Support a Palestinian Civil Rights Movement

Rima Merriman, The Electronic Intifada, 3 January 2007

A Palestinian demonstrator holds a Palestinian flag next to Israeli soldiers, during a demonstration against the Separation Wall in the village of Bilin near the West Bank city of Ramallah, December 22, 2006. (MaanImages/Moti Milrod)

Sometime in 2003, Condoleezza Rice declared to Reuters: "One of the really bad actors in the Middle East has just been deposed, and the president is not going to miss this opportunity" - meaning the opportunity to broker peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. But, as it turned out, not only did this promise remain unfulfilled, the "opportunity" of which Rice spoke did not even exist.

The really bad actor has now been hanged and hastily buried in what appears like Wild West justice to many in the Arab world. All that was missing from the spectacle was the picnicking rabble come to watch the hanging for entertainment. Far from being liberated, Iraq is a quagmire for both the US and the Iraqis. Neither the US's disastrous machinations in Iraq nor its past performance with regard to the Palestinians inspire confidence in its abilities to understand the complex sensibilities of the Arab world. Far from it.

In as much as the US has energy to spare for a peace plan between the Israelis and Palestinians, it means to bolster Abbas and give the upper hand back to Fateh with certain dire consequences obvious to everyone in the Middle East except to the US itself and to the Palestinian ruling elite whose economic interests are connected to Israel and who are supposedly in charge of the defunct "process" dreamed up at Oslo. What's more, if the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, there is no reason at all that US intervention is likely to result in anything close to fair negotiations for the Palestinians or that the US and Israel will meet Abbas even half way.

The unfortunate reality of Abbas and of any Palestinian "president" is that he is powerless. When a Hamas majority in the Palestinian legislative Council was elected back in January, the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni asked the following question about Abbas: "If he was useless or powerless even to advance negotiations before, what possible influence can he have when a party that runs what there is of Palestine does not actually want talks at all?"

"Useless or powerless" are adjectives that applied to Abbas before the elections, as they now apply to the Palestinian government that is running "what there is of Palestine." Recently, Abbas said of Olmert, "We have to meet. We need each other." But the truth is that Abbas needs Olmert, but Olmert does not need Abbas.

One recent headline blared that "Israel will let Abbas obtain arms" - in a limited way, of course, just enough to make it easier for the Palestinians to get at one another. The whole point of the Oslo agreement was to set up the figure of the Palestinian president as a buffer between the Israelis and the Palestinian people, so that the Israelis will not have to deal with confrontations directly. Political opposition that springs from civil authority through a representative government is not permitted, hence all the talk about a "technocrat" government as a "solution" to the Palestinian attempt at democracy.

Democracy in the oPt is not permitted; it's as simple as that. You wouldn't guess at this fact, however, if you took as an indicator the number of NGOs that have been planted in what there is of Palestine through the support of foreign aid in order to enlighten the Palestinian public on that count. As a result, the Palestinian public that elected Hamas is now sufficiently politicized to guarantee an explosion of monumental proportions should any Palestinian leader sign the kind of agreement that Israel has gone a long way in shaping geographically based on its interpretation of the letter of the Oslo agreement - a cantonized, segregated West Bank interspersed by a strong Jewish presence.

Israel and the US control the Palestinian political game and they will not allow the much touted "democracy" to develop in the occupied territories. Palestinian political life is designed to be dysfunctional, because Abbas, who ought to get the source of his authority from the legislative branch (which is what democracy means), is instead totally reliant on Israel and the US to make him useful and powerful.

The way to go forward is for Palestinian civil society to insist on the empowerment of the Legislative Council, if necessary by electing Hamas again. As Azmi Bishara put it, "Since territorial sovereignty is lacking, sovereignty over institutions and through elected national institutions will have to take its place."

Clinging to the Oslo agreements is a sure dead end for the Palestinians. Since Israel's racism and apartheid intentions are at long last becoming clear to the world, the best course of action is to support a Palestinian civil rights movement that would make alliances within Israel's own civil society as well as internationally in order for "the hammer of international opinion and the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions" campaigns to be effectively activated against Israel.

Posthumous Secrets & Truths

Painting : Iraqi Artist, Dr. Ala Al Bashir

An Arab Woman Blues
A Powerful Piece
By Layla Anwar

"....A good deal of the reactions I have witnessed from the above lot were very similar to what I witnessed on the lynching video that has been circulating.
Hooded men jumping and dancing around a dead corpse.
So is this what it amounts to in the end ?
With this fascistic predisposition, America will be staying in Iraq for decades. The anti war movement can go and bury itself alive. They will be doing the Iraqi people a great favor by doing so. As for the "experts " on the Middle East, the Arabic speaking ones, they have shown their disgraceful face . Not that they were graced before, but as I said, Death has this cunning ability of revealing hideous traits and enhancing them. Have a look around the blogs and you will see for yourself. Some nearly orgasmed at the Execution.

When it comes to Human rights organizations, they are nothing but pitiful.
Was just watching an hour long program, an interview with the "head" of Amnesty International. Not one word mentionned about the human rights abuses in Guantanamo, not one word on the lynching of the late President Saddam Hussein, not one word on the illegal American occupation of Iraq. I will not even bother citing the other agencies. Variations on the same theme.

