Hezbollah Secretary General: Lebanon Pushed into Sensitive Stage from STL Gate

Al-Manar

".....The Sayyed stressed that “we have to bear in mind that as of this moment, Lebanon has been pushed into a very sensitive and complicate stage from the gates of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).” His eminence also underlined the right of the resistance to defend itself regardless of those who “philosophize and claim that he who defends himself confesses his crime.”

“An indictment had been written, before the investigation (into the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri) and before Hezbollah members were interrogated as witnesses. It was written but its issuance was delayed for political reasons. Judge Daniel Belmar’s deliberations with UNSC members and French officials had to do with the political timing, not the context. Before leaving to Washington, PM Saad Hariri visited me and told me that in month ‘x’, an indictment will be issued and it will implicate ‘undisciplined members of Hezbollah’, not the whole party.”....

Sayyed Nasrallah reminded that the target was the resistance “which constitutes the main obstacle for any settlement that would establish a U.S. and Israeli hegemony against the Palestinians.” He called on so-called March 14 powers to review their position “because the results of their stances and their policies have affected Lebanon and the region.”....

Sayyed Nasrallah concluded his speech saying that Hezbollah was not afraid of anything, even the indictment. “Let them issue it now and let us finish already. Those who conspire against the resistance and Lebanon – and have so far failed – ought to be concerned because more schemes will be foiled. We know the nature of the responsibility that we’re shouldering and we urge those who have so far miscalculated their moves to make the right calculations this time.”.....

....If the court said that Al-Qaeda had killed Hariri, I would refuse its conclusion because the international investigation has skipped one hypothesis; the Israeli hypothesis. Israel has the motive, the capabilities, the control and the interest to kill Hariri, but it is forbidden to work on this hypothesis. As long as it does not take this hypothesis into consideration, the court will not be unprejudiced.”....

The Hezbollah Secretary General concluded that the party has never and will never wage war, “knowing that the breakout of any war in the region will not be limited. In 2006 we captured two Israeli soldiers; never in history had the capture of two soldiers led to war.”
“We are a resistance movement working on liberating the rest of our occupied land our own way and we will defend our country like we have always done.”....."

Video of Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah's Press Conference on July 22, 2010.

مؤتمر صحافي لسماحة السيد حسن نصرالله ( السيد حسن نصر الله ) 22/07/2010

حماس وفتح والسلطة في استطلاعات الرأي

"....
لعل الاستخدام الأهم لنتائج الاستطلاعات خلال السنوات الأخيرة، تحديدا منذ الحسم العسكري، هو القول إن حماس ترفض المصالحة لأنها تعلم أنها ستخسر الانتخابات.

والحق أننا، وبصرف النظر عن النتائج المتوقعة للانتخابات، فإننا ندعو إلى رفضها تماما، لاسيما بعد أن ثبت للقاصي والداني أن هذه الديمقراطية تحت الاحتلال لا تختلف عن السلطة المصممة لخدمته، أي أنها إما أن تأتي بنتائج تخدم المحتلين أو ينقلبوا عليها، ولا مبرر لإعادة التجربة من جديد في ظل تهديد الناس بعودة الحصار في حال انتخبوا حماس (كيف تكون نزيهة في هذه الحال؟!)، وفي ظل الاستهداف البشع للحركة في الضفة، وبعدما تأكد الجميع من عبثية المفاوضات بينما تستمر عمليات الاستيطان وتهويد القدس، وبينما يستمر برنامج الدولة تحت الاحتلال (الدولة المؤقتة أو السلام الاقتصادي)، بما ينطوي عليه من تصفية للقضية.

والحل هو ما ذهبنا إليه مرارا ممثلا في ضرورة الانقلاب على هذه اللعبة برمتها، أعني لعبة السلطة التي تعمل لخدمة الاحتلال والتوافق على إدارة لقطاع غزة بوصفه منطقة شبه محررة وقاعدة للمقاومة، مع إطلاق برنامج شامل للمقاومة حتى دحر الاحتلال من دون قيد أو شرط عن الأراضي المحتلة عام 67 كمقدمة للتحرير الشامل
"

Al-Jazeera Video: Arab 'rape by deceit' conviction in Israel defended

"The crime of rape generally refers to non-consensual sexual intercourse.

But an Israeli court has jailed an Arab man in the country for 18 months for "rape by deception" after having consensual sex with an Israeli woman.

Sabbar Kashur had falsely introduced himself to the woman as a Jewish bachelor looking for a long-term relationship before they had sex.

The woman accused him of rape after finding out he was Arab....."

Real News Video: ISRAEL AND ECONOMIC "WARFARE"

"On Wednesday, July 14th, the Israeli Parliament approved the first of three readings of a new law. If passed, the law will make it illegal to declare a boycott on Israel or Israeli companies, participate in a boycott, or provide aid in the form of information to anyone who is part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. The bill also penalizes the Palestinian Authority for its decision in May to ban the use by Palestinians of settlement products. The law even affects international citizens who will be banned from entry into Israel for 10 years and will be effective retroactively. Lia Tarachansky of The Real News spoke with Dalit Baum of Who Profits and Ronnie Barkan of Boycott from Within about how their work will become illegal if this bill passes."

Women Prepare to Set Sail Past Israel (I Believe it When I see it; I Think That it is Posturing and Political Theater.)

By Mona Alami

"BEIRUT - The 'Maryam', an all-female Lebanese aid ship, currently docked in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli, is getting ready to set sail for Gaza in the next few days. The ship, which aims to break Israel's siege on the Palestinian territory, will carry about 50 aid workers, including some U.S. nuns keen to deliver aid to the long-suffering women and children of Gaza....."

Redundant but Dangerous Language

By Ramzy Baroud
Palestine Chronicle

"....Of course, none of this means that Abbas has actually adopted a serious shift in course. One need not dig up old archives to remember that the PA president felt the same way about the so-called ‘proximity talks’ with Israel last May. Before they began, he also expressed his opinion that the talks would be futile. He further insisted that no talks, direct or otherwise, would resume without a complete Israeli halt in settlement constructions in occupied East Jerusalem. After this grand declaration, Abbas went along with the proximity talks charade, while Palestinian families continued to be uprooted from their homes in their historic city. Only one barrier was removed before embarking on the proximity talks: Abbas and his men quit complaining......

Considering the numerous compromises that Qurei afforded in his very attendance of the conference, and his handshaking with Livni, one fails to understand the point of such statements.

