Saturday, January 5, 2013

موقع اسرائيلي يعرض تسجيل فيديو للرئيس مرسي يصف فيه الصهاينة بأحفاد القردة والخنازير

عــ48ـرب
VIDEO OF MORSI BEFORE BECOMING PRESIDENT

Would The Real Morsi Please Stand Up?

"عرضت صحيفة "يديعوت أحرونوت" في موقعها على الشبكة، اليوم السبت،تسجيل فيديو للرئيس المصري الدكتور محمد مرسي، قالت انه تم تداوله على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي، يصف فيه الصهاينة بأنهم أحفاد القردة والخنازير ويدعو فيه الى المقاومة لتحرير كل فلسطين.
لشريط يحوي لقطات مباشرة للرئيس مرسي  في مقابلة تلفزيونية في عام 2010 مع محطة تلفزيون لبنانية، و في مقابلة مع فضائية القدس،عندما كان عضوا بارزا في حزب الإخوان المسلمين التي كانت محظورة خلال فترة حكم الرئيس حسني مبارك.
الشريط يظهر ايضا تصريحات لمرسي يصف فيها المفاوضات بالعبثية ويرفض الاعتراف بالخط الاخضر ويدعو الى تحرير كامل الأرض الفلسطينية ويصف الصهاينة بأنهم مصاصو دماء، على حد قوله.

لصحيفة الاسرائيلية أعترفت بأن المركز الاسرائيلي لدراسة اعلام الشرق الأوسط " مميري" ساهم في توزيع الشريط الا أن وسائل اعلام مصرية لاءمته للاحتياجات الداخلية وأعادت توزيعه في محاولة لاظهار التناقض بين خطاب مرسي الرئيس ومرسي المعارض.

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Muqtada al-Sadr calls for unity in Iraq, end to divisions. His Drill Team is Now Made Up of Angels!


"(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Sadr, who heads a powerful bloc in the Iraqi parliament, also attended the Friday Prayers at a Sunni mosque in Baghdad, where Sunni and Shia Muslims prayed together in a gesture of unity.
"We support the demands of the people, but I urge them to safeguard Iraq’s unity," he said at Abdul Qadir Gilani Mosque.
Sadr then visited Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation Church, telling reporters that Iraqi Muslims have learned big lessons of peace and patience from their Christian brothers......" 

Al-Jazeera Video: Medical supplies scarce in Syria's Hama


"There is a severe shortage of medicine and doctors in the Syrian city of Hama. The hospitals have either been bombed by President Bashar al-Assad's army or transformed into bases for rebel fighters.

People injured in fighting are brought to makeshift treatment rooms, set up in people's homes and basements. 

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal reports."

Al-Jazeera Video: Damascus rebels focus on strategic strikes

Can we find compassion for Israelis in 2013?


A VERY GOOD PIECE (posted in full)
4 January 2013

"I have just spent the last few days of 2012 in the city of Haifa. Accidentally, I met a few of my acquaintances who in the past deemed me at best as deluded and at worst as a traitor. They seemed more embarrassed today — almost confessing that mine and my friends’ worst predictions about Israel’s future seemed to be materializing painfully in front of their very eyes.
In fact, our predictions came very late in the day. Already in 1950, with unsettling accuracy, Sir Thomas Rapp, the head of the British Middle East Office in Cairo, foresaw the future. He was the last person sent by London to decide whether or not Britain should establish diplomatic relations with Israel. He approved but warned his superiors in London:
“The younger generation is being brought up in an environment of militarism and thus a permanent threat to the Middle East tranquillity is thereby being created and Israel would thus tend to move away from the democratic way of life towards totalitarianisms of the right or the left” (Public Record Office, Foreign Office Files 371/82179, E1015/119, a letter to Ernest Bevin the Foreign Secretary, 15 December 1950).
It is the totalitarianism of the right which is going to be the hallmark of the Jewish state in 2013. And some of the liberal Zionists who were once willing to devour me and like-minded Jews in Israel now realize we, like Sir Thomas before us, may have been right. And maybe because of their more benign attitude I would like to reciprocate by attempting, for a very short while, a different approach in 2013.

Compassion towards Israelis?

Those of us who write frequently for the Electronic Intifada have shown in the past — and will undoubtedly continue to do so in the future — our utmost solidarity with the Palestinian victims of Israel’s existence and policies. But can we, and should we, show compassion to the Israelis themselves? Obviously, one cannot ask the Palestinians to do this while the dispossession continues in full force. But maybe we who belong, ethnically at least, to the victimizers can ponder for a moment in the beginning of the New Year about our compatriots.
Let me begin with a more personal touch. During this visit I had the opportunity to watch my former colleague, the historian Benny Morris on television and to read some of his interviews. His anti-Arab and anti-Islamic racism is now of the rawest kind possible: a naked and rude discourse of hate, venomously spat out in the most disgusting way possible. So why show any empathy? Because his first book on the refugees was an eye-opener for me and others. It was not a great history book, but it was an eloquent survey of the truth to be found in the state archives about the 1948 Israeli crimes.
Yet his transmutation into an arch-racist is not surprising — it follows the same trajectory of many of the so-called liberal Zionists in Israel. He and his friends had an epiphany in the 1990s: discovering the immoral foundations of the state. This could have opened the way to a genuine reconciliation but it was also a frightening moment that demanded brave personal decisions. Most of them opted instead to deny the truth and the guilt, covering it up with a born-again Zionism of a far more extreme and obnoxious kind. This particular group of Zionists are not likely to go through another epiphany, but maybe their children will. One can only hope.

