"As the engineered sectarian melt-down in Lebanon crawls forward, it is interesting to read the neocon columnists as they bewail the erosion of the “Cedar Revolution,” that is to say the neocon-neolib subversion of Lebanese politics.
But what of this so-called Cedar Revolution? Is it purely a Lebanese political phenomenon, having risen out of the anger and opposition to the presence of Syria in the country? Hardly.
“The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) functions as an instrument of CIA penetration into civil society, by enabling the ‘legitimate’ funding of millions of dollars to promote U.S. foreign policy abroad and influence internal politics of foreign nations while avoiding Congressional scrutiny,” writes Eva Golinger. According to Ralph McGehee, a former CIA agent, and other former CIA operatives, the agency manipulated the trade union movement in the Philippines through USAID front organizations.
But it is not simply Asia where USAID works its “democratic” magic, more accurately described as cultural and economic voodoo. The CIA (and Pentagon) connected so-called NGO has turned up in Iraq, Haiti, the Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Nigeria, and elsewhere.
It is especially interesting to read the account of USAID interference in Lebanon, as recounted by the Lebanese socialist Bassem Chit. “Lebanon’s ‘cedar revolution’ is being touted as the shining example of regime change on the cheap. Since the mass protest drove out the Syrians last year, Lebanon has seen an ascending flow of US interference. It varies from direct political manipulation and media campaigns to discreet funding of civil movements through ‘NGOs,” Chit wrote in May of this year. "An American-Lebanese woman representing Freedom House was accompanied by a “retired revolutionary” from Ukraine. The guy was eager to get us on board, and boasted of the joys of being “US-funded” — he added that after Ukraine’s Orange Revolution he even had the opportunity to “meet George Bush.” He obviously thought that was enough to close the deal.""That the US is wanting to finance Lebanese leftists might seem odd, but it is part of a pattern of political interference that emerged since the invasion of Iraq. During the “cedar revolution” US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman invited many of the leaders of the anti-Syrian movement to dinner parties. The US embassy also had a direct hand in fomenting the anti-Syrian protests".
The New York Post reported how, at the height of last year’s protests, “the CIA and European intelligence services were quietly giving money and logistical support to organizers of the anti-Syrian protests to ramp up pressure on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad… The secret program is similar to previous support of pro-democracy movements in Georgia and Ukraine, which also led to peaceful demonstrations.”
Now the country is awash with dubious NGOs. Among them is the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, headed by Ziad Abdel Nour. The son of wealthy right wing Lebanese MP, Nour let the cat out of the bag when he declared, “We have absolutely no problem with heavy US involvement in Lebanon. On an economic level, military level, political level, security level… whatever it is. Israel is the 51st state of the United States. Let Lebanon be the 52nd state. And if the Arabs don’t like it, tough luck.”
It is interesting Chit mentions the Freedom House. This so-called NGO is stacked with neocons and neolib one-worlders, including James “World War Four” Woolsey, a former director of the CIA and VP for Booz Allen Hamilton, and the Rockefeller protégé Zbigniew Brzezinski, the engineer behind the Afghan Mujahideen, eventually to conveniently morph into al-Qaeda. Others include the Trilateralist Samuel P. Huntington, architect of the “clash of civilizations” currently underway, and Clinton national security adviser Anthony Lake, former Kissinger lackey and Clinton’s pointman on the bombing of Yugoslavia.
Of course, Mr. Loyola is speaking the language of his masters—the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, yet another neocon “think tank” aligned with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the above mentioned Freedom House.
Predictably, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies includes on its roster the usual suspects, including the Ritchie Rich Steve Forbes, Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Newt Gingrich, Joseph Lieberman, James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Richard Perle.
Obviously, with friends like these, Lebanon needs no enemies."
Sectarianism is hardly a new weapon in the colonialist arsenal
Azmi Bishara Al-Ahram Weekly
"....The identity crisis in the eastern Arab world is a modern phenomenon, not the extension of a condition with deep historical roots. Nor are nationalism and state- and nation-building concepts that conflict with the existence of tribal and sectarian affiliations; they are answers to the challenges of building a modern society. The problem in Iraq, today, is that the country's tribal and sectarian structure is being forced on Iraqis as a mold for political affiliation. People aren't born as a nation; nations are built. And in order to build a nation you don't go delving into history, when there was no state or nation and when all that existed were tribes and sects, as some Orientalists do.
Proponents of the modern Arab nationalist project, by contrast, hoped to forge a sense of Arab nationalist identity as a basis for a political entity and citizenship and, perhaps, democratic government at a later stage.
In Iraq, as they and other colonial powers did elsewhere in the Levant, the British set about constructing a regional state, not as a means for superseding tribal and sectarian affiliations but as a structure that deliberately entrenched these divisions and aimed them against Arab nationalism. Colonial authorities, we recall, depended primarily on minorities -- or those they classified as minorities -- to build the "national" army. Now, nearly a century after the Sykes-Picot agreement, people are wringing their hands over the failure of that state, while throughout the colonial powers and their successors fought the only serious and feasible alternative, Arab nationalism. And now they are scrambling for solutions, such as a loose federation or increasing the number of troops in Iraq, as a last ditch attempt to preserve the unity of the country before "bringing Iraq to an end".
How curious. Contrary to what we had thought, Rumsfeld's resignation or dismissal may herald a greater military involvement and a tightening of the American grip in Iraq. Nor is this regarded at odds with the appeal to talk to Syria and Iran over Iraq. Now the theory on Iraq is do whatever it takes to win and impose a federal solution or let the country fall apart.
After having identified Arab nationalism as enemy number one, they co-opted Arab nationalist criticisms of the sub-regional state and its dependence on tribal and sectarian groupings and then distorted and turned these criticisms against both the state and Arab nationalism. Now the Arabs are required to recognise tribal and sectarian divisions as the only structural basis for a pluralistic society and to stop thinking of these pre- modern allegiances as possible impediments to statehood and nationalism, as Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries concluded.
Today's Iraqi occupation ideologues have concocted three super-simplistic myths to which they have reduced contemporary Iraq history: a Sunni- based Baathist regime ruled over the Shia, the oppressed Shia appealed to the US and Britain for help, and the resistance to the occupation is really a sectarian war between the Sunni and Shia. Their need to invent a fiction in order to cover up their failure and to suggest that Iraq either has to go the way they say or else, is not all that different from the fiction of weapons of mass destruction, the major difference being that they are now producing a real weapon of mass destruction aimed at Iraq and the eastern Arab world.
The Arab nationalist and leftist parties were not sectarian or ethnic allegiances. Iraq, together with its political elites and general public, passed through periods in which non-sectarian ideas and affiliations prevailed. Nor were previous Iraqi governments sectarian in nature: they didn't even allow religious affiliations to appear on identity papers and other official documents, and the use or exploitation of sectarian allegiances was regarded as shameful, perhaps criminal and certainly politically incorrect. If anything, it is the suppression of sectarianism that is contributing to the vehemence of today's sectarian chauvinists who are avenging past ills perpetrated by the Saddam regime. But this regime was not "Sunni"; it was a monolithic state apparatus shored up by a single party and state police and intelligence agencies, all of which consisted of both Sunnis and Shias.
Under previous Iraqi governments, officials did not like to have sectarian tags affixed to them. Only now has this become the rule, which is applied retroactively even to those who lived and died without an ounce of sectarianism in their blood. Abdel Karim Qasem is now labelled "Shia", Abdel-Salam Aref "Sunni"; the "Shia" Naji Taleb was prime minister under Aref; the founder of the Baath Party was originally "Christian", as was one of its most prominent members, Tareq Aziz, while Fouad Al-Rukabi, the first national chief of the Baath Party, was Shia. In 1963, in fact, all the civilian members of the Regional Command were Shia. Over the period of Baath Party rule there were three prime ministers: Ahmed Hussein Khudeir "Sunni", Saadoun Hamadi "Shia" and Mohamed Hamza Al-Zubeidi "Shia" and of the two speakers of the National Assembly, one -- Naim Haddad -- was Sunni and the other -- Saadoun Hamadi -- was Shia.
It is probably also futile to point out that things weren't always as monolithic and centralised as they were under Saddam Hussein, either in the government or the Baath Party, and that even under Saddam the monopoly on power was not a Sunni one wielded against the Shia but rather a monopoly by a military junta whose sway in the party and the state intersected with the regional and kinship ties of its constituents.
The first religious figure to have died as the result of torture was Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al-Badri Al-Samaraai, a Sunni. Mohamed Baqir Al-Sadr was executed ten years later. Moreover, for those who care to remember, the Sunni and Shia fundamentalist offensive was directed against the "secularist regime" in Iraq and the Iranian media constantly reminded its public that the two assassinations were connected and proof of the Baathist regime's war against Islam, both Sunni and Shia. But does anybody in the Iranian media mention Al-Badri today? Similarly forgotten are the armed confrontations against the government in Falluja in the 1970s (The so-called "Dervish Uprising") and the Ramadi uprising during the funeral of Mohamed Mazloum.
Evidently, the rule of political sectarianism and the preparation of the Arab world for the latest colonialist weapon, requires partial collective memory alongside partial collective amnesia."
"“John Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said recent probes into political killings in Lebanon suggested Syrian involvement. He told the BBC that if Syria was deemed to have been involved, the implications were serious.”
And besides, if not for the meddlesome James Baker, Pierre might still be alive. Baker and crew want Syria involved in talks regarding the future of Iraq—a bleak future, thanks to the United States—an effort the neocons will stop at any cost.
“A few weeks ago the White House took the unprecedented step of saying that Syria and Iran, acting through Hezbollah, were on the verge of staging a coup d’etat against the democratically elected government of Lebanon, and I have to say that this assassination of Pierre Gemayel might well be the first shot in that coup,” thus Syria is “not just a supporter of terrorism but is a state actor in a terrorist fashion,” said Bolton. “I think the United States has to take that into account when it decides whether and to what extent to deal with a country like that.”
Of course, we understand perfectly well the way the neocons want to “deal with” Syria. Last summer, as Israel bogged down in Lebanon, fought to a standstill by Hezbollah, it was reported that Bush wanted the Israelis to attack Syria, but the Israelis “balked at the scheme,” according to Robert Parry of Consortium News. Sure it was nuts. After all, it is the job of the United States to attack Israel’s enemies, not the other way around.
One such neocon is Michael Ledeen, who wrote in July that the “great opportunity” of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon “is to bring down Assad along with destroying Hezbollah,” never mind that Israel was incapable of doing the latter, let alone the former. “There are many Syrians who are ready to act, but the first step toward the removal of Assad is for the president and the secretary of state to call for regime change in Syria.” No doubt Ledeen believes this would be a “cakewalk” similar to the one in Iraq.
According to the BBC, “the US is in a diplomatic quandary” over the Gemayel assassination. “It seems increasingly likely that a key advisory panel on future strategy in Iraq will suggest bringing in Syria to create a long-term solution to the violence,” even though “the assassination of Mr. Gemayel has made that all the more difficult,” obviously to the delight of the Israelis and neocons who dread any such diplomatic overtures parlayed in the direction of Syria.
.... Finally, according to the neocon “research” organization, the Middle East Research Institute, famous for mistranslating the speeches of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, citing the anti-Syrian Lebanese daily newspaper al-Nahar, the assassination of Pierre Gemayel was carried out by the “Fighters for the Unity of al-Sham [Greater Syria] and its Liberty.” Sounding oddly like “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” the alleged communiqué made obligatory references to Allah and promised retribution against “those who unceasingly spouted their venom against Syria and against the Resistance,” that is to say Hezbollah.
Obviously, the Mossad and the Pentagon, the latter through P2OG operations, are as busy in Lebanon as they are in Iraq."
هيفاء زنكنة ـ"الجريمة البشعة في مدينة الصدر. كيف نصفها؟ القصف العشوائي بالهاون علي الكاظمية والاعظمية، علي مسجد الامام ابو حنيفة، عشرات الضحايا من الشهداء والجرحى.ـ كل قتيل سيترك وراءه عائلة بلا معين. كل امرأة ستترك اطفالا يتامي..ـ
كم من قتيل وجريح؟ كيف ستعوض عوائل الضحايا؟ هل هناك ما يعوض فقدان أم او أب أو زوج أو شقيق؟ ماذا عن المارة المذعورين المتراكضين في مدينة الصدر، الاهالي المحاصرين في الاعظمية والكاظمية وهم يتلقون القنابل والهاون، ماذا عن الدم المختلط بتراب الوطن، المغسول مع بقايا الاجساد المحترقة، مع رماد الاشلاء؟ ماذا عن رائحة الموت الذي بات مرادفا للحياة في العراق، بعد ان كانت شوارعنا ومدننا واحياؤنا تفوح بعبير القداح وورد الجوري؟ ـ والجثث مجهولة الهوية؟ كم مرة اسبوعيا نقرأ الخبر التالي: عثرت الشرطة اليوم علي اثنتين وخمسين جثة مجهولة الهوية في مناطق متفرقة من بغداد. اغلب الجثث كانت موثوقة الايدي ومعصوبة الاعين وعليها اثار تعذيب واطلاقات نارية في اماكن متفرقة من الجسم؟ـ هل سيخبرنا جواد المالكي، وهو رئيس الوزراء المنتخب افتراضا، عدد الشهداء واسمائهم وما سيخلفونه من يتامي وأرامل؟ هل سيأخذ معه، يوم يمضي، للقاء رب عمله جورج بوش في الاسبوع المقبل في عمان، قائمة باسماء الشهداء العراقيين ليقرأها اسما اسما بحضور افراد الادارة الديمقراطية؟ كم سيحتاج المالكي ليقرأ اسماء الشهداء العراقيين الذين بلغ عددهم 650 ألف شهيد، والقائمة تطول؟ ـ هل سيقرأ اسماء العلماء والطيارين والاكاديمين والاطباء والصحافيين والاعلاميين؟ هل سيقرأ اسماء المختطفين من كلية التعليم العالي والبحث العلمي الذين تم رمي اجسادهم المعذبة في الشارع وأحدهم الدكتور عبد السلام السويدان، رئيس دائرة البعثات؟ هل سيحكي لسيده بوش تفاصيل اغتيال الصحافي الدكتور سعد مهدي شلاش، عضو المؤتمر القومي العربي واحد كتاّب صحيفة راية العرب المناهضة للاحتلال، الصادرة في بغداد، وعضو نقابة الصحافيين العراقيين، وكيف عثر علي الراحل مقتولاً مع زوجته بطلقات نارية في منزله ببغداد؟ وهل سيجد الوقت الكافي ليعلمه بان الدكتور سعد شلاش كان احد الصحافيين العاملين في وكالة الانباء العراقية بدرجة مدير، كما عمل ايضاً استاذاً للتاريخ في كلية الآداب بالجامعة المستنصرية، وانه أحد العقول التي يبكي العراق فقدانها يوميا؟ـ أو لعل كل ما سيفعله المالكي هو استجداء تمديد بقاء قوات الاحتلال عاما آخر؟ ـ من هو المسؤول عن الانتهاكات والجرائم والمجازر؟ـ عن حفر خندق الطائفية؟ـ أليس هو الاحتلال بانواعه؟ـ احتلال الغزاة الارهابيين المتمثل بفرق الموت التي أسسها السفير الامريكي السابق نيغروبونتي، الاب الروحي لفرق الموت في نيكاراغوا وبقية دول امريكا اللاتينية التي سببت قتل عشرات الالاف.ـ ومخابرات السي آي أية ومقرها في المنطقة الخضراء المسؤولة عن قتل ما يزيد علي الستة ملايين شخص في جميع انحاء العالم منذ الثمانينات وحتي الان وحسب وثائقها ومصادرها هي.ـ والسيارات المفخخة في الاسواق المكتظة من قبل القوات الامريكية انتقاما وتشويها لسمعة المقاومة.ـ وحراس المنشآت وعددهم بالالاف الذين تم تدريبهم من قبل السي آي أية وبرعاية شركة رعاها احمد الجلبي، الابن المغضوب عليه من قبل البنتاغون الامريكي، بعد ان وجد مصدرا جديدا لامتصاص الاموال غير قوائم الدفع الامريكية،ـ والمرتزقة الذين لم يعد بامكان احد احصائهم المنتشرين في طول البلاد وعرضها،ـ وقوات الموساد الاسرائيلي وقواعدها وضباطها،ـ والحراس الامنيون من بريطانيين وامريكيين،ـ وقوات الاحتلال العسكري بجنودها واسلحتها،ـ والميليشيات، ـ والجنود العراقيين المُدربين من قبل قوات الاحتلال،ـ وساسة الاحتلال الطائفي الاثني المقيت المتنازعوؤن فيما بينهم الي حد تبادل الشتائم والسباب والكلمات البذيئة. ـ
"Failures on the battlefield and in the recent American elections are propelling the Bush Administration to consider significant changes in Iraq policy. Having placed the Shiite majority in power, the Administration now wonders if the country is being delivered to Iran. Having fought the Sunni-led insurgency for three years, the Administration wonders if negotiations are the only way to reduce American casualties. It is not to holiday that Bush and Rice are meeting next week with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki while Cheney rushes to Saudi Arabia. The only question being kept from the American people is what the high-level talks are about.
On November 22 on the Huffington Post (was posted here), I revealed that American officials have contacted Sunni nationalist insurgents to explore a cease-fire and replacement of the al-Maliki government with an interim one. This plan would reduce US casualties against the Sunni-led insurgency [recently one hundred deaths per month], while being consistent with the Pentagon desire to focus firepower on the Shiite Mahdi Army, led by “radical cleric” Moktada al-Sadr, the most prominent Shiite leader calling for an American withdrawal from Iraq. The current obstacle to an all-out American offensive against al-Sadr’s stronghold in Sadr City happens to be Prime Minister al-Maliki, whose governing coalition includes al-Sadr.
Today’s car bomb explosions in Sadr City and the violent attacks against Baghdad’s health ministry are aimed at two main al-Sadr power bases [his representatives direct the health ministry].
Sensing that al-Maliki will agree to anything Bush demands, al-Sadr now is demanding that al-Maliki call off his meeting with the President.
Questions have arisen in the media concerning the evidence of my November 22 report that Americans have been involved in direct contacts with the Sunni armed resistance. The evidence is confirmed by a recent impromptu meeting in Amman between a resistance representative and US Congressman Jim McDermott, in the course of two days of discussions facilitated by a former Jordanian diplomat, Munther Haddadin.
More specific are documents dated November 13 and November 16 by an American contractor sketching detailed ongoing discussions with insurgent Sunni leaders aimed at a cease-fire. The plans can only be paraphrased and the contractor’s name withheld for reasons of confidentiality. It is not clear that the blueprint awaited an okay at the highest level as of November 16, or whether it was moving forward with plausible deniability.
Here is the plan, paraphrased briefly, as proposed by a source within the Green Zone who serves as an authorized back-channel link to the insurgent groups:
Leaders of the organized resistance groups are seeking immediate meetings with top American generals towards the goal of a cease-fire. Meetings with lower-level US officials already have occurred. The resistance groups reject the ability of the al-Maliki government to unify its government, and therefore wants an interim government imposed before new elections can be held.
The former Baathist-dominated national army, intelligence services and police, whose leaders currently are heading the underground resistance, would be rehired, restored and re-integrated into national structures under this plan.
Multinational Force [MNF-I] activities aimed at controlling militias to be expanded.
The US-controlled Multi-National Force [MNF-I] would be redeployed to control the eastern border with Iran.
A Status of Forces agreement would be negotiated immediately permitting the presence of American troops in Iraq for as long as ten years. Troop reductions and redeployments would be permitted over time.
Amnesty and prisoner releases would be negotiated between the parties, with the Americans guaranteeing the end of torture of those held in the detention centers and prisons of the current, Shiite-controlled Iraqi state.
De-Baathification edicts issued by Paul Bremer would be rescinded, allowing tens of thousands of former Baathists to resume military and professional service.
An American commitment to financing reconstruction would be continued, and the new Iraqi regime would guarantee incentives for private American companies to participate in the rebuilding effort.
War-debt relief for Kuwait and other countries.
These are essentially similar proposals to those offered by Sunni nationalists and armed resistance groups since 2005. Low-level contacts have been reported before. What is new, apparently, is the November American election results showing a public demand to disengage and sharply reduce American casualty levels. The American neo-conservatives have been discredited and, in their place, a faction of bipartisan “realists” has emerged in the Iraq Study Group led by James Baker. Condoleeza Rice is thought to have aligned herself with the realists.
Neither the Pentagon nor the realists are committed to bringing American troops home in the near future. Instead, they seek to reduce American casualties, check the influence of Iran, and redeploy US troops to permanent bases. The draft plan for a Status of Forces Agreement is based on the models of Germany and Japan.
An even more realistic position, though not yet an acceptable one, is that of former CIA director John Deutch, calling for an American troop withdrawal combined with a diplomatic initiative to Iran, seeking non-intervention by Teheran in exchange for the US leaving.
Secretive wars include secretive diplomacy. The American people will be the last to find out what future is being prepared in the flurry of events beginning now. "
"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Vice President Dick Cheney sought Saudi help on Saturday in dealing with Iraq's spiraling violence and other regional trouble spots where U.S. policy is on the line: Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Cheney's visit with King Abdullah was brief, lasting only a few hours before he flew back to Washington, but it underlined the two allies' concerns over upheavals across the Middle East, which many Arabs blame on U.S. policies.
In a sign of the urgency of the U.S. concern, President Bush is scheduled to meet with Iraq's prime minister in the Jordanian capital Wednesday and Thursday to discuss security matters."
***
SOMETHING SERIOUS IS BEING COOKED; EXPECT THE WORST.
Palestinian boys look at the body of 10-year-old Abed Salman, who was killed by Israeli occupation troops, during his funeral in the northern Gaza Strip November 24, 2006.
"Cairo - Khaled Mishaal, the political bureau chief of the Hamas Movement, on Saturday tabled his vision of a political settlement for the Middle East crisis stipulating an Israeli withdrawal to the 4th June 1967 borders including east Jerusalem and return of refugees within six months after formation of the PA unity government.
Mishaal, addressing a press conference in the Egyptian journalists syndicate, said the Palestinian national unity government would grant the international community, the USA and Europe six months after its formation for accomplishing a real political step in the region.
He underlined that all Palestinian forces were unanimous on establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 occupied lands that would end the Israeli occupation of those lands without leaving behind any Israeli settlement, "whether big or small". He noted that the Palestinian position was backed by Arab unanimity, and asked the Arab countries and the world to exploit this opportunity.
Mishaal, however, warned that in the event that step was not actualized then the Palestinian people would close down all political files and embark on a third intifada. He cautioned that the struggle would then be open for all possibilities.
He further warned that the PA would collapse, contrary to the USA and Israeli wishes, which do not wish to shoulder the responsibility for such a collapse.
There would be no negotiations on any settlement but rather there should be implementation of those demands on the part of the occupation, the Hamas leader elaborated.
Addressing those who believe that pressures and siege would frustrate Palestinians into abandoning Hamas, Mishaal said, "They are living a big illusion, Hamas will rather get stronger and all the resistance will get stronger".
The Hamas supreme leader also held the Hebrew state responsible for obstructing the exchange of prisoners between the Palestinians and Israel. "We covered major strides but finalizing the matter is not in our hands, we are not the cause for any delay, but rather it is the other party that is responsible for the delay", he explained.
He affirmed, however, that there was no other alternative to releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the freedom of the captured Israeli serviceman.
Mishaal finally asserted, "We will not beg for lifting the siege laid to the Palestinian people, it is the Palestinian people's right that this siege would come to an end"."
Take a good look at the picture above because I will tell you what I see.
I see a damaged dome caused by an explosion set very professionally that the two minarets from the both sides weren’t effected by the explosion.
Not even one single “gold plate” fall down from the minarets while the explosion was so heavy that caused the collapse of the dome.
Tell me, Is this work of few terrorists who wants to finish the job as fast as possible?
The one who did this, entered the mosque comfortably carrying explosions, he had all the time to study the construction of the building and find the perfect angles to set the explosions in a way that only the dome will be destroyed.
This is a professional, controlled demolition and the bombs set by demolition experts.
Attwar, the TV Anchor
Now, let’s talk about the death of the three Iraqi journalists.
TV anchor Attwar, age 26 years is a significant young woman born in Samarra, moved to Baghdad just 3-4 years ago, Attwar worked for Al-Jazeera first and then she moved to Al-Arbyia.
I am not writing Attwar’s autobiography here but this has connection to the events, Attwar (I think you are smart enough to know that she is a Sunni) was well-known of her support for the Iraqi cause and blaming the occupation for the mess in Iraq.
One ex-Abu Ghraib prisoner tells this story about Attwar:
When I came out through the gates of Abu-Ghraib there was TV team waiting outside asked me for an interview, I said yes, then came TV anchor Attwar and asked “How do you fell no…. “she couldn’t finish her question because she burst in tears when she saw how do I look like, bare feet, torn clothes….
This is an example of Attwar mentality.
What the media didn’t told on Attwar’s death is this:
Attwar and her other two colleagues found dead but the TV team was four members, bad news four the US but one of the team survived the assassination to tell this:
Attwar being born in Samarra, her relatives and friends are still there, she managed to interview eyewitnesses on the explosion and people live in the area around the mosque.
Notice, they found the TV-team’s bodies later but didn’t found the documentary she made,
Who benefit from killing Atwwar, Sunnis? She is a Sunni. Resistance? She sympathise with the resistance. Shiite riot? Samarra is dominated by Sunnis.
The answer is simple, Attwar killed because she knew “too much”.
Zalamy Khalilzad weird message.
Sunni Clerical Association of Muslim Scholars, issued a 4 points condemnation letter to the bombing of shrine in Samara, You can see a picture of the letter here (Arabic), I don’t want go translating the whole letter but point 2 in the letter is a very important point.
It says the following:
We were suspicious when the US ambassador in Iraq (Zalamy Khalil) said: “A sectarian government who run their own ethnical militias to be incharge of the security (in Iraq) will not be acceptable”, such announcement should be addressed in secret meetings and not through “Satellite TV channels”, such public announcement will rally and moblize the shiia supporters of the “list 555” (Shiite alliance party).
SCAS are right, Zalamy Khalilzad announcement in public was meant to hit two birds in one stone, first an advertisement to the world that the US wants a united Iraq (for the public consumption only), second and the mean reason is he wanted to remind the Iraq alliances Shiites that they still under the US control.
