Lebanese daily: Syria, Iran foresee large clash with Israel

".....Meanwhile, in Syria, the investigation into Mughniyah's assassination continues.

"The investigation is being carried out with complete secrecy because of Mughniyah's sensitive location before the ambush," Al-Akhbar reported yesterday.

Mughniyah had emerged from a meeting shortly before he was killed.

He was killed near the offices of the chief of Syrian intelligence, Asif Shuwekat, who is President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law....."

Nazi acts…by Jewish hands

Comment by Khalid Amayreh in Occupied E. Jerusalem

"There is no doubt that the cold-blooded extermination by the Israeli air-force of an entire Palestinian family in Gaza on Friday, 15, was a monstrous crime not unlike Nazi atrocities during World War II.

The only difference lies in the fact that the Nazis did it “wholesale” while their ideological descendants, the Zionists, are doing the same thing by retail.

What else can be said about the deliberate and premeditated bombing from high altitudes of a residential home and the annihilation of a man, his wife and their three children who were asleep in the dead of night?.....

Israeli apologists claim that Israel had to kill Palestinian civilians and children in order to prevent the death of Israeli civilians and children.

But this rationale is as mendacious as it is pornographic. Mendacious because the Palestinians pose no real threat to nuclear Israel which also controls the politics and policies of the United States of America and has strong influences on the governments of Western Europe. Didn’t Sharon, the infamous certified war criminal declare a few years ago that “we, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it?” And pornographic because oppressive regimes could resort to this criminal logic in order to physically eliminate their respective untermensch, blacks, Jews and Palestinians on the ground that “their very existence pose a mortal threat to our future.”....."

Excerpts from Nasrallah's speech warning Israel (subtitled video)

An unambiguous warning from a man who has never made an empty threat

From the Vineyard of the Saker

قراءة في استراتيجية خطاب السيد حسن نصر الله

تقرير خاص قناة المنار – حكم امهز

"16/02/2008 يؤكد الخبراء الإستراتيجيون أن رد الأمين العام لحزب الله السيد حسن نصر الله على عملية اغتيال القائد عماد مغنية، اثبت ان المقاومة قادرة على التحرك على كل السوح التي فتح ابوابها العدو خارج لبنان. وبالتالي فان مرحلة ما بعد خطاب السيد نصر الله مرحلة تاريخية ومفصلية في الصراع مع العدو، والوزير السابق ميشال سماحة يكشف عن تحول السفارة الاميركية في عوكر الى وكر تنفيذي للعمليات الأميركية في لبنان.
القرار الإسرائيلي بتغيير قواعد اللعبة ونقل ساحة الصراع إلى الخارج، بالتأكيد هو قرار مدروس ويحمل في طياته ما يحمل من أهداف اختباريه لإمكانية وقدرات المقاومة على اختلافها في رد الفعل على عدوان بحجم اغتيال القائد عماد مغنية. من هنا يرى الخبراء ان الاغتيال وبعده خطاب السيد نصر الله أسس لمرحلة مفصلية في تاريخ الصراع مع العدو الإسرائيلي.
ويقول الخبير الاستراتيجي العميد المتقاعد الدكتور امين حطيط لقناة المنار: "لان سماحة السيد في خطابه اّرخ لمرحلة جديدة في تاريخ الصراع مع العدو الاسرائيلي الذي فيه المقاومة الطرف الاساسي، الجديد في الامر والذي فاجئ العدو كما اعتقد ان سماحة السيد قال أننا جاهزون للعمل في كامل المسرح الذي انتم حددتموه وهو خارج الحدود".
اما الوزير السابق ميشال سماحة فقال: "من الصعب على اسرائيل ان تتحمل في حربها مع حزب الله وفي حربها مع الفلسطينيين ولكن تحديداً في حربها مع حزب الله، هذا النوع من الحرب".
السؤال المطروح أيضاً هل ان القرار الإسرائيلي باغتيال الحاج رضوان فردي ام جماعي. يؤكد سماحة أن شركاء الإسرائيلي في القرار هم أنفسهم من قرر حرب تموز على لبنان بمن فيهم أميركا وبعض دول الاعتدال العربية والأطراف اللبنانية كأدوات تنفيذية.
ويقول سماحة في هذا الإطار: "انا اعتبر ان المعركة مكملة، واننا نعيش فصل من فصول المقاومة. وانا اعتقد وهذا ما سأقوله كلام خطير ولكن مقرون بمعلومات، ان عوكر (مقر السفارة الاميركية في بيروت) ومنذ خمسة أسابيع تحولت من سفارة الى وكر عملي للعمليات الميدانية في لبنان، بامر تنفيذي من المجرم الإرهابي جورج بوش الذي يريد ان يحول الساحة اللبنانية بتسميته والساحة السورية الى موقع عمليات تنفيذي للعمليات الخاصة التي نقل الجزء الأساسي من قيادتها من كابول إلى عوكر".
اما العميد المتقاعد حطيط فقال: "سماحة السيد في خطاباته السابقة كان يحذر المفاجأة الكبرى والبارحة (الخميس) فاجئ الناس بأمرين، الأمر الاول يتعلق بحجم القوى التي يمكن ان تستعمل، والنقطة الثانية وهي الاهم برأينا انه لم يستسلم امام اسرائيل التي قررت ان توسع ميدان الصراع".
وفيما لا لم يلجأ احد من المحليين الى تقدير طبيعة وزمان الرد فان العدو بدأ باتخاذ عدد من الإجراءات الوقائية في دول العالم تحسباً للمواجهة القادمة.
ويقول في هذا المجال الوزير السابق ميشال سماحة: "الحرب المفتوحة على الاسرائيليين شهدنا اول فصولها خلال الـ 72 ساعة الماضية ، هلع، ذعر، اجراءات امنية مكلفة مادياً ، ومكلفة نفسياً، اعادة اسرائيل والمجتمع الاسرائيلي الى مجتمع الغيتو الخائف بعد الهزيمة التي الحقت به".
قواعد اللعبة تغيرت، لكن المقاومة اثبتت في تاريخها انها قادرة على تقديم المفاجآت واستلام المبادرة. "

Blood and Champagne

EVERY PEOPLE elevate the profession in which they excel.

By Uri Avnery

".....But the profession in which Israel is not only one of the biggest, but the unchallenged Numero Uno is: liquidations.

This week this was proven once again.....

INDEED, FOR a long time now there has not been such an orgy of jubilation and self-congratulation in the Israeli media as there was this week. Every reporter, every commentator, every political hack, every transient celeb interviewed on TV, on the radio and in the newspapers, was radiant with pride. We have done it! We have succeeded! We have "liquidated" Imad Mughniyeh!.....

THE COMMON denominator of all these and many other actions is that they did not harm the organizations of the "liquidatees", but boomeranged. And all of them brought in their wake grievous revenge attacks......

I suspect that the real reason is both political and psychological. Political, because it is always popular. After every "liquidation", there is much jubilation. When the revenge arrives, the public (and the media) do not see the connection between the"liquidation" and the response.....

