Death from above

From Dresden and Tokyo to Hanoi and now Iraq's Baquba and Afghanistan's tribal villages, the US military has been "hooked on air power". The addiction will only grow stronger as US ground troops gradually withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, increasingly leaving civilians, not insurgents, to continue to take the heat.

By Tom Engelhardt
Asia Times

"......All these 1968 dispatches from the "front" were, of course, military fairy tales. (There were no reporters in the vicinity.) It took over a year for a former GI named Ronald Ridenhour, who had heard about the bloody massacre from participants, and a young former Associated Press reporter named Seymour Hersh working in Washington for a news service virtually no one had ever heard of, to break the story, revealing that "red, white, and blue village" had just been red village - the red of Vietnamese peasant blood. More than 400 elderly men, women, children, and babies were slaughtered there by Charlie Company of Task Force Barker, an ad hoc unit commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Barker Jr, in a nearly day-long rampage......

Recently, however, in Afghanistan, such isolated incidents from US or NATO (often still US) air attacks have been occurring in startling numbers. They have, in fact, become so commonplace that, in the news, they begin to blur into what looks, more and more, like a single, ongoing airborne slaughter of civilians......

Ours is, of course, a callous and dishonest way of thinking about war from the air (undoubtedly because it is the form of barbarism, unlike the car bomb or the beheading, that benefits us). It is time to be more honest. It is time for reporters to take the words "incident", "mistake", "accident", "inadvertent", "errant", and "collateral damage" out of their reportorial vocabularies when it comes to air power. At the level of policy, civilian deaths from the air should be seen as "advertent". They are not mistakes or they wouldn't happen so repeatedly. They are the very givens of this kind of warfare.

This is, or should be, obvious. If we want to "withdraw" from Iraq (or Afghanistan) via the Gates Plan, we should at least be clear about what that is likely to mean - the slaughter of large numbers of civilians "including women and children". And it will not be due to a series of mistakes or incidents; it will not be errant or inadvertent. It will be policy itself. It will be the Washington - and in the end the US - consensus."

A fallacy that bombs - literally

By Khody Akhavi
Asia Times

"......In the changing landscape of 21st-century warfare, a technologically superior US military has been forced to adapt its strategy to combat counterinsurgency tactics. Guerrilla warfare is waged on city streets, often amid civilian populations. Hence air power can never be an effective substitute for ground fighting.

This was witnessed during last year's war between Israel and the Islamist resistance group Hezbollah. During a four-week period, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) relentlessly bombed Lebanon, destroying much of the country's infrastructure in the process. But the objective of the IDF's massive use of air power - to eliminate the threat of Hezbollah permanently - was never accomplished.

"Military historians have a name for the logic behind Israel's military campaign in Lebanon. It's called 'strategic bombing fallacy'," Brookings Institution fellow Philip H Gordon wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post during the 2006 war. "Far from bringing about the intended softening of the opposition, bombing tends to rally people behind their own leaders and cause them to dig in against outsiders who, whatever the justification, are destroying their homeland."

As the US public's tolerance for troop casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan steadily shrinks, the Bush administration finds itself in a precarious situation. Reliance on air power and the cumulative effect of errant bombs portends an ominous future for US political goals in the region. "

Bush’s Pakistan Paradox

By Robert Scheer

"As Iraq continues to disintegrate, and our top generals and in-country ambassador predict that U.S. troops will need to die there for decades in order to prevent a full-scale regional blood bath, it is important to recall the reasons why we got into this mess. The marker of what will go down in history as “Bush’s folly” is that this idiot of a president invaded a country that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorist attacks on the United States or WMD threats to America while coddling the military junta in Pakistan, which was guilty on both counts.....

Heckuva job, Bushie."

Hamas' stand

An official of the movement describes its goals for all of Palestine.

A very Good Piece

By Mousa Abu Marzook, MOUSA ABU MARZOOK is the deputy of the political bureau of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement.

The Los Angeles Times

"Damascus, Syria — HAMAS' RESCUE of a BBC journalist from his captors in Gaza last week was surely cause for rejoicing. But I want to be clear about one thing: We did not deliver up Alan Johnston as some obsequious boon to Western powers.

It was done as part of our effort to secure Gaza from the lawlessness of militias and violence, no matter what the source. Gaza will be calm and under the rule of law — a place where all journalists, foreigners and guests of the Palestinian people will be treated with dignity. Hamas has never supported attacks on Westerners, as even our harshest critics will concede; our struggle has always been focused on the occupier and our legal resistance to it — a right of occupied people that is explicitly supported by the Fourth Geneva Convention......

Mr. Bush has for the moment found a pliant friend in Abu Mazen, a "moderate" in the American view but one who cannot seriously expect to command confidence in the streets of Gaza or the West Bank after having taken American arms and Israeli support to depose the elected government by force. We deplore the current prognosticating over "Fatah-land" versus "Hamastan." In the end, there can be only one Palestinian state.......

......Why should anyone concede Israel's "right" to exist, when it has never even acknowledged the foundational crimes of murder and ethnic cleansing by means of which Israel took our towns and villages, our farms and orchards, and made us a nation of refugees?

Why should any Palestinian "recognize" the monstrous crime carried out by Israel's founders and continued by its deformed modern apartheid state, while he or she lives 10 to a room in a cinderblock, tin-roof United Nations hut? These are not abstract questions, and it is not rejectionist simply because we have refused to abandon the victims of 1948 and their descendants......

The writings of Israel's "founders" — from Herzl to Jabotinsky to Ben Gurion — make repeated calls for the destruction of Palestine's non-Jewish inhabitants: "We must expel the Arabs and take their places." A number of political parties today control blocs in the Israeli Knesset, while advocating for the expulsion of Arab citizens from Israel and the rest of Palestine, envisioning a single Jewish state from the Jordan to the sea. Yet I hear no clamor in the international community for Israel to repudiate these words as a necessary precondition for any discourse whatsoever. The double standard, as always, is in effect for Palestinians......"

Palestine: Zionist Starvation Plan

A Great Piece

By Mary Sparrowdancer
(Mary Sparrowdancer is a writer and the author of a bestselling book, The Love Song)

"Over 6000 (six thousand) Palestinian refugees from Gaza, including children, babies, pregnant women, the sick, the elderly, and unarmed civilians have been stranded on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border of Gaza for over one month now.

Stranded in the scorching heat, they are without adequate shelter, food, or money with which to solicit help because the Zionist Israeli military regime decided to close the border passage between Gaza and Egypt. The Zionists had earlier built an enormous wall between Gaza and Egypt, destroying hundreds of Palestinian homes without notice in the process. The wall is a wall that is too high to be scaled, and those now trapped on the other side of it are being denied by Zionists reentry into Gaza. The Palestinians of Gaza cannot go home. (1).....

Stranded now in what former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya describes as "appalling conditions," the death toll of the tormented has begun. Twenty-eight have died. In what should be causing flags of great concern to be raised, the EU personnel who monitor the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt are being sent home because it appears the border is going to remain closed. Chillingly, one must quickly ask if this is tantamount to removing potential foreign witnesses from a scene where a plan of torture and murder by the deliberate acts of withholding food and water from a civilian population could be underway. (4) (5)......

Among those wounded in the latest "routine operations" by the Zionist military aggression into Gaza refugee camps, were children and a young documentary news cameraman for the Al-Aqsa TV satellite channel. The cameraman, Imad Ghanem, 21,who was filming footage of rescue efforts, was gunned down by a tank as he filmed, and then several more shots were fired into him as he lay helpless on the ground next to his camera. Only one side of this military occupation in Gaza has tanks. Both of the young man's legs were later amputated. Although Israel claims it does not intentionally fire upon news media members who are gathering footage of Israeli military activities within refugee camps, other reporters also claimed to have been fired upon during this military incursion, as well. (7) (8) (9)......

