Saturday, September 02, 2006
Israel plans for war with Iran and Syria
The Sunday Times
"THREATENED by a potentially nuclear-armed Tehran, Israel is preparing for a possible war with both Iran and Syria, according to Israeli political and military sources.
The conflict with Hezbollah has led to a strategic rethink in Israel. A key conclusion is that too much attention has been paid to Palestinian militants in Gaza and the West Bank instead of the two biggest state sponsors of terrorism in the region, who pose a far greater danger to Israel’s existence, defence insiders say.
There has been grave concern in Israel over a military pact signed in Tehran on June 15 between Iran and Syria, which the Iranian defence minister described as a “mutual front against Israeli threats”. Israel has not had to fight against more than one army since 1973.
“If they had acted against Syria during this last kerfuffle, the war might have ended more quickly and better,” Perle added. “Syrian military installations are sitting ducks and the Syrian air force could have been destroyed on the ground in a couple of days.”
Advocates of political engagement believe a war with Syria could unleash Islamic fundamentalist terror in what has hitherto been a stable dictatorship. Some voices in the Pentagon are not impressed by that argument.
“If Syria spirals into chaos, at least they’ll be taking on each other rather than heading for Jerusalem,” said one insider."
"THREATENED by a potentially nuclear-armed Tehran, Israel is preparing for a possible war with both Iran and Syria, according to Israeli political and military sources.
The conflict with Hezbollah has led to a strategic rethink in Israel. A key conclusion is that too much attention has been paid to Palestinian militants in Gaza and the West Bank instead of the two biggest state sponsors of terrorism in the region, who pose a far greater danger to Israel’s existence, defence insiders say.
There has been grave concern in Israel over a military pact signed in Tehran on June 15 between Iran and Syria, which the Iranian defence minister described as a “mutual front against Israeli threats”. Israel has not had to fight against more than one army since 1973.
“If they had acted against Syria during this last kerfuffle, the war might have ended more quickly and better,” Perle added. “Syrian military installations are sitting ducks and the Syrian air force could have been destroyed on the ground in a couple of days.”
Advocates of political engagement believe a war with Syria could unleash Islamic fundamentalist terror in what has hitherto been a stable dictatorship. Some voices in the Pentagon are not impressed by that argument.
“If Syria spirals into chaos, at least they’ll be taking on each other rather than heading for Jerusalem,” said one insider."
Genocide in Gaza
By Ilan Pappe
(Ilan Pappe is senior lecturer in the University of Haifa Department of political Science and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies in Haifa. His books include among others The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (London and New York 1992), The Israel/Palestine Question (London and New York 1999), A History of Modern Palestine (Cambridge 2003), The Modern Middle East (London and New York 2005) and forthcoming, Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006))
"A genocide is taking place in Gaza. This morning, 2 September, another three citizens of Gaza were killed and a whole family wounded in Beit Hanoun. This is the morning reap, before the end of day many more will be massacred. An average of eight Palestinian die daily in the Israeli attacks on the Strip. Most of them are children. Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed.
The conventional Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing employed successfully in 1948 against half of Palestine’s population, and against hundred of thousand of Palestinians in the West Bank are not useful here. You can slowly transfer Palestinians out of the West Bank, and particular out of the Greater Jerusalem area, but you can not do it in the Gaza Strip - once you sealed it as a maximum-security prison camp.
Even before the abduction of Giald Shalit, the Israeli army bombarded indiscriminately the Strip. Ever since the abduction, the massive killing increased and became systematic. A daily business of slaying Palestinians, mainly children is now reported in the internal pages of the local press, quite often in microscopic fonts.
The Lebanon war provided the fog for a while, covering the war crimes in the Gaza Strip. But the policies rage on even after the conclusion of the cease-fire up in the north. It seems that the frustrated and defeated Israeli army is even more determined to enlarge the killing fields in the Gaza Strip. There are no politicians who are able or willing to stop the generals. A daily killing of up to 10 civilians is going to leave few thousands dead each year.
Much depends on the international reaction. When Israel was absolved from any responsibility or accountably for the ethnic cleansing in 1948, it turned this policy into a legitimate tool for its national security agenda. If the present escalation and adaptation of genocidal policies would be tolerated by the world, it would expand and used even more drastically.
Nothing apart from pressure in the from of sanctions, boycott and divestment will stop the murdering of innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip. There is nothing we here in Israel can do against it. Brave pilots refused to partake in the operations, two journalists – out of 150 – do not cease to write about it, but this is it. In the name of the holocaust memory let us hope the world would not allow the genocide of Gaza to continue."
When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is "Anti-Semitic"
Blanket Immunity from War Crimes
By STANLEY HELLER
CounterPunch
"The Israeli paper Ha'aretz reports that the head of Germany's Jewish community accused a minister in Angela Merkel's German government of "anti-Semitism" because of the minister's statement on Israel's use of cluster bombs. Development Aid Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul had asked for a United Nations probe into Israel's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.
It was known that in the last days of the war the Israeli army was engaged in a desperate attempt to have some "victory" and rushed troops here and there in an attempt to have a photo shoot near the Litani River. What was not known until now was the blind spite that sowed the ground of South Lebanon with a massive number of bomblets.
Responding to a report by Human Rights Watch charging Israel with war crimes in its conduct of the war in Lebanon that was written by its director Kenneth Roth, Rabbi Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel has called Roth "loathsome." An editorial in the New York Sun accused Roth of "de-legitimization of Judaism" because his group condemned Israel's strategy as "an eye for an eye." The fact that Kenneth Roth is Jewish and his father fled Nazi Germany makes no difference to the Ultras. If you do not support Israel 110% you are a Jew-hater, a renegade, a self-hater, and a holocaust denier. Get it?
In a very encouraging development hundreds of U.S. Jews are calling for strong measures to be taken against the Israeli government including a cut off of U.S. aid and U.N. sanctions. Over 800 have signed the statement calling for "U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East". It states "we are outraged by the violence being perpetrated in our name both as Jews and as U.S. citizens. We, the undersigned, represent Jews across the United States who are choosing to stand in solidarity with the peoples of Gaza and Lebanon". It includes the statement, "There is no Jewish safety in a country that rehearses the violence and persecution which Ashkenazi Jews experienced for centuries through the annihilation of the Palestinian people and their homeland." The signers are collecting money for a full page in the New York Times and are just $800 away from their goal. The petition can be found at http://www.jewishsolidarity.info/petition.php
It was after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon that U.S. Jews in significant numbers began open and trenchant criticisms of Israel. Chomsky's watershed "The Fateful Triangle" was published that year. Hopefully there will be even bigger shows of outrage this time around."
By STANLEY HELLER
CounterPunch
"The Israeli paper Ha'aretz reports that the head of Germany's Jewish community accused a minister in Angela Merkel's German government of "anti-Semitism" because of the minister's statement on Israel's use of cluster bombs. Development Aid Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul had asked for a United Nations probe into Israel's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.
It was known that in the last days of the war the Israeli army was engaged in a desperate attempt to have some "victory" and rushed troops here and there in an attempt to have a photo shoot near the Litani River. What was not known until now was the blind spite that sowed the ground of South Lebanon with a massive number of bomblets.
Responding to a report by Human Rights Watch charging Israel with war crimes in its conduct of the war in Lebanon that was written by its director Kenneth Roth, Rabbi Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel has called Roth "loathsome." An editorial in the New York Sun accused Roth of "de-legitimization of Judaism" because his group condemned Israel's strategy as "an eye for an eye." The fact that Kenneth Roth is Jewish and his father fled Nazi Germany makes no difference to the Ultras. If you do not support Israel 110% you are a Jew-hater, a renegade, a self-hater, and a holocaust denier. Get it?
In a very encouraging development hundreds of U.S. Jews are calling for strong measures to be taken against the Israeli government including a cut off of U.S. aid and U.N. sanctions. Over 800 have signed the statement calling for "U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East". It states "we are outraged by the violence being perpetrated in our name both as Jews and as U.S. citizens. We, the undersigned, represent Jews across the United States who are choosing to stand in solidarity with the peoples of Gaza and Lebanon". It includes the statement, "There is no Jewish safety in a country that rehearses the violence and persecution which Ashkenazi Jews experienced for centuries through the annihilation of the Palestinian people and their homeland." The signers are collecting money for a full page in the New York Times and are just $800 away from their goal. The petition can be found at http://www.jewishsolidarity.info/petition.php
It was after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon that U.S. Jews in significant numbers began open and trenchant criticisms of Israel. Chomsky's watershed "The Fateful Triangle" was published that year. Hopefully there will be even bigger shows of outrage this time around."
HOW CAN YOU FORM A "GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL UNITY" WITH AN USRAELI STOOGE? WHO ARE YOU KIDDING?
THE PALESTINIANS DESERVE SOMETHING BETTER
It looks like Hamas has been fully snared in the Oslo net and now "national unity" is the demand of the EU, the US, Kofi Annan, the puppet Arab regimes and probably Israel. With a consensus such as this, count me as one Palestinian against such unity.
Goats and Hussars: A British Harbinger of American Defeat
By Chris Floyd
"You'd have to wait a long time - perhaps to the end of the "Long War" - to get a straight answer from Rumsfeld on that one, but this precise scenario, transposed from Lower Saxony to Maysan province, unfolded in Iraq last week, when British forces abandoned their base at Abu Naji and disappeared into the desert wastes and marshes along the Iranian border. The move was largely ignored by the American media, but the implications are enormous. The UK contingent of the invading coalition has always been the proverbial canary in the mine shaft: if they can't make a go of things in what we've long been told is the "secure south," where friendly Shiites hold absolute sway, then the entire misbegotten Bush-Blair enterprise is well and truly FUBAR.
The Queen's Royal Hussars, 1,200-strong, abruptly decamped from the three-year-old base last Thursday after taking constant mortar and missile fire for months from those same friendly Shiites. The move was touted as part of a long-planned, eventual turnover of security in the region to the Coalition-backed Iraqi central government, but there was just one problem: the Brits forgot to tell the Iraqis they were checking out early - and in a hurry.
In other words, the British move makes no sense - if you accept the official spin at face value, i.e., that it's an act of careful deliberation aimed at furthering the Coalition's stated goals of a free, secure, democratic Iraq. But those in the reality-based community will see it for what it is: a panicky, patchwork reaction to events and forces far beyond the Coalition's intentions or control.
The goat is gone. The canary is dying. The surrender and sack of Abu Naji is a preview of what's to come, on a much larger scale of death and chaos, as the bloodsoaked folly of Bush and Blair's war howls toward its miserable end."
"You'd have to wait a long time - perhaps to the end of the "Long War" - to get a straight answer from Rumsfeld on that one, but this precise scenario, transposed from Lower Saxony to Maysan province, unfolded in Iraq last week, when British forces abandoned their base at Abu Naji and disappeared into the desert wastes and marshes along the Iranian border. The move was largely ignored by the American media, but the implications are enormous. The UK contingent of the invading coalition has always been the proverbial canary in the mine shaft: if they can't make a go of things in what we've long been told is the "secure south," where friendly Shiites hold absolute sway, then the entire misbegotten Bush-Blair enterprise is well and truly FUBAR.
The Queen's Royal Hussars, 1,200-strong, abruptly decamped from the three-year-old base last Thursday after taking constant mortar and missile fire for months from those same friendly Shiites. The move was touted as part of a long-planned, eventual turnover of security in the region to the Coalition-backed Iraqi central government, but there was just one problem: the Brits forgot to tell the Iraqis they were checking out early - and in a hurry.
In other words, the British move makes no sense - if you accept the official spin at face value, i.e., that it's an act of careful deliberation aimed at furthering the Coalition's stated goals of a free, secure, democratic Iraq. But those in the reality-based community will see it for what it is: a panicky, patchwork reaction to events and forces far beyond the Coalition's intentions or control.
The goat is gone. The canary is dying. The surrender and sack of Abu Naji is a preview of what's to come, on a much larger scale of death and chaos, as the bloodsoaked folly of Bush and Blair's war howls toward its miserable end."
Friday, September 01, 2006
The shaping of cultures
GOOD ANALYSIS:
By Azmi Bishara
"You see sons being groomed for monarchical succession in republics that are still caricatures of Bonapartism and Mameluke despotism. Ironically, these heirs apparent always begin their careers by condemning corruption, yet they are one of the foremost manifestations of corruption.
There is the division into regional axes, with political leaders changing positions as though they were playing musical chairs. One day they'll deride Arab nationalism and Arab identity if it is used to promote modernism, to resist Israel or combat the American drive to partition Iraq. The next day they'll turn around and use these concepts against Iran. Just to hear a Saudi official defending Arab identity makes your head spin.
There is the Palestinian government under siege, Palestinian society being destroyed. International delegations meet the Palestinian president and snub the democratically elected Palestinian government, while in Lebanon they meet the government and snub the president. Washington could not order non-Arab countries such as Turkey or Russia not to receive elected Hamas officials but it has no problem laying down the law with Arab governments. The same governments which attacked Hizbullah because of its Shia affiliation are the same ones that attack Sunni-affiliated Hamas. Such are the inconsistencies of the pro-American axis.
Even more worrying is the unprecedented drive to inflame sectarian discord and drive a wedge between Sunni and Shia Muslims, as though they were mutually hostile tribal groups rather than adherents to differing Islamic doctrines. In the past, non-democratic governments based their legitimacy upon a doctrine of national unity that they were uniquely poised to embody. Now we see non- democratic regimes fuelling sectarian strife and national disunity in order to perpetuate themselves.
I believe that the Iranian-supported Lebanese party should not act towards Iran as communist parties acted towards Moscow in the days of the Soviet Union. Iran is not infallible, and it is certainly less than innocent in Iraq, where it is helping to promote sectarian strife in order to further its own regional ambitions. One can understand Hizbullah's predicament because of its material dependence on Iran. However, the party still has considerable room for manoeuvre because of the popular support it has received in the Arab world, which it can turn to its advantage without having to lose Iran's support.
Modesty, action instead of words, persistence, organisation and judgement are the qualities that have distinguished Hizbullah over the past two decades, giving the Lebanese resistance its unique character. The party's greatest success is in having developed a workable model for resistance, ending inferiority complexes and defeatist theories based on the notion that Arabs are culturally or genetically flawed.
Generally, political movements tend to condemn this phenomenon only in others. Arab nationalists condemned the hero worship of Stalin yet these same people turned Gamal Abdel-Nasser into an icon in a similar way. The revolutionary left, which scoffed at both Stalinists and Nasserists, pinned up its pictures of Marx and Che Guevara. The problem with this is that it obviates critical thought because it voids the symbols of the ideas they are meant to embody. To personify an idea by vesting symbolic meaning in an individual is to elevate that individual beyond criticism. This immunity must inevitably alter the quality of the idea itself.
But an alternative to the prevailing political and social culture is urgently needed throughout the Arab world. Imitating Hizbullah is not the answer, because the nature of the mission is not the same. "
By Azmi Bishara
"You see sons being groomed for monarchical succession in republics that are still caricatures of Bonapartism and Mameluke despotism. Ironically, these heirs apparent always begin their careers by condemning corruption, yet they are one of the foremost manifestations of corruption.
There is the division into regional axes, with political leaders changing positions as though they were playing musical chairs. One day they'll deride Arab nationalism and Arab identity if it is used to promote modernism, to resist Israel or combat the American drive to partition Iraq. The next day they'll turn around and use these concepts against Iran. Just to hear a Saudi official defending Arab identity makes your head spin.
There is the Palestinian government under siege, Palestinian society being destroyed. International delegations meet the Palestinian president and snub the democratically elected Palestinian government, while in Lebanon they meet the government and snub the president. Washington could not order non-Arab countries such as Turkey or Russia not to receive elected Hamas officials but it has no problem laying down the law with Arab governments. The same governments which attacked Hizbullah because of its Shia affiliation are the same ones that attack Sunni-affiliated Hamas. Such are the inconsistencies of the pro-American axis.
Even more worrying is the unprecedented drive to inflame sectarian discord and drive a wedge between Sunni and Shia Muslims, as though they were mutually hostile tribal groups rather than adherents to differing Islamic doctrines. In the past, non-democratic governments based their legitimacy upon a doctrine of national unity that they were uniquely poised to embody. Now we see non- democratic regimes fuelling sectarian strife and national disunity in order to perpetuate themselves.
I believe that the Iranian-supported Lebanese party should not act towards Iran as communist parties acted towards Moscow in the days of the Soviet Union. Iran is not infallible, and it is certainly less than innocent in Iraq, where it is helping to promote sectarian strife in order to further its own regional ambitions. One can understand Hizbullah's predicament because of its material dependence on Iran. However, the party still has considerable room for manoeuvre because of the popular support it has received in the Arab world, which it can turn to its advantage without having to lose Iran's support.
Modesty, action instead of words, persistence, organisation and judgement are the qualities that have distinguished Hizbullah over the past two decades, giving the Lebanese resistance its unique character. The party's greatest success is in having developed a workable model for resistance, ending inferiority complexes and defeatist theories based on the notion that Arabs are culturally or genetically flawed.
Generally, political movements tend to condemn this phenomenon only in others. Arab nationalists condemned the hero worship of Stalin yet these same people turned Gamal Abdel-Nasser into an icon in a similar way. The revolutionary left, which scoffed at both Stalinists and Nasserists, pinned up its pictures of Marx and Che Guevara. The problem with this is that it obviates critical thought because it voids the symbols of the ideas they are meant to embody. To personify an idea by vesting symbolic meaning in an individual is to elevate that individual beyond criticism. This immunity must inevitably alter the quality of the idea itself.
But an alternative to the prevailing political and social culture is urgently needed throughout the Arab world. Imitating Hizbullah is not the answer, because the nature of the mission is not the same. "
Sanctions: Another Step in the Shock and Awe of Iran
By Kurt Nimmo
"Iran fully understands what the U.S. under the rule of the perfidious neocons plans to do—all they need do is look west toward Iraq.
It should be obvious what the neocons have in mind for Iran—and all Muslim nations in the Middle East—complete social and cultural destruction, a process well underway in the hell hole of Iraq, at one time a first world country with a modern health care and educational system, now a smoldering wreck on par with ruined states in Africa.
Iran understands well this is the plan for them, as the Muslim hating neocons will not rest until Israel’s enemies are diseased, malnourished, without electricity or clean water, and wracked by tribal and ethnic violence.
In fact, the neocons are not interested in delivering “democracy” to Iran or any other Muslim country in the Middle East—the point is to destroy these countries, reduce them to their ethnic and tribal components, and make certain they do not challenge Israel. The “objective is the perpetuation of Arab disunity,” as Pepe Escobar notes, making reference to the situation in Iraq. It is a plan that will be unleashed against primarily non-Arab Iran, as well.
For the Zionist neocons, the fact a shock awe campaign against Iran will capsize the American economy and possibly usher in a new era of terrorism (more accurately defined as an asymmetrical response to state-sponsored terrorism) translates into a near perfect situation, as it will turn “natural, relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die” in the “clash of civilizations,” what Newt Gingrich, a goyim neocon, calls World War Three.
For the Straussian neocons, sanctions are but a necessary, albeit irksome, tap dance on the way to Armageddon."
"Iran fully understands what the U.S. under the rule of the perfidious neocons plans to do—all they need do is look west toward Iraq.
It should be obvious what the neocons have in mind for Iran—and all Muslim nations in the Middle East—complete social and cultural destruction, a process well underway in the hell hole of Iraq, at one time a first world country with a modern health care and educational system, now a smoldering wreck on par with ruined states in Africa.
Iran understands well this is the plan for them, as the Muslim hating neocons will not rest until Israel’s enemies are diseased, malnourished, without electricity or clean water, and wracked by tribal and ethnic violence.
In fact, the neocons are not interested in delivering “democracy” to Iran or any other Muslim country in the Middle East—the point is to destroy these countries, reduce them to their ethnic and tribal components, and make certain they do not challenge Israel. The “objective is the perpetuation of Arab disunity,” as Pepe Escobar notes, making reference to the situation in Iraq. It is a plan that will be unleashed against primarily non-Arab Iran, as well.
For the Zionist neocons, the fact a shock awe campaign against Iran will capsize the American economy and possibly usher in a new era of terrorism (more accurately defined as an asymmetrical response to state-sponsored terrorism) translates into a near perfect situation, as it will turn “natural, relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die” in the “clash of civilizations,” what Newt Gingrich, a goyim neocon, calls World War Three.
For the Straussian neocons, sanctions are but a necessary, albeit irksome, tap dance on the way to Armageddon."
A Palestinian woman stands in front of her house demolished by Israeli troops during a raid in Shijaiya, east of Gaza, August 31, 2006.(Reuters)
FRUITS OF THE USRAELI INVASION
Lebanese Darwish Abd el-Aal looks at an unexploded cluster bomb hanging on a tree in an orchard as he shows it to the media, in the southern village of Mansouri, Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 1, 2006. Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian chief on Wednesday accused Israel of 'shocking' and 'completely immoral' behaviour for dropping large numbers of cluster bombs on Lebanon when a cease-fire in its war with Hezbollah was in sight. (AP Photo)
STUPIDITY OF SOME PALESTINIANS; YOU WILL NOT SEE HIZBULLAH DOING THIS
Palestinian gunmen from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade fire their weapons during an anti-Israel rally in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus September 1, 2006. (REUTERS)
Israel: Beyond Good and Evil?
By Justin Raimondo
"The viciousness of the Israeli assault on Lebanon is underscored by the IDF's use of cluster bombs against civilian targets. As Jan Egeland, who heads up humanitarian operations for the United Nations, put it:
"What's shocking – and I would say to me completely immoral – is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution. Every day people are maimed, wounded, and are killed by these ordnance."
As close to a million refugees return to their homes, 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs – most of them dropped by the Israelis in the closing hours of the war – lie in wait for them and their children. Kids often pick up such ordnance because of its resemblance to toys. Such is the sickening legacy of the Israeli aggression, which will continue to deal death long after "peace" is declared.
This braying, swaggering arrogance is the sort of style one usually associates with the historic enemies of the Jewish people – jackbooted fascists and neo-Nazis, who wear their nihilistic ruthlessness on their sleeves alongside their swastika armbands. Here is yet more evidence of my thesis that Israeli society, deformed by perpetual war and disfigured by state controls, is morphing into a form of fascism, including a mass movement with global reach that mimics the historical forms of national socialism – minus, of course, the requisite anti-Semitism. The national-socialist Sparta of the Middle East, egged on by its radicalized American amen corner, is embarked on a campaign of aggression that can only end in disaster for all – the United States included."
"The viciousness of the Israeli assault on Lebanon is underscored by the IDF's use of cluster bombs against civilian targets. As Jan Egeland, who heads up humanitarian operations for the United Nations, put it:
"What's shocking – and I would say to me completely immoral – is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution. Every day people are maimed, wounded, and are killed by these ordnance."
As close to a million refugees return to their homes, 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs – most of them dropped by the Israelis in the closing hours of the war – lie in wait for them and their children. Kids often pick up such ordnance because of its resemblance to toys. Such is the sickening legacy of the Israeli aggression, which will continue to deal death long after "peace" is declared.
This braying, swaggering arrogance is the sort of style one usually associates with the historic enemies of the Jewish people – jackbooted fascists and neo-Nazis, who wear their nihilistic ruthlessness on their sleeves alongside their swastika armbands. Here is yet more evidence of my thesis that Israeli society, deformed by perpetual war and disfigured by state controls, is morphing into a form of fascism, including a mass movement with global reach that mimics the historical forms of national socialism – minus, of course, the requisite anti-Semitism. The national-socialist Sparta of the Middle East, egged on by its radicalized American amen corner, is embarked on a campaign of aggression that can only end in disaster for all – the United States included."
HIZBULLAH IMMEDIATELY STARTED THE RECONSTRUCTION. COMPARE WITH NEW ORLEANS AND FEMA A YEAR LATER
Trucks are loaded with rubble from buildings in the southern Beirut suburbs that were demolished during the recent Israeli attacks, August 31,2006.(Reuters)
THE HAMAS DIFFERENCE
A volunteer from Hamas clears the garbage in a street in Gaza City on the third day of a municipal workers strike, Friday, Sept. 1, 2006.(AP Photo)
HOME, SWEET HOME!
Lebanese civilians sit outside a tent in the village of Ghandouriyeh in south Lebanon August 31, 2006. Many houses were destroyed in Ghandouriyeh during the recent Israeli invasion. (REUTERS)
A Palestinian boy attends a Fatah rally in support of Hizbollah, in Gaza August 31, 2006. (REUTERS)
A Hamas supporter holds a poster of Palestinian Parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik of Hamas during a demonstration demanding the release of Dweik and other Palestinian parliamentarians from Israeli jails in the West Bank city of Hebron August 31, 2006. (REUTERS)
THE HAMAS DIFFERENCE
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (R) talks with residents after helping them clean a street of Gaza city September 1, 2006. (REUTERS)
THE HAMAS DIFFERENCE
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya sweeps the floor as part of a cleaning campaign with Hamas volunteers in Gaza City Friday, Sept. 1, 2006. Municipal workers, mainly responsible for garbage collection, water treatment, and sewage processing, went on strike in Gaza City and two other southern towns three days ago. Their action is part of a broader strike threat by unions linked to the opposition Fatah Party that is widely viewed as a pressure tactic to force Hamas to give in to demands to form a national unity government. (AP Photo)
GOON SQUAD
Israeli border police officers drag away an activist during a protest against Israel's Apartheid wall in the outskirts of the village of Bil'in, near the West Bank town of Ramallah, Friday, Sept 1, 2006. (AP Photo)
Hurtling towards the Next Intifada
An Interview with Jonathan Cook
"Ultimately, you conclude, there will be a third, “far deadlier intifada”. Could you specify the reasons that led you to this prognosis?
Vladimir Jabotinsky, the early leader of revisionist Zionism, coined the phrase the “iron wall”, meaning the use of unremitting force against a Palestinian population that he believed would never submit to their national dispossession and enslavement. Well he was right about the Palestinians refusing to submit willingly, I think, but a little optimistic that simple force would be enough to subdue them for good. You can’t steal from a people, then lock them up in prisons if they demand their possessions back, and expect them to keep quiet for ever. Israel can seal the Palestinians into a series of ghettos but that will not contain them indefinitely. Sooner or later they will find a way to fight back, even from behind their walls. My guess is that the next intifada will be called the Qassam intifada after the homemade rockets Palestinians fire out the Gaza Strip to try to hit Israeli communities. We are going to see more of that kind of resistance.
Also, my view is that in the longer term the convergence plan will envision sealing Israel’s Palestinian citizens into their own ghettoes, some severed from the new borders of the Jewish state and others corralled into areas where they will become effectively guest workers. So Israel is creating common cause among the region’s Palestinians, whether those in the occupied territories or those currently inside Israel. That raises the stakes on both sides considerably."
"Ultimately, you conclude, there will be a third, “far deadlier intifada”. Could you specify the reasons that led you to this prognosis?
Vladimir Jabotinsky, the early leader of revisionist Zionism, coined the phrase the “iron wall”, meaning the use of unremitting force against a Palestinian population that he believed would never submit to their national dispossession and enslavement. Well he was right about the Palestinians refusing to submit willingly, I think, but a little optimistic that simple force would be enough to subdue them for good. You can’t steal from a people, then lock them up in prisons if they demand their possessions back, and expect them to keep quiet for ever. Israel can seal the Palestinians into a series of ghettos but that will not contain them indefinitely. Sooner or later they will find a way to fight back, even from behind their walls. My guess is that the next intifada will be called the Qassam intifada after the homemade rockets Palestinians fire out the Gaza Strip to try to hit Israeli communities. We are going to see more of that kind of resistance.
Also, my view is that in the longer term the convergence plan will envision sealing Israel’s Palestinian citizens into their own ghettoes, some severed from the new borders of the Jewish state and others corralled into areas where they will become effectively guest workers. So Israel is creating common cause among the region’s Palestinians, whether those in the occupied territories or those currently inside Israel. That raises the stakes on both sides considerably."
Fascists? Look who's talking
By Jim Lobe
"The aggressive new campaign by the administration of President George W Bush to depict US foes in the Middle East as "fascists" and its domestic critics as "appeasers" owes a great deal to steadily intensifying efforts by the right-wing press over the past several months to draw the same comparison.
