THE HIDDEN FACE OF SANCTIONS

Via My Catbird Seat

– 01. Aug, 2010 By Dr. Alan Sabrosky*

The sanctions imposed recently against Iran by the United Nations, and later separately by the US Congress, have one thing in common. Both were driven by the US at the instigation of Israel.

But they are also, I believe, generally misunderstood. Sanctions are normally intended to alter the behavior of the country being sanctioned — to punish it for what it is doing, to keep it from continuing practices or policies others find objectionable, or both.

And overtly, that is the function of these sanctions. But that is not their actual purpose.

Now, I do not know whether Iran’s government has a hidden military agenda to its nuclear program. Given Israel’s own nuclear capabilities, and the very different fates of Iraq (which had no nuclear weapons) and North Korea (which did), any sensible country anywhere on Israel’s enemies list — which is by extension today America’s target list — would acquire a deliverable nuclear capability by any means whatsoever as soon as possible.

But the reality is to see sanctions against Iran in the same light as inspections for the non-existent WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq in 2002-2003. In those days, the US and its close partners kept insisting that Iraq had WMDs when none of the inspectors on the ground, including the US representatives, found or believed it had.

Yet the claims persisted, and the purpose was to condition the US public for a war that need never have happened, except for Israel and its partisans in the US. And they succeeded. Americans generally believed the false claims, generally supported the war against Iraq, and whatever disenchantment occurred took place only because the war and the subsequent occupation did not proceed as smoothly as its architects had intended.

This is the pattern being repeated against Iran. The real purpose of sanctions is not to affect the policies of the Iranian government, because nothing it does will affect the sanctions. It is to prepare the US public for an attack against Iran, almost certainly in conjunction with Israel, to destroy Israel’s last remaining competitor in the region and to provide a cover for Israel’s expulsion of the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, into Jordan and the Sinai respectively.

So it would be unwise either to disregard sanctions or to try to accommodate them. The only sensible response, I believe, for Iran and its friends is to put in place something that the US would not dare to attack. That inevitably means something with or from China or India, especially the former, no matter what the cost — because anything expended to preclude a US-Israeli strike would be far cheaper than enduring that strike and its aftermath, even if the region then exploded in America’s face. Watching an enemy suffer is fine, but not at that price.

*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Arrested for revealing the "legitimate laws" permitting killing non-Jew

Israeli religious and government leaders condemn arrest of rabbi who authored book permitting killing of non-Jews

YNET – Dozens of rabbis, National Religious figures sign condemnation of Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira’s arrest over book.

Rabbi Aviner tells Ynet:

I am opposed to book, but religious laws governing killing non-Jews outlined in it are legitimate, must be dealt with halachically’

The Religious Zionist movement has issued a blanket condemnation of the arrest of Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira over the book he authored. Dozens of rabbis, Knesset members, and National Religious public figures have signed a petition against the rabbi’s arrest, claiming that he expressed “a halachic opinion.”

The petition also came out against the manner in which he was arrested – in the middle of the night by dozens of policemen.

Beit El Rabbi Shlomo Aviner told Ynet on Monday that the book “Torat Hamelech” is a “halachic-academic work, a pedagogical work,” and, therefore, there is no justification to send its author to prison.

According to Aviner, the “‘religious laws governing the killing of a non-Jew’ outlined in the book are a legitimate stance and must be addressed via clarification of halachic sources and nothing else.”

‘Treated like worst of criminals’

Despite this, Rabbi Aviner said that he is against the book’s publication. “I do not think it is correct to write various halachas on killing a non-Jew, just a Swede should not write about killing a Norwegian,” he said. “It is clear that it is forbidden to kill non-Jews for naught, and it is clear that in a time of war, it is permissible to defend yourself against anyone shooting at you, even if he is a ‘good’ person.”

Even head of the Tzohar organization, Rabbi David Stav, known as one o the moderate forces within Religious Zionism, condemned Shapira’s arrest: “Regardless of the level of halachic legitimacy of his opinions, it is unreasonable and illogical that a rabbi in Israel be treated like the worst of criminals. For some reason, they are treating him in a way they would not dare treat public officials or even Palestinians.”

Rabbi Stav said that he would expect the security forces to contact Shapira and summon him to the police station honorably, and not treat him as someone who is likely to escape and evade investigation.

“Nothing new happened yesterday or today,” he mentioned. “Apparently, it was simply a desire to mock and humiliate him.”

In principle, the Tzohar chairman believes the State has the right to arrest rabbis over their halachic positions if they believe there is significant concern that they may be acted on or could realistically encourage breaking the law so as to prevent “chaos.”

“A distinction must be made between making a theoretical statement and a model for an operative plan of action,” he said. “For this matter, even if it is halachically permissible to kill Arabs, it is the State’s right to arrest whoever says this,” he said.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The Hariri Tribunal Conspiracy

My Catbird Seat

– 31. Jul, 2010
By Sami Moubayed

Saudi King Abdullah’s landmark visit to Syria on Thursday, his second since assuming the throne in 2005, mirrors Arab diplomacy at its finest hour.

The king is worried – just like his Syrian host President Bashar al-Assad – about two critical files in the Arab world: Iraq and Lebanon.

In Iraq, political rivalries have prevented creation of a cabinet for five months, signaling a political vacuum and security disaster in the weeks to come that would be very troubling for Syria and Saudi Arabia, two of Iraq’s main neighbors.

The situation in Lebanon is even more dangerous and if allowed to explode could shake the Middle East beyond repair. Earlier this summer, the deputy Israeli chief of staff, Gaby Ashkenazi said that an earthquake was in store for Lebanon later this year, when the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) names Hezbollah figures in connection with the 2005 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Hezbollah, furious with the accusation, cried foul play, claiming that the entire investigation is flawed because it has relied on false witnesses (who were never arrested or questioned for their motives) and because it never considered Israel as a possible suspect in the Hariri affair.

Last week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah came out accusing the tribunal of being “an Israeli project” that aimed at targeting the Lebanese resistance. What Israel failed to achieve through war in 2006, he added, it will try to attain through the STL.

The international community, with strong Israeli encouragement, tried to break Hezbollah through United Nations Security Council resolution 1559, in 2004. That clearly did not work and nor did the war of 2006, which promised – and failed – to annihilate Hezbollah.
Today, four years down the road, Hezbollah is stronger than ever and, even by testimony of Israeli military strategists, seems have been left almost unscratched by the war of 2006. The war rumored to take place this summer is no guaranteed success for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and it cannot shoulder another defeat at the hands of the Lebanese guerrillas.

It seems only logical that Israel would try to nail the Lebanese group through the Hariri affair, hoping that this would shatter the current alliance between Hezbollah and Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the second son of Rafik, along with creating havoc between Lebanese Sunnis and Shi’ites.

The handwriting has been on the wall for nearly four years now, first surfacing in a French publication in 2006 then vibrating throughout upper echelons of power in Beirut. However, it has never been so bluntly debated in public and the media.

After an article in Le Figaro blamed Hezbollah for the Hariri murder, another report in a Kuwaiti daily was published in March 2009, followed by a very controversial report in Der Spiegel in May 2009. Der Spiegel, while refraining from naming a single source, said that a “special force” from Hezbollah had “planned and executed the diabolical attack” under orders from a certain Hajj Samil (no last name), who it described as Hezbollah’s second-in-command and head of a special operational unit.

Le Monde repeated the accusation in February 2010, followed by Ashkenazi last June. Hezbollah says that it can never take the tribunal seriously so long if Ashkenazi knew of its verdicts beforehand. This would only confirm what Nasrallah has been saying all along: that the international investigation is a vehicle aimed at tarnishing Hezbollah’s image and trying to finish what was started in 2004 and 2006 by resolution 1559 and the 33-day war respectively.

It seems a steady case is being prepared against Hezbollah by its opponents, both at home and in the international community. It started in November 2009 when a German ship was apprehended by the Israelis, who claimed that it was carrying Iranian arms to Hezbollah.

Then came the April 2010 affair when Israel said that Hezbollah had received long-range Scud missiles from Syria. Now comes the STL which will say that Hezbollah officials were responsible for Hariri’s murder.

Hezbollah claims that ultimately Israel is trying to create a situation where Lebanon erupts into chaos and becomes hostile territory for the group. If it is accused of killing Hariri, the premier would be forced to distance himself from Hezbollah, who are crucial pillars of his coalition cabinet. Perhaps – if Israel gets its way – he would need to revoke a cabinet pledge to “protect and embrace” the arms of Hezbollah.

Ultimately, many in Hezbollah fear that someone will resume political assassinations in Lebanon so as to blame them and set the stage for a thundering declaration of their guilt in the Hariri assassination.

If the predictions turn out to be correct, and such an indictment is released later in 2010, several options would be on the table. One is for the UN to place Lebanon under Chapter Seven, which gives the Security Council the right to take military action to maintain security. The UN could claim that the 23 Hezbollah figures earmarked for accusation are a threat to international peace.

If this happens, Hezbollah will certainly refuse the verdicts and so will the Lebanese state, perhaps prompting the international community to wage war on Lebanon. Another option would be for the Lebanese government to try talking Nasrallah into a trade-off; meaning the figures named would be accused of acting at their own will and not as members of Hezbollah.

Nasrallah has repeatedly said that such trade-off is absolutely not on the table, refusing to even discuss the option that his party had been infiltrated by undisciplined warriors. A third option – and this is where Syrian and Saudi Arabian diplomacy can come into play – would be for Saad Hariri to come to his senses and repeat what Nasrallah has said – that the STL is an Israeli project that needs to be drowned at any cost.

In his capacity as both son of the slain prime minister and the current premier of Lebanon, Hariri could deprive the STL from any legitimacy.

Both Syria and Saudi Arabia refuse to see Lebanon slip into chaos. The Saudis have too much at stake in Lebanon, politically, emotionally, financially and morally, to see their ally crash so abruptly. Saad simply cannot hold on to his post without full Hezbollah support and in order to maintain it, he needs to take sides against the STL and put his full weight behind Hezbollah.

If this means turning his back on the STL and anti-Hezbollah allies like the Lebanese Forces council president, Samir Geagea, then this is a price the premier would be – should be – willing to pay to keep Lebanon safe and united. The Syrians made it clear to Saad during his last visit to Damascus that Hezbollah is a red line that cannot be crossed.
They will never tolerate any international meddling with the arms, reputation, or future of Hezbollah. According to media reports, the Saudi king and Syrian president will head to Beirut on Friday to hammer out a solution to the boiling crisis in Lebanese politics. Only these two Arab heavyweights can talk Saad Hariri into a u-turn on the STL.

Sami Moubayed is Historian, political commentator and editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria. This article appeared in Asia Times on July 30, 2010 entitled, “Hezbollah sees plot behind Hariri Tribunal.’’

