Palestinian Pundit

A Comment By Tony Sayegh

Last week, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah in a televised speech concerning the events around Nahr El-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon stated that attacks by the thugs of Fath Al-Islam on the Lebanese Army were a red line. He called for the arrest and trial of those responsible for attacking and killing Lebanese soldiers. Equally important, Nasrallah stated that a military attack on the refugee camp, which is the home of some 40,000 Palestinian refugees, by the Lebanese Army is another red line.

At the time of the speech a pseudo truce was in effect which allowed about 25,000 of the Palestinian refugees to flee Nahr El-Bared to other refugee camps, primarily the nearby Beddawi refugee camp which has doubled in size. Since then, and especially in the past two days, the Lebanese Army, utilizing newly supplied U.S. artillery and a helicopter, has been shelling Nahr El-Bared at the rate of one shell every few seconds around the clock. Fires are raging in parts of the camp and destruction due to the random shelling is expected to be large.

The Lebanese Army is keeping all reporters at least two kilometers away and is not allowing humanitarian workers entry into the camp, which still has up to 15,000 refugees holed-up inside with no water, food, electricity or medical supplies. A catastrophe of huge proportions is in the making, which explains the Army’s rough treatment of all journalists and the complete news blackout on what is unfolding. As Dr. Marcy Newman stated in a live dispatch from near the camp, “…one refugee from Nahr al-Bared camp, who passed through a checkpoint earlier today, was told by a Lebanese soldier, ‘I hope that we can round up all the Palestinians, throw benzene on you, and light a fire.’ This is a truth that Lebanon does not want told.”

With this dramatic escalation taking place, Hizbullah has fallen silent.

When Hizbullah was resisting the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon last summer all Palestinians in Lebanon, in the occupied areas and everywhere, stood by Hizbullah, and Nasrallah was celebrated as a hero. Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon, in spite of their meager means, opened their homes to Lebanese refugees from the south. Sadly, the reverse has not happened to the Palestinian refugees fleeing Nahr El-Bared. I read that not one Lebanese church, mosque or any civil group has opened its doors to the Palestinians.

The Palestinians have become accustomed to respect the word of Nasrallah. He, in the past, said what he meant and meant what he said. Last winter hundreds of thousands of Hizbullah supporters took to the streets of Beirut and thousands of them have been camped out outside the Sarai of Prime Minister Siniora, whose government Hizbullah considers illegitimate. Nothing comparable has happened in support of the Palestinian refugees being slaughtered by the army of that same illegitimate government. The question is, why? Hizbullah’s credibility, especially with the Palestinians, is on the line.

It is quite possible that Hizbullah suspects that the attack on Nahr El-Bared and the flood of U.S. weapons to the Siniora government is a prelude to another round of attacks targeting Hizbullah itself. This time it will be a two-pronged attack: Israel from the south and the newly equipped Lebanese Army from the north. If this happens, Hizbullah would find its natural base of support among the Palestinians in Lebanon. Therefore, it behooves Hizbullah not to try to be politically correct and to respect its own warning that an all-out attack on Nahr El-Bared is a red line. It is time for Hizbullah to act and to back up its words with action.

The northern entrance of Nahr al-Bared Refugee Camp, under fire from Lebanese forces. (Dr. Marcy Newman)

When we finally reached Badawi camp to deliver the medicine we were learned that one refugee from Nahr al-Bared camp, who passed through a checkpoint earlier today, was told by a Lebanese soldier, "I hope that we can round up all the Palestinians, throw benzene on you, and light a fire." This is a truth that Lebanon does not want told. These are the stories that must be told and they far outweigh and out number the story of one prominent, wealthy Lebanese leader's international tribunal.

By Dr. Marcy Newman writing from Beirut, Live from Lebanon, 2 June 2007
(Dr. Marcy Newman is a Visiting Professor at the Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut and a Fellow at the Initiative for Middle East Policy Dialogue)

".......Since early morning U.S. weapons have bombarded the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon, though no one can get a clear idea about what exactly is happening there. On the news we watched bombs going off every few seconds all day long with huge clouds of black smoke smoldering in the sky.......

We saw a crowd of photojournalists who had also been stopped by the army. They were prohibited from shooting film footage of what was going on in the camp and were forced to stay some two to three kilometers from the area where the army was directing its new U.S. donated artillery. Some reported being shot at by the army earlier in the day. All of them (Lebanese and internationals alike) complained of the army inhibiting them from telling the story of what is actually happening in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. For a country with signs declaring "the truth" everywhere you look it seems rather ironic that journalists are prevented from witnessing the events unfolding before them.

Throughout the day we heard that two Lebanese soldiers were killed and that twelve "terrorists" were also killed. How they know these figures is perplexing, but what is particularly disturbing is that somehow the fact that 15,000 Palestinians still trapped inside this camp are completely absent from the news coverage of the story inside Lebanon (and I gather outside as well). Somehow the fact that there will be Palestinian civilians indiscriminately killed because of this incessant bombing escapes the media's attention......"

If you have ever seen Palestinian children reverentially holding aloft those ancient keys to the abandoned homes of their parents and grandparents, you would know what I am talking about.

By Aijaz Zaka Syed
PalestineChronicle.com

"Lebanon is no stranger to conflicts. Especially those involving the Palestinians. But as my hero Robert Fisk, offering another ringside view of another war in the Middle East says, there is something really ‘obscene’ about watching the ever suffering Palestinians get caught in another war that is not of their making.......

Thousands of Palestinians have escaped with only their clothes on the back. Hundreds of families have been torn apart as they ran for their lives once again in their eventful history.

The fact that most of these families are the survivors of the 1982 Invasion by Israel and the subsequent Sabra and Shatila massacres by Ariel Sharon’s goons only underscores the never-ending tragedy that is the Palestinian existence. How long will the Palestinians have to pay for the crimes that they have not committed?

According to the UN, there are still nearly eight thousand Palestinian refugees trapped inside Nahr Al Bared that was originally home to nearly 40,000 of them, without food and war. Many of the Palestinians fled for safety after an informal ceasefire came into being last week. As I write this, the Lebanese troops have resumed their attack......

Many others suggest that Fatah Al Islam are mere mercenaries who, unbeknownst to them, could be part of a bigger plot to destablise Lebanon and ensnare the already bedevilled Middle East into another conflict. The fact that the US has lost no time in jumping into the fray by rushing ‘military aid’ to the Fouad Siniora government gives credence to the second opinion......

The Palestinian refugees do not exactly live in ideal conditions elsewhere in the Middle East. Poverty, unemployment and other problems that go with them are common everywhere, just as they are in the Occupied Territories. They are seen with suspicion and have little freedom of movement or action, wherever they are.

However, Lebanon is easily the worst of them all for the Palestinians. Living in abject poverty and squalid conditions, they are prisoners in their camps for all intents and purposes. This is not my view but the shared opinion of the UN aid agencies and civil society groups working in the region. The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have no rights, freedom or dignity, to speak of. As some conscientious UN officials and independent journalists have tried to report, the Palestinians have been caught yet again in a dangerous game of big powers. And they are being meted out collective punishment for what they are. The Western media has already condemned them for ‘supporting Al Qaeda elements.’

If Fatah Al Islam snipers are shooting at Palestinian women and children fleeing Nahr Al Bared, the Lebanese tanks are firing deep inside the refugee camp — ostensibly at Fatah Al Islam terrorists. However, they always end up targeting Palestinian civilians......."

"Ramallah – Ma'an – A prominent Fatah leader and member of the Fatah revolutionary council, Othman Abu Gharbiyya, on Saturday criticized "foreign attempts to interfere in the movement's development."

"Foreign intervention in the movement's organisational structure is practiced by several parties, including the US and Europeans. They intervene at both formal and informal levels, as if the organisational structure is something that can be manipulated according to foreign demands," said Abu Gharbiyya.

He added, "Foreign intervention previously reached the degree of determining the names of candidates to be nominated for legislative elections or those to be excluded, and there was intervention even in the names to be nominated for organisational committees."....."

***

A Comment:

Instead of criticizing "foreign powers" why don't you look inwards and ask how a supposedly "revolutionary" movement degenerated to become an Usraeli tool dependent on Usrael and their Arab puppets (KSA, Egypt and Jordan) for arms, training and financing? How can the Palestinians have any faith in an organization that allows this to happen and in the open? To have any chances of survival, Fatah has to be rebuilt from the ground up. It has to purge itself from all the collaborators and agents such as Dahlan; even the puppet Abbas has to be kicked out.

I am afraid that it is way too late for that to happen or to succeed. The rot and decay are total and the only thing left is to give Fatah a burial.

By Khalid Amayreh

thepeoplesvoice.org Via uruknet.info

"Shortly before Israeli occupation soldiers in cold blood murdered two Gaza children, who apparently were searching for scrap metal to sell for a few cents in order to help feed their impoverished families, the former Chief rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Elyahu, urged the Israeli army and government to use the "Nazi choice" against Palestinians.

Elyahu reportedly petitioned the Israeli government to carry out a series of carpet bombings of Palestinian population centers in Gaza, arguing that a ground invasion of the world’s most crowded spot would endanger Israeli soldiers.

"If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Elyahu, the son of Mordechai Elyahu, quoting his father. "And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

Mordechai, considered one of the most knowledgeable Talmudic sages in Israel, said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews for fear of injuring and killing Palestinian civilians......

This totally racist discourse toward non-Jews represents the mainstream and modus operandi at Merkaz Harav where Talmudic sages such as Haim Druckman, Avraham Shapira, Dov Lior, etc, teach that non-Jews are sub-humans, and ought to be enslaved or destroyed.

Western people, constantly brainwashed with unceasing Zionist propaganda and disinformation about Israeli "democracy" and "liberalism" might be prompted to think that such ideas are marginal, eccentric or even anecdotal and that they are espoused by only a small bunch of Talmudic extremists. But this is not the case at all. Today, this Nazi-like ideology is "manual for action" for hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world, especially in Israel, including the estimated half a million settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem who openly claim that non-Jews living under Jewish rule ought to be enslaved, expelled or annihilated......

There is no doubt that the nefarious ideas of Jewish supremacy, as taught by Talmudic circles such as Mirkaz Harav, is poisoning and even nazifying the minds of thousands of Jewish and Israeli youths. Earlier in May, a recent Jewish immigrant from France murdered in cold blood an Arab taxi driver from East Jerusalem after beguiling the unsuspecting victim to take him to Netanya. The murderer, named Julian Sufir, had apparently been subjected to heavy doses of religious indoctrination at a synagogue near his home, which probably preached the message that non-Jews are infra-humans. When this Sufir was interrogated by policy, he so calmly and nonchalantly told them that "I just wanted to kill an Arab, any Arab. There is no difference between killing an Arab and killing an animal. When I killed him, I felt I was slaughtering a sheep.!!".......

This danger is so real and so tangible especially when one considers the fact that tens of thousands of Israeli occupation soldiers happen to be graduates of Talmudic schools, known as Yeshevot. Needless to say, most of these schools teach that killing innocent Arab children is a great mitzvah and makes a Jew closer to God......

I say "when" because the Israeli Jewish society is drifting menacingly to jingoistic religious chauvinism that can be compared with the drifting ideological currents among Germans in the mid and late 1930s. Hence, a takeover of power in Israel by the settler and pro-settler camp is not a matter of "if" but rather "when" it will happen......"

The Three Puppets Promised an American Paradise!

Government for Hire

A Good Piece

By RANNIE AMIRI
CounterPunch

"As the siege of the Nahr al-Barad refugee camp in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli enters its third week, the last piece of this strange puzzle has finally been put in place. For completing the jigsaw of Tripoli, we have no less than the Bush administration itself to thank, along with the three stooges of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.....

So if the well-armed extremists were invited into Lebanon by Siniora and Hariri Inc., why now turn against them? If they were to do their bidding against Hezbollah (their real nemesis; presciently calling on the government to resign for the past several months) what led to the current conflict?

It was by no coincidence that shortly after hostilities began with the unwelcome guests, the United States and their Arab allies did not hesitate an instant to either send or pledge sophisticated weaponry and arms to the Lebanese government in order to combat "al-Qaeda's" presence there.

We should remember that none of these countries lifted a finger to stop the Israeli onslaught of Lebanon last summer by even appealing to the United States to call for a ceasefire. They too wanted Hezbollah destroyed.

So what Israel could not accomplish last year will now be done from within.

In both Lebanon and Iraq, the solution is to foment division among the people in order to ignite a civil war. It is already well under way in Iraq. And if Israel was unable neutralize Hezbollah prior to a US strike against Iran, it appears an attempt to create a similar climate is taking place in Lebanon......

Fouad Siniora, Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt, in this most ugly game, have indeed proven the Lebanese government to be one for hire."

By Charley Reese

".....Of course, these days Memorial Day gets larded with politics and pseudo-patriotism. It's nauseating to watch a bunch of actors, entertainers and politicians who never heard a gun fired in anger put on a maudlin performance as if they really gave a rat's toenail for the dead......

War is mass murder, and no doubt part of the degradation of the human species is the fact that starting with the War Between the States, the human toll of war has increased exponentially. It's ironic that wars take the healthiest and bravest, while the unhealthy and the cowardly manage to evade them.....

The present war is a bad war. It is not being fought to protect freedom, let alone the American people. Poor Cindy Sheehan, who bravely protested the war, finally gave up. She felt betrayed by the Democrats, by the antiwar movement, but the saddest thing of all, she said, was that she finally faced the fact her son died for nothing.

And sad as it is to say, it's true. The politicians and some of the media chicken hawks like to fork the fertilizer talking about sacrifices for freedom (sacrifices most of them studiously avoid ever making), but it's just fertilizer......

Why did we go to war in Iraq? Because the president hated Saddam Hussein; because the Israeli lobby wanted us to; because the crazy neoconservatives had the insane idea that the Middle East could be democratized at the point of a gun; because oil companies and other corporations lusted for profit......."

Israel is Using Guerrilla Tactics More Successfully Than the Palestinians; Can You Believe This??

Israeli Undercover Agents Enter a Refugee Camp in the Middle of Gaza and Abduct Four, Including Two in the PA "Security" Services!

"Gaza - Ma'an – The media spokesman for the Palestinian national security service in the southern area has announced that undercover Israeli forces arrested four citizens, including two brothers, who are both employees in the national security service, on Saturday at dawn.

The spokesman said that the Israeli unit entered the central Gaza Strip Al Maghazi refugee camp and arrested the men, after entering the camp at 4:00am and invasively searching their home."

By Khalid Amayreh

"......The sheer injustice of this occupation has escalated rapidly of late, with the construction of a gigantic concrete wall in the West Bank, which has effectively reduced Palestinian population centers to de-facto detention camps.

As expected, the shipyard dogs of Zionism, from California to Tel Aviv, including the heads of organized Jewish communities in Britain, have been protesting wildly the UCU decision, describing it as unfair and hasty. Some of the more irate Zionists have shamelessly called the decision 'unethical', 'unconscionable' and 'immoral' as if there is anything moral about the Nazi-like treatment meted out to these helpless Palestinians for wanting to be free from the shackles of Jewish racism......

The truth of the matter is that supporters of apartheid in Israel have no more right to lecture British academics on the morality of boycotting the Jewish state than does a famous courtesan in lecturing critics on the virtues of chastity or an irredeemable thief preaching honesty. I say this because no other state under the sun embodies brutal racism and apartheid and murder and oppression against a constantly hounded and tormented people more than Israel does.

Today, Israel looks very much like Germany prior the Second World War when Jews and non-Jews alike were experiencing the poisoned, macabre atmosphere of virulent racism fostered and promoted by the Third Reich. This week, the Shin Bet, Israel's chief domestic intelligence agency, made it very clear that even legal and fully lawful activities questioning Israel's apartheid policies and institutionalized racism (e.g. that Israel is a Jewish state, not a state of all its citizens) would be strongly suppressed. In other words, non-Jewish citizens in Israel proper (let alone in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem) have no right even to use whatever legal loopholes there are to demand equality as citizens. Needless to say, this is fascism, pure, brash and simple.....

And at the top of all of this, the Israeli army has been arresting thousands of political and community leaders throughout the West Bank, including Palestinian cabinet officials, lawmakers, mayors, doctors, teachers, college professors, business leaders, students, intellectuals, journalists, religious leaders who make up the crème de la crème of the Palestinian society.This Gestapo-like madness is obviously aimed at throwing the Palestinian community off-balance and depriving the Palestinian people of competent leaders who would stand in the face of Israel's efforts to liquidate the enduring Palestinian cause.....

In the preceding years of the Second World War, the world committed a fatal mistake when it gave Nazi Germany the benefit of the doubt on the ground that maybe, just maybe, Hitler and cohorts might revert to their senses. Now, the world can't and shouldn't allow itself to make the same fateful blunder again. If Israel is not stopped now, there is no doubt that it will follow the same, the very same, footsteps of the Nazis. The writing is on the wall, even literally, as in Hebron. "

By Gabriel Kolko

".......A state based on religion rather than the will of all of its inhabitants was at the end of the 19th century not only a medieval notion but also a very eccentric idea, one Herzl concocted in the rarified environment of cafes where ideas were produced with scant regard for reality. It was also full of countless contradictions, based not merely on the conflicts between theological dogmas and democracy but also vast cultural differences among Jews, all of which were to appear later. Europe's Jews have precious little in common, and their mores and languages are very distinct. But the gap between Jews from Europe and those from the Arab world was far, far greater.......

