Last week, the head of Catholic Church in Britain requested the Vatican’s permission to remove posthmously Papal Knighthood awarded to the Zionist-controlled BBC television presenter, Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile (1926-2011), by Pope John Paul II in 1990 for charity work. It’s reported that he raised $60 million for Christian and Jewish charities.
The new revelations claim that Jimmy Savile may had sexually abused 400 young people and children, sometimes on BBC premises, over a 40 year period.
Vatican spokesperson, Father Federico Lombardi, said Pope Benedict XVI firmly condemn the horrible crimes of sexual abuse of minors and considers the Savile revelations as “very grave”. American Catholic writer and women’s rights activist, Joanna Francis, had called Pope Benedict XVI, a ‘Zionist double agent‘ in September 2006.
“It’s deeply saddened that a person who had been soiled in this way could in his life time have been proposed for an honor by the Holy Sea, which in the light of recent information should certainly not have been bestowed,” said Lombardi.
Jimmy was a staunch supporter of the Zionist entity. During his 10-day aliya to Israel in 1975, he boasted:
“I’m the most Jewish Catholoc you will ever meet,” The Jewish Chronicle, November 3, 2011. During his stay, Jimmy also met Israeli president Ephraim Katzir and Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek. The trip was fully paid by Lord John Levy of the Friends of Israel Educational Trust. Levy maintains family residence in both London and Tel Aviv. His two sons live in Israel. Levy is a close friend of Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak.
Jimmy had berated the Zionist regime for being too soft after the 1967 Six Day War. British columnist and author Alan Hart has called it a “big fat Israel lie”. He claimed that the Zionist entity was never threatened by its Arab neighbors. Israeli invasion on June 5, 1967 “was not a pre-emptive strike or an act of self-defence. It was a war of aggression“. Read the articlehere.
Last week, after the news of Jimmy’s child sex abuses – Leeds Jewish Welfare Board removed a gold plaque in Savile’s honour from its Tree of Life at the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Community Centre.
British Jewish businessman, Stuart Levin, bought Jimmy’s famous gold track suit at a recent auction sale for £550.
The first “spring” in a majority-Muslim population came 89 years ago in Turkey. As the successor to the Ottomans, the young Turkish republic rose from the heartland of the Empire with an exceptional geography, positioned strategically among Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East.
Now, 89 years later, despite a vibrant economy and regional clout, Turkey is being threatened by chaos in its neighborhood. But what’s even more critical is the polarization inside the country.
Turks marked the birthday of their nation yesterday, Oct. 29, and they are divided over the direction of their country. More than 40 non-governmental organizations wanted to gather before the first parliament, where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father, declared the establishment of this new state. Among them were associations linked to Kemalist ideology and Alevi groups.
The Ankara governorate turned down permission requests, claiming that they had reliable intelligence that “radical groups” would provoke the crowd to create scenes similar to those in Tahrir Square. Nonetheless, tens of thousands of pro-secular protesters showed civil disobedience to the government’s ban and poured onto the streets to make a point: the 1923 revolution is not dying away.
I joined the crowd yesterday at Ulus, a district in Ankara, as a journalist and a citizen. Frankly, after living in Washington, DC for 12 years and being accustomed to attending the receptions at the Turkish Embassy for Republic Day, I thought I should experience my first Oct. 29 celebration to better understand the sensitivities of the people toward the unity of the nation.
First, the police made it difficult to get to the area — the roads were blocked. I noticed people were joyful, easy going, waving their flags. I approached the crowds to see what was happening on the front lines between the people and the police, and also to better see who exactly was in the crowd.
As I got close to the barricades amidst the friendly crowd and talked to many of them, I heard many worries about the future. I did not witness anyone doing anything wrong to the security forces — except that they booed and called Governor Alaaddin Yuksel to resign for putting barricades before them on a day like this.
And then suddenly and for no reason at all — totally out of the blue — police started to fire tear gas at us. Like many others, I was caught unprepared, and my asthma started to kick in badly. I was able to rush out of the area with the help of the people around me, who were simply kind and caring. Many actually helped each other, shared their water and lemons to clear their lungs and eyes from the tear gas.
Still, I am thinking — with no answer so far — as to why the police used that tear gas on us. But one thing is clear: There were no members of any radical group in that crowd. The police provoked the people, not the reverse.
The ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), knew that President Abdullah Gul would host a reception at the presidential palace, Cankaya Kosku, later in the evening, which the higher ranks of the military would attend with their wives for the first time since Gul took office in 2007.
Last night’s reception marked yet another crucial turning point in the normalization of relations between the military and the Islamist-based government. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, also attended this reception at the presidential palace with his wife for the first time.
Only five years ago, though, Turkey came to the brink of yet another military coup over the headscarf issue. Considering themselves the saviors of the Turkish Republic, the military believes that some head covers are political symbols rebuking the founding principles of this nation. Since those days, more than 250 military personnel — both active and retired — found themselves behind bars as accused “terrorists” under a very long and conflicted case named Ergenekon.
The pro-secular population today considers the current military leadership to be conforming to the government’s ideology, to say the least. Whatever the truth, many of the secular activists and common citizens on the street yesterday told me the government now considers them “radicals” just as the judiciary calls a former chief of staff a “terrorist.”
In that context, the AKP was awaiting the day when the prime minister’s wife, Emine Erdogan, along with Hayrunnisa Gul, the president’s wife, hosted the reception at the Cankaya palace in their headscarves. Yet Erdogan continued to chastise the old guard even on the day when a historic new beginning was taking place. Moreover, he blamed opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu for everything that went wrong on the streets of Ankara yesterday.
Specifically, he accused him of “following illegal organizations.” Indeed, Kilicdaroglu and a group of his party members had attended the celebration at Ulus yesterday, and unfortunately got impacted by the tear gas.
“People were only holding their flags and waving them,” said Kilicdaroglu. “The police kicked people holding flags. It’s a sad, disappointing day.” Speaking at his party’s meeting at parliament today, Kilicdaroglu said it’s time to give the prime minister a new name: “Tayyip Assad Erdogan,” in response to the prime minister’s criticism of the security forces.
“I did not give the order to police to bring down those barricades. They showed weakness,” said Erdogan today. Kilicdaroglu argued that the prime minister’s mentality was likely to see people get killed and wounded on the Ankara streets.
Yesterday’s unfortunate events at Turkey’s capital also revealed a surprise split between President Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan. At last night’s reception, it was discovered that Gul had called the Ankara governor on Saturday and ordered him to bring down the barricades in case tensions rose. The prime minister rebuked such news stories and said that the president does not have the authority to give orders to the governor or the security forces. “There has never been a double-headed administration in this country,” Erdogan said. “Everyone knows his job as prime minister and president.”
It becomes clear now that the Erdogan government really attempted to take tough measures against the pro-secular protestors, but it was the security forces’ consciences — or common sense — that prevented a bigger tragedy.
Despite all this, thousands visited Anitkabir, Ataturk’s mausoleum, yesterday. One woman told me they were scared to go to Ulus, because they worried that the police would take their names, and that they may pay the price for it later by losing their business.
“This government is too strong. They are listening to all our telephone conversations,” she told Al-Monitor. “There is no media left in the country. No one reports the truth any longer, or seriously talks about the corruption taking place before our eyes. Everyone is scared.”
Turks are truly divided, and growingly distrustful of each other’s intentions for the country’s future. The AKP considers people paranoid who doubt the party’s loyalty to the country’s founding principles of a secular, social and democratic state. But professor Abdulkadir Cevik, head of psychiatry at the Ankara University Medical Department, argues that people who oppose AKP policies don’t qualify as psychologically troubled.
“Turkey is born by the demise of an empire. We formed a new identity. But there are also those who could not break away from the old identity, or mourn enough for the loss of the empire,” he said. “To call such worries paranoia, such memories should not have existed in our national conscious. Our history, however, is full of trauma. That’s why we need to be more careful.”
The pro-secular protestors want to see the AKP out of office. They believe Erdogan hopes for a counterrevolution to 1923. And for them, that is a red line that no one should attempt to cross. Each time Erdogan got elected, he gave a “balcony speech” in which he promised to represent all the citizens of the country, but people told Al-Monitor that Erdogan’s words does not match his deeds.
“When the AKP government first came into office, their slogan was to end all restrictions, all bans and give people true freedom and democracy,” said Cevik. “The same government today bans people from putting flowers on Ataturk’s busts or statues on special days like this. Our people have such traditions, and they take issue with that.”
Semiha Kutoglu, a pharmacist, told me she is tired of the prime minister constantly speaking negatively about the country’s past and its founding years, and of the AKP for portraying themselves as victims all the time.
“They have a problem with the Republic, and I am here to show my love to our founding father. [Erdogan] should know that he owes his prime ministry to the man he criticizes every day,” she said. Many in the crowd expressed similar views. People sounded tired of the AKP machine’s never-ending praise of itself since it came to power in 2002 — as if nothing positive had occurred in the country prior to its rule.
Yet every country has made mistakes in the past. No country is perfect. As the nation’s democratic system evolves, so does its judiciary. In retrospect, the principles that the country stands on become stronger and clearer. It’s hard to build a country and have it all — to be strong and sensical and consistent. The problem is that the AKP is using that youth and fluidity to fundamentally change the character of what the country is supposed to be. The people are simply crying out that this is the wrong way to go. That in order for a democracy to develop and grow, the fundamental principles — neutrality and justice — must always be preserved. Otherwise there is nothing to base anything on.
In this polarized environment, there were still others who were simply angry at both sides. A man who asked that his name not be used told me, “While the AKP doubts the Muslim-ness of a part of Turkish society, the ones on the streets today had doubts about the loyalty of a different segment of Turkish society. Such thinking is beyond bizarre.”
Indeed, Cevik says that ordinary people on both sides — both the supporters and the opposers of the AKP — are worried about this climate of seeing the “other” as the “enemy.”
“The country seems to be heading to a direction that is unknown,” he explains.
Tulin Daloglu is a journalist and foreign-policy analyst based in Ankara, Turkey. She tweets @TulinDaloglu
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Pastor John McTernan Ph.D, founder of Defend and Proclaim the Faith Ministries, is a staunch defender of the Zionist entity and one of those Christian evangelist preachers who still believe that US President Barack Hussein Obama is a Crypto Muslim (secretly a Muslim). A poll taken by Associated Press last month shows that 18% of Americans believe Barack Obama is ‘Jewish’ as compared to 10% who think he is ‘Muslim’.
On October 28, 2012, the good-old paster posted on his official website ‘John McTernan’s Insight’ that Hurricane Sandy and earlier Hurricane Isaac and Hurricane Katrina – are all signs that “the Holy God of Israel is systematically destroying America right before our eyes”.
McTernan believes that ever since George Bush Sr signed the Madrid Peace Process to divide the land of Israel in 1991, ‘America has been under God’s judgment since this event’.
McTernan said: “Obama is 100% behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem“. Funny, Israeli Mossad propaganda arm, the Middle East Media Research Institute had claimed that Iranian President Dr. Ahmadinejad had made that statement in 2005.
John McTernan is known for his anti-homosexual rants. He has criticized both Obama and Romney for their support for same-sex marriage. In May 2012, when Israeli ambassador Michael Oren was a keynote speaker at the 20th anniversary celebration of LGBT event in Philadelphia – McTernan put a ‘duct-tape’ on his big mouth, lest it offend his Lord’s ‘Chosen People‘. Oren had boasted that the Zionist entity was heaven for LGBT communities while they’re being executed in Iran.
White House Jewish correspondent William Koenig agrees with McTernan. He also believes that some of the United States’ most catastrophic storms and events have correlated closely with the nation’s G-d defying attempts to divide the land of Israel.
“When we put pressure on Israel to divide their land, we have enormous, record setting events, often within 24 hours. Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 – we have experienced over 90 record-setting, all-time events as we have acted against Israel. And the greater pressure on Israel to co-operate, the greater the catastrophe” – quoted by Drew Zahn in WND, October 28, 2012.
Israel’s Shas Party’s spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Pastor John Hagee had also claimed that Hurricane Katrina was Jewish G-d’s vengeance against America for forcing Jewish army to pull out of Gaza Strip.
However, Canadian Jewish professor Michel Chossudovsky disputes the Israel’s divine crap. He says Hurricane Katrina was a man-made disaster created for the benefit of some of Zionist fatcats. Read his article here.
As far the 9/11 is concerned – Israeli Jewish author Barry Chamish in an interview with Kevin Barrett PhD in August 2012, had confirmed that Israel was behind the 9/11 terrorism.
Hurricane Sandy, dubbed a ‘Frankenstorm’, could affect up to 60 million people as several states have declared emergencies, schools have closed and transport services suspended. It’s already done $20 billion damage so far. The US east coast states along the path of Sandy have began to shut down most of their operation ahead of the storm. Emergency has already been declared in New York, Washington DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Posted on October 31, 2012 by uprootedpalestinians
The author, novelist Alaa Al-Aswany (at right), shakes hands with Mohamed Morsi (at left) at the presidential palace in Cairo June 27, 2012 shortly after Morsi’s election as president of Egypt. (photo by REUTERS)
This happened many years ago. I was a recent graduate, working as a resident physician in the oral surgery department at the University of Cairo, training as a surgeon. One day I was performing surgery on one of the patients, when a teacher from the department — well know for his viciousness — passed by. He waited until I had finished the surgery and then said to me: “The way in which you conducted the surgery was wrong.”
I entered into a long scientific debate with the teacher, defending my point of view, but he insisted that I what I had done was wrong. During the discussion, a professor from the department appeared, so I asked him to intervene and decide which one of us was correct. I explained my point of view to the professor without specifying whose opinion was whose. I was surprised to see him look towards the teacher and ask him, “What do you think?”
The teacher told him his opinion and then the professor said, “You are right.”
I felt defeated and angry. The next day, I took a well-known surgical book and went to the professor’s office. As soon as he saw me with the reference book, he said sarcastically, “You’re bringing this book to back up your opinion? I know that you are right.”
“Yet sir, you told me that my opinion was wrong.”
The professor looked and me, and then as if he was saying something very wise, said, “You are still a resident, he is a well known lecturer who is at least 10 years older than you. I can’t tell him that he is wrong in front of you. I must maintain his prestige.”
I saw no point in speaking with the professor, so I thanked him and left. A few months later I was given the opportunity to travel to the United States to study at the University of Illinois, and was fortunate enough to work with one of the most important histology professors in the world, Dr. Dennis Weber. We were a group of masters and doctoral students doing research and were supervised by Dr. Weber.
After a month, he brought us together and said, “Listen up. I want to hear your ideas. If there is anything annoying you at work or if you think that I have made a mistake please tell me.”
The situation was more than I could comprehend, so I delighted in my silence. However, my colleagues intensified their criticism of Dr. Weber, and each one of them demonstrated their criticisms by giving practical examples from our research work. The great scientist remained calm, recording all of their observations. At the end, he responded to each criticism one by one, and explained the work plan to us in detail. He admitted that there were some shortcomings, but vowed to fix them. He then thanked us and ended the meeting. I spent days observing Dr. Weber’s relationship with the students who had criticized him harshly, and discovered that his kind treatment of them had not changed.
I remember these two incidents together.
At Cairo University, the professor is always right, even if he makes a mistake, in order to preserve his prestige in front of the young doctors. At the University of Illinois, an important professor asks for negative feedback regarding his work, and then listens, explains, admits to his shortcomings and promises to fix them.
This is the difference between tyranny and democracy. If you searched all of Western media for the term “prestige of the state,” you won’t find it, because prestige is only for the law. However, in Egypt, the term prestige is very common, and is always used to mask injustice and tyranny. The state’s prestige means tyranny in the lives of the citizens, and the police’s prestige means suppressing citizens, beating them, torturing them and fabricating charges against them if they object. The judicial system’s prestige means you do not dare to criticize a judge, even if he was involved in election fraud or it was proven that he was linked to state security. The president’s prestige means that anyone can be tried or imprisoned on charges of insulting the president. The idea of “prestige” spreads like an infection.
After Egypt found itself with a Muslim Brotherhood president, a sense of prestige was transferred to leaders of the Brotherhood so that they began dealing with the people with superiority and arrogance. A few days ago Essam el-Erian, a Brotherhood leader, was speaking on TV with one of Egypt’s most renowned anchorwomen, Gihan Mansour. When the debate heated up, Erian accused Mansour of bribery and said that she would be arrested for attacking the Brotherhood.
In the democratic world there is nothing called “prestige of the state” or “national symbols.” These are tyrannical terms. In a democratic system the only prestige is that of the law. They only symbols of the state are the citizens themselves. Fundamentally, the state was established as a means of protecting citizens’ rights and maintaining their dignity.
In a tyrannical society, the ruler is the symbol of the state because he is like the chieftain of a tribe. He knows our own interests better than we do, and decides on our behalf and commands us. Thus, we obey, and often he is unjust and corrupt, but we do not dare to hold him accountable, because that would be infringing on the prestige of the state and challenging national symbols.
