President Bush and the Flying Shoes: A Cautionary Tale

By Robert Scheer

"The shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist is now a venerated celebrity throughout the Mideast, and his words to the president—“this is the farewell kiss, you dog”—will stand as the enduring epitaph in the region on Bush’s folly, which is the reality of his claimed legacy of success in the war on terror....."

Settlement builder met with worldwide protests

Press release, Adalah-NY, 16 December 2008

"Signaling growing outrage at Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev's businesses' global rights abuses, on 12 and 13 December human rights advocates in Dubai, London and two West Bank Palestinian villages held protests against Leviev's settlement construction. According to Gulf News, the protest in Dubai, unprecedented in the United Arab Emirates, came after a screening at the Dubai International Film Festival of a documentary film about Palestinian hip-hop artists. Leviev's sale of his diamonds through Arif Bin Khadra's Levant jewelry stores in Dubai has stirred controversy there.

Dubai's Gulf News reported that on Friday, "Forty T-shirts and one hundred letters from the West Bank town of Jayyous were distributed to the audience at the screening of Slingshot Hip Hop." Gulf News continued, "The distributed T-shirts called on Dubai residents to boycott Leviev as well as Levant Jewellery, owned by Leviev's local agent, Palestinian-Moroccan Arif Bin Khadra. Meanwhile, activists campaigning against Leviev's activities have set up a Facebook group that is calling for a boycott of all Dubai venues that host stores selling Leviev diamonds. The group has gained almost 400 members in less than two weeks since its launch, according to group administrator Jabbar, a UAE-based Palestinian rapper." Jackie Salloum, the Arab American filmmaker who made Slingshot Hip Hop, has visited Jayyous, one of the West Bank villages where Leviev is building Israeli settlements. She described the situation there as "dire," saying that "the 'security barrier' and colonies being built by Israel there have robbed its residents of their livelihoods."....."

Israelis Continue to Abuse Palestinian Prisoners

By Mel Frykberg

"RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec 17 (IPS) - Israel released over 200 Palestinians from Israeli jails in a "goodwill gesture" Monday. This followed the Muslim feast of Eid Al-Adha and was an attempt to boost the waning popularity of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Several prisoners spoke to the assembled local and international media about their time in detention. They accused the Israelis of maltreating and physically abusing detainees despite Israeli claims that torture and the abuse of prisoners have been outlawed and no longer occur.

Most of the detainees were Fatah members, the movement associated with Abbas and the ruling Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank....

While Israel's "goodwill gesture" was much touted by the Israeli media, the majority of the prisoners were mostly small-time political detainees, who were due for release fairly shortly, having already served most of their sentences.

Many were teenagers when imprisoned and none were convicted of injuring or killing Israelis. As negotiations were under way for the release of the 227 prisoners, hundreds more Palestinians were arrested by Israeli security forces.

The move was widely seen as an effort to boost Abbas's floundering PA....."

Iran's Regional Power Rooted in Shia Ties

A Good Article
By Gareth Porter

".....The pivotal development in the new Iranian position in the region has been the emergence of Iraq's Shi'a-dominated regime.

Hamid Reza Dehghani, director of the Center for Persian Gulf and Middle East Studies at the foreign ministry's think-tank, left no doubt in an interview that the transformation of Iraq from mortal enemy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a friendly state represents an epochal shift in Iran's security position in the region....

He cites the close connections between the Iranian and Iraqi Shia spiritual communities: the top Shia cleric in Iraq, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, is an Iranian; Iraqi Shia scholars study in Iran's main spiritual center, Qom; and hundreds of thousands of Iranians have made pilgrimages to the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala since 2003......

A paper on the "Shia Factor" in Iran's regional policy, published last month by the Center for Strategic Research, a think-tank that serves Iran's Expediency Council, acknowledges that Iran is now cultivating Shia allies, especially in Iraq and Lebanon, in pursuit of its national security objectives in the region. The author, Dr. Kayhan Barzegar, an international relations specialist at Islamic Azad University in Tehran, argues that Iran's close relations with the Shia in the region are aimed at "building a strategic linkage for establishing security."

The main strategic advantages of Iran's relationships with Shia movements, Barzegar writes, is the "installation of a new generation of friendly elites at the level of states, who have no backgrounds or feeling of enmity toward Iran." The Shia government in Iraq, according to the author, was the "turning point" in putting the "Shia factor" at the center of Iran's foreign policy.

