Palestinian Pundit

Roadblock Removed in Al-Jab’a, Demonstrators Attacked: The demonstrators marched from the village of Al-Jab'a, following Friday prayers, and assembled at the blockade. The Palestinians carried signs reading “I Dream of Freedom for My Children,” “Settlers Create Apartheid” and “You Steal Freedom,” while others carried Palestinian flags. When the demonstrators reached the roadblock, they began removing it with shovels, hoes, picks and their hands.

Army invades village of Bil'in, disrupting peaceful anti-Wall march: According to Abdullah Abu Rahme, local coordinator for the Popular Committee Against the Wall in Bil'in, 200 locals were joined by about 30 internationals and Israelis at the protest this afternoon. Abu Rahme said that Israeli troops blocked the entrance to the village, and stationed themselves among the villagers' olive groves. The soldiers closed the gate through the Wall that farmers use to access their land located beyond the Wall.

Home destroyed by two Israeli missiles, 'five minute warning' given by cell phone: Over 27,000 Palestinians have become homeless by Israeli home demolitions, either by missile or by bulldozer, since the current open conflict began six years ago on September 29th, 2006. The Israeli military spokesperson confirmed that a phone call had been made to the family before the house was hit with precision laser-guided missiles.

Building Nowhereland: Out on Highway 60, the bulldozers are at work. Next to the road that leads south from Jerusalem to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the big yellow machines are scraping the earth, carving a flat, white, dusty shoulder. Along that strip, a high concrete wall is already being built, part of the newest segment of Israel's "separation fence." The planned route loops around the cluster of settlements known as the Etzion Bloc, putting them on the Israeli side of the de facto border.

Report: Diskin holds secret talks with Arab intelligence heads: The newspaper reports that the participants in the secret meeting included Diskin (Shin Bet security service chief), Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, a senior Jordanian official, head of Jordan's General Intelligence Department Mohammed al-Dahabi, Head of Egyptian intelligence General Omar Suleiman as well as senior officials from two Persian Gulf states that do not maintain diplomatic ties with Israel.

Egypt, Jordan want Hamas gov't toppled: The attendants urged Abbas to reject a Hamas demand that it holds the premiership post in any future unity government with rivals Fatah, with Jordan and Egypt delegates arguing that the current Hamas government should be toppled.

Settlers attack, wound a Palestinian resident in Hebron: Resident Hana' Abu Haikal, said that she saw at least twenty settlers attacking several Palestinian homes and throwing stones at them. One resident, identified as Hisham Al Azza, 45, was injured in his face after being hit with a stone hurled by the settlers at his house.

Israeli Arabs mark six years since October riots: Israeli Arabs on Saturday commemorated the six-year anniversary of the riots of October 2000, in which police killed 13 Arab citizens rallying in support of the Palestinian Intifada. MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) said Saturday, "Six years later, we're still demanding truth and justice, a full disclosure of the facts and punishment of those responsible for killing our sons."

Al Aqsa Brigades declares state of alert in the Gaza Strip: In a statement to the media, a spokesman for the Al Aqsa Brigades, the armed resistance wing of the Fateh party, has announced the faction's declaration of a state of alert and full mobilization in the Gaza Strip. The spokesman says the declaration comes in response to numerous threats by the Israeli military to invade the Gaza Strip again if captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is not released.

Israeli visa rules hit Palestinian diaspora: Palestinians fear that the West Bank, like Gaza, will be cut off from foreign tourism and trade. Those affected by the visa crackdown include prominent business persons, educators, government consultants, development workers and the Palestinian diaspora. Israel and the US are leading an international economic and diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian Authority.

U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem expresses concern about Israeli refusals to issue visas: Representatives of the Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-Entry met on Friday with Consular Walles and several other chief staff at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem and Embassy in Tel Aviv to discuss this increasing act.

Ohio professor wants Israel to apology for his detention: An Ohio professor who spent 22 days in an Israeli jail on suspicion of spying for Iran and Hezbollah asked colleagues Friday to help him get an apology from Israel. "Trustworthy people do get detained for doing nothing wrong other than speaking out and taking a stand," he said Friday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

U.S. Congress okays $500m for defense projects with Israel: The funds will be allocated between many different projects, including the development of a short-range missile interception system, navigation systems for missiles and combat aircraft, and aerial drones. The money is not part of the regular military aid to Israel, which currently stands at over $2 billion.

India to build heart centre in Gaza: India will build a cardiac surgery centre in the strife-torn northern Gaza Strip as part of the USD 15 million humanitarian aid promised to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to New Delhi last year in May, a Palestinian official said.

Independent Lawmaker warns of large-scale Israeli operation in Gaza: The Israeli state television reported on Friday that the army put a plan to go back to Gaza Strip in a few coming days. Facing the Israeli plan, al-Barghouti called on the Palestinian factions to form a government of national unity to "thwart the bids that aim at tearing the Palestinians." (To make them look better after being humiliated in Gaza?????)

If not now, when will justice ever be served? ... tomorrow may be too late!: The long-suffering Palestinians have paid a terrible price throughout this period and for decades earlier while the world community ignores their desperate plight and is complicit in causing it. World leaders are comfortable remaining shamelessly silent while innocent people are being slaughtered and brutalized with impunity by the IDF's overwhelming force.

Editors Notes: Abbas's new-old adviser: Amr was branded a traitor and his home was fired on, reportedly by members of the Arafat-loyalist Aksa Martyrs Brigades. Two years later, in a television interview, Amr criticized Arafat again, for failing to root out corruption in the Palestinian Authority. Soon after he returned home, gunmen fired on him through the window of his home, hitting him twice in the right leg, which he had to have partly amputated. Those responsible have never been apprehended.

Military chiefs warned John Reid: 'Don't try to fight war on two fronts'
British soldiers six times more likely to die in Afghan conflict than in Iraq

"Britain's most senior military chiefs warned John Reid not to commit UK troops to "a war on two fronts" in Iraq and Afghanistan more than 18 months ago, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Despite clear advice that a "significant" withdrawal of troops from Iraq was needed before a new mission, Mr Reid went ahead with the Afghan deployment after coming under pressure from Tony Blair. The advice, prepared by military planners and endorsed by the Chiefs of the Defence Staff, was given to Mr Reid on his arrival as Secretary of State for Defence in May last year. Despite the warnings, he went ahead with the deployment in January.

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the war this Saturday, stark new evidence of the suffering being endured by British troops on the ground emerged in a series of leaked emails published in The Mail on Sunday. They amount to a harrowing account of terrified soldiers tormented by heat and sandflies engaged in brutal combat with Taliban fighters."

Watergate journalist's new book exposes how Bush has kept the US public in the dark about the true costs of the 'war on terror'

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer

"President George Bush was braced for one of the toughest fights of his political life yesterday as a fierce row broke out over whether he has been misleading the American public over the worsening violence in Iraq. The crisis also rippled across the Atlantic with claims that the administration hid crucial Iraq intelligence from its British allies.

Sparking the crisis was a series of leaks from a hard-hitting new book by the political journalist Bob Woodward, one of the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate scandal that engulfed the Nixon administration three decades ago.

In the TV interview Woodward accuses Bush of keeping the real situation in Iraq secret from the American public and playing down the true level of violence. 'There's public [information] and there's private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,' he says.

His book - State of Denial - is also understood to say Tony Blair was angry at discovering that Washington was keeping key intelligence on Iraq from Britain - even classifying reports based partly on contributions from British operatives as off-limits.

It portrays Bush as determined to stick it out even if his only supporters are whittled down to his wife and the White House dog. 'I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me,' Woodward quotes Bush as having told top Republicans at a White House meeting."

By Robert Fisk
The Independent

"The tragedy of these poor young people and of their desperate attempts to survive their repeated machine-gunning from the air is as well-known in Lebanon as it is already forgotten abroad. War crimes are easy to talk about when they have been committed in Rwanda or Bosnia; less so in Lebanon, especially when the Israelis are involved. But all the evidence suggests that what happened on this blissfully lovely coastline two and a half months ago was a crime against humanity, one that is impossible to justify on any military grounds since the dead and wounded were fleeing their homes on the express orders of the Israelis themselves.

Within a few seconds, Wissam says, an Israeli Apache helicopter arrived over the f vehicle, very low and hovering just above the children. "I saw Myrna still in the pick-up and she was crying and pleading for help. I went to get her and that's when the helicopter hit us. Its missile hit the back of the vehicle where all the children were and I couldn't hear anything because the blast had damaged my ears. Then the helicopter fired a rocket into the car behind the pick-up. But the pilot must have seen what he was doing. He could see we were mostly children. The pick-up didn't have a roof. All the children were crammed in the back and clearly visible."

Wissam talks slowly but without tears as he describes what happened next. "I lost sight of Myrna. I just couldn't see her any more for the dust flying around. Then the helicopter came back and started firing its guns at the children, at any of them who moved. I ran away behind a tel [a small hill] and lay there and pretended to be dead because I knew the pilot would kill me if I moved. Some of the children were in bits."

Wissam is correct about the mutilations. Hadi was burned to death in Zahra's arms. She died clutching his body to her. Two small girls - Fatmi and Zainab Ghanem - were blasted into such small body parts that they were buried together in the same grave after the war was over. Other children lay wounded by the initial shell burst and rocket explosions as the helicopter attacked them again. Only four survived, Wissam and his sister Marwa among them, hearing the sound of bullets as they "played dead" amid the corpses."

Gonzales cautions judges against second-guessing the president in wartime

Rounding Up U.S. Citizens

By MARJORIE COHN
(professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists)

"The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."

Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.

The Sedition Act provided criminal penalties for any person who wrote, printed, published, or spoke anything "false, scandalous and malicious" with the intent to hold the government in "contempt or disrepute." The Federalists argued it was necessary to suppress criticism of the government in time of war.

In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the internment of Japanese and Japanese-American citizens in Korematsu v. United States. Justice Robert Jackson warned in his dissent that the ruling would "lie about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need."

That day has come with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It provides the basis for the President to round-up both aliens and U.S. citizens he determines have given material support to terrorists. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Cheney's Halliburton, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of undesirables.

Seventy-three years later, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking for a zealous President, warned Americans "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

We can expect Bush to continue to exploit 9/11 to strip us of more of our liberties. Our constitutional right to dissent is in serious jeopardy. Benjamin Franklin's prescient warning should give us pause: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." "

By Mike Whitney

"The military is in a shambles and headed for a calamity.

America’s enemies should be thrilled that Don Rumsfeld is still overseeing all operations in Iraq. His incompetence is only matched by his astonishing inability to learn from his mistakes. It’s plain that America will not prevail with Rumsfeld in command.

Overextended, over-budgeted and mismanaged, the war in Iraq is foundering and the war on terror has been exposed as a fraud. (the NIE report)

How much worse can it get?

There is no good news from Iraq. It’s all bad. The magnitude of America’s defeat is becoming clearer and clearer with each passing day. Rumsfeld’s cheery propaganda campaign has fallen on hard times and will have no effect on the wars’ final outcome. The problem is the policy; it is untenable and will require a thorough overhaul.

We should expect to see dramatic changes following the elections. The Iraq Survey Group, steered by committee-chair and Bush family friend James Baker, will release their findings right after the November balloting. Judging by their guarded comments, big changes are ahead. Perhaps, the troops will move to the perimeter and let the Iraqis kill each other in a full-blown civil war.

Whatever transpires, the first phase of the Iraqi fiasco is nearly over. The Bush administration will be compelled to protect its interests while limiting the exposure of its troops. They may choose to minimize their activities to bombing raids and counter-insurgency operations, further destroying the threadbare fabric of Iraqi society.

Security is not important. Lives are not important. Only oil and the people it enriches are important."

Torturer-in-Chief

By RALPH NADER

"The messianic, authoritarian George W. Bush and the minds of his cohorts have further collapsed the rule of law with his bulldozing through a divided Congress more dictatorial powers in his increasingly self-defined, self-serving and failing "war on terror."

The normally restrained New York Times in an editorial titled "Rushing off a Cliff" condemned Bush's "ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217 year-old nation of laws-while doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser."

Bush has concentrated so much arbitrary power in his Presidency that he can be described in the vernacular as the torturer-in-chief, the jailer-in-chief and the arrestor-in-chief. Who needs the courts? Who needs the constitutional rights to habeas corpus for defendants to be able to argue that they were wrongfully arrested or capriciously imprisoned indefinitely without being charged?

Timed for the November elections, Bush moves on Congress, complete with his minions there issuing McCarthyite press releases accusing opposing Democrats, in the words of House Speaker, Dennis Hastert (R ­ Ill.), of voting "in favor of MORE rights for terrorists." (His emphasis)

All this shameless, anti-American unconstitutional bile from the Bushites comes in the midst of his own top intelligence people reporting that their President's war in Iraq is providing a recruitment and training ground for growing numbers of terrorists in Iraq and from other countries. Earlier, Bush's own CIA Director, Porter Goss, told a Senate Committee the same thing. Bush's own generals in Iraq also agree. Critics call it pouring gasoline on a raging fire."

IRAQ: THE LAND OF THE THREE RIVERS

Note: Yesterday I posted the original Arabic version of this report which appeared in Al-Quds Al-'Arabi.

"The Arabic-language London-based newspaper Al-Quds reported on Saturday that a secret meeting between Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin and intelligence officials from several moderate Middle Eastern states took place recently in Jordan.

According to the report, the meeting was held in order to discuss the confrontation with the extreme Middle Eastern states and how to handle the threat of terror.

The newspaper reports that the participants in the secret meeting included Diskin, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, a senior Jordanian official, head of Jordan's General Intelligence Department Mohammed al-Dahabi, Head of Egyptian intelligence General Omar Suleiman as well as senior officials from two Persian Gulf states that do not maintain diplomatic ties with Israel.

According to the report, representatives from Egypt, Jordan and one of the Gulf states expressed reservations over the appointment of Haniyeh or any other Hamas member to head the potential Palestinian unity government.

They also demanded of Abbas that the platform of the unity government include the conditions set by the Quartet - the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia - such as the recognition of Israel and the honoring of past agreements made between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Abbas reportedly demanded of all present at the meeting that all efforts to secure Shalit's release be conducted in tandem with Hamas leadership in the Palestinian Authority, and that all contact with Hamas leadership in Syria, namely exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, be stopped."

***

One can say that this was a working meeting of a real alliance between Israel and the axis of Arab puppets: Egypt-Jordan-Saudi Arabia-Abbas and his PA and some Gulf states. News of this alliance first emerged during the Israeli attack on Lebanon, when the alliance supported Israel and opposed Hizbullah!

Matters have never been so clear in the M.E. What used to be whispered quietly and later denied is now official and in the open. By the way, Rice will be coming to the M.E. in a few days to check on the progress of the axis of Arab puppets and to provide further instructions.

Long live the axis of Arab puppets under the control of Greater Israel!

Tony Sayegh

Curfew locks down Baghdad until Sunday: Iraq’s government shut down the capital with a curfew from Friday night until Sunday morning, ordering all cars and pedestrians off the streets, but giving no reason for the measure.

Saddam Judge's Relatives Gunned Down: The brother-in-law of the new judge presiding over Saddam Hussein's genocide trial was shot to death Friday morning in Baghdad in an attack that also seriously wounded his son, police said. Kadhim Abdul-Hussein and his son Karrar were shot in their car in the capital's western Ghazaliya neighborhood by unidentified assailants, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.

At least 15 killed as bloody U.S. occupation grinds on: Gunmen firing from a car killed three Iraqi soldiers, two of them brothers, in the small town of Rashad, 20 km (12 miles) southwest of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said.

More Tortured Bodies Found In Baghdad: The corpses of six men and one woman were all found in east Baghdad neighborhoods. They were blindfolded, and had their hands and legs bound, police said.

Five killed in U.S. air strike -police, medics: - Iraqi police and hospital officials said a woman and two children were among five people killed in an air strike on a car on Thursday, but the U.S. military said it was unaware of any such incident.

Two U.S. occupation force soldiers killed in Iraq : Two U.S. soldiers were killed in two incidents in the volatile Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

U.S. army `coming to end of its rope': Not only are troop levels not being reduced, but almost 8,000 soldiers have just had their 12-month tours of duty extended.

Iraq situation dire, says Straw : The current situation in Iraq is "dire" according to former foreign secretary Jack Straw.

U.S. Commander Says Insurgency In Iraq Unlikely To Be Defeated Until U.S. Forces Leave: The insurgency in Iraq's volatile western Anbar province can be beaten but probably not until after U.S. troops leave the country, the commander of forces in the provincial capital said Friday.

Book says Bush ignored urgent warning on Iraq : The White House ignored an urgent warning in September 2003 from a top Iraq adviser who said that thousands of additional American troops were desperately needed to quell the insurgency there, according to a new book by Bob Woodward

Sen. Trent Lott On Iraq: ‘Why Do Sunnis Kill Shiites? … They All Look The Same To Me’: Speaking shortly after a meeting with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Lott added that Iraq wasn’t among the White House’s priorities.

Israel attacked UN post in south Lebanon with precision-guided bomb - UN: An Israeli air attack on a UN base in south Lebanon that killed four peacekeepers last July involved the use of a precision-guided bomb, the United Nations said Friday. "The UN patrol base at Khiam was struck by a 500 kg (1,102-pound) precision-guided aerial bomb"

Children face perils of bomblets in Lebanon :A 12-year-old child was killed and three others were wounded Wednesday when they triggered a bomblet while playing in a field in the Marjayun area, bringing to 15 the number of civilians killed by Israeli cluster bombs since an August 14 ceasefire.

UN: IDF to leave Lebanon by Monday : Senior United Nations officials said on Thursday that Israel will complete the withdrawal of its troops from southern Lebanon by Monday morning, Lebanon's leading daily An-Nahar reported on Friday.

Merkava tank production to stop within four years : Leaders of the project decided that the benefits do not justify the cost of the product. During the fighting in Lebanon, the Merkava tanks sustained serious damage from antitank rockets fired by Hizbullah militants. The tank, which has been boasted as having the best protection in the world, and which was designed for classic tank on tank battles, was not impervious to the rockets.

Israel's "security concerns" delay pullout from Lebanon : Despite their repeated assurances of a quick troop withdrawal from Lebanon, Israeli officials said yesterday they were reluctant to complete the pullout, though six weeks have passed since a cease-fire agreement ended a month of bloody conflict.

UN tells of Israeli border violation: Israel has violated the UN-drawn border it shares with Lebanon, the spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon says.

UNIFIL confronts Israeli troops : U.N. peacekeeping forces in south Lebanon intervened for the first time Thursday with Israeli forces who arrested journalists in violation of Resolution 1701.

Army threatens to close water well in Tamon village near Tubass: Soldiers raided the well area, then told workers that the army is planning to close this well. People in the village said they have the needed documents to do operate this well as the money was donated by the EU and the total cost adds up to 1 million NIS. The well is the only source of drinking water for all villages surrounding Tubass city.

Olive Harvest Campaign 2006 Gets Underway!: The olive harvest of 2006 in Nablus has officially begun! Although not an ideal starting-date, an olive farmer from the Palestinian village of Azmut and his family who own 150 dunums of land partitioned by an Apartheid settler-only road, decided to start harvesting a few days ago. They fear that the Israeli colonists of nearby Elon Moreh will otherwise steal the olives from the trees closest to them. This is an annual occurrence that further decreases the family's harvest, already decimated by the limited amount of harvest-time.

