HAARETZ
"Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is arriving today in the United States, where she will meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, and apparently also with Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Rice will tell Livni at their meeting tonight (Israel time) that Israel must help bolster the standing of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel made clear to the Americans ahead of this visit that negotiations with Syria are not on the agenda for now. An official familiar with the preparatory talks said that Israeli and American positions on this subject had grown closer following the war in Lebanon.
Rice and Livni will try to coordinate a response to the formation of a Palestinian national unity government. Both countries do not consider this development sufficient reason to alter the prerequisites for talks with the PA. Israel will update the U.S. on potential gestures toward Abbas, among them the possibility of handing over responsibility for West Bank towns to the presidential force under his command."
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Soldiers reveal horror of Afghan campaign
The Independent
"Soldiers deployed in Helmand province five years on from the US-led invasion, and six months after the deployment of a large British force, have told The Independent that the sheer ferocity of the fighting in the Sangin valley, and privations faced by the troops, are far worse than generally known.
"We are flattening places we have already flattened, but the attacks have kept coming. We have killed them by the dozens, but more keep coming, either locally or from across the border," one said. "We have used B1 bombers, Harriers, F16s and Mirage 2000s. We have dropped 500lb, 1,000lb and even 2,000lb bombs. At one point our Apaches [helicopter gunships] ran out of missiles they have fired so many. Almost any movement on the ground gets ambushed. We need an entire battle group to move things. Yet they will not give us the helicopters we have been asking for.
"We have also got problems with the Afghan forces. The army, on the whole, is pretty good, although they are often not paid properly. But many of the police will not fight the Taliban, either because they are scared or they are sympathisers.""
"Soldiers deployed in Helmand province five years on from the US-led invasion, and six months after the deployment of a large British force, have told The Independent that the sheer ferocity of the fighting in the Sangin valley, and privations faced by the troops, are far worse than generally known.
"We are flattening places we have already flattened, but the attacks have kept coming. We have killed them by the dozens, but more keep coming, either locally or from across the border," one said. "We have used B1 bombers, Harriers, F16s and Mirage 2000s. We have dropped 500lb, 1,000lb and even 2,000lb bombs. At one point our Apaches [helicopter gunships] ran out of missiles they have fired so many. Almost any movement on the ground gets ambushed. We need an entire battle group to move things. Yet they will not give us the helicopters we have been asking for.
"We have also got problems with the Afghan forces. The army, on the whole, is pretty good, although they are often not paid properly. But many of the police will not fight the Taliban, either because they are scared or they are sympathisers.""
Osama's on the move again
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times
"Osama bin Laden is on the move, and Tuesday's terror attack on the US Embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus, could be a tangible result of this.
Exclusive information obtained by Asia Times Online shows that the al-Qaeda leader recently traveled from the South Waziristan tribal area in Pakistan to somewhere in the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan, or possibly Bajour, a s mall tribal agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan in North-West Frontier Province.
In addition to bin Laden's improved health, al-Qaeda has in the past few months gained some breathing room to regroup and solidify its logistics as a result of the situation in the semi-autonomous North and South Waziristan tribal areas.
A new dynamic among militant groups has emerged in Egypt to complement al-Qaeda's designs in the Middle East. Tuesday's Damascus attack could also be an illustration of this.
Many youths previously associated with the militant Gamaa Islamiya of Egypt have formed independent cells, while some Egyptian youths of Palestinian origin have created underground organizations to target the pro-Israeli Egyptian government and US interests.
The Israel-Hezbollah war proved the ideal starting point for this plan. The successful defense of Lebanon by Hezbollah was largely taken in the Arab world as the first Arab victory against Israel. Sentiment on the streets of the Middle East turned noticeably against the US, Israel and pro-West Muslim rulers. Al-Qaeda wants to keep this mood, and inflame it even further. Attacks like the one in Damascus could be such pot-boilers. More, and bigger, ones are most likely being plotted by the masterminds sitting in the tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan."
Terror in the Levant
Who attacked the U.S. embassy in Damascus – and why?
By Justin Raimondo
"Jund al-Sham, loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the Levant, including the assassination of a Hezbollah official. Now this last certainly seems like an odd task for a purportedly Islamist group to undertake. The ostensible motivation for this attack is the Shi'ite-Sunni rivalry: the Shi'ite Hezbollah is considered heretical, and therefore a target of Takfiri retribution, yet the confluence of interests between these "Soldiers of Syria" with the soldiers of Israel in the IDF is striking. Another oddity: the links between Jund al-Sham and a recently uncovered Israeli spy network in Lebanon.
Hussein Khattab, a Palestinian member of the spy ring – which has been linked to several assassinations of Palestinian leaders and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon – is the brother of Sheik Jamal Khattab, an Islamic cleric and recruiter for al-Qaeda in Iraq, who is, in turn, connected to Jund al-Sham. Furthermore, a suspiciously large part of Jund al-Sham's activities in the Levant have been directed against Hezbollah. In July 2005, Jund al-Sham faxed a threat to the Shi'ite Fatwa Center in Tyre, vowing to murder several prominent Hezbollah figures, including former spiritual leader Sayyed Hussein Fadlallah. The group also issued a number of statements labeling Hezbollah "unbelievers" – and thus justifiably targeted by "true" Muslims. Another coincidence: the assassination of Hezbollah leaders Ali Saleh and Ghaleb Awali, as well as Palestinian militants in Lebanon, previously claimed by Jund al-Sham, has been uncovered by the Lebanese security forces as the work of the Mossad ring."
By Justin Raimondo
"Jund al-Sham, loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the Levant, including the assassination of a Hezbollah official. Now this last certainly seems like an odd task for a purportedly Islamist group to undertake. The ostensible motivation for this attack is the Shi'ite-Sunni rivalry: the Shi'ite Hezbollah is considered heretical, and therefore a target of Takfiri retribution, yet the confluence of interests between these "Soldiers of Syria" with the soldiers of Israel in the IDF is striking. Another oddity: the links between Jund al-Sham and a recently uncovered Israeli spy network in Lebanon.
Hussein Khattab, a Palestinian member of the spy ring – which has been linked to several assassinations of Palestinian leaders and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon – is the brother of Sheik Jamal Khattab, an Islamic cleric and recruiter for al-Qaeda in Iraq, who is, in turn, connected to Jund al-Sham. Furthermore, a suspiciously large part of Jund al-Sham's activities in the Levant have been directed against Hezbollah. In July 2005, Jund al-Sham faxed a threat to the Shi'ite Fatwa Center in Tyre, vowing to murder several prominent Hezbollah figures, including former spiritual leader Sayyed Hussein Fadlallah. The group also issued a number of statements labeling Hezbollah "unbelievers" – and thus justifiably targeted by "true" Muslims. Another coincidence: the assassination of Hezbollah leaders Ali Saleh and Ghaleb Awali, as well as Palestinian militants in Lebanon, previously claimed by Jund al-Sham, has been uncovered by the Lebanese security forces as the work of the Mossad ring."
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
CONNECT THE DOTS
By Tony Sayegh
* Blair was given the red-carpet treatment in Ramallah by Abbas.
* The next day, with great fanfare, Abbas and Haniyeh announced agreement on a "national unity" government.
* Two days later (today) Israel announced that 18 Hamas lawmakers will be released on bail.
* Today the puppet Abbas is meeting the boy king of Jordan who praised "Palestinian unity!"
* The EU is hailing the "Palestinian unity government" as a good step to get the "peace process" moving!
* Hamas has announced that it will not be involved in "peace negotiations," but would leave that to Abbas and the PLO (whatever is left of it).
* Informed sources say that Hamas ministers will no longer run the key ministries of finance, foreign relations and interior. Hamas will be given such ministries as health, education (and garbage collection?).
* In a speech today in Brighton, England Blair asked for the removal of the economic blockade against the Palestinians. He said that the announcement of a "national unity" government was what he had been hoping for. Surprise, surprise!
* The impotent Arab regimes are launching a new "peace initiative" at the UN this month.
Something has been cooked and Blair was the messenger; he delivered the instructions. Don't be surprised to hear that the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas will be released soon.
As I said before, I don't like the smell of what has been cooked.
***
The problem is that Hamas is not helping itself by putting itself in the situation it will be in. Instead of healing and restoring popular support, Hamas will lose support by being seen as defeated without having the courage of its convictions to pull out of this miserable PA arrangement.
It was a mistake in the first place for Hamas to participate in elections under the Oslo roof. That decision reflected naïveté, since Hamas thought that Usrael would respect the democratic choice and not besiege it. Next Hamas bet that it would generate alternate sources of funding and withstand the siege; that failed. Hamas knew all along that Abbas, Fatah and the Arab regimes were conspiring to topple it; yet it continued to deal with Abbas and now will have a government of "national unity" basically controlled by the same Fatah ministers who wanted to topple it. The ministers of finance, foreign affairs and interior will not be from Hamas. These are the key ministries. In addition, the despicable Saeb Arikat will remain as minister in charge of "negotiations." What is left for Hamas? To collect the garbage and sweep the streets? Haniyeh recently showed his skills in this regard.
What will turn a lot of people away from Hamas is the new dependence on obfuscation and doubletalk, instead of being straight talker (as it used to be). What is this nonsense that the new government is not in charge of "negotiations?" It left that to the same corrupt Abbas and his PLO. Who is Hamas kidding? Who needs such government if it is not concerned with the key issue of political settlement and the future of the Palestinians? This is deceitful, and that made me lose respect for Hamas. Now, Hamas is using Arafat-era rhetoric of stressing "national unity" and discouraging any dissent!
It would have been much better if Hamas followed Islamic Jihad and stayed outside this framework of Oslo and the PA. Hamas was more effective as an opposition and a resistance movement. Now, it will be tied with a thousand ropes, cut a thousand cuts and humiliated. People will lose respect for Hamas.
Compare its position towards the puppet Abbas with Nasrallah's position towards Siniora; there is no comparison. It would have been much better if Hamas were as principled.
* Blair was given the red-carpet treatment in Ramallah by Abbas.
* The next day, with great fanfare, Abbas and Haniyeh announced agreement on a "national unity" government.
* Two days later (today) Israel announced that 18 Hamas lawmakers will be released on bail.
* Today the puppet Abbas is meeting the boy king of Jordan who praised "Palestinian unity!"
* The EU is hailing the "Palestinian unity government" as a good step to get the "peace process" moving!
* Hamas has announced that it will not be involved in "peace negotiations," but would leave that to Abbas and the PLO (whatever is left of it).
* Informed sources say that Hamas ministers will no longer run the key ministries of finance, foreign relations and interior. Hamas will be given such ministries as health, education (and garbage collection?).
* In a speech today in Brighton, England Blair asked for the removal of the economic blockade against the Palestinians. He said that the announcement of a "national unity" government was what he had been hoping for. Surprise, surprise!
* The impotent Arab regimes are launching a new "peace initiative" at the UN this month.
Something has been cooked and Blair was the messenger; he delivered the instructions. Don't be surprised to hear that the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas will be released soon.
As I said before, I don't like the smell of what has been cooked.
***
The problem is that Hamas is not helping itself by putting itself in the situation it will be in. Instead of healing and restoring popular support, Hamas will lose support by being seen as defeated without having the courage of its convictions to pull out of this miserable PA arrangement.
It was a mistake in the first place for Hamas to participate in elections under the Oslo roof. That decision reflected naïveté, since Hamas thought that Usrael would respect the democratic choice and not besiege it. Next Hamas bet that it would generate alternate sources of funding and withstand the siege; that failed. Hamas knew all along that Abbas, Fatah and the Arab regimes were conspiring to topple it; yet it continued to deal with Abbas and now will have a government of "national unity" basically controlled by the same Fatah ministers who wanted to topple it. The ministers of finance, foreign affairs and interior will not be from Hamas. These are the key ministries. In addition, the despicable Saeb Arikat will remain as minister in charge of "negotiations." What is left for Hamas? To collect the garbage and sweep the streets? Haniyeh recently showed his skills in this regard.
