Who Said Israel Has A Right To Exist?

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Unknown Snipers and Western-Backed Regime Change: Syria 2011

Contributed by Maidhc Ó Cathail

By Gearóid Ó Colm áin

Global Research

November 28, 2011

The people of Syria have been beset by death squads and snipers since the outbreak of violence there in March. Hundreds of Syrian soldiers and security personnel have been murdered, tortured and mutilated by Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood militants. Yet the international media corporations continue to spread the pathetic lie that the deaths are the result Bachar Al Assad’s dictatorship.

When I visited Syria in April of this year, I personally encountered merchants and citizens in Hama who told me they had seen armed terrorists roaming the streets of that once peaceful city, terrorizing the neighbourhood. I recall speaking to a fruit seller in the city of Hama who spoke about the horror he had witnessed that day. As he described the scenes of violence to me, my attention was arrested by a newspaper headline in English from the Washington Post shown on Syrian television: “CIA backs Syrian opposition”. The Central Intelligence Agency provides training and funding for groups who do the bidding of US imperialist interests. The history of the CIA shows that backing opposition forces means providing them with arms and finance, actions illegal under international law.
A few days later, while at a hostel in the ancient, cultured city of Aleppo, I spoke to a Syrian business man and his family. The business man ran many hotels in the city and was pro-Assad. He told me that he used to watch Al Jazeera television but now had doubts about their honesty. As we conversed, the Al Jazeera television in the background showed scenes of Syrian soldiers beating and torturing protestors. “ Now if that is true, it is simply unacceptable” he said. It is sometimes impossible to verify whether the images shown on television are true or not. Many of the crimes attributed to the Syrian army have been committed by the armed gangs, such as the dumping of mutilated bodies into the river in Hama, presented to the world as more proof of the crimes of the Assad regime.
There is a minority of innocent opponents of the Assad regime who believe everything they see and hear on Al Jazeera and the other pro-Western satellite stations. These people simply do not understand the intricacies of international politics.
But the facts on the ground show that most people in Syria support the government. Syrians have access to all internet websites and international TV channels. They can watch BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, read the New York Times online or Le Monde before tuning into their own state media. In this respect, many Syrians are more informed about international politics than the average European or American. Most Europeans and American believe their own media. Few are capable of reading the Syrian press in original Arabic or watching Syrian television. The Western powers are the masters of discourse, who own the means of communication. The Arab Spring has been the most horrifying example of the wanton abuse of this power.
Disinformation is effective in sowing the seeds of doubt among those who are seduced by Western propaganda. Syrian state media has disproved hundreds of Al Jazeera lies since the beginning of this conflict. Yet the western media has refused to even report the Syrian government’s position lest fair coverage of the other side of this story encourage a modicum of critical thought in the public mind.

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US Police Dismantle Two Anti-Wall Street Protest Camps

Hundreds of police flooded into downtown Los Angeles and Philadelphia early Wednesday to clear anti-Wall Street protest camps where dozens were arrested.

The latest moves targeting the two-month-old protest movement against corporate greed and inequality came days after announced eviction deadlines.

In Los Angeles, dozens of officers in helmets formed lines to seal off an area around the City Hall park camp, while others began arresting around a dozen protesters and leading them away handcuffed.

Police announced over loudspeakers called on people to leave the area “immediately” or face arrest and possible other actions.

After a couple of hours of anticipation about where the police would come from, a mass of helmeted LAPD officers burst out of the City Hall doors while others began arresting people on the lawn outside.
The CNS news agency said that rubber bullets had been fired during the initial confrontation, but later dropped the report.

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Palestine vis-à-vis Challenges, Zero Tolerance and Focus on Unity Required

Ahmad Shaito’s report Translated by Batoul Wehbe The Palestinian cause upholds a long road of revolution and pain. Its course passes through major challenges that threaten the rest of the Palestinian rights in their land and identity. This ideological cause for both Arab and Islamic nations should remain the center of concern and interests. Today, in light of international conspiracies and the Zionist intransigence and insistence on resuming settlement policy, which plagued the Palestinian land, and in the backdrop of escalating the process of Judaizing Jerusalem, Arab and Islamic world should spare no effort to preserve history. At the time Zionist expansion continues controlling about 80% of historical Palestine as well as undermining the right of return, the internal Palestinian scene suffers from divisions which remain a challenge to achieve unity. The same scene experiences the old-new Arab dispersion, abandonment and cowardice towards the Palestinian cause. However, the resistance insists on ongoing preparedness and defiance, despite these major difficulties. «Allah promised us we’ll expell jews» Concerning the cause’s challenges and what roles we should shoulder, the President of Beirut Dignity Federation Sheikh Khalid Othman told Al-Manar Website that “the Palestinian cause is central to our nation. We should not be lenient towards the enemy. The Zionists are expanding settlement and it is ideological to them as they believe that the return of Christ can be achieved only by freedom from ‘filths’. They are the spearhead against Islam. But God promised us that we’ll fight the Zionists and expel them.” “Al-Quds (Jerusalem) is the first of the two Qiblas and the third of the two holy Sanctuaries. Thus, every noble Muslim should make every effort to preserve the holy sites of Al-Quds and especially Al-Aqsa, which Zionists desecrated,” Sheikh Othman said. Sheikh Othman expresses his sorrow as “we witness division among our Palestinian brothers,” and hopes that they “achieve unity in order to be the mainstay in the restoration of Palestinian rights because Arabs cannot be relied on. The current situation requires unity and the honest people of this nation will liberate the land.” On the role of the nation’s scholars and whether they are assuming their role in this sacred cause, Sheikh Othman said: “No doubt there are honest as well as laggard and conspiring scholars, hence, the nobles should play an important role especially that the cause is religious, ideological and purely Islamic. It is a conflict over existence not over borders.” The responsibility of scholars increases under the weakness of presidents and kings, Sheikh Othman indicates, “so they should consider the following: – Scholars should develop and re-install the theme of Liberating Palestine in the hearts and minds before raising it in public places – To redraw a new intellectual, cultural and Islamic map because what’s required is deviating the conflict from Arab – Israeli to Arab – Iranian, however our main struggle is with the Zionists.” Sheikh Othman stressed that “it is required to strengthen the idea of resisting the occupation in the minds of future generations” and wished that the scholars “would make this issue their polestar especially that they have platforms they can speak through.”

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Special Reports on The Media Day in Support of the Palestinian Cause

In support for the Palestinian cause, Al-Manar Website provides a range of special reports and interviews as part of commemorating “The Media Day in Support of the Palestinian Cause” which falls on November 29.

• Lebanon’s Palestinians Continue Decent to Abyss on 64th Anniversary of UNSCR 181 – By Franklin Lamb

• U.S. and the Palestinian Cause – By F. Michael Maloof

• Rabbi Weiss: Israel Is Rebellion against God – Interviewed by Sara Taha Moughnieh

• Innovating for Palestine – By Marwa Haidar

• Am I Not a Human? – By Batoul Wehbe

• We Felt We’d Return to Palestine the Next Day – Written by Mohammad Alloush – Translated by Batoul Wehbe

• Palestine vis-à-vis Challenges, Zero Tolerance and Focus on Unity Required – Written by Ahmad Shaito – Translated by Batoul Wehbe

• In Pictures: Israeli Excavations under the Al-Aqsa Mosque – Written by Nada Raad – Translated by Marwa Haidar

Source: Al-Manar Website

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We, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria,

“We, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, emphasize that the interview broadcast on the Israeli Channel Two – in the context of the bilateral campaign of the Zionists and the media of the Syrian regime – is aimed at tarnishing the image of the Muslim Brotherhood. This interview was originally made with Mr. al-Bayanouni in 2006 for a Spanish television channel. The interview has been tampered with and fabricated so as to serve the cheap and common goals of the Syrian and the Zionist regimes.”

“They even support peace with Israel’ .”

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/23/2016
TAGS: PREL, PTER, LE, SY
SUBJECT: LEBANON: SAAD HARIRI CALLS FOR SYRIAN REGIME
CHANGE; MAYBE IRAN TOO

Saying that he maintains close contact with Khaddam (in Paris) and Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader-in-exile Ali Bayanuni (in London), Saad urged us to “talk to Bayanuni. See what he’s like. You will see wonders.“…..”

Wikileaks: Hariri to Talwar: “A partnership between the ‘Brotherhood & Khaddam’ … They support peace with Israel”

