The Pathetic "Leaders" of Hamas....Desperate to Sign the Deal Imposed by Egypt...If Only Egypt Would Take Hamas' Reservations "Into Consideration!"..

الزهار: لا مفر من المصالحة

"قال محمود الزهار عضو المكتب السياسي لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية (حماس) إنه لا مفر من تحقيق المصالحة الفلسطينية.

وأضاف الزهار في مؤتمر صحفي بغزة أنه إذا حصلت حماس على ضمانات بأخذ ملاحظاتها بعين الاعتبار على الورقة المصرية "فإننا سنذهب إلى التوقيع بدون تردد".

وكان الزهار قد دعا مصر قبل يومين إلى فتح صفحة جديدة للتوقيع على وثيقة المصالحة وتنفيذها في أقرب وقت ممكن "على أن يتم الاحتكام إلى الشعب الفلسطيني فيما بعد وإجراء انتخابات يقبل بنتائجها الجميع".

كما طالب القيادة المصرية بفتح صفحة جديدة واستئناف اللقاءات مع الفصائل الفلسطينية من أجل إتمام المصالحة
....."

COMMENT:

This is really pathetic. This Zahhar fellow (who occupies a senior position and was once the "foreign minister") is close to the Egyptian regime and he is practically crawling on his knees and is begging the Pharaoh.

Hamas seems to be flat on its back and apparently the siege is biting hard. Too bad, so many innocent people are suffering while these idiots are playing "politics."

The Low One

By Angry Arab

"This has become a very popular poster in the streets of the Middle East and on the internet. It says (on top): "The High One Built the High Dam", and (bottom): "The Low One built the Low Dam.""

Real News Video: Inside Israeli land grabs

The Real News investigates the mechanism by which Israeli settlements come about and expand in the OPT.



"Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed the Israeli government's support of the settlement movement by planting a tree in each one of the three biggest settlement blocks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Despite the Israeli government's support, funding, and approval of settlers, they are often presented in the media as in conflict with the state and the army. In this report, The Real News' Lia Tarachansky looks at this claim through a recent lecture by Shir Hever, an economist with the Alternative Information Center. A perfect example of the methodology Hever describes can be seen in the settlement of Kedumim which lies adjacent to the Palestinian village of Kaft Qadum. The Real News spoke to the village council of the Palestinian village and the associate mayor of the settlement about how they've expanded and the impact this has had on their lives."

Our Last Port Is Freedom

Press Release
Written by Free Gaza Team 28 January 2010

"Press release available also in Arabic, Spanish, French and Italian, other translations available soon.

Sending a Flotilla in the Spring to Break the Siege of Gaza
Contact:

IHH, Ahmet Emin +90 530 341 19 34
Free Gaza Movement, Eliza Ernshire +44 754 011 22 94

[Istanbul, Turkey] Today the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Relief Foundation (IHH), announce a joint venture, sending 10 boats in the spring of 2010 to the besieged Gaza strip. Organizations from Greece, Ireland and Sweden have also promised to send boats to join the flotilla with the Free Gaza movement and Turkey.

Mr. Bulent Yildirim, chairman of the IHH said, “We sail in the spring to Gaza, and our last port is freedom; freedom for the 1.5 million Palestinians denied the right to rebuild their society. We will never stop sailing until Israel's siege is lifted.”

Two cargo ships will be part of the flotilla, one donated by the Malaysia-based Perdana Foundation and one from IHH. Both will be laden with building supplies, generators and educational materials that Israel prohibits from entering Gaza since their brutal attack on the civilian population a year ago.

The many passenger boats accompanying the cargo ships will carry members of Parliament from countries around the world as well as high-profile journalists and human rights workers....."

Israel can no longer ignore the existence of the first Holocaust

Recognition of the Armenian genocide is a paramount moral and educational act

By Robert Fisk

(Left: The Armenian Genocide)

"While Israelis commemorated the second Holocaust of the 20th century this week, I was in the Gulbenkian library in Jerusalem, holding the printed and handwritten records of the victims of the century's first Holocaust. It was a strange sensation.

The Armenians were not participating in Israel's official ceremonies to remember the six million Jewish dead, murdered by the Germans between 1939 and 1945, perhaps because Israel officially refuses to acknowledge that Armenia's million and a half dead of 1915-1923 were victims of a Turkish Holocaust. Israeli-Turkish diplomatic and military relations are more important than genocide. Or were......."

Why does the US turn a blind eye to Israeli bulldozers?

Most of the West Bank is under rule which amounts to apartheid by paper

By Robert Fisk

(Click on cartoon by Khalil Bendib to enlarge)

""Palestine" is no more. Call it a "peace process" or a "road map"; blame it on Barack Obama's weakness, his pathetic, childish admission – like an optimistic doctor returning a sick child to its parents without hope of recovery – that a Middle East peace was "more difficult" to reach than he imagined.

But the dream of a "two-state" Israeli-Palestinian solution, a security-drenched but noble settlement to decades of warfare between Israelis and Palestinians is as good as dead.......

When Obama's elderly envoy George Mitchell headed home in humiliation this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated his departure by planting trees in two of the three largest Israeli colonies around Jerusalem. With these trees at Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim, he said, he was sending "a clear message that we are here. We will stay here. We are planning and we are building." These two huge settlements, along with that of Ariel to the north of Jerusalem, were an "indisputable part of Israel forever."

It was Netanyahu's victory celebration over the upstart American President who had dared to challenge Israel's power not only in the Middle East but in America itself......"

In the West Bank's stony hills, Palestine is slowly dying

In the richest of the Occupied lands, Israeli bureaucracy is driving Palestinians out of their homes. Robert Fisk reports from Jiftlik

Saturday, 30 January 2010


Palestinian women huddle amid their belongings after Israeli forces demolished their homes in the West Bank village of Khirbet Tana, near Nablus earlier this month.

"Area C doesn't sound very ominous. A land of stone-sprinkled grey hills and soft green valleys, it's part of the wreckage of the equally wrecked Oslo Agreement, accounting for 60 per cent of the Israeli-occupied West Bank that was eventually supposed to be handed over to its Palestinian inhabitants.

But look at the statistics and leaf through the pile of demolition orders lying on the table in front of Abed Kasab, head of the village council in Jiftlik, and it all looks like ethnic cleansing via bureaucracy. Perverse might be the word for the paperwork involved. Obscene appear to be the results.

Palestinian houses that cannot be permitted to stand, roofs that must be taken down, wells closed, sewage systems demolished; in one village, I even saw a primitive electricity system in which Palestinians must sink their electrical poles cemented into concrete blocks standing on the surface of the dirt road. To place the poles in the earth would ensure their destruction – no Palestinian can dig a hole more than 40cm below the ground......