Israel’s Arab Jews

Compassion of a kind can be shown also toward the Arab Jews of Israel. I noticed during this visit how many of them are wearing — almost crouching under the yoke of — huge Star of David medallions of a size I have never seen before. They are frightened that the police or members of the public might mistake them for “Arabs,” hence these huge pendants that cry out: I am a Jew, not an Arab, even if I look like one! (As if any of us living between the River Jordan and the sea look that different from one another.)
This is sad and pathetic but maybe the academic Ella Habiba Shohat was right when she asked us to recognize Arab Jews as victims of Zionism as much as the Palestinians were. It is hard however, with the risk of generalization of course, to buy into their victimization for too long as they have by now endorsed wholeheartedly the formula that the more racist their anti-Arabism would be, the more Israeli they would become.
Back in the 1970s, Arab Jews rebelled against their discrimination. The right-wing parties in Israel capitalized on this frustration to build an electoral base that brought the Likud party to power and associated Arab Jewish politics of identity with anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian positions. But if there is any future for the Jews in Palestine, it will have to go through the organic and intrinsic connection of these Jews to the region, its past, its civilization and future. There are still enough among them who may show the way for the European settlers to learn to reconcile with whatever season the Arab world would happen to be in.
My third message of compassion is for the ultra-Orthodox Jews. The idea of a state in Judaism is a travesty – they know it best. There is no foundation in Judaism for a state based on the religion. So they opted either for clear anti-Zionism, for which they are persecuted, or embarrassingly spearheading Zionism by colonizing the West Bank and leading the racist choirs in the state. For a moment one should empathize with their predicament — they are a sizable part of the Jewish population and could be part of a new and better Palestine and the Middle East.

Cultural ghettoes

My fourth flickering moment of compassion is directed towards the Russian Jews (many of whom I see praying piously in the Orthodox churches all over Haifa and the north). They are a first generation of settlers in a colonialist project that still goes on. They are aliens in this country — as were the early Zionists — and they are lost. So they either create cultural ghettoes, or like the Arab Jews they try to integrate by offering to be the signifiers of the most fascist and racist pole of the Israeli political scene. Either way, this must be very unpleasant and unfulfilling.
My final sense of empathy is directed to the Jewish students in the West who still insist on acting as Israel’s ambassadors on university campuses. Here too, the pathetic human condition triggers the compassion. They could have played a vanguard and leading role — as their predecessors did when they spearheaded the struggles for equality in the United States and the movements against apartheid in South Africa and imperialism in Vietnam — in one of humanity’s greatest campaigns for peace and justice: the solidarity movement with the Palestinians. But they find themselves confused and disoriented, representing the oppressor, the colonizer and the occupier. The end result is parroting slogans prepared by the Israeli diplomacy that make little sense I suspect even to those who chant it unconvincingly along with hysterical allegations of anti-Semitism and terrorism.
I thought of adding the aging Zionist veterans of 1948 who opened their secrets to filmmaker Eyal Sivan and myself (their testimonies were exhibited on a special display we put on in the heart of Tel Aviv at the end of 2012) and told us bravely about the crimes they committed against the Palestinians during the Nakba. But that would have been too much.
Maybe when peace is nearer I could follow the in the footsteps of Desmond Tutu and show compassion of the kind displayed in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Committee. But until this time comes I will try to keep an open door for the others in the settler colonialist society I belong to and with which the Palestinians hopefully will one day build a democratic and free Palestine."

عودة اليهود الى مصر؟ عبد الباري عطوان

عودة اليهود الى مصر؟
 عبد الباري عطوان "