These empty declarations will have no bearing on the outcome of events, nor will they force Netanyahu and his right-wing government to think twice as they carry on demolishing homes and uprooting trees. But they are more important than ever for the PA, as voices are rising in Washington, in London and elsewhere, demanding that the US and its partners acknowledge, if not ‘engage’ Hamas. Such a prospect is bad news for the West Bank Palestinian leadership, which understands that its relevance to the ‘peace process’ hinges on the constant dismissal of Hamas. Therefore, the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah will continue to adhere to its methodology: don’t criticize Israel too harshly, so as not to lose favor; follow the US dictates, so as to maintain a ‘moderate’ status and many privileges; and always give an impression to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims that the PA is the one and only defender of Jerusalem.

One wonders how much longer the Palestinian leadership can sustain this act, which is in fact the real exercise of futility."

The New Warlord of Oz

by John Pilger, July 22, 2010

".....The new prime minister’s partner is a former hair products salesman called Tim Mathieson. This would be of no interest had he not been given the job of “Australia’s men’s health ambassador” by one of Gillard’s cabinet colleagues, the health minister, even though he had no experience in healthcare. Mathieson is now a “rising star” in real estate, thanks to one Albert Dadon, whose company is seeking planning permission for a contentious high rise development in Melbourne. Dadon can claim membership of the Order of Mates. As head of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, he arranges admiring tours of Israel for politicians and journalists. Gillard went on such a junket last year in the wake of Israel’s massacre of 1400 people in Gaza, mostly women and children. She who would be the first female prime minister of Australia drooled her uncritical support for their killers. "

The problem with judging a blog by its commenters

By Stephen M. Walt

".....Why do they use such ugly tactics? The answer is simple: the case they are defending is so weak that they cannot rely on facts, logic, and claims of justice to win the day. To be perfectly clear, I am not talking about the case for Israel's existence inside its pre-1967 borders, which I wholeheartedly support. Rather, I am talking about the case for defending many of Israel's policies, including its actions in the Occupied Territories, and its recent wars against Lebanon (2006) and Gaza (2008-2009). I am talking about the case for giving Israel unconditional and uncritical backing no matter what it does, which is not in either America's or Israel's interest. Those cases cannot stand up to scrutiny, which is why Smith and Goldberg have to rely on name-calling and character assassination instead of facts, logic, and rational discussion.

One final point is in order about the lobby's efforts to marginalize individuals who criticize Israel. Smith's attack is obviously designed to try to convince the people who run Foreign Policy to drop me from its site. Why else would Smith make a pointed reference to the "owners of the Washington Post" and to the "advertising staff" there?...."

The National Security Product

by Philip Giraldi, July 22, 2010

"Those who are agonizing over whether Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was a double agent or just an agent or whether he was kidnapped or a defector are really missing the point. Amiri was just a small cog in the Greatest Show on Earth, the $100 billion a year US intelligence community. United States intelligence is a huge and expensive bureaucracy and the information it produces must be consumed even when it does not necessarily make Americans safer. More important than that, it is a product that must have enough bells and whistles to impress Congress, the media, and the White House to keep the money flowing. What that all translates to is that every success, no matter how minor or even debatable, must be spun and promoted to the fullest while every failure must be concealed. The tendency to do so is not unique to the intelligence community and one has only to look at the military’s contrived narratives relating to Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch, both of which were completely fictitious but supportive of a tale of heroism and self-sacrifice that the Pentagon was promoting.

CIA Case Officers are the bureaucratic version of used car salesmen.....

I have spoken to a number of intelligence officers who claim to have some insights into what went on with Shahram Amiri. My sources all agree that Amiri was not kidnapped. If he had been he would have disappeared down some hole after being "encouraged" to tell everything he knows. He was a volunteer, meaning he contacted the CIA himself, one account being that it was done over the internet and another suggesting that he walked into the US Consulate General in Istanbul. Either way he volunteered his services. He cooperated with the US for a while and there is nothing in what he provided that would suggest that he was a double agent. He did not have information of any real value apart from his secondhand corroboration of the lack of any Iranian nuclear weapons program, which might merit a footnote in the Iran NIE if it ever emerges. If he had been truly doubled one would have expected a long, carefully contrived narrative replete with blind allies and complicated deceptions. Amiri’s greatest impact will come when the Iran NIE report is again revisited in light of the re-defection, a process that has already begun. Poor Amiri was a small fish swimming in a pool full of piranhas and his future is bleak. He meant nothing, did not materially assist the United States, and is now being tossed away after being used to tout the great American intelligence success story. He will be disposed of by the Iranians after he has been similarly used."

Why Jordan is occupied by Palestinians

A powerful group of ex-army leaders say their country is being overrun – and they blame King Abdullah

By Robert Fisk

"....They moan that 86,000 Palestinians have received Jordanian passports unconstitutionally since 2005, that too many Palestinians are now in the Jordanian government, that corruption and a rigid adherence to American-Israeli policies are laying the groundwork for Israel to expel the West Bank Palestinians across the Jordan River. They have no time for the Jordanian-Israeli peace agreement.

Former General Ali Habashneh, Colonel Beni Sahar and Major General Mohamed Jamal Majalli interrupt their beef and chicken and "humous lahme" with expressions of fear and anger about the future of Jordan. Habashneh runs the Jordanian army's pensions committee and has 140,000 ex-army personnel and their families on his books; his voice is not to be taken lightly by King Abdullah of Jordan and his government. These are the king's men. But they are fierce nationalists.....

In most Arab countries, nationalism gave way to Islamist politics as old Arab secular movements failed in the face of Israeli and American pressure. But Jordan has reversed this transfer of influence. King Abdullah, to the satisfaction of most Jordanians of tribal or Palestinian origin, subdued the Muslim Brotherhood, stifled their parliamentary power and so preserved his own power. But the old-school army men and their followers, who include academics, schoolteachers and trade unionists, are now pushing the frontiers of politics in Jordan.

Around the restaurant table, there is frightening talk of ending the Arab peace treaty between Jordan and Israel; of creating a "Popular Army" of former servicemen who could create a territorial force to support regular soldiers in the event of an Israeli attack; of setting up a "new national army rather than a neo-colonial one".

General Habashneh is as explicit as any of the men. "There is corruption, a widening of the gap between rich and poor," he says. "Economic investment policies are destroying the country. This is what our national movement is all about. We are trying to get all our forces together to hold a national conference by the beginning of the new year, to decide on a strategic movement which will protect this country and remove the influence of the Israelis and Americans.".....

The open letter says that "the root cause of governmental weakness lies in the policies of privatisation and the liquidation of the public sector... that have led to the growing power of business interests and those who deal in corruption and shady financial deals... A narrow and unrepresentative coterie of political clans has monopolised the formation of cabinets and decision-making while preventing the Jordanian people from determining their fate and defending Jordan's national interests."....."