Khaddam interview with Israeli TV Channel

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Innovating for Palestine

Marwa Haidar

Lots are those who are dreaming of Palestine, its soil, air, water, and olive trees. They even dream of a tent on that holy land. Although they were forced out of it, they still hope to return. While they wait, they’ve decided to innovate for their dear Palestine. They became pioneers in writing, painting, singing , sciences, and medicine, among other fields. Creative Cartoonist Naji Al-Ali Draws Refugee’s Injuries Naji al-Ali was born in 1938 in the northern Palestinian village of Al-Shajara, between Tiberias and Nazareth. He was forced to leave his country to the south of Lebanon with his family after the 1948 Palestinian Catastrophe (Nakba) and lived in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon. He moved to Beirut, where he lived in a tent in the Shatila refugee camp and worked in various industrial jobs. In 1957 he travelled to Saudi Arabia, where he worked for two years. In 1959 Naji returned to Lebanon and joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), but was expelled four times in one year for lack of party discipline. Between 1960 and 1961, along with comrades from the ANM, he published a handwritten political journal Al-Sarkha (‘The Outcry’). In 1960, he joined the Lebanon Academy of Arts, but was unable to continue his studies there as he was imprisoned for political reasons soon afterwards. After his release he moved to Tyr, south of Lebanon, where he worked as a drawing instructor in the Ja’fariya College. In 1963 Al-Ali moved to Kuwait. There he worked as an editor, cartoonist, designer and newspaper producer for the Arab nationalist Al-Tali’a newspaper. From 1968 on he worked for the Kuwaiti daily As-Siyasa. In the course of these years he returned to Lebanon several times. In 1974 he started working for the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, which facilitated his return to Lebanon for longer periods. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, he was briefly detained by the occupation forces along with other residents of Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp. In 1983 he returned to Kuwait to work for the Al-Qabas newspaper, and in 1985, Al-Ali moved to London where he worked for its international edition until his death. He published three books about his cartoons, in 1976, 1983 and 1985, and was preparing another at the time of his death. In 1979, Al-Ali was elected president of the League of Arab Cartoonists. In 1979 and 1980, he received the first prize in the Arab cartoonists exhibitions held in Damascus. The International Federation of Newspaper Publishers awarded him the “Golden Pen of Freedom” posthumously in 1988. He created the character Handhalah, who was depicted as a ten-year old boy, and appeared for the first time in the As-Siyasa daily in Kuwait in 1969. The figure (Handhalah) turned his back to the viewers from 1973, and clasped his hands behind his back. The artist explained that the ten-year old represented his age when forced to leave Palestine and would not grow up until he could return to his homeland; his turned back and clasped hands symbolized the character’s rejection to outside solutions. In later cartoons, Handhalah got to actively participate in the caricature’s subject not only observe it. Handhalah then became the signature of Naji’Al-Ali’s cartoons and remains an iconic symbol of the Palestinian identity and defiance. Other characters in Al-Ali’s cartoons included Fatima and her husband. Fatima symbolized the strong and defiant Palestinian woman who didn’t agree to make peace with the invaders. Her husband was a thin, hard-working man. There were also two more characters, a thin, miserable-looking man representing the Palestinian as the defiant victim of Israeli oppression and other hostile forces, and a fat man representing the Arab regimes and Palestinian political leaders who led an easy life and engaged in political compromises which the artist fervently opposed. July 22, 1987, while outside the London offices of al-Qabas newspaper, Naji Al-Ali was shot in the face. He remained unconscious in the hospital until his death on 29 August 1987. “Prince of Poets”: Tamim Bargouthi In 1977, Tamim Bargouthi, a Palestinian poet and political scientist, was born in Cairo. He comes from a lineage that is well known in Arabic literature. His father is the Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouthi, and his mother is the Egyptian novelist and scholar, Radwa Ashour. He obtained a B.A. in Political Sciences from the University of Cairo in 1999, and specialized in International Relations at the American University of Cairo, from which he graduated in 2001. He received a PhD in political sciences from the Boston University in 2004, and became an assistant professor at the American University of Cairo in 2005. Tamim was well known as he delivered poems for al-Quds during the “Prince of Poets” program, broadcast by Abu Dhabi Channel. He has written four poetry collections: Meejana (Ramallah 1999), Al-Manzar (Cairo 2000), Qaluli Bethebb Masr (Cairo 2005), and Maqam Iraq (Cairo 2005). He is also the author of Benign Nationalism: Egyptian Nation State Building under Occupation (2007) and has recently published a book entitled “The Umma and The Dawla: The Nation State and the Arab Middle East” (Pluto Press, 2008). Between 1996 and 1997, he won the music prize of his faculty at the Cairo University. The faculty awarded him the poetry prize in 1998. During that same year, he won the poetry medal of the High Institute of Applied Arts. In 2000, he received the poetry prize of the Regional Cultural Foundation in Marrakesh, Morocco. He is currently a visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, where he teaches on Comparative Politics of the Middle East, Arab nationalism, and Islamic political thought. The Palestinian creativity wasn’t restricted within arts and poetry. However it exceeded to reach the sciences. “Jenin” Carved in Stone Sent to Moon Issam Nemer, a Palestinian astronaut who had sent to the moon a stone with the name of his town, “Jenin” carved in it. Nemer was born in 1926 in Jenin, where he has his elementary and secondary education. In 1949 he traveled to the United States of America to attend Uota University (University of the Arts) where he graduated in 1953 with a degree in engineering. He continued his high education in the New York University where he received a PhD in Calculating Quantities. Then he worked at a pioneer missiles production factory in California. After that, Nemer moved to work for NASA in Houston, Texas, where he led the experiment group of the moon spacecraft. He achieved several medals and certificates of appreciation. In addition to these scientific achievements, Issam Nemer sent a small stone with the name of his hometown “Jenin” carved in it, with the Apollo 11 astronauts. Political Palestinian writer, Hafez Touqan, said, in an essay published in the “Nablus” newspaper, that he had asked Nemer: “Why didn’t you write the name of Palestine”? “He answered while laughing: so that the stone can reach the moon”, Touqan added. And till now, the municipality’s library preserves an image, signed by Apollo’s astronauts, offered by Issam Nemer to the city residents in the first visit to his country following his travel. Heredity Scientist: Doctor Ahmad Tibi Doctor Ahmad Teebi, a prominent doctor in genetics field, especially in the Arab world. He is the Charge d’affaire of the genetic diseases data base in the Arab world. He is also reputed as a genetics teratology researcher. Teebi now heads the department of clinical genetics in the Hospital for Sick Children (also known as SickKids Hospital) in Toronto. He is also the deputy chief and pediatrics professor in Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and Qatar. Doctor Teebi prepared more than 200 researches in genetics field. He noted to 38 new types of genetic disturbances. He also made several researches based on Mendelian inheritance law. He was an editor in several magazines specialized in genetics in the US. Doctor Teebi also wrote, along with Talaat Farag, a book, of 25 chapters, on the genetic disturbances upon the Arabs. This book was published in 1997 by Oxford University. He shared in developing the genetics services in several Arab countries, like Gulf States, Jordan, occupied Palestinian territories, Egypt and Tunisia.

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The Israel Lobby and the Creation of an American Dictatorship

The Passionate Attachment

In much of the limited coverage of the dangerous provision buried in the annual defense appropriations bill that would give the President the power to use the military to intern anyone — including American citizens — indefinitely, and hold them without charges or trial, anywhere in the world, including on American soil, there has been little, if any, discussion of the most likely source of the dictatorial legislation introduced by Senators Levin and McCain.

According to a November 2010 WRMEA report, Carl Levin was the No.1 career recipient of pro-Israel PAC funds with $728,737. By contrast, buying John McCain’s loyalty — to Israel — has been a bargain at a paltry $207,000.

Almost every piece of police state legislation introduced since 9/11 — from the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and introduction of the USA Patriot Act to the ongoing efforts to censor the Internet — was introduced by AIPAC’s minions in Congress. Isn’t it time for all freedom-loving Americans to identify clearly the source of the onslaught on their increasingly diminishing liberty?

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Am I not a Human?

Batoul Wehbe

The world has favored women with a special day (March 8) to celebrate their economic, political and social achievements without any consideration to the one worth being honored. The one who bore the brunt of war and discrimination, struggled, and came under torture.
A mother who breastfed her children revolution and urged them to struggle and resist deserves a small pause from the world. She deserves to be assisted to break out of the quagmire of daily frustrations. She deserves “urgent steps” to be taken from international organizations to safeguard her basic rights and preserve her dignity.
At the time when women struggle for gaining rights and equality with men, the Palestinian woman dreams of reaching “freedom” as she lives with “death” every day. Every time she walks out of her home, she puts in mind that dying might be her fate.

The Palestinian woman provided the teacher and the organizer who led resistance cells. She participated in several qualitative operations including martyrdom operations. She also stood long years behind Israeli bars facing the inhumane torturing and killing machine.

The Palestinian woman provided the unforgettable names like martyrs Dalal Mughrabi and Shadia Abu-Ghazaleh, Wafa’a Idris, Leila Khaled, Ahlam Tamimi and many others.
“Israeli jails were more like graves,” one freed Palestinian female prisoner said.

«She wishes to hear the word MOM»

Those were undoubtedly the graves for their hopes and aspirations. “While Amal Jomaa was suffering from uterus cancer another detainee was longing for her parents and family whom she hadn’t seen or heard from for six years. A detainee wished to become a mother and hear the word Mom, a basic right that women aspire to,” Somoud Karaja, who was freed lately in the October 18 swap deal between the Zionist entity and the Hamas resistance group, said.

Freed Palestinian prisoner Somoud Karaja

“A Palestinian woman is worth being carved a statue for, more than any president or king,” Karaja added. “You find her in every field, in politics or in resistance. She is the mother of martyrs, the wounded, and the prisoners.”

Karaja, who was sentenced for twenty years for stabbing an Israeli occupation soldier at a Qalandia checkpoint in 2009, recalls her days in prison saying she needs another two years to talk about her observations.
She recounted an unforgettable incident she faced when Israeli soldiers were taking her to detention. Karaja tried to steal a look from under the blindfold glimpsing at the Dome of the Rock. “Its gleam made me forget myself, my parents, and everything. I even forgot that I was being detained and taken to an unknown place. I had a strange feeling.” It is worth mentioning that Al-Aqsa Mosque is quarter of an hour away from Karaja’s village Safa in Ramallah, but had not seen it- except on TV- since she was seven years old.

It’s our right to live in this sacred land

“When I used to cross from north to south (from Damon territories to Ofer) on a bus, I used to look at our stolen land. It’s us and our ancestors who planted these trees not the occupiers. How come a Zionist settler lives with all this insolence on my land? This feeling of you being the oppressor and them being the oppressed strangles you,” Karaja said with clear bitterness.

Even after her freedom, the Israeli Mossad still summons Somoud Karaja and other freed detainees and threatens with prison should they do anything the Israelis deem unusual.

Bitter is the life of the Palestinians, bitter is the life of women in occupied Palestine. Coexisting with injustice and cruelty is intolerable, particularly in these occupied territories, where the tyrant is regarded as the oppressed and the downtrodden is treated as the oppressor.

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We Felt We’d Return to Palestine the Next Day

Mohammad Alloush’s report

Translated by Batoul Wehbe

In the age of two, he was forced out of his village “Al-Khalisa”, in the north of Palestine, carried on his father’s arms after the Zionist aggressive killing machine occupied Palestine in 1948 and expelled its inhabitants.

