Amazing what the Zionist’s get away with ! Isn’t it?

PalestineFreeVoice

3/31/2010 10:03:00 PM Posted by Editor Publisher Hiyam Noir

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Photo Fady Adwan PalestineFreeVoiceImages

How do we stop them ?
Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections? ?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?

Answer: Israel .

Question: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country in the Middle East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated?

Answer: Israel .

Question: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?

Answer: Israel .

Question: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters, killing 34 and wounding 171 American sailors?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union ?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What Middle East country allows American Jewish murderers to flee to its country to escape punishment in the United States and refuses to extradite them once in their custody?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What Middle East country preaches against hate yet builds a shrine and a memorial for a murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they prayed in their Mosque.?

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States , according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East deliberately targeted a U.N. Refugee Camp in Qana , Lebanon and killed 103 innocent men, women, and especially children?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East receives more than one-third of all U.S. aid yet is the 16th richest country in the world?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East receives U.S. weapons for free and then sells the technology to the Republic of China even at the objections of the U.S. ?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely insults the American people by having its Prime Minister address the United States Congress and lecturing them like children on why they have no right to reduce foreign aid?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East had its Prime Minister announce to his staff not to worry about what the United States says because “We control America ?”

Answer: Israel .

Question: What country in the Middle East was cited by Amnesty International for demolishing more than 4000 innocent Palestinian homes as a means of ethnic cleansing.

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East has just recently used a weapon of mass destruction, a one-ton smart bomb, dropping it in the center of a highly populated area killing 15 civilians including 9 children?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East routinely kills young Palestinian children for no reason other than throwing stones at armored vehicles, bulldozers, or tanks?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East signed the Oslo Accords promising to halt any new Jewish Settlement construction, but instead, has built more than 270 new settlements since the signing?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East has assassinated more than 100 political officials of its opponent in the last 2 years while killing hundreds of civilians in the process, including dozens of children?

Answer: Israel .

Question: Which country in the Middle East regularly violates the Geneva Convention by imposing collective punishment on entire towns, villages, and camps, for the acts of a few, and even goes as far as demolishing entire villages while people are still in their homes?

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 Uprooted Palestinian

Impact of the Gaza war on Israel:

Palestine Video

Riz Khan – Impact of the Gaza war on Israel:

“Has there been a shift in Israel’s ties with its allies since the Gaza war and how will that affect the peace process with the Palestinians? Is international support for Israel dwindling since the Gaza war and is it losing the battle for global public opinion?”

Palestine Video – A Palestine Vlog

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

When will they ever learn ??

Frustrated Arab’s Diary

 
 The last breath of a Communist..

The last breath of an Arab

The USA has once spent a decade of war
and 60.000 US-dead  to prevent
” the threat of Communism “ in Vietnam.

Apparently and obviously  the USA has lost ,
and Communism has spread into both Vietnam´s.

In the meantime (both) Vietnam´s are OK
and  we,  the rest of world,  did not suffer, at all.

In the last decade the USA has started a new war
on Islam and on the Arabs , calling it a ” War on Terrorism”.

Vietnam paid with one Million dead
Iraq and Afghanistan have paid the same number of martyrs

When will they ever learn……. ??
that your enemy is something you have made  !!

Raja Chemayel
the last day of March 2010

Posted by Тлакскала at 12:22 PM

ly: arial;”>River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, ISRAEL IS DETERMINED TO RID PALESTINE OF ITS CHILDREN

DesertPeace

March 31, 2010 at 11:25

Image by David Baldinger

Israel’s ‘War on Terror Children’ continues. Hardly a day goes by without the murder of a Palestinian child in Gaza or the Occupied West Bank, either by terrorist gunfire by Israeli soldiers or by the denial of medical services due to the inhumane siege on the entire Gaza Strip. Either way, it’s MURDER.

The following reports deal with this situation….

Child Killed By Army Fire In Rafah

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported Tuesday morning that a child was shot and killed by Israeli military fire in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

File – Reuters
The child was identified as Mohammad Zeid Al Farmawi, 15, from Qishtat neighborhood in Rafah.
Local sources reported that the child was shot by Israeli soldiers after he crossed through the border fence, east of the Gaza International Airport.

Medics rushed to the scene but the child was already dead when they arrived; his body was moved to Abu Yousef Al Najjar in Rafah.
On Saturday, a 5-year-old child died at a local hospital due to the ongoing illegal Israeli siege on the coastal region.
The child, Fuad Swerih, 5, suffered respiratory issues, and Israeli prevented his transfer to hospitals outside the besieged and war- torn Gaza Strip.
Swerih is from Al Nusseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza.
The doctors were trying to have him transferred to an Israeli hospital but Israel rejected all applications.
Source~~~~~~~~~~

Israel’s war against children

Shadi Salman AlQarra

Naseem Jawad Abu Dakka, 14, was playing in front of his grandfather’s house, under the lemon tree in the front of the house, 800 metres from the area where Israeli army the made an incursion, firing tanks shells and bullets. One medium calibre bullet entered his back and exited from his chest, leading to a fracture in the spine in the ninth and tenth vertebrae. The second bullet pierced his chest and has harmed him so much that his spleen had to be removed.
He is now in the intensive care unit in the hospital
His injury has also lead to blood poisoning
His spleen has been removed
His lung is damaged
He is breathing through a respirator
He is in a pharmacological state of coma
He is in critical condition.
Source

~~~~~~~~~~

Look into my eyes and tell me I have no right to live a life in peace and dignity……

Now tell me how you allow your government to support the murderous state of Israel? Your tax dollars are what allows this genocide to continue.

 
Shadi Salman AlQarra

Naseem Jawad Abu Dakka, 14, was playing in front of his grandfather’s house, under the lemon tree in the front of the house, 800 metres from the area where Israeli army the made an incursion, firing tanks shells and bullets. One medium calibre bullet entered his back and exited from his chest, leading to a fracture in the spine in the ninth and tenth vertebrae. The second bullet pierced his chest and has harmed him so much that his spleen had to be removed.
He is now in the intensive care unit in the hospital
His injury has also lead to blood poisoning
His spleen has been removed
His lung is damaged
He is breathing through a respirator
He is in a pharmacological state of coma
He is in critical condition.

Source

~~~~~~~~~~




Look into my eyes and tell me I have no right to live a life in peace and dignity……

Now tell me how you allow your government to support the murderous state of Israel? Your tax dollars are what allows this genocide to continue.

