FSA And Palestinian Activicm

By Daniel Mabsout,

FSA AND DESTABILIZATION OF SYRIA NOT ONLY SUPPORTED BY THE PALESTINIAN ORGANIZATIONS BUT ALSO BY THE CORRESPONDING PALESTINIAN ACTIVISM

The FSA and other armed thugs of the opposition have been too much exposed . It is known who is funding them and who is training them and whom they serve , it is known that they are not of Syrian origin or faction , that they are completely funded by gulf count…ries and supported by NATO countries , that they have no identity other than that neither religious nor nationalistic , they could be anything , they are neither Muslim nor Sunni , they are constituted of ex convicts released from prisons of Arab countries mainly KSA or mercenaries hired to kill on pay . The practices of these factions have become also too well known , they kill children and assassinate people and torture and behead soldiers , they are guilty of massacres committed in Houla and Qatna and ‘Aqrab and so many other places in Syria , they are guilty of war crimes and massive killings against civilians and soldier prisoners ,they are guilty of displacing and threatening Christians where hundred thousands of them in Syria have been displaced and their churches destroyed. They get paid for that . Each killer receives the amount of one hundred thousand dollars or so, after that he gets equipped with advanced equipment and trained in Turkey by the CIA and Turkish Intelligence and then smuggled from Turkey or Lebanon or other countries to Syria with the mission to kill. Syria has become the haven of professional killers , as simple as that .

This is war launched against Syria by the coalition of western countries , Europe, USA and company that –instead of using regular troops- which are too costly materially or humanly -are using instead hired thugs whom they send to kill and get killed recruiting them from poor countries , from extremely dispossessed environments like Palestinian camps , prisons and so on, and sending them to kill their brothers in Syria for money.. These people have no political program or ideology of their own , they are simple hired killers , they have for mission to implement the western/Israeli agenda of destabilizing Syria and attempting at the Resistance and weakening the axis of the enemies of Israel. Now this has become too well known and cannot be hidden anymore, and this is the reason why many groups on FB and elsewhere -who are against the Syrian regime and the Syrians in general and against the Resistance in particular–can no more openly support or back the thugs of the opposition without getting themselves exposed. They are now hiding under different names and labels, promoting different agendas, pretending to be with the Syrian people but against Assad in order to acquire the credibility they have lost due to their association with gangs of professional killers. Know those to be the same people under a different dress and garb. They try to lure others into believing that protecting Syria requires something other than the Syrian army and president Assad and therefore lies somewhere else. These people hide under the name of Palestine and under the cause of Palestinian prisoners using Palestine as a means to deceive others saying that they stand for Palestinian rights.

These groups stand for no ones rights , they are hired like the previous ones and getting paid to rally against the forces supportive of the Resistance of the people. These people are sworn enemies to the armed Resistance to Israel , they would have praised Assad had he desisted from the supporting this Resistance . Being against the Resistance makes them de facto belong to the Israeli side . these people work for Israel , beware of them.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Jewish Projection For Christmas

      

By Gilad Atzmon

One day before Christmas, the Israeli embassy in Ireland posted a message on its Facebook page that said that if Jesus and Mary were alive today in Bethlehem, they would probably be lynched by local Arabs.

The Israeli Right Wing media outlet Arutz 7 described it as “(a) thought for Christmas”, explaining to their readers that “If Jesus and Mother Mary were alive today, they would, as Jews without security, probably end up being lynched in Bethlehem by hostile Palestinians. Just a thought …”

Yet the Israeli diplomats in Ireland must surely know very well that, according to the Christian Gospels, it was actually the Sanhedrin who pushed for the crucifixion of Jesus: though the Gospels plainly depict the Roman Pontius Pilate as the author of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, it clearly suggests in the following verses that Pilate was subject to the incitement of the ‘Jewish’ Sanhedrin — 12: And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto Him Whom ye call the King of the Jews? 13: And they cried out again, Crucify Him. 14: Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath He done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify Him (Mark 15:12-14).

But I guess that the Israeli diplomats in Ireland must have realised that their Hasbara attempt was counterproductive and would likely backfire, for they were very quick to remove the above FB post and apologise.

And yet, one possible explanation for their regretful Facebook post is projection. Psychological projection is commonly defined as a tendency to subconsciously deny one’s own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to other people.

Tragically enough, excommunication (Herem) and lynching are embedded in every form of Jewish political and cultural thinking, be it Left, Right or Centre. Every too often we detect a Zionist or Jewish ‘progressive’ campaign against those whom ‘some Jews’ regard as the ‘enemy of the tribe’.
Sadly enough, the inclination towards lynching ‘a la Sanhedrin’ is deeply rooted in Jewish political thought: sometimes it is performed by Zionist lobbies such as AIPAC. In the last week, for instance, we followed the American Jewish Lobby’s push for the political annihilation of Chuck Hagel. On other occasions, the exact same exercise is performed by the so-called ‘progressive Jews’ such as HRW, JVP, IJAN and Mondoweiss who also follow the Sanhedrin’s modus operandi, trying to destroy their critics by means of political lynching or by proxy.

And just like the Zionists, the so-called ‘anti’ Zionists will use every trick in the ‘tribal manual’ – they would call for excommunication (herem); they would demand disavowal, and like the Sanhedrin, they would search for their contemporaneous Pontius Pilate, who is stupid enough to agree to go down in history as their Sabbath Goy.

However, I do believe that both Zionists and ‘anti’ Zionists should start to consider very seriously what they are doing: they should grasp that as time goes by, their opponents will gather a deeper understanding of Jewish culture and power.

I myself take some credit for this: my latest book helped many to understand the continuum between Jewishness, Zionism and power. I also managed to dismantle the imaginary distinction between the ‘Zionist’ and the so-called ‘anti’ Zionist, and I guess that by now we are capable of detecting the controlled opposition within our ranks.

Interestingly enough, it took the Israeli Embassy in Ireland just a few hours to realise that they had gone one step too far. Seemingly, The Israeli foreign office was very quick to issue an apology. But our Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists are yet to apologise to Greta Berlin, Prof’ Finkelstein, Prof’ Richard Falk myself and many others for their relentless harassment campaigns against us.

The explanation for it all may be rather simple – in terms of awareness, ideology and consciousness, the Israelis are probably slightly ahead of their ‘anti’ Zionist twins: at least the Israeli diplomats were quick to realise that they were caught projecting their symptoms onto the Palestinian peoples. The Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists though, are failing on that front because they are still saturated with their own sense of ‘progressive righteousness’.

‘Progressiveness’ is a tribal inclinations and should be realised as a secular replacement for  ‘chosen-ness’. Being ‘progressive’ implies that someone else must be ‘reactionary’.  Jewish ‘progressiveness’  should be grasped, therefore’ as a ‘kosher secular supremacy’. It stands in total opposition to the idea of equality, human brotherhood and universalism. The so-called Jewish ‘progressive anti Zionist’ is subject to a self-imposed blindness and I believe that he or she have a lot to reflect upon in those regards. Yet,  by judging their general reaction to criticism, I am not so sure that this is ever going to happen.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Nasser: On USAID

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Civil Resistance / First Lady Asmaa’ Al Assad

By Daniel Mabsout,

The greatest of challenges are facing Syria and the Syrians and the president of Syria . The forces who succeeded in carrying on the western scheme of destabilization and chaos in countries like Iraq and Libya are trying to do the same in Syria . Under the pretext of removing a dictator , they are destroying the country . It is not that they want to …replace something with something else; what they seek rather is the destruction of Syria , they seek the decomposition of the constituents of the society as such . They seek the despair of people and their turning against the president and the regime ; they target the children and mothers with such pressure seeking that they give up on the struggle and give in to the intervention out of despair and wanting to stop more blood spilling . Therefore the society in all its colors and categories should answer the call and face this challenge and refuse to be cornered and blackmailed and deprived of its alternatives by the forces of evil . Everything depends on and lies within the capacity of the Syrians to stand up to the challenge and not bend before the difficulty or give up or run away or be trapped in the fear of destiny and panic of want . What is required –in other terms- is Resistance , all kinds of Resistance , forbearance and Resistance : peoples’ Resistance and social Resistance .The enemy is betting on your surrender and weakness and testing your abilities and valor . Syria has become the center of the world . The outcome of this assault is not be decided in the battleground itself but in the capacity of the Syrians to resist .

The choices are not many and the alternatives are limited, and what is at stake is the capacity of the people , of all people and of any people to continue existing with dignity without being affiliated to western powers and subdued to Israel and to predator countries . The Syrians have to prove themselves, to prove that they can survive the circumstance and the challenge and come out of it safe and wholesome and mentally and emotionally sound . There is no greater defeat for the enemy than seeing Syrians undergoing bravely all these circumstances without giving up their basic principles of co-existence and solidarity and openness .

In this instance we salute lady Asmaa’ al Assad – the first Lady of Syria -who is leading the Resistance of the civilians : the Resistance of the mothers and sisters and children of Syria by standing by and supporting her people and their army and embodying the true example of commitment . God bless the first lady and bless each mother and father and brother in Syria who is refusing to sell Syria cheap to its enemies . Thus Syria shall reap victory over all and this should be the victory of all.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Revoking Israel’s UN Membership

Revoking Israel’s UN Membership

Israel membership at the UN is conditional on its respect for international law.

By Snorre Lindquist and Lasse Wilhelmson – Stockholm

The Gaza Strip is now the largest concentration camp in the world. The situation grows steadily more insufferable for the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. Deliveries of food, medicine and fuel are made difficult or stopped altogether. Child malnutrition is increasing. Water supplies and drainage have ceased to function. Children die for lack of healthcare. Tunnels to Egypt, dug by hand, are the only breathing space. Journalists and diplomats are denied entry. Israel is planning more military efforts. The Palestinians in Gaza are now to be starved into surrender and become an Egyptian problem.

The UN should use the word apartheid in connection with Israel and consider sanctions with the former South Africa serving as a model. Miguel dÉscoto Brockman, president of the UN General Assembly, conveyed this message at a meeting on November 24th 2008 with the UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon present.

The 1976 Nobel peace prize laureate, Mairead McGuire from Ireland, recently suggested a popular movement demanding that the UN revoke Israel’s membership. The international community now needs to put tangible pressure on Israel in order to stop its war crimes.
Not once, during the past 60 years, has Israel shown any intention of living up to the requirements stipulated by the UN, in connection with the country’s membership in 1948, namely that the Palestinians who had been evicted from their homes should be allowed to return at the earliest possible opportunity. Moreover, Israel holds the hardly flattering world record of ignoring UN resolutions.

It can be questioned from the aspect of human rights legislation whether Israel is a legitimate state. Established practice between states usually requires borders that are legally maintained and a constitution, neither of which Israel has. These requirements are also named in the UN resolution (181) Partition Plan for Palestine, approved by the General Assembly in November 1947. The plan was accepted by the Zionists Jews in Palestine but rejected for excellent reasons as unjust by the Arab states. Only decisions made by the UN Security Council are mandatory. Later on, Israel unilaterally laid claim to a considerably larger portion of land than that suggested by the UN.

The eviction of eighty per cent of the Palestinians who lived west of the 1947 armistice line, and Israel’s refusal to allow them to return is the human rights argument for expelling Israel from the UN. Not only has Israel played the Partition Plan false but has, by its actions, thwarted the grounds – fragile from the start – for its UN membership.

Israel makes use of various strategies to achieve its goals, the same goals as for over a hundred years ago: As few and as well controlled and weakened Palestinians as possible in areas as small as possible between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan. And to try and get acceptance worldwide for the theft of land that is vital to the “state” that calls itself “Jewish and democratic”. This obviously bears no similarity to a peace process.

Why does nobody ever comment on the fact that Israel’s prime minister never misses an opportunity to harp on about how important it is that the rest of the world and the Palestinians recognise Israel, not as a democratic country for all its citizens, but as a “Jewish state”?

What would we have said if South Africa’s Prime Minister, in a similar way, had demanded recognition of South Africa as a “white and democratic state”, thus de facto accepting the racist apartheid system that allowed non-whites to be classified as lesser human beings?
In the article The end of Zionism, published in the Guardian on September the 15th 2003 the Jewish dissident and former speaker of Knesset, Avraham Burg wrote:

“Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a central pillar of their identity must pay heed and speak out … We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew … The prime minister should present the choices forthrightly: Jewish racism or democracy.”

No support can be found in The UN recommendation concerning a Jewish and a Palestinian state for unequal rights for the citizens of each country. Neither is there any indication as to how a “Jewish” state could become Jewish. There is support, however, for the intention that demographic conditions should be held intact at partition. Interpreting into the text an intention concerning characteristics of a “Jewish state” tailored to the ideology of Zionism is wholly in contradiction with the text of the resolution.

Even the Balfour Declaration, which entirely lacks human rights status, notes that the Jewish national home in Palestine should in no way encroach upon the rights of the Palestinians. Neither did US President Truman recognise Israel as a Jewish state. On the contrary, he ruled out precisely that formulation before making his decision to recognise Israel.