His childhood was close to his home country where he had been smelling its soil and monitoring it from faraway with each sun rise and set… He resided in Nabatiyeh.
Abu Ali Hassan, 63, was in charge of the Popular Front’s right of return file and is still a refugee. We met him on the shore of Beirut and talked with him about Palestine, the memories and longing to return.

We felt we’d return to Palestine the next day
First of all, when we asked about his childhood he smiled and said: “I felt that my village Al-Khalisa (which is now called Kiryat Shmona) and I are one. It is the land that was a reference and link to life to me. In the first year, we entered Kfar Rumman School. We used to come from Haboush to Kfar Rumman back anf forth on foot. A year later, we moved to Nabatiyeh where we entered a school in Al-Mislikh neighborhood which was built by UNRWA, and then we moved to Nabatiyeh camp in the mid-fifties and studied there in the camp’s school.”

Staring at the sea, he said in a sigh, “We dreamt of returning … We felt we’d return the next day. By the way, we used to sing a short popular song “the morning song” at school, written by Abu Maher. It says: ‘Our Palestine we won’t forget you… Our Palestine we call upon Allah and history to witness that we’ll sacrifice ourselves to gain you back… Long live Palestine, and we’ll live to the awaited avenge.”

Talking about Nabatiyeh camp, Abu Ali said “the distinguishing feature of the camp was its closeness to the Palestinian occupied territories. We used to see Palestine and Al-Mtelleh settlement every day. After the eruption of Palestinian Intifada, the camp became the headquarter of the revolution’s military command. In it we saw Yasser Arafat and George Habash for the first time. It included different Arab nationalities. When it was bombed in an airstrike in 1974, the military command moved to Nabatiyeh town. I was, then, in Beirut residing in Tal Za’atar camp. I was continuing my studies in Beirut Arab University, faculty of History focusing mainly on the Arab-Israeli conflict issue. In the late nineties I completed my masters in the Lebanese University.”

O Beirut people do not shoot on us we’re withdrawing

When asked about the stories he heard from the parents, he answered: “My father often spoke of communication between people in the villages, especially in Al-Hawli region (which constitutes 26 villages), as well as the close and brotherly ties with the nearby Lebanese villages.”

After Nabatiyeh camp was destroyed, his family moved to Beirut in 1979 and resided in Al-Sabil region near Al-Makassed Hospital.

On the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982, Abu Ali said he felt happy when he saw that strong resistance to the occupation in Beirut, “it was influential and effective, what prompted the Zionist army withdrawal under the resistance’s iron fist.” He recalls an incident he faced one day while he was passing through Tallet Al-Khayat region, he saw Israeli soldiers on a tank shouting through a microphone “O people of Beirut do not shoot on us, we are withdrawing.”

Any party that gives up right of return, does not represent me

Hope in Abu Ali’s eyes shines every day, the hope to return to Palestine. He finds that any party that gives up right of return represents neither him nor the Palestinian people or the Arab welfare. According to him, there is no problem with religions in Palestine, the Zionist scheme has created this problem.

As for the conditions of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps, Abu Ali insisted on the need to give Palestinian civil and social rights, especially the right to own and to work. “Is it reasonable that the U.S. citizen can buy a building in Lebanon while the Palestinian can’t own the room he sleeps in?” he wondered.

Abu Ali stressed the idea that a Palestinian remains a Palestinian everywhere. “For example Professor Edward Said, who had come from the United States to Fatima Gate, in Lebanon’s south, to throw stones at the Zionists is the biggest proof of that.”

Day of return was a shocking response to the Zionist movement
Talking about the day of return last 15 May, Abu Ali considered that the response to the Zionist movement slogan “Kill the elders, the youths forget” was stunning. “In Maroun al-Ras, all ages from the two years old to 80 years participated and most people in the camps wanted to go. The estimated number of people was 20,000; however, 50000 were in presence. Knowing that if the rest were able to go they would… Most of the martyrs were under the age of twenty.”

At the end of our meeting with him, he said: “I hope the Arab world from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf would be one united country. Palestine is not for the Palestinians alone but is for the whole Arab nation.”
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Ron Paul: Only Republican candidate ‘not owned by AIPAC’

The Passionate Attachment

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Target Syria

by Stephen Lendman

Washington’s Greater Middle East project involves waring against the region one country at a time to replace independent regimes with client ones.

  Softer targets were attacked first. Tougher ones remain, notably Iran and Syria. Subduing them may involve turning the entire region into an uncontrollable cauldron, not least because China and Russia have interests to defend.

Russia maintains a strategic naval base at Tartus, Syria, its only Mediterranean location. It considers it vital protection for its Black Sea Fleet. It’s being modernized to accommodate heavy warships after 2012. Russia came to stay.

Three Russian warships now patrol Syrian waters. Unofficial sources confirm it, saying Russia’s there to protect strategic and national security interests, as well as prevent war.

About 120,000 Russian citizens are in Syria. Moscow’s obligated to protect them the way they aided South Ossetian Russians after Georgia attacked the province in August 2008.

Provocatively, America’s nuclear carrier USS George HW Bush anchored off Syria. Its Strike Group and additional vessels are conducting maritime security and support operations nearby. The US 6th Fleet patrols the area.

Meanwhile, Washington and Turkey urged their citizens to leave Syria. A November 23 US statement said “depart immediately while commercial transportation is available.” Whether something’s brewing isn’t known. Tough talk alone doesn’t suggest it. Nonetheless, it’s worrisome.

Syria’s being assaulted like Libya. Heavily armed insurgents are involved. Washington orchestrated everything. Neighboring countries are involved, including Israel. Syria’s blamed for defending itself. Libya redux looks possible. Continued violence and escalating tensions suggest it.

An anonymous Russian intelligence official said America “is playing a very dangerous game here. One that may result in Russia taking defensive actions to protect itself, its military installation and Russian citizens.”

A Russian military expert called US carriers “expensive floating targets that are vulnerable to attacks by aircraft, missiles and torpedos. They were designed for Cold War scenarios, and are less useful in establishing control of areas close to shore.”

According to Pravda.ru, Center for Military Forecasts analyst Anatoly Tsyganok said Washington no longer will inform Russia about planned troop deployments.

“Apparently, it is connected with the situation in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said. “One may assume that NATO will create a military group near Russia’s southern borders to strike Syria.”

“They will most likely raise this issue at the NATO summit in December. They will try to analyze Syria’s actions in case NATO conducts a military operation against the country, like (earlier) in Libya.”

Itar-Tass contributor Anatoly Lazarev accused Washington of “initia(ting) the campaign for strangling Damascus.” Russia stresses dialogue for conflict resolution. “Washington obviously does not like the stand assumed by Moscow. By all appearances, it wishes to play first the Libyan and now the Syrian card” to ensure its regional interests “at all costs.” Then on to new targets to control the entire region.

International Crisis Group (ICG) Comments on Syria

Founded in 1995 by World Bank vice president Mark Malloch Brown and former US diplomat Morton Abramowitz, ICG supports power, not popular interests. Comments on its Middle East Project Director Peter Harling’s analysis follows below.

Titled, “Uncharted Waters: Thinking Through Syria’s Dynamics,” he assessed where things now stand, saying:

“The Syrian crisis may or may not have entered its final phase, but it undoubtedly has entered its most dangerous one to date. The current stage is defined by an explosive mix of heightened strategic stakes tying into a regional and wider international competition on the one hand and emotionally charged attitudes, communal polarisation and political wishful thinking on the other.”

Based in Damascus, Harling’s observing events firsthand. Entirely missing from current considerations, he believes, “is a sober assessment of the challenges provoked by (balance of power) shifts and the very real risk that they could derail or even foreclose the possibility of a successful transition.”

Of course, it’s for Syrians, not outside powers, to decide. Intervening in other nations’ internal affairs is illegal. For Washington, its NATO partners, and Israel it’s standard practice. Harding’s analysis omitted international law issues, focusing on imperial ones instead.

Five key issues are excluded from Syria’s debate, he believes, including:

• the dominant Alawite community’s fate; 
• Syrian and Lebanese ties;
• implications of international intervention;
• impact of the protest movement’s militarization; and
• “creeping social, economic and institutional decay.”

  Assad linked the Alawite community’s fate to his own to assure loyalty among people who’ve gained little from the regime. Crisis conditions bonded them to Assad’s government. The same holds for Syrian Christians.

Critically, the regime controls Damascus and Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. It secured them because protests there remain peaceful. Its “divide-and-rule tactics have kept most Alawites, many Christians, as well as some Druze and Sunnis on its side.”

Nonetheless, civil society segments support insurgents. The longer conflict persists, the greater the incentive for affected business, middle class, and other elements to seek ways to end it. At issue is protecting their own self-interest. They want calm to get back to business as soon as possible.

At the same time, Assad won’t step down or be deposed internally. Regime officials need him. He’s been instrumental in keeping support among BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and other countries. He’s also popular so why remove a regime prop.

As for sanctions, civilians are mostly harmed much like everywhere they’re imposed. Assad said parliamentary elections will be held next February or March. Constitutional review will follow. So will presidential elections if new provisions in it say so.

If Syrians agree to test him, violence might subside but won’t end as long as criminal insurgents are encouraged by Washington, Turkey and other regional states to maintain pressure.

Nonetheless, without a political solution, violence will continue. Civilians will suffer horrifically. Military intervention may follow. For now, Assad’s holding firm. Violence hasn’t reached critical mass to topple him. Regime change isn’t imminent. Syria’s military supports him. Turkey’s pressure is limited, he believes.

Arab League states have no credibility whatever. They condoned Libya’s ravaging, say nothing about NATO’s plans to colonize another Arab state, ignore Bahraini and other regional atrocities, and brutalize their own people protesting against political, economic and social injustice.

