Palestinian Pundit

AN IMPORTANT PIECE

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 6 January 2011

"Bashar Masri, the Palestinian businessman and CEO of the company that is developing the Rawabi luxury real estate project in the occupied West Bank, appears to be actively helping Israel deepen its hold on the Palestinian economy despite his earlier claims that he is trying to help end this relationship.

On 30 December, The Electronic Intifada reported that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in Palestine had expressed serious concerns following reports that a dozen Israeli companies have been contracted to take part in the construction of Rawabi, billed as the "first planned Palestinian city" ("Role of Israeli firms raises boycott concerns about Rawabi").

In comments sent to The Electronic Intifada prior to the 30 December article, Masri claimed that using Israeli firms was a matter of necessity due to severe Israeli restrictions on the Palestinian economy in the occupied West Bank......

But in fact Masri appears to have made the choice to work closely with the Israeli government and businesses in order to bring even more Israeli companies into the occupied West Bank. This not only makes it harder for Palestinian firms to establish themselves against Israeli businesses which have a built-in advantage since Israel is the occupying power, but is in flagrant violation of the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions.

On 28 January 2010, for example, Masri gave a talk in Tel Aviv co-hosted by the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce and a body called the Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce, titled "Prospects for Investing in the Palestinian Authority." .....

The Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce (IPCC) appears to be a body established and controlled by Israel to facilitate even deeper Israeli control and exploitation of the Palestinian economy. One of its projects, for example, is to produce a "Palestinian Business Guide" to help Israeli firms benefit from the advantages that military occupation as well as collaboration between the occupation army and Palestinian Authority security forces confer on them. As stated on the IPCC website.....

IPCC also says it works closely with the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs. It was launched at a May 2009 "gala" in Tel Aviv, attended by Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon of the notoriously racist Yisrael Beiteinu party. More than 200 Israeli businesspersons attended the gala and among the thirty or so Palestinians who attended, according to the IPCC website, were Bashar Masri, Nafez Hirbawi, Ziad al-Bandak and Mahmoud Abu Ein, all businessmen with close ties to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas. Al-Bandak is a longtime advisor to Abbas and former PA minister.

Underlining that IPCC is part and parcel of the Israeli occupation, the organization's CEO is none other than Israeli Lt. Col (ret) Avi Nudelman who, according to his resume on the IPCC website, spent most of his military career either in intelligence or as a military ruler in the occupied West Bank. In 1998 Nudelman "served as the head of the security coordination office (DCO) in the Ramallah district, and later the head of the liaison for the Palestinian security apparatus in the West Bank." From 2003-06, Nudelman "served in the Strategic Division in the IDF [Israeli army] as the head of the Palestinian branch," according to the IPCC website.....

As The Electronic Intifada also reported on 30 December, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) specifically criticized Masri's Rawabi project for decisions that "undermine the boycott campaign and principles of national consensus among Palestinians, as well as promot[ing] a 'business-as-usual' approach to Israel."....

Masri previously confirmed to The Electronic Intifada reports that he had hired Weisglass, now a private attorney, to assist Masri in a failed bid to purchase a financially-troubled Israeli settlement housing project in Jabal Mukaber, occupied East Jerusalem. Masri, however, did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this article.

The 2005 Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions urges a complete economic, academic and cultural boycott of Israel -- modeled on the one that helped end apartheid in South Africa -- until Israel respects and recognizes Palestinian rights and complies with international law.

Masri as well as other Palestinian businessmen who promote normalization with Israel seem to be doing all they can to undermine this campaign, while making handsome profits along the way."

by Ira Chernus
CommonDreams

"The Israeli peace movement is coming back to life, and it's a very courteous movement indeed. When activists find things marked "Made in USA" lying on the ground they deliver them directly to the U.S. ambassador to Israel. The other night they returned a bunch of empty tear gas canisters, all marked "made in USA," fired by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. They're used to break up nonviolent protests against the Israeli-built wall that is tearing Palestinian life apart.

One canister made in the USA killed Jawaher Abu Rahmah, in the village of Bil'in, on the last day of 2010. Another one killed Jawaher's brother, Bassem, in April, 2009.

Apparently the ambassador did not appreciate the courteous gesture. The police quickly arrived, broke up the action, arrested eleven people, and found a way to keep them jailed on trumped up charges.

But these canisters, and the Israeli soldiers who shoot them, don't discriminate against Palestinians. American-made tear gas canisters are used against American citizens too.
Just a few days before Bassem Abu Rahmah was killed by a tear gas canister blow to the chest, an American volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, Tristan Anderson, was hit in the head by the same kind of canister in the village of Nil'in. Anderson survived, though surgeons had to remove part of his brain. Another American, Emily Henochowicz, lost her eye in June, 2010 when she was hit by a tear gas canister during a protest at a West Bank checkpoint......."