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Middle East History Buff Hague whitewashes Israel’s Villainy on the High Seas

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Intifada Palestine

30. Jul, 2010

By Stuart Littlewood

Thousands of Palestinian Muslims and Christians are denied the entry to their holiest sites in Jerusalem

“We have to be steeped in the Middle East, way back to historical matters. Because you can’t understand it without the history.”

My MP, a Foreign Office minister in the shiny new coalition government, has written to me saying he believes the Foreign Secretary was “extremely fair, tough and statesmanlike” in his reaction to Israel’s murderous assault on the vessel Mavi Marmara and the rest of the Free Gaza flotilla.

So I re-read William Hague’s statement to the House of Commons on 2 June, and it struck me as something the Israeli government spin doctor Mark Regev might have penned.
Here are some extracts:

• “Our clear advice to British nationals is not to travel to Gaza.“

Just what Israel wants to hear. This “advice” serves to legitimize Israel’s illegal sea blockade and use of lethal force against unarmed British citizens and other nationals peacefully going about their lawfully business in international waters.

• “We deeply deplore the loss of life…”

There must be stinging consequences for this latest barbaric act. The word “deplore” is for the spineless, do-nothing handwringers.

• “Their welfare [meaning the British nationals on board] is our top priority.”

Mr Hague must have been alerted to advance warnings that Israel would go to any lengths, including violence, to stop the mercy ships but he took no precautionary action. Where is the mighty Royal Navy when not cruising the Caribbean or sunning itself in the Gulf? When consular access was then denied to some of the 37 Britishers abducted and jailed by Israel the Foreign Office meekly accepted the insult.

• “…those individuals who are allegedly involved in violence against Israeli servicemen during the boarding”

Mr Hague doesn’t seem to grasp that the violence was committed by Israeli storm-troopers dropping from helicopters with guns blazing under cover of darkness.

• “Restrictions on Gaza should be lifted – a view confirmed in United Nations security council resolution 1860.”

Resolution 1860 goes much further and calls for the sustained reopening of crossing points on the basis of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access, which provides for
Ø the reduction of obstacles to movement within the West Bank
Ø bus and truck convoys between the West Bank and Gaza
Ø the building of a new seaport in Gaza
Ø re-opening of the airport in Gaza

Nearly eight months ago the European Council repeated the EU’s call for “an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza” and for “full implementation of The Agreement on Movement and Access”.

What is the point of mouthing this stuff again and again and not backing it up with ACTION?

• “Hamas now has near total control of the economy”.

Perhaps our Treasury people should take lessons from them…

• “We will, therefore, continue to press the Israeli government to lift the closure of Gaza, and plan early discussions… about what more can be done to ensure an unfettered flow of aid.”

The Foreign Office is exceedingly well practised at pressing and urging. However, “unfettered flow” is not going to happen without a naval escort and/or sanctions. If Mr Hague hasn’t learned this he hasn’t been paying attention.

• “The House should not forget the role played by Hamas in this conflict. They continue to pursue an ideology of violence and directly to undermine prospects for peace in the region.”

Mr Hague must take everyone for fools. Hamas won the 2006 elections fair and square and has been subjected to a relentless blockade, armed incursions, air strikes, sanctions, assassinations, an attempted putsch and a devastating 22-day blitzkrieg. Continually accusing Hamas of undermining prospects for peace is the ultimate absurdity.

• “Violence has continued in recent days, with rocket fire from militants in Gaza and Israeli military incursions and air strikes in response.”

On the question of who provokes and who responds Mr Hague should consider how Israel violated the cease-fire to pave the way to the Gaza war of December 2008 and still carries out air-strikes on a daily basis.

• “We call on Hamas to make immediate and concrete steps towards the quartet principles – unconditionally to release Gilad Shalit.”

Something like 11,000 Palestinian civilians are held (and believed tortured) in Israeli jails, many without charge. Why isn’t Mr Hague calling for their release? Shalit is a tank gunner captured in 2006. In the three years following Israel’s troop withdrawal to Gaza’s perimeter in 2005 some 1,250 Gazans, including 222 children, were killed by tank gunners and other Israeli military personnel while 11 Israelis were killed by Palestinian rocket fire.

• “The only long-term and sustainable solution to the conflict which produced these tragic events is a two-state solution.“

Politicians like Hague have stood back and allowed Israel to seize so much key Palestinian territory and establish so many ‘facts on the ground’ that the chances of a viable Palestinian state are vanishing fast.

• “The proximity talks that are currently underway are more important than ever.”

Is he serious? How credible are ‘talks’ when one party has a gun to the other’s head and continues to steal its land, colonize its territory and murder its citizens? What honest broker would be party to such a farce?

William Hague is our top international representative. He has the power to heavily influence whether Britain makes war or peace, whether we make friends or enemies, and whether our soldiers live or needlessly die. Yet he seems to have trouble interpreting intelligence. One can see how the poor chap got his knickers in a fearful twist over Iraq and voted enthusiastically to get us mired in that shameful war… And did anyone hear him speak out against the folly of invading Afghanistan when it was his duty, as a leading Opposition figure at the time, to hold our lunatic Labour government to account?

Now he rattles his sabre at Iran and wants to turn Britain into a safe haven for Israel’s war criminals.

All things considered the guy is a big worry.

Prime minister David Cameron was a little nearer the mark when he called the blockaded Gaza Strip a “prison camp”. That brought loud squawks from the usual suspects. Plain speaking earns him a cheer but Cameron, like Hague, is an avid admirer of Israel and calls himself a Zionist.

He too only talked of “humanitarian access”, failing to acknowledge that Gazans are not allowed to export anything and therefore cannot make a living.

He has nothing to say about the 3,500 licensed fishermen who are shot up by Israeli patrol boats whenever they put to sea. Or Gaza’s students who are blocked from studying at their West Bank universities.

Or all the Christians and their Muslim brothers and sisters who are prevented from worshipping at their holy places in Jerusalem.
Or even Gaza’s marine gas field, which Israel has its greedy eyes on and Palestinians can’t go near.

Mr Hague, according to the Jewish Chronicle, told David Cameron as soon as he became Conservative party leader in 2005 that a deep understanding of the Middle East would be crucial to his claims to be taken seriously as a statesman. “We have to be steeped in the Middle East, way back to historical matters. Because you can’t understand it without the history. That’s been one of the failings sometimes with the Western governments.”

Yes, but when is the history lesson, and the story of the West’s betrayal, going to sink in?

Finally, Viva Palestina has just sent this message: “Despite the recent claims by Israel that they have ‘eased’ the siege on Gaza, vital medical supplies and equipment are still prohibited from entering the besieged region.

In June, the World Health Organization reported that Israel blocked the delivery of essential medical equipment, including a CT scanner, defibrillators and monitors.

“In addition, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Israel confiscated seven oxygen machines, donated by a Norwegian development agency, and refused to allow delivery of x-ray machines, claiming they could be used for military purposes.”

Consequently, says the message, there is a critical shortage of vital medicines and essential life saving equipment, and other supplies are expected to run out very soon.

What does it take for Cameron, Hague and Britain’s limp-wristed Foreign Office to run out of patience and forcibly smash this cruel blockade?

Stuart Littlewood

30 July 2010

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit http://www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Gilad Atzmon: Islamophobia in Britain: The Products, The Names and The Faces

By Gilad Atzmon

Islamophobia has made it to the market place. In the open and shamelessly cafepress.co.uk offers hundreds of anti Muslim and anti Arab products: T-shirts, caps babysuits etc’.

Yet, make no mistake, Cafepress is not an ordinary xenophobic retailer driven by some crude ‘universal’ bigotry. As much as the site offers very many pro Jewish, pro Israeli, pro war , anti Arab and anti Muslim commodities, it doesn’t offer a single anti Jewish, anti Semitic, anti Black, anti Polish or anti Immigrant commodity. This is indeed very good news.

Yet, the manifold of anti Muslim and pro Jewish products is staggering, especially in the context of the absence of any other hate driven products.

I guess that it is more than likely that the ‘pro Jewish’, ‘pro war’ and ‘anti Muslim’ products appeal to more or less the same crowd. I guess that you know who they may be.

And yet, I am slightly puzzled I may admit, I ask myself where in Britain one can hang around with a T-shirt carrying an image of the Koran being stepped upon?

Where in Britain one can go around with a T-Shirt calling to ‘bomb Iran’?

When I immigrated to Britain fifteen years ago it was a very tolerant place. The university I landed in was submerged in ‘post-colonial discourse’. Students and professors spent hours mourning Britain’s crimes of the past. To a certain extent, Britain is still a very tolerant place. The British public is still very open. Moreover, being a white foreigner here is a very pleasant experience.

Yet, looking at Cafepress’ anti Muslim collection, I assume that being Muslim, Arab or Asian in Britain must be a complicated experience, at least for some.

As it happens the Zio-centric ideological amalgam of moral interventionism, pro war, anti Muslim feelings and Israeli lobbying have planted some disastrous seeds of bigotry in British culture.

I think that it is our humanist duty to identify the proponent of pro war, pro Jewish and anti Muslim ideologies within our discourse. In order to do so, I will let some of our leading British Zionist and Neocons model Cafepress’ latest designs

Look for instance at the Jewish Chronicle writer Nick Cohen, a man who advocated the war in Iraq, a pro war moral interventionist, a man who supported the criminal IDF operation Cast Lead, but more than anything, Cohen doesn’t really like Islam.

He can do well with Cafepress’s latest designs.

Jack Straw supported the war in Iraq.

He told the Chilcot Inquiry that “he could have stopped the invasion, had he wanted to.” Seemingly, he didn’t want to. More than 1.5 million Iraqis died.

Straw also doesn’t like Muslim women wearing veils.

Cafepress supports Straw’s line of thinking with a new line of anti veil products.

By the way, Jack Straw is not a Jew, he is just partially Jewish.

Cafepress, made a shirt for half Jews, just to make sure these ‘half-breeds’ do not drift away and start ‘hate themselves’.

David Miliband was listed by an Israeli propaganda site as an Israeli Hasbara (propaganda) author.

He was trying to amend British Universal jurisdiction just to help Israeli war criminals visiting this kingdom.

Do not worry, The Conservative Friend of Israel seem to have succeeded where Miliband failed. Just a few days before Israel launched its lethal genocidal Operation Cast Lead, Milband visited Sderot and suggested to Israel that “above all”, Israel should “seek to protect its own citizens.”

David Miliband is also a moral interventionist.

He would kill in the name of democracy.

Thank God he is not in the Government.

David Aaronovitch is a Jewish Chronicle writer, a defiant fighter against anti Semitism and yet a very enthusiastic opponent of Islam.

As you may guess he was an advocate for the Iraq war. He also thinks that we better do something with Iran before it is ‘too late’.

The list of pro war, pro Israeli and anti Muslim supporters is pretty long. I think that we better identify them all.