Worth to notice that all news agancies wrote Khalilzad announcment as: During a rare news conference, Khalilzad….example
Shiite alliances didn’t understand the seriousness of Zalamy Khalil and they condemned “Khalilzad” announcement (Hakim, Jaffri..etc), several times they repeated that Iraq can make it’s own decisions and we don’t want an interfering in Iraqi matters from any external power, one Iraqi official said:
“Zalmay Khalil went too far with his demands”
Was the mosque explosion a continuation in the US and Shiite “dialog” but this time the US uses a “harsher language”?.
By the way today the so called Al-Qaeda in Iraq condemned the bombing, Baath party condemned the bombing and many fractions of Iraqi resistance condemned it also."
"طالب الأمين العام لهيئة علماء المسلمين في العراق الشيخ حارث الضاري الدول العربية والأمم المتحدة بسحب الاعتراف من الحكومة العراقية الحالية برئاسة نوري المالكي، ووصفها بأنها حكومة تستغل الطائفية لتستعين بها على البقاء في الحكم وممارسة ما سماه النهب والإثراء.
وقال الضاري في مؤتمر صحفي بمقر نقابة الصحفيين المصريين في القاهرة إن هذه الحكومة "تعمل على ما يؤجج الوضع في العراق على نحو مقصود أو غير مقصود ليتسنى لها تحقيق مخططاتها بشأن تقسيم العراق خدمة للاحتلال".
وأشار إلى أن "قوات الاحتلال والحكومة تغطي عمل عصابات الإجرام والمليشيات المسلحة وتوفر لها السلاح من أجل تصفية القوى العراقية الرافضة للاحتلال وتأجيج الفتنة"، متهما القوى السياسية المشاركة في الحكم بمساعدة "الاحتلال" في العراق لتحقيق مصالحها الشخصية.
وشدد على أن ما يجري في العراق من فتن أو إقصاء أو اقتتال هو صراع سياسي مغطى بشيء من الطائفية السياسية وليس صراعا مذهبيا كما يروق لبعض الساسة أو أجهزة الإعلام -التي تروج لمصطلحات مثل السنة أو الشيعة- تسميته.
وأكد أن السياسيين في العراق أفلسوا من قواعدهم الشعبية وفقدوا الكثير من أوراقهم بعد أن قادوا البلد بعد أربع سنين من الاحتلال إلى المزيد من الدمار وإلى حافة الحرب الأهلية، معربا عن ثقته بقدرة الشعب العراقي على تجاوز هذه المحنة والحفاظ على وحدة البلد.
وأشار إلى أن العملية السياسية وصلت إلى طريق مسدود بعد أن فشلت في تقديم أي شيء للشعب بل قادته من سيئ إلى أسوأ.
وحول دعوة الزعيم الشيعي مقتدى الصدر له لتحريم قتل الشيعة، قال الضاري إنه أصدر ميثاق شرف يتبرأ من أي جهة تتعرض للمدنيين العراقيين وحتى غير العراقيين المؤتمنين، لكن لم يوقع عليه سوى ثلاث مرجعيات هي مرجعية آية الله جواد الخالصي ومرجعية آية الله البغدادي والتيار الصدري، أما بقية الأطراف المشاركة في الحكم فلم توقع عليه.
وأشار إلى أن هيئة علماء المسلمين وافقت بعد ذلك على عدة مواثيق لتحريم الدم العراقي وتحريم استهداف دور العبادة وقع عليها بمشاركة المراجع العراقية الأخرى في مؤتمر القاهرة ومكة. وأكد الضاري أنه لا يعترف سوى بالمقاومة التي تستهدف الاحتلال الأميركي للعراق، أما الذي يستهدف المدنيين العراقيين فليسوا من المقاومة.
وجدد الضاري رفضه الاعتراف بمذكرة الاعتقال أو التحقيق التي أصدرتها الحكومة العراقية ضده، وقال إن وقوف العديد من الأطراف العراقية معه ضدها استفتاء على صحة المنهج الذي يتبناه."
"...I hasten to add that - compared to the mendacious, utterly false, repulsively hypocritical and cancerous foreign policy of Dame Beckett of Basra - Chirac's dealings with France's former colonies and mandates are positively Christ-like in their integrity. But the Lebanon that France was to create after the First World War was to be based on the sectarian divisions which the infamous François Georges-Picot had observed earlier as a humble consul in this jewel of the old Ottoman empire, divided as it was between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims and Druze and Christian Maronites - France's favourite community and the faith of the murdered Pierre Gemayel - and the Greek Orthodox and the Greek Catholics and the Chaldeans and the rest. At that time the Maronites represented a thin majority, but emigration and their propensity for smaller families than their Muslim neighbours steadily turned the Christians into a minority which may now number 29 per cent or less.
But the French wanted the Maronites to run Lebanon and thus after independence bequeathed them the presidency. Sunni Muslims would hold the prime ministership and the Shias, who are today the largest community, would be compensated by holding the speakership of parliament. The French thus wanted Lebanon's "independence" - but they wanted it to be in France's favour.
Two problems immediately presented themselves to the Lebanese. By claiming the largest area which it was possible to rule with the tiniest majority - the Maronite religious leader of the time, Patriarch Hayek, was responsible for this - the Christians ensured that they would soon be outnumbered and thus rule their country from a position of minority power. After Irish partition, old James Craig, the founder of Northern Ireland, was a wiser bird than Hayek. From the historic province of Ulster, he ruthlessly dispensed with the three counties of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan because their Protestant communities were too small to sustain - and created a new Ulster whose six counties ensured a Protestant majority for decades to come. The other Lebanese problem - which the people of Northern Ireland will immediately spot - is that a sectarian state, where only Maronites can be the president and where only Sunnis can be the prime minister, cannot be a modern state. Yet if you take away the sectarianism France created, Lebanon will no longer be Lebanon. The French realised all this in the same way - I suspect - as the Americans have now realised the nature of their sectarian monster in Iraq. Listen to what that great Arab historian, Albert Hourani, wrote about the experience of being a Levantine in 1946 - and apply it to Iraq. To live in such a way, Hourani wrote:
"is to live in two worlds or more at once, without belonging to either; to be able to go through the external forms which indicate the possession of a certain nationality, religion or culture, without actually possessing it. ... It is to belong to no community and to possess nothing of one's own. It reveals itself in lostness, cynicism and despair."
Amid such geopolitical uncertainties, it is easy for westerners to see these people in the borders and colours in which we have chosen to define them. Hence all those newspaper maps of Lebanon - Shias at the bottom and on the right, the Sunnis and Druze in the middle and at the top, and the Christians uneasily wedged between Beirut and the northern Mediterranean coast. We draw the same sectarian maps of Iraq - Shias at the bottom, Sunnis in the middle (the famous "Sunni triangle" though it is not triangular at all) and Kurds at the top.
The British army adopted the same cynical colonial attitude in its cartography of Belfast. I still possess their sectarian maps of the 1970s in which Protestant areas were coloured orange (of course) and Catholic districts were green (of course) while the mixed, middle-class area around Malone Road appeared as a dull brown, the colour of a fine, dry sherry. But we do not draw these maps of our own British or American cities. I could draw a map of Bradford's ethnic districts - but we would never print it. I could draw a black-white ethnic map of Washington - but the Washington Post would never dream of publishing it.
And thus we divide the "other", while assiduously denying the "other" in ourself. This is what the French did in Lebanon, what the British did in Northern Ireland and the Americans are now doing in Iraq. In this way we maintain our homogenous power. Pierre Gemayel grew up in Bikfaya, firmly in that wedge of territory north of Beirut. Many Lebanese now fear a conflict between those who support the "democracy" to which Gemayel belonged and the Shias, the people - in every sense of the word - at the "bottom". And the French are going to ensure the country in which all these poor people are trapped remains "independent".
Quite so. And by the way, when did we ever see an ethnic map of Paris and its banlieues? "
· Key ally tells PM to choose between him and Bush · Iranian leaders to meet Talabani at Tehran talks
Jonathan Steele in Irbil, Robert Tait in Tehran and Julian Borger in Washington Saturday November 25, 2006 The Guardian
"Iraq's precarious government was teetering yesterday as a powerful Shia militia leader threatened to withdraw support after sectarian killings reached a new peak and the country lurched closer to all-out civil war. The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, was forced to choose between his US protectors and an essential pillar of his coalition, when Moqtada al-Sadr declared his intention to walk out, potentially bringing down the government, if Mr Maliki went ahead with a meeting with President George Bush in Jordan next week.
Mr Maliki, a moderate Shia, faced the dilemma as the cycle of killings reached new levels of savagery. Yesterday, there were reports that at least 60 Sunnis had died in revenge killings and suicide attacks, including one episode in which Shia militiamen seized six Sunnis as they were leaving a mosque, doused them with petrol and set them alight, while soldiers reportedly stood by. In another attack, gunmen burned mosques and killed more than 30 Sunnis in Baghdad's Hurriya district before US forces intervened.
The violence added new urgency to a regional summit in Tehran this weekend on Iraq's fate. Iraq's neighbours, particularly Syria and Iran, have been accused of pulling strings in the Iraqi chaos, and Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is today due to play host to his Iraqi counterpart, Jalal Talabani.
The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, was invited but reports from Damascus suggested he would not attend. Syria restored diplomatic relations with Iraq this week after a 24-year gap. In a reflection of the importance Iran attaches to the summit, Mr Talabani is also expected to meet the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the ultimate say on foreign policy.
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, predicted that Mr Talabani's visit would produce "important agreements". He described the violence and the US-British occupying forces as "two sides of the same coin" adding: "The two issues should be taken into consideration jointly and a comprehensive solution found."
Observers in Tehran said the government there hoped to use its summit as an overture to Washington. "The Iranian leadership are trying to use Mr Talabani, who has a special role inside Iraq and has never criticised Iran, as a mediator between Tehran and Washington," said Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst. "Mr Ahmadinejad is hopeful that he can attract America's attention through Iraq."
Since taking office, Mr Maliki has been under constant US pressure to disarm the Mahdi army and other Shia militias, while remaining beholden to them to stay in power. The Sadr party demanded yesterday that Mr Maliki "specify the nature of its relations with the occupation forces", demanded a timetable for a US withdrawal, and issued its ultimatum over the scheduled Bush-Maliki meeting in Jordan next Wednesday and Thursday. "There is no reason to meet the criminal who is behind the terrorism," said Faleh Hassan Shansal, a Sadrist MP."
"Gaza - Dr. Atef Odwan, the PA minister of refugees' affairs, has urged Ayatollah Ali Khameni, the spiritual guide of the Islamic republic of Iran, to use his good offices and end the suffering of Palestinian refugees in Iraq, who are the daily targets of murder, torture, abduction, harassment and detention.
Odwan, in an urgent message to Khameni on Friday, asked the Iranian government to immediately intervene to end the oppression befalling Palestinians in Iraq, affirming that they were experiencing their worst nightmares as a result of the systematic assaults on the part of a number of "suspicious groups".
The minister asked Khameni to address an urgent appeal and to send emissaries to concerned parties in Iraq to end the Palestinians' ordeals and to spare them the ongoing differences and rivalries.
"We hope that you would use your influence over the Shiites in Iraq to end the oppression against Palestinians, to spare them the daily persecutions and to allow them to live in dignity as respectable guests," Odwan's message read.
He recalled that Palestinians did not choose to live in Iraq by their own free will but rather were driven out of their homeland by force at the hands of "Zionist occupation" and were living in Iraq on temporary basis until they could return to their homes in Palestine. He said that Palestinians in Iraq contributed in building and developing that country and never backed any party against another.
The minister said that the ill-practices against Palestinians in Iraq ran contrary to Islamic teachings, adding that the Palestinian people who suffered and still are suffering from occupation's repression in Palestine should not suffer oppression at the hands of their brethren in the Arab and Islamic countries.
The Palestinian people are looking forward to Arab and Muslim backing to lift the oppression befalling them wherever they may be, Odwan underlined."
***
To me the role of Iran in this human tragedy is very revealing about the regime's hypocrisy and double dealing. The Shiite death squads that are killing and terrorizing the Palestinians in Iraq are directly supported and controlled by Tehran. If Iran tells them to stop persecuting the Palestinians, they (death squads) would comply. Iran never fails to exploit Palestine and Jerusalem as a rallying cry for its own political ends. Tehran talks of preparing Al-Quds brigades to "liberate Jerusalem;" why not start by liberating the Palestinians next door in Iraq? Why not afford them a minimum humanitarian treatment? Forget that most of them are Muslims.
Iran likes to show off by appearing to champion Hamas and the Palestinians, but when deeds, not words, are in order such as in this case, Iran is totally silent. Do you see why I am cynical?
Bil'in peaceful protest marks agriculture season, demands free accesses to isolated orchards: This Friday in Bil'in, some 250 Palestinians and 50 Israeli and international peace activists carried the weekly protest against the Israeli annexation Wall in Bil'in village, near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Eight residents, one Israeli reporter and one international peace activists were injured after the soldiers attacked the protesters and one resident was taken prisoner.
Four day military detention for non-violent Bil’in activist: Non-violent activist from Bil'in, Ayad Burnat, was seized and badly beaten by soldiers when he reached the other side of the gate. He was then arrested and is currently in detention in Ofer where he will be held for four days. Villagers have been told Ayad has been charged with throwing stones, a clearly trumped-up charge as Ayad was with the peaceful demonstrators the whole time.
Land deals from beyond the grave: The "burning ground" file reveals a small portion of the methods that put thousands of dunams of private Palestinian lands into the hands of Israeli construction firms. The ideological fervor of the Israeli government and the settlers to "redeem" the lands of Israel attracts criminals, Arab collaborators and Jewish con men. Paz says he has no doubt that if the police continue burrowing through Civil Administration files, they will discover the Amram brothers are not the only members of the large "family" that lives off the theft of Palestinian lands.
December 2: International ‘End the Gaza Siege’ Day: So far, the campaign project is reporting that 38 cities where actions are being planned on or about December 2 , when the big demonstration will take place in Israel... One last note: Not a single Arab city is participating in the campaign. Weird? Not at all. Arab street demonstrated for ages and nothing changed.
Amnesty International: “Israel: Fear for Safety”: The attack against Tove Johannsson, a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a solidarity group of peace activists, was witnessed and documented by several other international human rights defenders. They reported that the group was surrounded by up to 100 Israeli settlers who spat at them, kicked and shoved them, while Israeli soldiers standing at the checkpoint nearby took no action to prevent the attack.
Behind the Wall: Palestinian Teens Speak Out: BW was initiated by English language students last school year because they felt Palestinian youth were underrepresented on the world stage. They were also convinced that their homeland needed at least one publication giving Palestinian teens a voice. Thus, Behind the Wall was created to share their attitudes, ideas, and experiences to the world.
P.A Ministry of Health: “15 killed, 47 injured in the Gaza Strip since Wednesday”: Palestinian Ministry of Health reported on Thursday afternoon that fifteen residents were killed and forty-seven were injured in the period between Wednesday until Friday afternoon, after Israeli decided to escalate its offensive in the northern Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops kill boy (10) in Gaza: Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians including a young boy in clashes in Gaza today and the government said its assault would end only if gunmen stopped attacking the Jewish state from the strip.
3 soldiers injured in Beit Hanoun: Three Israel Defense Forces soldiers were moderately and lightly injured on Friday when their armored vehicle drove over an explosive device south of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip.
5 Qassams fired at western Negev: No injuries were reported but residents said windows were broken. Another rocket landed in open fields. Two Qassam rockets were fired at Sderot overnight Friday. One of the rockets landed in the city center, damaging a shop but causing no injuries.
Hamas supremo in Egypt talks on prisoner swap: Exiled Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal reportedly held talks with Egyptian officials on the problems facing the formation of a Palestinian national unity government and securing a prisoner swap deal with Israel.
Israel: No end to Gaza offensive until Palestinians halt rocket fire: In addition, Israel Defense Forces sources told Israel Radio on Friday that military activity in the Gaza Strip will continue, and even intensify, in an effort to move the Qassam cells to areas that are less convenient for firing rockets at Israel.
Israel rejects Palestinian offer to halt rocket fire: "Our people are victim of a barbaric Israeli offensive that has left more than 400 dead and 1,500 wounded while thousands of homes have been destroyed," Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas declared in Gaza City late Thursday.
State paid illegal settlers millions in compensation: The government's Disengagement Administration (Sela) has paid millions of shekels in compensation to dozens of families evacuated from illegal outposts in the Gaza Strip in the context of the August 2005 disengagement, Haaretz has learned. By law, only residents of legal settlements were entitled to compensation.
U.S. general says building up Abbas's guard: In his first interview since taking up the post in March, Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that Iran is helping arm and fund Hamas, and the United States wants to prevent "moderate forces" in the Palestinian territories from being eliminated.
Israel sending Hamas cease-fire signals: Recognizing that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is incapable of halting the Kassam rocket fire from Gaza, Israel reportedly is conveying messages indirectly to Hamas to try and secure a cease-fire. While insisting that Israel was not maintaining a continuous, indirect dialogue with Hamas, a government official on Thursday night acknowledged that messages were "getting through."
Noted religious Zionist rabbi calls for anti-Qassam militias: "Had the reins of the state been in 'Jewish' hands, not necessarily religious, we should have allowed the youth of Sderot, Ashkelon, the western Negev and anyone fit to bear arms ... to fight back in the framework of ungoverned militias," he wrote in remarks that will be published Friday in the weekly Zomet Institute bulletin Shabbat Beshabato.
A selective memory - By Azmi Bishara: Everyone calling for the dissolution of the Iraqi state, as though it were some philanthropic society or political party or joint-stock company, dredges up this study on Iraqi history. Needless to say, Israeli scholars hit upon it well before American journalists. Asher Susser referred to it in substantiation of his prediction that the Iraqi state would disintegrate after the war and that its people would revert to pre-state allegiances. He also expects the same of other Arab states.
Rice drops plan for Jordan peace summit due to PA turmoil: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had wanted to use her trip to Jordan next week to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian talks, but the idea was shelved due to the Palestinians' ongoing failure to establish a unity government, Israeli government sources said.
Will Israel join the nuclear club?: In February, Bush visited India and signed a declaration of strategic partnership with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Under the agreement, the United States will legitimize India's atomic bomb in retrospect and in return India will submit the civilian part of its nuclear industry to international inspection and will commit itself to refraining from proliferating atomic weapons.
UN rights chief says Palestinians, Israelis feel abandoned by world: Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said her talks with both Palestinians and Israelis during a five-day visit to Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip made apparent "their profound sense of frustration and abandonment, including a perception that the international community is not doing enough to protect them."
Syrian Jews: Talk to Syria now: The head of New York's Jewish-Syrian community, Jack Avital, has blasted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for failing to "check the sincerity" of Syrian President Bashar Assad's peace overtures, the New York Jewish Week reported.
Former MI officer: Israel must sit down for talks with Syria: Ben Ari argues that Syrian president Bashar Assad and the Syrian military exploited the war in Lebanon to draw the conclusion that rocket and missile arsenals are the most important component in a conflict with Israel.
U.S. Groups To Host Rightist Minister With Anti-Arab Plan: The leader of the secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, Lieberman is best known for his proposal to transfer part of Israel's Arab population by turning over territory within the 1967 border to the Palestinians. But he is slated to speak about Iran on December 12, when he addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in his capacity as deputy prime minister in charge of strategic threats.
Israel rejects rocket truce offer : Israel has dismissed an offer from Palestinian armed groups to stop firing rockets in exchange for a halt to Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Gideon Levy : A prayer in paradise : The kindergarten teacher is lying on a stretcher, covered with blood. The minibus is parked alongside. From somewhere to the left, the army cannon is firing shells.
France okays firing at Israeli jets over Lebanon: French soldiers in Lebanon who feel threatened by aggressive Israeli overflights are permitted to shoot at IAF fighter jets, a high-ranking French military officer told The Jerusalem Post.
Gunmen rampage through Baghdad district, kill 30: police: Gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns rampaged through a Sunni enclave in a mainly Shi'ite district in Baghdad on Friday, killing 30 people and setting mosques and homes ablaze, Iraqi police said.
Another 26 killed as U.S. occupation continues: A double suicide attack killed 22 people and wounded 45 at a market in a Shi'ite district in the northern city of Tal Afar, near the Syrian border, police said.
6 Sunnis burned alive, police say: Shia militia grabbed six Sunnis, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive Friday in what is believed to be revenge for deadly car bombings and mortar attacks in Baghdad's largest Shia district.
British soldier killed in Iraq : The soldier, a member of the Parachute Regiment, was shot during the operation in Basra and taken to a nearby military hospital where he later died.
Baghdad toll exceeds 200 : The death toll from a series of bombs in Sadr City, a poor Shia area of Baghdad, has reached 202. An estimated 250 people were wounded in Thursday afternoon's attacks.
Shiites Warn of Government Withdrawal : A powerful legislative bloc loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr threatened to withdraw from the government if Iraq’s prime minister attends a scheduled meeting with President Bush in Jordan next week.
Bush Visit Threatens to Fracture Iraqi Government:As the death toll from a series of devastating car bombs in a Shiite district here rose today to more than 200, a powerful legislative bloc loyal to firebrand Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr threatened to withdraw from the government if Iraq’s prime minister attends a scheduled meeting with President Bush in Jordan next week.
Iraqi president to seek Iranian help: Seeking to assert itself as a regional power, Iran said on Tuesday it had also invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to join the summit. But on Thursday, apparently after either Baghdad or Damascus had rejected the offer, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said a three-way meeting was "not on the agenda".
Sunni mosques attacked after deadly Baghdad bombings: Just a few hours before the attack, Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political group threatened to quit the national unity government if Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki meets US President George W. Bush in Jordan on November 29. At least four Sunni mosques were attacked by militias in western Baghdad.
Iraq Blast Kills 22 in North; Baghdad Toll Now 202: A car bombing killed at least 22 people in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar as the death toll rose to 202 in yesterday's Baghdad explosions, the deadliest coordinated attacks since the U.S.-led invasion of March 2003.
THE PUPPET IRAQI "PRESIDENT" CAN'T LEAVE BECAUSE THE AIRPORT IS CLOSED! STAY IN THE GREEN ZONE AND MAYBE A U.S. HELICOPTER CAN TAKE YOU TO TEHRAN, THE SAME WAY YOU CAME TO IRAQ! "BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani postponed his much-anticipated visit to Tehran because of a curfew imposed on Baghdad because of soaring violence. "I can't go because the airport is closed. If it is open on Sunday, I'll go then," Talabani told reporters."
"According to Nathan Brown, a plodder for the neoliberal Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the United Nations, the Bushian “vision” for the Middle East has failed.
“The assassination Tuesday of Pierre Gemayel, a Cabinet minister and scion of one of the countries’ leading Maronite Catholic families, has renewed fears of civil war and raised suspicion that Syria is again asserting itself in the affairs of its restive neighbor,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Lebanon’s ‘Cedar Revolution,’ which gave power to anti-Syria forces, was heralded along with the 2005 elections in Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian territories as part of a new movement that was going to be ‘as important as the fall of the Berlin Wall,’ Brown said.”
Never mind that Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution” was but another intelligence operation gussied up in the vestment of so-called democracy. “We know now that the ‘Cedar Revolution’ was just another clever ‘made-in-Washington’ public relations scam orchestrated by skillful American NGOs and Israeli intelligence agencies. The ‘color-coded’ revolutions have since been widely discredited as more of Uncle Sam’s tricks for bringing about regime change in countries where the leaders fail to conform to the economic diktats of the IMF and World Bank,” writes Mike Whitney.
“Palestinian voters have since granted power to the militant group Hamas, which the administration has yet to recognize. Egypt’s reforms have stalled. And in Iraq, the government has proved unable to run the country amid increasing violence and rising U.S. casualties. Many Iraqis say they would prefer a return to authoritarian rule,” the Times continues.
Indeed, the Palestinian people elected Hamas because they were sick and tired of the corruption and cronyism of Arafat and the PLO. One “of the reasons that Hamas won the election is because the corruption of these people living in their big houses was so manifest that people didn’t want to take it anymore,” Jeffrey Blankfort tells the San Francisco Independent Media Center. “The fact of the matter is that it was Arafat’s and the PLO’s corruption that led to the rise of Hamas, because Hamas was honest and was providing for the people, and they weren’t spending everything on themselves…. Arafat was getting eight million dollars annually from Israel.” Since Hamas does not collaborate with Israel, it must be crushed, its leaders abducted and imprisoned in Israeli torture dungeons.
In Egypt, the “iron-fisted” dictator Hosni Mubarak promised “constitutional and legislative reforms which will ensure the ideal electoral system, strengthen political parties and the role of women in parliament,” even if these so-called reforms lead to the installment of Gamal Mubarak, son of Hosni. It is business as usual in Egypt, as human rights organizations repeatedly document. “Infringements of freedom of expression, association and assembly, particularly in the run up to the People’s Assembly elections… raised doubt about the government’s stated commitment to fair and free elections. State security forces continued to commit grave human rights violations with impunity, including the detention without charge or trial of political detainees and torture, and political opponents continued to be sentenced after unfair trials,” Human Rights Watch noted in 2000. The people of Egypt have endured a “state of emergency” since 1981.
Naturally, the Iraqis prefer the return of Saddam and the Ba’athists to the brutal occupation of U.S. troops. Even during Bush Senior’s sanctions, dutifully carried out and extended by Bill Clinton, the average Iraqi was better off than he or she is now under the crushing yoke of Bush the Junior’s “democracy.” Many Iraqis recall the day when their country was the envy of the Arab world with its top-notch healthcare and educational systems. Malnutrition rates are “now roughly equal that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war,” explains Doug Lorimer, citing results of an Iraq Health Ministry report. “The report added that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children had nearly doubled since the occupation began, with nearly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from ‘wasting,’ a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.” But then, as Rumsfeld quipped, “democracy is messy.”
“A collapse of the Lebanese government would mark a further expansion in the influence of Hezbollah—and of Syria and Iran, which back the Shiite Muslim militant group—many of the analysts said,” the Times reports. “It would be a setback to the U.S. goal of uniting the country around a stronger central government, and to hopes that an expanded Lebanese army could protect Israel from Hezbollah attacks.”