What can I say about the executioners? They will be featuring in another gruesome video soon- at dawn again. The first one was to celebrate the first day of the muslim Feast and the second one to celebrate it's ending.
When I look at them, I try very hard to put my disgust aside and I keep imagining in a cold rational way what exactly happened.
How they deliberately kept Saddam awake a few hours before his execution and would not let him sleep.They would show him the rope every 3o mn. How they refused to even let him smoke his final cigarette. How they taunted a man about to die with insults just before he is to be hanged. How they mutilated the face of a dead man and bruised it after his death . How they danced and sang later around the cadaver. My only relief is that they did not engage in some cannibalistic, necrophiliac orgy.
Then they probably went home and drank some halal whiskey , burped and fell asleep.A bit like the anti war movement really.
The irony is that despite all this morbid charade, Saddam outwitted them. He died as a very dignified person and they appeared as the sadistic criminals that they are. Too cowardly to drive home , a military American helicopter took them back to the Green Zone.

As for the American Zionists who planned the timing , they now claim that they tried to delay it. Catching up on saving some face, the little they have left, if at all. Still trying hard to show how humane they are.Politically correct oblige.

And what does the anti war movement do ? It applauds. And what do the so called fake "arab"2 cents worth "intellectuals" do? They applaud even harder.
And who joined the applause apart from America and the valiant "left"? Israel and Iran.

Curiously, after I finished writing my post " And the Crows sang at Dawn", I received a mail from a friend, out of the blue and by total "coincidence" entitled "the Jewish Calendar in Action."
And this what the e.mail said :
" Today the 10th of Tevet (31st of December- one day after the Death of Saddam Hussein) is a day of fasting , commemorating the siege of Jerusalem by the despot Nebuchadnezzar of whom Saddam claimed to be the reincarnation...and other more secular Jews commemorate this day as a remembrance for the loss of their loved ones during the Holocaust..."
Again,curiously enough the 10th of Tevet coincided with the Iranian Shi'ias celebration of Eid al Adha and the West's celebration of New Year's Eve.
A Diabolical timing indeed.

Some of you may get offended that I am lumping IT all together . Americans, Zionists Jews, Sectarian Iranian Shia's and the anti war "left". Am glad, because this is exactly what I am doing.
Those of you-whomsoever you are- you have not faced Death face to face or by proxy, and you, who can easily sit and plan, connive, strategize, theorize, analyze, calculate, council, orate or satirize in grave moments of history. In moments when hundreds are dying daily, where life is a thing of the past, when a sovereign country is being raped along with its people ...deserve nothing less than to be lumped together as a fascistic,sadistic,racist, ignorant,despicable,evil lot.

What you fail to understand and probably will never understand, being the limited people that you are is that Saddam's Death has ultimately nothing to do with the politician or the persona.
Grieving Saddam is grieving a concept, a symbol, a wish, a hope, a vision, a sense of belonging... But since you are so limited in your understanding of anything that goes beyond facts and figures, there is absolutely no point explaining it to you.

I leave you now in your tedious hypocrisy, in your boring ignorance and in your bigoted visions. But before I sign off , I have another secret to share with you. Do keep it hush hush and don't bother googling it because you won't find it on the web (your ultimate academic reference!).
Bremmer, the suave gangster Bremmer asked one of his assistants before he left office in Baghdad :
"How many are the Iraqis today?" the Assistant replied :" Around 24 million".
"Too much" he replied " WE shall bring it down to 5 million".
And you lot are helping him in this.

Now let me go and throw up as I am feeling politically nauseating.
Good night."

Gunmen target 3 Hamas leaders; 4th slain

RAMALLAH, West Bank - In a new round of factional fighting, assailants targeted three senior Hamas officials in the West Bank, kidnapping one, torching the car of a second and shooting in the air as a third emerged from a mosque, security officials said Thursday. Separately, a member of a Hamas security force was killed Thursday when his car came under fire from unidentified assailants in the Jebaliaya refugee camp in Gaza, a force spokesman said. Four other people were wounded. Hamas accused Fatah of the attack, but Fatah denied involvement.

Four killed, 20 wounded by IOF in Ramallah

Four Palestinians were killed and 20 wounded on Thursday when Israel Defense Forces undercover troops entered the West Bank town of Ramallah on an arrest raid, sending Palestinians fleeing and setting off a battle with gunmen in the center of town. During the raid in Ramallah on Thursday, bulldozers and armored personnel carriers were seen driving through Ramallah's central square, clearing cars out of the way and turning some over on the pavement. Gunshots could be heard throughout the center of the town, which was mostly deserted. At one point, an Israel Air Force helicopter fired, witnesses said.
continues...

Yes....More On Saddam

The inevitable end of Saddam
by Hasan Abu Nimah

"....Because he will never be tried for his other crimes, we may never know the full extent of Western, particularly American and European, complicity in supplying him with the chemical and other weapons he used, and the extent of the cooperation with his regime. The testament to this deliberately forgotten history is the grainy photograph of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld firmly clasping Saddam's hand.

Many truths which the world deserved to know have perished forever with that savage execution. Yet, even if Saddam's trial had been impeccably handled, the fundamental principle of justice is equality before the law. Such "justice" has no chance of winning over the masses in this region when they observe that punishment is so swift and brutal when the accused is an Arab, Muslim head of state, while other accused former leaders, like Slobodan Milosevic, receive elaborate trials in The Hague (so long in Milosevic's case that he died of natural causes several years into the proceeding).

The United Kingdom, which had General Augusto Pinochet in its custody, released him, and he, too, died peacefully, never having answered a charge against him.

Even worse, when attempts were made to initiate legal action against Ariel Sharon and other major Israeli war criminals in Belgium and other European capitals, the countries involved were subjected to enormous pressure to even change their legislation to obstruct justice and protect the accused.

