And What About The Palestinian Cause?

By Gilad Atzmon

"The Palestinian activist Reem Abdul Hadi, when asked for her opinion about Jewish anti-Zionist campaigners, said sarcastically: “they are very nice, all fifteen of them…”

I was rather happy to read in yesterday’s Guardian that; “A group of prominent British Jews will today declare independence from the country's Jewish establishment, arguing that it puts support for Israel above the human rights of Palestinians.”

It is indeed about time that Jewish people with influence in art, academia, business and the media raise their voices against Israel’s crimes and its supportive lobbies around the globe. It is rather crucial that Jewish people should openly succumb to true ethical and universal thinking rather than clannish monolithic discourse solely concerned with tribal maintenance.

Earlier today, I logged on to check out what the Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) have to say. If to be honest, though I found more than a few of my friends enlisted, I was rather disappointed with the views expressed by the group.

Once again it was an ‘image’ of moral thinking rather than an authentic ethical commitment. Once again it was a glorifying exposition of Jewish righteousness rather than simply acknowledging the Palestinian cause, i.e., the ‘right of return’. Disappointingly, the declaration wittingly avoids confronting the kernel of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Since it is rather established that the Palestinian cause is largely orientated around the mass expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians in 1948 and the failure to resolve the refugee catastrophe, avoiding the issue is nothing less than denying the Palestinians the most elementary human right: the right to live on one’s land. Avoiding the refugee issue is nothing less than dismissing the Palestinians of the most basic human rights.

In other words, when the JIV says “Human rights are universal and indivisible and should be upheld without exception. This is as applicable in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as it is elsewhere,” what they really mean is “Human rights are universal as long as you are not a Palestinian who wants to return to his land.” I may admit that I find this approach rather disappointing. I would really love to believe that more than a few of the Jewish Independent Voices do agree with me on that one. I want to believe that they really fail to grasp what they were signing.

But the independent Jewish humanists do not stop just there; they also say “Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peaceful and secure lives.” This may be true. Yet somehow, it sounds to me too much like the highlight of Olmert’s speech. People are entitled to live in peace, nevertheless, the occupier and the colonialist cannot expect to live a secure life. I would even suggest that Jewish intellectuals who dismiss this crucial point might find it hard to secure their position as ‘independent ethical voices’.

The Independent Jewish Voices expect all sides as well to comply with ‘international law’. And I think to myself, in a world where America is a single superpower, international law and UN resolutions have very little to do with ethical thinking. Moreover, even the historically accepted 1947 partition resolution is non-ethical to the bone. Once again, I would expect the ethically orientated Independent Jews to stand out and promote ethical thinking rather than resolutions that are grounded by hegemony and military might.


Eventually, the prominent independent Jews spit it out. They are really against anti-Semitism. “The battle against anti-Semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.”

While on the verge of complete dismay, I wonder, wouldn’t it be sufficient to just be against racism in general? Why is it that Jews who regard themselves as Independent Jewish Voices have to declare that fighting anti-Semitism is ‘vital’? The reason is simple. They insist upon not being seen as anti-Semites by their ‘less independent’ brothers. In other words, they, the independent voices, are far from being liberated. They are far from being independent. They are totally imbued within the Jewish discourse. And their message to the world is nothing more than the old two state solution.

I am not impressed."

لقاء مكة: فرص النجاح والفشل

عبد الباري عطوان

"حرص المتحدثون باسم الوفدين الفلسطينيين اللذين شدا الرحال الي مكة المكرمة للمشاركة في لقاء المصالحة الذي يرعاه العاهل السعودي الملك عبد الله بن عبد العزيز علي تأكيد نواياهم الطيبة، وحرصهم الاكيد علي انجاح هذا اللقاء بالتوصل الي اتفاق حول تشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية تنهي حال الاحتقان، وتضع حدا للصدامات الدموية المؤسفة، ولكن يظل من السابق لأوانه الاغراق في التفاؤل، لأن النوايا الطيبة شيء، وما يحدث علي الارض شيء آخر مختلف جدا.
اللقاء في حد ذاته ينطوي علي درجة كبيرة من الاهمية، من حيث الزمان والمكان. فأي جهد عربي يصب في محصلة حقن الدماء ولملمة الشمل، وتخفيف معاناة الفلسطينيين تحت الاحتلال، هو جهد محمود، فما شهدته الاراضي العربية المحتلة من صدامات دامية اودت بحياة اكثر من اربعين فلسطينيا، هو امر مؤسف بكل المقاييس.
السؤال هو حول كيفية نجاح لقاء مكة فيما فشلت في انجازه لقاءات ووساطات سابقة وخاصة في غزة ودمشق والقاهرة. فالمسألة ليست مسألة لقاء وتبويس لحي، والقاء مواعظ مطولة حول حقن الدم الفلسطيني، وانما مناقشة الاسباب الحقيقية للخلافات التي قادت الي هذه النتائج المؤسفة، وايجاد حلول عملية لها.
مكة المكرمة استضافت لقاء مماثلا قبل شهرين لقيادات ومراجع عراقية من مختلف المذاهب والطوائف، وبحضور العاهل السعودي نفسه، ووسط مهرجانات اعلامية مماثلة، وجري الاتفاق علي وثيقة مكة التي كانت النقطة الاولي فيها تحريم سفك الدم العراقي، فماذا كانت النتيجة؟ المزيد من السيارات المفخخة واكثر من خمسة آلاف قتيل عراقي من مختلف الطوائف، وتصاعد الحرب الاهلية الطائفية.
الصدامات الفلسطينية ـ الفلسطينية هي اعراض جانبية لمرض خطير مزمن اسمه محاولة امريكية ـ اسرائيلية لإجهاض نتائج عملية ديمقراطية، ومنع حكومة منتخبة من الحكم، ومعاقبة شعب فلسطيني بأسره بسبب تصديق اكذوبة الديمقراطية الامريكية، واختيار ممثليه من خلال انتخابات نزيهة حرة وغير مسبوقة في الوطن العربي بأسره. وطالما ان الجهود منصبة حاليا علي معالجة الاعراض الجانبية، وليس العلة الاساسية، فإن مصير لقاء مكة الفلسطيني لن يكون افضل حالا من لقاء مكة العراقي.
الحكومات العربية ساهمت، كل حسب دوره وحجمه، في انفجار حال الاحتقان الداخلي الفلسطيني، عندما ساهمت في الحصار المالي الخانق المفروض علي الشعب الفلسطيني، وتخلت بطريقة مخجلة عن تعهدها الذي قطعته علي نفسها، في اجتماع لوزراء خارجية الدول العربية في القاهرة، بكسر هذا الحصار وعدم الالتزام به.
فاذا كانت هذه الحكومات عجزت عن فتح معبر لعلاج المرضي او عودة حجاج بيت الله الحرام في موعدهم، فهل ستنجح في ايصال الاموال والمساعدات للجائعين او المجوعين بقرار امريكي ـ اسرائيلي؟ لا نعتقد ذلك، والاجابة مكتوبة علي الحائط بوضوح.
ومع ذلك تظل هناك جوانب ايجابية لهذا اللقاء، اولها التقاء السيدين محمود عباس رئيس السلطة وخالد مشعل رئيس المكتب السياسي لحركة المقاومة الاسلامية حماس كندين متساويين في المكانة والثقل السياسي، وبدعوة من ملك عربي تردد طويلا في الاعتراف بحركة حماس او الالتقاء بأي من المسؤولين الكبار فيها. العاهل السعودي لم يلتق السيد مشعل قبل ذلك، وتجنب لقاء السيد محمود الزهار وزير الخارجية اثناء زيارته للرياض، وحتي عندما وجه دعوة الي السيد اسماعيل هنية رئيس الوزراء لزيارة المملكة وارسل له طائرة خاصة الي العريش، لم تكن دعوة رسمية، وانما لأداء فريضة الحج، حيث توجه دعوات عديدة لقيادات وزعامات سياسية وقبلية وحزبية اسلامية من مختلف انحاء العالم، يلتقون بالعاهل السعودي اثناء أداء مناسك الحج.
عقبتان اساسيتان حالتا دون توصل اللقاءات السابقة بين حركتي فتح و حماس الي اتفاق مصالحة ينهي حالة التوتر، ويسمح بتشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية:
العقبة الاولي: رفض حركة حماس القبول بنص في خطاب التكليف بتشكيل الحكومة الجديدة، يؤكد علي الالتزام بالاتفاقات الموقعة من قبل السلطة، اي اتفاق اوسلو الذي ينص علي الاعتراف بالدولة العبرية.
العقبة الثانية: تنازل حركة حماس عن الوزارات السيادية لشخصيات مستقلة تسمي بعضها او توافق عليها بشرط مسبق الولايات المتحدة الامريكية، وخاصة منصبي وزير المالية ووزير الداخلية.
حماس ابدت استعدادا لاستبدال كلمة التزام بكلمة احترام وأصرت علي عدم قبول اي اسماء لوزراء يفرضون من قبل جهات خارجية، وامريكية علي وجه التحديد.
وما زال السؤال المطروح في هذا الخصوص هو عما اذا كان السيد مشعل سيتنازل في مكة عما رفض التنازل عنه في دمشق، حيث حلفاؤه السوريون الخلص، اي القبول بكلمة التزام والتخلي عن الاحترام وفي حال تقديمه هذا التنازل الذي يعني الاعتراف باسرائيل، ماذا سيحصل في المقابل؟
بمعني آخر هل سيلغي اتفاق مكة في حال التوصل اليه الخطط الامريكية التي رصدت 128 مليون دولار لتعزيز حرس الرئاسة الفلسطيني ورفع تعداده الي اكثر من عشرة آلاف شخص وتنظيف قوات الامن الوطني الفلسطينية البالغ تعدادها 40 الفا من كل العناصر التي تؤمن بالمقاومة او تتعاطف معها، تحت ذريعة اعادة تأهيل هذه القوات.
وفي حال الاتفاق علي تسمية وزراء الوزارات السيادية هل سيوضع الحرس الرئاسي والمعابر وقوات الامن العام وجهازا المخابرات والامن الوقائي تحت امرة وزير الداخلية الجديد، وبصلاحيات مطلقة؟ وما هو مصير القوة التنفيذية التي اسستها وزارة داخلية حماس لتكون ميليشيا موازية لميليشيات الرئاسة ومستشاريها الامنيين؟
الشعب الفلسطيني كله يتطلع الي نجاح لقاء مكة، ولكن لا بد من توفر الأسس اللازمة لهذا النجاح، ويمكن تلخيصها في النقاط التالية:
اولا: ان تسلم حركة حماس بانها لا يمكن ان تجمع بين السلطة والمعارضة في الوقت نفسه، وتحمل بطيختي المقاومة والحكومة الثقيلتين والمتناقضتين، فلا بد من اسقاط احداهما، فإما القبول بالحكومة وهذا يتطلب القبول بشروطها كاملة، وإما التمسك بالمقاومة وتحمل كل تبعاتها.
شخصيا كنت اتمني لو ان حماس لم تخض الانتخابات التشريعية، وان تتنازل عن تشكيل الحكومة فور الفوز فيها، بعد ان تبين ان هناك انقلابا ضدها، يريد افشالها وعقاب الشعب الفلسطيني بسببها. فلو فعلت حماس ذلك لتضاعفت شعبيتها في اوساط الفلسطينيين في الداخل والخارج.
ثانيا: ان تسلم قيادة حركة فتح بانها خسرت السلطة بسبب فسادها، وليس فساد الحركة، وان عليها ان تتنحي جانبا لطرف ثالث مقبول، وتطهر نفسها من السياسات التي تبنتها اخيرا عندما ربطت نفسها بالمشروع الامريكي، وقبلت ان تتحول الي كونترا فلسطينية، ودون اي مقابل ملموس علي صعيد تحقيق الحد الأدني من المطالب الفلسطينية.
من الصعب ان نري حركة حماس تنسحب من الحكومة وتسلمها بطريقة مباشرة او غير مباشرة للطرف الآخر او من يدورون في فلكه، بعد كل ما حدث من صدامات وصمود في وجه الحصارين الامريكي منه والعربي، ومن المستحيل ان نصدق ان الرئيس عباس سيدير ظهره بالكامل للسيدة كوندوليزا رايس و محور المعتدلين الذي اسسته ويتوقف عن عناق ايهود اولمرت ومطالبته باستئناف المفاوضات. ويعيد حركة فتح الي منابعها الاولي كحركة كفاح وطني.
ثم من يضمن، في حال التوصل الي اتفاق، ان تلتزم به القوي الاقليمية، وتسهل تنفيذه، ونقصد هنا سورية ومصر وايران وهي القوي التي تشعر بحساسية مطلقة تجاه خسارة الورقة الفلسطينية لطرف آخر.
نعم نحن غير متفائلين ليس لاننا لا نريد نجاح مؤتمر مكة، ولكن لاننا نري ان المسألة اكثر تعقيدا من المصافحة والعناق امام كاميرات التلفزة في حضور العاهل السعودي. فنحن امام رأسين يتناطحان من اجل الفوز بسلطة وهمية، ولن يتوقف هذا النطاح الذي تحول اخيرا الي معارك دموية، حتي يفوز كبش ويهزم الآخر.
ونأمل ان نكون مخطئين."