In democratic countries, the ruler is a servant of the people in every sense of the word. The simplest citizen — even a street sweeper — has the right to hold the president accountable and to criticize him without being punished. In fact, in democratic countries the law protects normal citizens from libel and slander, yet does not protect the head of state. If you said to your neighbor, in front of witnesses, “You’re a liar and a hypocrite,” your neighbor could file charges and receive compensation. However, if you appeared on television and said that the prime minister is a liar and a hypocrite, you will not be punished by the law.
The law allows for anyone to criticize government officials — regardless of how harsh or biting that criticism may be — in order to preserve public interests. In Egypt, it appears that President Morsi enjoys trying and imprisoning Egyptians on charges of insulting the president. There is an Egyptian citizen named Bishoy al-Beheiri who will spend two years in prison because he insulted President Morsi on Facebook. It’s as though the president is someone sacred and untouchable.
President Morsi himself grew up within the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization whose members grow up with a sense of absolute obedience to the supreme guide and kiss his hand. We saw in the video recording how members of the Brotherhood crowded around until the lucky one among them was able to put the shoes on their pure, precious leader’s feet. Whoever is raised in this type of atmosphere will be able to endure a culture of tyranny.
After President Morsi succeeded in removing the military council from power, he invited a number of public figures to the presidential palace. I was one of them. I asked the president a specific question:
Why did you honor Field Marshall Tantawi and Lt. Gen. Anan, when revolutionary forces are demanding that they be tried for the massacres committed during their era? Is your honoring them some sort of agreement that ensures their safe exit so as to guarantee that they will not prosecuted?
President Morsi answered enthusiastically: I want to assure you all that, following the revolution, there is no person immune to prosecution, not even Field Marshall Tantawi or Lt. Gen. Anan.
This is what the president said in front of many witnesses and, as usual, he did the opposite of what he said.
Last week, there were many statements made against Tantawi and Anan, accusing them of unlawful gains and inflated wealth — given that they are public employees with a fixed salary. They were also accused of being responsible for the deaths of Egyptians in the massacres that occurred during their reign. These are all serious accusations that require legal prosecution, but the army issued a statement condemning the referral of Tantawi and Anan to trial, considering it to be an infringement upon the prestige of the armed forces and an insult to national symbols.
President Morsi was overcome with fear, and the next day made an announcement:
He would never allow insults directed at the army, either towards its current or its past leaders. The president also stressed that he wanted to reassure the military that its allocation, budget and projects would remain untouched.
The rationale behind the army’s statement, which objected to the prosecution of Tantawi and Anan, simply means that Egyptians are not equal before the law.
As long as you are a senior officer in the army, you have the right to do whatever you please, and no one can hold you responsible for your actions, because you are a symbol of the nation.
Thus, any army commander has the right to order his soldiers to kill protesters, throw their bodies in dumpsters, pulverize them with armored vehicles, violate the honor of women and throw them in the streets.
Moreover, none of us have the right to hold them responsible for these crimes, in order to maintain the prestige of the military. Any army commander has the right to acquire palaces, buy extensive amounts of land and accumulate a vast wealth, yet no one can dare ask him where all of that came from, for he has become a national symbol that cannot be questioned.
In Egypt — a country where half of the population lives below the poverty line — the armed forces set up projects costing billions of dollars that we know nothing about. These large amounts of money are influencing army leaders, but we don’t know anything about the exact amounts, their sources or how they are being distributed. It is as if the army has become a state within a state.
Our respect and pride for the armed forces is steady and deep, but protecting those who make mistakes merely because they are in the military is despotic behavior that should not be accepted in a respectable state.
If President Morsi believes that trying Tantawi and Anan undermines the prestige of the army, then why did he agree to the trial of Ahmed Shafiq, who was an air force commander and thus considered to be a national symbol like Tantawi? If this is Morsi’s logic then why does he support the trial of Mubarak? Is he too not a national symbol? Is is okay to try Gamal and Alaa Mubarak as well? Are they not considered national symbols (albeit small ones), just like their father?
From now on, let us learn that there are no national symbols. The only symbol of the nation is the citizen. The state does not have prestige; rather, it derives its prestige from the force of law, not from protecting murderers and the corrupt.
The image of President Morsi is now clearer than ever.
Morsi is a man who makes promises but never fulfills them. He says nice things and then commits ugly acts. President Morsi is intent on maintaining the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization outside of the law and above accountability. We know nothing about the Brotherhood’s budget, and don’t know if they receive funding from within Egypt or from abroad. We do not even know if President Morsi makes decisions by himself, or is he receiving instructions from the Brotherhood’s supreme guide, who may well be the de facto ruler of Egypt.
It is now clear to us what is the most dangerous. The president made an agreement with the military council, ensuring the latter’s safe exit and guaranteeing that its members would not be prosecuted. Thus, the president ignored the blood of the martyrs and gave amnesty to those who do not deserve it. Once again the Brotherhood had abandoned the revolution, and sold the revolution’s principles for the sake of power.
The Egyptian revolution was carried out for the sake of truth and justice. The revolution will not allow anyone to be above the reach of the law, no matter his position in the government. The revolution will continue until it has fully achieved its objectives.
Democracy is the solution.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Posted on October 31, 2012 by uprootedpalestinians
The Shul is a $6 million synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan that also functions, technically, as a college campus–for the Michigan Jewish Institute, a Chabad school that has grown rich through the federal government’s Pell Grant program. Pictured standing in front is Dov Stein, the MJI’s head of academics.
With Jewish power in America standing at unprecedented levels, it is only natural we should begin to see Jews reap gains and benefits disproportionately greater than those available to other segments of the population.
Take college Pell Grants, for instance. Administered by the US Department of Education, the Federal Pell Grant Program provides grants to low-income students, mainly undergraduates, to help pay college expenses. The grants are named for former Senator Claiborne Pell, a Rhode Island Democrat, who way back in 1972 sponsored an amendment to the Higher Education Act that established the program as well as the funding to pay for it, the idea being to level the playing field and make higher education available to the poor as well as the rich.
“Lack of Finances is No Obstacle” From a Chabad School, to a Chabad Synagogue, to A Chabad Yeshiva in Israel
The Department of Education maintains a list of approximately 5,400 public and private colleges and universities at which students receiving Pell Grants may attend classes. These are schools which must be accredited and meet certain other qualifications as defined by Federal Student Aid guidelines, and while over the years religious-affiliated colleges have been included, it is doubtful Senator Pell would have envisioned quite the arrangement that now exists in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
It is here, in this upscale suburb of Detroit, with a median household income of $98,832, that the Michigan Jewish Institute managed to “transform itself from a small campus-based college into a burgeoning online university,” in the words of the
Jewish Daily Forward . In an article published earlier this month, The Forward reports that the school has done this “thanks in large part” to federal aid designated for low-income students, mainly Pell Grants, totaling more than $25 million over the past five years. And here’s the real kicker: most of this money is going to students who aren’t even studying in the U.S. Most, in fact, are in Israel. Or as the Forward puts it:
But very little of this money has been spent on men and women taking courses in Michigan or, indeed, in the United States. Instead, the majority of MJI’s students can be found working toward an MJI degree in Judaic studies at yeshivas and seminaries overseas, mostly in Israel.
Affiliated with the Chabad Lubavitchmovement, the Michigan Jewish Institute“seeks to serve all segments of the Jewish community,” offering “an environment that adheres to the highest ethical standards and religious traditions of Judaism.” The MJI website lists the address of its “Main Campus” as 6890 Maple Road, West Bloomfield, MI, which also happens to be the address of “The Shul,” a Chabad synagogue (“shul” is Yiddish for “synagogue”) built at a reported cost of $6 million, with menorah-shaped glass panels on either end, and which opened its doors in 2002.
A look at
The Shul’s website informs us that the synagogue, located on 40 acres, was intended from the very start to serve as the MJI’s campus, however, it appears that today, ten years later, very few actual classes are taught there. This is due largely to an online degree program that was launched by MJI in 2008—in Judaic studies. There are now also programs in computers and business, but according to The Forward, the vast majority of MJI’s 200 students are enrolled in the Judaic Studies program—and most if not all of them end up studying at yeshivas in Israel. One in particular is the Mayanot Institute, a Chabad yeshiva in West Jerusalem.
Mayanot’s website reassures prospective students that a “lack of finances is not an obstacle” to an education at Mayanot. In addition to grants and scholarships from Jewish institutions such as local American federations, Taglit-Birthright Israel and MASA (a program of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israeli government), Mayanot directs prospective American students to the U.S. Department of Education’s Pell Grant program.
It’s not unusual for foreign institutions to accept American students who are funded partly by Pell grants and come to study in a year-abroad program. Many overseas schools and colleges operate such programs. But in this case, Mayanot’s website appears to be directly recruiting students by suggesting they apply for Pell grant aid so that they can attend Mayanot in Israel as their primary institution.
A yeshiva in Israel as their “primary” institution of learning? On a Pell Grant? The information gives pause, to say the least, but take special note of Mayanot’s mention on its website of the MASAprogram. MASA is a work-study program which allows Jews to travel and study in Israel. Regular readers may recall a post I put up a few weeks ago about Armando Abed, a Palestinian Christian who was murdered on October 5 during a hotel shooting spree in the Israeli resort city of Eilat. The gunman was identified as William Herskowitz, an American Jew enrolled in MASA. Was Herskowitz also on a Pell Grant courtesy of the US taxpayer? We may never know for sure, but certainly it’s possible. In either event, Pell Grants seem to have become very much the lifeblood of the MJI:
As MJI has expanded rapidly, it has drawn increasingly on the Federal Pell Grant Program, the government’s largest education aid program targeting low-income students, which funnels public funds directly to the school. At the same time, MJI’s net income has soared. According to the institute’s most recent available tax records, between 2006 and 2010 inclusive, MJI’s net income increased to $850,000 from $89,000 — a staggering 860% five-year jump. The school ended 2010 with almost $3 million in assets. So far this calendar year, the school has received $8.7 million in federal aid.
But its academic record is poor.
Its academic record is poor? Why on earth, with all this federal money coming in, would the MJI have an inferior academic record? Well, one reason is that the institute is plagued with a low retention rate. At the end of the 2011-12 academic year, the school had 1,522 freshmen, 320 sophomores, 51 juniors, and 26 seniors. Also, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, only 9 percent of its freshmen who began their studies in 2010 returned in 2011 for their second year. It seems that after enrolling and receiving their Pell Grants, most of MJI’s students are going on to study abroad—in Israel. And as The Forward points out, this is no obstacle to a student’s eligibility to receive a Pell Grant.
Thus: Mayanot here we come!
Rivka Preisler, Mayanot’s financial aid officer and finance manager, said that about 15 to 20 of the institute’s 120 students are on an MJI study abroad program partly funded by Pell grants. Preisler said MJI takes “a certain amount” of the Pell grant and the rest is “applied to Mayanot tuition.”
But in addition to Mayanot, the MJI website also lists more than 40 other participating schools in its Study Abroad program. Of these 40-plus schools, three are in Canada, two in Australia…and the rest are in Israel.
But wait! Receiving funding from the US government as it does, MJI
must be obliged to observe federal guidelines prohibiting discrimination, right? One would think so. But it kind of comes down to the question of whether Gentiles are allowed to enroll in Jewish yeshivas (not that many would want to, but conceivably some might). And here it gets kind of technical. At the MJI website, we find the school’s Non-Discrimination Educational Policy, which proscribes discrimination in some study areas—but not others. The defining factor seems to be whether the program is a “degree program” or a “certificate program.”
The MJI “admits students to its degree programs” without regard to race, religion, gender, or other considerations, we are informed…but in the very next paragraph the policy advises that only “qualified men of the Jewish faith” are admitted to the “certificate program in Talmudic Law and Jurisprudence.”
In summation, it should be equally emphasized that Pell grants are just that—grants.
They don’t have to be paid back. It should also be emphasized that the MJI’s rapid growth and expansion, fueled by its Pell grant money, has come at a time when student loan debt has exploded in the US—now standing at just over $1 trillion.
The Jewish Rainbow
The words “starving” and “artist” often are found together in context, and for a very good reason: in America the overwhelming majority of artists and arts groups don’t make much of a living from their artistic achievements. Perhaps it’s the hallmark of a capitalistic society gone mad that artistic expression is undervalued and often even frowned upon. But in the relatively small urban community of Albuquerque, New Mexico, we find an arts group doing rather well for itself these days.
Last month, the US Economic Development Administration, an agency of the US Department of Commerce, awarded a $1 million grant to the
Keshet Dance Company, an Albuquerque dance and repertory group which offers public performances as well as a variety of dance classes for both children and adults.
The grant money will go toward establishing the Keshet Ideas and Innovation Center, an “incubator” that is to be housed in the future Keshet Center for the Arts, and which is expected to “support start-up or struggling arts-related businesses with a variety of resources like development services and access to lending providers,” according to the
“With this funding, we’re more than halfway done with our fundraising campaign,” said Shira Greenberg, who founded Keshet in 1996 and today serves as the dance company’s artistic director. “We’ll continue to raise funds for the building and are hoping to have the entire center opened by spring.”
Virtually every city in America, large and small, has struggling arts groups of one kind or another—musical, dance, theatrical, and so forth. So why, one might wonder, would this particular group be singled out for such a large grant? And why by the Department of Commerce, when normally one thinks of the National Endowment for the Arts as the main provider of federal grants to the arts?
The award was approved by acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank and publicly announced on September 12 by New Mexico Senator Tom Udall. “The arts are a defining part of New Mexico’s history, community and identity,” said Udall. “This innovative public-private partnership will help provide entrepreneurs with the tools and support they need to grow art-focused businesses.”
Art
-focused businesses? Is this a new commitment to the arts on the part of the Obama administration? Or is it perhaps more a commitment to a certain typeof art the Obama administration approves of? What is it about Keshet (the word means “rainbow” in Hebrew) that motivated such generosity from the Department of Commerce?
Whether developing productions based on the impact of the Holocaust on American Jews, the images and texts of poet Pablo Neruda, or a modern interpretation of the traditional Nutcracker, Keshet’s repertory engages audiences young and old, opening minds and changing perceptions of what dance and a dancer can be.
The above words can be found at Keshet’s website, where we learn that one of the staples of its repertory is a production entitled Ani Ma’amin, described as “a powerful and thought-provoking modern dance piece exploring the impact of the Holocaust on American Jews.” The program has been performed at numerous locales inside the state of New Mexico, and has even toured outside the state, helped in part by funding from the Jewish Federation of New Mexico. This would be the same Jewish Federation, by the way, whose executive director, Sam Sokolove, accused the Friends of Sabeel-North America of promoting anti-Semitism in connection with a recent conference on the Palestine-Israel conflict held in Albuquerque. *
The name Ani Ma’amin (“I believe” in Hebrew) is derived from the so-called 13 principles of faith, propounded by Mosheh ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides. Each of the 13 principles begins with the words “Ani ma’amin be-emunah shelemah” (“I believe with perfect faith”), and while Maimonides didn’t include the holocaust as one of the attestations, it would probably be fairly accurate to say that this has become the 14
th principle with the majority of Jews these days. The recitation has been set to music over the years, and according to Wikipedia, “One version of the tune is attributed to the Reb Azriel David, a Modzitser Hasid, who reportedly composed the tune in a cattle car when being taken to Treblinka.” Others were said to have sung the same song, or some variation, as “they were being herded into the gas chambers”, and the melody apparently is still cantillated at holocaust remembrance day services and Passover seders to this day.
All of which brings us, in a roundabout way, back to the Keshet website and its description of its
Choreographed by Shira Greenberg, the 85-minute piece runs with no intermission. Five dancers recreate the experiences and themes expressed by multiple generations beginning pre-war and culminating at the present-day. Dynamic and emotional movement is threaded together with poetry and video testimonies from Holocaust survivors and children of survivors, with footage compiled from the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education.
The production is also being promoted as “an educational tool,” and as such is performed for school children, including school matinee productions where “free admission is encouraged,” and where Keshet will even “provide a custom-created, 50-page Curriculum Guidebook at no cost for all educators” who attend the performance. Shows are then followed by “a Q & A audience discussion session to provide an avenue for the community of performers and audience members to process and discuss the work while exploring their reactions to the event and the intense subject matter.” In such manner is a “dialogue about diversity, tolerance, and anti-Semitism” opened, whereby “the young audiences can examine and discuss their own thoughts and actions.”