On November 27, DEBKAfile said Syria’s neighbors are preparing for potential retaliation after League members imposed sanctions. Israel moved armored brigades to its Lebanese and Syrian borders. Turkey’s military is on alert. Lebanon and Jordan also responded defensively.

“Military sources in the Gulf report that 150 Iranian Revolutionary Guards specialists had landed at a military airport south of Damascus on their way to Lebanon to join Hizbollah which began bringing its rockets out of their hideouts.”

Russia’s supplying Syria super-advanced S-300 anti-missile systems, as well as advanced Pantsir-1 (SA-22 Greyhound) anti-air missiles and supersonic Yakhont (SS-26) missiles for targeting vessels blockading Syria’s coast.

Resolution’s nowhere in sight. Conditions remain fluid. War winds are blowing. Redrawing the region is planned. Arab Spring talk belies strategies to do it. Perhaps destroying it comes first.

A Final Comment

On November 27, Arab League states approved stiff anti-Syrian economic sanctions. Their 14-point plan includes travel bans on regime officials, asset freezes, blocking sale of “nonessential” commodities, halting transactions with Syria’s central bank, and ending financing for Arab-funded projects in the country.

Sanctions are effective immediately. Ordinary people will be hurt most. At issue is weakening popular support for Assad to facilitate regime change more easily. In fact, people under duress usually rally behind sitting governments for support. It remains to be seen if Syrians follow suit.

On November 28, Mathaba.net reported that Kuwait’s al Rai daily learned from unnamed senior European sources that Arab states, with US logistical support, will impose a no-fly zone over Syria once an authorizing Arab League charter decree is issued, calling for the protection of Syrian civilians.

With or without one, attacking a nonbelligerent state is illegal. Nations may only respond against others defensively. Intervening militarily in their internal affairs is prohibited. Nonetheless, doing it for humanitarian reasons will be invoked. It doesn’t wash but may work, with or without a Security Council resolution.

America and NATO partners aren’t deterred by international or statute laws. As a result, Syria is increasingly vulnerable.

According to al Rai, a no-fly ban will target Syrian artillery and military vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers. They’ll be prohibited from moving freely. European sources say they’d be crippled “in less than 24 hours.”

War winds are blowing stronger.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 11:07 AM 

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Rania Masri: Arab League’s Syria sanctions reveal its lack of credibility

Contributed by Maidhc Ó Cathail

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The Illustrated Protocols of Zion

Everyone should read the protocols and decide for his or herself whether they describe to a “T” what is occurring. Read them here.

at 11/30/2011
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In Pictures: Israeli Excavations under the Al-Aqsa Mosque

Nada Raad Zionist excavations were launched in 1967. At that time, the Mughrabi Gate was only used by Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers. Starting from 1967, the excavations were concentrated under al-Aqsa Mosque yard, under the pretext of “searching for Solomon’s Temple”. The Excavations were led by governmental associations and Zionist organizations. Despite the daily excavations, the alleged temple hasn’t been found. However, the Zionist authorities never stopped digging, in a clear sign that the move aims at endangering al-Aqsa mosque’s foundations. In 2007, the Israelis demolished the street that extends to the western side of al-Aqsa mosque, along with two rooms belonging to the Aqsa mosque. In 2008, a part of the street collapsed. In the beginning of 2008, a 200-meter tunnel was unveiled in front of the Western Wall of the mosque that links Buraq Square with a Jewish synagogue. A 600-meter tunnel was built under the houses of the Wadi Helwa neighborhood in Silwan. This tunnel leads to the southwestern part of the holy mosque. A part of UNURWAH School in Silwan collapsed, along with several Palestinian houses. Mass media didn’t cover the incident in which 14 girls were wounded. Jerusalem residents assure that they hear the sounds of excavations in the day and the night. These operations start at 7:00 and end at 11:00. Zionists claim they are looking for Solomon’s Temple and the Wailing Wall. For this purpose they have demolished all the surrounding buildings under the pretext of searching for the wall’s original stones. In 2009, the excavations led to the collapse of a traditional stairway in Silwan neighborhood. The stairway was three meters long and 4 meters wide. “Excavations deform the archeological structures in Jerusalem”, the Head of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ), Kathleen Canyon said. “This is a heinous crime”, Canyon added. Zionist authorities ordered last October (2011) to demolish the Mughrabi bridge, leading to al-Aqsa mosque yard, alleging it was about to collapse. In order to build an alternative tunnel, Israel is trying hard to destroy the bridge. The Jerusalem Municipality spokesman said that the bridge will be demolished in maximum 30 days. The current bridge was built after the original bridge collapsed in 2004, due to excavation works and corrosion. Israeli excavations under the Al-Aqsa have put the mosque under the serious threat of collapse in case of a minor earthquake, heavy rain, or even an Israeli mock raid; at a time the whole World, mainly the Arab World, stands idle by.

Source: Website Team

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Lavrov to Arab Ambassadors: ‘Syria is not Libya! Get it once and for all!’

Via FLC

“… On Monday, the day after the Arab League voted to impose sanctions on Syria, Lavrov addressed Arab ambassadors in Moscow. He stressed the Kremlin’s policy that internal problems “should be resolved peacefully through national dialogue aimed at promoting civil harmony and without outside interference.” 

The meeting seemed to be a warm up for an expected veto by Russia if the Arab League asks the United Nations Security Council to approve sanctions against Syria.

Russia has a lot at stake in Syria…. Russia’s show of naval force comes one week after an American naval task force, led by the USS George H.W. Bush, the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, arrived off Syria’s coast.

If gunboat diplomacy is the cards, Russia has an advantage on land. Hundreds of active duty Syrian officers have trained at Russian military academies….  

For now, Moscow is talking peace — but is starting to brandish its big stick. “A scenario involving military intervention in Syrian affairs is absolutely unacceptable for us,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Friday, on the eve of the Arab League’s vote to impose sanctions. Then, on Sunday, within hours of the Arab League vote, a Russian Navy General Staff officer briefed Izvestiya about the deployment of the aircraft carrier to Syrian waters.…”

Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 6:47 PM

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1947: Suppose the UN had Partitioned America Instead?

By Richard Edmondson

Another presidential election year in America lays just ahead, one offering its usual cheap imitation of democracy but whose outcome potentially might be even more fiendish and nightmarish than election years of the recent past. It could be argued that in a good many areas, such as extra-judicial killings of American citizens for instance, Obama has been even worse than Bush, while the Gingrichean Republicans have of course already begun buzzing Iowa like a hive of human-headed locusts. It doesn’t look as if this time there’s really going to be a lesser of two evils to vote for—or if there is, the difference is likely to reside in the imagination of the individual voter more so than upon the plane of material existence.

Election years are when the rush by US officials to abandon any semblance of reason or adherence to reality becomes even more pronounced than usual, and nowhere is this more true than in regards to Israel. And it is here, of course, where Obama and the Republicans come to full agreement: they both love and adore the Zionist state and desire to give it more and more of our tax dollars and blood. But one wonders: how would they react were they suddenly to find themselves on the receiving end of an insidious partition plan that would permanently divide up the United States of America?

I ask that question because on November 29, 1947—exactly 64 years ago—Palestinians found themselves in just such a predicament with their country arbitrarily divided and apportioned out in a partition plan voted on by the United Nations. The plan was adopted by the UN General Assembly as Resolution 181, and in one fell swoop it gave the Jews 55 percent of Palestine, while the indigenous Palestinians were left with 45 percent. Zionists today are fond of pointing out that this measure was “rejected” by the Palestinians, almost as if to say, “See? We Jews were making a genuine sacrifice for peace. It was the Palestinians who were being unreasonable.” One answer to that of course is that for the Jews there was no “sacrifice” involved. None whatever. Palestine did not belong to them. Who in their right mind would turn down 55 percent of something to which they have no right or title? At the time, Jews made up only 33 percent of the population of Palestine, and that 33 percent held deeds to only 7 percent of the land. So yes, quite naturally, the Jews were more than willing to be “reasonable.”

But there are other things to consider as well. Americans should ask themselves how they might possibly react were the UN suddenly to draw a line down the middle of the US and announce that from that point forward all land west of the Mississippi River would belong to a population of Yiddish-speaking immigrants from the Caucasus Mountains of Russia. The people of Texas, Arizona, Colorado—all other western-states residents as well—could then either, a) abandon their homes, farms, and ranches, and relocate east of the Mississippi, or b) stay where they were and be content to live in a country ruled by the Yiddish immigrants—immigrants who, incidentally, fancy themselves “chosen people” and who proclaim the land was given them by God. Would Americans have placidly accepted such a fate? Or would we have fought to hold onto our country? Everyone knows the answer to that. We would have fought—which is precisely what the Palestinians did.

This in fact was predicted by the CIA in a declassified report dated November 28, 1947—one day before the UN vote. The agency’s prognosis of the situation seems almost prescient now in retrospect:

Armed hostilities between Jews and Arabs will break out if the UN General Assembly accepts the plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab States as recommended by the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).

Inflamed by nationalism and religious fervor, Arabs in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia as well as Palestine are determined to fight against any force, or combination of forces, which attempts to set up a Jewish state in Palestine. While the governments of the Arab states are not expected to make official declarations of war, they will not attempt to keep their people (especially fanatical tribesmen) from joining the battle; they may even encourage such action and furnish clandestine assistance…

The Zionists, for their part, are determined to have a state in Palestine or, in the view of extreme elements, all of Palestine and Transjordan as well. Whatever the UN recommends, they will attempt to establish a Jewish state after the British withdrawal (now set by the British for August 1948). The Jews are expected to be able to mobilize some 200,000 fighters in Palestine, supplemented to a limited extent by volunteers and recruits from abroad. The Jewish armed groups in Palestine are well equipped and well trained in commando tactics. Initially, they will achieve marked success over the Arabs because of superior organization and equipment. As the war of attrition develops, however, the Jewish economy (severely strained by mobilization) will break down; furthermore, the Jews will be unable continuously to protect their extended supply lines and isolated settlements or to plant and cultivate their fields in the face of constant harassing, “hit and run” Arab attacks. Without substantial outside aid in terms of manpower and material, they will be able to hold out no longer than two years.