Now Afghanistan too shows the limits of American power

British troops are paying the blood price in Helmand, as they did in Iraq, of a now officially subservient relationship

Seumas Milne
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 July 2010

".....We are accustomed to the idea that Iraq has been a disaster; now we are getting used to seeing the war in Afghanistan in the same light. It has failed in every one of its ever-changing objectives – from preventing the spread of terrorism and eradicating opium production to promoting democracy and the position of women, which has actually deteriorated under Nato occupation according to Afghan women's groups.

What it has now really come to be about is the credibility of the US and Nato. There has long been an obvious way out of the Afghanistan imbroglio: withdrawal of foreign occupation troops, negotiated with all significant Afghan forces, including the Taliban, as part of a settlement guaranteed by the regional and other powers. The fact that a solution long backed by the war's opponents is now being taken up by its supporters is a measure of how badly things are going on the ground.

For what is now taking place in Afghanistan has the potential to reinforce what has already been demonstrated in Iraq: namely the limits of US power to impose its will by force. If the unmatched might of the American military can be seen off by a ragtag army in one of the poorest countries of the world, the implications for the new international order are profound. Which is why the US and its closest allies will do everything to avoid the appearance of defeat – and why many thousands more Afghans and Nato troops will pay the price of a war their leaders now accept can never be won."

Israel intensifies West Bank Palestinian home demolitions

"21 July 2010

Amnesty International has today called on the Israeli authorities to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes and other buildings in the West Bank, after a further 74 were destroyed in the Jordan Valley earlier this week.

The demolitions were carried out by the Israeli military in the villages of Hmayyir and 'Ein Ghazal in the area of al-Farisiya on Monday, displacing 107 people, including 52 children.


According to UN figures, at least 198 Palestinian structures in the West Bank have been demolished this year, resulting in the forced displacement of almost 300 Palestinians, half of them children, while 600 others have also been affected.

"These recent demolitions intensify concerns that this is part of a government strategy to remove the Palestinian population from the parts of the West Bank known as Area C, over which Israel has complete control in terms of planning and construction," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa......."

قوات كبيرة من الشرطة تجري تدريبات خاصة على إقتحام الأقصى...

عـ48ـرب

عممت " مؤسسة الأقصى للوقف والتراث" مساء اليوم صوراً قالت إنها لقوات كبيرة ومتنوعة من الجيش الاسرائيلي، تجري في هذه الساعات تدريبات واسعة على ما يبدو تحضيراً لأحداث جسام ستحدث في المسجد الأقصى المبارك ،

وقد قامت طواقم "مؤسسة الأقصى" بزيارة سريعة الى الموقع ، وهو في أحراش " بن شيمن " ، ورصدت طواقم " مؤسسة الأقصى " تجمعات قوات كبيرة ومتعددة من الجيش والشرطة الإسرائيلية ، وسيارات القوات الخاصة وداخل ما يشبه المعسكر قاموا ببناء مجسم لقبة الصخرة المشرفة ، وآخر لمجسم المسجد القبلي وبجانبه مجسم للهيكل المزعوم ، بوجود آلاف من عناصر الشرطة الإسرائيلية بين المجسمّين .

هذا وقامت قوات الشرطة بنصب شادر بلاستيكي أخضر حول موقع التدريب ، وبحسب ما رأى طاقم "مؤسسة الاقصى" فإن التدريبات كما يبدو تشمل التدرب على سيناريو وقوع أحداث كبيرة في المسجد الأقصى ، حيث تم التدرب على إقتحام واسع للمسجد الأقصى المبارك ، بآلاف من وحدات الجيش ، والقاء القنابل المتنوعة ، وسيناريو تصدي من قبل الفلسطينيين لهذه الأحداث ولذلك تقوم فرق الجيش والشرطة بالتدرب على امكانية القاء الحجارة والتصدي لها داخل المسجد الأقصى المبارك .

هذا ولدى قيام طاقم "مؤسسة الأقصى" بتصوير وقائع التدريب ، جاء جندي وقال انه الناطق باسم ما يسمى بـ "حرس الحدود" ، وسأل طاقم "مؤسسة الأقصى" عن هويتهم وسبب تصويرهم، ثم قال مدعياً ان ما نتدرب عليه هو تحضير لشهر رمضان، وعندما سألناه مستغربين؟! ، ولماذا يوجد مناظر لإلقاء الحجارة ، قال أنه يمكن أن يكون القاء حجارة في رمضان – بحسب قوله - .
"

Al-Jazeera Video: Gaza's only fisherwoman

"In Gaza, traditional industries like fishing are dominated by men but one 16-year-old girl is changing that.

She has taken charge of her father's fishing boat and the family's livelihood after he suffered an injury to his leg.

Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reports."

COMMENT:

I wonder how long will it be before Hamas issues a Fatwa against women fishing and stopping her.

According to Hamas, women are not allowed to swim at sea either! Soon the Hamas "Virtue Squad" will be after her.

Aid boat seeks to sail as 'Audacity of Hope'

The Free Gaza Movement

"A group calling itself U.S. Boat to Gaza is seeking $370,000 in the next month to send an aid ship to the Gaza Strip that would be named after President Obama's best-selling book "The Audacity of Hope."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR2010072006108.html

Rashid Khalidi, a friend of Obama who is active in Palestinian causes, has signed the appeal, part of a broader effort to thwart the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave.

(A second longer article with video is here at the New York Times http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/american-activists-plan-gaza-flotilla-ship-named-for-obama-book/ )

Khalidi, a Columbia University professor, briefly became the subject of controversy during the 2008 presidential campaign when Sen. John McCain's camp tried to make an issue of what it called Obama's suspect friendships. The news of Khalidi's involvement in the boat appeal has led the National Review to call for a Justice Department probe of the academic on grounds he may have provided material support to a terrorist group.

The White House declined to comment. Khalidi said he was not aware the boat would be named after Obama's book when he agreed to add his name to the list of sponsors.
"But if the name is a problem for the administration, it can simply insist publicly that Israel lift the siege: end of problem, end of embarrassment," he wrote in an e-mail."

The Ministry of Truth

By Philip Giraldi

"The Ministry of Truth was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by government to control information in his seminal novel 1984. A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. In Italy, Germany, and Britain the anonymous internet that most Americans are still familiar with is slowly being modified. If one goes into an internet café it is now legally required in most countries in the European Union to present a government issued form of identification......