Following is an Ani Ma’amin segment available on YouTube:
And here we have Ani Ma’amin, as sung by members of the Israeli Army, also available on YouTube:
Despite providing free school matinee performances along with the generously-supplied 50-page curriculum guidebooks—all of which must theoretically cut into its revenue—Keshet manages nonetheless to have professional, salaried dancers on its staff, something almost unheard of among community arts groups. This in fact is even remarked upon at the Keshet website:
Keshet became one of only a handful of dance companies within the country to offer full-time employment and benefits to professional dancers and staff. [Only 5% -9% of dance companies in major metropolitan areas are able to pay salaries to their dancers – Dance/USA]
Shira Greenberg was named one of New Mexico Business Weekly’s 40 Under Forty, recognizing 40 professionals under the age of 40 in the State of New Mexico who “stand out in their fields and are engaged in their communities making New Mexico a better place to live.”
Greenberg, were are informed here, began her formal dance studies at the Minnesota Dance Theatre, and also attended Interlochen Arts Academy, Ithaca College, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And apparently she still maintains her connections to Israel. Earlier this year, Keshet brought “acclaimed Israeli choreographer” Bar Roggel to Albuquerque to collaborate with its repertory dancers in a new production called “Gesher” (Hebrew for “bridge”). The production was scheduled for three performances in late April:
Keshet is excited to welcome Israeli Dancer and Choreographer Bar Roggel to Albuquerque! During the month of April Bar will be working with Keshet in a cultural exchange that involves collaboration, creation, outreach and performance. The exchange will culminate with community-wide Yom Ha’atzmaut performances celebrating Israeli Independence Day across New Mexico.
The project, perhaps not surprisingly, is another one supported by the Jewish Federation of New Mexico. But take note: it isn’t only the Jewish Federation that adores Greenberg. In 2009, Greenberg was awarded the Coming Up Taller award by First Lady Michelle Obama in a ceremony at the White House. The award was given in recognition of Keshet’s work with incarcerated youths at New Mexico’s Youth Diagnostic and Development Center.
“It’s really cool to see these teenage boys who are incarcerated do ballet class, and really doing a good job and being excited about it. It really connects them to their bodies, to each other and to their energy in a different way,” Greenberg enthused.
Keshet’s Greenberg and Elianna Boswell, with Michelle Obama
Interestingly, Greenberg has also been recognized as a “top-performing CEO” by New Mexico Business Weekly, and has been the happy recipient of a number of other awards as well, including the Women of Influence Award and the Governor’s Award for Outstanding New Mexico Women. Also, this holiday season, Keshet will be performing Greenberg’s “Nutcracker on the Rocks,” described as “an original rock-n-roll rendition of the classical holiday tale,” and which includes “the roaring excitement of a Harley Davidson on stage.”
It’s probably only a coincidence, but “Keshet” is also the name of an illegal Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights that was established in 1974 and located near the abandoned Syrian city of Quneitra—destroyed by the Israeli Army in the 1973 war. Get it? After destroying the Syrian city, the Israelis named the new settlement “Rainbow.”
Quneitra, by the way—in what amounts to yet anothercuriosity—also means “bridge.” The city once served as a “bridge” between Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. Its ruins can be seen in a video here.
After I posted that article, I then posted an update to it, in which I cited figures on the 2012 grant recipients, which had just then been announced. This year the percentage of Jewish organizations receiving NSGP grants rose even higher—to a staggering 97 percent.
The NSGP grants are designed to provide “target hardening” and “security enhancements” to American nonprofit organizations deemed “at high risk of a terrorist attack,” and DHS Director Janet Napolitano has not only candidly acknowledged that Jewish organizations have made up the bulk of recipients, she has even justified the decision making them such. In a podcast here you can listen to Napolitano explain why she thinks Jews face special risks the rest of us don’t have to worry about.
A Multitude of Tentacles
A rather conservative, albeit in a sense “time honored” institution in America is the Chamber of Commerce. There is a U.S. Chamber of Commerce, established in 1912, as well as a myriad of loosely-to-non-affiliated state and local chambers representing businesses of all sizes in all locales of the country. Based in Washington, the national organization is primarily a lobbying group that has at times been quite reactionary (opposing national health care, for instance), but at the local level, chamber organizations can play a positive role, providing, at least theoretically, a synergism for small businesses, helping them grow and become profitable.
But lately strange mutations have begun to appear—in the form of chamber organizations devoted to promoting Israel. The objective is to foster alliances between US and Israeli businesses, and to that end, conferences and other specialty events are being held, “venture capital missions” are embarked upon, and trade and investment opportunities touted—all seemingly with the goal of interfusing what might be thought of as the commercial and economic “DNA” of both countries. For instance, there is the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce-Southeast Region, based in Atlanta, which claims more than 500 members, and which seeks to “boost” the respective economies of both Israel and the Southeast US.
With the backdrop of Israel’s stable economy and innovative companies, AICC’s Professional Committee presented another outstanding seminar on August 23rdin Atlanta that addressed many aspects of “US Jobs and Economy: The Israel Innovation Effect”. Almost 100 members and guests were treated to the program that featured presentations, case studies, and panels to illustrate the theme and engage to participants.
“The presenters delivered another great program that educated our audience about the value of the US-Israel business relationship and prepared them for successful interactions with Israeli companies,” said Greg Kirsch (Ballard Spahr), new chairman of the Professional Committee.
The seminar mentioned above is only one of a number of events promoted or discussed at the AIIC-SE website. In June, the city of Atlanta also hosted the Eagle Star Awards, an annual gala to honor “the people and companies who have contributed most to the Southeast-Israel business relationship,” while in September the Israel Innovation Impact, known also as the “Big Data” conference, took place at the Atlanta headquarters of IBM Internet Security Systems. Organized by the AICC’s Hi-Tech Committee, the three-day event featured representatives from Israeli data processing developers, including Personetics, a firm which “helps enterprises respond to a major shift in consumer behavior.”
“Following the presentations, the audience had the opportunity to rate the Israeli companies in an interactive session and discuss interest in following up with them.”
Other Israeli companies that currently seem to be making or attempting to make inroads into the Southeast US include Data Analytics, a Herzliya-based developer of a system of identifying and analyzing hidden data patterns in large scale data warehouses; Beauty Care, a Yavne-based company which markets “a diversified range of beauty care products,” including Dead Sea products; and Infrastructure Networks, a Tel-Aviv-based provider of industrial Ethernet solutions.
AICC-SE has also been promoting the Journey 12 business conference which took place October 25 in Tel Aviv, and the organization equally boasts of its relationship with the BIRD Foundation (US-Israel Bi-national Industrial Research and Development Foundation), an entity set up by the US and Israeli governments in 1977 whose activities include matchmaking services between Israeli and American companies, and which also provides funding “covering up to 50 percent of project development and product commercialization costs.”
One Israeli company which has already gained a foothold in the Southeast is Elbit Systems, a manufacturer of electronic surveillance technology which has been the target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The Haifa-based company now has offices in Talladega, Alabama and Fort Mill, South Carolina. But Elbit is not by any means the only one. The AICC-SE website features an extensive directory of Israeli companies that have established locations in the American Southeast, with state-by-state listings. The list features no less than80 companies in six states.
But it should be kept in mind that the AICC-SE is not by any means the only philo-israelitic chamber of commerce organization. Not by a long shot. There are at least 19 others, and more seem to be in the fledgling stage. Below is a partial list:
If we think of each one of these organizations as collaborating, like the AIIC-SE, with its own aggregate of Israeli businesses, then what we have here, quite literally, is a multitude of tentacles. Most if not all of these “chamber of commerce” organizations seem to have as their primary goal “matchmaking,” i.e. establishing business relationships between Israeli and American companies. How profitable this is all calculated to be for Goyim-owned American businesses is perhaps questionable. For instance, the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce Chicago has a section on its website entitled Why We Do It, which reads in part:
The America-Israel Chamber of Commerce Chicago (AICC) is founded on the premise that a strong and independent Israel requires a robust Israeli economy producing growth, jobs and tax revenue for Israel and its people. Our operations take many forms, but they all are focused on this basic goal. By continually demonstrating to business leaders here in the Midwest that it makes good business sense for them to do business in and with Israel, and by serving as the catalyst for this economic activity, we provide critical support for Israel’s economy and its people.
The emphasis does seem to be very much on benefiting Israel rather than the United States. It isn’t until the next paragraph that we find, added almost as an afterthought, an allowance for the possibility that, oh yes by the way, America might benefit as well.
Be that as it may, the economic DNA integration seems to be proceeding apace. Earlier this year, representatives from 18 Israeli companies attended the Michigan Israel Automotive Event, while a number of Israeli companies are also honing in on the city of Philadelphia. These include IntelliradControl Inc, an Israeli medical device company, and Rosetta Genomics, a medical research firm, both of which have already located there. Other Israeli companies in Pennsylvania are: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Delta Galil Industries, Eci Telecom, Retalix, Scope Metals Group, SHL Telemedicine, Dbmotion, Golan Fine Crafts, and Quantum Systems. And if we click here we can see a list of additional Israeli companies apparently seeking business opportunities in the state of Washington.
The concern for Americans, of course, is we have no way of knowing which of these enterprises are legitimate businesses, and which are Mossad front operations having the objective, possibly, of carrying out industrial or economic espionage against American companies. And as Grant Smith has discussed, Israel has a long history of such activity in the US. But perhaps even more worrisome than a case of industrial espionage, is the possibility that one of these Israeli companies could at some point begin to function in a manner similar to System Planning Corporation. Formerly headed by Rabbi Dov Zakheim, SPC developed a highly sophisticated “Flight Termination System” (FTS), enabling remote control of multiple aircraft on varying frequencies, presumably only for the purpose of guiding drones, but that may have played a role in the 9/11 attacks. Zakheim, by the way, was comptroller of the Pentagon at the time of the attacks, and in a recent article Kevin Barrettdiscusses his and SPC’s possible role in the events of that day:
Zakheim’s FTS system was apparently used to remote-hijack passenger aircraft, and stage a military attack disguised as a hijacking incident, under cover of the 46 military drills happening on and around September 11th, 2001. (One of those drills, a live fly hijacked-plane-into-building exercise, apparently “went live,” while the others provided distractions and excuses.)
Zakheim’s company SPC also had detailed knowledge of the blueprints and architecture of the World Trade Center. An SPC subsidiary, Tridata Corporation, oversaw the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The knowledge thereby gained was presumably used in the controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11.
Oddly, perhaps, US officials (some at least) would appear wholly unconcerned about any of this. The US Department of Commerce—the same branch of government that awarded Keshet its $1 million grant—even has an agency that operates out of the US embassy in Tel Aviv and which basically extends an open invitation to Israeli firms interested in moving into America. Called the U.S. Commercial Service, the agency offers what it refers to as its Commercial Connection, whereby it will “find you appropriate contacts in U.S. companies” as well as provide “short company backgrounds on U.S. firms,” and even arrange introductions with company officials.
“An introduction by the U.S. Government gives your company the credibility it needs to be considered a qualified business partner,” states the website. “With 105 offices throughout in the USA, the Commercial Service at the U.S. Embassy can be your official U.S. Government partner for contacting American suppliers and service providers!”
In other words, the US Commercial Service functions in a manner very similar to the above-listed “chambers of commerce,” only instead of membership dues, it is funded by U.S. taxpayers. Its staff includes “commercial specialists” who specialize in different industries, such as biotech, computers, electronics, etc.
And…in addition to all of the above, you can go here to find listings for Israel chambers of commerce in other countries, including China, Japan, and Australia. However, it is probably safe to say that no country in the world has been more thoroughly penetrated than the United States. So reaching are the tentacles, we now almost literally seem on the verge of becoming the next Jewish state, if we have not crossed that line already.
H/T to msa
*Sabeel is a Palestinian Christian ecumenical organization founded to advocate for peace and justice and an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza. On Sept. 28-29, the Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA) sponsored a conference in Albuquerque entitled “Justice: The Path to Peace in Palestine/Israel.” The speakers included Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans. In a September 21 op-ed piece in the Albuquerque Journal, Sam Sokolove, executive director of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, and Todd Goldblum, chair of the Israel Action Network-New Mexico, denounced Sabeel and FOSNA for their criticism of Israel and their alleged anti-Semitism. ( See, New Mexico Jews Scream ‘Anti-Semitism!’ Over Sabeel Conference ).
River toSeaUprooted PalestinianThe views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Its’ been a year now. A year since the fall of Tripoli to a mixed bag of insurgents, mercenaries and Anglo-American-Israeli stooges, a year since the debased, barbaric scenes in Sirte. A year since LIFG rebels were forced to share a platform with their less-than honourable allies in the Rothschild-NATO controlled NTC. A year, and the meticulously engineered civil war / staggered break-up concocted by the exponents of forth generation warfare, is well under-way.
A year, and Libya stands on the brink of collapse; her cities destroyed, her cultural treasures looted and spread-eagled for sustained exploitation by the impoverished hordes of Western Europe. A year, and the country that once enjoyed the highest standard of living in all Africa; is standing in the soup line, just like every other nation ‘liberated’ by the West: Welcome to the new Libya.
The naivety of those who celebrated the brutal demise of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi; is akin to that of the handful of hapless hangers on who cheered the execution of Saddam Hussein or applauded the perverse, fictional narrative created around Usama Bin Laden and an Anglo-American-Israeli front; that modern day ‘Operation Gladio’ they call ‘Al Qaida’. For unbeknown to those ecstatic, gun totting youths who lay claim to the streets of Sirte; is that their perception of a grand victory was no more than a grand illusion; a cringe worthy, colonial façade, for Libya was lost in a torrent of blood, of song and dance and flag waving tomfoolery.
But how does one explain that to a people who, for reasons not entirely without merit, hated their leader to such a degree that they wrecked their own country to oust him? For those were heady days; when emotive rhetoric and empty rants decimated any semblance of reason and logic like NATO payloads transformed quiet Libyan suburbs into smouldering piles of rubble.
How do you tell these so-called rebels, that the very powers they claim to oppose are now circling Libya like a craven flock of ravenous vultures, eager to pick on the bones of the man Africa once dubbed the ‘King of Kings’. How do you tell them; that the real war has just begun?
Cast your mind back to February 11th 2011, recall the thousands upon thousands of Libyans gathered in Green Square: dignified, resolute and willing to embrace their future in a sober and civilized manner. And look at it today. For if we condemn NATO and the Anglo-American-Israeli crime gang in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must condemn them in Libya and Syria as well. Acknowledge that the so-called leaders of the so-called transitional council hold little sway behind the scenes of this media war, backed as they are, by colonial parasites in the West; Rothschild run vassal states whose blood soaked history of oppression and tyranny in North Africa is unmatched. For lest we forget; that a roomful of NATO puppets do not hold a legitimate mandate to speak for all the people, especially people they’re still fighting in many parts of the country.
Anywhere between 20-30,000 Libyans have already been massacred by those the NTC call their allies, whilst countless others have been displaced or forced into exile: The NATO terrorist attack on the Misurata district of Zliten alone, where invaders murdered 85 people; 33 of whom were children, is a war crime comparable to the bombing of Guernica or the U.S. siege of Fallujah. NATO troops have also incited racist attacks on Libyans of Black African origin; attacks intended to deface the cultural landscape of Libya and reflect the racial tensions that afflict their own failed states / crisis ridden countries in the West.
And make no mistake, that it was the Rothschild-NATO allied NTC who instigated an armed conflict by setting up a fifth column in Benghazi: Would any sovereign nation tolerate the presence of a foreign financed and armed cartel on their land?
Former Libyan PM Jadallah Azous Al-Talhi, along with the ‘African Union’, was working to broker a cessation of hostilities in late February. Colonel Gaddafi actually offered to resign in early March, long before some of the worst episodes of the conflict had occurred. But the rebellion’s handlers in the U.S. and Europe were having none of it: They wanted this war, just as long as it was the Libyans who were dying, of course. And as their vile paradigm began to take form, one couldn’t help but be reminded of that 19th century colonial maxim; when a smug French General was asked why he drafted Moroccan and Algerian Muslims to fight Turkish Muslims for the expansion of Europe; he scoffed and replied:
“If our Arabs win, we get the credit, if our Arabs or others die, who cares?”
Libya fluctuated from a populist uprising to an imperialist proxy war and is now firmly entrenched in the latter: The worst case scenario has more or less come true; for the people’s revolution became a Rothschild revolution; hi-jacked by the Kabbalist devils of usury and fractional reserve banking. Today, numerous militias and U.S.-Israeli backed terrorists roam the streets, Bani Walid is under siege and some of the rebels are only just beginning to realize they were duped by the West.
But a lot of this is academic, because the Anglo-American-Israeli crime gang has temporarily achieved its main objective in their war against the Libyan people:
For in July 2012, extremist Jewry and its Shabbat goy acolytes imposed interest / usury into the Libyan banking system via NTC banking Law 46; which allows the Rothschild controlled, Ben Ghazi central bank (set up in the early days of the war) to invest Libyan monies in any Rothschild central bank around the world, thus killing off the debt free, Islamic financial system in place under Gaddafi.
