It is a Matter of Time Before it is Demolished by Israel.....
But......Muslims Are Busy Stoning the Devil in Mecca.....
They Are Not to be Bothered With Such Trivia.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Wishful thinking
The Paris Donor Conference may make the Palestinian Authority richer but it cannot improve the economy of a no-state under Israeli occupation
By Khaled Amayreh from East Jerusalem
Al-Ahram Weekly
".....Islamic and leftist camps within Palestine, though, view the Paris pledges as little more than an attempt to buy political concessions from a Palestinian government almost entirely dependent on international aid. Their scepticism will only have been reinforced by the continued killing of Palestinians by the Israeli army -- 10 Palestinians were murdered on Monday alone -- and by relentless settlement expansion in the West Bank, especially in and around East Jerusalem.
Ramallah-based economist Adel Samara dismisses hopes for genuine economic recovery under the Israeli occupation. "It is akin to trying to breed fish in toxic water," he says, alluding to restrictions imposed by the Israeli army on free movement of individuals, goods and services within the West Bank and the hermetic blockade of the Gaza Strip.
"Israel, not the PA or even the international community, holds the key to the success or failure of the Palestinian economic recovery plan. And Israel will only be cooperative if the PA makes political concessions."......
There have been no indications Israel is about to reconsider its repressive measures against the Palestinians in either the West Bank, the seat of the PA regime, or in Gaza, where a million and a half Palestinians have been effectively cut off from the outside world......
Despite repeated calls for an end to crippling restrictions, Israel has been unwilling to remove any of the 650 roadblocks in the West Bank that make normal economic activity impossible. Coupled with the siege in Gaza, which many observers describe as slow motion genocide, the Palestinian Economic Plan could easily prove to be still-born.
According to Reuters, Hamas, which gathered nearly half a million people to celebrate the group's 20th anniversary, has called the Paris conference a "declaration of war on Hamas". Hamas leaders have lambasted the PA for repeating the same blunders of Oslo.....
Under the second -- there's no such thing as a free lunch -- scenario Israel hopes that the international community will pressure the PA to show "the required flexibility" through financial inducements.
If many Palestinians are dubious about the possibility of any economic recovery, they are also worried that in the absence of complete transparency the bulk of the money pledged will simply evaporate in the corridors of the notoriously corrupt PA regime......
Corruption has been at the heart of the growing tensions between Fayyad and Fatah. A few months ago Fayyad fired thousands of Fatah operatives and activists who for many years had been receiving salaries while either sitting at home doing nothing or else occasionally arranging public activities for Fatah in the occupied territories.
It is uncertain if Fayyad will be successful in weaning these activists off the public payroll. The one thing that his attempts to do so have made clear is that financial transparency is not easy to impose in the absence of true democracy. Which begs the question on which bedevils all Palestinians: What on earth can democracy mean in the absence of a state?"
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Christians and Muslims Weep Together
By SONJA KARKAR
CounterPunch
".....A dangerous Christian ideology which endorses the rhetoric of Zionism and the conquest of all Palestine for Israel is making its presence felt in Australia. This Christian fervour for Israel has found expression in a revitalised Christian Zionism that began back in the sixteenth century [3] and is directed today against Islam and Muslims. In America particularly, it has misconstrued the messianic and apocalyptic legacy of the Christian faith and has replaced the Jewish and communist Anti-Christ of Christian Zionism's earlier imaginings with an Islamic Anti-Christ. This Anti-Christ, it believes, will be defeated in Israel where all mankind will gather for the coming of the Messiah. That it should take place in Israel, given the numbers of the world's populations, is an absurd notion even amongst the most devout. That the dispossession, degradation and humiliation of the Palestinians who have lived in this land for millennia, can be condoned on such a pretext is even more abhorrent and preposterous......
And that is the sum of what is so often forgotten in the search for peace and justice: the escalating inhuman situation suffered by the Palestinians Christians and Muslims.
Sing as we might this Christmas, the hopes and dreams of all the years is unlikely to be met in Bethlehem for those who live there. Nor are they likely to be met for the Palestinians barely hanging on to their miserable existence in Gaza, or the Palestinians in the other cities, towns and villages in the Holy Land and even less for the stateless Palestinians long deprived of hope in the refugee camps. Every chorister's hallelujah will just be a death knell for another generation of Palestinians and every Christmas reflection will become meaningless words of Christian faith, unless we are prepared to look beyond the tinsel and the feasting and really do something to stop Israel's crimes against both Christians and Muslims in Palestine."
TV BROADCAST EXCLUSIVE: Iraqi Witnesses, Victims Describe Blackwater Shooting in Harrowing Detail
Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman
"Democracy Now! broadcasts, for the first time on television, graphic new details about Blackwater’s Sept. 16th shooting in Nisoor Square in Baghdad. We hear from three Iraqis who were caught up in the attack: a traffic policeman who witnessed the shootings up close and tried to help the victims, a computer technician on his way to buy a gift who was shot in the arm, and a doctor whose wife and son were shot and burned to death in the attack.....
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Susan Burke. She has filed a lawsuit today—is filing a lawsuit again against Blackwater for an attack that happened a week before the infamous Nisoor Square attack on September 16. And now, graphic new details about that attack on September 16 in Nisoor Square in Baghdad. The legal team suing Blackwater has conducted a series of extensive interviews with witnesses and victims of the shooting.
Today, we’re going to hear and see three Iraqis who were caught up in the attack: a traffic guard who witnessed the shootings and tried his best to help the victims; a computer technician on his way to buy a gift, who was shot in the arm; and a doctor whose wife and son were shot and burned to death in the attack. Their stories stand in stark contrast to Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince’s congressional testimony on October 2nd. This is Democratic Congressmember Danny Davis questioning Erik Prince......"
Bush Still Spinning Nukes in Iran
by Prof. Marjorie Cohn
Global Research, December 19, 2007
"......In spite of the unanimous conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate and ElBaradei's informed judgment, we cannot trust Bush-Cheney to abandon their imperial designs on Iran. Bush will probably provoke a military confrontation with Iran, then invoke the language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq that says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."......."
Global Research, December 19, 2007
"......In spite of the unanimous conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate and ElBaradei's informed judgment, we cannot trust Bush-Cheney to abandon their imperial designs on Iran. Bush will probably provoke a military confrontation with Iran, then invoke the language in the 2002 Congressional authorization for the use of military force in Iraq that says, "The President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."......."
Struggle for equality
A one state solution might be the fairest outcome for Israel and Palestine. But first Palestinians must focus on securing their basic rights
By Nadia Hijab and Victoria Brittain
The Guardian
"......Of course a clear goal is needed so that Palestinians and their supporters know what they are fighting for and how long to keep it up. How can clear goals be set without getting stuck in the one-state two-state debate? Palestinians can frame their goals in terms of fundamental human rights, without specifying a final outcome.
Four such rights are key:
• First, under international law, Palestinians are a recognized people with a right to self-determination. Palestinians must work towards fulfilling this right in the way the majority believes best.
• Second, also under international law, Palestinians have the right of return and compensation, both as individuals and as a people.
• Third, the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law based on the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. Calling for an end to occupation is not a call for two states. The occupation has to end irrespective of the final status solution. For far too long, the Palestinian leadership has allowed itself to be trapped in a situation of negotiating about the occupation, giving Israel the time to grab more land.
• Fourth, Palestinians have a right to equality: the Palestinian citizens of Israel must be equal citizens of the state. If and when there is a Palestinian state, its citizens too - its Christians, Muslims, and any Jews not there through force of arms - must also be equal citizens of the state. In other words, whether one state or two, both must be democratic states in which all citizens are equal under the law......"
By Nadia Hijab and Victoria Brittain
The Guardian
"......Of course a clear goal is needed so that Palestinians and their supporters know what they are fighting for and how long to keep it up. How can clear goals be set without getting stuck in the one-state two-state debate? Palestinians can frame their goals in terms of fundamental human rights, without specifying a final outcome.
Four such rights are key:
• First, under international law, Palestinians are a recognized people with a right to self-determination. Palestinians must work towards fulfilling this right in the way the majority believes best.
• Second, also under international law, Palestinians have the right of return and compensation, both as individuals and as a people.
• Third, the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem is illegal under international law based on the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. Calling for an end to occupation is not a call for two states. The occupation has to end irrespective of the final status solution. For far too long, the Palestinian leadership has allowed itself to be trapped in a situation of negotiating about the occupation, giving Israel the time to grab more land.
• Fourth, Palestinians have a right to equality: the Palestinian citizens of Israel must be equal citizens of the state. If and when there is a Palestinian state, its citizens too - its Christians, Muslims, and any Jews not there through force of arms - must also be equal citizens of the state. In other words, whether one state or two, both must be democratic states in which all citizens are equal under the law......"
Divided and ruled in Paris
Behind the donors' dollars lies an unholy alliance bent on destroying Hamas in Gaza - no matter the humanitarian cost to ordinary Palestinians
A Great Comment
By Karma Nabulsi
(Karma Nabulsi is an Oxford academic and a former PLO representative)
The Guardian
".....Were the billions pledged yesterday targeted to address this current crisis? The more sickening reality, sadly under-reported, is that yesterday's donor initiative is actually creating this crisis. The money is to be spent in increasing the political, economic, social and civic siege of Gaza, in increasing the fragmentation of the Palestinian people, in pumping up a ruined leadership, and in thwarting any chance of national unity for the Palestinians. This is certainly not assistance to the Palestinian people (as the official version is attempting to spin it), but rather money to be given directly to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority.
Its sole purpose? To destroy Hamas - the single agenda that now unites the US, the Israelis and the PA leadership. This strategy "to punish Hamas and teach them a lesson", as one PA cabinet minister has it, is in practice punishing their own people in the most merciless, cruel and perverse manner......
It is the most vulnerable, the most poor and the most needy Palestinians who are paying for this vicious and inhumane strategy, for none of this money will go to help lift the siege of Gaza. Instead, the blockade is to be intensified. In this way, the Americans, Israelis and the Palestinian Authority believe they will weaken Hamas (who, let us not forget, came to power through democratic elections), and somehow, according to this insane and idiotic strategy, the PA now ruling only the town of Ramallah will regain authority, if not control. And until that fantastical moment, when they re-emerge triumphantly - quite possibly on the backs of Israeli tanks going into Gaza - the people, the institutions, the associations and especially the children of Gaza are to suffer both needlessly and terribly.
That the PA is not only colluding with this policy, but is actively engaged in it, means it has now taken an irrevocable step that separates them categorically and irrevocably from any national legitimacy whatsoever. This is because the popular consensus of Palestinians, both inside and outside of Palestine, remains the demand for the creation a national unity government, and not for this manufactured civil war relying upon an Israeli war machine and a western war-chest provided to implement it.....