River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian

Land Day Martyrs

Lest We Forget

–
30.03.1976
1 Kheir Mohammad Salim Yasin (23 yrs old) from Arraba, shot dead by the IOF
2 Khadija Qasem Shawahneh (23 yrs old) from Sakhneen, shot dead by the IOF
3 Raja Hussein Abu Rayya (30 yrs old) from Sakhneen, shot dead by the IOF
4 Khader Eid Mahmoud Khalaila (24 yrs old) from Sakhneen, shot dead by the IOF
5 Muhsin Hasan Said Taha (15 yrs old) from Kufr Kanna, shot dead by the IOF
6 Ra’fat Ali Az-Zheiri (21 yrs old) from Nur Shams refugee camp and was shot dead by the IOF in Al-Taybeh
–
30.03.1988
1 Sliman Ahmad Al-Jundi (17 yrs old), from Yatta, Hebron, shot dead by the IOF
2 Mohammad Faris Az-Zein (17 yrs old), from Al-Yamoun, Jenin, shot dead by the IOF
3 Husni Mohammad Shahin (22 yrs old), from Al-Yamoun, Jenin, shot dead by the IOF
4 Mohammad ‘Arif Qasim Salah (22 yrs old), from Burqa, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
5 Khalid Mohammad Salah (23 yrs old), from Burqa, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
6 Wajiha Yousif Rabi’ (50 yrs old), from Deir Abu Mish’al, Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF
7 Abdil-Karim Mohammad Musa Al-Halayqah (25 yrs old), from Ash-Shayyukh, Hebron, shot dead by the IOF
8 Shakir Mohammad Ali Malsiyeh (20 yrs old), from Deir Bzeigh, Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF
9 Mousa ‘Azmi (30 yrs old), from Zita, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF
10 Iyad ‘Azmi (21 yrs old), from Zita, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF
11 Ma’rouf Mahmoud Nu’man (27 yrs old), from Zita, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF
–
30.03.2000
1 Sheikha Yousif Abu Salih (72 yrs old), from Sakhneen, suffocated by gas fired by the IOF
–
30.03.2001
1 Ayish Ghazi ‘Mustafa Zamil (19 yrs old), from Deir Al-Hatab, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
2 Ahmad Mahmoud Abu Maraheel (16 yrs old), from Balata RC, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
3 Sufian Sa’eed Abdel Rahman Saloum (31 yrs old), from Balata RC, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
4 Murad Salih Ahmad Sharay’ah (21 yrs old), from Balata RC, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
5 Khalid Shihadeh Deeb Al-Nahleh (27 yrs old), from Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
6 Mohammad Abdel Muhsin Khalid Al-Wawi (20 yrs old), from Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF
–
30.03.2002
1 Ahmad Fathi Mahmoud ‘Ajaj (23 yrs old), from Seda, Tulkarim, killed by IOF missile
2 Azmi ‘Adel Mahmoud ‘Ajaj (21 yrs old), from Seda, Tulkarim, killed by IOF missile
3 Ahmad Abdel Jawad (22 yrs old), from Nablus, killed by an explosion
4 Isma’il Ibrahim Deeb Isa (56 yrs old), from Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF
5 Hussein Husni Hussein Al-Ashqar (27 yrs old), from Qalqilia, shot dead by the IOF
6 Fathi Jihad Fathi ‘Amerah (18 yrs old), from Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
7 Majdi Abdel Jawad Abdel Jabbar Khanfar (21 yrs old), from Silet Ath-Thahir, Jenin, shot dead by the IOF
8 Muhannad Ibrahim Fayyad Salahat (16 yrs old), from Bethlehem, shot dead by the IOF
9 Nuha Ziyad Ahmad Ikte’ (8 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
10 Khalid Fathi Mohammad ‘Awad Allah (32 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
11 Sa’id Abdel Rahman Mohammad Mahdi (60 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
12 Omar Musa Mohammad Diab (54 yrs old), from Jericho, killed by IOF missile
13 Ahmad Kallab (61 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
14 Shahir Abu Sharar (33 yrs old), from Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF
15 Abdel Rahman Tawfiq Abdallah Is’id (58 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
–
30.03.2003
1 Mahmoud Ali An-Najjar (18 yrs old), from Jabalia, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
2 Rami Jamil Mutlaq Ghanim (20 yrs old), from Deir Al-Ghusoun, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF
3 Mahmoud Mohammad Rashid Al-Mashharawi (22 yrs old), from Ash-Shaja’iyyah, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
4 Mohammad Farouq Tafish (16 yrs old), from Jabalia, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
–
30.03.2004
1 Fatima Mohammad Shreiqi Al-Jallad (7 yrs old), from Khan Younis, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
–
30.03.2005
1 Mu’tasim Al-Aqea’ from Qablan, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF
–
30.03.2006
1Ahmad Mahmoud Ahmad Masharqa (23 years old), from Hebron, shot dead by the IOF
–
30.03.2007
1 Kamil Kamal Kamil Mousa (21 years old), from Al-Maghazi, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF
–
River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Israel greenwashing the "war on terror"

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 30 March 2010

Under cover of a sudden interest in developing new green technologies, the Israeli government hopes to weaken the Gulf states by making their oil redundant and thereby defeating “Islamic terror.”

Uzi Landau, the national infrastructures minister, outlined a vision of a world without oil this week to Israel’s most loyal supporters in Washington as he searched for wealthy American-Jewish investors and White House support for the strategy.

His message was that: “The West is addicted to oil, and so is bound by states that support terrorism … Whoever wants to fight radical Islam and terrorist organizations should know that by purchasing gasoline, he’s giving terrorists increased motivation.”

Analysts say the plan’s chief goals are to cripple the large oil-producing Gulf states, particularly Iran, which is seen as Israel’s main rival in the region, and resistance groups that oppose Israel’s long-term occupation of Palestinian land.

“Israel hopes that by repackaging the ‘war on terror’ in this way it can gain sympathy in the West and deflect increasing expectations that it make concessions to solve the conflict with the Palestinians,” said Avner de Shalit, a politics professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Thousands of delegates at last week’s annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in the US, heard Landau describe the Israeli strategy as the best way to win the “war on terror.”

The conference was also attended by many senior US politicians, including administration officials such as Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state.

Without Arab money from oil, Landau argued, Iran would fade as a regional power and “terror groups” like Hamas in Gaza and Hizballah in Lebanon would cease to exist. Instead Israel could serve as an alternative “powerhouse” in the Middle East for environmentally friendly energy sources.

Both Israel and the US are determined to isolate Iran, which they claim is trying to develop a nuclear warhead to rival Israel’s own large nuclear arsenal. The White House is seeking to impose stiff sanctions, whereas Israel is believed to favor a military strike.

Israel failed to crush Hamas and Hizballah, two resistance groups that are backed by Iran, during attacks on Gaza last year and on Lebanon in 2006.

In a session entitled “Breaking the habit: Can US-Israel cooperation reduce our oil dependence?” Landau appealed to the US to join Israel in eradicating oil dependency as a way to defeat terror.

As he left Israel for the conference, he told local reporters he would try to persuade his audience that “by taking away its primary source of funding, we can defeat terrorism without firing a single bullet.”

Landau is known to be acting on the direct instructions of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who announced back in October a “national project” to end the world’s reliance on oil within a decade.

At the same time Netanyahu gave responsibility to the National Economic Council, a think-tank inside his office, to develop “breakthrough” inventions that would eradicate the world’s need for oil and coal-based electricity.

“Dependence on fossil fuels strengthens the dark regimes that encourage instability and fund terror with their petrodollars,” Netanyahu told the cabinet as he unveiled the plan.

Gideon Bromberg, head of the Israeli green group Friends of the Earth, said Israel had a very poor record on environmental issues, but that he welcomed Netanyahu’s belated interest “even if it is for the wrong reasons.”