Thus, the legitimacy of a “Jewish state” so urgently sought by Israel lacks support in international documents that concern the building of the state. Israel’s government is, of course, fully aware of this. Why else would it keep on searching for this recognition?

The UN should now embark on a boycott of the apartheid state of Israel and, with the threat of expulsion from the UN, demand that Israel allows the evicted Palestinian refugees to return in accordance with the UN resolutions 194 and 3236.

With this done, meaningful peace talks can proceed and various solutions be reached for co-habitation with equal rights for all people between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan. No such solution can be compatible with the preservation of a Jewish apartheid state.

– Snorre Lindquist is a Swedish Architect of, among other things, the House of Culture in front of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem on the West Bank. Contact him at snorre_lindquist@hotmail.com.

– Lasse Wilhelmson is a commentator on the situation in the Middle East, and is a member of a local government in Sweden for 23 years, four of which in an executive position. Contact him at: lasse.wilhelmson@bostream.nu. The writers contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Netanyahu Holds Secret Meeting with Jordan’s King on Syria

Local Editor

Zionist Entity’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a secret meeting in Jordan with King Abdullah II, the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily reported on Wednesday.

The paper, without specifying when the meeting took place, only said it was “kept a secret.”

According to the report, which has yet to be confirmed by Zionist officials, the meeting focused on the possibility that Syrian President Bashar Assad would use chemical weapons in the ongoing conflict raging in Syria.

The newspaper quoted a Jordanian official as saying that the reason for the secrecy is that “Israel’s presence in any official, regional or international meeting meant to change the balance of power in Syria, actually hinders such brainstorming.”

The report further said that the Zionist entity is trying to promote “an unpopular scenario” of a surprise offensive on Assad’s arsenal of chemical weapons, in order to destroy it.

According to the Zionist daily Haaretz, Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported in The Atlantic earlier this month that the entity of occupation has asked Jordan twice in the last two months for a green light to attack chemical weapons facilities in Syria, but the Jordanians responded negatively to the request and refused to grant their approval.

When contacted, the Netanyahu’s office refused to comment on the report.

Goldberg added, however, that Netanyahu has already sent representatives of the Mossad intelligence agency to Amman twice, to coordinate the matter with the Jordanians and receive their “permission” for the operation.
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Why we must defend those who dare to speak about the ideology of Jewish supremacy

By Nahida Izzat | Aletho News | December 26, 2012

Forbidden words, taboo topics, witch hunts, smear campaigns, excommunications, thought-policing and book banning are no longer the trademark of fascists and right wing extremists, the profession is shared now by Jewish “anti-Zionists,” alleged “friends of Palestine.” We are left watching in astonishment and disbelief as some “anti-Zionists” are doing the work of hyper-Zionists the likes of ADL and BoDoBJ.

I have recently witnessed the ostracizing and excommunication of two activists, Paul Eisen and Gilad Atzmon, by my local group affiliated to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) using the Zionist method of character assassination of using the labels “racist” “anti-Semitic” as a method of muffling truth.

Yet, among the numerous intellectuals and political activists that have publicly defended Atzmon are many Jews for whom I have only high praise and have expressed much admiration.

It seems that those who wish to stifle discourse are acting as controlled opposition. They attempt to block intellectual discussion, suppress academic freedom, obstruct rational and scholarly debate, filter vital information and smother serious research that examines three main identifiable problems:

The problem of the ideology of Jewish supremacy

The problem of global Jewish-Zionist networking and lobbying

The problem of idolizing the holocaust (which is used as a tool to further Zionist aims)

In 2009, soon after the Gaza massacres, by sheer coincidence I came across the word Neshama. Curious, I googled the word, and lo and behold a Pandora’s Box opened before my eyes; a new learning curve began; I learned about a group called Chabad Lubavitch. I was horrified to discover the supremacist ideology at the core of this group and the level of influence accomplished by the Rebbe and his followers.

Horror-struck, I started investigating, studying then writing about two main issues; the supremacist ideology and the high influence of this prominent organization, attempting to alert our Jewish PSC allies to the danger of such ideology and influence… only to be faced with utter silence.

The problem of the ideology of Jewish supremacy

First; if we accept that Zionism is defined by the crime of genocide and the ethnic cleansing of a nation and has caused the wiping out of a country, then investigating the motivation behind such crime is essential to fight it and hopefully to defeat it. Without unfiltered scrutiny, we would never know who we are dealing with and how to stop them.

Second; supremacism in Jewish ideology is not above criticism; like every other ideology, it should be transparent, accessible and not kept secretive. Without unfiltered scrutiny we would never know what animates Zionists to act with such aggravated cruelty and sadism.

Third; to accuse of “anti-Semitism” and “racism” those who expose Jewish supremacy, is the equivalent of covering up the ideology behind the crime and dissuading people from learning about it, hence challenging and fighting this form of racism.

Dismissing such supremacist beliefs as irrelevant and obsolete would be a huge mistake because these views are the very motor that charges, motivates and energizes the Jewish settlers in Palestine, and gives them the sense of entitlement to do what they do without feeling any guilt or remorse.
For us Palestinians and for our supporters in the solidarity movement, it is a matter of extreme importance to inspect and scrutinize the ideology that motivates and animates the Jewish settlers in our occupied Palestine in order to better understand it, hence combat it. Restricting our understanding of the occupiers, their ideology and mindset cripples our ability to fight back against them knowledgeably and effectively. Furthermore, in our day and age, racism has become outlawed, when people learn about the extent of the ideological racism in the Zionist entity, it will enable us to fight them in their weakest point, thus, bring the day of our liberation closer.

The problem of global Jewish-Zionist networking and lobbying

First; when we look at Zionism as a crime, again, then logically we must identify and investigate the modus operandi. Failure to do so would leave us unable to understand how our oppressors operate and succeed.

Second; with regards to the Jewish-Zionist lobby: investigative work that examines information, no matter how well concealed, and attempts to identify at least some of the culprits and the real criminals behind the fearmongering, the endless wars and the catastrophic conditions that our world suffers is neither racist nor anti Semitic.

Third; devoid of proof or evidence for their false accusations the controlled opposition gate-keepers insidiously filter information through intimidation and by labeling anyone who dares to divulge vital facts. They disable Friends of Palestine (FoP) members from understanding the animus and the methods used to install and to perpetuate the criminal Zionist project, in particular the global network of collaborators who organize and effectively manipulate world policies by coercing world governments into continuous support of the Zionist project in spite of its growing inhumanity.

Expecting to become myself sooner or later a victim of such smear and filtering activity, I always utilize extensive links to primary sources I quote, mostly Jewish organizations. The network formed by these organizations involves large sections of Jewish communities worldwide, and its ultimate role is generally to support the Zionist entity, by inserting themselves in influential positions.

Suppression of inquiry amounts to a dynamic protection system (by peripheral concealment) of the global Zionist network.

Lite-Zionist critics of Israel are attempting to impose on FoP their restrictive dogma, i.e. that a majority of Jews worldwide, whether Zionist “diaspora” or “Israelis”, are not the manipulators of international policy with regards to “Israel”, but the complacent, docile instrument of U.S. imperialism.

To persist, such dogma imperatively needs, again, to filter out glaring facts such as the over-representation of Jewish-Zionist dual citizens in vital areas of UK-US policy making, or the cross-pollination of racist and supremacist ideology between many Talmudic Rabbis and many Secular Jewish-Zionist Organizations supporting the Zionist project.

The persistence of this dogma also requires strict and repressive censorship and gagging of whomever tries to scrutinize, analyze and discuss the facts, let alone expose them to an audience concerned by matters of equality and humanism, such as FoP and the Palestine solidarity movement in general was supposed to be. That is how and why smear campaigns with killer words such as “anti-Semitism” or “racism” are launched.

At best, such activity on part of alleged “friends of Palestine” is irresponsible. The logical implication of such nonsense, would be that Jewish Israelis, almost all of them serving at least 2 full years in the Israeli army, are just naïve and innocent victims. Thereby, this nonsensical dogma exculpates the notoriously perverted cruelty and psychopathy of the Israeli military’s crimes, up and down the command ladder.

The problem of idolizing the holocaust

First; “Facts” do NOT need laws to enforce or defend them, what they require is research to examine their narrative and correct it for better accuracy and understanding. The denial of these principles will invariably lead to the eradication of the Science of History, and thus cause the blind repetition of more genocides, as we already see in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan… Much like what we see with the cover up and suppression of information about The Truth about 9/11, who benefited and how the event was used to create a climate of hatred and fear which enables the power elite to continue waging wars of aggression and extermination.

Second; without understanding how the holocaust has been used by Zionists, from its onset til this very day, we would continue to succumb to intimidation and give allowances that legitimize and justify the existence of a criminal entity. By insisting on keeping an aura of holiness, uniqueness and exceptionality around the holocaust which would continue to put it above any historical event, preventing researchers from examining how this event has been used, and how it enables our occupier to continue to use it as justification for what they do in Palestine.

The holocaust ought to be studied as a historical event with a historical narrative that has NO sacred or exceptional dimension. The emotional, dogmatic and sacred luggage that has been attached to it has been systematically used and is still used by Zionists to justify and minimize their ongoing heinous crimes in Palestine, as well as the claim of special status with special benefits in their respective countries.

Third; there is absolutely no link -strictly none- between the so-called Holocaust and Palestinians. Nowhere can Palestinians be incriminated in the abhorrent oppression committed by central Europeans against Jews during World War II.

I, as a Palestinian, am not prepared to live in guilt, nor to pay for crimes my people haven’t committed. We refuse to accept and will reject forcibly if necessary, pathologically violent and racist Jewish occupiers.

Military conquest, terrorism, robbery, torture, ethnic cleansing and slow genocide ongoing since the arrival of the first Zionists in Palestine almost one century ago (i.e. before the holocaust) does NOT make someone the rightful “owners” or “co-owners” of my homeland, it makes them abject and violent occupiers.

I and with me my People are not accepting any more to keep having to listen to this narrative shoved down our throat with the repetition of tragedies about legendary love stories, human-fat soap or human-skin lamp shades in order that the Zionists continue to deceive, to trade with and reap the profitby deception and theft of a historical crime that has already been dealt with, and while they continue to use it to justify the ongoing theft of Palestine and extermination of Palestinians.

When someone claims to be in the solidarity movement with Palestine, but then at a crucial time when the Palestinian struggle for Liberation gains momentum, engages in such blatant cover up and concealment of vital information and analysis that would enable people to better understand the core problematic issues and how to effectively deal with them, I and with me every member of the FoP and the Palestine solidarity movement, have the right to question the dubious intentions and motivations of such acts, and to evaluate the damage such people are causing to the movement, hence to Palestinians.

I would like to add a thought about the accusation of racism and anti-Semitism used as a method to silence debate. Anti-Semitism is nothing but one form of racism. Jewish supremacy is yet another form of racism. All forms of racism are vile and ought to be rejected.
An aggravating factor makes the accuser’s motives appear to be even mo
re dubious. Indeed the false accusations of racism is inconsistent with their deafening silence about the mountain of evidence of the wide-spread existence of the ominously racist Jewish supremacist ideologies. This utter silence is a glaring attempt to deflect from the real racism about which I happen to have done extensive research during the past 2 years.

Also, I perceive the attacks as an attempt to block intellectual debate about the problem of global Jewish-Zionist networking and lobbying, which to me is very worrisome, to say the least, when coming from self proclaimed “Friends of Palestine.”

What I find really mind-boggling and hard to fathom in all this is the inconsistency with regards to racism.

On the one hand they do not hesitate to throw such a label against many honorable activists, scholars and intellectuals, in fact they label as “racist” and “fools” anyone who exposes the revolting yet well concealed Jewish supremacy, anyone who notices the effect of Jewish-Zionist networking or who objects to their disproportionate over-representation in key positions with all what it entails of conflict of interest and promotion of the interest of a foreign entity at the detriment of the interest of their national constituency. Yet, on the other hand, mystifyingly, the same people, who without hesitation accuse us of racism, stay utterly mute about the massive, revolting and offensive racism that fills thousands of pages in the Talmud, and major Jewish religious books! And I am not talking about some fringe lunatic fundamentalists who use these always mutating texts as tools, what I am talking about is the inter-connective network of people deeply entrenched in the main centers of government, power and capital, and who are veritably driving policies, war-mongering and hate-mongering!

This sharp contrast between the fervent reaction of those disloyal activists to alleged “racism” on one hand, and on the other, their apathetic deflated reaction or lack thereof, to the sickening anti-human racism emanating from Jewish sources with its correlation with Zionists’ activities, leaves me speechless, beyond words.

Since I started exposing this racism, and over the past two years, I heard NOT ONE WORD about their outrage, opposition or willingness to expose or fight Jewish supremacist ideology, such as seen in the writing of one of the most respected, most reputable Jewish philosophers Moses Ben Maimon (also known as Maimonides).

“Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah is considered by traditionalist Jews even today as one of the chief authoritative codifications of Jewish law and ethics.” Moses Ben Maimon sees no problem with subjugating and enslaving gentiles:

“They shall be your subjects and serve you.”
“The subjugation they must accept consists of being on a lower level, scorned and humble.
They must never raise their heads against Israel, but must remain subjugated under their rule. They may never be appointed over a Jew in any matter whatsoever.”

He also talks about the right of the Jewish king to:

“wage a milchemet hareshut, (war of aggression) i.e. a war fought with other nations in order to expand the borders of Israel or magnify its greatness and reputation.“

These “chief authoritative codifications of Jewish law and ethics” do not see any ethical predicament with “Jewish wars” of extermination and annihilation either.
Since this notorious ideology is the unequivocal underlying animus and root cause of the Zionist aggression and occupation, and since the “facts on the ground” prove the cross-pollination between this degradation and the secular Zionist aims, including the irrefutably slow-genocidal Zionist military policies, scrutiny and criticism of this racist supremacist filth is not a matter of fringe theology, but a vital matter of totalitarian politics.

Now, where is their outrage against such blatant Jewish racism and supremacy and terrifying nihilistic ideology? Don’t they claim to be against racism wherever it comes from? Why don’t they have the guts to condemn and campaign against such racism?

Is it not ludicrous to hear them condemn instead, those who expose and vehemently oppose such racism?

Without using any commonsense they jump into the ADL bandwagon and rub shoulders with Zionists!

If someone obstinately objects to the massive control and unwelcome influence and the robbing of others rights and property, under the pretext of divine entitlement, does that person become the unreasonable “bigot” !

What kind of skewed logic is that?

This inconsistency is incomprehensible to me.

Why are they entitled to classify people and to dictate to people what they should read and what they should avoid?

Why this condescending attitude that appears to be claiming to know what is best for people and selecting their intellectual diet for them?

Why deprive people of the right to read a wide range of opinions, including my own writing, and allow them to make up their analysis, and conclusions without manipulation, repression or restraint?
In my writing I vehemently criticize racist Jewish ideology, but I never accuse all Jews of being racist, never put them -or anyone else for that matter, in one basket. Ever.

In my writing I quoted the poll that 95% of USA Jewry support Israel as a Jewish state and 90% of British Jewry believe that Israel is the ‘ancestral homeland’ of the Jewish people, and concluded that most world Jewry are supportive of the theft of Palestine.
Truth is that the majority of world Jewry insist that Jews have a right and claim to the land. Including some of our Jewish “anti-Zionist” friends under whatever pretext. Their claims are not acceptable and unjustifiable!

I have pointed out the influence of organized Jewish networks, such information is available for any serious researcher, it can be easily verified, yes it is troublesome to find such a tiny group extremely overrepresented in so many vital areas of public affairs, such as finance, media, security and policy making, more so when the interests of such a group are in conspicuous conflict with the interest of the larger group, and when this minority supports a genocidal entity that has not evolved in six decades.

Over-representation is as unfair as under-representation, and if anti-racists take it upon themselves to defend the rights of the under-represented minorities, it is of equal importance to do the same with over-representation.

Perhaps such questions of over-representation might have not surfaced had the behavior of those in question been shrouded with morality and humanity. Had they been working to establish social justice, building homes, schools and hospitals instead of destroying and polluting the planet for generations to come, and instead of law of the jungle where the super-rich eat the poor to the last bone, had they chosen cooperation instead never-ending conflict, and promoted peace and justice instead of fomenting perpetual wars.

No one should be slandered for observing and objecting to such blatant mockery of morality, equality and justice.

I do not need to focus on Christian Zionists because their ideology is almost entirely sourced from the Old-Testament which is none other than the Jewish Torah! Most authentic Christians consider the Christian Zionists as worshipers of “Israel” and of the “Jewish people” rather than God, and in that sense they share the same ideology as Jewish-Zionist supremacists, in terms of their reverence and idolization of the Jewish people as the “Chosen”, they are one and the same. Furthermore, those who occupy my land, those who drove me out of my homeland, and those who are still depriving me from going home are the Jewish Zionists.

I criticize the deafening silence of anti-Zionist Jews with regard to the racism that thrives amidst many Jewish communities. A silence which I believe will backfire one day, as they would be seen as not only complaisant but also complacent by deflecting away and concealing horrendous truths.
My criticism is motivated by concern and genuine care for good Jewish individuals that I have known and those whom I don’t know, because of what I perceive as the danger that would befall all of them if they continue to ignore the supremacist ideology, the growing influence of the adherents of this ideology and if they continue to ignore all the warning signs that point to accumulating bottled rage against such villainy, which no doubt would one day manifest itself violently as an inevitable backlash to much unsaid, yet felt, oppression and unspoken, but lived, subjugation.

I find it rather pathetic that the only defense mechanism that the accusers come up with is the smear, slander and the accusation of being a “racist” against anyone who pokes the boil exposing the pus infesting inside one of the most vile racist and supremacist ideologies thriving at the heart of some Jewish teachings as per Mishna Torah, Zohar, Tanya, and Talmud. By insisting on dismissing Jewish supremacy and Jewish-Zionist networks they only promote the most cruel and degenerative racism to be found on the planet by means of concealment and shifting attention away from the real racism that I vehemently fight and deplore.

The persons who resort to accusation, suppression, character assassination and smear campaigns very cunningly and dishonestly omit to mention that those who expose and condemn the racist concepts of “chosen-ness”, “exceptionality”, “superior morality”, “superior intelligence”, and “Jewish entitlement of world leadership” do not invent these concepts. It is not racist to expose or quote such abomination, it is not a crime to bring such Jewish-claims to the public awareness. Any honest criticism should be directed against those who believe such filth and make such revolting claims.
To those individuals who take part in such ADL style smear campaigns of accusation of racism, I say:

I accuse you of acting as a smoke screen to cover up real racism as manifested by Jewish supremacists

I accuse you of acting as protectors and gatekeepers of the global Jewish Zionist networks and lobby groups by denying their existence and effectiveness.

I accuse you of complicity by insisting to conceal planned crimes against humanity as manifested in the supremacist nihilistic Chabad ideology.

Any Solidarity Movement with Palestine should take the opinions, the interests, and the future well being of Palestinians at heart, otherwise, it speaks only for itself, not for Palestinians.
Palestinians have the right to fight for the full liberation of their country, those who are willing to march with us all the way are welcome, those who are not, may look for other more convenient and less controversial campaigns to support.

I denounce any person or group who pretends to speak in my name as a Palestinian, yet behind closed doors, they plot and whisper about how to mute Palestinian voices and curtail the spread and impact of daring Palestinian opinions.

I denounce any person or group who claims to work for Palestine, yet their actions are contrary to the legitimate interest and aspirations of Palestinian people. Allowing themselves to be used as a vehicle to secure the future of the Jewish-Zionist invaders by facilitating the permanent takeover of Palestine with the pretext of “two peoples, one future” blather or “equal rights to both sides” nonsense.

I denounce any person or group who turns a blind eye and reacts with a deafening silence to the unimaginable repulsive racism that oozes from some Jewish supremacist groups, yet instead, hysterically and shamelessly react to someone who accidentally came to discover such horrors.

Finally, I fully trust the Palestine solidarity movement to have the intellectual integrity and capacity to see through the fog of manipulation, and to have the assertiveness, the respect for their own intellect and enough open-mindedness to look at many sources of information, and that they have the courage to read for themselves and evaluate what they read independently, without having some gurus spoon-feeding them with filtered, processed, misrepresented or manipulated information.

~

Nahida Izzat is a Jerusalem-born Palestinian refugee who has lived in exile for over forty five years, after being forced to leave her homeland at the tender age of seven in 1967, during the six-day war. She has a degree in mathematics, but art is one of her favorite pastimes. She loves hand-made things and so makes dolls, cards, and most of her own clothing. She also writes poetry, participates in written dialogues and believes in building bridges, not walls.

Related articles

• Lasse Wilhelmson and Freedom in Sweden (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Not The Wisest Phil Around (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• What shall we not talk about today? (alethonews.wordpress.com)

1. For further consideration on this particular subject please also see :
   http://palestine-encyclopedia.com/EPP/Start.htm
   and as for so-called “Jews” being Semites…
   http://www.israelect.com/reference/Willie-Martin/
   The Talmud makes a “Jew” a “Jewish”…
   the Children of Israel have never been the “Jews”
   Khazars were made Proselytes to Talmudic Judaism in the 8th century AD
   http://www.birobidjan.co.uk/
   unfortunately in America the Zionist {Jewish} Narrative is supported by Economic Terrorists who Print Currency
   [Federal Reserve] & Own the Media & Operate a Kosher Brothel called Congress
   which allows the crime against humanity against the inhabitants of Palestine and the
   http://come-and-hear.com/index-2.html
   unfortunate ‘Neighbors” of the “Jewish” so-called State,
   as if a Terrorist cult compound can be called a State

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

“Israeli Units Part of Intervention Forces in Syria”

Local Editor

Zionist military units are deployed for a long time in Syria in order to get the claimed Syrian chemical arsenal under control.

The information was revealed for the first time by local Syrian news websites, including Syria Truth, and was confirmed by the German magazine Focus, which reported that the Zionist force belongs to the elite unit “Sayeret Matkal”.

However, Syria Truth revealed last July that the mentioned force had entered Syria via Aleppo, across Turkey, with the help of the defected Syrian Colonel and Head of Aleppo Military Council, Abdel Jabbar Akidi.

Previously, meetings were held in Turkey between Zionist experts of the Biological Institute affiliated with the Zionist Prime Minister, and the retired Syrian General Adnan Sello, who fled to Turkey and had held the position of Deputy Director of Chemical Warfare Department in the regular Syrian army.

Moreover, the German periodical stated that the presence of the Zionist intervention force coincides with the presence of the Western elite forces, particularly the American and the French, deployed at Jordanian border with Syria.

“Elite forces are scheduled to enter into Syria after the fall of the Syrian regime to seize the chemical arsenal and prevent it from reaching the hands of the revolutionaries and terrorists,” it said.
The French force, consisting of paratroopers, had already made several exploratory missions and seeped into Syria under the cover of a makeshift hospital for Syrian refugees, settled in the Jordanian city of al-Mafraq.

An officer of the paratroopers’ unit stationed in the French town of Calvi told the German magazine that soldiers of 135 countries make up this unit. One of those companies is totally Arab, in order not to draw any attention.

As for the American intervention force, it is composed of two Delta Force units and Ringers, involved in desert fights, and are working together with the Jordanian army.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Four More Years of War

by Stephen Lendman

Expect Obama to prioritize advancing America’s imperium. He did aggressive in term one. New wars are planned. Current ones won’t end. Proxy ones continue. So does increasing America’s global military footprint.

Fiscal cliff hype is about greater force-fed austerity to free up more funds for America’s war machine. Waging them isn’t cheap. Profiteers depend on wasteful spending to boost bottom line performance.

It pays to have friends in high places. They assure all the billions wanted. Social America is being sacrificed to provide them.

Over the next decade, trillions of dollars will shift from people needs to war making, generous corporate handouts, tax breaks for the rich, and hardened homeland repression against nonbelievers.

At the same time, deficits will keep rising exponentially. Hype about urgently cutting them is fake. Post-9/11 has been the worst of times. Expect more of the same on steroids ahead.

Conditions today are the most perilous in world history. Global war is possible. The threat is real and ominous. Open discussion is suppressed. Media scoundrels won’t touch it.

Nor do they explain Project Censored’s top Censored 2013 story: “Signs of an Emerging Police State.” It began pre-9/11, accelerated under Bush, then Obama exceeded his extremism.

Tyranny in America is a hair’s breadth from full-blown. For those affected, it arrived long ago.

Project Censored‘s number 4 story is: “FBI Agents Responsible for Majority of Terrorist Plots in the United States.” Innocent people are wrongly imprisoned. Media scoundrels convict them in the court of public opinion.

Other top censored stories include criminalizing nonviolent protests, corporate predators running the global economy, Federal Reserve money printing madness enriching Wall Street, Washington joining forces with Al Qaeda, prison slavery, wrecking public education by privatizing it, and NATO war crimes in Libya, but it’s much the same wherever this killing machine shows up.

Media scoundrel managed news suppresses these and other vital truths people most need to know. Instead, they get The New York Times running cover for Obama’s foreign policy by praising what it should condemn.

On November 11, its editorial headlined “The Foreign Policy Agenda.” It reads like it’s about someone else, not Obama. It wrongly claims he envisions a world without nuclear weapons.

Under Bush and Obama, Washington asserts the right to use them preemptively. Both administrations violated NPT, the ABM and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties, and Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Others relating to national security also.