Can Anything Good Come From These Two Stooges?

Frenzy in France Over "Iranian Threat"

Pre-Emptive Strike Against Chirac

By DIANA JOHNSTONE
CounterPunch

Paris.

"Four years ago, French President Jacques Chirac saw the Iraq disaster looming and openly warned against it. It was by far the best thing he ever did in his political life, and he is not to be allowed to do it again.

Today another, potentially even greater disaster is looming as Israel and the United States ostentatiously prepare to bomb Iran on the pretext of preventing "a second holocaust". But this time around there is a curious absence of the public opposition and mass protest demonstrations that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It is as though the enormity of events and the comforts of daily life have caused the Western world to give up thinking about grave matters and to take refuge in officially inspected and approved platitudes. Debate is replaced by an alarm system that sends up cries of scandal at any deviation from the accepted discourse......

The alarm bells went off. The "scandal" of Chirac's politically incorrect remarks was the top front page news story in both U.S. and French newspapers.....

First of all, it showed that the French President, a lame duck in the midst of an election campaign to replace him, is too isolated to be able to oppose war against Iran as he opposed war against Iraq. The media are there to shoot him down before he gets off the ground, first of all the newspapers that continue to enjoy the label "leftist", "left-leaning" or "center-left" -- mainly Libération and Le Monde -- but which in reality have become the guardians of Atlanticist orthodoxy (devotion to a "European unity" closely tied to the United States). Chirac's own political party was snatched away from him by his ambitious enemy Nicolas Sarkozy, who has publicly criticized Chirac's departure from the American fold over the war against Iraq. Sarkozy's demonstrations of devotion to Washington and Tel Aviv have won him the enthusiastic support of the organized Jewish community, increasingly inspired by the U.S. pro-Israel lobby......

To get back to the supposed threat to Israel from Iran, a most interesting comment from Israeli Deputy Defense minister Ephraim Sneh was cited by Seymour Hersh in his November 21, 2006 piece in The New Yorker on the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran. Expressing skepticism about the possibility of influencing Iran by diplomatic means, Sneh said:

"The danger isn't as much Ahmadinejad's deciding to launch an attack but Israel's living under a dark cloud of fear from a leader committed to its destruction... Most Israelis would prefer not to live here; most Jews would prefer not to come here with families, and Israelis who live can live abroad will... I am afraid Ahmadinejad will be able to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button."

This is truly an amazing statement that deserves careful attention. The Israeli official is suggesting that a war should be launched against a country, not because of what it may do, but because the fear of what it may do risks "killing the Zionist dream". This suggests that the fear of another holocaust, which has been the main argument for Zionism for half a century, is turning around to destroy Zionism itself.

But are we to plunge the world into war to "save the Zionist dream"? Isn't there some other way for Jews to live in the world without fear of genocide? Indeed, hasn't Zionist Israel become the greatest threat to Jews, by attaching them to the fate of a brutal state which is arousing the growing indignation of the world by its treatment of the Palestinians?

For a long time, there has been an unwritten law that only Jews (at risk of being called "self-hating") may criticize Zionism. But things have gone too far. This aggressive paranoia of Israel is not just a "Jewish question", it is dragging the whole world into disaster. Those of us who are not Jewish also have to speak up and say to our Jewish friends:

"We don't want to kill you, but we don't want to die for your Jewish State either. We are all human beings, and we refuse to plunge the world into war to preserve distinctions of identity that may mean a lot to you, but don't mean much of anything to us.""

Sick Joke Of The Day

Arab states fear Iraq-style democracy: PM

"I know why they oppose us, because they fear extension of democracy to their shores. They have this fear because they are a copy of the dictatorship which ruled Iraq," Maliki told Iraqi military commanders Tuesday.

Continue

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"You too can experience the joy that is life in Iraq today" -- Maliki

Abbas, Serving The Occupation

Hebrew paper: Raid on Islamic University meant to free Shalit

"Nazareth - The Hebrew Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted on Tuesday sources in the PA security apparatuses loyal to PA chief Mahmoud Abbas as affirming that the raid on the Islamic University at the hands the PA presidential guards on Friday was meant to free captured IOF serviceman Gilad Shalit.

The paper alleged that Shalit was detained inside the University since he was captured last June till three months ago when his captors took him to a different place.

Furthermore, the paper unveiled that the PA presidential guards (Force 17) exerted tremendous efforts during the raid to locate Shalit and release him. Officials of the University denied Shalit was detained inside it.

Last month, Hamas and other Palestinian parties accused former PA minister and Fatah MP Mohammed Dahalan of derailing a prisoner swap deal with Israel, and personally promised his Israeli friends to intensify intelligence efforts to locate and free Shalit at no cost to the Israelis. Dahalan’s step was meant to deny Hamas popular credit if a prisoner exchange deal went ahead.

On Friday, which is the weekly day off in Palestine, large numbers of PA security forces loyal to Abbas raided and ransacked the University campus, inflicting heavy damage on it. The losses were estimated at 15 million dollars.

The University president Kamaleen Shaath affirmed that the heavy losses inflicted on the University won’t discourage its officials from pursuing their educational duties and preserving the educational message of that pioneer University.

