ZIONIST KING
(CNN)Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud has died, according to an announcement on Saudi state TV. He was 90.
The next king will be Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, state television reported early Friday.
The announcement of his death comes several weeks after the state-run Saudi Press Agency said Abdullah was suffering from pneumonia and had been admitted to the hospital.
Zee news Bureau
Jaipur: Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Sunday kicked up a storm by alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) are promoting Hindu terrorism in their training camps.
“They are talking about infiltration but we have this report that whether it is the BJP or the RSS, their training camps are promoting Hindu terrorism,” Shinde said.
Speaking at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) meeting here, Shinde said, “We are keeping a strict eye on it. The Samjhauta Express blast, Mecca Masjid (blast), Malegaon blast — they are planting bombs and blaming minorities for it. We need to be careful for safety of our country.”
Strongly reacting to Shinde’s statement, BJP said Home Minister’s statement is irresponsible and unfortunate. BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the Home Minister is trying to disrupt the peaceful environment of the country.
“If a Congress leader had said something like this it wouldn’t had matter that much, but if a Home Minister of the country is saying something like this it is highly irresponsible.”
The RSS leader further questioned government’s motive and said that they first arrested Muslim youths in connection with the particular blasts case, but suddenly in the recent times things have changed and Hindu youths are being wrongly arrested.
“This is all about playing vote-bank politics”, he said.
Advocating Shinde’s views, Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said that the Home Minister is 100 percent right in what he has said.
[SEE: Lebanon’s Latest Wahhabi Troublemaker Tries To Turn Posters Into Justification for Civil War]
Published Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Salafi cleric Ahmad al-Assir is expected to announce in the next couple of days the formation of a military wing to “resist the Iranian project and its allies,” security officials told Al-Akhbar.
The sources said that the Islamist faction is well armed and financed and that fighters have been training in northern Lebanon for months, led by a certain Khaled al-Qiblawi.
The tip comes as Lebanese Army General Jean Kahwagi visited military units on patrol in the southern city of Sidon Tuesday where a clash between supporters of Hezbollah and Assir left three people dead on Sunday.
Sunday’s clashes came two days after Assir gave a heated sermon titled “Our Peace and Their Aggression,” in which the Sheikh set a 48-hour deadline for Hezbollah to remove its posters in the city commemorating the Shia holiday of Ashoura.
Two days later violence erupted in the Sidon neighborhood of Taamir near the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp as a motorcade carrying Assir and his armed entourage arrived to confront Hezbollah supporters.
Two of those killed were reportedly Assir’s bodyguards, while the third victim was an Egyptian boy aged 14 or 15 who was caught in the crossfire. Several others were injured including a Hezbollah official.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for patience and restraint in a televised address Monday in response to the events, urging Sunnis and Shias to remain vigilant of sectarian incitement.
Amal Khalil contributed to this story.
(Al-Akhbar)
[This Israeli government spokesman is appealing to the world to accept the proposition that any stray bullets or shells coming across the border from Syria are an “attack” upon Turkey, and by extension, an attack upon NATO. This statement is intended to back-up the recent Turkish Parliament authorization for military operations inside Syria. So Turkey is now ready to do what Israel has been afraid to do, go to war against Syria. It would almost seem as though Israel and Turkey had planned all of this from the beginning, were it not for that ugly little incident with the Gaza Flotilla and the IDF attack upon the MV Mavi Marmara aid ship, on May 31 2010. Less than one year later, in March or April 2011. the civil war was beginning inside Syria.
Is it more likely that two bitter antagonists could completely reverse their animosity in less than a year, to suddenly emerge united with one purpose, or is it more reasonable to assume that Israel and Turkey were secretly working hand-in-glove all along?
The anti-Syria project is part of the Greater Middle East strategy of the United States. Therefore, we are at this critical juncture in the anti-Syrian project (Israel supporting Turkey’s call for NATO intervention, while Obama appears to be cautioning against it) because that has been the plan all along, to give the President the appearance of having “clean hands.” Either that, or this has been an Israeli operation from the beginning, to force Turkey and the US/NATO into eliminating Syria for Israel. For that matter, you would then have to credit the Israelis for the entire Greater Middle East project, even though the whole thing fell apart when US/NATO forces failed to pile-on on the side of Israel against Hezbollah in 2006. If Israelis had been in charge of the terror war at that time, Syria would have been bombed back to the Stone Age long ago. Therefore, the only reasonable assumption to make is that Israel has been handling the CIA’s dirty work in laying the groundwork for this latest anti-Syrian operation, in order to maintain plausible deniability for Washington.
Turkey and Israel appeared to be set at odds, in order to elevate Turkey’s image in the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia and Qatar were allowed to conduct their own foreign policies (which appeared to be going against the desires of Obama) for the same reason, to elevate their status on the Muslim street. Together, the three “maverick” Arab governments have appeared to take the lead in the American/NATO/Arab alliance, creating a so-called “Islamic NATO,” which was used to overthrow the Libyan government and to murder Muammar Qaddafi. This Islamist NATO has led the preliminary battles which have been scheduled as the opening rounds of the bigger war to come, as justification at the United Nations Security Council to empower the real NATO forces inside Syria, so they can do the same to Bashar al-Assad.
Turkey has been America’s primary puppet in this grand deception all along, meaning that the Turkish government has sanctioned the attack which killed eight Turkish citizens on the MV Mavi Marmara in the Gaza Flotilla and probably the PKK attack upon the Turkish Navy Barracks at Iskenderun earlier that same morning, as well. In that rocket attack, seven Turks were killed. State acquiescence to false flag attacks upon their own citizens seems to be a requirement of all participants in America’s terror war, a pattern set by the example of the US Govt. itself on 9-11-2001 (SEE: US/NATO Seeking Escape Mechanism for New Formula for Imperial Aggression). The “war on terror,” a.k.a., “plan for Greater Middle East,” is a Pentagon operation, from the beginning, intended to unleash the power of NATO through a series of wars of aggression, without upsetting the American image in the world. In this way, the US military can utilize its power to the fullest, even violating the nuclear threshold, without turning the world against us. Now, all that is left is for NATO forces to be successfully brought to bear in Syria, squaring the circle, without making us the “bad guys” against a global “Arab Spring.” NATO is still perfecting the mechanism which will enable them to reliably use “false-flag operations” to create “fault-free” wars of aggression, attacking yourself, to obtain the right to defend yourself, from yourself.]
“One has to say that according to the NATO treaty, it was an attack on a member of NATO, and that means France,” Meridor told reporters during a visit to Paris, referring to France’s membership of NATO.
Syria and Israel have not exchanged fire in three decades, and a parliamentary briefing in July by the Israeli armed forces chief about the risk of “uncontrollable deterioration” in Syria were interpreted by local media as a caution against opening a new fighting front with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Meridor said he did not want to go into details about the incident but said the deaths in Syria had to end.
“Syria is in a horrible situation, a civil war. Each day men, women and children are being killed and it must be stopped,” Meridor said after meeting France’s foreign and defense ministers.
“We are in a process that isn’t finished. We don’t see the end for now.”
Turkey’s government on Thursday said “aggressive action” against its territory by Syria’s military had become a serious threat to its national security and parliament approved the deployment of Turkish troops beyond its borders if needed.
Immediately after the incident, Ankara, which has the second-largest army in NATO, called a meeting of the organization’s North Atlantic Council.
Syria has apologized through the United Nations for the mortar strike in Turkey and said such an incident would not be repeated.
Israel has been particularly worried that Hezbollah, the Iranian-inspired Shiite militia in neighboring Lebanon, may gain access to the chemical weapons should Assad’s grip slip amid a 18-month-old insurgency.
Assad, from the minority Alawite sect, considered an offshoot of Shia Islam, has close ties both with Shi’ite Iran and Hezbollah, which was originally set up to oppose Israel.
“The alliance with Iran is extremely worrying (for us). Iran on one side, Hezbollah on the other, with Syria in the middle. For us, it’s very important that this unholy alliance is broken,” Meridor said.
“If the Assad regime were to fall, it would be a vital strike on Iran,” he said.
(Reporting By John Irish)
Vandals believed to be Jewish extremists on Wednesday torched a car and sprayed anti-Arab graffiti near a refugee camp near Ramallah, an Agence France Presse correspondent and police said.
The incident took place between Jalazoun refugee camp and Dura al-Qara village, both of which lie very close to Beit El settlement.
But the perpetrators were believed to be extremists linked to the nearby settler outpost of Migron which is facing imminent evacuation.
The attackers torched a Hyundai car, gutting its front end, and poured gasoline over two others, but did not manage to set them alight, the correspondent said.
Nearby, Hebrew graffiti read “Migron” and “Death to Arabs” and linked the attack to the upcoming evacuation of the outpost: “Hi from those who are being deported,” it said.
Israeli police confirmed that a car had been torched and anti-Arab graffiti sprayed nearby, while the army said troops had found graffiti reading: “Migron price tag” and other hateful slogans.
Visiting the site, Ramallah governor Leila Ghanam accused the Israeli authorities of complicity with the perpetrators.
“These people are protected by the army,” she said. “There are a lot of cameras around settlements which are guarded by the army — the settlers can’t do anything without protection from the army.”
“Price tag” is the euphemism for a hate crime by Jewish extremists which for the most part target Palestinians and Arabs in response for state moves against settler outposts.
The incident came a day after Israel’s High Court met to discuss plans to evacuate Migron, the largest and oldest outpost in the West Bank which is due to be razed by virtue of a supreme court order dating back to August 2011.
At the hearing, the state prosecutor’s office said the outpost should be evacuated in the next few days, but the judges are still mulling a response to two settler petitions to head off the move.
“Price tag” attacks tend to involve the wanton destruction of property and have included multiple arson attacks on cars, mosques and olive trees, although the perpetrators are rarely caught.
[The CIA is repeating its mistakes (from the point of view of all decent human beings) from the anti-Soviet phase of the grand terror war–training terrorists in advanced military skills and then turning them loose upon the rest of the world. This is the fine art of projecting “respectable” evil in its highest form. The American Imperialists get to play “Good Guys” on both ends of this process–We claimed to be providing “humanitarian assistance” to Afghanistan since the late seventies, when we created the first “mujahedeen” (highly skilled military specialists) who later became known as “al-Qaeda”; we have repeated the process today in Libya, and now, the Libyan “mujahedeen” spread their disease to Syria. Through this finely honed art of state-sponsored terrorism, we have successfully undermined nearly all of the Middle Eastern allies of the Palestinians. The war against Syria and Hezbollah is intended to unleash the full force of American airpower, in order to carry-out the mission that Israel alone could not accomplish in 2006. (Despite all the years of Israeli bluster, the IDF has not defeated any adversary by the mere power of its threats. It has been symbolically parading its military prowess down the streets of Teheran since the American terror war began, but they have not fazed the Revolutionary Guard, even with Stuxnet and all the back-biting assassinations over the years. Israel’s only formidable power is its nuclear arsenal.
The time for words is over. Obama’s revolutionaries and his partners in crime (particularly Turkey) have taken the “irregular warfare” to Syria. The thing about irregular war is that it can easily turn into regular warfare at any given moment. When it becomes apparent that Western asymmetric forces cannot defeat Syria and Hezbollah, then waves of regular bombers can be called in, just like in Libya. From the Imperial view, it becomes apparent that the “mistake” of creating the Islamist mujahedeen armies has not been a mistake at all. It was always obvious where it would lead, if you created armies of highly-trained veteran “holy warriors” and released them upon the world. This is America’s greatest war crime–its premeditated state terrorism.]
Divided … a demonstration for Bashar al-Assad. Photo: AP
MISRATA, Libya: Syrian rebels have held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, it has been revealed.
At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested assistance from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms and, potentially, volunteers.
”There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” a Libyan source said, on condition of anonymity. ”There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”
It has also emerged that preliminary discussions about arms supplies took place when members of the Syrian National Council – the country’s main opposition movement – visited Libya earlier this month.
”The Libyans are offering money, training and weapons to the Syrian National Council,” said Wisam Taris, a human rights campaigner with links to the council.
The disclosure came as the Syrian military said rebels had raided an air force base outside the city of Homs and killed six pilots.
Rebel attacks have become daily occurrences since the onset of the insurrection. The conflict has claimed at least 3500 lives, mainly as part of a crackdown on protests by the government.
Syria’s regime has continued to defy pressure from the Arab League, ignoring Friday’s deadline to accept the deployment of 500 human rights observers, raising the possibility that economic sanctions might be agreed upon this weekend.
Last month, Libya’s interim government became the first in the world to recognise Syria’s opposition movement as the country’s ”legitimate authority”.
Activists said large shipments of weapons had not yet been sent, mainly because of logistical difficulties. But proposals for a ”buffer zone” inside Syria, monitored by the Arab League, or the likely emergence of an area inside the country controlled entirely by rebels could solve this problem.
”The [Libyan] council’s offer is serious,” Mr Taris said. Turkey, which has denounced Mr Assad’s regime, is already sheltering about 7000 Syrian opposition activists, including the leader of the Free Syrian Army, the nascent rebel movement, in a ”safe zone” along Turkey’s border with Syria.
Sources in the Libyan town of Misrata suggested that some weapons might already have been sent. Some smugglers were caught selling small arms to Syrian buyers in Misrata, said a man who trafficked guns to Libya’s rebels during the country’s civil war.
However, Libyan officials denied some of the claims. ”This is what you hear in the street,” said the leader of the Misrata military council, Ramadan Zarmoh. ”Officially there is none of this. I would never send any fighters to fight outside the country.”
Ministers from the Arab League are expected to meet in Cairo this weekend to consider sanctions against Syria.
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, pledged on Friday to keep up talks with Syrian opposition groups in an attempt to support a transition to a stable democracy.
Meanwhile, a United Nations human rights panel has called on Syria to respond to reports its security forces had tortured children in their crackdown on anti-government protesters.
The Committee against Torture said in Geneva that it had received ”numerous, consistent and substantiated reports” of widespread abuse occurring since the start of the uprising against Mr Assad’s government eight months ago.
”Of particular concern are reports referring to children who have suffered torture and mutilation while detained,” said the panel’s chairman, Claudio Grossman.
He also cited reports of ”extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; arbitrary detention by police forces and the military; and enforced and involuntary disappearances.”
The committee normally reviews each country’s record every four years, but took the unusual step on Friday of issuing a spontaneous demand to the Syrian government to explain its actions.
Telegraph, London; Associated Press
(RTTNews) – Western intelligence agencies have identified a second suspected nuclear site in Syria which, they believe, was set up to produce fuel for the country’s secret nuclear program, a German newspaper reported on Thursday.
Munich’s ‘Sueddeutsche Zeitung’ newspaper claimed in its report that photos taken from inside two buildings near Damascus, obtained by Western intelligence agencies, showed equipment characteristic for uranium conversion.
According to the report, experts have expressed doubts that facilities were used to make fuel for Syria’s suspected al-Kibar nuclear reactor, which was destroyed in an Israeli bombing in September 2007.
A later inspection by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had found traces of unnatural uranium at the site of the suspected reactor. Syria, however, maintains that the traces of uranium found were residue from missiles used to destroy the site by the Israelis.
The IAEA inspectors had collected samples from a suspected nuclear facility in June 2008 after the U.S. alleged that Syria had secretly built the nuclear reactor with North Korean help in the country’s remote eastern desert.
U.S. intelligence agencies claim the site resembled to Yongbyon reactor in North Korea and say that the facility could produce weapon-grade nuclear material if it was not destroyed in the Israeli air raid.
Syria rejected the U.S. allegations, saying that the building destroyed in the Israeli air strike was an unused military facility under construction. Damascus also insists that it is not pursuing a clandestine development program as alleged by Western countries.
The IAEA had said in an earlier report that the destroyed Syrian site had the characteristics of a nuclear reactor. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, however, did not rule out the possibility that the site was being used for non-nuclear purposes when it was destroyed in the bombing.
Although Syria had allowed IAEA inspectors to take samples from the site of the suspected nuclear reactor in 2008, it later blocked them from making follow-up visits to the site. The agency says that Syria is yet to answer some questions regarding the suspected nuclear facility.
Also, Damascus has since denied IAEA inspectors access to several buildings which it suspects to be associated with Syria’s secret nuclear program. Those buildings reportedly included the possible uranium conversion sites mentioned in the German newspaper report.
The IAEA refused to comment on the report but it had earlier made attempts to identify the source of fuel for the so-called al-Kibar nuclear reactor.
The latest developments come as the IAEA is preparing for a meeting of its governing board early next month to discuss several issues, including Syria’s continued refusal to allow its inspectors access to suspected nuclear facilities.
by RTT Staff Writer
For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com
[It is an impossibility that the IJT could come-up with an internationally acceptable definition of “terrorism,” to be used in the Hariri case, when the tribunal in that case was set in motion as a ploy to convert a false flag attack into an indictment of American and Israeli adversaries, Hezbollah. If there is any question which definition of the term “terrorism” to pursue, the Lebanese crafted definition or the most acceptable international legal interpretation, then the jurists themselves are set on a “terroristic” path, of sorts, which has used an implied threat of international force against the Lebanon Resistance, as a means to force political submission. The American instigated STL in Lebanon appears to work backward from the assumption of Hezbollah guilt, looking for evidence to support that assertion–none of this “innocent until proven guilty crap.” The Hariri assassination was definitely terrorism, since all political assassinations are clearly acts of terrorism– violence or murder of high profile individuals to intimidate political underlings, “making an example” of an enemy. All Mafia hits would fit the definition of “terrorism,” by their nature, intended to intimidate and force submission from adversaries.
Lenin had a better definition than the Lebanese Criminal Code–“The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize.”
There is no need to define specific acts of terror, other than simply “violence on individuals to force compliance or submission from others.” “Violence” need not be fatal or even bloody to fit the known acts of terror we have seen–poisoning, kidnapping, any suppression of individual rights against the person’s will is violence, violating the person. “Terrorism” is using such violence to overwhelm inalienable human rights.
The prosecution has proposed its own politically expedient definition that is total bullshit:
as an act by which “a substantial section of the public reasonably and significantly fears more than momentarily from the present onward, indiscriminate personal harm”. This definition says nothing about the terrorists’ extortion of political goals. The total silence about the state-sponsorship angle of all large acts of terrorism is deafening. The goal of the prosecutors is not to produce a solid definition, but a “working tool” for future trials. Experts contend that fixing a definition would enable the prosecution to link terrorist crimes to leaders–exactly what the Imperial side doesn’t want.
Until states are willing to define the crime of terrorism clearly and concisely, eliminating all wiggle room for the Imperial wigglers, state terrorism will continue masquerading as an international war of self-defense, while eliminating groups and individuals who actually are trying to defend themselves from the scourge of humanity–State-Sponsored Terrorism.]
For decades, international lawyers have wrangled over the question – What is terrorism? Is it an act designed to spread terror? Does it have a political motive? Does it involve an attack on a few people or alot of people? Since 1914, philosophers have pondered whether the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Sarajevo can be classified as an ‘act of terror’. More recently, the September 11 attacks in the US, have brought the issue of international terrorism to the forefront of debate, and with it the question of its very definition.
By Geraldine Coughlan, Leidschendam
Today, while there are a variety of definitions of terrorism in a dozen international conventions, the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon near The Hague, has taken the first step towards arriving at a single definition of the crime of terrorism.
The Court is due to rule on 16th February, on which definitions of terrorism and other crimes that it will apply. It is expected that this ruling will set a precedent for other international courts, which also want to see a universal definition of terrorism as much as they want to see their prime terrorist suspects, in the dock.
The Lebanon tribunal is the first international court with jurisdiction over the crime of terrorism, but it is grappling with how to apply Lebanese and international law, before including a terrorism charge in potential arrest warrants. As the tribunal applies Lebanese law, but has an international character, the question is – should a definition of terrorism be based on Lebanese law or international law?
In its first hearing on 7th February, the court’s lawyers and judges began thrashing out the question of what constitutes an act of terrorism and other crimes such as conspiracy and homicide, as they prepare to prosecute suspects for the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005.
which already has a definition of the crime of terrorism, the prosecution and defence have now agreed on applying that definition, which is that ‘acts of terrorism’ are acts which are intended to cause a state of alarm and are committed by means such as explosive devices, liable to pose a public threat.
as an act by which “a substantial section of the public reasonably and significantly fears more than momentarily from the present onward, indiscriminate personal harm”.
The prosecution claims there’s no need to prove political intent as a motive for a terrorist act and argues that its own definition will act as a ‘working tool’ for use in future trials.
Most legal experts agree that it is important to define terrorism and other notions such as conspiracy and joint criminal enterprise, to make it easier to link crimes to leaders. This is one of the difficulties in cases before the ICTY and suspects could expect tougher sentences, if the definitions of these crimes were more clear and concise.
The defence, though, is against agreeing on firm definitions, claiming this would prematurely impose them on trial judges, limiting the rights of the accused.
Meantime, there is still no consensus on how the world community regards the crime of terrorism and its place in domestic and international law. The crux of the matter lies in the difference between Articles 2 and 3 of the Tribunal’s statute. Article 2 refers solely to Lebanese law, while Article 3 relies directly on international law, and so reflects the international character of the Tribunal. Does this mean there is a conflict between the definition of terrorism in the Lebanese Criminal Code and the notion of terrorism as reflected in international law? The judges are adamant that international law is relevant in determining the notion of terrorism and as Lebanon has ratified the Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, the judges believe the Lebanese definition of terrorism should be based on the norms of international law.
As the tribunal is moving into “uncharted territory in international law”, the judges are concerned about whether the public will easily be able to understand the complex legal issues involved in defining terrorism.
The presiding judge Antonio Cassese, warned that Lebanon, as a founding member of the UN, is now set on a “course of judicial accountability” in aiming to establish a common definition of terrorism, which is a common threat to us all. However, until states can agree on a single definition – it will be argued that the notion of terrorism does not actually exist.
Photo by: Associated Press
Chaos has a much better track record of producing more tyranny and fascism, than it does democracy.
‘Egyptians want what Americans have, they want freedom. [US President Barack] Obama needs to tell [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak, ‘You are not leaving in September, you are leaving now; we are not giving you seven months.’” Those were the words of Fox News contributor Tamara Holder.
The mantra that Egyptians want freedom and democracy has swept the world. Alongside this argument is a romantic attachment to the Egyptian protesters, a weird admiration for the “people” and the “mob.”
All the misinformed support ignores the reality: Just because people riot or protest for something doesn’t mean they are democracy-loving moderates.
The lesson being taught to the Egyptian people by statements like “Mubarak must go now” is that democracy is about rioting and protests. Roger Cohen of The New York Times argues that an “election in September is unimaginable.” Maybe an election in America in November is unimaginable, if enough people protest, say 2 percent as inEgypt; perhaps we too should just change elections based on their demands. Haaretzasks, “Is a democratic Egypt too much for Israelis to take?” But what we are seeing isn’t a “democratic” Egypt.
The Israeli and American Left is especially euphoric in its embrace of the Egyptian masses.
Anshel Pfeffer writes that “people are scaring us with talk of an Islamist takeover of our big neighbor.
But doesn’t Egypt deserve democracy too?” He elaborates: “We’re all suffering from Orientalism, not to say racism, if the sight of an entire people throwing off the yoke of tyranny and courageously demanding free elections fills us with fear rather than uplifting us, just because they’re Arabs.”