What will turn a lot of people away from Hamas is the new dependence on obfuscation and doubletalk, instead of being straight talker (as it used to be). What is this nonsense that the new government is not in charge of "negotiations?" It left that to the same corrupt Abbas and his PLO. Who is Hamas kidding? Who needs such government if it is not concerned with the key issue of political settlement and the future of the Palestinians? This is deceitful, and that made me lose respect for Hamas. Now, Hamas is using Arafat-era rhetoric of stressing "national unity" and discouraging any dissent!
It would have been much better if Hamas followed Islamic Jihad and stayed outside this framework of Oslo and the PA. Hamas was more effective as an opposition and a resistance movement. Now, it will be tied with a thousand ropes, cut a thousand cuts and humiliated. People will lose respect for Hamas.
Compare its position towards the puppet Abbas with Nasrallah's position towards Siniora; there is no comparison. It would have been much better if Hamas were as principled.
The lessons of Lebanon by Noam Chomsky
IN LEBANON, a little-honoured truce remains in effect — yet another in a decades-long series of cease-fires between Israel and its adversaries in a cycle that, as if inevitably, returns to warfare, carnage and human misery.
Let’s describe the current crisis for what it is: a US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, with only a cynical pretense to legitimacy. Amid all the charges and countercharges, the most immediate factor behind the assault is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This is hardly the first time that Israel has invaded Lebanon to eliminate an alleged threat. The most important of the US-backed Israeli invasions of Lebanon, in 1982, was widely described in Israel as a war for the West Bank. It was undertaken to end the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s annoying calls for a diplomatic settlement. Despite many different circumstances, the July invasion falls into the same pattern.
What would break the cycle? The basic outlines of a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict are familiar, and have been supported by a broad international consensus for 30 years: a two-state settlement on the international border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments.
The Arab states formally accepted this proposal in 2002, as the
Palestinians had, long before. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that though this solution is not Hezbollah’s preference, they will not disrupt it. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently reaffirmed that Iran too supports this settlement. Hamas has indicated clearly that it is prepared to negotiate for a settlement in these terms as well.
The United States and Israel continue to block this political settlement, as they have done for 30 years, with brief and inconsequential exceptions. Denial may be preferred at home, but the victims do not enjoy that luxury.
US-Israeli rejectionism is not only in words, but more important, in actions. With decisive US backing, Israel has been formalising its programme of annexation, dismemberment of shrinking Palestinian territories and imprisonment of what remains by taking over the Jordan Valley — the "convergence" program that is, astonishingly, called "courageous withdrawal" in the United States.
In consequence, the Palestinians are facing national destruction. The most meaningful support for Palestinians is from Hezbollah, which was formed in reaction to the 1982 invasion. Hezbollah won considerable prestige by leading the effort to force Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000. Also, like other Islamic movements, including Hamas, Hezbollah has gained popular support by providing social services to the poor.
To US and Israeli planners it therefore follows that Hezbollah must be severely weakened or destroyed — just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hezbollah is so deeply embedded within Lebanese society that it cannot be eradicated without destroying much of Lebanon as well — hence the scale of the attack on the country’s population and infrastructure.
In keeping with a familiar pattern, the aggression is sharply increasing the support for Hezbollah, not only in the Arab and Muslim worlds beyond but also in Lebanon itself.
Late last month, polls revealed that 87 per cent of Lebanese support Hezbollah’s resistance against the invasion, including 80 per cent of Christians and Druze. Even the Maronite Catholic patriarch, the spiritual leader of the most pro-Western sector in Lebanon, joined Sunni and Shia religious leaders in a statement condemning the "aggression" and hailing "the resistance, mainly led by Hezbollah." The poll also found that 90 per cent of Lebanese regard the United States as "complicit in Israel’s war crimes against the Lebanese people."
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Lebanon’s leading academic scholar on Hezbollah, observes that "these findings are all the more significant when compared to the results of a similar survey conducted just five months ago, which showed that only 58 per cent of all Lebanese believed Hezbollah had the right to remain armed, and hence, continue its resistance activity."
The dynamics are familiar. Rami G. Khouri, an editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star, writes that "the Lebanese and Palestinians have responded to Israel’s persistent and increasingly savage attacks against entire civilian populations by creating parallel or alternative leaderships that can protect them and deliver essential services."
Such popular forces will only gain in power and become more extremist if the United States and Israel persist in demolishing any hope of Palestinian national rights, and in destroying Lebanon.
In the current crisis even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Washington’s oldest (and most important) ally in the region, was compelled to say, "If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire."
It is no secret that Israel has helped to destroy secular Arab nationalism and to create Hezbollah and Hamas, just as US violence has expedited the rise of extremist Islamic fundamentalism and jihadi terror. The latest adventure is likely to create new generations of bitter and angry jihadis, just as the invasion of Iraq did.
Israeli writer Uri Avnery observed that Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, former air force commander, "views the world below through a bombsight." Much the same is true of Rumsfeld-Cheney-Rice and other top Bush administration planners. As history reveals, that view of the world is not uncommon among those who wield most of the means of violence.
Saad-Ghorayeb describes the current violence in "apocalyptic terms," warning that possibly "all hell would be let loose" if the outcome of the US-Israel campaign leaves a situation in which "the Shia community is seething with resentment at Israel, the United States and the government that it perceives as its betrayer."
The core issue — the Israel-Palestine conflict — can be dealt with by diplomacy, if the United States and Israel abandon their rejectionist commitments. Other outstanding problems in the region are also susceptible to negotiation and diplomacy. Their success can never be guaranteed. But we can be reasonably confident that viewing the world through a bombsight will bring further misery and suffering, perhaps even in "apocalyptic terms."
Poverty drives children to work at checkpoints
Report, IRIN, 12 September 2006
WEST BANK - Six months of a crippling international embargo on the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) has brought its economy to a virtual standstill. As a result, children are being driven increasingly to find work to help support their families.
"After my father became jobless, I joined my friends to work at the checkpoint in order to support my 11-member family," said Subhi Abdullah 16, referring to his unofficial job at al-Hawawer Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The embargo followed the democratic election of a Hamas-led government in February. Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by the West and Israel.
With a population of 4.2 million people, oPt comprises the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
While plans were announced on Monday for a Palestinian unity government that could meet conditions to have the embargo lifted, ordinary Palestinians continue to suffer.
According to the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), 40,000 children under 18 work in oPt - 73 percent of whom were forced to work due to severe financial conditions.
Subhi goes to al-Hawawer checkpoint every morning, dragging his steel handcart behind him. He competes with other boys to get two or three shekels (45 to 70 US cents) a time for carrying the luggage of travellers.
Forty percent of the West Bank has been under the limited civilian jurisdiction of the Palestinian government since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, while Israel maintains overall control - hence the checkpoints.
"One man's poison is another man's meat," said Subhi, when asked what he felt about the existence of the checkpoints.
Israel has set up hundreds of checkpoints across the West Bank for "security reasons", its army says. These checkpoints make it difficult for Palestinians to move freely from town to town; sometimes even from village to village.
Subhi said he leaves home at daybreak. He goes to school first, then to the checkpoint. By the time he gets back home in the evening, he is completely worn out. "My studies have been negatively affected. I do not have enough time to study. I think it is useless," said Subhi.
Abdul Rahman, 14, from al-Khader village near Bethlehem, works at the al-Khader checkpoint. He prefers working than going to school.
"I impatiently wait for the school bell to ring. And when it does, I take my handcart, which I leave beside my school, and rush to the checkpoint. I leave my school bag with my younger brother, who takes it home," Abdul Rahman said. "I start looking around with my colleagues to get travellers' bags and transfer them to the other side of the checkpoint."
While these checkpoint children or 'the little porters', as they are sometimes called, are of great benefit to travellers, NGOs and relief agencies are concerned with their welfare and with the impact of the checkpoints on the Palestinian population.
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has said that the prevalence of checkpoints coupled with Israel's intermittent curfews are hampering the education system in oPt. More than 225,000 children and 9,300 teachers in the West Bank face a daily struggle to get to school
According to the children's agency, two thirds of Palestinian children live below the poverty line (US$2 a day), 38 percent of Palestinian children are anaemic and 23 percent of students and 36 percent of teachers are unable to get to school on any given day.
A Palestinian Child Draft Law states that it is forbidden to employ children below 15 years of age. It stipulates that the state should take all appropriate procedures to rehabilitate working children - physically and psychologically.
While the little porters continue to relieve travellers' burdens, no one is helping them relieve theirs.
 |
| Two young Palestinian school children stand in front of a barrier that seperates their home from their school. The sign says those who cross the barrier will be killed. (Edward Parsons/IRIN) |
WEST BANK - Six months of a crippling international embargo on the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) has brought its economy to a virtual standstill. As a result, children are being driven increasingly to find work to help support their families.
"After my father became jobless, I joined my friends to work at the checkpoint in order to support my 11-member family," said Subhi Abdullah 16, referring to his unofficial job at al-Hawawer Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The embargo followed the democratic election of a Hamas-led government in February. Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by the West and Israel.
With a population of 4.2 million people, oPt comprises the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
While plans were announced on Monday for a Palestinian unity government that could meet conditions to have the embargo lifted, ordinary Palestinians continue to suffer.
According to the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), 40,000 children under 18 work in oPt - 73 percent of whom were forced to work due to severe financial conditions.
Subhi goes to al-Hawawer checkpoint every morning, dragging his steel handcart behind him. He competes with other boys to get two or three shekels (45 to 70 US cents) a time for carrying the luggage of travellers.
Forty percent of the West Bank has been under the limited civilian jurisdiction of the Palestinian government since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, while Israel maintains overall control - hence the checkpoints.
"One man's poison is another man's meat," said Subhi, when asked what he felt about the existence of the checkpoints.
Israel has set up hundreds of checkpoints across the West Bank for "security reasons", its army says. These checkpoints make it difficult for Palestinians to move freely from town to town; sometimes even from village to village.
Subhi said he leaves home at daybreak. He goes to school first, then to the checkpoint. By the time he gets back home in the evening, he is completely worn out. "My studies have been negatively affected. I do not have enough time to study. I think it is useless," said Subhi.
Abdul Rahman, 14, from al-Khader village near Bethlehem, works at the al-Khader checkpoint. He prefers working than going to school.
"I impatiently wait for the school bell to ring. And when it does, I take my handcart, which I leave beside my school, and rush to the checkpoint. I leave my school bag with my younger brother, who takes it home," Abdul Rahman said. "I start looking around with my colleagues to get travellers' bags and transfer them to the other side of the checkpoint."
While these checkpoint children or 'the little porters', as they are sometimes called, are of great benefit to travellers, NGOs and relief agencies are concerned with their welfare and with the impact of the checkpoints on the Palestinian population.
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has said that the prevalence of checkpoints coupled with Israel's intermittent curfews are hampering the education system in oPt. More than 225,000 children and 9,300 teachers in the West Bank face a daily struggle to get to school
According to the children's agency, two thirds of Palestinian children live below the poverty line (US$2 a day), 38 percent of Palestinian children are anaemic and 23 percent of students and 36 percent of teachers are unable to get to school on any given day.
A Palestinian Child Draft Law states that it is forbidden to employ children below 15 years of age. It stipulates that the state should take all appropriate procedures to rehabilitate working children - physically and psychologically.
While the little porters continue to relieve travellers' burdens, no one is helping them relieve theirs.
