"Damascus, (PIC)-- Mohammed Nazzal, the prominent Hamas political leader and member of its political bureau, said Saturday that the Palestinian people will not allow PA chief Mahmoud Abbas to tamper with their aspirations and their sacrifices. "Our Palestinian masses that offered everything precious to preserve, protect, and continue the resistance against the occupation will not allow Abbas to undermine their sacrifices, destroy their aspirations, waste blood of their martyrs and agonies of their captives", affirmed Nazzal in an exclusive interview with the PIC.
Nazzal was apparently reacting to the pledge given by Abbas and Salam Fayyad, the head of the "illegitimate" PA government in Ramallah, to the Israelis that they will dismantle and crackdown on the Palestinian resistance factions in the West Bank. "It is clear that the PA presidency and the Fayyadh-Dayton government in Ramallah city have thrown themselves into the Israeli and American laps", the Hamas official said.
He also charged that Abbas's pledge to chase Palestinian resistance fighters in the West Bank, in addition to information leaked on the nature of the PA-Israeli negotiations affirm that Abbas is planning to turn the PA security apparatuses into another Lahd army with the aim to quell and to pursue Palestinian resistance fighters, including honorable member of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah faction.
Israeli official sources welcomed the Abbas-Fayyad pledge that came in the wake of a number of signals the two had made concerning the implementation of the first stage of the infamous roadmap plan that stipulates the necessity to dismantle the infrastructure of the Palestinian resistance.
He also linked the Abbas-Fayyad pledge to the draft resolution prepared and presented by Abbas's envoy to the UN Riyadh Mansour instigating the international community against the resistance in the Gaza Strip.....
"It is clear that the draft resolution presented by Abbas's envoy to the UN Riyadh Mansour that aimed at internationalizing the internal Palestinian crises, condemning the resistance and dealing with it as terrorism proves that the PA presidency was driving a road leading to a new Oslo [accord] and even worse", Nazzal underscored.
In this concern, Nazzal called on the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance factions to confront the PA presidency team that "sold itself for a cheap price",......"Our Palestinian people can, through their prudence and awareness, read between the lines, and they know very well who protects their national constants and who make business and personal gains out of them", said Nazzal......"
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Good news from Gaza
By Gideon Levy
Contributed by Lucia
"......But the respect the reservists felt for the way Hamas fought is liable to trickle down deeper. "The Palestinians never looked like this," the surprised soldiers told Haaretz. Perhaps we will finally stop calling them "terrorists" and refer to them as "fighters." A bit of respect for the Palestinians and, in particular, an end to our dehumanization of them is liable to mark the beginning of a new chapter.
Furthermore, the fact an army has arisen in Gaza, if this assessment is correct, is liable to prevent another large-scale, ground-based military operation with its many casualties and futility. Perhaps the reservists' reports will dissuade the defense minister from carrying out his plan to conquer Gaza and will motivate Israel to try, for the first time, a different approach with Hamas - negotiations. Only the recognition of Hamas' strength is liable to persuade Israel to be cautious about another operation, and only its military buildup will make us understand the full stupidity of the boycott policy that was designed to weaken Hamas.
We have always acted this way. Without violent Palestinian resistance, life in occupying Israel is great and no one pays any attention to the need to end the occupation. No resistance - no Palestinians. No terrorism - no progress. If not for the Qassams, no one would give any thought to life in Gaza after the disengagement. Ours is a country that has been ready to make concessions only after blood is spilled. Since the interim accords following the Yom Kippur War and through the withdrawal from Lebanon and the disengagement, Israel has needed a relatively strong enemy to get its act together. If not for Hezbollah, we would still be in Lebanon; if not for Hamas, we would still be in Gaza......."
Contributed by Lucia
"......But the respect the reservists felt for the way Hamas fought is liable to trickle down deeper. "The Palestinians never looked like this," the surprised soldiers told Haaretz. Perhaps we will finally stop calling them "terrorists" and refer to them as "fighters." A bit of respect for the Palestinians and, in particular, an end to our dehumanization of them is liable to mark the beginning of a new chapter.
Furthermore, the fact an army has arisen in Gaza, if this assessment is correct, is liable to prevent another large-scale, ground-based military operation with its many casualties and futility. Perhaps the reservists' reports will dissuade the defense minister from carrying out his plan to conquer Gaza and will motivate Israel to try, for the first time, a different approach with Hamas - negotiations. Only the recognition of Hamas' strength is liable to persuade Israel to be cautious about another operation, and only its military buildup will make us understand the full stupidity of the boycott policy that was designed to weaken Hamas.
We have always acted this way. Without violent Palestinian resistance, life in occupying Israel is great and no one pays any attention to the need to end the occupation. No resistance - no Palestinians. No terrorism - no progress. If not for the Qassams, no one would give any thought to life in Gaza after the disengagement. Ours is a country that has been ready to make concessions only after blood is spilled. Since the interim accords following the Yom Kippur War and through the withdrawal from Lebanon and the disengagement, Israel has needed a relatively strong enemy to get its act together. If not for Hezbollah, we would still be in Lebanon; if not for Hamas, we would still be in Gaza......."
الجزيرة تنشر وثائق خبر وصف حماس بمليشيا خارجة عن القانون
"تنشر الجزيرة فيما يلي الوثائق الخاصة بالخبر الذي بثته القناة عن مشروع قرار وزعه الوفد الفلسطيني على الدول الأعضاء في الجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة، وأشار فيه إلى ما وصفها بالمليشيا الخارجة على القانون التي سيطرت على قطاع غزة يونيو/حزيران الماضي.
وتود الجزيرة أن تنشر الوثائق المرفقة التي حصلت عليها من مصدر عربي في الجمعية العامة لتثبت صحة الخبر الذي بثته يوم الخميس العاشر من نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني الجاري، وذلك ردا على ما ذهبت إليه وسائل إعلام رسمية فلسطينية باتهام الجزيرة باختلاق الخبر.
....
....
أما المندوب الدائم لمصر فقد أشار إلى أن هناك دعما عربيا كاملا لكافة مشاريع القرارات الفلسطينية، ولكن وفده يريد أن يثير مسألتين الأولى إجرائية والثانية موضوعية:
1- المسألة الإجرائية : ذكر أنه عندما يحدث تحول في مشروع قرار من القرارات يمس جوهر التعامل مع الأمم المتحدة فإنه كان من المأمول من الوفد الفلسطيني التشاور مع المجموعة العربية قبل القيام بتوزيعه على المجموعات الأخرى.
2- المسألة الموضوعية: أكد على صعوبة الموافقة على ما جاء في بعض المشاريع حول "المليشيات خارجة عن القانون" لأن هذا التوصيف يفتح الباب أمام الأمم المتحدة لتصنيفها على أنها مجموعات إرهابية وإدراجها على بعض القوائم ويساعد إسرائيل، قائلا "إلا إذا كان هو الذي تريده السلطة الفلسطينية ولكنني لا اعتقد ذلك".
وركز المندوب المصري على أهمية وحدة الشعب الفلسطيني وعدم تقسيمه إلى سلطة ومجموعات خارجة لأن ذلك يشكل سابقة خطيرة وسيؤدي إلى نتائج وخيمة، مشددا على ضرورة ألا يفهم هذا الموقف على أن مصر تدعم حماس بل إدراكا للآثار السلبية التي ستترتب على هذه الصياغات.
....
...."
Latin America’s Shock Resistance
A Great Article
by Naomi Klein
"In less than two years, the lease on the largest and most important US military base in Latin America will run out. The base is in Manta, Ecuador, and Rafael Correa, the country’s leftist president, has pronounced that he will renew the lease “on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami–an Ecuadorean base. If there is no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.”.....
Of all the differences, the most striking is an acute awareness of the need for protection from the shocks that worked in the past–the coups, the foreign shock therapists, the US-trained torturers, as well as the debt shocks and currency collapses. Latin America’s mass movements, which have powered the wave of election victories for left-wing candidates, are learning how to build shock absorbers into their organizing models. They are, for example, less centralized than in the ’60s, making it harder to demobilize whole movements by eliminating a few leaders. Despite the overwhelming cult of personality surrounding Chávez, and his controversial moves to centralize power at the state level, the progressive networks in Venezuela are at the same time highly decentralized, with power dispersed at the grassroots and community levels, through thousands of neighborhood councils and co-ops. In Bolivia, the indigenous people’s movements that put Morales in office function similarly and have made it clear that Morales does not have their unconditional support: the barrios will back him as long as he stays true to his democratic mandate, and not a moment longer. This kind of network approach is what allowed Chávez to survive the 2002 coup attempt: when their revolution was threatened, his supporters poured down from the shantytowns surrounding Caracas to demand his reinstatement, a kind of popular mobilization that did not happen during the coups of the ’70s......
As a result, the IMF, supremely powerful in the 1980s and ’90s, is no longer a force on the continent. In 2005 Latin America made up 80 percent of the IMF’s total lending portfolio; the continent now represents just 1 percent–a sea change in only two years.
The transformation reaches beyond Latin America. In just three years, the IMF’s worldwide lending portfolio had shrunk from $81 billion to $11.8 billion, with almost all of that going to Turkey. The IMF, a pariah in countries where it has treated crises as profit-making opportunities, is withering away......
It stands to reason that the revolt against neoliberalism would be in its most advanced stage in Latin America. As inhabitants of the first shock lab, Latin Americans have had the most time to recover their bearings, to understand how shock politics work. This understanding is crucial for a new politics adapted to our shocking times. Any strategy based on exploiting the window of opportunity opened by a traumatic shock– the central tenet of the shock doctrine–relies heavily on the element of surprise. A state of shock is, by definition, a moment when there is a gap between fast-moving events and the information that exists to explain them. Yet as soon as we have a new narrative that offers a perspective on the shocking events, we become reoriented and the world begins to make sense again.