....Moreover, from its inception Zionism was symbiotic on Great Powers – principally Great Britain – that saw it as a way of spreading their colonial ambitions to the Middle East. As early as 1902 Herzl met with Joseph Chamberlain, then British Colonial Secretary, to further Zionist claims in the region bordering Egypt, and the following year he hired David Lloyd George – later to become prime minister – to handle the Zionist case......

It was scarcely an accident that in November 1917 Lord Arthur Balfour was to make Britain's historic endorsement of a Jewish homeland in their newly mandated territory of Palestine in a letter to Rothschild......

It is a Zionist myth that there were many Jews who wished to go to a primitive, hot, dusty place and did so. They did not – and all of the available numbers prove this conclusively. After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 the Pale was abolished and a very large number of the Jews in it moved to Russia's cities; many of them saw the Bolsheviks as liberators and filled the ranks of the revolution at every level. If they emigrated, and here the numbers are very important, it was not – if they had a choice – to Palestine......

In 1893 there were an estimated 10,000 Jews in Palestine, 61,000 in 1920, and 122,000 in 1925. All of these figures are only the best-informed estimates; there were censuses in 1922 and 1931 only, and even the 1922 numbers are contested. But the general trend is beyond doubt and very clear. For every Jew who went to Palestine from 1890 to 1924, at least 27 went to the Western Hemisphere alone. Relatively, the Zionist project was the utopian dream of a tiny minority and it would have failed save for two factors, the Holocaust and the much-overlooked fact that in 1924 the U.S. passed a new immigration law based on quotas using the nationalities distribution in the 1890 census as a basis, effectively cutting off migration from East and South Europe to a mere trickle of what it had been......."

The Lebanese "Army" Must be Getting Ready for Tea Service....
It Has Just Raised the White Flag.....Which it Does Best!

The lessons of Vietnam
Iraq desperately needs a political solution in the short term to make the war more manageable for the next president.

By Henry A. Kissinger
The Los Angeles Times

"......Vietnam and Iraq are different conflicts in different times, but there is an important similarity: A point was reached during the Vietnam War when the domestic debate became so bitter as to preclude rational discussion of hard choices. Administrations of both political parties perceived the survival of South Vietnam as a significant national interest. They were opposed by a protest movement that coalesced behind the conviction that the war reflected an amorality that had to be purged by confrontational methods. This impasse doomed the U.S. effort in Vietnam; it must not be repeated over Iraq......

American disunity was a major element in dashing these hopes. Watergate fatally weakened the Nixon administration through its own mistakes, and the 1974 midterm congressional elections brought to power the most unforgiving of Nixon's opponents, who cut off aid so the agreement couldn't work as planned. The imperatives of domestic debate took precedence over geopolitical necessities.

Two lessons emerge from this account. A strategic design cannot be achieved on a fixed, arbitrary deadline; it must reflect conditions on the ground. But it also must not test the endurance of the American public to a point where the outcome can no longer be sustained by our political process. In Iraq, rapid, unilateral withdrawal would be disastrous. At the same time, a political solution remains imperative.

A political settlement has to be distilled from the partly conflicting, partly overlapping views of the Iraqi parties, Iraq's neighbors and other affected states, based on a conviction that the caldron of Iraq would otherwise overflow and engulf everybody. The essential prerequisite is staying power in the near term. President Bush owes it to his successor to make as much progress toward this goal as possible; not to hand the problem over but to reduce it to more manageable proportions. What we need most is a rebuilding of bipartisanship in both this presidency and in the next."

***

So, there you have it: The one (war) party system in the name of "bipartisanship." The war criminal is not satisfied with having killed some 3 million Vietnamese; he wants even more Iraqis killed!

Will the US Raze Sadr City?

By WILLIAM S. LIND
CounterPunch

"......Now, it seems, the Bush Administration insists on extending the folly of maximalist objectives from total war into cabinet wars, and moreover into cabinet wars it is losing (or more accurately has lost). In public, it blathers on about democracy for Iraq, a war objective that reaches beyond maximalism into pure fantasy. In private, its real objectives, unchanged since long before the war began, are no less disconnected from reality. It seeks an Iraq that is a willing American satellite, a bottomless source of oil for America's SUVs, a permanent site for vast U.S. military bases from which Washington can dominate the region, and an ally of Israel. The skies will be darkened by winged swine long before any of these objectives are attained.

At this point, for those who want to continue the Iraq war, only one objective makes any sense: restoring a state in Iraq before we leave, or more likely as we leave. A state, any kind of state, under any government; to try to specify anything more is, in the face of our military failure, maximalism and unreality.......

The White House, of course, will accept none of this. Bush's maximalism is part and parcel of his defining break with reality. But our commanders on scene, Admiral Fallon and General Petraeus, may see it. If they do, they have a moral responsibility to act on it, the White House be damned. At this point in a lost game, we must take whatever route might, just might, lead to restoring an Iraqi state. The alternative, a stateless Iraq, will represent such a vast victory for Islamic Fourth Generation forces that any real Iraqi government, however unfriendly to the United States, is infinitely preferable.

If the folly of maximalist objectives instead remains our guide, we will know soon enough. The U.S. will go to war with the Mahdi Army, do a Fallujah on Sadr City (for which the U.S. military has already drawn up plans) and try to capture or kill al-Sadr himself. At that point the war in Iraq will effectively have no strategic objective at all, beyond being a gift beyond price to old Osama."

Al-Manar

"01/06/2007 نقلت وكالة أخبار لبنان عن مصدر واسع الاطلاع قوله، ان عدد الموقوفين من عناصر فتح الاسلام بلغ خمساً وعشرين عنصراً ينتمون الى جنسيات مختلفة مع اغلبية لبنانية، وهو ما تبين في ادعاء مفوض الحكومة لدى المحكمة العسكرية القاضي جان فهد على عشرين شخصا من "فتح الإسلام"، أوقفوا في أحداث نهر البارد بينهم ثمانية عشرة لبناني وسوري ومجنس واحد.

ولفت المصدر الذي نقلت عنه وكالة اخبار لبنان الى ان اعترافات هذه العناصر، حملت إدانات لطرف سياسي ثبت رعايته لهذه الجماعة بهدف استخدامها في مواقع مختلفة من الصراع الداخلي، الا ان انقلاباً ما في الموقف جعل من هذه الجماعة تبادل العداء مع الطرف الراعي لها. واضاف المصدر ان الموقوفين اعترفوا بتفجير عين علق والسطو على مصارف واطلاق قذائف على ثكنات قوى الامن الداخلي اضافة الى اعترافات اخرى تحفظ المصدر عن ذكرها.

وأوضح المصدر أن الاعترافات أظهرت أن هذه العناصر تتبع لمجموعات منفصلة ولا تنتظم في اطار تنظيمي ثابت ومحدد وهو الاسلوب الذي يعمل به تنظيم القاعدة حسب المصدر الذي اضاف ان الاعترافات اكدت ان الرعاية لجماعة فتح الاسلام كانت من قبل تيار المستقبل ورئيسه سعد الحريري مباشرة، وان الخلاف مع المستقبل بدأ عندما اوقف الدعم المالي لهذه الجماعة الامر الذي دفع بها الى تبعث برسائل امنية تمثلت باطلاق قذائف الانيرغا على ثكنات قوى الامن الداخلي وتحديداً في بيروت.

وتابعت وكالة أخبار لبنان عن المصدر نفسه قوله ان الاعترافات اكدت ان الاجهزة الامنية وتحديداً شعبة المعلومات كانت تعرف من يقف وراء هذه القذائف الليلية وكانت تعرف انها نتيجة الخلاف بين فتح الاسلام وتيار المستقبل الا انها لم تتجرأ على اتهام مجموعة فتح الاسلام حتى تبادر هذه الجماعة الى كشف حقيقة ارتباطها بتار المستقبل وتحديداً على صعيد التمويل."

"CAIRO, (PIC)-- An article published by the Cairo based al-Ahram al-Arabi magazine said that many Fatah leaders feel that Muhammad Dahlan has hijacked the movement with the consent of President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was stated in the article that the magazine has surveyed the opinions of a large number of angry Fatah leaders in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip "who felt that Dahaln has hijacked the [Fatah] movement with the consent of President Mahmoud Abbas."

The article also pointed to the fact that many historic leaders of Fatah have taken a back seat since Mahmoud Abbas took over the leadership of the PA after the death of Yassir Arafat allowing Dahlan's trend to gain strength inside the movement and to bypass Fatah's Central Committee and Revolutionary Council through direct support from Abbas.

A member of Fatah's Central Committee told the magazine on condition of anonymity that the committee found itself in a difficult position as did not want to enter into a confrontation with Abbas who overlooks Dahlan's excesses and at the same time they could not criticize him at a time when clashes between Hamas and Dahaln's trend were taking place.

The article also attributes the strength of Dahlan to finance stating that after the death of Arafat, financial support, which used to come from Gulf countries dried up, but Dahlan has been bankrolling the movement since then with funds the sources of which and the agenda behind is not clear.

There are claims that Dahlan has managed by some mysterious power to reopen the tap from Gulf countries and claims that Dahalan is directly supported financially by the USA and even Europe, according to the article.

All these factors, as well as his ability to network with and employ many Fatah cadres, have allowed Dahlan to establish an organization inside Fatah which is answerable to him only and the strength of which parallels that of the mother movement.

A majority inside Fatah's Central Committee voted against the Abbas's proposal to appoint Dahlan to the Committee.

Some members of the Revolutionary Council have been calling for a meeting of the Council, which was supposed to take place on 18 May, to discuss the latest situation in the Palestinian arena blaming Dahlan for the deterioration and for inciting against Hamas which culminated in the armed clashes in Gaza....."

Some Army posts to end individual memorials

"Soldiers from Fort Lewis, Wash., and Fort Drum, N.Y., who are killed in combat will be honored during monthly group memorials instead of individual services beginning in June.

At Fort Lewis, the decision was announced in a May 22 e-mail from Brig. Gen. William Troy, the acting commanding general of I Corps and Fort Lewis, to the command and staff on post, said Joe Piek, a Fort Lewis spokesman. The first group memorial is expected to take place the third week of June.

“As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with the number of soldiers we now have in harm’s way, our losses will preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies,” Troy wrote in his e-mail. “I see this as a way of sharing the heavy burdens our spouses and rear detachments bear, while giving our fallen warriors the respect they deserve. It will also give the families of the fallen the opportunity to bond with one another, as they see others who share their grief.”

Group memorial services already are taking place at other Army posts, Piek said.

Nineteen Fort Lewis soldiers were killed in Iraq in May....."

Lebanese Candles of "Joy" for the Formation and Authorization of the "International Court"

Clemens Messerschmid, The Electronic Intifada, 1 June 2007

(Clemens Messerschmid has been living and working since 1997 as a hydrogeologist in Ramallah. His assignments include work at the German Water Supply and Sanitation Development Projects Palestine (WSSDPP), by GTZ (1997-2001) and as Research and Co-ordination Advisor in PWA for the project "The Sustainable Management of the West Bank and Gaza Aquifers" (SUSMAQ), funded by DFID and in collaboration with University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the British Geological Survey (2001-2004). He currently works as a freelance water consultant in the Middle East.

The article was originally published in the German quarterly inamo # 34: "Israels Mauer und die Wasserressourcen" (2003).)

"The main water objective of the wall is not to steal a handful of wells, but to prevent any future expansion of Palestinian capacity to mine the Western Aquifer. That is the purpose of the facts on the ground currently being created. Once those facts have been created, they will make it impossible for Palestinian society in the fertile regions along the former Green Line to know any form of development, or even a return to something like their former 'normal' life. Hydrology expert Clemens Messerschmid analyzes the impact the northern section of the wall will have on Palestinians' access to water....."

Click Here for Part 2

Palestinian "Resistance" of the Mics.....
Celebrate, Habila Gets More Mics, so Hamas "Wins"!!!

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times

".......The conservative Iranian paper Jam e Jam - popular among young Iranians - stressed in an editorial that now "it is not possible anymore to oppose our country ... The United States cannot do without Iran, which is the new power in the Middle East."

Over 66-year-old, four-heart-operations Dick Cheney's body, of course. And what about all those expenses - the Stennis and Nimitz floating armadas now "exercising" in the Persian Gulf, the relentless Central Intelligence Agency black ops in Khuzestan and Balochistan to "destabilize" the Iranian government, and reports of the US attempting industrial sabotage of Iran's nuclear program?

Bomb Iran ...
A leading French geostrategist has just returned from a stint in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, visiting the industrial-military establishment and all the top Israeli think-tanks. He stresses three main points.

1. For the Israeli establishment, invading Iraq and deposing the already ineffective Saddam Hussein system was a very bad move (although they didn't think so in 2002).

2. Attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 was a very bad move. "We should have done it, but with at least two divisions, to smash them completely," said a retired general.

3. Now there is an unshakable consensus that the real inevitable move will be to attack Iran's nuclear installations - preferably showering cruise missiles over the Natanz plant. Whatever spinning rolls on, attacking Iran remains the key tenet of the Ziocon (Zionists + neo-conservatives) policy......

Iran at the same time is deeply "reforming" Iraq - whatever the rhetoric coming from the White House. Iranian cultural influence on Iraqi youth is overwhelming - via the financing of at least a cultural center or a library in every village. The foremost foreign language is now Farsi, not English. Girls are exchanging the Arab hijab for the less constraining Iranian chador. Iraq's schoolbooks are now manufactured by Iranian printing presses. Most of Iraq's oil, gas and electricity is now provided by Iran.

But there's no stopping the summer of hate - and not only because of the torrid 50-degree-Celsius temperatures. Iran will keep being linked by the Ziocons to al-Qaeda. Iraq will remain the true heart of darkness. Forty years after the Six-Day War, the State of Israel will continue to smash Palestine to bits, especially Gaza. Saudi funds - channeled via billionaire Saad Hariri - and heavy US military support to the army of the pitiful Fouad Siniora government in Lebanon will be busy spreading divide-and-rule, pitting Salafi-jihadis against, supposedly, Hezbollah, but victimizing helpless Palestinian civilian refugees instead. The Ziocon plan is to provoke a civil war in Lebanon, in which Hezbollah would be inevitably convulsed, and profit from the opening to attack Iran......"

A Very Good Article

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, May 31, 2007

"The Bush administration has admitted that covert actions of an aggressive nature were applied against Iran and Syria. The stated objective was to wreck the countries' economies and currency systems. The infamous Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) created in early 2006, integrated by officials from the White House, the State Department, the CIA and the Treasury Department, had a mandate to destabilize Syria and Iran, and bring about "Regime Change".....

The decision to dismantle ISOG is largely cosmetic. Most of these intelligence operations remain intact. ISOG was one among several covert initiatives to destabilize Iran and Syria. Regime change and outright war are still part of the Administration's agenda. In fact, destabilizing covert intelligence operations directed against Iran and Syria have been stepped up in the course of the last four years. Moreover, these operations are closely coordinated with Israeli and NATO war plans, which constitute an integral part of the US sponsored military operation directed against Iran, Syria and Lebanon......

The US is on a war footing and the various covert operations and Psy-Ops --which routinely feed despicable images of the Iranian head of State into the news chain--, are an integral part of the military-intelligence and propaganda arsenal.

In turn, the covert ops are coordinated with US, Israeli and NATO military deployments in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf including the conduct of major war games, which have been carried out almost continuously since Summer 2006.......

Staged Event in Lebanon? Building a Humanitarian Justification for Military Intervention

Fatah Al Islam is an "intelligence asset" financed by Saudi Arabia. While the Bush administration accuses Damascus of supporting Fatah Al Islam, there are indications that the killings in the Palestinian refugee camps were the result of a carefully staged military intelligence operation..

Since the Summer 2006 following the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, NATO forces are present inside Lebanon as well as off Syrian-Lebanese coastline. The UN Security Council Resolution allowing for the deployment of NATO peace-keeping forces was the first step in this process, which followed the 2005 withdrawal and Syrian forces from Lebanon.

The objective of the military roadmap, is to create sectarian violence inside Lebanon which will provide a pretext "on humanitarian grounds" for a stepped up military intervention by NATO forces under a formal UN mandate. This humanitarian military NATO intervention in liaison with Israel, is envisaged as a sequel to the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005 and the Israeli bombings of 2006. If it were to be launched it could lead to a situation of de facto foreign occupation of Lebanon as well as the enforcement of a economic blockade directed against Syria.