The bitter legacy of 9/11
2,973 Total number of people killed (excluding the 19 hijackers) in the September 11, 2001 attacks
72,000 Estimated number of civilians killed worldwide since September 11, 2001 as a result of the war on terror
2 Number of years since US intelligence had any credible lead to Osama bin Laden's whereabouts
2,932 Total number of US servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since September 2001
1,248 Number of published books relating to the September 11 attacks
$119m Ticket sales for anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11
2009 Date when the official memorial will open at the World Trade Centre site
0 Hours of intelligence training provided to new FBI agents before 9/11. Now they get 24.
91 per cent Terror cases from FBI and others that US Justice Dept declined to prosecute in first eight months of 2006
11 Weeks the 9/11 commission's final report was top of New York Times' non-fiction best-seller list
117 Number of UK service personnel killed in Iraq since invasion
40 Number of UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since invasion
7 per cent People in UK who think US-led war on terror is being won, according to YouGov
1 Those charged in US with a crime in connection with 9/11
455 Number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay
77 per cent Percentage of people in the UK who believe Tony Blair's Middle East policy has made Britain a terrorist target (YouGov)
4,000 Number of UK troops left in Iraq after British-controlled provinceshanded back to Baghdad
18 The number of times that undercover investigators with fake IDs have breezed through US border checkpoints in a test by the Government Accountability Office
$8bn The amount the US will spend this year on hunting Bin Laden and other terrorists
Two Blogs from Palestine
Just wanted to share with y'all two of my favorite blogs fom Palestine...
http://nashazz.blogspot.com/
Although she calls herself Nashaaz (can be Arabicized as discordant)... the most harmonious Arabic I read anywhere on the net... a Palestinian in Haifa, she lives thourgh the sharp ironies of the situation and blogs her way out...
http://faragallah.blogspot.com/
Sheikh Rousso seems to be a former Muslim with sharp sense of humor blogs his four-letter critiques of the ironies of the Palestinian politics from the West Bank... As he says he writes with moral support from the French cigarette company Gauloises.. Their motto for those who don't know is "liberte Toujours".
Apologies again for non-Aaarabs, they are both in Arabic... one in VERY BEAUTIFUL ARABIC, and one in VERY FACETIOUS OFFENDING ARABIC.
http://nashazz.blogspot.com/
Although she calls herself Nashaaz (can be Arabicized as discordant)... the most harmonious Arabic I read anywhere on the net... a Palestinian in Haifa, she lives thourgh the sharp ironies of the situation and blogs her way out...
http://faragallah.blogspot.com/
Sheikh Rousso seems to be a former Muslim with sharp sense of humor blogs his four-letter critiques of the ironies of the Palestinian politics from the West Bank... As he says he writes with moral support from the French cigarette company Gauloises.. Their motto for those who don't know is "liberte Toujours".
Apologies again for non-Aaarabs, they are both in Arabic... one in VERY BEAUTIFUL ARABIC, and one in VERY FACETIOUS OFFENDING ARABIC.
The Big Question: What is neo-conservatism, and how influential is it today?
By Rupert Cornwell
The Independent
"Have the neo-cons been discredited?
Not necessarily. Their credibility has been shredded by Iraq, but Kristol and others blame the failure not on the original grand design, but on the poor organisation of the occupation by Rumsfeld and his minions at the Pentagon. The original principles of PNAC are still very much the cornerstone of US foreign policy.
The crucial test case of neo-con influence is now Iran. In contrast with Iraq, Bush's instinct seems to be to let diplomacy run its course in the dispute over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons programme. But neo-cons are urging him (and/or Israel) to take no chances and bomb Iran, just as Iraq was attacked three years ago.
Do the neo-cons have a British equivalent?
Most certainly, in the person of Tony Blair. The Labour leader is in many respects an identikit US neo-con. Obviously Britain, unlike America, doesn't have the power to reshape the world. Nor is Mr Blair as unabashedly pro-Israel as Mr Bush. But he is a left-of-centre politician who espouses a robust and ideals-driven foreign policy, despite being fully aware of the unpopularity of his chief ally, and of UK domestic opposition to the neo-cons' main policy, the invasion of Iraq. If that isn't neo-conservatism, what is?"
The Independent
"Have the neo-cons been discredited?
Not necessarily. Their credibility has been shredded by Iraq, but Kristol and others blame the failure not on the original grand design, but on the poor organisation of the occupation by Rumsfeld and his minions at the Pentagon. The original principles of PNAC are still very much the cornerstone of US foreign policy.
The crucial test case of neo-con influence is now Iran. In contrast with Iraq, Bush's instinct seems to be to let diplomacy run its course in the dispute over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons programme. But neo-cons are urging him (and/or Israel) to take no chances and bomb Iran, just as Iraq was attacked three years ago.
Do the neo-cons have a British equivalent?
Most certainly, in the person of Tony Blair. The Labour leader is in many respects an identikit US neo-con. Obviously Britain, unlike America, doesn't have the power to reshape the world. Nor is Mr Blair as unabashedly pro-Israel as Mr Bush. But he is a left-of-centre politician who espouses a robust and ideals-driven foreign policy, despite being fully aware of the unpopularity of his chief ally, and of UK domestic opposition to the neo-cons' main policy, the invasion of Iraq. If that isn't neo-conservatism, what is?"
Nasrallah criticises Lebanese leaders
Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hezbollah, has used the British prime minister's recent visit to Beirut to issue his strongest criticism of the Lebanese government since the fighting ended between Hezbollah and Israel.
"Nasrallah criticised Fuad Siniora, the Lebanonese prime minister, for giving Tony Blair a warm welcome in the country on Monday, in remarks aired by Aljazeera on Tuesday. "You bring him home to me and to my family and you give a great reception?" Nasrallah said. "If there was an invitation made for Tony Bair to visit, then this is a national disaster."
The Shia leader said that Blair participated in the killing of Lebanese by not doing enough to stop Israel's war with Hezbollah. "This Tony Blair is an associate in the murdering," he said.
Nasrallah also said his group has been practicing self-restraint against what he described as back-stabbing and provocation by some politicians. "Do not these [Lebanese officials] have feelings, calculations, brain or heart?" Nasrallah asked, apparently also criticising the Lebanese government's attempts to secure foreign aid to restore Lebanese infrastructure that was damaged during the war. "Are people made of stone in Lebanon? Is this country vacant of people? Are we only hotels, concrete, roads and bridges?" he said."
***
Sayyed Nasrallah's description of Siniora's reception of the war criminal Blair as immoral and his reminder that "This Tony Blair is an associate in the murdering," applies equally to the puppet Abbas. Abbas gave Blair a red-carpet reception in Ramallah, which was a stab in the back for all Lebanese. Most Palestinians would agree with Nasrallah and would also describe Abbas' reception of Blair as immoral and cowardly. However, we (Lebanese and Palestinians) should remember that Siniora and Abbas do not make decisions, they follow orders.
Tony Sayegh
Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism
The Dream Philosophy of Paranoids
By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN
CounterPunch
"A central thesis of my book Beyond Chutzpah is that whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle its apologists sound the alarm that a "new anti-Semitism" is upon us. So, predictably, just after Israel faced another image problem due to its murderous destruction of Lebanon, a British all-party parliamentary group led by notorious Israel-firster Denis MacShane MP (Labor) released yet another report alleging a resurgence of anti-Semitism.
The single novelty of the report, which mostly rehashes fatuous allegations already disposed of in Beyond Chutzpah, is the new thresholds in idiocy it breaks. Consider the methodology deployed for demonstrating a new anti-Semitism. The report defines an anti-Semitic incident as any occasion "perceived" to be anti-Semitic by the "Jewish community." This is the school of thought according to which it's raining even in the absence of any precipitation because I feel it's raining. It is the dream philosophy of paranoids especially rational paranoids, for whom alleged victimhood is politically serviceable. The report includes under the rubric of anti-Semitic incidents not just violent acts and incendiary speech but "conversations, discussions, or pronouncements made in public or private, which cross the line of acceptability," as well as "the mood and tone when Jews are discussed." The wonder is that it didn't also tabulate repressed anti-Semitic libidinal fantasies. In the category of inherently anti-Semitic pronouncements the report includes "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" (only comparisons of contemporary Arab policy to that of the Nazis are permissible) and "theories about Jewish or Zionist influence on American foreign policy" (even if Jewish and Zionist organizations boast about this influence).
Finally, it is anti-Semitic for student unions to advocate a boycott of Israeli goods because this "would restrict the availability of kosher food on campus." Maybe Israel can organize a "Berlin airlift" of gefilte fish."
The Coming Collapse of Zionism
A SEMINAL ARTICLE:
The Moral Bankruptcy of Israel's Founding Idea
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
Former CIA Analyst
CounterPunch
"Is it only observers outside the conventional mainstream who have noticed that by its murderous assault on Lebanon and simultaneously on Gaza, Israel finally exposed, for even the most deluded to see, the total bankruptcy of its very founding idea?
Racism has always been the lifeblood of Israel. Zionism rests on the fundamental belief that Jews have superior national, human, and natural rights in the land, an inherently racist foundation that excludes any possibility of true democracy or equality of peoples. Israel's destructive rampage in Lebanon and Gaza is merely the natural next step in the evolution of such a founding ideology. Precisely because that ideology posits the exclusivity and superiority of one people's rights, it can accept no legal or moral restraints on its behavior and no territorial limits, for it needs an ever-expanding geography to accommodate those unlimited rights.
Total domination means no physical threat and no demographic threat: Jews reign, Jews are totally secure, Jews always outnumber, Jews hold all military power, Jews control all natural resources, all neighbors are powerless and totally subservient. This was the message Israel tried to send with its attack on Lebanon: that neither Hizbullah nor anything in Lebanon that nurtures Hizbullah should continue to exist, for the sole reason that Hizbullah challenges Israel's supreme authority in the region and Israel cannot abide this effrontery. Zionism cannot coexist with any other ideology or ethnicity except in the preeminent position, for everyone and every ideology that is not Zionist is a potential threat.
The cluster bombs are a certain sign of Israel's intent to remake Lebanon, at least southern Lebanon, into a region cleansed of its Arab population and unable to function except at Israel's mercy.
This was not a war against Hizbullah, except incidentally. It was not a war against terror, as Israel and its U.S. acolytes would have us believe (indeed, Hizbullah was not conducting terrorist acts, but had been engaged in a sporadic series of military exchanges with Israeli forces along the border, usually initiated by Israel). This was a war for Israeli breathing space, for the absolute certainty that Israel would dominate the neighborhood.
In the nearly 40 years since then, Israeli policy has been largely directed -- with periodic time-outs for attacks on Lebanon -- toward making the Palestinians disappear for certain. The methods of ethnic cleansing are myriad: land theft, destruction of agricultural land and resources, economic strangulation, crippling restrictions on commerce, home demolition, residency permit revocation, outright deportation, arrest, assassination, family separation, movement restriction, destruction of census and land ownership records, theft of tax monies, starvation."
The Moral Bankruptcy of Israel's Founding Idea
By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
Former CIA Analyst
CounterPunch
"Is it only observers outside the conventional mainstream who have noticed that by its murderous assault on Lebanon and simultaneously on Gaza, Israel finally exposed, for even the most deluded to see, the total bankruptcy of its very founding idea?
Racism has always been the lifeblood of Israel. Zionism rests on the fundamental belief that Jews have superior national, human, and natural rights in the land, an inherently racist foundation that excludes any possibility of true democracy or equality of peoples. Israel's destructive rampage in Lebanon and Gaza is merely the natural next step in the evolution of such a founding ideology. Precisely because that ideology posits the exclusivity and superiority of one people's rights, it can accept no legal or moral restraints on its behavior and no territorial limits, for it needs an ever-expanding geography to accommodate those unlimited rights.
Total domination means no physical threat and no demographic threat: Jews reign, Jews are totally secure, Jews always outnumber, Jews hold all military power, Jews control all natural resources, all neighbors are powerless and totally subservient. This was the message Israel tried to send with its attack on Lebanon: that neither Hizbullah nor anything in Lebanon that nurtures Hizbullah should continue to exist, for the sole reason that Hizbullah challenges Israel's supreme authority in the region and Israel cannot abide this effrontery. Zionism cannot coexist with any other ideology or ethnicity except in the preeminent position, for everyone and every ideology that is not Zionist is a potential threat.
The cluster bombs are a certain sign of Israel's intent to remake Lebanon, at least southern Lebanon, into a region cleansed of its Arab population and unable to function except at Israel's mercy.