.....At the same time, the Israelis and Americans made clear to the PA that any hint of dialogue with Hamas, and the privileges and funds for the PA leadership - the fruits of the "peace process" - will be immediately cut. Sadly, they need no encouragement......"
More on the American-Syrian Tango
Assad: U.S. election makes peace by 2008 unlikely
"....."It is perhaps too late to talk about peace in the last year of this U.S. administration. It will be preoccupied with elections," Assad said in an interview with Die Presse published Wednesday......
"Annapolis was a one-day event," he said. "It will all depend on follow-up efforts. We have to be optimistic, although cautious.".....
Assad said Syria and Israel went 80 percent of the way towards peace in talks on a handback of the Golan in 2000, before the talks collapsed. He added that the last 20 percent could be completed within a few weeks and Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights within six months.
"Now a referee is needed. The United States above all, naturally with support from the EU and UN. But without the U.S., nothing will work," he was quoted as saying.
He said U.S. policy in the region, which Arabs have long regarded as misguided due to a perceived pro-Israel tilt, was changing in form although not yet in substance......"
Sarkozy gives Assad ultimatum on holding Lebanese elections
"French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday called on Syria to push the Lebanese Parliament to appoint a new president by Saturday.
Speaking to Syrian President Basher Assad by phone Wednesday, Sarkozy gave Assad an ultimatum, telling him to "use all your means and influence to bring this about. Don"t waste time with talk. I am expecting actions, and your last opportunity is Saturday."
Sarkozy said he offered no diplomatic incentives to Syria in pushing for them to advance elections in Lebanon......"
The Wages of Intervention
Kurds snub Condi – that's what we get for our billions and the sacrifices of our soldiers
by Justin Raimondo
".....Yet who can blame the Kurds? After all, we're supposed to be their "liberators," and yet here we are, not merely standing idly by while Turkish warplanes bomb their country, but actively encouraging Ankara's aggression. Oh, the bitter irony! Ah, but that's power politics for you – allies turn into enemies in an instant, and the rule of thumb is to simply ask, "What have you done for me lately?".....
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has unleashed forces over which we have absolutely no control, and perhaps the most potentially destructive, if not the most potent, is Kurdish nationalism – which, in the present context, means Kurdish expansionism. Nor are the Kurds without allies in the region: the Israelis have cultivated the Kurds, arming and training their peshmerga and making significant economic investments, as reported by Seymour Hersh. The idea is to use the Kurds as a source of intelligence and to pinprick the Iranians. U.S. intervention on the side of the Turks means that the Americans are directly confronting Israeli interests in Kurdistan – yet another sign of a developing rupture in the much-vaunted "special relationship."
The wages of intervention are paltry indeed: we get the dubious satisfaction, in our self-appointed role as world "leader," of arbitrating ancient feuds and fresh conflicts constantly erupting in every part of the globe – and when it comes to Mesopotamia, there is no paucity of historic vendettas. As U.S. troops are increasingly caught in the crossfire between Shi'ites and Sunnis, Kurds and Turks, the Israelis and nearly everyone else, at some point the American people are going to wake up and say: "Enough! We don't want a single U.S. soldier to die for a 'Greater Kurdistan' or a unitary Iraqi state – because it's none of our business, after all.""
by Justin Raimondo
".....Yet who can blame the Kurds? After all, we're supposed to be their "liberators," and yet here we are, not merely standing idly by while Turkish warplanes bomb their country, but actively encouraging Ankara's aggression. Oh, the bitter irony! Ah, but that's power politics for you – allies turn into enemies in an instant, and the rule of thumb is to simply ask, "What have you done for me lately?".....
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has unleashed forces over which we have absolutely no control, and perhaps the most potentially destructive, if not the most potent, is Kurdish nationalism – which, in the present context, means Kurdish expansionism. Nor are the Kurds without allies in the region: the Israelis have cultivated the Kurds, arming and training their peshmerga and making significant economic investments, as reported by Seymour Hersh. The idea is to use the Kurds as a source of intelligence and to pinprick the Iranians. U.S. intervention on the side of the Turks means that the Americans are directly confronting Israeli interests in Kurdistan – yet another sign of a developing rupture in the much-vaunted "special relationship."
The wages of intervention are paltry indeed: we get the dubious satisfaction, in our self-appointed role as world "leader," of arbitrating ancient feuds and fresh conflicts constantly erupting in every part of the globe – and when it comes to Mesopotamia, there is no paucity of historic vendettas. As U.S. troops are increasingly caught in the crossfire between Shi'ites and Sunnis, Kurds and Turks, the Israelis and nearly everyone else, at some point the American people are going to wake up and say: "Enough! We don't want a single U.S. soldier to die for a 'Greater Kurdistan' or a unitary Iraqi state – because it's none of our business, after all.""
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
كمال حسونه صاحب الأجندة المشبوهة الي أين يوجه أقتصادنا
"الوزير كمال حسونة وزير الاقتصاد الوطني من الشخصيات الناجحة حسب التعريف الامريكي حيث أنه حامل لرؤية اقتصادية ترى في توطين اللاجئين الحل الوحيد لهذه المشكلة و أن أن هذا الحل هو الحل الامثل لمشكلة الدولتين . حسونه قبل أن يكون وزيرا هو رجل أعمال و هو من أوائل المؤسسين لمنتدى فلسطين الدولي للاعمال و هي مؤسسة تطبيعية تعنى بتعميق العلاقات بين رجال الاعمال الفلسطينين و الاسرائلين و قد شارك في عدة مناسبات مع عدة مؤسسات اسرائيلية و دولية اقتصادية تدرس امكانية الحل لدولتين الا أنه بعد أن أصبح حسونه وزيرا في حكومة فياض اصبح لديه من القوة و التوجيه ما يؤهله الى أن يوصل رسالته بشكل أكبر و يدير الاقتصاد الفلسطيني حسب نظرته الشخصية
من أهم انشطة حسونه بعد تعينه في الحكومة المؤقتة
1- في تاريخ 8 /9/2007 شارك حسونه بمؤتمر في باريس بعنوان المرحلة الثالثة من الحل النهائي و تم خلال هذا المؤتمر تقديم ورقة فلسطينية من قبل عدد من المؤسسات و الشخصيات من بينهنا مركز داتا و طبعا كمال حسونه و اسرائيليأ كان كل من حامون رابين و جامعة تل ابيب و برعاية فرنسية تنضر في مستقبل الحل لدولتين و توطين اللا جئين كحل وحبد من وجهة النظر الاقتصادية طبعا ما سمعنا عن هذا الخبر على تلفزيون فلسطين او محطة عربية في محاولة لاخفاء الخبر و كأن الخبر ما بيعنينا بس مجموعة اكس و هي الطرف الفرنسي في الدراسة نشرت الدراسة
......
....."
دكانة أخبارية أسمها معا
An Informative Article That Exposes the Sources of Finance of Maan "News Agency."
From a New Blog That is Worth Visiting
"دكانة معا الأخبارية مشروع بدأ في عام 2004 بهدف تجميع عدد من المحطات المحلية , أعتمدت الوكالة في بداية تأسيها على الدعم من حكومتي النرويج و الدنمارك , لوحظ في بداية الانتفاضة أن معظم المحطات المحلية قد افلست , و اغلقت ابوابها بستثناء تلفزيون وطن و الذي أشتراه المليونير مصطفى البرغوثي , الا انها خلال الفترة الاخيرة عادت الى الحياة بقوة بل و زاد عددها . حيث عانت هذه المحطات من مشكلة التمويل المشروط الى أن جاء المال الامريكي المشروط و أطل برأسه و حل هذه المشكلة . و نصر الله عبده الرفيق ناصر اللحام و شلته الذي أنفصل عن الجبهة الشعبية ناقدا موقفها الصامت بعد استشهاد الرفيق ابو علي مصطفى .
تبنت الحكومة الامريكية الوكالة و أنعشت جيوب اصحاب المحطات المحلية من خلال شراء الساعات منها لبث برامج لجمعيات محسوبة عليها و ساعدت على تمويل و شراء معدات حديثة و شملت قائمة المانحين الجدد للوكالة
1- مشروع الشراكة الاوسطية التابع للحكومة الامريكية
2- معهد الولايات المتحدة للسلام
3- الاكاديمية من اجل تطوير التعليم
4- برنامج الامم المتجدة الانمائي
5- المفوضية الاروبية مكتب الدعم التقني
مع العلم بالشروط التي أقرها الكونغرس الامريكي للحصول على التمويل و التي تحدثت عنها في مقال سابق , لمزيد من المعلومات راجع مقال سابق عن مؤسسة فورد تم وضع صورة فيه لوثيقة لنبذ الارهاب
ناصر اللحام و الذي يعتبر نفسه حاليا غير منتمي للجبهة , والمصاب بجنون عظمة امبراطوريته الصحفية المدعومة من أمريكا بشكل مباشر من الحكومة الامريكية , يحسب نفسه أمير الصحفين الفلسطينين و يظهر ذلك واضحا من خلال مقالاته في الفترة الاخيرة التي يظهر فيها العلوية و النقد للشعب الفلسطيني و كأنه في موقف أو وضعية تؤهله لاصدار مثل هذه المقالات و الاراء , حيث كان احرى بناصر أن يكتب عن التمويل المشروط الذي قتل كثير من الحس الوطني في المجتمع المدني و اولها دكانة معا التي افقدها التمويل الامريكي الذي لم يأتي على ذكره في أي من مقالته المصداقية و الحيادية , فكنت اتمنى مثلا بدل المقال العاطفي الذي كتبه ناصر بعنوان رسالة الى سفير فلسطين , أن يكتب مقالا بعنوان رسالة الى سفير امريكا يستعطفه أن يزيد الدعم لوكالة معا , حيث ان مقال مثل هذا المقال كان سيكون اكثر مصداقية و نفعا من الناحية المالية
أما قصة مسلسالات وكالة معا مثل مسلسل شوفي مافي و مسلسل الدار دار ابونا و التي خلت من لفظ مقاومة أو حتى الأشارة الى وجود احتلال في فلسطين , و أنحصرت في قضايا أن المرأة مظلومة في مجتمعنا و أهمية حقوق الانسان و التصوير الاسطوري للمرأة المتعلمة القادرة على حل كل المشاكل . و على الارشاد الاسري , و نقد المجتمع الفلسطيني . فلها في جيوب اصحاب المحطات و جيوب ناصر قصة اخرى فهذه المسلسلات من تمويل جمعية سلام بريطانية اسرائيلية تحتفل الجمعية بانها بثت مثل هذه البرامج على شاشة وكالة معا الاخبارية , حيث تعد هذه المؤسسة ايضا لانتاج مسلسل اسرائيلي يحكي قصة مستشفى في أسرائيل و يظهر في المسلسل الذي سيعرض حسب ما هو مخطط له في اوقات الذورة , كيف يعاني الاسرائيلين من الارهاب الفلسطيني و يظهر فيه الاسرائيلين كضحايا و لا يتطرق لحقوق المرأة في اسرائيل أو المجنمع الاسرائيلي , و حسب رائي فأن هذا استرخاص للشعب الفلسطيني و تقزيم لمشكلة الاحتلال او حتى اشغال عن مشكلة الاحتلال بقضايا ثانوية
عندما يأتي وقت الحساب
تحدثت عدة صحف و مجلات امريكية عن أن ناصر اللحام قد أخل باتفاقيات التمويل الموقعة مع الامريكان بعد أن عرضت الشبكة فلما عن النكبة من انتاج مؤسسة البديل , و نسيت هذه المؤسسات كيف خلت شاشات التلفزيونات المحلية من أغاني الانتفاضة التي مجدت الانتفاضة و كيف انعدمت الاغاني المنقولة من تلفزيون المنار عن محطاتنا الارضية لتستبدل باعلانات جمعية المرأة العاملة و مركز ابداع المعلم المدعومين امريكيا
"
'Bush's Foreign Policy Is in Free Fall'
SPIEGEL INTERVIEW WITH FORMER US DIPLOMAT JOHN BOLTON
"Former US Diplomat John Bolton is no longer in office, but he still has a lot to say about American foreign policy. SPIEGEL spoke to him about Bush's softness abroad, Rice having been taken hostage by the liberal State Department, and why it doesn't matter that the world hates the US......
