July 31, 2009 Re-imagining Palestine, by Omar Barghouti With Yassir Arafat's departure, the doubling of the population of Jewish-Israeli colonial settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory, the latest Israeli slow genocide in Gaza and the fast disintegration of the last vestiges of Israeli "democracy," the two-state "solution" for the Palestinian-Israeli colonial conflict is finally dead. Good riddance! This was never a moral or practical solution to start with, as its main objective has always been to win official Palestinian legitimization of Israel's colonial and apartheid existence on top of most of the area of historic Palestine. It is high time to move on to the most just, morally sound and sustainable solution: the secular, democratic unitary state... Read more... Read more...Alice Walker in Gaza with Palestinian member of parliament and mother of five, Huda Naim Last March, poet, novelist and feminist Alice Walker joined a delegation organized by Code Pink, to travel to the Gaza Strip just weeks after the 22-day Israeli bombardment and invasion. Walker, globally acclaimed for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple, had also traveled to Rwanda, Eastern Congo and other places where she witnessed cruel and barbaric behavior that left her speechless. In an essay on her blog entitled "Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters "the horror" in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel," Walker recounts the stories of the people she met, and offers a lyrical analysis that ties their oppression and struggles to what she and her community experienced growing up in the violence and fear of the segregated American South. The excerpt below begins with her arrival in Gaza after a long overland journey through Egypt... Read article... Fascism Needs an Enemy, by Ran HaCohen Critically thinking Israelis – a negligible minority – already know the pattern: no matter how extreme our new prime minister is, it won’t take more than a couple of months for the media to portray him as the sane, moderate, and pragmatic leader of the political center. If even the warrior General Sharon could be reborn as "a Man of Peace," why can’t Netanyahu? The landmark was his "Bar Ilan Speech" of June 14, after which mainstream Israeli columnists, lead by the pathetic Ari Shavit (Ha’aretz) and his lowbrow twin brother Ya’ir Lapid (Yedioth Achronot), all resorted to ludicrous narratives of Rebirth, Revolution, and Rubicon for the allegedly new leader of peace-loving Israel. One can expect little else from the Israeli mainstream, blinded as it is by decades of indoctrination and vested interests, or from Israel’s President Peres, whose political lexicon never included the T of Truth... July 30th, 2009 The witness statements made to the UN Human Rights Council are harrowing to hear, but they warrant careful listening if we are ever to understand what happened in those fateful three weeks of Israel's merciless bombardment of Gaza early this year. The people of this tiny stretch of besieged land have been so traumatised by the violations against them - not least the indifference of the world at large - that we must speak up before such atrocities happen again. We cannot continue to let states make a mockery of human rights and international law, else we too may one day find ourselves unheard and condemned. - Sonja Karkar The hearings over 4 days can be accessed from our website http://www.australiansforpalestine.com Letter from our friend Mazin in Bethlehem, July 26th, 2009 Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house. -Izumi Shibiku
And the wind blows terribly in this land of apartheid. But the moonlight is getting brighter as more and more of the lies upon which the racism that nourished this injustice become exposed one after another. The Israeli ministry of transportation tries to erase more of the native names in favour of the made-up names. And the Israeli Education minister wants even Arab children not to hear in their schools about the Nakba (the catastrophe of our ethnic cleansing). But people's memories and collective will (aided now by the internet and a strong oral tradition) are far stronger than military might and distortions. Thankfully more Palestinians (more humans in general) are speaking out. A good way to reach our brothers and sisters who happen to be Jewish is to tell them of a history hidden from them in the smokescreen of Zionist propaganda. A good example of this is Nazi-Zionist collaborations and incidents when the Zionist movement put its political interests ahead of interests of Jewish victims. This history is little known (or at least not as well known as the history of Mufti Husseini's dalliance with Hitler that the racist & corrupt Avigdor Lieberman wants to Israeli embassies to resurrect today). I urge you to read Lenni Brenner's book "51 Documents: History of Nazi-Zionist Collaboration". Here is an example of a message to Nazi Germany in 1941 asking for alliance by a group led by a future Prime Minister of Israel and leadership of Likud: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story799.html The Zionist Federation of Germany wrote in a letter to the new Nazi regime: "Zionism believes that a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring in German life through adhesion to Christian and national values, must also take place in the Jewish national group" (June 21, 1933 memo from The Zionist Federation of Germany, reprinted in Brenner, 51 Documents, p. 43). The Zionists also cooperated with the Nazis in the mid-thirties to facilitate Jewish immigration to Palestine while blocking other routes of escape. The details of one agreement were researched by Edwin Black (Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement: the Untold Story of the Secret Pact Between the Third Reich & Jewish Palestine, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1984). Even Yad Vashem (built on land overseeing the destroyed and ethnically cleansed |Palestinian village of Deir Yassin) acknowledges this agreement: “Nazi Germany and the Jewish Agency concluded the "Ha'avara" (transfer) negotiations, allowing Jews immigrating to Palestine to deposit part of their assets in Germany and receive Palestine pounds upon arrival in Palestine. After three months of talks, the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank, and the German economic authorities signed the agreement, which permitted the transfer of Jews’ capital from Germany to Palestine by immigrants or investors in the form of goods. The German authorities thereby partially removed a barrier that had greatly impeded the efforts of German Jews to emigrate to Palestine and, at the same time, increased the production and export of German goods. For the Zionists, the agreement facilitated immigration to Palestine by allowing Jewish emigres to salvage some of the value of their property as they left, and to meet one of the criteria for obtaining a certificate of immigration from the British authorities. For a time, the Ha'avara Agreement helped the Nazis in undermining the anti-Nazi boycott.” After commencement of attacks on Jews (especially socialist and communist) under German control, the British, in the hope of easing the pressure for increased immigration into Palestine, proposed that thousands of Jewish children be admitted directly into Britain. Ben-Gurion, the recognized leader of labor Zionism at the time, was adamently opposed to the plan, telling a meeting of Labour Zionist leaders on 7 Dec. 1938: "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the People of Israel" (Lenni Brenner, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir (Zed Books, 1984). cites as reference no. 23: Yoav Gelber, ' Zionist Policy and the Fate of European Jewry (1939-42)' Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XII, p. 199.) See also “FDR, Ruth Gruber and me: Zionists stymie WWII rescue plan,” by Ronald Bleier October 2006 http://desip.igc.org/FDRGruberAndMe.html And also these relevant articles http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/kasztner_intro.htm http://www.counterpunch.org/brenner05252005.html I go over these and other issues of Zionism in Chapter 6 of my book which is now online here http://www.qumsiyeh.org/chapter6/ England occupied Palestine illegally at the time, had issued the infamous Balfour declaration, and had armed and supported Zionist militias. The Mufti did meet with HItler who made vague promises to allow self determination to people in the Arab world should he win the war (and asked the Mufti to make propaganda statements in support of Hitler to European Muslims). But ultimately which had more of an impact on the course of the war: that Mufti liason or the Zionsit deals to block Jewiosh immigration to any other country and cut deals with Hitler to leave only one exit to Palestine (to later participate in the ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians)? I think that is a question worth pondering especially by Jews. Israeli racists share their views: http://www.alternet.org/world/141310/video:_young_cosmopolitan_israelis_share_their_shocking_racist_views/ Interesting article: Fascism Needs an Enemy by Ran HaCohen, July 20, 2009 http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2009/07/19/fascism-needs-an-enemy/ Report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories ACTION: PACBI Guidelines for Applying the International Cultural Boycott of Israel http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1045 Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home ____________________________________http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/mailman/listinfo/humanrights July 22, 2009 Beyond the Mind Games in the Gulf - Nuclear nightmare, by Richard Bennett | The Asia Times This was sent by an old friend, Lynn Rudmin Chong, whose brother is an anti-nuclear activist. Please distribute widely. - Genevieve [Re Beyond the War Games in the Gulf ] Richard M Bennett and others who write about bombing Iran's reactors should consider the contamination consequences. Reactors are encased in concrete to contain accidental releases of radiation. Using bunker-buster bombs to destroy the containment and cast the radioactive fuel into the atmosphere will kill millions of people. The Union of Concerned Scientists has estimated that bombing the Esfahan nuclear refinement facilities will kill three million civilians in two weeks and will expose 35 million people in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to lethal doses of radiation. In 1981, two United States physicists, Fetter and Tsipis, wrote in Scientific American on "Catastrophic Releases of Radioactivity" caused by bombing nuclear reactors. In one scenario, bombing a reactor in Wisconsin would send a radioactive plume across Chicago, New York City and all the way to Bermuda, making those areas uninhabitable. In another scenario, bombing a reactor complex in southern Germany would make all of northern Europe and the United Kingdom uninhabitable. Iran's Bushehr reactor, loaded with 80 tons of enriched uranium, sits right on the Persian Gulf shore, just east of Kuwait. Bombing that reactor will render the Persian Gulf uninhabitable. Most of the world's known oil reserves are in the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran). Bombing Iran's reactors will be an act of economic warfare against the US, European Union, China, Japan and everyone else who needs oil for their industries, agriculture and transportation. Bombing Iran's reactors will mean that all nuclear reactors in the world are now targets for conventional or unconventional attack. When the royal families of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia all take sudden holiday trips to New Zealand or Argentina, then the rest of us know that a new Dark Age is about to begin. A Jewish state – or Jewish values?, by Tema Okun Every now and then one reads something that touches the heart and leaves a lasting impression. This is a plea to people so caught up in their own world view that they have lost sight of humanity – forgotten that by and large people everywhere just want to live their lives in peace, enjoy the fruits of this earth and share them with loved ones and their neighbours. Tema Okun speaks to the essence of who we are as people and appeals to the very best in us. Her words are directed to her own Jewish community, but they are equally potent and necessary for all of us to contemplate because we are all guilty for what the Palestinians have suffered. And not just the Palestinians – although theirs is the longest running brutal oppression of an entire population – but all peoples who are being cruelly mistreated, violated and condemned for reasons that ought to shame us every waking moment. How much more violence do we need to see, read and hear before we say “enough”, before we really mean “never again”? Please read Tema’s eloquent plea and then send it to others and encourage them to pass it on further. We have no time to lose as the poisonous brew of racism bubbles over threatening to contaminate everything we hold dear. It is not the war on terror that we ought to be worried about, but the war on humanity. – Sonja Karkar, AFP Read Tema's article... Letter from Mazin - July 19, 2009 The old Hebron to Jerusalem (now Hebron-to-wall-near Bethlehem) road was lined up with perhaps over 200 armed special forces. These are not Israeli but Palestinian "security". I was going to pick a friend at Dheisheh Refugee camp to eat Knafah (a Palestinian sweet). Every 10 meters (30 ft) for a stretch of over a mile there was one of those security men. Young people 18-24 years old. The "Palestinian Authority" spends most of its budget not on healthcare or education or any other item but on security. We were told President Abbas is coming to the area (either to the headquarters in AlMuqata'a or to the "Presidential Palace" in Artas area very near an Israeli settlement). After the big motorcade the streets had all been cleared of parked cars. The police were slow to let the original traffic reopen and for cars to park again. At the Knafa shop, we had to struggle to get parking and I think it happened only after the owner gave free Knafa to the policemen on duty. No one knows why streets are closed or what is the occasion for the visits of such dignitaries to our little town of Bethlehem (aka Ghetto 12). After the Knafa we visited the besieged village of Tqu' just two miles southwest of Bethlehem and we saw the desperation of these villages which get no presidential visits. This village and dozens like it are besieged by colonial Jewish-only settlements which took most of their best lands and water resources. Here the colonies of Tekoa, El David and Nodekim (where Avigdor Lieberman lives) sit on the lands of the village. The water resources have been confiscated and the village must buy its water from the Israeli company that has for some 40 years been pillaging the village water wells. Near the entrance and one of the water wells, a roving Israeli checkpoint stopped my car and the young (perhaps Russian) kid sweating and out of his elements wearing heavy cloths and carrying a gun perhaps heavier than he is asks me to step out of the car and to then open the trunk etc. The home we visited had a father with 10 children way below poverty level but with a dignity and generosity that is legendary for such simple decent village people. Unemployment is rampant and some village people are forced to work in the colonial settlements just to survive. But this family says they would prefer to starve than do that. The colonial settlements have all their needs of water, infrastructure, and Israeli government support (and new buildings not withstanding Obama's empty