with solutions,” said Hezbollah official Ghassan Darwish. “We cannot replace the government, even if we tried”.

"Don’t blame Hezbollah for the Marine barracks bombing. The United States is at fault, for becoming a combatant in Lebanon’s civil war"

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Nir Rosen, in FP/ here

“…. Last year, former Reagan-era National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane penned an especially ill-informed piece titled “From Beirut to 9/11.” McFarlane blamed Hezbollah, though the Shiite resistance group did not yet really exist and nobody knows who actually committed the attack.

……The United States had just given the Lebanese Army a great deal of military equipment. The opposition forces confronted the Lebanese Army in Suq al-Gharb and were defeating the U.S.-backed forces, which could have led to an end to the civil war and a victory for the opposition forces. There was little consultation within Ronald Reagan’s administration when McFarlane decided to call for the USS New Jersey off the coast of Lebanon to provide gunfire support for its beleaguered allies. Until then, the United States had maintained a fairly neutral stance, but after this attack the U.S. warships continued to sporadically shell the opposition fighters. At this point, the United States became just another militia in the Lebanese civil war…..

McFarlane had made them so, and their blood is on his hands. The attitude among some at the National Security Council was that it was time to teach the Lebanese opposition forces — read: Muslims — a lesson. At the State Department’s political and military affairs bureau, “we were shocked” by the shelling at Suq al-Gharb, one former senior member told me. “We were left speechless.” They knew there would be retaliation for this American act of war.

Interestingly, my views are supported by none other than retired Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, the man who commanded the Marines in Beirut 25 years ago. Geraghty wrote an article last year for the U.S. Naval Institute’s publication Proceedings: “The Marine and the French headquarters were targeted primarily because of who we were and what we represented. … It is noteworthy that the United States provided direct naval gunfire support — which I strongly opposed for a week — to the Lebanese Army at a mountain village called Suq-al-Garb on 19 September and that the French conducted an air strike on 23 September in the Bekaa Valley. American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, …..
Geraghty was not the only military expert who has doubts about the U.S. role in Lebanon during the 1980s. Robert Baer was a CIA field agent covering Lebanon out of Damascus at the time of the bombing. “Don’t forget the Lebanese Christian forces kidnapped the Iranian chargé d’affaires, a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer,” he told me. “The Iranians held the U.S. responsible. As far as they were concerned, we opened the first shot in the war.”

(continue here)

Posted by G, Z, or B at 6:29 AM

A Zionist report incites against Palestinian population in Jerusalem

A Zionist report incites against Palestinian population in Jerusalem

[ 30/10/2009 – 12:30 PM ]

A Palestinian home being demolished by the Israeli occupation in East Jerusalem 27 October 2009

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– A recent Zionist report said that the Palestinians in the occupied city of Jerusalem will form a majority in 20 years time despite Israeli occupation policies since 1967 to ensure a Jewish majority in the holy city.

The report which was produced by the Macro Center for Political Economics and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and presented to the Israeli Knesset to be debated said that despite the Israeli measures for many years to check the Palestinian population growth in Jerusalem, the rate of natural growth will be the determining factor and warned of Jerusalem becoming a bi-national city.

The report added that despite land confiscation since 1967 the Arab population of Jerusalem is increasing and they could become a majority in 20 years time, especially that they constitute now 35% of the population, while they constituted only 25% 42 years ago. It was also pointed out that after the occupation of the eastern part of Jerusalem in 1967 Israeli occupation governments followed special policies that placed restrictions on Palestinians with regard to building and residence in the city to guarantee a Jewish majority and prevent the city from being devided.

The report also pointed out that the main mechanism available to Israeli governments was the confiscation of land which is mostly privately owned, but it is doubtful that this was enough to ensure contiguous Jewish neighbourhoods.

The area of land confiscated in east Jerusalem since 1967 totalled 24000 Dunums (35% of its area), the land was confiscated from its Palestinian owners to build Jewish settlements.

The Spooks Of Beirut

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By Rannie Amiri
Countercurrents.org

Lebanese parliamentary elections were held on June 7, and nearly five months later, there is still no government in place. And the reasons for it are all too predictable.

Despite threats in the run-up to the vote made by Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton should the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition win, and the illegal election-eve campaigning (read: fear mongering) of Maronite patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, it was by all measures a free, fair ballot.

The winner was the Western-backed March 14 coalition, led by Future Movement head Saad Hariri. Due to the sectarian distribution of seats – ironically the great paralyzing factor in Lebanese politics yet one that has nonetheless managed to keep the country afloat—the winning alliance was able to clearly win the majority of seats in the National Assembly despite clearly losing the popular vote.

Hariri was nominated by his bloc to the post of prime minister and easily confirmed by the rest of parliament shortly thereafter.

The first question to face Hariri in forming the bloated 30-member cabinet was immediately apparent: would he continue to allow the opposition to wield veto-power as they did under Prime Minister Fouad Siniora (a right granted to them as part of the May 2008 Doha Accords)?

Remarkably, a solution was rather quickly reached: 15 seats would be allocated to Hariri’s bloc, 10 to the opposition, and five would be appointed by President Michel Suleiman. By mutual agreement, one of Suleiman’s appointees would be approved by Hezbollah, thus giving them the one-third plus one number of ministers needed for a veto. Problem solved.

Then came the unexpected announcement of Lebanon’s consummate political opportunist, Druze and Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader Walid Jumblatt. Despite roundly bashing Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah during the campaign and in years prior, Jumblatt did an about-face in August by saying he would break ranks with Hariri and pull out of the March 14 coalition.

“Our alliance with March 14 forces was driven by necessity and must not continue,” Jumblatt said as he hurriedly sought to meet with Nasrallah. Never missing an opportunity to play kingmaker and stay politically relevant, Jumblatt has now indicated that although he will not be part of the government, he will keep his PSP within March 14 and not join the opposition.

It was nevertheless a setback for Hariri in forming his cabinet, and in September said he would step down as prime minister-designate. Within weeks, he was reappointed by President Suleiman and told to try again.

Many analysts concluded that nothing would solve the deadlock until a much anticipated Saudi-Syrian rapprochement took place. This occurred when King Abdullah paid an official visit to President Assad in Damascus in early October. Not wanting to make it too obvious that the dysfunctional Lebanese body politic was dependent on this reconciliation, it was understandable that it would take more than the declared “just a few days” before a cabinet was finally put together.

But weeks later, it has yet to happen.

Proving that all politics is indeed local, the present day impasse stems in part from the demand of Michel Aoun, head of the Free Patriotic Movement within the March 8 coalition and the most popular Christian politician in the country, that his group be granted five ministries (which is not unreasonable considering the number of seats he has in parliament) and that one, the Telecommunications Ministry, be given to his son-in-law.

Control of telecommunications is contentious since it was the Siniora government that wanted to strip Hezbollah of their own telecommunications network and eventually led to the outbreak of violence on Beirut’s streets last year. As for General Aoun, he built his reputation on his “War of Liberation” against the Syrians in the late 1980s. Not long after his return from exile in 2005, he joined forces with the pro-Syrian March 8 alliance.

It should now be obvious why Lebanon has had no government since the June elections.

As each of above scenarios illustrate, to blame are entrenched, feudal lord politicians and their patrons, who are incapable of moving past personal agendas and egos to address the country’s pressing needs. They include Saad Hariri (who despite his youth, has completely failed to usher in any fresh ideas), Jumblatt, Aoun, and parliament speaker and Amal leader Nabih Berri. The latter’s 17 long years at the post will now be extended another four. At least Sayyid Nasrallah’s Hezbollah movement has invested in essential social welfare services and programs to aid those historically neglected by the state, not to mention having to continuously worry about the threat of Israeli aggression—and convince others in the government the reality of it.

Such politicians and their pettiness, belonging to both of the two main political camps, represent nothing more than intransigence; habitually shifting from one ineffective, transient set of conveniences, opportunities, or alliances, to another.

This Halloween these spooks of Beirut will haunt the city, doling out tricks, but not much else.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator.

Posted by JNOUBIYEH at 9:19 PM

Did Richard Goldstone hide more sinister crimes in Gaza?

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by Carlos Latuff

Part 1: White Phosphorus and Flechettes

There was much praise for the UN investigations into war crimes committed in Gaza, led by Richard Goldstone. However, I feel that this report did not go far enough to investigate some other more serious allegations that were made.

There is a sense of urgency to bring this investigation forward and to put those responsible on trial but one must understand that something much more sinister did not even get a mention and has since been swept under the carpet.

Let’s take a closer look at some aspects of this report which certainly showed a distinct weakness in the team’s ability to understand what constitutes a breach of the Geneva Convention.

Quote from item 46: the Mission finds that the conduct of the Israeli armed forces constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility. It also finds that the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a violation of the right to life.

Quote from item 47: The last incident concerns the launch of a bomb on a house resulting in the killing of 22 family members. Israel’s position in this case is that there was an “operational error” and that the intended target was a neighbouring house storing weapons. On the basis of its investigation, the Mission expresses significant doubts about the Israeli authorities’ account of the incident. The Mission concludes that, if indeed a mistake was made, there could not be said to be a case of wilful killing. State responsibility of Israel for an internationally wrongful act, however, would remain.

Response to item 46 and 47: Even if an operational mistake was made it still constitutes wilful killing as such bombs were dropped in areas of dense population and thus had the correct target been hit the civilians in the adjacent target area would have died or been severely injured.

Quote from Item 48: Based on its investigation of incidents involving the use of certain weapons such as white phosphorous and flechette missiles, the Mission, while accepting that white phosphorous is not at this stage proscribed under international law, finds that the Israeli armed forces were systematically reckless in determining its use in built-up areas. Moreover, doctors who treated patients with white phosphorous wounds spoke about the severity and sometimes untreatable nature of the burns caused by the substance. The Mission believes that serious consideration should be given to banning the use of white phosphorous in built-up areas. As to flechettes, the Mission notes that they are an area weapon incapable of discriminating between objectives after detonation. They are; therefore, particularly unsuitable for use in urban settings where there is reason to believe civilians may be present.

WP_victimResponse to Item 48: First of all Mr Goldstone needs to understand that White Phosphorus is an Incendiary Weapon and therefore is covered under international law in its use of White Phosphorus on densely populated areas.

It is in violation of the Geneva Convention: Protocol on Prohibitions
or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III) namely:

Certain use of incendiary weapons, in particular the use of air delivered incendiary weapons against targets situated amongst concentrations of civilians (Protocol III to the Conventional Weapons Convention).

One should also draw attention to the fact that exactly the same treatment was handed out by the IDF in Southern Lebanon (2006). This picture shows the terrible lethal consequences on a child in Lebanon. Let’s now look at a case that was filed in Israel on the back of the Geneva Convention and the ICJ. As one would expect when dealing with the Israel court system the case failed. One could live in hope that such a case in the European Courts would carry a different result

The “Flechette” shells (from the French “flêchette,” meaning “small arrow”) are known to contain thousands of small metal arrows, each some four centimeters long. When the shell explodes in the air, at a height of approximately 30 m above the ground, the lethal arrows scatter over a cone-shaped area some 300 m in length and 94 m wide. It should be noted that the Flechette was developed by the Americans in Vietnam, when they sought an effective weapon for attacking Viet Cong forces hiding among the trees in the jungles and dispersed over a large area.

It is worth noting that this weapon has been considered controversial since it was first introduced. The arguments raised against the Flechette are based, inter alia, on the principles of international law in the field of the laws of war, according to which weapons causing “unnecessary suffering” are not to be used, and the indiscriminate use of weapons in population centers is prohibited. The Appellants will argue that the Flechette causes “unnecessary suffering” due to the enormous number of arrows, which injure the victim’s body (similarly to an explosive device containing nails), and that it is also considered an “indiscriminate” weapon, since it disperses over an enormous area, and is very difficult to use precisely. Accordingly, the Appellants argue, its use is prohibited, particularly in civilian population centers.

090316-bartlett-flechette-3090316-bartlett-flechette-2-2These photographs show flechettes as used in Gaza and an X-Ray of a boy’s shoulder clearly showing a flechette deeply embedded.

FlechetteFactual Background

As mentioned above, the IDF has used this weapon for many years, particularly in the context of its operational activities in southern Lebanon, during which “dead areas” were declared along the border of the “Security Zone” – any person entering these areas was considered a “terrorist” to be eliminated. As soon as movement was identified in these areas, the tanks fired Flechette shells. It is worth mentioning that even during this period, arguments were raised against the IDF that the use of these shells caused the death and injury of dozens of Lebanese citizens, despite the fact that the use of Flechette shells was limited to sparsely-populated areas.

Among other publications, a special chapter was devoted to the IDF’s use of this weapon in Lebanon in a report of the organization B’Tselem entitled “The Violation of the Human Rights of Lebanese Citizens by Israel (January 2000).”

Illegality in International Humanitarian Law – The Rules of War

It is a principle of international humanitarian law and the rules of war that means that cause indiscriminate injury or that are unable or incapable of distinguishing between civilians and combatants are prohibited. In addition, means causing unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury are prohibited.

The obligation to protect the health and life of civilians who are not engaged in combat is mentioned in all the conventions constituting international humanitarian law; in some conventions, the obligation is mentioned several times. The prohibition on the arbitrary taking of life outside the parameters of self-defense may be identified on several levels in international law. The most basic level is that of the general rules of war, which establish the basic principle that civilian targets, including civilians, shall not be the targets of attacks.

Inter alia, Article 22 of the Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague, 18 October 1907 (hereinafter “the Hague Regulations”), which was revolutionary for its time, stated that “the right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited”.

Among other provisions, a specific regulation was established prohibiting the use of weapons that cause unnecessary suffering. Article 23 states:

“Art. 23. In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden
(a)…
(b)…
(c)…
(d)…
(e) To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;
(f) …”

The second level establishes the prohibition against inhuman treatment for those not, at that time, actively engaged in fighting; the center of this facet is the prohibition against the taking of life.