"A vulture was held in custody by Saudi Arabian security services on suspicion of spying for the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

The bird was captured in the rural city of Hyaal by residents who became suspicious when they noticed it was carrying a GPS transmitter and a tag from Tel Aviv University. The vulture's captors told Al-Weeam newspaper that they raised the alarm with authorities because they feared the vulture could be part of a "Zionist plot". Wildlife experts stressed the equipment found merely signified the bird was part of a migration study. "

السعودية تعتقل نسرا "عميلا" للموساد

This poll deals with Sudan; it asks:

Does the referendum about the future of southern Sudan benefit the country?

With over 1,500 responding, 80% said no.

Firas Al-Atraqchi
The Huffington Post
Courtesy of Uruknet.info

".....Unfortunately, there are some who have inflated Muqtada's status as a revolutionary and his street battles with US forces as uprisings. They were never uprisings but merely a show of force by a man using the established clerical reputation of his family to gain a foothold among some of Iraq's Shia, position himself as a resistance leader and earn dividends both in Iran and among Iraq's disenfranchised.

His militia is comprised not of revolutionary nationalists but is a ragtag force of high school drop-outs, brigands, and common criminals; it is no threat to a regular army and was routed even by the then poorly-trained Iraqi army. However, the police, security and armed forces have been infiltrated by thousands of Sadrists in the past five years.

American strategists can claim victory in replacing a secular dictator with a theocratic one. In the meantime, the trap has been sprung and all Iraqis are living the nightmare."

"The manifesto that an anonymous group of Gazan students, called Gaza Youth Breaks Out, issued three weeks ago showing their despair over the living conditions in the strip, has captivated thousands of supporters worldwide, The Guardian echoed.

The cyber-activists wrote the Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change as a way to show their anger with the status quo and gather support within international human rights organizations. Facebook has been their platform boot, in which they already have thousands of friends.

Meeting with the Spanish journalist Ana Carbajosa, the activists, who prefer to remain anonymous, claimed that they do not represent anybody except themselves and admitted they are excited but also frightened by the impact of the text.

"Not only are our lives in danger; we are also putting our families at risk," one of them claimed.

In the Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change, the group aims to make it clear that they have had enough....."

By Ramzy Baroud
Palestine Chronicle

"....At first Arafat seemed to have a strategy: get some and demand more. But the concessions never stopped, and Arafat was constantly paraded following US demands. In return, he received very little, aside from, 6 years later, a Palestinian Authority that was merely responsible for managing small, disconnected, ‘autonomous’ areas in the West Bank and Gaza. The once glorious moment of independence was left at only that - a fleeting moment. Its political potential was prematurely and cleverly co-opted by US ‘engagement’, which yielded the Oslo agreement. Oslo, in turn, led to many disasters, which we are still witnessing today....."

by Philip Giraldi, January 06, 2011

"......The sorry state of American jurisprudence and vanishing liberties under Bush-Obama would rather suggest that the pot not be calling the kettle black, but, alas, the pumped-up-by-hubris elected and appointed leaders in Washington do not know the meaning of the expression "shut up." One would think they might be less tone deaf at a time when they are seeking a phony legal formula to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but that would suppose that someone in the federal bureaucracy actually knows what he is doing.

The latest case of foot in mouth involves Russia. The US media has been reporting critically on the recent conviction in Moscow of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of embezzlement and money laundering. Khodorkovsky had earlier been convicted of fraud and tax evasion in 2005 and has been in jail ever since. The conviction prompted commentary from no less than Hillary Clinton who said it "raises serious questions about selective prosecution – and the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations" while the White House saw "…due process violations and what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends." In some accounts there are suggestions that the Administration will block Russian entry into the World Trade Organization to punish Moscow for its failure to establish an "independent judiciary" and a "rule of law."

Now excuse me, one might well ask why the Clintons and Obamas of this world feel themselves empowered to criticize legal procedures in another country involving a citizen of that country while failing to protect actual American citizens like Rachel Corrie, but it is quite likely a question not worth exploring. If there is some net gain attainable by antagonizing Russia unnecessarily it is difficult to determine what exactly that might be. The Clinton/Obama comments also reveal a profound level of ignorance about recent history. Russia was looted by the so-called oligarchs in the 1990s and Hillary Clinton should be asking how it was that Mikhail Khodorkovsky became one of the richest men in the world in little more than ten years, starting as a salesman for used computer parts. His business acumen must have been truly remarkable, but he also received more than a little well documented assistance from international organized crime. The fact is that Khodorkovsky is guilty of all charges and possibly some others to include torture, criminal conspiracy, and homicide and there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that he stole upwards of $15 billion from the Russian people. If Clinton and Obama had bothered to check they almost certainly would have discovered a file on Khodorkovsky’s activities about a foot thick at the FBI offices on Pennsylvania Avenue. Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s move to hold the oligarchs accountable for their crimes, which included multiple murders in addition to massive corruption and fraud, is extremely popular and so it should be. Most oligarchs have fled to Western Europe or to Israel to avoid prosecution.