Once the mechanics of the shock doctrine are deeply and collectively understood, whole communities become harder to take by surprise, more difficult to confuse–shock-resistant."
AP: Deadliest year for U.S. in Afghanistan
Six GIs killed in ambush, raising number of Americans killed in '07 to 101
"KABUL, Afghanistan - Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made this year the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
The troops were returning from a meeting with village elders late Friday afternoon in Nuristan province when militants attacked them with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, Lt. Col. David Accetta told The Associated Press.
"They were attacked from several enemy positions at the same time," said Accetta, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S. military. "It was a complex ambush."......"
"KABUL, Afghanistan - Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made this year the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
The troops were returning from a meeting with village elders late Friday afternoon in Nuristan province when militants attacked them with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire, Lt. Col. David Accetta told The Associated Press.
"They were attacked from several enemy positions at the same time," said Accetta, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S. military. "It was a complex ambush."......"
Our problematic UN ambassador
By Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah
"RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- There have been troubling signals of late concerning the head of the Palestinian mission to the United Nations, Mr. Riyadh Mansour, which raises questions and question marks about his competence, professionalism and even patriotism.If true, these signals should be more than sufficient for a strong-worded rebuke, even outright dismissal.
A few days ago, Mansour reportedly circulated a draft UN resolution, vilifying the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, as a “terrorist organization.” The audacity of the feat, which was utterly rejected by Arab, Muslim and third world diplomats at the UN headquarters in New York, raised a lot of eyebrows here in Palestine.
Indeed, most Palestinians, including this writer, can’t understand how the representative of the Palestinian people to the UN has allowed himself to stoop to the depraved level of adopting Israel’s positions on Hamas.
We Palestinians don’t agree on everything done and said by Hamas. However, calling the movement terrorist, let alone urging the world community to condemn it as a terrorist group, goes beyond the pale of what is acceptable and what is expected from the man who is supposed to represent all Palestinians and defend our national interests.
Less than two years ago, Hamas was elected by a sizeable majority of the Palestinian people in free and fair elections. So does Mr. Riyad Mansour suggest that a majority of Palestinians are terrorist-minded people just because they wouldn’t subscribe to his un-Palestinian views regarding our inalienable rights, such as the right of return?
Mansour’s anti-Hamas draft resolution is the second blunder he committed at the UN in less than four months. In July, he blocked a UN resolution, proposed by Indonesia and Qatar, calling for lifting the Nazi-like Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, described by many observers as a sort of slow-motion genocide.
Then, eyebrows were raised everywhere and people were prompted to seriously wonder if the man represented Israel or the Palestinian people. More to the point, it is manifestly clear that a man who behaves as Mr. Mansour has been behaving is scandalously ignorant of the fundamentals of the nature of his mission.
First, he should have realized that the UN General Assembly is not the place to criticize a Palestinian political party, actually the majority party. Indeed, one doesn’t have to be a veteran diplomat to realize that displaying our dirty laundry at the UN can only weaken not strengthen the overall Palestinian position within the international community.
Has Mr. Mansour ever heard his friend, the Israeli ambassador to the UN criticize the Likud, or Gush Emunim or the manifestly-racist gung-ho Lieberman who would like to bomb Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians to smithereens?
Can’t he learn a bit from him? Can’t he realize that the Israeli ambassador to the UN wouldn’t stay 24 hours on his job if he were to publicly criticize even the most right-wing Israeli political party?
Second, Mr. Mansour should have learned the ABCs of his job as representative of Palestine to the international organization, namely that his sole task is to defend the interests of the Palestinian people and expose Israeli criminality and apartheid.
Needless to say, his concentration on Hamas, apparently in an effort to impress our enemies and obtain a certificate of good conduct from certain diplomatic circles in the US, shows that he is more of a liability to his country and its enduring just cause.
For these reasons, it is imperative that the Palestinian Authority should make sure that such grave blunders by Mr. Mansour are not repeated. And if necessary, a replacement should be considered as soon as it became clear that he would not be able to give the required stature and dignity to his position as Palestine’s head of mission to the United Nations."
***
A Message to Khalid Amayreh:
Riyadh Mansour does not formulate resolutions at the UN or policies on his own. What he has committed are not "mistakes" or "blunders;" and his dismissal is far from being adequate. He is executing the stooge Abbas' orders from Ramallah, who in turn receives the draft resolutions from Tel Aviv.
What is needed is not to replace Mansour, but the rising up of all Palestinians against the traitorous PA with Abbas and his cronies at the top. Treason has gone too far to be tolerated any longer; there is nothing comparable in Palestinian history.
Abbas, Mansour and the rest of the gang should be facing trial for treason and war crimes (including genocide) against the Palestinian people.
Enough! Let us call the spade a spade!
Uncle Sam's New Backyard
How to Turn a Region Into a Graveyard
By ALAIN GRESH
(editor of Le Monde diplomatique and a specialist on the Middle East)
CounterPunch
"When the US decided that its backyard would in future be a greater Middle East --from Pakistan to Morocco --it imagined that it could rearrange the region to suit itself. The results have been disastrous and will be long-lasting.....
The landscape of the Middle East has been redrawn. This was the objective of Pentagon strategists and the neo-conservatives; but it is doubtful whether the results match their dreams of remodelling the region to secure the lasting hold that the French and British established after the first world war.....
As they have multiplied, the conflicts have become interrelated. Weapons, combatants and skills move across porous frontiers, sometimes in the wake of hundreds of thousands of refugees driven into exile by the fighting......
The nationalism that has structured the broader Middle East since 1918 is now under threat from the resurgence of ethnic and religious identity --a process encouraged, consciously or not, by General David Petraeus, the current US commander in Iraq, who led the 101st Airborne Division that captured Mosul in 2003.
One of his first decisions was to create an elected council to represent the city, with separate polls for Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens and Christians. No mention of Iraqis. By reducing the region to a mosaic of minorities, US policy forces everyone to identify with their community, to the detriment of any national or other loyalty. This undermines national cohesion and fosters conflict in Iraq now and possibly in Syria and Iran tomorrow.....
During Bush's first term, the neocons developed the doctrine of "constructive instability" in the Middle East . As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said while Israel was bombing Lebanon in July 2006: "What we're seeing here is, in a sense, the growing --the birth pangs of a new Middle East; and whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old Middle East."
The cynicism of her remarks provoked caustic comments at the time, but she was, in a sense, right: since 9/11 we have witnessed the emergence of a new Middle East that bears no resemblance to anything that US politicians might have envisaged, and which has become a major and lasting destabilising factor in the world."
The Palestinian Judenrate Doing Israel's Job
Traitors in Action
PA Police seize 40 bombs in militant stronghold in Nablus
"Palestinian police confiscated 40 homemade bombs in their first foray in years into the militant center of the West Bank city of Nablus, a senior official said on Saturday - a new sign of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' resolve to impose control across the lawless West Bank.
Abbas has recently reinforced the police contingent in Nablus as part of his law-and-order campaign, meant, in part, to dispel Israeli fears about his ability to rein in militants under any future peace deal......."
Peace and Democracy in Palestine
Jihad Naser Nabaheen (15-years old) and Bilal Ahmad Nabaheen (14-years old).....
Murdered This Morning by Zionazi Forces in Central Gaza.
By Ramzy Baroud
"After years of marked absence, the Bush administration has finally decided to upgrade its involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The announcement of a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland has raised red flags for anyone who has learned from past experience how unbalanced and insincere peace efforts actually can lead to further violence. And it requires little cynicism to ponder how genuine these current efforts are......
As the division between Fatah and Hamas grew, the Bush administration began hinting at the possibility of hosting a peace conference. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who had previously insisted on the ‘unilateral’ paradigm – predicated on the assumption that Israel has no peace partner amongst Palestinians – now agreed to take part in the event. President Abbas, widely perceived with contempt by many Palestinians and Arabs, understood that his participation could help provide him with greater political validity. Hamas, of course, was notably not invited......"
Holocaust denial in the White House
By Robert Fisk
"How are the mighty fallen! President George Bush, the crusader king who would draw the sword against the forces of Darkness and Evil, he who said there was only "them or us", who would carry on, he claimed, an eternal conflict against "world terror" on our behalf; he turns out, well, to be a wimp. A clutch of Turkish generals and a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign on behalf of Turkish Holocaust deniers have transformed the lion into a lamb. No, not even a lamb – for this animal is, by its nature, a symbol of innocence – but into a household mouse, a little diminutive creature which, seen from afar, can even be confused with a rat. Am I going too far? I think not......."
***
Watch out Robert; they still have room at Guantanamo.
Hamas: Abbas's apparatuses target "silencing voice of truth"
"NABLUS, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement on Saturday strongly condemned the PA chief Mahmoud Abbas's security apparatuses for incessant attacks on journalists and the media in the West Bank that exceeded 45 assaults.
The Movement in a statement in the West Bank said that Hamas views with "utmost concern and utter dismay" the security apparatuses' growing assaults on journalists and media.
It mentioned in this respect the closure of newspapers, blocking the distribution of some of them, closure of press offices and confiscations of their property, and arrest of reporters.
Hamas charged that the continued offensive on the media in the West Bank was a "systematic planned act" aimed at "silencing the voice of truth" and endorsing the policy of imposing one opinion.
It urged the media to exercise their real message in publishing the truth and exposing the practices of Abbas's apparatuses. It also asked the legal and local and international institutions to display solidarity with the Palestinian journalists to enable them exercise their role in carrying the truth away from the security apparatuses' practices.
The statement followed those apparatuses' forced closure of a local TV station in Al-Khalil and arresting its director after broadcasting the speech of Ismail Haneyya, the PA caretaker government's premier, a few days ago.
For its part, the PLC chairmanship issued a statement denouncing the security apparatuses' practices against Palestinian journalists and asked all media institutions to side by their colleagues."