Now when we can fit them into T-shirts and babysuits we better move fast before the stock runs out.

To read more about Cafepress. Follow Nahida the exiled Palestinian on http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-creat-supramacists-and-how-to.html

Shielding Hezbollah … (from within &without)

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

Assad on top yet again …

Excluded from the Beirut ‘Protect-the-Resistance Arab festivities’: Geagea’ and Gemayel

Posted by G, Z, or B at 6:10 AM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

In Case You Missed it!

Don’t deny our rights: open letter to Mahmoud Abbas

open letter, various undersigned, 29 July 2010

The following open letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose elected mandate expired in July 2009 and who has remained in power under controversial emergency laws, was issued on 22 July 2010:

We are Palestinians of diverse perspectives and affiliations — scholars, intellectuals, artists, activists, trade unionists, human rights advocates and civil society leaders, inside historic Palestine and in exile — who are united in our commitment to the fulfillment of the fundamental rights of all Palestinians, particularly our inalienable right to self-determination. This universally sanctioned right encompasses, at a minimum, freedom from occupation and colonization in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem; full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel; and the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

During a 9 June meeting with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, you reportedly said: “I would never deny [the] Jewish right to the land of Israel,” a statement that you have yet to retract. We regard this announcement, which adopts a central tenet of Zionism, as a grave betrayal of the collective rights of the Palestinian people. It is tantamount to a surrender of the right of Palestinian citizens of Israel to live in equality in their own homeland, in which they have steadfastly remained despite the apartheid regime imposed on them for decades. It also concedes the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
No Palestinian institution or leader has ever accepted an exclusive Jewish claim to Palestine, which is irreconcilable with the internationally recognized rights of the Palestinian people. Our rights inhere in us as a people; they are not yours to do with as you please.

We, as Palestinians urgently need a legally and democratically elected leadership that is responsible, capable and committed to the fulfillment of our national rights and aspirations to live in freedom, dignity and just peace in our ancestral homeland. We call on all Palestinians to immediately revive the democratic processes that our people have struggled so hard to build, so that we can designate leaders with an effective vision and strategy for achieving our rights as a people.

Initial Signatories:

Saleh Abdel-Jawad, Assoc. Prof. of History, Birzeit University (Ramallah); Abdul-Rahim Al-Shaikh, poet and academic (Jerusalem); Naseer Aruri, Prof. Emeritus, University of Massachusetts (Dartmouth); Mourid Barghouti, poet and author (Ramallah/Cairo); Omar Barghouti, commentator and human rights activist (Jerusalem); Ramzy Baroud, author and editor of the Palestine Chronicle (Seattle); George Bisharat, Prof., UC Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco); Haidar Eid, academic and boycott, divestment and sanctions activist (Gaza); Samera Esmeir, Assist. Prof. of Rhetoric, Univ. of California, Berkeley (Haifa); Wael Hallaq, Prof., Columbia University (New York); Nadia Hijab, author and human rights advocate (Washington, DC); Jamil Hilal, sociologist and author (Ramallah); Islah Jad, Assist. Prof. of Gender & Development, Birzeit Univ. (Ramallah); Hatem Kanaaneh, medical doctor and author (Sakhnin); Ghada Karmi, author and Fellow, Exeter University (Exeter); Nur Masalha, Prof. of Religion and Politics, St. Mary’s Univ. College (London); Joseph Massad, Prof., Columbia University (New York); Jean Said Makdisi, author (Beirut); Saree Makdisi, Prof., University of California at Los Angeles (Los Angeles); Zakaria Muhammad, novelist (Ramallah); Karma Nabulsi, Fellow in Politics, University of Oxford (Oxford); Eyad Sarraj, psychiatrist (Gaza)

(alphabetical order – institutions for identification only)

Endorsers:

Mohammed Abu Abdu, Pal. Student Campaign for Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI) (Gaza); Bashir Abu-Manneh, Prof., Columbia University (New York); Mohsen Abu Ramadan, civil society activist and independent political commentator (Gaza); Salman Abu Sitta, Palestine Land Society (London); Abdefattah Abusrour, President of Palestinian Theatre League, Jerusalem – General Director of Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Society, (Aida refugee camp, Bethlehem); Majeed Al-Barghouthi, poet and writer (Amman); Musa Al-Hindi, Coord. Comm. member, US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN); Hala Al-Yamani, Assist. Prof., Bethlehem University (Bethlehem); Lubna Arikat, community activist (San Diego); Huwaida Arraf, attorney and human rights activist, New York; Khaled Barakat, writer and activist, Vancouver; Nasser Barghouti, human rights activist (San Diego); Diana Buttu, lawyer (Ramallah); Yasmeen Daher, lecturer at Birzeit University and human rights activist (Jaffa); Seif Da’na, Prof. of Sociology, University of Wisconsin, Parkside (Parkside); Lamis J. Deek, attorney and human rights advocate (New York); Noura Erakat, human rights attorney (Washington, DC); Leila Farsakh, Assoc. Prof., University of Massachusetts (Boston); Jess Ghannam, Prof., University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco); Lubna Hammad, lawyer and human rights activist, Adalah-NY (New York); Rema Hammami, Assoc. Prof. of Anthropology, Birzeit University (Ramallah); Nizar Hasan, filmmaker (Nazareth); Zaha Hassan, civil rights attorney and human rights advocate (Oregon); Kamel Hawwash, Assoc. Prof. in Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham (Birmingham); Monadel Herzallah, US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), San Francisco; May Jayyusi, Exec. Director of Muwatin, Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy (Ramallah); Ray Jureidini, sociologist, Cairo; Jamal Kanj, author, (Nahr el Bared refugee camp); Osamah Khalil, PhD Candidate, University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley); Suleiman Mansour, visual artist (Jerusalem); Dina Matar, academic, SOAS – University of London (London); Moammar Mashni, Co-Founder, Australians for Palestine (Melbourne); Mazen Masri, lawyer and human rights activist (Toronto); Fouad Moughrabi, Prof. and Head of Dept. of Political Science, Univ. of Tennessee (Chattanooga); Rana Nashashibi, activist, Coalition for Jerusalem (Jerusalem); Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, Barrister, Palestine Legal Aid Fund (London); Mahmoud Oriqat, Engineer (San Diego); Mazin Qumsiyeh, Prof. (Bethlehem); Ahmad Sadi, Academic (Galilee); Grace Said, activist (Washington, DC); Dalal Yassine, lawyer and human rights advocate (Beirut); Raja Zaatry, journalist (Haifa); Elia Zureik, Prof. Emeritus of Sociology, Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario)

(alphabetical order – institutions for identification only)

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Exclusive Intifada Interview with Archbishop Theodosios (Atallah) Hanna

Exclusive Intifada Interview with Archbishop Theodosios (Atallah) Hanna

“For those who use the Bible to support Israel need to differentiate between God promise and Balfour promise, because the occupation is the result of a promise given to the Israelis by Lord Balfour and not by God.” Archbishop Theodosios

Read More >

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

What’s in a name? In a racist society, everything

Richard Irvine, The Electronic Intifada, 29 July 2010

Israel’s racist policies toward Palestinians have worrying historical precedents. (Anne Paq/ActiveStills)

Names have always been political. Throughout history different regimes have used naming as a means of racial or religious identification. In Nazi Germany a 1938 law obliged Jews to add Sara or Israel to their names so as to eliminate ethnic confusion. And in my own country, Northern Ireland, even without a law, a name could determine one’s success in life.

Until comparatively recently many Catholic families I know chose Protestant Anglicized names so as their children could have a chance of escaping the discrimination inherent in the sectarian state. It rarely worked however, as there were always other ways one could tell someone’s background. Indeed, even today most of us immediately conduct a sort of scan upon meeting a new acquaintance. If we can’t tell by name then we move on to other questions like, “Where do you live?” or the clincher — in a society where schools are largely segregated — “What school did you go to?” This approach is not always successful but most times we can quite quickly classify who we think our new acquaintance is and how much we can reveal of ourselves to them.

Sad though most of you must think this is, for people of my generation it is an automatic but unfortunate hangover from hundreds of years of mutual suspicion. Thankfully however, never did we have someone convicted for rape on the basis that the woman had mistaken her sexual partner as being of the same religious group as herself. This is what happened in an Israeli court last week.

For those unfamiliar with the case the story goes like this. A young Jewish Israeli woman and a young Palestinian Jerusalemite had consensual sex. Afterwards, the Jewish woman discovered that her partner was in fact not Jewish at all, but horror of horror, a Palestinian. But there was more, the Palestinian had called himself “Dudu,” his nickname, but one most often used by Israeli Jews, and from this the young woman concluded she had been deliberately deceived and in fact raped.

In our society of course, refusal to contemplate a relationship with a person from another ethnic or religious background is described and denounced as racism or bigotry. In Israel it is now protected by law. The court found that indeed the young Jewish woman had in fact been raped, not by force of course, but by name. Finding the Palestinian guilty, district court Judge Zvi Segal stated, “The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price — the sanctity of their bodies and souls.”

Sadly, this all has very worrying historical echoes. It hints back to the Apartheid and Jim Crow Laws which presupposed dangerous Blacks waiting to pounce on virginal Whites. It also conjures up the notorious images from the Nazi publication Der Sturmer of supposedly lecherous Jews trying to seduce young Aryan Germans, no doubt also at the unbearable price of the sanctity of their bodies and souls. In part it also shares the Nazi obsession with racial mixing and the naming policy Germany introduced to eliminate any possible confusion in ethnicity. Except perhaps Nazi policy was more honest. In the Nuremberg Laws Germany explicitly outlawed sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews; Israel does no such thing, it merely makes it a crime if sex takes place without the actors being fully aware of each other’s background. Perhaps then Israel should take a leaf of out of Germany’s 1938 naming law: every Muslim to have the name Muhammad attached; every Christian, Jesus. But it won’t do that, after all, that is racist.

Richard Irvine teaches a course at Queen’s University Belfast entitled “The Battle for Palestine” which explores the entire history of the conflict. Irvine has also worked voluntarily in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and taken part in olive planting and harvesting in the West Bank.

Qana…Where Jesus’s 1st Miracle Turns Bloody

Batoul Wehbe

30/07/2010 “We have lived through hell,” Qana resident, Fawzeya Atwi cried. “The people were chopped into pieces by the Israeli bombs. They bleed these people. You should have seen the heads.”

“Do you know what the dogs did at night after the killings? They were hungry and I saw them in the ruins eating fingers and pieces of our people,” Atwi said about the Qana massacre during the July 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon.

Head of the Red Cross in Tyre Sami Yazbak, who was helping to pull bodies from the ruins, told The Guardian that the first call about the bombing was received at 7 a.m., 6 hours after the bombing took place. He said that previous shelling on the road to Qana had delayed the arrival of Red Cross personnel.