rhetoric). The lavish life-style reminiscent of Southern California a few hundred yards away from unbelievable man-made poverty is emblematic of the worst forms of apartheid and human cruelty to fellow humans. On stolen lands and using stolen water, they even have a Jewish only water Park overseeing the desert (the Dead Sea and Jordan are visible) attracting colonial settlers from both sides of the apartheid wall. Oh yes, the three colonies are on the so-called Palestinian side of the wall!. I saw enough for one day and on the way back to Beit Sahour, I console myself with the site of the ruints of a castle of the tyrranical King Herod built near Tqu' 2000 years ago. He and his brutal rule have long dissappeared while the native people (dark skinned and beautiful, the Canaanitic descendents remain in the people of Tqu'). I wished Palestinain self-declared leaders go to Tqu' and other besieged villages. The Palestinian "authority" (which has limited other authorities) banned AlJazeera television and then unbanned it (at least they respond to some pressure). Hamas and Fatah officials continue to hold hundreds of prisoners from the opposing camps (but only one Israeli occupation soldier, in Hamas's hands). Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation authorities continue to "harvest" "wanted" Palestinians going to extremes of joining demonstrations, helping cut apartheid fences and egging on demonstrators to use violence and then arresting those that fall into the trap (e.g. as Happened in Ni'lin last week). And the war criminal and disgraced ex-prime minister of the apartheid regime (Olmert) has the Chutzpah to write and publish a column in the Washington Post titled (this is not a joke): "How to Achieve a Lasting Peace: Stop Focusing on the Settlements".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8149464.stm but it is not easy when you are swimming against the tide and is surrounded by sharks swimming the other direction, blocking it and taking bites every once in a while. Fortunately some sane people remain and more are awakened every day. I meet such great people everyday. I just gave a talk to group of 40 bright inquisitive young people from around the world and their understanding of the situation was amazing. "Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness -- and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling -- their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them." "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."
http://lists.qumsiyeh.org/mailman/listinfo/humanrights The results are in! June 8, 2009 After years of shadow boxing with the ZioMonster I discovered that nobody cares - they were watching the Lakers or Manchester United or the sun set in Peoria. I am more than ever convinced that unless they are stopped the Zionists will destroy this world. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it, but it's comforting to bear in mind that the universe couldn't care less. In any case, Sancho Panza has the gout and we had to shoot Rocinante - she ate some bad cilantro and couldn't stop throwing up. And, to top it off, I have moved to the Pueblo Magico in old Mexico and am learning how to bake bread. This website will remain in place, but in stasis. Adios, amigosI leave you with these links, which I will add to from time to time: ' “The Zionist Story” is an excellent comprehensive documentary that explores the ideology of Zionism and its impact on Israel and the Palestinians under occupation. The documentary takes you back to 1897 when Zionism was founded by Theodore Herzl who was secular. Informs the viewer how Israel was established through terrorism, theft of Palestinian land, and the displacement of the inhabitants of Palestine.'' "The Other Apartheid State," by Ronnie Kasrils (former Minister of Intelligence, S.A. Government) Maximizing Rights: The One State Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, by George E. Bisharat Pirates of the Mediterranean, by Paul Craig Roberts 'Good and bad, happy and sad, All thoughts vanish into space like the imprint of a bird in the sky." - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche "May all beings be happy and at their ease." MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE I have been doing this now, on a daily basis (pretty much), for going on six years, but I have no idea if there's anyone out there who makes use of this website. Sometimes I get this queezy feeling that I'm doing a parody of Don Quixote de la Mancha - thinking that I'm tilting at real windmills, but actually it's just a solipsistic daydream. You know what I mean - the old voice in the wilderness, howling at the moon, but nary a human being within earshot. So I'm going to ask you, dear reader, to help me out. Please respond to this message. If all you have to say is "no comment" or "hi, how are ya?," or "get a life," that's fine - at least I'll know you're out there. Substantive comments will be greatly appreciated, whether they are positive or not. - please send to Roger Tucker, the Editor. May 29, 2009After a week or less, I will publish all of the extended comments, whatever they are. That should be enough time to give me a pretty good idea of what's up, down or sideways. Gushing praise may wind up on the home page as an endorsement - hate mail will be read but not responded to. You can sign your comments with your name, a pseudonym, or the good old standby "anonymous" - it doesn't matter. Jun 2, 2009 Letter from Mazin 6/2/09 Many of you wrote after the last email to tell of health-care experiences. Many told stories of unsung heroes among medical personnel in Palestine and elsewhere. Many stated their desire to change the capitalist healthcare system in some western countries and cities that makes humans into “consumers” receiving “services” from “professionals”. Some of the stories were truly remarkable (one about the loving care given to her dying mother). I think these stories and first Faqoos harvests (variety of vegetable related to the cucumber famous in Beit Sahour) nicely balanced the spat of sad and surreal news that we have received the last few days... internal Defending Israeli War Crimes, by Prof. Stephen Zunes | GAN In response to a series of reports by human rights organizations and international legal scholars documenting serious large-scale violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli armed forces in its recent war on the Gaza Strip, 10 U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defending the Israeli action. It is virtually unprecedented for state attorneys general — whose mandates focus on enforcement of state law — to weigh in on questions regarding the laws of war, particularly in a conflict on the far side of the world. More significantly, their statement runs directly counter to a broad consensus of international legal opinion that recognizes that Israel, as well as Hamas, engaged in war crimes... Read more... Shedding our Own Blood to Please Israel, by Khalid Amayreh | INTIFADA The unnecessary death of six Palestinians, including two resistance fighters, by Palestinian hands in Qalqilya on Sunday, 31 May, will be an indelible and everlasting stigma of shame on the forehead of Israel’s Palestinian puppets. Palestinian (PA) officials, who think that dishonesty is the best policy, claimed that the killings were necessitated by commitments to keep law and order and protect the “national scheme.” However, this vacuous and mendacious pretext is itself worse than a crime. After all, what “national scheme” can possibly justify the hounding and killing of people who have spent the prime of their youth, resisting the criminal occupiers of their country and cruel tormentors of their people? Indeed, in any country that respects itself, people as such are accorded a high place of honor, not hounded and killed and called “outlaws.” In Qalqilya, all the blood