This obligation is established in Article 3, which is common to all four Geneva Conventions from 1949. This applies to all armed conflicts, not only to occupied territories. Among other provisions, sub-clause 1 states:

Persons taking no active part in hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

Violence to life and person

A) The above-mentioned Article 3, which, as noted, is common to all four Geneva Conventions, is today considered international customary law binding all nations of the world; as such, it may be enforced by this Court. In addition, the State of Israel signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1951; accordingly, it is also legally bound to observe the conventions as a contracting party.

The third level of the rules of war comprises the rules for the control of occupied territory, which grant the occupied population special protection in addition to the rights and protections accruing from the general rules of law and to the rights and protections enjoyed by all citizens, whether or not living in an occupied territory.

These protections and rights are established both in the Hague Regulations and in many clauses scattered throughout the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the Protection of Civilian Population, as well as in the two protocols to the conventions, signed in 1977.

Regulation 30 of the Hague Regulations relates to the protection of the residents of an occupied territory, stating as follows:
“Family honour and rights, the lives of persons and private property… must be protected”

No-one would deny that the general and special rules of law, as reflected in the Hague Regulations, now constitute international customary law binding all nations of the world, and enforceable in this Court (see, for example, the comments by then Justice Barak in HCJ 393/82, Jamayat Iskan Almu’alamoun v Commander of IDF Forces, Piskei Din 37(5) 785, in para. 11 of the ruling).

However, the principal protection is afforded to the citizens of an occupied territory in the Fourth Geneva Convention. These citizens are “protected persons” as defined in Article 4 of the Convention. The disagreements between the international community and Israel regarding the applicability of the definition in Article 4 to the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories has already been resolved in a long series of petitions to this Court, in which the state has declared its commitment to observe the humanitarian provisions of the Convention as if they applied to the territory.

In order to complete the picture, we should note that additional protections on civilian lives are established in the two protocols to the Geneva Convention signed in 1977; these expanded the protection afforded to the civilian population to include disputes other than those between states. The State of Israel has not signed these protocols, but some of their provisions constitute a part of international customary law, and as such bind Israel.

Prohibition on the Use of Weapons Causing “Unnecessary Suffering” and “Indiscriminate” Weapons – Customary Law

The Appellants shall argue that the use of Flechette shells by the IDF is incompatible with the principles of international customary law as noted above, which require the military echelon to consider, alongside military needs, the need to minimize unreasonable danger of injury to the local population.

Article 35(2) of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) (hereinafter “the First Protocol”) establishes as follows:
Article 35.–Basic rules
1. In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited.
2. It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and
methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.
3. It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.

Article 51 establishes:
Article 51.–Protection of the civilian population
1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in circumstances.
2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.
3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.
4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) Those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) Those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) Those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:
(…)
(b) An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
(…)

Although the State of Israel is not committed to the provisions of the First Protocol, these articles are considered customary and binding in international law. Proof of this may be found in the “Advisory Opinion” of the International Court of Justice dated July 8, 1996 on the subject of the “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons.”

In the course of the above-mentioned opinion, the court was asked, inter alia, to address the subject of an indiscriminate weapon that causes unnecessary suffering. Among other points, the court ruled as follows:
A large number of customary rules have been developed by the practice of States and are an integral part of the international law relevant to the question posed.

The cardinal principles contained in the texts constituting the fabric of humanitarian law are the following. The first is aimed at the protection of the civilian population and civilian objects and establishes the distinction between combatants and non-combatants; States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets. According to the second principle, it is prohibited to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants: it is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or uselessly aggravating their suffering.

In application of that second principle, States do not have unlimited freedom of choice of means in the weapons they use.
(…)
In conformity with the aforementioned principles, humanitarian law, at a very early stage, prohibited certain types of weapons either because of their indiscriminate effect on combatants and civilians or because of the unnecessary suffering caused to combatants, that is to say, a harm greater than that unavoidable to achieve legitimate military objectives. If an envisaged use of weapons would not meet the requirements of humanitarian law, a threat to engage in such use would also be contrary to that law.
(…)
Nor is there any need for the Court elaborate on the question of the applicability of Additional Protocol I of 1977 to nuclear weapons. It need only observe that while, at the Diplomatic Conference of 1974-1977, there was no substantive debate on the nuclear issue and no specific solution concerning this question was put forward, Additional Protocol I in no way replaced the general customary rules applicable to all means and methods of combat including nuclear weapons. In particular, the Court recalls that all States are bound by those rules in Additional Protocol I which, when adopted, were merely the expression of the pre-existing customary law, such as the Martens Clause, reaffirmed in the first article of Additional Protocol I. The fact that certain types of weapons were not specifically dealt with by the 1974-1977 Conference does not permit the drawing of any legal conclusions relating to the substantive issues which the use of such weapons would raise.”…

The entire text as per above was taken from http://www.btselem.org with reference to Legal Documents/HC8990 02 Flachette Appeal
Israel Supreme Court – Sitting as the High Court of Justice – HCJ/02 in the case of Physicians for Human Rights – Israel and The Palestinian Centre for Human Right (The Appellants) V General of the Southern Command – Doron Almog and The State of Israel – Ministry of Defense (The Respondents)

Petition for an Interim Decree

A petition is hereby respectfully submitted to the Court requesting that the Respondents be ordered to come and give grounds why the use of “Flechette” type tank shells in the context of IDF operations in the Gaza Strip area should not be halted and prohibited.

Data listed within this article were taken from the Internet site of the International Court of Justice (www.icj-cij.org).

As we would expect the case failed to achieve it goals and was kicked out of court as follows:

The appellants asked us to prohibit the army from using flechette shells. Since we have realized that the use of this ammunition is not prohibited by the laws of war, the petitioners’ request cannot be accepted. This court has ruled that “the choice of weapons, which the respondents use for the goal of preventing murderous terror attacks, is not one of the topics in which this court sees fit to intervene.” (HCJ 5872/ 01, Bracha v Prime Minister, PD 56 (3)1). Needless to say, the respondents have eased our minds that the scope of use of this ammunition is arranged by the IDF through rules that are binding on the commanders of forces acting in the field. The decision regarding the question as to whether the conditions in the arena of combat, in every given case, justify use of the flechette, is determined by the authorized commander, who in formulating his decision is commanded to act according to professional guidelines, that in principle were intended to prevent harming residents not involved in activities that endanger IDF soldiers or Israeli citizens.

The petition is rejected. Justice The Honourable Justice M. Heshin: I agree.
Justice The Honourable Justice A. Hayout: I agree.
Decided, as stated, in Justice E. Matza’s decision.
Rendered today, 25 Nissan 5763 (27 April 2003)

It must be noted that Goldstone’s report did not follow the same conclusion as per the case above but rather highlighted Flechette’s unsuitability in an urban environment when he quoted the following: “As to flechettes, the Mission notes that they are an area weapon incapable of discriminating between objectives after detonation. They are, therefore, particularly unsuitable for use in urban settings where there is reason to believe civilians may be present”

Part 2 of this series will next cover the use of DIME weapons within Gaza. It will also focus on Goldstones disregard of the use of depleted uranium that had been raised in earlier submissions. This surely must head the top of the list of the Israeli War Crimes in that weapons that contain uranium components do not discriminate between military and civilian targets or respect international borders. Consequently these weapons contaminated the entire Gaza Strip and crossed over the border to contaminate most of Central and Southern Israel and beyond. What is ironic was this same situation developed during the Lebanon War in 2006 when the entire Southern part of Lebanon was contaminated and again the contamination crossed over the border to do the same to Northern Israel. In other words the IDF has “Nuked” its own people.

We will cover how these two weapons were clearly left out of the enquiry despite the fact they were originally very much part of the initial submissions. One would also assume that accordingly the people of Israel would have a case against the Israeli Government and the IDF. To be continued…………………….

– Peter Eyre, Middle East Consultant

http://www.paltelegraph.com/

Posted @ 20:37

Post Title:

Palestinian Majority in Jerusalem … Within 20 Years

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The Media Line, here

“A new report presented to Israeli parliamentarians has found that despite decades of government attempts to ensure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem, Palestinians will make up the majority of the city’s population within 20 years.

The report, issued by the Israeli Macro Center for Political Economics in partnership with the Washington-based Friedrich Ebert Foundation, found that the Palestinian population has grown from 25.5% of the city’s population in 1967 to 35% today…

“It has been Israeli policy to try guarantee a Jewish majority and generate a Jewish hegemony in Jerusalem since 1967,” Dr. Roby Nathanson, Director of Israel’s Macro Center for Political Economics and editor of the report, told The Media Line. “Israel has annexed huge parts of Jerusalem, enlarged the boundaries of the municipality, taken lots of land in the eastern part of the city and built more than 50,000 housing units on this land exclusively for Jews.”“Yet despite all these policies, it has not changed the demographic balance of the city,” Dr Nathanson said. “Indeed the number of Palestinians living in the city has grown constantly and Palestinians will soon make up the majority of the residents in Jerusalem.”

The report claims that since 1967 Israel has expropriated almost 6,000 acres of land, mostly from Palestinian owners, making up 35% of East Jerusalem. The report found that around 50,000 housing units were built with government assistance on this expropriated land, in an effort to create Jewish neighborhoods such as Har Homa, Gilo and Neve Yaakov. The report claims that only 600 housing units for Palestinians were built with government assistance during the same period, the most recent of which was built over 30 years ago.

Dr Nathanson argued that against Israel’s intentions, the separation barrier had increased the Palestinian presence in the city.“Paradoxically, as a consequence of the fence, Israel had to include different neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city into the municipal boundaries, thus increasing the Palestinian population even more.” Dr Nathanson said Israel was attempting the impossible.

“You cannot create a demographic majority artificially, and this is what the Israeli government is trying to do,” he said. “You cannot force a solution – you cannot force the Palestinians to leave the city and you cannot force a million or so Jews to come settle in the city – you have to look at the reality and make the best out of it.”“You have the Palestinian side of the city and the Israeli side of the city,” Dr Nathanson added. “The city is not divided but there is a kind of a glass wall between both parts. It’s invisible but it is there and everybody knows that.”

Posted by G, Z, or B at 8:56 AM

Book review: The timeless work of Naji al-Ali

Book review: The timeless work of Naji al-Ali

Toufic Haddad, The Electronic Intifada, 29 October 2009

Cartoonist Naji al-Ali was a towering figure in the Palestinian cultural and political scene. His daily political drawings were a knife-twisting, gut-wrenching journey into how Palestinians perceived their predicament. Each drawing taps into hidden reservoirs of forbidden ideas and feelings — all somehow related to the unfulfilled expectations of the Palestinian national movement and the larger struggle for Arab self-determination. Hope, injustice, anger, pain and the struggle for dignity bled from al-Ali’s nib in a manner so raw that they captured the imagination of millions. During his life and after his death at the hands of an unknown assassin in 1987, al-Ali was widely admired and respected as a visionary artist and political commentator. Indeed, with few if any amendments, hundreds of his decades-old drawings could be republished today to reflect the miserable state of the contemporary Palestinian and Arab reality.

How does one book explain the weight of such an enormous yet largely silenced cultural and political heritage? It can’t, and the new volume A Child in Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali, published by Verso, doesn’t. What it does do however is guide the reader through the background and logic behind many of these ideas. In so doing, the enormous gap between Western perceptions of the Arab world, and how the majority of downtrodden Arabs view themselves and Western policies in the region, is laid bare. In the process, al-Ali is also able to humanize his Arab subjects. He portrays refugees, peasants and members of the Arab working classes, as conscious, politicized and resisting agents, struggling against enormous odds, and engaging in the defense of their dignity and rights.

A Child in Palestine is clearly oriented to a Western audience. Its division into five thematic chapters (Palestine; Human Rights; US Dominance, Oil and Arab Collusion; the Peace Process; and Resistance) is designed to orient readers to general concepts in al-Ali’s drawings. Joe Sacco’s brief but compassionate introduction, combined with the short introductory essays at the beginning of each chapter, offers context to readers. One or two explanatory lines at the bottom of each drawing attempt to accomplish the task of translating any Arabic text as well to describe the illustrated universe of concepts depicted. Reductive by nature, the explanations generally accomplish their task, although they sometimes feel insufficient when contrasted with al-Ali’s caustic wit.

Al-Ali was an unapologetic radical concerned with the liberation of his people, both on a national and individual level. He once explained that the political duties of caricature drawing were “Incitement, preaching the birth of a new Arab human being.” Moreover, he saw no need to mince words or drawings, preferring to go straight to biting critiques of his adversaries: US imperialism, Zionism and the State of Israel, the Arab ruling classes and the bourgeois Palestinian national leadership. As al-Ali saw it, the situation was too far gone, too hypocritical, and too Orwellian to waste time beating around any bushes.

Al-Ali’s family fled their village of Shajara in Palestine’s Galilee region during the 1948 Nakba, the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland and the creation of the State of Israel, yet to return. The trauma of the Nakba was compounded by Israel’s repeated military assaults against neighboring Arab states and the Palestinian national movement, and was reinforced by inter-Arab rivalries and divisions and complicity in Zionist aspirations. In response, some picked up their rocks or guns — al-Ali picked up his pen.

Expectedly, al-Ali made many enemies along the way. His ideas, simply put, were illegal, the grounds for certain arrest and torture at the hands of Israel or the Arab dictatorships. Banned throughout most of the Arab world and in Israel, it is amazing to see what a following he was able to galvanize under these conditions, and what he is still able to stir today.

One does not envy the editorial task of sifting through thousands of al-Ali drawings and selecting the appropriate ones for an imagined Western audience. Certainly there are plenty of themes that he addressed that find little or no representation in this book, and all to the reader’s loss. The two most prominent are sectarianism and women’s rights — both highly relevant to the contemporary Arab reality and their depictions in Western media. Al-Ali addressed both squarely, lambasting sectarianism, and supporting women’s rights. But he understood that both could not be sufficiently addressed in isolation from the struggle to free Palestinians and Arabs from imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and occupation. Most observers focus on al-Ali’s signature character Handalah, the ten-year-old refugee child observing the absurdity around him. However, the hero of many of his drawings is actually the figure of Fatima — the mother figure in his reoccurring depictions of the plight of a typical Palestinian refugee family. Although Fatima is selectively depicted in the book, the theme of women’s rights is under-represented considering Fatima’s centrality in al-Ali’s overall body of work.