The pretext for these stepped up military actions are Syria's alleged support of Fatah Al Islam and Damascus' supposed involvement in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri. The timely "investigation" into Hariri's assassination and the setting up of a kangaroo court are being used by the coalition to foment anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon. From a military and strategic standpoint, Lebanon is the gateway into Syria. The destabilization of Lebanon supports the US-NATO-Israeli military agenda directed against Syria and Iran. US intelligence sets loose its Islamic brigades, while also accusing the enemy of sponsoring terrorist groups, which are in fact covertly supported and financed by Uncle Sam. "

By Imad Hajjaj

Ali Abunimah writing from Chicago, USA, Live from Palestine, 31 May 2007

"....... Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, I read a news article on the website of The Jerusalem Post that Israel's former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu -- one of the most senior theocrats in the Jewish State "ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings" ("Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza," The Jerusalem Post, 30 May, 2007).

The Jerusalem Post reported that Mordechai made this ruling in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert citing biblical authority. The letter was published in a weekly journal distributed in synagogues throughout Israel. The report states that "According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets."

Eliayahu's son, Shmuel Eliayhu, himself chief rabbi of Safad, amplified his father's comments, stating: "If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand." He added, "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

This kind of genocidal hatred of Palestinians is not unusual in Israel. What used to be unusual was for it to be spoken so brazenly and openly. Of course we know what would happen if a Muslim or Palestinian religious figure made such a statement......

Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, "Direct and public incitement to commit genocide" is a punishable act. One wonders whether the UN Security Council, which created an international tribunal to investigate the killing of one man in Lebanon, will pay any attention to the indiscriminate state- and theocratically-sanctioned massacres of Palestinians by Israel.

Will Hillary Clinton, who continues to defame Palestinian schoolchildren with the lie that they are taught "hatred" in their schoolbooks, or any of our other pandering candidates, take a moment out from praising Israel to condemn Eliayahu's statement? What about Oprah Winfrey, who at the invitation of Elie Wiesel is to undertake a "solidarity" visit to Israel?

It seems there are no moral restraints left in Israel. It is right and proper that such a regime be isolated with boycott, divestment and sanctions until it desists from its racist -- and potentially genocidal -- practices. It is to be celebrated that an increasing number of individuals and organizations understand this: yesterday the governing body of the UK's University and College Union voted overwhelmingly to support a boycott of Israeli academia. Today UNISON, the UK's largest public service union announced it will vote on similar motions at its next congress. As Israel's house of horror grows, so does the movement to confront it. In that there is great hope."

By Ramzy Baroud
Al-Ahram Weekly

"South Africa's Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils whispered to me as I sat down following a most enthusiastic speech I gave at a recent conference in Cape Town: "if you want the world to heed to your call for boycotting Israel, the call has to originate from the Palestinian leadership itself."

Kasrils is obviously right. The call for boycotting the racist Apartheid government was an exclusively South African endeavour, made resonantly and repeatedly by the African National Council (ANC) and backed by the various liberation movements in the country and in exile. It took years for the dedicated campaign to be effective. The message communicated to the international community was clear and simply persuasive: put an end to Apartheid. It was but only a facet of various methods of struggle, notwithstanding the armed struggle which spread to Namibia, Angola and other African countries......

A young Indian activist, who spent days on end urging shoppers at Britain's Marks and Spencer, to boycott the store for contributing to the Israeli occupation, recalled her utter frustration with the fact that many of the store's customers were Arabs from the Gulf. While nothing beats a good deal, she failed to understand why a wealthy Arab would find it morally permissible to patronise a company that contributed to the occupation. Needless to say, the same scenario is repeated at many Starbucks branches, despite the corporate management's unabashed support of Israel......

Should we wait for the Palestinian leadership, some of whom are in the process of complete capitulation, while others are struggling for basic survival and limited to an exclusivist political ideology, to cease their infighting, unify their ranks, rehabilitate their political institutions and only then call for boycott? The wait might be too long and arduous......"

Palestinians run for cover as a missile fired by the Israeli military is seen nearly hitting its target during an air strike on Hamas's Executive Force building in the Nusseirat refugee camp, Gaza; Palestinians following the air strike.

Israeli duplicity accompanied by military operations continue unabated in the West Bank
By Khaled Amayreh in East Jerusalem
Al-Ahram Weekly

".....Meanwhile, there have been consistent reports describing a tripartite plan by Israel, the US and unidentified regional Arab governments to destroy or at least weaken Hamas for the purpose of facilitating the dismantling of the current Palestinian Authority.

According to the plan, Israel would arrest the vast bulk of the Hamas leadership in the West Bank in order to leave the Hamas rank and file leaderless and off-balance. And in the Gaza Strip, the US would pour money and weapons unto the Dahlan Camp for the purpose of strengthening it against Hamas.

With a weaker and leaderless Hamas, Abbas, the plan envisages, would dissolve the Palestinian national unity government and call for early general elections. These would be widely manipulated by American-Israeli intervention, including a pledge by them to lift the crippling embargo against the Palestinians and pay the outstanding salaries of civil servants.

Elliot Abrams, the apparent mastermind behind the plan, hopes that a sizeable majority of Palestinians would vote for a "moderate" Fatah leadership, which would eventually accept a "reasonable peace settlement" with Israel whereby the Palestinians would give up the right of return, the bulk of East Jerusalem and allow Israel to maintain most, if not all, of the West Bank settlements including Mael Adumim, Ariel, and Pisgat Zeev.

Moreover, the contemplated final settlement would also include a "Palestinian-Israeli agreement" which would allow the Jewish state to maintain an undisclosed number of military bases and early warning stations on major hilltops in the West Bank as well as in the Jordan valley, for at least 30 years.

The agreement would also allow Israel to "rent" certain settlements, such as Kiryat Arbaa near Hebron, for 99 years. However, the Palestinian Authority, denies that anything like this is being discussed.

However, it is abundantly clear that the Bush administration, ostensibly in connivance with the Israeli government, is acting in a way suggesting that a Palestinian agreement, or at least "understanding" has already been reached with the likes of Mohamed Dahlan. Rumour has it that Dahlan is being groomed as a successor to Abbas, a leader the Americans increasingly regard as weak, indecisive and reluctant to confront Hamas.

There is no doubt that such a deal, or a "sell-out" as numerous Palestinians would view it, would be resisted vehemently by the majority of Palestinians including the so-called Arafatists, Hamas and the leftist organisations.

However, the American-Israeli alliance, possibly in concert with regional Arab governments, might seek to devise ways and means to bolster the "peace camp" among Palestinians by way of arguing that the opposition ought to "give peace a chance", respect the "democratic game" and allow the "democratically-elected government" to negotiate a final peace agreement with Israel.

Nevertheless, it is unlikely that such a conspiracy would succeed, due to massive opposition, even if augmented by American money and Israeli carrots, such as allowing Palestinians to obtain food and work relatively easily and unfreezing Palestinian tax revenues.

In 1978, Israel attempted a similar feat when it tried to destroy the PLO leadership by establishing the so-called "Village League" as a replacement. It failed miserably and Israel was forced to abandon the plan."

Livni and Talabani Discussing "the Peace Process" and Strengthening Mossad-Kurdish Ties

FM talks with Pakistani minister, Iraqi First Lady at Vienna conference

"Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni attended a conference of women leaders on Thursday in Vienna, Austria, where she met with women from all parts of the Arab and Muslim world, including first lady of Iraq, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed Talabani.

Talabani and Livni spent several minutes discussing the peace process while they participated in a panel on the topic.....

"There is much better understanding that Middle Eastern politics is not a zero-sum game," Livni told the panel. "Nations in the region face common threats," she added. Livni commended the Arab League's initiative which is aimed at normalizing relations with Israel. "Normalizing relations now will help advance the political process," she said.

During the conference, Livni also met with Pakistani Minister for Women's Development, Sumaira Malik. The two spoke informally and warmly in the lounge. They discussed the need to broaden the range of nations who supported and aided the political process to include Islamic nations such as Pakistan and Indonesia rather than exclusively Arab nations.

"The whole world's involvement in the peace process should be strengthened," the Pakistani minister said......"

Al-Manar

"31/05/2007 Hezbollah issued a statement to comment on UN Security Council resolution 1757 over the formation of the tribunal to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister martyr Rafik Hariri.
The statement said:
1- There is national consensus on the persistent effort to uncover the perpetrators involved in the assassination of former Prime Minister martyr Rafik Hariri and try them for their ugly crime. This effort would have required the formation of a judicial-criminal court emanating from an internal agreement that preserves the role of institutions and respects Lebanese constitutional principles. The steps taken at the UN Security Council have put Lebanon in the direction of international interests and opened the doors for international interference in such a manner that Lebanon became under international tutelage with its decision making and sovereignty annulled, in an unprecedented manner in the history of sovereign states.

2- As much as the resolution constitutes a transgression of the state of Lebanon and an aggression against its internal affairs which is the responsibility of Lebanese institutions exclusively, it also violates legal principles and UN charters, objectives and principles. Consequently, this is a blatant violation that gives this resolution an illegal and unconstitutional attribute on both national and international levels. Perhaps the best way to express this, are the clear and frank remarks made by the representatives of abstaining states.

3- The pressure that had been exerted by the US administration on the UN Security Council to endorse the resolution, does not differ from similar pressures made by this same administration to pass resolutions which only serve the interests of the US political project, regardless of other considerations whether establishing justice, spreading illusive democracy or destroying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Consequently, the ruling authority has done the US administration a great favor, by giving it a political card to use for political pressuring. After fulfilling its missions, this ruling authority has become ineffective and unimportant in this domain, because all matters have now become subject to international political bargaining and the interests of major states, rendering Lebanon a card in their hands, and not just their arena.

4- The internal crisis in Lebanon, which the ruling bloc had sought to hide behind the issue of the tribunal of international character, had refused to pass it through constitutional principles and internal agreement that preserves Lebanon's sovereignty and had insisted on trespassing all of this to fulfill its goal to take the issue to the Security Council and endorse it under chapter 7 of the UN Charter, requires that this bloc realizes that the real crisis in Lebanon is still a crisis of political partnership among all the Lebanese to decide and rule; not to monopolize power and deal with the country as if it were private property allotted for investment to whomever secures the continuity of power and hegemony and protects private interests. "

No, These Two Lebanese "Soldiers" with Their Brand-new U.S. Weapons are not Getting Ready to Serve Tea to the Palestinian Refugees Stranded and Dying in Nahr El-Bared Refugee Camp.....
No Sir, Tea Service is Reserved for the IOF, after Raising the White Flag!

Hamas movement will not leave government prematurely

"Bethlehem – Ma'an – The Hamas movement on Thursday assured that it would remain in the unity government, excluding the idea of a potential withdrawal from power and a return to opposition.

The spokesperson of Hamas, Fawzi Barhoum, stated "Hamas entered the political process with a political vision, based on enhancing rights and preserving the unchangeable principles."

He told Ma'an via telephone: "Hamas supports the unity government because it represents the majority of the Palestinian people. We are now fighting a battle for the unchangeable principles, and for that very reason, the government is besieged. Hamas entered the government to stay, rather than to leave, and it will remain steadfast until the embargo is lifted, and until the Palestinian government is accepted by the international community."

With respect to the Cairo talks, Barhoum revealed, "Hamas has its own vision for political partnership, having control over domestic affairs, ending the state of chaos and rearranging the security services, which are, in the most part, affiliated to outside organizations."

The Hamas spokesperson criticized the declarations of the Deputy Prime Minister, about "having no intention to rearrange the security services". Barhoum said, "Many of Al-Ahmad's declarations are confused.""

***

The stupid "government" doesn't even speak with one voice! The "deputy PM" contradicts and fights the "PM"! Dissolve this disgrace and stop this vaudeville show, it is not even funny.

"Bethlehem – Ma'an – A report by the Economist Intelligence Unit has labeled Israel as the third most violent and dangerous place in the world to live. Only Sudan and Iraq were described as worse in the annual survey, which listed 121 countries according to how peaceful each country is, based on levels of violence and organised crime within the country, as well as levels of military expenditure.

Israel ranked at number 119 amongst the most peaceful and tranquil countries out of 121 included in the report, as a result of the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the high expenses on military. Scandinavian countries fared well as the most peaceful places in the world, with both Norway (1) and Denmark (3) in the top three.

The report highlights that the US invasion of Iraq, and the high level of criminal acts conducted with firearms caused Iraq to be the rated as the most dangerous place. Jordan came 63rd in terms of tranquility, Egypt 73rd, Syria 77th and Lebanon 114th of the 121 countries surveyed.

The United States of America was rated 96th, sandwiched between Yemen and Iran, due to huge domestic gun crime, homicide rates, prison population as percentage of citizenry and military spending which is greater than most of the rest of the world combined. The United Kingdom was ranked 49th, primarily due to its involvement in the war on Iraq.

The Economist Intelligence Unit explained that they used 24 points for the evaluation and measurement in their classification, which included street violence, violence in prisons, organized crime, military expenditure and number of law enforcement officers. The level of tranquility also took into account average income and the level of education, "in addition to the ability to assimilate in the area"."

***

How about Gazastan? How did it rank??

By Mr. Fish

By Scott Ritter
(A long article)

"......But this will not happen of its own volition. The impeachment of President Bush would not in and of itself terminate executive unilateralism. It would only limit its implementation on the most visible periphery, driving its destructive designs back into the shadows of government, away from the public eye, and as such, public accountability. Impeach President Bush, yes, if in fact he can be charged with the commission of acts which meet the constitutional standard for impeachment (and I believe he could, if Congress only had the will to do its job). But to truly heal America, we must repudiate everything President Bush stands for, in terms of not only public and foreign policy, but also in terms of his style of governance, since the former is derived from the latter.

Repudiation is a strong term, defined as “rejecting as having no authority or binding force,” to “cast off or disown,” or to “reject with disapproval or condemnation.” In my opinion, the complete repudiation of the presidency of George W. Bush is the only recourse we have collectively as a people to not only seek redress for the wrongs committed by the Bush administration, but also to purge society of this cancer that threatens to consume and destroy us as a whole, and which would continue to manifest itself in our system of governance even after any impeachment proceedings.

Like any cancerous growth, the Bush administration has attached its malignancy to the American nation in a cruel fashion, its poisonous tentacles stretching deep into our national fabric in a manner that makes difficult the task of culling out the healthy from the diseased. But we cannot truly repudiate something without its complete and utter elimination from our midst. As such, there must be a litmus test to help us differentiate the good from the bad, that which must be restored from that which must be eliminated. For me, there is only one true test: that of constitutionality. There will be those who argue, and have argued, that the time is well past for an oppressed people (and one would be a fool not to comprehend that under the Bush administration, the American people have in fact been oppressed) to rely on the niceties of legal argument, especially when the system of law we seek to use in our defense has been so thoroughly corrupted by those who seek to impose tyranny......"

By Brian Whitaker
The Guardian

".......These praiseworthy efforts are devalued, though, by the political motives of Washington. Of all the crimes in the Middle East that deserve similar treatment, this one has been singled out because Syria - regarded by the US as a strong candidate for membership in the Axis of Evil - is widely thought to be behind it.

Almost a year after the Israel-Hizbullah war, there has been no comparable attempt to investigate crimes committed in Lebanon by Israel, despite the prima facie evidence of them - nor, indeed, crimes committed against Israeli civilians by Hizbullah.

Syria is not the only country meddling in Lebanon. The Americans, the Saudis and the Israelis are meddling, too. Israel's continuing breaches of UN resolutions regarding Lebanon were documented in the most recent UN report, though largely overlooked by the media.

Meanwhile Dan Halutz, the disgraced ex-head of the Israeli military - the man responsible for the largest number of bombings in Lebanon - recently travelled to the US without fear of arrest, to take a management course at Harvard Business School."

It is absurd to speak of men dressed as police as if they were gunmen in disguise

By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent

"The raid on the Finance Ministry in Baghdad by 40 policemen in 19 vehicles who calmly cordoned off the street in front of the building before abducting five Britons shows how little has changed in the Iraqi capital despite US reinforcements and a new security plan.

It has always been absurd to speak of men "dressed in police uniforms travelling in police vehicles" as if they were gunmen in disguise. "Of course they have the uniforms and the vehicles, because they are real policemen," said an Iraqi minister after a similar operation in which 150 people were abducted from the Ministry of Higher Education in the capital last year......

The abductions at the Finance Ministry underline another truth about Iraq. In Arab Iraq, the US and Britain have no allies. For four years the Sunni community has been in rebellion. But the Iraqi Shia only supported the US-led occupation as a means to an end, by which they would legally take power through elections. The Shia do not, at the end of the day, intend to share power with foreign occupiers.

One reason why so many foreign security contractors are employed in Iraq, at vast expense, is that the US, Britain and the Iraqi governments recognise they dare not rely on Iraqis to protect them."

Refugees from Nahr el-Bared refugee camp find refuge at....
Beddawi refugee camp
By Naser Jafari
Shame on the cowardly Lebanese "army"

بقلم : د. إبراهيم حمّامي

"......
فهل يعقل أن تكون الرئاسة وتوابعها هي من يعبث بمقدرات الشعب الفلسطيني؟ أم أن هناك أيادي خفية فوق "الرئاسة"؟ سؤال ربما نجد له إجابة بعد أن نستعرض بعضاً من هذه العبثية - ولا أقصد هنا العبثية بالمعنى العباسي- من خلال ثلاث "حالات" في الأشهر الأخيرة تمس الوطن والمواطن بشكل خطير ومباشر.