PA communication and technology minister and chairman of the University’s board of trustees Jamal Al-Khudari seconded Sha’ath affirmation, adding that the University was built with Palestinian blood and sacrifices, and so, harming it at Palestinian hands was disgusting.

The University’s students council, for its part, pledged to abort goals of the assailants, and vowed to defend their University and preserve its message.

In a related matter, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails condemned the armed attack on the PA prisoners’ affairs ministry at the hands of vandal groups believed to be affiliated with the mutiny trend in Fatah faction.

A joint statement issued by Palestinian prisoners from Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, and DFLP among other factions branded the attack on the ministry as “criminal and heinous”.

The statement, furthermore, invited the Palestinian people to consolidate their ranks in confronting the Israeli occupation government and defending the Aqsa Mosque."

On Iran, Will the Media Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain?

By Tony Karon

"......The fundamental assumption left unchallenged is that military force is a wise, prudent or legitimate response to the proliferation of nasty weapons among regimes hostile to the U.S. It’s precisely that assumption that has been trashed in Iraq, which even if it had had a couple of hundred (or even thousand) mustard gas and VX shells would still be the catastrophic mess it is today......

My reason for revisiting the morbid saga of media complicity in enabling the Iraq war now is that a new, even more catastrophic war is in the works against Iran — but it’s not a done deal. Cheney, quite probably the most dangerous man in the world given the combination of his extremist views and his proximity to real power, would love to make it happen, and so would the neocons and Likudniks, who are agitating for it with increasing alarm.

Not only do we have a steady stream of hysteria pouring out of the Israeli establishment and its American backers making the absurd comparison between Iran and Nazi Germany, routinely exaggerating both Iran’s intentions and its capabilities. There’s also the new trope — equally absurd, but it’s not like there’s a very effective filter in place — of blaming Iran for things going wrong in Iraq......

The U.S. had promised a major roll-out last week of “evidence” showing Iran was contributing towards instability in Iraq, but it was canceled, reportedly after State and Defense Department officials pushed back against the flimsiness of the evidence on offer. But as Juan Cole notes, the pertinent question worth investigating, then, is “who was spearheading this presentation inside the Bush administration?” 

I wish I had more confidence in the Democrats readiness to stand up to the demagoguery on Iran. And also the media’s. Thank heaven, then, for former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, and his moral clarity on the matter. His recent Senate testimony on Iraq and Iran should be required reading for people covering this story. Extract......

And when you hear the U.S. media echoing half-baked allegations against Iran or flights of fancy about how Washington is building a Sunni Arab united front to push back against the likes of Iran and Hamas, or hawking the same notions that security can be created through the application of military force despite that notion having been so spectacularly discredited in Iraq, remember that it’s often the “expertise” of the same cast of clowns that got the Iraq equation so spectacularly wrong that is now shaping the Iran discussion."

The death toll of 31 days in Iraq

(Click on to enlarge)
In this war-torn country, nobody is safe from bloodshed. In Ramadi, Kirkuk and Basra, they count the dead as the violence worsens

"From north to south, from east to west, violence and insecurity have gripped the entirety of Iraq. In January alone, at least 2,000 civilians, Iraqi security forces and US and British troops were killed in violence across the nation.

As President George Bush dispatches an additional 21,500 combat troops ­ and at least as many again in a supporting role ­ to try to bring calm to Baghdad, new figures suggest that violent death is becoming an everyday occurrence across all of Iraq and in cities that rarely make the headlines. In recent weeks places such as Kut and Mosul have reported civilian deaths as a result of gunfire or explosions.

"There has long been this idea that if you control Baghdad you can control the whole country, but that just does not make sense," said Nir Rosen, a fellow at the Washington-based New America Foundation who has spent more than two years in Iraq reporting on the violence. "Iraq has fragmented. I don't think Baghdad has any relevance to what is happening in Kirkuk, Mosul, Basra or Ramadi."

In December, Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, said: "I think it's still the case that 80 per cent of the violence that we are hearing about is taking place... in four provinces out of the 18."

Of Mr Bush's plan, Mr Rosen said: "It would not make a difference if we sent 100,000 troops... I cannot imagine how they think they can succeed. Americans are not the solution."

Available data suggests that Baghdad is the most perilous place in Iraq. Just last weekend, at least 132 people were killed and more than 300 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a lorry in the city's Sadriya market.

But it appears that few, if any, parts of the country are safe. Indeed, the most recent figures, collated by The New York Times, may well underestimate the levels of violence in other parts of the country because they rely on media reports, the Iraqi government and the US military, which almost certainly include only a portion of the numbers killed.

Professor Richard Garfield, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and co-author of a 2004 study which estimated that at least 100,000 Iraqis had died since the 2003 invasion, said: "One of the myths that Washington has been pushing is that it is pretty peaceful in Iraq and that the problems only exist in four governates. But if you only count [casualties] in four governates that is what you will find." He added: "There are lots of cities with high amounts of fighting that we don't even know about."

Almost four years after the US and British invasion of Iraq, reliable statistics on the human cost of the war remain scarce. A report, published last October by Dr Garfield's colleagues, estimated that 655,000 civilians and security personnel had lost their lives.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that about two million Iraqis ­ about 8 per cent of the pre-war population ­ have fled the country. An additional 1.7 million people are displaced inside Iraq....."

These moderates are in fact fanatics, torturers and killers

The longer the US and Britain back dictatorial regimes in the Middle East the more explosive the region will become

A Good Comment
By Mai Yamani
Tuesday February 6, 2007
The Guardian

"Politicians, especially in times of geopolitical deadlock, adopt a word or a concept to sell to the public. In 1973, at the peak of cold-war tensions, the US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, coined the term "detente". Such words gain a currency and become useful political tools to escape policy quagmires. As the Middle East lurches from crisis to crisis, Tony Blair, George Bush and Condoleezza Rice compulsively repeat the word "moderates" to describe their allies in the region. But the concept of moderate is merely the latest attempt to market a failed policy, while offering a facile hedge against accusations of Islamophobia and anti-Islamic policies.

Western leaders have simply chosen a few Arab rulers they believe are still saleable to western audiences. And, as the word moderate has been repeated by western leaders and echoed in the international media, these rulers have begun to believe their own billing. But who are they, and are they moderate? Their selection has been fluid at the periphery but solid at the core. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt clearly qualify, whereas Syria, an ally during the 1990-91 Gulf war, was once at the periphery but fell out of step with US interests after 9/11. Likewise, after the death of Arafat and the victory of Hamas, Fatah became moderate, while Iran, moderate under the shah, became "radical" after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
This minuet of political marketing may play well in the west, but not in the Arab world, where the double standards and manipulation are all too plain to see. The Saudi Wahhabis are, after all, fanatics; Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is intolerant of dissent; and Jordan, the state closest to the western ideal, is a marginal player. These countries' appalling human rights records, lack of transparency and repression rank them among the world's least moderate. Is there such a thing as a "moderate public beheading"? For the US and UK governments there clearly is, because all departures from the ideals of liberal democracy and social justice are rooted in "tradition". Hence bribes, beheadings and the oppression of women and minorities are traditional, and because whatever is traditional is not radical, it must be moderate.

Nothing, it seems, is more moderate than inertia. So inertia pays. Egypt has received an average of $1.3bn a year in military aid from the US since 1979, and $815m a year in economic assistance. Saudi Arabia relies on oil revenues and the international legitimacy provided by membership of such moderate bulwarks as the WTO and the IMF.

But at home, all other hallmarks of moderation are missing. Amnesty International describes Saudi Arabia as a country where "there are no political parties, no elections, no independent legislature, no trade unions ... no independent judiciary, no independent human rights organisations. The government allows no international human rights organisations to carry out research in the country ... there is strict censorship of media within the country, and strict control of access to the internet, satellite television and other forms of communication with the outside world."

Likewise, Human Rights Watch's report on Egypt describes Mubarak's government as using a "heavy hand against political dissent in 2006. In April 2006, the government renewed emergency rule for an additional two years, providing a continued basis for arbitrary detention and trials before military and state security courts. Torture at the hands of security forces remains a serious problem." Amnesty's report on Egypt concurred: "Torture continued to be used systematically in detention centres ... Several people died in custody in circumstances suggesting that torture or ill-treatment may have caused or contributed to their deaths."

The use of moderate to describe such leaders is necessary to mask the death of Bush's "freedom agenda" in the Middle East, with its lofty goal of regionwide democratisation. Indeed, Rice's visit to Egypt in January emphasised the word moderate and completely ignored the word democracy.

The moderates are not democrats, but they are politically useful because of what else they are not: they are not Persian and not Shia, not defiant and not able to act independently of the US. They are moderate only because they do not need to be more radical to achieve absolute power. Mubarak already exercises it, and the al-Sauds are satisfied with the current level of fanaticism in the kingdom. Some are armchair jihadis, but their Islamism serves only to prop up their domestic legitimacy.

What the moderates do need is continued western military and financial cover. So they remain ideological stalwarts. If communism was the enemy of the US, then it was their enemy. If Shia Iran is America's enemy today, it is also the enemy of America's moderate allies.

