Palestinian Pundit

Anti-war activist and Vietnam war veteran Ron Kovic (L) and co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, prepare to lead an anti-war march in Los Angeles January 27, 2007.


Iraq veterans against the war march with thousands of protesters in Los Angeles January 27, 2007. The march was one of several held around the United States, with protesters demanding that the government bring home U.S. troops in Iraq. (REUTERS)


Antiwar activist and Vietnam war veteran Ron Kovic (L) and co-founder of Gold Star Families for Peace Cindy Sheehan speak to each other as thousands of protesters march in Los Angeles January 27, 2007.


Antiwar activist and Vietnam war veteran Ron Kovic (L) talks with actor Mike Farrell (R) as singer Jackson Browne (2nd R) watches during a march in Los Angeles January 27, 2007. The march was one of several held around the United States, with protesters demanding that the government bring home U.S. troops in Iraq. (REUTERS)


Anti-war activists Cindy Sheehan, second right, and Ron Kovic, in wheelchair, lead thousands of protestors through downtown Los Angeles Saturday Jan. 27, 2007.(AP Photo)

Actors and anti-war demonstrators Susan Sarandon (L) and Sean Penn stand together to listen to speeches as thousands of protesters gathered on the National Mall to rally against the war in Iraq, in Washington January 27, 2007. (REUTERS)





The estimate of those who took part in the anti-war rally and march in Washington, D.C. was as high as 400,000, according to the organizers.

By JOHN WHITBECK
CounterPunch

"For anyone who possesses a strong stomach and an equally strong desire to know the truth, I strongly recommend Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's new book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", which makes painstakingly and painfully clear the extent to which the expulsion of the great majority of Palestinians from their homes and homeland between 1947 and 1949 (an expulsion absolutely essential to create a "Jewish state" in a country where, in 1947, the population was still 70% Muslim and Christian and these non-Jews still owned 94% of the land) was meticulously planned, programmed and documented, ruthlessly carried out and, thereafter, efficiently covered up, sanitized, erased from minds and memories and, to the extent necessary, denied. Pappe also makes clear that the cleansing spirit and cleansing practices have continued ever since, with public discussion in Israel of the "demographic threat" posed by those Palestinians still remaining in Palestinian never more openly conducted and with a recent poll showing 68% of Israeli Jews in favor of expelling all Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Unfortunately, this book, published in England (and available from amazon.com), is highly likely to go unreviewed and largely unnoticed in the United States, a country where objective historical truth is much less popular than "revealed truth" and pure fantasy and where the Israel-First Lobby starts with a distinct home-field advantage in pursuing its successful efforts to convince American public opinion that American interests and values are identical to Israeli interests and values and to make American foreign policy and America's wars indistinguishable from Israeli foreign policy and Israel's wars.

While most of mankind, being comprised of peoples who have themselves been the victims of colonialism and racism, views racial-supremicist settler-colonial states founded upon the genocide or ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population as an abomination, Americans, exceptionally, are favorably inclined toward such states. The reason is simple. Until very recently, America was itself such a state, and the official Israeli narrative replicates the widely accepted American narrative of brave pioneers bringing civilization and economic advancement to a backward and savage land.

Furthermore, notwithstanding its history, America, as a nation, appears to have no regrets and to be troubled by no sense of national guilt. While, for reasons having less to do with bearing universal witness against man's inhumanity toward his fellow man than with justifying one particular instance of such inhumanity, there is a Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, there are no museums there devoted to the genocide of the Native Americans, to slavery or to the century of legalized segregation which followed abolition.

In addition, a significant proportion of the American population embraces a perverted interpretation of Christianity which ignores the humane message of Jesus Christ and the Golden Rule and focuses the devotions of its adherents not on God but, rather, on "God's Chosen People", through whose success in ethnically cleansing Palestine and provoking cataclysmic warfare these so-called "Christians" hope to achieve their personal, selfish "rapture" and "salvation".

Still, even in America, where Nakba denial is as obligatory as Holocaust denial is condemned, objective historical truth is available in Professor Pappe's book for anyone who cares."

By Robert Fisk

"This is how the 1975-90 conflict began in Lebanon. Outbreaks of sectarian hatred, appeals for restraint, promises of aid from Western and Arab nations and a total refusal to understand that this is how civil wars begin.

The Lebanese army lifted its overnight curfew on Beirut yesterday morning but the smouldering cars and trucks of a gun battle was matched only by the incendiary language of the country's bitterest antagonists. Beirut's morning newspapers carried graphic pictures of gunmen - Sunni Muslims loyal to the government and Shia supporters of Hizbollah - which proved beyond any doubt that organised, armed men are on the capital's streets. The Lebanese army - which constantly seeks the help of leaders on all sides - had great difficulty in suppressing the latest battles.

One widely-used picture showed a businessman firing a pistol at Shia during the fighting around the Lebanese Arab university, another a hooded man with a sniper's rifle on a rooftop.

All three dead men were Hizbollah supporters whose funerals in south Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley yesterday were accompanied by calls for revenge and - in one case - by a colour guard of militiamen and farewell shots over his grave. After 29-year old Adnan Shamas's widow and young children were brought to his funeral in Ouzai, there were cries of "blood for blood".

It was all very far from the self-congratulations of the western and Arab leaders in Paris yesterday, where European and American diplomats - after drumming up £4bn in aid for Lebanon (strings attached, of course) - seemed to believe they had just saved Fouad Siniora's government from the forces of Islamic "extremists".

Samir Geagea, the ex-civil war militia killer turned ardent government supporter - and host to the US ambassador this week - angrily turned on Hizbollah's leader, Sayad Hassan Nasrallah yesterday, chiding him over Hizbollah's war with Israel last summer, when Shia fighters fired thousands of rockets into Israel. "Don't think, Sayad Hassan, that Beirut is Haifa or Mount Carmel," he warned. "Let's sit together and we will discuss things together ... Otherwise the country is heading for the worst."

Talal Arslan, a pro-Syrian Druze leader, ferociously referred to government groups as an "organised crime syndicate" that wanted to turn Lebanon into another Iraq.

Which is exactly the language of 1975. It all seemed so far away in Paris where Siniora, talking to Lebanese residents and journalists, mystifyingly found himself fielding questions on Lebanon's agricultural industry and future tourism prospects. There is certainly plenty of history for any tourists in Lebanon but right now a new and terrible page appears to be opening while the rest of the world blithely looks on. "

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Brian Braiker
Newsweek


"Jan. 27, 2007 - President George W. Bush concluded his annual State of the Union address this week with the words “the State of our Union is strong … our cause in the world is right … and tonight that cause goes on.” Maybe so, but the state of the Bush administration is at its worst yet, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. The president’s approval ratings are at their lowest point in the poll’s history—30 percent—and more than half the country (58 percent) say they wish the Bush presidency were simply over, a sentiment that is almost unanimous among Democrats (86 percent), and is shared by a clear majority (59 percent) of independents and even one in five (21 percent) Republicans. Half (49 percent) of all registered voters would rather see a Democrat elected president in 2008, compared to just 28 percent who’d prefer the GOP to remain in the White House....."

By Layla Anwar

"A brief summary report on"Operation American Freedom and the Liberation of America."

Following 13 years of a cruel stringent embargo that left 1.5 million americans dead of which 500'000 american children below the age of 5 , the Iraqi army, with their imposing armada bombarded the U.S with over 700 tons of B.52's.
Iraqi armored vehicles, 150'000 Iraqi soldiers and 100'000 subcontractors and mercenaries(from the Arab world and Africa) have taken hold of Washington DC and other parts of the country.
The Iraqi soldiers toppled the Washington Monument, ransacked and pillaged the National Gallery of Art, the National Portrait Gallery as well the great Smithsonian institute and museum.
The White House , the Pentagon and the CIA have also been targeted and now encircled. Hundreds of Iraqi generals with their troops have squatted the headquarters of the American Government. The White House, looted, has now become an enclave of the Iraqi occupying forces and has been renamed the White Zone.

The President of the U.S.A as well as his 20 advisors have been caught and are now prisonners of war in a Fort Lauderdale secret prison, camp Babel......

Upper state New York, Buffalo and other towns have declared their independence and are being armed and trained by Canada as mercenaries and snipers.

Atrocious news have been circulating of hideous crimes committed by the Iraqi soldiers:

In Bethesda, over 12 pregnant women were killed as well as a 15 years old boy who spat on a passing Iraqi convoy. His mother's head was bashed against a wall and her boy shot in front of her eyes.

In Lexington Park , 3 neighborhoods have been razed to the ground. Over 500 defenseless civilians, majority of which were women and children have been shot in cold blood and some Iraqi soldiers were filmed pissing on the dead corpses.

In Richmond square, hundreds of bodies are strewn across the square and littering the side streets, showing signs of serious burns from napalm, phosphorus bombs and gun shots.

In Rockville, five Iraqi soldiers from the 32nd platoon division, gang raped 14 years old Abee Jones, shot her whole family including her 3 years old sister and grandparents then set her on fire. They were seen drinking Arak and grilling kebabs prior to their crime........

The UNESCO on the other hand has decried some of the Iraqi army practices. Many Iraqi soldiers have been found desecrating worship places by ransacking them, painting Islamic symbols, tearing, kicking, and burning the Bible and urinating in churches. American Monuments and historical sites have also been destroyed......

On the political front, mexicans have managed to infiltrate all echelons of the governing administration included all armed forces : the american army, the american FBI and ministries and they have developed , funded and trained militias that are wrecking havoc in the streets of the American capital.
Countless american citizens have been abducted, kidnaped, raped, and slaughtered.
Dead bodies are seen lying around the city showing marked signs of torture , like eyes and nails plucked out and holes from electrical drills. The american puppet government denies any role in all of this......

Four weeks ago, on Christmas eve, the president of the USA as well as three of his advisors were hanged in what appeared to be a sectarian lynching.

The Iraqi President expressed dissapointment at the way the execution was done, he added it was "fumbled" but was glad that justice finally prevailed....."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Tom Toles

كتائب الأقصى" تتهم دحلان بالوقوف وراء التوتير وتؤكد أن العقاب لن يطول

غزة - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام"

اتهم قيادي بارز في "كتائب شهداء الأقصى - المجلس العسكري الأعلى"، الجناح العسكري لحركة "فتح"، فئة وصفها بـ "المرتزقة والعميلة"، بالوقوف وراء حوادث إطلاق النار، التي تعرض لها أبناء الشعب الفلسطيني.

وقال "أبو حسام" إن كتائب شهداء الأقصى "بريئة من المجرمين الذين يوجهون سلاحهم إلى أبناء شعبهم في شمال قطاع غزة"، مضيفاً أن "كل من يدعى عبر إذاعة الشباك (الشباب) الصهيونية وإذاعة الحرة (الحرية) الأمريكية بأنهم من كتائب شهداء الأقصى هم كاذبون".

واستنكر القيادي في الكتائب حادثة خطف الأطفال في مدينة نابلس (شمال الضفة الغربية)، وقال: "اتصلت شخصيا بالأخ القائد علاء سناقرة قائد كتائب الأقصى في نابلس، وقال إن الخاطفين باعوا أنفسهم إلى محمد دحلان بحفنة من الأموال"، على حد تعبيره.

وأضاف يقول في تصريح له: "إن عملية شراء الذمم، التي ينتهجها محمد دحلان، تهدف إلى شق الصف الوطني في كتائب شهداء الأقصى، وهو أمر لا نقبله".

وتابع "أبو حسام" القول، في معرض حديثه: "أتوجه لأبناء فتح لأسألهم من قتل قائدنا ياسر عرفات؟ لماذا لا نعمل على كشف القتلة وتعريتهم ونحن نعرفهم؟!"، معتبراً أن عناصر التيار الانقلابي من "ذوي التاريخ الأسود لن يطول عقابهم، وسيلفظهم أبناء الشعب الفلسطيني"."

In the second of two remarkable dispatches from behind Baghdad's front lines, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad meets the commander of a Shia death squad

Saturday January 27, 2007
The Guardian

".......Kidnapping in Baghdad these days is as much about economics as retribution or sectarian hatred. Another Shia man close to the Mahdi Army told me: "They kidnap 10 Sunnis, they get ransom on five, and kill them all, in each big kidnap operation they make at least $50 000, it's the best business in Baghdad.".........

It was these qualifications plus his military experience - he was a corporal in the Iraqi military police - that earned Fadhel the role of commanding a "strike unit". His main job is kidnapping Sunnis allegedly involved in attacking Shia areas. It is men like Fadhel, responsible for the scores of bodies dumped on Baghdad's streets daily, whom the US troops pouring into Baghdad will have to bring under control if they are to have any hope of quelling the city's civil war.......

Fadhel and other Mahdi Army commanders describe an intimate relationship with Iraqi security services, especially the commandos of the Iraqi interior ministry. He says the Mahdi Army often uses these official forces in conducting its own operations against Sunni "terrorists".

"We have specific units that we work with where members of the Mahdi Army are in command. We conduct operations together. We can't ask any army unit to come with us, we just ask the units that are under the control of our men.

"The police are all under our control, we ask them to help or inform them that shooting will take place in a street and it involves the Mahdi Army, and that's it."

In one operation Fadhel took part in last summer, Iraqi interior ministry commandos attacked a Sunni area in Dora called "Arab Jubour". The raid involved 28 pickup trucks, he told me. Of them 16 were ministry of interior, the rest Mahdi Army.

The new Bush plan to secure Baghdad gives a major role to the Iraqi army and police units in securing Baghdad. Few in the city expect that these predominantly Shia forces will seriously challenge their fellow Shia.

As the discussions for the new security plan were continuing, an Iraqi Shia official who belongs to another party told me: "We know that Moqtada [al-Sadr] and his men are responsible for all this mess but what can we do? We can't attack them, we can only talk to them. Its like having a mentally ill relative - you can't just throw him in the street."

Fadhel and other Mahdi army officers also describe a complex relationship with Iraq's Shia neighbour. Iran, which backs a rival Shia faction to the Mahdi Army, secured a PR success when Mr Sadr upon his arrival in Tehran last year announced that the Mahdi Army would defend Iran if attacked by the US. One Mahdi Army commander told me: "The Iranians are helping us not because they like us, but because they hate the US."

The help comes in different forms. "We get weapons from them, mortar shells, RPG rounds, sometimes they give us weapons for free sometimes we have to buy. Depends on who is doing the deal," said the same commander.

Fadhel told me that back in November he escorted a small truck filled with weapons from Kut, on the Iranian border, to Baghdad. "We get the weapons in trucks, we take a letter to the Iraqi army checkpoints and it's all fine."....."

By Tony Karon

"When Ehud Olmert tells the world that President Bush's invasion of Iraq has made the Middle East safer, at least he can fall back on the excuse that sarcasm is a mainstay of Israeli discourse. But when Olmert says Israel won't talk to Syria as long as President Bush won't, Israelis ought to be worried. More worried, still, when Condi Rice comes hawking fantasies about Israel concluding peace with the Palestinians while Hamas is swept away by Mahmoud Abbas (or is it Mohammed Dahlan?) playing a Palestinian Pinochet, while the likes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt somehow contrive to reverse the train wreck of Iraq and scare Iran back into its shell.

Olmert appears to be outsourcing Israel's strategic decision-making to a White House that has repeatedly demonstrated a catastrophic failure to grasp the realities of the region. Betting Israel's security on the ability of the Bush crowd to transform the strategic landscape in the Middle East is rather like leaving a party in the backseat of an SUV whose driver is cradling a bottle of tequila and slurring his words as he rebuffs offers by more sober friends to take the wheel.

Warning signs have been there for months: When Olmert stumbled into Lebanon last summer, he may have been expecting Washington to play the role of the big brother who would drag him, still swinging, off Hassan Nasrallah, having demonstrated his "deterrent" power without getting himself into too much trouble. Instead, he found Washington impatiently egging him on, demanding that he destroy Nasrallah to prove a point to the Shiite leader's own big brother, and holding back anyone else who tried to break up the fight. As neocon cheerleaders like Charles Krauthammer made plain, the administration was disappointed at Olmert's wimpish performance.

Clearly, the game changed when the United States blundered into Iraq, believing it could transform the region through the application of its overwhelming military force. Sober minds in Washington have concluded that Iraq is lost, but Bush is having none of it - as he made clear last week, he intends not only to up the level of force, but also to begin directing it at Syria and Iran. Those in Israel tempted to welcome this development may be suffering from the same geopolitical psychosis as President Bush: the belief that military force translates automatically into power. If anything, 2006 highlighted the fact that America's overwhelming military advantages have failed to tip the region's political balance in its favor; on the contrary, resorting to military force over the past four years has actually been accompanied by a precipitous decline in America's ability to influence events in the region and beyond, much less impose its will.

As a character in the great gangster movie Miller's Crossing put it, "You run this town because people think you run it." Ergo, when people realize that you don't, then you no longer do.

The failure to impose Pax Americana on Iraq or even Afghanistan has therefore had profound consequences throughout the region. The Iraq Study Group recognized that the United States is simply in no position to dictate terms to its rivals and enemies in the region, and instead advocated pursuing a new stability based on recognition of the real balance of power, rather than the fantasy one concocted by the White House. But Bush remains in denial, pressing ahead with short-sighted, aggressive strategies that will only compound and accelerate the demise of U.S. influence in the region.

Washington's rejection of any talks between Israel and Syria has nothing to do with Israel's security; it is based on U.S. power plays in relation to Iraq and Lebanon, games the United States looks unlikely to win.

And Israelis know that the result of toppling Bashar Assad would be to extend Iraq's "Jihadistan" province of Anbar all the way to Israel's northern border. On the Palestinian front, Israel's security establishment knows that the fundamental flaw in the U.S. effort to topple the Hamas government is that such efforts will actually strengthen Hamas politically and further weaken an already decrepit Fatah. Washington has looked on skeptically at Abbas' efforts to form a government of national unity, and it has prepared for what it appears to assume is the eventuality that these will fail and he'll get on with the business of destroying the Islamists - which is what the Bush administration prefers.

Rice's attempts at social engineering in the Palestinian Authority are giddily detached from reality, and when they fail - as the United States has failed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon - it is Palestinians and Israelis who will pay the price. Moreover, throughout the region it has become clear that even U.S. clients such as Saudi Arabia simply ignore the American line when it doesn't make sense - for example, in engaging with Hamas. Even the Iraqi government has made clear that it has no interest in backing U.S. efforts to confront what Washington calls Iranian "meddling" in Iraq.

So, the idea that the Bush administration is implementing a policy capable of turning the regional dynamic against Iran is equally deluded: No matter how much tacit support they garner from Cairo, Amman and Riyadh for an air strike to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, where would the success of such a strike get Israel or the United States? The lesson of Iraq is that wars of choice based on the suspicion of an opponent's motives and capabilities can produce catastrophic unintended consequences - consequences that will likely be felt more painfully in Israel than in the United States. Military solutions to the region's problems have, quite simply, exhausted themselves. Yet, the Bush administration has resisted recognizing that reality, preferring strategies whose implementation only serves to accelerate the demise of Washington's influence in the region. The irony is that Israel's security establishment is well aware of the folly of many of these U.S. policies. But still, they stay in the back seat.

Even if Washington is unwilling to engage with the realities of the region, Israel has plenty of incentive to independently and directly engage the powers that be in Damascus, Beirut, Tehran, Gaza and Ramallah, along the lines revealed by Haaretz last week in relation to Syria. The reason is simple: It's a safe bet that Assad, Nasrallah, Ali Khamenei and Hamas will be there long after Bush, Rice and their fantasy are wheeled off the stage."

Why Can't Americans See it?

by Paul Craig Roberts

"The American public and the US Congress are getting their backs up about the Bush Regime's determination to escalate the war in Iraq. A massive protest demonstration is occurring in Washington DC today, and Congress is expressing its disagreement with Bush's decision to intensify the war in Iraq. This is all to the good. However, it misses the real issue – the Bush Regime's looming attack on Iran.

Rather than winding down one war, Bush is starting another. The entire world knows this and is discussing Bush's planned attack on Iran in many forums. It is only Americans who haven't caught on. A few senators have said that Bush must not attack Iran without the approval of Congress, and postings on the Internet demonstrate world wide awareness that Iran is in the Bush Regime's cross hairs. But Congress and the Media – and the demonstration in Washington – are focused on Iraq.

What can be done to bring American awareness up to the standard of the rest of the world?

In Davos, Switzerland, the meeting of the World Economic Forum, a conference where economic globalism issues are discussed, opened January 24 with a discussion of Bush's planned attack on Iran. The Secretary General of the League of Arab States and bankers and businessmen from such US allies as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates all warned of the coming attack and its catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and the world.

Writing for Global Research, General Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy on Geopolitical Affairs and former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armies, forecasted an American nuclear attack on Iran by the end of April. General Ivashov presented the neoconservative reasoning that is the basis for the attack and concluded that the world's protests cannot stop the US attack on Iran.

There will be shock and indignation, General Ivashov concludes, but the US will get away with it. He writes:

"Within weeks from now, we will see the informational warfare machine start working. The public opinion is already under pressure. There will be a growing anti-Iranian militaristic hysteria, new information leaks, disinformation, etc.... The probability of a US aggression against Iran is extremely high. It does remain unclear, though, whether the US Congress is going to authorize the war. It may take a provocation to eliminate this obstacle (an attack on Israel or the US targets including military bases). The scale of the provocation may be comparable to the 9/11 attack in NY. Then the Congress will certainly say 'Yes' to the US president."

The Bush Regime has made it clear that it is convinced that Bush already has the authority to attack Iran. The Regime argues that the authority is part of Bush's commander-in-chief powers. Congress has authorized the war in Iraq, and Bush's recent public statements have shifted the responsibility for the Iraqi insurgency from al-Qaeda to Iran. Iran, Bush has declared, is killing US troops in Iraq. Thus, Iran is covered under the authorization for the war in Iraq.

Both Bush and Cheney have made it clear in public statements that they will ignore any congressional opposition to their war plans. For example, CBS News reported (Jan. 25) that Cheney said that a congressional resolution against escalating the war in Iraq "won't stop us." According to the Associated Press, Bush dismissed congressional disapproval with his statement, "I'm the decision-maker."

Everything is in place for an attack on Iran. Two aircraft carrier attack forces are deployed to the Persian Gulf, US attack aircraft have been moved to Turkey and other countries on Iran's borders, Patriot anti-missile defense systems are being moved to the Middle East to protect oil facilities and US bases from retaliation from Iranian missiles, and growing reams of disinformation alleging Iran's responsibility for the insurgency in Iraq are being fed to the gullible US media.