shed was a Palestinian blood, including the blood of three PA soldiers who had been duped and brainwashed into thinking that Hamas was the enemy, not the Israeli occupation army which continues to murder and oppress the Palestinian people. Isn’t that a real tragedy?... Read more... A crisis in Judaism: For many Jews today, Israel is not a normal state – it is a cause or ideal, and therein lies the problem, by Brian Klug | The Guardian Israel's war in Gaza has multiple meanings. First and foremost, for Palestinians on the ground it is the scene of terror and devastation. It has ratcheted up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by several notches. It poses a threat to the peace of the region and beyond. And it has brought to a head a crisis in Judaism itself, a crisis centred on Israel that threatens to tear Jewry apart... Read more... War Is Sin, by Chris Hedges | truthout An American flag stands in front of a gravestone at Arlington National Cemetery The crisis faced by combat veterans returning from war is not simply a profound struggle with trauma and alienation. It is often, for those who can slice through the suffering to self-awareness, an existential crisis. War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. It rips open the hypocrisy of our religions and secular institutions. Those who return from war have learned something which is often incomprehensible to those who have stayed home. We are not a virtuous nation. God and fate have not blessed us above others. Victory is not assured. War is neither glorious nor noble. And we carry within us the capacity for evil we ascribe to those we fight...Read more... Israel to U.S.: 'Stop favoring Palestinians' - Haaretz [A phrase that mocks surrealism] Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem are growing after the U.S. administration's demand that Israel completely freeze construction in all West Bank settlements. Israeli political officials expressed disappointment after Tuesday's round of meetings in London with George Mitchell, U.S. President Barack Obama's envoy to the Middle East. "We're disappointed," said one senior official. "All of the understandings reached during the [George W.] Bush administration are worth nothing." Another official said the U.S. administration is refusing every Israeli attempt to reach new agreements on settlement construction. "The United States is taking a line of granting concessions to the Palestinians that is not fair toward Israel," he said... Read more... Christian Zionists Snap at the Heels of A Man From Galilee, by Charles Carlson | WHTT An Israeli Arab Christian educator got mixed response at local area churches: a warmth and respect from Presbyterians, and a mixture of love and ice water at an Israelist church. Archbishop Elias Chacour is a rotund 69 year old dynamo. As a child of eight he was made homeless by the Israeli army, but against all odds he stayed in Israel long after most of his villagers became forced refugees elsewhere. He went on to become one of the most important educators of Arab children, and a Christian citizen of Israel. There he built schools that teach some 4000 thousand children in Galilee, northern Israel. Now he has been appointed Archbishop over several Melkite Catholic Churches that are sanctioned by Israel within its territory. Bishop Chacour is author of Blood Brothers (Arabs and Israelis) and is a proven advocate of peace, preaching love of all races as his “only weapon.”... Read more... Wow! Just listen to these crazies! (Video) | saker commentary Listening to these crackpots made me wonder if the pro-Apartheid South Africans were ever that totally nuts. From my recollection of those years, the South African racists were not nearly as [whacko] as the Ziocrazies on this video. And Blacks sure were treated much better in Apartheid South African than Palestinians are in the "Jewish state"... Watch video... The Significance of the Settlements, by Rami G. Khouri | Annie's letters The emergence of Zionist-Jewish colonialism -- otherwise euphemistically called “Israeli settlements” -- as the litmus test of relations between Israel and the United States is an important indicator of how quickly the Obama administration has moved to reposition itself in the Middle East. The latest statements by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton represent a dramatic change in America’s Middle East rhetoric, which now unambiguously calls for a total freeze on settlements, natural growth, “outposts” and anything else the Israelis do when they transfer their population into colonies built on Arab lands occupied in 1967. Washington has dropped its previous wishy-washy practice of merely calling colonies and settlements “unhelpful” to peace making, and has used dramatic moments to press its point to Israel and the world... Read more... Manipulation: How Markets Really Work, by Stephen Lendman | Baltimore Chronicle Wall Street's mantra is that markets move randomly and reflect the collective wisdom of investors. The truth is quite opposite. The government's visible hand and insiders control markets and manipulate them up or down for profit - all of them, including stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies. It's financial fraud or what former high-level Wall Street insider and former Assistant HUD Secretary Catherine Austin Fitts calls "pump and dump," defined as "artificially inflating the price of a stock or other security through promotion, in order to sell at the inflated price," then profit more on the downside by short-selling. "This practice is illegal under securities law, yet it is particularly common," and in today's volatile markets likely ongoing daily... Read more... Mr. Abbas Goes to Washington, by Ali Abunimah | Monthly Review If the Oval Office guest list is an indicator, President Obama is making good on his commitment to try to revive the long-dead Arab-Israeli peace process. On May 18 President Obama received Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; today he met with Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. As this process gets under way, the United States -- Israel's main arms supplier, financier and international apologist -- faces huge hurdles. It is deeply mistrusted by Palestinians and Arabs generally, and the new administration has not done much to rebuild trust. Obama has, like President Bush, expressed support for Palestinian statehood, but he has made no criticisms of Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip -- which killed more than 1,400 people last winter, mostly civilians -- despite evidence from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and UN investigators of egregious Israeli war crimes. Nor has he pressured Israel to lift the blockade of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are refugees, are effectively imprisoned and deprived of basic necessities... Read more... Jun 1, 2009 Swedish press freedom prize to Gaza journalist Mohammed Omer Photojournalist Mohammed Omer has been awarded the Swedish section of Reporters without borders Press freedom prize 2008: His courageous reporting gives a voice to the confined and oppressed people of Gaza. At 24 Mohammed Omer is one of the most important young voices from the region. Mohammed Omer reports for numerous media outlets, including the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Pacifica Radio, Electronic Intifada, The Nation, and Inter Press Service; he also founded the Rafah Today blog...After he received the Martha Gellhorn Prize in June 2008 Mohammed Omer travelled back to the Gaza Strip via the West Bank, Omer reported that he was stripped to his underwear, humiliated and beaten by Israeli soldiers while travelling into the West Bank from Jordan. According to a United Nations report, Mohammed Omer is convinced that the brutal assault occurred when the security services were frustrated at