This was not a war against Hizbullah, except incidentally. It was not a war against terror, as Israel and its U.S. acolytes would have us believe (indeed, Hizbullah was not conducting terrorist acts, but had been engaged in a sporadic series of military exchanges with Israeli forces along the border, usually initiated by Israel). This was a war for Israeli breathing space, for the absolute certainty that Israel would dominate the neighborhood.
In the nearly 40 years since then, Israeli policy has been largely directed -- with periodic time-outs for attacks on Lebanon -- toward making the Palestinians disappear for certain. The methods of ethnic cleansing are myriad: land theft, destruction of agricultural land and resources, economic strangulation, crippling restrictions on commerce, home demolition, residency permit revocation, outright deportation, arrest, assassination, family separation, movement restriction, destruction of census and land ownership records, theft of tax monies, starvation."
مأزق «الاعتدال العربي»
AN EDITORIAL (Arabic) BY LEBANESE COLUMNIST
JOSEPH SAMAHA
"هذا في الشكل. أما في المضمون، فالمؤتمر الصحافي تكثيف للمأزق الذي يعيشه «الاعتدال العربي» ممثلاً بأحد أرقى رموزه، فؤاد السنيورة. وتكثيف، أيضاً، للفشل الذريع الذي يعانيه توجّه غربي أبوي واستعلائي يريد إحلال «العلاقات العامة» محل السياسة.
كان يمكن القول إن المشكلة مع الولايات المتحدة هي في سيطرة إسرائيل (أو «اليهود» حسب قول عنصري) على مفاصل القرار الأميركي. والاستنتاج من ذلك، أن معركة تحرر العرب من الاحتلال هي نفسها معركة تحرير أميركا من «النفوذ الصهيوني» ويكون ذلك بتلبية جميع مصالح الولايات المتحدة في المنطقة بشكل لا تعود تحتاج معه إلى «الركيزة الاستراتيجية».
لقد كان أساس هذه السياسة «الواقعية» واهياً على الدوام ولكن، أمكنه، أن يشكّل زاداً شبه مقنع في مرحلة الحربين الباردتين: الكونية والعربية ــ العربية.
انهار هذا الأساس نهائياً مع مطالع الألفية الثالثة وبعد 11 أيلول والانعطافة الأميركية العدوانية التي تلاقت مع الاندفاعة التوسعية الإسرائيلية. ومع ازدياد التطابق المعلَن بين واشنطن وتل أبيب كان لا بد لـ«الاعتدال العربي» من أن يدفع الثمن.
ولقد كانت الحرب الإسرائيلية على لبنان مناسبة لاختبار هذه المعادلة الجديدة. ولذا شهدنا «الاعتدال العربي» يجيز هذه الحرب متلطياً وراء ضرورات التصدّي للتمدد الإيراني الداعم للإرهاب.
إلاّ أن الحرب لم تنجح عسكرياً كما كان متوقعاً. ولقد أدّى ذلك إلى إحراج «الاعتدال العربي» وخاصة مع اتضاح أن الولايات المتحدة ماضية في السعي إلى أن تحقق لإسرائيل، ولنفسها، بالسياسة ما لم يتحقق بالقوة.
لقد عاش «الاعتدال العربي» فترة راحة في بداية الحرب، لكنه عاد فدخل في المأزق من دون أن تبدو الإدارة الأميركية مهتمّة به. ولعل الدليل اللبناني على ذلك أن الولايات المتحدة المهتمّة بدعم حكومة «الاعتدال» تجعل الموافقة الإسرائيلية المسبقة شرطاً لتسليح الجيش اللبناني. ولا نشكّ في أن الرئيس السنيورة قرأ خبر «يديعوت أحرونوت» وهو يستعدّ لاستقبال بلير. ومن الطبيعي أن يشعر بقدر من الإحراج وخاصة أن البحث مع الضيف يتناول، في ما يتناول، دعم المؤسسات الأمنية.
لقد وجد السنيورة مخرجاً من ارتباكه بأن كال المديح لـ«الديموقراطية اللبنانية». إلاّ أنه يدرك تماماً أن ذلك لا يغيّر شيئاً في طبيعة «المأزق»: كل علاقة مباشرة بإدارة بوش أو حكومة بلير هي، اليوم، وأكثر من أي يوم مضى، علاقة غير مباشرة بإسرائيل."
JOSEPH SAMAHA
"هذا في الشكل. أما في المضمون، فالمؤتمر الصحافي تكثيف للمأزق الذي يعيشه «الاعتدال العربي» ممثلاً بأحد أرقى رموزه، فؤاد السنيورة. وتكثيف، أيضاً، للفشل الذريع الذي يعانيه توجّه غربي أبوي واستعلائي يريد إحلال «العلاقات العامة» محل السياسة.
كان يمكن القول إن المشكلة مع الولايات المتحدة هي في سيطرة إسرائيل (أو «اليهود» حسب قول عنصري) على مفاصل القرار الأميركي. والاستنتاج من ذلك، أن معركة تحرر العرب من الاحتلال هي نفسها معركة تحرير أميركا من «النفوذ الصهيوني» ويكون ذلك بتلبية جميع مصالح الولايات المتحدة في المنطقة بشكل لا تعود تحتاج معه إلى «الركيزة الاستراتيجية».
لقد كان أساس هذه السياسة «الواقعية» واهياً على الدوام ولكن، أمكنه، أن يشكّل زاداً شبه مقنع في مرحلة الحربين الباردتين: الكونية والعربية ــ العربية.
انهار هذا الأساس نهائياً مع مطالع الألفية الثالثة وبعد 11 أيلول والانعطافة الأميركية العدوانية التي تلاقت مع الاندفاعة التوسعية الإسرائيلية. ومع ازدياد التطابق المعلَن بين واشنطن وتل أبيب كان لا بد لـ«الاعتدال العربي» من أن يدفع الثمن.
ولقد كانت الحرب الإسرائيلية على لبنان مناسبة لاختبار هذه المعادلة الجديدة. ولذا شهدنا «الاعتدال العربي» يجيز هذه الحرب متلطياً وراء ضرورات التصدّي للتمدد الإيراني الداعم للإرهاب.
إلاّ أن الحرب لم تنجح عسكرياً كما كان متوقعاً. ولقد أدّى ذلك إلى إحراج «الاعتدال العربي» وخاصة مع اتضاح أن الولايات المتحدة ماضية في السعي إلى أن تحقق لإسرائيل، ولنفسها، بالسياسة ما لم يتحقق بالقوة.
لقد عاش «الاعتدال العربي» فترة راحة في بداية الحرب، لكنه عاد فدخل في المأزق من دون أن تبدو الإدارة الأميركية مهتمّة به. ولعل الدليل اللبناني على ذلك أن الولايات المتحدة المهتمّة بدعم حكومة «الاعتدال» تجعل الموافقة الإسرائيلية المسبقة شرطاً لتسليح الجيش اللبناني. ولا نشكّ في أن الرئيس السنيورة قرأ خبر «يديعوت أحرونوت» وهو يستعدّ لاستقبال بلير. ومن الطبيعي أن يشعر بقدر من الإحراج وخاصة أن البحث مع الضيف يتناول، في ما يتناول، دعم المؤسسات الأمنية.
لقد وجد السنيورة مخرجاً من ارتباكه بأن كال المديح لـ«الديموقراطية اللبنانية». إلاّ أنه يدرك تماماً أن ذلك لا يغيّر شيئاً في طبيعة «المأزق»: كل علاقة مباشرة بإدارة بوش أو حكومة بلير هي، اليوم، وأكثر من أي يوم مضى، علاقة غير مباشرة بإسرائيل."
Iran steps back from the brink
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Asia Times
"Iran has finally blinked, reportedly agreeing to a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, as a confidence-building measure in response to growing international pressure. This is a welcome development that can potentially take the wind out of the sails of the ship of sanctions planned by the US and its allies at the United Nations Security Council.
Inevitably, many Iranians rightly ponder whether Bushehr will ever be completed, recalling how only a few months ago Nicholas Burns, a top US State Department official, bluntly asked Russia to withdraw from the Bushehr project if Iran failed to heed the UN's call to suspend enrichment activities. From Iran's vantage point, looking at past episodes of Russia's barter trade with the US over Iran, there is now a distinct possibility that Putin will prioritize his ties to the West over Iran if pushed to make a choice - and the diplomatic momentum is drifting precisely toward such a stark choice.
Both Tehran and Washington support the present besieged governments in Kabul and Baghdad, and the combination of impending civil war in Iraq, potentially spilling over to neighboring countries such as Iran, and the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan alone dictates fresh thinking on Tehran's and Washington's part on how not to let the situation in the region get out of hand.
Sure, the change of regimes in Kabul and Baghdad has been a security plus for Iran, but the massive infusion of US military might, bolstered by base-building in both Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and elsewhere in Iran's vicinity, have been tantamount to major tremors threatening the wellspring of Iran's national security."
Asia Times
"Iran has finally blinked, reportedly agreeing to a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, as a confidence-building measure in response to growing international pressure. This is a welcome development that can potentially take the wind out of the sails of the ship of sanctions planned by the US and its allies at the United Nations Security Council.
Inevitably, many Iranians rightly ponder whether Bushehr will ever be completed, recalling how only a few months ago Nicholas Burns, a top US State Department official, bluntly asked Russia to withdraw from the Bushehr project if Iran failed to heed the UN's call to suspend enrichment activities. From Iran's vantage point, looking at past episodes of Russia's barter trade with the US over Iran, there is now a distinct possibility that Putin will prioritize his ties to the West over Iran if pushed to make a choice - and the diplomatic momentum is drifting precisely toward such a stark choice.
Both Tehran and Washington support the present besieged governments in Kabul and Baghdad, and the combination of impending civil war in Iraq, potentially spilling over to neighboring countries such as Iran, and the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan alone dictates fresh thinking on Tehran's and Washington's part on how not to let the situation in the region get out of hand.
Sure, the change of regimes in Kabul and Baghdad has been a security plus for Iran, but the massive infusion of US military might, bolstered by base-building in both Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and elsewhere in Iran's vicinity, have been tantamount to major tremors threatening the wellspring of Iran's national security."
Fallujah again in the line of US fire
By Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
Asia Times
"FALLUJAH, Iraq - After enduring two major assaults, Fallujah, a key city in the western province al-Anbar, is under threat from US forces again. This coincides with news of a classified US intelligence report that the Pentagon is taking "very seriously" - that US forces are losing control of Anbar.
In Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, residents are edgy. "They destroyed our city twice and they are threatening us a third time," said Ahmed Dhahy, 52. "They want us to do their job for them and turn in those who target them." Dhahy, who lost 32 relatives when his father's house was bombed by a US aircraft during the April 2004 attack on Fallujah, said the US military had threatened it would destroy the city if resistance fighters were not handed over to them.
Fallujah was heavily bombed in April 2004 and again in November that year. The attacks destroyed 75% of the city's infrastructure and left more than 5,000 dead, according to local non-governmental groups.
But after the heavy assaults, resistance fighters have continued to launch attacks against US and official Iraqi forces in the city. Fallujah remains under tight security, with the US military using biometric identification, full body searches and bar-coded identification cards for residents to enter and leave their city.
"There are so many arrests and killings, and collective punishments, such as random shootings, violent inspection raids, repeated curfews and deliberate cutting of water and electricity," said Mohammed al-Darraji, head of a human-rights group in Fallujah called the Iraqi Center for Human Rights Observation. "What is going on in this city requires international intervention to protect civilians and to punish those who seriously damaged Fallujah society and committed serious crimes against humanity," Darraji said.
Another human-rights campaigner in Fallujah, who asked to be referred to as Khalid, said human-rights activists in Iraq felt betrayed by the United Nations. The UN had played ignorant "by leaving US troops to act alone in the city", said Khalid, who works with Raya Human Rights, a non-governmental organization in the city. "This was after the media exposed the enormity of the violence and human-rights violations during the last three years." "
Asia Times
"FALLUJAH, Iraq - After enduring two major assaults, Fallujah, a key city in the western province al-Anbar, is under threat from US forces again. This coincides with news of a classified US intelligence report that the Pentagon is taking "very seriously" - that US forces are losing control of Anbar.