General Ivashof and everyone in the Middle East and at the Davos globalization conference in Europe understands the Bush Regime's agenda.

Why cannot Americans understand?

Why hasn't Congress told Bush and Cheney that they will both be instantly impeached if they initiate a wider war? "

***

"Congress has authorized the war in Iraq, and Bush's recent public statements have shifted the responsibility for the Iraqi insurgency from al-Qaeda to Iran. Iran, Bush has declared, is killing US troops in Iraq. Thus, Iran is covered under the authorization for the war in Iraq"--- This is a key point in this analysis.

By Juan Cole

"Bush says US troops are authorized to "kill or capture" suspected Iranian intelligence agents operating in Iraq. Thousands of Iranians go in and out of Iraq as pilgrims to the Shiite holy sites, so personally I'm skeptical you can know which ones are spies. And, like, it wouldn't be good to kill the pilgrims. Might cast the US in a bad light with the Shiites and all that. I'd say this man is looking for a pretext for another war.

Plus, when you look at where US troops are being killed, it is in Sunni Arab al-Anbar Province, and Sunni Arab Salahuddin, Diyal, Mosul, and West Baghdad. Those Sunni guerrillas are not being helped by Iran. They are being helped by Sunnis in countries allied to the US.

And then, the US hold over 10,000 prisoners swept up on suspicion of insurgent activity in Iraq. What number of them is Iranians? Slim to none. More Syrians and Jordanians and Saudis by far than Iranians.

So if 99 percent of the problem is with the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, why all this big talk about Shiite Iran?

Because this man is looking for a pretext for another war."

Report, Enough!, 27 January 2007

Broadbased coalition in support of an end to Israeli occupation set for launch

"Record-breaking actor Emma Thompson revealed today why she is helping to make political history by supporting Britain's first broad-based alliance for a just peace in the Middle East. Ms Thompson earned her Oscars for best actress in Howard's End and for best-adapted screenplay for adapting Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility. The only person ever to have won film Oscars for acting and writing is backing a new historic drive for a just settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.

The ENOUGH! coalition, representing over three million people in charities, trade unions, faith and campaign groups has come together to mark this year's 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The launch will come only days after a report, funded by the British government, warned that Israel's separation wall is trapping 250,000 Palestinians. The report on Israel's separation wall was produced by the Israeli planning and rights organisation Bimkom. The report says the wall is cutting off Palestinians from employment, education, healthcare needs, undermining social and family life and isolating farmers from markets.



Ms Thompson said: "This report cites the devastating effects on Palestinians' health and livelihoods of Israel's separation wall. It shows the vital need for our ministers to make fresh moves for a just peace. It is high time the UK government matched its rhetoric with action which can save Palestinians and Israelis from another 40 years' conflict."......."

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"On Tuesday, five employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA were killed in a violent Baghdad neighborhood. Hours later, President Bush used his State of the Union address to call on what some are calling an undeclared surge of private mercenaries in Iraq. We speak with Jeremy Scahill, author of the forthcoming “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The private security firm Blackwater USA is back in the news again. On Tuesday, hours before President Bush’s State of the Union address, one of the company’s helicopters was brought down in a violent Baghdad neighborhood. Five Blackwater troops - all Americans - were killed. Reports say the men’s bodies show signs of execution-style deaths with bullet wounds to the back off the head.
Blackwater provided no identities or details of those killed. They did release a statement saying the deaths “are a reminder of the extraordinary circumstances under which our professionals voluntarily serve to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.”

President Bush made no mention of the incident during his State of the Union. But he did address the very issue that has brought dozens of private security companies like Blackwater to Iraq in the first place: the need for more troops.

Is the president looking to further outsource war? My next guest writes that Blackwater is a reminder of just how privatized the Iraq war has become. Jeremy Scahill is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and is author of the forthcoming book, “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.” He has an OpEd in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times titled “Our mercenaries in Iraq.” He joins me in the firehouse studio."

Watch, Listen or Read The Transcript of This Revealing Segment

Also See This Article By Jeremy Scahill In The L.A. Times

What It Would Take to Stop It

by Virginia Tilley

(Contributed by Datta)

"Johannesburg, South Africa -- From its inception, the US occupation was a lose-lose proposition. Simply rolling into Iraq -- a society of which the Bush neocons had so distorted a conception and US occupation commanders and foot soldiers had no grasp at all - was a formula for doom. But US policy in the Middle East has now advanced to a new stage and the risk to the rest of us has changed. For stopping an attack on Iran, which is the only way to avert final regional disaster, may require action in Washington that falls outside the parameters of what is normally politically possible.......

The US occupation of Iraq has appeared since its inception like a large and cumbersome truck driven into a swamp. We have been watching, in horrified fascination, as it slowly sinks. In recent months, we have been certain that even the drivers must soon surely abandon the truck, jump for shore, and try to preserve some shred of dignity as it goes down. Instead, we are seeing those drivers flinging out ropes around everything in sight and getting ready to haul, apparently in the hope of dragging the whole carcass back onto solid ground and rolling on to glory. That they can only strangle the rest of us, and bind everyone into the swamp with them, must finally inspire decisive collective action. Washington insiders and key players in the new Democratic Congress, with political backing from an alarmed electorate and frantic international allies, can still stop the neocons' rush to disaster. But it would require rare determination, initiative, transparency, and courage, and it would have to happen fast."

Kids abducted by Al-Aqsa "Martyrs Brigades" in Nablus


The Palestinian struggle has degenerated (by the Oslo design) to this. Shame on such "resistance." The Palestinians had more national awareness, political maturity and cohesion 70 years ago. Shame on both major movements. To hell with your "Authority" which controls nothing; dissolve it now! Palestinian civil society should be in the streets demanding this.

"Fatah has postponed unity government talks with rival Hamas after at least five people were killed and 24 others abducted in factional violence across the Palestinian Territories.

The clashes on Friday marred celebrations to mark the first anniversary of Hamas's election victory.

They also came after Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said a deal could be done in weeks.

"The entire dialogue could explode," Tawfiq Abu Khoussa, the Fatah spokesman, said as he blamed Hamas for the violence.

"How can dialogue go on when there is a bomb underneath the table?"

The talks, which had been due to resume on Friday, will now be held on Sunday at the earliest.

Two Hamas supporters, a member of the Fatah-linked al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and two bystanders were killed in a series of shootings on Friday.

In Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas security forces surrounded the house of a senior Fatah activist they blamed for shooting a Hamas supporter earlier on Friday.

Hamas supporters abducted

Fighters from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank city of Nablus have said they are holding 24 Hamas supporters and threatened action against them if their demands are not met.

The group is demanding that no Fatah officials are harmed and that armed Hamas supporters leave the streets of the Gaza Strip......."

Bush: I'm the decision-maker

"George Bush, the US president, has challenged Congress and skeptical politicians not to prematurely condemn his plan in Iraq.

In an oval office meeting with senior military advisers on Friday, Bush said: "I'm the decision-maker" about sending more troops to fight the war in Iraq.

"I've picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed," Bush said.

He also challenged Democratic and Republican politicians, who are lining up to support resolutions opposing his decision to send 21,500 troops to Iraq, to put up their own ideas.

"Some are condemning a plan before it's even had a chance to work," he said......"

by Jim Abourezk
(a former Democratic senator from South Dakota)
The Christian Science Monitor

"Democrats in Congress have moved quickly – and commendably – to strengthen ethics rules. But truly groundbreaking reform was prevented, in part, because of the efforts of the pro-Israel lobby to preserve one of its most critical functions: taking members of Congress on free "educational" trips to Israel.
The pro-Israel lobby does most of its work without publicity. But every member of Congress and every would-be candidate for Congress comes to quickly understand a basic lesson. Money needed to run for office can come with great ease from supporters of Israel, provided that the candidate makes certain promises, in writing, to vote favorably on issues considered important to Israel. What drives much of congressional support for Israel is fear – fear that the pro-Israel lobby will either withhold campaign contributions or give money to one's opponent.

In my own experience as a US senator in the 1970s, I saw how the lobby tries to humiliate or embarrass members who do not toe the line.

Pro-Israel groups worked vigorously to ensure that the new reforms would allow them to keep hosting members of Congress on trips to Israel. According to the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper, congressional filings show Israel as the top foreign destination for privately sponsored trips. Nearly 10 percent of overseas congressional trips taken between 2000 and 2005 were to Israel. Most are paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, a sister organization of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the major pro-Israel lobby group....."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Tom Toles

A Good Article
By Jim Lobe

"Six months after last summer's war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, Iran has become the George W. Bush administration's "Public Enemy Number One," against which its Middle East strategy is increasingly focused, according to one of the US's leading experts on the Gulf.

That strategy, which aims at forging an informal tripartite alliance consisting of the US, Sunni-led Arab states and Israel, is already being played out in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Along with Iraq, the last two have become the main battlegrounds in what so far has been a proxy war designed to challenge and roll back perceived Iranian influence, according to Gary Sick, a Columbia University professor who served as former President Jimmy Carter's chief advisor on Iran.

"The organizing principle of the new strategy is confrontation with and containment of Shia influence – and specifically Iranian influence – wherever it appears in the region," says Sick.

In a recently circulated memo, Sick argued that Washington's new strategy stems primarily from the dramatic shift in the regional balance of power in Iran's favor following the removal – by the US, no less – of Tehran's two neighboring nemeses, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

That shift – to the detriment of Washington's traditional Sunni-led allies, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan – has since been exacerbated both by the administration's pro-democracy policies in the region, which had the paradoxical but predictable result of strengthening anti-Western and Islamist forces, and the perception that the vaunted US military has become hopelessly bogged down in the Iraq quagmire.

The new strategy appears to have been galvanized by last summer's Israel-Lebanon war, which, according to Sick, "was perceived by Israel, the United States and the Sunni Arab governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan as an Iranian attempt to extend its power into the Levant by challenging both Israel and the Sunni Arab leadership."

In the months that have followed, a division of labor among the three principal components of the anti-Iranian front has emerged based on a series of presumed mutual understandings.

For its part, the Bush administration has essentially dropped its democratization campaign in the region; beefed up its naval power in the Gulf while providing Patriot missiles to the Arab Gulf states to encourage them to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran; stepped up military and other support to the Sunni-led, Saudi-backed Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora; and renewed its involvement in promoting a peace process between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas –"recognizing that even limited visible progress will provide diplomatic cover to the Arab states if they are to co-operate more with Israel," says Sick.

In addition, the administration has tried to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran both in the UN Security Council over its nuclear program and in Iraq by charging Tehran with arming sectarian militias and harassing Iranian officials there.

At the same time, Bush has assured the Saudis, in particular, that he will maintain US forces in Iraq to prevent a full-scale civil war that could be catastrophic for the Sunni population and press the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to control the Shi’ite militias or risk replacement by a "more Sunni-friendly" regime.

"Washington may also be trying to organize dissident movements in Iran, primarily among ethnic groups along the periphery and other targets of opportunity, to distract and potentially even destabilize the Tehran government," warned Sick.

For their part, according to Sick, the Sunni-led Arab states, which include all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt and Jordan, have agreed to provide major funding and political support to the Siniora government in Lebanon and "to woo (or threaten) Syria away from its alliance with Iran." Also, they promise to provide facilities and funding to support US efforts in the region and against Iran, and to try to bring down the price of oil, both to relieve political pressure on Bush and "make life more difficult for Iran."

Israel's contribution is to provide intelligence support to US and, possibly, Arab anti-Hezbollah efforts in Lebanon; keep highlighting the alleged "existential" threat Iran's nuclear capability would pose to it; use its long-standing contacts, especially among Iran's Kurds, to foment opposition to Tehran; and "be prepared to make sufficient concessions on the Palestinian issue and the Golan Heights to provide at least the perception of significant forward motion toward a comprehensive settlement."

This strategy is attractive to Bush for a variety of reasons; not least that focusing greater attention on Iran may serve to "distract public attention from the Iraqi disaster." Sick also noted that given the antipathy and distrust in US attitudes toward Iran created by the 1979-81 hostage crisis, it is relatively easy to rally bipartisan opinion against the Islamic Republic.

But perhaps most important, like the Cold War, the new strategy provides a "single, agreed enemy that can serve as the organizing point of reference" and "be used to explain and rationalize a wide range of policies that otherwise might be quite unpopular," noted Sick.

"The Holy Grail of US Middle East policy has always been the hope of persuading both Arab and Israeli allies to agree on a common enemy and thereby relegate their mutual hostilities to a subordinate role," Sick wrote.

But while Arab states generally found it hard to accept that Moscow was the greater threat during the Cold War, "Iran as a large, neighboring, non-Arab, radical Shia state may fulfill that role more convincingly," according to Sick, who noted that the "extravagant rhetoric and populist posturing" of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad add to the strategy's appeal.

While this strategy is not necessarily designed to provoke or lay the foundations for a military conflict – and may be in fact be aimed more at "containing" Iran and persuading it to change its policies – Sick also believes that it is "deliberately provocative and risks prompting a belligerent Iranian response...that could quickly escalate into an armed exchange." "

The Lobby wants war with Iran

By Justin Raimondo

"......For evidence of the war hysteria now sweeping official Israeli circles, readers of the Israeli (and overseas) press will note the attention paid to the seventh annual Herzliya conference, an event attended by top Israeli – and American – leaders, including a surprising number of would-be occupants of the Oval Office. "There is no doubt that the war drums are beating pretty loudly here in Herzliya," reports Gideon Rachman, the Financial Times foreign correspondent, who was struck by "the number of top Americans who have bothered to come over for the conference." With US officials Gordon England and Nick Burns as the centerpieces, several serious presidential wannabes decorated the podium: Mitt Romney made a personal appearance, with John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and John Edwards addressing the conference by satellite. "I cannot think of any other country in the world that could summon up this level of American participation for a conference like this," writes Rachman. "Certainly not Britain."

Richard Perle, Jim Woolsey, and nutty Newt Gingrich rounded out the speakers list, adding their own notes of individualized hysteria to the chorus of warmongering. "A lot of these chaps," avers Rachman, "were very prominent in the drive to go to war in Iraq. Now, flushed by their undoubted success there, they are turning their attention to Iran.".....

Just as we attacked Iraq "motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure," as Mearsheimer and Walt put it, so we'll fight the next war – against Iran – for the same reason. The power of the Lobby is being mobilized, and not quietly. While there is some opposition, notably coming from Harry Reid and others who say that the war authorization for Iraq didn't and doesn't include Iran, Congress has yet to take any concrete action. In any event, as Dick Cheney put it, "It won't stop us."......"

By Gilad Atzmon

"The draft resolution proposed by the US "condemns without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust," yet, it doesn't single out any specific country for criticism. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that it is Iran’s Ahmadinejad who the Americans are after. Clearly, the new American initiative at the UN, which is aiming at transforming the world into a ‘Holocaust Denial Free Zone’ has very little to do with genuine truth-seeking or an authentic interest in historical research. The Americans are there to furnish us all with the futureless nightmare of hard capitalism. They mistakenly believe that they can do so as long they restrict our vision of the past. If to be honest, It isn’t really Abe Foxman and the ADL that the Bush Administration is caring for. And it should be evident that the American decision makers could not care less about the notion of history or the truth of European Judeocide. What’s it about, then? America wants oil and Ahmadinejad has plenty of it. Not wanting to stop there, America also has as its priority stopping Iran from joining the nuclear club that they themselves lead. Yet, It is rather amusing that America - with all its fleets, airplane carriers, cruise missiles, ultimate air power and nuclear might - needs the Holocaust to win what seems to be its next war.......

For the Anglo-Americans the Holocaust is there to push away any real ethical engagement with Dresden, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Palestine and Iraq. Most importantly, the new Holocaust denial resolution provides the Americans with the pretext for the next Genocide. In other words, the next Holocaust is actually a collective punishment of Holocaust denial......"

Livni warns Abbas against striking deal with Hamas

"DAVOS, Switzerland - Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Thursday that should he reach a compromise with Hamas, that would send the diplomatic process into a deep freeze.

"Compromising with extremists will not promote anything, but it can lead to further stagnation," Livni told Abbas during a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Abbas, though not mentioning Hamas by name, responded by saying that should the Islamic organization refuse to honor agreements signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization or to accept proposals that have the support of the Arab world - an apparent reference to the Arab League's Beirut declaration of 2002 - he will call new elections.

Any Palestinian government, he said, must accept previously signed agreements and ease the suffering of the Palestinian population. Thus if the various Palestinian factions cannot agree on such a platform, he will call new elections and let the Palestinian people choose their leadership and their platform......."

***

How much beating can a puppet take and still look himself in the mirror?

Livni told him she would still respect him, the morning after.

From Juan Cole:

"Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Sadr Movement of Muqtada al-Sadr gave its unstinting support to al-Maliki's security plan. It was speculated that this step is an attempt to avoid a confrontatation with US forces. The London daily also confirms that the Sadrists have appointed a negotiator to talk directly to the Americans on behalf of the commanders of the Mahdi Army militia. It says that some Mahdi Army commanders have scattered to Kut, Babil and Taji or even to neighboring countries, and that al-Maliki has avoided having to choose between his American partners and his Sadrist allies by convincing the Mahdi Army to fade away for the moment. It says US ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad expressed concern that gunmen in Iraq may go into hiding during the US "surge," and then reappear when it is over.

I think that is what Gen. Abizaid tried to warn about when he argued against an escalation."

***

This is in line with Maliki's secret letter to the Mahdi gang, posted here yesterday.

By Robert Fisk

"........That the great and the good should have met in Paris to help "save" Lebanon - a country which has fewer than 4 million people - shows how desperate the situation in Beirut has now become. The stakes are high for a Western world which sees "extremism" behind any threat within Middle Eastern countries. The Saudis have already sought Syria's help - no doubt oiling their appeal in the usual way - while Iranian diplomats have been visiting Riyadh. So at least the largest Shia country is talking to the richest Sunni nation.

The mere fact that these talks can be viewed in such a way shows how dark are the shadows falling across the region. From the Pakistan border to the Mediterranean, almost every land is in crisis. Suddenly, all the Western talk of a Sunni-Shia war looks troublingly real. But, in an Arab world weaned on conspiracies - not all of them imaginary as the Iranians can fully attest after the CIA's overthrow of the Mossadeq regime in 1953 - many believe it has been the West's intention all along to divide their lands on religious lines. "

The US has dropped all criticism of Pakistan over perceived support of the Taliban in Afghanistan. President General Pervez Musharraf is being feted in pro-American Sunni Arab capitals, and Islamabad and NATO have finalized a landmark cooperation agreement. With these rapid developments, Pakistan has been made "part of the solution" and is assured a pivotal role in US regional policy that extends far beyond Afghanistan and includes, crucially, Iran

By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times

"..........But there are other nuances, too. It appears that the US has broached with Pakistan the issue of "help and assistance" in respect of its standoff with Iran. At any rate, the timing of Musharraf's tour of the pro-American Sunni Arab capitals Riyadh, Cairo and Amman last weekend was important. The hurriedly arranged tour followed consultations of the US secretaries of state and defense in Riyadh.

In a rare gesture, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia personally received Musharraf at the airport at Riyadh. Also, a grateful Saudi king conferred on Musharraf the "King Abdul Aziz Prize", Saudi Arabia's highest award. For some obscure reason, Musharraf has become the first-ever Pakistani leader to receive such an honor.

The emphasis during Musharraf's discussions in the pro-American Sunni Arab capitals has been on joint "Islamic action" in tackling the crisis in the Middle East. Curiously, fleshing out Bush's new Iraq strategy, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger recently explained at some length from another angle what such an "Islamic action" could amount to.

Kissinger wrote that Bush's Iraq strategy will require in the downstream "an international concept involving both Iraq's neighbors and countries further away that have a significant interest in the outcome". Kissinger underlined that the US will expect that "other countries must be prepared to share responsibilities for regional peace ... [since] it is impossible for America to deal with these trends unilaterally".

Equally, Pakistan and NATO seem to have finalized their agreement establishing an institutionalized framework of cooperation. NATO and the US have been pressing Musharraf for early conclusion of such an agreement. But Pakistan has been dragging its feet. Without doubt, Washington will appreciate that Musharraf has once again braved potentially vehement domestic opposition to deliver on a key US demand.

Musharraf is sending Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to NATO headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday. A NATO spokesman hailed the visit as "vitally important", and underlined that the visit will "deepen the political relationship between NATO and Pakistan". Formal NATO-Pakistan cooperation is bound to impact on the "war on terror" in Afghanistan. As the NATO spokesman succinctly put it, Pakistan will henceforth become "part of the solution".......

At the same time, emerging ties with Pakistan will enable NATO to begin to reduce its dependence on Russian airspace (and Russian goodwill) for ferrying supplies for troops in Afghanistan. Not only that: at a time when Israel's formal admission to NATO is under active discussion, NATO will have already established a foothold on the Persian Gulf region's eastern periphery.

Most important, the configuration works to the great advantage of the US in the event of an outbreak of military hostilities against Iran, which borders Pakistan. The rapid sequencing of these developments is interesting, to say the least. It is hardly a week since the new chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, told the New York Times that the Bush administration's statements about Iran were uncomfortably reminiscent of the rhetoric in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Being a lawmaker with access to highly classified intelligence, Rockefeller's views carry particular weight. So indeed do Negroponte's. "

Palestinian Unity Talks?
He Is Sure A Lot Friendlier (Hugs and Kisses) To Peres Than He Was To Mash'al!

By Mike Luckovich

Click on picture, then on bottom right corner to enlarge

"A top secret directive from 'Prime Minister' Maliki, upon consultation with Muqtada Al-Sadr and 'National Security Advisor' Al-Rubaii, ordering that top echelon of Mahdi Army leaders (11 names are listed) who are directly associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are to go underground, preferably sent back to Iran, and that the second tier of Mahdi Army commnaders are to be temporarily dispatched to the south of Iraq in response to the immenint 'surge' of the American forces and the intended campaign against the militias in Baghdad.
Copy of the directive is sent to the Iranian Embassy in Baghadad,
The Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq SCIRI, and the Sadr Office.

January 14, 2007

Note: The 'National Security Advisor's' salary is paid directly by the American occupier, not by the Iraqi
'government'."