Israel-centered neo-conservatives and other hawks have long tried to depict foreign challenges to US power as replays of the 1930s in order to rally public opinion behind foreign interventions and high defense budgets and against domestic critics.
Given the growing public disillusionment in the US not only with the Iraq war but with Bush's handling of the larger GWOT as well - not to mention the imminence of the mid-term congressional elections in November and the growing tensions with Ahmadinejad's Iran over its nuclear program - it is hardly surprising that both the administration and its hawkish supporters are trying harder than ever to identify their current struggles, including last month's conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, specifically with the war against "fascism" more than 60 years ago."
"The aggressive new campaign by the administration of President George W Bush to depict US foes in the Middle East as "fascists" and its domestic critics as "appeasers" owes a great deal to steadily intensifying efforts by the right-wing press over the past several months to draw the same comparison.
Israel-centered neo-conservatives and other hawks have long tried to depict foreign challenges to US power as replays of the 1930s in order to rally public opinion behind foreign interventions and high defense budgets and against domestic critics.
Given the growing public disillusionment in the US not only with the Iraq war but with Bush's handling of the larger GWOT as well - not to mention the imminence of the mid-term congressional elections in November and the growing tensions with Ahmadinejad's Iran over its nuclear program - it is hardly surprising that both the administration and its hawkish supporters are trying harder than ever to identify their current struggles, including last month's conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, specifically with the war against "fascism" more than 60 years ago."
Saudi bid for influence shattered
RECOMMENDED READING
By Mahan Abedin
Asia Times
"The war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has exposed deep rifts between Iran and Syria on the one hand and the conservative and US-friendly regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt on the other. This was dramatically underlined by Saudi Arabia's unusually tough stance against Hezbollah at the outset of the conflict.
The Saudi stance against Hezbollah has less to do with fears of Iran's growing geopolitical weight than a demoralized reaction to the failure of its foreign policy in Lebanon. However, by choosing to side with the United States and Israel, the House of Saud risks deepening the dynamics that generate divisions and dissent in the kingdom.
While the Iranians were sympathetic to general Shi'ite grievances, they mostly encouraged the reform movement to attack the Saudis on account of their alliance with the United States, which they identified as its Achilles' heel. The Iranians hoped this would resonate with wider sections of Saudi society who had begun to question the wisdom of Saudi foreign policy, which seemed to be centered on squandering the nation's oil wealth and facilitating US hegemony in the region and beyond.
Saudi Arabia has long sought to curtail the power of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Privately, Saudi officials share the US and Israeli view that Hezbollah - notwithstanding its impeccable Lebanese credentials - is ultimately an instrument of Iranian foreign policy. However, the Saudis supported Hezbollah's campaign in the 1990s to drive Israel out of southern Lebanon, albeit grudgingly.
The breakdown of the unofficial Saudi-Syrian pact in Lebanon might have benefited Iran, had it not provoked the so-called Cedar Revolution that was dominated by middle-class Sunnis and Christians. This posed a direct threat to Hezbollah and Iran insofar as it championed Lebanon's normalization on Sunni and Christian terms. In short, the Cedar Revolution risked opening Lebanon to US influence and permanent Israeli military and security hegemony. The Saudis stood to benefit as well, as long as their investments in the country were protected.
The strong reaction of the Saudis against Hezbollah must be understood in this context. From the Saudi perspective, Hezbollah has invited terrible Israeli retribution on Lebanon and endangered 15 years of substantial Saudi investment on the volatile country.
Equally worrying for the Salafi-jihadis is the broader resurgence of Iranian-style Islamism. This has been most evident in Iran itself, where the conflict has boosted hardcore ideological forces in the Islamic Republic and revived the "Hezbollahi" spirit that had been dormant since the late 1980s.
Already its controversial stance against Hezbollah has divided opinion in the kingdom. The most important dissenter is Sheikh Salman al-Auda, a former Salafi hardliner, who has come out in support of Hezbollah. More broadly, there is significant grassroots support for Hezbollah, which is seen (as it is seen in other Arab countries) as the only effective tool against Israeli hegemony.
In the final analysis, the Lebanon war has not only imperiled 15 years of Saudi investments, but once again exposed the limitations of the kingdom's foreign policy. More ominously for al-Saud, it has sharply divided opinion in the country and further discredited the official Wahhabi ulema. This is bound to undermine the regime's security and create new forms of challenges and dissent long after the fighting stops in Lebanon. "
By Mahan Abedin
Asia Times
"The war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has exposed deep rifts between Iran and Syria on the one hand and the conservative and US-friendly regimes in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt on the other. This was dramatically underlined by Saudi Arabia's unusually tough stance against Hezbollah at the outset of the conflict.
The Saudi stance against Hezbollah has less to do with fears of Iran's growing geopolitical weight than a demoralized reaction to the failure of its foreign policy in Lebanon. However, by choosing to side with the United States and Israel, the House of Saud risks deepening the dynamics that generate divisions and dissent in the kingdom.
While the Iranians were sympathetic to general Shi'ite grievances, they mostly encouraged the reform movement to attack the Saudis on account of their alliance with the United States, which they identified as its Achilles' heel. The Iranians hoped this would resonate with wider sections of Saudi society who had begun to question the wisdom of Saudi foreign policy, which seemed to be centered on squandering the nation's oil wealth and facilitating US hegemony in the region and beyond.
Saudi Arabia has long sought to curtail the power of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Privately, Saudi officials share the US and Israeli view that Hezbollah - notwithstanding its impeccable Lebanese credentials - is ultimately an instrument of Iranian foreign policy. However, the Saudis supported Hezbollah's campaign in the 1990s to drive Israel out of southern Lebanon, albeit grudgingly.
The breakdown of the unofficial Saudi-Syrian pact in Lebanon might have benefited Iran, had it not provoked the so-called Cedar Revolution that was dominated by middle-class Sunnis and Christians. This posed a direct threat to Hezbollah and Iran insofar as it championed Lebanon's normalization on Sunni and Christian terms. In short, the Cedar Revolution risked opening Lebanon to US influence and permanent Israeli military and security hegemony. The Saudis stood to benefit as well, as long as their investments in the country were protected.
The strong reaction of the Saudis against Hezbollah must be understood in this context. From the Saudi perspective, Hezbollah has invited terrible Israeli retribution on Lebanon and endangered 15 years of substantial Saudi investment on the volatile country.
Equally worrying for the Salafi-jihadis is the broader resurgence of Iranian-style Islamism. This has been most evident in Iran itself, where the conflict has boosted hardcore ideological forces in the Islamic Republic and revived the "Hezbollahi" spirit that had been dormant since the late 1980s.
Already its controversial stance against Hezbollah has divided opinion in the kingdom. The most important dissenter is Sheikh Salman al-Auda, a former Salafi hardliner, who has come out in support of Hezbollah. More broadly, there is significant grassroots support for Hezbollah, which is seen (as it is seen in other Arab countries) as the only effective tool against Israeli hegemony.
In the final analysis, the Lebanon war has not only imperiled 15 years of Saudi investments, but once again exposed the limitations of the kingdom's foreign policy. More ominously for al-Saud, it has sharply divided opinion in the country and further discredited the official Wahhabi ulema. This is bound to undermine the regime's security and create new forms of challenges and dissent long after the fighting stops in Lebanon. "
Thursday, August 31, 2006
8/29/06-CFL ALERT: 25% of Palestinians Parliamentarians Imprisoned by the Israeli Occupation Government.
8/29/06-CFL ALERT: 25% of Palestinians Parliamentarians Imprisoned by the Israeli Occupation Government.
*Remind your elected officials that, while Hamas is abiding by a ceasefire, Israelis have not stopped their attacks on Palestinian civilians and infrastructure and have increased extrajudicial assassinations in the Occupied Territories. Tell your elected officials that they are doing nothing to promote peace between the Palestinians and Israel and that their policies are only feeding extremism and the continuation of conflict between both parties. EMAIL AND OR CALL THE WHITE HOUSE
WHITE HOUSE COMMENTS LINE: 202-456-1111
WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD: 202-456-1414
WHITE HOUSE FAX: 202-456-2461
==============================
Citizens for Fair Legislation
www.cflweb.org
*Please take a moment to write to your elected officials and tell them that you are outraged that the U.S. is preaching democracy to the Arab world while remaining silent as Israel imprisons members of the democratically elected Palestinian government.
*Tell your elected officials that as American citizens you are tired of the biased role that the U.S. is playing in this conflict and that you will no longer support any party that does not stand for justice, democracy and freedom.
WHITE HOUSE COMMENTS LINE: 202-456-1111
WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD: 202-456-1414
WHITE HOUSE FAX: 202-456-2461
==============================
Citizens for Fair Legislation
www.cflweb.org
Rumsfeld and the Politics of 'New Fascism'
VIDEO: The politics of Donald Rumsfeld's 'New Fascism'
VIDEO: The politics of Donald Rumsfeld's 'New Fascism'
أوروبا و«الملك جورج»
Good Editorial By
Joseph Samaha (in Arabic)
"نبادر الى القول إن اسهل ما يمكن أن يحصل هو أن تبدو هذه القوات طلائع «حملة صليبية» متأخرة جمعها وأوفدها إلينا «الملك جورج» من اجل محاربة «الإسلام الفاشي». ليس هذا أسهل ما يمكن أن يحصل بل إنه حاصل فعلاً لدى أوساط عربية وإسلامية. نكون، في هذه الحالة، أمام مرحلة تصعيدية خطيرة في «صدام الحضارات» الذي بدأ طرحاً خرافياً ثم شرع يكسب صدقية يوماً بعد يوم بفعل غطرسة الإدارة الأميركية ورعايتها لانفلات إسرائيل من عقالها.
ليس التحول الأوروبي ملموساً في الموضوع اللبناني فقط. إنه حاضر بقوة في ما يخص القضية الفلسطينية أيضاً. لقد انحازت دول الاتحاد فلسفياً الى الإدارة البوشية. لم يعد الاحتلال هو المشكلة وإنما «الإرهاب»، والفرق بين الأمرين شاسع ويقود، في ما يقود إليه، إلى تجويع الشعب الفلسطيني عقوبة له على اختياره الديموقراطي. ومن نافل القول أن أي التحاق أوروبي بالسياسة الأميركية في الشرق الأوسط هو الباب الملكي للدخول في الهامشية.
من المؤسف جداً أنه في الوقت الذي تؤكد فيه الوقائع العراقية والفلسطينية واللبنانية قرب المواقف الأوروبية السابقة من الصواب نجد أن أصحابها تخلوا عنها، أو يكادون، من أجل دعم سياسة أميركية (وإسرائيلية) ثبت بالبرهان القاطع أنها وصفة لعدم الاستقرار وللتوتر.
ندرك تماماً أن العنصر الحاسم في دفع أوروبيين كثر إلى المشاركة الجدية في «اليونيفيل» وإلى تحديد نوع هذه المشاركة، هو الاهتمام بإسرائيل وأمنها أولاً وبلبنان خامساً. وهذا ما يقوله أحد «أفضل» الأوروبيين هذه الأيام، ماسيمو داليما.
الأوروبيون قادمون للإقامة في جنوب لبنان. أي، عملياً، عند الحدود مع فلسطين. إذا اعتبروا أنهم حماة إسرائيل التي تبطش بالفلسطينيين وحماة الاحتلال الأميركي التدميري للعراق، وحماة الاختراق اليومي للسيادة اللبنانية، فإن إقامتهم لن تطول. وهي لن تطول، بالتأكيد، مدة الغزوات الصليبية الغابرة."
Joseph Samaha (in Arabic)
"نبادر الى القول إن اسهل ما يمكن أن يحصل هو أن تبدو هذه القوات طلائع «حملة صليبية» متأخرة جمعها وأوفدها إلينا «الملك جورج» من اجل محاربة «الإسلام الفاشي». ليس هذا أسهل ما يمكن أن يحصل بل إنه حاصل فعلاً لدى أوساط عربية وإسلامية. نكون، في هذه الحالة، أمام مرحلة تصعيدية خطيرة في «صدام الحضارات» الذي بدأ طرحاً خرافياً ثم شرع يكسب صدقية يوماً بعد يوم بفعل غطرسة الإدارة الأميركية ورعايتها لانفلات إسرائيل من عقالها.
ليس التحول الأوروبي ملموساً في الموضوع اللبناني فقط. إنه حاضر بقوة في ما يخص القضية الفلسطينية أيضاً. لقد انحازت دول الاتحاد فلسفياً الى الإدارة البوشية. لم يعد الاحتلال هو المشكلة وإنما «الإرهاب»، والفرق بين الأمرين شاسع ويقود، في ما يقود إليه، إلى تجويع الشعب الفلسطيني عقوبة له على اختياره الديموقراطي. ومن نافل القول أن أي التحاق أوروبي بالسياسة الأميركية في الشرق الأوسط هو الباب الملكي للدخول في الهامشية.
من المؤسف جداً أنه في الوقت الذي تؤكد فيه الوقائع العراقية والفلسطينية واللبنانية قرب المواقف الأوروبية السابقة من الصواب نجد أن أصحابها تخلوا عنها، أو يكادون، من أجل دعم سياسة أميركية (وإسرائيلية) ثبت بالبرهان القاطع أنها وصفة لعدم الاستقرار وللتوتر.
ندرك تماماً أن العنصر الحاسم في دفع أوروبيين كثر إلى المشاركة الجدية في «اليونيفيل» وإلى تحديد نوع هذه المشاركة، هو الاهتمام بإسرائيل وأمنها أولاً وبلبنان خامساً. وهذا ما يقوله أحد «أفضل» الأوروبيين هذه الأيام، ماسيمو داليما.
الأوروبيون قادمون للإقامة في جنوب لبنان. أي، عملياً، عند الحدود مع فلسطين. إذا اعتبروا أنهم حماة إسرائيل التي تبطش بالفلسطينيين وحماة الاحتلال الأميركي التدميري للعراق، وحماة الاختراق اليومي للسيادة اللبنانية، فإن إقامتهم لن تطول. وهي لن تطول، بالتأكيد، مدة الغزوات الصليبية الغابرة."
Their view of the world is through a bombsight
American support for Israel's unwinnable aim of destroying Hizbullah only boosts its support in Lebanon and beyond
By Noam Chomsky
The Guardian
"Let's describe the current crisis for what it is: a US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretence to legitimacy. Amid all the charges and counter-charges, the most immediate factor behind the assault is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
US-Israeli rejectionism is not only in words but, more importantly, in actions. With decisive US backing, Israel has been formalising its programme of annexation, dismemberment of shrinking Palestinian territories and imprisonment of what remains by taking over the Jordan valley - the "convergence" programme that is, astonishingly, called "courageous withdrawal" in the US.
In consequence, the Palestinians are facing national destruction. The most meaningful support for Palestine is from Hizbullah, which was formed in reaction to the 1982 invasion. It won considerable prestige by leading the effort to force Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000. Also, like other Islamic movements including Hamas, Hizbullah has gained popular support by providing social services to the poor.
To US and Israeli planners it therefore follows that Hizbullah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hizbullah is so deeply embedded in society that it cannot be eradicated without destroying much of Lebanon as well. Hence the scale of the attack on the country's population and infrastructure.
The dynamics are familiar. Rami Khouri, an editor of Lebanon's Daily Star, writes that "the Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel's persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect them and deliver essential services".
Such popular forces will only gain in power and become more extremist if the US and Israel persist in demolishing any hope of Palestinian national rights, and in destroying Lebanon."
By Noam Chomsky
The Guardian
"Let's describe the current crisis for what it is: a US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretence to legitimacy. Amid all the charges and counter-charges, the most immediate factor behind the assault is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
US-Israeli rejectionism is not only in words but, more importantly, in actions. With decisive US backing, Israel has been formalising its programme of annexation, dismemberment of shrinking Palestinian territories and imprisonment of what remains by taking over the Jordan valley - the "convergence" programme that is, astonishingly, called "courageous withdrawal" in the US.
In consequence, the Palestinians are facing national destruction. The most meaningful support for Palestine is from Hizbullah, which was formed in reaction to the 1982 invasion. It won considerable prestige by leading the effort to force Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000. Also, like other Islamic movements including Hamas, Hizbullah has gained popular support by providing social services to the poor.
To US and Israeli planners it therefore follows that Hizbullah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hizbullah is so deeply embedded in society that it cannot be eradicated without destroying much of Lebanon as well. Hence the scale of the attack on the country's population and infrastructure.
The dynamics are familiar. Rami Khouri, an editor of Lebanon's Daily Star, writes that "the Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel's persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect them and deliver essential services".
Such popular forces will only gain in power and become more extremist if the US and Israel persist in demolishing any hope of Palestinian national rights, and in destroying Lebanon."
From Sam Bahour to e-palestine: Israel has spoken...the saga drags on...my visa update...
Well friends,
The mighty State of Israel has spoken. Well, to be specific, the Israeli soldiers maintaining Israel's 39-year military occupation and who are fortified -- draconian style -- in an illegal settlement called Beit El (which is built on confiscated Palestinian land, partly my family's) located on a hilltop north east of my city, El-Bireh, have spoken.
Drum roll please....
The Occupying State of Israel has decided that I have been living with my family and two daughters long enough. After being given a one month tourist visa when I entered through the Israeli border to reach the Palestinian areas (which is the only way to enter), the Israelis have responded to my request for a 3 month extension by saying 1 more month would be more than enough. Not only that, but they were kind enough to relieve me from the humiliation and agony of requesting another extension to remain with my family by hand writing, in Arabic, Hebrew and English, LAST PERMIT, on the visa. See attached copy of visa (with my passport number whitened out by me).
What does this mean? Well, if you have been following my posts and reading Amria Hass' articles on the topic*, you know it means I will need to bid farewell to my wife and two girls, leave home, exit Israel and attempt to reenter in order to get back to the Palestinian areas under occupation by Israel. Sounds simple enough, given I've been dancing to this routine for 13 years now.
But, as you are all aware, Israel has been denying entry to thousands like me, foreign nationals who do not have a Palestinian I.D. card (I applied for family unification 1994 but Israel refuses, to date, to issue me a I.D. card too). So telling me, like the many before me ever since Hamas was elected into government, to leave Palestine/Israel by not providing a serious visa extension while I'm in the country, is an off-the-radar way of silently transferring Palestinians living here out of Palestine. Of course, Israel is betting that on every family it can break this way, the remaining family members will voluntarily leave to relocate in order to join their exiled loved one(s).
The final result of this transfer policy - A land with no people, for a people with no land. Finally, the original myth that Israel was created on can be made to come through. After creating scores of refugees by numerous war, killing scores under occupation, deporting scores more, detaining yet scores more, making life under occupation miserable for scores more, and now by refusing to allow Palestinians that come from around the world to contribute to a better future, Israel would have finally succeeded in emptying the land from the majority of Palestinians, opening the way for more illegal settlement, land grabs and annexations.
I have much more to write about this, and will, as I wage the battle to remain with my wife, with my girls, in my home, in my father's and grandfather's homeland. I will soon write an essay to make my case and that of all Palestinians prohibited from reaching their homes and families.
If I only had the email of the multi-lingual occupation soldier that wrote "last permit" on my visa, I would send him the attached pictures of my two girls, Areen, 12, and Nadine, 6. I wonder if his/her children look any different on the first day of school.
I thank all those who are assisting in this issue, especially the many Israeli friends who understand that those being DENIED ENTRY are those that have come to build bridges, not walls. We have come to invest and create a new reality - a reality that ends this racist occupation and brings a brighter future, a joint future, to both Palestinian and Israeli children.
I end by passing to you the link to yesterday's bold article by Amria Hass, that never-tiring Israeli journalist living in Ramallah who forces us to always remember that peaceful coexistence is not a pipe dream, but rather a historical inevitability.
Steadfast (like never before),
Can you really not see? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/756413.html
Steadfast (like never before),
Sam
Meanwhile in Iraq
Iraq attacks kill at least 61 as U.S. occupation continues: At least 43 were killed when a series of seven rocket and bomb attacks were launched almost simultaneously against Shiite and Christian districts of Baghdad shortly before the nightly curfew, security officials said.
Iraq: At least 13 killed as U.S. Occupation grinds on: A car bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol killed four police commandos and wounded 11 people, including six policemen
U.S. sniper kills family of four in Ramadi – witnesses: A man, his wife and two children were walking home in al-Huz neighborhood when a U.S. sniper shot them dead at 11:00 a.m. in al-Ma’ared Street.
Marines admit to abducting, killing Iraqi: Two Marines have confessed to kidnapping and killing a 52-year-old Iraqi man in Hamandiya, west of Baghdad, a military prosecutor said Wednesday at a preliminary hearing.
No Death Penalty for Marine: The government will not seek the death penalty against a Marine Corps private who is among eight service members charged with murder and other crimes in the shooting of an Iraqi civilian, a military prosecutor said Wednesday.
Another lie on Iraq: WHEN President Bush declared last week that "nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered" the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a large segment of the American public must have been very surprised.
Australia: Iraq letter 'suppressed' lack of WMD evidence: -A DAMNING six-page letter on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was suppressed by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, according to a former senior diplomat.
US military to pay $20 million for "more positive news" from Iraq: "They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out," he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.
Meanwhile in Palestine
12 Year Old Boy Shot by Settler While Playing Near His Home: Hakim was playing with two friends, ages 8-9, when the boys spotted 3 Israeli colonists approaching them. The boys began to run away, and Hakim tripped and fell; when he stood up, the colonist man, aged approximately 40, shot him through his lower back. The bullet exited through his upper groin area, and the younger boys carried him to his home.
OPT: Oxfam calls on world leaders to lift Palestinian aid freeze at Stockholm conference: Oxfam believes that the Palestinian Authority stands to lose more than $1 billion following the suspension of aid earlier this year and Israel withholding Palestinian tax revenue, according to UN and World Bank estimates. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without an income. Rubbish is piling in the streets, sewage is overflowing from household cesspits, schools are running without budgets and government employees are striking for lack of pay.
Israel to try Palestinian officials in Dec.: According to the report, two Palestinian Cabinet ministers, the Speaker of the Palestinian parliament and 12 lawmakers who were seized by Israel during the past two months will be put before judge on Dec. 12.
West Bank residents forced to sing in order to pass checkpoint and school bags are inspected: Israeli soldiers told the man that he had to unload everything onto the ground for inspection. Tulkarem residents say they were forced to sing the Hafez Halim song, “Salamat, Salamat” in order to pass. Residents report feeling angry and provoked.
OPT: Gaza children suffer as rich world meets to discuss aid: Since 28th June, 44 children have been killed, electricity and water infrastructure has been destroyed and humanitarian assistance has been routinely blocked from getting to those people who need it. Since 15th August, for example, no humanitarian aid at all has been allowed through some gates and even humanitarian workers have had their movements heavily restricted.
Settlers uproot scores of olive trees in Yatta near Hebron: Local sources reported that settlers uprooted trees located near an Israeli army post just outside the village. Settlers have repeatedly targeted the residents, their property and farmlands in addition to attacking the international volunteers who comes to the area to help the people.
Army takes nine civilians prisoners in Hebron area: Troops, backed by dozens of army jeeps, stormed the city and the two towns, and conducted wide scale search campaign to the residents houses. Soldiers searched and ransacked residents houses in a very rough way, eyewitnesses reported, and added that soldiers found no weapons or explosives in any of the attacked houses.
Israeli troops withdraw from eastern Gaza: Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza City's eastern outskirts early on Thursday, ending a four-day operation during which 20 Palestinians were killed, witnesses and an Israeli army spokesperson said.
Leaflets dropped on northern Gaza blame resistance: The Israeli military is holding the armed Palestinian resistance responsible for Israeli attacks and closures. Eyewitnesses report that Israeli aircraft dropped tens of thousands of leaflets on the northern Gaza Strip blaming the resistance for pedestrian and commercial crossings closures, including Rafah's southern border with Egypt.
Rabbis: Israel Too Worried Over Civilian Deaths : America’s main organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis is calling on the Israeli military to be less concerned with avoiding civilian casualties on the opposing side when carrying out future operations.
OPT: Oxfam calls on world leaders to lift Palestinian aid freeze at Stockholm conference: Oxfam believes that the Palestinian Authority stands to lose more than $1 billion following the suspension of aid earlier this year and Israel withholding Palestinian tax revenue, according to UN and World Bank estimates. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without an income. Rubbish is piling in the streets, sewage is overflowing from household cesspits, schools are running without budgets and government employees are striking for lack of pay.
Israel to try Palestinian officials in Dec.: According to the report, two Palestinian Cabinet ministers, the Speaker of the Palestinian parliament and 12 lawmakers who were seized by Israel during the past two months will be put before judge on Dec. 12.
West Bank residents forced to sing in order to pass checkpoint and school bags are inspected: Israeli soldiers told the man that he had to unload everything onto the ground for inspection. Tulkarem residents say they were forced to sing the Hafez Halim song, “Salamat, Salamat” in order to pass. Residents report feeling angry and provoked.
OPT: Gaza children suffer as rich world meets to discuss aid: Since 28th June, 44 children have been killed, electricity and water infrastructure has been destroyed and humanitarian assistance has been routinely blocked from getting to those people who need it. Since 15th August, for example, no humanitarian aid at all has been allowed through some gates and even humanitarian workers have had their movements heavily restricted.
Settlers uproot scores of olive trees in Yatta near Hebron: Local sources reported that settlers uprooted trees located near an Israeli army post just outside the village. Settlers have repeatedly targeted the residents, their property and farmlands in addition to attacking the international volunteers who comes to the area to help the people.
Army takes nine civilians prisoners in Hebron area: Troops, backed by dozens of army jeeps, stormed the city and the two towns, and conducted wide scale search campaign to the residents houses. Soldiers searched and ransacked residents houses in a very rough way, eyewitnesses reported, and added that soldiers found no weapons or explosives in any of the attacked houses.
Israeli troops withdraw from eastern Gaza: Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza City's eastern outskirts early on Thursday, ending a four-day operation during which 20 Palestinians were killed, witnesses and an Israeli army spokesperson said.
Leaflets dropped on northern Gaza blame resistance: The Israeli military is holding the armed Palestinian resistance responsible for Israeli attacks and closures. Eyewitnesses report that Israeli aircraft dropped tens of thousands of leaflets on the northern Gaza Strip blaming the resistance for pedestrian and commercial crossings closures, including Rafah's southern border with Egypt.
Rabbis: Israel Too Worried Over Civilian Deaths : America’s main organization of Modern Orthodox rabbis is calling on the Israeli military to be less concerned with avoiding civilian casualties on the opposing side when carrying out future operations.
US May Cover Israel's War Costs: A senior Bush administration official said Wednesday that if asked, the US is likely to grant Israel additional military aid to cover the costs of its recent war against Hezbollah.
Ruin, despair in Gaza neighborhood after Israeli incursion : An elderly mother spoke amid the rubble of her partially destroyed home in the Shajaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, from where Israeli occupation troops pulled out early Thursday after a four-day-plus operation that killed 20 people.
MP George Gallowa, says Israel poisoning West: Galloway said Israel's 39-year occupation of swathes of Arab territory had spurred militants to attack the West.
CA (Santa Cruz) mayor won't apologize
 |
| A mayor in California refused to apologize for bestowing an honor on a Palestinian who called Hezbollah an “amateur in terrorism compared with Israel.” Santa Cruz Mayor Cynthia Mathews provoked the ire of local Jewish leaders earlier this month when she presented a key to the city to Afif Safieh, a longtime member of the PLO, at a talk in front of 250 people, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Mathews said the gesture was not a means of taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but was meant to endorse Safieh’s vision of a two-state solution. Jewish leaders note that the PLO includes groups like the Fatah Movement’s Al-Aksa Brigade, whose members would like to “wipe Israel off the map of the world,” said Rick Litvak, rabbi of a local Reform synagogue. |
US to pay $20m for 'good' Iraq news
Positive Press on Iraq Is Aim of U.S. Contract
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 31, 2006; A20
U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq.
The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.
The request for bids comes at a time when Bush administration officials are publicly criticizing media coverage of the war in Iraq.