In Fallujah, 50 kilometers west of Baghdad, residents are edgy. "They destroyed our city twice and they are threatening us a third time," said Ahmed Dhahy, 52. "They want us to do their job for them and turn in those who target them." Dhahy, who lost 32 relatives when his father's house was bombed by a US aircraft during the April 2004 attack on Fallujah, said the US military had threatened it would destroy the city if resistance fighters were not handed over to them.
Fallujah was heavily bombed in April 2004 and again in November that year. The attacks destroyed 75% of the city's infrastructure and left more than 5,000 dead, according to local non-governmental groups.
But after the heavy assaults, resistance fighters have continued to launch attacks against US and official Iraqi forces in the city. Fallujah remains under tight security, with the US military using biometric identification, full body searches and bar-coded identification cards for residents to enter and leave their city.
"There are so many arrests and killings, and collective punishments, such as random shootings, violent inspection raids, repeated curfews and deliberate cutting of water and electricity," said Mohammed al-Darraji, head of a human-rights group in Fallujah called the Iraqi Center for Human Rights Observation. "What is going on in this city requires international intervention to protect civilians and to punish those who seriously damaged Fallujah society and committed serious crimes against humanity," Darraji said.
Another human-rights campaigner in Fallujah, who asked to be referred to as Khalid, said human-rights activists in Iraq felt betrayed by the United Nations. The UN had played ignorant "by leaving US troops to act alone in the city", said Khalid, who works with Raya Human Rights, a non-governmental organization in the city. "This was after the media exposed the enormity of the violence and human-rights violations during the last three years." "
IDF commander: We fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon
"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.
Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.
In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.
The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate.
MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers. The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.
The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit.
Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war.
According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would "flood" the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon."
***
This IDF commander is clearly an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Road Map to Nowhere
Israel/Palestine Since 2003
A new book by Professor Tanya Reinhart
"The Road Map to Nowhere is a devastating and timely book, essential to understanding the current state of the Israel/Palestine crisis and the propaganda that infects its coverage. Based on extensive analysis of information in the mainstream Israeli media, it argues that the current road map has brought no real progress and that, under cover of diplomatic successes, Israel is using the road map to strengthen its grip on the remaining occupied territories. Exploring the Gaza pullout of 2005, the West Bank "separation wall", the rise to power of the Kadima party and Hamas, Reinhart examines the gap between myth - the Israeli leadership’s public affairs achievement that has led the West to believe that a road map is in fact being implemented - and bitter reality.
Reinhart shows that throughout, Ariel Sharon’s goals, and those of his successor Ehud Olmert, have stayed the same: to maintain Gaza as a closed prison, to transform the West Bank into a system of sealed enclaves and to annex Palestinian land under cover of the construction of the "separation wall". The army, which represents the true power in Israel, will forcibly ensure the legacy of Sharon is applied - Hamas’ election success represents an ideal pretext to do so.
This powerful new book is written with the rigour and sharp anger of one of the rare Israeli intellectuals who had long predicted and explained the prolonged stalemate of the successive "peace processes" initiated by the 1993 Oslo accords."
About the author
Tanya Reinhart is Professor Emeritus of linguistics and media studies at Tel Aviv University and, from January 2007, a Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. She has had a regular column in the biggest Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot, is the author of Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, and contributes regularly to Counterpunch, Zmag and Redress Information & Analysis websites.
***
Click on Recommended Reading on Palestine on the right, under Please Read more about Palestine for more new books on Palestine.
Molly
A new book by Professor Tanya Reinhart
"The Road Map to Nowhere is a devastating and timely book, essential to understanding the current state of the Israel/Palestine crisis and the propaganda that infects its coverage. Based on extensive analysis of information in the mainstream Israeli media, it argues that the current road map has brought no real progress and that, under cover of diplomatic successes, Israel is using the road map to strengthen its grip on the remaining occupied territories. Exploring the Gaza pullout of 2005, the West Bank "separation wall", the rise to power of the Kadima party and Hamas, Reinhart examines the gap between myth - the Israeli leadership’s public affairs achievement that has led the West to believe that a road map is in fact being implemented - and bitter reality.
Reinhart shows that throughout, Ariel Sharon’s goals, and those of his successor Ehud Olmert, have stayed the same: to maintain Gaza as a closed prison, to transform the West Bank into a system of sealed enclaves and to annex Palestinian land under cover of the construction of the "separation wall". The army, which represents the true power in Israel, will forcibly ensure the legacy of Sharon is applied - Hamas’ election success represents an ideal pretext to do so.
This powerful new book is written with the rigour and sharp anger of one of the rare Israeli intellectuals who had long predicted and explained the prolonged stalemate of the successive "peace processes" initiated by the 1993 Oslo accords."
About the author
Tanya Reinhart is Professor Emeritus of linguistics and media studies at Tel Aviv University and, from January 2007, a Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. She has had a regular column in the biggest Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot, is the author of Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, and contributes regularly to Counterpunch, Zmag and Redress Information & Analysis websites.
***
Click on Recommended Reading on Palestine on the right, under Please Read more about Palestine for more new books on Palestine.
Molly
Hezbollah holds defiant rally in heavily bombed Beirut suburb
"Thousands of Hezbollah supporters on Monday filled the streets of a Beirut suburb heavily bombed in Israeli air raids, defending the militant group's right to bear arms and demanding that the government resign.
In its first rally in Beirut since the end of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, one of the group's 14 members of parliament poured scorn on the cabinet for receiving British Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier on Monday.
"We say to this government, you must go. You must go because you are a government that today received the killer Blair," Ali Ammar told supporters, waving yellow Hezbollah flags on flattened ground or standing on the broken shells of nearby buildings.
"This government cannot be trusted ... What we want is a government of national consensus that includes the honorable faces ... who stood by the Lebanon of resistance, of Arabism, sovereignty, freedom and independence.""
IN SUPPORT OF LATUFF
In support of the Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff and his courageous stand with the Palestinian and Lebanese people and in the face of threats on his life by the Zionist thugs of the Likud, here I am posting some of his best.
(Click on any cartoon for a larger image)
ISRAELI RIGHT-WING PARTY THREATENS BRAZILIAN CARTOONIST
Latuff threatened!
Just a tiny example how the IsraHell' dirty tactics work.
Now guess what! I'm being threatened by Likud, a right wing party in Israel (former party of Sabra and Shatila butcher Ariel Sharon). In a page linked to Likud, www.likudnik.co.il/Front/NewsNet/reports.asp?reportId=171273, my picture and some of my cartoons are shown. Along the same old name-calling (Nazi, anti-Semitic...) they say that "This Carlos should be 'taken care of' long time ago, in some way or another."
Of course, we can expect anything from IsraHell. If they can carry on "selective killings" of Palestinians, and carpet Beirut with tons of bombs murdering hundreds of civilians, what is the big deal about "neutralizing" one cartoonist in Brazil? Death threats, cheap attempts to terrorize me, however, will not prevent me from supporting Palestinians in their struggle against brutal Israeli occupation. The most that Likud creeps can do is silence me with a bullet, but they will never be able to silence my art.
Latuff
September 8, 2006
Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
Just a tiny example how the IsraHell' dirty tactics work.
Now guess what! I'm being threatened by Likud, a right wing party in Israel (former party of Sabra and Shatila butcher Ariel Sharon). In a page linked to Likud, www.likudnik.co.il/Front/NewsNet/reports.asp?reportId=171273, my picture and some of my cartoons are shown. Along the same old name-calling (Nazi, anti-Semitic...) they say that "This Carlos should be 'taken care of' long time ago, in some way or another."
Of course, we can expect anything from IsraHell. If they can carry on "selective killings" of Palestinians, and carpet Beirut with tons of bombs murdering hundreds of civilians, what is the big deal about "neutralizing" one cartoonist in Brazil? Death threats, cheap attempts to terrorize me, however, will not prevent me from supporting Palestinians in their struggle against brutal Israeli occupation. The most that Likud creeps can do is silence me with a bullet, but they will never be able to silence my art.
Latuff
September 8, 2006
Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
THE PALESTINIANS, THE LEBANESE AND THE BLAIR CIRCUS
SHAME ON HAMAS!
The Lebanese showed more guts and were more principled in their opposition to Blair than the Palestinians. Only a handful of protestors protested in Ramallah while thousands of angry protestors gathered in Beirut. Hizbullah deputies and Nabih Berri from Amal refused to meet with Blair and the country's most senior Shiite cleric blasted Blair and exposed him as the war criminal that he is. By contrast, Ismail Haniyeh published an article in the British Guardian, reproaching Blair for refusing to meet with him! What a contrast! In addition, Hamas refused to add its name to a list of Palestinian leaders and intellectuals who opposed the Blair visit and told him not to come. What a difference between Hamas and Hizbullah! I take my hat off for Hizbullah, but I can't do the same for Hamas. Shame on Hamas!
Tony Sayegh
The Lebanese showed more guts and were more principled in their opposition to Blair than the Palestinians. Only a handful of protestors protested in Ramallah while thousands of angry protestors gathered in Beirut. Hizbullah deputies and Nabih Berri from Amal refused to meet with Blair and the country's most senior Shiite cleric blasted Blair and exposed him as the war criminal that he is. By contrast, Ismail Haniyeh published an article in the British Guardian, reproaching Blair for refusing to meet with him! What a contrast! In addition, Hamas refused to add its name to a list of Palestinian leaders and intellectuals who opposed the Blair visit and told him not to come. What a difference between Hamas and Hizbullah! I take my hat off for Hizbullah, but I can't do the same for Hamas. Shame on Hamas!
Tony Sayegh
Lapdog Blair Gets an Earful in Beirut
By Kurt Nimmo
"It wasn’t a good day for the embattled Tony Blair. During a press conference in Beirut with Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora—former central banker for Group Méditerranée and Citibank employee—an “angry protester accus[ed] Tony Blair of complicity in the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon,” according to ABC News.
And then Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri “left town in an apparent snub” and “the country’s most senior Shiite Muslim cleric said he held Blair responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese civilians during the 34-day war because Britain supported the United States in refusing to demand a quick cease-fire.” Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah characterized Blair as a “killer of children, women and the elderly.” Blair responded blithely by saying “he understood the anger in Lebanon” and “pledged Britain would help Lebanon rebuild. Both he and Saniora said a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was crucial to securing stability in the entire region.”
Of course, for Blair and his neocon co-conspirators in Washington, the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”—in other words, Israel killing thousands of Palestinians and stealing their land—will be resolved when Palestinians surrender and finally consent to their assigned colonial role as hewers of wood and drawers of water. Caoimhe Butterly, a well-known Irish peace activist, mentioned above, understands this and that is why she unfurled a banner declaring “Boycott Israeli apartheid” in front of live TV cameras. “It’s all right. We are in a democracy…. We respect all sorts of expression,” Saniora commented as security thugs dragged Butterly out of the press conference. In democratic Lebanon, as in democratic America, protesters were “kept about a half-mile from the government headquarters,” thus making sure they did not embarrass Blair, as Caoimhe Butterly had managed to do."
GOVERNMENT OF "NATIONAL SURRENDER"
I AM WARY AND SUSPICIOUS OF THIS "NATIONAL UNITY"
Coming on the heels of the Blair mission, I smell something very fishy. I am afraid that Hamas has been co-opted by shining but empty promises. The "breakthrough" is a formula for Hamas to meet the Usraeli/British/EU demands without openly saying so; a typical Arab/Palestinian charade. In return, Haniyeh gets to keep his "job," whatever that means.