But in one way, this storm of permission and non-permission papers is intended to obscure the terrible reality of Area C. Many Israeli activists as well as western NGOs suspect Israel intends to force the Palestinians here to leave their lands and homes and villages and depart into the wretchedness of Areas B and A. B is jointly controlled by Israeli military and civil authorities and Palestinian police, and A by the witless Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas. Thus would the Palestinians be left to argue over a mere 40 per cent of the occupied West Bank – in itself a tiny fraction of the 22 per cent of Mandated Palestine over which the equally useless Yasser Arafat once hoped to rule. Add to this the designation of 18 per cent of Area C as "closed military areas" by the Israelis and add another 3 per cent preposterously designated as a "nature reserve" – it would be interesting to know what kind of animals roam there – and the result is simple: even without demolition orders, Palestinians cannot build in 70 per cent of Area C.

Along one road, I discovered a series of large concrete blocks erected by the Israeli army in front of Palestinian shacks. "Danger – Firing Area" was printed on each in Hebrew, Arabic and English. "Entrance Forbidden." What are the Palestinians living here supposed to do? Area C, it should be added, is the richest of the occupied Palestinian lands, with cheese production and animal farms. Many of the 5,000 souls in Jiftlik have been refugees already, their families fled lands to the west of Jerusalem – in present-day Israel – in 1947 and 1948. Their tragedy has not yet ended, of course. What price Palestine? "

Israel spied on Iran, Syria from secret Turkish base

Press TV

"Revelations of a secret Israeli spy base, which was allegedly set up in Ankara to gather classified information on Iran and Syria, has dragged Tel Aviv into a new spy scandal.

Sources in Turkey's ruling party told Russia's Mignews that Israeli spy agents ran an advanced electronic monitoring station from the Ankara military headquarters to keep tabs on communication networks in Iran and Syria.

According to the sources who were speaking on condition of anonymity, the Signals Intelligence station was solely managed by Israeli intelligence personnel and had become off-limits for members of the Turkish government.

Israeli military sources have refused to comment on the revelations, which are likely to spark an outcry in Turkey, now that they have been leaked to newspapers and media outlets.

This is not the first time Israel finds itself at the centre of a major spy scandal......"

Saudi Arabia's Military Involvement in the Yemen Conflict

by Rannie Amiri
Global Research, January 29, 2010

".....Regardless of whether any tenable agreement is actually reached, it must be asked: what was accomplished by Saudi Arabia’s attack on Yemen? Militarily, nothing.

The more salient question is: what was the real message behind Saudi Arabia’s (fruitless) intervention?

Although it was purportedly to defend the “territorial integrity” of the Kingdom, even supporters of the Royal Family concede it was more to stem perceived encroaching Iranian influence at its doorstep. Yet that too is a spurious argument.

To date, there has been no convincing evidence of any significant material support provided to the Houthi rebels by the Iranian government. Claims of such have been found to be no more credible than those issued by Yemen’s government that Abdul Malek al-Houthi had been killed in the fighting (he appeared on video a few days later appearing quite healthy).

To understand the real motive behind the bombardment, one only needs to return to the primary demand of the Houthi rebels: an end to the ever-increasing socioeconomic marginalization and religious discrimination of the Zaidi community in Yemen.

This war was not just to aid the fledging Saleh regime in combating an enemy far less threatening to its existence than al-Qaeda, but to send a clear message to Saudi Arabia’s own citizens who suffer the same systemic and institutionalized discrimination as do the Zaidis. Namely, Shia Muslims, Ismaili Muslims, Sufi Muslims and any who dare challenge the authority of the House of al-Saud or the doctrines of the officially-sanctioned Wahabi school of thought.

Saudi Arabia’s own oil-rich Eastern Province has seen tensions with Saudi Shia Muslims escalate in recent months as the Wahabi religious establishment clamps down ever more harshly on the practice of their religion and liberties as citizens of the state.

The senseless war in Saada waged by the Saudi government was thus meant to send an unmistakable warning to any in the Kingdom who might espouse similar beliefs or demands as the Houthis: do so at your own peril.

One wonders, though, whether those on the Saudi side who advocated or supported such reckless interventionism were aware of this equally important admonition: military force never succeeds in quieting the quest of people striving to achieve their basic rights, freedoms, and dignity."

‘Corruption will let Hamas take W. Bank'

The Jerusalem Post

"Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and that’s why Hamas will one day take control of the West Bank, Fahmi Shabaneh, who was appointed by Abbas four years ago to root out corruption in the Palestinian Authority, said on Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Shabaneh, who until recently was in charge of the Anti-Corruption Department in the PA’s General Intelligence Service (GIS), warned that what happened in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, when Hamas managed to overthrow the Fatah-controlled regime, is likely to recur in the West Bank.

“Had it not been for the presence of the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, Hamas would have done what they did in the Gaza Strip,” Shabaneh told the Post. “It’s hard to find people in the West Bank who support the Palestinian Authority. People are fed up with the financial corruption and mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority.”

Shabaneh said that many Palestinians in the West Bank have lost hope that the PA would one day be reformed. “The Palestinian Authority is very corrupt and needs to be overhauled,” he said.....

Shabaneh, a resident of east Jerusalem who worked as a lawyer before joining the GIS as its legal adviser after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, said he was forced to quit his anti-corruption job several months ago after exposing a sex scandal involving one of Abbas’s top aides in Ramallah in 2009.....

Shabaneh said in the interview, the first of its kind with a high-ranking PA security official, that he and his men had been operating on instructions from their boss, Gen. Tawfik Tirawi, the former head of the GIS. Tirwai, for his part, denied that he had authorized Shabaneh to spy on the Abbas aide.

The top aide, who is one of the closest advisers to Abbas, was caught on tape making derogatory remarks against Abbas and Arafat. “President Abbas has no charisma” and is “not in control,” he was quoted as saying. The aide was also caught on tape denouncing Arafat as one of the biggest dajjals (swindlers).

After the revelations, which were brought to Abbas’s attention and were embarrassing for the PA president, Shabaneh was removed from his anti-corruption post and reassigned as head of the GIS’s internal security force. More recently, he was promoted to overall commander of the GIS in the area.

Shortly afterwards, however, Shabaneh was arrested by Israeli police....

Shabaneh said that he had no doubt that his arrest by Israel was carried out at the request of “someone high in Abbas’s office to punish me for fighting corruption and exposing sex scandals involving not only the senior aide, but many other officials as well.”