In December, a United States district court in Washington, DC, dismissed a lawsuit against former Israeli chief-of- staff, General Moshe Yaalon, by some of his Palestinian victims, on the grounds that he is immune from the action because he wore a uniform at the time of his alleged crimes. This shocking reversal of some of the fundamental principles established at the Nuremberg trials passed almost without notice.

And, of course, there is the war that brought us to this point in the first place. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Iraqis are dying every day. Will those who justified a war through lies and fabrication, who flouted the UN Charter, who tried to use Iraq as a source of wealth and plunder for their corporations and contractors ever answer for their misdeeds? It seems more likely that they will retire as respected "statesmen" whose wise advice will be sought for decades to come.

At the end of an overstretched process which lasted for more than 16 years, including two major wars, separated by 12 violent years of harsh UN sanctions against Iraq and the innocent Iraqi people -- following the fatal invasion of Kuwait in 1990 -- the termination of Saddam and his regime was inevitable. What was not, is the ugly and costly manner in which this has been "accomplished" and, more frightfully, the lows to which superpower politics towards our region have degenerated.

The ugly killing of Saddam will do nothing to restore peace to the region, nor will it help Iraq. It is a mark of the savagery that has come to replace politics and diplomacy in international affairs, and of the reduction and humiliation of the Arab nation. It is no more than another blunder contributing further to the aggravation and the deterioration at a time when correction measures are urgently required.

Which of the rulers between Africa and Afghanistan, whether they now enjoy Western patronage or count the West as their enemy, cannot see themselves at the centre of the same horrifying and tragic drama? Perhaps that was the point all along. "

Israeli "traitor" vilified in press, freed after two years

Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv
Thursday January 4, 2007
The Guardian

An Israeli woman whose attempts to better understand Palestinians led to a campaign of vilification and charges of treason was released yesterday after serving more than two years in jail.

Tali Fahima, 30, said she had no regrets and insisted that she had done nothing to harm the state of Israel as she left prison to the cheers of a hundred supporters.

Ms Fahima, a legal secretary, was arrested in August 2004 after the last of a series of visits to Jenin, which were publicised in the media. She was detained without trial after the defence minister said she "took part in planning a terrorist attack in Israel".

She was attacked in the Israeli press as a "terrorist's whore" after journalists were briefed that she had an affair with a Palestinian militant, Zakaria Zubeidi, who is often described as Israel's most wanted man.

Ms Fahima said there was no truth in any of the allegations and said she was only arrested after she declined to work for Shin Bet, Israel's secret service.

When she was tried no evidence was presented of her involvement in a terrorist attack, although she admitted reading an Israeli army document that soldiers lost on patrol.

Ms Fahima pleaded guilty to meeting enemy agents and passing information to them as part of a plea bargain in December 2005.

The charges could have led to a life sentence but Ms Fahima was offered the opportunity to serve only a further 10 months in return for a guilty plea.

As part of the condition of her release she is "banned from leaving the country in the coming year, contacting a foreign agent or entering unauthorised territories", the Israeli prison service said in a statement.

She said she had no plans to visit Jenin and Zubeidi but said she wanted to continue to fight Israel's occupation of the territories.

Three Palestinian farmers wounded by Israeli fire in Gaza

Agence France Presse
4 January 2007

GAZA CITY, Jan 4 2007--Three Palestinian farmers were wounded Thursday by Israeli fire in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza near the border with the Jewish state, medics said.

An army spokeswoman said that Israeli soldiers saw two people approaching the border fence between Gaza and Israel, called on them to stop, and when the men did not heed the order fired at their lower body. The soldiers identified hitting one of the men, she said.

Under a November 26 ceasefire, Israel withdrew its troops from Gaza and militants were supposed to cease firing rockets.Since then, around 70 rockets have been fired into the Jewish state, and one Palestinian has been killed and at least six wounded by Israeli fire in the coastal strip.

Egypt-US-EU agents for Israel search Palestinian PM on return from Haj

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh arrived at the Egypt-Gaza border Thursday after undergoing unprecedented security measures to ensure that he is not carrying money or weapons into the Gaza Strip.

Haniyeh was returning from a pilgrimage to Islam's holiest city Mecca.

The measures were planned by representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the United States and the European Union.

Representatives of the four parties met in Jerusalem on Wednesday to coordinate security arrangements concluded during Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's meeting with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas nearly two weeks ago. They also discussed the operation of the Rafah crossing between Sinai and Gaza in anticipation of Haniyeh's arrival.

In accordance with the agreed-upon arrangements, the Saudi Arabian aircraft carrying Haniyeh landed in El-Arish and underwent a detailed security inspection by a joint American-Egyptian team, in the presence of Nizami Muhane, the PA official responsible for the border crossings. The team was to confiscate any weapons or money.

Afterward, Egypt informed the EU monitors at Rafah that Haniyeh and his aides are "clean" of both weapons and money.

Haniyeh will now have to complete the rudimentary inspection reserved for VIPs, following which he and his entourage will enter Gaza in four armored vehicles belonging to the office of the PA chairman.

Two weeks ago, Haniyeh was delayed for seven hours at Rafah after trying to enter Gaza carrying large sums of cash donated to Hamas during his visit to Iran and other Muslim countries that support the organization.

He was ultimately allowed to enter Gaza only after surrendering the cash to aides in Egypt. Both Abbas and Israel are trying to avoid a repetition of this scenario, which resulted in tensions among Fatah and Hamas, and also elevated Haniyeh to the status of hero among Hamas supporters.

