Palestinian Pundit

"Officials in the Prime Minister's Bureau refused to comment on Saturday on reports that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with a senior Saudi representative in recent weeks.

Arab sources told Haaretz that Saudi Arabia's National Security Advisor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, met with Olmert again in a follow-up to their previous meeting in Jordan about six months ago.

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Saturday arrived for a visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Prince Bandar visited Washington last week for talks with senior American officials ahead of the Arab summit in Riyadh this Thursday and Friday. The summit is expected to reapprove the 2002 Arab peace initiative calling for normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for withdrawal from all territories, a Palestinian state and a "just solution" to the Palestinian refugee problem.

Columnist Tom Friedman wrote Friday in The New York Times that there were rumors that a senior Saudi official had met with Olmert ahead of the Riyadh summit.

Government sources in Jerusalem said they would respond after decisions were made in Riyadh. Olmert has said recently that he welcomed the "positive parts" of the Saudi initiative.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has expressed strong opposition to the clause on refugees, which the Palestinians interpret as a right of return. Arab leaders say they will make no changes in the initiative.

Following the establishment of the Palestinian unity government, a flurry of diplomatic activity is expected in the region over the next few days, starting with the visit of Ban Ki-Moon....."

***

Rejoice Palestinians! Bandar Bush will liberate Palestine for You.

Instructing Her Shameless Stooges

The UN didn’t witness a secretary-general so sympathetic to Israel as Ban Ki-Moon

"Pity that the Iraqi resistance missed him, Al-Akhbar newspaper translated parts of Y’Net Israeli newspaper [Hebrew edition] interview with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

For 60 years the United Nations didn’t witness a secretary-general so sympathetic to Israel as Ban Ki-Moon revealing that he gave the the Israeli representative to the United Nations “Dan Gillerman” his private mobile phone, so they can talk in the evenings and in the weekend.

During the interview, Ki-Moon said that his love to Israel is similar to South Korea, pointing out is that Koreans are the “Jews of Asia”.

Also he said that he was impressed with achievements of a small country as Israel and it is similar to the achievements of South Korea, both undergone many wars and difficult enemies.

The newspaper said that Ki-Moon put in his office photos of his meetings with families of Israeli soldiers imprisoned by Hizballah."

بان كي مون «قلق» من تهريب الأسلحة بين لبنان وسوريا

"حيفا ـــ فراس خطيب

«يديعوت»: الأمم المتحدة لم تشهد منذ 60 سنة أميناً عاماً متعاطفاً بهذا الشكل مع إسرائيل

«الأمم المتحدة لم تشهد منذ 60 سنة أميناً عاماً متعاطفاً بهذا الشكل مع إسرائيل». بهذه العبارة استهلّت صحيفة «يديعوت أحرونوت» مقابلة مطولة مع الأمين العام للأمم المتحدة الكوري الجنوبي بان كي مون، كاشفة عن أنَّه منح المندوب الاسرائيلي في الأمم المتحدة دان غيلرمان رقم هاتفه النقال «كي يتحدثا في ساعات المساء ونهاية الاسبوع».
وقال بان، خلال المقابلة التي تنشر اليوم، إنَّه «يكنَّ حباً للإسرائيليين»، وشبهها بكوريا الجنوبية، مشيراً إلى أنَّه يطلق على الكوريين اسم «يهود آسيا».
وأوضح بان «لدي تعاطف كبير مع اسرائيل وحكومتها»، مشيراً إلى أن «الامم المتحدة كانت ذكية عندما ألغت قراراً يصف الصهيونية بالعنصرية»، مضيفا أنَّ الأمم المتحدة أوضحت بأنَّها تعترف بالقلق الشرعي لإسرائيل.
وكان بان قد أبلغ للمندوب الاسرائيلي لدى الامم المتحدة أنه «معجب بإنجازات اسرائيل الممتازة»، وبأن «كوريا الجنوبية دولة صغيرة مرَّت بالكثير من الحروب ضد عدو صعب، إلا انَّها استطاعت أن تحقق انجازات رائعة».
وذكرت الصحيفة أنَّ بان علّق في مكتبه صورة تذكارية من لقائه مع عائلات الجنديين الاسرائيليين الأسيرين لدى حزب الله، معتبرةً أنَّ موضوع الاسيرين «قريب من قلب بان»، الذي قال في المقابلة إنه «يشعر بتعاطف كبير مع عائلتي الجنديين، إلا أنه شدّد على أنه «لا يملك معلوماتٍ يذكرها لعائلتيهما». وأضاف أنه سيحاول قدر المستطاع أن يأتي بمعلومات، واعداً بطرح الموضوع عند زيارته لبنان، لكنّه لم يعد بـ «العودة بمعلوماتٍ تذكر»...........
......."

"The Somali Liberation Front, an otherwise unknown group, have called on Arabs and Muslims to come to Somalia to fight Ethiopian troops.

Speaking in a videotape aired by Al Jazeera on Wednesday, the group's spokesman also said that its fighters had begun a guerrilla campaign against the Somali government.

"We call on the Arab and Muslim countries to adhere to their responsibilities towards Somalis and to stand by their brethrens in their efforts to liberate their country," the Somali spokesman said, speaking halting Arabic with his face concealed.

The short video also showed armed men making plans and training to carry out attacks.

The group's self-proclaimed spokesman also said that the African Union should not send troops to support the Ethiopian military which has deployed in Somalia to support the countrys' weak interim government.

"We call on the African countries to refrain from sending troops to Somalia, as by doing this they legalize the Ethiopian occupation, harm the Somali issue and get themselves involved in a dispensable trouble," he said.

Cargo plane 'shot down'

Separately, the government of Belarus said that a privately-owned Belorussian cargo plane that crashed north of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, on Friday, had been shot down.

"The plane was shot down," Kseniya Perestoronina, a transport ministry spokeswoman said in Minsk, the Belorussian capital.

She said that the large Ilyushin-76 aircraft, in Somalia to assist struggling African peacekeepers, was hit at a height of 150 metres and that all eleven passengers and crew had died in the crash......"

Four Years Later in Iraq

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch

"Pick almost any date on the calendar and it'll turn out that the US either started a war, ended a war, perpetrated a massacre or sent its UN Ambassador into the Security Council to declare to issue an ultimatum. It's like driving across the American West. "Historic marker, 1 mile", the sign says. A minute later you pull over and find yourself standing on dead Indians. "On this spot, in 1879 Major T and a troop of US cavalry "

It's three o'clock in the afternoon, Sunday March 18, one day short of the anniversary of US planes embarking on an aerial hunt of Pancho Villa in 1916;of the day the U.S. Senate rejected (for the second time) the Treaty of Versailles in 1920; of the end of the active phase of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2002; of the 10 pm broadcast March 19, 2003, by President G.W. Bush announcing that aerial operations against Iraq had commenced......

As Iraq began to plunge ever more rapidly into the abyss not long after the March, 2003 attack, this crowd stubbornly mostly stayed the course with Bush. "Thumpingly blind to the war's virtues" was the head on a Paul Berman op ed piece in February, 2004.Christopher Hitchens lurched regularly onto Hardball to hurl abuse at critics of the war.

But today, amid Iraq's dreadful death throes, where are the parlor warriors? Have those Iraqi exiles reconsidered their illusions, that all it would take was a brisk invasion and a new constitution, to put Iraq to rights? Have any of them, from Makiya through Hitchens to Berman and Berube had dark nights, asking themselves just how much responsibility they have for the heaps of dead in Iraq, for a plundered nation, for the American soldiers who died or were crippled in Iraq at their urging ? Sometimes I dream of them, -- Friedman, Hitchens, Berman -- like characters in a Beckett play, buried up to their necks in a rubbish dump on the edge of Baghdad, reciting their columns to each other as the local women turn over the corpses to see if one of them is her husband or her son.

Post coldwar Liberal interventionism came of age with the onslaught on Serbia. Liberal support for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq were the afterglows. Now that night has descended and illusions about the great crusade shattered for ever, let us tip our hats to those who opposed this war from the start ­ the real left, the libertarians and those without illusions about the "civilizing mission" of the great powers."

For Hans Christof von Sponeck, the former assistant secretary-general of the UN, the United Nations, far from garding the respect for international law and the consolidation of peace, have themselves become a factor of injustice. Thus, the sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq caused a human disaster, whereas treaties such as the nuclear non-proliferation treaty are used to ensure the domination of certain powers and to threaten others. It is time to change the system completely.

by Silvia Cattori

Global Research, March 24, 2007

".....Silvia Cattori: How could the Security Council neglect to consider the fact that these sanctions allowed the superpowers to misuse their position and uniquely pursue their war objectives, when it voted for other resolutions, like for example resolution 1559 which was particularly intended to provide the United States and Israel with a cover for future military strikes? Does that mean that the Security Council and the UN Secretariat, supposed to defend the people, have become mainly responsible for humanitarian catastrophes?

Hans von Sponeck: I would say, only those who either are ignorant, or those who cannot accept the defeat, will continue to argue that the humanitarian drama in Iraq was largely not due – not exclusively but to a large extent –to an erroneous policy, a policy of punishment. The Iraqi people were punished for having accepted the government in Baghdad, even though they were completely innocent.

Silvia Cattori: Our political leaders, who are present in all international bodies, knew perfectly well that these sanctions would have disastrous consequences. Does that mean that, by remaining silent, they have accepted innocent civilians to be killed, tortured, and starved?

Hans von Sponeck: I would say, unless the international community has a very bad memory, we cannot forget that, either there was silence or there was connivance, support, or there was a deliberate effort to promote conditions of the kind that prevailed in Iraq during thirteen years of sanctions. Therefore, you get different levels of accountability, of political accountability. Not only the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the President of the United States and their governments are responsible, but others as well; Spain and Italy played a supportive role that means the former governments are responsible as well. Mr Aznar in Madrid and Mr Berlusconi in Italy are very much responsible for having contributed to the humanitarian disaster that evolved in Iraq. They will not accept this responsibility but the evidence is there......

Silvia Cattori: While the situation created by the occupation of Iraq is frightening, it is to be feared that the Resolution against Iran will be used by the United States to strike that country. The German Navy – formally under UN mandate – is in place in the Eastern Mediterranean. Is it because you know to what extent your country is involved in the projects of war of the United States that you recently wrote an open letter to Mrs Angela Merkel asking her to refuse all use of violence against Iran?

Hans von Sponeck: That is correct. I feel very strongly that, gradually, Germany and other European countries are getting involved into power policy defined in Washington by power-hungry people. This is becoming more serious because these power-hungry people begin to realize that they cannot, on their own, implement a policy of domination. So they need the help of other governments now, and these others seem to be Central-European and Eastern European governments from Lithuania to Great Britain. They also try to politicise NATO and make it an instrument, which to a large extent has in fact already become a US instrument. Therefore, just like any normal individual in this world, I cannot accept the attempts – supported by Chancellor Merkel during the recent NATO summit – to provide this military alliance with a political mission. NATO is an instrument of the Cold War; for many years NATO was looking for a new mission, for a new role. The only thing the allies knew was that they have a military responsibility but, with the end of the Cold War in Europe, that responsibility no longer existed and was no longer necessary. So there was this desperate search for a new role.

I personally think that it is extremely dangerous that NATO now presents itself as a democratic instrument for western democracies while, in fact, it is a tool in the hands of the United States to implement the Project for the ‘New American Century’. Neoconservatives in the United States made this famous proposal in the 1990s – while the Bush administration converted it into its national security strategy of 2002 and subsequent years - and NATO is supposed to assist its implementation. The responsible politicians that recently met in Munich should have rejected this concept. Mr Vladimir Putin, the Russian President for once did not mince his words and expressed plainly what many of us feel. Of course, those who follow a different agenda rejected his suggestions. However, there is a reality in what Mr Putin said....."

A Very Good Article

By Scott Ritter

".......Sadly, Congress’ smoke-and-mirrors approach to the Iraq war creates the impression of much activity while generating no result. Even more sadly, the majority of Americans are falling for the act, either by continuing their past trend of political disengagement or by thinking that the gesticulation and pontification taking place in Washington, D.C., actually translate into useful work. The fact is, most Americans are ill-placed intellectually, either through genuine ignorance, a lack of curiosity or a combination of both, to judge for themselves the efficacy of congressional behavior when it comes to Iraq. Congress claims to be searching for a solution to Iraq, and many Americans simply accept that this is this case.

The fact is one cannot begin to search for a solution to a problem that has yet to be accurately defined. We speak of “surges,” “stability” and “funding” as if these terms come close to addressing the real problems faced in Iraq. There is widespread recognition among members of Congress and the American people that there is civil unrest in Iraq today, with Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence tearing that country apart, but the depth of analysis rarely goes beyond that obvious statement of fact. Americans might be able to nod their heads knowingly if one utters the words Sunni, Shiite and Kurd, but very few could take the conversation much further down the path of genuine comprehension regarding the interrelationships among these three groups. And yet we, the people, are expected to be able to hold to account those whom we elected to represent us in higher office, those making the decisions regarding the war in Iraq. How can the ignorant accomplish this task? And ignorance is not something uniquely attached to the American public. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the newly appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, infamously failed a pop quiz in which journalist Jeff Stein asked him to differentiate between Sunni and Shiite. Reyes has become the poster boy for congressional stupidity, but in truth he is not alone. Very few of his colleagues could pass the test, truth be told......

The longer the Americans remain in Iraq, the more violence the Americans bring down on Iraq, and the more the Americans are seen as facilitating the persecution of the Sunnis by the Shiites, the more legitimate the call of the Wahhabi fanatics become. While American strategists may speak of the rise of al-Qaida in Iraq, this is misrecognition of what is really happening. Rather than foreigners arriving and spreading Wahhabism in Iraq, the virulent sect of Islamic fundamentalism is spreading on its own volition, assisted by the incompetence and brutality of an American occupation completely ignorant of the reality of the land and people it occupies. This is the true significance of Baghdad, and any answer not reflecting this will be graded as failing.

A pop quiz, consisting of one question in two parts. Most readers might complain that it is not realistic to expect mainstream America to possess the knowledge necessary to achieve the level of comprehension required to pass this quiz. I agree. However, since the mission of the United States in Iraq has shifted from disarming Saddam to installing democracy to creating stability, I think it only fair that the American people be asked about those elements that are most relevant to the issue, namely the Shiite and Sunni faithful and how they interact with one another.

It is sadly misguided to believe that surging an additional 20,000 U.S. troops into Baghdad and western Iraq will even come close to redressing the issues raised in this article. And if you concur that the reality of Iraq is far too complicated to be understood by the average American, yet alone cured by the dispatch of additional troops, then we have a collective responsibility to ask what the hell we are doing in that country to begin with. If this doesn’t represent a clarion call for bringing our men and women home, nothing does. "

A certain semantic change is occurring in statements made by leaders of Hamas.

By Danny Rubinstein

"The political program of the Palestinian national unity government that was sworn in last week refers to Israel in its political sections and in the part that deals with the occupation. In the latter, it is stated that the new government will undertake action "to end the Israeli occupation," will see to the "release of the heroic prisoners from the Israeli occupation's prisons," will stand firm on the "Israeli policy on Jerusalem," will defend the Palestinians' right "to oppose Israeli aggression," and will continue to reduce tensions "in return for an Israeli commitment to end occupation actions." Similarly, it refers to an agreement to exchange Palestinian prisoners in return for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The significance of the unity government, headed by a Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, using "Israel" rather than some other term, should not be underestimated. In the distant past, most Arab and Palestinian spokespersons avoided using the word "Israel." Instead, they spoke of the "pseudo-state," the "Tel Aviv gang," etc. For many years, Hamas spokespersons employed terms like the "Zionist entity" or the "Zionist enemy." During the intifada's peak years, even representatives of other organizations - including Fatah - often used the term "Zionist entity."

Today the situation is different. Over the past few months a certain semantic change has occurred in statements by Hamas leaders. Hezbollah's television station, Al Manar, is one of the few in the Arab world that still uses terms like the "Zionist entity." In contrast, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah refers specifically to Israel quite often in his speeches......"

The country is not at war. It is the US military that is engaged in an Iraqi conflict

By Robert Fisk

"There's a helluva difference between Cairo University and the campus of Valdosta in the Deep South of the United States. I visited both this week and I feel like I've been travelling on a gloomy spaceship - or maybe a time machine - with just two distant constellations to guide my journey. One is clearly named Iraq; the other is Fear. They have a lot in common......

But the questions I was asked after class told it all. Why didn't "we" leave Iraq? Are "we" going to attack Iran? Did "we" really believe in democracy in the Middle East? In fact "our" shadow clearly hung over these young people.

Thirty hours later, I flicked on the television in my Valdosta, Georgia, hotel room and there was a bejewelled lady on Fox TV telling American viewers that if "we" left Iraq, the "jihadists" would come after us. "They want a Caliphate that will take over the world," she shrieked about a report that two children had deliberately been placed in an Iraqi car bomb which then exploded. She ranted on about how Muslim "jihadists" had been doing this "since the 1970s in Lebanon". It was tosh, of course. Children were never locked into car bombs in Beirut - and there weren't any "jihadists" around in the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s. But fear had been sown. Now that the House of Representatives is talking about the US withdrawal by August 2008, fear seems to drip off the trees in America....."

"......When asked by the journalists why he did not make the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit a condition for the formation of the unity government, Abbas he said that he did, but Hamas did not agree to this demand.

Then he asked "is Shalit more important for you than anything? We have thousands of prisoners in the Israeli jails and there is only one Israeli prisoner in Palestinian hands." The journalists answered "yes he is so important, this is a sensitive issue for us."

Abbas then said, "I know that and that is why we are making efforts to release him, me and Khalid Mash'al are working with the Egyptians. I have told Hamas that if they release him it is possible that many of their leaders will be released." Abbas also said that he knows that Shalit is safe and that he hopes he will be released; but not to his home. "He will be handed to the Egyptians," Abbas confirmed......"

"Bethlehem - Ma'an - Palestinian informed source revealed that "the relationship between Hamas and the United States administration will see a positive development in the coming days".

The sources stated that many Arab countries are making great efforts in this regard and that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is leading this move.