The proposal, which calls in part for extensive monitoring and analysis of Iraqi, Middle Eastern and American media, is designed to help the coalition forces understand "the communications environment." Its goal is to "develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events . . . to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals," according to the statement of work that is publicly available through the Web site http://www.fbodaily.com .
A public relations practitioner who asked for anonymity because he may be involved in a bid on the contract said that military commanders "are overwhelmed by the media out there and are trying to understand how to get their information out.
"They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out," he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.
The proposal calls for monitoring "Iraqi, pan-Arabic, international and U.S. national and regional markets media in both Arabic and English." That includes broadcast and cable television outlets, the Pentagon channel, two wire services and three major U.S. newspapers: The Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times.
Monitors are to select stories that deal with specific issues, such as security, reconstruction activities, "high profile" coalition force activities and events in which Iraqi security forces are "in the lead." The monitors are to analyze stories to determine the "dissemination of key themes and messages" along with whether the "tone" is positive, neutral or negative.
The media outlets would be monitored for how they present coalition or anti-Iraqi force operations. That part of the proposal could reflect Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's often-stated concern that the media does not cover positive aspects of Iraq.
In a speech before the American Legion on Tuesday, Rumsfeld said that a search of leading newspapers revealed that a soldier punished for misconduct was written about "10 times" as often as the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in anti-terrorism efforts.
The proposal suggests a team of 12 to 18 people who would provide support for the coalition military command as well as the Iraqi government leadership.
Prospective contractors are also asked to propose four to eight public relations events per month, such as speeches or news conferences, including "preparation of likely questions and suggested answers, themes and messages as well as background, talking points."
An attempt yesterday to reach the contracting officer for this project was not successful. Bids are due Sept. 6, and the 24-month contract is scheduled to begin on Oct. 28.
The Rendon Group, which has represented organizations such as the Iraqi National Congress, currently holds a much smaller year-to-year contract with the military command in Iraq. That contract includes creating an Arabic version of the command's Web site, http://www.mnf-iraq.com .
Rumsfeld's Misuse Of History
By John Prados
(John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC. His forthcoming book is Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Ivan Dee Publisher))
"In the past week Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has twice invoked the historical analogy to appeasement—referring to the years just before World War II, culminating in the Munich conference of September 1938—to frame the globe’s current struggle with terrorism in apocalyptic terms. Vice President Dick Cheney has used the same analogy, without even gracing it with a name, to defend what he calls the “battle for the future of civilization.”
The correct lesson to be drawn from Munich today is that when presidents and their administrations raise its specter, it is a sure sign they want to pursue extravagant policies, usually of violence, based on narrow grounds with shaky public support. Today the Munich analogy functions as a provocation, a red flag before a bull. It is dangerous because it claims that the only solution to any situation is to fight—Cheney’s point exactly. Having done nothing beyond silly propaganda—despite its own claims—to undermine the jihadists by eliminating the economic and political oppression that form the basis of jihadist appeal, the Bush people counsel that the fight is everything and that talking is “appeasement.” We have seen in Lebanon lately just how misguided is that approach.
Bush administration history is like their reality—faith-based. President Bush himself, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, characterized those who saw and spoke the truth about the run-up to the Iraq war as “revisionists”—historians who try to change the conventional wisdom about the past. Cheney not long ago declared it was “inexcusable” to repeat that truth. The same speeches that contain the Munich claims portray the Iraqi and Afghan people as “awakening to a future of hope and freedom” (Cheney) and say the U.S. strategy in Iraq “has not changed” (Rumsfeld).
The faith is that if you repeat falsehoods enough times the public will believe them. There is another historical analogy there—a real one—to Adolf Hitler’s henchman, Josef Goebbels. He called it the “Big Lie.” No wonder the administration’s flacks need friendly audiences."
(John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Security Archive in Washington, DC. His forthcoming book is Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Ivan Dee Publisher))
"In the past week Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has twice invoked the historical analogy to appeasement—referring to the years just before World War II, culminating in the Munich conference of September 1938—to frame the globe’s current struggle with terrorism in apocalyptic terms. Vice President Dick Cheney has used the same analogy, without even gracing it with a name, to defend what he calls the “battle for the future of civilization.”
The correct lesson to be drawn from Munich today is that when presidents and their administrations raise its specter, it is a sure sign they want to pursue extravagant policies, usually of violence, based on narrow grounds with shaky public support. Today the Munich analogy functions as a provocation, a red flag before a bull. It is dangerous because it claims that the only solution to any situation is to fight—Cheney’s point exactly. Having done nothing beyond silly propaganda—despite its own claims—to undermine the jihadists by eliminating the economic and political oppression that form the basis of jihadist appeal, the Bush people counsel that the fight is everything and that talking is “appeasement.” We have seen in Lebanon lately just how misguided is that approach.
Bush administration history is like their reality—faith-based. President Bush himself, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, characterized those who saw and spoke the truth about the run-up to the Iraq war as “revisionists”—historians who try to change the conventional wisdom about the past. Cheney not long ago declared it was “inexcusable” to repeat that truth. The same speeches that contain the Munich claims portray the Iraqi and Afghan people as “awakening to a future of hope and freedom” (Cheney) and say the U.S. strategy in Iraq “has not changed” (Rumsfeld).
The faith is that if you repeat falsehoods enough times the public will believe them. There is another historical analogy there—a real one—to Adolf Hitler’s henchman, Josef Goebbels. He called it the “Big Lie.” No wonder the administration’s flacks need friendly audiences."
PCHR WEEKLY REPORT
 IOF continue to raze agricultural land in Halhoul & Beit Omar to build sections of Annexation Wall. |
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)
- 30 Palestinians, including 3 children, a mentally disabled young man and a woman, were killed by IOF.
- 20 of the victims were killed by IOF in al-Shojaeya neighborhood in Gaza City.
- 3 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF in the West Bank.
- 52 Palestinian civilians, including 18 children and a woman, were wounded by the IOF gunfire.
- IOF launched a series of air strikes on a number of houses in the Gaza Strip.
- 3 houses were destroyed in Gaza City and Jabalya.
- IOF conducted 40 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and invaded al-Shojaeya neighborhood in Gaza City.
- IOF arrested 50 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including 6 children.
- IOF arrested a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah.
- IOF arrested 7 Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
- IOF demolished 4 houses in Nablus.
- IOF destroyed civilian property in al-Shojaeya neighborhood in Gaza City.
- IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT; IOF have imposed a tightened siege on the Gaza Strip and there have been shortages of foodstuffs and fuels; and IOF positioned at a various checkpoints in the West Bank arrested 5 Palestinian civilians.
- IOF have continued to construct the Annexation Wall in the West Bank; they razed more areas of land in Hebron for this purpose.
- Israeli settlers have continued attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in the OPT; settlers attacked Palestinian civilians and property in Hebron; and a Palestinian child was wounded in Beit Fourik village near Nablus.
Israel Closes Crossing to Press Palestinians
According to Haaretz, this is the first time that the army and Shin Bet are calling for a closure on grounds other than intelligence on pending attacks.
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – While UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged on Wednesday, August 30, a halt to the Gaza onslaught and lift of crippling closure, Haaretz said Israel closes the Rafah crossing to lay pressures on Palestinians to free a captured Israeli soldier.
"We oppose the opening of the crossing, even for a few hours, so long as the matter of the abducted soldier remains unchanged," Shin Bet told representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the customs and the ports authorities and advisers to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, according to a transcript obtained by Haaretz.
"Pressure on this matter must remain in place at this stage," insisted Israel's internal spy agency.
The Israeli army also agreed that Rafah crossing, Gaza's only window to the outside world, "should be opened on occasion only after the kidnapped soldier is released and the shooting from the Gaza Strip stops."
It wants to use the crossing "as a means of applying pressure."
Under an agreement signed in 2005, the crossing is run under Palestinian and Egyptian management and supervised by 70 European Union observers.
In practice Israel closes the crossing at will, on the pretext of "intelligence of an imminent attack."
This automatically prevents the European observers from reaching the crossing - which ensures that it remains closed.
According to Haaretz, this is the first time that the army and Shin Bet are calling for a closure on grounds other than intelligence on pending attacks.
During her visits to Israel, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed that the crossing must be kept open as stipulated by the signed agreements.
More Killing
During a lightning visit to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the PA, Annan asked Israel to lift its crippling siege.
"The closure of Gaza must be lifted, the crossing points must be opened," he told a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The UN chief also professed for an end of the open-ended Israeli onslaught.
"Two hundred Palestinians have been killed since the end of June," he regretted. "This must stop immediately."
Annan also called for an end to the firing or Palestinian rockets into Israel, asking Tel Aviv to free Palestinian parliamentarians and officials held during the offensive, which was unleashed on June 28.
Israel launched the massive operation on the pretext of securing the release of a taken prisoner by Palestinian factions in a cross-border raid on June 25 that left two other soldiers dead.
The UN chief's remarks came as Israeli occupation forces killed nine Palestinians, mostly civilians.
Eight died in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, where Israeli soldiers have been operating since late Saturday.
They included a 14-year-old boy shot in the chest, two men in their 30s also gunned down and five others who died from tank fire, medical officials said.
In the occupied West Bank, Hossam Jaradat, the head of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, died from wounds sustained during an Israeli commando operation on August 23.
Wednesday's deaths bring to 19 the number of Palestinians killed in the Shejaiya neighborhood since Saturday.
The two-month Israeli offensive has claimed the lives of 204n Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left Gaza riddled with power shortages after its power plant was bombed out.
© IslamOnline.net + Agencies
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – While UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged on Wednesday, August 30, a halt to the Gaza onslaught and lift of crippling closure, Haaretz said Israel closes the Rafah crossing to lay pressures on Palestinians to free a captured Israeli soldier.
"We oppose the opening of the crossing, even for a few hours, so long as the matter of the abducted soldier remains unchanged," Shin Bet told representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the customs and the ports authorities and advisers to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, according to a transcript obtained by Haaretz.
"Pressure on this matter must remain in place at this stage," insisted Israel's internal spy agency.
The Israeli army also agreed that Rafah crossing, Gaza's only window to the outside world, "should be opened on occasion only after the kidnapped soldier is released and the shooting from the Gaza Strip stops."
It wants to use the crossing "as a means of applying pressure."
Under an agreement signed in 2005, the crossing is run under Palestinian and Egyptian management and supervised by 70 European Union observers.
In practice Israel closes the crossing at will, on the pretext of "intelligence of an imminent attack."
This automatically prevents the European observers from reaching the crossing - which ensures that it remains closed.
According to Haaretz, this is the first time that the army and Shin Bet are calling for a closure on grounds other than intelligence on pending attacks.
During her visits to Israel, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed that the crossing must be kept open as stipulated by the signed agreements.
More Killing
During a lightning visit to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the PA, Annan asked Israel to lift its crippling siege.
"The closure of Gaza must be lifted, the crossing points must be opened," he told a news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The UN chief also professed for an end of the open-ended Israeli onslaught.
"Two hundred Palestinians have been killed since the end of June," he regretted. "This must stop immediately."
Annan also called for an end to the firing or Palestinian rockets into Israel, asking Tel Aviv to free Palestinian parliamentarians and officials held during the offensive, which was unleashed on June 28.
Israel launched the massive operation on the pretext of securing the release of a taken prisoner by Palestinian factions in a cross-border raid on June 25 that left two other soldiers dead.
The UN chief's remarks came as Israeli occupation forces killed nine Palestinians, mostly civilians.
Eight died in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, where Israeli soldiers have been operating since late Saturday.
They included a 14-year-old boy shot in the chest, two men in their 30s also gunned down and five others who died from tank fire, medical officials said.
In the occupied West Bank, Hossam Jaradat, the head of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, died from wounds sustained during an Israeli commando operation on August 23.
Wednesday's deaths bring to 19 the number of Palestinians killed in the Shejaiya neighborhood since Saturday.
The two-month Israeli offensive has claimed the lives of 204n Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left Gaza riddled with power shortages after its power plant was bombed out.
© IslamOnline.net + Agencies
Report: U.S. Secretly Negotiated with Gaza Kidnappers
The U.S. secretly agreed to the "real demands" set by the group behind the August 14 kidnapping of two Fox News journalists in Gaza, according to a report in the pan-Arab newspaper al Hayat.
The paper quotes "informed sources close to the mediations" as saying that the U.S. secretly negotiated with the group through leaders of "the Palestinian popular resistance committees."
Last week, the previously unknown group calling itself "The Holy Jihad Brigades" issued a statement demanding the release of all Muslims held in U.S. prisons in return for the release of the two journalists. In fact, the paper reports that the public demand was not serious and that the group's "real demands" were that the U.S. press Israel to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Palestine and cease the shelling of "Palestinian activists'" residences.
According to the report, the mediators contacted a representative of a European country who in turn contacted U.S. and British diplomats. The paper's sources said in the report that members of a senior FBI delegation, who had arrived in the area a few days earlier, were also involved in the negotiations.
The announcement that the two journalists had converted to Islam as a reason for their release was only a camouflage to conceal the fact that the U.S. had agreed to the hostage-takers' demands, according to the sources cited in the article. A few days ago the Rafah crossing was reopened for a few hours daily, and the Israeli forces stopped shelling residences of activists in the past few days, noted the paper's sources.
When asked for a response by ABCNews.com, a State Department spokesperson refused to comment on the report in al Hayat. The department's stated policy has been that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.
The paper quotes "informed sources close to the mediations" as saying that the U.S. secretly negotiated with the group through leaders of "the Palestinian popular resistance committees."
Last week, the previously unknown group calling itself "The Holy Jihad Brigades" issued a statement demanding the release of all Muslims held in U.S. prisons in return for the release of the two journalists. In fact, the paper reports that the public demand was not serious and that the group's "real demands" were that the U.S. press Israel to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Palestine and cease the shelling of "Palestinian activists'" residences.
According to the report, the mediators contacted a representative of a European country who in turn contacted U.S. and British diplomats. The paper's sources said in the report that members of a senior FBI delegation, who had arrived in the area a few days earlier, were also involved in the negotiations.
The announcement that the two journalists had converted to Islam as a reason for their release was only a camouflage to conceal the fact that the U.S. had agreed to the hostage-takers' demands, according to the sources cited in the article. A few days ago the Rafah crossing was reopened for a few hours daily, and the Israeli forces stopped shelling residences of activists in the past few days, noted the paper's sources.
When asked for a response by ABCNews.com, a State Department spokesperson refused to comment on the report in al Hayat. The department's stated policy has been that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists.
Deception as a Way of Life
Israeli Myths
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.
"In a state established on a founding myth -- that the native Palestinian population left of their own accord rather than that they were ethnically cleansed -- and in one that seeks its legitimacy through a host of other lies, such as that the occupation of the West Bank is benign and that Gaza's has ended, deception becomes a political way of life.
And so it is in the "relative calm" that has followed Israel's month-long pounding of Lebanon, a calm in which Israelis may no longer be dying but the Lebanese most assuredly are as explosions of US-made cluster bombs greet the south's returning refugees and the anonymous residents of Gaza perish by the dozens each and every week under the relentless and indiscriminate strikes of the Israeli air force while the rest slowly starve in their open-air prison.
Israeli leaders deceive as much in "peace" as they do in war, which is why it is worth examining the slow trickle of disinformation coming from Tel Aviv and reflecting on where it is leading."
By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.
"In a state established on a founding myth -- that the native Palestinian population left of their own accord rather than that they were ethnically cleansed -- and in one that seeks its legitimacy through a host of other lies, such as that the occupation of the West Bank is benign and that Gaza's has ended, deception becomes a political way of life.
And so it is in the "relative calm" that has followed Israel's month-long pounding of Lebanon, a calm in which Israelis may no longer be dying but the Lebanese most assuredly are as explosions of US-made cluster bombs greet the south's returning refugees and the anonymous residents of Gaza perish by the dozens each and every week under the relentless and indiscriminate strikes of the Israeli air force while the rest slowly starve in their open-air prison.
Israeli leaders deceive as much in "peace" as they do in war, which is why it is worth examining the slow trickle of disinformation coming from Tel Aviv and reflecting on where it is leading."
A Lebanese Armenian protester carries a placard during a demonstration against the participation of the Turkish troops in the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. (AP Photo)
A Lebanese Armenian student carries a placard as others wave Lebanese flags during a demonstration against the participation of the Turkish troops in the peacekeeping force in Lebanon, in front of the United Nations House in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006. US, EU and Israel pressed for peacekeepers from Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, and a country with close ties to Israel and Arab countries. The large Armenian population in Lebanon has loudly protested Turkish involvement. Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenians died or were killed over several years during World War I as part of a genocidal campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey. Arabic writing on banners, top right, reads 'Zionist racism=Turanic racism=Crimes against Humanity.' Turanism is a political movement that forms an important aspect of the ideology of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party. (AP )
DEMOCRACY, USRAELI STYLE
Anwar Zaboun, center, and other Hamas members of the Palestinian Parliament show gestures inside the Israeli military court at the Ofer military base between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Ramallah, Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006. An Israeli military court on Thursday set Dec. 12 as the date for the trial of two Palestinian Cabinet ministers, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament and 12 lawmakers seized in an Israeli roundup of prominent Hamas officials two months ago. (AP Photo)
A Lebanese woman tends her grandson who was wounded by an Israeli cluster bomb. The UN's top humanitarian official denounced Israel's use of cluster bombs in the last days of the Lebanon conflict as "immoral" and said that thousands of civilians were at risk from unexploded munitions(AFP)
ONE OF 100,000 LITTLE PRESENTS THE IOF LEFT FOR THE LEBANESE JUST BEFORE THE CEASEFIRE
A cluster bomb is seen in the yard of a house in the southern Lebanese village of Sultaniyeh. The UN's top humanitarian official denounced Israel's use of cluster bombs in the last days of the Lebanon conflict as "immoral" and said that thousands of civilians were at risk from unexploded munitions(AFP)
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
What a light upon nations...
Business owners in north can't get special loans because they aren't Jews
By Jack Khoury
A business development center that works under the auspices of the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry has offered special loans for small businesses in the north, but it is making the special offer only to those businesses that are owned by Jews and former soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces.
The ministry said that the criteria for eligibility was determined by the owners of a private foundation that is funding the project.
At the end of the Lebanon war, the MATI organization announced it was offering special loans to residents of northern towns, which had suffered great damage when Hezbollah rockets hit homes and businesses.
A few Israeli Arab business owners who checked the loans for businesses in the Galilee happened upon a great deal: MATI was offering a NIS 45,000 loan, which will be paid back with no interest over a reasonable amount of time.
But the businessmen checked the criteria for eligibility for the loan and saw that it was intended only for Jews and ex-IDF troops.
The Musawa legal center has filed a complaint with the ministry several business owners complained over the criteria for the loan. The center's legal councilor has demanded to give business owners equal opportunities to take out the loans.
The head of the center has said the criteria are discriminatory and are in violation of laws against discrimination in public services and High Court rulings that state a body being funded by the government must not discriminate on the basis of nationality, religion, race or sex
He says, if MATI does not change the criteria for the loan, the center will file civil law suits in the name of several businesses in the north.
If they were PALESTINIAN they would be D E A D
4 Israelis beat IDF soldier, break through West Bank checkpoint
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
Four Israelis were arrested Wednesday after attacking an Israel Defense Forces soldier and breaking through a West Bank checkpoint in an effort to reach the area of the evacuated Sa-Nur settlement. The men were arrested after soldiers fired warning shots in the air.
The four, ranging in age from 19-27, include two former Sa-Nur residents, reached the checkpoint and told told the soldiers that they want to visit the former settlement of Sa-Nur. Since the evacuation of the settlement as part of the disengagement plan last summer, the former settlement was designated by GOC Central Command as a closed military zone.
After the troops informed the men that they could not pass the checkpoint, they got out of their cars, beat one of the soldiers, and continued driving. Only after soldiers fired in the air did the men stop. The four were arrested and their remand will be extended on Thursday.
In recent weeks, police officers have faced a number of incidents in which individuals who resided in the evacuated settlements of Homesh and Sa-Nur have tried to reach the areas to mark one year since the evacuation of the settlements. In recent weeks, a number of small groups have evaded soldiers and police officers and found alternate routes to the former settlements.
Police sources regarded the attempts at reaching Homesh and Sa-Nur with severity.
"Whoever enters those areas is endangering himself," a police officer said, noting that Wednesday's incident was the most severe thus far.
The Man Who Has Been to America:
Why should Geneva Convention protections be applied to Guantanamo detainees? One innocent man's journey through the legal black hole of the War on Terror—four prisons, three countries, two years—may be the best argument yet.
McKenzie Funk IN THE ENEMY COMBATANT’S HOUSE, in the room where he eats and prays and sleeps, a single window casts its light on a single adornment: an enormous Soviet-era map of the world. It is the first thing I notice after I arrive unannounced one cold fall morning and am ushered into the warmth of the room. We sit on the floor below an elongated Africa, a tiny America, and a colossal, pink-shaded U.S.S.R. A brother with a prosthetic leg appears and lays out a brightly patterned sheet still covered with past meals’ bread crumbs. Non ham non, nonreza ham non, the Tajik proverb goes: “Bread is bread, crumbs are also bread.” The enemy combatant serves the tea. He pours it before it’s properly steeped, dumps the watery cups back into the pot, and repeats. If he’s unhappy to see an American after Guantanamo, he doesn’t show it. He smiles, and two wrinkles appear on his left cheek. I ask him his full name. Muhibullo Abdulkarim Umarov, he tells me. He says he is 24 years old. He asks, “You want to know the story of my capture, yes?” To continue reading click HERE.
July 12 , 2006
Meanwhile in Palestine
Israeli occupation forces kill 8 Palestinians in Gaza attack: Among those killed was a 14-year-old boy who was shot dead. A 30-year-old man was killed by a heavy caliber bullet to the head as he was on the rooftop of his house.
Annan: Israel must stop killing Palestinians: In meeting with Palestinian President Abbas in Ramallah, UN secretary-general slams Israel, says more than 200 Palestinians killed since the end of June. He also calls on Israel to lift blockade on Gaza, allow free transfer of goods
The Palestinian Vice-Prime Minister kidnapped by Israel: Former rector of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Al Najah in Nablus, Mr Shaer is a moderate person. He does not belong to any political party, and is not a member of Hamas as widespread in the media.
Holy Land: children go back to school as humanitarian crisis deepens: Are the government schools going to open as striking teachers protest the non-payment of salaries? How can families register their children for school with all of the accompanying fees for school books, stationary, uniforms, transportation and when they have balances owing from the last year which they cannot pay?
Cancel Law Preventing Palestinians from Filing Claims for Damages against the State: 30 August 2006 at 9:00am, an expanded of nine justices of the Israeli High Court of Justice, presided by Chief Justice Aharon Barak, will hear a petition filed by nine human rights organizations from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs), demanding that the Court declare void the amendments to the Civil Wrongs (Liability of the State) Law. The Law prevents Palestinians from seeking compensation from the State of Israel for damages inflicted by the Israeli security forces, even those inflicted outside of the context of a military operation.
Settlers uproot scores of olive trees in Yatta near Hebron: A group of right wing Jewish settlers from the illegal settlement of Sousa uprooted on Wednesday scores of olive trees that belong to Palestinian farmers from the nearby village of Yatta south of the West Bank city of Hebron.
Four residents killed and eight injured in Al Shujaeyya east of Gaza: Palestinian medical sources reported on Wednesday morning that four civilians were killed and eight injured by heavy machine gun fire from Israeli tanks in AL Shujaeyya area, east of the Gaza strip.
Nine Palestinians killed in Gaza: They included a 14-year-old boy shot in the chest, two men in their 30s also shot and five others who died from tank fire, medical officials said. Abbas "vigorously denounced Israeli aggression in the occupied territories, in particular in the Shejaiya quarter" of Gaza City, the statement said.
US: Settlers assaulting American citizens: Americans are unsafe in the Gaza Strip, and those in the Palestinian area should leave immediately, the US State Department said Tuesday. "In recent months, citizens of Western nations, including Americans, involved in pro-Palestinian volunteer efforts were assaulted and injured in the Occupied Territories by Israeli settlers and harassed by the (Israeli army). Those taking part in demonstrations, nonviolent resistance, and direct action are advised to cease such activity for their own safety," it said.
The Palestinian politicians being held prisoner in Israeli detention centres have their hearing postponed: The court said that the reason for the postponement was that they needed more time to examine the detainees' files and to decide if there is a valid case against the detained politicians.
Source: Israel delaying deal on Shalit: "The problem is that the Egyptian mediation team has no response from Israel, like as to when the prisoners would be released, how many and what type. Only with these responses will the mediators be able to offer something to the kidnappers. But Israel is not clarifying its positions. It is not taking any initiative that indicates its desire to complete the deal. There is no sign of readiness, there are no messages via Israel's overt channels, and the problem is - there are no messages even via the covert channels."
'Israelis want Palestinian ethnic cleansing': They also want to humiliate Dweik, who they have put in a small dirty cell, as well as the Arabs and Muslims and all those who sympathise with them. Despite strong condemnations and continuous contact with a lot of parliaments and parliamentarians, they are pursuing their policy as they clearly don't want a PG or a PLC. The coincidence of the imprisonment of Dweik with the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Ismail Haniya shows that there is a previously manipulated plan to undermine the Palestinian regime.
Annan: Israel must stop killing Palestinians: UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Ramallah on Wednesday afternoon. In a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas he slammed Israel for hurting civilians and for the ongoing blockade on Gaza.
Nasrallah supporters still attacked at West Bank checkpoints: The popularity of Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah remains fixed in the minds of Israeli soldiers, as their actions at checkpoints indicate. The days of detaining Palestinians with photos of Nasrallah as their mobile phone screen savers, or celebratory cassettes in their cars, are not over.
Last two embassies leaving Jerusalem: President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica announced first that he had decided to move the embassy in order to conform with international law, AsiaNews reported. El Salvador then followed suit. Israel had reportedly given the two countries financial inducements to locate their embassies in Jerusalem after the 1967 war.
Analysts see 'disaster' in U.S. position: The authors of a hotly debated study on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington said yesterday that the Bush administration's unquestioning support for Israel's military action in Lebanon confirms their thesis that the power of the lobby hurts both U.S. and Israeli national interests. Mr. Mearsheimer and co-author Stephen M. Walt, an international affairs scholar and academic dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, showed no signs of backing away from their analysis of the U.S.-Israel lobby at a National Press Club briefing.
Meanwhile in Iraq
Iraq: At least 77 killed as bloody U.S. occupation continues: A blast in the Shurja market left 24 dead and 35 wounded Wednesday and came just two hours after rebels targeted an Iraqi army recruitment centre in the Shiite town of Hilla, south of Baghdad, killing 12 volunteers and wounding 38.
Iraqi minister says gunmen executed 13 soldiers: The 12-hour gun battle on Monday was among the bloodiest between Iraqi government forces and Shiite militiamen. The Defence Ministry had said 20 of its soldiers were killed.
Five more US soldiers die in Iraq: The US military announced the deaths of five US soldiers on Tuesday, bringing to 13 the number of troops that have died over the past three days.
Congressmember Murtha: " Disappointed" by Hillary Clinton's Refusal to Endorse Troop Withdrawal Plan: Democracy Now! interviews Congressmember John Murtha (D - PA) about his position on the Iraq war, the Haditha massacre and Sen. Hillary Clinton's refusal to endorse his troop withdrawal plan.
Iraqi minister cancels truce with Shiite militia: Iraq's defence minister has declared the army's truce with Shiite militants in the central city of Diwaniyah null and void, and demanded an inquiry into the killing of 13 soldiers.
Iraqi Hospitals Are War's New 'Killing Fields': Armed Shiite Muslim militiamen dragged the 43-year-old Sunni mason down the hallway floor, snapping intravenous needles and a breathing tube out of his body, and later riddled his body with bullets, family members said.
Dispatches: The Killing Zone
Dispatches reporter Sandra Jordan and producer Rodrigo Vasquez risk their lives to reveal the shocking level of daily violence and murderous hate in the Gaza Strip.
An American peace activist was crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer; a British peace protester was shot in the head by an IDF sniper and remains in a coma; and last weekend, a British cameraman was shot dead by the IDF.
Within hours of arriving Sandra and Rodrigo are shot at and tear-gassed by Israeli troops breaking up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer two days before.