Friday, November 9, 2007
Abbas must resign now
A Must Read, Contributed by Lucia
Comment By Khalid Amayreh
"......At the national level, Abbas has committed a series of unforgivable blunders which provide a sufficient legal ground for his dismissal.
Abbas flew in the face of the Palestinian constitutional law when he created an unconstitutional government in Ramallah outside the circle of Palestinian legislative and judicial legitimacy. That government, as every Palestinian knows deep in his heart, remains answerable to Israel and the American administration which is, too, very much at Israel’s beck and call.
The problem didn’t stop there. That government has committed every conceivable violation of our people’s human, civil and national rights, including murder, protracted arrest and detention without charge or trial, physical and psychological torture, dismissal from job for political and ideological reasons, promulgation of laws and bylaws in violation of the Basic Law and closure of charities and non-governmental organizations based on concocted justifications. In short, the status of human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law in the West Bank is now worse than ever since 1967, thanks to this artificial government......
The abuse of governance throughout the West Bank reached unprecedented levels when recruited thousands of Fatah supporters, including college students, to work as informers, secret policemen and street thugs to harass, inform on, arrest, beat and torture other Palestinians, e.g. pro-Hamas activists or sympathizers. Indeed, what kind of government would act like this, creating divisiveness and mistrust within our society? Aren’t Israel’s collaborators and informers enough?......
Now, the PA Chairman seems to have reneged on both. With regard to the demanded Israeli withdrawal, Abbas is now showing a certain willingness to barter the illegal Jewish colonies within East Jerusalem, such as Maali Adomim, for some lifeless sandy swaths in the Negev desert. Yes, golden Jerusalem for sand.!!
And on the refugee plight, the most paramount and sensitive aspect of the Palestinian problem, Abu Mazen has effectively entrusted Yaser Abed Rabbo to deal with the issue. This is the same Abed Rabbo who a few years ago reached an “understanding” with Meretz leader Yossi Belen whereby five million Palestinian refugees uprooted from their homes and villages in 1948 would simply kiss their “right of return” good-by, in return for a deformed, truncated and disconnected “state” in the West Bank.
As if this treachery was not enough, Abbas and cohorts, people like Sa’eb Ureikat, Nabil Amr, et al, are now harrowing toward the big sale.
According to the latest reports from Abbas’s court in Ramallah, the PA Chairman has agreed that the implementation of the Israeli-conceived and American-adopted “roadmap” would constitute an implementation of UN resolution 242 and 338.
This is the same Abbas that only a few weeks ago vowed that he wouldn’t attend the upcoming conference in Annapolis, Maryland, unless Israel agreed to a timetable for the final-status solution of the conflict with Israel.
There is no doubt that Abbas is humiliating and insulting millions of Palestinians by succumbing to Israeli diktats.
The Palestinian people, after all, never authorized Abbas to behave and act the way he is behaving and acting. And he should realize that a leader is only worth as much as he is supported by his own people, no matter how much he is popular among his people’s enemies.
In any case, Abbas and the Americans and the Israelis should be clear about one thing: Any deal reached between Abbas and Israel would be worthless if it didn’t enjoy the backing of the vast bulk of Palestinians."
Israeli intelligence: Abbas is too weak
Contributed by Lucia
"A recently exposed joint document by the General Security Service (Shin Bet), the Mossad and military intelligence states that "even if understandings are reached in Annapolis, the chances of implementing them in the field are almost zero."
Army Radio reported Thursday morning that Israel's intelligence community considers Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a powerless leader, who even has difficulty controlling car thieves and drug dealers in his own territory.
"There is a total disconnection between the leadership and the Palestinian people," read the document, and "the PA has no security apparatus capable of implementing agreements. The existing [security] forces are totally corrupt."
On the other hand, according to the document the Palestinians are thought to be willing to accept a partial agreement regarding the refugee issue; specifically if Israel will allow entrance to 100,000 refugees over a period of 10 years. In the eyes of the intelligence community, such an agreement would be hard for the Palestinians to back down from once it is accepted, and would also win the support of other Arab countries.
Despite the dire forecast regarding the Palestinians, the intelligence community says that Israel should consider the upcoming Annapolis peace summit as an historic opportunity for Israel to garner international support, including from the Arab representatives."
"A recently exposed joint document by the General Security Service (Shin Bet), the Mossad and military intelligence states that "even if understandings are reached in Annapolis, the chances of implementing them in the field are almost zero."
Army Radio reported Thursday morning that Israel's intelligence community considers Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a powerless leader, who even has difficulty controlling car thieves and drug dealers in his own territory.
"There is a total disconnection between the leadership and the Palestinian people," read the document, and "the PA has no security apparatus capable of implementing agreements. The existing [security] forces are totally corrupt."
On the other hand, according to the document the Palestinians are thought to be willing to accept a partial agreement regarding the refugee issue; specifically if Israel will allow entrance to 100,000 refugees over a period of 10 years. In the eyes of the intelligence community, such an agreement would be hard for the Palestinians to back down from once it is accepted, and would also win the support of other Arab countries.
Despite the dire forecast regarding the Palestinians, the intelligence community says that Israel should consider the upcoming Annapolis peace summit as an historic opportunity for Israel to garner international support, including from the Arab representatives."
US Blackmail: Washington tells EU firms: quit Iran now
Contributed by Lucia
UK, French and German companies begin pullout under US pressure
David Gow in Munich and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
The Guardian
"Multinational companies are coming under increasing pressure from the US to stop doing business with Iran because of its nuclear programme. European operators are facing threats from Washington that they could jeopardise their US interests by continuing to deal with Tehran, with increasing evidence that European governments, mainly France, Germany and Britain, are supporting the US campaign.
It emerged last night that Siemens, one of the world's largest engineering groups and based in Germany, has pulled out of all new business dealings with Iran after pressure from the US and German governments. This follows the decision by Germany's three biggest banks, Deutsche, Commerzbank, and Dresdner, to quit Iran after a warning from US vice-president Dick Cheney that if firms remain in Tehran, they are going to have problems doing business in the US......"
Ahhhhhh....The "Democracy" of Abbas, The USraeli Puppet: PA news agency strikes to protest arrest of executive for airing Hamas
"Maan, a major independent Palestinian news agency, declared an open-ended strike on Friday to protest the Palestinian government's arrest of an executive who allowed Hamas officials and activities to appear in agency reports.
The agency shut down all 20 of its offices in the West Bank following the detention Thursday of Muataz al-Kurdi, a Maan executive and head of the privately owned Al Amal TV station in the West Bank town of Hebron.
Maan also shut down its Web site. A message posted on the said the agency expressed its deep disappointment and indignation at the arrest of journalists.....
The new government has banned the only Hamas newspaper, Felasteen, from publishing in the West Bank and has barred all mention of Hamas on West Bank TV.....
Friday is the Muslim holy day, and attempts to reach security officials to press for Al-Kurdi's release were unsuccessful, said Raed Othman, a Maan executive.
Othman criticized the Palestinian Authority for trying to muzzle journalists. "This would be a farce if it passes," Othman said."
FROM MAAN WEB SITE:
Palestinian security arrests Mu'taz Al-Kurdi, member of Ma'an's board of directors and director of Al-Amal TV in Hebron
اعتقال معتز الكردي عضو مجلس ادارة "معا" ومدير تلفزيون الامل في الخليل وتوقف التلفزيون عن البث
Ma'an News Agency expresses its deep disappointment and indignation at arrests of journalists.
Al-Amal TV suspended it's broadcast on Friday in protest of the detention of their director.
Ma'an also announces the suspension of its work in protest. Several of Ma'an's local partners in TV and radio will also halt their broadcasts today in protest and solidarity with our colleague Mu'taz Al-Kurdi and Al-Amal TV.
اننا في وكالة معا الاخبارية نعبر عن احتجاجنا على اعتقال الصحفيين والاعلاميين، ونعلن عن احتجابنا لهذا اليوم.
كما علمت وكالة معا ان العديد من التلفزيونات والاذاعات المحلية الشريكة لـ شبكة معا ستتوقف عن البث هذا اليوم احتجاجا وتضامنا مع الزميل معتز الكردي وتلفزيون الامل.
Iraqis Oppose Renewing the UN Mandate
Imperialist Fictions About Democracy
By RAED JARRAR and JOSHUA HOLLAND
CounterPunch
"The United Nations Security Council, with support from the British and American delegations, is poised to cut the Iraqi parliament out of one of the most significant decisions the young government will make: when foreign troops will depart. It's an ugly and unconstitutional move, designed solely to avoid asking an Iraqi legislature for a blank check for an endless military occupation that it's in no mood to give, and it will make a mockery of Iraq's nascent democracy (which needs all the legitimacy it can get).....
It's time to force the issue: The Iraqi parliament, the only body elected by the Iraqi people, wants some say over the continuing presence of foreign troops on its soil, and a majority of its lawmakers, like a majority of both Americans and Iraqis, wants a timetable for ending the occupation."
By RAED JARRAR and JOSHUA HOLLAND
CounterPunch
"The United Nations Security Council, with support from the British and American delegations, is poised to cut the Iraqi parliament out of one of the most significant decisions the young government will make: when foreign troops will depart. It's an ugly and unconstitutional move, designed solely to avoid asking an Iraqi legislature for a blank check for an endless military occupation that it's in no mood to give, and it will make a mockery of Iraq's nascent democracy (which needs all the legitimacy it can get).....
It's time to force the issue: The Iraqi parliament, the only body elected by the Iraqi people, wants some say over the continuing presence of foreign troops on its soil, and a majority of its lawmakers, like a majority of both Americans and Iraqis, wants a timetable for ending the occupation."