In 2010, Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) was old wine in new bottles. Rhetoric changed. Policy stayed the same.

Obama won’t achieve his goal, said The Times, but his position “offers a framework for reducing America’s stockpile and for (encouraging) other countries to follow suit.”

Stockpile levels matter less than new, more destructive, weapons replacing older ones.

The Times also wants tough policies on Iran. It stops short of urging war, but wants sanctions “rigorously enforced and strengthened.” Those in place are illegal. Times articles and commentaries don’t explain. Nor are readers told that Iran’s program is peaceful. Tehran threatens no one.

What’s ahead in Afghanistan remains to be seen. Drawdown won’t end war and occupation. America doesn’t come to war theaters to leave. Permanent occupation is planned.

The Times hope for withdrawal by end of 2013, of course, won’t happen. Nor are Times’ claims about “severely weaken(ing) Al Qaeda.”

Washington enlists its support in all regional wars. It admits doing so. The so-called Arab Spring is fake. America’s war on Syria is suppressed. So is claiming a possible two-state Israeli/Palestinian solution followed by peace.

America’s foreign policy plate is full, said The Times. What’s ongoing and at stake was suppressed or distorted. Military Keynesianism on steroids is official US policy.

America always glorified wars in the name of peace. They’ve been waged every year in US history at home and/or abroad against one more adversaries. Peace, stability, personal safety, and common dignity are crowded out by imperial wars and a longstanding culture of violence.

Generations of violence engrained it in US culture. Media violence feeds it. America’s addiction to war reflects it. Permanent ones rage. New ones replace others when their energy wanes. Congress provides open-ended funding. The Federal Reserve prints up all the ready cash needed.

Imagine living under a permanent state of readiness. Enemies don’t exist so Washington invents them. At the same time, homeland needs go begging.

Eisenhower‘s military-industrial complex warning went unheeded. Disastrous “misplaced power” could rise and persist.

“Every gun that is made,” he added, “every war ship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and not clothed.”

Today’s legacy is force-fed austerity. Health and public welfare are sacrificed on the alter of America’s addiction. Obama has plenty more in mind. Wars of choice are planned.

Since WW II, none of necessity existed. America is masterful at inventing enemies when none exist. No matter how many times people are fooled, they’re easy prey to convince alleged threats must be challenged.

Washington Post writer David Ignatius has close ties to US intelligence. Be “bold” he urges Obama in term two. “Think big.”

“Well, Mr. President, what the hell’s the presidency for?” Be “strategic” on foreign policy. Deal with Iran to limit its nuclear program. Find solutions for Afghanistan.

Remove Assad by “managed transition.” In other words, oust him by any way that works.
 

Cut a deal on Palestine that benefits Israel. Choose a new Secretary of State when Clinton leaves to assure whatever America says goes.

“A successful second term is less about ideology than about results. Think big. Take risks. Get it done.”

In other words, Ignatius favors policies that assure US hegemony. Without saying it, he includes war.

Former Bush administration UN ambassador/American Enterprise Institute senior fellow/uberhawk John Bolton wants Obama to prioritize national security threats.

America has none excepts ones it invents. Bolton left that unexplained. The war on terror isn’t over, he stresses. Al Qaeda hasn’t been defeated. It’s “stronger than before and America’s strategic position in the region has steadily deteriorated.”

Al Qaeda is used strategically as ally and adversary. It was part of Washington’s Libya strategy. It now serves US interests in Syria.

Prioritize “international terrorism,” says Bolton. Prevent Iran’s “long-sought objective of deliverable nuclear weapons.”

Challenge Russia and China assertively. Flex America’s muscles aggressively. Republicans should hold his feet to the fire.

Foreign policy advisors like Bolton risk WW III. Washington has lots more like him.

AP‘s Brian Murphy discussed Obama’s second term “evolving foreign policy.”

His mandate involves asserting “superpower confiden(ce and) military strength” combined with “soft power” coalition building.

Murphy ticked off the usual challenges – Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Israel/Palestine, China, Russia, North Korea, and Cuba. Solutions weren’t proposed.

Micah Zenko is a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Center for Preventive Action Douglas Dillon fellow. America “will never have another peacetime president,” he says.

It follows as one never before existed. America has always been at war at home and/or abroad throughout its history.

WW II aside, it’s truer today than ever. Multiple direct and proxy wars rage. More are planned. Political claims about wanting peace are false. America prioritizes war.

Zenko expects a “period of persistent conflict” to continue. Obama is America’s most belligerent leader. He exceeded the worst of Bush. Expect term one policies to continue and be intensified in term two.

Congressional oversight of presidential war-making powers is moribund. Obama is virtually restraint free. Previous warnings went unheeded.

Former Senator Robert Byrd reminded fellow legislators that “Congress is not a rubberstamp or a presidential lapdog – obedient and unquestioning. Oversight, oversight, oversight is among our most important responsibilities.”

Senator James Webb didn’t seek reelection. In May, he co-sponsored a bill that failed. Passage would have required presidents to formally request congressional approval before authorizing military action.

“Year by year,” he said, “skirmish by skirmish, the role of the Congress in determining where the US military would operate, and when the awesome power of our weapon systems would he unleashed, has diminished.”

Obama is free to continue term one wars and wage new ones. Expect him to take full advantage.

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

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

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

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

http://www.dailycensored.com/27397/ 

posted by Steve Lendman @ 11:28 PM  

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

 

On the US killing of children and others

By Lawrence Davidson

Here is part of an Associated Press announcement appearing in US papers on 20 December 2012: “Declaring the time for action overdue, President Obama promised on Wednesday [19 December] to send Congress broad proposals in January for tightening gun laws and curbing violence after last week’s schoolhouse massacre in Connecticut.”

The issue of violence goes far beyond the Newtown Connecticut incident, of course, and its ubiquity, on the streets as well as in the schools, is what has moved Obama to finally act. One can speculate about why violence in the United States, here represented by assaults using guns, is so widespread. Certainly, there is a cultural aspect to it.

America’s frontier mentality

Back in 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner wrote a famous essay about the “closing of the American frontier”. He commented that having been a frontier society since the first settlers arrived from Europe, a frontier mentality became a seminal aspect of the American character. Though Turner tied this culturally embedded mentality to the impulse for both personal liberty and national territorial expansion, there is another aspect of the frontier that may well be its most lasting contribution to US culture.

Too many, Americans see themselves as exceptional: blessed by God, expert practitioners of free enterprise and the people who really know what freedom and rights are all about. And, in the process of using power to demonstrate this exceptional status, both as individuals and as a nation, they consistently make a bloody mess.
 

Historically what is life on a frontier like? It is usually unsettled, without the secure rule of law. In the case of the United State, the frontier was a semi-militarized place with an enemy just over the horizon, violence common and guns for just about every settler. Out of this environment grew the perverse ideal of power and freedom embodied in the “rugged individual” who uses force (coming literally out of the barrel of a gun) to tame an “uncivilized” world and thereby obtain what he needs and protect what he has. That heritage might partly explain why, out of a population (as of 2011) of 311,591,91, there are an estimated 270,000,000 firearms in the hands of the civilian population.

Gun culture was an integral part of the frontier culture and, for many Americans, is still symbolic of their personal liberty. But in the end the gun is only a device through which to wield power and it is power that Americans aspire to above all. It is their “manifest destiny”. Too many, Americans see themselves as exceptional: blessed by God, expert practitioners of free enterprise and the people who really know what freedom and rights are all about. And, in the process of using power to demonstrate this exceptional status, both as individuals and as a nation, they consistently make a bloody mess.

Using power

Here in the United States guns kill about 17,000 people a year, of which about 3,000 are children. That is horrid enough, but the real picture is actually much worse. The domestic death toll caused by America’s civilian propensity to act out moments of power through violence is but a pittance compared to the carnage the US produces through the projection of military and other forms of force abroad. Using guns, mechanized weapons and chemical agents in Vietnam the United States demonstrated its power and managed to kill anywhere between 500,000 to 2,000,000 civilians. It is not possible to know how many of these were children, but the number must run at least into the tens of thousands.

Countries under US sanctions

In Iraq, the US developed a new official weapon that has proved particularly fatal to children. This is the weapon of sanctions. Such sanctions demonstrate that the US has the power to manipulate most of the world’s economy to the detriment of it’s enemies. In the case of Iraq, sanctions functioned as a sort of economic Agent Orange. They defoliated that country’s societal infrastructure over a 13-year period. Sanctions were imposed in 1990 as a consequence of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and maintained after the conclusion of the first Gulf War. As a consequence of these sanctions, important medicines, vital repair parts for water purification and sewage systems and other necessary items were not allowed to be imported into Iraq. The deaths of some 350,000 Iraqi children (the low-end estimated number), most under five years of age, can be directly or indirectly tied to this sanctions regime. The sanctions were only removed in 2003 when the US invaded the country.
Then came the weapons-related deaths as a result of the second Gulf War (2003 to 2011) launched on false pretences by the George W. Bush administration. Realistic estimates range from 600,000 to one million additional Iraqi deaths (adults and children) in this stage of operations.

The latest target

Now there are reports that Washington is once more, through the weapon of sanctions, creating the conditions for the deaths of the young and vulnerable. This time the target is Iran. According to Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council, US sanctions are starting to affect the health of innocent Iranian citizens. Iran’s ability to purchase some medicines and hospital equipment has been impaired by US sanctions and people have already died as a result.

Nonetheless, American lawmakers such as Robert Menendez (Democrat, New Jersey) have successfully sponsored even more sanctions on Iran. “It seems to me we have to completely exhaust all the tools in our sanctions arsenal, and do so quickly, before Iran finds a way to navigate out of its current crisis,” Menendez said.

Why is Menendez and his fellows in Congress doing this? Because of some alleged Iranian nuclear weapons programme? No. The Iran sanctions, growing slowly in intensity, predate that concern. Since the fall of the Shah in 1979 Washington has conceived of Iran as an enemy and therefore a legitimate target against which to demonstrate our power. It is reasonable to assume that Menendez knows what such policies means in human terms. But, like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright referring to the disastrous consequences of the Iraq sanctions, he seems to believe that the horror of it all is worth it.

Conclusion

Many Americans are dismayed, as they surely should be, by the domestic massacres of their children. These are the deaths closest to home and the ones they are forced to face up to due to media attention. They are also confused about what to do because, for so many, guns and freedom are synonymous. All the other instances of violence – the nightly murders in poor districts of cities and towns across the nation, the piled up bodies of adults and children in places like Vietnam and Iraq – are largely hidden from the citizenry. And certainly the consequences for the average of citizen of Iran of the US government acting out in a powerful way, will be kept remote enough so as to avoid all empathy.

Whether Americans are paying attention or not, their government, their elected officials, continue to make sure that the US remains out and about across the globe, projecting the nation’s power via guns and sanctions, and thereby helping to lower the world’s burgeoning population in the most negative of all possible ways.

The politicians who initiate these murderous policies may hardly know, in any fully analysed way, why they do so. But they know it feels culturally comfortable to persist. They have their superficial ideological conviction that there must be an evil enemy to fight and, in juxtaposition to that enemy, they are always the good guys. Many also have the simplistic notion that gun ownership is as vital to the individual citizen’s freedom as military power is to the nation’s liberty. Just as the individual American believes he owns that semi-automatic rifle to protect home and hearth, so his national leaders cherish (and overfund) the national arsenal. They have power and they will use it. They believe, probably sincerely, that they are still on the frontier protecting their homestead from the uncivilized.
 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Human Rights Get Short Shrift in Israel

by Stephen Lendman

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) assesses human rights in Israel annually. It’s 2012 report is “bleak.”

It’s true in virtually every category assessed. Netanyahu and dominant Knesset hardliners spurn human and civil rights. They do so for Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and most Jews.

Neoliberal harshness is policy. So are hardline belligerence and institutionalized racism. Poverty, homelessness, and hunger harm growing numbers in society.

Conditions in Israel get worse, not better. Palestinians suffer most. Horrific conditions harm them. They’re reflected in ruthless police state policies. Militarized occupation enforces them.

In 2012 alone, 557 Palestinian structures were lawlessly demolished. So were 172 homes. Over 1,000 Palestinians were displaced. Their land was stolen. Israeli policies mock fundamental freedoms. Palestinians have no rights.

Asylum seekers and African immigrants are relentlessly persecuted. Occupation harshness silences dissent. Affordable housing exists nowhere. Water is a precious luxury. Peaceful social protests face harsh crackdowns.

Israel’s budget includes enormous amounts for rubber bullets, tear gas, concussion grenades, toxic chemicals sprays, and other implements of police state repression.

Jews aren’t exempt when they resist. In solidarity with Palestinians, they’re treated harshly. Equity, justice, mercy, and fairness aren’t in Israel’s vocabulary.

It’s a model police state. It matches the worst of regional tyrannies. It mocks democratic governance. Israel tolerates none.