The danger is real. Most Americans who are critical of the actions of their own government rely on the internet for information that is uncensored and often provocative, including sites like Campaign for Liberty. As this article was being written, a story broke reporting that Wordpress host Blogetery had been shut down by United States authorities along with all 73,000 Blogetery-hosted blogs. The company's ISP is claiming that it had to terminate Blogetery's account immediately after being ordered to do so by law enforcement officials "due to material hosted on the server." The extreme response implies a possible presumed terrorist connection, but it is important to note that no one was charged with any actual offense, revealing that the government can close down sites based only on suspicion. It is also likely only a matter of time before Obama's internet warfare teams surface either at the Defense Department or at State. Deliberately overloading and attacking the internet to damage its credibility, witness the numerous sites that have been "hacked" and have had to cease or restrict their activities. But the moves afoot to create a legal framework to completely shut the internet down and thereby control the "message" are far more dangerous. American citizens who are concerned about maintaining their few remaining liberties should sound the alarm and tell the politicians that we don't need more government abridgement of our First Amendment rights. "

The Complexity Conundrum

Our “anti-terrorist” effort: too big to succeed

By Justin Raimondo

"Many years ago I read a science fiction story in which earthmen are conducting a war against a primitive people in a far distant star system: the natives, while less developed than their Terran overlords, were putting up quite a fight, and the colonizers, in an effort to stamp out the insurgency, launched an effort to utilize their chief advantage – high technology – and finally crush the enemy, which was armed with little more than bows and arrows.....

The memory of this story is, admittedly, faded by the years – if anyone can identify the title and author, I’d be grateful – and I may have the details wrong, but in essence the theme of this well-told tale wasn’t just a warning that technology may not hold all the answers, but also that increasing complexity is a problem, one inherent in the very nature of “advanced” civilizations. In any case, this story came immediately to mind as I read the first installment of “Top Secret America,” by Dana Priest and William Arkin, currently being serialized in the Washington Post. ....."

One-State Debate Explodes Myth About Zionist Left

NOTE: An interesting article dealing with the same topic Ali Abunimah dealt with in his piece Israeli right embracing one-state? posted yesterday.

by Jonathan Cook

"A fascinating debate is entering Israel’s political mainstream on a once-taboo subject: the establishment of a single state as a resolution of the conflict, one in which Jews and Palestinians might potentially live as equal citizens. Surprisingly, those advocating such a solution are to be found chiefly on Israel’s political Right.

The debate, which challenges the current orthodoxy of a two-state future, is rapidly exploding traditional conceptions about the Zionist Right and Left.....

We should not romanticize these Likud converts. They are not speaking of the “state of all its citizens” demanded by Israel’s tiny group of Jewish non-Zionists. Most would require that Palestinians accept life in a state dominated by Jews. Arens, for example, wants to exclude the 1.5 million Palestinians of Gaza from citizenship to gerrymander his Jewish-majority state for a few more decades. None seems to be considering including a right of return for the millions of Palestinian refugees. And almost all of them would expect citizenship to be conditional on loyalty, recreating for new Palestinian citizens the same problematic relationship to a Jewish state endured by the current Palestinian minority inside Israel.

Nonetheless, the Right is showing that it may be more willing to redefine its paradigms than the Zionist Left. And in the end it may confound Washington by proving more capable of peace-making than the architects of Oslo."

Liberate all ghettos

Ewa Jasiewicz and Yonatan Shapira, The Electronic Intifada, 20 July 2010
(Yonatan Shapira is an Israeli solidarity activist supporting the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel.

Ewa Jasiewicz is a coordinator with the Free Gaza Movement and the Polish Kampania Palestyna.)

"....Our action is a small act of unarmed resistance intended to break the international silence on Gaza. It is to stir the conscience of Israeli tourists visiting the site of the old ghetto. It is to lift the spirits of the Palestinian people trapped inside ghettos in Palestine. We are civilians with little else in our hands aside from our solidarity and a spray can.

Our action is about the future and the kind of world we want to live in. It is one which supports and promotes our collective humanity. It is one of dignity, mutual respect and solidarity. A world without ghettos and walls of discrimination and prejudice.

"Never Again" means never again to crimes against humanity and dehumanization anywhere in the world. Liberate all ghettos."

Palestinian Rights in Lebanon

Allow Them to Own a Home? La, Abadan! (No, Never!)

By FRANKLIN LAMB
CounterPunch

"....One Palestinian academic, at a Palestinian research center who has studied this dilemma thoroughly told this observer, “About the only thing that keeps some in the government from trying to physically confiscate Palestinian real estate like they do in occupied Palestine is their sure knowledge that someone like Ahmad Jabril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) would resist on behalf of the refugees. So we don’t expect the government to move for Israeli style evictions no matter that some would like to, but the 2001 law must be changed.”

The simple, sisterly, moral, and internationally mandated Parliamentary solution is to amend the 2001 law to correct the pre 200l law registration problems and to allow Palestinians to own at least one home if they are able to afford it."

Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll

The current poll asks:

Do you agree with the Syrian government's decision to prevent veiled women from registering in universities?

With over 1,500 responding so far, 80% said no.

Amiri 'told CIA Iran had no bomb program'

By Gareth Porter
Asia Times

"WASHINGTON - Contrary to a news media narrative that Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri has provided the United States with intelligence on covert Iranian nuclear weapons work, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sources familiar with the Amiri case say he told his CIA handlers that there was no such Iranian nuclear weapons program, according to a former CIA officer.

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism official, told Inter Press Service (IPS) that his sources were CIA officials with direct knowledge of the entire Amiri operation.

The CIA contacts say that Amiri had been reporting to the CIA for some time before being brought to the United States while the hajj (pilgrimage) to Saudi Arabia last year, Giraldi told IPS, initially using satellite-based communication. But the contacts also say Amiri was a radiation safety specialist who was "absolutely peripheral" to Iran's nuclear program, according to Giraldi.....

For the Israelis and for some US officials, reversing the conclusion that Iran was not actively pursuing weaponization was considered a precondition for maneuvering US policy into a military confrontation with Iran. "

Who Needs the PA? USrael! Certainly Not the Palestinians.

Palestinians in Gaza denied PA passports
Rami Almeghari, The Electronic Intifada, 19 July 2010

"Nidal Abdo lives in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Four years ago he was at a friend's house in the nearby al-Bureij refugee camp when Israeli tanks moved in. When Abdo tried to escape the area, Israeli soldiers shot him in his left foot. Due to the injury, Abdo still can't walk or stand for long periods of time. He needs a metal rod inserted into his foot and because the surgery can't be performed in Gaza, his doctors have referred him abroad.