In spite of these flaws, A Child in Palestine is successful in providing a general readership with the chance to see the Arab world and Palestine from within, looking out. This is no small feat considering US and European policies in the region and the demonization of Arabs and Palestinians in the mainstream Western media. In this regard, Naji al-Ali’s defiance and determination to struggle still calls out from the pages, offering people hope and solidarity whatever their background.

Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American journalist based in Jerusalem. He is also the co-author of Between the Lines: Israel, the Palestinians and the US “War on Terror” with Israeli author Tikva Honig Parnass, published by Haymarket Books, 2007. He can be reached at tawfiq_haddad AT yahoo DOT com.

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Divide and Rule: The Key Strategy of the US and Its Western Allies

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Posted by realistic bird under Caricature, Politics Tags: , , , , , ,

by Kahlid kataa-White and Black newspaper-Syria

By S. Hewage, October 28, 2009, source

The latest attacks on Indian embassy in Afghanistan and the Pakistan’s military headquarters would trigger a new wave of accusations and counteraccusations by India and Pakistan. It seems that the United States is achieving its military strategy to keep regional conflicts going, so that the United States is not only secure, but also economically strong. Unfortunately, both India and Pakistan have so far failed to realize this, to work out a solution to their internal problems and to keep the hegemonic forces out of their region. The situation in Pakistan will soon be like that of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the West will continue to fuel Islamic and other ethno-religious insurgencies in that region.

It is a well-known fact among international security experts that one of the longstanding foreign policy doctrines of the United States is to destabilize countries and regions that are considered hostile to US economic and strategic interests. This policy has been the bedrock of American military and covert operations across the globe throughout the cold war period. When the US fails to win support from countries for its self-interested economic and defense policies, the US undertakes covert operations to overthrow democratically elected leaders in those countries by supporting military juntas and insurgent movements, cut off economic aid, and isolate them internationally until they give in to US pressure.

Since the end of the cold war, the US has inducted a new weapon to its arsenals of destabilization: This new weapon is the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the West. Independent scholars believe that many of these NGOs are in fact covertly backing various nefarious elements hell-bent on creating political violence, rather than helping to solve problems. Numerous citizens of Western countries associated with the United Nations Organizations and Human Rights Organizations are operating as the long arm of the Western governments in “regime change campaigns” in countries that are openly hostile to US foreign policies and hegemonic designs. Many of these individuals have local agents, who are openly campaigning for greater cooperation with the West. The US has been openly supporting various nongovernmental organizations to marshal mass support against elected governments that refuse to kowtow the US on the pretext of campaigning to protect human rights, media freedom, and democracy. The US funded international nongovernmental organizations and their local counterparts have been operating as the proxy of the US government across Latin America, the Middle East, and South, and South East Asia. The underline objective of all these covert operations is to cause political upheavals in specific countries, or regions with a long-term global strategy.

Once a nation becomes embroiled in fighting internal rebellions, whether they are ethnic or religiously motivated groups, or involved in cross-border conflicts, that nation soon becomes overwhelmed by the concerns of its survival. This would eventually force the leadership of that country to capitulate to the American strategic and economic interests in that country, and the region. This, in turn, would ensure US economic and political hegemony in the long- run, especially in nonwestern countries. For example, when Saddam Hussein refused to bow down to US pressure they invaded his country and violated all international conventions, rules and norms at will, and killed more than half a million civilians.

In 1998, a UN survey revealed that the mortality rates among children below five years of age in southern Iraq had more than doubled compared to the previous decade, meaning 500,000 excess deaths of children had occurred by that year due to diarrhea and acute respiratory infections because of sanctions imposed by the US and it allies. UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq (1997-98) Denis Halliday called sanctions ‘genocide’ and resigned in protest. His successor Hans von Sponeck followed suit in 2002 citing the same reasons. The UN World Food Program Director in Iraq Jutta Burghardt also registered his protest by fully subscribing to Sponeck’s position and tendering his resignation. That was before the US lead invasion of Iraq in 2003. Following the invasion, at the end of 2006, more than 600,000 civilians had been killed. The high-ranking retired US government official argued that the “price was worth” considering the importance of US strategic and economic interests in that region. It was argued that the invasion was necessary to remove “weapons of mass-destruction” that were being amassed by Saddam Hussein. When that was proved untrue, the Anglo-American invaders argued that they wanted to establish democracy in Iraq. Today Iraq is in the midst of a civil war created by the West. The major Western news organizations and the non-governmental organizations such the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which are heavily funded by the West, remain decidedly silence despite daily carnage taking place in that country. There is no moral outrage on the part of these human rights campaigners for the suffering of innocent Iraqis when the culprits were their paymasters.

Iraq is today one of the most dangerous places on Earth, thanks to the global “democracy” campaign of the Anglo-American leaders. Iraqis today not only have no democracy, but most importantly, lack basic security to go about their daily activities. In the meantime, the US has gained a permanent foothold in Iraq as never before with a largest fortified embassy, total control of its oil supply and, most importantly, a puppet regime installed by the US. This has given the US a guaranteed access to Iraq’s market for the supply of both military and consumer goods. The Anglo-American global “democracy” project is now complete, and the Western media and INGO allies are fully satisfied with the outcome of the Iraq war. They have moved on to their next assignment: Afghanistan, which is part the US strategy in South and Southeast Asia.

The South Asia has been particularly important for the US global strategy since the cold war. The creation of Al Quida organization involving Islamic militants against the Soviet backed regime in Afghanistan began in the early 1980s. With the end of the cold war, the key partners of the US strategic alliances broke up, and Al Quida became a sworn enemy of the West. A classic case of the “creature turned against its creator” with vengeance.

Some may think that the purpose of the current war in Afghanistan and Pakistan involving US and NATO troops is to capture Osama Bin Laden, terrorist master-mind in 9/11 attack, and now hiding in somewhere in the tribal area of Pakistan. If that is the real reason, a well-equipped, nearly 100,000-man army should have finished the job in a few weeks, if not months. The truth is that they are not interested in Osama Bin Laden per se, but to stir up regional conflicts to prevent countries in that neighborhood from realizing their economic potential.

The longer this conflict lasts, both Afghanistan and Pakistan will have no chance of economic recovery, and will remain impoverished. They would continue to depend on American economic and military aid to carry on with a vicious military campaign, which has no obvious winners, except the US.

Likewise, India will continue to be rattled by periodic cross-border attacks by disaffected Muslims in the region. Moreover, India’s inability to resist the US pressure to get involved in the American geo-political agenda in that region will eventually antagonize not only China, but also many other smaller countries in the region.

Throughout the Cold War, the US kept Pakistan as its ally to undermine India, which was an ally of the Soviet Union. However, today, the US has almost abandoned Pakistan in favor of India, as the new US strategy to contain China requires much larger military and economic cooperation in the region. By bringing India on the side of the US to counter China’s economic and military influence in South Asia, the US foreign policy and military strategists intend to create a much bigger conflict in that region, which would destroy India. The Indian foreign policy mandarins must somehow find a way to cut India free from the “American Rope,” if India is to avoid military confrontation with China.

As recently as last week, Indian Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sureesh Mehta warned Indian authorities that India is no match for China when it comes to Chinese military and naval superiority. The US strategists are fully aware of this “sudden” and “perceived” insecurity by the Indian military leaders. In an attempt to exploit this, the US military strategists and media continue to highlight a perceived so called “military ring” being created by China in South Asia. Although Chinese concerned is purely its own economic and territorial integrity, sovereignty, and national security, the US has its own agenda to weaken China through various insurgent groups including Muslim minority and Tibetan separatists. By portraying China as a potential military threat to India, two large emerging economies in Asia, and forcing India to spend a large sum of money to build up Indian armed forces annually, the US is going to benefit economically in the short-run by selling military hardware to India. However, in the long-run, the objective is to destroy both China and India, as potential global economic rivals to the US.

“Israel’s” European Lobby

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Posted by realistic bird under Politics Tags: , , , ,

by Carlos Latuff

By Maidhc Ó Cathail, October 28, 2009, source

In their 2006 article “The Israel Lobby,” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt famously assert, “Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.” Having for decades successfully steered policymaking in Washington in a pro-Israel direction, Israel’s American Lobby has more recently turned its attention to Europe. Despite its brief presence in Brussels, it appears to have already had marked success in influencing the nascent foreign policy of the European Union.

One of the most important of the more than 60 organizations that make up “the Lobby” is the American Jewish Committee (AJC). Jeff Blankfort, an American Jew who is one of the Lobby’s most trenchant critics, described the AJC as “the Lobby’s unofficial foreign office.” Extending its global diplomatic mission, the AJC opened an office in Brussels in 2004. Since then, according to Blankfort, it has held weekly meetings with a high official or the chief of state of EU member states. The meetings seem to be having the desired effect. As Blankfort wrote in 2006, “Over the past year the EU has moved away from relative support for the Palestinians to adopting one position after another reflecting Israeli demands.”

As part of its lobbying efforts in Brussels, the AJC founded the Transatlantic Institute (TAI) in February 2004. According to its mission statement, the institute functions as “an intellectual bridge between the United States and the European Union” with the aim of “strengthening transatlantic ties.” Although it describes itself as “nongovernmental, non-partisan and independent,” TAI’s publications leave little doubt that it intends to shift the EU in a more aggressively pro-Israel direction, as the neoconservatives succeeded in doing with the Bush administration’s Middle Eastern policy.

Like American neocons, the TAI’s executive director, Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, has a “special affinity for Israel.” Before moving to Brussels, the Jewish Italian academic taught Israel Studies (a discipline which Mearsheimer and Walt describe as “intended in large part to promote Israel’s image”) at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, after having received his PhD in political science from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And like the current Israeli government and pro-Israeli groups worldwide, Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons are Ottolenghi’s overriding concern at the moment – now that the threat of Iraq’s non-existent WMDs has promptly been forgotten. In his 2009 book, Under a Mushroom Cloud: Europe, Iran and the Bomb, Ottolenghi urges Europeans to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Despite his concern about the bomb, it’s unlikely that he would support a comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons in the Middle East – since Israel is the only country in the region that currently possesses them.

Israel’s crying wolf is nothing if not predictable though. As for the “mushroom cloud” that’s supposedly looming over Europe, who, bar the mainstream media, could forget Condoleezza Rice’s pre-Iraq invasion soundbite: “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”? It was Michael Gerson, Bush’s pro-Israel speechwriter, who thought up that one. Incidentally, Gerson was so incensed by Mearsheimer and Walt’s criticism of the Lobby that he accused them in his Washington Post column of “sowing the seeds of anti-Semitism.”

Anyone for World War IV?

Before European policymakers give too much credence to the prescriptions of Ottolenghi and his “non-partisan” institute, they should familiarize themselves with the geopolitical outlook of Commentary, the magazine for which Ottolenghi blogs. Like the Transatlantic Institute, which became “the flagship of neoconservatism” in the 1970s, it was also founded by the American Jewish Committee, a relationship that lasted from 1945 to 2006. But above all, Commentary has been dominated by the political views of Norman Podhoretz.

Podhoretz, who has edited Commentary since 1960, claims that September 11, 2001 marked the beginning of World War IV (he considers the Cold War to have been World War III). “We are only in the very early stages of what promises to be a very long war,” declares the doyen of neoconservatism, “and Iraq is only the second front to have been opened in that war: the second scene, so to speak, of the first act of a five-act play.” Whatever about the incalculable cost in blood and treasure to the United States, presumably Israel won’t have any enemies left standing by the end of this bloody drama. Coincidentally or not, in 2007, the same year he published World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, Podhoretz was honoured by Bar-Ilan University with its Guardian of Zion Award, bestowed on Jews who have been supportive of the State of Israel.

However, those who question the motives behind Podhoretz’s enthusiasm for World War IV, or believe that his belligerent Zionism poses a far greater threat to world peace than “Islamofascism” – a nebulous concept that lumps together disparate entities such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and Al Qaeda – are invariably smeared as anti-Semites. It’s not surprising, of course, that Zionists like Ottolenghi, in a transparent attempt to discredit their opponents, claim that “anti-Zionism is anti-semitism.” After all, “the charge of anti-semitism,” as Mearsheimer and Walt point out, is one of the Lobby’s “most powerful weapons.”

What is worrying, however, is that the EU now legitimates the deployment of that weapon by pro-Israelis against their critics. According to the definition given by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency, it seems that you’re an anti-semite if you agree with Mearsheimer and Walt that pressure from Israel and the Lobby played a “critical” role in the decision to invade Iraq, or if you suspect that the likes of Podhoretz and Ottolenghi may be more loyal to Israel than they are to their respective countries. Before coming up with their working definition of anti-Semitism in 2004, the EU consulted with Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee. If they were asked about the question of loyalty, the AJC probably forgot to mention the case of Jonathan Pollard.

Pollard, an American Jew, is now serving a life sentence for stealing thousands of documents while employed as an analyst for US naval intelligence during the mid-1980s. In Dangerous Liaison, Andrew and Leslie Cockburn write, “Though he always maintained that he was motivated purely by devotion to Israel, he was well paid for his services.” That money may have come from the US-Israeli Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD), according to Claudia Wright, the author of Spy, Steal, and Smuggle:

Israel’s Special Relationship with the US. When Jordan Baruch, an adviser to BIRD’s board, was asked for an audit report, he replied, “Even if I did (have one), I couldn’t release it.” Interestingly, it was Baruch and his wife, “long-time AJC leaders,” who funded the Transatlantic Foundation.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, Benjamin Netanyahu portrayed Israel’s grievance against Iran as a conflict which “pits civilization against barbarism.” It’s tempting to dismiss the Israeli leader’s assertion as the hyperbolic trope of a demagogue, but there may be some truth to what he said. After all, what better word than “barbarism” to describe what Israel has done to the Palestinians for the past six decades? Or the havoc that Israel’s supporters in America have wrought on the people of Iraq? Or the untold devastation they have in mind for the Iranians? The influence the Israel Lobby wields in Washington has ensured that the United States has long been complicit in Israel’s barbarism. And if the Lobby gets it way in Brussels, so too will the European Union.