their inability to confiscate the money he'd been awarded. He was subsequently hospitalized upon his return to Gaza, where it was discovered that Omer had sustained severe damage in the spine and ribs and various bodily contusions as a result of the ordeal... Read more... Weavers of the fabric of truth, by George Salzman Dahr Jamail (left) and Mohammed Omer (right), co-recipients of the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for journalism, Telling the truth has always involved some risk. At the least, friends might be offended. At worst, as is ongoing now for some years here in Mexico, reporters have clearly been assassinated because they have told truths that expose terrible acts by powerful people...Why do I think each of these three people can be believed to tell the truth? Why am I so ready to dismiss statements by politicians — of whatever nationality — or by other journalists if their statements are contradicted by Jamail, Pilger, or Omer? The answer is simple. I have come to trust these three people for their integrity, their honesty. That doesn't mean I think they are invariably correct. Like all humans, they are fallible, and should be listened to critically. What I am convinced of is that if one of them learns he has been mistaken about something, he will openly acknowledge it rather than try to cover it up by lying. In brief, it is their commitment to knowing the truth, which sometimes requires changing ones mind, that I respect above all else. That and their compassion... being congratulated by John Pilger (center), a member of the Martha Gellhorn Prize judges panel, at the award ceremonies in London, 16 June 2009 Read more... Who Is to Blame for the Next Attack? - NYT ...The Beltway antics that greeted the great Cheney-Obama torture debate were an unsettling return to the post-9/11 dynamic that landed America in Iraq. Once again Cheney and his cohort were using lies and fear to try to gain political advantage — this time to rewrite history and escape accountability for the failed Bush presidency rather than to drum up a new war. Once again Democrats in Congress were cowed. And once again too much of the so-called liberal news media parroted the right’s scare tactics, putting America’s real security interests at risk by failing to challenge any Washington politician carrying a big stick... Read more... Israel-Palestine crisis has to be solved as a matter of urgency, says Nobel laureate | The Guardian The Israel-Palestine crisis is the most urgent problem for the world to solve, according to Desmond Tutu, archbishop emeritus of Cape Town who said tonight that if it remains unresolved, no other issues – from the war on terror to nuclear disarmament – will ever be resolved. The Nobel peace laureate, who said that in some ways the situation in Palestine was worse than it was in apartheid South Africa, told a packed audience of more than 1,000 – including Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury – that the west "feels a deep, deep shame for what it did – or didn't do – during the Holocaust". And that was right, he said. "You jolly well ought to feel that shame, but then the penalty, the penance, has been paid, not by the west, but paid by the Palestinians.".. Read more... Mondoweiss: I asked her why she said Gaza is worse than the prison she worked in back in Pennsylvania “I’ve done work in prison,” she said. “This is worse than being in prison. How people can be so cruel to other people-- I don’t understand, I just don’t understand it. I can understand how people in the United States don’t know it’s as bad as it is. That's because of the press, and we’re probably at this point the best hope these people have for getting the word out. I look on that as a really big responsibility. I don’t want to let them down. I’m not ready to leave.”.. Read more... Mondoweiss: AIPAC is all about Jewish history and power--and so is this web site At the end of the AIPAC policy conference, maybe during Joe Biden’s pandering speech, I sat biting into a napkin trying to keep from crying with a joyful sense of purpose that the conference had given me. This post is all about that joyful feeling, and what it might mean to those who come to this site... Read more... The Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty Is Dead, by K. Gajendra Singh Mirror, mirror on the wall , who are the greatest proliferators of them all! "The present system for preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons is at an end, is bankrupt." Mohamed El Baradei , head of IAEA recently at Davos. In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?: Dwight D. Eisenhower... There is an unholy alliance of cover up by the NWPs , against the majority of the nations of the world , the non-nuclear weapon states and others ,who watch impotently this dangerous theatre of the absurd and brinkmanship, in trepidation . Something is seriously wrong with the political, economic and environmental health of planet Earth...Read more... Australia's Democracy put to the test "Prisoners who are unfit for work are gassed immediately upon arrival at Yatala Gulag, Adelaide, Australia. Their bodies are burned in the ovens in the crematoria. The smoke can be seen in the background.".. It is the contention of this site, that the Holocaust does not exist in reality. It does exist as a reality in the minds of those who believe in it. The "gas chambers of Auschwitz" and the "extermination of the Jews" began as wartime propaganda, for the reasons of 'proving' to the world how evil the German National Socialist system of government was, and to deflect from the real war crimes of WW2, including the mass firebombing of German cities, whose targets were defenseless women and children. As an example, between 300,000 and 500,000 innocent people were roasted alive in one night by allied firebombing of Dresden, at a time when the war was for all practical purposes over for Germany...Read more... Ministers reject Yisrael Beiteinu's loyalty oath bill - Haaretz The ministerial legislative committee rejected on Sunday a bill stating that those who wish to retain Israeli citizenship would have to declare their loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. The bill, put forth by Yisrael Beiteinu's MK David Rotem, stated that oath would include a pledge of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish, Zionist, and democratic state, to its emblems and values, and serving Israel either through military service or through any equivalent alternatives. Almost all of the committee's members opposed the proposed bill, excluding only Yisrael Beiteinu MKs... Read more... An egregious Zionist assault on "Academic Freedom" at UCSB, by Hector Carreon | La Voz de Aztlan The ADL of B'nai B'rith, an arm of the Israeli Mossad in the USA, is again attempting to silence respected scholars at American universities who dare to criticize Israel's genocidal policies against the Palestinian people. The ADL is today targeting Professor William I. Robinson of the University of California at Santa Barbara because he was teaching his students a lesson by making comparisons between the Nazis' treatment of Jews and the Zionists' treatment of Palestinians. The ADL and other powerful Zionist organizations have now brought formal charges against the professor utilizing the old canard of "antisemitism" and are demanding that the UC Chancellor and the UCSB Academic Senate punish him. Professor Robinson teaches Global and International Studies as well as Latin American and Iberian Studies at the university. The assault on Professor Robinson is almost identical to the one against Professor Tony Martin of Wellesley College in 1993. Professor Martin, now retired, taught Arican Studies and was a recognized scholar in Black History. Professor Martin also had to face formal charges after three Jewish student members of Hillel of B'nai B'rith and the ADL accused him of "antisemitism" because he lectured on the well established history of Jewish involvement in the African slave trade. The attack on Professor Martin also involves a conspiracy between the ADL, Hillel, certain Jewish academicians and outside international Zionist organizations. The students in Hillel function as "watchdogs" and "spies" on campuses throughout the USA for the International Zionist Movement of B'nai B'rith. The official motto of Hillel is, "Maximizing the Number of Jews Doing Jewish With Other Jews."