Fallout of shame: "They blamed me for telling him to run," he said. "One of them threw me down and hit me on the head with a club. I tried to get up and they (Jews?) continued to beat me, with rhythmic beatings, cursing me: 'Shaheed, Hezbollah, Hamas.' I got up, I walked on the road, bent over, in pain, and they followed. One of them hit me on my head with a stick, I fainted, I was unconscious for about 10 minutes. After I woke up, I had just opened my eyes, I didn't even understand what was happening to me, I was beaten again and again."

Two Palestinian teenagers killed in Gaza: "Two martyrs arrived to the hospital badly lacerated as a direct result of their injuries from an Israeli missile fired from a plane close to Beit Hanun," Sayid Gouda, deputy director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said Friday. They had been walking close to the entrance to the town of Beit Hanun when they were struck with a missile fired from an Israeli drone, witnesses said. A medical source later named them as brothers Anwar, 14 and Hamam Hamdan, 16.

Troops shot and injured a resident in Hebron, took one resident prisoner in Al Fawwar: On Friday morning, soldiers backed by several armored jeeps and vehicles, invaded Khallit Hadour area, shot and injured Mohammad Farid Al Ja'bary, 21, and barred the Red Crescent ambulance from reaching him for 45 minutes. Troops then transferred him by an Israeli ambulance to an unknown destination.

Food poisoning in Al Naqab Prison: One of the prisoners told PNN via mobile phone, “Not even a half hour had passed since we were fed before a number of prisoners experienced severe bouts of vomiting, diarrhea and high temperature associated with severe colic.” Despite reporting the need to treat prisoners, the Israeli administration ignored the request.

Palestinian source: US thwarting PA unity: The US asked Abbas to better prepare Fatah for the next elections, according to the source. The Americans further requested that Abbas not cooperate on the transfer of funds to be used for the payment of salaries to PA officials prior to the Ramadan holiday, as this would be credited to the Hamas-led government. The officials are expected to receive an advance on their salaries over the weekend.

Hamas rally in Gaza draws tens of thousands, denounces Israel: "Those people are demanding us openly to recognize the occupation and that will never happen," Masri said. "The protest aims to stress our rejection to recognize the legitimacy of the occupation," Masri said, referring to what Hamas views as Israel's occupation of all historic Palestine.

Sources: Israel and Hamas at impasse on prisoner exchange: While it is clear to both sides that a prisoner exchange will have to take place as part of the deal, there is no agreement on the number of Palestinians that will be released in return for Shalit. There is also no progress on the timing and the form of such an exchange.

Hamas ministers ''may step down'' to secure power deal: Sameer Abu-Eisheh, the acting Finance Minister and Planning Minister in Ismail Haniyeh''s increasingly beleaguered administration, said that one option was for Mr Haniyeh and his cabinet to step down in favour of a non-aligned ministerial team of independent experts.

OPT: Depression increasing due to conflict and poverty: A survey by a West Bank research company has revealed that the level of “severe depression” in the population of the Palestinian territory had increased by 21 percent over the past year to 77 percent.

Israel Will Not Return Money Seized in Raid To Money Changing Shops Last Week: The Israeli (JUSTICE?) court ruled Friday that Israeli authorities could keep the six million NIS (1,388,888.90USD) they seized from money changing stores in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin and Tulkarem on September 20th, 2006.

MK Tibi to Jews: Ask Arabs for forgiveness: “There are Jews who should ask non-Jews, including Arabs, for forgiveness each day for the continued despair of one-fifth of the population and for the fact that the Arab education system is missing 200 classrooms and that only five percent of the employees of government offices are Arab. Tibi added: “Israeli society is witnessing the growth of fascist weeds such as MKs Effie Eitam and Avigdor Lieberman and others but remains tolerant toward them..."

U.S. congressmen accuse UN agency of sponsoring terrorists: Representatives Steve Rothman (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) lambasted the United Nations Relief Works Agency for allegedly appropriating money to employ members of Hamas and for distributing funds to Palestinian refugees with connections to terrorist groups.

Olmert: I'll meet Abbas soon; Rice arriving Thursday: In Jerusalem, Rice will discuss the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 in Lebanon and ways to bolster the Lebanese government headed by Fouad Siniora. She will also discuss ways to advance Israeli-Palestinian relations, including implementation of the stalled Rafah Crossing Agreement that she brokered in November 2005. Another goal is to build a coalition of moderate Arab states to counter Iran.

PM: Palestinian prisoners won''t be released until Shalit is freed: Hours after announcing plans to meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would not discuss releasing Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel, even as a goodwill gesture to Abbas, before abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was freed."

A post-Zionist agenda: That same constitutive Zionist document also declares that the State of Israel "will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel." Either Olmert believes that the aforementioned goals have been achieved, or the prime minister has become a post-Zionist.

Officials accuse Israel of laying pipes to steal water from South: Lebanese officials and residents of the South on Thursday accused the Israeli Army of stealing water from the Wazzani River. Mohammad Ghamlush, the engineer heading the Wazzani River pumping systems, told AFP that the Israeli Army sabotaged the water pumps on the river last week and installed a pipe to pump hundreds of cubic meters of water to Israel.

Newly-released papers reveal British concern about 1949 Mideast policy: "Believe in Muslim revival. Can't assume it will be friendly whatever we may do," the notes also record him as saying. Health Secretary Aneurin Bevan commented that Britain's problem was "to extricate ourselves with least damage."

Popularity of Israeli PM party hits low: Some 6.5 percent of Israelis would vote for Kadima should elections be held immediately while the party netted 22 percent of the vote in the March 28 poll. The centre-left Labour party, the main coalition ally, would win six percent of the vote, compared to 15 percent won six months ago. On the other hand, the main right-wing opposition parties, Likud and Yisrael Beitenu would win 8.3 percent and 8.5 percent of the vote respectively.

Jewish state sees ''different momentum'' at work after war: Israel said Thursday the recent war on Lebanon has created new momentum in relations with moderate Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, with the Israeli premier leaving it understood that he had met with a Royal Saudi member. Pushing ahead with efforts to revive the peace process, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will leave Washington on Sunday and plans to visit Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Critics are Too Generous to Israel - Bad Faith and the Destruction of Palestine: Unfortunately, however, B'Tselem loses the plot when it comes to explaining why Israel would choose to inflict such terrible punishment on the people of Gaza. Apparently, it was out of a thirst for revenge: the group's report is even entitled "Act of Vengeance". Israel, it seems, wanted revenge for the capture a few days earlier of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, from a border tank position used to fire artillery into Gaza. The problem with the "revenge" theory is that, however much a rebuke it is, it presupposes a degree of good faith on the part of the vengeance-seeker.

Bad faith and the destruction of Palestine: A mistake too often made by those examining Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territories -- or when analysing its treatment of Arabs in general, or interpreting its view of Iran -- is to assume that Israel is acting in good faith. Even its most trenchant critics can fall into this trap.

UN envoy says Israel guilty of 'collective punishment' in Gaza: Israel is guilty of "collective punishment" of the Palestinian people through its military actions in the Gaza Strip, a United Nations human rights official said Friday.

Senior Palestinian source tells Ynet difficulties revealed during talks between Abbas and Hamas regarding unity government surfaced shortly after PA president met with US consul general in J’lem; ‘Americans asked Abbas to dissolve parliament, prepare for elections,’ he adds

"A senior Palestinian source told Ynet Thursday that “pressure applied by the United States on (President) Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is preventing the establishment of a unity government in the Palestinian Authority.”

According to the source, difficulties in the talks between Abbas and Hamas regarding a unity government began to surface shortly after Abbas’ meeting with US consul general in Jerusalem, Jack Wallace, a few days before the president left for the US to attend the opening of the UN General Assembly.

The source added that during the meeting Wallace communicated to Abbas the unequivocal message that the US opposes the establishment of a unity government.

Wallace told Abbas that he would hear the same message during his meetings with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The source said the Americans made it clear to Abbas that the correct move from their standpoint would be to dissolve the parliament and establish an interim Palestinian government followed by general elections.

The US asked Abbas to better prepare Fatah for the next elections, according to the source.

The Americans further requested that Abbas not cooperate on the transfer of funds to be used for the payment of salaries to PA officials prior to the Ramadan holiday, as this would be credited to the Hamas-led government.

The officials are expected to receive an advance on their salaries over the weekend.

The source said the current chances for the establishment of PA unity government are slim, despite the fact that Abbas supports such a move. As a result, the sources said, the situation in the Authority is likely to deteriorate to a direct confrontation between Hamas and Fatah. The fact that some family members of senior Fatah officials have left the PA is indicative of the expected eruption of violence, the source said."

اجتماع سري بالعقبة لقادة استخبارات دول الخير والسلام لمواجهة محور الشر والارهاب

دعا لاستبعاد مشعل من اي مفاوضات
لندن ـ القدس العربي :
كشفت مصادر عربية عن اجتماع عقد مؤخرا في الاردن حضره مسؤول اردني رفيع جدا ورئيس السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية محمود عباس ورؤساء اجهزة المخابرات في الاردن (اللواء محمد الذهبي) ومصر (اللواء عمر سليمان) ومدير جهاز الأمن العام الإسرائيلي (الشاباك) يوفال ديسكين، ومسؤولان امنيان كبيران من دولتين خليجيتين لا تقيمان علاقات مع اسرائيل. وقالت المصادر التي رفضت الافصاح عن هويتها لـ القدس العربي ان الاجتماع عقد في مدينة العقبة وركز علي الأزمة الفلسطينية، ومواجهة الارهاب في المنطقة.
وعرض الاردن خلال الاجتماع استعداده لاستضافة ورعاية أية لقاءات من شأنها دعم عملية السلام، ومواجهة الإرهاب ، مشيرا إلي أن الدول المشاركة في هذا الاجتماع تمثّل محور الخير والسلام ، الذي عليه أن يواجه محور الشر والإرهاب ، المتمثل بـ إيران، سورية، حماس وحزب الله . وشدّد المسؤول الاردني في الاجتماع علي ضرورة التنسيق والتعاون بين هذه الأطراف، وتبادل المعلومات، لمواجهة الأعمال الإرهابية، التي تشهدها المنطقة.
وبعد ذلك قدّم محمود عباس عرضا للاتفاق الذي توصل إليه مع إسماعيل هنية رئيس الوزراء الفلسطيني بشأن تشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية فلسطينية برئاسته، مشيرا إلي أن هنية وبعد يومين من الاتفاق، طلب لقاءه، وأبلغه أن قيادة حماس تطلب تعديل النص الخاص بالموافقة علي مبادرة السلام العربية، وشطب البند المتعلق بتشكيل لجنة مشتركة للتفاوض.
وقالت المصادر ان ممثلي مصر والأردن واحدي الدول الخليجية، سجّلوا تحفّظهم علي رئاسة هنية لحكومة الوحدة الوطنية، مشيرين إلي أن تحفظهم ليس علي شخص هنية، الذي وصفوه بأنه أكثر قيادات حماس اعتدالا، ولكن لأن هنية سينفّذ برنامج حماس، وطرحوا اسمي منيب المصري أو سلام فياض كشخصيتين مستقلتين لرئاسة الحكومة. كما أبدي المسؤولون الثلاثة تحفظهم علي المحددات السياسية التي تم التوافق عليها بين عباس وهنية، إذ ان المطلوب موافقة صريحة من حماس علي شروط الرباعية، وما لم يتم ذلك، فانه لا مجال لتشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية.
وحول البدائل الممكنة في حال رفض حماس، أبدي الاردن استعداده لتشكيل لجنة من الخبراء القانونيين لدراسة كل السبل الممكنة لإسقاط الحكومة الحالية، وتزويد عباس بدراسة قانونية محكمة لمعالجة الأزمة. وحول موضوع الجندي الإسرائيلي، أشار عباس إلي تعدد القنوات في التعامل مع هذا الموضوع، مشيرا إلي ضرورة توحيد قناة التفاوض لتكون عبر مصر، حيث قال إن الإسرائيليين كلّفوا أكثر من طرف مهمة التفاوض: تركيا، النرويج، اسبانيا، وهذا من شأنه التشويش علي عملية التفاوض.
كما طلب عباس أن توقف عملية التفاوض مع قيادة حماس في دمشق، وأن تقتصر علي قيادة حماس في الداخل، لأن مشعل ورفاقه يعملون علي إجهاض أي محاولات للاتفاق، مشيرا إلي أن إيران وسورية من مصلحتهما استمرار الأزمة، وعدم الوصول إلي حل. كما طلب عباس بأن يحوّل التفاوض حول الجندي ليكون معه شخصيا، لأن إطلاق سراح الأسري الفلسطينيين سيعد انجازا كبيرا لحماس ومكافأة لها.

"As Steve Douglas notes, “the Schmittian drives for the arrogation of all power into the hands of a ‘unitary executive’ Presidential dictatorship,” in the case of both Hitler and Bush, are “essentially, identical.”

In the wake of the Reichstag fire in early 1933, blamed on the Comintern, Hitler and the Nazis, with “the support of a terrified populace … suspended civil rights and civil liberties, fattened their war machine and rode the fascist tide into a full-blown dictatorship,” writes Harvey Wasserman."

AMY GOODMAN: Today, we’ll take a look at the state of the Bush administration’s plans to rebuild Iraq. By his own count, our next guest spent more time in Iraq during the first fifteen months of U.S. occupation than almost any other print reporter. He’s written a new book about that period. It’s a behind-the-scenes account for the US occupation authority that’s run the country from Saddam Hussein’s old palatial grounds. The book is called Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. It’s by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. He is the Assistant Managing Editor of the Washington Post, former Washington Post bureau chief in Baghdad. I spoke to him earlier this week from Salt Lake City and asked him to describe imperial life inside the emerald city.

RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN: This is a book that attempts to shine a light on a whole other set of fiascos in the American effort to occupy Iraq. You know, we all know now about the disastrous consequences of failing to send enough troops there to stabilize Iraq after the U.S. invasion, the Pentagon's failure to anticipate the growth of the insurgency.

But what I write about is the whole other litany of mistakes that were made by American civilians who were there, from Ambassador Paul Bremer on down. It’s a series of what I think are blood-curdling stories: the people who showed up in Iraq, a country with 40-50 percent unemployment, and said, ‘Hey, this place needs a flat tax. It needs tariff reduction. It needs all sorts of other neoconservative economic solutions. It needs all of its government-run industries to be privatized’; the people who showed up and said, ‘There are traffic jams here. We’re going to fix that by giving them a new traffic law’; the people who showed up and said, ‘They need new intellectual property laws. They need new laws governing the types of seeds their farmers can plant’; the sort of crazy micromanagement that took place there.

Meanwhile, the more important tasks of actually rebuilding the country, of trying to find sustainable ways to increase electricity generation, to rebuild shattered hospitals and schools, to provide clean drinking water. All of those vastly more important tasks were sort of relegated, because the folks who came there saw Iraq as a terrarium for a number of neoconservative policies that they were never able to implement here in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: Rajiv, before we talk about the individuals and what their expertise was or wasn't in the areas they were in control of, you start off the book with a very devastating picture of the Green Zone, what’s going on inside, who’s there, just the images of the palaces and how they're being used. Can you describe that for us?

RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN: Sure, Amy. The Green Zone was Baghdad’s “Little America.” This, of course, as many of your viewers and listeners know, is the American bubble in the center of Baghdad. It was the headquarters of the American Occupation Authority and still is home to the American embassy and many other U.S. government agencies that have operations in Iraq.

But I write about the really wacky world inside there. You know, this is a place -- Iraq is a Muslim country, and what did they serve in the dining hall, the Halliburton food contractors, what did they serve? They served pork bacon for breakfast, hot dogs for lunch, porkchops for dinner. There were many Iraqi Muslims that also ate there. They worked as translators and as janitors in the palace and other parts of the Green Zone, and they were subjected to eating food from the same buffet, even though they found the pork products also served there to be incredibly offensive. When they complained, Halliburton sort of brushed aside their concerns. Cultural sensitivity, well, you know, so what? It was more important to meet American needs, to serve them high-fat comfort food.

But it wasn’t just the food. There were no fewer than six bars set up there. There was a disco at the Al-Rashid Hotel. There were Bible study classes, salsa dancing classes, two Chinese restaurants, a café. Halliburton brought in scores of brand new Chevy Suburbans, which people would drive around on flat wide streets. They even had a radio station in there, Amy. 107.7 FM, Freedom Radio, which would mix classic rock and “rah-rah, we’re winning the war” messages.

AMY GOODMAN: Rajiv, how did James Haveman come to oversee the rehabilitation of Iraq's healthcare system?

RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN: Amy, it's a fascinating story, and again, I try to detail this in the book. The first guy who was assigned to help rebuild Iraq's health sector was named Skip Burkle. And Skip is physician. He has a Master's degree in public health. He has four postgraduate degrees. He teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He had worked in Kosovo, in Somalia and in Northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. He also was employed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and a USAID colleague called him the single most talented post-conflict public health specialist in the U.S. government. But a few weeks after the fall of Saddam's government, Mr. Burkle was informed by an email from a superior at USAID that he was being replaced. He was told that the White House wanted, quote/unquote, "a loyalist" in the job. And I write in the book that Burkle had a wall of degrees, but he didn't have a picture with the President.

In his place was sent Jim Haveman. Jim Haveman does not have a medical degree. He was a social worker, and he was the former Director of Community Health in the State of Michigan. Prior to his stint in government, he had a little bit of international experience, but it was largely in the context of being a director for International Aid, a faith-based relief organization that promotes Christianity in the developing world in conjunction with development assistance. And prior to that, he headed up a large adoption agency in the State of Michigan that urges pregnant women not to have abortions.

Well, Haveman showed up, and his view was that, look, Iraq didn’t need a huge infusion of money to rebuild its hospitals, even though I and other people who have been to Iraqi hospitals have seen them to be thoroughly decrepit and really, you know, in need of an overhaul, and particularly with the violence that’s wracking that country today and the number of injured from insurgent attacks. You would think that really putting resources toward rebuilding emergency rooms would be a top priority.

Instead, Haveman devoted resources to other projects. One of them, as I detail in the book, was rewriting the list of drugs Iraq's government would import for hospitals. Why did he choose to do this? Well, he had done it in Michigan, and he had saved millions of dollars for the state in Michigan by forcing Medicare providers to buy drugs off a formulary. So he thought this would make sense to do in Baghdad, and it would be a good first step before trying to eventually sell off the state agency that imports drugs. He was aghast at the notion that medical care was free in Iraq, and in fact even sought to impose something of a co-pay system for Iraqis before they visited doctors and hospitals

Henry Kissenger expressing admiration of Pope Benedict XVI outside Rome yesterday (Annahar, 9/29/06).







"Henry Kissinger has been advising President Bush and Vice President Cheney about Iraq, telling them that "victory is the only meaningful exit strategy," author and journalist Bob Woodward said.

The Washington Post editor's third book on the Bush administration, "State of Denial," comes out next week.

In an interview airing Sunday night on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," Woodward said that U.S. troops and their allies are being attacked, on average, every 15 minutes.

"The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon saying, 'Oh, no, things are going to get better.'"

He said Kissinger, who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, has been telling Bush and Cheney that "in Iraq, he declared very simply, 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.'"

"This is so fascinating. Kissinger's fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will."

Woodward's 537-page book describes the administration as beset by infighting, according to The New York Times, which obtained an advance copy and reported on its contents Friday.

