February 28, 2009 The Fox Guarding the Chicken Coop: Dennis Ross and Iran Read more... On Israeli election day, Peres sees the 'one-state' momentum and tries to stop it On the day Israelis went to the polls to elect a right-wing government that will include a party calling for the ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish Israeli citizens, Shimon Peres was dispatched to the Washington Post to tell the world they have nothing to worry about. Instead of being concerned about Avigdor Lieberman, Peres believes the current threat to peace are people calling for democracy and equality...For a long time Israel's supporters just ignored the idea of equality and justice in Israel/Palestine. Then they dismissed the idea of one democratic state as utopian or unrealistic, barely worthy or a reply. Now they are starting to fight it. What comes next may be up to all of us... Read more... Emanuel Was Director Of Freddie Mac During Scandal | ABC President-elect Barack Obama's newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot "red flags," according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com...Emanuel was not named in the SEC complaint but the entire board was later accused by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight of having "failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention."... Read more... Crime and accountability in Gaza Now that the smoke has at least temporarily cleared from Gaza's skies, credible human rights reports have filtered in describing the utter devastation that took place throughout the course of Israel's 22 day assault "Operation Cast Lead." The figures are truly shocking. According to statistics by the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, at least 1,285 Palestinians were killed, of which 895 were civilians, including 280 children and 111 women. Another 167 of the dead were civil police officers, most of whom were killed on the first day of the bombing when they were graduating from a training course. More than 2,400 houses were completely destroyed, as were 28 public civilian facilities, (including ministries, municipalities, governorates, fishing harbors and the Palestinian Legislative Council building), 29 educational institutions, 30 mosques, 10 charitable societies, 60 police stations and 121 industrial and commercial workshops... Read more... Targeting Israel: The Global BDS Movement, by Stephen Lendman 'Boycotting Israeli academic and cultural institutions is an urgently needed.' Enough is enough. After 61 years of Palestinian slaughter, displacement, occupation, oppression, and international dismissiveness and complicity, global action is essential. Israel must be held accountable. World leaders won't do it, so grassroots movements must lead the way. In 2004, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote: "The end of apartheid stands as one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century, but we would not have succeeded without the help of international pressure - in particular the divestment movement of the 1980s. Over the past six months, a similar movement has taken shape, this time aiming at an end to the Israeli occupation." In July 2008, 21 South African activists, including ANC members, visited Israel and Occupied Palestine. Their conclusion was unanimous. Israel is far worse than apartheid as former Deputy Minister of Health and current MP Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge explained:..Read more... The new movement against Israel's apartheid Eric Ruder looks at the new movement taking shape in this country and around the world--for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and its oppression of the Palestinian people...the assault on Gaza has also brought a change of another sort. It stirred a commitment among people around the world that the time has come to do something about the intolerable conditions facing Palestinians...What you can do: If you want to learn more about the growing struggle against Israeli apartheid, see the Global BDS Movement Web site and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott Web site. Union activists considering ways to bring up the issue in their own locals will find handy materials at the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario Web site... Read more... Amos Gilad: Israel's Military Mephistopheles | Palestine Chronicle Government officials have complained that Gilad is as good as 'running the country'. It is not entirely surprising that Amos Gilad, an Israeli general who once sued his own government for “irreversible mental damage” caused by his role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, has publicly courted controversy again. On Monday, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s outgoing prime minister, suspended Gilad as his envoy to Egypt, responsible for negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas, after Gilad called the prime minister’s truce conditions “insane”. The move threatened to unleash a political storm in Israel. Ehud Barak, the defence minister and a longtime ally of Gilad, rushed to denounce Olmert’s decision. He insisted that Gilad, a defence ministry official in charge of diplomatic and security issues, would continue with his other duties. Gilad’s fingerprints are to be found on most of the hawkish policies approved by the political leadership since the start of the intifada in 2000, including the emasculation of the Palestinian Authority, the “disengagement” from Gaza, and the promotion of civil war between Hamas and Fatah...Read more... The war on Wall Street terror It’s funny that during the run-up to the first War on Terror, Wall Street had such an active hand in exploiting the tragedy of 9/11. Thousands upon thousands of puts short-sold United and American Airlines stocks and WTC-based Morgan Stanley stock plunged; similarly calls (bets to rise) on defense and related stocks sent them soaring on that awful day, the War on Terror’s inciting incident. Today, we can count on Wall Street again to supply us with what Warren Buffett calls Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction to strike terror not just in the hearts of investors, but workers, businessmen, retired people, the unemployed, the middle-and-working classes and the poor, leaving our financial system like another Ground Zero, with masses of open-mouthed crowds and teary-eyed families hovering about it, losing resources and jobs that took a lifetime to grow... Read more... From Bush to Obama: Seven Years of Wartime Propaganda | Counterpunch Despite the termination of George W. Bush’s presidency, continued opposition to ending the Iraq war remains in the halls of Washington and amongst media pundits. In a Meet the Press interview this month, Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks explained that, under current thinking in Washington, the U.S. may continue “to have American troops dying in Iraq for years to come.” He specifically cited opposition to withdrawal on the part of military officials such as General Ray Odierno, who indicated his support for keeping 35,000 troops in the country through at least 2015, down from the high of 155,000 currently in Iraq... Read more... On Dershowitz and Hampshire College If you murdered just one person, or millions, don't worry, he'll get you off Howard Friel, author with Richard Falk of the excellent Record of the Paper and Israel-Palestine on Record, on Alan Dershowitz’s mad-dog tactics in silencing dissent, and the spinelessness of the Hampshire College administration... Read more... Mustafa Barghouthi: The Return of Benjamin Netanyahu The return of Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party does not bode well for the prospects for a comprehensive and lasting peace between Israel and Palestine. Throughout his campaign, the cornerstone of Netanyahu's policy toward the 'Palestinian Question' suggests an intention to deepen the conflict rather than solve it... Read more... Obama's Afghanistan War: Morally Wrong, or Incompetently Waged? The problem with Obama's Afghanistan war is that it is morally wrong and meant to discipline the American people, not that it is being waged incompetently...Wars are waged for domestic social control and to justify enormous arms expenditures and contracts. Our leaders need wars to drag on so the enemy can be deemed sufficiently dangerous and implacable and thus the war made to seem important or necessary... Read more... Press TV - Gaddafi: Israel behind Darfur crisis Gaddafi says Israel, not Bashir is behind the Darfur conflict Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has accused Israel of masterminding the Darfur crisis, urging the ICC to drop charges against Sudan's president. Gaddafi called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to immediately halt proceedings against Omar al-Bashir over alleged war crimes in Darfur, adding that "foreign forces" including Israel were behind the region's crisis. "Why do we have to hold President Bashir or the Sudanese government responsible when the Darfur problem was caused by outside parties, and Tel Aviv, for example, is behind the Darfur crisis," the current African Union president said on Tuesday. He reasoned that Darfur's 'key rebel leaders' have opened offices in Tel Aviv and 'frequently' hold meetings with the Israeli army... Read more... February 27, 2009 Letter from Mazin 2/27/09 Yesterday we had dinner with a family from the old city of Jerusalem who visited us here in Beit Sahour. They can visit us (for now), but we can’t visit them. They explained how the Israeli authorities have been increasing the pressures to empty Jerusalem of its non-Jewish residents through a myriad of regulations, laws, harassment, attempts to buy them out and far more. For example regulations make it impossible for native Palestinian to build or improve anything in their homes but Israel issues thousands of building permits for Jews in Arab East Jerusalem (annexed illegally by Israel contrary to International law). There are even neighborhoods in the old city that cannot get visitors from other parts of the city (their own relatives even) and are essentially living in prison like conditions... Read more... What Exactly Is Anti-Semitism? What exactly is anti-semitism? The oft-repeated Jewish claim that anti-semitism is simply an irrational hatred of Jews based solely on their Jewishness seems a pretty wild accusation on the face of it, and one that can’t be logically and reasonably defended without indicting all Gentiles on charges of insane and unjustifiable hatefulness...Although this may earn me a few more enemies, I have to be honest and say what I know to be true. Anti-semitism is not an irrational hatred of Jews by Gentiles. It’s a rational and reasonable response to Jewish supremacist behaviour in their host countries. Is it so hard to believe that when you behave in destructive ways you are going to earn the enmity of the people you live among? Jews have been expelled from over 79 countries over a period of about 1,700 years, according to historians. Does it make any sense that they would be expelled for no other reason than their Jewishness, or does it seem likely that some of the responsibility for the expulsions should be placed squarely on their shoulders?... Read more... ISRAEL CONTINUES ITS SIEGE ON GAZA - NOW ITS PASTA! As the US plans to pledge $900 million to rebuild Gaza, Israelcontinues to refuse building materials to enter the Strip which willmake it impossible to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure. Without aproper cease-fire agreement with Israel, such pledges are meaningless,particularly as Israel continues its attacks on ordinary people inGaza. Not only are they being forced to live in tents because they areunable to rebuild their homes, farmers are being prevented from workingtheir fields by sniper fire... Read more... Support a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, by Senator Patrick Leahy I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration -- so they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws... Read more... Mahler Gets 6 Years Over Holocaust Statement FACING LIFELONG IMPRISONMENT for a thought crime German dissident Horst Mahler has been sentenced to six years in prison for "Volksverhetzung" (racial incitement). The symbolically significant number of years imposed for "anti- Semitic hate speech" stemmed from his refusal to recognize the Jewish Holocaust, which he described as "the biggest lie in world history."[His wife, Sylvia Stolz, is currently in prison for defending other dissidents.Yes, in Holocult dominated Germany they put the defense lawyers in prison too. Even the Spanish Inquisition didn't do that.] Read more... It's Outrageous That Gaza Depends on Secret Tunnels for Access to the Outside World | AlterNet How do you rebuild 5,000 homes, businesses and government buildings when the only way supplies come into the prison called Gaza is through tunnels?...The gates to Gaza slammed shut again on Thursday, February 5, the day our three-person group departed Gaza, having been allowed in for only 48 hours. The Egyptian government closed the border crossing into Gaza, continuing the sixteen-month international blockade and siege. The crossing had been briefly open to allow medical and humanitarian supplies into Gaza following the devastating 22-day attack by the Israeli military. The attacks killed 1,330 Palestinians and injured over 5,500. The Israeli government said the attacks were to punish Hamas and other groups for firing unguided rockets into Israeli, rockets that over the past two years have killed about 25 Israelis. Most international observers have called the Israeli response to the rocket attacks disproportionate and collective punishment, elements of war crimes... Read more... YouTube - ISRAEL IS THE VICTIM? Yes or No Is Israel the real victim as they so often claim, or do actions speak louder than words. The decision is yours. Watch... Anti Semitism hits Hollywood! | Auntie Ziona Oi I heard that our film 'Waltz with Bashir' didn't make it in the Oscars and I am so sad, I mean Jewishly sad. Because it was a very good cartoon about Jewish guilt and it made us feel so great and kind after all the suffering we had been through. But the goyim must have spotted the trick. They realised that we were really regretting a Shoa that was committed by someone else, rather than taking responsibility for the mess we do all the time and for real... Read more... YouTube - Eviction in East Jerusalem Inside Story looks at the eviction of 1500 Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the prospect for peace under Netanyahu's leadership. Watch... "Viva Palestina" Aid Convoy to Gaza! | Facebook GABES OFFERS RESPITE TO CONVOY The mood today was of relief. After a marathon drive through Algeria and further south in Tunisia, the convoy has been relaxing today in good standard hotels in the city of Gabes. They are enjoying nice food and the facilities of the hotel complex including swimming pools. Some are sleeping, the others are taking strolls on the beach to walk off those stiff legs and muscles. The Tunisians have shown their hospitality by offering free fuel, servicing and repairs to the vehicles and accommodation. The alarm clock will go off at 06.00am when the convoy will head for the border with Libya. It is anticipated that they will cross into Libya sometimes during the day... Watch video with George Galloway Read more... Rahm Emanuel Doesn’t Pay Taxes, So Why Should You? Emanuel and other bureaucrats apparently don’t have the time or desire to fill out and file the sort of paperwork you and I take for granted. Of course, if you don’t pay taxes to the government, chances are you will be arrested and thrown in the clinker. Not so in the case of Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff. Emanuel’s brazen tax evasion is nothing new, although the corporate media does not bother to cover it. However, as we close in on tax day, the story is worth revisiting... Read more... How the U.S. Military Turned Me into a Terrorist - ICH In March of this year, a courageous group of veterans brought the war home, at a historic event held in Silver Spring, Md., inspired by Vietnam veterans a generation before. "Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan" convened more than 200 soldiers who have served in the so-called "War on Terror;" like their fellow soldiers before them, who shared stories that laid bare the nightmare of Vietnam, these veterans bore witness to the crimes that have been committed in Americans' names during the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The hearings lasted four days; in their testimony, soldiers described how the discarding of the military's rules of engagement and its systematic dehumanization of Iraqi and Afghan civilians has led to horrible acts of violence against innocent men, women and children. "These are not isolated incidents," was a common refrain, even as the episodes they described seemed exceptionally brutal. For many of the veterans, it was the first time they had told their stories... Read more... Rethink Afghanistan (while there's still time) President Obama has committed 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. This decision raises serious questions about troops, costs, overall mission, and exit strategy. Historically, it has been Congress' duty to ask questions in the form of oversight hearings that challenge policymakers, examine military spending, and educate the public. After witnessing the absence of oversight regarding the Iraq war, we must insist Congress hold hearings on Afghanistan. Read more... YouTube - Holy Land Foundation Retrial: Feeding the Homeless In this video, justice advocates stand outside the federal court house in downtown Dallas to feed the homeless during the Holy Land Foundation Retrial, which began on Sept. 22, 2008. The first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a verdict on most counts. The Holy Land Foundation—once the largest American Muslim charity—was shut down by the Bush administration in 2001 as a result of post-9/11 hysteria... [In the star chamber retrial the HLF was found guilty - one of the most shameful episodes in the annals of American judicial proceedings.] Watch... February 26, 2009 Is It Realistic to Demand the Right of Return of Palestinian Refugees?, by John Spritzler Many Americans, myself included, want our government to stop supporting Israel because Israel oppresses Palestinians. The root of the Israel/Palestine conflict is that Israel carries out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in order to ensure that the great majority of the population inside Israel remains Jewish. The biggest grievance of Palestinians against Israel is that it does not allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and villages inside of what is now Israel. They demand the right of return as a basic human right. Many people who oppose Israel's oppression of Palestinians, however, do not emphasize the right of return demand; some avoid mentioning it altogether. Instead, they focus on the demand that Israel end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. How come?... http://newdemocracyworld.org/War/Right%20of%20Return.htm 60 years after the Nakba 1948 was the year of the Nakba, or the ‘Catastrophe’. The Nakba, the 60th anniversary of which the Palestinians are commemorating this year, was their expulsion from their homeland. Dr Nur Masalha analyses and traces the background to this traumatic event which set into motion a process which eventually resulted in some 70% of the Palestinian people being turned into refugees... Read more... US senator hosts anti-Islamic Dutch lawmaker - Israel News U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (Iowa) - American Fascist Republican Sen. Jon Kyl is hosting a film screening at the Capitol building for a far-right Dutch lawmaker who claims that Islam inspires terrorism. Kyl is sponsoring the Thursday event for Geert Wilders, who was denied entry to London earlier this month because British officials said he posed a threat to public order. (AP)[You can help by going to President Obama's office, or your Representative, and lodging a protest. I wrote the following: I would be the last to advocate banning "hate speech," or virtually any kind of speech, but this takes the cake. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Imagine what would happen if a U.S. Senator invited the Grand Dragon of the KKK to the Capitol to spew venom against blacks and Jews, or an Iranian lawmaker to quote the many vile, racist, and hate filled statements found in the Old Testament or the Talmud, let alone the genocidal statements of a parade of Zionists stretching back 100 years. At least the British had the decency to deny Wilders an entry permit.] Israel Arms Hamas - IslamOnline [or, unintended consequences] The recent Israeli war on Gaza, which killed and wounded thousands and wrecked havoc on the civilian infrastructure, was marketed on the pretext of undermining the capacities of resistance factions, particularly Hamas. But before withdrawing, the invading Israeli troops left Palestinian fighters a priceless gift: a large cache of unexploded ordnance... Read more... YouTube - Viva Palestina Gaza aid convoy In Tipaza Algeria The Israel Lobby's Power Comes from The American Ruling Class, by John Spritzler Among those who, like myself, oppose Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, there is an important debate about a fundamental question. The debate is about how to explain the fact that the American government supports Israel virtually unconditionally with more economic, military and diplomatic aid than it gives to any other country... Read more... Islam and the West: A Case of Selective Memory Distorted by today’s political lenses, European historical memory selectively focuses on past violence perpetrated by Muslims and either forgets Europe’s cultural borrowings from Muslim societies, or regards them as unimportant remnants of a closed chapter in European-Muslim relations...Throughout contemporary Europe the debate over Islam and Muslims proceeds at a fevered pace. But without a comprehensive understanding of the past, all sides in the debate build on weak foundations. Working internationally to build that comprehensive understanding will serve the future as much as the past. Read more... Press TV - Tunisia releases 'Viva Palestina' The Gaza-bound aid convoy 'Viva Palestina', which was stopped by the police in Tunisia, is granted permission to continue its journey. The aid convoy was stopped upon arrival in Tunisia from Algeria on late Wednesday, said Press TV's Yvonne Ridley who is accompanying 'Viva Palestina' on its journey to Gaza. Following the incident, two human rights activists traveling with the convoy were arrested by Tunisian police. The fate of the two remains clouded. Ridley said the two were pushed into a van and taken to an undisclosed destination, adding that the rest of the crew was about to reunited in Gabes. 'Viva Palestina' departed from London, and comprises of more than 100 vehicles--including 12 ambulances and a fire engine-- loaded with medicine, food, clothes and toys for the Gazans... Read more... Poised for Expansion: Israel in 1948 In their first test of strength with the ‘natives’ in 1948, the Zionists had gained control of nearly four-fifths of Palestine, expelled most of the Palestinians from these territories, and repulsed the combined forces of five Arab proto-states. Yet, the Zionists were not about to rest on their laurels: their interests did not lie in making peace with the Arabs. The events of 1948 had demonstrated what they could achieve; with minor losses of their own, they had obliterated Palestinian society and handily beaten back the Arabs... Read more... Spray your tag on West Bank wall -- online | Reuters Wall at Abu Dis, home of Al Quds University It could turn out to be the world's longest graffiti space -- the massive concrete barrier separating Israel from the Palestinians. Over the Internet, a group of Palestinian graffiti artists is offering to spray-paint your personal message on Israel's towering security wall in the occupied West Bank. It costs 30 euros ($40) per message and they can be as solemn or wacky as you want. Everything goes, except for obscene, offensive or extremist hate speech. Clients get three digital pictures of the finished product...Read more... The Blind Leading the Blind: Wall Street and Bernanke ...The whole idea that a bunch of people who sit around at computer screens betting on stocks and eating cheese doodles all day really know much of anything, or that taking their herd responses collectively as some kind of delphic oracle has always seemed the height of folly to me. But if you really wanted proof that investors taken collectively are idiots, you could simply look at today's stock market. Yesterday, every index plunged by about 4%, pulling the overall market to lows not seen in 12 years, because of concerns that the recession was deepening, that the big banks were toast, and that the government's economic stimulus plan was not going to help much... Read more... February 25, 2009 The only Palestinian woman in Israel's parliament, by Jonathan Cook | The Electronic Intifada Haneen Zoubi has made history When Israel's 18th parliament opened this week, there was only one Arab woman among its intake of legislators. Haneen Zoubi has made history: although she is not the first Arab woman to enter the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, she is the first to be elected for an Arab party. Sitting in her home in Nazareth, the effective capital of Israel's 1.2 million Palestinian citizens, she is dismissive of her predecessors, two women elected on behalf of Zionist parties. "They were worse than decorations," she said. "Decorations don't do any harm, but these women damaged our society. They were no role models at all."...Read more... The Dangers Of National Unity | TPMCafe "Can't you understand simple arithmetic? Why, the very point of [our] program is to have as much land as possible and as few Arabs as possible!". Avigdor Lieberman in 2009? Actually, Yitzhak Navon, Labor leader, and former president of the state, at an election rally in Yoqneam in 1984. My point is that there is a bigger crisis here than the emergence of a "neo-fascist," as Marty Peretz called Lieberman (or shall we say even Marty Peretz..). There is the question of what national unity means, or at least how it plays. By 1984, the great danger to Israeli democracy was allegedly Meir Kahane, the caustic, menacing, ultra du jour. But his power stemmed, much like Lieberman's today, from his saying bluntly what a generation of leaders before him had fudged politely:.. Read more... Shimon Peres Interview - How do you sleep at night? | Palestine Think Tank ...from Australian TV, where Shimon Peres makes one outrageous claim after another, including that the Gaza checkpoints have always been open. If you can stand someone lying through their teeth, this is the man for you... Watch... On February 15th, 1989 the last Soviet soldier crossed the (then) Soviet-Afghan border leaving behind over one million dead Afghans, several millions more wounded and displaced. This war cost the Soviet Union just under 14 thousand lives. This is, for sure, a disastrous tally and nobody in his right mind would attempt to qualify the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as a "success". Still, while unequivocally a failure and a tragedy, looking back at the Soviet presence in Afghanistan a number of thoughts occur to me which now, twenty years later, make me reassess some of the things I previously had believed. First, who were the good guys and who were the bad guys in this war? Remember how at the time the Western propaganda had it nice and simple: The Soviet Union was the "Evil Empire" while the Afghans were "Freedom Fighters"? The Soviet system was evil alright, but does that make the Afghan resistance "good"? In hindsight I am inclined to believe that this war was not a war between good and evil but between bad and much, much *worse*?... Read more... Musical Show of Unity Upsets Many in Israel - NYT Achinoam Nini and Mira Awad are set to represent Israel as a duo in the upcoming Achinoam Nini, a singer and peace activist, has long stirred controversy here. Known abroad by her stage name, Noa, she has recorded with Arab artists, refused to perform in the occupied West Bank, condemned Israeli settlements there and had concerts canceled because of bomb threats from the extreme right. But lately it is the left that has been angry with Ms. Nini. Chosen by Israel to represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest — this year being held in Moscow in May with an expected television audience of 100 million — Ms. Nini asked if she could bring along her current artistic collaborator, an Israeli Arab singer, Mira Awad...Eurovision Song Contest for which they were chosen by Israel's broadcast authority. Read more... CIA’s secret Operations worldwide and drug money In Afghanistan US/NATO put blame on Taliban for the poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for financing their resistance to allied forces. Ironically, it was only in Taliban era when the world had seen a sharp decline in opium crop in Afghanistan. Taliban banned opium cultivation nationwide. A more important question is how and when this business of drug production and trafficking started in region? CIA has been using drug money since long to generate money to support its operations all over the world. It did not start in Afghanistan it was brought here after experimenting somewhere else... Read more... Elie Wiesel attacks pope over Holocaust bishop | Reuters The Weasel, one of the world's most successful con artists Pope Benedict has given credence to "the most vulgar aspect of anti-Semitism" by rehabilitating a Holocaust-denying bishop, said Elie Wiesel, the death camp survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize winner. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Wiesel also said there was no way the Vatican could have not known about the bishop's past and it may have been done "intentionally"...Read more... Nebula This issue of Nebula features a collection of pieces that examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a relatively consistent set of personal and critical lenses. Many of these pieces take on the difficult task of speaking for “ordinary” Palestinians, providing a series of challenging, thought provoking encounters... Read more... U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel The real Israel-Palestine story is in the West Bank | The Guardian Israel's targeting of civilian resistance to the separation wall proves the two-state solution is now just a meaningless slogan It is quite likely that you have not heard of the most important developments this week in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the West Bank, while it has been "occupation as normal", there have been some events that together should be overshadowing Gaza, Gilad Shalit and Avigdor Lieberman. First, there have been a large number of Israeli raids on Palestinian villages, with dozens of Palestinians abducted. These kinds of raids are, of course, commonplace for the occupied West Bank, but in recent days it appears the Israeli military has targeted sites of particularly strong Palestinian civil resistance to the separation wall... Read more... Protestors burn a swastika symbol during a pro-Palestinian protest against the Ron Edelheit was about to begin a speech on the Gaza war to a gathering of Dutch Jews in Amsterdam on Sunday when he counted four shoes hurtling toward him. "Two of them hit me," he said, both on the legs. He spoke to The Jerusalem Post by phone on Monday from The Hague, where he had just finished pressing charges against the three "youngsters" who assaulted him. Edelheit, who holds both Israeli and Dutch citizenship, travels to Holland about once a year to visit his mother, a resident of The Hague. As a reservist in the IDF Spokesman's Unit, he was asked by the Women's International Zionist Organization to speak at a gathering of its members and affiliates in Amsterdam. It was at that event that he was attacked...Israeli military offensive in Gaza, during a demonstration in Barcelona, Spain. [Keep the shoes coming!] Read more... February 24, 2009 Gaza massacre globally isolates Israeli settler state | International Action Center Demo in NYC Israel's savage assault on the civilian population of Gaza has aroused the greatest worldwide outrage ever against the U.S.-backed settler state. Perhaps nothing symbolized this more than the report of veteran anti-apartheid fighter Dennis Brutus leading a protest in Durban, South Africa, against Israeli Ambassador Dov Segev-Steinberg. Brutus was instrumental in the cultural boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. After watching three weeks of a horrific war against a people, the world is on the verge of a campaign against the Israeli state similar to the one that helped weaken the apartheid South Africa regime in that earlier period. This is now known worldwide as the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS, which would involve massive refusal to buy from or invest in the major corporations that operate in, support or provide repressive weapons to the Israeli state...Read more... The Rise of Avigdor Lieberman, and the end of the Labor Zionist vision - by Justin Raimondo The rise of Avigdor Lieberman as the kingmaker of Israeli politics is a disaster for American supporters of Israel and for U.S. interests in the region, albeit not entirely a surprise, at least to regular visitors to this space. The circumstance of his entry into the government as minister of foreign affairs or some other key policymaking post will mark the end of the old Labor Zionism and its passage into history as yet another failed experiment in utopian socialism, along with Fourierism, Owenism, and the Icarians. With Lieberman and his party the catalyst as the up-and-coming force in Israeli politics, the Zionist project enters a new post-democratic era... Read more... Should AIPAC Decide What's Classified? - Antiwar.com In 1962 AIPAC's predecessor organization – the American Zionist Council (AZC) – ran into trouble when Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy ordered it to register as Israel's foreign agent under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The Department of Justice (DOJ) discovered the AZC had secretly received the equivalent of $35 million in Israeli funds to build a domestic lobby and conduct public relations in the United States for arms, aid, and preferential diplomatic treatment. In a massive but secret battle with the DOJ, the AZC managed to win two important concessions. The AZC was allowed to file a partial activity declaration covering only three months rather than the many years during which it was most actively lobbying for Israel...This allowed the AZC to quietly shut down operations and reorganize lobbying activities within AIPAC... Read more... Gaza truce held hostage | Al-Ahram Weekly A Palestinian woman walks past buildings destroyed ...outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is insisting that Israel secure the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit first. On Wednesday, after a Security Cabinet meeting, Olmert repeated his condition that Shalit must be freed: "We will negotiate his release first and only then will we be willing to discuss things like the Gaza crossings and rebuilding" the Gaza Strip. Ayman Taha, in Cairo to attend the truce talks, told the Weekly that the Hamas delegation, of which he is a member, felt it had been misled. Egyptian officials had told them that Israel had agreed to an 18-month truce under which Israel and the Palestinian factions would halt all military operations in addition to Israel reopening its border crossings into Gaza, and the Rafah border to Egypt being reopened in coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA) security. He added that Hamas representatives had been told by an Egyptian intermediary that a deal in which Israel would release 1,400 Palestinian detainees in exchange for Shalit would follow once the truce had been signed. Later the delegation was told by head of Egyptian General Intelligence Omar Suleiman that Israel had changed its mind and was now insisting on the exchange deal first and finalising any truce afterwards... during the Israeli offensive on Jabalya in Gaza Read more... Liberty in Britain is facing death by a thousand cuts. We can fight back | The Guardian For 30 years I have been travelling to unfree places, from East Germany to Burma, and writing about them in the belief that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world. I wanted people in those places to enjoy more of what we had. In the last few years, I have woken up - late in the day, but better late than never - to the way in which individual liberty, privacy and human rights have been sliced away in Britain, like salami, under New Labour governments that profess to find in liberty the central theme of British history... Read more... Is Israel Controlling the Internet? - Palestinian Mothers Today’s blog will be a short but important one. I have recently noticed a few websites and some you tube accounts being suspended because they are anti-Zionist, or they are criticizing Israel’s recent genocide in Gaza. How far does their control go? If you Google the word “Jew” what do you get? You get the top link being an apology and explanation by Google for some of the sites that Jews might see in the list of links that they may not like, such as sites that criticize Israel or are anti-Israel or anti-Zionist. Now, here is a screen shot of the results: Read more... Tensions Flare Between Kurds and Arabs: The New War in Iraq A new war is threatening Iraq just as the world believes the country is returning to peace. While violence is dropping in Baghdad and in the south of the country, Arabs and Kurds in the north are beginning to battle over territories in an arc of land stretching from Syria to Iranian border... Read more... Israeli response to Amnesty International report [or, how dare they criticize us?] In response to questions by the media, following is the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs response to Amnesty International's report on use of weapons in Operation Cast Lead: Initial study of the report indicates that it presents a biased version of the events, and does not adhere to professional criteria and objectivity. A detailed response will be given at a later stage, but at this time, it is possible to state that:.. Read more... Amnesty's Scandalous Obliquity, by Khalid Amayreh Palestinians incinerated to death by Israel's White Phosphorous bombs In an apparent effort to sound “balanced” and “unbiased,” the London-based human rights group, Amnesty International, has urged the international community to halt arms sales to the Israeli apartheid regime and the Palestinian Islamic liberation movement, Hamas...None the less, a careful examination of the report shows a clear propensity on the part of AI to create a false symmetry between Hamas, a small liberation movement resisting a decades-old Nazi-like foreign military occupation, and Israel, a manifestly criminal state armed to the teeth, which has been committing every conceivable crime under the sun for the purpose of maintaining its colonialist occupation and brutal domination over the Palestinian people...Read more... The Decalogue of Inconvenient Facts about the World War II Holocaust 1) In 1919, commiserating, Martin Glynn, Governor of the State of New York publicized in North America the “holocaust of six million Jews and eight hundred thousand Jewish children” caused by “the tyranny of war and lust for Jewish blood” in Poland and Ukraine, while The New York Times and other Jewish media reported that Jews were burned alive by the thousands in synagogues in Ukraine [while Jews and synagogues survived the war intact]. Thus, Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower and Pius XII cognizant of this soon-forgotten-fiction, remained silent about the second, this time capitalized with “H”, the six-million-victim Holocaust of WW II, a.k.a. Hubrn in Yiddish and Shoa in Hebrew.. Read more...... 10) Losing Your Rights to Israel Read more... YouTube - Video Footage of Israel IDF Crimes A movement is underway to provide Palestinians with video cameras so that they may be able to record IDF crimes against humanity and make them available to the outside media. Israel claims to have a free press, but that is only where they ALLOW a free press. Free press is NOT allowed in the settlements of the West Bank, for good reason. They don't want the brutality of the ongoing illegal occupation recorded and used against them as the damning evidence it is... Read more... Israelis worry that US may start to distance itself - The National Newspaper Apprehension is mounting in Israel over the damage that its “special relationship” with Washington will suffer if, as expected, the Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, puts together a far-right government in the coming weeks. A rift with US officials is already opening over the kingmaker role of Avigdor Lieberman, who leads Yisrael Beiteinu, an anti-Arab party, and is being widely touted as a senior cabinet minister in the incoming government. His demand for loyalty legislation that threatens to strip the country’s Arab population of citizenship would, US officials note, put Israel’s government publicly at odds with the new, more inclusive era being promised by Barack Obama. Israeli officials are worried that a US backlash could strengthen the hand of the president’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, whose task it is to revive the moribund peace process with the Palestinians. Last week, Maariv, an Israeli daily newspaper, reported on concerns that Mr Mitchell might recommend economic sanctions against Israel, including cuts to the billions of dollars of annual aid, if a Netanyahu government allowed further expansion of West Bank settlements... [They needn't worry - the Israel Lobby has a hammerlock on the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Media complex.] Read more... Press TV - Pope called to cancel trip to Israel Pope Benedict XVI A group of Palestinian Christians has asked Pope Benedict XVI to call off his upcoming visit to the occupied Palestinian territories. After an Israeli TV channel aired a program with sacrilegious remarks about the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ (PBUH), the 40 community activists wrote to the Pope that his visit would "help boost Israel's image and inadvertently minimize Palestinian suffering under Israeli occupation."