SPIEGEL: In the past, you argued for a military intervention in Iran. Do you still consider that an option?
Bolton: I don't have the same high confidence these intelligence analysts do that, in fact, there was a full suspension of the military program in Iran. This is not like those claims about Cheney pressuring the poor intelligence community to spin intelligence on Iraq. This is politicization from the other side -- people in the intelligence community allowing policy preferences to affect their analysis and judgments about the intelligence.
SPIEGEL: And where is the president? Is he merely a puppet?
Bolton: Look at the North Korean policy. The North Koreans certainly were involved in that facility in Syria that was raided by the Israelis. The North Koreans renege on their commitments and we still negotiate......"
"Former US Diplomat John Bolton is no longer in office, but he still has a lot to say about American foreign policy. SPIEGEL spoke to him about Bush's softness abroad, Rice having been taken hostage by the liberal State Department, and why it doesn't matter that the world hates the US......
SPIEGEL: In the past, you argued for a military intervention in Iran. Do you still consider that an option?
Bolton: I don't have the same high confidence these intelligence analysts do that, in fact, there was a full suspension of the military program in Iran. This is not like those claims about Cheney pressuring the poor intelligence community to spin intelligence on Iraq. This is politicization from the other side -- people in the intelligence community allowing policy preferences to affect their analysis and judgments about the intelligence.
SPIEGEL: And where is the president? Is he merely a puppet?
Bolton: Look at the North Korean policy. The North Koreans certainly were involved in that facility in Syria that was raided by the Israelis. The North Koreans renege on their commitments and we still negotiate......"
Palestinian refugees still adamant they must return home
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
"AIN AL-HILWEH, 18 December 2007 (IRIN) - Palestinian and Israeli leaders may have agreed at the US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis on 27 November to work towards a full peace deal by the end of next year, but in the tinderbox refugee camp of Ain Al-Hilweh in Lebanon the lives of 75,000 Palestinians are defined by an intractable issue at the heart of the conflict: the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.
“No-one can negotiate on our right to return to Palestine. There is only one country called Palestine and we will never return there except by resistance to Israel,” said Abu Yousef, a fighter with the radical Palestinian Islamist faction Ansar Allah......"
BROADCAST EXCLUSIVE: Yemeni Man Imprisoned at CIA “Black Sites” Tells His Story of Kidnapping and Torture
Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman
"AMY GOODMAN: Today, a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive. A victim of the CIA rendition program—kidnapped, held in secret jails and tortured—speaks out in his own words. His name is Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, one of hundreds of men to have passed through the CIA’s so-called “black sites.” Today, he tells his story.
A citizen of Yemen, Mohamed came to Jordan with his wife in the fall of 2003 to arrange surgery for his ailing mother. He was living in Indonesia at the time. Jordanian authorities took him into custody shortly after seizing his passport. There, he says he was tortured, threatened and forced to sign a false confession. He was turned over to the CIA within days and flown to a secret prison he later found out was in Kabul, Afghanistan.
In CIA custody, Mohamed says he was held in a freezing-cold cell, interrogated, shackled, force-fed, subjected to sleep deprivation and loud music for days. He attempted suicide at least three times. He talks about his interrogators and the American psychiatrists or psychologists who also played a role.
Mohamed has brought a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary accused of abetting his kidnapping. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Jeppesen Dataplan on behalf of Mohamed and four other victims of CIA kidnapping and torture. The lawsuit accuses Jeppesen of providing direct logistical support for the CIA flights.
Yesterday, I spoke to Mohamed Bashmilah on the phone from his home in Yemen, in his first broadcast interview. We’re going to play that interview in a moment, but first I want to turn to Meg Satterthwaite. She is director of the International Human Rights Clinic at New York University Law School. She’s Mohamed Bashmilah’s attorney, joining us from Washington, D.C......."
الحكام العرب واتفاقية الكيان مع سوق "ميركوسور"لماذا فشلت زيارة لولا دي سيلفا؟
عادل سمارة
"قبل أكثر من عام على توقيع الكيان الصهيوني أو دولة اليهود كما يريدونها، اتفاقية متاجرة مع ميركوسور، قام لولا دي سيلفا الرئيس البرازيلي "المنتخب" ، على العكس من وَضْعُ الحكام العرب، بزيارة لعدد من الدول العربية. قد تكون تلك الزيارة محفوزة بالأمل أو برفع العتب. الأمل بمعنى أن لولا يشعر بأن الوطن العربي اقرب إلى بلاده من الكيان الصهيوني، كيف لا، والبرازيل من أكثر البلدان التي تظاهر شعبها حينما بدأ العدوان على العراق، وأن بوسعه الإستجارة بالعرب في مواجهته "الناعمة" لهيمنة الراسمالية الأميركية. ولا شك أنه اعتقد أن المتاجرة مع العرب مربحة أكثر من المتاجرة مع الكيان الصهيوني.
ليس شرطاً أن تقف البرازيل، في حالة نجاح علاقتها بالعرب، أو توسيع هذه العلاقة، ليس شرطاً أن تقف ضد الكيان الصهيوني، ولكن مجرد تعميق العلاقة بالعرب يعني تقليص النفوذ الصهيوني في أميركا اللاتينية الجديدة.
لقد دخل الكيان ولا زال في أميركا اللاتينية كمدرب لفرق قتل الثوار وبائع للأسلحة السوداء التي "أحياناً" تتورع الولايات المتحدة والإمبرياليات الأخرى عن المتاجرة بها. فقد زود مختلف دول الزمر العسكرية والديكتاتوريات والثورات المضادة في أميركا اللاتينية، وغيرها بالطبع، بالأسلحة ضد الشعوب ولا يزال، فربح من ذلك الكثير.
واليوم حيث تتقدم دول كثيرة في أميركا اللاتينية باتجاه طريق جديد في الإشتراكية، اشتراكية الألفية الثالثة، يدخل الكيان إلى هناك، باكراً، أو على الأقل قبل العرب ليحقق متاجرة مع بلدان ميركسور تصل إلى 2 مليار دولار سنوياً.
يوم 16 كانون الأول الجاري تم توقيع اتفاق ميركسور في اورغواي مع الكيان الصهيوني والذي يبدا بإعفاء المنتجات الزراعية والصناعية بنسبة 20 بالمئة من الجمارك. وميركسور سوق جديدة صاعدة وواعدة، تضم سكاناً يقاربون سكان الوطن العربي.
لم تتفاعل الحكومات العربية مع زيارة لولا، اي قررت عدم كسب اميركا اللاتينية، وكيف تكسب غيرها وهي تفقد أمتها، كما كانت قبلاً حيث قررت خسارة إفريقيا. لكي يظل في ذاكرة شعوب هاتين القارتين ان العرب مجرد أمة تجارة العبيد سابقاً، وإهلاك بلدان المحيط حالياً بفواتير النفط التي يذهب معظم ريعها لصالح الشركات النفطية وبلدانها.
هذا مع العلم ان الجاليات العربية في اميركا اللاتينية بعشرات الملايين، اما في افريقيا فهي اقرب لأن تكون قارة عربية.
الأنظمة العربية مشغولة في تثبيت الكيان الصهيوني وتوريط الطبقات الشعبية العربية في التطبيع مع هذا الكيان، لذا ذهبت بالجملة إلى أنابوليس كي تقول لهم تسيفي ليفني وزيرة خارجية الكيان : "لا تتدخلوا بيننا وبين الفلسطينيين"، فهي تثرِّعهم حتى وهم رُكَّعاً. وهذا ينسجم مع أسس البنيات القطرية على حساب المشروع القومي.
والحقيقة أن القطريات العربية لم تكن أبداً ممثلة للشعب العربي وليست منتخبة، وإن حصلت انتخابات فهي بالتزوير ومحكومة بإرادات ملكية أو رئاسية غير دستورية.
بمعنى آخر، فإن الأنظمة القطرية العربية هي مثابة احتلالات للوطن العربي، وعليه، فإن زيارة لولا لم تكن في محلها، أو أخطات التقدير لأنها تجاهلت أن هذه الأنظمة إنما وجدت لقهر الأمة العربية وليس لخدمتها وحمايتها.
قد يزعم البعض أن هذه الدولة أو تلك وقعت بعض الإتفاقيات مع البرازيل. لكن زيارة زعيم دولة كبرى كالبرازيل وعضو في سوق قارية مثل ميركسور، تتطلب موقفاً مختلفاً. تتطلب موقفاً عربيا عاماً ، اتفاقية عربية جماعية من جهة واشتراط عدم إقامة علاقات تجارية مع الكيان الصهيوني من جهة ثانية. وهذا هو الأمر العظيم الغائب في الحالة العربية
يذكرنا هذا الموقف بالعلاقات العربية السوفييتية في النصف الثاني من القرن العشرين، حيث كان بوسع العرب إقامة علاقات تجارية مع الدول الشرقية واستخدام ذلك في الضغط على بلدان المركز الإمبريالي أو مواجهة هذه البلدان لتحسين شروطها في اية مفاوضات أو علاقات، ولكن.
ولكن، لا يستقيم هذا التحليل ابداً في حالة البلدان العربية، لأنها كقطريات هي من صناعة سايكس-بيكو، المعاهدة التي أرست الكيان الصهيوني وخلقت التفتت العربي وأقامت كيانات لحماية نتيجتي سايكس-بيكوالمذكورتين.