The 537-page book is based on interviews with administration leaders, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. However, sources are not always named, and neither the president nor Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to interviews, the book says, according to the Times."

A documentary on evangelical Christian children's camps has caused uproar in the US

The Guardian

"The children at the Kids on Fire summer camp are intent as they pray over a cardboard cutout of President George Bush. They raise their hands in the air and sway, eyes closed, as they join the chant for "righteous judges". Tears stream down their faces as they are told that they are "phonies" and "hypocrites" and must wash their hands in bottled water to drive out the devil.
The documentary film Jesus Camp follows three children at the Kids on Fire Pentecostal summer camp in the small city of Devil's Lake, North Dakota.

Too scary

After a television news report about the film became a hit on YouTube.com, it attracted media attention across the country and opens in Los Angeles today.

Some critics say that the often raw approach used by the camp's founder, Pastor Becky Fischer, as she prepares the children for "war", is too "scary". Others accuse the documentary makers of distorting Pastor Fischer's message.

At one point Pastor Fischer equates the preparation she is giving children with the training of terrorists in the Middle East. "I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam," she tells the camera. "I want to see them radically laying down their lives for the gospel, as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine.""

***

THE "CHRISTIAN" TALIBAN ARE HERE!

Cartoon by Shujaat

TIMELESS WISDOM

From the book "The Art of War" written by the great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, some 2,500 years ago:

On Tactical Dispositions

"The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy."

"To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."

On Weak Points And Strong

"Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted."

"Therefore, the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him."

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 29 September 2006

"Watching The Wind That Shakes the Barley, UK director Ken Loach's new feature film set mainly during the Irish Civil War in the early 1920's, it is impossible not to make comparisons with contemporary events. Indeed Loach, whose film won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, has been quite explicit about his own view that the film is not merely an examination of the past, but a comment on the times we live in. Loach recently announced his support for the call by Palestinian film-makers, artists and others to boycott state sponsored Israeli cultural institutions and acknowledged that "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."

This painful scene is a timeless reminder that colonial rulers—no matter how much they pretend to represent civilization and democracy—maintain their power in the manner of common street thugs: beating out people's teeth and breaking their bones with rifle butts, and when that doesn't work, torturing and killing them and destroying their homes. This mentality is alive and well in Palestine-Israel. The morning after I saw Loach's film, I was confronted by two statements. The first was from the UN's special rapporteur for Human Rights, the distinguished South African jurist John Dugard who declared that the situation Israel had created for ordinary Palestinians in Gaza was "intolerable, appalling, and tragic" and that Israel had turned Gaza into a giant "prison" and "thrown away the key." The second statement came from Israel's Trade Minister Eli Yishai who demanded that Israel should completely raze Palestinian villages in Gaza until Palestinians learn to submit quietly to their fate. "And to do this village after village until they stop firing rockets against us."

Through Palestinian eyes there is a strong echo with the split that has emerged on the one hand between those who view the 1993 Oslo Accords and a two-state solution (with a Palestinian state to be created in a tiny fraction of Palestine) as a reasonable and desirable settlement with Israel, and those on the other who view the accords as a sell-out that allowed Israel to maintain and expand its colonial rule of Palestinians under the guise of a 'peace process.' European Union officials like to make the comparison between modern Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland renouncing armed struggle for purely political means with what they hope Hamas will do. The comparison they do not mention is between the banning of the Sinn Féin MPs who won the 1918 election and Israel's wholesale kidnapping of Hamas legislators freely elected by Palestinians under occupation in 2006.

The basic structure of the conflict in Palestine-Israel today is like Northern Ireland writ large—two communities of roughly equal size with nowhere else to go brought into bloody confrontation by colonialism. There can be no solution that preserves the domination of one over the other and none that is good for everyone that comes out of violence. A just solution based on full equality is still be worked for and hoped for in Northern Ireland and in Palestine-Israel. But as The Wind That Shakes the Barley so movingly depicts, history does not always provide easy or happy endings that fit neatly with passionately held ideals."

NOW HE TALKS!

"The former foreign secretary Jack Straw has described the situation in Iraq as "dire", blaming mistakes made by the US for the escalating crisis.
Mr Straw - now the leader of the Commons - was foreign secretary at the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and staunchly backed Tony Blair's decision to join the operation.

"The current situation is dire," he said on BBC1's Question Time last night. "I think many mistakes were made after the military action - there is no question about it - by the United States administration."

Israel Sends in the Clowns

By MICHAEL J. SMITH
CounterPunch

"Does it seem implausible that one might actually feel sympathy for a professor at the University of Chicago? So I would have thought; but as John Mearsheimer got the waterboard treatment from Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross last night at New York's Cooper Union, there was something undeniably poignant in his situation. Mearsheimer, an earnest, polite, owlish gent, had the bemused air of a man trying to reason with a pair of rabid Dobermans.

The occasion was a "debate," hosted by the London Review of Books, on the question, "The Israel Lobby: Does it have too much influence on US foreign policy?"

The prosecution team consisted of professors Mearsheimer, Rashid Khalidi from Columbia, and Tony Judt, from NYU. Appearing for the defense were Israel lobbyists Indyk and Ross, both of whom also served Israel's cause as prominent members of the Clinton administration. They were joined by redundant Israeli labor party politician Shlomo Ben-Ami. (Why, you ask, was a former Israeli cabinet minister invited to discuss a question of American politics? That's a very good question, and I wish you had been there to ask it at the time.)

But of course -- as Mearsheimer came close to saying, at one point -- the best proof of the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis was sitting in front of us all night, in the form of Ross and Indyk themselves. These two have spent their careers alternating between organizations like AIPAC and WINEP on the one hand, and guarding the Middle East henhouse in government on the other. The twists and turns of tactics and diplomacy, as one faction replaces another, don't conceal an underlying, essential continuity.

So the times they are a-changin'. But we still have a ways to go. If I correctly assessed the temper of last night's crowd, they mostly still want to find a way to divide the baby -- to support and vindicate Israel, but without all these awful wars and walls. They would like to cajole the Palestinians into playing nice -- without giving them anything that Israel might want. They would like to bring Iran to heel, without putting any boots on the ground, if I may borrow the buzzword-du-jour.

In other words, I fear most of them want Bill Clinton back. And when I contemplate that idea, the glass looks a lot more than half empty."

RECOMMENDED READING

Critics are Too Generous to Israel

By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth.

"A mistake too often made by those examining Israel's behaviour in the occupied territories -- or when analysing its treatment of Arabs in general, or interpreting its view of Iran -- is to assume that Israel is acting in good faith. Even its most trenchant critics can fall into this trap.

Such a reluctance to attribute bad faith was demonstrated this week by Israel's foremost human rights group, B'Tselem, when it published a report into the bombing by the Israeli air force of Gaza's power plant in late June. The horrifying consequences of this act of collective punishment -- a war crime, as B'Tselem rightly notes -- are clearly laid out in the report.

But why should we think Israel is acting in good faith, even if in bad temper, in destroying Gaza's power station? Why should we assume it was a hot-headed over-reaction rather than a coldly calculated deed?

In other words, why believe Israel is simply lashing out when it commits a war crime rather than committing it after careful advance planning? Is it not possible that such war crimes, rather than being spontaneous and random, are actually all pushing in the same direction?

The goals of both sets of policies, however, are the same: the erosion of Palestinian society's cohesiveness, the disruption of efforts at solidarity and resistance, and ultimately the slow drift of Palestinians away from vulnerable rural areas into the relative safety of urban centres -- and eventually, as the pressure continues to mount, on into neighbouring Arab states, such as Jordan and Egypt.

Why not assume that rather than wanting a dialogue, a real peace process and an eventual agreement with the Palestinians that might lead to Palestinian statehood, Israel wants an excuse to carry on with its four-decade occupation -- even if it has to reinvent it through sleights of hand like the disengagement and convergence plans?

In other words, why not consider for a moment that Israel's stated view of Hamas may be a self-serving charade, that the Israeli government has invested its energies in discrediting Hamas, and before it secular Palestinian leaders, because it has no interest in peace and never has done? Its goal is the maintenance of the occupation on the best terms it can find for itself.

On much the same grounds, we should treat equally sceptically another recent Israeli policy: the refusal by the Israeli Interior Ministry to renew the tourist visas of Palestinians with foreign passports, thereby forcing them to leave their homes and families inside the occupied territories. Many of these Palestinians, who were originally stripped by Israel of their residency rights in violation of international law, often when they left to work or study abroad, have been living on renewable three-month visas for years, even decades.

Palestinians with foreign passports are among the richest, best educated and possibly among the most willing to engage in dialogue with Israel. Many have large business investments in the occupied territories they wish to protect from further military confrontation, and most speak fluently the language of the international community -- English. In other words, they might have been a bridgehead to a peace process were Israel genuinely interested in one."

Palestinians inspect damaged bicycles after an Israeli missile strike killed two people in the northern Gaza Strip Friday. (Reuters)

NOTHING UNUSUAL, JUST TWO MORE PALESTINIAN BOYS MURDERED BY USRAEL

An IOF strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed two teen brothers on Friday, Palestinian security services and witnesses said.

Witnesses said the two were killed in Beit Hanun as they were riding bicycles in the street. Palestinian reports said the attack came from Israeli aircraft. Palestinian hospital officials said the two boys were Anwar Hamdan, 16, and Hamam Hamdan, 14.

By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times

"The fatality rate of the 18,500-strong NATO force averages about five per week, which is roughly equal to the losses suffered by the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Indeed, in withering comments to The Sunday Telegraph newspaper last weekend, Soviet commanders who oversaw Moscow's disastrous campaign have predicted that the NATO forces will ultimately be forced to flee from Afghanistan.

General Boris Gromov, the charismatic Soviet commander who supervised the withdrawal in 1989, warned, "The Afghan resistance is, in my opinion, growing. Such behavior on the part of the intractable Afghans is to my mind understandable. It is conditioned by centuries of tradition, geography, climate and religion.

Clearly, a huge crisis is shaping up for NATO. Its credibility is at stake. Sir Cyril does not foresee that the alliance will come up with the required military resources "to beat the Taliban on its own ground". No wonder Lieutenant-General David Richards, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan and former assistant chief of the general staff of the British army, ominously warned in a recent television interview, "We need to realize we could actually fail here."

At any rate, the stratagem aimed at exploiting the Afghan problem to seize geopolitical advantages was not so apparent at the beginning. But it didn't take long before it became clear that the US agenda was to exploit the "war on terror" for establishing a client state in Afghanistan, and for gaining a sought-after military presence in Central Asia. And in the event, the US military presence incrementally paved the way for creating a base for NATO in the region.

No amount of pious homilies about NATO's role and objectives can obfuscate the geopolitical implications of the Western alliance's occupation of a strategically important country far away from the European continent, which lies at the crossroads of vast regions that are becoming the battleground for global influence.

Without doubt, in the perceptions of regional powers, NATO's defeat in Afghanistan can only mean the scattering of the US blueprint of domination of Central Asia, South Asia and the Persian Gulf."

George: My fellow Americans, some of you have concluded that going into Iraq was a mistake. I think it's naive. I think it's a mistake to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe ... um, Dick, Iraq was a threat, wasn't it? Are they still listening down there?

Dick: Don't worry, George. After the elections we'll do Iran and your fellow Americans will forget all about Iraq. And we'll get the oil price back where it should be!

Condi: Yeah! Let's get real offensive!

(Courtesy Asia Times Online)

More on the Art of Fourth Generation Wars

by William S. Lind

"Unfortunately, this need for sanctuaries is leading the "silver bullet" crowd, those who seek some magical single answer to the Fourth Generation threat, off on another detour to nowhere. They say that if we only put enough pressure on states such as Pakistan not to permit sanctuaries, and overthrow state governments that openly provide sanctuary such as Syria's, then the Fourth Generation will disappear. Sorry, but it won't.

The error is that, as usual, the silver bulleteers are thinking in terms of states. They argue not only that Fourth Generation entities need sanctuaries, which is true, but that those sanctuaries have to be in states, which is not true. On the contrary, stateless regions provide the best sanctuary Fourth Generation forces can hope to find."

A LONG ARTICLE BUT WELL WORTH READING

by Tom Engelhardt

"So what exactly does "victory" in George Bush's Iraq look like 1,288 days after the invasion of that country began with a "shock-and-awe" attack on downtown Baghdad? A surprising amount of information related to this has appeared in the press in recent weeks, but in purely scattershot form. Here, it's all brought together in 21 questions (and answers) that add up to a grim but realistic snapshot of Bush's Iraq. The attempt to reclaim the capital, dipped in a sea of blood in recent months – or the "battle of Baghdad," as the administration likes to term it – is now the center of administration military strategy and operations.

This week, the count of American war dead in Iraq passed 2,700. The Iraqi dead are literally uncountable. Iraq is the tragedy of our times, an event that has brought out, and will continue to bring out, the worst in us all. It is carnage incarnate. Every time the president mentions "victory" these days, the word "loss" should come to our minds. A few more victories like this one and the world will be an unimaginable place. Back in 2004, the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, warned, "The gates of hell are open in Iraq." Then it was just an image. Remarkably enough, it has taken barely two more years for us to arrive at those gates on which, it is said, is inscribed the phrase, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." "

د. عبدالستار قاسم

أستاذ جامعي - جامعة النجاح -مرشح للرئاسة الفلسطينية-فلسطين


لم يعد غريبا أن يقف خائن فلسطيني على شاشة التلفاز يصافح صهيونيا يغتصب الأرض ويشرد الشعب، ولم يعد في الدعوة إلى الاعتراف بإسرائيل شيئا يدعو إلى التواري أو الخجل.

عينك عينك يقف فلسطينيون أمام العدسات ويصرحون أمام وسائل الإعلام بأن على حماس أن تعترف بإسرائيل إذا رغبت في توفير رغيف الخبز للشعب الفلسطيني.

هؤلاء الفلسطينيون يتعاونون مباشرة الآن مع إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة، ويشاركون في حصار الشعب الفلسطيني، ويستعملون الشعب وحاجته المالية من أجل إركاعه بالمزيد وإسقاط حكومة حماس.

حماس لا تجرؤ أن تقول للخائن خائنا، وتوافق على وثيقة الوفاق الفلسطيني التي تعني بعدة طرق الاعتراف غير المباشر بإسرائيل.

أما الشعب فيعرف أن الخيانة تُمارس في وضح النهار، ويعرف أن هناك من يتاجر بآلامه وأحزانه، لكنه يعي أيضا أن عليه أن يدفع ثمن سكوته على كل ما تم ارتكابه من خطايا عبر السنوات الطويلة.

لقد وضعت القيادة لقمة خبز الناس بيد العدو، وطأطأ الشعب رأسه، وتهافت الناس على وظائف وهم يعرفون سلفا أن الرواتب تأتي من عدو يطلب مقابلها تنازلات سياسية.

هناك قيادات فلسطينية الآن غارقة بالفساد والخيانة، وتقول إنها تنتمي لحركة فتح، وهي التي ألحقت بالحركة الهزيمة الانتخابية وبالشعب الدمار، تتآمر على الشعب الفلسطيني وتستغل حاجة الموظفين.

هناك أموال تم الوعد بصرفها للموظفين ولم تُصرف، وهي تختزن هذه الأموال من أجل رفع وتيرة الضغط على حماس لكي تستقيل الحكومة.

هؤلاء مثقلون بغيابهم عن السلطة لأنهم فقدوا الجاه ومصادر السرقة والاختلاس؛ وهؤلاء يدركون أن أسيادهم في إسرائيل وأمريكا سيلقون بهم في القمامة إن لم يتمكنوا من إسقاط الحكومة.

لا شك بأن حماس قد ارتكبت أخطاء عدة على رأسها الانغلاق والاستئثار بمواقع اتخاذ القرار ما أمكن، والفصائل الأخرى شريكة بما يجري لأنها تتعامل مع رؤوس الخيانة وكأنهم قادة وطنيون.

لقد ربطت تلك الفصائل نفسها بالخونة حتى تجذرت مصالحها معهم.

عار على شعب فلسطين الذي يقدم التضحيات على مدى مائة عام أن يسكت على الخيانة أو أن يهادنها ويتعايش معها. فلسطين ليست رغيف خبز، ودماء الذين استشهدوا من أجل التحرير والحرية ليست رخيصة إلى هذا الحد.

نحن بإمكاننا أن نحمل بعضنا من خلال برامج التكافل والتضامن، وليس من خلال الأموال الأوروبية الأمريكية.

لا خير فينا إذا كان الفلسطيني لا يريد حمل أخيه الفلسطيني، ولا خير فينا إن اعتمدنا على التوسل والتسول.

علينا أن نقف بجرأة وشجاعة في وجه الخيانة، وأن نعلنها صراحة وبوضوح أن كل الذين يتمرغون في الأحضان الأمريكية والإسرائيلية عبارة عن خونة.

قوى 13/أيلول تعمل بجد ودأب على تصفية القضية الفلسطينية منذ أن صافحت الصهاينة وقررت ربط رغيف الجياع بالإرادة الأمريكية الإسرائيلية.

هذه القوى تجر الشعب إلى الخواء والبغاء والنذالة، وعلينا نحن جميعا أن نثور لأنفسنا وندافع عن شرفنا وعن قدسية الأرض والحق.

لا خير فينا إن بقيت هذه القوى تسرح وتمرح وكأن شعب فلسطين قد آل إلى مرتزقة تنتظر العلف من أهل الغرب.

وعلى حكومة حماس أن تخرج من هذا الانغلاق لتتفاعل مع الناس نحو إيجاد الحلول.

The Princess of Darkness Rice has been threatening lately of imposing further sanctions against Syria. The Princess wants to cajole Syria into being openly a part of the axis of Arab puppets headed by KSA-Egypt-Jordan with Abbas tagging along.

I was just wondering if, as part of the sanctions, Syria would lose its share of the booming business of "rendition" in which the US outsources "suspects" to Middle Eastern regimes, known for their efficient techniques of extracting whatever information the CIA wants to hear. Syria was more than glad to torture the Canadian Maher Arar for close to a year, to get him to say (falsely) that he had trained in Afghanistan. It turned out that he was innocent of all charges and as a matter of fact had never been to Afghanistan. A Canadian judge recently declared him 100% innocent of all charges. But Syria couldn't care less; it already pocketed the outsourcing fee (in hard currency) and made some brownie points with Uncle Sam in his "fight on terror."

Any loss to Syria in the torture (I mean rendition) business is a gain to Jordan, KSA and Egypt, not to forget Morocco and the rest of the kennel. The Princess might be onto something, for the Syrian regime has a very impressive resume when it comes to extracting information, and it would be a shame if the regime lost some of the business due to sanctions.

Tony Sayegh

“This is how a nation loses its moral compass, its identity, its freedom.” Rep Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)

09/28/06

How did things get this bad? The “Military Commissions Act” which passed the Republican-led Congress yesterday is a bigger blow to the Constitution and our core values than any piece of legislation in our 200 year history. It is 100 times worse than Bin Laden's crimes on 9-11.

In a 253 to 168 “party-line” vote, the congress repealed habeas corpus and approved the torturing of prisoners in American custody. It is breathtaking assault on human rights and personal liberty and puts the United States well-outside the community of civilized nations. It will ultimately be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to strike down this "affront to democracy" or let the law stand as is.

If the bill passes the Senate, the administration will be able to arrest whomever it chooses and lock them up indefinitely without due process. Suspects in Bush’s war on terror will no longer have the right to challenge the terms of their detention or to even know why they have been incarcerated.