“He is an opportunist and recognizes that oil brings power,” said Bromberg. “If you can find an alternative to it, you make yourself more powerful and make your enemies weaker.”

Haaretz has reported that Netanyahu also hopes that new green technologies will allow Israel to strengthen its ties with China, which the government believes is the rising global power and less interested in the Palestinians and Israel’s occupation than the US and Europe.

Although Israel has developed new solar energy and water technologies, Netanyahu is reported to want a revolution in fuels used in transport, which accounts for a large proportion of oil use. Israeli companies are already involved in researching battery technologies for cars.

There are strong indications that Israel’s green technologies drive is related to plans developed by US neoconservative groups in the build-up to the attack on Iraq. Netanyahu is known to have maintained close ties to neoconservatives in the US.

Some of these groups lobbied the previous administration of George W. Bush to invade Iraq so that its oil fields could be privatized and the international markets flooded with oil.

According to the reasoning of officials at one influential think-tank, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, privatization would drive down oil prices, break up the Saudi-backed Opec oil cartel, and drain money away from “terror groups” and radical Islamic education.

Some neocons regarded this policy as particularly beneficial to Israel, because it would starve Hamas and Hizballah of funds and take the pressure off Tel Aviv to end the occupation.

In practice, however, the occupation of Iraq did not help Israel. Funding to Hizballah and Hamas instead appears to be provided by Iran.

The influence of neoconservative think-tanks on Landau has been indicated in recent weeks by the decision to share the stage with leading neoconservatives such as James Woolsey, a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

At a debate on ending global oil dependency at Israel’s annual “national security” convention in Herzliya in February, attended by most of the Israeli cabinet, Woolsey urged the destruction of Opec, claiming that Saudi Arabia controlled 90 percent of Islamic education.

He said that when people filled up their cars “you are helping to finance the people who finance hatred, incitement and terror.”

That view was echoed by other participants.

In December the United Nations criticized Israel for its poor record on using renewable energy sources. It ranked bottom for using solar sources to generate electricity, behind countries such as Senegal, Eritrea and Mexico, as well as Western countries with only a few hours of sunlight.

A government watchdog, Israel’s state comptroller, issued a report the same month arguing that Israel had not taken even basic measures to address climate change.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

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 Uprooted Palestinian

What’s Common between Sayyed Nasrallah and Patriarch Sfeir?

Hussein Assi

30/03/2010 “My first name is Nasrallah. His last name is Nasrallah.”

This is, simply, the “original similarity” discovered by Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir when asked what’s common between him and Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.

Sfeir, who was speaking to pan-Arab daily As-Sharq al-Awsat, summarized the “common things” between him and the Resistance leader to the “name” of Nasrallah, which is his first name and Hezbollah Secretary General’s last name.

“We are both Lebanese, and this is enough,” the Maronite Patriarch went on to say. “He’s of course a leader and a politician. He has his own points of view,” he added.

Sfeir, meanwhile, accused “some” of wanting to bring down President Michel Sleiman and warned that abolishing sectarianism means that one group will take control of the country.

“There are those who want to overthrow the President to take his place,” Sfeir said in an interview published Tuesday by pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.

Commenting on the so-called political campaign against Sleiman, Sfeir noted that the campaign did not come from nowhere because there are people who are planning it. “There are some who have political and personal interests and others who want to topple the President to take his place, and perhaps there are some who have other plots,” he added.

Sfeir hailed President Sleiman, saying he is seeking to unify Lebanese as much as possible. “Unification, however, cannot be done with a magic wand,” he believed, adding that Lebanese will have to meet Sleiman’s urge to unite. “It seems, however, that so far there are those who do not want to respond to his call,” Sfeir said.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Israel’s war against children

WRITTEN BY Shadi Salman AlQarra 

Naseem Jawad Abu Dakka, 14, was playing in front of his grandfather’s house, under the lemon tree in the front of the house, 800 metres from the area where Israeli army the made an incursion, firing tanks shells and bullets. One medium calibre bullet entered his back and exited from his chest, leading to a fracture in the spine in the ninth and tenth vertebrae. The second bullet pierced his chest and has harmed him so much that his spleen had to be removed. 

He is now in the intensive care unit in the hospital 

His injury has also lead to blood poisoning 

His spleen has been removed 

His lung is damaged 

He is breathing through a respirator 

He is in a pharmacological state of coma 

He is in critical condition. 

Source: http://handala2009witness.blogspot.com/

Israeli Enemy Fears Confrontation with Hezbollah…

30/03/2010 The Israeli enemy fears confrontation with Hezbollah…

It’s not a statement made by a Hezbollah official or a Resistance leader or even a pro-Resistance politician in Lebanon and the Arab World…

This “confession” was delivered by Israeli analysts and broadcasted by the Israeli Television, channel 10. According to the Israeli channel, the reason is too simple:
Hezbollah destruction power has caused a mutual balance of deterrence between the Resistance in Lebanon and Israeli.

Even more, the Israeli report claims that the Israeli army has given the political sector in the occupied territories the opportunity to take strategic resolutions towards Hezbollah throughout the four previous years that followed the July 2006 war against Lebanon. However, the opportunity was lost, the report admits.

That’s it…

The repercussions of the new strategic balances declared by Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah last month started to emerge in the decision making process in the Zionist entity.

The report broadcasted by the Israeli Television, channel 10, emphasized that, despite the strengthening of Hezbollah power, Israel fears working against it to prevent being involved in an additional confrontation with the Resistance.

According to the report, Israel believes that Hezbollah accumulated destruction power has caused a mutual balance of deterrence between the Resistance and the Israeli enemy.

The Israeli report spoke about what it described as Hezbollah preparation for the next confrontation. The report claimed that the Resistance has deployed its strategic missile systems in Bekaa and North Lebanon and said that these missiles can threaten the center of Israel as well as the Israeli strategic installations and facilities.

In this context, Israeli military expert Alon Ben-David said that four years have passed on the end of the Second Lebanon War and the Israeli failures are still progressing. Whole noting that these years were the quietest ones at the borders with Lebanon, he said that the Israeli army has given the Israeli political level the time to take strategic decisions in the North without exerting any threat or pressure. “Yet the Israeli political leadership has lost this opportunity,” he added.

The Israeli channel pointed to the situation at the border with Lebanon and concluded that Hezbollah has replaced its announced presence in the frontiers by a secret one focusing on collecting date and observing everything happening at the Israeli side. In contrast, the report noted the Israeli army follows everything happening in Lebanon and executes a wide campaign to collect data on Hezbollah and its places of presence. “We see and feel the enemy’s preparations and we know that Hezbollah is present there and that its power is strengthening,” an Israeli army official stressed.

According to Ben-David, the Israeli army is doing its best, since the Second Lebanon war, to collect data on Hezbollah. “Today, the Israeli army has more qualitative data than in the past.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Zionists Against Zion?

Link

 March 30th, 2010 by admin (  )

US military warned that Israeli policy endangers US troops on the ground.

By M. Shahid Alam

Zionists have worked hard and cleverly for their successes, but their cause has been greatly advanced at each stage by the logic of their colonial project aimed at the creation of a Jewish settler state at the very center of the Islamicate.