بعبارة أخرى، فالأمة العربية مجرد مستعمرات، شاء النشيد القطري هنا أو هناك أم ابى. أما وهي على هذا الحال، فمن المحال أن تقرر الطبقات الحاكمة مواجهة الكيان الصهيوني بل خدمته، ولنا في أنابوليس "اسوة رديئة وجديدة". إن هدف هذه الأنظمة إبقاء التجزئة والتخلف كي تحفظ لنفسها مصالحها المتخارجة مع الأعداء.
تُرى، هل هذه خيانة؟ أم أن مجرد ترداد هذه الكلمة يؤذي مسامع ويخدش خفر مثقفي التجزئة، والمتعاطين مع الفكر بعيداً عن الواقع، في عروش "ولا" عروش التجزئة.
وهكذا، فالكيان الصهيوني في أميركا اللاتينية، في إفريقيا، أما القطريات العربية ...ففي خدمته!"
"قبل أكثر من عام على توقيع الكيان الصهيوني أو دولة اليهود كما يريدونها، اتفاقية متاجرة مع ميركوسور، قام لولا دي سيلفا الرئيس البرازيلي "المنتخب" ، على العكس من وَضْعُ الحكام العرب، بزيارة لعدد من الدول العربية. قد تكون تلك الزيارة محفوزة بالأمل أو برفع العتب. الأمل بمعنى أن لولا يشعر بأن الوطن العربي اقرب إلى بلاده من الكيان الصهيوني، كيف لا، والبرازيل من أكثر البلدان التي تظاهر شعبها حينما بدأ العدوان على العراق، وأن بوسعه الإستجارة بالعرب في مواجهته "الناعمة" لهيمنة الراسمالية الأميركية. ولا شك أنه اعتقد أن المتاجرة مع العرب مربحة أكثر من المتاجرة مع الكيان الصهيوني.
ليس شرطاً أن تقف البرازيل، في حالة نجاح علاقتها بالعرب، أو توسيع هذه العلاقة، ليس شرطاً أن تقف ضد الكيان الصهيوني، ولكن مجرد تعميق العلاقة بالعرب يعني تقليص النفوذ الصهيوني في أميركا اللاتينية الجديدة.
لقد دخل الكيان ولا زال في أميركا اللاتينية كمدرب لفرق قتل الثوار وبائع للأسلحة السوداء التي "أحياناً" تتورع الولايات المتحدة والإمبرياليات الأخرى عن المتاجرة بها. فقد زود مختلف دول الزمر العسكرية والديكتاتوريات والثورات المضادة في أميركا اللاتينية، وغيرها بالطبع، بالأسلحة ضد الشعوب ولا يزال، فربح من ذلك الكثير.
واليوم حيث تتقدم دول كثيرة في أميركا اللاتينية باتجاه طريق جديد في الإشتراكية، اشتراكية الألفية الثالثة، يدخل الكيان إلى هناك، باكراً، أو على الأقل قبل العرب ليحقق متاجرة مع بلدان ميركسور تصل إلى 2 مليار دولار سنوياً.
يوم 16 كانون الأول الجاري تم توقيع اتفاق ميركسور في اورغواي مع الكيان الصهيوني والذي يبدا بإعفاء المنتجات الزراعية والصناعية بنسبة 20 بالمئة من الجمارك. وميركسور سوق جديدة صاعدة وواعدة، تضم سكاناً يقاربون سكان الوطن العربي.
لم تتفاعل الحكومات العربية مع زيارة لولا، اي قررت عدم كسب اميركا اللاتينية، وكيف تكسب غيرها وهي تفقد أمتها، كما كانت قبلاً حيث قررت خسارة إفريقيا. لكي يظل في ذاكرة شعوب هاتين القارتين ان العرب مجرد أمة تجارة العبيد سابقاً، وإهلاك بلدان المحيط حالياً بفواتير النفط التي يذهب معظم ريعها لصالح الشركات النفطية وبلدانها.
هذا مع العلم ان الجاليات العربية في اميركا اللاتينية بعشرات الملايين، اما في افريقيا فهي اقرب لأن تكون قارة عربية.
الأنظمة العربية مشغولة في تثبيت الكيان الصهيوني وتوريط الطبقات الشعبية العربية في التطبيع مع هذا الكيان، لذا ذهبت بالجملة إلى أنابوليس كي تقول لهم تسيفي ليفني وزيرة خارجية الكيان : "لا تتدخلوا بيننا وبين الفلسطينيين"، فهي تثرِّعهم حتى وهم رُكَّعاً. وهذا ينسجم مع أسس البنيات القطرية على حساب المشروع القومي.
والحقيقة أن القطريات العربية لم تكن أبداً ممثلة للشعب العربي وليست منتخبة، وإن حصلت انتخابات فهي بالتزوير ومحكومة بإرادات ملكية أو رئاسية غير دستورية.
بمعنى آخر، فإن الأنظمة القطرية العربية هي مثابة احتلالات للوطن العربي، وعليه، فإن زيارة لولا لم تكن في محلها، أو أخطات التقدير لأنها تجاهلت أن هذه الأنظمة إنما وجدت لقهر الأمة العربية وليس لخدمتها وحمايتها.
قد يزعم البعض أن هذه الدولة أو تلك وقعت بعض الإتفاقيات مع البرازيل. لكن زيارة زعيم دولة كبرى كالبرازيل وعضو في سوق قارية مثل ميركسور، تتطلب موقفاً مختلفاً. تتطلب موقفاً عربيا عاماً ، اتفاقية عربية جماعية من جهة واشتراط عدم إقامة علاقات تجارية مع الكيان الصهيوني من جهة ثانية. وهذا هو الأمر العظيم الغائب في الحالة العربية
يذكرنا هذا الموقف بالعلاقات العربية السوفييتية في النصف الثاني من القرن العشرين، حيث كان بوسع العرب إقامة علاقات تجارية مع الدول الشرقية واستخدام ذلك في الضغط على بلدان المركز الإمبريالي أو مواجهة هذه البلدان لتحسين شروطها في اية مفاوضات أو علاقات، ولكن.
ولكن، لا يستقيم هذا التحليل ابداً في حالة البلدان العربية، لأنها كقطريات هي من صناعة سايكس-بيكو، المعاهدة التي أرست الكيان الصهيوني وخلقت التفتت العربي وأقامت كيانات لحماية نتيجتي سايكس-بيكوالمذكورتين.
بعبارة أخرى، فالأمة العربية مجرد مستعمرات، شاء النشيد القطري هنا أو هناك أم ابى. أما وهي على هذا الحال، فمن المحال أن تقرر الطبقات الحاكمة مواجهة الكيان الصهيوني بل خدمته، ولنا في أنابوليس "اسوة رديئة وجديدة". إن هدف هذه الأنظمة إبقاء التجزئة والتخلف كي تحفظ لنفسها مصالحها المتخارجة مع الأعداء.
تُرى، هل هذه خيانة؟ أم أن مجرد ترداد هذه الكلمة يؤذي مسامع ويخدش خفر مثقفي التجزئة، والمتعاطين مع الفكر بعيداً عن الواقع، في عروش "ولا" عروش التجزئة.
وهكذا، فالكيان الصهيوني في أميركا اللاتينية، في إفريقيا، أما القطريات العربية ...ففي خدمته!"
Students hired to promote Israel
"An advocacy group is hiring students as on-campus promoters of Israel.
StandWithUs is offering up to $1,000 a year this semester to 38 Emerson fellows, Jewish student leaders at key colleges and universities targeted by the organization. Their duties will include bringing in speakers and films that show Israel in a positive light.
Officials from StandWithUs told reporters that they gave particular consideration to applicants from “problem campuses” such as Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan, which the organization identifies as hotbeds of anti-Israel sentiment.
More than 100 students applied for the fellowships, funded by California-based philanthropists Rita and Steven Emerson.
StandWithUs is an international pro-Israel education organization founded in 2001."
StandWithUs is offering up to $1,000 a year this semester to 38 Emerson fellows, Jewish student leaders at key colleges and universities targeted by the organization. Their duties will include bringing in speakers and films that show Israel in a positive light.
Officials from StandWithUs told reporters that they gave particular consideration to applicants from “problem campuses” such as Columbia, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan, which the organization identifies as hotbeds of anti-Israel sentiment.
More than 100 students applied for the fellowships, funded by California-based philanthropists Rita and Steven Emerson.
StandWithUs is an international pro-Israel education organization founded in 2001."
“Follow Us Not Them” - The Ramallah Model: Washington’s Palestinian Failure
A Conflicts Forum Monograph, by Geoffrey Aronson, November, 2007
(Geoffrey Aronson is on the Conflicts Forum Advisory Board. He is Executive Director of the Washington, DC-based Foundation for Middle East Peace)
"George Bush’s “vision” of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on the supremacy of the “Ramallah model” over the “Gaza model.” U.S. policy intends that the advantages championed by Ramallah in negotiations with Israel and the economic revival enabled by international assistance will “strengthen Abu Mazen” and undermine the Palestininian majority for Hamas. In this contest, however, Hamas, from its base in Gaza, retains significant advantages. As long as the limitations of U.S. policy prevent an end to occupation, the Ramallah model will be compromised and the process of “strengthening Abu Mazen” will continue the process of Fateh’s marginalization and Hamas’s empowerment that has been the legacy of the Oslo era....."
Building hope from rubble
Sarah Price writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 18 December 2007
From left, Talal Abu Shawish, Dr. Mona El-Farra, and Hany El Sharif, who started with the association as a child and now volunteers as an activities guide for the kids. The sign reads "Palestine" in Arabic.
".....Of Gaza's 1.5 million residents more than 60 percent are under 18. The effects of malnutrition are seen not only in the kids' hunger, but also in their brain function. They are unable to focus in school, and have become violent. Dr. El-Farra's organization, the Middle East Children's Alliance (Gaza), is the focal point of a network of organizations trying to help Gaza's children. They give food parcels to the families, which are aimed at the nutritional needs of the kids, and try to teach the parents how to feed them better.
"The lack [of food] here is all political, not from famine or drought," says Dr. El-Farra. "The kids are not hopeful. There is no safety or recreation. It's bad for everyone, but it is most profound when the kids are complaining and have no hope."
Humanitarian groups in Gaza are also trying to feed another hunger: keeping the Palestinian culture alive through teaching traditional dancing, music, and art. The Afaq Jadeeda (New Horizons) Center in Nuseirat, established in 1996, provides a creative outlet for more than 50 children daily, and holds summer and winter camps. The center also has a library, a stage for plays, a football team and a growing computer lab, and is in the process of funding English classes for kids ages 14-18. $50,000 would give them what they need for a fully functioning center, but they do what they can with what they have, as they work on bringing in more donations and money.