ACRI’s 2012 came down particularly hard on housing. In Arab towns and villages, restrictive planning policies limit residential building. Effective development is prevented.

Many Israeli Arabs have no viable option. They’re on their own to supply housing without means or ability to overcome onerous restrictions.

Bedouin communities face especially harsh treatment. In late summer 2011, forced Bedouin evictions began. Thousands in Israeli-controlled Area C were affected. They were ordered to leave. They were threatened with force if they refused.

They were displaced to a regional garbage dump. Their homes were demolished. They had no say. Israel wanted their land for Jewish development.

Most Bedouins were expelled from the Negev in 1948. Some lived on Israeli declared land. Others lived on private Palestinian land.

Twenty Bedouin communities living in the E1 corridor now face eviction. Whether or not construction begins, Israel wants them out.

About 2,300 people are affected. They have no say. Israel freely violates their rights. They’re removed at the whim of ruthless authorities. They’re prevented from building permanent housing or connecting to essential infrastructure.

They’re dispossessed on their own with no rights. ACRI calls Netanyahu’s Bedouin policies particularly harsh and discouraging.

Around 160,000 Bedouins live in Israel. Over half live in so-called unrecognized villages. Around 35 communities are affected. They’re denied schools, healthcare, running water, electricity, paved roads, postal service, and other vital services.

Most are deeply impoverished. They struggle daily to get by. Israel’s Prawer Plan intends greater harshness. Forced displacement will affect tens of thousands of Israeli citizens.

It’s a significant blow to justice. It facilitates state-sponsored discrimination. It spurns fundamental rights. It summarily disenfranchises long neglected people who deserve better.

It contradicts Goldberg Commission findings. They called Bedouin treatment unjust and ineffective. It recommended injustices be corrected by recognizing their communities as they exist.

Israel refuses. Historic injustices continue. Netanyahu wants harsher enforcement. He represents the worst of despot authority.

From day to day, Bedouin communities aren’t sure whether police, soldiers and bulldozers will show up to evict them forcibly.

Israeli Jews and Arabs face public housing crisis conditions. The issue was central during summer 2011 protesters. Netanyahu promised change. He lied. He did nothing. Harsh neoliberal policies remain.

Knesset hardliners oppose affordable housing legislation. At the same time, they “systematically eviscerate” what’s left of public housing.

Water rights were harmed when rates were raised sharply. Nothing in place or planned protects disadvantaged, elderly or disabled Israelis. Arab citizens and Palestinians are entirely out of luck.

West Bank housing and water rights are more tenuous. Palestinians are gravely affected. Israel controls Area C. Many Palestinians live there. Brutal persecution affects them.

Homes are demolished. Cisterns are destroyed. Netanyahu’s Levy Commission recommendations will be followed.

His report rewrote international law. He claims occupation “as set out in the relevant international conventions cannot be considered applicable to the unique and sui generis historic and legal circumstances of Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria spanning over decades.”

“Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria and the establishment of settlements cannot, in and of itself, be considered illegal.”

He recommended legalizing illegal outposts. He said zoning officials should authorize them without further political approval. He urged no restraints on settlement construction.

Netanyahu praised his report, saying:

“In my opinion, this report is important because it deals with the legalization and the legitimization of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria on the basis of facts, a variety of facts and arguments that should be seriously considered.”

Dominant Likudniks support colonizing all valued parts of Judea and Samaria Israel wants. They claim Jerusalem as Israel’s exclusive capital. They want Palestinians gone. They’ll tolerate them only on isolated bantustans on worthless scrubland.

Levy is a former Israeli Supreme Court justice. His rulings spurned justice. He’s more facist than jurist. He embarrasses legitimate juris prudence. He rejects Green Line separation of Israel and Palestine.

So do Likudniks. Netanyahu and Lieberman reflect the worst of their agenda. They’re ideologically on the lunatic fringe. They’re world class thugs.

Under their leadership, free expression suffered. Both sides of the Green Line are affected.

Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are Israel’s two largest cities. They enacted new regulations. They make it extremely hard to demonstrate publicly.

West Bank diktats ban all forms of protest. Activist leaders and supporters are persecuted. Repression continues against the backdrop of dual legal systems. Laws affecting Palestinians violate fundamental international laws and standards.

Israeli security forces target them ruthlessly. Repression is official Israeli policy. It’s systematically enforced. Police state harshness is severe.

Reports from East Jerusalem reveal illegal interrogation practices used on accused minors. Pre-dawn arrests target them. Children young as 10 are detained. Parental and legal contacts are denied.

ACRI discussed statements, legislative initiatives, and policies infringing on the human rights of asylum seekers. Most face severe repression or death if deported to their home countries.

Propaganda viciousness targets them. They’re called criminals, disease-ridden, demographically threatening, harmful to Israeli security, and malignant to Israeli society.

They’re desperate human beings. They threaten no one. They deserve safe haven help. Israel criminalizes them. Vicious mobs attack them. Security forces don’t intervene.

ACRI also discussed privatizing judicial and police authority. Human rights are weakened in the process. Other policies institutionalize privacy violations.

ACRI’s annual reports show Israel on a slippery slope toward full-blown tyranny. Palestinians and Israeli Arabs suffer most. Increasingly, so are growing numbers of Jews.

Israel isn’t fit to live in. Many fed up Jews vote with their feet and leave. Others consider doing so. Many obtain foreign passports in preparation.

Mass exodus one day may follow. Why would anyone accept what’s intolerable? Safer environs exist elsewhere. Even in a hazardous world they exist.

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

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

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

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

 

posted by Steve Lendman @ 8:44 AM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

 

ISRAEL DECLARES WAR ON CHRISTMAS

December 26, 2012 at 11:07 

 

Here’s the latest ‘exhibit’ in Israel’s ‘Museum of Tolerance’

*

Forbidden to celebrate: Israel’s war on Christmas continues despite Netanyahu’s claim of tolerance

Submitted by Ali Abunimah

 

Palestinian children play outside Deir Latin church in Gaza City on Christmas Eve 2012.
(Ezz Al-Zanoon /APA images)

In his Christmas greeting video, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted of Israel’s supposed religious tolerance.

“Today Christian communities around the Middle East are shrinking and in danger. This is of course not true in Israel. Here there’s a strong, growing Christian community that participates fully in the life of our country,” Netanyahu said.

Vowing to “continue to protect freedom of religion and thought,” Netanyahu also promised “to safeguard Christian places of worship throughout our country” and not to “tolerate any acts of violence or discrimination against any place of worship.”

Making a pitch for Christian Zionist tourism he urged listeners to “Come see our ancient land with your own eyes. Visit Nazareth and Bethlehem, wade in the Jordan River, stand on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and next year come visit our eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

His inclusion of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, as well as the banks of the Jordan River, can be taken as another affirmation that Israel, despite its rhetoric, has no interest in a “two-state solution” and intends to absorb all of historic Palestine as an exclusively “Jewish state.”

Disappearing Christmas trees

Netanyahu’s professions of tolerance would have come as news to Palestinian Christian students at Safad Academic College in the Galilee. There, students who could not get home for the holidays bought a Christmas tree and set it up outside their dorm.

But in the evening when they got back from class, they found the tree was gone, Israel’s Walla! News reported.

“This is the saddest Christmas,” said Gabriel Mansour, 24, a third-year political science student, identified by Walla! as a representative of Arab students. “All we wanted to do was provide some good cheer for all the students who remained alone in the dorms, and who were unable to go home to their families.”

When Mansour investigated, he was told by college officials that the tree had been hidden lest it spark riots among the Jewish students.“I was angry to hear this,” said Mansour of the claim that the tree might spark riots among Jewish students and residents of Safad. “Unfortunately they don’t respect our holidays. We fully respect all Israeli holidays. Why can no one respect our traditions? Why can’t we put up a Christmas tree?” “I do not think Christmas should be marked with such ostentation,” Walla! quoted an unnamed Jewish student saying. “The college has a distinctly Jewish character. It’s not healthy for anyone to be able to do whatever he wants.”

And there was a mini-scandal when the girlfriend of Yair Netanyahu, the son of the Israeli prime minister, posted a photo of the youth wearing a Santa hat and posing next to a Christmas tree, on Facebook. Under the photo was the caption “My Christian boy.”

The prime minister’s office was forced to issue a statement that the image was a joke and that Yair had been attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists who love Israel, and whose children served in the IDF,” Israel’s Channel 2 reported. Nevertheless the photo was removed from Facebook.

State rabbis order bans on Christmas

The ban on Christmas at Safad college is no isolated incident. For several years, Shimon Gapso, the notoriously racist mayor of the Israeli settlement of “Upper Nazareth” in the Galilee, has banned Christmas trees, calling them a provocation. “Nazareth Illit [Upper Nazareth] is a Jewish city and it will not happen – not this year and not next year, so long as I am a mayor,” Gapso said.

According to journalist Jonathan Cook in Nazareth, such bans continue and are widespread this year with Israel’s state-financed rabbis warning hotels and restaurants that they will lose their kosher certifications if they put up trees or other Christmas decorations or hold Christmas events.
 
“In other words,” Cook says, “the rabbinate has been quietly terrorising Israeli hotel owners into ignoring Christmas by threatening to use its powers to put them out of business. Denying a hotel its kashrut (kosher) certificate would lose it most of its Israeli and foreign Jewish clientele.”

Publicly visible Christmas tree could “injure the souls of Jews”

When the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem this year put up a small Christmas tree near the Jaffa Gate, there were strong protests from rabbis. Occupation municipality city council member Rabbi Shmuel Yitzhaki told settler news website Arutz 7 that the display was a “desecration” and a “grave offense against the Jewish people” and that it was “inconceivable” that a Christmas tree should be allowed in a “public place” where it might be seen by Jews on their way to pray at the Western Wall in eastern occupied Jerusalem.

 

Christmas trees as propaganda for ethnic cleansing group JNF

Mina Fenton, a former city council member, said, “There’s a Christian Quarter. They can put it [the tree] up there,” where it couldn’t “injure the souls of Jews.”

While Israel’s official rabbis, colleges and municipalities discourage or ban displays of Christmas trees, the Jewish National Fund (JNF), the racist state-backed agency actively engaged in ethnically cleansing Palestinians and stealing their land for exclusive use by Jews, has found a way to use Christmas trees to paint a false image of itself as a promoter of multicultural harmony.

The JNF, which misrepresents itself as an environmental charity, now gives away some trees and felled branches particularly to foreign embassies, for use as Christmas trees in private homes, and markets the initiative as outreach to maintain “good relations between religions.” Against the background of the JNF’s true activities, such cynical propaganda should convince no one. But it might be useful in raising donations from Christian Zionists.

The efforts by Netanyahu and the JNF to present Israel as tolerant and friendly to Christians are important to maintain external, especially Christian Zionist support, and to hide a much uglier reality.

Discrimination against Christianity inherent in Israel’s “Law of Return”

Israel claims to be a “Jewish state.” Its blatantly discriminatory “Law of Return” grants the automatic right to those it recognizes as Jews from anywhere in the world to emigrate and receive citizenship even if they have no connection to the country. At the same time, Israel prevents indigenous Palestinian refugees, including those born there, from returning home just because they are not Jews.

But according to the US State Department in its 2011 report on religious freedom around the world, Israel specifically applies a blatantly anti-Christian test in applying this bigoted law:

The question of whether one believes Jesus is the Jewish Messiah has been used to determine whether a Jew was qualified to immigrate. The [Israeli] Supreme Court repeatedly has upheld the right, however, of Israeli Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah to retain their citizenship. The immigration exclusion was routinely applied only against Messianic Jews, whereas Jews who were atheists were accepted, and Jews who chose to believe in other religions, including Hindus and Buddhists, were not screened out.

In other words a “Jew” can be an atheist, Hindu, or Buddhist – anything at all – and be granted citizenship by Israeli authorities. It is only a belief in Jesus that disqualifies them.

Attacks on Christian holy sites

As for Netanyahu’s promise that Christian holy sites would be protected, he failed to mention that in recent months, Israeli settlers, acting with the collusion of Israeli authorities, have stepped up so-called “price tag” attacks on Christian holy sites.

Meanwhile, Christmas celebrations proceeded this year in Gaza and in Iran, where municipal authorities in Tehran have in recent years put up banners celebrating the birth of Jesus on many main streets. Both Iran and Gaza re Muslim-majority places that Israeli propaganda loves to paint as particularly intolerant of religious minorities.

Few countries live up to their own claims about religious freedom and tolerance and many must do better. But selling Israel in particular, whose whole raison d’être is to privilege Jews qua Jews over the indigenous Palestinian population of any religion, as a paragon of tolerance and pluralism is patently absurd.

Merry Christmas!
 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Syria’s Liberating Struggle Continues

by Stephen Lendman

Syrians struggle valiantly to defeat Western-recruited invaders. Islamofasists infest their ranks. They’re cold-blooded killers.