Al-Manar

"Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah made a live address to the Lebanese through Al-Manar TV station and called for calm and restraint in the streets.

Sayyed Nasrallah said that what happened today is regretful adding that this is what the opposition has been trying to warn against. His eminence stressed calls by opposition and other political leaderships to maintain calm and abide by the instructions of the Lebanese army should be observed. He also said that the first priority now is to cooperate with the Lebanese army given the critical mission this institution is undertaking. Sayyed Nasrallah said in his address that the army today is the real guarantee for Lebanon to overcome this crisis and not be dragged into what is being plotted against this country. "It is a political, ethical and religious obligation to abide by the instructions of the Lebanese army and withdraw from the streets," his eminence said.

Sayyed Nasrallah also called on the judiciary and the Lebanese army to arrest and expose those who opened fire during today's events. He discouraged some groups to follow other parties that had earned a black history during the civil war, adding that happened today proves that these same groups are seeking to drag the country into the unknown. Sayyed Nasrallah said snipers who had operated during today's clashes were a serious issue adding that "we have warned against bringing in snipers and placing them in buildings." These snipers, Sayyed Nasrallah said, should be arrested and exposed. "We have been saying that arms that are raised by some Lebanese against their countrymen are Israeli arms," Hezbollah's chief said. His eminence renewed his call for calm and urged the Lebanese to contain the tension and act responsibly to prevent the clashes from expanding from one area to another. "I hope that everyone would positively respond to the calls made by all political leaderships in the country for calm," Sayyed Nasrallah concluded."

"BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two colonels, one lieutenant colonel and two command sergeants major were among the 12 soldiers killed last weekend in a Black Hawk helicopter crash northeast of Baghdad, the Pentagon said.

It appeared to be the largest number of key officers and command sergeants killed in a single incident during since the Iraq war started nearly four years ago.

The U.S. command has not said why so many key officers were aboard a single helicopter, which went down Saturday in Diyala province, one of the flashpoints of the Iraq conflict. It was also unclear why they were traveling in the volatile region. But the loss of such pivotal figures is likely to be a severe blow to their units.

Ten of the dead were members of the National Guard, making it the deadliest single combat incident for the Guard since at least the Korean War, said Mark Allen, a National Guard Bureau spokesman....."

The Evils of Escalation

A Good Article
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch

"Bush's state of the union address did not describe the deplorable state of the union. The speech's importance consists of Bush's plea to Congress to please let him fool them one more time in order that he can attack Iran and start a bigger war that Congress will have to support in order to support Israel.....

The "surge" of US troops for Iraq is another deception. The surge's purpose has nothing to do with achieving victory in Iraq. Its purpose is to counter the pressure from the American public, Congress, and the US military to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Once a withdrawal begins, the neoconservative misadventure in the Middle East is at an end before its goals can be achieved. Delaying the withdrawal by proposing an escalation and provoking a debate gives Bush and Israel time to orchestrate an attack on Iran.....

Consequently, while Congress wastes time with non-binding resolutions against the surge in Iraq, Bush proceeds to implement plans to start war with Iran.....

The Bush Regime is the first neoconservative regime in US history. Bush hides the neoconservative agenda behind "the war on terror," which essentially is a hoax. The main purpose of the neoconservatives' "war on terror" it to eliminate any effective Muslim opposition to Israel's theft of Palestine and the Golan Heights.....

Bush is not going to be forthright about the neoconservative agenda, because he knows it is one that Congress and the American people must be manipulated and maneuvered into accepting. However, neoconservatives themselves are very forthright about their war plans. Let's listen to their most recent pronouncements.....

Another American presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, told the Israeli audience that Islamic jihadism was "the nightmare of this century." Israel, Romney declared, "is facing a jihadist threat that runs through Tehran, to Damascus, to Gaza." Hezbollah, he declared, is not fighting for a Palestinian state but for the destruction of Israel.

The world has not experienced this level of warmongering since Hitler......

Burns told the Israelis that "We are committed to our alliance with Israel. We are committed to being Israel's strongest security partner. I can't remember a time when the relationship between our two countries was stronger than it is today."......

Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz, who met privately with Burns prior to their joint appearance at the Herzliya conference, said that 2007 would decide the future of the Middle East. Mofaz declared, "The year of 2007 is a year of decisiveness. Iran of 2007 has all the components to threaten us existentially, and the whole of the region."......

Iran is being set up by the identical propaganda machine that set up Iraq with fearful imagery of "mushroom clouds over American cities" and nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction.".....

A great number of Western experts agree that the problem in the Middle East is neither Islamic jihad nor Israel per se, but Zionism, which keeps Israel on a land expansionist course at the expense of Arab peoples. The failure of US policy in the Middle East is the failure to deter Israel from this Zionist policy. A large number of Israelis are opposed to this policy and recognize that Zionism is the cause of Israel's conflict with Arabs. The real problem that Americans face is that the Zionist influence on US policy is so powerful that instead of dealing with the real cause of strife in the Middle East, the US is about to join Zionism in attempting to eliminate all Muslim opposition to Zionist expansion.

Bush's "war on terror" and Iran's alleged nuclear weapons are just propagandistic cover for the real agenda, which is to silence opponents of Zionist expansion....."

"Following the bloody events taking place in and around the Beirut Arab University (BAU), Hezbollah issued a statement calling citizens and supporters to maintain calm and immediately get out of the streets. The statement said: After the aggressive attacks by members of the authority's militias against BAU students which extended to other regions, Hezbollah calls on all citizens and supporters to get out of the streets and not to be dragged into sedition which some well known groups are trying to incite."

Al-Manar

"Initial reports said that two university students were killed and twenty others injured have been injured in the attack launched by pro-government militias against the Beirut Arab University. MP Saad Hariri's Future Movement militias stormed into the University in started attacking pro-opposition students in campus, and sought to kidnap some students and a fistfight ensued. Future Movement militias surrounded the university from all four sides and ordered students loyal to the opposition out of the campus. Reports also said that Future militiamen living nearby came out to their balconies with machine guns and started shooting at the university. Tension is still prevailing in the area and the Lebanese army is trying to disperse Future movement militiamen and secure the exit of the besieged students while sounds of gunshots are being heard. Hezbollah issued a statement and called on citizens and supporters to retreat from the street. Similar calls were made by Speaker Nabih Berri and MP Hariri. "

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 January 2007

"......Now, The Electronic Intifada has obtained an Israeli Ministry of Defense Powerpoint presentation which provides a frightening glimpse into the mindset of the bureaucracy of apartheid.

The first page of the document bears the name "Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories" as well as the acronym "COGAT" at the bottom of each page. These appear to refer to the unit of the Israeli army that enforces the occupation against the Palestinian civilian population.

The top of the first slide also bears the names and insignia of the "State of Israel" and the "Ministry of Defense." Dated January 12, the presentation is titled "Key Measures for easing the daily lives of the Palestinian Population."

Far from that, the document provides detail of the regime of severe movement restrictions, bureaucratic ethnic cleansing and political manipulation and fostering of collaboration that Israel operates in the the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.....

Amidst a system of ruthless and obsessive control such as the one Israel operates against Palestinians, not even this token 'easing' designed purely for public relations can be taken for granted; Israel routinely lies about what it does. For example, during a summit meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in December, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert promised to remove dozens of checkpoints and obstacles impeding the movement of Palestinians inside the occupied West Bank. The Israeli occupation forces later claimed to have removed 44 of the hundreds of obstacles in fulfillment of Olmert's pledge. In fact, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported on January 22, the Israeli army "admitted on Sunday that the 44 dirt obstacles it said had been removed from around West Bank villages did not actually exist."

What does exist, and is plain for all the world to see, is a horrifying regime of totalitarian control of millions of Palestinians who remain prisoners of Israel's racist system and the army and settler militias that enforce it."

UN Office For The Coordination Of Humanitarian Affairs

"BAGHDAD, 25 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - There is increased international concern about the plight of Palestinians living in Baghdad following the arrest on 16 January of 30 Palestinians by Iraqi security forces in two neighbourhoods of the capital, Baghdad. Although they were released shortly after, the UN is concerned that Palestinians have been systematically targetted and threatened by authorities and militias.

However, despite their release, a group of up to 90 terrified Palestinian men, women and children fled Baghdad on Wednesday heading toward the Syrian border, where the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says more than 500 Palestinians have been stranded for months.....

In one incident in Baghdad's central district of al-Batawyen, interior ministry forces broke doors and windows of a building that is rented by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to house Palestinian refugees and arrested 17 men. The second incident took place in al-Amin district in the eastern side of the capital. According to UNHCR, 13 Palestinian men were apprehended by men wearing Iraqi security uniforms......

UNHCR said on Wednesday that what happened to the men during their abduction was unclear. The agency said the men and their families were clearly traumatised by the ordeal and afraid to provide any details.

The refugee agency said that the abduction caused great panic among the Palestinians, with some saying that they feared attacks by militias. Others said they wanted to leave as well but could not because they lacked proper documents or because they still had family members in Baghdad who cannot leave.

IRIN spoke to Khalid al-Qudsi, a 55-year-old Palestinian who lives in the west Baghdad neighbourhood of Iskan and whose relatives were among those arrested on Tuesday and who were heading to the Syrian border on Thursday.

Instant death in Baghdad

"I heard from my cousin yesterday night and he was really terrified. He told me that they can't stand it any more and that they are leaving for Syria with other families. He told me that they would prefer to live under the harsh conditions at the Syrian borders than to meet instant death in Baghdad," said al-Qudsi.

"I have not heard from my daughter and her three kids who are stranded at the Syrian border. I last heard from her two months ago when she sent me a letter with a taxi driver. They were in a very bad situation and she said that one of her sons, who is seven years old, was sick,” he said.

UNHCR said that around 15,000 Palestinians live in Baghdad as refugees, but face constant threats from death squads and are unable to move freely. The refugee agency said many of those in Baghdad who have tried to leave have been turned back by militia in the city.

“Of all the groups being targeted in Iraq, the Palestinians are the most vulnerable as they literally have nowhere else to flee, and in many cases have been denied travel documents”, said Andrew Harper, the Geneva-based senior Iraq operations manager for UNHCR. “The international community must act now to help these people. A safe haven needs to be found immediately, outside Iraq.”

At the same time, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has appealed to Arab governments to take in the more than 500 Palestinians who have been stranded for months at the Iraqi-Syrian border after fleeing persecution in Baghdad.

"We appeal to their common sense and generosity to allow them in. Having pregnant women, children and newborn babies there under snow and rain is no solution," Panos Moumtzis, head of UNRWA in Syria, said."

***
NEXT, AFTER KILLING THE PALESTINIANS, THE MAHDI ARMY WILL MARCH TO LIBERATE JERUSALEM!

Palestinians Under Pressure To Leave Iraq

The Washington Post

"...."You are Palestinians. Why are you still living in Iraq?" Mohammed recalled the man saying. "You have 48 hours to leave."

Within 24 hours, Mohammed was gone. The 36-year-old was among dozens of people who loaded their meager belongings onto buses at dawn Wednesday inside Baghdad's main Palestinian enclave in the Baladiyat neighborhood. They drove north toward the Syrian border, joining a growing exodus of Palestinians now following their familiar story line: an unwelcome people searching for a home.

Baghdad is a dangerous place for anyone to live, and the fighting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims has displaced hundreds of thousands. Largely forgotten amid this violence is the plight of thousands of Palestinians in Iraq, who face an increasingly hostile environment because they are predominantly Sunni and perceived as having been favored during the rule of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Palestinians and human rights officials in Baghdad say members of the group are being targeted by roving Shiite militias and Iraqi police in efforts to expel them.....

An estimated 19,000 Palestinians have fled Iraq since 2003, leaving about 15,000 behind, according to the United Nations. About 350 Palestinians are now stranded in a desolate refugee camp in a no man's land at the Al Tanf border crossing into Syria. For more than six months they have been denied entry into Syria, and they refuse to return to Iraq. An additional 80 Palestinians are stuck on the Iraqi side of the line. Similar makeshift settlements have cropped up along the border with Jordan.

"Killings, threats, intimidations and kidnappings are becoming the norm for Palestinians in Iraq," the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq said in a report this month. "Many of these actions are reportedly carried out by the militias wearing police or special forces uniform[s]."

Mortar shells regularly crash down on the squalid cinder-block Baladiyat compound, the largest settlement of Palestinians in Iraq, with an estimated population of 4,000 to 7,000. In November and December, guerrillas staged at least six organized attacks on the area. On Dec. 13, three hours of mortar attacks killed as many as 11 people, the U.N. report said.

"Any country that wants us, we will go there," said Rafaat Musaa Ahmed, 36, a carpenter and father of four who lives in the Palestinian compound in Baladiyat. "Even if we would live in a barren place, even if it was a desert."

After evening prayers during Ramadan in October, a mortar round fell on Ahmed's apartment, injuring his wife with shrapnel. She now suffers seizures, he said, and has been denied treatment at clinics affiliated with Iraq's Health Ministry, which is run by loyalists of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr......"

Continue This Long Article

By Kurt Nimmo

"Newt Gingrich once again climbs up on the soapbox, this time at the Herzliya Conference sponsored by the Institute for Policy and Strategy in Israel. Newt tells us that the “terrorist threats are larger and more formidable than the political system in Israel or the US can cope with,” and of course, following the official fairy tale, this threat is nuclear, never mind Israel and the United States combined have more nukes than any other nation on the planet and have expressed their avid desire to use them, explicitly against Iran.

Gingrich believes the “Department of Homeland Security needs to hold two exercises of what would happened if a nuclear weapon is deployed against us, and one exercise with a biological weapon, to be used on an American city like, Dallas or Pittsburg…. This is not paranoia by the Bush administration, but their legitimate worries about how dangerous the world has become, and most Americans believe this,” thanks to unremitting propaganda and Fox News, hyping Iran’s nonexistent nukes, and telling lies about Ahmedinajad, mistranslating his speeches and inventing scary campfire stories about genocide and national suicide.

“In 1930 we thought we could accommodate Hitler,” Gingrich continues......

“Anyone who proposes that we pull out of Iraq needs to understand the price of defeat,” Gingrich continues. “The last time the United States was seen as weak and defeated, 1979 and 1980, we had a 444 day long hostage crisis in Iran, and an ambassador killed in Afghanistan.”

Only the magnificently ignorant will buy this argument, as history teaches otherwise.

Iran remembers all too well the 1953 plot to overthrow the popular and democratically elected leader Mossadeq and install the hated monarch Reza Pahlavi, who wasted no time setting up the dreaded SAVAK secret police, trained by the Israelis and having the dubious honor of the worst human rights record on the planet in 1976, according to Amnesty International, no small feat considering the gruesome parade of sadists and torturers haunting the 20th century.

For Gingrich, it wasn’t enough Carter kissed the Shah’s hem and proclaimed: “Iran under the leadership of the Shah is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world. This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership, and to the respect, admiration and love which your people give to you.” Carter said this as the Shah prepared to kill thousands on a single day, September 8, 1978, known as Black Friday in Iran. For Gingrich, the Shah failed miserably, as he did not kill millions of his own people instead of a mere few thousand. Leave it to the neocons to pick up where the Shah left off some thirty odd years ago......

“My grandchildren are in greater danger than I was throughout the Cold War,” Newt tells us with a straight face.

In short, Gingrich and the neocons demand a new Cold War—only in their demented criminal minds it will not be “cold,” but rather hot, as in nuclear fission, as we have been told for some time now the only way to get at Iran’s fictional nuclear labs is through the use of “mini-nukes,” a word tossed around casually, as if “mini” poses no threat to folks downwind, to say nothing of those in the neighborhood.

It would seem the U.S. presidential selectee field is glutted with those chomping at the bit not only to attack Iran, but please warmongering fanatics in Israel.

“Republican US presidential aspirant Mitt Romney summed up the sentiment of four US presidential hopefuls who addressed the Seventh Annual Herzliya Conference run by the Institute for Policy and Strategy of the IDC Herzliya over the last two days by saying, ‘Iran must be stopped, Iran can be stopped, and Iran will be stopped,’” reports the neocon- and Likudnik-infested Jerusalem Post. “The heart of the jihadist threat is Iran… I believe that Iran’s leaders and ambitions represent the greatest threat to the world since the fall of the Soviet Union and before that Nazi Germany,” comments demonstrating these folks are following the script closely as they press the flesh in Herzliya, hometown of Mossad (in keeping with the tenor of the proceedings in Herzliya, it should be noted that the Institute for Policy and Strategy is run by Uzi Arad, a former senior Mossad official).

Romney made sure to add “that a military option remains on the table,” in other words, we can expect an attack sooner before later.

Not to be back-benched, John Edwards, “progressive Democrat,” told the Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center that Iran poses “an unprecedented threat to the world and Israel” and said “in order to ensure Iran never gets nuclear weapons, all options must remain on [the] table,” i.e., thousands of Iranians must die for the lies of the neocons.

Apparently unable to contain himself, Edwards opened “his speech with great praise for former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,” the comatose war criminal, according to Israel Insider. Edwards’ speech put to rest the idea, held by the easily flimflammed, that there is any difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Incidentally, for Canadians out there, your country is on the bomb-Iran-bandwagon, as Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was on hand in Herzliya. “Canada is deeply concerned,” Mr. MacKay told the gathered. “Tehran must not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. We need to start talking seriously and creatively about what the international community can do and can do now and what resources we can draw upon.”

“Rallying the international community to isolate Iran should be the ‘main mission’ of Israel, said Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu,” reports the Jewish Week. “Richard Perle, a former administration official now with the American Enterprise Institute, cautioned that time is running out before Iran hits the point of ‘no return’ on its nuclear program (although other speakers estimated it could take a decade before Iran produces a weapon). While he advocated for the creation of conditions for domestic regime change in Iran, Perle also warned that little time remains before the U.S. weighs taking military action.”

Meanwhile, “Islamic expert and historian Bernard Lewis spoke back-to-back with former CIA director James Woolsey,” reports the Arutz Sheva Israel Broadcasting Network.

Lewis, pegged as “the doyen of Middle Eastern studies,” is the neocon’s neocon who, as any racist worth his salt, believes the “real culprit behind the political, economic, and military failures of the Middle East over the past half a millennium” is Islamic culture, as M. Shahid Alam puts it.

James Woolsey is better known as “Mr. World War Four,” a former CIA director, lurker at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Coalition for Democracy in Iran (comparable to the “democracy” now enjoyed by millions of Iraqis), a PNAC signatory (thus he is a demonstrable war criminal of Nuremberg caliber), and Booz Allen Hamilton VP. “This is going to be a long war, very long indeed,” once declared Woolsey, parroting his buddy Eliot Cohen. “I hope not as long as the Cold War, 40 plus years, but certainly longer than either World War I or World War II.”

“There is a very substantial likelihood that if the diplomatic approach failed—and I think it will—and non-violent regime change won’t work (in Iran), there is no alternative except for the U.S. to use force,” Woolsey told the Jerusalem Post, according to United Press International.

As Woolsey sees it, the “Wahhabis, al-Qaida, the Vilayat Faqih in Teheran … are capable of unification,” never mind “al-Qaida” was assigned the role, in part, of widening the schism between the two branches of Islam, as the now largely forgotten al-Zarqawi labored day and night at accomplishing in Iraq, thus helping to facilitate “civil war,” in short engineered chaos.

One must ask what sort of drugs Mr. Woolsey is taking, as the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia are petrified of the Shia in Iran and not too secretly anticipate and welcome any attack designed to take out the mullahs.

Finally, Blake Hounshell, blogger over at Foreign Policy, is spot on when he writes: “Judging by the sound bytes I’m reading, you could call it the Bomb Iran conference. U.S. government officials as high as Gordon England and Nick Burns were in attendance. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was also there, as were his rivals John McCain and Rudy Giuliani…. Expect more of this over-the-top rhetoric from both sides of the aisle. What to do about Iran is going to dominate the American debate from now until 2008, and beyond.”

Of course, as the above comments make painfully obvious, the “debate” (i.e., threats) will not stretch into 2008. More than likely, the Iran attack will come this year, probably before summer, although I am reluctant to drag out the crystal ball and make predictions, as this has failed dismally in the past. However, we can probably bank on the dire prospect of an Iran attack and its ominous reverberations in the Middle East and its economic backlash here in the United States, indeed around the world, well before 2008. "

By Mazin Qumsiyeh

"Standing ovations to a criminal spouting lies Regurgitated in News and Editorial pages Yet, what is censored is far more important and its ramifications far more significant Some victims adopted the language of their oppressors Others resigned to their proscribed fates Many in a peace movement co-opted or afraid letting others pay the sacrifices Goebbles would have envied their media devices allowed to endlessly quibble Baghdad burning while they argue over the sound of the fiddle (using colonial language) "How do we fix Eyraq?" "How do we fight Eyran”? "How do we isolate the radicals"? (even the majority wanting freedom) "How do we kill more extremists"? (even as we created the largest green house to grow them) How do we get more subservient UN institutions? While violating all human rights resolutions. maybe more money to Dahlan, Al-Hurra, and Iraqi puppets? more tours of duty, fancy words and better bullets? more new clothes for old generals or old cloths for new programs? maybe better hasbara language of us vs them, them vs them, terrorism vs democracies Palestinians vs Israelis Shi'i vs Sunni Arabs vs Jews blacks vs whites black and white language of hate and diversion language of murder and deception language of Nero and Ghenkis Khan Churchill and Balfour Hertzl and Samuels Clinton and Pelosi Browne and Raymond enriched from Oil that somehow got under our soil Starbucks' Schultz pontificating that Israel must do more killing

Forgive them for they know not what they do?

They tell us if victims stop just maybe, maybe they can drop some of the worst torture methods maybe allow some of us to live on our lands with limited supervised demilitarized autonomy if we promise the occupiers security maybe then revive the US constitution bring kinder pimps for prostitution maybe share 10% of the privatized resources with the manufactured competing provinces promises to give us a glimmer of tunnels which may have light less dimmer A promise of another Condi trip peddling a map like Kissinger peddling his Zionist crap to get accolades from his masters and money from his (undisclosed) consultants While committing and supporting war crimes with designer suits and fake smiles fake words of democracy and million dollar bonuses they play musical chairs in countless institutions with deceptive names occasionally jumping to corporations and then back to government halls that keeps its only credibility by spreading fear of Arabs and Muslims While manufacturing Abrams tanks and misnamed think tanks while US trained death squads kill the innocents and propagate the ageless game of conquer, divide, and pillage

Forgive them for they know not what they do?

they said "our policy for the Iraq-Iran war was to get them to kill each other" deduct the one million who perished in that war deduct the 1.5 million killed by US led sanctions deduct the 650,000 Iraqis who perished and those yet to perish in neocon latest war how many Iraqis will be left in five years? will they bring Democracy to the last Iraqi standing alive or hang her? But Iran is next and Maybe China (hence the nuclear deals with India) Meanwhile Arabs and Muslims are fair game and don't run fast enough....."