It appears that the Blair circus is building momentum and more pseudo-leaders are jumping on the bandwagon, from Palestine to Lebanon. Get ready to welcome the resurrection of the "peace process" from its grave. The peace process industry has a new convert: Hamas. We, in the Middle East, should be getting ready for 24/7 coverage of the exciting news of this "peace process" and endless meetings, phony smiles and handshakes, press releases, initiatives and empty but solemn promises.
The financial siege on the Palestinians will be lifted, the Puppet Abbas and those who support him (the US and the EU) will get credit, the Palestinians will get their paychecks and get to eat again, but forget about resistance and liberation. In the meantime, building of Israeli colonies on the West Bank (with US financing) will accelerate. A couple of years from now, the "national unity" government will still be "negotiating" about the last 5% left of Palestine. All the Palestinian politicians (including those from Hamas) will be congratulating themselves about such unity, steadfastness and determination.
In the end, all the Palestinians will be the losers, but as they say, the people get the leadership they deserve.
Tony Sayegh
THIS SAYS IT ALL
A protester holds a banner as he takes part in a demonstration against the visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 11, 2006. Thousands of protesters shouted angry chants and accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of complicity in last month's Israeli bombardment of Lebanon as he arrived Monday in a country still reeling from 34 days of fighting. (AP Photo)
Protestors attend a demonstration, organised by Hizbollah, against Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair in Beirut September 11, 2006. Thousands of Lebanese protested against Blair's visit to Beirut on Monday, accusing him of backing Israel's 34-day war with Hizbollah guerrillas. Troops, riot police and barbed-wire barriers kept the demonstrators well away from the government building in downtown Beirut where Blair was meeting Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. (REUTERS)
Protestors carry posters with slogans against British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a picture of Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during a demonstration organised by Hizbollah in Beirut September 11, 2006. Thousands of Lebanese protested against Blair's visit to Beirut on Monday, accusing him of backing Israel's 34-day war with Hizbollah guerrillas. Troops, riot police and barbed-wire barriers kept the demonstrators well away from the government building in downtown Beirut where Blair was meeting Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. (REUTERS)
Protesters wave Lebanese flags and hold banners during a demonstration against the visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 11, 2006. Thousands of protesters shouted angry slogans and accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of complicity in last month's Israeli bombardment of Lebanon as he arrived Monday in a country still reeling from 34 days of fighting. (AP Photo)
A woman carries a banner denouncing British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a demonstration in Beirut to protest against his visit to Lebanon. Blair has begun his first visit to Lebanon, where he was greeted by angry demonstrators protesting his stance on Israel's month-long war with Hezbollah guerrillas.(AFP)
BLAIR: YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN LEBANON
A protester, waving a Hezbollah yellow flag, is held by others shouting slogans during a demonstration against the visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Lebanon, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Sept. 11, 2006. Thousands of protesters shouted angry chants and accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of complicity in last month's Israeli bombardment of Lebanon as he arrived Monday in a country still reeling from 34 days of fighting. (AP Photo)
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Tortured screams ring out as Iraqis take over Abu Ghraib
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT, SAME OLD GRIZZLY TORTURE
"The notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad is at the centre of fresh abuse allegations just a week after it was handed over to Iraqi authorities, with claims that inmates are being tortured by their new captors.
Staff at the jail say the Iraqi authorities have moved dozens of terrorist suspects into Abu Ghraib from the controversial Interior Ministry detention centre in Jadriyah, where United States troops last year discovered 169 prisoners who had been tortured and starved.
An independent witness who went into Abu Ghraib this week told The Sunday Telegraph that screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects. Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Access to the part of the prison containing terrorism suspects was denied, but from that block came the sound of screaming. The screaming continued for a long time.
"I am sure someone was being beaten, they were screaming like they were being hit," the witness reported. "I felt scared, I was asking what was happening in the terrorist section.
"I heard shouting, like someone had a hot iron on their body, screams. The officer said they were just screaming by themselves. I was hearing the screams throughout the visit."
Haleem Aleulami, who was released from the jail last week, three weeks after being arrested in Ramadi for carrying a pistol in his car, said the Americans had treated him better when they ran the jail. He claimed that visits from the International Red Cross staff had dried up and accused local human rights workers of being members of Shia groups who turned a blind eye to problems in the jail.
"The people are Iraqis and they are members of the Sciri and al Dawa parties. They have a good relationship with the leaders of the jail and they keep quiet," he said. The guards swore at the ordinary prisoners, he said, but those in the terrorist section were treated more brutally."
"The notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad is at the centre of fresh abuse allegations just a week after it was handed over to Iraqi authorities, with claims that inmates are being tortured by their new captors.
Staff at the jail say the Iraqi authorities have moved dozens of terrorist suspects into Abu Ghraib from the controversial Interior Ministry detention centre in Jadriyah, where United States troops last year discovered 169 prisoners who had been tortured and starved.
An independent witness who went into Abu Ghraib this week told The Sunday Telegraph that screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects. Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Access to the part of the prison containing terrorism suspects was denied, but from that block came the sound of screaming. The screaming continued for a long time.
"I am sure someone was being beaten, they were screaming like they were being hit," the witness reported. "I felt scared, I was asking what was happening in the terrorist section.
"I heard shouting, like someone had a hot iron on their body, screams. The officer said they were just screaming by themselves. I was hearing the screams throughout the visit."
Haleem Aleulami, who was released from the jail last week, three weeks after being arrested in Ramadi for carrying a pistol in his car, said the Americans had treated him better when they ran the jail. He claimed that visits from the International Red Cross staff had dried up and accused local human rights workers of being members of Shia groups who turned a blind eye to problems in the jail.
"The people are Iraqis and they are members of the Sciri and al Dawa parties. They have a good relationship with the leaders of the jail and they keep quiet," he said. The guards swore at the ordinary prisoners, he said, but those in the terrorist section were treated more brutally."
EU Gets Its Own Pro-Israel Lobby
Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - European parliamentarians sympathetic to Israel have formally banded together in the European Union's first official pro-Israel lobby. They will inaugurate the new "European Friends of Israel" organization next week, according to Ynet.
The endeavor is reportedly being backed by Jewish businessmen across the continent.
Organizers hope the lobby will one day enjoy the influence that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has in Washington.
Lobby leader Michel Gur Ari said, "We have set ourselves a target to turn Europe into Israel's ally."
Yehoshua Ben-Yosef, the lobby's representative in Israel, told Ynet that to date more than 150 European parliamentarians have joined.
The endeavor is reportedly being backed by Jewish businessmen across the continent.
Organizers hope the lobby will one day enjoy the influence that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has in Washington.
Lobby leader Michel Gur Ari said, "We have set ourselves a target to turn Europe into Israel's ally."
Yehoshua Ben-Yosef, the lobby's representative in Israel, told Ynet that to date more than 150 European parliamentarians have joined.
Jonathan Cook: Palestine and Lebanon Backgrounder
Electric Politics interviews British journalist Jonathan Cook, who is based in Nazareth, Israel. Cook has a superb grasp on the Palestinian issue. Near the end of this interview (one hour, ten minutes), Cook addresses the potential outcome of the neocon-Zionist plan to invade Iran. In addition, Cook puts Israel’s invasion of Lebanon into perspective and has a few interesting comments on Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah. In order to listen click here.
Powerless in Gaza
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
"For the past two months, Gaza residents like Aqdeir have lived without a regular supply of electricity after the Israeli military bombed Gaza’s only power station on 28 June.
More than 226 Palestinians, many civilians, have been killed in air raids and ground assaults since then, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
With a crippled infrastructure and low and unreliable power and water supplies, Gaza’s 1.4 million citizens face a daily struggle to survive.
Gaza’s power station, which is privately owned by an American firm and Palestinian investors, is run by the Gaza Power Generating Company (GPGC). Before the bombing, it provided 140 megawatts of electricity, or just over half of Gaza’s power needs.
The lack of electricity means sewage cannot be treated, increasing the risk of disease spreading, and hospitals cannot function normally. It means ordinary Gazans cannot keep perishable food because their fridges do not work.
At night, they are plunged into complete darkness when the electricity cuts off. They rely on candles and paraffin lamps.
Many residents have also been left with an irregular water supply as they need electricity to pump water up from nearby wells or from ground floor level to higher floors in blocks of flats.
The United Nations has called for an inquiry into Israel’s strike on the power plant, which it said exacerbated an already critical health situation and may be a breach of international humanitarian law.
“The destruction of Gaza's electricity power station is profoundly inconsistent with the health and safety of all civilians living in Gaza, especially the young, sick, infirm and elderly, as well as their right to the highest attainable standard of health, enshrined in the International Bill of Rights and other international human rights instruments,” said Paul Hunt, the UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health."
Nowhere to Flee - The Perilous Situation of Palestinians in Iraq
HUMAN RIGHTS Watch
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The security of the approximately 34,000 Palestinian refugees in Iraq has drastically deteriorated since the fall of the Saddam Hussein government in April 2003. Militant groups, mostly Shi`a, have targeted this predominantly Sunni minority community, attacking their communal buildings, committing several dozen murders, and threatening harm unless they immediately leave Iraq. Amidst the widespread politically motivated and criminal violence in Iraq, Palestinians have been targeted more than other minorities because of resentment of the privileges Palestinians received during Saddam Hussein’s rule, and suspicions that they are supporting the insurgency.
The Iraqi government bears considerable responsibility for the plight of the country’s Palestinians. Elements of the Ministry of Interior have been implicated in the arbitrary detention, torture, killing, and “disappearance” of Palestinians. Despite their status as refugees, Iraqi Palestinians have been subjected to new and extremely burdensome registration requirements, providing a venue for bureaucratic hostility. And unlike Iraqi citizens at risk, who are largely able to find refuge abroad, Palestinians have nowhere to flee: countries in the region (with rare, temporary exceptions) have kept their borders firmly closed to fleeing Iraqi Palestinians. And the international community has done little to help ease their plight.
Palestinian refugees in Iraq became a target for violence, harassment, and eviction from their homes soon after the Iraqi government fell to U.S.-led forces in 2003. Unknown assailants fired upon Palestinian housing projects with assault weapons and mortar rounds, and threw bombs into Palestinian homes. A particular point of contention had been the government’s provision to Palestinians of subsidized housing, often at the expense of mostly Shi`a landlords who were paid a pittance in rent by the Iraqi government. Immediately after the fall of the Saddam government, Shi`a landlords forcibly evicted their Palestinian tenants.
Since then, conditions for Palestinian refugees in Iraq continue to worsen. The February 22, 2006 bombing that destroyed one of Shi`ism’s holiest shrines, al-`Askariyya mosque in Samarra, led to a wave of sectarian killings that continues to date. Alleged Shi`a militants attacked Palestinian housing projects in Baghdad and killed at least ten Palestinians, among them the two brothers of the former Palestinian attaché in Baghdad, who were kidnapped from their father’s home on February 23 and found dead at a morgue two days later, their bodies mutilated. On the evening of the Samarra bombing, unidentified persons murdered Samir Khalid al-Jayyab, a fifty-year-old Palestinian, hitting him over the head with a sword and shooting him some twenty times. On March 16, unidentified armed men strangled to death Muhammad Hussain Sadiq, a twenty-seven-year-old Palestinian barber, together with two Sunni Iraqis in the Shu`la neighborhood of Baghdad.
In mid-March, a militant group calling itself the “Judgment Day Brigades” distributed leaflets in Palestinian neighborhoods, accusing the Palestinians of collaborating with the insurgents, and stating, “We warn that we will eliminate you all if you do not leave this area for good within ten days.” The killings and death threats put the Palestinian community in a “state of shock,” according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and led Palestinian National Authority President Mahmud Abbas and the High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres to each call upon Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to intervene to stop the killings of Palestinians. Fear continues to grip Palestinian communities in Baghdad, and thousands more Palestinians in Iraq are eager to leave the country. And the killings continue: UNHCR reported at least six more killings of Iraqi Palestinians in Baghdad and renewed death threats against Iraqi Palestinians in the last two weeks of May.