...[What a sorry spectacle that will make - the Pope genuflecting to the Zionists] Read more... UCLA professor helps launch boycott of Israel | The Daily Bruin Sondra Hale, a UCLA professor in the anthropology and women’s studies departments, is an organizing committee member of the recently launched U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel. Eleven of the 15 organizing committee members represent California universities, and four of them are from the University of California. Nearly 200 faculty members from universities across the nation are endorsing the boycott. The committee was formed in response to a call for support by Palestinian civil society and follows the guidelines drafted by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which was launched in 2004, according to its Web site. The call is “inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,” according to its mission statement. Although there have been local efforts to boycott and divest from Israeli companies in the past, this is the first attempt in the United States to organize an academic and cultural boycott on a national level, Hale said... Read more... Challenging Zionist Indoctrination: Birthright Israel "Unplugged" | IMEMC Touring the Wall with Birthright Unplugged There are few international educational trips that can boast a higher participant rate. In just under 10 years, Birthright Israel has flown over 200,000 young Jews to Israel for a 10 day adventure of touring, partying and a good dose of Zionist indoctrination. How do they do it? For starters, it's free. So long as you identify as Jewish, have never been on an organized tour of Israel, and are between the ages of 18-26, you qualify...As Israel is becoming more and more difficult to defend, a growing number of young Jews are expressing staunch opposition to the Israeli government and Zionism, shouting "not in my name!" for all the world to hear. Hannah Mermelstein is one of these young Jews. Together with co-founder Dunya Alwan, Mermelstein created an organization called Birthright Unplugged in 2005, in part to counter Birthright Israel and the skewed picture it paints in the minds of young Jews. Open to both Jews and non-Jews, Birthright Unplugged takes participants to see the devastating effects that Zionist colonization and occupation have had on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and within what is now the state of Israel. "Zionism is failing. It's on the decline." says Mermelstein. "Our role is to speed up the fall of Zionism," she added, “while at the same time standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to survive and resist Zionist policy.".. Read more... February 23, 2009 GAZA "..this so-called "state" loses control each time any criticism is made against it, and mounts campaigns to punish, and vociferously attack the international organisations and their representatives who dare to criticize its commission of crimes". - President, International Coalition against Impunity (HOKOK) Interview with Franklin Lamb, International Lawyers Sans Frontiers Interviewer’s Note: On December 27, 2008, Israel launched a devastating 22 day and night bombardment of the Gaza strip. The assault left, amidst an estimated 600,000 tons of concrete rubble, some 1,740 dead (this figure includes more than 350 ‘forgotten’ stillbirths and trauma-caused abortions in Gaza during the 22 days of terror), a figure that increases as the severely injured continue to die. A majority of the victims were civilians, including nearly 900 (again including the stillborn) children, approximately 5,500 severely wounded, and more than one third of the 1.5 million population was displaced while more than 14,000 homes were completely destroyed. Approximately 92,000 Palestinians are still homeless with more than 16,000 living as many as 20 to a small tent without latrines, as supplies remain blocked at the borders. Single-limb fractures and the walking wounded are not included in the above figures, according to renowned British surgeon Dr. Swee Ang, currently conducting an on-the-ground medical investigation in Gaza. Dr. Swee and her medical colleagues estimate that of the severely injured, 1,600 will suffer permanent disabilities. These include amputations, spinal cord injuries, head injuries, and large burns with crippling contractures. Also bombed were 68 government buildings and 31 NGO complexes, buildings all of which were completely or partially destroyed. Property damage and loss of livelihood has been estimated at close to 2 billion dollars... Part I: Self Defense or War Crime? Part II: Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law: What Remedy? YouTube - British MP's in Gaza A visiting British parliamentary delegation on Tuesday expressed shock at seeing the enormity of destruction in the Gaza Strip and called for lifting the unjust siege and holding Israel's leaders accountable for what they did against the Gaza people. Head of the British delegation Richard Bordentold a news conference held at the Ramattan press center in Gaza city that they came to Gaza to witness the impact of Israel's aggression and to figure out what happened on the ground in order to know the best means to help the Palestinians in the Strip.Borden underlined that the delegation would report about its visit to the British house of Commons, and would demand the opening of crossings and an increase in aid.The British lawmaker added that the visiting MPs would stress before the British parliament the need for holding Israel accountable for what it did in Gaza and for getting answers from it about the reasons for targeting schools and hospitals, noting that they would meet with Israeli officials to obtain these answers. The lawmaker said that he and his colleagues were extremely shocked when they saw the size of destruction in reality not as shown on TV screens in Britain.... Watch... Suspend military aid to Israel, Amnesty urges Obama after detailing US weapons used in Gaza Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel's extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles. In a report released today, Amnesty International detailed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the Obama administration to suspend military aid to Israel... Read more... from The Guardian Time for accountability for human rights abuses in Gaza and southern Israel - Amnesty International Eye opening montage of news clips and photos that tell the truth about the events in Gaza. Watch... YouTube - The Dangerous Terrorists in Gaza ( Wake up Americans ) Those people are the people that we were told by Bush Media that they are Terrorists and MUST BE KILLED. Wake Up America and look at the TRUTH that you can't see in our Media. Wake up America and look at where your TAX goes. America, WE NEED THE REAL CHANGE Watch... Al Jazeera English - CRISIS IN GAZA - Investigating Gaza's 'war crimes' To launch Al Jazeera's new weekly show, Focus On Gaza, correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin visited the village of Khuza'a where residents and human rights experts believe a possible war crime took place during Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip...Testimony from eyewitnesses, friends, neighbours and human rights experts about the incident tell the story of how a woman carrying a baby and white flag was shot in broad daylight by an Israeli soldier... Read more, watch... Mauro Manno is gone, RIP Who’s behind Madoff?, by Wayne Madsen ...WMR has also learned that a key element in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was Madoff Energy LLC, formed as a Delaware corporation in February 2007. Other Madoff firms in the energy arena were Madoff Energy Holdings LLC, Madoff Energy III LLC, and Madoff Energy IV LLC. There are links between these now-defunct Madoff energy entities and Texas oil and natural gas industry interests, some close to the Bushes and Dick Cheney. WMR has also learned that the kid glove treatment given by federal authorities to Madoff, including allowing him to remain in his Upper East Side luxury town home, is because Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was part of a much larger operation, one involving top officials of both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, as well as the notorious Russian-Israeli Mafia....WMR has learned from a U.S. intelligence source in the Middle East that much of the $50 billion scammed by Madoff is now in Israeli banks and other financial contrivances established to secretly launder the ill-gotten loot. The Madoff Ponzi scheme may also be linked to the revelations by former Liechtenstein LGT bank employee Heinrich Kieber of secret off-shore accounts held by tax-evading politicians and businessmen in the United States and other countries, as well as the Clearstream entity in Luxembourg that involved allegations of a slush fund used to finance the political ambitions of France’s neocon president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and other right-wing politicians.... Read more... What We Don’t Know Will Hurt Us, by Frank Rich | NYT AND so on the 29th day of his presidency, Barack Obama signed the stimulus bill. But the earth did not move. The Dow Jones fell almost 300 points. G.M. and Chrysler together asked taxpayers for another $21.6 billion and announced another 50,000 layoffs. The latest alleged mini-Madoff, R. Allen Stanford, was accused of an $8 billion fraud with 50,000 victims...a bigger question may be whether we really want to know. One of the most persistent cultural tics of the early 21st century is Americans’ reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news. We are plugged into more information sources than anyone could have imagined even 15 years ago. The cruel ambush of 9/11 supposedly “changed everything,” slapping us back to reality. Yet we are constantly shocked, shocked by the foreseeable. Obama’s toughest political problem may not be coping with the increasingly marginalized G.O.P. but with an America-in-denial that must hear warning signs repeatedly, for months and sometimes years, before believing the wolf is actually at the door... Read more... UK agents 'colluded with torture in Pakistan '| The Observer A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects. In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to "run much deeper"... Read more... Sheikh Jarrah protest camp demolished by Israeli police | ISM Israeli forces have demolished the protest tent established in Sheikh Jarrah, Occupied East Jerusalem for the fourth time since its establishment. The tent, built on private Palestinian property, was built in support of the evicted al-Kurd family and over 500 Palestinian residents who currently face eviction from the neighbourhood. Israeli forces arrived at the site of the protest camp at around 9:30am and began to dismantle the tent. Sheikh Jarrah residents suspected that Israeli police would attempt to intimidate them following further evidence brought from Turkey to a court appeal on the 19th of February. This evidence appears to confirm the al-Kurd family claims of Arab ownership of the land in question, thus undermining any claims made by the settlers who currently reside in the al-Kurd house, following the Palestinian family’s eviction... Read more... Global boycott movement marks its successes Responding to the many calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, solidarity movements around the world have marked many successes. It is important for human rights advocates to build on this momentum and seize the opportunity to do what is within their power to try and hold Israel accountable for its abuses of human rights and other international laws... Read more... Dr. Al-Arian's Saga Enters Its 7th Year Alexandria, VA - At a pre-trial hearing today, federal judge Leonie Brinkema denied a government motion requesting her to reconsider a previous ruling. At the last hearing, Judge Brinkema ruled that the government must provide information to the defense and the court regarding the original 2006 plea negotiations between the Department of Justice and Dr. Al-Arian's attorneys... Read more... February 22, 2009 Absolutely Not! Not in Their Name, Not in Ours, by Michael Warschawski General Staff of the Israeli military, General Gabi AshkeNazi, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Gabi Ashkenazi and Ehud Olmert--don’t you dare show your faces at any memorial ceremony for the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, Lublin, Vilna or Kishinev. And you too, leaders of Peace Now, for whom peace means a pacification of the Palestinian resistance by any means, including the destruction of a people. Whenever I will be there, I shall personally do my best to expel each of you from these events, for your very presence would be an immense sacrilege... at the Nazi Concentration Camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland Read more... Amazing Appointment — Chas Freeman as NIC Chairman Red Alert! Sanity May Be Breaking Out! As first reported by Laura Rozen and subsequently confirmed by Chris Nelson, it appears that Chas Freeman has been appointed chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the body that is charged by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) with synthesizing the analyses of the entire U.S. intelligence community and producing National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) — the most famous of which was the December 2007 NIE on Iran’s nuclear program that put paid to the hopes of hawks who favored a military action against Tehran — that are used to guide policymakers on critical issues facing U.S. security... Read more... Robert Fisk: Obama was unconvinced by Bibi’s desire for peace | The Independent Barack Obama, they say, did not get on well with Bibi Netanyahu when he met him in Jerusalem before the American elections. Mr Obama, who figured out the Middle East pretty quickly, apparently found Bibi arrogant and unconvincing in his professed desire for peace with the Palestinians. What Mr Netanyahu thought of Mr Obama is not known, but he could scarcely have tried to hide his election line: security for Israel, but no Palestinian state... Read more... Africa border opens for Gaza aid | BBC The convoy aims to enter Gaza from Egypt The border between Morocco and Algeria, closed for almost 15 years, has been temporarily reopened for an aid convoy heading towards the Gaza Strip. The convoy of 99 vehicles, which left from the UK loaded with medicine, food, clothes and toys, crossed into Algeria near the Moroccan town of Oujda... Viva Palestina Aid Convoy to Gaza Reaches Algeria - 21 February 2009 Watch... Viva Palestina aid convoy reaches Morocco - 19 Feb 2009 Watch... Read BBC article... Israel and Hamas holding indirect talks in Paris - International Middle East Media Center Israeli sources reported Thursday that the real indirect prisoner-swap talks between Hamas and Israel are being held in the French Capital, Paris, and not in Egypt. The Israeli side is represented by Ofar Dekel, Israel’s Prime Minister Envoy, who ran indirect German-mediated talks with Hezbollah, while France is running Qatari-mediated talks with Hamas... Read more... US Empire and the Conflict in Israel-Palestine | GRITtv with Laura Flanders Watch... A New Official Enemy along the Border Soon after the Pentagon lost its longtime Official Enemy — The Communists — with the fall of the Berlin Wall, all the talk about a “peace dividend” caused Pentagon officials to go into overdrive developing reasons as to why the military budget should not be slashed. Among the things the Pentagon offered to do was to help wage the war on drugs. Of course, that was before The Terrorists had replaced The Communists as the new Official Enemy... Read more... Betty Molchany responds to Karen Cohen of the Endowment for Middle East Truth The four hostile responses to my Op-ed, the Gaza Holocaust, including one written by Karen Cohen of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (party to the production and distribution of the DVD, "Obsession") all said my source was Arab propaganda. In my 750-word letter..you might find useful links and references and hopefully a surprise or two:.. Read more... Halliburton's Army: How Cheney's Former Firm Revolutionized Warmaking and Screwed Us in the Process | AlterNet In 2004, antiwar activists pushed bright red booklets titled “Houston We Have a Problem” under the doors of hotel rooms where Halliburton shareholders rested before the company’s annual meeting. The booklets were alternative annual reports that detailed how Halliburton and its then subsidiary, KBR, overcharged taxpayers for services in Iraq, was under investigation for corruption and had used political connections to win no-bid and cost-plus contracts. Those contracts now total more than $30 billion... Read more... It's like Dante's Inferno, a doctor describes Gaza horror | Palestine Think Tank Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, tells Sky News that the number of civilians injured and killed in Gaza proves that Israel is deliberately attacking the population. Please watch and especially listen to this video. It describes the reality.. and in all the injured and dead he saw, he could only identify ONE as a military person. This is a massacre of civilians... Watch... Read more... Nationalization: Code Word for Banker Takeover, by Kurt Nimmo Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina It is now a mantra in the corporate media — the only way to fix the banking system is to “nationalize” the banks. “A touchy word has entered the public debate about the future of America’s economy. It’s a word that would shock the nation in normal times, but as even Republicans begin to whisper it, temporary ‘nationalization’ of troubled banks is increasingly seen as our last best hope for fixing our financial system,”...Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina defend and push bank “nationalization” because there is not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats — both are on the hook to the global elite and the bankers...Read more... Israeli Elections, by Dr. Haidar Eid and Neta Golan | ZNet After very close Israeli elections, many analysts seem to feel Likud head Benjamin Netanyahu will get the nod to form the next Israeli government. Though Likud lost to Kadima by a small number of votes, Likud's right-wing bloc as a whole won a majority. Many in the international community are holding out hope that Tzipi Livni, the head of Kadima, will prevail and become Prime Minister because they view her as the candidate of peace. In reality however, Livni, while speaking of negotiations, represents continuity with past Israeli policies of the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, just as Netanyahu does. Both Likud and Kadima will leave members of the international community who are committed to human rights with only one appropriate response - boycott... Read more... Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank, by Ilan Pappe A general view of Har Homa settlement, built on the land of West Bank city On this stage, not so long ago, I claimed that Israel is conducting genocidal policies in the Gaza Strip. I hesitated a lot before using this very charged term and yet decided to adopt it. Indeed, the responses I received, including from some leading human rights activists, indicated a certain unease over the usage of such a term. I was inclined to rethink the term for a while, but came back to employing it today with even stronger conviction: it is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip...of Bethlehem, and considered by Israel to be part of 'Greater Jerusalem' Read more... February 21, 2009 Letter from Mazin 2/21/09 It is sometimes really hard to even begin to describe our feelings living under brutal Israeli occupation and noting the indifference, complicity, and hypocrisy of so many people in Israel, in America, in Europe and elsewhere. Every day, the Israeli “system” violates dozens of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights... Read more... STATEMENT OF JOEL KOVEL REGARDING HIS TERMINATION BY BARD COLLEGE ..This document argues that this termination of service is prejudicial and motivated neither by intellectual nor pedagogic considerations, but by political values, principally stemming from differences between myself and the Bard administration on the issue of Zionism... Read more... Remove Our Grandmother's Name from the Wall at Yad Vashem | Counterpunch Following the example of Jean-Moise Braitberg, we ask that our grandmother's name be removed from the wall at Yad Vashem. Her name is Gertrud Neumann. Your records state that she was born in Kattowitz on June 6, 1875 and died in Theresienstadt. M. Braitberg delivers his request with excellent reasons and eloquent personal testimony. His words are inspiring, but they give you – and those who stand with you - too much credit. I will instead be brief. Please take this as an expression of my disgust and contempt for your state and all it represents. Our grandmother was a victim of that very ideal of ethnic sovereignty in whose cause Israel has shed so much blood for so long. I was among the many Jews who thought nothing of embracing that ideal, despite the sufferings it had inflicted on our own race. It took thousands of Palestinian lives before, finally, I realized how foolish we had been... Read more... From One Assault on the Constitution to Another: Bill of Rights Under Fire, by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS During the first eight years of the 21st century, the Republicans mercilessly assaulted civil liberties. The brownshirt Bush regime ignored the protections provided by habeas corpus. They spied on American citizens without warrants. They violated the First Amendment. They elevated decisions of the president above US statutory law and international law. They claimed the power to withhold information from the people’s representatives in Congress, and they asserted, and behaved as if, they were unaccountable to the people, Congress, and the federal courts. The executive branch claimed the power to ignore congressional subpoenas. Republicans regarded Bush as a Stuart king unaccountable to law. The Bush brownshirt regime revealed itself as lawless, the worst criminal organization in American history. Now we have the Democrats, and the assault on civil liberty continues... Read more... War Criminals Must be Prosecuted (And Their Lawyers, Too!) | Counterpunch Since he took office, President Obama has instituted many changes that break with the policies of the Bush administration. The new president has ordered that no government agency will be allowed to torture, that the U.S. prison at Guantánamo will be shuttered, and that the CIA’s secret black sites will be closed down. But Obama is non-committal when asked whether he will seek investigation and prosecution of Bush officials who broke the law. “My view is also that nobody's above the law and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen,” Obama said. “But,” he added, “generally speaking, I'm more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards.” Obama fears that holding Team Bush to account will risk alienating Republicans whom he still seeks to win over... Read more... YouTube - Ron Paul: What if the People Wake Up? Madame Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues. What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is a predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others? What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel? What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan - and bombing Pakistan - is directly related to the hatred directed toward us and has nothing to do with being free and prosperous?... Watch... Jeffrey Goldberg's gasping, dying smear tactics - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com ..People like Jeffrey Goldberg -- and his comrades at places such as Commentary and the ADL -- have so abused, over-used, manipulated and exploited the "anti-semitism" and "anti-Israel" accusations for improper and nakedly political ends that those terms have become drained of their meaning, have almost entirely lost their sting, and have become trivialized virtually to the point of caricature. That behavior has produced serious harm. Their trivialization and misuse of those terms have severely diminished the ability to stigmatize and attack real anti-Semitism, because legitimate accusations of anti-Semitism are now conflated with and discredited by the neocons' cynical attempts to wield it as a cheap debating weapon. That's a particularly dangerous -- and ironic -- outcome given that it has been spawned by many who have long claimed proprietary ownership over the "anti-Semitism" term in order, ostensibly, to protect it from trivialization... Read more... Twilight in Afghanistan, by Philip Giraldi The catastrophic Iraq experience might have proven valuable if it had led to a rejection of the hegemonic policies embraced by a delusional Washington foreign policy establishment. Unfortunately, no end to reliance on war as the essential tool of American statecraft is in sight. Soldiers being removed from Iraq are going to Kabul. The Afghan war, which is now entering its eighth year, is curiously viewed by many in the elite as a "good" war opposed to the bad war in Iraq but, in spite of a NATO-led effort to pacify the country, the conflict has grown in intensity and morphed into a strange amalgam that is a bit like Iraq and a bit like Vietnam. Like Vietnam, where Washington legitimately feared communist expansion, Afghanistan was a war initiated in response to a vital national interest, to destroy a state sponsor of a terrorist group that had inflicted terrible damage on the US homeland. But both wars soon developed raisons d'etre that had nothing to do with America's security. As in Iraq, Afghanistan became an exercise in democracy promotion which failed to impose a western model of government on a society that operates in tribal terms... Read more... Prince of Darkness Denies Own Existence - Washington Post Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole. In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which: 1. Perle is not a neoconservative. Read more, watch video...2. Neoconservatives do not exist. 3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years... Fascist Rule in Israel, by Stephen Lendman ...Under the law for Arabs and Jews, no candidate may challenge Israel's fundamental Jewish character or demand equal rights, privileges, and justice. The essential Zionist identity is inviolable. The law works only for Jews. Israeli Arabs have no rights. They're denied equal treatment and justice, even those elected to public office. Israel calls this democracy. South Africa called it apartheid. Nazi Germany called it fascism... Read more... Hold Israel accountable for Gaza, by George Bisharat | Seattle Times "THE boss has lost it," many Israeli military and political officials, and people on the street, were reportedly joking after their army's recent devastation of the Gaza Strip. As Israeli journalist Uri Avnery observed, the jest means that: " ... in order to deter our enemies, we must behave like madmen, go on the rampage, kill and destroy mercilessly." In fact, the "boss has lost it" is an unselfconscious admission of policies that violate international law, and could at some point be used against Israeli leaders in a criminal prosecution. Evidence suggests that Israel may have committed at least seven serious offenses during its Gaza invasion: launching a war of aggression (because Israel itself triggered the breakdown of a six-month truce, and therefore did not have a valid claim of self-defense); deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure; deliberate killings of civilians; collective punishment; illegal use of weapons, including white phosphorous; preventing care to the wounded; and disproportionate use of force... Read more... ADC & ARAB INTELLECTUALS BETWEEN PUBLIC RELATIONS AND SELF-ALIENATION, by Ibrahim Alloush ...This process is also at the essence of the mechanism by which the values and perspectives of ruling elites in any society become those of the ‘mainstream’. It is also the essence of the mechanism by which the world today is being Americanized. Mind you, there is a two-way process here. It is true that ruling elites within any society or at the global level control the means of generating contemporary symbols and values, through the control of the means of mass-communication or intellectual means of production (and thereof, intellectual property rights). Yet that control only furnishes the material basis of creating a pliable mainstream. The moral prerequisite for controlling the mainstream (or the masses, in more archaic political terminology), is that the latter be completely self-alienated vis-à-vis the wealthy, the powerful, and the awe-ful, as delineated above... Read more... February 20, 2009 NYU Students Barricade Doors, Occupy University Building We, the students of Take Back NYU! declare our solidarity with the student [actions] in Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom, as well as those of the University of Rochester, the New School for Social Research, and with future [actions] to come in the name of democracy and student power. We stand in solidarity with the University of Gaza, and with the people of Palestine... Read more... Prominent Canadian speaks out against the war on Gaza (video) Judith Weisman is a Toronto psychotherapist, a member of Independent Jewish Voices, and a founding member of Not In Our Name, Jews for a Just Peace and the Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation (of Palestine) Watch... US congressmen express shock at Gaza devastation US Democratic Congressmen Keith Ellison and Brian US Democratic representatives Brian Baird and Keith Ellison expressed shock at the plight of the war-shattered Gaza Strip during a rare visit to the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave on Thursday. "The amount of physical destruction and the depth of human suffering here is staggering" Baird said in a statement issued jointly with Ellison during their visit which coincided with a similar trip by US Senator John Kerry. The visits were the first by US lawmakers since Hamas, an Islamist movement Washington blacklists as a terrorist organisation, seized control of the overcrowded territory in June 2007. Ellison, a representative from Minnesota, harshly criticised restrictions on the delivery of desperately needed goods into the coastal strip that has been under a crippling Israeli blockade imposed after the Hamas takeover. "People, innocent children, women and non-combatants, are going without water, food and sanitation, while the things they so desperately need are sitting in trucks at the border, being denied permission to go in," he said...Baird listen to a Palestinian owner of a company [Kerry predictably just genuflected towards AIPAC.] Read more... Lobby Whistles Up Cordesman to "Prove" Israel Waged a Clean War in Gaza: The Cleanser, by Norman Finkelstein Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading military analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has published a “strategic analysis” of the Gaza massacre. He reaches the remarkable conclusion that “Israel did not violate the laws of war.” The report is based on “briefings in Israeli [sic] during and immediately after the fighting made possible by a visit sponsored by Project Interchange, and using day-to-day reporting issued by the Israeli Defense Spokesman.” Cordesman omits mention that Project Interchange is funded by the American Jewish Committee. Cordesman’s faith in the pronouncements of Israeli notwithstanding, respected Israeli analysts exhibit less confidence. “The state authorities, including the defense establishment and its branches,” Uzi Benziman observed in Haaretz, “have acquired for themselves a shady reputation when it comes to their credibility.” The “official communiqués published by the IDF have progressively liberated themselves from the constraints of truth,” B. Michael wrote in Yediot Ahronot, and the “heart of the power structure”—police, army, intelligence—has been infected by a “culture of lying.”... Read more... Head of UN aid agency ‘extremely pleased’ over Gaza visit of US pols UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd The Gaza visits of three United States legislators were a sign of change that could improve the situation on the ground in the war-torn territory, the chief of the United Nations agency responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees said today. “We think it makes a very important signal from the American Government that they are ready to come in, and able to come in and have a look around themselves,” Karen AbuZayd, the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) told UN Radio...Read more... Singing the Gospel at Crapola's End: Crisis? What Crisis? More good news in crisis from down the block here in Brooklyn: Therealty office that I could almost spit on from my stoop has shut itsdoors, boarded up the classy windows, sent its half-breed parasiteshome, no more to feed on the entrails of rent control. Praise be tothe realtors out of a job – may they find real work suited to theirminds, dealing heroin to children or pulling the wings off flies forre-sale. Good times, I tell you, and the rents falling fast, thebubble-brain-time popping. On the same stretch of street in Brooklyn,the boutiques with their sale signs like epitaph, spray-painted in thecolors of the rainbow, desperate-looking, like the owners were faintingas they painted. Jeans for $319 now at 50 percent – a bargain, I’m tounderstand. Threadbare t-shirts “artistically printed,” just $40, cutto $20, I might pay 50 cents, if they’d get rid of the infantile print.Alas, the inventories piling up across the blackened plain,burial-mounded and no one buying, and in the wind a hysterical lament... Read more... Foxman, Rosner and Obama’s January Surprise Responding to the appointment of George Mitchell as Barack Obama’s Mideast envoy, Abe Foxman has achieved something remarkable: He has outdone Marty Peretz in the tasteless-comment competition among the self-appointed cheerleaders of Israel. And Foxman did it without using words unprintable in this respectable blog. Peretz, still listed as editor-in-chief of The New Republic, greeted the beginning of the Israeli air campaign in Gaza in December by describing its message as: “Do not f— with the Jews.”... Read more... The Roots of Hatred in the Zionist Ideology 'Lieberman viewed as the Israeli duplicate of contemporary European fascists.' In 1939 Europe turned a blind eye to the rise of Nazism. The British foreign minister Neville Chamberlain believed that a policy of appeasement would work with Hitler; it did not. Hitler attacked Poland, giving the world a costly lesson - a policy of appeasement does not work with fascism. The outcome is well known: Europe was ruined and around 50 million lost their lives. Yet thanks to the Norwegian "home front" resistance, Hitler was deprived of the heavy water needed for manufacturing the nuclear bomb; had he acquired enough material to do so, the history of humanity might have been dramatically different to that which we know. The fact that Hitler was democratically elected by the German people did not legitimize his policy of mass murder; in the same way the Israeli election of fascists and war criminals should not legitimate the Zionists' policy of mass murder. However, if Hitler is the starkest model of the democratic electoral system that brought Nazism to power in Germany, the recent Israeli election is a more recent example of an election that brought another known fascist, Avigdor Lieberman, widely viewed as the Israeli duplicate of contemporary European fascists like Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen, to power... Read more... The People Be Damned: President of Special Interests, by Paul Craig Roberts The Bush/Obama bailout/stimulus plans are not going to work. Both are schemes hatched by a clique of financial insiders. The schemes will redistribute income and wealth from American taxpayers to the shyster banksters, who have destroyed American jobs, ruined the retirement plans of tens of millions of Americans, and worsened the situation of millions of people worldwide who naively trusted American financial institutions. The ongoing theft has simply been recast. Instead of using fraudulent financial instruments, the banksters are using government policy... Read more... Fearing One State Solution, Peres Serves Pablum to Washington, by Franklin Lamb Peres has participated in shaping the policies of Israel for most of its existence Israeli President Shimon Peres has participated in shaping the policies of Israel for most of its existence. His Washington Post Op-Ed last week billed as 'a peace partners prod' to the Obama administration, evidences a major disconnect within the government of Israel concerning what is urgently required for that country's increasingly unlikely long-term survival. According to a CIA study currently being shown to selected staff members on the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Israel's survival in its present form beyond the next 20 years is doubtful. The Report predicts "an inexorable movement away from a Two State to a One State solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region."...Read more... 'American stalwarts' Falk, Kucinich, Chomsky, & Finkelstein 'ignored or spurned like lepers': A Talk by Chris Hedges This took place a month ago. Great speech at a town hall on Gaza organized by the Society for Ethical Culture in New York, from Chris Hedges, a little incantatory, what you'd expect from a minister's kid: to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army; and [call] it a war-- It is not a war, it is murder. And beautiful statement about American "stalwarts" Norman Finkelstein, Dennis Kucinich, Richard Falk, and Chomsky getting shut out of the press - ignored or spurned like lepers. They are denied a platform in the press, they are rendered nearly voiceless. Hedges also uses the g-word. The lesson of the Holocaust is that when you have the capacity to halt genocide, and you do not, no matter who carries out that genocide and who it is against, you are culpable... View... Hollywood's new censors, by John Pilger In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how censorship in Hollywood works in the age of the 'war on terror'. Unlike the crude days of the cold war, it's by omission and 'introspective dross'. When I returned from the war in Vietnam, I wrote a film script as an antidote to the myth that the war had been an ill-fated noble cause. The producer David Puttnam took the draft to Hollywood and offered it to the major studios, whose responses were favourable – well, almost. Each issued a report card in which the final category, “politics”, included comments such as: “This is real, but are the American people ready for it? Maybe they’ll never be.”