Most importantly, Zionism created a geopolitical realignment of great importance. It brought together two strands of the Western world, previously at odds – Christians and Jews – to join their forces against the Islamicate.

At every stage in its history, Israel has ratcheted its power by unleashing forces, even negative forces, that it has then turned to its advantage. Power, intelligence and luck have played into this.

Israel’s birth radicalized important segments of the Arab world, creating anxiety among Arab Jews about their future. Israel fanned this anxiety, with help from agent provocateurs – but also aided in some cases by myopic Arab policy – to force a Jewish flight from the Arab world. As a result, Israel doubled its Jewish population – and fighting force – within a few years after its creation.

Arab nationalism – if properly harnessed and directed – could end the Jewish state and Western hegemony in the Middle East. Unafraid, Israel took steps to fan this nationalism and used it to push the US to embrace Israel, firmly and openly, as the West’s bulwark against the Arab world. The plan worked, and by the late 1950s, if not earlier, the US was on Israel’s side.

[More:]

Defeating the Arab nationalists too carried a risk. By eliminating the threat of Arab nationalism, Israel risked losing its strategic value to the US. Considering the payoff, Israel was eager to defeat the Arab nationalists. As for the risk, the Jewish lobby in the US, energized by Israel’s victory, ensured that US could only draw Israel tighter to its bosom.
A weak civil society in the Arab states also helped Israel. Although the mantle of resistance passed to the Islamists after 1967, they could not displace any of the discredited Arab regimes. US and Israel too gave a boost to these regimes. With US prodding, Israel returned a demilitarized Sinai to bring Egypt on its side. In return, Egypt switched sides.
In time, most of the Arab regimes would serve as Israel’s first line of defense against the Islamists. This was a self-reinforcing arrangement. As US-friendly Arab regimes lost legitimacy and became more repressive, they could only survive by drawing closer to the US and Israel.
At this point, luck too favored Israel, as it often has in the past. In 1979, Iran, the second pillar of US hegemony in the region, fell to Islamists who openly opposed US presence in the region. Instantly, Israel began to promote itself as the rampart against the rising Islamist tide.
In the wake of the Iranian Revolution, the Zionists also made renewed efforts to resurrect the old Western animus against Islam. Next to communism, Islam was now the principal threat to ‘civilization.’ After the Soviet collapse, the Neocons began drumming a new civilizational thesis. War between the West and Islam was inevitable.
Israel’s creation and military successes energized Christian Zionists in the US. In their millennial theology, the ingathering of Jews in Palestine was a precursor to the Second Coming. This theology demanded unconditional support for Israel. Over time, the Christian Zionists became the second organized force – next only to the Jews – that firmly backed Israel.
The end of the Cold War did not dent US commitment to Israel. It should have, since Israel was seen as America’s leading ally against Soviet influence in the region. On the contrary, in the absence of the balancing Soviet presence, pro-Israeli forces tethered the US more firmly then ever to Israeli demands.
Israel now had a free hand in dealing with its foes. It used the Oslo Accords to neuter the PLO and assigned it to police the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and Gaza. With the PLO neutered, Israel accelerated its colonization of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
This was also a signal for Israel to pursue more ambitious goals. In a 1996 document, the Neocons announced their plans to “engage” Hizbullah, Syria and Iran, “as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.” Iraq, however, was their first target.
The 9-11 attacks offered the occasion to put these plans into action. Working in concert, Israel and its backers convinced Bush to invade Iraq. There would be more wars to redraw the map of much of Middle East. Israel would emerge from these wars as the undisputed regional hegemon, and, possibly, a world power.
Just when Israel was grasping for the moon, history took a number of ‘wrong’ turns. Iraq became a quagmire for US troops. Iran’s Shi’ite allies Iran gained control over much of Iraq, barring the Kurdish region. Soon, Iran had extended its influence into eastern Afghanistan. Israeli policy had boomeranged.
In a strange reversal, Iran now cast its shadow over much of the Middle East. It mocked Israel, stood up for the Palestinians, showed up the pro-American Arab regimes for what they are, forcing them to openly identify with Israel. In bitterness, some Arab commentators blamed the US for resurrecting the ancient Persian empire.
Now, suddenly – so it appears – the US love fest with Israel has run into a spot of trouble. In a reversal of its previous policy, the US is insisting that Israel suspend new settlement construction in East Jerusalem to pave the way for ‘peace’ talks with the Palestinian Authority. For a change, the US is countering Israel’s ‘No’ with tough talk not heard in a while.
On March 9, when the US Vice President was greeted in Tel Aviv with news of new settlements in East Jerusalem, he was furious. Privately, he told Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s settlement activity “undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us, and it endangers regional peace.”
This was not a message right-wing talk artists could shout down. Joe Biden was echoing the message delivered by General Petraeus, commander of US troops in the Middle East, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US Armed Services Committee. Hillary Clinton too reiterated this message in her speech to AIPAC.
What has occasioned this open rift between two spouses in a heavenly marriage? There have been tiffs before between them, but never before has a US administration told Israel that its policy endangers American troops or American interests in the Middle East? This talk is serious. It belies decades of rhetoric that has boosted Israel as America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East.
It appears that the past is beginning to catch up with Israel. Adversaries it had long suppressed, forces it had harnessed for its expansionist policy, blowbacks from decisions made in hubris have now converged to limit Israel’s options. Is the Zionist logic that had brought endless successes in the past now working in the opposite direction? Is Israel running out of its fabled resourcefulness?
Israel’s stunning victory in June 1967 had produced two destabilizing results. Having solved its native problem in 1948, Israel had created it anew in 1967 by its decision to retain the West Bank and Gaza. The June War also swelled the ranks of extremist Jews who began to colonize East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza. Unable to drive out the Palestinians, this new round of colonization would turn Israel into an apartheid state.
In the 2000s, international civil society started taking notice. Movements were launched to divest from, boycott and sanction Israel. Activists began to use Western legal systems to prosecute Israelis for war crimes. Israeli leaders visiting Western campuses are now heckled routinely. Slowly, Western publics are turning away from Israel.
In 1982, in a bid to extend Israel’s northern border, Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Shi’ites responded by creating Hizbullah, a multi-layered grass-roots resistance, the most formidable adversary Israel had ever faced. In 2000, they forced Israel to withdraw unilaterally, and in July 2006 repulsed a fresh Israeli invasion, giving Israel a bloody nose.
No more was Tehran a distant threat for Tel Aviv: it was now positioned right next to Israel’s northern border. Although Hizbullah spoke to the grit and discipline of Lebanese Shi’ites, it could not have grown without Iranian support.
At about the same time, as part of its strategy to defeat the Second Intifada, Israel built the apartheid Wall cutting through the West Bank, and it pulled the Jewish settlements out of Gaza while sealing it from outside contacts. By stopping the suicide-bombers, the Wall gave Israel time to complete the creation of Gaza-like enclaves in the West Bank. In consequence, ‘peace’ talks with Palestinians lost their urgency and were shelved. This made the pro-US Arab regimes a bit nervous: they needed the charade of ‘peace’ talks to shore up what little legitimacy they had with their home audience.
The Egyptian-Israeli siege of Gaza brought Iranian influence to Israel’s southern border. The siege has stopped Hamas from become another Hizbullah, but their home made rockets reminded Israel that its native problem had not gone away – that it would continue to haunt them.
In the 1990s, the Zionist logic had spawned al-Qaida, a group that would use terror to lure the US to wage war against the Middle East. After the Cold War, the Zionists too – led by the Neocons – pursued the same goal. Using the absurd thesis of the ‘clash of civilizations,’ they began to promote a Western war against the Islamicate. They urged the US to take out Iran, Syria and Iraq.
This was a departure from Israel’s long-standing war strategy. Israel took US money and weapons, but fought its own wars. This had several advantages. It built Israel’s military strength and prestige; it kept the US military out of Israel’s path to hegemony over the Middle East. Also, American support for Israel might wear thin if they saw their troops dying in Israel’s wars. If Israel was ready to abandon this strategy in the 1990s, that is because it could not take on Iran, Iraq and Syria on its own.
And so the die was cast. When al-Qaida struck on 9-11, Israel saw opportunity. The Zionists began to press full steam for the US to invade Iraq – and succeeded. Few Israelis worried that the chickens would come home to roost. In April 2008, Netanyahu said, “We are benefiting from…the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”
Now, some ten years later, the chickens are coming home to roost. The Iraq War has achieved little for Israel. It removed a defanged Saddam Hussein, but extended Iran’s influence into Iraq and it has brought Iranian proxies to its northern and southern borders. Iran now uses Palestine to undermine pro-US Arab regimes.
More ominously, the US military has now spoken. It has warned that Israeli policy raises tensions in the Middle East and endangers US troops on the ground. It will not be easy for Israel and its backers to shout down US generals with charges of anti-Semitism. That is why so many Zionist commentators look alarmed. One Israeli commentator warns that “Obama and Netanyahu are at point of no return.” Others are saying worse.
It appear unlikely that this ‘flap’ between the US and Israel will blow over soon. If it does not, attacks by Jewish groups – inside and outside Israel – against Obama will become more frequent and nastier. The loyalty of some Americans, both inside and outside the Congress, will be tested. It is hard to predict where this will go.
However, this much should be clear. Even if US-Israeli differences over the Middle East are finessed for now, that will not be the end of it. The pressures that have persuaded the US to insist on a ‘solution’ to the Palestinian problem will persist. The realities that have produced the present ‘flap’ are not going away.
– M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston. He is author of Israeli Exceptionalism (Palgrave, 2009) and Challenging the New Orientalism (IPI, 2006). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact him at alqalam02760@yahoo.com.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Jerusalem: Words, Lies and No Action