He said that the decision to arrest him and prosecute him was also absurd because was always aware of his work and status in the PA security forces and never did anything to him.

“For many years I worked as legal adviser to the General Intelligence Apparatus and no one ever asked me anything,” Shabaneh noted. “When I was commander of the force in the area the Israelis even used to coordinate a lot with us.”......."

Hizbullah and Iran

By Angry Arab

".....and it struck me how many people don't get the exact nature of relations between Hizbullah and Iran. Let me explain: up until Hasan Nasrallah (in and in the late 1990s to be exact), Hizbullah was a mere arm of Iran in Lebanon. Under Subhi Tufayli and even `Abbas Musawi, the party was a mere tool of Iran. But that has changed with the rising stature of Nasrallah. I mean, in the equation between Hizbullah and Iran, Nasrallah is a much bigger figure than Ahmadinajad. Can you imagine Ahmadinajad issuing orders to Hizbullah? I can't. The relationship has changed and Hizbullah under Nasrallah has a much bigger room of maneuver than is widely assumed. It is clear (and this is based on analysis and on information) that Hizbullah is left to decide what it wants to do. It is not that Hizbullah just waits for orders from Iran, which it used to do in much of the 1980s. The notion that if Iran is attacked, Hizbullah would immediately start launching missiles at the Zionist entity is absurd. Hizbullah will decide largely on its own calculations. The relationship has become much more complicated. Nasrallah in Iran is considered by all to be senior to the Iranian president himself (but not necessarily to the Supreme Guide). Get that? "

EXCLUSIVE…Blackwater’s Youngest Victim: Father of 9 Year-Old Killed in Nisour Square Gives Most Detailed Account of Massacre to Date

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman



"Today a Democracy Now! exclusive report from Jeremy Scahill about a nine year old boy, shot in the head and killed by Blackwater in the infamous Nisour Squre massacre. His father, who is suing the private military contractor, provides the most detailed eyewitness account of the massacre to date. Scahill has conducted an in-depth investigation of the massacre and of nine-year old Ali Kinani’s death. He files an exclusive report with Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films....."

Real News Video: Canada's pro-democracy movement

People in the streets accusing Prime Minister of shutting down Parliament to avoid war crimes inquiry


"Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has single-handedly shut down Parliament. It is the second time he has done this since being re-elected in October of 2008. Critics claim that the move was used this time in order to postpone an inquiry into accusations of war crimes complicity for members of his administration and the Canadian military. Stemming from evidence that Canada continued handing- over people detained in the War in Afghanistan over to Afghan prisons that they knew practiced torture.

Produced by Jesse Freeston."

Netanyahu to U.S.: I'll Free Fatah Prisoners to Boost Abbas

Al-Manar

"29/01/2010 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to the release of hundreds of Fatah prisoners as part of efforts backed by the United States and Egypt to jump-start the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu expressed a willingness to release prisoners as a goodwill gesture in talks with the special U.S. Mideast envoy, George Mitchell. Under the plan, Israel would also embark on low-level negotiations with U.S. mediation.

Last Sunday, after meeting with Mitchell, Netanyahu told the cabinet that he heard new ideas from the American administration on the efforts to resume peace talks. "I expressed my hope that these ideas will enable the resumption of the process if the Palestinians express a similar interest in favor of all those who aspire for reconciliation in our region," the Israeli prime minister said.

A senior source in Tel Aviv said Thursday that Netanyahu's comment referred to a new proposal by Mitchell and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Negotiations would take place in the format of proximity talks, similar to the indirect negotiations that Israel held with Syria under former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Mitchell proposes that he travel between Tel Aviv and Ramallah, relaying messages to the two sides on various core issues, including borders, occupied Jerusalem, refugees and security. At a later stage the talks might be taken over by low-level officials on both sides to evaluate if negotiations can be continued at top levels.

The proposal also included Israeli goodwill gestures that would be carried out at the start of the proximity talks the United States would conduct. The main goodwill gesture is expected to be the release of hundreds of Fatah prisoners to the occupied West Bank.

The senior source in Tel Aviv said that these would largely be prisoners with only a little time left in their sentences..........."

Q&A: ''Hamas Accepts Existence of Israel Within 1967 Borders''

Mel Frykberg interviews MAHMOUDI RAMAHI, secretary-general of the Palestinian Legislative Council

"RAMALLAH, Jan 29, 2010 (IPS) - Palestinian politics are at an impasse. The four-year term of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) ended on Jan. 25 with no new elections planned. Presidential elections, meant to be held last year, were also postponed indefinitely.

IPS spoke with Dr. Mahmoud Ramahi, a neurosurgeon and secretary-general of the PLC, on the political deadlock.....

Q: Why should the U.S. negotiate with Hamas if they have reason to believe that even though your organisation won free elections once in power you would enforce an Islamic theocracy?

A: We are a moderate Islamic movement and we were never given even a month's period after the elections to prove our credentials. If we had been given a chance and proven ourselves to be undemocratic then it would be logical to boycott us but not before. I explained this to ex-U.S. president Jimmy Carter after the 2006 elections which he helped to monitor and may I point out that the PA is far from democratic.

The influence of Islam in the region is increasing whether the West likes it or not. The choice is to deal with moderate Islamic groups like ourselves or continue boycotting us and fuel real Islamic extremism in the form of al-Qaeda and then try negotiating with them.

Q: The Americans also say your refusal to recognise Israel's right to exist is problematic.

A: We have already stated repeatedly that we accept the existence of Israel within the 1967 borders as a political reality even if we do not approve its moral legitimacy.

Israel on the other hand has never recognised the right of a Palestinian state to exist even under the PA, despite the PA recognising Israel's right to exist. All Israel has recognised is the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole representative of the Palestinian people."

The State of the Empire

Not so good

by Justin Raimondo, January 29, 2010

"....The President claimed "all" of our troops are coming home from Iraq – this in spite of repeated statements by military commanders and other US officials that at least 50,000 will be staying indefinitely, and will furthermore be engaged in combat operations alongside the Iraqis......

The President has no time for foreign policy: he’s too busy campaigning, in spite of his protest last night that he doesn’t want to engage in a "permanent campaign." That’s one reason why he’s ceded the foreign policy realm to his secretary of state. You’ll note Hillary wasn’t there last night: that’s because she was in London, cajoling our allies to help with the burden of occupying and policing Afghanistan and environs.

Barack Obama shows every sign he’ll share the fate of another US chief executive with an ambitious domestic agenda who was effectively undermined by foreign policy disasters: Lyndon Baines Johnson, a one-term president whose "Great Society" was fatally subverted by the Vietnam war........