1ـ كلنا يعلم تفاصيل اتفاقية المعابر المخزية والتي وقعها محمد دحلان واعتبرها انجازاً بطوليا، والتي كرست وجسدت السيطرة الفعلية للاحتلال على المعابر، وحولت غزة إلى سجن كبير يغلق بأوامر احتلالية، وكنت قد تناولت بالتفصيل الممل مخازي دحلان في هذه الاتفاقية تحت عنوان " إنجاز دحلان المزعوم ودوره المرسوم" بتاريخ 19/11/2005، هذه الاتفاقية الدحلانية انتهى العمل بها منتصف شهر نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني الماضي، ورغم معارضة كافة الفصائل والقوى الفلسطينية دون استثناء تجديدها بشكلها الذي أراده دحلان، والمطالب الواضحة برفض السيطرة الاحتلالية على المعابر، لكن وفجأة ودون سابق إنذار جُددت هذه الاتفاقية وبموافقة فلسطينية دون علم الحكومة في حينها ودون عرضها على التشريعي، ودون حتى معرفة الطرف الذي فاوض ووافق ووقع.

فمن يا ترى قام بذلك وبأي صفة وصلاحية؟ ومن الذي خوله للتوقيع نيابة عن المؤسسات الشرعية ودون علمها؟

2ـ أشبع الباحثون والأخصائيون مشروع القناة الرابطة بين البحر الميت والبحر الحمر – قناة البحرين - بحثاً وتمحيصاً، ونُشرت التقارير التي تتحدث عن مضار ومخاطر هذا المشروع على البيئة، وخطورته السياسية التي تطرح التطبيع واقعاً مفروضا، ورغم أن المجلس التشريعي السابق، والمفترض أنه أعلى سلطة على الإطلاق، قرر في جلسته المنعقدة في مدينتي رام الله وغزة بتاريخ 05/07/2005، وبعد تقرير اللجنة السياسية المقدم من رئيسها غسان كنفاني، قرر عرض أي اتفاقية يجري التوصل إليها بخصوص مشروع قناة البحرين عليه قبل توقيعها باعتبارها سيادية وتمس مفاوضات الوضع النهائي(..)، رغم كل ذلك وفجأة أيضاً وفي شهر نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني 2006 وقعت اتفاقية بين “إسرائيل” والأردن والسلطة الفلسطينية وبنك النقد الدولي لرعاية بحث تمهيدي يفحص الآثار الاقتصادية والبيئية للمشروع، وجرت مراسم التوقيع داخل قاعة مغلقة في فندق فخم على الشاطئ الأردني للبحر الميتوسط تكتم وسرية شديدين من جانب الأطراف الثلاثة، وبدون دعوة وسائل الإعلام!

بغض النظر عن موقفنا من المشروع نقول من قرر ووافق ووقع هذا الاتفاق؟ ولماذا لم يناقش في التشريعي، ولماذا السرية في التوقيع؟ وهل قضية تمس مستقبل الأراضي الفلسطينية برمتها هي شأن شخصي خاص لا نعرف من يقوده ويديره؟

3ـ "الصفقة" الكارثية الأخيرة كانت صفقة غاز غزة، والتي أيضاً دبرت ووقعت بليل، وبشروط ما أنزل الله بها من سلطان، وبشكل كارثي حقيقي، حيث ذكرتوكالة معاً الإخبارية يوم 23/5/2007أن صحيفة التايمز نشرت الأربعاء ماقالت انه صفقة تاريخية تتعلق ببيع الغاز الفلسطيني المكتشف في شواطئ غزة إلى"اسرائيل"، وقد جاء في الخبر ان الصحيفة علمت ان مجموعة "بي جي" (المالك السابق لشركة الغاز البريطانية) قد توافق على شروطالصفقة التي وصفتها بالتاريخية والتي تقدر قيمتها بأربعة بلايين دولار امريكي، إلى هنا والخبر يحمل بشائر الخير، لكن لنراجع بعض الحقائق الخاصة بالصفقة:

· في خبر نشرته الهيئة العامة للاستعلامات ــ المركز الصحفي - بتاريخ 3/7/2005م، أكد الوزير عزمي الشوا أن السلطة الفلسطينية قامت في عام 1999م بمنح شركة بريتش غاز البريطانية الامتياز لمدة 20 عاماً ، منوهاً أن عوائد مقدارها 60% ستكون من نصيب شركة بريتش غاز B.G ) )، و30% لشركة CCC ، و 10% لصندوق الاستثمار الفلسطيني ، مؤكداً أن هذا الغاز يعتبر من أحسن أنواع الغاز، خصوصاً وأن نسبة الميثان فيه 99.4 % و هو خالٍ من ملوثات الكبريت

· مصادر "إسرائيلية" و فلسطينية متطابقة سبق وأن أوضحت أن هناك مفاوضات مع الجانب "الإسرائيلي" لكي يشتري الغاز من الجانب الفلسطيني بمعدل 100 مليون دولار شهرياً تحصل السلطة منها على 10 مليون دولار على شكل مساعدات غير نقدية أما الباقي فيذهب حسب التوزيعة التالية:( 30 مليونا إلى شركة ( CCC ) و 60 مليون مليونا إلى شركة ( B.G ) و سيتم مد أنابيب الغاز تحت سطح البحر إلى مدينة المجدل لصالح الطرف "الإسرائيلي" و يبدأ تنفيذ الصفقة عام 2011م.

· شركة ( CCC ) وبحسب ذات المصادرهي اختصار للشركة المعروفة (شركة إتحاد المقاولين العالمية) والتي تأسست في لبنان ثم انتقلت إلى أثينا بسبب الحرب اللبنانية الأهلية 1977م و يرأس الشركة سعيد خوري وهو فلسطيني مسيحي من صفد من عائلة رمزي خوري المدير السابق لمكتب الرئيس ياسر عرفات و الرئيس الحالي للصندوق القومي الفلسطيني ، وحسيب الصايغ هو ابن المرحوم رشيد الصايغ الذي كان يرأس الصندوق القومي الفلسطيني سابقاً قبل أن يتولى أمره رئيس الوزراء السابق أبو علاء قريع، أما نائب مدير الشركة فهو وليد سلمان ( وليد سعد صايل) و هو نجل القائد الفلسطيني الشهيد/سعد صايل، وليد سلمان هو المدير التنفيذي للشركة في أراضي السلطة الفلسطينية والذي تمتلك شركته 40% من شركة توليد الكهرباء في غزة أيضاً.

لا يوجد اتفاق تنقيب عن الغاز أو النفط في العالم تحصل منه أي شركة استثمارية على أكثر من 50% من الأرباح فكيف حصلت شركة بريتش غاز على 60% ؟ مع العلم أن مصر قد وقعت مع نفس الشركة ( B.G ) على عقد استخراج الغاز بنسبة 50% للطرفين في المنطقة القريبة من قطاع غزة، وكيف حصلت شركة ( CCC ) على 30% وتحت أي ذريعة؟ ومن الذي قرر هذه الصفقة وبأي صفة وصلاحية؟

أمثلة على التلاعب بمقدرات الشعب، وحقائق تشير أن هناك من يتاجر بالشعب وأملاكه ومقدراته وثرواته ومستقبله، وأصابع خفية تعبث في الخفاء وبسرية تامة، في ظل عجز وتجاهل من قبل كل القوى الفلسطينية، وبوتيرة تصاعدية متصاعدة لا تبشر بخير.

هل تبقّى لبائعي فلسطين بقية للبيع؟ وهل يستيقظ الشعب وقواه قبل فوات الأوان؟ أم أن قدرنا أن تتحكم حثالة معدومة الأخلاق والضمير بكل ما يخصنا حتى الماء والهواء؟ "

After 90 years of struggle and this is the best the Palestinians were able to produce??
It is enough to make you despair....

I hope and pray that President Bush will do it.

BY NORMAN PODHORETZ
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

"......Like the Cold War, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.

What follows from this way of looking at the last five years is that the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be understood if they are regarded as self-contained wars in their own right. Instead we have to see them as fronts or theaters that have been opened up in the early stages of a protracted global struggle. The same thing is true of Iran......

Not surprisingly, the old American foreign-policy establishment and many others say that these dreams are nothing more than the fantasies of a madman. They also dismiss those who think otherwise as neoconservative alarmists trying to drag this country into another senseless war that is in the interest not of the United States but only of Israel.....

Not so George W. Bush, a man who knows evil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it. It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will."

Finger Puppets of the Empire

5 GIs among 7 killed in Afghan crash

"KABUL, Afghanistan - Five U.S. soldiers were killed when their Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, a U.S. military official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, said the U.S. military official, who requested anonymity because details of the crash had not yet been released. It wasn't clear if there were any survivors, the official said.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to The Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down in the volatile province of Helmand......"

Debris litters the streets of Ramallah after an undercover Israeli death squad shot a 22-year-old man 24 times at close range, an event which was not reported by the mainstream press. (Elias Khayyo)

Ali Abunimah writing from Chicago, USA, Live from Palestine, 30 May 2007

"Reading an account of an Israeli cabinet meeting in Ha'aretz is like a trip through a House of Horrors. Here are some choice excerpts:

"Ministers Meir Sheetrit and Rafi Eitan proposed Wednesday that Israel produce its own version of the Qassam rocket to be fired at targets inside the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian rocket fire on its southern communities."

"Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Eli Yishai of Shas proposed that Israel use air strikes to destroy Palestinian towns and villages in response to the rocket fire, after giving local residents advance notice allowing them to evacuate their homes."

"Shas MK Yitzhak Cohen proposed cutting off the supply of electricity, water and fuel to the Strip, and justify the move by saying that Qassam rockets had destroyed Israel's infrastructure and that it will take a long time to repair the facilities with which to supply the Palestinians with basic resources. Shin Bet security service director Yuval Diskin suggested that Cohen's idea is worth examining."

This is the state that is supposed to be the conscience of the world following the Nazi holocaust? Which other government could openly hold such discussions to such overwhelming silence from the so-called "international community"?

For weeks, Israel has bombed the Gaza Strip killing dozens. In one such attack, on May 20, Israel bombed the house of a democratically-elected legislator Khalil al-Haya, killing eight people, including seven members of his family -- among them three teenagers. B'Tselem called for a criminal investigation, but the issue has been long forgotten by the rest of the world.....

Yesterday, an Israeli death squad carried out a cold blooded execution of a 22-year-old man in the center of occupied Ramallah. After shooting him in the leg, he was finished off with a bullet to the back of the head. He was then riddled with a total of 24 bullets. This brutal murder did not even make the news in the US......

Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa's minister of intelligence, and an ANC veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle wrote on May 21 "Travelling into Palestine's West Bank and Gaza Strip, which I visited recently, is like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency." Except, adds Kasrils, it's a situation "infinitely worse than apartheid" (Mail & Guardian)......"

Sam Bahour writing from Ramallah, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 29 May 2007

"It was a good day today, well, that is until about 5:40pm when Israeli undercover and military forces assassinated a Palestinian outside the window where I was standing.

The target was Omar Abu Daher, a 22-year-old who it seems happens to be a member of a security force loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He was only one of several that were murdered in cold blood today; two more were killed in Gaza, one in Tulkarem, two others in Jenin. These are the ones reported so far, but the night is still young.....

On my way home, I passed the Presidential Compound on Radio Street. This is Mahmoud Abbas's headquarters. Only a few hours before it was reported in the news that he announced that he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert on June 7 to discuss the 'peace process.' Alone, I just shook my head and wondered for how long can this Palestinian President, this Palestinian Authority Government, and this Palestinian Legislative Council continue to go through the empty motions of governance under military occupation, while Israel, with full internationally-sanctioned impunity, assassinates Palestinian citizens -- those very same security personnel that are supposed to hold the peace -- in broad daylight, arrests dozens from their beds every night -- including ministers, mayors and legislators -- and prohibit millions of Palestinians whom they have displaced from returning to their homes.

I guess the more accurate question I should be asking myself is until when will the Palestinian people continue to accept such inept leadership?....."

"University lecturers this afternoon backed calls for an academic boycott of Israel at their inaugural national conference. Delegates at the University and College Union conference voted 158 to 99 to circulate its branches with the boycott call from Palestinian trade unions for "information and discussion".

The general secretary of the UCU, Sally Hunt, said she believes "every member should have the opportunity to have their say".

Opponents of the boycott have already called for a national ballot of all the union's members.

The decision followed a plea earlier today from Ms Hunt that the Israeli issue should not be a major priority for the union and that a boycott would be unlikely to win majority support from members.

Just hours before the debate at the union's first national conference in Bournemouth, Ms Hunt told delegates that most UCU members would prefer to "retain dialogue" with trade unionists on all sides "not just those we agree with".

The motion calling for an Israeli academic boycott came jointly from the University of Brighton and the University of East London.

They asked members to rally to the call from Palestinian trade unions "for a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli institutions".

Their motion also called on university lecturers to condemn the "complicity of Israeli academia in the [Palestinian] occupation".

It went on: "Passivity or neutrality is unacceptable and criticism of Israel cannot be construed as anti-semitic". Lecturers were told to consider the "moral implications" of existing and proposed academic links with Israeli institutions.

The Israel and Palestinian issue has a history of controversy at past annual conferences of both Nafthe and the Association of University Teachers (AUT), which merged last year to form the UCU......"

Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 30 May 2007

"......The Palestinian rockets may indeed be futile when compared to the superior Israeli military capabilities, but they still cause harm and panic, as stones did before. They are also likely to become more advanced and lethal, otherwise why should the Israeli retaliation be that intense and violent. The life of even one victim of 200 rocket attacks, on the other hand, should be valuable too, although continuing violence and wholesale murder in as many war theatres in the region has got us accustomed to undermining the meaning and the value of human life.

But this also misses the point essentially: if the Palestinians should stop firing because their rockets lack precision and effectiveness, would they be justified using them if, or when, they managed to overcome the shortcomings? And is it, therefore, the flawless efficiency of Israeli weapons that justifies the continuation of their use against Palestinian civilians? Is that a new standard of legality and justice?.....

Any society which would be subjected to a fraction of what the Palestinians have since the catastrophe befell them 60 years ago would react much more violently, and would still be respected, supported and justified. One need not go far to find proof. When Israel destroyed much of the poor Gaza infrastructure, in June 2006, including power supply, water and bridges, in addition to tightening the siege and terrifying the people, it was acting "in self defence", and therefore not blamed by the hypocritical world which regularly condemns Palestinian violence. Israel at the time was retaliating for the capture of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who has not been harmed. Few paid any attention to the Palestinian claim that they, by capturing the soldier, were also retaliating for the detention of close to 12,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, of whom more than 1,500 were children and women. Israel, it seems, owns the exclusive right to retaliate......."

(Click on the map to enlarge)

Sharon's Bastille Day Dream Materializes

An Important Article

By FRANKLIN LAMB
CounterPunch

Bibnin Akkar, Lebanon, site of proposed US Airbase
Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee Camp

".....As residents of Bibnin Akkar, less tha two miles from the site of the proposed US base and the Lebanese daily newspaper Aldiyar speculate, construction of a US airbase on the grounds of the largely abandoned airbase at Klieaat in northern Lebanon may begin late this year. To make the project more palpable, it is being promoted as a 'US/NATO' base that will serve as the headquarters of a NATO rapid deployment force, helicopter squadrons, and Special Forces units.

The base will provide training for the Lebanese army and security forces fighting Salafi, Islamist fundamentalists and other needs.

The Pentagon and NATO HQ in Belgium have given the project which, will sit along the Lebanese-Syrian border, using this vast area "as a base for fast intervention troops", a name. It is to be called The Lebanese Army and Security training centre"......

As reported by the NATO headquarters in Brussels, as well as by residents in Bibnin Akkar on May 28, 2007, an American-German-Turkish military delegation toured and surveyed Akkar region. US Embassy 'staff' have reportedly visited Kleiaat airport earlier this year to look over the site. David Welch also had a quick look at the site during his recent visit.

A Lebanese journalist who opposes the base commented on May 28, 2007, "The Bush administration has been warning Lebanon about the presence of Al Qaeda teams in northern Lebanon. And the base is needed to deal with this threat. Low and behold, a new "terrorist group" called Fatah al-Islam appears near Kleiaat at al-Bared camp".....

Contenders for the billion dollar project, according to the Pentagon procurement office could be Bechtel and Halliburton and other Contractors currently doing projects in Iraq......

According to Washington observers watching developments, the base has been pushed by elements in the office of the US Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the urging of Israeli operative Elliot Abrams. AIPAC can be expected to do the necessary work in Congress and with House Foreign Affairs, Appropriations, Intelligence, and Armed Service committees hermetically sealed by stalwarts of the Israel Lobby, it can be expected that it will be added as a rider to an unsuspecting House bill coming along.