... Read more... Book Review: A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation | This Week in Palestine ...Rev. Ateek, an advocate of non-violence, writes from a Christian perspective. But he writes for Jews, Muslims, and secular people as well. He reminds the reader that religion and politics in the Middle East have always been “closely intertwined.” In a sense each of the religions involved has “created God in its own image” to the point it would seem that “God has become part of the problem rather than the solution.” Religion, he observes, can be a source of spiritual strength but if misused, “a deadly weapon.”... Read more... Why Hamas is Not the Issue: Gaza, History Matters, by Elaine C. Hagopian | Counterpunch How does one explain the horrific fate that has befallen caged Gaza – a land saturated with rubble and body parts – carpet-bombed by air, invaded by ground, attacked by sea? Put to the test of history, Israeli “explanations” fail the credibility test... Read more... May 31, 2009 How Tyranny Came to America, by Joe Sobran | Free Republic One of the great goals of education is to initiate the young into the conversation of their ancestors; to enable them to understand the language of that conversation, in all its subtlety, and maybe even, in their maturity, to add to it some wisdom of their own. The modern American educational system no longer teaches us the political language of our ancestors. In fact our schooling helps widen the gulf of time between our ancestors and ourselves, because much of what we are taught in the name of civics, political science, or American history is really modern liberal propaganda. Sometimes this is deliberate. Worse yet, sometimes it isn’t. Our ancestral voices have come to sound alien to us, and therefore our own moral and political language is impoverished. It’s as if the people of England could no longer understand Shakespeare, or Germans couldn’t comprehend Mozart and Beethoven..I call the present system “Post–Constitutional America.” As I sometimes put it, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government. What’s worse is that our constitutional illiteracy cuts us off from our own national heritage. And so our politics degenerates into increasingly bitter and unprincipled quarrels about who is going to bear the burdens of war and welfare... [I heartily recommend this article, whether one considers oneself a "liberal," a "conservative," or a whatever - the Editor] Read more... Letter from Mazin 5/30/09 I spent a lot of time the last week in hospitals, clinics and laboratories. When a family member is ill, it always seems that other issues recede in the background. But in one way it was great to see that healthcare services in occupied Palestine are really amazingly efficient considering the challenges. Specialized services are limited by the decades of occupation and intentional attempts at de-development and destruction. But most other services were available and I venture to say on par with USA or other developed countries. Both Private and Public health services exist. As usual the private ones have a little more resources available to them but the difference here is small. Also "private" hospitals are not like in the US since here they are not for making money. Most are charitable organizations (some affiliated with political factions, others independent). Their aim is to provide services that are needed at very low prices. A medical procedure that in the US would cost $500 here costs $30-50. The professionalism and care of medical people is exemplary. To them, patients are not "consumers" nor are they "subjects with an illness". They are people... Read more... Open Letter from Gaza to the Government and People of Spain | Palestine Telegraph We write to you as Palestinians from Gaza to express our dismay at the proposal of the Spanish parliament to restrict the universal jurisdiction of Spain, particularly with regard to breaches of international humanitarian law... Read more... Zionist censorship at colleges and universities, by George Salzman I first became ‘actively aware’ of the strenuous effort of Zionist groups in North America to suppress open public discussion of Israeli policy in universities about two years ago from an e-mail sent by a friend in Egypt. That involved a campaign which successfully prevented Norman G. Finkelstein from gaining his well-deserved tenure at De Paul University in Chicago. Since then there has been no shortage of attacks on uncensored discussion in Canadian and U.S. colleges and universities. A particularly fierce instance of this widespread drive is the recent firing of a long-time tenured physics professor by the University of Ottawa... Read more... Embezzlement and Tainted Goods Threaten Iraq's Food Supply: The Mother of All Corruption Scandals, by Patrick Cockburn Iraq plans to arrest 1,000 officials for corruption after a scandal which has forced the resignation of the Trade Minister and is threatening the food supply of millions of Iraqis. Corruption at the Trade Ministry is an important issue in Iraq because the ministry is in charge of the food rationing system on which 60 per cent of Iraqis depend. Officials at the ministry, which spends billions of dollars buying rice, sugar, flour and other items, are notorious among Iraqis for importing food that is unfit for human consumption, for which they charge the state the full international price... Read more... Israeli army and settlers violently obstruct Palestinians from harvesting their lands in Safa | IMEMC Soldiers attacking people in Safa on Saturday Villagers from the Southern West Bank village of Safa, north of Hebron, have tried to harvest their lands that are located closely to the settlement of Beit Ayn, on Saturday morning. The Israeli army violently pushed the villagers of their lands, as settlers were gathering on near by hilltops. Later in the morning settlers came down and attacked a group of women and children, a local witness reported to IMEMC...Read more... Loose nukes terrorism, by Arnaud de Borchgrave | UPI Is the world more dangerous today than it was at the height of the Cold War? Anyone who's still anyone in the field of nuclear arms control has weighed in with a resounding "yes.".. More worrisome for Western intelligence services is the Pakistani nuclear establishment in Kahuta, 36 miles from Islamabad. Created by How-I-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb Abdul Qadeer Khan, the super-secret Khan Research Laboratories and missile-building facility employs some 7,000 nuclear engineers and scientists, and enriches enough plutonium to produce about six nuclear weapons a year...Iran's nukes are also pulling Israel's new Netanyahu government and the Obama administration apart. For the first time since 1956, when President Eisenhower ordered Israel, France and Britain out of their occupation of the Suez Canal, U.S. and Israeli strategic interests are no longer seen as one and the same...For Israel, Jewish settlements in the West Bank have nothing to do with Iran's secret nuclear weapons program. A majority of Israelis say Iran's coming nuclear attractions constitute an existential crisis for the survival of a Jewish state. For President Obama, Israel's creeping annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is making a Palestinian state impossible, which, in turn, leads to what Jordan's King Abdullah predicts will be another war in 2010... Read more... Racist for Democracy, by Uri Avnery | MMN "A declaration of loyalty to the state and its laws – a framework designed to safeguard the wellbeing and the rights of its citizens – is reasonable. But loyalty to the “Zionist” state? Zionism is an ideology, and in a democratic state the ideology can change from time to time. It would be like declaring loyalty to a “capitalist” USA, a “rightist Italy”, a ”leftist” Spain, a “Catholic Poland” or a “nationalist” Russia."