The state of the empire is bad, and getting worse. All around the world, the American position is simply untenable, and the economic basis of it all is eroding with such rapidity that the structure is bound to come crashing down in one fell swoop, rather than falling to the ground piecemeal, like Rome. Americans have good cause to be concerned, and even panicked, that when the hegemon goes down it’s going to take all of us with it."

It was the war itself that was wrong

(Click on photo to enlarge)

The truth is that Blair and Brown went to war because they thought it was easy

By Adrian Hamilton
The Independent

"Putting Tony Blair in the dock before the Chilcot Committee was not the idea when the enquiry was set up. Just the opposite. Blame was very precisely not supposed to be the game. Yet in the dock he is today, having to explain away a tide of revelations about how Britain went to war and why it did so.

Quite right too. The invasion of Iraq was always a war Blair made very much his own. And to give him his due he has never pretended otherwise, preferring to declare it a project he personally always believed in rather than tamely followed in an effort to please the new Republican administration of President Bush.......

The truth is that Blair, Gordon Brown and all the colleagues who acceded, went to war because they thought it was easy. After all the experience of the first Gulf War, Sierra Leone and Kosovo, the choice seemed a simple one. You sent in the troops, they overwhelmed the opposition and a grateful civilian population threw flowers on the tanks and kisses on the soldiery.

And, let's face it, if that is what had happened, you wouldn't have heard all the sophistry and doubts that have come from the officials and ministers before Chilcot....

But there is no real sign that the fundamental lesson, that war can only be an instrument of last resort tried when all else has failed and then only under the most precise circumstances, has been learned, as Britain desperately tries to earn favour with Washington by backing with forced enthusiasm every US move in Afghanistan. Gordon Brown talks of what he demands of the Afghans in the way of anti-corruption and deals with the Taliban for all the world as if he was a Victorian viceroy. And David Miliband lectures the Yemenis on what they must do to earn our aid. Chilcot certainly isn't going to teach our political class otherwise......"

Bliar...

January 2010: Protesters outside the Iraq inquiry hearing as Tony Blair prepares to give evidence. (AFP/Getty Images)

مسؤولون أمنيون إسرائيليون: مصر تبنت وجهة النظر الإسرائيلية الأمريكية بشأن المصالحة الفلسطينية

عرب48
"قالت مصادر أمنية إسرائيلية إن مصر تبنت وجهة النظر الإسرائيلية الأمريكية بشأن المصالحة الوطنية الفلسطينية بعد تهديد الولايات المتحدة بقطع المعونات عن السلطة الفلسطينية، وأنها حولت جهودها لمسار آخر وهو تجديد المفاوضات بين السلطة الفلسطينية وإسرائيل.

ونقل المحللان السياسيان لصحيفة "هآرتس" عاموس هرئيل وأفي يسساخروف في مقال مشترك نشراه اليوم، عن مسؤولين أمنيين أن المصريين باتوا يوافقون على وجهة النظر الإسرائيلية الأمريكية بأن لا شيء إيجابي سيتمخض عن جهود القاهرة لعقد مصالحة بين حماس والسلطة الفلسطينية. إذ أن إدارة أوباما تخشى بأن يعزز اتفاق المصالحة حركة حماس على حساب رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية محمود عباس ورئيس الوزراء سلام فياض.

وأضاف المسؤولون أنه «تم الإيضاح للمصريين بأن الوحدة الوطنية الفلسطينية ستصبغ الحكومة المشتركة بألوان حماس، ومن شأن ذلك أن يضع عراقيل قانونية أمام الإدارة الأمريكية لجهة استمرار تقديم المعونات للسلطة الفلسطينية. يدور الحديث عن سلسلة قوانين مرت بالكونغرس الأمريكي تقيد الإدارة الأمريكية بحيث لن تتمكن من تحويل دولار واحد لعباس وفياض منذ اللحظة التي يوافقان فيها على قبول حماس كشريكة». ويشير المعلقان إلى أن «القاهرة لن تقول ذلك بشكل علني إلا أن مبادرتها للمصالحة لفظت أنفاسها».

ونقل المعلقان عن مصدر مصري قوله إن جهود المصالحة توقفت لأن «الظروف المحيطة لا تتيح ذلك». ويضيف المصدر أن «قرار حماس تأجيل مقترحات التسوية المصرية، بضغط من إيران وسوريا يمنع أي تقدم في المصالحة. وبالمقابل فإن المصريين يحاولون في الوقت الراهن دفع المفاوضات السياسية بين إسرائيل والسلطة الفلسطينية بوساطة أمريكية غير مباشرة».

وأضاف المعلقان الإسرائيليان قولهما إنه «في الوقت الذي يحدد رئيس الوزراء بنيامين نتنياهو "أسابيع" لوقف خطة إيران النووية، وتتصاعد شدة حرب التصريحات على عدة جبهات، تسأل جارات إسرائيل نفسها في أي جانب من الصراع ترغب أن تكون وتتصرف وفق ذلك». وأضافا: "كافة الدول العربية تدفع ضريبة الكلام حيال ضائقة الفلسطينيين، وفي الوقت الذي تعانق فيه سوريا إيران، وحزب الله بات أكثر اكتراثا للتعليمات من طهران، تحافظ مصر والأردن على تنسيق أمني مثير للانطباع بشكل خاص مع إسرائيل- وفي حالة مصر تتخذ حتى خطوات شديدة ضد متطرفي المعسكر الفلسطيني».

وتابعا القول: " وفي غضون ذلك تواصل مصر بناء الجدار الفولاذي على حدود رفح، من أجل مكافحة تهريب السلاح إلى قطاع غزة على طول القطاع. وباتت الجهود الدولية الواسعة من البحر الأحمر حتى رفح تأتي بثمارها. ويؤكد الجيش أن حجم التهريب تراجع بشكل كبير".

واضافا أن «نقطة الكسر في علاقة مصر مع حماس ومع حزب الله وقعت في نهاية عام 2008 ، مع الكشف عن شبكة التجسس والإرهاب التابعة لحزب الله في مصر، التي نشطت في عمليات التهريب لغزة"، وأضافا أن العلاقات تواصل التدهور ويبدو أنها تنزلق هذه الأيام إلى الحضيض".
....
ولكن بعيدا عن الأضواء تجد مصر وإسرائيل نفسيهما في شراكة مصالح آخذة بالتوسع".