The “substantial outside aid” of course ended up being provided by the US. We can also infer from the above that the “extreme elements” of the Zionist movement were already planning to take all of Palestine in any event, and that possibly they viewed the partition plan as little more than a stepping stone toward that wider goal. One other especially noteworthy observation found in the report is that American companies held lucrative contracts in Arab oil producing states and that US support for the partition plan was likely to be contrary to our own national interest. Or as the CIA analyst put it:

The US, by supporting partition, has already lost much of its prestige in the Near East. In the event that partition is imposed on Palestine, the resulting conflict will seriously disturb the social, economic, and political stability of the Arab world, and US commercial and strategic interests will be dangerously jeopardized.

Of course it didn’t require a CIA analyst to know that the partition plan was bad news and that trouble lay ahead if it passed. In fact, the notion of dividing up the land in such a manner seems so absurd it almost boggles our minds to think the measure passed at all, and now, looking back, we can see that the decision of November 29, 1947 was calamitous—not only for the Palestinians, but for the rest of the world as well. So why on earth did the majority of nations support it? Well as may be expected, Zionist threats and pressure had a lot to do with it. The following quotes come from Wikipedia:

Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke with anger and contempt for the way the UN vote had been lined up. He said the Zionists had tried to bribe India with millions and at the same time his sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, had received daily warnings that her life was in danger unless “she voted right.”

The Zionists apparently even found it necessary to coerce the US government as well—at least if we are to believe what Harry Truman had to say:

President Truman later noted, “The facts were that not only were there pressure movements around the United Nations unlike anything that had been seen there before, but that the White House, too, was subjected to a constant barrage. I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders—actuated by political motives and engaging in political threats—disturbed and annoyed me.”

The above comment is rather peculiar, for as we know, Truman was a bit of a Christian Zionist and a staunch supporter of Israel. When the Jews declared their state on May 14, 1948, good old Harry, who today has a village named for him in Israel, extended official recognition just 11 minutes after the formal announcement was made, making the US the first nation to do so. So we have to ask: was Truman really “annoyed,” or was his statement issued for public consumption? Difficult to say with certainty, but what we do know is Truman worked hard behind the scenes lining up votes for the partition plan. He essentially established a precedent for what later became standard practice by the US—of twisting arms at the UN on Israel’s behalf. UN delegates from at least three different countries—Pakistan, Liberia, and the Philippines—all went on record reporting US pressure in favor of the plan:

In the days before the vote, the Philippines’ representative General Carlos P. Romulo stated, “We hold that the issue is primarily moral. The issue is whether the United Nations should accept responsibility for the enforcement of a policy which is clearly repugnant to the valid nationalist aspirations of the people of Palestine. The Philippines Government holds that the United Nations ought not to accept such responsibility.” After a phone call from Washington, the representative was recalled and the Philippines’ vote changed.

But the proud rulers of India stood firm by their convictions. India voted against Resolution 181, as did 12 other nations—Cuba, Iran, Afghanistan, Greece, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. On the other hand, a total of 33 countries voted to divest the Palestinians of 55 percent of their land. The list includes the US (despite President Harry’s having to suffer an “annoying” amount of pressure); it also includes Canada, France, and the Soviet Union, along with a number of countries we can easily imagine must have been subjected to intense US pressure: Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Liberia, Panama, the Philippines, Paraguay, and others. The Palestinians themselves, not being an officially recognized “nation” at the time (as they still are not), had no vote or say in the matter. None.

It’s probably reasonable to assume that support from a good many of these non-Semitic, gentile nations rested on the widespread belief at the time that European Jews were descended from the Jews of the Bible, but of course as we now know, the ancestry of the Ashkenazi Jews traces back to the Khazars of southern Russia—not the biblical Israelis. So even that part of the Zionist enterprise was fraudulent as well. Palestine was handed over to a people who had no historical ties to the land, had never even set foot on it prior to the late 19^th century.

So that was what happened in late November, 1947. Now here we are, 64 years later, with a prescient CIA report on our hands and an America standing at the threshold of extirpation. We find our country burdened, plagued even, by a confederacy of politicians who, snouts in the gentile hog trough, have pledged their allegiance to Israel while heaping disdain on the 99 percent of Americans who struggle to make ends meet. And in regards to Palestine, as with many other things, they have adopted an Orwell-speak. Thus it is the Palestinians who have become the “terrorists,” while the Yiddish-speaking immigrants from the Caucasus are loudly and vehemently proclaimed the rightful owners of the land:

“All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis, they’re not Palestinians,” averred GOP candidate Rick Santorum recently. “There is no Palestinian (sic). This is Israeli land.”

For his own part, Herman Cain seems to agree with Santorum—that not only “Israel” itself but even the entire West Bank as well should be considered part and parcel of the Jewish homeland. In a Fox News interview, here , Cain opposes calls for a return to the pre-1967 borders while also outlining what he refers to as the “Cain Doctrine”—essentially a pledge that US soldiers will fight and die for the Zionist cause in whatever war Israel may choose to start anywhere in the world.

“Let me just tell you what the Cain Doctrine would be as it relates to Israel if I were president,” he blusters. “You mess with Israel, you are messing with the United States of America. It’s that simple.”

Or consider the words of the current puppet in the White House. “America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable, and our friendship with Israel is deep and enduring,” said Obama in a September speech at the UN, this after publicly vowing to veto any UN recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank or Gaza.

Apparently Texas Governor Rick Perry feels Obama’s support for Israel hasn’t been “unshakeable” enough, however.

“Simply put, we would not be here today at the precipice of such a dangerous move if the Obama policy in the Middle East wasn’t naive, arrogant, misguided and dangerous,” said Perry, giving his thoughts on the UN’s Palestinian statehood debate.

You may have been under the impression that six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, but apparently GOP candidate New Gingrich feels that number is mistaken—and in a recent interview, here , the former House speaker ups the figure to seven million:

If the Israelis, having endured the Holocaust and the loss of seven million Jews in World War II, conclude that an Iranian nuclear weapon poses the threat of a second holocaust, because two nuclear weapons on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be the equivalent of a second holocaust. If they conclude that is a risk they cannot live with, we should respect their concern for survival. I think that we should clearly indicate to the world that we would support whatever they think they have to do to survive.

More recently Gingrich called for a bombing of Iranian oil refineries.

GOP candidate Michelle Bachmann, the queen of the Tea Party, is quite blunt, not to mention pessimistic, about it: we either support Israel or we’re doomed.

“I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States,” says Bachmann. “We have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play.”

Apparently overlooking the small matter of the Ashkenazi Jews being descended from the Khazars, Bachmann has obviously bought into Genesis 12:3, which has God promising to “bless” those who bless Abraham and his descendants, while throwing “curses” upon those who don’t.

But the award for the most “pro-Israel” position of all would probably have to go to Mitt Romney, who promises that if elected president he won’t dare make a move on the Arab-Israeli conflict, or apparently Middle East policy in general, without first getting approval from—yes, you guessed it—the leaders of Israel.

The actions that I will take will be actions recommended and supported by Israeli leaders. I don’t seek to take actions independent of what our allies think is best, and if Israel’s leaders thought that a move of that nature would be helpful to their efforts, then that’s something I’ll be inclined to do. But again, that’s a decision which I would look to the Israeli leadership to help guide. I don’t think America should play the role of the leader of the peace process, instead we should stand by our ally. Again, my inclination is to follow the guidance of our ally Israel, as to where our facilities and embassies would exist.

Presumably, Romney would even be “inclined” to start World War 3 should Zionist chieftains deem it “helpful to their efforts.” Enough is enough. We’ve had 64 years of this stuff. Is it not about time US military forces started arresting these people for treason and shutting down Zionist media outlets in the US? As for Palestine, is it not about time to deport the Yiddish-speaking immigrants back to the Caucasus Mountains and turn the land back over to the Palestinians?

I believe it is.Posted by Richard Edmondson at 11/29/2011 11:33 AM

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Red Scribblings: Political Islam and ‘Jewish identity politics’ – a comparison

Monday, November 28, 2011 at 3:48AM Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon: The following lengthy article by Red Scribblings proves that the issues raised by The Wandering Who are at the centre of today’s philosophical and ideological thinking. It is no secret that Zionist lobbies together with some Jewish anti Zionists are desperate to stop the book or its author. I believe that they would actually do themselves a big favour reading the book first.

http://redscribblings.wordpress.com

Theodore Herzl – Jewish analogue of political Islamist?

Political Islamist – Osama bin Laden

The controversy over Gilad Atzmon and his book The Wandering Who, which I recently reviewed on this blog, raises a lot of important questions about history and the politics of the last two centuries. I make no apology for writing about this question again because some of the issues he raises are of great importance to questions relating to war and peace, the nature of contemporary capitalism, national questions and the composition of major classes in society, particularly the capitalist class. All these questions are of central importance to anyone who wants to see capitalism superseded by socialism – they also touch intimately on questions intertwined with the causes of at least one world war in living memory, as well as other traumatic and world historic events including the currents wars and now revolutions shaking the Middle East and neighbouring regions and states. So its pretty important.

Atzmon is not a Marxist thinker, but an idiosyncratic left-wing liberal, born and raised in a racist ethnocracy. His own rejection of a racist upbringing and his privileged birthright as a Jew in a Jewish state, has generated some ferocious rhetoric and not a little incoherence and misunderstanding by friend and foe alike in some cases. But Atzmon’s writings are significant: this is also acknowledged by his enemies, usually rabid Zionists though also a few semi-Bundist socialists who on most issues are on the opposite side of the barricades to the Netan-yahoos. My point here is not to dwell on that conflict, but to acknowledge the significance of his work on ‘Jewish identity’. If it was just, as his enemies proclaim, reheated anti-semitism from the pre-WWII years, Atzmon would be unable to defend himself against a tidal wave of universal opprobrium.