But Iran's Shia diplomacy in the region also extends to Shia movements that either hold quasi-state power, like the Hezbollah in Lebanon, or that have remained shut out of political power completely, as is the case in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia......"

Muntadar al-Zeidi: Hero, Martyr, Symbol of Resistance

Reach for your shoes…

By Justin Raimondo

"The shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist, who is, by now, probably half beaten to death for the "crime" of paying back – in very small measure – George W. Bush for his crimes against the Iraqi people, is a folk hero to millions. And his admirers aren't all Iraqis or other Arabs, not by a long shot.

The shoe-wielding Iraqi television reporter, one Muntadar al-Zeidi, managed to sum up, in a single gesture, how much of the world feels about the 43rd president of the United States – including Americans.

Remember waaaay back when we were supposedly going to be greeted with showers of rose petals and high fives by the "liberated" peoples of Iraq? Mr. al-Zeidi seems to have definitively put that one to rest for all time......

The next time some pompous politician, earnest policy wonk, or just your average, everyday agent of a foreign power suggests invading and occupying a nation purportedly just waiting to be "liberated," we should all reach for our shoes and – like Mr. al-Zeidi – take careful aim…...

"This is a farewell kiss," al-Zeidi cried out, as he hurled his footwear at the presidential noggin, "you dog!" What struck a nerve, throughout the world, not just the Middle East, was the sight of an ordinary person who somehow got to express his opinion of the most powerful human being on the planet in a way that not only garnered attention, but also underscored the sense of powerlessness and frustration felt by Americans and Iraqis when it comes to this seemingly endless occupation.

The American people voted – twice! – to end it, to bring this disgraceful chapter in our history to a rapid close, yet we're still there......."

'يديعوت' بيريس وليفني التقيا ملك البحرين سرا في نيويورك

يديعوت' بيريس وليفني التقيا ملك البحرين سرا في نيويورك

كشفت صحيفة 'يديعوت أحرونوت'، أمس الثلاثاء، النقاب عن أن الرئيس الاسرائيلي شمعون بيريس ووزيرة الخارجية تسيبي ليفني التقيا قبل نحو شهر، بشكل سري في نيويورك، ملك البحرين الشيخ حمد بن عيسى آل خليفة.
وأشار المراسل السياسي للصحيفة ايتمار آيخنر، استناداً إلى مصادر مطلعة وموثوقة في تل أبيب، إلى أن هذا اللقاء هو الأرفع مستوى الذي يتم بين شخصيات إسرائيلية وبحرينية، مضيفاً أنه في الفترة ذاتها التقت ليفني في نيويورك نظيرها العماني.
وأفادت الصحيفة الإسرائيلية أيضاً ان هذه اللقاءات تندرج ضمن ما سمته النشاط الدبلوماسي الهادئ الذي تقوم به الدولة العبرية في عدد من دول الخليج التي لا تقيم علاقات دبلوماسية مع إسرائيل.
وزادت قائلة إن الاتصالات مع البحرين جارية منذ سنوات لكنها لم تثمر حتى اليوم عن قرار بفتح ممثلية دبلوماسية إسرائيلية في العاصمة البحرانية، المنامة.
ولم يصدر عن المنامة حتى مساء امس اي نفي لخبر اللقاء الاسرائيلي البحريني.
واستذكرت الصحيفة أن المدير العام السابق لوزارة الخارجية الإسرائيلية رون بروسؤور قام بزيارة سرية إلى البحرين قبل عامين لإجراء حوار سياسي حساس مع البحرينيين، على حد تعبير المصادر ذاتها.
وكان ولي عهد البحرين التقى بيريس في الامم المتحدة، كما سبق للمسؤول الاسرائيلي يوسي بيلين ان زار المنامة على رأس وفد اسرائيلي.
وكان وزير الخارجية البحريني الشيخ خالد بن أحمد آل خليفة دعا إلى إقامة منظمة إقليمية تضم الدول العربية وإسرائيل وإيران وتركيا، مشددا على أن هذه المنظمة يجب أن تضم الجميع، وأن تتجاوز الأعراق والأديان، فالشرق الأوسط مهد الأديان السماوية كلها تقريبا على حد تعبيره.
....."

Al-Jazeera Video: Iraqis rally in support of Bush's attacker - 16 Dec 2008

"Muntazir al-Zaydi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at the US president, has been taken into custody.

Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher has more on George Bush's attacker, who is being hailed a hero by many."