The relationship with the west is a two-way street. The Saudis invest billions in the US, buy weapons they don't need or cannot use, and provide a thriving market for western goods. But, like Mubarak, the Saudi rulers are old and on the defensive against their own people. The more the US shelters them, the more their legitimacy erodes. And the longer Washington and London prolong the state of denial with the help of pithy and amorphous buzzwords, the more explosive the Middle East will become."

The Status Of The Arabs Today

Surging To 3,100

U.S. Troops Killed In Iraq..............3,101

"Coalition" Troops Killed...............3,355

U.S. Troops Wounded In Iraq........23,279

Helping A Desperate Puppet In Need. Israeli minister: Free Barghouti

"A senior political ally of the Israeli prime minister has said that Israel should release its most prominent Palestinian prisoner - a man convicted in fatal attacks on Israelis - in a bid to prop up Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Gideon Ezra, the environment minister, is the second senior Israeli official to recently advocate the release of Marwan Barghouti of Abbas's Fatah movement.....

"If we want to blunt Hamas's capabilities ... and if we ultimately want a civil rather than a religious government like those taking shape across the Arab world, we have to make a contribution," Ezra told Army Radio, in defence of freeing Barghouti.

"I think it could definitely help Abu Mazen [Abbas]."....."

Website shows helicopter shot down

Reuters

"Feb. 4 - A video alledgedly showing a U.S. helicopter being shot down in Iraq has been shown on an Islamic militant website.

The U.S. military says it is adjusting its tactics in Iraq after four helicopters were shot down over the past two weeks, killing 21 servicemen and private contractors."

The Criminalization of US Foreign Policy

From the Truman Doctrine to the Neo-Conservatives

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, February 5, 2007

PERDANA GLOBAL PEACE ORGANISATION

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

EXPOSE WAR CRIMES - CRIMINALISE WAR

5-7 February 2007, Dewan Merdeka, Putra World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur

"The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US has embarked on a military adventure, "a long war", which threatens the future of humanity.

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable, a nuclear holocaust which could potentially spread, in terms of radioactive fallout, over a large part of the Middle East.

There is mounting evidence that the Bush Administration, in liaison with Israel and NATO, is planning the launching of a nuclear war against Iran, ironically, in retaliation for Tehran's nonexistent nuclear weapons program. The US-Israeli military operation is said to be in "an advanced state of readiness".

If such a plan were to be launched, the war would escalate and eventually engulf the entire Middle-East Central Asian region.

The war could extend beyond the region, as some analysts have suggested, ultimately leading us into a World War III scenario.

The US-led naval deployment (involving a massive deployment of military hardware) is taking place in two distinct theaters: the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The militarization of the Eastern Mediterranean is broadly under the jurisdiction of NATO in liaison with Israel. Directed against Syria, it is conducted under the façade of a UN "peace-keeping" mission. In this context, the Israeli led war on Lebanon last Summer, which was conducive to countless atrocities and the destruction of an entire country, must be viewed as a stage of the broader US sponsored military road-map......"

The Real Failed States

The US and Israel
The Real Failed States

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch

"Growing references by the US and Israel to the Muslim Middle East as a collection of failed states are part of the propaganda campaign to strip legitimacy from Muslim states and set them up for attack. These accusations spring from the hubris of many Israelis, who see themselves as "God's Chosen People," a guarantee of immunity instead of a call to responsibility, and many Americans, who regard their country as "a city upon a hill" that is "the light of the world." But do the US and Israel fit the profile of successful states, or are they failed states themselves?

A compelling case can be made that the US and Israel are failed states. Israel allegedly is a democracy, but it is controlled by a minority of Zionist zealots who commit atrocities against Palestinians in order to provoke terrorist acts that are then used to perpetuate the right-wing's hold on political power. Israel has perfected blowback as a tool of political control. The Israeli state relies entirely on coercion and has no diplomacy. It stands isolated in the world except for the US, which sustains Israel's existence with money, military weapons, and the US veto in the United Nations.

Israel survives on life support from the US. A state that cannot exist without outside support is a failed state.

What about the United States? The US is an even greater failure. Its existence is not dependent on life support from outside. The US has failed in another way. Not only has the state failed, but the society as well......

The case against Israel and the US does not preclude some Muslim states from also meeting the criteria for failure. However, Iraq, an artificial creation of Western colonial powers, was driven into failure and civil war by American aggression. Iran, a nation with a 5,000 year history, is certainly not a failed state. The main failed states in the Middle East are those that are US puppets. They represent American hegemony, not the interests of their people.

What the US and Israel are attempting to do is to turn the entire Muslim Middle East into failed states, that is, into puppet regimes. By extending their hegemony in the Middle East, the US and Israel hope to prolong their own failed existence."

Wars and Scandals

By Uri Avnery
CounterPunch

".....IT'S NOT the past I am writing about, but the future.

At this moment, people in Washington and in Jerusalem are thinking about a war in Iran. Not if it should be started, but when and how.

If this is to be an American war, its consequences will be many times more grievous than the war in Iraq. Iran is a very hard nut. The Iranian people are united. They have a glorious national tradition, a highly developed national pride and a tough religious ideology. One can bomb their oil facilities, but it is a big country, not dependent on a sophisticated infrastructure, and it cannot be subdued by bombing alone. There will be no alternative to a military attack on the ground.

Bush is already preparing the war. This week he instructed his soldiers in Iraq to hunt down and kill all "Iranian agents" there. That is reminiscent of the infamous "Kommissarbefehl" of June 6, 1941, on the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, in which Adolf Hitler ordered the summary execution of every captured political commissar of the Red Army. Since the commissars were uniformed soldiers, every commander who carried out the order became a war criminal.

It is quite certain that if the United States does go to war, the Iranian people will rally behind their government. They will draw the conclusion that everything their leaders told them about the West was true. The opposition, which has lately raised its head, will fall silent and disappear. The big-mouthed president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose wisdom is now being questioned by many of his own people, will turn overnight into a national hero. It will be a war of many years, and many thousands of American soldiers--not to mention Iranians--will fall.

President Bush may hesitate and pass the task over to Israel. Lately, Olmert has hinted that it was the Americans who pushed him into the Lebanon war. They believed that the Israeli army would defeat Hizbullah easily, and that this would help the American clients in Beirut. (A similar foolish calculation caused the Americans to give their blessing to Sharon's First Lebanon War in 1982.)

Nowadays, our politicians and generals speak freely about the inevitable attack on Iran. The pro-Israeli lobby in the US, both Jewish and Christian, is toiling mightily to push American public opinion in this direction. All these gentlemen and ladies, in their comfortable villas far from the prospective battlefields, yearn for a war which will cost the lives of the sons and daughters--of other people.

The advocates of the war declare that it is necessary in order to prevent a "Second Holocaust". That has already become a mantra. This week, Jacques Chirac nearly exploded it, when he expressed the self-evident: that if an Iranian nuclear bomb were launched at Israel, Israel would wipe Tehran from the face of the earth. The Iranian rulers are not mad and the "balance of terror" will do its job. But the "friends" of Israel and the USA started to pelt Chirac with verbal rocks, and he hastily retracted.
* * *
LET'S ASSUME for a moment that the Israeli Air force, with the help of the American naval forces that are now being steadily built up in the Persian Gulf, succeeds in bombing targets in Iran. What will happen then?

Iranian missiles will rain down on Tel-Aviv and Haifa. The promise of our Air Force to destroy them on the ground is worth no more than the similar promises we heard about Lebanon. In order to defend Israel, American soldiers would have to go into Iran. Israel's account would be debited with every casualty. If Israel is, God forbid, the first to use a nuclear bomb there, the shame will last forever.

The masses of the Arab--indeed the entire Muslim world, both Sunnis and Shiites, will rally around Iran. The Sunni heads of state, who are embracing Israel now in secret, will run away in panic. We shall be left alone to face the revenge that will come sooner or later. Will we be able to rely on the heirs of Bush, who may be less reckless and more inclined to listen to world public opinion, which will inevitably blame us for this whole adventure?

Iran is not a second Iraq, neither is it Hizbullah multiplied by ten. It is an entirely different story.

But is anyone here thinking about it seriously? Will the successors of the share-selling Chief-of-Staff and the tongue-pushing minister be more thoughtful? Or will they decide upon a new military adventure with the same unbearable lightness?"

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Tom Toles

The Genocide Option

"It was claimed early in 2005 that the United States was considering resort to what has been called the "Salvadoran Option" in Iraq, in which, as had been done in El Salvador in the 1980s, U.S. Special Forces would train paramilitary squads to hunt down and assassinate rebel leaders and their supporters. [1] A year earlier, it was reported that a sizable fund had been appropriated for the creation of an exile-based paramilitary unit for Iraq, and that the money would more broadly "support U.S. efforts to create a lethal, and revengeful Iraqi security force." It was expected that this would lead to "a wave of extrajudicial killings" of armed rebels, but also of "nationalists, other opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists."

Why the Surge will push us into a War with Iran

By Mike Whitney

".....Bush’s new “security strategy” does nothing to promote American interests in Iraq; it benefits Iran alone. The “surge” is a tactic not a strategy. It does not consider the overall objectives of US involvement in Iraq, but continues to pursue the narrow aim of eliminating one enemy over another. This is hopelessly counterproductive and will end in disaster. By focusing all of his military resources on defeating the Sunni-led resistance, Bush has made a “devil’s bargain” with the Iranian-backed Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the biggest gangster in all of Baghdad, who is instigating much of the sectarian violence. Al-Hakim spent 20 years in Iran prior to the fall of Saddam and is clearly allied to the Mullahs. His militia, the Badr Brigade, was trained by the Iranian Republican Guards (as well as the CIA) and is perhaps the most feared death squad in all of Iraq. Al-Hakim’s militia operates out of the Iraqi Interior Ministry and is deeply engaged in the purging of Sunnis from Baghdad.......