Usrael Is Working Hard With Abbas' Thugs To Fuel Inter-Palestinian Fires
Wasfi Kibha, Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs, displays a burnt Quran, Islam's holy book, after assailants torched his car in the West Bank town of Jenin Thursday Jan. 4, 2007. Assailants targeted three senior Hamas officials in the West Bank, kidnapping one, torching the car of a second and shooting in the air as a third emerged from a mosque, officials said Thursday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. (AP Photo)

Sacrifice Translates into More Dead People

By Kurt Nimmo

"Is John “Keating Five” McCain sincerely clueless? Or is he simply a politician playing a cynical numbers game with Iraq and thus eventually condemning to certain death more troops that should be here at home, protecting our borders?

McCain told General John Abizaid he didn’t understand why the United States cannot “control” al-Anbar province and was flummoxed the general would suggest the “mission” is to train Iraqis to fight the “insurgency,” actually a popular resistance against both occupation by foreign troops and their hand-picked Iraqi proxy.

McCain expressed frustration that said “insurgents” have taken back al-Anbar, thus demonstrating you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, or at least teach him a bit of history and the inevitability of defeat for those who invade and attempt to occupy, as the French lost Vietnam at Diem Bien Phu and the British lost Afghanistan at the Gandamak pass. In Iraq, the Brits were unable to contain continual uprisings against occupation, even though they used mustard gas, a weapon favored Winston Churchill for the likes of “uncivilized” tribes. John McCain, the Manchurian candidate for president in 2008, does not even seem vaguely aware of such historical realities.....

But forget al-Anar, the Pentagon can’t even “secure” Baghdad, and will be unlikely to do so even if they send another 20,000, 30,000, or even 100,000 troops into the neocon constructed meat grinder.....

Admittedly, Bush may not know what he is doing from one moment to the next, as he is a former drunk and drug abuser, and thus a mental graveyard, but his coterie of neocons most certainly know what they are doing—coming up with excuses to send more troops into Iraq, not to win that which cannot be won, as another basket case, McCain, would have us believe, but rather to see through “mission accomplished,” the destruction and balkanization of Iraq. It’s a work in progress, with horrifying results. For instance, last weekend, a series of car bombings killed more than 70 people in Shia neighborhoods in the hours after Saddam Hussein was lynched by a gaggle of puppets installed by the neocons......

In other words, the American people can be expected to do nothing, or nothing effective, to put an end to the carnage, never mind the increasing flights of flag-draped coffins off-loaded at Dover Air Force Base. Of course, most Americans, many unable to find Iraq on a map, don’t know a thing about the 650,000 plus Iraqis slaughtered, and even if they did a whole lot of them wouldn’t care.....

Offing Saddam on the first day of the holy Eid holiday should have rung a bell with Americans, allowing them to realize the neocons, their leadership rife with Arab-hating Israel Firsters, will stop at nothing to turn up the heat of sectarian violence in Iraq.

“What the Shiite Arabs have to remember is that while the Sunni Arabs are a minority in Iraq, they in fact are a majority in the Arab world. They have the backing of the Sunni masses which form the basis of Arab nationalism,” writes Ilnur Cevik for the New Anatolian. “What they are attracting is more Arab Sunni enmity which will be very dangerous for the future of Iraq. Iran, which acts like the mentor of the Arab Shiites in Iraq, should also take this into account. The way Saddam was humiliated and mishandled in his final minutes by his Arab Shiite executioners will be deeply entrenched in the minds of many Sunni Arabs, and not only those who had sympathies for Saddam.” ......

Neocons, naturally, know the difference, and that’s why they do the things they do.

Get ready to sacrifice, indeed.

Next up, Iran. "

(Click on to enlarge)
The New Iraq: Sectarianiam, Hate, Vengeance, Chopping Heads, Extremism,...

From monster to martyr?

How Bush and Blair's choices have led to disaster in Iraq, culminating in a chaotic execution that is fuelling civil war

By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent

".......There is also a fear among Shia leaders that the US might suddenly change sides. This is not as outlandish as it might at first appear. The US has been cultivating the Sunni in Iraq for the past 18 months. It has sought talks with the insurgents. It has tried to reverse the de-Baathification campaign. US commentators and politicians blithely talk about eliminating the anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and fighting his militia, the Mehdi Army. No wonder Shias feel that it is better to get Saddam under the ground just as quickly as possible. Americans may have forgotten that they were once allied to him but Iraqis have not.

When Saddam fell Iraqis expected life to get better. They hoped to live like Saudis and Kuwaitis. They knew he had ruined his country by hot and cold wars. When he came to power as president in 1979, Iraq had large oil revenues, vast oil reserves, a well-educated people and a competent administration. By invading Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990, he reduced his nation to poverty. This was made worse by the economic siege imposed by 13 years of UN sanctions.

But life did not get better after 2003. Face-to-face interviews with 2,000 Iraqi adults by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies in November revealed that 90 per cent of them said the situation in their country had been better before the US-led invasion. Only 5 per cent of people said it was better today. The survey was carried out in Baghdad, in the wholly Sunni Anbar province and the entirely Shia Najaf province. It does not include the Kurds, who remain favourable to the occupation.

This does not mean that Iraqis want Saddam back. But it is clearly true that the chances of dying violently in Iraq are far greater today everywhere in the country outside the three Kurdish provinces than they were in 2002. The myth put about by Republican neoconservatives that large parts of Iraq enjoyed pastoral calm post-war but were ignored by the liberal media was always a fiction. None of the neocons who claim that the good news from Iraq was being suppressed ever made any effort to visit those Iraqi provinces which they claimed were at peace.