The United Arab Emirates newspaper al Bayan reported the sources as saying that Riyadh has succeeded in opening a channel of high-level communication between Hamas and the United States administration.

The newspaper confirmed "an official will accompany Condoleezza Rice in her visit to the region, he will be visiting the Gaza Strip and meet secretly with Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and hold a dialogue with him at the same time as Rice is in Israel." "

***

Habila is Condoleezza and KSA's man; rejoice!

As they say, with memories of Arafat doing exactly the same, it is deja vu all over again. So what? The Palestinians have lost only 20 years and half the West Bank playing these games. Now Hamas will spend the next 20 years doing the same until the rest of the W. B. is gone. Celebrate this unity and please cheer Condoleezza, since she is "our friend" now.

A Long and Informative Article

By K Gajendra Singh
(Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies.)

"US led western talk of a Shi'i-Sunni war looks troublingly real , although the option is now on slow backburner. The policy of divide and rule is as old as the Roman empire – a constant guide to the Christian West and implemented ruthlessly during its colonial onslaught on the rest of the world. Evolution of Western nationalism based on a narrow definition of shared religion , ethnicity , language , culture or history after centuries of religious and ethnic wars was then employed to divide multi religious and pluralistic empires and kingdoms in the East and South during its crusade of colonial wars and expansion, masked as 'civilizing mission ' or 'white man's burden' 'or 'saving the soul' by converting natives to Christianity .Europe and Orthodox Russia became self proclaimed 'Guardians of Christians' or nationalities like Serbs ,Bulgarians, Greeks , Armenians and others to divide and break up the far flung Ottoman empire which had reached right up to the gates of Vienna. Religious 'millets' had full freedom of faith and Christians and Jews dominated trade and industry in the Ottoman empire......

So from the very beginning as Scott Ritter , a former UN Chief Weapons Inspector for Iraq, revealed after occupying Baghdad and Iraq (Kurdistan in any case has been a US protectorate since the end of 1991 Gulf War), US and allied special forces provided information on dethroned ruling Sunni elite for taking revenge to the Iraqi exiles ,like Ahmet Chelebi, a convicted embezzler , Iyad Allawi , both intelligence assets of CIA , MIV and others , Shi'i outfits like SCIRI and Badr corps nurtured , nursed and financed by Iran ,opportunists ,carpetbaggers and others who rode into Baghdad on US tanks ,helicopters and F-16s. Scott Ritter also revealed that the Ba'athist regime under President Saddam Hussein was quite realistic about West's objectives and had planned Iraqi resistance much before the invasion.

Later ,Washington , London and Tel Aviv also looked at the option of dividing Iraq into Iraqi Kurdistan , with almost half of Iraqi oil wealth ,which being weak would remain subservient to the West. Its oil can be easily sent to the Mediterranean via the Kirkuk Ceyhan pipe line. Perhaps even a defence alliance could be signed with the Kurds. Washington had in fact planned to have an air base in north Iraq on the pretext of saving Kurds from Saddam's forces in 1991, so an anxious Ankara offered its Incirlik airbase for US-UK jets to patrol over Iraq and bomb it at will.......

The continued divisions in and exploitation of the Arabs and Kurdish problems in the region are the consequences of British policy of divide and rule after the First world war , now being pursued by USA. Like the British then ,now George Bush never tires of bringing liberty and democracy to the Arabs .Pentagon even called US led illegal naked 'shock and awe ' invasion of Iraq as 'Operation Iraqi Freedom '- some cheek .Whose intelligence are they insulting ?Their own as no one believed them except the info-challenged Americans .And even they have wised up......

'After centuries of vibrant interaction, of marrying, sharing and selling across sects and classes, Baghdad has become a capital of corrosive, violent borderlines. Streets never crossed. Conversations never broached. Doors never entered.

"Sunnis and Shiites in many professions now interact almost exclusively with colleagues of the same sect. Sunnis say they are afraid to visit hospitals because Shiites loyal to the cleric Moktada al-Sadr run the Health Ministry, while Shiite laborers who used to climb into the back of pickup trucks for work across the Tigris River in Sunni western Baghdad now take jobs only near home. Baghdad is increasingly looking like Sarajevo in the 1990s", said Damien Cave in International Herald Tribune in early March......"

Preparing for the "Arab" Summit
By Baha Bukhari

The "Reforms" of the Arab Regimes Concerning the Average Citizen

This poll asks a topical question:

Do you believe that Rice will succeed in making the Arab leaders change their peace initiative? [to me this is like asking, "do you believe that the sun rises in the east?"]

With about 1,000 responding so far, here is the breakdown:

Yes........68%

No.........32%

Great Analysis
(But unfortunately, available only in Arabic)

عبد الباري عطوان

"تتصرف السيدة كوندوليزا رايس وزيرة الخارجية الامريكية كما لو انها الزعيمة الحقيقية للمنطقة العربية، وتتعامل مع المسؤولين فيها، كبارا وصغارا، كما لو انهم موظفون في وزارتها، تصدر اليهم الاوامر وتوزع الادوار، وما عليهم غير الطاعة واظهار اقصي درجات الولاء.
اليوم تلتقي السيدة رايس في مدينة اسوان بوزراء خارجية مصر والاردن والمملكة العربية السعودية والامارات، اي قبل يوم واحد من توجههم الي الرياض للانضمام الي زملائهم الآخرين لوضع القرارات النهائية التي من المفترض ان تصدر عن القمة العربية التي ستعقد يومي الاربعاء والخميس المقبلين في العاصمة السعودية.
وقبل هذا اللقاء الرباعي عقدت السيدة رايس اجتماعا غير مسبوق مع قادة اجهزة الاستخبارات في الدول نفسها، الامر الذي اثار العديد من علامات الاستفهام حول نوايا وزيرة الخارجية والصلاحيات المفتوحة المعطاة لها من قادة الدول العربية.
فالمنطق يقول بان تجتمع السيدة رايس بنظرائها وزراء الخارجية، وتصدر اليهم تعليماتها، ليقوموا بدورهم بنقلها الي قادتهم واجهزة استخباراتهم، ولكن ان تتجاوز السيدة رايس هذا العرف الاداري والدبلوماسي وتجتمع مع قادة الاستخبارات مباشرة، وكأنها ما زالت مستشارة الامن القومي الامريكي وليست وزيرة الخارجية، فان هذا يعني ان هؤلاء مجرد موظفين تابعين لأجهزة الاستخبارات الامريكية تبعية مباشرة.
هناك تفسير واحد لمثل هذه الازدواجية في الاجتماعات، ربما يبدو اكثر منطقية، وهو ان رؤساء اجهزة الاستخبارات العربية هم الاكثر نفوذا وصلاحيات، وهم وزراء الخارجية الحقيقيون، ولذلك قررت السيدة رايس التوجه اليهم مباشرة دون اللجوء الي قنوات وسيطة. فالامير بندر بن عبد العزيز امين عام مجلس الامن القومي السعودي اقوي بكثير من ابن عمه الامير سعود الفيصل فهو يمسك بالملفات الساخنة مثل الملفين العراقي والايراني، وكان القناة السعودية الرسمية للتعامل مع الادارة الامريكية، الامر الذي اغضب ابن عمه الآخر الامير تركي الفيصل السفير السعودي السابق ودفعه الي الاستقالة من موقعه احتجاجا. والشيء نفسه يقال عن السيد عمر سليمان رئيس جهاز المخابرات المصري بالمقارنة مع زميله احمد ابو الغيط وزير الخارجية المصري بالاسم. فالملفات الحساسة مثل ملف فلسطين والعراق وايران ولبنان هي من ممتلكات اللواء سليمان، اما صلاحيات السيد ابو الغيط فمحصورة في كيفية دعم التعاون المصري ـ السيريلانكي، او المصري ـ الانغولي وهكذا. وما ينطبق علي مصر والسعودية في هذا الاطار ينطبق علي الدول الاخري.
السيدة رايس هي التي اخترعت تعبير محور المعتدلين ، وهي التي نحتت مفهوم تكتل الدول السنية السبع الذي عقد اول اجتماعاته في اسلام اباد علي مستوي وزراء الخارجية، وها هي تخرج علينا بصيغة جديدة مختصرة، وهي اللجنة الرباعية العربية.
لا نعرف ما هي طبيعة المعايير التي استخدمتها السيدة رايس لبناء مثل هذه التكتلات والمحاور العربية والاسلامية، ولكن ما يمكن استنتاجه هو اغفالها ثلثي العرب تقريبا عندما اسقطت جميع دول المغرب العربي من محور المعتدلين العرب، علاوة علي سورية واليمن والسودان، وكل هؤلاء ايضا من التكتل الاسلامي السني.
الارجح ان السيدة رايس اعتبرت اعضاء اللجنة الرباعية العربية التي تدشن وجودها كقوة سياسية ممثلة للعرب في لقاء اسوان اليوم، هم الاكثر حماسا لتطبيق الخطط الامريكية في المنطقة، وخاصة في العراق وفلسطين، وهذا لا يعني ان الدول العربية الاخري ليست حليفة لواشنطن، ولكن الولاء درجات مثل التحالف والصداقات.
فالسيدة رايس اختارت دولتين خليجيتين مجاورتين لايران هما المملكة العربية السعودية والامارات، واخريين مجاورتين لفلسطين، وتقيمان علاقات دبلوماسية كاملة مع الدولة العبرية هما الاردن ومصر، وهذا يعني ان هذه الدول الاربع ستكون مجتمعة او منفردة، رأس الحربة للمشاريع الامريكية المقبلة، سلما في فلسطين، او حربا ضد ايران.
فاذا كانت قمة الرياض ستركز علي احياء مبادرة السلام العربية بعد موات استمر خمس سنوات، فان علينا ان نتوقع دورا مهما للجنة الرباعية العربية، لـ تلطيف هذه المبادرة حتي تتلاءم مع المطالب الاسرائيلية في اسقاط ما علق بها من شوائب في قمة بيروت عام 2002 عندما اضافت اليها سورية بندين اساسيين، هما الاصرار علي حق العودة، ومنع توطين اللاجئين الفلسطينيين في الدول المضيفة مثل الاردن وسورية ولبنان.
والمقصود بالتلطيف هنا، هو اعادة صياغة هذه المبادرة بطريقة تجعل من التراجع عن هذين البندين امرا ممكنا، كأن تنص قرارات القمة علي اعتبار مبادرة السلام العربية مجرد اعلان مبادئ ، مما يوحي بانها ليست نصوصا مقدسة وقابلة للتعديل.
ولعل النقطة الاخطر التي تحاول السيدة رايس تسويقها في لقاء اسوان اليوم، هي مطالبة الدول العربية باعطاء افق سياسي للاسرائيليين، اي الاعتراف بها، والتطبيع الكامل معها، لاعطاء حكومة ايهود اولمرت مساحة من المرونة العربية، لتشجيعها علي انسحابات محدودة من بعض مناطق الضفة الغربية، وازالة بعض المستوطنات الثانوية، للايحاء بانها مستعدة للعودة الي طاولة المفاوضات والقبول بدولة فلسطينية مهلهلة بحدود مؤقتة.
التطور الايجابي من وجهة النظر الامريكية الذي يمكن ان يساعد في انجاح عملية التسويق هذه، هو اعتدال حركة حماس ، وابتعادها بشكل ملحوظ ومتدرج عن محور الشر السوري ـ الايراني، واقترابها اكثر من محور المعتدلين منذ توقيع اتفاق مكة، وتشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية تقوم علي اساس المشاركة السياسية، بين التطرف سابقا و الاعتدال الدائم ، بين خيار المقاومة للوصول الي الاهداف الوطنية في التحرير، و خيار التفاوض ، الذي يسقط كل الخيارات الاخري، ويراها مضيعة للوقت وغير عملية.
نجهل اسباب تغيب الطرفين الاسرائيلي والفلسطيني عن اللجنة الرباعية العربية واجتماعها في اسوان، لان حضورهما يبدو منطقيا في ظل ما تطبخه السيدة رايس من حلول، وربما يكون هذا الغياب مؤقتا ، والمشاركة مؤجلة ريثما تتهيأ او تنضج الظروف، ظروف اسقاط حق العودة من مبادرة السلام العربية بحيث تعود الي اصلها السعودي، والمواجهة العسكرية مع ايران لتدمير مفاعلها النووي وبناها التحتية."

"دعا رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية محمود عباس، الكيان الصهيوني إلى تطبيع علاقاته مع كافة دول العالم الإسلامي مجتمعة، معتبراً في لقاء مطوّل أجرته معه صحيفة "يديعوت أحرونوت" العبرية، ونشرته الجمعة (23/3)، أنّ ذلك سيجعل علم الكيان مرفرفاً في كافة العواصم الإسلامية من المغرب وموريتانيا وحتى إندونيسيا.

فجواباً عن سؤال يتعلق برأيه في مستقبل تفاوض الجانب الصهيوني على ما يُعرف بالمسار السوري وطبيعة تأثير ذلك على باقي مسارات التفاوض؛ قال رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية "هذه تفاهات. نحن نقترح عليكم التوصل إلى سلام مع سبع وخمسين دولة إسلامية. لن تكونوا بعد ذلك جزيرة معزولة. علم "إسرائيل" سيرفرف من المغرب وموريتانيا حتى إندونيسيا. الجميع مستعدون لتأييد المبادرة السعودية"، وتابع "هذه مبادرة السلام الأكثر جدية منذ عام 1948"، وفق قوله.
....."

***

To All Muslims and Arabs: Prepare for a Bigger Celebration!

The Israeli Flag Will be Flying in Your Sky Soon.

Abu Mazen is Lobbying for Israel Now....What is Left?? Habila Joining Him??

Abbas to Israel: Chance to normalize ties with Muslim world at hand

"GAZA, (PIC)-- PA chief Mahmoud Abbas has invited the Hebrew state not to lose the chance of normalizing ties with the Muslim world, affirming that all 57 Muslim countries were supporting the Arab Initiative for peace.

“Normalizing relationship with the Muslim world means that your flag will fly in the sky of more than 57 countries from Morocco, in the west, to Indonesia in the east. You won’t be an isolated island any more”, Abbas said in an interview with the Hebrew Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper Friday......."

Report quotes diplomats as saying Rice envisions comprehensive Middle East meeting

Israel to talk to Saudi Arabia?

"Washington: Will Israel meet with Saudi Arabia? According to a Friday report by the Washington Post, diplomats said that US Secretary Condaleezza Rice wants to initiate a multilateral meeting that would bring the two countries together.

A multilateral meeting of this sort would include the Quartet (the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations), Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the so-called 'Arab Quartet' –Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – in a single meeting.

Such a meeting would bring together Israeli and Saudi officials formally for the first time since 2000. As of now, the Saudis refuse to meet publicly with Israeli officials.

Israel seems to be taking a similar stance: According to a recent 'Yedioth Aharonot' report, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with a senior Saudi official when visiting in the Jordanian capital of Amman. The prime minister denied this report....."

Former US ambassador to UN John Bolton tells Ynet world has waited too long and has done too little to restrain Iran, deal with its nuclear program. Bolton does not advocate military action, but says current diplomatic efforts have proved futile

"WASHINGTON - John Bolton, the outgoing American ambassador to the UN, said that his country should have launched efforts to topple the Mullahs' regime in Iran four years ago. In a special interview, Bolton told Ynet that he was disappointed by Russia's support of Iran in the UN Security Council, and the failure of diplomatic efforts to address the Iranian nuclear threat.

Bolton served as undersecretary of state for arms control during George W. Bush's firs term in office, and has been the US ambassador to the UN in the past 17 months.

"I'd dealt with the Russians extensively…on a range of proliferation matters. In the discussions on the Security Council over Iran, Russia emerged as Iran's biggest protector, for a variety of reasons, some commercial, some strategic, some just political, as opposition to the United States......

Are there any forces inside Iran that are working to overthrow the regime?

"I think there are a lot of Iranians that are unsatisfied with the regime, I think that there is more unrest there than what people believe, I think that the government is constrained because of the fall of oil prices and there is mismanagement of the oil sector of Iran's economy, they've got fewer resources to spread around to keep the populous happy. "There's a large Iranian diaspora that know what the situation is. So, I think that there are a lot of possibilities. It won't necessarily be easy or quick, but that's not to say we shouldn't be pursuing it. "In think it's very close to the point where Iran will have completely indigenous mastery over the fuel sites, that is to say the point in which stopping the things from the outside will not be sufficient, so I don't think we have much time. That's why all these negotiations with the Europeans have played to Iran's advantage, because time is on their side, time is not on our side." ......

Not through military action?

"I don't think military force is the preferable way to go. I don't rule military force out because as unpalatable as military force might be, Iran with nuclear weapons is even worse. I think you have to show you have tried the alternatives, I think we've spent too much time on this EU-three diplomacy, I think now is the time to ramp up the pressure very dramatically."

What should Israel do? Wait for the world to resolve this?

"I think Israel has to make its own decisions…I think any country threatened with its own survival at stake has to be prepared to do what it has to do. I wouldn't second guess that."........"

"Several foreign embassies in Teheran are updating their emergency evacuation plans should a Western or Israeli attack on Iran occur.

According to foreign sources, foreign diplomats believe a possible attack would take place before the end of 2007. By that time, Iran might have enough enriched uranium to cause a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe from radioactive fallout should its nuclear facilities be damaged or destroyed in an attack.

Embassies in all countries generally have evacuation plans for their staff, but foreign sources describe the general atmosphere in Iran as one of heightened preparedness. Recently, several diplomatic missions based in Teheran have begun to reassess their plans, and embassies without permanent security officers have requested them.

Embassy experts reportedly are testing various evacuation options and logistics, such as timing routes to different destinations by different types of vehicles. The plans include evacuation for all staff.

Foreign sources say both the United States and Israel, who accuse Iran of wanting to develop nuclear weapons, want to give diplomatic efforts aimed at stopping Iran's nuclear drive the best possible chance to succeed.

But according to these sources, should the West or Israel feel that the time needed for diplomatic efforts is longer than the time it would take for Iran to obtain nuclear independence, they are likely to strike at Iran's main nuclear facilities before the damage done by such an attack would cause serious radiation fallout [isn't this kind?]. Such fallout would likely kill many civilians and render some parts of Iran uninhabitable for an undetermined period of time.