Amid all the obstacles preventing Palestinians in Gaza from traveling outside the besieged territory, Abdo faces an additional one. He needs a passport and despite five attempts to obtain one, he has so far failed.

"After three weeks, another travel agent phoned me and told me that officials refused to issue me a passport for security reasons," Abdo told The Electronic Intifada after just returning from a visit to a doctor in Gaza City. "I am a member of the Nuseirat Camp handball club and, thank God, most of the team members are considered to be Fatah supporters." This is significant for Abdo because many Palestinians believe that passports are now being issued based on political affiliation......

Students, patients seeking medical treatment and those with residency permits in neighboring Arab countries can leave Gaza through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing terminal when it is open, but only if they have a passport.

"Denying me my right to a passport is inconsistent with our Palestinian social or religious values," said Nidal Abdo. But like thousands of other Palestinians, he is still waiting for one."

Analyst: Israel’s Next War Could Be Lebanon

by Jim Lobe, July 20, 2010

"While speculation over a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities intensifies, at least one influential analyst is calling on Washington to focus more on the likelihood of a new war breaking out between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and how to prevent or contain it.

In his eight-page “Contingency Planning Memorandum” released last week by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), retired U.S. ambassador Daniel Kurtzer argued that Israel was more likely than Hezbollah to initiative hostilities and that it could “also use a conflict with Hezbollah as the catalyst and cover for an attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”.....

Nonetheless, Kurtzer calls for Washington to upgrade U.S.-Israeli intelligence exchanges; reiterate U.S. support for Israel’s right of self-defense and concerns about Hezbollah’s rearmament; increase pressure on Syria to halt arms shipments to Hezbollah; support international monitoring efforts; and prepare both for the likelihood of war and its aftermath, including the possibility of launching a post-conflict diplomatic initiative to promote a broader Arab-Israeli peace process.

Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, expressed disappointment that the study did not recommend a more assertive effort by Washington to push Netanyahu into negotiations with Syria over the occupied Golan Heights as a way of gaining Damascus’s cooperation in curbing arms supplies to Hezbollah....."

BP is Not Far Behind, by Schrank

Israeli soldier who shot British activist granted early release

Family of Tom Hurndall 'angry and shocked' as military court releases Taysir Hayb after serving six years in prison

The Guardian

"The family of British activist Tom Hurndall have said they are angry that the Israeli soldier who killed him is to be released early from prison.

Taysir Hayb will be freed next month after serving six years of his eight-year sentence, after a ruling yesterday by the Kastina military court in southern Israel.

Hurndall was shot in the head in April 2003 as he was helping Palestinian children to cross a street in the Rafah area of Gaza.

"We have barely had time to process the news. We all feel angry and shocked," Hurndall's sister Sophie told Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

Hayb was convicted of Hurndall's manslaughter in 2005 after claiming he was shooting at an armed Palestinian. He later admitted that was a lie.

The 21-year-old activist, who had been filming with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, died in London after nine months in a coma....."

White House shifts Afghanistan strategy towards talks with Taliban

(Cartoon by Carlos Latuff)

Senior Washington officials tell the Guardian of a 'change of mindset' over Obama administration's Afghanistan policy

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 July 2010

"The White House is revising its Afghanistan strategy to embrace the idea of negotiating with senior members of the Taliban through third parties – a policy to which it had previously been lukewarm.

Negotiating with the Taliban has long been advocated by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and the British and Pakistani governments, but resisted by Washington.

The Guardian has learned that while the American government is still officially resistant to the idea of talks with Taliban leaders, behind the scenes a shift is under way and Washington is encouraging Karzai to take a lead in such negotiations.

"There is a change of mindset in DC," a senior official in Washington said. "There is no military solution. That means you have to find something else. There was something missing."

That missing element was talks with the Taliban leadership, the official added......"

التدخين مسموح للرجال فقط!../ مصطفى إبراهيم*

مصطفى إبراهيم*
كاتب فلسطيني - غزة

".....
وتزامنت خطبة الجمعة المذكورة مع القرار الذي نفذه أفراد من المباحث العامة في حكومة حماس بمنع تدخين "الشيشة" في المطاعم والفنادق والمقاهي في قطاع غزة، وبعد الاحتجاج من قبل أصحاب تلك الاماكن تراجعت الحكومة عن القرار الذي اقتصر على منع النساء من تدخين "الشيشة" في الاماكن العامة والمفتوحة.

المتحدث باسم وزارة الداخلية في تبريره للقرار قال: "إن القرار لا يشمل المطاعم والأماكن المغلقة، وأنه اتخذ لأن (تدخين النساء للنرجيلة)، تتنافى مع العادات والتقاليد والأوضاع الاجتماعية في قطاع غزة، وأنه من غير اللائق، أن تضع المرأة قدماً على قدم وتدخن النرجيلة أمام الناس، في مشهد يضر بصورة شعبنا الذي يعاني من وطأة الحصار وتداعياته التي طالت كافة مناحي الحياة".

كثيرة القرارات التي اتخذتها حكومة حماس في قطاع غزة وتراجعت عنها مؤقتاً، قبل أن تفاجأ الناس وتطبقها بشكل تدريجي، ولم يكن لأي قرار أي سند قانوني، بل إن كثيرا من القرارات كانت من أجل التضييق على الحريات العامة، والحد من الحرية الشخصية للناس، ومنافية للقانون.

في غزة أصبح الناس يأخذون أي قرار يصدر عن حكومة حماس على محمل الجد، والشك في آن معاً، وأي قرار يتم اتخاذه سواء كان سلبا او إيجاباً يحمل تفسيرات وتكهنات كثيرة من قبل الناس الذين يُنظرون لذلك من خلال إحكام السيطرة وفرض حكومة حماس رؤيتها التي لم يخف عدد كبير من المسؤولين في الحركة ذلك.

القرارات كانت لإحكام السيطرة على المجتمع، وتتماشى مع رؤية حماس، استجابة لضغط من قاعدة الحركة المقتنعين بأنها حكومة إسلامية، وأنها الحكومة الوحيدة في المنطقة العربية التي تطبق الشريعة الإسلامية في قطاع غزة ومنه سوف ينطلق المشروع الإسلامي.

قبل عدة أشهر اتخذت الحكومة قراراً بفرض ضريبة ورسوم على السجائر، وكان تبرير ذلك أن سياسة الحكومة منع التدخين تطبيقا للقرار الذي صدر في العام الماضي بمنع التدخين في الأماكن الحكومية والعامة، وأن رفع أسعار السجائر وفرض الرسوم الجديدة للحد من إمكان تداوله، ومنع الأطفال من التدخين.