"فجّر السيد عصام العريان نائب رئيس حزب الحرية والعدالة، الذراع السياسية لحركة الإخوان المسلمين قنبلة من الوزن الثقيل عندما دعا الى عودة اليهود المصريين ودفع تعويضات لهم، واعترف بطردهم من مصر بالإكراه.
لا يمكن ان نصدق ان اطلاق تصريحات كهذه على درجة كبيرة من الخطورة، جاء من قبيل الصدفة، او كزلة لسان، لأن مثل هذا الموضوع المتفجر ليس مطروحا في الوقت الحالي، سواء في مصر او اسرائيل، او الولايات المتحدة الامريكية.
والأهم من كل هذا وذاك، ان صحن الرئيس محمد مرسي حافل بالأزمات والمشاكل، ولا نعتقد انه، وهو الذي يحارب على اكثر من جبهة لانقاذ سفينة حكمه من الغرق، في الأمتار الاولى من بداية رحلتها، بحاجة الى فتح جبهة جديدة،ونقصد الجبهة الاسرائيلية، عمل طوال الاشهر الماضية على تسكينها.
الاسرائيليون سيلتقطون كعادتهم مثل هذه التصريحات وسيستخدمونها حتما كوثيقة لابتزاز مصر، باعتبارها حقيقة مسلما بها، وربما ابتزاز دول عربية اخرى هاجر منها يهود الى فلسطين المحتلة، فكل ما نقدمه من تنازلات يصبح ورقة ابتزاز ضدنا، وكأرضية لطلب المزيد، والتجربة الفلسطينية مليئة بمثل هذه النماذج.
' ' '
اليهود لم يُطردوا من مصر، كما انهم لم يُطردوا من العراق، وانما اجبروا على الهجرة بضغوط اسرائيلية، وفضيحة لافون معروفة، وتفجير كنس يهودية مصرية من قبل خلايا للموساد لإرهاب هؤلاء ودفعهم الى الهجرة معروفة، والاسلوب نفسه استخدم في العراق، واذا كان هناك يهود غادروا بحثا عن مكان آمن، فإن ملايين اللبنانيين والعراقيين والسوريين والاريتريين هاجروا للسبب نفسه.
طرح تعويضات لليهود العرب بسبب الاستيلاء على ممتلكاتهم يجب ان يتم بعد التوصل الى حل عادل للقضية الفلسطينية وعودة ستة ملايين لاجئ فلسطيني، وتعويضهم عن استغلال اليهود الاسرائيليين لأرضهم وعقاراتهم وبحرهم ومياههم وهوائهم على مدى 65 عاما، وبعد ان يتم السلام كليا في المنطقة.
واذا كان لا بدّ من فتح ملفات التعويض، فإن مصر هي التي يجب ان تطالب اسرائيل بمئات المليارات من الدولارات كتعويض عن احتلال اسرائيل لما يقرب من 12 عاما لصحراء سيناء، واستغلال ثرواتها الطبيعية من الماء والنفط والغاز والسياحة، وقتل واعتقال وتعذيب الآلاف من الجنود المصريين، بعضهم كانوا اسرى، وكذلك تدمير مدن القناة كليا اثناء حرب الاستنزاف بعد عام 1967.
نقطة اخرى لا يمكن تجاهلها في هذه العجالة، وهي الترحيب بعودة هؤلاء اليهود المصريين دون شروط، ودون اي اعتبار للاعتبارات الأمنية. فجميع هؤلاء، وبحكم القوانين الاسرائيلية عملوا كمجندين في الجيش الاسرائيلي، او في اجهزة الأمن الاسرائيلية مثل 'الموساد' و'الشين بيت'، ولا نبالغ اذا قلنا ان بعض هؤلاء قتلوا جنودا او مدنيين مصريينن او ارتكبوا مجازر مثل مجزرة بحر البقر، فكيف سيتم التعامل مع هؤلاء في هذه الحالة؟
فإذا كان هؤلاء سيواجهون بالترحيب بهم بالأحضان وباقات الزهور فور وصولهم الى ارض مصر عائدين الى وطنهم، ودون اي محاسبة، فإن هذا الكرم لا يمكن ان يجد قبولا من ابناء مصر التي لا يمكن ان تنسى دماء شهدائها الأبرار.
كنا نتمنى لو ان السيد العريان، الذي اعرفه شخصيا، واصبت بصدمة من تصريحاته هذه التي لم يحاول مطلقا نفيها او حتى التخفيف منها، ابتعد عن هذا الملف كليا في الوقت الراهن، وان يحصر اجتهاداته في ملفات اخرى، ننتظر رأي الحكومة الحالية فيها مثل الموقف من معاهدة كامب ديفيد ،على سبيل المثال لا الحصر، ومصير التصريحات السابقة التي جرى اطلاقها حول تعديلها او حتى الغائها.
فإذا كان الكثيرون قد قدروا الظروف الاقتصادية الصعبة التي تعيشها الحكومة المصرية الحالية، وصمتوا على عدم تناولها لاتفاقات كامب ديفيد، وتفهموا مسألة تأجيلها ريثما يقوى عود الثورة وتستقر الاوضاع الامنية والسياسية ويتم تجاوز الأزمة الاقتصادية، فإن من حق هؤلاء الشعور بالغضب والاحباط وهم يرون هذا التطوع برغبة غير مفهومة لتقديم تعويضات مالية لليهود المصريين يقدرها البعض بحوالى 150 مليار دولار.' ' '
منظمة مطاردة النازيين ارغمت الحكومة السويسرية على تقديم تعويضات مالية عن ذهب اليهود، ضحايا المحرقة، بما يعادل اسعارها الحالية مع الفوائد كاملة، وطاردتها في المحاكم الاوروبية حتى تحقق لها ما تريد، ومن المؤكد ان اسرائيل ومنظماتها، ستتمسك بالقاعدة نفسها في التعاطي مع اصول واموال يهود العراق وليبيا ومصر واليمن، ولن نفاجأ اذا ما طالبوا الحكومة السعودية بدفع تريليونات الدولارات كتعويض لأملاك يهود خيبر، ورهن عوائدها النفطية، او الجزء الأكبر منها لتسديدها.
السيد العريان يسير في حقل الغام شديدة الانفجار، ويضع حركته في مأزق كبير، واللافت ان الرئاسة تنصلت من هذه التصريحات لكنها لم تتخذ اي اجراءات ضده كمسؤول ومستشار للرئيس كما لم يتم اعلان موقف رسمي واضح تجاه قضية عودة اليهود.
حركة الاخوان المسلمين في مصر يجب ان تخاطب اولا ثلث الشعب المصري الذي صوّت ضد الدستور الجديد اثناء الاستفتاء الاخير، ونسبة كبيرة منهم من الاقباط، وهذا في نظرنا اكثر الحاحا واهمية من محاولة مخاطبة اليهود.مطلوب من الحركة، او بالاحرى حكومتها، ان تقدم توضيحا صريحا واضحا حول موقفها من كامب ديفيد، ومن تعويض اليهود حتى تغلق هذا الملف الذي يفتح عليها ابوابا كثيرة ليس هذا هو أوان فتحها."


Fugitive Saddam deputy lends support to Iraq Sunni protesters


"(Reuters) - The most senior member of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's entourage still at large has encouraged Sunni Muslim anti-government protesters to stand their ground until Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is toppled......


"The people of Iraq and all its nationalist and Islamic forces support you until the realization of your just demands for the fall of the Safavid-Persian alliance," said Douri, addressing the protesters in footage broadcast on Alarabiya television.....


The authenticity of the video could not be verified. Douri said he was speaking from the Iraqi province of Babil......"

كيف لخص باسم يوسف عام 2012 في دقيقتين؟ (فيديو)

عــ48ـرب

Friday, January 4, 2013

Syria rebels' arms supplies and finances drying up despite western pledges


With no sign of the west relaxing its ban on arming opposition forces, rebels are forced to focus on a gradual war of attrition


guardian.co.uk,
Despite widespread pledges of support from western and Arab states, the main Syrian opposition coalition says it has still not seen any significant increase in funding or arms supplies.

Members of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, formed in November, say that there is still no sign of western capitals relaxing their ban on delivering weapons to the rebels and that even Gulf Arab governments, which helped arm opposition groups last year, are supplying less with every passing week.

"The supplies are drying up. It is still Syrian expats – individuals - who are providing the funding by and large," said a Syrian businessman who has helped to fund the opposition since the uprising began 22 months ago.
As a result, he said, the fragmented rebel forces have changed strategy, giving up hopes of a sweep through the country, and focusing instead on a gradual war of attrition: besieging isolated government military bases to stop the regime using planes and helicopters against them and ultimately to capture weapons, to compensate for the meagre supplies from abroad......


He added: "I see a very dark period ahead of us, with a total breakdown like Iraq in 2006, with sectarianism on a scale we have not yet seen in Syria."