According to the doyens of the Left, Israel is a “Western outpost” that does not integrate into the Middle East and thus didn’t prepare for the uprising in Egypt.
IN THE US, all the op-eds by the likes of David Brooks and Maureen Dowd are toasting the crowds in Egypt. Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institute explained that we must not fear an Islamist takeover. “We overlearned that lesson and we need to get beyond that panicky response. There’s no way for us to go through the long evolution of history without allowing Islamists to participate in democratic society.”
Kagan also argues that the US shouldn’t support a slow transition from Mubarak, like elections in September, but rather the immediate removal of the tyrant.
The message is clear from all over the Western world: Egypt’s protesters are true democrats. They are romantic; they are Americans without knowing it and to support them we need to have the government of Egypt vanish overnight and have some sort of chaotic transition. There is no greater sign of democracy than chaos. The Islamists all want democracy; we shouldn’t fear them, but embrace them because they represent the genuine feelings of the people. We are racists because we see large numbers of people marching, shouting and burning, and we fear their rage.
Democracy isn’t about burning down the headquarters of the other party. It isn’t about paralyzing the state so that no business can be conducted and nothing can happen. Oddly, democracy isn’t about mass protests and riots. Democracy is primarily about voting and peaceful transitions of power. The other freedoms that follow from that, like the press, assembly, religion, equality and free speech, are products, hopefully, of democracy.
Democracy has, since its inception in ancient Greece, always been plagued by its evil twins, fascism and tyranny. It is strange to hear, but democracy’s opposite is not tyranny; it is monarchy.
Tyranny is the antecedent or result of democracy.
“Tyranny” comes from the Greek word tyrannos, defined by Plato as “one who rules without law, looks to his own advantage rather than that of his subjects and uses extreme and cruel tactics – against his own people as well as others.”
Tyranny came about through the rise of popular cults associated with war heroes and wealthy men who seized power through coups. Syracuse, an ancient city state, was a democracy from 467 BCE but in 407 a man named Dionysius I seized power and became a military dictator. The philosopher Plato, a product of Athenian democracy and a democrat himself, became a friend and supporter of this tyrant.
Rome, a republic for many years before it became an empire, suffered from tyranny as well. Sulla, a military leader, was made “dictator” by the Roman Senate for the purpose of “making of laws and for the settling of the constitution.” Like the tyrant of Syracuse, Sulla murdered those he suspected to be enemies of the state.
TO UNDERSTAND tyranny’s relationship with popular democracy, we must fast forward to the period 1917 to 1950. In that period almost all of the liberal democracies in Europe were brushed aside by popular fascist or communist movements. It began with Russia where a brief period of democratic government in 1917 was followed by the communist seizure of power.
The fascists and their enemies used mass protests and chaos, including rioting, to secure power against weak democratically elected patricians who proved incapable of dealing with the street. Yet those who look to Egypt and admire the protesters don’t see that these types of mass protests, while they demand democracy, also walk hand in hand with dictatorship.
It isn’t about the Egyptians being Arabs. It isn’t about Israel “integrating” into its region. It’s about the fact that no one notices that what is going on in Egypt is not a sign of democracy, it is just a sign of chaos and mass protest. Mass protest may cause a government to implement democratic reforms.
But as we have seen in Tunisia, when the government simply collapses and runs away, that doesn’t represent a “democratic transition.”
Chaos, as there is in Egypt, has a much better track record of producing more tyranny and fascism, than it does at producing democracy.
Those who journeyed to Iran in 1979, like the popular French philosopher Michel Foucault, believed they were witnessing “democracy.”
But they were witnessing the rise of Islamic fascism.
No one remembers that. No one who teaches Plato and Foucault recalls that despite all their ideals, they flirted with tyranny; it was sexy, it was strong, it was popular and muscular and in the streets. Our philosophers were wrong. And we are wrong today when the very existence of a mob, rather than orderly lines at the ballot box, makes us feel that “democracy is happening.”
The writer has a PhD from Hebrew University and is a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
Millions expect Israel to play a major role in God’s future plan for earth. Could they all be wrong? Is there a conspiracy to deceive God’s people? What is the Biblical evidence concerning modern day Israel?
Many people today consider the restoration of the Jewish nation in Palestine to be a direct and dramatic fulfillment of Bible prophecy.
Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, a phenomenal best seller of the last few decades, and Jerry Jenkins and Tim Lahaye’s Lift Behind, along with Bishop T.D. Jakes declares that the end of the world will come within the lifetime of the generation that saw the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, hereby applying the words of Jesus: “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” (Matthew 24:34)
Coupled with this fascination with Israel is a novel teaching regarding the return of Jesus, called the “secret rapture.” These books and many other speaks for many today who expect God secretly to take the “church” to heaven prior to the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple on its old site where the sacred Muslim shrine, the Dome of the Rock, now stands. According to this position, after the “church” is “raptured” to heaven, there will be seven years of the worst period of famine, bloodshed, and pestilence ever experienced by man. During this great tribulation the focus will be on God’s dealings with the Jews, who are again given the responsibility for the evangelization of the world.
According to secret-rapture preachers, the battle of Armageddon will climax the end of the seven-year tribulation as the nations of the earth take sides over the future of Israel. When mankind teeters on the brink of incinerating the world, Jesus will return gloriously and save man from self-extinction. At that time Jesus will set up a literal one-thousand-year reign on earth with Jerusalem functioning as the spiritual capital of the world.
Most evangelical periodicals and pulpits teach this view today, and to those who do not know better, it might appear that this prophetic scenario, known as pretribulationism, has been the traditional teaching of the Christian church since New Testament days. Nothing is further from the truth. Be not deceived.. Did the architects of the creation of modern day Israel have any thing to do with the development of the rapture theory? Where did the Rapture theology originate? Is the crisis in the Middle East and the war in the Iraq have anything to do with the erroneous rapture theory?
Is there a master conspiracy at work?
According to dispensationalists John Hagee, Jack van Impe, Ken Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, John Walvoord, Grant Jefferies, Tim Lahaye, Benny Hinn, Clarence Larkin, H. Caldwell, TD Jakes and others who teach and preach about the Rapture, Israel has two dispensations, or time periods, in which they functions as God’s special instrument of salvation. Between these two periods of time comes the dispensation of the “church”. The church received a heavenly reward at the time of the rapture, while Israel received an earthly reward at the end of the tribulation.
There is no support in the New Testament for such an erroneous view.
The chief reason why the modern state of Israel has no prophetic significance is that after the Jews as a body rejected Jesus as the Messiah, God gave to the Christian church the special privileges, responsibilities, and prerogatives once assigned to the ancient Jews. No longer were the Jews to be His special people with a prophetic destiny.
Rom.2:28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; vs.29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
All the promises of a glorious kingdom on earth once given through the Jewish prophets to the Jewish people became void because the Jewish people as a nation did not fulfill the conditions of these prophecies. Failing to receive the glory that could have been Israel’s is probably the saddest story in literature. Placed at the crossroads of the ancient world, God furnished them with every facility for becoming the greatest nation on the earth. God wanted to reward Israel with every physical and spiritual blessing as they put into practice the clear-cut principles that He had graciously taught them through His prophets (Deuteronomy 7, 8, 28).
The Old Testament records the sad story of how the vineyard of Israel produced, not the mature fruit of a Christ-like character, but “wild grapes,” a misinterpretation and perversion of what the God of Israel was really like. “What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (Isaiah 5:4 RSV).
Even when the Jewish nation was suffering the bitter consequences of disobedience during the Babylonian captivity, God mercifully promised that a restored Israel was possible and that there was yet time to recover its special role as His representative on earth – if it would honor His law and submit to His principles. Even then the Jews could have become, if faithful, the head and not the tail, in matters physical and spiritual; all nations would have looked upon Jerusalem as not only the center of wisdom but also the spiritual capital of the world (see Isaiah 45:14; 60:1 – 11).
When the Jews returned to Palestine after the Babylonian captivity, the promises given to Abraham and expanded through the writings of Moses and other prophets would have been fulfilled; the whole earth would have been alerted for the first advent of Christ, even as the way is being prepared for His second coming today.
Missed Their Last Opportunity.
These Old Testament prophecies that picture Israel dwelling in peace and prosperity, with all nations beating a path to her doors, could have been fulfilled 2000 years ago if they had indeed prepared the world for the first coming of Jesus (see Zechariah 8:14). But instead of fulfilling their greatest assignment they missed their last opportunity, and Jesus their Lord finally had to pronounce with irrevocable judgement: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not Behold your house is forsaken and desolate” (Matthew 23:37, 38 RSV).
Those who regard the establishment of the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies overlook the fact that these promises were made either prior to their release from Babylonian captivity or during the rebuilding days soon after their return. God would have fulfilled these promises if Israel had been faithful and obedient to the conditions on which the promises were made.
Although God promised a “second chance” to Israel after their failure leading up to the Babylonian captivity, He promised no “third chance” to them after their final rejection when their Lord Himself “came to his own home, and his own people received him not” (John 1:11 RSV)
But God did not give up, even though Israel as a nation had failed Him. Although corporate Israel no longer was to function as God’s special agent, the individual Jews who received and obeyed Jesus Christ would constitute the new organization through which He would now work.
Paul describes this remarkable transition in Romans 9 to 11, where he appeals to individual Jews (such as himself) to respond to God through Jesus, join those Gentiles who have found in Him the solution to their anxious, sinful condition, and together arouse the world to the simple fact that God wants to make an end to sin and its misery by setting up His eternal kingdom composed of those who have found in Jesus the promised Saviour.
Those who preach and teach this erroneous Rapture doctrine are purposely misleading multitudes. This doctrine was created by the Jesuits as an anti-reformation and anti-protestant tool to divert attention away from the Catholic and the Pope whom the reformers had identify as the anti-Christ in Revelation. Those who teach and preach the rapture theory are proxies and agents for the Kabbalists and those who want to establish a New World Order (NWO). The Rapture theory has more to do with politics than theology, more to do with mans involvement in world affairs than Gods involvement, more about Zionism than the people of Zion.
THE KHAZAR EMPIRE AND ITS HERITAGE
Arthur Koestler
 …but that does not alter the fact that the large majority of surviving Jews in the world is of Eastern European — and thus perhaps mainly of Khazar — origin. If so, this would mean that their ancestors came not from the Jordan but from the Volga, not from Canaan but from the Caucasus, once believed to be the cradle of the Aryan race; and that genetically they are more closely related to the Hun, Uigur “ |
This book traces the history of the ancient Khazar Empire, a major but almost forgotten power in Eastern Europe, which in the Dark Ages became converted to Judaism. Khazaria was finally wiped out by the forces of Genghis Khan, but evidence indicates that the Khazars themselves migrated to Poland and formed the cradle of Western Jewry…
The Khazars’ sway extended from the Black Sea to the Caspian, from the Caucasus to the Volga, and they were instrumental in stopping the Muslim onslaught against Byzantium, the eastern jaw of the gigantic pincer movement that in the West swept across northern Africa and into Spain.
In the second part of this book, “The Heritage,” Mr. Koestler speculates about the ultimate faith of the Khazars and their impact on the racial composition and social heritage of modern Jewry. He produces a large body of meticulously detailed research in support of a theory that sounds all the more convincing for the restraint with which it is advanced. Yet should this theory be confirmed, the term “anti-Semitism” would become void of meaning, since, as Mr. Koestler writes, it is based “on a misapprehension shared by both the killers and their victims. The story of the Khazar Empire, as it slowly emerges from the past, begins to look like the most cruel hoax which history has ever perpetrated.”
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/30075547.html#
PETER SANTINA, Staff Writer, Harvard International Review
After three decades of civil war, Colombia is finally approaching peace. On August 7, 1998, Andres Pastrana assumed the presidency, replacing the discredited Ernesto Samper. The country’s two largest guerrilla armies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), had refused to meet with Samper because he received US$6 million in campaign contributions from the Cali drug cartel. The Pastrana administration has moved quickly toward negotiations with the guerrillas, agreeing to the FARC’s demand to demilitarize an area the size of Switzerland in southern Colombia for 90 days while the two sides negotiate. Pastrana was elected by the most votes in his nation’s history and has established a much more cordial relationship with the United States than his predecessor, making the first Colombian presidential visit to the United States in 23 years. President Bill Clinton and Pastrana signed a joint agreement to fight the drug trade, and Clinton promised US$280 million more in US aid to Colombia.
Since his election, however, Pastrana’s popularity in the polls has fallen nearly to the level of Samper’s, due to an enormous amount of social unrest. Mounting opposition to the government’s plans to cut public spending with privatization reforms manifested itself in a three-week national strike of 800,000 Colombian state employees. The strike, which ended on October 27, resulted in the death of seven union leaders. This tragedy highlights the key to Colombia’s human rights catastrophe: political murders. Unions are targeted by right-wing paramilitaries for their opposition to the power of business, especially multinational corporations. According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, in 1997 alone 156 trade unionists were killed in Colombia. Although unions are one target of political violence, peasants living in the countryside have suffered even more. Brutal paramilitary forces target those suspected of collaboration with the guerrillas and have committed numerous human rights abuses. This relationship between the official military and the death squads has been investigated by the US State Department, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, international think tanks, and human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Government Abuses
According to the US State Department, “the [Colombian] Government took no significant action to restrain these powerful paramilitary groups” in 1997. A major factor in the abuse is indeed the complicity of the Colombian government, particularly the armed forces, in the rightist agenda of the paramilitaries in the face of a growing leftist guerrilla movement. The Colombian government, threatened by the socialist rebels, has been unwilling to prosecute either paramilitaries or army soldiers for their human rights abuses because they are more concerned with losing power to the socialist rebels than protecting the basic human rights of Colombian citizens.
General Bedoya, the commander of the armed forces, has said that military courts effectively punish violators, citing a high overall conviction rate for military violations. When asked by Human Rights Watch, however, he could not cite a single conviction for a human rights violation; most military tribunal convictions are for technical offenses such as failure to follow orders. A detailed report on Colombian human rights abuses released by Human Rights Watch in 1998 states that in cases of humanitarian law violations, “allegations against officers are rarely investigated.” The US State Department noted in its 1997 report that, “at year’s end, the military exercised jurisdiction over many cases of military personnel accused of abuses, a system that has established an almost unbroken record of impunity.” The Colombian National Police, although it has improved its record since 1994, continues to show a reluctance to prosecute paramilitaries. According to the Attorney General, the National Police have not addressed over 200 warrants for the arrest of paramilitaries.
Problems with the military and human rights, however, extend beyond a lack of prosecution for abuses. The State Department’s Colombia Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1997 blamed government forces for “numerous serious abuses,” including extra-judicial killings, forced disappearances, and the torturing and beating of some detainees. On July 29, 1998, President Samper publicly apologized to the families of 49 people murdered by government agents between 1991 and 1993. In each of the state massacres mentioned by Samper, defendants accused of responsibility were absolved by military tribunals until the human rights branch of the Organization of American States found the Colombian government liable for the deaths. Samper conducted a similar ceremony in 1995, in which he accepted government blame for military sweeps through the town of Trujillo in 1989 and 1990 that left 107 peasant leaders and activists dead.
Paramilitary Terrorism
These crimes pale in comparison, however, to those of the brutal paramilitary forces. In the first nine months of 1997, 69 percent of the 3,500 political murders in Colombia could be attributed to right-wing paramilitary groups, according to the US State Department. Death squads continue to roam the Colombian countryside, terrorizing peasants who they suspect of sympathizing with the guerrillas. On October 25, seven trucks of about 100 paramilitary troops entered the northeastern city of San Carlos. They killed ten civilians and abducted 15 others who were on their blacklist of alleged guerrilla collaborators, and left graffiti condemning Pastrana’s overtures of peace toward the guerrillas. Later that same day, other paramilitaries invaded the town of Altos del Rosario and murdered 11 residents.
Unfortunately, this is not simply a recent phenomenon–the Colombian government and armed forces have a long history of cooperation with the death squads. In 1968, the Colombian government legalized the organization and promotion of groups of armed civilians, known as “peasant self-defense groups,” in the context of the growing guerrilla movement. These small private armies were equipped, trained, and logistically supported by the armed forces. The political and economic elites who felt threatened by the guerrillas were particularly supportive of these “self-defense” groups, as they are of the paramilitary forces in Colombia today. These groups were eventually banned in 1989, because of their inneither established procedures to break up the paramilitary groups that they had created, nor did it cut them off from future aid from the armed forces.
Perhaps the most prominent Colombian paramilitary figure is Carlos Castano, who traces his first involvement in paramilitary activity to the training he received in the Bombona Battalion of the armed forces in the early 1980s, when the military, business owners, and ranchers formed the activist group Death to Kidnappers (MAS). By 1983, Colombian internal affairs had registered over 240 political killings by the MAS death squad, whose victims included elected officials, farmers, and community leaders. In his report, Internal Affairs Chief Carlos Jimenez Gomez identified 59 active-duty members of the police and military who belonged to MAS, including the commander of the army’s Bombon Battalion.
The government again contributed to the formation of paramilitary groups in 1994, when it established “special private security and vigilante services” whose members were allowed to arm themselves in self-defense. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, known paramilitaries participate in these “Convivir” associations. The Office of the Superintendent of Private Vigilante and Security Groups admitted in November 1997 that it was incapable of fulfilling its responsibility to oversee these legal, state-supported paramilitary organizations. Members continue to be investigated on charges of homicide, torture, and other grave human rights abuses by the government.
The massacre of May 16, 1998, in Barrancabermeja is a clear example of the friendly relationship between the military and the paramilitaries. Camilo Aurelio Morantes, the head of the paramilitary Autodefensas de Santander y Sur del Cesar (AUSAC), has admitted to ordering the attack on Barrancabermeja, which left 32 civilians dead. Morantes is known by the army and the government to be a paramilitary leader, yet he has not been prosecuted for his leading role in the massacre. Furthermore, witnesses have alleged that soldiers waved the paramilitaries through the army check-point while entering and leaving Barrancabermeja. The government investigated the role of ten of the soldiers involved, and the only one detained was an Army corporal who was charged for personally participating in the massacre. A humanitarian worker in Antioquia told Human Rights Watch, “I can’t count the number of times I’ve been stopped at a joint army-paramilitary roadblock. The soldiers are there with their green uniforms and the paramilitaries with their blue uniforms. It’s like different units of the same army.”
US Military Aid
The United States provides a great amount of support for the Colombian armed forces despite its abusive track record. First, the United States continues to train Colombian military officers at both the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning and the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg. Representative Joseph Kennedy and the Washington Office on Latin America jointly released a report in July 1998 documenting the specific abuses of Colombian graduates of the School of the Americas.
Before the report was released, a video was shown of Colombian soldiers beating unarmed farmers participating in a peaceful protest and then attacking cameraman Richard Velez, who suffered serious internal injuries. The soldiers were operating under the command of SOA graduate Nestor Ramirez. Another SOA graduate, General Hernan Jose Guzman Rodriguez, was dismissed in November 1994 to improve the armed forces’ public image. Guzman protected and supported the death squad MAS between 1987 and 1990, during which time it was responsible for at least 147 murders. In 1986, Guzman commanded soldiers who detained, tortured, gang raped, and executed a Colombian woman and then invented a story that she had committed suicide by shooting herself in the nape of her neck. Guzman’s portrait has hung in the SOA “Hall of Fame” in Ft. Benning since 1993. A final example is Captain Gilberto Ibarra, SOA class of 1983, who forced three peasant children to walk in front of his patrol and detonate mines, killing two of them and seriously wounding the other.
NorteAmericanos_for_Bolivar
Mon, 23 Dec 2002 14:44:30 -0800
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A connection between the Israeli Military man Yair Klien and the Colombian Death Squads.
A deadly union of Zionist torturers and Colombian oligarchs.