The post-Saddam Iraqi governments have done little to protect the Iraqi Palestinians – a community whose members were given the same rights as citizens, minus the actual citizenship and the right to own property – and some elements within government have actively contributed to this community’s insecurity. Notably, in October 2005 the minister of displacement and migration called on the government to expel all Palestinian refugees to Gaza, accusing Palestinians of involvement in terrorism. Iraqi Palestinians consistently told Human Rights Watch that Ministry of Interior authorities frequently harass and discriminate against Palestinian refugees in Iraq, singling them out for arrest and falsely accusing them of terrorism. One Palestinian who had been detained at the Kut military base southeast of Baghdad for sixty-eight days described torture he believes he suffered simply for being Palestinian: the guards would enter the detention room and ask for “the Palestinian,” and gave him regular beatings and attached live electrodes to his penis. A lawyer for a group of four Palestinians arrested on terrorism charges in May 2005 said his clients had suffered beatings with chains, electric shocks, cigarette burns on their faces, and being placed in a room with standing water carrying live electric current. Iraqi National Guard troops arrested a seventy-five-year-old Palestinian man in April 2005, and he remains “disappeared,” with the suspicion that they killed him in custody.
Where previously Palestinian refugees in Iraq had little trouble obtaining and maintaining their residency status, the Ministry of Interior ordered Palestinian refugees to obtain short-term residency permits, treating them as non-resident foreigners instead of as recognized refugees. The residency requirements are onerous, requiring Palestinian refugees to bring all members of their families to Ministry of Interior offices to renew the permits, which can take days or even weeks, and the new permits are only valid for one to two months.
Palestinian refugees seeking to flee Iraq face far greater obstacles than do Iraqi citizens, including other minority communities under threat, such as Mandaeans and Chaldeans. Neighboring countries like Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria refuse to admit them. Israel in general does not allow Palestinian refugees to return to Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories. And resettlement options in other countries have been largely unavailable to them.
The attacks in 2003 on Palestinian refugees led to the internal displacement of thousands of Palestinian refugees, and the flight of hundreds to neighboring Jordan. Jordan initially blocked the border for Iraqi Palestinians, then allowed a few hundred into the barren, isolated al-Ruwaishid refugee camp eighty-five kilometers inside Jordan from the Iraqi border. Other Iraqi Palestinians remained at the equally barren Karama camp located inside the no-man’s land (NML) at the Iraqi-Jordanian border for more than two years, until the Jordanian authorities closed the camp in 2005 and relocated them to al-Ruwaishid camp. For the past three years, several hundred Palestinian refugees have remained virtual prisoners in al-Ruwaishid camp. Some 250 of them elected to return to the dangerous conditions in Iraq rather than remain in the camp with no solution to their plight in prospect.
From March to May 2006, a group of nearly 200 Iraqi Palestinians was stuck on the Iraqi side of the Jordanian border, after Jordan refused them entry and armed Iraqi border guards forcibly pushed them back into Iraq. Following a request from the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Syria allowed these Palestinians into Syria, but again closed its borders to Palestinian refugees immediately afterwards.
Human Rights Watch calls upon the states bordering Iraq to open their borders to Palestinian refugees from Iraq and to afford them the same opportunities to flee persecution and generalized violence that they accord to Iraqis. The current Palestinian refugee crisis in Iraq needs a regional approach, and all countries in the region – including Israel and the Gulf States – should participate in sharing the burden of accepting and housing the Palestinian refugees fleeing Iraq. The broader international community should also assist governments in the region by sharing the burden, either through providing financial assistance or through third-country resettlement.
***
A very alarming 44-page report of the horrors facing 34,000 Palestinians in "liberated" Iraq.
***
Click Here To Read The Report In Arabic
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The security of the approximately 34,000 Palestinian refugees in Iraq has drastically deteriorated since the fall of the Saddam Hussein government in April 2003. Militant groups, mostly Shi`a, have targeted this predominantly Sunni minority community, attacking their communal buildings, committing several dozen murders, and threatening harm unless they immediately leave Iraq. Amidst the widespread politically motivated and criminal violence in Iraq, Palestinians have been targeted more than other minorities because of resentment of the privileges Palestinians received during Saddam Hussein’s rule, and suspicions that they are supporting the insurgency.
The Iraqi government bears considerable responsibility for the plight of the country’s Palestinians. Elements of the Ministry of Interior have been implicated in the arbitrary detention, torture, killing, and “disappearance” of Palestinians. Despite their status as refugees, Iraqi Palestinians have been subjected to new and extremely burdensome registration requirements, providing a venue for bureaucratic hostility. And unlike Iraqi citizens at risk, who are largely able to find refuge abroad, Palestinians have nowhere to flee: countries in the region (with rare, temporary exceptions) have kept their borders firmly closed to fleeing Iraqi Palestinians. And the international community has done little to help ease their plight.
Palestinian refugees in Iraq became a target for violence, harassment, and eviction from their homes soon after the Iraqi government fell to U.S.-led forces in 2003. Unknown assailants fired upon Palestinian housing projects with assault weapons and mortar rounds, and threw bombs into Palestinian homes. A particular point of contention had been the government’s provision to Palestinians of subsidized housing, often at the expense of mostly Shi`a landlords who were paid a pittance in rent by the Iraqi government. Immediately after the fall of the Saddam government, Shi`a landlords forcibly evicted their Palestinian tenants.
Since then, conditions for Palestinian refugees in Iraq continue to worsen. The February 22, 2006 bombing that destroyed one of Shi`ism’s holiest shrines, al-`Askariyya mosque in Samarra, led to a wave of sectarian killings that continues to date. Alleged Shi`a militants attacked Palestinian housing projects in Baghdad and killed at least ten Palestinians, among them the two brothers of the former Palestinian attaché in Baghdad, who were kidnapped from their father’s home on February 23 and found dead at a morgue two days later, their bodies mutilated. On the evening of the Samarra bombing, unidentified persons murdered Samir Khalid al-Jayyab, a fifty-year-old Palestinian, hitting him over the head with a sword and shooting him some twenty times. On March 16, unidentified armed men strangled to death Muhammad Hussain Sadiq, a twenty-seven-year-old Palestinian barber, together with two Sunni Iraqis in the Shu`la neighborhood of Baghdad.
In mid-March, a militant group calling itself the “Judgment Day Brigades” distributed leaflets in Palestinian neighborhoods, accusing the Palestinians of collaborating with the insurgents, and stating, “We warn that we will eliminate you all if you do not leave this area for good within ten days.” The killings and death threats put the Palestinian community in a “state of shock,” according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and led Palestinian National Authority President Mahmud Abbas and the High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres to each call upon Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to intervene to stop the killings of Palestinians. Fear continues to grip Palestinian communities in Baghdad, and thousands more Palestinians in Iraq are eager to leave the country. And the killings continue: UNHCR reported at least six more killings of Iraqi Palestinians in Baghdad and renewed death threats against Iraqi Palestinians in the last two weeks of May.
The post-Saddam Iraqi governments have done little to protect the Iraqi Palestinians – a community whose members were given the same rights as citizens, minus the actual citizenship and the right to own property – and some elements within government have actively contributed to this community’s insecurity. Notably, in October 2005 the minister of displacement and migration called on the government to expel all Palestinian refugees to Gaza, accusing Palestinians of involvement in terrorism. Iraqi Palestinians consistently told Human Rights Watch that Ministry of Interior authorities frequently harass and discriminate against Palestinian refugees in Iraq, singling them out for arrest and falsely accusing them of terrorism. One Palestinian who had been detained at the Kut military base southeast of Baghdad for sixty-eight days described torture he believes he suffered simply for being Palestinian: the guards would enter the detention room and ask for “the Palestinian,” and gave him regular beatings and attached live electrodes to his penis. A lawyer for a group of four Palestinians arrested on terrorism charges in May 2005 said his clients had suffered beatings with chains, electric shocks, cigarette burns on their faces, and being placed in a room with standing water carrying live electric current. Iraqi National Guard troops arrested a seventy-five-year-old Palestinian man in April 2005, and he remains “disappeared,” with the suspicion that they killed him in custody.
Where previously Palestinian refugees in Iraq had little trouble obtaining and maintaining their residency status, the Ministry of Interior ordered Palestinian refugees to obtain short-term residency permits, treating them as non-resident foreigners instead of as recognized refugees. The residency requirements are onerous, requiring Palestinian refugees to bring all members of their families to Ministry of Interior offices to renew the permits, which can take days or even weeks, and the new permits are only valid for one to two months.
Palestinian refugees seeking to flee Iraq face far greater obstacles than do Iraqi citizens, including other minority communities under threat, such as Mandaeans and Chaldeans. Neighboring countries like Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Syria refuse to admit them. Israel in general does not allow Palestinian refugees to return to Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories. And resettlement options in other countries have been largely unavailable to them.
The attacks in 2003 on Palestinian refugees led to the internal displacement of thousands of Palestinian refugees, and the flight of hundreds to neighboring Jordan. Jordan initially blocked the border for Iraqi Palestinians, then allowed a few hundred into the barren, isolated al-Ruwaishid refugee camp eighty-five kilometers inside Jordan from the Iraqi border. Other Iraqi Palestinians remained at the equally barren Karama camp located inside the no-man’s land (NML) at the Iraqi-Jordanian border for more than two years, until the Jordanian authorities closed the camp in 2005 and relocated them to al-Ruwaishid camp. For the past three years, several hundred Palestinian refugees have remained virtual prisoners in al-Ruwaishid camp. Some 250 of them elected to return to the dangerous conditions in Iraq rather than remain in the camp with no solution to their plight in prospect.
From March to May 2006, a group of nearly 200 Iraqi Palestinians was stuck on the Iraqi side of the Jordanian border, after Jordan refused them entry and armed Iraqi border guards forcibly pushed them back into Iraq. Following a request from the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Syria allowed these Palestinians into Syria, but again closed its borders to Palestinian refugees immediately afterwards.
Human Rights Watch calls upon the states bordering Iraq to open their borders to Palestinian refugees from Iraq and to afford them the same opportunities to flee persecution and generalized violence that they accord to Iraqis. The current Palestinian refugee crisis in Iraq needs a regional approach, and all countries in the region – including Israel and the Gulf States – should participate in sharing the burden of accepting and housing the Palestinian refugees fleeing Iraq. The broader international community should also assist governments in the region by sharing the burden, either through providing financial assistance or through third-country resettlement.
***
A very alarming 44-page report of the horrors facing 34,000 Palestinians in "liberated" Iraq.
***
Click Here To Read The Report In Arabic
TONY BLAIR, YOU MAKE ME ASHAMED TO BE BRIRISH
British woman Kirsty (surname not known) who lives in Ramallah, wears a T shirt protesting about Prime Minister Tony Blair, seen at rear, during the joint Press Conference between Blair Minister and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Presidential Compound in Ramallah, West Bank , Sunday Sept.1 0 2006. (AP Photo)
ASHAMED TO BE BRITISH
A British woman who only indentified herself as Kirsty wears as shirt in protest as she stands up during a joint news conference of British Prime Minister Tony Blair , background left, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, background right, at Abbas's headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Sunday Sept. 10, 2006.(AP Photo)
Israel, US pushing for Palestinian civil war
By Khalid Amayreh
"The Bush Administration in coordination with Israel has been bullying the weak Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas to form an “emergency government” made up mainly of Fatah elements for the purpose of deposing the legitimate democratically elected government of Prime Minister Ismael Haniya.
According to reliable sources in Ramallah, American officials, including Special Envoy David Welch, have been pushing for the idea for sometime, hoping that a Fatah coup against the existing Hamas-led government might spark a confrontation between the two biggest Palestinian factions.
“Of course, the Americans didn’t say they wanted civil war, but everyone knows that forming an emergency government without any coordination with Hamas is a prescription for civil war,” said a high-ranking PA official.
“As to the Israelis, they have been dreaming of and fantasizing about a Palestinian civil war since 1967,” said the official, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to make statements to the media.