Mustafa Alani, the director of the national security and terrorism studies department at the Gulf Research Centre said: "The people fighting on the streets are not controlled by people outside. They feel they can topple the regime without any help. They feel they are able to self-finance and self-arm and they can survive.
"Their focus has shifted. Their strategy is not to try to hold villages and towns so much, but to concentrate on air bases, to stop the aircraft flying and to build up pressure in Damascus. That is where the war will be decided.""

هيكل؛ عبد الناصر لم يطرد يهود مصر وتصريحات العريان صيحة من لا يعرف

عرب48 /وكالات

"انتقد عميد الصحافيين العرب الاستاذ محمد حسنين هيكل التصريحات التي ادلى بها قياديون في جماعة 'الاخوان' مؤخرا، ودعوا فيها اليهود المصريين الى العودة الى مصر، واتهموا فيها الرئيس الراحل جمال عبد الناصر بطردهم من مصر في الخمسينيات.

ووصف هيكل التصريحات بانها 'صيحة من لا يعرف في موضوع لا يعرفه، ويطلقها اناس ضائعون في ساحة القتال'.


وقال هيكل في حديث الى قناة 'سي بي سي' المصرية الخاصة 'لا يوجد على الاطلاق ما يسمى بتعويضات اليهود'.


وشرح ذلك بالقول: معظم أغنياء اليهود في مصر كانوا يحملون جنسيات أخرى، (قطاوي فرنسي، وهراري ومزراحي بريطانيون، ولم يمتلكوا جوازات سفر مصرية، وبعض اليهود رحلوا عن مصر بعد حرب فلسطين وآخرين بعد حريق القاهرة اي قبل اندلاع ثورة يوليو 1952''.
واكد ان الدولة المصرية دفعت تعويضات لكل الشركات التي اممت عام 1960 بما في الشركات اليهودية التي كانت تحمل جنسيات غربية ضمن التعويضات التي دفعت الى الشركات الاوروبية.


واشار الى ان تعداد اليهود المصــــريين في العام 1947 بلغ ستين الفا، وان الجالية اليهودية في مصر لم تعان اي اضطهاد، وان التحقيــــقات في قضــــية لافون (استخدام اليهود في شن عمليات تخريب ضد اهداف غربية في مصر عام 1954) تظهر ان الجالية اليهودية كانت من الجاليات المستقرة، ما دفع البعض في اسرائيل الى الاعتراض على تجنيد افراد منها في العمليات.


ونفى ان يكون عبد الناصر طرد اليهود من مصر، واكد ان من بقي منهم في مصر بعد الثورة 'مشوا من انفسهم بعد حرب السويس'.
واضاف هيكل، 'لم يعجبني كلام مرسي عن فلسطين، حيث لم يدنِ المستوطنات أو الحديث عن القدس في حديثه، ولا أطالب مرسي بالحرب، ولكن القدس قضية جوهرية لدى التيار الإسلامي'.

وأضاف هيكل ، 'لا بد أن نفرق بين كاتبي الخطابات والمحترفين والكتبة، وقد كتبت خطب عبد الناصر لأني كنت طرفاً محاوراً له باستمرار'.
وقال هيكل، 'إن الخطأ الأساسي للرئيس محمد مرسي، في الحكم هو عدم مصارحته بالحقيقة، وأنه لا يملك مفاتيح الحل لأزمات البلاد'، مشيراً إلى أن مرسي هو الذى طلب السلطة بالقوة. وان مصر أصبحت ريفية السياسة، والعالم العربي أصبح منعزلا في سياسته الخارجية، وان النظم العربية الموجودة حاليا متخلفة منذ الحرب الباردة ولا تتحمل عناء الدفاع عن نفسها، وأنه أصبح لدينا في العالم العربي أشخاص يتحدثون في قضايا لايعرفون عنها شيئا.


وأضاف هيكل أن جزءا من الأزمة الاقتصادية في مصر سببها خطاب الرئيس مرسي، وأن الرئيس مرسي يرى الحقيقة من قبل، ولكنه كسياسي يتخذ القرار الخطأ في الوقت الخطأ.


وفي سياق متصل، أوضح 'أن من يصنع خطاب الرئيس عليه أن يعبر عن الواقع، ويخاطب الداخل أولا ولو على حساب الخارج، وعليه أن يدرك حاجة مصر إلى خطاب جديد'، مشيرًا إلى 'أن النظام لديه إعلامه، إلا أنه لا ينافس'.


وعن الإعلام الخاص، قال هيكل إن الإعلام يزعج السلطة وتأثيره مقلق، مشيرا إلى أنه يخبر الحقيقة للاخرين، ويفتح الملفات ويبحث عن الحقائق، موضحا أن الإعلام لا يحاسب ولا يراقب، وأنه إذا كان الإعلام حرا حماه جمهوره وأخلاق المجتمع، فيما انتقد القنوات الدينية واصفا إياها بأنها قنوات ادعاء ديني لا علاقة لها بالأخلاق."



Fatah holds first mass rally in Gaza in years

Hamas allows Fatah, the West Bank political party, to hold 48th anniversary in Gaza City in sign of improving ties.



FLAGS, FLAGS AND MORE FLAGS......
LET THEM EAT FLAGS!

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll


Do you expect Maliki (Iraqi PM) to meet the protesters' demands?

With over 700 responding, 87% said no.

Al-Jazeera Video: Egypt's economy sputtering

Al-Jazeera Video: بلا حدود- مستقبل سوريا في ظل تهاوي النظام

A VERY GOOD INTERVIEW

"تناولت الحلقة موقف المعارضة من مبادرة الأخضر الإبراهيمي، ورفضها لوجود الأسد في أي مبادرة للحل، وإستعدادها للحوار مع روسيا إذا تبنت موقفاً واضحاً من الثورة السورية، وكذلك موقف إيران من الثورة، ووضع الجيش الحر بالنسبة لائتلاف المعارضة، وكذلك الجوانب الإنسانية للسوريين وحجم الخسائر التي طالت البنية التحتية السورية إلى الآن.
تقديم: أحمد منصور
تاريخ البث: 2/1/2013
الضيف: معاذ الخطيب"


Thursday, January 3, 2013

Al-Jazeera Video: Syrian bakeries forced to operate during dark


"Away from the fighting, millions of Syrians are struggling to find the most basic foodstuffs, including bread.
More than 30 bakeries have been bombed by government forces, leaving many people too scared to shop for the staple product. 
Some of the bakeries are now operating in the dark of night in an attempt to provide much-needed supplies.
Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal reports on the efforts of one bakery in Idlib that is trying to help feed the local community."