NorteAmericanos for Bolivar
—– Original Message —– Subject: Colombia’s Paramilitaries and Israel
New World Phalange, Colombia’s Paramilitaries and Israel
by Jeremy Bigwood
December 04, 2002 “I copied the concept of paramilitary forces from the Israelis.” Carlos Castaño, Mi Confesión 2002[1] In 1983, an intense 18-year-old Colombian arrived in Israel to take a yearlong course called “562.”[2] He was no normal foreign exchange student. His name was Carlos Castaño and the course was about making war, something that he would exceed at: he was destined to become the most adept and ruthless paramilitary leader in Latin America’s history. Carlos Castaño had been impelled along this vengeful path after his cattle-ranching father had been killed during a botched rescue attempt by the army while being held for a “tax” ransom by the FARC – Colombia’s strongest left-wing guerrilla army.[3] Bitter over their father’s death, Carlos and his older brother, Fidel, vowed revenge, a vengeance that would dovetail with both the interests of the Colombian right-wing landholding classes and US foreign policy. It is a vengeance that continues into the present.. The brothers first offered their services as scouts for the Colombian Army’s Bombona Battalion – fingering FARC sympathizers, providing intelligence and even participating in military operations. But Fidel – some 14 years older than Carlos – concluded that by merely working for the army, they were going to get nowhere.[4] One of the battalion’s majors introduced them to a local paramilitary death squad called “Caruso,” with whom they started a killing spree. When local police started to investigate them, they found it necessary to operate even more clandestinely. Unlike in many other third-world countries under the U.S.’s shadow, Colombia’s police and judiciary have sometimes played an independent role from the Army. Later, according to press reports,[5] Fidel started his own paramilitary death squad called “Los Tangueros,” named after his ranch, “Las Tangas.”[6] The Los Tangueros was responsible for more than 150 murders during the late 1980s and early 1990s. When discussing this period in his book, Castaño openly talks about murders he has committed or ordered, making his habit of executing what he calls “‘guerrillas’ in towns” sound routine.[7] In one massacre alone, the Los Tangueros captured dozens of campesinos from a neighboring town. Back at the ranch, “they tortured them all night with crude instruments before shooting some and burying others alive.”[8] Los Tangueros along with other death squads dispersed throughout the country would evolve into the present 9,000-strong paramilitary force in Colombia, [9] now killing up to twenty civilians per day.[10] During the early 1980s when Castaño’s father was captured by the FARC, rural Colombia was rife with small diverse paramilitary units working for the army and the landholding upper classes.[11] Many of these groups were merely the enforcers and protectors of the local wealthy, while others worked protecting the “new rich” of the cocaine trade from the “taxation” of the left-wing insurgencies. Some of these groups bore the names of petty criminal gangs or the names of their leaders. They liked to call themselves “self-defense” or “auto defense” groups, but here we will use the term ‘paramilitaries” to avoid confusion. In the 1980s, these paramilitary groups were disparate and not well trained, and sometimes got involved in turf battles between themselves. If they were to take the offensive against the steady advances of the leftist guerrillas, the paramilitaries would need both political/military training and unification. And while these paramilitaries essentially worked for the same counterinsurgent goals as those of US foreign policy, the US could not directly support them. But another country could. Exactly how Carlos Castaño got to Israel is still a mystery, as is precisely which entity trained him there. But whoever set it up, the Israeli course “562” definitely had a strong effect on Castaño. “Something clicked in me, and I began to behave differently[12]…My perception of this war changed radically after my trip to Israel,”[13] he said in his “as told to” Colombian run-away bestseller of interviews edited by Spanish journalist Mauricio Aranguren Molina. Carlos Castaño was clearly a good and highly motivated student. Of his studies in Israel, which is the subject of chapter 6 of in his book, he reminisces: “Unlike what one might think, we studied in the classroom more enthusiastically than in the military training. The classes emphasized the regular and irregular ways in which the world operates… It was there that I rounded out my education… [The teachers] insisted on us carrying ourselves well, in both the way we dressed and in the way we spoke in public. I also received a class on how to enter and register in a hotel and we analyzed how to behave around immigration police in airports. We read in libraries and spent long sessions on both the self-esteem and the security that an individual should have. This was an invaluable process which taught me to respect and have confidence in myself, to triumph during tough intimidating moments.”[14] Most importantly for the eager student, he “received lectures on how the world arms business operates, and how to buy arms.”[15] And of course, there was also a military component: “I received instruction in urban strategies, how to protect oneself, how to kill someone, or what to do when someone is trying to kill you, depending on the situation. We learned how to stop an armored car and use fragmentation grenades to break through and enter into a target. We practiced with multiple grenade launchers, and learned how to make accurate shots with RPG-7s, or shoot a cannon shell through a window.”[16] “We also took complementary courses on terrorism and counter terrorism, night vision equipment, and parachuting. We also learned how to make homemade bombs. In short, we learned what the Israelis know, but, in all sincerity, very little of all of this has been applied to the war in Colombia. I got a very good basic education, and there I learned how to do the most important thing – I learned how to control fear…”[17] Castaño also describes training that could not have taken place without the express permission of the highest authorities of the Israeli Defense Forces, such as when he performed “airborne maneuvers and [we] parachuted at night over islands of the Mediterranean. I had to carry weights as ballast to adjust my free-fall speed.” [18] Not all was study for Castaño in Israel, and he used his free time to meet with Colombian soldiers undergoing regular military training there, in which the worst human rights violators in the western hemisphere were being trained by the worst human rights violators in the Middle East. But these were precisely the connections that would prove so useful in the future. “In the Sinai desert, I also had the opportunity of meeting military men from our country, the men of the Colombia battalion. I did not meet the battalion as a whole, but on my R & R days, we went to the same places, and I spent time in the company of sergeants and officers.” [19] Castaño summarizes his epiphany in Israel: “Upon returning to Colombia, I had become another person… I learned an infinite amount of things in Israel and to that country I owe part of my essence, my human and military achievements, although I repeat, in Israel I didn’t only learn about things related to military training. There I became convinced that it was possible to destroy the guerrillas in Colombia. I started to understand how a people could defend itself against the whole world. I understood how to bring into the “cause” a person who had something to lose in the war, with the aim of converting him into the enemy of my enemies.”[20] By 1985, shortly after Castaño returned to Colombia, some of the paramilitary groups that were springing up had become completely dependant on the monies from drug trafficking. Indeed, some paramilitary units had merely evolved as such from drug protection rackets. In fairness it is true that some of the paramilitary groups were not related to illicit drug protection: some were formerly the guards of rich landowners, cattle ranchers and the like. A secret 1989[21] Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence document [22] includes a section on the “Contamination of the Paramilitaries by Drug Trafficking,” even places a time and a place on this event, although there is other evidence (below) that this took place earlier. “The economic crisis facing the paramilitary forces in 1985 was resolved by an alliance with drug trafficking… This alliance came about in mid-1985 when the Paramilitary intercepted a camper full of cocaine… After conversations with the drug traffickers through the initiative of HENRY PEREZ, the Paramilitary forces returned the camper and the drugs to their owners, receiving in exchange for it a four-door Toyota pickup…”[23] It should be noted that Henry Perez was part of the Caruso paramilitary gang, at the time also known as the Autodefensas del Magdalena Medio (Paramilitary Militia of Magdalena Medio)- as were the Castaños. In fact, Castaño calls Henry Pérez one of the “fathers” of the paramilitaries, along with his brother Fidel, and the previously mentioned Bombona battalion Major Alejandro Álvarez Henao, who had introduced the brothers to their first death squad.[24] From this point onwards, these paramilitaries expanded, protecting operations of the Medellín cartel and others, including that cartel’s competition in Cali. The DEA was also watching: Its agents had noticed a paramilitary/drug trafficking connection at least as early as 1993: “Intelligence indicates that some of Colombia’s private paramilitary groups have been co-opted by cocaine trafficking organizations. Throughout the 1980s, the Autodefensas del Magdalena Medio (Self-Defense Militia of Magdalena Medio), one of the most important of these groups, had close ties with the Medellín Cartel’s organization.”[25] A year later, in another report, the DEA looked at the relationship between the left-wing insurgencies and the drug trade, accurately stating: “Despite Colombian security forces’ frequently claim that FARC units are involved directly in drug trafficking operations, the independent involvement of insurgents in Colombia’s domestic drug production, transportation, and distribution is limited…No credible evidence indicates that the national leadership of either the FARC or the ELN has directed, as a matter of policy, that their respective organizations directly engage in independent drug production or distribution. Furthermore, neither the FARC nor the ELN are known to have been involved in the transportation, distribution, or marketing of illicit drugs in the United States or Europe.”[26] In other words, the left-wing insurgencies taxed the production of coca or its products’ transportation through insurgent-controlled areas, but were not involved in its processing to cocaine, shipping or marketing – as opposed to the paramilitaries who ran and still run processing factories and were and still are actively involved in shipping it out of the country.[27] Paramilitary leaders also set up clandestine training schools in Colombia, or “schools for assassins” as they were called by the previously mentioned secret 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence report.[28] The first such school that was discovered was called “El Tecal,”[29] and it trained the first of the paramilitary forces, and as these extended themselves deeper into the countryside and received greater funding form the drug trade, they formed other schools in other areas. For instance, “Cero Uno [Zero One] located at kilometer 9 of the Puerto Boyocá-Zambito road,” and “El Cincuenta”[30] [# 50] located on the road between Delirio and Arizá (Santander).”[31] There were also “satellite schools” with names reminiscent of bars such as “Galaxias.”[32] According to the DAS report, “Personnel graduated from these schools to incorporate into the ‘paramilitary-narcotrafficking’ structure with an aim to undertaking four specific jobs: To qualify as a candidate for training in these “schools for assassins” one had to be interviewed by narco Henry Perez and his cohorts, all friends of the Castaño brothers. Students were selected by “the express recommendation of a rancher, farmer or narcotraficker from the region.” with questions like “What is your ideology? Are you capable of killing your father, mother or brother if it can be confirmed that they are guerrillas?” The candidates were told that the war may go on forever and that the only enemy was communism. And “upon the evaluation and verification of all of the information supplied by the candidate, the candidate is given a medical exam and placed in a basic training course. During the first stage of training, recruits are selected to work in the financial apparatus (drug production) or security (bodyguards, patrolmen). The training course includes: a.) Camouflage techniques, b.) Handling small arms and parading, c.) Explosives, d.) Personal defense, e.) Identity preservation, f.) Body guarding, g.) Intelligence, h.) Counterintelligence, i.) Communications, j.) First Aid.”[35] But apparently this training by fellow Colombians was not enough, and in 1987 the Israelis were called in to help. In the mainstream media the 16 Israeli and British trainers were presented as “mercenaries,” perhaps because of the bias of the Colombian DAS agents who wrote a report on them. These foreign military trainers were far too well connected to be ordinary “mercenaries”-they clearly acted with some government approval, most definitely that of Israel, and probably of some US entity also – as we shall see below. Castaño, who attended these courses, said that members of the Colombian Army had actually arranged the courses, which featured the training by a famous Israeli officer, Yair Klein.[36] Again, it was Castaño ally Henry Perez who picked the candidates – along with drug kingpin Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha. According to his book, Carlos Castaño took part in the courses, and their organization occupied five[37] of the 50 scholarships.[38] a. A group of five Israelis taught the course called “PABLO EMILIO GUARIN VERA” in the “El Cincuenta” school of Puerto Boyocá. There were also 30 scholarships awarded so that students could train further in Israel, just as Castaño had done: “According to what these instructors said, they were going to send the best 30 students for further schooling in a special course that would be taught in Israel.”[40] Thirty paramilitaries being sent to Israel would have clearly required the permission of the Israeli Defense Forces – the Israeli government. It is hard to imagine anything else for a country continually at war. And there was a Nicaraguan Contra connection: “TEDDY, the Israeli interpreter told our source that they should shorten and speed up the course because they had promised to train the Nicaraguan Contras in Honduras and Costa Rica.”[41] Anyone who thinks that these were simple “for hire” mercenaries would do well to analyze this quote. At the time, only with express US government approval – particularly that of the State Department and CIA – could one get into the contra camps located in Honduras or Costa Rica, let alone a group of men bearing arms. These Israelis were clearly trusted at the highest levels of both the Israeli and US governments. During this time, and even up until the present, the Colombian state has not shown itself to be a monolith. Even today, in spite of all of the US influence, one still finds government ministries that refuse to go along with the official line crafted by the US State Department and filtered through the presidency or some other ministry.[42] This explains why part of the Colombian state -justice and police – were so clearly disturbed by the paramilitaries’ advances that in 1990 police units raided a Castaño property and exhumed 24 decomposed corpses, some showing signs of torture.[43] And there were other troubles too: competition was growing between the Medellín and Cali drug cartels. According to a DEA Intelligence Report from 1993, “By 1990, for reasons that are still unclear, the Autodefensas del Magdalena Medio and the Medellín Cartel emerged as bitter foes.”[44] Former ally, Medellín cartel drug-kingpin Pablo Escobar was now being hunted by the Colombian state, aided by US intelligence agencies and the DEA.[45] The Castaño brothers helped the Colombians and the U.S. in the hunt for Escobar, which resulted in Escobar’s death. Carlos had lines of communication open to the actual police squad that killed Escobar, as he knew “the brother of the famous police colonel, Hugo Martínez Poveda, commander of the Search Team that killed Pablo Escobar” from time both of them had spent in Israel.[46] After Escobar was out of the picture, the Castaño brothers consolidated and unified the paramilitaries under the name “Auto-Defensas Unidas de Colombia” (Unified Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), known by its Spanish acronym AUC: “From these death squads grew the Peasant Paramilitary Force of Cordoba and Urabá (ACCU), the oldest and largest of the AUC’s confederation of privately funded armies across the country. This was a result of Carlos Castaño’s new leadership: He transformed a regional protection force into a national political movement..”[47] The effect was dramatic. The paramilitaries grew in size from a few thousand to nine thousand or more, and as Time magazine reported in 2000: “Fear of AUC vengeance is one reason at least 1 million peasants fled their homes during the past decade.”[48] Like the Nicaraguan contras, the Salvadoran and Guatemalan death squads, the paramilitaries were known for using excessive violence to terrorize the population, and on at least one occasion paramilitary units used chainsaws to torture and kill their victims.[49] But there were also losses for the paramilitaries. In 1994, Carlos’s elder brother Fidel or “Rambo” as he was known – then the paramilitaries’ leader – was – according to Carlos — killed in a chance combat with FARC guerrillas in northern Colombia.[50] However there exists some doubt as to whether he is really dead. The State Department apparently believes that he may still be alive and a recent article rumours him to be living in Israel.[51] Whatever the truth may be, Carlos took over the top paramilitary position at that point, and the movement grew even more, even acquiring a rudimentary air force, something that CIA black propaganda was always trying to pin on the guerrillas,[52] so it could induce the mainstream press to argue for more military aid to bolster the Colombian government. In reality, the insurgents didn’t have an air force, but the paramilitaries did and still do. By the late 1990’s, the paramilitaries had acquired several helicopters, along with maintenance mechanics and pilot training.[53] Helicopters are extremely costly to purchase and maintain, but are very useful in this type of war, as Carlos was soon to find out. According to his autobiography, his life was saved during the Christmas holidays of 1998 when a large FARC contingent attacked his base-camp in a surprise assault. It was the Israeli-trained pilot and[54] paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso[55] who rescued him in a paramilitary helicopter.[56] Castaño has often met in secret with government officials, but by 2000 the meetings were being openly reported. On November 6, 2000, he met with Colombia’s Interior Minister Humberto de la Calle of then-President Andrés Pastrana’s Government. As a result of the meeting, Castaño released two of seven legislators that his paramilitaries were holding captive.[57] Indeed, at the time of this writing, Castaño and Mancuso are in discussion with the new Colombian government.[58], [59] As the movement expanded, continuing to absorb other paramilitary organizations, it needed arms, and probably had several sources for them, one of which came to light last May. It should come as no surprise to the reader that the suppliers were Israelis. Israeli arms dealers have long had a presence in next-door Panama and especially in Guatemala (see side bar). While some of the details of this particular deal have been contested and are still sketchy, one thing is clear: by a series of misrepresentations, GIRSA, an Israeli company associated with the IDF and based in Guatemala was able to buy 3,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition that were then handed over to the paramilitaries in Colombia.[60] This may remind us of what Carlos Castaño said about his course in Israel – when he received “lectures on how the world arms business operates, and how to buy arms,”[61] – probably complete with the connections to do so. This arms deal featured tier upon tier of deniability and smokescreens. Although Colombian police uncovered the deal, no one has been indicted over it. The only players who appear to have known what was going on were the Israelis and the paramilitaries. The Nicaraguan police who sold the arms thought they were trading them for Israeli mini-Uzis and Jericho pistols. The US State Department, which had recently placed the Colombian paramilitaries on its “terrorist” list claims though spokesperson Wes Carrington that the department was under the impression that the fully automatic assault rifles were going to collectors in the US![62] Somehow that bait doesn’t go down easily. The Uribe – Castaño Connection
Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, like Castaño, also lost his narcotrafficking father to the FARC, [63] but in the case of Uribe, the father died fighting on his ranch that was attacked by the insurgents.[64] And there are other similarities, too: like Castaño, the Uribe family has had close ties to the cocaine trade, even renting out a helicopter to the business.[65] In fact, Uribe’s father was once indicted for his role in the famous Tranquilandia cocaine-processing lab, after it was taken out by a combined DEA-Colombian police operation [66]. During the 1980’s (check dates) Uribe was head of Civil Aviation (Aerocivil) in Colombia and controlled all of the aviation licensing throughout the country at a time when small planes did most of the drugrunning.[67] When Uribe was governor of Antioquía department in the mid-1990s, he helped set up a paramilitary force called Convivir,[68] in which paramilitary boss Salvatore Mancuso is rumored to have served.[69]
Legitimizing the paramilitaries
During the last Colombian presidential elections, a “cleansed” Uribe was voted into power supported by the US State Department. Many of the plans for his government are based upon a US-generated Rand Corporation study. A major part of both the Rand study and Uribe’s plan involve the creation of a large civil defense/government informer force that will be beholden to the Colombian state. The Rand report, like all things Plan Colombia, was first written in the United States. It bases a new Colombian Civil Defense counterinsurgency structure on the Peruvian “Ronda” system — which acted under Army supervision and was greatly responsible for reducing the size of the Shining Path guerrillas as well as committing a multitude of human rights abuses. Apparently, Uribe’s idea is that Castaño’s paramilitaries first have a ceasefire against the army – which is in itself a falsity since the AUC always worked alongside the army — then the paramilitaries would become legal entities of the Colombian state under a different name. Thus Castaño’s paramilitaries will become legitimized and continue the counterinsurgent war with the direct assistance of the United States, their bloody hands washed in State Department PR.At that point, Israel will no longer be needed in Colombia. And indeed, it would prefer to be forgotten, as there is no doubt that it shares some blame for the many years of ongoing bloodbath in Colombia, which kills as many as 20 people a day[70] – some 70% or more of which is attributed to the paramilitaries, totaling tens of thousands over the last decade.[71] Most of those murdered are killed for merely being suspected of sympathies to the insurgency, not for being actual combatants. Unfortunately, we can expect the training of Phalange-like paramilitary groups to continue throughout the world, as the Israeli state gleefully continues to undertake operations that are deemed too distasteful for its US counterparts.
——————————————————————————–ENDNOTES
[1] Mi Confesión: Carlos Castaño Revela sus Secretos, as told to Mauricio Aranguren Molina, Editorial La Oveja Negra Ltda, Bogotá Colombia. First edition, December 2001. Also available on the AUC website:
http://colombia-libre.org/colombialibre/miconfesion.htm [2] Mauricio Aranguren (ibid) page 107 [3] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002 [4] Mauricio Aranguren, page 88 [5] Colombia’s Other Army: Growing Paramilitary Force Wields Power With Brutality, Scott Wilson, Washington Post, March 12, 2001 [6] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002 [7] Mauricio Aranguren, page 107 [8] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002 [9] Colombia’s Growing Paramilitary Force, Jeremy McDermott, BBC News January 7, 2002 [10] Personal communication, Charlie Roberts, Colombia Human Rights Commission, 11/02/02 [11] The present period is similar to another period in recent Colombian history called “La Violencia”, or one could simply view it a continuation of that period. “La Violencia” is the name given for the 1945-1965 period of violence between the “Liberals” and “Conservatives” that started shortly after the assassination of Liberal leader Jorge Elecier Gaitan (see Paul Wolf’s excellent websitehttp://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/gaitan.htm <http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/gaitan.htm> ). During that conflict, the more progressive Liberals formed guerrilla bands, and the Conservatives, backed by the State, the Church, and to some degree the United States, fought these insurgents with both a regular army and the police, which, at that time, essentially acted as death squads, often massacring entire communities. La Violencia was ended through negotiations in 1965, although its root causes were left unsolved, which is why the conflict persists today. [12] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109 [13] Mauricio Aranguren, page 107 [14] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109 [15] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109 [16] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109 [17] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109 [18] Mauricio Aranguren, page 110 [19] Mauricio Aranguren, page 110 [20] Mauricio Aranguren, page 111 [21] All paramilitary groups in Colombia were made illegal in 1989. [22] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document [23] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, pages 11 and 12 [24] Mauricio Aranguren, page 87 [25] DEA Intelligence Report 1993, obtained through the Freedom of information Act. DEA Request Number 01-12152-F [26] Insurgent Involvement in the Colombian Drug Trade: Drug Intelligence report, DEA Intelligence Division, June 1994, obtained through the Freedom of information Act. DEA Request Number 01-1257-F [27] There are some, yet unproven indications of greater insurgent involvement in the trade since the time of that report. [28] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document [29] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 9 [30] “La 50” according to Castaño, Mauricio Aranguren, page 99 [31] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 12 [32] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 13 [33] It should be noted that the paramilitaries were extremely successful in assassinating civilian members of the legal Unión Patriotica political party (UP). And indeed, this bears great similarity to the present Israeli government practice of selective assassination as a political toll. In the case of the UP, it was the only political party on this hemisphere that has actually been decimated – about 90% of its leadership was exterminated by the paramilitaries and sometimes directly by the Colombian army. [34] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 13 [35] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, pages 14-17 [36] Mauricio Aranguren, page 99 [37] Mauricio Aranguren, page 99 [38] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 20 [39] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 19 [40] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 19 [41] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, pages 20-21 [42] See, for instance, the Colombian Ministry of Environment or the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office positions relating to the aerial fumigation issue. These ministries have continually and very publicly argued with the presidency, the army and the police, among others (http://usfumigation.org <http://usfumigation.org/> ). [43] King of the Jungle, Tim McGirk, Time magazine, November 19, 2000 [44] DEA Intelligence Report 1993, obtained through the Freedom of information Act. DEA Request Number 01-12152-F [45] Killing Pablo: The Life and Death of Pablo Escobar, Mark Bowden, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2001 Website (free version):http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/special_packages/killing_pablo/ [46] Mauricio Aranguren, page 110 [47] Colombia’s Other Army: Growing Paramilitary Force Wields Power With Brutality, Scott Wilson, Washington Post. March 12, 2001 [48] King of the Jungle, Tim McGirk, Time magazine, Nov 19, 2000 [49] Inter-American Court on Human Rights, Organization of American States: “303. The paramilitary groups in Colombia have employed horrifying techniques of torture, including the use of chainsaws and other techniques to dismember their victims. For example, on February 21, 1996, in the community of Las Cañas, in the municipality of Turbo, Department of Antioquia, members of the ACCU paramilitary group tortured and then killed Edilma Ocampo and her daughter Stella Gil. The paramilitaries, some of whom wore hoods, arrived at the home of the victims at 10:30 a.m. Stella’s three children were present at the time. The paramilitary members tied the hands of the victims and told them that they would receive a special treatment, since they were guerrillas. The two women were taken out of the house approximately 100 meters and were beaten and decapitated in front of the three children. The victimizers then opened the stomachs of the victims, from the waist to the neck. They then placed Stella’s dead body on top of Edilma’s body and threatened the other residents of the community to leave the area or suffer the consequences. These actions obviously constitute acts of physical torture against those who are killed as well as psychological torture against those who are forced to witness these events and who are threatened with similar consequences.”http://www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Colom99en/chapter.4f.htm [50] Mauricio Aranguren, page 21 [51] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002 [52] Sharon Stevenson, personal communication, March, 2000 [53] Mauricio Aranguren, foto pages [54] La Conexión Mancuso-Marulanda, Cromos No. 4358, August 13, 2001 http://www.cromos.com/4358/actualidad4-1.htm [55] Mancuso is Sicilian-born, holding dual Italian/Colombian citizenship. La Conexión Mancuso-Marulanda, Cromos No. 4358, August 13, 2001http://www.cromos.com/4358/actualidad4-1.htm [56] Mauricio Aranguren, page 243 [57] Castaño meets Interior Minister, International Risk Circular, protection Concepts Corporation, November 7, 2000 http://www.psinternational.ca/sampleirc.doc [58] Negociación secreta Revista SEMANA, Bogotá – 25 de Nov-1 de Dic, 2002 [59] Colombia’s Paramilitaries Agree to Cease – Fire REUTERS Nov 24, 2002 [60] Nicaraguan Official Told U.S. Diplomat of Arms Deal That Later Went Bad, Filadelfo Alemán, AP, Monday, May 6, 2002 [61] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109 [62] Israeli Arms Dealers Differ Over Responsibility for Shipment to Colombian Paramilitaries, Juan Zamorano, AP, May 7, 2002. [63] ¿Quién es Álvaro Uribe Vélez? Rebelión website, April 10, 2002 http://www.rebelion.org/plancolombia/uribe100402.htm [64] http://www.geocities.com/manesvil/uribe.htm [65] Biografía no autorizada de Älvaro Uribe Vélez (El Señor de las Sombras), Joseph Contreras & Fernando Garavito, Editorial Oveja Negra, Bogotá, Colombia, 2002 [66] Ignacio Gomez, upon receiving Investigative Journalism Award 2002 from the Committee to protect Journalists. © 2000-2002. International Center for Journalists. <http://www.libertad-prensa.org/copyright.html> http://www.libertad-prensa.org/nacho.html Por el trabajo de los antecedentes que relacionan a Alvaro Uribe Vélez con el Cartel de Medellín. Es una investigación que se hizo en cinco partes. Una de ellas tenía que ver con la coincidencia cuando Pablo Escobar era miembro del Congreso y tenía muchísima actividad política o proselitista en los barrios pobres de Medellín, y por entonces Alvaro Uribe era el alcalde de Medellín y hacía programas muy paralelos a los de Pablo Escobar. Después Alvaro Uribe fue director de la Aeronáutica Civil. Antes de él, desde 1954 hasta 1981, el Estado había concedido 2.339 licencias, y durante los 18 meses que él ejerció, concedió 2.242 licencias, muy poco menos que en los 35 años anteriores, con el agravante que muchísimas de esas licencias, como 200, quedaron en manos del Cartel de Medellín. Y una de ellas, al menos una de ellas, quedó en manos de su papá, quien fue asesinado un tiempo después por las FARC. Cuando el helicóptero era objeto de la herencia, fue encontrado en un laboratorio famosísimo de Pablo Escobar llamado Tranquilandia. El helicóptero pertenecía a Uribe y su hermano. Además había una estrecha relación entre el papá de Uribe y el clan de los Ochoa, que era una familia muy importante en el Cartel de Medellín. Y la último fue cuando Pablo Escobar escapó de la cárcel y trató de hacer un nuevo acuerdo con el gobierno, y el encargado de llegar a ese acuerdo fue Alvaro Uribe Vélez. De todo esto nosotros teníamos cinco historias. Nosotros sólo alcanzamos publicar una, que es la relacionada con el helicóptero. Y el día que la publicamos el presidente se puso demasiado bravo, me insultó a mi por la radio, y comenzaron a presentarse llamadas misteriosas amenazando de muerte a la hija de dos años de Daniel Coronell, director de Noticias Uno, el programa donde trabajo yo ahora. Y se presentaron diversas presiones dentro de los otros socios del canal para que yo fuera expulsado. Entonces la serie se suspendió, no se emitió. [67] Biografía no autorizada de Älvaro Uribe Vélez (El Señor de las Sombras), Joseph Contreras & Fernando Garavito, Editorial Oveja Negra, Bogotá, Colombia, 2002 [68] Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability Angel Rabasa, Peter Chalk RAND, 2001 http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1339/MR1339.ch5.pdf [69] Colombia: Paramilitares legalizados, Rebelión website, Sept 9, 2002 http://www.rebelion.org/plancolombia/sodepaz090902.htm [70] Personal communication, Charlie Roberts, Colombia Human Rights Commission, 11/02/02 [71] Comisión Colombiana de Juristas as cited in Colombia Update Vol 13. No1 Colombia Human Rights Network, fall 2001. According to the Comisión’s report on 1997, 67% of assassinations were attributed to the paramilitaries; 20% to the guerrillas; and 3% to state agents – for the cases where the perpetrators were known. According to their March 2001 Report, “87.21 entail state responsibility”. It should be noted that the Comisión considers the paramilitaries to be under the “state responsibility” rubric because of their thinly-disguised ties to the Colombian Army. |
According to Ermenihaber, Turkish Milliyet referred to the US State Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Yerevan visit. Analyst Sami Kohen makes a remark that the rapprochement with Armenia is “in the fridge” in the Turkish foreign policy with “very hot” issues all around it.