"We need to get this base built as quickly as possible as a forward thrust point against Al Qaeda and other (read Hezbollah) terrorists", according to AIPAC staffer Rachael Cohen. Asked if Israel will offer training and advisors to the Lebanese army, Ms. Cohen replied, "we will see what we will see, Lebanon, smezzanon its not about them, its about stopping the terrorists stupid!"

"The question for Lebanon is whether the Lebanese people will allow the base to be built. Few in North Lebanon doubt that Israel will have access to the base " according to Oathman Bader, a community leader who lives in Bahr al-Bared but has fled to Badawi......

According to a columnist at Beirut's Al-Akbar newspaper," a US project like that would split Lebanon apart. No way will Lebanon allow it. Probably every group in Lebanon would oppose it , from the Salafi, Islamists fundamentalist to moderate Sunnis to Hezbollah. Can you imagine the Syrian reaction?"......"

Israeli politicians promote deploying an Arab multi-national force in Gaza

"Bethlehem - Ma'an - A number of Israeli politicians are advocating handing control of the Gaza Strip over to a multi-national Arab League force in cooperation with the European Union, Israeli medial sources revealed on Wednesday.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Israeli Knesset members Avshalom Vilan and Zahava Gal-On have been promoting this initiative for several weeks. They have already presented it to senior Palestinian figures, including Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, and Gaza-based businessmen, Haaretz says, in addition to foreign diplomats.

The two MKs, who represent the left-wing Meretz party, are seeking the support of senior ministers and government officials, and plan to present their proposal to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni next week. Livni has also expressed interest in stationing a multi-national force in the Gaza Strip, Haaretz reports.

According to Haaretz, this initiative is part of "a package deal," which would begin with negotiations between Arab and Israeli representatives regarding the Arab peace initiative and also address the issue of exchanging the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit with Palestinian prisoners, including Hamas ministers and parliamentarians. The initiative also includes discussing a mutual ceasefire. Also according to Haaretz, this proposed multi-national force in Gaza would be presented by the Quartet - the U.S., Russia, EU and UN - in front of the UN Security Council.

The multi-national force would be deployed for two to five years, with the agreement of both Israel and the Palestinians, Haaretz adds. The force would have security and economic roles. It would be deployed along the Philadelphi Route, which runs parallel to the Egypt-Gaza border, in order to prevent smuggling from Sinai, Haaretz says, and also along the border with Israel to prevent the launching of projectiles from Gaza into Israel.

"So far we have had relatively positive responses," Vilan told Haaretz. "Everyone has stressed that it is very important to have PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' support. The risk is that tomorrow Abbas will say he is fed up and then we will be stuck with Hamas, and the anarchy will spread to the West Bank and we will be drawn back in there," he added. "

***

The same plan that was used in Lebanon last summer. Replace Siniora with Abbas and you get the picture. Another foothold for NATO forces to crush any Arab or Muslim resistance. There is no lack of Arab collaborators, including Palestinians who would sell their mothers.

Nick King, The Electronic Intifada, 30 May 2007

"British university lecturers are to vote again this week on an academic boycott of Israel -- will the new union this time around protest from its ivory tower or take a definitive stand against ritual human rights' abuse? EI contributor Nick King looks at the debate over boycott and the campaign of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine to get the boycott vote on the British academia agenda, and the counter-efforts being made by Israel's apologists....."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Tom Toles

Global Research, May 30, 2007
uruknet.info

Global Research Editor's note

We bring to the attention of our readers this statement of Iraq's Baath Party regarding the agreement reached in Bagdhad between the US and Iranian ambassadors. The publication is for information purposes and does constitute an endorsement of the Baath Party..

"The meeting on the 28 -5- 2007 in between both the US and the Iranian ambassadors in Baghdad must be considered as an official extremely important turning point, never witnessed since the two countries severed relation in 1979, and will bear grave consequences on the future of Iraq and the Arab nation, unless they are met with a resolved Iraqi and Arab stand. In a war of words between the two, and the fueling of artificial crisis in Lebanon and elsewhere, a luring impression was needed, expressed by Khamenei who said that (Iran leads all those who oppose the US in the world) to camouflage and conceal the US - Iranian collaboration in Iraq and in the region and continue with wikedness and ruse, the Iranian role in Iraq, and at the same time, drive a wedge in between anti or pro Iranian Arabs. The meeting, which resulted, according to the Iranian ambassador and his US colleague, at least so far, into a general agreement on the fundamental security' question in Iraq poses two essential questions: Why holding these talks in Baghdad? and what is the importance of these talks on Iraq and the region? Indeed! This meeting is a an official and franc US admission and for the first time that Iran is the US main partner into occupying Iraq since the beginning and until this very moment; and that both US and Iran and regardless of their differences on how to share the booty and the loot in Iraq and in the region, will always agree on Iraq's future and specially in wiping out Iraq's Arab identity..."

When Israel attacks, the Pentagon retreats

By Justin Raimondo

"It was 40 years ago this June 8 that the USS Liberty – a large, armorless, refitted freighter that was gathering intelligence in the Mediterranean at the outset of the Six Day War – was attacked by Israeli fighter jets and torpedoes. Thirty-four U.S. sailors were killed, and 172 were wounded. The Liberty limped back to Malta. A U.S. Navy court of inquiry was on board investigating the damage, but – for some reason – the investigators were not allowed to proceed to Israel to find out what really went on. Orders from the top echelons of the Pentagon nixed the inquiry, and today, the families of the fallen still haven't gotten any answers as to why Israel was allowed to get away with it without even so much as a slap on the wrist – nor even any public acknowledgment that it was a deliberate attack......

Critics may aver that this is all ancient history, that there is no reason to bring up the sinking of the Liberty, and even if it wasn't an accident, it's time to let bygones be bygones. The Lobby constantly asserts that anyone who even mentions this "incident" is nothing but an anti-Semite, because, after all, why talk about it now? The reason is that it underscores the utter falsity of the argument that Israeli and American interests are uniquely and perpetually in perfect alignment. The Israelis attacked the Liberty, according to several books and a BBC documentary on the subject, in order to prevent the U.S. government from learning of Israeli plans to occupy the Golan Heights – a sliver of land that rightfully belongs to Syria, and which is still causing a great many problems for U.S. interests in the region. The stunning fact of the American government's complicity in hiding the truth about an attack on its own soldiers is all we need to know about what's wrong with American foreign policy – and what is the exact source of the problem."

Uncle Sam to one of his Arab Stooges, "Reassure me, it has been a while since you cursed me in public, what is the reason?"
By Hamed Najeeb

The United States' vast US$592 million "embassy" - 20-odd buildings on 42 hectares in Baghdad's Green Zone - is due to open in September. From the pool house (and tennis courts) to the recreation center and office space, it's a colossus of the modern world and a concrete-and-bricks symbol of the Bush administration's (fading) vision of a US-reordered Middle East.

By Tom Engelhardt
Asia Times

".......The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland in the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books terms it a "base" like the United States' other vast, multibillion-dollar permanent bases in Iraq. It is also a headquarters. But what a head! What quarters! It is neither town, nor quite city-state, but it could be considered a citadel, with its own anti-missile defenses, inside the increasingly breachable citadel of the Green Zone.

It may already be the last piece of ground in Iraq (excepting those other bases) that the United States, "surge" or not, can actually claim to occupy and control fully - and yet it already has something of the look of the Alamo (with amenities). Some day, perhaps, it will turn out to be the "White House" (though, in BDY's sketches, its buildings look more like those prison-style schools being built in embattled US urban neighborhoods) for Muqtada al-Sadr, or some future Shi'ite party, or a Sunni strongman, or a home for squatters. Who knows?

What we know is that such an embassy is remarkably outsized for Iraq. Even as a headquarters for a vast, secret set of operations in that chaotic land, it doesn't quite add up. After all, the US military headquarters in Iraq is already at Camp Victory on the outskirts of Baghdad. We can certainly assume - though no one in the mainstream media world would think to say such a thing - that this new embassy will house a rousing set of Central Intelligence Agency (and probably Pentagon intelligence) operations for the country and region, and will be a massive hive for American spooks of all sorts. But whatever its specific functions, it might best be described as the imperial Mother Ship dropping into Baghdad......

As an outpost, this vast compound reeks of one thing: imperial impunity. It was never meant to be an embassy from a democracy that had liberated an oppressed land. From the first thought, the first sketch, it was to be the sort of imperial control center suitable for the planet's sole "hyperpower", dropped into the middle of the oil heartlands of the globe. It was to be Washington's dream and Kansas City's idea of a palace fit for an embattled American proconsul - or a khan.

When completed, it will indeed be the perfect folly, as well as the perfect embassy, for a country that finds it absolutely normal to build vast base-worlds across the planet; that considers it just a regular day's work to send its aircraft-carrier "strike forces" and various battleships through the Strait of Hormuz in daylight as a visible warning to a "neighboring" regional power; and whose CIA operatives feel free to organize and launch Balochi tribal warriors from Pakistan into the Balochi areas of Iran to commit acts of terror and mayhem......."

I am not the first person whose death George Bush has anticipated, nor will I be the last.

By Fidel Castro
The Guardian

"A few days ago, while analysing the expenses involved in the construction of three submarines of the Astute series, I said that with this money "75,000 doctors could be trained to look after 150 million people, assuming that the cost of training a doctor would be one-third of what it costs in the United States." Now, along the lines of the same calculations, I wonder: how many doctors could be graduated with the one hundred billion dollars that Bush gets his hands on in just one year to keep on sowing grief in Iraqi and American homes. Answer: 999,990 doctors who could look after 2 billion people who today do not receive any medical care......

When he was recently asked by an important personality about his Cuba policy, his answer was this: "I am a hard-line president and I am just waiting for Castro's demise." The wishes of such a powerful gentleman are no privilege. I am not the first nor will I be the last that Bush has ordered to be killed; nor one of those people who he intends to go on killing individually or en masse.

"Ideas cannot be killed," Sarría emphatically said. Sarría was the black lieutenant, a patrol leader in Batista's army who arrested us, after the attempt to seize the Moncada Garrison, while three of us slept in a small mountain hut, exhausted by the effort of breaking through the siege. The soldiers, fuelled by hatred and adrenalin, were aiming their weapons at me even before they had identified who I was. "Ideas cannot be killed," the black lieutenant kept on repeating, practically automatically and in a hushed voice.

I dedicate those excellent words to you, Mr Bush."

An academic boycott of Israel would give voice to a people whose freedoms have long been repressed.

By John Chalcraft
(lecturer in the department of government at the London School of Economics)
The Guardian

"An international, non-violent movement supporting divestment, sanctions and boycott of Israel is gathering strength. While progress has been made in Northern Ireland and South Africa, Israel continues to settle and occupy Palestinian land in defiance of international law.

The question for British academics is whether they should join this international movement, and refuse to do business as usual with Israeli academic institutions. At stake is not the boycott of individual Israelis, nor their subjection to some political test, but the withdrawal of institutional collaboration with Israeli universities. The boycott implies the refusal to participate in conferences or research sponsored by Israeli authorities or universities; withdrawal from institutional level cooperation; opposition to the award of grants by the EU to Israeli institutions, and refusal to serve as referees for publications based at Israeli universities......."

· Mashal predicts explosion across Middle East
· Fatah conflict blamed on foreign intervention

Ian Black in Damascus
Wednesday May 30, 2007
The Guardian

"Khaled Mashal, the influential political leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, insists attacks on Israel will continue despite overwhelming Israeli retaliation that has cost scores of lives in the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks.
Speaking in Damascus yesterday he asserted it was the right of the Palestinians to resist "Zionist aggression" regardless of whether their actions were effective.

The continuing siege of the Palestinians would lead to an explosion that would affect the entire Middle East, he predicted.

"Under occupation people don't ask whether their means are effective in hurting the enemy," he told the Guardian in a rare interview at his heavily guarded offices, plastered with images of Jerusalem and "martyrs" killed by the Israelis.

"The occupiers always have the means to hurt the people they control. The Palestinians have only modest means, so they defend themselves however they can."

Hamas has been the main force behind more than 250 qassam rockets fired at southern Israel from Gaza in the past two weeks, killing two civilians. Israeli aircraft have struck dozens of times to curb the attacks, killing some 50 Palestinians.

"The Palestinians are steadfast and there are many ways of resisting according to opportunities and conditions," Mr Mashal said......

"Palestinians have made some mistakes and wrong bets," he admitted. "But negative foreign intervention, especially by the US and Israel, is responsible for these internal conflicts." US financial support and training for Fatah is intended to boost its ability to control security and confront Hamas.

Problems have been compounded by the siege imposed on the Palestinian Authority by the US and EU after Hamas won democratic elections in 2005, Mr Mashal said.

"The siege is collective punishment, and a crime. And the crime is even worse after the Mecca agreement because Palestinians had expected the siege would be lifted.

"Now the international community is trying to undermine Hamas. That will lead to an explosion that will be in the face of the Israeli occupation. The damage will affect the stability of the entire region."

Mr Mashal rejected demands by the Quartet (the US, the EU, the UN and Russia) that Hamas accept three conditions - recognition of Israel, an end to violence and acceptance of previous peace agreements with Israel. These terms had been accepted by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader and president of the Palestinian Authority, but that had not forced Israel to withdraw.

It was the Palestinians who needed recognition, not Israel, he said. It was a "pretext" to demand the amendment of the Hamas Charter, which says: "Israel will ... remain until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors." The charter calls the whole of Palestine an Islamic trust which cannot be given away to non-Muslims......

To his own people, Mr Mashal is an admired leader, but the Israelis see him as a dangerous terrorist. Ten years ago he was the target of an assassination attempt in Jordan by Mossad agents who injected him with poison. But the operation was exposed and Israel was forced to provide the antidote.

Last week Israel's public security minister, Avi Dichter, warned that he and other Hamas leaders could be targeted wherever they were......

"What caused Sharon to leave Gaza, Barak to leave Lebanon in 2000? And look what's going on in Iraq where the greatest power in the world is facing confusion because of Iraqi resistance. Time is on the side of the Palestinian people. We are right, and our cause is just, despite the appeasement of Israel by most powerful members of the international community.""

The standoff between the Lebanese army and Islamic militants has focused attention on the 400,000 Palestinian refuges in the country

Clancy Chassay in Shatila refugee camp
Duncan Campbell in Beirut
Tuesday May 29, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

"......In the teeming streets of Shatilla camp, the scene of a notorious civil war massacre, malnourished children play in little more than rags between crumbling bullet riddled buildings and amidst open sewage.


"We have no rights and no future. We have a lot of problems; We can't work freely, we cannot own a house, we cannot move around. We are treated as if we are not human," said 20-year-old Samar, from Shatilla......

Whatever happens in the Nahr al-Bared camp, Palestinian leaders hope that the attention attracted by the crisis will lead to a recognition of the grim and hopeless life that many of them have lived for more than half a century......

Initially, they lived in tents that were slowly replaced with primitive breeze block structures with zinc roofs. Now conditions in many of the "camps" have deteriorated while their populations have multiplied.


"The borders of the camp are fixed and it is illegal for us to build on the edge of the camp," explains 30-year-old Rabieh from Ain al Hilweh, Lebanon's largest camp. "The areas were very small to begin with but as the population has increased over time, people have been forced to live closer and closer together."

Young men in the camps describe how they are harassed and beaten by the Lebanese security services. "The internal security forces are always aggressive if they know you are Palestinian," said Rabieh. "Sometimes guys are dragged off and beaten just because they have a certain family name."

"They live under permanent pressure and there is despair," said Sybille Bikar, who works on the refugee issue in Lebanon for the European commission. "They feel they live in a very hostile world."

The refugees do not enjoy citizenship and are restricted in the work they can do and where they can live, as they are not entitled to buy property. A government ordinance stretching back to 1982 prohibits them from work in many of the main professions and, as a result, unemployment is high. Many of the women working in service professions and the men in agriculture, while others have left Lebanon in despair to find work outside the region.

"In terms of living conditions, Lebanon is the worst place for Palestinians outside Gaza and the West Bank," said a western diplomat. "They are better off in Syria."......

The Domesticated Arab the West Loves to do Business with Now...
Libya is a Democracy Now.....Didn't You Know That?

On the Occasion of Syrian "Elections"
By Imad Hajjaj

The question is:

Do you support the U.S.-Iran talks concerning Iraq?

With over 4,000 participating so far, 71% said no.

Nadine Kotob writing from Beddawi Refugee Camp, Live from Lebanon, 29 May 2007

"I don't know where to begin. After spending two days in Chatila Refugee Camp, and a day in Beddawi, I find myself at a loss for words. How do I describe the conditions these Palestinian refugees are being subjected to when I never even conceived of the possibility of such unspeakable conditions. Again, I don't know where to begin. But I will try my best. I will try because all of the refugees we interviewed in our first day at Beddawi beseeched us to let the world know how their situation has quickly deteriorated in a matter of days......