Real News Video (with Transcript): Cliff Deal a "Moderate" Betrayal


Bill Black: Compromise on tax hikes on rich and allowing payroll taxes to rise sets the ground for a "grand betrayal" yet to come 

More at The Real News

Barack Obama: Dump These 8 Unsavory Allies


January 2, 2013


".......But plenty of governments deserve, if not being directed to the bus, at least being shown the door when it comes to unconditional U.S. support. So-called realists will offer the usual rationalizations for ignoring that prescription. Their view of the national interest, however, is outdated in a world where modern communications make it easy for people to coalesce around grievances and perilous for governments to ignore them. The Arab Spring showed nothing if not the folly of relying on strongmen to bring stability......


Saudi Arabia: Yes, it has lots of oil. But the Saudis, who need cash to fuel their welfare state, are going to sell it regardless of how Obama treats them. Meanwhile, the Saudi monarchy holds thousands in arbitrary detention, imposes archaic restrictions on women, suppresses most dissent, mistreats its Shiite minority, and insists that the neighboring Bahraini monarchy crush its pro-democracy movement. Obama has been silent.

BahrainSaudi Arabia's next-door neighbor is the most glaring exception to Obama's generally supportive posture toward Arab Spring demonstrators. The ruling Al Khalifa family uses lethal force, torture, and arbitrary detention to crush protests. Yet out of deference to Saudi sensibilities and fear of losing the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet base, the Obama administration has allowed its security relationship with Bahrain to trump its concern for the rights of Bahrainis -- a selectivity that undermines its broader support for Arab freedom......"

الطريق الى جهنم حين لا يكون مرصوفا بالنيات الحسنة

By Azmi Bishara

3 يناير 2013
١. رفض النظام ان يقود الاصلاح بنفسه حين رجوناه ورجاه المتظاهرون ان يفعل، وأصر على قمع الانتفاضة بالقوة.
٢. أصبح الامر متأخرا حين ادعى أنه يقبل الاصلاح والناس لم تصدقه، ولكنه أصر أن يقود الإصلاح وحده، وعلى مزاجه، ولم يقبل مشاركة المعارضة في حكومة وحدة وطنية. وواصل النظام قمع الانتفاضة التي توسعت وغدت ثورة.
٣.توسل النظام الحوار وطالب المعارضة غير المسلحة أن تشارك معه، ولكن ما من أحد كان مستعدا للقبول بالجلوس مع من سفك دماء المتظاهرين السلميين. وشن النظام حربا شاملة ضد شعبه الذي بات يخوض ثورة مسلحة. يتعامل النظام مع شعبه مثلما تتعامل الدول مع أعداء في حرب بل أشنع من ذلك.
٤. يطالب النظام بمفاوضات دون شروط، ولكن لا أحد يقبل بأقل من ذهابه كشرط للتفاوض. يخوض النظام حرب شاملة، حرب الأرض المحروقة ويقصف مدنه وقراه ويشرد شعبه، يقصف النظام طوابير المواطنين على المخابز. نظام الدمار يريد ان يحكم ولو من دون شعب ودولة وعلى خرائب المدن والقرى.٥. صبغ كل شيء بلون الدم. الشعب لم يعد يحصي الضحايا، ولم يعد يرى سوى الضوء في آخر النفق. 



Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression

link

Long study worth reading...


Conclusion

From South America to South Africa and from  the Mobutu to the Trujillo dictatorships, Israel,
often acting in concert with the United States, has been a key player in undermining popular 
struggles by supplying repressive regimes  with the tools for massive state violence.
The facts and figures given here do not support the many fanciful  theories that circulate about the role of Israeli – or Jewish – “control of the world.” On the contrary, anti-semitic conspiracy theories that 
misinterpret these or similar facts serve to bolster Israeli  propaganda, helping Israel portray itself as victim, even justifying its repression industry as a necessity against such anti-semitism. 
Furthermore, it allows Israel's allies and clients to camouflage their own interests in repressing peoples' movements for freedom. Such conspiracies are thus a disservice to the movements for liberation
everywhere, including the Palestinian struggle.

A major war profiteer and a settler-colonial state, Israel can use its 
profits to further repress and displace Palestinians, developing still 
more deadly weapons in the process. Given how unfamiliar most 
people are with the extent of the Israeli arms industry and the 
industrial scale of its function in suppressing movements, we have 
collected here some of the most atrocious aspects of Israel’s 
repression worldwide.

Israel’s racism is rooted in centuries of European colonialism. It is
integral to global imperialism from which it derives investment,
support, and cover. Israel has worked hand-in-glove with repressive
regimes in every corner of the earth in ways that facilitate the
suppression, murder, assassination, rape, torture, disappearance,
kidnapping, and imprisonment of those struggling for freedom and
justice. Its arms and repression industries continue today through
Israeli state institutions and via private corporations and a
worldwide network of Zionist organizations. Repressive regimes find
a willing and able ally in Israel.

Though well documented, the information we offer is not widely
available in the media or at universities. The states and
corporations that engage in war, the arms trade, occupation,
incarceration, surveillance, and repression benefit from this
information not being publicized. Tracking the trail of Israel’s
function in global repression is an opportunity to expose the players
in this vast industry. There is a need to continue to expose Israel’s 
role in worldwide repression and to support the organizing to end it.

5 Broken Cameras Trailer

Guardian Video: Syria: survivors pulled from Damascus petrol station 'bombed by government warplanes'



                   
                   
                                   

"Unverified footage purports to show the aftermath of an government air strike on a Damascus petrol station. A badly wounded man is seen emerging from the rubble with the help of two others. At least 30 civilians were killed in the attack in the rebel-controlled suburb of Muleiha, opposition campaigners say."