According to this logic, the timing of such an attack would take place just before Iran has enriched an amount of weapons-grade material that, if damaged, would cause such a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, it could be construed as a nuclear attack.

The assessments posit that Israel and the US will try to delay an attack until the last moment due to the expected Iranian counterattack and regional deterioration.

Similar dilemmas over timing were faced by Israel before the 1981 raid that destroyed Saddam Hussein's reactor at Osirak......."

Bomb Goes Off Within Yards of UN Chief in Baghdad

By PATRICK COCKBURN
CounterPunch

"A rocket or mortar bomb exploded 50 yards from the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, as he was telling reporters in Baghdad that he was thinking of boosting the UN presence in Iraq because of improved security.

A startled looking Mr Ban ducked as if for cover behind the artificial flowers decorating the podium as the roar of the explosion reverberated through the hall where he was giving a press conference, standing beside Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

It was Mr Ban's first visit to Iraq and like all other visits by senior international dignitaries to the Iraqi capital it was a "surprise", in a bid to get in and out of the country before insurgents could react.

In Mr Ban's case their response was immediate and highly accurate: the blast was close enough to the conference hall to bring down pieces of debris from the ceiling while outside it slightly wounded two security guards.

Iraqi officials were reassuring. "This was not a security breach," said the Interior Minister, Jawad Bolani. "Things like this happen in Baghdad once or twice a week." In reality, they happen every few hours outside the Green Zone, which few government ministers ever leave. The zone itself comes under regular mortar fire and is sometimes hit by Katyusha rockets, a favourite spot for launching them being the Dohra area in southern Baghdad.

The incident is the most embarassing conclusion to an official visit since Paul Wolfowitz, then US deputy Defence Secretary, was sent running in his pyjamas down a smoke-filled stair well from his suite in the nearby al-Rashid hotel in November 2003, after it was hit by a barrage of rockets that killed an American colonel. He had been conducting a tour of Iraq, making optimistic statements about the success of the US occupation.

Mr Ban had just committed himself to praising Mr Maliki's "strong leadership" and added: "As we see the improved situation on the ground, I am considering an increase in the presence of the United Nations."
The UN pulled out of Iraq after a truck bomb exploded close to its Baghdad headquarters in August 2003, killing its chief envoy to the country, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others.

It has apparently been a tactic of the insurgents to make sure that any potential foreign allies of the US or the Iraqi government are singled out for immediate attack. Presumably, Mr Ban will now think again about sending more UN personel to Baghdad....."

Gamal Nkrumah and Mohamed El-Sayed gauge the state of the world's most troubled region -- the Middle East -- with eminent author Robert Fisk

Al-Ahram Weekly

"It is Pakistan, not Iran or Iraq, that serves as a true barometer for the future of the region, according to Robert Fisk, The Independent 's renowned Middle East correspondent. This thesis, though novel, is not to be taken lightly. It comes from a man who has lived in, studied and witnessed the region for the past three decades. And Pakistan, indeed, is a country in turmoil.....

For Fisk to single out Pakistan is an eye- opener, for the populous predominantly Muslim nation is not even considered by some to be part of the Middle East proper. Fisk's contention, however, is that the West is shy to focus on the main game, preferring instead to concentrate on sideshows such as Iran's nuclear ambitions, which Fisk reminds whoever listens were first encouraged and nurtured by the West.

"There is a country in the region that has lots of Taliban supporters, lots of Al-Qaeda supporters, whose capital city is in constant chaos and sectarian crisis, and it has got a [nuclear] bomb -- it's called Pakistan," Fisk told Al-Ahram Weekly. "But General Musharraf is our (the West's) friend. What will happen if Musharraf goes? Pakistan is one of the most fragile and dangerous areas," he ponders ominously. "However, we direct our attention to another country, Iran, just as we always do in the Middle East."....."

This is where Salam Al-Zubayi Lives; Notice the Concrete Blast Walls.


The Condition of Salam Al-Zubayi, Maliki's Deputy, is Unstable. He is in an American Hospital (in the Green Zone) after Being Seriously Injured in an Attack near the Green Zone.
But don't be Misled, Maliki is Still Asserting that the Security Situation in Iraq is Improving. Is it Going to be Maliki Himself Next?

Another Civil War in Lebanon?

By FRANKLIN LAMB
CounterPunch

".....To know for sure, one would want to walk around the Gemezzeh neighborhood in east Beirut around 2 in the morning near the rebuilt Phalange Party HQ.where Baschir Gemeyal was blown up on September 14, 1982 and nose around a bit..

And what's that frenetic activity behind the Walid Jumblatt's estate at El Moukhtara in the Chouf.? It has increased since his long meeting with GW Bush a couple of weeks ago.

And those fine new military style boots and swagger one sees among some of Saad Hariri's March 14 movement young men. Armani or US Army or Israeli issue?.....

Sabra-Shatilla massacre participant Samir Geagea, now the leader of the Lebanese Forces Militia and recently feted in Washington DC, beats his chest and taunts Hezbollah's Secretary-General with threats like "Don't you dare think Hassan Nassrallah that Beirut is Haifa (referring to the July War) or else Lebanon is headed for the worst."

Some in the opposition dismiss the Siniora government as nothing more than 'an organized crime syndicate that wants to turn Lebanon into another Iraq,' as Talal Arslan, an anti-government Druze leader (breaking ranks with Jumblatt) recently roared. Many accuse the government of functioning as agents of Israel and the Bush administration and demand early elections and a greater share of government posts for the growing anti-government coalition.

Other observers are concluding that Israel and the Bush administration must foment a civil war in order not to 'lose' Lebanon and be driven from the region.

Pro-Israel "tink tanks" (Robert Fisk's label) argue that having created a disaster for both the US and Israel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and having failed miserably to destroy, much less seriously damage Hezbollah during the July War, both Olmert and Bush desperately need a Lebanese civil war.

Their reasoning is that if Bush and Olmert can provoke Hezbollah into turning its guns on Lebanese rivals, which it has never done and refuses to do,(Nasrallah recently declaring that "they can kill 1,000 of the opposition and we will still refuse to participate in a civil war") the US and Israel can invade, destroy the Lebanese resistance and set up another 'more sustainable' government, to borrow a pet term from Condoleezza Rice.....

Hezbollah has a habit to defeating Israel on the battle field and increasingly in political circles and they may just prevail in preventing a civil war....."

By Mike Luckovich

This is a detailed video of the destruction of a tank in Ramadi which was shown on Al-Jazeera, last week.

Click to Watch

Ban Ki-Moon in Baghdad
By Baha Boukhari

Caught like a deer in the headlights

By Justin Raimondo

"The times, they sure are a changin.' Why, it seems like only yesterday – although it was December 16, 1998 – that Nancy Pelosi opined:

"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."

Today, however, she's singing a different tune: "There was never anything in the intelligence that said Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States, never."

When Bush launched the war, both the Senate and House adopted resolutions ostensibly to "support the troops," but in reality endorsing the war, the bombing, and the policies of the Bush administration. The Senate voted 99-to-nothing for a resolution that "commends and supports the efforts and leadership of the President, as Commander in Chief, in the conflict against Iraq."......."

by William S. Lind

".......Two points of military theory are important here. First, a higher level dominates a lower. If you win on the tactical level but lose operationally, you lose. If you win on the tactical and operational levels but lose strategically – Germany's fate in both world wars – you still lose.

Second, in most wars, including Fourth Generation wars, success on higher levels is not merely additive. That is not to say, you cannot win operationally or strategically just by adding up tactical victories. We tried to do that in Vietnam, and the Second Generation U.S. military still does not understand why it didn't work. In Second Generation theory, it is supposed to work, which is why we are trying it again in Iraq and Afghanistan, and again not understanding why we are losing.

If we consider the operational and strategic situations in Iraq, we can easily see why no amount of tactical success can save us. Strategically, we are fighting to support a Shi’ite regime closely aligned with Iran, our most potent local opponent. Every tactical success merely moves us closer to giving Iran a new ally in the form of a restored Iraqi state under Shi’ite domination. The more tactical successes we win, the worse our strategic situation gets. This flows not from any tactical failure (though there have been plenty of those), but from botching the strategic level from the outset. Saddam's Iraq was the main regional counterweight to Iran, which means we should not have attacked it.


Operationally, we have been maneuvered by Iraq's Shi’ites into fighting their civil war for them, focusing our efforts against the Sunnis. As I have observed before, we are in effect the Shi’ites’ unpaid Hessians. That is why Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army not to fight us in Sadr City. It is not that he is afraid of us; he is simply making a rational operational decision.

Our only other apparent option is to take a more even hand and fight the Shi’ite militias as well as the Sunnis, which is what some in Washington want our forces to do. But that would make our operational situation even worse, because the Shi’ites lie across our lines of communication. If we get into a fight with them, they can cut off our supplies, leaving us effectively encircled – the essence of operational defeat......"

Israel is demanding the absurd, but the illusion is shattered if Arab states understand that the game of axis politics is not in their interest

By Azmi Bishara
Al-Ahram Weekly

"......It is difficult to say whether the Arabs recovered a margin of freedom because America messed up so drastically in Iraq and because they realised what a folly it was to heed Washington's orders once the Israeli army started to stumble so frantically over its shoelaces in Lebanon, or because, during the war in Lebanon in particular, they proved themselves no less hostile to the "extremists" in the region than the neo-cons, yet, at the same time, more realistic and certainly not as clouded by the dreams of spreading democracy and other facets of the ideological romanticism that governed the American neo-cons' view of Israel and its regional role. In all events, the result is the same: Washington has loosened the leash and Israel under Olmert is taking the so-called moderate Arabs more seriously than it did under Sharon.

Returning, therefore, to Olmert, why did he home in on Resolution 194, in particular, despite the fact that the Arab peace initiative -- regretfully -- does not explicitly mention the Palestinian right of return but rather confines itself to the formula of "a just peace in accordance with" this resolution? Why, too, did he not happen to remind us that he refuses to withdraw to pre- June 1967 borders, inclusive of Jerusalem? Certainly, he had made his position on this clear on earlier occasions, going so far as to accuse Ehud Barak of forsaking Jerusalem during Camp David II, even though Barak did nothing of the sort.

Firstly, Olmert likes to air his objections in instalments, so that he can wring out more concessions from the Arabs in a gradual way. Secondly, he didn't want to bring up the subject of withdrawal so as not to undermine the efforts of the "moderate Arab axis" before the Riyadh summit, especially since he knows that Saudi Arabia will not budge an inch on the question of borders and Jerusalem in particular. So, to spare the "moderates" any embarrassment, he confined his remarks to 194, because he rejects the Palestinian right of return on principle. But, supposing for the sake of argument, that the Arabs play along and openly or tacitly relinquish the right to return, would Israel then accept the Arab peace initiative? Of course not. And we should be wary of deluding ourselves into thinking it would. It would only be prepared to accept it as a basis for negotiations, which is to say that it would accept the principle of withdrawal and then haggle over the depth and phasing of the withdrawal and over final borders. In short, Israel will agree to no point whatsoever in the Arab peace initiative.

By accepting to consider this initiative, Israel hopes to transform it into a drawn out process of extracting compromises from the Arabs, just as it had turned its agreement to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organisation into a protracted process of forcing the Palestinians against the wall. In the past we could identify the major turning points in the downward slope of the Palestinian/Arab position with respect to Israel. Now it is difficult to discern even the nooks and crannies, so fluid and convoluted has this process of extraction become, what with all the play given to the "two sides" and "moderates and extremists on both sides", and with the endless biding of time until the Israeli elections are over, the next American elections, a new spate of envoys shuttling about the region, Palestinian elections triggering a blockade, another period of waiting to see how a people under occupation handled economic strangulation, and then whether or not they could form a national unity government and, if so, whether this might bring the end of the blockade or usher in yet another period of waiting......"

Israel is railing that even the mild language of the Arab peace initiative must be replaced by its own demands

A Good Analysis

By Ramzy Baroud
Al-Ahram Weekly

".....Not that a war against Iran is no longer on the agenda; on the contrary, something will be done to confront the Iranian "threat". But one has to understand that Israel cannot possibly allow for a regional bully aside from itself to emerge.

It was this logic, as articulated by Richard Pearle in a set of recommendations made to then Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu in the infamous "Clean Break" memo that envisaged the Iraq war as a strategic Israeli imperative. Iraq or Iran, Sunni or Shia, are all irrelevant semantics, in Israel's view. The failure, however, to "contain" Iran, coupled with America's disastrous war strategy in Iraq, which has given rise to powerful Shia groups with direct links, and in some cases allegiance, to Tehran is sending Israel's military and policy planners to the table, once more, to study their future options.....

The power of the Israeli lobby and the persisting influence of the neocons have reached new heights when Democratic leaders were obliged to strip from a military spending bill a requirement that the president must gain the approval of Congress before moving against Iran. Pelosi and others agreed to such a removal "after conservative Democrats as well as other lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel," reported ABC News.

With Iran in focus, coupled with serious worries amongst some Arab countries regarding its possible destabilising role in the region, Israel has agreed to a conditional arrangement: contain Iran to Israel's benefit; stabilise Iraq to the Bush administration's benefit; and introduce a new horizon of peace with the Palestinians to appease the Arabs.

The new horizon of peace -- a new term invoked by Condoleezza Rice in her recent visit to the region -- is basically the old "peace process": significant enough insofar as it yields a sense of hope, but clever enough in guaranteeing nothing, since Israel, assured of unprecedented clout in the corridors of power in Washington, will neither give up its grand plans of territorial expansion and annexation, halt its construction of the gigantic apartheid wall, nor surrender an inch of the illegally-annexed East Jerusalem -- all, predictably, key Arab and Palestinian demands.

Meanwhile, the Arab initiative always seemed vague on the issue of Palestinians made refugees by Israel in 1948 and 1967 and whose plight is as urgent as ever (especially considering their systematic targeting in Iraq, including 500 murdered to date, and Libya's decision to deport its cache of Palestinian refugees to Gaza, as callous as this seems). In order to remove any remaining ambiguity, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is "demanding that the leaders of the 22 Arab states excise the right of return from [the Palestinians]," reports Haaretz.

By crossing out the "controversial" elements contained in the Arab initiative and then opening it up for negotiations, Palestinians -- now browbeaten with a year of embargo and near starvation -- will be taken on another peace-loving goose chase, during which Israeli army bulldozers will hardly cease their determined colonial project. My fear is that Arabs will play along, willingly or not, and Palestinians will be forced to partake in the charade, for their reliance on international handouts for mere survival will make it impossible to defy US-Israeli regional designs forever."

'US wants Saudi peace plan amended'

"The United States has quietly joined Israel in urging Arab leaders to reformulate their 2002 peace offer, in an effort to end the decades-long Middle East conflict, Arab diplomats said Thursday. But so far, some Arab heavyweights are publicly resisting the idea.

Three Arab diplomats in different Arab capitals said Washington has been pressing for changes to make the offer in line with the "road map," a peace plan supported by the United States and other members of the so-called Quartet group. That plan calls for a two-state solution to the conflict but falls short of specifying border lines for the proposed Palestinian state.

The American ideas were presented through different diplomatic channels, said the Arab diplomats, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to talk to the press....."

***

Israel said, "Jump!" The U.S. said, "How high?"

Now the U.S. says, "Jump!" Next the Arab puppets (in their "summit") will ask, "How high?"

Finally, Saudi Arabia will say, "Jump!" and the Palestinian "leaders" will ask, "How high?"

But don't stop celebrating just yet, save some for Condoleezza when she arrives.

· Ankara claims Kurdish rebels preparing attacks
· Operations could wreck American peace strategy

Simon Tisdall in Ankara
Thursday March 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

"The US is scrambling to head off a "disastrous" Turkish military intervention in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq that threatens to derail the Baghdad security surge and open up a third front in the battle to save Iraq from disintegration.

Senior Bush administration officials have assured Turkey in recent days that US forces will increase efforts to root out Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) guerrillas enjoying safe haven in the Qandil mountains, on the Iraq-Iran-Turkey border.

But Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, MPs, military chiefs and diplomats say up to 3,800 PKK fighters are preparing for attacks in south-east Turkey — and Turkey is ready to hit back if the Americans fail to act. "We will do what we have to do, we will do what is necessary. Nothing is ruled out," Mr Gul said......

The firm Turkish belief that the US is playing a double game in northern Iraq. Officials say the CIA is covertly funding and arming the PKK's sister organisation, the Iran-based Kurdistan Free Life party, to destabilise the Iranian government.

US acquiescence in plans to hold a referendum in oil-rich Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Turkey suspects Iraqi Kurds are seeking control of Kirkuk as a prelude to the creation of an independent Kurdistan......

US support for Iranian Kurds opposed to the Tehran government is adding to the agitation. "The US is trying to undermine the Iran regime, using the Kurds like it is using the MEK [the anti-Tehran People's Mujahideen]," said Dr Logoglu. "Once you begin to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' terrorist organisations, then you lose the war on terror." But he warned that military intervention might be ineffective and could be "disastrous" in destabilising the region....."

A former top American diplomat says the US deliberately resisted calls for a immediate ceasefire during the conflict in Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

BBC

"Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah's military capability.

Mr Bolton said an early ceasefire would have been "dangerous and misguided".

He said the US decided to join efforts to end the conflict only when it was clear Israel's campaign wasn't working.

The former envoy, who stepped down in December 2006, was interviewed for a BBC radio documentary, The Summer War in Lebanon, to be broadcast in April.

Mr Bolton said the US was deeply disappointed at Israel's failure to remove the threat from Hezbollah and the subsequent lack of any attempt to disarm its forces.

Britain joined the US in refusing to call for an immediate ceasefire.

Mr Bolton now describes it as "perfectly legitimate... and good politics" for the Israelis to seek to defeat their enemy militarily, especially as Hezbollah had attacked Israel first and it was acting "in its own self-defence".

Mr Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.

Also in the BBC programme, several key players claim that, privately, there were Arab leaders who also wanted Israel to destroy Hezbollah.