After all, even many on the far right in Western countries are themselves keen to distance themselves from anti-semitism because it is no longer useful to them – anti-Muslim hate is much more de rigeur. So how come, if Atzmon is anti-semitic, is he getting a hearing from many broadly on the left of the political spectrum? It does not make sense. The only explanation for this that his enemies can put forward is to start talking about how the left itself is hostile to people of Jewish origin purely because of that origin. But that is a nonsensical allegation that I will not address here except to note that it is usually the refuge those pushing some kind of racist anti-Arab agenda, or opportunists of various kinds aiming to suck up to people with these kinds of views. And many of those abused in this way by Zionist right-wingers and their gentile reactionary allies are themselves Jewish. No-one of any integrity believes this allegation so I will say no more about it.

Despite his evident differences with Marxism, which he has derided as ‘psuedo-scientific’, Atzmon is putting forward something useful to Marxists in addressing the Jewish question. He puts forward a theory about the politicisation of Jewish identity that basically divides its bearers into three categories. One is a religious identity, that of believing practitioners of Judaism. Two is those who are born Jewish, who may or may not be religious Jews, and who basically regard themselves as citizens of whatever state they reside in, and attach no particular political significance to their Jewish identity. And then there is what Atzmon calls the third category, of those Jews for who being Jewish is a political identity above all, and indeed appears to be the most important aspect of their political persona. He considers the first two ‘categories’ to be basically harmless; the third anything but.

Atzmon states that this ‘third’ category of Jews act as a ‘tribal’ or communalist body, claim to speak for ‘the Jews’ as a whole, and act as a collective in maximising their influence against other national/ethnic communities, particularly Arabs, though not limited to them. Atzmon further states that this ‘third category’ movement, as part of its communal project, acts to ‘infiltrate’ the corridors of power particularly in advanced countries like Europe and America, basically to fight for ‘Jewish’ interests, which today are expressed through the interests of the Israeli state. This latter supposition is the most contentious aspect of Atzmon’s theories and I will put off discussing that until I have examined some of its antecedent arguments.
There is nothing odious or even unusual about the logic Atzmon uses to divide Jews into three categories. A very similar schema can be used to divide up Muslims, and many of Atzmon’s most vehement critics would have no problem in making such distinctions. One could say that a first category Muslim is simply an ordinary believer who is purely religious in motivation and does not concern himself or herself with politics. A second category Muslim is a believer who may well involve themselves in politics in some way, but does not make the Muslim religion or identity the focal point of their political activity. The third category of Muslim would then be a Muslim who is involved in political activity whose central aim is to promote Islam, or the perceived interest of Muslims, as their prime concern and reason for political activity.
Many of Atzmon’s critics would have no problem in dividing Muslims up in this way and would of course have a ready-made term available to describe the ‘third category’ of Muslims. Such people they tend to call ‘political Islamists’. This is uncontroversial among liberals and the left: while there are wide differences on how to relate to those who are politically active as Muslims, with some writing off all such people as irremediably reactionary while others adopting a more nuanced position, there is little dispute about the existence of political Islam, and therefore three basic categories of Muslim identity. No one on the left goes around denouncing anyone who recognises the mere existence of political Islam as a distinct category as racist or Islamophobic.

When it comes to making such distinctions among Jews, however, the reaction from both progressive and right-wing Jewish activists and their cheerleaders on the gentile left is quite hysterical. Thus the campaign against Atzmon, recently taken up in an unsuccessful attempt at banning his music by the Zionist-influenced ‘anti-fascist’ campaigning group ‘Hope Not Hate’ and the Zionist anti-Muslim hate site Harry’s Place. No one with any sense on the left expects much from these people, who spend more time witch-hunting anti-imperialists and anti-war activists particularly from the Middle East than any purely nominal ‘anti-fascism’. But more serious people on the left have also reacted with horror to Atzmon’s making such distinctions among Jews.

Jewish and Islamist politics – parallels and differences

There are some important differences between Jewish politics and Political Islam that make such a comparison not as straightforward as all that. One important one is that there is no significant secular form of political Muslim communalism. Because Islam is a pan-national religion that is the majority in a range of countries from Morocco to Indonesia, those secular forms of politics that have evolved tend to be based on one or another form of nationalism – Arab nationalism, nationalist politics in Pakistan (initially defined against India), Indonesian nationalism, etc. Pan-Islamic politics is most definitely not secular, but aims to appeal to people of disparate nations on the basis of loyalty to Islam. This is most definitely not parallel to Jewish politics.

Jewish politics as a form of communalism is mainly secular and largely the creation of atheists. The reasons for this are complex and go back into history. Abram Leon, the Trotskyist who authored The Jewish Question during the Second World War (before being himself murdered in the holocaust), provided the framework for much of this understanding, describing the Jews as having been a class of pre-capitalist traders in feudal society, a people-class who performed a necessary economic function and whose religion and identity became adapted to reflect their social role. For Leon, the reason for the Jews’ survival as a distinct religious community was linked to that economic role. With the advent of the capitalist mode of production, growing up within feudal society and eventually overturning it, that role became obsolete.

The result was a pretty complex evolution for the Jews, they became hated competitors for the emerging bourgeoisie, having had a monopoly position in the role of financiers and merchants under feudalism. At the same time, Jewish merchants did make careers for themselves under the new mode of production and became sometimes a target of social discontent that the bourgeoisie managed quite skilfully to steer away from itself towards ‘Jewish’ capital. But in any case, the medieval religious form of the Jewish religion was obsolete and in no shape to drive the former people-class forward in a new world.

The threat of disintegration, assimilation, and the obsolescence of the old Judaism led to the emergence of reform Judaism as the capitalist mode of production fully emerged in the 19th Century, and at the same time, even more strikingly, a movement to define the Jews as a people in secular terms, as described recently by Tel Aviv Professor Shlomo Sand in his remarkable study The Invention of the Jewish People. The most obvious manifestation of this was Zionism, in terms of the project to completely re-create the Jews as a fully-fledged nation with its own territory.

The real point of all this being that unlike with Islam, where specifically Muslim communalist politics takes a form that is overtly, sometimes fanatically religious in ideology, the opposite is true with Judaism. Specifically Jewish politics has not, for the reasons sketched out above, been generally religious, but secular. Indeed religious trends, with some more recent and derivative exceptions in Israel itself, have been generally less inclined to communalism than the secularists.
This paradox makes the Jewish question quite difficult to get a handle on, and more to the point is that in criticising Jewish communal politics one appears to be specifically attacking the secular and apparently modernising trend among this people, which is the opposite of the way such matters are usually approached. But the reason for this is that the Jews are not a nation, and the attempt to re-create them as such could only have reactionary results. As we see today with the anti-democratic monstrosity that is Israel, the ethnocratic tyranny, created through the dispossession of another people, that threatens the peoples of the Middle East with a nuclear holocaust.

So that is where Gilad Atzmon is fundamentally correct. In differentiating between the three ‘categories’ of Jews, and focussing his attack only on the third ‘category’, he is making an important contribution to the understanding not only of the Jewish question, but of the world we live in today.
The conclusion he derives from this, about the alleged proclivity of bearers of the ‘third category’ Jewish identity to infiltrate the corridors of power, is what has led to the controversy about his alleged ‘anti-semitism’. He writes in his book about the Book of Esther in the Hebrew bible as a blueprint for this, the story of a Jewish woman who married the king of Persia without her Jewish origin being known and was supposedly able to avert a genocide of the Jews through her influence at court. The story, as Atzmon points out, is almost certainly fictional, but he sees it as a paradigm of not only the tactics of Israel’s supporters today in seeking through lobbying to promote Israeli interests, most notably in the US, but also of similar tactics by ‘third category’ Jews throughout the whole period since the birth of the concept of the Jews as a putative nation in the 19th Century.

“Justifying” or explaining?

In a particularly sharp way, Atzmon pointed out in 2009 some of the likely consequences of Israel’s unremitting and brazen brutality against the Palestinians and other surrounding peoples in terms of re-generating hatred of Jews:

“Hitler was indeed defeated, Jews are now more than welcome in Germany and in Europe, yet, the Jewish state and the sons of Israel are at least as unpopular in the Middle East as their grandparents were in Europe just six decades ago. Seemingly, it is the personification of WW2 and the Holocaust that blinded the Israelis and their supporters from internalising the real meaning of the conditions and the events that led towards their destruction in the first place. Would the Zionists understand the real meaning of their Holocaust, the contemporary Israelite may be able to prevent the destruction that may be awaiting them in the future.” (Saying No to the Hunters of Goliath)

This article and this passage in particular produced a pretty hysterical reaction, not just from Zionists (which is to be expected), but also from many on the Jewish left. Tony Greenstein, for instance, accused Atzmon of ‘justifying the holocaust’ with this passage.

The hysteria involved in this accusation is obvious with a little sober reflection. First of all, if Atzmon was indeed ‘justifying the holocaust’ he really must be more Nazi than any other neo-Nazis. For of course, the tactic of neo-Nazis such as David Irving and Richard Verrall, when confronted with the utterly despicable act of racist mass murder that was the holocaust, is not to brazenly justify it and say that the victims got what they deserved. Such a position would be complete political suicide for anyone who came out with such hate-filled invective. Rather, the tactic of neo-Nazis is to deny that there was any genocide, and to look for some means to cast doubt on it.

Atzmon is also, falsely accused of holocaust-denial by some of the same people. But no one seems to notice that the two accusations contradict each other. To justify the holocaust you have to acknowledge that there actually was a holocaust. Conversely, if you regard (or claim to regard) the holocaust as a piece of fiction, it is not possible to ‘justify’ it – justifying a fiction (real or alleged) is an impossible, chimerical task!
So why the hysterical response to this stern warning to the Israelis about the likely consequences of their brutality? The hysteria is prompted in reality by the implication in the above passage that there may have been something in the conduct of powerful Jews prior to the Nazi genocide that contributed to the Jews being hated enough in Europe for a genocidal backlash to happen. This appears to be what Atzmon believes. Is this true? I do not profess at this point to definitively know. It is however possible. And more to the point, this is a legitimate subject for political debate, there is nothing ‘racist’ in raising it. A simple analogy with the present day will be sufficient to indictate why asking this question is not racist.