Yazbak said that “many of the children who were sleeping inside were handicapped.”

Many journalists who arrived in Qana to cover the incident became rescuers, dugging through the rubble with the Red Cross in search for bodies.

Journalist Bahia El Ainain talks about her experiences during the 2006 Israeli massacre in Qana. “I cried several times. I couldn’t be a journalist over being a mother when I saw dead young girls. I couldn’t but think of my daughter.” She also recounts an incident when she was on a roof, along with all the foreign press and their cameras. Bahia pushed the cameras away; she admits that her patriotism outweighs the journalist’s instincts for objectivity.

WINE TURNS TO BLOOD

The southern Lebanese town of Qana is believed by some to be where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee mentioned in the Gospel of St John.

But in modern times it is blood, not wine, that is indelibly linked with the town. The blood of Lebanese civilians killed in Israeli bombing.

In 1996, one of the deadliest single events of the whole Arab-Israeli conflict took place there – the shelling of a UN base where hundreds of local people were sheltering.
More than 100 were killed and another 100 injured, cut down by Israeli anti-personnel shells that explode in the air sending a lethal shower of shrapnel to the ground.

Ten years later, the town is again in the headlines, this time because of a massive bomb dropped by an Israeli aircraft, causing a building to collapse on top of dozens of civilians – many of them children in their pajamas- taking cover in the basement. It was an attack by the Israel Air Force on a three-story building in the small community of al-Khuraybah near the South Lebanese village of Qana on July 30, 2006. 28 civilians were killed, of which 16 were children.

Israel is back in the Lebanese quagmire.

“Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disemboweled. There were well over a hundred of them. A baby lay without a head. The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay in their building’s shelter, believing that they were safe.
A pile of corpses was burning. The roof had crashed in flames onto their bodies, cremating them in front of the world’s eyes. When I walked towards them, I slipped on a human hand…” an investigative journalist who was present that day describes what she saw.

The aerial attack killed members of the Shalhoub and Hashem families.

HEZBOLLAH SINKING LEBANON INTO CRISIS

One day after Qana massacre, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was “deeply saddened” by such losses.

“Too many families have been displaced. Too many people urgently need medical care, or are living in shelters,” she said. But she qualified her statement adding “I know what caused this. And I know that there are underlying circumstances having to do with the need to really make this a strong and democratic government that can really extend its authority, that can rebuild its army, that can shield itself from harmful foreign influences, that cannot… have its territory be used in the way that Hezbollah, without its knowledge, used its territory, really sinking then the whole area into the kind of crisis that we’ve got.”

The US is the main supplier of military equipment and the main political backer of Israel.

Responding to the incident, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora denounced “Israeli war criminals” and canceled talks with Condoleezza Rice. In a television address to the country, he said, “There is no place on this sad morning for any discussion other than an immediate and unconditional cease-fire as well as an international investigation into the Israeli massacres.” After the announcement, Rice canceled her planned visit to Beirut.

Saniora appealed to the U.N. Security Council for an emergency session, which held consultations on July 30. In a statement, the Security Council expressed the world body’s “extreme shock and distress” at the Qana bombing and offered its condolences for the deaths.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a July 30 statement on the Israeli attack on Qana: “Issuing advance warning to the civilian population of impending attacks in no way relieves a warring party of its obligations under the rules and principles of international humanitarian law.” It also called for “a distinction to be drawn at all times between civilians and civilian objects on the one hand, and military objectives on the other. All necessary precautions must be taken to spare civilian life and objects.”

Human Rights Watch also warned that the “consistent failure to distinguish combatants and civilians is a war crime.”

More than 600 Lebanese civilians have been killed by Israel in July 2006 War and close to 800,000 displaced, as a result of what Israel said were two Hezbollah-captured Israeli soldiers that Israel wanted back and refused to exchange for detainees held in Israeli prisons.

Now I’ll leave you with pictures because a picture is worth a thousand words.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

A Closer Look at Israel’s Role in Terrorism

it happened that Michael and me posted this at the same time. deleted mine.

Pulse

A documentary based on Jeff Gates’ Criminal State (h/t ICH), in three parts. While we’re on the topic, also check out Justin Raimondo’s Biden In Israel.

Also click on the thumbnail for the inimitable Khalil Bendib’s latest cartoon: How many Mossad agents does it take to assassinate one unarmed Palestinian?

A Closer Look at Israel’s Role in TerrorismInformationclearinghouse.info

January 18, 2010 — Response of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when asked on September 11, 2001 what the attacks meant for U.S.-Israeli relations
Game theory war-planners rely on mathematical models to anticipate and shape outcomes with staged provocations. For the agent provocateur, the reactions to a provocation—as well as the reactions to those reactions—thereby become predictable within an acceptable range of probabilities.
With ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan poised to expand to Iran and Pakistan, it is time to take a closer look at how conflicts are catalyzed—by way of deception.
Continued below

Part 2

Part 3

Note – The video is based on an article by Jeff Gates, who is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, merchant banker, educator and consultant to governments worldwide, who served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is the author of Guilt by Association, Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website http://criminalstate.com/