By Sonja Karkar

‘There isn’t one I haven’t heard’ or so goes one of the lines in a well-known American musical. Yet, this time the world is imbuing the words with new meaning when it comes to US/Israel relations. The hope is that at long last the US is going to discipline Israel.

Alas, in the flurry of words, the music has not changed. America seems as much bedazzled by Israel as a parent who is blind to the antics of an over-indulged, demanding child.  No amount of insults seems to shatter their illusion that the precious being is in fact a monster.

In their attempts to convince the rest of us not so enamoured, they fail to see that they have allowed their symbiotic relationships to become abusive.  Just as the parent can no longer control a child’s obnoxious behaviour, so too America finds itself hamstrung by Israel’s illegal settlement expansion into Palestinian territory and its determination to take and Judaise all of Jerusalem.  And while this time there have been some firm admonishments, there have been no follow-up consequences, America lapsing into the same old routine of placating Israel with promises to keep the faith.
 
The AIPAC conference in Washington DC provided the meeting place for the usual Israel love-in.  There, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu plumbed the depths. He lied when he said that Jews had built Jerusalem 3,000 years ago.  He lied when he said it was theirs to build again.  He lied when he said “it is our capital”.
No one pulled him up over those lies. Instead Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waffled on about how Israel’s behaviour exposes the daylight between them that others in the region hope to exploit – the same daylight that US Vice-president Biden vowed did not exist between the two countries – and how it endangers the proximity talks and America’s essential role in bringing those to fruition. But, not before she had told the audience that America’s commitment to Israel was “rock solid, enduring, unwavering and forever”.

Her prime concern was not that Israel’s behaviour denies millions of Palestinians the right to live in their own homeland and cruelly oppresses those who still do, but rather that America’s credibility as an honest broker in a long-defunct peace process might be at risk.

Nothing was said about Jerusalem being a corpus separatum under UN trusteeship since the Partition of Palestine in 1947 or that Israel does not have sovereignty over Jerusalem, despite its military conquests. Not a mention was made that East Jerusalem is occupied territory and that Israel is in breach of international law.
Netanyahu’s claims over Jerusalem presuppose an “eternal connection” between Jews and the land. But the historical record on that is clear. Not only are there non-Jewish groups who ruled Jerusalem for centuries rather than the brief 170 years of likely Jewish rule, but also the city existed long before Judaism took form.
On any reading, Jerusalem is no more Jewish than it is Christian or Islamic.  Yet, if anyone can lay claim to it by an “eternal connection”, it is the Palestinians whose history goes back millennia to the Canaanites who worshipped pagan deities and then to those who converted to emerging Judaism, Christianity and centuries later to ascendant Islam. Thus, the three monotheistic religions believe they too have a claim.  For this reason, the 1947 UN Partition resolution sought to give Jerusalem international status as a separate body.

To this day, the international community has refused to officially recognise Israeli sovereignty of Jerusalem. Notwithstanding this, Israel has pursued an aggressive policy of “unification” and “reunification” of Jewish Jerusalem by pushing out the boundaries of Palestinian East Jerusalem to some 73 sq km, well into the military-occupied West Bank where Israel has illegally settled some 300,000 Jews.

Secretary Clinton’s “no to settlements” and “no to natural growth” at the end of last year were empty words. Within days, she had eagerly announced that Netanyahu’s guarantees of no new settlement building and no new land grabs were “unprecedented” concessions. Nothing was said about the building going on in East Jerusalem, let alone the forced evictions of Palestinians, the demolition of their homes and Israeli building policies, which are deliberately skewed towards Jewish population growth.

One has to wonder what meaning words have at all when carefully considered ones are ignored.  A United Nations report of May 2009 put as many as 60,000 Palestinians at risk of eviction from their homes and called for a freeze on demolitions in East Jerusalem. Yet, the most that Secretary Clinton could say then – 10 months ago – was that Israel’s actions were “unhelpful” in advancing the peace process.

As has happened innumerable times in the past, the chiding words of US emissaries and government officials, are always quickly followed up with other words to reassure Israel of “the unbreakable bond” between the two countries, and more significantly, actions that belie the reprimands. In the midst of all the recent hoo-ha about chilling relations, a $210 million arms deal with Israel and paid for by US military aid nevertheless went ahead with an estimated massive $3 billion F-35 warplane deal still in the offing.