From 1969-2011, The Libyan economy operated on an interest free (i.e. debt free) basis; opted out of Rothschild’s fractional reserve central banking system, banned the practice of usury and ensured that banks never charged interest on any loans. This Islamic law, based on the Nizam-E-Umar welfare state system implemented in the early days of the Caliphate, was the main reason why Rothschild moneylenders wanted to assassinate Col. Gaddafi.
It was, alas, the same courageous decision that saw our best and brightest Gentile leaders forced to go to war against these money lending devils and their henchmen: All our Prophets fought to abolish this parasitic system of usury, leaders like Julius Caesar, Liaquat Ali Khan, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, JFK and many others also joined the fight from their respective nations; few succeed, most were martyred.
In the months leading up to his assassination, Col. Gaddafi was also going to opt out of Rothschild’s Fiat-paper money scam altogether and go for complete economic independence to begin trading in the Gold Dinar, something that Rothschild and its deranged underlings simply couldn’t stand to see. The Rothschild central bank now hopes to plunge Libya into debt and economic enslavement, just as it’s done to almost every other country in the world today via the vicious, extremist Jew controlled, cycle of borrowing, interest, debt and war.
Remember, that Libya had no external debt and its reserves amounted to $150 billion -which are now frozen (i.e. being stolen) globally.
Libya did not charge for electricity; reliable power was free to all citizens.
It was enshrined in law that every Libyan should have a home and home ownership was considered a basic human right.
Newly married couples would receive a free 60,000-dinar (i.e. $50,000) grant to get them on the property ladder and have a comfortable start to married life.
Libya had a free national health service.
Libya provided free education for all citizens.
If any Libyans had other exceptional medical or educational needs, the government would fund their visits abroad, giving them $2,300 per month for accommodation and travel.
Libyans who wanted to work the land were given some acres to farm, a little house, tools, livestock and seeds to begin their careers.
The government would pay half the cost of every Libyan citizen’s first car.
The price of petrol in Libya was $0.14 per litre.
If a Libyan graduate was unable to find a job in his or her chosen profession, the government would pay the average salary of their desired job until they were in full time employment.
A portion of every Libyan oil sale was credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens.
Every family received $5,000 in child benefit.
40 loaves of bread in Libya used to cost $0.15.
25 % of Libyans had a university degree.
Libyans can kiss all that goodbye now.
And whilst I appreciate that some dissents had cause for their opposition, no honest commentator could possibly attempt to rationalize the strategic folly of collaborating with your worst enemies to achieve an unstable, short-term political objective at such a high cost.
MUAMMAR AL GADDAFI, 1942 –2011.
A man’s life is never judged in blurry snapshots from afar, but as a clear landscape from above; an empirical overview of how he lived, what he believed in and how he acted upon those beliefs. For me, there were three Muammar Gaddafis: One a heroic, inspirational freedom fighter in the mould of Yasir Arafat, Omar Mukthar and Gamal Abdul Nasser, the other; a flamboyant showman who’d lost sight of the struggle and the last; a set-in-his-ways dictator who cosied up to those who longed for his execution.
Col. Muammar Gaddafi was, in part, the architect of his own demise; opening Libya up to a wretched gaggle of pro-Israeli cutthroats and conmen. Subsidizing the likes of Tony Blair, propping up vile Mossad henchman Nicholas Sarkosy and sleazy Silvio Berlusconi did nothing for Libya and only served to usher the Colonel into an early grave; betrayed, as he was, by each and every one of the aforementioned Rothschild stooges. Giving money to the LSE or paying out for a crime Libya had no part in (i.e. the Lockerbie bombing) further undermined the principals of his revolution and eroded some of the values that’d defined the republic for over 40 years.
It was this decade long policy of appeasement that turned Mummar Gaddafi from a respected Mujahid into little more than a paper tiger, a loose cannon caricature milked for all he was worth by criminal regimes in the West. And it was only his courageous last stand at Sirt; where he fell, guns blazing as promised, which gave us our final glimpse of the once great Bedouin warrior.
Appeasement continued to isolate Libya as a vanguard nation in the struggle against imperialism. Rare triumphs saw Gaddafi successfully sue the Berlusconi government for reparations relating to the decades of damage inflicted by Italian colonists in the 1920s. He also oversaw the completion of the awe-inspiring trans-Sahara water pipeline / Great Man-made River; an ambitious irrigation project which resolved water shortages in the country and helped give Libya the highest standard of living in all Africa.But the self-inflicted coup de grace came in 2003: Agreeing to disarm. Gaddafi made no bigger mistake then when he acquiesced to Western demands and signed away Libya’s right to defend herself. How many times have MENA leaders made this error, and how many times must we explain the simple dynamics of dealing with the Anglo-American-Israeli crime gang? The United States, Israel, Britain, the E.U. and NATO combined will never attack any nation that has even the slightest ability to defend themselves; The Rothschild run United States of America hasn’t won a war in over sixty years: they made no lasting territorial gains in World War II, were forced to broker a partition in Korea, were bled to death in Vietnam, blown away in Lebanon, humiliated in Cuba, annihilated in Afghanistan and chased out in disgrace from everywhere else in-between. The only countries they’ve ever managed to gang rape were those who were disarmed and continuously betrayed from within.
Col. Gaddafi actually once said: “Tony Blair is my friend”. I despaired at his innocence, shook my head in disbelief and wondered if it was just a bad translation.
Had I been there at the time, I’d have told Gaddafi that Tony Blair was a pro-Israeli Shabbat goy with the blood of a million Iraqi civilians on his hands…but alas, I wasn’t there, and thus Gaddafi’s delusions of camaraderie with the real ‘Butcher of Baghdad’ were left to roam the ether unchecked. The United States also forged stronger ties with the man they’d been trying to murder for the better part of a decade; even America’s most famous p.o.w; John McCain came to visit!
Watching Libya edge ever closer to the Anglo-American-Israeli crime gang was like watching The Titanic approach an iceberg. It was a disaster waiting to happen.
Zionist Jew serial killer and U.S. war criminal Henry Kissinger put it best when he said:
“Being America’s enemy is dangerous, but being America’s friend is fatal”.
And as the sadistic cackles of a gloating Hilary Clinton were juxtaposed with the bloodied, naked body of Col. Gaddafi; dragged through the streets of his home-town and desecrated like Hector at the walls of Troy, one could look on at this most gruesome of sights and say of the Colonel: There goes a friend of America.
The second incarnation of Muammar Gaddafi manifested itself around the time when the British tried to assassinate him in 1994; allegedly using rouge elements from those who would later partake in the NATO backed war.
The Anglo-American-Israeli crime gang, now wearing the mask of ‘Al Qaida’, tried to ambush and bomb the Colonel’s motorcade. Gaddafi narrowly escaped and was saved thanks to the selfless intervention of his bodyguard, Aisha, who embraced martyrdom, in a swift and stunning act of instinctive bravery. The British-Rothschild conspiracy against Libya was only brought to light by MI6 whistle-blowers Annie Machon and David Shayler, the latter of whom was unlawfully imprisoned by the state for revealing their crimes.
Gaddafi, perhaps in another act of reactionary hubris, apparently began to crack down on perceived “Islamists” in the country and it was in the wake of this externally orchestrated chaos that Libyan forces are alleged to have carried out a massacre in Abu Salim prison. Once again, the abundance of unreliable, anti- Gaddafi rhetoric, made reports on the supposed crime part and parcel of the usual propaganda package doled out to controlled and censored media outlets in the West. But supposing that we go on the testimony of the alleged crimes only witness; had there been those present who would speak the truth; they would have known to inform Gaddafi that his assassination was not planned in Tripoli by “Islamists” but in London by M16, in Langley by the CIA and carried out at the behest of their Israeli Mossad handlers in Herzellia. That said, the Libyan Jamahiriya, just like the NTC today, made a huge error by collaborating with U.S.-UK regimes in the fraudulent ‘war on terror’, particularly the CIA’s kidnap and torture program, better known by the Orwellian euphemism: ‘Rendition’. And there is evidence to suggest that innocent Libyans were being sold out all over the place in 2002-04: The harrowing ordeals of Omar Deghayes, Sami al-Saadi, Khalid al-Sharif, the LIFG’s Abdel Hakim Belhadj and martyr Faraj Hassan can’t be wished away just because Libya was unsurprisingly betrayed by the Rothschilds. For whatever their internal disputes may’ve been; neither Libyan dissents nor Col. Gaddafi’s Jamahiriya should have collaborated with their common enemies to seal the Faustian pact that’s led Libya into its current state of socio-political turmoil.
Gaddafi’s enemies also utilised a variety of tried and tested Cointel pro and false propaganda methods to sour relations between Libya and other Muslim countries (specifically Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon and Palestine): mysterious reports of his expulsion of 30,000 Palestinians, accusations of involvement in the disappearance of popular cleric Musa al-Sadr and his alleged support for Indian occupation forces in Kashmir. All of which contradicted Gaddafi’s calls for an in independent Kashmir at the U.N., his friendly overtures to Iran and his unwavering support for armed intervention against Israel on behalf of Palestine.
By the end of the 90s, Gaddafi’s position as a world leader had been effectively destabilized, and as was the case in Latin America before Chavez, Islamic governments were no longer talking to each other, but directing their commutations through imperialist intermediaries with a vested interest in misrepresenting each side to the other.
But the Gaddafi I’d like to remember is the one who arrived on the scene in 1969, grandson of ‘The Martyr of Khoms’; Abdessalam Bouminyar, who fought back the first wave of Italian invaders in 1911.
Bouminyar, like his grandson would a century later, battled to his last breath defending his land from the hostile presence of a foreign occupation.
Politically active in his youth, a seventeen-year-old Muammar took to the streets to protest the Anglo-Israeli invasion of Egypt and Gaza during the Tripartite Aggression (i.e. Suez Crisis) in 1956.
Graduating from the Benghazi, Royal Libyan Military Academy in 1966, Gaddafi became part of ‘The Free Officers Movement’ and trained with comrades who would later join his Revolutionary Command Council. Libya’s docile monarchy had little interest in addressing long-standing issues of poverty, education and health or in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s campaign to rectify the injustices afflicting MENA nations since the Jewish occupation of Palestine in 1948.
Libya did, however, provide economic assistance with regards to oil prices after the ‘67 Naksa. Casual corruption within the system stagnated the country’s socio-economic progress whilst the regime’s inclination towards pro-Western polices proved unpopular with ordinary Libyans.
Widespread dissatisfaction soon matured into clear opposition; with Muammar Gadaffi leading a commendably clean and bloodless coup d’état on 1st September 1969: Colonel Gaddafi, at the ripe old age of 27, abolished the constitutional monarchy and set into motion a series of radical reforms as the bold, new leader of the Libyan Arab Republic.
In a daring, and successful bid to end poverty, Col. Gaddafi considered nationalizing the oil industry as Nasser had done with the Suez Canal, but made a typically generous concession by ordering Western oil companies to fairly redistribute the wealth they earned off Libya’s resources. They complied: increasing Libya’s share from 50% to 79%.
He also strengthened ties with Egyptian revolutionary Gamal Abdel Nasser and had the U.S. Wheelus Air base shut down; Ghadaffi went onto instigate a process limiting Western interference in his country, clearing out all remnants of the colonial past and encouraging moves to set up an Arab Socialist Union.
Establishing direct democracy via the Libyan Jamahiriya, Col. Gaddafi’s visionary reforms saw the literacy rate shoot up from 10% to 90% within a decade, human rights were established in accordance with The Holy Qur’an and all Libyans were considered equal before the law. Within a matter of months, Gaddafi had transformed Libya from a barren (partially developed) desert outpost into a thriving oasis of endless opportunity.
Life expectancy doubledand a welfare state ensured that every man, woman and child was provided access to free healthcare, education and housing. A variety of university scholarships and post-graduate employment programmes were introduced as the revolutionary council set down plans for a Great Manmade River which would, and did, provide clean water to every part of the North African country. (Today, that marvel of the modern world is a polluted, shrapnel ridden dump–Well done Libyans).
Needless to say, such drastic and positive reforms were frowned upon by parasitic, pro-Israeli regimes across the world; for when Margaret Thatcher was snatching milk from infants and marshalling prison hunger strikes, Col. Gaddafi was making the desert bloom, when Rabin & Begin were trying to exterminate Palestinian children,Col. Gaddafi empowered the fledging PLO to go forward and liberate their nation, when Ronald Regan was butchering unarmed islanders in Grenada, Col. Gaddafi was restoring dignity and valour to the people of North Africa.
The fact that he managed to accomplish these great feats without taking out foreign loans meant that Libya was free of interest accrued debt, the fact that he absolutely refused to partake in fractional reserve banking infuriated the usurious curs of Rothschild, no end. Libya maintained her honourable stance against usury and remained one of the handful of sovereign nations who prevented Rothschild from contaminating their economy with a central bank . Today, the NTC have reversed that position to let those money-lending vampires in through the front door.
Muammar Gadaffi also went onto establish Libyan Revolutionary Committees to raise political awareness amongst the people and supported a variety of freedom struggles around the world; The patron saint of just causes, Gaddafi was the most vocal of world leaders in his support for the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and the ANC’s war of liberation against the Anglo-American-Israeli backed Apartheid regime in South Africa.
In the same year that the British government branded Nelson Mandela a terrorist, Col. Gaddafi declared him to the be the only legitimate leader in South Africa. Even a devastating, U.S. terror attack on his home didn’t dissuade him from upholding the truth, even the martyrdom of his six-year old daughter Hannah, her body ridden with shrapnel and crushed beneath the rubble of a wall bought down by a barrage of American bombs, did not intimidate the Colonel to contemplate surrender. In the end, he saw off six Rothschild appointed U.S. presidents, and could only be killed by treachery and the monumental cowardice of NATO; the most venal and disgraced military power on a par with the illegitimate state of Israel and the U.S.
I wonder why the corrupt, pro-Israel Murdocracy and its tabloid media acolytes didn’t just go all out with a proper Gaddafi death apocryphal; perhaps say he was found hiding in a drainpipe, begging for his life whilst wearing a blouse and clutching some Lady Gaga albums.The fact is that we’ve heard it all before; when these vermin killed Che they tried to varnish their shame with tall tales of how he surrendered; lies that weren’t believed when they first told or any time since. Same old story with Allende, Lumumba, Idi Amin, Hussein, Bin Laden and so on. For despite the best efforts of spluttering Rothschild subordinates to discredit or undermine Gaddafi’s fighting spirit, the world is all too aware of the fact that the Anglo-American-Israeli media machine is about as reliable an organ for truth as a leaky boat is for sailing across the Atlantic. Say what you will about the man, but he didn’t run or hide, displayed the courage of his convictions and put his life on the line to demonstrate the sincerity of his beliefs.
I hope Libyans understand the inevitable conflict they’re caught up in, I hope the victorious factions impart some Islamic morals and discipline amongst their unruly partisans. But most of all, I hope Libya doesn’t fall back into the clutches of colonial misrule, because it took 30 years for The Lion Of The Desert to mortally wound his Italian prey; how long will it take to drive out the morally bankrupt dead beats of Europe, Israel and America? Used car salesmen like David Cameron and carpetbaggers from every corner of the Western world have already been instructed to:
“Pack their suitcases for Libya”
by Con-Dem Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond MP. And each and every one of these knife wielding whores is looking for a handout, every last one of these shameless robber barons are looking for a piece of the land Tony Blair described as a:
“…goldmine waiting to be discovered”.
Now some Muslims have been conditioned to believe that we can’t change our political landscape unless we provide a macabre spectacle for criminal regimes in the West to broadcast on CNN. Some grand, violent gesture that makes us look no better than extremist Jews; the sort of people who sodomize a dead man in the streets of his hometown whilst chanting slogans that espouse the diametric opposite of the scenes you’re actually witnessing. For how can anyone lay claim to the embarrassing, barbaric spectacle that transpired in Sirte, why should Muslims work with NATO criminals against their own country; are we incapable of bringing our leaders to account without destroying our entire socio-political infrastructure in the process or routinely violating our principals at the behest of Anglo-American-Israeli parasites? Evidently, if Libya and Syria are anything to go by.
With the fall of Col Gaddafi, Libya is still officially up for grabs, winning bid and the ability to perpetrate the most terrifying acts of ultra violence gets the lot: If the LIFG and Green Army have any sense between them, they’ll form a temporary alliance to restore order, lift the siege on Bani Walid and keep the country united, for I seriously doubt that anyone, be they pro or anti-Gaddafi, is content with the situation as it is. No sane, patriotic Libyan could’ve wanted this when they revived the Green, Red and Black in Benghazi; and its Libyans and Libyans alone who must stand united and reclaim their sovereignty from enemies within and enemies’ abroad. So farewell brother leader, so long NATO and May Allah (swt) guide the people of Libya.
“This is my will.