With Iran empowered by the demise of its enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is orchestrating a Shi'ite crescent that stretches from Kabul to Beirut. In response, a Sunni axis with US backing is being marshaled - with Pakistan the latest recruit. The proxies of Iran and Saudi Arabia are locking horns all over the region, from Baghdad to Beirut and Gaza, while Washington and Tehran step up military preparations

By Iason Athanasiadis
Asia Times

"TEHRAN - After several months of faint rumblings, a US-led, Middle East-wide alliance of conservative Sunni and secular Muslim states marshaled against Iran is starting to take shape, to the deepening discomfort of the Iranian theocracy. Leading countries in this alliance are Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan......

The new Middle East cold war is being waged on such diverse battlefields as Baghdad, Beirut and Gaza between the proxies of Tehran and Riyadh. In Lebanon, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is taking covert action against Hezbollah as part of a plan by President George W Bush to help the Lebanese government prevent the spread of Iranian influence. Perhaps in reaction to that, Hezbollah loyalists took to the streets of Beirut on Tuesday and engaged in fighting that led to the deaths of three people.......

This week, the anti-Iranian alliance of Sunni-majority states stretched east to embrace Pakistan as that country's leader journeyed to the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm al-Sheikh for consultations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. President General Pervez Musharraf was coming from Riyadh, where he vowed to deepen defense and strategic ties with the Wahhabi kingdom. His trip, according to the Saudi-owned, Arabic-language news site Elaph, was intended to "expand the Sunni alliance that includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to include Pakistan as well in order to face the growing Iranian influence in the region"......

A US task force led by the aircraft carrier John C Stennis is on its way to the Gulf, where it will join another carrier. Analysts point out that the two carriers would have a combined capacity to launch around-the-clock bombing raids. The Pentagon is reportedly considering hitting 24 targets to degrade Iran's nuclear capability and potential for striking back, in case diplomacy fails to resolve the crisis surrounding the Iranian nuclear program.

"An air campaign against Iran of this magnitude would almost certainly include efforts to knock out potential Iranian retaliatory capabilities in the Gulf, such as Iran's array of coastal anti-ship missiles," said White. "Perhaps one new point of emphasis was how difficult such a confrontation could be to end once initiated.".....

"Most actions require extensive lead time, usually for unglamorous activity like logistics," said James Spencer, a Middle East expert specializing in defense and security issues. "Contingency plans usually therefore take the form of identifying a vague concept of operations, and consequently troop numbers, logistic requirements, timelines etc. When the politicians suddenly have their brilliant idea, the file can be opened and the flesh put on the prepared bones with more thoroughness than haste."

In an e-mail titled "Pieces in place for escalation against Iran", retired US Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner listed the arrival of US military hardware to the region and noted that "the pieces are moving. They'll be in place by the end of February. The United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran." "

By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 25 January 2007

"Baghdad is paralysed by fear. Iraqi drivers are terrified of running into impromptu checkpoints where heavily armed men in civilian clothes may drag them out of their cars and kill them for being the wrong religion. Some districts exchange mortar fire every night. This is mayhem beyond the comprehension of George Bush and Tony Blair.

Black smoke was rising over the city centre yesterday as American and Iraqi army troops tried to fight their way into the insurgent district of Haifa Street only a mile north of the Green Zone, home to the government and the US and British embassies. Helicopters flew fast and low past tower blocks, hunting snipers, and armoured vehicles manoeuvred in the streets below......

It is extraordinary that, almost four years after US forces captured Baghdad, they control so little of it. The outlook for Mr Bush's strategy of driving out insurgents from strongholds and preventing them coming back does not look good.

On Monday, a helicopter belonging to the US security company Blackwater was shot down as it flew over the Sunni neighbourhood of al-Fadhil, close to the central markets of Baghdad. Several of the five American crew members may have survived the crash but they were later found with gunshot wounds to their heads, as if they had been executed on the ground.

Baghdad has broken up into hostile townships, Sunni and Shia, where strangers are treated with suspicion and shot if they cannot explain what they are doing. In the militant Sunni district of al-Amariyah in west Baghdad the Shia have been driven out and a resurgent Baath party has taken over. One slogan in red paint on a wall reads: "Saddam Hussein will live for ever, the symbol of the Arab nation." Another says: "Death to Muqtada [Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist Shia cleric] and his army of fools.".......

The fear in Baghdad is so intense that rumours of even bloodier battles sweep through the city. Two weeks ago, many Sunni believed that the Shia Mehdi Army was going to launch a final "battle of Baghdad" aimed at killing or expelling the Sunni minority in the capital. The Sunni insurgents stored weapons and ammunition in order to make a last-ditch effort to defend their districts. In the event, they believe the ultimate battle was postponed at the last minute. Mr Bush insisted that the Iraqi government, with US military support, "must stop the sectarian violence in the capital". Quite how they are going to do this is not clear. American reinforcements might limit the ability of death squads to roam at will for a few months, but this will not provide a long-term solution.

Mr Bush's speech is likely to deepen sectarianism in Iraq by identifying the Shia militias with Iran. In fact, the most powerful Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, is traditionally anti-Iranian. It is the Badr Organisation, now co-operating with US forces, which was formed and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In the Arab world as a whole, Mr Bush seems to be trying to rally the Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to support him in Iraq by exaggerating the Iranian threat.

Iraqis also wonder what will happen in the rest of Iraq while the US concentrates on trying to secure Baghdad. The degree of violence in the countryside is often underestimated because it is less reported than in the capital. In Baquba, the capital of Diyala province north-east of Baghdad, US and Iraqi army commanders were lauding their achievements at a press conference last weekend, claiming: "The situation in Baquba is reassuring and under control but there are some rumours circulated by bad people." Within hours, Sunni insurgents kidnapped the mayor and blew up his office.

The situation in the south of Iraq is no more reassuring. Five American soldiers were killed in the Shia holy city of Karbala last Saturday by gunmen wearing American and Iraqi uniforms, carrying American weapons and driving vehicles used by US or Iraqi government forces. A licence plate belonging to a car registered to Iraq's Minister of Trade was found on one of the vehicles used in the attack. It is a measure of the chaos in Iraq today that US officials do not know if their men were killed by Sunni or Shia guerrillas.

US commanders and the Mehdi Army seem to be edging away from all-out confrontation in Baghdad. Neither the US nor Iraqi government has the resources to eliminate the Shia militias. Even Kurdish units in the capital have a high number of desertions. The Mehdi Army, if under pressure in the capital, could probably take over much of southern Iraq.

Mr Bush's supposedly new strategy is less of a strategy than a collection of tactics unlikely to change dramatically the situation on the ground. But if his systematic demonising of Iran is a precursor to air strikes or other military action against Iran, then Iraqis will once more pay a heavy price."

***

Iran will fight the Great Satan to the last Iraqi!

By Steve Bell, The Guardian

PM: International front has been formed against the Iranian threat

"An international front has been created to fight the Iranian threat, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told delegates to the Herzliya Conference on Wednesday.

Olmert focused his address at the conference on a report detailing the state of the Iranian threat. The prime minister emphasized that Israel has been following Iran's efforts to achieve nuclear capability for years.

"For many long years, we have followed Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, in the guise of a civilian nuclear program. They are working through secret channels in a number of sites spread out across Iran," he said. "In the past few years, we have been witness to especially intense Iranian activity on two tracks - the overt and the covert."

The prime minister said that the Iranian threat was evident in the financial, military and intelligence aid Tehran granted Palestinian terror groups, both directly and through Syria. Olmert said the threat was also manifested in Iranian support of Iraqi terror groups and the Hezbollah.

"This activity has created an opposing front, which includes, in varying intensities, all the permanent members of the UN Security Council; Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt and Jordan; and other key countries in the West, such as Germany and Japan," he said.

"This front is acting to unite forces and prevent this threat from becoming a reality," Olmert added...."

Former CIA chief expects force with Iran

"A former head of the CIA, speaking in Israel, said that he expects diplomacy alone will not force Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons.
"There is a very substantial likelihood that if the diplomatic approach failed -- and I think it will -- and non-violent regime change won't work (in Iran), there is no alternative except for the U.S. to use force," said James Woolsey, according to The Jerusalem Post.
On Monday, Woolsey addressed a forum at the Herzliya Conference, an annual event held this year from Jan. 21-24.
As a former chief of the world's largest intelligence agency, Woolsey dismissed claims by Iran and its apologists that the Islamic Republic seeks nuclear capability for peaceful means.
"With its huge oil and natural gas reserves, Iran is not the least bit interested in nuclear power," Woolsey said.
Woolsey also warned that the United States, Israel, and their allies could face an empowered threat if various extremist factions in the region align. "The Wahhabis, al-Qaida, the Vilayat Faqih in Teheran, although often lethally competitive with one another in the way the Nazis and communists were in the 1930s, are capable of unification," Woolsey said, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Questioned about the likelihood that President George W. Bush would launch an attack on Iran, Woolsey replied, "The president is a man of great character and principle."
Woolsey said he believes Bush is a man "who means what he says, and he said we're not going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon."
Woolsey was head of the CIA from 1993 to 1995 under President Bill Clinton."

By Paul Reynolds
BBC

"One of the notable features of President George W Bush's State of the Union speech was its hostile attitude towards Iran.

References to Iran ran like a drum beat through the speech, adding a wider element to his appeal for support for what he called his "new strategy" in Iraq.

He accused the "regime" in Iran of arming "terrorists like Hezbollah" and of directing "Shia extremists" in Iraq.

He raised the prospect of a larger conflict in the Middle East in which Iran would be central......

The new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Senator John Rockefeller, a Democrat, has spoken out against the verbal attacks on Iran and compared them to what happened before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"To be quite honest, I'm a little concerned that it's Iraq again," Senator Rockefeller told the New York Times....."

"Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of Parliament, read a roll call of the 275 elected members with a goal of shaming the no-shows.

Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister? Absent, living in Amman and London. Adnan Pachachi, the octogenarian statesman? Also gone, in Abu Dhabi.

Others who failed to appear Monday included Saleh Mutlak, a senior Sunni legislator; several Shiites and Kurds; and Ayad al-Samaraei, chairman of the finance committee, whose absence led Mr. Mashhadani to ask: “When will he be back? After we approve the budget?”

It was a joke barbed with outrage. Parliament in recent months has been at a standstill. Nearly every session since November has been adjourned because as few as 65 members made it to work, even as they and the absentees earned salaries and benefits worth about $120,000.

Part of the problem is security, but Iraqi officials also said they feared that members were losing confidence in the institution and in the country’s fragile democracy. As chaos has deepened, Parliament’s relevance has gradually receded......"

***

And this is the "parliament" that will approve the theft of Iraqi oil for the next 30 years by American companies, under the new oil "law" written by an American company. A group of absent thieves rubberstamping a much bigger theft!

Strategic Errors of Monumental Proportions

By Lt. General WILLIAM E. ODOM (US Army Ret.)
CounterPunch

Text of testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,18 January 2007.

A Very Good Analysis
Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 24 January 2007

"When Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas flew to Damascus last weekend to meet with Khaled Mishaal, the head of the Hamas politburo, he took with him many expectations.

It was hoped that this meeting could put an end to the political infighting that has been going on ever since Abbas' Fatah movement refused, with Western-backing, to accept the result of the elections one year ago that gave Hamas a sweeping majority of seats and the right to form a Cabinet.

With both parties nominally committed to a "national unity government", it was also hoped that an agreement would put an end to the US-Israeli-EU siege and boycott of the Palestinian Authority that has brought an occupied people to unprecedented levels of suffering and misery.

After a delay, resolved through Syrian mediation, Abbas and Mishaal did meet, but they did not achieve the sought-after agreement. Both committed themselves to further talks, and Mishaal reiterated Hamas' position that it would not allow the Palestinians to be drawn into the civil war that their external enemies want and plan for them.

Why have repeated efforts to persuade the two conflicting Palestinian sides to agree on one political programme failed? The answer is simple: it is not possible to reconcile the irreconcilable; it is not possible to invent a formula that can easily disguise the significant aspects of two contradictory political programmes.

In any political dispute, it is common to devise language that allows each party to interpret the formulation in a manner that allows it to make concessions while keeping its constituency onboard. But this can happen only when both sides share the commitment to overcome obstacles.

The so-called "Prisoners Document" was sought as a basis for agreement between the two sides last summer. It implicitly included all the elements Hamas is required to accept as conditions for reconciling with Abbas and his Western backers, but when Hamas accepted the document, Israel undermined any chance of progress by launching a full-scale assault on Gaza, killing hundreds of people and cutting off electricity to nearly a million, ostensibly in retaliation for the capture of one Israeli occupation soldier by Palestinian resistance fighters.

The crucial point of disagreement reappeared in Damascus, with Abbas insisting that his letter of designation to the new prime minister would require the new national unity Cabinet to commit itself to accepting all the previously signed agreements between the PLO and Israel, in addition to the Prisoners Document, the decisions of the Arab summit conferences and the rulings of the "international community" (code for the US-Israel-EU axis).

Demonstrating on how fine a line political agreements can stand, Hamas apparently agreed to "respect" rather than "pledge to accept" these conditions. This was not enough to seal an agreement. But it would be incredibly naive to expect that even if Hamas submitted unconditionally to all Abbas' demands and pledged allegiance to a Jewish Zionist state, this would result in any progress towards a reasonable settlement of the conflict.

The key factor is that Israel shows no interest whatsoever in a full withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967, the minimal conditions for the creation of a Palestinian state -- if that is even possible, given the decades of Israeli colonisation in the West Bank. At the very best, Hamas' capitulation would mark the return to an endless Western-sponsored "peace process" that never leads to peace.

The PA, Fatah and the Abbas' "presidency", acting as a shadow parallel government, want just that: to return to the good old days when money was pouring in to finance the luxuries of the ruling elite and when a sterile "peace process" was providing a tranquilising effect by maintaining the false impression of progress.

Israel, in the meantime, continued to colonise the land, annihilating what was left of the Palestinian rights and hopes.

The Palestinians' decision to vote for Hamas in the last general elections was precisely to indicate that they were fed up with deception, incompetence and corruption. It was a plea to exit the vain cycle of redefining the terms of reference always at their expense.

And yet, deception and lies continue unabated. In December, Abbas met Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Amid images of them hugging and kissing effusively, the results of their meeting were hailed by the peace process industry as a great breakthrough: Olmert promised to remove dozens of checkpoints which enforce the apartheid regulations in the West Bank, and to transfer $100 million of Palestinian tax money illegally seized by Israel. Yet on January 22, senior Israeli army sources confirmed what UN monitors had already stated: the 44 barriers and checkpoints allegedly removed by the Israeli army had not existed in the first place (Haaretz, January 22, 2007). Meanwhile, the released tax money will not flow through the Palestinian finance ministry, but into the unaccountable hands of Fateh and the "presidency", where much of it will be misappropriated to fund its militias rather than meet the needs of the public.

It is once again in fashion to proclaim the necessity to address the Arab-Israeli conflict.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, EU President Angela Merkel, and various Arab leaders are rushing from meeting to meeting. The Quartet is scheduled to meet in February, with US blessing, and Abbas would love to show up armed with an agreement with Hamas that meets the Quartet conditions. Everyone stresses the need to return to negotiations, but no one has the guts to refer to the substance of the called for negotiations or to face the real obstacle: Israeli intransigence and unabated colonisation.

There can be no better example of how much the patrons of this mockery of a peace process have their heads in the sand than the latest regional tour (they now seem to occur monthly) by the EU high representative, Javier Solana. After seeing the extent of new Israeli settlements in and around occupied Jerusalem, he declared himself "shocked", just like the corrupt police chief who "discovers" gambling going on under his nose in the movie Casablanca.

Why should Solana be shocked? The settlement growth is a direct result of the policies he supports and represents: punishing and imposing sanctions and conditions on the occupied Palestinians while appeasing Israel at every turn and remaining silent as it builds a system of apartheid more total than anything that existed in South Africa."

Al-Manar special report – Ali Hashem – Translated/

"In spite of the fact that black smoke was rising from burning tires during Tuesday's opposition general strike, however ashes only reached the faces of government supporters who did a great job of being mere gangsters, bringing back their old but new militia history. From the Dora to the Nahr el-Kalb regions, up to Mount Lebanon and down to the capital Beirut, Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces, MP Walid Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, MP Saad Hariri's Future Movement's supporters and their allies sought to strike the chord of sedition by attacking opposition supporters with stones, batons and even machine guns.

The Dora highway that links Beirut with the northern capital of Tripoli witnessed the aggression by the Lebanese Forces militias against the supporters of MP Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement. There, the gangsters attacked the demonstrators, destroyed parked cars and also detained and interrogated whomever they lay their hands on. While the gangsters of the Lebanese Forces were undertaking the commands of their leadership to intercept the demonstrators, Future Movement supporters were showering other demonstrators with stones from rooftops. Another style to attack the demonstrators was this time innovated by Future Movement loyalist, Bilal el-Shbib. He ran his car into a group of demonstrators in the northern town of Adma injuring three people. The demonstrators managed to stop the car and hand e-Shbib to the Lebanese army and later on, it was found that he works for one of the state's services as a supervisor at the VIP Salon of Beirut's International Airport. And to Mount Lebanon, the place that has become a stronghold for Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) armed members whose hands are still stained with the innocent blood of a man from Sawfar. The footage broadcast through Al-Manar TV station clearly show armed PSP members dismounting their car to confront opposition demonstrators."

A Response to Uri Avnery

Note: Here is the full text of the article, which was removed by CounterPunch soon after posting it.

An Excellent Article
By STEVEN FRIEDMAN and VIRGINIA TILLEY
CounterPunch

"Uri Avnery is a human rights crusader of venerable standing. He has fought, written, published and campaigned for Palestinian rights for some sixty years. He has stood on the political barricades and faced down bulldozers to defend Palestinians from Israeli military abuse. His articles, books, and magazine denounced Israel's seizure of Palestinian land before most of the "new historians" learned to write. He even denounces legalized discrimination against Palestinian Israelis in uncompromising terms and has called for Israel to become "a state of all its citizens", although still retaining a large Jewish majority (e.g., see his recent "What Makes Sammy Run?"). As a founder of the peace group Gush Shalom, he remains the recognized godfather of liberal Zionism and no one doubts his sincerity in insisting on a two-state solution.

Given all this, it may seem odd that many people working hard for a stable peace in Israel-Palestine find Mr. Avnery so misguided on some basic issues irritating.

The reason stems from his moral contradictions, all too common to liberal Zionism: that is, while taking an unflinching moral stand against racist abuses of Palestinians, he somehow drops the same principles in assuming that Israel itself has a right to preserve its "Jewish character" at the expense of Palestinian rights. For it is all too obvious that sustaining an "overwhelming" Jewish majority in Israel, essential to preserving its "Jewish character," requires that Israel sustain a whole cluster of racist practices, such as giant Walls to keep people from mixing and not allowing Palestinian exiles to return.

Liberal Zionists who cling to Mr. Avnery's analyses consistently trip over this moral fallacy. They want the occupation to end and find oppression of Palestinians morally abhorrent, and some even believe that discrimination against Palestinian Arabs must end. But they don't want Israel's status as a state run for only one ethnic group to end. They must therefore endorse whatever discrimination is deemed essential to preserving Israel's Jewish majority, particularly in keeping those Palestinians expelled from what is now Israel from ever coming back. In this view, Israel itself is morally okay--a "miracle," as David Grossman recently put it--or it would be okay if its leaders hadn't stupidly stumbled into military occupation after the 1967 war.

The result of this conundrum is moral chaos. While blatant ravings about ethnic cleansing by racists like Avigdor Lieberman are repellent, the earlier ethnic cleansing that gave birth to Israel is considered acceptable--a convulsion of war violence that has (it is never explained how) been morally transcended. The solution, in this view, is not to redress that founding sin but simply to stabilize Jewish statehood, which is understood mostly as relieving Jewish-Israeli fear of attack or annihilation. Recognizing that some modicrum of justice is required to achieve this "peace", the liberal-Zionist goal is to create a Palestinian state next door (safely demilitarized, of course, and not necessarily within the 1948 green line).

It takes a special kind of denial to hold onto this worldview, especially in light of fresh histories like Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which demolish the soothing fantasy that Israel's history of ethnic cleansing was an accident of war. This isn't surprising in itself: nationalist myths everywhere dismantle slowly. But Mr. Avnery does not fall into the classic category. He exposed Zionist crimes before anyone else. Yet he has never lost his affection for Jewish statehood or his dedication to preserving Israel's Jewish majority in Israel. He knows that, in 1948, Zionist troops ruthlessly terrorized and expelled hundreds of thousands of defenceless Palestinians from their villages and threw them out of the country. But he believes that the agenda of preserving the Jewish-Israeli society that he treasures not only mandates but grants moral authority to not allowing them back.

It is from this muddle of contradictory tenets that Mr. Avnery approaches the "apartheid" charge in President Carter's best-selling Palestine: Peace or Apartheid?

Mr. Avnery's argument against the apartheid analogy is not that Israeli state policies toward the Palestinians are not racist. He agrees that the occupation is racist and that the settlements and the Wall are creating a Bantustan Palestinian state. He endorses the term "apartheid" to describe Israeli policy in the West Bank. He also argues what is incontestably true: that many people treat the comparison of Israel with South Africa too casually and commit errors of logic. (His "Eskimo" comparison, about chewing water, is an uncomfortably antiquarian reference to the Inuit but makes the point). This care we endorse: genuine differences distinguish South Africa and Israel that do require careful consideration.

But Mr. Avnery's own analysis includes glaring logical and factual errors, stemming partly from a fundamental misunderstanding of what apartheid was and how it worked. He seems to think apartheid was an extreme version of Jim Crow, in which blacks were subordinated while being incorporated into a white society. In fact, apartheid was a system of racial domination based, crucially, on the notion of physical separation. The doctrines, policies, and collective psychologies of the Israeli and South African systems were much more similar than he recognizes and it is vital to spell these out.