The congressmen who supported this mockery have put their contempt for freedom on full display. They have rescinded the oldest and most treasured principle in American jurisprudence dating back 800 years to the Magna Carta. Habeas corpus is the fundamental protection that the one has from the tyrannical and erratic actions of the state.

The proposed legislation allows the president to apply the moniker of “enemy combatant” to any terror “suspect” taken into US custody and strip him of all his human rights. The president is under no obligation to file charges or provide evidence of guilt. The arrest is completely arbitrary and depends entirely on the discretion (whims?) of the executive. It is a flat rejection of the basic belief that “men are innocent until proven guilty”.

Here’s what Winston Churchill said about habeas corpus, “The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”

The bill is another example of Bush's lawyerly “hairsplitting” which is aimed at gutting the clearly articulated provisions of the Geneva Conventions so that he can carry out his torture-regime with impunity. There is nothing “vague” about “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment. It is a standard that has never been challenged in its 57 year history. Until now.

According to the Washington Post the bill “would give the executive branch substantial leeway in deciding how to comply with treaty obligations that fall short of ‘grave breaches’ of the conventions.”

Geneva was designed to protect prisoners from physical or psychological harm. It is intentionally broad to prevent any punishment that involves the inflicting of pain on detainees. Bush has turned Geneva on its head in an effort to maximize detainee suffering while complying with the letter of the law. To that end, the administration has said that “the term ‘cruel and inhuman’ should only apply to techniques resulting in ‘severe’ physical or mental pain….The abused detainee’s symptoms would have to include ‘serious and non-transitory mental harm.”’ (Wa Post)

There’s no reason for Bush to pursue this particular track except to expand his personal power and put himself above the law. Injustice only fuels radicalism and undermines the stated goals in the war on terror.

The congress fully understands the implications of their support. They’re giving Bush a free pass to torment and abuse as he sees fit while providing him with the legal cover he needs for his “alternative techniques” (“outrages to human dignity”) Their vote makes them equally complicit in the inevitable hooding, sense deprivation, hypothermia, stress positions, isolation and water-boarding of countless victims of Bush’s deplorable war of terror.

Like Lady Macbeth the Congress’ avers:

“I am in blood

Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” (Macbeth 3. 4)

The country is in the advanced stages of moral decay. The Military Commissions Act is not a law at all; it is an expression of Congress’ intention to carry out war crimes against defenseless victims in their charge. The men who supported this bill should be held accountable for its inevitable and appalling consequences.

At least 25 killed as bloody U.S. occupation continues: The bodies of five people were found, shot and tortured overnight in different districts of Baghdad, police said. Added to 35 found the previous day, that brought the total for a 24-hour period to 40.

U.S. Attack Kills 8 Including 4 Women : Sunni group calls attack ‘terrorist massacre’

Full Report: Approval of Attacks on US-led Forces Rises to 6 in 10: 79 percent of Iraqis say that the US is having a negative influence on the situation in Iraq, with just 14 percent saying that it is having a positive influence

Iraq: Quarter of a million flee occupied Iraq violence: The escalating violence in Iraq has resulted in the most suicide bombs in one single week since the war began in 2003 and 250,000 people registering as refugees in the past seven months.

War costs near $549 billion: In the current fiscal year, the Pentagon is expected each month to spend $1.5 billion in Afghanistan and $8 billion in Iraq.

Operation Hollywood : The inside story of the cozy relationship between big box office American war movies and the Pentagon.

Iraq war was terrorism 'recruiting sergeant' : The Iraq war has acted as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the Muslim world, according to a paper prepared for a Ministry of Defence thinktank, which also said the British government sent troops into Afghanistan "with its eyes closed".

Carter: U.S. in more danger of terrorism: "So there's no doubt that our country is in much more danger now from terrorism than it would have been if we would have done what we should have done and stayed in Afghanistan," he said on the campaign trail with his son, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jack Carter.

Confidence in Iraq Policies Drops to 20% in U.S.: Fewer adults in the United States believe their government’s handling of the coalition effort has been adequate, according to a poll by Harris Interactive. Only 20 per cent of respondents are confident that U.S. policies in Iraq will be successful, down nine points in two years.

Reservists slam Lebanon war probe for soft approach: "Committee members saying that the meeting was positive and informal proves that the committee members know their real job: This is no longer an inquiry committee but a cover-up committee in Olmert's service," a spokesperson for the group said. (Apparently not enough babies were slaughtered.)

Gal-On: Probe use of cluster bombs: Haaretz reported about two weeks ago that the commander of a Multiple Launch Rocket System unit said his unit had fired about 600 cluster rockets and that the Israel Defense Forces had fired a total of about 1,800 cluster rockets, containing approximately 1.2 million bomblets. The bomblets, each of which has the strength of a hand grenade, do not all explode when they hit the ground.

Siniora: IDF presence in Lebanon 'mother of all ills': Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Wednesday called the ongoing Israeli military presence in Lebanese territory the "mother of all ills" and said it must be brought to an end. "There won't be any valid argument then for the continuation of weapons in the hands of Hezbollah,"

Jewish state presses bid to dictate UNIFIL''s rules of engagement: At this stage we are delaying the transfer of the territory until we reach agreement," Halutz said. Halutz said Wednesday that Israel considered "any use of military equipment, including intelligence- gathering means which are not of the Lebanese Army or UNIFIL, are violations" of Resolution 1701..."

Lebanon: UNIFIL tanks block IDF force: According to reports, the IDF force asked to advance deeper into Lebanese territory, but was stopped about 500 meters from the road leading to the village by four UNIFIL tanks manned by French soldiers as two Israeli Merkava tanks operated nearby on Lebanese soil, setting up checkpoints.

Gaza Strip to remain without full electrical power for a year : Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has accused the Israel Occupation Forces of war crimes for bombing the plant, which has left many areas of the occupied Gaza Strip without full electricitical power the last three months.

Palestinian agricultural losses top US $1 billion: An ongoing economic boycott and intermittent border closures have created humanitarian problems for Gaza's residents, including a deteriorating agricultural sector, the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority (PA) said.

The Human Catastrophe of Gaza Is a Time Bomb : Gaza constitutes a time bomb. Some 1.4 million people, mostly children, are piled up in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, with no freedom of movement, no place to run, and no space to hide. Virtually without external access since June, Gaza is experiencing a rise in poverty, unemployment, penury, and despair.

UN envoy: Israel turned Gaza into prison : Special UN envoy on human rights in PA says in special report Israel's actions in territories can be described as 'ethnic cleansing,' adds three-quarters of Gaza population depend on food aid for survival.

Uri Avnery: Political Corruption in Israel: HAD HAMLET been a reserve soldier in the Israeli army, he might now declare: "Something is rotten in the State of Israel!"

James Petras: Challenging the Power of the Israel Lobby: What Should Be Done?: The image of a near-omniscient and omnipotent Jewish lobby overlooks its vulnerability and significant issues around which an opposition or counter-hegemonic movement can be organized in the United States.

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"He’s considered one of the most prominent Muslim intellectual in Europe. Time Magazine calls him of the 100 most likely innovators of the 21st century. But the US government won’t let him into the country. We get reaction from Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan to the Bush administration’s latest explanation why he can't accept a teaching position in the United States."

Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
No. 38/2006

21- 27 Sep. 2006

A Special Issue on the 6th Anniversary of the al-Aqsa Intifada

Six Years of Israeli Aggression on the OPT; IOF Commit Unprecedented War Crimes against Palestinian Civilians and Property

This report coincides with the 6th anniversary of the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada, which broke out following the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to al-Aqsa Mosque (the Holy Sanctuary) in occupied Jerusalem. Over the last 6 years, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have perpetrated grave breaches of international law, including war crimes, against Palestinian civilians, in a manner unprecedented since 1967. The 6th year of the Intifada witnessed an increasing escalation in Israeli war crimes as the international community remained silent and the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 failed to meet their obligations to ensure respect for the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and provide protection for Palestinian civilians. The international silence has served to encourage the Israeli government and its occupation forces to perpetrate more war crimes with impunity against Palestinian civilians. Over the last 12 months, IOF have stepped up illegal operations in the OPT, especially in the Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinian civilians killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip in the second half of the year reminds of the numbers of civilians killed by IOF in the West Bank during the Operation Defensive Shield in spring 2002.

In the 6th year of the Intifada, 504 Palestinians, including 398 civilians (79%) have killed by IOF. The number of civilian victims includes 93 children (23%) and 14 women (3.5%). According to PCHR's documentation, 138 Palestinians have been extra-judicially executed by IOF ( 34.5% of the total number of civilian victims). This number includes 90 targeted persons and 48 civilian bystanders, including 23 children.

By the end of the 6th year of the al-Aqsa Intifada, 3859 Palestinians, including 3069 civilians
( 79.5%), have been killed. According to PCHR's documentation, 585 Palestinians have been extra-judicially executed by IOF (19% of the total number of civilian victims). This number includes 376 targeted persons and 209 civilian bystanders, including 71 children.

Contrary to claims by IOF that they withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, which PCHR viewed as a form of redeployment, IOF waged an open war on the Gaza Strip after Palestinian resistance activists had killed two IOF soldiers and captured a third on 25 June 2006. This wide scale military campaign named "Operation Summer Rains" is still ongoing. Since the beginning of this campaign, 237 Palestinian, including 147 civilians, have been killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip. The number of civilian victims includes 53 children and 13 women. In addition, 821 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 220 children and 35 women, have been wounded.

According to PCHR's documentation, IOF have fired at least 260 air-to-surface missiles and hundreds of artillery shells at targets, mostly civilian ones, in the Gaza Strip. Buildings of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National economy, the office of the Palestinian Prime Minister and a number of educational institutions have been destroyed. The electricity generation plant, providing 45% of the electricity of the Gaza Strip, was destroyed, and electricity networks and transmitters have been repeatedly attacked. Six bridges linking Gaza City with the central Gaza Strip and a number of roads have been destroyed. IOF have also destroyed hundreds of donums[1] of agricultural land and dozens of houses have been destroyed. The Palestinian governmental compound in Nablus has been destroyed. Many families in the Gaza Strip have been forced to leave their houses. IOF warplanes have destroyed 44 houses belonging to activists of Palestinian factions.

In the 6th year of the Intifada, IOF continued to shell Palestinian residential areas. Complete families were killed or wounded by the IOF shelling. For instance, on 9 June 2006, IOF killed 'Alai Ghalia, his wife and 5 of the their children. On 12 July 2006, IOF killed Nabeel Abu Silmiya, his wife and 7 of their children. IOF have employed warplanes to extra-judicially executed Palestinian in densely populated areas, rendering casualties among Palestinian civilians, especially children. Furthermore, IOF have adopted a new policy since 23 July 2006, under which they warn Palestinian civilians that their houses would be attacked, a very short period that does not exceed an hour prior to the actual attack. IOF often claim that weapons are stored in these houses or that tunnels are dug under them to smuggle weapons.

In the West Bank, IOF continued to construct the annexation wall inside the West Bank territory, in violation of international law and humanitarian law, and the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice in Hague, which considered the construction of the wall illegal and called for its dismantlement.

In an attempt to undermine the results of the Palestinian elections, which were held on 25 January 2006, IOF waged an arrest campaign against members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) representing the Change and Reform Bloc affiliated to Hamas and cabinet ministers. IOF arrested 31 PLC members, including the Speaker, Deputy Speaker and the Secretary. The PLC Deputy Speaker was released later. In addition, IOF arrested 8 ministers, including the Deputy Prime Minister. Three ministers, including the Deputy Prime Minister, were released later, while the others have been kept in custody.

On 14 March 2006, IOF completed initiated a large-scale military operation that imed to apprehend Ahmad Sa'adat, the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the elected member of the PLC, a number of PFLP activists charged with assassinating Rehavam Ze'vi (Israeli ex-Minister of Tourism), and Major General Fuad al-Shobaki, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council who is charged with smuggling the Karen A arms shipment. This operation was initiated 15 minutes after the sudden withdrawal of American and British monitors charged with guarding Sa;adat, in accordance with an agreement, drafted mainly by the United States. Israeli, American, and British officials attempted to deny any prior coordination between them. However, the Israeli Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, said in statements to Haaretz newspaper after the operation that Israel knew before hand about the time of the monitors' withdrawal from Jericho prison. Further, he stated that the army had been preparing for over a week to storm the prison and kidnap the prisoners. PCHR had previously stressed that no party, whether the IOF, Palestinian National Authority, or international community, has the right to formulate an agreement that violates International Humanitarian Law. This position was stated in reference to the agreement regarding Sa'adat's detention in Jericho prison (refer to the PCHR's press release dated 4 June 2002). Thus, PCHR raises question over the international community's role in enforcing past and future agreements to which Israel is a party.

Israeli military actions have violated the political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights of Palestinian civilians.

The six years of the al-Aqsa Intifada have been characterized by the following Israeli military attacks:

· Prolonged Incursions and redeployment into Palestinian Authority controlled areas.

· Massive killings and destruction of houses and civilian property.

· Extra-judicial executions against Palestinian activists and political leaders, the most significant of which targeted Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and leader of Hamas, and his successor, Dr. 'Abdul 'Aziz al-Rantissi.

· Destruction of the Palestinian economy and the structure of the Palestinian Authority through the destruction of civil and security facilities.

· Using Palestinian civilians as human shields during military operations in the OPT.

· Closing Rafah International Crossing Point and other border crossings of the Gaza Strip.

· Chasing fishermen and depriving them of their sources of income.

· Storming Jericho Prison and arresting senior political leaders.

· Humiliation of Palestinian at military checkpoints.

· Deportation of a number of Palestinian activists.

· Continued construction of the annexation wall inside the West Bank territory, in a challenge for the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice, which considered the construction of the wall illegal.

· Wilful killing of Palestinian civilians.

· Indiscriminate shelling of Palestinian civilian residential areas using various forms of weaponry, including warplanes, tanks and machine guns.

· Collective punishment of Palestinian civilians, denying them their basic human rights, including the rights of health, education, freedom of movement and work, through imposing a tightened siege on the OPT.

· Transformation of Qalandya checkpoint into an international border crossing between the West Bank and Israel.

· Arbitrary arrests and placing Palestinians in administrative detention.

· Closure of a number of charitable societies in the West Bank.

· Systematic attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians.

A table showing those killed during the al-Aqsa Intifada from 29 September 2000 to 28 September 2006

Context
Total
6th year

Palestinians killed in attacks by Israeli occupying forces, settlers and Israeli police in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and inside Israel

3859, including 3069 civilians
504, including 398 civilians

Palestinians killed in the West Bank
1722, including 1552 civilians
122, including 105 civilians

Palestinians killed in Gaza Strip
2137, including 1517 civilians
382, including 293

Children killed
724
93

Children killed in the Gaza Strip
430
76

Children killed in the West Bank
294
17

Females killed
119
14

Females killed in the Gaza Strip
58
12

Females killed in the West Bank
61
2

Palestinians killed in extra-judicial executions

376, including 209 civilian bystanders (71 of them are children)
90, including 48 civilian bystanders (23 of them are children)

Medical personnel killed
19
2

Journalists killed
10
1

Civilians killed in settler attacks
45
1

A table showing those injured during the al-Aqsa Intifada from 29 September 2000 to 28 September 2006[2]



Area
Total
6th year

Gaza Strip
10000
1200

West Bank
12927
776

Total
22927
1976

A table showing land levelling, house demolitions and destruction to industrial and educational facilities in the Gaza Strip during the al-Aqsa Intifada, from 29 September 2000 to 28 September 2006

Type
Total
6th year

Land leveling
36852 donums
5165 donums

House demolition[3]
Complete
Partial
Complete
Partial

2831
2427
268
205

Industrial facilities destroyed[4]
677
47

----IN JUST THIS WEEK ALONE-----
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

· 6 Palestinian civilians, including 4 children and one woman, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip.

· IOF shot the woman from a zero range.

· IOF conducted 33 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and 4 others into the Gaza Strip.

· IOF arrested 16 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, and 9 others in the Gaza Strip.

· IOF demolished 13 houses in Um al-Nasser village in the southern Gaza Strip.

· IOF transformed two houses in Hebron into military sites.

· IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT; IOF have imposed a tightened siege on the Gaza Strip; and IOF positioned at a various checkpoints in the West Bank arrested 8 Palestinian civilians, including a child.

Summary

Israeli violations of international law continued in the OPT during the reported period (21 - 27 September 2006):

Killing: During the reported period, IOF killed 6 Palestinian civilians, including 4 children and a woman, in the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday morning, 21 September 2006, IOF killed two Palestinian civilians, including a woman in Um al-Nasser village, northeast of Rafah. IOF killed the woman from a zero range when she protested against IOF soldier who beat her deaf husband. The woman was left bleeding until for several hours. The other civilian was killed in the same area by the indiscriminate IOF gunfire. On the same day, IOF killed 3 children in Jabalya town in the northern Gaza Strip, while they were herding sheep. On 27 September 2006, a child was killed when IOF dropped a bomb at a neighboring house. In addition, 21 Palestinian civilians, including 8 children, were wounded by the IOF shelling in Rafah.

Thus, the number of Palestinians killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip since 25 June 2006 has increased to 237, including 53 children and 13 women. In addition, 821 others, mostly civilians,

In the west Bank, 6 Palestinian civilians, including two children, were wounded by IOF gunfire throughout the West Bank.

Incursions: During the reported period, IOF conducted at least 33 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, during which they raided dozens of houses and arrested 16 Palestinian civilians, including a child. IOF also transformed two houses into military sites. In an act of piracy, IOF broke into the Jordanian National Bank and 11 money exchange shops in the West Bank. They arrested 7 money exchangers and confiscated big amounts of money. Israeli sources estimated the confiscated money at 6 million NIS (US$ 1.3 million), and claimed that these money exchange shop transferred amounts of money that were used to finance attacks on Israeli targets. In the Gaza Strip, IOF conducted 4 incursions in the southern Gaza Strip villages of Um al-Nasser and al-Foukhari, and into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. During these incursions IOF arrested 11 Palestinian civilians and demolished at least 14 houses.

Restrictions on Movement: IOF have continued to impose a tightened siege on the OPT and imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Occupied East Jerusalem.

Gaza Strip

IOF have imposed a strict siege on the Gaza Strip. They have closed its border crossings as a form of collective punishment against Palestinian civilians.

IOF have closed Rafah International Crossing Point since 25 June 2006, even though they do not directly control it. During the reported period, the crossing point was reopened for 3 days and thousands of Palestinians were able to travel from and to the Gaza Strip. IOF have closed commercial crossings of the Gaza Strip, especially al-Mentar (Karni) crossing. As a consequence, the economic situation inside the Gaza Strip has further deteriorated and many goods have been lacked in markets. During the reported period, IOF partially reopened al-Mentar (Karni) crossing, east of Gaza City, and Sofa and Kerem Shalom crossings near Rafah. IOF have also continued to close Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip had been prevented from traveling through this crossing. IOF have allowed international workers to pass through the crossing. With this closure, only few Palestinian patients have been able to travel to hospitals in Israel and the West Bank. In addition, IOF have prevented Palestinian fishermen from fishing for 3 months.