"There were many not - how should I put it - resistant to the thought that the Israelis should thoroughly defeat Hezbollah, who... increasingly by Arab states were seen as an Iranian proxy," said UN special envoy Terje Roed Larsen....."

By Tony Karon

"Four years into the Iraq war — “hard to believe,” eh, Mr Wolfowitz? — don’t expect the U.S. media to dwell on the conceptual foundations of this catastrophe. That may be because the media was rather complicit in laying those foundations. But the more interesting question, today, I think, is where the Iraq adventure is going, because its narratives have clearly unraveled, and its strategic purpose — in the sense of attainable goals rather than fantasies — is now far from clear. To be sure, today, Washington is clear only on what it wants to prevent in Iraq, and even then its chances of doing so are slim. Still, as Bush says, that doesn’t mean it can withdraw.

It’s worth noting, in passing, that the decision making structures in the United States are fundamentally dysfunctional to its imperial project — its system of government is democratic (in a plutocratic sort of way), and distributes its flow of information and decision making across a number of bureaucratic command centers that are seldom on quite the same page, and compete for authority and resources — a competition that occurs partly in the public eye, via “leaks” to the media, whose source is invariably the bureaucratic rivals of those who are made to look bad by the story. The executive decision makers are always vulnerable to the limited appetite of the electorate for costly imperial adventures, and the electorate gets to express its impatience every two years by using the ballot box to limit the authority of those directing the current imperial expedition.

The patience of the enemy out in the field, meanwhile, is invariably far deeper than that allowed by U.S. election cycles. Ho Chi Minh knew that; so do the Iraqi insurgents and the Shiites and the Iranians, and the Palestinians and Syrians and everybody else Washington is fighting. The Iraqis are intimately aware of the debate in Washington over withdrawal, and they know that despite the surge of troops, the U.S. will in the near future be forced by domestic pressure to withdraw most of its infantry from Iraqi streets. (No wonder frustrated hawks like Max Boot and Michael O’Hanlon are suggesting that the U.S. military begin outsourcing expeditionary warfare to the satrapies, offering green cards for four years service — just as the British wherever possible sent Indians or Ghurkas to do their fighting.) But even that won’t overcome the bureaucratic internecine warfare. Ask a question as simple as “How could the U.S. occupy Iraq without having a coherent plan?” and the answer is simple: There was a plan, but it was trashed because it had been developed in the State Department, whose personnel hadn’t drunk the Kool Aid of permanent revolution in the Middle East, and therefore couldn’t be trusted. While the neocons might have believed their fantasies about Iraq tranforming itself immediately into a willing and happy satrap of the U.S., the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld had no inclination to back a long occupation. So, Paul Bremer was sent in without a clue, armed with some old manuals from the occupation of Germany in 1945 (no jokes!) and a civil administration recruited largely from the intern echelon of neocon think-tanks. (Again, no jokes!)....."

(VIDEO) Israeli policemen caught on camera abusing 17-year-old Hawara teen who was on his way home from school. Local residents say life in village has become nightmare due to Border Guard violence. Border Guard chief says incident will be investigated

"VIDEO - Border Guard policemen were caught on camera beating a 17-year-old Palestinian youth at the West Bank village of Hawara, near Nablus Wednesday. The incident was documented by one of the local residents.....

The youth, Hindawi Qawarik, told Ynet that at about 12:30 pm Wednesday, he and his friends were leaving school when they noticed a Border Guard jeep not far from them.

"I told my friends that if we pass near them, they'll hit us like they did a few weeks ago," he said.

The policemen approached the youths and questioned them regarding a stone-throwing incident that took place earlier. They then decided to detain three of the teens for further questioning.

Hindawi was one of those three. "I pretended not to hear them and kept walking, because I could still remember the beating I got last week. But one cop chased me. When I saw that he was after me I halted. He dragged me back to the direction of the jeep, and when we got there he pushed me and pinned me to the wall, so that no one will be able to see what they were doing to me."

At this point, according to Hindawi, the violence began. "Two of the policemen started hitting me in the legs with a rifle, punching me, slamming my head against the door of a nearby container, pushing me to the floor and hitting me in the head.

"I kept screaming: I haven't done anything, you can check my ID." Hindawi said that one of the policemen tried to persuade the others to stop, "but they just ignored him and kept on hitting me."

According to the teen, one of the policemen also took books out of his school bag and tore some of them apart. Then they released him, not before "a few more slaps and punches." Hindawi's account has been verified by an eyewitness.

'Our lives have become a nightmare'

Hindawi told Ynet that the police violence has already become a daily routine in the village. "We already got used to the beatings, but it makes it very hard for us to study… very often we miss the first two classes of the day because they detain us, humiliate and hit us."

Other Hawara residents told Ynet that soldiers and policemen, mostly Border Guard policemen, have turned their lives into a nightmare. "Once every few days the policemen and the soldiers declare a curfew in the village, claiming that Border Guard jeeps have been stoned," they said.

One of the residents said that in addition to the violence, the policemen harass the village girls, a thing that causes "severe social problems within the Palestinian families and social and psychological problems for the girls, who are forced to handle curses that are unacceptable in our society."....."

Ban Ki-Moon took cover behind the podium
at the sound of the explosion [Reuters]

"The United Nations secretary-general has been shocked by a huge explosion in Baghdad's secure Green Zone during an unannounced visit to Iraq.

Ban Ki-Moon was unharmed when a suspected rocket landed outside the office of Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister, during a joint news conference on Thursday.

Small pieces of debris could be seen falling from the ceiling above Ban before the two men resumed the news conference.

The UN chief was making his first visit to Iraq since since taking office in January, to discuss a five-year reconstruction plan for the country announced last week.

Shortly before the explosion, al-Maliki had said that Ban's visit was a sign that Iraq was on the road to stability.

"We consider it [the visit] a positive message to world in which you [Ban] confirm that Baghdad has returned to playing host to important world figures because it has made huge strides on the road toward stability," the prime minister said.

'Secure future'

Ban had told reporters: "I'm confident that we'll be able to see, in the near future, a more prosperous and secure ... and a healthier future of the Iraqi people and government.".....

"BAGHDAD, (PIC)-- Palestinian refugees in Iraq have accused the government of Iraqi premier Nuri Al-Maliki of intentionally defaming their image and attempting to instigate the Iraqi people against them.

During an interview with the Quds Press news agency, the refugees affirmed that the Iraqi government’s allegations of arresting Palestinian citizen Abu Kutada and identifying him as the second man in Al-Qaeda group in Iraq was meant to incite the Iraqi people against the refugees.

“It is true that Abu Katada is a Palestinian and it is true that he was arrested at the hands of the Iraqi police, but he absolutely has no connection whatsoever with Al-Qaeda group”, the refugees asserted.

Kasim Al-Mosawi, the spokesman of US-initiated “Baghdad security plan” claimed that Abu Kutada is a pure Palestinian citizen and that he was the right-hand-man of Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Ayyob Al-Masri.

The refugees viewed such an instigation campaign as part of the government’s programmed plan to force the refugees out of Iraq.

Few days ago, large numbers of Iraqi and American troops unleashed a wide-scale incursion into the Palestinian refugee complex in the Baladeyyat suburb, east of the capital Baghdad, the biggest gathering of Palestinian refugees in Iraq, killing an Imam (Muslim leader) and arresting tens others.

Many Palestinian homes were ransacked in the raid and valuable properties were stolen by the invaders, residents in the complex confirmed.

More than 140 Palestinian refugees were killed and scores others were arrested and tortured at the hands of the American, American-sanctioned Iraqi sectarian militias, and Iraqi government troops since Baghdad fell under the US occupation in 2003.

As a result, tens of Palestinian families fled that war-torn country on fears for their lives, yet, neighboring Arab countries denied them entry, leaving them stranded in tents at the international borders."

Two Drivers Looking for a "Road Map."
Keep Looking, and Looking....

".....The Quartet's statement "reflects an evolution of its positions, [but] this remains insufficient," Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman the Palestinian presidency, said on Thursday.

"We have to work immediately toward the application of the roadmap and the Arab peace initiative."......"

***

Keep that opium of "peace talks" flowing now that Hamas is a full partner; Condoleezza is bringing a fresh supply. Enjoy!

From Imad Khadduri's Blog, Free Iraq

"The following graphs show the steady progress of the Iraqi resistance over the four years of occupation. They are extracted from the Iraq Index (pp 23 and 24) and updated on 19th March 2007.

The first graph shows that the average number of attacks have more than doubled in the last year to about 185 per day. That is 1300 per week, and over 5500 attacks per month. Another way of understanding this is that in any one hour, day and night, there are 7-8 new mortar attack, IED, sniper fire, etc. The figures are based on variety of official and semi-official US sources and estimates. The inclusion of ‘Militias’ in the title of the graph is recent, and seems linked to the evolving political vocabulary by the US. In the light of the two other items. Militia can be understood to refer to local vigilantes that are largely part of the resistance.

The second graph shows that 75% of the recorded attacks,(here based on the quarterly reviews to congress only) has remained directed at the occupation forces directly, and further 17% at the Iraqi government forces. The remaining, 8% are directed at unspecified civilian targets. It is the later that makes it to the media.
The official Iraqi government security forces numbers have been steadily rising and now stand at about 330 000. They often act as forward or guard units for the occupation forces. It is not known what proportion of the attacks on "civilians" who are in fact mercenaries who operate in civilian clothes and are often based in civilian areas. The official US estimates is of 100,000 private contractors in Iraq. Other civilian targets may be Facility Protection Forces, whose number is estimated by the government at 150 000, or at real civilians. Word on the Iraqi street is that attacks on real civilians are the work of occupation agents, a version of events that is at least as credible as the mad fanatics attacking each other.

The third figure gives the geographic distribution of the resistance attacks. There are small shifts in pattern over time, but the frequent clashes in most southern provinces seem not to be included. This may indicate that the figures used refer only to resistance actions. It must be noted that the 800 km supply route from Kuwait to Baghdad through several southern provinces is the most heavily protected one in the world, with massive funds paid to contractors, ‘tribes’ and local militias.

The Iraq Index is produced by the Washington-based Brookings Institutions. It comes in 54 pages of tables, graphs and footnotes in PDF format, half of which on security indicators.

The index has been updated weekly over the last four years, in whatever section new data become available. The authors are Michael E. O’Hanlon and Jason H. Campbell......."

By Juan Cole

"Early in the morning on Thursday, before dawn, some 200 Sunni Arab guerrillas in Muqdadiya (Diyala Province) stormed a jail and freed 33 prisoners, many of them guerrillas. I can't think of another recent operation that involved a company-sized fighting force. Thirty persons died in the fighting. One wire service reported, "Insurgents battled Iraqi and US reinforcements, set fire to the police station, courthouse and 20 police vehicles before making their escape." If they accomplished all that after US reinforcements arrived, imagine what they could have accomplished if no US and Iraqi troops had come out to confront them.

Part of the explanation for why this could happen lies in a recent report on the readiness of Iraqi troops. The Iraqi military won't be ready to 'stand up' any time soon, according to the General Accounting Office. A third of Iraqi troops are on leave at any one time. Many troops on the books who draw a salary don't really exist and are just a scam. And, the Iraqi troops are deeply dependent on the US for the simplest logistics."

Iraq After 4 Years of U.S. Occupation

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

""The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" - a new HBO documentary - traces the political and legal precedents that led to the torture of prisoners at the infamous Iraqi prison. It includes numerous interviews with U.S. soldiers directly involved with torture at Abu Ghraib, Iraqi torture survivors as well as experts, legal scholars and former government officials. We speak with acclaimed filmmaker Rory Kennedy.....

Another memo sought by Gonzales provided a narrow definition of torture so as to allow very severe interrogation techniques.

John Yoo, a former Justice Department official at the Office of Legal Counsel: "Our office eventually issued a memo in August of 2002 to the White House. 'Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.'

That was an excerpt from the HBO documentary "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." The film traces the political and legal precedents that led to the torture of prisoners at the infamous Iraqi prison. It includes numerous interviews with American soldiers directly involved with torture at Abu Ghraib......

AMY GOODMAN: You had quite a showing on Capitol Hill, when you had both Janis Karpinski there, who was demoted, and also the South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Talk about what happened.

RORY KENNEDY: Well, we did have a screening. And Senator Kennedy was there, as well. There was a panel.

AMY GOODMAN: Your uncle.

RORY KENNEDY: Yes. Senator Kennedy and Senator Graham, and Senator Graham had -- when he was asked by Jeffrey Toobin, who was moderating the panel, “Who was really responsible for what happened at Abu Ghraib?” he, you know, mentioned a number of different organizations and kind of groups of people, but the person that he really targeted was Janis Karpinski. Unfortunately, Janis Karpinski -- he didn’t realize that Janis Karpinski was in the audience, because he had arrived a little late. And so, Jeffrey Toobin then gave her an opportunity to defend herself, and she really went in on the attack. One of the things that he had said was, you know, she should have been court-martialed, and she rebutted, “You know, I wanted to be court-martialed. I wanted to go to court, but nobody would let me, because they didn’t want me to tell the whole story of really what happened.” So it got pretty heated.

AMY GOODMAN: She called Senator Graham a coward.

RORY KENNEDY: She did, she did. And, you know, he stood his ground, but it was -- you know, I think it’s telling. I think this continues to be an issue that touches a lot of people and brings a lot of issues to the surface. It’s an important issue.....

AMY GOODMAN: Let's end with the prisoners, the people who were tortured. How did you track them down?

RORY KENNEDY: I worked with a group in Philadelphia, a legal group, Susan Burke, who was representing a number of the prisoners in a class-action suit against independent contractors. And she ultimately was able to put me in touch with a number of the prisoners who were willing to speak with us on camera. And they were not willing to be filmed in Iraq, because they felt the situation there was too precarious, too dangerous, so we ended up flying them to Jordan and filming them there.

And, you know, I think that they offer a dimension to the film that is really important and a dimension to this story, because we’ve seen the photographs, but we haven’t really heard the voices of those who were most directly involved. And it really made me feel, in talking with them and interviewing them that the photographs were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the level of abuse, the constancy of it, and the degrading nature of it and the horror of it, really. They were so dignified in their telling of these horrific events and, I think, so courageous in their willingness to even speak with me. And I think their voices are essential. And as, you know, we know that in this war in Iraq, in general, we really haven't heard from the Iraqis, right? We’ve heard a lot of people talking about the Iraqis, but we haven’t heard from them directly. And so, it was important to me in this film to hear from the people who are most directly involved.....

ANY GOODMAN: The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib is chilling, it is unforgettable, and unfortunately it is all too real.

RORY KENNEDY: Yes, and it’s on HBO for the rest of the month, so I hope people will tune in......"

Click Here to Watch, Listen or Read Transcript

"Bethlehem - Ma'an - US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, stressed on Wednesday the need for Washington to continue its support for the political process in the occupied Palestinian territories. Rice was addressing the financial assistance committee in the House of Representatives. She said the Palestinians have to realize that their future is better when the so-called "moderates" are in power.

Rice added, "Washington will not suspend its contacts with the moderates in the Palestinian government." She said, "The unity government does not comply with the Quartet's conditions, or the basic principles to achieve peace. However, some members of that government recognize these conditions and principles, but we will not change our aid plan until the government recognizes these principles and conditions."

The Quartet, which comprises of the US, EU, UN and Russia, has stipulated that the Palestinian government recognises Israel's right to exist, renounces violence, and adopts the previous signed peace accords.

Rice urged the international community not to offer support to the Palestinian people through the Palestinian government. Instead, she urged them to continue sending aid through the available informal channels. One of these channels is the Temporary International Mechanism set up last year by the European Union in order to provide financial aid to the Palestinian people while bypassing the Palestinian government.

In another development, the Associated Press reported that Rice had announced that Washington would reduce aid to President Abbas' security forces.

She did not provide specifics, but a senior U.S. official said the cut would amount to about $36 million, leaving only $50 million of the original package intended for the Palestinian security forces, AP reported.

According to AP, Rice said the revisions would strengthen a ''firewall'' to keep money away from Hamas, who formed a national unity government with Fatah and other Palestinian political factions last week. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the USA. "

by Karen Kwiatkowski

"......But it is Cheney – not al Qaeda – who is watching the clock now. This former Secretary of Defense understands only too well that the deployment of two battle groups in the Persian Gulf, and the onset of this year's "spring offensive" in Afghanistan both point to a ticking clock – second-generation shock and awe forces require many months of planning, and a massive logistics tail to support even a short-lived coordinated attack. The clock is indeed ticking, and nothing must get in the way of that. It is not ticking for the occupied Palestinian territories, nor the fractured and dazed Iraqis living out some kind of neo-colonial nightmare. Those efforts are perfectly on track, as hoped for, and AIPAC completely understands this.

It is all about Iran. The U.S. military, from the tone and content of Cheney's speech, is now ready, and the window is open. The administration may actually be a bit behind in building its public case – at least one as plausible as the false case made by this same administration less than five years ago regarding Iraq. Part of this case-making process entails boxing the Congress, and preventing that body from asserting its collective intellect, refreshing its own collective familiarity with truth, justice, reality and even the Constitution. Iran is back on the table, and the House warning language on Iran stricken.

70% of the American public, and most of the soldiers and Marines in Iraq understand the idiocy, the pointlessness and shoddy logic of this alter-ego "war" we are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, soon Iran and perhaps even Syria. This majority of Americans are beginning to hate Dick Cheney and George W. Bush for what they are doing to our own nation. But the 70% in this country have no important conferences for the political leadership, they have no lobbyists, they have no deep pockets, and they have no rabidly confident sense that they alone have all the answers to the world's problems. AIPAC, on the other hand, has all these things.

And soon, it is likely they'll have their desired attacks on Iran. We may soon hear of an accident, an incursion, or a purported attack on our forces. That provocation will force the President to bomb until our bombs run out, and will give the Democrats one more opportunity to prove their abject fealty to war. From what we are hearing of this year's AIPAC conference, it will be up to a few honest and courageous souls in the Senate, or a revolt of the generals, to stop America's next war. "

To All Palestinians: Rejoice!
After 90 Years, We Have Finally Found Our Liberator....
His Majesty and the Great Usraeli Ally King Abdullah...
Let the Celebrations Continue!