Maidhc Ó Cathail is a freelance writer.

Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians: It’s All About Demography, Again!

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Posted by realistic bird under Politics Tags: , , , , , , ,

by Saed Bannoura, IMEMC, October 28, 2009

A recent Israeli report based on a study conducted by the Macro Center for Political Economy in Israel states that the aim of Israel in East Jerusalem is to guarantee a Jewish majority by all means in order to prevent any future partition of the city.

The report ‘warns’ that in twenty years, and in spite of land annexation and home demolitions, there will be a Palestinian majority in Jerusalem.
It adds that the Israeli policies in Jerusalem aim at maintaining Jewish majority by all means.

The report was distributed to Israeli members of Knesset in recent days. It says that in spite of the Israeli activities and policies that aim at preventing the Palestinians from becoming a majority in the city, their natural growth continue to ‘pose a threat to the Jewish majority, and if nothing is done about it, Jerusalem would become a bi-national city”.

“Regardless of land grab policies and annexation of Arab land since 1967, the Arab population continues to grow”, the report adds, “Arabs could become a majority within twenty years”.

The report was not shy in mentioning that in spite of the policies of consecutive governments in Israel, and the construction policies that aim at maintaining a Jewish majority in Jerusalem, ‘there is a doubt that this goal will be achieved’.

It adds that since capturing East Jerusalem in 1967, the Israeli authorities annexed more than 24000 Dunams (nearly 6000 Acres, 35% of the total size of Jerusalem).

“Most of the lands, annexed from the Palestinians, were used to construct homes for the Jewish residents”, the report stated, “yet, more is needed in order to prevent the city from becoming bi-national”.

It also states that after capturing East Jerusalem in 1967, the Palestinians who remained in the city were one-fourth of the total population, “but now, 35% of the population is Arab”.

The current Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, former member of Kach movement which was outlawed by Israel and considered a terrorist entity, repeatedly stated that the Arabs are a ‘demographic threat’.

Before taking office as a Foreign Minister, and during his post as a Knesset member, Lieberman repeatedly called for transferring the Arabs and Palestinians out of the country as he considers them a demographic threat to the “Jewish State’, his statements made him the Minister of Strategic Affairs.

Lieberman, a settler who emigrated from the former Soviet Union, is one of the biggest advocates for ongoing settlement activities in the occupied territories.

LAMB: A rare victory for Lebanon’s Palestinians

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October 28, 2009

Why Hezbollah ushered its key Lebanese ally to the woodshed

Nahr el Bared Girl
by Franklin Lamb – News-Fix List – 26 October 2009
Syria’s Yarmouk Refugee Camp, Damascus – Known simply as “the General” Michel Naim Aoun was born in a peaceful mixed Christian-Shia area of Haret Hreik, now a core Hezbollah area. He rose from poverty to become the head of Lebanon’s newly created Eighth army following the September 1983 battle of Souq el Gharb against Palestinian and Druze forces. Six years later he served a forcibly truncated term as President of Lebanon. Since returning from a self imposed 15 year exile in France in 2005, he is widely believed to intend to gain that office. A current outspoken member of Lebanon’s parliament, Aoun has many supporters and detractors being variously referred to a brilliant, cunning, honest, corrupt, obstructionist, mercurial, mentally ill, Napoleonic, and Hezbollah’s most important political ally.

The past couple of months have seen the General’s popular support shrink a bit and one of his recent antics led Hezbollah to signal its concern since the leaders of the Resistance were receiving political heat they did not need nor felt they deserved.
This current problem began on August 13, 2009 when the key Hezbollah ally and ambitious leader of the Free Patriotic Movement sought and was immediately granted from Lebanon’s highest administrative Court, the Shura Council, an injunction freezing any and all reconstruction of Nahr al Bared (Arabic: Cold River) Palestinian Refugees camp which had been destroyed two years ago in a three month battle between the salafist group Fatah al Islam and the Lebanese army. The renewable injunction was initially for 60 days and it instantly froze UNRWA’s $445-million rebuilding project for the complete rebuilding of Nahr al Bared by the projected April 2012 completion date. Aoun’s injunction added to the skepticism over the reconstruction among some Nahr al-Bared displaced residents, who have long voiced fears that the state would never allow them to rebuild their camp, and feared the fate of the disappeared Tell Zaatar camp leveled during the 1975-90 Civil War.

Specifically General Aoun had petitioned the State Shura to halt backfilling in the camp, a method of rebuilding on top of archeological ruins which secures and preserves them for future exploration.
Are there limits to bashing Lebanon’s refugees?
Aoun argued that he was just trying to protect Lebanon’s heritage. Hezbollah did not immediately respond to queries of ‘what gives?’ from the Sabra Shatila Foundation and others who assumed that Aoun would not have acted without their ok. Few in Lebanon, and no one in the Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian camps and 10 gatherings, credited his sudden pro-environmental epiphany as they reminded each other that when the General was head of the Lebanese army and during battles in 1989-90 he savagely destroyed plenty of Lebanon’s heritage including ancient ruins, places of worship and museums if they were located in areas controlled by his adversaries.

Some analysts have pointed out that Aoun surely knows, that Lebanon, to paraphrase Robert Fisk, is a giant historical club sandwich, the lower slice of stone “bread” being Canaanite –about 5,000 years old along with Greek, Roman, Crusader, Omayed , Ottoman and European slices. Wherever one puts in a shovel and digs a few feet, chances are ‘antiquities’ will be close to the blade.
Many suspected that Aoun in expressing concern for ancient ruins had more than archaeology in mind since his petition, if sustained by the State Shura Council would mean that UNRWA would have to rebuild much of the camp on a different site, meaning many of Nahr al-Bared’s more than 31,000 registered residents would never return to their homes. Government representatives have stated that it would be impossible to rebuild in the area adjacent to the camp, as Aoun proposed, because there is no land available in the area within miles of Nahr al Bared.

According to Ammar Saadedine, an urban planner with the Nahr al Bared Reconstruction Commission, Aoun is trying to use the Palestinian issue to send political messages to friends and foes. “We don’t want to get involved in internal Lebanese issues. We are just demanding our rights.”
Many Christians and other Lebanese still fear that the reconstruction or granting basic human rights, would promote the assimilation of Palestinians, skewing the Muslim-Christian balance by encouraging naturalization. These sentiments appeared to be echoed initially by Hezbollah’s spokesman on the Palestinian question, Hassan Hodroj, who explained: “The threat of tawtin (naturalization) is genuine. It is one of the ways in which Israel, backed by the US, is endangering the region.”

What Lebanon can learn from Syria about human rights for Palestinian refugees.

According to progressive Lebanese MP Ghassan Moukheiber, “our official policy is to maintain Palestinians in a vulnerable, precarious situation to diminish prospects for their naturalization or permanent settlement”.
What some supporters of Lebanon’s Palestinians are pushing for from the next government is a simple law patterned after the 1956 Syrian one that grants Palestinian Refugees “the right to employment, commerce, and national service, while preserving their original nationality.”

Such an enactment in Lebanon would create immediate civil rights for refugees but not give them citizenship. In fact few of Lebanon’s Palestinians would accept naturalization.
Others accused Aoun of shameless pandering to embittered Akkar residents who lost sons fighting Fatah al Islam as a majority of the 175 Lebanese army soldiers killed were from their community opposite Nahr al Bared Camp.
Still others accused Aoun of trying to carve out some of Samir Geagea’s more right wing Christian base. Geagea, who is promoted in some circles here as the Obama’s administration’s only remaining reliable operative in Lebanon as a result of three years of clumsy US-Israel interference in internal political disputes is making a move to corral Lebanon’s Christians under his leadership. (Comment: one is reminded of the 25th anniversary at the October 24, 1983 explosion at the US marine barracks which was a direct and foreseeable result of the Reagan administration joining the same Phalange party against the Sunni, Shia and Druze population.)

Broad based opposition to Aoun’s injunction
More than 2000 people rallied in downtown Beirut on 10/20/09 in a show of solidarity with the displaced residents of Nahr el Bared. More than 40 different community organizations, including the Washington DC-Beirut based Sabra Shatila Foundation, joined the protest organized by the Nahr el Bared Advocacy Committee. Lovely Palestinian children from camps across Lebanon arrived for the protest and some had built small cardboard houses to illustrate their worries over becoming displaced and homeless. A majority of the destroyed camps 31,000 refugees are packed into ‘temporary’ housing including garages or metal storage sheds where in summer the inside temperatures can soar beyond 140 degrees F. and in winter plunge below freezing. Some are indefinitely warehoused along the tall grass perimeters of the camp. The same grasses from which Fatah al Islam fighters crawled to carry out their initial slaughter of Lebanese soldiers in May of 2007.

Beirut’s Daily Star quoted one of the Nahr al Bared demonstrators: “It’s very hot in summer and very cold in winter,” said one of the children’s fathers, Ziad. “We want to see the reconstruction started before looking for any food or water or anything else. We don’t have a house. I want a house to live in, so the first thing we need is the reconstruction.”
Simultaneous demonstrations protesting Aoun’s injunction took place inside Nahr al Bared and at Beirut’s Shatila and Burj al Barajneh camps as well as in the Ain al-Helweh, Al-Buss and Burj Shemali refugee camps down south. In Saida’s Ain al-Helweh, some Islamist groups discussed ominous and threatening contingency plans if the rebuilding ban was not lifted. Decades of exclusion and marginalization has incubated among some young Palestinians millenarian ideas associated with al-Qa’ida. Some of the young men have been organizing attack units. They pose as the protectors and guardians of international Sunni Islam. As is well known in Lebanon one of the 9/11 hijackers dedicated a poem to Ain al-Helweh jihadists in his videotaped will and dozens of Palestinian fighters from the camp have joined al-Qa’ida in Iraq.

One Hezbollah source told this observer after several attempts to explain the party’s position in Aoun project:
“No way does Hezbollah control the General, only his wife can do that!” he said with a grin. “We in Hezbollah consult regularly with his staff but frankly we benefit more from our alliance than he does and there are limits to what we can press him to do. I personally think Aoun made
a mistake with his Nahr al Bared case and it appeared he was bashing the Palestinian refugees for immediate personal political gains. Honestly, all parties in Lebanon have been guilty of doing that including us I am sorry to say, but I would insist we have done it less than others. But that’s my view and it may or may not be that of our leadership.

There are many strongly held opinions within Hezbollah. Contrary to Zionist propaganda and what some in the West believe, we are very democratic within the party and we are always analyzing and debating events and ideas. If a party member comes up with a sound idea it has a good chance of being implemented. In that sense we are different from the Lebanon Ziam (tribal leader) system still dominant in so many of the 18 Confessions here. But I believe the party has insisted that General Aoun drop his case”.
Following talks encouraged by Hezbollah between Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and Palestinian factions just before the 10/20/09 demonstrations, an FPM representative was sent by Aoun to the protest to show solidarity with resuming work at Nahr al Bared. Aoun’s representative stressed that the FPM still remains opposed to the naturalization of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees. So do an estimated 95% of the refugees who want to live in Palestine not Lebanon but they need some civil rights until their departure.

For some of the surprised demonstrators seeing Aoun’s representative was a good sign. Another positive sign for the Palestinians came when Aoun could have submitted reminders asking the Shura Council to extend the rebuilding ban past the original two-month suspension. Although expected by many to do so, he did not and let the deadline lapse.
A request from Hezbollah’s Shura Council to Lebanon’s Shura Council?

This was confirmed to this observer on October 11, twelve’s days before the Shura’s injunction was widely expected to be renewed. During a Conference in Damascus on the Golan Heights, which subject is also of concern to Hezbollah, a good friend and member of Hezbollah’s delegation and one of the brains behind Hezbollah’s spate of successful German-aided prisoner exchanges, came to my room. Knowing of my often expressed concern, he embraced and said, “It’s over, Aoun will abandon his actions against Nahr al Bared.” Without pressing my friend for details, I concluded that Hezbollah did not approve of preventing the camps rebuilding and instructed Aoun to back off because the Resistance did not need the heat.

Sure enough, on October 23, caretaker Prime Minister Fuad Siniora gave the good news to Palestinian representatives that he had instructed UNRWA to immediately restart the reconstruction of Nahr al Bared, despite the possibility that theoretically the Shura Council might still decide for a permanent halt to the rebuilding. Hezbollah sources advised this observer that there will not me any similar delays by Aoun or others regarding Nahr al Bared.
A collective sigh of relief could be heard by this observer all the way deep inside the Yamouk Palestinian Refugee Camp in Damascus from Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee community. For their friends know well the paucity of breaks they receive these days.

Franklin Lamb is Director of the Sabra Shatila Foundation. He is reachable at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

After all I am a Proper Zionist Jew by Gilad Atzmon

i didn’t want to put this one before u read it… i thought you may not approve,, it is a satire …‏

From: Gilad Atzmon (giladatzmon@mac.com)

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 07:40AM Gilad Atzmon

I am a Holocaust survivor

Yes, I am a survivor, for I have managed to survive all the scary accounts of the Holocaust: the one about the soap (1), the one about the lamp shades, the one about the camps, the mass shooting, the one about the gas (2) and the one about the death march (3). I just managed to survive them all.

In spite of all these fear inflicting stories, that were purposely installed in my soul since I opened my eyes for the first time, I have become a functional and even a successful human being. I somehow survived the horror against all odds. I even manage to love my neighbour. In spite of all these fearful, traumatic indoctrination I miraculously managed to master my cheering alto saxophone rather than the sobbing violin.

In fact, I have already decided that in case the Queen, or any other member of the Royal Family should ever consider to make me into a ‘Sir’ for my bebop achievements, or even for facing Zionist barbarism with my bare pen, I will immediately change my surname from Atzmon to Vive, just to become the first and only Sir Vive.

I am also totally against Holocaust denial

I clearly resent those who deny the genocides that are taking place in the name of the Holocaust. Palestine is one example, Iraq is another and the one that is set for Iran, is probably too scary to contemplate.