I, Muammar bin Mohammad bin Abdussalam bi Humayd bin Abu Manyar bin Humayd bin Nayil al Fuhsi Gaddafi, do swear that there is no other God but Allah and that Mohammad is God’s Prophet, peace be upon him. I pledge that I will die as Muslim. Should I be killed, I would like to be buried, according to Muslim rituals, in the clothes I was wearing at the time of my death and my body unwashed, in the cemetery of Sirte, next to my family and relatives. I would like that my family, especially women and children, be treated well after my death. The Libyan people should protect its identity, achievements, history and the honourable image of its ancestors and heroes. The Libyan people should not relinquish the sacrifices of the free and best people. I call on my supporters to continue the resistance, and fight any foreign aggressor against Libya, today, tomorrow and always. Let the free people of the world know that we could have bargained over and sold out our cause in return for a personal secure and stable life. We received many offers to this effect but we chose to be at the vanguard of the confrontation as a badge of duty and honour. Even if we do not win immediately, we will give a lesson to future generations that choosing to protect the nation is an honour and selling it out is the greatest betrayal that history will remember forever despite the attempts of the others to tell you otherwise.” The Last Will And Testament of Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi Sirte, Libya, October 17th, 2011
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Posted on October 31, 2012 by uprootedpalestinians
A gunman carries a gun as he sits behind sandbags at the neighborhood of Bab al-Tebbaneh in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, 23 August 2012. (Photo: Reuters – Omar Ibrahim)
Huge quantities of weapons passing through smuggling networks in Lebanon indicate a major battle for Syria looming on the horizon, but even the arms market is rife with division as dealers sabotage merchandise and inform on customers.
Since the eruption of the Syrian crisis and the escalation of violence between Syrian government forces and rebels, arms prices in Lebanon have increased threefold.
The tag on an AK47 or a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) launcher recently reached $2,000, up from $700 to $1,000 before the crisis. PK machine guns and Dragunov sniper rifles were being sold at record prices of around $8,000.
Then, about ten days ago, the arms market in Lebanon witnessed a sudden recession. According to one arms dealer, “the Syrian market reached saturation.” Moreover, he says, “the rebels began selling their surplus arms and ammunition.”
The dealer says the price of an AK47 bullet dropped from $2 to $1.5 in one week. For RPG rockets, it fell from $500 to $300.
The sudden drop was also an indicator to Lebanese arms merchants that the rebels are now receiving supplies from other sources, probably Iraq and Turkey.
Despite this sudden “recession,” arms dealers are still working day and night so that their merchandise reaches its destination in Syria.
They do not seem to care about the informants watching them closely.
Although money is the main motivating factor, even arms merchants find themselves divided between the two warring sides of the Syrian conflict.
One dealer, who consider himself “politicized,” refuses to sell to anyone who would use the arms against “our people,” meaning, in this case, the Syrian army and regime supporters.
For this group, the real battle is between the US and Israel on one side, and the “axis of resistance” – Hezbollah, Syria and Iran – on the other. For them, the loss of a few dollars is a small price to pay.
If they wanted to make “a quick buck,” they might sell some malfunctioning weapons to the rebels.
One such merchant goes by the name Abu Mustafa. The young man sits in a coffee shop on the Hadi Nasrallah strip in Dahiyeh to meet with anAl-Akhbar reporter.
From afar, he blends in perfectly with the rest of the customers. No weapon is visible at his side, and, contrary to popular conceptions of people in his line of business, he has no visible scars or tattoos.
Abu Mustafa calls himself a “small” arms dealer, but he is actually a middle man, acting as an intermediary between the big-time merchants known as “whales” and the customers.
His outward appearance gives no clues as to the huge profits he makes off these deals – his clothes are plain, and he does not flash any symbols of luxury.
Although he is religiously observant, he admits he pretends to be unemployed but actually sells weapons. His unemployment is a good cover since “there is so much work these days,” he said sarcastically.
He knows that there are informants watching him. He is watching them back.
“Every officer has his price and we often coordinate together,” he says, unfazed.
Coordinating with Army Intelligence means he often informs on the people who purchase arms for transport to Syria.
He mentions an ambush he helped the authorities set for someone who wanted to buy 5,000 rounds of AK47 bullets. He waited for the customer on the airport road, arranging the deal over Whatsapp, the smartphone messenger service.
He told the customer a car with tinted windows would come to pick him up. The car was from Army Intelligence, and the man was promptly arrested.
In this particular case, the suspect claimed he was not intending to transport the ammunition to Syria, insisting that it was for personal use only. But his politics were at odds with those of Abu Mustafa, so the latter had no qualms about turning him over to the Army.
Arms dealers like Abu Mustafa, who see themselves as having a stake in the conflict, do not stop at informing on their customers (after they get paid, of course). They even go as far as sabotaging merchandise sent to Syrian rebels.
Most of the weapons “we knew were going to Syria, so we made sure to make it unusable,” one merchant claims. He went on to say that he and his associates have sold the Syrian opposition RPG rockets that are intended for training purposes only. This means they do not have the same explosive power as the regular ones.
“The rocket might explode and kill a person, but it will not inflict the same amount of damage on vehicles like the original,” he explains.
“They would not be able to differentiate the model from the original, unless they wanted to open each and every one, which they will not do, of course,” the merchant adds.
Some of the weapons they sold were just molded plaster painted green.
He also said that some merchants, including himself, are selling “rubbed out” AK47s.
“We smooth out the bores of the barrels for a few millimeters,” he said. “They are undetectable by the naked eye, but enough to affect the range of shot…The AK47 will fire as if it was spitting.”
The weapons they ruin are not the good supplies. They get them from the Lebanese army, which takes apart its damaged weapons and sells them as scrap.
“Most of the scrapped weapons are delivered to a junkyard in Shatila where we buy them and refurbish them,” the dealer added.
“Some weapons are found in good condition,” he went on. “When the army saws off its M16 rifles, we turn them into M4s and add some Chinese parts, so they look like new. The army would cut the barrel and save us some work and around $6.”
It should be noted that such weapons are useless in a real battle.
Open Bazaar
It is not just the merchants who are selling weapons.
Recently, a group of officers from a Palestinian armed faction stole weapons from their movement’s depot in Ain el-Helweh and Burj al-Shemali refugee camps and sold them to Syrian opposition fighters.
Some Lebanese merchants are also purchasing handguns in Turkey and importing them to Lebanon where they refurbish them with longer barrels and sell them as “toys.” Although they are for personal use, they are more powerful than regular handguns.
Ammunition is obtained mostly from officially licensed shooting ranges, including some that are run by security forces. The owners of these clubs are stealing ammunition supplies and selling them to the merchants.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition. River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Posted on October 31, 2012 by uprootedpalestinians
Urgent investigations conducted by the Information Branch did not show any suspicious activities in the area. But the precision of the information from the UAE led Hassan to treat it seriously. (Photo: Marwan Tahtaht)
The fallout from the assassination of Internal Security Forces (ISF) Information Branch chief Wissam al-Hassan nearly two weeks ago was very similar to that following the series of assassinations that has rocked Lebanon since 2005.
Syria was blamed immediately, and those who expressed doubt were labeled collaborators. March 14 alluded to Hezbollah’s involvement as well. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea even went as far as accusing Hezbollah directly.
Jumping to conclusions prevents honest dialogue. In reality, prior to his death, Hassan felt threatened by more than one party.
People who knew Hassan heard him in recent years speak about those he thought wanted to kill him. Some of this information was based on analysis, but some of it was also based on data and facts on the ground.
Of course, Hassan had his suspicions regarding Syria’s role in Lebanon. Over the last few months, he became more apprehensive towards Syrian intelligence agencies. He would often mock their structural weaknesses, which became especially obvious following the arrest of former minister Michel Samaha who was indicted for his involvement in “terror plots” in Lebanon on behalf of the Syrian regime.
Hassan also never hid his conviction that Hezbollah, along with Syria, was behind the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, but he was convinced it was the product of a conspiracy within the organization.
Hassan believed that Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and assassinated Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh did not have prior knowledge of the killing and were not involved in it in any way.
The intelligence chief made it clear that he feared a certain group within Hezbollah made up of “undisciplined elements who do not obey their leadership.”
This apprehension did not prevent Hassan from cooperating with Hezbollah and even exchanging intelligence on several occasions.
While the Information Branch led the crackdown on Israeli spy networks over the last four years, the Resistance provided information that was crucial to their discovery.
“The are better than us in human intelligence gathering,” he would say of Hezbollah’s intelligence branch.
Hassan knew that the nature of his work made him a target. He often said that his job “left me without any friends.”
A few months ago, Hassan told people close to him about meetings he had with Jordanian officials, including the head of Jordanian intelligence, who he met in Germany, and a minister linked to Jordanian intelligence.
He said that each of them had relayed information – on separate occasions – about discussions with the Israelis regarding the situation in Lebanon.
As a result, both officials told Hassan that the Israelis do not look on him favourably and that he should be careful, even in Europe.
Hassan knew that the Israelis were after his neck. On several occasions, he reportedly said that he did not feel safe in Europe anymore.
He was aware of the damage done to Israel through the unraveling of its spy networks in Lebanon, starting in 2007 when the Intelligence Branch commenced its counter-intelligence operations.
Hassan also received a clear message from the US Congress, which cut back on some of the joint programs between his branch and its American counterparts. On one occasion, several US Senators explicitly informed Hassan that were facing Israeli pressure to stop their assistance to Lebanon.
But the clearest message came from the Jordanian intelligence officer he met with almost a year ago and whose warnings he took seriously.
Earlier this year, Hassan got another warning. In January 2012, he received a letter from the United Arab Emirates’ intelligence body saying they had credible information that a high ranking officer from the ISF would be targeted with a car bomb in Achrafieh on the road between the ISF headquarters and the officer’s safe house.
The information came as a surprise to Hassan, since he believed his safe house in Achrafieh was a secret. Even his closest aides were not informed of its location. He knew that the information from the UAE concerned him personally, the Achrafieh safe house being his own.
All he could do was leak the information to the press, to tell those who wanted to assassinate him that their plot had been discovered.
Urgent investigations conducted by the Information Branch did not show any suspicious activities in the area. But the precision of the information from the UAE led Hassan to treat it seriously.
The information was leaked to the press and treated, as usual, as fodder for internal Lebanese politicking. The Information Branch was accused of fabricating the information to use it to pry communications data from telecom operators.
But for the security officers concerned with the investigation, the issue was critical. Hassan did not know who was behind the plot discovered by UAE intelligence.
He assumed it was related to Syrian intelligence operations. He remained convinced of this until he met a UAE intelligence official who told him that their information points to al-Qaeda, specifically one of their groups operating out of the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp.
Wissam al-Hassan knew he had to stay a step ahead of his adversaries, some of whom remained a mystery even to him. He knew his enemies were many and that the last seven years of his life as a top intelligence chief only made him more of a target.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
For courageous Jamahiriya fighters, it’s their finest hour. Despite overwhelming force, use of chemical and other illegal weapons, and US-sponsored mass murder, they hang on valiantly.
Western major scoundrels shamelessly ignore the slaughter or misreport it. More on that below.
A previous article called what’s happening one of history’s great crimes. It’s a Nuremberg level one writ large. Libyans and people of conscience won’t ever let it be forgotten. Mass killing and destruction continues. An entire city is being destroyed.
Western-sponsored death squads are murdering civilians in cold blood. NATO-supplied rockets, shells, chemical, and other illegal weapons target them. Inside the city, door-to-door murder threatens anyone remaining.
Last year, Sirte was terror bombed to rubble. US-led NATO forces terrorized a city of 100,000. Unknown numbers perished. Civilians suffered most.
In all US direct and proxy wars, Washington targets them. Mass casualties and punishment follow. It’s done to break morale, cause panic, and weaken an enemy’s will to resist.
International law strictly forbids it. Article 25 of the 1907 Hague Convention states:
“The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.”
Article 26 says:
“The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.”
Article 27 states:
“In sieges and bombardments, all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.”
Fourth Geneva protects civilians in time of war. Collective punishment is forbidden. So is violence of any type. Sick and wounded victims must be treated.
In September 1938, the League of Nations prohibited the
“bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces”
“In cases where (legitimate targets) are so situated, (aircraft) must abstain from bombardment” if doing so disproportionately harms civilians.
The 1945 Nuremberg Principles prohibit “crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
These include “inhumane acts committed against any civilian populations, before or during the war.”
Indiscriminate killing and “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity” is strictly forbidden.
In 1968, a General Assembly Resolution on Human Rights prohibits attacks on civilian populations. Washington, key NATO partners, and Israel do it repeatedly. State terror is policy. Strategy prioritizes murdering defenseless people.
Lest we forget, remember Guernica 1937, the 1940-41 London blitz, Dresdan 1945, fire-bombing Toyko 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1945, North Korea 1950-53, Southeast Asia 1964-75, Iraq 1991 and 2003, Serbia/Kosovo 1999, Afghanistan 2001, decades of Israeli wars on Palestinians and other Arabs, Libya 2011, many other US-led Western crimes, and now Bani Walid.
Progressive News Hour regular James Petras said on air that most NGOs skim 90% of donations for themselves. They’re predators, not humanitarians. They serve political agendas for profit.
ICRC is no exception. It profits handsomely from wars, disasters and human misery. “Non-profiteering” is big business.
ICRC’s claimed humanitarian mission is cover. What’s involved is money, special privileges gotten, and connections to people in high places.
Benefitting this way is loathsome and contemptible. Operations profiting from human misery have no place in civil society. With hundreds of millions of dollars in funding annually, ICRC benefits like for-profit businesses.
In return, services in kind are provided. ICRC is on the wrong side of the Syrian conflict. It’s much the same for Libya.
On October 26, its press release belied the gravity of Bani Walid conditions. It explained nothing about willful slaughter. It merely said:
“The humanitarian situation remains difficult for the people of Bani Walid in Libya.”
“Many people have had to get out of Bani Walid since fighting resumed in the city almost a month ago.”
“The ICRC continues to monitor the humanitarian situation in and around Bani Walid as the fighting continues….”
Help provided is modest at best. Included is much less than adequate amounts of food, water and medical supplies. Residents able to reach nearby areas receive what isn’t enough to sustain them. Others trapped inside Bani Walid are largely on their own.
On October 28, Russia Today (rt.com) headlined “Siege of Bani Walid: Foreign fighters, phosphorous bombs and nerve gas – RT sources,” saying:
Bloodbath conditions affect city residents. Western-sponsored death squads attack them with “banned weapons like white phosphorous.”
Resistance fighters hold out valiantly. Bani Walid didn’t fall. RT sources “denied reports of the last few days that (it) was retaken by the Libyan government.”
Refugees who fled the city are prevented from returning. A man with trapped relatives in Bani Walid told RT:
“There is no food. There is nothing to support the life of people. And the militia does not allow anyone to come back to their homes.”
ICRC claimed it entered the city twice during fighting and supplied aid. Residents, in fact, got little or nothing.
Mercenaries “are demolishing homes with machinery and tanks. There is no communication or internet so people are not able to connect with each other.”
Western sources want information on what’s ongoing suppressed.
RT’s source said foreign fighters are involved. He’s unidentified to protect himself and family members. Washington’s dirty hands control everything. Puppet Libyan officials do what they’re told. Qatar and other regional states are involved.
RT’s source said:
“We ask the envoy (Special Representative) of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (for Libya), Mr. Tarik Mitri – where is he now?”
“Where is the United Nations? Where is the EU? Where is Human Rights Watch? We ask for an intervention now as soon as possible – please!”
Washington blocked Russia’s draft statement. It called on Libyan authorities “to take urgent steps to resolve the conflict by peaceful means and to preserve the rights of all Libyan citizens.”
It expressed grave concern for conditions in Bani Walid. RT said “witnesses claim” foreign fighters are using “internationally prohibited weapons.” They include “phosphorous bombs and nerve gas.”
Bani Walid activist/lawyer Afaf Yusef told RT:
“We have documented all this in videos. We recorded the missiles they used and the white phosphorus raining down from these missiles.”
“Many people died without being wounded or shot. They died as a result of gases. The whole world needs to see who they are targeting. Are they really Gaddafi’s men? Are the children, women and old men killed – Gaddafi’s men?”
RT said foreign fighters were told to use “all means necessary” to control the city. Libyan activist Ali Altakasih told RT that Bani Walid residents say that “chemical weapons and airplanes” attack them.
He urged Russia, China, and other countries to intervene to help. Civilians are isolated on their own and dying.
“Any house that looks of great importance to the militias is either burnt or robbed,” he added. “There are people who are trapped inside the city who cannot leave the city, either for fear of the militia or fear of leaving their belongings inside the city.”
Obama bears full responsibility. Libya’s war is his. So is ongoing Bani Walid slaughter and destruction. Major media scoundrels support what they should condemn.
What’s happening in Bani Walid is suppressed. On October 24, The New York Times headlined “Libyan Forces Now Control Restive Town, Officials Say.”