وقالا إن "الحصار الإسرائيلي المتواصل على قطاع غزة، إلى جانب الخطوات المصرية، تضع قيادة حماس في غزة في ضائقة". وأشارا إلى أن مصر بدأت مؤخرا بتقييد خروج بعثات من قيادة حماس من قطاع غزة عن طريق معبر رفح. هذا إلى جانب أن الأموال التي تم التعهد بتقديمها لإصلاح قطاع غزة بعد انتهاء عملية الرصاص المصبوب قبل أكثر من سنة لم يصل منها دولار واحد إلى وجهته. وتجد حركة حماس صعوبة في عرض إنجازات في مجالات أخرى، رغم أن سلطتها المركزية في قطاع غزة ما زالت قوية".
وأضاف المعلقان: " في الأردن أيضا التي تدأب على استنكار حكومة نتنياهو في كل فرصة وخاصة فيما يتعلق بالبناء في القدس الشرقية، تحافظ على تنسيق امني فعال مع إسرائيل، في الشؤون الحدودية وفي قضايا حساسة أخرى. وقد تمثل ذلك مؤخرا في التحقيق المكثف حول ملابسات التفجير الذي استهدف موكبا دبلوماسيا إسرائيليا على الطريق لجسر «ألنبي» قبل أسبوعين
......"

Hamas: Israel Assassinated a Senior Hamas Commander in Dubai

Al-Manar

"29/01/2010 Israel has assassinated a senior Hamas military commander in Dubai, an official in the Palestinian Islamic resistance group said on Friday.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed on January 20, Izzat al-Rishq told Reuters in the Syrian capital Damascus, but did not specify how the assassination was carried out.

Al-Mabhouh was suspected of having participated in the capture and subsequent killing of two Israeli occupation soldiers in 1989.

Rishq said Mabhouh was an "important" member of Izz el-Din al-Qassam brigades, Hamas's military wing named after a Syrian religious leader who fought British colonial forces in Palestine in the 1930s.

He said Mabhouh, who had been living in Syria since 1989, was assassinated a day after he arrived in Dubai but that Hamas could not say more at present about how he was killed......"

United at last!

Bendib(The best Arab cartoonist ever! IMHO)

This corruption in Washington is smothering America's future

How do you regulate banks effectively, if the Senate is owned by Wall Street?

A Very Good Comment
By Johann Hari
The Independent, Friday, 29 January 2010

"......For more than a century, the US has slowly put some limits – too few, too feeble – on how much corporations can bribe, bully or intimidate politicians. On Tuesday, they were burned away in one whoosh. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations can suddenly run political adverts during an election campaign – and there is absolutely no limit on how many, or how much they can spend. So if you anger the investment bankers by supporting legislation to break up the too-big-to-fail banks, you will smack into a wall of 24/7 ads exposing your every flaw. If you displease oil companies by supporting legislation to deal with global warming, you will now be hit by a tsunami of advertising saying you are opposed to jobs and the American Way. If you rile the defence contractors by opposing the gargantuan war budget, you will face a smear-campaign calling you Soft on Terror.

Representative Alan Grayson says: "It basically institutionalises and legalises bribery on the largest scale imaginable. Corporations will now be able to reward the politicians that play ball with them – and beat to death the politicians that don't... You won't even hear any more about the Senator from Kansas. It'll be the Senator from General Electric or the Senator from Microsoft.".....

Look for example at Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic candidate for Vice-President. He has taken $448,066 in campaign contributions from private healthcare companies while his wife raked in $2m as one of their chief lobbyists, and he has blocked any attempt in the Senate to break the stranglehold of the health insurance companies and broaden coverage.....It has reached the point that lobbyists now often write the country's laws. Not metaphorically; literally........

Bizarrely, the Supreme Court has decided that corporations are "persons", so they have the "right" to speak during elections. This is the same Supreme Court that ruled that the detainees at Guantanomo Bay are not "persons" under the constitution deserving basic protections. A court that says a living breathing human is less of a "persons" than Lockheed Martin has gone badly awry......

The great pressure of strikes and protests put on FDR hasn't yet arisen from a public dissipated into hopelessness by an appalling media that convinces them they are powerless and should wait passively for a Messiah.......

If Obama funks this challenge, he may as well put the US government on e-Bay – and sell it to the highest bidder. How would we spot the difference?"

The Pharaoh....
And The People!

Supreme Court Ruling, by Khalil Bendib

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

This poll asks:

Do you see that foreign interference will pull Yemen out of its crises?

With over 1,400 responding so far, 91% said no.

White Man's Burden?

Spreading Democracy, Elections and Human Rights in the Empire.
By Emad Hajjaj.

Goldstone member to EI: Gaza ambulance shelled "point blank"

Desmond Travers, The Electronic Intifada, 28 January 2010
(Desmond Travers is a retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces. He is also Director of the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI) based in The Hague, The Netherlands.)

"I write concerning your report and photograph describing an attack on an ambulance by means of a "dart bomb" (Eva Bartlett, "Gaza's thin red line one year later," 22 January 2010). As a member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict led by Judge Richard Goldstone, I examined this incident and offer a more precise term and also some analyses on the nature of the attack on the ambulance in question:

The projectile that struck the ambulance was almost certainly a flechette-discharging shell fired from the main armament (that means "gun") of a Merkava tank.

The shell when fired travels a distance from the barrel before discharging its flechettes or "darts." The darts of four centimeters length (about 13 grams weight) are ejected forward in a fan-like pattern at a velocity which means that the "fan" of flechettes saturates an area up to 300 meters forward of the tank. It is therefore an ideal anti-personnel weapon designed to clear an area of underbrush forward of a tank thereby securing it from a possible infiltrator with an anti-tank gun. It goes without saying that it is entirely inappropriate against unarmed civilians in an urban area.

The arming of the shell so that it discharges its flechettes occurs 90 meters forward of the muzzle. If you examine the ambulance in question one can see that that arming process had not occurred and so therefore we can assume that the tank was "panning" the movement left to right across its front from a distance less than 90 meters away. This, in tank-shooting terms, is point blank range (zero in other words), and indeed the low-left impact site attests to the validity of my theory. In other words the ambulance was travelling at greater speed than the gunner could "pan" the gun in line with it. Poor shooting, in other words.

I visited the family of the para medic volunteer who was killed in this incident. His family was in turn struck by two missiles when they and their friends and neighbours were visiting the two mourning tents outside his parents' house. Again by a tragic irony they too were struck by flechettes, this time however fired from missiles likely to have been mounted on Unmanned Aviation Vehicles (UAVs or "zananna" as they had come to be known locally during Operation Cast Lead).

Finally, these flechettes are designed ballistically to "tumble" on impact with flesh. This tumbling effect increases incapacitation and is, in my opinion, a questionable additional option and should be reviewed for unacceptability or otherwise under the Conventions."