West Bank

IOF have tightened the siege imposed on Palestinian communities in the West Bank. They have isolated Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. IOF positioned at various checkpoints in the West Bank have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. IOF have continued to separate between the north and south of the West Bank. During the reported period, IOF positioned at various checkpoints around imposed severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. During the reported period, IOF positioned at various checkpoints in the West Bank arrested 8 Palestinian civilians, including a child.

An Excellent Article By
Azmi Bishara
Al-Ahram Weekly

"Israel's invasion of Lebanon ushered in a new regional situation that has made the choice between war and peace extremely clear. This clarity is troublesome for Israel, which is unwilling to pay the price of either choice. As a result, the US, Israel and a number of Arab governments are feverishly trying to cloud that clarity and their instrument for doing so, at least at the PR level, is the Palestinian settlement industry: that inexhaustible source of quasi-initiatives, pseudo- dialogues, confidence-building "processes" and efforts to find a way back to the roadmap. Meanwhile Palestinians wake up every morning to find that they need a new map just to get to work, so frequently does the terrain change with all the additions to the separation wall and the barricades and checkpoints that appear and prevent from one day to the next.

I am unable to recall an occasion in which Israel was so bereft of a political alternative as it is now. This has come at a time when Israel has come face to face with the most crucial decisions ever. Until now, the Israeli leadership has never asked its citizens to choose between a just and lasting peace or lasting warfare. If it were to put the choice before them so succinctly, I have no doubt that the government would be surprised by the numbers of people who voted in favour of peace and would be willing to pay the necessary price. Sadly, there is no leadership in Israel capable of rising to such a historic moment. Sadder yet are the many Arabs who are denying the results of the war against Lebanon, calling for the resurrection of a dead roadmap and doing whatever else they can to extricate Israel from one of the toughest spots it has ever been in."

The prospects for a national unity government are fading fast, reports
Khaled Amayreh from the West Bank
Al-Ahram Weekly

"Another factor militating against recognition of Israel by Hamas is the widespread suspicion that Israel is only using the issue as propaganda tool, something Israel's treatment of the PA during the Oslo years (1994-2000) confirms. Despite the fact that the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat formally recognised Israel and agreed to annul the Palestinian National Charter, which called for Israel's destruction, successive Israeli governments continued to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank, effectively killing any prospect for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous state.

Hamas believes Israel and the US are attempting to undermine the movement's credibility with its supporters by forcing it to walk in the footsteps of Fatah and adopt the very Oslo path that led to more Jewish settlements and now the gigantic apartheid wall which has turned Palestinian population centres in the West Bank into detention camps.

Yet Hamas must deal with the pressing problems facing Palestinian society, the suffocating economic crisis, deepening poverty, and even the threat of starvation that has resulted from the Israeli-American financial blockade. The government has been unable to pay the salaries of more than 160,000 civil servants and public employees, including school teachers, who are now on strike for the fourth consecutive week.

There is, yet still, another, even more disastrous prospect: Abbas, under intense pressure from certain pro-American Fatah quarters, might resort to dissolving the Hamas-dominated Legislative Council and form a national emergency government. And that, most people agree, would lead to the prospect of bloodshed between Fatah and Hamas. The only winner in such a conflict would be Israel."

ANOTHER IRAQI FAMILY MASSACRED BY US TROOPS IN BAQOUBA

American troops killed eight people — four of them women — in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Outside the pockmarked house, which relatives said belonged to Mohammed Jassim, bullet casings littered the ground and blood stained the sand. Family members cried and consoled one another as the bodies of the women were taken away.

“This is an ugly criminal act by the U.S. soldiers against Iraqi citizens,” Manal Jassim, who lost her parents and other relatives in the attack, told Associated Press Television News.

Iraq’s major Sunni clerical organization, the Association of Muslim Scholars, condemned the raid as a “terrorist massacre.”

***

AS ALWAYS, THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF MALIKI AND TALABANI DID NOT SAY A WORD ABOUT THIS MASSACRE, REGISTER ANY PROTEST OR DEMAND ANY INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION.

***

Al-Zaman [Ar.] has more on the bombing of the family in Baqubah. "A young girl said, weeping, 'I was inside preparing the meal to break the Ramadan fast. I heard explosions and gunfire, and I ran. When I returned, I found all of my family killed. My father, four women and three men. All of them, including my brother and his pregnant wife. They took two members of our family, a man and a woman, who were wounded.'"

By JOHN CHUCKMAN
CounterPunch

"For a country which takes excessive pride in flags, uniforms, and marching bands and spends more than the rest of the planet combined on its military, the record of America's forces since World War II is depressing. In dozens of quickie invasions against weak opponents, Americans indeed have prevailed, but when faced with tough and determined enemies, they have remarkably often been defeated or stalemated.

The failure of America's military could be explained by the notion that failure is only what happens when you seek the wrong success. A poorly-governed people, as Americans certainly are, keeps being sent to wars in which they have no vital interest or commitment. Whatever the reason, the record is unmistakable.

Higher casualties don't always mean losing a battle or even a war. The sacrifice of great numbers sometimes improves a strategic or tactical position, as General Grant in America's Civil War well understood. Vietnam's General Giap understood this also, for despite a horrific slaughter of his people, America suffered defeat.

It was an early sign of the coming defeat when body counts began to dominate American news. It is easy to kill large numbers of people, especially when you have complete air superiority and high-tech weapons, but constant killing may mean little progress against a serious opponent. Often, as in the Blitz, bombing people is completely counter-productive.

In recent weeks, body counts re-appeared in Afghanistan, much the same way opium poppies re-appeared after America's claim to victory over the Taleban (who had suppressed opium). The bodies are supposed to be Taleban, but who can tell whether a dead villager is Taleban?

The other lost war is, of course, Iraq. American efforts there have done little but kill civilians and destroy the economy and now threaten to destroy the country itself. Even in Washington, the reality of civil war is dawning. America's real goals in the war are not going to be achieved, the major one of which was to establish a regime friendly to American policy, especially as that policy pertains to Israel. Instead, years of bloody chaos lie ahead. The outcome, who knows? Three separate warring rump states, each willing to do almost anything to gain an advantage, including taking assistance from those most hostile to American policy?"

Words vs. Deeds

By NICOLA NASSER
(Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist in Kuwait, Jordan, UAE and Palestine. He is based in Ramallah, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories)

"However, Muslims and especially Arabs are very well aware that the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the former USSR have made Islam a useful scapegoat for tightening the US grip on the unipolar world. Books by the Orientalist Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations became popular in the west because they promoted the idea that Islam was the main threat to Western "civilization."

They are also aware that this war to establish total and lasting U.S. global hegemony, a sort of modern-day Roman Empire, is spearheaded in the heartland of Muslims and Islam, the Arab world, where all the regimes are targeted sooner or later; it makes no difference whether they are Islamic, Islamist, secular, liberal, or Pan-Arab regimes, monarchies or republics."

A TRUE BELIEVER IS NOT BITTEN FROM THE SAME DEN TWICE
(An Arabic expression)

The current Al-Jazeera online (Arabic) asks the question:

Do you support Iraqi president Talabani's request for a long-term US military presence in Iraq?

With over 3,500 responding, here are the results.

No----- 91.2%
Yes----- 8.8%

By Ramzy Baroud

"It is vital that the Iran-US row, regardless of its future direction or level of escalation, be understood for what it really is: a clash of interests between a superpower no longer so fearsome, and an aspiring regional power with clear objectives and aims. It’s neither about America’s burning desire to safeguard democracy and the human race from mad Iranian mullahs, nor is it exactly about Iran’s quest for a just world. Further misinterpretation of this topic shall yield even more erroneous outcomes, of horror scenarios, of smoking guns, and eventually of one more tragic ‘case for war.’"

جرت العادة، ان يطوف الزعماء الفلسطينيون بالعواصم العربية لحشد الدعم للمقاومة في مواجهة الاحتلال الاسرائيلي، ولكن السيد محمود عباس رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية، يكسر هذه القاعدة باصرار، ويفعل عكس ذلك تماما.
فالجولة الحالية التي يقوم بها السيد عباس الي كل من مصر وقطر تهدف الي اقناع حكومتي البلدين باستخدام نفوذهما للضغط علي حركة المقاومة الاسلامية حماس لتليين موقفها في مسألتي تبادل الاسري وتشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية فلسطينية.
بالنسبة الي مسألة تبادل الاسري، يريد السيد عباس ان تفرج حركة حماس عن الجندي الاسرائيلي الاسير جلعاد شاليط دون قيد او شرط، علي ان تترك الباقي لكرم الحكومة الاسرائيلية، اي ان تترك لها قرار الافراج عن اي عدد تريده من الاسري الفلسطينيين في معتقلاتها، اما بالنسبة لحكومة الوحدة الوطنية الفلسطينية فان المقصود من تليين موقف حماس هو اعترافها بالدولة العبرية، وكل الاتفاقات التي وُقعت معها، خاصة اتفاق اوسلو، ونبذ العنف، اي التخلي عن المقاومة.
ولا نعتقد ان كلا من قطر ومصر تملكان اوراق ضغط قوية تؤهلهما لتحقيق التنازلات التي يتطلع اليها السيد عباس من حركة حماس وقيادتها في الخارج.
فالحكومة المصرية بذلت جهودا كبيرة من اجل اقناع قيادة الحركة في الخارج للافراج عن الجندي الاسرائيلي الاسير دون شروط، واوفدت العديد من وفودها الامنية الي القطاع لانجاز هذه المهمة، ولكن جهودها باءت بالفشل لانها حملت التهديدات والشروط الاسرائيلية، وتعاملت مع الفلسطينيين وفصائلهم كمجموعة من الاطفال القصر.
ولعل المثل الابرز في هذا الاطار هو ما نشرته الصحف العبرية حول ارسال السيد عمر سليمان رئيس جهاز المخابرات المصرية رسالة الي قيادة حماس في دمشق تحذرها من اجتياح اسرائيلي شامل لقطاع غزة بعد انتهاء شهر رمضان المبارك، اذا لم يتم الافراج عن الجندي الاسرائيلي الاسير قبل هذه المهلة.
السيد عباس يعيش مأزقا كبيرا، لانه لا يستطيع مخالفة شروط امريكا في التصدي لحركة حماس ، ولا يستطيع تلبيتها في الوقت نفسه، لان المواجهة ستكون مكلفة دمويا وسياسيا.
خيارات السيد عباس صعبة، علاوة علي كونها محدودة، للخروج من الازمة الحالية. فتشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية برئاسة السيد اسماعيل هنية، ودون ان تعترف حماس صراحة باسرائيل وتنبذ العنف، سيؤدي الي عدم اعتراف امريكا واوروبا بهذه الحكومة، ورفض التعامل معها. واستخدام صلاحياته في حل هذه الحكومة وتشكيل حكومة طوارئ، او حكومة تكنوقراط سيخلق ازمة سياسية طاحنة، وربما يقود الي حرب اهلية.
وحتي خيار الدعوة الي انتخابات تشريعية ورئاسية مبكرة ليس بالخيار السهل، لان احتمال مقاطعة حماس والفصائل الاخري لها وارد ايضا.
لا بديل امام السيد عباس غير اعداد خطاب استقالته ودعوة المجلس التشريعي للانعقاد واعلان حل السلطة، والذهاب الي الدوحة لقضاء وقت ممتع مع احفاده.

The U.S. State Department has again denied a visa to Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss Muslim scholar who gave up a teaching appointment at the University of Notre Dame two years ago after he was first barred from residing and working in the country, the American Civil Liberties Union announced on Monday.

The ACLU and several other groups that are parties to a lawsuit on Mr. Ramadan's behalf condemned the decision as political censorship.

Faced with a federal court's deadline to issue Mr. Ramadan a visa or explain why it would not, the State Department pointed in its latest decision to donations he had made to French and Swiss organizations that provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians, the ACLU said in a written statement. Those donations, made between 2000 and 2004, totaled about 600 euros, which would be worth about $765 today.

The Bush administration contended that the groups Mr. Ramadan supported gave money to the radical Islamist group Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization, and applied a law that allows the government to exclude individuals whom it believes have provided "material support" for terrorism, the statement said.

Mr. Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies and philosophy, has been a vocal critic of terrorism, Islamism, and U.S. policies in the Middle East. He accepted a position as a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford after the U.S. government's first denial of his visa application, in 2004, and was later named by Prime Minister Tony Blair to serve on a British commission to combat terrorism. He reapplied for a U.S. visa last September, and received word in December that it could take as long as two years to consider that application.

Soon afterward, the ACLU, acting on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors, the PEN American Center, and Mr. Ramadan, sued the government, alleging that the provision of the USA Patriot Act it had used to exclude him was unconstitutional.

In June, a federal court rejected the government's attempt to delay a judgment on Mr. Ramadan's visa application, and ordered the government to grant the visa or explain why it would not do so. The scholar was informed of the State Department's latest decision in a letter he received on Thursday, the deadline set by the court.

In the statement released on Monday, Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer and lead counsel in the case, said that "although the U.S. government has found a new pretext for denying Professor Ramadan's visa, the history of this case makes clear that the government's real concern is not with Professor Ramadan but with his ideas."

"The government is using the immigration laws to silence an articulate critic and to censor political debate inside the United States," he said.

Janelle Hironimus, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said Mr. Ramadan was denied a visa "for providing material support to a terrorist organization," but she could not elaborate on the specifics of his visa application. She said 36,000 students, scholars, and academic figures from the Muslim world have come to the United States this year alone to visit, teach, and study.

"The U.S. welcomes culture and exchange with the Islamic world," Ms. Hironimus read from a prepared statement.

In a written statement on his Web site, Mr. Ramadan said that the organizations to which he donated were humanitarian groups devoted to the health and welfare of Palestinians and were not deemed suspect in Europe.

"I donated to these organizations for the same reason that countless Europeans -- and Americans, for that matter -- donate to Palestinian causes: not to provide funding for terrorism, but because I wanted to provide humanitarian aid to people who are desperately in need of it," he said in the statement.

Mr. Ramadan wrote that while he was glad the State Department has abandoned the allegation that he endorses terrorism, he thinks he is being excluded because of his criticism of American foreign policy in the Middle East, including opposition to the Iraq war.

"While the State Department has found a new reason to deny my visa application, I think it clear from the history of this case that the U.S. government's real fear is of my ideas."

Halutz: If needed we'll fire at Hizbullah supporters: The army chief made it clear that the IDF had issued a warning to the Lebanese army that any use of military equipment in the area, including intelligence means, would constitute a violation of the ceasefire resolution.

IDF: Troops can shoot Lebanese stone-throwers if lives threatened: Israel Defense Forces soldiers have been instructed to shoot Lebanese stone-throwers along the border if they feel their lives are in danger, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said on Wednesday.

IDF withdrawal stalled till UNIFIL role spelled out: Nonetheless, Defense Minister Amir Peretz promised yesterday that in spite the differences, the IDF withdrawal will be completed in the near future and the "last soldier will leave southern Lebanon by Yom Kippur," which begins on Sunday evening.

Israelis settle in for long stay in village of Ghajar: The once divided Southern town of Ghajar, half occupied by Israel and half within Lebanese territory, appears to have been finally reunited under one flag. "Khalas, it is gone. It is a new Israeli town and they are even repainting it in Israel''s favorite colors, pink and yellow," said 16-year-old shepherd Walid Ain Zat, who along with his two younger brothers regularly tends his flock of goats in the open fields near the border town.

At least 34 Killed in U.S. occupation of Iraq: A U.S. raid and air strike killed eight people, including seven members of one family, and wounded two others in Baquba

U.S. Occupation Forces Kill 4 Civilian Women in a Blood-Soaked Morning: Bodies Strewn About Capital, U.S. Raid Kills 4 "Militants", 4 Civilian Women

'Not enough cash for war' : George Bush received a serious rebuke about his wartime leadership this week when his army chief said he did not have enough money to fight the war in Iraq.

Iraq factions blast call for long-term US bases: The Scholars said that in making the comments during a visit to the US Talabani had done "nothing more than express an American demand to keep Washington from having to do it".

Andrew Bacevich : Chickens are home to roost in Iraq: The Bush administration is running out of troops, money and ideas

Controversial group wins U.S. propaganda contract in Iraq: A public relations company known for its role in a controversial U.S. military program that paid Iraqi newspapers for stories favourable to coalition forces has been awarded another multi-million dollar media contract with American forces in Iraq.

Part of Iraq Intelligence Report Is Released: The Bush administration yesterday released portions of a classified intelligence estimate that says the global jihadist movement is growing and being fueled by the war in Iraq even as it becomes more decentralized, making it harder to identify potential terrorists and prevent attacks. The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and drawing new adherents to the movement, the assessment says.

Kurds and Arabs vie for control of Mosul: "There is no solution except the division of the province," said Khasro Goran, the powerful Kurdish deputy governor of Mosul. He believes that all the Kurds in the province want to join the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which under the federal constitution is almost an independent state.

The return of Palestinian refugees is an existential necessity for Israeli Jews: Elias Davidsson argues that it is in the enlightened self-interest of Israeli Jews to accept the Palestinian refugees' right of return.

Report: Bombing of Gaza power plant war crime: Human rights group B'Tselem determines bombing of power plant in Gaza constitutes war crime and was carried out as 'vengeance.'

No writing on the wall: Mizrahi found the Palestinian construction workers who are building the fence spraying a white liquid on it. After inquiring, he learned it was a graffiti repellent spray apparently developed in satellite labs in the United States. Mizrahi was shocked: is the State of Israel going to spend money spraying graffiti repellent for use in outer space on the giant concrete wall? Is the graffiti a security threat? One of the guards there explained the operation to him: "We won't let them write incendiary remarks against us on the walls.

Israeli settlers in southern West Bank bulldoze Palestinian land: Israeli settlers from Kiryat Arba, known for some of the most violent behavior in the West Bank, spent Wednesday destroying vast areas of Palestinian agricultural land. The southern West Bank city of Hebron suffers at length from the oldest settlement and the Israeli soldiers that work in it. All settlements, expansion, and the settlers, are illegal under international law. The destroyed land belonged to Palestinians from eastern Hebron City.

Hi-tech firm boycotts Israel over 'war crimes': U2U manager Wim Yotrasprot wrote in a statement to Avner obtained by Ynet that "I appreciate your interest in my company, but after the devastating and inhumane war crimes Israel perpetrated in Lebanon, and because of the apartheid regime it rules on Palestine, U2U does not wish to tie itself with Israeli products."

Jerusalem - Irish academics call for EU boycott of Israeli schools: Academics from Ireland are calling on the European Community to place a moratorium on support for Israeli institutions of higher learning 'until Israel abides by UN resolutions and ends the occupation of Palestinian territories,' according to a letter published in the Irish Times last Saturday.

Medics: Girl killed, seven hurt in IAF Gaza strike: Israel Air Force air strikes on a house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah early Wednesday killed a 14-year-old girl and wounded seven other people, hospital officials said. There were no major injuries in the initial strike, which leveled the house. However, as children gathered to look at the rubble, a second airstrike hit the house, killing a 14-year-old girl and wounded seven other children, hospital officials said.

Israeli Army Invades Hebron, takes prisoners and occupies a home: The Israeli army took prisoner seven residents of the city of Hebron and the nearby Ithna village. Local sources reported that troops stormed the village of Ithna near Hebron and searched and ransacked several homes before arresting seven. Also on Wednesday, the Israeli army took over a house in the West Bank city of Hebron and turned it into a military post.