Of course, this is precisely the plan—to reduce Lebanon, and the rest of the Arab and Islamic Middle East, into a cauldron of simmering ethnic and religious violence, thus realizing the neocon “Clean Break” and Oded Yinon’s plan for balkanization.
In fact, the average grunt in the Lebanese army realizes Hezbollah was organized as a response to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and it is now the only force capable of keeping Israel out of the country, as the result of Israel’s invasion last summer amply demonstrates. Moreover, it is apparently too much to ask the “liberal” Los Angeles Times, an indefatigable apologist for Israeli brutality and war crimes, to set the record straight—the invasion began after Israeli soldiers were captured in the town of Aitaa al-Chaab, inside Lebanon, a fact reported by Forbes, the Hindustan Times, AFP, Asia Times, and others, but later swept down the memory hole.
“U.S. officials have been trying to help the Lebanese government resist pressure from Hezbollah, which wants to replace Siniora’s team with a ‘unity’ government that would give Shiites more say and block many of Siniora’s initiatives and goals.”
Never mind that Lebanon’s Shia are systematically excluded from the government. “A 60-year-old National Covenant divides public offices between Christians and Muslims, yet in actuality the country has long been run by a Christian and Sunni oligarchy, with input from Druze leaders. Shiites, the largest and poorest of the four groups, are disdained by the elite, and until recently, were virtually disenfranchised by the Lebanese political apparatus,” writes Eric Laursen, a fact you will not read in the Los Angeles Times.
Fouad al-Siniora and his government are darlings in the eyes of the neoliberals, as Lebanon fits nicely in the loan sharking model preferred by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. “While a proposed economic reform package may help cut the country’s massive debt burden, it would also make living conditions harder for ordinary people and fail to stem the so-called ‘brain drain’ phenomenon, say economists,” IRIN, a “project” of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reported earlier this year. “Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora and Finance Minister Jihad Azour are scheduled to head to Washington. There they are expected to discuss reforms and push for international support in meetings with World Bank and International Monetary Fund officials.” According to Albert Dagher of the Lebanese University, neoliberal “privatization,” or unhindered thievery of public infrastructure, “would serve to increase the burden on ordinary citizens” and “result in significant cuts in state budgets for education, health and other public services,” thus reducing the overall standard of living, as planned.
“Concern over events in Lebanon has grown in Washington. The administration registered its alarm this month in a statement saying there was ‘mounting evidence’ that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah were collaborating to overthrow the Siniora government,” the Times warns.
In other words, in order to salvage the plans of both the neocons and the neolibs, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, bugaboos of the Israeli “vision” of a “democratic Middle East,” are to be illustrated as meddlesome demons, per usual. As poverty and exclusion in Lebanon are primarily due to “socio-economic disparities,” once again according to the United Nations, and more than half of the population are living between a “low degree of satisfaction” and “intermediate satisfaction,” it stands to reason the neoliberal toady Fouad al-Siniora should go. No doubt the Israeli invasion, resulting in the displacement of more than a half million people, added to the desire to get rid of al-Siniora the banker and his minions. It makes perfect sense to look toward Hezbollah as a protector, as it is the only force capable of responding to Israeli provocation.
“Some analysts argue that, rather than the democratic ascendancy Bush foresaw in early 2005, Lebanon represents a trend that will bring instability and spell a sharp decline in U.S. influence in the region,” the Times concludes. “That trend is marked by the rise in influence of Hezbollah and Iran, the increase in the influence of fundamentalist Islam, the growth of sectarian militias, higher oil prices and the stagnation of efforts to find an Israeli-Palestinian peace, said Richard N. Haass, a top State Department official during Bush’s first term and now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.”
Haass and his CFR cronies may feign consternation for the sake of public consumption, but in fact the neolib plan for the Middle East is moving forward swimmingly. It should be noted that Richard Haass is the president of the CFR and as VP and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution and he brings together the neolib and neocon factions (while Brookings, at first glance, is a “liberal” think tank, with such luminaries as Strobe Talbott, Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State, and Teresa Heinz, the billionaire philanthropic wife of John Kerry, it is in fact yet another reactionary criminal organization funded by the likes of the John M. Olin Foundation, and connected at the hip to the American Enterprise Institute, where Bush gets his “minds”). Call it a tag team effort between kissing cousins.
Like the classic shell game or confidence trick, the neolibs are attempting to shift blame for the “failure” of Bushian “democracy” in the Middle East on the neocons, who are to be set-up as fall guys. Increasingly, we are sold on the idea that the “adults,” in the guise of James Baker and the Iraq Study Group, are now in control and a new path will be forged in the untamed wilderness that has sprouted up around the neocon effort to democratize benighted Arabs through shock and awe.
In fact, there is very little difference between the neocon and neolib versions of reality in the Middle East, as both will result in more violence and misery. If the Baker Boys accomplish anything, it will be a marginalization of the Israeli effort to create a Greater Middle East, rolling the outlaw settler state back to the status of a junior partner, while emphasizing the World Bank and IMF component designed to return fantastic profit and inflict untold hardship on the people of the Middle East in the process, as they victimize millions around the world.
Of course, the more strident and fanatically Zionist among the neocons—determined to attack both Syria and Iran while the Baker Boys appear ready to talk, although one should never trust a talking neolib—may pull off something catastrophic in the next two years as Bush winds down his ill-gotten presidency.
Indeed, one may argue with a large degree of accuracy that the assassination of Pierre Gemayel is a show of brinkmanship on the part of Israel and the neocons, intended to send a message to their neolib cousins, much in the same way a Mafia family, through violence and murder, sends a message to a rival family. "
Source: UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)
"UNHCR is very concerned about five Palestinians – three men and two boys – who were arrested on Tuesday by Iraqi security forces at Al Tanf border crossing between Iraq and Syria. The five were part of a group of more than 300 Palestinians from Baghdad who have been stranded at a tented site in no man's-land at Al Tanf since early May this year after fleeing the targeted violence and killings of Palestinians in the capital.
Relatives of the men told UNHCR that the five had left the site around mid-afternoon in search for diesel fuel for a generator from truck drivers who pass the border area. When they had not returned by midnight, the families reported them missing to the Syrian border authorities who found out from their Iraqi counterparts that the five had been detained on the Iraqi side.
So far, we have not been able to establish all the facts surrounding the arrest including the arresting authority and detention facility. Over the last three days our staff in Baghdad and Damascus have been following up with Syrian and Iraqi border authorities to get further details of their arrest and to intervene on behalf of the detainees.
The Palestinian group in Al Tanf have suffered from incidents of harassment at the border. In August, our staff from Syria saw Iraqi armoured vehicles with armed guards enter the camp and threaten and intimidate the refugees with their weapons. UNHCR staff intervened and put an end to the situation. In another incident in June, Iraqi security forces harassed a Palestinian man from the group and threatened to take him back to Iraq by force. Eventually, the man was released.
UNHCR has formally approached the Iraqi authorities as well as the Multi-National Forces expressing our concern over these acts of intimidation against the Palestinian group and requesting cooperation to ensure that such incidents are not repeated.
The Palestinians in Al Tanf are among an estimated 10,000-20,000 Palestinians remaining in Iraq – many of whom have tried to flee the country fearing persecution. But getting out is very difficult as many Palestinians in Iraq lack valid identity documents – and have nowhere to renew them – and are being refused entry when trying to flee to neighbouring countries. UNHCR has repeatedly appealed to the Iraqi authorities and the Multi-National Forces to provide increased protection for the Palestinians. It has also appealed to countries in the Arab region, Israel, as well as resettlement countries, to provide a humane – if only temporary – solution for this specifically targeted group. These appeals have so far yielded few results."
"Lebanon is one piece on a chess board, and its fate cannot be decided in isolation from the rest. Syrian and Israeli policies have more impact than the decisions of Lebanon's elected leaders. Both neighbors--probably the worst any country could ask for--have visions of the Lebanon they want. Syria prefers one where it can choose the president, parliament, prime minister and cabinet. Israel wants to rid Lebanon of what is undoubtedly its most popular political party, Hizballah. It would also like a compliant, pro-American president and government of the kind it tried to implant by force in 1982.
So, what can the United States do? I can tell you what it has done. In 1976, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger approved the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. In 1982, his successor, Al Haig, encouraged Israel's invasion. Then, in 1990, another American secretary of state, James Baker, gave the go-ahead for the Syrian army to return to the parts of Lebanon from which it had been excluded in 1982. Neither Syria nor Israel entered Lebanon without an American okay. An American diktat could keep them both out, if the US cared as much about Lebanon as its politicians claim.
The Middle East lurches from crisis to crisis--often on Lebanon's fertile ground--because no one in Washington has the integrity or the wisdom to force a peace that gives the Palestinians a place to live independently and Israel the chance to be something more interesting than a local military superpower. When Israeli soldiers stop uprooting olive trees in the West Bank and protecting settlers on the Golan, the Lebanese won't live in fear that someone is inciting them to war once again."
"The Children were Shouting. I Still Can't Sleep Remembering Their Screams"
By GIDEON LEVY CounterPunch
"The kindergarten teacher is lying on a stretcher, covered with blood. The minibus is parked alongside. From somewhere to the left, the army cannon is firing shells. The children are lying on the ground next to one another. That is how one of the children described the morning when they were driving to their kindergarten in Beit Lahia and an Israel Defense Forces shell or missile--the army spokesman refuses to say--exploded several meters away and mortally wounded the teacher before their eyes.
Two high school-students on their way to school, Ramzi al-Sharafi, 15 and Mohammad Ashour, 16, were killed in the bombing. And this week the children of the Indira Gandhi kindergarten buried their teacher, Najwa--which means "prayer" in Arabic--the mother of two toddlers, who lay in a coma for about two weeks in Gaza's Shifa Hospital.
Almost nothing was written in Israel about the shelling of the minibus carrying 20 youngsters. It happened two days before the shelling that killed 22 residents of neighboring Beit Hanun, at the height of Operation Autumn Clouds. By a miracle the missile/shell did not hit the minibus directly, but landed at a distance of 15 meters from it.
The traumatized children from the kindergarten have not recovered. This week they marched, bearing wreaths and signs they had drawn in memory of their beloved teacher, in the mourning procession to Najwa Khalif's home; the adults interred her in the Beit Lahia cemetery.
Indira Gandhi Hamuda, the owner of the new kindergarten, an impressive 35-year-old woman, says that during the past months she used to tell the children that the Israelis don't kill children, only those who fire Qassams, and that they had nothing to fear as long as they didn't go up to the rooftops. Last week one of the children asked: "You told us that the Israelis don't kill children, but only the Qassam launchers, so why did they shoot at our minibus?"
What can you say to a four-year-old who saw his kindergarten teacher lying covered with blood alongside their minibus? That the firing on the minibus was meant to prevent Qassams, which have only intensified since then?"
11/23/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Let’s face it; while the Palestinian and Arab resistance evolves into an absolute example of the ultimate heroism and collective patriotism, the Palestinian solidarity movement in the UK and around the world is not exactly what could be called a profound success story. In fact, it would be erroneous to state that this is really the fault of those who dedicate their time and energy to it. Supporting the Palestinians is a complicated subject. Though the crimes against the Palestinians have taken place in broad daylight and are not some well-kept secret, the priorities of the solidarity movement are far from being clear.
When thinking about Palestinian society we are basically used to thinking of some sharp ideological and cultural disputes between the Hamas and PLO. Not that I wish to undermine that staunch disagreement, but I am here to suggest an alternative perspective that perhaps could lead towards a different understanding of the notion of Palestinian activism and solidarity both ideologically and pragmatically.
I maintain that Palestinian people are largely divided into three main groups and it is actually this division that dictates three different political narratives, with three different political discourses and agendas to consider: The three groups can be described as follows:
1. The Palestinians who happen to live within the Israeli State and possess Israeli citizenship - The Israelis have a name for them; they call them ‘Israeli Arabs’. These Palestinians are largely discriminated by Israeli law in all aspects of their lives; their struggle is for civil rights and civil equality.
2. The Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories - In most cases those Palestinians are locked behind walls and barbed wire in Bantustans and concentration camps in the so-called ‘Palestinian Authority Controlled Area’ (PA). Practically speaking, those people live under a criminal occupation. For three decades these people have been terrorised on a daily basis by Israeli soldiers in roadblocks and incursions, they are subject to air raids and artillery bombardments. Their civil system is shattered, their educational system is falling apart, their health system is extinct. These Palestinian people are craving for a single day with no casualties.
3. The Diaspora Palestinians - Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed over the course of the years and denied return to their homes by the racially orientated Israeli legal system (the Law of Return and Absentee Laws). The Israelis do not have a name for them, they simply deny their existence. The Diaspora Palestinians live all over around the world. According to the UN statistics every third refugee is a Palestinian. Millions of exiled Palestinians live in the region in refugee camps, the others can be found in every corner of the globe, many are here may be among us tonight. The Diaspora Palestinians know their rights and they want to be able to come home if they so choose, they demand their right of return.
Confronting very different realities, the three groups above have managed to develop three competing political discourses: The 1st group, the so-called ‘Israeli Arabs’, struggle for equality. The means they have to achieve their goals are largely political. They search for a voice within the racially orientated Israeli society.
The 2nd group, namely the ‘PA inhabitants’, battle against the occupation. They fight for liberation. Their means are political, civil resistance as well as armed struggle (in fact it is within the 2nd group where the bitter struggle for hegemony between the PLO and the Hamas is taking place).
Being out of Israel and lacking international support as well as adequate political representation, the 3rd group is still ignored by the entire Israeli political system and even by major players within the international community. The exiled Palestinians are largely neglected and their demand for the right of return is yet to be addressed properly.
Apparently, the Palestinian discourse is fragmented. It is divided into at least three different, sometimes opposing discourses. Cleverly, not to mention mercilessly, on their behalf, it is the Israelis who maintain this very state of fragmentation. It is the Israelis who manage to stop the Palestinian political and cultural discourse from integrating into a single grand solid narrative. How do they do it? They apply different tactics that maintain the isolation and conflict between the three distinct groups. Within the State of Israel the Israelis maintain a racially orientated legal system that turns the Israeli Palestinians into 10th class citizens. When PA inhabitants are concerned, the Israeli military maintains solid and constant pressure on the civilian population. Gaza is kept starving, it is bombed on a daily basis. Some of it is flattened. More than a few observers regard the situation in the PA as nothing but slow extermination and genocide.
In order to humiliate the 3rd group, the Israelis enforce a racist legislation that welcomes Jews to the country but rejects others (Law of Return). In practice it is a racially orientated system that stops exiled Palestinians from returning to their land.
Paradoxically enough, the more pain the Israelis inflict on any of the groups, the further the Palestinians get from establishing a grand narrative of resistance. Similarly, the more vicious the Israelis are, the further the Palestinian Solidarity movement is getting from establishing a unified agenda of activism.
Indeed the Palestinian solidarity campaigner is confused and asks himself what campaign to choose. Who should be supported? The division of the Palestinian discourse into three conflicting narratives makes the issue of solidarity rather complicated. Seemingly, different Palestinian solidarity groups follow different political calls and Palestinian causes. Some call for an end to the Israeli occupation, others call for the right of return. Some call for equality. Many of the solidarity campaigners are divided amongst themselves. Those who call for the right of return and ‘one State’ are totally unhappy with what they regard as a watery and limited demand for the ‘end of occupation’. Seemingly, Palestinian solidarity is trapped.
Joining one call and not another is actually surrendering to a discourse that is violently and criminally imposed by the Israelis. This is exactly where Zionism is maintaining its hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse. It is Israeli brutality that dictates a state of ideological fragmentation upon the Palestinian solidarity discourse. Whatever decision the Palestinian activist is willing to make is set a priori to dismiss a certain notion of the Palestinian cause. It is indeed painful to admit that it is the Israelis who have set us into this trap. Our work, discourse and terminology as activists are totally shaped by Israeli aggression.
The Battle Is Not Lost
However, there is a way around that complexity. Rather than surrendering to the Zionist practice which splits the Palestinian solidarity discourse, we can simply redefine the core of the Palestinian tragedy, which is now turning into a global crisis.
Once we manage to internalise that the discourse of solidarity with Palestinians is dominated by the malicious and brutal Israeli practices, we are more or less ready to admit: it is the Jewish State: a racist nationalist ideology that we must oppose primarily. It is Jewish State and its supporters around the world that we must tackle. It is Zionism and global Zionism that we must confront immediately.
Yet, this is exactly where the solidarity campaigner loses his grip. To identify the Palestinian disaster with the concept of ‘Jews Only State’ is a leap not many activists are capable to do for the time being. To admit that the Jewish State is the core of the problem implies that there may be something slightly more fundamental in the conflict than merely colonial interests or an ethnic dispute over land. To identify the ‘Jews Only State’ as the core of the problem is to admit that peace is not necessarily an option. The reason is rather simple: the ‘Jews Only State’ follows an expansionist and racially orientated philosophy. It leaves no room for other people as a matter of fact and principle.
Yet, once we come to grips with this very understanding, once we are enlightened and realise that something here is slightly more fundamental than merely a battle between an invader facing some indigenous counter freedom fighting. We are probably more or less ready to engage in a critical enquiry into the notion of Zionism. We are more or less ready to grasp the notion of the emerging secular emancipated Jewish collective identity. We are ready to confront the modern notion of Jewishness (rather than Judaism). Once we are brave enough to admit that Zionism is a continuation of Jewishness (rather than Judaism), once we admit that Israel draws its force from a racist ideology, harboured in national chauvinism and blatant expansionism, once we admit that Zionism, which was once a marginal Jewish ideology, has become the voice of world Jewry, once we accept it all, we may be ready to defeat the Zionist disease. We do it for the sake of the Palestinians but as well for the sake of world peace.
The Gatekeepers
Let’s try to think of an imaginary situation in which a dozen exiled German dissident intellectuals insist upon monitoring and controlling Churchill’s addresses to the British public at the peak of the Blitz. Every time Churchill speaks his heart calling the British people to stand firm against Germany and its military might, the exiled dissident Germans raise their voice: “It isn’t Germany, Mr Prime Minister, it is the Nazi party, the German people and the German spirit are innocent.” Churchill obviously apologises immediately.
I assume that you all realise that such a scene is totally surreal. Britain would never allow a bunch of German exiles to control its rhetoric at the time of a war against Germany. Moreover, dissident German intellectuals would not have the Chutzpah to even consider telling the British what should or what shouldn’t be the appropriate rhetoric to use at time of a war with Germany.
However, when it comes to the Palestinian solidarity discourse, we are somehow far more tolerant. In spite of the fact that it is the ‘Jews Only State’ that we struggle against, we allow a bunch of self-appointed Jewish leaders and activists to become our gatekeepers. As soon as anyone identifies the symptoms of Zionism with some fundamental or essential Jewish precepts a smear campaign is launched against that person.
I have been closely monitoring the Jewish left discourse for more than a few years now. I might as well admit that I can think of at least one good reason behind Jewish anti-Zionist activism. I do understand the need of some humanist Jews to stand up and say, ‘I am a Jew and I find Zionism disgusting.’ At a certain stage of my life I myself was saying just that. As some of you know, I totally admire Torah Jews for doing just that. However, when it comes to predominantly Jewish socialist and secular left groups, I am slightly confused.
Moshe Machover, a legendary Israeli dissident and a Jewish Marxist who happens to be the intellectual mentor of the British progressive Jewish activists, expressed the following view just a few days ago when he stated a complaint he had with a petition. (http://www.petitiononline.com/grosveno/petition.html) “anti-Semitism is a Palestinian problem, as it pushes Jews into the arms of Zionism. This has long been understood by all progressive Palestinians. Anti-semitism is an objective ally of Zionism, and the common enemy of Palestinians, Jews, and all humankind.” (http://redress.blogsource.com/post.mhtml?post_id=404627)
Indeed anti-Semitism may be a problem, yet, is it really a Palestinian problem? Should the Palestinian solidarity campaign engage in fighting anti-Semitism? Shouldn’t we leave it to ADL and Abe Foxman? I think that we better try to do whatever we can to save the people of Beit Hanoun. This is where we are needed. I am certain that the vast majority of the Palestinian activists know that I am right.
Every PSC campaigner I have ever spoken to admits to me that only very few Palestinians find interest in the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. In fact, the statement by Machover provides the reason. According to Machover, those amongst the Palestinians who fail to see that anti-Semitism is the problem are nothing but reactionary, as only the ‘Progressive’ Palestinians acknowledge that anti-Semitism is indeed a problem. Let me tell you, the Palestinians I know do not like it when Machover or anyone else calls them reactionaries just because they are not that concerned with anti-Semitism. Reading Machover, it is rather clear that such views serve as a body shield for Jewish secular collectivism and the Zio-centric historical narrative. If to be honest, there is not much reason for any Palestinian to join a movement predominated by the obsession with anti-Semitism.
May I tell you, I am not an historian. I am academically trained as a philosopher and particularly as a continental one. I am interested in the notion of essence. For me to attack Zionism is to aim towards a thorough realisation of the essence of Zionism. To a certain extent I am indeed an essentialist. This is pretty worrying for those who try to reduce the discourse into positivistic exchange regarding numbers and historical facts. I am interested in the spirit of Zionism. I’m concerned about that which transforms the Israelis and their supporters into ethically blind killing machines.
Beyond Chutzpah
You may have heard of the book I am holding in my hand. Probably, it’s the ultimate Zionist filth: Alan Dershowitz’s The Case For Israel. I don’t know whether any of you have ever considered reading this banal not to say idiotic text. I did, it fell into my hands a few days ago.
Shockingly enough, this book is structured as a beginner’s guide for the Zionist enthusiast, a kind of “Israel for Dummies”. It teaches the nationalist Jew how to be an advocate and defend the ‘case of Israel’. We know already that Norman Finkelstein has managed to prove beyond doubt that the text is academically a farce. Yet, there is something revealing in this text.
The book is a set of deconstructions of ‘the anti-Zionist argument’. It starts with the heaviest ideological and moral accusation against Israel and it gets lighter, more historical and forensic as you progress.
Dershowitz launches with the ‘million Shekels’ question “Is Israel a Colonial, Imperialist State?” To a certain degree Dershowitz manages to tackle the question. He asks, “if it is indeed a colonial state, what flag does it serve?” Fair enough, I say, he may be right. I myself do not regard Zionism as a colonial adventure. However, hang on for a second, Mr. Dershowitz. It seems you might be getting off the hook easily here. Our problem with Israel has nothing to do with its colonial characteristics. Our problems with the ‘Jews Only State’ have something to do with its racist, expansionist and nationalist qualities. Our problems with Israel have something to do with it being a Fascist State supported by the vast majority of Jewish people around the world.
Now if you, Scottish activists stop for a second, ask yourselves why Dershowitz starts his book tackling the colonial aspect of Israel rather than facing its Fascist characteristics. My answer is simple. We are afraid to admit that Israel is indeed a Fascist State. It is predominantly the politically correct groups that furnish Dershowitz with a Zionist fig leaf. In fact, it is the Jewish gatekeepers on the left who have managed to reduce Zionism merely into a colonial adventure. Why did they do it? I can think of two reasons:
1. If Israel, the ‘Jews Only State’ is wrong for being a racially orientated adventure, then ‘Jews for peace’, ‘Jews against Zionism’, ‘Jewish Socialists’, ‘Jews Sans Frontieres’ etc. are all wrong for the very same reason (being a racially orientated adventure).
2. To regard the Israeli Palestinian conflict as a colonial dispute is to make sure it fits nicely into their notion of working class politics. May I suggest that a universal working class vision of Israel implies that the Jewish State is nothing but a Fascist experiment.
I would use this opportunity and appeal to our friends amongst the Jewish socialists and other Jewish solidarity groups. I would ask them to clear the stage willingly, and to re-join as ordinary human beings. The Palestinian Solidarity movement is craving for a change. It needs open gates rather than gatekeepers. It yearns for an open and dynamic discourse. The Palestinians on the ground have realised it already. They democratically elected an alternative vision of their future. Isn’t it about time we support the Palestinians for what they are rather than expecting them to fit into our worldview?
Raised as a secular Israeli Jew in Jerusalem, Gilad Atzmon witnessed and empathised with the daily sufferings of Palestinians and spent 20 years trying to resolve for himself the tensions of his background. Finally disillusioned, he moved away from Israel and went to England to study philosophy. Visit his website http://www.gilad.co.uk
233 Dead in Civil War Carnage Health Ministry Besieged 3,000 Widows Created Each Month
By Juan Cole
"How bad the situation is in Iraq is suggested by this email I just got from a professional who used to be in Iraq but now is in a nearby country:
' It is desperate in Iraq, worse then ever and there is no end in sight. I had lunch with [a former high ranking medical educator in Iraq] two days ago. [He]noted that Iraq no longer has neuro-surgeons, no cardiac surgeons, few pediatric doctors - they are all gone, killed or fled to neighboring countries like him. He was given seven days to get out or be killed. He is one of the lucky ones. He and his family have an opportunity for a new life in the US. But what about all the others. Where are they to go?
Another friend, a Sunni sheikh of the Shammar tribe noted to me that thousands of former officers are prepared to assault the G[reen] Z[one]. It is no longer a matter of can they do it, they are only mulling over the timing. The breach of the Green Zone security the other day was a test of their ability to get in, and not a real attempt at a coup, though it is reported as such. Every Iraqi I talk to says unambiguously that the resistance attached to the former regime would take out the Shiite militias with barely a fight, but that the resistance will not commit wholesale revenge against the Shiite population. They just want to get rid of the "carpet baggers" from Iran. '"
A GREAT COMMENTARY By Ramzy Baroud PalestineChronicle.com
"The astounding results of the US Congressional elections of Nov. 7 were undoubtedly a welcome sign of change, not in the American political apparatus per se, but in the unmistakable public reclamation of their role as the driving force behind the nation’s political posture.
That said, one must not confuse the redefining of the public relevance to the political discourse and processes, and the political machination and platforms that are entrusted in translating the people’s will, grievances or aspirations, into action. Early signs are not promising however, suggesting that in order for any practical change to be achieved and take hold, public awareness and engagement must neither be marginalized nor relegated.
Most analyses agree that Iraq was indeed the decisive factor that helped turn the tide against the Republicans and their president, with their tired mantras and slogan-based foreign policy. The decisive outcome of the elections was a resounding message that Americans can no longer operate on the basis of fear alone, and that the people of the United States are no longer self-absorbed and incapable of shaping their overall political outlook on the basis of exterior factors. This time, it was not the economy, but war that wrought an end, even if temporarily, to President George W. Bush administration’s expansionist, even imperialist view of the world.