In the Kandil Mountains with the PKK
Among Ocalan's Disciples
By PATRICK COCKBURN
CounterPunch
"There are 100,000 Turkish troops just across the border preparing to launch an invasion of northern Iraq in order to eliminate the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The US has labelled the PKK 'terrorists' and the Iraqi government--in spite of the arguments of its Kurdish members--has told the guerrillas to disarm or leave its territory. Iran has denounced the Iranian wing of the PKK as a pawn of Israel and the US, and intermittently shells its camps in the Kandil mountains. The PKK, which led the failed rebellion of the Turkish Kurds between 1984 and 1999 and had been largely forgotten by the outside world, is suddenly at the centre of a new crisis in Iraq that may culminate in a Turkish attack.
The PKK guerrillas are surprisingly easy to find, but that is because they want to be found. For the first time in years journalists want to talk to them....."
By PATRICK COCKBURN
CounterPunch
"There are 100,000 Turkish troops just across the border preparing to launch an invasion of northern Iraq in order to eliminate the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The US has labelled the PKK 'terrorists' and the Iraqi government--in spite of the arguments of its Kurdish members--has told the guerrillas to disarm or leave its territory. Iran has denounced the Iranian wing of the PKK as a pawn of Israel and the US, and intermittently shells its camps in the Kandil mountains. The PKK, which led the failed rebellion of the Turkish Kurds between 1984 and 1999 and had been largely forgotten by the outside world, is suddenly at the centre of a new crisis in Iraq that may culminate in a Turkish attack.
The PKK guerrillas are surprisingly easy to find, but that is because they want to be found. For the first time in years journalists want to talk to them....."
Muslim politician could be kingmaker in Danish elections
Contributed by Lucia
"Naser Khader is one of Denmark's most popular MPs. Raised in a village outside Damascus by his Palestinian father and Syrian mother, the family moved to Copenhagen when he was 11. Now the 44-year-old politician is set to play a key role in the outcome of next week's general election. He could be the the kingmaker of the country's next government.....
Mr Khader is not the only prominent politician of Middle Eastern origins in Denmark. Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a 25-year-old social worker from the far-left Red-Green Alliance, and the daughter of Palestinian political refugees, is also running for parliament.
If she is elected - and at this stage, it looks like she will be - she would become the first MP to wear the hijab both in the Danish parliament and in Europe......"
Towards fresh disaster in Iran
by Alain Gresh
Le Monde Diplomatique
"There’s a substantial difference between declaring that the third world war has begun and identifying the new Hitler. Since 9/11 President George Bush’s enemies have included al-Qaida, the “axis of evil”, proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and Islamic fascism. But now Iran is public enemy number one, as incarnated in its provocative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.....
Just a year from US presidential elections, and 16 months before Bush’s term of office ends, there is a considerable risk that he may be tempted to rush into a military operation against Iran to cover up his setbacks in Iraq.
In 2006, after four years as Israel’s ambassador to the US, Dani Ayalon was asked if he thought a president as unpopular as Bush could make such a decision. “Yes, I do,” he replied. “You have to know this man. I was privileged and I consider him a personal friend. People who know him know he is very determined. He is certain of the moral supremacy of democracies over dictatorships. The way he sees it, an ayatollah with a nuclear bomb makes an intolerable combination that threatens the existing world order, which is why he will not let this happen on his shift” "
Le Monde Diplomatique
"There’s a substantial difference between declaring that the third world war has begun and identifying the new Hitler. Since 9/11 President George Bush’s enemies have included al-Qaida, the “axis of evil”, proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and Islamic fascism. But now Iran is public enemy number one, as incarnated in its provocative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.....
Just a year from US presidential elections, and 16 months before Bush’s term of office ends, there is a considerable risk that he may be tempted to rush into a military operation against Iran to cover up his setbacks in Iraq.
In 2006, after four years as Israel’s ambassador to the US, Dani Ayalon was asked if he thought a president as unpopular as Bush could make such a decision. “Yes, I do,” he replied. “You have to know this man. I was privileged and I consider him a personal friend. People who know him know he is very determined. He is certain of the moral supremacy of democracies over dictatorships. The way he sees it, an ayatollah with a nuclear bomb makes an intolerable combination that threatens the existing world order, which is why he will not let this happen on his shift” "
Palestinian judenrate agrees to Israeli security demands
PA negotiators say they have accepted Israeli stance on need to combat terror as prerequisite to moving ahead with Road Map
"The Palestinian Authority pledges to meet the security demands set by Israel, paving the way for negotiators from both sides to agree on a pre-summit understanding ahead of the upcoming Annapolis peace conference, so said PA officials on Friday morning....."
Bush Loyalist Now Sees a White House Dangerously Soft on Iran and North Korea
"WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 — The White House’s effort to challenge Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been hobbled by “four and a half years of failed diplomacy.” Its policy regarding North Korea is a dangerous fraud. It is pursuing an improbable Palestinian-Israeli peace at the expense of its stance against proliferation in the Middle East.
And that from a longtime Bush loyalist: John R. Bolton, the conservative lawyer who until less than a year ago was President Bush’s proudly unwavering ambassador to the United Nations......"
Georgia: The Bloom Is Off the Rose
Another 'colored revolution' fades to black
By Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
"While Pakistan is getting all the attention as the latest US-supported dictatorship to implode, another and even more telling example is President Mikhail Saakashvili's recent clampdown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. While the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf is not a US creation – the General launched a coup all on his own, with official US disapproval – Georgia, you'll remember, was the site of the 2003 "Rose Revolution," one of a series of US-backed -and-funded "color revolutions" and the one often pointed to as a model for future "pro-democracy" campaigns in the former Soviet Union.
As it turned out, however, the supposed "democratic" revolutionaries, once in power, were worse than the despots they'd overthrown, and Saakashvili is the exemplar of this species: he has declared a "national emergency," banned the non-state media, forbidden public gatherings, and initiated a reign of terror against his political opponents........
As tanks roll through the streets of Tbilisi, the bloom is off the Rose Revolution for good. Let this noxious weed wilt of its own accord, without one more drop of sustenance from Bush, the great cultivator of "democracy.""
The French Berlusconi
Nicolas Sarkozy may fast make a name for himself on the world stage. Just not the one he wants
Jonathan Steele
The Guardian
"Six months in office, and Nicolas Sarkozy has not ceased being an embarrassment on the world stage. From his first appearance at the G8 summit in Germany, where he foolishly called for more delay on Kosovo - a move that courtesy forced his new partners to support - to his fawning visit to Washington this week, France's president is making waves for the wrong reasons. Headstrong and unreflective, Sarkozy risks making an ass of himself......
The glamour of foreign summits is seductive. But even in a global television age European leaders are still judged by what they do at home rather than abroad. Stick to that, Sarkozy. Ground yourself for a while. Otherwise, you may do worse than Tony Blair. You could become the gaffe-prone European whom your colleagues roll their eyes at when you turn your back - the new Berlusconi, the clown they grimly have to grin and bear."
Jonathan Steele
The Guardian
"Six months in office, and Nicolas Sarkozy has not ceased being an embarrassment on the world stage. From his first appearance at the G8 summit in Germany, where he foolishly called for more delay on Kosovo - a move that courtesy forced his new partners to support - to his fawning visit to Washington this week, France's president is making waves for the wrong reasons. Headstrong and unreflective, Sarkozy risks making an ass of himself......
The glamour of foreign summits is seductive. But even in a global television age European leaders are still judged by what they do at home rather than abroad. Stick to that, Sarkozy. Ground yourself for a while. Otherwise, you may do worse than Tony Blair. You could become the gaffe-prone European whom your colleagues roll their eyes at when you turn your back - the new Berlusconi, the clown they grimly have to grin and bear."
Spooks refuse to toe Cheney's line on Iran
By Gareth Porter
Asia Times
"A National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which pulls together the judgments of the US's 16 intelligence agencies, has been held up for more than a year because it contains views at odds with the alarmist conclusions on Iran's nuclear program espoused by Vice President Dick Cheney. The report is expected to be released this month, but without its key findings being made public.....
The release of the Iran NIE will certainly intensify the bureaucratic political struggle over Iran policy. If the NIE includes both dissenting views on key issues, a campaign of selective leaking to news media of language from the NIE that supports Cheney's line on Iran will soon follow, as well as leaks of the dissenting views by his opponents.
Both sides may be anticipating another effort by Cheney to win Bush's approval of a significant escalation of military pressure on Iran in early 2008."
Asia Times
"A National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which pulls together the judgments of the US's 16 intelligence agencies, has been held up for more than a year because it contains views at odds with the alarmist conclusions on Iran's nuclear program espoused by Vice President Dick Cheney. The report is expected to be released this month, but without its key findings being made public.....
The release of the Iran NIE will certainly intensify the bureaucratic political struggle over Iran policy. If the NIE includes both dissenting views on key issues, a campaign of selective leaking to news media of language from the NIE that supports Cheney's line on Iran will soon follow, as well as leaks of the dissenting views by his opponents.
Both sides may be anticipating another effort by Cheney to win Bush's approval of a significant escalation of military pressure on Iran in early 2008."
New crises sap Bush's 'war on terror'
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
"WASHINGTON - Just as the White House claims it has finally turned the corner in what it defines as the "central front" in the "war on terror" - Iraq - it has found itself desperately trying to contain new crises on the war's periphery stretching east to Pakistan, west to Turkey and south to the Horn of Africa.
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's latest "coup" last weekend, combined with the continuing threat of a Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan and the looming probability of war between US-backed Ethiopia and Eritrea, have added to the growing impression that Washington has ever more become hostage to forces and personalities far beyond its control or understanding......
But "the situation we face today is much more difficult," one former senior State Department official told Inter Press Service this week. "Back then, we didn't have 200,000 US troops fighting on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan; nor did we have the anti-Americanism that now pervades the entire region. And, frankly, to deal with all this, we don't even have the regional expertise in the government that we had in 1979.".....
Both Ethiopia and the Bush administration have been infuriated by Eritrea's alleged support for Somalia's Islamic Courts Union that was ousted from power in Mogadishu and other parts of the country by an invasion of Addis Ababa's powerful, US-backed military 11 months ago. The Ethiopians have since been bogged down in an increasingly bloody occupation that many analysts have compared to the US occupation of Iraq......"