By the time the Turkish media is all flooded by photos and materials on Clinton’s visit to the Armenian genocide memorial and museum, Kohen reminds that Armenian-Turkish protocols were signed last year, due to which diplomatic relations could be established, the border could be opened, dialogue mechanisms over historical issues could be worked out. However, as Milliyet writes, Ankara gave in to Baku countereffects and put forth Nagorno-Karabakh as a precondition, thus, making a path for freezing the protocols.
“At first sight, it seems it could not harm Turkey any way. Of course, currently it can’t. But, to be frank, Washington is already sending bad signals. The US Congress will again discuss the Armenian Genocide Resolution. The hazard that came up last time, could be even more serious this time,” the Tukish analyst writes, mentioning two reasons for the alert.
1. Angry with Turkey, the Jewish lobby could take the side of the Armenians.
2. The US is getting ready for the Congress elections in November.
The columnist doesn’t think Clinton’s words on hailing Armenia’s efforts to call the protocols to life and that the “ball” is in Turkey’s field and it’s Turkey’s turn to act, came accidentally in Yerevan. Sami Kohen says Clinton addressed a second “message” to Turkey by visiting genocide memorial in Tsitsernakaberd. The source highlights that though the US Embassy in Armenia said the visit was private, the wreath had a writing on it: the US Secretary of State. According to Kohen, thus, the US diplomacy tried to please Armenia and the Armenians of America.
To sum up, Kohen notes that the light for Karabakh settlement is not visible in the horizon either, and as long as Ankara links rapprochement with Armenia to Karabakh issue, the Armenian-Turkish normalization will yet remain frozen for a long time.
Jonathan Pollard, once thought to have been an Israeli spy, may have been part of a rogue operation. (AP)
WASHINGTON – Twenty-five years after his arrest, the truth about for whom Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard was working is still in doubt.
The former civilian intelligence analyst, sentenced to life in prison on charges of spying on the U.S. in 1987, was allegedly not working for official Israeli intelligence, as previously thought.
Responding to concerns that Israel is spying on the U.S., Israel’s ambassador Michael Oren told WTOP, “Israel does not, does not, I stress, collect information on the United States.”
When pushed during an interview about Pollard’s case, Oren responded, “Jonathan Pollard occurred in the mid-1980s. Now, we’re talking about an event that was run by a rogue organization in the Israeli intelligence community. That was, what, 25 years ago?”
His remarks, a departure from an official Israeli statement in the late 1990s, have stunned many in the Washington intelligence community.
“It does surprise me,” says Paul Pillar, former Central Intelligence Agency National Intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.
“It never crossed my mind and never heard any suggestion that it was anything other than an official operation,” Pillar says.
“It is, however, in Israel’s interests, as defined by them, to obtain as much information as possible of the kind Pollard was collecting.”
Pollard‘s own stinging rebukes of the Israeli government in a number of April 1998 letters seemed to confirm his official status.
“I did not spend 13 years in prison in order to endorse a lie,” Pollard wrote. “The truth must come out, so that I may be freed. The truth is simple and clear: I was an Israeli agent employed by the LAKAM branch of intelligence in an operation that was fully sanctioned by the government of Israel. Anything less than that is a distortion of the truth that is counterproductive to the goal of securing my release.”
A little more than a month later, on May 11, 1998, the Israeli government released a statement confirming Pollard’s claims. The government’s statement said, “Jonathan Pollard was an Israeli agent handled by high ranking Israeli officials in an authorized Israeli bureau, LAKAM.”
Worry that Pollard’s theft of U.S. Navy secrets may have been part of a rogue operation has generated concern among some in the U.S. intelligence community, that there may be other “rogue” operations underway to collect U.S. intelligence.
Israel admittedly runs robust intelligence operations throughout the Middle East because of concerns about hostile governments and organizations that have targeted the small Mediterranean country which 7.5 million people call home. Hamas and Hezbollah are among the key targets.
“We’ve been hampered by the fact our forces left Lebanon in 2000 and left Gaza in 2005, so we actually don’t have forces on ground, so we rely on human intelligence and electronic intelligence and surveillance from the skies, but it’s not perfect,” says Oren.
Their operations may not be perfect, but according to a Web site run by the political wing of Hamas, Israel is running a very refined network of spies.
The site, Al-Majd, claims some of the “veteran and experienced collaborators” were equipped with sophisticated beacon devices during the 2008 war that transmitted their positions to Israeli intelligence. According to the site, the beacons protected them from missile strikes.
While the Israeli government will not comment on the depth of its intelligence capabilities, Fred Burton, a former U.S. State Department Counterterrorism agent, says Israel has extremely capable intelligence services laser-focused on the Iranian nuclear threat.
“(Israeli intelligence is) the best in the world on Hezbollah and Iranian targets, but lacking the money and resources intelligence organizations like the CIA have.” Burton says. “They seem to do more with less than many others. They are extremely good on HUMINT (Human Intelligence) collection.”
Israel’s enemies extend into the U.S. According to U.S. Department of Justice documents, numerous individuals have been arrested and prosecuted on charges of providing material support to Hezbollah and Hamas, sworn enemies of Israel. Some U.S. intelligence officials are quietly skeptical of Israel’s declaration that it doesn’t spy on the U.S.
“We share information on Islamic extremists groups with American intelligence,” Oren says. “We’re not collecting on them in the United States, but we rely on information given to us by American intelligence agencies and we are again in very close communication and cooperation with them.”
A U.S. official responded saying, “The Israelis are very good at intelligence work — they always have been. They’re not afraid to tell you what they think and why. And their strategic interests tend to dovetail with ours. They’re valuable partners. We deal with them as they deal with us: With sharp minds and open eyes. Intelligence is no place for the naïve or gullible.”
According to a former Shin Bet officer, the Pollard case planted a seed that has sprouted and continues to grow despite efforts to allegedly eradicate it.
“These guys had some kind of impression that the U.S. was hiding intelligence from the Israeli government in this particular subject (the Palestinian Liberation Organization), so they decided to run the operation, never stopping to think about the damage they were causing the Jewish Community inside the United States,” says the former officer.
The political dance around Jonathan Pollard’s case continues. The U.S. has refused to release Pollard despite the close relationship with Israel and despite that Pollard is said to be part of a “rogue operation.”
“We would certainly welcome his release,” Oren says.
Mossad implicated in a coup plot in Turkey, a NATO country; CIA fingerprints also found on attemptBy Wayne Madsen Dec 4, 2008, 00:20 |
(WMR) — Fresh from revelations, reported by WMR, that Israel’s Mossad and Chabad House-based criminal syndicates were targets in a criminal gangland retribution attack by a notorious Muslim gang in Mumbai, comes word that Mossad has, once again, been implicated in an intelligence and criminal network, this time in Turkey.
What makes this latest example of Israel’s failure to stem the criminal activities of its intelligence service and criminal syndicates worse is that Turkey, unlike Israel, is a NATO ally of the United States and, therefore, the United States is bound by treaty to protect NATO allies from aggression by non-NATO states, including Israel.
The Turkish and other Middle East media are reporting that the Mossad has been fingered in connection with a right-wing Turkish criminal and intelligence gang, known as Ergenekon, that stands accused of attempting to overthrow Turkey’s democratically-elected Justice and Development (AKP) Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul. Several Turkish papers have named a Turkish rabbi, Tuncay Guney, aka Daniel T. Guney and Daniel Levi and code-named “Ipek” or “Silk,” as having served as a double agent for the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT) tasked with infiltrating the shadowy but powerful “state within a state” group Ergenekon. Guney had been arrested by Turkish authorities in 2001 for distributing fake drivers’ licenses and phony license plates for luxury cars. A document recently uncovered by the Turkish press revealed that Guney had also infiltrated a police intelligence unit (JITEM) working with Ergenekon to destabilize Turkey. Guney was exfiltrated to the United States and he now heads up the B’nai Yaakov Synagogue and Community Center in Toronto, Canada. Guney has denied that he has been an agent for Israel, Turkey or the United States but the MIT has confirmed the document identifying Guney as an agent for MIT is authentic.
The Turkish daily Hurriyethas reported that Guney served in MIT’s Counter-terrorism Unit (CTU) and in the MIT unit that monitors Iran. Hurriyet also reported that Guney had developed a contact at the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Muhsin Karger, the consulate’s political affairs undersecretary.
Guney also has claimed to be a journalist and it is also alleged that he was a member of the PKK. Silvyo Ovaydo, the leader of the Turkish Jewish community, called Guney a fraudulent rabbi and said he was not even registered as a rabbi at the B’nai Yaakov synagogue in Toronto. Guney is said to have once worked for Islamist media organizations in Turkey but suddenly converted to Judaism and became an “instant rabbi” in Toronto.
At the heart of the Ergenekon story lies Mossad and its reported attempts to turn Turkey into another Lebanon or West Bank/Gaza, a country wracked by internal strife and constant warfare that would usher into power a strong right-wing military dictatorship. In the trial of one of the accused murderers of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the lawyer for one of the accused murderers asked another accused murderer, Erhan Tuncel, a one-time police informer like Guney, if he had an Israeli girlfriend. Tuncel refused to answer the question, citing an invasion of his privacy. However, it was clear that what the lawyer was driving at was a Mossad connection to the murder of Dink, a murder that was being pinned on Turkish anti-Armenian nationalists by the corporate and heavyily Israeli Lobby-influenced media in the West.
When 89 suspects were named in a 2,455-page indictment by a criminal court in Istanbul last July, many retired Turkish army officers, the neocon network, especially in Washington, which is their major citadel, along with Jerusalem and London, began to throw cold water and the term “conspiracy theory” around charges in the Turkish indictment that Ergenekon played a major role in the formation of several Turkish terrorist groups to disrupt Turkish politics, including the illegal Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish Hizbollah (Party of God), the Marxist-Leninist People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP-C), and the little-known Islamic Great East Raiders Front (IBDA-C). The neocon Jamestown Foundation in Washington called the indictment’s links between Turkish military elements and radical terrorists a “conspiracy theory.” Organizations like Jamestown have no other choice. If it were also proven, as it was in Turkey, that various terrorist groups like “Al Qaeda,” “Deccan Mujaheddin,” and others exist courtesy of the nurturing and support by American, Israeli, and other Western military-intelligence structures, groups like Jamestown would lose their reasons for existence — to make propaganda and receive funding in order to keep the terrorist bogeymen, the actual “Emmanuel Godsteins,” alive.
Guney is reported to be the 86th suspect in the indictment of Ergenekon. Guney is believed to have revealed the initial detailed information on the existence of Ergenekon in order to avoid being charged in the case.
The involvement of extreme right-wing Turkish military and intelligence officials and Turkish organized crime networks, with Mossad and, possibly, CIA agents acting in concert with a suspected CIA-funded Turkish Islamic charismatic madrassaand Islamic centers’ chief named Fethullah Gulen — whose activities parallel pan-Turkic/Eurasianist (re: George Soros) goals of Ergenekon — is similar to the scenario now playing out in India where a little known group called “Deccan Mujaheddin” may have been created as a ruse by Indian right-wing military and intelligence officers, allied with Mossad and CIA agents, to sow discord in India and bring about a right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena Hindu government.
Gulen owns a number of media and business interests in Turkey and runs Islamic centers throughout central Asia and even in Russia.
In polls, some one-third of the Turkish public believe Islamist Nurcu sect charismatic leader Grand Hodja Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, is part of a movement that aims to seize control of the Turkish state and a little over a third believe that Gulen is funded by “international powers.” After he was acquitted in Turkey of attempting to overthrow the secular state with his religious organization, Gulen was first denied a Permanent Resident Card or “Green Card” to remain in the United States by the U.S. Distrrict Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania but then an appeals court granted Gulen a Green Card. In October of this year, a federal appellate court found that U.S. immigration authorities improperly rejected Gulen’s request for a Green Card. The appeals court ruled that Gulen was “an alien of extraordinary ability,” a decision that saw approval of Gulen’s residency status. Observers of the case suspect the CIA intervened with the court on Gulen’s behalf. Gulen’s support for the AKP government may be an insurance policy by the CIA to maintain a close relationship with the “Islamist tendency” AKP government in Ankara. The Bush administration, after seven years of trying to deport Gulen to Turkey, suddenly dropped its opposition to his permanent residency status.
The public prosecutor in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) case against Gulen’s permanent residency status argued in filed documents that Gulen’s movement was financially supported by Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Turkish government, and the “Central Intelligence Agency.” The deposition stated that some Ankara businessmen donated up to 70 percent of their income to Gulen’s movement.
If Gulen’s operations are funded by the CIA that means the “Agency” may be linked to Ergenekon. With the U.S. having a mutual defense treaty with Turkey’s recognized government that puts the CIA potentially in violation of U.S. law. And Israel’s connections with Ergenekon means that the United States is bound by treaty to protect its ally Turkey from Israeli covert or overt aggression.
There is an element of “McCarthyism” in the Ergenekon case. Some well-meaning officials have been subjected to being tainted by the broad brush of being associated with Ergenekon. One is Asil Serdar Sacan, the former head of the Istanbul organized crime department, who was the first to confiscate documents on Ergenekon in 2001 and broadened his investigation to include both Ergenekon and the Gulen organization. Sacan, who investigated the murder of Turkey’s “King of Casinos” Omer Lutfu Topol, successfully beat attempts to smear him, being acquitted of 36 criminal charges brought against him and being reinstated six times to his police position. Sacan is currently in jail as an Ergenekon suspect but his only “crime” appears to have exposed Guney as a possible triple agent for the MIT, Mossad, and CIA. In 2001, Guney was spirited out of Turkey thanks to an agreement between MIT’s undersecretary Senkal Atasagun and the CIA. Guney was given a 10-year U.S. visa thanks to the CIA’s intervention.
In fact, Ergenekon and its “deep state” players in Turkey and Shiv Sena and its extremist Hindu “deep state” allies in India, backed by elements of Mossad and the CIA, appears to be a replay of the CIA’s secret “Gladio” network in Europe that placed weapons caches in the hands of fascists and neo-Nazis groups to take up arms in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.
The use of “false flag” terrorist attacks in Western Europe by Gladio units were blamed on Communists in an effort to forestall Communist-Socialist coalition governments in Western Europe, particularly in Italy and France.
Similarly, Ergenekon stands accused of inciting conflicts between Turks and Kurds to create anarchy in the country with the aim of having Ergenekon seizing control of the Turkish government and re-cementing close ties with the United States and Israel.
In 2004, Ergenekon attempted three military coups against the AKP government. They were code-named Eldiven (The Glove”), Sarikiz (“The Blond Girl”), and Ayisigi (“Moonlight’).
Ergenekon has been cagily kept off the newspaper pages and TV news screens in the United States. To investigate Ergenekon and Gulen in Turkey is to peel away at an onion that could expose some other “unpleasantness” for certain quarters.
On January 10, 2007, WMR reported: “According to Federal law enforcement sources, two influential businessmen — Turkish Sunni Muslim Fetullahci charismatic leader Fetullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania after being acquitted in Turkey in 2006 of plotting against the secular republic, and Saudi BMI Islamic investment chief investor Yasin Qadi, a major investor in Turkey who was named in October 2001 by President Bush as a Special Designated Global Terrorist — were both involved with the CIA in the late 1990s in funneling weapons and other support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Albanian terrorist group operating in the former Yugoslavia. The KLA was allied with the Clinton administration and supported by leading neocons such as Richard Perle, whose lobbying firm, International Advisers, Inc., counts Turkey as its major client. Gulen’s books have been translated into Albanian. BMI’s founder, Soliman Biheiri, also helped to start PTech, a Braintree, Massachusetts-based firm that had active software contracts with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Pentagon on 9/11. PTech’s offices were raided by federal authorities in December 2002 after it came under suspicion for terrorist financing. Qadi is suspected of using a series of northern Virginia-based businesses and charities to fund ‘Al Qaeda’ activities in Bosnia. Osama Bin Laden was granted a special passport by the Bosnian government in 1993. Qadi was reportedly a business partner of Turkish businessman Cuneyd Zapsu, an adviser to the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Reconciliation Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP).”
The dramatic revelations about Ergenekon coming out of Turkey also points to the reasons why the neocons in Washington were keen to stymie the work of FBI Turkish translator Sibel Edmonds and the CIA’s non-official cover agent Valerie Plame Wilson, both of whom had smuggling and other activities in Turkey high on their priority lists. On January 18, 2008, WMR reported: “WMR has learned that former CIA covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose covert status was leaked by the Bush White House, and former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who was focused on a major covert network involving Turkish, Israeli, and key members of the Bush administration and Republican Party and weapons and drug smuggling, were essentially looking at the same network. The nexus of Turkey with both the covert CIA Brewster Jennings and Associates operations and the Turkish-Israeli network of influence active within the Defense and State Departments, is the key factor in understanding the complicated counter-espionage operation conducted by both the FBI and CIA.” It now appears that the Washington-connected criminal network being looked at by Edmonds and Plame was, in fact, closely linked to the Ergenekon network in Turkey.
WMR’s January 18, 2008 report continued: “Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was also, according to our sources, well aware of the massive conspiracy to cover-up the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction components from former Soviet Central Asian states, as well as Ukraine, Moldova, and Ukraine, to the international weapons bazaar. The Abdul Qadeer Khan (A Q Khan) network based in Pakistan was a major beneficiary of the weapons smuggling operation that used Turkey as a pass-through. Rather than expand his investigation, Fitzgerald demurred on looking at the activities of the American Turkish Council, Turkey’s influential lobbying group in Washington, and its parallel symbiotic organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Turkey and Israel are close military and intelligence partners.”
Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has called on President-elect Barack Obama to reappoint Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney for Northern Ilinois. If Obama does so, it means that the network being investigated by Edmonds and Plame, one that stretches to Ergenekon and the Gulen network in Turkey, has its hooks deep into the future Obama administration.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2008 WayneMadenReport.com
[The strangeness of modern day Turkey, as seen in the Kemalist legacy of democratic reforms, secularism, intersecting East and West, “moderate Islam,”–all of these reflect the movement of history in the direction of human liberation, but within this progress you also see evidence of the creeping “hidden hand” of history’s secret manipulators. With each stride forward, for any segment of the human race, comes the companion shadow step of the secret power center, looking for ways to limit the liberation and to steer the moving popular force (“movement”) in an unnatural alternate direction. In Turkey’s case, the covert herders of the movement have undermined the Nation from within, using groups like the “Young Turks” and the PKK to attack progress and create national divisions in order to multiply the anger and hatred. Many of the Young Turks were “crypto-Jews,” Turkish Jews who hid their identities and secretly worked in support of a hidden anti-Islamic and anti-Turkish agenda. In present-day Turkey, the PKK is much more than merely a Kurdish liberation group, it is also the tool used by the hidden hand to serve the cause of the “Jewish state,” while disrupting the Nation and multiplying the divisions. The PKK advances the Israeli cause in Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
Today, the Israeli-backed PKK has been activated in a new offensive which has already claimed the lives of many Turkish troops. This new offensive by Israel’s surrogates is timed simultaneously with the international effort to break the Gaza seige, which turned into a contest between Israel and Turkey with the flotilla attack. The next planned international incident has already been set into motion from Lebanon and in the Red Sea against Israel’s primary enemy, Iran.
There is another covert operation connected to the Israeli Mossad now unfolding in Turkey as well, the “Ergenekon Plot.” This is a plot by right-wing Turkish generals, with uncovered connections to the Israeli Mossad, to incite “Islamic” terrorism and cause a return to a military dictatorship. The exposure of this network, with its connections to Mossad, as well as its secret ties to the American “Stay Behind” “Deep State” network (“Gladio”), represents as Turkey’s last chance to save itself from the hidden forces pushing instability and military dictatorship.
Most of Turkey’s ongoing troubles are not of its own making.]
The upsurge in fighting between the Turkish armed forces and the Kurdish rebel PKK is a serious setback for the efforts of Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to bring an end to the long-standing conflict.
Ten Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack on a fort near the Iraqi border. In response the military sent warplanes and helicopter gun ships to attack PKK bases in Iraq. There is every sign the conflict is once again escalating.
The PKK abandoned a yearlong unilateral cease-fire in March and have since been mounting roadside bomb attacks on army convoys and killing local Kurdish militiamen and village guards. The army is rushing reinforcements to the region and says that it is expecting the PKK to increase its attacks during this summer.
War-weary Turks of all ethnic backgrounds will be in despair that this so-called dirty war has once more flared up. The tragic truth is that they have been here so many times before. This bitter 20-year conflict which has cost in excess of 40,000 lives is un-winnable by either side. With their Iraqi refuges, the PKK will always be able to escape across the border and regroup. Meanwhile, the Turkish military are tough and indomitable. They are unlikely to be deflected by the losses they are suffering.