The Holocaust is a relatively new religion (4). It lacks mercy or compassion, instead it promises revenge through retribution. For its followers, it is somehow liberating because it allows them to punish whoever they like as long they gain some pleasure. This may explain why the Israelis ended up punishing the Palestinians for crimes that were committed by Europeans. It is rather clear that the newly emerging religion is not just about ‘eye for an eye’; it is actually an eye for thousands and thousands of eyes.

A month ago, while visiting in Auschwitz, Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak left a note in the official visitors book: ‘a strong Israel is both the comfort and the revenge’(5). No one could summarise the aspiration of the religion any better. The Holocaust religion doesn’t offer redemption. It is a crude violent manifestation of sheer collective brutality. It cannot resolve anything, for aggression can only lead to more and more aggression. In the Holocaust religion there is neither room for peace or grace. Take it from Barak, revenge is where they find comfort.

To deny the danger posed by the Holocaust religion and its followers is to be complicit in a growing crime against humanity and against every possible human value.

I am also in total support of the Jewish National Project

Some believe that after 2000 years of ‘phantasmic Diaspora’ Jews are indeed entitled to an imaginary ‘national home land of their own’. The Zionists apparently meant it sincerely. The Jewish state is now realistic enough to have turned the entire Middle East into a ticking bomb.

Reviewing the Israeli record of crimes against humanity in the last six decades doesn’t leave much room for speculation. We are dealing here with a pathological sinister society. Hence, as much as some of us may agree that Jews should enjoy a hypothetical right for a land of their own, planet Earth is certainly not the ideal location for such an affair.

Hence, I would urge NASA to join in and to make a special effort to find a suitable alternative planet for the Zionist homeland in outer space or even in another galaxy. The Galactic Zionist project would signify the immediate move from ‘promised land’ to ‘promised planet’. I would enthusiastically stress that rather than searching for ‘a land with no people for a people with no land’, what we really want is a ‘lonely planet’. It can even be a desert for they claim to know how to make the desert bloom. In a planet of their own the galactic Zionists wouldn’t need to oppress anyone, they wouldn’t ethnically cleanse either, they wouldn’t have to lock the indigenous people in concentration camps, for there won’t be any indigenous people around to abuse, starve, murder and cleanse. They wouldn’t have to pour white phosphorous over their neighbours for there won’t be any neighbours. I would highly recommend NASA to search for a planet with very low gravity just to make it light for people to wander around. After all, we want the new galactic Zionists to enjoy their futuristic project as much as the Palestinians and many others may enjoy their absence.

So here I am, a proper Jew after all: I am a survivor, I oppose Holocaust denial, I support the Jewish national aspiration. Even the chief Rabbi of Britain cannot ask for more than that.

(1) Acknowledged recently to be a ‘myth’ by the Israeli holocaust museum Yad Vashem

(2) A historical fact protected by European Law.

(3) A slightly confusing narrative. If the Nazis were interested in annihilating the entire European Jewish population as suggested by the orthodox Zionist holocaust narrative, then it is rather ambiguous as to just what led them to march what was left of European Jewry, into their crumbling Nazi fatherland at a time when it was clear that they were losing the war. The two narratives i.e. ‘annihilation’ and ‘death march’, seem to oppose each other. The issue deserves further elaboration. I would just suggest that the reasonable answers I have come across may severely damage the Zionist holocaust narrative.

(4) The Israeli Philosophy professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz was probably the first to define the holocaust as the ‘new Jewish religion’.

(5) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3790707,00.html

Double standards

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Notice that no report on Goldstone fails to cite Israeli responses. Notice that no US media EVER cite what Hamas says about its own response to Goldstone, like this from Mish`al, even if they are propaganda words–not different from US talk of “collateral damage”: “”Hamas does not aim to kill civilians. Hamas does not want to target the civilians,” he said. “Hamas defends itself, but because it has simple abilities and its rockets are inaccurate in targeting, so it reaches the civilians, but we do not intend to do that.”” (thanks Olivia)

Posted by As’ad at 9:14 AM

WATCH: Hamas chief says group doesn’t aim to kill civilians, but ‘rockets are inaccurate in targeting.’

The Dark Side of the “Special Relationship”

Darkside US-Israel FlagsLink

By Justin Raimondo,

Spy vs. spy, Israel vs. America
A silent battle has been raging right under our noses, a fierce underground struggle pitting the U.S. against one of its closest allies. For all its newsworthiness, the media has barely noticed the story — except when it surfaces, briefly, like a giant fin jutting above the waves. The aggressor in this war is the state of Israel, with the U.S., its sponsor and protector, playing defense. This is the dark side of the “special relationship” — a battle of spy vs. spy.

Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard — now serving a life sentence — stole secrets so vital that an attempt by the Israelis to get him pardoned was blocked by a massive protest from the intelligence and defense communities. Bill Clinton wanted to trade Pollard for Israeli concessions in the ongoing “peace process,” and he was only prevented from doing so by a threat of mass resignations by the top leadership of the intelligence community.

The reason for their intransigence: among the material Pollard had been asked by his Israeli handlers to steal was the U.S. attack plan against the Soviet Union. According to Seymour Hersh, then-CIA director Bill Casey claimed Tel Aviv handed over the information to Moscow in exchange for relaxation of travel restrictions on Soviet Jews, who were then allowed to emigrate to Israel.

The Pollard case is emblematic — but it was just the beginning of a years-long effort by U.S. counterintelligence to rid themselves of the Israeli incubus. Law enforcement was — and presumably still is — convinced Pollard was very far from alone, and that a highly placed “mole” had provided him with key information. In his quest to procure very specific information, Pollard knew precisely which documents to look for — knowledge he couldn’t access without help from someone very high in government circles.
In addition, the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted a phone conversation between an Israeli intelligence officer and his boss in Tel Aviv, during which they discussed how to get hold of a letter by then-secretary of state Warren Christopher to Yasser Arafat. The Washington spy suggested they use “Mega,” but his boss demurred: “This is not something we use Mega for,” he averred.

The search for Mega and his underlings continues to this day, as U.S. counterintelligence attempts to rip up what appears to be a vast Israeli spy operation by its very deep roots. That’s why they went after Ben Ami Kadish, who handed over U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv and shared a handler with Pollard, and why they indicted Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two top officials of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. That’s why they were listening on the other end as Jane Harman promised an Israeli agent to intervene in the Rosen-Weissman case. And now a new front has been opened up in this subterranean war with the arrest of Stewart David Nozette, a top U.S. scientist who worked for the Pentagon, had access to the most closely guarded nuclear secrets, and was the lead scientist in the search for water on the moon.

Nozette’s case is interesting because of his impressive resume: he held top positions with the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and NASA, and he served on the White House National Space Council under George H.W. Bush. From 1989 until March 2006, he held “Q” clearance, which means he had access to “critical nuclear weapon design information” and vital information concerning 20 “special access programs” — secrets only a very few top government officials had knowledge of.

In other words, this wasn’t just some mid-level schmuck who wanted to sell out his country for cash: he was one of the big boys — the principal author of the Clementine biostatic radar experiment, which allowed U.S. scientists to discover water on the moon — a kind of J. Robert Oppenheimer figure, whose singular contributions to the U.S. space program and its military applications granted him security clearances available to a very select few.

The affidavit in support of the criminal complaint [.pdf] alleging espionage is terse, vague in parts, and brimming with implication. Taking their cues from the Department of Justice press release, most news reports state, “The complaint does not allege that the government of Israel or anyone acting on its behalf committed any offense under U.S. laws,” leaving out the last three words in the DOJ’s sentence: “in this case.”

In this particular case, it’s true, prosecutors are going after Nozette for violations that occurred while they were reeling him in, with a federal agent pretending to be a Mossad officer offering him money (not very much, by the way) in exchange for secrets. The real question, however, is what caused them to zero in on Nozette? A Washington Times piece cites Kenneth Piernick, a former senior FBI agent, who opined:
He must have made some kind of attempt, which triggered the FBI’s interest in him. They cut in between him and whoever he was trying to work with and posed as an intelligence officer, agent, or courier to handle the issue, and then when he delivered what he intended to deliver to that person, his contact was likely an undercover FBI agent or [someone from] another U.S. intelligence service

Yet Nozette may have made more than a mere “attempt.” The affidavit alleges that, from 1998 to 2008, he served as a consultant to “an aerospace company wholly owned by the government of Israel,” during which time “approximately once a month representatives of the aerospace company proposed questions, or taskings, to Nozette.” He answered these questions, and, in return, received regular payments totaling $250,000.

This indicates the Feds had been on to Nozette for quite some time, and with good cause. The affidavit also notes that, at the beginning of this year, he traveled to “a different foreign country” in possession of two computer “thumb” drives, which seemed to have mysteriously disappeared upon his return some three weeks later. What was on the drives — and who were the recipients?

In 2007, federal authorities raided the offices of Nozette’s nonprofit company, the Alliance for Competitive Technology (ACT), purportedly because ACT, having procured several lucrative government contracts, had defrauded the federal government by overcharging. The affidavit cites an anonymous colleague of Nozette who recalled the scientist said that if the U.S. government ever tried to put him in jail he would go to Israel or another foreign country and “tell them everything” he knows.

Perhaps the real reason for the raid, however, had to do with the FBI’s growing suspicion — if not certainty — he was funneling U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv. ACT is a curious creation, a “nonprofit” group that nevertheless generated over half a million dollars last year according to documents filed with the IRS, with over $150,000 in salary and benefits paid out to Nozette. But it wasn’t just about money. ACT’s mission statement reads like a spy’s dream come true:
“The Alliance for Competitive Technology has been created to serve the national and public interest by conducting scientific research and educational activities aimed at expanding the utilization of National and Government Laboratory resources. The National Laboratories possess significant technology, technologists, and resources, of great potential value to growing U.S. industrial organizations, both small and large. Recent changes in national policy (the Stevenson-Wydler Act of 1986 and the NASA Technology Utilization Program) have sanctioned the pursuit of technology transfer from these organizations. However, the capabilities and resources present in National Laboratories are often difficult to access by small and medium sized organizations with limited resources. ACT will research the best mechanisms to facilitate this transfer through focused research on technology transfer mechanisms, and educational and instructive programs on technology transfer from National Laboratories. In addition, ACT will enable U.S. organizations to utilize the resources of National Laboratories through existing established mechanisms (e.g., the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Technology Affiliates Program).Transfer of commercially valuable technology is significantly enhanced by such direct support of private sector efforts.”

In short: ACT is all about technology transfer — from the U.S. to Israel. This, as is well-known, is one of the favored activities of the Israeli intelligence services, which regularly pilfer the latest American technology (especially military applications) to such an extent that a General Accounting Office investigation once characterized the effort as “the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally.”
ACT had contracts with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Arlington, Va., and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It is hardly a leap of faith to conclude that vital data flowing from these projects was fed directly into the waiting maw of the Mossad.

Nozette was a key figure in developing and promoting the “Star Wars” ballistic missile defense system. His colleague in the “High Frontier” movement — and the official director of ACT — is one Klaus Heiss, like Nozette an enthusiast [.pdf] of space colonization (who also has some strong views on other subjects).
Contacted by an FBI agent masquerading as an Israeli intelligence agent, Nozette didn’t blink when told his lunch companion was from the Mossad: “Good,” he said. “Happy to be of assistance.” This was well before the issue of money was raised. Later in the conversation, Nozette boasted of his top-level security clearances and the range and depth of his knowledge of U.S. secrets, adding, “I don’t get recruited by the Mossad every day. By the way, I knew this day would come.” Questioned further by the undercover agent, Nozette said, “I thought I was working for you already. I mean, that’s what I always thought [the foreign company] was — just a front.”

Which it no doubt was.

Nozette agreed to be a regular “asset,” yet he clearly felt his position was increasingly precarious. He inquired about the right of return and raised the possibility that he might go to Israel. He wanted a passport as part of his payment, in addition to the few thousand dollars the FBI was putting in a post office “dead drop” for him on receipt of stolen secrets.

Well, then, so what? Don’t all nations, even allies, spy on each other? What’s the significance of this particular case?

On the surface, our relationship with Israel is encompassed by the terms of the “special relationship,” which has so far consisted of the U.S. giving unconditional support to Tel Aviv’s every action, no matter how brutal [.pdf] or contrary to our interests — and tolerating, to a large degree, its extensive covert operations on U.S. soil (or, at least, keeping quiet about them). On a deeper level, however, the tensions in this one-way love affair have frayed the specialness of the relationship almost to the breaking point.

This is not just due to the election of Barack Obama, who is widely perceived in Israel as being biased against the Jewish state. These tensions arose during Bush’s second term, when U.S. policy began to perceptibly tilt away from Tel Aviv. A particularly telling blow to U.S.-Israeli relations was the decision by the U.S. to clamp down on visa requirements for Israelis entering the U.S.: potential visitors from Israel are now required to undergo an interview, restrictions on their length of stay have been extended, and admission to the U.S. is no longer assured.

In the secret world of spooks spying on one another, the U.S.-Israeli relationship is increasingly adversarial, while in the diplomatic-political realm, it has nearly reached the point of open hostilities. This is thanks to the objective conditions that determine relations among nations: in the post-Cold War world, Israel necessarily became much less of an asset to the U.S. In the post-9/11 world, as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have so trenchantly pointed out, it is an outright liability.

Our self-sacrificial policy of unconditional support for Israel has earned us implacable enemies in the Arab world and granted our adversaries a priceless propaganda prize — and the growing awareness of this disability is something the Israelis no doubt find disturbing. The distortion of our foreign policy by the power of the Israel lobby is also being widely noted, and this is their real Achilles heel.

In this case, too, the Lobby will no doubt rush to exert their influence to downgrade Nozette’s crime and even depict him as an innocent victim of entrapment. Defenders of the AIPAC duo conjured a vast “anti-Semitic” conspiracy within the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI to explain the alleged persecution of Rosen and Weissman, and the same tactics are bound to be trotted out in this instance.