Asia Times
"WASHINGTON - Just as the White House claims it has finally turned the corner in what it defines as the "central front" in the "war on terror" - Iraq - it has found itself desperately trying to contain new crises on the war's periphery stretching east to Pakistan, west to Turkey and south to the Horn of Africa.
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's latest "coup" last weekend, combined with the continuing threat of a Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan and the looming probability of war between US-backed Ethiopia and Eritrea, have added to the growing impression that Washington has ever more become hostage to forces and personalities far beyond its control or understanding......
But "the situation we face today is much more difficult," one former senior State Department official told Inter Press Service this week. "Back then, we didn't have 200,000 US troops fighting on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan; nor did we have the anti-Americanism that now pervades the entire region. And, frankly, to deal with all this, we don't even have the regional expertise in the government that we had in 1979.".....
Both Ethiopia and the Bush administration have been infuriated by Eritrea's alleged support for Somalia's Islamic Courts Union that was ousted from power in Mogadishu and other parts of the country by an invasion of Addis Ababa's powerful, US-backed military 11 months ago. The Ethiopians have since been bogged down in an increasingly bloody occupation that many analysts have compared to the US occupation of Iraq......"
Iraq: Call an air strike
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
"There might be less violence in Baghdad, but that's because sectarian clashes have died down as there are virtually no more neighborhoods to be ethnically cleansed. And US engagements are declining, but only because troops are spending more time in the bases. Now, whenever there is a mission in Baghdad, it inevitably means an air strike......
When Fil says the Iraqi forces are "much, much more effective", what he means is they are much more ferocious. Terrified middle class, secular Shi'ite residents have told Asia Times Online these guards - Shi'ites themselves - roaming Baghdad with their machine guns pointing to the sidewalks are "worse than the Americans".......
With fewer missions on the ground, the Pentagon could not but launch four times more air strikes on Iraqis in 2007 - the year of Bush's "surge" - than in the whole of 2006. Up to the end of September, there had been 1,140 air strikes. Last month, there were more air strikes than during the siege that devastated Fallujah in November 2004......
The Pentagon talk of "precision strikes" and "reducing collateral damage" means nothing in this context. This appalling human-rights disaster has to be attributed to counter-insurgency messiah Petraeus, the "loser", according to Martin van Creveld, who wrote the latest book on the matter, The Changing Face Of War.
But for public relations purposes inside the US, Petraeus' "by his book" approach works wonders. The Pentagon can spin to oblivion to a cowered media that US deaths are falling. Who cares what the Nuri al-Maliki "sovereign" Iraqi government says? Maliki is nothing but the mayor of the Green Zone anyway. Who cares what the "fish" - who support the "sea" of the resistance, Sunni or Shi'ite - feel? 80% of them are unemployed anyway - and they merely struggle to survive as second-class citizens in their own land......
The surging Petraeus turned that upside down. Or maybe not - he's just providing his own scholarly follow-up to the indiscriminate bombings of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s. Petraeus, His master's voice, might as well call an air strike over the whole of Mesopotamia and then call it "victory"."
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Short on substance
After months of talks, and ahead of Annapolis, not a single key issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been agreed upon.
By Khaled Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem
Al-Ahram Weekly
".....Due to a dearth of progress in Palestinian-Israeli talks aimed at formulating a common vision of a final status settlement between the two sides, Rice felt compelled to switch discourse from "brokering peace", of which she has done very little anyway, to the role of preaching about the virtues of peace, which, too, is unlikely to yield fruit......"
By Khaled Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem
Al-Ahram Weekly
".....Due to a dearth of progress in Palestinian-Israeli talks aimed at formulating a common vision of a final status settlement between the two sides, Rice felt compelled to switch discourse from "brokering peace", of which she has done very little anyway, to the role of preaching about the virtues of peace, which, too, is unlikely to yield fruit......"
US war insanity
By Azmi Bishara
Al-Ahram Weekly
"......Few countries, including Israel, go on the warpath without offering assorted justifications. The difference in this case is that some people in this part of the world are chorusing America's justifications for going to war against Iran. I imagine that, in part, this echoing of America's position has its origins in a curious argument. It holds that America is a crazy country and that its president is off his rocker, so other governments would be wise simply to do as he says because otherwise their leaders will be held responsible for the catastrophes that descend on their countries. Suddenly, all those governments in the world that are normally accused of being irrational are expected to be more rational than the world's sole superpower and the man who leads it. But if American foreign policy is really that irrational surely this must be a solid enough reason to oppose it, for the only service the above-mentioned argument performs is to aid and abet a form of international blackmail.
Opposing the war, as noted above, requires sustained action. This is the time not for futile arguments but for building a pro-peace coalition or an anti-war movement, which has taken shape elsewhere in the world but not in this region yet."
Meeting the Other in Israel and Palestine
Teaching Israeli and Palestinian Children to "Get Along" at Best Only Buries the Real Problems
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
CounterPunch
"One hesitates to criticize these enterprises. They're so well meaning, and it seems so curmudgeonly. But the myriad efforts around the world to bring the children of political conflicts, most notably the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, together in some kind of forced intimacy -- schools or camps or the like -- so that they can get to know each other and learn that each is human, can and often do actually perpetuate the conflict. These well intentioned efforts ultimately divert attention from real problems, real grievances, and lull people into thinking that all this sweetness and light is some kind of progress toward resolving the conflict......
True coexistence is different from simply getting along. Teaching children to get along, that their parents' enemies are human beings who should not be dehumanized or demonized, is nice, but it is woefully insufficient and indeed fatally complacency-inducing. Unless their parents themselves learn to coexist, and to coexist in total equality, justice, and mutual dignity -- unless their parents engage in a serious effort to alter the dismal reality on the ground of complete and perpetual Jewish domination over Palestinians -- a few childhood lessons in civility will be useless."
Manufacturing Consent to Attack Iran: Israel criticizes IAEA head over Iran
Contributed by Andrew
"JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's deputy prime minister called on Thursday for Mohamed ElBaradei to be replaced as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, accusing him of complacency over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Shaul Mofaz's comments coincided with an Israeli newspaper report quoting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling confidants in private conversations that ElBaradei, an Egyptian, was "no lover of Zion", a reference to the Jewish state......"
"JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's deputy prime minister called on Thursday for Mohamed ElBaradei to be replaced as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, accusing him of complacency over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Shaul Mofaz's comments coincided with an Israeli newspaper report quoting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling confidants in private conversations that ElBaradei, an Egyptian, was "no lover of Zion", a reference to the Jewish state......"
An E-mail Sent to Riyadh Mansour at the UN
Mr. Riyadh Mansour
Representative of the Palestinian judenrate at the United Nations
You and your bosses in the Green Zone in Ramallah have outdone yourselves this time.
About three months ago, you worked hard with the US and Israeli representatives to block a resolution in the Security Council calling for lifting of the siege on Gaza, imposed by your Zionist masters, to alleviate the suffering of 1.5 million Palestinians. After the storm of protest against such a cowardly, mean and un-Palestinian act, your office tried to backpedal, obfuscate and to confuse what actually took place.
Now, with your role as the second Israeli representative to the UN becoming clear, you secretly drafted a resolution to be submitted to the General Assembly, which in effect equates any Palestinian resistance to the occupation with terrorism. Your clandestine effort went without discussing the draft resolution with any Arab delegates, which is the norm. Even servile regimes such as Egypt and Jordan, which have diplomatic relations with Israel, were shocked by the draft resolution and could not support it. They, and other Arab delegates, made it clear that what you were advocating was the equation of any Palestinian resistance with terrorism and hence describing the Palestinians, whom you presumably represent, as terrorists!
Bravo, Mr. Zionist quisling! I am sure that your coordination with your Israeli masters, which was dictated from Ramallah, will earn you good marks with the occupiers.
That is your business as an individual and every society under occupation throughout history has had its collaborators, quisling and judenrate. However, you have no right to be speaking in the name of the Palestinian people. After your betrayal and treason, your place is not at the UN but instead facing trial in a court in Palestine for treason and gravely endangering the Palestinian national interest.
I for one, as well as millions of other Palestinians, do not accept you to speak in our name and demand your replacement. Short of that, and short of stopping your blatant collaboration with USrael, we will consider your mission as nothing more than an auxiliary arm of the Israeli mission.
Sincerely,
Dr. Tony Sayegh
Representative of the Palestinian judenrate at the United Nations
You and your bosses in the Green Zone in Ramallah have outdone yourselves this time.
About three months ago, you worked hard with the US and Israeli representatives to block a resolution in the Security Council calling for lifting of the siege on Gaza, imposed by your Zionist masters, to alleviate the suffering of 1.5 million Palestinians. After the storm of protest against such a cowardly, mean and un-Palestinian act, your office tried to backpedal, obfuscate and to confuse what actually took place.
Now, with your role as the second Israeli representative to the UN becoming clear, you secretly drafted a resolution to be submitted to the General Assembly, which in effect equates any Palestinian resistance to the occupation with terrorism. Your clandestine effort went without discussing the draft resolution with any Arab delegates, which is the norm. Even servile regimes such as Egypt and Jordan, which have diplomatic relations with Israel, were shocked by the draft resolution and could not support it. They, and other Arab delegates, made it clear that what you were advocating was the equation of any Palestinian resistance with terrorism and hence describing the Palestinians, whom you presumably represent, as terrorists!
Bravo, Mr. Zionist quisling! I am sure that your coordination with your Israeli masters, which was dictated from Ramallah, will earn you good marks with the occupiers.
That is your business as an individual and every society under occupation throughout history has had its collaborators, quisling and judenrate. However, you have no right to be speaking in the name of the Palestinian people. After your betrayal and treason, your place is not at the UN but instead facing trial in a court in Palestine for treason and gravely endangering the Palestinian national interest.