Broadcast Channel 4 - 05/19/06 Runtime 49 Minutes
Rummy’s Reverie: “The Media made me lose the War,” by Mike Whitney
08/30/06
Don Rumsfeld may be a lousy Secretary of Defense, but he’s the best buck-passer this country’s ever had.
Nothing is ever his fault. Not Guantanamo, not Abu Ghraib, not Falluja, not Haditha, not de-Baathification, not the insurgency; nothing. Ever.
Of course, ever since Saddam’s bronze torso hit the pavement in Fidros Square, the occupation has steadily unraveled and turned into a quagmire. But that’s not Rummy’s fault either. Like President Bush said, “He’s doin’ a heck-uva job”.
Sec-Def Houdini put his excuse-making talents on full-display yesterday in a speech at Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada. He accused terrorist groups of “manipulating the media” to erode support for the war on terror.
“What bothers me the most,” he opined, “is the way they are actively manipulating the media in this country. They can lie with impunity…That’s the thing that keeps me up at night.”
Some of us were hoping that Iraq was keeping Rummy “up at night”…or maybe that niggling issue of torture and abuse that keeps popping up in the newspapers. But, noooo; it’s the looming specter of Zarqawi at his keyboard e mailing his hypnotic prose to unwitting Americans who are seduced by his vile propaganda.
Huh?
What exactly is Rumsfeld talking about? Or are these just the early signs of delirium praecox?
“The enemy is so much better at communicating,” he moaned. “I wish we were better at countering that because the constant drumbeat of the things they say—all of which are not true—is harmful.”
“Better at communicating”? Better than FOX News, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the whole alphabet-soup of cable stations that pitch Rumsfeld’s flag-waving jingoism ad nauseum? Are Bin Laden’s scratchy video-tapes really that much of a threat?
How can the press corps (some of America’s best and brightest) sit through this rubbish? Isn’t there anyone in the crowd who’s plucky enough to put a stop to Rumsfeld’s ruminations by saying,
“No offense, Mr. Secretary, but you’re losing the goddamn war and you’re blaming it on some fictitious Islamic media which only exists in your fevered imagination.”
Rumsfeld’s precipitous decline into senility is painful to watch. At one time the square-jawed Rumsfeld embodied the swaggering self-confidence and élan of the Bush administration. His friendly banter with the adoring Washington press corps made him a darling among conservatives and elevated him to rock star status.
No one could lay a glove on old Rummy; he was too smart and too quick on his feet.
And, now this; an embattled old man, trying to cover his failures with one absurd diversion after the other?
Rumsfeld should be on the front porch shooing kids off the lawn not steering the world’s most powerful military towards an impending catastrophe.
We need new leadership; pronto. Rumsfeld can swap his stories about Bin Laden Media with his fellows at the Senior Center, not from the podium at the Pentagon.
Don Rumsfeld may be a lousy Secretary of Defense, but he’s the best buck-passer this country’s ever had.
Nothing is ever his fault. Not Guantanamo, not Abu Ghraib, not Falluja, not Haditha, not de-Baathification, not the insurgency; nothing. Ever.
Of course, ever since Saddam’s bronze torso hit the pavement in Fidros Square, the occupation has steadily unraveled and turned into a quagmire. But that’s not Rummy’s fault either. Like President Bush said, “He’s doin’ a heck-uva job”.
Sec-Def Houdini put his excuse-making talents on full-display yesterday in a speech at Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada. He accused terrorist groups of “manipulating the media” to erode support for the war on terror.
“What bothers me the most,” he opined, “is the way they are actively manipulating the media in this country. They can lie with impunity…That’s the thing that keeps me up at night.”
Some of us were hoping that Iraq was keeping Rummy “up at night”…or maybe that niggling issue of torture and abuse that keeps popping up in the newspapers. But, noooo; it’s the looming specter of Zarqawi at his keyboard e mailing his hypnotic prose to unwitting Americans who are seduced by his vile propaganda.
Huh?
What exactly is Rumsfeld talking about? Or are these just the early signs of delirium praecox?
“The enemy is so much better at communicating,” he moaned. “I wish we were better at countering that because the constant drumbeat of the things they say—all of which are not true—is harmful.”
“Better at communicating”? Better than FOX News, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the whole alphabet-soup of cable stations that pitch Rumsfeld’s flag-waving jingoism ad nauseum? Are Bin Laden’s scratchy video-tapes really that much of a threat?
How can the press corps (some of America’s best and brightest) sit through this rubbish? Isn’t there anyone in the crowd who’s plucky enough to put a stop to Rumsfeld’s ruminations by saying,
“No offense, Mr. Secretary, but you’re losing the goddamn war and you’re blaming it on some fictitious Islamic media which only exists in your fevered imagination.”
Rumsfeld’s precipitous decline into senility is painful to watch. At one time the square-jawed Rumsfeld embodied the swaggering self-confidence and élan of the Bush administration. His friendly banter with the adoring Washington press corps made him a darling among conservatives and elevated him to rock star status.
No one could lay a glove on old Rummy; he was too smart and too quick on his feet.
And, now this; an embattled old man, trying to cover his failures with one absurd diversion after the other?
Rumsfeld should be on the front porch shooing kids off the lawn not steering the world’s most powerful military towards an impending catastrophe.
We need new leadership; pronto. Rumsfeld can swap his stories about Bin Laden Media with his fellows at the Senior Center, not from the podium at the Pentagon.
Cluster bombing of Lebanon 'immoral' UN official tells Israel
· Humanitarian chief says civilians are killed daily
· Annan urges Olmert to end Gaza blockade
The Guardian
"Israel faced a stinging rebuke from the UN yesterday when the world body's humanitarian chief expressed shock at the "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and Kofi Annan called for a rapid end to the conflict in Gaza.
Jan Egeland said civilians were facing "massive problems" returning home because of as many as 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs, most of which were dropped in the last days of the war.
"What's shocking - and I would say to me completely immoral - is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," Mr Egeland said. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance."
Earlier, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, called on Israel to end its closure of the Gaza Strip and to halt the fighting that has claimed the lives of more than 200 Palestinians in the past two months."
· Annan urges Olmert to end Gaza blockade
The Guardian
"Israel faced a stinging rebuke from the UN yesterday when the world body's humanitarian chief expressed shock at the "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and Kofi Annan called for a rapid end to the conflict in Gaza.
Jan Egeland said civilians were facing "massive problems" returning home because of as many as 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs, most of which were dropped in the last days of the war.
"What's shocking - and I would say to me completely immoral - is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," Mr Egeland said. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance."
Earlier, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, called on Israel to end its closure of the Gaza Strip and to halt the fighting that has claimed the lives of more than 200 Palestinians in the past two months."
Hizbullah's victory has transformed the Middle East
George Galloway in Beirut
Thursday August 31, 2006
The Guardian
"As the smoke clears from the battlefield of the 34-day war in Lebanon, it would be a mistake to count the cost only in fallen masonry and fresh graves. All is changed, changed utterly, by the defeat that the whole of Israel is now debating, from the cabinet through the lively press to the embittered reservists at the falafel stall. Practically the only person in the world who claims Israel won the war is George Bush - and we all know his definition of the words "mission accomplished".
If the fierce thicket of the Iraqi resistance stopped the Bush war spreading to Syria then the extraordinary Hizbullah victory has surely made the world think again about an attack on Iran. But the main - and maybe the most welcome - shift in the 40-year-old paradigm of the Israeli-Arab conflict is the puncturing of the belief in a permanent and unchallengeable Israeli military superiority over its neighbours and the hubris this has induced in Israeli leaders - from the sleek Shimon Peres through the roughhouse of Binyamin Netanyahu to the stumbling Mr Magoo premiership of Ehud Olmert."
Thursday August 31, 2006
The Guardian
"As the smoke clears from the battlefield of the 34-day war in Lebanon, it would be a mistake to count the cost only in fallen masonry and fresh graves. All is changed, changed utterly, by the defeat that the whole of Israel is now debating, from the cabinet through the lively press to the embittered reservists at the falafel stall. Practically the only person in the world who claims Israel won the war is George Bush - and we all know his definition of the words "mission accomplished".
If the fierce thicket of the Iraqi resistance stopped the Bush war spreading to Syria then the extraordinary Hizbullah victory has surely made the world think again about an attack on Iran. But the main - and maybe the most welcome - shift in the 40-year-old paradigm of the Israeli-Arab conflict is the puncturing of the belief in a permanent and unchallengeable Israeli military superiority over its neighbours and the hubris this has induced in Israeli leaders - from the sleek Shimon Peres through the roughhouse of Binyamin Netanyahu to the stumbling Mr Magoo premiership of Ehud Olmert."
Annan’s “Moral Mission” for Israeli Hegemony
By Kurt Nimmo
"It is disgusting the way United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan crawls to the psychopath Ehud Olmert and begs him to lift the criminal air and sea blockade of Lebanon. “Israel will pull out once there is a reasonable level of forces there,” Olmert lied.
Israel will never leave Lebanon and the “reasonable level of forces” argument is a transparent canard, as Israel will not sign off on its occupation no matter the number of foreign troops occupying Lebanon.
As the pathetic Kofi Annan crawled to Israel for “talks” with the Zionist mafia dons of the criminal state, he did not mention the UN Charter, specifically Article 51, stipulating the right of self-defense.
If Annan had any cojones and was anything but a servile bureaucrat, he would have brought up Israel’s pathological violation of countless UN resolutions, mostly calling upon Israel to comply with basic principles of international law embodied by the UN Charter.
UN Security Council resolutions, uniformly nixed by the United States, include the most egregious violations, including: attacking Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria; obstructing peace and violating the Fourth Geneva Convention; changing of the status of Jerusalem (i.e., stealing it by military force and ethnically cleansing Arabs); building settlements in occupied territories; expulsing Palestinians (a polite way to say ethnic cleansing); denying human rights, and more, ad nauseam.
Of course, if Israel agreed to release Lebanese prisoners in exchange for the Israelis captured after violating Lebanese sovereignty, the entire matter would come to an end. But Israel has no intention of releasing Lebanese prisoners or negotiating with Hezbollah.
The idea here is to use the prisoners to crank up the heat on Syria and eventually, Iran, the cardinal target of the Israeli and American effort.
Olmert, Gillerman, and the mafia dons of Israel don’t give a whit about Karnit Goldwasser and her husband, a pawn in an ongoing effort to subjugate Arabs and Persians to Zionist hegemony."
"It is disgusting the way United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan crawls to the psychopath Ehud Olmert and begs him to lift the criminal air and sea blockade of Lebanon. “Israel will pull out once there is a reasonable level of forces there,” Olmert lied.
Israel will never leave Lebanon and the “reasonable level of forces” argument is a transparent canard, as Israel will not sign off on its occupation no matter the number of foreign troops occupying Lebanon.
As the pathetic Kofi Annan crawled to Israel for “talks” with the Zionist mafia dons of the criminal state, he did not mention the UN Charter, specifically Article 51, stipulating the right of self-defense.
If Annan had any cojones and was anything but a servile bureaucrat, he would have brought up Israel’s pathological violation of countless UN resolutions, mostly calling upon Israel to comply with basic principles of international law embodied by the UN Charter.
UN Security Council resolutions, uniformly nixed by the United States, include the most egregious violations, including: attacking Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria; obstructing peace and violating the Fourth Geneva Convention; changing of the status of Jerusalem (i.e., stealing it by military force and ethnically cleansing Arabs); building settlements in occupied territories; expulsing Palestinians (a polite way to say ethnic cleansing); denying human rights, and more, ad nauseam.
Of course, if Israel agreed to release Lebanese prisoners in exchange for the Israelis captured after violating Lebanese sovereignty, the entire matter would come to an end. But Israel has no intention of releasing Lebanese prisoners or negotiating with Hezbollah.
The idea here is to use the prisoners to crank up the heat on Syria and eventually, Iran, the cardinal target of the Israeli and American effort.
Olmert, Gillerman, and the mafia dons of Israel don’t give a whit about Karnit Goldwasser and her husband, a pawn in an ongoing effort to subjugate Arabs and Persians to Zionist hegemony."
Chavez vows solidarity with Syria against U.S., Israel
"DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pledged solidarity on Wednesday with Syria in its struggle against Israel and the United States and predicted the demise of U.S. "imperialism."
"Syria and Venezuela share the same firm positions and a resistance to imperialism and imperialist aggression," Chavez told a news conference after talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, speaking in Spanish through an Arab interpreter.
"This age will witness the end of American imperialism," he said, pointing a laser pen at a map of the world showing countries where Washington has intervened militarily or whose governments it has helped to topple over the last 50 years.
Chavez denounced what he called Israel's "Nazi crimes" in Lebanon during the recent war and said the Jewish state should pull its remaining troops out of that country and also out of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967.
"Nothing equals the Nazi crimes Israel has committed in Lebanon and against the Palestinians," said Chavez, who arrived in Syria on Tuesday evening from Malaysia.
Chavez's popularity shot up across the Arab world after he ordered Venezuela's envoy to Israel home earlier this month to protest Israel's military offensive against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Many civilians died in the fighting.
He has threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Israel."
---
VIVA CHAVEZ!!
Arabic T-shirt sparks airport row
An architect of Iraqi descent has said he was forced to remove a T-shirt that bore the words "We will not be silent" before boarding a flight at New York.
Raed Jarrar said security officials warned him his clothing was offensive after he checked in for a JetBlue flight to California on 12 August.
Mr Jarrar said he was shocked such an action could be taken in the US.
US transport officials are conducting an inquiry after a complaint from the US Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
JetBlue said it was also investigating the incident but a spokeswoman said: "We're not clear exactly what happened."
'Authoritarian regimes'
Mr Jarrar's black cotton T-shirt bore the slogan in both Arabic and English.
He said he had cleared security at John F Kennedy airport for a flight back to his home in California when he was approached by two men who wanted to check his ID and boarding pass.
Mr Jarrar said he was told a number of passengers had complained about his T-shirt - apparently concerned at what the Arabic phrase meant - and asked him to remove it.
He refused, arguing that the slogan was not offensive and citing his constitutional rights to free expression.
Mr Jarrar later told a New York radio station: "I grew up and spent all my life living under authoritarian regimes and I know that these things happen.
"But I'm shocked that they happened to me here, in the US."
After a difficult exchange with airline staff, Mr Jarrar was persuaded to wear another T-shirt bought for him at the airport shop.
"We Will Not Be Silent" is a slogan adopted by opponents of the war in Iraq and other conflicts in the Middle East.
It is said to derive from the White Rose dissident group which opposed Nazi rule in Germany.
Congressmember Weiner Gets It Wrong On Palestinian Group He Tried To Bar From U.S.
AMY GOODMAN: After I spoke with [Congressmember John Murtha], I talked to New York Democratic Congressmember Anthony Weiner. In May, Weiner successfully added an amendment to a House bill banning aid to the Palestinian Authority. The amendment would outlaw the Palestinian delegation at the United Nations and kick them out of the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: You called for the Palestinian delegation to the UN to pack their bags, or more specifically, to pack their “little Palestinian terrorist bags.”
REP. ANTHONY WEINER: Right, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
REP. ANTHONY WEINER: Well, for the longest time, the Palestinian -- the PLO Mission -- PLO hasn’t been an accepted voice of the Palestinians for the longest time. Congress has said very clearly back in the 1980s, as recently as the middle of the 1990s, that they were not welcome here in the United States. And frankly, the PLO is an organization that, frankly, no longer seems to represent anyone, but they're still considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.
AMY GOODMAN: So would you call the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a terrorist?
REP. ANTHONY WEINER: No.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, the people who are at the UN --
REP. ANTHONY WEINER: Not the Mission of the Palestinian Authority. This is the PLO Mission. Mahmoud Abbas does not represent -- I hope he doesn't represent the PLO. He certainly doesn't say he does. He represents the Palestinian Authority. The PLO is a terrorist organization. It’s acknowledged it’s a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. And the only reason that they're still there is because a court ruled that they were an adjunct of the United Nations, and thus there were two conflicting laws that are in place about -- one that says the PLO has to leave the United States and the other that says that missions to the United Nations may stay. And so, frankly, I think that what I tried to do with the amendment you're referring to is just clarify the PLO is not welcome in the United States, nor should they be.
AMY GOODMAN: They represent the Palestinian government. The Palestinian government is led -- the president is Mahmoud Abbas.
REP. ANTHONY WEINER: Not true. The PLO Mission, the PLO Mission. The Palestinian Liberation Organization is a terrorist organization and is acknowledged that by the United States government. The Palestinian Authority, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas -- arguably that doesn't represent the Palestinian people anymore since the election either, but that’s a whole different story. But the PLO is a terrorist organization, and I believe that they should lose their quasi-diplomatic status, as they no longer represent anyone -- any of the Palestinians, and they are considered a terrorist organization.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Anthony Weiner. He called for kicking the Palestinian delegation out of the United States. But is his information accurate? Not his point of view, just the facts. Norman Finkelstein joins us in our Firehouse studio, professor of political science at DePaul University in Chicago. His latest book is called Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. The facts, Professor Finkelstein?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The facts can become a little technical, because there are multiple organizations now operating in the Occupied Territories, but Mahmoud Abbas was the successor to Yasser Arafat, when Arafat passed away and he became the chairman of the Palestinian -- PLO chief -- chairman of the PLO Executive. So he's clearly a member of the PLO. That, I don't think, is a matter of dispute.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of the PLO being on the list of terrorist organizations of the Justice Department?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: My recollection is -- I don't want to be -- I’ll be as precise as I can. The PLO was on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations until 1988. In 1988, there were these famous words that George Shultz had made Arafat recite in public.
AMY GOODMAN: The Secretary of State under Reagan.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Yeah, Secretary of State George Shultz. And at that point, he was -- the PLO was removed from the list of terrorist organizations, and the United States openly had diplomatic relations or ultimately was able to meet with the PLO. I’m sure your listeners will recall, before then there was the incident with Andrew Young having met with the PLO when it was a terrorist organization -- officially a terrorist organization. But afterwards, it was removed from the list.
AMY GOODMAN: So, for almost 20 years, it's been removed and the PLO has had a mission to the United Nations.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the PLO Mission to the United Nations began, if my memory serves, in 1974. The PLO Observer Mission began at the UN. Some of your older listeners will recall that's when Arafat gave that famous speech at the United Nations, “The Gun or the Olive Branch.” So the Mission, I think, began in 1974, and right now the PLO is pretty much considered an ally of the United States against Hamas. So it's kind of peculiar that Mr. Weiner should be venting his ire at the PLO. Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO are considered U.S. allies. We work with Dahlan, who’s the main PLO representative in Gaza. He heads up their security forces, works with the CIA, works with Israel. These are our people.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
THE HERO IN JENIN IS NOT A PALESTINIAN
Necklaces with small portraits of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, right, and the Hezbollah flag, left, are displayed for sale in the West Bank town of Jenin, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006. In the background is the Hezbollah flag. (AP Photo)
Population in Jews-only colonies in occupied West Bank rises
Agence France Presse
JERUSALEM, Aug 29 2006-- The overall number of Israelis
living in the occupied West Bank has increased by 2.7
percent during the last six months, according to
statistics published by the interior ministry on Tuesday.
Around 7,000 more Israelis live in the Palestinian
territory than six months ago, taking their overall
population in the West Bank to 260,042, according to
statistics that exclude some 200,000 Israelis living in
annexed east Jerusalem.
This article excludes the additional
180,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the parts of
Jerusalem occupied by Israel since June 1967-Ali Abunimah
Since late 2004, when there were 241,494 Jewish settlers
in the West Bank, the Israeli population in the territory
has increased by 7.5 percent, according to figures
published in Israel's Maariv newspaper.
Israel dismantled all 21 settlements built in the Gaza
Strip and withdrew all its troops and settlers from the
territory in August and September 2005.
When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took office on May 4, in
keeping with his ambition to redraw his country's
permanent borders, he said the continuation of scattered
Jewish settlements in the West Bank was "endangering"
Israel.
However, his intentions to withdraw from large parts of
the West Bank and so uproot tens of thousands of settlers
while effectively annexing the largest settlement blocs
have been put on ice after Israel's war in Lebanon.
This article excludes the additional
180,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the parts of
Jerusalem occupied by Israel since June 1967-Ali Abunimah
JERUSALEM, Aug 29 2006-- The overall number of Israelis
living in the occupied West Bank has increased by 2.7
percent during the last six months, according to
statistics published by the interior ministry on Tuesday.
Around 7,000 more Israelis live in the Palestinian
territory than six months ago, taking their overall
population in the West Bank to 260,042, according to
statistics that exclude some 200,000 Israelis living in
annexed east Jerusalem.
This article excludes the additional
180,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the parts of
Jerusalem occupied by Israel since June 1967-Ali Abunimah
Since late 2004, when there were 241,494 Jewish settlers
in the West Bank, the Israeli population in the territory
has increased by 7.5 percent, according to figures
published in Israel's Maariv newspaper.
Israel dismantled all 21 settlements built in the Gaza
Strip and withdrew all its troops and settlers from the
territory in August and September 2005.
When Prime Minister Ehud Olmert took office on May 4, in
keeping with his ambition to redraw his country's
permanent borders, he said the continuation of scattered
Jewish settlements in the West Bank was "endangering"
Israel.
However, his intentions to withdraw from large parts of
the West Bank and so uproot tens of thousands of settlers
while effectively annexing the largest settlement blocs
have been put on ice after Israel's war in Lebanon.
This article excludes the additional
180,000 Israeli settlers living illegally in the parts of
Jerusalem occupied by Israel since June 1967-Ali Abunimah
YOUR RELATIVES DON'T COUNT!
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan (L) meets families of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons during his trip to the West Bank city of Ramallah August 30, 2006. (REUTERS)
Palestinian and foreign demonstrators hold signs addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan during his visit in the West Bank town of Ramallah Wednesday Aug. 30, 2006.(AP Photo)
U.S.: Settlers assaulting American Citizens
"In recent months, citizens of Western nations, including Americans, involved in pro-Palestinian volunteer efforts were assaulted and injured in the Occupied Territories by Israeli settlers and harassed by the (Israeli army). Those taking part in demonstrations, nonviolent resistance, and direct action are advised to cease such activity for their own safety," it said.
YOUR 10,000 PRISONERS DON'T MATTER TO ME
U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan, left, speaks to the relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. (AP Photo)
Can you really not see? --by Amira Hass
Let us leave aside those Israelis whose ideology supports the dispossession of the Palestinian people because "God chose us." Leave aside the judges who whitewash every military policy of killing and destruction. Leave aside the military commanders who knowingly jail an entire nation in pens surrounded by walls, fortified observation towers, machine guns, barbed wire and blinding projectors. Leave aside the ministers. All of these are not counted among the collaborators. These are the architects, the planners, the designers, the executioners.
But there are others. Historians and mathematicians, senior editors, media stars, psychologists and family doctors, lawyers who do not support Gush Emunim and Kadima, teachers and educators, lovers of hiking trails and sing-alongs, high-tech wizards. Where are you? And what about you, researchers of Nazism, the Holocaust and Soviet gulags? Could you all be in favor of systematic discriminating laws? Laws stating that the Arabs of the Galilee will not even be compensated for the damages of the war by the same sums their Jewish neighbors are entitled to (Aryeh Dayan, Haaretz , August 21).
Could it be that you are all in favor of a racist Citizenship Law that forbids an Israeli Arab from living with his family in his own home? That you side with further expropriation of lands and the demolishing of additional orchards, for another settler neighborhood and another exclusively Jewish road? That you all back the shelling and missile fire killing the old and the young in the Gaza Strip?
Could it be that you all agree that a third of the West Bank (the Jordan Valley) should be off limits to Palestinians? That you all side with an Israeli policy that prevents tens of thousands of Palestinians who have obtained foreign citizenship from returning to their families in the occupied territories?
Could your mind really be so washed with the security excuse, used to forbid Gaza students from studying occupational therapy at Bethlehem and medicine at Abu Dis, and preventing sick people from Rafah from receiving medical treatment in Ramallah? Will also you find it easy to hide behind the explanation "we had no idea": we had no idea that the discrimination practiced in the distribution of water - which is solely controlled by Israel - leaves thousands of Palestinian households without water during the hot summer months; we had no idea that when the IDF blocks the entrance to villages, it also blocks their access to springs or water tanks.
But it cannot be that you don't see the iron gates along route 344 in the West Bank, blocking access to it from the Palestinian villages it passes by. It cannot be that you support preventing the access of thousands of farmers to their land and plantations, that you support the quarantine on Gaza which prevents the entry of medicine for hospitals, the disruption of electricity and water supply to 1.4 million human beings, closing their only outlet to the world for months.
Could it be that you do not know what is happening 15 minutes from your faculties and offices? Is it plausible that you support the system in which Hebrew soldiers, at checkpoints in the heart of the West Bank, are letting tens of thousands of people wait everyday for hours upon hours under the blazing sun, while selecting: residents of Nablus and Tul Karm are not allowed through, 35-year-olds and under - yallah, back to Jenin, residents of the Salem village are not even allowed to be here, a sick woman who skipped the line must learn a lesson and will be purposefully detained for hours. Machsom Watch's site is available for all; in it are countless such testimonies and worse, a day by day routine. But it cannot be that those who are appalled over every swastika painted on a Jewish grave in France and over every anti-Semitic headline in a Spanish local newspaper will not know how to reach this information, and will not be appalled and outraged.
As Jews we all enjoy the privilege Israel gives us, what makes us all collaborators. The question is what does every one of us do in an active and direct daily manner to minimize cooperation with a dispossessing, suppressing regime that never has its fill. Signing a petition and tutting will not do. Israel is a democracy for its Jews. We are not in danger of our lives, we will not be jailed in concentration camps, our livelihood will not be damaged and recreation in the countryside or abroad will not be denied to us. Therefore, the burden of collaboration and direct responsibility is immeasurably heavy.
But there are others. Historians and mathematicians, senior editors, media stars, psychologists and family doctors, lawyers who do not support Gush Emunim and Kadima, teachers and educators, lovers of hiking trails and sing-alongs, high-tech wizards. Where are you? And what about you, researchers of Nazism, the Holocaust and Soviet gulags? Could you all be in favor of systematic discriminating laws? Laws stating that the Arabs of the Galilee will not even be compensated for the damages of the war by the same sums their Jewish neighbors are entitled to (Aryeh Dayan, Haaretz , August 21).
Could it be that you are all in favor of a racist Citizenship Law that forbids an Israeli Arab from living with his family in his own home? That you side with further expropriation of lands and the demolishing of additional orchards, for another settler neighborhood and another exclusively Jewish road? That you all back the shelling and missile fire killing the old and the young in the Gaza Strip?
Could it be that you all agree that a third of the West Bank (the Jordan Valley) should be off limits to Palestinians? That you all side with an Israeli policy that prevents tens of thousands of Palestinians who have obtained foreign citizenship from returning to their families in the occupied territories?
Could your mind really be so washed with the security excuse, used to forbid Gaza students from studying occupational therapy at Bethlehem and medicine at Abu Dis, and preventing sick people from Rafah from receiving medical treatment in Ramallah? Will also you find it easy to hide behind the explanation "we had no idea": we had no idea that the discrimination practiced in the distribution of water - which is solely controlled by Israel - leaves thousands of Palestinian households without water during the hot summer months; we had no idea that when the IDF blocks the entrance to villages, it also blocks their access to springs or water tanks.
But it cannot be that you don't see the iron gates along route 344 in the West Bank, blocking access to it from the Palestinian villages it passes by. It cannot be that you support preventing the access of thousands of farmers to their land and plantations, that you support the quarantine on Gaza which prevents the entry of medicine for hospitals, the disruption of electricity and water supply to 1.4 million human beings, closing their only outlet to the world for months.
Could it be that you do not know what is happening 15 minutes from your faculties and offices? Is it plausible that you support the system in which Hebrew soldiers, at checkpoints in the heart of the West Bank, are letting tens of thousands of people wait everyday for hours upon hours under the blazing sun, while selecting: residents of Nablus and Tul Karm are not allowed through, 35-year-olds and under - yallah, back to Jenin, residents of the Salem village are not even allowed to be here, a sick woman who skipped the line must learn a lesson and will be purposefully detained for hours. Machsom Watch's site is available for all; in it are countless such testimonies and worse, a day by day routine. But it cannot be that those who are appalled over every swastika painted on a Jewish grave in France and over every anti-Semitic headline in a Spanish local newspaper will not know how to reach this information, and will not be appalled and outraged.