Army takes eight prisoners and injures two in Qabatia, town south of Jenin: Army vehicles and troops stormed the town from several directions and conducted a wide scale house-to-house search campaign to residents' homes in the town. Eyewitnesses said that troops open fired and fired sound bombs randomly at residents' homes and ransacked families' belongings and damaged them during the search, creating a state of panic among children.

Thousands of Palestinians have been internally displaced due to the Wall: Thousands of Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes as a direct result of the Wall built by Israel in occupied East Jerusalem, a report by the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights and the Norwegian Refugee Council's International Displacement Monitoring Centre revealed.

Gaza: assistance for displaced Bedouin families: The ICRC is organizing emergency help for Bedouin families who have been forced to move to an open field near Rafah, in the south of the Gaza strip, because of repeated Israeli military incursions. Because the Bedouin want to remain with their livestock, they cannot be accommodated in the schools or apartments normally used to shelter displaced people in the area.

UN blasts Israel for plight of Palestinians: "I hope that my portrayal of hardships experienced by such people will trouble the consciences of those accustomed to turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the suffering of the Palestinian people," Dugard told the UN Human Rights Council.

Gaza Strip to remain without full electrical power for a year: Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has accused the Israel Defense Forces of war crimes for bombing the plant, which has left many areas of the Gaza Strip without full electricitical power the last three months. Electricity in many areas is cut off for half of the day, severely hampering hospitals, the water supply and sewage systems, B'Tselem said in a report.

There is US $300 million in the presidential coffers, Refugee Minister reiterates: The Palestinian Minister for Refugee Affairs, Atef Adwan, has defended his statements to Ma''an two days ago in which he accused the presidency of not paying the public sector salaries even though it has the money. These statements provoked a fierce reaction from the presidency and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Palestinian Deputy PM released, wont be allowed to enter Ramallah: Palestinian deputy Prime Minister, Nasser Ed-Deen Al Sha'er, was released on Wednesday after the Israeli Petah Tikva court ordered his release. Yet, Al Sha'er will not be allowed to enter Ramallah, the center of the Palestinian Government offices, and will not be allowed to leave the Palestinian territories until October 15.

Jewish terrorist who murdered four Palestinians gets 4 consecutive life sentences: Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday sentenced a Jewish terrorist to four consecutive life sentences plus an additional 12 years in prison for murdering four Palestinian men.

Spain floats idea of Madrid peace summit: "Perhaps it would be timely for all the interested parties to meet again, at the same level as in 1991, to reaffirm their commitment to a comprehensive solution and to the basic principles on which that should be based," he told Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat in an interview published Wednesday.

Barghouti believes he will be released in prisoner exchange deal: Marwan Barghouti believes that he will be released from incarceration in Israel as part of a prisoner exchange deal, according to United Arab List MK Talab al-Sana, who met with the jailed Tanzim leader on Wednesday at Nafha prison.

Baruch Spiegel joins list of advisers to leave Amir Peretz: Brigadier General (Res.) Baruch Spiegel has informed Defense Minister Amir Peretz that he will resign as special adviser to the defense minister in mid-October. He is the latest of several advisers to resign from the Defense Ministry recently.

NO, THIS IS NOT A JOKE.
GUESS WHO IS URGING PALESTINIAN "NATIONAL UNITY" NOW?
YES, NONE OTHER THAN SHIMON PERES!

"Palestinian leaders must overcome their differences and present a united front if peace talks with Israel are to succeed, Vice Premier Shimon Peres said on Wednesday.

"We are ready to give back land. We are for a Palestinian state beside an Israeli state," Peres told an audience at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.

But he warned: "They must show a talent to come together. They must have one government. They must have one army. You cannot have a state if you don't have a united people.""

***

LONG LIVE "NATIONAL UNITY" UNDER THE USRAELI BOOT!

Human rights group B'Tselem determines bombing of power plant in Gaza constitutes war crime and was carried out as 'vengeance'

"The B’Tselem human rights group published Wednesday a report on the implications of the bombing of the power plant in Gaza on June 28th, 2006. Findings show that the majority of residents in the Gaza Strip are only intermittently connected to the power supply and that the power cut has adversely affected medical services throughout hospitals and clinics in the Strip.

The report also found that the majority of the urban population is connected to the water supply for only two to three hours a day and that the sewer system in the Strip has virtually collapsed. In addition, the mobility of many of the residents has been hindered following disruption to the elevator service and the inability to refrigerate food supplies, thus exposing many to risk of food poisoning.

According to B’Tselem, the power cut has caused severe damage to small businesses dependent on the electrical supply, and the report foresees an increasingly grave situation in the wake of the severe economic crises prevalent in the Gaza Strip.

The B’Tselem organization has determined that the IDF operation was illegal and that according to international humanitarian law it is deemed a war crime as it constitutes an attack on a clear civilian target, as well as being "a banned collective punishment." "

Palestinian Deputy PM Nasser Shaer waving as he is escorted by IOF soldiers near Nablus after his release from Israeli detention on Wednesday. (AP)

The Antiwar Struggle, UFPJ and the Democrats

By JOE ALLEN
CounterPunch

"By every conceivable measure, the antiwar movement in the United States should be a vibrant, mass movement.

When one adds this list to the mounting social cost of paying for the war with increasing cuts in social welfare programs, one has to ask: why is our antiwar movement so passive?

The reasons for this are many. The Democrats--the so-called "opposition" party in the U.S.--have provided crucial support for the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. There's also the hold of liberalism--which from the time of FDR through Clinton has always supported an aggressive U.S. foreign policy--on the U.S. left. The low level of class struggle, despite the huge inequalities of U.S. society and workers' growing alienation from the political establishment, is another factor.

Another crucial reason for the weakness of the antiwar movement is the political course chosen by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest and most visible antiwar coalition in the U.S.

UFPJ's response to the major crisis points for U.S. policy since the invasion--the leveling of Falluja, the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, the threats to attack Iran, the recent Israeli-U.S. assault against Lebanon--has been feeble in terms of protest, while its emphasis on building support for the so-called antiwar Democrats in Congress has grown more distinct.

ONE FACTOR in this strategic orientation is the influence of the Communist Party (CP) USA, which plays an important part in shaping the direction of UFPJ.

For the past 70 years, with few exceptions, the CP has argued that it is essential for progressive movements hoping to win social change in the U.S. to support the Democratic Party against the Republicans.

But Webb and the Communist Party's support for Kerry in 2004 went beyond the traditional "lesser evil" reasoning of the U.S. left. Webb demanded that the left present Kerry as a "positive choice"--as he put it.

The Democrats--who, before and since the 2004 election, ducked every opportunity to challenge the Bush administration's policies--got the unswerving support of a large section of the left, including the Communist party, to the detriment of the struggle against the Bush agenda.

NOW, TWO years later, with Bush's policies sinking still lower in public support--when the anti-war movement should be pressing both parties for immediate withdrawal from Iraq--Webb is arguing against it."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted that Israel faced a very difficult problem in its war against Lebanon, indicating the Islamic Resistance of Hezbollah. She expressed optimism that the Shiites in Lebanon will be divided and expected that assassination attempts to target February 14 figures. Rice also refused reports that the recent Israeli war had weakened the Lebanese government of Premier Fouad Saniora, a key February 14 figure. Rice made her comments to the "New York Post", "The New York Times" and the "Wall Street Journal." She said that "moderate" Arab nations have become aware of the dangers of what she called "the mounting Iranian influence" in the region. She was signaling Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia which had anti-resistance positions, at least at the beginning of the Israeli war against Lebanon. Rice said that the Lebanese government voted twice over the UNIFIL, what means according to the US official, that the Amal Movement had split from Hezbollah. For his part, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri described Rice's expectation of a Shiite division as "mere dreams", stressing the alliance and understanding between Hezbollah and the Amal Movement have grown bigger than ever. Berri added that the position of both parties regarding the UNIFIL deployment has always been supportive, as long as the UN forces carry out their missions as stipulated in UN resolution 1701. Speaker Berri said he had hoped to hear a position by Rice, other than supporting Israeli violation of Lebanese sovereignty and occupation of the Shebaa Farms. The Speaker warned that the US administration is continuously trying to camouflage its intentions and real goals behind the so called "New Middle East", through democracy and moderation, however this administration, Berri added, has laid the foundations for a conflict between those seeking control over the riches of the region and those who resist aggression and "state terrorism" represented by Israel.

The Israeli daily "Yediot Aharonot" said Tuesday that the exchange of trade between Israel and Saudi Arabia has dramatically risen in the past five years, reaching 30%. The daily added that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had encouraged the trade between both countries, now worth tens of millions of US dollars. According to Yediot, dozens of Israeli companies are taking part today in several projects in the Saudi Kingdom, particularly through European companies. One of the major projects Israel is taking part in is the "Hosbat al-Madares in Saudi Arabia", and it's being executed by a Hi-Tech company from Remat Hasharon. The daily added that the Saudis are highly valuing Israeli achievements, particularly in agriculture. An Israeli agricultural consultant, Yediot said, had stayed for two weeks in the Kingdom, with the knowledge of the Saudi authorities. The project is to build a tomato and hot pepper farm. The daily also said that for more than two years, the Saudi Ministry of Agriculture has been in contact with a company from the Netherlands, which is also a subsidiary of an Israeli firm, to develop Saudi agricultural sectors. The contact was made via the Israeli-Arab Friendship Society. Yediot said that relations with Israeli businessmen through the Society, were established in 1991 by "oil emperor" Adnan Khashekji.

by Michael Carmichael

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

-- George Orwell, "1984"

Bush is President.

"The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was compiled in April 2006, but its release was suppressed when the White House learned of its contents. Worse, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Madame Secretary Condoleezza Rice continued to lie about the results of their failed policy. Now that the NIE report titled "Trends in Global Terrorism" has been leaked, we know that they have been lying, and they have been lying the big, big lie.:

This pathetic regime has been unmasked as the spitting image of the dystopian tyranny in George Orwell's prophetic novel, 1984, a fascist dictatorship organized under three sacred dictums

Ignorance is strength.

War is peace.

Freedom is slavery."

By TONY KARON
Time

"The premise of the siege strategy appears to be that by increasing Palestinian misery, domestic pressure will mount on Hamas to submit or quit. But such collective punishment may be as misguided as it is cruel; even if it did work, any "recognition" achieved this way would mean little in the pursuit of peace.

Clearly, it's not simply some extreme Islamist fringe that favors withholding recognition — it's a majority consensus that includes many of the voters of President Mahmoud Abbas's own Fatah party. In part, as Israeli commentator Danny Rubinstein notes, that reflects a widely held belief among Palestinians that "Yasser Arafat and the PLO recognized the State of Israel in the Oslo agreement and what did they gain from that? Only suffering and misfortune." In fact, as Rubinstein notes, the settler population in the West Bank actually doubled during the Oslo years.

The question of recognizing Israel is difficult for Hamas or any other Palestinian organization, ultimately, because of the meaning of Israel in the Palestinian national story. In the Western and Israeli narrative, Israel's creation is seen as redress for centuries of Jewish suffering in Europe culminating in the Holocaust. In the Palestinian and Arab narrative, Israel's creation meant the violent displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

The idea of the triumph of one people being the tragedy of another is eloquently captured in Sandy Tolan's book, The Lemon Tree — essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the difficulty in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tolan chronicles the true story of Dalia Eshkenazi, whose family flees post-Holocaust Bulgaria in 1948 to live the Zionist dream of building a Jewish state in the Holy Land. The new Israeli government provides them with an abandoned Arab house in the town of Ramla, in which she grows up. One summer morning in 1967, she's sitting in the garden near the old lemon tree, when Bashir Khairi knocks on the gate. Khairi is the son of the man who planted the lemon tree; he was born in the house and lived there until age 4, when he and his family, and hundreds of others, were forced onto buses by Israeli soldiers and driven to the West Bank, where they have lived as refugees ever since. The fraught and complex friendship that ensues between Dalia — a committed Zionist who wants justice for the Palestinians — and Bashir, a Palestinian militant who insists on his right of return to his home, allows for a rare frank dialogue based on mutual respect and an honest acknowledgment of the past, and of the difficulty of resolving the present. There's no happy ending or resolution, but their mutual recognition offers some sort of hope.

Many intelligence professionals eschew torture because they know that it tends to yield the answers that the suspect thinks his interrogators want to hear — not necessarily the truth. In some respects, there may be a similar effect in trying to throttle the Palestinians into submission. It's not inconceivable that at some point Hamas might find a formula for recognizing Israel in order to put food on Palestinian tables. But such a recognition would speak more to the boot on their necks than to any change in their hearts."

A WELL-WRITTEN PIECE:
By Amira Hass

"Slogans shouted at rallies sound better when they rhyme. "Not Ismail, not Haniyeh, we want back the government of haramiyeh." Haramiyeh means thieves, and the protesters in Ramallah - Palestinian Authority workers who have not received their salaries for the last seven months - shouted what can be heard in conversations in the streets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Hamas may be clean, but the Fatah thieves are preferable. After all, the reasoning goes, when Fatah was in power, our salaries were assured.

The Fatah governments bequeathed to the Hamas government a dependence on the funds of donor nations. This year, the donor states decided that they would not let the Hamas movement get the best of both worlds: refraining from recognizing agreements that formally made the establishment of a "government" possible, while receiving the fixed donations. That is logical.

But while Fatah is demanding that Hamas recognize the negative balance of its brief tenure, the Fatah movement and its leaders - from PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on down - are refusing to draw the relevant personal and political conclusions from the negative balance of their extensive time in power when it comes to the extremely important issue of the struggle for independence and liberation from Israeli occupation. On the basis of these promises, most of the Palestinian public supported the Oslo process. But the logic of "the gradual liberation from occupation," on which the Oslo Accords were based, has utterly failed.

Under the Oslo Accords, 60 percent of the territory (including the settlements) which was classified Area C, meaning under Israeli security and civil control, essentially became disputed territory, with the world allowing Israel to use its military, economic and diplomatic supremacy to annex significant portions of it in the framework of the final-status agreement.

During the Oslo period, it was proved to Israelis that "peace is possible even with settlements." The settlements expanded and developed without end, while the elected Palestinian leadership negotiated with the Israeli government, and was unable to prevent the construction of even one settlement house.

The Fatah government will be remembered as one that collaborated with the severe and comprehensive damage to the basic right of freedom of movement. The Palestinian leadership and PLO leaders accepted a system whereby they and their business, personal and political associates were granted the freedom of movement that the rest of the population did not enjoy. They owe their personal financial standing, their relative comfort and their feeling of "freedom" to a privilege that the Israeli occupation regime granted them. Under those circumstances, they could not lead a political struggle against the severe and highly destructive Israeli method of control over the Palestinians' time and freedom of movement."

IRAQ!

By Juan Cole

"I want to make 4 basic points about this controversy, and also provide the declassified text in HTML at the end.

1) The real scandal is that the NIE was classified at all.

2) The NIE clearly says that the Iraq War is now the main generator of terrorism against the US and its allies.

You can see the rise of anti-US sentiments under Bush most starkly in non-Arab countries such as Turkey and Indonesia which used to like us, believe it or not.

3) Critics have pointed out that although the NIE said that Bush's Iraq War has generated more terror against the US and its allies, not less, it also does not urge an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. But the NIE does not in fact urge "staying the course" as Bush and others imply.

4) Bush repeated at the news conference his statement that the US was not in Iraq in the 1990s when the US embassies in Africa and the USS Cole were hit by al-Qaeda or in 2001 when al-Qaeda hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This meme is so stupid and even Bush should be ashamed for trotting it out.

But that al-Qaeda had these grievances does not mean that Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq cannot now generate more terrorism. If a few thousand Muslims were upset about the al-Qaeda grievances of 1996 through 2001, many millions of Muslims are upset about US actions in Iraq."

Leaders' Views Out of Step With Public

"BAGHDAD, Sept. 26 -- A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout, according to State Department polling results obtained by The Washington Post.

Another new poll, scheduled to be released on Wednesday by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, found that 71 percent of Iraqis questioned want the Iraqi government to ask foreign forces to depart within a year. By large margins, though, Iraqis believed that the U.S. government would refuse the request, with 77 percent of those polled saying the United States intends keep permanent military bases in the country.

The stark assessments, among the most negative attitudes toward U.S.-led forces since they invaded Iraq in 2003, contrast sharply with views expressed by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Last week at the United Nations, President Jalal Talabani said coalition troops should remain in the country until Iraqi security forces are "capable of putting an end to terrorism and maintaining stability and security.""

At least 22 killed in occupied Iraq: Police also found 12 bound and tortured corpses.

US soldiers criticize their Iraqi counterparts: Some US soldiers say the Iraqis serving alongside them are among the worst they've ever seen -- seeming more loyal to militias than the government.

Iraq, Overstretched Army Bring Bush New Grief: With the U.S. intelligence community agreed that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have made this country less safe from terrorist threats, President George W. Bush appears now to be facing a growing revolt among top military commanders who say U.S. ground forces are stretched close to the breaking point.

Army chief tells Bush: there's not enough money for Iraq war : George Bush suffered a serious rebuke of his wartime leadership yesterday when his army chief said he did not have enough money to fight the war in Iraq.

Iraq MPs row over federalism bill : Some MPs objected angrily to a map drawn up by Kurds in northern Iraq, which showed the disputed city of Kirkuk as part of the Kurdish area.

Arrest warrants issued for 88 former Iraqi officials on corruption charges : The agency has documented the loss of US$7.5 billion (about €6.0 billion) through corruption over the past three years.

White House admits Iraq fuels extremism: The White House acknowledged that Iraq was among several factors that "fuel the spread of jihadism" but said that winning the war would dishearten potential terrorists.

Report’s Startling Conclusion: Bombing People Really Pisses Them Off

Top Generals Hint U.S needs another 60,000 Troops: The reason senior Army leaders want to go to a bigger Army is that they are worried about their ability to fight future threats.

Israel Air Force air strikes on a house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah early Wednesday: 14-year-old girl killed and wounded seven other people

Relentless Israeli attacks leave occupied Gaza reeling : In a village in southern Gaza, an old Palestinian woman stood surveying the wreckage of her life, and her home - bulldozed by the Israeli occupation army.

Displaced by the Wall: Forced displacement as a Result of the West Bank Wall and its Associated Regime
Thousands of Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes as a direct result of the Wall built by Israel in the occupied West Bank, according to a study published today by the Norwegian Refugee Council's Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. In East Jerusalem alone, tens of thousands of people have been forced to change their place of residence as a direct result of the construction of the Wall, concludes the study which for the first time comprehensively documents displacement caused by the West Bank Wall in the Jerusalem area.

UN human rights envoy says Gaza a prison for Palestinians: Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians where life is "intolerable, appalling, tragic" and the Jewish state appears to have thrown away the key, a UN human rights envoy said on Tuesday. "If ... the international community cannot ... take some action, [it] must not be surprised if the people of the planet disbelieve that they are seriously committed to the promotion of human rights," he said in a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Dugrad: Israel has admitted "Wall" has political purpose to draw boundaries: The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) John Dugard said Tuesday that the Israeli government has confirmed that its separation wall under construction has a political purpose and that is drawing the new boundaries of the Israeli state to include very fertile Palestinian agricultural land and 76 percent of the settler population.

Introduction to the Struggle Continues! Oct 6-8 Conference: In fact the global campaign to boycott Israeli Apartheid has a firm basis in international law. Apartheid is defined in Article II of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (UN General Assembly Resolution 3068 of 1976), which calls upon all states to "adopt any legislative or other measures necessary to suppress as well as to prevent any encouragement of the crime of apartheid and similar segregationist policies or their manifestations and to punish persons guilty of that crime" (Article IV-a).