I for one, as well as millions of other Palestinians, do not accept you to speak in our name and demand your replacement. Short of that, and short of stopping your blatant collaboration with USrael, we will consider your mission as nothing more than an auxiliary arm of the Israeli mission.
Sincerely,
Dr. Tony Sayegh
Hamas: Abbas conspiring against the Palestinian people at the UN
"NABLUS, (PIC)-- Hamas strongly denounced Riyad Mansour, the PA representative to the UN, for his persistence in conspiring against the Palestinian people after he prepared a draft resolution calling for condemning Hamas, describing him as a second Israeli delegate to the UN.
Mansour intends to table his reprehensible draft resolution with the UN General Assembly in New York, in order to pass a resolution condemning Hamas and classifying it as an outlaw militia.
Hamas held PA chief Mahmoud Abbas fully responsible for the reckless anti-patriot actions of his delegate to the UN, confirming that Mansour had already aborted a draft resolution tabled by Qatar and Indonesia calling for lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip and alleviating the suffering of Gaza people.
Hamas expressed its appreciation to the delegates of the Arab countries to the UN who rejected Mansour's resolution draft, especially Egypt, Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen for their sincere concern for the unity of Palestinian people.
The draft caused widespread resentment amongst the Arab delegates to the UN because the PA delegate blatantly ignored their refusal of it.
The Arab delegates rejected the draft lest it leads the UN to condemn a resistance movement having majority of PLC seats and classify it as a terrorist organization.
Given the seriousness of this resolution, chief editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper Abdel-Bari Attwan told Al-Jazeera TV channel during an interview that the PA delegation to the UN which tabled this shameful resolution does not represent Palestine and that the head of this delegation does not belong to the Palestinian people.
Such a resolution could have been tabled by the Israeli delegate to the UN, not by the delegate who calls himself a representative of Palestine, Attwan underlined.
Atwan underscored that this draft resolution means that all resistance movements and the Palestinian people are terrorists because they all resist occupation of their country."
Manufacturing Consent to Bomb Iran: US fears Israeli strike against Iran over latest nuclear claim
Times Online
"A claim by President Ahmadinejad that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges sent a tremor across the world yesterday amid fears that Israel would respond by bombing the country’s nuclear facilities.
Military sources in Washington said that the existence of such a large number could be a “tipping point”, triggering an Israeli air strike. The Pentagon is reluctant to take military action against Iran, but officials say that Israel is a “different matter”. Amid the international uproar, British MPs who were to have toured the nuclear facility were backing out of their Iran trip.
Even before President Ahmadinejad’s announcement, a US defence official told The Times yesterday: “Israel could do something when they get to around 3,000 working centrifuges. The Pentagon is minded to wait a little longer.” US experts say 3,000 machines running for long periods could make enough enriched uranium for an atomic bomb within a year......."
"A claim by President Ahmadinejad that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges sent a tremor across the world yesterday amid fears that Israel would respond by bombing the country’s nuclear facilities.
Military sources in Washington said that the existence of such a large number could be a “tipping point”, triggering an Israeli air strike. The Pentagon is reluctant to take military action against Iran, but officials say that Israel is a “different matter”. Amid the international uproar, British MPs who were to have toured the nuclear facility were backing out of their Iran trip.
Even before President Ahmadinejad’s announcement, a US defence official told The Times yesterday: “Israel could do something when they get to around 3,000 working centrifuges. The Pentagon is minded to wait a little longer.” US experts say 3,000 machines running for long periods could make enough enriched uranium for an atomic bomb within a year......."
US: 'Israel May Strike Iran'
Al-Manar
"08/11/2007 Wednesday's statement by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran has 3,000 working uranium-enriching centrifuges "could trigger an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities," military sources were quoted by the London Times as saying.
The US military sources were cited by the Times on Thursday as saying that 3,000 centrifuges would be a "tipping point” leading Israel to act. Despite stern US warnings in recent weeks, the Times report said, the Pentagon is reluctant to strike Iran at this point, but Israel is a “different matter,” according to the US sources. “Israel could do something when they get to around 3,000 working centrifuges. The Pentagon is minded to wait a little longer,” the Times quoted one American official as saying, adding that the statement was made before Ahmadinejad's statement. On Wednesday evening, Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: "We cannot take any option off the table and we need to study operational aspects." Barak also called for increased economic and diplomatic steps to be taken.
The U.S. and French presidents forged a common front against Iran's nuclear program on Wednesday. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has won U.S. praise for taking a stronger stand against Iran than his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, agreed that a nuclear-armed Iran would be "unacceptable" and said there was "a need to toughen the sanctions" against Tehran. Bush has been ratcheting up his rhetoric toward Tehran and last month raised the specter of World War Three if it were allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.
On Wednesday, the Iranian president declared: "We have now reached 3,000 machines." Wednesday's announcement was his first official statement that the plant is now fully operating the 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz. Earlier this week, Yossi Baidatz, head of research at the Israeli Military Intelligence, said Iran's current regime is not in danger of collapsing and may go nuclear by the end of 2009.
At the mean time, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz called for Mohamed ElBaradei to be removed as head of the UN nuclear watchdog, saying he had turned a blind eye to Iran's nuclear program. The call for ElBaradei's dismissal comes just days before the International Atomic Energy Agency is due to publish a new report on Iran's nuclear program, to serve as a key part of further discussions at the United Nations on whether to impose a third set of sanctions on Tehran.
ElBaradei had told France's Le Monde newspaper that Iran would need "between three and eight years" to develop a nuclear bomb and that there was no immediate threat or prove that the Islamic Republic is seeking a nuclear bomb.
Israel, which belongs to the UN nuclear watchdog but is not a signatory to its key Non-Proliferation Treaty, is widely considered to have the Middle East's sole -- if undeclared -- nuclear arsenal. In 1981, Israel bombed a French-built nuclear reactor in Iraq, which under the rule of Saddam Hussein was then its biggest enemy. The raid was heavily criticized by the United States and UN Security Council."
"حماس" تطالب باستدعاء رياض منصور ومحاكمته بتهمة الإضرار بمصالح الشعب الفلسطيني
اتهمته بالعمل لصالح أجندات صهيونية وأمريكية في الأمم المتحدة
"غزة – المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام
طالبت حركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس" باستدعاء، مندوب السلطة الفلسطينية لدى الأمم المتحدة رياض منصور، والتحقيق معه ومحاكمته بتهمة الإضرار بمصالح الشعب الفلسطيني.
وقال فوزي برهوم، المتحدث باسم الحركة، في تصريح، تلقى "المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام" نسخة منه: "إن مواقف مندوب السلطة الفلسطينية في الأمم المتحدة (رياض منصور) ضد الشعب الفلسطيني وحركة حماس من خلال محاولته تحريض الأمم المتحدة على حركة حماس من خلال وصفها بالمجموعات الإرهابية في مشروع كان سيقدم إلى الأمم المتحدة، ومن قبل إسقاطه للمشروع الإندونيسي القطري الداعي لفك الحصار عن قطاع غزة، بالتنسيق مع المندوب الإسرائيلي، هي مواقف تهدف إلى تشويه سمعت الشعب الفلسطيني عامة وحركة حماس ونضالاتها خاصة".
واعتبر برهوم أن هذه المواقف من قبل مندوب السلطة "تشكل خطراً على المصالح العليا للشعب الفلسطيني"، مشيراً إلى أن منصور "يعمل لصالح أجندات أمريكية وإسرائيلية، كما تؤكد مواقفه تورط جهات فلسطينية في استمرار حالة الحصار على شعبنا وتأيداً لحالة إعلان الحرب عليه وإنكار خيارة الديمقراطي، وهذه المواقف الخطيرة تتنافى مع المهمة الرئيسة والرسمية التي يجب أن يقوم بها، ولذلك يجب استدعاؤه والتحقيق معه ومحاكمته بتهمة الإضرار بمصالح هذا الشعب".
وأثنت حركة "حماس" على مواقف كثير من دول المجموعة العربية التي رفضت مواقف مندوب السلطة في الأمم المتحدة وعملت على إجهاض "مشاريعه الخطيرة"، وأكدوا على احترام خيار الشعب الفلسطيني وتأيد شرعياته. "
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Hamas and al-Qaida: The Prospects for Radicalization in the Palestinian Occupied Territories
A Conflicts Forum Monograph, by Khalid Amayreh, October, 2007
"The rise of the Islamic Resistance Movement — Hamas — in the Palestinian Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza provided a challenge for Israel and the West. Israel, the United States and the European Union have responded to this challenge by failing to differentiate Hamas from other and more radical Islamist movements and networks. That policy, which includes economic and political sanctions, now threatens to radicalize Palestinian society, pushing supporters of Hamas into the arms of al-Qaida and other salafist organizations. What are the prospects that — should the Hamas political program fail as a result of these sanctions — the Palestinian population will turn to more radical Islamist groups?....."
"The rise of the Islamic Resistance Movement — Hamas — in the Palestinian Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza provided a challenge for Israel and the West. Israel, the United States and the European Union have responded to this challenge by failing to differentiate Hamas from other and more radical Islamist movements and networks. That policy, which includes economic and political sanctions, now threatens to radicalize Palestinian society, pushing supporters of Hamas into the arms of al-Qaida and other salafist organizations. What are the prospects that — should the Hamas political program fail as a result of these sanctions — the Palestinian population will turn to more radical Islamist groups?....."
Israel: perpetual criminal, perpetual liar
Comment by Khalid Amayreh
"Just as the Nazis sought to concoct “reasons” to justify their criminality, the Zionist state of Israel and its fanatical supporters are doing the same thing to justify the slow-motion genocide the Jewish state is carrying out against the Gaza Strip’s 1.4 million inhabitants.
Israeli spokespersons and apologists, especially in North America, where Zionist Jews control the bulk of the mass media, routinely claim that Israel has no moral or legal obligation to feed and cater for the blockaded Gazans.