So why the sympathy in the media and within government circles for the oligarchs? Well, it is the usual nonsense. Hardliners in Washington, many of whom are our good old friendly neocons, need an enemy and Russia was available. Some have also cleverly woven into their narrative the theme of anti-Semitism, always available when all else fails. The fact is that most oligarchs and their enablers from the West who looted Russia were Jewish and a number were Israeli citizens. But they were also criminals. The two facts are not necessarily congruent, but if apologists for Khodorkovsky can twist reality to make it look as if someone is planning a pogrom, so much the better. What we are seeing is the usual neocon narrative: come up with a viable enemy to justify those huge defense budgets and label him an anti-Semite to make the story even more compelling.

Ironically, Hillary Clinton’s own State Department, which interviewed an international observer at the trial, reported that the legal proceedings seemed to be fair. Russian courts are not US courts but that might actually be an advantage given what we Americans have seen lately. In one respect at least their judicial system has to be regarded as better: they no longer have gulags while we Americans have offshore and secret prisons in Guantanamo and elsewhere. But the real question has to be, why are we again interfering in something that we only dimly understand when we just might leave it alone? Who named us the Lord High Executioner for the entire world? It is the ultimate tragedy, what the Greeks would call nemesis, that a nation that once prided itself as a shining city on the hill or as "indispensable" can now be summed up with another word. That word is "rogue.""

Amira Hass
New Statesman

"........In Gaza slang, the drone is referred to as zanana. "There are three kinds of zan­ana," a low-ranking Hamas official told me shortly after the end of the 2008-2009 offensive. "One watches over us and photographs every move, every person; the second fires missiles at us . . ." He paused, then added with typical Gazan drollness: "And the third kind? Its whole purpose is to annoy us, to drive us crazy." And he expertly mimicked the humming sound made by the latest word in postmodern warfare.

The zanana isn't always heard or seen but you know it's there because of the disruptions to television broadcasts. It has been a central component in the process of turning Gaza into a vast panopticon, a detention camp under constant supervision and increasingly invisible control. Every move is photographed, documented and transferred on to computer screens in control rooms populated by young Israeli men and women who, with a few keyboard strokes, turn the zanana from voyeuristic, annoying objects into the lethal kind. The footage is backed up by old-fashioned verbal information gathered by various mechanisms of the occupation, primarily the Israeli Civil Administration and the Shin Bet, which are responsible for every civilian document (identity cards, travel permits, promissory notes for goods) and are assisted by a network of collaborators.

In the days leading up to the offensive, people noticed more persistent humming. They grew more anxious - and rightly so. Now every increase in the sound reawakens fears of another all-out attack. It's been two years, and even a thunderstorm or a slammed door can stir up the sense of dread inside Gaza....

“In Israel they were living in a virtual reality, believing there was an actual war going on in Gaza," said some of the soldiers who took part in the offensive, whom I met through Breaking the Silence. They very quickly discovered that, contrary to what they had been told by their commanders, Hamas was not waging an intense or determined war against them. A Palestinian security man told me there had been a conscious decision in Hamas not to sacrifice its finest combatants in such a lopsided war. The organisation was well aware that it could not deliver the goods it had promised the Palestinian public for two years - that is, "surprises in warfare".

Still, immediately the offensive ended, Hamas declared victory. "In 1967 Israel subdued all the Arab armies in six days, but it could not conquer the Gaza Strip from us even after three weeks," its spokespeople said. But people in Gaza preferred to quote an old man who courageously proclaimed on television: "One more victory like this and all of Gaza will be wiped out."

An officer who broke the silence told me that he felt as though he had taken part in a military exercise using live fire, whose aim was to improve and upgrade operational commu­nications between Israeli ground forces and the Israeli air force. As more preparation for wars to come, perhaps?"

The Independent

"....The arrival of Sadr is viewed as boosting prime minister Nouri al-Maliki as he tries to form a coalition after months of impasse following national elections last March. In return for their support, the Sadrist movement, which has 39 seats in parliament, will be given seven ministries.
The US, which has officially ended its combat mission in Iraq, still views Sadr with suspicion. However, senior figures in the Obama administration are said to feel that it is better for the cleric, who has a large following among the poor and dispossessed Shia population, to be back in Iraq, away from direct Iranian influence [you must be kidding!]....