"The average family in Gaza has seven people," says Afaq Jadeeda vice president and schoolteacher Talal Abu Shawish. "In the refugee camps, families are trying to build up their own areas. That's why it is important to have the cultural centers: to bring the kids off the streets into something more positive."
But the problems are not only on the streets now; they are also in the schools......"
From left, Talal Abu Shawish, Dr. Mona El-Farra, and Hany El Sharif, who started with the association as a child and now volunteers as an activities guide for the kids. The sign reads "Palestine" in Arabic.
".....Of Gaza's 1.5 million residents more than 60 percent are under 18. The effects of malnutrition are seen not only in the kids' hunger, but also in their brain function. They are unable to focus in school, and have become violent. Dr. El-Farra's organization, the Middle East Children's Alliance (Gaza), is the focal point of a network of organizations trying to help Gaza's children. They give food parcels to the families, which are aimed at the nutritional needs of the kids, and try to teach the parents how to feed them better.
"The lack [of food] here is all political, not from famine or drought," says Dr. El-Farra. "The kids are not hopeful. There is no safety or recreation. It's bad for everyone, but it is most profound when the kids are complaining and have no hope."
Humanitarian groups in Gaza are also trying to feed another hunger: keeping the Palestinian culture alive through teaching traditional dancing, music, and art. The Afaq Jadeeda (New Horizons) Center in Nuseirat, established in 1996, provides a creative outlet for more than 50 children daily, and holds summer and winter camps. The center also has a library, a stage for plays, a football team and a growing computer lab, and is in the process of funding English classes for kids ages 14-18. $50,000 would give them what they need for a fully functioning center, but they do what they can with what they have, as they work on bringing in more donations and money.
"The average family in Gaza has seven people," says Afaq Jadeeda vice president and schoolteacher Talal Abu Shawish. "In the refugee camps, families are trying to build up their own areas. That's why it is important to have the cultural centers: to bring the kids off the streets into something more positive."
But the problems are not only on the streets now; they are also in the schools......"
Police State America - A Look Back and Ahead
by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, December 17, 2007
".....A Look Ahead in Police State America
This article began and will end with the same chilling thought. If past is prologue, the outlook isn't good in "police state America" under neocon rule that won't appreciably change when the White House has a new occupant in 2009. The nation is at war and laws are in place that end constitutional protections, militarize the country, repress dissent, and our government is empowered to crush freedom and defend privilege from beneficial social change it won't tolerate. It's the price of imperial arrogance we the people are paying, and that won't end until the spirit of resistance gets aroused enough to stop it in our own self-defense. We better hope that happens in time with potentially little of it left. "
Palestinian Karzai Backs French Call for International Force
Al-Manar
"Mahmud Abbas said Tuesday he supports a French proposal for an international force to reinforce the work of the Palestinian security services. "We are in favor of President (Nicolas) Sarkozy's idea and we are going to strive for it to become an international position," Abbas said, asked about the proposal made at Monday's international donor conference in Paris. "We accept it," Abbas said, while recalling that the Palestinian Authority had already accepted the principle of such a force in the past.
Sarkozy called Monday for an international force to deploy in the Palestinian territories, "when the time comes and when the conditions are right" to "lend its support to the Palestinian security services."
The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas immediately rejected the proposal, saying it would amount to "blatant interference" in Palestinian affairs. Hamas charged that the French move was intended to help Israel in its "declared war" against the movement."
Did Bush Get New Iran Intel Last Winter?
By Gareth Porter
"White House officials have now admitted that George W. Bush was told that the intelligence assessment on a covert Iranian nuclear program might change last August, but they have avoided answering the question of when the president was first informed about the new intelligence that led to that revised assessment.
That evasion is necessary, it now appears, to conceal the fact that Bush likely knew about that intelligence as early as February or March 2007......"
"White House officials have now admitted that George W. Bush was told that the intelligence assessment on a covert Iranian nuclear program might change last August, but they have avoided answering the question of when the president was first informed about the new intelligence that led to that revised assessment.
That evasion is necessary, it now appears, to conceal the fact that Bush likely knew about that intelligence as early as February or March 2007......"
To Die With the Philistines
By Uri Avnery
"The most famous words ever spoken in Gaza were the last words of Samson (Judges 16:30): "Let me die with the Philistines!"
According to the Biblical story, Samson took hold of the central pillars of the Philistine temple and brought down the whole building upon the lords of the Philistines, the people of Gaza, and himself. The teller of the story sums it all up: "So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life."
A story of suffering, destruction, and death. It may be about to repeat itself now, only with the roles reversed: the temple may be brought down by the Palestinians (who took their name from the Philistines), and among the dead will be the lords of Israel......"
"The most famous words ever spoken in Gaza were the last words of Samson (Judges 16:30): "Let me die with the Philistines!"
According to the Biblical story, Samson took hold of the central pillars of the Philistine temple and brought down the whole building upon the lords of the Philistines, the people of Gaza, and himself. The teller of the story sums it all up: "So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life."
A story of suffering, destruction, and death. It may be about to repeat itself now, only with the roles reversed: the temple may be brought down by the Palestinians (who took their name from the Philistines), and among the dead will be the lords of Israel......"
Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll
The question is:
Do you expect the donor countries to fulfill their Paris pledges to the PA?
With over 1,000 responding, 88% said no.
Orchestra Prevented from Entering Gaza to Hold Solidarity Concert in Ramallah
Please circulate widely; Let the whole world know how these Nazis carry on
Maestro Daniel Barenboim expresses deep dismay at discrimination against Palestinian musician, and will hold press conference in Berlin tomorrow in protest. For more information, please contact Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Tel: 00491-792160544.
"Ramallah, 16-12-07: An international orchestra refused to perform in Gaza today after its sole Palestinian member, violinist Ramzi Aburedwan, was prevented from entering the Strip by the Israeli authorities and threatened with arrest, despite the fact that all 20 members of the orchestra – including Aburedwan - had secured prior coordination from the Israeli authorities via the General Consulate of France in Jerusalem to enter Gaza......"
Maestro Daniel Barenboim expresses deep dismay at discrimination against Palestinian musician, and will hold press conference in Berlin tomorrow in protest. For more information, please contact Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Tel: 00491-792160544.
"Ramallah, 16-12-07: An international orchestra refused to perform in Gaza today after its sole Palestinian member, violinist Ramzi Aburedwan, was prevented from entering the Strip by the Israeli authorities and threatened with arrest, despite the fact that all 20 members of the orchestra – including Aburedwan - had secured prior coordination from the Israeli authorities via the General Consulate of France in Jerusalem to enter Gaza......"
Gov't official: No 'smoking gun' on Iran
Contributed by Fatima
"Israel does not have "smoking gun" intelligence that will force an American reassessment of its National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted its nuclear weapons plan in 2003, a government official told The Jerusalem Post Monday.
The official's comments came as a delegation from Military Intelligence is in the US for meetings with American officials about Iran....."
"Israel does not have "smoking gun" intelligence that will force an American reassessment of its National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted its nuclear weapons plan in 2003, a government official told The Jerusalem Post Monday.
The official's comments came as a delegation from Military Intelligence is in the US for meetings with American officials about Iran....."
Commandant Rice says Warsaw Ghetto birth pangs of new Poland
Rice: Hamas to blame for Gaza conditions
"Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 16, 2007 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday militant Palestinians, not Israel, are to blame for deteriorating conditions in the sealed-off Gaza Strip, as the United States announced it intends to donate about $550 million to the impoverished Palestinians this year....."
Damsels in distress?
The west should stop using the liberalisation of Muslim women to justify its strategy of dominance
By Soumaya Ghannoushi
The Guardian
".....The truth is that just as there is a military machine of hegemony, there is a discursive machine of hegemony. When armies move on the ground to conquer and subjugate, they need moral and ideological cover. It is this that gives the dominant narrative of the "Muslim woman" its raison d'etre.
No wonder then that the "Muslim woman" liberation warriors, the likes of Nick Cohen, Christopher Hitchens, and Pascal Bruckner, were the same people who cheered American/ British troops as they blasted their way through Kabul and Baghdad, and who will no doubt cheer and dance once more should Iran or Syria be bombed next. Soldiers shoot with their guns; they with their pens. They are hegemony's apologists. Without them the emperor stands naked."
The long road from Paris to Palestine
The billions in aid secured at yesterday's conference may not be able to overcome the peace process's political failures
By Daniel Levy
The Guardian
".....The story of Palestine's economic collapse over the last several years is one of donor assistance being unable to paper over the gaping cracks in a failed political peace process. The rebuttal on display in Paris was that this time it's different, we have Annapolis, peace is back on the agenda. Except that Annapolis is anything but the kind of robust process that is required - witness already the Israeli announcement of the expansion of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, the escalating conflict between Israel and Gaza, the lack of a visible change in the closure system and, most importantly, the continued American and international impotence in the face of these negative trends......
If these flaws are not addressed, then the results of the Paris conference will become the economic accompaniment to the Palestinian state-building process recently described here in Comment is Free by Ahmad Khalidi as one that "does nothing to address basic [Palestinian] needs" and is "largely a punitive construct devised ... to constrain Palestinian aspirations". And that is a recipe for dissatisfaction all around - of course among Palestinians but also for an already fatigued donor community, and even for an Israel whose insatiable appetite for hollow victories is so clogging up its arteries that it threatens self-destruction."
Left for dead by New Labour, liberal Britain must urgently fight back
By John Pilger
The Guardian
"Blair and his cult have wrecked the very beliefs millions thought they were voting for. The time for direct action is now.....
For those people who still celebrate the virtues and triumphs of liberalism - anti-slavery, women's suffrage, the defence of individual conscience and the right to express it and act upon it - the time for direct action is now. It is time to support those of courage who defy rotten laws to read out in Parliament Square the names of the current, mounting, war dead, and those who identify their government's complicity in "rendition" and its torture, and those who have followed the paper and blood trail of Britain's piratical arms companies. It is time to support the NHS workers who up and down the country are trying to alert us to the destruction of a Labour government's greatest achievement. The list of people stirring is reassuring. The awakening of the rest of us is urgent. "
The Guardian
"Blair and his cult have wrecked the very beliefs millions thought they were voting for. The time for direct action is now.....
For those people who still celebrate the virtues and triumphs of liberalism - anti-slavery, women's suffrage, the defence of individual conscience and the right to express it and act upon it - the time for direct action is now. It is time to support those of courage who defy rotten laws to read out in Parliament Square the names of the current, mounting, war dead, and those who identify their government's complicity in "rendition" and its torture, and those who have followed the paper and blood trail of Britain's piratical arms companies. It is time to support the NHS workers who up and down the country are trying to alert us to the destruction of a Labour government's greatest achievement. The list of people stirring is reassuring. The awakening of the rest of us is urgent. "
Better Late Than Never
".....