For a few days, one indulged in the sweetness of victory, of the sight of neo-conservative ideologues collectively disowning their hegemonic project and their once hailed hero, now a lame duck president. The January issue of Vanity Fair magazine is scheduled to highlight the full scale of the neocon’s historic disintegration. David Rose has reported on his findings, quoting the war architects themselves: Former chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee Richard Perle, former White House speechwriter David Frum, among others. Frum, who coined the “axis of evil” slogan, told Rose that the situation in Iraq “must ultimately be blamed on failure at the center, starting with President Bush.”
Coupled with an earlier assertion by former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz — now the head of the World Bank — at the National Press Club that Iraq “is not my problem”, and former Defense Department official Douglas Feith’s abandoning politics altogether for a teaching position at Georgetown University, one can rest assured that the future of the disastrous “Project for a New American Century” is, at best, uncertain. Not even the most hopeful amongst us foresaw such an outcome, or the chain reaction it is generating, starting with the dismissal of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the expected relegation of Vice-President Dick Cheney’s import as a key player in shaping the country’s future foreign policy direction.
The post election scene is indeed consistent with the larger picture, where the architects of war in both the US and Britain, and their faithful allies in Spain and Italy, are also plummeting, some in awesome crashes, such as the ones that brought down Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar and Italy’s once invincible Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, last April. The outcome of the US elections was not any less remarkable; in fact, the latest episode is expected to reverberate for years to come.
The defeat of the Republican Party however, should not be understood as one that substantiates the ways of the Democrats. Not only did the latter offer no practicable solution to the Iraq war, the party fought and won the election with a majority of its nominees challenging the need even for a timetable for withdrawal. It’s also worth noting that Democrats are equally responsible for the Iraq war: After all a majority of their members of Congress voted for it, and tirelessly justified it on legal, moral and national security grounds.
The voters’ dissatisfaction with Bush’s ‘staying the course’ approach, perhaps inadvertently, invited Democrats back to a leadership position — and by a comfortable margin at the House of Representatives — after years of indecisiveness and, frankly, lack of purpose and cohesion. Though it was the antiwar fervor that created the opportunity for the Democrat’s political recovery, it might also be the reason that could send them back to a state of lengthy hibernation.
The Nov. 7 vote was a mandate that imagined a less hostile, more sensible and more prudent America, a country that neither negotiates its civil liberties, nor “pre-emptively” engages in brutal wars that damage its global repute and compromise on its national security. But does the Democratic leadership share that same vision, or will it simply try to manipulate its supposedly antiwar image — as illusory as it is — to further its narrow and self-serving political ambitions?
While British Prime Minister Tony Blair — hardly known for his political autonomy — had the audacity to concede to the long-held argument that solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the key to a stable Middle East, the Democratic leadership continues to reassert its unwarranted allegiance to the government of Israel, whose violent, long and cruel occupation of the Palestinian territories has brought tremendous harm to the Palestinian people, and has served as a rally cry for anti-Americanism and, indeed, terrorism throughout the Middle East and far beyond.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, groomed to be the speaker of the House when the Democrats claim the congressional throne next year, not only disagrees with Blair’s recent revelations to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, but is so archaic and self-defeating in her ideas that she sounds more like an iconic Zionist figure than a moderate American politician. In her speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) last year, she asserted: “There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: It is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.”
If this supposedly progressive figure continues to deceive the American people regarding the iniquitous nature of her country’s role in prolonging the instability of the Middle East, thus committing America to more violence and counter violence, then, Pelosi and the entire Democratic Party behind her would find themselves answering to the same discontented public two years from today.
It’s mind-boggling that after so many years, and particularly five years of reprehensible bloodshed, mainly inspired by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, few American politicians possess the courage to say it as it is. However, while discounting this conflict as an “internal Israeli affair” in past years was acceptable by American political standards, it will no longer suffice, for it is now threatening global stability altogether, and will continue to inch America closer to more pointless, albeit bloody conflicts.
To prevent the exodus of Empire-driven neoconservative ideologues from being replaced by self-deceiving, Israel-comes-first Democrats, then the American public must not be satisfied with its democratic revolution of early November. Americans must continue to push for a truly equitable, truly sensible, and truly revolutionary foreign policy, one that goes beyond hollow dictums, one that reasserts America’s leadership globally.
If not, then America’s Middle East conflict will perpetuate at a high cost, and its dear price will be paid by ordinary Americans and by innocent people everywhere. "
"As if Israel’s position in the world in not bad enough, a new survey published in the US Wednesday says that Israel is suffering from the worst public image among all countries of the world. The study, called the National Brands Index, conducted by government advisor Simon Anholt and powered by global market intelligence solutions provider GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.), shows that Israel is at the bottom of the list by a considerable margin in the public’s perception of its image.
The Index surveyed 25,903 online consumers across 35 countries about their perceptions of those countries across six areas of national competence: Investment and Immigration, Exports, Culture and Heritage, People, Governance and Tourism. The NBI is the first analytical ranking of the world's nation brands.
"Israel's brand is by a considerable margin the most negative we have ever measured in the NBI, and comes at the bottom of the ranking on almost every question," states report author Simon Anholt.
Anholt believes that the politics of a nation can affect every single aspect of a person's perception about a country. In the light of the recent announcement that the Israeli Foreign Ministry has taken upon itself to re-brand Israel, Anholt comments that to succeed in permanently changing the country's image, the country has to be prepared to change its behavior. He reiterates his strong belief that a reputation cannot be constructed: it has to be earned. "If Israel's intention is to promote itself as a desirable place to live and invest in, the challenge appears to be a steep one," Anholt concluded.
The survey also indicated that Israel came last in each area by a long margin, including the fact that of the 36 countries ranked, there is nowhere that respondents would like to visit less than Israel. Worse yet, the survey indicates that Israel’s people were also voted the most unwelcoming in the world.
And there was one more unpleasant surprise: Whoever thought that the United States is Israel’s best friend and Israel is loved in the US, the index indicated that Americans ranked Israel just slightly above China in terms of its conduct in the areas of international peace and security.
The 35 countries polled for the study were: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK, and the USA."
"BAGHDAD - After three and a half years of occupation, Iraq's medical system has sunk to levels lower than seen during the economic sanctions imposed after the first Gulf war in 1990. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said Iraqis are now extremely vulnerable in their health needs.
"Several wars and 13 years of economic sanctions left a heavy toll on the nutrition of the population, on the social structure, on the economy and on the health infrastructure and services," according to a statement on the WHO website. "This is well depicted in the morbidity and mortality rates of the population of Iraq, particularly of infants, children and mothers. The majority of Iraqis completely depend on the food Public Distribution System for their nutritional requirements."
The health situation in Iraq has been in constant decline since the beginning of the U.S.-backed UN-imposed sanctions in 1990. Iraqi doctors were reputed to be the best in the Middle East during the 1980's, but now they are short of medicines, medical equipment and funding to maintain the hospitals.
"We were angry with Saddam's government for the poor health situation in the country, but now we wish we could get that back," 55-year-old teacher Ahmed Zaydan from Sadr City in Baghdad told IPS. "There was not enough medical care, but there was something that one could live with and the private sector market was cheap. We were hoping for the change of regime to improve our lives, but the result is that we practically have no government healthcare."
Saddam Hussein's regime managed to keep basic medical services free of charge for most Iraqis until the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. There was a hospital in almost every town. Surgeries were carried out free of charge. Medicines were imported by the government and sold at affordable prices to those going to private clinics and hospitals.
The Ministry of Health is now controlled by Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's movement under a political agreement between the ruling parties. The sectarian influence on the ministry has greatly impeded healthcare. "The ministry office in Baghdad is under the control of ignorant people who know nothing about medical science," a doctor told IPS. "The whole ministry is controlled by clerics who brought their militiamen along to divert the ministry into a death squad headquarters. Many of my colleagues resigned, were expelled or abducted by those who should have provided protection for them. Others quit and left the country."
The independent Iraq Medical Association (IMA) announced earlier this month that the healthcare system has continued to deteriorate and lacks adequate qualified staff and equipment. The IMA estimates that 90 percent of the nearly 180 hospitals countrywide lack essential resources. "Our hospitals look more like barns with lack of electric power, medicines, equipment and now doctors and surgeons because of the corrupt managers who care for nothing but filling their pockets with false contract money and conducting sectarian killings against doctors and patients," a doctor from a hospital in Baghdad told IPS. "I personally have been able to stay with my job only because I am from the favored sect and my cousin is a ruling party member."
The IMA announced this month that of 34,000 Iraqi physicians registered prior to 2003, over half have fled the country, and that at least 2,000 have been killed.
Two months ago the Iraqi Islamic Party announced that its candidate for deputy health minister was abducted from inside the minister's office. "Dr. Ali al-Mehdawi is still in the hands of his kidnappers, and we are not certain of his safety," a senior Islamic Party member told IPS.
Despite more than a billion dollars claimed to have been spent by the U.S. on Iraq's healthcare system, health needs are one of the biggest problems for Iraqis under the occupation. There appears to be no quick solution to this worsening situation.
Apparent corruption has made the crisis worse. Earlier this year a 200 million dollar reconstruction project for building 142 primary care centers ran out of cash with just 20 on course for completion, a situation the WHO described as "shocking." The Iraqi government estimates that 8 billion dollars is needed over the next four years to fund the ailing healthcare system.
The campaign group Medact has reported that in Iraq "easily treatable conditions such as diarrhea and respiratory illness caused 70 percent of all child deaths," and "of the 180 health clinics the U.S. hoped to build by the end of 2005, only four have been completed – and none opened.""
Civilian Resistance in Lebanon assessing the damage in Markaba (Marcy Newman)
Dr. Marcy Newman writing from Beirut, Live from Lebanon, 23 November 2006 (Dr. Marcy Newman is Visiting Professor at the Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut. She works with Civilian Resistance in Lebanon. You can follow her activities at her blog)
Electronic Lebanon
"It is not just the different focal points in peoples lives that seem to separate people from Beirut and South Lebanon. For all the calls of unity in the newspapers and streets today by the March 14th forces I wonder what type of unity they mean. Do they mean unity with people in South Lebanon? Do they mean helping people there rebuild their lives financially as well as emotionally, physically, mentally? Do they mean protecting people from the daily Israeli Occupation Forces violation of UN Resolution 1701 when it flies into Lebanese air space?Do they mean including Palestinians living in Lebanon into this fold of unity in the way that Armenians were included when they fled their nakba? While I respect those mourning the loss of Gemayel as well as the calls for unity it seems to me that such rhetoric is not entirely inclusive of all who live in the borders of Lebanon. Instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop and instead of calling for unity an expression of that unity could be realized by people from the North and from Beirut making an effort to build solidarity with people in the South in a way that builds a long-term commitment across regional and sectarian borders as well as long-term human relationships."
From yet another lousy article by Fisk about Lebanon, I found only this part worth quoting. Interestingly, Fisk had it at the very end.
"Geagea was chilling in his denunciations. "We will not accept that this government shall be changed for a government of murderers and criminals," he shouted. And since it is Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Shia Hizbollah who has been abusing the Siniora cabinet as the government of "the US ambassador" - and since it is the Shia ministers who have withdrawn from this same cabinet - one could conclude, could one not, that Dr Geagea's "murderers and criminals" were Shia.
Indeed, dwelling on his bloody wartime sins, most of which were amnestied, one has to reflect why Geagea's lads blew up the congregation of the Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in 1994; the court said that he wanted to persuade Christians that Hizbollah had committed the crime.
Funny how these things come back to us. Oddly, Pierre Gemayel's murder has had exactly the same effect on Christians and Sunni Muslims; it has persuaded many of them that the Hizbollah, on Syria's behalf, committed the crime. A distressing thought."
Iran and Syria want to be seen as a stabilising force in Iraq, in contrast to the failure of the US, but there is little they can do
Jonathan Steele in Irbil, northern Iraq Friday November 24, 2006 The Guardian
"Never have there been so many competing visions of the Middle East. Viewed from Israel, the central issue is an axis of evil that starts in Iran, passes through Syria (perceived as Tehran's client number one) and moves on to the secondary clients, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Seen from Baghdad, Iran and Syria assume different roles. They are powerful neighbours who hold the keys to the country's security.
In Kurdistan, Iraq's uniquely stable northern region, the struggle is viewed as one between modernisers who believe in a democratic "new Iraq", and traditionalists who held power and privilege during Saddam Hussein's long regime and want revenge for his ousting.
Finally there are those, such as King Abdullah of Jordan, who perceive the issue as a battle between a newly awakened Shia minority against centuries of Sunni dominance throughout the region.
The Bush administration is now split between advocates of these competing visions. Neocons who share the Israeli and Kurdish view and once believed the US could impose democracy on Iraq, both for its own sake but also to put pressure on the authoritarian regimes in Iran and Syria, are in retreat.
Sectarian civil war and the virtual collapse of law and order in Iraq, coupled with the nationalist insurgency's unrelenting attrition of American soldiers' lives, have "trapped" the US in Iraq, in the words of Kofi Annan this week. During the Vietnam war the word was "quagmire", but the message is the same. American voters are frustrated and pessimistic. Several US columnists who supported the invasion now favour prompt withdrawal.
As a result, realists such as James Baker are gaining the upper hand. They want to bring Iraq's neighbours into the picture and move the focus of US policy from regime change to regional stability, to hand the problem to Iraq's neighbours then let the US pull back, keeping bases but no longer supplying frontline troops. .... As US influence wanes, neither Tehran nor Damascus can fill the void. Iraq has become a calamity that outsiders can only watch in horror. If cure there is, Iraqis will have to find it on their own."
""أقدم نفسي لله وفداء للوطن وللأقصى، وأتمنى أن يتقبل الله مني هذا العمل، وأقدم نفسي للمعتقلين والمعتقلات، وأحيي أبا العبد والضيف .."؛ بهذه الكلمات المؤثرة اختتمت الشهيدة الحاجة فاطمة النجار (57 عاماً) حياة حافلة بالعطاء وحب الوطن، وغرس حب الاستشهاد في نفوس أبنائها قبل أن تلقى الله شهيدة إلى العلياء، عندما فجرت جسدها في قوة صهيونية خاصة في شمال قطاع غزة."
Dr. Elfarra (left) With One of The Injured Children
Dear brothers, sisters, friends, comrades, all of you who follow my blog,
Thanks for your interest in us here in Palestine, while the rest of the world is either silent, cowering to avoid the truth, totally brainwashed by the mainstream media that supports American and Israeli policies in the Middle East, or minding their mutual interests with the USA. Please let us all together work to spread the truth about what is happening in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), and work hard for a world that enjoys a peace based on justice.
I do apologize for not writing regularly as I used to do. I am very busy with relief efforts and fieldwork. Many of the injured were received into Al- Awda Hospital, which puts extra pressure on all health workers, including myself. It is not an easy feeling to expect that you may lose some of your colleagues while on emergency health rescue missions, or to think of the casualties waiting to cross a military checkpoint, while bleeding and in desperate need for surgical intervention. Some people died while waiting for a permit to pass through those checkpoints.
Whenever I am at Al-Awda Hospital for my field support and needs assessment visits, I meet hospital staff that have lost their relatives, or their homes have been demolished, or they have experienced different sorts of traumas. I also meet many patients and their families. The most heartbreaking is to see children that have been seriously injured. But it is also heavy to listen to the ER doctors tell stories about the different sorts of injuries they receive: mutilated bodies, burn victims, etc.
It is not safe to drive my car the short distance from Gaza to Jabalia and Beit Hanoun. While driving I can clearly see the army tanks and hear helicopters and drones in the sky.
On, Monday 20th of November, I met Mrs. Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, during her visit to Israel and the OPT. She held a meeting with representatives of different Palestinian civil society organizations and public figures where I explained the frank violations of health human rights by the Israeli army. We all strongly asked for international protection following the recent Beit Hanoun masacare and I condemned the American veto that makes the international community very weak in their efforts to refuse injustice and human rights violations in Palestine. The Palestinian people are devastated, abandoned and losing faith in the international community.
The Israeli occupying forces have continued their attack against Gaza, especially in the north of Gaza. First there was the siege and military operation in Beit Hanoun, 2nd –8th of November. And then two days later, the brutal attack against a residential area inside the village, where at least 20 people from one family where killed while in their beds in the early hours of the morning.
Last night, 21st of November, there were many helicopters in the sky above Gaza City. I live nearby the beach and I could clearly hear and see the helicopters. I felt very uneasy, knowing that they will soon target somebody, somewhere in Gaza City. Then I heard the sirens of ambulances. They targeted an area east of the city, killing 2 people including a 70-year-old woman.
This morning, 22nd of November, at 11.30 am the Israeli military went back to Beit Hanoun. Four schoolboys were injured at the new entrance into the village. There are snipers on top of the roofs of some buildings only 300 meters to the east of the hospital. Thirteen casualties were brought into the ER with serious injuries from the snipers’ bullets. I am not in the hospital but I was told this by my colleagues inside the hospital.
I can hear the sirens of the ambulances carrying more injured to Al-Shifa hospital inside Gaza City. The situation is deteriorating.
I shall stop now. But before I stop, I want to tell you that in November, 105 people were killed in Gaza including 35 children and 18 women. Another 350 were injured, many with critical injuries that will cause permanent disabilities.
it is 9.30 pm wed. i can hear heavy artillary shelling , it is coming from the north of the town . my freind mahmoud telephoned from jabalia to tell me , there are Israeli snipers on top of their next door neiboughers roof ,
On November 21 and 22, Fr. Peter and Sr. Mary Ellen of the Michigan Peace Team visited the homes in Jabalya and Beit Lahia, Gaza, that have been surrounded with Palestinian men, women, and children, in order to prevent the IOF from destroying them. Peter and Mary Ellen were the first internationals to join the group of about 75 Palestinians at the family home of Mohammed Wael Baroud, a leader in the Popular Resistance Committees. Villagers have been gathered at the house since the evening of Saturday, November 18th, when the family received a phone call from the IOF that they had 30 minutes to evacuate. Over 200 neighbors and friends converged at the home to protect it from destruction.
While the media has been reporting that Hamas is using people as human shields, which is a violation of international law, Fr. Peter and Sr. Mary Ellen have found that this was not the case. The people in Gaza have voluntarily decided to use their presence as a form of non-violent resistance against Israel’s overwhelming military power. Men and women alike are keeping a continual presence at the house, which is home to four families - 22 people, 10 of whom are children – and have stated that they will not move until the demolition is completely called off and the soldiers apologize.
It is a violation of international law for Israel to collectively punish the people of Gaza. Since June, the military has demolished 73 homes of suspected militants, causing hundreds of civilians to become homeless. Peter and Mary Ellen’s message to the media remained consistent: “We do not believe in any use of violence by any side. The occupation of Palestinian land by the Israeli military is the fundamental violence. The use of collective punishment such as the destruction of homes is a violation of international law. It is never legitimate to destroy the homes of women, children, and elderly for the crimes of one person.”
Palestinians expressed great gratitude to the priest and nun for their willingness to be there in solidarity and to share in their risk. They handed Peter and Mary Ellen their infant children to hold as a sign of trust. Palestinian mothers had a message for the mothers in the U.S.: “Come to Gaza. Visit our home. You will see we have no Apache helicopters, we have no bombs. Come to Gaza. You are welcome.”
While in Gaza, Fr. Peter and Sr. Mary Ellen also met with a Palestinian Catholic priest and the Director General of Emergency Services for Gaza for the Palestinian Authority. Both leaders described the absolutely dire situation in Gaza. With the recent attacks by the IOF in Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya, hundreds of civilians were killed and injured. There has been a lack of consistent electricity and running water since Israeli forces destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure this summer. Much of the agricultural land has been bombarded and is now covered in a white ash and no longer able to sustain crops. The priest told them that over 150,000 fruit trees have been destroyed in Beit Hanoun in the last two years alone. Malnutrition is on the rise, and children often eat little more than pepper sandwiches.
Children in Gaza have been traumatized. The priest told them that at times, the F16s fly so low children are thrown from their beds. He spoke of the increase in stunted growth, failure to thrive and signs of trauma, including an increase in bed wetting among 12-15 year-old children.
Since Israel froze tax money and the international community halted aid shortly after the election of Hamas, government employees have not been paid and there is no Palestinian army, police, or judicial system. Peter and Mary Ellen were told that since June 25th when the Israeli soldier was captured, there have been over 400 Palestinians killed - mostly women and children.
The priest and nun had the chance to visit the Central Palestinian Government Hospital in Beit Lahia. They saw how it used to hold 70 beds, but in the past 2-3 months it has needed to add another 70. The director general of Emergency Services spoke of the weapons being used against Palestinian children - missiles from Apache Helicopters and F-16 Fighter Jets. He has seen tiny missile fragments cut through skin, and a white phosphoric powder burn the wound. This type of injury does not seem to be responding to treatment.
The Michigan Peace Team members will return from Gaza within a few days.
"On numerous occasions here, I have linked to Philip Zelikow’s remark that the Iraq “war” was launched in the name of Israel’s security, not because Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States, as our unitary decider and his minions have declared ad nauseam since the invasion.
”Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel,” said Zelikow, the Bush political hack who worked for the NSC, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the September 11th whitewash commission, and the CIA, the latter as an official exonerator of politicized intelligence while at Harvard. Naturally, the corporate media did not bother to mention Zelikow’s remark about the invasion. In fact, when people say such things, they are usually considered antisemites.
Back in 2004, senator Ernest Hollings acknowledged the U.S. invaded Iraq “to secure Israel,” and “everybody” knows it. Hollings went so far as to finger the culprits behind the invasion—Richard Perle, chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary, and Charles Krauthammer, professional war propagandist—but scant few took notice. It didn’t take long for the Anti-Defamation League to characterize Hollings’ comments as “anti-Jewish stereotyping… tantamount to scapegoating” and “ethnic hatred,” in other words antisemitism. “Regardless of whether one feels that America’s war on Iraq was justified, the charge that it is being fought by the U.S. on behalf of Israel grossly misrepresents the legitimate U.S. interests that are involved in the debate,” said Abe Foxman.
Enter Ehud Olmert, Israeli PM.
“I know all of his (Bush’s) policies are controversial in America. There are some who support his policies in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, and some who do not,” Olmert said yesterday in Jerusalem. “I stand with the president because I know that Iraq without Saddam Hussein is so much better for the security and safety of Israel, and all of the neighbors of Israel without any significance to us…. Thank God for the power and the determination and leadership manifested by President Bush.”
No word if Abe Foxman took back his slander of Ernest Hollings.
Bush and the neocons invaded Iraq not for the security of the United States, but for the security of Israel, as many of us have argued for at least three years. Of course, the invasion was not sold that way. It was sold as a preemptive move to excise an impending threat against the American people. It was sold, after it was demonstrated Iraq posed no threat to the United States, as a munificent bequest of democracy upon the oppressed, never mind the average Iraq was not asked if he or she wanted it.
Naturally, now that Olmert has admitted the invasion was all about Israel, the corporate media has kicked into overdrive to make excuses. “Under Saddam, Iraq backed Palestinian militants and posed a menacing presence to Israel’s east. During the 1991 Gulf war, Iraq rained missiles on Israel but Israel held its fire at the behest of Washington, which was wary of alienating Arab allies,” Reuters would have us believe.
Indeed, Palestinians attack Israel, and would do so with or without support from Saddam or any other self-serving Arab leader, an act of self-defense enshrined in the United Nations charter (Article 51), not that a besieged people, facing ethnic cleansing and slow genocide need to run to the United Nations for permission and legitimization. Moreover, the United Nations recognized the right of Iraq to provide assistance to the Palestinians during the General Assembly 20th session in 1965 when it invited “all States to provide material and moral assistance to the national liberation movements in colonial territories.”
Ramzy Baroud writes:
The specified decision has always applied to the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom. But again, intentional misinterpretation of that law compelled the passing of Resolution 3236, passed by the General Assembly in its 29th session in 1974. The resolution recognized that the collective rights of the Palestinian people were fully and properly recognized. The resolution recognized the Palestinian people’s right for self-determination in accordance with the United Nations Charter (which, in retrospect, gives them the same right of self-defense granted to sovereign states). In addition, it granted them the right of national independence, sovereignty and right of return to their homes. The resolution had further replaced the mere reference to Palestinians as “refugees” or “the refugee problem”, and made them a “principal party in the establishment of a just and durable peace in the Middle East.”
According to Olmert, the Israelis, Bush and the neocons, and no shortage of ill-informed Americans, the Palestinian “right for self-determination in accordance with the United Nations Charter” is nothing short of terrorism.
So pervasive is this notion, Israel arrogantly invades Beit Lahiya and the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza, not worried about international reaction, as impotent as that is. Israel confiscates Palestinian tax money. Continues to build illegal settlements populated by violent racists on private property. Israel “arrests” (i.e., abducts at gunpoint) the elected representatives of the Palestinians in Ramallah, Qalqilyah, Hebron, Jenin and East Jerusalem, and there is barely an international murmur. Palestinian politicians are subjected to the shabah, that is to say they are trussed like cattle, by Israel’s Shin Bet, and the world is basically none the wiser.
So arrogant are the Israelis, they figured it would be a cakewalk—as both neocons and crazed Israeli generals and politicians invariably believe invading Arab countries will be a cakewalk—to invade southern Lebanon and bomb Beirut with impunity, but then they got their arse beat something awful. Not that the disastrous invasion, complete with the deliberate targeting of civilians with a million cluster bombs (designed to prevent the return of over 200,000 Lebanese to their homes), is likely to put a dent in Israeli hubris.
In essence, Olmert was thanking his God for the murder of over 650,000 Iraqis and 3,000 American soldiers, although some believe these numbers are far higher. He didn’t bother to thank the American people, who are perennial chumps, cash cows, and never seem to complain about the war crimes committed in their names. Of course, even if Olmert did thank the American people, chances are fairly high they wouldn’t even notice, as they are tuned in to Barbara Walters’ coverage of the meaningless feud between Rosie O’Donnell and Kelly Ripa.
However, one day, and possibly sooner before later, the American people will be forced out of their navel-gazing slumber by six dollar a gallon gasoline prices, war in the Middle East, and a collapsing and worthless dollar.