In 2008 Iraqi government forces, backed by the Americans, and later the British, drove the Mehdi Army out of Basra after an intense battle. But while Sadr's military power suffered a setback, his political reach continued to grow as Maliki needed his support to hold together his Shia coalition. Sadr subsequently announced from the Iranian city of Qom, where he had taken up residence, that his militia would devote itself to humanitarian [and cultural? How about the arts? Such as the art of drilling into living humans with electric drills?] work.....

Ibrahim al-Sumaidaie, an analyst, said: "Moqtada has made sure that he returns as an important partner in parliament, and the executive power. The Americans will not object to his return, he will be out of Iran and he will act according to Iraqi priorities."

But Iran, which like Iraq has a Shia majority, has seen its influence grow in the affairs of its neighbour since the US led invasion of 2003, and it continues to take a close interest in Iraqi politics.

Yesterday the new Iranian acting foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, was first senior official from Tehran to visit Baghdad since the formation of the new Iraqi government."

Why all this silence? Why all this apathy? Do we care about anything anymore, besides filling our bellies? Are we a people anymore? Are we a society anymore?

These Palestinian Christians are Arabs and have been in Palestine since before there were Muslims in Palestine! For example, many Palestinian Christians are descendants of the Ghassanids (Arabic: الغساسنة‎), who came to Syria/Jordan/Palestine in the 3rd century AD, from Yemen! They did not come from the Vatican nor from Washington, D.C.
"....
لكن المفاجئ لدينا في قطاع غزة أنه في اليوم الذي أصدرت فيه جماعة الدعوة السلفية في الإسكندرية بياناً تدين فيه تفجير كنيسة الإسكندرية، واعتبرته مفتاح شر على البلاد والعباد وما سيعود بالمفاسد على المجتمع كله وفتح الباب لاتهام المسلمين، صدر بيان آخر في مدينة غزة عن تنظيم قاعدة الجهاد في أرض الرباط، جاء فيه "نستنكر ما قد أصدرته المحكمة المدنية بغزة بالحكم على أحد الإخوة المسلمين بالإعدام وذلك لقيامه بقتل شخص صليبي وما يدعونه بأنه ينتمي إلي الطائفة النصرانية أو أنه كتابي، ونوجه رسالتنا في هذا البيان إلى الصليبيين بعامة وإلى من هم في غزة بخاصة بأنهم خرجوا من عقد الذمة مع المسلمين".

وحذر البيان الحكومة في غزة من تنفيذ حكم الإعدام بحق المتهم المسلم بقتل المواطن الغزي المسيحي، وأن تنفيذ الحكم ستكون عواقبه وخيمة على الطائفة المسيحية في قطاع غزة.

خوف الناس في القطاع نابع من خطورة البيان الصادر عن تنظيم قاعدة الجهاد، والذي يفهم منه أنه مؤيد لجريمة الإسكندرية، ومهدد في الوقت ذاته الأشقاء المسيحيين في قطاع غزة، الذين هم مواطنون فلسطينيون أصيلون، ولم نشعر في غزة في أي يوم من الأيام أنهم أقلية كما يحاول البعض وصفهم بأنهم وافدون من الخارج وتوطنوا في غزة.

البيان الصادر خطير جدا ويدق ناقوس الخطر ليس لدينا في غزة فقط، ويدعو ليس للتحريض على المسيحيين بل إلى استهدافهم، وإفراغ غزة منهم، فعدد المسيحيين في قطاع غزة في تناقص كبير، وغادر القطاع عدد غير قليل منهم خوفا على حياتهم بعد مقتل الشاب رامي عياد قبل عامين، وتعرض المسيحيون وبعض المؤسسات لاعتداءات عدة، ولم يحكم أي من الذين قاموا بتلك الاعتداءات بحقهم.

فالعنف ضد المسيحيين في تزايد، واذا لم نقف جميعاً في مواجهة ذلك سيطال باقي فئات المجتمع الفلسطيني وليس المسيحيين فحسب، فكلنا في القطاع نتحمل مسؤولية تلك الاعتداءات، وإفراغ القطاع منهم وكأننا نتخلى عنهم ونساعد في ذلك، فالتهديد جديد قديم للمسيحيين عندما يتم اعتبارهم خارجين عن عقد الذمة مع المسلمين كما وصفهم البيان.

نحن نتحمل المسؤولية في أننا غذينا وساهمنا من خلال تربيتنا المدرسية والإسلامية الخاطئة بتغذية العنف والتشدد والتطرف، واستهداف المسلمين والمسيحيين وتهديهم، نتحمل المسؤولية عندما تحدثنا للعالم بأن غزة هي وكر للقاعدة منذ عدة سنوات، وغذت ذلك بعض الأطراف في الأجهزة الأمنية الفلسطينية، ودعمت بعض الجماعات الإسلامية المتطرفة بطريقة مباشرة وغير مباشرة انتقاما من حماس، وليس حبا في تلك الجماعات.