... Read more... The Palestinian story: The rise of terrorism Death visits us on a daily basis only to confirm our contention that oppression thrives against our population. In a mixed world where a single invading soldier is valued more than the many civilians he kills, it is conceivable that we are seen as the terrorists. But did we Palestinians ever live in peace? Have we always been the victim of their tanks and planes? When could the people of our ancient land breathe, live and die peacefully? The turbulent history of our Palestine -- the fertile region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River -- starts with the rule of the prophets, the very men chosen to roam the earth and advocate coexistence and love between all its inhabitants... Read more... It's time to rethink Zionism | Daphna Baram The desire for ethnic purity that drove out Palestinians and bars the way to democracy in Israel is the rotten fruit of an old debate. The results of last week's parliamentary elections in Israel brought to the surface some of the most rotten fruits of a debate that has been going on throughout the state's existence: the idea that a mono-ethnic Jewish state is feasible, legitimate and desirable. In other words, it enhanced the predicament of the moral and practical consequences of the Zionist state ideology... Read more... The Jewish Wehrmacht always targets Civilians The Jews’ Nazi Policy (A compendium of comments compiled by Philip Weiss) Read more... Argentina expels Catholic bishop who questions Holocaust | The Guardian Argentina ordered a British bishop who has questioned the truth of the Holocaust to leave the country last night or face expulsion, reigniting a controversy which has dogged the Vatican. The interior ministry said Richard Williamson, a conservative Catholic who headed a seminary near Buenos Aires, had 10 days to leave... [Will he turn out to be a hero or a coward? Only time will tell.] Read more... Back to the front: Journalist Robert Fisk talks about the necessity of reporting war from the front lines ..When Israeli military forces launched an invasion into the Gaza Strip, international journalists were barred entry into the territory by the Israeli government for the majority of the conflict. This despite a ruling from the Israeli Supreme Court that called on the government to allow international reporters into the territory... Read more... For the Fishermen of Gaza, by Yvonne Ridley As the sun rose over the Tarifa ferry terminal in Southern Spain this morning the view was quite spectacular as row after row of vehicles from the Viva Palestina convoy lined up for the next leg of our mercy mission to Gaza. But what really caught my eye this time was a boat which was being towed behind one of the vehicles. People often forget that Gaza is a coastal strip which sits on the edge of the Mediterranean rim, and at one time the sea provided a decent living for the local fishermen. The Israeli Navy has, with almost casual regularity, tried to ram, sink or scuttle the boats belonging to20the fishermen of Gaza... Read more... Another Hamastan? Many observers describe Israel’s political system as dysfunctional because it has likely produced a government hostile to the peace process. These observers forget that Israelis may have no interest in the peace process: the public just cast its largest votes for the three candidates who most stridently brandished their anti-Arab credentials. No one figure emerged victorious, although what passes for “the left” in Israel certainly lost. The rejectionist Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu (whose supporters had hankered for Yitzakh Rabin’s murder) must vie with the centrist Kadima’s Tzipi Livni (who helped launch the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza) for the affections of Avigdor Lieberman (who pines for the purging of Israel’s Arab citizenry) in order to form a coalition government... Read more... February 19, 2009 YouTube - The Zionist Story I have recently finished an independent documentary, 'THE ZIONIST STORY,' in which I aim to present not just the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but also the core reason for it: the Zionist ideology, its goals (past and present) and its firm grip not only on Israeli society, but also, increasingly, on the perception of Middle East issues in Western democracies. These concepts have already been demonstrated in the excellent 'Occupation 101' documentary made by Abdallah Omeish and Sufyan Omeish, but in my documentary I approach the subject from the perspective of an Israeli, ex-reserve soldier and someone who has spent his entire life in the shadow of Zionism. I hope you can find a moment to watch 'The Zionist Story' and, if you like it, please feel free to share it with others. (As both the documentary and the archived footage used are for educational purposes only, the film can be freely distributed). If you would like a copy of the film on DVD, send me an e-mail with your postal address and I'll be happy to send it.I have made this documentary entirely by myself, with virtually no budget, although doing my best to achieve high professional standard, and I hope that this 'home-spun' production will be of interest to viewers. - Ronen Berlovich [An excellent documentary that explores the ideology of Zionism and its impact on Israel and the Palestinians under occupation. It contains a great deal of archival material interspersed with pertinent commentary.] View Part 1 of 8... The Little Things That Pass Us By | MIFTAH Almost every word is linked to associations. In the case of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, people immediately think of fighting, Israeli settlements, perhaps the separation wall, when this term is mentioned. Images of rock throwing (or rocket firing) Palestinians are conjured up along with gun-toting belligerent Israeli soldiers firing live ammunition and tear gas at protesters. Of course, the images of mangled buses and hysterical Israelis reeling from a Palestinian suicide bombing have become some of the most powerful images in the media, even more so than bombed out houses and dead Gaza children. Still, I am a firm believer that part of the reason the Palestinians are so badly misrepresented in the media and political forums is because their reality is also so badly misrepresented. While the things mentioned earlier are certainly the most visible aspects of the conflict, I can't help but cringe at the thought that there is so much more that nobody knows anything about. To understand just how difficult life can be under an occupation – in this case Israel's of the Palestinian territories – we can't afford to ignore even the so-called little things... Read more... Kissinger’s recovery plan: New World Order or Chaos, by Eric Walberg The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed this week will define Barack Obama’s presidency. But it is really just the younger sibling to the Troubled Assets Relief Program. To separate the now trillions being handed out to the banksters from the $800 billion being handed out to the lottery winners is to be ingenuous. The elder sister’s patrons are already blackmailing Obama, wailing for more trillions or they will plunge the economy into even greater financial crisis. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” they hissed to Treasury Secretary Geithner, who, according to economist Michael Hudson, quickly “pledged government financing for as much as $2 trillion. . . . to spur new lending and address banks’ toxic assets, seeking to end the credit crunch hobbling the economy.” Hudson calls it “Stage One of a two-stage plan,” so far unannounced, to transfer trillions more to people who, in any sane world, would be behind bars, the purpose being to re-inflate the bubble economy that made them wealthy beyond their dreams while leaving wages stagnant and creating little meaningful work... Read more... Tony Blair receives Israeli prize worth $1 million - Haaretz Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be one of the three laureates of the Dan David Prize for 2009, awarded annually by Tel Aviv University. Each of the laureates will receive a $1 million prize, 10 percent of which is contributed to 20 doctoral and post-doctoral scholarships. Blair was selected to receive the prize in leadership for what the judges described as "his exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict."... [his reward for being a loving and faithful lapdog] Read more... Israel launches covert war against Iran | Telegraph Israel has launched a covert war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran's nuclear programme, US intelligence sources have revealed... Read more... What Does Holocaust Denial Really Mean?, by Daniel McGowan | Dissident Voice In April 2007 the European Union agreed to set jail sentences up to three years for those who deny or trivialize the Holocaust.More recently, in response to the remarks of Bishop Richard Williamson, the Pope has proclaimed that Holocaust denial is “intolerable and altogether unacceptable.” But what does Holocaust denial really mean?... Read more... U.S. Intel Chief's Shocking Warning: Wall Street's Disaster Has Spawned Our Greatest Terrorist Threat, by Chris Hedges The Director of National Intelligence argued that Wall Street, rather than Islamic jihad, has produced our most dangerous terrorists. We have a remarkable ability to create our own monsters. A few decades of meddling in the Middle East with our Israeli doppelganger and we get Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaida, the Iraqi resistance movement and a resurgent Taliban. Now we trash the world economy and destroy the ecosystem and sit back to watch our handiwork. Hints of our brave new world seeped out Thursday when Washington's new director of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He warned that the deepening economic crisis posed perhaps our gravest threat to stability and national security. It could trigger, he said, a return to the "violent extremism" of the 1920s and 1930s. It turns out that Wall Street, rather than Islamic jihad, has produced our most dangerous terrorists. We will see accelerated plant and retail closures, inflation, an epidemic of bankruptcies, new rounds of foreclosures, bread lines, unemployment surpassing the levels of the Great Depression and, as Blair fears, social upheaval... Read more... What Will Cost $1 Trillion in 2009 and Has Never Been Conquered? The war in Afghanistan is “going to be much tougher than Iraq,” according to Richard Holbrooke, the State Department’s special envoy. Tougher than Iraq? Does that mean the Afghanistan war will last another six years or more? Will the death toll be worse than 4,200 soldiers and over 100,000 civilians killed? And will Afghanistan cost more than the $3 trillion our country will have spent on Iraq when all is said and done? The time has come to Rethink Afghanistan, and one of the best ways we can is through Congressional oversight hearings. These deliberative hearings are fundamental to raising critical questions, examining the Pentagon’s plans, and investigating military spending before this war spirals out of control. Historically, oversight hearings have played a major role in our system of checks and balances in wartime, except during the Bush administration... Read more, Watch videos... Will You Help Me With My Next Film? ...a request from Michael Moore I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know. Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know "the real deal" about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear. I am humbly asking you for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history... Read more... Lawsuit Sheds More Light on Terror War Abuses Three human rights groups have released documents that they say reveal close cooperation between the U.S. Defence Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in rendering terrorism suspects to secret prisons, creating 'ghost prisoners' by concealing their identities from the Red Cross, and delaying their release to counter negative publicity about their treatment at Guántanamo Bay. Close to a thousand pages of documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and New York University's Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ). The suit, dating from 2004, seeks the disclosure of government documents relating to secret detention, extraordinary rendition, and torture... Read more... 'Holocaust Fundamentalism' & The War On Dissent Two British Writers Languish In Obscurity In A California Jail. Their Crime? Satire, Mockery & Disbelief. An international court battle involving government-imposed restrictions on political expression has ensnared two right-leaning British intellectuals. Writers Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle stand convicted of violating modern British laws against "stirring up racial and religious hatred" for publishing, among other things, an allegedly anti-Semitic comic book called "Tales of the Holohoax" as well as a nativist-British pamphlet called "Don't Be Sheeple"... Read more... Getting Prepared for the Great Collapse You might ask yourself, then, Why on earth did he get invited to speak here tonight? It seems that I am enjoying my moment in the limelight, because I am one of the very few people who several years ago unequivocally predicted the demise of the United States as a global superpower..If there is one thing that I would like to claim as my own, it is the comparative theory of superpower collapse. For now, it remains just a theory, although it is currently being quite thoroughly tested. The theory states that the United States and the Soviet Union will have collapsed for the same reasons, namely: a severe and chronic shortfall in the production of crude oil (that magic addictive elixir of industrial economies), a severe and worsening foreign trade deficit, a runaway military budget, and ballooning foreign debt. I call this particular list of ingredients "The Superpower Collapse Soup."... [The speaker has thought through some practical steps one can take in the likely event that the current 'recession' is leading to a total meltdown - well worth taking note of.] Read more... Digging In: An Interview With Wendell Berry | The Sun Magazine ..I don’t think we’re just stories — we’re living souls, too — but we’d be nothing without stories. Of course, stories that belong to a landscape are different from stories that don’t. In Arctic Dreams Lopez talks about how the Eskimos, the native Alaskan people, have a cultural landscape — the landscape as they know it — that is always a little different from the actual landscape, which nobody ever will fully know. In a functioning culture the landscape is full of stories. Stories adhere to it. And they’re most interesting when they’re told within the landscape. If, say, an oral-history project records somebody’s story and puts it in the university archives, then it’s a different story. It’s become isolated, misplaced, displaced...Greed is a part of human nature, and greed is the root cause of these disasters. Once you have greed and the means of exploitation, the high-toned rationalizations — in other words, the excuses — follow as a matter of course. A real culture functions to limit greed. Our culture functions to increase it, because, we are repeatedly told, it’s profitable to do so, though the majority of the profits go to only a few people... [The poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote, "The universe is made up of stories, not atoms." Jews have marvelous stories, some of which have been solidified by Zionism and the Holocult into a fascist dogma, a dogma that is ravaging the world. See also Atrocity Gods.] Read more... Israeli Hitler Parody Upsets Holocaust Survivors - NYT The Web fad for making comic remixes of scenes from the German film “Downfall” — rewriting the subtitles of Adolf Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) berating his generals during the last days of the Nazi regime — has reached Israel, where a new parody posted on YouTube has Hitler enraged by the lack of parking in Tel Aviv... [Oy, we Jews are so sensitive, unless of course someone else's ox is being gored, but who cares about the meshugena goyim?] Read more... No New Troops To Afghanistan March on the Pentagon, Saturday March 21 March on Wall St. April 3 &4 The Troops Out Now Coalition condemns the recent announcement that President Obama has ordered 17 thousand more troops to Afghanistan. The people voted overwhelmingly for an end to war and occupation. The world demands that it end. Most importantly, the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine demand that it end. Read more... February 18, 2009 One Democratic State intends to publish (in 2010 or earlier) a comprehensive collection of essays covering the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and related matters, as well as a companion volume refuting all Zionist talking points. If you would like something you write (or have written) to be included, or would be interested in helping out in any other way, please write me. UPDATE ON VALENTINE CONVOY TO GAZA Kamahl Mashni on the wire As previously reported on The Wire, a convoy of firetrucks, ambulances, and aid supplies has been winding its way through Europe to Palestine, on a mission to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. The procession is the brain child of British MP George Galloway, and at the end of the journey through Europe all the goods will be delivered to Gaza. The convoy received momentary unwelcome press, when 9 men on their way to join the convoy were arrested by Lancashire police. Six have now been released but three remain in custody...Listen... How Did Israel Manipulate the US Into Attacking Iraq And Declaring A "War On Terrorism"? It is critical for anyone who is really after knowing the truth to consider two of the most significant events involving Americans since the year 2000. (1)The war on terrorism and (2) the attack on Iraq. How did we come to be involved with these events and also how did we go about assessing blame and identifying the culprits? Looking carefully and dispelling the hype pushed on us by an untrustworthy media would expose significant facts. Let’s look at the two events briefly:.. Read more... Reactions to Israel's 2008-2009 Gaza Offensive: Moral Lessons Unlearnt In the debate on Israel's 2008-2009 bombardment of Gaza, the Holocaust has predictably been brought up by both apologists and critics of the offensive – provoking in response accusations of insensitivity on one side, paranoia on the other, and irrelevancy on both. Invoking the Holocaust tends to close down debate partly because it is often intended to: names like Hitler and Goebbels are bywords for evil because we know beyond doubt that what they did was wrong; when a comparison with the Nazis is made, it is expected to elicit the same sense of horror that makes further discussion redundant. This feeling is embodied in the phrase "Never again": a powerful and fundamentally correct reaction to being confronted suddenly with emaciated bodies and crematoria. These words, pronounced with solemn, righteous resolution, are pleasing confirmation of our humanity – reason enough to believe that we would never permit such an outrage. And there thought generally stops... Read more... Rich countries launch great land grab to safeguard food supply | The Guardian Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies. The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people... Read more... British charity aiding Palestinian refugees ordered to close Interpal, a British charity providing development and relief for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, has been served notification from the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB) that the charity's account will be closed as of 8 December. This comes as a result of Lloyds TSB, the Islamic Bank's clearing bank, serving notice to "cease all dealings with Interpal," according to a statement released by the charity...Interpal has faced numerous accusations since it was established in 1994. In 2003 the United States government designated Interpal a terrorist entity accusing the charity of funding the Palestinian group Hamas, but the United Kingdom charity commission found no links to terrorism stating: "The American authorities were unable to provide evidence to support their allegations."... [Much of the so called "War on Terror" has turned out to be a "War on Charity."] Read more... Press TV - Iranian bioweapon researcher dies suspiciously A US-based Iranian doctor working to discover an antitoxin therapy for biological weapons has purportedly died a "suspicious death."...According to Tabnak, Dr. Talebzadeh's achievements in finding a cure for bioweapons had made him the target of various accusations from the government of the United States -- one of the possessors of biological weapons -- since 1992...The charges, which were never substantiated, proven or confirmed, included "money laundering, funding Middle Eastern terrorists, and connections to the Russian mafia in Seattle"... Read more... Finance Capitalism Hits a Wall: The Oligarchs' Escape Plan | Counterpunch The financial “wealth creation” game is over. Economies emerged from World War II relatively free of debt, but the 60-year global run-up has run its course. Finance capitalism is in a state of collapse, and marginal palliatives cannot revive it. The U.S. economy cannot “inflate its way out of debt,” because this would collapse the dollar and end its dreams of global empire by forcing foreign countries to go their own way. There is too little manufacturing to make the economy more “competitive,” given its high housing costs, transportation, debt and tax overhead. A quarter to a third of U.S. real estate has fallen into negative equity, so no banks will lend to them. The economy has hit a debt wall and is falling into negative equity, where it may remain for as far as the eye can see until there is a debt write-down... Read more... Welcome to Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth! "We will restore science to its rightful place..." - Barack Obama http://www.ae911truth.org/ Fatima Bhutto: The New Daughter Of Destiny | Illume Magazine Wearing Bhutto as a last name in Pakistan is analogous to carrying a flamboyant, rare, elitist Prada bag: an accessory that assures you will never be common nor anonymous. The Bhutto merchandise captivates the political landscape as a dynamic, privileged, legendary and plagued real estate that encapsulates all that is wildly schizophrenic, volatile but ultimately endearing about Pakistan. It’s precisely this mythology borne from a feudal dynasty that burdens Fatima Bhutto, the charismatic and outspoken niece of recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto, and daughter of Murtaza Bhutto, himself assassinated in 1996... Read more... The Gas Chamber of Auschwitz, by Robert Faurisson Tourist attraction at Auschwitz theme park Since 1948, the year of the founding by Polish Communist authorities of the Auschwitz State Museum, millions of tourists -- 500,000 visitors per year in the early 1990s -- have visited the crematory building of the main camp (Auschwitz I) with its "gas chamber" room. Museum guides present this crematory structure (Krema) and its "gas chamber" as genuine, but skeptical visitors who ask impertinent questions are told, since my own visits of 1975 and 1976, that this is, in fact, a "reconstruction," which we are further informed is an identical replica of the original. In reality, the whole is neither authentic nor an identical replica of the original...Read more... Press TV - US blasted for human rights violations Anti-terror measures by the US and the UK have seriously damaged the standing of international human rights laws, a study reveals. The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said in its recent report that human rights violations committed in anti-terror efforts worldwide have been shocking. The report, based on a three-year global study, declares that many measures employed in the fight against terrorism after the 9/11 attacks on the US were illegal and counter-productive... Read more... Museums should cancel these Israel Days of Science | The Guardian Quite extraordinarily, the Science Museum in London and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry have both been made available (on 3 and 5 March respectively) for an event called "Israel Day of Science". The museums argue they are not sponsoring the event, but have merely hired out their premises. This subtle distinction is unlikely to be appreciated by the many thousands of all ages and faiths who have repeatedly taken to the streets round the country to protest against Israeli war crimes in Gaza... Read more... Gazan coast becoming a ‘no-go’ zone On Saturday 14th February, 23 year-old Rafiq abu Reala was shot by Israeli naval forces whilst fishing in Gazan territorial waters, approximately two nautical miles out from the port of Gaza city. He was in a simple fishing vessel, not much larger than a rowing boat, with a small outboard engine, known locally as a ‘hassaka’. Rafiq, his brother Rajab and another friend were following the course of a shoal of fish..An Israeli naval gunboat approached the area and began shooting at the other hassakas, which quickly changed course and headed east, back towards shore. Suddenly Rafiq realised the gunboat was bearing down on their hassaka. As he recounted the events of that day, Rafiq likened the predatory nature of the naval vessel to that of a wolf. It circled their fishing boat and began shooting heavy ammunition in their direction... Read more... Choose life!, by Deb Reich - Media Monitors Network "We Jews consider it rational and wonderful to rejoice in our emergence as a modern nation in the ancient homeland, after… not twenty years, not two hundred years, but two thousand years of exile!! Yet the idea of repatriating all those homesick Palestinian families, exiled from their homes a mere 60 years ago, is considered delusional. Something there does not compute."... Read more... Does Zionism legitimize every act of violence?, by Gideon Levy - Haaretz ..The Israeli left is dead. For the past nine years it took the name of the peace camp in vain. The Labor Party, Meretz and Kadima had pretensions of speaking in its name, but that was trickery and deceit. Labor and Kadima made two wars and continued to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank; Meretz supported both wars. Peace has been left an orphan. The Israeli voters, who have been misled into thinking that there is no one to talk to and that the only answer to this is force - wars, targeted killings and settlements - have had their say clearly in the election: a closing sale for Labor and Meretz. It was only the force of inertia that gave these parties the few votes they won... Read more... February 17, 2009 Zaynab's Story: A Call To Boycott Israel We ask that you avoid buying any products with bar codes beginning 7 29 ..If you were reluctant to protest Israel’s savage attacks because political spin gave the false picture of an equal fight, the images of ordinary people desperately clinging to the shattered remains of their farming lands and olive trees while Israel steals everything they own, should make you think again. This video was made by www.inminds.co.uk to educate Muslims, but it is educational for everyone. In fact, you will discover just how normal Israel’s operations appear when in fact their practices are no different from the worst of apartheid South Africa. It took a long time to get the world to begin boycotts against the apartheid regime then; it would be a tragedy if it took a long time again. For the sake of humanity, let us begin to do what we can to make a difference. More information about what you can do to boycott will be available soon. In the meantime, you can look at the website http://wwwbigcampaign.org to familiarise yourself with some of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns that are being implemented around the world. - Sonja Karkar, Women for Palestine Watch: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff, by Patrick Cockburn | The Independent In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme... Read more... Why Did Obama Diss Helen Thomas? | Huffington Post I love Helen Thomas. During the past eight years she was the only reporter who stood up to Bush, took on this rotten war, and, in general, acted like a journalist...Ms. Thomas' moment came when she asked the president about nuclear proliferation. Her question ended with the query: does he know of any Middle Eastern state with nukes? Why did she ask that? She asked it to see if Obama would refuse to respond as previous presidents have. The answer is Israel, of course. And everyone knows it... Read more... Israel’s Rationale for Murder: No One is Innocent | Dissident Voice "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." – Israeli Army Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan, 1983 Israel’s official excuses for extinguishing over 1,300 Palestinian lives—half of them civilian and one-third of them children— are oft-repeated by its apologists: Hamas’ rocket fire made the invasion unavoidable, and its tactics made civilian casualties inevitable. Do these positions dovetail with—or decapitate—history? Are they logical? Are they moral? Or are they smokescreens, designed to disguise troublesome facts about both Israel’s strategy and its very origins?...Read more... Window closing for a two-state solution in the Middle East | csmonitor Some see a risky 'one-state solution' as the only remaining option in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... [I wrote a Letter to the Editor pointing out how ludicrous thefollowing statement is, "Increasingly observers foresee a "one-statesolution" imposing itself –something many moderates on both sides say would be disastrous andwould mean instability in the region for decades to come." They didn'tpublish it.] Read more... Press TV - Sirens go off in Israel for war on Iran A Palestinian hurls a stone at Israeli troops during a demonstration An Israeli defense strategy report for 2009 has tasked the military with making preliminary preparations for launching a war against Iran. An annual defense work plan presented to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi for the year 2009 describes Iran as "the No.1 threat the IDF is now preparing for." Citing Iran as "a threat to Israel's existence," the report tasks the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) with reinforcing its strategic aerial capabilities, while zooming in on the development of "remote-piloted vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles", as well as "infrastructural investments in intelligence and communications devices."... in the West Bank last Friday. Iran is a different kettle of fish Read more... Abe Foxman's 'Anti-Semitic Pandemic' - by Ran HaCohen If there were a Nobel Prize for Hypocrisy, Abraham Foxman would havebeen a great candidate. The director of the Anti-Defamation League, whoonce interpreted even International Holocaust Remembrance Day as anexpression of the Gentiles' latent desire to see Jews dead, haspublished a new survey on anti-Semitism in Europe. One of theassertions respondents were asked to agree or disagree with was "Jewsare more loyal to Israel than to this country"; an affirmative responsewas considered indicative of anti-Semitism... Read more... Rabbi Aviner: Halacha bans Arabs from Knesset | Ynetnews Prominent Zionist rabbi says Jewish state should be led by Jews, but claims that since Arabs lack any real influence on Israeli reality, 'things are not so bad'... Read more... Israel is trapped, and the chance of peace is ever more remote | The Independent While the West is preoccupied with a crisis, a tragedy is unfolding. The world's financial system will recover. On the Israel/Palestine peace process, there can be no comparable optimism, for it is not clear whether such a process still exists. No process, no peace; a settlement is further away now than at any time since 1967. Israel seems bent on a course which will lead to its eventual destruction... [A consummation devoutly to be wished, and the sooner the better] Read more... Afghanistan is in trouble: Wikileaks releases NATO report on civilian deaths Read more... Israel Apartheid Week Montreal - March 1st to 9th, 2009 Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an annual international series of events held in cities and campuses across the globe. The aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid system and to build Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns as part of a growing global BDS movement. In Montreal, local solidarity groups and individuals are planning nine full days of awareness-raising events ranging from lectures and workshops to film screenings... Read more... A Call from Within - signed by 540 Israeli citizens ...We are calling on the world to stop Israeli violence and not allow the continuation of the brutal occupation. We call on the world to condemn and not become an accomplice in Israel's crimes... Read more... Press TV - ElBaradei: Ignoring Israel undermines NPT The UN nuclear chief says a double-standard approach to Israel's nukes has undermined the non-proliferation regime. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Monday that Arab nations believe that Israel has undermined the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and this is a major obstacle to nuclear disarmament. "What compounds the problem is that the nuclear non-proliferation regime has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of Arab public opinion because of the perceived double-standards concerning Israel, the only state in the region outside the NPT and known to possess nuclear weapons," he wrote in The Herald Tribune... Read more... The Tale of Two Apartheids IN APRIL 1976, John Vorster, president of the then-racist apartheid regime of South Africa, paid an official state visit to Israel, where he was given the red-carpet treatment. Israeli television showed him on his first day, visiting the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. At an official state banquet held for Vorster, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin toasted the "ideals shared by Israel and South Africa." Why was an outspoken member of a Nazi militia in South Africa during the Second World War and a leading member of the party that crafted official apartheid policies in South Africa being feted in Israel? A statement in the South African government's yearbook made two years after Vorster's visit provides an answer: "Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples." These close ties came from the identification that both states had for each other's cause. Both were settler states that claimed to be bringing "civilization" to so-called backward peoples. And both were committed to using any and all means to maintain their regional domination over the "natives" that they had conquered--in South Africa, to create a white state based on the exploitation of Black labor; in Israel, to create an exclusively Jewish state through the systematic removal of the indigenous Palestinian population... Read more... February 16, 2009 Dr. Colin Campbell - Peak Oil Presentation - The End of The First Half of the Age of Oil This Peak Oil presentation entitled 'The End of the First Half of the Age of Oil' by Dr. Colin Campbell, founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, was part of a 2-day conference entitled 'Fuelling The Future', held in Kinsale, Ireland, on the 18th & 19th June 2005..For more on this event, visit www.fuellingthefuture.org... Watch... Jewish editor sacked for publishing article This article was sent to Debbie Ducro, a American-Jewish journalist with the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle. She published it, and was fired the next day. Quest for justice, by Judith Stone I am a Jew. I was a participant in the Rally for the Right of Return to Palestine. It was the right thing to do. I've heard about the European holocaust against the Jews since I was a small child. I've visited the memorials in Washington, DC and Jerusalem dedicated to Jewish lives lost and I've cried at the recognition to what level of atrocity mankind is capable of sinking. Where are the Jews of conscience? No righteous malice can be held against the survivors of Hitler's holocaust. These fragments of humanity were in no position to make choices beyond that of personal survival. We must not forget that being a survivor or a co-religionist of the victims of the European Holocaust does not grant dispensation from abiding by the rules of humanity... Read more... Super Kosher Cohen! | Auntie Ziona Nick'le Cohen is such a confused angel. For so many years he insisted he wasn't a yid. Nu shoin, no one took him seriously, neither the goyim, nor us the kosher masters. With such a name, even a shikze mama'le couldn't really help. I suspect as well that his villy may still have a strange little parachute hanging on the the end. But Nick'le, my little ball of pumpernickel, don't worry Auntie always knew you were a Jew! You were always carrying our favorite Jewish flags: democracy, egalitarianism, atheism and Islamophobia. .. [Nick Cohen is a British neocon journalist - just another Nazi in the news.] Read more... Khalid Amayreh - The Mossad's Arab Writers | Palestine Think Tank “I call on the Israeli army to crush these Palestinian terrorists who are at Iran’s beck and call; chase the rebels of Hamas, annihilate its lunatics and demented leaders who are disguised as men of faith, crush them and exterminate them and teach them a lesson which they will never forget just as you taught the terrorist Hizbullah a harsh lesson in 2006….So deliver Gaza from the grip of Hamas. These Palestinians, wherever they go, they take with them terror, corruption, trouble, tumult and ingratitude…..!” These words were not written by Israeli propagandists or Zionist apologists seeking to justify the recent Israeli blitzkrieg in Gaza. They are actually the words of a Kuwaiti Arab columnist who has apparently sold his soul to the devil. I say “sold his soul to the devil” because when a human being transforms himself into a willful liar in the service of evil, that person, knowingly or unknowingly, loses his morality and eventually loses his humanity as well. I don’t know for sure what makes such people undergo such a diabolical metamorphosis. It could be mental weakness, or a certain psychological defect that they have failed to overcome, or even a mental dysfunction. However, treachery always goes hand in hand with moral depravity and lack of self-esteem... Read more... Battle without end | Al-Ahram Weekly Operation Cast Lead, it was called. A silly codename for what turned out to be a massacre. Israel says it attacked Gaza to stop Hamas from firing rockets. I know what Hamas is firing, and it is not fire crackers as some people think. And yet Israel is going about it all wrong. Israel doesn't want to win on points; it dreams of a knockout. Israel's leaders want to settle everything through force, no matter what the alternatives are. Nothing is good enough for Israel, not the calming down period, and not even peace. Israel wants absolute security, not mutual security. It wants peace and land, not peace for land. It wants to tip the balance of power, not to seek a balance of interests... Read more... Triangulation or strangulation? | Al-Ahram Weekly The new president is discovering that America's road to Kabul goes through Moscow, says Eric Walberg As United States President Barack Obama prepares to transfer troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda and other jihadists are also "transferring" there, according to Afghan Defence Minister General Abdel-Rahim Wardak, giving the country the dubious distinction of remaining the centre of the "war on terror". Throwing down the gauntlet to Obama, the Taliban successfully closed the Khyber Pass yet again last week by blowing up a bridge, torching 10 supply trucks for good measure. The Pakistan army responded by bombing an insurgent base, killing 52 suspected militants. The Taliban have killed nearly two dozen suspected US spies in recent months, all of them in the border region where American drone aircraft have carried out a series of missile strikes. Newly installed officials describe the situation on the ground in Afghanistan as far more precarious than they had anticipated, with US government departments poorly organised to implement the plan he presented last week to his National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Special envoy to Afghanistan-Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said it is "an extraordinarily dysfunctional situation in which the very objectives have to be reviewed." Obama reacted by delaying the deployment of any further troops until defence chiefs presented a coherent "endgame", though he can hardly afford to wait 60 days for the results of his "Afpak" policy review. After only a few weeks in office, Obama has painted himself into a corner on this, the stoney cornerstone of his foreign policy... Read more... Police: Israel's kingmaker corrupt to the bone | Press TV Israeli officials say they have gathered sufficient evidence to charge hawkish politician Avigdor Lieberman with money laundering. "The police source said there was no doubt about money laundering," Dep.