The entire world should demand that the 6000 stranded refugees receive immediate humanitarian supplies as well as entry back into their own homes in Gaza. Their reentry will be into the concentration camp of Gaza, but that is all they have. It is better than standing at the border and dying under the sun of exposure, dehydration and starvation. And then, immediately, we, the world, need to come together as human beings and liberate all of the Palestinians-all of the world-from Zionism. We need to liberate the Palestinians from their state of torture and despair.
We need to liberate the Palestinians from starvation and from the concentration camps, the same as we once liberated the Jews and other minorities from similar torture. The long list of crimes against humanity and war crimes carried out by Zionist Israel must end immediately......."

3 Killed in Attack on Green Zone

3 Killed in Attack on Green Zone

"BAGHDAD (AP) -- A thunderous barrage of mortars or rockets killed at least three people and wounded 18 in the Green Zone on Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy said. One of the dead was an American service member.

An estimated 20 projectiles crashed into the heavily fortified area of Baghdad at about 4:15 p.m.

A U.S. Embassy statement said the dead included one U.S. military member, an Iraqi and a person of unknown nationality.

The 18 wounded included five Americans - two military and three contract employees - the embassy statement said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned gunmen a week ago to stop firing rockets and mortar rounds into the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and several other foreign missions along with some key Iraqi government offices and the Iraqi parliament....."

Women protest, calling for the PA to release detained Hamas loyalists

More on The Pinochet-Style Military Dictatorship in the West Bank

Women protest in Nablus, calling for the PA to release detained Hamas loyalists

"Nablus - Ma'an - Relatives of Hamas loyalists, detained by Palestinian Authority security forces over the last two weeks in Nablus, staged a sit-in on Tuesday outside the detention center in the city where the men are believed to be held.

The protesters, who were mainly female family members, demanded that their relatives be released from the Jneid detention center, in Nablus in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian security services declared the area a closed military zone and prevented journalists from covering the event.

More than 100 women participated in the sit-in, including the Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Muna Mansour.

The Palestinian security prevented the protesters from approaching the detention center and fired warning gunshots into the air. Only five women were allowed to enter the detention center, including Muna Mansour. The women handed over a letter to the center's manager, calling on him to release the detainees immediately. "

Manufacturing Consent for Attacking Iran

IDF sources: Iran could have full nuclear capabilities by 2009

"Sources from the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday they believe that Iran could have full nuclear capabilities by 2009. However, the sources said, Iran is more likely to have operational nuclear weapons only in 2010 or 2011.

IDF sources have also said they estimate that Iran will reach a technological threshold that will enable them to independently produce nuclear weapons within six months.

On Monday, efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear program took center stage in discussions between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and visiting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi......"

***

Again, it is the usual case of WAWAG (Whatever AIPAC Wants, AIPAC Gets).

Did Dahlan talk about slaughtering Arafat?

By Sami Moubayed, Special to Gulf News

"Damascus: Mohammad Dahlan, former Palestinian security minister, allegedly talked about killing former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

It is said to have been found in a hand-written letter dated July 13, 2003, addressed to Shaul Mofaz, the then-Israeli minister of defence in Ariel Sharon's cabinet.

Documents like these were discovered at the security offices of Fatah, which were abandoned three weeks ago after the Hamas takeover of Gaza. Since then a war of words - and documents - has been waged between the two Palestinian groups.

Esmail Heya, Hamas Minister of Interior in Gaza, spoke of video cassettes recorded by Dahlan showing senior members of Fatah involved in illegal sexual activity. Dahlan reportedly kept them to blackmail members of his own Fatah movement.

The Lebanese weekly Al Kifah Al Arabi claims Hamas sent copies of these documents - which it describes as a "treasure" to both Jordan and Syria, justifying its position towards Fatah.

The most outrageous document of all is the Dahlan-Mofaz correspondence, which hints at Arafat's assassination and accuses Hamas of being "mafia gangs" without naming it.

It reads: "You must know that we operate according to conviction rather than orders from anyone. We believe that our peoples' interest requires that we completely eradicate mafia gangs that spread chaos between us, along with fear and hatred between. Be sure that we will not let those who are strangers amongst us remain within us."

Dahlan promises to eliminate these mafia gangs "and their thought so that the only ones who remain within us are those who are willing to co-exist with you."

He adds, "Be sure that Mr. Yasser Arafat is now counting his final days but let us slaughter him our way - not yours." "

- Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

Arabic Video: A Palestinian Priest in Gaza Refutes the Sectarian Lies of Abbas Against Hamas and Defends Hamas

Contributed by Fatima

Click Here to See this Short Clip

Democratic Defectors and the Israel Lobby

"Whatever AIPAC Wants, AIPAC Gets"

By JERRY KROTH
CounterPunch

".....Bloggers called them "traitor Democrats", and the descriptor is apropos. At the time of the vote, sixty-two percent of the American people favored a time-table for a withdrawal, but, more significantly, "seventy percent" of Democrats were so inclined. Voting against this burgeoning tide of anger betrayed the will of the people and party that put these Democrats in office.

Curiously, all of the traitor democrats were huge career recipients of funds from the Israeli lobby. If we took ten Democratic apostates and compared them to ten Democrats who stood by the voters, pro-Israeli PAC contributions were "ten times" greater for the turncoats than those who stayed with their constituencies ($322,000 versus $34,000 on average).....

What comes out in the wash is the best PAC money can buy: Three months before we invaded Iraq, a New York Times poll showed only 30 percent of the American people favored an all-out invasion, but the Israeli lobby (AIPAC) did, and it prevailed. Hardly a sprinkling of Americans favored the "surge", a meager fourteen percent, but AIPAC did, and the surge is surging as we speak. Fewer than thirty percent of Democrats supported that no-strings-budget, but AIPAC did, and the conclusion plays out another hackneyed chorus of "Whatever AIPAC wants, AIPAC gets."....

Two professors, Mearsheimer and Walt, recently insinuated that American democracy has been suborned by the Israeli lobby, echoing Senator Fulbright's 1989 indictment that AIPAC had usurped the electoral process and could "elect or defeat nearly any congressman or senator that they wish." Such observations do not fall on deaf ears. Over half the senate and a third of the congress obediently attended the AIPAC annual convention (versus less than a dozen visiting the NAACP's event). Non-attendance can suggest a lawmaker might be soft on terrorism, or, god forbid, anti-Semitic.

Anti-war idealists might think that soon this American war crime, the shock-and-awe carnage, the torture, and the renditions are coming to an end, but the agenda of AIPAC seems bent on keeping American armies in the Middle East as an Israeli first line of defense for the indefinite future. Their major attack dog, Joe Lieberman, recently gave a hint on Face the Nation as to might be next: " military strikes" against Iran. . . all apparently to guarantee that Israel will remain the only nuclear power in the Middle East....."

Saudi War Pimp Alert: Hamas-Syrian alliance planning to oust Fatah

Hamas-Syrian alliance planning to oust Fatah-PA presence in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, Saudi paper claims

Contributed by Lucia

"Bethlehem - Ma'an - The Riyadh-based newspaper Okaz reported on Tuesday that "Palestinian factions loyal to Syria and headed by Hamas are trying to eliminate the presence of Fatah in the refugee camps in Lebanon," Palestinian sources said.