Predictably, they will attempt to affix blame elsewhere, as they invariably do, but this may not wash with the rest of the world, as much of it understands all too well that the foreign policy of the United States, controlled by AIPAC and the neocons, as Olmert now admits, is the reason for so much misery."
Baghdad blasts: At least 150 dead in another day of bloody violence: A series of car bombs have killed at least 133 people in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City in Baghdad. About 30 masked and heavily-armed men also attacked the health ministry in central Baghdad and engaged security guards in a fierce gun battle, trapping 2,000 employees inside the building on Thursday.
52 bodies found in occupied Baghdad : The grim discovery came as the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq said 7,054 Iraqi civilians met violent deaths in September and October -- with nearly 5,000 of the slayings occurring in Baghdad.
Four Iraqi civilians killed by US occupation forces: U.S. troops opened fire on a minibus, killing four passengers, during a raid on a Shi'ite militia stronghold in Baghdad on Thursday, police and residents said.
Iraq oil profits reportedly used to back militants: The Iraqi oil ministry has uncovered illegal operations whereby oil products were sold and profits were pooled into financing local militancy, Al Sabah newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Baghdad calls insurgents for peace talks: THE Prime Minister of Iraq will sit down for the first time next week with representatives of insurgent groups in his most concerted effort yet to quell the country's sectarian war.
Civil war could ripple outward: Whether the U.S. military departs Iraq sooner or later, the United States will be hard-pressed to leave behind a country that does not threaten U.S. interests and regional peace, according to American and Arab analysts and political observers.
Iraq war was good for Israel: Olmert : The Iraq war was a boon for Israel's security, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday, voicing fresh endorsement for a Bush administration sapped by the unpopularity at home of its Middle East policies.
Australian Company AWB 'knew Iraq plans a year before':A YEAR before the invasion of Iraq, the then Australian ambassador to the United Nations, John Dauth, confidentially told AWB's former chairman Trevor Flugge the Howard Government would participate in military action with the US to overthrow Saddam Hussein, new AWB documents reveal.
Israel permit 'too short' for PhD: Sawsan Salameh won a scholarship to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem but was banned by the army from attending. The Israeli authorities have not commented on the case. Sawsan Salameh was admitted to university but fell foul of Israeli army regulations banning Palestinian students from the West Bank from entering Israel or occupied East Jerusalem, where the university is located. The decision was overturned last week and Ms Salameh was granted a six-month permit to pursue her studies.
A brutal taste of the future: For the past week, the Gaza Strip city of Beit Hanoun has been made a ground zero by the Israeli army. By yesterday, more than 260 Palestinians lay dead and injured, with 53 fatalities — women, children and ambulance drivers among them.
November in Gaza: 105 killed, 353 injured, 52 left handicapped for life: 105 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of November, Palestinian medical sources have reported. The emergency and first aid department in the Palestinian ministry of health reports that 31 percent of the victims were children. Of the 105 killed, 14 were women.
UN official: Apology insufficient when you kill 19 civilians: Frankly I don't think it's sufficient for the armed forces, after 19 innocent civilians are killed in their house, in their bed, two days later to say 'well, this was an accident'. It's not enough; it does not persuade the victims that this is the truth. I don't think it persuades the community at large and it certainly doesn't give any guarantee that it won't happen again.
Army levels one house and one sheep shad in Qarawit Bani Hassan village near Salfit: The house and the shad belong to resident Nabil Khalil; the house provides shelter for more than 30 family members. Soldiers did not allow the family to evacuate their belongings, residents reported. Local youth clashed with the invading Israeli forces after soldiers opened fire at residents... Soldier also handed over some 30 demolishing orders to 30 families in the village; army wants to demolish the house within a week.
Fatah official survives attempted hit: Efforts to resume coalition talks between Fatah and Hamas suffered a major setback on Wednesday when an attempt was made to assassinate a senior Fatah leader in the Gaza Strip. A planned meeting between Abbas and PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was postponed in the aftermath of the attack.
Seven Palestinians killed on Thursday in the Gaza Strip, over twenty residents injured: Several attacks were carried out at different areas in the Gaza Strip; at least twenty residents were injured. Resident Nasser Al Nithir, 22, was killed after the army fired artillery shells at Palestinian houses in Sheikh Zayid city, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip; two residents were injured in the attack.
Matriarch who lost grandson in conflict with Israelis turns into "suicide bomber": Daughter said Fatma Omar An-Najar was driven to lay down her life in an attack on Israelis Thursday because one grandson was killed and another disabled in clashes with troops. Fatma presided over a small army of militants, mostly from the Islamic Hamas movement, but with a few active in the rival Fatah. Her husband, who died a year ago, served time in Israeli jails, so did five of her seven sons.
Five residents taken prisoner in Hebron: Thursday, Israeli soldiers took five residents prisoner in Hebron city, in the southern part of the West Bank. Palestinian security sources in Hebron reported that soldiers broke into several houses, northeast of the city, searched them, and took five residents prisoner.
Army shells residents' houses, east of Jabalyia in the northern Gaza Strip: Israeli helicopters fired their heavy machine guns towards residents' houses in Jabalyia town in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday at noon. Residents reported a lot of damage to their houses but no injuries; the army offensive continues.
Palestinians: We'll halt Qassam fire if IDF stops attacks: A spokesperson for Islamic Jihad said the representatives of the various organizations in Gaza have reached an agreement according to which the Qassam attacks on Israel would cease in return for an end to the IDF's activity in the Strip and in the West Bank.
OPT: BADIL statement submitted to the UN Human Rights Council: BADIL Resource Center calls upon States and organizations to recognize the root causes of the conflict, namely Israel's protracted occupation and colonization of Palestinian land and its historical policy of population transfer, and to take measures to ensure respect for the rights of the Palestinian people. International efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be balanced. The conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories is often misleadingly described as part of the so-called 'War on Terror'.
Shin Bet opposes targeted killings of Palestinian politicians: The cabinet, which was discussing Israel's response to the ongoing Qassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, adopted Diskin's recommendation and decided against targeting politicians. However, it approved another controversial proposal: targeting Hamas institutions in the Gaza Strip.
No technological solution to ongoing Qassam rocket fire: It is best not to delude the citizens of Israel with false promises: Even if a miracle does take place and a decision on the appropriate technological solution is made, it would be two to three years before emergence of the first results.
Make movies, not war: After introducing us to extraterrestrial creatures and presenting the world with unknown stories about the Holocaust and WWII, Steven Spielberg has a new cinematic project up his sleeve: A joint Israeli-Palestinian film aimed at promoting coexistence. Spielberg is due to arrive in Israel shortly to launch the project.
Israel shopping for high-tech shield against Palestinian rockets: Israel has been looking at anti-rocket systems since 2003 but is now speeding up its effort and putting millions of shekels aside for this purpose, the defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the anti-missile preparations are secret.
Palestinian sources: Saudis have severed ties with Hamas; Palestinian sources have claimed that Saudi Arabia has severed relations with Hamas in recent weeks, and the Saudi government is consequently refusing to meet with senior Hamas officials. Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud a-Zahar, who visited the kingdom recently, did not meet with a single senior Saudi official during his stay, sources said.
Israel/Occupied Territories: Governments at General Assembly must now put civilians before politics: “Political posturing should not be allowed to take priority over the human rights of victims and the civilian population on both sides of the conflict. A visionary approach is now required from the international community in order to halt the appalling abuses of human rights suffered in the Occupied Territories and Israel and to bring peace and security to the region,” Amnesty International said
Israel Sends More Tanks and Troops to Gaza: Israel sent additional tanks and troops into the northern Gaza Strip today where they battled Palestinian militants, although Israel's government appeared to rule out a major military escalation at least for now.
72-year-old left-wing activist decries repeated 'harassment' by B-G security: Ingrid Steinitz, a 72-year-old Danish Jew, has alleged she was strip-searched and harassed by Ben-Gurion Airport security for hours and on a second occasion told to spread her legs and place her hands against a wall. But Ben-Gurion security officials said Monday that everything was done according to procedures, and that the treatment the grandmother and left-wing activist had received was entirely justified. Poll: More than half of Israelis support Syria talks: Fifty-seven percent of 499 respondents said they supported negotiations, while 54 percent said they could not agree to a Golan withdrawal. Fifty-nine percent said they feared another war would break out in the North unless talks were held.
'When it comes to firing the gun, it's a massive shock. It's what you don't see in the movies.': The British recruits, who arrived in the summer when the war with Hizbullah was at its height, believe the Jewish state needs a show of solidarity. "If it's a job that we have to do, then I have to do it," Mr Wainer said. "Israel has always been under attack. Without the army, there would be no Israel."
France authorizes troops to fire at IAF jets over Lebanon: French soldiers in Lebanon who feel threatened by aggressive Israeli overflights are permitted to shoot at IAF fighter jets, a high-ranking French military officer told The Jerusalem Post.
Mideast diplomacy / Bush to visit Jordan, won't meet PM, Abbas: The official purpose of Bush's visit to the region is a meeting with the prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki. The American administration would like "to expedite the transfer of security responsibility in Iraq to the local government," a code for the commencement of an American disengagement from the Bush military adventure in the Middle East. His meeting with al-Maliki is reminiscent of the American exit from Vietnam, where the U.S. also began the "transfer of authority" to its surrogate in Saigon.
The "elite ruling class" in the U.S. is made up of a bunch of murderous bastards. They are just as murderous as they were when they annihilated the Native Americans.
I wonder if the Neocons will even think about the carnage in Iraq today. Do they feel remorse when they see images of parents that are screaming in despair over the dead and bloodied remains of their children? Or do they sit around on a pumpkin pie buzz furiously rubbing their paws together in delight as they plan which other Muslim countries they can bring devastation and chaos to?
Tony, the sectarian conflict in Iraq today is very disturbing to me--can you write about it? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Some people claim that there is no sectarian violence in Iraq but clearly there is:
At least 101 Iraqis were killed Wednesday and the U.N. reported that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll of the war and one that is likely to be eclipsed when November's dead are counted.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq also said that citizens were fleeing the country at a pace of 100,000 each month, and that at least 1.6 million Iraqis have left since the war began in March 2003.
Life for Iraqis, especially in Baghdad and cities and towns in the center of the country, has become increasingly untenable. Many schools failed to open at all in September, and professionals - especially professors, physicians, politicians and journalists - are falling to sectarian killers at a stunning rate.
Lynchings have been reported as Sunnis and Shiites conduct a merciless campaign of revenge killings.
The U.N. figure for the number of killings in October was more than three times the 1,216 tabulated by The Associated Press and nearly 840 more than the 2,870 U.S. service members who have died during the war.
And then there is this:
The Death Squads: Night after night death squads rampage through Iraq's main cities. In Baghdad, up to a hundred bodies a day are dumped on the streets. Often they've been tortured with electric drills. Yet those doing the killing have little to do with al Qaeda or Sunni insurgents.
What's it going to take for Iraqis to stop killing each other?
"Nazareth. Commentators and columnists are agreed. Pierre Gemayel’s assassination must have been the handiwork of Syria. President Bush thinks so too. Case, apparently, settled.
Unlike my colleagues, I do not claim to know who killed Gemayel. Maybe Syria was behind the shooting. Maybe, in Lebanon’s notoriously intrigue-ridden and fractious political system, someone with a grudge against Gemayel -- even from within his own party -- pulled the trigger. Or maybe, Israel once again flexed the muscles of its long arm in Lebanon. It seems, however, as if the last possibility cannot be entertained in polite society. So let me offer a few impolite thoughts.
As anyone who watches TV crimes series knows, when there is insufficient physical evidence in a murder investigation for a conviction, detectives examine the motives of the parties who stood to benefit from the crime. Better detectives also consider whether the prime suspect -- the person who looks at first sight to be the guilt party -- is not, in fact, being turned into a fallguy by one of the other parties. The murderer may be the person who benefits most clearly from the crime, or the murderer may be the person who benefits from the prime suspect being fingered for the murder.
As most of our politicians and the media’s commentators have deduced, suspicion falls automatically on Syria because the Christian Phalangists are one of Syria’s main enemies in Lebanon. Partly as a result, they have opposed recent attempts by Syria’s main ally in Lebanon, the Shiite group Hizbullah, to win a greater share of political power.
They are also -- and this seems to clinch it for most observers -- part of the majority in the pro-American government of Fuad Siniora that supports a United Nations tribunal to try the killers of Rafik Hariri, an anti-Syria politician and leader of the Sunni Muslim community, who was blown up by a car bomb more than a year and a half ago.
After all six Shiite ministers walked out of the Siniora cabinet two weeks ago, and now with Gemayel’s assassination, the government is close to collapse, and with it the tribunal that everyone expects to implicate Syria in Hariri’s murder. If Syria can “bump off” another two cabinet ministers and the government loses its quorum, Syria will be off the hook -- or so runs the logic of Western observers.
But does this “evidence” make Syria the prime suspect or the fallguy? How will Syria’s wider interests be affected by the killing, and what about Israel’s interests in Gemayel’s death -- or rather, its interests in Hizbullah or Syria being blamed for Gemayel’s death?
In truth, Israel will benefit in numerous ways from the tensions provoked by the assassination, as the popular and angry rallies in Beirut against Syria and Hizbullah are proving.
First, and most obviously, Hizbullah -- as Syria’s main political and military friend in Lebanon -- has been forced suddenly on to the back foot. Hizbullah had been riding high after its triumph over the summer of withstanding the Israeli assault on Lebanon and routing an invasion force that tried to occupy the country’s south.
Hizbullah’s popularity and credibility rose so sharply that the leaders of the Shiite community had been hoping to cash in on that success domestically by demanding more power. That is one of the reasons why the six Shiite ministers walked out of Siniora’s cabinet.
Despite the way the Shiite parties’ political position has been presented in the West, there is considerable justification for their demands. The system of political representation in Lebanon was rigged decades ago by the former colonial power, France, to ensure that power is shared between the Christian and Sunni Muslim communities. The Shiite Muslims, the country’s largest religious sect, have been kept on the margins of the system ever since, effectively disenfranchised.
With their recent military victory, this was the moment Hizbullah hoped to make a breakthrough and force political concessions from the Sunnis and Christians, concessions that indirectly would have benefited Syria. With Gemayel’s death, the chances of that now look slim indeed. Hizbullah, and by extension Syria, are the losers; Israel, which wants Hizbullah weakened, is the winner.
Second, the assassination has pushed Lebanon to the brink of another civil war. With a political system barely able to contain sectarian differences, and with the various factions in no mood to compromise after the spate of recent assassinations, there is a real danger that fighting will return to Lebanon’s streets.
This will most certainly not be to the benefit of Lebanon or any of its religious communities, who will be dragged into another round of bloodletting. Hizbullah’s underground cadres who took on the Israeli war machine will doubtless have to come out of hiding and will pay a price against other well-armed militias.
The benefits for Syria are at best mixed. A possible benefit is that a bloody civil war may increase the pressure on the United States to talk to Syria, and possibly to invite it to take a leading role again in stabilising Lebanon, as it did during the last civil war.
But, given the continuing ascendancy of the hawks in Washington, it may have the opposite effect, encouraging the US to isolate Syria further.
Conversely, civil war may pose serious threats to Syrian interests -- and offer significant benefits to Israel. If Hizbullah’s energies are seriously depleted in a civil war, Israel may be in a much better position to attack Lebanon again. Almost everyone in Israel is agreed that the Israeli army is itching to settle the score with Hizbullah in another round of fighting. This way it may get the next war it wants on much better terms; or Israel may be able to fight a proxy war against Hizbullah by aiding the Shiite group’s opponents.
Certainly one of the main goals of Israel’s bombing campaign over the summer, when much of Lebanon’s infrastructure was destroyed, appeared to be to provoke such a civil war. It was widely reported at the time that Israel’s generals hoped that the devastation would provoke the Christian, Sunni and Druze communities to rise up against Hizbullah.
Third, Syria is already the prime suspect in Hariri’s murder and in the assasination of three other Lebanese politicians and journalists, all seen as anti-Syrian, over the past 21 months.
The US exploited Hariri’s death, and the widespread protests that followed, to evict Syria from Lebanon. Syria’s removal from the scene also paved the way, whether intentionally or not, for Israel’s assault this summer, which would have been far more dangerous to the region had Syria still been in Lebanon.
Despite the looming threat of the UN tribunal into Hariri’s death, from Syria’s point of view the accusations have grown stale with time and threatened to prove only what everyone in the West already believed. With the walk-out by the Shiite ministers from the Lebanese government, the investigations were looking all but redundant in any case.
Gemayel’s assassination, however, has dramatically revived interest in the question of who killed Hariri and brings Syria firmly back into the spotlight. None of this benefits Syria, but no doubt Israel will be able to take some considerable pleasure in Damascus’s discomfort.
Fourth, the Israeli government has been under international and domestic pressure to engage with Syria and negotiate a return of the Golan Heights, an area of Syrian territory it has been occupying since 1967.
With it would be resolved the fraught question of the Shebaa Farms, still occupied by Israel but which Hizbullah and Syria claim as Lebanese territory that should have been returned in Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. The status of the Shebaa Farms has been one of the main outstanding areas of dispute between Israel and Hizbullah.
President Assad of Syria has been hinting openly that he is ready to discuss Israel’s return of the Golan Heights on better terms for Israel than it has ever before been offered.
According to reports in the Israeli media, Assad is prepared to demilitarise the Golan and turn it into a national park that would be open to Israelis. He would probably also not insist on a precise return to the 1967 border, which includes the northern shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Traditionally Israel’s leaders balked at this idea, and provoked popular fears by conjuring up the vision of Assad’s father, Hafez, dipping his feet in the lake.
But if negotations on the Golan are desperately sought by the young Assad, Israel shows no interest in exploring the option. The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has repeatedly ruled out talking to Damascus. That is for several reasons:
* Israel, as might be expected on past form, is not in the mood for making territorial concessions; * it does not want to end Syria’s pariah’s status and isolation by making a peace deal with it; * and it fears that such a deal might suggest that negotiations with the Palestinians are feasible too.
Peace with Syria, in Israeli eyes, would inexorably lead to pressure to make peace with the Palestinians. That is most certainly not part of Israel’s agenda.
Gemayel’s death, and Syria being blamed for it, forces Damascus back into the fold of the “Axis of Evil”, and forestalls any threat of talks on the Golan.
Fifth, pressure has been growing in the US Administration to start talking to Syria, if only to try to recruit it to Washington’s “war on terror”. The US could desperately do with local local help in managing its occupation of Iraq. It is unclear whether Bush is ready to make such an about-turn, but it remains a possibility.
Key allies such as Britain’s Tony Blair are pushing strongly for engagement with Syria, both to further isolate Iran -- the possible target of either a US or Israeli strike against its presumed ambitions for nuclear weapons -- and to clear the path to negotiations with the Palestinians.
Gemayel’s death, and Syria’s blame for it, strengthens the case of the neoconservatives in Washington -- Israel’s allies in the Administration -- whose star had begun to wane. They can now argue convincingly that Syria is unreformed and unreformable. Such an outcome helps to avert the danger, from Israel’s point of view, that White House doves might win the argument for befriending Syria.
For all these reasons, we should be wary of assuming that Syria is the party behind Gemayel’s death -- or the only regional actor meddling in Lebanon."
The oldest Palestinian suicide bomber, a 64-year-old widow, lived in a one-room shack and had so many grandchildren that relatives lost track of the number, but her daughter said Fatma Omar An-Najar was driven to lay down her life in an attack on Israelis Thursday because one grandson was killed and another disabled in clashes with troops.
Fatma presided over a small army of militants, mostly from the Islamic Hamas movement, but with a few active in the rival Fatah. Her husband, who died a year ago, served time in Israeli jails, so did five of her seven sons. One of her numerous grandsons died at 17 four years ago, fighting Israeli troops during an incursion into nearby Beit Lahiya, relatives said, and another teenage grandson lost a leg from gunshot wounds after he tried to stab a soldier.
One of her sons, Samir, 36, estimated that her nine offspring had a total of between 35 and 38 children of their own.
"She had an army of grandchildren," he said.
Her oldest daughter, Fatheya, said she and her mother had taken part in rally at a Gaza mosque three weeks ago, where women defied a cordon of heavily-armed Israeli troops to create a diversion for besieged Hamas fighters to slip away.
"She and I, we went to the mosque. We were looking for martyrdom," she said.
A veteran Hamas supporter, she sheltered fugitive militants during the first Palestinian uprising of 1987-1993, they said.
The couple's home was demolished by the Israeli army for harboring a Hamas leader, leaving Fatma and her husband to get by in a spartan lean-to tacked onto the complex of buildings housing the extended An-Najar family, with a mattress on the floor and little else.
Widowed, alone, her children grown, the embittered matriarch vented her frustration Thursday by strapping an explosive charge to herself and going on a Hamas-sponsored operation to blow herself up amid a group of Israeli soldiers operating in a nearby Palestinian refugee camp. The army said that the troops were at the ready after a tip-off of an impending attack and hurled a stun grenade at the woman as she approached them.
Startled, she detonated the charge while she was still some distance from the soldiers, killing herself instantly but only slightly injuring two of her intended victims, the military said.
Before setting out on her suicide mission, she filmed the video testament customary for such bombers.
A copy obtained by The Associated Press showed a petite woman wearing a white headscarf and black dress, toting an assault rifle on her shoulder and standing in front of a Hamas wall mural.
Reading from a sheet of paper, she dedicated her attack to the Hamas-led government of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and to the movement's military commander, Mohammed Deif.
"I hope God accepts it," she said.
Relatives gathering at the family compound for Fatma's wake Thursday evening said the attack itself came as a surprise to them, but her will to die fighting the Israelis did not.
"They destroyed her house, they killed her grandson — my son," said Fatheya, one of her two daughters. "Another grandson is in a wheelchair with an amputated leg," she said.
"As 2006 begins to draw to a close it is useful to take a step back from the daily horrors in Gaza or the arrest raids in the West Bank, to assess three broad Israeli strategies vis à vis the Palestinians, and how they might be resisted.
The most readily observable Israeli policy is the fragmentation of what is left of Palestine, as across the West Bank and East Jerusalem the occupation aggressively pursues an accelerated process of fragmenting Palestinian territory. Fragmenting Palestine has always been a core Zionist strategy designed to weaken, divide and demoralise the colonised Arab population, yet one could say that this is reaching its zenith in the West Bank.
While Israel continues its relentless colonization, a second parallel strategy is required to divert the international gaze – I will call it the development-ization of the Palestinian question, or, its corollary, depoliticization. Regrettably, Israel finds willing collaborators for this scheme from the ranks of the international community, the NGO sector itself, and even members of the Palestinian middle classes. There is historical precedent of course, for this strategy, going right back to when the refugee victims of the ethnic cleansing in 1948 were reduced to a humanitarian, rather than a political, issue, an approach reflected in UN resolutions and official documentation.
Since the Oslo Accords, a NGO industry has taken root in the Occupied Territories that undoubtedly plays a vital role in Palestinian civil society as well as keeping life just about tolerable for impoverished, jobless, and besieged Palestinians. Yet there has always been a tension between a humanitarian imperative to meet the obvious needs of ordinary Palestinians, and the extent to which NGO’s effectively subsidies the Israeli occupation.
This last point leads us to the third Israeli strategy, that of the division of the Palestinian political class. This too has historical precedent, though with notable differences. Like the pre-Oslo negotiations conducted in secret while the First Intifada still raged, the Hamas-Fatah split, and even Fatah-Fatah splits, are being encouraged and provoked in order that compliant – or ‘moderate’ – Palestinian leaders may once more have an unrivalled authority over political and resistance policies. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ natives are familiar categories, from empires of old to the classification of moderate/extreme Muslims in the ‘war on terror’, and in Palestine, it is Mahmoud Abbas and prominent (though by no means all) Fatah elements on whom Israel, as well as the US and its Arab allies, pin their hopes.
A superlative analysis of this effort to execute a coup comes from Joseph Massad, writing in Al-Ahram recently9. “The plan”, Massad summarises, “is that the Fatah/PA rulers would do their utmost to provoke Hamas to start the war at which point Fatah, with the aid of the intelligence services of friendly Arab countries, as well as assistance from Israel and the US, would crush Hamas and take over”.
Although co-opting Fatah to topple the Hamas government has been the primary tactic, attempts at dividing Hamas itself have also been made, as Ramzy Baroud reported in Palestine Chronicle two weeks ago: “the 'discussions' in London were clearly geared toward wooing Hamas to reveal its moderate face, thus to offset and perhaps challenge the extremists in Damascus, therefore, creating yet another rift within the Palestinian camp”. Such a rift, Baroud wrote, “carries all the symptoms of Oslo: good Palestinians singled out and groomed for a photo op to be scheduled later, secret 'dialogue' followed by 'memorandums of understandings,' then treaties, then VIP cards to those involved in the positive engagement and lonely prison cells to those who dare defy it”10. "
"The way you end a slaughter is by no longer feeding it. Every general, either American or British, with the guts to speak honestly over the past couple of years has said the same thing: the foreign occupation of Iraq by American and British troops is feeding the violence.
Iraq is not on the "edge of civil war". It is in the midst of it. There is no Iraqi government. There are Sunni militias and Shia militias inflicting savagery on each other in the awful spiral of reprisal killings familiar from Northern Ireland and Lebanon in the 1970s. Iraq has become Chechnya, headed into that abyss from the day the US invaded in 2003. It's been a steep price to inflict on the Iraqi people for the pleasure of seeing Saddam Hussein die abruptly at the end of a rope.
If the US is scheduled for any role, beyond swift withdrawal, it certainly won't be as "honest broker", lecturing fractious sectarians on how to behave properly, like Teacher in some schoolhouse on the prairie. It was always been in the US interest to curb the possibility of the Shia controlling much of Iraq, including most of the oil. By one miscalculation after another, precisely that specter is fast becoming a reality. For months outgoing ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad tried to improve the Sunni position, and it is clear enough that in its covert operations the US has been in touch with the Sunni resistance.
If some Sunni substitute for Saddam stepped up to the plate the US would welcome him and propel him into power, but it is too late for such a course. As Henry Kissinger said earlier this week, the war is lost. This is the man who -- if we are to believe Bob Woodward's latest narrative -- has been advising Bush and Cheney that there could be no more Vietnams, that the war in Iraq could not be lost without humiliating consequences for America's status as the number # 1 bully on the block. When Kissinger says a war is lost, you can reckon that it is. ...