Saddam should not have been a hard act to follow. It was not inevitable that the country should revert to Hobbesian anarchy. At first the US and Britain did not care what Iraqis thought. Their victory over the Iraqi army - and earlier over the Taliban in Afghanistan - had been too easy. They installed a semi-colonial regime. By the time they realised that the guerrilla war was serious it was too late.

It could get worse yet. The so-called "surge" in US troop levels by 20,000 to 30,000 men on top of the 145,000 soldiers already in the country is unlikely to produce many dividends. It seems primarily designed so that President George Bush does not have to admit defeat or take hard choices about talking to Iran and Syria. But these reinforcements might tempt the US to assault the Mehdi Army.

Somehow many senior US officials have convinced themselves that it is Mr Sadr, revered by millions of Shia, who is the obstacle to a moderate Iraqi government. In fact his legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Shia Iraqis, the great majority of the population, is far greater than the "moderate" politicians whom the US has in its pocket and who seldom venture out of the Green Zone. Mr Sadr is a supporter of Mr Maliki, whose relations with Washington are ambivalent.

An attack on the Shia militia men of the Mehdi Army could finally lead to the collapse of Iraq into total anarchy. Saddam must already be laughing in his grave."

A drop into the abyss

Saddam jailed me but his hanging was a crime. Iraq's misery is now far worse than under his rule

Haifa Zangana
(Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of Saddam's regime)
Thursday January 4, 2007
The Guardian

"......About 500 academics and 92 journalists have been murdered since the invasion of Iraq. Hundreds more have been kidnapped, and many others have fled the country after receiving threats against their lives. The human costs are so high that many Iraqis believe that had there been a competition between Saddam's regime and the Bush-Blair occupation over the killing of Iraqi minds and culture, the latter would win by far. Sadly, I am becoming one of them.

I am speaking as one who has been, from the start, a politically active opponent of the Ba'ath regime's ideology and Saddam Hussain's dictatorship. At times that was at the high personal cost of prison and torture. In 1984, during the Iran-Iraq war, my family had to pay for the bullets used to execute my cousin Fouad Al Azzawi before being allowed to collect his body. But I find myself agreeing with many Iraqis, that life now is not just the continuity of misery and death under new guises. It is much, much worse - even without the extra dimensions of pillage, corruption and the total ruin of the infrastructure.

Every day brings with it, due to the presence of occupation troops to protect US citizens' safety and security, less safety and security for Iraqis.

The timing and method of the execution of Saddam Hussein proves that the US administration is still criminally high on the cocktail of power, arrogance, and ignorance. But above all racism: what is good for us is not good for you. We are patriots but you are terrorists.

The US and their Iraqi puppets in the green zone chose to execute Saddam on the first day of Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice. This is the most joyous day in the Muslim calendar when more than 2 million pilgrims in Mecca start their ancient rituals, with hundreds of millions of others around the world focused on the events. They then further humiliated Muslims by releasing the official video of the execution, with the 69-year-old having a noose placed around his neck and being led to the drop. The unofficial recording shows Saddam looking calm and composed, and even managing a sarcastic smile, asking the thugs who taunted him "hiya hiy al marjala?" ("is this your manliness?"), a powerful phrase in Arabic popular culture connecting manliness to acts of courage, pride and chivalry. He also managed to repeatedly say the Muslim creed as he was dying, thus attaching himself in the last few seconds of his life to one billion Muslims. Saddam had literally the final say. From now on, no Eid will pass without people remembering his execution.

This was the climax of a colonial farce with the court proceedings' blatant sectarian overtones welcomed by Bush and the British government as a "fair trial". The occupation also welcomed the grotesque public execution as "justice being done". Contrast this with the end of our hopes, as Iraqis in opposition, of persuading our people of the humanity of democracy and how it would, unlike Saddam's brutality, put an end to all abuses of human rights, to execution in public, and to the death penalty.

It is no good the deputy prime minister John Prescott now condemning the manner of Saddam's execution as "deplorable" when, as a representative of one of the two main occupying powers, his government is both legally and morally responsible for what took place.

It is hell in Iraq by all standards, and there is no end in sight to the plight of Iraqi people. The resistance to occupation is a basic human right as well as a moral responsibility. That was the case during the Algerian war of independence, the Vietnamese war of independence, and it is the case in Iraq now."

Clearing The Decks For The Attack On Iran

Second U.S. carrier group to deploy to Gulf: sources

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon will send a second aircraft carrier and its escort ships to the Gulf, defense officials said on Wednesday, as a warning to Syria and Iran and to give commanders more flexibility in the region.

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Bremerton, Washington-based USS John C. Stennis strike group would deploy this month. It will put 5,000 more U.S. sailors in the region, bringing the total to 16,000.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier group entered the Gulf in December.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to comment, saying the Defense Department would not discuss future deployments or ship movements. But military analysts said the move was intended to demonstrate U.S. resolve in the face of acts by Iran and Syria that it sees as provocative, such as Tehran's pursuit of its nuclear program.

The Stennis had been scheduled to deploy to the Pacific region. But the Pentagon agreed instead to send the carrier group to the Gulf after a request from U.S. Central Command, the military command responsible for Middle East operations.

Senior defense officials have said that request was aimed at increasing Central Command's flexibility in a variety of operations and providing deterrence in the region."