Mr. Avnery's main argument stems from his most profound misconception. He warns that a campaign for South African-style unification in Israel-Palestine would only trigger new ethnic cleansing, because brooding Jewish anxiety about the "demographic threat" (too many non-Jews) would inspire Israeli reactionaries to forcibly expel the entire Palestinian population. Yet he considers this risk special to Israel, on grounds that it didn't exist in South Africa: "no White would have dreamt of ethnic cleansing. Even the racists understood that the country could not exist without the Black population." Yet a key feature of apartheid was forcible population transfers. Celebrated books have been written about the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and lands in an attempt to create a "white South Africa" in which blacks would be allowed only as "guest workers". So widespread was the policy of "forced removals" in order to "whiten" South Africa that we will probably never know how many people were really moved; the campaigns were far more systematic attempts at "ethnic cleansing" than anything attempted in Eastern Europe. If Mr. Avnery thinks apartheid had nothing to do with population transfer, he does not even vaguely understand apartheid.

Mr. Avnery supports this flawed analysis by offering four reasons why the apartheid comparison should not guide a solution in Israel-Palestine. First, he says that consensus on a one-state solution was already in place in South Africa. Blacks and whites, he argued, "agreed that the state of South Africa must remain intact- the question was only who would rule it. Almost nobody proposed to partition the country between the Blacks and the Whites".

This is a fundamental misunderstanding.Territorial separation of blacks and whites was the central plank of official apartheid policy at least until 1985--that is, for almost four decades. Central to the policy was the claim that 87 percent of the country's land mass belonged only to whites and that blacks were allowed into it only under sufferance and without rights. In the late 1970s, for example, a senior Cabinet Minister told the South African Parliament that eventually "there will be no black South Africans". Part of this policy was the creation of phoney "black homelands" which were given sham "independence" to make the point that their "citizens" were no longer South African --just as Israel's "two state" policies promise a "homeland" for Palestinians today. The acknowledgment that South Africa should remain intact was a consequence of apartheid's defeat, not a feature of the system.

Second, Mr. Avnery argues that, while racial separation in South Africa was a white agenda universally rejected by blacks, in Israel-Palestine both peoples want separate states. "Our conflict is between two different nations with different national identities, each of which places the highest value on a national state of its own." He affirms that only a radical micro-minority on both sides wants a single state. On the Jewish side, he says, these radicals are the religious zealot settlers who insist on retaining all of the West Bank. On the Palestinian side, the rejectionists are "the Islamic fundamentalists [who] also believe that the whole country is a "waqf" (religious trust) and belongs to Allah, and therefore must not be partitioned."

These sweeping assessments of either case do not hold up. First, black South Africans were not so monolithic in their own views. The ANC supported unification and democracy but factions of South Africa's black population bought into the "homelands" concept. Best known for this was the Inkatha Freedom Party in KwaZulu, but other groups also embraced the homeland policy for the power and patronage it allowed them--much as Fatah is embracing the truncated "state" offered by Israel today. Yes, the vast majority of black opinion rejected separate "homelands". But the small section of black society that felt it had something to gain from the "homelands" did not.

Palestinian views are not so monolithic, either. Polls conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre from 2000 through 2006 have shown Palestinian support for a two-state solution (understood as an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) running at only around 50 percent. Adherence to the vision of one Palestinian state in all of Palestine has waffled between 8 and 18 percent. But notably, support for a single "bi-national" state in all of Israel-Palestine has hovered stubbornly between 20 and 25 percent--a strikingly high figure given that the one-state option is not under public debate among Palestinians. (The reason for this silence is not that unification is unpopular, but that its discussion would undermine the premise for the Palestinian Authority's "interim" existence and is therefore politically very sensitive.) If a quarter of Palestinians support a one-state solution even under these daunting conditions, it is not unreasonable to propose, as do veteran Palestinian activists like Ali Abunimah (author of the new book, One Country), that wider Palestinian support for unification would quickly manifest under more conducive ones.

It's also relevant that, in these same polls, Palestinian support for an Islamic state has run at about 3 percent. Clearly, 25-percent Palestinian support for a unified state can't be reduced, as Mr. Avnery suggests, to Islamic radicalism.

Third, Mr. Avnery points to the different demographics of the two conflicts. In South Africa, a 10-percent white minority ruled over a 78-percent black majority (as well as "coloreds" and Indians), while in Israel-Palestine the Jewish and Palestinian populations are roughly equal, at about 5 million each. But this point leaves the argument hanging--so what? Any idea that it somehow makes the comparison inapplicable fails in two ways. First, it fails morally. Does oppression change qualitatively if the population distribution between the oppressor and oppressed vary? Would apartheid not have been apartheid if whites were half the population? Second, it fails in its political logic. Surely the black "threat" perceived by a 10-percent white minority in South Africa was far greater than the Palestinian Arab "threat" now feared by a Jewish-Israeli population standing at roughly 50 percent. Not surprisingly, the fear of being "swamped" by a large black majority was frequently cited by apartheid's supporters as a rationale for continuing to deny black rights. Yet Israeli Jews are far better positioned to retain political and economic power in Israel than were whites (especially Afrikaners) in South Africa.

Finally, Mr. Avnery holds that unification in South Africa was driven by racial economic interdependency. "The SA economy was based on Black labor and could not possibly have existed without it". In its initial phases, apartheid did try to minimize any dependence on blacks, by trying to relegate blacks only to menial labour. Black Africans were not permitted to do work reserved for whites (or for Indians and "coloreds"). There was, for example, a strict ban on blacks working as artisans outside the segregated homelands. The system started unravelling in the late 1960s when the economy ran out of whites in some semi-skilled and skilled occupations and the government was forced to allow blacks in. That change gave black workers greater bargaining power and, with other factors, provided a base for more effective organised resistance. Whether the Israelis will be forced at some point to let Palestinians back into the labour market is hard to know. But even here the differences are not as stark as he claims.

In his conclusions, Mr. Avnery argues that the apartheid comparison also fails on the question of an international boycott. "It is a serious error," he insists, "to think that international public opinion will put an end to the occupation. This will come about when the Israeli public itself is convinced of the need to do so." This argument suggests that Mr. Avnerydoes not know enough the fall of apartheid, either. White South Africans did not change their minds about apartheid simply because the moral and political case was at last brought home to them by black street demonstrations and labour strikes. They did so when a strategic campaign of hard and bloody domestic struggle was supported by concerted international pressure, which included boycotts of South African products and the currency as well as artists and sports teams.

The economic effects of these sanctions against South Africa are still debated. But the psychological effect of international isolation on South African whites' willingness to change was immense and became one of the key levers which ended apartheid. As late as 1992, when whites were asked to endorse a negotiated settlement in a referendum, media interviews with voters showed that whites' desire to "rejoin the international community" persuaded many who might have voted against a settlement to endorse it.

To attribute the "lack of bloodshed" in that transition to "wise leaders" like de Klerk and Nelson Mandela is to misunderstand how those historic figures were able to play their vital role precisely because of this far larger and historical collective effort. Just as it was impossible to imagine a negotiated end to apartheid without international isolation of South Africa, so it is hard to imagine that a political solution to the Palestinian conflict will be achieved unless substantial pressure is exerted on Israel by the world.

But an even deeper mistake underlies Mr. Avnery's pessimism about a one-state solution on the South African model: he seems to confuse the South Africa that everyone saw at the 1990 negotiations with the South Africa that existed before then. This all-too-common error holds that the factors which led to a settlement were immutable parts of the South African reality. In fact, political consensus about the need for national unity crystallized only after a long and bitter struggle, whose successful outcome had seemed just as implausible to most commentators as a shared society in Israel now seems to Mr Avnery. Forgetting this history indeed erases from it those courageous campaigners who fought for decades for the principle of national unity, sometimes at the cost of their lives. In fact, South Africans were never united in the view that the country had to be shared--many whites still reject the notion today. This is partly why, as late as the 1980s, much scholarship and "expert" commentary on South Africa continued to assume that the conflict was intractable and that a shared society was impossible, citing many of the same arguments that are repeatedly cited in the Palestinian case.

It clearly suits those who believe that partition is the only solution to act as though the world never changes. But it does--and did under apartheid. It will change also in Palestine."

by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

Global Research, January 24, 2007

"Anyone, including those in Iranian political circles, who cherished the illusion that the Cheney-Bush cabal was not committed to a new war in Southwest Asia, has had to abandon such dreams in the wake of George W. Bush’s Jan. 10 speech on his “new” policy for Iraq. The so-called “surge” in troop strength for Iraq which Bush announced, was recognized, correctly, by all in the region, as a commitment to open a new war front, this time against Iran or Syria. This analysis, which EIR had been circulating for weeks, including during a visit to Tehran in late November-early December, was finally embraced as the correct reading.

Bush said that he would not only deploy 21,500 more troops to Iraq, but that he would pursue foreign elements working with the insurgency (read: Syria and Iran). Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad both echoed the new policy. Not only would the U.S. forces now pursue Iranian and Syrian elements inside Iraq, suspected of working with the insurgency, but they would also engage in “hot pursuit” into Iran itself. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, when asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, whether he thought the Administration did not have the authority to engage in cross-border incursions into Iran, said, “I didn’t say that.”

Thus, what is “new” in the crazy line emanating from the White House, is not the number of troops to be beefed up in Iraq. What is “new” is the propaganda line being spread to justify military action against Iran. Due to the fact that the U.S. has not succeeded in producing any smoking gun to show that Iran’s nuclear program were military, and in fact, could not do so, it is difficult for Washington to present the nuclear program as a casus belli, even despite the unfortunate UN Security Council’s December resolution, calling on Iran to suspend its enrichment activities. The new indictment against Iran is therefore that it has been feeding the anti-U.S. resistance in Iraq with men and matériel....."

By Robert Scheer

"Stop him before he kills again. That is the judgment of the American people, and indeed of the entire world, as to the performance of our president, and no State of the Union address can erase that dismal verdict.

President Bush has accomplished what Osama bin Laden only dreamed of by disgracing the model of American democracy in the eyes of the world. According to an exhaustive BBC poll, nearly three-quarters of those polled in 25 countries oppose the Bush policy on Iraq, and more than two-thirds believe the U.S. presence in the Middle East destabilizes the region......

But it is not just our failure in that all-important region that disgraces us. Those around the world who still believe we play a positive global role has dropped to a miserable 29 percent, strikingly similar to Bush’s overall performance numbers at home, according to the most recent CBS poll. So it’s true: Bush is “a uniter, not a divider”—uniting people across the world in their opposition to his policies.

With a whopping 71 percent saying in an ABC-Washington Post poll that the country is seriously off track, the Post called it “the highest such expression of national pessimism in more than a decade.” And that’s at a time when the economy, presumed to be the all-important bellwether, is in halfway decent shape.

It’s the war, stupid, and ending it is the major concern of most Americans, while all other issues are in single digits of importance to them.....

In fact, it seems as if everyone gets it except the president and those still hunkered down with him in the White House. “They’ve backed themselves into a tough corner,” GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio told the Post, “and the problem is his continued insistence for the troop increase, which flies in the face of what 70 percent of Americans want.” He added that it makes Bush seem to say, “I’ll listen to you, but I’ll do what I want anyway.” Hardly the message that the leader of the world’s greatest experiment in representative democracy should be sending to the world....."

International Commission To Investigate Hariri's Assassination

By Amira Hass

"Anyone who wants to become acquainted with Israeli society should go to the checkpoints. Not for a quarter of an hour, under the guidance of commanders who will glory in the pavilion they built for the people waiting in line and will explain that the upgrading and the expansion of the checkpoint are intended to benefit the locals. Those who really want to know the checkpoints should rather dwell here for hours, during several days. When you observe the soldiers, you will discover many Israeli characteristics among them, characteristics in which we have always taken pride.......

Each of the many dozens of checkpoints has developed its own methods of harassment over the years. They derive from the implicit order behind the existence of every checkpoint: Prevent Palestinian freedom of movement for the sake of the welfare of the Jewish settlements; that is to say - Israel. One gets sick of reading about the checkpoints. One gets even sicker of writing about them. And the most sickening thing of all is to pass through them. But because the Palestinians have no alternative but to continue to pass through them, these checkpoints will continue to be the representatives of Israeli society. "

عبد الباري عطوان

24/01/2007

يبدو ان الحضيض الذي تنحدر باتجاهه الأوضاع في الاراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة بات بلا قاع. واصبح كل يوم يحمل الينا مفاجأة جديدة مؤلمة تجعل العاقل منا يخبط رأسه في اقرب حائط غير مصدق لما يحدث.
ثقافات غريبة بدأت تتسلل في وضح النهار الي الشعب الفلسطيني ومجتمعه، تطرد ثقافات من المعايير الخلقية والانسانية والسياسية الراقية التي تعكس وعياً وانضباطاً وحرصاً علي حقن الدماء، وتقديم تجربة ناصعة في النضال والجهاد من أجل استعادة حقوق ثابتة مشروعة من بين انياب عدو فاجر في دمويته وتعطشه للقتل والتدمير.
لا يمكن ان نصدق اقدام فلسطينيين علي خطف صحافيين اجانب جاءوا من مختلف انحاء العالم لنصرة قضية عادلة، ونقل معاناة شعبها تحت الجوع والحصار والمجازر ونسف البيوت. لم يخطر ببالنا في اي يوم من الايام ان يهاجم فلسطينيون مقر قناة فضائية عربية ويضعوا القنابل في حجراته، ويحولوه الي ركام تختلط فيه بقايا الكاميرات واجهزة الكمبيوتر، بشظايا القنابل. هذا ليس الشعب الفلسطيني الذي نعرفه وننتمي اليه، وهذه ليست فصائل مقاومة تتصدي للاحتلال، وتقدم عشرات بل آلاف الشهداء والجرحي والأسري، وتشكو من انحياز الاعلام العالمي الي الاحتلال واساليبه التضليلية.
نقف عاجزين امام تفسير هذه الظاهرة الخطيرة والمدمرة واستيعاب مفردات هذه الثقافات الطارئة علي شعب ضرب أروع الامثلة في الانضباط، واحترام الرأي الآخر، والايمان برسالة الاعلام والاعلاميين في نقل الحقيقة حتي لو اختلفنا معها.
الشعب الفلسطيني مدين للاعلام العربي منه والاجنبي، لانه كان نصيره دائما في مواجهة التغول الاسرائيلي، والازدواجية الامريكية، وتهميش الامم المتحدة، والمنظمات الدولية الاخري.
الرئيس الفلسطيني الراحل ياسر عرفات اقام دولة فلسطينية، ونال اعتراف اكثر من مئة دولة بها من خلال استيعابه لدور الاعلام وقدرته علي الانتصار لقضايا العدل والحرية، وفضح الاحتلال الاسرائيلي وكل ممارساته البشعة وغير الانسانية. لم يغضب صحافيا ابدا، وان اغضبه فانه يهاتفه في اليوم التالي معتذرا ومتوددا.
الرئيس عرفات كان يبالغ في حفاوته وتقديره للصحافيين، العرب والاجانب، ويصر علي دعوتهم الي مائدة طعامه المتواضعة، ويضع لقيمات الخبز في افواههم بيده، ولا يتردد لحظة في السؤال عن احوالهم واطفالهم وأسرهم.
ولا نكشف سرا اذا قلنا ان عشرات بل مئات الصحافيين العرب كانوا موظفين في منظمة التحرير، اسوة بأشقائهم الفلسطينيين، وكان لا يتردد لحظة في تكفل مصاريف علاج العديدين في الخارج اذا ألم بهم مرض يستدعي ذلك، ودون ان يطلبوا، بل كان يبادر بنفسه بالاتصال بهم والاطمئنان علي صحتهم.
وهذه الروح المتفهمة لرسالة الصحافي والاعلامي هي التي جعلت الثورة الفلسطينية الاعظم في التاريخ، وموضع اجماع الجميع من اقصي اليسار الي اقصي اليمين، ومن الولايات المتحدة حتي الصين. ولم يحظ اي حدث عالمي بنصف تغطية الحدث الفلسطيني، حتي في اضعف مناسباته، وتكفي الاشارة الي ان اجتماعات المجلس الوطني الفلسطيني، كانت تستقطب اكثر من 1500 صحافي من مختلف الاشكال والالوان.
هذه المدرسة اندثرت للأسف، وحلت محلها ثقافة خطف الصحافيين، ونسف مقراتهم، وتهديد من لا يتفق مع هذا التنظيم او ذاك بالقتل، بحيث اوشكنا ان نحتل قمة رأس قائمة الكراهية في اوساط ابناء هذه المهنة الأخطر والأكثر فاعلية ونفوذا في العصر الحديث.
مصيبتنا الكبري في الصراع علي السلطة الذي بات الهدف الأكبر للتنظيمين الرئيسيين علي الساحة الفلسطينية حماس و فتح وظهور قيادات جديدة لا تعرف من السياسة واصولها وآدابها غير التحريض علي الآخر، وهدر دمه واستخدام مفردات مخجلة طارئة علي قاموسنا مثل العمالة والخيانة والظلامية واللصوصية وغيرها.
نسينا الاحتلال وجرائمه مستوطناته وعملاءه، نسينا اسرانا، وتضحيات شهدائنا، واصبحنا نتقاتل علي جيفة اسمها السلطة. وباتت القضية الأهم موضع الخلاف والصراع هي من يتولي هذه الحقيبة الوزارية او تلك.
يتحدثون عن وزارات سيادية مثل المالية والخارجية والداخلية والإعلام، وينسون اننا بلا سيادة ولا كرامة، ونرزح تحت الاحتلال، ورئيس وزرائنا يجلس علي الرصيف امام المعبر مثل الذليل، ورئيس سلطتنا لا يستطيع مغادرة مكتبه دون اذن من شاويش في الجيش الاسرائيلي.
جميع قيمنا وتقاليدنا التي كانت موضع فخر الأمتين العربية والاسلامية، وحسد الأعداء، انقلبت رأساً علي عقب، واصبح المواطن الفلسطيني لا يخشي الاحتلال وصواريخه وقنابله بقدر ما يخشي من الحرب الأهلية، والصدامات بين ابناء القضية الواحدة.
في الماضي كانت الفصائل الفلسطينية تعين المتحدثين الاعلاميين حتي يخاطبوا العالم بلغة حديثة تقدم المعلومات الدقيقة وبما يضمن تعاطفه، اما اليوم وفي زمن الصراع علي السلطة، فقد اصبحت الفصائل تعين عشرات المتحدثين للرد علي بعضها البعض، واصدار بيانات التحريض والاتهام لهذا الفصيل او ذاك.
ويبلغ النفاق قمته عندما يجتمع المسؤولون الكبار في الفصائل ويتحدثون كما لو انهم يمثلون احزابا سويسرية او سويدية، يظهرون حرصا علي الوحدة الوطنية، ويلقون المعلقات في تحريم الدم الفلسطيني.
اقولها، بصراحة، وبالفم الملآن، ان هؤلاء، الذين يقولون انهم يمثلوننا، لا يمتون بأي صلة الي تراثنا وتاريخنا وتضحيات شهدائنا، ونشعر بالخزي والعار بسبب افعالهم وتجاوزاتهم ايا كان الفصيل الذي ينتمون اليه.
فاذا كان الصراع علي هذه السلطة الوهمية هو الذي اوصلنا الي هذا الحضيض، فاننا لا نريدها، ونري ان المطالبة بحلها واجب وطني لا يقل عن واجب تحرير فلسطين، لانها باتت عبئا علينا، ومصدر كل الشرور التي نعانيها وسنعانيها.
اعترف بأنني اشعر بالعار كفلسطيني، وانا اتابع ما يحدث علي الارض في بلادنا من مهازل، وأتمني من كل مواطن داخل الارض المحتلة وخارجها ان يقف في وجه هؤلاء المستوزرين الطامحين الي المناصب، وان يقول لهم كفي لستم منا ولسنا منكم، ولا نريد سلطتكم هذه، وعلينا ان نعود الي ثوابتنا الوطنية، اي التصدي للاحتلال الذي نسيناه او تناسيناه، واصبح الفلسطيني هو العدو وليس المحتل الغاصب.
لا اتردد في الاعتذار، ولو للحظة واحدة، لكل الزملاء الاعلاميين، عربا واجانب، وفي محطة العربية خاصة الذين تعرض مكتبهم في غزة للنسف، يوم امس الاول من جراء هذه الممارسات المخجلة والمعيبة، واقول ان هؤلاء الذين يستخدمون لغة الخطف والترويع والنسف والتدمير طارئون علينا، وعلي اخلاقنا وعلي قضيتنا العادلة.

By Ed Stein

A Good Article
By Mark LeVine
Asia Times

"......Last week, the secretary returned to Egypt, but this time there was no mention of democracy or even of a hint of criticism at the growing repression since her last visit. Instead, Rice heaped praise on the country's autocratic rulers for their support of US foreign policy in the region. "Stability, not democracy" is once again America's priority in the Middle East.

Truth be told, the Bush administration's democracy agenda never went beyond nice words, so its demise will change little on the ground in Egypt, or the Arab world more broadly. But I wonder if, instead of parlaying with the country's geriatric autocrats, Rice could have met the young Egyptians I spent time with only a few weeks before her visit, would she have so easily betrayed their dreams, and with them what little goodwill the average Egyptian still has toward the United States?

If she had taken the time to watch the the videos I was shown by Egyptian friends (which are now circulating on the Internet) of a young bus driver, Imad el-Kabir, being sodomized with a broomstick by the police, or the still-nameless woman beaten while suspended upside down between two chairs, could Rice have stood next to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and thanked him for his government's help "on issues of common interest"?

If she could have spent an hour with the members of the burgeoning heavy-metal scene, many of whose members are sons (or daughters) of generals and diplomats, would she understand why these children of the elite have given up on the hope of political change? Why some are so scared that they won't even allow me to publish the names of the bands for fear the mukhabarat, or security services, might think they have political implications? Would the billions of dollars the United States bestows on Egypt each year in payment for its government's half-hearted support for the US military and diplomatic adventures still seem worth it?

If she had met with Egypt's leading bloggers, or activists with the Kefaya ("Enough!" in Arabic) movement, she would have learned of the "pinpoint violence" deployed by the government to silence political opposition and censor the Internet, even as President Hosni Mubarak brags about the new wired cities he's building in the desert for Egypt's elite. Would Rice still consider Egypt a model for progress and stability in the Middle East?