Also, according to the conservative Jerusalem Post, “The pro-Iranian Mahdi Army is waging a war to eliminate the entire Palestinian population in Iraq…. Palestinian leaders and activists are describing a ‘systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing’. Thousands of Palestinian families have been forced to flee Iraq since the downfall of Saddam Hussein, but have no place to go.” (“Palestinians ‘Ethnic Cleansing” in Iraq”)

The deliberate attack on Iraqi intellectuals and academics has also gone largely unreported in the western media. In a heart-wrenching article by Layla Anwar, “A Stroll Down Haifa Street”, the author details the assault on a university professor, Ahmed Kamal Nabil. Nabil tells how teachers and students have been targeted as “the last line of resistance against political manipulation and terror in the new Iraq. Academics are targeted because they cannot be ideologically controlled…or sucked into the role of mouth piece for the occupation and its puppets…And academics are targeted because the new Iraq has become one big looting field run by mercenaries, thugs, politically corrupt opportunists, sectarian agitators, fanatical dark minds, and barbarians. And they want it to remain that way. They want to make sure that Iraq will never raise its head again. So they drain it of its intellectuals. In the New Iraq, there is no place for knowledge. Knowledge is the enemy.”......

As Brzezinski said, “If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted, bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.”...."

Top secret army cell breaks terrorists

By Sean Rayment, Sunday Telegraph

"Deep inside the heart of the "Green Zone", the heavily fortified administrative compound in Baghdad, lies one of the most carefully guarded secrets of the war in Iraq. It is a cell from a small and anonymous British Army unit that goes by the deliberately meaningless name of the Joint Support Group (JSG), and it has proved to be one of the Coalition's most effective and deadly weapons in the fight against terror.

Its members - servicemen and women of all ranks recruited from all three of the Armed Forces - are trained to turn hardened terrorists into coalition spies using methods developed on the mean streets of Ulster during the Troubles, when the Army managed to infiltrate the IRA at almost every level. Since war broke out in Iraq in 2003, they have been responsible for running dozens of Iraqi double agents......"

UK Telegraph Reveals Brit Terrorist Ops in Iraq

By Kurt Nimmo

"It is interesting the Telegraph.co.uk, “Lord” Conrad Black’s online version of a neocon newspaper, would publish a story admitting that the Joint Support Group, described as “a cell from a small and anonymous British Army unit,” manages “covert human intelligence sources or agents,” including double agents, that is to say the Brits are engaged in terrorist operations, as long suspected.

“During the [Irish] Troubles, the JSG operated under the cover name of the Force Research Unit (FRU), which between the early 1980s and the late 1990s managed to penetrate the very heart of the IRA. By targeting and then ‘turning’ members of the paramilitary organization with a variety of ‘inducements’” ranging from blackmail to bribes, the FRU operators developed agents at virtually every command level within the IRA,” explains Sean Rayment.

Even a dullard, armed with the appropriate search criteria and Google, can put two and two together in short order and discover that much of the terrorism in Northern Ireland was orchestrated by FRU and the British government, including the despicable “human bomb” technique, that is to say “forcing civilians to drive vehicles laden with explosives into army checkpoints,” according to the Guardian.

Naturally, all of this shines a new light on the two British SAS operatives caught in Basra, driving around in a car loaded with explosives and disguised as Arabs back in 2005.

Assassinating Irish civilians was part and parcel of “an intelligence operation which had been sanctioned at the highest levels of the British Army and the British Security Service, MI5,” according to Ed Moloney, writing for the Sunday Tribune.

In addition to outright murder, British intelligence encouraged torture. Robert Stevens describes the UDA as “a fascistic, loyalist paramilitary organization,” infamous for running death squads.

Sunday Telegraph documents “confirm that as the UDA’s primary intelligence officer [Brian] Nelson passed on the names, photographs and addresses of suspected IRA members from Army Intelligence records to UDA gunmen and that he carried out assassinations under army direction.” Patrick Finucane was apparently murdered by a FRU sanctioned death squad. The Belfast solicitor was gunned down before his wife and children.

“Beginning in the 1980s the highly secretive FRU was sent into Northern Ireland to recruit and train double agents to work inside the paramilitary groups,” writes Michael S. Rose. “The FRU combated IRA terrorism by the use of paid informers, blackmail, ambushes, and other methods not approved by the Geneva Convention. In the worst case, British officers decided that in cases when it would be difficult to bring suspected IRA terrorists to justice by legitimate means, the FRU would enlist outlawed guerilla groups that possessed both the desire and the means to murder the IRA men. According to Stevens Three, the FRU assisted Protestant terrorists in carrying out what were, in effect, proxy assassinations of Catholics. In order to forge such alliances, the British officers had to overlook the fact that the interests of the Protestant death squads were not those of the United Kingdom and its government.”

In Iraq, the “JSG is the coalition’s secret weapon,” a defense source told the Telegraph. “Their job is to recruit and run covert human intelligence sources or agents—we never use the term informer. The Americans are in awe of the unit because they have nothing like them within their military.” "

U.S. Military: 4 choppers shot down

U.S. Military: 4 choppers shot down

There have been four recent helicopter crashes in Iraq since January 20. Now, the U.S. Military says these downed crafts were all lost to ground fire.

Click Here To Play Video

From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq

The same neocon ideologues behind the Iraq war have been using the same tactics—alliances with shady exiles, dubious intelligence on W.M.D.—to push for the bombing of Iran. As President Bush ups the pressure on Tehran, is he planning to double his Middle East bet?

A Long Article
by Craig Unger
Vanity Fair

"......Whatever the administration's master plan may be, parts of it are already under way. In mid-January, the U.S. sent a second aircraft-carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. According to Gardiner, by the end of February the United States will have enough forces in place to mount an assault on Iran. That, in the words of former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, would be "an act of political folly" so severe that "the era of American preponderance could come to a premature end."

The Bush White House has already built the fire. Whether it will light the match remains to be seen."

Neocons to Iraq: Screw You

By Justin Raimondo

"Having destroyed the Iraqi state, and murdered some 600,000 Iraqis in the process, the War Party is now denying all responsibility for the subsequent civil war threatening to plunge the nation into a maelstrom of sectarian violence. Hard to believe, I know, but here's Charles Krauthammer – always in the avant-garde of neocon-dom – blaming it all on … the Iraqis!

"We gave them a civil war? Why? Because we failed to prevent it? Do the police in America have on their hands the blood of the 16,000 murders they failed to prevent last year?"

If the police invaded and destroyed, say, South Central Los Angeles, bombing the place into rubble and installing a puppet "government" that employed death squads to do its bidding, then, yes, they would indeed have the blood of the victims on their hands......

Do you think Krauthammer is saddened by the vicious killing that is now taking Iraq down into a bloody abyss? Not a chance. The neocons hate Arabs, all of them, Shia and Sunni alike (and the Persians, too). As long as these folks are killing each other, they can't attack the United States – or Israel. That's what motivated the invasion of Iraq, and it's what is pushing them to do the same to Iran – sheer malevolence, but malevolence, I might add, with a purpose......

The ugly secret of the neocons is that their program of "regime change" throughout the Middle East doesn't mean taking down tyrannies and replacing them with governments of a more democratic or even liberal character – it means toppling one regime and replacing it with… nothing. Michael Ledeen, the Machiavelli of this crowd, calls it "creative destruction." I'm not sure how creative it is – although I guess it depends on what you're trying to create – but clearly, by these standards, they have every right to claim Iraq as a "victory" and crow "Mission accomplished!"......"

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Hamas’ hard-line Khaled Meshaal, armed with 5-point compromise plan, promises a reconciliation summit in Mecca

"Saudi King Abdullah is assured his mediation will bring the Hamas-Fatah peace conference in Mecca Tuesday, Feb. 6, to a successful conclusion. The pledge has come from the tougher side of the two parties as represented by Hamas’ Damascus-based leader Khaled Meshaal.

Meshaal will be coming to the Mecca summit with a five-point compromise plan: 1. Hamas will refrain from reacting to Israel’s counter-terror forays against its operatives on the West Bank as well as from mounting attacks on Israel from that territory. 2. Hamas will not fight Fatah to the finish in the current round of factional war in the Gaza Strip – which has cost more than two dozen lives, many of them civilian, and extensive disruption - although a victory is within its reach. 3. Hamas renounces any intention of displacing Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as head of the Palestinian Authority in the domestic, inter-Arab or international arenas. 4. If the Mecca summit ends in a peace accord, Hamas undertakes to force its acceptance on the Jihad Islami and the Popular Resistance Committees. 5. Following a reconciliation in Mecca, Hamas will seek agreement with Israel for a long-term “hudna” – a lull in warfare - through all available channels - direct or by means of intermediaries, twice or three times removed.