As Jews we all enjoy the privilege Israel gives us, what makes us all collaborators. The question is what does every one of us do in an active and direct daily manner to minimize cooperation with a dispossessing, suppressing regime that never has its fill. Signing a petition and tutting will not do. Israel is a democracy for its Jews. We are not in danger of our lives, we will not be jailed in concentration camps, our livelihood will not be damaged and recreation in the countryside or abroad will not be denied to us. Therefore, the burden of collaboration and direct responsibility is immeasurably heavy.
THEN AND NOW:
"Can we truly afford to believe that, somehow or someway, vicious extremists could be appeased?" -- Donald Rumsfeld, August 29, 2006.
Return Of People Power
By John Pilger
"In my experience, this critical public intelligence and moral sense have always been ahead of those who claim to speak for the public. What Vandana Shiva calls an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge" is on the rise in Britain and across the world, perhaps as never before, thanks to a revived internationalism aided by new technologies. Whereas Reagan could get away with many of his lies, Bush and Blair cannot. People know too much. And there is the presence of history; no imperial power has been able to sustain three simultaneous colonial wars indefinitely.
In Iraq, in contrast to the embedded lie that the killings are now almost entirely sectarian, 70 per cent of the 1,666 bombs exploded by the resistance in July were directed against the American occupiers and 20 per cent against the puppet police force. Civilian casualties amounted to 10 per cent. In other words, unlike the collective punishment meted out by the US, such as the killing of several thousand people in Fallujah, the resistance is fighting basically a military war and it is winning. That truth is suppressed, as it was in Vietnam.
An eyewitness, Simon Assaf, described "gangs of local men along the route clear[ing] paths by dragging away the piles of electrical cable, rubble and twisted metal that littered the highway. A new stream of cars would rapidly form through every breach in the rubble. There were no army or police . . . it was the locals who directed traffic, guided cars past dangerous craters and pushed buses up dirt tracks around collapsed bridges. As they neared their homes, the refugees would form great processions. Town after town, village after village was reclaimed. Powerless to confront this human wave, the Israelis abandoned their positions and began fleeing to the border. This flood of people emerged out of an unprecedented mass movement that grew up across the country as the bombs rained down."
There is no difference in principle between the people's movement that saw off the Israeli invaders and the stirring of people everywhere as they become aware of the real meaning of the ambitions and hypocrisy of Bush and his vassal, who want us to be ever fearful of and cowed by "terrorism" when, in truth, the greatest terrorists of all are them. "
"In my experience, this critical public intelligence and moral sense have always been ahead of those who claim to speak for the public. What Vandana Shiva calls an "insurrection of subjugated knowledge" is on the rise in Britain and across the world, perhaps as never before, thanks to a revived internationalism aided by new technologies. Whereas Reagan could get away with many of his lies, Bush and Blair cannot. People know too much. And there is the presence of history; no imperial power has been able to sustain three simultaneous colonial wars indefinitely.
In Iraq, in contrast to the embedded lie that the killings are now almost entirely sectarian, 70 per cent of the 1,666 bombs exploded by the resistance in July were directed against the American occupiers and 20 per cent against the puppet police force. Civilian casualties amounted to 10 per cent. In other words, unlike the collective punishment meted out by the US, such as the killing of several thousand people in Fallujah, the resistance is fighting basically a military war and it is winning. That truth is suppressed, as it was in Vietnam.
An eyewitness, Simon Assaf, described "gangs of local men along the route clear[ing] paths by dragging away the piles of electrical cable, rubble and twisted metal that littered the highway. A new stream of cars would rapidly form through every breach in the rubble. There were no army or police . . . it was the locals who directed traffic, guided cars past dangerous craters and pushed buses up dirt tracks around collapsed bridges. As they neared their homes, the refugees would form great processions. Town after town, village after village was reclaimed. Powerless to confront this human wave, the Israelis abandoned their positions and began fleeing to the border. This flood of people emerged out of an unprecedented mass movement that grew up across the country as the bombs rained down."
There is no difference in principle between the people's movement that saw off the Israeli invaders and the stirring of people everywhere as they become aware of the real meaning of the ambitions and hypocrisy of Bush and his vassal, who want us to be ever fearful of and cowed by "terrorism" when, in truth, the greatest terrorists of all are them. "
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Meanwhile in Iraq
Iraq: Raging violence claims at least 91 lives as U.S. occupation continues: Police found the bodies of 20 men with gunshot wounds in two areas of Baghdad on Tuesday
At least 100 die as militia force Iraqi troops out of town : More than 10,000 Iraqis - the vast majority in Baghdad - have been killed in the past four months alone, a figure that would send shockwaves through the international community were it in any other part of the world.
American toll is 10 killed in 2 days: the U.S. military said today that nine U.S. soldiers were killed on Sunday, eight of them in and around Baghdad and one in fighting in Anbar province west of Baghdad. A 10th soldier died yesterday of wounds sustained in a vehicle accident in Balad north of Baghdad.
Iraqi army agrees to truce with Shi'a militia: Under the deal brokered by local political leaders, the army will pull out of residential areas, while the Mahdi Army militia will stand down its forces in the districts it seized during the fighting, they said.
Attorneys want officials gagged in soldier's murder - rape case: - Federal officials should be barred from speaking about the case of a former soldier charged with raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, defense attorneys said.
New 'Caught Red-Handed' Report: Since the Iraq war began, the Republican-led Congress has spent more than $300 Billion on President Bush's failed policy. $18 billion has been awarded to Halliburton, much of which was in "no bid" contracts and $9 billion is missing.
Rumsfeld: U.S. able to take new fight despite Iraq: "It would be unfortunate if other countries thought that because we have 136,000 troops in Iraq today, that we're not capable of defending our country or doing anything that we might need to do," he said in response to a question about military options for dealing with Iran.
The Spider's Web: More people than ever are dying in Iraq while the United States looks on powerlessly. In the wake of its invasion of Lebanon, Israel is driven with self-doubt, while Europe tries to establish peace. But there is one country that is benefiting from every crisis in the region: Iran.
Meanwhile in Palestine
Israeli Army Destroying Olive Trees in Jenin: August 29th, 2006 in the town of Zububa in the Jenin region, Israeli soldiers are currently destroying large swaths of Palestinian olive groves. The attacks began around 7:00 in the morning with American-made Caterpillar armoured bulldozers, and is currently ongoing.
Israel Cause Of Corruption In Palestine, Says MP: Prof Dr Najat Omar Abou Bakr.. "Israel took away 83 per cent of our available water, 86 per cent of our land, destroyed 90 per cent of our infrastructure and left three million of our people under siege," she told Bernama at the first Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) Anti-Corruption and Enhancing Integrity Forum 2006
International blockades threaten Palestinian schools: Palestinian parents are huddling on street corners, in cafes and in mosques and talking nervously about the looming crisis in their children's education. The five month long financial blockade on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA) is now threatening to shut down the education system.
Nablus man tells Palestinian Prisoner Society lawyer that torture began during first investigation: They told him that they had arrested his wife and said they had an order from the Supreme Court to investigate his death. They accused him of planning resistance operations. Taher denied the charges against him for three days. The Israelis then forced him to take a polygraph. After that the Israeli investigators bound his legs and hands in an excruciating position and deprived him of sleep for three days. Then he had to take another polygraph.
Israeli Assault on Balata: This morning, two Palestinian resistance fighters were killed by Israeli military during an incursion into Balata refugee camp just outside of Nablus. Another young man was shot in the stomach and is, according to sources at Rafidia hospital, in critical condition.
Israeli air strike kills three Palestinians east of Gaza City: Palestinian medical sources in Gaza City reported that the Israeli air force fired one missile at a group of residents in Al Shujaeyya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, killing three Palestinians and injuring several residents, some seriously.
Israel carries out large-scale detention in West Bank: Backed by armored personnel carriers and tanks, the troops stormed the town earlier and opened heavy machine-gun fires at houses, said the witnesses. Three other Palestinians, including two brothers, were arrested in Bethlehem city from their houses by the soldiers.
OPT: Gaza siege causing major health crisis: Gaza hospitals are facing a crisis because of a western and Israeli economic boycott, and an Israeli military offensive. The United Nations has warned of an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation.
Nasrallah makes Palestine pop charts: Now the five singers who make up the Northern Band have come a little closer to their goal, with help from an unwitting ally - Hezbollah guerrilla chief Hassan Nasrallah. At the height of the Israel-Hezbollah war, the band wrote new lyrics, in praise of Nasrallah, for an old tune. The "Hawk of Lebanon" song tapped into Nasrallah's popularity among Palestinians and became an instant hit.
OCO health centre, school in Palestine: Muscat Secondary School for Boys and Muscat Health Centre were opened at a ceremony held in Jiba'a district, south of Jenin, and north of the West Bank, in Palestine. The two facilities were financed and built by Oman Charitable Organisation (OCO).
Israel Cause Of Corruption In Palestine, Says MP: Prof Dr Najat Omar Abou Bakr.. "Israel took away 83 per cent of our available water, 86 per cent of our land, destroyed 90 per cent of our infrastructure and left three million of our people under siege," she told Bernama at the first Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) Anti-Corruption and Enhancing Integrity Forum 2006
International blockades threaten Palestinian schools: Palestinian parents are huddling on street corners, in cafes and in mosques and talking nervously about the looming crisis in their children's education. The five month long financial blockade on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority (PA) is now threatening to shut down the education system.
Nablus man tells Palestinian Prisoner Society lawyer that torture began during first investigation: They told him that they had arrested his wife and said they had an order from the Supreme Court to investigate his death. They accused him of planning resistance operations. Taher denied the charges against him for three days. The Israelis then forced him to take a polygraph. After that the Israeli investigators bound his legs and hands in an excruciating position and deprived him of sleep for three days. Then he had to take another polygraph.
Israeli Assault on Balata: This morning, two Palestinian resistance fighters were killed by Israeli military during an incursion into Balata refugee camp just outside of Nablus. Another young man was shot in the stomach and is, according to sources at Rafidia hospital, in critical condition.
Israeli air strike kills three Palestinians east of Gaza City: Palestinian medical sources in Gaza City reported that the Israeli air force fired one missile at a group of residents in Al Shujaeyya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, killing three Palestinians and injuring several residents, some seriously.
Israel carries out large-scale detention in West Bank: Backed by armored personnel carriers and tanks, the troops stormed the town earlier and opened heavy machine-gun fires at houses, said the witnesses. Three other Palestinians, including two brothers, were arrested in Bethlehem city from their houses by the soldiers.
OPT: Gaza siege causing major health crisis: Gaza hospitals are facing a crisis because of a western and Israeli economic boycott, and an Israeli military offensive. The United Nations has warned of an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation.
Nasrallah makes Palestine pop charts: Now the five singers who make up the Northern Band have come a little closer to their goal, with help from an unwitting ally - Hezbollah guerrilla chief Hassan Nasrallah. At the height of the Israel-Hezbollah war, the band wrote new lyrics, in praise of Nasrallah, for an old tune. The "Hawk of Lebanon" song tapped into Nasrallah's popularity among Palestinians and became an instant hit.
OCO health centre, school in Palestine: Muscat Secondary School for Boys and Muscat Health Centre were opened at a ceremony held in Jiba'a district, south of Jenin, and north of the West Bank, in Palestine. The two facilities were financed and built by Oman Charitable Organisation (OCO).
2 Palestinians killed by Israeli Occupation Forces near Gaza: The Israel Air Force attacked the Sajaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. Two people were killed and six injured as a result of the attack.
5 year old shot in the back by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza: A five year old boy sustained moderate to severe injuried from IOF fire in a neighborhood east of Gaza City. According to the sources, the boy was shot in the back.
Disgraceful: : Gaza siege causing major health crisis: Gaza hospitals are facing a crisis because of a western and Israeli economic boycott, and an Israeli military offensive. The United Nations has warned of an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation.
Gaza siege causing major health crisis
"GAZA CITY, 29 Aug 2006 (IRIN) - Gaza hospitals are facing a crisis because of a western and Israeli economic boycott, and an Israeli military offensive. The United Nations has warned of an increasingly desperate humanitarian situation.
“The siege and closure imposed by Israel have hindered medical aid from Jordan, Qatar, the Red Cross and the EU from reaching us,” said Dr Ma'awiya Hasanein, general manager of the emergency section in the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.
In contrast to Lebanon, where humanitarian aid needs are generally being met, Gaza has been virtually cut off. With a crippled infrastructure and low and unreliable power and water supplies, its 1.4 million citizens face a daily struggle to survive.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that an increasing number of Palestinians are facing impoverishment.
“WFP food assistance is acting as a band aid in an attempt to prevent a further decline of livelihoods and nutrition among the poorest,” said Arnold Vercken, WFP country director in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). “Any improvement in the current humanitarian situation would only occur if Gaza’s economy were given a firm kick-start.”
Gaza suffers from power outages, a problem not faced by West Bank cities, after Israel bombed Gaza’s main electricity transformers. Hospitals depend on generators that consume large amounts of fuel, which is also in short supply as a result of the recurrent closure of Gaza’s entry points.
“It is very difficult to conduct operations with an alternative supply of electricity that depends on the availability of fuel. We also face difficulties in buying fuel from Israel due to the Israeli military barriers which delay its arrival for days,” Dr Hasanein said.
Power cuts have forced hospitals to perform critical surgeries only and to postpone minor operations.
“A humanitarian and health catastrophe is inevitable if we don’t get fuel,” Gaza Mayor Majed Abu Ramadan told Reuters on Monday."
This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies.
The Accidental Immigrant
No Rights at Home
By AMIRA HASS
"No rights at home
In December 1995 the Ministry of Interior began implementing a systematic policy of revoking the Jerusalem residency status of thousands of Palestinians who were born in the city, but for whom, according to the ministry, Jerusalem was no longer "the center of their lives"--and therefore their permanent residency permit had "expired." This applied to all those who lived abroad in the past or at that time, as well as those Palestinians who lived in neighborhoods just outside Jerusalem's municipal boundary. There was no official declaration of this policy. It only manifested itself as such when an increasing number of people discovered at the border crossings or at the offices of the Ministry of Interior that they were no longer defined as residents, and not as Jerusalemites, and were being stripped of rights in their own town."
By AMIRA HASS
"No rights at home
In December 1995 the Ministry of Interior began implementing a systematic policy of revoking the Jerusalem residency status of thousands of Palestinians who were born in the city, but for whom, according to the ministry, Jerusalem was no longer "the center of their lives"--and therefore their permanent residency permit had "expired." This applied to all those who lived abroad in the past or at that time, as well as those Palestinians who lived in neighborhoods just outside Jerusalem's municipal boundary. There was no official declaration of this policy. It only manifested itself as such when an increasing number of people discovered at the border crossings or at the offices of the Ministry of Interior that they were no longer defined as residents, and not as Jerusalemites, and were being stripped of rights in their own town."
Analysts see 'disaster' in U.S. position
"The authors of a hotly debated study on the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington said yesterday that the Bush administration's unquestioning support for Israel's military action in Lebanon confirms their thesis that the power of the lobby hurts both U.S. and Israeli national interests.
"Backing Israel to the hilt in the recent war in Lebanon was a disaster for the Lebanese people, served none of our real strategic goals in the region and ended up hurting Israel as well," said John Mearsheimer, political scientist and co-director of the University of Chicago's international security program.
Mr. Mearsheimer and co-author Stephen M. Walt, an international affairs scholar and academic dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, showed no signs of backing away from their analysis of the U.S.-Israel lobby at a National Press Club briefing."
"Backing Israel to the hilt in the recent war in Lebanon was a disaster for the Lebanese people, served none of our real strategic goals in the region and ended up hurting Israel as well," said John Mearsheimer, political scientist and co-director of the University of Chicago's international security program.
Mr. Mearsheimer and co-author Stephen M. Walt, an international affairs scholar and academic dean at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, showed no signs of backing away from their analysis of the U.S.-Israel lobby at a National Press Club briefing."
ON THE SUBJECT OF "HOUSE NIGGERS" (AS IN ANNAN)
Harry Belafonte
"Belafonte only achieved widespread attention for his political views, however, in 2002, when he began making a series of comments about President George W. Bush, catalyzed by Belafonte's disapproval of the Iraq War.
During an interview with Ted Leitner for San Diego's 760 KFMB, in October 2002, Belafonte referenced a quote made by the American civil rights era icon Malcolm X [3]:
There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes, they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good 'cause they ate his food and what he left... In those days he was called a 'house nigger.' And that's what we call him today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here.
Belafonte used the quote to characterize both former and current United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, both African-Americans, as "house slaves" for serving in Bush's cabinet, which he implied was racist, and for their refusal to stand against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was implying that, by going along with Bush's plans, the two were only serving the cause of their "master". He repeated the charge on an interview on Larry King Live. Powell and Rice both responded, with Powell calling the remarks "unfortunate" [13] and Rice saying "I don't need Harry Belafonte to tell me what it means to be black." [14] The comment was brought back up in an interview with Amy Goodman for Democracy Now! in 2006. [4]"
"Belafonte only achieved widespread attention for his political views, however, in 2002, when he began making a series of comments about President George W. Bush, catalyzed by Belafonte's disapproval of the Iraq War.
During an interview with Ted Leitner for San Diego's 760 KFMB, in October 2002, Belafonte referenced a quote made by the American civil rights era icon Malcolm X [3]:
There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes, they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good 'cause they ate his food and what he left... In those days he was called a 'house nigger.' And that's what we call him today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here.
Belafonte used the quote to characterize both former and current United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, both African-Americans, as "house slaves" for serving in Bush's cabinet, which he implied was racist, and for their refusal to stand against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was implying that, by going along with Bush's plans, the two were only serving the cause of their "master". He repeated the charge on an interview on Larry King Live. Powell and Rice both responded, with Powell calling the remarks "unfortunate" [13] and Rice saying "I don't need Harry Belafonte to tell me what it means to be black." [14] The comment was brought back up in an interview with Amy Goodman for Democracy Now! in 2006. [4]"
fishing in Gaza
Dr. Mona El-Farra
"I live by the seaside. I love the sea. When I was
young I always thought of myself as a fish that
cannot live outside its sea. I love swimming,
and walking by the sea any time, but specialy in the
morning and at sunset.
Now looking out of my window, watching the sea, and
the fishing boats, fills my heart with pain ,and
sadness, feeings I cannot describe. It is like a
monster's hand getting hold of my heart,strong
enough to crush it. I am resisting with my full
strength, but how long shall I stay strong
and resist? I do not know, I cannot predict.
All those thoughts crossed my mind while watching
some fishing boats which sailed too close to the
seashore. The gunboat's fires warned them to go back
to the harbour. But it is not just warning, it is
herding them, like a shepherd with its sheep,
ordering it to go back to the port .
Since the Israeli army's latest assaults against Gaza,
fishing boats are not allowed to go fishing. Few
take the risk of sailing too close to the seaside. But
all the time they are threatened by the warships'
direct shooting. Yesterday one of those boats was
under fire from the warships ,and was completely
destroyed and burned. Fishermen on board were not hurt
and they jumped into the sea.
I could not sleep, shooting continued all through
the night, so continuous and close to my
building that my daughter was frightened. We both
chose to sleep on the floor of my bedroom. I hardly
slept.
The fishing industry in Gaza has been paralysed for
the last 8 weeks. Since the capture of the Israeli
soldier, 3000 fishermen are not allowed to go fishing,
and 35.000 people who rely on this
industry are jobless. There is no fish in the Gaza
markets, though Gaza is famous for fish meals. This is
all over for the time being as anyway people do not
have the cash to buy a
non-existing nice fish meal. We can have fish and
other goodies only in our dreams.
Israel can never stop us dreaming ."
"I live by the seaside. I love the sea. When I was
young I always thought of myself as a fish that
cannot live outside its sea. I love swimming,
and walking by the sea any time, but specialy in the
morning and at sunset.
Now looking out of my window, watching the sea, and
the fishing boats, fills my heart with pain ,and
sadness, feeings I cannot describe. It is like a
monster's hand getting hold of my heart,strong
enough to crush it. I am resisting with my full
strength, but how long shall I stay strong
and resist? I do not know, I cannot predict.
All those thoughts crossed my mind while watching
some fishing boats which sailed too close to the
seashore. The gunboat's fires warned them to go back
to the harbour. But it is not just warning, it is
herding them, like a shepherd with its sheep,
ordering it to go back to the port .
Since the Israeli army's latest assaults against Gaza,
fishing boats are not allowed to go fishing. Few
take the risk of sailing too close to the seaside. But
all the time they are threatened by the warships'
direct shooting. Yesterday one of those boats was
under fire from the warships ,and was completely
destroyed and burned. Fishermen on board were not hurt
and they jumped into the sea.
I could not sleep, shooting continued all through
the night, so continuous and close to my
building that my daughter was frightened. We both
chose to sleep on the floor of my bedroom. I hardly
slept.
The fishing industry in Gaza has been paralysed for
the last 8 weeks. Since the capture of the Israeli
soldier, 3000 fishermen are not allowed to go fishing,
and 35.000 people who rely on this
industry are jobless. There is no fish in the Gaza
markets, though Gaza is famous for fish meals. This is
all over for the time being as anyway people do not
have the cash to buy a
non-existing nice fish meal. We can have fish and
other goodies only in our dreams.
Israel can never stop us dreaming ."
Gaza today after 2 month of the Israeli military operation
Dr. Mona El-Farra
"continous Israeli military operations against Gaza , in the east part of the city 8 people were killed , 17 injured including Journalists fro reuters, , heavy shooting from the gunboats .every day hospitals receive killed and injured people.,hospital use of Deisel increased ,to run the operation rooms ,with the continous use of the electrical generators ,i was told by the staff of the diagnostic center, in the palestinian red crescent society for gaza strip , that the CT and mamogramm, were not functioning properly , due to the improper current supply , those are highly sophisticated equipments , and give very important diagnostic health services for patients in the whole gaza strip ,1.5 milion population .........
thousands of children are back to school ,next saturday , no water no electricity no proper swege system,public health greatly affected ,no enterataining no cash to buy food increasing number of families rely on aid food alone, children donot have well balanced meals , the borders are closed ,only opened rarely to let in some medications and huminatarian aid for the UNRWA ,thousands of children suffer from post traumatic strees syndrome symptoms,
,Middle East children Allience distributed 500 school bags and stationeries for kids of Gaza
lidfe under occupation to be continued ....and the whole world goverments are not only silent but amused watching Gaza and its population huminatarian suffering , hurrying with impotent solutions ,.forgetting the origin of the proplem
OCCUPATION AND INJUSTICE"
"continous Israeli military operations against Gaza , in the east part of the city 8 people were killed , 17 injured including Journalists fro reuters, , heavy shooting from the gunboats .every day hospitals receive killed and injured people.,hospital use of Deisel increased ,to run the operation rooms ,with the continous use of the electrical generators ,i was told by the staff of the diagnostic center, in the palestinian red crescent society for gaza strip , that the CT and mamogramm, were not functioning properly , due to the improper current supply , those are highly sophisticated equipments , and give very important diagnostic health services for patients in the whole gaza strip ,1.5 milion population .........
thousands of children are back to school ,next saturday , no water no electricity no proper swege system,public health greatly affected ,no enterataining no cash to buy food increasing number of families rely on aid food alone, children donot have well balanced meals , the borders are closed ,only opened rarely to let in some medications and huminatarian aid for the UNRWA ,thousands of children suffer from post traumatic strees syndrome symptoms,
,Middle East children Allience distributed 500 school bags and stationeries for kids of Gaza
lidfe under occupation to be continued ....and the whole world goverments are not only silent but amused watching Gaza and its population huminatarian suffering , hurrying with impotent solutions ,.forgetting the origin of the proplem
OCCUPATION AND INJUSTICE"
Annan calls for release of Israel POWs, silent on Arab hostages
By Anne Penketh
The UN secretary-general has fuelled speculation that a deal leading to the release of two Israeli prisoners may be in the offing as he embarked on a delicate 11-day mission to the Middle East.
Following talks with the Lebanese cabinet, Kofi Annan urged the Hizbollah to release the two prisoners to the care of the international Red Cross.
"I ... renew my call for the abducted soldiers to be freed and as a first step to be transferred under the auspices of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) either to the government of Lebanon or to a third party," he said. The seizure of the two soldiers on 12 July in a cross-border incursion sparked Israel's 34-day onslaught.
The UN chief also urged Israel to lift the naval and air blockade that has isolated Lebanon since the war began, as part of Israeli efforts aimed at stopping the Hizbollah's weapons supply.
Continued...
The UN secretary-general has fuelled speculation that a deal leading to the release of two Israeli prisoners may be in the offing as he embarked on a delicate 11-day mission to the Middle East.
Following talks with the Lebanese cabinet, Kofi Annan urged the Hizbollah to release the two prisoners to the care of the international Red Cross.
"I ... renew my call for the abducted soldiers to be freed and as a first step to be transferred under the auspices of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) either to the government of Lebanon or to a third party," he said. The seizure of the two soldiers on 12 July in a cross-border incursion sparked Israel's 34-day onslaught.
The UN chief also urged Israel to lift the naval and air blockade that has isolated Lebanon since the war began, as part of Israeli efforts aimed at stopping the Hizbollah's weapons supply.
Continued...
THANKS TO OSLO AND THE PA, THE PALESTINIAN STRUGGLE HAS BEEN REDUCED TO THIS
Unemployed Palestinian workers hold bread and a spoon in front of riot police during a protest to demand jobs in front of the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza August 29, 2006. REUTERS
Al-Qaeda (and US) eclipsed by rise of Iran
By Mahan Abedin
Asia Times
"More broadly, the Islamic Republic's growing geopolitical weight (stemming in large measure from the ouster of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein) reinforces its ideological revival and motivates Iran's supporters across the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda and Salafi-jihadis are clearly losers in this intensifying dynamic. The problem is not so much their extreme ideology, but their comparative lack of organizational infrastructure and other resources. While Hezbollah has emerged as the most sophisticated guerrilla organization in the world, the Salafi-jihadis are still struggling with the basics. This is a reality that not even the most sophisticated al-Qaeda propagandists can dismiss lightly.
More broadly, the resurgence of Islamic Iran is likely to boost the fortunes of moderate Islamists across the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood's steadfast support for Hezbollah throughout the latest conflict is indicative of the tacit alliance between the Islamic Republic and the oldest and largest modern Islamist movement in the world. This is yet another dynamic that works against the interests of the Salafi-jihadis, the regime-friendly Salafis in Saudi Arabia and ultimately the House of Saud itself.
In the final analysis, al-Qaeda and the Salafi-jihadis more broadly are proving to be ephemeral and increasingly marginal forces. They are inherently limited by their extremism, lack of vision and resources and isolation from mainstream opinion.
Meanwhile the forces that pose a real threat to American hegemony in the region are increasingly on the ascendant and are set to completely dominate the political landscape of the Middle East in the not too distant future. The Americans are unlikely to be able to reverse this complex and intensifying dynamic. Being increasingly isolated from grassroots opinions in the Middle East, the Americans view force as the preferred option. But that has severe limitations, and can even be downright counter-productive, as evidenced by the latest Hezbollah-Israel conflict."
Asia Times
"More broadly, the Islamic Republic's growing geopolitical weight (stemming in large measure from the ouster of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein) reinforces its ideological revival and motivates Iran's supporters across the Muslim world. Al-Qaeda and Salafi-jihadis are clearly losers in this intensifying dynamic. The problem is not so much their extreme ideology, but their comparative lack of organizational infrastructure and other resources. While Hezbollah has emerged as the most sophisticated guerrilla organization in the world, the Salafi-jihadis are still struggling with the basics. This is a reality that not even the most sophisticated al-Qaeda propagandists can dismiss lightly.