The psychological reason is also clear: it is satisfying. True, the "liquidation" - as the word shows - is more appropriate for the underworld than for the security organs of a state. But it is a challenging and complex task, as in a Mafia film, which gives much satisfaction to the "liquidators". Ehud Barak, for example, was a liquidator from the start of his military career. When the "liquidation" ends in success, the executioners can raise glasses of champagne.

A mixture of blood, champagne and folly is an intoxicating but toxic cocktail."

Connecting the Dots

A Comment by Tony Sayegh

I don't believe that the events taking place right now are random and unrelated. Put them together and the picture that emerges is of an imminent major war:

- Israel murders a very prominent Hizbullah leader and in Damascus of all places when he was supposedly on his way to the Iranian embassy.

- The US was alone in openly expressing pleasure at this murder.

- Sayyed Nasrallah announces that Hizbullah considers this an open war not limited in geographic area.

- Dick Cheney has warned of the inevitability of another 9/11-style attack on US soil.

- This is an election year and John McCain needs another war on "Islamo Fascists" to be easily elected as the next president.

- Hizbullah has reportedly readied up to 50,000 fighters and emptied buildings housing political and other nonmilitary offices.

- Denmark has obliged again (with the instigation of the neocon Fleming Rose) by re-publishing the infamous cartoons to inflame and enrage Arabs and Muslims everywhere.

- Israeli attacks on Gaza are increasing in their deadliness and indiscriminate nature, by hitting densely populated civilian areas.

- Israel has threatened of a major invasion of Gaza.

If and when Hizbullah retaliates, especially if it hits within the US, this will be the zero hour. South Lebanon and Gaza will be invaded simultaneously while the US attacks Iranian targets.

How about Syria, you ask? Syria will issue statements condemning the attacks and urging Israeli restraint. Syria will probably not be attacked since it is by now firmly in the "moderate" camp and as a reward for cooperating.

Israeli State Terror is O.K.

This took place yesterday in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip when an Israeli missile leveled a three-story house and damaged several houses next to it. Eight were murdered, including a brother and a sister aged 5 and 6. Over 50 were injured, including 17 children.

Any protests from the U.S.? From the E.U.? From the U.N.? Of course not.

Keep this in mind if a suicide bombing takes place in Israel.

Syria denies joint Iran investigation

"DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria denied Iranian claims that the two countries would conduct a joint investigation into the assassination of a top Hezbollah commander, the Syrian state news agency reported.

Imad Mughniyeh, who was one of the world's most wanted fugitives, was killed in a car bomb in the Syrian capital Tuesday night. He was accused of masterminding attacks that killed hundreds of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheik Attar announced the joint probe on Friday, according to Iran's official news agency.

But a Syrian official dismissed the report as "totally baseless" and said Damascus would conduct the investigation alone, Syria's state-run news agency reported late Friday. It did not name the official.....

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met with senior Syrian officials in Damascus on Thursday and Friday to discuss Mughniyeh's assassination. Attar said Friday that Iran and Syria agreed to the joint investigation during Mottaki's visit....."

***
This is rather interesting. Earlier it was announced that not only Iran, but also Hizbullah were involved in the investigation. For example Al-Jazeera reported this: Hezbollah security team in Syria.

It seems that the Syrian regime has something to hide; otherwise why not cooperate with Hizbullah and Iran?

By Mike Luckovich

US platitudes on Iraq

The US government's statements on Iraq are far away from the population's daily experience of violence and lack of security

by Haifa Zangana
The Guardian

"....For Iraqis who are long forgotten by the US and British governments, since they are often seen as terrorists' facilitators, the security gains mean pre-dawn house raid, arbitrary arrests, kidnapping, killing by mercenaries called security employees and car bombs in crowded markets. Blasts have occurred in Baghdad, Salah ad Din, Anbar and Ninevah. The historic city of Mosul, north of Iraq, is under siege by occupation troops for the third week.

To minimise the US casualties, during the surge, Iraqis have been subjected to collective punishment, Israeli style. The list of our dead as a result of indiscriminate US air strikes is long. Here are but a few....

It is worth pausing here to clarify the much-trumpeted successes of the return of some of refugees and the establishment of al Sahwa - the US-funded tribal Sunni militia. The first is just another information operation at a time of military failure to obscure the fact that most of the refugees had fled the country during the "success of the surge", in addition to the 2 million displaced inside Iraq (to get a sense of proportion, this is equivalent to 10 million British or 50 million US citizens).

The return of some refugees is not related to the success of the surge, the establishment of security or a reduction in "sectarian violence", the euphemism for death squads that have infiltrated the security services and local militias. The savings of most refugees have run out, and they face real poverty since they cannot compete for the few jobs available in countries that have historically been poorer than Iraq....

On the other hand, Iraqis suffering from the lack of basic services continue to call the Maliki government; "the government of the sectarian militias" with the highest record of corruption permeating in every aspect of its body. Democracy, transparency and human rights are terms often used as jokes."

"Good News," Iraq and Beyond

By Noam Chomsky

"Not long ago, it was taken for granted that the Iraq war would be the central issue in the presidential campaign, as it was in the mid-term election of 2006. But it has virtually disappeared, eliciting some puzzlement. There should be none.

Iraq remains a significant concern for the population, but that is a matter of little moment in a modern democracy. The important work of the world is the domain of the "responsible men," who must "live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd," the general public, "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders" whose "function" is to be "spectators," not "participants." And spectators are not supposed to bother their heads with issues. The Wall Street Journal came close to the point in a major front-page article on super-Tuesday, under the heading "Issues Recede in '08 Contest As Voters Focus on Character." To put it more accurately, issues recede as candidates, party managers, and their PR agencies focus on character (qualities, etc.). As usual. And for sound reasons. Apart from the irrelevance of the population, they can be dangerous. The participants in action are surely aware that on a host of major issues, both political parties are well to the right of the general population, and that their positions that are quite consistent over time, a matter reviewed in a useful study by Benjamin Page and Marshall Bouton, The Foreign Policy Divide; the same is true on domestic policy (see my Failed States, on both domains). It is important, then, for the attention of the herd to be diverted elsewhere......"

Free press watchdog slams Arab media 'charter' as bid for censorship

"A new Arab "charter" to coordinate media control is an attempt by autocratic governments to squash already limited freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Saturday.

Arab governments, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, last week adopted a satellite broadcasting charter, which will entrench state control over broadcasts and curtail political expression on the airwaves across the region of some 300 million people.

The charter, signed by information ministers in Cairo, bans broadcasting material seen as undermining "social peace, national unity, public order and general propriety," criticizing religions or defaming political, national and religious leaders. If a broadcaster violates the charter, the host government can suspend or revoke its broadcasting license. There has been a proliferation of private satellite channels in recent years, with the total number of outlets estimated at around 300. "This is an unacceptable move on the part of autocratic governments to rob viewers of the already small amount of broadcast freedom they have enjoyed on private television," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement.

"Arab governments should immediately disavow this shameful document and hold their countries to international standards for freedom of expression," the New-York based group said.