Why Saddam's Execution Clouds Bush's Iraq Plan

Viewpoint: Whether or not more troops are sent, the circumstances of Saddam's hanging are a stark reminder that the U.S. may lack an Iraqi partner for its strategy

By Tony Karon
Time

".......Having created a new state in Iraq — and not yet ready to admit that it is a failed state — the U.S. felt obliged to hand Saddam Hussein over to the Iraqis to administer the death penalty, even though Washington made clear it would have preferred that Saddam's sentence be administered at a less fraught moment — and in a less rushed manner. But being the ones to kill Saddam was a political prize for at least a section of the current government — the ultimate gesture of vengeance on behalf of the long-suffering Shi'ite majority, clearly calculated to boost the political standing of those who administered it. And so, as the video makes clear, Saddam faced death to the sound of chants proclaiming Shi'ite victory and extolling the name of the anti-American radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr — not exactly the healing denouement the U.S. had in mind for the Saddam era......

....So if, as the U.S. recognizes, the major security challenge in Iraq is sectarianism tending toward civil war, then the Iraqi government is hardly above the fray. (The two main Shi'ite militias responsible for most attacks on Sunnis, for example, are affiliated with the ruling coalition, which has tended to restrain U.S. military action against them.) While the Shi'ite leadership is willing to cooperate with the U.S. to the extent that this helps it pursue its own goals, the Shi'ite base is increasingly mistrustful of Washington's efforts to promote reconciliation with the Baathists and take down militias that many Shi'ites see as vital to their defense against Sunni insurgents. At the very moment the U.S. needs greater cooperation from the government, Prime Minister Maliki needs to show his independence from Washington, where doubts about his usefulness are no secret. No wonder he no longer wants the job....Continued."

Attack on Iran could bring devastation to Arab world

By Patrick Seale

"ALTHOUGH peering into the future is a hazardous business, it would not be rash to say that of all the potential man-made catastrophes that might afflict the world this coming year, for sheer destructiveness none would surpass a US or Israeli attack on Iran. Is such an attack probable or even possible? Regrettably, it is. In the current confrontation with Iran, the military option remains very much on the table. In both the US and Israel, the same military planners, political lobbyists and armchair strategists that pressed the US to attack Iraq are now urging it to strike Iran — and for much the same reasons. These reasons may be briefly summarised as the need to control the Middle East’s oil resources and deny them to potential rivals, such as China; the wish to demonstrate the US’s ability to project military power across the globe; and Israel’s determination to maintain its supremacy over any regional challenger, especially one as recklessly provocative as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An effective US or Israeli strike against Iran would have to destroy not only its nuclear facilities but also its ability to hit back — its entire military-industrial complex.

The attack would have to be so devastating it would rob Iran of the will and means to retaliate. This could take weeks of air and missile attacks and, because of the size of the country and the dispersal of its military assets, would be difficult to achieve. It seems more than likely that if attacked, Iran will, one way or another, manage to strike back — against US troops in Iraq, against Israel, and against US bases and US allies in the Gulf. Of all these targets, the Arab states of the Gulf — the most prosperous, modern and forward-looking of the Arab world — are perhaps the most vulnerable.

The effect on Arab society would be incalculable.

The effect would also be devastating on US-Arab relations, on Israel’s long-term security, on the flow of oil from the Gulf, on the oil price, on the economies of the industrial world and on the already highly fragile dollar. And yet, some influential voices argue that the only way the US can hope to “win” in Iraq is to destroy Iran.

US President George Bush is due to make a statement on his Middle East strategy soon. All the indications are that he will reject the advice of the Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, to engage Iran and Syria in a dialogue and to give priority to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

There is talk of sending more troops to Iraq, of tightening sanctions against Iran and Syria, of mobilising “moderate” Arab states against “extremists”, of arming the Fouad Siniora government in Lebanon against Hezbollah, and the Fatah forces of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against the Hamas government.

In the Horn of Africa, the US is lending its tacit support to Ethiopia in its war against Somalia’s Union of Islamic Courts, in the name of the ill-conceived war on terror which creates more terrorists than it eliminates.

Instead of bringing peace to a deeply troubled region, US policies are feeding the flames of civil war in Iraq, exposing US troops to greater danger, forcing Iran and Syria to look to their defences, exacerbating conflicts in Lebanon and Palestine and opening a new front in Somalia, which risks destabilising much of east Africa.

Still in the grip of the neoconservative cabal which has destroyed his presidency by its insane belligerence, Bush continues to see the Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah-Hamas axis as the main enemy to confront and bring down.

The real danger this year is that Saudi Arabia, alarmed at the rise of Iran and the self-assertion of Shiite communities in Lebanon and the Gulf region, will be persuaded to side with the US against Tehran.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to play cat and mouse with the international community, pretending to make concessions to Abbas, such as removing a few checkpoints and releasing a fraction of the funds it has sequestered, while blatantly establishing a new illegal settlement in the Jordan valley and pressing ahead with its infamous separation wall. The message is clear: Israel’s land grab on the West Bank will continue whatever Washington or anyone else might say.

Last year’s war in Lebanon confronted Israel with the choice of continuing to seek to dominate the region by military force and expanding its territory at the expense of the Palestinians or of making peace with the Arab world on the basis of something like its 1967 borders.

Ehud Olmert’s government in Israel has chosen the first option: it has rejected Syria’s offer to reopen peace negotiations for the return of the Golan Heights; it is not ready to end its occupation of Palestinian territory or allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state; it is rearming and retraining its forces in anticipation of a “second round” against Hezbollah in Lebanon; it continues its cruel war of attrition against the Hamas movement in Gaza; and it is determined to maintain its regional monopoly of weapons of mass destruction. Various influential Israelis have stated that if the US does not strike against Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities, Israel must do so itself.

If one considers the likely effect of these US and Israeli policies, it is clear the coming year is likely to be a hot one in the region....