Causes of Islamophobia

Take the question of Islamophobia today. It is self-evident that fighting Islamophobia is the duty of every decent socialist and anti-imperialist. Those supposedly on the left who fuel it, the likes of the Alliance for Workers Liberty or the even more loathsome elements around Harry’s Place, cannot be regarded as comrades or progressives at all. But it is not enough to condemn Islamophobes when analysing the causes of Islamophobia.

The fact is that some reactionary elements among Muslims also bear responsibility for promoting Islamophobia. Atrocities like the 9/11 attacks, 7/7, the Bali bombing, the attacks in Africa and Spain, etc have fuelled Islamophobia, and provided much ammunition to Islamophobes. Indeed, the most nihilistic elements among Islamists quite deliberately fuel Islamophobia and calculate that they will benefit from it.

The classic recent example of this is the activities of Al Mujaharoun, the group around Anjem Choudhury which plays a cat-and-mouse game with British governments determined to stamp it out by repeatedly dissolving in the face of a ban and re-forming under different names. Its organisation of a demonstration in Luton in March 2009 excoriating dead British soldiers as scum and psycho-killers who allegedly deserved to die and ‘burn in hell’ was a provocation aimed at provoking Islamophobia. It had the desired effect, as it crystallised for the first time a specifically Islamophobic fascist group in Britain – the English Defence League was formed directly as a result of this provocation.

It is not in the slightest bit racist to say that. Nor is it incompatible with the fight against Islamophobia. What is however characteristic of Islamophobia is to equate all Muslims, or even all political Islamists, with the like of Al Qaeda or Al Mujaharoun. Some political Islamists have played a progressive role in the struggle against Islamophobia. One example springs to mind immediately – the role of the Muslim Association of Britain, which has links with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, in being one of the three organisations that came together to form the mass anti-war movement that shook Tony Blair’s warmongering government and mobilised two million people in the massive anti-war demonstration of February 15th 2003. The fraternal links that this forged between Muslims and non-Muslims in opposing the war has limited the growth of Islamophobia even to this day – things would likely be a lot worse were it not for what happened during this period. Those on the left who tried to abort this progressive collaboration, and baldly equated the MAB with Al Qaeda etc, played an utterly reactionary role.

Jewish communal politics and anti-semitism

Going back to the issue of Jewish communal politics, Atzmon is on strong ground when he attacks the various rabid Zionist neocons, or the likes of Lord Levy in the Blairised Labour Party, as partisans of Jewish communalism in promoting what appear to be Israeli interests in the British or US governments. If this is what these people are doing, and they are pretty brazen about it, how is it racist to point this out? The question of why they are able to get away with this is a different question, and Atzmon’s non-Marxism and hostility to what he calls ‘psuedo-scientific materialism’ means he gives emphasis to the subjective aims and objectives of these communalist Jewish politicians, and not to the material interests of the bulk of the non-Jewish Western ruling classes which give them that latitude. But nevertheless to attack such people for promoting ‘Jewish’ interests is no more racist than to accuse Al Qaeda of promoting antagonism between Muslims and non-Muslims.

So, were there elements of Jewish communal politics that existed prior to the holocaust, and prior to the formation of the state of Israel for that matter, that helped create the climate of hatred of Jews that made the holocaust possible politically? From my understanding, and by an analogy with the present day situation of Islamophobia, there may have been such things. But they were subordinate and subsidiary to the overriding factors that drove anti-semitism in the pre-WWII period. Just as today, while some elements of political Islam bear responsibility for the growth of Islamophobia, it is fundamentally driven by imperialist and Zionist interests in the domination of the Middle East.
Pre-war anti-semitism was above all a counter-revolutionary paranoia and demonology, emanating from the ruling classes of capitalist Europe which was shaken by the spectre of Communism and the Russian revolution. Unable to admit, even to themselves, that the economic system from which they drew their wealth and privileges was disfunctional and provoking legitimate social protest and the possibility of revolution, they looked for a demonic force as the culprit instead.

The prominence of Jews, driven by their oppression under Tsarism, in the Russian Revolution, and the prominence of emancipated Jews in the earlier bourgeois revolutions in Europe, which the bourgeoisie was always ambivalent about because of the risk that mobilising the masses posed to all privilege, even that of the bourgeoisie itself, as it benefited from a revolution that made it the ruling class, led it to see revolution as a demonic, harmful thing. Which of course must be the work of a demonic, ‘alien’ force. The Jews being the most obviously visible ‘alien’ force involved in revolutions became the demon of the revolution in the eyes of the bourgeoisie.
That was the primary cause of pre-war anti-semitism. But the ruling class is not omnipotent. It does not just click its fingers and get the masses thinking the way it wants. In order to get the lower orders thinking the way it wants, it needs suitable propaganda, that is effective. It is a fact that, as a result of the legacy of the origins of the Jews as a financial-trading ‘people class’ in the medieval period, they are overrepresented among powerful bankers and the like. This was just as true in pre-war period as it is today.
Take a look at some examples: Goldman Sachs. This US investment bank is, as is well known, very conspicuously Jewish owned. It has interests in Israel, but it is hardly Israeli or particularly bound to Israel. Its interests are far wider that that, in fact world-wide. It is almost a century older than Israel, and as solidly American as the Ford Motor Company. Its world-wide interests, its ruthlessness and its profit-gouging proclivities have gained it the nickname of the Vampire Squid.
In the current Euro-crisis, close associates of this predatory investment bank have recently been appointed to head the European Central Bank, and as Prime Ministers of Italy and Greece without popular election, a development that has fuelled fears of an anti-democratic takeover of European politics by banking interests led by Goldman Sachs. This kind of role, and the perceptions it generates, are not of course confined to Goldman Sachs. The Rothschild family, based mainly in Europe, has a similar reputation itself going back centuries.

Over-representation

In the pre-WWII context, were these Jewish-owned financial organisations involved in promoting specifically Jewish communal politics or just pure-ruthless money-making? It is not really completely clear; there are some grounds for suspicion of this particularly in terms of funding of the early Zionist movement and the colonisation of Palestine, but nothing conclusive. But here is the point: the over-representation of Jews in finance and banking related companies etc, which is quite marked, itself cannot but fuel suspicions of clannishness, self-interest and mutual aid based on communal lines. Because of the power that such over-representation gives, it can easily be perceived as an aggressive act even if that perception is not given more credence by visible self-interested behaviour. And of course, that the latter never happened is hard to believe, particularly given the influence of Zionism whose strategy was always oriented to the recruitment of powerful people to its cause.
This is in some ways deeply unfortunate, a product of the one-sided development of a culture derived from the Jews’ past as a people-class. That as may be, but that over-representation is a material factor fuelling such suspicions and allowing ideologues an open goal in inciting hostility to specifically Jewish capital instead of capital as a whole. Combined with the bourgeois class-based paranoia about Jewish radicalism, this is certainly enough to explain the potency and appeal of pre-war anti-semitism and why it was able to reach genocidal proportions in a major capitalist crisis.
The chief driving force of this was the latter bourgeois paranoia, and thus Atzmon is almost certainly wrong in extrapolating from today’s widespread anger at Israel back in time to the pre-WWII period. However, the analysis I am putting forward here derives in large measure from a Marxist analysis of the class consciousness, or ‘false consciousness’, of the bourgeoisie, and it is hardly surprising that someone who rejects Marxism would not concur with it.
The perception of the Jews as a threat to the capitalist order is no more. The conservative, counter-revolutionary evolution of Israel has largely put paid to that idea. Israel is now one of the key props of worldwide capitalist reaction. What exists today is a different combination of factors, the same over-representation of Jews in the sphere of finance-capital, this time combined with the activities of those who seek influence to promote Israeli state interests.
In contrast to the pre-war situation, when you had a combination of this over-representation with the bourgeoisie’s fantasy about Jews as a revolutionary infestation infecting an otherwise conservative working class population, today you have two real factors in combination – the same over-representation with the existence and activities of the Zionist lobby. These are ample grounds to characterise this combination as a real, dangerous communalist, counter-revolutionary phenomenon, not the kind of phantasm that was the basis for pre-war anti-semitism. There is nothing racist or wrong in pointing out the over-representation of Jews who rabidly support Israel and its crimes in positions of power and influence in Western societies, in pointing to the sinister and anti-democratic significance of this and demanding that this be reversed.
However, its significance should not be exaggerated – it still exists basically by permission of the non-Jewish ruling classes of the advanced Western countries, who could brush if off very easily if they were minded to do so. For their own reasons of class interest, they are not so minded. Because of the previous history of racist anti-semitism, this issue is capable of generating considerable misunderstanding. It has to be theorised very clearly in order to avoid an escalating series of misunderstandings and confrontations with honest people who are hostile to Israel and its crimes, but fear anti-semitism also.

Progressive or reactionary?