The only time reality enters into Obama's and Democrats' foreign policy advisories is when the subject of Israel comes up. Then there's no lofty talk about "No more coddling", but the utterly predictable green light for Israel to do exactly what it wants--which is at present to reduce Gaza to sub-Chechnyian levels and murder families in Beit Hanoun: this is a Darfur America really could stop but instead is sponsoring and cheering on, to its eternal shame.
The Palestinians are effectively defenseless, even as the US Congress cheers Israel on. What political Washington cannot yet quite comprehend is that Iraq is not Palestine; cannot be lectured and given schedules. America is not controlling events in Iraq. If the Shia choose to cut supply lines from Kuwait up to the northern part of the country, the US forces would be in deep, deep trouble. When the Democrats take over Congress in January, they should vote to end funding for anything in Iraq except withdrawing US forces immediately. "
Instead, we should atone for the genocide that was incited -- and condoned -- by the very men we idolize as our 'heroic' founding fathers.
A GREAT PIECE By Robert Jensen AlterNet
"One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.
In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.
Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits -- which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.
That the world's great powers achieved "greatness" through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.
But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin -- the genocide of indigenous people -- is of special importance today. It's now routine -- even among conservative commentators -- to describe the United States as an empire, so long as everyone understands we are an inherently benevolent one. Because all our history contradicts that claim, history must be twisted and tortured to serve the purposes of the powerful.
One vehicle for taming history is various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of U.S. myth-building. From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.
Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it's also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.
Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.
The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians' land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving "wild beasts" from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, "both being beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape."
Thomas Jefferson -- president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the "merciless Indian Savages" -- was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn't stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, "[W]e shall destroy all of them."
As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process "due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway."
Roosevelt also once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth."
How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? Here's how "respectable" politicians, pundits, and professors play the game: When invoking a grand and glorious aspect of our past, then history is all-important. We are told how crucial it is for people to know history, and there is much hand wringing about the younger generations' lack of knowledge about, and respect for, that history.
In the United States, we hear constantly about the deep wisdom of the founding fathers, the adventurous spirit of the early explorers, the gritty determination of those who "settled" the country -- and about how crucial it is for children to learn these things.
But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable -- such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States -- suddenly the value of history drops precipitously and one is asked, "Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?"
This is the mark of a well-disciplined intellectual class -- one that can extol the importance of knowing history for contemporary citizenship and, at the same time, argue that we shouldn't spend too much time thinking about history.
This off-and-on engagement with history isn't of mere academic interest; as the dominant imperial power of the moment, U.S. elites have a clear stake in the contemporary propaganda value of that history. Obscuring bitter truths about historical crimes helps perpetuate the fantasy of American benevolence, which makes it easier to sell contemporary imperial adventures -- such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- as another benevolent action.
Any attempt to complicate this story guarantees hostility from mainstream culture. After raising the barbarism of America's much-revered founding fathers in a lecture, I was once accused of trying to "humble our proud nation" and "undermine young people's faith in our country."
Yes, of course -- that is exactly what I would hope to achieve. We should practice the virtue of humility and avoid the excessive pride that can, when combined with great power, lead to great abuses of power.
History does matter, which is why people in power put so much energy into controlling it. The United States is hardly the only society that has created such mythology. While some historians in Great Britain continue to talk about the benefits that the empire brought to India, political movements in India want to make the mythology of Hindutva into historical fact.
Abuses of history go on in the former empire and the former colony. History can be one of the many ways we create and impose hierarchy, or it can be part of a process of liberation. The truth won't set us free, but the telling of truth at least opens the possibility of freedom.
As Americans sit down on Thanksgiving Day to gorge themselves on the bounty of empire, many will worry about the expansive effects of overeating on their waistlines. We would be better to think about the constricting effects of the day's mythology on our minds. "
***
Reading this, I couldn't help noticing the analogy to what the Zionists have done and continue to do to the Palestinians. Terms such as "settlers" and "settlements," myths such as "a land without people for a people without land" and "the Zionist pioneers made the desert bloom" romanticize the genocide against the Palestinians in the same way as the "heroic" settlement of the American West. We, the Palestinians, have become the Indians of the Middle East, complete with reservations, large (Gaza) and small (several comprising the West Bank). Analogous to the U.S. Cavalry giving blankets deliberately infected with small pox to the natives in order to eradicate them, the Israelis besiege millions of Palestinians, starve them (to put them on a strict diet as one Israeli spokesman said), contaminate their water supply, pollute their soil with depleted uranium, shell their homes, hospitals and ambulances and much more.
Just as the expansion of the "land of the free" was only possible by eradicating more than 95% of the Native Americans, the establishment of the "Jewish" state was only possible by terrorizing most Palestinians out of their land and condemning millions of them to a life of misery as perpetual refugees in deplorable refugee camps.
I think that this similarity of the brutal and genocidal beginnings of both countries goes to the heart of the "special relationship" that binds the U.S. and the Zionist State. It would be only fitting that today should be declared a Thanksgiving holiday in Israel too, for Israel should be eternally thankful for the benevolent Uncle who supplies it with everything from butter to guns and inspires its current day genocide and colonization.
يشيّع، اليوم، بيار أمين الجميل. تدلّ المؤشرات على أن التشييع سيكون شعبياً وحاشداً. هذا ما" قرّرته القوى السياسية للأكثرية الحاكمة. القرار، في جوهره، هو العودة إلى امتلاك الشارع وإطلاق دينامية جديدة. سيتناسى أقطاب هذه الأكثرية أنهم تولّوا، في الأسابيع الأخيرة، التحذير من «النزول إلى الشارع». سيقولون، وهم على حق، إن التحذير كان خوفاً من وقوع شغب، ولكن بما أن جريمة حصلت، فإن السكوت عنها لم يكن ممكناً. يمكنهم أن يضيفوا أنهم أرفقوا دعوتهم بالتشديد على الطابع السلمي والحضاري للتحرّك، ولكن هذا، بالضبط، ما كان يقوله خصومهم على التظاهرات المؤجلة (إلى متى؟). رهان الأكثرية على التشييع كبير. إن جانب التظاهرة فيه مخصص لفرض جدول أعمال لا علاقة له بذلك الخاص بجلسات التشاور. والقصد هو البرهان، عبر استفتاء شعبي، على أن ما تطالب به المعارضة يفيض كثيراً عن حجم تمثيلها. لا مبالغة في القول إن ما سيحصل، اليوم، شديد الأهمية. إنها واحدة من المرات النادرة التي يشهد فيها «الشارع» نزولاً كثيفاً من فئة كبيرة من اللبنانيين موجّهاً ضد فئة أخرى كبيرة. من يشك في ذلك فعليه مراجعة عدد وافر من التصريحات والبيانات الصادرة عقب جريمة اغتيال الجميل. الاتهام مباشر للطرف «المستفيد من قتل وزير في حكومة ثمة إصرار على إسقاطها». والاتهام الأوضح هو ما ورد في ختام اجتماع البيت المركزي في الصيفي حيث إن «القتلة هم من فصيلة الذين هدّدوا بقلب الحكومة للهروب من عدالة المحكمة». وإذا كان صحيحاً أن رئيس الحكومة فؤاد السنيورة هو أكثر الناطقين باسم الأكثرية نضجاً فإنه ارتكب «خطيئة النسيان». لقد ناشد الشهيد بيار الجميل أن يسلّم له على من سبقه من شهداء «افتدوا وطناً»، وفاته أن يذكر، بين الشهداء، ما يزيد على ألف لبناني قتلهم العدوان الإسرائيلي. ألم يفتد هؤلاء وطناً؟ أم أن شهداءنا في الجنّة وقتلاهم في النار؟ القول إن تظاهرة اليوم موجّهة ضد فئة من اللبنانيين لا يلغي إطلاقاً أن الفئة المشار إليها لو تظاهرت حسب ما كانت تعدّ لكانت تحركاتها، هي الأخرى، موجّهة ضد فئة من اللبنانيين. وهنا، أيضاً، يمكن القول إن التمهيد لهذا «النزول إلى الشارع» سبقته اتهامات لا تقل قسوة عمّا سمعناه خلال اليومين الماضيين. يمكن المواطن أن يكون مع هذا الرأي أو ذاك، ولكن عليه الإدراك أنه يقف في مواجهة شطر مهمّ من مواطنيه. لنعد بالذاكرة إلى تظاهرتي 8 و14 آذار. إن ما نحن عليه اليوم يجعلنا نعتقد أن تلك الأيام كانت أيام «وحدة وطنية». إن التدقيق في الشعارات التي رفعت، وفي الكلمات التي ألقيت، وفي الأعلام التي انتصبت، إن هذا التدقيق يدفعنا إلى ملاحظة الطريق التي قطعناها نحو المزيد من الانقسام أو، بالأحرى، نحو المزيد من تبلور الانقسام. في ذلك الزمن، الذي يبدو غابراً، كان التلميح بديلاً من التصريح، وكانت الإشارات المواربة بديلة من الاتهام الواضح، وكان القادة أكثر تحفّظاً من جمهورهم، وكان يمكن الرهان على توسيع قواسم مشتركة. لم نعد اليوم في مثل تلك الحالة. لقد انتقل اللبنانيون من السجال الضمني إلى حقل الرماية المباشرة، وترافق ذلك مع اشتداد التجاذب حول لبنان ومع ازدياد الميل لدى كل طرف لاتهام الآخر بأنه حاضن لمسلسل جرائم أو لخيانة. النسيج الوطني يعاني الكثير. وينعكس ذلك فوراً على قيم وبرامج وتعريفات للهوية والموقع ومعنى الوطن. وتتعرض المؤسسات للطعون. رئاسة أولى مشكوك فيها. حكومة تعاني خللاً. مجلس نيابي يحاول إنقاذ ما يمكن إنقاذه بالرغم من الظروف الملتبسة لتشكّل الأكثرية والأقلية فيه. إنه المجلس النيابي نفسه الذي سيكون معرّضاً، خلال أيام، لامتحان قاس. ستجد الأكثرية نفسها، بغضّ النظر عن النجاح في الامتحان الشعبي اليوم، مضطرة إلى مخاطبة رئيس المجلس نبيه بري. إنها محكومة بذلك لأن البرلمان هو الممر الإجباري لإقرار المحكمة الدولية ونظامها، حتى في حال القفز فوق رئاسة الجمهورية ومخالفة الدستور. إلا أن بوادر مخاطبة بري تحمل مخاطر واضحة لأنها تتضمّن ما قد يعدّه نوعاً من الإملاء، أي نوعاً من دعوته إلى دور يتناقض مع ما قد يكون استخلصه من دروس مرّة من تجربة التشاور. إن ما تفعله قوى الأكثرية في إلقائها تبعة الجريمة الأخيرة على لبنانيين هو، في العمق، توفير الشروط التي تجعل مهمة بري مستحيلة، أو على الأقل، في منتهى الصعوبة. إلا أنها تقدم على ذلك غير مبالية وغير معنية بأنها إذ توجد تماهياً بين طلب تأليف حكومة وحدة وطنية والمشاركة في اغتيال بيار الجميل، فإنها تطلب من «القاتل» بري (ما دام مؤيداً لحكومة وحدة وطنية) أن يساعد في تسليم نفسه إلى العدالة! القصد من هذه الإشارة القول بأن الأكثرية النيابية والحكومية ستعاود الاصطدام بالتوازنات الفعلية في لبنان، سواء في بعض المؤسسات أو في «الشارع». وهي تخطئ إذا واصلت الاعتقاد بأن في إمكانها إنهاض سلطتها على انكسارات تصيب خصومها. فكيف إذا كانت هذه الانكسارات مؤقتة، وأكثر من ذلك، وهمية؟ "
"The USG Open Source Center translates the following piece from Persian:
'Iranian Guards Chief: US Forces in Middle East 'Extremely' Vulnerable
Fars News Agency (Internet Version-WWW)
Tuesday, November 21, 2006 T19:35:28Z
The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has said: If America attacks Iran, its 200,000 troops and 33 bases in the region will be extremely vulnerable, and both American politicians and military commanders are aware of it.
The defense correspondent of Fars new agency reports that, addressing the students of Sharif Industrial University at the invitation of basijis students, Maj-Gen Rahim Safavi talked about the geopolitical importance of Iran in the region, and added: From a global and regional point of view, we live in a sensitive and transitory period of uncertainty and mistrust which is also fateful and complex. Stating that Iran has an important and sensitive geopolitical position in the region and beyond, Safavi said: Iran can be instrumental in the establishment of organizations in the region and affect their performance, and their political progression.
Stressing that the unique geographical position of Iran and its proximity to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz are its wining cards in terms of foreign policy, the IRGC commander said: Iran can control at will the Strait of Hormuz through which 17 million barrels of oil are transported (as published).
Talking about the effects of the (1979) Islamic revolution on Muslims and the freedom-loving people of the world, the general stated: Muslims have learnt from Iran that Islam is a complete way of running a country and we are witnessing the effects of this understanding in Iraq, Lebanon and other countries.
At the end of his talk, asked about the aim of the latest US military maneuver, Safavi said: America has fallen into the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan and it can neither make headway nor retreat, and if it attacks Iran, it 200,000 troops and 33 bases in the region will be extremely vulnerable and both American politicians and military commanders are aware of it.
Safavi went on: Americans can start a war, but its ending will not be in their hands, taking into account that we have not yet asked the people of Iraq to take any action (as published).
The general's words were met with enthusiasm by the students, and continuing with his talk, he added: After the military exercises, one of the American generals in Kuwait said the same way that the combatants of Hezbollah and their missiles took us by surprise, so did Iran's missile capability. In reply to another question about the defeat of the American plan for the Greater Middle East, the IRGC commander stressed: They have tried hard and so far have spent 400bn dollars in Iraq, but we are the beneficiaries. Moreover, two of our major adversaries, Saddam and the Taliban, are no longer there and our influence in the region has increased to the extent that we are the strategic winner in the Middle East.
Finally talking about the film clips of an American aircraft carrier (shown in Iran) Safavi said the aircraft that filmed the ship was built by Iranian students (like you), and we have full intelligence about extra-territorial forces in the region."
"As Israeli and Jewish emissaries are scouring earth, searching for “missing Jews” in order to bring them into Palestine to live on land that belongs to another people, Israeli officials continue to reiterate their rejection of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return to their hometowns and villages in what is now Israel.
This week, the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni denied , with characteristic audacity, the legitimacy and legality, not to mention the morality, of the right of return, which is actually the heart and soul of the Palestinian problem.
Speaking during a lecture in London Tuesday (21 November), Livni pointed out that the American-backed “roadmap” didn’t mention the “right of return,” as if that hapless initiative was a heavenly-revealed scripture.
In fact, since Israel, which can be accurately described as a scheme of dispossession (since without stealing and arrogating Palestinian land Israel could never have been created legally), Zionist leaders have been repeating rather ad nauseam a plethora of lies to justify one of the most horrendous crimes in the history of mankind, namely the expulsion of the bulk of the Palestinian people from their ancestral homeland from time immemorial.
Some of the Zionist lies in this regard were so obscene that even the Zionists themselves began questioning their authenticity.
For example, Israeli leaders, officials and spokespersons claimed for decades that the refugees fled their country voluntarily and that Israel played virtually no role in getting them to flee.
Eventually, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Zionist historians, like Benny Morris, who meticulously examined and analyzed Israeli army archives, reached the conclusion that the vast bulk of Palestinian refugees were actually terrorized into leaving their homes and villages and that “forcing the Arabs to leave” was an established Zionist policy.
Now, the paragons of mendacity and racism are abandoning the old, stale lies and coming up with another set of arguments, like saying that the repatriation of Palestinian refugees would undermine the ethnic and religious purity of Israel as a Jewish state.
Well, it is extremely imperative that the Jews, Israel , and the international community understand that there can be no lasting peace in the Middle East and the world at large unless these tormented refugees are allowed to return to their homes.
Sixty years of homelessness, pain and dispersion should be enough for these miserable people who had inherited misery and suffering generation after generation after generation. Ending this most obscene and sinister scandal would not be an act of charity to the Palestinians. It would be a belated application of UN resolution 194 which calls for the repatriation and indemnification for these refugees.
The extirpation of these victims of Zio-Nazism, now numbering about five million human beings, was a collective act of rape with very few parallels in the history of humanity. It remains an enduring act of rape as the wrongs done to them are not rectified and corrected.
Hence, the right of return shouldn’t be a subject of dispute and controversy just as the rightful owner’s right to recover his stolen property from a thief is not a subject of dispute and controversy.
It is abundantly clear that the term “Jewish character of Israel ” is nothing but a euphemism for the continuation of Israel ’s racist and discriminatory policies against non-Jews. Besides, the conscience of humanity is under no more legal or moral obligation to maintain Zionism in Israel than it was to maintain apartheid in South Africa .
Moreover, one is always prompted to ask the following question with regard to this issue. Does Israel ’s “right” to religious and ethnic! Purity override the Palestinian refugees right to return to their homes and country?
It is really difficult to understand why persons whose ancestors allegedly left Palestine thousands of years ago have a right to return “home” while yesterday’s refugees who still hold in their hands the keys to their former homes, many of which are occupied by Jewish immigrants, are denied the right to go back home.
What kind of logic is this? Are we living in a jungle where truth and ethics are determined by brute force? If so, then all the abominations that took place against Jews in the course of their long history, including the holocaust, were “right” since their occurrence was more or less compatible with the moral, ethical, and intellectual maxims now espoused by Zionism.
Finally, it is clear that denying the Palestinian refugees their inalienable right to return to Palestine/Israel constitutes a brazen defiance to international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948, states in its Article #13 that “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”
To reiterate, the right of the return is the crux of the matter, it is the heart of the Palestinian problem, it is far more paramount than the issue of Palestinian statehood and even of Jerusalem .
Hence, it is vital that the international community, if it is truly interested in resolving the enduring question of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, ought to accentuate the Right of Return because no prospective peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians would work and last long without the repatriation of these refugees to their homes and country.
We are not merely talking about nationalistic rights, we are talking about personal and individual rights that no entity or state or organization can cede if the person concerned says “No.”
Besides, ethnic cleansing must never be allowed to win."
Priest, nun from Michigan join dozens of Palestinians gathered at Gaza houses in effort to prevent bombing, say ‘If Israel claims family member involved in violence, arrest them, don’t’ destroy home populated by entire family’
Ali Waked
For the past two months, the IDF has been called activists and their family members in Gaza to warn them of their intent on bombing their homes.
Palestinians have found away to prevent the bombings; dozens, even hundreds, gather at the homes of those wanted, thereby thwarting the destruction. In recent days, Father Peter and Sister Mary Ellen of Michigan have joined them.
At the end of last week, the IDF informed the Brudi family in Jabalya of their intent to bomb and demolish their home in protest of their son’s activities with the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).
Since then, hundreds of neighbors and activists of all organizations congregated at the house in an effort to prevent the demolition. The same idea was adopted at the home of a prominent Hamas activist in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh even held a press conference there.
These homes have become pilgrimage sites in recent days not only for locals. Foreign peace activists have started to show interests in the phenomenon, and two Americans, a priest and a nun from Michigan, arrived at Jabalya from Michigan to take part in the human shield mission at the Brudi family home.
Sister Mary Ellen told Ynet, “We are here to find out the truth and to be with the family and these people, who are trying to prevent the demolition of a home where an entire family lives.”
The Sister continued, “We are against any type of violence, whether from the Palestinian side or the Israeli side, by we are here to be with a family that may have their house bombed and demolished because of the claim that one or two members are involved in violence.”
She explained, “We are against any type of collective punishment and feel this punishment is wrong, a complete mistake. If the Israelis claim a family member is involved in violence, then they can arrest them, but not destroy a home populated by an entire family.”
She also explained that she was well aware of the Qassam rockets fired from the northern Gaza Strip towards Sderot, and said, “I adamantly oppose and condemn the firings like I condemn all violence.”
IRAQ: More than 3,700 civilians killed in October, UN reports: "Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad, handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing," the statement said. "Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms."
Iraqi defence minister declares ‘state of war’:Gunmen killed a much-loved Iraqi comedian yesterday as attacks and kidnaps of senior politicians and dozens of ordinary people prompted the defence minister to declare that Iraq was now in a "state of war."
Iraqi civilian deaths hit record in Oct.: The United Nations said Wednesday that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003 U.S. invasion and another sign of the severity of Iraq's sectarian bloodbath.
"The time for more troops is past," : 2 minute video: Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), “The time for more troops is past,” “We don’t want to put more troops in now. Even if we had them, that’s the wrong approach.”
Another Marine pleads guilty in Iraqi's death: Sentenced to 21 months: A 21-year-old lance corporal who joined the Marine Corps to "have adventures I could tell about" became the fourth defendant Tuesday to plead guilty to dragging an unarmed Iraqi from his home and executing him as he begged for his life.
Home demolitions resisted in Al Funduq: Five buildings were destroyed and three Palestinians were hospitalized by the Israeli military in Al Funduq, east of Qalqilya today. The Israeli army arrived at 5.30 this morning, allowing the occupants of homes just minutes to collect valuables and evacuate before their homes were demolished. The Israeli army claimed that the three homes and two agricultural structures were constructed without permits despite ongoing court cases.
Harassment of non-violent activists in Bil’in continues: Last night the IOF invaded Bil’in village at around 2am and arrested 4 villagers, who were taken to Ofer military base. Head of the Popular Committee against the Wall Iyad Burnat, committee member Basel Mansour, Loi Burnat and Khamis Abu Rahme were held at Ofer until 9am when they were taken to the police station at Mod’in. They were then interrogated first by the police and then by Shabak, the Israeli intelligence service.
Blow to settlement movement: For many months now, the state prosecution has been clashing in the High Court of Justice with Peace Now over its duty under the Freedom of Information Law to publish data about ownership of land on which settlements were built. The state requested to refrain from revealing the data on the grounds that "the subject of the petition is a complex and sensitive one, and questions of the country's security and foreign relations are tied up with it." Its representatives asked for more time. Now it seems that time is up.
Olmert: I did not use classified information: Wednesday morning, Yedioth Aharonoth reported that the prime minister used top secret intelligence information in order to censure Peretz for and, by doing so, exposed a number of Israeli intelligence capabilities, including the capability to listen to Abbas' conversations.
Israel's West Bank Theft: The Israeli colonizing movement in the occupied West Bank is practically thievery, wrapped in false "security" arguments. The report published this week, by the Israeli left wing organization "Peace Now" provides the statistical and legal infrastructure and the basic database for what we -- journalists, human rights organizations, liberal minded Israelis, and every Israeli with a grain of moral and ethical values -- have known for many years.
Several homes destroyed in northwestern West Bank citing building without Israeli permission: The Israeli administration continues to target the houses of Qalqilia District citizens where early this morning Israeli forces demolished several homes 18 kilometers east of the city, and just days ago destroyed others in the south. In addition to breaking in to other houses under the pretext of searching for the “wanted,” Israeli forces uprooted groves of olive trees.
Seven detainees confined to solitary at the Negev detention facility: Israeli Prison Administration (IPA) at the Negev detention facility confined seven Palestinian detainees to solitary without any apparent reason. The detainees were informed that they will be moved to another prison, but after they packed their belongings and were ready to go, they were instead confined to solitary.
Israel sends troops into two Gaza towns: In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli snipers positioned themselves on more than a dozen rooftops in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Jebaliya as ground troops fanned out, Palestinian security officials said. Three teenage Palestinian girls were wounded by Israeli gunfire outside a school in Beit Hanoun, hospital and security officials said.
Jenin: IDF kills Al-Aqsa member: Palestinian sources said the activist, Shadi el-Amor, was shot dead during a gun battle between members of various Palestinian groups and IDF troops who arrived to detain Ashraf al-Saadi, commander of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing in Jenin. During the attempted arrest Saadi sustained moderate to serious injuries.
Naval boats injure a fisherman near Rafah: The fishermen reported that the naval boats opened heavy fire on them while they were fishing and injured one, who was moved to Abu Yousif Al Najar Hospital in Rafah after receiving medium range wounds.
Army invades Nablus, takes prisoner five residents: Troops entered the city of Nablus from several directions, opened fire randomly at residents' homes using live rounds and sound bombs. Soldiers searched scores of houses and took five prisoners to unknown locations.
Qassam kills Sderot man as ten rockets slam South: A man was killed yesterday when a Qassam rocket landed in the poultry-processing plant in Sderot where he worked. A total of approximately 10 rockets were fired at Israel yesterday.
Gaza gunmen release kidnapped Canadian: A few hours after they were kidnapped by masked gunmen in a Palestinian town known as a hotbed for militants, a Canadian aid worker and his Italian counterpart were freed unharmed in the southern Gaza Strip late Tuesday.
Security cabinet decides to step up response to Qassam fire: The ministers approved a series of measures, including attacks on Hamas institutions, and called for the IDF to aim for a "significant halt" to the Qassam rocket fire, to increase "pinpoint preventions" - a euphemism for targeted killings - and to prepare for a ground operation in Gaza, evacuated by Israel last year.
No more hitching in the W. Bank: The OC Central Command, Yair Naveh, dropped a cluster bomb early this week. He signed an order barring Israeli citizens from taking Palestinian passengers in their Israeli vehicles within the West Bank. The order will take effect on January 19, 2007 and it exempts those who take Palestinians with permits to enter Israel and the settlements, or those who take their first-degree relatives with them.
Flemish Palestine Committee marks Israeli fruit: According to the committee, it's impossible to determine whether Israeli fruit originates from occupied Palestine areas. If the area is cultivated by Israeli growers, they often use Palestine water to irrigate the land. Therefore Palestinians are missing income. The action is part of a bigger campaign against Israeli politics.
Families of Oct. 2000 riot victims nix payout over wording of deal: In a statement released Monday, the eight families said they rejected any settlement or agreement with the state, insisting that "the Israeli establishment is primarily responsible for the murder of our sons, and therefore we will act to bring to justice those who killed our sons, be it within local or international jurisdiction."
Hebrew Univ. to review application process deemed discriminatory: Tamir decided to act against the discrimination in the university's medical school following a report in Haaretz that exposed the declining number of Arab students accepted by the institution. This year, the report revealed, only sixteen Arab applicants were accepted, compared to 55 in 2005 - a 71 percent drop.