In other words, regardless of the song-sheet, America never misses a beat to give Israel what it wants. It will be interesting to see if the US does withdraw support for Israel in the United Nations on any resolutions before the Security Council critical of Israel’s settlement policies in occupied East Jerusalem. The rumours are fulminating amongst denials from both sides. While to many this signifies a change of heart in America’s love affair with Israel, it may be no more than the stuff of gossip columns to re-make America’s image as honest broker in the Middle East.

The disconnect between words and actions might please those who want peace more than they want justice for the Palestinians, but for many, the words have been done to death. By the time proximity talks morph into full negotiations, there will be no Jerusalem left to negotiate and no Palestinians left in Jerusalem. All words will then be meaningless.

– Sonja Karkar is the founder of Women for Palestine and one of the founders and co-convener of Australians for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. She is also the editor of www.australiansforpalestine.com and contributes articles on Palestine regularly to various publications. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Contact her at: sonjakarkar@womenforpalestine.org.

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

Soap Opera by Gilad Atzmon

Source 

Monday, March 29, 2010 at 11:53PM Gilad Atzmon

       “Montreal Jew sells concentration camp soap”, says today’s Ynet.

 Abraham Botines, the owner of a World War II collectibles shop, is under fire for selling bars of soap made in 1940 Nazi death camps. The items are for sale for just $300.

Botines, 73, the holocaust souvenir merchant, is the owner of a small antiques shop in Montreal and has recently added the soap, made in the concentration camps in Poland, to his list of collectibles.

The Spanish-born Jew sells numerous items from World War II, including Nazi soldiers’ former belongings. Apparently, his recent decision to sell soap from the concentration camps has evoked the anger of many members of Montreal’s Jewish community. 

I am left puzzled here. I really fail to grasp the holocaust exchange rate. Apparently, to ethnically cleanse Palestine in the name of the holocaust is ‘totally fine’.  To keep Palestinians in concentration camps, starve them and pour white phosphorous over their heads in the name of the shoa is ‘kosher’.  To invade Iraq or nuke Iran in the name of Jewish suffering is ‘totally acceptable’, yet, pocketing $300 out of a ‘shoa soap bar’ is regarded as a crime by some Jews in Montreal. 

Botines says he is not selling the items to promote Nazi propaganda, but to “preserve the memory of the Holocaust”. I think that this is totally reasonable. For just $300 you can have your own holocaust museum in your bath cabinet. I guess that it is just a question of time before we have the Wannsee Protocol on toilet paper available for general consumption.

Interestingly enough, representatives of the Jewish community in Montreal have requested that the police investigate the matter, and “examine whether the soap really was made from human fat.”

It is now a widely accepted fact that the Nazis didn’t make soap out of human fat*. However, one crucial question is left open: what kind of people can come up with such a horrible phantasmic tale? What kind of people invent a story in which other people transform them into soap?

 *   Bill Hutman, “Nazis never made human-fat soap,” The Jerusalem Post – International Edition, week ending May 5, 1990.    “Holocaust Expert Rejects Charge That Nazis Made Soap from Jews,” Northern California Jewish Bulletin, April 27, 1990. (JTA dispatch from Tel Aviv.) Facsimile in: Christian News, May 21, 1990, p. 19.

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 Uprooted Palestinian

Palestinians abort Jewish attempt to slaughter sacrifices in Aqsa

[ 30/03/2010 – 04:56 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– Palestinian citizens and guards of the Aqsa Mosque on Tuesday repelled a group of fanatic Jews who tried to storm the holy site and slaughter cattle as a sacrifice on the occasion of the Jewish Passover.

Palestinian sources said that steadfastness of the citizens compelled the Israeli occupation police to block the fanatics from accessing their cattle fearing for their “safety”.

Locals had reported separate confrontations between Jerusalemites and Israeli policemen on Monday in the vicinity of the Old City especially at the Asbat gate because of the restrictions imposed on worshipers wishing to access the Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli police command had declared a state of alert in Jerusalem and the surroundings of the Aqsa Mosque on the eve of the Jewish Passover.

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 Uprooted Palestinian

Israel ‘stole thousands of Brit IDs’

Airline staff working for secret service may have copied passports, chiefs fear

28/03/2010

SECURITY chiefs fear thousands of British passports have been copied by airline staff working for the Israeli secret service Mossad.

Britons flying to Israel have been targeted for months and their documents cloned, MI6 believe.

It follows an investigation into how copies of documents belonging to British people were used in the January assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, in Dubai. On Tuesday, Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat believed to be Mossad’s top agent operating here.

And the Foreign Office this week held top level talks on whether to issue a warning against travelling with certain airlines.

Senior cops are also concerned about security searches carried out on British officials attending a terrorism conference in Israel last September.

A source revealed: “It was said to be routine but the searches did not apply to all nations.

“There is now a real concern that some of these high-ranking officers and officials have also had documents cloned.”

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 Uprooted Palestinian

Land Day; A Day of Fidelity to the Holy Land

Land Day

30/03/2010 “There, behind these borders lies our holy land, my dear.” This is what Hajj Abu Imad tells his grandsons whenever they go to the Lebanese-Palestinian border, south of Lebanon.

The peak of Hajj Abu Imad’s frequent visits to the border, is on the 30th of March of every year, ever since the resistance forced Israeli occupation forces out of most of south Lebanon in 2000. The date marks Land Day.

The 76-year old Palestinian, who tasted the bitterness of the 1948 displacement from his home in Al-Khalil, accompanies his two grandsons, Ahmed and Jihad, to a point where they can see as much of occupied Palestine as they can. “When we were forced out of our homes, we kept everything we owned right where were, we closed the door and we kept the key..this key with us with the hope of returning back. I was 14 back then, today I’m 76, but I’ve never lost hope. I don’t want you to lose hope either. Everything you see across this borderline is yours, and this is the key to gain it back one day,” the old hajj told his grandsons with a shivering voice and tearing eyes.

Judith Miller and David Samuels wrote in the 2009 article (No way home: The tragedy of the Palestinian diaspora) in The Independent wrote: “For decades, Arab governments have justified their decision to maintain millions of stateless Palestinians as refugees in squalid camps as a means of applying pressure to Israel. The refugee problem will be solved, they say, when Israel agrees to let the Palestinians have their own state. Yet in the two decades since the end of the Cold War, after two Gulf wars, and the rise and fall of the Oslo peace process, not a single Palestinian refugee has returned to Israel – and only a handful of ageing political functionaries have returned from neighbouring Arab countries to the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, failed peace plans and shifting political priorities have resulted in a second Palestinian “Nakba”, or catastrophe – this one at hands of the Arab governments.”

Every March 30 of the past few decades, Hajj Abu Imad and all the Palestinians dispersed among various countries mark Land Day to protest Israel’s occupation and expansionist schemes in Palestine.

On the 30th of March, 1976, Israeli occupation forces killed six Palestinians and injured dozens more as they were demonstrating against the confiscation of 5,000 acres of land in the Galilee, north of Palestine, between the villages of Sikhnin and Arrabe. Solidarity strikes were also held almost simultaneously in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and in most of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

This year’s Land Day comes after the Israeli occupation government announced the will to build hundreds of more settler homes in occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem (Al-Quds). “Building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this month.