That is nonsense. The FBI didn’t just pick Nozette arbitrarily and conjure his crimes out of thin air. Their target was already deeply involved with the Israelis, and this is what brought him to their attention in the first place.
The nature and extent of Israeli spying in the U.S. is not a subject you’ll see the “mainstream” media very often touch with so much as a 10-foot pole, but when it does the results can be ominously disturbing. I, for one, haven’t forgotten Carl Cameron’s four-part series on Israeli spying in the U.S., broadcast by Fox News in December 2001. According to Cameron, his sources in law enforcement told him the Israelis had been following the 9/11 hijackers and had foreknowledge of their plans but somehow neglected to tell us. And then there were those dancing Israelis, leaping for joy at the sight of the Twin Towers burning!

This is the dark side of the “special relationship,” so dark that hardly anyone wants to acknowledge it, let alone consider its implications.

Source: antiwar.com

Justin Raimondo - jpegJustin Raimondo is an American author and the editorial director of the website Antiwar.com. In addition to his thrice-weekly column for antiwar.com, he is a regular contributor to The American Conservative and Chronicles magazine. Raimondo also writes two columns a month for Taki’s Top Drawer.
Read more by Justin Raimondo
Israeli Exceptionalism October 04, 2009
Why the Attacks on J Street? – October 25th, 2009
Our Two-Faced Iran Policy – October 22nd, 2009

THE JEWISH RELIGION: CH II: ITS INFLUENCE TODAY BY ELIZABETH DILLING: THE TALMUD REVILED

Link

Holman Hunt: The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple

The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today by Elizabeth Dilling. Ch. II: THE TALMUD REVILED

[Editor’s Note: Elizabeth Dilling, all things considered, was a prophetess in her own time. Her various works, which include her exposure of the Zionist Jewish infiltration of the United States of America and her analysis of Bolshevism, Communism and Zionism as one Beast with numerous names, are a testament to her courage and her foresight in revealing the truth during a period of American history when to speak out was to risk the inevitable attacks by the Jewish establishment.

Groups like the American Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith International and their attack-dog the Anti-Defamation League, were always ready and willing to vilify anyone who dared to speak out about their plans to implement their one world government and Elizabeth Dilling was forced to deal with their Talmudic tactics from the moment she picked up the sword of truth.

Each chapter of her book is preceded by the Forward and an Introduction. Readers who go beyond Chapter One will find it convenient to just scroll down the page until the start of the new chapter.]

Foreword

Elizabeth Dilling Stokes was born, raised, and educated in Chicago. After attending the University of Chicago she married, and for many years devoted her life to her children, social activities on the North Shore of Chicago, and being a concert harpist. After hearing of the great “humanitarian experiment” in Soviet Russia, she traveled there in 1931, and was able to go behind the scenes. She was shocked at the forced labor, the squalid living quarters, and deplorable living conditions, and the atmosphere of fear created by the Soviet dictatorship.

She was most shocked by the virulent anti-Christianity of the atheist Communist regime.

Following her return to the United States she lectured and wrote about what she had seen, realizing from the opposition which immediately arose that a substantial Marxist movement was active in the United States. In 1934 her first book The Red Network was published, an expose of the persons and organizations furthering Red causes in the United States.

In 1936, her second book, The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background, was published. Almost immediately after these books were published, she was attacked as “anti-semitic,” although she had actually offered her anti-Communist services to Jewish organizations, and knew nothing of organized Jewish involvement in the Marxist movement. After researching and studying, however, in 1940 she published her third book The Octopus, which dealt with these subjects.

After World War II commenced, Mrs. Dilling became convinced that, despite President Roosevelt’s protestations that not one American boy would ever again fight on foreign soil, there was a movement afoot to involve the United States, with the result that a substantial part of the world would be communized later.

In 1941, she led a Mother’s March on Washington to oppose the “Lend Lease” bill, proclaimed to help keep us out of war by its sponsors, but proving the last step for our involvement. The bill passed by only one vote. A few months later, the United States went to war.

In 1944, Mrs. Dilling’s views involved her in the now infamous mass “sedition” trial. The case was ultimately dismissed by a Federal Court as “a travesty on justice.”

She was later remarried to Jeremiah Stokes, a Christian anti-Communist writer, and she continued to write and lecture in behalf of Christianity and Constitutional Americanism, first publishing this book in 1964.

Mrs. Dilling Stokes died in 1966 at the age of 72.

http://www.come-and-hear.com/dilling/whois.html

from The Plot Against Christianity
by Elizabeth Dilling

Introduction to Elizabeth Dilling
Foreword to the 1964 Edition
Published by
The Elizabeth Dilling Foundation
Box 659, Chicago 90

Who is Elizabeth Dilling?


Elizabeth Dilling

Our family trip to Red Russia in 1931 started my dedication to anti-Communism. We were taken behind the scenes by friends working for the Soviet Government and saw deplorable conditions, first hand.

We were appalled, not only at the forced labor, the squalid crowded living quarters, the breadline rationcard workers’ stores, the mothers pushing wheelbarrows and the begging children of the State nurseries besieging us.

The open virulent anti-Christ campaign, everywhere, was a shock. In public places were the tirades by loud speaker, in Russian (our friends translated). Atheist cartoons representing Christ as a villain, a drunk, the object of a cannibalistic orgy (Holy Communion); as an oppressor of labor; again as trash being dumped from a wheelbarrow by the Soviet “Five-Year-Plan”–these lurid cartoons filled the big bulletin boards in the churches our Soviet guides took us to visit.

In the Museum of the Revolution we were shown a huge world map. As our Guide turned a switch, lights came on indicating the places all over the world where Communist Party headquarters were then functioning. Proudly our Guide announced: “Our world revolution will start with China and end with the UNITED STATES”.

“O, NO! Not THAT”, was my thought. But, country by country, the boast has been steadily advancing. I took pictures of the anti-Christ posters on the porch of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in Leningrad.

Russia Changes My Life

We were taken to the beautiful Church of the Redeemer in Moscow which was then, we were told, about to be dynamited to make way for a “Palace of Soviets”. There was a display of full-sized mannikins dressed in the robes of the Church carrying on the Good Friday Footwashing ceremony. Our Guide rasped: “This was to show that if the Archbishop could wash the feet of the humble priest the poor should endure their sufferings without complaint! Religion was always for the suppression of the people, to keep them working from dawn to late at night under the lash!”

I thought of our Savior washing the feet of His Disciples as an example, and telling them that he who would be great among you should be the servant of all (John 13:13-15; Matt. 23:11). I glanced up at the exquisite stained glass window of Christ, about to be demolished, and a little tear trickled down my cheek as I thought: “I can never hate You like that!” (I did not know then that the Pharisee Talmud gives Him FIVE sadistic deaths today).

Staying at my hotel was the representative of a foreign country. He told me of the police terror; how the last manager of that hotel had been whisked off in the middle of the night by the “Black Mariah”–like millions of others never to be seen again. Some of our party had been taken to the police station; they had laughed in a movie theatre. They were released when they explained that they had laughed at a private joke, not at the picture (which was Soviet-made). After this, and more, I returned to the “NICE” North Shore of Chicago where the “intelligentsia” were rendering brainwashed reverence to the “great Soviet Experiment”.

Lecturing

Behind the backs of the careless Guides I had taken movies of the rickety trains, etc., in Russia. By chance I started showing these movies to patriotic audiences, my husband running the projector as I told the story. Articles written for a little local newspaper were reprinted by the DAR and larger and larger groups called for my talks: District meetings of the Legion; the Military Intelligence; churches from coast to coast. I was recommended for all Chambers of Commerce, and spoke for the Minneapolis, Cleveland, Los Angeles, etc., groups. I broadcast over the Moody Bible Institute radio and its head became my closest friend to her death.

Dr. Ironside introduced me as the only woman he had ever asked to occupy his pulpit in the Moody Church. I spoke in the great church of Dr. W. B. Riley, organizer of the World Fundamentalist Assn., my defender to his death. I frequently spoke in Detroit churches and on numerous occasions was entertained at the executives’ table at the Ford plant. Henry Ford (who never changed his mind about the role of Jewry) had me write (1939) a report on the U. of Michigan (80 pages). He contributed that year $5,000 to the cost of my office labor which cost $12,000 that year. The head of the National Sojourners had me airmail my two books to Sen. Royal Copeland to give to Vice Pres. Garner who, I was told, stayed up all night reading them and had his friend Cong. Dies of Texas start up the Dies Committee on Un-American Activities (later called the House Com.) as a result.

The hub of world Jewish anti-Christ power, the financial and industrial power best described in Rev. 18:11-, is the AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE with its B’nai B’rith brotherhood, and its “secret police”, smear and ruin arm, the Anti-Defamation League.

After having pushed a reluctant USA into World War II–to spread Communism across the earth, and with its first world base, Soviet Russia, as our “ally”, it was decided to crush all ANTI-COMMUNISTS by trying them as “Fascists, Nazis”. A series of indictments against some 30 anti-Communists, of which I was one, was engineered by the American Jewish Committee, in 1942, 1943, 1944. The 1942 indictment never came to trial.

The 1943 indictment was dismissed in Washington by Judge Adkins. Only the 1944 indictment went to trial under a stooge judge Eicher. An unbelievable farce was staged without any legality or fact. After the death of judge Eicher, the case was dismissed by Judge Bolitha Laws with the scathing denunciation that it had been a crime to hold those people on trial all that time without a single piece of evidence in accordance with the charge being introduced by the prosecution against ANY defendant. The Communist press had been gloating that the “sedition trial” was part of the “Moscow Purge trials” then in session all over Europe. I reproduced the item on one of my Bulletins, sent to every Congressman.

Background of E. D.

Travel in more than 60 countries convinced me that the USA had the greatest system of government, and was the most fortunate nation on earth. I did not want it Sovietized, collectivized. Careful research and documentation have resulted in the fact that nothing I have ever printed has, to date, been refuted by friend or foe.

BORN in CHICAGO, daughter of Dr. L. Kirkpatrick, physician and surgeon, of Virginian, Scotch-Irish, Presbyterian ancestry. My mother. Elizabeth Harding, descended from a long line of Anglican bishops thru her father. Her mother, Jane Musquet, was of English-French descent with a Catholic priest uncle in Paris. I married Albert Dilling, of Norwegian Lutheran ancestry.

Mother of two children, married and active in Episcopal Church, of which I am a communicant. Graduate of the Starrett School for Girls, Chicago Normal School; Univ. of Chicago student, before and after marriage; pupil of world’s greatest harpist, Alberto Salvi; was concert harpist and pres. of Chicago Harpists’ Society. The RUSSIAN trip ended a musical career and a “nice” suburbanite existence.

WRITINGS

* The famous RED NETWORK — A Who’s Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, of which some 100.000 copies have circled the globe, unrefuted factually by friend or foe.
* The ROOSEVELT RED RECORD AND ITS BACKGROUND — a second Red Network. of over 400 pages with two indexes.
* THE OCTOPUS — on the ramifications of Jewish power.
* [ THE PLOT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, republished as THE JEWISH RELIGION: ITS INFLUENCE TODAY — directly addressing the teachings of Judaism and its influence in the affairs of the modern world ]

The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today
by Elizabeth Dilling
Ch. II: THE TALMUD REVILED

Chapter Summary

The Christian of today is bombarded from all sides with reference to our “Judaeo-Christian Heritage,” our “Judaeo-Christian Civilization,” and the “brotherhood” which should prevail, presumably, between Christian and Talmudic Judaism. Such propaganda could only succeed if one is in ignorance as to the nature of the Talmud and the total antagonism between present-day Judaism and Christianity which necessarily must exist.

Over the centuries and right up to the present century, there was not such ignorance of Talmudic precepts. The truth as it was repeatedly revealed, caused it and its adherents to be reviled, and justly so.

It is indeed strange that the Bulls of the Popes over the many centuries, warning against the Jews, should be seemingly unknown to the Catholic clergy today, and that the writings of Luther, which generally are like almost a second gospel to Protestants of the Lutheran fold, should be equally unknown on this subject today!

The first English translation of the Babylonian Talmud was in 1903 by Rodkinson (real name — M. Levi Frumkin), and was edited by Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, “Father” of so-called “Reform Judaism.” Rodkinson deleted much of the filth which is in the unexpurgated Talmud, and used no identifying folio numbers, as were in the original, but nevertheless, even this abridged translation proved very revealing. The Introduction states: (See Exhibit 9):

The persecutors of the Talmud, during the period ranging from the First Century B.C., have varied in their character, objects and actions. In one respect, however, they all agreed, namely, in their general wish to destroy its existence. Careful consideration of its many vicissitudes certainly justifies the assertion that the Talmud is one of the wonders of the world.

During the twenty centuries of its existence not one of them has passed without great and powerful enemies vying with each other and exhausting every effort to destroy it; still it survived in its entirety, and not only has the power of its foes failed to destroy even a single line, but it has not even been able materially to weaken its influence for any length of time. It still dominates the minds of a whole people, who venerate its contents as divine truth, and countless numbers have sacrificed their lives and their possessions to save it from perishing.

Emperor Hadrian and the Talmud

Hadrian was Emperor of the Roman World empire from 117 A.D. to his death, 138 A.D. In 132 A.D. the Jews began a revolt, and for four years carried on a bloody war. Otherwise Hadrian’s reign was peaceful.

The reason for this Pharisee revolt is told by Rodkinson in his History of the Talmud:

One of the causes of the great revolt against the Romans at this time was the prohibition by the Roman government of the study of the Torah [Talmud] … they rebelled, led by Bar Kochba. Rabbi Aqiba (Akiba) was the first to become his adherent, who journeyed from town to town, inciting the Israelites to rebel … It is not surprising, therefore, that Hadrian was not contented barely with the massacre of the sages of the Talmud, but was intent also on the destruction of the Talmud itself.

He decreed that if any of the old rabbis should qualify a young rabbi … both should be put to death … believing that with the death of the elder generation the Talmud would be forgotten and Israel would blend with the nations and its memory be obliterated; because he very well knew that as long as the Talmud existed there was little hope for the assimilation of the Jews with other nations. This decree however, was not executed … the efforts of Hadrian met with no success … He saw the Talmud still existing … uniting Israel into one people, and establishing it still more firmly as a national and religious whole … the Talmud regained its former power and influence.