Indeed there are some in Turkey who suspect their country’s top brass actually welcome the Kurdish insurrection. It ensures that the largely conscript armed forces are given generous portions of the state budget so they are well equipped to fight the PKK. Basic training for army recruits remains little changed from when it was introduced by Prussian officers at the start of the twentieth century. Military service is seen as part of the creation of good Turkish citizens. Typically recruits from the east of the country do their military service in the west and vice versa. As its past political interventions have shown, Turkey’s generals consider themselves to be the custodians of the Kemalist republican flame.
For them therefore the PKK insurrection rates as more than a rebellion but as a challenge to the homogeneity of the country that Kemal Ataturk created. There is resentment among nationalist politicians as well as senior commanders at the way in which the Erdogan government has sought to accommodate Kurdish demands for greater rights for their language and culture.
Therefore it could be feared that beyond welcoming the fighting with the PKK, individual officers may even be fostering it. Were this true, it would be an extremely serious situation. Soldiers should implement the policies of the elected government, not their own agenda. Yet in the bad lands of eastern Turkey where the fighting is taking place, it is hard for Ankara politicians to know what is actually going on.
The violence will only be ended by negotiation and compromise. The Erdogan administration recognizes this but there remains a core of nationalists who regard an accommodation with the Kurds as a betrayal. If their view prevails, then blood will continue to flow.
[Obama remains true to patterns set by Ariel Sharon and Bush (SEE: Operation “Justified Vengeance”). Instead of making sound preparations before any attack, taking “fool-proof” measures to prevent a real terrorist attack, Obama, like Sharon and Bush before him, is preparing massive retaliation against our ally Pakistan for the day after the next terror attack. This is similar to the reported order given by Cheney to prepare massive retaliation against Iran for any new attack by anyone. Like Israel, it is not enough for our cold-blooded military leaders to simply lie in wait for justification for the next aggression; we must take steps to cause the anticipated justifying attack. Where Ariel Sharon chose to take IDF troops and sashay into the Temple Mount, to generate the requisite justifying attack, Obama has announced to the Taliban what they must do to bring US troops into Pakistan, just carry-out one successful attack in America–that’s it.
Is this because the Zionists really do control US military policy, or merely infatuation with Israel’s bloodthirsty ways?]
(Reuters) – U.S. military leaders are reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan if there is a successful attack on American soil tied to the country’s tribal areas, The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition.
The newspaper said senior U.S. military officials stressed a possible strike would only be considered under extreme circumstances such as a catastrophic attack that convinced President Barack Obama that the campaign using CIA drone strikes is not working.
The officials said airstrikes would be the most effective option in reducing the threat posed by al-Qaeda and other groups, but the United States must be careful not to damage its military relationship with Pakistan to a point where it cannot be repaired.
CIA-operated drones have targeted Taliban figures in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the group has vowed to avenge missile strikes that have killed some of its leaders.
The failed Times Square bombing on May 1 has revived international fears about Pakistan, a U.S. ally in the campaign against militancy. It also has forced the Obama administration to review how it would respond to a successful attack on U.S. soil.
U.S. authorities say Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, has admitted to the Times Square bomb attempt and has been cooperating with investigators since his arrest on May 3.
American and Pakistani authorities are likely scrambling for clues on whether those detained have ties to militants in Pakistan, who are bent on toppling the state and are violently opposed to the U.S. presence.
| eileen fleming
Every May 15th since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian Exodus from the Holy Land, known as Nakba, meaning their “day of the catastrophe” is commemorated as the day the expulsions and flight of Palestinians from their towns and villages began when Israeli troops forced them from their land and created over 750,000 refugees who are still denied the right to return to their property. Dr. Pappe, an Israeli historian and author of A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, spoke in occupied East Jerusalem, 0n Nov. 8, 2006 at the Notre Dame Conference center during Sabeel’s 6th International Conference: The Forgotten Faithful: Palestinian Christians. His topic was the “Dynamics of Forgetting” but he informed us: “From March to October 1948 the USA State Department stated what was happening was a CRIME against humanity and ethnic cleansing. When ever one ethnic group expels another group they should be treated as War Criminals and the victims should be allowed to return. This is never mentioned in the USA about Palestine. “Israel is so successful in their ethnic cleansing because the world doesn’t care! The ethnic cleansing continues via the apartheid policies of the Israeli government and because of the denial of the truth by the USA media. “To claim Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is bullshit! The Six Day War of 1967 escalated the ethnic cleansing and today in Jerusalem every Palestinian who fails to pay taxes, or has a minor infraction will loose their citizenship. “In 1948 the mechanism of denial and ethnic cleansing as an IDEOLOGY, not a policy but a formula began. When Zionism began in the 19th century it was meant to be a safe haven for Jews and to help redefine Judaism as a national movement, not just a religion. Nothing wrong with either of those goals! “But by the late 19th Century it was decided the only way these goals could be achieved was by ridding the indigenous population and it became an evil ideology. “Israeli Jewish life will never be simple, good, or worth living while this ideology of domination, exclusiveness and superiority is allowed to continue. The mind set today is that unless Israel is an exclusive Jewish State, Palestinians will continue to be obstacles. However, there has always been a small vocal minority challenging this. “The only thing that can save Palestinians is for the world to say ENOUGH is ENOUGH! The way to challenge and change the ethnic cleansing is to pursue true democracy and the use of sanctions and divestment, for money talks.”
Israel has also never been a Democracy! In the May 28, 1993 edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, Ariel Sharon explained: “The terms ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ are totally absent from the Declaration of Independence. This is not an accident. The intention of Zionism was not to bring democracy, needless to say. It was solely motivated by the creation in Eretz-Isrel of a Jewish state belonging to all the Jewish people and to the Jewish people alone. This is why any Jew of the Diaspora has the right to immigrate to Israel and to become a citizen of Israel.” Jeff Halper, American Israeli, co-founder and coordinator of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and Professor of Anthropology, explains: In a 2005 interview with Jeff Halper, he informed this reporter: “Israel has no constitution but has a Declaration of Independence which promised that Israel would abide by conditions and UN resolutions. They have not fulfilled the agreement which was the basis of their independence.” The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law and very foundation and source of legal authority that underlies the very existence of these United States and the federal government. The US Constitution provides the framework for the organization of the federal government and under pins the relationship of the federal government to the states and all its citizens/people within these United States. Jeff Halper hit another nail on the head when he wrote that the “entire conflict with the Palestinians has been reduced to one consideration: personal security…Israeli Jews prefer peace and compromise, but only if they are convinced that their prime preoccupation-security- has been credibly addressed.”[2] So, let’s address it, for the brutal truth is that only if we truly love our friends will we be honest with them and call them on their bad behavior. We also must be honest with ourselves about our culpability! “Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America’s entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”[3] Just before Christmas 2010, President Obama, signed into law the biggest aid pledge of the year. NOT for struggling countries on the World Bank’s list, not for we the people without health care, but another $3 billion for Israel in 2010 and an extra $30 billion over the next decade! Jeff Halper also told me: “Tony Blair said 70% of all the conflicts in the world can be traced back to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. What gives us hope is that as this conflict worsens maybe Europe will figure out that American policies are against their interests and intervene…This conflict impacts the global community and especially everyone in the USA. “If we do fix this conflict it would be a tremendous step forward in global reconciliation…This whole issue is based on Human Rights and it is a global issue requiring global intervention. “In 1977, Sharon came in with a mandate, money and resources to make the Israeli presence in the West Bank irreversible. The second stage began in April 2004 when America approved the Apartheid/Convergence/Realignment Plan and eight settlement blocs. This is just like South Africa! The Bush Sharon letter exchange guaranteed that the USA considers the settlements non-negotiable. The Convergence Plan and The Wall create the borders and that is what defines Bantustans. Congress ratified the Bush plan and only Senator Byrd of West Virginia voted no and nine House Representatives. “Israel has set up a matrix of control; a thick web of settlements guaranteed to make the occupation permanent by establishing facts on the ground. Israel denies there is an occupation, so everything is reduced to terrorism. It is our job to insist upon the human rights issue, for occupied people have International Law on their side.
“Israel is not a democracy, it is an ethnocracy: full rights to Jews, but not Palestinians.” [4]
In his book, Later Years Albert Einstein, wrote:
“This is a time when there seems to be a particular need for men of philosophical persuasion—that is to say, friends of wisdom and truth—to join together…We Jews should be, and remain, the carriers and patrons of spiritual values. But we should also always be aware of the fact that these spiritual values are and always have been the common goal of mankind.”
William Blake wrote that “Opposition is True Friendship” and after 62 years of Al Nakba; enough is more than enough! LEARN MORE: THE Ongoing NAKBA 1. Jeff Halper, An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, Page 74. Pluto Press, 2008 2. An Israeli in Palestine, Pages 65-66. 3. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” 4. Eileen Fleming, Memoirs of a Nice Irish-American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory |
eileen fleming
Palestinian civil society has called on Elton John to respect their boycott call and cancel his June 17th concert in Tel Aviv. If he does, he’ll be joining Santana and Gil-Scott Heron, who recently canceled their spring concerts in Israel. Bob Dylan was scheduled to play Tel Aviv on May 27, 2010, but as of this writing that date is no longer posted on his tour schedule.
This video suggests six reasons why Elton, Elvis Costello and all artists with integrity should join the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that The Wall is a violation of International Law because it cuts through the West Bank appropriating Palestinian land and destroying Palestinian villages and economy to make way for further Israeli settlements, all of which are illegal under international law.
The following nine categories make up the necessary, sufficient, and defining characteristics of apartheid regimes:
1. Violence: Apartheid is a state of war initiated by a de facto invading ethnic minority, which at least in the short term originates from a non-neighboring locality. In all main instances of apartheid most if not all members of the invading group originate from a different continent. The invading ethnic minority and its self-defined descendants then continue to dominate the indigenous majority by means of their military superiority and by their continuous threats and uses of violence.
2. Repopulation: Apartheid is also a continuation of depopulation and population transfer. One example is seen in the obliteration of the indigenous Bedouins that Israel denies free movement to graze their herds and are silently transferring the Bedouins to new locales, such as atop of garbage dumps.
3. Citizenship: The indigenous people are often denied citizenship in their own country by the apartheid state authorities, which are ironically and irrationally, run and staffed by the recent arrivals to the country.
4. Land: Apartheid entails land confiscation, land redistribution and forced removals, almost without exception to the benefit of the invading ethnic minority. Usually, members of the ethnic majority are forced on to barren and unfertile soils, where they must also try to survive under impoverished and overcrowded conditions.
5. Work: Apartheid displays systematic exploitation of the indigenous class in the production process and different pay or taxation for the same work.
6. Access: There is ethnically differentiated access to employment, food, water, health care, emergency services, clean air, and other needs, including the need for leisure activities, in each case ensuring superior access for the favored ethnic community.
7. Education: There are also different kinds of education offered and forced upon the different ethnic groups.
8. Language: A basic apartheid characteristic is the fact that only very few of the invaders and their descendants ever learn the language(s) of the indigenous victims.
9. Thought: Finally, apartheid contains ideologies or ‘necessary illusions’ in order to convince the privileged minorities that they are inherently superior and the indigenous majorities that they are inherently inferior. Much of apartheid thought is shaped by typical war propaganda. The enemy is dehumanized by both sides’ ideologies, words and other symbols are used to incite or provoke people to violence, but mostly so by the invaders and their descendants. [1]
After returning from Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza Strip, Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Intelligence in South African Government wrote how it was “like a surreal trip back into an apartheid state of emergency. It is chilling to pass through the myriad checkpoints — more than 500 in the West Bank. They are controlled by heavily armed soldiers, youthful but grim, tensely watching every movement, fingers on the trigger…A journey from one West Bank town to another that could take 20 minutes by car now takes seven hours for Palestinians, with manifold indignities at the hands of teenage soldiers…The monstrous apartheid wall cuts off East Jerusalem…Bethlehem too is totally enclosed by the wall, with two gated entry points. The Israelis have added insult to injury by plastering the entrances with giant scenic posters welcoming tourists to Christ’s birthplace.” [2]
The Wall is spun as a ‘security barrier’ but it “is designed to crush the human spirit as much as to enclose the Palestinians in ghettos. Like a reptile, it transforms its shape and cuts across agricultural lands as a steel-and-wire barrier, with watchtowers, ditches, patrol roads and alarm systems. It will be 700km long and, at a height of 8m to 9m in places, dwarfs the Berlin Wall. The purpose of the barrier becomes clearest in open country. Its route cuts huge swathes into the West Bank to incorporate into Israel the illegal Jewish settlements — some of which are huge towns — and annexes more and more Palestinian territory.” [Ibid]
“It has become abundantly clear that the wall and checkpoints are principally aimed at advancing the safety, convenience and comfort of settlers.”- Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad. [Ibid]
“The West Bank, once 22% of historic Palestine, has shrunk to perhaps 10% to 12% of living space for its inhabitants, and is split into several fragments, including the fertile Jordan Valley, which is a security preserve for Jewish settlers and the Israeli Defence Force. Like the Gaza Strip, the West Bank is effectively a hermetically sealed prison…roads are barred to Palestinians and reserved for Jewish settlers. I try in vain to recall anything quite as obscene in apartheid South Africa.” [Ibid]
On December 20, 2006, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his relentless work confronting and challenging South Africa’s Apartheid regime spoke to The Guardian: “I’ve been deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land. I have seen the humiliation at the checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about…Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice…If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land.”
Justice requires equal human rights, liberty and self-determination for all people. Justice requires honoring International Law and the Declaration of Human Rights. Palestinian civil society has been calling for NONVIOLENT actions against Israel until they change their bad behavior and as money is the currency with the loudest voice: BDS: Boycott, Divest and Sanction is the way for people of conscience to do something.
LEARN MORE:
http://www.pacbi.org/
1. Paraphrased from pages 71-73, Apartheid Ancient, Past, and Present Systematic and Gross Human Rights Violations in Graeco-Roman Egypt, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine, By Anthony Löwstedt. Page 77..
2. Mail & Guardian, Israel 2007: Worse than Apartheid, by Ronnie Kasrils. http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=308966&area=/insight/insight__comment_and_analysis/
Only in Solidarity do “we have it in our power to begin the world again.”-Tom Paine
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
According to sources well informed on the case and the activities of El Qaeda, Israel would have created about a year, training camps on its territory for elements from Arab countries.
According to our sources, the camps include Arabs from Algeria, Morocco and Yemen who came in, with false passports, from Europe and carrying Jewish names. These were recruited by the Mossad in the European capitals to activate within the ‘El Qaeda’ organization after being selected by the intelligence services in Europe. These people are generally wanted for belonging to terrorist groups.
The secret training camps have relations with the sleeping cells of El Qaida in Europe, where their elements are recruited for possible terrorist operations in Arab countries in coordination with the branches of the organization including the armed terrorist groups of the Sahara. This proves what Ennahar had previously published on the military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Mauritania, who had prepared a secret report on security activities of armed men in the Sahara regions. The latter maintained secret relations with the rebel movements in Mali and Niger.
The Mossad had relations with the branches of El Qaeda and the operations committed against foreign interests, mainly American, and in connection with the events in Iraq and the Middle East.
According to these sources, the Mossad might even try to use Algerian Harraga in Italy and recruit them in these training camps across the logistics network of seafarers on the axis Sardinia Naples in search of elements to send secretly in Israel, for the purpose of committing operations against foreign interests during the summer; operations to be awarded to El Qaeda.
This new stage in the activities of the El Qaeda organization is the subject of the discourse of El Dhawahiri in an attempt to revive the various branches after the stranglehold exercised on the organization by the European intelligence and painful strikes made by the security services and the army in particular in the Arab Maghreb and in Algeria.
Ennahar / Mohamed Ben Kemoukh
IDF bid to expel West Bank Palestinians is a step too far |
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| A new military order will take effect this week, enabling the army to deport tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and prosecute them on infiltration charges, which carry long prison terms. The order, uncovered by Amira Hass in Haaretz yesterday, bears the signature of Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni in his previous capacity as commander of the Israel Defense Forces in Judea and Samaria.
The order’s vague language will allow army officers to exploit it arbitrarily to carry out mass expulsions, in accordance with military orders which were issued under unclear circumstances. The first candidates for expulsion will be people whose ID cards bear addresses in the Gaza Strip, including children born in the West Bank and Palestinians living in the West Bank who have lost their residency status for various reasons. This would be a grave and dangerous move, unprecedented during the Israeli occupation. For years, Israel has used a heavy hand against the Palestinian population registry, trampling basic human rights such as the freedom to move one’s residence within the occupied territories. Many Palestinians’ lives have thus been made very difficult because they have been cut off from their previous places of residence without being able to return or legally register their new addresses.
The right of all Palestinians to choose where to live in the West Bank or Gaza marks a very low threshold for defining their human rights. Israel, which justifiably prevents Palestinians from returning to where they lived before 1948 and does not offer them fair compensation for their property (while enabling Jews to recover property from the same period, as has happened in Sheikh Jarrah), cannot expel Palestinians from the occupied territories on the basis of dubious bureaucratic claims. Implementing this new military order is not only likely to spark a new conflagration in the territories, it is liable to give the world clear-cut proof that Israel’s aim is a mass deportation of Palestinians from the West Bank. While all Jews can settle wherever they wish, in Israel or in the territories, Israel is trying to deprive the Palestinians of even the minimal right to choose where to live in the West Bank or Gaza. The prime minister and defense minister should immediately shelve this military order before the IDF feels free to begin carrying out expulsions. |
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[Imagine]
William John Cox
The latest flap over Israeli housing construction in East Jerusalem has caused me to reflect upon the very deep and complicated feelings I have about the city.
I first passed through Jerusalem in December 1979 in an attempt to sneak into Tehran shortly after the American embassy hostages were taken. I returned two years later following the favorable verdict in the Holocaust Denial case and shared morning tea with Prime Minister Begin. In 1992, I testified in a trial there about the publication of the suppressed Dead Sea Scrolls and refused to identify my secret client. My last visit was in 2000 when my wife and I were married at Christ Church in the Old City on Valentine’s Day.
The political issue is not who has the greatest property rights in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Nor, is it whether the Palestinian people are more genetically related to the ancient Israelis who occupied Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, than are the Ashkenazi Jews who now control the Israeli government and who exercise great influence over U.S. policy.
The critical question is: “what can be done to peacefully resolve the dispute in a way that protects the political rights and ensures the operational and economic security of the Israeli and Palestinian people and which removes the United States as a target for terrorists?”
Rather than answering with a complicated policy paper, let me share a simple vision I have experienced over the years.
First, accept that the nation of Israel is politically, economically, and militarily capable of defending its own interests on the world stage and that it has the right to be free of internal terrorists attacks.
Second, imagine that the United Nations imposes a 50-year protectorate over the land of Palestine, including Gaza, as it existed prior to the 1967 war and declared the area to be a duty-free economic zone, with security and freedom of access guaranteed by the U.N.
This is the vision:
Instead of the existing concrete wall, I imagine a modern freeway extending from Gaza through Hebron, Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, Jericho and north along the 1967 West Bank border through the Golan Heights to the Syrian and Lebanese borders and terminating at the Mediterranean Sea.
Like all freeways, I imagine that the highway (border) is fenced and that it is patrolled and controlled by three-person motorized teams consisting of a non-Arab UN police supervisor, an Israeli police officer and a Palestinian police officer.
I imagine that the protectorate police force is only armed with non-military weapons, that all members are highly trained professionals, and that the protectorate provides economic and physical security to all of its inhabitants, both Palestinians and Jews, from its administrative headquarters in East Jerusalem.
I imagine that the highway serves as a conduit for free trade and tourism and that it promotes the economic interests of both Israel and Palestine.
I imagine that after living in peace for 50 years, the right of Israel to exist will be accepted by all nations in the Middle East, that the United States and the United Nations are perceived to have acted even-handedly in the matter, and that the “War on Terrorism” will have become a footnote in history.
William John Cox is a retired supervising prosecutor for the State Bar of California. As a police officer he wrote the Policy Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Role of the Police in America for a national advisory commission. Acting as a public interest, pro bono lawyer, he filed a class action lawsuit in 1979 on behalf of every citizen of the United States petitioning the Supreme Court to order the other two branches of the federal government to conduct a National Policy Referendum; he investigated and successfully sued a group of radical right-wing organizations in 1981 that denied the Holocaust; and he arranged in 1991 for publication of the suppressed Dead Sea Scrolls. His 2004 book, You’re Not Stupid! Get the Truth: A Brief on the Bush Presidency is reviewed athttp://www.yourenotstupid.com, and he is currently working on a fact-based fictional political philosophy. His writings are collected at http://www.thevoters.org, and he can be contacted atu2cox@msn.com.
MICHAEL JANSEN
LEBANESE PRIME minister Saad Hariri has called for national unity ahead of Sunday’s mass rally on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of his father, former premier Rafik Hariri.
Mr Hariri said unity was the “most powerful weapon in our hands to face up to Israeli threats”, including daily intrusions into Lebanese air space by Israeli warplanes in violation of the ceasefire which ended the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese Shia Hizbullah movement.
“It’s not a secret that Israel has vicious intentions toward Lebanon because Israel is the enemy,” he said.
He made it clear that the government would stand behind Hizbullah, now a mainstream political party with two cabinet ministers.
In recent weeks, Israel has repeatedly threatened to strike Lebanon in response to any Hizbullah attack on Israel.
Lebanese president Michel Suleiman, a former army chief, warned that an Israeli attack on Lebanon would be “no picnic” while Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said Damascus would support “Lebanon against any possible Israeli aggression”.
In response to a statement by Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak that Israel’s army should prepare for war with Syria if efforts to resume peace talks failed, Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallem warned that Israel’s cities could be targeted if Syria was attacked.
Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman retorted that Syria would lose any conflict with Israel and its regime would be toppled.
In a bid to calm tensions, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that war was not imminent. However the exchanges prompted Saudi Arabia to appeal to the international community to deal firmly with Israeli threats against Lebanon and Syria and end Israel’s “inhumane” treatment of Palestinians.
Hizbullah is unlikely to initiate a fresh conflict with Israel. The 2006 conflict left the movement’s strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs and south Lebanon in ruins and killed 1,200 Lebanese, the majority civilians, and 157 Israelis, mainly soldiers.
Israel’s devastating campaign was sparked by the seizure of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border Hizbullah raid. The movement’s secretary general, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, apologised to his countrymen for miscalculating the Israeli response to the snatch.
Dissident Palestinian factions have on occasion fired rockets into northern Israel from Lebanon, risking conflagration.
eileen fleming
What follows this expose by The Palestine Monitor, is something I wrote in 2009 and 2005 on this topic.
Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) is one of several organisations working to bring the violations occurring in East Jerusalem to the attention of the world. Their Chief Executive, Rabbi Asherman reports, “I see Jerusalem in flames, and know that my words will not succeed in conveying the horror of what I see or the dread in my heart…”
RHR was formed in 1988 and though the work of the organisation is broad its current focus is on the situation in East Jerusalem, in particular the events unfurling in Sheikh Jarrah.
The struggle for justice in Sheikh Jarrah
Maya Wind is the RHR press officer and every week she has been coordinating demonstrations across Jerusalem to expose and protest the injustices occurring in Sheikh Jarrah.
Sheikh Jarrah is one of the most contentious neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem with 28 properties embroiled in a legal battle between fundamentalist Israeli settlers and the Palestinians who live there. Maya describes the atmosphere as “extremely, extremely explosive. There are constantly violent outbreaks (…) settlers are provocative on purpose.”