The shoes we longed for

The young journalist who took on Bush has become a unifying Iraqi symbol, a national hero

A Great Comment

Sami Ramadani
The Guardian, Wednesday 17 December 2008

"......While the uprisings of Falluja, Najaf, Basra and Baghdad against the occupation will always remain as landmarks of a people resisting occupation, these incredible seconds have united Iraqis in the most dramatic fashion.

Contrary to most media coverage, the 28-year-old TV reporter Muntadhar al-Zaidi made history not by merely throwing a pair of shoes, the highest expression of insult in Iraqi culture, at the US president, but by what he said while doing so and as he was smothered by US and Iraqi security men. He groaned as they dragged him out of the press conference. They succeeded in silencing him - and according to his brother he was beaten in custody - but he had already said enough to shake the occupation and Nouri al-Maliki's Green Zone regime to their foundations.

Strip the words away, and his and the Iraqi people's cry of deep pain, anger and defiance would amount to no more than a shoe-throwing insult. But the words were heard. "This is the farewell kiss, you dog," he shouted as he threw the first shoe. The crucial line followed the second shoe: "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." Once those words were heard, the impact of a pair of shoes became electrifying. A young journalist has put aside the demands of his profession, preferring to act as the loudest cry of his long-suffering people. If one considers the torture and killings in Iraqi and US jails that Muntadhar often mentioned in his reports for al-Baghdadia satellite TV station, he was certainly aware he risked being badly hurt.

As the Iraqi and Arab satellite stations switched from the live press conference to reporting reaction to the event, the stunned presenters and reporters were swept away by popular expressions of joy in the streets, from Baghdad to Gaza to Casablanca. TV stations and media websites were inundated with messages of adulation. The instant reply to any criticism of "insulting a guest" was: "Bush is a mass murderer and a war criminal who sneaked into Baghdad. He killed a million Iraqis. He burned the country down."

Expressions of support and demands for Muntadhar's immediate release have spread from Najaf and Falluja to Baghdad, and from Mosul in the north to Basra in the south. An impressive show of anti-occupation unity is developing fast, after being weakened by the sectarian forces that the occupation itself has strengthened and nourished, as Muntadhar himself used to stress.

No one asked after Muntadhar's religion or sect, but they all loved his message. Indeed, I have yet to come across an Iraqi media outlet or website that pronounced on his religion, sect or ethnicity. The first I heard of his "sect" was through US and British media.

The reality is that Muntadhar is a secular socialist whose hero happens to be Che Guevara. He became a prominent leftwing student leader immediately after the occupation, while at Baghdad University's media college. He reported for al-Baghdadia on the poor and downtrodden victims of the US war. He was first on the scene in Sadr City and wherever people suffered violence or severe deprivation. He not only followed US Apache helicopters' trails of death and destruction, but he was also among the first to report every "sectarian" atrocity and the bombing of popular market places. He let the victims talk first.

It was effective journalism, reporting that the victims of violence themselves accused the US-led occupation of being behind all the carnage. He was a voice that could not be silenced, despite being kidnapped by a gang and arrested by US and regime forces.

His passion for the war's victims and his staunchly anti-occupation message endeared him to al-Baghdadia viewers. And after sending Bush out of Iraq in ignominy he has become a formidable national hero. The orphan who was brought up by his aunt, and whose name means the longed or awaited for, has become a powerful unifying symbol of defiance, and is being adopted by countless Iraqis as "our dearest son"."

Dick Cheney's fantasy world

Despite the facts, the vice-president still insists that Saddam Hussein could have produced weapons of mass destruction

Scott Ritter
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 December 2008

".....At a time when the US and the world struggle with a resurgent Iran, the Iranian-dominated Dawa party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki governs Iraq today in name only. The stability enjoyed by Iraq today has been bought with the presence of 150,000 US troops who have overseen the ethnic cleansing of entire neighbourhoods in cities around Iraq, and who have struck temporary alliances with Shia and Sunni alike which cannot be sustained once these forces leave (as they are scheduled to do by 2011).

Invading Iraq and removing Saddam, the glue that held that nation together as a secular entity, was the worst action the US could have undertaken for the people of Iraq, the Middle East as a whole and indeed the entire world. For Cheney to articulate otherwise, regardless of his fundamentally flawed argument on WMD, only demonstrates the level to which fantasy has intruded into the mind of the vice-president."

Just One More......From Abu Mahjoob!