UK company supplying arms to Israel blockaded: EDO MBM manufactures weapons components for the Israeli army, who slaughtered over a thousand Lebanese civilians this summer and who are engaged in a murderous assault on the people of Gaza . Andrew Beckett, press spokesperson for the campaign said ‘we have shut down this factory so that it cannot go on producing armaments to be used against the people of Gaza. We will keep on causing disruption to the factory until it closes down permanently'.

The law as roadkill on Highway 443: Few are aware that for six years now, ever since the outbreak of the intifada, the highway has been serving Israelis only. Palestinians are forbidden to travel even along the segment that is nine and a half kilometers long and passes through West Bank territory, including lands that have been confiscated and where trees have been cut down "for public needs." Israel Defense Forces soldiers ensure that only lucky people who have been granted a temporary permit can enjoy the shortcut.

Resident injured in Nablus invasion: For the third consecutive day, Israeli troops continued their military invasion to the Old City of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank, broke into dozens of homes, shot and injured one resident, local sources reported. The resident was identified as Amjad Anabtawi, 22. He was shot in his chest and was transferred to a local hospital.

Hamas and Fatah call off talks: Hamas has refused to recognise Israel and Fatah have said that such ideological differences impede the formation of a unity government. Fatah, under the late Yasser Arafat, recognised Israel and conducted several rounds of peace talks, resulting in partial agreements. However, a full peace treaty eluded the two sides.

Zahhar: “Hamas will not recognize Israel, meeting with Abbas was delayed not canceled”: Palestinian Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Zahhar, from the Hamas party, said that Hamas will not recognize Israel since it is an occupying country, and will not stop resisting the occupation. Referring to the meeting between Abbas and the Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyya, Zahhar said that the meeting was delayed and not cancelled.

Hamas legislators to remain behind bars: One of the detainees, Palestinian parliament speaker Aziz Duaik, called the decision a political one. He and 20 of his colleagues living in the southern West Bank were arrested and charged with belonging to Hamas following the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Official: Palestinian employees to get partial salary: Acting Minister of Finance Abu Aisha told reporters that public and military servants who earn less than 450 U.S. dollars would be able to get complete salary for one month. This group is estimated at 61,000 employees out of 165,000.

Gaza is hungry - and not because of Ramadan: Only last week, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh promised that by Ramadan some of the PA employees' salaries would be paid. But on Sunday came the announcement that this month, too, the PA did not have the money to pay its workers. The despair is visible in the people's eyes, as irritable drivers get into fights with each other at every traffic jam.

Christian Politicians Show Solidarity With Israel: Christian politicians from different countries will meet with Israeli Members of Knesset Wednesday to show their support for Israel. The Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus will host 50 Christian politicians from Europe, South America, Asia and Africa in the Knesset Members' Lunchroom as part of their program to develop ties with the international Christian community.

Poll: 67% of Israelis want talks with PA gov't including Hamas: A majority of Israelis would support holding negotiations with a Palestinian unity government that includes the Islamic Hamas movement, according to the results of a joint Palestinian-Israeli poll released on Tuesday. The survey, which polled some 1,270 Palestinians, 500 Israeli Jews and 401 Israeli Arabs, was conducted as a coordinated effort between the Truman Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Khalil Shikaki, of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.

Rights group: Israel abducting civilians: The Khiam Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of Torture said Monday that Israel continues to abduct Lebanese citizens from Lebanese territories in a "clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 1701." The center said in a statement that "the convention prohibits the taking of hostages who have no active role in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those put out of action by sickness, wounds, detention or any other cause."

Israeli, Palestinian officials meet to discuss Rafah crossing: The meeting was attended by high ranking officials on both sides, including Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat, Defense Ministry officials Barch Spiegel and Hagai Alon and U.S. representatives Dick Jones and Keith Dayton.

Poll: Most Palestinians back Hizbullah: According to the survey, which was carried out after the end of fighting in Lebanon, a solid 65 percent majority of the Palestinian public believes terror organizations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank should adopt Hizbullah’s tactics and shell Israeli towns with rockets. Only 35 percent were opposed to such a move. The survey noted that these numbers were parallel to Hizbullah support measured in June 2000, after the IDF’s withdrawal from south Lebanon.

Straw: U.K. should push U.S. to help achieve Israeli-Palestinian deal: Straw, who spoke at a forum held on the sidelines of Labor's annual conference, said Britain must work with Washington on the Mideast, not pull away from it. London should "push the Americans to put pressure on the Israelis," he said. "We have to have the Americans."

12 Israeli firms exporting to Saudi Arabia: The direct Israeli exports to Arab countries totaled USD 57 million in the first quarter of 2006, a sharp rise of 34.5 percent compared to the same quarter last year. The data do not include Israeli exports to the Palestinian Authority, which is Israel's second largest trade partner, after the United States, and purchases from Israel goods worth billions of US dollars.

Israelis, Palestinians team up to make fatter fish: As part of a project with Hebrew University and Germany's University of Hohenheim, Qutob and his colleagues will inject compounds from plants found in the occupied West Bank and often used as seasonings into food fed to newborn Nile Tilapia fish. "This will have an effect on the fish's metabolic (structure) -- it may shift from female to male," said Qutob, a chemist at al-Quds University in East Jerusalem.

"The United States would like other nations to join it in imposing sanctions on Syria, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview published on Tuesday.

The Bush administration accuses Syria of failing to stop anti-US guerrillas from crossing its border into Iraq, supporting terrorism generally and pursuing weapons of mass destruction - charges denied by Damascus.

"What we'd really like to do is we'd like to get some others to join us in other kinds of sanctions," Rice told the New York Times according to a State Department transcript released on Tuesday.

"I think as Syria continues to show its stripes and isolate itself from its Arab friends, that may be somewhat easier to do," she added. "We're going to have to look at tougher measures if Syria continues to be on the path that it's on.""

***

"I think as Syria continues to show its stripes and isolate itself from its Arab friends, that may be somewhat easier to do"

so, she is concerned about Syria's isolation from its "Arab friends." In plain English she is telling Syria to join the axis of the puppets: Egypt-KSA-Jordan-Abbas allied with Israel against Iran.

THE PUPPET EGYPTIAN REGIME CARRYING OUT USRAELI ORDERS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Egypt has demanded that Hamas immediately release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to avoid a worsening crisis in the violence-battered Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials and Arab diplomats said Tuesday. The Egyptian demand came in a "strongly worded letter" From Egypt's powerful intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to the Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, they said.

The letter also demanded Hamas cooperate fully with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in forming a national unity government, a step that has been stalled by the group's refusal to form an administration that recognizes Israel.

Israeli Channel 10 television reported earlier Tuesday that the letter carried a warning that if Shalit was not released by the end of the month Israel would launch a series of deep incursions into Gaza aimed at Hamas organizational targets and at high ranking Hamas figures."

By Gilad Atzmon

"Though the British Government, the Home Office and the security forces do everything they can to split the British society by spreading fear, maintaining intense pressure on British Muslims through legislation, raids, and the creation of some phantasmic terror alerts, the British people remain totally apathetic to Blair’s call. If anything, the Brits are now convinced that there is something wrong with Blair and that he is actually the dangerous one. They want Blair out of the picture. Interestingly enough, it was Blair’s fateful support of Israel’s murderous attack against the Lebanese people that happened to be the last nail in the Prime Minister’s coffin.

One may ask why the Brits fail to follow their Ziophilic PM.

Kebab is my answer, as simple as that. In the wee small hours, all you can eat in Britain is Kebab: Chicken Shish, Lamb Shish, Lamb Doner, Chicken Doner and Shwarma. Seemingly, it is at the Kebab places as well as small corner shops where Brits encounter the Muslim community. In most places it is a young Mediterranean or Asian male with a foreign accent who is there to take care of one’s needs. Medium or Large? He will ask, salad? Garlic sauce, chili sauce?

Kebab, on the other hand, is now scattered all over Britain. You will find it in every high street. If you happen to visit a Kebab shop located in an Arab-populated quarter such as Edgware Road, you may even be lucky enough to get invited for a Shisha session. And this is basically it. Once you have had your Kebab settling in your belly, your mind embraces the Orient. It has actually nothing to do with the taste or the nutritional value of Kebab. It is actually the outcome of a fundamental metaphysical principal: ‘human beings happen to trust people who put food on their table’. You don’t trust, you don’t eat. And this is something that even Tony Blair hasn’t managed to change."

عولت وزيرة الخارجية الأميركية كوندوليزا رايس على خلافات داخل حركة المقاومة الإسلامية (حماس) لتحريك عملية السلام بين إسرائيل والفلسطينيين.

وفي مقابلات أجرتها مع صحف أميركية كبرى بنيويورك، ونشرت وزارة الخارجية نصوصها اليوم، أشارت رايس إلى تباينات بين من وصفتهم بمتشددي حماس المقيمين في دمشق برئاسة رئيس المكتب السياسي للحركة خالد مشعل وزعماء حماس بالداخل.

وقالت الوزيرة الأميركية إن مسؤولي حماس بدمشق كانوا وراء إقناع رئيس الوزراء الفلسطيني إسماعيل هنية بتغيير موقفه من البرنامج السياسي لحكومة الوحدة التي اتفق عليه مع رئيس السلطة محمود عباس.

وأضافت رايس لصحيفة وول ستريت جورنال "من غير الواضح بالنسبة لي مدى الهامش التي تتمتع بها حماس بالأراضي الفلسطينية مقابل حماس بدمشق، وأعتقد أن الأدلة تتزايد باتجاه أن هذا الهامش ليس كبيرا".

وفي مقابلة أخرى مع صحيفة نيويورك بوست قالت رايس "عليك أن تقاوم حماس دمشق وتوجد وضعا بالأراضي الفلسطينية يساعد على ظهور المعتدلين". وتابعت "على مر الوقت، نأمل جميعا أن تقوم حماس بالتحرك باتجاه موقف أكثر عقلانية من هذا الأمر(الاعتراف بإسرائيل) حتى لو لم يتم ذلك خلال يوم واحد".

من ناحيتها استنكرت حركة حماس ما ورد على لسان رايس. واعتبر بيان للحركة أن تصريحاتها هذه هي التي دفعت الرئيس عباس للقول إن الحوار مع حماس عاد إلى نقطة الصفر.

***

A VERY BRIEF TRANSLATION

The Princess of Darkness Rice in interviews with several US papers in New York made it clear that the US is counting on instigating a split within Hamas. She said that the US wants to encourage the so-called moderates in the occupied areas, symbolized by Haniyah. However, she claimed that the "moderates" have little room to maneuver because of the hard line of the leadership in Damascus. She claimed that the leadership in Damascus was behind forcing Haniyah to change his position towards an agreement with Abbas concerning a national unity government.

However, Hamas denied the existence of such a split and said that Rice's dictates to Abbas are behind his contention that the national unity talks are back to square one.

***

MY OPINION

I think there is some truth to the fact that Haniyah, through the influence of his American adviser and public relations consultant Ahmad Yousef, was becoming too slippery and was doing an Arafat imitation. Hamas, as a movement, is more disciplined than Fatah and it acted in time to put an end to this. Hamas, hopefully, doesn't want to become the second Palestinian movement to sell out and become irrelevant.

Bush and Iran

By DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch

"War talk is in the air again, and because of the looming November election, it has to be taken extra seriously.

The latest to warn about a Bush War III is former Democratic senator and failed presidential contender Gary Hart, long an expert on national security issues, who says that targeting drones and special forces targeting specialists are already operating over and inside Iran, sizing up and locating as many as 400 targets for U.S. cruise missiles and bombers. This is in anticipation of an aerial strike which my own investigating suggests could come as early as late October.

But the actual sending of Special Forces units into harm's way in Iran, and the preparation of Navy battle groups for deployment to the Iran Theater, make it more probable that an actual attack is in the offing. Word that regular military units are being prepared for third tours to the region, that the administration is changing the guidelines to make longer call-ups of National Guard units for longer and more frequent overseas tours of active duty, and that units in Iraq are being given stop-loss orders to delay their return home also suggest something major may be in the offing. Otherwise logic would lead to the expectation that the administration would be announcing a reduction in troop levels in Iraq before Election Day, as was past practice.

We need only note how Bush, in his address at the UN General Assembly last week, was careful to describe the leaders of Iran as "supporters of terror." Be warned: this was a deliberately chosen linguistic construct which means he is asserting his right to attack them as part of that phony "war" on terror, based upon the long-outdated and grossly misrepresented 2001 AUMF.

Why would Bush be willing to do such a thing, against the advice of his generals, against the wishes of the American people, and against all logic and decency?

Clearly he is afraid--afraid that a Democratic Congress will finally start calling him to account for his accumulated crimes against the nation and the American People. That's why he is desperately trying to get the Republican-led Congress--while it still can--to pass legislation retroactively exonerating him and his subordinates for their criminal violations of law and Constitution. That's why he is racing around the country raising money for candidates--even including liberal Republicans whose positions he privately abhors.

At this point, all this president cares about is saving his own sorry ass."

Rima Merriman, The Electronic Intifada, 26 September 2006


Kidnapped Palestinian Hamas lawmakers wait during the hearing of their case at the Ofer Israeli military court next to the West Bank city of Ramallah, 25 September 2006.

"In fact, Palestinians had been faced with the exact same general stalemate that characterizes the situation today long before the January 2006 elections. The only difference between then and now is that people could eat better then and fewer of them had been killed.

Exactly six years ago this month, the Palestinians rose up in arms while a unilateral Israeli plan to determine the final status of the region (Ehud Barak's plan) was swirling around them. It was the plan rejected by the Palestinians at Camp David, a plan that "called for cantonization of the territories that Israel had conquered in 1967, with mechanisms to ensure that usable land and resources (primarily water) remain largely in Israeli hands while the population is administered by a corrupt and brutal Palestinian authority," as Noam Chomsky summed up.

Nevertheless, this plan is now in its final stages of implementation. The only tenet the Israelis are still engineering is the establishment of a "corrupt and brutal Palestinian authority" to aid it in stamping out Palestinian resistance to this and other variations on the plan.

Israel's actions along the lines described above are all illegal under international law and acknowledged as such by the international community. But the international community has been reduced as a spectator that exercises its muscles only by pressuring Palestinians and putting sanctions on the Palestinian population even as Israelis advertise for tenders to build more illegal settlements and the illegal wall.

The international community has criminally failed the Palestinian people, an occupied people who started their resistance having to use stones to protect their rights. They have failed where it counts - in exerting legal discipline on Israel through their civilized international regime, the regime they are so eager for the "uncivilized" world to join.

Since the occupation, Israel has consistently and demonstrably harmed the Palestinian population in a way disproportionate to its security needs. That is because Israel hasn't been after security as much as it has been after establishing "facts on the ground" demographically and geographically at the expense of the Palestinian population in pursuit of a peace agreement that would force these "facts on the ground" down Palestinians' throats."

By Reuters

"Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison for Palestinians where life is "intolerable, appalling, tragic" and the Jewish state appears to have thrown away the key, a UN human rights envoy said on Tuesday.

Special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territory John Dugard said that the suffering of the Palestinians was a test of the readiness of the international community to protect human rights.

"If ... the international community cannot ... take some action, [it] must not be surprised if the people of the planet disbelieve that they are seriously committed to the promotion of human rights," he said in a statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

"Israel violates international law as expounded by the Security Council and the International Court of Justice and goes unpunished. But the Palestinian people are punished for having democratically elected a regime unacceptable to Israel, the U.S. and the EU," Dugard said.

Palestinians living between the barrier and the Green Line, the frontier at the end of the 1967 Six Day War, could no longer freely access schools and places of work and many had abandoned local farms, he said.

"In other countries this process might be described as ethnic cleansing but political correctness forbids such language where Israel is concerned," Dugard said."

***

OUCH!

HAARETZ

"A majority of Israelis support holding negotiations with a Palestinian unity government that would include the Islamic Hamas movement, according to the results of a joint Palestinian-Israeli poll released on Tuesday.

Sixty-seven percent of Israeli respondents said such a step could be a necessary requisite for achieving a peace agreement with Palestinians.

The survey, which polled some 1,270 Palestinians, 500 Israeli Jews and 401 Israeli Arabs, was conducted as a coordinated effort between the Truman Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Khalil Shikaki in Ramallah. The survey was conducted in two parts, at the end of August and last week.

Some 56 percent of Israeli said they would support negotiations with the current Hamas government, while 46 percent of Israelis said they would oppose such a move.

Support within the Palestinian sector for negotiations with Israel have dwindled, however, with 59 percent of Palestinians in support of negotiations between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinian government and 38 percent opposed. This represents a marked decline from a June survey, in which 70 percent of Palestinian respondents said they support Hamas negotiations with Israel.

Sixty-three percent of Palestinian respondents support Palestinians adopting Hezbollah methods of attacking Israeli towns with rockets, while 38 percent said they were opposed to this type of action. Some 57 percent of Palestinian respondents said they supported bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, and another 75 percent said they supported kidnapping Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

Still, 74 percent said it would not be worthwhile to rely on violence alone and that a political solution would have to be reached."

The Puppet Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, (in the pocket of the US occupation) Demands Permanent US Military Basis in Kurdistan.(Hamed Atta, 9/26/06).

Courtesy of Aljazeerah.info.

AN IOF GOON SQUAD ON ANOTHER RAMPAGE
Israeli soldiers in the market of the old city of the West Bank city of Hebron September 26, 2006.(REUTERS)

A cat reaches out from its crate after arriving from Lebanon by cargo jet at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas September 26, 2006.(REUTERS)

A rescued cat from Lebanon waits to be loaded on a truck after arriving by cargo jet at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas September 26, 2006.(REUTERS)

THE LEBANESE THE U.S. CARES ABOUT

by Eric Margolis
Toronto Sun

"I still shudder recalling Lubyanka’s underground cells, grim interrogation rooms, and execution cellars where tens of thousands were tortured and shot. I sat at the desk from which the monsters who ran Cheka (Soviet secret police) — Dzerzhinsky, Yagoda, Yezhov, Beria — ordered 30 million victims to their deaths.

Prisoners taken in the dead of night to Lubyanka were systematically beaten for days with rubber hoses and clubs. There were special cold rooms where prisoners could be frozen to near death. Sleep deprivation was a favourite and most effective Cheka technique. So was near-drowning in water fouled with urine and feces.

I recall these past horrors because of what this column has long called the gradual “Sovietization” of the United States. This shameful week, it became clear Canada is also afflicted.

Canadians had a shocking view of similar creeping totalitarianism as the full horror of Maher Arar’s persecution was revealed. Thanks to false information from the RCMP, the U.S. arrested a Canadian citizen and sent him to Syria. Arab states and Pakistan were being used by the Bush administration for outsourced torture. Syria denies the charges.

I never thought I’d see the United States — champion of human rights and rule of law — legislating torture and Soviet-style kangaroo tribunals. I never thought I’d see Congress and a majority of Americans supporting such police state measures. Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln must be turning in their graves.

To me, Canada has always been a haven of moderation, decency, and rule of law — until the Maher Arar affair shockingly showed this country could also quickly fall into police state behaviour."

by Paul Craig Roberts

"The neoconservative Bush administration will attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons, because it is the only way the neocons believe they can rescue their goal of U.S. (and Israeli) hegemony in the Middle East.