Analysts say the charter is the Arab governments' response to the relative freedom enjoyed by Arab satellite broadcasters, many of which are privately financed and which encourage open political discussion of sensitive matters. Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera, seen as the most popular network in the Arab world, also attacked the charter, saying it would hinder independent reporting.

"Al Jazeera considers the adoption of the charter ... a risk to freedom of expression in the Arab world," said a statement on Friday, noting what is said was vague language.

Al Jazeera is one of the few major broadcasters in the region considered by analysts to be outside the influence of Saudi Arabia, the leading Arab power, which, flush with oil money, oversees a media empire including networks and channels such as MBC, Al Arabiya, ART, Orbit, LBC and Rotana. But analysts have even noted a shift in Al Jazeera's coverage over the past year as the channel avoids material which could upset the Saudi government.

State media in most Arab countries, including media-powerful Egypt, also avoid news that could offend Saudi rulers. Arab governments regularly prosecute journalists via press laws opposed by rights groups. An Al Jazeera producer in Egypt was sentenced to six months in prison last year for collecting material for a programme on police torture. A court overturned the verdict this month."

If Only Saddam Had Injected HGH

By Scott Ritter

"The recent spectacle of Congressional hearings on the alleged use of steroids and/or Human Growth Hormone (HGH) by Roger Clemons, a professional baseball player nicknamed "the Rocket," throws into question the viability and functionality of a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party.....

Perhaps if Saddam Hussein had been accused of injecting HGH instead of hiding WMD, Congress would have stepped up to the plate, so to speak, and dug deep into the truth of the matter. Henry Waxman, as well meaning as he is, sits at the head of a legislative process which has lost touch with reality and purpose. Pandering to the no-risk approach of non-governance by pursuing "The Rocket" and allegations of HGH abuse, while ignoring the high-risk demands of legitimate government by pursuing matters pertaining to how the Bush administration manufactured evidence of illusory Iraqi rockets tipped with imagined WMD, represents the ultimate indictment of a Congress, and legislative process, that long ago lost touch with its ultimate purpose of being: the pursuit of the best interests of the American people through the defense of the rule of law as set forth by the United States Constitution."

Current (Cartoonish) Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

The question is:

What is the best response to the re-publishing of the offending Danish cartoons?

With over 500 responding so far, here are the opinions:

Boycott and demonstrations......79%
Ignore the matter..............21%

Hamas alleges assassination plot

Al-Jazeera

"Hamas has accused Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his aides of being behind a plot to assassinate a senior Hamas official.

At a news conference in Gaza city on Saturday, Hamas broadcast videotaped confessions from alleged suspects who said they were ordered to assassinate Ismail Haniya, prime minister of the Gaza-based government.

Several of the alleged suspects said they received the instructions from Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior Abbas aide......

Nafez Dabaki, one of the alleged suspects, said in the video that he had been offered 50,000 Jordanian dinars ($70,500) if he blew himself up at a mosque where Haniya was praying.

Dabaki said he was asked three times to carry out the attack.

Mohammed Kheil, another alleged assailant, said he had been asked to kill Haniya at a public rally....Kheil said he carried 25kg of explosives in a backpack at the rally but left after being spotted by security guards.

Said Siyam, a senior Hamas official, said Hamas is increasingly less inclined to engage in dialogue with Abbas and his aides. "How can we talk about dialogue with this group, after we discovered this conspiracy which received the blessing of senior leaders who are sitting in the Muqataa (Abbas' headquarters) in Ramallah," Siyam said......."

Failed Fascist States

By Pablo Ouziel

"When Hermann Hesse warned of the rise of fascism in Germany he was rejected by a majority of the population. The truth is that most people were experiencing first hand the benefits of fascist ideology. Today we look at that part of our global history with shame, asking ourselves how something like Auswitch could be allowed to happen. The problem is that while we identify it in our past, we are reluctant to acknowledge it happening in our present. During the rise of the short-lived Nazi empire, criticizing Hitler and his party to the average German civilian would have undoubtedly received strong rejection. Today the same holds true to critics of the mighty Odemocratic¹ empire, built by the U.S. with the submissive support of its 'client states'......

The true problem however, arises when we acknowledge that we live in failed fascist states. When that happens, the intellect is drawn to the question of what happens to our military might, our nuclear weapons, our economic wealth, or our social rights acquired by the arduous effort of millions of human beings. When we understand that we are living in failed states, we can objectively acknowledge the fears surrounding the eminent failure of Pakistan and reflect on those facing our own western reality. Our failed banking system which is loosing billions of dollars a day, our debt ridden countries, our lost imperial wars against people who resisted more than we assumed. It is only within that context that we can observe the constant change of laws affecting our freedoms, such as the wiretapping of our phones or the copying of the hard-drive of our computers at airport security checks. This alone should serve to understand that the time has come for a social revolution. However, it doesn¹t seem to be enough and I dread to think what will happen to our nuclear weapons and armies, when we do indeed collapse and acknowledge that we are in fact failed fascist states."

Foreign Interference? What Foreign Interference?

Washington Rejects Arab Initiative over Lebanon

Al-Manar

"16/02/2008 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's representative for Iraq David Satterfield announced that his country does not back an Arab initiative to solve the ongoing political crisis in Lebanon. Speaking to Arab journalists in Paris, Satterfield ridiculed the initiative sarcastically saying: "What is the Arab initiative?" He added that "the US initiative however calls for free elections and opposes Syrian and Lebanese opposition demands." Further interfering in Lebanese affairs, the senior US official said the opposition should not be given concessions.

Satterfield who was US Ambassador to Lebanon, lashed out at Syria accusing it of being "directly responsible for the political crisis in Lebanon and the accompanying violence." "I would describe the situation as one of continuing blockage and the continued eruption of violence in Lebanon ... We regard Syria as directly responsible for this situation," he said. Satterfield had talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy's foreign affairs advisor Jean-David Levitte and officials from the French foreign ministry."

Moghniyeh Investigation Leads to Clues; Results Soon

Al-Manar

"16/02/2008 Well informed sources told the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar that investigations into the assassination in Damascus of martyr Imad Moghniyeh identified the owners of the car that exploded and killed the Hezbollah commander as he passed by it. According to the daily, information point to the arrest of a number of people including suspected non-civilian personnel from Arab nationalities.

Al-Akhbar however said that Syrian official sources refused to comment on the information but said that final results will be officially announced the minute the investigation is finalized. "Well informed sources said that there are suspicions that security apparatuses operating in Arab states offered support to the criminals. They added that some criminal evidence, the type of the explosive, the bombing mechanism and the footage taken from installed cameras in the region have helped in determining some of crime's elements," the daily said."

9 Gazans Martyred, Dozens Wounded in Israeli Airstrike

Al-Manar

"16/02/2008 Nine Palestinians, including a commander of the Islamic Jihad movement, have been killed, with some 50 wounded in an explosion in the Gaza Strip, AlManar correspondent said Saturday. Islamic Jihad said an Israeli air strike caused the blast Friday, which also killed three other activists as well as the wife and two young children of the commander, Ayman Fayed, better known as Abu Abdallah.