Assad is falsely blamed for their crimes. They include horrific atrocities. On December 23, Hama province residents were slaughtered. Reports said up to 100 in Halfaya. Headlines claimed a government air strike hit a bakery.

Suspect videos showed bloodstained corpses amid rubble and shrapnel. On December 24, Voice of Russia headlined “Syria: Halfaya residents massacred,” saying:

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said “Militants have massacred the residents of Halfaya in Hama (Syria).” Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Western media falsely blamed Assad.

“The terrorists photographed them in a way enabling them to accuse the local residents of an attack on the government forces at the moment when the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lahdar Brahimi arrived in Damascus.”

Russia Today quoted Syrian TV. Insurgents were blamed. They were accused of “filming the aftermath to ‘frame the army.’ “

Videos are easy to fake. An amateur YouTube one “has not been independently verified.” Why would Syrian forces target civilians lined up to buy bread?

Dubious sources don’t explain. Predictable reports point fingers the wrong way. It happens every time.

In early December, media scoundrels reported an Agrab, Hama village massacre. Opposition sources were cited. Fake videos were broadcast.

Pro-government militiamen were accused of killing up to 300 civilians. Reports said they were held hostage inside a blown up building.

A house reportedly bombed by Syrian forces still stands. The entire account emitted a familiar odor. It lacked credibility like numerous previous ones.

Britain’s Channel 4 interviewed three independent witnesses. They told the same story. Anti-Assad “rebels” were responsible. They targeted Alawites. A dozen or more others fled Aqrab. They reported the same thing.

One witness said responsible fighters “had long beards. It was hard to understand what they said. They weren’t dressed like normal Syrians.”

On December 24, Haaretz and AP headlined “Syrian rebels claim Assad regime uses chemical weapons,” saying:

Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and opposition elements said Syrian forces used them “for the first time.” No evidence whatever suggests it.

Throughout the conflict, Al Jazeera waged war on Syria. Qatar’s government controls content. It’s part of the anti-Assad coalition. Propaganda substitutes for real news and information.

Prominent journalists resigned in protest. In April 2011, Beirut chief/Hiwar Muftuh (open dialogue) host, Ghassan Ben Jeddo, left. He said Al Jazeera “abandoned professionalism and objectivity.”

It’s now “an operation room that incites and mobilizes.” Its reports lack credibility. It latest claimed unnamed Al-Bayada neighborhood “activists” accused government forces of targeting them with gas.

A separate statement said Syrian jets bombed Homs with “poisonous material.” Another suspect video was aired. Al Jazeera specializes in doing it. It showed a man on a respirator. Allegedly he was wounded by “nerve gas.”

An unidentified “rebel” called the situation “very bad. We don’t have enough gas masks,” he said. “We do not know what gas this is, but doctors say it resembles sarin.”

Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Mossad-connected DEBKAfile said Syria “consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught, and they are under control for the time being.”

Russia has military advisors on the ground. They keep “close watch” over Syria’s chemical arsenal.

On December 23, Press TV headlined “Syria militants use chemical weapons against Syrian forces,” saying:

Military sources said they used them in Daraya near Damascus. On Saturday, toxic yellow gas killed at least seven Syrian soldiers.

They died within an hour after inhaling it. Foreign-backed insurgents threatened chemical weapons use. They also said they’d poison Syrian water.

“The militants’ use of chemical weapons come as the US and its allies have alleged that the Syrian government possesses the deadly weapons and is prepared to use them against militants.”

A December 20 UN report said insurgents invaded. They’re from 29 countries. Most are extremist Salafists. Syrian officials and independent accounts repeatedly stressed Western-recruited death squads ravaged the country since last year.

UN investigators said conflict shifted from battling for political change to “overtly sectarian” warfare. It claimed civil war ravages Syria.

Nothing civil reflects what’s going on. Western-recruited death squads are responsible. Syria was invaded. Army forces, Alawite civilians, and other Assad loyalists struggle to defeat them.

Self-defense groups protect neighborhoods. Entire communities are threatened. The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry (CIO) partly admitted what earlier it suppressed.

It stopped short of blaming Washington, key NATO allies and regional partners. Earlier reports pointed fingers the wrong way. Propaganda substituted for truth and full disclosure.

It claimed “violations were committed pursuant to State policy pointing to the involvement at the highest levels of the armed and security forces of the Government.”

Assad’s repeatedly blamed for death squad crimes.

On December 23, Voice of Russia headlined “Syrian opposition surrenders,” saying:

Local media reports say “Swarms of Syrian militants are surrendering to the government troops around Damascus. Over the last 72 hours, regular army units delivered powerful blows.”

Insurgents were routed. Syria’s Information Ministry and independent Al-Watan news reported army successes. In areas east of Damascus, “scattered groups of 15 to 50 armed rebels are desperately trying to evade entrapment.”

Army forces are determined to crush them. On December 23, SANA headlined “Information Minister: Syria is Moving Towards Overcoming Crisis and Defeating Aggression,” saying:

Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said Syria and its people made considerable progress. Propaganda reports are “baseless and untrue.”

Syria will defeat its enemies, he stressed. Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, and other terrorists “are trained and prepared by well-known sides that financed, instigated, established training camps, and put various tools at” their disposal.

Russia respects Syrian sovereignty. It wants conflict resolved diplomatically. It’s pursuing dialogue. It seeks “a purely Syrian democratic and national political process.”

Syria’s army represents the nation and people. It’s confronting Western-backed terrorism. On September 28, 2001, Security Council Resolution 1373 passed unanimously.

It called for “suppressing, financing, (and) improving international cooperation.” It considers anyone involved with conspiring, facilitating, or harboring terrorists subject to counterterrorism laws.

Al-Zoubi added that Syria, its government, its army and people stand resolutely against foreign terrorists. Contrary reports are untrue.

On December 24, Russia Today reported more on Sergey Lavrov’s exclusive interview. He diplomatically condemned how Western officials divide terrorists between “bad and acceptable” ones.

Doing so assures lasting adverse consequences. He again stressed that Syria’s chemical arsenal is secure.

“Every time we hear rumors, or pieces of information come to the surface that the Syrians are doing something with the chemical weapons, we double-check. We triple-check,” he said.

At the same time, “strange (Western) logic holds Syria’s government entirely responsible “even if the rebels take hold of it.”

At the same time, Western governments escalate conflict by arming and funding terrorists.

Wars don’t last forever, he said. They all end the same way. Both sides negotiate. It should happen in Syria as soon as possible.

Syria won’t use chemical weapons, he stressed. Doing so “would be political suicide.” Russia’s main goal isn’t “somebody’s head. It’s the cessation of violence and bloodshed.”

Syrians alone must choose their government. Foreign ones and opposition elements have no right to decide. Russia isn’t in “the business of regime change.”

Syrians must decide without foreign interference. External forces can play stabilizing roles. They can encourage dialogue and conflict resolution. They can prioritize peace over war.

Syrian National Council 2.0 goals are “unachievable.” They endorse “ruinous” principles. They want to dismantle or topple Assad’s government forcefully.

They spurn negotiations. Doing so violates last June’s Geneva Agreement principles. They call for respecting international law provisions, peaceful conflict resolution, and backing a Syrian-led political transition serving everyone equitably.

Washington, key NATO partners, and regional allies bear full responsibility. They prioritize conflict over peace. Lavrov worries about involving Iran. Doing so could escalate things out of control.

On December 20, Vladimir Putin held his first press conference since reelected Russia’s president. It was his eighth wide-ranging one with journalists. Many topics were covered. He answered 80 questions in four and a half hours.

Geopolitical ones were included. He hopes for constructive dialogue with Japan. He seeks normalization with Georgia. He praised an unprecedented level of Russo-Chinese trust. He commented thoughtfully on Syria.

“We are worried about what will come next,” he said. “We don’t want the opposition, (if) it comes to power, to go into war with the current authorities, which will become the opposition, and so on.”

“Russia is more concerned about finding a solution that would save the region from collapse and civil war than about pursuing its interests in the region, which aren’t that many anyway.”

Last February, former Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff member Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov said said Moscow is prepared to defend Syria or Iran if attacked.

Striking either country indirectly targets Russia and its interests, he said. “Russia would love important positions and allies in the Arab world. Therefore, by defending (these countries), Russia is defending its own interests.”

He called what Washington and NATO partners did to Libya “nearly identical” to what Hitler did to Poland and Russia.

Moscow is protecting the world from fascism, he stressed. It’s unknown if Putin, other top Kremlin officials, and military ones hold similar views.

Putin downplayed the stakes. He knows regional conflict threatens Russian interests. How far he’ll go to defend them remains to be seen.

Lavrov said diplomatic conflict resolution is prioritized. It’s always the best way to resolve things equitably.

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

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

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

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

http://www.dailycensored.com/syrias-liberating-struggle-continues/ 

 

posted by Steve Lendman @ 11:26 PM  

 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

 

Political Grinches Stealing Christmas From Palestinian and Syrian Refugees

Damascus Street Notes…

By Franklin Lamb

Church of Notre Dame, Damascus.

Church officials in Damascus advanced the hour of last night’s traditional Christmas Eve midnight service to 6 pm because few Damascenes’ venture out past sunset these days. The reasons include ubiquitous checkpoints, security fears and the fact that there are few taxis and no buses around. Plus most shops and cafes close early and the thuds and whining of artillery and bomb blasts from this ancient city’s suburbs tend to sound more menacing at night.

But that does not mean that Notre Dame and other churches in Damascus were not over-flowing with Christians and Muslims for Christmas Eve service, which has become an ecumenical event in this secular country where Syrian and Palestinian refugees of both faiths attended from Yarmouk camp and elsewhere. One Palestinian friend, who had been turned away at the Lebanese border at Maznaa just three days earlier, explained that his family was celebrating ” both the birth of Jesus Christ and the birth of the state of Palestine” referencing last month’s 130 to 8 UN General Assembly vote.

A bizarre Lebanese politically motivated assault on this well establshed Syrian-Palestinian-Muslim-Christian sisterhood caused unnecessary angst and in some cases unconscionable needless hardships during Christmas week. Some Lebanese politicians, apparently experiencing a memory lapse which made them forget how during the 2006 Israeli aggression, Syrians helped Lebanese refugees decided there were votes to be had in next year’s elections if they bashed the Syrian and Palestinians fleeing for their lives and seeking temporary refuge in brotherly Lebanon.

This observer distinctly recalls in mid-July 2006, crossing paths in the Internet supplied Business Center, at the Sheraton Hotel in Damascus, with an international team from the World Food Program. Led by some New Zealanders, the WFP team invited me to join them as they made a survey of Damascus ‘refugee camps” for Lebanese who were arriving by the scores of thousand fleeing the Zionist aggression. There were long lines at the Mazaa and other border points.

It was an impressive sight. The Syrian government and the Syrian people, as well as private Syrian NGOs, to their eternal credit, gave vast and in many cases, lifesaving aid to the Lebanese, asking nothing in return. The aid we witnessed being distributed throughout Damascus and surrounding areas included food, cash, clothing, medical aid, schooling, and housing.

Lebanese refugees sheltering in the Al-Shariya high school in southern Damascus.

Lebanese refugees and asylum seekers watch the news together in a communal living space, Muhajireen, Damascus.

Refuge was provided in public spaces, mosques, churches, private homes, and government buildings of all types as well as in cheap hotels near the Omayyad Mosque (formerly the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist) and the Old City. Rarely, as it was reported by the UN at the time, had one country had done so much to help so many caught in crisis.

In a Machiavellian political move designed to create sectarian tensions in Lebanon, and to cause more spillover from the Syrian crisis next door, one Lebanese Minister, and several like-minded politicians called for closing the every Lebanese borders to Syrian and Palestinian refugees, fleeing for their lives. In a recent speech he gave on Lebanese Wine Day, reportedly after sampling a few glasses, the Minister declared: “When we say we don’t want Syrian and Palestinian refugees, it is because they take our place.” He added: “Don’t we not have enough Palestinians in Lebanon to let the rest of the refugee camps come to Lebanon too?”

The minister in question, is perhaps best known for “marrying up” politically and for his $ 1.3 million Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Coupe which he brags can reach a top speed of 253 mph around Mount Lebanon where he likes to drive it, and despite that it can drive at high speeds for only 12 minutes before all the fuel is gone. He explains to his neighbors that power is transmitted to the pavement via four-wheel-drive and a seven-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission.

He is also known for his average intellect and this week won a prize from Lebanese political analyst Imani Hamad, contributor to Now Lebanon, for topping the list for the “Dumbest political statements made in 2012.” His prize winning statement was:

“A decision was made by a former prime minister that Beirut is allotted electricity for 21 hours. This is not acceptable. Beirut has to have the same amount of electricity as other areas that means only 12 hours.” Ms. Haddad explained the logic of the Minister who has been roundly criticized this year for not solving or lessening Lebanon’s electricity problems. Wrote she: “The Ministers logic? Why solve the problem when you can create another?”