The sources added that, "there is a plan to occupy the Fatah centers in Sabra, Shatila, and Burj Al Barajneh camps in southern Beirut, in addition to Al Beddawi camp in the north, in one day."

According to the sources, the aim of this plan is to increase Syria's influence in Lebanon, particularly in regard to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

"The step is aimed at withdrawing the camp 'file' from the Palestinian Authority, which shows a great deal of understanding with Fuad Siniora's government," Okaz reports. "Consequently, this file will be returned to the factions loyal to Syria, and so in the future, negotiations regarding the Palestinian presence in Lebanon will be in the hands of Syria and the factions loyal to it, and will not be completed except with Syria's blessings," the Saudi paper predicted.

The paper added that that a great deal of money has been assigned to this move, with assistance from other nations, and Fatah members will be paid off if they do not interfere.

"An amount of money will be paid to Fatah members who leave [the issue]", the papers said, adding that "the money were secured through an Arab country and another non-Arab country." [Read: Syria and Iran]"

***

More sleaze from the "moderate" axis of US-Israel-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Abbas-Egypt-UAE.

Palestinian journalist describes being stuck on Egyptian side of Rafah

Palestinian journalist describes "the worst experience of her life": being stuck on Egyptian side of Rafah

"Gaza - Ma'an - A Palestinian journalist, who is amongst the thousands of Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side of Rafah Crossing, has described her ordeal there as "the worst experience" of her life.

In conversation with Ma'an, Najida Balbisi, a journalist for Al Quds newspaper, berated all decision-makers for failing to re-open the crossing, asking, "Isn’t it enough that we are [stuck] between the sky and the land for more than one month?" "Hundreds of children are screaming because of the heat and the hunger, and hundreds of sick people are suffering pain," she said. "Are the decision makers waiting for all the people here to die so the crossing will be reopened?"

Ms. Balbisi told Ma'an that the Palestinians on the Egyptian side of the border are running out of funds and are close to despair. "None of them has a loaf of bread," Ms. Balbisi said. "We can't sleep; we are living on the hope that the crossing will be reopened; the people here are trying to return to Cairo as life there is cheaper and when they hear that the crossing will be reopened, they return to find it closed; they are suffering in every way," she complained.

"We are between the hammer of Hamas and the anvil of the presidency, and stuck between Israel and Egypt."

There is still no change in Rafah Crossing's closed status. Ten days ago, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Ma'an that his movement was doing its best to reopen the crossing but it remains closed.

The emergency government in Ramallah also sent three of its ministers to the Egyptian side of the crossing yesterday in order to check out the conditions there, but nothing has changed.

Humanitarian and human rights organizations have expressed deep concern at the conditions at the closed crossing.

According to some reports, 28 Palestinians, stuck on the Egyptian side of the border, have died since the crossing was closed in mid-June. After negotiations and delays, their bodies were allowed into Gaza through Kerem Shalom Crossing. "

***

USraeli policy: you die first, then we will let you cross.

Abbas' recent decree is a harbinger of a coming "military dictatorship"

Abbas' recent decree is a harbinger of a coming "military dictatorship", human rights groups warn

"Gaza - Ma'an - Two Palestinian human rights groups, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and Al-Haq, have criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' most recent decree regarding the jurisdiction of the military judiciary during the state of emergency.

On 6 July, Abbas issued a decree giving the Palestinian Authority's military courts greater power, in the interests of "public safety and internal public security."

The PCHR considers this new decree to be "the most dangerous of a series of decrees" which Abbas has issued lately following the announcement of the state of emergency on 14 June. PCHR said, "The decree prepares for the destruction of the judicial authority and civilian life for the sake of militarizing Palestinian society."

Under the decree, the military judiciary takes over some of the mandate of the public, or civilian, judiciary. This worries many human rights groups.

The PCHR warns that the PA is heading towards becoming "a military dictatorship."

The general director of Al-Haq, Shawan Jabarin, warned that Al-Haq "views this decree with great concern as it infringes on the exercise of fundamental human rights and is in violation of provisions of the Palestinian Basic Law." "

Egypt vehemently opposes deployment of int'l force in Gaza

"Cairo vehemently opposes the deployment of an international peacekeeping force in the Gaza Strip, Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman told a delegation of MKs from the left-wing Meretz party in Cairo Sunday.

Suleiman said Egypt fears such a deployment would seem an admission it is incapable of controlling the border. He said of the idea "it is neither technically nor politically easy, and it is impractical."

Cairo has also requested that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas cease calls for a peacekeeping force. Abbas has recently declared interest in such a force being deployed both in Gaza and in the West Bank. Abbas mentioned the conflict zone of Darfur in Sudan as a precedent......

Suleiman stressed that Hamas is against the deployment of an international force, in which he said Germany and the United States would not participate. In any event, peacekeepers should not be sent to Gaza without also being sent to the West Bank, he added.

The Meretz MKs pushed for the deployment of peacekeepers in Gaza at the Cairo meeting, and suggested Arab States could help man the force. It would be established by European states, and sponsored by the United Nations, they said.

MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) told Haaretz "this proposal is for the good of the Palestinians and for the good of Israel...."

***

Is Abbas a member of the Knesset now?

New Terror Attacks Will Change View Of War

Santorum Suggests New Terror Attacks Will Change View Of War
Former Senator predicts "unfortunate events" within a year that will alter perceptions

Global Research, July 10, 2007

"In an alarming display of fearmongering, former Republican Senator Rick Santorum has suggested that a series of "unfortunate events," namely terrorist attacks, will occur within the next year and change American citizen's perception of the war.

Appearing on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, Santorum also hyped the necessity of "confronting Iran in the Middle East," and predicted that Giuliani, Romney and Tommy Thompson would be the three surviving Republican candidates who would go head to head in the race for the nomination.

Santorum went on to clearly imply that terror attacks will occur inside America which will alter the body politic and lead to a reversal of the anti-war sentiment now dominating the country.

"Between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public’s going to have a very different view," said the former senator from Pennsylvania.

Is Santorum expressing foreknowledge of some coming atrocity or is he merely using a tactic familiar to the leadership of his party - exploiting the fear of terror for the purposes of political rhetoric?

Last month, the new chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party Dennis Milligan said that there needed to be more attacks on American soil for President Bush to regain popular approval.

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "And the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country," he concluded......."

***

Do you hear that Osama? Uncle Sam needs you NOW!

Why Big Things Fail

Gigantism and the U.S. government

"Evolution has produced some pretty large animals, and it seems offhand that very large organisms would have evolutionary advantages: they are intimidating and hard to kill because their organs are a long way from their skins. But there are upper limits to the size of animals on earth, and it's hard not to notice that the very biggest animals—mammoths, elephants whales, rhinoceri—are extinct or likely endangered. And obviously, very large organisms are at all times vastly more rare than very small ones.

A 2000 academic paper from a Swiss zoologist summarizes the reasons that this should be so: with increasing size come "viability costs...due to predation, parasitism, or starvation because of reduced agility, increased detectability, higher energy requirements, heat stress, and/or intrinsic costs of reproduction." For precisely these reasons, a state with trillion-dollar budgets and massive military might is in a precarious condition, and a good candidate for extinction.

Consider the military posture of the United States government......

A brontosaurus no doubt means well, but its tiny confused brain is radically inadequate to govern its astonishing body. It tramples everything until it finally runs out of vegetation or collapses under its own weight. Here's hoping the United States government returns to the decentralized principles of its founding, lest it go the way of the dinosaur."