I could have introduced her to the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Cairo branch, who would have explained that Sayid Qutb, the Salafis and al-Azhar led the Brotherhood astray from its cultured beginnings, and argued that "what we need to combat the militants is more freedom of speech, more trained judges, more human rights". Or invited her to coffee with the editor of the Brotherhood's website, 20 years his junior, who declared, "If I fight just for myself and my rights, then I'll never get them. Only if and when I'm ready to fight for everyone's rights can I hope to have my full rights as a religious Muslim in Egypt."

Then again, he might have asked the secretary for her help to confront the regime, "not to impose sharia or wage jihad against the West or Israel, but to bring real democracy and social justice to Egypt". So perhaps it's better she didn't meet him.

Most of all, I wish Rice could have joined me for my late-night chat at the home of Shady and Nour, the teenage sons of jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour, who is still rotting in prison despite (or perhaps because of) the tepid show of support for him by the US State Department. The two boys have dealt with the ordeal of their father's arrest, trial and imprisonment by forming one of the best up-and-coming metal bands in Egypt. "It helps us deal with the anger since our father's arrest, and to convert it to useful forms."

The government warned the senior Nour that it might arrest Shady and Nour as Satanists - in 1997 well over 100 musicians and fans were arrested under similar charges - if he wasn't more cooperative. The reason they are so threatening is that Shady and Nour represent a powerful alternative identity, and through it, future for Egypt - at once fully Egyptian, Arab and Muslim (unlike most metalheads the world over, they are openly religious), yet fully engaged and comfortable with Western, and specifically American, culture and ideals.

I wish Rice could have seen the face of their mother, Gamilla, when I met her at 3 in the morning as she returned home, exhausted but defiant, from another long night researching a story on government corruption. If the secretary understood how Gamilla splits her time among fighting for her husband's release, fighting corruption as an investigative journalist, and videotaping her sons' concerts from the mosh pit, I wonder if she'd be so quick to authorize the next $2 billion in aid to the Mubarak government. It's a good thing she didn't meet her either.

In her public remarks at the end of her trip, Rice once again declared that the United States "greatly values ... [the] important strategic relationship" with Egypt, and even thanked Mubarak "for spending so much time with me". Such craven coddling of one of the world's oldest and most authoritarian regimes while Ayman Nour, Imad el-Kabir and untold other Egyptians remain behind bars is morally unconscionable. And it confirms al-Qaeda's argument that the US continues to care not a wit about the human and political rights of ordinary Muslims.

In his cave somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Osama bin Laden is surely smiling. "

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times

"......The winner in the short term in Iraq will be the clever chess player who has managed to ingratiate himself as Bush's man - apart from the momentarily shadowy Allawi: SCIRI's Abdulaziz al-Hakim, whose Badr Organization, holed up in the Ministry of the Interior, actually deploys anti-Sunni death squads.

Why is he Bush's man? Simple: he supports the soon-to-be-voted-on Iraqi oil law, the Holy Grail for Anglo-American Big Oil. Muqtada, on the other hand, is fiercely against it. From the Bush/Cheney system's perspective, two crucial "sins" - Muqtada's courtship of moderate Sunnis to get their act together against the occupation, and his admiration of Hezbollah's strategy - pale before the ultimate sin: Muqtada wants Iraqi oil for Iraqis.

The US plan B anyway is on. If Maliki does not deliver and defang the Mehdi Army - as he certainly won't - a US-engineered white coup will be inevitable, and there are only two possibilities: "Saddam without a mustache" Allawi, or a Hakim-blessed candidate.

Hakim is already cleverly manipulating the US escalation to strike against his two real mortal enemies - the muqawama (resistance) and the Mehdi Army - at the same time. No wonder Sunni tribal leaders started accusing the US of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. So there's no way for Iraqification-cum-surge to appeal to Sunnis. The muqawama knows it - and it is already making plans to lie low at times, hide its constant flow of weapons bought with funding from private, wealthy Saudi and Persian Gulf individuals, or retreat from Baghdad and melt away in the desert province of al-Anbar.

Bush's surge is perfect if the template is divide and rule. The Battle of Sadr City will divide the Shi'ites into a pro-US "elite" (SCIRI and Da'wa) and a guerrilla force of the damned (the Sadrists). It will divide the Shi'ites from the Kurds (peshmergas from Kurdistan killing Shi'ites in Baghdad). It will keep Shi'ites and Sunnis bitterly divided (the other battle front in the surge is against the Sunni Arab resistance). Hakim may consider himself the winner. But Zawahiri, of course, will also love it, confident that his emirate in al-Anbar - led by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir - will ride the storm. Like the White House/Pentagon, al-Qaeda after all insists on also fighting a two-pronged war, in al-Qaeda's case against the Americans and the Shi'ites.

With Baghdad to be divided into nine military districts, each with its dedicated Iraqi army/police and its embedded US battalion, the muqawama is also more than relishing the prospect of laying siege to the sitting-duck Fort Apaches that will spring up in each of these districts. What happened in Karbala last Sunday will be quite common in Fort Apache land: attacks by guerrilla commandos disguised as American soldiers, driving in a convoy of GMCs. And Black Hawk Down will be endlessly replayed - just like last Saturday, when a helicopter was shot down by a clumsy Russian SA-7 shoulder-fired missile.

Most of all, the dire prospect is of a devastating air war over Baghdad - followed by wholesale slaughter of Sunnis and Shi'ites alike as counterinsurgency fails (there are no hearts and minds to be won; everyone wants US troops out). But as US bombs and missiles now define who is a "terrorist" and who is not - see the recent bombing of Somali nomadic herdsmen sold as dangerous al-Qaeda operatives - Iraqification-cum-surge will be a disaster mostly for every Baghdadi caught in the crossfire.

The Pentagon cannot at the same time launch the Battle of Sadr City, fight the muqawama spread out and in control all over western Baghdad, and fight al-Qaeda in al-Anbar province. Or maybe it could: if bombs and missiles from above are The Great Decider on who's a terrorist, why not take out everybody down there on the ground? Forty years after Che Guevara's "one, two, a thousand Vietnams", meet "one, two, a thousand Fallujahs". "

N Korea helping Iran with nuclear testing

The Daily Telegraph

"North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.

Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their successful test last October with Teheran's nuclear scientists.

North Korea provoked an international outcry when it successfully fired a bomb at a secret underground location and Western intelligence officials are convinced that Iran is working on its own weapons programme.

A senior European defence official told The Daily Telegraph that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October's underground test to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own — possibly by the end of this year.

There were unconfirmed reports at the time of the Korean firing that an Iranian team was present. Iranian military advisers regularly visit North Korea to participate in missile tests.

Now the long-standing military co-operation between the countries has been extended to nuclear issues......"

Falling fuel costs probably not a coincidence, oil traders say

This factor was discussed in a commentary titled "Watching The Price Of Oil", by Tony Sayegh, posted here on January 16.

"Oil traders and others believe that the Saudi decision to let the price of oil tumble has more to do with Iran than economics.

Their belief has been reinforced in recent days as the Saudi oil minister has steadfastly refused calls for a special meeting of OPEC and announced that the nation is going to increase its production, which will send the price down even farther. Saudi Oil Minister Ibrahim al-Naimi even said during a recent trip to India that oil prices are headed in the "right direction."

Not for the Iranians.

Moreover, the traders believe the Saudis are not doing this alone, that the other Sunni-dominated oil producing countries and the U.S. are working together, believing it will hurt majority-Shiite Iran economically and create a domestic crisis for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose popularity at home is on the wane. The traders also believe (with good reason) that the U.S. is trying to tighten the screws on Iran financially at the same time the Saudis are reducing the Islamic Republic’s oil revenues.

For the Saudis, who fear Iran’s religious, geopolitical and nuclear aspirations, the decision to lower the price of oil has a number of benefits, the biggest being to deprive Iran of hard currency. It also may create unrest in a country that is its rival on a number of levels and permits the Saudis to show the U.S. that military action may not be necessary. The Saudis firmly and publicly deny this, saying it’s all about economics. Not everyone believes them.

“If under normal circumstances, the price of oil was falling this dramatically [17% in the last few months], Saudi Arabia would have already called for a special OPEC meeting,” says one oil trader. “It’s got to be something else and that something else has to be Iran.”

Costs higher in Iran
The trader notes that Iran, OPEC’s second largest producer, is “in trouble” both in the short and long term. Iran’s oil reserves, he notes, are declining more rapidly than Saudi Arabia’s and are more difficult to extract. While a barrel of oil costs the Saudis $2-3 to get out of the ground and to market, that same barrel costs Iran as much as $15-18.....

Political fallout
There are domestic political consequences to such a convergence, note traders and officials in both the U.S. and Iran. Ahmadinejad was elected on campaign promises that he would end corruption and better distribute the nation’s oil wealth. He has been unable to do either; now, with declining oil revenues, his job will be even more difficult......

Meanhwhile, the Bush administration is only too happy to see Ahmadinejad's deteriorating domestic situation — and to let the Saudis further turn the screws. Moreover, administration officials are hinting they will be applying financial pressures to complement the Saudis. (As one official said recently, Iran cannot operate in the oil markets without using dollars.).....

One trader is convinced that the U.S. and Saudis sealed a secretive deal on Iran when Vice President Dick Cheney met with King Abdullah in what appeared to be a hastily arranged summit in Riyadh in late November 2006. There have been lower-profile meetings as well that could have dealt with the arrangement....

Rafsanjani is known to believe that Iran should not continue to anger the U.S. and should align itself with the Americans in a fight against the Sunnis, an opportunity that is slipping away as Iran angers the U.S. in Iraq and on the nuclear front. And this week, reformist Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri joined in the criticism.

For the U.S. and Saudis, this can only be seen as good news."

Israel faces nuclear Holocaust warns Gingrich

Newt Gingrich: Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem facing mortal Iranian threat, says former US Speaker of the House; emphasizes 'three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust'

"The Israeli people are facing the threat of a nuclear Holocaust, former US Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned the Herzliya Conference on Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, he said, the United States could lose a few million people or a number of cities to a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction.

Gingrich, who addressed the conference via satellite from the United States, said he thought Israel's existence was under threat again for the first time in 40 years.

"Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967. Prior to '67, many wondered if Israel would survive. After '67, Israel seemed military dominant, despite the '73 war. I would say we are (now) back to question of survival," Gingrich said......"

Turning Silence Into Gold

By JOSHUA FRANK
CounterPunch

"George W. Bush's position on Iran is "disturbing" and "dangerous," reads a position paper written in late 2005 by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). One year ago the Bush administration accepted a Russian proposal to allow Iran to continue to develop nuclear energy under Russian supervision. Needless to say, AIPAC wasn't the least bit happy about the compromise.....

Meanwhile, as AIPAC and Israel pressure the U.S. government to force the Iran issue to the UN Security Council, Israel itself stands in violation of numerous UN resolutions dealing with the occupied territories of Palestine, including UN Resolution 1402, which in part calls on Israel to withdraw its military from all Palestinian cities at once.

AIPAC's hypocrisy is nauseating. The Goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to cease to procure nukes while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored. So who is propping up AIPAC's hypocritical position? None other than Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

As one of the top Democratic recipients of pro-Israel funds for the 2006 election cycle, pocketing over $83,000, Clinton now has Iran in her cross hairs.

During a Hanukkah dinner speech delivered in December 2005, hosted by Yeshiva University, Clinton prattled, "I held a series of meetings with Israeli officials [last summer], including the prime minister and the foreign minister and the head of the [Israel Defense Forces], to discuss such challenges we confront. In each of these meetings, we talked at length about the dire threat posed by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to Israel, but also to Europe and Russia. Just this week, the new president of Iran made further outrageous comments that attacked Israel's right to exist that are simply beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability. During my meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, I was reminded vividly of the threats that Israel faces every hour of every day. It became even more clear how important it is for the United States to stand with Israel."

As Clinton embraces Israel's violence, as well as AIPAC's fraudulent posture on Iran, she simultaneously ignores the hostilities inflicted upon Palestine, as numerous Palestinians have been killed during the continued shelling of the Gaza Strip over the past year.

Clinton's silence toward Israel's brutality implies the senator will continue to support AIPAC's mission to occupy the whole of the occupied territories, as well as a war on Iran. AIPAC is correct ­ even President Bush appears to be a little sheepish when up against the warmongering of Hillary Clinton.

Hillary and her husband paid a visit to Israel in the fall of 2005. The former president was a featured speaker at a mass rally that marked the 10th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It was Hillary's second visit to Israel since she was elected to office in 2000.

The senator did manage to take time out of her tour to meet with the then semi-conscious Ariel Sharon to discuss "security matters." Hillary also made her way to the great apartheid wall, which separates Palestine from Israel. As the barrier is nearing completion, the monstrosity will ultimately stretch to over 400 miles in length.

Palestinians rightly criticize the obtrusive wall on the grounds that it cuts them off from occupied land in the West Bank. Thousands more will be cut off from their jobs, schools, and essential farmland.

Hillary and her pro-Israel buds don't get it. When you put powerless Palestinians behind a jail-like wall where life in any real economic sense is unattainable, you wreak pain and anguish, which in turn leads to more anger and resentment toward the Israeli government's brutal policies. Indeed, the wall will not prove to be a deterrent to resistance, but an incitement to defiance.

"This is not against the Palestinian people," Clinton said as she gazed over the massive wall. "This is against the terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help to prevent terrorism. They have to change the attitudes about terrorism."

The senator's comments seem as if they were taken word-for-word from an AIPAC position paper. They may well have been, as the lobby packs her coffers full of cash. In May 2005, Clinton spoke at an AIPAC conference where she praised the bonds between Israel and the United States:

"[O]ur future here in this country is intertwined with the future of Israel and the Middle East. Now there is a lot that we could talk about, and obviously much has been discussed. But in the short period that I have been given the honor of addressing you, I want to start by focusing on our deep and lasting bonds between the United States and Israel."

Clinton went on to address the importance of disarming Iran and Syria, as well as keeping troops in Iraq for as long as "it" takes. It was textbook warmongering, and surprise, surprise ­ Hillary got a standing ovation for her repertoire....."

The Meaning of Responsibility

By RALPH NADER
CounterPunch

"Dear President Bush:

I have read your address to the nation on "The New Way Forward in Iraq" and wish to share some observations.

You say "where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me." You then quickly change the subject. Whoa now, what does it mean when you say the responsibility for mistakes rest with you?

Responsibility for "mistakes" that led to the invasion-which other prominent officials and former officials say were based on inaccurate information, deceptions, and cover-ups?

Responsibility for the condoning of torture, even after the notorious events at abu-Gharib prison were disclosed?

Responsibility for months and months of inability to equip our soldiers with body armor and vehicle armor that resulted in over 1,000 lost American lives and many disabilities?

Responsibility for the gross mismanagement over outsourcing both service and military tasks to corporations such as Haliburton that have wasted tens of billions of dollars, including billions that simply disappeared without account?

Responsibility for serious undercounting of official U.S. injuries in Iraq-because the injuries were not incurred in direct combat-so as to keep down political opposition to the war in this country?

Over and over again, during your political campaigns you called for consequences to attach to bad or failing behavior. Responsibility means consequences, you said.

Well just how does that belief apply to you, as a failed and disastrous commander-in-chief and caretaker of both American soldiers, American tax dollars and, under international law, the safety of Iraqi civilians?

You said, "I've made it clear to the Prime Minister... that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people." But you have stated on many prior occasions that a U.S. retreat from Iraq would be catastrophic. Now you imply that if the Iraqi government does not deliver, the U.S. commitment will end. Which is it?

And the Iraq war has lost the support of the American people some time ago.

What are the people to believe "not open-ended" means? Especially since your new Secretary of Defense told the Congress that within two months it will be known whether your troop escalation strategy is working or not.

You said that your Administration will "partner a coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division." Why do you continue to use misleading euphemisms? They are not "coalition brigades"-they are U.S. soldier brigades. Even the British want to draw down their small number of troops.

You said that a discovered al Qaeda document describes "the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of [Anbar Province]." "This would bring al Qaeda," you asserted, "closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad." Since your field commanders' estimate a total of 1300 al Qaeda, mostly foreign fighters, widely disliked and increasingly opposed by the local people and their tribal leaders, why are you continuing to engage in this preposterous sequence of doom, this politics of mega fear ala your neo-conservative advisors?

Why indeed, do you do this when your own intelligence officials, including your former Director of the CIA, Porter J. Goss, and military leaders in Iraq, have said publicly that the U.S. military occupation has been a magnet for the attraction and training of more and more terrorists, including those from other countries who will acquire demolition and other skills before leaving Iraq.

Your comment that victory in Iraq will bring a "functioning democracy that upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people," invites the response, "Have you done this in our country?"

Given your serial civil liberties' violations, frequent mockery of the rule of law and our Constitution, and your ignoring the judgment of last November's election (not to mention the desire by 70 percent of U.S. soldiers polled last January in Iraq wanting you to leave within 6 to 12 months), there is a pronounced lack of consistency here.

Finally, you conclude that "We mourn the loss of every fallen American-and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice. Fellow citizens: The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve."

Why not some exemplary sacrifice from the Bush family? What is keeping those bright, capable daughters-Jenna and Barbara-from showing that the family is not expecting everybody but the Bush family to sacrifice? Why are they not demonstrating their sacrifice and resolve for your Iraq democracy war by enlisting into the armed forces?

Could it be that they disagree with your policies? Or could it be that they do not consider your war-quagmire "worthy of their sacrifice?""

An Informative And Lengthy Interview
With Gilbert Achcar
(Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon and teaches political science at the University of Paris-VIII. He is the author of, among other works, The Clash of Barbarisms)

Iraqi dynamics

Q. Polls show the Iraqi population eager for a U.S. withdrawal, yet Iraq's elected leadership seems to strongly reject such calls. What do you think is going on?

Q. How do you judge Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki? Are his disagreements with Washington carefully staged to give him popular support or are they indicative of a genuine divergence of interests?

Q. The Bush administration has been pushing hard for the Iraqi National Assembly to enact a new oil law. Press reports seem to indicate that the law will be extremely lucrative to foreign oil companies. Is the Iraqi legislature preparing to turn the economy over to multinational corporations?

Q. A recent Pentagon report has said that Muqtada al-Sadr's militia is more of a threat to the U.S. military than is the insurgency and Newsweek has termed al-Sadr "the most dangerous man in Iraq." What do you make of these claims?

Q. How would you assess Muqtada al-Sadr?

Q. Some accounts have suggested that some members of Sadr's Mahdi Army are no longer under Sadr's control. Does this seem to you to be the case?

Q. Is Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani still the most influential figure in the country?

Q. Has the sectarian violence in Iraq passed the point of no return? Is all-out civil war inevitable?

Q. Who do you think would have the upper hand in an all-out civil war?

U.S. policy

Q. The U.S. occupation of Iraq has obviously been a disaster, even from the point of view of U.S. elite interests. There is a lot of second-guessing going on now trying to explain how this catastrophe came about. Was it wrong to disband the army and order de-Baathification?

Q. Do you think that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will lead to even worse sectarian violence? Will withdrawal lead to the victory of either Baathists or Islamic fundamentalists?

Q. The U.S. has seized and detained Iranians in Iraq and has been accusing Iran of meddling in the country. The Bush administration has charged that some of the sophisticated explosive devices being used against US troops in Iraq come from Iran, with training provided by Hezbollah. What do you think Iran is up to? Are Iran-backed Shiite groups engaged in military encounters with U.S. forces?

Q. What do you see as the likely consequences of various policy proposals that have been put forward:

(a) Bush's "surge," adding some 21,000 more U.S. troops

(b) the Baker-Hamilton committee recommendations;

(c) the Peter Galbraith-Joe Biden-Leslie Gelb proposal to divide Iraq into three separate countries.

Q. What do you think Washington will do next?

Q. To what extent has the antiwar movement had an impact on policy or policymakers?

Q. What should the antiwar movement be calling for now?

Click Here For Answers

"بغداد - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام

اقتحمت مجموعة مسلحة، ممن يطلق عليهم اسم "مغاوير الداخلية"، فجر اليوم الثلاثاء (23/1)، شارع النضال وسط العاصمة العراقية بغداد، وقامت بدهم بناية يسكنها لاجئون فلسطينيون، حيث جرى اختطاف 27 منهم، بينهم شبان وشيوخ، لا يُعرف مصيرهم حتى الآن.

وأفادت مصادر فلسطينية في بغداد أنه وفي تمام الساعة الخامسة والنصف من فجر اليوم، اقتحم مسلحون يرتدون لباس مغاوير الداخلية (قوة تابعة لوزارة الداخلية العراقية)، وآخرون بلباس مدني، في 15 سيارة وترافقهم حافلة لنقل المعتقلين، وشرعوا بمطالبة كافة الشبان في البناية بتسليم أنفسهم.

وأضافت المصادر أن هذه القوات قامت بتكسير أبواب كافة الشقق السكنية، والاعتداء على بعض النساء والرجال بالضرب المبرح، قبل أن تختطف 27 فلسطينياً من سكان البناية بينهم مسنين.

وكان مسلحون قد هاجموا عصر أمس الاثنين (22/1) البناية ذاتها وأطلقوا باتجاهها عيارات نارية خلفت أضرارا بالغة في واجهتها.

وتبعاً للمصادر؛ فقد دهم مجهولون البناية ذاتها ليلة الاثنين أيضاً، إضافة الى بناية أخرى يقطنها فلسطينيون في منطقة البتاوين القريبة، ووزعت على السكان استمارات تتضمن تعهداً بعدم التعرض للقوات العراقية والأمريكية ومحاربة الإرهاب.

وتضم البناية، التي داهمها مغاوير الداخلية في شارع النضال، عدداً من العائلات الفلسطينية، وقد تم استئجارها من قبل الأمم المتحدة، لإيواء اللاجئين الفلسطينيين الذين طردوا من منازلهم مع بداية الاحتلال الأمريكي للعراق سنة 2003.