According to Lebanese journalist, Qassem Qassem, writing in Al Akbar this week, “The Minister perhaps does not realize that the refugees did not come out of their volition to Lebanon’s camps, which are nothing but ghettoes thanks to his racist “patriotism” and that of his ilk.”

Perhaps as a student, the Minister was absent from school the day when his teacher in his sectarian school was explaining that the monks of St Maron, who founded the Church in Antioch by the Orontes River, were persecuted by the Monophysites but given sanctuary by the Syrians, including many Muslims.

The Progressive Socialist Party, led by Walid Jumblatt, and PSP member, Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour, insist that Lebanon will not close its borders to Syrian or Palestinians refugees fleeing violence in Syria. Minsiter Faour also said that he agreed with Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon, Ashraf Dabbour, on a plan to facilitate the return of Palestinians fleeing from the Yarmouk camp in Damascus as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Dabbour said that there is a consensus among Palestinians in Lebanon to reject new refugee camps in the country, adding that all the Palestinians coming from Syria would return as soon as the crisis ends in the country.

This holiday season many in Yarmouk camp, despite their latest ordeal, are thinking of and praying for the quarter millions of their countrymen in Lebanon, who like themselves are still waiting to return to Palestine.

Several times over the past month this observer has heard from Palestinian refugees in Syria of their dismay at seeing the living conditions their countrymen are forced to endure in Lebanon, partly due the laws forbidding them the right to work or to own a home.

No country has treated Palestinian refugees as well as Syria and no government, save the Zionist regime still occupying Palestine, has treated them worse than Lebanon. Several academic and NGO studies over the past three decades have documented this fact.

It is a 90 minute drive from Lebanon to Straight Street in Damascus, much less in a Buggati Veyron 16.4. It was on Straight Street here in Damascus where in the year 34 c.e. the blind Paul of Tsarus is said to have regained his eyesight and devoted his life to helping those in need.

May the Minister, who appears to have lost his moral sight for the needs of others, come here to Damascus this Christmas season and walk along Straight Street and among the alleys of Yarmouk camp, to learn, perhaps experience an epiphany, and thereby regain his sight and moral compass.

And in the name of the one whose birth and message and spirit are celebrated this season, may the Minister and his political allies cease sectarian incitements seeking cheap political advantage in this troubled region. And instead open his vacant real estate properties this Christmas to those for whom there is no room at the inn.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria. He is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Syria: Apocalypse Cancelled

Voltaire Network

The situation around Syria has been eased the last days. The Americans are withdrawing the USS Eisenhower and USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Groups from the Eastern Mediterranean. President Obama expects this step would ‘ease the tension in the region’.

 

What kind of tension has happened to be a matter of sudden concern of the US Administration after 22 months of direct interference into Syrian affairs? Let’s make a brief outlook on the preceding events.

NATO’s decisionto deploy Patriot missile systems on Turkey-Syria border early December is being rushed. The justification of the deployment by alleged defense of Turkish territory against bomb shells and mines occasionally coming from Syria was ridiculous. The Patriot system is not capable for such protection. It is designed to withstand aviation and has a limited capability to bring down tactical missiles as well. So the Patriots in Turkey can fight Syrian MIG aircrafts only. But this scenario is impossible in case Turkey does not invade Syria.

At the same time US strike groups arrivedto the Eastern Mediterranean indicating NATO preparation for a potential ground intervention.

In response Russia has strengthened its fleet in the area. A Russian strike group headed by the heavy cruiser ‘Moskva’ will be joined by several warships (cruisers, landing ship tanks and destroyers) from the Russian Baltic and Northern Fleets scheduled to arrive to the Eastern Mediterranean next week.
Officially the warships are coming for exercises and supplies at the Russian-operated Tartus base in Syria on the way to Somalia anti-piracy mission. Their involvement in the Syrian face-off is just a matter of political will of the Russian leadership.

Thus the concentration of confronting Navies off the Syrian coast by mid-December was almost menacing. The US decision to withdraw the warships has notably irritated Turkey left without the US support in case of military escalation, but minimized the possibility of such a scenario. This withdrawal is by far not the first retreat of the United States: the same happened when a Turkish jet was gunned down in June or when Israel was provoked against Syrians by chemical weapons bugaboo in July.

Besides the Russian vigorous position on the Syrian issue, another factor has caused this positive trend in Syrian arrangement: the US internal politics. A ‘stomach virus’ that recently bothered Mrs. Clinton might be considered as a diplomatic disease that allowed her avoid attending open House hearing on the attacks in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya in September.

This assassination was a direct sequence of the failures of the US foreign policy in the Middle East for the last years, as it was recognizedby Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism:

…The Libyan revolution freed up the hands of all kinds of extremists groups and gave rise to widespread terrorism. Another example of this is Syria where members of al-Qaida in Iraq have been trying to gain a permanent foothold on opposition’s side. The revolutions that swept the region last year had led to a dangerous upsurge of extremism and widespread instability.

A US confidential report elaborated by the independent commission with regard to Benghazi assault deserves special attention. Its conclusions have obviously influenced the US decision to suspend further aggravation of the situation in Syria. Although it can hardly make the United States abandon the plan of regional destabilization, it certainly dictates more caution to be taken in order not to discredit definitely the US foreign policy. Undesired revelations of the real motives behind the Arab Spring would maze both American civil society confident that Washington fights against terrorism worldwide and the US allies, who are barely informed that they are offered as pawns in a geopolitical game.

Source
Oriental Review (Russia)

A “humanitarian intervention” in Syria – 150 years ago

 

by Pascal Herren

 

On 16 August 1860, a French expeditionary force landed in Beirut.

According to Napoleon III, the French military were going to “restore order” in Syria,

then an Ottoman province.

Regarded today as the first example of “the right to intervene on humanitarian grounds”,

the military intervention actually served to increase France’s economic stranglehold in the region.

 

A humanitarian intervention in Syria? Humanitarian grounds had already been used in 1860 … precisely by France as a pretext to intervene militarily in Syria, then an Ottoman province. In this article, Geneva University scholar Pascal Herren lays bare the true intentions of France under Napoleon III, which were every bit as disreputable as those pursued under Sarkozy or Hollande. He also brings to light the dire consequences that befell the peoples of the region.

A humanitarian intervention in Syria is recurrently demanded; it should put an end to the suffering which the population has been exposed to since 2011 due to the struggles between the regime and the armed opposition. The main responsibility for these fights is attributed – rightly or wrongly – to the government.

So, this relief effort would involve overthrowing the current regime. It is suspected to have indirectly started several months ago, when the insurgents were armed and also agents and foreign troops were deployed into the area. However, the use of force on the territory of a foreign country without the consent of the competent authorities contradicts the principle of state sovereignty enshrined in the UN Charter. Use of force between states is prohibited with the exception of the case of legitimate defense or a joint action decided by the Security Council.

The International Court of Justice has condemned the military support, which the Reagan administration gave to the insurgent Nicaraguan Contras, struggling to overthrow the Sandinista government in 1986. The Court of Justice had even specified that such support was not suitable to secure the respect for human rights, even though Washington accused the regime of having committed atrocities.

These legal obstacles have not prevented a unilateral practice from developing, officially reasoned with altruistic motives, as for example the bombing of former Yugoslavia during the Kosovo crisis in 1999, or the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The most recent example in this series represents the action in Libya in 2011, where some States have admitted that it went far beyond the means the Security Council’s resolution of 1973 had admitted.

On 17 November 2012, French President François Hollande received at the Elysée Palace the president of the “National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces,” concocted ​​in Doha less than a week before. Despite its extendable name, this new brainchild of the West and the Gulf monarchies is incapable of unifying the opposition, but its existence has been used to justify the release of 1.2 million euros in the name of “emergency humanitarian aid.” And military career men are part and parcel of the panorama.

 

A norm of higher, universal type is cited as justification for these unilateral interventions: the obligation to protect the life of any population against oppressive massive threats. But this principle, perfectly legitimate in itself, depends exclusively on the goodwill of the intervening. How can you make sure that somebody uses this arrogated, immense power and uses violence against another State to pursue other reprehensible targets? The history is full of “just” wars, which turned out very badly for the affected populations. The great jurist from Neuchâtel, Emer de Vattel, had already condemned the subjugation of the Indians of America by the conquistadores in 1758. This subjugation was also done under the pretext of freeing them from tyrants.

The experts in this question were always looking out for a precedent, showing that an intervening power led such an action in an irreproachable style. For long they believed to have found it in the expedition carried out in 1860, which concerned the Ottoman province of Syria, also including the area of today’s Lebanon. From May to August 1860 between 17,000 and 23,000 people, most of them of Christian faith, were massacred in the mountains of Lebanon and Damascus in battles that took place between different tribal communities. When this message arrived in Europe it raised a public shock. The Ottoman authorities were accused of having encouraged the abuse of power by the Druze militias in the Lebanon Mountains and by the insurgents in Damascus; they were even accused of having lent a hand.

Napoleon III decided to send an expedition corps of 6,000 men on site to put an end to the “carnage”, and with the approval of the other European powers. The French troops stayed in the area for less than a year. After peace had returned and they had reorganized the authorities which resulted in maintaining civil peace up to the First World War, they withdrew. Still today some lawyers who are totally opposed to the right to humanitarian intervention, concede that this action in 1860 has perhaps been the only “real” humanitarian intervention of the 19 th century.

Looking closer, however, the disputes that erupted between the various communities in 1860 had also been fomented by the “clientelism” practiced by the European powers towards the local minorities at that time. It should be noted here that huge interests were at stake. They concerned the distribution of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, which was bitterly disputed among the major powers of Europe. Syria is located at the strategically important road to India, the jewel of the British Kingdom. France did not hide its interest in this area that promises many opportunities for trade. Russia had already sought to extend its territory to the South for long. To reach their aims, everyone based on a local community, which he exploited: the French were protectors of the Catholics; the Russians defended the Orthodox, the British acted as a sponsor of the Druze.

During the period following the intervention of 1860, France extended its economic influence on Lebanon so much that 50% of the active Lebanese population were working in the French silk production in 1914. This whole sector of the economy perished when the French industry decided to give up the Lebanese suppliers. As a result they lost their basis of life.

A year later, in 1915, the British and French allies organized the blockade of the Syrian coasts by preventing food deliveries for this region into the country, which was highly dependent on grain imports, the aim was to encourage the Arab provinces to rise against the Central Government in Istanbul, which was an ally of Germany’s Wilhelm II in the First World War. The result was an unprecedented famine: 200,000 deaths in the Centre and in the North of the Lebanon Mountains and 300,000 in the rest of Syria.

As early as in 1840, François Guizot, former ambassador of France in London, had summed up the geopolitical considerations prevailing in the European courts, which in his eyes followed the policy of the British foreign minister Lord Palmerston, as follows: “There, in the depth of any valley, on top of any mountain in the Lebanon Mountains, there are husbands, women, children, who love each other, who enjoy life and who will be massacred tomorrow, because Lord Palmerston, while travelling on the train from London to Southampton, will have said to himself: ‘Syria must rise, I need an uprising in Syria, if Syria does not rise, I am a fool.’”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Bahrain, a Brutal Ally