When Israeli game theorist Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science, he conceded from Jerusalem, “the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel” has turned “Israel into the leading authority in this field.” A professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality at Hebrew University, Aumann’s Nobel lecture, titled “War and Peace,” expounded on the rationality of war.
With a well-modeled provocation, a target’s anticipated reaction can even become a weapon in the aggressor’s arsenal. In response to the provocation of 9-11, how difficult was it to foresee that the U.S. would deploy its military to avenge that attack? With U.S. intelligence “fixed” by well-placed insiders around a predetermined goal, how difficult was it to anticipate that the reaction to 9-11 could be redirected to wage war in Iraq?
The emotional component of a provocation plays a key role in game theory warfare. With the nationally televised mass murder of 3,000 people, a state of shock, grief and outrage made it easier for Americans to believe that a known Evil Doer in Iraq was responsible—regardless of the facts.
For false beliefs to displace real facts requires mental preconditioning so that a targeted population can be persuaded to put their faith in fictions. That conditioning enhances the probability of a successful deception. Those who deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq in March 2003 began a decade beforehand to lay the “mental threads” and make the requisite mental associations to advance that agenda.
Notable among those threads was the 1993 publication in Foreign Affairs of a theme-setting article by Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington. By the time his analysis appeared in book-length form in 1996 as The Clash of Civilizations, more than 100 think tanks were prepared to promote it. The result created a widely touted narrative—a thematic storyline—supporting a “clash consensus” five years before 9-11 provided a plausible rationale for war.
Also published in 1996 under the guidance of Richard Perle was A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (i.e., Israel). A member since 1987 of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, this self-professed Zionist became its chairman in 2001.
As an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Perle’s Pentagon advisory post provided a powerful insider position to shape the national security mindset around the removal of Saddam Hussein, a key theme of A Clean Break—released five years before 9-11. That same year Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress at the invitation of Newt Gingrich, the Christian Zionist Speaker of the House.
Murders, books, articles, think tanks and well-placed insiders are common components in a “probabilistic” model deployed by war-planning game theorists. Lawmakers are also a customary ingredient. They provide credibility and a facade of legitimacy—a critical element when inducing a nation to war with phony intelligence fixed around a preset agenda.
That role was eagerly filled by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, a Jewish Zionist from Connecticut, and Jon Kyl, a Christian Zionist from Arizona, when they co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. By promoting Israel’s 1996 agenda for Securing the Realm, their legislation laid yet another mental thread in the public mindset by calling for the ouster of Saddam Hussein—three years before 9-11.
The legislation also appropriated $97 million to promote their agenda. Distracted by mid-term Congressional elections and impeachment proceedings catalyzed by a well-timed presidential affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton signed that Zionist agenda into law in October 1998—4-1/2 years before a U.S.-led invasion removed the Iraqi leader.
After 9-11, McCain and Lieberman became inseparable travel companions and irrepressible advocates for the invasion of Iraq. Striking a presidential pose aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in January 2002, McCain—a son and grandson of admirals—laid another mental thread when he waved an admiral’s cap and proclaimed, alongside Lieberman, “On to Baghdad.”
By Way of Deception
The confidence with which this game theory strategy progressed in plain sight could be seen in the behavior of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another Zionist insider. Four days after 9-11 while in a principals’ meeting at Camp David, he proposed that the U.S. invade Iraq. At that time, the intelligence did not point to Iraqi involvement and Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan.
On that same day, San Diego FBI Special Agent Stephen Butler interrogated Iraqi Munther Ghazal at his home near San Diego to determine if he was funding Mel Rockefeller, an American with whom Ghazal traveled to Baghdad in early 1997. After meeting for several days with a top nuclear physicist with oversight of Iraq’s mothballed nuclear weapons program, Rockefeller returned to the U.S. with a practical proposal for removing Saddam Hussein without this war and without triggering an insurgency.
When regional specialists at the U.S. Department of State would not meet with him, he traveled to Ottawa in April 1997 where he met with Middle East specialists in the Canadian government to ensure a written record was made to confirm there was an alternative to war in Iraq—six years before the invasion. Instead of debriefing him, FBI agents sought to discredit him. Though FBI agents interviewed Ghazal many times, they have yet to meet with Mel Rockefeller.
Agent Butler cashed checks and paid rent for the two San Diego-based hijackers who piloted planes into the World Trade Center towers. The same Iman counseling Major Nidal Hasan (with FBI knowledge) before he was transferred to Fort Hood also counseled the San Diego-based hijackers—with FBI knowledge. As of December 1, 2009, no one from the FBI or national security had debriefed Mel Rockefeller—eight years after 9-11.
See: Ft. Hood: “Death By Political Correctness”?
and Ft. Hood Tragedy: The Real Story of the Terrorist “Mad Doctor Hasan”
When President George H.W. Bush declined to invade Baghdad and remove Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, Pentagon Under Secretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz imposed a No-Fly Zone in northern Iraq. By the invasion of March 2003, the Israeli Mossad had agents deployed for a decade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
Intelligence reports of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda were also traced to Mosul—reports that proved false. Mosul again emerged in November 2004 as a center of the insurgency that destabilized Iraq. That reaction precluded the speedy exit of coalition forces promised in Congressional testimony by senior war-planner Wolfowitz in the lead-up to the invasion.
An Inside Job?
The common pro-Israeli source of the phony intelligence that induced war in Iraq has yet to be acknowledged even though intelligence experts agree that deception on such a scale required a decade to plan, staff, pre-stage, orchestrate and—until now—cover up. The leaders of the 9-11 Commission conceded they were thwarted by Commission members adamantly opposed to hearing testimony on the hijackers’ motivation for 9-11: the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
The fictions reported as facts by mainstream media included Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi purchases of “yellowcake” uranium from Niger. Only the last claim was conceded as bogus prior to the invasion.
Only after the war began were the balance of the claims disclosed as false, flawed or outright fabricated. An attempt to punish former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joe Wilson for his exposure of the phony yellowcake account led to a federal conviction of vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, another well-placed Zionist insider.
The multi-decade consistency of agent-provocateur fact patterns suggests that this game theory-modeled warfare includes the Israeli provocation that catalyzed the Second Intifada. An intifada is an uprising or, literally, a “shaking off” of an oppressor. The Second Intifada dates from September 2000 when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led an armed march to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount—one year before 9-11.
After a year of calm during which Palestinians believed that Israel was sincere about peace, suicide bombings recommenced. As Sharon conceded, his march was meant to demonstrate Israeli control over a site considered holy by Muslims worldwide. In response to this second failed attempt at “shaking off” Israeli domination, Sharon and Netanyahu observed that only when Americans “feel our pain” would they understand the plight of the victimized Israelis.
These Likud Party leaders commented that the requisite empathy (“feel our pain”) would require a weighted body count of 4,500 to 5,000 Americans lost to terrorism—the initial estimate of those who died in the twin towers of the World Trade Center—one year later.
In other words, only with pain could we identify with the Israelis. Does that mean that only with a mass murder could we be induced to respond with our military to advance their agenda? Was the U.S. response mathematically modeled at the Center for the Study of Rationality? Seven months after 9-11, Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in a U.S. Senate office building where he was introduced by Senators Jon Kyl and Joe Liebermn
American Valkyrie?
When successful, game theory warfare strengthens the agent provocateur while leaving the target discredited and depleted by the anticipated reaction. By game theory standards, 9-11 was a strategic success because the U.S.—by its response—was widely criticized for waging war on false pretenses. Only in hindsight did a deceived public realize that Iraq had nothing to do with that mass murder. However, that invasion had everything to do with “securing the realm.”
Our response (predictably) triggered a deadly insurgency with devastating consequences for Iraqis, the U.S. and a “coalition of the willing” led to war by a successfully duped U.S. From a game theory perspective, that insurgency was a predictable reaction in a nation populated by three long-feuding sects: Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. A violent invasion led by a nation closely allied with Jewish nationalists only further fueled the flames of violence and extremism—another foreseeable outcome.
Until the U.S.-led invasion, peace was maintained by an unsavory dictator and former U.S. ally who was rebranded an Evil Doer in the lead-up to war. As the cost in blood and treasure from our “liberation” of Iraq expanded, the U.S. became overextended militarily, financially and diplomatically.
The sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq is precisely what Messrs. Rockefeller and Ghazal were cautioned against in early 1997 should Saddam Hussein be removed suddenly and violently. The 1.3 million Iraqi deaths from war-related causes exceeds the worst of Saddam Hussein’s atrocities. As any competent game theory war-planner knew, the strategic winner in this war was certain to be Iran as the U.S. neutralized its key foe—and is now urged by Israel to wage war on Iran.
As the U.S.—the primary target of this deception—emerged in the foreground, the agent provocateur faded into the background. But only after catalyzing dynamics that steadily drained the U.S. of credibility, resources and resolve. This “probabilistic” Israeli victory also ensured widespread cynicism, insecurity, distrust and disillusionment along with a steadily declining capacity to defend our real interests.
Meanwhile the American public came under a system of oversight and surveillance packaged and sold as “homeland security.” This ominously titled operation includes rhetorical echoes of a WWII-era “fatherland” featuring a domestic security force completely alien to U.S. traditions. It is not yet clear whether this new agency was established to protect Americans. Or whether it is meant to shield from Americans those responsible for deceiving us to wage their wars.
In January 2003, Secret Service Agent Richard Sierze interrogated Mel Rockefeller at his home in Fresno, California after he sent an email to Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The email said, in effect, that if the governor’s brother (President George Bush) did not interview him on a public record prior to invading Iraq, he would do his best to ensure that lawful means were deployed to see the president executed for treason by a firing squad.
When questioned by Sierze, Rockefeller offered to have the agent speak with Dr. Glenn Olds, an adviser to four presidents, his senior adviser since 1994 and a former U.N. Ambassador who assisted him in entering Iraq through Jordon at a time when Americans were prohibited from traveling there. Sierze declined.
He also repeated his intent to see the president executed for treason and insisted that he be charged and taken before a federal magistrate to present evidence that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that an alternative to war had been available since early 1997. Agent Sierze declined his demand to be arraigned in a U.S. Federal District Court—seven weeks before the invasion.
Agent Sierze should be interviewed to see if, in retrospect, he agrees that—had this advice been followed—the war in Iraq may well have been prevented. To date, no one with line responsibility has interviewed Mel Rockefeller on a public record. Why? The answer to that question would reveal those responsible for this ongoing deception.
The victims of these serial deceptions, including the families of those murdered in November at Fort Hood, may have a wrongful death cause of action against those with line responsibility who aided these operations by failing to engage the Rockefeller record in a timely fashion.
Foreseeable Futures
By manipulating the shared mindset, skilled game theory war-planners can wage wars on multiple fronts with minimal resources. One proven strategy: Pose as an ally of a well-armed nation predisposed to deploy its military in response to a mass murder.
In this case, the result destabilized Iraq while creating (predictable) crises that could be exploited to greater strategic advantage by expanding the conflict to Iran, another Israeli goal announced in A Clean Break—seven years before the invasion of Iraq.
Today’s mathematically model-able outcomes undermined U.S. national security by discrediting our leadership, degrading our financial condition and disabling our political will. In game theory terms, this devastation was perfectly predictable—within an acceptable range of probabilities.
Pakistan is primed to emerge as the next battleground for game theory war-planners. When India, an ally of Israel, became the nation honored by the Obama administration’s first state dinner, that occasion gave reason for concern due to the dynamics already at work in the background.
See “What Is Israel’s Role in the Destabilization of Pakistan?”
In the asymmetry that typifies modern warfare, those who are few in number have no alternative when pursuing an expansionist agenda but to wage their wars by way of deception. To maintain its perceived status as a perennial victim, Israeli aggression must proceed non-transparently. Its only option is to operate with duplicitous means, including leveraging the power of its insider influence to advance an agenda from the shadows.
Thus the strategic necessity that this extremist enclave befriend the U.S.—with the intent to betray that friendship to advance its geopolitical goals. Thus the strategic need to create a relationship of trust with a post-WWII super power—in order to defraud us. How else could Colonial Zionists wage their wars except with our military? How else could Jewish nationalists induce our aggression absent the widely shared belief that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim?
Winning Wars from the Inside Out
Game theory war-planners manipulate the shared mental environment by shaping the perceptions and impressions that become consensus opinions. With a combination of well-timed crises, fixed intelligence and a complicit media, policy-makers can be induced to support a predetermined agenda—not because lawmakers are Evil Doers but because the public mindset has been pre-conditioned to respond to manipulated thoughts, emotions and beliefs.
Without the mass murder of 9-11, would America’s credibility be in tatters and its creditworthiness in jeopardy? By steadily displacing facts with false beliefs, those duplicitous few-within-the-few amplify the impact of their deceit. By their steady focus on the mental environment, game theory war-planners can defeat an opponent with vastly superior resources.
Today’s intelligence wars are waged in plain sight and under the cover of shared beliefs. By manipulating consensus opinion, psy-ops wars can be won from the inside out by inducing a targeted populace to freely choose the very forces that imperil their freedom.
Thus in the Information Age the disproportionate power wielded by those with outsized influence in media, popular culture, think tanks, academia and politics—domains where Zionist influence is pervasive not only in the U.S. but also in other nations induced to war on false pretenses.
Germany offers a case study in manipulation of the public mindset in plain sight and under the banner of a free press. In 2003, Zionist media mogul Haim Saban acquired the second largest media conglomerate in Germany. Why? As Saban investment banker Steve Rattner explained his client’s motivation: “Because Germany is important to Israel.” Or, as Saban concedes: “I have only one issue and that issue is Israel.”
By 2005, Saban had succeeded in electing Angela Merkel as German Chancellor. She quickly became the European Union’s most reliable and forceful advocate for Israel. By November 2009, she was prepared to sponsor in Berlin an unprecedented joint session of the German and Israeli governments. Following his political success in Germany, Saban acquired in 2007 a controlling interest in Univision, a Latino-focused network serving the fastest-growing voting bloc in the U.S.
Media manipulation serves as an essential force-multiplier to wage intelligence wars from the periphery or, as with Haim Saban, in plain sight. At the operational core of such psy-ops are game theory war-planners skilled at personality profiling and masterful at anticipating responses to staged provocations and then incorporating those responses into their arsenal.
In the case of Iraq, our (mathematically) foreseeable response to 9-11 led, in practical effect, to Israel’s deployment of our military to invade Iraq. For aggressors adept at psy-ops warfare, facts are only an inconvenience to be overcome when waging war by way of deception. Thus the key role played by consensus-shapers featured in mainstream media outlets who focus not on informing the public but on mental conditioning.
For targeted populations dependent on facts and informed consent to protect their freedom and preserve the rule of law, such treachery poses the greatest possible threat. Yet even now many Americans believe that Israel is not an aggressor but a victim and even an ally despite facts confirming a multi-decade pattern of expansionist nationalism and geopolitical deception.
Adhering to an Enemy
The U.S. is far less secure than before 9-11. Tel Aviv clearly intends to continue its serial provocations as evidenced by its ongoing expansion of settlements and its continuing blockade of Gaza. Israel has shown no willingness to negotiate in good faith. With few exceptions, Barack Obama has named as senior advisers either Zionists are those known to be strongly pro-Israeli.
The greatest threat to world peace is not Islam. The most fundamental threat that underlies all others is our “special relationship” with a skilled agent provocateur. Without U.S. support for an enclave of nuclear-armed religious extremists, the common source of this threat could long ago have been identified and steps taken to ensure its containment.
In the same way that lengthy pre-staging was required to induce the U.S. to invade Iraq, a similar strategy is now underway to persuade the U.S. to invade Iran or support an attack by Israel. Pakistan is also now on the agenda of those marketing The Clash narrative with its vision of a perpetual war against “militant Islam.” Similar mental conditioning is again at work, including the high profile branding of the requisite Evil Doer: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad.
From its outset, the Zionist enterprise sought supremacy in the Middle East. To date, its alliance with the U.S. has enabled the deployment of American military might in pursuit of goals set by Jewish nationalists more than a half-century before a Christian Zionist U.S. president was induced to extend nation-state recognition. Harry Truman made that fateful decision despite his fears that Israel would become what Zionist lobbyists assured him it would not become—and what it immediately became: a racist and theocratic state.
Only one nation had the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence required to take the U.S. to war in the Middle East while making it appear that Islam—not Israel—is the problem. When a long-deceived American public—especially the U.S. military—grasps the common source of this devastating duplicity, the response will shift the geopolitical landscape. The facts suggest that “sympathy for Israel” is not among the probable reactions.
If Barack Obama continues to cater to these extremists, this Nobel peace laureate can rightly be blamed when the next attack features the usual orgy of evidence pointing to a pre-staged Evil Doer. Should another mass murder occur, that incident may well be traceable to the U.S.-Israeli relationship and to the failure of our policy-makers to protect America—and world peace—from this enemy within.
See also:

• How Israel Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy
• How Israel Wages War in Plain Sight
• Appeasing Israel—At What Cost?
• American Intifada—Shaking Off Six Decades of Deceit

Two Resolutions, One World War – Part 1

29/07/2010 By: Ruqayyah Shamseddine

“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”– George Orwell

On July 22nd a House Resolution was proposed by 47 US Representatives – led by Rep. Louis Buller Gohmert,Republican Representative from Texas’s 1st congressional district; House Resolution 1553.