And that's another thing. All the refugees were telling us how their homes had either been completely or partially destroyed. What this means is that many people's identity cards are buried under the debris and the refugees can't leave the camp and are forced to stay in a war zone. Of course, women and children have a much easier time of leaving the camp without these identity cards than men. But in the end, the refugees from Nahr al-Bared said, that it is the civilians who are taking the brunt of the shelling....."

US has failed Iraqi soldiers, claims Iran

"BAGHDAD: Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, offered weapons and training to the Iraqi army yesterday after accusing Washington of not supplying Baghdad with the equipment needed to defend itself.


"The Iraqi Government is in need of strong military and security structure to confront its security problems and we have offered all forms of assistance such as weapons, training and equipment," he said following a landmark meeting with his US counterpart.

While describing the meeting, the first of its kind in nearly three decades, as "positive", Mr Kazemi told US ambassador Ryan Crocker that the Iraqi army was not receiving the weapons it needed......"

***

Man, that "Great Satan" could use help like this from the "Axis of Evil!"
Two peas in a pod??

Jackson Allers and Rasha Moumneh writing from Baddawi Refugee Camp, Live from Lebanon, 28 May 2007

".....As has been reported, this new influx of refugees has doubled the population in the Baddawi camp, and the social service sector within the camp has been stretched to the maximum -- medical assistance, food, water and other aid are slow in coming. This, analysts say, is a consequence of the push by Lebanon's government to officially join their western allies, namely the United States, in supporting the global "War on Terror" -- at the expense of humanitarian concerns.

Meanwhile, Palestinians throughout the other 11 officially registered Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are growing increasingly restless with what is becoming an untenable stance by the Lebanese leadership -- that of a consistent policy of indiscriminate artillery and tank shelling of the Nahr al-Bared camp in an effort to root out Fatah al-Islam.

For us, the aim in going to the Baddawi camp was primarily to talk to Palestinians in the mainstream leadership structures whose voices have been conspicuously ineffectual, even as the Lebanese Army has reiterated its stance of not negotiating with "terrorists," i.e. Fatah al-Islam -- leaving the Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire......"

Jackson Allers and Rasha Moumneh writing from Baddawi Refugee Camp, Live from Lebanon, 28 May 2007

"Interview with Khaled Yamani, PFLP official; Treasurer of the Committee for the Festival of Right of Return (a grouping of 23 civil society organizations) and an organizer of the youth wing:

Q: As a representative of the PFLP, what is your reaction towards the Palestinian leadership's position regarding the shelling of Nahr al-Bared?

A: Honestly, the first day there was sympathy for the soldiers that were killed. But after the shelling started we felt that the targets were not Fatah al-Islam, but rather the Nahr al-Bared camp. I was with a French delegation in Beirut, and five of them were trapped in Nahr al-Bared. I listened to the statements that were issued by the Palestinians, and there were not on the same level as the reaction on the ground. At the end of the day, there is a people that is being shelled and people are dying. Right now I am not concerned with the political issue as much as I am with protecting my people. Honestly, the positions taken should have been clearer. Just as I should say that I sympathize with the soldiers that were killed, it shouldn't have been said as it was today that Nahr al-Bared or any other camp is a red line [referring to Hasan Nasrallah's televised speech of 25 May 2007]. My personal opinion is there should have been a comprehensive mobilization from all the camps and the Palestinian parties should have held the Lebanese authorities responsible for its actions. You are shelling a people, 45,000, not distinguishing between civilians and others. Their reaction was very bad, I'm very disappointed by their reaction, like "Oh, maybe if the army goes into the camp, we'll stand by them". Of course it shouldn't be understood that we are against the Lebanese people or the Lebanese authorities, but there is a situation, there is shelling with 155 mm, there is shelling with canons, there are people dying. We still don't know how many bodies there are under the rubble, but this situation is stretching the limits of our tolerance......

Q: Political in the sense of "solving" the Palestinian issue in Lebanon?

A: We are facing two distinct political projects. There is a project of resistance that is trying to counter the American-Zionist ambitions which is represented in Lebanon, in Iraq, and in Palestine. The other political project is the American-Zionist-Arab [one] that calls for a "peaceful solution and moderation" that is trying to solve our problem because unfortunately we are weak. This project is also represented in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and throughout the Arab world. Now the March 14 movement in Lebanon are turning towards the project they are a part of, in coordination with the Palestinian authorities, maybe with Maliki and Karazai as well. The resistance is made up of Hamas, Jihad, and PFLP in occupied Palestine, with Hizbullah in Lebanon and those in Iraq. There may not be coordination between them, we can't say that we are with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but they are fighting the Americans from their perspective. If they win, it's better for me than if the American project succeeds. There doesn't need to be organizational coordination, but there are common interests......

Q: Is there disappointment from the Palestinian people towards the Palestinian authorities because of their political positions?

A: Of course

Q: If there is this disappointment and distrust towards the Palestinian authorities, where can the Palestinian people place their trust?

A: We can talk about that for three hours! The issue is that we also have our own [internal] problems. When I speak of a Lebanese political division I also speak of a Palestinian division. To be honest, the Palestinian people no longer feel that any of the Palestinian factions represent them, not even the PLO. We'd be kidding ourselves if we claimed that. How do they represent the people? We're all living in camps, if a Palestinian [official] were to meet with a Lebanese he wouldn't talk about our real concerns and suffering. They have other concerns now, concerns of power and political standing, Gaza and the West Bank, unfortunately. They're fed up with us and want to unburden themselves of the Palestinian issue in Lebanon, especially that we've become a crisis point for them......."

Pack Up and Leave or Stay Home and Die

A Very Good Piece
By MIKE WHITNEY
CounterPunch

".....While it is true that the US uses terrorist organizations to further its policy objectives (The US supported Bin Laden in Afghanistan, the KLA in Kosovo, the Mujahedin Klaq in Iran) the situation in Lebanon is a bit more complex.

Fatah al-Islam is comprised of Sunni radicals who were recruited from the other Gulf States to counterbalance Hezbollah. Now, it appears, they have outlived their usefulness and the Lebanese warlords have decided to eliminate them......

The allegations in the western press were merely a pretext for restarting the fighting. The siege of Nahr al-Bared is probably just Phase 2 of Israel's 34 Day War--- a conflict in which "Israel's air force, armed with U.S.-manufactured and -fueled F-16s, went on a rampage with more than 14 combat missions every single hour of the war, destroying, among other things, 73 bridges, 400 miles of roads, 25 gas stations, 900 commercial structures, two hospitals, 350 schools and 15,000 Lebanese homes."

The US-Israeli goals in Lebanon have never really changed. Israel wants a reliable client to its North and access to Lebanon's water supplies. They also want to crush their main enemy, Hezbollah, the Shiite resistance organization which has routed the IDF twice in the last 15 years.

Bush, on the other hand, is trying to destabilize the entire region using the madcap neocon strategy of "creative destruction". He thinks that if he can erase the traditional borders and create a fragmented Middle East, the transnational corporations will be able to control the region's vast resources.

Washington's allies in Beirut like the idea, too. Walid Jumblat, Sa'ad Hariri and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora"all believe that the outbreak of violence will only strengthen them politically.

Siniora "The Lionhearted"

It's interesting to watch how eager Siniora is to bomb of a defenseless refugee camp, when just months ago he was too afraid to deploy troops to the south of Lebanon to fight the invading Israeli army. Why is that?.....

But there's another reason for the present siege of Nahr al-Bared besides Siniora's newfound courage, that is, NATO wants to clear the area for another military airbase......

The siege of Nahr al-Bared is an attempt "to eliminate people and start anew" by pushing 30 or 40 thousand Palestinians out of their homes and onto the streets so their foreign overlords can "build a stronger fortress". It is a tragedy and the Bush administration has only added to the crime by providing arms and equipment to the Lebanese Army......

The siege of Nahr al-Bared follows a familiar pattern that we have seen in Gaza, Falluja, Tel Afar and Samarra. The camp has been surrounded and cut off, snipers have been positioned on the rooftops, civilian areas have been shelled with impunity, and the bodies of the dead have been left to rot on the streets.

Sound familiar? It should. These are the basic contours of the Bush Doctrine as it is applied to the (remaining) independent states in the Middle East. The options for the victims are always the same: One can either pack up and find shelter in another filthy refugee-hovel or stay home and die. There's no other choice......

Even though they've lost their homes, the Palestinians have raised themselves above the squalor and cruelty of their predicament and shown selflessness and bravery. That's a powerful statement about the affects of culture and national identity.

As the Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish says in his poem "Passport":

"My nationality resides in the hearts of all the people,
so go ahead and remove my passport!""

Arab Regimes "Diplomacy"

Inside Bedawi Camp

By ELIZA ERNSHIRE
CounterPunch

Bedawi Camp, N. Lebanon

".....It is not just Bedawi that is now sheltering the families who have been fortunate enough to escape the besieged and death-strewn streets of Nahr al-Bared Camp. Families have fled as far south as Beirut and some say even further. Shatila, witness to its own massacre, is now opening its homes to the 153 families who have so far arrived there. Aid is funneling into Bedawi but nothing is yet reaching Shatila. Many of the families here have escaped without so much as their IDs on them.

In Bedawi the injured and the well share the same piece of bread; in Shatilla the wife is without her husband and shares the same mattress as her three or four children, and often no mattress at all.

Many who have fled have no way of knowing how their men-folk are, still stuck within their besieged Camp. One woman told me how the last thing she saw as she left with her baby was her husband bleeding from a gun shot wound to his shoulder. She was weeping as she told me she couldn't help wondering if she would ever see him again......

An explosion of anger in all the Palestinian camps against the government and most importantly against the Lebanese Army which has proved it is the only institution in the country that over the past four months has kept civil war at a tentative distance. If the Lebanese Army is ordered to storm the camp they will loose the respect that most factions in this country have for them......

So far the only leader of a political faction in the country to speak out against such an action as the storming of the Camp has been Hassan Nazrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, defamed in the West as a 'Terrorist Organization'.....

There is a third militia inside the Nahr al-Bared Camp. Residents sheltering there tell of this third militia who will fire towards the Lebanese Army and then Fatah al-Islam during a cease-fire and ignite the shooting again No one knows for sure who these militia are but some say that this group is connected to the militia of Hariri.......

Who can support a government which accepts US Arms to attack a Palestinian camp inside which half the residents are still besieged? (The same 'gift' that Israel accepts every year and used last summer to wipe out half of this country).

And it's got nothing to do with Sunni or Shia this time. Sunnis inside the Camp are being sacrificed by their Sunni Government and the leader of the Shia community is calling for their protection......"

"رفح - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام

أفادت مصادر أمنية فلسطينية أن سيارات مصفحة وسلاح وذخيرة دخلت قبل أيام إلى قطاع غزة، بكميات كبيرة، عبر معبر رفح الحدودي (الفاصل بين مصر وقطاع غزة)، مشيرة إلى أنها سلمت لأتباع محمد دحلان النائب عن حركة "فتح" والمتواجد في القاهرة.

وقالت المصادر إن سيارات حديثة ومصفحة ضد الرصاص دخلت عبر معبر رفح الحدودي، والذي يعد المنفذ الوحيد للفلسطينيين في قطاع غزة، وتم إخفاؤها في مخازن تابعة للنائب دحلان، مشيرة إلى أن سيارات أخرى، كانت تحمل صناديق تحتوي على بنادق حديثة من طراز كلاشينكوف وغيرها وكذلك آلاف الطلقات النارية، نقلت إلى أتباع النائب دحلان أمثال نبيل طموس وسميح المدهون ومنصور شلايل قبل يومين.

إلى ذلك؛ قام زعماء لحركة فتح بتحصين مواقع منازلهم ومقراتهم، حيث وضعوا أكياس الرمل وبنادق رشاشة ووضعوا حواجز للتدقيق في هويات المارة والسيارات.

وتؤكد مصادر أمنية أن التيار الانقلابي في حركة "فتح" يعد لجولة جديدة من الهجوم على حركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس"، والانقلاب على الشرعية الفلسطينية، كما حدث في الجولتين الأخيرتين، وأضافت أن الاتفاق مع الأمريكيين هو إنهاء الحكومة الفلسطينية وإنهاك حركة "حماس" لإضعافها مع حلول شهر تموز (يونيو) القادم. "

***

Armored cars, large supplies of arms and ammunition have entered Gaza in the past few days from Egypt via the Rafah crossing. The arms are stored in warehouses under the control of the notorious Pinochet Dahlan, who is in Cairo.

Security sources have confirmed that the Palestinian Contras under Dahlan are preparing for another round of attacks on Hamas to topple the movement. The plan agreed upon with U.S. handlers calls for ending the current Palestinian "government" and exhausting Hamas by early June.

You Call This Resistance??....These Must be Israeli-Backed Operatives....
There is Virtually no Resistance Left in the West Bank, Except the Kids with Stones.....

U.S.: 10 Memorial Day Deaths in Iraq

"Task Force Lightning Soldiers Attacked
Multinational Division – North PAO

TIKRIT, Iraq – Six Task Force Lightning Soldiers were killed when explosions occurred near their vehicles while conducting operations in Diyala Province, Monday.

Three other Soldiers were also wounded in the incident and were taken to a Coalition Forces’ medical treatment facility......"

TIKRIT, Iraq – Two Task Force Lightning Soldiers were killed when a helicopter went down in Diyala Province, May 28. The incident is under investigation.

So far in May 115 U.S. troops have been killed, the most in one month since November 2004 when Fallujah was attacked and destroyed.

"Syrian President Bashar Assad won 97.62 percent of the vote in a referendum that confirmed him for a second 7-year term, Interior Minister Bassam Abdel Majeed said on Tuesday.

"This great consensus shows the political maturity of Syria and the brilliance of our democracy and multi-party system," Majeed told reporters.

"There has been some repetition of votes but we caught them by reviewing the voting lists," Majeed said in response to a question about the possibility of vote-tampering.

Assad was the only candidate allowed to run in Sunday's referendum, which had been widely regarded as a formality and boycotted by the opposition.

The 41-year-old president won 97.29 percent of the vote when he succeeded his late father, Hafez al-Assad, seven years ago......."

***

His father used to do better by getting over 99% of the "vote;" but Asad II is consistent by getting over 97%. Not bad for a kid whose "only" asset is being the son of the former dictator.

NEW YORK For several weeks, E&P has been spotlighting the postings of McClatchy's Iraqi staffers in its Baghdad bureau, which appear on the Inside Iraq blog. Their names are only partly revealed for security reasons.

Here is a Memorial Day post from "correspondent Jenan."

"Today we live in Iraqi’s achievements time, I’m talking about the fictional achievements that our government try to persuade us of its existence by using statements, signs, or even using brainwashing to make us believe these achievements.

On the first anniversary of forming the government in Iraq, every thing around us reminds of achievements that our elected government has accomplished within its first year by help of the greatest power... the USA!!!. Did you ever hear of hidden services or invisible projects? That what our government try to make Iraqi people believe…

When I switch on the TV I always find a sign shown on it “government of huge achievements”. In the newspaper we find the same sign, even in the streets I read these signs everywhere. I’m always wondering what are these achievements? At least let us see or feel them, are they happening here, in another country or maybe on another planet? They should be visible, shouldn’t they? Or maybe we are a demanding people, never feel content ever … MAYBE!!.....

One week ago when I read in the newspaper about the achievements I tried to remove the fog from my eyes to see these achievements… they should be somewhere here or there but, sorry I can’t find any of these except infamous achievements like absence of electricity for four year...

Oh yes there are many crisis and disasters happened and still happening on our land as a result of achievements like pollution and corruption, Iraq is number one in corruption at least we are number one in some thing."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Bendib

The Pathetic Arab Regimes and their "Peace" Drive

Video: U.S Army Destroys a Mosque
with two precision drops

Click Here to Watch Modern Mongols at Work

Dr. Marcy Newman, Electronic Lebanon, 28 May 2007

"Today the Lebanese army gave the PLO 72 hours to take out Fatah al-Islam or else the violence will be escalated in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. It is not clear if this means that they will enter or if they will use heavier artillery, but I fear that they will raze the camp. This would not be the first time that it has happened. The Dbeyeh refugee camp was destroyed in 1976 during the Civil War in Lebanon when most of the Palestinian refugees living there were killed or forced out.

The shelling in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp has resumed yet again; more Palestinians are trapped inside and many of them seem to be men. Those who fled Nahr al-Bared and arrived in Shatila refugee camp in Beirut are fatherless families. Houses were destroyed and collapsed and people fled the camp, but many could not find their identity cards. Women and children have an easier time passing through checkpoints without these cards, but men cannot.

The identity cards that Palestinians are required to carry and show the army when they are stopped at checkpoints around Lebanon, which have increased in number since the bombings in Beirut and the fighting in Tripoli, are currently being used as a means to round up and arrest Palestinians. There have been numerous reports of Palestinians getting pulled over at checkpoints around Lebanon as the army does not want Palestinians to move freely from refugee camp to refugee camp.....

The aid situation in Nahr al-Bared is by far worse. It's not clear how many people remain inside, but the Lebanese army continues to hinder the access of journalists, ambulances, and humanitarian aid into the camp, although they did allow four trucks to enter today.......