And the pupil of one of the contemporary rabbis “Rabbi Jehudah the Nasi” (the “prince”) became “the compiler of the Mishnah” (or laws of the Talmud). (See Exhibit 14 and Exhibit 15) In 553 A.D. Emperor Justinian forbade the spread of the Talmudic books throughout the Roman Empire. (Corp. Juris. can. VII Decretal, lib V, Tit. IV, cap. 1)

The Popes and the Talmud

Writing of the battles of the Talmud and its followers, authored by the Pharisees (see Exhibit 10), we further read of events following the Sadducees, Samaritans, the followers of Jesus and the early Roman Emperors (Exhibit 9):

“The Rabbis next encountered the Popes. From the time of Pope Innocent III, the Talmud was burned at the stake in nearly every century from the 11th to the 18th in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and many other countries …”

Rodkinson speaks of the disputations which the Popes and Kings held in which the accusers of the Talmud were answered by its defenders. The results were always that when the criminality of the Talmud was revealed in all its horror, the Talmud was ordered burned, expunged, or censored.

The same thing always started over again later. Rodkinson continues:

Still what has been the result? The Talmud exists today and not one letter in it is missing.

Rodkinson then lists a partial chart of the burning of the Talmud at the hands of Kings and Popes (See Exhibit 22 and Exhibit 23):

The Talmud at the Stake

Time Place Persecutor
1244 Paris King Louis IX

1244 Rome Innocent IV

1248 Paris Cardinal Legate Odo

1299 Paris Philip the Fair

1309 Paris Philip the Fair

1319 Toulouse Louis

1322 Rome Burned by order of Pope John XXII, and accompanied by robbery and murder of the Jews by the mob.

1553 Rome Pope Julius III – Similar burnings by the same order took place in Barcelona, Venice, Romagna, Urbino and Pesar. “Here three wagons full of books were burned: but first they were carried through the streets of the city, while royal officers proclaimed publicly that their condemnation was due to insults to Christianity which they contained.”

1554 Ancona, Ferrara, Mantua, Padua, Candia, and Ravenna Burned by hundreds and thousands.

1557 Poland Talmud burned because of the charge made against the Jews that they used the blood of Christian children in their ceremonies. This occurred during the Frankist disturbances.

1558 Rome Cardinal Chislieri

1559 Rome Sextus Sinensis

Jewish encyclopedias give credit, however, to various Popes for stopping violence against Jews; for seeking to convert them, and securing certain rights for them in territories over which they exercised temporal power.

Although the Bishops were issuing restrictive laws against Jewish aggressions long before this, the reign of Gregory the Great (590-604) is taken as the starting point of consistent relations between the Jews and the Popes. He condemned the holding of Christian slaves by Jews.

Pope Leo VII wrote the Archbishop of Mayence a reply telling him he might offer his Jews the choice between conversion or emigrating.

Anacletus II (antipope) was a Jew and his claim to the papacy always contested.

Benedictus VIII had a number of Jews put to death for blasphemy against Jesus.

Gregory VII charged the German emperor, Henry IV, with favoritism towards the Jews, and “in 1078 he renewed the canonical laws which prohibited giving Jews power over Christians … Jews might not be employed as tax-farmers or mint-masters.”

Pope Calixtus II (1119-24) and Pope Alexander III are cited for pro-Jewish acts.

Pope Innocent III is the most hated of the Popes in Jewish literature. In 1215, the Fourth Lateral Council, which he convened, “renewed the old canonical prohibitions against trusting the Jews with public offices and introduced the law demanding that Jews should wear a distinctive sign on their garments … Nevertheless he protected them against the fury of the French Crusaders.”

Pope Innocent III in a long decree stated: that Jews are not to be killed by anyone [but], they are to us dangerous as the insect in the apple, as the serpent in the breast … Since, therefore, they have already begun to gnaw like the rat, and to stink like the serpent, it is to our shame that the fire in our breast which is being eaten by them, does not consume them … Although Christian piety tolerates the Jews … and allows them to continue with us, although the Moors will not tolerate them, they must not be allowed to remain ungrateful to us in such a way as to repay us with contumely, for favors, and contempt for our familiarity. They are admitted to our familiarity only through our mercy …

Under this same Pope, Canons 67-70 were adopted by the Fourth Lateran Council, which included protective measures against Jewish usury; their wearing of a distinguishing badge (to warn Christians); forbidding intercourse with Christians, as employees, in marriage, arid barring their testimony as witnesses in legal matters (their license for perjury under the “Kol Nidre” then being well known).

“Gregory IX, … in various official documents insisted on the strict execution of the canonical laws against the Jews … his successor,” (to continue quoting) “Innocent IV, ordered the burning of the Talmud in Paris (1244).”

Through Emperor Sigismund, “who was heavily indebted to them, they [the Jews] obtained from Pope Martin V (1417-31) … various bulls (1418 and 1422)” (favorable to them). “In the last years of his pontificate, however, he repealed several of his ordinances, charging that they had been obtained under false pretenses.”

Popes Eugene IV and Nicholas V are cited for moderation.

Sixtus IV sanctioned the Spanish Inquisition, which was aimed at the “Marranos,” namely 300,000 Jews who had entered the Church, but retained their Talmudism, and secured power over all phases of Spanish life.

One who reads the Jewish press today will see congratulations to Israel from Spanish “Catholics” who identify themselves as Talmudic Jews descended from those who have practiced their Talmudism secretly ever since 1492, when their “Marrano” coreligionists were expelled from Spain.

If nothing else, the term “convert,” as applied to Jews, must be viewed cautiously, in view of the concealed Judaism of the “Marranos,” which continued for centuries.

One must learn, also, from Jewish authorities that Torquemada himself, leading the Inquisition, was a Jew, and that the Inquisition was only aimed at the Marranos who under the pretense of conversion had threatened to end Christianity by their inside machinations. (For further reference to the “Marranos,” see the book, The Marranos, by Cecil Roth, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia).

The Jewish Encyclopedia continues:

Alexander VI (Borgia), known in history as the most profligate of the Popes, was rather favorably inclined toward the Jews.

Leo X, one of the Medicis who fanned the Reformation by sponsoring a great renaissance of paganism and filled the Platonic Academy and salons of Rome and Florence with Jews, expounding Talmud and occult Cabalism, is called the humanist … favorably inclined toward the Jews, whom he employed not only as physicians, but also as artists and in other positions at his court. The beginning of the Reformation influenced his action in the controversy between Reuchlin and Pfeferkorn which he settled in such a way as not to give any encouragement to those who demanded reforms in the Church.

The story of the sincerely converted Jew, Pfefferkorn, who aired the infamies of the Talmud, as opposed by the Catholic renegade, Reuchlin, dupe of the head of the Jewish community of Rome, and the pro-Jewish Medici Pope, ended with Pfefferkorn being silenced, Reuchlin not being tried for heresy, as he was scheduled to be and indeed should have been, and with two hostile camps in nearly every German town taking sides for or against the Talmud.

One may ask: “How could anyone reading what the Talmud says [see reproductions elsewhere herein] argue about its contents?” In this regard, however, it must be remembered that only with the relatively unexpurgated Soncino translation of the Talmud in this century, in the contemporary language, English, has it become possible for the non-Jew to receive the full impact of what the Talmud says.

In other trials arguments could rage as to what a Yiddish or Hebrew text of the Talmud really meant, if translated. Nevertheless, the Jews always ultimately lost such arguments, as witness the condemnation of the Talmud by non-Jews through the centuries.

Even the Soncino English translation of the Talmud is not readily available except in major libraries, to be read there and not taken out.

Clement VII (another Medici servant of Jewry) was the bastard son of Guilio, brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who founded a pagan salon, the Platonic Academy. The Platonic Academy attempted the old Talmudic strategy of “harmonizing” pagan philosophy with Christianity, as Maimonides had tried to do with Biblical Judaism.

Lorenzo had his son Giovanni (Leo X) made a Cardinal, through his influence with Innocent VIII, at 13, having also been made an Archbishop at 7. Ready to ascend the throne, Giovanni promptly made five of his relatives Cardinals, including his bastard cousin, Giulio. Leo X (Giovanni), made Pope on March 11, 1513, was ordained a priest on the 15th and made a Bishop on the 19th of the same month, and he reigned until December 1, 1521, nine years.

It was this Pope, Leo X, who launched the selling of indulgences in 1517, the immediate cause of Luther’s break with the Church, and of Europe’s arousal. Every effort was made to corrupt and Talmudize the Church from the inside, while Jewry worked to wreck it from the outside. The hotheads among Jews, says Jewish historian Cecil Roth, expected to end Christianity and supplant it with Talmudism.

But when Luther nailed his theses on the Wittenberg Cathedral door, he nailed the Jews back into the ghetto, and Popes eager for Christian faith and morals were elected in place of the pro-Talmudic “humanist” Medici popes. Luther, in turn, found the same forces polluting his own following and ended his life beseeching the Protestant princes to expel or put at hard labor all Talmudists, after burning synagogues and Talmuds first of all. Read his words — if you can now find them other than here in any library!

There is only praise for the Medici Popes in Jewish literature and only disappointment about the condition of Jewry during the Reformation and afterward, for the succeeding Popes drove the Talmudists out of Vatican circles and back into the ghetto.

Bewailing this, the Jewish Encyclopedia reports how the Talmud was burned by Pope Julius III in 1553 and Christians prohibited from printing it. “The worst was yet to come.”

Paul IV (1555-1559) in his bull “Cum Nimis Absurdum” not only renewed all the canonical restrictions on Jews, but restricted their commercial activities and made them wear a yellow hat and live in their own territory — the ghetto.

Concerning this period, the Jews and the Medici, Jewish historian Cecil Roth states in his History of the Jews of Italy (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1946):

Girolamo Savonarola was successful … in 1494 the great Dominican drove out the Medici … Thereafter their position in the city (Florence) was a sort of barometer of its political state: when the Medici returned in 1512, they (the Jews) came too, and when the Medici were driven out in 1527 they accompanied them … It was only when the ruling house was at last securely established, from 1530 onwards, that the interruptions end and the continuous history of Florentine Jewry begins. (Page 190)

Also:

When Martin Luther nailed up his famous Theses on the cathedral door of Wittenberg, thereby setting the machinery of the Reformation in motion, the fate of the eager Jewries of Renaissance Italy were sealed. Threatened by this dangerous movement of secession, the Catholic Church began to set its house in order, more systematically and more comprehensively than ever before, in the process known as the Counter-Reformation.

No longer were the Popes to be pre-eminently enlightened patrons of literature, science and the arts, with worldly inclinations and interests. Henceforth they were chosen among those in whose eyes the requirements of the Church, spiritual and temporal, were paramount … who … regarded the Jews as a leaven of disbelief which positively endangered Christianity and Christendom — at least until they were segregated from intercourse with other men, as the Lateran Councils had prescribed three and a half centuries before.

Whereas the Talmud had been printed under Leo X, a Medici, in 1553, the Pope denounced the Talmud, and the other restrictions were set up. ( History of the Jews of Italy, pages 190 and following)

Pope Pius IV gave “a brief period of respite” (1566-72), [page 9] then his successor Pius V (1566-72) “not only repealed all the concessions of his predecessor, and not only renewed the laws of Paul IV, but added some new restrictions …” In 1569 he expelled the Jews from his territory.

Gregory XIII (1572-85) allowed the Jews to return but “introduced a large number of severe restrictions … and they were obliged to send every week at least 150 of their number” to listen to conversionist sermons.

Sixtus V (1585-90) “was more favorable to the Jews,” and permitted the printing of the Talmud after it was censored (1586). Clement VIII (1592-1604) ordered the Jews expelled and prohibited printing of the Talmud.

Under Clement X (1670-76) the Portugal Inquisition (against Jewry) was halted but he refused to help the expelled Jews of Vienna (1670). “The worst feature … under papal dominion was the closing of the gates of the Roman ghetto at nights. Severe penalties awaited a Jew leaving the ghetto after dark, or a Christian entering it.”

Pius VI (1775-1800) “renewed all the restrictions enacted from the 13th Century. The censorship of books was strictly enforced … and their attendance at conversionist sermons was enforced,” and Leo XII (1826) reinforced these rules with extreme rigor.

Pius IX (1846-78) started with a liberal attitude but, as stated in other Jewish literature, after he had been expelled from Rome at the hands of a Jewish movement which revealed its Talmudic anti-Christian face, he changed. To quote the Jewish Encyclopedia (”Popes”):

Pius IX during the first two years of his pontificate, was evidently inclined to adopt a liberal attitude, but after his return from exile he … condemned as abominable laws all measures which gave political freedom to them … showed his approval of the medieval laws as enacted by Innocent III. He maintained the ghetto in Rome until it was abolished by the Italian occupation of Rome (1870).

His successor, Leo XIII (1878-1903), was the first Pope who exercised no territorial jurisdiction over the Jews. His influence, nevertheless, was prejudicial to them. He encouraged anti-Semitism by bestowing distinctions on leading anti-Semitic politicians and authors, as Lueger and Drumont. [Note: Eduard Drumont’s book, La France Juive traces the attempted Talmudization of French Christian life in every phase. A Judaized France was the result he deplored and sought to avoid.]

He refused to interfere in behalf of Captain Dreyfus, or to issue a statement against the blood accusation. [Note that human blood is used in Talmudic black magic rituals.] In an official document he denounced Jews, Freemasons, and anarchists as the enemies of the Church.

The Index Expurgatrius issued by Leo XIII in 1887 stated concerning “The Talmud and other Jewish books:”

Although in the Index issued by Pope Pius IV, the Jewish Talmud with all its glossaries, annotations, interpretations and expositions were prohibited: but if published without the name Talmud and without its vile calumnies against the Christian religion they could be tolerated; however, Our Holy Lord Pope Clement VIII in his constitution against impious writings and Jewish books, published in Rome in the year of Our Lord 1592 … proscribed and condemned them.