What city residents say is ignored. Fighting continues. Unnamed “officials” lied. Times writer Kareem Fahim regurgitated false information instead of reporting accurately.
BBC was no better. On October 24, it headlined “Libyan forces ‘capture ex-Gaddadi bastion Bani Walid,’ ” saying:
“Libyan authorities say they have seized control of” the city. “The government alleges that Bani Walid harbors a number of Gaddafi loyalists….Authorities say all military operations have been halted.”
They claim “troops will provide security and aid in the town.”
“Dozens of people are believed to have been killed, and some 200 injured in recent violence.”
“Civilians escaping the clashes have found refuge in surrounding towns, where they are staying with families or in schools.”
All of the above is false or distorted. BBC viewers and listeners were willfully lied to. What else could they expect from a government owned, operated and controlled propaganda service.
Al Jazeera functions the same way. Qatar’s monarchy runs it. It long ago abandoned professionalism, objectivity, truth and full disclosure. Credibility isn’t its long suit. Key members of its staff resigned in disgust. They’re journalists, not propagandists.
On October 26, Al Jazeera headlined “Libya ‘captures’ former Gaddafi stronghold,” saying:
“Celebratory gunfire” followed. Fighters called it “a triumph for the government that replaced Gaddafi’s regime.”
“Youssef al-Mankoush, the Libyan army chief of staff, said military operations in the city were terminated but that some forces were still chasing a few pockets of Gaddafi loyalists.”
This type rubbish substitutes for hard truths. Other reports are no better. Similar information is discussed. What’s most important is suppressed. Readers are willfully lied to. They’re not told what they most need to know.
Bani Walid is an ongoing human catastrophe. It’s also one of history’s great crimes. Washington bears full responsibility. Its dirty hands are all over conflicts throughout the region. That’s how fascist states operate.
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.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Posted on October 30, 2012 by uprootedpalestinians
According to PLO legal advisor Francis Boyle “All UN Charter states (including America and Israel) provisionally recognized Palestinian independence in accordance with UN Charter article 80(1) and League Covenant article 22(4). Further, as the League’s successor, the General Assembly has exclusive legal authority to designate the PLO as the Palestinian peoples’ legitimate representative.” But “Rights are achievable under leaders who pursue them.” “Once Palestine “becomes a UN Member State, (it) can ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and then file a formal State to State Complaint against Israeli Officials, upgrading the lower level Complaint President Abbas filed at my advice.” It can also “ratify the Genocide Convention and sue Israel for Genocide at the World Court, pursuant to the advice I had already given President Arafat and President Abbas, and get a temporary restraining Order against the Zionists, that would then go to the Security Council for enforcement, and if vetoed by the Americans, to the General Assembly for enforcement under the (1950) Uniting for Peace Resolution.”
“With these proceedings, (it may) be able to halt the Zionist settlement project of all Palestine in the immediate future.” It will also lift Gaza’s siege. Abbas refuses to do it. So did Arafat before him.” And now, after the Islamist’s “SPRING”, neither Palestinian Rights nor Palestinian rights, nor reforming PLO are not on the table. According to Sectarian thug, Khalid Hamayreh, the Hamastan mouthpiece,speaking out of both sides of his mouth he said PLO representation is not a sacred text ,
“PLO is still living during the cold war era when the PLO was indeed viewed as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”
“However, since then, the PLO has effectively ceased to be the “sole legitimate” representative of the Palestinian people.”
“Today, millions of Palestinians at home and in the Diaspora no longer view a secular PLO as their sole and legitimate representative. Indeed, political currents and orientations among Palestinians have undergone radical changes…. The fact that the PLO has chosen to ignore this outstanding fact doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. The PLO must therefore come to terms with reality, namely that it is no longer the sole and legitimate representative of all Palestinians….the PLO representation is not a sacred or Quranic text, especially for the many Palestinians who believe in the Islamic ideology.”
In other words, according to the sectarian thug, still living during the American century, the Brothers of Americarepresents the 1.5 billion Muslim, so don’t be surprised if he claims that Hamas is the “sole legitimate representative of all Palestinians ” and deny the existance of secular Palestinians, and estinians Muslims, who believe that Islam is a way of life, and off course, deny the existance of Palestinian Christians. Its true that, since Oslo, PLO ceased to be the “sole legitimate representative of all Palestinians ” Yet, Hamas leadership, after putting the Palestinian cause on the self, and joining American Brotherhood’s war on Resistance Axis, shall never be accepted as a represetive for any Plalestinian. Because, when any Palestinian disloyal to Palestine as the Arabs and Muslims central cause lhe PLO shall be viewed as disloyal to Palestine, Arabism and Islam. Obama Rejects Palestinian Statehood
What do you call a Black man who rejects equal rights for his own people and others? A racist traitor.
What do you call a rejectionist leader? A criminal who should be impeached, removed and prosecuted.
Obama stands guilty on multiple counts. His rap sheet includes much more than spurning Palestinian rights. He’s complicit in grand theft and war crimes multiple times over. He’s unfit to serve. He should be in prison, not government.
Throughout his tenure, he repeatedly violated international, constitutional, and US statute laws. He’s contemptuous of fundamental rights and other democratic values.
From his earliest Chicago political days, he supported ethnic cleansing gentrification. Real estate and other financial priorities trumped populism. They still do and much more.
Obama fronts for wealth and power interests. As a state senator, he did it for his district. As president, he does it globally. He’s in lockstep with Israel on Palestine.
He supports occupation harshness. Palestinians are Muslims and don’t matter. Denying them fundamental rights is policy. So is total evisceration of freedom and standing four-square against sovereign independence in any form. He also opposes full or limited UN membership.
Washington wages wars multiple ways. Its repertoire includes financial and political warfare.
Last year, US Jerusalem Consul General, Daniel Rubenstein, told chief negotiator Saeb Erekat that Washington will veto a UN Security Council resolution on Palestinian sovereignty within June 1967 borders.
Doing so is illegal. It also carries no weight. The General Assembly alone affirms new member states by a two-thirds vote. The Security Council only recommends admissions.
Palestinians can override Washington’s veto by petitioning the General Assembly through the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution 377. Doing so renders America’s veto null and void.
Washington pledged earlier not to oppose any state seeking UN membership. Of course, its promises aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. The same goes for Israel. Both nations are rogue states. They govern by we’re boss and what we say goes rules.
Rubenstein also threatened to cut off all aid and impose other unspecified punitive measures. In July 2012, PA official Khaled Mesmar said Washington repeated its threat.
An unnamed US diplomat told Abbas in Ramallah. He, of course, only goes through the motions of seeking official statehood recognition and UN membership with enough rights to matter. Rhetoric substitutes for follow-through.
If proper procedures are followed, both objectives are within easy reach. Abbas struck out repeatedly on both counts. Expect nothing from him ahead. He epitomizes betrayal and illegitimacy. He represents Israel and Washington, not Palestine. He’s an unprincipled quisling head of state.
In June 2011, the Senate unanimously approved a measure to end funding if statehood is pursued. Weeks later, the House followed suit. It voted 407 – 6. Its resolution also called for suspending aid if Fatah/Hamas unity is consummated.
Both House and Senate resolutions are non-binding. Foreign policy is the purview of the Executive. Exceptions include the right to declare war. Congress alone may do so. It abdicated its authority over seven decades ago. It shows no signs of reclaiming it.
The State of Palestine, in fact, exists. It was proclaimed in Algiers on November 15, 1988. At the time, the PLO adopted the Palestinian Declaration of Independence.
PLO legal advisor Francis Boyle drafted it. He included safeguards to assure all sovereign state rights. His document left no wiggle room loopholes. He also made sure UN membership won’t comprise them.
Palestine satisfies all essential criteria for sovereign independence and full de jure UN membership.
All UN Charter states (including America and Israel) provisionally recognized Palestinian independence in accordance with UN Charter article 80(1) and League Covenant article 22(4).
Further, as the League’s successor, the General Assembly has exclusive legal authority to designate the PLO as the Palestinian peoples’ legitimate representative.
The Palestine National Council (PNC) is the PLO’s legislative body. It’s empowered to proclaim the existence of Palestine. According to the binding 1925 Palestine Citizenship Order in Council, Palestinians, their children and grandchildren automatically become citizens.
So are diaspora Palestinians. Those living in Israel and Jordan have dual nationalities. Occupied Territory residents remain “protected persons” (under Fourth Geneva) until a final peace settlement is reached.
Rights are achievable under leaders who pursue them. Palestinian governance always fell short. Millions deserving better never got it. They remain occupied and oppressed in limbo.
They’re on their own to seek liberation PA leaders conspiratorially with Israel and Washington deny them. On September 27, Abbas addressed the General Assembly in New York. Once again he fell short.
His comments were watered down, weak-kneed, and duplicitous. He’ll again seek UN non-member state status, he said. On the one hand, he promised before and backed down.
On the other, why seek less than what’s easily within reach and should have been gotten long ago.
Last year, Francis Boyle emailed this writer as follows:
“I have advised the Palestinians to invoke the Uniting for Peace Resolution.” Doing so overrides Washington’s veto. “That get’s their Admission Application to the UN General Assembly.”
“It is the General Assembly that admits, not the Security Council. There they will need a 2/3ds vote of those states voting yes or no – abstentions, no votes, no shows do not count.”
At the time, the Financial Times estimated they had 170 votes. They constitute 88% of UN member states.
“If they get the 2/3ds vote in the General Assembly, Palestine” joins their ranks, “and you have Palestine and Israel, which everyone says they want but, of course, they do not mean it.”
Boyle added that “Palestinians will always live to fight another day. And I will be there with them until my dying day. Or until Palestine is Free.” For the record, this writer pledges the same thing without compromising what’s right, fair, just, and long overdue.
On October 1, the London Guardian headlined “US warns European governments against supporting Palestinians at UN,” saying:
It came in private memo form. Go along or else. Memo language said UN status in any form “would be extremely counterproductive.” EU governments were told Palestinians will face “significant negative consequences.” Financial sanctions were mentioned.
The memo said Palestinian statehood “can only be achieved via direct negotiations with the Israelis.” Going that route, of course, assures permanent occupation, exploitation, persecution, and failure.
European governments were urged to support US obstructionist efforts. General Assembly representatives in New York were given Washington’s ultimatum. Do it our way or else.
Washington and Israel have serious concerns about rights UN member states are afforded. In another email, Boyle explained, saying:
Once Palestine “becomes a UN Member State, (it) can ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and then file a formal State to State Complaint against Israeli Officials, upgrading the lower level Complaint President Abbas filed at my advice.”
It can also “ratify the Genocide Convention and sue Israel for Genocide at the World Court, pursuant to the advice I had already given President Arafat and President Abbas, and get a temporary restraining Order against the Zionists, that would then go to the Security Council for enforcement, and if vetoed by the Americans, to the General Assembly for enforcement under the (1950) Uniting for Peace Resolution.”
“With these proceedings, (it may) be able to halt the Zionist settlement project of all Palestine in the immediate future.” It will also lift Gaza’s siege.Abbas refuses to do it. So did Arafat before him.
Decades of Palestinian leadership failure to do the right thing constitutes betrayal. Nothing ahead looks promising. A third Intifada is long overdue.
Courageous independent leaders are needed to inspire, organize, and direct it. Hopefully enough of them are committed and ready. Liberation won’t come any other way.
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.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
It is far from being a big surprise that Jimmy Savile, a ‘predatory sex offender’, found many friends amongst Zionists and Israeli leaders. Just a year ago, the UK Jewish Chronicle saw him as a dear friend of the Jewish people and their State.
Interestingly enough, JC’s Jessica Elgot who wrote the following piece prefers Zionist paedophile Savile over truth tellers such as prof’ John Mersheimer or myself*.
With the Bridge in Britain friends in Tel Aviv in 1975; John Levy is far right
He claimed to have “invented the disco”, but Sir Jimmy Savile, the DJ and presenter who died last weekend, also claimed to have done his bit towards peace in the Middle East. Sir Jimmy always said he had berated the Israeli Cabinet in 1975 for being too soft after the Six Day War.
The bling-loving Leeds-born presenter of Jim’ll Fix It and Top of the Pops, who once described himself as “the most Jewish Catholic you will ever meet,” was a strong supporter of Israel and through fun runs, marathons and personal appearances, raised funds for many charities including WIZO, Ravenswood, and the British Friends of the Laniado Hospital in Netanya. His ten-day visit to Israel in 1975, when he met President Ephraim Katzir and Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, was organised by John Levy of the Friends of Israel Educational Trust.
The trip was filmed for the BBC’s Jim’ll Fix It after nine-year-old Gary Merrie from Liverpool asked “to see the land where Jesus was born.”
Trademark tracksuit
Sir Jimmy recalled his advice to the Israelis: “I arrived at this reception. The president came to me and asked how I was enjoying my visit. I said I was very disappointed: the Israelis had won the Six Day War but they had given back all the land, including the only oil well in the region, and were now paying the Egyptians more for oil than if they had bought it from Saudi Arabia.
“I said: ‘You have forgotten to be Jewish’. He said: ‘Would you like to tell my cabinet that?’ Next morning, I went to the Knesset; they interrupted a cabinet meeting and I told them the same as I had told him.”
Mr Levy recalled: “He was a gorgeous, impish, creative character. Of course, he was an egomaniac, but he was incredibly generous. He wanted to film us walking from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, so there are these scenes trudging the Judean Hills. He had many close Jewish friends, he was a real philosemite. When we returned, I asked him to be a ‘Friend’ of the Trust and he insisted that I listed him as ‘Special Friend’.”
During his visit, Sir Jimmy spent time camping near the Sea of Galilee and at Kibbutz Lavi, where he recorded a discussion programme for his Radio 1 show “Speakeasy.”
Famous for his “clunk-click” road safety campaign advocating the wearing of seat belts, Sir Jimmy loved nearly everything in Israel, with one major exception – the driving. After his trip and a meeting with then Transport Minister Moshe Dayan, when he returned to London, he presented Israeli ambassador Gideon Rafael with two road safety films which he hoped would be shown on Israeli TV.
Mancunians Pearl Gruber and her late husband Harold were close friends of Sir Jimmy, and invited him to their daughter Sharon’s batmitzvah in 1968. Mrs Gruber said: “He was wonderful; he broadcast his radio show ‘Savile’s Travels’ from the batmitzvah party at the Yeshurun Hebrew Congregation in Cheadle. One of the boys at the party really wanted to be a disc jockey and nearly drove him mad.”
Sharon Gruber, who now lives in Mill Hill, recalled: “He came to my batmitzvah in a silver suit, and people were whispering ‘who does that man think he is, Jimmy Savile?’ They didn’t realise it was really him!”
One of his eight homes was a small flat in the heart of the Leeds Jewish community in Roundhay. He spent much of his time socialising at the Flying Pizza restaurant on Street Lane, a popular local haunt.
He was a regular at fundraising dinners at synagogues in Leeds and Manchester, particularly for the British Friends of Laniado, donating large sums to the organisation.
He told the BBYO group in Leeds: “I knew nothing about the Jewish community growing up”, but visiting Israel had made him realise that “the world owes the Jewish community a great debt.”
Manchester Laniado chair Dov Hamburger recalled Sir Jimmy’s appearance at the charity’s annual dinner, which he did for nothing. Mr Hamburger said: “I cannot recall a keynote speaker who has behaved so generously before.”
Former Norwood chief executive Norma Brier recalled Jimmy Savile’s visit to Ravenswood Village in 1989. “He came to open the Ravenswood fair and was a great hit, turning up in his gold Rolls Royce. He walked around chatting to the residents and spent lots of time there. We were very grateful for his support.”
To read Jewish Chronicle’s Jessica Elgot on Gilad Atzmon:
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US immigration authorities have taken Pakistan’s former cricket superstar-turned-politician Imran Khan off a flight to New York and interrogated. Khan is known for his anti-drone campaigning. Khan, who is now a popular political figure in Pakistan and ahead of the Pakistan Movement for Justice party (PTI), was removed from an American Airlines flight heading from Canada to New York and interrogated. Immigration officials asked him whether he was planning to protest in the US, as well as demanding to know his views on drone strikes and jihad.
Earlier this month, the former cricket star led thousands of Pakistani protesters, together with some US anti-war advocates, on a march from Islamabad to the tribal region of South Waziristan in opposition to US drone strikes. About 15,000 of his supporters joined him in the high-profile march, which focused attention on the strikes that have killed large numbers of civilians. Islamabad recently said that 80 percent of drone-related deaths were civilians.
“I was taken off the plane and interrogated by US Immigration in Canada on my views on drones. My stance is known. Drone attacks must stop,” Khan wrote in a tweet after being questioned on Friday. Khan had been on his way to the US to give a speech and attend a fundraiser organized by his political party, which the delay caused him to miss.
“Missed flight and sad to miss the fundraising lunch in NY but nothing will change my stance,” he tweeted.