This year’s Land Day also comes after more than 62 years of occupation, more than 22 Arab summits, more than 18 years of post-Oslo negotiations, two Intifadas and close to 4.5 million Palestinians living in diaspora, like young Ahmed and Jihad, all counting on Arab consciousness and steadfastness and resistance at home to guarantee their return to the holy land.

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Uprooted Palestinian

The President: We’ll Preserve Resistance; I Adopt Assad’s Stances

Al Manar

30/03/2010 Lebanese President Michel Sleiman stressed his adherence to the demand to consolidate the authorities of the president. In an interview with the Assafir daily, published Tuesday, Sleiman said he “will not back down.” “I will renew my demand at the appropriate time. I still want the authorities that enable the president to use the red card against violators and preserve equilibrium,” Sleiman said.

The president underlined the “need” for the resistance “to face the Israeli enemy.” He added: “We shall preserve it with our eye lashes and we need it. Our need for the resistance is still pressing and anything outside this need for the resistance is worthless.”

On Lebanon’s ties with Syria and President Bashar Assad, President Sleiman said “relations with Damascus are special and strategic.” He added that “President Assad is highly credible and his importance lies with the fact that he’s honest and does not take sides.”

The Lebanese President hailed his Syrian counterpart’s interview with Al-Manar last week as “more than positive, and I adopt all Assad’s stances.”

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 Uprooted Palestinian

"We are defending our culture": an interview with Samir Joubran

Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 29 March 2010

Samir Joubran

Earlier this month the Palestinian group Le Trio Joubran gave a concert in Geneva to support the work of the Association Meyrin-Palestine, which is planning to build a cultural center in Gaza. Le Trio Joubran is comprised of three brothers, Samir, Wissam and Adnan Joubran, who play the oud, a pear-shaped instrument from the Middle East related to the lute. The Electronic Intifada contributor Adri Nieuwhof spoke with Samir Joubran about the trio’s music.

Adri Nieuwhof: Can you please introduce yourself?

Samir Joubran: I am the older brother of Wissam and Adnan. We are musicians from Palestine, born in Nazareth. My father was a third-generation oud-maker and player. Wissam studied at the Antonia Stradivari Conservatory in Italy. He learned how to build string instruments, violins in particular. Wissam built our instruments. I have a classical background and started to perform at the age of 12. In 2003, Wissam and I released a CD, it is a duet, a meeting of our ouds. Last year we released our third CD, a tribute to Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. We compose all of our music ourselves. Maybe it is the first time in history that three ouds play together, and that three brothers are the players.

AN: Why did you choose to play the oud? What does the instrument mean to you?

SJ: I grew up in a house filled with ouds. My father finished a new instrument every month. You can say, I lived in a house that was occupied by the oud. The instrument is the father of all stringed instruments. It is over 4,000 years old. It is more than a piece of wood; when you play, you hug it, you feel it resonate in your stomach. This instrument is part of your body, it is part of our culture, our identity. Two weeks ago we were in Nazareth. We gave a concert in Haifa and one in Ramallah, on the date of Mahmoud Darwish’s birth, 13 March. The Palestinian Authority has declared this day as the National Day of the Culture of Palestine. At the concert we used Mahmoud Darwish’s voice and vocals [by playing a recording of the poet reciting his work].

AN: I saw you perform at a concert in support of Gaza. What made you decide to do this?

SJ: We have 70 to 80 concerts each year, mostly in Europe. We get invitations from professional places; they invite us for our music. We have performed about four times in Geneva, we like it, and the public likes us. The association which invited us is helping Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. We did not think twice. We want to support our human cause for liberty and freedom. We are not aiming to be heroes or victims. We want to live as human beings.

AN: Your brothers Wissam and Adnan are the other members of the trio. Your music sounds as if you speak with one voice. How did this come about?

SJ: Our story is not only about music, it is also about our family. Problems in our family will harm our music. I brought my brother Wissam (who is ten years younger) on board, because he was a very good oud player. Adnan had to practice a lot to make him ready to perform. We understand each other, we have the emotions, we share the same background, we come from the same school of music. It is one unity. But we keep our personal style, it is still there in our music. We are working in one group. We are working for Palestine, for our culture.

AN: Can you discuss your relationship with Mahmoud Darwish? Why is he important for you?

SJ: I started to perform with Mahmoud Darwish in 1996. With him in person, with what he means to me, with his poems — he is the most important poet of the last century. We had a concert in Arles [France] with him two weeks before he died. He told me, you have your future in front of you. My future is in the past. Mahmoud Darwish is everywhere in our music, also in the name of the tunes. He once mentioned the word “majaz” to me, it is “metaphor” in English. I did not know the word and asked him the meaning. He said a metaphor is “in the shadow of words.” We entitled our latest CD this in tribute of Mahmoud Darwish; Mahmoud Darwish was the voice of Palestine and the other name for Palestine.

AN: You mentioned you gave a concert in Ramallah on 13 March. Was it easy for you to travel?

SJ: When we traveled from Nazareth to Ramallah we had to stop at the Qalandiya checkpoint for two hours. You maybe have heard of the unrest in Jerusalem? At Qalandiya there was a lot of shooting, tear gas was fired, soldiers were running around. We stayed because we wanted to enter Ramallah. We want a normal life in an abnormal situation. We wanted to put the problems of the people in Ramallah in a nice atmosphere, with love and an artistic environment. People of all generations came to our concert. Our work is to give a little example of hope in the difficult situation we live in.

AN: Do you think Palestinian culture is under threat?

SJ: Yes, yes, but I think all the cultures are under threat, because of the Internet. We Palestinians don’t need to look at other cultures. Tradition is not what you read in the past. It is what you write today. We are defending our culture. Israel tries to steal our land, our trees, our souls. But they cannot steal our culture. If we want to make sure this is our culture, and we dig deeper in our culture, then we make our history. I hope that one day Palestine will be free, so that we as a trio will also be free. We want to go on stage just like other musicians. Musicians from Sweden don’t need to think of freedom of their country when they perform. No, once Palestine is free, we are free.

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.

Related Links

• Le Trio Joubran

The inconvenient detail

Frustraited Arab’s Diary

1. He knew about it ….

   Notorious Paedophiles are recently exposed
   one scandal after another  !!and there are cover-up manoeuvres
   up to very high levels.
   
   Amazingly ,
   the religion of the paedophiles, here, is ignored.
   
   How come then ,
   each time a “Terrorist” is caught
   we hear about which religion he has had   ????
   
   It seems that religion is a inconvenient- detail
   
   Terrorism could stop after Justice comes,
   but , what can stop paedophilia ??
   Sherlock Hommos
   sociologist

Posted by Тлакскала at 9:36 PM

River to Sea
 Uprooted Palestinian

"High-jacking" Lebanon & the World: The ‘Hariri Tribunal’ carnival…

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Michael Young (who, as we say in Lebanon, “still has a souk”) inches closer to switching from the ‘blame-Syria’ to the ‘Blame-Hezbollah’ mode….. in a ‘Happy’ Foreign Policy, here

“We’re happy to feature today an excerpt from Michael Young’s new book, that explores the immediate aftermath of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri on February 14, 2005. I caught up with Young to hear his thoughts on how this event continues to reverberate, both in Lebanon and in the international arena. Here’s what he had to say:

FP: How does Hariri’s assassination continue to affect Lebanese politics today?