Over 60,000 dead in Syria conflict, U.N. says


"(Reuters) - At least 60,000 people have died in Syria's conflict, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said on Wednesday, citing what she said was an exhaustive U.N.-commissioned study.
Over five months of analysis, researchers cross-referenced seven sources of data, including the Syrian government, to compile a list of 59,648 individuals reported killed between March 15, 2011, and November 30, 2012.

"Given there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013," Pillay said. "The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking."
The estimate was the United Nation's first since May, when U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon put the toll at more than 10,000.

The new study, by Benetech, a non-profit technology company, showed deaths rising from around 1,000 per month in the summer of 2011 to an average of more than 5,000 per month since July 2012. More than one-in-five deaths occurred in Homs, with rural areas surrounding the capital Damascus close behind with more than 10,000......."

Syria conflict: at least 60,000 dead, says new UN report - live updates


guardian.co.uk,

"At 60,000 deaths the UN's increased new estimate for the number of people killed in Syria is significantly more than estimates from activists. 

The Syrian Network for Human Rights said it documented every death by name, date, and in many cases with video and photographic evidence. photograph or video.

It said the figure is likely to be an underestimate: "It must be noted that there are many cases that we were unable to reach and document particularly in the case of massacres and besieged areas where the Syrian government frequently blocks communication. This indicates that the actual death toll is likely to be higher as there are dozens of cases in which residents buried the bodies in mass graves to prevent the spread of diseases."
It's tally includes the 3,327 children.

The Centre for Documentation of Violations in Syria, another tally maintained by activists, estimates that 39,607 people have been killed since the uprising began. Its total does not include government forces killed in the conflict.

The Syrian Martyr Data base, a third count maintained by activists, currently puts the figure at 47,886.
Activists estimate that 39,609 people have been killed in Syria.

Real News Video: Gaza Struggles to Cope with Psychological Trauma


Gaza's doctors say lack of resources and mental health workers prolonging recovery 

More at The Real News

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Sectarian death squads slowly stab & kill Syrian

I don't need to tell you who is killing who , but know this: if After this video and the thousands of others still defend Assad or say the alternative is worse I tell you to GTFO

Al-Jazeera Video: Syria refugees wish to return home in 2013

Abbas Too Weak to Make Transition from PA to Functioning State


By Hasan Afif El-Hasan
Palestine Chronicle


"......Through all his political life, Abbas has been a concessionist, a push-over and an empty suit with no back-bone. He even agreed to suppress the UN-backed report by international Judge Richard Goldstone about Israeli war crimes against the residents of Gaza Strip in 2008. Abbas revealed the low quality of his leadership and even his manhood in an interview given to an Israeli television station when he relinquished his “right of return” to his birth Palestinian town. He stated: “Palestine for me is [1967] borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever …. This is Palestine for me. I am a refugee but I am living in Ramallah, I believe that West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts Israel.” Amazing! Abbas has thus compromised the very core of the Palestinian struggle. His concession cannot come from an authentic leader of the ‘Nakba’ victims who had been cleansed from their homes and businesses in 490 Palestinian towns and villages by Israeli Jews. Ironically, the Jews who took over these towns and villages claim Palestine as their ‘home land’ because ‘their ancestors’ were born there thousands of years ago.

Abbas, the architect of Oslo Agreements and the endless negotiations with the Israelis that squandered the rights and hopes of the Palestinians, is too weak to make the transition from the under-occupation-PA to a functioning Palestinian state, even a non-member!"

Egypt satirist faces probe for insulting president


"(Reuters) - An Egyptian satirist who made fun of President Mohamed Mursi on television has been accused of undermining his standing and will be investigated by prosecutors, a judicial source said on Tuesday.
Bassem Youssef's case will increase worries about freedom of speech in the post-Hosni Mubarak era, especially when the country's new constitution includes provisions criticized by rights activists for, among other things, forbidding insults.
Youssef rose to fame following the uprising that swept Mubarak from power in February 2011 with a satirical online program that was compared with Jon Stewart's Daily Show.
He has since had his own show on Egyptian television and mocked Mursi's repeated use of the word "love" in his speeches by starting one of his programs with a love song, holding a red pillow with the president's face printed on it......."

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll


Do you believe in the seriousness of the Syrian government in being receptive to any initiative to resolve the Syrian crisis?

With over 1,200 responding so far, 90% said no.

Blood ballots


Mon, 31/12/2012
Al-Masry Al-Youm


".......As the second anniversary of the revolution nears, those who sacrificed to make it happen are no closer to ruling than they were when it started. Nevertheless, everyone speaks for the revolution, shouts its now commodifed slogans, and contorts its principles. The political status quo — both the Muslim Brotherhood and the state apparatus — are sending a clear message to Egyptians: Blood spilled in the streets can only be redeemed in the ballot box. The blood that made their ascendency possible has now been reduced to symbolic ink stains on the voters’ fingers.
“That which is gained by the ballot box can only be lost in the ballot box.” But what of that which was lost in the streets, in the minds, in the hearts, in the souls? With every passing day, we discover the growing gulf between the revolution’s aspirations and the plans of those who claim to speak for it. The masses, increasingly disenchanted by an empty political process, are participating in declining numbers in one vote after the other. Voters and non-voters alike realize the country’s future is a battle between two minorities — one idealistic and revolutionary and the other political and opportunist.One donates blood and the other reaps it
With the Egyptian calendar now filled with bloodied commemorations, it would be wise for all to heed the lesson of the past two years: Ballots do not blot blood."

Cairo: the city vanquished? The Muslim Brotherhood and the ruralisation of Egypt

The Egyptian Revolution signified a triumph of the urban; even while the counter-revolution looks to the undefeatable rural for provisions

ANOTHER EXCELLENT ANALYSIS
By Hani Shukrallah , Monday 31 Dec 2012

".......And, however nuanced our perspective on Egypt’s modern revolutionary history, there is no going away from the fact that we have not known the kind of peasant revolutions that ultimately triumphed by taking the cities, so familiar in the revolutionary experiences of much of Latin America and Southeast Asia during the 19th and 20th centuries.
And it’s been in this primacy of the urban that both the power and the weakness of the Egyptian Revolution has lain, and continues to lie.
It explains, at least in part, the great paradox of a revolution that is able to put hundreds of thousands onto the streets, over and over again for close on two years after its launch, but fails consistently to translate such preeminence into ballots........