"We condemn the Israeli crime perpetrated against the Bureij refugee camp," Sami Abu Zuhri, spokesman for the Islamic Hamas movement told reporters. "Israel bears full responsibility and will also suffer the consequences," he said.

Seventeen children were among the wounded, according to medical sources and witnesses. "The enemy is trying to deny responsibility for this crime, but it alone is responsible and all of its denials will change nothing," said a statement from the Islamic Jihad movement. A military spokeswoman of the Israeli occupying regime denied any role in the Gaza blast, saying "the Israeli army spokesman announces that the military has no connection to this matter."

"We will respond to this Zionist massacre painfully," Abu Ahmad, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad's armed wing said, "We will strike the enemy everywhere." Relatives said a son and daughter of the 41-year-old Fayed, aged 6 and 5, were martyred. Three of his other children were wounded. Some residents of the al-Bureij refugee camp said they believed there had been an airstrike."

Assafir: 50,000 Hezbollahis in State of High Alert

Al-Manar

"16/02/2008 The Lebanese newspaper Assafir reported Saturday that the Hezbollah has put 50,000 of its resistance fighters in a state of high alert and evacuated all buildings in the area designated for social or political purposes in recent days. Hezbollah vowed to retaliate the assassination of it resistance commander Imad Moghniyeh who was killed in Damascus by Mossad agents. Israel has denied any involvement.

Meanwhile, another Lebanese newspaper, Al-Akhbar, reported that Lebanese officials believe a serious military confrontation with Israel will erupt in the near future. "This possibility has been raised in intensive discussions being held between Hezbollah officials and Iranian and Syrian officials. The various militant Palestinian organizations have also declared a state of high alert," the report added."

London School of Economics students vote to divest from Israel

Contributed by Fatima

"Joining a growing list of high-profile institutions, unions and citizen's groups that have chosen to divest from Israel, the Student Union at the prestigious London School of Economics voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to demand that the University divest.

Divestment is a non-violent strategy that was utilized worldwide during the anti-apartheid campaigns against the white South African apartheid regime during the 1980s. In recent years, peace activists and human rights advocates worldwide have used the same technique to challenge what has been called Israel's apartheid system against the Palestinians.

The Student Union called on a divestment from any companies that provide military and commercial support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, and condemned the decades of human rights abuses carried out against the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupying authorities, according to student leaders.

The motion was brought to the Union's weekly meeting of 400 students by the London School of Economics' Palestine Society. The Union resolved to lobby both their own University's Administration and the National Union of Students in the United Kingdom to commit to similar divestment measures.

The Union voted by a six to one measure to support the aim of targeted divestment until the companies in question pull out of Israel, or until Israel ends its systematic human rights abuses and illegal occupation of Palestinian land. "

"Shocking" rate of malnutrition in donor-dependent Gaza

Report, PCHR, 15 February 2008

""We receive 20-25 new referrals every day, and we see approximately 350 children a week here at the centre. Last year we treated more than 8,400 children here in Gaza city, plus another 8,000 children at our centre in Khan Younis. All of them were under five years old, and all of them were malnourished."......

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 10.7 percet of Gazan children aged under five are now suffering stunted growth due to chronic malnutrition. Dr al-Wahaidi describes the figure as "shocking," pointing out that neighboring Arab countries have child stunting rates of less than six percent.

"One of the major problems in the Gaza Strip," he says, "is that we do not have sufficient natural food resources. We cannot grow the variety of fruit and vegetables that we need in order to provide ourselves, and our children, a well-balanced diet. We are dependent on food imports, but the food table in the Gaza Strip is now severely deficient because of the siege and closure." Dr al-Wahaidi acknowledges that Gaza has become donor dependent. "We have tens of thousands of families who now have no options or alternatives to humanitarian assistance," he says. "But if this siege is maintained, then current child malnutrition interventions and preventions will not be sufficient. Child morbidity and mortality will both increase. We will not be able to cope.""

Another War Crime: Eight Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza

"Palestinian medical sources reported on Friday at night that eight Palestinians were killed and several others were injured when the Israeli air force fired missiles at the house of one of the leaders of the Islamic Jihad in Al Boreij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses reported that the shelling targeted the house of Ayman Fayid, 42, one of the leaders of the Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement. The house completely collapsed over its residents due to the shelling.

On its website, the Al Quds Brigades confirmed that Fayid was killed in the strike and that six members of his family were injured in addition to dozens of injuries among residents of nearby houses.

Dr. Moawiya Hassanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, said that eight residents were confirmed dead and 40 others were injured, 10 seriously.

Some of the injured residents were transferred to the Al Aqsa Hospital while others were transferred to Nasser and Al Shifa Hospitals.

Iyad Hussein, one of the neighbors, told the IMEMC that he was sitting with his family when they heard a loud explosion and saw one of the walls of his house being knocked down by the blast “We were sitting at home, as usual, abruptly we heard a loud explosion”, he stated, “and then we saw the wall in my house knocked down, we did not hear ant warplanes overhead”

The number of casualties is expected to increase as some residents are still buried under the rubble of the shelled house. Several nearby houses were damaged by the blast.

Currently, civil defense teams and medics are evacuating the killed and the wounded residents while other teams are still searching under the rubble......"

President Ahmadinejad is visiting P.M. Maliki in the U.S. Green Zone in Baghdad, March 2 -- News item.

The bigger picture

Palestinian strategist Mounir Shafiq predicted current tensions with Iran four years ago. He argues in interview with Amira Howeidy that the balance of power is not in favour of the US or Israel, if only the Arabs would listen

Al-Ahram Weekly

".....It is his unique Islamic, pan-Arab, Marxist and Maoist background that made Shafiq's analytical and strategic take on regional and world politics exceptionally profound. He published over 40 books on the Palestinian question, Arab unity, Leninist-Marxist thought, the science of war, Islam, secularism, development and the new world order......

Yet despite this upcoming change in priorities, Shafiq believes it's "inevitable" that the US will attack Iran. Says the strategist: "Decision-making in the US administration is still dominated by the influential Zionist lobby. Attacking Iran is a decision that has been made by the neo-cons and the Jewish state because Tehran is not allowed to possess the ability to enrich uranium, even for peaceful purposes and even if it meets all conditions of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is simply not allowed. Therefore if Iran doesn't hand over its nuclear programme its nuclear sites at least will be attacked, even if it suspends uranium enrichment."

A war on Iran would be the most dangerous step in the region, he adds, as Iran would retaliate and the war could rapidly expand. "If the US starts a war, it would need to use tactical, or 'precision' nuclear weapons. I would say 50- 60,000 people would get killed. If Iran tolerates this, the US will be defeated because the nuclear bomb's importance lies in its moral rather than physical impact. The entire world will turn against America."

Similarly in Gaza which Israel is threatening to attack to uproot Hamas, the situation is not entirely bleak.

Hamas, he suggests, will win in any confrontation with Israel regardless of the military outcome of the possible incursion Tel Aviv says it will wage. "If Israel does what it says it will do, even Hamas's harshest critics will have to denounce it. And if Hamas withstands the aggression and fights back it will put Israel in a tight corner."

But the Palestinians' greater challenge is not in the besieged Gaza Strip, he warns, but in the West Bank where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is proceeding in secret negotiations with Israel for a final settlement agreement. Shafiq strongly suspects it involves disarming the resistance, renouncing the Palestinian right of return and recognising Israel's Jewishness. "This is the greater danger we should be aware of and it surpasses anything else in its importance and impact on the future of the Palestinian question.""

Crowds 'pick leaders to follow'

People in crowds behave just like sheep, scientists claim, by blindly following one or two people who seem to know where they are going.

Interesting Research
The Telegraph

"Researchers at Leeds University believe their findings could have important applications, notably in the management of disasters.....

The results published today show that it takes a minority of just 5 per cent of what they called "informed individuals" to influence the direction of a crowd of a minimum of 200 people. The remaining herd of 95 per cent follow without realising it.....

"We've all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd but what's interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren't allowed to talk or gesture to one another.

"In most cases the participants didn't realise they were being led by others."

The work follows another study by Dr Simon Reader of Utrecht University that showed that most of us are happy to play follow-my-leader, even if we are trailing after someone who does not really know where they are going......"

Arab media code 'risk to freedom'

Cairo and Riyadh frequently complain that satellite channels criticise their governments.

"Al Jazeera has said a code adopted by Arab states to govern satellite broadcasting could shackle freedom of expression.

Arab information ministers meeting on Tuesday in Cairo endorsed the charter, which allows host countries to annul or suspend the licence of any broadcaster found in violation of the rules it sets......

Wadah Khanfar, director-general of Al Jazeera, said in a statement issued on Friday: "Any code of ethics or governance for journalistic practices should emerge, and be governed, from within the profession and not be imposed externally by political institutions.

"Al Jazeera considers the adoption of the charter ... a risk to the freedom of expression in the Arab world."....

All members of the 22-member Arab League had voted in favour of the document, with only Qatar and Lebanon opposing......

"The region has seen the recent emergence of many media institutions and every attempt should be made not to hamper, but to facilitate, an environment to encourage their independence and freedom," Khanfar said.

Al Jazeera has faced reporting bans in several Arab countries including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia over the past decade. Iraq also banned Al Jazeera Arabic from reporting in Iraq three years ago, accusing it of fomenting sectarianism although Al Jazeera English has a presence in Baghdad.....

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Agnes Callamard from Article 19, a press freedom organisation, said: "This is turning into the next stage of censorship which is to try to prevent millions of people in the region to access information. "The guidelines that have been put forward are so overbroad and over-reaching, they are just really trying to impose a curtain of censorship over the provision of information and simple provision of
views.""

The Creative Destruction Power of Elliott Abrams Through Dahlan

Unknown armed men attack the Y.M.C.A in the Gaza Strip

"A group of unknown armed men attacked the Y.M.C.A. headquarters on the early hours of Friday .The armed men threw an explosive charge in the association's library setting it on fire.

One of the guards who was cuffed by the perpetrators said that they asked him for the keys of the association and for the office of the head of the association from which they took a computer and one of the buses of the association. The guard added that they took them to the Shuja'eyah neighborhood and left them there."

An outstretched hand

David Kimche , THE JERUSALEM POST

"For those of us who had connections with Israeli intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal was a household name.

For more years than I can remember he lorded over the Saudi Intelligence Service, and was, undoubtedly, the most senior figure in the Arab intelligence community. His name cropped up time and again in the most unlikely circumstances. The brother of Foreign Minister Prince Faisal, he is considered to be one of the most senior - and respected - members of the Royal Household.....

To that list we must now add the name of Prince Turki. He recently attended a conference in Germany on the Middle East in which another former senior intelligence official, Yossi Alpher of the Mossad, participated. Peace between Israel and the Arab countries was discussed. A Reuters journalist asked the prince if he would like to send a message to the Israeli public. This is what the prince had to say:

"The Arab world, by the Arab peace initiative, has crossed the Rubicon from hostility to Israel to peace with Israel and has extended the hand of peace to Israel, and we await the Israelis picking up our hand and joining us in what inevitably will be beneficial for Israel and the Arab world."

He told the journalist that Israel and the Arabs could cooperate in many areas including water, agriculture, science and education.

I asked Alpher what had been discussed at the conference. In true Mossad tradition he did not want to reveal too much, but he did say that Prince Turki was surprisingly forthcoming regarding the opportunities that existed if the Arab world and Israel could work together - and that, of course, depended on the peace talks.

In the days when King Hassan II of Morocco was alive he used to say to us: "Just think of the combination - the wealth of the Arab nations coupled with the brains of the Jews! Together we could transform the entire Middle East into a Garden of Eden!"......

The Arab states have a vital role to play in the weeks and months ahead. We should be urging them to become more involved. We should be discussing their peace initiative with them. We should be seeking ways to reach out to them. Prince Turki would never have sent that message via the Reuters journalist if he did not have the backing of the Saudi king to do so......"

The War Party Targets Obama

They'll never let him become president

By Justin Raimondo

"......The War Party's agenda is clear and simple: de-legitimize anyone who advances foreign policy ideas that go against the grain of militarism and slavish appeasement of Israel. Anyone who questions why we are in a war in the midst of Mesopotamia for no apparently good reason is going to be smeared, and brought down. The War Party – and by that I don't just mean Republicans – plays dirty, and they play for keeps."

"I feel as if I were living in South Africa"

Saady Abu-Hatoum, Arab Association for Human Rights, 14 February 2008
(This report is the second in a series of Discrimination Diaries by the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), shedding light on the rights situation of Palestinians in Israel. All images by HRA)

"......Palestine has always been closely associated with the olive tree. The native Palestinians admired the olive for its splendid appearance, with its fresh green leaves and powerful roots that can penetrate rocks, and for the diverse properties of olives and olive oil. Olives are used as a staple food item, while olive oil is used for lighting, moisturizing the skin, curing various ailments and wounds, and strengthening the skin and muscles. Olives were also used to manufacture ink and soap. The olive tree has a remarkable capacity to bear fruit over hundreds and even thousands of years. In the Galilee and Jerusalem there are some olive trees that are over two thousand years old and which still bear fruit......


This story emphasizes once again the way in which Israel tramples on everything that this region and place symbolize for the Palestinian residents, the indigenous inhabitants of the land. Uprooting olive trees in an Arab village and the goals and motives that lie behind such actions constitute a deviation from nature, changing the natural landscape of the village and the surrounding area. Israel attempts to alter the natural indigenous character of the land in order to build European-style residential areas, in a setting in which these do not belong. In order to create this alternative environment, Israel must uproot the olive tree -- the central emblem of Palestine and the symbol of peace. This reality underscores the heavy price paid by the indigenous inhabitants of the land for the establishment of a Jewish state in "Zion.""

The crisis caused by the sharp rise in fuel prices (due to deregulation) in Jordan must be quite severe. So many of the cartoonists in Jordan deal with this subject. Here is an example by Abdullah Darqawi.

You Better Control Your Satellite T.V. Station's Broadcasts
By Baha Boukhari

Powers by Latuff

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

Kofi Annan and the art of intelligent intervention

His mediation in Kenya - impartial and low key - shows up Washington's disastrous meddling in neighbouring Somalia

By Jonathan Steele
The Guardian

"This is a tale of two neighbours: one on the brink of national disaster, unless mediation can prevent a new wave of ethnic killing; the other already in full-scale collapse, with no functioning government or basic services, and 700,000 people driven from their homes. The first is being watched attentively by foreign governments; the second has dropped off the radar, abandoned by those same governments because it all seems so difficult......

If Kenya's eruption into violence shocked the world by being unexpected, Somalia's collapse was fully foreseen. As many experts warned, US collusion with Ethiopia a year ago to send Ethiopian troops into Mogadishu to topple the Islamic Courts regime has backfired as badly as the invasion of Iraq. According to reports from UN and other aid workers in Somalia, almost three-quarters of a million people have fled since the Ethiopians arrived. Far from eliminating the Islamic Courts, the invasion attracted waves of new recruits, motivated by resentment at the presence of foreign troops and not just by jihadi ideology. The Ethiopians installed one of the worst Somali warlords as mayor of Mogadishu, allowing him to turn his militia into the police. Most of the capital's people are from a different clan......"

Not mad or bad, but right

To say the anti-war movement achieved little is defeatist: Blair left office in ignominy and critics continue to harry his ilk

By George Galloway
The Guardian

".....Five years ago, it was very different. I was treated as mad, bad or both by journalists - not from Murdoch's mucky stables but from the BBC, and the liberal press - for daring to say that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that the Iraqis would fight us if we invaded, not wash our feet in rose water.

It would be an idea to force from them their reflections five years on. Some of them have slinked off to a new cynical argument - you marched, but you achieved nothing.

Well, one of the things we achieved, coupled with the resistance in Iraq, was to ensure that that this issue would shatter the imperial pretensions of Blair's government and would overshadow his entire career. That's made it far more difficult for Gordon Brown to follow George Bush into a new war on Iran, though that is exactly what is being considered......."

Is the US really bringing stability to Baghdad?

To judge from the talk in Washington, the 'surge' that put 30,000 more US troops on the ground in Iraq has succeeded in bringing stability to a nation still riven by ethnic, religious and tribal conflict. Life, the Pentagon boasts, is returning to normal. But the truth is a very different story.

By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent

"......What happened to Bassim was also to happen to millions of Iraqis who saw their lives ruined by successive calamities. As their world collapsed around them they were forced to take desperate measures to survive, obtain a job and make enough money to feed and educate their families.

In the US and Europe, the main measure of whether the war in Iraq is "going well" or "going badly" is the casualty figures. The number of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians being killed went down to 39 US soldiers and 599 Iraqi civilians in January. The White House is promoting the idea that the United States is finally on the road to success, if not victory, in Iraq......

Iraq remains a great sump of human degradation and poverty, unaffected by the "surge". It was not a government critic but the civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, Tahseen Sheikhly, who pointed out this week that the city is drowning in sewage because of blocked and broken pipes and drains. In one part of the city, the sewage has formed a lake so large that it can be seen "as a big black spot on Google Earth".

In the coming weeks, we will see the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by American and British forces on 19 March, and the fall of Saddam Hussein on 9 April. There will be much rancorous debate in the Western media about the success or failure of the "surge" and the US war effort here.

But for millions of Iraqis like Bassim, the war has robbed them of their homes, their jobs and often their lives. It has brought them nothing but misery and ended their hopes of happiness. It has destroyed Iraq."

Palestinian Traitors Will in the End Sell the Rope to Hang the Palestinian People (because if they don't someone else will)

Fayyad's government will allow land sale to non-Palestinians

"RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Palestinian sources revealed that the unconstitutional government of Salam Fayyad decided to allow the sale of Palestinian land to non-Palestinians which paves the way for Zionists to buy Palestinian land.

The government decision was published on the website of Feras Press, a website known for its links with the Fatah movement.

Mahmoud al-Habbash, the minister of agriculture in Fayyad's government, confirmed the news saying that the decision was meant to encourage investment and attract foreign investors.

Palestinian observers say that this step, which contradicts Palestinian laws, would open the door wide open for Zionists with foreign passports to buy Palestinian land "legally" and then probably pass it on to Zionist settlers.

Al-Habbash did not explain how the land will be protected against getting into Zionist hands and only said: "the officials responsible for this [scheme] have clear instructions and they know very well how to protect Palestinian land against falling into the hands of the occupation."

Hasan Kharisha, the second deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council condemned the decision for being taken without the approval of the PLC or the Palestinian people adding that "the Palestinian land will now be subject to stealing under new pretexts such as investment, land development and land protection. This decision was hasty, it does not contribute to land protection or encourage investment, to the contrary, it helps create new catastrophes for the Palestinian people." "

Blackmail By The Royal Saudi Mafia

BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince

Contributed by Fatima

"Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE......"

Ya Aqsa Manta Waheed - يا أقصى مانت وحيد

Contributed by Ahmad

Living, but in denial

Sami Hermez, Electronic Lebanon, 14 February 2008

"......So tonight after the day of protest in Martyr's Square, come to Gemeyzeh, where you can have a drink, and find many Lebanese living but in denial. In the meantime, in more than one corner of the country, tensions are brewing and the country teeters over the abuss of political chaos. Calling it war or clashes or conflict or chaos is mere semantics for the people who have already begun to fall victim to internal bickering while Israel watches, laughing patiently, as we turn the victory that the Winograd Commission confirmed for us into a bloody defeat."

Bringing Down the New Berlin Walls

A Great Piece
by John Pilger

"The recent breakout of the people of Gaza provided a heroic spectacle unlike any other since the Warsaw ghetto uprising and the smashing down of the Berlin Wall. Whereas on the occupied West Bank, Ariel Sharon's master plan of walling in the population and stealing their land and resources has all but succeeded, requiring only a Palestinian Vichy to sign it off, the people of Gaza have defied their tormentors, however briefly, and it is a guarantee they will do so again. There is profound symbolism in their achievement, touching lives and hopes all over the world.

"[Sharon's] fate for us," wrote Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian, "was a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society: truncated, violent, powerless, destroyed, cowed, ruled by disparate militias, gangs, religious ideologues and extremists, broken up into ethnic and religious tribalism, and co-opted [by] collaborationists. Look to the Iraq of today – that is what he had in store for us and he nearly achieved it."

Israel's and America's experiments in mass suffering nearly achieved it. There was First Rains, the code name for a terror of sonic booms that came every night and sent Gazan children mad. There was Summer Rains, which showered bombs and missiles on civilians, then extrajudicial executions, and finally a land invasion. Ehud Barak, the current Israeli defense minister, has tried every kind of blockade: the denial of electricity for water and sewage pumps, incubators and dialysis machines and the denial of fuel and food to a population of mostly malnourished children. This has been accompanied by the droning, insincere, incessant voices of western broadcasters and politicians, one merging with the other, platitude upon platitude, tribunes of the "international community" whose response is not to help, but to excuse an indisputably illegal occupation as "disputed" and damn a democratically elected Palestinian Authority as "Hamas militants" who "refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist" when it is Israel that demonstrably refuses to recognize the Palestinians' right to exist......