MY: ………..Indictments may come later this year or early next, and Lebanese political life is bracing for the consequences, given that although Syria likely gave the order and a suicide bomber actually carried out the attack, Lebanese parties — many people in Beirut believe Hezbollah — participated in some capacity. There is fear that an accusation against Hezbollah, if the party was indeed involved, or against other Lebanese might destabilize Lebanon. Still, the Lebanese authorities have a responsibility to go through with this, since from the outset those who supported the investigation and tribunal knew where it might lead, and saw these measures as a way of preventing similar killings in the future. On a more personal level, I feel that for the tribunal to truly succeed, it has to identify all the guilty, not merely low-level enablers. However, I’m not at all sure that this will be the outcome. (but that would do for Michael, bless his heart, as long as the ‘low-level enablers’ are members of Hezbollah)

FP: You discuss how Hariri’s murder caused a fundamental split between the Lebanese Sunni community and the Syrian regime. Has this relationship healed with time, or do Lebanese Sunnis still largely hold Syria responsible for the death of Hariri?

MY: The Sunnis know who killed Hariri (headed by Sunni gliteratti such as Said Mirza & Mufti Qabbani), but the imperatives of Arab politics have intervened to alter the Sunni-Syrian relationship. Just over a year ago, Saudi Arabia began a reconciliation process with Syria–its intention to draw Damascus away from Iran, whose rise the Arab countries, particularly those in the Gulf, view as a threat to their own regimes. An implicit quid pro quo emerged, whereby the Saudis gave Syria greater latitude in Lebanon, in part to contain the pro-Iranian Hezbollah. The Syrians gladly took that offer in order to reimpose their writ in Beirut, but have offered little in exchange. Syria’s regime has maintained its close ties with Tehran and continues to arm and support Hezbollah. A byproduct of that Saudi-Syrian rapprochement was a so-called ‘reconciliation’ last December between Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, Rafiq’s son who is politically beholden to the Saudis, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

FP: The Obama administration recently announced the appointment of Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria — the first ambassador to the country since the United States withdrew its ambassador following Hariri’s assassination. What was the U.S. reaction in response to this attack, and is its resolve to bring the perpetrators to justice waning?

MY: I don’t see evidence that American interest in bringing the perpetrators to justice is waning, and from what I’m hearing that’s not the case. But can we be sure? (but you’re ‘hearing’ Michael, from say, Erich Follath? so you have to be sure?!) The Hariri investigation (which was independent, we should remember) was and is a complex case that has suffered from investigative flaws. Those shortcomings have tested the commitment of many countries, amid continued reluctance at U.N. headquarters to deal with the consequences of a potentially destabilizing investigation. I don’t necessarily believe that Robert Ford’s appointment is a sign that Washington has given up on the Hariri investigation. My problem with the step is that the Obama administration got nothing in exchange for that concession; but paradoxically that may only increase its interest in seeing the Hariri tribunal through, in the hope that the ensuing accusations allow it to squeeze the Syrians. That’s not to say the indictments, if or when they come, will serve a specific political agenda, but there is no doubt that they will have political consequences. “

Posted by G, Z, or B at 4:27 PM 

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 Uprooted Palestinian

In Obama’s White House: "… a suggestion of Denis Ross’s "dual loyalties"…"

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Smith & Rosen in POLITICO/ here

” … Sources say within the inter-agency process, White House Middle East strategist Dennis Ross is staking out a position that Washington needs to be sensitive to Netanyahu’s domestic political constraints including over the issue of building in East Jerusalem in order to not raise new Arab demands, while other officials including some aligned with Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell are arguing Washington needs to hold firm in pressing Netanyahu for written commitments to avoid provocations that imperil Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to preserve the Obama administration’s credibility.
POLITICO spoke with several officials who confirmed the debate and its intensity. Ross did not respond to a query, nor did a spokesman for George Mitchell.
“He [Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu’s coalition politics than to U.S. interests,” one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. “And he doesn’t seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this Administration.”

What some saw as the suggestion of dual loyalties shows how heated the debate has become.

Last week, during U.S.-Israeli negotiations during Netanyahu’s visit and subsequent internal U.S. government meetings, the official said, Ross “was always saying about how far Bibi could go and not go. So by his logic, our objectives and interests were less important than pre-emptive capitulation to what he described as Bibi’s coalition’s red lines.”

When the U.S. and Israel are seen to publicly diverge on an issue such as East Jerusalem construction, the official characterized Ross’s argument as: “the Arabs increase their demands … therefore we must rush to close gaps … no matter what the cost to our broader credibility.”
A second official confirmed the broad outlines of the current debate within the administration. Obviously at every stage of the process, the Obama Middle East team faces tactical decisions about what to push for, who to push, how hard to push, he described.
As to which argument best reflects the wishes of the President, the first official said, “As for POTUS, what happens in practice is that POTUS, rightly, gives broad direction. He doesn’t, and shouldn’t, get bogged down in minutiae. But Dennis uses the minutiae to blur the big picture … And no one asks the question: why, since his approach in the Oslo years was such an abysmal failure, is he back, peddling the same snake oil?”Other contacts who have discussed recent U.S.-Israel tensions with Ross say he argues that all parties need to keep focus on the big picture, Iran, and the peace process as being part of a wider U.S. effort to bolster an international and regional alliance including Arab nations and Israel to pressure and isolate Iran. This is an argument that presumably has resonance with the Netanyahu government. But at the same time, Arab allies tell Washington that Israeli construction in East Jerusalem inflames their publics and breeds despair and makes it hard for them to work even indirectly and quietly with Israel on Iran. They push Washington to show it can manage Israel and to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace process going that would facilitate regional cooperation on Iran.

The surfacing of the fierce internal debate underway comes as sources said that the Israeli government is expected to announce as soon as Sunday or Monday that it has struck a deal with Washington on U.S. requests for confidence building steps to advance peace talks.
But officials even disagreed over the nature of the deal or understanding reached.
“There’s no deal as would be understood by most,” the first U.S. official said.“That is, there’s no shared, negotiated and agreed document. Instead, the Israelis have told us a few things we accept as positive, along with much we don’t. So I expect you’ll see us put out something that emphasizes our acceptance of only part of whatever the Israelis say.”
On Friday, before details of the internal administration debate surfaced and in response to Israeli news reports that a spokesman for the Prime Minister had suggested an understanding had already been reached between the Israeli and American governments, a White House spokesman said there was no deal yet.
“United States policy on Jerusalem has not changed,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said by email. “We have not reached any understandings on this issue with the Israeli Government. This is an issue on which the US government has had long-standing differences with multiple Israeli governments and the President believes that the only way for the parties to resolve these issues is by returning to negotiations. That’s why we’ve been talking to the Israelis about how to create an atmosphere that will allow the negotiations to succeed. Those conversations have been productive and will continue, as will our conversations with the Palestinians, about how to make the talks successful.”

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