It was not his intention thereby to permit or tolerate them even under the above conditions; for he expressly and specifically stated and willed, that the impious Talmudic Cabalistic and other nefarious books of the Jews be entirely condemned and that they must remain always condemned and prohibited, and that his Constitution about these books must be perpetually and inviolably observed.

The 1905 Jewish Encyclopedia states:

Pius X (elected 1903) is not sufficiently known to permit a judgment … but in his diocese of Mantua, before he became Pope, he had prohibited the celebration of a solemn mass on the King’s birthday because the city council which asked for it had attended a celebration in the synagogue. [Note: The quote is from the 1905 Jewish Encyclopedia, hence the incomplete reference.)

The Vatican’s semi-official organ, L’Osservatore Romano, of August 13, 1938, in an article headed “The Jews and the Vatican Council” (1870), after speaking of the Protective measures for the Jews by the Catholic Church, stated:

But — in order to set things straight — by this it was not intended that Jews should be allowed to abuse the hospitality of Christian countries. Along with these protective ordinances, there existed restrictive and precautionary decrees with regard to them. The civil power was in accord with the Church in this, since, as Delassus says, “they both had the same interest in preventing the nations from being invaded by the Jewish element and thereby losing control of society.”

But if Christians were forbidden to force Jews to embrace the Catholic religion, to disturb their synagogues, their Sabbaths and their festivals, the Jews, on the other hand, were forbidden to hold public office, civil or military; and this prohibition extended even to the children of converted Jews. The precautionary decrees concerned the professions, education, and business positions.

The Talmud and Martin Luther, the Father of Protestantism

When Pope Leo X started selling indulgences in 1517, this helped precipitate Luther’s break with the Church, and the nailing of his theses on the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral. Almost immediately Jews flocked to the new Protestant banner. Luther was sought after by 4 Jews. He in turn wrote a laudatory publication, “Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” filled with sympathy for their long unbelief, which Luther laid to the unsympathetic attitude of the Catholic Popes and hierarchy, and on his part welcoming the Jews to his heart.

Present-day Catholic and Protestant sources are largely ignorant, however, of the fact that, later, Luther found that Jews who had encouraged him to break with the Church were [page 10] attempting to Judaize his followers. He then read the Talmud, as introduced to him by a truly converted Jew. Afterward, he wrote “The Jews and Their Lies,” with such denunciatory philippics that they make parallel utterances of the Popes almost pale by comparison — this only after he became aware of the truth.

Luther wrote, in “The Jews and Their Lies:”

They exalt themselves and praise God for separating them from the heathen …In order that their raving, frantic and foolish nonsense might be perfect, they praise and thank God, first, that they are human beings and not animals; secondly, that they are Israelites and not Goyim (heathen); thirdly, that they were created as Men and not as Women. Such foolishness they do not have from Israel, but from Goyim.

For thus the historians write that the Greek Plato daily gave such praise and thanks to God, if such blasphemy and haughtiness could be called the praise of God. For that man [Plato] also praised his gods for these three things, that he was a man and not an animal, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a non-Greek or barbarian. Such is the praying of a fool and the praise of a blasphemous barbarian; just as the Mals imagine that they alone are human beings and all the rest of the world nothing but inhuman beings, ducks, or mice.

As to these matters, note the Jewish Encyclopedia, Exhibit 273 (last of right column, “Gentiles”): “Judah ben Ilai recommends the daily recital of the benediction, ‘Blessed be thou … who hast not made me a goy.’” This also has: “who hast not made me a woman,” and also “who hast made me an Israelite … who hast not made me a slave.” This is a “benediction” prescribed by the Talmud. (See “Benedictions:” Jewish Encyclopedia)

Luther also quoted John 8:39 and verse 44, wherein Christ told the Pharisees: “Ye are of your father the Devil,” and warns Christians to “be on their guard against these hardened condemned people — who accuse God of lying and proudly despise the whole world … They are boastful, proud fools …” He goes on to call them “Liars and Bloodhounds.” Luther then cites the book of Esther. Catholic and Protestant theologians in all centuries have protested Esther as being unhistorical, irreligious (the name of God does not once appear in it) and out of place in the Bible.

Luther states:

They are the real liars and bloodhounds, who have perverted and falsified the entire Scriptures from beginning to end without ceasing, with their interpretations … O, how they love that book of Esther, which so nicely agrees with their revengeful people — they who imagine themselves to be the people of God, who desire to think they must murder and crush the heathen … As they at first demonstrated against us Christians and would like to do so now, if only they could …

Without any modern-day Jewish Encyclopedias or Soncino translations of the Babylonian Talmud, one sees that Luther nevertheless understood perfectly the way the Talmud blasphemes and hangs obscene charges on Christ through double talk and words (the Balaam passages of the Talmud are an example of this, but Luther names others). Luther recognized that any Messiah expected by Jewry was only supposed to lead them in slaughter to power, stating:

The Jews desire no more from their Messiah than that he should be a Kochba” (leader of the Pharisee revolt against Rome in 135 A.D., in which according to historian Gibbon, about a million non-Jews were sadistically slaughtered) “and a worldly king, who would slay the Christians, divide the world among the Jews and make them rich lords …

Luther reflected upon that passage in II Peter 2 about those who “speak great swelling words of vanity,” promise liberty, but “they themselves are the servants of corruption … For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they had known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them … according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to its wallowing in the mire.”

Luther also wrote:

How much better it would be if they did not have God’s Commandment or did not know it. For if they did not have it, they would be uncondemned. They are condemned because they have God’s Commandment and do not keep it, but act against it without ceasing … In like manner murderers and whores, thieves and scoundrels and all evil men could boast they are God’s holy and chosen people, because they have His Word and know that they should fear and obey him …

By then Luther knew the Talmud, and he continued:

The heathen philosophers write much more honorably … They write that man by nature is obligated to serve others, also to keep his word to his enemies … Yea, I maintain that in three fables of Aesop there is more wisdom to be found than in all the books of Talmudists and Rabbis and more than ever could come into the hearts of the Jews. Should someone think I am saying too much — I am not saying too much, but much too little! For I see in their writings how they curse us Goyim and wish us all evil in their schools and prayers. They rob us of our money through usury … they play us all manner of mean tricks; what is worst of all, they … teach that such should be done. No Heathen has done such things and none would do so except the Devil himself, and those whom he possesses like he possesses the Jews.

Luther continued as to the Talmud:

Thus they call Him [Jesus] the child of a whore and His mother, Mary, a whore, whom she had in adultery … Reluctantly I must speak so coarsely in opposing the Devil … We do not call our wives whores as they call Maria, the Mother of Jesus; we do not call them bastards, as they call our Lord Christ. We do not curse them, but wish them all manner of bodily and spiritual good; permit them to lodge with us. We don’t steal and mutilate their children; do not poison their water; do not thirst after their blood …

Now behold what a nice, thick, fat lie it is when they complain about being captives among us. Jerusalem was destroyed more than 1400 years ago and during that time we Christians have been tortured and persecuted by Jews in all the world. For nearly 300 years we might well complain that during that time they captured and killed the Christians, which is the clear truth.

On top of that, we do not know to this day what Devil brought them into our country. We did not fetch them from Jerusalem. On top of that no one is holding them now. Land and highways are open to them … They are a heavy burden to us in our country, like a plague, pestilence, and nothing but misfortune … Should the Devil not laugh and dance, when in this manner he can have his paradise among us Christians … and to thank us … blasphemes and curses God and man! … Now what are we going to do with these rejected condemned Jewish people?

After Luther became conversant with the Talmud and the ritual cursings of so-called “Judaism,” his counsel exactly matched that of the ever-reinforced edicts of the beleaguered Popes. A person who condones such blasphemies, he said, partakes of them. He said they should be forced to leave the country:

We should not suffer it, after they are among us and we knew about such lying, blaspheming and cursing among them, lest we become partakers of their lies, cursing and blaspheming … We are not permitted to take revenge. Revenge is around their necks a thousand times greater than we could wish them. I will give you my true counsel:

First, that we avoid their synagogues and schools and warn people against them … that God may see that we are Christians and have not knowingly tolerated such lying, cursing and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians. For what we have so far tolerated in ignorance (I myself did not know it), God will forgive us … Moses writes in Deuteronomy that where a city practiced idolatry, it should be entirely destroyed with fire and nothing left. If he were living today he would be the first to put fire to the Jew schools and houses [which Luther follows with Scriptural support].

Secondly: That all of their books be taken away; prayer books, Talmuds, and not one page of it be left … For they use all that only to blaspheme the son of God; that is God Himself … and will never use it in any other way.

Spiritually, Luther connects the Jews with those who betrayed Moses: “Of such are the remaining dregs of the Jews, of whom Moses knows nothing; they also know nothing of him, for they do not keep one passage in Moses.”

This reminds one of the constantly recurring charge of Christ that the Pharisees violated and nullified the laws of Moses, such as: “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses seat.” (Matt. 23:2) In other words, they occupy his throne giving forth as Mosaic Law, their own foul permissions which they attribute to “Oral” laws Moses handed down to their group, unknown to the rest of the world.

In 1543 Luther replied to the Talmudic charge that Jesus did His miracles by magic with the Tetragrammaton, or Shem Hamphorash, the consonants of the word Jehovah (by which Rabbis supposedly summon demons).

Even with no further evidence than the Old Testament, I would maintain … that the Jews, as they are today, are veritably a mixture of all the depraved and malevolent knaves of the whole world over … to afflict the different Nations with their usury, to spy upon others, and to betray, to poison wells, to deceive and to kidnap children — in short, to practice all kinds of dishonesty and injury.

Digressing from Luther’s “The Jews and Their Lies,” we see in Luther’s “Table Talk” his view of the “converted” Jew:

If a Jew, not converted at heart, were to ask baptism at my hands, I would take him on to the bridge, tie a stone round his neck, and hurl him into the river; for these wretches are wont to make a jest of our religion. (CCLVI)

It is evident that Luther became familiar with the custom, wherever it did not endanger Jews, of spitting in the synagogue when reference to Christianity is sung in the Alenu, for he advised:

Whenever you see or think about a Jew, say to yourself as follows: Behold, the mouth which I see there has every Saturday cursed, execrated, and spit upon my dear Lord, Jesus Christ, who has redeemed me with His precious blood; and also prayed and cursed before God that I, my wife and children, and all Christians, should be stabbed and perish in the most miserable manner — and would like to do so himself if he could, that he might come into possession of our goods … Should I eat, drink with, or speak to such a Devilish mouth? … I would partake of all the Devils who live in that Jew, and would spit upon the precious blood of Christ — God keep me from doing that.

Luther’s Last Sermon

Repeatedly, Luther warns the clergy against participation in the blasphemies of Judaism, by aiding or enduring these in any way. His last sermon included this:

You, Milords and men of authority, should not tolerate but expel them. They are our public enemies and incessantly blaspheme our Lord Jesus Christ; they call our blessed Virgin Mary a harlot and Her Son a bastard … if they could kill us all, they would gladly do so; in fact many of them murder Christians, especially those professing to be surgeons and doctors.

They know how to deal with medicaments in the manner of the Italians — the Borgias and Medicis — who gave people poison which brought about their death in one hour or a month … As a good patriot I wanted to give you this warning for the very last time to deter you from participating in alien sins. You must know I only desire the best for you all, rulers and subjects.

Posted by Noor al Haqiqa at 11:36 PM

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EU Lawyers: We’ve a List of Zionist War Criminals

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10/27/2009 05:05:00 PM Author Editor Publisher Hiyam Noir

EU lawyers: We've list of Zionist war criminals


27-10-2009,12:36

Al Qassam Website and Agencies – Human rights lawyers and pro-Palestinian activists in a number of European countries hold lists with names of Zionist Occupation Forces soldiers allegedly linked to war crimes committed during the Last War on the Gaza Strip. Existing legislation enables arrest warrants to be issued against these officers if they enter those countries.

Lawyers in Britain and other European countries have been collecting testimonies of Palestinians and other data from Gaza since January, which they maintain proves that war crimes were committed by the ZOF during the offensive. The evidence is linked to ZOF officers holding ranks of battalion commander and higher, who were in command during various stages of the war.

The other nations who have lawyers collecting information on the matter include the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Norway, whose laws, as well as Britain’s, allow the issuance of arrest warrants against foreign citizens suspected of war crimes.

Attorney Daniel Makover from London is coordinating the efforts in Britain. One of his colleagues visited the Gaza Strip several weeks after the fighting in order to collect testimonies. Palestinians civilians also gave the legal assistant their approval, and asked that he file the suits in their name, in line with British law.

Speaking to Haaretz, Makover refused to offer details on the identity of the ZOF officers or how many were listed, but said that much depends on the specific details of each case. Makover said that anyone who was involved in an incident may face criminal charges. The attorney added that there are officers who are obviously candidates for charges, and others who are less obvious, but emphasized that it depends on the facts collected on the ground.

Makover said that the Goldstone report on the fighting in the Gaza Strip will bolster the efforts of the activists, and said that some of the instances mentioned in the report were already known to the attorneys. Makover is part of an unofficial network of attorneys operating in various countries in Europe, exchanging and sharing information so that suspected officers may be arrested in those countries.

The information is often received from pro-Palestinian activists who follow Jewish or pro-Israel groups that invite ZOF officers to deliver lectures. In some instances, this information is relayed to border controls. Makover said that a small number of names of ZOF officers is already on a British police watch list, and that when they arrive in Britain the authorities will issue an arrest warrant that will lead to their possible detention.

A number of human rights groups are busy working to create an international organization that would enable closer surveillance of those they suspect of war crimes and torture, as well as seek warrants for their arrest.

The ZOF did not wish to specify the instructions it has given to officers before they travel abroad. In practice, many of the officers who participated in the Gaza War have been asked to consult with legal experts at the Foreign Ministry, where they are instructed how to behave abroad and where they need to lower the profile of their identity; in some cases they are advised not to visit certain countries.

The Foreign Ministry released a statement saying: “The ministry is aware of efforts undertaken by Palestinian groups and their supporters to harm ZOF officers through legal and public relations means, and is working to prevent such efforts.”

International Coalition Against War Criminals

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