The Question:

Do you see, after four years of the invasion, a horizon for Iraq to emerge from its current crisis?

With about 1,500 responding so far, 89% said no.

Hard to translate from Arabic; it mocks the impotence of Arab "leaders" in their Summit. While Arab and Muslim women are being raped in Iraq, Sudan and Somalia, their cries for help go unheeded by such stooges who pretend that the cries are not directed to them.

The Billionaires and How They Made It

By JAMES PETRAS
CounterPunch

".....Conclusion

Given the enormous class and income disparities in Russia, Latin America and China (20 Chinese billionaires have a net worth of $29.4 billion in less than ten years), it is more accurate to describe these countries as 'surging billionaires' rather than 'emerging markets' because it is not the 'free market' but the political power of the billionaires that dictates policy.

Countries of 'surging billionaires' produce burgeoning poverty, submerging living standards. The making of billionaires means the unmaking of civil society ­ the weakening of social solidarity, protective social legislation, pensions, vacations, public health programs and education. While politics is central, past political labels mean nothing. Ex-Marxist Brazilian ex-President Cardoso and ex-trade union leader President Lula Da Silva privatized public enterprises and promoted policies that spawn billionaires. Ex-Communist Putin cultivates certain billionaire oligarchs and offers incentives to others to shape up and invest.

The period of greatest decline in living standards in Latin America and Russia coincide with the dismantling of the nationalist populist and communist economies. Between 1980-2004, Latin America ­ more precisely Brazil, Argentina and Mexico ­ stagnated at 0 per cent to 1 per cent per capita growth. Russia saw a 50 per cent decline in GNP between 1990-1996 and living standards dropped 80 per cent for everyone except the predators and their gangster entourages.

Recent growth (2003-2007), where it occurs, has more to do with the extraordinary rise in international prices (of energy resources, metals and agro-exports) than any positive developments from the billionaire-dominated economies. The growth of billionaires is hardly a sign of 'general prosperity' resulting from the 'free market' as the editors of Forbes Magazine claim. In fact it is the product of the illicit seizure of lucrative public resources, built up by the work and struggle of millions of workers, in Russia and China under Communism and in Latin America during populist-nationalist and democratic-socialist governments. Many billionaires have inherited wealth and used their political ties to expand and extend their empires ­ it has little to do with entrepreneurial skills.


The billionaires' and the White House's anger and hostility toward President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is precisely because he is reversing the policies which create billionaires and mass poverty: He is re-nationalizing energy resources, public utilities and expropriating some large landed estates. Chavez is not only challenging US hegemony in Latin America but also the entire PDD edifice that built the economic empires of the billionaires in Latin America, Russia, China and elsewhere."

"With Iranian help, Hamas forces are expanding fast and getting more sophisticated weapons and training than do those under Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' control, according to the U.S. security coordinator.

U.S. Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton said Hamas' growing military strength, if left unchecked, would erode Abbas' already limited ability to enforce any ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and increase the chances of Israeli military intervention.

Dayton delivered his assessment in a series of closed-door briefings late last week to congressional leaders and staff, sources familiar with the discussions said on Wednesday.

Concerned about Abbas' coalition government with Hamas, a group that Washington considers a terrorist organization, the U.S. Congress has blocked $86 million in U.S. funding to bolster Abbas' presidential guard and national security forces.

Sources familiar with the Bush administration's deliberations said a revised spending plan would be submitted, likely limiting aid to Abbas' presidential guard and security improvements at Gaza's main commercial crossing with Israel.

It is unclear if and when the money will be approved.

Palestinians hope a unity government formed on Saturday between Abbas' secular Fatah faction and Hamas Islamists will bring an end to fighting between the groups. But tensions remain high, especially in the Gaza Strip.

In his first act after swearing in the new government, Abbas appointed Hamas' long-time foe, Mohammad Dahlan, as national security adviser, angering the Islamist movement.

Over objections from Fatah, Hamas is pushing ahead with plans to double the size of its Executive Force to 12,000 members. The force is built mostly from members of Hamas' armed wing, which on Monday carried out its first attacks against Israelis since a shaky Gaza truce took effect in November.

The U.S. wants Abbas' own forces to be strong enough to maintain law and order, and to prevent militant groups like Hamas from firing rockets and launching other attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

But in fierce fighting before Abbas agreed to join the unity government, Hamas' Executive Force and armed wing were beating their Fatah rivals, Dayton said, according to two sources familiar with his comments.

Dayton, who became U.S. security coordinator between Israel and the Palestinians in December 2005, said Hamas has continued to build up its forces using Iranian funds and equipment.

He added that Abbas' troops will not be strong enough to confront them without outside assistance.

Israeli officials have likewise said that Hamas fighters are receiving training in Iran and smuggling into Gaza rockets that could penetrate deep into Israeli territory.

Despite the U.S. funding embargo, Palestinian officials and Western diplomats say Abbas has continued to expand his own forces.

The presidential guard recently set up a camp near the Karni commercial crossing in Gaza, and it is finishing construction of a larger training base in the West Bank city of Jericho."

***

I wonder how long the "unity" will last; don't stop celebrating yet and keep sending your congratulations to Habila.

"Jerusalem – Ma'an – In a special interview with Ma'an, the United States Consulate Spokesperson spoke of the imminent visit of Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East.

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will hold bilateral meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mohmoud Abbas. She will also meet with the foreign ministers of the Arab Quartet [Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Jordan] and with Egyptian President Mubarak in Aswan and Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman. While in the region, Secretary Rice will discuss the next steps in achieving a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as other regional issues of mutual interest."......."

By Tom Toles

Action Alert, Al-Awda, 20 March 2007

"Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, calls on all people of conscience to demand that Dr. Sami Al-Arian is immediately freed from his political imprisonment. Dr. Al-Arian is a Palestinian former University of Florida professor who is currently on his 58th day of a water-only hunger strike. He is protesting his maltreatment by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) which violated an earlier plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further cooperation with the government. According to his lawyer, the DOJ wanted Dr. Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury in Virginia. When he refused, citing his plea agreement, he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail.

Dr. Al-Arian is currently being held at a medical facility in North Carolina. Family members who recently visited him reported that he had lost 53 pounds, equivalent to more than 25 percent of his body weight. He is no longer able to walk or stand on his own.

More information on Dr. Al-Arian's ordeal can be found in the transcript of a recent interview with his wife, Nahla Al-Arian.

Take Action

We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.

Call, Email and Write:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj. gov

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
John.Conyers@ mail.house. gov

Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(299029)224- 4242
senator_leahy@ leahy.senate. gov

Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314"

Being a neocon means never having to say you're sorry

By Justin Raimondo

"......Centered in the office of the vice president, the neocons did an end run around the mainstream intelligence agencies to manufacture the lies that lured us into war, and Christopher Hitchens did more than his part to spread these lies. But in the minds of the neocons, all their lies are noble ones – besides , this whole obsession with such outdated concepts as truth and falsehood is just a superstition dreamed up by the "reality-based community," as one White House official put it to Ron Suskind. Watch us while we make history: in the triumphal atmosphere of the War Party's heyday, a fatal hubris was in the air, and the pro-war intellectuals breathed this in so deeply that the effects have yet to wear off. Hitchens is drunk on a lot more than booze.

Alcoholics often suffer from delusions, and their recalcitrance is part and parcel of their strenuous denial. The reality on the ground has proved the drunken warriors utterly wrong, yet they still go on pretending that all is well, if only the "surge" would be given time to work, if only the media would stop subverting the war effort, if only…

When the neoconservative version of this war's history is written, each chapter will elaborate on a different "if only" scenario that deftly ignores what actually happened and instead focuses on the imperfect implementation of their wonderful scheme.

Hitchens at least tries to defend the indefensible, which is a brave thing to even attempt, but his fellow neocon Richard Perle is clearly uninterested in making the effort......"

A Good Article Contributed by Datta

by Kim Petersen
www.dissidentvoice.org
March 18, 2007

"Ilan Pappe deserves credit. He goes further than most Israelis in deconstructing the Jewish state’s historical revisionism, which he calls a “Zionist whitewash of words.” But does Pappe go far enough?

The iconoclastic Haifa University historian has written a book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, destroying the “Israeli foundational myth,” which he describes as a “sheer fabrication.” Pappe sets straight the Israeli historiography. Central to Zionist historical revisionism is Nakba (catastrophe) denial. Pappe affirms the occurrence of the Nakba which he states was not a “voluntary flight” but part of a Zionist blueprint (Plan Dalet) for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It was ethnic cleansing, but was it not also something more sinister?

Pappe identifies the perpetrators of the Nakba as the “heroes of the Jewish war of independence,” of who the best known is David Ben-Gurion, “the architect” of ethnic cleansing. Ben-Gurion is more accurately viewed as one of history’s vilest war criminals.

Pappe writes, “[C]ontrary to claims historians such as Benny Morris have made, Plan Dalet was handed down to the brigade officers not as vague guidelines, but as clear-cut operational orders for action.” The action resulted in the expulsion of almost 800,000 people and the destruction of 531 villages and 11 urban neighborhoods. Palestinian villages were literally wiped off the map by Zionists.

In addition to the ethnic cleansing and massacres, Pappe details the crimes committed by the Zionists against Palestinians: bioterror, imprisonment, abuses, ghettoization, rapes (Ben-Gurion was, perversely, informed of every case), looting, and desecration of religious sites.......

Pappe does go further than most Israeli intellectuals. He tackles the Nakba and the right of refugees to return. He decries the “horrific repression” of the Palestinians and understands how it helps provoke suicide bombings.

Pappe says the Zionists have a “siege mentality” about Arabs. He admits that Israeli Jews who support Palestinians are “few and far between.” Pappe faults the Zionist ideology and Zionists’ fear of a “demographic danger.” Even the Palestinians now in refugee camps are not safe from a future wave of ethnic cleansing warns Pappe, and those Palestinians living in Israel are in danger of “transfer.”.

He views Palestinians as moderate and forgiving for the most part and, therefore, believes there is a chance for reconciliation. But this requires atonement: “[U]nless Israel acknowledges the cardinal role it has played, and continues to play, in the dispossession of the Palestinian nation, and accepts the consequences this recognition of the ethnic cleansing implies, all attempts to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict are bound to fail.”

Pappe’s language sometimes betrays him. Why is it an “Israel-Palestine conflict”? It implies an equivalency between the two sides. There is no equivalency. It is a Zionist genocide perpetrated against Palestinians, abetted by much of the bystanding world. This is what it has always been and continues to be."

Only a consistent, cohesive and reasonable strategy that emanates from the Palestinians themselves can engage international public opinion and possibly slow down the Israeli army bulldozers currently carving up the West Bank into a system of cantons and high-walled prisons.

By Ramzy Baroud

".....It is never easy to admit that the Palestinian front, both at home and abroad, remains more fragmented and self-consumed, thus ineffective than ever before.

Such a realization wouldn’t mean much if the inference concerned any other polity; but when it’s made in regards to a nation that is facing an active campaign of ethnic cleansing at home and an international campaign of sanctions and boycott, the problem becomes both real and urgent.....

Other major issues such as settlements, water, refugees, borders, continue to be subjected to unilateral Israeli actions, while the Palestinian role is relegated to that of a hapless, submissive and often angry victim.

If such decisive matters go largely unchallenged by a solid, popular Palestinian strategy, one mustn’t be surprised if other issues, such as the need to restructure the progressively more fragmented Palestinian national identity, the need for a powerful, sustained and articulate Palestinian voice in the media and an influential body that unites and channels all Palestinian efforts around the world to serve a clear set of objectives, are receiving little or no attention whatsoever.

It must also be acknowledged, as uncomfortable as this may be to some, that the Palestinian democratic experience is rapidly succumbing to Israeli pressures, American meddling — tacitly or otherwise, coordinated with other governments — and the fractious Palestinian front that has been for decades permeated with ideological exclusivism, cronyism and corruption.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), since its formation by the Arab League in 1964, but most significantly since its reformation in the early 1970s under Palestinian leadership, was for long regarded as the main body that eventually brought to the fore the Palestinian struggle as — more than a mere question of a humanitarian issue that needed redress — a national fight for freedom and rights.

There was, more or less, a national movement that spoke and represented Palestinians everywhere. It gave the Palestinian struggle greater urgency, one that was lost, or willingly conceded, by Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in September 1993, and again in Cairo in May 2004, and yet again in Paris, Sharm al-Sheikh and so forth.

Aside from snuffing out the Palestinian national project, reducing the territory to self-autonomous areas, rendering irrelevant millions of Palestinians, mostly refugees scattered around the world and thus demoting the international status of the PLO to a mere symbolic organization, Oslo gave rise to a new type of thinking among Palestinians who see themselves as pragmatic and whose language is that of real politic and diplomacy.

This is the most woeful case of self-defeatism, and it continues to infuse most Palestinian circles whose new “strategy” is limited to acquiring funds from European countries which eventually dotted the West Bank with NGOs, mostly without a clear purpose, agenda and coordination......

Neither a religious movement like Hamas nor a self-exalted one like Fateh is capable of approaching this subject alone, nor are they individually qualified to alter the Palestinian course, which seems to be moving in random order.

The problem is indeed bigger than mere ideological or even personal quarrels between two rival political parties; rather, it is the expression of a prevailing Palestinian factionalism that seems to consume members of various Palestinian communities regardless of where they are based.

In the absence of centrality everywhere, individuals hoping to fill the vacuum are offering their own solutions to the conflict, once more without any serious or coordinated efforts and without a grassroots constituency either in the occupied territories or among major Palestinian population concentrations in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, etc.

Others, like the Geneva Initiative enthusiasts, find it acceptable to negotiate a solution on Palestinians’ behalf — without any mandate whatsoever — and obtain sums of money to promote their ideas, though the whole enterprise is run by a few individuals who have no support from the Palestinians.

Oslo has lost its relevance as a peace treaty, but the individualism it espoused among Palestinians still prevails; its legacy was self-preservation at the expense of the collective good, and I believe no Palestinian party, including Hamas, is immune from subscribing to its luring values......"

By Uri Avnery

"The truth, according to the Prime Minister's testimony before the Inquiry Commission headed by Judge Vinograd that was leaked to the media yesterday, is that this was not a spontaneous reaction to the capture of the two soldiers, but a war planned a long time ago. We said so right from the start......

But Ehud Olmert's mistake was even bigger. He was convinced that the United States would give him a blessing for the road and allow him to roam in Lebanon at will. But American interests, too, had changed.

In Lebanon, the government of Fuad Siniora has succeeded in uniting all pro-American forces. They have loyally carried out all of Washington's orders, have driven out the Syrians and have supported the investigation of Rafiq Hariri's murder, which is to provide the Americans with a pretext for a massive strike against Syria.

According to Olmert's leaks, Condoleezza Rice called him just after the outbreak of the war and conveyed to him the up-to-date American orders : it was indeed desired that Israel should deal a crushing blow to Hizbullah, the enemies of Siniora, but it was absolutely forbidden to do anything that would hurt Siniora, such as bombing Lebanese infrastructure outside Hizbullah's territory.

That emasculated the General Staff's plans. The main idea had been that if the civilian population in Lebanon was hurt sufficiently, it would put pressure on the government to act decisively against Hizbullah, enough to liquidate the organization or, at least, to disarm it. It is very doubtful whether this strategy would have succeeded if it had been carried out, but because of the American intervention it was not carried out......

THE INTERVENTION of Condoleezza Rice in the conduct of the war is interesting also in another respect. It sheds light on a question that has been engaging the experts for some time now: in the relationship between the United States and Israel, do American interests override Israeli, or is it the other way round?

This discussion came to a head when the American professors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, published their research paper, according to which Israel imposes on the United States a policy that is contrary to the American national interest. The conclusion upset many who believe the opposite: that Israel is but a small wheel in the imperial American machine. (I permitted myself to argue that both versions are right: the American dog wags its Israeli tail, and the Israeli tail wags the American dog.)

When Condoleezza Rice encouraged Israel to go to war but vetoed an essential part of the war plan, it seems that she proved the two professors wrong. True, Olmert got American permission for his war, which served American interests (the elimination of Hizbullah, which opposed the pro-American Siniora government, though it officially belonged to it), but only with severe limitations (in order not to hurt the Siniora government).

THE SAME principle is now operating on the Syrian front......"

"The former U.N. weapons inspector who was scorned for saying there were no WMD in Iraq speaks with Robert Scheer about American ignorance, the lies that led us to war, Iran’s nuclear program and more."

Part I: Hillary Clinton, Saddam Hussein and Iraq

Part II: Can we get out of Iraq?

Part III: Korea, Iran and why there aren’t more Scott Ritters

Part IV: Nuclear weapons and the war on terror

Part V: A question from the audience

Former IDF chief of staff criticizes West's weakness, preventing it from handling Iranian regime

""The question of who won the war in Lebanon has yet to be determined," former Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said at a lecture in Tel Aviv Tuesday.

He stated that conflict with the Iranian regime was inevitable. "The Western world is avoiding it because it is weak and that is only bringing it closer."

He said that Iran had declared war on the West and its culture. "In the last war we fought their agent." He added that this battle is also against such organizations as el-Qaeda and could take decades and will have many secondary wars.

Ya'alon described the battle as being fought on many fronts simultaneously: "In Lebanon between Hizbullah and the Christians and Druze; in the Palestinian Authority, the fight between Hamas and the other factions; in Iran, the fundamentalist regime against the majority of the population that would gladly forsake the ayatollah regime but has not yet been able to translate that into political power."

Ya'alon agrees that "we can and should talk about the weakening in Israel's deterrence," because of the war in Lebanon......"

(Click on to enlarge)

Four years to the day after US and British troops invaded Iraq, its people are full of fear. Iraqis often have a look of half-suppressed panic in their eyes as they tell how violent death has touched them again and again.

One of the Worst Articles
By Patrick Cockburn

"......Diyala, its once-prosperous villages now becoming heavily armed Sunni or Shia fortresses, is a symbol of the failure of the occupation that began four years ago. From an early moment it was evident that only the Kurds in Iraq fully supported the US and British presence.