يتساءل الناس، ويشككون في قرار منع النساء من تدخين "الشيشة"، والتبرير الذي يقول أن ذلك يتنافى مع العادات والتقاليد والأوضاع الاجتماعية في قطاع غزة، ما علاقة أن تضع المرأة "قدما على قدم وتدخن النرجيلة أمام الناس" بالحصار الذي يعاني شعبنا من وطأته؟ فالمشاهد التي تضر بشعبنا ووطأة الحصار كثيرة منها على سبيل المثال لا الحصر، تهريب السيارات الحديثة عبر الأنفاق، والتي يمتلكها عدد قليل جدا من الأغنياء الجدد، والولائم وما يقدم عليها ما لذ وطاب من الطعام الذي يقدم للوفود المتضامنة مع أبناء شعبنا لرفع الحصار، وغيرها من المشاهد التي يتم التشكيك من خلالها في الحصار.
....."

Israeli right embracing one-state?

By Ali Abunimah
Al-Jazeera

"..... One might expect that any support for a single state among Israeli Jews would come from the far left, and in fact this is where the most prominent Israeli Jewish champions of the idea are found, although in small numbers.

Recently, proposals to grant Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank, including the right to vote for the knesset, have emerged from a surprising direction: Right-wing stalwarts such as knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin, and former defence minister Moshe Arens, both from the Likud party of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.

Even more surprisingly, the idea has been pushed by prominent activists among Israel's West Bank settler movement, who were the subject of a must-read profile by Noam Sheizaf in Haaretz......

Their visions still fall far short of what any Palestinian advocate of a single state would consider to be just: The Israeli proposals insist on maintaining the state's character - at least symbolically - as a "Jewish state," exclude the Gaza Strip, and do not address the rights of Palestinian refugees.

And, settlers on land often violently expropriated from Palestinians would hardly seem like obvious advocates for Palestinian human and political rights.

Although the details vary, and in some cases are anathema to Palestinians, what is more revealing is that this debate is occurring openly and in the least likely circles.

The Likudnik and settler advocates of a one-state solution with citizenship for Palestinians realise that Israel has lost the argument that Jewish sovereignty can be maintained forever at any price. A status quo where millions of Palestinians live without rights, subject to control by escalating Israeli violence is untenable even for them.

At the same time repartition of historic Palestine - what they call Eretz Yisrael - into two states is unacceptable, and has proven unattainable - not least because of the settler movement itself......

Transforming relationships

That proposals for a single state are coming from the Israeli right should not be so surprising in light of experiences in comparable situations.

In South Africa, it was not the traditional white liberal critics of apartheid who oversaw the system's dismantling, but the National Party which had built apartheid in the first place. In Northern Ireland, it was not "moderate" unionists and nationalists like David Trimble and John Hume who finally made power-sharing under the 1998 Belfast Agreement function, but the long-time rejectionists of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, and the nationalist Sinn Fein, whose leaders had close ties to the IRA.

The experiences in South Africa and Northern Ireland show that transforming the relationship between settler and native, master and slave, or "horse and rider," to one between equal citizens is a very difficult, uncertain and lengthy process.

There are many setbacks and detours along the way and success is not guaranteed. It requires much more than a new constitution; economic redistribution, restitution and restorative justice are essential and meet significant resistance.

But such a transformation is not, as many of the critics of a one-state solution in Palestine/Israel insist, "impossible." Indeed, hope now resides in the space between what is "very difficult" and what is considered "impossible".

The proposals from the Israeli right-wing, however inadequate and indeed offensive they seem in many respects, add a little bit to that hope. They suggest that even those whom Palestinians understandably consider their most implacable foes can stare into the abyss and decide there has to be a radically different way forward.

We should watch how this debate develops and engage and encourage it carefully. In the end it is not what the solution is called that matters, but whether it fulfills the fundamental and inalienable rights of all Palestinians."

Arab man who posed as Jew to seduce woman convicted of rape

An Arab resident of Jerusalem who had consensual sex with a woman who believed him to be Jewish, was convicted yesterday of rape by deception and sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Jerusalem District Court.

Sabbar Kashur, 30, was convicted as part of a plea bargain. According to the indictment, Kashur met the complainant in September 2008 in downtown Jerusalem, presenting himself as a Jewish bachelor looking for a serious romantic relationship.

The couple then went to a nearby building and had sex, after which Kashur left the building without waiting for the woman to get dressed.

When the woman found Kashur was not a Jew but an Arab, she filed a complaint that resulted in charges of rape and indecent assault.

In the verdict, deputy president of the Jerusalem district court Tzvi Segal, along with fellow judges Moshe Drori and Yoram Noam, wrote that although this wasn't "a classical rape by force," and the sex was consensual, the consent itself was obtained through deception and under false pretenses

Bibi Unmasked

Caught on tape: what the Israelis really think of us

by Justin Raimondo, July 19, 2010

".....What’s interesting – and embarrassing – about this leak isn’t the “revelation” that Israel’s amen corner in America exerts a decisive influence on US policymakers: who didn’t know that? The Israel lobby constantly boasts of it, while critics of US subservience to Tel Aviv consistently decry it. What we didn’t know, however, is how much the Israelis disdain us for it: “It’s absurd,” avers Bibi, and the settler lady, laughing, agrees with him. She, being an ardent nationalist, cannot conceive of a government that puts the interests of another nation over and above its own. Perhaps Bibi has a better idea of how the Israelis pulled that particular rabbit out of Uncle Sam’s hat, but emotionally it’s clear that he, too, finds the weakness of the Americans incomprehensible.

After all, it’s odd when you think about it: why would the mightiest empire the world has ever seen – a nation that spends more on its military establishment than all other nations of the world combined – kowtow before a country barely the size of Delaware? How is it that every attempt to heal this breach in our national security armor and our interests in the region – the running sore of the Palestinian question – has ended in utter failure, due entirely – as Bibi boasts – to the efforts of the Israelis to undermine it? How does the prime minister of a dinky little country almost entirely dependent on American largess stand up to the Emperor of the World – and win?....."

Egyptian leader's health on radar of U.S.

The Washington Times

"U.S. and Western intelligence agencies assess that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is terminally ill, and the Obama administration is closely watching the expected transition of power in a nation that for decades has been an anchor of stability in the volatile Middle East and a key U.S. ally....

Nonetheless, the 82-year-old Egyptian leader is thought by most Western intelligence agencies to be dying from terminal cancer affecting his stomach and pancreas.....
An intelligence officer from a Central European service told The Washington Times last week that his service estimates that the Egyptian president will be dead within a year, and before Cairo's scheduled presidential elections in September 2011.