One manifestation of Islamophobia, as I pointed out earlier, is the equation of all forms of political Islam as utterly reactionary. I think an analogous error is possible with ‘third category Jews’ as Atzmon so defines them, and one legitimate criticism of Atzmon is that he sometimes makes this error. Recently he has taken to using the insulting designation ‘AZZ’ in referring to those anti-Zionist Jewish activists who denounce him as an anti-semite. ‘AZZ’ being a abbreviation for ‘Anti-Zionist Zionists’.
In its own way, this is as absurd as the Tony Greenstein self-contradictory accusation that Atzmon ‘justifies’ the holocaust while simultaneously ‘denying’ it (see earlier). When self-contradictory accusations are levelled in the course of a political feud, it is always a sign that something has gone wrong with the reasoning of the person levelling them. One is either a Zionist, i.e. a supporter of the Zionist project of Israel, or one is not. One cannot be both, they are mutually exclusive. This tortured formulation is a sign that Atzmon has lost sight of the fact that there are different trends among the ‘third category Jews’ as he (correctly) characterises them, just as there are differences between political Islamists.
The proportions are different between the progressive and reactionary components among political Islamists and political or ‘third category’ Jews. Because many of those who gravitate towards political Islam are driven there as a reaction to imperialist oppression and the apparent failure of secular and leftist alternatives. Whereas because Israel is an oppressor state, based on the dispossession of the Palestinian Arabs, and its overseas supporters act as auxiliaries of that oppression, the bulk of ‘third category Jews’ are reactionaries. But because there is a real history of oppression also among Jews, and a real tradition of struggle against that, there is also a minority trend among the ‘third category’ that are progressive anti-Zionists. Hence such formations as ‘Jews Against Zionism’, ‘Jews for Justice for the Palestinians’, etc.
Actually, if you look at the material produced by Atzmon, and many of his ‘AZZ’ critics, and remove the material that relates to their internecine conflict, you will find that there is much in common between them. Much of their material denouncing the Israeli state is very similar in its outspokenness and potency, which is why on several occasions I have noticed perceptive Zionist reactionaries, commenting on their in-house propaganda and discussion sites (such as Harry’s Place) note this and express the hope that these two trends will tear each other to pieces.
At the moment this complex issue is causing deep divisions among partisans of the Palestinians, and a great deal of confusion and rancour, to the benefit only of Zionists. Yet the differences are real and important, and cannot be simply wished away. The only way they can be overcome is through a process of discussion and clarification, as calmly and rationally as possible. In that spirit, this blog links to both anti-racist, anti-Zionist trends, to Gilad Atzmon’s website and Tony Greenstein’s blog. Hopefully this article will contribute to that process and bring some light to the debate.

The Wandering Who-A Study of Zionist and AZZ tactics – available on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Lebanon’s Palestinians continue their decend to the abyss on the 64th anniversary of UN Resolution 181

Franklin Lamb

Al-Manar

Graphics by Alex
Embassy of Palestine, Tripoli, Libya

Every year on November 29, as part of International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, approximately a quarter million Palestinian refugees who were forced into Lebanon, along with those in more than 150 countries where they have sought refuge following their ethnic cleansing from their land and homes, commemorate the infamous United Nations Resolution 181.

Between Nov. 29, 1947, and Jan. 1, 1949, Zionist terrorists depopulated and destroyed more than 530 Palestinian villages and towns, killing more than 13,000 Palestinians and expelling 750,000, approximately half the population.



Map of the UN Partition Plan of 1947. View detailed map

UN General Assembly resolution 181, adopted on November 29, 1947, purported to divide Palestine between the indigenous inhabitants and European colonists who arrived seeking to occupy and exploit Palestine and create an exclusive Jewish homeland.

Under the UN plan, European Jews were granted more than fifty six per cent of historical Palestine while the native Palestinians, who owned ninety three per cent of the territory, were offered less than forty four percent of their own land.

lifta

The partition vote was based on a UN Special Committee (UNSCOP) recommendation to divide the country into three parts: a Palestinian state with a population of 735,000, of which 725,000 were Palestinians and 10,000 Jews; a new Jewish state comprised of 499,000 Jews and 407,000 Palestinians, creating a new state with roughly less than sixty per cent Jewish majority.

Zionist leaders have never concealed their intentions especially when holding political gatherings.

In addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut (the Eretz Israel Workers Party) days after the UN vote to partition Palestine, David Ben-Gurion expressed apprehension and told the party leadership:

“…the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. Such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority… There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%.” 

Emir Faisal I , Chaim Weizmann, 1918 More here

Ben Gurion, told Zionist leaders in December of 1947, “I don’t care if half the Jews in Europe have to die so the other half come to Palestine,” and ” Chaim Weizmann would later say: ‘With regard to the Arab question – the British told us that there are several hundred thousand Negroes there but this is a matter of no consequence”.

Former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, architect of the 1982 Sabra-Shatile Massacre, in an interview with General Ouze Merham in 1956: “I don’t know something called International Principles. I vow that I’ll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man, because the Palestinian child’s existence infers that generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger. I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him. With one hit I’ve killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah in 1956). I wanted to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic girls as the Palestinian women is a slave for Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell others what they shall do.”

To ensure an absolute Jewish majority, the Zionist’s “Transfer [Expulsion] Committee” waged a terror campaign to cleanse their part of the non-Jewish population. The “War [Expulsion] Committee” under the leadership of Ben Gurion, assigned ethnic cleansing language to its military operations, from Hebrew names such as Matateh (broom), Tihur (cleansing), Biur (a Passover quasi-religious expression meaning “to cleanse the leaven”) and Niku(cleaning up).

Following Israel’s unilateral declaration of independence in 1948, it accelerated the land grab strategy to secure an absolute Jewish majority. The Zionists assailed, depopulated, and occupied an additional thirty per cent of the land which had been designated for the future Palestinian state under the UN plan.

Since 1967, Israeli Occupation Forces have demolished more than 24,000 Palestinian homes, while more than 600,000 Jews currently are colonizing the West Bank and Jerusalem. Also since 1967, the Israeli military has detained more than 700,000 Palestinians – 20 percent of the population – according to statistics released at the First International Conference on the Rights of Palestinian Prisoners and Detainees held in Geneva in March 2011. Approximately 5,700 Palestinians are currently being detained in prisons within Israel, a direct violation of international law. In addition, the siege on Gaza and the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank and Jerusalem have severely restricted or denied Palestinians’ freedom of movement.

Sixty four years since the November 29, 1947 UN Resolution 181, and after twenty years of negotiating with Israel, the international community allows the status quo while Israel encroaches on the remaining twenty two per cent with ever more illegal Jewish only settlements.

 Sixty four years later in Lebanon, where 129,000 Palestinian refugees fled during the 1947-48 Nakba, approximately 250,000 remain in Lebanon with approximately 130,000 squeezed into twelve fetid Refugee camps. Each new study of Palestine refugees in Lebanon documents a steepening, descending economic, social, and humanitarian slope as this largest and oldest refugee population skids and descends into more degradation. Today in Lebanon, Palestinian refugees continue to live in conditions more inhumane than anywhere on Earth including, the six decades of suffering endured by their sisters and brothers, under the brutal Zionist occupation of their own country, Palestine.

Six decades since UN GA Resolution 181, Lebanon continues to forbid, impliedly on penalty of arrest and imprisonment, Palestinian refugees from working in more than 50 jobs and professions. This prohibition is in direct contravention of a large and condemnatory body of international law, specifically, numerous UN Resolutions, multilateral agreements, international customary law and even the Lebanese Constitution, as well as the UN Declaration of Universal Rights, which some of Lebanon’s leaders helped draft in 1949,

Since 2001, the Government of Lebanon has also outlawed Palestinian refugees who lost their homes to Zionist colonialists, from purchasing even a sliver of property for a one room shack or tent home, even though most Palestinians might be willing to agree that their ownership of Lebanese real estate would vest only until such time as they are able to return to Palestine, which, given current events in the region seems to support CIA estimates of the dissembling of Israel by 2029. 

For this failure to uphold the law, Lebanon increasingly faces the prospects of international sanctions as well as civil unrest. What Palestinian refugees in Lebanon seek and have right to enjoy, just as every refugee in any country, is to live in dignity, to be able to apply for a job and to care of their families. Living in dignity includes the right to live outside the teeming, squalid camps and to purchase better housing if they are able.

An additional troubling violation of the rights of Palestinians in Lebanon is the fact that increasingly, the Lebanese Armed Forces are sealing off the Palestinian refugee camps which increase the perception and reality of illegal governmental harassment and yet more pressure on the everyday lives of these unwanted guests.

Today, 64 years after UNGA Resolution 181, virtually every political party and every religious authority in Lebanon boldly and regularly pays insincere lip service to the “sacred cause of Palestine”, as “the bloodstream issue for every Arab and every Muslim.” Each avers that in Lebanon“our brothers must live in dignity until they are able to return to Palestine”and that “for us Lebanese, as their hosts, to refuse them fewer human rights than even their Zionist oppressors allow them violates our religious duty for which certainly Allah (Christians typically insert “Jesus” or “God Almighty”)will justly condemn us to Hell on judgment day”.

Lebanese Political parties and movements that have truly sacrificed for Palestine and seek to liberate it and Lebanese political parties whose militia have massacred Palestinian civilians, women, children and the elderly in refugee camps, have a special obligation to act now and give meaning to their words.

And most certainly those Lebanese politicians whose words and ubiquitous photo shopped posters identifying with the cause of Palestine but who, in the service of foreign governments, have conducted massacres in Palestinian camps mislabeling them “camp wars”should do immediate penitence and use their political power and politically acquired financial wealth to do justice.

We will return

Neither Lebanese politicians, political parties, nor religious enterprises have a legitimate excuse not to devote an afternoon in Parliament, currently in session, and rid the country of its self-imposed debasement by repealing the racist 2001 law forbidding home ownership for Palestinian refugees. As part of the same Parliamentary action Palestinians must be granted the same right to work that every other refugees enjoys in Lebanon and which is mandated by International law, religious doctrine and belief, and common morality to which all people of good will are committed.

To do less, condemns all of us and makes a mockery of Lebanon as a claimed civilized society.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Libya. He is reachable c\o fplamb@gmail.comHe is the author of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel’s Use of American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon.
He contribute to Uprooted Palestinians Blog

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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Enzo Apicella: 64 years of shame for a world that PRETENDS TO BE DEAF

Monday, November 28, 2011 at 11:30PM
Gilad Atzmon

http://enzoapicella.tumblr.com/

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian