Israeli historian Shlomo Sand :The Invention of the Jewish People

A historical tour de force that demolishes the myths and taboos that have surrounded Jewish and Israeli history, The Invention of the Jewish People offers a new account of both that demands to be read and reckoned with. Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation – returned at last to its Biblical homeland?

Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical backfill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths.

Celebrate "Palestinian Unity" Now!

Hamas to Reply on Palestinian Unity Deal Sunday as Abbas Eyes Vote

Al-Manar

COMMENT

Here is a possible course of action, seeing the timid, vacillating and contradictory responses from Hamas so far. Hamas has definitely felt the heat from other resistance groups, specially Islamic Jihad, which explicitly rejected the Cairo deal. Hamas had originally accepted the deal and was planning to sign it, when the Goldstone affair hit the fan.

Hamas bought some time for things to cool down. Now with the acceptance of the Goldstone report in the Human Rights Council of the UN, and the celebrations of "victory" in the Palestinian street, the Traitor has been partially rehabilitated.

Hamas kept saying that it only had some "reservations" about the deal, but it was keen to see the deal succeed! Talk about doublespeak. Cairo says the deal has to be signed as is or else the noose on Gaza will be tightened further, if that is possible.

Mr. Abu Marzouq (number two man) from Hamas is flying to Cairo tomorrow to give Cairo a document outlining Hamas' "reservations." My guess is that, he will also sign the deal, perhaps without fanfare and under the cover of night. Cairo will help him out by saying that it understands Hamas' reservations, but it is pleased that Hamas has finally signed the deal.

With Fatah having signed the deal already, what are we waiting for? Time to celebrate! Open that champagne bottle, now! But wait, Mr. Mishaal can't be seen drinking in public; make that apple cider for him.

"17/10/2009 Egypt announced on Saturday the latest postponement of a reconciliation agreement between rival Palestinian movements Hamas and Fatah was due to "inappropriate conditions." The announcement came after Fatah unilaterally signed the pact in Cairo on Thursday without reservations.

However, Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum told AFP on Saturday that his party will hand its response on Sunday to Egyptians mediating a Palestinian unity deal. He added that a Hamas delegation will travel to Cairo on Sunday, but refused to say whether the movement would accept the proposal.

The response "will be taken within a framework aimed at guaranteeing the success of the Egyptian efforts" to heal the deep rift between Hamas and the secular Fatah movement, Barhoum said.

According to the Damascus-based official, one of the reservations is about the U.S. demand that the unity deal follow the conditions of the Quartet, which include recognition of the “State of Israel”, acknowledging earlier agreements and renouncing “terrorism”.

Egypt, which has been attempting to broker the deal, had initially planned for the sides to sign the accord on Thursday. The country has yet to set a new date for a signing ceremony. Hamas' deputy political leader, Abu Marzouk, said: "Today the Hamas leadership will relay to Egypt a document containing the necessary reservations and amendments for the Egyptian document."

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Saturday that he would announce the date for the Palestinian elections on October 25. The embattled Palestinian president said earlier this week that if the two factions did not reach agreement he would call for elections on January 24 instead of the June 28 date in the Cairo plan.

Palestinian Basic Law mandates that a new general election be called at least three months before the end of the sitting parliament's mandate, a deadline which falls on October 25.

Abbas's four-year term expired as president in last January, but Fatah has cited provisions in the constitution that require presidential and parliamentary elections to be held together to justify his remaining in office......"

انتخابات دون حق الانتخاب

"لكي توافق فصائل المقاومة الفلسطينية على اتفاق المصالحة المقترح مصريا يجب أن تتعهد الرباعية المتمثلة بالولايات المتحدة وروسيا والاتحاد الأوروبي والولايات المتحدة باحترام نتائج الانتخابات أيا كان الفائز، وأن تلتزم بعدم فرض حصار على الشعب الفلسطيني إذا كان الفائز هو حماس.
.....
عدم صدور مثل هذا الالتزام، أو مثل هذا التعهد عن الرباعية المسؤولة عن الحصار، يوجه الرسالة التالية: عليك أيها الشعب الفلسطيني أن تنتخب طرف التسوية المتمثل بفريق أوسلو، وأن تمنحه الثقة، وذلك ليس لأنه جدير بالثقة سياسيا أو مبدئيا أو وطنيا، ولا لأنك تؤيد التنسيق الأمني مع إسرائيل، ولا لأنك مقتنع بهذا الفريق بالمجمل، بل لأنك إذا لم تفعل ذلك سوف تتعرض لحصار لا يكل ولا يلين، ولا يعترض عليه النظام الرسمي العربي، بل يساهم فيه. وليكن في حصار غزة المستمر منذ أعوام خلت والحرب التي شنت على القطاع عبرة لمن يعتبر.

طبعا لا نتوقع ممن يذهب للانتخابات بسيف الحصار والحرب المسلط من قبل أعداء الشعب الفلسطيني أن يخجل أو يشعر بالحرج، فهذا كثير في مثل هذه المرحلة، ولكننا نطلب منه ألا يكثر من الخطابة والوعظ علينا في شؤون الديمقراطية.

هذه ليست انتخابات، بل مبايعة تحت التهديد بالقتل، وليس قتل الناخب وحده بل قتل أبنائه وبناته أيضا الذين لا ذنب لهم.
.....
يتضمن الاتفاق أمرا رئيسيا آخر يتكرر في كل فصل من فصوله وهو اعتبار رئيس السلطة مرجعية عليا فوق النقاش والخلاف. فهو بموجب اقتراح اتفاق المصالحة مرجعية لجنة الانتخابات، وهو مرجعية لجنة المصالحة والوفاق الوطني، وهو مرجعية الهيئة الأمنية العليا.

ينص الاتفاق على رئيس السلطة باعتباره مرجعية، وهو أحد أهم رموز الخلاف عند الشعب الفلسطيني. فهو لا يحتل مكانة مرموقة حتى بين مجموعة قليلة من الشخصيات الأقل شعبية والأكثر إثارة للغضب على الساحة الفلسطينية منذ فترة طويلة. ورمزيا على الأقل، ما كانت هذه الفقرات لتكتب بهذا النص في هذه المرحلة بعد سفور السلوك في جنيف
.....
رئيس السلطة يرفض علنا المصالحة مع حركة حماس، ولكنه يوافق على اتفاق المصالحة لأنه يتضمن أدوات للتخلص منها بإرادتها
.......
ما الانتخابات المقترحة حاليا إلا عملية تزوير واسعة النطاق لإرادة الشعب الفلسطيني تجري تحت التهديد
.......
ومن هنا يعلن ميتشل بصريح العبارة عدم الموافقة على هذه الورقة المصرية للاتفاق مؤكِّدا على شروط الرباعية الثلاثة: وقف العنف، والالتزام بالاتفاقيات الموقعة، والاعتراف بإسرائيل. وهذا يعني أن شروط الحصار باقية، وأن الولايات المتحدة عبر تصريح مسؤولها الأخير تنذر الناخب. وقد أعذر من أنذر
.........."

فضيحة السلطة وليس قيادتها فقط

"أعني رئيس السلطة شخصيا والفريق الذي يحيط به منذ سنوات، والذين تبرأ بعض أعضائه (للمفارقة) من وزر الجريمة، كلٌ على طريقته، بمن في ذلك ياسر عبد ربه، صاحب وثيقة جنيف التي تشكل وملحقها الأمني جريمة أكبر بكثير بحق الشعب الفلسطيني، حيث لا تكتفي بالتنازل عن حق العودة للاجئين الفلسطينيين، بل تضيف إلى ذلك الموافقة على دولة مسخ منزوعة السلاح على أقل من 60% من الضفة الغربية، يتحكم المحتلون بها من السماء والأرض والبحر.

لكن ما ينبغي أن يقال هنا بالفم الملآن، وبعيدا عن مصير التقرير وشبكة الأمان التي يجري توفيرها لمحمود عباس خشية السقوط (من بينها تمرير التقرير مرة أخرى في مجلس حقوق الإنسان، وإن بشيء من التعديل وبزخم أقل)، وبالطبع لأنه الاستثمار الأهم للأميركيين والإسرائيليين خلال السنوات الست الأخيرة، ما ينبغي أن يقال هو إننا لم نكن البتة إزاء جريمة شاذة كان بالإمكان تجاوزها ليكون كل شيء على ما يرام، بقدر ما كنا إزاء واقعة تشكل جزءا لا يتجزأ من منطق هذه السلطة والبنية التي أقيمت على أساسها.
........
ما شجع شارون على التخلص من عرفات من دون شك هو توفر قيادة أخرى جاهزة لاستلام زمام الأمور فيها من المواصفات ما يبدو مريحا له ولكيانه، وهي القيادة التي استخدمت في حرب الرجل وتحجيمه، ممثلة في الثلاثي (عباس وفياض ودحلان)
.......
لا مجال لمواجهة هذه المعادلة البائسة، لاسيما بعد وضوح مسارها المقبل سوى التفكير بإدارة مشتركة بين الفصائل لقطاع غزة مع حلّ السلطة في الضفة وإعادة الاحتلال الكامل، وإطلاق المقاومة
......."

Al-Jazeera Video: Egypt's drug problem spirals out of control - 17 Oct 09

"According to Egypt's National Council for Fighting and Treating Addiction, six million people from Egypt's population are addicted to narcotics.

The United Nations says Egypt is a major transit point for trafficking between South East Asia and Europe, allowing the problem of drug abuse to spiral out of the government's control.

Last year, Egyptian police managed to arrest at least 50,000 users and dealers and seize tones of hashish, but experts say that applying punitive measures will not solve the countrys drug problem alone.

Al Jazeera's Amr El-Khaky reports from Cairo. "

Video: Ayrilik: The Turkish TV Drama That Israel Don't Want You To See

By Haitham Sabbah



"........The question is: Will our Arabic TV channels pick this Turkish TV Drama that focus on Palestine and the Israeli occupation like they did with other dramas' like Noor [Complete TV Series (Arabic DVD)] or Mirna and Khalil, etc...
I doubt it, but let's watch and see!"

War is peace. Ignorance is strength

By John Pilger

"Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs......

Within weeks of his inauguration, Obama started a new war in Pakistan, causing more than a million people to flee their homes. In threatening Iran – which his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she was prepared to “obliterate” – Obama lied that the Iranians were covering up a “secret nuclear facility”, knowing that it had already been reported to the International Atomic Energy Authority......

Britain has seen its own Obama-like mysticism. The day after Blair was elected in 1997, the Observer predicted that he would create “new worldwide rules on human rights” while the Guardian rejoiced at the “breathless pace [as] the floodgates of change burst open”. When Obama was elected last November, Denis MacShane MP, a devotee of Blair’s bloodbaths, unwittingly warned us: “I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.”"

Hanan `Ashraqi, `Abdur-Rahim Malluh, and Iyad Sarraj (and others)

By Angry Arab

"Look at this lousy statement. What a sneaky attempt to save Abu Mazen when he is down. And what is this talk about "national reconciliation"? National reconciliation? Did the Lebanese call for national reconciliation with Sa`d Haddad and Antoine Lahd? On the contrary. There should be a call for pushing the Palestinian conflict and divisions to their logical conclusions, i.e. to refuse to deal with the collaborationist deal and to ostracize it in Palestinian politics and society. There should be an insistence on the exclusion of the collaborationists from all representative bodies. And enough with the talk of "elections". There are no free elections in the Middle East anymore: we saw how Saudi Arabia paid more than 60% of the voters in Lebanon, and the US and Saudi Arabia and Iran manage the Iraqi puppet elections. On my lists of demands for change in the Middle East, elections come last, because they are not allowed to be free. And to refer to the Goldstone fiasco in Geneva as a "mistake" is the propaganda work of the Salam Fayyad regime. Mistake?"

Imperial Globalization and Social Movements in Latin America

James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer 10.16.2009

".....
Conclusion

Our historical survey demonstrates that single factors such as implantation of neo-liberal changes and deepening globalization in and of themselves do not lead to the growth of massive, radical social movements: witness the period of 1980 – 1990. Nor do low commodity prices a weak social safety net and declining state revenues provoke popular uprisings and radical mass social movements. Likewise an economic crisis, such as the recession of 2008 – 2010 has not led to a resurgence of mass radical social movements and popular rebellions.

Only when a combination of internal factors, such as a weak social safety net and a deregulated economy and an external crises such as a global recession and declining world commodity prices do we have optional conditions for the growth of dynamic mass radical social movements.

Writers who focus or start from a ‘world system’ or other ‘globalist’ perspectives’ in attempting to address the rise of social movements as a function of the ‘operations’ of the market fail to take account of the internal political and social struggles and the resultant state social polices as determining factors.

We should note that social movement rebellions do not suddenly occur because all of the contingencies are in place. The social upheavals at the end of the nineties and early half years of the new millennium had a decade of gestation: organizing, accumulating social forces, creating alliances with institutional dissidents – like radical church people – and developing leaders and cadres. Economic crises, at best, was a “trigger” event which severely discredited the ruling class, undermined the dominant ‘globalization’ ideology, that allowed the movements to make a qualitative leap from protest to political rebellion and regime change.

Finally though, it is not central to this paper, we should note that while social movements at their height were able to oust incumbent neo-liberal regimes, they were not able to take political power and revolutionize society: to their upheavals allowed center-left politicians to come to power. Ironically, once in power they passed sufficient social economic reforms to fend off the re-radicalization of the movements when the world economic crises struck again at the end of the first decade of this century. "

EI exclusive video: Protesters shout down Ehud Olmert in Chicago

Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada, 16 October 2009



"Approximately 30 activists -- mainly students from area universities -- disrupted a lecture given in Chicago by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday which was hosted by the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. While Olmert's speech was disrupted inside the lecture hall, approximately 150 activists protested outside the hall in the freezing rain.
Protesters inside the hall read off the names of Palestinian children killed during Israel's assault on Gaza last winter. They shouted that it was unacceptable that the war crimes suspect be invited to speak at a Chicago university when his army destroyed a university in Gaza in January. They reminded the audience of the more than 1,400 Palestinians killed during the Gaza attacks and the more than 1,200 killed during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Both invasions happened during Olmert's premiership......"

Report: Israeli intelligence illegally profiling travelers in South Africa

Sayed Dhansay, The Electronic Intifada, 16 October 2009
(Sayed Dhansay is a South African writer and political activist who volunteered for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2006-2007.)

"Despite our relatively recent struggle against apartheid, I highlighted in a previous article the disturbing level of bilateral trade and cooperation between the South African government and Israel. Bearing our own history in mind, one would expect South Africa to be at the forefront of political efforts to bring Israel in line with international law -- and perhaps even be championing economic isolation of Israel -- as this was a major factor in ending white minority rule in our country.

Unfortunately, however, this appears to not be the case. In the latest example of Israeli entrenchment in South Africa, it has been discovered that Israeli intelligence, or Shin Bet, agents are illegally profiling and detaining South African citizens in Johannesburg's O.R. Tambo International Airport.

This was brought to light last month by South Africa's premier investigative journalism TV show, Carte Blanche, following allegations that security personnel from Israel's national carrier, El Al Airlines, were acting dubiously at the airport. Carte Blanche then decided to conduct an experiment, sending an undercover reporter into the airport, expecting him to be targeted simply because he was Muslim.

Caught on hidden camera, it didn't take long before he was approached by El Al representatives ......"

U.N. Body Backs War Crimes Charges on Israel, Hamas

By Thalif Deen

"UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 (IPS) - The 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC) approved a resolution Friday endorsing war crimes charges against Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as spelled out in a report by a four-member international fact-finding mission headed by Justice Richard Goldstone. As expected, the United States threw a protective arm around Israel and voted against the resolution, along with some members of the European Union (EU): Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia, as well as Ukraine.......

It is unfortunate that on the question of war crimes against innocent civilians in Gaza, the United States is continuing its longstanding pattern of Israeli exceptionalism, said Bennis, author of 'Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.'

Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies said Washington also must take into account its own complicity and potential liability in war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, the code-named for the 22-day Israeli military attacks on Gaza last December.

Violations of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act, which narrowly constrains Israel's use of U.S.-supplied weapons and military equipment, must be investigated thoroughly and violators held accountable, she added.

"The significance of the Goldstone report overall is not because it exposed war crimes that had not been known before; the significance lies in the comprehensiveness of the assessment, certainly, but most of all in the breadth of the recommendations," Bennis said. She said it is almost unprecedented for a U.N. human rights report to move so broadly to identify obligations and responsibilities under international law - not only for the alleged perpetrators, but as well for virtually all relevant United nations agencies, as well as for individual governments.

It was particularly so in invoking universal jurisdiction, and most especially in defining obligations and recommendations for global civil society.

She said the reversal of the earlier withdrawal of the report from consideration at the Human Rights Council reflects the significance of the issue not only among Palestinians inside the Occupied Territory, inside Israel and among the diaspora, but as well in international civil society. "It was that pressure that forced the Palestinian Authority to reverse its wrong-headed rejection of the report," Bennis added.

Naseer Aruri said the government of Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, whose term of office expired long ago, had succumbed to pressure being exerted by Israel and the United States to defer all discussion of the Goldstone report until next March.

Nearly two weeks later, however, Abbas succumbed to a different kind of pressure, this time exerted by Palestinians, Arabs, and various members of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

A broad coalition succeeded in getting Abbas to rescind his earlier position.

Undoubtedly, Abbas - who was widely condemned in Palestinian circles, including being accused of treason - could not withstand the pressure, especially that which included credible calls on him to resign, Aruri added......"

Al-Jazeera Cartoon: Islamists' Priorities

They are Fearless Knights When it Comes to Oppressing Women and Imposing a Dress Code....
But They Have Their Head in the Sand When it Comes to Defending Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Shelter for families blocked at border

By Donald Macintyre
The Independent

"Israel has refused for eight months to allow into Gaza 488 prefabricated buildings donated by Turkey to house families whose homes were destroyed in last winter's three-week military offensive.

Despite applying for permits in February, the Turkish Red Crescent has been unable to ship in the homes, which it says are intended to accommodate Palestinian civilians who are among the estimated 20,000 still homeless as a result of the war. While a majority of those are living in overcrowded temporary accommodation or with relatives, the Red Crescent said that others were living in tents, the wreckage of their destroyed buildings or a cemetery.

There is no evidence that the bar is connected with recent political tensions between Israel and Turkey, which has strongly criticised the military offensive. The Red Crescent said it was still waiting for an official response from the Ministry of Defence Co-ordinator of Government Activity in the Territories to its request for a permit......."

Israel loses UN vote on Gaza 'war crimes'

Report calling for inquiry into invasion approved despite US opposition

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

"The Goldstone report calling for a war crimes investigation into Israel's military offensive in Gaza last winter easily cleared its first UN hurdle yesterday despite intense lobbying by Israel and the US.

The 25-6 vote at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva brings one step closer – at least in theory – the possibility that Israel could face International Criminal Court proceedings if it does not launch its own independent investigation into its conduct of the war. The decision, which was described as "unjust" and "one-sided" by Israel yesterday, refers the report of the council's fact-finding mission headed by the former South African Supreme Court judge Richard Goldstone to the UN General Assembly for further consideration........"

NEW PA FLAG

The New "Palestinian Authority" Flag
From the Qatari, Al-Watan

Scandal in the raw

Vaunting themselves as peers of Israel, Ramallah's leaders and their lackeys in Geneva are a disgrace to the Palestinian national struggle and are leading the Palestinian people to disaster

By Azmi Bishara
Al-Ahram Weekly

Note: This is the English version of Azmi's article in Arabic, which appeared on Al-Jazeera.net, and was posted here and here.

"....
This is the challenge now. The sordidness that is unfolding in Geneva and New York has avid servants for whom the ends justify the means as never before. These servants like to think of themselves as an integral part of the international order. They are no longer on the outside, like militant revolutionaries. Nor or they on the fringes, like Arafat during the Intifadas and the post-Oslo period. And through their mere membership in the international order, they imagine, they will succeed in his quest for a state. Here we find the source of the disdain for what liberation movements generally regard as the heart of their mission, such as mobilising the world against the crimes of foreign occupation in the hope of restraining the hand of the occupier at the very least. Here, too, we find motive for abandoning the very idea of conflict with the colonialist state. They regard themselves as hypothetical peers of that state, which entitles them to use the same terms and the same pragmatic language, and to belittle calls for justice and respect for human rights, as they did so flagrantly in the vote on the Goldstone Report in Geneva.

They are financially corrupt, they coordinate with the occupation power over security, they set up a repressive governing entity with a militia to beat the very notion of "solidarity" out of people's heads, and they take part in a cruel economic blockade against a huge portion of their fellow Palestinians. They are, indeed, acting in the very nature and spirit of an international order that lies about war crimes. There is no use even trying to get through to people like that because they will tell you that they were there and they see themselves as having matured and they see you as naïve. They belong to a generation that had a liberation movement, but they infected it with their own decay before it could lead to a state. In this they have proven unrivalled."

Wayne Madsen SPECIAL REPORT:Gearing up for an attack on Iran -- in the Nevada desert.

"WMR reporting from Nevada -- U.S. and Iranian diplomats may be meeting in seven-party talks over Iran's nuclear weapons program, all the while hoping for a diplomatic solution to end the controversy over the Iranian program. However, here is the high desert of Nevada, which one senior official referred to as "looking like the Middle East."

Because of the similarity in the terrain of the Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site and Iran, U.S. Special Operations forces are training at a facility at the test site that officials say "doesn't actually exist." However, this editor saw where the facility is located, butting up against a mountain range half-way between the Frenchman Flats atomic bomb test site and the Sedan Crater, the site of the largest underground thermonuclear test conducted by the United States. The "non-existent" facility is where Special Forces teams are specifically training for "counter-nuclear proliferation" operations in Iran. The Nevada Test Site has a number of underground facilities that fell into disuse after the United States adopted a nuclear testing moratorium in 1992.

Specifically, U.S. Special Forces team are training in what is called a "realistic environment" at the test sit and are using the facility's tunnel system to test the results of the use of bunker buster bombs. The training is highly classified but it appears that some of the costs are being laundered through the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

WMR has also learned that the Predator and Reaper remotely-piloted vehicles used by the Air Force are soon to undergo a major refitting, allowing the Predator to carry more than the two Hellfire missiles it currently can carry, and the Reaper to carry additional specialized weapons in addition to its current weapons complement, which can match that carried by any F-16 manned fighter plane.

Sitting just south of the Nevada Test Site is Creech Air Force Base, the location of the training program for Predator and Reaper Air Force pilots and sensor personnel. However, WMR has learned from a Department of Energy source that the Nevada Test Site also possesses a Predator aircraft that had been outfitted with a "black box" sensor array that is capable of detecting telltale signs of nuclear weapons development, including traces of enriched uranium, plutonium, and tritium, and can be flown clandestinely into Iran to surveill Iranian nuclear installations......

The National Nuclear Security Administration also operates the "Red Storm" Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) system that is a high-performance computer operating at 280 teraflops. Red Storm is one of the world's fastest twelve computers and is used for conducting nuclear simulation tests on Iran and North Korean nuclear programs and, in the process of doing so, evaluates the quality of intelligence provided by certain intelligence sources not always considered reliable, including Israel. [ . . . ]"

Father and Son: Another Son of an Arab Dictator Inherits Power; Washington and London are Pleased.

Seif al-Islam Muammar Qaddafi, Son of the Libyan Dictator, Was Given an Official Position Today, to Become the Second Most Powerful Man (after his father), and in Effect the President of Libya (Al-Jazeera).

It is the Neo-Monarchy Model in the Arab World; Egypt and Yemen are Next.

Al-Jazeera Video: Fault Lines - 100 Days of Resistance - 15 Oct 09

Part 1:



Part 2:



"100 days since the coup detat that ousted Manuel Zelaya, Fault Lines travels to Honduras to look at polarisation and power in the Americas, and finds resistance and repression in the streets."

Al-Jazeera Video: Iraq Fallout: The Poisonous Legacy of War Pt 2

Doctors in Iraq are recording a shocking rise in the number of cancer victims south of Baghdad.



"Cancer sufferers in the province of Babil have risen by almost tenfold in just three years. Locals blame depleted uranium from US military equipment used in the 2003 invasion. But the link has been difficult to prove, prompting them to demand an investigation. In this part of Iraq 500 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2004. That figure rose to almost 1,000 two years later. In 2008, the number of cases increased sevenfold to 7,000 diagnoses. This year, there have so far been more than 9,000 new cases ... and the number is rising. Al Jazeera's Mosab Jasim reports."

Bethlehem Holds ‘International Protest For Peace And Nonviolence”

"Hundreds of Palestinians held a nonviolent protest in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, with the participation of international supporters and international Christian groups, and peace activist who came to the Holy Land to express support with the Palestinian people.

The event was initiated by the Holy Land Trust. It started from the Manger Square and the protesters prayed for peace, justice and chanted slogans calling for achieving the Palestinian rights and calling on peace supporters around the globe to act in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

They marched in the streets of Bethlehem heading towards Aida refugee camp to a section of the Annexation Wall, the location where the Pope delivered his speech during his visit to Bethlehem......."

Obama's Peace

By Joseph Massad
Al-Ahram Weekly

"For his continued wars against Pakistanis, Afghanis, and Iraqis, his support for the overthrow of democracy in Honduras, his abetting dictatorships across the Arab and Muslim worlds (which his government finances, arms, and trains in torture methods), his planning for a possible invasion of Iran, and his enthusiastic support for the racist Israeli settler colony (and its colonial wars and occupations against Palestinians), President Barak Obama received the Nobel "Peace" Prize. This comes as no surprise, as Obama joins a long list of recipients of this sham of a prize, who are distinguished for similar "peaceful" pursuits. These include terrorists like Menachem Begin, war criminals like Henry Kissinger, ethnic-cleansing colonial generals like Yitzhak Rabin, dictators like Anwar Sadat, corrupt politicians like Yasser Arafat, and imperial presidents like Jimmy Carter. Granting this overambitious power-hungry man the recognition of the Nobel committee is therefore most apt......

.....Obama in my estimation is the worst thing that happened in recent years to African Americans, who continue to face institutional, structural, economic, cultural, social, and personal discrimination on a daily basis. The racism that informs US domestic policy and causes the poverty of African Americans is not unrelated to the racism that informs US imperial policies that impoverish Egyptians, Palestinians, Hondurans, Iraqis, and Afghanis.

Obama's election has been best for white liberal Americans whose conscience can be assuaged by pretending that they are not racist at all and that indeed America is no longer a racist place evidenced by the election of a black man to the presidency......"

Going 'deep', not 'big', in Afghanistan

By Gareth Porter
Asia Times

"An analysis making waves in Washington by a veteran United States officer calls for the withdrawal of the bulk of United States combat forces from Afghanistan over 18 months, warning against General Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L Davis says that it is already too late for US forces to defeat the insurgency......

Davis challenges two arguments now being made in support of the counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan based on the Iraq experience: that a troop surge would help establish security and that the US military can reduce insurgency by replicating the "Sons of Iraq" program of bringing insurgents into militias that oppose their former allies.

The "surge" in Iraq was successful for a variety of reasons peculiar to Iraq and not duplicated in Afghanistan, Davis argues......"

A salute to Turkey, a salute to Erdogan

By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine

"The recent Turkish decision to exclude Israel from an aerial military exercise over Turkish territory is another indication that Turkey will not allow itself to be blackmailed by criminal international Zionism.

Following the decision, Zionist officials and media sought to mitigate its impact on the increasingly troubled relations with Turkey by claiming that it had little to do with the genocidal blitz which the Israeli army carried out in winter against the Gaza Strip.

However, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, and other Turkish officials have made it amply clear that the cancellation of the military drill is consistent with the feelings of the vast bulk of the Turkish masses vis-à-vis the Nazi-like atrocities in the Gaza Strip......

The exclusion of Israel from the Anatolian Eagle exercise seems to be a popular measure for most Turks who are disquieted by recurrent efforts by government-backed Jewish extremists to arrogate a foothold at the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sanctuaries.......

The Turkish leadership should therefore be applauded for its moral commitment toward the helpless Palestinians, many of whom have Turkish ancestry, who are languishing under an unmitigated Nazi-like military occupation.

This Turkish approach to Israel, an entity whose very existence constitutes a gigantic war crime, or a crime against humanity, is the least any Muslim country can do to prevent a possible genocide against the Palestinians........"

Israel to Raze 150 Palestinian Homes

Israel has announced plans to demolish 150 Palestinian homes in the mostly Arab east Jerusalem Al-Quds in a move that would displace more than 1,000 Palestinians.

Palestinian homes that are threatened with imminent demolition are located in the neighborhoods of Beit Haninah, Shu'fat, Ashqariyeh, Nusiebeh Complex, Silwan, Thuri, Jabal al-Mukaber, Sur Baher, Mount of Olives, al-Zu'ayem, Isawieh and Ras Khamis.

The Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER) stated that the new list of Palestinian homes slated for demolition does not include the 125 homes and apartments against which Israel had previously issued demolition orders.

12th graders tell Netanyahu: We refuse to serve in IDF

Dozens of graduating high school seniors signed a letter on Monday declaring their refusal to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.

The missive, which was addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, stated that the reason for their refusal to serve stems from the belief that “there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

“We hereby announce our refusal to take part in the military apparatus,” read the letter which was signed by 88 youths. “We do not see a military solution as the proper solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Gaza war is not forgotten in Turkey

Slowly but surely, Israel is starting to realise where it matters (in the back pocket) that its criminality will come at a steep price. Who truly wants to normalise relations with a state that brutalises another people (over and over again)?
Antony Loewenstein

Change We Can Believe in? Sure.....Photos of Military Deaths in Afghanistan Banned

"NEW YORK The U.S. military in eastern Afghanistan recently changed its media embed rules to ban pictures of troops killed in the war.

“Media will not be allowed to photograph or record video of U.S. personnel killed in action,” says a ground rules document issued Sept. 15 by Regional Command East at Bagram Air Field.

This language is new. A version of the same document dated July 23 says, “Media will not be prohibited from covering casualties” as long as a series of conditions are met.

Pictures of American military deaths are rare, but until now they have not been officially banned during either of the ongoing wars....."

The Reverse-Midas Effect

How it works in Pakistan

by Justin Raimondo, October 16, 2009

"....
Pakistan’s political leaders will make a great show of caviling over the tripled aid package, grandstanding for their domestic audience – and then they’ll accept it, because the opportunities for corruption are too rich to be wasted. In the meantime, this cornucopia of aid will achieve the exact opposite of its ostensible purpose, bringing us closer to the day when Pakistan’s alleged “crisis” – a crisis largely of our own making – will culminate in catastrophe.

And that’s the story of U.S. foreign policy in the post-9/11 era – a veritable perpetual motion machine of mishaps and mistaken assumptions, fueled by corruption and super-charged with a peculiarly American brand of hubris. "

Israel vents fury at ally Turkey over 'barbaric' TV drama

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

"Israel's increasingly troubled relations with its main ally in the Muslim world took a turn yesterday when it formally protested to Turkey over the "incitement" generated by a television series featuring fictional scenes of barbaric acts by Israeli soldiers.

The airing of the series, on Turkish state television, coincides with tensions triggered by a decision last week by Ankara to exclude Israel – which it has severely criticised over last winter's war in Gaza – from a planned Nato air exercise.....

In January, Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, walked out of a televised panel discussion in Davos in Switzerland, in which Israel's President, Shimon Peres, had been defending the military operation.

The air exercise planned for this week was cancelled after the US and Italy refused to take part in response to the Turkish decision to bar Israel. Mr Erdogan said later that "diplomatic sensitivities" had led his government to stop Israel participating......."

Goldman Sachs breaks record with $16.7bn bonus pot

(Click on cartoon by Steve Bell to enlarge)

Obama isn't helping. At least the world argued with Bush

For all the global love-in, the new president has led rich nations to neglect principled action and row back from climate deals

Naomi Klein
The Guardian, Friday 16 October 2009

"Of all the explanations for Barack Obama's Nobel peace prize, the one that rang truest came from Nicolas Sarkozy. "It sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples." In other words, this was Europe's way of saying to America, "We love you again", like those weird renewal-of-vows ceremonies couples have after a rough patch.

Now Europe and the US are officially reunited, it seems appropriate to consider whether this is necessarily a good thing. The Nobel committee, which awarded the prize for Obama's embrace of "multilateral diplomacy", is evidently convinced that US engagement on the world stage is a triumph for peace and justice. I'm not so sure..........

But a clear pattern has emerged: in areas where other rich nations were teetering between principled action and negligence, US interventions have tilted them toward negligence. If this is the new era of multilateralism, it is no prize."

With friends like the US, Pakistan doesn't need enemies

Washington's clumsy attempts to strengthen Pakistan's government only serve to stoke a conflict approaching civil war

Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 October 2009

"As the Obama administration dithers over what to do for the best in Afghanistan, neighbouring Pakistan is paying an increasingly heavy price. Like a spate of previous Taliban attacks in recent days, today's mayhem in Lahore underscored fears that the principal consequence of Washington's Afghan paralysis, albeit unintended, is the further destabilisation of the Pakistani state.......

The realisation that Washington is stoking a conflict approaching all-out civil war is gradually dawning in the US. New York Post columnist Ralph Peters drew a comparison with post-invasion Iraq. "Civil war never quite happened [there]. Yet no one seems to notice that we're now caught up in two authentic civil wars – one in Afghanistan, the other in Pakistan," he said. By lumping the two together in one "Afpak" policy, the Obama administration had effectively made both problems worse.......

The impulse, fanned by this sort of imperial hubris, to get out of Afghanistan, or at least to narrow the fight to a counter-terrorism campaign against al-Qaida, has gathered US adherents in recent months. But a Washington Post editorial argued this week that with al-Qaida much reduced, the Taliban in both countries now constituted the main enemy. Pakistan was moving towards "full-scale war", it said. Pulling back in Afghanistan could have disastrous, possibly fatal consequences there, too.

By this measure and others, only one conclusion is possible: Pakistan is already so destabilised by US actions since 9/11 that it cannot be left to fend for itself. In such tortuous logic is found the death of empires."

Video: Rebuilding process of Nahr-El-Bared camp in cul-de-sac

Press TV

Rebuilding process of Nahr-El-Bared camp in cul-de-sac

مصدر: حماس ستتسلح برفض الفصائل للوثيقة المصرية للتنصل من الاتفاق

ابو مرزوق: سنسلم مصر غدا تحفظاتنا على ورقة المصالحة
مصدر: حماس ستتسلح برفض الفصائل للوثيقة المصرية للتنصل من الاتفاق

"دمشق ـ الناصرة ـ 'القدس العربي' ـ من كامل صقر وزهير اندراوس: اكد الدكتور موسى ابو مرزوق نائب رئيس المكتب السياسي لحركة حماس ان الحركة ستسلم القيادة المصرية يوم غد السبت ورقة تتضمن مجموعة من التحفظات على بعض النقاط الواردة في وثيقة المصالحة الفلسطينية التي تعتقد انها بحاجة الى المزيد من الحوارات والنقاشات من اجل توضيحها والاتفاق حولها.
وقال الدكتور ابو مرزوق ان من بين هذه النقاط التصريحات الامريكية الرسمية التي طالبت بان تأتي المصالحة الفلسطينية على اساس الشروط الامريكية اي استنادها الى بنود خريطة الطريق ومبادئ اللجنة الرباعية.
واضاف ان النقطة الثانية تتعلق بضرورة وجود ضمانات بان يتم احترام نتائج اي انتخابات تجرى تطبيقا لنصوص وثيقة المصالحة في النصف الثاني من العام المقبل، وتساءل عما سيكون عليه الحال لو فازت 'حماس' فيها مثلا، هل ستشكل الحكومة وتحظى باعتراف عربي ودولي؟
اما النقطة الثالثة حسب قوله، فتتعلق بمستقبل الحصار المفروض على قطاع غزة، وآلية العمل في معبر رفح، وهل ستظل المعابر الاخرى التي تسيطر عليها اسرائيل مغلقة او تفتح جزئيا.
اما النقطة الرابعة فتتعلق بمعتقلي حركة حماس في السجون المصرية، والتعذيب الذي يتعرضون له. فالافراج عن هؤلاء مطلب اساسي لا بد من تحقيقه في اسرع وقت ممكن. وفي قطاع غزة اكدت مصادر حركة 'حماس' لمراسل 'القدس العربي' ان الشهيد يوسف ابو زهري مات في السجن من شدة التعذيب الذي يتعرض له، وجرى نقله الى المستشفى وهو في حالة وفاة.
وقالت هذه المصادر ان ابو زهري شقيق الناطق باسم حماس اعتقل دون اي تهمة، وهو متزوج من سيدة مصرية، وكان يقيم في منطقة العريش المصرية، وظل ينزف داخل السجن حتى استشهاده، ورفضت السلطات المصرية تدخلات المسؤولين في الحركة سواء في قطاع غزة او دمشق لنقله الى المستشفى للعلاج.
من ناحية اخرى قال مصدر فلسطيني، أمس الخميس لـ'القدس العربي' إنّ المصالحة الفلسطينية برعاية مصرية لن تخرج إلى حيّز التنفيذ بسبب الورقة المصرية التي قدّمها الجانب المصري للفصائل الفلسطينية.
وأوضح المصدر، الذي طلب عدم الكشف عن اسمه، إنّ حركة حماس في وضع حرج للغاية، لافتا إلى أنها تتعرض لضغوط جمة من قبل المصريين، وزاد قائلاً إن حركة حماس وعلى الرغم من تحفظها على الورقة المصرية، فإنّها تتسلح بموقف الفصائل الفلسطينية المعارضة للورقة، أي أنّها ستقوم بإبلاغ المصريين بأنّها لن تتمكن من التوقيع على وثيقة المصالحة، في الوقت الذي ترفضه الغالبية العظمى من فصائل المقاومة الفلسطينية.
ورفضت فصائل تحالف القوى والهيئات الفلسطينية في دمشق أمس الخميس التوقيع على الورقة المصرية للمصالحة 'لعدم تضمنها الحقوق والثوابت الوطنية الفلسطينية' حسب بيان رسمي لها.
وشددت الفصائل على ضرورة أن تتضمن الورقة قضية القدس وما تتعرض له من تهويد وعدوان مستمر، وحق العودة للاجئين الفلسطينيين لديارهم وممتلكاتهم التي شردوا منها، كما طالبت بالتحرك السريع لحماية القضية الفلسطينية من مخاطر التسوية التي تتهددها والتمسك بكامل حقوق الشعب الفلسطيني والعمل لوضع الصيغ الكفيلة لإعادة بناء منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية على أسس وطنية وديمقراطية واضحة.
وشدد خالد عبد المجيد أمين عام جبهة النضال وأمين سر لجنة المتابعة للمؤتمر الوطني الفلسطيني في تصريحات لـ 'القدس العربي' على أن فصائل تحالف القوى الفلسطينية لن توقع اتفاق المصالحة إلا إذا تضمن كافة الحقوق والثوابت الوطنية بما فيها حق المقاومة وحق العودة وقضية حماية القدس من التهويد، مؤكداً على أن الورقة المصرية لابرام اتفاق المصالحة لم تتضمن أية رؤية سياسية تتعلق بالصراع العربي الإسرائيلي وأن الفصائل الفلسطينية كانت قد أرسلت ردودها وتحفظاتها على الورقة المصرية للقاهرة وأن هذه الردود تضمنت الحقوق الثابتة للشعب الفلسطيني وضرورة وضع الآلية المناسبة لقيادة سياسية فلسطينية مشتركة تشكل المرجعية لاتخاذ القرار المتعلق بمستقبل القضية الفلسطينية، لكن النسخة المصرية الأخيرة لم تتضمن تلك الردود والمطالب ما حال دون قبول الفصائل لها حسب قوله.
وقال عبد المجيد ان الكرة في ملعب القاهرة و(الرئيس الفلسطيني) محمود عباس وأن التوقيع مرتبط باستعداد مصر وحركة فتح للموافقة على مطالب الفصائل الفلسطينية التي تم الاتفاق عليها في الحوارات السابقة متهماً مصر وحركة فتح بالتراجع عما تم التوافق عليه استجابة للمطالب الأمريكية المتعلقة بالموافقة على شروط الرباعية الدولية وهو ما ترفضه الفصائل الفلسطينية، وأن الفصائل طلبت تأجيل التوقيع إلى أن يتم التوصل لرؤية سياسية يُتفق عليها استنادا لما تم التفاهم عليه وفقا للثوابت الوطنية.
"

Emad Hajjaj Cartoon

One Horn of the Expired Ram Represents Fatah....
...The Other Represents Hamas.

Al-Jazeera Video: Egyptians struggle for bread

"The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation says there are now over one billion malnourished people worldwide.

Aid agencies have said the alarming trend is caused by rising prices, poverty and security issues.

In a special series here on Al Jazeera, Amr al-Kahky reports from Egypt on how difficult it is for people there to buy the basic necessities."

Leadership 'let down' Palestinians

By As`ad AbuKhalil (Angry Arab)
Al-Jazeera

".....Mohammed Dahlan, who was head of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security service in the Gaza Strip during the 1990s, has been accused by Hamas and other groups of using torture and murder on dissident Palestinians, and on any Palestinian who still pursued the path of armed struggle.

But the reaction in Palestine and the Arab world to the PA decision to delay a vote on the human rights report indicates that the Palestinian public believe the leadership in Ramallah has gone too far in its co-operation (or collaboration) with Israel.

The significance of the this reaction is that for the first time many Palestinians, including many in the Fatah rank-and-file, now feel that the PA no longer leads a Palestinian national movement......

It was then that Arafat nicknamed Abbas as "the Palestinian Hamid Karzai". But even Karzai can sometimes voice criticisms of the US, while Abbas will not, or cannot - not even during the Bush presidency when he and his entourage kept referring in glowing terms to the "vision of George Bush."

Ramallah may have been the only place in the world were some people took seriously the notion of a "vision" by George Bush, or "His Excellency, President George Bush," according to the formal refrain of "senior PA negotiator", Saeb Erekat.

Arafat's death cleared the path for a new clique that was handpicked by the US and Israel...........

The public outcry to the PA decision indicates that the Palestinians can no longer tolerate more concessions from their leadership (which now rules without an electoral mandate; Western governments never bother with democratic niceties when it comes to Arab governments).

Abbas perhaps believed that the Palestinian people were too exhausted and too fatigued to notice the extent of his co-operation with the Israelis and Americans. He miscalculated and the Goldstone episode may have weakened him beyond repair.

Of course, Israel and the US can easily sacrifice him, and the glowing Western profiles in the mainstream press of Salam Fayyad, the new prime minister, may indicate that a successor to Abbas has already been chosen........

Hamas, for its part, did not know how to react to the affair.

They continued to speak of reconciliation with Fatah, and even accepted a date for signing an agreement with the PA in Cairo, before they realised the magnitude of Palestinian anger.

Hamas has to realise that it cannot save Abbas in return for political perks that he may have been able to offer. But pressure from the public and from Damascus-based political organisations eventually diverged Hamas away from the path of reconciliation with Abbas.

Problems for Hamas

In any regard, Hamas has its own problems. The group is ruling Gaza in the name of the Oslo Accords, which they have rejected outright on several occasions, and they also cannot speak too loudly in support of the Goldstone report because it has accused them - as well as Israel - of war crimes......"

Hamas, as They Say in Arabic, is Like a Woman Interested in Sex, but Afraid of Getting Pregnant. Earth to Hamas: Your Pregnancy is Already Showing!

Masri: Hamas wants to ensure success of Egyptian efforts

Hamas, the Jilbab is not helping in covering up your pregnancy! Your illicit affair with your Oslo partners has been going on for too long. Time to dump both branches of the Oslo gang; the Ramallah branch and the Gaza branch.

"GAZA, (PIC)-- Hamas MP Mushir Al-Masri has said that if his Movement accepted the Egyptian new proposal for reconciling differing Palestinian factions it would be out of keenness on ensuring success of Egyptian efforts in this regard.

Masri told the PIC that Hamas has reservations on the Egyptian proposal but would like to overcome any obstacle before signing the proposal as long as it did not infringe on national constants.

For his part, Hamas MP in the West Bank Abdul Rahman Zeidan said that the Egyptian proposal alone would not solve the problems in the West Bank. He said in a press statement on Wednesday that good intention should be coupled with the signing of national agreement or else a new "coup against legitimacy" would be witnessed.

The popular front for the liberation of Palestine – general command's spokesman Anwar Raja told Al-Alam TV that the Egyptian insistence on signing the national agreement at this particular time is meant to improve the image of Mahmoud Abbas, the former PA chief, after his scandalous step of postponing the voting on the Goldstone report."


Also (if you read Arabic), please see this pathetic stretching of language by Zahhar, who used to be Hamas' "Foreign Minister." It is an incredible misuse of language which would make Orwell cringe!

الزهار يفرق بين التوقيع والمصالحة

"فرق عضو المكتب السياسي لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية (حماس) محمود الزهار بين التوقيع على ورقة الاتفاق التي اقترحتها مصر والمصالحة، وأكد أن الورقة جرى الاتفاق عليها، لكن المصالحة تحتاج إلى وقت وأجواء. يأتي هذا فيما أكدت حركة التحرير الوطني الفلسطيني (فتح) موافقتها على وثيقة المصالحة الفلسطينية وأنها ستسلمها موقعة إلى القاهرة اليوم الخميس.

وقال الزهار في مقابلة مع الجزيرة من غزة إن الوثيقة ليست الوثيقة المصرية وإنما وثيقة الوفاق الوطني التي تم الاتفاق عليها بين الفصائل الفلسطينية على مدار ست جولات كبيرة والسابعة بين حماس والجانب المصري والتي بلورت هذه الاتفاقيات.

وأضاف "يجب أن نميز في نقطتين، بين ما يسمى التوقيع على ورقة الاتفاق والمصالحة، الورقة هي اتفاق وصلنا إليها سابقا، أما المصالحة فتحتاج إلى أجواء سممتها الأجواء الأخيرة في رام الله للأسف الشديد، وتوقيع الاتفاقية شيء والمصالحة تحتاج إلى وقت حتى نستطيع أن نمهد للوقت المناسب والظروف النفسية المناسبة لتجاوز ما حدث من أخطاء جسيمة من رام الله في قضية غولدستون وما تبعها".

وردا على سؤال عما إذا كانت حماس ستوقع الوثيقة، قال الزهار "هذه وثيقة وافقنا عليها في الأساس، والآن يتم مراجعتها ببنودها بين النسخ الموجودة عندنا والنسخة التي سنوقع عليها" ، مشيرا إلى أن الورقة فيها بنود كثيرة "وأشياء اتفق عليها وأشياء لم يتم الاتفاق عليها".
......"

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

The question is:

Do you see that the West has been defeated in Afghanistan?

With over 800 responding so far, 89% said yes.

Israeli flag at Abu Dhabi energy parley

Jerusalem Post

Via Angry Arab

"The Israeli flag was displayed on the table and on the pins of the country's delegates to the first International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) conference in Abu Dhabi this week.

The Israeli delegation took full part and was received graciously and without a hitch at the conference, which ended Wednesday. It was the first time an Israeli flag has been flown in the United Arab Emirates, since Israel has no official diplomatic relations with the country........"

Al-Jazeera Video: Riz Khan - The one or two state debate - 14 Oct 09

Featuring Ali Abunimah

Part 1:



Part 2:



"After almost two decades of various peacemaking initiatives, there is no end in sight to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Some Palestinians and Israelis are now arguing that the only practical solution to the conflict is the so-called one-state solution, where both sides agree to citizenship and equal rights in a state that covers all of historic Palestine, without regard to ethnicity or religion. "

Real News Video: D'Escoto on the US in the age of Obama

d'Escoto: From Iraq war to imprisoned Cuban 5 , Americans need the courage to form a "new mindset"



""The inability of the United Nations to unequivocally reject the Iraq war has been a major factor in its demise", says outgoing president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto. In the third and final segment of his talk with Real News Senior Editor Paul Jay, d'Escoto digs into what he believes is at the root of the US image problem around the world, its actions. He identifies the continued incarceration of the Cuban 5 in US prison as an example of the hypocrisy of the "global war on terror". But while d'Escoto points out President Obama's unwillingness to use his authority to single-handedly pardon the five Cuban intelligence agents, he expresses a great deal of support for Obama. "I really trust President Obama," d'Escoto says, "but he is going up against the same reactionary forces that we faced in the third world when we tried to change things.""

Real News Video: Iraq Fallout: The Poisonous Legacy of War Pt 1

Author Abdulhaq Al-Ani on Uranium in Iraq from US military equipment and the dire effects on Iraqis



"Iraqis living to the south of Baghdad have blamed depleted uranium from US military equipment for causing a rise in the number of cancer cases. These cancer cases have spread fears among the locals, prompting them to demand an urgent investigation. Mosab Jasim interviews Abdulhaq Al-Ani, author of Uranium in Iraq - The Poisonous Legacy of Iraq Wars, for more analysis."

Will Fatah – as much as Israel – be the target of the next intifada?

A commentary by Ben White
Conflicts Forum

"For the best part of half a century, Fatah dominated Palestinian politics. Israeli attempts to extinguish the movement failed; rivals were co-opted or sidelined. But gradually, as the Oslo years gave way to the Second Intifada, the peace process went up in smoke and Hamas emerged as a genuine contender for Palestinian political loyalties, serious and critical divisions within the movement have come to the surface. This piece examines the current crisis facing the Fatah movement, and possibilities for the future: critical issues facing the movement — internal divisions, differences over strategy often sharply focused on the question of resistance and/or negotiations, the relationship with Hamas, as well as some of the different options facing Fatah in terms of a way out of the crisis, and approaches being suggested as solutions to the crisis......."

“Global Imbalances” versus Internal Inequalities (Understanding the World Economy)

The deep and ongoing crises of leading capitalist countries, especially the United States, has provoked a debate over the causes, consequences and appropriate policies to remedy it.

By James Petras

"The debate has revealed a deep division over the causes and remedies, with Anglo-Franco American (AFA) politicians, columnists and economists on one side and their Asian-German (AG) counterparts on the other. In general terms the AFA spokespeople put the blame for the crises on external factors, or more specifically they point their finger at the positive trade surpluses, dynamic export sectors and high investment rates in productive sectors and low levels of consumption in the AG countries as the cause of ”unbalances” or “disequilibrium” in the world economy........"

DECEMBER 2009 CONVOY

VIVA PALESTINA

GET INVOLVED!

"Viva Palestina USA is on the move... organizing our second convoy of people and vehicles in 2009! The convoy of hundreds of Viva volunteers and vehicles from the US, UK and dozens of other countries promises to garner the attention of the entire world as we make our way on December 6 from London through France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza! Our estimated date of arrival at the Rafah border is December 27th, one year to the day that the horrendous attack on Gaza began......"

U.S. Berated for Shielding Israel on Gaza Killings

By Thalif Deen


"UNITED NATIONS, Oct 14 (IPS) - A U.S. decision to stall Security Council action against Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for war crimes during the 22-day conflict in Gaza last December has come under heavy fire both from inside and outside the United Nations......

"That President Obama is receiving the Noble Peace prize after his failure to speak out during the Gaza war, and after his administration's protection of a state that has committed war crimes, is an abomination," Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, told IPS......

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS the Obama administration and Congressional leaders of both parties appear to be continuing the policy of the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush in ignoring and denouncing those who have the temerity to report violations of international humanitarian law by the United States or its allies......

Addressing the Security Council Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff made a predictable statement that the United States continues to "have serious concerns about the [Goldstone] report, its unbalanced focus on Israel, the overly broad scope of its recommendations, and its sweeping conclusions of law."

Nevertheless, he said, "We take the allegations in the report seriously."

"Israel has the institutions and the ability to carry out serious investigations of these allegations and we encourage it to do so," Wolff said......"

Turkey-Israel Rift Good for Palestine

Analysis by Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Oct 14 (IPS) - Turkey's cooling relationship with Israel comes in tandem with its improving relations with the Arab and Muslim world, and this development is expected to impact positively on Palestinian politics.

"The Turks appear to be implementing a major policy shift in the region as they look towards the East as a possible alternative to relations with the West, particularly in light of difficulties joining the European Union (EU)," says Dr. Samir Awad from Birzeit University near Ramallah.......

Israel's extensive bombardment of Gaza at the beginning of the year marked a turning point. The Turkish government has had to answer to public opinion, which struggled to stomach Israel's military assault on the coastal territory. Even the Turkish military, which has had strong ties with the Israeli military, couldn't look away.

Recent developments under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government including greater Judaisation of East Jerusalem, infringements on Muslim worship at the Al-Aqsa mosque, and continued settlement building have only cemented Turkey's position....... "

Peace isn't what Obama is achieving

Rarely has a President bent on change been met with such adverse cirumstances

By Adrian Hamilton
The Independent

".....In the end Obama has been unable to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu in to halting settlement building, the Arab litmus test of the White House's willingness to adopt a more even-handed policy in the region. Worse, over the UN report on Israel's invasion of Gaza and the recent reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah in Egypt, Washington has actively intervened to protect Jerusalem in the one case and to undermine Palestinians' efforts at a unity government in the other.......

One fears, however, that it will be more of the same. It will be the Palestinians not the Israelis who will be pressured into concessions so that Washington can claim progress in a charade that only humiliates the Arab leaders. The screws will be tightened on an Iran which will retreat more and more into its own shell with greater oppression inside and no meaningful progress outside. And America, like Britain, will go on sending troops to Afghanistan with no visible end in sight......"