Both the National Intelligence Council and the U.S. Central Command have tasked intelligence analysts to start gaming out scenarios after Mr. Mubarak's death and how his passing will affect the transition of power, according to three U.S. officials....."

حق حزب التحرير في التعبير

عبد الستار قاسم

كنعان
النشرة الالكترونية

"يبدو أن حزب التحرير الإسلامي ملاحق في أغلب بقاع الأرض، والعديد من أعضائه يتعرضون لمختلف أنواع القمع والتعذيب مثل الحرمان من حرية التعبير والاعتقال والتعذيب والطرد من الوظيفة والملاحقة في لقمة الخبز. هذا على الرغم من أنه حزب لا يحمل السلاح، ولا يقاتل بالحديد بالنار، ولا يقوم بأعمال التفجير والمقاومة المسلحة. إنه حزب يؤمن بضرورة إقامة الخلافة الإسلامية، ويقوم بحملة دعوية واسعة نحو تحقيق هذا الهدف.

المشكلة الكبيرة أن الحزب يتعرض لسياسات القمع في الأرض المحتلة/67 من قبل إخوته الفلسطينيين، ويُحرم من القيام ببعض نشاطاته. السلطة الفلسطينية في رام الله تلاحق أفراده ونشاطاته بوسائل مخنلفة، وحكومة غزة تمنعه من القيام بنشاطاته الجماهيرية. وهذا بحد ذاته عبارة عن مأساة يجسدها شعب يبحث عن التحرير والحرية. نحن شعب يقاتل منذ حوالي مائة عام من أجل الحرية والتحرير، ولا يجوز بتاتا ممارسة قمع ضد آخرين نحن نرفض أن يمارسه الآخرون علينا. وفي ملاحقة الحزب ما يشير إلى خلل خطير في الساحة الفلسطينية وهو ازدواجية المعايير، وازدواجية معاني المفاهيم.

من المفهوم أن حزب التحرير ناقد لاذع، ولغته قاسية في كثير من الأحيان، لكن الحل لا يكمن في منعه وحرمانه من التواصل مع الناس، وإنما يكمن في أمرين: أولهما الحوار المفتوح معه في مختلف وسائل الإعلام وعلى شتى المنابر، وثانيهما الرد عليه وتفنيد ما يقول. لا يجوز الهروب من مواجهة ما يطرحه الحزب بأعمال الكبت والقهر.

ليس من المفيد للشعب الفلسطيني على المستوى الأخلاقي والمستوى العالمي أن يمارس فلسطيني القمع ضد فلسطيني آخر سواء كان حزبا أو فردا أو جماعة إلا إذا كان هناك تعاون أو تعامل خياني مع العدو، وتآمر واضح على الشعب ومستقبله. أي أن الخيانة الوطنية هي المبرر الوحيد لزج الناس في السجون من الناحية الوطنية، مستثنيا بذلك الجرائم التقليدية المعروفة لدى كل شعوب الأرض. كيف هو موقفنا أمام العالم وشعوب الأرض عندما نمارس قهرا ضد حزب يعبر عن رأيه، مهما كان هذا الراي قاسيا أو غير منسجم مع السلطة الحاكمة؟

إذا كنا غير قادرين على تحمل الرأي الآخر، والاستماع إليه فإننا بالتأكيد في مرحلة بعيدة عن استيفاء متطلبات التحرير.
"

"Top Secret America" Washington Post Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced U.S. Intelligence System

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman



"An explosive investigative series published in the Washington Post today begins, "The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work." Among the findings: An estimated 854,000 people hold top-secret security clearances. More than 1,200 government organizations and nearly 2,000 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in 10,000 locations. We speak with one of the co-authors of the series, Bill Arkin....."

Egypt Decides To Deny Entry To Jordanian Aid Convoy

"The Egyptian Authorities prevented the “Ansar 1” Jordanian aid convoy from entering Egypt while on their way to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued an official decree preventing the convoy from entering the country by all means, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera reported.

Hussein al-Saoub, head of the “al-Jisr al-Araby”, the Arabic Bridge Company, phoned the head of the Jordanian convoy, late on Sunday at night, informing him that Egypt decided to prevent the convoy from entering Egypt.

There are 138 persons participating in the aid convoy. Al-Sa’oub said that the Egyptian Authorities decided that each person on the convoy is a “Persona non grata”.

The aid was sent by a company owned by the governments in Iraq, Jordan and Egypt; the plan was to leave on Monday morning from Aqaba in Jordan to the Nweibi’ Egyptian city.

Despite the Egyptian decision, convoy organizers decided to head to Aqaba in order to try to sail to Egypt before heading to Gaza.

Head of the Jordanian “Artery Of Life” committee, Wa’el al-Saqqa, said that the “al-Jisr al-Araby” company is the only company in charge of shipments between Aqaba and Nweibi’ on the Red Sea.

The company granted the participants all needed travel tickets and documents but Egypt officially decided to prevent them from entering."

No Burka Ban For Britain, by Schrank

America lowers the flag: Iraq's unquiet peace

At the end of next month, the United States is pulling its combat troops out of Iraq. But the country they are leaving behind is still a barely floating wreck

By Patrick Cockburn

"....At first sight, oil could be the solution to Iraq's innumerable problems; but in Iraq in the past, and in other oil states, it has proved a political curse as well as an economic blessing. Countries reliant on oil and gas exports are almost invariably dictatorships or monarchies. Control of oil revenues, not popular support, appears to rulers to be the source of their power. If there is opposition, then oil wealth enables leaders to build up and pay for security forces to crush it.

No country in the world needs carefully calculated compromise between communities and parties more than Iraq does, but oil may tempt the governments to rely on force. This is what happened to Saddam Hussein, who would never have had the strength to invade Iran or Kuwait without Iraq's oil wealth. The same thing may happen again: an over-mighty – if corrupt and incompetent– state may try to crush its opponents rather than conciliate them. Oil alone will not stabilise Iraq."

Yet Again Hamas Rises to Face the Real Challenges Facing the Palestinians: Hamas bans women from smoking water pipes

Habit destroys marriages and sullies image of Palestinians, claims interior ministry

The Guardian

"Hamas has banned women from smoking water pipes in cafes, saying it destroys marriages and sullies the image of the Palestinian people. "It is inappropriate for a woman to sit cross-legged and smoke in public," said Ihab Ghussein, the interior ministry spokesman yesterday. Plainclothes security officials marched through popular seashore cafes over the weekend, ordering owners not to serve water pipes to female customers. Confused owners initially thought the ban applied to both men and women, killing most of their evening business. The Hamas government swiftly issued a statement reassuring residents the ban only applied to women.[Ah.....The Talibanization of Gaza is proceeding on schedule!]