And above all, it has been, and continues to be, a revolution that sanctifies the right of rebellion, glorifies personal courage, holds “obedience” in the deepest contempt (ergo, the designation of Muslim Brotherhood supporters as “sheep”), and hoists the free self-expression of the individual, even before that of the mass, as a supreme value (merely observe the explosions of graffiti and personally tailored placards that have been such a unique and pervasive feature of the Egyptian revolution).
Not only has the Egyptian Revolution been an overwhelmingly urban phenomenon (with the countryside basically standing on the sidelines). But as one ballot after another since the Constitutional Declaration of March 2011 and up to last December’s referendum have shown, the countryside has acted as a bulwark, or strategic reserve for the counter-revolution, with the latter having consistently attempted to pit electoral versus revolutionary “legitimacy”, even as it juggled the two – arbitrarily and capriciously.
And make no bones about it. The Muslim Brotherhood’s project is nothing less than a full scale counter-revolution. If in any doubt, just go through the constitution drafted exclusively by them and their Salafi allies, or better yet watch Salafi leader Yasser Borhami on YouTube reassuring his followers that the freedoms and civil liberties articles in the constitution were no more than window dressing, pointing them to the relevant articles deliberately designed to emasculate them.
Meanwhile, we are promised a new piece of legislation, to be enacted by the electorally “legitimate” Shura Council, even if a mere 5% of the electorate took part in the vote of its “elected” members, while the president appointed another third of its members, packing it even further with droves of his Islamist supporters, and with a single Coptic woman sprinkled as dubious sweetener.
The promised piece of legislation is designed to effectively ban demonstrations and strikes (it includes the uniquely bizarre stipulation that a strike should not halt production). These two basic instruments of protest are, needless to say, basic rights seized by the revolution, let alone that it was thanks to them that Mubarak was overthrown, Mr Morsi let out of prison, and set on his way to the presidential palace in Heliopolis, graffiti adorned as it might be.....

The Arabic, taryeef, has been with us for some time. More often than not, it has been used to refer to the process of haphazard urbanization that followed on the heels of the defeat of June 1967, and has been full-blown since the seventies. As the Egyptian state relinquished, one after another, its basic functions save for plunder and repression, rural migration to the urban centres of the country was creating everywhere new sprawling urban settlements that physically, culturally and in terms of life-styles appeared as hugely bloated villages transplanted onto an urban landscape.
It was such settlements that provided the stomping grounds of the Jihadists of the ‘90s, and continue to act as breeding grounds for Salafists and other of the more regressive and extreme tendencies of Egyptian Islamism.
Neither is pitting rural against urban Egypt terribly new. President Sadat, faced with the increasingly potent challenge of leftist-led students and workers movements, styled himself “the faithful president”, called for a return to “village values” and even had his flunkies trump up a new piece of repressive legislation which he called “the law of shame”. Sartorially conscious, the late president’s multifarious wardrobe prominently included the magnificently tailored robes of a (very) rich Egyptian peasant.
In electoral terms, rigging notwithstanding, the Egyptian countryside has been for decades an extraordinarily pliant tool of those in power. Almost invariably voting in considerably higher ratios than their urban counterparts, with rural women remarkably voting in even higher ratios than men, the electorate of the Egyptian country-side is literally herded to the balloting box, and invariably casts its ballots on the basis of patronage rather than politics.
This pattern remains as true after the revolution of 2011 as it was before it. I’ve noted before that triumphant revolutions tend to pull the stragglers along. More specifically, urban revolutions such as the Egyptian variety are obliged to win the peasantry if they are to survive, and they do so by acting to meet their most urgent needs, namely greater and fairer access to, and nominal or effective ownership of the land they till.
The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, having itself become ruralised, seems fully aware of the sharp rural urban dichotomy that has come to its fullest crystallisation following the triumph of the urban embodied in the Egyptian Revolution. Even before the revolution, the reformist trend within the Brotherhood had been warning of the ruralisation of their movement, which they were convinced was fundamentally urban and modern. It was such ruralisation, they argued, that ultimately enabled the full takeover of the movement by its most regressive sections, the Qutbis and the Salafists.
In a 2008 article (which appeared in the English translation quoted below, in Al-Ahram Weekly of 23 October, 2008), the late Hossam Tammam writes:
“The Muslim Brotherhood used to be an urban group in its membership and style of management. Now its cultural patterns and loyalties are taking on a rural garb… Over the past few years, the Muslim Brotherhood has been infused with rural elements. Its tone is becoming more and more patriarchal, and its members are showing their superiors the kind of deference associated with countryside traditions. You hear them referring to their top officials as the "uncle hajj", "the big hajj", "our blessed one", "the blessed man of our circle", "the crown on our heads", etc. Occasionally, they even kiss the hands and heads of the top leaders.”
The rhetoric used by the Brotherhood and its Salafist allies against their opponents is equally revealing of a deliberate, conscious manipulation of the rural urban divide. The leaders of the National Salvation Front are portrayed as belonging to a prosperous, even licentious urban “elite”, more concerned with safeguarding their “loose” life-styles, their bars and clubs, than with the lot of the common man, the latter invariably portrayed as socially conservative, culturally-backward, God-fearing, and obedient, i.e. an archetypal villager.
Most remarkable of all has been the clearly observable fact that in order to put into effect their more pernicious, more fascistic plans, such as thug militia attacks on peaceful protesters, the Muslim Brotherhood leadership could not depend on its urban membership, but invariably had to bus in these would-be Hitler Jugend from the surrounding provinces.
In the presidential elections, as in the last constitutional referendum, the great cities of the nation, with Cairo at their forefront, voted for democracy and the revolution; the countryside for the counter-revolution. This was glaringly apparent in the presidential elections, and is no less true, even if less readily observable in the recent constitutional referendum.
Separate the latest ballot in the main urban centres of the country from their rural, or ruralised environs and almost invariably you’ll find a clear “No” vote in the cities, a “Yes” vote in the countryside.
Yet, and for the time being, the balance of forces in the country is too evenly balanced. Egypt remains a deeply divided nation. Constitution or not, the Brotherhood and their Salafi allies are not able to bring their authoritarian project to fruition.
Egypt in 2012/3 is a largely urban society (with the urban-rural ratio around 60 to 40%). The fact that this is yet to express itself in the ballot box is a function of a number of factors, including big pro-democracy majorities in the cities as opposed to overwhelming pro-authoritarian majorities in the countryside; the bussing or rather half-trucking of rural voters – en masse – to the voting stations as opposed to the individual, rather moody, at their own steam, and easy to lose faith voting patterns of urban citizens.
Indeed, the Constitution was passed not only by virtue of an overwhelming “Yes” in the countryside, but also because a great many of the urban potential “No” voters did not turn out. Add some rigging, intimidation and ballot station-barring against potential opponents, and the 64-36% result would seem inevitable.
For its part, the power structure remains deeply fractured. The ruling Muslim Brotherhood do not have control of either the army or the police. And, not for want of trying, they are yet to succeed in their concerted attempt to bring the judiciary to heel.
Yet, equally, so are the revolution and the cause of democracy in Egypt incapable of realisation; the revolution remains stalled and hijacked, and a genuine Egyptian democracy continues to be an unreachable dream.
And it will continue to be so if rural Egypt remains a counter-revolutionary reservoir. Talk shows and press conferences will not do it, and neither will putting tens, even hundreds of thousands of protesters on urban streets, over and over again.
Peasants are a suspicious lot. As they should be. They’ve been oppressed, neglected and tricked too many times and for far too long by urban masters of all kinds. To win their trust, to break through the monopoly of state and religious patronage over their political will, you need to go to their very doorsteps. And you need to make the revolution and its democratic aims relevant to their lives.
Thirty years of Mubarak’s eradication of political space in the country can no longer serve as a pretext for persistent political amateurishness by the revolutionary and democratic forces. When the National Salvation Front finally came to the position of calling on the people to go to the ballot and vote “No”, they did so as if surprised by their the failure of their initial, legitimate attempt at preventing the blatantly illegitimate draft from being put to the vote.
Yet, this should have been a contingency, even the most likely contingency, for which they should have been well prepared all along.
And it is high time to shatter the distortive lens of “civic” versus Islamist forces, which by the time it reaches Upper Egypt is translated into atheists and Copts against Islam. Revolutionary times are equally a time of the primacy of politics, certainly not of ideology. The fact that from within Egyptian Islamism, indeed from the very heart of the Brotherhood, a growingly potent democratic trend is emerging is something to be welcomed and cherished, not neglected and side-lined.
And revolution is not merely about protesting, as brilliant and courageous as this has been and continues to be. It is equally about political savvy and organizational skill. It’s about the ability to translate the aims of the revolution into strategy and tactics, and the many forms of political and popular organization able to put these into practice.
And as we approach the second anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, is it not also high time the revolution’s objectives were put into concrete programmatical proposals and demands, staggered as urgent, middle- and long term?
Social Justice is not merely a noble sentiment to be realised in the repetition. It must, and should mean a concrete set of proposals for the here and now, for the poor and dispossessed, both urban and rural.
In short, it is high time the revolution and the democratic forces in the country put their act together."