... Read more... Egyptian reform activists wary of Obama's visit to Cairo | csmonitor A bus passes in front of Egypt's Cairo University on Thursday, the site where US President In a highly anticipated visit to Cairo next week, US President Barack Obama will deliver an address to the Muslim world meant to open a new chapter in its ties with the United States. But that is not the only message he will be sending, say many Egyptian democracy activists. They worry the visit signals the new administration's support for Egypt's autocratic President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled for 28 years, and that the man who came to office promising "Yes, we can," did not include Arabs in that promise... Barack Obama is expected to address the Muslim world on June 4. Read more... Bring 500 U.S. Trucks on a Convoy to Gaza: Video of George Galloway's speech | YouTube The climax of George Galloway's stirring call for a U.S. convoy to defy the siege of the Gaza Strip. It was part of his speech in Brooklyn, NY, on May 26, 2009. George Galloway is a member of the UK Parliament. He successfully brought in over 100 trucks full of supplies to Gaza in March... Read more... Israel's anti-defamation league attempting to block US humanitarian aid to the starving people of Gaza | GAN Is it a crime in the United States to raise funds for Humanitarian Aid for innocent civilians devastated by Israel’s recent merciless assault on Palestinians in Gaza? Appended below, is a letter sent by ADL (Anti-Defamation League) to the Attorney General of the United States, the Honorable Eric H. Holder Jr. The letter contains false statements urging the Attorney General to investigate reports of fund raising for Hamas by Viva Palestina USA Convoy. It is obivious the ADL is trying to stop the American Humanitarian Aid Convoy because it would draw the world’s attention to Israel’s on-going crimes against the Civilian population of Gaza. The ADL has been working full steam lately trying to silence any Criticism of Israel. Academics like Prof. William Robinson, Norman Finkelstein and others have been attacked by ADL, and other pro-Israeli groups for the simple fact that they spoke out of good conscience against Israel's apartheid treatment of Palestinian people. Anyone who expresses his free right to criticize Israel’s militaristic policies is labeled as Anti-Semitic... Read more... Turn the World Upside Down: They Destroy Our Society to Make it Unequal, by John Spritzler Worse than the well-known and extreme economic inequality in the United States (which I describe below in some detail), is the anti-democratic, anti-solidarity and anti-human nature of our society that results from it being dominated by a corporate and government elite (with family names like Rockefeller, Gates, Buffett, Soros, Walton, Bloomberg, Bush and Kennedy) who want it to be very unequal. Most ordinary people want society to be more equal and democratic and try to make it so in lots of different ways, which is precisely why the elite do the following socially destructive and despicable things to control the American public and prevent them from succeeding:.. Read more... Talk to Chuck | Jewschool Read more... Obama: halt to new Israeli settlements is in America's security interests | The Guardian Increasingly fractious relations between the US and Israel hit a low unseen in nearly two decades yesterday after the Jewish state rejected President Obama's demand for an end to settlement construction in the West Bank, and the president responded by suggesting that Israeli intransigence endangers America's security... Read more... Who will Stand Up To America and Israel?, by Paul Craig Roberts "No countries on earth rival the US and Israel for barbaric murderous violence" "Obama Calls on World to ‘Stand Up To’ North Korea" read the headline. The United States, Obama said, was determined to protect "the peace and security of the world." Shades of doublespeak, doublethink, 1984. North Korea is a small place. China alone could snuff it out in a few minutes. Yet, the president of the US thinks that nothing less than the entire world is a match for North Korea. We are witnessing the Washington gangsters construct yet another threat like Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, John Walker Lindh, Hamdi, Padilla, Sami Al-Arian, Hamas, Mahkmoud Ahmadinejad, and the hapless detainees demonized by the US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as "the 700 most dangerous terrorists on the face of the earth," who were tortured for six years at Gitmo only to be quietly released. Just another mistake, sorry. The military/security complex that rules America, together with the Israel Lobby and the financial banksters, needs a long list of dangerous enemies to keep the taxpayers’ money flowing into its coffers. The Homeland Security lobby is dependent on endless threats to convince Americans that they must forego civil liberty in order to be safe and secure. The real question is who is going to stand up to the American and Israeli governments?... Read more... Finnish-Israeli arms trade flouts EU regulations | Electronic Intifada Finland's arms cooperation with Israel violates EU regulations Contrary to the heavily-hyped image according to which the policy output of Finland is even-handed and neutral in the Israel/Palestine conflict, Finland is actually a major arms trading partner with Israel. Recent reports by the Committee of 100 in Finland, Amnesty International, as well as an article in Finland's biggest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, all revealed Finland's deeply troubling attitude towards the actions of the State of Israel... Read more... Chosen Nukes, by Israel Adam Shamir The successful underground nuclear test in North Korea unleashed a huge wave – a wave of hypocrisy, that is. The state with by far the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, the country that has already used A-bombs against civilians, the US, expressed its outrage. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said, “The United States thinks that this is a grave violation of international law and a threat to regional and international peace and security and therefore the United States will seek a strong resolution with strong measures.” According to Rice, it is not invasion, it is not occupation, it is not aggression, but rather it is arming oneself against a very probable invasion, aggression and occupation that violates international law. And she did not remind us of a well-forgotten fact: for many years it was North Korea that called for turning the whole of Korean peninsula into nuclear-weapons-free zone, and it was the US that insisted on having its nukes on North Korea’s doorstep... Read more... The Sotomayor Nomination: More Glimpses of Jewish Activism — and a Warning to Republicans, by Kevin MacDonald | Occidental Observer The campaign by some Jews with access to the media to get Elena Kagan nominated for the soon-to-be vacant Supreme Court position failed —but will probably be resurrected the next time around. VDARE.com’s Patrick Cleburne has also noted the Jewish angle to the pro-Kagan campaign — suggesting that the article by Jeffrey Rosen questioning Sotomayor’s intellectual qualifications was really an attempt to promote Kagan by default. In a follow-up article, Rosen stressed the need