More broadly, the resurgence of Islamic Iran is likely to boost the fortunes of moderate Islamists across the Arab world. The Muslim Brotherhood's steadfast support for Hezbollah throughout the latest conflict is indicative of the tacit alliance between the Islamic Republic and the oldest and largest modern Islamist movement in the world. This is yet another dynamic that works against the interests of the Salafi-jihadis, the regime-friendly Salafis in Saudi Arabia and ultimately the House of Saud itself.
In the final analysis, al-Qaeda and the Salafi-jihadis more broadly are proving to be ephemeral and increasingly marginal forces. They are inherently limited by their extremism, lack of vision and resources and isolation from mainstream opinion.
Meanwhile the forces that pose a real threat to American hegemony in the region are increasingly on the ascendant and are set to completely dominate the political landscape of the Middle East in the not too distant future. The Americans are unlikely to be able to reverse this complex and intensifying dynamic. Being increasingly isolated from grassroots opinions in the Middle East, the Americans view force as the preferred option. But that has severe limitations, and can even be downright counter-productive, as evidenced by the latest Hezbollah-Israel conflict."
Monday, August 28, 2006
Meanwhile in Iraq
At least 99 killed in occupied Iraq: Fifty gunmen and 20 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in clashes in the town of Diwaniya south of Baghdad, the Ministry of Defence spokesman said in Baghdad.
At least 67 killed as militia seizes key town: Shiite militiamen killed at least 20 Iraqi soldiers in two days of fighting that also left seven civilians dead, defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said Monday.
Eight U.S. occupation soldiers among at least 60 killed: : The deaths followed bombings and shootings Sunday that killed more than 60 people across the country, from the northern city of Kirkuk to Baghdad and Basra in the south.
25 Iraqi soldiers killed amid nationwide violence : Mohammed Abdul-Muhsen of Diwaniyah general hospital said 34 bodies were brought in - 25 Iraqi soldiers, seven civilians and two militiamen. He said at least 70 people were injured.
Bush 'palace' shielded from Iraqi storm: Washington is sending a clear message to Iraqis: "We're here to stay."
With thousands of Iraqis killed at hand of US soldiers, only few charged-report ; A review of military cases has found that the majority of US soldiers who served in Iraq and charged in the deaths of Iraqi civilians have been acquitted, found guilty of relatively minor offenses or given administrative punishments without trials.
"The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End." Video: Peter Galbraith discusses his book . He describes his experiences in Iraq, his impressions of the current situation and the leaders in Iraq & the administration.
Another miserable milestone for Bush's war: A miserable milestone was passed the other day. America's (and Britain's) disastrous war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the US involvement in the Second World War.Where's the outrage? U.S. troops have been accused of committing atrocities in Iraq. Americans should care.
Meanwhile in Palestine
The ghetto of Bir Nabala: Bir Nabala is one of the Palestinian places in Jerusalem district whose mere existence is threatened by the Apartheid Wall choking life in the town. Bir Nabala is situated northwest of Jerusalem and has been for centuries weaved into the social and cultural fabric of the Palestinian capital.
Israel Proposes To Maintain W Bank Outposts - Attorney: JERUSALEM (AP)--An internal Justice Ministry document indicates Israel is planning to legalize several unauthorized outposts in the West Bank and not dismantle them as it has pledged, a leading Israeli attorney said Monday.
IDF troops in Jenin kill 64-year-old man holding a flashlight: Israel Defense Forces troops killed a 64-year-old man in Jenin on Sunday, it was released for publication Monday. Palestinian sources said Monday that Sabri Khalil worked as a night watchman at a local school. After he shined his flashlight on a passing car, soldiers patrolling the city shot him in the chest, killing him.
Army invades Jenin, fires at resident's houses: An Israeli army force invaded the West Bank city of Jenin on Monday morning and opened fired at residents' houses. Soldiers took no prisoners but residents said that these invasions are taking place on daily basis and that most of the time, these attacks end by several reisdents taken prisoners or injured.
Resident, child, killed in Beit Hanoun and Rafah: Palestinian medical sources in Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, reported that one child died after an explosive left by the army detonated near him.
Israeli fire kills five Palestinians in Gaza: Sabet Edwan, 22, was killed by Israeli tank fire near the southern city of Rafah, they said. Earlier in the day, four Palestinians, including two Hamas militants and two members of president Mahmud Abbas's presidential guard, were killed in Gaza City's eastern Shejaya neighborhood.
Israeli Siege Leaves Gaza Isolated and Desperate: The war in southern Lebanon has overshadowed Israel's second front, a military and economic siege of the Gaza Strip that is deepening the poverty and desperation in this dense area of 1.4 million people. More than 200 Palestinians, at least 44 of them children, have been killed in the past 8 1/2 weeks. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed. Huge Israeli bulldozers and "pinpoint" missiles have razed at least 40 houses and dozens of other buildings, according to the army, leaving many families homeless.
Israeli Soldiers detain scores of civilians at a military checkpoint near Qabatia village: Local residents said that the army has been installing new checkpoints, both permanent and temporary, all over the Jenin district, causing people to lose their jobs, and preventing students from getting to school. Residents complained of the difficult and humiliating procedures they are forced to undergo at the checkpoints.
Three Children Taken Prisoners near Qalqilia: Local sources reported that troops swept the village, conducted house-to-house search before taking Leith Abass, 14, Ayoub Mustafa, 16, and Ja'far Mustafa, 15, to unknown destinations.
Palestinian Children Assaulted by Israeli Army: The other three boys were still there, and the police officer told the HRW, who tried to intervene, that he should leave because they were �taking the kids back home�. The HRWs moved back several yards and saw the border police and the police officer take one boy after another into the military post, behind the camouflage netting, where the HRWs couldn't see what was being done. When the first boy came out again (after about 15 seconds), the HRW saw that he was holding his head, so they suspected that those boys were taken in there to beat them.
Fox reporters freed, tell others not to fear Gaza: ''I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kindhearted,'' said Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American reporter who was released along with cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand. ''The world needs to know more about them.''
Ezra says Arab towns should not receive aid intended for north: Speaking during a special cabinet to present a plan by the Education Minister on the rehabilitation of the north, Ezra said that the Arab towns and villages "carried on as normal" during the war, and, as such, there was no need to hand out any money to them.
Accidental emigrant: In December 1995 the Ministry of Interior began implementing a systematic policy of revoking the Jerusalem residency status of thousands of Palestinians who were born in the city, but for whom, according to the ministry, Jerusalem was no longer "the center of their lives" - and therefore their permanent residency permit had "expired." This applied to all those who lived abroad in the past or at that time, as well as those Palestinians who lived in neighborhoods just outside Jerusalem's municipal boundary.
Uglier and uglier: This used to be a most important Palestinian political body - something like the politburo in the communist regimes or the secretariat of Mapai (precursor of the Labor Party) in days gone by. Now, at the meeting in Jordan, they decided on the establishment of a national unity government with Hamas, ignoring the fact that they are no longer in charge and that the government that is in power today is one that exists on behalf of Hamas.
Relief operations in Gaza Strip come to a standstill: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has said it has just one week's fuel supply left and will not be able to distribute food to 830,000 people next week unless the Karni crossing reopens.
U.S. proposal: Int'l observers, expansion at Karni crossing: The observers would be stationed on the Palestinian side of the terminal, and their job would be to ensure that the PA security personnel stationed there do what is necessary to prevent terror attacks in the vicinity. While the observers would be European, like those already stationed at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, American officials would supervise them.
Analysis: And then there were none: The decision by El Salvador to move its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv will leave the capital bereft of any foreign embassy for the first time in a quarter century. The move, which came on the heels of a similar decision by fellow Central American nation Costa Rica, marks the first major diplomatic gain for the Palestinians as a result of the month-long war with Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Israel Proposes To Maintain W Bank Outposts - Attorney: JERUSALEM (AP)--An internal Justice Ministry document indicates Israel is planning to legalize several unauthorized outposts in the West Bank and not dismantle them as it has pledged, a leading Israeli attorney said Monday.
IDF troops in Jenin kill 64-year-old man holding a flashlight: Israel Defense Forces troops killed a 64-year-old man in Jenin on Sunday, it was released for publication Monday. Palestinian sources said Monday that Sabri Khalil worked as a night watchman at a local school. After he shined his flashlight on a passing car, soldiers patrolling the city shot him in the chest, killing him.
Army invades Jenin, fires at resident's houses: An Israeli army force invaded the West Bank city of Jenin on Monday morning and opened fired at residents' houses. Soldiers took no prisoners but residents said that these invasions are taking place on daily basis and that most of the time, these attacks end by several reisdents taken prisoners or injured.
Resident, child, killed in Beit Hanoun and Rafah: Palestinian medical sources in Beit Hanoun, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, reported that one child died after an explosive left by the army detonated near him.
Israeli fire kills five Palestinians in Gaza: Sabet Edwan, 22, was killed by Israeli tank fire near the southern city of Rafah, they said. Earlier in the day, four Palestinians, including two Hamas militants and two members of president Mahmud Abbas's presidential guard, were killed in Gaza City's eastern Shejaya neighborhood.
Israeli Siege Leaves Gaza Isolated and Desperate: The war in southern Lebanon has overshadowed Israel's second front, a military and economic siege of the Gaza Strip that is deepening the poverty and desperation in this dense area of 1.4 million people. More than 200 Palestinians, at least 44 of them children, have been killed in the past 8 1/2 weeks. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed. Huge Israeli bulldozers and "pinpoint" missiles have razed at least 40 houses and dozens of other buildings, according to the army, leaving many families homeless.
Israeli Soldiers detain scores of civilians at a military checkpoint near Qabatia village: Local residents said that the army has been installing new checkpoints, both permanent and temporary, all over the Jenin district, causing people to lose their jobs, and preventing students from getting to school. Residents complained of the difficult and humiliating procedures they are forced to undergo at the checkpoints.
Three Children Taken Prisoners near Qalqilia: Local sources reported that troops swept the village, conducted house-to-house search before taking Leith Abass, 14, Ayoub Mustafa, 16, and Ja'far Mustafa, 15, to unknown destinations.
Palestinian Children Assaulted by Israeli Army: The other three boys were still there, and the police officer told the HRW, who tried to intervene, that he should leave because they were �taking the kids back home�. The HRWs moved back several yards and saw the border police and the police officer take one boy after another into the military post, behind the camouflage netting, where the HRWs couldn't see what was being done. When the first boy came out again (after about 15 seconds), the HRW saw that he was holding his head, so they suspected that those boys were taken in there to beat them.
Fox reporters freed, tell others not to fear Gaza: ''I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kindhearted,'' said Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American reporter who was released along with cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand. ''The world needs to know more about them.''
Ezra says Arab towns should not receive aid intended for north: Speaking during a special cabinet to present a plan by the Education Minister on the rehabilitation of the north, Ezra said that the Arab towns and villages "carried on as normal" during the war, and, as such, there was no need to hand out any money to them.
Accidental emigrant: In December 1995 the Ministry of Interior began implementing a systematic policy of revoking the Jerusalem residency status of thousands of Palestinians who were born in the city, but for whom, according to the ministry, Jerusalem was no longer "the center of their lives" - and therefore their permanent residency permit had "expired." This applied to all those who lived abroad in the past or at that time, as well as those Palestinians who lived in neighborhoods just outside Jerusalem's municipal boundary.
Uglier and uglier: This used to be a most important Palestinian political body - something like the politburo in the communist regimes or the secretariat of Mapai (precursor of the Labor Party) in days gone by. Now, at the meeting in Jordan, they decided on the establishment of a national unity government with Hamas, ignoring the fact that they are no longer in charge and that the government that is in power today is one that exists on behalf of Hamas.
Relief operations in Gaza Strip come to a standstill: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has said it has just one week's fuel supply left and will not be able to distribute food to 830,000 people next week unless the Karni crossing reopens.
U.S. proposal: Int'l observers, expansion at Karni crossing: The observers would be stationed on the Palestinian side of the terminal, and their job would be to ensure that the PA security personnel stationed there do what is necessary to prevent terror attacks in the vicinity. While the observers would be European, like those already stationed at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, American officials would supervise them.
Analysis: And then there were none: The decision by El Salvador to move its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv will leave the capital bereft of any foreign embassy for the first time in a quarter century. The move, which came on the heels of a similar decision by fellow Central American nation Costa Rica, marks the first major diplomatic gain for the Palestinians as a result of the month-long war with Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Israeli Occupation Forces Kill Teen Killed : Palestine Authority sources earlier on Monday afternoon reported an 18-year-old male was killed by IOF fire in the Rafiah area of southern Gaza.
A policy of no-return: Since April 2006, Israel has imposed a sweeping ban on the return to the country of Palestinians of Western nationality, primarily Americans
Immanuel Wallerstein.: What Can Israel Achieve?: Israel has always depended on its own military strength and an outside force - first the Soviet Union, then France, and now the United States - to achieve its security. Israel had better understand that it needs Hamas and Hezbollah if it is to survive.
Are Christian Zionists Mentally Ill?: The Jerusalem Syndrome: Video: Jerusalem attracts foreign pilgrims in their thousands, but each year dozens are diagnosed with the psychotic disorder known as "Jerusalem Syndrome".
Sudan president shuns US envoy
"Khartoum - A senior United States diplomat left Sudan without meeting President Omar al-Beshir after Khartoum rejected demands that it approve the deployment of UN peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur.
US assistant secretary of state Jendayi Frazer ended her mission to Sudan late on Sunday, a day before the UN security council was to discuss a draft resolution on the peacekeepers.
Frazer had been expected to deliver a message from US President George W Bush to al-Beshir, apparently pressing the Sudanese president to end his rejection of the UN deployment.
But al-Bashir was unable to meet the American diplomat "due to his crowded schedule," said the president's office.
Instead, Frazer handed the message to presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed, who in turn gave her a message from al-Bashir repeating his rejection of the UN force, said presidential spokesperson Mahjub Badry."
---
This is a dramatic example of the rapidly declining influence of the US in the region. What a slap in the face for the US envoy! Make no mistake about it, this is a direct result of Hizbullah's performance and the example it set.
US assistant secretary of state Jendayi Frazer ended her mission to Sudan late on Sunday, a day before the UN security council was to discuss a draft resolution on the peacekeepers.
Frazer had been expected to deliver a message from US President George W Bush to al-Beshir, apparently pressing the Sudanese president to end his rejection of the UN deployment.
But al-Bashir was unable to meet the American diplomat "due to his crowded schedule," said the president's office.
Instead, Frazer handed the message to presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed, who in turn gave her a message from al-Bashir repeating his rejection of the UN force, said presidential spokesperson Mahjub Badry."
---
This is a dramatic example of the rapidly declining influence of the US in the region. What a slap in the face for the US envoy! Make no mistake about it, this is a direct result of Hizbullah's performance and the example it set.
السيّد يؤنّب خادمه
AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE BY JOSEPH SAMAHA (Arabic)
جوزف سماحة
«ما خلا وضع إعلانات على الطرق فإن من الصعب جداً على إدارة بوش أن تكون قد أعلمت إسرائيل بقوة أكثر، أنها راغبة في أن يُقدِم الجيش الإسرائيلي على سحق حزب الله بعنف وقوة وبدون تردد». هذا ما قاله ناشط في منظمات يهودية أميركية (آرون راسكاس، «جيروزاليم بوست» 22/10).
لا لزوم للإعلانات على الطرق. السياسة الأميركية معروفة جيداً في لبنان إلى حدّ أن الشائعات تقول إن هامشيي الأكثرية كانوا محرجين لدى استضافة رايس وولش قدر إحراج ضابط مرجعيون لحظة تقديم الشاي.
لقد توّجت واشنطن، في الحرب على لبنان، سياسة مديدة من الدعم لإسرائيل. لم تعد الولايات المتحدة بعد 2001، تحمي الأمن الإسرائيلي والتفوّق على العرب. باتت تشجّع التوسعية الصهيونية وتراها ترجمة للعدوانية الأميركية. ولقد حصل تماهٍ كامل في تعريف «الإرهاب» يلغي، من الأساس، فكرة المقاومات الوطنية، ويشمل دول الممانعة، ويرفع مزاعم «الديموقراطية أولاً» للتغطية على إعادة الهيكلة الجذرية.
وليس سرّاً أن الولايات المتحدة، بمساعدة حثيثة من فرنسا، ساهمت في تهيئة المسرح اللبناني لتقبّل التدخل الإسرائيلي، لا بل، لاستدعائه. كما ليس سراً أن واشنطن حرّضت إسرائيل على الذهاب في إجرامها الى أبعد حدّ ممكن ولو أدى ذلك الى المجازفة بـ«ثورة الأرز الأميركية» التي بدت، لفترة، درّة تاج الإدارة في «الشرق الأوسط الكبير». لقد شاركت الولايات المتحدة مباشرة في الحرب عبر الجسر الجوي للأسلحة، وعطّلت المؤسسات الدولية قبل أن تحاول تطويعها. والأهم من ذلك أن بوش غامر بمزيد من انكشاف بلاده في المنطقة، وتعميق الكراهية لسياستها الخارجية، وتعريض أنظمة عربية «حليفة» لضغط شعوبها.
باختصار، تصرّفت الولايات المتحدة كما لو أن 99 في المئة من أوراق اللعبة في يد إسرائيل. وكانت تتوقع، وهذا من حقها، أن ينجز الجيش الحليف «سحقاً» كاملاً للمقاومة في لبنان يبرر عشرات مليارات الدولارات التي تدفعها له الإدارات الأميركية منذ عقود معتقدة أنها تستثمر أموالها فيه.
لم يطابق حساب الحقل حساب البيدر. لم تكن إسرائيل عند مستوى الأماني الأميركية المعلّقة عليها، تماماً كما في وسع إسرائيل أن تزعم أن الجيش الأميركي لم يكن في مستوى الأماني التي تعلقها عليه تل أبيب في... العراق!
انتهت الحرب العدوانية من دون نصر. يعني ذلك، استطراداً، أنها انتهت إلى ما يشبه الهزيمة. وارتدّت مفاعيلها إلى الداخل الإسرائيلي الذي شرع في مراجعة مؤلمة للذات.
إذا تركنا إسرائيل تعيد النظر في الكثير من حساباتها واستعداداتها فإننا سنلاحظ قلقاً واضحاً جدّاً عند داعميها الأميركيين، سواء في الأوساط اليهودية المغالية في يمينيتها أو في أوساط الأصوليين المسيحيين المتصهينين.
يرى هؤلاء أنهم فعلوا ما في وسعهم من أجل توليد القناعة بتطابق المصالح بين إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة، ويلاحظون أن التعثر في لبنان يهدّد الجهد الذي بذلوه لأن «الأميركيين إذا كانوا يحبّون الضحايا فإنهم لا يحبّون الخاسرين».
ثمّة قناعة شرعت تبرز ضمن هذه البيئة تقول إن الفشل أضرّ بمكانة إسرائيل بصفتها مرتكزاً استراتيجياً أساسياً للولايات المتحدة في المنطقة. لقد جرى تحويل أطروحة «المرتكز الاستراتيجي» إلى حقيقة دامغة لا تقبل شكّاً. ولذلك فإن تسرّب الأسئلة إليها يمكنه أن يقود أطرافاً في المؤسسة الأميركية الحاكمة إلى البحث عن سبل لسياسة أكثر توازناً في المنطقة.
إلى ذلك فإن التعثر الإسرائيلي ألحق ضرراً بالحرب الأميركية الكونية على «الإرهاب». وبما أن هذه الحرب هي الاسم الرمزي لإعادة إنتاج شرق أوسط مستسلم للمصالح الأميركية، فإنّ من حق السيّد أن يؤنّب خادمه على أدائه.
ولم يكن باقياً سوى أن تدخل إسرائيل في مرحلة ارتباك حتى يشعر أصدقاؤها الأميركيون بأنهم باتوا في موقع يُضعف قدرتهم على تسويق الأهمية الفائقة لهذا السند الإقليمي.
ربما كان من الواجب أن نتذكّر أن نظرية «إسرائيل المرتكز الاستراتيجي» هي نظرية واكبت حرب حزيران 67 وتلتها. كانت الإدارة الأميركية قد شرعت تتنبّه إلى أهمية إسرائيل قبل ذلك بوقت قصير، إلا أن الانتصار المدوّي في «حرب الأيام الستة» فتح الأعين في واشنطن: ها هي الدولة الطامحة إلى صداقة أميركا تقدّم لها عربوناً ثميناً ليس أقل من «رأس الحركة القومية العربية». منذ ذلك الوقت حصل تحوّل في الولايات المتحدة بأن ازدادت سياستها الشرق أوسطية «إسرائيلية» وازداد يهودها صهيونية.
يمكن التأريخ بحزيران 67 لبداية انقلاب إيديولوجي في الولايات المتحدة أدخلها، في ما يخص «الهولوكوست» مثلاً، في إطار وعي أوروبي لعقدة الذنب الناجمة عن الجريمة التاريخية. إلا أنّ التعديل على الإيديولوجيا لا ينبغي أن يخدعنا كثيراً. لقد أصبحت إسرائيل اعتباراً من ذلك الوقت «أهمّ توظيف أميركي خارجي على الإطلاق» على حدّ توصيف شهير أطلقه آرييل شارون.
إن الحسم في تحوّل إسرائيل إلى أبرز مرتكز استراتيجي أميركي في الشرق الأوسط، هو الذي أعلى من شأن «أصدقائها» الأميركيين وزاد نفوذهم. وهكذا فإن قوة «اللوبي اليهودي أو الصهيوني» في الولايات المتحدة هي نتيجة لقوة إسرائيل أولاً، وقبل أن تتحوّل إلى عنصر مهمّ من عناصرها.
ومن هنا فإنّ أي تراجع في هيبة إسرائيل وقدرتها الردعية ينعكس سلباً على الموقع المميّز للمدافعين عنها في واشنطن، مع ما يمكن لذلك أن يتركه من أثر على الدعم الأميركي لإسرائيل. ليس غريباً، والحالة هذه، أن يبرز قلق لدى هذه الأوساط في أميركا ما دامت تدرك أن بعض سلطتها مرتبط ببقاء الجيش الإسرائيلي قوة لا تقهر واحتياطياً بالغ الأهمية للسيد الأمبراطوري.
وما يعزّز هذه المخاوف، أن التعثر الإسرائيلي (ونتائجه) يحصل في ظل «التجرّؤ» على طرح قضية نفوذ «اللوبي» علناً ولأول مرة (الدراسة الصادرة عن هارفرد)، وفي ظلّ الفشل الأميركي في العراق وما قد ينجم عنه من تحميل للمسؤولية إلى الجناح «الإسرائيلي» في الإدارة وفي النخبة الأميركية الحاكمة.
من المبكر الحسم في نتيجة هذه التفاعلات. إلا أنها موضوع مهمّ للمتابعة. فإذا سارت الأمور في وجهة محدّدة تكون هذه واحدة من النتائج المهمّة لـ«النصر التاريخي والاستراتيجي» الذي أشار إليه الأمين العام لحزب الله حسن نصر الله. هل تمحو حرب تموز ــ آب 2006 بعض آثار عدوان حزيران 67 في هذا المجال تحديداً؟
جوزف سماحة
«ما خلا وضع إعلانات على الطرق فإن من الصعب جداً على إدارة بوش أن تكون قد أعلمت إسرائيل بقوة أكثر، أنها راغبة في أن يُقدِم الجيش الإسرائيلي على سحق حزب الله بعنف وقوة وبدون تردد». هذا ما قاله ناشط في منظمات يهودية أميركية (آرون راسكاس، «جيروزاليم بوست» 22/10).
لا لزوم للإعلانات على الطرق. السياسة الأميركية معروفة جيداً في لبنان إلى حدّ أن الشائعات تقول إن هامشيي الأكثرية كانوا محرجين لدى استضافة رايس وولش قدر إحراج ضابط مرجعيون لحظة تقديم الشاي.
لقد توّجت واشنطن، في الحرب على لبنان، سياسة مديدة من الدعم لإسرائيل. لم تعد الولايات المتحدة بعد 2001، تحمي الأمن الإسرائيلي والتفوّق على العرب. باتت تشجّع التوسعية الصهيونية وتراها ترجمة للعدوانية الأميركية. ولقد حصل تماهٍ كامل في تعريف «الإرهاب» يلغي، من الأساس، فكرة المقاومات الوطنية، ويشمل دول الممانعة، ويرفع مزاعم «الديموقراطية أولاً» للتغطية على إعادة الهيكلة الجذرية.
وليس سرّاً أن الولايات المتحدة، بمساعدة حثيثة من فرنسا، ساهمت في تهيئة المسرح اللبناني لتقبّل التدخل الإسرائيلي، لا بل، لاستدعائه. كما ليس سراً أن واشنطن حرّضت إسرائيل على الذهاب في إجرامها الى أبعد حدّ ممكن ولو أدى ذلك الى المجازفة بـ«ثورة الأرز الأميركية» التي بدت، لفترة، درّة تاج الإدارة في «الشرق الأوسط الكبير». لقد شاركت الولايات المتحدة مباشرة في الحرب عبر الجسر الجوي للأسلحة، وعطّلت المؤسسات الدولية قبل أن تحاول تطويعها. والأهم من ذلك أن بوش غامر بمزيد من انكشاف بلاده في المنطقة، وتعميق الكراهية لسياستها الخارجية، وتعريض أنظمة عربية «حليفة» لضغط شعوبها.
باختصار، تصرّفت الولايات المتحدة كما لو أن 99 في المئة من أوراق اللعبة في يد إسرائيل. وكانت تتوقع، وهذا من حقها، أن ينجز الجيش الحليف «سحقاً» كاملاً للمقاومة في لبنان يبرر عشرات مليارات الدولارات التي تدفعها له الإدارات الأميركية منذ عقود معتقدة أنها تستثمر أموالها فيه.
لم يطابق حساب الحقل حساب البيدر. لم تكن إسرائيل عند مستوى الأماني الأميركية المعلّقة عليها، تماماً كما في وسع إسرائيل أن تزعم أن الجيش الأميركي لم يكن في مستوى الأماني التي تعلقها عليه تل أبيب في... العراق!
انتهت الحرب العدوانية من دون نصر. يعني ذلك، استطراداً، أنها انتهت إلى ما يشبه الهزيمة. وارتدّت مفاعيلها إلى الداخل الإسرائيلي الذي شرع في مراجعة مؤلمة للذات.
إذا تركنا إسرائيل تعيد النظر في الكثير من حساباتها واستعداداتها فإننا سنلاحظ قلقاً واضحاً جدّاً عند داعميها الأميركيين، سواء في الأوساط اليهودية المغالية في يمينيتها أو في أوساط الأصوليين المسيحيين المتصهينين.
يرى هؤلاء أنهم فعلوا ما في وسعهم من أجل توليد القناعة بتطابق المصالح بين إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة، ويلاحظون أن التعثر في لبنان يهدّد الجهد الذي بذلوه لأن «الأميركيين إذا كانوا يحبّون الضحايا فإنهم لا يحبّون الخاسرين».
ثمّة قناعة شرعت تبرز ضمن هذه البيئة تقول إن الفشل أضرّ بمكانة إسرائيل بصفتها مرتكزاً استراتيجياً أساسياً للولايات المتحدة في المنطقة. لقد جرى تحويل أطروحة «المرتكز الاستراتيجي» إلى حقيقة دامغة لا تقبل شكّاً. ولذلك فإن تسرّب الأسئلة إليها يمكنه أن يقود أطرافاً في المؤسسة الأميركية الحاكمة إلى البحث عن سبل لسياسة أكثر توازناً في المنطقة.
إلى ذلك فإن التعثر الإسرائيلي ألحق ضرراً بالحرب الأميركية الكونية على «الإرهاب». وبما أن هذه الحرب هي الاسم الرمزي لإعادة إنتاج شرق أوسط مستسلم للمصالح الأميركية، فإنّ من حق السيّد أن يؤنّب خادمه على أدائه.
ولم يكن باقياً سوى أن تدخل إسرائيل في مرحلة ارتباك حتى يشعر أصدقاؤها الأميركيون بأنهم باتوا في موقع يُضعف قدرتهم على تسويق الأهمية الفائقة لهذا السند الإقليمي.