With this plan in hand, Meshaal gave the Saudi monarch advance assurances that for Hamas a failed summit is not an option.

According to DEBKAfile’s Palestinian sources, the Meshaal plan has run into some opposition in the Hamas Shura Council, the organization’s senior political and military decision-making authority. But Meshaal is confident he can carry it through.

Our Middle East sources disclose the motivations behind Hamas’ five-point plan.

First: By Sunday, Feb. 5, Hamas was gaining in the battle against the Fatah fighting groups led by Muhammad Dahlan and saw, that with a final spurt, they could be defeated. Nonetheless, Meshaal held Hamas back from the coup de grace.

DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose the turning-point occurred late last week when Hamas enlisted the Popular Resistance Committees led by Zakariya Durmush. Hamas had captured Dahlan’s brother with documents attesting to Fatah’s plan to assassinate Durmush. A bomb car which Dahlan’s men had rigged for the murder also came to light. This evidence persuaded the PRC to cross the lines to Hamas.

Second: Hamas had determined to avert at all costs an Israeli military strike against the Gaza Strip which would have wipe out Hamas’ military infrastructure and missile stocks.

Third: The Saudi king is expected to present a reconstituted Middle East peace plan at an Arab summit in March. Hamas reckons the plan has a good chance of a positive response in principle from Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. In these circumstances, Hamas finds joining a potential inter-Arab consensus more expedient than a posture of intransigence, especially as the consensus also favors the establishment of a Palestinian unity government for the purpose of breaking out of the US-European-Israeli embargo against the Hamas government. The embargo was again confirmed by the Middle East Quartet last Friday.

For these reasons, the Mecca summit may also reach accord on a Palestinian national coalition. Fatah and Hamas have concurred tentatively on Hamas’ Ismail Haniya remaining as prime minister at the head of a unity government, leaving all six key portfolios to Fatah, including finance. The much debated interior ministry which controls Palestinian security forces will be assigned to a neutral figure. Hamas will hold nine second-string portfolios, but also an overall majority in the Palestinian cabinet."

ريان يحمّل عباس مسؤولية حرق الجامعة الإسلامية

ريان يحمّل عباس مسؤولية حرق الجامعة الإسلامية ويطالبه بالحضور الفوري لغزة

"غزة - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام


حمّل الدكتور نزار ريان، القيادي البارز في حركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس"، رئيس السلطة محمود عباس، كامل المسؤولية عما حدث في الجامعة الإسلامية، مطالباً إياه بالحضور الفوري لمدينة غزة والكشف عن الفاعلين.

وقال الدكتور ريّان لـ "المركز الفلسطيني الإعلام"، ومن على أنقاض الدمار الذي حل بالمكتبة المركزية في الجامعة الإسلامية "وجدنا مكتوباً على الجدران حرس الرئيس مر من هنا، وفي تاريخنا أن التتار مروا من بغداد ففعلوا شيئاً يشبه هذا الشيء، فنقول التتار مروا من هنا".

وأضاف ريان قوله "نحمل مسؤولية كل الذي جرى في هذا المكان للرئيس محمود عباس بشكل شخصي، حيث أن حرسه الذي صنع هذا الدمار، وكان بإمكانه أن يصنع شيئاً، لكن الرئيس لم يفعل شيئاً لحماية أكبر مؤسسة تعليمية في البلاد إن لم أقل حتى في الوطن العربي".

وأوضح أن الجامعة الإسلامية، وهي مؤسسة عريقة ومتميزة وتحظى بعشرات الجوائز الدولية العالمية، تم إحراقها والإتيان على كل ما فيها، وقال: "نحب أن نخبر كل الناس على المكشوف أننا الآن نعلم الأسماء التي نفذت هذا الأمر، وسيأتي لكل وقت حسابه بإذن الله تعالى، إن حسابهم سيكون بالقانون، وإلا فنحن من حقنا أن ندافع عن مؤسساتنا".

وطالب القيادي في "حماس" رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية محمود عباس بالحضور الفوري إلى مدينة غزة، مشيراً إلى أنّ "كل رؤساء الدنيا إذا جرى في بلدهم أي شيء من هذا القبيل أو دونه يحضرون على الفور".

وفي رده على سؤال حول مخاطبة رئيس السلطة؛ أكد الدكتور نزار ريان أنه تمت مخاطبته بخصوص هذا الأمر "ولم يكن رده سوى أن هذا الفعل لا يعجبه"، وقال ريان "نحن نعلم يقيناً أن هذه المسؤوليات محملة له (عباس) شخصياً لأن هذا حرسه ولا يأتمر إلا بأمره".

وعن موقف "حماس" مما جرى؛ أوضح ريان أنّ الحركة حريصة على فلسطين بشكل كامل، ولذلك تدخل في حوارات من أجل إنهاء الوضع وحتى لا ينشأ صراع أكبر، وقال "نحن نصبر على هذا الأذى حتى لا تزيد الخروقات".

وكانت الجامعة الإسلامية بغزة، كبرى الأكاديميات الفلسطينية، قد استهدفها، ليلة الخميس/الجمعة وفجر الجمعة الماضية (2/2)، حرق وتدمير خلف خسائر كبيرة قدرت بما يزيد عن 15 مليون دولار من قبل قوات حرس رئيس السلطة محمود عباس. "

"Rayyan holds Abbas responsible for destruction in Gaza University

Gaza - Hamas’ senior political leader in Gaza Strip Dr. Nezzar Rayyan has blamed PA chief Mahmoud Abbas for the destruction inflicted by his security forces on the Islamic University in Gaza city Friday, urging him to immediately come to Gaza and see for himself the extent of destruction in that educational edifice.

He explained that graffiti reading “The presidential guards have passed here” were found written on walls of the University, and urged Abbas to come to Gaza and see the extent of mischief his guards inflicted on that pioneer University. He underlined that Abbas was able to thwart the incident but he didn’t.

Moreover, Rayyan, who is also a professor at the University, unveiled that names and identities of the perpetrators are known, stressing that they must be prosecuted for their heinous crime, otherwise, he warned, “we have the right to defend our institutions”.

The Hamas leader, furthermore, underscored that Hamas was and still is very much concerned with ending roots of disputes with Fatah provided that Palestinian national constants and legal rights are preserved.

“We will withstand the harm others are inflicting on us just for the sake of our people, just cause, and our national unity”, Rayyan asserted.

PA security forces loyal to Abbas stormed the University Friday, end of week holiday in Palestine, and torched it. Damage caused was estimated at 15 million dollars."

The Long-Awaited Palestinian "Unity" Government! Enjoy!

The nature of the Quartet: A proxy for Israel
Hamed Atta, Al-Khaleej

Bush, Dems Work Together to Kill Iraqis, Iranians

By Kurt Nimmo

"“President Bush made a conciliatory political pilgrimage Saturday to an annual gathering full of newly empowered House Democrats and urged bipartisan action on a host of issues that could determine the success or failure of his last two years in the White House,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. “Bush’s 19-minute speech before about 175 members of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House caucus was received cordially and respectfully, if not enthusiastically.”

It is a “political pilgrimage” that sends an incisive, unambiguous message: Bush’s neocons will work with the Democrats, not only on “U.S. energy self-sufficiency, global warming, economic competitiveness and immigration,” but also on the mass murder “surge” in Iraq and, soon enough, Iran....."

Bush Is Hiding the Ball on Iran

By Robert Parry

George W. Bush is again guiding the nation toward a preemptive war – this time with Iran – without allowing anything like a full debate of the underlying facts, probable consequences of the conflict or peaceful alternatives.

"Bush is following the same course he chose in the run-up to war in Iraq: he insists that war is “a last resort” yet puts in motion the engines of war; he times the release of alarming intelligence reports for maximum political effect; he brushes aside doubts and warnings; he then presents war as unavoidable or a fait accompli.

Despite the painful lessons from the Iraq War disaster – including more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers dead and Iraq torn apart by sectarian civil war – the key institutions of Washington, particularly the Congress and the press, are playing similar roles, too.

The capital again is possessed of an air of unreality as the clock ticks down to a likely military showdown with Iran.

Though the documentary record is now clear that Bush set his sights on war in Iraq a year or so before the actual invasion, the President is still believed when he insists now that he wants a diplomatic solution with Iran......"

U.S. hell-bent for Iran war

By Eric Margolis

"TORONTO -- The Bush-Cheney administration seems hell-bent on provoking war with Iran, and the U.S.-Iran confrontation is getting very dangerous. The heaviest concentration of U.S. naval strike forces since the 2003 war against Iraq is concentrating off Iran.

In a disturbing replay of that conflict, CIA drones and U.S. Air Force recon aircraft - along with U.S. and British Special Forces - are overflying Iran and probing its nuclear and military installations. The CIA and Britain's MI6 are stirring unrest among Iran's Kurds and Azerbaijanis, and arming Iranian Marxist and royalist exiles.

A belligerent U.S. President George Bush ordered U.S. forces in Iraq to "kill" Iranian agents or diplomats who appear threatening.

U.S. troops in northern Iraq broke into an Iranian liaison office and arrested its military staff. Bush unblushingly warns Iran, not to "meddle" in neighbouring Iraq.