-Cmdr. (ret.) Boaz Guttman, a former National Fraud Unit investigator quoted a senior police source as saying The Jerusalem Post, reported. "But he refused to talk about bribery." Lieberman, the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu party, is under investigation over using Cypriot bank accounts for money laundering. He is also suspected of involvement in fraud and bribery... [We know they're all mass murderers, but are there any Israeli politicians who aren't also crooks? The other Mafias pale by comparison.] Read more... Gaza: Death's Laboratory | Foreign Policy In Focus Erik Fosse, a Norwegian cardiologist, worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war."It was as if they had stepped on a mine," he says of certain Palestinian patients he treated. "But there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before." Dr. Fosse was describing the effects of a U.S. "focused lethality" weapon that minimizes explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds on its victims. But where did the Israelis get this weapon? And was their widespread use in the attack on Gaza a field test for a new generation of explosives? The specific weapon is called a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME)... Read more... High Noon: Geithner v. the American Oligarchs | t r u t h o u t Bill Moyers Journal Interview International Monetary Fund's Economic Counsellor and Director of Research Simon Johnson Former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), MIT Sloan School of Management professor and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Simon Johnson examines President Obama's plan for economic recovery...Read, watch... U.S. fends off Israeli pressure, decides to help plan 'Durban 2' - Haaretz The Obama administration said late Saturday it would participate in planning a United Nations conference on racism, despite concerns the meeting will be used by Arab nations and others to criticize Israel. The U.S. will decide later whether to participate in "Durban 2," the second UN-sponsored World Conference Against Racism... Read more... February 15, 2009 Israeli Elections: A Significant Step Closer to Fascism, by Omar Barghouti According to the almost official results of the Israeli elections, reproduced below, the fanatic-to-fascist right was the biggest winner in Israel. A proper death certificate for the Israeli Zionist "left" should finally be issued -- 61 years late! Here is a breakdown of the results for all Israeli parties, categorized into groups according to their respective positions towards international law and basic human rights. Only these universal criteria should be used in Israel and anywhere else to decide who is right, who is left and who is ultra right, etc. The common Israeli designations of "left," "right" and "center" to describe Labor, Likud and Kadima, respectively, are completely inaccurate and intentionally misleading, as they steer away from any objective criteria in distinguishing left from right. Still, unfortunately, these meaningless Israeli labels are parroted, verbatim, by commentators, even progressive ones, without any reflection on their accuracy or relevance...Read more... Four Solutions All Palestine is controlled by Zionism. The Palestinians (not counting the millions in exile) are half the population of Israel-Palestine, but they are victims of varying degrees of apartheid. The Jewish state has already lost its Jewish majority, and is more hated by the Arab peoples than at any time in its brief, violent history. Let’s take it as given that continuation of the present situation is untenable for everyone concerned. We need a solution. There are four solutions...Read more... Israelis, In Crisis, Vote For A Government Of War - by Nicola Nasser The dust of Tuesday’s voting battle settled down and the battle of forming the next Israeli government has just begun. With Benjamin Netanyahu poised for premiership and Avigdor Lieberman, leader of a “racist and fascist” party (as condemned by Talia Sasson of the Merez party) very well positioned to be the king or queen maker of the next ruling coalition, the Palestinian people and the whole region will have to brace as from next March for an Israeli government of war... Read more... PLO: Why an Alternative and Why the Panic?, by Ramzy Baroud 'Why an alternative to the PLO, and why the fury over a call for a new leadership?' When Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared before a cheering crowd in Doha, Qatar, on January 28, the need for a new leadership, his words generated panic amongst leaders of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority as well as traditional Palestinian leadership elites stationed in various Arab capitals. The reaction to Mashaal’s call was more furious than most of the statements issued by the PA and its backers during the 23-day Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip, which killed and wounded thousands of innocent Gazans. Mashaal, who spoke triumphantly in Qatar exhorted that the PA “in its current state is no authority..It expresses a state of impotence, abuse and (it is a) tool to deepen divisions,” he stressed. He called for the creation of a new leadership structure that would include all Palestinians...Read more... Landmark policy to boycott Israel passed at University of Manchester Student Union On Wednesday 11th Feb the University of Manchester Students Union passed a motion in support of the people of Gaza, which includes a resolve to boycott Israel, in an emergency general meeting [1]. The meeting, which was attended by over 1000 students, was called in response to the crisis in Gaza. It follows a week long occupation of University of Manchester buildings by students [2]. The University of Manchester Students Union is the biggest in Western Europe, and is also the first western students union to pass a motion includes an out and out boycott of Israel... Read more... Israel lurches into fascism | EI Israeli riot police argue with Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel protesting Whenever Israel has an election, pundits begin the usual refrain that hopes for peace depend on the "peace camp" - formerly represented by the Labor party, but now by Tzipi Livni's Kadima - prevailing over the anti-peace right, led by the Likud. This has never been true, and makes even less sense as Israeli parties begin coalition talks after Tuesday's election. Yes, the "peace camp" helped launch the "peace process," but it did much more to undermine the chances for a just settlement...against racism outside a polling station in Um al-Fahem during the Israeli elections. Read more... The war where I was killed and Gaza survived A boy walks on the rubble of a destroyed home in the Gaza Strip Since Israeli missile savagery first hit Gaza, everything started to become blurry to me. My vision was totally unclear -- all the horrible events went in slow motion as if I was watching a horror movie, but the most realistic one I've ever seen. My biggest fear was losing a loved one. After 21 indescribable days, "the war was over," or so they said. But it wasn't for me; enormous destruction covered the beautiful face of Gaza that I knew. Thousands of houses and buildings were wiped off the earth. Three weeks were all that Israeli warplanes and tanks needed to smash so many living creatures in Gaza including babies -- even unborn ones -- women, children, men and the elderly...Read more... Can Obama escape the dominating influence of AIPAC and the American Jewish/Zionist Israeli lobby? No one in the Mainstream US media is addressing the real problem, which is the fact that nothing contrary to Zionist, Israeli and American Jewish lobbies, AIPAC and other PAC's interests which are all-dominating in the American political scene will go very far. Anyone who supports such a move will have no tomorrow in American politics or business. They will be Finkelsteined to death by the Zionist assassins. Recently, a group of very high-minded and virtuous but, retired diplomats and academics who do not owe their future success to AIPAC or any Israeli lobbies, asked the question: "Can Obama Untangle the Iranian Challenge?" But the question they should be asking is: "Can Obama escape the dominating influence of AIPAC and the American Jewish/Zionist Israeli lobby?" The answer is "probably not and live."... Read more... GEORGE GALLOWAY MP SPEAKS In the following three videos, George Galloway is at his brilliant best and never more so when he was speaking to a practically empty house of parliament as Israel’s bombs were still falling on Gaza. If anyone can present the issue of Palestine to the consciences of our Western lawmakers, who cannot be so ignorant as not to know the truth of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, it is the fearless George Galloway. What a different world it would be if all were like him. - Sonja Karkar, Women for Palestine Viva Palestina Gaza Convoy 14 February 2009 The Aid Convoy for Gaza 27 January 2009 “The West has double standards when it comes to Israel” 16 January 2009 The Left and Support for Islamist Anti-Colonial Resistance | Atheo News The massive demonstrations in European capitals and major cities in support of the people of Gaza highlighted once again the core problem: the vast majority of the Left, including communists, agrees in supporting the people of Gaza against Israeli aggression, but refuses to support its political expressions such as Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Left not only refuses to support them, but also denounces them and fights against them. Support for the people of Gaza exists only at a humanitarian level but not at the political level... Read more... Talking with Jews (or not), by Kevin MacDonald A topic that is not discussed enough is the screaming, in-your-face, hostile aggression that people must withstand when they dare to trample on Jewish sensibilities. We are not talking about the sophisticated rationalization one sees in the op-ed pages of the mainstream media, or even the smear techniques of organizations like the ADL or the SPLC. We are talking about interpersonal aggression. There is something absolutely primal about it... Read more... Students angered by Gaza revive sit-ins | The Guardian A new wave of student activism sparked by events in Gaza has seen dozens of university buildings occupied in Britain, with some of the UK's top educational establishments agreeing to set up scholarships for Palestinians or disinvest in arms companies linked to Israel.Though the assault on the territory ended three weeks ago, lingering anger over the attack has prompted students to stage sit-ins at 21 universities, many organised via blogs, Facebook and text messages. Students at Glasgow and Manchester are refusing to leave the buildings until their demands are met, after similar occupations at other universities provided tangible results in what is being seen as a new era of highly organised student activism... Read more... Palestinian Campus Looks to East Bank (of Hudson) - NYT Students at Al Quds University of Jerusalem It would be hard to find two institutions of higher learning that seem more different than Bard College, an upscale, bucolic college in Dutchess County, N.Y., and Al Quds University, a struggling, sprawling Palestinian institution in and near this disputed capital. Yet the two schools have decided to join forces in an unusual venture aimed at injecting American educational values and expertise into Palestinian society, in hopes of contributing to a future democratic State of Palestine. Although the effort has been many months in the planning, those involved say the recent war in Gaza and a political turn rightward in Israel make it more important and urgent... Read more... YouTube - Letterman - Farewell Tribute to Great Moments in Presidential Speeches Just for laughs Watch... February 14, 2009 Send a Valentine to Gaza Giant Aid Convoy Led By George Galloway Sets off From London For Gaza A convoy of more than 110 vehicles has snaked its way out of London for Gaza to deliver more than £1m worth of aid, including ambulances and a fire engine. The size of the convoy and the amount of aid it is carrying have exceeded the expectations of the organisers, grouped under the umbrella Viva Palestine and supported by many Muslim organisations as well as the Stop the War Coalition. The convoy will travel 5,000 miles through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, crossing into Gaza at Rafah in early March. Hundreds of volunteers are driving the aid convoy, which includes 12 ambulances, a boat and trucks full of medicines, tools, clothes, blankets and shoe-boxes as well as gifts for children... Read more... Rabin’s legacy: Protesters' accounts show Israel ‘breaking the bones’ of peaceful demonstrators Israeli snipers take positions during Israeli forces are carrying out a policy of shooting at the legs of peaceful demonstrators who protest the Israeli separation wall each Friday in towns across the West Bank, demonstrators are reporting. The accounts of the Palestinian demonstrators who have been wounded by Israeli fire in recent weeks are raising the legacy of the first Palestinian Intifada, when Israeli then-defense minister Yitzak Rabin ordered his soldiers to “break the bones” of young protesters...a protest in the village of Bil'in Read more... Faith Based Obama Expands Corruption of Clergy, by Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report With his plans to expand on George Bush’s so-called Faith-Based Initiatives, President Barack Obama has endorsed and made his own, the most backward, reactionary scheme of the previous administration to further undermine progressive concepts of government in general and the integrity of the Black body politic in particular. By his endorsement of the politics of faith-based bribery on an institutional scale, Obama once again reveals himself as both an opportunist of the lowest order and a reflexively rightwing oriented personality. On this issue, he has made himself identical to Bush, and embraced a great corruption. Let us remember from the outset what George Bush intended when he launched his Faith-Based Initiatives at the beginning of his disastrous regime. Bush’s political strategy for Black America was based on two pillars: support for inner city educational privatization through school vouchers, and direct cash payments to church-based organizations to provide a range of public services previously the domain of government agencies. The doubled-edged strategy was a stroke of evil genius, a scheme hatched by the far-right Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the primary source of Bush’s domestic social agenda... Read more... Dump the GOP | t r u t h o u t Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain ..In his inaugural address, he promised to reach out a hand to anyone willing to unclench their fist. The GOP responded not only with clenched fists, but with swinging clenched fists. It seems early to give up already, but facts are facts, and Obama needs to withdraw his hand and just wave these people off... Read more... A Reply to Critics of My Essay on the Relevance of Holocaust Revisionism by Mark Weber - Director, Institute for Historical Review My January 7 essay, “How Relevant is Holocaust Revisionism?,” has generated a lot of discussion, including a report in the nationally-distributed Jewish community weekly Forward. It has prompted many messages of praise and support, and, as expected, heated criticism from some in the “revisionist community.” Critics accuse me of “defeatism,” “surrender,” “betrayal,” and of “abandoning” Holocaust revisionism. Some complain that I’ve taken a “new position,” or that my article signals a “new direction” for the IHR...Some critics say that I now regard Holocaust revisionism as irrelevant, unimportant, or a “waste of time.” In fact, I have never said or suggested any such thing. In my recent essay I specifically wrote: “Revisionists have published impressive evidence, including long neglected documents and testimony, that has contributed to a more complete and accurate understanding of an emotion-laden and highly polemicized chapter of history.”... [This highly charged debate matters because the IHR is the mostcomprehensive and authoritative antidote to the "official" history ofthe 20th Century out there.] Read more... Press TV - Egypt seizes aid supplies for Gaza Egypt has seized relief supplies for the Gaza Strip as it continues to keep closed the Rafah border crossing for aid flow to the region. Egyptian police on Thursday seized 2,200 tons of food and medical aid destined for the region, AFP reported. Two members of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hossam al-Shurbagi and Kamel al-Shaarawi, were also arrested, accused of 'illegally' storing the food in three warehouses, a security official said. Shurbagi said the aid was being stored pending the reopening of the Rafah border crossing. Cairo has kept closed the crossing despite international concerns over further worsening of the humanitarian situation in the region. "No humanitarian, media or medical delegations will be allowed through, nor will medical aid deliveries be permitted," an Egyptian border official had told AFP... Read more... And the Winner is.... Adolfa Livni! ...if the world’s people have anything to do with it, Livni, an ex-Mossad agent whose father was a well-known Irgun terrorist, will eventually be arrested to stand trial for war crimes at the Hague. She is likely to go down in history as one of the least nurturing women of all time, despite the fact that she has two sons of her own. Using a “shoot anything that moves” approach to wiping out the caged civilians of Gaza, and testing out a variety of new and terrible illegal weapons for the demonic American military, this psychopath was the person probably most responsible for the mass murder of over a thousand civilians in a three week period. The American-Israeli blood-letting spree came to a slow halt literally only an hour or two before the start of the inauguration celebrations in the USA, only because of the request from Barky not to rain (blood) on his parade... Read more... Press TV - Ex-official: Israel can hardly wait to attack Iran Tel Aviv has by no means shelved its plans to strike the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, says a former Israeli envoy to the United Nations. In the harshest war rhetoric since the deadly offensive on Gaza, former Israeli UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, said Tel Aviv could not afford to wait any longer for diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's uranium enrichment program adding that it was preparing a military offensive against the country... Read more... US Intel Confirms Iran Not Developing Nukes The new chief of US intelligence has confirmed the findings of a 2007 intelligence report that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. Dennis Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee that his organization has assessed that Tehran does not have nuclear weapons design and weaponization work. A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), issued in November 2007 by the sixteen US intelligence agencies, clarified that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The 2007 intelligence report was widely seen as a setback for Bush administration efforts to pressure Iran and halt its nuclear program. The UN nuclear watchdog, which has carried out the highest number of inspections in its history on Iranian nuclear sites, has also found nothing to indicate that the program has diverted toward weaponization... Read more... THE FINAL APOSTACY – THE JUDIFICATION OF THE SEE OF PETER I have heard it discussed for decades – and I have thought on the matter myself – but now there can be no doubt. We live in a time so as to be witnesses of the greatest betrayal in annals of history since Judas accepted 30 pieces of silver to betray Christ. I never thought that I would live to see the day that a Christian Catholic Pope would conduct himself in a manner, which can only be termed DISGUSTING!... Read more... Educators of Conscience Call for an Academic Boycott of Israel | The Academy Speaks ...While the call to boycott Israeli academics and institutions has not yet taken root on U.S. campuses in any widespread way, there is a new development across the country that deserves urgent attention. Last month, educators of conscience launched the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel... Israel has also consistently targeted educational institutions of all kinds. Since December 27, Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, the Ministry of Education, the American International School, at least 10 United Nations Reliefs and Work Agency schools, and numerous other educational facilities. Israeli’s actions against the Palestinians have been fully supported by the US government through military aid and diplomatic oversight. Because of this, we in the United States have a particular moral obligation to speak out in protest of Israel’s compounded aggression as it fortifies an apartheid regime of settler colonialism in the occupied territories. We must ask why there are economic sanctions against the occupied rather than the occupier... Read more... Obama administration goes to bat for secrecy For the second time this week, the Obama administration has gone to court in San Francisco to argue for secrecy in defending a terrorism policy crafted under George W. Bush - in this case, wiretapping that President Obama denounced as a candidate. In papers filed Wednesday night, the new Justice Department asked a federal judge to suspend action on a suit challenging the wiretapping program, arguing that proceedings would jeopardize national security. Government lawyers also said the administration, not the courts, controls access to classified material at the heart of the case... Read more... ICC: No warrant issued for Bashir | Al Jazeera Officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC) have said no arrest warrant has been issued against Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, on war crimes charges, despite reports that ICC judges had decided to action one. "It is absolutely not true. There is no warrant of arrest issued by the judges of the International Criminal Court," Sonia Robla, an ICC spokesperson, told Al Jazeera. Her comments came after the New York Times newspaper reported prosecutors had evidence that al-Bashir had committed war crimes in the country's conflict-ridden Darfur region and ICC judges had decided to order his arrest. Abdulrahman al-Khalifa, a member of the Sudanese government, told Al Jazeera that any ICC warrant against al-Bashir would be "politically motivated". "It could be [issued], but given all the political circumstances, so what?", he said. "We are not concerned because we know that this is a political set-up and we do not recognise it."... Read more... February 13, 2009 Hamas agrees truce, announcement within 48 hrs | AFP Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-brokered 18-month truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip which Egypt will announce in 48 hours, state news agency MENA quoted a senior Hamas official as saying on Thursday. Mussa Abu Marzuk, the Islamist movement's deputy leader, said after meeting with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman that Hamas had accepted the truce in return for the lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. "We have agreed to the truce with the Israeli side for one year and a half (in return) for the opening of all six passages between the Gaza Strip and Israel," MENA quoted him as saying. Egypt will announce the agreement after contacting Israel and Palestinian factions, he said. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told AFP in Jerusalem that he did not wish to comment. Abu Marzuk, who headed a senior Hamas delegation in Cairo, said difficulties that had prevented an agreement have been resolved, especially the issue of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit... [We should start a lottery on when Israel will break the truce this time.] Read more... Poll: Americans want Bush prosecuted A majority of Americans say George Bush should face trial for his misdeeds, as US lawmakers are moving to probe into a raft of his illegal actions. Two leading Democrats, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy recently stated they are weighing the setting up of commissions to investigate possible Bush administration violations, ranging from detainee and interrogation policies to warrant less wiretaps and the firing of US attorneys... Read more... Support a Truth & Reconciliation Commission I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration -- so they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws. Please sign this online petition, urging Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses. - Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont Read more... The United Nations moves to set up a commission to look into Israeli war crimes and respond to its human rights violations in Gaza Ethical and moral questions linger even among Israeli peace activists over the destruction and civilian deaths wrought by the immense Tel Aviv firepower employed in Gaza. After the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) compound became the target of GPS-guided Israeli mortars on January 15, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned "in the strongest terms this outrageous attack" and called for an inquiry into suspected Israeli war crimes. "I strongly demand a thorough investigation and punishment for those responsible," he told reporters in Beirut after the attack. Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu, who currently holds the presidency of the Security Council, said late on Monday that Ban had told a closed-door briefing in the council that the UN had set up a commission as a preliminary step to look into Israeli damage to UN premises. Several diplomats have reported that the commission would be led by the former British secretary-general of human rights group Amnesty International, Ian Martin... Read more... YouTube - Noam Chomsky On Gaza - 1/13/2009 - MIT "Why did one of the world's strongest armies use the tiny, densely-crowded Gaza Strip for three weeks of target practice, killing more than 1,300 Palestinians --that's the per capita equivalent of some 300,000 American dead - and methodically destroying schools, hospitals, clinics, municipal buildings, homes and the essential infrastructure? Was this really a war fought by Israel in "self-defense"? Noam Chomsky cuts through the propaganda to the heart of an Israeli project of total domination, its aim the extinction of Palestine as a Cause and a Nation. His trenchant and far-ranging analysis serves as an urgent call to action -- if not now, when?" - Nancy Murray, President of the Gaza Mental Health Foundation and Director of the Bill of Rights Education Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Watch video... Auntie Ziona: Israel, What's Left? Oi I am so happy with the democratic people of Israel, a real celebration of Jewish freedom and Talmudic emancipation! Look at us with envy, you bunch of Islamofacist meshigines. Look how united we are around one simple principle namely 'us.' After so many years, the Sabras look exactly like us the Diaspora Jews. No more Israeli arrogance, now we are all united against the Goyim and the Arabs in particular. Now we are all a right wing bunch of biblically-ridden war mongers. At last we are all united in our will to give hell to these Arab feruketers... Read more... Fanatic emerges as kingmaker after razor-thin Israeli election | Daily Star Lieberman courted by both Netanyahu and Livni OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and hawkish ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu were locked in a battle for power on Wednesday after a photo-finish election that could send peace talks into limbo. Livni's centrist Kadima party won 28 seats in the 120-member parliament, just one ahead of Netanyahu's Likud party, leaving the country facing perhaps weeks of political uncertainty. An overall lurch to the right has made it more likely that Netanyahu will return to the nation's most powerful post, but Livni immediately started coalition talks, meeting on Wednesday with ultra-nationalist Israel Beitenu chieftain Avigdor Lieberman... [Now they can all drop the pretense that they were ever anything but fascists from the gitgo.] Read more... The Israeli military kidnaps 21 Palestinians during morning invasions in the West Bank | IMEMC In Fahma village, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, Israeli troops kidnapped 15 men. Villagers reported that troops stormed the village, placed a curfew and then searched homes, then took 15 men and left. Five men where kidnapped when Israeli troops searched and ransacked homes in villagers near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, local sources said... [These things happen every day.] Read more... Barghouthi: The prisoners ready to remain in jails without waiving one demand Dean of the Palestinian prisoners Na'el Al-Barghouthi stated that the prisoners in Israeli jails are willing to stay in captivity for the rest of their lives without the Palestinian resistance relinquishing one demand regarding the prisoner swap deal. In a letter sent through the Wa'ed society for detainees and ex-detainees, Barghouthi expressed the Palestinian prisoners' rejection of the Israeli attempts to link the issue of captive soldier Gilad Shalit with the opening of crossings, calling on the Palestinian resistance not to be swayed by any Arab or Israeli pressures trying to ignore or extract concessions on the issue of Palestinian prisoners. In another related context, Israeli military analyst Aluf Ben opined that a prisoner swap deal between the Hamas Movement and Israel might come to light soon, noting that Hamas is insistent on clinging to its demands regarding the deal while Israel tends to meet these demands in order to conclude the deal. In an interview conducted Thursday with Israel's tenth TV channel, Ben underlined that Hamas did not backtrack one millimeter on its demands which upset the Israeli leadership because it had not been accustomed to such inflexible attitudes except during its negotiations with the Lebanese resistance... Read more... Intel czar: Economy is top threat to U.S. - msnbc The economic crisis has trumped bullets and bombs in the intelligence agencies' latest assessment of threats to the United States. That shift is a reflection of the depth of the unfolding recession, but also of the progress made in the war against terrorists and the Obama administration's more expansive definition of national security. Sounding more like an economist than the war-fighting Navy commander he once was, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told a Senate panel Thursday that if the crisis lasts more than two years, it could cause some nations' governments to collapse... [There's now some actual intelligence in U.S. Intelligence? How novel! Who knows, maybe they'll even stop taking their orders from Tel Aviv.] Read more, watch video... February 12, 2009 Conference in Boston: One State for Palestine / Israel: A Country for All Its Citizens ...an international conference to undertake a critical assessment of the current status of the two state solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and to explore the logic and feasibility of a one-state solution based on equal citizenship for Palestinians and Israelis. The conference will be held on March 28 and 29, 2009 on the campus of the University of Massachusetts... Read more... The Origin of Darwin, by Olivia Judson - NYT My fellow primates, 200 years ago today, Charles Darwin was born. Please join me in wishing him happy birthday! Unlike many members of the human species, Darwin makes an easy hero. His achievements were prodigious; his science, meticulous. His work transformed our understanding of the planet and of ourselves. At the same time, he was a humane, gentle, decent man, a loving husband and father, and a loyal friend. Judging by his letters, he was also sometimes quite funny. He was, in other words, one of those rare beings, as likeable as he was impressive... [Olivia Judson, like Darwin, is one of those rare beings who seem to belie our descent from the apes.] Read more... Will Obama Break the Law for Israel's Sake?, by Grant F. Smith - Antiwar.com ..Obama's entire facade momentarily crumbled under a single withering question – "Do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?" – launched by veteran reporter Helen Thomas during the president's first evening press conference on Feb. 9, 2008...The evasion inherent in Obama's reply coupled with actions already taken may reveal the new administration's true framework for Middle East policy: deception, wastefulness, and lawlessness... Read more... Gaza 2009: Culture of resistance vs. defeat, by Haidar Eid | EI Can the brutal 22-day Israeli war on the Gaza Strip be considered a victory for the Palestinian people? The ongoing bloodletting in the Gaza Strip and the ability of the Palestinian people to creatively resist the might of the world's fourth strongest army is being hotly debated by Palestinian political forces. The latest genocidal war which lasted 22 days, and in which apartheid Israel used F-16s, Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks and conventional and non-conventional weapons against the population, have raised many serious questions about the concept of resistance and whether the outcome of the war can, or cannot, be considered a victory for the Palestinian people...The new, much-needed program, however, must make the necessary link between all Palestinian struggles: the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel's ethnically-based discrimination and rights violations of more than one million Palestinian citizens, and the 1948 externally displaced refugees. Gaza 2009 was not a defeat but a victory, because in Gaza the Israelis shot the two-state solution in the head; it is a victory achieved with the blood of those children, men and women who sacrificed their lives so that we could live and continue to resist, not surrender. Those Palestinians that are mourning the demise of the two-prison solution are out of step with new facts on the ground: there can be no going back to fake solutions and negotiations; it is time for a final push to real freedom and statehood. They can join other Palestinians, and internationals, in their demand for a secular, democratic state in Mandate Palestine with equality for all or they can walk into the dustbin of history...Read more... Controversial Bestseller Shakes the Foundation of the Israeli State | AlterNet What if the entire tale of the Jewish Diaspora is historically wrong? What if the Palestinian Arabs who have lived for decades under the heel of the modern Israeli state are in fact descended from the very same "children of Israel" described in the Old Testament? And what if most modern Israelis aren't descended from the ancient Israelites at all, but are actually a mix of Europeans, North Africans and others who didn't "return" to the scrap of land we now call Israel and establish a new state following the attempt to exterminate them during World War II, but came in and forcefully displaced people whose ancestors had lived there for millennia? What if the entire tale of the Jewish Diaspora -- the story recounted at Passover tables by Jews around the world every year detailing the ancient Jews' exile from Judea, the years spent wandering through the desert, their escape from the Pharaoh's clutches -- is all wrong?... Read more... Neturei Karta International's orthodox rabbis are for a single state solution Anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews joined 1500 people in New York City Neturei Karta has steadfastly continued the warning against partition by Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, Erich Fromm and so many esteemedmarching in protest of the bombings and massacre in Gaza Jewish intellectuals of yesteryear. From Neturei Karta International - Jews Against Zionism web site: "The true Jews are against dispossessing the Arabs of their land and homes. According to the Torah, the land should be returned to them." The world must know that the Zionists have illegitimately seized the name Israel and have no right to speak in the name of the Jewish people!" Read more...In today’s email: 1) Urgent request for funding and/or logistical support to maintain the International Middle East Media Center Read more...2) First college to divest from South African Apartheid divests from Israel (excellent example to follow) 3) Action for medical doctors: protest the appointment of a torture advocate as head of World Medical Association Book Review: Debating the Holocaust: A New Look At Both Sides, by Thomas Dalton , Ph.D This is a book about the Holocaust, and about two competing views of that event. On the one hand we have the traditional, orthodox view: the six million Jewish casualties, the gas chambers, the cremation ovens and mass graves. Traditional historians have thousands of surviving witnesses and the weight of history on their side. On the other hand there is a small, renegade band of writers and researchers who refuse to accept large parts of this story. These revisionists, as they call themselves, present counter-evidence and ask tough questions. They are beginning to outline a new and different narrative. Thus there has emerged something of a debate of historic significance. This is no peripheral clash between two arcane schools of thought, regarding some minutiae of World War II. It is about history, of course, but it also speaks to fundamental issues of our time: freedom of speech and press, the operation of mass media, manipulation of public opinion, political and economic power structures, and the coercive abilities of the State... Read more... Kyrgyzstan's Revenge, by Justin Raimondo | antiwar.com Why the Kyrgyz are kicking us out of their country Remember Kyrgyzstan? Longtime readers of this space will recall our extensive coverage of that country's "Tulip Revolution," also dubbed the "Pink Revolution," way back in those heady days when George W. Bush's "global democratic revolution" was said to be the wave of the future. The so-called color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and the landlocked and desperately poor Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan were supposedly sparked by Bush's "fire in the mind" – a phrase lifted out of Dostoyevsky's The Possessed and used in one of the former president's more unhinged perorations. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, however, it looks like that fire has blown back in our faces. Read more... In Darfur: US aid comes with Arabic bibles US aid group, seen as cover to promote Christian missionary work, expelled from Darfur. History repeated in Africa? Aid in one hand, bible in the other A US aid group has been expelled from Sudan's war-hit region of Darfur for having a large stock of Arabic-language bibles, the official SUNA news agency reported on Saturday. The Texas-based "Thirst No More" humanitarian group's Internet website says its work in Darfur focuses on "bringing clean, safe, and sustainable drinking water," with no reference to Christian missionary work or distribution of bibles in Muslim Darfur. A Sudanese official said members of the group have admitted possessing 3,400 bibles in Arabic in violation of laws and agreements governing the work of humanitarian organizations in the country. SUNA quoted Osman Hussein Abdallah, Sudan's commissioner for humanitarian aid in North Darfur, as saying the organization was unable to explain why it had such a large number of bibles...Read more... Significance Of Dockworkers' Refusal To Offload Israeli Cargo | Countercurrents When COSATU and its affiliate SATAWU made it clear that their dockworkers would not be offloading the Johanna Russ, in palpable solidarity with the Palestinian people last week, a largely irrelevant port in the Southern tip of Africa called Durban was making history across the globe once more. Of course, the Israeli goods were offloaded a few days before the scheduled docking, by virtue of scab labour thwarting the blockage and mass protests planned on Sunday. But the message was out: a new wave of civic angst towards injustice had begun. And it was the labour movement at the head of it all... Read more... YouTube - Jewish Madness in Gaza Explained Yes, I know you were shocked at Jewish cruelty in Gaza, be shocked no more, watch this video you will understand. Watch... Survey: European anti-Semitism strong | Seattle Times The Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday that a survey it commissioned found nearly a third of Europeans polled blame Jews for the global economic meltdown and that a greater number think Jews have too much power in the business world. The organization, which says its aim is "to stop the defamation of Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all," says the seven-nation survey confirms that anti-Semitism remains strong. The poll included interviews with 3,500 people - 500 each in Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain. It says that in Spain, 74 percent of those asked say they feel it is "probably true" that Jews hold too much sway over the global financial markets. That is the highest percentage in the survey. Nearly two-thirds of Spanish respondents said Jews were more loyal to Israel than they were to their home countries. "This poll confirms that anti-Semitism remains alive and well in the minds of many Europeans," said Abraham H. Foxman, the ADL's national director in America. "Clearly, age old anti-Semitic stereotypes die hard." Foxman said the study's findings were "particularly worrisome" in light of the anger spawned by the global economic meltdown, and following a number of violent acts against Jews or Jewish property after Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip... [Mr. Foxman, I wonder if you realize that sooner or later a lot of people are going to cop to it - then you'll see some real anti-semitism.] Read more... Can the Karmapa turn Buddhism Green? | The Elephant “Throughout my life I have always felt that the outer natural elements and my own mind are close. I have a special connection with the four elements. I am not being superstitious and saying I can talk to the elements, but sometimes it feels that way. Read more...“Ever since the human race first appeared on this earth, we have used this earth heavily. It is said that 99 percent of the resources and so on in this world come from the natural environment. We are using the earth until she is used up. The earth has given us immeasurable benefit, but what have we done for the earth in return? We always ask for something from the earth, but never give her anything back. “We never have loving or protective thoughts for the earth. Whenever trees or anything else emerge from the ground, we cut them down. If there is a bit of level earth, we fight over it. To this day we perpetuate a continuous cycle of war and conflict over it. In fact, we have not done much of anything for the earth. “Now the time has come when the earth is scowling at us; the time has come when the earth is giving up on us. The earth is about to treat us badly and give up on us. If she gives up on us, where can we live? There is talk of going to other planets that could support life, but only a few rich people could go. What would happen to all of us sentient beings who could not go?... Press TV - UN says Israel blocks most Gaza aid UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says Israel only allows a meager amount of humanitarian aid to enter the impoverished Gaza Strip. The United Nations strives to provide relief to one million people daily inside a coastal sliver that is home to 1.5 million people, Ban said during a news conference on Tuesday. Israel, however, is only allowing supplies enough for 30,000 people to get through and only from one crossing, he added... Read more... Holocaust Revisionist Put Under Pressure by Church, Courts | Deutsche Welle The superior of an ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X called on Richard Williamson to "correct" his denial of the Holocaust. The move comes as Argentina, where Williamson resides, filed suit against him. Bernard Fellay, who heads the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X, said Richard Williamson "should study the historical facts quickly and correct his false statements -- the sooner the better," the online version of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported Tuesday, Feb. 10. There has been outrage, especially in Germany, over Williamson's claim to a Swedish television interviewer that there had been no gas chambers at Nazi concentration camps and "only 200,000 to 300,000" Jews had died in the camps. Fellay, 50, said he told Williamson to "correct this nonsense" as soon as he saw the interview... [I don't recall that during the previous Inquisition they felt it necessary to attack their own clergy.] Read more... February 11, 2009 Mondoweiss: Finally Meeting the It-Girl of Anti-Zionism: 'Anna in the Middle East' I first heard about "Anna in the Middle East" in July from my friend Andrea Whitmore, a Christian activist in Kansas City. "You have to meet Anna, she's glorious and beautiful," Whitmore said. I looked up her website: Anna Baltzer is a 29-year-old Jew who has utterly thrown herself into The Issue. She's lived in Palestine, written a book bearing witness, and now travels the country giving talks on how Israel gobbles land and destroys Palestinian human rights... Read more... The Most Important Campaign in Years | Anna Baltzer What I am about to tell you is a recipe for action that has been growing in my mind for almost a year but I've been waiting for the right moment to put it all together. As I receive more invitations to speak than I can even accept, as I receive requests to join the movement all day long, I am increasingly aware that times are changing in the United States. It may not be perceptible from any one town or city, but as someone who travels from place to place, the overall trend is clear: Americans are more and more skeptical of US foreign policy in the Middle East and increasingly sympathetic towards the plight of the Palestinians... Read more... Invisible Tibet: keep on blogging to the free world - Times Online ...By birth, upbringing and education, Woeser should be a Tibetan at ease in the Chinese system, a successful member of the Tibetan elite. But this vivacious woman, who looks much younger than her 44 years, is the most outspoken Tibetan voice in China, a fierce critic of Beijing rule in the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region. Her views have won her widespread fame among Tibetans in exile - and, not surprisingly, the attention of the Chinese security apparatus. These days, her books are banned and her movements are monitored. She was detained by police last year during a trip to her birthplace to see her mother. None of this deters her. “If it happens, it happens. I write what I write.” ... Read more... Porn Star Stormy Daniels to Take on Sexual Hypocrite Sen. David Vitter? | AlterNet Sen. David Vitter’s phone number was found in the records of the notorious D.C. madam. Now he faces re-election (and massive karmic payback) against a sultry adult entertainer named Stormy. Max Blumenthal has an exclusive interview. [An unusual item for this page, but worth more than just a laugh. Thequestion is, what political party will replace the terminally perverseand ignorant Republicans (not to mention the confused, dithering andtraitorous Israel First Democrats)? Is there a party of the future, aparty for the 21st Century? I propose an Alliance Party, consisting ofProgressives and genuine Conservatives, Libertarians, Greens,Naderites, etc. What they all agree on is much more important andsubstantive than otherwise. Any takers?] Read more... Call Yourself a "Centrist" and Magically Get Away with Selling out the American People, by Paul Krugman | AlterNet What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses? A proud centrist. For that is what the senators who ended up calling the tune on the stimulus bill just accomplished. Even if the original Obama plan — around $800 billion in stimulus, with a substantial fraction of that total given over to ineffective tax cuts — had been enacted, it wouldn’t have been enough to fill the looming hole in the U.S. economy, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will amount to $2.9 trillion over the next three years. Yet the centrists did their best to make the plan weaker and worse... Read more... Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess dies at 96 “The supporters of shallow ecology think that reforming human relations toward nature can be done within the existing structure of society.” Social relativism, i.e. not taking a stand, was unacceptable to Naess in this age of post modernism and ecological destruction. He himself had seen the impact of fascism on Norway during the Second World War. He saw the deep ecology philosophy, with which his name has become associated, as completely anti-fascist in orientation. Speaking of “intrinsic value”, a basic component of this world view, Naess said: “This is squarely an antifascist position. It is incompatible with fascist racism and fascist nationalism...Naess was an advocate of non violence but made it clear in his writings, that if a choice had to be made, he preferred violence over cowardice. He also saw that self-respect for an individual was important, before a principled non violent stand could be taken and the consequences accepted... “By and large, it is painful to think.” "The movement is not mainly one of professional philosophers and other academic specialists, but of a large public in many countries and cultures." “The earth does not belong to humans.” Read more... Robert Fisk: Posturing and laughter as victims rot | The Independent Mahmoud Abbas stepped further into humiliation by saying the only option for Arabs is to make peace with Israel The front page of the Beirut daily As-Safir said it all yesterday. Across the top was a terrible photograph of the bloated body of a Palestinian man newly discovered in the ruins of his home while two male members of his family shrieked and roared their grief. Below, at half the size, was a photograph from Israel of Western leaders joking with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister. Olmert was roaring with laughter. Silvio Berlusconi, arms on the back of Olmert's shoulders, was also joshing and roaring – with laughter, not grief – and on Olmert's right was Nicolas Sarkozy of France wearing his stupidest of smiles. Only Chancellor Merkel appeared to understand the moral collapse. No smiles from Germany... Read more... Gilad Atzmon - Gilad Shalit: The Grand Illusion | Palestine Think Tank What, Me Worry? A few days ago, Noam Shalit, the ‘father of,’' slammed the Hamas for holding his son for no real reason. Miraculously, he managed to forget the fact that his son Gilad was actually a combatant soldier who served as a post guard in a concentration camp and was captured in a fortress bunker overlooking Gaza...Apparently the usage of the predicates ‘Human being’ and ‘Jew’ in such a proximity is rather informative and meaningful. Within the post-holocaust Jewish and liberal discourses ‘human being’ stands for ‘innocence’ and ‘Jew’ stands for ‘victim’. Accordingly, the Shalit’ campaign slogan should be grasped as ‘FREE Gilad Shalit the innocent victim’.One may wonder at this stage, what does it take for a combatant soldier serving as a post guard in a concentration camp to become an ‘innocent victim’? Apparently, as far as Israeli discourse is concerned, not a lot...Mr. Shalit, I suggest that you wake up and the sooner the better. Nothing really changed, at least not in the Israeli side. The only change I may discern is the cheering fact that you and your people do not win anymore. Yes, you manage to kill children, women and old people, yes, you have managed to drop unconventional weapons on civilians dwelling in the most populated area on this planet and yet, you fail to win the war. Your military campaigns achieve nothing except death and carnage. Your murderous genocidal actions attained nothing but exposing what the National Jewish project is all about and what the Israeli is capable of. Your imaginary power of deterrence is melting down as I write these words and Hamas rockets keep pounding Southern Israel. Yet, the Jewish state has secured itself a prominent position as the embodiment of evil. If there is a ‘change beyond recognition’ to be detected is the fact that after Gaza we all know who you are and what you stand for...Read more.. French cartoonist Sine on trial on charges of anti-Semitism over Sarkozy jibe | Telegraph A Left-wing cartoonist is to go on trial on Tuesday on charges of anti-Semitism for suggesting Jean Sarkozy, the son of the French president, was converting to Judaism for financial reasons. Maurice Sinet, 80, who works under the pen name Sine, faces charges of "inciting racial hatred" for a column he wrote last July in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The piece sparked a summer slanging match among the Parisian intelligentsia and ended in his dismissal from the magazine. "L'affaire Sine" followed the engagement of Mr Sarkozy, 22, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, the Jewish heiress of an electronic goods chain. Commenting on an unfounded rumour that the president's son planned to convert to Judaism, Sine quipped: "He'll go a long way in life, that little lad." [Reality satirizing art.They think they own and control the world, and perhaps they do. I was born a Jew myself, but first and foremost I am a human being, and like all decent (many) and aware (not so many) human beings I stand with the Palestinians (and the vast majority of Jews, including Israelis, who are also the unwitting victims of Zionism).] Read more... Israel Sought ‘Politicide’ Through Gaza Attacki, by Saree Makdisi In three weeks of incessant bombardment, Israel killed or injured more than 6,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, and a third of them children. It pushed the territory it has militarily controlled for four decades (and for the welfare of whose population international law holds it legally accountable) even deeper into deliberately engineered, even fine-tuned, misery...But Israel failed to accomplish a single one of its declared objectives. It failed to stop the firing of rockets from Gaza. It failed to stop smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border. And it failed, even in the short run, to bring security to Israel’s own population...What then was the point of the Israeli assault on Gaza?... Read more... YouTube - The Golem: The Story of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal How Israel -- the racist state that has the bomb -- pushed the U.S. into the senseless war in Iraq and now demands the United States wage an insane war against Iran! You'll find the whole incredible story in The GOLEM Watch... The Universal Right to Self-Defense: Remembering the Second Intifada, by Ron Jacobs 'Writers like Baroud take their task to separate the truth of the I finally got around to reading Ramzy Baroud's 2006 book The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle on the twentieth day of Tel Aviv's most recent attack on Gaza. While debating with various online acquaintances about the possible intentions of Israel's government and watching streaming video from Al-Jazeera inside Gaza, I began to read this volume. Hoping to understand what I can't understand--why Israel insists on what seems to be a path towards eternal war that will never guarantee its security--I was drawn into Baroud's description of the events leading up to the Al-Aqsa intifada that took place for some five years after Ariel Sharon took thousands of Israeli troops and police forces with him to the Al-Aqsa mosque in September 2000. In the days that followed hundreds of Palestinians were killed and wounded by Israeli security forces. Soon afterwards, the much criticized Palestinian strategy of suicide bombing began, bringing the death and destruction visited on the Palestinians into the cafes and shopping areas of Israel... Israeli-Palestine conflict from the Washington-Tel Aviv mythology seriously.' Read more... Patting the Mad Dog, by Stuart Littlewood Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' Martin van Creveld, a former professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a world-leading writer on military matters, has made many enemies with his seemingly outrageous views. But actually he does a great service by sharing his thoughts about what 'mad dog' Israeli might do next. In a September 2003 interview in Elsevier (the Dutch weekly) Van Creveld said: "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."... Read more... Auntie Ziona: The Ratalach Patrol Oy, now that the voters in Isroel have realised it is not really Jewish to be left, our ratalachs are patroling all over the land to make sure that there are no remaining farblongjid leftniks. Nu shoin, the Left is for luftmenschen. We do not like to share. We much prefer to take and take, and never to give back. But look at our beautiful sons of Yisrael with their lichticheh punims, Bibi'le, Avigdor'le and Barak'le. This is what Auntie calls a bunch of proper glat Kosher butchers. When they are on patrol together, I can feel in my kishkas that our corridor for Yiddishe redemption is just around the corner. Link... Non-Violence? Finkelstein and Gandhi When Western liberals call on the Palestinians to renounce violence and to adopt Gandhian passive resistance instead, I usually become enraged. My first response is, they've tried non-violence, and you failed to notice. For the first two decades after the original ethnic cleansing of 1947 and 48, almost all Palestinian resistance was non-violent. From 1967 until 1987 Palestinians resisted by organizing tax strikes, peaceful demonstrations, petitions, sit-down protests on confiscated lands and in houses condemned to demolition. The First Intifada was almost entirely non-violent on the Palestinian side; the new tactic of throwing stones at tanks (which some liberals consider violent) was almost entirely symbolic. In every case, the Palestinians were met with fanatical violence. Midnight arrest, beatings, and torture were the lot of most. Many were shot. Yitzhak Rabin ordered occupation troops to break the bones of the boys with stones. And despite all this sacrifice, Israeli Jews were not moved to recognize the injustice of occupation and dispossession, at least not enough to end it. The first weeks of the Second Intifada were also non-violent on the Palestinian side. Israel responded by murdering tens of unarmed civilians daily, and the US media blamed the victims. Then the Intifada was militarized... Read more... The Ultimate Irony: Hamas and the Israeli Politik 'The ultimate irony of the 2009 elections could be Israelis' choice of Netanyahu.' Until 2006, the Israeli-Palestinian political landscape was dominated almost exclusively by three major players: the Labor and Likud parties in Israel, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) largest faction, Fatah. That year brought a dramatic change, however, with the success of Israel’s newly formed Kadima party in the elections for the 17th Knesset and of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections. Since Hamas won a plurality of seats in January 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, Israel has refused to negotiate with the democratically elected Palestinian government, deeming Hamas a terrorist organization which includes in its founding charter a statement calling for the elimination of Israel. Throughout most of its existence, however, Hamas has also provided humanitarian programs, including extensive welfare and social services in the Palestinian occupied territories, and in April 2008, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal offered implicit recognition of Israel if it withdraws from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. “We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition,” said Meshal—the target of a botched 1997 Israeli assassination attempt in Amman. Hamas has also said it would abide by any peace deal with Israel, as long as the agreement is approved by the Palestinian people in a referendum... Read more... Letter from Mazin 2/10/09 Two important items in today’s email: - An analysis of Israeli elections - An article published in the most prestigious medical Journal in Britain about the weapons and injuries visiting physicians examined in Gaza Read more... A Short History of the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict: Past Is Prologue, by Stephen Lendman Its roots are from the late 19th century when Theodor Herzl founded modern Zionism at the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in 1897. In his book "Overcoming Zionism," Joel Kovel writes: Zionism seeks "the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militaralized and aggressive state. (It) cut Jews off from (their) history and led to a fateful identity of interests with antisemitism (becoming) the only thing that united them. (It) fell into the ways of imperialist expansion and militarism, and showed signs of the fascist malignancy." If you accept "the idea of a Jewish state," you mix its twin notions of "particularism (and) exceptionalism (that are) the actual bane of Judaism (and give) racism an objective, enduring, institutionalized and obdurate character." It turns Israel "into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses," and consider three of its former prime ministers. Menachem Begin (1977 - 83), Yitzhak Shamir (1983 - 84 and 1986 - 92), and Ariel Sharon (2001 - 06) were former terrorists who dispelled the illusion of Israeli democracy, morality, and respect for human rights. Kovel's conclusion: "the world would be a far better place without (the corrosive effects of) Zionism."... [An excellent summary; read the whole article]Read more... A New Administration, Tired Old Policies In Part I of his year-end analysis, money manager and market strategist Jeremy Grantham assessed the global economic crisis: "Greed + Incompetence + A Belief in Market Efficiency = Disaster." Greed and reckless overconfidence on the part of almost everyone caused (risk taking) to a degree that is probably unparalleled in breath and depth in American history." The aftershocks hit everywhere. Tremors continue. No safe harbors exist. Buckle up. Turbulence and convulsions are ahead. Grantham is worried and angry. The current disaster could have been avoided by moving early against asset bubbles. We didn't, so it will "be devilishly hard" to fix things. "We are deep in the pickle jar, and it seems likely that, in terms of economic pain, 2009 will be the worst year (ever) in the lives" of most everyone. Blame it on failed leadership, including under Greenspan and Bernanke at the Fed. Neither thought bubbles existed even though Bernanke is a Great Depression scholar. What did he learn? On January 3, Michael Lewis and David Einhorn addressed "The End of the Financial World as We Know It" in the New York Times and said Americans are viewed around the world as "financial lunatics." It goes beyond greed... Read more... Press TV - 'Israel to accept Hamas pre-war condition' Palestinian prisoners flash the victory sign An Israeli official says Tel Aviv is expected to free 1400 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captured Israeli solider Gilad Shalit. Israeli Minister for Pensioner Affairs Rafael Rafi Eitan announced on Sunday that Israel is expected to accept Hamas condition for the release of the captured Israeli soldier. The prisoner swap was Hamas precondition to accept the Gaza cease-fire during Cairo meetings on Gaza crisis. Israel which had rejected Hamas condition was hopeful to free Shilat in Gaza war. If implemented, it would be considered another big achievement for the Palestinian movement which strongly resisted Israel's 23-day offensive against Gaza and prevented the regime from achieving its goals... Read more... Burn in Hell you deniers of the Holocausts!, by nobody Ha! Call me a sell-out if you like, but I've decided to join with those who demand that history not be questioned. I now condemn all those who deny the Holocaust. And as a man not given to half measures I'm upping the ante. It is no longer good enough to condemn those who question the Holocaust. Since there were two Holocausts, both of them must be sacrosanct. Both of them demand that anyone who questions any aspect of either of them deserves to be jailed, broken, and have their life ruined. One is not good enough. It's both or nothing. What two Holocausts you say? Fact is, there was a Holocaust in each of the World Wars. Before the Holocaust of WWII was the Holocaust of WWI. If you're wondering why you've never heard of it, you need merely look to the anti-Semitic media. As we all know, Jews never get an even break in the media. If only they had a voice! A means to tell us of their suffering!... [Delicious satire that is also extremely informative. Don't skip the Comments, which just might lead you to this. Gotta love that magic 6 million number.] Read more... Marked Men, by Taki Theodoracopulos Last week I ventured down to Geneva for a meeting with my banker, a gentleman of the old school who did not get carried away by Bernie Madoff’s siren songs. To the contrary, he went as far as Odysseus, tied himself to his desk and plugged up the ears of his underlings. Metaphorically, that is. He had some interesting things to say. The mega-crook and fraudster never met suckers in person, except for those—mostly Jewish—friends of his in Palm Beach and in the Big Bagel. Europeans and Latin Americans were handled by his feeder fund managers, around 150 known ones, and, according to my banker, perhaps as many as 200 more unknown ones. That’s around 300 feeder funds working in secret to provide funds for a man whose name is already an adjective... Read more... The resistance option | EI In both Lebanon and Gaza, the resistance is still standing Hamas isn't Hizballah and Gaza isn't Lebanon. The resistance in Gaza -- which includes leftist and nationalist as well as Islamist forces -- doesn't have mountains to fight in. It has no strategic depth. It doesn't have Syria behind it to keep supply lines open; instead it has Israel's wall and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's goons. Lebanese civilians can flee north and east, while Gaza's repeat-refugees have no escape. The Lebanese have their farms, and supplies from outside; Gaza has been under total siege for years. Hizballah has remarkable discipline and is surely the best-trained, most disciplined force in the region. Although it has made great strides, Hamas is still undisciplined. Crucially, Hizballah has air-tight intelligence control in Lebanon, while Gaza contains collaborators like maggots in a corpse. But Hamas is still standing. On the rare occasions when Israel actually fought -- rather than just called in air strikes -- its soldiers reported "ferocious" resistance. Hamas withstood 22 days of the most barbaric bombing Zionism has yet stooped to, and did not surrender. Rocket fire continued from Gaza after Israel declared its unilateral ceasefire... Read more... Dirty Socks, by Uri Avnery Fascism has become a serious player in the Israeli public domain. The three main parties have now legitimized it. This phenomenon must be stopped before it is too late. So, how shall I vote this coming Tuesday?... [Avnery is a good man, but with one really bad idea - the preservation of the Jewish State. That explains his position in this article. But he's a useful soft Zionist insofar as he can illuminate the obscenity that is the actual Israel as well or better than anyone.] Read more... Let Netanyahu win, by Gideon Levy - Haaretz Benjamin Netanyahu will apparently be Israel's next prime minister. There is, however, something encouraging about that fact. Netanyahu's election will free Israel from the burden of deception: If he can establish a right-wing government, the veil will be lifted and the nation's true face revealed to its citizens and the rest of the world, including Arab countries. Together with the world, we will see which direction we are facing and who we really are. The masquerade that has gone on for several years will finally come to an end... Read more... Press TV - Egypt hinders investigations into Gaza war Egypt has refused entry into the Gaza Strip to members of an international committee in charge of investigating Israeli war crimes. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) set up the committee. Four French and Norwegian lawyers comprise the committee. The ICC had earlier started preliminary analysis into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war. French and Norwegian lawyers from Amnesty International on Thursday had attempted to enter the impoverished Palestinian sliver through Egypt's Rafah crossing with Gaza... Read more... British diplomat arrested over 'anti-Semitic' rant - Times Online Allegations that a senior British diplomat launched into an anti-Semitic rant in a London gym while watching TV footage from Gaza will not upset the "treadmill of diplomacy", the Israeli Ambassador to London said today. In a curiously tongue-in-cheek response to a case that has provoked concern within the Jewish community in Britain, Ron Prosor added that the tirade did not reflect "the health and fitness of our relations". The diplomat, 47-year-old Rowan Laxton, allegedly shouted "f***ing Israelis, f***ing Jews" while watching television reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza last month. He is also alleged to have said that Israeli soldiers should be "wiped off the face of the Earth" during the rant at the London Business School gym near Regents Park on January 27. The tirade reportedly continued even after other gym users asked him to stop... [The truth will out - sometimes in quite bizarre ways.] Read more... Netanyahu, Rabbi Hillel and a Jewish notion of self-respect - Haaretz .."I think that it is a matter of self-pride," says Netanyahu. "A people that respects itself doesn't divide its capital. A people that respects itself does not run away from terrorism. A people that respects itself believes in its right to its land...But the telling problem in Netanyahu's logic is the overarching value he places on self-pride. Is respect for one's self the only game in town? What about respect for the rights of others? What about respect for Judaism's ethical heritage?... Read more... Palestinians Pull Patients From Israeli Hospitals - NYT Scores of Palestinian patients being treated in Israeli hospitals, a rare bright spot of coexistence here, are being sent home because the Palestinian Authority has stopped paying for their treatment, partly in anger over the war in Gaza... Read more... Paul Craig Roberts: Driving Over the Cliff Is there intelligent life in Washington, DC? Not a speck of it. The US economy is imploding, and Obama is being led by his government of neoconservatives and Israeli agents into a quagmire in Afghanistan that will bring the US into confrontation with Russia, and possibly China, American’s largest creditor.. Read more... The Threat of Peace in Colombia | Counterpunch On February 1, through the mediation of Senator Piedad Córdoba, the FARC guerrillas unilaterally released one soldier and three police officers in compliance with promises made public on December 21, 2008. The Colombian government, for its part, violated its agreement not to fly over the airspace where the hostage release was to take place, thereby putting the release in jeopardy and delaying it for two hours. The government then denied it had done this, choosing instead to denounce the journalists who exposed the violation. The FARC has since released two more prisoners: Alan Jara, a former departmental governor who was held for seven and a half years, on February 3, and Sigifredo López, a former departmental legislator held for a similar length of time, on February 5. Having executed eleven of López’s colleagues in June 2007, the FARC has no politicians left in its custody... Read more... Jonathan Cook: Israeli University Welcomes "War Crimes" Colonel The Israeli government has moved quickly to quash protests over the appointment of the army’s senior adviser on international law to a teaching post at Tel Aviv University. Col Pnina Sharvit-Baruch is thought to have provided legal cover for war crimes during the recent Gaza offensive. Government officials fear that recent media revelations relating to Col Sharvit-Baruch’s role in the Gaza operation may assist human rights groups seeking to bring Israeli soldiers to trial abroad. A Spanish judge began investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza under the country’s “universal jurisdiction” laws this month, and a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague is considering a Palestinian group’s petition to indict Israeli commanders...a group of US professors announced that they were campaigning for an academic boycott of Israel -- the first time such a call has been heard in the US. Mr Barghouti said an “unprecedented” groundswell of popular opinion was behind new campaigns in countries such as Australia, Spain, Sweden, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. Read more... James Abourezk: Obama, Mitchell and the Palestinian Abe Foxman, head of the “Anti-Defamation League”, claims that George Mitchell is too fair to be a broker between Israel and the Palestinians. I guess that Foxman, in denouncing the choice of Mitchell for Middle East negotiator, shows that he is accustomed to such impartial mediators as Dennis Ross, who, when he left the Clinton Administration returned to the Israeli Lobby, whence he came. Or he possibly could be making a comparison between George Mitchell and Alan Dershowitz, the notorious Israeli propagandist. (I once called Dershowitz a “snake” on Al Manar TV, which prompted him to write a column in the Jerusalem Post calling me an anti-Semite. My mistake was to forget to apologize to the snakes.)... Read more... Ballots over Baghdad - The National Newspaper The future political landscape of Iraq is becoming clearer as the first results come in from the Iraqi provincial election. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Dawa party appear to have won a sweeping victory as Iraqi voters opt for a strong state to provide security and for secular nationalism rather than the clergy-dominated parties that triumphed in local and parliamentary elections in 2005... Read more... Condi Rice Could’ve Written Biden’s Speech I hate to agree with Bill Kristol, but he’s right about Vice President Joe Biden’s speech at the ongoing Munich security conference when he writes that “the administration chose not to use the occasion to say something interesting. One hopes the Obama administration is actually thinking more seriously than the Biden speech indicates.” I’m sure Kristol and I were looking for different things in the speech, but, at least from my point of view, it was hopelessly uninspired and offered no hints of any creative and new thinking that might actually lead to breakthroughs, particularly in the Middle East. Indeed, it sounded like a speech that Condoleezza Rice might have submitted in draft for White House approval before the vice president’s office and Elliott Abrams got their hands on it... Read more... Google map of Israeli settlements from leaked database The "Spiegel settlement database" is already creating waves in Israel. Israeli NGO Yesh Din has announced they will use the database to help Palestinians sue Israel for reparations and the removal of settlements from privately owned land. To help get the word out, Mondo reader Jamie Dyer has used the information in the translated excerpts of the database to create this google map. "Making the map helped me to see the strategic placement of these settlements. The hilltops are being systematically taken in a sort of inversion of the topography of justice," Dyer writes. Read more, view map... REHABILITATING HITLER … IN ISRAEL Read more...His name is Avigdor Lieberman and he is widely expected to be the main surprise of the Israeli elections, slated to take place 10 February. Many Israeli intellectuals dub Lieberman as the secular equivalent of Meir Kahana, the slain founder of the Kach terrorist group who advocated genocidal ethnic cleansing of non-Jews in Israel-Palestine. Kahana was assassinated in Manhattan, New York, in 1990 shortly after giving a speech in which he called for the annihilation and expulsion of Palestinians from “the Land of Israel”. According to most opinion polls, Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, or “Israel is our Home”, is projected to win 16-17 Knesset seats out of 120 making up the Israeli parliament. This would allow Yisrael Beiteinu to overtake the Labour Party, led by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to become the third largest party in the Israeli political system, after the Likud and Kadima parties. Lieberman’s party will likely be a chief coalition partner in the next Israeli government...Former TV anchorman Haim Yavin has warned against including Lieberman and his ilk in the next Israeli government. “Kahana may have died, but Kahanism is alive and well; there is too much ‘death to the Arabs’ and hatred for Arabs,” Yavin said in an interview with Haaretz this week. Alarmingly, Yavin represents a dwindling minority in a society that is drifting fast towards fascism... Read more... Why the Muslim World Can’t Hear Obama | NYT PRESIDENT OBAMA is clearly trying to reach out to the Muslim world. I watched his Inaugural Address on television, and was most struck by the line: “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers.” He gave his first televised interview from the White House to Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language television channel...The Egyptians I met in the United States told me — without exception — that they backed Mr. Obama. Many Egyptians I know went to his Web site and signed up as campaign supporters. In Cairo, which is seven hours ahead of Washington, some people I know stayed up practically all night waiting for the election results. When Mr. Obama won, newspapers here described Nubians — southerners whose dark skin stands out in Cairo — dancing in victory...We welcomed him with almost total enthusiasm until he underwent his first real test: Gaza... Read more... Gazans pledge to rebuild | Al Jazeera English Gazans have vowed to rebuild after the Israeli offensive destroyed their homes The survivors of the Israeli offensive in Gaza have slowly begun to restore a semblance of normalcy to their daily lives. Public facilities are operating once again, the streets are being cleared, tractors are at work removing piles of rubble, power lines are being fixed and electricity and water services are being restored to homes in Gaza...However, the return to a sense of normalcy in Gaza, despite the siege and threat of renewed Israeli attacks, has been slow in coming... Read more... The American ruling class On Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced measures that purport to restrict executive compensation to $500,000 at financial institutions receiving billions in government assistance. The figure does not include stock options, which could be redeemed after financial firms pay back loans from the federal government. Nor does it apply to the original recipients of tens of billions in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money. The measures are essentially a public relations exercise. Their aim is to provide political cover for a new and even larger Wall Street bailout, which Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will unveil next week. Yet the discussion that has emerged in the wake of Obama’s announcement sheds light on the domination of government by a tiny financial elite and the increasingly threadbare pretense of democracy in the US. This financial aristocracy, the episode reveals, is a power to be approached on bended knee... Read more... Israel's Subtle Propaganda Strategy, by Dan Lieberman Benjamin Cardin Addresses the Solidarity With Israel Rally, July 2006 Propaganda is most effective when subtly planted and the reader remains unaware that a commentary is actually indoctrination. Sometimes the writer is not cognizant that what he has published has been moved by its propaganda effect – sources for the material are actually misleading and publication is facilitated when the commentary fits a particular agenda. Two recent publications, a response by United States Senator Benjamin Cardin to an Amnesty International plea and an article in Newsweek magazine, A Plan of Attack for Peace by Daniel Klaidman, Jan. 12, 2009, demonstrate how far Israel’s supporters can reach to mislead the public. The former remarks, coming from a U.S. Senator, are particularly insidious – careless disregard for a defenseless Palestinian community and an excuse for those whom Amnesty International considers to have shown a lopsided response to the recent violence and who have exhibited lackadaisical efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza...Read more... Of course I'm anti-Semitic? Aren't you? Prior to 9/11/01 I was very much a typical American regarding Israel/Palestine. As I was conditioned, I knew virtually nothing about what was going on in Palestine and I was reluctant to look into the matter, thinking that it was much too complex for me to even to begin to understand. And reflecting my typical American conditioning, I was sympathetic to Jews, although I had never in fact met any Jewish people in person, being from a typical mid-western town. I definitely was not anti-Semitic. Heck, I didn’t know any Jews so the opportunity for being labeled anti-Semitic never came up. That didn’t happen until after 9/11/01...The way I look at it, if you’re aware of what’s happening to the Palestinians and you’re not considered anti-Semitic, then I question your humanity. If you don’t say anything about it, you’re an accomplice to genocide. What would you rather be, anti-Semitic or a genocider? For me, there’s no choice. Yes, of course I’m anti-Semitic. Aren’t you? [For those who are genuinely concerned about "anti-semitism,"please pay more attention to the cause, and less to the symptoms.] Read more... Netanyahu: No return of Golan Heights to Syria - msnbc He looks more and more like Ariel Sharon every day, doesn't he Benjamin Netanyahu, the front-runner in polls ahead of Israel's election this week, declared Sunday he would not give up the strategic Golan Heights for peace with Syria, an apparent attempt to shore up his right-wing credentials in the face of a last-minute charge by a hardline party...Read more... Top Counter-Terrorism Experts Question 9/11 Counter-terrorism experts presumably have some insight into terrorism, right? In fact, numerous high-level counter-terrorism experts question the government's investigation of - and explanation for - 9/11... Read more... Israel's war on Gaza 'led by donkeys' - Daily Star Report says Jewish state failed in attempt to recover prestige lost during Lebanon war Israel's military showed tactical improvements during its recent assault on Gaza, but the operation failed to achieve wider strategic goals because it seemed to be "led by donkeys," according to a report to be published by an influential US-based think-tank. A draft of a forthcoming report by the world-renowned Center for Strategic and International Studies, based on extensive interviews with senior Israeli military officials, shows that the assault on Gaza had been planned months in advance with lessons learned from the 2006 July war in mind. "Senior Israeli officers and officials made it clear that Israel coupled these months of war planning ... with deliberate efforts to ensure it could achieve both surprise and deception," said the report, entitled "The Gaza War: A Strategic Analysis."