The silencing of protest
The protest in Sheikh Jarrah has begun to build a self sustaining momentum, with regular crowds of hundreds turning out. Last week two coach loads of activists drove up from Tel Aviv: it was the largest demonstration yet in Sheikh Jarrah. But as the demonstrators grow in number and the media start to cover the event extensively, so do Israeli security forces attempts to shut the protest down. Last Friday the police refused to grant the permit for marching from West to East Jerusalem and stormed the crowd of demonstrators, arresting 22 of them. The human rights community in Israel has moved quickly to condemn this cynical attempt to silence legitimate protest.
“The police are calling us outlaws and anarchists, despite the fact that the crowd here is mostly composed of professors from the Hebrew University and Jerusalemite teens who sing protest songs to the sound of drums,”“While the officers suppress our protests, sometimes violently, haredim and settlers riot unhindered in the neighborhood and attack Palestinian residents – sometimes to the point at which they require medical treatment.” said Avner Inbar, a left-wing activist.
Apathy and dissent
Security tactics are getting more extreme and so to are the reactions ordinary Jerusalemites are having to the demonstration as it weaves from the predominantly Israeli West to the Palestinian East of the city. Maya reports, “We’re called traitors, cursed at, eggs are thrown at us. But that’s only positive, it shows we are having an impact, that we are making people outraged and that’s important because I’m equally outraged by what’s going on here.”
Maya works throughout the week to engage ordinary Israelis with the issue of Sheikh Jarrah, in particular targeting young people through flyering universities and nightclubs where the main obstacle she faces is not opposition but indifference.
“People are just very apathetic; they can’t be bothered to find out what’s happening in East Jerusalem. For many Jerusalemites East Jerusalem might as well be another country, they never venture here.”
With a wisdom that belies her 19 years, Maya joined RHR after being released from Israeli prison last March having served time following her refusal to serve in the Israeli Army. Four years ago a conversation with a Palestinian girl turned her life around.
“I was 15 and I had one conversation with a Palestinian girl who told me one story about something soldiers did to her father and that was the burst of my bubble.”
As a young teenager Maya had to reeducate herself about the reality of the Israeli Occupation and she is now an active member of the peace movement. Alongside the demonstration Maya regularly stays over with families under eviction orders. Her aim is to bring these human rights violations to the attention of the world and to show solidarity with the families under threat, “for the morale of the family it’s very important for them to feel, in this case, that the occupiers care and that there are Israelis who are opposing this.”
To find out more about Sheikh Jarrah on Palestine Monitor
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spi…
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spi…
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spi…
To find out more about Rabbis for Human Rights visit http://www.rhr.org.il/index.php?lan…
The Many Layers of NaHalat Shimon beg the question: Where’s the money coming from?
Published first August 8, 2009
[Occupied East Jerusalem] Last Sunday morning just before sunrise, Israeli forces evicted seventy more Palestinians from their homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which is being taken over by the Nahalat Shimon settlers.
“The events in Sheikh Jarrah garnered international censure from the European Union, the United Nations (UN) and from Britain, which said it was ‘appalled’ at the move. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday night called the Israeli evictions “deeply regrettable” and she urged “the government of Israel and municipal officials to refrain from such provocative actions.” [1]
Israeli forces also demolished the Al-Kurd family protest tent for the sixth time. The Al-Kurd family was evicted from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood last November, just prior to my first visit and I returned again on June 10, 2009.
Less than a five minute walk from my room at the Ambassador Hotel and less than ten from the Old City of Jerusalem is the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Around the corner from my hotel and up the hill from the Al-Kurd Tent is a newly erected community center with a plaque “Dedicated to the Children of Shimon Hazadik Neighborhood” from a Dr. Rubin Brecher and family of Lawrence, New York.
According to Jewish tradition, Shimon Hazadik (which means ‘The righteous’) was the High Priest at the time of Alexander the Great. He reminded the people of what’s important in the world and he used to say: “On three things the world stands: the Torah, on Service [prayer] and on acts of kindness.”[2]
Mrs. Al-Kurd, known as Um Kamal [mother of Kamal] and her now deceased husband Mohammed had lived in the neighborhood from 1956 until the morning of November 9, 2008 when the Israeli police enforced a court order that evicted them.
When I returned to the tent on June 10, 2009 and asked Um Kamal where her calm strength and perpetual smile came from, she gestured to the sky and responded, “Allah: God gives me.”
Maher Hannoun interjected, “Um Kamal is a strong woman because she has a strong connection to this land where we both were born! Even for millions of dollars we would never sell our land, our hopes, our dreams! We are here legally and we have a contract that was signed between the government and UNWRRA, but what gives us the real power to fight is seeing all the people who come to be with us here believing in human rights. We need every one to carry our message around the world that this is our home and we will never leave here.
“In Gaza they attacked with F16 tanks. In Jerusalem they attack with evictions and transferring property. More than 500 homes in this neighborhood have already received eviction notices. They are building 200 settler units and an American Israeli company named Nahalat Shimon Builders is behind it.”
Nahalat Shimon is also the name of a settler group and a real estate company.
On August 2, 2009, “Israeli riot police wielding clubs kicked out two Palestinian families from their homes in occupied east Jerusalem on Sunday, defying international protests over Jewish settlement activity in the area. Clashes erupted after police moved in at dawn around the homes in the upmarket Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah following an Israeli court decision ordering the eviction of the 53 Palestinians, including 19 minors.
“I was born in this house and so were my children,” said Maher Hanoun, whose family was evicted along with the neighboring Ghawi household. “Now we are on the streets. We have become refugees.”
“The Supreme Court ordered the evictions following an appeal by the Nahalat Shimon International settler group which claimed Jewish settlers have title deeds for the properties, despite UN and Palestinian denials. Jerusalem authorities have also given permission for the construction of about 20 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah, in defiance of global calls for a halt to all settlement activity in occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank.” [3]
On November 9, 2008, at 3:30 AM, Reverend Richard Toll was awakened in his hotel room in the Ambassador while the Israeli Occupying Forces/IOF broke down the door of the home of the Al Khurd family. Rev. Toll informed me that he was jarred awake by a woman’s pain filled scream that was indescribable.
The Al Khurd family had lived in their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood since the days when east Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. The United Nations upon contract with Jordan allotted them the land after they became refugees when they were expelled from their home in west Jerusalem by Zionists during the 1948 war.
Hasib Nashashibi, of the Ensan Center for Democracy and Human Rights [an NGO coalition of Palestinian Muslim and Christians] explained to me, “When Jordan controlled this land and the UN granted privileges to the Palestinian refugees including those from west Jerusalem, such as education, health care, and relief and development; they also allowed the refugees to give up some privileges and receive a home and land deed instead. Jordan never fulfilled their obligation to send the written documentation that these west Jerusalem refugees are land owners and not tenants. Now the Israeli’s are trying to make them refugees for the second time!”
Since East Jerusalem’s occupation by Israel in 1967, the Oriental Jews Associations and the Knesseth Yisrael Association have been waging a brutal take over of the Khurds’ home, claiming that the land originally belonged to Jews.
In 1972, they succeeded to register the land in their name with the Israeli Land registrar. In 1999, settlers burst into the home and set up an occupation in a wing of the house that belonged to the couple’s son, Raed. The Khurd family hired lawyers and have spent a fortune in court battles and in 2006, the Israeli court finally revoked the claim of ownership by the settlers. However, on February 25, 2007 the Israeli Supreme Court issued an order to evict the settlers but it was never enforced!
In Israeli law, all of Jerusalem, including the eastern half of the city, is considered to be the “indivisible” capital of the Jewish state and religiously fundamentalist settlers have been claiming land all over occupied East Jerusalem based on title deeds that pre-existed 1948.
Since Israel became a state 531 Palestinian villages have been destroyed and 750,000 Palestinians were made refugees in 1948, and Israel continues to make more!
President George W. Bush became a willing collaborator in this on going injustice in his infamous 2004 exchange of letters with Ariel Sharon. Bush agreed that Israel would not be expected to return to the armistice lines of 1949 and declared that Israel would be able to hold on to its “population centers” in the West Bank. This is nothing more than Orwellian spin that attempts to justify the established settlement blocs for every one of them are illegal under international law.
“Michshol Hafrada” is Hebrew for “The Separation Wall” and separation translates to Apartheid in Afrikaan.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out And to whom I was likely to give offence. Something there is that does not love a wall, That wants it down.-Robert Frost
The Wall has divided Palestinians from Palestinians and has stolen their aquifers, denies them access to their land, jobs, families and holy sites and for every mile it consumes over $1.25 Million USA Tax dollars.
The Wall was deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice but no president has yet demanded Israel to tear down this wall!
The so called Holy Land is a Swiss cheese of land locked enclaves; known as Bantustans in Afrikaan. Jewish only colonies have been implanted to divide the Palestinian neighborhoods throughout occupied territory. Over 100,000 Palestinians are trapped and then daily humiliated and tortured at the over 600 checkpoints that deny them access to their families, land, jobs, resources and holy sites.
Since 1967, over 22,000 dwellings -averaging eleven people per unit- have been bulldozed by Israeli forces usually because they interfere with settlement expansion.
Israel attempts to justify their immoral actions with three distinct categories:
1. Collective Punishment: Homes of suspected terrorists-in reality that is anyone who opposes the occupation- as well as the families of suicide/homicide bombers.
These punitive actions amount to 15% of the over 22,000 homes destroyed since 1967.
2. Administrative demolitions for lack of building permits: Israel refuses to issue any and this accounts for 25%. In occupied east Jerusalem one out of four Palestinian homes have a demolition order.
3. Security: The blanket reason given for all of Israel’s injustices and illegal actions.
On December 20, 2006, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his relentless work confronting and challenging South Africa’s Apartheid regime was quoted in The Guardian: “I’ve been deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land. I have seen the humiliation at the checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about…Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people. A true peace can ultimately be built only on justice…If peace could come to South Africa, surely it can come to the Holy Land.”
I imagine Shimon Hazadik might remind “the children” who are taking over the neighborhood that,”From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught…that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, ‘vomit you out’ if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]:
“When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ but also ‘you shall love the other.'” [4]
I also imagine Shimon Hazadik might be interested- as we all should- in knowing from whom and where the money comes from that equips the Nahalat Shimon settlers.
1. http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0804/p06s12-wome.html
2. http://www.chabadonline.com/scripts/tgij/paper/Articlecm.asp?articleID=1289
3. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200983\story_3-8-2009_pg4_6
4. Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine, page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007
| Dear Reader: This chapter is based on an actual email conversation I had with an Episcopal priest, but as I was writing fiction in 2005, I wrote for KEEP HOPE ALIVE. Chapter 16: A CONFRONTATIONAL CONVERSATION “Father Paul, you cannot possibly be telling me that an Episcopal priest has been taken in by fundamentalist theology?” Terese incredulously asked the new assistant to the rector at St. Joan of Arc Episcopal Church in Orlando, who also served at the noon mass every Wednesday. Father Paul Hendricks was a passionate evangelist on a mission to convert every Jew he encountered to become a Christian. Terese had kept her silence for the first six months she had been listening to his Wednesday noon sermons, but finally broke her silence after the rest of the parishioners had departed. Paul sighed and shook his head. “Look, Mrs. Hunter, I read your op/ed in the newspaper about Israel and Palestine, and we both agree we want peace; we just go about it differently.” “Father, let me say that the fastest growing cult in the U.S.A. is the cult of Christian Zionism. Approximately 25 million U.S. Christians believe as you do, and I am most depressed to see that the simple answers of fundamentalism have reached their tentacles into the thinking man’s church. You just preached for thirteen minutes on Genesis 12:3–‘I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse: and in you all the families of the world are blessed’–as if God meant blessings to be political power and military might. Father, surely you understand that the belief of the ancient Israelites, who held that they were chosen, as if they were somehow special from others, as if God esteemed them above others, is just basic primitive nationalism. Come on, Father, looking down on one’s enemies to foster one’s own tribal interest and praying to God to smite one’s enemies is what the ancients did. Isn’t it about time we moved beyond that limited thinking?” Father Paul clenched his fists and held them behind his back, as he suppressed a simmering rage. He stood nine inches above Terese’s upturned head, and with a slick smile and condescending tone told her, “Mrs. Hunter, you are very misled. The text is understood to mean a blessing to Abraham’s lineage–” Terese cut in. “Agreed! And Genesis 12:3 was promised even before Ishmael, the father of the Arab nation, and Isaac, the Jew, were born! And what about the very first mention of Israel? Jacob was renamed Israel for having wrestled and struggled with God. That is how I understand Israel; everyone who struggles and wrestles with God is Israel, too. Israel means more than a geographical location, Father Paul.” “Mrs. Hunter, the modern state of Israel is the fulfillment of the prophetic scriptures, and God’s covenant with Israel is eternal, exclusive, and will not be abrogated. I refer you to Genesis 12:1-7, 15:4-7, 17:1-8; Leviticus 26:44-45; and Deuteronomy 7:7:8.” “And Father, I refer you to Matthew 5:43-45, which does not only critique Genesis 12:3; it blows it apart, for Christ commanded, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despite-fully use you, that you maybe children of your Father.” The two had reached Paul’s SUV and he silently prayed he could make a swift escape, but Terese had positioned herself at the driver’s door, and if he were to open it swiftly, she could be easily moved aside. Father Paul entertained the thought for more than a moment, but remained mute and still, as the tiny woman exploded with a torrent of words. “Look, blind allegiance to the Israeli government has allowed them to become a big bully, and isn’t God always on the side of the oppressed? My sense is that you Zionists see the political state of Israel as a replacement for Christ, at the center of the Christian faith, and that certainly is not Christianity!
“Mrs. Hunter, why don’t you make an appointment and we can discuss this further? I really have to go.” “Okay, I can take a hint, but let me leave you with this: when religion and politics are in bed together, everybody gets screwed! The Israeli government is using you Zionists as apologists in support of their agenda of illegal occupation and settlements in the West bank, Golan, and Gaza, on literal biblical grounds taken out of context. Your blind allegiance to every act of Israel, understood as being orchestrated by God and which should therefore be condoned, supported, and even praised, makes me want to puke! And I wonder about the true motives of Christians who actually relish the idea of Armageddon and love to speculate on who gets ‘left behind.’ Christ was very clear that there will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth by those who were so sure they were in, but get left out. God has always been on the side of the oppressed, and your uncritical endorsement and justification for Israel’s racist and apartheid policies are an abomination.” The stunned and silent priest watched in relief as Terese turned, flipped her braid, and walked away.
|
Only in Solidarity do “we have it in our power to begin the world again.”-Tom Paine
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
by Earl Morningstarr
The births of deformed babies in Gaza has increased since the Israeli offensive which took place last year, Palestinian doctors claim.
Most recently a woman gave birth to a child at the Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip which was severely deformed, the baby boy’s face was malformed, his nose is flattened, there is reddish-brownish skin discoloration and the limbs are short with the feet curling in, a similar shape to a gorilla’s.
The child, unsurprisingly nicknamed ‘Gorilla Baby’ was abandoned by his parents. The mother and father of the little boy have left the hospital and refuse to go back and claim the baby, so he will remain under the hospital’s custody until other arrangements can be made.
Doctors at the hospital say that Gorilla Baby and a host of other mutated children are not the result of genetic conditions, they point the finger squarely at the use of white phosphorus by the Israeli armed forces.
| eileen fleming “President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. are fully committed to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East,” US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell told reporters following his latest meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas while in the Jordanian capital of Amman.Mitchell’s remarks come just a few days after President Obama said the U.S. administration had “overestimated” their ability to persuade the Israelis and Palestinians to resume “meaningful” peace talks. On January 24, 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, persisted in Israel’s policy of laying claim by establishing “facts on the ground” in the West Bank during a tree planting ceremony in the Gush Etzion colony/settlement bloc, “Our message is clear: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here, this place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity.”[1] In 1973, Ariel Sharon predicted, “We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them. We’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlement, right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years time, neither the United Nations, nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.” The 2003 peace “road map” obliged Israel to freeze “all settlement activity” and the World Court ruled that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are all illegal. Jewish settlers claim a God-given right to the West Bank, which they call by the biblical names Judea and Samaria but they ignore what their Torah commands: “From Moses to Jeremiah and Isaiah, the Prophets taught…that the Jewish claim on the land of Israel was totally contingent on the moral and spiritual life of the Jews who lived there, and that the land would, as the Torah tells us, ‘vomit you out’ if people did not live according to the highest moral vision of Torah. Over and over again, the Torah repeated its most frequently stated mitzvah [command]: “When you enter your land, do not oppress the stranger; the other, the one who is an outsider of your society, the powerless one and then not only ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ but also ‘you shall love the other.'” [2] On January 22, 2010, Stephen M. Walt, esteemed Professor of international relations at Harvard University affirmed that Mideast special envoy George Mitchell, maybe the only politician in recent memory “to be universally admired in the United States” but warned if he wants to keep “his reputation intact, it is time for him to resign because he is wasting his time” vis a vie reaching a resolution to the six decades of conflict in Israel Palestine. Walt sited,Joe Klein’s report in the Times, that President Obama’s commitment to achieving a two states solution has failed and “this is as intractable a problem as you get.” [3] On January 24, 2010, James M. Wall, a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, wrote, “My dictionary says an intractable problem is that which is not easily governed, managed, directed, manipulated, relieved or cured. It does not say the problem is impossible to solve. What would make this particular problem impossible to solve is for the President to continue down the road he has followed in his first year in office. It is time for some serious policy overhauling. It is time to face the ghosts of the past. When it is time for some serious ghost busting, who you gonna call? I suggest Mitchell try a new perspective. Call Henry Siegman.” [4] In the January 7, 2010 edition of The Nation, Seigman noted, “Israel has crossed the threshold from ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ to the only apartheid regime in the Western world. “In short, Middle East peacemaking efforts will continue to fail, and the possibility of a two-state solution will disappear, if US policy continues to ignore developments on the ground in the occupied territories and within Israel, which now can be reversed only through outside intervention. President Obama is uniquely positioned to help Israel reclaim Jewish and democratic ideals on which the state was founded–if he does not continue ‘politics as usual.'” [5] Israel is not-and never has been a Democracy! In the May 28, 1993 edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, Ariel Sharon explained: “The terms ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ are totally absent from the Declaration of Independence. This is not an accident. The intention of Zionism was not to bring democracy, needless to say. It was solely motivated by the creation in Eretz-Isrel of a Jewish state belonging to all the Jewish people and to the Jewish people alone. This is why any Jew of the Diaspora has the right to immigrate to Israel and to become a citizen of Israel.” Jeff Halper, American Israeli, co-founder and coordinator of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and Professor of Anthropology, explains: “An ethnocracy is the opposite of a democracy, although it might incorporate some elements of democracy such as universal citizenship and elections. It arises when one particular group-the Jews in Israel, the Russians in Russia, the Protestants in pre-1972 Northern Ireland, the whites in apartheid South Africa, the Shi’ite Muslims in Iran, the Malay in Malaysia and, if they had their way, the white Christian fundamentalists in the US-seize control of the government and armed forces in order to enforce a regime of exclusive privilege over other groups in what is in fact a multi-ethnic or multi-religious society. Ethnocracy, or ethno-nationalism, privileges ethnos over demos, whereby one’s ethnic affiliation, be it defined by race, descent, religion, language or national origin, takes precedence over citizenship in determining to whom a county actually ‘belongs.'”[6] The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was signed May 14, 1948 the day the British Mandate over Palestine expired and which affirms that the state of Israel: “Will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisioned by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion…and will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, education and culture: it will safeguard the Holy places of all religions, and it will be faithful to the principals of the Charter of the United Nations.” In a 2005 interview with Jeff Halper, he informed this reporter: “Israel has no constitution but has a Declaration of Independence which promised that Israel would abide by conditions and UN resolutions. They have not fulfilled the agreement which was the basis of their independence.” The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law and very foundation and source of legal authority that underlies the very existence of these United States and the federal government. The US Constitution provides the framework for the organization of the federal government and under pins the relationship of the federal government to the states and all its citizens/people within these United States. Jeff Halper hit another nail on the head when he wrote that the “entire conflict with the Palestinians has been reduced to one consideration: personal security…Israeli Jews prefer peace and compromise, but only if they are convinced that their prime preoccupation-security- has been credibly addressed.” [7] So, let’s address it! The brutal truth is that only if we truly love our friends will we always be honest with them and we call them on their bad behavior! There will never be security for Israeli Jews without justice for the indigenous people of the so called holy land which has been disseminated into Bantustans-disconnected enclaves populated by human beings who have been justice: equal and inalienable human rights due to colonialism, imperialism, military might and Zionism, which have been aided and abetted by American Government foreign policy and billions of USA Taxpayers bucks! “Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America’s entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”[8] Just before Christmas 2010, President Obama, signed into law the biggest aid pledge of the year. NOT for struggling countries on the World Bank’s list, not for we the people without health care, but another $3 billion for Israel in 2010 and an extra $30 billion over the next decade! It is past time for the US to comprehend that the Israeli-Palestinian affects the entire world and is at the very root of Anti-Semitic and Anti-American sentiment and this conflict is not and never has been between equals! In 2005, Jeff Halper also informed this reporter: “Tony Blair said 70% of all the conflicts in the world can be traced back to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. What gives us hope is that as this conflict worsens maybe Europe will figure out that American policies are against their interests and intervene…This conflict impacts the global community and especially everyone in the USA. “If we do fix this conflict it would be a tremendous step forward in global reconciliation…This whole issue is based on Human Rights and it is a global issue requiring global intervention. “It has been said that the Israelis do not love this land, they just want to possess it. There have been three stages to make this occupation permanent. The first was to establish the facts on the ground; the settlements. There are ½ million Israeli’s and four million Palestinians here. They have been forced into Bantustan; truncated mini states; prison states. It is apartheid and Bush and Hillary are both willing collaborators. “In 1977, Sharon came in with a mandate, money and resources to make the Israeli presence in the West Bank irreversible. The second stage began in April 2004 when America approved the Apartheid/Convergence/Realignment Plan and eight settlement blocs. This is just like South Africa! The Bush Sharon letter exchange guaranteed that the USA considers the settlements non-negotiable. The Convergence Plan and The Wall create the borders and that is what defines Bantustans. Congress ratified the Bush plan and only Senator Byrd of West Virginia voted no and nine House Representatives. “Israel has set up a matrix of control; a thick web of settlements guaranteed to make the occupation permanent by establishing facts on the ground. Israel denies there is an occupation, so everything is reduced to terrorism. It is our job to insist upon the human rights issue, for occupied people have International Law on their side. “Israel is not a democracy, it is an ethnocracy: full rights to Jews, but not Palestinians.” [9] In my video interview with the Whistle blower of Israel’s WMD Program, Mordechai Vanunu, taped a few weeks after his Freedom of Speech Trial began in Jerusalem, he stated: “It’s very sad that Hilary Clinton went to the Jewish Wailing Wall and forgot the real crying wall is the Palestinian wall; the apartheid wall, the wall is not for defense, but to keep this conflict permanent. “The Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and Muslims of terrorism. “Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew.” [10] On November 8, 2006, Dr. Ilan Pappe, spoke in East Jerusalem, during Sabeel’s [www.sabeel.org] 6th International Conference: The Forgotten Faithful: AKA Palestinian Christians. Dr. Pappe spoke about the “Dynamics of Forgetting” and it is past time to remember that in Tel Aviv “on March 10, 1948, eleven men had a meeting in the Red House headed by Ben Gurion. The eleven decided to expel one million Palestinians from historical Palestine. No minutes were taken, but many memoirs were written about that fateful meeting. A systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine began and within seven months the Zionists managed to expel one half of all the Palestinian people from their villages and towns. “The Red House in Tel Aviv is gone now. It was a typical building in Tel Aviv that had all the characteristics of Mediterranean homes but with the local Palestinian architecture of the ’20’s. Today a USA Sheraton Hotel stands in its place. The Red House was the home of the Hagganah; a Jewish underground organization but before 1948 it was the home of a socialist movement, from which it received its name.” Haganah is Hebrew for “The Defense” and was a Jewish paramilitary organization formed in what was then the British Mandate for Palestine from 1920 to 1948. In the period between 1920 and 1929, the Haganah lacked a strong central authority or coordination; Haganah “units” were very localized and poorly armed and consisted mainly of Jewish farmers who took turns guarding their farms or their kibbutzim. Following the Arab 1929 Hebron massacre that led to the ethnic cleansing by the British authorities of all Jews from the city of Hebron, the Haganah’s role changed dramatically. It became a much larger organization encompassing nearly all the youth and adults in the Jewish settlements, as well as thousands of members from the cities. It also acquired foreign arms and began to develop workshops to create hand grenades and simple military equipment. It went from being an untrained militia to a capable army. The British did not officially recognize the Haganah, but British security forces cooperated with them and by 1931, the most right-wing elements of Haganah branched off and formed the Irgun Tsva’i-Leumi: The National Military Organization. The Irgun were discontented with the policy of restraint when faced with British and Arab pressure and were “terrorists” in their own right. The Irgun later split in 1940, and their offshoot became known as the “Lehi” a Hebrew acronym of Lochamei Herut Israel, known as the Freedom Fighters of Israel and also the “Stern Gang” after its leader, Abraham Stern. The groups had different functions, but all served to move the British out of Palestine and to make Palestine a Jewish state rather than create a Jewish home in Palestine. Menachem Begin, an Irgun commander, stated in a 1944 meeting: “In fact, there is a division of roles; One organization advocates individual terrorism (the Lehi), the other conducts sporadic military operations (the Irgun) and there is a third organization which prepares itself to throw its final weight in the decisive war.” Dr. Pappe explained that in 1948, the “systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine began and within seven months the Zionists managed to expel one half of all the Palestinian people from their villages and towns. “The New York Times followed Israeli troops and reported the truth of the expulsion and separation of men and women, and of the many massacres. The world was well informed in 1948, but a year later not a trace was reported in the USA press or books. It was as if nothing ever happened. “From March to October 1948 the USA State Department stated what was happening was a CRIME against humanity and ethnic cleansing. When ever one ethnic group expels another group they should be treated as War Criminals and the victims should be allowed to return. “This is never mentioned in the USA about Palestine. “Israel is so successful in their ethnic cleansing because the world doesn’t care! The ethnic cleansing continues via the apartheid policies of the Israeli government and because of the denial of the truth by the USA media. “To claim Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is bullshit! The Six Day War of 1967 escalated the ethnic cleansing and today in Jerusalem every Palestinian who fails to pay taxes, or has a minor infraction will loose their citizenship. “In 1948 the mechanism of denial and ethnic cleansing as an IDEOLOGY, not a policy but a formula began. When Zionism began in the 19th century it was meant to be a safe haven for Jews and to help redefine Judaism as a national movement, not just a religion. Nothing wrong with either of those goals! “But by the late 19th Century it was decided the only way these goals could be achieved was by ridding the indigenous population and it became an evil ideology. “Israeli Jewish life will never be simple, good, or worth living while this ideology of domination, exclusiveness and superiority is allowed to continue. The mind set today is that unless Israel is an exclusive Jewish State, Palestinians will continue to be obstacles. However, there has always been a small vocal minority challenging this. “The only thing that can save Palestinians is for the world to say ENOUGH is ENOUGH!” In his book, “Later Years” Albert Einstein wrote: “This is a time when there seems to be a particular need for men of philosophical persuasion—that is to say, friends of wisdom and truth—to join together…We Jews should be, and remain, the carriers and patrons of spiritual values. But we should also always be aware of the fact that these spiritual values are and always have been the common goal of mankind.” [Page 268] The truth is often brutal, but if the US truly desires Israel to be secure and also be known as an honest broker for peace in the Middle East, we must first know the truth and then always speak our mind, for as William Blake penned: “Opposition is True Friendship” and enough has become more than enough! 1. http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1144702.html 2. Rabbi Lerner, TIKKUN Magazine, page 35, Sept./Oct. 2007 3. http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/22/time_for_george_mitchell_to_resign 5. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100125/siegman 6. Jeff Halper, An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, Page 74 7. An Israeli in Palestine, Pages 65-66. Pluto Press, 2008 8. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” 9. Eileen Fleming, Memoirs of a Nice Irish-American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory 10. “30 Minutes with Vanunu” streaming @ http://wearewideawake.org/ Only in Solidarity do “we have it in our power to begin the world again.”-Tom Paine Eileen Fleming, |
[Both regional peace and security can be achieved once the hypocritical American double-dealing ends. American control has always extended to maintaining a balance of terror, to be upset on American whims. The American “Raj” has to come to an end, so that the human race can be liberated. Nations who have become intoxicated with power, by submitting to American control, must be sobered up. India has to shake-off this unrealistic belief that “nuclear war is survivable.” The world is waking-up to the awful reality of Hindu beliefs in caste and seeing others as less than “human,” which creates the belief that one-half a billion collateral deaths is an “acceptable loss.” Indian dreams of “greatness” stand in stark contrast to its delusional Zionist-infected beliefs that “democracy” can exist in a nation that holds entire classes of its citizens as cattle, or worse, “Goyim.” Zionist ideas are a poison that conscientious citizens of the world will no longer voluntarily swallow.]