Pentagon sources accused Iran of smuggling weapons and explosives to "Iraqi insurgents" - though the "insurgents" are, in fact, Shia militiamen allied to the U.S.-installed Baghdad regime. Half of the 21,000 additional U.S. troops headed to Iraq are being positioned to cover the Iranian border and block an Iranian threat to the main U.S. Kuwait-Baghdad supply line.

New contingents of U.S. Air Force personnel and warplanes are arriving at key forward air bases in Bulgaria and Romania that link the U.S. to the Mideast and Central Asia. U.S. bases in Britain, Germany, Diego Garcia, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and Pakistan are reported on heightened alert. Turkey is being pressed to allow U.S. and Israeli strike aircraft to use its air space to attack northern Iran.

The Pentagon's latest strike plan against Iran includes over 2,300 "high value" targets such as its dispersed nuclear infrastructure and, worryingly, operating reactors, air and naval bases, ports, telecommunications, air defences, military factories, energy networks, and government buildings. Iran's water and sewage systems, bridges, food storage, and bomb shelters could also be targeted, as Iraq's were in 2001......

Though UN inspectors find no evidence Iran is producing nuclear weapons, Tehran, like Saddam's Iraq, is being told to prove an impossible negative - that it has no nuclear weapons.

With disturbing deja vu, the U.S. Congress and media are swallowing the administration's torrent of unproven allegations against Iran precisely the way they lapped up its grotesque lies about Iraq.

Intelligence analysts would conclude either: Washington is trying to bluff Tehran to abandon its entirely legal but worrisome civilian nuclear power program and thus claim a major victory after so many defeats; or the cornered Bush-Cheney administration is trying to provoke an air and naval war against Iran as a last desperate, ideologically driven assault against the Muslim world, and divert attention from its Iraq debacle......

After his comments became public, Chirac retracted them when Washington's French-haters went apoplectic. But, as he did before Bush's 2003 war against Iraq, Chirac spoke with logic and good sense."

Palestinian Contras' Lies Worse Than Israel's

PA infighting to escalate, Shin Bet official says

"As far as Israel is concerned, the clashes in the Palestinian Authority will continue and will escalate, Shin Bet deputy chief Y. said during Sunday's cabinet meeting. "The reason we say this is because each side is attempting to arm itself and is preparing for the next wave of clashes," he added.

Addressing the ceasefire declared by the two organizations over the weekend, Y. said that "this is at least the tenth claming effort, but it doesn’t seem as if it's going toward a truce."....

Minister Gideon Ezra asked during the meeting whether Israel was doing enough to bolster the moderates and whether Israel could consider releasing Palestinian prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, due to this popularity......

The deputy chief also addressed Thursday's raid of the Islamic University in Gaza, and particularly the reports the Iranian arms experts were seized during the raid.

"It was an unusual activity," he said. "We have no confirmation that there were Iranian elements there. This information should be taken with a grain of salt. We have no intelligence and media indication regarding a possibility of Iranian elements."

Following the report on the raid, Palestinian sources said that the most senior Iranian agent, a general, was in charge of Hamas' arms project and had even trained activists manufacturing explosives at the university labs.....

Palestinian President Abbas and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal are expected to meet Tuesday in another effort to reach a truce. The meeting, according to Y., may also be joined by Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan......

"The Fatah organizations are not controlled by the Fatah leadership today. This is one of the tragedies of the Palestinian people in the past few years. If in the past Hamas and Jihad were rebellious and did not listen to the leadership, today Fatah is in the same situation.

"These organizations have no central command and no father figure, and this is one of the main problems, both in the Palestinian society and towards us. This is a process which has been going on for three years now." "

Webster Tarpley Issues Dire Iran Attack Warning

"A concise, if chilling analysis of the impending Iran attack by the “neocon fascist madmen,” as Tarpley aptly characterizes Bush’s warmongering handlers. Normally, I’d simply point to this MP3 file on the RBN audio archive, but as the archive server is no longer functional, I am including it here (follow previous link). Note: this is a must listen audio file if you are interested in the coming conflict that will, as Webster points out, change our lives forever. As well, it will serve to read John Pilger’s Iran: The war has already begun. Thanks to Conspiracy Central for offering the audio file as a torrent."

A long (over an hour) audio, but well worth your time.
Click here to listen

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Ed Stein

The Disintegration Of Fatah

".....In the West Bank, a strategy session by Fatah leaders ended in a shouting match, with some participants demanding Abbas' party take a tougher stand against Hamas in the struggle for control of the Palestinian government, and others pushing to give a mediation effort by Saudi Arabia a chance. In one particularly angry exchange, participants threw an empty cup and a shoe at each other, witnesses said.

"We all agreed that Hamas has been trying for a long time to impose its control on the Gaza Strip, and Fatah needs to stand up to this policy of Hamas," said Amin Makboul, one of the group's members. Under fierce debate, though, is how to do so....."

A political bombshell from Zbigniew Brzezinski: Ex-national security adviser warns that Bush is seeking a pretext to attack Iran

by Barry Grey
Global Research, February 4, 2007

"Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser in the Carter administration, delivered a scathing critique of the war in Iraq and warned that the Bush administration’s policy was leading inevitably to a war with Iran, with incalculable consequences for US imperialism in the Middle East and internationally.

Brzezinski, who opposed the March 2003 invasion and has publicly denounced the war as a colossal foreign policy blunder, began his remarks on what he called the “war of choice” in Iraq by characterizing it as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity.”

“Undertaken under false assumptions,” he continued, “it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean principles and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.”

Brzezinski derided Bush’s talk of a “decisive ideological struggle” against radical Islam as “simplistic and demagogic,” and called it a “mythical historical narrative” employed to justify a “protracted and potentially expanding war.”

“To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said.

Most stunning and disturbing was his description of a “plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran.” It would, he suggested, involve “Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” [Emphasis added].

This was an unmistakable warning to the US Congress, replete with quotation marks to discount the “defensive” nature of such military action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war.

That a man such as Brzezinski, with decades of experience in the top echelons of the US foreign policy establishment, a man who has the closest links to the military and to intelligence agencies, should issue such a warning at an open hearing of the US Senate has immense and grave significance.

Brzezinski knows whereof he speaks, having authored provocations of his own while serving as Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. In that capacity, as he has since acknowledged in published writings, he drew up the covert plan at the end of the 1970s to mobilize Islamic fundamentalist mujaheddin to topple the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan and draw the Soviet Union into a ruinous war in that country.

Following his opening remarks, in response to questions from the senators, Brzezinski reiterated his warning of a provocation.

He called the senators’ attention to a March 27, 2006 report in the New York Times on “a private meeting between the president and Prime Minister Blair, two months before the war, based on a memorandum prepared by the British official present at this meeting.” In the article, Brzezinski said, “the president is cited as saying he is concerned that there may not be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, and that there must be some consideration given to finding a different basis for undertaking the action.”

He continued: “I’ll just read you what this memo allegedly says, according to the New York Times: ‘The memo states that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation.’

“He described the several ways in which this could be done. I won’t go into that... the ways were quite sensational, at least one of them.

“If one is of the view that one is dealing with an implacable enemy that has to be removed, that course of action may under certain circumstances be appealing. I’m afraid that if this situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, and if Iran is perceived as in some fashion involved or responsible, or a potential beneficiary, that temptation could arise.”.....

Following the hearing, this reporter asked Brzezinski directly if he was suggesting that the source of a possible provocation might be the US government itself. The former national security adviser was evasive......."

كونترا فلسطينية بتمويل أمريكي

كونترا فلسطينية بتمويل أمريكي

بقلم : عبد الباري عطوان

عندما اندلعت الاشتباكات الدموية في قطاع غزة، التي أودت بحياة ثلاثين شخصا علي الأقل من خيرة أبناء القضية الواحدة، حاولنا أن نكون متوازنين، وان نضع اللوم علي الجانبين، ولكن عندما أعلنت الإدارة الأمريكية يوم أمس أنها ستقدم ستة وثمانين مليون دولار لتدريب وتسليح الحرس الرئاسي، وتدرس في الوقت نفسه توسيع تقديم المساعدة لتشمل عناصر قوات الأمن الوطني التابعة للرئيس محمود عباس وبعض قادته الأمنيين، فإننا نجد من الصعب علينا أن نلتزم الحياد ونمسك العصا من الوسط، لان هذه الخطوة الأمريكية لا يمكن إلا أن تكون مشروع فتنة، وصب المزيد من الزيت علي نار الحرب الأهلية، أو جمرها الذي ما زال متقدا تحت رماد الاتفاق الأخير للهدنة، الذي يصارع من اجل الثبات.

لا يستطيع احد أن يقنعنا، مهما تبحر في علم البلاغة والبيان، بأن الولايات المتحدة تريد تمويل قوات الرئاسة، والأمن الوطني الفلسطيني، وتسليحها، من اجل التصدي للقوات الإسرائيلية، وتوغلاتها المستمرة في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة واغتيالاتها التي لا تفرق بين كتائب القسام وشهداء الاقصي. ولا يمكن لأحد أن يحاججنا أيضا، بان الحكومة الإسرائيلية ستسمح بمرور الأسلحة لهذه القوات، من مصر والأردن، إذا كان لديها ادني شك، في أن هذه الأسلحة ستستخدم ضدها وضد جنودها ومستوطنيها.