Haneyya: Operating Karm Abu Salem crossing consolidates Israeli occupation

"GAZA, (PIC)-- Ismail Haneyya, the constitutional PA caretaker government's premier, has reiterated his rejection of operating the Karm Abu Salem crossing, controlled by the IOA, instead of the Rafah crossing at Gaza's border with Egypt.

He told the weekly cabinet meeting on Monday that such a step would serve as an attempt to consolidate the occupation's control on Gaza after liberating it from the Zionist grip.

"The IOA insists that the Palestinian citizens trapped on the Egyptian side must cross through the Karm Abu Salem terminal and this exposes a number of them to arrest," Haneyya pointed out.

Haneyya expressed his appreciation for Egypt and its historic role in the Palestinian question, particularly today as it hosts thousands of our people, the elderly and the sick, women and children, calling on the Egyptian government to work for the return of Palestinian passengers through the Rafah terminal.

Regarding Palestinian staff salaries, he compared the unconstitutional "emergency" government's resolution to withhold civil servants' salaries, with the mass punishment policy adopted by the IOA.

For his part, Fawzi Barhum, the Hamas' spokesman in the Strip, stated in a press release that PA chief Mahmoud Abbas and his emergency government's approval of substituting the Rafah crossing with Karm Abu Salem is "an open call for the return of the Israeli occupation into the Gaza Strip after liberating it."

Hamas had warned, in a statement, of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe in the Rafah crossing if the crisis continued, calling on all Arab countries to "intervene to stop this crime being committed against Palestinian people"......."

Hamas: Abbas is a Liar

Hamas denies Abbas charges it is letting Al-Qaida enter Gaza

"Hamas officials Tuesday hotly denied allegations by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the militant Islamic group letting Al-Qaida infiltrate the Gaza Strip, under full Hamas control since its defeat of Fatah last month......

But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri Tuesday accused Abbas of trying to whip up sentiment against Hamas, which vanquished Abbas' forces in Gaza and unseated his political party in 2006 parliamentary elections.

"Hamas has no link to Al-Qaida," Abu Zuhri said. "Abbas is trying to mislead international opinion to win support for his demand to deploy international forces in Gaza."

Abbas, who is to meet with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Tuesday, offered no evidence to back up his allegations......."

The Traitors Parrot the Master

PA asserting financial and political pressure on Hamas, Fatah spokesman tells Radio Sawa

"Gaza - Ma'an - A Fatah spokesman in the West Bank has said that the Palestinian Authority's only option is to exert financial and political pressure on the Hamas movement in order to end "their military revolution" in the Gaza Strip.

Jamal Nazzal told the American-backed, Arabic-language Radio Sawa, "Hamas has nothing to do and no future to offer the Palestinian public."

"Although there is no military position towards Hamas, there is financial and political pressure from the Palestinian Authority," Nazzal said.

Despite this, he assured that Salam Fayyad's government would pay the Gaza governmental employees their overdue salaries.

He also asserted, "The international community is providing the Palestinian Authority with all the assistance for a future project to establish a livable Palestinian state, in spite of Hamas' latest actions in the Gaza Strip." "

***

These traitors are likely to have the same fate in the West Bank as they had in Gaza, Israeli protection not withstanding.

Worries about Palestinian democracy

Worries about Palestinian democracy climb as Abbas strengthens role of military courts

"RAMALLAH, West Bank — In a bid to undercut his Hamas rivals and solidify control in the West Bank, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is working to dilute the power of the fractured Palestinian legislature and expand the role of controversial military courts.

In his latest move, made public Monday by a Palestinian human rights group, Abbas issued a decree granting broad power to military courts to decide the fate of Palestinians accused of harming "public safety." The order will allow military judges to handle new charges against civilians.

The latest moves by Abbas are drawing criticism from human rights groups and a cross-section of Palestinian lawmakers.

Even some of his advisers view the presidential decrees as risky steps that could undermine the foundation of a fragile government once viewed as the best hope for establishing a healthy democracy in the Arab Middle East.

"In my opinion, this could be the beginning of the end of the Palestinian Authority," said Mustafa Barghouti, an independent lawmaker who served as information minister in the now-dissolved coalition government......

Military and security courts became a point of contention under the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who was criticized by human rights groups for establishing system of show trials used to silence critics. In one 1999 case, a Palestinian military officer was tried, sentenced for causing "public disorder" and executed within hours, before he had a chance to appeal his death sentence......"

Video: Dr. Dahlia Wasfi - Life in Iraq Under U.S. Occupation

Click Here to Watch This Must See Video

On Cue, “al-Qaeda” Threatens Iran

By Kurt Nimmo

".....the latest target, as the previous target, Iraq, is mired in engineered “sectarian violence,” and other targets, such as Syria, await their turn—has supposedly fallen afoul of “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” as the corporate media reports. “The leader of an al-Qaida umbrella group in Iraq threatened to wage war against Iran unless it stops supporting Shi’ites in Iraq within two months, according to an audiotape,” the Associated Press would have us believe, mostly because we are suckers for these sort of things......

Finally, CIA asset Mahmoud Abbas “said on Monday the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas is protecting al Qaeda and allowing it to gain a foothold in Gaza,” Reuters reports. “It is Hamas that is protecting al Qaeda, and through its bloody behavior Hamas has become very close to al Qaeda,” said Abbas, blaming the phantom organization, or database. “That is why Gaza is in danger and needs help.”

Actually, Gaza is threatened by Israel, currently engaged in a blockade “threatening to destroy the territory’s commercial sector and drive more people into the hands of extremists,” that it to say those resisting occupation. “In the last three weeks, 75 per cent of Gaza’s factories have closed because they are not allowed to import raw material or export finished products, forcing thousands of families to rely on food aid to survive,” notes Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization. “In reality, a policy of collective punishment is being imposed upon 1.4 million people, in violation of international humanitarian law and contradictory to Israel’s interest. Destroying Gaza’s economy only exacerbates dependence on extreme elements.”

Abbas, following his CIA script, signed off on by Olmert, is oblivious to all of this.

But never mind. We have an “al-Qaeda” epidemic just about everywhere, even Gaza. "

Do You Believe This Lying Traitor?

Abbas: Hamas is letting al-Qaida into Gaza, giving it support

"Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday Hamas is protecting al-Qaida and allowing it to gain a foothold in Gaza.....

"Through Hamas, al-Qaida is entering the Gaza Strip," Abbas told Italian state television channel RAI in an interview in the West Bank city of Ramallah ahead of a meeting on Tuesday with visiting Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi......

"It is Hamas that is protecting al-Qaida, and through its bloody behaviour Hamas has become very close to al-Qaida," he told RAI. "That is why Gaza is in danger and needs help."....."

***

What a bastard!

Gathering War Clouds

In the Middle East, America’s Exit from Iraq Attracts Less Interest than Gathering War Clouds

".....Around 50-70,000 soldiers are to be redeployed to large strategic fortified enclaves in the south and the north as a semi-permanent US presence. They will be backed by four naval and aerial strike groups in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea and a chain of giant air bases, some expanded, others built from scratch, in Oman, Qatar and Jordan.......

Amid the furious political controversy over the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war, most Americans find it hard to imagine the US army capable of even contemplating taking on another conflict with Iran. It is seen by many as a nightmare scenario. But Tehran sees nothing far-fetched about it. Quite the reverse, Iranians are all but certain an US attack is inevitable this summer or, at latest, in the fall......

The Middle East is therefore on the move, in readiness for the worst:

- Monday, July 9, Damascus called on Syrian civilians to depart Lebanon to avoid “an eruption” expected next week.