Furthermore, Khan said the official who was questioning him did not seem to understand drone warfare himself. He also expressed confusion over why he was granted a visa to visit the US given if his stance on drones was a problem.
Khan heads a political party that was founded in 1996 and ignored for years. The PTI was called “Pakistan’s one-man party” by the US Department of State. Today, it is rapidly growing, with electable officials joining. The Pakistani leader believes the War on Terror “has been devastating for Pakistan,” he said in an interview with Julian Assange in June.
“Basically, our army was killing our own people,” he said.
He is an avid opponent to US presence on Pakistani soil – even when it came down to the killing of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. The US mission to kill the former terrorist leader in Pakistan shows that “our ally did not trust us,” the politician said.
Rather than employ Pakistan as “a hired gun, being paid to kill America’s enemies,” Khan believes the US should trust that there will not be terrorism coming out of Pakistan.
Several Canadian commentators have suggested that groups protesting Khan’s entrance to the US may have influenced Immigration to pull him off the flight. The American Islamic Leadership Coalition last week requested that Hilary Clinton attempt to revoke his visa due to what they believe are sympathetic views towards the Taliban.
“The US Embassy made a significant error in granting this Islamist leader a visa,” the group said in a statement reported by the Sun. “Granting individuals like Khan access to the US to fundraise is against the interest of the people of Pakistan and the national security interests of the US.” Ali Zaidi, a senior PTI party leader, demanded an apology from the US government for removing Khan from the plane. So far, no apologies have been made, and Immigration officials have only restated their policies.
“Our dual mission is to facilitate travel in the United States while we secure our borders, our people, and our visitors from those that would do us harm like terrorists and terrorist weapons, criminals, and contraband,” Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Joanne Ferreira told the Toronto Sun.
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United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 377 A,[1] the “Uniting for Peace” resolution, states that in any cases where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity amongst its five permanent members, fails to act as required to maintain international peace and security, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue any recommendations it deems necessary in order to restore international peace and security. If not in session at the time the General Assembly may meet using the mechanism of the emergency special session.
“Reaffirming the importance of the exercise by the Security Council of its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and the duty of the permanent members to seek unanimity and to exercise restraint in the use of the veto,” …
“Recognizing in particular that such failure does not deprive the General Assembly of its rights or relieve it of its responsibilities under the Charter in regard to the maintenance of international peace and security,” …
“Resolves that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
To facilitate prompt action by the General Assembly in the case of a dead-locked Security Council, the resolution created the mechanism of the “emergency special session” (ESS),[3] which can be called upon the basis of either a procedural vote in the Security Council, or within twenty-four hours of a request by a majority of UN Members being received by the Secretary-General. In procedural votes, the permanent members of the Security Council—the so-called “P5″—do not have the ability to block the adoption of draft resolutions, so unlike substantive matters, such resolutions can be adopted without their consent.
Emergency special sessions have been convened under this procedure on ten occasions, with the most recent convened in 1997. However, unlike preceding ESSs, the tenth ESS has been ‘adjourned’ and ‘resumed’ on numerous occasions, over the past several years, and remains adjourned. Indeed, more than ten separate ‘meetings’ have been held by the Assembly, whilst sitting in tenth ESS, since 2000.[4] While the “emergency special session” framework was established by resolution A/RES/377 A, the UN Charter always contained provisions for “special sessions”,[5] which, according to the General Assembly’s current “Rules of Procedure”,[6] can be called within fifteen days of a request being received by the Secretary-General.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Hezbollah is strongly present in the Zionist decision making process regarding any future war, where its growing military capabilities pose a hard number to Tel Aviv rulers when thinking of any military adventure in Lebanon and the region.
This fact was confirmed by senior Zionist security official who spoke to the Zionist daily Yediot Ahronot. The official stressed that if it weren’t for the huge rocket arsenal of Hezbollah, Israel would have launched its attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities a long time ago. According to the official, the war decision could cause a regional war.
The Zionist writer expert in intelligence affairs Rounim Brimen told local online newspaper Globes about Hezbollah’s preparations for any future confrontation with the Zionist enemy, putting Ayyoub drone flying over the atmosphere of occupied Palestine in this context.
Brimen cited intelligence officials saying that Ayyoub’s aim was to get intelligence information to assist Hezbollah in building a bank of targets, including vital installations to be targeted in the next war.
Brimen concluded that current military force of Hezbollah is the most advanced and developed in the world, quoting the remarks of former Mossad chief Meir Dagan in which he described the power of Hezbollah as enormous, and that the party had accumulated this force since the Zionist hysterical withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and it possesses now weapons system not owned by 90 percent of the world’s countries.
Brimen however drew the attention to estimates in Tel Aviv which indicate that Hezbollah now has 70 thousand rockets, including missiles with a range of up to 700 kilometers, while the Zionist daily Haaretz confirmed that Hezbollah now has an enormous and unprecedented military power. “The success of the party is one of the main failures that characterized the failure of the policy pursued by President Barack Obama towards the Middle East,” the daily added.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
What a difference a week can make in the Middle East.
On October 19, when a car bomb tore through the upscale Christian neighborhood of Achrafiyeh in Beirut killing a major security official, Lebanon shuddered in fear that the era of political assassinations was back. Politicians and commentators didn’t miss a beat. The murder of Internal Security Forces (ISF) Information Branch head Wissam al-Hassan was compared to the killing of his former boss, ex-PM Rafiq Hariri in 2005. And the Hariri-allied pro-West, anti-Syria, pro-Saudi “March 14” political coalition lined up to deliver a visceral blow to their opponents, just as they had in 2005 when they ejected Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Hassan’s body was not yet cold before his political allies started pointing their fingers at Syria and whipping up fury in the anti-Syrian Sunni enclaves of Lebanon. Young men spilled onto the streets with weapons brandished; some with RPGs and even combat uniforms. Clashes ensued, people died, but still their March 14 leaders did not call for calm.
In a replay of 2005 when hundreds of thousands of Lebanese rose up in the State Department-dubbed “Cedar Revolution” to oust the Syrians, March 14 groups on Sunday called for the masses to rally against Syria and its Lebanese government allies.
Except that not a single Syrian was ever charged by the international UN-backed tribunal that investigated Hariri’s death. And last week there was no evidence that Syria was implicated in Hassan’s assassination either.
But that didn’t stop the political theater at Hassan’s funeral service last Sunday when just a few thousand showed up to participate in what some hoped would be a replay of 2005. There was no comparison whatsoever.
Instead of the sea of Lebanese flags, unifying slogans like “Freedom, Sovereignty, Independence” and the dazzling marketing and color-revolution choreography of, respectively, Saatchi & Saatchi and Serbia’s Otpor that marked the 2005 event…the scene at Martyr’s Square in downtown Beirut on Sunday resembled a wake for the March 14 coalition. There was barely a Lebanese flag to be seen. Instead, the throngs held up flags of the Future Movement headed by Hariri’s son Saad, right-wing Lebanese Forces Christian militia flags, Saudi flags, the colonial flag of the Syrian opposition and Islamist flags in black. Radical Muslims rallied alongside radical Christians, their one commonality, revulsion for the Syrian government and its allies Iran and Hezbollah.
The visible awkwardness of these March 14 alliances was impossible to ignore on Lebanese TV that day. Who failed to note the incongruity of a right-wing Christian Samir Geagea supporter standing next to a Sunni youth sporting an Al Qaeda headband? How can there be a future for a Future Movement so fundamentally at odds within itself, one wondered.
The crowds had little in common, their disparate leaders were smug, the mood was nationally divisive – little wonder then that the event ended with sticks and stones and tear gas. Not to mention a pitiful attempt to storm the Grand Serail and eject the Lebanese government headed by Hezbollah ally and billionaire Sunni, Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Those few hours on Sunday produced the first post-bombing revelation:
March 14 has nothing to offer Lebanon – they are morally bankrupt, out of ideas, yesterday’s leaders clawing for relevance as the region changes rapidly around them. Their supporters too are just treading water – this grouping exists only in opposition to something; it stands for nothing.
While the bombing had March 14 licking their opportunistic lips, it was their own western allies France, the UK and US (FUKUS) that crushed their political hopes. Without any apparent tactical coordination, FUKUS overrode March 14 publicly, and declared that PM Mikati and his government must stay.
What is surprising is March 14’s utter cluelessness about the way those winds were blowing. Not just FUKUS, but all five UN Security Council permanent members and Ban-Ki Moon’s personal representative in Lebanon weighed in on the side of Mikati’s government.
Not only was the UNSC speaking with one voice, but the speed and decisiveness of their message also undermined a key March 14-FUKUS refrain. In effect, the global powers were recognizing that the Iran and Hezbollah-backed Lebanese government was integral to guaranteeing the country’s stability at a vulnerable time. No longer could this duo claim that these regional players were acting to destabilize Lebanon.
And so another red line is bared. The three main western backers of the Syrian and Lebanese opposition have shown their limits:
It is perfectly okay to sow sectarian strife in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere, but not if it means destabilization on several of Israel’s borders. One conflict-struck country is manageable in the Levant, but more than that and things can spread like wildfire.
Controlled chaos is fine, but certainly not concurrent with a power vacuum. A powerless Lebanese state will mean loss of control over the critical southern territories along the Israeli border and along the eastern border with Syria – both are hard limits for FUKUS.
The FUKUS states have of course realized that at this critical juncture in Syria, they need levers in neighboring Lebanon. They care not a whit about their allies being in power – a compliant government is far less valuable than one with “access.” The governing March 8 coalition is led by a weak and malleable Mikati, but importantly, he is a route to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah – which counts when regional stakes are this high.
No matter that Hezbollah has just flown a drone over FUKUS-ally Israel in an embarrassing breach of security for the Jewish state. No matter that Israel has been demanding military strikes against Iran just before a US presidential election. No matter that March 14 have been staunch FUKUS allies in both a local and regional geopolitical context against mutual foes Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.
The only thing that counts now is that FUKUS isn’t confident about the outcome in Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has outlasted all their predictions and opposition forces supported by the west are radicalizing in a direction that makes their mentors uncomfortable. If Islamist militants spin out of control in Syria, FUKUS will need to tame that chaos fast, before it spills into allied Jordan and Israel and further disrupts the Turkish and Lebanese borders.
The red lines hurriedly drawn in Lebanon last week have shown regional antagonists some new and unexpected cards. March 14’s diffuse political identity resonates little with the Lebanese, and its interests are diverging from traditional external allies. FUKUS and the UNSC views the Iran, Hezbollah and Syria-backed Lebanese government as a force for stability in the Levant. Western leaders fear loss of control in the Syrian crisis they helped fan. Iran and Hezbollah hold valuable levers for the international community.
We may never discover who killed Wissam al-Hassan, but Lebanon last week was full of revelations nonetheless.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Initiated with “Ayoub” drone’s* second journey, this is the first turning point for the Resistance’s open-war mechanics. This time the story is full of mystery as the official airlines are Hizbullah’s… A greater jeopardy is yet to come!
Being the turning point from defense to attack, this is the first time the Islamic Resistance deprives the enemy of its initiatives and innovative capacities.
All amounts of mass-destruction arms in the enemy’s depots cannot change this fact; instead, the enemy’s arms have changed into nothing but mere “iron junk”!
“It is neither the first time nor the last. And this is only a very little part of what the future is to bring along!”
Obviously, however, it is “the prerequisite” for reshuffling the major events the Arab and Islamic Region is experiencing. On the other hand, some have already lost their vessels in the moving sands of “the Arab Spring”!
It is the inevitable “Awakening” that will reshuffle the Arab movement and save it from forgery, falsification, seduction, or exploitation that any vigilant rebels can realize!
It is certainly a distinguishable mark; though we have been steadfast during besiegement, now we are experiencing a stage of great triumph- contrary to what some want us to believe!
It is an important juncture as we are in a stage of inseparable “conflict bonds”. That made Hizbullah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah- the Master of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance- make a speech clearer and franker than ever!
The drone was made in Iran, and a cadre of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance assembled its parts. This is not neither the first maneuver nor the last. Launched in Lebanon to a destination in occupied Palestine, the drone scanned both sea and land like a body manufactured by a self-sacrificing unit never did before. Lethal, the drone flew for three consecutive hours along 300 km above land and water; whereas the enemy in the celebrated desert was absolutely unaware.
That was the Lebanese Hizbullah’s first official trip to occupied al-Quds (Jerusalem) – an outstanding, fruitful one!
“Ayoub’s” flight was the fruit of consecutive years of work. As the Islamic Resistance’s flexibility surpassed the others’, the Resistance decided to pioneer setting the first turning point of the massive battle royal anticipated!
It is the battle ‘royal’ all sides of the resistance axis have been working for and anticipating as a part of confronting all Zionist aggressions against our nation.
This is the battle ‘royal’ that capable, coherent, and harmonized powers have continuously been preparing for. Positioned in Khorasan, Bagdad, Damascus, Sur (Tyr), Bint Jbeil, Nablus, Ramallah, al-Quds, Gaza, and Cairo, these powers have been working to achieve the battle royal so successfully that it changes the entire Middle East- no matter how the villains act!
Two days before the Master of the Islamic Resistance declared Hizbullah’s responsibility for “Ayoub’s” flight to the blesses lands, “Iran’s Nuclear Website” stated, “…Such flights will spread in the airspace of occupied Palestine, especially in the north and near the Golan…”
“Throughout the recent years, the Resistance groups have sketched a full map and made a thorough scan for all military and natural barriers against clash…” The website added, “The aims beyond sustaining this act have been:
1-Testing the efficiency of the “Israeli” air ‘defense’ systems, which have so far proved to be inefficient!
2-Collecting information and determining targets!
3-Developping the Resistance groups’ abilities through drilling in the enemy’s airspace!”
So it’s old, new work whereby its oldness proves planning and constant will are there; its newness verifies we have commenced the stage of “open surprises”. This is said by the careful observers of the thorough war of intelligence and informatics secrets – the war which has existed for years.
Whereas the Zionist Jews seek avoiding their fate, others are eager to fight for freeing the blessed al-Quds: the Muslims and Christians of the new East ranging from the colossal Atlas Mountains, the Great Wall of China, to Eurasia (the doors of Moscow and Beijing)!
This is “Ayoub’s second journey”, and it ultimately signifies this is a turning point: from defense to attack!
As we read about “Ayoub’s” sacred journey, Allah’s soldiers all along the Iranian provinces are readying themselves for the greatest maneuvers ever! Around 5 million fighters are going to accomplish virtual operations of defense and combat. The maneuvers are to be made in accordance with the geography of every province. But all phalanges are to be named “Holy al-Quds Phalanges”!
At this moment, too, one of the fiercest and most complicated battles is taking place on the roads and in the alleys and countryside of Aleppo; also in the countryside of many blessed lands mentioned in the Holy Qur’an. It’s going to be a global war.
Careful observers tell it is going to determine the kind of the future global system, as well as the geopolitics that’ll redefine our Islamic World and Arab Nation!
This is the journey full of surprises every day. No matter what kind of surprises these will be, their last turning point will eventually determine the time for terminating the last occupation and settlement units and racism phenomenon of the recent history.
More clearly, the camp of the little, so-called “State of “Israel”” is going to be dissociated. Definitely, no more “Israel” will exist; Palestine will retain its demography, geopolitics, and geography as its legitimate right says.
But, what does all this mean to Hizbullah in particular?!
Remember the words of His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah: “We need neither chemical weapons nor nuclear ones. We do own what is more efficient!”
Having made its first trial, today “Ayoub” drone can demolish the “Israeli” gas platforms in the sea!
“Ayoub” drone can bombard the warships of the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) by the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea!
To Dimona, “Ayoub” drone is death that might strike any moment!
So it can strike any enemy commander before it even gets exposed!
It is the first turning point that’ll revenge for martyr Haj Imad Moghnieh. Today, his phantom masks the hills, mountains, valleys, and shores of occupied Palestine. So has the time for revenge come?!
*”Ayoub” drone has been named after Prophet Ayoub (Pbuh), who was known for absolute patience; also after Hizbullah martyr Hussein Ayoub.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Posted on October 29, 2012 by uprootedpalestinians
The rest of March 14 are also counting on a Saudi promise to exert special efforts to convince France and Britain and even the US to change their positions and support toppling the government quickly. (Photo: Marwan Tahtah)
Al-Akhbar’s editor-in-chief dissects the internal crisis threatening to bring down the March 14 alliance. The movement, he concludes, lacks a “voice of reason” to help it adapt to new realities and the loss of much of its foreign support.
In addition to his role as UN Under-Secretary-General for political affairs, Jeffrey Feltman is also preoccupied with his role in Lebanese politics.
According to documents from the US state department published by Wikileaks, Feltman is the spiritual and the practical guide for most of the March 14 figures.