The resolutions main proposal reads as follows:
“Expressing support for the State of Israel’s right to defend Israeli sovereignty, to protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, and to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within reasonable time to protect against such an immediate and existential threat to the State of Israel.”

Here are the decisive points found in the resolution which has since been referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs:
Whereas the United States does not want or seek war with Iran, but it will continue to keep all options open –
1. Condemnation of Iran based “for its threats of annihilating the United States and the State of Israel”
2. Support of using “all means of persuading the Government of Iran to stop building and acquiring nuclear weapons.”
3. Reaffirming the United States’ unshakable bond with Israel.
4. Expresses support for Israel’s right to use “all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran”

Iran and Nuclear Weapons

The United States and Israel have been accusing Iran of having nuclear weapons long before 2010 – In 2007 Mohamed El Baradei, who was then leading the International Atomic Energy Agency vehemently contended that not only was there no evidence that Iran had nuclear material but that there was no active weaponization program.

That same year The National Intelligence Council, a center of strategic thinking within the US Government which provides the President of the United States and senior policymakers with analyses of foreign policy issues has stated, clearly that “…with moderate-to-high confidence…Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.”

On February 27th, 2010 Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, while speaking against sanctioning Iran, stated that “There is no evidence that Iran has made a decision to produce nuclear weapons”

Ironically Israel, the largest finger-pointer and promoter of a war on Iran, is one of three states – including India and Pakistan – which has declined to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT); The three main pillars of the NPT are non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology. India and Pakistan are confirmed nuclear powers, and Israel has a long-standing policy of “deliberate ambiguity”.

The NPT was ratified by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, and 40 other signatory states. Iran is one of the signatories.

The resolution presented by Rep. Gohmert along with 46 other US representatives is brief and fairly vague in terms of providing a time-table for finding a ‘peaceful solution’ but it is certain that Resolution 1553 is flagrantly providing explicit support for military strikes against Iran.

Rep. Louis Buller Gohmert of Texas is leading this nefarious proposition and this is one of the most important facts concerning Resolution 1553.
Rep. Gohmert has taken at least two trips to Tel Aviv,Israel both of which were sponsored by The American Israel Education Foundation – a “supporting organization” of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which provides grant monies to educate opinion leaders about the U.S.-Israel relationship.

From 8/5/2007 to 8/12/2007 Rep. Louis Buller Gohmert and his wife Kathy Gohmert traveled to Tel Aviv on a budget of $21,449.26 in order to attend the American Israel Education Foundation Republican congressional mission to Israel.

Most recently,8/1/2009 to 8/9/2009, Gohmet and wife Kathy Gohmert traveled to Tel Aviv on a budget of $19,303.74 in order to “learn more about the U.S.-Israel relationship”
As of late, Gohmert defended and attempted to rationalize Israel’s attack on the Gaza Flotilla headed to the besieged strip wherein 8 Turkish nationals and an American, Furkan Dogan, were slaughtered by members of the Israeli Occupation Forces in international waters.
Resolution 1553 is damning on its own but along with an earlier proposition mandating uniformed and civilian services during times of war it is lethal.

H.R. 5741, cited as the ‘Universal National Service Act’; proposed by Congressman Charles Rangel, a Democrat from New York, on July 15th, 2010 to the US House of Representatives:
To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.

On July 15th the ‘Universal Service Act’ is introduced to the US House of Representatives and only 7 days later House Resolution 1553, which blatantly supports a military strike against Iran, is proposed.

Michael Hayden, Former CIA director under President George W. Bush, says military action against Iran is more likely; Both Israeli and U.S. officials have said military action remains an option if sanctions “fail to deter Iran”. Another verifiable truth is that a majority of Americans support an Israeli strike against Iran, according to TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence; At least 56 percent of Americans approved of a military strike.

We have our target and we now have our army.

We are now witnessing the legalization and industrialization of another war, one which will set the entire region ablaze.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Rectification and amelioration for the current dictionaries :

Frustrated Arab’s Diary

Eng.Moustafa Roosenbloom ,
studying the phone-book.

Israeli-citizenship :
an artificial-identity
based on a case of an assumed-identity
while living as colonialists
on a stolen Land.

The State of Israel :
a 11Th. century invention confused with a Biblical-myth
of a Kingdom that never was called ” Israel”
but Judea and or Samaria.

The Israelites :
a vanished-population
which coincided with the narratives
of the Bible-stories.
In the meantime the Israelites have become Christians
and later Muslims too….
otherwise known as today´s Palestinians !!

The Jews :
people who adhere to Judaism
and are found in different countries
from different races and different cultures
with also different roles in History.

Zionism :
a criminal-colonial- ideology
based on the misinterpretation of the Bible
and based also on a false-genetic- identity

Zionist :
a person who believes in Zionism
whithout necessarily being a Jewish-person.

God´s “promise” to Abraham :
the meeting with Jesus the Messiah
on the Land of Canaan.
(and not the Land of Canaan,itself )

Anti-semitism :
is actualy , Anti-Ashkenazim.
(a European-Christian- Disease,
not at all related to Palestine
nor to Arabs , nor to Islam )

Terrorism :
the power of the powerless.

The writings of Sherlock Hommos :
The simple truth ,
covered with a double- layer
of humour and sarcasm.

Raja Chemayel
(brother-in- law of Sherlock Hommos
and cousin to Eng. Moustafa Roosenbloom) 

Posted by Тлакскала at 9:10 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

“they have to admit who the landlord is here.”

Ten years after Camp David, Israel has made peace even harder

A decade after the failed accords at Camp David, a just peace is still possible, but only if Western leaders act to end Israel’s discriminatory policies toward Palestinians.

By Ben White / July 26, 2010

East Jerusalem

In an interview earlier this year with The Jerusalem Post, one of the Jewish settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, an area in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem where Palestinians are being evicted from their homes, explained that he had no “personal problems” with “the Arabs” – but insisted that “they have to admit who the landlord is here.”

This sentiment offers more insight into the current realities on the ground in East Jerusalem, and Palestine/Israel in general, than dozens of column inches spent analyzing the progress of “shuttle diplomacy,” “concessions,” and “indirect talks.”

This summer marks 10 years since the failed Camp David talks held under President Clinton’s leadership, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat returned home without a conclusive deal.

In September, it will also be a decade since the Second Intifada began with Palestinians being shot down in Jerusalem, protesting the visit of Ariel Sharon and his enormous security entourage to al-Haram ash-Sharif/Temple Mount.

After Camp David, Jerusalem was highlighted as one of the thorniest so-called final status issues blocking an Israeli-Palestinian deal. Now, as the peace process stalls and stutters, “facts on the ground” in illegally-annexed East Jerusalem mean that talk of a Palestinian capital in the eastern part of the city is fantasy.

In the more than 40 years that Israel has militarily occupied the West Bank, the Green Line – Israel’s pre-1967 borders – has been erased by the likes of illegal settlements, and road networks. Nowhere is this absorption of the Occupied Territories more apparent than in East Jerusalem, where close to 200,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements built in municipal boundaries that were expanded by Israel to include West Bank land.

Reality in East Jerusalem in 2010 means municipal policies – supported by the Israeli state – that fly in the face of international law: Palestinian homes are demolished, the illegal separation wall carves up Palestinian neighborhoods, and residency rights are revoked.

The gaping disparity between Israeli officials’ rhetoric in the West and their practice on the ground is no starker than in East Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat assure journalists and diplomats that the city is “open” and “free” for all its inhabitants, the facts tell a different story – one of exclusion and discriminatory municipal policies.

Amir Cheshin, a former senior adviser on “Arab affairs” to the Jerusalem mayor’s office, described in his co-authored book “Separate and Unequal” what he called the “principles” of Israeli housing policy in East Jerusalem: “expropriation of Arab-owned land, development of large Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, and limitations on development in Arab neighborhoods.”

All of this is openly available information, yet the US and friends of Israel persist in a peace process discourse that does not simply pass silent over Israeli colonization but aids and abets it.

A classic example is Washington’s approach toward Israel’s settlements. For years, Republican and Democratic presidents have warned Israel against further settlement building, but Israel builds anyway. Then, instead of sanctions, the White House typically rewards Israel with affirmations of its “unbreakable bond” with America. The list of settlements that “everyone knows” will remain in Israel’s hands has grown, met by, at best, feeble opposition.

No wonder most observers expect that the settlements will remain in Israeli hands after a negotiated deal with the Palestinians.

In his book “Divided Jerusalem,” historian Bernard Wasserstein cites a 1978 planning scheme for Jerusalem that explicitly outlines “the underlying political motivation” for the city’s development policies – “Every area of the city that is not settled by Jews is in danger of being detached from Israel and transferred to Arab control”.

As radical settler groups expand their presence in areas under occupation, and as the Jerusalem municipality plans further colonization under the guise of “tourism” and “development,” the most that the likes of US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton can manage is to describe the destruction of homes as “unhelpful” – the expansion of settlements a “deeply negative signal”.

The constant expansion or consolidation of Israel’s grip on East Jerusalem, like the rest of the West Bank, reveals the ridiculous – or at worst, malign – nature of the official “peace process” that President Obama has faithfully continued.

Rather than demand, and enforce, the implementation of Palestinians’ basic rights and a respect for fundamental tenets of international law, the approach of the United States and European Union is to continue its diplomatic, financial, and military backing for the occupying power – while urging a colonized, stateless people to “negotiate” over the shrinking space of their enclaves.

Ten years after Camp David, a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians is still possible, but only if Western leaders finally act to end Israel’s long-standing policies of separation and inequality.

Ben White, a freelance journalist, is the author of “Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide.”

In case you missed it:
Alan Hart the Linkman of Peres with “FATHER PALESTINE”: Time to close the Palestinian file

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Gilad Atzmon: Oliver Stone apologized for Telling the Truth

By Gilad Atzmon

There you go, Oliver Stone apologized for suggesting that the Jewish lobby controls Washington’s foreign policy and that Hitler’s actions should be put into context.