- US defense secretary Robert Gates cancelled a planned four-nation Latin American tour – officially to help complete the Pentagon’s “benchmark” report due in September. However, as perceived in Middle East capitals, Gates can see a conflagration building up in the region and decided his place was in Washington.

- Israel, Syria and Hizballah have prepared their armies for a war contingency entailing a possible clash on Golan and the Lebanese-Israeli frontier regions.

- Iran has imposed gasoline rationing on civilian vehicles. An Iranian official admitted in Tehran two days ago that the country was preparing for an emergency and stocking up on fuel for the military.

- The Turkish army has 140,000 troops poised to invade northern Iraq’s Kurdistan. Notwithstanding denials in Ankara and Baghdad, Turkish units are operating in northern Iraq against Turkish Kurdish PKK rebels.

- The American carrier, the USS Enterprise, is on its way to the Middle East with a powerful strike group......"

Occupation Under Another Name

EU backs Palestinian peace force

"Ten European Union foreign ministers have signed an open letter to Tony Blair to urge him to study prospects for an international force to patrol the Palestinian territories, in his new role as Middle East envoy.

"Dear Tony," the letter began, signed by ministers from the EU's Mediterranean countries who met last week in Slovenia. The letter, published in Le Monde, was the brainchild of the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner.

The ministers argued that it was time to move on from the "failed" road map, the internationally agreed blueprint for peace. They stressed that a "robust international force" should only be considered in the context of a future agreed peace plan, "without being a substitute for one"......

The letter also urged Mr Blair to push Israel for immediate measures to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas......"

***

"Palestinian peace force;" repeat after me:

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength!

This "Man" Has no Guts, Pride or Dignity.....
He Has no Control Over Egypt's Borders, Such as at Rafah.....
He Needs Tel Aviv's Approval and Blessing for Any Step He Takes....to Keep Condoleezza Happy

Hamas briefing

From Conflicts Forum

Contributed by Lucia

"On security in Gaza, Palestinian democracy, the National Unity Government, and the kidnapping of Alan Johnston

The following is an edited and annotated transcript of a discussion between Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, Usamah Hamdan 1, the British Member of Parliament, Rt Hon Michael Ancram QC 2, the Director of London’s Global Strategy Forum, Jonathan Lehrle 3, and Co-Director of Conflicts Forum, Mark Perry 4. The meeting took place at the Albergo Hotel, Beirut, on June 19, 2007. The transcript of this meeting could not be made public - for reasons which become apparent - until the BBC journalist Alan Johnston had been released. Alan Johnston was released in the early hours of 4th July 2007. (A verbatum transcript of this meeting can be viewed here [PDF].)
....."

Statement: One country, one state

Press Release, Course Participants, 9 July 2007

"For decades, efforts to create a just peace for Palestinians and Israeli Jews have failed. The current crisis has further set back hopes for a political solution to the conflict.

In this context, a group of scholars, journalists and activists met in Madrid, at the invitation of Universidad Complutense de Madrid, for five days of intensive discussion on alternatives to this ongoing impasse, framed by their belief that a democratic state in all of historic Palestine provides the only moral and practical basis for a just, sustainable peace.....

The participants shared a committment to engaging deeply with these issues, in the context of their commitment to a democratic solution that will offer an enduring and just peace in a single state, and invite the widest possible participation in this quest.

The participants in the conference were:
Ali Abunimah
Omar Barghouti
Oren Ben-Dor
George Bisharat
Haim Bresheeth
Pedro Chavez Giraldo
Jonathan Cook
Leila Farsakh
Steven Friedman
Islah Jad
Joseph Massad
Ilan Pappe
Carlos Prieto Del Campo
Nadim Rouhana
Michael Tarazi
Virginia Tilley"

***

Lucia: Did you know about this?

Palestinian factions condemn PA

Palestinian factions condemn PA - Israeli agreement to open Kerem Shalom Crossing for stranded Gazans

"Gaza – Ma'an – Three Palestinian military factions urged the Egyptian government to urgently address the humanitarian tragedy at the Rafah Crossing, between Egypt and Gaza, on Monday.

Fatah Al Yasser and Abu Ar Rish Brigades, affiliated to the Fatah movement, and the An Nasser Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees, issued a joint statement rejecting the use of the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom Crossing as a replacement of the Rafah Crossing for the return of the 6,000 stranded Palestinians.

The factions said they will not remain silent and will consider their options to solve the problem. The factions added that the return of the citizens of Gaza through the Kerem Shalom Crossing is a "dangerous move".

Similarly, the Islamic Jihad movement expressed astonishment at the emergency government's agreement to use the Israeli crossing as the entrance point for Palestinians, trapped at Rafah Crossing.

The movement issued a statement on Monday saying "agreeing on this is considered a contribution in support of occupation plans." The statement said it "rejects the use of this crossing as it is the occupation's crossing."

The statement urged Egypt to reject the move and appealed to the Palestinian Authority to retract from this agreement. "

Hamas warns of human catastrophe, suggests Egyptian-Palestinian control on Rafah

"GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement on Monday demanded the immediate operation of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt before all trapped Palestinians, warning of a human catastrophe if the closure continued.

In a press release, Hamas called for converting the Rafah terminal into an Egyptian-Palestinian crossing with no European supervision over movement of "our citizens".

It also renewed refusal of using Israeli-controlled Karm Abu Salem crossing, strongly condemning the unconstitutional "emergency" government of Salam Fayyad for manipulating the suffering of the stranded Palestinians.

The Movement asserted that all had the right to return home and no discrimination according to political affiliation should be exercised.

Warning of a human tragedy if the closure persisted, Hamas urged all Arab parties to immediately step in and to end "this crime against our people".

Hamas accused the Fayyad government of exploiting the suffering of those people for "cheap political gains".

The Movement held PA chief Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the suffering of the 6,000 trapped Palestinians, pointing to his request to the concerned parties not to open the Rafah terminal.

Hamas called for a sit-in on Tuesday morning at the Palestinian side of the Rafah border terminal to denounce its closure and to refuse using Karm Abu Salam in its place, which was approved by the Fayyad government in conformity with Israeli wishes.

For its part, the Islamic Jihad Movement accused the Fayyad government of supporting "Zionist schemes" through agreeing to open Karm Abu Salam crossing instead of Rafah.

Such a step would endorse occupation's policy targeting to control all Palestinian affairs, Islamic Jihad said, and called on Egypt to refuse such a step and to find a solution to the Rafah terminal away from occupation's interference."

UN: Separation fence will sever Jerusalem from West Bank

"The United Nations issued a report Monday saying the security fence Israel is building will effectively separate mainly Arab-populated East Jerusalem from the West Bank.

"This will restrict access to workplaces, health, education [services] and to places of worship", the report said.

The Defense Ministry, in charge of the project, made no immediate comment on the report.

The report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Israel has completed more than half of a planned 720 km fence started in 2003.

In 2004, the World Court ruled construction of the fence was illegal. Israel has ignored the ruling, the report said....."

Playing the Barghouti Card

Sneh secretly meets with Barghouti

"Former Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh secretly met Monday with Marwan Barghouti, the former Tanzim commander in the West Bank, at the Hadarim Prison.

Barghouti is serving five life sentences for the murder of Israeli citizens.

The two met for about two hours and discussed issues relating to the situation in the Palestinian Authority. Defense Minister Ehud Barak was briefed on the meeting, which was initiated by Sneh.

Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, said in an interview with an Arab newspaper on Sunday that her husband would be released from jail as part of a deal that would include the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit......

The London-based al-Hayat newspaper recently reported that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demanded during the Sharm el-Sheik summit that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert release Barghouti as part of the planned prisoner release.