Israel's Supreme Court limits how far barrier can jut into West Bank, taking Palestinian land

Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank cannot run in wide loops around Israeli settlements to allow for their expansion, the country's Supreme Court ruled Monday in an order hailed by a lawyer for Palestinian villagers as a precedent-setting victory.

Monday's ruling came in the case of Bilin, a West Bank village that has become a symbol for Palestinian opposition to the barrier with weekly protests and clashes between villagers and Israeli troops. Bilin has lost half its land, or 500 acres, to the barrier and to the Modiin Illit settlement, home to 40,000 people and expanding rapidly.

A Study in Contrast.......

تحية إلى ضمير الشعب (منتظر)

Free Iraq Blog

"حييت يا كل الرجال... ـ
حييت يا خير البشر... ـ
يا سيدي يابن العراق... ـ
يا أيها البطل العظيم... يا منتظر... ـ
أنت الكرامة والرجولة والإباء... بل أنت القدر... ـ
فبك العراق قد ازدهى وبك العراق قد انتصر... ـ
أهنأ بها.. فلك الحياة.. لك الخلود.. لك الظفر... ـ
حييت يا أمل العراق.. يا كاتب التاريخ في أبهى سفر... ـ
يا راسماً في لوحة أغلى صور... ـ
أهنأ بها.. فالشعب أنت ضميره يا سيدي يا منتظر... ـ
أهنأ بها.. الشعب يزحف خلفكم والشعب يهتف خلفكم... ـ
فليذهب الآتون من خلف البحار إلى سقر... ـ
وليخسأ الجبناء رواد الخيانة والعمالة والغدر... أولاء أسلاف الغدر... ـ
فأهنأ بها... أنت الجبين المشرق الوضاء في قلب السحر... ـ
أهنأ بها يا سيدي يا منتظر. ـ

د. طالب البغدادي 14/12/2008"

THE TANGLED US-IRAN KNOT, Part 3

Economy, ties with West key to polls

By Gareth Porter
Asia Times

"The main issue in Iran's June 2009 presidential election will be the country's dire economic woes and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's role in them. The challenger - expected to emerge from the moderate camp - will also charge that Ahmadinejad has mismanaged relations with Europe, while Ahmadinejad will accuse his foe of conspiring with the West. Therein lies the deep rift within the country....."

Just One More.....

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)
By Tab, The Calgary Sun

Israel denies entry to UN rights reporter

Press Release, Adalah, 15 December 2008

"Today, Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel sent an urgent letter to the Israeli Minister of Interior, Meir Shitreet and Attorney General (AG) Menachem Mazuz, demanding that they lift the ban imposed on Professor Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, from entering these areas. At the order of the ministry of the interior, the border police denied Prof. Falk entry into Israel yesterday, 14 December 2008, on his way to the West Bank to carry out his official functions. He was deported from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv this morning, 15 December 2008.

In March 2008, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) voted to appoint Prof. Falk to this position as UN Special Rapporteur for a six-year term. Prof. Falk's duties include preparing reports on human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), informing the UN about his work and conclusions, and suggesting ways of alleviating these violations. Prof. Falk is an eminent expert in international law and works as a lecturer at several prominent universities in the United States, including the University of California at Santa Barbara and Princeton University. He has published several seminal books on the subject of international law and human rights.

Prof. Falk's arbitrary denial of entry into Israel is a severe blow to the rights of the Palestinian civilian population living under Israeli occupation, a population which must be afforded protection by the occupier under international humanitarian law. Denying Prof. Falk's entry also impairs the work of numerous human rights organizations and human rights defenders working in Israel and the OPT to protect and advance the human rights of Palestinians......"

Arabs, Muslims Start Action Friday to End Gaza Siege

Al-Manar

"15/12/2008 Friday will be the day to start action to end the siege of Gaza, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced Monday night.
In a televised speech broadcast on Al-Manar, Sayyed Nasrallah said that large demonstrations in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians and to end the siege of Gaza will take place starting Friday after noon prayers. His eminence stressed in his speech the demonstrations are also to support the choice of resistance, steadfastness and adherence to rights regardless of the sacrifices and difficulties.......

His eminence added: “Given the military and political escalation by the Israelis as well as threats to launch a military operation against the strip, there seems to be no hope of breaking the siege in the near future. This necessitates that we contemplate and take responsibility regarding this extensive human suffering.” Sayyed Nasrallah warned against US-Israeli schemes to obliterate the Palestinian cause, the international collusion and the Arab silence with regards to the right of return of the Palestinian refugees and plans to settle them in host countries. He also warned against persevering attempts to detach Jerusalem from its Arab identity and displace the remainder of Palestinians from east Jerusalem.
“Our essential goal is breaking the siege and putting an end to the humanitarian tragedy of the people who stood steady despite the world’s collusion and the Arabs’ silence.”