Smoking water pipes is a popular habit among both sexes in the impoverished Gaza Strip....."

Iran's Mottaki Leaves for Kabul Conference. Offering Help to the Empire Through the Back Door?

Al-Manar

"19/07/2010 Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki left Tehran on Monday for an international conference in Kabul also being attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, reports said.

State television's website reported that Mottaki is heading a high-ranking Iranian delegation to the conference. ISNA news agency said he would also meet with Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai. Kabul will host on Tuesday a major gathering of its international partners, including Clinton and 40 other foreign ministers....."

The West is Worried....
About The Imminent Death of Israel's Ally.

Have the Embalmers Ready!

Unlike Iraq, dressing retreat up as success will be difficult

(Cartoon by Khalil Bendib)

By Patrick Cockburn

"....The US leadership is clearly divided on the merits of staying in Afghanistan, but cannot work out how to withdraw without too great a loss of face. It reached the same conclusion over Iraq, but there the situation was easier. The anti-US insurgents came from the Sunni community – which made up only 20 per cent of Iraqis – who were under intense pressure from the Shia government, the armed forces, militias and death squads. The insurgency in Afghanistan is drawn from the Pashtun community, 42 per cent of the population, and so far shows no sign of splitting [Chalk one up for the Afghans, contrasted with the Iraqis!].

With Iraq, it was enough that US voters got the impression they had won. A retreat could be conducted with no US objectives achieved, but nobody could be accused of cutting and running. This was the achievement of General Petraeus, now the military commander in Afghanistan.

But political and military conditions are wholly different there. Dressing up a withdrawal as some sort of success will be far more difficult in Afghanistan."

CIA suspects Iranian nuclear defector who returned to Tehran was a double agent

The CIA is investigating whether Shahram Amiri, the Iranian nuclear scientist who defected to the US but last week flew back to Tehran, was a double agent.

CAUTION: Read with a healthy dose of skepticism; this is The Telegraph!

The Telegraph

".... But his decision to fly back voluntarily, claiming outlandishly that he was kidnapped by CIA and Saudi agents during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia last June and then tortured in the US, has prompted suspicions that he was a double agent working for Iran all along, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

There are also questions about why the Iranian authorities allowed him to travel alone to Saudi Arabia, despite his sensitive work, and why he left his family behind if he was intending to leave Iran permanently.

And his role as one of the sources for the now heavily disputed 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that downplayed Iran's suspected nuclear weapons operations has raised further doubts. The US intelligence community has been working on a new NIE that will give a much more alarming assessment of the Islamic republication's atomic bomb ambitions.

The CIA nonetheless believed that Mr Amiri was a genuine defector as he was debriefed in Arizona and revealed information about how the Tehran university where he worked was the covert headquarters for the country's atomic programme......"

The Maiden frontier

Could Iron Maiden's philosophy inspire an alternative economic system in the Middle East?

By Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera

"....A musical path towards modernisation

And it is here that the group's unique philosophy offers interesting lessons for its large fanbase across the Arab and Muslim worlds - a young generation that is struggling to define a new role for themselves and the region in a globalised system that, much like the music business, seems rigged against them.

First and foremost, do not play their game. Neoliberalism, the dominant system of globalisation, will never produce greater prosperity, democracy or sustainable development for the vast majority of the peoples of the region, precisely because this model of economic integration inevitably concentrates wealth, and through it power, in fewer hands.

Of course, this process suits autocratic elites and the relatively small but politically crucial class of citizens who benefit from such policies just fine. But for average Egyptians, Moroccans or Syrians, this paradigm has brought few if any benefits.

Secondly, think historically, stay true to your roots, and "do it yourself". One of the main reasons why heavy metal, and Maiden in particular, are so popular across the Middle East and Muslim world is precisely because the genre, and the band, represents a "DIY," or do it yourself, philosophy that has allowed artists and fans to avoid the compromises that have plagued other genres like hiphop and mainstream rock.

For centuries the peoples of the Arab and Muslim world have been told that they had to follow someone else's model. They have had to contend with policies imposed from above and outside - first through colonialism and then again, beginning in the 1970s, through the "structural adjustment programmes" that have been at the heart of IMF, World Bank and other Washington consensus policies towards the region.

Today, a new generation is emerging across the region that refuses to accept this imbalance of power. But, the problem is how to create a viable alternative. One alternative, of course, is al-Qaeda and other extremist movements and ideologies. But as many Middle Eastern metalheads have pointed out while lamenting the fact that so many of their fellow citizens consider them little better than Satan worshipers, being an extreme metal fanatic is a lot better than the alternative.

And it is here too that the Maiden model is relevant. Songs like Brave New World, No More Lies, Fear of the Dark, and their biggest hits like Trooper and Run to the Hills all resonate with the band's myriad fans across the region because the lyrics reflect the complexity of their histories, their lives, and their futures. These themes are even more pregnant with meaning in Beirut or Tehran, which have suffered such violence in the recent past, than they are in "the Mecca of music," Madison Square Garden.

"That's certainly one reason Maiden is special," explained lead singer Bruce Dickinson when I asked him about why the group is so popular in the Middle East. "But also, it's the family aspect. The band and the fans, we're like one big family," he continued, echoing the words of amazement an Egyptian friend of mine uttered when we first saw the scene in Dubai. "Finally, a real community," he said with an almost palpable feeling of joy.

As many metal fans from the region have pointed out to me, Maiden's songs remind them that they should not trust the hype and slogans promising a better tomorrow, that progress demands putting aside easy prejudices in favour of a much harder but more honest discussion about the future and that they should remember the past but not be afraid of the future.

If you do that, then you are in a position to create your own networks using your own tools, people, and principles: "Do it yourself" on an international scale. Instead of trying to jump on someone else's globalisation express, develop your own vision that is true to you. "Never sell out, never compromise, and always stay true," is how Smallwood explains it.

Joy, the final frontier

This is, of course, easier said than done in the Middle East, since the region's rulers in general have so much invested in the existing system. But Maiden succeeded precisely because the band worked around the system rather than trying to join it.

Of course, building a successful career as a rock band, however difficult, is nothing compared to building an alternative economic and cultural system in a region plagued by war, occupation, authoritarianism and poverty. But the point of music and the artists who produce the culture the rest of us consume is rarely to provide a direct blueprint for action.

Instead, it is to inspire, to give a vision of a different future and the courage to get up in the morning and figure out how to survive and even thrive in a system that is very much not set up for your benefit....."