...Continued."

Meanwhile in Palestine

Thirty Days Against Borders - Children of Nablus against the Occupation: School children from Nablus dressed up like Native Americans will gather in a peaceful demonstration at Huwarra checkpoint. Over four weekends in January and February, Palestinian, Israeli and international peace organizations will gather at both sides of Huwarra Checkpoint to protest against the regime of barriers which severely retricts movement in the West Bank. They will sing and play, have a photo exibition and in other ways demonstrate for peace.

Five killed as internal tensions resurface in Gaza Strip: In the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, three security officials loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas were killed Wednesday afternoon when unidentified gunmen attacked their vehicles, hospital officials said.

Bodies of a Woman and child found in Gaza: Dr. Mou'awiah Hassanin, director of the emergency department in the Palestinian ministry of health reported that Sami Ashour, 14, was found dead near a gas station in central Gaza strip, Dr. Hassanin added that the boy was beaten up on the head very badly, shot in the back and his body had torture marks. Apparently, the two cases are separate, however, this indicates a serious alarming situation in the Gaza Strip regarding the security situation.

Unknown gunmen abduct a Palestinian security officer in the southern part of Gaza Strip: Eyewitnesses reported that the gunmen opened fire at Mo'taz Al Tawil, 40, an officer working with the Palestinian Preventative Security forces, while he was leaving a mosque in Khan Younis at dawn.

Israeli army invades Nablus and Tubass: three residents abducted among an injured man. The Israeli army invaded the northern West Bank cities of Nablus and Tubass on Wednesday at dawn, attacked residents' homes, wounded one resident and abducted three including the wounded, Palestinian sourcess reported.

Fatah official: Hamas training in Iran, Lebanon: "We are sure according to information that we have that Hizbullah prepares Hamas for a confrontation with us (Fatah) and with Israel. None of these preparations takes place in Gaza, but they take place in Lebanon, in Iran and in other places where the Iranian and Hizbullah experts train Hamas militants," the senior Palestinian intelligence official told WND.

Marking the territory: At 6:30 last Friday morning, two cars waited for soldiers to open the checkpoint at the eastern entrance to Ramallah. This checkpoint is only for diplomats, Palestinian VIPs, journalists, employees of international organizations and anyone whose presence is welcomed by the military authorities. The checkpoint obligates thousands of villagers living in the vicinity to travel from 30 to 60 kilometers, instead of three to four km, so the settlers of Beit El and Psagot and of the outposts of Migron and Givat Asaf can exercise their landlordism.

Americans, Europeans told: Leave Gaza: The Palestinian security establishment has advised American and European citizens to leave the Gaza Strip following kidnapping warnings, Israel Radio reported Wednesday. The warnings were also aimed at United Nations Relief and Works Agency personnel who are in Gaza to aid Palestinian refugees. However, the UNRWA said that they did not intend to pull their workers out of the area.

Hamas claims Shalit progress, Israel says it's all 'spin': Israeli officials on Tuesday continued to dismiss various reports about an impending deal for the release of kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit as "media spin," even as Hamas sources were saying that the movement has agreed to release Shalit in return for "several hundred" Palestinian prisoners.

Arab MKs: We’ll torpedo budget if funds not given to Arab sector: The two MKs have demanded that $980 million of the funds allocated to developing the Galilee be transferred to Arab villages, and for hundreds of millions of shekels to be dedicated toward developing Arab communities in the Negev. They also asked the Education Ministry to build more classrooms for Arab students. Majadele told Haaretz Tuesday that he had been in contact with the Finance Ministry over the matter for a number of weeks.

Haniyeh cuts short tour of Arab world: The aides said Haniyeh would return to Gaza on Thursday to attend to "work" instead of traveling to Jordan, which has offered to host a meeting between Haniyeh and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah movement in an effort to defuse deadly tensions between their factions.

Mubarak-Olmert summit seeks to relaunch Mideast peace talks: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Thursday in a bid to relaunch the stalled Middle East peace process and to bolster Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in his standoff against the ruling Hamas party.

Netanyahu: Pensions cut – Arabs' birth rate declined: In his speech, Netanyahu referred to the cuts in child pensions, saying that since they were implemented "two positive things happened: Members of the haredi public seriously joined the workforce. And on the national level, the unexpected result was the demographic effect on the non-Jewish public, where there was a dramatic drop in the birth rate."

Meanwhile in Iraq

Saddam co-defendants to be executed Thursday: Saddam's half brother Barzan Ibrahim, a former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were originally scheduled to hang with Saddam, who was put to death on Saturday.

What about other U.S.-backed killers in the world?: What about the atrocities committed by other dictators around the world? Hosni Mubarak and other allies of U.S. who have done and are doing things that can only be considered crimes against humanity. How many of these are democracies? How many of these regimes respect human rights? And how many of these regimes receive American aid? There in lies the hypocrisy.

Bush promises new Iraq policy in the coming days: "Ultimately, Iraqis must resolve the most pressing issues facing them. We can't do it for them. But we can help Iraq defeat the extremists inside and outside of Iraq -- and we can help provide the necessary breathing space for this young government to meet its responsibilities."

Baghdad arrest in Saddam's death video: An Iraqi prison guard was arrested for illegally videotaping the Baghdad execution of deposed leader Saddam Hussein and posting it on the Internet.

Fresh violence in occupied Iraq claims 22 lives: Police said the found 15 more bodies dumped in the north of the city.

Iraq: At least 17 killed in another bloody day in Iraq: Police found five bodies bearing signs of torture and bullet wounds in the town of Nahrawan, 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.