وفي إطار الإجراءات الاحترازية للمقاومة أمر مسؤول من الجهاد الإسلامي عبر تردد إذاعي في غزة نشطاء الحركة بإغلاق هواتفهم المحمولة وإزالة البطاريات لإحباط التعقب الإلكتروني الإسرائيلي وعدم ركوب سيارات......"
Islamic Jihad has ordered its fighters in Gaza to turn off their mobile (cell) phones, remove their batteries and avoid riding cars. You can't say that they are fast learners, but.....better late than never. In less than 24 hours Islamic Jihad lost 11 fighters!
Monday, December 17, 2007
Help! Please Update the Blog!
This is all the posting that I will be able to do today. Please help me out by posting links to news articles, comments, videos, political cartoons, etc in the comment section; for that I remain grateful.
***
Thank you Steven Rix, Lucia and Fatima for helping me out; much appreciated.
Sarkozy’s Proposal a Declared War against Palestinians
Al-Manar
"17/12/2007 Hamas on Monday slammed a French proposal for an international force to deploy in the Palestinian territories, saying it would amount to "blatant interference" in internal affairs. "We reject this suggestion and consider this a blatant interference in internal Palestinian affairs and a new plan to destroy the democratic choice of the Palestinian people," the Islamic movement's spokesman Fawzi Barhum said.
Earlier French President Nicolas Sarkozy called at the start of a donors’ conference in Paris for a new international force to beef up the Palestinian security services "when the time comes and when the conditions are right."
But Hamas said the move was purely intended to help Israel in its "declared war" against the movement. "This suggestion comes in the context of a declared war against the Palestinian people and against the Hamas movement and this is a call for a new mobilization," Barhum said.
Hamas, which democratically won a majority in 2006 parliamentary elections, has ruled the Gaza Strip since routing forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June.
The donors’ conference in Paris is intended to mobilize international economic support for Abbas, who has requested 5.6 billion dollars (3.85 billion euros) to finance an ambitious three-year development plan for the territories. It comes weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas formally relaunched the Middle East negotiations process in the United States at an international conference that Hamas has repeatedly condemned."
Berri meets Jumblatt, Voting Adjourned Till Saturday
Al-Manar
"17/12/2007 Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri has adjourned for the ninth time the session to elect a new president. The voting session is rescheduled for Saturday the 22nd of December at noon.
Berri had met in his Ain el-Tini headquarters the head of the Democratic Gathering MP Walid Jumblatt and later the head of the Future parliamentary bloc MP Saad Hariri. A delegation from the MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc also visited Berri to discuss the ongoing political crisis.
Jumblatt earlier stressed there is no return to the half-plus-one MPs formula to elect a president of the republic. Speaking to the Al-Akhbar daily, Jumblatt said ruling out this "option" comes in the framework of preserving stability and in harmony with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir's wish. He added that he had informed US Under-Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch of this position. Jumblatt who doubted presidential election would take place Monday, said that the "March 14" powers were seeking consensus through the election of current Army Chief General Michel Suleiman as president. He added that amending the constitution should however pass through Fouad Saniora's government "since it is the sole constitutional solution." The opposition will not go with constitutional amendment through a government is insists is unconstitutional.
In the meantime, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced her rejection to the demands of the opposition. On her way to Paris to take part in the international donors conference for the Palestinian Authority, Rice said that "Lebanon's neighbors, particularly Syria," should encourage their allies and ask them to stop searching for excuses so as not to progress."
Hamas: Advanced defense plan ready for when IDF enters Gaza
"Hamas' armed wing said Monday that the Islamist organization has completed preparation of its new defense program and is ready to face the Israel Defense Forces when it invades the Gaza Strip.
The remarks were made by Iz a-Din al-Qassam's spokesman, Abu Obeida, in an interview with the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat.
Abu Obeida said that the IDF has not yet encountered such a high level of resistance in its previous incursions into the Gaza Strip.
"The Israeli army won't know where the blows are coming from, and how its tanks will be hit by missiles in our possession," Abu Obeida said, adding that IDF troops would encounter militants trained in new combat methods acting upon instruction from an operational command center shared by all of the Palestinian organizations.
The spokesman also said that the new combat efforts would focus on the element of surprising the enemy, adding that the open fields in the Gaza Strip - which he coined "one big ball of fire" - would be filled with "surprises" for IDF soldiers.
He said that the organizations would rely mainly on so far unused missiles, adding that the group would also make use of a network of tunnels and trenches in its tactics.
"The Israeli army will be surprised by the Palestinian militants that will come out of the ground," said Abu Obeida.
He confirmed ties between Hamas and Iran and Hezbollah, but denied that Hamas militants have received training outside of the Palestinian territories, or arms and missiles from foreign sources.
Abu Obeida maintained that less than 1 percent of Qassam rocket launchers were hit by the Israeli Air Force, despite the fact that the IAF has been "hunting them" for many months. He explained this by saying that the missiles have become more advanced, reaching longer ranges......"
The remarks were made by Iz a-Din al-Qassam's spokesman, Abu Obeida, in an interview with the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat.
Abu Obeida said that the IDF has not yet encountered such a high level of resistance in its previous incursions into the Gaza Strip.
"The Israeli army won't know where the blows are coming from, and how its tanks will be hit by missiles in our possession," Abu Obeida said, adding that IDF troops would encounter militants trained in new combat methods acting upon instruction from an operational command center shared by all of the Palestinian organizations.
The spokesman also said that the new combat efforts would focus on the element of surprising the enemy, adding that the open fields in the Gaza Strip - which he coined "one big ball of fire" - would be filled with "surprises" for IDF soldiers.
He said that the organizations would rely mainly on so far unused missiles, adding that the group would also make use of a network of tunnels and trenches in its tactics.
"The Israeli army will be surprised by the Palestinian militants that will come out of the ground," said Abu Obeida.
He confirmed ties between Hamas and Iran and Hezbollah, but denied that Hamas militants have received training outside of the Palestinian territories, or arms and missiles from foreign sources.
Abu Obeida maintained that less than 1 percent of Qassam rocket launchers were hit by the Israeli Air Force, despite the fact that the IAF has been "hunting them" for many months. He explained this by saying that the missiles have become more advanced, reaching longer ranges......"
US Must Reevaluate Its Relationship With Israel
By Scott Ritter
".....The insidious manner in which the current Israeli government has manipulated the domestic political machinery of the United States to produce support for its policies constitutes nothing less than direct interference in the governance of a sovereign state. The degree to which the current Israeli government has succeeded in this regard can be tracked not only by the words and actions of the administration of President George W. Bush and the American Congress, but also by the extent to which a pro-Israel lexicon has taken hold within the mainstream media of the United States. Witness the pro-Israel bias displayed when discussing the situation in southern Lebanon, the air strike in Syria, or the Iranian situation, and the retarding of any effort toward a responsible discussion of anything dealing with Israel becomes apparent.
One would expect such efforts to shape the domestic public opinion of a state deemed hostile, but when the target of these Israeli actions is its ostensible best friend, one must begin to question whether or not the friendship is a one-way street. And if this is indeed the case, then perhaps it is time for the United States to reconsider its decades-old policy of strategic partnership with Israel......"
'The Values We Share'
By John Pilger
"When Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke recently about his government's devotion to the United States, "founded on the values we share," he was echoing his Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, who was preparing to welcome the Saudi dictator to Britain with effusions of "shared values." The meaning was the same in both cases. The values shared are those of rapacious power and wealth, with democracy and human rights irrelevant, as the bloodbath in Iraq and the suffering of the Palestinians attest, to name only two examples......."
"When Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke recently about his government's devotion to the United States, "founded on the values we share," he was echoing his Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, who was preparing to welcome the Saudi dictator to Britain with effusions of "shared values." The meaning was the same in both cases. The values shared are those of rapacious power and wealth, with democracy and human rights irrelevant, as the bloodbath in Iraq and the suffering of the Palestinians attest, to name only two examples......."
Breaking the Bestial Siege of Gaza: What we can do
12.15.2007 | FreeGaza.org
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:30:39 -0800
From: womeninblackla[at]gmail.com
To: WomeninblackLA[at]gmail.com
Subject: Breaking the Siege of Gaza
This email is being sent to those of you who endorsed the petition we sent to the Israeli Philharmonic a year ago. At the time, we said we would seldom email you unless another project evolved that was of equal or greater importance. Well, Breaking The Siege of Gaza is that project. We need:
* your organizational endorsements, which you can send to this email address as you did last year
* your donations
At the end of the year, if you're looking for a worthy cause to donate whatever amount you can, please consider this project. After exhaustive work by one member in our group, we have been granted a 501C3, and your donations are tax exempt.
Some may already know about what we Palestinians/Israelis/Internationals are trying to accomplish. For those of you who don't know, please go to our website, www.freegaza.org , where we have outlined what we are doing and why. Sailing to Gaza in May/June 2008 to break the terrible Israeli siege of an occupied people is innovative and courageous. We already have 65 people from 15 countries asking to come onboard. The media has also written about our preparations.
Over the past five months, we have raised almost $65,000 to buy three boats.Those donations have come from people around the world who believe in this action. But we need three times that amount to purchase these boats.
We will accept any amount. You can donate through the Paypal account on our website, or you can write out your tax-deductible check to The Free Gaza Movement and send it to:
The Free Gaza Movement
405 Vista Heights Rd.
El Cerrito, CA 94530
All funds will be used to buy the boats to go to Gaza.
If any of you would like more information on the project, please email me at this address, and I will send more information.
Finally, if you know of a list of people who would be interested, you are welcome to forward our plea onward.
Greta Berlin
Women in Black Los Angeles
The Free Gaza Movement
www.freegaza.org
Nahr al-Bared treated outside of the law
Sari Hanafi, Associate Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut.
The Electronic Lebanon, 17 December 2007
"......The destruction of the Nahr al-Bared camp is one main of the consequences of the camps being a space of exception, but after the fighting ceased, there came more. From the official end date of the fighting in early September until 10 October, the camp was placed exclusively under the control of the Lebanese army, not allowing residents of the new camp to return. Later, thousands returned to houses that had been burnt, looted and vandalized. Interviews we conducted as well as those by the Amnesty International Fact Finding Mission attest to what appears to be a systematic pattern of burning and looting. Racist graffiti written in many homes of the camp is accompanied by the names of various Lebanese army commando groups. While the preliminary looting had committed seemingly by Fatah al-Islam and some camp inhabitants, however, who has been doing that if nobody can enter the camp except the Lebanese army?
Not only did Fatah al-Islam perceive the camp as a space of exception and out of law but so did some of the army officers. It can be looted and vandalized, and thus, so far no independent investigation has been carried out, although Amnesty International has written to the Lebanese prime minister and to Ministry of Defense calling for an investigation to be initiated and those responsible to be held accountable.