... Read more... The Forbidden Debate | Palestine Think Tank In the US and the West, we are able and free to debate God and HIS/HER existence, debate Jesus, Moses, Mohamed, debate America, its failures and its successes, debate our constitution and its interpretations. We are free to debate George Bush and his stupidity, his crimes against America and the world, and his many failures. We are free to debate anything and everything except Zionism, Israel and Judaism. In Palestine and the Arab world, we are allowed to discuss few things but one thing no one dares to discuss is the PLO, its illegitimacy and its failures. Israel committed war crimes for over 20 days in Gaza, killing and murdering in cold blood women and children, destroying homes, schools, social centers, UN facilities, mosques and hospitals yet, no one in the US and the West dares to say anything let alone criticize Israel, its racist and criminal practices, as we have seen in the BBC’s refusal to air calls for aid to Gaza and in the attack on Paul Simon and CBC for its airing of the recent special of why a two state solution is not possible any more. Mahmoud Abbas, whose presidential term finished and expired a couple of weeks ago and who lost any and all legitimacy as president of Palestine and the Palestinian Authority stood up yesterday in Cairo and declared that under no circumstances will there be any dialogue with those who (Hamas) question the legitimacy of the Palestine Liberation Organization... Read more... Press TV - Pakistan's Khan on Mossad 'hit list' Israel's notorious spy agency, Mossad, plans to kidnap or kill Pakistan's famous nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan and his colleagues. A recently published book by Gordon Thomas on the history of Israel's spy service Mossad, writes that Israeli spies have traced the travel paths of Khan's associates to some countries, the Times of India reported on Sunday. The book called 'Gideon's Spies' also records how Mossad moved these scientists and Khan from an earlier 'detain' list to a 'kill' list, Thomas added... Read more... New York and London protesters call for Valentine's boycott of Leviev Protesters gather outside LEVIEV New York Forty-five protesters called on Madison Avenue shoppers to boycott the jewelry store of Israeli billionaire and settlement magnate Lev Leviev this Saturday, the last major shopping day before Valentine's Day. The protest was the seventh organized by the New York activist group Adalah-NY since Leviev's store opened in mid-November. Londoners also joined the campaign to boycott Leviev, with 25 human rights activists picketing outside his Old Bond Street store Saturday...When Israel Expelled Palestinians: What if it was San Diego and Tijuana Instead? In the wake of Israel's invasion of Gaza, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak made this analogy: "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico." Within hours scores of American pundits and politicians had mimicked Barak's comparisons almost verbatim. In fact, in this very paper on January 9 House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor ended an opinion piece by saying "America would never sit still if terrorists were lobbing missiles across our border into Texas or Montana." But let's see if our political and pundit class can parrot this analogy. Think about what would happen if San Diego expelled most of its Hispanic, African American, Asian American, and Native American population, about 48 percent of the total, and forcibly relocated them to Tijuana? Not just immigrants, but even those who have lived in this country for many generations. Not just the unemployed or the criminals or the America haters, but the school teachers, the small business owners, the soldiers, even the baseball players. What if we established government and faith-based agencies to help move white people into their former homes? And what if we razed hundreds of their homes in rural areas and, with the aid of charitable donations from people in the United States and abroad, planted forests on their former towns, creating nature preserves for whites to enjoy? Sounds pretty awful, huh? I may be called anti-Semitic for speaking this truth. Well, I'm Jewish and the scenario above is what many prominent Israeli scholars say happened when Israel expelled Palestinians from southern Israel and forced them into Gaza. But this analogy is just getting started... Read more... Interview with Franklin Lamb: Self Defense or War Crime? (Part I), by Lawyers Without Borders ..Faced with nearly unprecedented international outrage and condemnation, due to massive civilian casualties, the government of Israel continues to claim that its actions constituted self defense and that its attack on Gaza fully comply with the requirements of International law. To defend its actions, which it insists were “totally legal under international law” Israel has organized a bevy of international lawyers and ‘experts’ to support its claims, including Alan Derchowitz, Justus Reid Weiner, Avi Bell as well as others working from, or in cooperation with, Israeli government funded outlets such as the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs or the Israeli Defense, Foreign Affairs and Information Ministries. International Lawyers without Borders and Hokok, the International Coalition against Impunity, asked American international lawyer and researcher, Dr. Franklin Lamb, of the Sabra-Shatila Foundation, currently based in Beirut, to comment on Israeli claims. In the following interview Lamb offers his brief analysis of the conduct of Israel and Hamas, against a backdrop of continuing on-the-ground investigations in Gaza. Dr. Lamb was interviewed at UNESCO Palace in Beirut. A transcript follows... Read more... See also Part II Bishop Wants to "Examine Evidence" of Holocaust Before Recanting Even as Vatican officials were working to control the damage caused by Pope Benedict XVI's decision to rehabilitate a Richard Williamson, a bishop who denied the Holocaust in an interview, with papal meetings and inter-faith dialogue, Williamson told Germany's Der Spiegel news weekly he needed time to scrutinize data surrounding the Holocaust. "If I find proof I would rectify (earlier statements) ... but all that will take time," Williamson was quoted as saying by magazine on Saturday, Feb. 7. "I ask everyone to believe me that I did not deliberately say something false. I was, on the basis of my research in the 1980s, convinced of the accuracy of my comments. Now I must examine everything again and look at the evidence"... Read more... Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them | Haaretz A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the passerby spat in his face. The clergyman prefered not to lodge a complaint with the police and told an acquaintance that he was used to being spat at by Jews. Many Jerusalem clergy have been subjected to abuse of this kind. For the most part, they ignore it but sometimes they cannot. On Sunday, a fracas developed when a yeshiva student spat at the cross being carried by the Armenian Archbishop during a procession near the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. The archbishop's 17th-century cross was broken during the brawl and he slapped the yeshiva student... Read more... Passengers of freighter seized by Israel return home with tales of abuse | The Daily Star ..Nine Lebanese and a Palestinian were handed over at the border with Israel to the UN peacekeeping force responsible for monitoring stability in southern Lebanon. The freed crew told how they were beaten and handcuffed after Israeli gunboats fired on the ship and sailors stormed the vessel, arresting everyone on board. The boat was then towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod where it was searched... Read more... Obama's team of zombies Even under the new president, Washington is the same one-party town it always has been -- controlled not by Democrats or Republicans, but by thieves. Only weeks ago, the political world was buzzing about a "team of rivals." America was told that finally, after years of yes men running the government, we were getting a president who would follow Abraham Lincoln’s lead, fill his administration with varying viewpoints, and glean empirically sound policy from the clash of ideas. Little did we know that "team of rivals" was what George Orwell calls "newspeak": an empty slogan "claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts."... [I am reminded of Jared Diamond's 'Guns, Germs and Steel,' that extraordinary sequel to Darwin's 'Origin of Species' (this time doing for human cultural evolution what Darwin did for genetic evolution) in which he occasionally remarks that all forms of government throughout history have been kleptocracies. But the current grip of the Zionist Power Configuration over power and the world's wealth is truly unprecedented. It is comforting to reflect that whatever is born dies, and it would appear that the thieves have overreached and their artfully constructed Empire may well be crashing down as we speak.] Read more... Endgame? What Endgame?, by Justin Raimondo Afghanistan: A war without end So, you thought it was all going to be different, did you, that we were in for a change – a Big Change? Well, the bad news, as Newsweek reports, is that the more things change ...He's searching for strategy – at this late date? Isn't this the same Barack Hussein Obama who told us Bush was neglecting the Afghan front, and that we had to redirect our efforts away from Iraq in order to invest more troops and treasure in Afghanistan, doing whatever it is we're supposed to be doing there? Surely he had some kind of plan in mind. And, by the way, what are we doing there? Frankly, nobody knows – least of all, apparently, President Obama. His generals are equally clueless. Maybe they ought to ask the outgoing President – Dick Cheney, I mean. After all, this war was launched by the Cheney-Bush administration, and the neocons who talked us into this clearly had something very specific in mind – now what was it?... Read more... Homeland Offense | The American Conservative Americans have become so inured to the sight of federal troops fighting fires, rescuing flood victims from rooftops, and engaging in drug interdiction on the border that few eyebrows were raised when news broke that 20,000 active-duty infantry would soon be deployed on American soil for so-called homeland defense. But critics say this development..is unprecedented and further evidence of a military mission-creep into domestic affairs, particularly in areas for which the National Guard and Reserves are already suited. “I don’t get it. I don’t understand why they are further encumbering active-duty brigades with this kind of mission,” says Winslow Wheeler, author of America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress and one of Washington’s few civilian experts on the Pentagon’s Byzantine budget. “It sounds like someone is expanding his empire.”... Read more... The Good War, by Bill Bonner The Washington Post reports that the War on Terror is over. No armistice has been announced. No treaty has been signed. The whole thing is just being dropped quietly, like a burnt-out cigarette. Too bad. It was our favorite war. In the few words that follow, we explain why. First, the background:.. Read more... Peers warn surveillance state is threat to freedom - The Independent Banksy's London mural may not be so far The vast growth of surveillance and data collection risks undermining freedoms vital to the British way of life, a group of eminent peers is warning today. In a devastating critique of the spiralling use of CCTV, databases and information sharing, they warn that the growth of information collected about every man, woman and child in Britain is a "serious threat" to principles at the heart of the constitution. The Lords Constitution Committee, which includes the former law lord, Lord Woolf, and the former attorney generals, Lord Lyell and Lord Morris of Aberavon, call in a report for new safeguards to prevent government and private databases damaging historic rights to privacy and civil liberties. Committee chairman Lord Goodlad, a former Conservative minister, warns: "The huge rise in surveillance and data collection by the state and other organisations risks undermining the longstanding traditions of privacy and individual freedom which are vital for democracy."...from the truth, according to the report Read more... Netanyahu: Lieberman campaign against Israeli Arabs is 'legitimate' - Haaretz Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday branded as "legitimate" rival prime ministerial candidate Avigdor Lieberman's electoral campaign against Israeli Arabs. "This is a legitimate bill, which has already been proposed by Likud MK Yisrael Katz, but the problem with it is enforcement. It is legitimate to demand that the citizens of a state should be loyal to it," said Netanyahu in an interview with Channel 2. Netanyahu was referring to Lieberman's vow to pass a citizenship law that will "prevent the disloyalty of some of Israel's Arabs."... [sound familiar?] Read more... Can Mitchell turn Jerusalem into Belfast? A mural in Derry, Northern Ireland commemorates solidarity US President Barack Obama's appointment of former Senator George Mitchell as his new Middle East envoy is a good choice. Mitchell showed even-handedness uncharacteristic of US officials when he led a fact-finding mission to the region in 2000. Had its recommendations been followed -- cessation of all violence and a full freeze of Israeli settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land -- the peace process might have made progress. Mitchell, who is already in the Middle East, helped broker the 1998 Belfast Agreement, the key to ending decades of strife in Northern Ireland. Because of historical similarities, that peace agreement is an important precedent for Palestinians and Israeli Jews...between Palestinians and Irish nationalists Read more... Israel's Unjust War on Gaza: Did self-defence justify Israel’s war on Gaza? Objections have been raised to this claim on grounds of a lack of both proportionality and necessity. To kill over 1000 Palestinians in 3 weeks, hundreds of them children, and wound thousands more, in order to deter a threat from rockets that did not kill or injure anybody in Israel for the six months the truce was declared by both sides, or even before Israel launched its attack on December 27, is so disproportionate as to be intolerable in any ethical system that holds Palestinian lives equal in value to Israeli lives. It is also so disproportionate as to defy belief that defence against these rockets was the real motive of the war. To ignore the many diplomatic avenues available to avoid even this threat, such as lifting the suffocating 18-month siege, suggests the same thing. A more fundamental objection, however, is the self-evident legal and moral principle that an aggressor cannot rely upon self-defence to justify violence against resistance to its own aggression. You can find this principle in domestic law and in the judgments of the Nuremberg tribunals... Read more... Overcoming Impunity, by Joel Kovel June 8, 1967. Israeli warplanes and boats attack the USS Liberty as it sits in international waters off the coast of Gaza, killing 34 seamen, wounding another 137, and leaving the high-tech surveillance vessel in ruins. President Lyndon B. Johnson calls off a rescue mission and issues orders that nothing further is to be said about the incident. To this day it is the only peacetime attack on a U.S. naval vessel that Congress refuses to investigate. That’s impunity... [I don't usually call attention to particular articles, but this one is different - it is a "must read." So is his book 'Overcoming Zionism.'] Read more... Jingoism all the way | Al-Ahram Weekly One of the main but undeclared goals of the recent Israeli blitzkrieg against the Gaza Strip was to significantly enhance the chances of the Kadima and Labour parties in upcoming Israeli elections, slated for 10 February. Conventional wisdom has it that Israeli Jewish voters are more likely to give their votes to candidates with a reputation of toughness vis-à-vis the Palestinians. In the popular and political lexicon, this means spilling Palestinian blood, destroying more Palestinian homes and narrowing Palestinian horizons... Read more... Torture Chic: Why Is the Media Glorifying Inhumane, Sadistic Behavior? In his first days in office, President Barack Obama took a pen and signed executive orders halting the use of torture, shutting Guantanamo and banning secret CIA prisons overseas, as he vowed to fight terrorism "in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals." Shortly thereafter, a poll showed that Americans did not overwhelmingly support the president's rejection of the Bush administration's use of torture as an instrument of the state. In their zeal to legalize torture and trounce the Bill of Rights, the Bush team crafted a media campaign to sell the "War on Terror" as a righteous quest retribution for 9/11, inciting fear of future carnage to justify violating the Geneva protocols and the U.S. Army Field Manual. While the Bush torture policy made stunning progress through the courts and the legislature, with the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, there followed an increase in the normalization of torture images in popular culture, a growing acceptance of violence as effective, routine... [This piece could be sub-titled "Learning from the Israelis."] Read more... Press TV - Erdogan urges world to recognize Hamas Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for recognition of Hamas which won a landslide victory in Palestinian elections. In an interview with The Washington Post published Saturday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said isolating Hamas is the reason for the ongoing tensions in the region. He criticized world leaders for failing to respect the political will of the Palestinian people who voted for the Palestinian resistance movement. Erdogan said Hamas would have been in a different situation if the world had given it a chance in politics after winning elections. The Turkish prime minister said Hamas would not be able to change the situation as long as Palestine was "an open air prison"... Read more... Security in Iraq: Relatively Speaking | t r u t h o u t If there is to be any degree of honesty in our communication, we must begin to acknowledge that the lexicon of words that describes the human condition is no longer universally applicable. I am in Iraq after four years away. Most Iraqis I talked with on the eve of the first provincial elections being held after 2005 told me "security is better." I myself was lulled into a false sense of security upon my arrival a week ago. Indeed, security is "better," compared to my last trip here, when the number of attacks per month against the occupation forces and Iraqi collaborators used to be around 6,000. Today, we barely have one American soldier being killed every other day and only a score injured weekly. Casualties among Iraqi security forces are just ten times that number. But yes, one could say security is better if one is clear that it is better in comparison not to downtown Houston but to Fallujah 2004... Read more... The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators This paper looks at some of the most important economic and social indicators during the 10 years of the Chávez administration in Venezuela, as well as the current economic expansion. It also looks at the current situation and challenges... [You can just read the Executive Summary to get the gist of it. It's highly instructive to contrast this report with the coverage provided by the propaganda mill known as the mainstream media.] Read more... Armed and Dangerous: Weapons Transfers to Israel during the Bush Administration Watch a video and download educational materials from our Capitol Hill policy briefing held in conjunction with a grassroots lobby day we organized with Interfaith Peace-Builders. The briefing features testimony from Rep. Dennis Kucinich, National Advocacy Director Josh Ruebner, and Amr Shurrab, a young Palestinian man from the Gaza Strip whose two brothers were killed in Jan. 2009... Read more... Erase my grandfather's name from Yad Vashem | WOMEN'S LENS Mr. President of the State of Israel, I write you so that you can intervene with those who have the legal right to have the name of my grandfather, Moshe Bratjberg, removed from the Yad Vashem Memorial, which is dedicated to the memory of Nazi Jewish victims. He was gassed at Treblinka in 1943, as well as other members of my family who died during deportation in different nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. I ask you to grant my plea, Mr. President, because what happened in Gaza, and in a more general context, the fate imposed on the Arab people of Palestine for the last sixty years, disqualifies Israel, in my eyes, as the center of rememberance of the evil perpetrated on Jews, and thus to all of humanity... Read more... Nat'l March on Wall Street April 3 & 4: Bail Out the People Not the Banks March on Wall Street on the Anniversary of the day Martin Luther King gave his life fighting for social and economic justice. Why? Because we must demand that the needs of the people come before the greed of the super rich. Millions are jobless and homeless, and millions more will be living on the streets if the government continues to waste trillions of dollars on saving wealthy bankers instead of saving people. Dr. King would have been appalled and opposed to the terrible siege of Gaza as well as the continuing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan... Read more... When Israel is at war, expect no peace, by Jonathan Cook | IMEU When Israelis rally behind a war, it is never an easy time to be engaged in Jewish-Arab relations, says Nisreen Murkos, a 20-year veteran of co-existence projects. As one of the heads of the Arab section of the Adam Institute for Democracy and Peace, Ms Murkos is preparing – with trepidation – to organise the first encounters between groups of Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens since the fighting in Gaza ended. According to surveys conducted during the fighting, about 90 per cent of Israeli Jews backed the war, with 82 per cent also hoping that the army would intensify its assault. The numbers are reversed for Israel’s 1.2 million Arab citizens, with almost all profoundly opposed to the fighting. Israeli Jewish commentators and politicians have widely denounced the community as “traitors” and “a fifth column”. Almost alone among the coexistence organisations in Israel, the Adam Institute arranges meetings where Israeli Jews and Arabs can confront each other as equals and freely air their views.... Read more... Mission near impossible | Al-Ahram Weekly Despite an air of optimism in some regional capitals about the recent appointment by US President Barack Obama of Senator George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy, there are serious doubts in many quarters as to whether the veteran diplomat will be able to work the miracles the region so badly needs. Sceptics, and they are legion, argue that getting Israel to end once and for all its 40-year-old colonialist occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip (for many the foremost miracle needed) necessitates a transformation, if not revolution of strategic thinking in Washington. The US is Israel's guardian-ally. Absent meaningful US pressure on Tel Aviv, the Jewish state will continue to behave and act as it has always, namely defying international law, savaging the Palestinians, and building more Jewish colonies on occupied Arab land... Read more... Israel Is Nobody's Friend - soc.culture.canada If civilization can survive the cynical path it's on, future historians will identify three great cons that were played out upon the world during this time; the fractional-reserve central-banking system, the war on terrorism and Israel. All three are equally dangerous to the future of mankind, are presented with equal deception, and emanate from the same source. Much of the intentional confusion surrounding Israel is due to Israel presenting itself as a Jewish state - it's not 'Israel is a Zionist state.' When people mention the word Jewish, they are usually mixing together three very distinct, different elements... Read more... MASSIVE DAMAGE AT BRIGHTON ARMS FACTORY Nine activists were arrested at a Brighton weapons factory in the early hours of this morning (17th). According to one witness computers and filing cabinets were hurled out of top floor windows as a group of protesters broke in to the factory in the early hours staging a “citizen's decommissioning” of the EDO-MBM/ITT arms factory in direct response to the killings of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military. Read more... What May Come Of The Tragedies | annas_peacework_palestine Anna Baltzer Last week I sent out a story about a Gaza woman being asked to choose which five of her children would live and which five would die--an unmistakable parallel with the famous story of Sophie, a woman who had to choose which of her children to give to the Nazis to kill. When I first heard the story from Gaza, I could hardly believe it, and indeed many readers have responded incredulously to my post over the past week...Read more... Pentagon ups public relations spending | AP As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls "the human terrain" of world public opinion. In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in violation of federal law. An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006. This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations — almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department... [The vast army of flaks for the Empire pontificate endlessly about free market capitalism, the entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, productivity, freedom, democracy etc., ad infinitum, but there's only one thing it's really good at - Sales and Marketing, aka BS] Read more... Army Data Show Rise in Number of Suicides - NYT The number of soldiers who committed suicide in January could reach 24, a count that would be the highest monthly total since the Army began tabulating suicides in 1980...Suicides among soldiers in 2008 rose for the fourth year in a row, reaching the highest level in nearly three decades. Army officials say the stress of long deployments to war zones plays a role in the increase...“If we lost this many soldiers to an enemy weapon, the entire country would know about it and we would demand defensive measures.”... Read more... Bring the Israeli War Criminals to Justice To the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) The response to violence is justice. Please sign the universal petition to urge the ICC to bring the war criminals to justice... Read more... On Historical Revisionism: A conversation with Dr. Ibrahim Alloush ...strategically speaking, Arabs are now on the defensive, if one looks beyond the recent progress of revisionism in the Arab world. You have prominent Arab intellectuals now actively proclaiming the "Holocaust" religion from the rooftops: this would have been unimaginable not long ago. You have the largest circulating Arab daily, Al Hayat of London, actively spreading "Holocaust" myths: until recently this would have unimaginable. You have Arab governments succumbing to Zionist pressures to ban revisionist conferences: earlier this would have been unimaginable, if only out of concern for their popular image...These people have chosen to become the purveyors of an intellectual virus naturally rejected by the Arab mind. By so doing, they have either risked self-alienation by sincerely embracing the "Holocaust," or have lost a great deal of respect by seeming to espouse the "Holocaust" for opportunistic reasons. In this context, please be aware that certain Arabs who are spreading the "Holocaust" myths welcome direct attacks from revisionists or other Arabs, since they hope to use such attacks for benefits and privileges from the West and the Zionists... [For those new to the terminology, "historical revisionists" are the people referred to in holospeak as "holocaust deniers".] Read more... Israel Diverts Ship Bound for Gaza - NYT A freighter was escorted by an Israeli naval vessel towards the port of Ashdod on The Israeli Navy intercepted a Gaza-bound cargo ship on Thursday, diverting it to an Israeli port where the people aboard were to be questioned, the military announced. The boat, called The Brotherhood Ship, was carrying what its organizers said was humanitarian aid: food, medicine and toys... Thursday after being intercepted as it tried to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza. [Interference with a legitimate vessel at the point of a gun in international waters is considered an act of war according to maritime law, and is a more serious offense than the piracy off the coast of Somalia - unless of course the perpetrator is Israel, which is always a priori the innocent victim, and always above the law.] Read more... Hamas’ popularity soaring following Israel’s Gaza blitz The latest public opinion survey in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has shown a dramatic rise in Hamas’ popularity among Palestinians, with a significant decline in Fatah’s public standing. Moreover, the poll showed that a majority of Palestinians believed that the advent of the Obama administration in the U.S. wouldn’t make a big difference with regard to American efforts to resolve the Palestinian issue. According to the poll, Turkey, Venezuela and Iran as well as Hezbullah are the most popular regional forces among Palestinians... Read more... The World Economic Forum: Requiem for an Overweight, by Eric Wahlberg ...United States President Barack Obama and his new cabinet were conspicuous in their absence. Also conspicuous by their absence were the private bankers — “banksters”, in the words of US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. G8 central bank heads attended, with the notable exception of US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, presumably to avoid being tarred and feathered... Read more... Across West Bank, villages hit with confiscation orders During the month of January, Palestinian villages across the West Bank were hit with a wave of confiscation orders. In the Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron districts, Occupation forces closed or confiscated land for the construction of new segments of the Wall or military infrastructure. Collectively, thousands of dunums have been confiscated, and thousands more will be isolated... Read more... Naomi Klein: All of Them Must Go You - politicians and CEOs huddled at some trade summit - are like the reckless scamming execs at Enron (of course, we didn't know the half of it). We - the rabble outside--are like the people of Argentina, who, in the midst of an economic crisis eerily similar to our own, took to the street banging pots and pans. They shouted, "¡Que se vayan todos!" ("All of them must go!") and forced out a procession of four presidents in less than three weeks. What made Argentina's 2001-02 uprising unique was that it wasn't directed at a particular political party or even at corruption in the abstract. The target was the dominant economic model--this was the first national revolt against contemporary deregulated capitalism... Read more... Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan (Thanks for Ruining America) | AlterNet Reagan rolled back a century of progressive advances. And now we're seeing the results of his terrible policies more clearly than ever. Ronald Reagan's 98th birthday is being celebrated today at a time that should be a cause for soul searching among his admirers. The conservative revolution that Reagan unleashed upon the nation and much of the world lay in ashes, and Washington is embarking on a new epoch of government intervention to eradicate the excesses of free-market purism. One would expect liberals to be out in the streets looking for statues of the Gipper to topple from their pedestals. But nothing of the kind is happening. While George W. Bush is now the bane even of many conservatives, a Marine Corps contingent will lay a wreath at Reagan's grave site safe in the knowledge that much of the nation holds his memory in a warm embrace. Historians may one day view this as an odd historical conundrum, since Reagan's legacy is so clearly imprinted on the myriad of forces that have vitiated the American dream for millions of working people and brought wreckage to the world economy... Read more... Likud Charter Does Not Recognize Palestine | The Palestine Chronicle In a few weeks, on February the 10th, Israel will elect its new leaders during legislative elections. The three main contenders are Tzipi Livni from the Kadima party (Ariel Sharon’s party), Ehud Barak from the Labour party and Benyamin Netanyahu from the Likud party. Before the Gaza "war" it was a two-horse race: Livni against Netanyahu, with Netanyahu leading by a good margin in all the polls. The race became a three-horse one thanks to the Gaza “war” launched by Livni and Barak. Barak saw his ratings surge and is now back in the race. Even if he does not get elected, his party will get quite a few more seats than it had planned a few months ago. But the frontrunner has always been Benyamin Netanyahu and he remains, in the eyes of the majority of Israel’s journalists (Gideon Levy from Haaretz) or activists (Jeff Halper from ICAHD), the more than probable future PM...We have therefore established that the Likud party charter does not recognize Palestine and will not accept a sovereign Palestinian state. The soon-to-come non-recognition of Likud by the international community and an implemented blockade on Israel should therefore not come as a surprise for Israelis... [I wish upon a star] Read more... Israel's Unjust War on Gaza: Self-Defense Against Peace Did self-defence justify Israel’s war on Gaza? Objections have been raised to this claim on grounds of a lack of both proportionality and necessity. To kill over 1000 Palestinians in 3 weeks, hundreds of them children, and wound thousands more, in order to deter a threat from rockets that did not kill or injure anybody in Israel for the six months the truce was declared by both sides, or even before Israel launched its attack on December 27, is so disproportionate as to be intolerable in any ethical system that holds Palestinian lives equal in value to Israeli lives. It is also so disproportionate as to defy belief that defence against these rockets was the real motive of the war. To ignore the many diplomatic avenues available to avoid even this threat, such as lifting the suffocating 18-month siege, suggests the same thing. A more fundamental objection, however, is the self-evident legal and moral principle that an aggressor cannot rely upon self-defence to justify violence against resistance to its own aggression... Read more... Obama and the Politics of Bullocks - by John Pilger Growing up in an Antipodean society proud of its rich variety of expletives, I never heard the word bollocks. It was only on arrival in England that I understood its magisterial power. All classes used it. Judges grunted it; an editor of the Daily Mirror used it as noun, adjective and verb. Certainly, the resonance of a double vowel saw off its closest American contender. It had authority..."That was clearly bollocks," said his lordship, who warned of the perceived "linkage between the US, Israel and the UK" in the horrors inflicted on Gaza and the effect on the recruitment of terrorists in Britain. In other words, he was stating the obvious: that state terrorism begets individual or group terrorism at source. Just as Blair was the prime mover of the London bombings of 7 July 2005, so Brown, having pursued the same cynical crusades in Muslim countries and having armed and disported himself before the criminal regime in Tel Aviv, will share responsibility for related atrocities at home. There is a lot of bollocks about at the moment...It is time the Obama lovers grew up. It is time those paid to keep the record straight gave us the opportunity to debate informatively. In the 21st century, people power remains a huge and exciting and largely untapped force for change, but it is nothing without truth. "In the time of universal deceit," wrote George Orwell, "telling the truth is a revolutionary act."... Read more... America’s ‘Strong Commitment to Error’, by William Pfaff | Truthdig John Kenneth Galbraith, the distinguished and irreverent Canadian-born but U.S.