Howard Zinn (1922–2010): A Tribute to the Legendary Historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman



"We pay tribute to the late historian, writer and activist Howard Zinn who died suddenly on Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of 87. Howard Zinn’s classic work A People’s History of the United States changed the way we look at history in America. It has sold over a million copies and was recently made into a television special called “The People Speak.” We remember Howard Zinn in his won words and we speak with those who knew him best: Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove...."

Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein Respond to Obama’s First State of the Union

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman


"President Obama delivered his his first State of the Union address Wednesday night. A full two thirds of the president’s 70-minute address was devoted to the economy, the central theme of which was job creation. We get response from MIT professor, Noam Chomsky and journalist and author, Naomi Klein......"

Real News Video: TRNN Replay: Interview with the late Howard Zinn

On Obama & empire with the man who changed how people in the US look at their history, taped in Oct 2008

Thuggery Unto the Nations: Leading Member of the Bil’in Popular Committee Arrested During the Night

"Mohammed al-Khatib, leading member of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlement Construction in Bil’in, was arrested last night in a pre-dawn incursion.

Al-Khatib, a proponent of non-violence, was awoken at approximately 1:45 am, Thursday morning, along with his wife and 4 children. His house was searched quickly, followed by Mohammed’s arrest, local sources reported.

After half an hour, the soldiers returned to search the house more thoroughly, without providing a search warrant, seizing Khatib’s phone and many documents, including those pertinant to legal proceedings in the Israeli High Court regarding Bil’in....."

Barak Relaxes in His Second Home in Sharm Al Sheikh....He Orders the Pharaoh to Make Him Tea and to Serve it.

"Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak and a number of senior Egyptian officials, met on Wednesday Israel’s Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, at the Egyptian resort of Sharm Al Sheikh....

Barak and his entourage told the Egyptian officials that Egypt should pressure Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, into resuming peace talks with Israel......

The Ynet stated that it was informed by Israeli sources involved in the talks that the coming days would witness new developments in Israeli-Palestinian talks. [Translation: The Stooge Abbas was ordered back to the "table."]"

The Kidnapping of Haiti

As Usual, A Great Piece
By John Pilger
Znet

"The theft of Haiti has been swift and crude. On 22 January, the United States secured "formal approval" from the United Nations to take over all air and sea ports in Haiti, and to "secure" roads. No Haitian signed the agreement, which has no basis in law. Power rules in an American naval blockade and the arrival of 13,000 marines, special forces, spooks and mercenaries, none with humanitarian relief training.

The airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is now an American military base and relief flights have been re-routed to the Dominican Republic. All flights stopped for three hours for the arrival of Hillary Clinton. Critically injured Haitians waited unaided as 800 American residents in Haiti were fed, watered and evacuated. Six days passed before the US Air Force dropped bottled water to people suffering thirst and dehydration......


Not for tourists is the US building its fifth biggest embassy in Port-au-Prince. Oil was found in Haiti's waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington's "rollback" plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela's abundant oil reserves and sabotage of the growing regional cooperation that has given millions their first taste of an economic and social justice long denied by US-sponsored regimes.

The first rollback success came last year with the coup against President Jose Manuel Zelaya in Honduras who also dared advocate a minimum wage and that the rich pay tax. Obama's secret support for the illegal regime carries a clear warning to vulnerable governments in central America. Last October, the regime in Colombia, long bankrolled by Washington and supported by death squads, handed the US seven military bases to, according to US air force documents, "combat anti-US governments in the region".

Media propaganda has laid the ground for what may well be Obama's next war. On 14 December, researchers at the University of West England published first findings of a ten-year study of the BBC's reporting of Venezuela. Of 304 BBC reports, only three mentioned any of the historic reforms of the Chavez government, while the majority denigrated Chavez's extraordinary democratic record, at one point comparing him to Hitler......"

Sanctions, regime change take center stage

United States President Barack Obama's State of the Union address signaled that Washington is set to take a more aggressive course on Tehran, with major sanctions legislation highly likely. Meanwhile, calls for outright regime change are growing louder, thanks to an unexpected change of heart by an influential American analyst.

By Jim Lobe
Asia Times

"WASHINGTON - With the United States Senate set to take up major sanctions legislation against Iran by mid-February, neo-conservative and other hawks are calling on the administration of President Barack Obama to pursue a more aggressive course of "regime change" in Tehran.

In recent days, their call was unexpectedly bolstered by a Newsweek column authored by the president of the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Richard Haass.

Haass is a long-time protege of realists, such as former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and secretary of state Colin Powell, who advocate a policy of broad engagement with Iran over its nuclear program and other issues.

Citing the unprecedented and persistent unrest....."

Howard Zinn, A People’s Historian, Dies at 87

TruthDig
Posted on Jan 27, 2010

"Howard Zinn changed the way we think about our history. The author of the revolutionary “A People’s History of the United States” died of a heart attack Wednesday in Santa Monica. He was an inspiration to us all.

Zinn was a fierce thinker, speaker and activist who led a fascinating life. Take this early episode, recounted by the Associated Press: “War continued his education. Eager to help wipe out the Nazis, he joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and even persuaded the local draft board to let him mail his own induction notice. He flew missions throughout Europe, receiving an Air Medal, but he found himself questioning what it all meant. Back home, he gathered his medals and papers, put them in a folder and wrote on top: ‘Never again.’”

He was fired by a Southern black women’s college for being too pro-civil rights and resented by the Kennedy administration. He was intellectually consistent and consistently tough. One of his final works was published just recently—an attack on the Obama administration......"

A Memory of Howard

By Daniel Ellsberg

"I just learned that my friend Howard Zinn died today. Earlier this morning, I was being interviewed by the Boston Phoenix, in connection with the February release of a documentary in which he is featured prominently. The interviewer asked me who my own heroes were, and I had no hesitation in answering, first, “Howard Zinn.”....."

It's Not a New Turkey, It's The Right Time

By Ramzy Baroud
Palestine Chronicle

"Uri Avnery’s assessment of the recent Israeli-Turkish diplomatic and political row - that “the relationship between Turkey and Israel will probably return to normal, if not to its former degree of warmth” – seems sensible and daring. In my view, however, it is also inaccurate.

Simply put, there is just no going back.

In a recent article entitled “Israel Must Get Used to the New Turkey,” Suat Kiniklioðlu, Deputy Chairman of External Affairs for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) wrote, “Israel appears to be yearning for the golden 1990s, which were the product of a very specific situation in the region. Those days are over and are unlikely to come back even if the Justice and Development Party (AKP) ends up no longer being in government.”

This assessment seems more consistent with reality.....