According to reports from sources involved in the prisoner release talks, Abbas hopes that Barghouti's release would restore Fatah's popularity among the Palestinian public and strengthen his status in the West Bank......"

Israel Joining Arab League??

Arab League to visit Israel

"The Arab League is to send envoys to Israel for the first time to discuss an Arab peace initiative and how it might support the embattled Palestinian president.....

Jordan's foreign ministry said its minister, Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib and Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit would arrive in Jerusalem on Thursday for talks with the Israeli prime minister and other senior officials.....

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, said the foreign ministers would lead an Arab League mission to Israel to discuss the Arab peace plan, which would trade full Arab recognition of Israel for an Israeli withdrawal from all lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war and the creation of a Palestinian state. "They will be talking about how the Arab peace proposal can help energise the rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians," Regev said. "This is the first time the Arab League is coming to Israel. "From its inception the Arab League has been hostile to Israel. It will be the first time we'll be flying the Arab League flag."

Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, said on Sunday: "The upcoming visit of Egypt's and Jordan's foreign ministers to Israel upon the request of the Arab committee of peace initiative is to conduct necessary contacts with Israel."......"

‘Accidents of War’

‘Accidents of War’:The Time Has Come for an Honest Discussion of Air Power

by Tom Engelhardt

"The first news stories about the most notorious massacre of the Vietnam War were picked up the morning after from an Army publicity release. These proved fairly typical for the war. On its front page, the New York Times labeled the operation in and around a village called My Lai 4 (or “Pinkville,” as it was known to U.S. forces in the area) a significant success. “American troops caught a North Vietnamese force in a pincer movement on the central coastal plain yesterday, killing 128 enemy soldiers in day-long fighting.” United Press International termed what happened there an “impressive victory,” and added a bit of patriotic color: “The Vietcong broke and ran for their hide-out tunnels. Six-and-a-half hours later, ‘Pink Village’ had become ‘Red, White and Blue Village.”

All these dispatches from the “front” were, of course, military fairy tales. (There were no reporters in the vicinity.) It took over a year for a former GI named Ronald Ridenhour, who had heard about the bloody massacre from participants, and a young former AP reporter named Seymour Hersh working in Washington for a news service no one had ever heard of, to break the story, revealing that “red, white, and blue village” had just been red village — the red of Vietnamese peasant blood. Over 400 elderly men, women, children, and babies had been slaughtered there by Charlie Company of Task Force Barker in a nearly day-long rampage......

We in the U.S. recognize butchery when we see it — the atrocity of the car bomb, the chlorine-gas truck bomb, the beheading. These acts are obviously barbaric in nature. But our favored way of war — war from a distance — has, for us, been pre-cleansed of barbarism. Or rather its essential barbarism has been turned into a set of “errant incidents,” of “accidents,” of “mistakes” repeatedly made over more than six decades. Air power is, in the military itself, little short of a religion of force, impermeable to reason, to history, to examples of what it does (and what it is incapable of doing). It is in our interest not to see air war as a — possibly the — modern form of barbarism.

Ours is, of course, a callous and dishonest way of thinking about war from the air (undoubtedly because it is the form of barbarism, unlike the car bomb or the beheading, that benefits us). It is time to be more honest. It is time for reporters to take the words “incident,” “mistake,” “accident,” “inadvertent,” “errant,” and “collateral damage” out of their reportorial vocabularies when it comes to air power. At the level of policy, civilian deaths from the air should be seen as “advertent.” They are not mistakes or they wouldn’t happen so repeatedly. They are the very givens of this kind of warfare.

This is, or should be, obvious. If we want to “withdraw” from Iraq (or Afghanistan) via the Gates Plan, we should at least be clear about what that is likely to mean — the slaughter of large numbers of civilians “including women and children.” And it will not be due to a series of mistakes or incidents; it will not be errant or inadvertent. It will be policy itself. It will be the Washington — and in the end the American — consensus."

Abbas Censured

Acting PLC speaker censures President Abbas assuming PLC authority

"Gaza – Ma'an – Acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Ahmad Bahar, stated on Monday that the amended Palestinian laws of 2003 do not give Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, the authority to hold Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) sessions.

During a press conference on Monday in Gaza, Bahar insisted that Abbas immediately withdraw the decrees recently issued, which he said "help no one, but the Israelis".

Bahar said that the PLC is clinging to its legal rights, and that the presidential decrees issued by Abbas contain "an obvious lack of faith in the constitution and a dangerous violation of the separation between authorities principle.

"The head of the PLC is the only person authorised to announce the holding of sessions, and the general supervision of the PLC" said Bahar.

The president of the PLC said that it is illegal for the president to make PLC decisions.

"The Israeli military has arrested more than 45 deputies from the PLC, most of them from Hamas. Fatah is fully responsible for the diminishing responsibility of the PLC." Bahar said.

Bahar asserted that any session called without the knowledge of the head of the PLC will be considered illegal. "

Obrigado Brasil! (Thank You Brazil!)

Palestinian refugees from Iraq heading to Brazil

Brazil has shown more generosity and humanity than the entire Arab League (tfu on them).

"AMMAN , 4 July 2007 (IRIN) - After spending over four years languishing in a refugee camp in the Jordanian desert, 100 Palestinian refugees from Iraq will finally be heading to their new home - Brazil.

A statement by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said the group, which includes children and the elderly, will start moving from Rweished refugee camp, 60km from the Jordanian-Iraqi border, to Brazil by September.

"The UNHCR is grateful to… the government of Brazil for resettling an estimated 100 Palestinian refugees who formerly lived in Iraq," said the statement made available to IRIN.....

All will receive rented accommodation, furniture and material assistance for up to 24 months. Employment profiles are being analysed to ensure job opportunities for all, while a network of volunteers and local communities is being established to provide moral support during their integration.

Children will attend classes in Portuguese, before being enrolled in Brazilian schools in March 2008.

The group is currently receiving training by a team of humanitarian professionals from Brazil on Brazilian culture and is being given Portuguese lessons....."

The Israeli police state

Avigail Abarbanel, The Electronic Intifada, 9 July 2007
(A former Israeli and a local psychotherapist/counsellor)

"On Friday, 8 June 2007, my husband Ian flew to Israel. He is in fact on his way to an IT conference in Vienna, but we thought that it would be nice for him to make a short three-day detour to Tel-Aviv to visit my brother and his family and in particular meet my seven and five year old nieces for the first time.

At Ben-Gurion airport Ian's Australian passport was confiscated with no explanation. He was taken to a small interrogation room and had to endure an intimidating questioning about non-existent Saudi and Lebanese visas in his passport.....

As a former Israeli citizen with military training I am familiar with the psychological tactics used by the Israeli Border Patrol (MAGAV) and by the military. They deliberately try to intimidate their victim and keep him (or her) in a state of uncertainty -- about what is going on, what it's all about, where his papers are. They know that foreign nationals would feel profoundly insecure without their passports and that uncertainty would lead to fear and stress in most people. They also know that most people's confidence would falter under such conditions and if there is anything to divulge, it is more likely come out then.....

In a regime like that you don't have to actually do anything wrong to receive this treatment. This is because it is not only designed to catch people who break the law, it is designed to be a kind of a warning, a hinted threat. It's there to flaunt state power, show people how small and weak they are compared with the mighty state, and offer a taste of what would happen to them if they even think to go against it. In the case of the Palestinians such tactics are also designed to make daily life unbearable in order to break their spirit and intimidate them into leaving. After all, what Israel really wants is all the land but without the people, something that so many in the West still refuse to recognize.