Islamic Army calls for 'saving Baghdad from Iranian occupation': "Iraq is under a double, US-Iranian occupation, the worst being the Iranian Safavid (Shiite Persian) occupation," the IAI's "emir" said in an audio message posted on a website used by Iraqi insurgent groups on Monday.

16,273 Deaths Reported During U.S. Occupation of Iraq in 2006: Government officials reported that 16,273 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police died violent deaths in 2006, a figure larger than an independent Associated Press count for the year by more than 2,500.

Bush 'to reveal Iraq troop boost': The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces.

Chaos Overran Iraq Plan in ’06, Bush Team Says: President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.

Iraq orders shutdown of Baghdad office of TV station: The Iraqi government Monday ordered the closure of the Baghdad office of a Dubai-based television station whose newscaster wore black mourning clothes while reporting on the hanging of Saddam Hussein.

Iraq PM orders probe into Saddam video: The prime minister on Tuesday ordered an investigation into the conduct of Saddam Hussein's execution in a bid to learn who among the witnesses taunted the former Iraqi leader in the last minutes of his life, then leaked a cell phone video.

Thanks For The Memories: Short video explains the CIA's role in Saddams rise to power.

Truth at last, while breaking a U.S. taboo of criticizing Israel, By George Bisharat

Americans owe a debt to former President Jimmy Carter for speaking long hidden but vital truths. His book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid breaks the taboo barring criticism in the United States of Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. Our government's tacit acceptance of Israel's unfair policies causes global hostility against us.

Israel's friends have attacked Carter, a Nobel laureate who has worked tirelessly for Middle East peace, even raising the specter of anti-Semitism. Genuine anti-Semitism is abhorrent. But exploiting the term to quash legitimate criticism of another system of racial oppression, and to tarnish a principled man, is indefensible. Criticizing Israeli government policies - a staple in Israeli newspapers - is no more anti-Semitic than criticizing the Bush administration is anti-American.

The word apartheid typically evokes images of former South Africa, but it also refers to any institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another. Carter applies the term only to Israel's rule of the occupied Palestinian territories, where it has established more than 200 Jewish-only settlements and a network of roads and other services to support them. These settlements violate international law and the rights of Palestinian property owners. Carter maintains that "greed for land," not racism, fuels Israel's settlement drive. He is only partially right.

Israel is seizing land and water from Palestinians for Jews. Resources are being transferred, under the guns of Israel's military occupation, from one disempowered group - Palestinian Christians and Muslims - to another, preferred group - Jews. That is racism, pure and simple.

Moreover, there is abundant evidence that Israel discriminates against Palestinians elsewhere. The "Israeli Arabs" - about 1.4 million Palestinian Christian and Muslim citizens who live in Israel - vote in elections. But they are a subordinated and marginalized minority. The Star of David on Israel's flag symbolically tells Palestinian citizens: "You do not belong." Israel's Law of Return grants rights of automatic citizenship to Jews anywhere in the world, while those rights are denied to 750,000 Palestinian refugees who were forced or fled in fear from their homes in what became Israel in 1948.

Israel's Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty establishes the state as a "Jewish democracy" although 24 percent of the population is non-Jewish. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, counted 20 laws that explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews.

The government favors Jews over Palestinians in the allocation of resources. Palestinian children in Israel attend "separate and unequal" schools that receive a fraction of the funding awarded to Jewish schools, according to Human Rights Watch. Many Palestinian villages, some predating the establishment of Israel, are unrecognized by the government, do not appear on maps, and thus receive no running water, electricity, or access roads. Since 1948, scores of new communities have been founded for Jews, but none for Palestinians, causing them severe residential overcrowding.

Anti-Arab bigotry is rarely condemned in Israeli public discourse, in which Palestinians are routinely construed as a "demographic threat." Palestinians in Israel's soccer league have played to chants of "Death to Arabs!" Israeli academic Daniel Bar-Tal studied 124 Israeli school texts, finding that they commonly depicted Arabs as inferior, backward, violent, and immoral. A 2006 survey revealed that two-thirds of Israeli Jews would refuse to live in a building with an Arab, nearly half would not allow a Palestinian in their home, and 40 percent want the government to encourage emigration by Palestinian citizens. Last March, Israeli voters awarded 11 parliamentary seats to the Israel Beitenu Party, which advocates drawing Israel's borders to exclude 500,000 of its current Palestinian citizens.

Some say that Palestinian citizens in Israel enjoy better circumstances than those in surrounding Arab countries. Ironically, white South Africans made identical claims to defend their version of apartheid, as is made clear in books such as Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull.

Americans are awakening to the costs of our unconditional support of Israel. We urgently need frank debate to chart policies that honor our values, advance our interests, and promote a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. It is telling that it took a former president, immune from electoral pressures, to show the way.

The debate should now be extended. Are Israel's founding ideals truly consistent with democracy? Can a state established in a multiethnic milieu be simultaneously "Jewish" and "democratic"? Isn't strife the predictable yield of preserving the dominance of Jews in Israel over a native Palestinian population? Does our unconditional aid merely enable Israel to continue abusing Palestinian rights with impunity, deepening regional hostilities and distancing peace? Isn't it time that Israel lived by rules observed in any democracy - including equal rights for all?

George Bisharat (bisharat@uchastings.edu) is a professor of law at University of California Hastings College of the Law. He writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East. This article originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer and is reprinted by permission of the author.

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A reminder that our list of recommended books on Palestine, in bold on the right, is updated regularly and is now arranged by publication date.