وتتحمل المسؤولية حركة حماس وحكومتها من خلال مسؤوليتها عن حفظ الأمن وتوفيره للمواطنين، وعدم إنفاذ القانون بحق من ارتكبوا جرائم بحق الناس عامة سواء كانوا مسلمين أو مسيحيين، كما يتحمل المسؤولية المجتمع الدولي في صمته ومشاركته في الجرائم المستمرة التي ترتكبها دولة الاحتلال من استمرار العدوان وفرض الحصار على القطاع غزة، ما يعزز من العنف والتشدد لدى فئات كبيرة من الشباب.

نتحمل المسؤولية في استمرار الانقسام وزيادة حدة العنف، في ظل استمرار الاحتلال والحصار، وزيادة نسب الفقر والبطالة وحالة الإحباط العام والتشرذم وتفرغ طرفي الانقسام للردح السياسي وتبادل الاتهامات، والمجتمع الفلسطيني ينهار من دون أن نتحرك لوقف هذا العبث بمصيرنا، فمن حق الناس في غزة أن يذعروا من ما يجري في فلسطين وفي غزة على وجه الخصوص."

Al-Manar

"Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr returned Wednesday to Iraq where he received a hero's welcome in his stronghold of Najaf after nearly four years outside the country. "Sayyed Moqtada al-Sadr has returned to his home in Najaf. He arrived about 3:00 pm (1200 GMT) with several leaders from the Sadr movement," a source in his movement said, adding Sadr was not visiting but had returned to stay......"

Cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv says Israeli officials wanted Gaza's economy 'functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.'

Reuters

"Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza's economy "on the brink of collapse" while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday.

Three cables cited by the Aftenposten newspaper, which has said it has all 250,000 U.S. cables leaked to WikiLeaks, showed that Israel kept the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv briefed on its internationally criticized blockade of the Gaza Strip...."

By Ikhras.com

"After reading with pleasure this comment (see our previous post below) on the Angry Arab Blog we asked Professor As’ad AbuKhalil to expand on the meaning of the “weak Arab-American”, a topic that goes to the heart of what Ikhras is about. He kindly responded with the following:

A weak Arab-American is somebody who believes himself/herself inferior to other Americans. Weak Arab Americans tend to concentrate in Washington, DC. They feel elation around people with power in the city, and are willing to prostrate very low for a mere photo-op with any American official–even if an assistant secretary to an assistant secretary to a deputy secretary. Weak Arab Americans are ashamed of Arab support for the Palestinian cause and spend careers trying to distance themselves from passions of Arab people, and from their own past passions. Weak Arab Americans line up to talk to Israelis because they hope this will enhance their stature in the eyes of US officials. They are the ones who think that a “gala” in a fancy hotel in Washington, DC is the best path for the liberation of Palestine. They also feel really good about themselves in tuxedos: it makes them feel closer to the White Man. Weak Arab Americans are fans of US puppets in the Middle East: they promote Dahlan when Bush promoted him, and then they promote Fayyad when Obama promotes him. If orders come, they discard Dahlan. They are also keen on obeying Saudi oil money (UAE oil money is just as good). Look around you: weak Arab Americans are reminding someone for the umpteenth times that they are Americans, damn it."

By Belén Fernández
Palestine Chronicle

".....It is for his commitment to reporting the truth that Levy has been distinguished, along with his Haaretz colleague Amira Hass, as one of PULSE’s Top 10 Global Thinkers of 2010, compiled in response to Foreign Policy’s second annual publication of a farcical list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. Other recent distinctions bestowed on Levy include being singled out for a sarcastic personalized greeting from former Israeli President Moshe Katsav at the Tel Aviv District Court the other morning, on the occasion of the Katsav’s conviction for rape. (See Levy’s response here: “Good morning to you too”, and “Take full responsibility for your deeds”.)

I spoke Sunday evening on the phone with Levy, who had spent the day in the West Bank—where Israel continues to pursue the decimation of the Palestinian Abu Rahmah family via tear gas and related paraphernalia. On the subject of the “brainwashing machinery” which propagates the Israeli conviction of a permanent monopoly on victimhood and which Levy has described as being “so efficient that trying [to undo it is] almost like trying to turn an omelette back to an egg” (see Johann Hari’s excellent interview in The Independent), Levy had the following to say:

“GL: [Brainwashing is] mainly taking place in the media and in the education system. And it’s an ongoing process. It [involves] adopting the language of the occupation, the laundering of words and perceptions. [As for] the way that the occupation is being covered in the media—mainly the way it is being not covered in the media—you can take the flotilla as an example, or you can take Operation Cast Lead as an example. The way these [events] were presented to Israeli public opinion was totally different than what the world saw.”