It took Turkey many years to reach this level of confidence and the country is hardly eager to be anyone’s ‘lackey’ now. More, Turkey’s united and constant stance in support of Gaza, and its outspokenness against the threats against Lebanon, Iran and Syria show clearly that the old days of “warmth” are well behind us.

Turkey, of course, will find a very receptive audience among Arabs and Muslims all over the world who are desperate for a powerful and sensible leadership to defend and champion their causes. Needless to say, for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza, Erdogan is becoming a household name, a folk hero, a new Nasser in fact. The same sentiment is shared throughout the region."

Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning

by Ray McGovern, January 28, 2010

"Nothing highlights President Barack Obama’s abject surrender to Gen. David Petraeus on the "way forward" in Afghanistan more than two cables U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent to Washington on Nov. 6 and 9, 2009, the texts of which were released by the New York Times.

No longer is it possible to suggest that Obama was totally deprived of good counsel on Afghanistan; Eikenberry got it largely right.

Sadly, the inevitable conclusion is that, although Obama is not as dumb as his predecessor, he is no less willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for political gain.....

Thanks to The Times and its courageous source, we now know not only that President Obama elected to forgo an honest NIE, but that he did so in the face of very strong urging from Ambassador Eikenberry that Obama "widen the scope" of analysis before he simply kowtowed to the Army brass......."

Stealing Success Tel Aviv Style

by Philip Giraldi, January 28, 2010

"A curious op-ed "The Tel Aviv Cluster" by the reliably neoconnish David Brooks appeared in the New York Times on January 12th. Brooks enthused over the prowess of Israel’s high tech businesses, attributing their success in large part to Jewish exceptionalism and genius, which must have provided the ultimate feel good moment for Brooks, who is himself Jewish. That Israel has a booming technology sector is undeniably true, but Brooks failed to mention other contributing factors such as the $101 billion dollars in US economic and military aid over the course of more than four decades, which does not include the additional $30 billion recently approved by President Barack Obama. American assistance has financed and fueled Israel’s business growth while the open access and even "preferential treatment" afforded to Israeli exporters through the Israel Free Trade Implementation Act of 1985 has provided Israelis with the enormous US market to sell their products and services. By act of Congress, Israeli businesses can even bid on most American Federal and State government contracts just as if they were US companies......

So to David Brooks I would say that there is most definitely an economic surge taking place in high tech Israel, but it is less a miracle than the fruit of a long series of thefts and manipulations fueled by American tax money and the connivance of a Congress that is always willing to do favors for the country that it appears to love beyond all others. I’m sure most Americans would wish the Israelis well and would applaud the prosperity that derives from their own industry and inventiveness but it is also time to put the brakes on business as usual and to take the Israeli hand out of our pocket. I’m sure Brooks’ job is pretty secure and well paid, but many Americans are out of work and suffering, so let’s take some steps to protect our economy from the information thieves from Tel Aviv and keep our money and jobs over here."

Only pressure to withdraw can stop this blood price

Today Afghanistan's occupiers will start to signal retreat. But they are sacrificing its people for Nato credibility

Seumas Milne
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 January 2010

".....In spite of the failures, Afghanistan's occupiers remain afflicted by wishful thinking. The ­attempt to bribe Taliban defectors and ­establish loyal militias is modelled on Iraq's awakening ­councils, which helped to weaken the resistance. But the sectarian and regional factors which underpinned that strategy [Read: Iran] do not exist in Afghanistan and, in any case, the Iraqi model is looking less appealing, with violent attacks once again on the increase.....

Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is meanwhile hardening across the occupying states, including the US, despite David Miliband's claim that the occupation commands "widespread global support". Few now buy the ­fiction that it is preventing, rather than fuelling, terror attacks elsewhere. The shape of the eventual negotiated withdrawal is beginning to take shape. But without still greater pressure to end the ­occupation, the blood price paid for US and Nato credibility can only grow for years to come."

اجراءات امريكية مهينة للسعوديين

اجراءات امريكية مهينة للسعوديين
رأي القدس

COMMENT:

Examine the Biggest Asshole First!

The total humiliation of Arabs and Muslims has reached such a level that most of the Arab countries, and many other Muslim countries (including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran), have not even protested the new procedures their citizens will be subjected to at US airports.

Full body scan (for men and women) will not be enough! Each passenger's rear end (again, men and women) will be closely examined for the possible presence of explosives in their anus! In addition, passengers from such countries will not be allowed to visit the rest rooms on board for one hour before landing.

Yet Saudi Arabia, not only did not protest, but in essence accepted the measures "to ensure the safety of the passengers!"

I think that the biggest asshole, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, should be at the head of the line to have his big rear end examined. After all, the Saudi Royals together with their CIA buddies were the one who created Al-Qa'ida and probably still finance Osama Bin Laden. Why should ordinary, innocent, citizens from all these countries endure such humiliation for the acts of the House of Saud and the CIA?

At a minimum, these countries should subject American passengers to the same treatment in their airports; fair is fair.