Peretz considers retaking parts of Gaza: Peretz held a security briefing yesterday, and requested an examination of options for reoccupying areas from which rockets are fired in order to distance the fire from Israeli communities. Peretz would like to avoid a long-term presence in Gaza, and therefore instructed the IDF to come up with "creative solutions."
Defense budget approval suspended over reinforcing Sderot buildings: The Knesset Finance Committee is delaying approval for expanding the defense budget to cover costs of the Lebanon war until sufficient funds are earmarked for reinforcing schools in Sderot against Qassam rocket strikes.
Olmert considers dismissing Peretz: He is expected to take a look at the political ramifications of firing Peretz, particularly at whether it would cause the rest of the Labor Party ministers to resign as well - something Olmert prefers to avoid.
Exodus threatens Israel-India ties Israel's immigration policy is riddled with internal contradictions, and the Bnei Menashe aliyah embodies them all. Otherwise it would be impossible to comprehend how one man's vision has brought Israel to the brink of a severe crisis in relations with India or how the Chief Rabbinate, reluctant to convert hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish citizens from the former Soviet Union, would send a special delegation of religious judges to eastern India to convert a mysterious ethnic group.
A settlements mafia: The figures published yesterday by Peace Now's Settlement Watch team on the ownership of land on which the settlements sit presents a scary picture of the State of Israel's behavior in the territories. Put simply, for dozens of years, Israel continued to expand and entrench the settlement enterprise by dispossessing Palestinian residents of their lands, whose private ownership even the State of Israel does not dispute.
Israel is in need of mediators: The world, and in particular Europe, is assumed to be hostile to Israel, and every international conference is conceived of as an ambush in which Israel's enemies will try to force it into an arrangement that is contradictory to its existential interests. This aversion is particularly difficult to understand in view of the fact that Israel is sunk in a bloody conflict that has no solution, neither diplomatic nor military.
No Peace, No Place For Palestine:Everybody is angry, including Palestine, and everybody has a right to be angry -- except Palestine. Everybody has a right to exist on their own land -- except Palestine.
Israeli attacks kills 4 Palestinians in occupied Gaza: Israeli forces killed four -- two resistance fighters and two civilians. A cabinet statement said the military had been told to prepare and present a plan for a broader sweep.
2 Palestinians die from wounds: A man and woman from the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya who were wounded from Israeli occupation forces fire on Wednesday have died of their wounds in the Gaza hospital
Amira Hass: No more hitching in the W. Bank: The OC Central Command, Yair Naveh, dropped a cluster bomb early this week. He signed an order barring Israeli citizens from taking Palestinian passengers in their Israeli vehicles within the West Bank.
Israel's nuclear arsenal 'not a secret,' says Straw: Former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has become the first member of the British cabinet to go on public record and formally admit that Israel has an arsenal of nuclear weapons.
A PREDICTION: COLLAPSE OF PALESTINIAN "NATIONAL UNITY" TALKS
By Tony Sayegh
I have the distinct feeling that the charade of Palestinian "national unity" negotiations is coming to an end. We could be within a few days of an official admission of a total collapse of these talks.
The signs have been everywhere, as planned chaos is reappearing. Two Italian nationals working with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were kidnapped and then released in Gaza. Abu Ali Shahin, member of the Fatah faction's revolutionary council was attacked and wounded by unknown gunmen. Palestinian MP Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, the head of the independent Palestine bloc in the PLC, has accused PA officials of advancing their personal interests over the national interests and of attempting to derail the ongoing Palestinian dialogue on the unity government. Threats by alleged members of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, armed wing of the Fatah Movement, blocked the convening of an ordinary session on Wednesday for the PLC. Add to this statements by Yasir 'Abed Rabbo (co-author of the infamous Geneva agreement which annuls the Palestinian right of return, and named as one of three key Palestinian figures working behind the scenes to mount an Usraeli-backed, Pinochet-style military coup to crush Hamas) that the negotiations have made very little progress (covered only 1 mile in a thousand mile journey as he put it).
On top of all of this, Israel is intensifying its attacks on Gaza in particular in a coordinated campaign with Abbas to weaken Hamas further and to facilitate the coming Abbas putsch.
Abbas has used the negotiation charade to buy time in order to get more arms to his "Presidential Guard" from the U.S., Jordan, Israel and Egypt; to speed up the training by U.S. advisers of Palestinian recruits to an expanded force to mount the coup; to move an estimated 1,500 Jordanians of the Badr Brigade (not the same as the Iraqi Badr, but equally thuggish) from Jordan to Gaza before the end of the year, according to a Fatah spokesman; and finally to use the total blockade on Gaza combined with the Israeli daily attacks to starve and bleed the Palestinians and prepare for Abbas' intended coup de grace.
Professor Joseph Masaad had an excellent detailed analysis of this planned putsch, which was posted on this blog. Since that analysis was published, the unity talks supposedly were getting close to a unity "government." There was even an agreement on the new PM (a professor of microbiology); but I never bought that. The reason was simple: Abbas doesn't control anything; he is only executing the U.S. plan. The U.S. would have none of this unity government stuff and was, and still is, insisting on the military coup option.
Hamas, naive as usual, thought that it could have its cake and eat it too. Hamas always misses the point and underestimates the hostility of the U.S. It thought that the blockade would be lifted once a new face is brought in as a new PM and a new banner is hoisted saying, "Under New Management." Originally, Hamas miscalculated when it assumed that the U.S. could be shamed into accepting the results of free and democratic elections. It seems that Hamas never learns.
Therefore, all indications are that the long anticipated coup is just around the corner. Let us hope that the Palestinians are prepared to make sure that this planned bloody putsch fails.
A Good Article by Raed Jarrar (Raed Jarrar is the Iraq project director at Global Exchange and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus)
"The Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, is being portrayed as a magic wand that will conjure up a solution for Iraq the same way rabbits jump out of empty hats.
President George W. Bush seems to be giving the group enough space by making a number of surprisingly open-minded statements about changing the course in Iraq. And by nominating Robert Gates, a member of the group, as the next secretary of defense, he has raised its profile.
Many observers suspect that the latest flexibility in the administration's discourse is nothing more than a PR job attempting to draw a less stubborn image. Besides, Bush could always blame future failure on the group's nonpartisan recommendations and plans.
Reminding the Middle East region of a history of other ill-fortuned plans with two names, like the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 and San Remo conference in 1920, the Baker-Hamilton group appears to be intent on drawing more borders and partitions that will further fragment the region. It seems that the new group may recommend some kind of "divisions but not partitions" plan to cut Iraq into three regions.
Such partitionist ideas have been floating around lately and repeated by many U.S. lawmakers and analysts. Nevertheless, the majority of Iraqi leaders and analysts believe that any division plans, in addition to keeping foreign military presence in Iraq, are a perfect formula for creating a full-scale, long-lasting war between the different regions and factions fighting over territory and natural resources.
Ironically, the only people who seem to be working to cut Iraq into three states are the U.S, al-Qaida and Iranian politicians. The three enemies seem to have finally found some common ground.
The pro-Iranian parties in the Iraqi government, like SCIRI and Dawa, are working to create a Shi'a state in the south of Iraq. Al-Qaida wants to create a Sunni state in the middle, and the U.S., supported by some allies in the region, wants to cut Iraq apart into small fragments and run away. But the vast majority of Iraqi Sunni and Shi'a groups and leaders are working, without a foreign agenda, to protect their country's unity.
If the United States were really concerned about peace and stability in Iraq, it would stop interfering in Iraq's domestic politics and give Iraqi leaders the space to build their national government and armed forces.
It's shocking that the only times "diplomacy" is mentioned in dealing with Iraq, it's about negotiating with Iran and Syria instead of negotiating with Iraqis.
We all know there's a need to change course in Iraq, but the new course will not be any better if it is based on more unilateral decisions. The U.S. should learn from Israel's failed unilateral approaches to its conflicts with the Lebanese and the Palestinians. The only way out of Iraq will not be through more military and political unilateral solutions; it will be through giving Iraqis the time and space they need to rule their own country by themselves, and to take their own decisions when it comes to keeping their country's unity and sovereignty."
Father Peter Dougherty, 65, center left, and Sister Mary Ellen Gundeck, 55, center right, both Michigan-based peace activists, sit on the roof top of the house of Mohammed Weil Baroud, leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, targeted by Israel for destruction, in Beit Layiha, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006. They are the first foreigners to join a week-long standoff between Palestinian 'human shields' and the Israeli air force. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Father Peter Dougherty, 65, left, and Sister Mary Ellen Gundeck, 55, right, both Michigan-based peace activists, sit on the roof top of the house of Mohammed weil Baroud, leader of the Popular Resistance Committees that Israel targeted for destruction, in Beit Layiha, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006. They are the first foreigners to join a week-long standoff between Palestinian 'human shields' and the Israeli air force. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Father Peter Dougherty, 65, and Sister Mary Ellen Gundeck, 55, both Michigan-based peace activists, sit on the roof top of the house of Mohammed Weil Baroud, leader of the Popular Resistance Committees that Israel targeted for destruction, in Beit Layiha, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2006. They are the first foreigners to join a week-long standoff between Palestinian 'human shields' and the Israeli air force. (AP Photo)
"The war in Iraq began as a war based largely on illusions. But now most Americans realize that the always-illusory option of “staying the course” in Iraq will never work. This was the main message of the recent Congressional elections. Still, there is a great danger that we will fall victim to additional Iraq-related illusions—illusions fostered by the administration, Congress, the Pentagon and the mainstream media. Three persistent illusions—which, intentionally or not, serve to cover up or minimize the mess President George W. Bush has created in Iraq—stand out:
The Baker/Hamilton Commission is our way out. The possibility afforded by the James Baker/Lee Hamilton-led Iraq Study Group (ISG) for a new approach has been met with knee-jerk optimism in the media. This is especially true of newspapers like The Washington Post whose editorial pages present apologias, rather than the mea culpas more appropriate to the paper’s three-year varsity cheerleading for the war.
Training Iraqis will save the day. Training Iraqi troops to replace American ones has long been touted by the administration and the Pentagon as key to success in Iraq, a view reiterated last week by General John Abizaid in his testimony before Congress. On the surface, U.S. training of Iraqi soldiers and police seems like a viable option: It takes Americans out of the line of fire, it “softens” the impact of the U.S. occupation, making American soldiers appear to be instructors rather than aggressors, and, most importantly, it ideally gives Iraqis themselves responsibility for safety and order in their own country.
We Will Keep Some Kind of Control No Matter What. There is a deeply ingrained belief, perhaps rooted in eternal American optimism, that the U.S.still has the ability to control developments in Iraq to a greater or lesser degree. Advocates for different policies—augmenting U.S. troops or withdrawing them—seldom consider the possibility that local conditions could turn out to be so chaotic that we could not do what we want to do once we have decided to do it. This Green-Zone naiveté may be psychologically soothing, but it is dangerously divorced from reality in Baghdad, which is becoming more violent and fragile each day.
In sum, at a time when the American public has said “no” to what passes for administration policy on Iraq, we must be on the alert for shimmering chimeras—illusions about what the U.S. can still accomplish in that troubled country. Only then can we safely sort out and choose among the best approaches—ranging from talking with “enemies” like Syria, Iran and the “insurgents” themselves, to international conferences.
Our aim must be the quickest possible withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, letting Iraqis themselves decide the fate of their country. The urgency of achieving this becomes even more acute in light of the heavy-handed demagoguery already in evidence from prospective presidential candidates in 2008. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for example, has chosen to play fast and loose with the lives of Americans and Iraqis alike, in calling for sending substantially more troops to Iraq."
"According to credible Iraqi sources in London and Amman, a secret story of America's diplomatic exit strategy from Iraq is rapidly unfolding. The key events include:
First, James Baker told one of Saddam Hussein's lawyers that Tariq Aziz, former deputy prime minister, would be released from detention by the end of this year, in hope that he will negotiate with the US on behalf of the Baath Party leadership. The discussion recently took place in Amman, according to the Iraqi paper al-Quds al-Arabi.
Second, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice personally appealed to the Gulf Cooperation Council in October to serve as intermediaries between the US and armed Sunni resistance groups [not including al Qaeda], communicating a US willingness to negotiate with them at any time or place. Speaking in early October, Rice joked that if then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "heard me now, he would wage a war on me fiercer and hotter than he waged on Iraq," according to an Arab diplomat privy to the closed session.
Third, there was an "unprecedented" secret meeting of high-level Americans and representatives of "a primary component of the Iraqi resistance" two weeks ago, lasting for three days. As a result, the Iraqis agreed to return to the talks in the next two weeks with a response for the American side, according to Jordanian press leaks and al-Quds al-Arabi.
Fourth, detailed email transmissions dated November 16 reveal an active American effort behind the scenes to broker a peace agreement with Iraqi resistance leaders, a plot that could include a political coup against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Fifth, Bush security adviser Stephen Hadley carried a six-point message for Iraqi officials on his recent trip to Baghdad:
include Iraqi resistance and opposition leaders in any initiative towards national reconciliation;general amnesty for the armed resistance fighters;
dissolve the Iraqi commission charged with banning the Baath Party;
start the disbanding of militias and death squads;
cancel any federalism proposal to divide Iraq into three regions, and combine central authority for the central government with greater self-rule for local governors;
distribute oil revenues in a fair manner to all Iraqis, including the Sunnis whose regions lack the resource.
Prime Minister Al-Maliki was unable to accept the American proposals because of his institutional allegiance to Shiite parties who believe their historic moment has arrived after one thousand years of Sunni domination. That Shiite refusal has accelerated secret American efforts to pressure, re-organize, or remove the elected al-Maliki regime from power.
The Backstory
Underlying these developments are three American concerns: first, the deepening quagmire and sectarian strife on the battlefield; second, the mid-year American elections in which voters repudiated the war; and third, the strategic concern that the new Iraq has slipped into the orbit of Iran. It remains to be seen if Iran will exercise influence on its Shiite allies in Iraq (the Grand Ayatollah Sistani was born in Iraq, and the main Shiite bloc was created in Iran by Iraqi exiles). But that is the direction being taken by Baker's Iraq Study Group and former CIA director John Deutch in a New York Times op-ed. The principal US track, in addition to a declared withdrawal plan, should be to work towards a hands-off policy by Iran, at least for an interval, according to Deutch.
This possible endgame has been in the making for some time. Even two years ago, US officials were probing contacts with Iraqi resistance groups distinct from al-Qaeda. Recent polls indicate sixty percent Iraqi support for armed resistance against the United States, while approximately eighty percent of Iraqis support some timetable for withdrawal, an indispensable indicator for Iraqi insurgents laying down some arms.
Even before the 2003 US invasion, peace groups like Global Exchange and the newly-forming Code Pink sent delegations to create people-to-people relations with Iraqi opponents of the occupation and members of civil society. This writer met with Iraqi exiles in London, who suggested further meetings in Amman. Those contacts were facilitated in 2005 by a former Jordanian diplomat, Munther Haddadin, who supported open-ended discussions with Iraqis in exile, Jordan's Crown Prince Hassan, and with intermediaries from the insurgency who made the dangerous 15-hour drive from Baghdad to Amman on more than one occasion. A reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Rob Collier, also interviewed Iraqi insurgents and was helpful in providing contacts. Earlier this year, an American peace delegation, including Cindy Sheehan, found themselves in two days of meetings with Iraqis of every political stripe. US Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) was crucial in making these contracts possible. Dal Lamagna, a self-described "frustrated peacemaker" made both trips to Amman, and provided this writer with videos and transcripts of the interviews on which this article is based.
It must be emphasized that there is no reason to believe that these US gestures are anything more than probes, in the historic spirit of divide-and-conquer, before escalating the Iraq war in a Baghdad offensive. Denial plausibility - aka Machiavellian secrecy - remains American security policy, for understandable if undemocratic reasons.
Yet Americans who voted in the November election because of a deep belief that a change of government in Washington might end the war have a right to know that their votes counted. The US has not abandoned its entire strategy in Iraq, but is offering significant concessions without its own citizens knowing."
A Long Piece With A Lot Of Ideas (I encourage reading the entire piece)
By GILAD ATZMON (From a talk for the Scottish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in Edinburgh) CounterPunch
"Let's face it; while the Palestinian and Arab resistance evolves into an absolute example of the ultimate heroism and collective patriotism, the Palestinian solidarity movement in the UK and around the world is not exactly what could be called a profound success story. In fact, it would be erroneous to state that this is really the fault of those who dedicate their time and energy to it. Supporting the Palestinians is a complicated subject. Though the crimes against the Palestinians have taken place in broad daylight and are not some well-kept secret, the priorities of the solidarity movement are far from being clear.
I maintain that Palestinian people are largely divided into three main groups and it is actually this division that dictates three different political narratives, with three different political discourses and agendas to consider.
Apparently, the Palestinian discourse is fragmented. It is divided into at least three different, sometimes opposing discourses. Cleverly, not to mention mercilessly, on their behalf, it is the Israelis who maintain this very state of fragmentation. It is the Israelis who manage to stop the Palestinian political and cultural discourse from integrating into a single grand solid narrative. How do they do it? They apply different tactics that maintain the isolation and conflict between the three distinct groups. Within the State of Israel the Israelis maintain a racially orientated legal system that turns the Israeli Palestinians into 10th class citizens. When PA inhabitants are concerned, the Israeli military maintains solid and constant pressure on the civilian population. Gaza is kept starving, it is bombed on a daily basis. Some of it is flattened. More than a few observers regard the situation in the PA as nothing but slow extermination and genocide.
Paradoxically enough, the more pain the Israelis inflict on any of the groups, the further the Palestinians get from establishing a grand narrative of resistance. Similarly, the more vicious the Israelis are, the further the Palestinian Solidarity movement is getting from establishing a unified agenda of activism. Indeed the Palestinian solidarity campaigner is confused and asks himself what campaign to choose. Who should be supported? The division of the Palestinian discourse into three conflicting narratives makes the issue of solidarity rather complicated.
This is exactly where Zionism is maintaining its hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse. It is Israeli brutality that dictates a state of ideological fragmentation upon the Palestinian solidarity discourse. Whatever decision the Palestinian activist is willing to make is set a priori to dismiss a certain notion of the Palestinian cause. It is indeed painful to admit that it is the Israelis who have set us into this trap. Our work, discourse and terminology as activists are totally shaped by Israeli aggression.
Once we manage to internalise that the discourse of solidarity with Palestinians is dominated by the malicious and brutal Israeli practices, we are more or less ready to admit: it is the Jewish State: a racist nationalist ideology that we must oppose primarily. It is Jewish State and its supporters around the world that we must tackle. It is Zionism and global Zionism that we must confront immediately.
Once we are brave enough to admit that Zionism is a continuation of Jewishness (rather than Judaism), once we admit that Israel draws its force from a racist ideology, harboured in national chauvinism and blatant expansionism, once we admit that Zionism, which was once a marginal Jewish ideology, has become the voice of world Jewry, once we accept it all, we may be ready to defeat the Zionist disease. We do it for the sake of the Palestinians but as well for the sake of world peace."
A Courageous Piece By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON CounterPunch
"How can we Americans ignore this? How can we bear it? How can we bear to continue paying for Israel's atrocities? How can we possibly allow this inhumanity to be perpetrated in our name without crying out in horror, without bringing down our own government that sits by doling out the money and the weapons to keep this horror going, without severing altogether any ties with Israel's Nazi government? The horrors are unspeakable; I'm not making this up. Nor is Levy.
How can we possibly allow this to go on, blithely ignoring it, blithely affirming Israel's "right to defend itself," ignoring the absence of any actual threat to Israel, blithely assuming that it is right and proper to murder, starve, imprison, deny medical treatment, deny water to an entire people simply because they are not Jews and are resisting Israel's domination?
How can we allow this to go on? C-SPAN is asking this week for one-minute video-taped statements, which it will begin airing on Thanksgiving, answering the question "what does being an American mean to you?" I have no video camera and no intention of submitting a tape, but the invitation got me thinking. Does being an American mean that I must sit back and quietly allow my government to starve the entire Palestinian people, in the name of some kind of dedication to a flag and a bill of rights that applies only to white people? Does it mean that I must approve, or even merely accept, the subhuman behavior of my government's closest ally, Israel?
Or does being an American mean that I must do something -- at least speak out, scream out -- to stop the bleeding inflicted on innocents by America and Israel? And does not being an American mean that I must challenge my fellow Americans to speak out as well? Here is the challenge: any Jew anywhere who allows Israel to commit these acts and pursue these policies in the name of all Jews -- for Israel does claim to act in the name of Jews everywhere -- without speaking out against Israel, without screaming protests, must be ashamed. Any American who allows the United States to support Israel -- to support it militarily with infusions of arms in the billions of dollars every year and to sustain it morally and psychologically -- without loud protest should be ashamed. The time has come to stand up and be counted as Americans truly interested in justice and human rights and humanity.
Can we not match Gideon Levy's courage in speaking the truth? Palestine is the conscience of us all."
"It’s a nightmare scenario for Olmert and the neocons. James Baker, the consiglieri of the Bush crime family, brings Syria and Iran to the table and they hammer out an understanding on Iraq and, horror stacked upon horror, “some kind of long-term Israeli-Arab diplomatic agreement,” as the Jerusalem Post puts it.
Of course, the folks who run Israel, and their neocon helpers, don’t want a diplomatic agreement, as they are viscerally opposed to such because a faux and temporary peace will push back, although not eliminate, the master plan of slicing and dicing the Arab and Islamic Middle East into malleable pieces. Moreover, it will give the Palestinians a glimmer of hope, something Olmert and crew abhor.
In order to undermine the Baker Boys, Olmert will rally AIPAC. “On his way home from Los Angeles, the prime minister ‘calmed’ … reporters—and perhaps even himself—by saying there is no danger of U.S. President George W. Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The prime minister hopes the Jewish lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians,” reports Haartez.
As we know, this “status quo” in regard to the Palestinians translates into more suffering. Earlier this week, the “Palestinian Ministry of Health issued a report … stating that the number of Gaza Strip residents killed by the Israeli army’s continuous attacks since the beginning of November 2006 stands at 101 residents,” reports the International Middle East Media Center. “Out of the 101 killed, 26… are children and 15… are women.”
In addition, the “status quo” translates into a free hand to steal Palestinian land, a process quite advanced, even mundane. “An Israeli peace group said Tuesday that it obtained government data showing that nearly 40 percent of land covered by Jewish settlements in the West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians, including big portions of blocs that Israel intends to keep under any future peace agreement,” explains the Chicago Tribune. “Activists from Peace Now said digital mapping data the organization obtained indirectly from a government source showed a wide-scale land theft by Israel, which has long asserted that it respects private land ownership in the West Bank.”
On the subject of Greater Israel, a topic near and dear to the Israeli government and their neocon helpers, Baker induces dread. As the Jerusalem Post notes, back in 1989, Baker told AIPAC that “now is the time to lay aside once and for all the unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel. Israeli interests in the West Bank and Gaza, security and otherwise, can be accommodated in a settlement based on [UN Security Council] Resolution 242. Forswear annexation; stop settlement activity; allow schools to reopen; reach out to the Palestinian as neighbors who deserve political rights.”
No doubt AIPAC members were sent reeling.
Naturally, in the wake of these comments, an effort was floated to portray Baker as an antisemite. Ed Koch, the former New York mayor and staunch defender of Israel, related a story in the New York Post in 1992 “in which he described a Republican campaign strategy session earlier that year where Baker replied to concerns that the Republicans would lose the Jewish vote by saying, ‘F— the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway.’ Baker’s spokeswoman at the time, Margaret Tutweiler, put out an immediate denial,” although, of course, the damage was done.
It is common knowledge there is no love lost between Barker, the Israelis, and American Jews, or at least American Jews who support Israel. “Israelis and American Jews are not supposed to like Baker,” writes Bernard Avishai for the Los Angeles Times. It wasn’t Baker’s alleged antisemitic remark that bothers Jews, according to Avishai, but his stance on settlements. Baker is the “only U.S. secretary of state since the Camp David accords in 1979 to have taken credible action against the proliferation of Jewish settlements like Havat Maon. In 1991, he and the first President Bush got the Senate to hold up a program of American loan guarantees for Israel to help settle Russian-Jewish immigrants; he had tried, and failed, to elicit a promise from then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir not to use any of this money for expanding settlements.” For pro-Israel Jews, this is proof positive Baker is against Israel.
Former Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Eytan Bentsur, according to the Post, “does not deny that Baker was tough with Israel. Indeed, it was during the first Bush administration that the US conditioned $10 billion in loan guarantees on a cessation of new settlement activities in the West Bank,” an arrangement that is all but inconceivable now with the neocons and AIPAC driving U.S. foreign policy in the region.
As if to add insult to injury, Baker met with Imad Moustapha, Syria’s ambassador, last week. “His account of the meetings … suggests the Iraq panel will recommend that President George W. Bush reverse current policy and engage in talks with the leadership in Damascus,” reports the International Herald Tribune, a move that likely caused motion sickness among Olmert’s crew and Israel First Americans.
Baker, a consummate CFR globalist—or, as the elitists like to call themselves, an “internationalist”—is no friend of the Arabs, however. “If the Baker Commission plan prevails,” writes Stephen Lendman, Iraq is “likely to be divided into several autonomous regions under nominal Iraqi regional and national rule but centrally controlled by a dominant US authority headquartered in the US Embassy in the fortress-like Green Zone using a US-directed satrap Iraqi army and police to enforce order for its master in charge of everything.”
This does not deviate from the neocon plan to a large degree. However, the neocons and the Israelis are not amenable to talking with the Syrians and Iranians, even with a back-stabbing dagger hidden away for the appropriate coup de grâce, a trick far too many Arabs have fallen for in the past. Instead, the neocons prefer to rush to judgment and unleash a withering shock and awe campaign against the Iranians and the Syrians, although rolling back Syria, described as a “regional challenger” in the neocon holy writ, the Clean Break document, will suffice for now.