Israel is not a nice country. It is a powerful police state founded on pathological paranoia with only a veneer of civility, carefully crafted and maintained for the consumption of those who still believe in the myth of Israeli democracy. Mainstream Israelis live in a fictional bubble that separates them from reality. If there is a democracy there, only this select group enjoys it -- just like the conformist white population in old South Africa. Supporting Israel now is the same as claiming that South Africa under apartheid was an acceptable democracy. It also means abandoning the Palestinians, just like the world abandoned black South Africans (and white dissidents) for 45 long years. "

Releasing only 250 Fatah prisoners

Releasing only 250 Fatah prisoners is a blow to national unity, Palestinian prisoners' families say

"Gaza - Ma'an - The families of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails have expressed their reservations about the Israeli prime minister's initiative to release 250 Fatah-affiliated prisoners. They said that accepting such an offer would only fracture the Palestinian national unity, and they called on President Abbas to make a deal that includes all Palestinian detainees without exceptions.

The prisoners' families depicted freeing any Palestinian detainee as an accomplishment; however, they expressed their fear that the 250 whom Israeli Prime Minister Olmert intends to free would include only prisoners who have almost completed their sentences, and who are scheduled for release shortly in any case......"

Making Gaza 'Scream'

By Stephen Lendman

"Making Gaza "scream" is same kind of scheme the Nixon administration planned for Chile after social democrat Salvador Allende won a plurality of the votes in September, 1970. Before the Chilean Congress confirmed him as president in October, an infamous Nixon CIA Director Richard Helms handwritten note read: "One in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile!...not concerned with risks involved...$10,000,000 available, more if necessary...make the economy 'scream.' " By it, he meant saving the country from a socially responsible leader, like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, using his nation's wealth equitably and not just for its privileged elites. "Scream" it did through Nixon's "soft line" scheme "to do all within our power to condemn Chile and Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty," in the words of his Chilean ambassador Edward Korry.

It lasted three years until a "hard line" one replaced it on another September 11 Chileans won't soon forget in 1973. It was when a CIA-orchestrated military coup ended the most vibrant democracy in the Americas, replacing it with the brutal 17 year reign of General Augusto Pinochet.

The US has a notorious record of imposing economic or political sanctions against any nation daring to operate outside of Washington Consensus political and market rules......

The Palestinian people have endured unbearable hardships and suffering like this for nearly six decades, the result of cruel unremitting Israeli repression of them. Yet they endure, resist and continue working for what they want most - to live freely and securely in peace in their own unoccupied land ruled by governments they elect to serve them. It's the dream of all oppressed people - to one day have the equity and social justice they deserve. By now, Israeli and western governments should know Palestinians won't ever stop struggling for the rights no nation has the right to deny them. One day they'll prevail because they won't give up resisting until they do."

Zionism Pimping

Zionism Pimping Jewish girls out to America’s young men

A very Good Piece
Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Jerusalem

"In a brazen effort to make Israel’s Nazi-like oppression of Palestinians look romantic, seductive and sexy, the quasi- pornographic American magazine, Maxim, has featured a photo-spread of topless and semi-nude Israeli female soldiers, apparently in order to show Israel’s “human side.”

On the magazine’s on-line edition, the following introductory phrase “ Are the women of the Israeli Defense Forces the world’s sexiest? Yes, ” is printed next to a semi-naked IDF female soldier......

Maxim targets young American men and is believed to attract as many as 200,000 readers. Hence the obscene feat of utilizing the naked bodies of young Israeli women to trick young Yankees to “fall in love” with the Wehrmacht and Gestapo of our time, the Israeli occupation army.

According to Israeli officials in charge of hasbara (propaganda) efforts, the message behind the pornographic advertisement is to show America’s youngsters that the “Jewish” state is not only about violence, death and conflict......

The Nazi blondes, after all, were probably sexier and far more beautiful than their Israeli counterparts. But they failed to save the Third Reich. The same thing can be said about Israeli sex objects, whose evil state and evil army are no less than a reincarnation of Nazi Germany and its army.

Apart from the depravity of Zionist mentality, it is hard to understand how pimping young Jewish girls out to American “studs” will improve Israel’s image in the US and convince Americans, young and old, men and women, that Israel is “a light upon nations” and “the apple of God’s right eye,” as the Kookians of Gush Emunim keep telling us.....

The public selling of Israeli women’s flesh for political expediency is, of course, by no means a new invention. Israel and Zionism resorted to this cheap tactic from the very inception of Zionism. During the two decades preceding the creation of the “Jewish” state, the Zionist movement relied heavily on the “whores of Zion” to trick Arab landowners into selling or ceding their land to the Jewish Agency.....

The sleazy but effective tactic continues to be used by the Israeli state, especially the Shin Beth, Israel’s domestic security agency. Indeed, since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the Shin Beth used “Iskat” or sexual blackmail to recruit informers, middle-men whose main job is to purchase land and property from Arabs in order to transfer it later to Jewish ownership.....

I personally know a man in the Hebron region who was arrested, sedated and filmed with a whore, and when the Israeli Shin Beth officer eventually sought to blackmail him into selling his land, the man stood bravely, telling the officer, “ do what you may, expose me, I don’t care, but I won’t give you my land.”

Of course, Zionism’s moral cheapness doesn’t stop at using the bodies of women to reap propagandistic and other benefits.

Zionism lies and steals and murders. This is Zionism’s unholy trinity. This is why it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make peace with Zionism. This is why Zionism must be dismantled before we can even dream of real peace in Palestine and the Middle East."

Campbell: We all had doubts about Iraq except Tony

The Independent

"All of Tony Blair's closest aides had "severe moments of doubt" about his decision to join the American invasion of Iraq, Alastair Campbell reveals in his diaries, published today.

Downing Street's former director of communications suggests that Mr Blair was the only member of his inner circle who did not have private reservations about the decision to topple Saddam Hussein.

The Blair Years describes the scene in the former prime minister's Commons room after he won the crucial vote on the eve of the war despite a rebellion by 139 Labour MPs. He wrote at the time: "All of us, I think, had had pretty severe moments of doubt but he hadn't really, or if he had he had hidden them from us. Now there was no going back at all."

The previous day, the Cabinet met without Robin Cook, who had resigned over the war. According to Mr Campbell, John Prescott, John Reid and one or two other cabinet ministers "looked physically sick".

Clare Short, who did not resign for another two months, told colleagues: "I'm going to have my little agonising overnight." Mr Campbell accuses her of "making a complete fool of herself"......"

Al-Jazeera Poll

The current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) online poll asks the question:

Do you support the continued closure by the Egyptian authorities of the Rafah crossing to the Gaza Strip?

With about 1,000 responding so far (it is early) 92% said no.

Gaza is not Algeria

Contributed by Lucia

By Ahmed Yousef

"The Abbas leadership has poorly calculated its political strategy, choosing to align itself with the Israeli regime and its Washington patrons in a bid to retain its hold on power. Yet it has compromised its legitimacy in the eyes of a large swath of the Palestinian public, and it has fallen into Israel's Machiavellian trap of sowing discord among Palestinians to avoid dealing with the real issue: ending the occupation, fairly and justly.

Voters in the occupied territories are under no illusions about who planted the seeds of the current strife, particularly as Hamas made offers - but was repeatedly rebuffed - to form a unity government as soon as it won the elections in 2006. Despite increasing intransigence by hard-line Fatah activists, Hamas even adhered to a unilateral cease-fire for 18 months in a bid to neutralize tensions......