It is very interesting that there is almost no public debate over such an important issue. As a space of exception, the camp has constituted an emergency zone where witnesses are not allowed: even journalists and human rights organizations are being denied entry to the camp. It is this suspension of laws that facilitates the potentiality of vendettas and looting. The Palestinian population is homo sacer: people whose property is not only destroyed but also looted without allowing the criminals to be prosecuted.
Many refugee camps are at the verge of catastrophe and no security solution can stop this route. It can only be helped by engaging in a serious process based on the following elements: allowing the Palestinian refugees to have full access to the labor market, including liberal professions; allowing the Palestinians the possibility to possess land and property; establishing an elected popular committee in each camp, a quasi-municipality, to be in charge of the camp administration; establishing joint Palestinian-Lebanese police centers in each camp; and, finally, the ending of the space of exception status of the camps by submitting the camps to the full Lebanese laws."
Leading article: 'We are not handing over a land of milk and honey'
The Independent
".....For all the fine words and formality, however, there was no concealing the uncomfortable and many-layered truth. This was not a victory, certainly not for the British, but not for the Iraqis either. For security reasons, the ceremony took place not in the city of Basra proper, but at the airport encampment to which the British had withdrawn three months earlier. The control that the British were handing over to the Iraqis was a flattering way to describe a security muddle contested by rival militias. Nor were the British actually leaving. They were merely moving from a combat to an "overwatch" function, which means that they will continue to train Iraqi forces and can be called upon to assist them, if needed......
With British troops no longer on the frontline anywhere in southern Iraq, that hope will now be tested. But it is a bleak legacy that this wholly unnecessary conflict leaves behind, and one that will not be erased for a very long time."
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Hamas at 20
Analysis by Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah
".....Undoubtedly, the huge turn-out ( nearly one-third of the Gaza Strip’s total population) is an unmistakable proof that Hamas is still very popular among Palestinians despite the rabid American-led efforts to scuttle the movement, possibly in order to facilitate the appearance of a quisling-like Palestinian leadership that would succumb to Israeli hegemony and colonialist aspirations......
At 20, Hamas seems a young, viable, and aspiring movement, with hundreds of thousands of mostly young Palestinians indoctrinated in the moderate political ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. This moderation, needless to say, will ensures Hamas’s continuity, growth and prosperity.....
.....Indeed, despite erratic and stupid utterances by some ignoramuses who are members of Hamas, Hamas doesn’t actually consider Jews as enemies. In fact, Jews who support justice and true peace and who stand against oppression and occupation are Hamas’ partners for a better future for both Jews and Muslims in this tormented land.....
Twenty years are not a long period in the history of nations and their struggle for freedom and independence. However, looking back at what Hamas has achieved, one can safely claim that Hamas has been a valuable asset for the enduring Palestinian struggle.
To begin with, from the very inception, Hamas offered an authentic alternative to the corruption of the PLO which par excellance encapsulated and continues to encapsulate the meaning of corruption, despotism, dictatorship, nepotism, favoritism and even treason......
Actually, thanks to the political culture that Hamas helped foster and consolidate among Palestinians, there is no dignified Palestinian politician, even from Fatah, who would publicly express a readiness to give in on such red- lines like East Jerusalem, the refugees and the totality of any prospective Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories....."
".....Undoubtedly, the huge turn-out ( nearly one-third of the Gaza Strip’s total population) is an unmistakable proof that Hamas is still very popular among Palestinians despite the rabid American-led efforts to scuttle the movement, possibly in order to facilitate the appearance of a quisling-like Palestinian leadership that would succumb to Israeli hegemony and colonialist aspirations......
At 20, Hamas seems a young, viable, and aspiring movement, with hundreds of thousands of mostly young Palestinians indoctrinated in the moderate political ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. This moderation, needless to say, will ensures Hamas’s continuity, growth and prosperity.....
.....Indeed, despite erratic and stupid utterances by some ignoramuses who are members of Hamas, Hamas doesn’t actually consider Jews as enemies. In fact, Jews who support justice and true peace and who stand against oppression and occupation are Hamas’ partners for a better future for both Jews and Muslims in this tormented land.....
Twenty years are not a long period in the history of nations and their struggle for freedom and independence. However, looking back at what Hamas has achieved, one can safely claim that Hamas has been a valuable asset for the enduring Palestinian struggle.
To begin with, from the very inception, Hamas offered an authentic alternative to the corruption of the PLO which par excellance encapsulated and continues to encapsulate the meaning of corruption, despotism, dictatorship, nepotism, favoritism and even treason......
Actually, thanks to the political culture that Hamas helped foster and consolidate among Palestinians, there is no dignified Palestinian politician, even from Fatah, who would publicly express a readiness to give in on such red- lines like East Jerusalem, the refugees and the totality of any prospective Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories....."
Abbas staring at oblivion
A Repost of an Important Article
By Mark Perry
This article was originally posted here on July 31 with Mark as guest columnist on Tony Karon's Rootless Cosmopolitan blog.
Lucia Has pointed out How prescient Mark was at that time.
Even Haaretz is Now Advocating "a new Palestinian national unity government!"
The military option failed
By Haaretz Editorial
"......Qassam rockets were fired at Israel even when it controlled Gaza completely. The smuggling of arms and explosives took place under its nose even when IDF patrols controlled the Philadelphi route on the Gaza-Egypt border. The claim that the Qassam attacks began only after the withdrawal from Gaza has no basis. Nor has Israel refrained from using its military might to try to stop attacks. A temporary reoccupation of northern Gaza, targeted killings, aerial bombings, penetrations into Gaza, total closures, sealing the border crossings - all these are part of a military repertoire aimed at thwarting attacks on Israeli soil. In other words, the claim that the IDF has been sitting on its hands is also false. The military option is not a plan that has been gathering dust on the shelf; it has been extensively employed - and has failed. A wider war does not promise anything better.
Therefore, it would be better to reexamine the alternative. Hamas understands that Qassam rockets cannot destroy the State of Israel, but they can certainly block diplomatic progress - because stopping the fire is Israel's first and most important demand of the Palestinian Authority, and without this, there will be no negotiations. What is needed is a courageous Palestinian stance to spur renewed cooperation between Fatah and Hamas, and the formation of a new Palestinian national unity government. Such a joint leadership would be able to propose a real cease-fire and institute civilian cooperation. Israel should not fear such a development - especially when the military option appears dubious. "
حماس بعد عشرين عاماً على الانطلاقة
A Very Good Analysis in Arabic
ياسر الزعاترة
".....مع عملية الإبعاد الكبرى عام 92، وانطلاق مسلسل العمليات الاستشهادية كانت حماس قد أصبحت الرقم الصعب في المعادلة الفلسطينية، لكن الواقع العربي والدولي ظل على انحيازه إلى فتح ومنظمة التحرير، فكان اتفاق أوسلو الذي طارد خلاياها المسلحة، بل وبنيتها التحتية أيضاً، لكن تجذّر الحركة في الواقع الفلسطيني كان أكبر من قدرة أي حرب على تحجيمها، بل إن شعبيتها كانت في تصاعد تبعاً لمعاناتها من قمع الاحتلال وسلطة أوسلو الفاسدة في آن معا. وقد كان قرار الحركة بمقاطعة الانتخابات عام 96 صائباً كما أثبتت الوقائع بعد ذلك، إذ كانت المشاركة فيها تعني التأمين على مسار أوسلو ومفرداته.
إثر وصول مشروع أوسلو إلى الجدار المسدود في قمة كامب ديفد صيف العام 2000، اندلعت انتفاضة الأقصى نهاية سبتمبر/ أيلول من ذات العام، وفيها استعادت حماس، وهذه المرة ضمن وحدة وطنية مميزة، زخمها الجهادي، فكانت المرحلة الأكثر أهمية وروعة في تاريخ النضال الفلسطيني برمته.
وفيما شعر العدو بثقل التهديد الوجودي الذي مثلته الانتفاضة بزخمها الاستشهادي وما ترتب عليها من خسائر سياسية وتدهور لمكانة دولته في أوساط الرأي العام الدولي، فقد قرر الرد في اتجاهين: الأول إعادة الاحتلال المباشر لمدن الضفة الغربية من جديد ربيع العام 2002، ومن ثم حصار ياسر عرفات في المقاطعة.
أما الثاني فإعلان قرار الانسحاب الأحادي من قطاع غزة عام 2003، وتهيئة الأجواء لتنفيذه باغتيال قادة حماس الكبار واحداً إثر الآخر، وعلى رأسهم الشيخ أحمد ياسين وعبد العزيز الرنتيسي، وليتبعهم بعد ذلك بياسر عرفات مهيئاً الأجواء في ظل أجواء احتلال العراق وتراجع الوضع العربي لمرحلة سياسية جديدة يتصدرها من رفضوا المقاومة المسلحة (العسكرة بتعبيرهم) خلال انتفاضة الأقصى.
أجريت الانتخابات الرئاسية لمنح الوضع الجديد شرعيته، وحصل الرئيس على تهدئة لإطلاق المفاوضات مطلع العام 2005، ثم كانت الانتخابات التشريعية مطلع العام 2006 بهدف الحصول على تفويض شعبي لبرنامج التفاوض، فكانت النتيجة المفاجئة التي أربكت الوضع برمته.
منذ البداية كان رأينا أن قرار المشاركة في الانتخابات لم يكن صائباً بحال، فهنا ثمة انتخابات تحت سقف اتفاق أوسلو الذي وضع السلطة وقيادتها رهائن بيد المحتل ومن يقدمون لها المساعدات (الأميركان والأوروبيون) فيما يعلم الجميع أن معادلة الجمع بين السلطة والمقاومة هي أقرب إلى المستحيل منها إلى الحقيقة.
الآن، وبعد هذه التجربة المريرة ووجود 42 من نواب الحركة بالضفة الغربية في السجون، إلى جانب مئات المعتقلين لدى السلطة، وما جرى منذ الفوز بالانتخابات ومن ضمنه الحسم العسكري في القطاع، وما ترتب عليه من خسائر سياسية، يمكن القول إنه آن أوان الاعتراف بخطأ التقدير السياسي الذي قاد هذه المرحلة التي عكست في جوهرها روحية التعاطي مع واقع قطاع غزة تبعاً لوهم تحرره من الاحتلال، وليس عموم القضية الفلسطينية. مع العلم أن القطاع لم يكن يوماً أسّ الصراع، ولطالما تمنى الإسرائيليون أن يبتلعه البحر.