ربما كان من الواجب أن نتذكّر أن نظرية «إسرائيل المرتكز الاستراتيجي» هي نظرية واكبت حرب حزيران 67 وتلتها. كانت الإدارة الأميركية قد شرعت تتنبّه إلى أهمية إسرائيل قبل ذلك بوقت قصير، إلا أن الانتصار المدوّي في «حرب الأيام الستة» فتح الأعين في واشنطن: ها هي الدولة الطامحة إلى صداقة أميركا تقدّم لها عربوناً ثميناً ليس أقل من «رأس الحركة القومية العربية». منذ ذلك الوقت حصل تحوّل في الولايات المتحدة بأن ازدادت سياستها الشرق أوسطية «إسرائيلية» وازداد يهودها صهيونية.
يمكن التأريخ بحزيران 67 لبداية انقلاب إيديولوجي في الولايات المتحدة أدخلها، في ما يخص «الهولوكوست» مثلاً، في إطار وعي أوروبي لعقدة الذنب الناجمة عن الجريمة التاريخية. إلا أنّ التعديل على الإيديولوجيا لا ينبغي أن يخدعنا كثيراً. لقد أصبحت إسرائيل اعتباراً من ذلك الوقت «أهمّ توظيف أميركي خارجي على الإطلاق» على حدّ توصيف شهير أطلقه آرييل شارون.
إن الحسم في تحوّل إسرائيل إلى أبرز مرتكز استراتيجي أميركي في الشرق الأوسط، هو الذي أعلى من شأن «أصدقائها» الأميركيين وزاد نفوذهم. وهكذا فإن قوة «اللوبي اليهودي أو الصهيوني» في الولايات المتحدة هي نتيجة لقوة إسرائيل أولاً، وقبل أن تتحوّل إلى عنصر مهمّ من عناصرها.
ومن هنا فإنّ أي تراجع في هيبة إسرائيل وقدرتها الردعية ينعكس سلباً على الموقع المميّز للمدافعين عنها في واشنطن، مع ما يمكن لذلك أن يتركه من أثر على الدعم الأميركي لإسرائيل. ليس غريباً، والحالة هذه، أن يبرز قلق لدى هذه الأوساط في أميركا ما دامت تدرك أن بعض سلطتها مرتبط ببقاء الجيش الإسرائيلي قوة لا تقهر واحتياطياً بالغ الأهمية للسيد الأمبراطوري.
وما يعزّز هذه المخاوف، أن التعثر الإسرائيلي (ونتائجه) يحصل في ظل «التجرّؤ» على طرح قضية نفوذ «اللوبي» علناً ولأول مرة (الدراسة الصادرة عن هارفرد)، وفي ظلّ الفشل الأميركي في العراق وما قد ينجم عنه من تحميل للمسؤولية إلى الجناح «الإسرائيلي» في الإدارة وفي النخبة الأميركية الحاكمة.
من المبكر الحسم في نتيجة هذه التفاعلات. إلا أنها موضوع مهمّ للمتابعة. فإذا سارت الأمور في وجهة محدّدة تكون هذه واحدة من النتائج المهمّة لـ«النصر التاريخي والاستراتيجي» الذي أشار إليه الأمين العام لحزب الله حسن نصر الله. هل تمحو حرب تموز ــ آب 2006 بعض آثار عدوان حزيران 67 في هذا المجال تحديداً؟
Palestinian Hosam Sersawi, 6, lies in the intensive care unit at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Monday Aug. 28, 2006. Israeli sniper fire critically wounded Serwasi, during a military operation in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian officials and residents said. (AP)
NO IT IS NOT LEBANON, IT IS THE WEST BANK
A Palestinian man carries his belongings from a building damaged in an Israeli military operation on Saturday in the West Bank city of Nablus August 27, 2006. (REUTERS)
Palestinians carry their belongings from a building damaged in an Israeli military operation on Saturday in the West Bank city of Nablus August 27, 2006. (REUTERS)
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, ISRAELI STYLE
A Palestinian journalist inspects a Reuters armoured car after it was hit by an Israeli air strike in Gaza August 27, 2006. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters)
SILENCE THE PRESS!
A Palestinian looks at Reuters' armoured car after it was hit by an Israeli air strike in Gaza August 27, 2006. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters)
WHAT A JOKE! A "CABINET" MEETING WITH ABOUT HALF THE "CABINET"!
LET US PLAY "GOVERNMENT"
JUST ANOTHER PALESTINIAN KILLED BY THE IOF
Palestinian mourners pray next to the body of Sabri Khalil, 64, before his funeral in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, Monday, Aug. 28, 2006. Israeli troops shot and killed Khalil who was apparently unarmed in the West Bank city of Jenin, the army and witnesses said Monday. He died on the spot. (AP Photo)
CARTOON OF THE DAY
TWO WORLDS:
Israel is arming and preparing for the next war;
The puppet Arab regimes are launching a new (really, really new) "peace initiative!"
For Israel's Security?
By RAMZY KYSIA
Houla, Lebanon.
"Throughout South Lebanon, there are thousands of destroyed homes and buildings, and tens- of-thousands of homeless. Some towns, like Bint Jbeil and Khiam, are more rubble than anything else. Traveling through South Lebanon today, I am reminded so much of Palestine, of Nablus and Jenin and Gaza.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess functioning towns or secure homes.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess secure access to potable water.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess electricity.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess beaches.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess open borders, or engage in free trade with the world.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess modern roads.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess privacy.
Living in Lebanon today, I am left with a single, unanswered question. It's a terribly important question. It is a vitally important question.
The United States speaks for Israel's security from all we Islamo-Facist terrorist Arabs living throughout the Middle East. The United Nations Interim Force speaks for Israel's security here in Lebanon. During the war, Hosni Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt, spoke for Israel's security. During the war, King Abdullah, the dictator of Jordan, spoke for Israel's security. In Marjayoun, a mostly Christian village in South Lebanon, the Lebanese Army even offered the Israelis tea when they invaded.
For the West, and for all its pet Arab dictators, this is the proper moral response to Israeli terror. We Arabs must not only accept all of the bombs and the blockades. We must not only accept the destruction of our homes and dreams. We must, in fact, rejoice in our own devastation. This is, after all, the joyous "birth-pangs of a new Middle East." "
Houla, Lebanon.
"Throughout South Lebanon, there are thousands of destroyed homes and buildings, and tens- of-thousands of homeless. Some towns, like Bint Jbeil and Khiam, are more rubble than anything else. Traveling through South Lebanon today, I am reminded so much of Palestine, of Nablus and Jenin and Gaza.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess functioning towns or secure homes.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess secure access to potable water.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess electricity.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess beaches.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess open borders, or engage in free trade with the world.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess modern roads.
For Israel's security, Arabs must not possess privacy.
Living in Lebanon today, I am left with a single, unanswered question. It's a terribly important question. It is a vitally important question.
The United States speaks for Israel's security from all we Islamo-Facist terrorist Arabs living throughout the Middle East. The United Nations Interim Force speaks for Israel's security here in Lebanon. During the war, Hosni Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt, spoke for Israel's security. During the war, King Abdullah, the dictator of Jordan, spoke for Israel's security. In Marjayoun, a mostly Christian village in South Lebanon, the Lebanese Army even offered the Israelis tea when they invaded.
For the West, and for all its pet Arab dictators, this is the proper moral response to Israeli terror. We Arabs must not only accept all of the bombs and the blockades. We must not only accept the destruction of our homes and dreams. We must, in fact, rejoice in our own devastation. This is, after all, the joyous "birth-pangs of a new Middle East." "
Palestinian Death Toll Reaches 202 as 'Operation Summer Rains' Extends into its 10th Week
JERUSALEM, August 25, 2006 (WAFA)- The nearly two-month long Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip continues to exact a heavy toll on the 1.4 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, said United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
OCHA revealed in The Gaza Strip Situation Report 07 -24 Aug 2006, that two hundred and two (202) Palestinians, including 44 children have been killed since 28 June, when 'Operation Summer Rains' (the Israeli name for the offensive) began. One Israeli soldier has been killed and 26 Israelis injured in the same period.
Thousands of Palestinians, the report added, have been forced to flee their homes due to repeated ground offensives and intensive shelling by the Israeli Army. "Since 28 June, the Israel Air Force (IAF) launched at least 267 air strikes attacks on the Gaza Strip."
Only a limited amount of humanitarian aid has reached the Gaza Strip in the last ten days following the complete closure of main Karni crossing point. However, according to WFP, all food commodities are available in the market although there is a shortage of milk powder due to the closure of the crossings.
Approximately 120 Palestinian structures including houses, workshops and greenhouses have been destroyed and another 160 damaged by the Israeli military since the beginning of the current operation, the report said.
According to UNDP, electricity networks and bridges have been the hardest hit. UNDP estimates the cost to the electricity networks at $ 1.8 million. Destruction of civilian infrastructure, including the Gaza Power Plant, remains un-repaired, leaving more than a million people with only limited access to power and water.
OCHA revealed in The Gaza Strip Situation Report 07 -24 Aug 2006, that two hundred and two (202) Palestinians, including 44 children have been killed since 28 June, when 'Operation Summer Rains' (the Israeli name for the offensive) began. One Israeli soldier has been killed and 26 Israelis injured in the same period.
Thousands of Palestinians, the report added, have been forced to flee their homes due to repeated ground offensives and intensive shelling by the Israeli Army. "Since 28 June, the Israel Air Force (IAF) launched at least 267 air strikes attacks on the Gaza Strip."
Only a limited amount of humanitarian aid has reached the Gaza Strip in the last ten days following the complete closure of main Karni crossing point. However, according to WFP, all food commodities are available in the market although there is a shortage of milk powder due to the closure of the crossings.
Approximately 120 Palestinian structures including houses, workshops and greenhouses have been destroyed and another 160 damaged by the Israeli military since the beginning of the current operation, the report said.
According to UNDP, electricity networks and bridges have been the hardest hit. UNDP estimates the cost to the electricity networks at $ 1.8 million. Destruction of civilian infrastructure, including the Gaza Power Plant, remains un-repaired, leaving more than a million people with only limited access to power and water.
The Islamic Way of War
Muslims have stopped fighting on Western terms—and have started winning.
by Andrew J. Bacevich
"In Iraq, the world’s only superpower finds itself mired in a conflict that it cannot win. History’s mightiest military has been unable to defeat an enemy force of perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 insurgents equipped with post-World War II vintage assault rifles and anti-tank weapons.
In Gaza and southern Lebanon, the Middle East’s mightiest military also finds itself locked in combat with adversaries that it cannot defeat. Despite weeks of bitter fighting, the IDF’s Merkava tanks, F-16 fighter-bombers, and missile-launching unmanned aerial vehicles failed to suppress, much less eliminate, the armed resistance of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The answer to that question is dismayingly simple: the sun has set on the age of unquestioned Western military dominance. Bluntly, the East has solved the riddle of the Western Way of War. In Baghdad and in Anbar Province as at various points on Israel’s troubled perimeter, the message is clear: methods that once could be counted on to deliver swift decision no longer work.
The truth is that U.S. forces and the IDF looked good fighting Arabs only as long as Arab political leaders insisted on fighting on Western terms. As long as they persisted in pitting tank against tank or fighter plane against fighter plane, Arabs were never going to get the better of either the Americans or the Israelis. His stupidity perhaps matched only by his ruthlessness, Saddam may well have been the last Arab leader to figure this out."
by Andrew J. Bacevich
"In Iraq, the world’s only superpower finds itself mired in a conflict that it cannot win. History’s mightiest military has been unable to defeat an enemy force of perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 insurgents equipped with post-World War II vintage assault rifles and anti-tank weapons.
In Gaza and southern Lebanon, the Middle East’s mightiest military also finds itself locked in combat with adversaries that it cannot defeat. Despite weeks of bitter fighting, the IDF’s Merkava tanks, F-16 fighter-bombers, and missile-launching unmanned aerial vehicles failed to suppress, much less eliminate, the armed resistance of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The answer to that question is dismayingly simple: the sun has set on the age of unquestioned Western military dominance. Bluntly, the East has solved the riddle of the Western Way of War. In Baghdad and in Anbar Province as at various points on Israel’s troubled perimeter, the message is clear: methods that once could be counted on to deliver swift decision no longer work.
The truth is that U.S. forces and the IDF looked good fighting Arabs only as long as Arab political leaders insisted on fighting on Western terms. As long as they persisted in pitting tank against tank or fighter plane against fighter plane, Arabs were never going to get the better of either the Americans or the Israelis. His stupidity perhaps matched only by his ruthlessness, Saddam may well have been the last Arab leader to figure this out."
WHY CAN'T THE PALESTINIANS LEARN?
By Tony Sayegh
This has become a recurring theme for my commentaries because I am frustrated and angry that the Palestinian resistance movement is either incapable of learning, or worse, more interested in politics and show than real resistance. The latest Israeli air strike yesterday in Gaza killed 8 Palestinians and injured 18, many with serious injuries. That event by itself, sadly enough, is not news anymore. What was striking about it is that 4 of those killed belonged to the security force, which the "ministry of interior" deployed in Gaza after Hamas formed the "government." Three more were Hamas fighters. Apparently an Israeli drone spotted the concentration of this security force and an air strike was ordered. How stupid can you be? You are fighting an existential guerrilla war against an enemy who is sworn to your total destruction and who slaughters your people on a daily basis, and you allow "security forces" in uniform and in formations to be hit from the air like sitting ducks! This was not the first and will not be the last such example.
At a time when Hizbullah has demonstrated what organized resistance can do, there is no excuse for this incompetence on the part of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups. On the political side, virtually the entire "cabinet" and most of Hamas' MPs are in Israeli jails. Hamas has now resorted to urging the "international community" (oh how I hate this term) to put pressure on Israel for their release. Get real, Hamas! Are you a liberation movement or are you following Arafat's disastrous policies that led to this state of pleading and groveling?
Some will say that the situations of Hamas and Hizbullah are different. Agreed. However, since the situation of the Palestinians is much worse than that of the Lebanese, those who lead the Palestinian resistance have to excel even more than Hizbullah. Hizbullah, which had by far more military muscle than Hamas, did not have "security forces" with concentrations in the open in south Lebanon to be killed by Israeli air strikes. There was no army, police or any other structure of the state to be easily destroyed in south Lebanon. Why is it then, that the Palestinians who are nowhere near having a state are burdening themselves with all the trappings of a non-existent state? Parliament, ministries, ambassadors, etc. Who are we kidding? The situation that Hamas finds itself today was very predictable, even before Hamas decided to participate in the elections. I was of two minds about those elections, but now I see the wisdom of those who boycotted the elections, on the grounds that the elections and the so-called Palestinian Authority were a product of the Oslo accord which has caused the Palestinians a great deal of harm.
I am posting an article by Andrew J. Bacevich, in which he maintains that the Arabs and the Muslims kept losing wars to the West (including Israel) as long as they fought wars along the lines copied from the West. Namely, a modern army equipped with Western military equipment that took years to accumulate and billions of dollars, but was destroyed by Usrael in a matter of days. The Iraqi army was destroyed in 1992 with virtually no US losses! It can't get much easier than this, from the Usraeli point of view. According to Bacevich, the last stupid war the Arabs fought was in Iraq in 2003. Since then, the resistance in Iraq and Hizbullah in Lebanon, have shown that the mightiest military powers can be defeated and humbled only when you fight them on your terms not theirs.
The time is past due to dissolve the PA and all its structures. It is time to learn from Hizbullah and to get serious about resistance. Security and counterintelligence have to be ensured by a secret and organized structure from the district level to the village level and to the level of the entire West Bank and Gaza. If the puppet Abbas insists on continuing with his puppet and subservient government and his pathetic "peace process," then let him do it on his own. Expose his role and the role of his "security" forces as collaborators with Israel. Enough of this "national unity government" hogwash! This is not the time for any government; we are far from the time when a real government can be formed. If Hamas doesn't dissolve the PA and if it continues this muddled approach to resistance, then the motives of Hamas will become suspect and its credibility will greatly suffer.
This has become a recurring theme for my commentaries because I am frustrated and angry that the Palestinian resistance movement is either incapable of learning, or worse, more interested in politics and show than real resistance. The latest Israeli air strike yesterday in Gaza killed 8 Palestinians and injured 18, many with serious injuries. That event by itself, sadly enough, is not news anymore. What was striking about it is that 4 of those killed belonged to the security force, which the "ministry of interior" deployed in Gaza after Hamas formed the "government." Three more were Hamas fighters. Apparently an Israeli drone spotted the concentration of this security force and an air strike was ordered. How stupid can you be? You are fighting an existential guerrilla war against an enemy who is sworn to your total destruction and who slaughters your people on a daily basis, and you allow "security forces" in uniform and in formations to be hit from the air like sitting ducks! This was not the first and will not be the last such example.
At a time when Hizbullah has demonstrated what organized resistance can do, there is no excuse for this incompetence on the part of Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups. On the political side, virtually the entire "cabinet" and most of Hamas' MPs are in Israeli jails. Hamas has now resorted to urging the "international community" (oh how I hate this term) to put pressure on Israel for their release. Get real, Hamas! Are you a liberation movement or are you following Arafat's disastrous policies that led to this state of pleading and groveling?
Some will say that the situations of Hamas and Hizbullah are different. Agreed. However, since the situation of the Palestinians is much worse than that of the Lebanese, those who lead the Palestinian resistance have to excel even more than Hizbullah. Hizbullah, which had by far more military muscle than Hamas, did not have "security forces" with concentrations in the open in south Lebanon to be killed by Israeli air strikes. There was no army, police or any other structure of the state to be easily destroyed in south Lebanon. Why is it then, that the Palestinians who are nowhere near having a state are burdening themselves with all the trappings of a non-existent state? Parliament, ministries, ambassadors, etc. Who are we kidding? The situation that Hamas finds itself today was very predictable, even before Hamas decided to participate in the elections. I was of two minds about those elections, but now I see the wisdom of those who boycotted the elections, on the grounds that the elections and the so-called Palestinian Authority were a product of the Oslo accord which has caused the Palestinians a great deal of harm.
I am posting an article by Andrew J. Bacevich, in which he maintains that the Arabs and the Muslims kept losing wars to the West (including Israel) as long as they fought wars along the lines copied from the West. Namely, a modern army equipped with Western military equipment that took years to accumulate and billions of dollars, but was destroyed by Usrael in a matter of days. The Iraqi army was destroyed in 1992 with virtually no US losses! It can't get much easier than this, from the Usraeli point of view. According to Bacevich, the last stupid war the Arabs fought was in Iraq in 2003. Since then, the resistance in Iraq and Hizbullah in Lebanon, have shown that the mightiest military powers can be defeated and humbled only when you fight them on your terms not theirs.
The time is past due to dissolve the PA and all its structures. It is time to learn from Hizbullah and to get serious about resistance. Security and counterintelligence have to be ensured by a secret and organized structure from the district level to the village level and to the level of the entire West Bank and Gaza. If the puppet Abbas insists on continuing with his puppet and subservient government and his pathetic "peace process," then let him do it on his own. Expose his role and the role of his "security" forces as collaborators with Israel. Enough of this "national unity government" hogwash! This is not the time for any government; we are far from the time when a real government can be formed. If Hamas doesn't dissolve the PA and if it continues this muddled approach to resistance, then the motives of Hamas will become suspect and its credibility will greatly suffer.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
VIDEO by IF AMERICANS KNEW: Gaza after Disengagement
Victimhood Credits
Jenin Jenin Part 1
Jenin Jenin Part 2
America the Shootiful
Experts warn U.S. is coming apart at the seams
By Chuck McCutcheon
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON — A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.
None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.
"When I see events like these, I become concerned that we've lost focus on the core operational functionality of the nation's infrastructure and are becoming a fragile nation, which is just as bad — if not worse — as being an insecure nation," said Christian Beckner, a Washington analyst who runs the respected Web site Homeland Security Watch (www.christianbeckner.com). Continued.
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON — A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.
None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.
"When I see events like these, I become concerned that we've lost focus on the core operational functionality of the nation's infrastructure and are becoming a fragile nation, which is just as bad — if not worse — as being an insecure nation," said Christian Beckner, a Washington analyst who runs the respected Web site Homeland Security Watch (www.christianbeckner.com). Continued.
New York Jews Stage PENN STATION "DIE-IN"
Say to Israel and U.S.: The War Didn't Work, Honor the Cease-Fire!
Destroying Lebanese and Palestinian societies is a crime, not a security policy
New York City - A group of more than 20 Jewish protestors staged a "Die-In" during rush hour this morning outside Penn Station, unfurling large banners and lying down on the ground to demand a cessation of continuing Israeli military aggression in Lebanon and Palestine. In a peaceful demonstration, silent protestors created a harrowing scene reflecting the large civilian death toll in Lebanon and the aftermath of war. Coordinating with the group in New York, Jews in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco staged similar events throughout the morning.
Participants expressed outrage at what they believe is a failed and immoral Israeli policy backed by the U.S. in Lebanon and Palestine. The burden of Israel's U.S.-funded Israeli military action has fallen overwhelmingly on civilians and civil society, with over 1,000
Lebanese and 175 Palestinians killed since June 28 and over $3.5 billion worth of damage to Lebanese infrastructure. Protestors claimed Bush's pledge yesterday of $350 million in aid falls dramatically short of a serious contribution to reconstruction, and does not excuse the rush to war supported by the Administration and Congress, including New York representatives.
The group included those with strong family ties to Israel, long-time American civil rights activists, and those speaking out against Israeli military action for the first time.
Mario Yedidia, a Die-In participant with family spread across Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa said, "killing civilians, attacking government institutions and destroying the infrastructure of modern society is an immoral course of action that will ensure security for no one. Israel is unsuccessfully challenging a simple truth: no one is secure while others live in terror."
With a recent raid by Israel inside Lebanon this weekend, and hundreds of cluster bombs scattered in civilian areas, it has become clear that Israel is not abiding by the cease-fire.
"The current ceasefire exists in words only," insisted Rebecca Steinfeld, a Die-In participant and native New Yorker also with Israeli family in Israel. "The people of Southern Lebanon still suffer daily Israeli violence, and the Palestinian people are in their 39th year of living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza."
"If 5000 Israelis can demonstrate against Israel's policies, so should I," said long-time civil rights activist Dorothy Zellner, age 68. "There are hundreds of thousands of silent Jews who believe in justice and oppose Israeli policies and it's time we stood up and spoke out."
The day of coordinated actions across the country has been organized by a wide spectrum of American Jews committed to peace and justice in Palestine, Israel and the entire region.
Watch video from this action:
Destroying Lebanese and Palestinian societies is a crime, not a security policy
New York City - A group of more than 20 Jewish protestors staged a "Die-In" during rush hour this morning outside Penn Station, unfurling large banners and lying down on the ground to demand a cessation of continuing Israeli military aggression in Lebanon and Palestine. In a peaceful demonstration, silent protestors created a harrowing scene reflecting the large civilian death toll in Lebanon and the aftermath of war. Coordinating with the group in New York, Jews in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Francisco staged similar events throughout the morning.
Participants expressed outrage at what they believe is a failed and immoral Israeli policy backed by the U.S. in Lebanon and Palestine. The burden of Israel's U.S.-funded Israeli military action has fallen overwhelmingly on civilians and civil society, with over 1,000
Lebanese and 175 Palestinians killed since June 28 and over $3.5 billion worth of damage to Lebanese infrastructure. Protestors claimed Bush's pledge yesterday of $350 million in aid falls dramatically short of a serious contribution to reconstruction, and does not excuse the rush to war supported by the Administration and Congress, including New York representatives.
The group included those with strong family ties to Israel, long-time American civil rights activists, and those speaking out against Israeli military action for the first time.
Mario Yedidia, a Die-In participant with family spread across Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa said, "killing civilians, attacking government institutions and destroying the infrastructure of modern society is an immoral course of action that will ensure security for no one. Israel is unsuccessfully challenging a simple truth: no one is secure while others live in terror."
With a recent raid by Israel inside Lebanon this weekend, and hundreds of cluster bombs scattered in civilian areas, it has become clear that Israel is not abiding by the cease-fire.
"The current ceasefire exists in words only," insisted Rebecca Steinfeld, a Die-In participant and native New Yorker also with Israeli family in Israel. "The people of Southern Lebanon still suffer daily Israeli violence, and the Palestinian people are in their 39th year of living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza."
"If 5000 Israelis can demonstrate against Israel's policies, so should I," said long-time civil rights activist Dorothy Zellner, age 68. "There are hundreds of thousands of silent Jews who believe in justice and oppose Israeli policies and it's time we stood up and spoke out."
The day of coordinated actions across the country has been organized by a wide spectrum of American Jews committed to peace and justice in Palestine, Israel and the entire region.
Watch video from this action:
The Trouble with Bush's 'Islamofascism'
The Trouble with Bush's 'Islamofascism'
By Katha Pollitt
By Katha Pollitt
The Nation
Posted August 26, 2006
If you thought the War on Terror was bad, get ready for the international disasters that the "war on Islamic fascism" will produce.
If you control the language, you control the debate. As the Bush Administration's Middle Eastern policy sinks ever deeper into bloody incoherence, the "war on terror" has been getting a quiet linguistic makeover. It's becoming the "war on Islamic fascism.".... Continued.
Posted August 26, 2006
If you thought the War on Terror was bad, get ready for the international disasters that the "war on Islamic fascism" will produce.
If you control the language, you control the debate. As the Bush Administration's Middle Eastern policy sinks ever deeper into bloody incoherence, the "war on terror" has been getting a quiet linguistic makeover. It's becoming the "war on Islamic fascism.".... Continued.
Meanwhile in Lebanon
Italian FM: UN Troops in Lebanon Will Not Aim to Destroy Hezbollah : Italy's foreign minister says the goal of the expanded U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon will not be to destroy the Hezbollah militant group, which fought a month-long war with Israel.
Nasrallah: Talks on prisoners deal underway: Hizbullah leader tells Lebanese TV station that Italy is trying to play active role in negotiations on prisoner exchange between Israel and terror group
Toll from unexploded Israeli bomblets in Lebanon grows: Three children and a man were wounded Sunday by cluster bombs in southern Lebanon, medical sources said, bringing to almost 60 the number of people hurt by the controversial explosives since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah two weeks ago.
Pigs at the trough: Lantos: Withhold aid to Lebanon until troops secure border : U.S. Representative Tom Lantos said Sunday that he would ask the U.S. administration to freeze the U.S. $230 million aid package to Lebanon proposed by President George W. Bush until the Lebanese government takes control of its borders with Syria and prevent arms smuggling to Hezbollah guerrillas.
Meanwhile in Iraq
At least 28 killed in occupied Iraq: One day after Maliki won a promise from tribal leaders to rein in Iraq's violent factions, bombers targeted the busy heart of Baghdad and a state-run newspaper seen as friendly to the government.
20 bodies found in Baghdad : Police said 20 bodies had been found in various districts of Baghdad on Saturday. Some bore signs of torture and most had been killed by gunshots to the head, a typical feature of the communal bloodshed between the Shi'ite and Sunni sects.
Call for autonomy as Iraqi tribes demand peace : A powerful Iraqi politician called yesterday for the Shi’ite south of the country to become an autonomous region as tribal leaders vowed to work together for peace.
For an Iraq Cut in 3, Cast a Wary Glance at Kurdistan : Children are not required to learn Arabic in schools, which means an entire generation is growing up without the ability to communicate with other Iraqis. Arabs arriving from other parts of the country have to register with local security forces.
Reuters seeks Pentagon probe on journalist's "unlawful". death: Reuters news agency urged the U.S. military on Sunday to investigate the killing of one of its journalists by American troops in Baghdad a year ago.
You wouldn’t catch me dead in Iraq: Scores of American troops are deserting — even from the front line in Iraq. But where have they gone? And why isn’t the US Army after them? Peter Laufer tracked down four of the deserters.
U.S. forces kill family of five in Mosul: U.S. forces killed on Thursday five members of one family, who were an old man, two women and two young men, as they were leaving home in Mosul, claiming they were “terrorists”, official sources in Ninawa police department said.Director of Baghdad Museum Resigns, Citing Political Threat: The director was a midlevel official in the Baath Party and may be the target of a revenge campaign by conservative Shiites, a Western diplomat said.