In fact, Stone’s apology confirms Stone’s argument. We are subject to constant assault by Jewish and Israeli gatekeepers who insist on controlling the political and historical discourse and defy any possible criticism of Jewish national affairs.

“In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret,” Stone said in a statement released late Monday, the day after his remarks were published in a British newspaper.

JTA reported today that Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, was among the Jewish organizations and Israeli officials to condemn the remarks.

Steinberg in a statement said Stone’s apology “was necessary and we accept it. But whether he acted out of sincerity or as a desperate response to the moral outcry at his comments is an open question,” he added. “He must be judged by his future words and deeds.”

Steinberg demands “sincerity” and future subservience. I would actually expect him to join Stone and be slightly more enthusiastic about historical research and contextual thinking.

Israel’s propaganda minister’, Yuli Edelstein, was also among those who had condemned Stone’s remarks early Monday. “They are nauseating, anti-Semitic and racist, Not only is he showing ignorance, he is demonizing Jews for no reason and returning to the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’

Interesting indeed. Stone doesn’t refer to race. There is nothing anti Semitic in his remark whatsoever unless telling the truth is a form of anti Semitism. Moreover, Stone didn’t demonize Jews for being Jews, he described some actions committed by Jewish institutional lobbies, actions that are now academically documented and studied. He did it for a good reason. Stone is probably patriotic or pragmatic enough to gather that peace is important.

“When a man of Stone’s stature speaks in this way”, said Edelstein, “it can bring waves of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment, and may even damage Jewish communities and individuals.” Edelstein is almost correct. Stone was brave enough to tell the truth about Jewish power, he probably wasn’t courageous enough to stand for it, which is understandable. However, Edelstein and other Jewish leaders better realise that Stone is far from being mad, anti Semitic or racist. Stone told the truth as we all see it.

Instead of silencing criticism, Edelstein, Steinberg and others better look in the mirror because the time is running out for Israel and its supporters

Update: Haim Saban to CBS: Cancel Oliver Stone’s Showtime Series

http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/exclusive-haim-saban-stone-should-join-mel-gibson-retirement-19614

Coming Soon- David Cameron apologizes for telling the truth about Gaza being a prison Camp.


The STL and the Anti-Lebanese Plot. Part 1: “Syria is Guilty!”

Picture source: AFP
26/07/2010 Yusuf Fernandez
July 25, 2010

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.

Most international experts consider that it is the national jurisdiction of Lebanon, and not the Special Tribunal of Lebanon, that that should have investigated and prosecuted the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.

They argue that according to the UN Resolution 1664, the bomb attacks are not counted as crimes that needed to be tried by an international tribunal.

In fact, the UN had only previously taken such a measure -to set up a new international tribunal- to prosecute the most serious international crimes, as genocide and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia and the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda. Significantly, the Israeli genocide against Palestinian and Lebanese peoples have never led to the creation of a similar international court.

For example, the July 2006 war caused heavy loss of human life, population displacement and massive destruction in critical infrastructure and properties in Lebanon. Most of them were the result of serious violations of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Protocol on the protection of the victims of international armed conflicts. These violations were war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, there was no UN resolution which recognized them as such, or even condemned them. The UN Security Council did not create an international commission, let alone a court, to investigate the violations of the international law committed during the war.

This is in strong contrast with the case of Hariri’s assassination. It suggests that the Western powers think that some deaths are more important than others from a political view. This hypocritical stance has damaged the credibility of international law and has persuaded many people that international justice is driven by political considerations.

Therefore, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was the first international court set up exclusively to prosecute less serious crimes that are only international because the UN Security Council decided they should be so. This demonstrates that there was a clear political purpose behind the creation of the tribunal.

There is no doubt either that the enemies of Lebanon, Syria and the Arabism -first of all Israel and the Bush Administration- saw the tribunal as a tool to accomplish their goals – those that they failed to achieve in the battlefield against the Resistance or by killing thousands of Lebanese in Beirut, Qana or many other places of the country.

In this context of manifest international injustice and double standards, who can trust an international tribunal which has set up by those who express day by day their anti-Lebanese views?

 Someone has only to read UN reports about the implementation of the Resolution 1701 to see that Lebanon is always the guilty party. Israeli daily provocations and threats, including violations of the Lebanese air space, are mostly ignored or played down.

FALSE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SYRIA

Shortly after the assassination of Rafiq Hariri on February 14, 2005, the pro-West and anti-Syrian forces in Lebanon launched a campaign to blame Syria for the crime despite the lack of any evidence of Syrian involvement. These forces forgot Syrian efforts to protect Lebanon from the Israeli aggression because they were actually against Arabism and some of them had supported the signature of a “peace treaty” with Israel in 1983, which was only an imposed surrender to the Zionist entity and was later annulled due to the pressure of the Lebanese population.

Amid massive protests from a large number of Lebanese who had been pushed to believe that Syria was undoubtedly guilty of the crime, Damascus put an end to its 29-year military and intelligence presence in Lebanon.

Soon after, the United Nations called for an investigation into al-Hariri’s assassination.

Damascus claimed that Washington wanted to use the UN investigation to put an end to Syrian influence in the region.

The Bush Administration considered Syria as one of its main enemies in the Middle East and it explains that the first investigations of the Tribunal were aimed at finding any kind of evidence implicating Syria in the murder. More recently, US neocons believed that the UN probe would undermine the attempts by the Obama administration to engage Syria diplomatically just as it would prevent Damascus from successfully making a case for the Israeli withdrawal from the Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel took over in 1967 and is obliged by the UNSC Resolution 242 to return to Syria in exchange for peace.

In Lebanon, politicians aligned with the March 14 coalition (made up by anti-Syrian and pro-West political parties) insisted once and again that Syria was to blame for the former PM´s death. They also extended their criticism to the Resistance, which supported strong links with Syria and opposed to Western and Israeli influence on the country.

Some experts already then warned that the STL was politicized. Joshua Landis, co-director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, claimed that “a lot of people have their hopes pinned on this, particularly the people from the Bush administration.”

Some senior US diplomats claimed that Syria was being uncooperative and, as a consequence of it, the Security Council might impose sanctions on Syrian officials: the president, the prime minister, the defense minister, the foreign minister and members of Parliament. Under these proposed sanctions, UN member states would have been prohibited from hosting these officials and their assets in those countries would have been frozen.

The first reports from the UN International Independent Investigation Committee (IIIC) appeared to support claims by the US and Lebanon´s 14 March camp that Syria was implicated in the murder.

Detlev Mehlis, the first IIIC Commissioner released in October 2005 an interim report which claimed that there was “converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement” in the assassination.

Mehlis was actually a favorite of the pro-Israeli neocons who served in the Reagan Administration. His investigation of the 1982 La Belle Discotheque bombing attack in West Berlin was used as pretext by the US government to launch a 1986 air attack on Libya.

Mehlis concluded that Libya was behind the Berlin attack conveniently at the same time that neocons in the US administration, including Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Scooter Libby, and others were calling for an attack on Muammar Qaddafi.

The fact that he was appointed as the IIIC Commissioner is a clear evidence of strong Israeli influence on the tribunal.

Key to Mehlis´s assertions were the testimonies of two witnesses, Hussam Hussam and Mohammed Zuhair al-Siddiq, who said that Syrian and Lebanese officials had ordered the attack on al-Hariri´s convoy.

Siddiq claimed that Damascus and former Lebanese President Emile Lahoud had given the order to kill Hariri. He added that four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals and a number of Lebanese and Syrian politicians were also involved.

In October 2005, Mehlis published a report, whose electronic version mentioned the names of some Syrian officials who were allegedly involved in the assassination. Some Western media then claimed that the conclusion of the investigation would show that Syria had played a decisive role in the crime.

However, some weeks after the release of the October 2005 interim report, Hussam and Siddiq’s testimonies were found to be unreliable. Hussam started trying to sell his story to several Lebanese media outlets. When his name and role as a witness were leaked by New TV in November, he abruptly left the country for Syria. Days later, he reappeared on Syrian state television and fully changed his testimony, claiming that he fabricated the tale after being tortured, drugged, and offered money by March 14 leaders.

For his part, former Syrian secret intelligence agent Mohammad al-Siddiq also proved to be a false witness. He left France after obtaining a fake Czech passport and fled to the United Arab Emirates, where he was arrested. He told reporters that he had received his passport from the French General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) in order to escape Lebanese justice. While being in France under the protection of DGSE, the French Police eavesdropped on his telephone calls and found out that Siddiq had lied to the tribunal.

Therefore, the report´s conclusions were proved to be false as well as its anti-Syrian claims. All these scandals undermined the credibility of the tribunal and led to Mehlis´s resignation.

In an apparent acknowledgement that the Bush administration had originally sought to use the al-Hariri case to pressure Damascus, an anonymous US official then told the International Crisis Group that the March 14 coalition could no longer assume that the tribunal will automatically deliver a damning indictment of Syrian complicity in the murder. This new situation sparked outrage among pro-March 14 Lebanese and some Western commentators. Shibli Mallat, a prominent Lebanese law professor, accused Brammertz from the pages of TIME magazine of a “total dereliction of duty” and said that he “single-handedly destroyed” the investigation. Michael Young warned in the Lebanese newspaper Daily Star of “grave damage being done to the UN’s credibility.” March 14 leaders implored the UN to give some kind of public indication that Damascus was still involved in the murder, but to no avail.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Israel wages war against media and activists

Israel wages war against media and activists
Mel Frykberg, The Electronic Intifada, 27 July 2010

A demonstrator is arrested by Israeli soldiers in Nabi Salah, occupied West Bank. (Keren Manor/ActiveStills)

NABI SALAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) – Palestinian activists are being jailed, Israeli activists are under surveillance, and the Israeli military is increasingly targeting journalists who cover West Bank protests.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel issued a statement recently condemning what it sees as a change in the Israeli military’s policy in their treatment of journalists covering the growing number of West Bank protests against Israel’s wall, illegal settlements and land expropriation.

“We would appreciate it were the authorities to remind the various forces involved, that open, unhindered coverage of news events is a widely acknowledged part of the essence of democracy.

“Generally speaking this would not include smashing the face of a clearly marked photographer working for a known and accredited news organization with a stick, or for that matter aiming a stun grenade at the head of a clearly marked news photographer or summarily arresting cameramen, photographers and/or journalists,” said the FPA.

The release of the statement followed an attack on three journalists as they covered a protest march near an Israeli settlement built illegally on land belonging to the Palestinian village Beit Ummar in the southern West Bank.

Several weeks ago in the village Nabi Salah, north of Ramallah, two Israeli activists were roughed up and arrested after criticizing Israeli soldiers for shooting at Palestinian boys throwing stones.