for the next Supreme Court nominee to be “not merely impressive but absolutely stellar.” You can see where this is going: Kagan = brilliant — despite her less than lackluster record of academic scholarship en route to the most prestigious position in legal academia. Writing in the LA Times, David Greenberg does his part, describing Elena Kagan as “manifestly brilliant,” and also agreeing with Cleburne that criticisms of Sotomayor were motivated by the desire to promote people like Kagan... Read more... Growing stronger | Al-Ahram Weekly The right to return is not up for negotiation, reports Anayat Durrani from the Al-Awda conference "Freedom for Palestine, Growing Our Global Movement" was the theme for the seventh Annual International Al-Awda Convention 22-24 May in Garden Grove, California, attracting some 1,000 attendees. The convention marked the 61st year of the ongoing Nakba, or catastrophe, and 61 years of the struggle to return. "Our objective is to keep the right of return at the centre of any discussion of the Palestinian cause," said Zahi Damuni, co-founder of Al-Awda. Among the speakers was Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed during his service in Iraq. Sheehan gained international attention when she protested against the Iraq war, camping outside President George Bush's Texas ranch. "My son is the victim of US foreign policy, as are the people of Palestine the victim of US foreign policy," said Sheehan. She spoke against the "aid" to Israel and described the US-Israel relationship as an "unholy alliance", affirming that "more Americans would have compassion for the Palestinian cause if they knew the truth."... Read more... Saberi 'had classified document' | BBC NEWS Roxana Saberi was freed on Monday after four months in prison A lawyer for US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi says she was convicted of spying for the US partly because she had obtained a classified document. Her lawyer said she had access to a confidential Iranian report on the US war in Iraq - but had not used it. The lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, said the report had been prepared by a research centre of the Iranian presidency... Read more... Iran Freed Saberi; When Will US Free Jassam?, by Jeremy Scahill | freedetainees.org Last week, we reported on how retired U.S. Army Col. Ralph Peters penned an essay for a leading neocon group calling for future U.S. military attacks on media outlets and journalists. In the journal of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Peters wrote, “future wars may require censorship, news blackouts, and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. … [A] media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom. The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win.” Of course, what Peters is advocating is not new, nor does he need to propose it as a policy for “future wars.” It is already a de facto U.S. policy to target journalists. The U.S. has consistently attacked journalists and media organizations in modern wars. In the 1999 U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Gen. Wesley Clark, then the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, ordered an air strike on Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, including make-up artists and technical staff, an action Amnesty International labeled a “war crime.” Richard Holbrooke, who is currently Obama’s point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan, praised that bombing at the time...The Obama administration has recently paid a lot of lip service to freedom of the press, particularly around the case of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was released May 11 from an Iranian prison. Yet the U.S. military continues to hold journalists as prisoners without charges or rights in neighboring Iraq. Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for Reuters, has been a U.S. prisoner in Iraq since last September despite an Iraqi court’s order last year that he be freed... [I guess the difference is obvious - Iran is a civilized country.] Read more... Tomgram: Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak, Pepe Escobar As Barack Obama heads into his second hundred days in office, let's head for the big picture ourselves, the ultimate global plot line, the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order. In its first hundred days, the Obama presidency introduced us to a brand new acronym, OCO for Overseas Contingency Operations, formerly known as GWOT (as in Global War on Terror). Use either name, or anything else you want, and what you're really talking about is what's happening on the immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It's there that the Liquid War for the control of Eurasia takes place... Read more... Amnesty International Report 2009 On 27 December, as 2008 drew to a close, Israeli jets launched an aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where 1.5million Palestinians live, crowded into one of the most densely populated areas of the planet. In the following three weeks,more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including some 300 children, and some 5,000 were wounded. Israeli forces repeatedly breached the laws of war, including by carrying out direct attacks on civilians and civilian buildings and attacks targeting Palestinian militants that caused a disproportionate toll among civilians... Read more... Former Jewish community activist facing child-porn charges | CTV Montreal insert surkis Bill Surkis, a prominent member of Montreal's Jewish community, was led to court in handcuffs Friday to face two charges related to accessing and possessing child pornography... [This incident wouldn't be worth noting except that there seems to be a pattern. Zionists (perhaps all fascists in general) seem to be prone to sexual obsessions, abuse and predation.It seems like almost half the Israeli leadership has been investigated for such behavior for decades.] Read more... The folly of Mamma Mia: Wouldn't Mia Farrow be better off helping her own dysfunctional family? | Mail Online For almost a fortnight - until her doctor stepped in 24 hours ago warning she was about to die - the gaunt face of Mia Farrow has stared straight at the camera as she has grown increasingly thin. The actress has been on hunger strike as part of a campaign to highlight the starving and sick orphans in Africa's war-torn Darfur region of Sudan. Every day she made a new film appearance on YouTube, charting her physical decline as she lived on a diet of water and no food. 'I'm just an actress,' she said one morning last week (having, apparently, crawled out of her bed in a darkened room to appear in the video clip)...the truth is that Lark's death is the latest in a long line of misfortunes to befall Mia Farrow and her increasingly dysfunctional family. While the actress has successfully campaigned for the world's destitute and dispossessed, at her own hearthside a series of disasters have unfolded... [Hollywood hypocrites are nothing new, but barmy, hysterical ones are an entertaining novelty. Article has pics from Ms. Farrow's out of control life.] Read more... Martillo on Iranian PressTV | EAAZI (Video) I was a little disconcerted to wind up as the only interviewee when Bishop Riah Abu al-Assal's communications link went down. I apologize that I did not have a sound-byte to describe how activists can pressure the Obama administration to take a more pro-American pro-Palestinian approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. At minimum a good anti-Zionist marketing strategy would probably require about 60 pages. Because of the sophistication of the Zionist web of control over American political discourse, a really complete strategy would probably be two to three times that length. Watch... Read more... |
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