Al-Jazeera Video: براميل النظام السوري المتفجرة

Real News Video: Gaza Uncut: Another Year of War and Siege


Gaza remains under Israeli siege, making life more difficult. 

More at The Real News

Monday, December 31, 2012

Al-Jazeera Video: ما وراء الخبر- احتمالات الأوضاع في سوريا


"
تناقش الحلقة تصريحات الأخضر الإبراهيمي المبعوث الدولي لسوريا بشأن مواجهة سوريا لاحتمالين إما الجحيم أو عملية سياسية. ما إمكانية التسوية بين الشعب والرئيس بشار الأسد؟ وهل موسوكو فعلا عاجزة عن إقناعه بالتنحي؟
تقديم: الحبيب الغريبي
تاريخ البث: 29/12/2012
الضيوف: سمير نشار, ليونيد سوكبانبن, غسان شبانة

"

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Gangsters: A Song For Syria

Al-Jazeera Video: حديث الثورة- أهم ملفات 2012 العربية

With Azmi Bishara

DON'T MISS IT!

Video: Egyptian female activist protests nude in front of Egyptian embassy




"Today in the snowbound Stockholm the International women's movement FEMEN and anti-islamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt! Before the decisive day of the referendum in Egypt activists came to the Embassy of Egypt in Stockholm to support Egyptian heroes who are resisting the sharia-dictatorial draft of the constitution of the president Morsi. FEMEN calls people of Great Egypt to deny this religious bondage of newly appeared prophet Morsi and to give the chance for Egypt for the rightful democratic development."

Israeli-Arab politician who was on Gaza protest flotilla can stand in election


Haneen Zoabi candidacy was barred for being on boat stormed by commandos, but supreme court rules ban unconstitutional

in Jerusalem

guardian.co.uk,
An Israeli-Arab politician who took part in a flotilla of ships attempting to breach the blockade of Gaza in 2010 will be able to compete in the general election in three weeks, after the supreme court unanimously overturned a ban on her candidacy.

A panel of nine judges overruled a decision by the central elections committee to disqualify Haneen Zoabi from seeking re-election as a member of the Israeli parliament. The committee's decision was based on her participation in the flotilla.

Following the supreme court's ruling on Sunday, Zoabi said the attempt to bar her from the election was "the result of political and personal persecution against me, against my party and against the Arab public as a whole".
But, she added, "this ruling does little to erase the threats, delegitimisation and physical as well as verbal abuse that I have endured … over the past three years."......."

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