The invasion four years ago failed. It overthrew Saddam but did nothing more. It destabilised the Middle East. It tore apart Iraq. It was meant to show the world that the US was the world's only superpower that could do what it wanted. In fact it demonstrated that the US was weaker than the world supposed. The longer the US refuses to admit failure the longer the war will go on."

For four years, Britain and the US have aimed to encourage sectarianism, but ultimately they will fail to divide the country

Sami Ramadani
Tuesday March 20, 2007
The Guardian

"Two catastrophes have been in the making since President Bush and Tony Blair launched their war on Iraq four years ago. Both are epoch-making, and their resolution will shape regional and world politics for decades to come......

The success of the occupation's divide-and-rule tactics and their insistence on basing the new political and military structures on sects, religions, and ethnicities is threatening the communal cohesion that was once the country's hallmark. This is a factor in the absence of a united movement, capable of leading the struggle to end the occupation. The occupation has sown divisions where there were none and transformed existing differences into open warfare.

And is it any wonder that the long-suffering Iraqi people find themselves at an impasse. Try catching your breath after decades of brutal dictatorship, 13 years of economic sanctions and four years of an obscene war .

But even in the absence of a unified anti-occupation front, the resistance of the Iraqi people has managed to thwart the world's greatest military empire. And there are signs of a mass rejection of these sectarian forces, and the possibility that public anger will translate into the very unity that is so desperately needed. Rage against corruption and the collapse of public services is sweeping the country, including Kurdistan. Similarly, the proposed corporate occupation of Iraq, disguised as a legal document to tie the country to the oil companies for decades to come, has reminded the population of one of the main reasons for the US-led invasion. It has also reminded them what a self-respecting, sovereign Iraq looked like in 1961, when the government nationalised Iraq's lands for future oil production.

In an opinion poll released by the BBC yesterday, 86% of people are opposed to the division of Iraq. This and other polls also show majority support for armed resistance to the occupation. Four years into this terrible adventure, both the US and Britain must realise that it is time to pack up and leave."

By Steve Bell, The Guardian

By Kurt Nimmo

"......It didn’t take long for Cheney and the newly christened OIA to spawn the Iran-Syria Operations Group, designed “to encourage regime change in Iran,” that is to say covertly attack Iran.

“It’s no secret that Cheney has over $80 million at her disposal to promote democracy in Iran. But ISOG isn’t simply about promoting democracy. It’s about helping to craft official policy, doing so not with one but two countries in its sights, and creating a policymaking apparatus that parallels—and skirts—Foggy Bottom’s suspect Iran desk,” Lawrence F. Kaplan wrote last April for the New Republic Online. Of course, for the neocons, “democracy” translates into the sort of engineered chaos currently underway in Iraq—a social deconstruction on tap for the entire Muslim and Arab world.

As should be expected, Iran is threatening to respond in kind, undoubtedly to the glee of the neocons, who are of course on a pretext fishing expedition.

“Iran is threatening to retaliate in Europe for what it claims is a daring undercover operation by western intelligence services to kidnap senior officers in its Revolutionary Guard,” reports the Times Online. “According to Iranian sources, several officers have been abducted in the past three months and the United States has drawn up a list of other targets to be seized with the aim of destabilizing Tehran’s military command.”......

“One theory circulating in Israel is that a US taskforce known as the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) is coordinating the campaign to take Revolutionary Guard commanders,” Mahnaimi continues. “The Iranians have also accused the United States of being behind an attack on Revolutionary Guards in Iran last month in which at least 17 were killed.”

Last month, a reputed “former high-ranking CIA official in Washington” told the Sunday Telegraph “America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups [Kurds, Baluchis, Ahwazi Arabs, and Azeris] in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.”....

“Military analysts believe that Iranian threats of retaliation are credible. Tehran is notorious for settling scores. When the Israelis killed Abbas Mussawi, Hezbollah’s general secretary, in 1992 the Quds Force blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina in revenge,” the Times Online concludes....."

A Good Article
Contributed by Lucia

"Often, the ideological intransigence of Hamas is blamed for impeding Palestinian unity. But on Sunday it was the moderate Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas who dealt a potentially debilitating blow to the nascent Palestinian "unity" government — by appointing Mohammed Dahlan, the most divisive figure on the Palestinian political scene today, to the office of National Security Adviser.......

The Palestinians have agreed to unite less out of common conviction than out of the necessity brought on by a crippling financial siege and Arab diplomatic pressure. The differences that persist among them were clear in the parliamentary session that ratified the new government: President Abbas made a speech emphasizing negotiations, while Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' political leader, re-asserted the Palestinian right to "resistance," and spoke not of recognizing Israel, but of extending a truce if a Palestinian state were established along its 1967 borders.

But while those differences came as no surprise, Abbas's appointment of Dahlan, akin to throwing a grenade into an already tense room, threatens to shatter even the pretense of cooperation. Hamas immediately labeled the appointment "illegal," and urged Abbas to reconsider. The Palestinian Authority President could not possibly have been unaware of the impact his move would have. Dahlan, 45, currently a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was previously the boss of the Preventative Security office. He has extensive business interests in Gaza, and has been dogged for years by corruption allegations. A native Gazan from Khan Yunis, he was a leader of the first intifada and has spent time in Israeli jails. He later rose though the ranks of the PLO and took part in negotiations in Oslo in 1993 and at Camp David in 2000. Dahlan has close ties with the Americans and the Israelis, particularly their intelligence services.

Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service, said recently that he hoped to see Fatah rehabilitate its image and Dahlan, in particular, play a greater role. Predictably, then, he is loathed by Hamas members, whom he labeled "murderers" in January, and against whom he led a crackdown a decade ago. He also has enemies among some of the more powerful Palestinian clans, and was accused of playing a major role in the factional violence that convulsed Gaza in recent months.

"Dahlan by himself is a problem," says a Palestinian Foreign Ministry official, who wished to remain anonymous discussing sensitive issues, "but when you put him in such a position, he is more than a problem." A member of Fatah's Central Committee, who also preferred to go nameless on the topic of Dahlan, adds, "This is practically appointing him Interior Minister," the post responsible for overseeing the various security organizations, some of which are loyal to Fatah and some to Hamas. "This will bring us back to a bad situation. And it creates troubles for Haniyeh. He will have to oppose the move or face problems from inside Hamas."

Hamas had earlier vetoed Dahlan's nomination for the post of Deputy Prime Minister. Although his unilateral appointment as National Security Adviser move might reassure the Bush Administration, which has shown no enthusiasm for Abbas joining Hamas in government, it will almost certainly deepen the wedge not only between Fatah and Hamas, but also between Abbas and the Palestinian public. "To the man and woman in the street, it seems that Abu Mazen [Abbas] is carrying out the orders of Israel and America," says the Fatah Central Committee member. Hamas legislators plan to oppose the move on the grounds that the Palestinian Basic Law forbids members of the legislature from serving in cabinet-level positions.

The furor comes as preparations begin for another visit to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She plans to meet with Abbas twice. If her aim was to stabilize Palestinian politics, she might ask Abbas what he was thinking. But given the dim view the Americans and Israelis hold of the unity government, and their positive view of Dahlan, she might also be tempted to congratulate him."

Israeli Author, Peace Activist Tanya Reinhart Dies at 63

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"....AMY GOODMAN: Tanya Reinhart, giving one of her last speeches, actually, just over a month ago. That discussion we had in October 2004. But she was just here in New York at St. Mary's Church. She was speaking as part of Israel Apartheid Week.

TANYA REINHART: So, in the present world, not only the international community does not impose sanctions on Israel. In fact, it elected to impose sanctions on the Palestinians. Since the Palestinian elections, all funds to the Palestinian Authority, all funds to the even NGO organizations have been frozen. And Israel itself is holding tax monies that it owes the Palestinian. And the Palestinian economy is completely paralyzed with no salaries, no social services, no medical care or functioning hospitals.

Just two years ago, the Western world hailed “the best of democracy in the Middle East” with Arafat departing and the Palestinian people getting ready for their elections. According to Jimmy Carter, in a report he wrote in the Herald Tribune, the Palestinian elections were, I quote, "honest, fair, strongly contested, without violence and with the result accepted by winners and losers." Among the sixty-two elections that had been monitored by the Carter Center, these are among the best in portraying the will of the people.

In a just and well-ordered world, it would be unthinkable that a government that was elected in this kind of a process will be ignored just because Israel does not like the choice of the Palestinian people. But in a world in which the US rules, might is right, and might can define democracy as it wills. Thus, it was announced that the outcome of the Palestinian elections will not be recognized, and until this changes, the Palestinian people as a whole should be punished and starved.

What we see now, since then, is that the US is trying, together with Israel, to impose a longstanding policy that they have always had of trying to push the society into civil war. They are doing this in Palestine by supporting collaborating forces like the forces of Dahlan in Gaza. They are trying to do the same in Lebanon. They are trying this in Iraq. This is the US policy.

The Palestinian people so far have resisted this attempt to push them into a civil war, and they have managed to form a unity government. But just as we heard just yesterday, the US will not recognize -- following Israel’s demand -- will not recognize the new unity government and will continue the boycott.

The way this is packed is the demand of the Palestinian -- the Palestinians are demanded to meet the quoted three demands, the three mantras that keep repeating. The first mantra is that the Palestinians should renounce violence, specifically Hamas should renounce violence. It's very hard to understand the content of this demand. Already in January 2005, when the Hamas announced that they are -- Hamas announced that they are going to move from armed struggle into political struggle and enter the elections, and since then, there wasn't a single terror attack perpetrated by the Hamas. According to Israeli security sources, the Hamas didn't even participate in launching of Kassams to Israel until the events of last summer, when Israel attacked Gaza.

The second demand is that the Palestinians should recognize previous accords. In an interview with the the Washington Post already a year ago, Hamas Prime Minister Haniyeh explained that according to the Oslo Accords in 1993, five years later in ’98, there should have been already a Palestinian state. Instead, what Israel did during this whole period was appropriate more land, continue to colonize, to build settlements, and it did not keep a single clause of the Oslo Agreements. “From now on,” Haniyeh said, “we will only accept and respect agreements that are good for the Palestinian people.”

Now, the third and crucial mantra that is being used to suffocate the Palestinian people is that the new government should recognize the existence of Israel. But the reality of the matter is that it is Israel that is not willing to recognize the right of the Palestinians to exist as a state. In the meeting of the Palestinian National Council in 1988, the Palestinian people have decided already that they are willing to accept a two-state solution within the borders of the ’67 -- before the ’67 War, which for them means accepting to live in 22% of their historical land. Since then, Israel has not done a single thing to show that it’s willing accept this, to show that it’s willing to give the Palestinians a state in this little portion left of their land."

Click Here to Watch, Listen or Read Transcript

How Foolish He Now Appears....
Thanks to the Iraqi Resistance

by Prof. James Petras

Global Research, March 19, 2007

"....The imperial system is much more complex than what is commonly referred to as the “US Empire”. The US Empire, with its vast network of financial investments, military bases, multi-national corporations and client states, is the single most important component of the global imperial system (1). Nevertheless, it is overly simplistic to overlook the complex hierarchies, networks, follower states and clients that define the contemporary imperial system (2). To understand empire and imperialism today requires us to look at the complex and changing system of imperial stratification.

Hierarchy of Empire

The structure of power of the world imperial system can best be understood through a classification of countries according to their political, economic, diplomatic and military organization. The following is a schema of this system:

I. Hierarchy of Empire (from top to bottom)
A. Central Imperial States (CIS)
B. Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP)
C. Semi-autonomous Client Regimes (SACR)
D. Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR)

II. Independent States:
A. Revolutionary
Cuba and Venezuela
B. Nationalist
Sudan, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea

III. Contested Terrain and Regimes in Transition
Armed resistance, elected regimes, social movements......

The Case of Somalia: Black Masks - White Faces

The recent Ethiopian invasion of Somalia (December 2006) and overthrow of the de-facto governing Islamic Courts Union (ICU)or Supreme Council of Islamic Courts and imposition of a self-styled ‘transitional government’ of warlords is an excellent case study of the centrality of collaborator regimes in sustaining and expanding the US empire........"

Sectarian Winds

She Drew Away the Veil on Criminal and Outrageous Conduct

By NOAM CHOMSKY
CounterPunch

Editors' note: We have lost an outstanding intellect and one of the bravest voices from Israel with the death of Tanya Reinhart. Last October, on this site, we published Eric Hazan's interview with Tanya Reinhart on the occasion of the publication of her latest book, Roadmap to Nowhere. In conclusion Haas asked her, Despite the grim events described in the book, the overall feeling that comes through is that of hope. Why?........

".....But Tanya's outstanding professional work was only one part of her life, and of our long and intimate friendship. She was one of the most courageous and honorable defenders of human rights whom I have ever been privileged to meet. As all honest people should, she focused her attention and energy on the actions of her own state and society, for which she shared responsibility ­ including the responsibility, which she never shirked, to expose crimes of state and to defend the victims of repression, violence, and conquest.

Her numerous articles and books drew away the veil that concealed criminal and outrageous actions, and shone a searing light on the reality that was obscured, all of immense value to those who sought to understand and to react in a decent way. Her activism was not limited to words, important as these were. She was on the front line of direct resistance to intolerable actions, an organizer and a participant, a stance that one cannot respect too highly. She will be remembered not only as a resolute and honorable defender of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope for decent survival.

Tanya's passing is a terrible loss, not only to her family and those fortunate enough to come to know her personally, and to those she defended and protected with such dedication and courage, but to everyone concerned with freedom, justice, and an honorable peace."--- Noam Chomsky

Almost Every Aspect of Iraqi Life has Gotten Worse in the Last Four Years

By PATRICK COCKBURN
CounterPunch

Irbil, Iraq.

"......In reality, the violence is grossly understated. The Baker-Hamilton report by senior Republicans and Democrats, led by James Baker, took a single day last summer, when the US army reported 93 acts of violence in Iraq, and asked American intelligence to re-examine the evidence. They found the real figure was 1,100--the US military had deliberately understated the violence by factor of over 10.

Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was not going to be the main problem when the US and Britain invaded four years ago. His army would fall apart, as it had done in 1991 when he was expelled from Kuwait, because Iraqis simply would not fight for him. But the outcome of the invasion of 2003 was predictably different from the war in 1991, and not just because there is now a large American army in the heart of the Middle East, destabilizing the whole region. US forces had not pressed on to Baghdad 16 years ago, partly because Washington did not want to see Saddam replaced by Shia religious parties with possible links to Iran. That is exactly what has happened now, because 60 per cent of the Iraqi population is Shia.

Less predictable was the disaster facing ordinary Iraqis. Most wanted rid of Saddam Hussein because they expected a better life after his fall. Since they had oil reserves comparable to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Iraqis felt, why could they not have an equivalent standard of living to Saudis and Kuwaitis?......"

The world's worst refugee crisis, rampant unemployment and inflation, nonexistent infrastructure, malnutrition and hundreds of thousands of deaths. Wrong, this is not Darfur. It is Iraq after four years of US-led occupation, though Darfur, of course, gets all the billboards and celebrities.

By Anthony Arnove
Asia Times

"Here is a short rundown of some of what Bush's war and occupation has wrought.

Nowhere on Earth is there a worse refugee crisis than in Iraq today. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, some 2 million Iraqis have fled their country and are now scattered across everywhere from Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iran to London and Paris. (Almost none have made it to the United States, which has done nothing to address the refugee crisis it created.)

Another 1.9 million are estimated to be internally displaced persons, driven from their homes and neighborhoods by the US occupation and the vicious civil war it has sparked. Add those figures up - and they're getting worse by the day - and you have close to 16% of the Iraqi population uprooted. Add the dead to the displaced, and that figure rises to nearly one in five Iraqis. Let that sink in for a moment......

How would you know this? Well, if you lived in New York City, at least, you could hardly take a subway ride without seeing an ad that reads: "400,000 dead. Millions uniting to save Darfur." The New York Times has also regularly featured full-page ads describing the "genocide" in Darfur and calling for intervention there under "a chain of command allowing necessary and timely military action without approval from distant political or civilian personnel".

In those same years, according to the best estimate available, the British medical journal The Lancet's door-to-door study of Iraqi deaths, about 655,000 Iraqis had died in war, occupation, and civil strife between March 2003 and June 2006. (The study offers a low-end possible figure on deaths of 392,000 and a high-end figure of 943,000.) But you could travel coast to coast in the United States without seeing billboards, subway placards, full-page newspaper ads, or the like for the Iraqi dead. And you certainly won't see, as in the case of Darfur, celebrities on the American Broadcasting Co's weekday television program Good Morning America talking about their commitment to stopping "genocide" in Iraq.

Why is it that we are counting and thinking about the Sudanese dead as part of a high-profile, celebrity-driven campaign to "Save Darfur", yet Iraqi deaths still in effect go uncounted, and rarely seem to provoke moral outrage, let alone public campaigns to end the killing? And why are the numbers of killed in Darfur cited without any question, while the numbers of Iraqi dead, unless pitifully low-ball figures, are instantly challenged - or dismissed?......."

"Hamas, in its first public rift with Fatah since forming a Palestinian unity government, on Monday accused Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of illegally appointing one of the Islamist group's long-time foes as his national security adviser.

"Hamas sees the step by President Mahmoud Abbas to appoint
Mohammad Dahlan, a lawmaker, as his adviser for the national security as a violation of Palestinian law," Hamas said in a statement. "We urge President Abbas to go back to the law and to examine the decision accordingly."

Dahlan was appointed to lead the newly re-established Palestinian National Security Council, which is intended in theory to oversee all security services in the Palestinian territories.

Abbas' decision to create the PNSC and appoint Dahlan as national security adviser are seen as an attempt by the PA chair to tighten his control over the various Palestinian security forces.

Dahlan said Sunday that the move was aimed at achieving a united force that would carry out the strategy set by the council. He hinted that there are no plans to dismantle the Executive Force Hamas created in Gaza. "We will start with the most pressing issues," Dahlan said. "As long as the Executive Force is not acting illegally, we will examine our priorities.""

***

Habila seems to be thrilled with "brother" Dahlan; what is Hamas' problem?
Repeat after me: There is no dissention within the ranks of Hamas.....There is no dissention within the ranks of Hamas....