نحن الآن، ونقولها بكل أسف وحزن، أمام كونترا فلسطينية جديدة، تدعمها الولايات المتحدة من اجل تصفية المقاومة الفلسطينية وحركاتها، وكل من يفكر بمعارضة الحلول الأمريكية المفروضة، وهي حلول إسرائيلية بالأساس. فمثلما تصدت فرق الكونترا لرجال المقاومة في امريكا الجنوبية واستنزفت الأنظمة الوطنية فيها ستفعل هذه القوات الفلسطينية الشيء نفسه وربما أكثر، أو هذا ما هو مخطط لها أن تفعل. وعلينا ان نتذكر أن نغروبونتي الذي عين قبل شهر نائبا للسيدة رايس هو الأب الشرعي لفكرة الكونترا هذه.

المصيبة ان الكونترا الفلسطينية الجديدة تتطوع بالقيام بمثل هذا الدور الدموي القذر، دون ان يكون هناك اي حل علي الطاولة، يستند الي قرارات الشرعية الدولية، ويحقق الحد الأدني من المطالب الفلسطينية في حق تقرير المصير، والعودة والدولة المستقلة.

ومن المفارقة ان هذا الإعلان الامريكي يتزامن مع اتخاذ حكومة ايهود اولمرت، رئيس الوزراء الاسرائيلي، قرارا بتغيير مسار الجدار العنصري الحالي بحيث يضم مستوطنتين يهوديتين جديدتين في الضفة الغربية، والتصديق علي قرار آخر باقامة مستوطنة في غور الاردن لاستيعاب المستوطنين الذين تم اجلاؤهم من قطاع غزة في الصيف قبل الماضي وبناء كنيس يهودي في باحة المسجد الأقصي.

لا نعرف ما هو الغرض من انشاء حرس رئاسي فلسطيني يزيد تعداده عن عشرة آلاف عنصر، ونحن ما زلنا تحت الاحتلال، ولا يستطيع الرئيس الفلسطيني مغادرة قصره الا بإذن شاويش اسرائيلي. ولا يستطيع رئيس وزراء فلسطين المنتخب الاجتماع مع وزرائه في الضفة الا عبر الهاتف وبتنصت اسرائيلي.

نفهم ان يؤسس رئيس دولة اقليمية عظمي مثل الراحل صدام حسين حرسا جمهوريا ضخما، او ان يفعل الشيء نفسه رئيس روسيا العظمي او حتي رئيس مصر الذي يتنقل بين عدة قصور واستراحات ورثها عن العهد الملكي، ولكن ان يقيم رئيس دولة وهمية لا تزيد مساحتها عن بضعة عشرات الآلاف من الاميال خاضعة للاحتلال وتأتمر بأمره، حرسا رئاسيا، فهذا ما لا يخطر علي بال احد، ولكن كل شيء ممكن في هذا الزمن العباسي السعيد.

هناك مشروع سري يتم طبخه علي نار هادئة من وراء ظهر الشعب الفلسطيني، فتمويل هذه القوات وتسليحها من قبل الولايات المتحدة، وبمباركة اسرائيلية هما العمود الفقري له، وهو مشروع حرب اهلية، يبشر بحمامات دم فلسطينية ـ فلسطينية من خلال استهداف حركات المقاومة الفلسطينية، وكل ما أشيع عن حوارات من اجل تشكيل حكومة وحدة وطنية، والتوصل إلي وفاق بين رأسي السلطة، هو مجرد مناورة لكسب الوقت، واستكمال الاستعدادات للمنازلة الدموية الكبري التي باتت وشيكة جدا.

الدكتور صائب عريقات المستشار السياسي للرئيس عباس قال في تصريحات صحافية تبريرا لهذه الخطوة، بأن الاموال الامريكية ستذهب الي تمويل اجهزة ومعدات لمراقبة المعابر. فإذا كانت الادارة الامريكية حريصة فعلا علي هذه المعابر، فلماذا لا تبادر الي فتحها اولا، وخاصة معبر رفح المغلق منذ ستة اشهر، الا في حالات نادرة. حيث يحشر اكثر من مليون ونصف المليون فلسطيني في قفص كبير اسمه قطاع غزة. فما دخل الأجهزة بمرور المرضي والحجاج والمعتمرين؟

الشعب الفلسطيني يتضور جوعا، والأوبئة تتفشي، والمستشفيات خالية من الأدوية الاساسية بسبب الحصار المالي الامريكي، وعشرات الآلاف من الموظفين، ومعظمهم من حزب الرئيس، لا يجدون رغيف الخبز لاطفالهم، ومع ذلك تستثني الادارة الامريكية قوات الرئاسة من حصارها وترسل عشرات الملايين من الدولارات لاعطائها الاسلحة والذخائر التي ستستخدمها في الاشهر المقبلة لتصفية حركات فلسطينية تتمسك بالثوابت التي انطلقت من اجل تحقيقها الثورة الفلسطينية بزعامة حركة فتح .

ما زال من الصعب معرفة ما اذا كان الرئيس محمود عباس قد تشاور مع اللجنة المركزية، او الكوادر الوطنية الشابة لحركته وكتائب شهداء الاقصي بالذات قبل الموافقة علي الانخراط في هذا المشروع الامريكي الخطير ام لا، ولكن ما نستطيع التكهن به، انه لم يفعل ذلك مطلقا، ولم يلجأ الي اي مرجعيات فلسطينية سواء داخل تنظيمه او خارجه، لان كوادر فتح كما نعرفها هي في قمة الوطنية والحرص علي الثوابت ولا يمكن ان تقبل بالانخراط في حرب تصفيات ضد اناس يرفعون راية المقاومة، ويتطلعون للشهادة. فالمؤكد ان الرئيس عباس بات اسيرا لبعض الشخصيات التي تلتف حوله، وترافقه كظله في حله وترحاله، هذه الايام، وتزين له محاسن القبول بالاملاءات والمخططات الامريكية.

النوايا تتجه الآن الي حل قوات الامن الفلسطينية، او غربلتها، كنتيجة للاتصالات التي اجراها خبراء امريكيون مع قادة الاجهزة الأمنية الفلسطينية. والغربلة تعني ابعاد او تجميد كل عنصر ما زال يتمسك بحق العودة، وقيام دولة فلسطينية عاصمتها القدس، ويتعاطف مع المقاومة، اي اننا امام خطوة مماثلة بحل الجيش العراقي، ولن نفاجأ اذا ما جاءت النتائج متطابقة.

الشعب الفلسطيني يقف الآن امام مجزرتين ، الاولي بشرية كنتيجة لحرب التصفيات التي من المتوقع ان تنفذها الكونترا الجديدة، والثانية سياسية ، ستترتب مباشرة علي المجزرة الاولي، وسيكون عنوانها فرض تسوية منقوصة، ومعيبة، علي الشعب الفلسطيني وفق المقاييس الامريكية والاسرائيلية.

الادارة الامريكية تريد تنظيف المنطقة العربية من حركتين اساسيتين للمقاومة، هما حماس و حزب الله ، قبل الانطلاق نحو الحرب الكبري ضد ايران، بغطاء عربي من الدول المعتدلة، ومشاركة اسرائيلية كاملة.

فليس من قبيل الصدفة ان تتحدث السيدة كوندوليزا رايس عن دولة فلسطينية مؤقتة قبل اجتماعها الثاني مع وزراء الدول العربية المعتدلة في الكويت. فالمؤقت سيصبح دائما، وسيظل مرهونا بمدي الرضوخ للاملاءات الامريكية والاسرائيلية.

الرئيس عباس يقدم علي مقامرة جديدة، اخطر بكثير من مقامرة اوسلو ، قد تكون باهظة التكاليف بالنسبة الي الشعب الفلسطيني، فقد عقد العزم مثلما يتراءي لنا، ان يكون جزءا اصيلا في تحالف المعتدلين او حلف بغداد الجديد، اعتقادا منه ان الرئيس عرفات اخطأ عندما وقف ضد تحالف مماثل ايام حرب الخليج الاولي عام 1991، وضم الدول نفسها عدا الأردن، وبما سمي في حينه دول اعلان دمشق .

الرئيس عرفات لم يخطئ عندما وقف في خندق شعبه في مواجهة الخندق الامريكي المقابل، لانه كان يدرك بحدسه الوطني ان بوصلته الوطنية هي الاكثر دقة ومصداقية. فقد حققت امريكا غرضها من اخراج القوات العراقية من الكويت، وتدمير العراق، ونزع اسلحته، ولم تقدم للعرب، وحلفائها علي وجه الخصوص غير حرب اهلية دموية في عراق مفتت ممزق، وخلل اساسي في موازين القوي لمصلحة اسرائيل في الغرب وايران في الشرق.

كان اشرف للسيد عباس ان يتهم بأنه رئيس ضعيف، علي ان يدخل التاريخ كرئيس اشعل فتيل الحرب الاهلية الفلسطينية ووضع اوراقه في السلة الامريكية مقابل حلول جزئية هزيلة، هذا اذا حصل علي هذه المكافأة

ENOUGH! TRY HIM FOR TREASON.
HE IS NOT MY PRESIDENT.
IF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL DOES NOT TRY HIM, THEN IT WILL HAVE LOST ITS REASON TO EXIST.