أياً يكن الأمر فما جرى منذ مطلع العام 2006 لا يضرب حركة كبيرة ورائعة بحجم حماس (مهرجان الانطلاقة في غزة يوم السبت 15/12 شاهد على استمرار الشعبية). وقد تكون له حسنة تعطيل مشروع الدولة المؤقتة الذي رسمه شارون (إلى الآن على الأقل) وهو مشروع كارثي يؤبّد النزاع على أساس فاسد يتمثل في دولة منزوعة السيادة على قطاع غزة وما يتركه الجدار من الضفة الغربية (ثمة هراء ينشره بعضهم حول موافقة حماس على الدولة المؤقتة بناء على وثيقة قيل إن أحمد يوسف قد توافق عليها مع جهات أوروبية، مع العلم أن الرجل ليس مخولاً بالحديث باسم حماس، فيما أعلنت الحركة مراراً وتكراراً تنصلها من هذا الأمر، ورفضها الفكرة برمتها، مع العلم أن هجاء القوم للموقف لا يتم حرصاً على القضية وإنما خوفاً من المنافسة في ذات المربع التفاوضي).
نعم، ما جرى منذ الانتخابات كان ينطوي على بعض الأخطاء التي أساءت للحركة وتراثها، لكن ذلك لا يقال إلا لأن الحركة بتراثها الرائع من الدم والشهداء والبطولة والتضحيات قد حظيت بمكانة في ضمير الأمة لم تحظ بها أية حركة أخرى على الإطلاق، كما شكلت رافعة مهمة للظاهرة الإسلامية برمتها.
إن حركة لها كل هذا التراث الرائع لا يمكن أن تتراجع مكانتها بين الفلسطينيين، وفي الوعي الجمعي للأمة، لمجرد ارتكابها بعض الأخطاء التي جاء أكثرها في سياق ردود الفعل على الاستهداف المبرمج.
وفي العموم فإن حركة يستهدفها الكيان الصهيوني ومعه الولايات المتحدة إلى جانب العديد من الدوائر العربية، لا يمكن أن تتراجع مكانتها، لاسيما أن عنوان بوصلة وعي الجمعي للأمة هو الوقوف في المعسكر المقابل للمعسكر الأميركي الصهيوني، فكيف حين يكون الطرف المنافس لها في الساحة الفلسطينية مقيماً على عبثيته السياسية، فيما يطارَدُ مجاهدو الحركة ومؤسساتها لحساب الاحتلال في الضفة الغربية (تنفيذ البند الأول من خريطة الطريق).
في المقابل ينبغي الاعتراف بأن جذر الأخطاء التي ارتكبت من طرف حماس إنما يتمثل في وهم السلطة الذي سيطر على البعض في قطاع غزة، في تجاهل لحقيقة أن الضفة الغربية ما تزال بالكامل تحت الاحتلال، مع العلم أن القطاع ليس سوى واحد ونصف في المائة من مساحة فلسطين، وستة في المائة من الأراضي المحتلة عام 67، وليس هو لب الصراع، ولا يغير ذلك بالطبع في حقيقة أن تحريره قد وقع بالفعل بقوة المقاومة والصمود والتضحيات وليس التفاوض.
الصراع بين الأمة وبين مشروع الاحتلال الصهيوني ما يزال في ذروته، ومن يعتقد بأن الانسحاب من القطاع قد غيّر الكثير في أسس الصراع فهو واهم، ولما كان الأمر على هذا النحو فإن المقاومة هي السبيل الوحيد، وأقله الأساسي في التعامل مع ذلك الاحتلال.
لقد آن أوان الاعتراف بأن مشروع السلطة هو مشروع مصمم لخدمة الاحتلال، وقد كان المحللون الإسرائيليون يسمون سيناريو حل السلطة بأنه "السيناريو الكابوس"، وحماس لن تتمكن من حرف مشروع السلطة عن وجهته التي صيغ من أجلها. أما الديمقراطية تحت الاحتلال فهي وهم آخر أريد من خلاله استدراج حماس بعيداً عن ميدان المقاومة.
خلال ما يقرب من عامين من دخولها الانتخابات وقع تراجع في خطاب حماس السياسي، وبدأنا نتابع أدبيات لا تنتمي إلى تراث الحركة. صحيح أن حماس لم تعترف بشرعية الاحتلال، لكن مضمون الكلام في عدد من الوثائق، وعلى رأسها وثيقة حكومة الوحدة الوطنية كانت تفعل ذلك على نحو من الأنحاء.
لا يعيب حماس أن تراجع مسيرة العامين الماضيين، لكن ذلك لن يحدث من دون الاعتراف بوجود الخطأ، ومن ثم العمل على إعادة الصراع والمسيرة برمتها إلى سكتها الصحيحة، فتراث أحمد ياسين والرنتيسي هو أمانة بيد قيادتها في الداخل والخارج، وهم لن يحافظوا على ذلك التراث إلا بالخروج من وهم السلطة، والعودة إلى ميدان المقاومة بما تيسر، هي التي لم تغادره رغم كل شيء، وفي العموم فإن مسيرة المقاومة تتقدم وتتراجع بحسب الظروف.
المهم أن تبقى الراية مرفوعة، وقد فعلت الحركة ذلك من قبل عندما قاطعت الانتخابات عام 1996، واستمرت في برنامج المقاومة في الحد الأدنى إلى أن اصطدم أوسلو بالجدار المسدود صيف العام 2000.
من إشكالات السلوك السياسي لحركة حماس منذ عامين، بخاصة بعض رموزها والمتحدثين باسمها، ما يمكن القول إنه تجريب المجرّب، ولو كانت سياسة التفاوض والتنازلات والتقرب من الغرب تأتي بنتيجة لحصل عليها ياسر عرفات، بل لحصل عليها محمود عباس الذي يبدي قابلية غير مسبوقة للتنازل في تاريخ النضال الفلسطيني.
بعد عشرين عاماً على انطلاقتها تقف حماس أمام مفترق طرق صعب، فهي من جهة تقبض على تراث رائع من البطولة والتضحية جعلها الحركة الأكثر شعبية في العالم الإسلامي، فيما تعيش أزمة بدأت تطرح الكثير من الأسئلة حول دورها وحضورها، لأن الجماهير لا تمنح أحداً شيكاً على بياض، بل تبايع على أساس خطاب معين، وتسحب بيعتها إذا تغير.
كلنا ثقة في أن هذا التراث الرائع لن يضيع، وأن قيادة الحركة ستعيد ترتيب أوراقها من جديد على نحو لا يستعيد فحسب مكانتها الأصيلة التي لم تتراجع سوى على نحو هامشي، خلافاً لما يروج مناهضو برنامجها، بل يضيف إليها مزيداً من المكانة والحضور، لأن الخطاب الإسلامي المقاوم هو وحده القادر على تحرير فلسطين واستعادة الكرامة. وما يزيدنا ثقة في ذلك هو المصير المحتوم لبرنامج التفاوض، بل لعموم المشاريع الأميركية الإسرائيلية في المنطقة.
حماس رأس حربة الأمة في مواجهة المشروع الصهيوني الأميركي، وهي في حاجة إلى دعم رموز الأمة وجماهيرها وحركاتها، تماماً كما هي بحاجة إلى النصح والتصويب إذا أصاب مسيرتها بعض الخلل."
Bolton: Bush must 'rein in' Rice
Former American ambassador to UN slams president's foreign policy, says Bush 'doesn't supervise Secretary of State Rice enough'
"US President George W. Bush's foreign policy is in free fall and puts the nation's security at risk, former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told a German magazine on Sunday.
Bolton , who was a leading hawk in the US administration and favored a tough stance against Iran, North Korea and Iraq, told the Der Spiegel weekly that Bush needed to rein in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"His foreign policy is in free fall. The president is acting against his own judgment and instincts (and is) under the influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice," he was quoted as telling the magazine.
Bolton said Rice's was the dominant voice on foreign policy and that she was a channel for the views of liberal career bureaucrats in the foreign ministry.
"(Bush) does not supervise her enough. That is a mistake," he was quoted as saying, adding that a moderate foreign policy was a threat to US security.
"North Korea will, for example, now keep its nuclear weapons. And the Iranians have got a signal from our own intelligence services that they can do whatever they want.
"I am not as confident as the intelligence services that Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program."....."
Boycott Leviev: join us for an Alternative Caroling Protest, Dec 22
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY:
"Join Adalah-NY and the Palestine Liberation Singing Troupe for some post-Hannukah, pre-Christmas, end of Eid, Winter Solstice, nondenominational caroling outside of Israeli diamond and settlement mogul Lev Leviev's NYC storefront.
The tunes will be familiar, but the words will be tweaked to highlight the destruction of communities that Leviev sponsors in Palestine, New York and Africa, and the profits Leviev makes from human rights abuses.
MEET AT 1PM, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22ND
700 MADISON AVE, BTW 62ND AND 63RD
Make the shortest day of the year the longest day for Leviev!
For more information: www.mideastjustice.org
Boycott Leviev!
To see what the demo might look like:
www.mideastjustice.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105"
Leading article: The world gets the better of Bush
The Independent
"Last week was the week, and yesterday was the day, when the world finally showed that it was terminally fed up with the simple-minded, short-sighted and self-serving outlook of George Bush. The moment came not, as it well might have done, amid the dust and bloody debris of Iraq or the torture and state terrorism of Guantanamo Bay, but in Indonesia's lush and lovely Island of the Gods. And, appropriately, it came over climate change – the issue on which the "toxic Texan" first showed that he was going to put his ideological instincts and oil-soaked obstinacy over the interests of the rest of the world and of future generations......
The full scale of the White House's isolation and humiliation, and its consequences for the fading superpower's standing around the world, needs to be understood by the presidential candidates of both parties. We need the US to take a leading role in the battle against climate change."
Hamas holds PA security apparatuses responsible for kidnappings waged by IOF
"NABLUS, (PIC)-- Hamas held the PA security apparatuses directly responsible for the fierce campaign of kidnappings waged by the IOF troops at dawn Sunday against a large number of Hamas leaders and cadres in Nablus atop of them was MP Ahmed Al-Haj, Ahmed Dawlah and members of the Nablus municipality.
In a statement received by the PIC, Hamas confirmed on Sunday that this fierce campaign was waged in the context of security coordination between Fatah-affiliated security apparatuses and Israeli occupation, where the former always provides Israel with information about the movement and places of Hamas leaders and cadres in the West Bank.
Hamas highlighted that this campaign of kidnappings against the movement will only boost its strength and make its presence more rooted in the hearts of the Palestinian people, adding that (American security coordinator Keith) Dayton and his aides will fail to silence the movement's voice and will leave the sacred land of Palestine as Mitchell, Zinni and the likes of them had left before.
This fierce campaign waged against Hamas by Israel in collaboration with the PA security apparatuses included prominent figures in the movement in addition to members of the municipal council including Annan Ghazal and Abdeljabbar Duwaikat, and lecturers at the Najah university, namely Dr. Mustafa Al-Nammar and Dr. Ghassan Dokhan in addition to kidnapping a number of other citizens affiliated with Hamas.
The IOF troops also stormed and ransacked the house of Dr. Aziz Dwaik, the speaker of the PLC in Nablus......"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)