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, and the War Party is still in the driver's seat

By Justin Raimondo

"......In most democratic countries, a government that had birthed such a disaster as the Iraq war would have fallen long ago, but this one endures, and, in any case, its probable successor is not going to have a very different approach to foreign policy. This was brought home by the recent action of the Democratic congressional leadership in stripping the military appropriations bill of a provision that would have required the president to seek congressional approval before attacking Iran. Speaker Pelosi had just been booed at the AIPAC conference for criticizing the Iraq war when she rushed back to her office and struck the Iran provision from the bill – just as the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group had been insisting, albeit not too loudly.

After all, the AIPAC conference was supposed to be toning down the ongoing campaign to get us into a shooting war with Iran, but, as the Jerusalem Post pointed out, "the effort was laid to waste once Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the audience at the gala dinner Monday night." There is supposedly a taboo against Israeli government officials intruding too aggressively in their efforts to influence American politics, although that never stopped Ariel Sharon from openly calling for the U.S. to invade Iraq – as a prelude to taking on Syria and Iran. Olmert went beyond anything Sharon ever attempted, however, in his AIPAC speech:

"I know that… all of you who are concerned about the security and the future of the State of Israel understand the importance of strong American leadership addressing the Iranian threat, and I am sure you will not hamper or restrain that strong leadership unnecessarily."

As we have seen, he was right to be "sure" – Nancy must have skedaddled right back to her office pretty darn fast to excise the offending passage from her bill. But Olmert didn't stop there:

"Those who are concerned for Israel's security, for the security of the Gulf States, and for the stability of the entire Middle East should recognize the need for American success in Iraq and responsible exit. Any outcome that will not help America's strength and would, in the eyes of the people in the region, undercut America's ability to deal effectively with the threat posed by the Iranian regime will be very negative.".......

Events have, unfortunately, only confirmed my prognosis, but there is reason for optimism in the long run, even if short-term pessimism is our lot. The American people don't like foreigners interfering in their politics, and Olmert may have gone too far. Aside from that, the trial of longtime AIPAC honcho Steve Rosen, and the group's Iran expert, Keith Weissman, on charges of giving Israel top-secret information gleaned from former Pentagon official Larry Franklin, is scheduled to finally begin this summer. The Lobby is increasingly buffeted by blowback stemming from its own arrogance, and the day of reckoning approaches. Whether that day comes before or after we go to war with Iran is, largely, a matter of chance…"

By Jim Lobe

"Accounts of a Feb. 28 "literary luncheon" at the White House suggest that President George W. Bush's reading tastes – until now a remarkably good predictor of his policy views – are moving ever rightward, even apocalyptic, despite his administration's recent suggestions that it is more disposed to engage Washington's foes, even in the Middle East.

The luncheon, attended as well by Vice President Dick Cheney and a dozen hard-line neoconservatives, was held in honor of visiting British historian Andrew Roberts, whose latest work, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, Bush reportedly read late last year and subsequently sent to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Cheney took the book with him on his recent trip to Pakistan.

Roberts, an avowed Thatcherite who proudly declared himself "extremely right-wing" in a recent Financial Times interview, repeatedly advised the president, according to Irwin Stelzer, one of the neoconservative attendees, to ignore rising anti-U.S. sentiment abroad and opposition at home in pursuing his war on terrorism – or what the historian has called "the Manichean world-historical struggle" against fascism, of which "Totalitarian Islamic Terrorist Fascism" is only the latest.

A major lesson of history, Roberts told Bush, is that "will trumps wealth," according to Stelzer's account of the meeting in the Weekly Standard. He warned that "the steady drumbeat of media pessimism and television coverage are sapping the West's will" to fight and defeat the enemy which, in his view, includes Iran, as well as Sunni radicals, such as al-Qaeda......

In his article, Stelzer, an economist at the Hudson Institute and London Sunday Times columnist, disclosed that Bush had also recommended that his staff and friends read another, even more apocalyptic, analysis of the current war on terror, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, by Toronto-born neoconservative columnist Mark Steyn.

Steyn's book, which, unlike Roberts', actually made the New York Times bestseller list, sees Europe's demographic trends and its multicultural, "post-nationalist" secularism – of which his native Canada is also guilty – as leading inevitably to the "Eupocalypse," the "recolonization of Europe by Islam," the emergence of "Eurabia," and the onset of a "new Dark Ages" in which the United States will find it difficult to survive as the "lonely candle of liberty."......

All of these also play to Bush's own Manicheanism and self-image as a courageous, often lonely, leader in the mold of a Lincoln or Churchill, determined to pursue what he believes is right regardless of what "old Europe," "intellectuals," "elites," or even the electorate thinks about his course and confident only in the conviction that History or God will vindicate him.

It's an image that Bush's neoconservative guests – including the Wall Street Journal's editorial page editor, Paul Gigot; former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz; New York Sun editor Seth Lipsky; and several like-minded columnists – themselves have also tried hard to propagate, particularly as public confidence in Bush has fallen to the longest sustained lows for any president in more than 50 years.

"It is fair to say that the few people I spoke with as we left shared my impression," wrote the Standard's Stelzer. "Here is a man comfortable in his own skin; whose religious faith guides him in his search for the good … who worries less about his 'legacy' than about his standing with the Almighty, [and] who is quite well read….""

By Gilad Atzmon

Al-Jazeerah, March 19, 2007

Speech given in Stockholm 18 March 2007

"The impossible condition of being an ex-Israeli as well as an ethically orientated human being necessary leads towards a serious guilt complex. I am referring here to the obvious case of one feeling guilty for the crimes committed on one’s behalf by one’s brethren. Yet, I have to confess that while guilt can be charming, at least for a while, it is far from being a productive state of mind in the long term. Guilt is a self-centred endeavour, it doesn’t aim towards a change. In guilt alone, there is not much hope for better future. In fact, the only way to translate guilt into productivity is to transform remorse into responsibility.

At least in my case, responsibility is primarily grounded on the deep acknowledgment that, though totally against my will, as things are set by the Jewish State, every atrocity committed by Israel is actually committed in my name and on my behalf. In other words, my commitment to the Palestinian issue is evoked by my acceptance of my responsibility. Though shouting ‘not in my name’ would have helped to vindicate me as an individual person, it won’t change the grave sinister fact that every Israeli war crime is actually done in the name of the Jewish people. Thus, I have never been an advocate of the ‘not in my name’ call. Clearly, I am not searching for my own self-redemption but rather for a metaphysical shift of awareness. Consequently, responsibility is for me a form of intervention that bridges the necessary gap between silent acceptance and ethical commitment. My responsibility is my pledge to do whatever I can to bring the suffering of the Palestinians to an immediate halt.....

I will use this unique opportunity and mention as well that I am tired of hearing people telling me “Gilad, you can say it all, you are a Jew.” I just do not accept it. There is nothing in my ethnic belonging or biological origin that should grant me with any special entitlement. I must admit as well that I have never found myself telling a Muslim or an Arab friend “you can say it, you are an Arab.” I do not remember myself ever hearing anyone suggesting to anyone else: “you can say it, you are Protestant, Irish, Black, etc.”. Noticeably, the Jewish State and its supporters have managed to position their beloved country in a very privileged precious position, far beyond criticism. My responsibility is to expose this tactic as a complete fallacy.

I believe that we cannot bring hope to Palestine unless we teach ourselves to speak freely, unless we allow ourselves to open up the discourse. I may as well suggest that I truly believe that the Zionists and the Israelis will benefit from such an initiative.

The Israelis and their supporters set themselves in an artificial detached heaven. They have surrounded themselves with security walls and have managed to block all channels of criticism. While in a complete state of blindness, the Israelis have failed to notice that they have become the embodiment of modern evil. More than anyone else, it is the Jewish State and the Israelis who need an immediate wake up call. "

As the West looks anxiously at Iraq and Afghanistan, dangerous cracks are opening up in Lebanon ­ and the White House is determined to prop up Fouad Siniora's government

By Robert Fisk

"......So it must have come as a shock to the good general when the Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh last week announced that a Lebanese Internal Security Force unit had arrested four Syrian members of a Palestinian "terrorist group" linked to al-Qa'ida and working for the Syrian intelligence services who were said to be responsible for leaving bombs in two Lebanese minibuses on 13 February, killing three civilians and wounding another 20.

Now it has to be said that there's a lot of scepticism about this story. Not because Syria has, inevitably, denied any connection to Lebanese bombings but because in a country that has never in 30 years solved a political murder, it's pretty remarkable that the local Lebanese constabulary can solve this one - and very conveniently so since Mr Sabeh's pro-American government continues to accuse Syria of all things bestial in the state of Lebanon......

But Unifil, like it or not, is on only one side of the border, the Lebanese side, and despite their improving relations with the local Shia population -- the UN boys are going in for cash handouts to improve water supplies and roads, "quick impact projects" as they are called in the awful UN-speak of southern Lebanon - there are few Lebanese who do not see them as a buffer force to protect Israel. Last year's UN Resolution 1701 doesn't say this, but it does call for "the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon". This was a clause, of course, which met with the enthusiastic approval of the United States. For "armed groups", read Hizbollah.

The reality is that Washington is now much more deeply involved in Lebanon's affairs than most people, even the Lebanese, realise. Indeed there is a danger that - confronted by its disastrous "democratic" experiment in Iraq - the US government is now turning to Lebanon to prove its ability to spread democracy in the Middle East. Needless to say, the Americans and the British have been generous in supplying the Lebanese army with new equipment, jeeps and Humvees and anti-riot gear (to be used against who, I wonder?) and there was even a hastily denied report that Defence Minister Michel Murr would be picking up some missile-firing helicopters after his recent visit to Washington. Who, one also asks oneself, were these mythical missiles supposed to be fired at?......

Siniora, meanwhile, can now bask in the fact that after the US administration asked Congress to approve $770m for the Beirut government to meet its Paris III donor conference pledges, Lebanon will be the third largest recipient of US aid per capita of population. How much of this will have to be spent on the Lebanese military, we still don't know. Siniora, by the way, was also banned from the United States for giving a small sum to an Islamic charity during a visit several years ago to a Beirut gathering hosted by Sayed Hussein Fadlallah, whom the CIA tried to murder in 1985 for his supposed links to the Hizbollah. Now he is an American hero.

Which is all to Hizbollah's liking. However faithful its leader, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, may be to Iran (or Syria), the more Siniora's majority government is seen to be propped up by America, the deeper the social and political divisions in Lebanon become. The "tink thank" lads, as I call them, can fantasise about America's opportunities. "International support for the Lebanese government will do a great deal for advancing the cause of democracy and helping avoid civil war," David Shenker of the "Washington Institute for Near East Policy" pronounced last week. "... the Bush administration has wisely determined not to abandon the Lebanese to the tender mercies of Iran and Syria, which represents an important development towards ensuring the government's success," he said.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Wherever Washington has supported Middle East "democracy" recently - although it swiftly ditched Lebanon during its blood-soaked war last summer on the ridiculous assumption that by postponing a ceasefire the Israelis could crush the Hizbollah - its efforts have turned into a nightmare. Now we know that Israeli prime minister Olmert had already pre-planned a war with Lebanon if his soldiers were captured by the Hizbollah, Nasrallah is able to hold up his guerrilla army as defenders of Lebanon, rather than provokers of a conflict which cost at least 1,300 Lebanese civilian lives. And going all the way to Washington to save Lebanon is an odd way of behaving. The answers lie here, not in the United States. As a friend put it to me, "If I have a bad toothache, I don't book myself into a Boston clinic and fly across the Atlantic - I go to my Beirut dentist!" "

Fatah-Hamas "Unity"
By Naser Jafari

Marsi Abutauq, Azzaman
Posted on uruknet

"The population of prisons in Iraq has soared in recent months with tens of thousands of Iraqis currently in U.S. custody without trial.

U.S. troops and Iraqi government are investing heavily in the construction of prisons in the country with more than 100,000 Iraqis currently behind bars.

A parliamentary investigation commission has found that U.S. troops alone now detain more than 61,000 Iraqis and the figure is expected to swell as the Americans press ahead with their military operations.

More than 50,000 Iraqis were reported to have been arrested in the past four weeks as part of the joint U.S.-Iraqi military campaign to subdue Baghdad.

U.S. troops detain Iraqis merely on suspicion. Once detained, Iraqis may stay indefinitely as they are denied access to lawyers and Iraqi courts and government have no right to question U.S. troops’ actions.

Even Iraqi troops operations and activities now fall beyond the Iraqi judicial system as the country has been placed under emergency rule under which the courts have no power to question what the security forces do.

Many of the detainees are subjected to torture by military interrogators who use all means to extract confessions.

The detainees are denied visits by family members or relatives and they usually have no means to get in touch with them until they are released.

Many Iraqi families continue a hopeless search for relatives detained by U.S. troops. The search starts with hospital morgues and government-run prisons. U.S. prisons are off bounds.

U.S. troops do not inform relatives of the Iraqis they capture."

عباس يعين دحلان مستشارا للأمن القومي

"......والاحد عين عباس القيادي في حركة فتح محمد دحلان مستشارا للامن القومي واصدر مرسوما باعادة تشكيل مجلس الامن القومي الاعلي الذي سيضم لاول مرة مسؤولين من حركة حماس. واتسمت علاقة دحلان بحركة حماس بالتوتر الشديد. لكن يبدو انها تحسنت مع بعض زعماء الحركة بعد اتفاق مكة. وقالت مصادر فلسطينية لـ القدس العربي ان علاقات بعض زعماء حركة حماس تحسنت بقيادات داخل فتح، لكن يبدو ان ذلك رافقه خلاف داخل حركة حماس. وقالت المصادر ان العديد من رجال حماس لا يؤيدون اتفاق مكة، وفضلوا التنحي عن السلطة علي مشاركة فتح بالحكومة.
ووجه محمود الزهار القيادي في حركة حماس ووزير الشؤون الخارجية في حكومة هنية السابقة انتقادات حادة لبرنامج الحكومة الجديدة.
وقال الزهار في مداخلة أمام المجلس التشريعي خلال جلسة منح الثقة لحكومة الوحدة الوطنية ان ما تضمنه برنامج الحكومة الجديدة من توسيع للتهدئة مقابل وقف الاحتلال لممارساته هو أمر غير مقبول لدي حماس، مشترطاً التهدئة الشاملة بإنهاء الاحتلال للأراضي الفلسطينية .
وذكر موقع صدي الوطن ان الزهار انتقد رفض الحكومة الجديدة لدولة فلسطينية بحدود مؤقتة مشيرا إلي أن قبول دولة بحدود دائمة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة عام 67 يعني اعترافاً بإسرائيل، وهذا غير مقبول أيضا لدي حماس .
ورفض الزهار إقرار الحكومة الجديدة بان المفاوضات مع إسرائيل من صلاحية منظمة التحرير ورئيس السلطة الوطنية، مشترطاً أولا تطبيق اتفاق القاهرة بين الفصائل القاضي بإصلاح وتفعيل المنظمة.
ولفتت انتقادات الزهار للبيان الحكومي الذي عرضه هنية الأنظار، خاصة ان عددا من مواقع الصحف العربية والعبرية تحدثت عن وجود خلافات عميقة داخل حركة حماس وخاصة بعد توقيع اتفاق مكة المكرمة. وكانت صحيفة معاريف الإسرائيلية ذكرت أن خلافات حادة نشبت بين قيادات حركة حماس وخاصة السياسية والعسكرية وذلك بسبب معارضة قيادات في كتائب القسام لاتفاق مكة المكرمة حيث هددت هذه القيادات لتخريب الاتفاق ولكن القيادة السياسية لحماس حذرتهم من ذلك وهددت بتقديمهم لمحاكمة عسكرية داخلية .
ونفت حماس الانباء عن خلافات داخلها، كما نفت القوة التنفيذية التابعة لوزارة الداخلية وجود أي تمرد عسكري داخل حركة حماس وجناحها العسكري أو وجود مخطط لحملات اغتيال داخل الجناح العسكري للحركة. وكان موقع فلسطين برس الاسبوع الماضي ذكر أن هناك تمردا كبيرا داخل قيادات حركة حماس وانشقاقات عميقة داخل الجناح العسكري للحركة كتائب عز الدين القسام .
وقال الموقع انه استقي معلوماته من ترجمة لأحد المواقع الاستخباراتية الإسرائيلية الذي ذكر أنه يوجد تمرد كبير داخل الجناح العسكري لحماس برئاسة جمال الجراح الملقب (أبو عبيدة الجراح) قائد القوة التنفيذية التابعة لوزير الداخلية ونائبه يوسف الزهار شقيق وزير الشؤون الخارجية محمود الزهار الذين قال عنهم انهم يتهمون رئيس الوزراء والقيادي في حماس إسماعيل هنية بأن له علاقات حميمة مع الرئيس عباس وقادة فتح ."

Global Research, March 18, 2007

Editor's note

I am very disturbed to hear the news. Tanya Reinhart, a distinguished scholar and peace activist passed away in New York at age 63.

We have been in contact for more than five years. Tanya has written extensively on the plight of the Palestinian people. Several of her articles have been published by Global Research.

She will be missed by all those committed to peace and human rights.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 18 March 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linguist, peace activist Prof. Tanya Reinhart dies age 63
By Haaretz Service

"Linguist and left-wing peace activist Professor Tanya Reinhart died in New York on Saturday at age 63.

Reinhardt, one of the most outspoken representatives of the radical Israeli left, was a fierce critic of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, saying they represented a perpetuation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. She was also a proponent of an academic boycott of Israeli universities to protest the occupation.

After receiving a master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Reinhart wrote her doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under renowned linguist Noam Chomsky.

Her contributions to linguistic theory dealt with the connection between meaning and context, and the interface between syntax and systems of sound.

From 1977, Reinhardt taught courses in linguistics and literature at Tel Aviv University, including classes in critical reading of media and the analysis of discourse based on Chomsky's methods.

For the last 15 years she also taught at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

In December 2006, Reinhart left Israel and settled in New York to teach at New York University.

Reinhardt and those close to her said the change in the university's relationship to her was made in response to her statements calling for an academic boycott of Israel.