But as we scramble for funds in between our work in the camps we could not help but notice the vast gap between the Palestinian refugees' hospitality last summer during the July War and the current situation. Lebanese who fled the south during the war last summer were welcomed into the Palestinian refugee camps and greeted with "ahlan wa sahlan" (welcome). Yet not one Lebanese church, mosque, school, or home that we know of has yet to do the same in return. Instead I read, hear, and witness increasing hostility towards the Palestinians among a large population of Lebanese. My only hope is that the next two days do not lead to a repeat of Dbeyeh forcing refugees to remain in even worse conditions before in these increasingly overcrowded camps.

Hamas pays price for victory

Islamist group has grown stronger, but now makes easier target for IDF

""Hamas' intoxication with power" – that's how sources in the Gaza Strip explain the difficult blows sustained by the organization in recent days at the hands of the Israeli Air Force. On Saturday, five members of Hamas' special security force were killed in an air force attack on a Gaza post, and sources reported that special force members were abandoning their positions in wake of the attacks.

When Hamas was still a guerilla group with cells operating secretly, Israel was only able to eliminate a few activities here and there through missile strikes and targeted assassinations. Yet following Hamas' election victory, and after the organization's special security force was established by former Interior Minister Said Siam, Hamas' military wing, or at least part of it, became part of the establishment......

Yet this intoxication with power led Hamas to become more established, and this led to the abandonment of guerilla tactics.

Hamas' security force started setting up above-ground posts, headquarters, training bases, and lodgings – in short, it has become a much easier target for detection by the Israeli Air Force.

And so, instead of a desperate pursuit for cells operating underground, the brawl between the IDF and Hamas is increasingly taking on the qualities of a war between two armies, where Israel enjoys much greater strength than Hamas. In such war, Hamas has no chance.

The dilemmas faced by Hamas' leadership are not simple. The security force's presence is an expression of the organization's military power, which terrifies Gaza Strip rivals and makes Hamas an element that cannot be ignored. However, this presence makes it easier for the IDF to strike the organization to the point of gravely hurting its members and weakening it considerably.

Hence, it appears these days that Hamas' security force is experiencing what the PA's official security organizations experienced when they were bombed and severely hit by the IDF – a process that allowed Hamas itself to rise to a position of power.

The question being asked now is this: Are we now seeing "closure" that would lead to a decline in Hamas' power and a return of the official security apparatuses? Time will tell."

By Virginia Tilley
(Virginia Tilley is a US citizen now working as a senior researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria. She is the author of 'The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock.')

"Academics don't like academic boycotts. In fact, we detest external limits of any kind. We treasure our own universities for offering precious sanctuary for critical debate (even though they rarely do) and we don't like to see any of them banned, even for ostensibly laudable reasons. Sure, universities in some countries are little more than fig leaves for their regimes. But that's not usually their fault. So we avoid the lectures of state hacks rather than denounce them and we protect the universities so that they can nurture that rare point of light.

Still, in very exceptional cases, an academic boycott comes onto our agenda. This happens when a country's universities are recognized as central players in legitimizing a regime that systematically inflicts massive human rights abuses on its own people and any pretence that the universities are independent fortresses of principled intellectual thought becomes too insulting to the human conscience. But since universities in many oppressive regimes fit those criteria, in practice a second condition is required: their faculties have the freedom to act differently......

Because they are in denial about the horrors of the occupation itself, Israeli academics protesting the boycott may not grasp its real purpose, which is to force them to confront those horrors. It is not acceptable for them to insist on ivory-tower privileges with so terrible a human rights catastrophe as the occupation stark on their doorstep, perpetrated by their own government and involving their own institutions in its cruelties and deceptions. When Dr. Schlesinger protests that being treated according to her nationality rather than her individual character 'was a blow,' she misses the entire point. To claim a right to principled treatment, one must extend it to others. Israeli academics must become serious about according their Palestinian colleagues the dignity and respect they expect themselves. When they do, given their formidable talents and resources, the occupation will face its toughest opponents."

Minister Eitan anticipates int'l peacekeepers in Gaza Strip

"Israeli-Palestinian fighting in and round the Gaza Strip could end with the deployment of a foreign peacekeeping mission, including troops from Egypt, Pensioner Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan said on Monday.

Eitan said nearly two weeks of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli air raids may prompt intervention like the boosted UN force in Lebanon after
Israel's war against Hezbollah guerrillas last year.

"The same thing, sooner or later, will happen in the Gaza Strip, with the senior partner in such a force being Egypt because it has no choice," Eitan told Israel Radio.

"And when the Egyptians are there, when 500 or 600 (Palestinian)civilians are killed, no one will say anything," he said. "That is what will eventually happen. We are getting there, gradually."

Israel long resisted the peacekeeper idea. Though it has signalled flexibility on the issue since the Lebanon war, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokeswoman said Eitan's thinking was not that of the government......

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said last week after talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials that a peacekeeping force was "one of many suggestions" that the EU would be "open to consider" if proposed by the parties.

But Solana said Egyptian officials had made clear to him that "they don't see the need for that". The Palestinian government has said peacekeepers were not yet on its agenda.

Western diplomats say they doubt enough European countries would come forward for a peacekeeping force in Gaza, especially if Israel insisted on a sweeping mandate that required the foreign troops to disarm or arrest Palestinian militants.

The diplomats said, however, countries in the region like Jordan, Egypt and Turkey could be candidates.

Eitan said he also anticipated a future Jordanian deployment in the West Bank, which Amman lost to Israel in the Six-Day war."

Ilan Pappe, The Electronic Intifada, 28 May 2007

"....Fatima knew in a timeless way, in those days of May 1948, that the Jews were coming. For the last six months shreds from the daily news -- traditionally the domain of the men in the village -- had reached her. She was aware that the British were leaving and that the Jews were occupying nearby villages at a frightening rate. She also heard the men complaining about the Arab world's betrayal: its leaders made inflammatory speeches, promising to send soldiers to save Palestine, but not matching their rhetoric by any real action....."

Click Here for Part 2

"…To the Shores of Tripoli"

"THE BLOODY battles that have erupted around the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli in Lebanon remind us that the refugee problem has not disappeared. On the contrary, 60 years after the "Nakba", the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948, it is again the center of attention throughout the world.

This is an open wound. Anyone who imagines that a solution to the Israel-Arab conflict is possible without healing this wound is deluding himself.......

The war of 1948, which was started by the Arab side, created an opportunity to realize both aims: Israel grew from 55% to 78% of the country, and this territory was emptied of most of its Arab inhabitants. Many of them fled the terrors of war, many others were driven out by us. Almost none were allowed to return after the war.

In the course of the war, some 750,000 Palestinians became refugees. Natural increase doubles their number every 18 years, so they are now approaching five million.......

The fate of the refugees varies from country to country. Jordan has accorded them citizenship, yet has kept many of them in miserable camps. The Lebanese have not given the refugees any civil rights at all, and have committed several massacres. Almost all Palestinian leaders demand the implementation of UN resolution 194 which was adopted 59 years ago and which promised the refugees a return to their homes as peaceful citizens......

...They rely on the fact that almost no Arab leader would dare to give up the Right of Return openly. In private conversations, many Arab leaders recognize that the return is impossible, but they dare not say so openly. To do so would mean political suicide......

In spite of this, a subterranean shift has taken place in recent years on the Arab side. There have been hints that Israel's demographic problem cannot be ignored.....

NOW, A REVOLUTIONARY development has taken place. The Arab League has offered Israel a peace plan: all 22 Arab states would recognize Israel and establish diplomatic and economic relations with it, in return for Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state. The offer did not ignore the refugee problem. It mentioned UN resolution 194, but added a qualification of fundamental importance: that the solution would be reached "by agreement" between the two parties. In other words: Israel would have the right of veto over refugees returning to Israeli territory......

This put the Israeli government in a difficult position. If the Israeli public understood that the entire Arab world was offering a comprehensive peace agreement without the actual realization of the Right of Return, they might accept it gladly.......

TO ACHIEVE this goal, the refugee problem must be transferred to the realm of reality. It must undergo a process of de-mystification......

On the practical level, the real problem of five million human beings must be solved. All of them will have a right to generous compensation, which will enable them to start a new life any way they wish. Those who want to stay where they are, with the consent of the local government, will have the ability to rebuild the life of their families. Those who want to live in the future State of Palestine, perhaps in the areas cleared of settlements, must receive the necessary international assistance. I, personally, believe that it would be good for us to receive back a certain agreed-upon number of refugees in Israel proper, as a symbolic contribution to the end to the tragedy......"

***

In a nutshell the Zionist Avnery wants Israel to remain Jewish and racist. I don't want to hear anymore about "peace now;" they are racist, but they express their racism politely.

"Gaza - Ma'an - Tension reappeared in the Gaza Strip on Monday as unidentified masked gunmen opened fire at a jeep belonging to Force 17, the Palestinian presidential guards, in Izzeddin Al-Qassam Street, west Gaza City.

Following the incident, roadblocks appeared anew in the streets and gunmen began inspecting cars. Furthermore, gunmen stationed themselves again on the roofs of high residential buildings. Meanwhile, the Follow-Up Committee hurried to convene in an attempt to return tranquillity to the city which has witnessed bloody internal confrontations over the past two weeks.

Israeli intelligence chief predicted upsurge of Fatah-Hamas violence

On Sunday during the Israeli cabinet's weekly session, the head of Israel's Shin Bet domestic intelligence service, Yuval Diskin, whispered in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's ear that the Hamas-Fatah confrontations could erupt anew soon.

According to Israeli sources, Diskin added that the coming confrontations would be more bloody and on a wider scale, resulting in many victims.

On the other hand, Diskin admitted the Israeli army's failure to hit Hamas' military wing members. He said, however, that most of those who were assassinated so far were members of the Hamas-affiliated Executive Force.

The Shin Bet chief also expressed concern that if the Israeli army fails again to deter Hamas fighters, homemade projectiles would be launched again at Ashkelon and Netivot. He also refused to extend the ceasefire to the West Bank in exchange for the Palestinians halting their projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli towns......."

Chief Financial Stooge and World Bank-Rice-Saudi Asset Fayyad









Aid flows into PLO account after US shift

"With US backing, donor funds have started flowing into an account controlled by Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad to pay partial government salaries, Palestinian and Western officials said on Monday.

Fayyad was expected to receive enough money through the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) account to pay government workers, including members of the security forces, at least half of their normal monthly wages later this week.

With the Palestinian unity government paralyzed by infighting, Israeli forces arresting cabinet ministers and workers threatening an open-ended strike, it is unclear what impact the payments will have and how long they will continue......"

humanitarian news and analysis
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

"BEIRUT, 28 May 2007 (IRIN) - Heavy overnight bombardment on Friday of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp by the Lebanese army killed at least four civilians and injured dozens, with eye-witnesses describing scenes of devastation after the military’s week-long clashes with Islamist militants in the once densely populated camp.

“Nahr al-Bared looks like Leningrad,” Bilal Aslan, a commander in the military wing of the secular Palestinian faction Fatah, who has spent the week inside the camp, told IRIN, referring to the German World War II siege of the Russian city. “The army is not letting anyone in here, so no one can see the massacres they have committed,” he said.

Khaled al-Haj, service officer of Nahr al-Bared for the UN Palestinian relief organisation, UNRWA, who spent the first four days of the siege inside the camp, told IRIN: “We’ve had no electricity, no water and no food. Large areas of the camp are completely destroyed. Nahr al-Bared is a ghost town. The only thing you can smell is death.”.......

Figures from the Palestine Red Crescent (PRC), the only emergency service running ambulances in and out of the camp, at the end of Friday said 84 civilians had been wounded and 35 killed since the bombardment of the camp began on 20 May.......

Houses, mosques destroyed

Over 200 houses in the camp have been totally destroyed, according to Abu Jaber, a community leader working inside the camp, while five mosques have been destroyed by tank and artillery fire. The army said it has been targeting Fatah al-Islam positions. The most recently struck mosque, Al Hawouz near the once bustling central market place of the camp, used to house a temporary clinic set up by the PRC but it was soon abandoned. “The first shell came through the roof. It was dark and dusty and everyone was screaming. My cousin’s eight-month-old daughter fainted from fear,” said Hafida Deeb Wehbe, describing the bombardment that began around 8pm on Friday. “The second and third rounds landed in the street, and then the fourth hit the dome of the mosque and totally destroyed it.”

With none of the camp’s five regular clinics now operating the PRC is setting up two temporary tented clinics, said Dr Abdel Aziz of the Safad PRC-run hospital in neighbouring Beddawi camp.


Dr Aziz warned of further casualties if the army makes good on its threat to enter the camp. “If this operation goes ahead we are worried there will be a huge number of civilians hurt,” he said.......

A source in the Ministry of Defence, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted the army was aware “lots of civilians have died” but repeated an earlier statement insisting the army only targeted suspected Fatah al-Islam positions......"

Al-Manar

"28/05/2007 بعد سايمور هيرش وروبرت فيسك وباتريك سيل، الصحافي والاكاديمي الأميركي فرانكلين لامب ينضم الى لائحة من قدموا معلومات جديدة عن الفريق السياسي اللبناني الذي يقف وراء فتح الاسلام. تحقيق لللامب في نشرة "كاونتر بونش" الأميركية الواسعة الإنتشار على شبكة الانترنت.

فالصحافي والاكاديمي فرانكلين لامب تسلل إلى داخل مخيم نهر البارد متستراً بقميص وكالة غوث انسانية واجرى تحقيقاً استقصائياً مطولاً نقل فيه عن سكان المخيم قولهم أن فتح الإسلام دخلت مخيمهم بين أيلول وتشرين الأول من العام 2006، ومعظم أعضائها من جنسيات عربية وإسلامية مختلفة، بعضهم من السعودية وباكستان والعراق وبعضهم الآخر من تونس والجزائر، وليس في الحركة أي فلسطيني سوى بعض المستفيدين من المال الذي تدفعه بحسب ما نقل لامب مجموعة الحريري.
ويشير لامب في هذا الإطار ان الحرب الإسرائيلية الأخيرة على لبنان، فتحت المجال أمام تمويل بعض المجموعات السنية، بهدف إضعاف حزب الله حيث أصبح هذا المشروع هاجسا لدى البيت الأبيض عقب هزيمة إسرائيل في تموز 2006.
لامب الذي أطلق على فريق السلطة في لبنان إسم النادي اللبناني الولشي، نسبة لمساعد وزيرة الخارجية الأميركية ديفيد ولش، ذكر أن رئيس تنظيم المستقبل سعد الحريري بدأ بتأسيس خلايا إرهابية إسلامية بهدف تشكيل غطاء لمشاريع النادي الولشي. وتقضي الخطة بأن يلقى اللوم جراء تصرفات هذه الخلايا ومن بينها فتح الإسلام على تنظيم القاعدة وسوريا أو جهة بإستثناء النادي.
ويشير لامب أن تيار المستقبل عمد إلى جمع عدد من الإسلاميين المتواجدين في المخيمات وخصص لكل مقاتل مبلغ 700 دولار شهرياً، وأول هذه الميليشيات التي اسسها تيار المستقبل هي مجموعة جند الشام في صيدا التي إنشئت في مخيم عين الحلوة ويوضح لامب أن هذه المجموعة تعرف داخل المخيم بإسم جند الست، في إشارة إلى النائب بهية الحريري.
المجموعة الثانية هي مجموعة فتح الإسلام التي تضم 400 مقاتل ويتقاضى عناصرها رواتب جيدة، وتم تأمين بحسب لامب لقادتها شقق فخمة في طرابلس مشرفة على البحر وذلك من أجل الراحة وتحزين السلاح.
الصحافي والاكاديمي الاميركي فرانكلين لامب نقل عن عناصر في فتح الإسلام وجند الشام أن مجموعتيهما تتحركان بناء لأوامر النائب سعد الحريري، وأن ما حدث مؤخرا له علاقة بإنكشاف أمر الشبكة ووقف تيار السمتقبل حساب فتح الاسلام في المصرف الذي تملكه عائلة الحريري، الامر الذي دفع فتح الإسلام لمهاجمة المصرف الذي كان يدفعهم شيكاتهم، للحصول على تعويض بعد الشعور بالخيانة ليبدأ بعد ذلك السيناريو الذي أدى إلى مقتل عدد من رجال الجيش اللبناني فيما أبدى إستغرابه الكاتب الأميركي من عدم تعرض قوى الأمن الداخلي لأي هجوم، لان عناصرها مؤيدون للحريري وبعضهم من اصدقاء فتح الاسلام بحسب فرانكلين الذي خلص في هذا الإطار إلى أن الجيش اللبناني بات يشعر أنه ضحية."

"Gaza - Ma'an - At approximately 23:00 on Saturday, 26 May 2007, an Israeli warplane struck the northern Gaza Strip. According to a press release from the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the missile damaged PCHR's branch office in Jabalia, in addition to dozens of civilian homes and shops.