In other words, while the rest of the world saw IDF commandos attacking humanitarian activists on the Mavi Marmara last May, Israelis were encouraged to see the inverse relationship. While the rest of the world saw Palestinian civilians perishing at an alarming rate during Cast Lead, Levy points out that the death of an Israeli dog by Qassam rocket was treated as front-page news by certain Israeli media......"

The toppling of Saddam's statue as metaphor

by Justin Raimondo, January 05, 2011

"The complete phoniness of the toppling of Saddam’s statue was exposed by this web site and others when it occurred, but now Peter Maass, writing in the New Yorker, is calling the stage-managed nature of that operation into question. While not contesting that the narrative symbolized by the imagery was misleading, Maass avers it wasn’t the US government, but the Western media that – without much prompting – obligingly created and broadcast a carefully-cropped image of a nearly empty square to give the impression that US soldiers were being greeted by the Iraqis as “liberators.” As Maass puts it, the real significance of the statue toppling was that the Americans had taken central Baghdad, and yet......

Who were these Iraqis? Reading Maass, one would simply assume they were random residents of Baghdad, curiosity seekers out on a lark, but a look at these photos disabuses us of this notion. They were members of the Iraqi National Congress – those now-infamous “heroes in error” – who had played a key role in the “weapons of mass destruction” deception and were being groomed by the neocons to take power in post-Saddam Iraq. Along with their leader, the wanted embezzler and suspected Iranian agent Ahmed Chalabi, 700 INC “fighters” were flown into Nasiriyah by the Pentagon a few days before, and were whisked to Baghdad, where they arrived just in time for their Big Media Moment.

In short, these Iraqis were on the American payroll – and simply doing their job.

That the English-speaking media were also doing their job – which is, as we all know, to parrot the line their governments were putting out – comes as no surprise. As Glenn Greenwald has noted, the links between our government and the “mainstream” media have become so intimate that one can can fairly speak of an informal “merger.” Yet we ought not to disappear the governmental aspect of this untoward symbiosis. We need to ask: how is it that practically the entire membership of the Iraqi National Congress wound up in that square, on that day, while ordinary Iraqis were being blocked by US tanks?......."

Muslim-Coptic tension is just one aspect of a wider turmoil that will worsen until real democracy takes hold

A GOOD COMMENT
Osama Diab
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 4 January 2011

"....Let's put this in context by looking at the lengths to which the security apparatus is willing to go to protect the regime. Road closures in Egypt are usually not the result of roadworks, but of completely emptying the streets for some government minister to drive home. The city is often paralysed when the president decides to run errands with his car instead of his helicopter. Also, try putting a handful of Egyptians on the streets with banners and before you notice, the few protesters will be surrounded, if not beaten up and arrested, by hundreds, if not thousands, of riot police.

But this comes as no surprise from a security system that has shifted its priorities from criminal investigation and regular policing to a politically motivated agenda that focuses on protecting an ailing regime that in turn focuses on nothing but its own survival in the face of growing opposition and political dissidence.

The eruption of sectarian tension is, therefore, only one part of a bigger problem. After 30 years in power, the Mubarak regime has proved unable and unwilling to find new and creative solutions for Egypt's critical issues.......

In short, these are all signs Egypt is turning into a failed state. The 2009 Failed States Index ranked in the "warning" category – 43rd from the bottom (out of 177 countries). Sectarian tension and violence is one indicator of state failure, where the security system and political leadership distance themselves from the people's affairs and in many cases work against their interests.

We should not blame it all on sectarian tension alone: the Muslim-Coptic tension is just one aspect of wider political turmoil and social disturbance. As long as this lifeless regime is in power, the unrest is likely to grow – especially in the runup to the presidential elections later this year. The regime's inability to improve the people's standard of living, to enforce the rule of law, and to address racial, religious, social and gender-based discrimination is the root of all threats facing Egyptians today.

Consequently, in order for Coptic Christians to gain their rights, they need to fight the more broad "Egyptian cause" – alongside Muslims, Baha'is and seculars – instead of fighting their "Coptic cause" on their own. Copts will not gain their rights in a vacuum, and if they did, they would turn into a privileged group, further reinforcing their position as a targeted group. Until real democracy is established, the situation will continue to get worse on all levels; the Coptic issue, again, being just one of them."

Israel is gearing up for another major offensive into Gaza, yet the world community still remains bafflingly silent.

Richard Falk
Al-Jazeera

"It is dismaying that during this dark anniversary period two years after the launch of the deadly attacks on the people of Gaza - code-named Operation Cast Lead by the Israelis - that there should be warnings of a new massive attack on the beleaguered people of Gaza.