Reinhardt espoused the principle of non-violent resistance, and was among the leaders of the left-wing activists who called for boycotts of the 1996 and 2001 elections.

She was active in recent years in Israeli-Palestinian efforts against the West Bank separation fence and the seizure of land from Palestinians for its construction.

Reinhart was married to poet and translator Aharon Shabtai."

"French President Jacques Chirac told Israel at the start of the war in Lebanon that France would support an Israeli assault on Syria, it was reported on Sunday.

Army Radio reported that in the message, which was delivered by Chirac to Israel via a secret channel, the French president suggested that Israel invade Damascus and topple the regime of Bashar Assad. In exchange, Chirac assured Israel full French support for the war.

According to the message delivered from Paris, Syria was responsible for the flare up in the North and encouraged Hizbullah to attack.

"Former prime minister Ariel Sharon had explained to the French in the past that Iran is the main one responsible for Hizbullah's armament in Lebanon, while Chirac saw Syria as the primary one responsible for the matter," former Israeli ambassador to France Nissim Zvilli told Army Radio in an interview.

"President Chirac saw Syria as directly responsible for the attempt to undermine the Lebanese regime," he said. "He saw them as directly responsible for the murder of [former Lebanese prime minister] Rafik Hariri and directly responsible for arming Hizbullah. Likewise, he saw Syria as the one giving Hizbullah orders on how to operate."

In March of last year, some four months before the war began, Chirac warned Syria that the international community would respond harshly to any attempt to destabilize Lebanon.

"Syria must understand that any act that encroaches upon the stability of Lebanon, be it through the shipment of weapons or assassinations, is an act that contradicts with its standing in the international community and will trigger a response from the international community," Chirac said at the time.

During the war, France was one of the foremost proponents of sending a multinational UNIFIL force to police the Israel-Lebanon border, and even offered to lead it.

Towards the end of the war, however, diplomatic officials said France had changed its mind out of concern that its badly strained relations with Syria would lead Hizbullah to target French soldiers.

France, the officials pointed out, was instrumental in pushing through UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which forced Syria out of Lebanon. In addition, it was a key force behind the establishment of the commission of inquiry into the assassination of Hariri, who was a personal friend of Chirac. "

By Kurt Nimmo

"Good news for neocons. Iraqis, who we are to believe revel in collective masochism, overwhelmingly approve of the destruction of their social infrastructure and prefer occupation at gunpoint, increasing poverty, malnutrition, and sectarian violence and murder over the rule of Saddam Hussein, or so Rupert Murdoch’s Times Online would have us believe.

“Most Iraqis believe life is better for them now than it was under Saddam Hussein, according to a British opinion poll published today,” the neocon newspaper reports. “The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.”

Naturally, this “opinion poll,” obviously skewered, is for public consumption in Britain and the United States......

But then, of course, Iraqi children like unemployment and poverty, same as Palestinian kids do.

“The UN children’s agency UNICEF has said that Iraq’s maternal mortality rates have increased dramatically over the last 15 years. In 1989, 117 Iraqi mothers out of 100,000 died during pregnancy or childbirth. That ratio has now increased by 65 per cent,” Reuters reported last December.

But then, of course, Iraqi mothers welcomed Bush Senior’s Iraq Invasion I, twelve years of brutal and decimating sanctions, and Bush the Lesser’s invasion and occupation, resulting in three quarters of a million dead people, piled up on the 1.5 million people who perished since 1991, bringing the toll well over a staggering 2 million. Iraqi mothers are proud of skyrocketing infant immortality rates. It is an encyclopedic accomplishment.....

Indeed, amidst generally ignored antiwar protests and futile efforts by Democrats to yank the war funding rug out from beneath Bush and the neocons, the balkanization of Iraq is well underway. “The chairman of the Iraqi Red Crescent said on Saturday that Iraq’s ‘very fragile’ security and its suffering economy continue to prompt the flight of people from their homes across war-torn Iraq,” reports Ya Libnan. “In an interview with CNN, Dr. Said Ismail Hakki addressed the issue of displacement, a dire symbol of the cost of the four-year-old war. He cites large numbers of refugees, people who flee to other countries, and internally displaced people, those who flee to other parts of their country over this last year.” In short, the bantustanization of Iraq along ethnic and religious lines is well advanced.

But then most Iraqis want to live on reservations, locked in open-air prisons guarded by U.S. soldiers (as we are told continually the United States will not leave Iraq anytime soon), same as the Palestinians do....."

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

"BAGHDAD, 18 March 2007 (IRIN) - The United Nations has reiterated its call for the protection of Palestinian refugees in Iraq after Iraqi security forces killed one and detained dozens in raids last week, causing a number of Palestinian families to flee to the border.

“One Palestinian, [who was] a guard at a mosque, was killed with at least one gunshot to the head during the raid on Wednesday,” said Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told reporters in Geneva on Friday. The agency called for the immediate protection of Palestinians in Iraq......

Dalil al-Qusous, the Palestinian Charge d’Affaires in Baghdad, said Iraqi security forces caused “fear and awe” among Palestinians in their raid. He called for the “immediate release of the innocent Palestinian detainees”......

UNHCR’s Redmond said that the raid prompted at least 41 Palestinians to flee the capital and join 850 of their compatriots who have been stranded on the Iraq-Syria border since last May. More were expected to be on their way, he said.

He added that he was concerned for the safety of NGOs working with Palestinians. On 13 March, one NGO staff member dealing with the Palestinian community was abducted in front of his son by unknown men and was found dead the next day, Redmond said.....

Palestinians, many of whom fled to Iraq from the newly created Israel in 1948, were treated well under the government of the deceased former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, causing some Iraqis to resent them.

UNHCR said at least 186 Palestinians were murdered in Baghdad between April 2004 and January 2007, while about 15,000 Palestinians remain in Iraq, less than half the number who had lived there previously.

“We are being killed every day and the whole world is motionless. What have we done to live with this ordeal?” a Palestinian refugee told IRIN in a phone interview from his home on condition of anonymity as he feared reprisals.....

Andrew Harper, head of UNHCR’s Iraq Support Unit, said Palestinians are “particularly targeted, not protected and have nowhere to flee to. How much more will have to happen before the international community and the countries in the region respond positively to calls to have Palestinians relocated out of Iraq?”...."

By Kurt Nimmo

"Last week Jacob Weisberg, writing for Slate, took on the octogenarian Bernard Lewis, the neocon “Orientalist,” for his praise of the Crusades and his criticism of John Paul II’s apology for that mostly forgotten historical event. Lewis made the comments at the American Enterprise Institute’s “annual black-tie gala at the Washington Hilton,” where the elder neocon guru received the Irving Kristol Award, sort of like receiving an award from Hans Fritzsche, head of the Drahtloser Dienst, the Nazi wireless propaganda service. Fritzsche was charged with conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity at Nuremberg, charges neither Lewis nor Kristol will likely ever face, as here in America we honor our war criminals and shower them with tribute.

Lewis, writes Weisberg, is “perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq,” that is to say he served as inspiration for the premeditated slaughter of around 700,000 Iraqis. “In his address, the 90-year-old Lewis did not revisit his argument that regime change in Iraq would provide the jolt needed to modernize the Middle East. Instead, he spoke at length about the millennial struggle between Christianity and Islam,” much to the delight of the gathered neocons. “Here were the theorists of the invasion of Iraq, many of them also Jewish, applauding the notion that the Crusades were not so terrible and embracing a time horizon that makes it impossible to judge them wrong,” Weisberg continues. “And here was the clubhouse of the neocons throwing itself a lavish ‘do, when the biggest question in American politics is how to escape the hole they’ve dug. Reality seemed to have taken up residence elsewhere for the evening.”.....

For some reason, Mr. Weisberg has neglected to mention that Condi Rice now has as her trusted consigliere “the most influential neoconservative in academe,” Eliot Cohen. Weisberg would have us believe there is a yawning divide between the neocons and the “realist school” neolibs, an impression dashed upon a cursory examination of the company Mr. Cohen keeps: Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, and other neolib riffraff in addition to the usual neocon suspects at the Project for the New American Century (Cohen is a founding signatory of this criminal organization) and the American Enterprise Institute, where Bush gets his “minds.” Of course, the difference between neolibs and their neocon kissing cousins is but cosmetic, as the latter prefer shock and awe mass murder while the former engage in medieval sanctions of the sort that resulted in 1.5 million dead Iraqis, 500,000 of them children, a record the neocons are working hard to beat.

As Scott Thompson and Jeffrey Steinberg note, during “the Carter Administration, Lewis was the architect of madman Zbigniew Brzezinski’s ‘Arc of Crisis’ policy of fomenting Muslim Brotherhood fundamentalist insurrections all along the southern tier of the Soviet Union. The planned fostering of radical Islamist war provocations was known, at the time, as ‘the Bernard Lewis Plan,’” a plan resulting in the creation of “al-Qaeda,” the intelligence fabrication now said to be once again sprouting up like toxic weeds in “failed states” awaiting action on the shock and awe roster. “In 1992, in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, Lewis celebrated in the pages of the New York Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs that the era of the nation-state in the Middle East had come to an inglorious end, and the entire region should expect to go through a prolonged period of ‘Lebanonization’—i.e., degeneration into fratricidal, parochialist violence and chaos.”

This “degeneration into fratricidal, parochialist violence and chaos” is well underway and, regardless of Jacob Weisberg’s observations while in attendance at the AEI blood sport “gala” in Washington, will continue, minus the former cast, now taking up residence at the World Bank and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, as war criminals are rewarded handsomely in America, as evidenced by the fact Henry Kissinger is still walking around and Bush Senior and Bill Clinton are cherished as masters of statecraft, that is to say they are seasoned mass murderers making Charlie Manson look like little more than a dismissible enfant terrible."

"This video released by Al-Jazeera, showing one member of Iraqi resistance putting explosives under a US tank in Ramadi."


Click Here to Watch

The national popular resistance in Iraq, in defending the whole of humanity against a culture of force, deserves our recognition and support.

by Hana Al-Bayaty
(member of the Executive Committee of The BRussells Tribunal)

Global Research, March 18, 2007

"The illegal invasion and destruction of Iraq is not only the biggest crime of recent history, it is the original sin of the 21st century, a depravity. In its war on Iraq, the United States has sought to destroy Iraq as both a state and a nation. It decimated an entire class — the progressive middle class of Iraq that had proven its capacity to manage Iraqi resources independently and to the benefit of all; it killed nearly a million while sending millions more into exile; it orchestrated death squads and looting and invented new horrors in torture and rape; in the name of bringing democracy, it brought material destruction on a mass scale to a people, aiming also to erase their identity, memory, culture, social fabric, institutions and forms of administration, commerce, and everyday life; it even attacked Iraq’s unborn generations with the 4.7 billion-year death of depleted uranium. It has engaged in civilisational genocide as well as its own moral suicide. Force, however, does not dictate right. The brutality of power and imperialism has been definitively exposed while the project for a new American century has utterly failed. The consequences for American and international history are conclusive. The world order that formed around erstwhile US liberal values has evaporated.......

We should support the call of Tun Dr Mahatir Mohammed to criminalise war as a means of resolving disputes among nations. We should support this call not only because war is a crime, but also because war again has been proven useless. Iraq cannot be broken and cannot be subjugated. The defeat of the United States and the occupation should be a lesson; that never again a military force tries to subjugate the people of another country. The US did not and cannot achieve its goals, even if it exterminates whole sections of Iraqi society. To succeed in stopping this insanity, the anti-war movement must revise all its terminology and refuse the terms dictated by the occupation. We must condemn the ignorance that accepts the dehumanising of the other. We must refuse the word “insurgency” and substitute it for what exists in reality: legitimate and legal resistance against vicious foreign occupation. Occupation is a de facto condition, not a de jure determination. With around 200,000 foreign forces on Iraqi soil, Iraq cannot be but described as an occupied country. Detainees in Iraq should thus be considered prisoners of war, with all the protected rights the Third Geneva Convention assures them.

We ought all to be humbled by the losses this people has been prepared to endure for our sake and demand the complete, unconditional and immediate withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraqi soil, along with the cancellation of any law, treaty, agreement or contract passed under occupation and the fair payment of reparations and compensations for the tragic human and material loses the Iraqis have suffered in defence of civilisation. We must refuse in total the culture of the military-imperial state if we are to contribute to the wave of resistance rising worldwide in defence of civilisation, justice, independence and coexistence. We must retrieve recognition from any entity imposed by the United States and that claims to represent the people of Iraq. Long live the Iraqi people and its sole representative, the Iraqi Resistance."

Habila and "Brother" Dahlan Celebrating

"Gaza - Ma'an - The spokesperson of the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abu Rdainah, announced on Sunday that president Mahmoud Abbas has endorsed two decrees: to reestablish the Security Council and appoint Muhammad Dahlan as the president's national security advisor.

With regards to the first meeting of the unity government, which was held in Gaza City on Sunday, headed by president Abbas, Abu Rdainah said that "the Israeli refusal to cooperate with the unity government is absolutely unacceptable; the Israeli government has to respect the Palestinian choice."

He told the press that "this is an opportunity to achieve peace, safety and stability. If the Israeli government is seriously interested in peace, they have to cooperate with this unity government which has an elected president who is authorized to negotiate with the Israelis."

Abu Rdainah depicted the first meeting of the unity government as positive and reflecting the post-Mecca atmosphere of hope. "

***

"Dahlan as the president's national security advisor"....
Now that deserves special celebrations!

Let us see: Finances controlled by a U.S. and World Bank Mafia don and who was dictated by Saudi Arabia; "national security" controlled by a CIA asset and a Mossad agent. What could be a greater Palestinian achievement than this! Great hopes are riding on this "unity government," indeed.

شدد على ضرورة رفع الحصار خلال القمة العربية
أبو مرزوق: رفض الغرب الاعتراف بالحكومة الفلسطينية سيؤدي إلى مزيد من الفوضى

"دمشق - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام

حذّر الدكتور موسى أبو مرزوق، نائب رئيس المكتب السياسي لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس"، الكيان الصهيوني والدول الغربية من مغبة عدم الاعتراف بحكومة الوحدة الوطنية الفلسطينية، مؤكداً أن ذلك سيؤدي إلى مزيد من الفوضى.

وقال: "ليس هناك من مجال، في الوقت الحاضر، للمجتمع الدولي إلا التعامل مع الحكومة الفلسطينية، بعد أن فرض حصاراً متواصلاً على الشعب الفلسطيني منذ أكثر من سنة"، مشيراً إلى أنه "سيكون على عاتق الاجتماعات المقبلة للجنة الرباعية واجب أخلاقي بتجاوز ما كانت تضعه، والتعامل مع حكومة الوحدة الوطنية".

وشدد أبو مرزوق، في تصريح صحفي له، على أن الكرة الآن في المرمى الصهيوني، وفي مرمى الغرب، للتعامل مع الحكومة الفلسطينية"، موضحاً أن "أي خطوة أخرى خارج هذا السياق لن تؤدي إلا إلى مزيد من الفوضى والظلم والتعامل اللاأخلاقي مع القضية الفلسطينية والشعب الفلسطيني".

وطالب القيادي الفلسطيني البارز القمة العربية، المقرر عقدها أواخر الشهر الحالي (آذار/ مارس) في الرياض، بالتعاون مع الحكومة الفلسطينية الجديدة، والإيفاء بالالتزامات، التي نصت عليها قمم الخرطوم، والاجتماع الوزاري في جامعة الدول العربية، بشأن فك الحصار المفروض على الفلسطينيين".

كما دعا القمة للعمل مع الحكومات الغربية "لوضع حد للشروط الظالمة، التي فرضت على الشعب الفلسطيني، نتيجة خياره الديمقراطي"، معرباًَ عن أمله في ألا تكون هناك أوراق جديدة لا تخدم الشعب الفلسطيني ولا قضيته العادلة، خلال القمة القادمة، وخاصة ما طالبت به مؤخراً وزيرة الخارجية الصهيونية تسيبي ليفني بإجراء تعديلات على المبادرة العربية".

من جهة أخرى؛ جدد الدكتور موسى أبو مرزوق اتهامه لرئيس وزراء الاحتلال إيهود أولمرت بإعاقة التوصل أكثر من مرة إلى صفقة لتبادل الأسرى.، وقال: "الكرة موجودة الآن في ملعب أولمرت، وبإمكانه الخروج من هذه الدوامة بالاعتراف بحق الأسرى الفلسطينيين في الحرية"، مؤكداً أن الحكومة الفلسطينية الجديدة وضعت هذا الموضوع ضمن أولوياتها. "

Abu Marzook: Non-recognition of PA unity government would spur violence

"DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Senior Hamas political leader and deputy-head of its political bureau Dr. Mousa Abu Marzook has warned Saturday the West and Israel of not recognizing the PA unity government, adding that such stand could lead to more chaos in the region.

“The international community has no option but to deal with the PA unity government that comprises various Palestinian political shades across the spectrum, and the Quartet is ethically-bound to lift the economic siege on the Palestinian people”, Abu Marzook added.

Remarks of the Hamas leader came in a press statement he issued and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC on Saturday.

“The ball is in the court of Israel and the West as they have to positively deal with the Palestinian people ;yet, any step outside that framework would spur more disorder in the region”, the Hamas leader stressed.

In this context, Abu Marzook called on the upcoming Arab summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh late this month to cooperate with the PA unity government, and to fulfill the commitments made to the Palestinians.

In the Arab summit in the Sudanese capital Khartoum last year, Arab countries pledged financial assistance to the PA government, and Arab foreign ministers decided, in their conference in the Egyptian capital Cairo few months ago, to break the unjust economic on the Palestinians.

Yet, no concrete steps in this direction had been taken so far.

Moreover, Abu Marzook invited Arab leaders not to heed USA and Israeli demands of amending terms of the Arab Initiative pertaining to the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, affirming that RoR is a Palestinian legal right that none could compromise.

Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni earlier called on Arab leaders to modify the initiative in away that would make it “acceptable” to Israel......"

***

Such vision.......such revolutionary program. I am speechless.....
What would the Palestinians do without Hamas....

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)