60 killed in Iraq violence: A series of car bombings and shootings across Iraq have killed about 60 people on Sunday, but the Iraqi prime minister said that violence was decreasing and the country would never slide into a civil war.
Iraq War Shreds Bush Doctrine: Analysts say prez's goal of creating democracy has failed, leaving U.S. foreign policy adrift.
Meanwhile in Palestine
Occupation bulldozers escalate destruction for Wall: Occupation bulldozers have intensified the destruction of agricultural land for the Wall in Walaja village, northwest of Bethlehem, between Halhoul and Beit Omar, and in Aboud northwest of Ramallah. The fresh wave of demolition work in these areas comes after popular resistance had earlier managed to halt work.
British director Ken Loach backs Palestinian call for boycott on Israel: "Palestinians are driven to call for this boycott after forty years of the occupation of their land, destruction of their homes and the kidnapping and murder of their civilians," said Loach in a statement. "They have no immediate hope that this oppression will end. As British citizens we have to acknowledge our own responsibility. We must condemn the British and U.S. governments for supporting and arming Israel."
Malaysians boycott US companies: Malaysians launched a boycott of 3 US companies on Friday in protest over Washington's ‘support of Israel's military actions' against Palestine and Lebanon. The Muslim Consumer Association of Malaysia is calling on people to stop boycott three high-profile US companies – Starbucks, Coca Cola and Colgate-Palmolive.
Israeli troops kill 3 Palestinians in Gaza raid: The army said on Sunday its incursion into the Shijaiya neighbourhood was aimed at seeking out tunnels and explosives that could be used in attacks.
Wounded cameraman tells of Gaza blast: The missile struck the "P" of the bright red "PRESS" sign on the roof of the armour-plated Reuters car as Gaza cameraman Fadel Shana hurried to film an Israeli raid. Shana saw only a sheet of flame and the doors of the vehicle fly open.
Mother, her child, injured east of Gaza City: Dr. Moawiya Hasanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reported that the woman and her child were mildly injured after the Israeli air force fired a missile that exploded close to their house near Fathi Al Shiqaqi Mosque, in Al Mansoura Street in Gaza City.
Soldiers violently attack older Palestinian man in his home: Shortly thereafter three more HRWs arrived. The HRWs managed to enter the building. Three HRWs demanded access to Dr. Taysir, who was now out of sight, while a fourth video taped the encounter. Dr. Taysir could be heard yelling and crying out in pain from a room further in the house. The HRWs attempted to move past the soldiers in order to prevent further injury to Dr. Taysir, but were repeatedly forced back.
Detainee suffering Diabetes and Heart Disease transferred to Intensive Care Unit: Wife of detainee Younis Kawazia, from Sa'ir village, in Hebron, said that the Red Cross office informed her on Saturday that he husband was transferred to an Israeli hospital after his health condition has severely deteriorated in detention. She appealed humanitarian organizations to act for the immediate release of her husband since he needs daily medical care and attention.
Fisherman injured by Israeli naval ship attack in Gaza: Dr. Muawiya Hasanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reported that Amer Baker, 25, suffered moderate injuries after the Israeli Navy Ships opened random fire at several fishing boats and houses close to the Gaza shore area.
UN: 202 Palestinians killed since operation 'Summer Rain': A new United Nations report claims that Israel Defense Forces soldiers have killed 202 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Operation "Summer Rain," launched in the wake of the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in June. The report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the territories also says that 44 children are among the dead.
Israel detains Palestinian Hamas MP in West Bank: The Israeli army seized a Hamas Palestinian lawmaker at his West Bank home, witnesses said, the latest in a string of officials from the ruling Islamist movement to be detained by the Jewish state.
Israeli army kills Palestinian teen: Witnesses said soldiers fired on Palestinians throwing stones at them in the city of Nablus, killing a 16-year-old boy and wounding five others, one seriously.
Islamic Jihad supports coalition, but not to join: "We encourage forming of the coalition government in spite of the fact that we are not going to take part in it," Khader Habib told reporters in Gaza.
Solidarity sit-in before the destroyed building n Nablus: Nablus - A massive group of people including Nablus municipality chairman, members of the local council, two MPs and representatives of national and Islamic forces took part in a solidarity sit-in staged before the site of the building in Nablus that was destroyed on Saturday at the hands of the barbaric IOF soldiers.
IOF troops manhandle Palestinian doctor, family in Al-Khalil city: Al-Khalil - Large numbers of IOF troops ransacked the house of Palestinian doctor Tayseer Zahda in the Tal Al-Rameida suburb in the center of Al-Khalil city at dawn Sunday and badly manhandled him and his family members.
Palestinian academician proposes five-point-development plan to rehabilitate Palestinian economy: Palestinian academician and university professor Dr. Esam Odwan has suggested a five-point-development plan to help uplift and rehabilitate the Palestinian economy and free it of the Israeli hegemony.
Palestinian inmates in Negev protest strip search of their visiting relatives: Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in the Negev prison have described as "hell' their incarceration conditions in that jail, adding that the Israeli prisons authority (IPA) has turned the jail into an area of mass punishment.
Israeli pressures to block Hamas, Hizbullah MPs from attending European parliament session: The Israeli foreign ministry is launching strenuous efforts to block the participation of Palestinian and Lebanese parliament deputies from attending a session for the European parliament's political committee scheduled to be held in Turkey on 11-12 September.
Author of report says Justice Ministry plan would enable illegal settlements to receive state funding.
British director Ken Loach backs Palestinian call for boycott on Israel: "Palestinians are driven to call for this boycott after forty years of the occupation of their land, destruction of their homes and the kidnapping and murder of their civilians," said Loach in a statement. "They have no immediate hope that this oppression will end. As British citizens we have to acknowledge our own responsibility. We must condemn the British and U.S. governments for supporting and arming Israel."
Malaysians boycott US companies: Malaysians launched a boycott of 3 US companies on Friday in protest over Washington's ‘support of Israel's military actions' against Palestine and Lebanon. The Muslim Consumer Association of Malaysia is calling on people to stop boycott three high-profile US companies – Starbucks, Coca Cola and Colgate-Palmolive.
Israeli troops kill 3 Palestinians in Gaza raid: The army said on Sunday its incursion into the Shijaiya neighbourhood was aimed at seeking out tunnels and explosives that could be used in attacks.
Wounded cameraman tells of Gaza blast: The missile struck the "P" of the bright red "PRESS" sign on the roof of the armour-plated Reuters car as Gaza cameraman Fadel Shana hurried to film an Israeli raid. Shana saw only a sheet of flame and the doors of the vehicle fly open.
Mother, her child, injured east of Gaza City: Dr. Moawiya Hasanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reported that the woman and her child were mildly injured after the Israeli air force fired a missile that exploded close to their house near Fathi Al Shiqaqi Mosque, in Al Mansoura Street in Gaza City.
Soldiers violently attack older Palestinian man in his home: Shortly thereafter three more HRWs arrived. The HRWs managed to enter the building. Three HRWs demanded access to Dr. Taysir, who was now out of sight, while a fourth video taped the encounter. Dr. Taysir could be heard yelling and crying out in pain from a room further in the house. The HRWs attempted to move past the soldiers in order to prevent further injury to Dr. Taysir, but were repeatedly forced back.
Detainee suffering Diabetes and Heart Disease transferred to Intensive Care Unit: Wife of detainee Younis Kawazia, from Sa'ir village, in Hebron, said that the Red Cross office informed her on Saturday that he husband was transferred to an Israeli hospital after his health condition has severely deteriorated in detention. She appealed humanitarian organizations to act for the immediate release of her husband since he needs daily medical care and attention.
Fisherman injured by Israeli naval ship attack in Gaza: Dr. Muawiya Hasanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reported that Amer Baker, 25, suffered moderate injuries after the Israeli Navy Ships opened random fire at several fishing boats and houses close to the Gaza shore area.
UN: 202 Palestinians killed since operation 'Summer Rain': A new United Nations report claims that Israel Defense Forces soldiers have killed 202 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Operation "Summer Rain," launched in the wake of the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in June. The report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the territories also says that 44 children are among the dead.
Israel detains Palestinian Hamas MP in West Bank: The Israeli army seized a Hamas Palestinian lawmaker at his West Bank home, witnesses said, the latest in a string of officials from the ruling Islamist movement to be detained by the Jewish state.
Israeli army kills Palestinian teen: Witnesses said soldiers fired on Palestinians throwing stones at them in the city of Nablus, killing a 16-year-old boy and wounding five others, one seriously.
Islamic Jihad supports coalition, but not to join: "We encourage forming of the coalition government in spite of the fact that we are not going to take part in it," Khader Habib told reporters in Gaza.
Solidarity sit-in before the destroyed building n Nablus: Nablus - A massive group of people including Nablus municipality chairman, members of the local council, two MPs and representatives of national and Islamic forces took part in a solidarity sit-in staged before the site of the building in Nablus that was destroyed on Saturday at the hands of the barbaric IOF soldiers.
IOF troops manhandle Palestinian doctor, family in Al-Khalil city: Al-Khalil - Large numbers of IOF troops ransacked the house of Palestinian doctor Tayseer Zahda in the Tal Al-Rameida suburb in the center of Al-Khalil city at dawn Sunday and badly manhandled him and his family members.
Palestinian academician proposes five-point-development plan to rehabilitate Palestinian economy: Palestinian academician and university professor Dr. Esam Odwan has suggested a five-point-development plan to help uplift and rehabilitate the Palestinian economy and free it of the Israeli hegemony.
Palestinian inmates in Negev protest strip search of their visiting relatives: Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in the Negev prison have described as "hell' their incarceration conditions in that jail, adding that the Israeli prisons authority (IPA) has turned the jail into an area of mass punishment.
Israeli pressures to block Hamas, Hizbullah MPs from attending European parliament session: The Israeli foreign ministry is launching strenuous efforts to block the participation of Palestinian and Lebanese parliament deputies from attending a session for the European parliament's political committee scheduled to be held in Turkey on 11-12 September.
Author of report says Justice Ministry plan would enable illegal settlements to receive state funding. تحرك مفاجئ لاجهاض الانتصار
عبد الباري عطوان
التصريحات المفاجئة التي ادلي بها الأمير سعود الفيصل وزير الخارجية السعودي وحذر فيها من فقدان الهوية العربية لمصلحة هويات اخري وشدد علي اهمية تفعيل الجامعة العربية، تعكس حالة القلق التي تسود النظام الرسمي العربي، مثلما تعكس محاولاته اليائسة للخروج من الأزمة الراهنة التي يعيشها بسبب الغضب الكبير الذي يسود الشارع العربي حاليا، ويتمحور حول كيفية تغيير الانظمة الحاكمة العاجزة وبأسرع ما يمكن.
الأمير سعود الفيصل اعترف ان المرحلة الراهنة تستدعي هذا العمل الجاد والدؤوب لاستعادة ثقة شعوبنا العربية، واكتساب احترام المجتمع الدولي وهذا الأمر لن تحققه الامنيات، وانما العودة الي انتمائنا العربي، والعمل الجاد علي توضيح الرؤي وتوحيدها .
هذا الاعتراف الخطير يأتي متأخرا جدا ومحاولة يائسة لانقاذ نظام عربي رسمي فقد اهميته ومصداقيته، وبات يشعر بخطر الانهيار الوشيك بسبب الاحتقان الشعبي المتفاقم، وبروز تيارات اقليمية وعقائدية باتت اكثر اقناعا وقبولا لدي الشعوب العربية.
في اعقاب حرب العراق الاولي، التي سجلت فيها المملكة العربية السعودية سابقة الاستعانة بنصف مليون جندي امريكي، بالتعاون مع ضلعي المثلث (مصر وسورية) الذي حكم المنطقة لأكثر من ثلاثين عاماً، وأوصلها الي ما وصلت اليه من عجز واستسلام، وأودعها رهينة للهيمنة الامريكية، نقول في اعقاب هذه الحرب التي دمرت العراق تحت شعار تحرير الكويت ، خرج علينا منظرو تلك الحرب، بمقولة نتصارح ثم نتصالح وكانوا ينطلقون في هذا الشعار من نشوة الانتصار، علي آخر حصن للعروبة ، وبقايا فلولها في بعض الثغور الاعلامية العربية.
نقول الآن، وللأمير سعود الفيصل، بانه يجب علينا ان نتصارح فعلا اذا أردنا ان نصلح الوضع العربي ونعود الي هويتنا العربية المفقودة، لان هذه المصارحة ضرورية ومفيدة خاصة اذا استندت الي تحليل علمي يحدد الاسباب، ويشخص العيوب، ويضع رؤية واضحة للمستقبل، وفي اطار هذه المصارحة، نطرح النقاط التالية:
أولا: المملكة العربية السعودية كانت تقف دائما، وعلي مدي نصف القرن الماضي، ضد الهوية العربية، وتنفق عشرات المليارات من الدولارات لطمسها، ولمصلحة الهوية الاسلامية، ولهذا دعمت كل الجماعات الاسلامية، واسست منظمة المؤتمر الاسلامي كبديل للجامعة العربية، ثم بعد ذلك منظومة دول اعلان دمشق، ورصدت عشرات المليارات من الدولارات لكل حروب امريكا في المنطقة، وخاصة افغانستان والشيشان والعراق، وهشمت رموز التيار العربي ابتداء من الرئيس الراحل جمال عبد الناصر وانتهاء بالمنظمات والاحزاب القومية باعتبارها علمانية كافرة الي جانب حركات المقاومة الفلسطينية التي تستند الي الارضية نفسها، مثل الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين.
ثانياً: هذه الصحوة القومية السعودية تأتي كرد فعل علي انتصار كبير ، حققته المقاومة الاسلامية في لبنان، وهو الأول من نوعه في التاريخ العربي الحديث، وجاء بدعم اساسي من ايران غير العربية، اي انها ليست صحوة اصيلة منطلقها الحرص البريء ، وانما الخوف من سيادة المحور الايراني ـ السوري الجديد الذي يضم ايضا المقاومات الاسلامية في لبنان وفلسطين وبدرجة اقل في العراق. الأمر الذي يذكرنا بموقف مشابه اثناء بروز الثورة الاسلامية الايرانية والدعم السعودي للحرب ضدها.
ثالثاً: يعيش النظام السعودي حالة من الارتباك حاليا، مبعثها ثورة داخلية صامتة يقودها اصلاحيون ليبراليون من ناحية، وتيارات اسلامية متطرفة، الجناح الأول اي الليبراليون، يتحركون بطريقة حضارية، من خلال العرائض والبيانات المطالبة بالاصلاح، والجناح الثاني باعمال العنف الدموي. وكلا الجناحين يواجهان القمع في ابشع صوره. وازاء هذا الوضع الداخلي المتفجر، وتراجع نفوذه ومكانته، عربيا ودوليا واسلاميا، يحاول النظام ان يغير جلده، ويعيد ترتيب اولوياته، اي ان الهدف ليس انقاذ المنطقة، بقدر ما هو انقاذ نفسه.
رابعاً: تبني الهوية الاسلامية في مواجهة المد القومي العربي في الستينات والسبعينات، من قبل النظام في المملكة العربية السعودية، جاء تجاوبا مع مطلب امريكي، وفي اطار الحرب الباردة، وادي الي تقسيم العرب الي معسكرين: تقدمي ورجعي، وهو التقسيم الذي انتقده الأمير سعود الفيصل في تصريحاته المذكورة. فهل يا تري العودة حالياً الي الهوية العربية، التي يلوح النظام السعودي بتبنيها تأتي بايعاز من الولايات المتحدة وهي تستعد لخوض حرب ضد ايران لتدمير مفاعلها النووي ولمصلحة اسرائيل واسلحتها النووية ايضا؟
ما يمكن استنتاجه من خلال تصريحات الأمير سعود الفيصل، ان هناك محوراً جديداً يتبلور في المنطقة، يقوم علي اساس مثلث سعودي ـ مصري ـ اردني يريد توظيف المشاعر العربية القومية في خدمة المواجهة الامريكية المقبلة، والحتمية، مع ايران الاسلامية، تماما مثلما جري استخدام القومية العربية لتقويض الامبراطورية الاسلامية العثمانية لمصلحة الاستعمارين البريطاني والفرنسي في مطلع القرن العشرين.
احياء الهوية العربية وتعزيزها ليس خطأ، واي محاولة في هذا الاطار محمودة، ولكن ما هو محور اعتراض، هو طبيعة نوايا الجهات التي تقف خلف هذا الاحياء، والاهداف التي ترجو تحقيقها، وما اذا كانت لمصلحة الامة وشعوبها، ام لمصلحة جهات خارجية معادية لهذه الامة وطموحاتها.
الانظمة العربية الحالية، ومن ضمنها النظام السعودي تحديدا، لا تصلح لهذه المهمة النبيلة، وليست مؤهلة لها، لانها فقدت ثقة الشارع العربي عندما تحولت الي ادوات في خدمة المخططات الامريكية الاسرائيلية، ابتداء من تحطيم ثقافة المقاومة لمصلحة ثقافة السلام ، وفتح اراضيها وخزائنها لتمويل وتسهيل العدوان الامريكي علي العراق الذي ادي الي طمس هويته العربية واحداث خلل كبير في التوازن الاستراتيجي في المنطقة لغير صالح العرب.
نهوض الهوية العربية له مواصفات وشروط، ابرزها ان يكون علي اساس المقاومة، وفك اسس التبعية للمشاريع الامريكية في المنطقة، والتصدي للمشروع الاسرائيلي، وتوسيع دائرة المشاركة في السلطة علي اسس ديمقراطية، والتوزيع العادل للثروة، داخل الوطن نفسه، وداخل المنطقة العربية بأسرها بعد ذلك.
احياء الهوية العربية في اطار مشروع اجهاضي لحالة الصحوة العربية الاسلامية الحالية التي تجتاح المنطقة، تأسيساً علي الانتصار الأخير في لبنان، ومن قبل انظمة عربية متواطئة مع العدوان الامريكي ـ الاسرائيلي الاخير علي لبنان، هو دعوة مشبوهة يجب التعامل معها بحذر شديد، حتي لا نقع في حفرة جديدة لا نعرف كيف نخرج منها.
اكثر من ستمئة مليار دولار تدخل خزائن الانظمة سنويا علي شكل عوائد نفط، ويبدو ان هذه العوائد الضخمة (عوائد السعودية 220 مليار دولار سنويا) ستستخدم في غير صالح الأمة، ولخدمة حروب امريكا واسرائيل، تماماً مثلما استخدمت الطفرة المالية في الستينات لإجهاض المشروع الناصري للوحدة العربية، وفي أواخر السبعينات لاجهاض المقاومة والثورة الايرانية، وفي اوائل القرن الحادي والعشرين لتدمير الهوية العربية للعراق.
المصالحة الرائعة بين الهويتين العربية والاسلامية التي تتجسد علي ارضية المواجهة في لبنان هي اكبر تحد للمشروع الامريكي ـ الاسرائيلي، واثبتت انها الوسيلة الأنجع في هذا الصدد، وشاهدنا ونشاهد ثمارها في بدء انهيار المشروع التوسعي الاسرائيلي، ولهذا يجب الحفاظ عليها وتحصينها في مواجهة اي مشاريع ثقافية مشبوهة.
التصريحات المفاجئة التي ادلي بها الأمير سعود الفيصل وزير الخارجية السعودي وحذر فيها من فقدان الهوية العربية لمصلحة هويات اخري وشدد علي اهمية تفعيل الجامعة العربية، تعكس حالة القلق التي تسود النظام الرسمي العربي، مثلما تعكس محاولاته اليائسة للخروج من الأزمة الراهنة التي يعيشها بسبب الغضب الكبير الذي يسود الشارع العربي حاليا، ويتمحور حول كيفية تغيير الانظمة الحاكمة العاجزة وبأسرع ما يمكن.
الأمير سعود الفيصل اعترف ان المرحلة الراهنة تستدعي هذا العمل الجاد والدؤوب لاستعادة ثقة شعوبنا العربية، واكتساب احترام المجتمع الدولي وهذا الأمر لن تحققه الامنيات، وانما العودة الي انتمائنا العربي، والعمل الجاد علي توضيح الرؤي وتوحيدها .
هذا الاعتراف الخطير يأتي متأخرا جدا ومحاولة يائسة لانقاذ نظام عربي رسمي فقد اهميته ومصداقيته، وبات يشعر بخطر الانهيار الوشيك بسبب الاحتقان الشعبي المتفاقم، وبروز تيارات اقليمية وعقائدية باتت اكثر اقناعا وقبولا لدي الشعوب العربية.
في اعقاب حرب العراق الاولي، التي سجلت فيها المملكة العربية السعودية سابقة الاستعانة بنصف مليون جندي امريكي، بالتعاون مع ضلعي المثلث (مصر وسورية) الذي حكم المنطقة لأكثر من ثلاثين عاماً، وأوصلها الي ما وصلت اليه من عجز واستسلام، وأودعها رهينة للهيمنة الامريكية، نقول في اعقاب هذه الحرب التي دمرت العراق تحت شعار تحرير الكويت ، خرج علينا منظرو تلك الحرب، بمقولة نتصارح ثم نتصالح وكانوا ينطلقون في هذا الشعار من نشوة الانتصار، علي آخر حصن للعروبة ، وبقايا فلولها في بعض الثغور الاعلامية العربية.
نقول الآن، وللأمير سعود الفيصل، بانه يجب علينا ان نتصارح فعلا اذا أردنا ان نصلح الوضع العربي ونعود الي هويتنا العربية المفقودة، لان هذه المصارحة ضرورية ومفيدة خاصة اذا استندت الي تحليل علمي يحدد الاسباب، ويشخص العيوب، ويضع رؤية واضحة للمستقبل، وفي اطار هذه المصارحة، نطرح النقاط التالية:
أولا: المملكة العربية السعودية كانت تقف دائما، وعلي مدي نصف القرن الماضي، ضد الهوية العربية، وتنفق عشرات المليارات من الدولارات لطمسها، ولمصلحة الهوية الاسلامية، ولهذا دعمت كل الجماعات الاسلامية، واسست منظمة المؤتمر الاسلامي كبديل للجامعة العربية، ثم بعد ذلك منظومة دول اعلان دمشق، ورصدت عشرات المليارات من الدولارات لكل حروب امريكا في المنطقة، وخاصة افغانستان والشيشان والعراق، وهشمت رموز التيار العربي ابتداء من الرئيس الراحل جمال عبد الناصر وانتهاء بالمنظمات والاحزاب القومية باعتبارها علمانية كافرة الي جانب حركات المقاومة الفلسطينية التي تستند الي الارضية نفسها، مثل الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين.
ثانياً: هذه الصحوة القومية السعودية تأتي كرد فعل علي انتصار كبير ، حققته المقاومة الاسلامية في لبنان، وهو الأول من نوعه في التاريخ العربي الحديث، وجاء بدعم اساسي من ايران غير العربية، اي انها ليست صحوة اصيلة منطلقها الحرص البريء ، وانما الخوف من سيادة المحور الايراني ـ السوري الجديد الذي يضم ايضا المقاومات الاسلامية في لبنان وفلسطين وبدرجة اقل في العراق. الأمر الذي يذكرنا بموقف مشابه اثناء بروز الثورة الاسلامية الايرانية والدعم السعودي للحرب ضدها.
ثالثاً: يعيش النظام السعودي حالة من الارتباك حاليا، مبعثها ثورة داخلية صامتة يقودها اصلاحيون ليبراليون من ناحية، وتيارات اسلامية متطرفة، الجناح الأول اي الليبراليون، يتحركون بطريقة حضارية، من خلال العرائض والبيانات المطالبة بالاصلاح، والجناح الثاني باعمال العنف الدموي. وكلا الجناحين يواجهان القمع في ابشع صوره. وازاء هذا الوضع الداخلي المتفجر، وتراجع نفوذه ومكانته، عربيا ودوليا واسلاميا، يحاول النظام ان يغير جلده، ويعيد ترتيب اولوياته، اي ان الهدف ليس انقاذ المنطقة، بقدر ما هو انقاذ نفسه.
رابعاً: تبني الهوية الاسلامية في مواجهة المد القومي العربي في الستينات والسبعينات، من قبل النظام في المملكة العربية السعودية، جاء تجاوبا مع مطلب امريكي، وفي اطار الحرب الباردة، وادي الي تقسيم العرب الي معسكرين: تقدمي ورجعي، وهو التقسيم الذي انتقده الأمير سعود الفيصل في تصريحاته المذكورة. فهل يا تري العودة حالياً الي الهوية العربية، التي يلوح النظام السعودي بتبنيها تأتي بايعاز من الولايات المتحدة وهي تستعد لخوض حرب ضد ايران لتدمير مفاعلها النووي ولمصلحة اسرائيل واسلحتها النووية ايضا؟
ما يمكن استنتاجه من خلال تصريحات الأمير سعود الفيصل، ان هناك محوراً جديداً يتبلور في المنطقة، يقوم علي اساس مثلث سعودي ـ مصري ـ اردني يريد توظيف المشاعر العربية القومية في خدمة المواجهة الامريكية المقبلة، والحتمية، مع ايران الاسلامية، تماما مثلما جري استخدام القومية العربية لتقويض الامبراطورية الاسلامية العثمانية لمصلحة الاستعمارين البريطاني والفرنسي في مطلع القرن العشرين.
احياء الهوية العربية وتعزيزها ليس خطأ، واي محاولة في هذا الاطار محمودة، ولكن ما هو محور اعتراض، هو طبيعة نوايا الجهات التي تقف خلف هذا الاحياء، والاهداف التي ترجو تحقيقها، وما اذا كانت لمصلحة الامة وشعوبها، ام لمصلحة جهات خارجية معادية لهذه الامة وطموحاتها.
الانظمة العربية الحالية، ومن ضمنها النظام السعودي تحديدا، لا تصلح لهذه المهمة النبيلة، وليست مؤهلة لها، لانها فقدت ثقة الشارع العربي عندما تحولت الي ادوات في خدمة المخططات الامريكية الاسرائيلية، ابتداء من تحطيم ثقافة المقاومة لمصلحة ثقافة السلام ، وفتح اراضيها وخزائنها لتمويل وتسهيل العدوان الامريكي علي العراق الذي ادي الي طمس هويته العربية واحداث خلل كبير في التوازن الاستراتيجي في المنطقة لغير صالح العرب.
نهوض الهوية العربية له مواصفات وشروط، ابرزها ان يكون علي اساس المقاومة، وفك اسس التبعية للمشاريع الامريكية في المنطقة، والتصدي للمشروع الاسرائيلي، وتوسيع دائرة المشاركة في السلطة علي اسس ديمقراطية، والتوزيع العادل للثروة، داخل الوطن نفسه، وداخل المنطقة العربية بأسرها بعد ذلك.
احياء الهوية العربية في اطار مشروع اجهاضي لحالة الصحوة العربية الاسلامية الحالية التي تجتاح المنطقة، تأسيساً علي الانتصار الأخير في لبنان، ومن قبل انظمة عربية متواطئة مع العدوان الامريكي ـ الاسرائيلي الاخير علي لبنان، هو دعوة مشبوهة يجب التعامل معها بحذر شديد، حتي لا نقع في حفرة جديدة لا نعرف كيف نخرج منها.
اكثر من ستمئة مليار دولار تدخل خزائن الانظمة سنويا علي شكل عوائد نفط، ويبدو ان هذه العوائد الضخمة (عوائد السعودية 220 مليار دولار سنويا) ستستخدم في غير صالح الأمة، ولخدمة حروب امريكا واسرائيل، تماماً مثلما استخدمت الطفرة المالية في الستينات لإجهاض المشروع الناصري للوحدة العربية، وفي أواخر السبعينات لاجهاض المقاومة والثورة الايرانية، وفي اوائل القرن الحادي والعشرين لتدمير الهوية العربية للعراق.
المصالحة الرائعة بين الهويتين العربية والاسلامية التي تتجسد علي ارضية المواجهة في لبنان هي اكبر تحد للمشروع الامريكي ـ الاسرائيلي، واثبتت انها الوسيلة الأنجع في هذا الصدد، وشاهدنا ونشاهد ثمارها في بدء انهيار المشروع التوسعي الاسرائيلي، ولهذا يجب الحفاظ عليها وتحصينها في مواجهة اي مشاريع ثقافية مشبوهة.