It should be obvious Israel’s Mossad engineered the assassination of Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon as a response to the Baker Boys and the emerging recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. It was, in effect, a stone thrown to kill two birds—one, to sully Syria and thus make any accommodation proposed by Baker and Hamilton untenable and second to ratchet up ethnic and religious animosity in Lebanon, a process well underway in the wake of Pierre Gemayel’s timely murder. "
"The crisis is a further testament to the bankruptcy of George W. Bush's Middle East policy. Under the dishonest rhetoric of 'democratization,' what Bush has really been about is creating pro-American winners and anti-American losers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. Bush's vision is not democratic because he always installs a tyranny of the majority. The vanquished are to be crushed and ridiculed, the victors to exult in their triumph. It is like a Leni Riefenstahl film.
The problem is that when you crush the Pushtuns of Afghanistan, who traditionally ruled the country, they have means of hitting back (ask the Canadian troops in Qandahar). When you crush the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, who had traditionally ruled Iraq, they have ways of organizing a guerrilla movement and acting as spoilers of Bush's new Kurdish-Shiite axis in Baghdad. When you crush Hamas even after they won the elections in early 2006, they have means of continuing to struggle.
In Lebanon, Bush egged on the pro-Hariri movement against the Syrians and their allies. Then he egged on Israel to bomb the Shiites of southern Lebanon (and, mysteriously, the rest of Lebanon, too). So he tried to create the March 14th alliance around Hariri as the winners who take all in Lebanon.
So obviously there will be trouble about this. Everything Bush touches turns to ashes, bombings, assassinations. He doesn't know how to compromise and he doesn't know how to influence his neo-colonial possessions so that they can compromise.
Lebanon for the past two years has been caught between several outside forces. The Hariris represent Saudi interests. Hizbullah and Amal, the Shiite parties, are aligned with Syria. The Gemayels have an old, longstanding behind the scenes alliance with Israel and the United States.
The assassination of Hariri touched off a mass protest demanding that Syrian troops finally leave Lebanon (a peacekeeping force came in in 1976 with a US green light, during the civil war). The Syrians were supported by the Shiite Hizbullah, which staged demonstrations nearly as big as those of the pro-Hariri forces. Hariri was a Sunni, but the coalition put together after his death included Christians and Druze, as well.
Syria did withdraw. At that point, Lebanese politics became less polarized, and elections produced a national unity government that Hizbullah also joined.
But then in summer of 2006, Israel launched its long-planned war on little Lebanon, wreaking vast destruction on south Lebanon and on the southern slums of Beirut where Hizbullah was based. Israeli policy was in part to attempt to divide and conquer the Lebanese by making the reform government of Fuad Seniora attempt to disarm Hizbullah, which maintains a small paramilitary force of 3,000 to 5,000. The Lebanese government is too weak to take on Hizbullah, but members of the March 14th reform movement did lay the blame for the war at its feet.
As a result, Hizbullah has pulled out of the government. With Gemayel's assassination, the government will fall if it loses even one more cabinet minister. Worse, the society has now been economically devastated by Israeli bombing raids and is increasingly polarized. The Olmert government's plan for the second Lebanese civil war seems increasingly plausible. Syria has stupidly played into Israel's hands in this regard. The Lebanese themselves are in danger of once again allowing themselves to be used as proxies by people like Bush and Asad and Olmert. The positive achievements of the national unity government of summer-fall 2005 have been undone. Lebanon is on the brink.
Can the Middle East withstand another unconventional war, alongside those in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan, without unravelling altogether? And if it unravels, will it still produce petroleum for US automobiles? Will Israel be held harmless?
First and foremost I want to thank you for making Starbucks the $6.4 billion global company it is today, with more than 90,000 employees, 9,700 stores, and 33 million weekly customers. Every latte and macchiato you drink at Starbucks is a contribution to the close alliance between the United States and Israel, in fact it is - as I was assured when being honored with the “Israel 50th Anniversary Friend of Zion Tribute Award” - key to Israel’s long-term PR success. Your daily Chocolate Chips Frappucino helps paying for student projects in North America and Israel, presenting them with the badly needed Israeli perspective of the Intifada.
Starbucks, through the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah, an international network of Jewish education centres, sponsors Israeli military arms fairs in an effort to strengthen the special connection between the American, European and Israeli defense (actually war) industries and to showcase the newest Israeli innovations in defense (war making). As my contribution to the fight against the global rise of anti-Semitism, the reason behind the current conflict in the Middle-East, I help Aish HaTorah sponsoring the website "honestreporting.com” and produce material informing of Israel’s side of the story.
Without you, my valued customer, I wouldn’t be able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars each year to protect Israeli citizens from "terrorist" attacks (Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation) and keep reminding every Jew in America, to defend Israel at any cost. $5 billion per year from the US government are no way near enough to pay for all the weaponry, bulldozers and security fences needed to protect innocent Israeli citizens from anti-Semitic "Muslim terrorism" (as described by Israeli occupiers and their supporters) Corporate sponsorships are essential.
Having the bigger picture in mind, Starbucks have donated a store to the US army to help in the “War on Terror”. I cannot emphasize enough, how vital the “War on Terror” is for the continued viability and prospering of the Zionist State.
So next time you feel like chilling out at a Starbucks store, please remember that with every cup you drink at Starbucks you are helping with a "noble" cause (i.e. helping Israelis maintain their oppression of the Palestinian people).
Howard Schultz Chairman & Chief Global Strategist Starbucks Coffee Stores"
Editor's note:
The Howard Schultz spoof letter above has caused quite a bit of a stir. In the first month of its publication, it has been read by more than 100,000 visitors on the ZioPedia site alone, and republished on hundreds of blogs all over the world. Some readers were not quite sure whether the article was 'kosher' or not. Well, it is and it isn't. Howard Schultz never wrote that letter, I did. However, all the statements I made in that letter about donations, sponsorships, political views etc. - are based on factual Howard Schultz actions and quotes, as 1/2 hour of 'Googling' will easily confirm to anyone interested.
There is obviously a lot of emphasis right now on Israel's most recent brutal aggression against Lebanon and the Gaza strip. However it's important not to forget that the current events are part of a bigger picture, Israel's criminal social-Darwinist and 19th century style colonialist plans for the region, a Jewish 'Lebensraum' from the Euphrates to the Nile. Let's face it, whatever critics will say against Israel, it will always be interpreted as being anti-Semitic. In fact, the current edition of the US dictionary Webster defines anti-Semitism as 'criticism of Israel'. How cool is that?
Andrew Winkler Editor/Publisher ZioPedia - A Rebel Media Group Project
Andrew Winkler is the editor/publisher of Sydney based dissident blogs The Rebel Media Group and ZioPedia.
"While the US is actively exploring alternative options to salvage its intervention in Iraq, regional realities are dictating their own dynamic, not necessarily in tune with the United States' objectives. Slowly but surely, a new realignment is shaping up that is making Washington nervous - a Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus axis.
The possibility of such a "strategic alliance" being formed, to quote a headline in Tehran's conservative daily, Kayhan, is high, given this weekend's summit in Tehran that brings together the presidents of Iran, Iraq and Syria. (That's two out of three of the United States' "axis of evil" - Iran and Iraq, with the third being North Korea.) This comes at a volatile and uncertain time marked with the continuing bloodbath in Iraq, growing tension in Lebanon and the stalemated Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Kayhan editorial said, "America's fear of the trilateral meeting is very natural, since this alliance can translate into a new crisis for the United States at a time of the breakdown of the system of decision-making in that country." It further stated that while Iraq's deadly instability was the immediate reason for the Tehran summit, the issue of "strategic alliance" among the three countries went well beyond that.
Meanwhile, on the eve of the summit, the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, a fierce Christian and anti-Syria leader in Lebanon, has been seized on by US President George W Bush, who has pointed the finger of blame toward both Iran and Syria. This adds to the complexity of the Middle East scene wrought with multiple, simultaneous crises. There is now a growing and realistic fear of the "Iraqization" of Lebanon and the "Lebanonization" of Iraq, with both countries descending to the depth of a bloody civil war far worse than anything now.
As far as Tehran is concerned, the Iraq crisis is both a regional and an international crisis representing a multi-dimensional policy challenge. The visible intensification of chaos in Iraq poses a major threat to Iran's national-security interests that requires from Iran a multi-layered response at both regional and international levels.
Reportedly the ISG will recommend direct US dialogue with Iran and Syria over Iraq, and Baker and his colleagues must now be encouraged that both countries are showing serious signs of improving relations with Iraq, reflected most vividly in Syria's initiative to normalize diplomatic relations with Baghdad after 24 years.
Turning the challenge of Iraq's (in)security into an opportunity for Tehran and Damascus, a modus vivendi with the US is now a distinct possibility, although opposition will come as stern objections from Israel and the pro-Israel forces encircling the White House. Yet irrespective of the latter, and the relentless Israeli disinformation campaign aimed at torpedoing any Western policy shift on Iran, eg, by spreading the rumors of an Iranian nuclear test per a report in the Jerusalem Post, Iran continues to push for its revised and invigorated Iraq policy based primarily on its highly intertwined Iraq and US policies."
رصاصات قاتلة اغتالت بيار الجميل. تغيّرت الأساليب والإرهاب واحد. كان يبدو أن المسرح اللبناني جاهز لحدث ما. كانت المخاوف كبيرة. لم يكن السؤال هل يحصل شيء بل متى ومن. من كان ينظر إلى لبنان كان يرى كتلتين متّجهتين بسرعة قصوى إلى التصادم. كل يوم يمر يحمل نصيبه من ارتفاع منسوب التشنّج والتوتّر. كانت دعوات التسوية تسقط تباعاً. وكان الأخطر، على الإطلاق، هو التوازن بين هاتين الكتلتين وشعور كل منهما بتفاؤل مؤكد بإمكان انتزاع مطالب لا شك، لدى أصحابها، في أحقيّتها. لم يحصل مرة، مثل هذه المرة، أن ازدهر التحذير من الشغب والفوضى ومن الاحتمالات الخطيرة. إلا أن التقديرات كانت تشير إلى أن الخطر سيرافق التحركات الشعبية الكبرى ويحاول التأثير عليها وحرفها عن مسارها السلمي. وفي موازاة هذا التحذير كان يصدر التأكيد تلو التأكيد على ديموقراطية أي تحرك وعلى الحرص الشديد على تجنّب أي احتكاك أو توتر. إلا أن يد الفتنة كانت أسرع. أرادت الاستفادة من الأجواء العامة وتوظيفها. أدركت أن الوضع هشيم وأن النار قابلة لاشتعال سريع، سواء في بيئة لبنانية معيّنة أو بين اللبنانيين. يد الفتنة أرادت قطع الطريق على ما كان سيكون، وبرغم كل شيء، احتكاماً إلى المواطنين. محطة دموية أخرى. لكنها محطة من نوع خاص. لقد اغتيل بيار الجميل في لحظة انقسام وطني خطير. انقسام يطال الأساسيات ويمثّل ذروة جديدة في مسيرة انشطار بدأت منذ فترة ولم يتمكن اللبنانيون من إيقافها، وقد لا يتمكنون. كانت الأزمة تكبر. وكانت تدفع المخارج المطلوبة لتصبح أصعب وأشدّ تعقيداً وأكثر استدعاءً لقرارات تاريخية تتجاوز فنون إدارة الوضع التقليدية. ولما حصل العدوان الإسرائيلي خرج من يقول إن لبنان الخارج من هذه الحرب لن يكون هو نفسه لبنان الذي تعرّض إليها. ويمكن القول، بلا مبالغة، إن الأزمة كانت تتفاقم والمخارج تزداد إشكالاً، والضغوطات الخارجية تشتد، ولكن، في المقابل، كان الاستقبال اللبناني، استقبال بعض اللبنانيين على الأقل، لهذه التطورات ناقص الحكمة وناقص المسؤولية. لقد حصلت ارتعاشة وعي أمس. بدا وكأن هناك من ينظر إلى الهاوية ويدعو إلى عدم الارتماء فيها. ولكن الخوف، الخوف كله، أن تكون هذه ارتعاشة فحسب، وأن يستأنف المعنيون صراعاتهم من حيث أوقفوها تحت ضغط الجريمة وللقيام بواجبات المؤاساة. ربما كان ضرورياً في هذه المناسبة الحزينة، وبعد إدانة الاغتيال، التركيز على أمرين يمكن لهما أن يحملا بعض العزاء: أولاً ــ لا حلول تقليدية لأزمة غير تقليدية. ويعني ذلك أن لبنان لا يحتاج اليوم، كما أي بلد في العالم، إلى «رجال الدولة». يحتاج لبنان اليوم إلى قادة تاريخيين، إلى قامات عالية، إلى من يقدر على الاستشراف أولاً، وعلى توجيه قواعده ثانياً. رجال الدولة يحسنون إدارة دولة. لكن الشرط اللبناني الراهن يستوجب من يبتدع هذه الدولة. ثانياً ــ لا حلول من الخارج. يكون الحل لبنانياً أو لا يكون. نعم المحكمة الدولية تفرض نفسها. ولقد فعلت. إلا أن لبننة تلقّي هذه المحكمة تبقى غير منجزة. على العكس. ثم إن المحكمة وحدها ليست حلاً سحرياً للمشكلات كلها. فالاجتماع اللبناني، في هذا المحيط الإقليمي المضطرب، وفي هذا الوضع الدولي الضاغط والمتحوّل والحامل لأكثر من شبهة، إن هذا الاجتماع لن يستقرّ على صيغة تعايشية إلا عبر تقديم أجوبة تراعي المطالب المشروعة لجميع مكوّناته وتعكس ذلك في تركيبة السلطة، مجلساً نيابياً وحكومة. أن تكون واقعياً، اليوم، في لبنان، يعني أن تكون متشائماً. والسؤال المطروح على كل مواطن يتناول قدرته على تكييف مطالب يراها عادلة ويريد تحقيقها مع هذا القدر العالي من التشاؤم. كان بيار الجميل يبدو، على الدوام، مشعّاً بالتفاؤل. آن لنا جميعاً أن ندرك أن زمن السعادة ولّى ولو كان حافلاً بالانتصارات.
"Civil war - the words on all our lips yesterday. Pierre Gemayel's murder - in broad daylight, in a Christian suburb of Beirut, his car blocked mafia-style by another vehicle while his killer fired through the driver's window into the head of Lebanon's minister of industry - was a message for all of us who live in this tragic land.
Yesterday's assassination of Pierre Gemayel was a warning. It might have been Jumblatt, who has told me many times that he constantly awaits his own death, or it might have been Siniora himself, the little economist and friend of the also murdered former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
But no. Gemayel, son of ex-president Amin Gemayel and nephew of the murdered president-elect, Bashir Gemayel - murder tends to run in the family in Lebanon - was no charismatic figure, just a hard-working unmarried Christian Maronite minister whose unrewarding task had been to call émigré Lebanese home to rebuild their country after Israel's bloody bombardment.
Why did Gemayel die just hours after Syria announced the restoration of diplomatic relations with Iraq after a quarter of a century? Why has Nasrallah threatened street demonstrations in Beirut to bring down the government when Siniora's cabinet had just accepted the UN's tribunal to try Hariri's assassins?
And why did America's UN ambassador, John Bolton, weep crocodile tears for Lebanon's democracy - which he cared so little about when Israel smashed into Lebanon this summer - without mentioning Syria?
All this, of course, takes place as thousands of Western troops pour into Lebanon to shore up the UN force in the south of the country: UN troops who are supposed to protect Israel (which they cannot do) and disarm Hizbollah (which they will not do) and who are already being threatened by al-Qa'ida.
No wonder the Europeans, whose armoured Nato forces now lie trapped in the south of the country, are so fearful. No wonder the Foreign Office has been telling Britons to stay away. No wonder Tony Blair - as discredited in the Middle East as he is in Britain - has been demanding an inquiry into Gemayel's assassination, something he will not get.
If he is the creature of Syria and Iran - and the Lebanese are still debating this while Nasrallah denies it - there could have been no better way of striking at Lebanon's anti-Syrian government. "We can have no confidence in this government because it obeys the orders of the US administration," Nasrallah announced. "... the cabinet has received an order from the US embassy assuring them that American policy in the region has not changed. The Americans told them: 'We are with you - don't give up!'"
And does America really support Siniora, whose cabinet may now be in its death throes? At the UN, Mr Bolton loudly supported it yesterday while desperately avoiding the use of the word Syria. That almost certainly means Washington does at last realise that it will need the help of Damascus - as well as Tehran - to pull its tanks and troops out of the slough of Iraq.
Beside America's catastrophe in Mesopotamia, the democracy of Lebanon and Siniora's government doesn't amount to the proverbial hill of beans - as Syria and Iran are well aware. And Syria, yesterday, resumed diplomatic relations with the American-supported government of Iraq."
Craving a monstrous enemy, the prime minister has vastly overstated this supposed threat to world security
Simon Jenkins Wednesday November 22, 2006 The Guardian
"What is it about a desert that drives men mad? On Monday morning the prime minister stood on the Afghan sand and said: "Here in this extraordinary piece of desert is where the fate of world security in the early 21st century is going to be decided." Tony Blair was talking to soldiers he had sent to fight the toughest guerrillas on earth for control of southern Afghanistan. He told them: "Your defeat [of the Taliban] is not just on behalf of the people of Afghanistan but the people of Britain ... We have got to stay for as long as it takes." .... .... What is sad about Blair's statement is not its strategic naivety but the psychology behind it. Why have the leaders of Britain and America felt driven to adopt so wildly distorted a concept of menace? In an analysis of terrorism in the latest New York Review of Books, Max Rodenbeck offers plausible but depressing answers. They include the short-term popularity that war offers democratic leaders, the yearning of defence chiefs and industries to prove the worth of expensive kit and, in Iraq's case, "the influence of neoconservatives and of the pro-Israeli lobby, seeing a chance to set a superpower on Israel's enemies".
All this is true, but I sense a deeper disconnect. The west is ruled by a generation of leaders with no experience of war or its threat. Blair and his team cannot recall the aftermath of the second world war, and in the cold war they rushed to join CND. They were distant from those real global horrors. Yet now in power they seem to crave an enemy of equivalent monstrosity. Modern government has a big hole in its ego, yearning to be filled by something called a "threat to security".
After 1990 many hoped that an age of stable peace might dawn. Rich nations might disarm and combine to help the poor, advancing the cause of global responsibility. Instead two of history's most internationalist states, America and Britain, have returned to the trough of conflict, chasing a chimera of "world terrorism", and at ludicrous expense. They have brought death and destruction to a part of the globe that posed no strategic threat. Now one of them, Tony Blair, stands in a patch of desert to claim that "world security in the 21st century" depends on which warlord controls it. Was anything so demented?"
At least 53 killed in another bloody day of U.S. occupation: Health Ministry spokesman, Qassem Abdul Hadi, said the dead included a six-month-old infant, while up to 50 had been wounded and were being treated at the local Imam Ali Hospital.
Three killed in U.S. attack on Sadr City as Annan says US ”trapped” : American occupation troops and Iraqi forces raided Baghdad's Sadr City section on Tuesday, killing a young boy and two other people, police said. A Shiite legislator told reporters outside a hospital morgue that Iraq's government should be condemned for allowing such attacks.
In case you missed it; ‘The Salvador Option’: The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq
Pentagon considers "short-term" increase in Iraq troop levels: Pentagon officials conducting a review of Iraq strategy are considering a substantial but temporary increase in American troop levels and the addition of several thousand more trainers to work with Iraqi forces, a senior Defense Department official said.
The Story Behind The Iraq Study Group: "We were up in Tikrit and went to a hospital, and it was guarded with guns and security to the point they were pushing weapons into women's faces," Wolf said. "I saw we can't be successful if we're going into an operating room with pistols and weapons."
Two professors killed in Iraq: Education in Iraqi universities is all but crumbled due to sectarian strife, security and political vacuum after three and a half years of U.S.-led occupation. Media reports suggested that thousands of Iraqi high-profile professionals have left the country recently.
Military Officers Say Efforts to Train Iraqi Forces "Rife With Problems:" The US military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents. The shortcomings have plagued a program that is central to the US strategy in Iraq and is growing in importance.
Jerusalem to get miniature Eiffel Tower: The mayor of Paris has pledged (OCCUPIED) Jerusalem will have its own Eiffel Tower as part of anniversary observations of the city's unification in 1967's Six-Day War.
Study: 40 percent of settlements were built on Palestinian land: The report singles out the two largest settlements, both of which have city status. It says that 86.4 percent of Ma'ale Adumim is built on Palestinian land, and 35.1 percent of Ariel. The group says that the data presented in the report "demonstrates that the property rights of many Palestinians have been systematically violated in the course of settlement building."
University students targeted for arrest in northern West Bank: He explained on Tuesday that Israeli forces have recently stepped up the campaign against students in the northern West Bank, subjecting them to detention, beatings, and interrogation. Sources in the Palestinian Prisoner Society reported today that Israeli forces arrested 20 university students in November. They were taken to the Israeli military installation in the northern West Bank's Salem without disclosing a reason for the arrests.
Barenboim: Israel should 'acknowledge the sorrow of the Palestinians': Barenboim said Israel needed to show more tolerance toward its neighbors. "We cannot forget the values that were respected in the whole of Jewish history, namely dignity, generosity and intelligence," said. "We must acknowledge the sorrow of the Palestinians. This doesn't make us weaker. We must remember that Israel at its foundation promised all citizens equality, including the non-Jewish ones."
Israel Issues Last Permits to Foreigners, Splitting Families: All foreign passports of spouses and children of Palestinian ID-holders who had applied for visa extensions were marked recently by the Israeli authorities as “last permit”, and require the passport holders to exit from Israeli controlled entry/exit points before the end of the year.
15 residents injured in an Israeli air strike in the northern part of the Gaza Strip: Palestinian sources reported that 15 residents were injured in the northern part of the Gaza Strip after the Israeli air force fired two missiles at residents in Jabal Al Kashef area. Some of the injured residents are in serious conditions. Several children are among the casualties.
IOF Arrests 4 Children in Jerusalem: Israeli troops thrust into Abu Dies village, east of Jerusalem, and arrested Islam Ali 14, Motasim Dandan 14, Mohammed Mohsen 16, and Hani Jifal 16. Witnesses added that Israeli soldiers, policemen and intelligence agents stormed several houses and assaulted residents and arrested the children while others took pictures for themselves while "smiling" during the arrest.
Palestinian badly injured by soldiers violence in Nablus: Palestinian source reported on Tuesday that one Palestinian resident was badly injured in Nablus city, in the northern part of the West Bank, after he was violently attacked and beaten by Israeli troops.
Free AIC Member Ahmad Abu Hannya from Administrative Detention: Ahmad’s attorney, Sahar Francis, of the Palestinian human rights organization Addameer, fears that on 30 November, Israel will issue an administrative detention order against Ahmad for an additional six months. Ahmad, coordinator of the AIC youth group in Bethlehem, was detained at a checkpoint on his way to work on 18 May 2005 and placed in administrative detention, which is imprisonment without trial or charges.
Four Israelis suffer nervous breakdowns, one wounded, as Palestinian shell hits factory in Sderot: A factory in the Israeli town of Sderot, located less than 5 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, caught fire Tuesday morning after being hit by a homemade shell fired by Palestinian resistance fighters from inside the Gaza Strip. Four workers were treated for shock and nervous breakdowns, while one, who was hit in the head by shrapnel, was taken to Beer Sheba hospital.
Palestinians: Gunmen abduct two Italian aid workers in Gaza: The ICRC confirms that two Italian Red Cross representatives were kidnapped by unknown persons in Khan Yunis this afternoon," Schorno said. "We are doing our utmost to ensure their immediate and unconditional release."
Armed resistance leads to nonviolent resistance against Israeli warplanes: For the third night in a row residents of the northern Gaza Strip refused to move after Israeli forces forewarned families that there homes were about to be destroyed. Israeli military representatives have taken to telephoning Gazans moments before Israeli aircraft fire missiles into their homes.
Palestinians learn emergency medicine in Israel: The emergency medicine course is sponsored by the Israeli Physicians for Human Rights, a private group dedicated to professional cooperation with Palestinian doctors. Funding comes mainly from international donors. "It is excellent that people from the Palestinian territories come to participate in an Israeli course."
Olmert aides to meet with Abbas' men to break impasse with PA: A source in the Prime Minister's Office said Monday that it is still not clear when an Olmert-Abbas meeting will be scheduled, adding that the prime minister is not working on a diplomatic plan, and that no such plan was presented in Washington during his visit there last week. Nonetheless, the meeting between Israeli and Palestinian officials comes after growing pressure from senior ministers.
Mazuz to turn down PM request to take on Justice portfolio: Attorney General Menachem Mazuz will not allow Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to hold the justice minister portfolio in addition to his other duties, legal experts said. The main reason for the likely opposition to such a development is the series of ongoing investigations of alleged corruption involving the prime minister.
Arab ambassadors meet with Brazilian foreign minister to discuss Palestine: The ambassadors for Arab countries based in Brasília, the capital city of Brazil, met yesterday (20) with Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim. According to a statement issued by the Itamaraty (the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations), the theme of the meeting was the current situation in Palestine.
Peretz's office admits 'irregularities' in use of cluster bombs during war: The Israel Defense Forces discovered that there had been "irregularities" in the use of cluster munitions, even before the end of the recent Lebanon war, sources in the defense minister's office said yesterday. As a result of this information, Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered an "extensive inquiry."
West Bank and Gaza: ICRC report shows increased levels of poverty: "Not only is the number of “poor” families increasing," said Christophe Driesse, ICRC relief coordinator in Israel and the occupied territories, "but the average incomes of “poor” and “middle” households have also dropped dramatically since 2003. This implies a reduction in what people can purchase to meet their basic needs."
Knesset panel backs establishment of Arabic language academy: The author of the initiative, Dr. Yitzhak Reiter, said that alongside the Hebrew Academy, there are also academies in Israel for the preservation of Yiddish and Ladino, and it is Israel's duty to create a similar body to advance the Arabic language. He explained that it is inconceivable that though Arabic is recognized as one of Israel's official languages, it is not afforded the same goodwill. Return to settlements: The residents of Sderot shouldn't have been sent to Eilat, but rather, closer to home – to rebuild the debris of Nisanit, Elei Sinai, Dugit and Netzarim from where the Qassam rockets are being fired and where the army should be stationed. The settlements were originally set up there for this very purpose.
Writers Forum to Hear Voices of Palestine, Africa Opens: A writers' group in South Korea began an international forum on Tuesday to hear the voices of minorities around the world, this year focusing on women in Palestine and post-colonial writers in Africa.