On Saturday, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema, who had met with Abbas in Ramallah earlier this week, was quoted by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz as saying that Abbas would decide to create an emergency government or to a government of national unity with Hamas within a few days.
Blair has been attacked and lampooned severely by British political circles, including his own Labor party, as well as by the press for subservience to the Bush administration and also for supporting Israel too much.
During the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah in August, Blair effectively supported the indiscriminate bombing by the Israeli air force of Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure.
He also publicly opposed a ceasefire in the early days of the war, blaming Hizbullah for provoking Israel and utterly ignoring the abduction and internment by Israel of hundreds of Lebanese civilians.
Blair, in a further show of bias against the Palestinians, met with the families of Israeli soldiers taken prisoners by Hizbullah and Palestinian resistance. During his visit, he made no mention of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners even when he called for the release of Israeli prisoners.
On Sunday, Palestinians in Ramallah demonstrated against Blair, calling him “George Bush’s poodle” and “a liar.”
Last week, dozens of Palestinian intellectuals and academics called for boycotting Blair, saying in a statement published in the Arabic daily, al Ayyam, that Blair was trying to whitewash Lebanese blood with Palestinian water."
"The Bush Administration in coordination with Israel has been bullying the weak Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas to form an “emergency government” made up mainly of Fatah elements for the purpose of deposing the legitimate democratically elected government of Prime Minister Ismael Haniya.
According to reliable sources in Ramallah, American officials, including Special Envoy David Welch, have been pushing for the idea for sometime, hoping that a Fatah coup against the existing Hamas-led government might spark a confrontation between the two biggest Palestinian factions.
“Of course, the Americans didn’t say they wanted civil war, but everyone knows that forming an emergency government without any coordination with Hamas is a prescription for civil war,” said a high-ranking PA official.
“As to the Israelis, they have been dreaming of and fantasizing about a Palestinian civil war since 1967,” said the official, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to make statements to the media.
On Saturday, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema, who had met with Abbas in Ramallah earlier this week, was quoted by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz as saying that Abbas would decide to create an emergency government or to a government of national unity with Hamas within a few days.
Blair has been attacked and lampooned severely by British political circles, including his own Labor party, as well as by the press for subservience to the Bush administration and also for supporting Israel too much.
During the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah in August, Blair effectively supported the indiscriminate bombing by the Israeli air force of Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure.
He also publicly opposed a ceasefire in the early days of the war, blaming Hizbullah for provoking Israel and utterly ignoring the abduction and internment by Israel of hundreds of Lebanese civilians.
Blair, in a further show of bias against the Palestinians, met with the families of Israeli soldiers taken prisoners by Hizbullah and Palestinian resistance. During his visit, he made no mention of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners even when he called for the release of Israeli prisoners.
On Sunday, Palestinians in Ramallah demonstrated against Blair, calling him “George Bush’s poodle” and “a liar.”
Last week, dozens of Palestinian intellectuals and academics called for boycotting Blair, saying in a statement published in the Arabic daily, al Ayyam, that Blair was trying to whitewash Lebanese blood with Palestinian water."
Blair says world should encourage Palestinian unity government
The Independent
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday said the world should restore contacts with the Palestinians if the ruling Hamas group agrees to form a unity government, but only if the coalition accepts Western demands to renounce violence and recognize Israel.
With the statement, Blair became the first Western leader to signal that a Palestinian government that includes members of Hamas could be acceptable. The international community has been boycotting Hamas, which the European Union and United States consider a terrorist group, since it won legislative elections in January."
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With a war criminal such as Blair cheerleading for such a "unity government," count me as one Palestinian strongly against such "national unity." This is unity in acceptance of the subjugation of the Palestinian people and their abandoning their historic human and political rights. It is a unity in the acceptance of Usrael as the hegemon of the region whose every diktat has to be complied with. It is a unity with every corrupt and subservient Arab dictator in the region and a betrayal of not just the Palestinian people but of all the Arab people.
Tony Sayegh
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday said the world should restore contacts with the Palestinians if the ruling Hamas group agrees to form a unity government, but only if the coalition accepts Western demands to renounce violence and recognize Israel.
With the statement, Blair became the first Western leader to signal that a Palestinian government that includes members of Hamas could be acceptable. The international community has been boycotting Hamas, which the European Union and United States consider a terrorist group, since it won legislative elections in January."
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With a war criminal such as Blair cheerleading for such a "unity government," count me as one Palestinian strongly against such "national unity." This is unity in acceptance of the subjugation of the Palestinian people and their abandoning their historic human and political rights. It is a unity in the acceptance of Usrael as the hegemon of the region whose every diktat has to be complied with. It is a unity with every corrupt and subservient Arab dictator in the region and a betrayal of not just the Palestinian people but of all the Arab people.
Tony Sayegh
Free them, now
By Gideon Levy
"Neither war nor sieges will free your children. The only way to free them is to free many Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. Does Noam Shalit, father of Gilad, think the bombing of bridges and the power station in Gaza advanced the release of his son in any way, or does he know it caused only more suffering and hatred? Does Shlomo Goldwasser, father of Udi, believe the destruction and siege of Lebanon will bring about the release of his son?
The Lebanese movie about the abductees broadcast last week held a mirror up to Israeli society. Suddenly it was possible to see that there are anxious and loving parents on both sides of the border. Not only in Israel do the families weep, but also in Lebanon and the occupied territories, and with the same terrible pain. There are abductees from both sides. We and they both use the same methods to try to free the boys. Hezbollah and Hamas abducted Israeli soldiers, Israel abducted Lebanese civilians. Hassan Nasrallah said in the movie that kidnapping the soldiers at Har Dov was the only way left to him to bring about the return of the abducted Lebanese. What other route did he have? Israel abducted, Hezbollah abducted, both hid information about the fate of the abductees. The vicious cycle must be broken.
The issue of the security prisoners is not supposed to come up only in the context of freeing the abducted soldiers. Israel has long had an interest in freeing them. More than 9,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails nowadays; it is a nightmarish number. Anyone who knows the Shin Bet security service and the military justice system can safely assume a significant proportion of them are imprisoned for no reason. Israeli society doesn't even ask why so many are jailed. Some 750 of them have been held in prison without trial for months and years as administrative detainees, a scandal unto itself. The number of minors is also nightmarish: some 300 boys and youths, about half of whom have never been put on trial. A democratic society cannot exist if it denies freedom to so many prisoners, whose main fault was that they fought the occupation with the means used to fight occupations everywhere, including by us in the past. In the eyes of many in the world, at least some of them are rightly considered political prisoners. What are the imprisoned Palestinian parliamentarians if not political prisoners?"
"Neither war nor sieges will free your children. The only way to free them is to free many Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. Does Noam Shalit, father of Gilad, think the bombing of bridges and the power station in Gaza advanced the release of his son in any way, or does he know it caused only more suffering and hatred? Does Shlomo Goldwasser, father of Udi, believe the destruction and siege of Lebanon will bring about the release of his son?
The Lebanese movie about the abductees broadcast last week held a mirror up to Israeli society. Suddenly it was possible to see that there are anxious and loving parents on both sides of the border. Not only in Israel do the families weep, but also in Lebanon and the occupied territories, and with the same terrible pain. There are abductees from both sides. We and they both use the same methods to try to free the boys. Hezbollah and Hamas abducted Israeli soldiers, Israel abducted Lebanese civilians. Hassan Nasrallah said in the movie that kidnapping the soldiers at Har Dov was the only way left to him to bring about the return of the abducted Lebanese. What other route did he have? Israel abducted, Hezbollah abducted, both hid information about the fate of the abductees. The vicious cycle must be broken.
The issue of the security prisoners is not supposed to come up only in the context of freeing the abducted soldiers. Israel has long had an interest in freeing them. More than 9,000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails nowadays; it is a nightmarish number. Anyone who knows the Shin Bet security service and the military justice system can safely assume a significant proportion of them are imprisoned for no reason. Israeli society doesn't even ask why so many are jailed. Some 750 of them have been held in prison without trial for months and years as administrative detainees, a scandal unto itself. The number of minors is also nightmarish: some 300 boys and youths, about half of whom have never been put on trial. A democratic society cannot exist if it denies freedom to so many prisoners, whose main fault was that they fought the occupation with the means used to fight occupations everywhere, including by us in the past. In the eyes of many in the world, at least some of them are rightly considered political prisoners. What are the imprisoned Palestinian parliamentarians if not political prisoners?"
Hezbollah: We could have up to 70,000 rockets left in arsenal
"Hezbollah could have tens of thousands of rockets still left in its arsenal, the group's deputy leader Naim Qassam said in an interview published Sunday in a London-based Arabic-language newspaper.
Qassam said that the reconstruction of Hezbollah's military wing was not a top priority as the group still had a plentiful supply of weapons.
"We had the option to confront Israel for many months," he said. "The 8,000 missiles that we fired at Israel could be a quarter or even just 10 percent of the rockets we have."
The group is now contemplating how best to move ahead following the deployment of Lebanese soldiers and United Nations troops in the south of the country, Qassam said.
He said that Hezbollah has yet to decide on its policy toward Israel if it does not pull out of the Shaba Farms, but indicated the group would not give up its "right to resistance."
He stressed that Hezbollah has no plans to strike American targets and said that the resistance to Israel would be carried out only on Lebanese soil, not "all around the world."
Qassam also repeated the previous declarations by Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, that the group had scored an historic victory against Israel.
"After the war, there was great destruction in Lebanon, but the decision to go to war was an Israeli-American one, with the declared aim of breaking Hezbollah. This aim was not ultimately achieved and in that we see an historic victory," he said."
Qassam said that the reconstruction of Hezbollah's military wing was not a top priority as the group still had a plentiful supply of weapons.
"We had the option to confront Israel for many months," he said. "The 8,000 missiles that we fired at Israel could be a quarter or even just 10 percent of the rockets we have."
The group is now contemplating how best to move ahead following the deployment of Lebanese soldiers and United Nations troops in the south of the country, Qassam said.
He said that Hezbollah has yet to decide on its policy toward Israel if it does not pull out of the Shaba Farms, but indicated the group would not give up its "right to resistance."
He stressed that Hezbollah has no plans to strike American targets and said that the resistance to Israel would be carried out only on Lebanese soil, not "all around the world."
Qassam also repeated the previous declarations by Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, that the group had scored an historic victory against Israel.
"After the war, there was great destruction in Lebanon, but the decision to go to war was an Israeli-American one, with the declared aim of breaking Hezbollah. This aim was not ultimately achieved and in that we see an historic victory," he said."
Top Shi'ite cleric says Blair not welcome in Lebanon
By Reuters
Lebanon's top Shi'ite cleric said on Sunday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is on a tour of the Middle East, was not welcome in Lebanon because of his support for Israel and the United States.
Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah criticized Blair for not calling for an early truce in Israel's 34-day war with Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas and for allowing U.S. weapons to be shipped via Britain to Israel for use against Lebanon.
Fadlallah said in a statement that the Lebanese government should have told "Blair that he is not wanted in Lebanon, so that he -- and those like him -- would know that we are not so naive as to welcome him when he has contributed to killing us and slaughtering our children."
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This is the proper and principled position and Sayyed Fadlallah is right. Most Palestinians agree with this position and feel that Blair is trying to wash his hands stained most recently with Lebanese blood by reinventing himself as a "peace maker." He pulled this trick so many times before, and after every slaughter of Arabs from Iraq to Palestine and Lebanon, that he has zero credibility. There is no "peace process;" there is a killing process and Blair is its chief cheerleader. The puppet Abbas should have refused to receive him under these circumstances, but then can a puppet do that?
Tony Sayegh
Saturday, September 9, 2006
THE HAMAS DIFFERENCE: YOU NEVER SEE THE PUPPET ABBAS AMONG PALESTINIANS IN REFUGEE CAMPS LIKE THIS
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Islamic group Hamas, center, waves as he is surrounded by supporters after speaking at a mosque during Friday prayers in the Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, Friday Sept. 8, 2006.(AP Photo)
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