PCHR reports that the missile hit a security room belonging to the Palestinian Ministry of Interior's Executive Force in the centre of the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. When the missile hit the ground, the missile caused heavy damages to PCHR’s Jabalia office, nearly 40 metres away, and to dozens of houses and shops, the press release says. Additionally, 15 Palestinian civilians were wounded by shrapnel according to PCHR.

PCHR says, "This attack apparently aimed at causing maximum damage to civilian property."

PCHR condemns such attacks, describing them as "a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian civilian population in violation of article 33 of the Geneva Convention", and calls upon the international community "to immediately intervene to stop such crimes."

In particular, PCHR calls upon "the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War to fulfill their obligation under article 1 of the Convention to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances." PCHR adds that, under article 146 of the Geneva Convention, the high contracting parties are also obliged "to search for and prosecute those who are responsible for perpetrating grave breaches of the Convention, as such breaches constitute war crimes." "

Don't bother examining a folly, advised Ayn Rand – ask yourself only what it accomplishes…

By Justin Raimondo

"......This passion for reinvention is also all the rage in Iraq, where the head of the Mahdi Army, Moqtada al-Sadr, has announced what the Voice of America refers to as a "plan to create a more positive face for his movement." Yes, I suppose all those sectarian killings really are bad public relations: the torture and summary execution of Sunnis at the hands of Mahdi Army militants is a major cause of the ongoing Iraqi civil war. That war, however, may no longer be the main problem in Iraq today.

The leading party in Iraq's governing coalition, SCIRI, is also undergoing a makeover, starting with its name: the new moniker is the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC). This is supposed to be symbolic of a metamorphosis that showcases, first of all, the party's recent move away from its traditional patron, the Iranian government. The name change is also meant to put a new emphasis on the religious authority of the mullahs in Najaf, the Vatican of Iraqi Shi'ism, as opposed to that of the Ayatollah Khamenei, headquartered in Iran.

The simplistic and totally wrong explanation we are given in the "mainstream" media is that Sadr is a pawn of Iran, but this has no basis in fact: the real Iranian pawns are SCIRI and its affiliated militia, the Badr Brigade (renamed the Badr Organization, in a lame attempt to apply a thin coat of cosmetic paint to what is otherwise the biggest death squad in Iraq). The former SCIRI, as indicated in its name, was founded to extend Iran's Shi'ite revolution to Iraq. The Iranian government funded and armed SCIRI for many years, and the group's leaders lived in Tehran, where they plotted their return.

What seems to be happening is a complex political balancing act between the Sadrists and SIIC, with the Iranians and the Americans playing off one side against the other. While Sadr has moved closer to the Iranians and SCIRI/SIIC has moved away from Tehran, the underlying ideological dynamics have remained the same, with Sadr vehemently nationalistic and anti-occupation and the relatively moderate pro-government SCIRI/SIIC more amenable to outside interests, such as the Iranians and the Americans. Sadr is against the breakup of Iraq into sectarian-ethnic sectors, while SCIRI/SIIC has endorsed the idea of a Shi'ite confederation of provinces in the southern region of the country – a project in sync with Iranian ambitions to dominate the region.......

This is the background to the Monday meeting of the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq: both Washington and Tehran, for different reasons, have an interest in tamping down the Sadrist influence and bolstering the shaky hegemony of SIIC and the United Iraqi Alliance-led government. For all the rhetorical posturing over the nuclear issue and the bombastic denunciations of alleged Iranian "interference" in Iraq – a charge that sounds awfully odd coming from a country that currently has some 160,000 troops occupying the country – the Americans are undoubtedly going to ask the Iranians' help in minimizing the influence of a troublesome antagonist, and Tehran has every reason to cooperate........"

Israel relentlessly targets the Executive Force, demolishing 12 of its 16 bases and killing 13 members

"Khan Younis - Ma'an - For two weeks the Israeli forces have been targeting the bases of the Executive Force (EF). Many have been demolished in a clear escalation against the EF, which is considered to be affiliated to Hamas, although it is officially a constituent of the interior ministry.

It is widely considered that the Israeli aggression directed at the EF seeks to destroy the force and its infrastructure........

The force was founded by former interior minister, Said Siyam, who is a senior Hamas leader. He declared that the force was established as an executive force that would support the other security forces.

The force has at least 6,300 members from the Palestinian factions, 4,300 of whom are from Hamas. It has many military vehicles and uses Russian Kalashnikov rifles and some locally-made hand-grenades.

The force has 16 bases in the Gaza Strip: two in Rafah; two in Khan Younis; three in the central area; 6 in Gaza City and the rest in the north of the strip. 12 posts were destroyed in the recent Israeli air strikes; 13 members were killed and around 100 injured.......

Abu Sada, who is a lecturer in Political Science at the university, added that Israel used the launching of projectiles as a pretext to launch an invasion in the Gaza Strip. He said he believes that Israel will not be able to end the force, even though it has succeeded in destroying most of its posts......."

Meeting The Great Satan Face to Face.....
The Great Satan is Nice and Cuddly After All....
Many Happy Returns??

Got Enough Flags?

By Kurt Nimmo

Watch the Video: Podhoretz Wants to Bomb Iran!

"In normal, non-Bushzarro times, a man calling for mass murder would be held in contempt, not held up as an example of the political mainstream and heralded as a “distinguished author.” However, as we are well astride of the Bushzarro era, Norman Podhoretz is provided with a venue—for the proper audience, of course—to advocate the destruction of Iran and the murder of possibly thousands of its citizens. “I believe,” Podhoretz told the Israel Broadcast Authority on May 24 (see video below), “contrary to what many people assume, that [Bush] will [attack Iran] before he leaves office, possibly shortly before he leaves office,” thus leaving the political fallout to the incoming president, more than likely a Democrat. “I think he agrees with the analysis that I offer that there is no alternative to military action.”

Of course, in order to sell this invasion of a sovereign nation, based on illusory claims the mullahs of Iran are in the process of building a nuclear bomb to use against Israel—a crackpot theory but one that remarkably has gained a degree of credence in the United States—Podhoretz and the neocons have erected an elaborate if preposterous edifice to support their Brothers Grimm fable about Iran.

“As the currently main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as (according to the State Department’s latest annual report on the subject) the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism’s weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous one of all,” Podhoretz writes for the June issue of Commentary Magazine. “I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the cold war was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the cold war, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of Communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.”

In March, Eliot Cohen was appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as Counselor of the State Department, thus the very contagion of the neocon disease now resides at the highest office.......

Finally, the Podhoretz appearance on Israeli television and his avowed declaration Bush will certainly invade Iran arrives less than two weeks after out-going United Nations ambassador John Bolton told the Daily Telegraph “Iran would be as dangerous as ‘Hitler marching into the Rhineland’ in 1936 and should be prevented by Western military strikes if necessary…. The Pentagon has drawn up contingency plans for military action and some senior White House officials share Mr Bolton’s thinking.” "

The members may want to pin responsibility on just one man, but they have a moral duty to question their own role

Haifa Zangana
Monday May 28, 2007
The Guardian

"Iraqis often debate whether it is the Labour party as an institution or Tony Blair as an individual that is the real British culprit in their tragedy. This issue needs to be addressed, not least for the future of relations between Iraq and Britain; but the debate echoes the deeply felt anger among Arabs and Muslims worldwide.

Blair's callousness about Iraqi lives and the country's ongoing destruction should now be notorious. In December 2004, the BBC's Andrew Marr asked Blair during a visit to Baghdad's Green Zone: "Many thousands of people have died for this moment, including scores of British people: are you sure that this prize was worth that price?" Blair's answers ranged from, "I know that we are doing the right thing" to, "Yes, I believe we did the right thing" and, finally, "I've got no doubt at all that that is the right thing for us to do".......

This is not unusual. History, the gatekeeper of collective memory, teaches us that dictators and tyrants never admit to committing crimes, but adamantly justify them by saying that they acted in the national interest. Parties and ideologies often act in the same way. Parties rise to power on the strength of declared commitments, and they must be judged on whether they fulfil them.......

In the fifth year of occupation, Iraq is a country of horrors, invoking comparison in the mind of Iraqis with the barbarity of the Mongols in 1258. An academic, who fears for his life, told me last week that every aspect of human rights has been violated.......

The Labour party should not be relieved of its responsibility just because Blair is leaving. It is the moral responsibility of its members to question the party's role in the destruction of Iraq, and whether its new leader will listen to them and to the people of Iraq......."

by Chris Marsden

Global Research, May 27, 2007

"......However, it is entirely possible that something more than “blowback” is at work in Lebanon.

At the very least, Washington’s positive response to Lebanon’s offensive shows that Siniora acted only after having been given a green light to do so by the Bush administration. It should be noted that the Lebanese media has been filled with denunciations of the Fatah al-Islam for weeks, indicating that an attack was in preparation for some time. But if the reports of extensive relations between Sunni militants, the US and Siniora governments are true, the conflict with Fatah al Islam could have been deliberately encouraged in order to justify what is now underway:

* A brutal attack on the Palestinian refugee camps that takes the form of collective punishment and coincides with a major Israeli military offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

* The ratcheting up of propaganda against Syria, which is second only to Iran as the favoured target of the Washington neoconservatives. Syria is also being blamed for the bombings carried out by Fatah al Islam and the three bombs that have exploded while the shelling of Nahr el Bared has been ongoing.

* A major build-up of Lebanon’s armed forces, facilitated by money from the US that can then be used against Hezbollah.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation dominated by Fatah and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh both agreed to Lebanon entering the camps, ending a four-decade agreement that they stay out. A PLO representative in Lebanon stated, “We have declared that the country is for Lebanon and sovereignty is for Lebanon, and whatever Lebanon decides or considers its higher interests, we support it.” PLO executive committee member Zakariyya Al-Agha described Fatah al Islam as “an intruding organisation, which based itself in Nahr al Bared to involve the refugees in the heinous terrorist actions in Lebanon.”

Haniyeh also supported “maintaining the sovereignty of Lebanon and upholding its security.”

But both organisations are sitting on a powder keg. The camp’s residents have stated they were deliberately targeted by the army, and there have been angry demonstrations in many of the 12 camps where more than 215,000 of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live. Fatah has warned that the continued shelling of the camp could provoke an uprising across Lebanon. An all-out assault would have even more incendiary consequences. Sultan Abul Aynayn of the PLO in Lebanon has stated, “No Palestinian, or Palestinian faction in Lebanon will accept seeing the Palestinian people slaughtered in a collective punishment as is happening in Nahr el Bared.”"

Contributed by Lucia

Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians

Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday November 25, 2001
The Observer

"A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal. Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away.

Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma.

'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.'......

The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East.

In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited.

Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude......."

What a Farce!
With his vote cast for himself, Bashar Rabbit has guaranteed 99.999% approval for his inherited monarchy....
Syrian People: Celebrate, Now!

Roads to Iraq via uruknet.info

Warning: Graphic images below [all images are civilians killed or injured in the violence]

"Gaza – Ma'an – The PLO chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said on Sunday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is exerting efforts to renew the ceasefire with the Israelis.

Erekat told Palestinian radio that the ceasefire became a higher Palestinian interest, which serves the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

He expressed hope that the Palestinian resistance factions will approve a ceasefire based on higher Palestinian interests......."

***

Usraeli stooges always represent the interest of their master; that you can count on.

Surprise, Surprise.....Those Qassam "Firecrackers" Can Cause Damage

"Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.

In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3 1/2 months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces.

"It could be a bloody — it could be a very difficult August," he said last week.

U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus on Saturday acknowledged the increase in casualties as a result of the American surge in forces to regain control of Baghdad.........

Thousands more American soldiers are patrolling the streets and living in isolated outposts across Baghdad, leaving them more vulnerable to attack. He also said the increase in raids on extremist Shiite militiamen had brought a wave of retaliatory attacks.

"We're out there on the streets a lot more. There are more patrols going on every day, so we're more open to attacks," O'Hanlon said.......

Stephen Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of a group that spent weeks in Iraq assessing the situation for Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, agreed that more American deaths were likely.

"The biggest change in their (insurgent and militia) tactics is that they've changed to exploit the vulnerabilities we've opened ourselves up to. They see a new, small American base in their neighborhood, three blocks away, and they're going to car bomb it," said Biddle......

By the end of Saturday at least 100 American troops had died in the first 26 days of May, an average of 3.85 deaths a day. At that pace, 119 troops will have died by the end of the month, the most since 137 soldiers were killed in November 2004, when U.S. troops were fighting insurgents in Fallujah.

As of Saturday, May 26, 2007, at least 3,451 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,817 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military."

(Click on cartoon to enlarge: Since there are no Israeli settlements in Gaza any longer, Gaza is a free fire zone)

By Gideon Levy

"Once again we are being hit by a wave of desire for "a strong man." From every direction, from the left and right, voices that miss former prime minister Ariel Sharon are being heard, like voices of longing for a father who has departed. "If Sharon were here the war in Lebanon would have ended differently," and "Sharon would have put an end to the Qassams a long time ago."

Let it be said at once: Being orphaned in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's shadow is better than the fatherliness of the mythical leader. Hamas should be profoundly grateful to Sharon, thanks to whom it now controls Gaza. Hezbollah, too, would be ungrateful if it did not thank the man who led to its firm footing in Lebanon, and here in Israel Sderot owes that man for the Qassams that are landing on its head. Those who now miss Sharon are longing for the brute force and bullying that led us to the brink. Israel is nostalgic for its most dangerous leader, for the person who caused it more damage than anyone else.

During his six years as prime minister Sharon wiped out the last chance for the existence of a Palestinian partner. Sharon's Israel waged war on the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and instead of a secular movement that believes in compromises we received a fanatical Islamic leadership, just as the first Lebanon war gave rise to Hezbollah. Whom do we have to thank for this? Sharon......

We destroyed everything and we left the Gaza Strip behind lock and bolt, imprisoned as it had never been before.......

And it is no wonder that imprisoned and hungry people, who have no exit, have turned to anarchy and violence. The experiment with humans has succeeded: They have indeed begun to run amok in their huge cage. Hamas came into power - this too was no surprise - and the world imposed a cruel economic boycott on the Palestinian Authority, with Israel's encouragement, even when the unity government arose. The civil war and the Qassams were not long in coming. These are just the appetizer. And what did we expect? And what did Sharon intend when he replaced one occupation with another?........

But on the ruins, reinforced by poverty and despair, a new form of violent resistance would have arisen. Sharon, a real man, would also have totally destroyed the last remnants of the Palestinian unity government, and even then no one would have asked what would come in its stead. It isn't that we aren't acting like bullies now as well, kidnapping an education minister in the middle of the night and bombing money changers. But Olmert has refrained from going all the way in Sharon's path. How pleasant it is, relatively and temporarily, to be orphans in his lap."

"Attempts to prevent the nuclearization of Iran will fail, according to former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon, who asserted Saturday that the military option should be examined and the Iranian regime should be brought down.

Speaking on Channel 2's "Meet the Press," Ya'alon also proposed going into Gaza with massive ground forces to "clean" the area without taking it over for a long period. He said he feared that within a year terrorists would be firing Katyushas at Kiryat Gat and Ashdod. "No one will solve the problem in Gaza for us," he said.

"We will have to get at the terrorists and their workshops, which are the infrastructure of terror, and to strike them. We did this in Operation Defensive Shield. Before Defensive Shield we also debated, but in the end we carried it out wisely. You have to be blind not to see the necessity to go into the Strip. There is no choice," Ya'alon added.

The former IDF chief said he believed Mahmoud Abbas is not a relevant partner. He also expressed concern that escalation in the south might cause the northern front with Hezbollah to heat up. In addition, he said that anti-rocket systems the defense establishment has discussed are ineffective and do not provide a real response to the problem of Qassams and Katyushas.

According to Ya'alon, he prepared the IDF for a scenario like last year's Second Lebanon War. "With me as chief of staff, the war would have looked different," he said."

***

A Comment by Tony Sayegh

An expert on guerrilla resistance has expressed the view that from the perspective of a guerrilla, it would be better if the IOF re-occupied the Gaza Strip. Right now, it is a remote-control occupation. But if ground forces are brought in and the Palestinians learn and use real guerrilla tactics as Hizbullah did last summer, then the cost to the IOF would be much higher.

According to many experts, the plan should be this:

1) Dissolve the PA in both the West Bank and Gaza and force Usrael to shoulder the full burden of the occupation.

2) Establish a true Palestinian liberation movement that includes all Palestinians willing to fight for liberation, not just talk about it for the cameras. At this stage unity should be unity of arms not unity of mouthpieces in a joke called "unity government."

3) Affiliation with various factions should be de-emphasized, since at this stage it weakens the resistance. This is not the stage for political parties and different ideologies. Right now there is only one goal: liberation.

4) Undergo a thorough and ruthless evaluation of the mistakes of the past in order not to repeat them.

5) Make a determined effort to learn from the experience of others who fought colonial occupations and won. When facing a sophisticated occupier who uses the best available weapons and strategy you have to be a match.

6) Experience is available within the Arab world to draw upon, specifically Iraq and Lebanon. Local conditions are different, but the broad outlines are still applicable.

The Price Paid for Hubris, Arrogance and Ignorance......
R.I.P.