The inspiration of the Palestinian breakout from Gaza was dramatically demonstrated by the star Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Aboutreika. Helping his national side to a 3-0 victory over Sudan in the African Nations Cup, he raised his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with the words "Sympathize with Gaza" in English and Arabic. The crowd stood and cheered, and hundreds of thousands of people around the world expressed their support for him and for Gaza. An Egyptian journalist who joined a delegation of sports writers to FIFA to protest against Aboutreika's yellow card said: "It is actions like his that bring many walls down, walls of silence, walls in our minds."....."

Shut Up Gazans and Die Quietly of Starvation in the Dark......
We Have Something Much More Important......
We Are Talking Cartoons Here!!

Assad is Getting Tough with the U.S.; He is Fighting Back!

Syrians readying to sue U.S. for selling weapons to Israel

"Syrians are preparing to sue the United States for supplying weapons to Israel that later killed Syrians in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, said Syria's foreign minister, a day after Washington announced new sanctions against Damascus.

Speaking at a press conference with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, Walid Moallem promised that Syria would punish the U.S. for its decision to impose fresh sanctions against Syrian officials.

"This time I tell you we will punish the United States ... there are scores of Syrians who became victims during the Israeli war against Lebanon, they will file lawsuits against America, who provided Israel with the weapons, he said......"

An atrocity too far


"Yesterday (08-04-06), Israel brutally murdered 33 Syrian farm workers in the town of Qaa in Lebanon, firing U.S.-made and supplied missiles from U.S.-made and supplied jets. A massacre, a war crime of the first order, quite possibly committed with weapons supplied by the U.S. since the shooting began...."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Green Zone Protected by U.S. Occupation Soldiers? That is a Sight to See

Iraq says Iran president to visit Baghdad March 2

"BAGHDAD, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will make a landmark visit to Baghdad on March 2 for talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other officials, Iraq said on Thursday.

Ahmadinejad's visit will be the first to Iraq by the president of the Islamic Republic, which is at loggerheads with the United States over the causes of violence in Iraq as well as Tehran's nuclear programme....."

***

Syria's Foreign Minister did it before (he was in the Green Zone for 3 days), so why not Ahmadinejad? He will be checking on how his Maliki puppet is doing.

You have to admit that this setting is so surreal, No?

Mafia Rules in the Middle East

If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone

By ALLAN NAIRN
CounterPunch

".....The US...felt no need to show restraint, saying, through the State Department: "The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a cold-blooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost."

In a world of proportionality and full enforcement of the murder laws -- or even, rough justice-style "what goes around comes around" -- George Bush's men would not want to make that statement, since they (and Israel) are responsible for vastly more, and vastly more civilian, killings, don't have Mughniyeh's sometime excuse of responding to invasion, and don't want to start up their cars tomorrow morning and wind up blown to bits.

But that is not this world. This is mafia world. If you're big enough, you can whack guys.

It so happened that, hours before, another Palestinian man had used that mafia term as we wove through scrolls of barbed wire, checkpoints, walls, and Galil/M-16 toting Occupation men as Jewish settlers/occupiers zipped through the West Bank on ethnically/religiously segregated superhighways.

Two days before, a fairly typical day in Israeli politics, the lead front page headline in the Haaretz newspaper was "IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to step up Gaza assassinations," in response to homemade rockets from besieged, hungry, bombed Gaza that had recently wounded Israelis (for background on the siege and the disproportionate death tolls, see postings of December 7, 2007, "Imposed Hunger in Gaza, The Army in Indonesia. Questions of Logic and Activism," and January 6, 2008 "The Breaking of the Gaza Wall. Wise, Justified Political Violence.").

"The IDF needs to wipe out a neighborhood in Gaza," said the Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, "We need to target all those responsible for terrorism without asking who they are" -- suggesting a broad definition of "responsible" that encompasses those whose actions are unknown, but who do, at least, fit the criterion of being Palestinians living in Gaza. (Haaretz English Edition, February 11, 2008)......"

Activists Call for Boycott of Diamond Giant Leviev for Support of Israeli Settlements and Links to Human Rights Abuses in Africa

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

".....Diamonds might be a girl’s best friend in tinseltown. But in the real world, the massive profits they rake in have helped fuel some of the worst conflicts in recent years. Today we take a look at the world’s largest cutter and polisher of diamonds. Leviev. Owned by the Ukrainian-born Israeli billonaire Lev Leviev. Forbes magazine described him as
“the man who cracked the DeBeers cartel.”

Leviev’s new Madison Avenue store in New York has been the target of almost weekly protests since it opened last November. On Saturday, protesters in New York and London urged people not to shop at Leveiv for Valentine’s day.
Those protesting Leviev allege that two of his companies and his former business partner Brooklyn developer Shaya Boymelgreen expanded at least five illegal Jewish-only settlements in the Palestinian West Bank. They also point to his sketchy human rights record in the African country of Angola, where Leviev controls the diamond supply......

Adalah-New York, or the coalition for justice in the Middle East, is the group that has been organizing the protests against Leviev in New York. We’re joined now here in the firehouse studio by two members of Adalah-New York. Lubna Mikkel is a Palestinian lawyer and Katie Unger is from Jews Against the Occupation.

Lubna Mikkel, Palestinian lawyer and member of Adalah-New York.

Katie Unger, Member of Adalah-New York and Jews Against the Occupation......."

Palestine in the Mind of America

Talking to a Wall

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
CounterPunch

"You would think that showing maps clearly delineating the truncated, obviously non-viable area available for a possible Palestinian state and showing pictures that define Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories would have some kind of impact on an audience of astute but, on this issue, generally uninformed Americans. We recently spoke to a small foreign affairs discussion group and devoted much of our presentation to these images of oppression -- images that never appear in the U.S. media -- in the probably naïve hope of making some kind of dent in the impassive American attitude toward Israel's 40-year occupation of Palestinian territory.

But our expectations that these people would listen and perhaps learn something were sadly misplaced.....

Why is this interesting to anyone but us? Because this in-depth discussion with a small but representative group of intelligent, thinking Americans is indicative of a broad range of U.S. public opinion on foreign policy issues, and their level of disinterest in the consequences of U.S. policies is quite disturbing. The self-absorption evident during this meeting, the general "don't-rock-the-boat" posture, the overwhelming lack of concern for the victims of Israeli and U.S. power amount to a license to kill for the U.S. and its allies. The same unconcern allowed the United States to get away with killing millions of Vietnamese decades ago; it gives license to mass U.S. killing in Iraq and Afghanistan; it is the reason Democrats still, after seven years of Bush administration torture and killing around the world, cannot fully separate themselves from Republican militarism. It gives Israel license to kill and ethnically cleanse the entire nation of Palestine."

Lebanon's Warmongers

Let Beirut Burn, They Say ...