The influential Israeli journalist, Ron Ren-Yishai, writes on December 29, 2010, of the likely prospect of a new major IDF attack, quoting senior Israeli military officers as saying "It's not a question of if, but rather of when," a view that that is shared, according to Ren-Yishai, by "government ministers, Knesset members and municipal heads in the Gaza region".

The bloody-minded Israeli Chief of Staff, Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi, reinforces this expectation by his recent assertion that, "as long as Gilad Shalit is still in captivity, the mission is not complete". He adds with unconscious irony, "we have not lost our right of self-defence".

More accurate would be the assertion, "we have not given up our right to wage aggressive war or to commit crimes against humanity".

And what of the more than 10,000 Palestinians, including children under the age of 10, being held in Israeli prisons throughout occupied Palestine?....."

By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer

"The corporatists and fascists who have steered Europe into bankruptcy are now using their media assets to morph their favorite threat over the last two decades -- Islamist terrorism -- to a combined menace of Islamist terrorists teamed up with an international network of anarchists. The change of threat was necessary with corporatists and fascist-led governments in Europe besieged by workers and students who are militantly opposed to severe cuts in social spending that were dictated from supranational institutions in order to financially bail out greedy bankers and their lackeys in governments....."

By Gareth Porter
Asia Times

"Member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization say they are in Afghanistan because operations there against the Taliban-led insurgency are vital to their security. But highly placed sources insist that the real motive behind NATO's Afghan war is a desperate bid to keep a moribund military alliance alive.....

But Canadian General Rick Hillier, who commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan from February to August 2004 and was later chief of staff of the Canadian Armed Forces from 2005 to 2008, wrote in his memoir A Soldier First, published in 2009, that NATO was an unmitigated disaster in Afghanistan.

He recalled that when it formally accepted responsibility for Afghanistan in 2003, NATO had "no strategy, no clear articulation of what it wanted to achieve" and that its performance was "abysmal".

Hillier said the situation "remains unchanged" after several years of NATO responsibility for Afghanistan. NATO had "started down a road that destroyed much of its credibility and in the end eroded support for the mission in every nation in the alliance," Hillier wrote.

"Afghanistan has revealed," wrote Hillier, "that NATO has reached the stage where it is a corpse decomposing""

Joseph Dana, The Electronic Intifada, 3 January 2011

(Joseph Dana is a Media Coordinator of the Popular Struggle
Coordination Committee.)

""I am in shock, we are in shock," Hamde Abu Rahmah told me as we stood outside the small cemetery in Bilin where 36-year-old Jawaher Abu Rahmah was buried on Saturday. One day earlier, on 31 December, Jawaher was killed after inhaling US-made tear-gas fired by Israeli soldiers at demonstrators in the occupied West Bank village. Jawaher's brother Bassem was killed by Israeli occupation forces in a similar manner in 2009.....

A symbol of resistance

Jawaher Abu Rahmah's death is the latest evidence of Israel's full-scale war against the defenseless Palestinian people living under occupation.

Bilin has become an international symbol of Palestinian nonviolent resistance because of its six-year struggle against the Israeli wall in the West Bank. In 2007, villagers celebrated a small victory when the Israeli high court ruled that the route of the wall in Bilin was illegal and requested the army to change its path. However, the wall's route has not been changed and as a result the protests have continued......

by Ray McGovern, January 04, 2011

"Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can get a better grasp on the futility of his Afghan War strategy.

For instance, if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has hidden from him Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s cables from Kabul, he might wish to search out KABUL 001892 of July 13, 2009, in which Eikenberry reports that......

Facades of Empire

Washington’s present course in Central Asia can be much more logically understood if the real goals of the violence are to achieve what an empire requires in terms of military bases, natural resources, strategic interests and further enrichment of the super-wealthy.

This is to explain, not to defend. And, in case you’re wondering, my view is that these goals are both morally indefensible and unachievable in the longer run.

Combine them, however, with back-home political interests – Democrats fearful of being called out by Republicans and the Right as weak on defense and soft on terror – and you have a better sense of why the Afghan War drags on.

Americans have been generally inclined to give the government and its official explanation for war the benefit of the doubt – but only for so long. Many are now coming around to the realization they’ve been had.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey of Americans conducted from Dec. 17 to 19 (immediately after Obama’s public reassurances), 63 percent of the respondents expressed opposition to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan – an all-time high.

For those who think Afghan opinion also matters, recent polling conducted by the BBC, ABC, and other news organizations shows that, in provinces where there is the most fighting, the proportion of people approving of attacks on U.S. troops has risen from 12 to 40 percent in the last year.

Since Gen. Petraeus loves metrics for gauging the progress of his counterinsurgency strategies, he might want to put those numbers into one of his PowerPoint displays about his success at winning hearts and minds......"