وأوردت المصادر الفلسطينية في بغداد أسماء 23 فلسطينياً ممن اختطفوا فجر الثلاثاء وهم: نجاح عبد نافع، صباح عبد نافع، عمار رائد عبد نافع، سالم فيصل، محمد سامي مهيوب، مصطفى سامي مهيوب، مؤيد عساف، حسين برماوي، محمد عيدي، لؤي محمد عيدي، عدي محمد عيدي، فراس محمد عيدي، يوسف وجيه، جميل الفهيد، خالد الفهيد، زهير سمرة، محمد زهير سمرة، يحي محمود ملحم، فيصل الدوايمة، أشرف فيصل، خالد فيصل، عمار فيصل، سمير محمد حسن.

ومن الجدير ذكره أن قرابة 200 لاجئ فلسطيني قتلوا في ظروف مختلفة منذ الاحتلال الأمريكي للعراق كونهم من أهل السنة، إلى جانب اختطاف العشرات، 45 منهم على الأقل اعتقلوا على أيدي القوات الأميركية والميليشيات المسلحة والشرطة العراقية ولا زالوا قيد الاعتقال. إضافة الى المئات الذين تعرضوا للخطف والتنكيل والتعذيب."

Iraq: Going In And Getting Out
By Naser Jafari

by Patrick J. Buchanan

"......Is there anything that might alter the course of events and affect the war picture by 2008? Indeed: a preemptive strike on Iran.

Should it occur, writes Wayne White, an intelligence officer at the State Department until 2005, "such action would likely involve not only taking out widely dispersed nuclear-related targets and nearby anti-aircraft defenses, but also portions of the Iranian air force assigned to defend these targets. And that's just for starters."

"In order to reduce Iran's ability to retaliate in the Persian Gulf, such a plan probably would also include taking out Iran's array of anti-ship missiles along the northern coast of the Gulf, its Kilo-class submarines, other naval assets, and even some targets related to Iran's long-range missile capacity."

Is such an attack being considered? Nick Burns, No. 3 at State, was at the Herzileah Conference this weekend. "Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon – there's no doubt about it," Burns told the Israelis. "The policy of the U.S. government is that we cannot allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state."

Burns was cheered and echoed by ex-Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz: "The year of 2007 is the year of decisiveness. … The free world doesn't have the privilege to drag its feet on Iran and hope for best."

Democrats failed to stop this war. Can they stop the next one? Or do they suspect and support what they think is coming? "

The question is:

Do you support the escalation by the Lebanese Opposition to bring down the government?

With over 2,000 responding so far, here is the breakdown:

Yes........62%

No.........38%

Zawahiri Blockbuster Videos: "Our guarantee to you is this: Order your video in the morning and watch it at night! It is that simple; we deliver!"

"......Ayman al-Zawahiri vowed that al-Qaeda's supporters will defeat the US in the new videotape intercepted by the Washington based SITE Institute.

In the video, al-Zawahiri said it was the "duty" of all Muslims to take up arms against Islam's enemies, and said the US strategy for Iraq outlined by George Bush, the US president, would fail.

SITE said the message was broadcast on al-Qaeda's multimedia arm, as-Sahab, which the group monitors.

Al-Zawahiri said in the message: "I ask [Bush], why send 20,000 [troops] only - why not send 50 or 100,000? Aren't you aware that the dogs of Iraq are pining for your troops' dead bodies?

"So send your entire army to be annihilated at the hands of the mujahideen [holy warriors] to free the world from your evil … because Iraq, land of the caliphate and jihad [struggle], is able to bury ten armies like yours, with Allah's help and power."......."

***

Just accidental timing before Bush's State of the Union Speech? I think not.

About 600 fighters and 16 leaders of the radical Shia militia, the Mehdi Army, have been captured by security forces in Iraq, the US military says.

BBC

"The statement said 52 operations had been conducted in 45 days targeting the militia, which is loyal to Najaf-based cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Sunni extremists were also the focus of the crackdown, the US military said.

US and Iraqi forces are currently preparing for a broad offensive in the strife-torn Iraqi capital Baghdad......

The BBC's Andrew North in Baghdad says it is still not clear how significant the senior Mehdi Army figures now in custody are.

Sadr's group has spearheaded anti-US military action in the past
But this appears to be the beginnings of a harder line on this widely feared Shia militia, he says.

In the past, the Iraqi government has been criticised for turning a blind eye to Mehdi Army activities for political reasons.

A spokesman for the movement would not confirm the numbers detained, but he said they were now seeing Iraqi and US raids almost every day.

Police are still finding dozens of bodies across the capital every day, most of them believed to be the victims of sectarian death squads.

Many Iraqis remain deeply sceptical that the Mehdi Army will be broken up, our correspondent says, and those fighters who have gone to ground are believed to have hidden their weapons, ready for future confrontations."

The Independent

"A British government-funded report says the route of Israel's separation barrier is trapping 250,000 Palestinians in enclaves designed to protect Jewish settlers in the occupied territory.

It says that creation of the enclaves cutting Palestinian communities off from the rest of the West Bank "almost totally ignores the daily needs of the Palestinian population" and is "focused almost exclusively on the desire to maintain the fabric of life of Israeli settlers".

The critical report ­ which says the existence of some Palestinian communities is threatened by the barrier ­ was produced by the Israeli planning and rights organisation Bimkom. The research was jointly funded by the New Israel Fund and the British Embassy in Tel Aviv.

It says the barrier is cutting employment for Palestinians and isolating farmers from markets, causing "particularly serious damage" to residents' health-care needs and undermining social and family life.

The report focuses on two categories of cut-off communities in the West Bank. The first are "seam enclaves" between the barrier, broadly to the east, and the 1967 Green Line, to the west. It comprises around 8,000 residents whose movements into the rest of the West Bank, where 2.5 million Palestinians live, are heavily restricted by checkpoints. Pointing out that residents in such enclaves require a military permit, the report says " Palestinians whose families have lived there for centuries must now acquire permits, without which their mere presence in their villages constitutes an offence."

The second ­ and larger ­ category are "internal enclaves" which are bound in, sometimes virtually encircled, by the barrier and roads forbidden to Palestinians to protect "fingers" of occupied territory inhabited by Jewish settlers and to ensure the settlers' access to Israel proper.

The report cites the example of the Bir Nabala enclave in which residents of five villages traditionally linked to Jerusalemwill have only two ways out, through tunnels, to Ramallah or the area of the West Bank village of Biddu.

The report also says, despite a series of Supreme Court decisions in favour of rerouting the barrier, "there has been no meaningful change in the system of considerations guiding the planners"......"

An Alliance Made In Hell

Al-Manar

"Lebanon is preparing for a general strike Tuesday called for by the Lebanese National Opposition and responded to by the majority of the labor powers and trade associations in most of the country.

While the motives of those in favor of the strike varied between political and economic, monitors expected that Tuesday's move will lead to the largest general strike to be witnessed in Lebanon.

The country and its capital Beirut will once again be the focus of media and political assessment to determine the ability of the opposition to act and influence. Tuesday move will begin with the strike and will also see other steps taken when announced by the opposition. No doubt that the unconstitutional government of Fouad Saniora and his ruling bloc will be under heavy pressure 52 days after the opposition began its open sit-in to demand a national unity government.

Saniora on Monday urged the Lebanese to ignore the strike, accusing the opposition of trying to "sabotage" a major donor conference for Lebanon this week.

Opposition Key figure MP Michel Aoun, lashed out at the head of the so called ruling majority MP Saad Hariri saying that "Harirism is a noose that should be cut." For his part, the head of the Loyalty to the Resistance Parliamentary bloc MP Mohamad Raad said: "It won't be the last option nor will it be a decisive day, it is a day to ring a new bell announcing that the country has reached a dangerous stage and that the government has to let go of authority and listen to the people and accept power-sharing." He added the opposition "will not take the country to a dangerous situation or affect its unity and coexistence," but Raad also said that if the strike does not bring about change then the opposition would resort to other options. No elaboration was given as to those options.

Opposition leader and former Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh said that the opposition will show the government "something they have never seen before," adding that Tuesday will be a decisive day."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Mr. Fish

A Good Article
By Zachary Wales, The Electronic Intifada, 22 January 2007

".....But like most things Israeli and Palestinian, few are taking note of history and what it might mean to an ex-president. Carter is no longer in "the game," which affords him the liberty to speak frankly, unlike Howard Dean, who once hinted at criticisms of Israel before quickly retreating to behavioral protocol. Perhaps then it is fairer to judge Carter's present in light of his past, when political cards were stacked and he spoke with another voice......

It is difficult to believe that the imminent failure of Camp David as a "peace accord" was not obvious at the time it was signed. Prior to the talks themselves, Ariel Sharon, then head of the Ministerial Settlement Committee, told the September 9, 1978 Jerusalem Post: "Make no mistake about it, the government will establish many new settlements. That's what it was elected to do and that is what it will do … These plans are not prejudicial to the prospects of peace …[for] they will permit us to entertain more daring solutions to the question of the Arab population than we can permit ourselves today." [8]

Nor is it apparent that the Accords did much to uphold America's interests in the Middle East. "Carter's signature will cost him his interests in the Arab region," Warren Christopher told the U.S. Department of State in a confidential cable less than ten days after the Accords were signed. [9]

Another crucial point that Carter leaves out is his direct influence on Camp David's adherence to UN Resolutions. Camp David unfolded with the understanding that the PLO was willing to accept UN Resolution 242 on the basis that Palestinian national rights were recognized. The United States, however, rejected this, in part because of the Zionist lobby (which included popular tours made by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Rabbi Alexander Schindler, along with private meetings between Carter's staff and Dayan) and Israel's disapproval. Throughout the talks, Carter cast frequent aspersions on Palestinians and started looking for moderates who would be willing to sign away rights. The policy document that Carter and Dayan produced after a meeting that went from 6:30 pm to 2:30 am, did not mention any Palestinian rights, and took the words "Palestine" and "Palestinian" out of the document altogether, substituting the terms with "Arab" or "West Bank and Gaza." In its entirety, the document contradicted the U.S.-Soviet policy approach that was established in 1977. [10]

Moreover, throughout these talks, Dayan spoke candidly about the idea of "Arab Bantustans," borrowing liberally from South Africa's apartheid model of the time. Added to this were Begin's proposals for the annexation of territories without conferring upon their Palestinian inhabitants either Israeli citizenship or the political rights emanating there from. [11]

When Carter addressed Congress on the outcome of Camp David on September 18, 1978, he said that "the Israeli military government over those areas [i.e. the West Bank and Gaza] will be withdrawn and will be replaced with a government with full autonomy." [12] In reality, "autonomy" became what one historian called a "scheme for continued occupation under a more permanent guise." The Accords provided a series of "transitional arrangements" for the West Bank and Gaza under which Israeli military government and civilian administration would be withdrawn "as soon as self-governing authority ha[d] been freely elected by the inhabitants." The "final status" of the territories would be negotiated by Israel, Egypt, Jordan and representatives from the West Bank and Gaza during the five-year period prescribed for the "transitional arrangements," which were to "give due consideration to both the principle of self-government by the inhabitants of these territories and to the legitimate security concerns of the parties involved." A U.S. official in the Jerusalem consulate later told one historian, "Neither the end of the occupation nor self-determination is fully guaranteed in Camp David." [14]......"

Iran tests missiles as fear of attack grows

Financial Times

"Iran began military manoeuvres in its central desert on Monday, testing short-range missiles at a time of rising tension with the US and as President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad faces continuing criticism at home.

State radio reported that Revolutionary Guards were test-firing both the 350km-range Zelzal-1 missile and the 70km range Fajr-5 near the town of Garmsar, 80km south-east of Tehran.

Mohsen Rezaei, an influential conservative politician and former Revolutionary Guards commander, told state television at the weekend that Washington had opted for “serious confrontation” with Iran, in which it “intends to resolve its problem in the Middle East”.

That was a rare glimpse for the Iranian public of the seriousness with which leading officials view the situation, especially in his acknowledgment that America or Israel might attack Iran’s atomic sites.

The US announced this month it was moving a second aircraft carrier into the Gulf and deploying Patriot missiles capable of shooting down shorter-range missiles....."

An Important Article

Switzerland says it mediated in informal Israel-Syria peace talks

"Switzerland served as a mediator in informal talks between Israeli and Syrian representatives, which were first reported in Haaretz last week, Swiss Foreign Minister and Federal Councilor Micheline Calmy-Ray said Monday.

"Switzerland was the mediator in the talks that were reported in the media," said Clamy-Ray. She added that the individual who mediated between sides in the talks is currently in Syria.

It was reported in recent days that the senior European official who was involved in secret talks between Israel and Syria held a long meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's chief of staff, Yoram Turbowicz, during the second Lebanon war.

The Prime Minister's Bureau confirmed the meeting Sunday night, but said that neither the talks between former Foreign Ministry director general Alon Liel and a Syrian representative nor the understandings they reached were mentioned.

Before the meeting, the European official visited Damascus several times with Syrian-American businessman Ibrahim Suleiman, who was the Syrian representative in the talks with Liel. Their last meeting took place 10 days after the war began.

Meretz faction chair Zahava Gal-On has asked the Knesset Presidium to approve Liel's invitation to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to discuss the meetings and the understandings drafted in them.

Geoffrey Aaronson, the American involved in the meetings, was quoted last Tuesday in Haaretz's report on the secret talks with Syria as saying that under an American-sponsored agreement with Israel, Syria would make sure that Hezbollah became a purely political party and that Khaled Meshal of Hamas left Damascus. Syria would also help reach a settlement in Iraq and help Israel solve the Palestinian problem, he said.

In a series of covert meetings held in Europe from September 2004 to July 2006, Liel and Suleiman drafted understandings for a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement. These included an Israeli agreement to pull out of the Golan to the pre-1967 lines; a joint Israeli-Syrian park that would be built along Lake Kinneret as a buffer zone; Israeli control over the use of the Jordan River headwaters and the Kinneret; and demilitarized areas on both sides of the border, with the one on the Syrian side being four times larger than the Israeli on.

In an interview with the Ynet Internet site over the weekend, Suleiman said that the European official offered Turbowicz "a confidence-building measure" that had been prepared by himself, European and Syrian officials. "This was a critical thing, a confidence-building measure ... The Israelis would have loved it. They would have celebrated it. Olmert's deputy said yes, then a week later he sent an email that said: 'No, we've changed our minds.'"

He said that it was something of which Israelis never dreamed and would have cost them nothing.

Suleiman said that a week after the meeting with Turbowicz, the European mediator received an email saying that Olmert was not interested in the initiative. "For some reason beyond my understanding, the Americans don't want peace between Syria and Israel," he continued. "Syria is trying and I'm trying, but damn it, there's a limit to how much we can give." "

by Nicola Nasser

Global Research, January 22, 2007

"While the Iraqis were busy counting their death toll of more than 650,000 since March 2003, the United Nations busy counting their dead of more than 34,000 in 2006 only, the Pentagon counting more than 3,070 American deaths and the U.S. treasury counting more than $600 billion of taxpayer money spent so far in Iraq , stealthily and suddenly the U.S. occupation’s oil prize rang louder than the war drums to alert the regional oil producers as well as the major world consumers to guard against the looming threat coming out of Iraq.

After listening to the monotonous and incredible U.S. lies for four years about “we are not there for Iraq 's oil,” the oil truth is now unfolding. Without a decisive military victory, the U.S. occupation of Iraq seems to be about to grab its oil prize by establishing a new sharing arrangement between a major national producer and the multi-national giants, an arrangement that Washington plans to set as the model to be followed both by the oil-rich region and the world at large.

This prize has been the dream of the successive U.S. administrations; on January 18, it came one step closer to reality when Iraq 's Oil Committee approved the new draft hydrocarbon law, sent it to the cabinet within a week and, when approved, will go to the parliament immediately thereafter.

The early draft of the law was prepared by BearingPoint American consultants, hired by the Bush administration, and sent to the White House and major western petroleum corporations in July, and then to the International Monetary Fund two months later, while most Iraqi legislators and public remained in the dark....."

Continue

There is No Solution

By MIKE WHITNEY
CounterPunch

".....The real purpose of the surge is to pacify Baghdad in order to rebuild confidence among the supporters of the war. Bush needs to prove that he can restore security so the oil giants can make their move and begin developing the world's second largest reserves of petroleum. In a matter of weeks, the al-Maliki government will pass the new hydrocarbon laws which will "issue tenders and signing contracts" to the major American oil companies. This will allow the looting of Iraq's oil under internationally-recognized legal agreements. But if the fighting persists, it'll all be for nothing. No one is going to invest capital to develop oil fields if the country is in the throes of a civil war. So Bush needs to put more boots on the ground and make one last-ditch effort to crush the resistance. And, he needs to do it fast.

It's clearly an act of desperation and few believe he'll be able to succeed. In fact, last week, a number of retired generals appeared before a senate sub-committee on Capital Hill and blasted the strategy as shortsighted and ill conceived. Marine General Joseph Hoar growled that, "The addition of 21,000 troops is too little too late It won't work (The administration has shown) "a shocking failure to understand the social and political forces that influence events in the Middle East."......"

Continue

While Going Under

A Touching Personal Story Of Pain And Recovery
By RAMZY BAROUD
CounterPunch

"I opened my eyes to the sound of my children, so innocently unaware of what had befallen their father: "is Daddy going to die?" asked one, in a voice engulfed with a worry that transcended her years; "no, but I think that he will have to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life," answered the other, the older of the two. In fact, I was neither dead, nor dying, however, the second possibility was not completely ruled out.

I tried to speak but couldn't. The post-opt room at the University of Washington Medical Centerl was decidedly cold. My gown provided an insignificant degree of warmth. All I could feel was the painful tubes and needles and other medical devices penetrating my veins on both sides in so painful a manner. The wound in my back was numbed by the anaesthesia. Its untold pain was yet to haunt me, though once it did, the nightmare resumed......

Just as the affect of the anaesthesia began to fade, my journey with narcotics was soon to resume. Hours and days seemed like fleeting moments, although I insisted to write my weekly article, skipping a dose of pain killers that allowed me to dictate the article on to my wife, my faithful editor for the last 13 years. As I laid on me left side, as I have for many days, I day dreamed for the simplest things: being able to walk again, to walk straight, to hold my newest child, Sammy, to play hide and seek with my children as we once did.

I also thought of the things that we take for granted. I thought of the unnecessary pain that many people are forced to endure for no fault of their own. I thought of Iraqi school kids, many of whom return from school or a trip to the market limbless, to live every remaining day of their life coping with disability. I thought of Palestinians and their seemingly endless plight, one of which the innocents always acquire the lion's share. I felt so strong a resentment of President Bush and his most recent, reckless decision to beef up the US military presence in Iraq. How many of those combatants will die? How many will they kill? How many lives will be ruined by untimely maiming of hundreds of those young men? Will the lies of defending 'our freedom and liberty' suffice before the dejected looks of one's children when they learn that Daddy will be using a wheelchair for the rest of his life? For what purpose? For what price? I thought of the numerous American families without health insurance, disowned by the same system that finds it prudent to spend over $350 billion on a few years of unnecessary wars and have the audacity to ask for more.

I thought of all of these things and more, thoughts that were always cut short when my pain killers kicked in. It took me a few days to brave my first attempt at standing up and walking. After a few disheartening failures, I finally managed to stand up, to walk straight, to the cheers of my children, and the tears of my wife, a gift of health that I shall never take for granted."

The Restrictions Remain

By AMIRA HASS
CounterPunch

"All the promises to relax restrictions in the West Bank have obscured the true picture. A few roadblocks have been removed, but the following prohibitions have remained in place. (This information was gathered by Haaretz, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Machsom Watch)

Standing prohibitions

* Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are forbidden to stay in the West Bank.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter East Jerusalem.

* West Bank Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the Jordan Valley.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter villages, lands, towns and neighborhoods along the "seam line" between the separation fence and the Green Line (some 10 percent of the West Bank).

* Palestinians who are not residents of the villages Beit Furik and Beit Dajan in the Nablus area, and Ramadin, south of Hebron, are forbidden entry.

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter the settlements' area (even if their lands are inside the settlements' built area).

* Palestinians are forbidden to enter Nablus in a vehicle.

* Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are forbidden to enter area A (Palestinian towns in the West Bank).

* Gaza Strip residents are forbidden to enter the West Bank via the Allenby crossing.

* Palestinians are forbidden to travel abroad via Ben-Gurion Airport.

* Children under age 16 are forbidden to leave Nablus without an original birth certificate and parental escort.

* Palestinians with permits to enter Israel are forbidden to enter through the crossings used by Israelis and tourists.

* Gaza residents are forbidden to establish residency in the West Bank.

* West Bank residents are forbidden to establish residency in the Jordan valley, seam line communities or the villages of Beit Furik and Beit Dajan.

* Palestinians are forbidden to transfer merchandise and cargo through internal West Bank checkpoints.

Periodic prohibitions

* Residents of certain parts of the West Bank are forbidden to travel to the rest of the West Bank.

* People of a certain age group - mainly men from the age of 16 to 30, 35 or 40 - are forbidden to leave the areas where they reside (usually Nablus and other cities in the northern West Bank).

* Private cars may not pass the Swahara-Abu Dis checkpoint (which separates the northern and southern West Bank). This was cancelled for the first time two weeks ago under the easing of restrictions.

Travel permits required

* A magnetic card (intended for entrance to Israel, but eases the passage through checkpoints within the West Bank).

* A work permit for Israel (the employer must come to the civil administration offices and apply for one).

* A permit for medical treatment in Israel and Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem (The applicant must produce an invitation from the hospital, his complete medical background and proof that the treatment he is seeking cannot be provided in the occupied territories).

* A travel permit to pass through Jordan valley checkpoints.

* A merchant's permit to transfer goods.

* A permit to farm along the seam line requires a form from the land registry office, a title deed, and proof of first-degree relations to the registered property owner.

* Entry permit for the seam line (for relatives, medical teams, construction workers, etc. Those with permits must enter and leave via the same crossing even if it is far away or closing early).

* Permits to pass from Gaza, through Israel to the West Bank.

* A birth certificate for children under 16.

* A long-standing resident identity card for those who live in seam-line enclaves.

Checkpoints and barriers

* There were 75 manned checkpoints in the West Bank as of January 9, 2007.

* There are on average 150 mobile checkpoints a week (as of September 2006).

* There are 446 obstacles placed between roads and villages, including concrete cubes, earth ramparts, 88 iron gates and 74 kilometers of fences along main roads.

* There are 83 iron gates along the separation fence, dividing lands from their owners. Only 25 of the gates open occasionally."