The U.S. has lost the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Generals in both war theaters are stating their need for more troops. But there are no troops to send.

That Musharraf would volunteer this information on American television is a good indication that Bush has lost the war. Musharraf can no longer withstand the anger he has created against himself by helping the U.S. slaughter his fellow Muslims in Bush's attempt to exercise U.S. hegemony over the Muslim world.

Bush's defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan and Israel's defeat by Hezbollah in Lebanon have shown that the military firepower of the U.S. and Israeli armies, though effective against massed Arab armies, cannot defeat guerillas and insurgencies.

Neocons believe that a nuclear attack on Iran would have intimidating force throughout the Middle East and beyond. Iran would not dare retaliate, neocons believe, against U.S. ships, U.S. troops in Iraq, or use their missiles against oil facilities in the Middle East.

Neocons have also concluded that a U.S. nuclear strike on Iran would show the entire Muslim world that it is useless to resist America's will. Neocons say that even the most fanatical terrorists would realize the hopelessness of resisting U.S. hegemony. The vast multitude of Muslims would realize that they have no recourse but to accept their fate.

It is possible that Bush will be blocked by Europe, Russia, and China, but there is no visible American opposition to Bush legitimizing the use of nuclear weapons at the behest of U.S. hegemony. It is astounding that such dangerous fanatics have control of the U.S. government and have no organized opposition in American politics."

Iraqi panel to mull constitution changes as at least 24 killed in bloody U.S. occupation: In the city of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, gunmen on Sunday night broke into the home of city council head Najim Abdulla Suod, killing him and his 23-year-old son, police Lt. Amer Ahmed said.

Another 8 killed as U.S. occupation continues: Mortar rounds and a suicide truck bomber targeting a police station killed three policemen and wounded 10 in the small town of Jurf al-Sakhar, 85 km (53 miles) south of Baghdad

Iraq: A journey into the 'Taliban republic' where the militias rule unchallenged : Civil war is raging through the Iraqi countryside. Sunni insurgents have largely taken control of the province of Diyala, where local leaders believe the insurgents are close to establishing a "Taliban republic".

Army Warns Rumsfeld It's Billions Short: An extraordinary action by the chief of staff sends a message: The Pentagon must increase the budget or reduce commitments in Iraq and elsewhere.

'Dummy vendors' reap $362m in Iraq: US government agencies charged with the reconstruction of Iraq allocated $362m to non-existent "dummy vendors", according to a report by the watchdog overseeing the reconstruction effort.

US Army looks for ways to send more troops to Iraq: The US Army and Marine Corps are looking for ways to send more combat units into the Iraq rotation pool and are considering accelerating the pace of deployments for some brigades in order to keep more than 140,000 troops in the country through at least the spring of 2007.

U.S. puppet : Talabani wants long-term US presence: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in an interview published on Monday, asked for a long-term US military presence in Iraq, saying his country will need two permanent US air bases to deter "foreign interference."

Analysis: Mideast woes alarm U.S. experts: Several prominent policy analysts warned this week that America's foreign policy had to be urgently re-evaluated to prevent wider disaster.

Battle for Baghdad Hindered by Iraqi Government: American commanders are frustrated by a lack of cooperation from the Iraqi government.

Playing shell games on responsibility with Iraq: THE SAME White House that trashed generals and bean counters for saying it would take hundreds of thousands of more troops and billions more dollars to secure Iraq is now blaming the puppet government for not securing the country

Juan Cole on Civil War in Iraq: The Hyping of WMD Intel on Iran, and How The Lebanon War Has Weakened Israel

Proposal to Carve Up Iraq Moves Forward : A proposal that could carve Iraq into three autonomous states moved forward Monday after leaders of the country's feuding ethnic and sectarian groups agreed to delay any division until 2008.

Retired officers to criticize Rumsfeld: Retired military officers on Monday are expected to bluntly accused Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld of bungling the war in Iraq, saying U.S. troops were sent to fight without the best equipment and that critical facts were hidden from the public.

Negroponte Highlights U.S. Successes: Intelligence View That War Is Increasing Terror Is 'Fraction of Judgments,' He Says

Soldiers in 'guns for coke' scandal: BRITISH soldiers have been caught smuggling stolen guns out of Iraq and allegedly exchanging them for cocaine and cash on the black market.

Video: Cindy Sheehan On C-Span: On April 4, 2004, Cindy Sheehan learned that Casey, the eldest of her four children, had been killed in Iraq, where he was serving in the United States Army. After struggling through crippling grief for three weeks, she came to an epiphany: "I will spend my life trying to make Casey's sacrifice count for peace and love, not killing and hate."

Eight killed, 14 corpses found in Iraq: Insurgents have killed at least eight people in Iraq, including three policemen, officials said as the war-torn country's security forces continued to bear the brunt of rebel violence.

Israel Occupation Forces Steal Millions in Bank Raids Across West Bank: Palestinian security sources said that "millions of dollars, documents, and files were stolen" when Israeli troops raided 24 banks and money exchange shops in several towns, including Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, and Jenin.

PA's Abbas to demand Hamas honor Oslo Accords : Palestinian sources explained that Abbas did not want a confrontation with Hamas and therefore is not demanding direct recognition of Israel, but is making do with recognition of Oslo.

Israel shrugs off Syrian overtures: A senior Israeli official rejected statements made earlier Sunday by Syrian President Bashar Assad about his desire for peace between the two neighbours, Israeli Army Radio reported.

U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East: As Jews of conscience living in the United 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.

الغي السيد محمود عباس رئيس السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية بشكل مفاجئ امس محادثات مقررة مع حركة حماس كانت تهدف الي كسر الجمود بشأن تشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية، الامر الذي يؤشر الي مرحلة مقبلة من الخلافات والانقسامات، ربما تتطور الي صدامات مسلحة.
الاسباب المعلنة لهذا الالغاء تتلخص في رفض حماس الاعتراف بالاتفاقات الموقعة بين السلطة والدولة العبرية، مثلما جاء علي لسان احد المقربين من الرئيس عباس. ولكن الاسباب غير المعلنة قد تتمثل في اتفاق امريكي ـ فلسطيني ـ اسرائيلي ـ عربي يحتم ضرورة قلب حكومة حماس وتشكيل حكومة طوارئ في مكانها.
الخلافات بين الرئيس عباس وحركة حماس بدأت قبل توجهه الي نيويورك لحضور جلسات الجمعية العامة للامم المتحدة. وجري تسريب انباء من مكتب الرئاسة تؤكد ان الولايات المتحدة ضد حكومة وحدة وطنية فلسطينية برئاسة حركة حماس ، وان الرئيس جورج بوش لن يلتقي عباس الا اذا تخلي عن تشكيل هذه الحكومة وفق شروط حماس.
الرئيس الامريكي يريد ان تعترف حماس صراحة بالدولة العبرية، والاتفاقات الموقعة معها وخاصة اتفاق اوسلو، وتنبذ العنف الارهاب ، والا سيستمر الحصار المالي والسياسي الامريكي المفروض علي اي حكومة تشارك فيها.
حركة حماس قالت علي لسان المتحدثين باسمها انها لن تعترف باسرائيل ولا الاتفاقات الموقعة معها، ولن تسقط خيار الكفاح المسلح المقاومة لانها لا تريد ان تقع في المصيدة التي وقعت فيها غريمتها فتح ، وتقدم تنازلات مجانية، تؤدي في النهاية الي اضعافها وتفتيت وحدتها الداخلية.
الاوضاع، وباختصار شديد، تتجه نحو التأزم، وبات الجميع ينتظر الخطوة المقبلة للرئيس محمود عباس للخروج من هذا المأزق.
هناك عدة خيارات امام السيد عباس، ابرزها اقالة حكومة حركة حماس وتعيين حكومة طوارئ مكانها، مستخدما صلاحياته التي يقول ان النظام الاساسي للحكم الذاتي يمنحه اياها، او الدعوة الي انتخابات تشريعية ورئاسية مبكرة.
السيد يوسف حرب الناطق الاعلامي باسم حركة فتح اصدر امس بيانا نقلته وكالة الانباء الفلسطينية الرسمية (وفا) قال فيه في ظل تعثر عمل الحكومة الحالية وعدم تعاطيها مع كافة المبادرات الرئاسية، والتي كان آخرها الرغبة في تشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية، فان اجراء انتخابات مبكرة هو الحل الوحيد من اجل كسر الجمود السياسي الذي تعيشه القضية الفلسطينية علي الصعيدين الداخلي والخارجي .
وما زال من غير المعروف ما اذا كان بيان السيد حرب يعكس الخطوة المقبلة للرئيس عباس، ام انه لا يزيد عن كونه ورقة ضغط وتهديد لحركة حماس للتخلي عن رفضها الاعتراف باسرائيل والقبول بشروط الرئيس عباس لتشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية.
المرجح ان فتح تفضل اجراء انتخابات عامة للاستفادة من تراجع شعبية حركة حماس في بعض الاوساط بسبب تعثر محاولاتها دفع رواتب الموظفين لاكثر من سبعة اشهر. ولكن الاقدام علي الدعوة للانتخابات ربما تكون مقامرة خطيرة النتائج علي الشعب الفلسطيني نفسه.
امس الاول هددت اربعة فصائل فلسطينية باستهداف اي حكومة تعترف باسرائيل، وكشف وزير المالية الفلسطيني السيد عدوان عن وجود مليار دولار علي الاقل في خزينة الرئيس عباس يرفض اللجوء اليها لدفع الرواتب، بينما تتزايد الانباء عن تدفق الاسلحة الي الحرس الرئاسي بمباركة حكومة اولمرت.
الايام المقبلة علي درجة كبيرة من الخطورة، والانفجار بات وشيكا، والامر كله يتوقف علي خطوة السيد عباس والقرار الذي سيتخذه بشأن الحكومة وكيفية تشكيلها ومن يتزعمها، وهل هي حكومة طوارئ، او تكنوقراط، او يذهب الي عين الثور ويحل الحكومة والبرلمان ويدعو لانتخابات رئاسية وتشريعية.

Media Tall Tales for the Next War

By NORMAN SOLOMON
CounterPunch

"Now, warning signs are profuse: The Bush administration has Iran in the Pentagon's sights. And the drive toward war, fueled by double standards about nuclear development and human rights, is getting a big boost from U.S. media coverage that portrays the president as reluctant to launch an attack on Iran.

Time magazine reports that "from the State Department to the White House to the highest reaches of the military command, there is a growing sense that a showdown with Iran ... may be impossible to avoid."

The same kind of media spin -- assuming a sincere Bush desire to avoid war -- was profuse in the months before the invasion of Iraq. The more that news outlets tell such fairy tales, the more they become part of the war machinery."

The question is:

Do you support Hamas recognizing Israel in return for lifting the financial blockade imposed on the Palestinian people?

With over 3,500 votes cast so far, here are the results:

Yes------ 12.1%
No------- 87.9%

***THE PUPPET ABBAS IS GETTING READY TO EXECUTE USRAELI ORDERS***

"Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has cancelled his planned visit to Gaza, where he was scheduled to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in order to discuss the formation of a Palestinian unity government.

Palestinian sources told Ynet that Abbas was supposed to set out from Ramallah to Gaza Monday evening or Tuesday, but divisions between the sides convinced him that at this time there was no point in a meeting that would not advance the issues.

Sources close to Abbas told Ynet that in recent days the PA president has returned to weighing the option of dissolving the government and the legislative council, declaring a state of emergency, and appointing an emergency government, or alternatively calling for new general and presidential elections.

The same sources said Abbas has refrained from aiding the Palestinian government in paying salaries planned for last weekend ahead of the month of Ramadan. According to the sources, international elements and sources in Abbas' vicinity convinced the PA president that every payment of salary benefits the Hamas government, while it does nothing to make its stance more flexible, or make it easier for the international community to accept a unity government.

Abbas has become convinced that there is nothing left to talk about with Hamas representatives within the Authority, and he is weighing the possibility of sending a delegation of senior officials to the chairman of the Hamas politburo, Khaled Mashaal, in order to decide finally on the steps that need to be taken.

"We have reached a final conclusion that there is no point in talking with Haniyeh and those around him, as the decision making power is not in their hands. This has been know, but in the recent period, all of the agreements have been violated time after time – making trust between the sides minimal," a Palestinian source told Ynet.

He added that Abbas will make one last attempt to advance the unity government, mainly with the Hamas leadership abroad, and if he reaches the conclusion that there is no chance for such a government, he will decide to either declare an emergency state and set up an emergency government, or to dissolve the government and head for elections."

"Prince Bandar, secretary general of the Saudi Arabian National Security Council and former Saudi ambassador to the United States, may be the senior official at the center of reports of contacts between Riyadh and Israel, Haaretz has learned.

Early on Monday, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had held a secret meeting with a senior Saudi official, perhaps King Abdullah. Olmert later issued a guarded denial of the report.

It now appears, however, that the meeting may not have involved Olmert, but an envoy of the prime minister's, and that the prince may have been his interlocutor.

Prince Bandar visited Jordan 10 days ago, the same time period as the reported secret Olmert meeting.

The prince served for nearly 22 years as the Saudi ambassador to Washington, playing a key role in facilitating peace moves in the Middle East."

The following report, while presenting Iran rather than Israel as the threat must be taken very seriously.

The decision by Israel to deploy its nuclear weapons against Iran is consistent with America's nuclear doctrine which also considers the use of tactical nuclear weapons as an act of "self-defense".

The US with the support of Israel and NATO has already deployed tactical nuclear weapons directed against Iran. The US led coaltion is in an advanced state of readiness to wage war on Iran.


Michel Chossudovsky, 25 September 2006

by Paul Craig Roberts

"It is difficult to take exception to this expert analysis. Nevertheless, the Bush administration continues to send war signals. Credible news organizations have reported that U.S. naval attack groups have been given "prepare to deploy orders" that would put them on station off Iran by Oct. 21.

Perhaps the answer is that what appears as irrationality to experts is rationality to neoconservatives. Neocons seek maximum chaos and instability in the Middle East in order to justify long-term U.S. occupation of the region. Following this line of thought, neocons would regard the loss of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf as a way to solidify public support for the war. American anger at the Iranians could even result in support for a military draft in order to win "the war on terror."

Polls show that Bush administration propaganda has convinced a majority of inattentive Americans that Iran is making nuclear weapons. Polls show that a majority support an attack on Iran under this circumstance. The neoconservatives and their media allies have succeeded in causing the public to confuse Iran's legal nuclear energy program with a weapons program.

Rumsfeld's neocon Pentagon has rewritten U.S. war doctrine to permit preemptive nuclear attack on non-nuclear countries. As the U.S. paid a huge public relations cost in terms of world opinion and distrust of the U.S. by endorsing the first use of nuclear weapons, the revision of U.S. war doctrine must have a purpose.

Neocons claim that tactical nuclear weapons are necessary to destroy Iran's underground facilities. However, the real reason for using nukes against Iran is to intimidate Iran from retaliating and to threaten the entire Muslim world with genocide unless Muslims bend to the neocons' will and accept U.S. hegemony over their part of the world."

By Danny Rubinstein

"Most of the Palestinian public is not demanding that Hamas recognize Israel. This, at least, is what a reliable survey conducted in the territories indicates. The explanation for this is expressed by Hamas spokesmen in every corner, from Rafah to Jenin, and is very accepted in the territories: Look, Yasser Arafat and the PLO recognized the State of Israel in the Oslo agreement and what did they gain from that? Only suffering and misfortune.

The economic siege on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the targeted killings, the raids and checkpoints can be explained as an Israeli defense against terror attacks. But how can one explain the doubling of the number of settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem since the Madrid conference and Oslo agreement? Since the 1996 elections in Israel, and almost through the end of Ehud Barak's government, there was quite a long period of quiet on the security front. There were almost no terror attacks. During that period, as before, the great momentum of settlement continued. The population of settlers grew from 100,000 to over 200,000 during the 1990s.

When the Israelis build large new neighborhoods in East Jerusalem (Har Homa and Reches Shlomo), expand the neighborhoods and settlements in the Muslim part of the Old City, in Silwan, Ras al-Amud and Sheikh Jarrah, expel Arabs from the city and surround them with tens of thousands of Jewish settlers in a tight belt from Upper Beitar in the south, via Ma'ale Adumim in the east and Givat Ze'ev in the north - this conveys a clear message: There is no chance that the capital of the Palestinian state will be established anywhere in Jerusalem. If you add to this the growth of settlements in Samaria, Ariel, the suburbs of Ramallah, in an expanded Gush Etzion and Mount Hebron, the Israeli message becomes unequivocal: You Palestinians have no chance. You recognized Israel and what you received in return was the liquidation of your national hopes. So why should Hamas repeat the same recognition whose results we have already seen?"

Pirme Minister Ehud Olmert, responding to reports he had secretly met with a senior Saudi Arabian figure earlier this month, was quoted as saying Monday that "I did not meet with the Saudi king and I did not meet with any element which should have caused a sensation in the press."

Earlier in the day, however, officials in Jerusalem had said that Olmert met on September 13 with a senior Saudi Arabian official they declined to identify.

The officials confirmed a report in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that said Olmert had held talks with a Saudi Arabian leader, but they did not identify him.

The newspaper said that some of the unnamed Israeli officials who had served as sources for the report said that Olmert had met with King Abdullah, and others hinted the talks were with a senior official close to the king.
Later on Monday, however, the Ynet Website, which is owned by Yedioth, quoted an interview with Olmert, in which he denied the initial report.

Saudi Arabia was a moving force behind a 2002 Arab peace initiative cited in a document providing the basis for a unity government that rival Palestinian factions have been trying to form.

According to the newspaper, the peace plan was a main item on the agenda of the Israeli-Saudi talks 12 days ago, along with Iran's nuclear program and achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Yedioth first reported last week that Israel and Saudi Arabia had been holding secret talks since fighting erupted in July between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The newspaper said that that talks were due to Saudi Arabia's realization that Iran - which backs and funds Hezbollah - was capable of destabilizing the Middle East.

According to Yedioth, the secret talks 12 days ago focused on Iran's nuclear program and achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

In Ynet interview, Olmert denies report he secretly met with senior member of Saudi royal family, perhaps with King Abdullah himself. 'I believed Saudi Arabia's conduct during war in Lebanon entailed different reaction. There is a long way from this to drawing conclusions,' he says

"The Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Monday morning that Olmert secretly met about 10 days ago with a senior member of the Saudi royal family."

According to Olmert, "in a newspaper interview I said what I believe – that the Saudi stance during the Lebanon war testified to responsibility and judgment."

"Since in our public declarations we always criticize countries like Saudi, I believed that its conduct entailed a different reaction. There is a long way from this to drawing conclusions," he said.

Saudi Arabia is responsible for a peace initiative, according to which Israel will withdraw to the 1967 borders and in exchange will gain peace agreements and normalization with all Arab state.

It is also part of a new peace initiative , being promoted both by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah.

***

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

Pope Benedict XVI in the service of George W. Bush

Since the days when Roman emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the emperors and the popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some emperors dismissed or expelled a pope, some popes dismissed or excommunicated an emperor. One of the emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when emperors and popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a worldwide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "clash of civilizations".

In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the Prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:


Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.


These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

When Manuel II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On 29 May 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul), fell to the Turks, putting an end to the empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

Is there any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, Verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant Verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith."

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the Prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: how did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favourites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

There no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under