-nationalized economist, observer of American national mores, preconceptions and faults, and a sometime U.S. government official, wrote the following of his government experience in Washington and New Delhi in the 1960s. He was not the only one, he said, who fell afoul “of a major feature of our foreign policy. That is its institutional rigidity, which holds it on course even when it is visibly wrong. So it was on Vietnam, as is now accepted ... So it was [and continues to be] on such matters as the enlargement of NATO or the continuing trade and travel sanctions on Cuba, or, as this is written [in 1999], on a sensible response to the more liberal tendencies now evident in Iran. ... [It is] a rigidity with its strong commitment to error.” Indeed, a decade later, one might be justified in speaking of an absolute, inevitable and chronic institutional commitment to error... Read more... Letter from Mazin 2/4/09 Or listen to it... Here in occupied Palestine, we are faced with hate so thick that as the cliche goes "you can cut it with a knife". Nearly a dozen Palestinian students were injured when the floor collapsed under their feet in the Silwan neighborhood in Jerusalem, a neighborhood that has been targeted for ethnic cleansing. Many homes were already demolished and over 40 homes are cracking because Israelis occupation forces are digging tunnels underneath them. No home repairs are allowed and no legal recourse. The neighborhood has undergone slow ethnic cleansing and more Jewish settlers are moving in to recreate an Arabrein “City of David”. In the West Bank, an Israeli army unit decided to shoot an unarmed man and riddle his body with bullets as an example for other workers who try to cross imposed lines of the ghettos (in this case the Ghetto of Hebron) to seek work. And everyday we hear new stories of Gaza horrors coming out... Read more... Why Is the Government Hell-Bent on Rewarding Greed, Incompetence and Narcissism?, by Jim Hightower | Alternet Washington shouldn't reward Wall Street's culture of excess. Instead, it should insist that those who wrecked the economy be fired. Bankers have never been much loved, but gollies, this Wall Street bunch seems hell-bent on being loathed. As a consequence of their avaricious grab for outrageous personal enrichment during the past decade, these arrogant titans of financial gimmickry have caused a vast economic collapse that is presently costing million of Americans their homes, jobs, pensions and dreams -- while also bringing down the banks themselves. As you would expect, the Wall Streeters who did this to us are now humbled and filled with deep remorse. HA! Just kidding. Instead, the perpetrators keep grasping for all they can get, taking no responsibility for the damage they've done. Obtuse? Self-indulgent? Narcissistic? What's with these people? A few examples of their bloated sense of entitlement:.. Read more... Engaging With the "Dark Side", by Avigail Barbanel ...When I was still living in Israel there was a long period of time when I stopped watching the news and reading the newspapers. I just couldn't handle the endless barrage of bad news. Even now, I still find it hard to read the daily newspapers and have a tendency to avoid them. My own avoidance did not stop me from criticizing others for theirs. I openly accused friends and family of avoiding reality and of not caring. My experience as a therapist in the last few years has been very humbling. It taught me to be much more compassionate, with myself and everyone else. Although I consider avoidance a serious problem, I can now understand, rather than judge, the tendency to avoid the dark side of life. Before I say anything else about avoidance, I would like to suggest that we adopt an attitude of compassion and forgiveness in the face of avoidance. We need to understand that the degree of avoidance is an indication of the depth of pain that is within us...Notwithstanding the enormous value of spiritual practices (in which I too engage), it is possible to practice them selectively so that the practice itself is a way of avoiding contact with pain. It is as if we are trying to get a shortcut to bliss and well-being while bypassing the darkness in the world and within ourselves. Trying to look at life as 'all good' is as unrealistic as seeing life as all suffering and pain. In Tibetan Buddhism, believers regularly contemplate their own death and suffering. Their aim is to expand their consciousness so that they can grasp the totality of life, as they believe Buddha was able to do. They believe that to avoid the dark side is simply to be out of touch with reality. The dangers of engaging with darkness are obvious and our defences are understandable. However, our avoidance takes us further away from doing good and therefore contributes to the problems that we are trying to solve.... Read more... When did we stop caring about civilian deaths during wartime?, by Robert Fisk I wonder if we are "normalizing" war. It's not just that Israel has yet again got away with the killing of hundreds of children in Gaza. And after its own foreign minister said that Israel's army had been allowed to "go wild" there, it seems to bear out my own contention that the Israeli "Defence Force" is as much a rabble as all the other armies in the region. But we seem to have lost the sense of immorality that should accompany conflict and violence. The BBC's refusal to handle an advertisement for Palestinian aid was highly instructive. It was the BBC's "impartiality" that might be called into question. In other words, the protection of an institution was more important than the lives of children. War was a spectator sport whose careful monitoring – rather like a football match, even though the Middle East is a bloody tragedy – assumed precedence over human suffering... Read more... For Nazi Doctor, New Life in Cairo Provided a Haven - NYT ...[He] was born Aribert Ferdinand Heim, member of Adolf Hitler’s elite Waffen-SS, and medical doctor at the Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen concentration camps. It was behind the gray, stone walls of Mauthausen in his native Austria that Dr. Heim committed the atrocities against hundreds of Jews and others that earned him the nickname Dr. Death and his status as the most-wanted Nazi war criminal still believed to be at large by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Dr. Heim was accused of performing operations on prisoners without anesthesia; removing organs from healthy inmates, then leaving them to die on the operating table; injecting poison, including gasoline, into the hearts of others; and taking the skull of at least one victim as a souvenir... [Probably there is little truth in the snippet of the article quoted above. It is the usual stock-in-trade of the mainstream media to perpetuate such dubious "history," particularly in the case of the NYT, a Zionist owned and operated publication. What is unusual is that the article also includes material that would ordinarily be left out of the story. In all likelihood, Dr. Heim was a thoroughly decent person caught up in the web of events:] ..In the letter he also accused Simon Wiesenthal, who was interned at Mauthausen, of being “the one who invented these atrocities.” Dr. Heim went on to discuss what he called Israeli massacres of Palestinians, and added that “the Jewish Khazar, Zionist lobby of the U.S. were the first ones who in 1933 declared war against Hitler’s Germany.” The Turkic ethnic group the Khazars were a recurring theme for Dr. Heim, who kept himself busy in Cairo, researching a paper he wrote in English and German, decrying the possibility of anti-Semitism owing to the fact, he said, that most Jews were not Semitic in ethnic origin...He formed close bonds with his neighbors, including the Doma family, which ran the Kasr el Madina hotel, where Dr. Heim lived the last decade before his death..Mahmoud Doma, 38, became emotional when talking about the man he knew as Uncle Tarek, whom he described giving him books and encouraging him to study. “He was like a father. He loved me and I loved him.”... Read more... An open letter to an Israeli reserve soldier, by Zalman Amit A letter supposedly from an Israeli reserve soldier to the owner of a house in Gaza which the soldier occupied was circulating. There was a debate among members of several peace groups whether the letter was real or fake. One of the commentators argued that even if the letter was a fake, it does sadly represent the views and sentiments of the vast majority of the Jewish citizens of Israel. I therefore decided to write a response (Daphna Levit edited the piece) from the imaginary (but realistic) owner of the house in Gaza to whom the original letter was supposedly addressed. Both letters appear below. I hope you will find it interesting... Read more... Aldous Huxley: The Ultimate Revolution “There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” [Big Pharma may not think of it in these terms, but most of their R&D is devoted to inventing something like soma. In Western culture Soma often refers to some form of intoxicatingdrug; it is also the brand name of the prescription muscle relaxant Carisoprodol, which is addictive and often abused. In Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World, Somais a popular dream-inducing drug. It provides an easy escape from thehassles of daily life and is employed by the government as a method ofcontrol through pleasure. It is ubiquitous and ordinary among theculture of the novel and everyone is shown to use it at some point, invarious situations: sex, relaxation, concentration, confidence. It isseemingly a single-chemical combination of many of today's drugs'effects, giving its users the full hedonistic spectrum depending ondosage. - Wikipedia] Read transcript of his talk at Berkeley in 1962... Paul Craig Roberts: The War on Terror is a Hoax According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists. If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly. The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated... Read more... US army deserters flee Iraq | Russia Today Last week’s successful election in Iraq was a major step towards the withdrawal of US troops from the country. But some soldiers are jumping the gun. They’re deserting the US army, insisting the occupation is unjust. At present, more than 5,000 troops are missing from duty, the Pentagon says... Read more... The angelization of Israel | The Hasbara Buster I don't think I'll ever be able to understand why Zionists insist on singling out Israel for angelization. They have nothing to win and a lot to lose. By angelizing Israel, its apologists oblige themselves to prove not only that its actions are justified (already a daunting task), but also that the country's behavior is superior to that of "any other country in its position." This is due to a number of extraordinary claims the Zionists make: most notably, that Israel holds the moral high ground not only in relation to its Muslim neighbors, but also as compared to other developed democracies where its leftwing critics live. A key ingredient of the angelization is the claim that the Israeli Defense Forces are the most moral army in the world, which is regularly repeated, most recently in relation to the Gaza op. A case in point is the ineffable Alan Dershowitz. A writer notable not for the depth of his ideas, but for the influence (itself telling) he exerts on the lower echelons of the Hasbara troupe, a.k.a. Zionism's useful idiots... Read more... Religious groups are ‘penetrating’ Israeli army, by Jonathan Cook Extremist rabbis and their followers, bent on waging holy war against the Palestinians, are taking over the Israeli army by stealth, according to critics. In a process one military historian has termed the rapid “theologisation” of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. They answer to hardline rabbis who call for the establishment of a Greater Israel that includes the occupied Palestinian territories. Their influence in shaping the army’s goals and methods is starting to be felt, said observers, as more and more graduates from officer courses are also drawn from Israel’s religious extremist population... Read more... Holocaust remembrance day cancelled in Barcelona The Catalunya government has called off the ceremony marking the “International Holocaust Remembrance Day”, which was scheduled to take place on January 27, in protest of the Israeli offensive on Gaza. The Gaza war has inflamed the already pro-Palestinian public opinion in the northeastern Spanish region, and the local media has run endless stories comparing the Israeli stance on the situation in the Strip to Nazi atrocities. Over 30,000 people marched in Catalunya’s streets in support of Hamas, during the three-week war, burning Israeli flags and handing out flyers threatening local pro-Israel journalists. The overwhelming public support for the Palestinians has prompted the government to cancel the Holocaust Remembrance Day service. This was to be the only public event marking the day, and was scheduled to take place in Barcelona’s central piazza. “Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right,” a local City official told Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper. Read more... Hold Israel accountable for Gaza, by George Bisharat | Seattle Times Newspaper "THE boss has lost it," many Israeli military and political officials, and people on the street, were reportedly joking after their army's recent devastation of the Gaza Strip. As Israeli journalist Uri Avnery observed, the jest means that: " ... in order to deter our enemies, we must behave like madmen, go on the rampage, kill and destroy mercilessly." In fact, the "boss has lost it" is an unselfconscious admission of policies that violate international law, and could at some point be used against Israeli leaders in a criminal prosecution. Evidence suggests that Israel may have committed at least seven serious offenses during its Gaza invasion: launching a war of aggression (because Israel itself triggered the breakdown of a six-month truce, and therefore did not have a valid claim of self-defense); deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure; deliberate killings of civilians; collective punishment; illegal use of weapons, including white phosphorous; preventing care to the wounded; and disproportionate use of force. These constitute grave breaches of customary and conventional international law, and some amount to war crimes. Hamas' indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians were also war crimes, but did not justify Israel's violations. What is the likelihood that Israel leaders faced with allegations of war crimes will ever be investigated and brought to justice?... Read more... Why the Only Solution for Jews and Palestinians is a One State Solution, by Elie Elhadj For a durable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Bible and the Quran must be de-politicized. In political terms, de-politicization means a single secular democratic state for Jews and Palestinians..The Arab Israeli conflict has become a religious war. Politicizing the Bible's Genesis 15:18 politicized the Quran. Genesis 15:18 declares: "The Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." Defeated in 1948, powerless and humiliated in every war since that time, Arabs took refuge in Islam. They invoked hostile Quranic Verses, recounted purported stories of the Prophet Muhammad's troubled relationship with the Jewish tribes in Medina...In the hands of jihadist leaders, these verses transformed political frustrations into religious crusades and the jihadists into walking bombs. For thirteen centuries, however, these were non-issues. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lived harmoniously among Muslims in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen... Read more... The Obama Crossroads: Neo-Liberal Coup or Responsible Government When the U.S. Treasury gave away $700 billion to Wall Street banks with no strings attached in October of 2008, the Obama team gave a green light. A popular insurgence was soon silenced, with public wrath directed instead at the U.S. auto producers (and unions) who followed with a request for $25 billion. The auto companies ended up with a loan of about 1/50th the amount that went to Wall Street as a gift. The subtext message was disturbing. Wall Street firms produce nothing, no-one is required to explain what they are doing with all the public money they received, and no criteria of public benefit are applied. With the Obama team onside, rule by the fast-money men is set to continue. The near-trillion quick hand-out of citizen debt to the bankers with no conditions has remained a non-issue. Even the shift from buying Wall Street assets to direct capital infusion has raised no questions. Obama’s subsequent appointments of his economic and financial directors follow in line. Those now in charge of the U.S. money-printing machine (alias the world’s reserve currency) and of the financially hollowed-out system that was once the U.S. economy have not really changed... Read more... FREE PALESTINE! ISOLATE APARTHEID ISRAEL! In a historic development for South Africa , South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by COSATU to strengthen the campaign in South Africa for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel. The pledge by SATAWU members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across the globe. Last year, Durban dock workers had refused to offload a shipment of arms that had arrived from China and was destined for Zimbabwe to prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people. Now, says SATAWU’s General Secretary Randall Howard, the union’s members are committing themselves to not handling Israeli goods... Read more... Just How Corrupted Has American Medicine Become? | Huffington Post After reading "The Neurontin Legacy -- Marketing through Misinformation and Manipulation" in the January 8, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, one may conclude that (1) America's prisons would be put to better use incarcerating drug company executives instead of pot smokers, and society may need a return of public scorn via the pillory for those doctors who are essentially drug-company shills. Drug-company corruption of American medicine is of course not news. What is news is that such corruption has become so egregious, so transparent, and so embarrassing that the New England Journal of Medicine, perhaps the most influential American medical journal, is now stating that "drastic action is essential to preserve the integrity of medical science and practice and to justify public trust."... Read more... Iraq's Shocking Human Toll: About 1 Million Killed, 4.5 Million Displaced, 1-2 Million Widows, 5 Million Orphans Now that Bush is gone, perhaps we can honestly face the damage we have wrought and the responsibilities we must accept from it. We are now able to estimate the number of Iraqis who have died in the war instigated by the Bush administration. Looking at the empirical evidence of Bush's war legacy will put his claims of victory in perspective. Of course, even by his standards -- "stability" -- the jury is out. Most independent analysts would say it's too soon to judge the political outcome. Nearly six years after the invasion, the country remains riven by sectarian politics and major unresolved issues, like the status of Kirkuk. We have a better grasp of the human costs of the war. For example, the United Nations estimates that there are about 4.5 million displaced Iraqis -- more than half of them refugees -- or about one in every six citizens. Only 5 percent have chosen to return to their homes over the past year, a period of reduced violence from the high levels of 2005-07. The availability of healthcare, clean water, functioning schools, jobs and so forth remains elusive. According to Unicef, many provinces report that less than 40 percent of households have access to clean water. More than 40 percent of children in Basra, and more than 70 percent in Baghdad, cannot attend school... Read more... Is the Entire Bailout Strategy Flawed? Let's Rethink This Before It's Too Late, by Joseph Stiglitz We gave the banks hundreds of billions to start lending again, and instead they're just hoarding the cash, waiting until things settle down America's recession is moving into its second year, with the situation only worsening. The hope that President Obama will be able to get us out of the mess is tempered by the reality that throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at the banks has failed to restore them to health, or even to resuscitate the flow of lending. Every day brings further evidence that the losses are greater than had been expected and more and more money will be required. The question is at last being raised: Perhaps the entire strategy is flawed? Perhaps what is needed is a fundamental rethinking. The Paulson-Bernanke-Geithner strategy was based on the realization that maintaining the flow of credit was essential for the economy. But it was also based on a failure to grasp some of the fundamental changes in our financial sector since the Great Depression, and even in the last two decades.. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate, is a professor of economics at Columbia University Read more... The Looming Crisis at the Pentagon How Taxpayers Finance Fantasy Wars, by Chalmers Johnson Like much of the rest of the world, Americans know that the U.S. automotive industry is in the grips of what may be a fatal decline. Unless it receives emergency financing and undergoes significant reform, it is undoubtedly headed for the graveyard in which many American industries are already buried, including those that made televisions and other consumer electronics, many types of scientific and medical equipment, machine tools, textiles, and much earth-moving equipment -- and that's to name only the most obvious candidates. They all lost their competitiveness to newly emerging economies that were able to outpace them in innovative design, price, quality, service, and fuel economy, among other things. A similar, if far less well known, crisis exists when it comes to the military-industrial complex. That crisis has its roots in the corrupt and deceitful practices that have long characterized the high command of the Armed Forces, civilian executives of the armaments industries, and Congressional opportunists and criminals looking for pork-barrel projects, defense installations for their districts, or even bribes for votes... Read more... The Offensive Side of Missile Defense | The Independent Institute William Lynn, President Barack Obama’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense, vowed to make the Pentagon’s missile defense system “cost-effective” during his confirmation hearing earlier this month before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Indeed, missile defense strikes a lot of national security analysts as a frightful waste of money. Money is not the central issue, though. The pros and cons of missile defense are endlessly complex, and men and women in the national security community understand these subtleties...What is the world’s hyperpower really up to?... “Missile defense isn’t really meant to protect America. It’s a tool for global dominance. And that’s why we need it.” If missile defense systems can be made reliable, goes the argument, America’s ability to militarily intervene anywhere at any time will be greatly enhanced. War games have demonstrated time and again that the United States can be deterred from military intervention if the target state has the ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons. A workable missile defense system would cure that defect. As..the author of The New Republic story said: missile defense is mainly about the ability to “project” military force globally...Can anyone spell “global hegemony”? Read more... The Emotional Violence of Jewish Advocacy Gideon Levy a Ha’aretz newspaper reporter recently asked: “If Israelis were so sure of the rightness of their cause, why the violent intolerance they display toward everyone who tries to make a different case?” In "Survival Instinct or Jewish Paranoia?" my favorite shrink, ex-Israeli Avigail Barbanel writes that, “The implications of seeing the conflict from within the lens of Jewish trauma are very serious. Can we really negotiate with this? Can we explain to Israelis that their perspective on life and on the conflict is seriously flawed? If we tried will they listen, and do the Palestinians have time to wait until they do?” It seems that Americans are kind of in an abusive marriage situation with Israel, where because love and friendship are assumed to be there, the abused partner keeps feeling guilty and acting hyper-responsible, and tries even harder to please the abuser. Many Americans maintain friendships with pro-Israel Jews and simply decide not to discuss politics; however there is an emotional blackmail going on because if you did mention Israel or Jewish-American genocidalism, the relationship would be over... Read more... Read Israel's Trauma Psychology and the Attack on Gaza, by Avigail Abarbarnel Nests In Hell | Pakistan Daily “American leadership is good for America and for the world.” So reads the introduction to the Project For The New American Century (PNAC), perhaps the most important document ever ignored by so many impacted millions—the neocon blueprint for American “full-spectrum domination” of the world. “Benign global hegemony” is their tender euphemism for it, and the hegemony business is not going as planned. American leadership for America hasn’t been so good, either. Commonly accepted accounting principles show America bankrupt, our federal government’s net worth at negative $60 trillion, roughly.. American leadership has turned our government into a special-interest Hydra owned and ruled by financial gangsters, the industrial military complex, and the American Israeli Public Awareness Committee (AIPAC). Foreign creditors are about all that’s keeping American government from insolvency. But the global financial contagion effectively spawned by American leadership threatens that funding; alternatives promise hyperinflation, collapse of the dollar.... Americans are accelerating toward surpassing even the Great Depression in terms of sheer misery and decay and loss. Right now we seem to be running on fumes of hope... Read more... Two Recent Speeches by President Ahmadinejad The following are excerpts from two speeches by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, delivered the week of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The first, at a Holocaust conference at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran on January 27, 2009, and the transcript was published by the official Iranian news agency IRNA. The second aired on the Iranian news channel IRINN on January 28, 2009. [This appeared on the MEMRI website - this organization is apotent weapon in the Zionist propaganda armory. The irony is that theyjust assumed that Ahmadinejad's words would be seen as the ravings of adangerous lunatic, and that is no doubt how the vast majority of theirreaders perceived them. But from the point of view of relatively sane,decent and aware people he's mostly just telling the truth.] Read more... Stimulus Billions for the Police State, by Kurt Nimmo As the false right-left politicos slug it out over the content of Obama’s so-called stimulus bill, a little known provision has been inserted in the massive spending bill. Fox News takes “liberal Democrat” David Obey to task for loading up the bill with perks for union workers and the environment, and yet does not mention the fact the misnamed economic stimulus package also includes billions to put finishing touches on the police state apparatus the globalists will need when European-style riots finally reach the United States... Read more... Fed Secretly Lends $2 Trillion to Banksters without Oversight, by Kurt Nimmo It turns out the bankers are not finished looting the American tax payer. As the American News Project video posted below reveals, the Federal Reserve has doled out around $2 trillion to unknown suspects behind our backs, described as a “staggering, enormous, unprecedented sum of money.” Of course, we have a pretty good idea who the recipients are, never mind all the secrecy — the international bankers, the same people who took more than $8.5 trillion under threat last year from your children and grand-children... Thomas Jefferson’s warning, written in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin in 1802: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” Read more... Israeli Spokesman Says We Control Stupid Americans | Pakistan Daily "Another Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache, stated that she was not worried about negative ramifications the Israeli onslaught on Gaza might have on the way the Obama administration would view Israel. She said 'You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can't criticize Israel."... Read more... Israel and the politics of friendship | EI Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron gather around the body of a protester after he was killed The status of Israel as the enemy of the Arabs has largely depended in the last six decades on its enmity or alliance with Arab regimes and not with the Arab peoples. Insofar as Israel threatened Arab regimes, it was depicted by them as the enemy, insofar as it did not, it was welcomed as a friend. This was certainly the case in Israel's ambivalent position toward the Jordanian regime with which it has allied itself since the 1920s while at the same time working to undermine the regime when some of its strategies changed. This in turn explains why the Jordanian regime was historically ambivalent about whether Israel was an enemy or an ally. In 1967, some in Israel contemplated unseating King Hussein from the throne while in 1970 Israel sought to extend its military assistance to buttress his throne...by Israeli troops during a rally by Hamas supporters against Israel's military operation in Gaza, 16 January 2009 Read more... The Defamation League, by Eric Alterman | The Nation To delve deeply almost anywhere into the arguments over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is to invite an overload of irony, but let us focus for one moment on a fracas caused by Abe Foxman, national director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League. Irony No. 1 is that a "league," as such, does not exist. Foxman is it. (When asked, for a New York Times profile, whom in the organization besides himself a reporter might interview, Foxman "couldn't think of anyone.") Irony No. 2? Under Foxman, "antidefamation" is not really the ADL's line; defamation is...Take, for example, Foxman's recent attack on Bill Moyers (a longstanding friend and occasional supporter of my work). When Moyers broadcast a less than laudatory commentary about Israel's Gaza invasion, Foxman accused the veteran journalist and liberal icon of--I kid you not--"moral equivalency, racism, historical revisionism, and indifference to terrorism."... Read more... Israel hopes to colonize parts of Iraq as ‘Greater Israel’ Israeli expansionists, their intentions to take full control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and permanently keep the Golan Heights of Syria and expand into southern Lebanon already well known, also have their eyes on parts of Iraq considered part of a biblical “Greater Israel.” Israel reportedly has plans to relocate thousands of Kurdish Jews from Israel, including expatriates from Kurdish Iran, to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Nineveh under the guise of religious pilgrimages to ancient Jewish religious shrines. According to Kurdish sources, the Israelis are secretly working with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to carry out the integration of Kurdish and other Jews into areas of Iraq under control of the KRG. Kurdish, Iraqi Sunni Muslims, and Turkmen have noted that Kurdish Israelis began to buy land in Iraqi Kurdistan, after the U.S. invasion in 2003, that is considered historical Jewish “property.”... Read more... Israeli War Crimes: Under the Black Flag, by URI AVNERY A Spanish judge has instituted a judicial inquiry against seven Israeli political and military personalities on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The case: the 2002 dropping of a one ton bomb on the home of Hamas leader Salah Shehade. Apart from the intended victim, 14 people, most of them children, were killed. For those who have forgotten: the then commander of the Israeli Air Force, Dan Halutz, was asked at the time what he feels when he drops a bomb on a residential building. His unforgettable answer: “A slight bump to the wing.” When we in Gush Shalom accused him of a war crime, he demanded that we be put on trial for high treason. He was joined by the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who accused us of wanting to “turn over Israeli army officers to the enemy”... Read more... IAEA defends Iran against misinformation Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei says the world should not hype the issue of Iran’s nuclear enrichment. In an interview with CNN on Monday, ElBaradei ruled out the contention that Iranian nuclear activities pose an immediate threat to stability, saying, “There is ample time to engage the country.” “There is a concern, but don’t hype the concern,” ElBaradei said, referring mainly to US and Israeli warnings against Iran over its nuclear program. Citing Japan, Brazil and Argentina, ElBaradei said, “Many other countries are enriching uranium and the world is not making a fuss about it. So why are we making a fuss about Iran and its nuclear enrichment.” He added that concerns surrounding Iranian nuclear activities stem from claims that Tehran is dangerous, suggesting that such contentions are not based in reality... Read more... How Israel killed the spirit of peace Announcing the ceasefire in Gaza, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that Israel had “reached all the goals of the war, and beyond”. It’s an odd choice of words, but I guess the right words are hard to find when you have just committed one of the most shameless acts of genocide since World War II. It gets worse. Apparently, Olmert and his army generals were not acting against the Palestinian people. According to Olmert, they were actually saving the Palestinians from Hamas! They say love comes in different shapes and sizes, but I am yet to hear of that version of love that comes in the form of mass death. It sure is an odd way to save the Palestinian people by massacring over 1,300 of them, including over 400 children, according to the United Nations. Not to mention that, whatever you may think of it, Hamas was the choice of the people in one of the freest elections in Arab history. But as members of the Israeli government reflect on the war’s supposed success, they should ponder one more statistic, one that I am witnessing in every conversation amongst moderate, liberal and progressive Arabs around the world. There is one more corpse lying somewhere in the rubble of Gaza today. It is the lifeless body of the spirit of peace... Read more... Join American Jews in Condemning Gaza War | Tikkun Olam Jerry Haber and I, along with Verso Books, the publishers of A Time to Speak Out, have prepared the following statement from American Jews condemning the Gaza assault and Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. We hope that you will sign it and encourage others you know to do so as well. Roane Carey of The Nation has expressed some interest in publishing it there, if we succeed in getting a significant number of signatories. We hope you will help start a viral campaign by promoting this statement as widely as you can via e mail, websites and general word of mouth... Read more... Viva Palestina - a lifeline from Britain to Gaza Thousands of people have contacted me to say that they have marched, cried at the television pictures and feel helpless in the face of the suffering. That’s why I have launched a major initiative in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I will be leading an aid convoy from London to Gaza leaving on 14 February and traveling through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and through Rafah and into Gaza. It will bring material aid and raise the banner of Palestine in all the countries that we visit. The convoy should take about 16 days to reach Gaza. The convoy will be led by a British fire engine, ambulances, and many trucks full of practical aid given by the various communities in Britain... {George Galloway] Read more... Palestine Maps [check out the whole website while you're there] View... Tokyo rethinks alliance with United States in multipolar world - Asia News The global economic crisis and the presidency of Barack Obama are prompting Japan to rethink policy and international prospects. The 21st century will be that of Asia, and Japan, with its "soft power," can take the lead even in front of China and India. The Japanese find themselves facing an historic challenge not unlike those of the second half of the 19th century, when they shook off feudalism, and of 1945, when, with the rejection of militarist nationalism, they chose democracy. This time, the spur to choose radical change is coming from the global economic crisis and from the new American president, or better, from the America that he represents... Read more... YouTube - Queen Rania: what's happening in Gaza is a crisis of human dignity Queen Rania speaks about the tragedy unfolding in the Gaza strip since the Israeli offensive began last week. Watch... Zionists Out of the Peace Movement: Open Letter to Noor Ali In the Ann Arbor News, you write about Tamar Weaver, "a Jewish Israeli American who attends the Beth Israel Congregation" and her "concern for humanity." If Tamar Weaver has a "concern for humanity" then why is she a member of the Beth Israel Congregation where they affirm "without any hesitation or equivocation the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state," where they send their children to Israel and pose them with armed Israeli soldiers, and where the Rabbi explains to the congregation how to justify torture under Jewish religious law? Noor, how about supporting the call by 171 Palestinian civil society organizations for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international humanitarian law? How about respecting the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel by boycotting and protesting the Israeli apartheid dance company coming to Ann Arbor in two weeks. See how long Tamar Weaver and her pals stay friends and in dialogue with you if you come out strongly in favor of those two nonviolent Palestinian campaigns (to see why it is wrong to have dialogue with Zionists read "When Dialogue is NOT our Hope" by Joseph Phelps in the Mennonite Conciliation Service's journal, Conciliation Quarterly)...Noor, I hope you will aspire to be an extremist for love and for the extension of justice. The Rev. King didn't get labelled as such an extremist by engaging in interminable dialogue with White racists and their sympathizers and neither will you earn such a privilege by engaging in interminable dialogue with Zionists and their sympathizers. Read more... The Crucifixion of Bishop Williamson As I observe the vilification of Bishop Williamson occurring in the Catholic blogosphere, I can’t help but recall the gospel account of the crucifixion of Christ Himself. For with the exception of the Blessed Mother and St. John, the rest of His apostles had abandoned Him, quaking in their boots “for fear of the Jews” (John 19:38). Fast forward 20 centuries and something eerily similar seems to be happening again. Only this time, the person being abandoned and crucified is Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X. And what was his crime, pray tell? It seems His Excellency has a penchant for speaking the truth to power, something Our Lord Himself was not afraid to do, including the following flamer - right to the Pharisees’ faces (John 8:44): Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. Read more...Open Letter to Mr. Haruki Murakami: Petition We ask you to withdraw from the Jerusalem Book Fair and receipt of the "Jerusalem Prize". We have heard the news that you are going to participate in the 24th Jerusalem International Book Fair from 15th to 20th February, and will be awarded the "Jerusalem Prize". We are terribly shocked. We ask you to seriously reconsider the social and political significance of a world-famous author such as yourself participating in the book fair, which is fully supported by the Foreign Ministry of Israel and the City of Jerusalem, and receiving the award from the mayor of Jerusalem, when Israel has just taken more than 1300 precious lives, injured more than 5300 people, including 500 who are seriously wounded, and destroyed a tremendous number of lives in Gaza and thus committed a series of war crimes... [Murakami Haruki?, born January 12, 1949) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described by the Virginia Quarterly Review as "easily accessible, yet profoundly complex". His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim, and he is the sixth recipient of the prestigious Franz Kafka Prize for his novel Kafka on the Shore. He is considered by critics as an important figure in postmodern literature and Guardian praised him as "one of the world's greatest living novelists". - Wikipedia entry] Read more... The Amazing Ehudini | Auntie Ziona Oy, is there anyone out there with more chutzpah than our amazing Ehudini?...He showed the goyim in Lebanon and Goyza that he can play G_d and exterminate masses of them whenever he wants to with unconventional weapons supplied by the Americans. He can even attack UN schools and warehouses, and rely on Americe to veto any UN action against Israel. Our Ehud'le is not stupid. He understands that he is one of the Chosen people and he can do whatever he likes and never face justice at the farkockteh ICC... Read more... Baked Bavarian trout could determine Germany's historiography ...As a passionate Bavarian fancier of baked trout, I beg your assistance in finding a solution to a slippery question that could be decisive for my physical, psychical and political well being. Perhaps you, as president of the most powerful Jewish organization in Germany, are asking yourself: "What could the subject of baked trout possibly have to do with me? The answer is: quite a lot... [This has the makings of a classic.] Read more... Debby and Fiammy tell us the TRUE HISTORY of Israel | Palestine Think Tank If you are a Zionist and don’t know why, here is all the information you need to support the flag. This timeless article was written a few years ago for an Italian public, but change a few names here and there, and it will be just the right thing, for example, for explaining to anybody, from Anchorage to Zurich, why Israel will have to defend itself against – say – a Mad Dictator in Paraguay in 2051 or Fanatic Chukchis in Kamchatka in 2084.For the Italian references, see the footnotes... [This one's already a classic] Read more... Press TV - Egypt, Israel blasted for Gaza closure John Ging, Gaza Strip director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) UN Relief and Works Agency operations Chief John Ging says the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip has caused 'unbelievable' damage to the strip. According to Palestinian sources, John Ging said on Sunday that tens of thousands of Gazans have been homeless and now they are living under tents due to the three-week Israeli incursion into the blockaded region. Referring to the major damage to the houses and health centers, the UNRWA operations chief said, nearly one million people of 1.5 million Gaza's population depend on international aides while UNRWA is facing lots of problems due to the closed crossings of strip. John Ging also condemned Israel and Egypt for closing the crossings into the Gaza Strip, calling on Cairo and Tel Aviv to ease the siege so that the organization can deliver 'thousands of tons of aid' to Gaza residents... Read more... Press TV - Sudan: Israel arming Darfur rebels Israel has supplied a rebel group involved in the Darfur conflict in Sudan with a considerable amount of weaponry, a new report says. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has received considerably heavy military logistical support from Israel, Sudan's state media reported on Sunday. The shipment has been sent through France, which is in charge of training military personal inside neighboring Chad, the Sudanese Media Center, a news outlet with links to Sudan's security service said. France maintains a 1,650 soldier mission to Chad as part of the EUFOR mission to protect refugees who have fled the conflict in Darfur in neighboring Sudan. The JEM which seized the city of Muhageriya about two weeks ago is considered Darfur's most powerful rebel group. The group managed to capture the city form forces loyal to the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) faction of Minni Minawi, which is the only rebel group to have signed a peace deal with Khartoum... Read more... It’s Not Going to Be OK, by Chris Hedges The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability. At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed. How will we cope with our decline? Will we cling to the absurd dreams of a superpower and a glorious tomorrow or will we responsibly face our stark new limitations? Will we heed those who are sober and rational, those who speak of a new simplicity and humility, or will we follow the demagogues and charlatans who rise up out of the slime in moments of crisis to offer fantastic visions? Will we radically transform our system to one that protects the ordinary citizen and fosters the common good, that defies the corporate state, or will we employ the brutality and technology of our internal security and surveillance apparatus to crush all dissent? We won't have to wait long to find out... Read more... Dr. Faurisson's interview with German press in Tehran ...How do you account for the fact that almost all the former concentration camp inmates state they can attest to the reality of the gas chambers there? They’re repeating a rumour that allows them to grant themselves, with no inconvenience, the status of heroes or miraculous survivors. They generally do so risk-free since there’s very little chance that anyone will put their backs to the wall and ask for explanations. During one of my trials, a super-excited Jew came up to me at the courtroom entrance shouting and showing me his Auschwitz registration tattoo. “How dare you say the gas chambers didn’t exist?”, he said. “I’m a witness to their existence.” I looked him in the eye and told him: “Describe a gas chamber for me.” Losing his composure, he answered: “If I’d seen one I wouldn’t be here to talk to you about it.” I then pointed out that, like all the Jews who’d returned from Auschwitz, he was rather a witness to there never having been a policy amongst the Germans of physically exterminating the Jews, since there he was, very much alive... New Yorker jailed for rebroadcasting Al-Manar TV The Jerusalem Post reports: The Pakistan-born owner of a satellite TV company has pleaded guilty to providing material aid to a terrorist organization by letting customers receive broadcasts from Hizbullah's television station... Commentary: needless to say, the Justice Department under President Obama could drop the charges, but the sad, and frightening, reality is that it will not. So much for Obama's "yes we can" and promises of change crap. Equally frightening is the silence surrounding this case. With the possible exception of people with severe brain damage, it is plainly clear to anyone that the US list of "terrorist organizations" is purely a political tool to brand some groups and not others, depending on their stance towards the USA and Israel. This is how the Albanian KLA has turned into a liberation army, while Ronald Reagan's Afghan "freedom fighters" were turned into terrorists (presumably, they were not terrorists during the Soviet occupation). This is also how Hezbollah is considered as "terrorist". Bottom line?... Read more... Gaza: New Siege Mechanism The rebuilding of Gaza has become the latest siege weapon. The Israeli occupation, the US that had backed its offensive, and the EU which did nothing to stop it are conspiring to turn the reconstruction process into a means to produce a suitable "peace partner" while the Arab summit in Kuwait hopes to use it to bring about Palestinian reconciliation. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority (PA) government is urging all parties and others to look to it as the sole channel for administering the construction process on the grounds that it is the government formed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation that is recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Soon we will see that freezing reconstruction will become the tool of all those parties for extracting from the resistance what they have been unable to gain from three weeks of warfare and the long blockade that preceded it... Read more.. Israeli army storm Hebron college and arrests eight students An Israeli soldier stands by blindfolded students from the Palestine On 30 October 2008, at 10:15am, the Israeli army stormed the faculty of the Palestine Technical College in Arroub refugee camp, Hebron and arrested students from some of the classrooms. The students were blindfolded, shackled, and then repeatedly beaten, slapped, and punched all over the body. They were then taken to Gush Etzion military detention center. At 9:00pm two of the boys were released, however, eight of them are still in detention in Ofer Prison. None of the boys are older than 16. Hatem is a teacher at the Palestine Technical College. He was the only teacher present in the playground area at that time. One of the soldiers shouted at him, "Where are the boys that threw stones?" This was in response to an allegation that stones had been thrown at an Israeli civilian car by a person who came from the refugee camp and who had been wearing a black jacket...Technical College in the Arroub refugee camp, 30 October. Read more... Ceasefires, Israeli-Style, by Stephen Lendman Waging war while talking peace is customary Israeli practice. On January 19, Haaretz headlined: "Israel declares unilateral cease-fire. The security cabinet last night authorized a unilateral cease-fire (to take effect) at 2AM (Sunday morning), ending three weeks of intense fighting." Declaration notwithstanding, nothing changed. Gaza remains occupied, under siege, and totally isolated. Borders are still closed. On January 28, The New York Times said "truckloads of humanitarian aid" are stuck in Egypt because of Israeli and Cairo restrictions. Little can get in, and attacks merely downshifted to a lower gear. Shortly after Sunday's announcement, an Israeli aircraft killed a Gaza City resident. IDF troops opened fire in Wadi al-Salqa village, southeast of Deir al-Balah. Homes in al-Qarara village were attacked. Helicopter gunships struck areas west of Khan Yunis, and F-16s bombed near the Science and Technology College in the same area. Israeli naval vessels shelled coastal areas and turned back ships with humanitarian aid. Agricultural land was raised. Arrests were made. Gaza continues to be terrorized. For the week ending January 28th, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported continued Gaza and West Bank incursions and attacks:.. Read more... Erdogan, Peres and the Black Sheep of the Family | Auntie Ziona Oy, the clash at Devos between our Simon'le Peres and that meshuggenah Turkish prime minister is such a shanda fur die goyim. For this Erdogan to quote from the anti-semitic ramblings of our most self-hating ex-Jew was bad enough, but for him to accuse our knight in shining armour of "killing people", and then to turn his back and walk out on him in front of the whole world, was really schlecht. But worst of all was our Peres phoning that no-goodnik Turk afterwards and apologising! What a slap in the face for the Jewish people... Read more... Gaza War Pushes Arabs to the Brink | The Dreyfuss Report Anger is boiling over in the Middle East over Gaza, and -- exactly as I predicted -- the result of the war has been to boost radicalism throughout the region, to strengthen the terrorist-inclined fanatics of Hamas, and to enhance the muscle of terrorist-inclined Israelis, including far-right parties such as Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu and, of course, Likud's bombastic Benjamin Netanyahu. You probably didn't know that the reason the Bush administration, in its last days, reversed course on Gaza is because they feared that US embassies in the Middle East might be stormed by angry crowds if they did nothing. You'll remember that, after weeks of supporting Israel's invasion of Gaza, the United States suddenly reversed course and allowed the UN Security Council to pass a unanimous resolution demanding a ceasefire. (The United States didn't vote yes, but it abstained -- rather than threatening its oft-used veto.) ... Read more... The shortcut to peace | EI Palestinians in Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip huddle around a fire next Because it is generally accepted by the so-called "international community" that Hamas is a major threat to Israel, and therefore to world peace and security, France has dispatched a frigate to participate in a new blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Sunday Times reported that United States naval ships hunting pirates in the Gulf of Aden have been instructed to track down Iranian arms shipments (25 January). Many other European states offered their navies to assist. Indeed, United Nations Security Council resolution 1860 emphasized the need to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition. Unfortunately not one European country offered to send its navy to render humanitarian assistance to the thousands of injured, hungry, cold and homeless people in Gaza rendered so as a result of Israel's attack. Perhaps helping children dying from white phosphorus burns, or just lack of clean water, would be seen as supporting "terrorism." The perverse assumption behind all the offers of help to Israel seems to be that Hamas and other resistance groups in Gaza fired rockets at Israel merely because rockets were available. Therefore, the logic goes, peace would prevail if the supply of rockets were curtailed. Another strange assumption is that Hamas was freely importing rockets from Iran or elsewhere because Gaza's borders were open and free of any control...There is a shortcut to calm, the elimination of violence and eventually peace. It is a lesson that should have been learned many years, and countless thousands of lives ago: justice.to their home destroyed during Israel's 22 days of attacks on Gaza. Read more... Israel vows 'disproportionate' response to Gaza rocket attacks - Telegraph Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to strike back at Hamas with 'disproportionate' force Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the threat at his weekly cabinet meeting, soon after up to four rockets hit southern Israel. Israel – which goes to the polls on February 10 – has been hit by several attacks since a January 18 ceasefire brought an end to the 22-day war on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "We've said that if there is rocket fire against the south of the country, there will be a severe and disproportionate Israeli response to the fire on the citizens of Israel and its security forces... Read more... Press TV - Israel threatens to suspend Vatican ties Israel's Minister of Religious Affairs threatens to suspend relations with the Vatican after the pardon of a bishop questioned the killing of Jews in gas chambers. Yitzhak Cohen told the weekly Spiegel magazine that he recommended "completely cutting off connections to a body in which Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites are members." Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunications on Bishop Richard Williamson, one of four leaders of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X on January 21. Pope's pardon of Bishop Williamson, along with three other ultra-conservative bishops, has drawn the ire of Israeli officials. Two weeks ago, in an interview with Swedish state television, Williamson said "historical evidence is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler." “I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers,” he said... [Eventually, the truth will out] Read more... Call for arrest of 15 Israeli leaders suspected of war crimes in Gaza | Redress Information & Analysis Public asked for information on travel plans and whereabouts of top Israeli leaders A human rights organization has called for the arrest of a number of senior Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The International Coalition against Impunity (HOKOK), a non-governmental organization registered with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, has submitted a “Letter of Notification and Referral” to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court outlining the case for the arrest of 15 Israeli political and military leaders for crimes committed in Gaza in violation of the Rome Statute and the Fourth Geneva Convention. It has also issued an international appeal for information about the undermentioned war crimes suspects. Members of the public in Israel and throughout the world who have information about the travel plans or whereabouts of the undermentioned suspects when they are outside Israel should report this immediately to:.. Read more... Israel threatens 'disproportionate' response to Palestinian rocket fire | The Guardian Israel's government has threatened to take "fierce and disproportionate" action in Gaza after Palestinian militants fired six rockets on southern Israeli towns this morning. The preparation to launch fresh attacks on Gaza comes two weeks after Israel halted a three-week onslaught and claimed its aims were "attained fully". Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said the defence minister, Ehud Barak, was preparing the army for a surprise attack. "We won't give the terror groups warning as to when and how we'll react, but Israel will respond and act at the time and place of its choosing," Olmert said. But the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who leads Kadima, which dominates the governing coalition, demanded an immediate reprisal. "We need to use strength and a lot of it, there is no reason to wait," Livni said... Read more... Hamas upholding truce; others aren't | Jerusalem Post "Hamas have internalized the extent of the physical and moral blow inflicted upon it. Unlike arrogant statements sounded in the media, the organization is conducting serious soul-searching on its strategic mistakes and operational failures," Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said Sunday in the weekly cabinet meeting. "Two weeks after the cease-fire began, terrorists not belonging to Hamas are challenging the organization and carrying out attacks in order to bring on another escalation. Hamas is deterred and respecting the cease-fire, but not doing enough to discourage the others," he continued... Read more... Israeli excavations blamed for school collapse that injured 17 girls A floor collapsed at a United Nations-affiliated school in East Jerusalem on Sunday, injuring 17 Palestinian schoolgirls. Al-Quds Elementary school had previously suffered structural damage due to Israel’s ongoing excavations near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem’s Old City. Girls fell into a 1.5 to 2-meter deep ditch that opened up when the floor collapsed during the students’ fifth period class, according to a teacher at the school. Israeli ambulances evacuated the injured girls to hospitals in Jerusalem, where medics said most of sustained moderate to light injuries. Neighbors nearby the school said the floor collapsed as a result of excavations that Israeli antiquities authorities have been carrying out under the Old City, particularly near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is located just 100 meters from the damaged school... Read more... Nobelists lead flock behind Barenboim's message for justice | The Daily Star Almost a month ago, Daniel Barenboim wrote a short statement about peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In a period of two weeks, artists and thinkers from all over the world gave their support by signing the statement. The famous pianist and conductor who created in 1999, together with his late friend Edward W. Said, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra composed of Palestinian and Israeli musicians, manifests in the text his disapproval of the use of force and calls for equal rights for both peoples. To be published in the New York Review of Books today, this humanistic message is signed by 10 Nobel laureates in literature including J.M G Le CLezio, Russel Banks, J.M Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk and Kenzaburo Oe, and more than 130 other eminent personalities, such as... Read more... US media touted Israeli view of Gaza war | The Daily Star ...Given the US' long history of supporting Israel, the slanted media attention does not surprise many close followers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The coverage is what you would expect," said Peter Hart, activism director at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). "There is a lot of pressure from pro-Israeli groups on media outlets." "The root of the problem is not the media," said Dan Hallin, professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. "The problem is that politicians of both parties avoid any serious discussion of the issue. The media reflect that silence. It would be good if they tried to open up a little more space for debate, but this is not a role the media play by themselves very often." With so much reaction from both sides, journalists are finding it difficult to cover the conflict impartially. Ethan Bronner, in a piece for the New York Times, writes: "Every time I write an article about the conflict that does not mirror [the story line of Israel as the victim] - if, for example, I focus on Palestinian suffering or alleged Israeli misdeeds or quote a human rights group like Amnesty International - I have proven myself to be a secret sharer with the views of the enemy."... Read more... Abunimah, Finkelstein, Mearsheimer discuss Israel's attacks on Gaza (Audio) On 8 January, a panel featuring the following speakers was held at the University of Chicago to discuss the the reasons and ramifications of the recent attacks on Gaza and the larger Palestinian-Israeli conflict:
An interview with journalist Jeffrey Blankfort | Palestinian Mothers On January 8 and 9, 2009 the US Senate and House passed resolutions overwhelmingly supporting Israel’s offensive in Gaza. This in the face of growing condemnation of the war on Gaza from another overwhelming majority in the United Nations General Assembly, and in the face of popular outcry not just in Muslim countries but in major cities throughout Europe as well as in the US and Canada. There is a general consensus that the US is the only country that can bring about a cease fire - given the fact that it is Israel's strongest ally and financier. Yet the governing bodies and political elites in the US remain near unanimous in their support for Israel's actions even though they are increasingly isolated in world opinion... [For those who like to listen rather than watch, this is a great radio interview with Jeffrey Blankfort. There is more info from the radio show as well. Listen to Part I, Part II - Chris Pleim] Illinois makes major Israel Bonds purchase | JTA - Jewish & Israel News If you would like to point out to Illinois officials that, considering that Israel has just massacred over 1,300 Palestinians including over 400 children, and that Illinois should be considering divestment and boycott rather than investment, here's some contact information:... Read more... Israeli troops shot and killed zoo animals The Gaza Zoo reeks of death. But zookeeper Emad Jameel Qasim doesn't appear to react to the stench as he walks around the animals' enclosures...Qasim doesn't understand why they chose to destroy his zoo. And it's difficult to disagree with him. Most of them have been shot at point blank range. "The first thing the Israelis did was shoot at the lions - the animals ran out of their cage and into the office building. Actually they hid there."...Inside the main building, soldiers defaced the walls, ripped out one of the toilets and removed all of the hard drives from the office computers. We asked him why they targeted the zoo. He laughs. "I don't know. You have to go and ask the Israelis. This is a place where people come to relax and enjoy themselves. It's not a place of politics."... Read more... YouTube - The bloody Israeli sojourn in Gaza | Russia Today Controversial American Jewish scholar and specialist on the Middle East, Norman Finkelstein, says Israel committed massive atrocities in Gaza during the three-week war against Hamas militants. Watch... Jews do wield immense power and influence In 2002 Mark Weber, a director of The Institute for Historical Review wrote an article about the powerful Jewish Lobby in the United States. What Weber articulates in his article is very relevant to the current brouhaha about the alleged comments made by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fatima Hajaig. As a result of those alleged comments, the Deputy Minister has now been vilified and accused of anti-Semitism, hate speech, bigotry and all manner of things that are intended to whip up the emotions of the Jewish community and social activists and inflate her comments beyond what they truly represented. In his article Weber beautifully outlines how Jewish money influences and controls the US Congress... [The statistics, if reasonably accurate, are staggering. The part of my identity that is "Jewish" thrills with a little frisson of pride - the essential part, my identity as a human being, and secondarily of being an American, shudders.] Read more... US: Israel must probe war crimes The new US envoy to the UN says Israel must investigate the allegations that its army has committed war crimes during the war on Gaza. "We expect Israel will meet its international obligations to investigate", Ambassador Susan Rice said in her debut speech before the UN Security Council. The use of controversial chemical white phosphorous shells and depleted uranium munitions, indiscriminate firing during the offensive in the densely-populated coastal sliver, the shelling of a UN school turned refugee camp, as well as the question as to whether other Israeli military tactics were in breach of humanitarian laws are among the issues Tel Aviv has been charged with. Israel however rejects the war crimes allegations, saying that it is fighting a 'noble war' against Hamas -- the democratically-elected ruler of the Gaza Strip... Read more... Israel denies Gaza access to clean water Israel has refused to allow a French-made water purification system into Gaza amid a drinking water crisis in the Palestinian strip. The French Foreign Ministry said Friday that Tel Aviv had blocked the entry of a much-needed water purification station into Gaza and had forced its repatriation. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Eric Chevallier said the move has sparked an outcry in the Elysée, prompting it to summon the Israeli ambassador to Paris to explain why the system was denied access. "There were a very great number of steps taken at all levels to try to get the water purification station into Gaza," he said, adding that Israel's explanation was not satisfactory. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recently warned that Israel's 23-day onslaught on Gaza has pushed its sewage system on the brink of collapse and thus increased risks of groundwater contamination in the Palestinian territory. "The most dangerous thing is the contamination of drinking water with sewage. We need an international organization like the World Health Organization to investigate the matter," said Monther Shoblak, head of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU). According to the UN, Israel's three week-long saturation bombing of the Palestinian territory has seriously damaged pipes and has left drinking water in very short supply. Warning of the serious public health risks, the World Bank has urged the Israeli government to allow enough fuel into Gaza to operate some 170 water and sewage pumps there. The bank called on Israel to allow maintenance crews to shore up a sewage lake in northern Gaza before it overflows at the expense of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the area. Read more... Press TV - UN warns of acute food crisis in Gaza The United Nations says Gazans face an acute food crisis and accelerating rates of malnutrition as a result of the war on the territory. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Friday that Israel's offensive into Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the territory's agriculture sector and has heightened risks of food insecurity and undernourishment. "Almost all of Gaza's 13,000 families who depend on farming, herding and fishing have suffered damage to their assets during the recent conflict and many farms have been completely destroyed," reads a statement by the FAO. The Rome-based FAO asserted that the 1.5 million population of Gaza are suffering from an acute shortage of nutritious, locally-produced and affordable food. "Meat and animal protein is generally unavailable," it added. "Food supplies were already running low in Gaza due to the closing of its borders in the 18 months prior to the Israeli military offensive," the FAO continued. According to relief workers, the humanitarian situation in the impoverished strip is at its worst with over 1.1 million people -- about 75 percent of the residents of Gaza -- dependent on food aid... Read more... Press TV - Peres says Israel kills for 'democracy' fighting a noble war against "terroristic" Palestinians. Read more... Erdogan receives hero's welcome | al Jazeera Magazine Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan receives a hero's welcome on his return to home after his spat with Israel over its war on Gaza. Erdogan stormed off stage at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos on Thursday during a heated discussion over Israel's 23-day assault on the Gaza Strip. He told Israeli President Shimon Peres, who had launched a fiery defense of Tel Aviv's attack on the coastal enclave over the past month, that Israel "knows very well how to kill". More than 1,330 Palestinians, a third of them children, were killed and 5,450 others injured since Israel waged its Cast Lead Operation against Gaza on December 27. The Turkish premier vowed he would never return to the annual gathering of the rich and powerful in Davos. Around 3,000 supporters gathered at Istanbul's Ataturk airport on Friday, waving red and white Turkish flags and banners reading "Conqueror of Davos" upon Erdogan arrival. Many carried banners denouncing Israel, a move which raises concern among the Jewish State as Ankara is its closest ally in the Islamic world. "I did what I had to do," Erdogan told reporters gathered at the airport, adding, "I cannot remain apathetic when it comes to these things, it's just not in my nature. I am duty-bound to defend the honor of my country." He said that he was not "at heart a diplomat but a politician." Read more... Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement - Haaretz Just four years ago, the defense establishment decided to carry out a seemingly elementary task: establish a comprehensive database on the settlements. Brigadier General (res.) Baruch Spiegel, aide to then defense minister Shaul Mofaz, was put in charge of the project. For over two years, Spiegel and his staff, who all signed a special confidentiality agreement, went about systematically collecting data, primarily from the Civil Administration. One of the main reasons for this effort was the need to have credible and accessible information at the ready to contend with legal actions brought by Palestinian residents, human rights organizations and leftist movements challenging the legality of construction in the settlements and the use of private lands to establish or expand them. The painstakingly amassed data was labeled political dynamite. The defense establishment, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, steadfastly refused to publicize the figures, arguing, for one thing, that publication could endanger state security or harm Israel's foreign relations. Someone who is liable to be particularly interested in the data collected by Spiegel is George Mitchell... Read more... Arrest Warrant: Ehud Barak Don't expect China to get the West out of this financial mess | The Observer With the markets crashing once more and the last rites being pronounced over Western capitalism, the consensus is that autumn 2008 is when global economic power will have been seen to pass to Asia in general and China in particular. This is the new economic powerhouse. Its growth may slow a little while the West flounders, but it will emerge from this recession as the world's centre of economic and financial gravity. Goodbye, USA. Hello, the Chinese Communist party. It is fashionable foolishness that ignores some brute realities. The first is that Asia, except Japan, remains in essence a subcontractor to the West. Two-thirds of China's exports, for example, are made by foreign companies who essentially reprocess imports of semi-manufactured goods that are then shipped to Europe and the US. It is an economy that does not innovate - it is the great copier and counterfeiter of Western technology. This may change over the next 200 years, but not during the lifetime of most of the people reading this column... Read more... Press TV - Iran expands naval bases amid threats Iran says the country's military is set to expand its defensive fronts in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and the Indian Ocean. The announcement by Iran's Deputy Army Commander Brigadier General Abdolrahim Moussavi came after the country's Armed Forces inaugurated a new naval base in the strategic port of Jask on Monday. Describing the port of Jask as the main entrance to Iranian waters, Brig. Gen. Moussavi said the new naval base would act as a protective barrier against enemy infiltration. The Iranian commander added that the country's Armed Forces have set up an 'impenetrable naval barrier' in the eastern parts of the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman... Read more... Under The Cover Of Racist Myth, A New Land Grab In Australia, by John Pilger With its banks secured in the warmth of the southern spring, Australia is not news. It ought to be. An epic scandal of racism, injustice and brutality is being covered up in the manner of apartheid South Africa. Many Australians conspire in this silence, wishing never to reflect upon the truth about their society's untermenschen, the Aboriginal people. The facts are not in dispute. Thousands of black Australians never reach the age of 40. An entirely preventable disease, trachoma, blinds black children as epidemics of rheumatic fever ravage their communities. Suicide among the despairing young is common. No other developed country has such a record. A pervasive white myth, that Aborigines leach off the state, serves to conceal the disgrace that money the federal government says it spends on indigenous affairs actually goes towards opposing native land rights... Read more... From Gaza to Tehran: Israel Asserting Middle East Supremacy, by James Petras No wonder Iraqis call Americans the slaves of the Jews Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany bombed, invaded and annexed countries and territories as a prelude to their quest for World Empire. Israel’s drive for regional dominance has followed in their footsteps, imitating their style: Indiscriminate aerial bombings of civilian and military facilities, a savage blitzkrieg led by armored vehicles, disdain and repudiation of all criticism from international agencies was accompanied by an open, military buildup for a new and bigger war against Iran. Like the Nazi leadership, who played on the ‘Bolshevik threat’, the Israeli high command has set in motion a vast world-wide propaganda campaign led by its world Zionist network, raising the specter of ‘Islamic terror’ to justify its preparations for a military assault on seventy-four million Iranians. Just as Nazi Germany interpreted the passivity, sympathy and impotence of the West when confronted by ‘facts on the ground’ as license for aggression, the Israeli military machine receives a powerful impetus for new wars by the Western governments’ inaction and flaccid response to its invasion of Lebanon, the bombing of Syria and now its Nazi style blitz and conquest of Gaza. For the Israeli high command, the impotence and complicity of the Western states, marks the way to bigger and bloodier wars to establish Israel’s supremacy and dominance of the Middle East, from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf... Read more... For freedom, security and peace in Israel and the Middle East - The Israel Project Thisis a major Zionist propaganda site, containing all the hasbara talkingpoints, and providing a good look at the architecture of the IsraelLobby. Obviously very well funded, and a sterling example of how totell the most outrageous lies in the most convincing and professionalmanner. It would have made Goebbels green with envy. View site... The Samson Option: Vatican vs Chief Rabbinate | Auntie Ziona Oy, if this meshuggenah zundel pope, who was himself a member of the Hitler Youth, thinks that he can push this holocaust-denying bishop into our faces, he should think again! Our Chief Ashkenazi Mezger will never allow it. We want the Vatican back on its knees. They must remember that Jesus was one of us. So far we have only cut ties with this papal schlemiel, but this Benedict must understand that what happened in Goyza can easily happen in the Vatican. If we can bomb mosques, does he think we will hesitate to bomb cathedrals?... Read more... Press TV - Hamas: Blair's remarks mirror of stupidity Hamas has dismissed a condition set by Mideast Quartet Envoy Tony Blair that the movement must recognize Israel before starting talks. Mushir al-Masri, the head of Hamas's parliamentary bloc, said Saturday that raising this "suggestion" testifies that Blair is not familiar with the situation in the Middle East. He termed Blair's suggestion as "utterly foolish and useless." In an interview with The Times published Saturday, Blair said Hamas must be involved in the Middle East peace process; however, the movement have to recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce 'violence'. The former British Prime Minister admitted that any effort to exclude Hamas from efforts to establish a Palestinian state would be doomed to failure... [It is the task of decent people everywhere to ensure that the Jewish State ceases to exist at the very earliest opportunity, while we still have a chance.] Read more... Press TV - Israel's superhawk would keep illegal settlements with the army's failure in Gaza. Read more... Evangelical Zionist’s Dilemma: Love Your Enemy or Starve Him | Straight Gate Ministries Evangelical Zionism is our own descriptive term. It is not a denomination, but an acquired disease in the body of Christianity. The universal symptom is the belief that the political state of Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophesy. Jesus said, love you brother, even your enemy; Evangelical Zionism, in its extreme morphs, holds that Old Testament scripture allows the extermination of the Palestinians. Elena has recovered from it, and this is her story. She wrote to us and called with several questions common to recovering Evangelical Zionists making them feel quite alone amid the hatred that is directed toward the people of Palestine and, in fact, toward all of Islam. She is learning to be a missionary for peace within her own church. Her story is not unique, but her tactful determination is. We have asked her to allow us to share her experience with you... Read more... YouTube - UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza "Israel was born out of Jewish Terrorism" Tzipi Livnis Father was a Terrorist" Astonishing claims in the House of Parliament. SIR Gerald Kaufman, the veteran Labour MP, yesterday compared the actions of Israeli troops in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland. During a Commons debate on the fighting in Gaza, he urged the government to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, said: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. "My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."... Read more... No choice but to speak out: Israeli musician ‘a proud self-hating Jew’ | The Gisborne Herald (NZ) Now a resident of London, Gilad Atzmon is a world-renowned saxophonist and the author of two novels, which have been translated into 22 languages. He left Israel in 1994 after service in the Israeli military convinced him Israel had become a racist, militarised state that was a danger to world peace. "I was born in a place that happens to be very strategically crucial to quite a few empires, and I was indoctrinated to take part in these idiotic wars and I managed to escape eventually. When I was there I started to see the scale of the atrocities that are committed on my behalf by the Israelis in the name of the Israeli state, with the support of the Jewish people around the world... Read more... |
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