The economic blockade was the first blow. Then American neoconservative officials, led by Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, machinated against the Hamas government. Finally, Fatah tried, illegally, to call for premature elections in January; when this failed, it initiated plans to strengthen its hold on security forces in preparation for a coup, receiving arms and training from both Israel and foreign governments......

Abbas' current moves to unilaterally declare an emergency government in the West Bank is a political gamble doomed to fail. First, Parliament will not approve deposing Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Therefore the only options Abbas has are to amend the constitution without a parliamentary vote, or to stage a military coup bolstered by Israeli arms and secret-service support in a move reminiscent of Algeria's FLN negating moderate Islamist victories at the ballot box in 1991......

.....Hamas would, by any measure, be justified in defending itself given the assassinations of Hamas officials and supporters, attempts on the life of the elected prime minister, and kidnappings and bombings by some members of Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' paramilitary groups. And defend itself it shall. "

First Anniversary of Palestinian Pundit

Today marks the end of the first year of Palestinian Pundit. Yes, time flies when you are having fun. The first post was made on July 9, 2006 and, not surprisingly, it dealt with Gaza.

Since that post, a total of 5,800 items have been posted. We are still small compared to other more established blogs, but more than 47,000 unique visitors in 168 countries have visited this blog during its first year.

I remain grateful to Molly Meyers who actually set up the blog and sort of dragged me to it, but now I am hooked. I am also grateful to Christian Sunni who did a lot of the early work and who still graciously helps when the need arises.

Special thanks to Lucia and to Fatima for their untiring support and boundless energy in contributing numerous, excellent posts and valuable comments.

Thanks to all of our visitors and I appreciate the many good posts contributed by many of you. Together we will continue to grow, to reach more people and to spread the word.

Tearing Down the Ghetto Walls

A Comment by Tony Sayegh

Yesterday I listened to Dr. Mona El-Farra from Gaza speak in person about the abysmal human conditions in the Gaza Strip as a result of the genocidal total blockade which has been in effect for more than a year now. This blockade is entering a more intensified and dangerous phase, since in addition to USrael, the EU, most Arab regimes and in particular Egypt, the Palestinian Karzai is now aggressively urging the continued closure of the Rafah crossing which is the only outlet the Gaza Strip has left to the outside world.

Listening to Dr. El-Farra's words and watching her slides, you quickly realize that you are watching a holocaust unfolding in front of our eyes. This is no exaggeration, and the holocaust analogy has been used by many authors including Jewish authors such as Professor Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University. As Professor Falk put it in a recent piece, titled "Slouching toward a Palestinian holocaust", "The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy. If ever the ethos of 'a responsibility to protect,' recently adopted by the UN Security Council as the basis of 'humanitarian intervention' is applicable, it would be to act now to start protecting the people of Gaza from further pain and suffering."

As a small illustration of the unfolding genocide consider that 28 Palestinians from the more than 6,000 stranded on the Egyptian side of the ghetto wall, constructed by Egypt to seal the Gaza Strip in compliance with Israeli demands, have died since June 1. These are people stranded in the cruelest conditions in the desert heat with no money, food or shelter. Many of them are sick and dying and yet the quisling Egyptian government refuses to allow them to go through Rafah crossing to return to their homes in Gaza. Ridiculous technicalities are cited such as prior agreements about the presence of EU observers at the crossing, Israeli objections to opening the crossing, etc. But what is clear is that there is a total conspiracy to starve to death the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

When people watch films of Jews, with their emaciated bodies, being loaded on rail cars to be taken to concentration camps to be gassed, the question always arises: how did the Germans, knowing what was going to happen to these people, stay silent? This is the same question I ask today about what is going on right now in Gaza: how can the entire world, the UN included, not only watch but actually take part in this intended holocaust?

This has become standard operating procedure in the USraeli manual to decimate entire societies and peoples in the Arab world that dare to resist the Empire. We saw it applied ruthlessly in Iraq during the "sanctions" years. We all heard Madeleine Albright state that even though those sanctions caused the death of over 500,000 Iraqi children, the results from the American perspective were, "worth it." The total siege of Iraq caused the direct death of well over a million Iraqis in the prelude to the bigger Iraqi genocide still unfolding.

Iraq is the model for what the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should expect. Again the lesson is clear: this is the fate of those daring to resist the Empire. Just as the Iraqis have their stooges hiding in the Green Zone in Baghdad, the Palestinians now have their stooges, fully engaged in the starvation of their own people, hiding in the Green Zone in Ramallah.

About a year ago the Palestinians discovered the power of unarmed, civil collective action. Israel was calling various people in Gaza to warn them a few minutes in advance that their homes were selected to be destroyed by Israeli missiles and that they had to vacate their homes immediately. This practice continued until the people came up with an idea to resist this atrocity. As soon as a home owner got such a call from the IOF, calls went out to neighbors and to supporters. Crowds gathered in and around the house and in many cases on the roof of the house. The message was that if the IOF was going to destroy the house then it had to kill scores of civilians. This collective resistance worked in more than one occasion.

This success should inspire the Palestinians in Gaza to come up with peaceful, creative mass-action ways to break the siege. An example comes to mind; it involves breaking the naval siege imposed by the Israeli navy on the Gaza coast. Volunteers from the group Women in Black will attempt to sail to Gaza in sailboats. They realize that the Israeli navy will prevent them from proceeding, but the objective is to expose the myth that Israel tries to perpetrate that it no longer occupies or controls Gaza. Please visit their website freegaza.org and give them some support if you can.

A similar action is needed to break through the ugly ghetto wall which Egypt (with Israeli orders) shamelessly erected along Egypt’s border with Gaza. If Egypt is supposedly a sovereign country, then it is not up to Israel to dictate the nature of the border between Gaza and Egypt. The Rafah crossing should be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Palestinians in Gaza and the Egyptians. That crossing should be open all the time without any interference by Israel or its proxies. Anything less than a full opening of the crossing should be called for what it is: aiding and abetting an ongoing genocide and a holocaust and is a war crime. Those participating should be tried for a war crime.

Abbas challenged over new cabinet

"Senior lawyers who wrote the interim Palestinian constitution have said Mahmoud Abbas, the president, exceeded his powers when he appointed the new emergency cabinet.

Abbas replaced the unity government, led by Hamas's Ismail Haniya, after the rival faction pushed security forces loyal to the president out of the Gaza Strip.

Anis al-Qasem and Eugene Cotran, who began drafting the Basic Law more than a decade ago, said it gave Abbas the power to dismiss Haniya but did not allow him to appoint a new government without parliamentary approval.

It is also does not permit him to suspend articles of the Basic Law, as he did last month to spare Salam Fayyad, the new prime minister, the need to win a vote in parliament, they told Reuters news agency......."

British workers' union calls for boycott on Israel

"Britain's Transport and General Workers' Union on Sunday called upon its 800,000 members to boycott Israeli-made products based on what they term Israel's "criminal policies in Palestinian territories."

The decision to call for a boycott, reached at a union conference in Brighton, is declarative and does not include concrete steps to implement the boycott.

The TGWU is the second British union to call for a boycott on Israel this year; last month the British public services union UNISON also urged its members to refrain from purchasing Israeli products, basing the call on Israel's "criminal behavior in the territories," and Israel's responsibility for the Second Lebanon War.

In the last six months, Ontario, Canada's public services union also proposed a similar anti-Israel boycott, as did several professional unions in South Africa. In addition, Britain's University and College Union called upon its members earlier this year to consider an academic boycott of Israel, which would include holding funding from research projects run by Israeli professors and preventing Israeli lecturers from participating in seminars......."