Because of assuming this role and following developments in Lebanon closely, he got quite angry last Sunday [the funeral of assassinated Wissam al-Hassan] and busied himself sending e-mails to leading personalities, politicians, consultants and decision-makers in the March 14 Movement. His analysis of the regional and global situation was brief. He ended by describing what March 14 supporters did in downtown Beirut as rash and irresponsible. His advice for them was to go back home and stay calm.
In Beirut, the US ambassador Maura Connelly faced her first test with the influential figures of March 14. As far as she is concerned, these figures have little to no room for dissent when faced with a decision from a major external power. Nevertheless, she was forced to raise her voice and to use firm language in presenting her country’s point of view on the current crisis.
She told the Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea that the assassinated security chief Wissam al-Hassan was a successful officer but that he was an officer nonetheless and it is unacceptable to turn the country upside down because an officer was killed.
She told former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel, former Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and the advisors of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri that the situation is not necessarily what they think, and that their calculations and reading of the situation overestimate their capabilities.
Calls for toppling the Lebanese government are perhaps justified, but how are they to achieve this goal, the US ambassador wondered. Who among them has guarantees that the resignation of the current government will directly lead to the emergence of a new government? Lebanon’s stability should not be shaken at this point.
The British and French ambassadors played a supporting role. The Lebanese Francophone politicians waged a campaign against the French ambassador in Lebanon because he sought to set up direct communication between the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and the Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
The prime minister heard unequivocal statements that the French government does not back any attempt to topple the government, that they do not want to see political vacuum in Lebanon and have no guarantees that a new government would be formed if he were to tender his resignation.
MP Marwan Hamadeh strongly protested the opinions of Western ambassadors regarding the situation in Lebanon, and even flew out to meet the French foreign minister.
Hamadeh’s problem is twofold: First, he left a bad impression among staff at the French embassy in Beirut because he acted as though “they do not know what is happening in Lebanon.” His second problem is with MP Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader and head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), who had verified the French position during a phone call with Fabius himself. In addition, Hamadeh claimed to his colleagues in March 14 that the French position is more resolute than the US position.
The British embassy received assistants of former prime minister Hariri. The ambassador heard criticism of the Western position that has served as a cover for the government’s survival. The ambassador said calmly: “let me hear what kind of an alternative plan you have if this government resigns.”
After all these meetings, foreign ambassadors sensed the difficult situation in which March 14 finds itself. But what is to be done? Connelly said she played a direct role with the US state department in issuing a statement emphasizing the West’s support for Lebanese President Michel Sleiman’s efforts to form a new national unity government. Connelly told her Lebanese interlocutors that until the president’s efforts are fruitful they will not agree to topple the government.
The ambassadors returned to their offices but they received more unpleasant reports. The number of those participating in Hassan’s funeral was very small. Not to mention the number of non-Lebanese participants, particularly Palestinians and Syrians.
Gemayel informed March 14 forces who came to his house to “appease him” that he can no longer take this “exclusionary way of taking decisions without prior consultations.” Gemayel vented his anger to March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soaid, asking who was really behind the attack on the Grand Serail – the prime minister’s headquarters.
Gemayel also angrily asked who decided to raise the flag of the Syrian opposition instead of the Lebanese flag during the protests. The former president also broached a central point of contention within March 14 by rejecting the unilateral decision to boycott the national dialogue.
Geagea’s problem is of a different kind. Only a few hundred LF supporters participated in Hassan’s funeral. But a few LF members with a well-known history of working on the ground headed the group that attacked the Grand Serail. Then the situation spiraled out of control and Geagea was forced to withdraw, absolving himself of responsibility for what was going on.
But Geagea’s reading is different too. At this moment of high tension, he gathered his cadres and explained the general picture to them. He spoke of a “real problem between Saudi Arabia and the US” regarding the Lebanese crisis. Geagea did not tell his cadres that the head of Saudi intelligence Bandar Bin Sultan asked him for a stronger movement on the ground while at the same time the US ambassador in Beirut called on them to stay calm and follow Jumblatt’s example.
Geagea, however, told his cadres that he is going to take a public position against Syria and Hezbollah and advocate the toppling of the government. When some of those present asked him who he thinks is responsible for Hassan’s assassination, Geagea named multiple suspects, including Israel, which surprised many of those present.
Before Hassan’s assassination, Geagea was trying to reach a compromise with Hariri. The last meetings in Saudi Arabia were not very fruitful. They did not reach a deal on the election law and they did not come to an understanding regarding their partnership with Jumblatt.
Geagea wants to stay top of the March 14 list of presidential candidates. He knows, however, that it is close to impossible, especially after he got news that one of Jumblatt’s problems with March 14 is the Druze leader’s belief that Geagea’s candidacy would constitute a severe political shock.
Geagea promised his supporters and confirmed to his allies in March 14 that their actions are going to escalate and that the West is going to have a new position after the US presidential elections.
The rest of March 14 are also counting on a Saudi promise to exert special efforts to convince France and Britain and even the US to change their positions and support toppling the government quickly.
There are stories about the French president’s visit to Saudi Arabia and imminent meetings with the US and British leadership. Also the director general of the Saudi Intelligence Agency, Bandar Bin Sultan, insists that a decisive change is possible in the last few weeks of this year whereby the weakening of the Syrian regime will create a new opportunity to topple Mikati’s government.
Bandar Bin Sultan adds that in Mikati’s last visit to Saudi Arabia, Bin Sultan gave the Lebanese PM a very clear message that he must leave the Syrian-Iranian axis quickly. March 14 leaders quoted Bandar as saying that the meeting between him and Mikati was cold and went badly.
People who met with Mikati heard a different version. He said the meeting went well and that there was a lot of honesty. But March 14 leaders say that after what happened, the Saudis decided to cut off all relations with Mikati. No one will meet with him, not even secretly.
Saudi Arabia’s problem went beyond Mikati to Jumblatt. The Druze leader rejected all Saudi temptations. Nevertheless, the Saudi ambassador in Beirut advised the March 14 leaders to be more flexible in their relationship with Jumblatt and not to push him completely to the other side. As for Mikati, the ambassador said they will deal with him in a different way.
The Saudi ambassador went to the presidential palace carrying a message for President Michel Suleiman about the need to change the government. Just like Siniora and the rest of the March 14 forces, some of these figures alluded to the fact that Suleiman did not keep a promise to provide grounds for toppling the government, but Suleiman absolutely denies this. Those in contact with the president say that he was honest with the group that wants the government to resign. He asked them if they want to set a new precedent of having a Maronite president ask a Sunni prime minister to resign. Suleiman apparently looked for a compromise between the two sides. He told the March 14 forces that he would prefer to hold a national dialogue session as soon as possible to discuss the general situation including the electoral law, the government and the defense strategy.
The March 14 forces rejected this suggestion. They prefer to leave the national dialogue till the end of next month. They are thinking about the results of the US elections and the outcome of the new Saudi efforts with Europe. At this point, Siniora was the most honest, saying that they will not engage in national dialogue with Hezbollah and Mikati.
Suleiman asked them what alternative there is. Siniora demanded the government be toppled.
Side talks clarified the situation. The March 14 alliance wants a neutral government and are demanding to have control over the ministries that deal with because they feel threatened. But they know that Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) will never accept this. So what is their view of a national accord government? The answer was a quick ‘no.’ Who are their candidates for the post of prime minister? They said they will cross that bridge when they come to it. The government must fall first.
Suleiman is discussing the issue further, but he knows that Hezbollah and FPM leader Michel Aoun will surely not accept this deal. He also knows that the Maronite patriarch Beshara al-Rai is not with March 14 and that Jumblatt’s problems with Hariri, Geagea and even Siniora are growing.
Jumblatt had informed Suleiman that he rejected an offer by Hariri to leave the government [in exchange] for a larger number of MPs because he did not want to create a political vacuum. Then he got a more enticing offer from Siniora, who told Ghazi al-Aridi – an MP from Jumblatt’s parliamentary bloc, the National Struggle Front (NSF) – that they can set up a meeting between Jumblatt and the Saudi king but that the PSP leader needs to leave the government first.
It is obvious that the country is currently facing a complex crisis, and not just because of the sharp divisions surrounding Syria, the Resistance and national unity. The country is facing a crisis because major parties in Lebanon support the views of March 14 but lack the leadership and voice of reason needed to reformulate their position.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
The young journalist did believe that he caused a mass to be hit with the hormone of admiration as he delivered his agitating speech so that he unbridled his political madness, lameness, and adolescence to make his universal jump toward the unknown. From the platform of the Martyr’s Palace, he crossed the wall of civil peace, and passed over the state and its institutions to quench the thirst to power from which his leaders in the “Blue Party” are suffering.
As soon as PM Siniora finished his speech, koteich nervously took the microphone and said: “Hey guys, hey girls, let’s go to the Serail” calling for toppling the government at the same night which led to riot and outrage as well as attacking the Serail and attempting to break in it.
On the level of the legal view to what had the “journalist” Nadim Koteich committed, we consulted the Head of the Hamourabi Center for Legal Studies and Researches, Lawyer Ibrahim Awada, who advised the following: “It was clear from the mass present at the funeral that their goal was likely to cause commotion rather than participating in the funeral especially that their slogans and expressions were unlawful for assaulting and offending some leaders, officials, and the PM in particular.” “After the Tripoli’s Mufti and his speech in the funeral, Siniora’s speech addressed the audience implicitly to topple the government and leading its Premier to resign. Next to him was Koteich, the dependable well-memorizing student who was able to pass his inflammatory speech directly after the Sinora’s, calling the audience for heading toward the Serail and causing riots before entering it by all means,” Awada added.
Legally speaking, the following articles of the Lebanese Penal Code are applicable to Koteich, even though the work of his provoked audience did not result in any negative aspect: With respect to provoking, Article 217 mentions: He who caused or tried to cause somebody committing a crime is considered an abettor. The abettor’s responsibility is different from the liability of the abettor to commit a crime.
Article 218: The abettor is penalized with the punishment of the crime he was provoking for whether the crime was complete, attempted, or incomplete. In case provocation to commit a crime or a petty crime did not have results, then the penalty will be lessened according to what was mentioned in the terms 2, 3, and 4 of Article 220. Safety measures are taken against the abettor as if he was the criminal.
Therefore, Koteich holds the responsibility of all the acts the demonstrators had done, even the attempt to break in the Serail and attacking the Internal Security Forces members and causing riot in the street. The applicable article is 219 of the Penal Code, modified according to the legislative decree 112 on 16/9/1983 which provides: Involved in a crime and a petty crime are: 1. He who ordered to commit it even though his orders didn’t help in it 2. He who encouraged the criminal by any mean 3. He who accepted the criminal’s offer to commit a crime in return of any materialistic or incorporeal interest 4. He who helped the criminal in the acts that prepared or facilitated the crime 5. He who had a deal with the criminal or any other involved partner before committing the crime, and contributed to hiding its evidences or hiding or disposing what resulted from the crime, or hiding the persons involved in it from justice 6. He who knew beforehand the criminals’ criminal biographies who are used to cross the roads and commit violence against the country’s security or public safety, or even against members and properties.
Article 220: The involved who, without his help the crime wasn’t committed, is penalized the same as the criminal himself. As for the other involved persons, they are sentenced to hard labor for life, or permanently from 10 to 20 years in case the criminal is sentenced to death. In case the criminal was sentenced to hard labor for life, or life imprisonment, those who are involved in the same crime are sentenced from 7 to 15 years.
In other cases, they are sentenced as the criminal after it is lessened from 1/6 to 1/3, as it is possible to be subjected to safety measures as if they were the criminals themselves.
According to Article 304: He who provokes or involves in the attack that aims at preventing the authorities from practicing its job that originates from the constitution is sentenced to temporary arrest or proscription.
Article 305: He who plans for committing any of the previously mentioned crimes is sentenced to proscription or criminal house arrest. Koteich’s speech and agitation almost led to sectarian and confessional war and commotion which we had witnessed a day after his agitation. Article 308 provides: Hard labor for life is the punishment of the attack that either targets agitating civil war or sectarian fighting by arming the Lebanese or motivating them to be armed against one another, or motivates killing and robbery in a place or many places, and in case the attack took place, the abettor is sentenced to death.
According to the following articles, an abettor is:
Article 309: He who had led or was involved in armed groups, whether a simple individual or a leader, that aimed at invading a town or a neighborhood or any of the country’s properties or the properties of people, or aimed at attacking or resisting the public power confronting those criminals is sentenced to hard labor for life.
Article 310: He who was involved in armed gangs that emerged in order to commit the crimes mentioned in Articles 308 and 309, is sentenced to hard labor for life. He who didn’t have a job or didn’t serve the gang, and wasn’t arrested in the places of turmoil, and gave up his weapon without resistance is exempted from this punishment. This was what we had witnessed by the gangs that attempted to disconnect roads, judge according to the identity, disconnecting the parts of the country, and opening fire on the army.
Part 5: With respect to the crimes that affect national unity, cause turmoil in the country, and reveal the crime of abetting sectarianism, according to the following article: Article 317 – modified according to the law issued on 1/12/1954 and the law 239 issued on 27/5/1993, every act, script, or speech causes agitating sectarianism, racism, or confessional and national clashes, is penalized from one to three-years imprisonment and a fine that ranges from 100,000 to 800,000 L.L., as well as being forbidden from practicing the rights mentioned in items 2 and 4 in the Article 65. And the court can publicizing the sentence. Every person attacked any member of the Internal Security Forces or the Army is trialed in the military courts according to the legislative decree 110 issued on 30/6/1977. Identifying the power of the military judiciary in the crimes committed against members of the Internal Security Forces, General Security, or civil employees that are related to the Internal Security or General Security:
Article 1- Members of Internal Security Forces or General Security and their related civil employees are trialed by the military judiciary for: 1. Crimes mentioned in the second section of the third book of the Law of Military Judiciary 2. Committed crimes Turned to the military judiciary are the: – Crimes committed against members of the Internal Security Forces and General Security during their service and due to it – Crimes committed against the permanent and temporary offices of Internal Security Forces and General Security, even the prisons. – Crimes committed against constructions, ordnances, tools, money, and the incorporeal interest of the Internal Security Forces and the General Security. Article 3 – Every original actor or partner involved in or abetting to a crime in which any of the members mentioned in Articles 1 and 2 of this legislative decree are transmitted to the military judiciary, are trialed by the military judiciary.
Article 2 – Referred to the military judiciary are: 1- Crimes committed against members of the Internal Security Forces and General Security during their service and due to it. 2- Crimes committed against the permanent and temporary offices of Internal Security Forces and General Security, even the prisons. 3- Crimes committed against constructions, ordnances, tools, money, and the incorporeal interest of the Internal Security Forces and the General Security.
Article 3 – Every original actor or partner involved in or abetting to a crime in which any of the members mentioned in Articles 1 and 2 of this legislative decree are transmitted to the military judiciary, are trialed by the military judiciary.
Article 4- Military Judiciary considers the crimes mentioned in the law issued on 11/1/1958 referring to commotion and terrorism.
Consequently, Koteich’s act is classified between agitation and interference, thus all of these acts are applied on him especially that agitation took place in the presence of security and political officials, and political leaders who didn’t object his act. Therefore, it is intended to the Preferential Public Prosecution in Beirut to be considered a notification until the security authorities are commissioned to conduct investigation with him and transmitting him to the security references to be inquired for committing agitation and interference in what was previously mentioned. Translated by Zeinab Abdallah
Acknowledgement against Koteich Referred to Criminal Investigation
Public Prosecutor Judge Hatem Madi referred to the Central Criminal Investigations Department the acknowledgment submitted to the Public Prosecutor against Nadim Koteich, the speakers’ presenter during the funeral of Martyr Brigade Wissam al-Hasan in downtown Beirut.
Koteich’s words, an al-Mustaqbal party journalist, during the funeral turned the incident into a political protest aiming at toppling the Lebanese government, and led to an attempt to storm the cabinet headquarters. The referral was in order to conduct the necessary investigations against Koteich.
River toSeaUprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog
Filed under: Journalism | Tagged: Fouad Siniora, March 14 Movement | Comments Off on Koteich Referred to Criminal Investigation: Penalty according to Lebanese Law
Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 10:40AM
Hezbollah is strongly present in the Zionist decision making process regarding any future war, where its growing military capabilities pose a hard number to Tel Aviv rulers when thinking of any military adventure in Lebanon and the region.
The young journalist did believe that he caused a mass to be hit with the hormone of admiration as he delivered his agitating speech so that he unbridled his political madness, lameness, and adolescence to make his universal jump toward the unknown. From the platform of the Martyr’s Palace, he crossed the wall of civil peace, and passed over the state and its institutions to quench the thirst to power from which his leaders in the “Blue Party” are suffering.
Article 309: He who had led or was involved in armed groups, whether a simple individual or a leader, that aimed at invading a town or a neighborhood or any of the country’s properties or the properties of people, or aimed at attacking or resisting the public power confronting those criminals is sentenced to hard labor for life.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 