This is, of course, a blatantly misleading argument, because Israel is still “the occupying power” in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli army is still in tight control of Gaza’s skies, territorial waters and all border crossings......
Sovereignty is not absolute, and no nation-state has the right to commit crimes against humanity or violate the human rights and liberties of its citizens and subjects under the pretext of sovereignty. Needless to say, the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israel’s subjects and prisoners. Forget about the Palestinian judenrate called the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli spokespersons continue to shamelessly repeat is that Israel had ended its military occupation of Gaza, and is no longer responsible for the welfare of the territory’s 1.4 million human beings.
In truth, far from ending its occupation of the Gaza Strip, Israel has effectively reduced the small coastal enclave of about 300 square kilometers to a detention camp that is shockingly similar to the Ghetto Warsaw under the Nazis......
Today, Gaza looks very much like a concentration camp, a place from which the smell of poverty, pain and despair is wafting all over the area, while morally bankrupt politicians keep babbling about Israel’s right to defend itself while utterly ignoring the Palestinians’ right to survival, security, food and dignity.
I know it is futile to appeal to most governments of the world which have come to be governed by the satanic doctrine of political correctness.
But conscientious men and women around the world can make a difference if they speak up and take to the streets to demand an abrupt end to the unfolding man-made tragedy in Gaza ......
This is also an opportunity for Jews of conscience to demonstrate to the world that Jews are not like Germans who kept silent and remained indifferent while the Third Reich was doing what it was doing.
I’m saying that because if Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak and other war criminals are doing what they are doing in your collective name, then do something real, and prove to the world that you are worthy of the sublime ideals you claim to adhere to.
History will not be kind to you if you don’t."
موقف فلسطيني مخجل
موقف فلسطيني مخجل
An important article. I will post the English equivalent as soon as I find it.
The PA's representative at the UN does it again; except it is worse this time!
"نجح مندوبو الدول العربية في الامم المتحدة في تعديل مشروع قرار تقدم به سفير فلسطين يعتبر فيه منظمات المقاومة الفلسطينية في قطاع غزة، وحماس علي وجه الخصوص، منظمات خارجة عن القانون، ويدين فيه اطلاق الصواريخ علي المستوطنات والمدن الاسرائيلية شمال قطاع غزة.
السفير الفلسطيني في المنظمة الدولية ارتكب خطيئتين بهذا العمل، الاولي محاولة تدويل الخلاف الفلسطيني ـ الفلسطيني، والثانية التشاور مع الدول الاوروبية حول صيغته قبل التشاور مع نظرائه العرب الذين ذهب اليهم وطلب دعمهم لمشروع القرار هذا.
والاخطر من ذلك انه غضب غضبا شديدا عندما اعترض المندوبون العرب علي مشروعه هذا، وابدوا عتبا شديدا عندما علموا انه تشاور مع الاوروبيين قبل ان يلجأ اليهم في سابقة غير مألوفة، ووصل به الامر الي القول ان الدعم الاوروبي لمشروع القرار اهم من الدعم العربي بالنسبة اليه.
لقد جرت العادة ان تتقدم بعض الحكومات العربية بمشاريع قرارات الي الامم المتحدة وجمعيتها العامة او مجلس امنها تتسم بالليونة والاعتدال، تثير غضب المندوب الفلسطيني وتدفعه الي المطالبة بتصليبها، وهذه هي المرة الاولي في تاريخ المنظمة الدولية التي يحدث فيها العكس تماما.
ومن المفارقة ان مندوبي الاردن ومصر الدولتين اللتين تقيمان علاقات دبلوماسية رسمية مع الدولة العبرية بمقتضي معاهدتي سلام وقعتاها معها، كانا الاكثر اعتراضا علي مشروع القرار الفلسطيني المذكور.
فالمندوب المصري قال ان هذا المشروع في حال اقراره من قبل الجمعية العامة للامم المتحدة سيعني تحويل منظمات المقاومة الفلسطينية الي منظمات ارهابية، الامر الذي سيشكل ضربة قاصمة للحق الفلسطيني المشروع في الكفاح بكل الطرق والوسائل، بما في ذلك المقاومة المسلحة لتحرير ارضه. ووجد هذا الموقف تأييدا من مندوبي الاردن وليبيا اما مندوب السودان فهدد بالتصويت ضد مشروع القرار هذا اذا بقي علي حاله.
انها ليست المرة الاولي التي يتصرف فيها مندوب فلسطين في الامم المتحدة بهذه الطريقة المخجلة، فقد اعترض في السابق علي مشروع قرار عربي قدم الي مجلس الامن الدولي يعتبر قطاع غزة منطقة منكوبة بسبب الحصار والغارات الاسرائيلية المتواصلة عليه، لتنبيه المجتمع الدولي الي الاوضاع المأساوية التي يعيشها مليون ونصف المليون فلسطيني تحت حصار خانق، ودفعه الي المبادرة بالتحرك لكسره، وارسال مساعدات لسكانه تنقذهم من الجوع والمعاناة.
المندوب الفلسطيني لا يمكن ان يقدم علي خطوة كهذه تعكس انقلابا في الدبلوماسية الفلسطينية لمصلحة اسرائيل دون ان يكون قد تلقي تعليمات واضحة من رام الله في هذا الصدد. واذا كان قد تصرف فعلا دون هذه التعليمات، فانه يجب ان يعاقب فورا، باعفائه من منصبه، لانه لا يستحق ان يمثل شعبا يقاوم لتحرير ارضه ضد عدو وحشي، ثم تقديمه الي محكمة تأديبية وفق الأعراف والتقاليد المتبعة في مثل هذه الحالات.
فمن العيب ان ينسي البعض في سلطة رام الله ان اسرائيل ما زالت عدوا محتلا تعتقل اكثر من عشرة آلاف اسير فلسطيني وتقتل يوميا العديد من النشطاء، ويجعلون من شركائهم في حركات المقاومة الاخري العدو الذي يجب تجريمه دوليا.
هذه المواقف لا يمكن ان تمثل حركة فتح أم المقاومة الفلسطينية التي قادت النضال الفلسطيني لاكثر من ثلاثين عاما، قدمت خلالها آلاف الشهداء والجرحي والمعتقلين، لان كتائب شهداء الاقصي الذراع العسكرية لها ما زالت ملاحقة من الاسرائيليين بسبب تمسكها بثوابت الحركة ومواصلة المقاومة ضد الاحتلال."
An important article. I will post the English equivalent as soon as I find it.
The PA's representative at the UN does it again; except it is worse this time!
"نجح مندوبو الدول العربية في الامم المتحدة في تعديل مشروع قرار تقدم به سفير فلسطين يعتبر فيه منظمات المقاومة الفلسطينية في قطاع غزة، وحماس علي وجه الخصوص، منظمات خارجة عن القانون، ويدين فيه اطلاق الصواريخ علي المستوطنات والمدن الاسرائيلية شمال قطاع غزة.
السفير الفلسطيني في المنظمة الدولية ارتكب خطيئتين بهذا العمل، الاولي محاولة تدويل الخلاف الفلسطيني ـ الفلسطيني، والثانية التشاور مع الدول الاوروبية حول صيغته قبل التشاور مع نظرائه العرب الذين ذهب اليهم وطلب دعمهم لمشروع القرار هذا.
والاخطر من ذلك انه غضب غضبا شديدا عندما اعترض المندوبون العرب علي مشروعه هذا، وابدوا عتبا شديدا عندما علموا انه تشاور مع الاوروبيين قبل ان يلجأ اليهم في سابقة غير مألوفة، ووصل به الامر الي القول ان الدعم الاوروبي لمشروع القرار اهم من الدعم العربي بالنسبة اليه.
لقد جرت العادة ان تتقدم بعض الحكومات العربية بمشاريع قرارات الي الامم المتحدة وجمعيتها العامة او مجلس امنها تتسم بالليونة والاعتدال، تثير غضب المندوب الفلسطيني وتدفعه الي المطالبة بتصليبها، وهذه هي المرة الاولي في تاريخ المنظمة الدولية التي يحدث فيها العكس تماما.
ومن المفارقة ان مندوبي الاردن ومصر الدولتين اللتين تقيمان علاقات دبلوماسية رسمية مع الدولة العبرية بمقتضي معاهدتي سلام وقعتاها معها، كانا الاكثر اعتراضا علي مشروع القرار الفلسطيني المذكور.
فالمندوب المصري قال ان هذا المشروع في حال اقراره من قبل الجمعية العامة للامم المتحدة سيعني تحويل منظمات المقاومة الفلسطينية الي منظمات ارهابية، الامر الذي سيشكل ضربة قاصمة للحق الفلسطيني المشروع في الكفاح بكل الطرق والوسائل، بما في ذلك المقاومة المسلحة لتحرير ارضه. ووجد هذا الموقف تأييدا من مندوبي الاردن وليبيا اما مندوب السودان فهدد بالتصويت ضد مشروع القرار هذا اذا بقي علي حاله.
انها ليست المرة الاولي التي يتصرف فيها مندوب فلسطين في الامم المتحدة بهذه الطريقة المخجلة، فقد اعترض في السابق علي مشروع قرار عربي قدم الي مجلس الامن الدولي يعتبر قطاع غزة منطقة منكوبة بسبب الحصار والغارات الاسرائيلية المتواصلة عليه، لتنبيه المجتمع الدولي الي الاوضاع المأساوية التي يعيشها مليون ونصف المليون فلسطيني تحت حصار خانق، ودفعه الي المبادرة بالتحرك لكسره، وارسال مساعدات لسكانه تنقذهم من الجوع والمعاناة.