A Good Article
By Uri Avnery

"Mahatma Gandhi would have loved it. Nelson Mandela would have saluted. Martin Luther King would have been the most excited - it would have reminded him of the old days.

Yesterday, a decree of the Officer Commanding the Central Sector, General Yair Naveh, was about to come into force. It forbade Israeli drivers from giving a ride to Palestinian passengers in the occupied territories. The knitted-Kippah-wearing General, a friend of the settlers, justified this as a vital security necessity. In the past, inhabitants of the West Bank have sometimes reached Israeli territory in Israeli cars.

Israeli peace activists decided that this nauseating order must be protested. Several organizations planned a protest action for the very day it was due to come into force. They organized a "Freedom Ride" of Israeli car-owners who were to enter the West Bank (a criminal offence in itself) and give a ride to local Palestinians, who had volunteered for the action.

An impressive event in the making. Israeli drivers and Palestinian passengers breaking the law openly, facing arrest and trial in a military court.

At the last moment, the general "froze" the order. The demonstration was called off.

THE ORDER that was suspended (but not officially rescinded) emitted a strong odor of apartheid. It joins a large number of acts of the occupation authorities that are reminiscent of the racist regime of South Africa, such as the systematic building of roads in the West Bank for Israelis only and on which Palestinians are forbidden to travel. Or the "temporary" law that forbids Palestinians in the occupied territories, who have married Israeli citizens, to live with their spouses in Israel. And, most importantly, the Wall, which is officially called "the separation obstacle". In Afrikaans, "apartheid" means separation.

The "vision" of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert amounts to the establishment of a "Palestinian state" that would be nothing more than a string of Palestinian islands in an Israeli sea. It is easy to detect a similarity between the planned enclaves and the "Bantustans" that were set up by the White regime in South Africa - the so-called "homelands" where the Blacks were supposed to enjoy "self-rule" but which really amounted to racist concentration camps.

Because of this, we are right when we use the term "apartheid" in our daily struggle against the occupation. We speak about the "apartheid wall" and "apartheid methods". The order of General Naveh has practically given official sanction to the use of this term. Even institutions that are far from the radical peace camp did relate it to the Apartheid system.

Therefore, the title of former President Jimmy Carter's new book is fully justified - "Palestine - Peace not Apartheid". The title aroused the ire of the "friends of Israel" even more than the content of the book itself. How dare he? To compare Israel to the obnoxious racist regime? To allege that the government of Israel is motivated by racism, when all its actions are driven solely by the necessity to defend its citizens against Arab terrorists?....."

Continue

by Adam Hochschild and Tom Engelhardt

"It's been a repetitive phenomenon of these last years – when fears about disaster (or further disaster, or even the farthest reaches of disaster) in Iraq rise, so does the specter of Vietnam. Despite the obvious dissimilarities between the two situations, Vietnam has been the shadow war we're still fighting. The Bush administration began its 2003 invasion by planning a non-Vietnam War scenario right down to not having "body counts," those grim, ridiculed death chants of that long-past era. His administration, as the president put it before the November midterm elections, wasn't going to be a "body-count team." But the Vietnam experience has proven nothing short of irresistible in a crisis. Within the last month, after Bush himself bemoaned the lack of a body count in the vicinity, the body count slipped back into the news as a way to measure success in Iraq....."

Continue

The New U.S. Strategy To Give The U.S. Military More "Punch"

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military helicopter that crashed outside Baghdad, killing all 12 on board, was shot down by a shoulder-fired missile, CNN reported on Monday.

The Black Hawk was most likely brought down on Saturday by hostile fire, according to unidentified U.S. officials cited by CNN. The crash was still under investigation but debris recovered on the ground indicate a missile was involved, CNN said.

Twenty U.S. troops were killed on Saturday in one of the deadliest days for the American military in Iraq."

I Don't Get It; Why Does A Palestinian Leader "Negotiate" With An Obvious Agent Of Usrael? What Good Could Possibly Come Of It, Besides Feeding The Palestinian People More Illusions? We Have Enough Illusions To Last Longer Than A Lifetime!

Palestinians attend the funeral of Abir Aramin after she was killed by Israeli soldiers in Anata refugee camp near Jerusalem, 19 January 2007. (MaanImages/Moamar Awad)

Nurit Peled-Elhanan writing from Israel, Live from Palestine, 22 January 2007

".......Bassam, as a Muslim, believes he must pass a test -- as a man of honour not to seek revenge, not to give up, not to neglect the struggle for dignity and peace on his own land. When he asked me where we find strength to go on, I said the only thing I could think of: from the children who are left to us. His other children, my three living sons. From the other Palestinian and Israeli children who have a right to live without their elders forcing them into being occupiers or occupied. The so-called enlightened, western world does not get what is happening here. The whole enlightened world stands aside and does nothing to save little girls from murderous soldiers. The enlightened world blames Islam, as it once blamed Arab nationalism, for all the atrocities the non-Islamic world is inflicting upon Muslims. The enlightened west fears little girls with scarves on their heads. It is terrified of boys in keffiyehs. And in Israel, children are educated to fear, most of all, the fruits of the Muslim womb. Therefore, when they become solldiers, they see nothing wrong in killing Palestinian children "before they grow." But Basam and Salwa and all of us -- Jewish and Arab victims of the Israeli occupation -- want to live together just as we die together. We see our children sacrificed on the altar of an occupation that has no basis in law or justice. And, outside, the enlightened world justifies it all and sends more money to the occupiers.

If the world does not come to its senses, there will be nothing more to say or write or listen to in this land except for the silent cry of mourning and the muted voices of dead children."






Abir Aramin

Nora Barrows-Friedman writing from Dheisheh Refugee Camp, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 21 January 2007
(Nora Barrows-Friedman is the producer and co-host of Flashpoints, a daily investigative newsmagazine on the Pacifica Radio Network in the States. Twice a year, she travels to Palestine to document the situation there from the ground and lead media training courses for children at the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh Refugee Camp)

".......Palestinians living today inside Israel will be particularly shoved against the literal and metaphoric wall. Talks of so-called "loyalty schemes" are becoming popular within the marble hallways of the Knesset -- contracts that Palestinian citizens of Israel will be made to sign declaring their loyalty to the Jewish and democratic state. If they are caught inside the occupied territories, or acting to change the political system, they will simply be stripped of their citizenship, and probably deported down the street to "Palestine."

There could very well be a Mogadishu next to Jerusalem; a sham state that will be the death of future talks of refugees' rights of return, of the settlement dismantling, of a unified, bi-national state for all that live in this sad strip of land next to the azure Mediterranean. This is a quite outrageous yet realistic vision, and time is running out before all the details are drawn up and plans are formalized, before the suits in Jerusalem and Washington DC shake hands and wipe them clean of the Palestine problem.

People are, meanwhile, buying time. Someone asked me today if I had spoken with anybody who held any hope. I couldn't think of one person during my travels up and down the region. In Gaza, a colleague there said that people have begun to run out of cooking gas and cigarettes, that people stay in bed out of hunger, cold and searing depression. For the three and a half million Palestinians living in the ghetto prison of the West Bank, they can see that the escalating squalor-nightmare of Gaza is on its way here, tumbling over the wet hillsides like a silent, aching storm."

Hebron settlers attack a Palestinian passerby

By Tony Karon

"Jimmy Carter has been branded as everything from an agent of Saudi Arabia to a cyrpto anti-Semite in a campaign of unprecedented hysteria by a Zionist establishment desperate to squelch any discussion in America of the moral implications of Israel’s apartheid policies in the West Bank and Gaza. So what, one imagines, would the same apparatus of Orwellian obfuscation, denial and diversion make of Tommy Lapid. Never mind apartheid, Lapid last week compared the actions of the Hebron settlers who regularly and viciously abuse the town’s Palestinian majority to the behavior of European anti-Semites in the early Nazi era. It’s entirely appropriate that someone draw attention to the vicious racism of the Hebron settlers, but you’d imagine the Alan Dershowitz-Marty Peretz crowd would turn its talk show artillery on anyone comparing Israelis to Nazis and their ilk. Except that Tommy Lapid was a member of Ariel Sharon’s cabinet, and is currently the chairman of the council of Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum.

Like I always said, the U.S. public debate over Israel is so heavily policed by berserk denialists (not of the Holocaust, but of the idea that Israel is capable of oppression) like Dershowitz that it would brand the views of much of the Israeli political spectrum as unacceptable, even “anti-Semitic.” To be sure, if Haaretz was an American paper, the Carter-bashing crowd would have probably tried to shut it down.

Indeed, while most of the mainstream media in the U.S. typically steered clear of any serious discussion of the issues raised by Carter’s title — preferring to cover the events engineered by the Carter bashers such as the resignation of 14 of the 200 members of Carter’s advisory board — there were plenty of Israelis willing to step up to the plate in their own media and confirm, as Yitzhak Rabin’s education minister Shulamit Aloni bluntly stated, that Israel maintains an apartheid regime over the Palestinian territories. And, I think, Aloni nails the reason why the Peretz-Dershowitz crowd, as well as liberal commentators like Michael Kinsley who really ought to know better, went into paroxysms of denial when Carter stated the obvious. She writes:

Jewish self-righteousness is taken for granted among ourselves to such an extent that we fail to see what’s right in front of our eyes. It’s simply inconceivable that the ultimate victims, the Jews, can carry out evil deeds. Nevertheless, the state of Israel practises its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.

The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. All this is done in order to keep an eye on the population’s movements and to make its life difficult. Israel even imposes a total curfew whenever
the settlers, who have illegally usurped the Palestinians’ land, celebrate their holidays or conduct their parades.

If that were not enough, the generals commanding the region frequently issue further orders, regulations, instructions and rules (let us not forget: they are the lords of the land). By now they have requisitioned further lands for the purpose of constructing “Jewish only” roads. Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night - all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.

On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. “Why?” I asked the soldier. “It’s an order - this is a Jews-only road”, he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. “It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and
let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that can show the world that Apartheid exists here?”........."

Continue

By Kurt Nimmo

"Richard Perle, more accurately referred to by his moniker, the Prince of Darkness, tells us from Herzliya, Israel, that Bush will eventually give the order to kill Iranians.

“If all options were exhausted in the attempt to stop the Iranian nuclear project, and US military involvement was needed for a successful strike on Tehran, US President George Bush would give the green light for the operation, former director of the US Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, Richard Perle, told the Herzliya Conference on Sunday evening,” reports Yedioth Internet.

Perle may fool a few Israelis, even more than a few Americans, those who bother to notice, but for the rest of us, those who have followed this gang of criminals for nearly five years, he is simply blowing smoke out of a certain orifice.

Asked if Bush and the neocons would “do it,” that is engage in mass murder, Perle responded, “I think that until the day he leaves office, this is a president that, if he is told, ‘Mr. President, you are at the point of no return,’ I have very little doubt that this president would order the necessary military action.”

The Prince of Darkness would have us believe the “point of no return” is Iran armed to the teeth with nukes, a demonstrable fairy tale. In fact, Bush’s “point of no return” is the day he leaves office, failing to accomplish the neocon plan of sowing ruin and chaos in the Middle East.

“Perle expressed astonishment at the lack of support granted by the West to Iranian opposition movements who wish to overthrow the regime of the Ayatollahs,” the Israeli news site continues. “I’m not convinced that we have a lot of time. Given the peril that would result, its astonishing to me that we do not now have a serious political strategy with Iran…. If we continue on our current course, we have only a military option. So what I’m urging, and this should have happened a very long time ago, is that we make a serious effort to work with the internal (Iranian) opposition.”

Of course, for Perle, the Israel First neocons, and the Likudniks in Israel, the idea of subverting an Islamic government from within is natural as rain. Indeed, Israel has messed with its neighbors since the Zionists state was established—after running off a large number of Palestinian Arabs and stealing their land—a historical fact evinced by the Lavon Affair, the Mossad’s framing of Libya for the LaBelle Disco bombing, the attack on the USS Liberty, killing 34 Americans and wounding 171, the botched assassination of U.S. ambassador John Gunther Dean in Lebanon, and Israel’s connection to the Abu Nidal Organization, to name a few......

Naturally, Perle understands full well any effort to “work with the internal opposition” in Iran is doomed to failure, as this opposition consists basically of the son of the late Shah, Reza Pahlavi, who lives in exile in Virginia, and a scattering of other groups, including Mojahedin-e-Khalq, a terrorist organization involved in killing Iranian civilians. Perle actually expects us to believe the people of Iran will support the butchers of MEK or reinstall a monarch, the son of a dictator who unleashed SAVAK, a particularly brutal secret police, on the people of Iran for over three decades.

In fact, Perle and the neocons are impatiently waiting for Bush to attack Iran, as their plan is to destroy Iranian society, not free the Iranian people from the mullahs. Perle, like a demented carnival barker, is setting the stage, telling us Bush will “do it,” when it fact the neocons will, as Bush is little more than a trained monkey from an elite family that made its way in the world after rubbing elbows with Nazis."

Prominent lobbyist Perle: U.S. will attack Iran if it obtains nukes

"President George Bush will order an attack on Iran if it becomes clear to him that Iran is set to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities while he is still in office, Richard Perle told the Herzliya Conference on Sunday. Perle is close to the Bush administration, particularly to Vice President Richard Cheney.

The leading neoconservative and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute addressed the session on Iran's nuclear program. He said that the present policy of attempting to impose sanctions on Iran will not cause it to abandon its nuclear aspirations, and unless stopped the country will become a nuclear power....."

The Three Stooges

Is Karzai Coming To Damascus Next?

The puppet Abbas is there now. The Iraqi puppet Talabani has just finished a 6-day historic visit to Damascus which culminated in Assad pledging to support Talabani and Iraq under occupation, fight the Iraqi resistance which he referred to as "terrorist" and to demand the continuation of the U.S. occupation (because this is what the puppet government has asked for). Talabani, just before going to Damascus, welcomed the additional 21,000 U.S. occupation troops.

Damascus, a few days ago, denied the existence of a secret memorandum of understanding with Israel. But in light of other rapid developments, it is now clear that Assad, as usual, has two faces: the public, anti U.S. and anti Israel face and the more real private face of being just another U.S. Arab puppet.

It appears that the Usraeli and Saudi strategy of separating Damascus from Iran is working, and rapidly. This has made Tehran nervous, which has sent a high-ranking intelligence official to Damascus to find out what Bashar Assad is up to.

The strategy of Usrael taking them one at a time is working splendidly. It is clearer than ever that the immediate next strike is against Iran. By taking Syria out, this increases the chances that Syrian pressure will be applied on Hizbullah to stay quiet if and when Iran is attacked. Missiles launched from Southern Lebanon are the most effective way for Iran to retaliate, but it appears that Syria will see to it that this will not happen. Perhaps it was not totally unrelated that 75 missiles meant for Hizbullah were confiscated by the Lebanese army close to the Syrian border. Was it a sign of cooperation with Usrael by Syria? The Iranian envoy to Damasus is supposed to ensure that Syria allow supplies to Hizbullah to go through. Iran is nervous and suspicious of Syria's intents.

The Palestinians are well advised to expect the worst from Assad; if they have any doubts about that, all they have to do is to ask Maher Arrar. If I were Khaled Mash'al, I would be thinking of a new base. With the new cooperative Bashar Assad, Mossad can't be far away.

Tony Sayegh

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Bendib

Four Soldiers, one Marine killed in separate incidents in Al Anbar

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE No. 20070121-13
Jan. 21, 2007

Four Soldiers, one Marine killed in separate incidents in Al Anbar
Multi-National Force – West PAO

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq – Four Soldiers and One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died Saturday from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province.

The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense."

***

Within 24 hours, 25 U.S. and 1 U.K. soldiers were killed.

By Kurt Nimmo

"Heinz Kissinger, the Butcher of Cambodia, who essentially signed the death warrants for thousands of Chileans, Indonesians, and micromanaged the slaughter of countless Vietnamese while nodding and winking in Pol Pot’s direction, has bestowed his venomous grace on Bush and the neocons.

“Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an iconic conservative who continues to command the attention of the White House, praises President Bush’s moves in Iraq and says that leaving the war-torn nation is not possible under present conditions,” writes Mike Sheehan for Raw Story.

In an International Herald Tribune op-ed, the elder Malthusian—it rings more true than “elder statesman’—praises Bush’s “bold decision to order a ’surge’ of some 20,000 American troops for Iraq,” thus providing all the evidence we need that neocons and traditional neolibs are on the same page when it comes to killing Arabs and Muslims.....

“Kissinger asserts that the Iraq war is part of a larger conflict, namely ‘the assault on the international order conducted by radical groups in both Islamic sects,’ particularly against the United States. He insists that despite public disenchantment with the war in Iraq, ‘under present conditions, withdrawal is not an option,’” Sheehan continues. “He calls America ‘the indispensable component of any attempt to build a new world order.’”

There’s that phrase again—one that will get you pegged as a conspiracy nut in mixed company—the “new world order.”

Naturally, for Kissinger and the global elite, America is “the indispensable component of any attempt to build a new world order,” or rather the “dumb, stupid animals” of the American military are “indispensable” components, more accurately expendable components (according to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Kissinger made the “stupid animals” remark to Alexander Haig). Kissinger, like the neocons, has no regard for the American people, that is beyond their utility as bullet-stoppers and cash cows, thus he has no concern for the fact an overwhelming number of Americans oppose the occupation of Iraq.

Kissinger’s remark about “the international order conducted by radical groups in both Islamic sects,” in other words Islam writ large, is evidence the neocons and neolibs are on the same page when it comes to utilizing made-in-the-USA terrorism to not only deconstruct Islamic societies, but push forward the neoliberal plan to hold a global fire sale, otherwise know as “free trade” and “privatization” conducted at gunpoint.

Finally, as an indication Kissinger and the neocons support this criminal deconstruction, including the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, consider Kissinger’s declaration that the United States “must not involve itself in the sectarian conflict for any extended period,” as this miserable process, long planned by the neocons and their Israeli collaborators, must be allowed to blossom in full, thus “leveling the playing field” for the neolibs, who will rush in to pick up the pieces, that is to say capture all of worth, namely huge reserves of oil and other precious and profitable natural resources. "

Netanyahu: Aim to bring down Hamas

Opposition leader says Israel should aim to bring down Hamas government, urges Jewish community to promote awareness of Iranian threat

"Opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) on Sunday told the Herzliya Conference that Israel should aim for the overthrow of the Hamas government, which he described as a part of the axis of radical Islamic forces threatening the country's security. Only by toppling the Hamas government can Israel and the Palestinians hope to achieve peace and good neighborly relations, Netanyahu added.

Netanyahu expressed concern that the strengthening of radical Islamic forces was met with silence, and warned against the consequences of the realignment, which he called “a dangerous move”.

‘Expose Iranian regime’s ugliness’

The Likud leader called on the international community to stop investing in Iran in order to prevent genocide. Netanyahu said it was best to minimize talks about Israel's self-defense capabilities, but added that it was time to launch an international campaign "to isolate and delegitimize Iran." He said that the "extremist regime" in Tehran "is sowing the seeds for its own destruction."

"Iran is vulnerable, it doesn't allow economic growth," said Netanyahu. He cited growing voices within Iran opposing Ahmadinejad's regime. "Most doors can be closed in the face of Ahmadinejad… The key is the delegitimizing of the regime, with economic and political pressure," Netanyahu said.

"I want to call on the world that didn't stop the Holocaust last time to stop the Holocaust this time," he added.[There we Go Again! Milk The Holocaust!]

Comparing modern day Iran to Nazi Germany, Netanyahu said, "In 1937, we didn't have a state. Today, we have a state and can defend ourselves against Iran's anti-Semitism, not only militarily, but also through public opinion. Iran can be stopped."

He also urged the Jewish community to do its share in recruiting international support. “No one will stand behind the Jews if they do not stand up for themselves,” Netanyahu said.

According to Netanyahu, it was a small but significant effort that would expose the Iranian regime in “all its ugliness” and convince people to expel it. He said that the initiative was already picking up speed, and announced that he would visit the British Parliament next week in order to promote further awareness of the Iranian threat.

'Prepare backup military solution'

Speaking to Ynetnews, Knesset Member Effie Eitam (National Union-National Religious Party) was less shy than Netanyahu when it came to discussing Israel's military options.

"I think its now beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran is accelerating a project for a nuclear bomb, planned at aimed at the State of Israel, and to bring the whole democratic free world on its knees," he said.

"If we can stop Iran by a focused international effort, everyone will bless that. But parallel to that, Israel must make sure a military solution is clearly prepared, and must be affected if the point of no return is passed, as a last resort."

"Israel is capable of dealing with this problem militarily," Eitam said, adding that the ideal scenario would involve a US-led military coalition. "But if that effort will fail, Israel can, and has to defend itself (alone)."

Raanan Gissin, a senior advisor to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and currently a Strategic Consultant at the Interdisciplinary Center, told Ynetnews he was optimistic over the chances of dealing with the Iranian threat through an international coalition of "potential victims" of Iran's destructive policies.

"Iran is very sensitive over its international stance. A coalition of potential victims who want to stop and isolate Iran can come together," Gissin said. He added that such a coalition could see Israel take the lead of a coalition which included Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States, united against the Iranian threat.

Gissin expressed skepticism over reports that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was pushing Ahmadinejad to soften the country's nuclear stance, saying it was an "illusion" designed to play for time. "

by Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay
Global Research, January 21, 2007

".....Obviously, President George W. Bush is busily looking for a Gulf of Tonkin-like incident in order to further escalate the war in Iraq and to start a fresh one with Iran.

Let us remember that when the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, another Texan, wanted to escalate the war against North Vietnam, in 1964, it fabricated a tale about a maritime incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, which many historians believe never happened. Congress was then steamrolled into passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was used by the Johnson administration, and later by the Nixon administration, to escalate U.S. military involvement in Indochina. Tens of thousands of young Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died as a consequence of this resolution.

And the same scenario is repeating itself today. Politicians, when facing a quagmire of their own making and feeling powerless and under attack, will spend unlimited amounts of public money and will sacrifice unlimited numbers of other people's lives, in order to save face. —Anxious to provoke Iran into a military confrontation, George W. Bush authorized, in early January, an attack on an Iranian consulate in the town of Irbil, in Iraq, capturing five staff members. This was an act of war, because it was carried out on a diplomatic compound. The Iraqi and Iranian governments have both called for the men's release.

This aggression came after the Bush-Cheney administration sent two large nuclear aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS John C. Stennis<