One of the Israelis, Yonatan Shapira, 38, an ex-Israeli air force pilot and member of Combatants for Peace, (a group comprising former Palestinian and Israeli fighters) earned the wrath of the Israeli authorities when he authored a “pilot’s letter” in 2003 signed by 27 air force pilots.

The pilots refused to fly over the occupied Palestinian territories and take part in the deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians, particularly in Gaza.

Shapira was recently interrogated by Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet over his participation in anti-occupation protests and his support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

In what appeared to be a veiled threat the Israeli activist was warned that his presence at anti-wall demonstrations was in defiance of the areas being declared closed military-zones on Fridays.

Shapira believes his phone has been tapped. “Nothing we are doing is illegal and I’m not afraid, but I’m uncomfortable about my country turning into a fascist state,” said Shapira.

“The Israeli authorities are trying to intimidate Israelis who engage in political dissent. We present no security threat. But the line between political activism and security is becoming increasingly blurred by the authorities who are trying to criminalize dissent,” Shapira told IPS.

“Sometimes when we come to demonstrations we have been stopped en route by the [Israeli army] who have taken down our details and appear to have prior knowledge of our movements,” Israeli activist Shy Halatzi, 23, a physics and astronomy student at Tel Aviv University who served in the Israeli military, told IPS.

Israel has become alarmed at growing international support for a boycott campaign against the country as its right-wing government increasingly tramples on civil liberties. Hundreds of Israeli college professors signed a petition recently denouncing the threat by Israeli education minister Gideon Saar (a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party) to punish any lecturer or institution which supports a boycott of Israel.

Saar supports Im Tirtzu, a right-wing nationalist movement, which demands that Israeli education professionals be required to prove their commitment to Zionism.

Neve Gordon, professor of politics at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva, received death threats after he wrote an editorial last year in the Los Angeles Times explaining why he supported a boycott on Israel.

Meanwhile, Palestinian grassroots activists involved in non-military popular committees, which organize nonviolent activity against the occupation, continue to be arrested and jailed on what they say are trumped-up charges involving forced confessions under duress.

The Israeli military carries out nightly raids in West Bank villages where demonstrations take place regularly on a Friday and where villagers have been particularly active.

Wael al-Faqeeh from Nablus in the northern West Bank was recently sentenced to a year’s prison for “belonging to an illegal organization.” Al-Faqeeh was arrested with eight other activists in December last year.

Musa Salama, an activist with the Labor Committee of Medical Relief Workers and associate of al-Faqeeh, was sentenced last December to a year’s imprisonment on identical charges.

Abdullah Abu Rahme from the head of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bilin village near Ramallah continues to languish in detention following his arrest in December last year.

Some of the allegations against him include incitement for planning the peaceful protests and “being in possession of arms.” The latter referred to his collection of used teargas canisters and spent bullet cartridges, fired by Israeli troops at unarmed protestors, into a peace sign.

“What we as Israeli activists endure is a fraction of what Palestinians are subjected to. They are subjected to harsher and much more brutal treatment than we are,” Shapira told IPS.

All rights reserved, IPS — Inter Press Service (2010). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden.

Alan Hart the Linkman of Peres with "FATHER PALESTINE": Time to close the Palestinian file

>

Frightened with Zionist Samson option blackmail

Alan believes the Palestinian leadership (Hamas and Fateh) “should now say, in the most explicit terms, that most Palestinians are still prepared to live in permanent peace with an Israel inside its pre-1967 borders.”

NO MR. LINKMAN

Most of Palestinians are either exiled or refugee in their own land (In Gaza,WB, and the so-called Israel), they are not prepared to sell their right of return

“when it was made, it was immediately endorsed by supportive declarations from Hizbollah and Iran to the effect that they will accept whatever the Palestinians accept. (Despite Zionism’s wild assertions to the contrary, that is actually the position of both Hizbollah and Iran)”

KEEP DREAMING DREAMING MR. LINKMAN, and conspiring for impossible “peace” with Zionism.

Here this call should be connected with other DOTS, Mainly, the moving sancions on Iran, and STL plot on Hezbullah

Time for the Palestinians to call Israel’s bluff?

• July 27, 2010

Defenders of Israel right or wrong continue to assert that the absence of peace is all the fault of the Palestinians.

In one sense they are right. When the Palestine file was closed by Israel’s victory (ethnic cleansing and all) on the battlefield in 1948, the Palestinians were supposed to accept their lot as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political expediency.

That was according to the script written by Zionism and effectively endorsed by all the major powers and, behind closed doors, the regimes of a divided and impotent Arab order.

Nobody in power anywhere wanted the Palestine file to be re-opened because, if it was, a confrontation with Zionism in all of its awesome manifestations would one day be inevitable. So it could be said if the Palestinians had been prepared to be the sacrificial lamb, the first Arab-Israeli war would also have been the last.

[Mr. Linkman:

Could you please explaine why 1948 war was followed by 1956 war two year before the formation of your friend’s Fateh?
Is it because Palestinian refused to be the sacrificial lamb?
Is it because the emerging Arab nationalist Movement wanted the Palestine file to be re-opened??

In a previous article your claimed that the Palestinian file was closed in 1948, and that it is your friend “Father Palestine” who “re-opened” the file.. When he did that, Mr. Linkman??

He formed Fateh in 1958, two years after the second war and the peak of Arab Nationalists Movement, so its not him who re-opned the file. His real mission and yours as his linkman was  performing”, using your own words, the“miracle of leadership by preparing the ground on his side for unthinkable compromise and peace”
They killed him because he failed to close the Palestinians file]

By such cruel and mad logic the Palestinians are to blame for the sustaining and escalation of the conflict.

But let’s now leave fantasy land and acknowledge that the hallmark of Zionism in action is saying one thing to the world and doing the opposite.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that Israel has no future unless there’s a two-state solution, but the colonization of the occupied West Bank went on. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu let the word’s “two states” pass through his lips and, under pressure from President Obama, he even declared a moratorium on settlement building for 10 months, but the colonization went on. (And will no doubt be speeded up when the phoney moratorium ends in September).

So a question. Is there now case for saying that the time has come for the Palestinians to call Israel’s bluff?

They could do so with a joint Fatah-Hamas statement to something like this effect:

“We cannot and will not recognise Israel’s “right” to exist because it has no such right, but we are a pragmatic people and we hereby declare that we are prepared to recognise and live in permanent peace with the reality of an Israel inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war, with Jerusalem an open, undivided city and the capital of two states…

We further declare that our pragmatism extends to accepting that the right of the dispossessed Palestinians to return must and will be confined to the Palestinian state, which means that many of those who wish to return will have to settle for compensation for the loss of their homes and their land.”

In theory, such a statement would have its best chance of making a positive impact in Israel if, when it was made, it was immediately endorsed by supportive declarations from Hizbollah and Iran to the effect that they will accept whatever the Palestinians accept. (Despite Zionism’s wild assertions to the contrary, that is actually the position of both Hizbollah and Iran).

Polls consistently show that about 70% of Israelis favour a two-state solution. If they really do, declarations as indicted above could have the effect of opening a door to new politics in Israel; new politics that would see a majority of Israelis giving real substance to their democracy by demanding that their leaders be serious about peace on terms almost all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept.

If a most explicit joint declaration by Fatah and Hamas failed to trigger new politics in Israel, it would prove what Larry Derfner said in an article for the Jerusalem Post on 23 July: “Politically, Israelis now operate strictly on fear and aggression; look at them cross-eyed and they think Hitler’s back and they’re ready to drop the big one. Politically they’re nuts. A danger to others and themselves.”
My way of putting it would be to say that what had been proved is that most Israelis have been brainwashed to the point where they are beyond reason and prefer to live with the fear of annihilation (fear planted and nourished in them by Zionist propaganda) rather than the comfort of peace and security. (In a future article I’m going to address this question – Do Israelis, most of them, need to feel threatened?)

[They do Mr. Linkman, and You know that. They killed Rabin]

What would the Palestinians have to gain from calling Israel’s bluff if doing so did not trigger new and sane politics in Israel? There are two possible answers.

[The answer we heard: Report: Mitchell Tells Abbas Bibi Here to Stay ]

One is nothing if the major powers, America especially, continue to be terrified of offending Zionism too much and remain constant in their refusal to use the leverage they have to cause or try to cause enough Israelis to be serious about peace.

The other is that exposing Israel like never before as the real obstacle to peace could be a game-changer. Even some Americans are now debating whether Israel is more of a liability than an asset. (See, for example, Chas Freeman’s remarks at a Nixon Center debate on 20 July, www.nixoncenter.org/index.cfm?action=showpage&page=Freeman-Israel-Asset-or-Liability).
Could it be that a most explicit Palestinian calling of Israel’s bluff would create the understanding needed in America to free up President Obama (after the mid-term elections in November, of course) to take on and defeat the Zionist lobby, for the sake of peace in the Middle East and best protecting America’s own real interests in the region and the wider Muslim world?

Caveat

I am fully aware that a two-state solution which restricted the right of return to a Palestinian mini state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would not come close to providing justice for the dispossessed Palestinians. Nothing but the de-Zionization of Palestine and the creation of One State for all could do that. The point of the article above is only that I believe the Palestinian leadership should now say, in the most explicit terms, that most Palestinians are still prepared to live in permanent peace with an Israel inside its pre-1967 borders.

Palestinians versus the Samson option blackmail

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Gilad Atzmon: My Problem with Jewish Identity Starts here

By Gilad Atzmon

This doesn’t help either

In case you want purchase these Jewish Infant Bodysuits:
http://www.cafepress.co.uk/+envy_me_im_jewish_infant_bodysuit,141583888

http://www.cafepress.co.uk/+half_jewish_infant_bodysuit,165207851

UPDATE: More By Nahida
How to Manufacture Consent to Genocide?

Comment By Uprooted Palestinian:

Having seen where Brother’s Gilad Problem with Jewish Identity Starts,
The so-called Social worker, and some “Anti-Zionost” Have no problem with this start, their problem is Gillad exposing their true color.

On “Socialist Worker’s wake up!”, after “Each village is a reminder”

More from Gilad the “self-hating Jew”,

Israel Braces Itself for a UN Fact Finding Mission
British Jews Support Israeli War Crimes

Each village is a reminder

Tolerance, History and Revisionism on Aspen GrassRoots TV

Touching Left, Islam, Israeli Lobby, Chomsky and Many other Hot Topics

Connecting the Zionist Dots

Shooting and Sobbing

“I come from them, and I know how they think.”

The Helen Thomas’ Resolution

The Crucifixion of Kindness

Jewish Ideology and World Peace

On Israeli collective madness

Life Must Go On- Jazza Festival for Free Gaza

Israeli Butchery at Sea

Humanitarian Flotilla Vs Evil Navy

Talking about Athens and Jerusalem

Planet Chomsky vs. Dershowitz’s Orbit

It took me many years before I realized that the place I was born in was in fact occupied Palestine.

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