By RANNIE AMIRI
CounterPunch

"......When all of these facts are brought to the forefront, the duplicity of Lebanon's government becomes truly remarkable. They seek to convince us of being the victims, yet they suffered the least and complained the most about the war. The people of southern Lebanon and Beirut on the other hand, who suffered the most from the Israeli onslaught, complained the least, even when left homeless. A third of the cabinet positions, in order to exercise some measure of restraint on those cutting deals with the United States and Israel-against them no less-is their only demand.

Plainly stated, Lebanon's March 14 Coalition is the War Party and Siniora, Hariri, Jumblatt, Geagea and Gemayal its foot soldiers. They have the support of the War Party in the United States and forged an alliance with Israel (every government of which constitutes a War Party) against their own people.

What Jumblatt and Hariri have threatened to do, in no uncertain terms, is to bring the house down if the opposition does not yield. The only obstacle standing between them and the disaster they wish to precipitate is the resilience and patience of a people who have already withstood the mightiest military in the Middle East. Twice.

The challenge facing these people now will not be a military one but rather to keep a peace their own government has shown no interest in preserving."

Israeli army carrying out rampage of terror, sabotage in Palestinian town

By Khalid Amayreh

"BEIT UMMAR, (PIC)-- For the third consecutive day, hundreds of Israeli occupation soldiers and agents of Israel’s chief domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, are savaging and terrorizing this small Palestinian town of 10,000 inhabitants, located just a few kilometers north of Hebron in the southern West Bank.

The occupation forces declared the town “a closed military zone” as crack soldiers moved from house to house, terrorizing civilians, beating youngsters, and vandalizing public and private property.

According to residents reached by telephone, Israeli soldiers were “carrying a wave of collective punishments sweeping arrests.”

“First, they ordered all males from 12 to 70 to school yards and streets in sub-zero temperature, and then heavily armed soldiers moved from house to house, beating youngsters, verbally abusing women, vandalizing property and smashing electrical appliances,” said Yousuf Abu Ayyash, an elderly resident.

Abu Ayyash said Israeli troops were behaving in patters “resembling the middle-ages”......

Israel has stepped up systematic persecution of Palestinians lately despite continuing peace talks with the Palestinian Authority.

On Tuesday, the Western-backed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayadh complained that Israel was not giving his government any chance to succeed.

He said that provocative Israeli actions, including daily incursions and raids in Palestinian population centers, were undermining the government’s stature among ordinary Palestinians."

'Moghniyeh Blood will Serve in Wiping out Israel'

Al-Manar

"14/02/2008 Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah warned Israel that if it wanted an open war with Hezbollah outside Lebanon, "then let it be war."
Sayyed Nasrallah was speaking at the funeral of Islamic Resistance commander martyr Imad Moghniyeh in Beirut's southern suburb.

"Of the believers are men who are true to the covenant which they made with Allah: so of them is he who accomplished his vow, and of them is he who yet waits, and they have not changed in the least, Almighty Allah has spoken the truth. Hajj Radwan was true to the covenant and died a martyr," Sayyed Nasrallah said.

The Hezbollah chief stressed a few points regarding Hajj Imad Moghniyeh's martyrdom.
"They (Israel) see in his martyrdom a great accomplishment and we see in it a good sign for the coming victory. This was the case with the martyrdom of our leaders Sheikh Ragheb Harb and Sayyed Abbas Moussawi."

Sayyed Nasrallah added that when Sheikh Harb was martyred the resistance got stronger and forced Israeli occupation forces into the security zone.

"When Sayyed Moussawi was martyred the resistance grew stronger and a few years later the Israelis withdrew from most of Lebanon, humiliated and broken. Today they killed Hajj Imad and they think that killing him would cause the resistance to crash down in the course of the July 2006 war that is not over yet on the political, media and material levels and still backed by the same people. But they are mistaken. With the blood of martyr Imad we must begin to write the history of fall of Israel in the very near future. The blood of martyrs Harb and Moussawi drove them out of Lebanon and the blood of martyr Imad Moghniyeh will drive them out of existence," his eminence stressed.

Sayyed Nasrallah explained that his speech was not based on emotions but on what the founder of the Jewish state, Ben Gorion, said. "You all know that the founder of Israel, Ben Gorion, who knows better than any other Israeli the strength and weakness of this entity, said that the Israel will fall down after the first defeat. Israel fought its war in July 2006 and was defeated as acknowledged by the Winograd commission. Israel lost its first war, why? Simply because its army faced a sincere and brave resistance for 33 days…Because Imad Moghniyeh, his brothers and his pupils were fighting them. Israel lost its first war and will fall down soon." the Hezbollah chief said.

Sayyed Nasrallah warned Israel that it committed an extremely "foolish" move by killing Moghniyeh. "I tell the Israelis, and the body of martyr Imad is still lying before us, Hezbollah is not weak. The martyr's brothers will take over his Jihad. The blood of martyr Imad only makes us stronger and gives us additional motive to continue the road with a wider perspective. What I promised you in the past was fulfilled at the hands of martyr Imad and his brothers.
Today the resistance is fully prepared to confront any possible Israeli war. Yesterday I was speaking about rockets but today I will speak about fighters. Winograd said that a few thousand fighters confronted the strongest Israeli army in the region for several weeks. After Hajj Imad's martyrdom, what will be waiting for you in any coming war will be a stronger Hezbollah. Hajj Imad has left you tens of thousands of very well trained fighters who are more than ready for martyrdom," his eminence warned Israel.

The Hezbollah leader also warned Israel of the repercussions of assassinating martyr Imad Moghniyeh outside "the normal battleground."
"You have killed Hajj Imad outside the normal battleground. You used to fight us here on our land. Today you went outside the border. I will quote something from the July 2006 war when I addressed you saying that If you wanted it to be an open war then let it be an open war, and I had promised victory to the believers. Today I tell you that in front of the time, style and location of this killing, if you want this kind of open war, then let it be an open war of this kind," Sayyed Nasrallah stressed.

His eminence also remembered the February 14 commemoration of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination.
"On the 14th of February, the commemoration of martyr Hariri, we were hoping that this occasion would join the Lebanese, however some wanted this turn this occasion into a party of curses. In such event, I will not respond, I only underline that the Lebanon that we gave our dear leaders will never be Israeli and will never be divided. He (MP Walid Jumblatt) who wants divorce can go to his masters in Washington and Tel Aviv. Lebanon will remain united and in spite of some dwarfs, Lebanon will continue to be a country for resistance. In spite of those who call on armies to fight their war against the resistance, Lebanon will continue to be a country for unity, honor and sovereignty. This is why this country deserves martyrs like Shiekh Harb, Sayyed Abbas and Hajj Imad," Sayyed Nasrallah said.

Addressing the family of martyr "Radwan", his eminence said:
"I want to bless you and to console you and to tell you – Allah blessed you and your family. If only the whole world knew that this jihadist house sacrificed its sons – three martyrs. Everything you have Abu Imad (Mugniyah's father) – your three sons, you sacrificed to martyrdom. One after the other. This family was extraordinary in jihad and martyrdom. To his wife I say, and to his comrades-in-arms, all of his relatives and fans in Lebanon, Palestine and any other place: I want to console you on this loss of a cherished commander." "