By Zainab al-Khawaja New York Times, December 25, 2012 Earlier this month, Aqeel Abdul Mohsen, 19, was shot in the face for protesting against Bahrain’s government. He was covered in blood, with the lower side of his face blown open, his jaw shattered, and a broken hand hanging awkwardly from his wrist. It’s one of those images that you wish you had never seen, and can never forget.   After more than 10 hours of surgery, and before Mr. Abdul Mohsen regained consciousness, his hospital room was already under guard by the police. Had he been able to speak, he might even have been interrogated before going into surgery. Others have lain bleeding without medical attention while government security agents asked questions like: “Were you participating in a protest? Who else was with you?” Bahrain, a small island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia, has been ruled by the Khalifa family for more than 200 years. It is also home to the headquarters of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which patrols regional shipping lanes, assists with missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and monitors Iran as tensions in the region mount. The oppressed people of Bahrain joined the Arab Spring soon after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. With newfound hope, Bahrainis took to the streets on Feb. 14, 2011. Rich and poor, Shiite and Sunni, liberal and religious, they felt what it was like to speak freely for the first time in the capital, Manama, at a traffic circle with a pearl monument at its center. The Pearl Roundabout came to symbolize the Bahraini revolution. But this newfound freedom didn’t last long. The government’s security forces attacked the peaceful protesters, then tore down the Pearl monument. And in March 2011, troops from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened to suppress our pro-democracy protests. Going out on the streets, carrying nothing but a flag and calling for democracy could cost you your life here. Chanting “down with the dictator” could lead to your being subjected to electric shocks. Giving a speech about human rights and democracy can lead to life imprisonment. Infants have died after suffocating from toxic gases used by riot police. And teenage protesters have been shot and killed. It’s not unusual in Bahrain to find families with four or five members in prison at the same time. My father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, was beaten unconscious in my apartment in front of my family, as a report last year by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry documented. He was then taken away with my husband and brother-in-law; they were all tortured. My husband was released in January, and my brother-in-law was released after a six-month sentence in late 2011; my father was sentenced to life in prison. He staged four hunger strikes; the longest lasted 110 days and almost cost him his life. (He was force-fed at a military hospital.) But despite all these sacrifices, the struggle for freedom and democracy in Bahrain seems hopeless because Bahrain’s rulers have powerful allies, including Saudi Arabia and the United States.   For Bahrainis, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between the Saudis and the Americans. Both are supporting the Khalifa regime to preserve their own interests, even if the cost is the lives and rights of the people of Bahrain. The United States speaks about supporting human rights and democracy, but while the Saudis send troops to aid the Khalifa government, America is sending arms. The United States is doing itself a huge disservice by displaying such an obvious double standard toward human rights violations in the Middle East. Washington condemns the violence of the Syrian government but turns a blind eye to blatant human rights abuses committed by its ally Bahrain. This double standard is costing America its credibility across the region; and the message being understood is that if you are an ally of America, then you can get away with abusing human rights.   If the United States is serious about protecting human rights in the Arab world, it should halt all arms sales to Bahrain, bring Bahrain’s abuses to the attention of the United Nations Security Council, support a special session on Bahrain at the United Nations Human Rights Council, and begin a conversation about potential diplomatic and economic sanctions. The Obama administration should also demand that high-level Bahraini officials be held accountable for human rights abuses, and that nongovernmental organizations, United Nations human rights investigators and journalists be allowed to enter the country and investigate abuses.   At present, the Bahraini government believes it has international immunity. It commits widespread human rights violations, and business continues as usual: the government continues to buy arms and negotiate lucrative deals, without having to face any real consequences. This is why the most prominent Bahraini human-rights defenders are languishing in prison. Until the United States starts to put real pressure on its ally, Bahrain’s government has no incentive to change.   No matter the price, Bahrainis will keep demanding the very values – human rights and democracy – that the United States claims to stand for. It is an outrage that America continues to back a regime that tramples them. River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

US deploying troops to 35 African countries

U.S. Marines arrive with equipment at the United States embassy in Monrovia, Liberia (Reuters / Luc Gnago)

 

Published: 24 December, 2012, 20:29

 

The United States Army will be deploying troops to nearly three-dozen African nations in the coming year.

Soldiers based out of Fort Riley, Kansas’ 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division will begin training in March 2013 in order to prepare for a project that will send troops to as many as 35 African nations, the Associated Press reports.

Citing a growing threat from extremist groups, including those with ties to al-Qaeda, the Department of Defense is hoping to install American soldiers overseas in order to prepare local troops there for any future crises as tensions escalate.

Earlier this month, DoD sources with insider knowledge told the Washington Post that US troops will soon be en route to the nation of Mali in order to thwart the emerging threat of Islamic extremists, including al-Qaeda aligned insurgents. With the latest news from the Pentagon, though, Mali will be just one of many African nations hosting US troops in the coming year.

According to the AP’s update this week, soldiers will be sent overseas in the new year to assist only with training and equipping efforts, and are not necessarily permitted to participate in military operations. Should the Pentagon ask the troops to engage in battle, however, the secretary of defense could sign off on an order that would allow as much.

“If they want them for (military) operations, the brigade is our first sourcing solution because they’re prepared,” Gen. David Rodriguez, the head of U.S. Army Forces Command, tells the AP. “But that has to go back to the secretary of defense to get an execute order.”

Additionally, the AP says that US troops will head specifically to Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger in order to prepare for any advances from al-Qaeda linked groups. Americans will also train and equip forces in Kenya and Somalia, reportedly, in order to stand up to al-Shabab militants. Despite the troops being deployed to more than half of the countries in Africa, though, the AP reports that Uncle Sam will try to avoid giving the impression that the United States is leaving a substantial footprint across the continent.

“The challenge we have is to always understand the system in their country,” explains Rodriguez. “We’re not there to show them our system, we’re there to make their system work. Here is what their army looks like, and here is what we need to prepare them to do.”

Sources speaking with the AP say that the United States has already prepared nearly 100 different exercises and training programs to conduct with African troops during the coming year.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Egyptian approve ‘Islamic Constitution’, really!

Posted on December 26, 2012 |

On Tuesday, the civilized world was shocked to learn that 63.8% Egyptian voters said yes to president Morsi’s blessed Islamic Consitution based on horrible Biblical punishments and Talmudic racism against non-Muslims with no freedom of speech as per American Hate Law.

Yes sir, you heard me right. The scary ‘Islamic Constitution’ recognizes Jewish occupation of Palestine, West’s right to exploit country’s natural resources and bring pro-Israel regime changes in Egypt’s antisemite neighbors – allows country’s Christian minorities to build new churches and preach their religion among Muslim majority and half-naked tourists to enjoy country’s beautiful beeches. It also allows top military officials to visit United States and Israel for “strategic consultation” and learn how to control “Islamic terrorism” against the US and Israeli interests.

But since the Constitution was drafted by members of anti-West-Israel Muslim Brotherhood – it cannot be compatible with the western democracies, religious tolerance or freedom of speech including the 15 European nations where challenging the Holocaust figures (six million) is a crime punishable with 3-year in jail.

Abul Maati, president of the National Electoral Commission, has rejected the Islamophobe opposition claims that the refrendum was supervised by fake judges – one of many allegations of polling fraud.

The opposition groups showed their curious sense of democratic process. They decided to boycott the referendum because they did not like the words “Islam” and “Islamic” in the drafted Constitution. So instead of fighting the Shari’ah-based draft – they let it win hands-down!

When America’s top Muslim-hating bigot Jew like David Horowitz’s website FrontPage calls Egyptian Constitution being based on Islamic Shari’ah – one can figure out how Islamic it could be.
Jewish professor Juan Cole made an antisemitic observation on his blog ‘Informed Comment’ on December 25 – that Israel have posed the greatest threat to the Christian minorities in the Middle East – while “Christians in Egypt have clearly been invigorated by the new press and political freedoms in post-Mubarak Egypt, and are gaining an important set of political voices“.

“Israeli occupation has made life in East Jerusalem and the West Bank increasingly unbearable, spurring emigration abroad of Palestinian Christians, who once made up 10 to 20 percent of the Palestinian population. Because they are Christians, these Palestinians may find it easier to get visas to the West,” wrote Juan Cole. Christians population in Israel has been reduced to less than 1%. In Gaza Strip, Christians make 1.9% of the total 1.5 million population.

Mark Glenn, American Catholic writer, author and radio talk-show host, once left this comment on this blog: “As a Christian I can state without reservation that the only hope Christian civilization has of being rescued from eventual destruction by Jewish interests is by allying itself with the Muslim world“.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

The Magnitsky Act, Another US Provocation Against Russia

Yusuf Fernandez

On December 6, the US House and Senate passed as a law the so-called “Magnitsky Act,” which was shortly after signed by President Barack Obama. The approval of the act was hailed by Congress and the US media as “an important step in the cause of human rights and democracy”.

The law is directed specifically at Russian officials suspected of being responsible for the prison death of the financier Sergei Magnitsky in 2009, but it also contains US visa and financial sanctions against all Russian officials allegedly guilty of “gross violations of human rights”.

According to some media, the Act´s sponsors were motivated by their hostility to Russia rather than by any real concern for democracy and human rights. In fact, the Act´s main lobbyist, William Browder, head of the London-based Hermitage hedge fund, is currently under investigation in Russia on suspicion of tax evasion.

The approval of “Magnitsky Act” is also a reflection of the prevailing anti-Russian sentiment in the US Congress, said Alexander Strakanov, Director of the Institute of Russian language, History and Culture at Lyndon College in the state of Vermont, to the Voice of Russia. In recent years, US Congress has been undermining US-Russian cooperation in several areas from Afghanistan to international terrorism.

Some experts have pointed out that the Act violates US and international law. Firstly, the list of the individuals who will be sanctioned can be based on information and data provided by US NGOs and interest groups. That means that Russian authorities can now rightly suppose that US NGOs working in Russia are involved in espionage activities. On the other hand, some US interest groups can try to promote their economic or political goals by accusing Russian officials of all kind of crimes and offences. Secondly, the act violates the principles of due process and presumption of innocence. And thirdly, it is an open interference in Russia´s internal affairs.

“I qualify the Magnistky Act as a discriminatory law against Russia”, Russian political observer Mikhail Remizov told the Voice of Russia. “Moreover, the act presupposes arrests of Russian citizens in the US without any decision of any court, which is an unprecedented step. It is only a court that has the right to take such decisions, not any other political body. I believe that this decision was politically motivated. The fact that this decision was initiated by a congressman and approved by the US State Secretary is evidence that it was politically motivated.”

President Putin called the approval of the Magnistky Act an “unfriendly and politicized act” and added that even if there had been no Magnitsky´s case, the US authorities would have probably invented another pretext to show that the United States is “the boss of the entire world”, although no one has ever given this country the authority to be such. “If the US adopts any other discriminatory laws against Russia like the Magnitsky Act, Russia will also respond with more sanctions against the US,” President Putin warned.

Putin made it clear that US has no legitimacy to criticize other countries on the human rights issue and recalled the “medieval” conditions at Guantanamo Bay. “At Guantanamo, they keep people in prison for years without any charges,” Putin said at a news conference in Moscow. “People there go around in shackles, like in medieval times”.

Russian response

Some days after the Magnitsky Act was passed, the Russian parliament´s lower house, Duma, adopted “the Dima Yakovlev law” that suspends the activities of US NGOs operating in Russia. The law also bans those US officials, who have illegally put Russian nationals in prison or sentenced Russian citizens to “unreasonably severe punishments”, from receiving entry visas to Russia. A similar ban has been put in place against agents of US secret services who have kidnapped Russian citizens.

Besides, the law sets a ban for US citizens to adopt Russian children. The law was dubbed “Dima Yakovlev” in memory of a Russian boy who died because his American adoptive father forgot him in a car. It is only another case in which Russian children have been neglected, humiliated or even killed by US adoptive parents. In the last 20 years, 19 Russian children have been killed by their US adoptive parents or died due to their US adoptive parents´ faults.

At the same time, Russia has required all shipments of US meat to be tested and proved free of a controversial animal feed additive: the ractopamine. The measure effectively amounts to a ban because the US considers ractopamine safe and does not test for it. However, the US claims that the move violates WTO regulations. “These Russian demands constitute a political retaliation to the U.S. Senate passing the Magnitsky Act,” ITAR-TASS quoted unnamed representatives of the US Meat Export Federation as saying.

Strategic clash

In reality, the “Magnitsky Act” is another sign of the deterioration of the relations between the United States and Russia. The Russian foreign ministry stated that the act was “nothing but a vindictive desire to counter Russia in world affairs”.
Russia has rejected NATO expansionist policies and has blocked the incorporation of Ukraine and Georgia into the Western alliance. At the same time, Moscow had condemned the deployment of parts of a US missile defence system (ABM) in Eastern Europe because it threatens Russian nuclear missiles, which are the pillar of the Russian power and deterrence.

In the Middle East, Moscow and Washington have also different approaches. Moscow regards the US-led efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a major threat to Russian interests in the Middle East. Russia also rejects US´s policy –based on sanctions and threats- towards the Iranian nuclear program. These and other issues have brought both countries closer to a new cold war. Russia is backed by China in its opposition to Western aggressive policies towards Syria and Iran.

A joint statement at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which took place in Beijing in June 2012, stated that Russia and China would keep on safeguarding the “fruits of the Second World War and the post-war political order, according to the United Nations´ Charter and the basic principles of international law.”

This statement was a direct warning to the United States, which both Russia and China have criticised for violating international law during the military interventions in Iraq and Libya. A Russian media outlet said: “Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have established effective cooperation to protect their interests against some global powers that are used to settling problems by force.” This was clearly an announcement that the SCO will not allow the US to penetrate into the Eurasian heartland or change unfriendly regimes, which has strong links with Moscow and Beijing.
Therefore, China and Russia are trying to make the SCO a coordinating body for the states of Central and South Asia in the sphere of economic and security cooperation. The block has become a more valuable and effective tool for them in order to counter the US’s containment strategy toward them.
At the same time, Moscow is trying to create another block, the Eurasian Union, similar to the European Union. In November, Russia signed an agreement with Belarus and Kazakhstan as a first step towards this goal. Other eight countries are expected to join the new organization.

For its part, the US is worried about the Russia and China´s attemps to achieve an Eurasian economic and political integration under their influence. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in December that Washington would do its best to prevent or slow down what she said was a Russian attempt to “re-Sovietize” the former Soviet space. “It is going to be called a customs union, it will be called Eurasia Union and all of that. But let´s make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it,” she said. For his part, Putin said that Clinton´s remarks were “rubbish”.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!