US nuclear duplicityBy Asif Ezdi |
| The writer is a former member of the Pakistan
Foreign Service The National Command Authority (NCA) had a well-publicised meeting on Jan 13 against the background of recent statements by India’s army chief Gen Deepak Kapoor that his country is capable of conducting conventional military strikes against Pakistan under a nuclear umbrella, and of fighting both Pakistan and China at the same time. The NCA meeting was also significant because it took place a week before the start of the 2010 session of the Conference on Disarmament (CD), at which the commencement of negotiations on a treaty on limiting the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons will be the major issue of discussion. Kapoor’s statements reflect a dilemma that India has faced since the nuclear tests of 1998. While India established its claim to be a nuclear power, it also forced Pakistan to demonstrate its nuclear capability. The resulting nuclear standoff between the two countries made a resort to conventional warfare an extremely risky venture and had the effect of largely neutralising the advantage in conventional weapons capability that India enjoys over Pakistan. But India is unwilling to accept this reality. As the reputed US journal Arms Control Today wrote in its issue of July/August 2009, “Indian military planners foolishly believe they can engage in and win a limited conventional conflict without triggering a nuclear exchange, even though the Pakistani army’s strategy relies on nuclear weapons to offset India’s overwhelming conventional superiority.” It is this thinking that lies behind India’s offensive military doctrines like “Cold Start,” and statements such as those made by Kapoor. These warnings are not only “foolish” but they also become highly dangerous when they come from a senior official of a major foreign power, such as the declaration by US defence secretary Robert Gates last week that if there was a repeat of the Mumbai incident, India should not be expected to show the same restraint that it exercised last time. This statement can only be characterised as highly irresponsible. It is also illogical, because Gates acknowledged that the terrorist threat came from non-state actors outside the control of the Pakistani authorities. Not only that, he also tried to convince the Pakistani leadership in Islamabad that the country did not face any threat on its eastern borders. The defence secretary evidently does not seem to have realised the inherent contradiction between these two stances. The uneasy peace that the region has enjoyed in recent years rests mainly on the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. That is why the proposed Fissile Material Treaty (FMT), which could significantly affect the future nuclear programmes of Pakistan and India, is of such vital interest. The CD broke an 11-year impasse in May last year by agreeing on a work programme for negotiating the treaty. But the commencement of negotiations was held up because of differences over the implementation of the work programme. Pakistan insisted that progress on the FMT should proceed in tandem with the other core issues before the CD. Largely because of Pakistani objections, the CD could not commence its work on the FMT last year. At the opening session of the CD this year (Jan 19), the Pakistani delegation proposed that the conference should also consider conventional arms control at the regional level and negotiate a global regime on all aspects of missiles. Because of the lack of agreement on this proposal, the adoption of the agenda has been delayed. Behind these procedural questions, there are important substantive differences. There is no agreement yet on the fundamental question whether the treaty should only prohibit future production or deal also with existing stocks of fissile material. Pakistan has pointed out that freezing the existing asymmetries would undermine its security. The Pakistani delegation has also underlined that for Pakistan the issue is linked to the decision of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), taken in 2008 at US initiative, to allow nuclear trade with India, while continuing the embargo on Pakistan. This deal, as Pakistan has maintained, would enable India to produce substantial additional quantities of fissile material for nuclear weapons and consequently upset strategic balance in the region. The NCA underlined in its press release that during consideration of the FMT by the CD, Pakistan would not accept any discriminatory measures that perpetuate regional instability or are prejudicial to its national security. This is absolutely right. But the question remains whether the procedural tactics being employed by our delegation to stall the work of the CD on the FMT are the best means of achieving our goals. The alternative would be to take part in the negotiations and work for a treaty which is in keeping with our national interests. Failing that, we could withhold our signatures from it. This is the course India has taken. New Delhi has reservations on halting the production of fissile material and has declared that it will not accept obligations that hinder its nuclear weapons programme. But it has not obstructed negotiations on the treaty. After the procedural moves made by our delegation in Geneva, Washington and other supporters of the FMT may be expected to make diplomatic demarches urging Islamabad to withdraw its objections to the proposed CD agenda. And if the past is any guide, our Government will not be able to stand up to U.S. pressure. Our fundamental problem is that our national security policies are largely determined by domestic political considerations. Our response to the India-US nuclear deal is a striking example of this attitude. After it was made public in July 2005, the Musharraf regime made some noises in public expressing its unhappiness but, as Undersecretary of State William J Burns indicated in a meeting with the press in December 2006, Musharraf let it be known privately that he was “not unhappy” with the deal. Musharraf was clearly not prepared to jeopardise US support for his rule. Musharraf’s policies on this issue have been followed under Zardari – and for the same reasons. He has not taken up the question of Pakistan’s access to civilian nuclear technology in any of his meetings with US leaders. Nor has Gilani or Foreign Minister Qureshi. Also, Nawaz Sharif has not raised it in any of his public speeches or his meetings with visiting leaders from the US administration or Congress. Our “sovereign” parliament has not discussed it either. In July 2008, several retired ambassadors of Pakistan called upon the government to make civil nuclear cooperation a high-priority issue in our agenda with the United States and other leading NSG members. Later, in September 2009 some former ambassadors wrote in an open letter to Obama that if Pakistan continues to be denied access to civilian nuclear technology on the same terms as India, our partnership with US in the global effort to eradicate terrorism would remain fragile and Pakistan would not be in a position to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) or the FMT. Gilani occasionally complains to the media about the double standards of US policy on international civilian nuclear cooperation. He recently brought up this matter with a US congressional delegation. Someone needs to tell him that it is not to the media and US congressmen but the US president and heads of government of other leading NSG countries to whom he should be addressing himself. In a letter to Zardari last November, Obama offered an expanded strategic partnership to Pakistan. If Gilani is serious, he should now write to the US president to emphasise that if this partnership is to be meaningful, it must include access for Pakistan to civilian nuclear technology. The prime minister should also urge Obama to take the lead in getting Pakistan a waiver from NSG guidelines similar to that given to India. This issue should be made a priority item of the bilateral agenda, starting with the talks being hosted by Hillary Clinton in Washington next month. Gilani should similarly take it up with other leading NSG members. The writer is a former member of the Foreign Service. Email: asifezdi@yahoo.com |
[Always berate your opponent for copying your own behavior. Hypocrisy is the hallmark of “counter-insurgency.”
“Pakistan keeps pursuing its strategy of inflicting a thousand cuts on India. There is little reason to believe that Pakistan will abandon that low-cost, minimum risk but high returns terror enterprise either now or in the foreseeable future.”]
Rajiv Dogra
It was and remains a practiced part of the American routine to say in India what goes down well with the Indian media. However, as soon as Americans are on Pakistani soil, they recraft what they said in India. That’s precisely what US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has done
Alas, we are easy to please. Otherwise we would have known that what they say here isn’t how they reassure there. Like the British during the days of the Empire, Americans feel that they now have the international licence to pontificate. By and large the world too falls in line; with the exception of China which has recently taken to hitting them back with equal vehemence.
But turning back to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ recent visit, just look at the ecstatic response he got from us when he said in New Delhi that “India would find it difficult to show the kind of restraint it did after 26/11 if there was another attack from the Pakistani soil”. We failed of course to recognise that it was a practiced part of the American routine to say in India what goes down well with the media here.
However, as soon as they are on the Pakistani soil they nuance that same statement differently. There, they are under intense scrutiny, and not just by the media. According to Dawn, after addressing Pakistan’s National Defence University Mr Gates commented that his statement in India had been misunderstood.
And just to make things amply clear to the American visitor, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani reportedly told him, “Pakistan is itself facing Mumbai like attacks almost every day and when we cannot protect our own citizens, how can we guarantee that there wouldn’t be any more terrorist hits in India.”
This of course should not come as a surprise because from the very beginning Pakistan has perfected ‘denial’ into an art form. And when cornered, as it nearly was after 26/11, it pretends injured innocence. No wonder then that time and again Pakistan has been let off the hook by the international community.
Thus emboldened, Pakistan keeps pursuing its strategy of inflicting a thousand cuts on India. There is little reason to believe that Pakistan will abandon that low-cost, minimum risk but high returns terror enterprise either now or in the foreseeable future.
If Pakistan has been consistent in its approach, so it seems are we. Ours, however, is the uniformity of the timid.
Despite Mr Shashi Tharoor’s withering view of aspects of Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy, it will be hard to disagree with Nehru’s observations on a policy file at the height of tensions in Kashmir in December 1947. After sketching out Pakistan’s aggression, he reflected on India’s response, “It seems to me that our outlook has been defensive and apologetic, as if we were ashamed of what we were doing and we are not quite sure of how far we should go. I see nothing to apologise for and a defensive way of meeting raiders seems to me completely wrong.”
Then, as now, his assessment rings true. Had Nehru been alive today, wouldn’t he have written similarly on the policy files of Ministry of External Affairs?
Essentially our response remains the same; tepid, just along the lines of Nehru’s lament. Be it the terrorist attack on Parliament when we lined up troops futilely along the border, or the Kargil war when we refrained from crossing the LoC, or 26/11 when for long we kept insisting that it was the work of non-state actors; the essence of our response remains half-hearted and apologetic.
But having written what he wrote in 1947, would Nehru have handled any of these situations differently; a bit more firmly?
Nehru himself provides a clue as to how he may have reacted. In that same note of December 1947 he goes on to add, “Are we to allow Pakistan to continue to train new armies for invasion and allow its territory to be used as a base for these attacks? The obvious course is to strike at these concentrations and lines of communications in Pakistan territory. From a military point of view this would be the most effective step. We have refrained from taking it because of political considerations. We shall have to reconsider this position because a continuation of the present situation is intolerable… This involves a risk of war with Pakistan. We wish to avoid war, but it is merely deluding ourselves to imagine that we are avoiding war so long as the present operations are continuing on either side.”
This was no moralistic running commentary. It was hard headed realism, yet he held back. The point at issue is not war, but the nature of our response. Why was it that having diagnosed correctly and having made the right prescription, Nehru refrained from taking the action that he had advocated? Doesn’t that signal weakness? Isn’t this a major reason why deterrence is not seen by others as a part of our armoury?
Call it complacence, fatalism or supine acceptance or whatever else you wish; but one thing is clear. This lack of an effective response on our part has nothing to do with the caste, creed or belief. It is simply a product of the benign Indian soil. Any one of our one billion would probably be equally soft and forgiving. Perhaps, this attitude has more to do with a deeply ingrained desire not to displease the other.
The confidence that we will not strike back, and hurt, is a major reason why India has suffered foreign rulers for over a thousand years. While our response, or lack of it, has remained static others have diversified.
The nature of aggression has changed; terror has been added as an important new dimension to war since that first invasion of Kashmir in 1947. State and non-state actors are coordinating their strategy brazenly; look for instance at the frustrating way Pakistan keeps asking India for more, and yet more evidence, when everything that happened in 26/11 was planned on the Pakistani soil. The nature of targets has changed too. It is no longer simply a case of conquest of territory. Pakistan uses to the full its capacity to befuddle the west, with consequent pressure on India to accommodate and concede.
A manifestation of this tactic is the rumours afloat currently that India will initiate the dialogue. There is also the increasingly frequent talk that autonomy for Kashmir is a matter of time. But others warn grimly that autonomy would be the thin end of the Pakistani wedge. They doubt that Pakistan’s gameplan is limited to Kashmir; otherwise the targets of its terror would not have principally included India’s economic centres.
That it should be so is natural, because the world over there is growing recognition that India is poised at the edge of economic greatness. But prosperity, and economic heights, cannot be sustained in isolation. To remain truly great, a country must be powerful and should be perceived as so by its enemies. It is a historical fact that financially rich, but militarily weak, nations are tempting targets; just as India was so often in the past.
Therefore, it will be simplistic to presume that goodwill alone will safeguard our prosperity. Or that conceding demands like autonomy will be the end of our troubles with Pakistan. In fact it may mark a new beginning of them; for the simple reason that while India has consistently used democracy as a tool for nation building that has not been the case on the other side.
Pakistan’s birth was based on the ideology of exclusion. To complicate matters further its leaders have consistently reared Pakistani people on a diet of envy. Till Pakistan gets over that envy and its hatred of India, we are condemned by our benignity to live by its whims.
— The writer is a former Ambassador.
[SEE:Report: Hezbollah moves long-range rockets to north Lebanon]
By Elias Sakr
Daily Star staff
BEIRUT: Media reports said Friday tensions rose on the Lebanese-Israeli border as the Israeli Army undertook military maneuvers on its northern border, while Hizbullah members were put on high alert, according to the pan-Arab daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat.
Asked whether Hizbullah members were put on high alert, the party’s spokesman Ibrahim Musawi told The Daily Star on Friday that Hizbullah was always ready to face any aggression but declined to elaborate further.
On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that he feared the situation in Iran might prompt officials in Tehran to behave
unpredictably, which could prove dangerous given Hizbullah’s weapons, and could lead to unfortunate events. Kouchner made his statement at Paris following talks with Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri who expressed fear of an Israeli aggression against Lebanon.
As for Kouchner’s stance, Hizbullah issued a statement on Friday “strongly condemning” the minister’s remarks. “We see the clear [influence] of the Israeli voice and a complete disregard of the history and legacy of France in fighting aggression and occupation.”
Hizbullah said there was a contradiction in the remarks of Kouchner and the reports by UNIFIL peacekeeping forces in the south, about Israeli’s near-daily overflights of Lebanon and other acts.
“This stance [by Kouchner] is an attempt to absolve the Israeli enemy [of guilt] and cover its repeated violations of Lebanese sovereignty. This constitutes protection of the Israeli occupier and an encouragement for it to continue with its violations.”
On the Syrian front, Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reported that Syria called on its fourth reserve brigade which includes Syrian workers in Lebanon.
It added that Syrian sources said Damascus was against any war against any Arab country and particularly Lebanon.
However, a high-ranking Israeli military official denied reports stating that Israel was considering launching a war against Lebanon, while stressing that military maneuvers were part of Israel’s routine defensive exercises, Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reported.
The Israeli official reportedly said that Israel had earlier announced that it would undertake the large-scale military maneuvers in 2010 in order to learn from its experience during the 2006 war against Lebanon.
On the domestic front, Minyeh MP Ahmad Fatfat underlined Friday the importance of denying Israel any pretext which could be exploited to launch an aggression against Lebanon. “Repeated Israeli statements concerning an upcoming war do not come out of a vacuum,” said Fatfat, a Future Movement official.
Tackling Kouchner’s statement, Fatfat said the French foreign minister’s stance could be an attempt to highlight the dangerous regional situation.
“Both Hariri and Kouchner’s statements signal that the region is prone to instability and all parties should be alert during the upcoming period, so as not to give Israel any pretext to launch a devastating war against Lebanon,” Fatfat said.
“Perhaps French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner thought it was appropriate to point out dangers based on his political position and relations,” Fatfat added.
Meanwhile, the deputy head of the Higher Shiite Council, Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan, slammed Kouchner’s statement while rejecting “silly donations to the Lebanese Army” by unidentified countries.
The Associated Press
Thursday, January 21, 2010; 4:10 AM
JERUSALEM — Washington’s Middle East envoy faced a new obstacle Thursday as he launched his latest attempt to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks: Israel wants to keep troops on the West Bank’s border with Jordan even if a deal is reached.
Palestinians rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand, made just before U.S. envoy George Mitchell arrived in Israel on Wednesday. Mitchell has been laboring without success for a year to get both sides back to the negotiating table, and Netanyahu’s new demand made his mission even more formidable.
Netanyahu said Israel must maintain a presence “on the eastern side of a prospective Palestinian state” to keep militants from using the territory to launch rockets at Israel’s heartland.
The eastern side of such a state would be the part of the Jordan Valley that lies in the West Bank.
Saeb Erekat, a confidant of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the demand “absolutely unacceptable.”
“The borders of the state of Palestine will be Jordan,” Erekat told Israel Radio. “The Jordan Valley is ours, is Palestine. Why do they insist on being on our territory?”
[This is not your typical idle Israeli threat; the “Jewish State” cannot survive without constant conflict. SEE: Hariri Fearful of Possible Israeli Military Operation Against Lebanon
Within the fascist “Iron Walls” of that shitty little state that calls itself “Israel,” bloodthirsty colonists scream for more, and “Bibbi” prepares to turn Lebanon into the latest “Colosseum” for the panting onlookers cheering from their stolen hilltops.
The “god” of Israel must have a new feast of blood. That “god” is not the same God of Jesus or Mohammed.]
Israel has warned of the growing Hizbullah arsenal, expressing fears that the Shiite group is still seeking to avenge the assassination of its former military commander Imad Moughniyeh in Damascus two years ago.
Hizbullah says Moughniyeh’s murder was orchestrated by Israel.
While Israeli Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin described Hizbullah as “Iran’s spearhead in south Lebanon,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “cannot afford” to have rockets across from the center of the Jewish state.
Yadlin argued that Hizbullah recognizes that war with Israel does not enjoy popular support today on the Lebanese street, but is “trying to carry out a high-profile assassination” as revenge for Moughniyeh’s death in Damascus in 2008.
Hizbullah, Yadlin said, was different in this regard from other key international terrorist networks, such as al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad, which are focusing their energy on attacks that would result in mass deaths of Israelis.
Netanyahu, for his part, said the threat to Israel from Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon meant that any Palestinian state would be “demilitarized.”