المندوب الفلسطيني لا يمكن ان يقدم علي خطوة كهذه تعكس انقلابا في الدبلوماسية الفلسطينية لمصلحة اسرائيل دون ان يكون قد تلقي تعليمات واضحة من رام الله في هذا الصدد. واذا كان قد تصرف فعلا دون هذه التعليمات، فانه يجب ان يعاقب فورا، باعفائه من منصبه، لانه لا يستحق ان يمثل شعبا يقاوم لتحرير ارضه ضد عدو وحشي، ثم تقديمه الي محكمة تأديبية وفق الأعراف والتقاليد المتبعة في مثل هذه الحالات.
فمن العيب ان ينسي البعض في سلطة رام الله ان اسرائيل ما زالت عدوا محتلا تعتقل اكثر من عشرة آلاف اسير فلسطيني وتقتل يوميا العديد من النشطاء، ويجعلون من شركائهم في حركات المقاومة الاخري العدو الذي يجب تجريمه دوليا.
هذه المواقف لا يمكن ان تمثل حركة فتح أم المقاومة الفلسطينية التي قادت النضال الفلسطيني لاكثر من ثلاثين عاما، قدمت خلالها آلاف الشهداء والجرحي والمعتقلين، لان كتائب شهداء الاقصي الذراع العسكرية لها ما زالت ملاحقة من الاسرائيليين بسبب تمسكها بثوابت الحركة ومواصلة المقاومة ضد الاحتلال."
“Shock Doctrine” Author Naomi Klein on State-Sanctioned Torture and Disaster Response for the Chosen
Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman
"AMY GOODMAN: Judge Mukasey's nomination thrusts the issue of waterboarding and torture into the spotlight. In her latest book, The Shock Doctrine, award-winning author Naomi Klein has a chapter all about the history of torture. She joins me now in the firehouse studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Naomi.....
AMY GOODMAN: Respond to what you’ve just heard.
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I think that was an absolutely shocking display, and I think what’s most shocking about it is this idea that this is somehow a question of good government and the torture question can be belittled. I mean, what we just saw was lawmakers knowingly voting in favor of someone who has said that one of the classic modern torture techniques -- I mean, the classic torture techniques of the French in Algeria, for instance, were simulated drowning, electroshock and rape. These are the three main tools of contemporary torture. And this is a man who has said to the world that one of those key techniques, simulated drowning, water torture, is not illegal. So, with that knowledge, he was just endorsed.
And to elevate a man who has said this to the highest legal office in the country, I think, just puts everyone of those lawmakers, but particularly the Democrats who voted for him, into bold new territory. They have just crossed a line, because they can no longer pin this on Bush. They can no longer claim ignorance. Anyone who faces these techniques in the future, they will be complicit in those war crimes, in those crimes against humanity -- everybody who voted for this man......"
I'm no lap-dog for Washington: Sarko
FRANCE and the US were to seal their new love affair overnight when Nicolas Sarkozy, the most pro-American French leader for decades, turned up in Washington to be feted by a grateful US administration.
"President George W. Bush's beleaguered team has been in a collective swoon over the emergence of an Elvis-loving, iPod-wearing, French President after many strained years with Jacques Chirac....."
Whose road map?
Contributed by Lucia
By Jeff Halper
(The writer is the coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions)
"......SO WHAT is the problem? The missing piece, the crucial document that subverts any viable two-state solution, a factor in Israel's strategic considerations mentioned by Olmert as an aside only a few days ago, is Bush's letter of April, 2004, to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon. This little-noticed document fundamentally changed the parameters of what is to be discussed in any "peace process" and what Israel's obligations are under the road map. It is considered by the Israeli government as perhaps the most crucial element in its effort to retain the major settlement blocs and in that way foreclosing the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
The essence of the Bush letter, which was subsequently ratified by the House of Representatives by a vote of 407-9 and by the Senate by 95-1, is the following passage: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949."
In one seemingly innocuous sentence, President Bush fatally but knowingly undermined UN Resolution 242, the very basis of the two-state solution since 1967 and of his own road map initiative, by nullifying the requirement that Israel return to the Green Line (with agreed-upon adjustments) so that a viable Palestinian state might emerge......."
West Bank Settlements ‘Expanding’
BBC
"Construction is continuing in dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank despite Israel’s pledge to freeze their expansion, an campaign group has said.
Peace Now says Jewish population growth is three times higher in the area occupied in 1967 than in Israel itself.
It says settlers are bypassing a ban on using caravans to expand settlements by erecting pre-fabricated homes on site.
Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are deemed illegal under international law.
Israel had pledged to stop their construction as part of internationally-backed peace efforts.
Peace Now says there is continuing construction in 88 out of about 150 of the authorised settlements, in addition to the building of permanent structures in 34 unauthorised settlement outposts.
Settler leaders expressed pleasure about Peace Now’s report, thanking it for “documenting their endeavour”......"
The Politics of Servility
Congress and the Israel Lobby
By WILLIAM COOK
CounterPunch
".....So while our legislators dress appropriately in their double breasted suits, with their American flag lapel pins glowing in the ballroom lights at the AIPAC gala, as they grovel before the keypad denizens of the posh offices that turn out the legislation they will vote on in the following weeks, the people of Palestine suffer the humiliation, the suffering, the agony of the occupation, the illegal occupation, that our friends on K street impose on people they do not know or could care less about. Yet there are those in the Jewish community who suffer a like humiliation as they watch their compatriots commit their non-Jewish atrocities to further their rapid Zionist ends, and they, like us, must endure the corrosive rot of our constitution and Bill of Rights as the cowards in our Congress convince themselves that they are obedient to the word of their Christ and uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights even as they lift their cocktail glass in celebration of the latest resolution they've passed for their masters. "
By WILLIAM COOK
CounterPunch
".....So while our legislators dress appropriately in their double breasted suits, with their American flag lapel pins glowing in the ballroom lights at the AIPAC gala, as they grovel before the keypad denizens of the posh offices that turn out the legislation they will vote on in the following weeks, the people of Palestine suffer the humiliation, the suffering, the agony of the occupation, the illegal occupation, that our friends on K street impose on people they do not know or could care less about. Yet there are those in the Jewish community who suffer a like humiliation as they watch their compatriots commit their non-Jewish atrocities to further their rapid Zionist ends, and they, like us, must endure the corrosive rot of our constitution and Bill of Rights as the cowards in our Congress convince themselves that they are obedient to the word of their Christ and uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights even as they lift their cocktail glass in celebration of the latest resolution they've passed for their masters. "
Khudari: More than 1,000 patients in Gaza require urgent treatment abroad
"GAZA, (PIC)-- MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular anti-sanctions committee, said that there are more than 1,000 Palestinian patients awaiting urgent treatment abroad but cannot because of the imposed siege on the Gaza Strip, which, he asserted, is contrary to all international norms and human rights, and called for the immediate opening of the Rafah border crossing before the situation in Gaza explodes.
In a press conference held on Tuesday at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza during a sit-in staged by Palestinian patients, Khudari stated that the Palestinian patients in Gaza are threatened with slow death and every day that passes new cases come to the surface.
The committee's head called on human rights organizations to pressure the Israeli occupation in order to open the crossing for the citizens, highlighting that the continuing closure of the crossings will cause Gaza explode any time.
Amongst the patients staging the sit-in at the Shifa hospital was a young girl of 15, Diana Abu Amr, who has been suffering for the past three years from insulin-dependent diabetes and who needs urgent medical supervision outside the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, a 36-year-old Palestinian man suffering from kidney failure died as a result of the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza. He was waiting for the Rafah border crossing to open so that he could travel abroad to have a kidney transplant.
Later on Tuesday, Khudari sent several letters to European officials and jurists explaining the deteriorating humanitarian situation resulting from the Israeli siege and urging them to intervene to alleviate the suffering of the residents of the Gaza Strip.
The MP explained the tragic conditions at all levels in the Gaza Strip and how the siege imposed on the strip gets tighter everyday without any sign of hope that this crisis would end and that the siege is threatening the lives of dozens of Palestinian patients.
He also mentioned the suffering of stranded Palestinian students and the Palestinians working abroad who want to travel and cannot in addition to the closure of crossings and the lack of basic living materials, confirming that the Palestinian people are expecting a daring global position saving them from death and destruction."
The Latest From Dr. Mona El-Farra in Gaza
Palestinian International Campaign -End Gaza Siege
For contact info : end.gaza.siege@gmail.com
"......Given all this, we have adopted the initiative of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme to launch the Palestinian-International campaign for breaking the siege on Gaza, which has been intensified lately by the strict siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since June 2007.
The aim of this humanitarian, non-partisan campaign is to put pressure on the Israeli government in order to lift the siege imposed on the population of Gaza. By raising the awareness of the international community on the deteriorating living conditions resulting from the siege, we aim at mobilizing the efforts of the various international community organizations and governments to stop the boycott of Gaza. We call for the implementation of the recent European Parliament resolution calling on the Israeli government to end the siege.
It is important to declare that "End the Siege" is a non- partisan campaign, initiated and managed by representatives of the civil society, business community, intellectuals, academics, women activists, and advocates for human rights and peace from the West Bank and Gaza. We are all guided by our commitment to peace and our respect to human dignity.
We believe that it is a moral and ethical duty to rescue the lives of human souls living under bitter circumstances that sabotage their right to exist. People in Gaza are deprived of the simplest requirements for a decent life. We are determined to move hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder with all people who believe in freedom, human dignity and peace........"
Dollar's Fall Collapses the American Empire
Supermodel Spurns the Dollar
Bring Those 737 Overseas Military Bases Home!
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch
"The US dollar is still officially the world's reserve currency, but it cannot purchase the services of Brazilian super model Gisele Bundchen. Gisele required the $30 million she earned during the first half of this year to be paid in euros......
The Romans brought on their own demise, but it took them centuries. Bush has finished America in a mere 7 years.
Even as Gisele throws off the dollar's hegemony, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Columbia are declaring independence of the IMF and World Bank, instruments of US financial hegemony, by creating their own development bank, thus bringing to an end US suzerainty over South America.
An empire that has lost its backyard is finished."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)