"طلبت الحكومة السعودية، من خلال سفارتها في واشنطن، من نظيرتها الامريكية تقديم 'توضيحات' لما يسمى بالاجراءات الاحترازية لتفتيش مواطنيها اثناء زيارتهم للولايات المتحدة الامريكية، وبشكل يفوق المستوى الطبيعي.
الاجراءات 'الاحترازية' هذه تطبق على مواطني عدد من الدول العربية بينها الجزائر واليمن وليبيا ولبنان والعراق والسودان وسورية والصومال، الى جانب دول اسلامية اخرى مثل باكستان ونيجيريا وافغانستان وايران.
وتتضمن هذه الاجراءات فحص 'مؤخرات' المسافرين من هذه البلدان، رجالا كانوا ام نساء، للبحث عن متفجرات، الى جانب مرور الجميع عبر اجهزة تعرية الجسم للغرض نفسه، ومراقبة هؤلاء طوال فترة الرحلة ومنعهم من تغطية انفسهم بالبطانيات، او الذهاب الى حمامات الطائرة لقضاء حاجتهم قبل ساعة من الهبوط.
الحكومة السعودية 'لم تحتج'، وانما اكتفت بطلب تفسيرات، مثلما قالت صحيفة 'الوطن' التي كشفت عن ذلك في عددها الصادر امس، 'لضمان سلامة وسهولة انتقال المسافر السعودي الى امريكا وبما يصون كرامته ويحمي خصوصيته'.
لا نعرف ما اذا كانت الدول العربية والاسلامية الاخرى التي سيتعرض مواطنوها لمثل هذه الفحوصات المهينة قد تقدمت باحتجاجات او طلبت تفسيرات من الولايات المتحدة الامريكية، ويبدو ان معظمها ما زال يبحث خياراته، مما يعني القبول ضمنيا بمثل هذه الاجراءات.
الولايات المتحدة الامريكية لا تستطيع، بل لا تجرؤ، على فحص مؤخرات الصينيين والروس والهنود، لان حكومات هذه البلدان سترفض مثل هذا الاجراء، او ترد عليه بالمعاملة بالمثل، اي فحص مؤخرات جميع الامريكيين الزائرين لها.
وربما يجادل الامريكيون بأن مواطني الصين والهند وروسيا لم ينفذوا تفجيرات الحادي عشر من ايلول (سبتمبر) عام 2001 التي أودت بحياة ثلاثة آلاف شخص، ولم يكن من بينهم ريتشارد ريد صاحب 'الحذاء الملغوم' الذي حاول تفجير نفسه فوق المحيط الاطلسي، او عمر الفاروق عبد المطلب الطالب النيجيري الذي فشل في تفجير طائرة 'نورث ويست ايرلاينز' الامريكية فوق ديترويت.
هذا الجدل ينطوي على الكثير من وجهات النظر الصحيحة، ولكن هناك فرقا بين اهانة المسافرين، وفضح عوراتهم، والتدخل في ادق خصوصياتهم الجسدية، واتباع اجراءات امنية تحفظ كرامة هؤلاء، وتصون اعراضهم، ولا تعرضهم لمثل هذه الاحراجات المهينة.
نحن مع اي اجراء امني يحفظ حياة المدنيين طالما انه وفق القواعد المقبولة والمحترمة، ويجري تطبيقه على الجميع دون اي تمييز بسبب العرق او اللون او الديانة.
اننا نطالب الدول العربية والاسلامية الموضوعة على لائحة التفتيش الامريكية الجديدة بالتداعي الى لقاء سريع لبحث هذه المسألة واتخاذ خطوات جماعية موحدة لمواجهتها، لأن العمل الجماعي هو الوحيد الذي يعطي مفعوله ويحفظ كرامة المواطنين وعوراتهم.
المعاملة بالمثل هي التقليد المتبع في التعامل بين الدول، وهناك مئات الآلاف من الامريكيين الذين يعملون في دول اسلامية وعربية، بل ويرتكب بعضهم جرائم حرب دون اي مسوغات قانونية او تفويض دولي، وهؤلاء يجب ان يتعرضوا، دون غيرهم من الركاب، للاجراءات نفسها التي تطبقها دولتهم في تفتيش الرعايا العرب والمسلمين.
"

Here is another source which confirms the accuracy of the report in Al-Quds Al-Arabi:

فحص مهين للمسافرين من 14 دولة عربية وإسلامية بمطارات أمريكا.. من ضمنها فحص المؤخرات

"سعود المشهداني : زودت السلطات الأمريكية سلطات الطيران المدني في 14 دولة غالبيتها عربية قائمة احتوت على محظورات يفترض تطبيقها على الرحلات المتوجهة إلى الولايات المتحدة.
وتشتمل هذه المحظورات على إجراءات تفتيش مهينة مثل تفتيش المؤخرات، وتقييد حركة الركاب في الطائرة، والحد من مرات دخولهم دورات المياه، وتعرية الجسد بالإشعاع.

وذكرت هيئة الطيران المدني السعودي أنها تسلمت قائمة المحظورات الأمريكية مثلها و13 دولة عربية وإسلامية وأجنبية.
وقالت الهيئة في بيان أصدرته إن المحظورات الجديدة المفترض تطبيقها على الراغبين في السفر إلى الولايات المتحدة تشمل تفتيش مؤخرة الراكب.

ويشمل القرار السعودية والجزائر ولبنان وليبيا والعراق ونيجيريا وباكستان والسودان وأفغانستان والصومال وسوريا واليمن وإيران وكوبا.
...."

Holocaust Day Invited Raises Storm in Israel

Should Arab MP be at Auschwitz?

By JONATHAN COOK
CounterPunch

(Left: Mohammed Barakeh is the leader of the Communist Party.)

".....Other Arab public figures in Israel have been critical. In a commentary, Zuheir Androus, editor of a newspaper in Galilee, reminded Mr Barakeh that his family came from Saffuriya, a Palestinian village close to Nazareth that was ethnically cleansed during the Nakba, the Palestinian name for the 1948 war that founded Israel.

He wrote: “We should be asking Barakeh why he needs to take part in an official Israeli Knesset delegation to the death camp, while other [legislators] in the delegation prevent us, Arab Palestinians, from mentioning the 1948 Nakba.”

Israeli legislators have been seeking to outlaw commemorations of the Nakba.

Mr Abdel Fattah said that, while it was compulsory for Arab children to learn about the Holocaust, the Nakba was excluded from the curriculum in both Arab and Jewish schools.

“The demand from Israel that we recognise Jewish suffering in the Holocaust while we are required to deny our own people’s suffering in the Nakba is just another form of loyalty test,” he said. Far-right parties in the government have proposed that Arab citizens be required to take a loyalty oath or perform national service.

“Barakeh should remember that Israel wants to reshape our political and national identity and is using the Holocaust to do that.”......"

When Scholars Join the Slaughter

Tuesday 26 January 2010
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t Report

"A core tenet of the Obama administration's plans for "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan is an increased reliance on counterinsurgency.

As previously reported on this web site, the US military has sent shock troops - anthropologists, sociologists and social psychologists - with their own troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, who also donned helmets and flak jackets. By the end of 2007, American scholars in these fields were embedding with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a Pentagon program called Human Terrain System (HTS), which evolved shortly thereafter into a $40 million program that embedded four or five person groups of scholars in the aforementioned fields in all 26 US combat brigades that were busily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. The program is currently comprised of approximately 400 employees, and is actively seeking new recruits......"

Zelaya to Leave Honduras As Coup Leaders Cleared

"In Honduras, ousted president Manuel Zelaya is due to leave the country today after president-elect Porfirio Lobo is sworn into office. Zelaya has taken refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since returning to Honduras in September. On Tuesday, the Honduran Supreme Court dismissed all charges against six military commanders involved in the June 28th coup that removed Zelaya from office. We go inside the Brazilian embassy to speak with Democracy Now’s Andres Conteris....."

Circles within circles around the Taliban

By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times

"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Britain will be the key partners of the United States at the high-powered gathering in London this week to discuss, among other issues on Afghanistan, reconciliation talks with the Taliban. There are several potential spoilers to this display of "smart power", among them Iran, Russia and China, not to mention the very people at whom the talks are aimed......"