A recent wave of unrest belies the myth of a Tunisian miracle, and offers a stark warning

Soumaya Ghannoushi
The Guardian, Tuesday 4 January 2011

"......Journalists have fared no better. No other Arab country has imprisoned more journalists since 2000. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists has declared the regime to be one of the world's 10 worst enemies of the press. Tellingly, the only images of the current protests have been captured on mobile- phone cameras and released on the web, as no foreign reporters are allowed into the country. Only North Korea can compete with Tunisia in this regard.

Ben Ali may have brought the stability desired by his foreign backers, but it was the stability of the dead, of graves and cemeteries.

Amid the wreckage of political life, Tunisia's general grapples with two phenomena of his own making. The first is the rise of violent anarchist groups associated with al-Qaida, which have emerged in the vacuum generated by his eradication policy. The second is rage at corruption, unemployment and government repression, which has erupted in the past few weeks.

Events in Tunisia are symptomatic of what lies ahead. Arab rulers have striven to kill politics in all its forms. But as they do away with organised mainstream parties and associations, they will find themselves, like Ben Ali, face to face with a younger generation mobilised by feelings of frustration and humiliation, and yearning for revenge. And when all vessels of movement and expression are shut off, explosions and eruptions become the only possibility left."

Al-Manar

"04/01/2011 Head of the Iranian delegation with the Asia to Gaza Solidarity Caravan, (Asia 1) says Egypt's decision to block Iranian humanitarian aid from reaching the Gaza Strip is a pro-Israeli effort.

We expected Egyptian officials to cooperate and accept Iran's humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, since this is a humane effort to exhibit solidarity with the people of Gaza, Hassan Rooyvaran was quoted by Press TV on Monday.

Cairo had previously announced that it would allow the passage of Asia 1 aid convoy to El Arish port only if 20 Iranian activists stopped accompanying the caravan. The Egyptian government has also refused entry to several other non-Iranian activists to Egypt as well.

The Asia 1 aid convoy carrying food and medical supplies to the besieged Palestinians in Gaza entered the coastal strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Monday.

The convoy had travelled 7,000 kilometers, but was stuck in Latikia, in northwest Syria, for more than a week awaiting Egypt's permission. The aid convoy started its journey in the Indian capital, New Delhi. It had passed through Iran, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria to reach Egypt and finally the Gaza Strip.

Rooyvaran reiterated that Cairo's opposition to Iran's humanitarian aid is against the wave of solidarity with the impoverished people of Palestine. “We condemn Egypt's action and regard its decision to block the delivery of any type of aid to the people of Gaza in line with policies of the Zionist regime,” he continued. "

This new poll asks:

Do you believe that foreign parties are involved in the bombing of the church in Alexandria (Egypt)?

With over 1,000 responding so far, 81% said yes.

By Ikhras.com

"Sheikh (“Shake” as James Zogby says) Mouhamed Bin-Mubarak Al-Khalifa, the Foreign Minister of Bahrain (which James Zogby describes as “a beacon of democratic reform”), said the British presence in Bahrain in the 19th and 20th Centuries was not “colonialism”, and the British were there for the “protection” and “security” of Bahrain.

His description of the relationship between Bahrain (his family really) and the British Empire at the time came during a talk, hilariously described as a “lecture”, at an event hosted by the Bahrain Historical and Archaeological Society (BHAS).

Undoubtedly, the British politicians who listened to the Sheik’s “lecture” received his comments on British colonialism with amusement, and the same disbelief that characterized Ariel Sharon’s reaction to George Bush Jr’s description of him as a “man of peace.”

The absurdities that evening at the Bahrain National Museum, the venue for the event, did not end with the Sheikh’s remark about British colonialism, or the description of his talk as a “lecture.” In recognition of his “cultural role” and “diplomatic achievements”, The BHAS bestowed upon “His Highness” an honorary membership. The President of the BHAS rose to the occasion and described this clown as a “distinct personality…cultural pioneer…someone with an open mind toward diplomacy, with a political vision that secured Bahrain’s place on the world map.”

Needless to say Arabs, just like the rest of the world, view the British presence in Bahrain, and the region at the time as a colonial power. The “lecturer” that evening may have confused the “protection” and “security” of his family, not to mention the establishment of its rule, with the protection and security of Bahrain.

The dominant Western power may have changed since the heyday of the British Empire, but the ruling dynasties in Bahrain, and the Arab Gulf States, today maintain a similar relationship with the US. The similarity between these client-regimes’ relationship with the previous British Empire, and the US today must be on the minds of these rulers, and we wouldn’t be surprised if their current day reality as pliant tools of the West was on the mind of this “political visionary” when he uttered his ridiculous remarks.

It should also be noted that in the Arab world such events as the one where these remarks were made are viewed as nothing more than state-organized spectacles."