"What Livni said was not a slip of the tongue," Sayyed Nasrallah warned.
On Thursday, Livni drew criticism for saying "my solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two distinct national entities." "And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Arab Israelis, and tell them: 'your national aspirations lie elsewhere,'" Livni said.

Sayyed Nasrallah said that the goal of besieging Gaza was to break the will of the Palestinian people and frustrate it to impose US and Israeli conditions in line with the “humiliating settlement process that does not preserve the least rights of this people.”

The Resistance chief urged Egypt to take a historic and brave decision to permanently open the Rafah crossing for Gazans. He called on the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League to stand by Egypt should it takes this step. “Abiding by the checkpoint agreements [Egypt and Israel share] has no moral, ethical, legal or religious basis if it leads to a major humanitarian crisis and if it results in a war crime. I address Egyptian officials and say: yes brothers, this is not the time for outbidding for we are in front of a painful truth where hundreds of ill Palestinians are dying and hundreds of thousands others are living in darkness and starvation, so this requires a historic position from your side and the whole nation will support you should you take it.” “There are a million and a half Muslims in Gaza who call on us to assist them and it is our religious and human duty to respond,” he said.

"Had the Arab leaders acted responsibly 60 years ago, Palestine would not have been conquered," he continued. "I ask all those who are proud to be Arabs, where is your Arab sentiment now, as a million-and-a-half Arabs in Gaza are under siege? I call on you to take part in the rallies and join us in this call," Sayyed Nasrallah said."

"Iraqi reporter al-Zaidi's arm, ribs broken"

Press TV

"Security agents have broken the arm and ribs of al-Zaidi, a reporter who hurled his shoes at Bush during a press conference Sunday in Baghdad.

"He has got a broken arm and ribs, and cuts to his eye and arm," the reporter's brother Durgham told AFP on Tuesday. "He is being held by forces under the command of Muaffaq al-Rubaie," he added.

According to Durgham, his brother was being held by Iraqi forces in the heavily fortified Green Zone compound in central Baghdad.

On Monday, thousands of Iraqis staged a demonstration in Sadr City in Baghdad calling for the release of the journalist....."

Staunch Critic of Israel at U.N. Reports Death Threats

By Thalif Deen

"UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 (IPS) - The outspoken president of the General Assembly, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, who recently described Israeli policies in the occupied territories as tantamount to "apartheid", says his life is under threat.

Enrique Yeves, spokesperson for the president, told reporters Monday there were "very serious threats" on the Internet against D'Escoto's life and the matter is being looked into both by the U.N. security services and law enforcement officials in the United States......"

Israel's 'Get Out of Jail Free' Card

By Philip Giraldi

".......If you have been wondering what has happened to the other Israeli spies who are currently in court or facing trial at some future point, you are not alone. The trial of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman has been dragging on for more than three years. The two men were arrested together with Pentagon official Col. Lawrence Franklin under the Espionage Act of 1917, which defines espionage in legal terms as "injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign country." Franklin had taken classified Pentagon documents dealing with Iran policy and had shared them with the two AIPAC officials, who in turn provided them to the Israeli embassy in Washington and to the media to support the case for going to war with Tehran......

.....Predictably, no one in the mainstream media wants to report on Rosen and Weissman or follow up on the story of Ben-Ami Kadish. Nor has the Department of Justice made any public statements, though federal prosecutors claim to have a continuing interest in convicting the two AIPAC ex-officials. In the U.S. media, stories that are critical of Israel, particularly if they challenge the fundamentals and reciprocity of the "special relationship" between Washington and Tel Aviv, tend to die immediately and, in some cases, are even expunged from Web sites and archives. The tales of Rosen, Weissman, and Kadish are all too typical, reflective of a judicial system that is selective in its application of law combined with a political and media oligarchy that is willing to compromise every operating principle if Israel is involved. Perhaps Obama will do better, but one would be right to be skeptical, as he has already bowed to the power of AIPAC. If Rosen and Weissman are convicted, as they should be, and if Kadish suddenly appears for trial and sentencing it would be a remarkable indication that change has indeed finally come to Washington."