He said the experience of rocket attacks from the Lebanese and Gaza borders means Israel must be able to prevent such weapons from being brought into a Palestinian entity in the West Bank.
“We cannot afford to have that across from the center of our country,” Netanyahu told foreign reporters in Jerusalem.
“We are surrounded by an ever-growing arsenal of rockets placed in the Iranian-supported enclaves to the north and to the south,” he said, referring to Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians want to create an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem with no Israeli presence, be it military or civilian.
Under the current situation, Israel is in overall control of the West Bank and its borders, though the Palestinian Authority patrols main population centers.
Netanyahu pointed to the defensive systems Israel is developing to destroy incoming rockets, but he admitted that they are “prohibitively expensive.”
He accused Syria and Iran without naming them of providing Hizbullah with arms and vowed to curb this.
“Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza get their rockets from neighboring countries, and that must be stopped,” he warned.
Prime Minister Saad Hariri expressed his fear from a possible “Israeli operation” against Lebanon, hinting at the excessive Israeli violations of the Lebanese airspace lately.
In an interview published Wednesday by the French newspaper Le Monde, Hariri said: “We fear an Israeli operation. Last week, 25 overflights for the Israeli fighter jets were recorded in one day.”
“Does Israel consider, by bombarding the south of the country, that it’s not aggressing against all of Lebanon? Or when it hits Dahyieh?” added Hariri.
Hariri, who started an official visit to France Wednesday, added: “What have the Israelis done in 2006? All of the bridges in Lebanon were destroyed. Isn’t that an aggression against Lebanon?”
Commenting on the theory saying that Israel waged the war in 2006 in response to an attack carried out by Hizbullah, Hariri said: “Is this enough to destroy Lebanon?”
“Israel can find any alibi, not to mention it doesn’t need alibis and it is not doing anything for the sake of the peace process.”
“We fear that they create a new conflict as they had done in the past,” added Hariri.
“Spirit does not toss itself about in the external play of chance occurrences; on the contrary, it is that which determines history absolutely, and it stands firm against the chance occurrences which it dominates and exploits for its own purpose”. (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831)
PM Netanyahu was quoted by the Israeli Ynet last week saying that the “whole of Israel would be surrounded by a fence eventually”. According to another report he said “there will be no choice but to fence Israel in on all directions”. What Netanyahu means by ‘fence’ and ‘all directions’ may be left open for the time being. However, PM Netanyahu has managed to bring to light an Hegelian interpretation of the notion of ‘Jewish spirit’ as a relentless inclination towards segregation and isolation. It is the tendency to keep oneself apart that determines and shapes Jewish collectivism. Whether it is the Zionists and their walls, the Orthodox and their Kosher universe or even Jewish anti Zionists and their racially segregated miniature activist cells, somehow every form of Jewish political engagement is there to set the Jews apart.
“For Hegel” says Francis Fukuyama, “the contradictions that drive history exist first of all in the realm of human consciousness, i.e. on the level of ideas”. It is reasonable to argue that from an Hegelian perspective, all human behaviour and human history is rooted in a prior state of consciousness. For Hegelian thinkers such as Alexandre Kojève, understanding the underlying processes of history requires understanding the realm of consciousness for it is consciousness that will ultimately remake the material world into a mirror image of its own spirit. In short it is the spirit that would eventually shape the material reality as a mirror of itself. Accordingly, the Jewish state, could be realised as a reflection of the Jewish spirit for it is the Jewish spirit that shapes the reality of the Jewish state.
For Hegel history ended in 1806. For him mankind reached its end with the French and American Revolutions. Whether Hegel was correct or completely deluded in his reading of human history and mankind’s evolution is a matter for an ongoing philosophical debate. The Jewish state, however, can be easily interpreted in Hegelian terms as the ‘end of Jewish history’. Zionism presented a dream, it set itself a serious challenge: it promised to transform the Jew into a ‘civilised and authentic human being’. It vowed to make the Jews people like all other people. Zionism was in fact a call of defiance against the hitherto Jewish spirit. Yet, the current state of Israel proves beyond doubt that the spirit has defeated the Zionist proclaimed fantasy. The will to be ‘fenced from every possible direction’ prevailed. The aspiration to be ‘people amongst people’ is a matter for historical enquiry, it has no support on the ground whatsoever. The spirit won over the rational ideological fantasy.
As tragic as it may sound, it would be almost impossible to reflect on Jewish history without Israel. It would be impossible to understand how one people managed to bring so much hate on themselves. Israel is, no doubt, a unique social experiment in Jewish history. It is in the Jewish State where the people of the book have managed to liberate themselves of any inhibitions. It is in the Jewish state where “kosher” bus lines feature “separate seating for men and women”. It is in Israel where Jews live their spirit to the max. It is where Jews celebrate their cultural, material, spiritual and ideological symptoms. But it is also a place where Jews live happily on stolen land while oppressing and starving the indigenous population. As it happens, in the Jewish state Israelis celebrate their national ‘home coming’, and they do it all behind fences and at the expense of the Palestinians.
In Hegelian terms Israel is a product of Jewish spirit. Yet, Israel is NOT a representation of Judaism as Israel is not a Halachic State*. It is not the state of the Jews as the majority of Jews prefer to live amongst the Goyim. However, Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish state’. It is the place where Jews freely explore the meaning and pride of being Jewish. Hence, the reality of the Israeli state and its categorical ethical failure leads us towards an Hegelian critical confrontation with the notions of Jewish consciousness, ideology (Jewishness) and spirit.
The failure of Zionism to erect a civilised humanist Jew is an accepted fact. It instead managed to raise an extremely brutal version of the ‘Diaspora’ tribal subject it aimed to amend. Needless to say that Israeli war crimes are not an isolated rare event, they are actually institutional and committed by a popular army (IDF) that is following orders given by a democratically elected government. As if this is not enough, the Israeli crimes are supported by the vast majority of the Israelis. The fact that at the time of the Gaza war 94% of the Israeli Jewish populationsupported the genocidal crime is more than enough to incriminate the entire Israeli society as a collective. But it goes further, the Israeli crime is supported institutionally by world Jewry. It would be intelligible to argue that from an Hegelian perspective Israel is the end of Jewish history as much as the French revolution was the Hegelian end of history of mankind. Israel is the materialisation of the Jewish consciousness.
Netanyahu’s recent admission that Israel will be fenced from every possible direction is far more than mere symbolism. It is there to expose the solid kernel at the heart of the Jewish collective tribal desire. As Hegel suggests, it is “spirit that determines history” or to be precise and concrete, it is the Jewish spirit i.e. the inclination towards isolationism that determines Jewish history and the reality of Israeli barbarism.
Listening to Netanyahu and looking at the reality of Israel makes it obviously clear that rather than the Goyim, it is actually the Jewish spirit that imposed the Ghetto on the Jew. Emancipation of European Jewry provided Jews with an opportunity to leave tribalism behind. Needless to say that many Jews bought into the idea and found their way into the crowd. Many Jews had become voices for humanist causes and thoughts. However, many others decided to maintain a spiritual partition. In order to do so they invented a phantasmic cultural ethos. They may have even invented ‘victimhood’ and ‘anti Semitism’ just to justify their state of self imposed alienation. Observing Israel and any other form of Jewish politics makes it too easy to grasp how and where it all goes wrong.
As things stand there is no easy remedy for the secular Jew for there is no safe haven for Jewish secular collectivism or identity that fits into the notion of humanism or universalism. If Jews insist upon being secular and humanist they may have to drop their ‘J’ prefix and to operate as ordinary people. This is the only alternative to Zionism and it can also be a beginning of a wonderful friendship (with others as well as nature).
* The concept of a Halachic state refers to a theocratic state based upon Jewish Law.
Whenever there is injustice, there are people fighting it with every possible means. We have seen it so many times before: the oppressed rise up, the oppressor dehumanizes them calling them such names as “terrorists”, “saboteurs”, “death loving” extremists… It is only normal that the oppressor will always lie to justify his actions and its crimes.What is different in the case of Palestine, is that the Israeli regime has built an effective media and communications networks and campaigns to distort the image of the Palestinian resistance, and that a large portion of the world has believed the Israeli line and hence adopted it.It is our duty to remember and remind the world that the Palestinian freedom fighter is a man, a woman, like any other. He loves his family. She loves her country. They seek a better future. They are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of justice and freedom. They waited for the world to lift the blatant injustice that has befallen them since 1948. They expected the world to understand when they took up arms to lift this injustice themselves.Now, they don’t care what anyone else calls them. They do not seek anyone’s permission, just like any resistance movement. They believe that their cause will be triumphant because it is a cause for justice and humanity. They are merely fulfilling their duty to make the day of justice in Palestine come sooner. So should we.(Most of the photos used in this video are by Mr. Ahmad Mesleh, Palestine)www.uruknet.info?p=62233
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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Speaking to thousands of people in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, Ahmadinejad said that the fabrication of Israel and the sending of arms to the Middle East were aimed at dominating the region and maintaining Western interests.
“The Zionist regime [of Israel] has been fabricated for the sake of dominating the Middle East region,” he said. “Realizing the fact that they cannot achieve their goal through deception, they have resorted to military expeditions, launching wars and occupation.”
President Ahmadinejad said that even the 9/11 attacks are believed by many experts to have been a US-Israeli plot to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Iranian president slammed Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Yemen war, saying that Riyadh had better used its weapons against the Zionists.
“The arms sold by the West to Saudi Arabia are being used against the people of the region and Muslims instead of protecting them against the Zionists,” Ahmadinejad said, urging the Saudi government to contribute to the establishment of peace in Yemen.
The Iranian president also urged Yemeni parties to resolve the crisis through negotiation, be wary of the plots hatched by the enemies and protect the region from insecurity.
“Insecurity will help the arrogant powers of the world to interfere in regional affairs and we should hamper the opportunistic objectives of the enemies.”
The president also urged the Pakistani government and nation to maintain their unity and be vigilant in the face of US plots.
“The US is only thinking of its own interests and the Pakistani people and government should not trust the United States,” President Ahmadinejad said.
Addressing the global arrogance, the Iranian president said that they have faced a deadlock and the people of Iran and the region have today realized their schemes and will resist their conspiracies.
“You have no choice but to end your inhumane actions and respect the rights of the Iranian people and the region,” he said, emphasizing that they would not be able to harm the people of Iran in any manner.
They’re clever.
They get what they want by promoting the opposite of what they want.
The mainstream media and schools promote a ‘diversity’ agenda. ‘Common Purpose’ trainees are instructed on how to enforce the same. We must not discriminate against any person on the basis of their nationality, their race, their sex or their sexual orientation.
Sounds like a good idea.
Doesn’t sound like war against the family, the Christian religion and the dominant cultural group in the country, particularly the male of this dominant group, does it?
Let us look at what modern culture has done to principle. Let us look at the effects of the social engineering that continues to be quietly inflicted against us. Let us try to be aware of the cultural onslaught that has all but destroyed our society and (one hopeful thing at least) our belief in this society.
We (me included….no high horse here) have removed the spiritual connection between intercourse and procreation and abandoned responsible sexual behaviour by accepting the universal use of contraceptives.
We have stopped protecting the most fundamental human right, the right to life itself, by allowing abortion (more or less) on demand.
Once principles are abandoned the rest is easy enough. Sex is perceived as a leisure activity. It is for pleasure and self-satisfaction. Actually giving birth to your baby becomes a matter of preference, how you ‘feel’ about it….and if sex is all about pleasure well, vaginal or ‘up the arse’, what’s the difference? Gay marriage or traditional marriage, what’s the difference?
We have now reached the stage where full traditional, even ‘Christian’, marriage is there for ‘gays’ if they want it. Homosexuals can adopt children, even have their own with the help of a third party.
In my opinion it is NOT ‘anti-gay’ to object to this.
It is anti-child not to.
And, here’s the best of it. It is against the law to even object to this state of affairs.
For instance, if you are a Christian or a Muslim and run a ‘Bed & Breakfast’ hotel you cannot refuse to offer a double bed to gay men in your establishment even if you live there yourself. You can be sued for this.
Catholic adoption agencies have had to disband because of their refusal to allow gays onto their lists.
Christians cannot openly display the crosses they wear. In France, we read that Muslim women will be fined for wearing the burkha in public.
The next step will doubtless see the Catholic Church sued under ‘anti-discrimination’ laws for having an all-male clergy. How long before someone marries their domestic pet with the blessing of some Church or other?
‘Holocaustianity’ has made the white male apologetic and guilt ridden and, it must be said, submissive to Jewish interests. This situation has been created by relentless and intensive propaganda that never ever stops since it began in about 1968 and these phobias and inhibitions have been inculcated in spite of the fact that the crimes of the Holocaust happened before the vast majority of us were even born.
‘Anti-racism’ legislation and propaganda has brainwashed the core population into accepting continuous mass immigration. This has all but destroyed the British sense of identity and damaged the white working class in particular. Speaking against this does not mean that one would be in favour of any racial bias but there is betrayal here. Social cohesiveness in most of England, at least, is all but gone.
…..and here is the purpose of the whole ‘diversity’ agenda……
To destroy any real diversity. To create a society that is but a profane mass of disorientated people with no values nor family nor class nor race nor religion that they can hold on to or unite and organise with, that they might defend themselves against the financial powers that ever more effectively gather wealth and all power to themselves. These people sit behind their high walls or in their gated communities manipulating and conspiring for the day when they can take it all.
We might notice also that the US, the UK and most of the EU can no longer be called Christian countries. We are now Zionist countries. When Israel savaged Gaza last winter the British public were outraged and Gordon Brown went on to ‘The Andrew Marr Show’ one Sunday morning and called for a ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza. On that same day, his ambassador at the United Nations supported the US in its veto against the UN unanimously demanding exactly such a ceasefire (this was reliably reported by Craig Murray, an ex-UK ambassador who spoke to a ‘friend’ in the British UN delegation).
So we legislate for ‘anti-racism’ but support the most racist state on earth….oh, and our foreign policy is responsible for our participation in causing the deaths of MILLIONS of brown-skinned Muslims over the last few decades.
It is so important not to be a racist, isn’t it?
Let us put the whole thing more simply. The government of our one-party state, soon to be one-world state (if they get their way) give us evil but call it ‘good’. They have perfected the technique of dressing themselves in the universalist loving robes of Christ in order to deliver us into the hands of Lucifer.
“Do what you will” is the whole of the Law of Lucifer. This is to be our freedom. The more principle-free and degenerate, the better……”as long as you do what we say”.
[As the West loses-0ut in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as in the pipeline wars, look for the western end of the “arc of crisis” to heat-up in Lebanon and Yemen, or wherever else conflict can be agitated. By all signs, Lebanon is about to explode with the latest Israeli aggression.]
Beirut – An explosion rocked Wednesday the house of a Hezbollah member in southern Lebanon, wounding two of his children, Lebanese police said.
According to the police an explosive device was detonated in front the entrance of Hezbollah member Mohammad Zreik’s residence in Kfar Fila in Iqlim al-Tuffah region, east of the southern port city of Sidon.
The blast caused damage and wounded Zreik’s 11-year old daughter, Diala, and five-year old son Hassan.
The explosion took place as Zreik’s children were trying to open their home’s main gate to head to school.
Security forces cordoned off the area and launched an investigation into the incident.
Hezbollah press office failed to confirm if Zreik is a member of the movement and said ‘they are still following the incident.’
eileen fleming
Tony Judt is a University Professor at New York University who recently wrote that “Israel must unpick its ethnic myth” published first in the Financial Times. Judt also provides the lead for this Christian Anarchist’s response regarding Zionism.
Judt wrote: What exactly is “Zionism”?
Its core claim was always that Jews represent a common and single people; that their millennia-long dispersion and suffering has done nothing to diminish their distinctive, collective attributes; and that the only way they can live freely as Jews – in the same way that, say, Swedes live freely as Swedes – is to dwell in a Jewish state.
I can certainly confirm, from personal experience, that anti-religious sentiment – often of an intensity that I found discomforting – was widespread in left-leaning Israeli circles of the 1960s. Religion, I was informed, was for the haredim and the “crazies” of Jerusalem’s Mea Sharim quarter. “We” are modern and rational and “western”, it was explained to me by my Zionist teachers. But what they did not say was that the Israel they wished me to join was therefore grounded, and could only be grounded, in an ethnically rigid view of Jews and Jewishness…
If the Jews of Europe and North America took their distance from Israel (as many have begun to do), the assertion that Israel was “their” state would take on an absurd air. Over time, even Washington might come to see the futility of attaching American foreign policy to the delusions of one small Middle Eastern state. This, I believe, is the best thing that could possibly happen to Israel itself. It would be obliged to acknowledge its limits. It would have to make other friends, preferably among its neighbours.
The civil war in Northern Ireland came to an end in part because an American president instructed the Irish emigrant community in the US to stop sending arms and cash to the Provisional IRA. If American Jews stopped associating their fate with Israel and used their charitable cheques for better purposes, something similar might happen in the Middle East. [1]
On March 20, 2006, I traveled three hours away from the Little Town of Bethlehem: Occupied Territory to the Mount of Beatitudes in Israel. The awe-inspiring site sits above the shimmering Sea of Galilee where Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount.
My Sabeel [Arabic for The Way] Reality Tour through the West Bank had concluded and I needed to be alone and silent, but I ended up delivering my own Sermon on the Mount.
At dinner a Catholic Pentecostal from Scotland introduced himself and asked me why I was there and what church I was from. I responded I have Irish Roman Catholic, Polish Jew, Russian Orthodox and Episcopal roots but that my rock is The Beatitudes.
He looked even more perplexed when I told him I came to the Mount of Beatitudes to decompress and reflect upon my nine days in Occupied Territory.
I asked him if he were aware of the work of Sabeel, the Palestinian founded organization that promotes a theology of liberation based on justice, peace, non-violence and reconciliation for all, regardless of faith path or nationality.
He sternly admonished me, “God gave this land to the Jews! The Bible never mentions Palestine, and that is that! God gave this land to the Jews and that is that!”
I responded just as fervently that the Palestinian Christians are the descendants of those who first followed Christ and they have been denied inalienable human rights by the Israeli government.
I told him the Christians in the Holy Land have shrunk from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3% since 1948 and if things don’t change soon, there will be no Christian witness in the land where Christ promised that it is the peacemakers who are the children of God.
He sputtered, “But the Jews have suffered! God gave this land to the Jews and that is that!”
That really got my Irish up and I retorted, “Yes they did suffer because good people did nothing for far too long, and now the once oppressed have become the oppressors. In the 21st century good people are unaware, ignoring or are in total denial of the injustices in the Holy Land. And what about all the Hebrew prophets, such as Micah who reminded the Jews of what the Lord requires: To be just, to be merciful and to walk humbly with your God!”
I could NOT shut up although I knew that that Scotsman was trying to get away and he looked most terrified by my passionate plea and as I was on a tear, I barely took a breath as I told him that instead of him staying in Israel for his entire visit, he should go and witness life in the occupied territories; go and see the effects of The Wall on his spirit and see what it has done to the Palestinian economy. I told him he should go and tour some of the six decades old refugee camps and see the ruins of all the uncompensated home demolitions.
I brought it on home by telling him that I also doubted that God was ever in the real estate business!
That Scotsman’s eyes had bugged out and his mouth had dropped open while the torrent of words spewed out of me and after I finally shut up, he stammered, “But there is suffering everywhere!”
I retorted, “Yes there is, and Christ always stood up for the poor and the oppressed. And he told us what ever we do or don’t do for the least and the outcast; we do it or don’t do it unto God.”
The Scot shook his head and turned and walked quickly away and never again looked my way again. Nobody else spoke to me the rest of the evening or the next day. That was fine with me, for I was listening to the voice within and what I kept hearing was Luke 23:34: “Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
But when you know and if you are of good will and a person of CONSCIENCE you must do something, and as the saying goes-we must preach to our own, so I address USA Christians regarding the fastest growing cult in the USA-and also perhaps in Scotland- the cult of Christian Zionism.
What is Christian Zionism?
Christian Zionism is an extremist Christian movement which supports the claims of those who believe that the State of Israel should take control of all of the land currently disputed between Palestinians and Israelis. It views the creation and expansion of the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy toward the second coming of Jesus.
Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. The Christian Zionist program provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it laces an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today.
What is the Christian Zionist connection with the Holy Land?
Believing that God fights on the side of Israel, Christian Zionists call for the unqualified support for the most extreme political positions related to the Holy Land. Christian Zionist spokes persons have attributed Hurricane Katrina to God’s wrath over our failure to stop Israel from pulling out of Gaza. They consistently oppose any moves towards a solution to the conflict, which would validate the political aspirations of both Palestinians and Israelis.
Who Supports Christian Zionism?
Christian Zionism has significant support within American Protestant fundamentalists, who number between 10 and 20 million. Its reach is broad, by virtue of its favorite themes related to the “End Times” and an Israel-fixated Christian media. Christian Zionism is both a political movement and a way of interpreting current events. Its focus is on Israel and the Middle East, as much an ideology as a “movement.” Its promoters share many beliefs but are not organized through any one institution.
Throughout history Christians have at times twisted scripture to justify violence: for the Crusades, for Anti-Semitism, and for slavery. Too often the church has been slow to respond to these biblical distortions with disastrous results.
Today Christian Zionists – particularly those with dispensationalist leanings – are at it again. Although their motives are couched in terms of compassion toward the Jewish people based on a literal reading of scripture the political agenda of territorial expansion advocated by Christian Zionists has given rise to injustice against Palestinians and added fuel to the fire of conflict in the Middle East. For some time, individuals, and theologians have spoken out against Christian Zionism. In the past few years, whole church bodies are adding their official voices to the distortions and injustices perpetuated by Christian Zionism.
The GOOD NEWS is that some mainstream churches have spoken out against this inherently anti-Semitic theology. What follows are but a few words from some of those who have:
The Presbyterian Church in the USA at its July 2004, National General Assembly issued a statement on Confronting Christian Zionism: “Christian Zionism promotes a theology that justifies grievous violations of basic rights of people who are also made in the image of God, and is contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The United Church of Christ in July 2003, at its National General Synod offered An Alternative Voice to Christian Zionism: “We believe that the tenets of Christian Zionism neither reflect the intention of the teachings of Jesus and the prophets, nor promote peace in the Middle East, and respectfully recommend …an alternative voice to this theology.”
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in June 2005 at its Chicago Metropolitan Synod issued a Resolution to Encourage the Study of Christian Zionism: “the movement of Christian Zionism based on these biblical interpretations seeks to influence U.S. policy toward Israel in a manner that would arguably facilitate mistreatment of Palestinians, continued occupation of the land, opposition to a two-state solution, and exclusive Israeli control of Jerusalem.”
The United Methodist Church, in June 2005 at its Illinois Conference on Unwrapping the Rapture warned, “Every household should give prayerful consideration as to how God will actually judge us for our silence about and complicity in the crushing of the Palestinian people.”
The Episcopal Church, in November 2004 at its Diocese of Chicago Confronted Christian Zionism: “A partial response to Christian Zionism would be to say that we read Scripture in light of [Jesus’] two great commandments – to love God and our neighbor.”
In the gospel [good news] told in Mark 3: 31-35, the mother of Jesus’ and his brothers arrived at the house where he was teaching.
Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him out. The crowd around Jesus told him, “Your mother, sisters and brothers are outside asking for you.”
Jesus replied, “I am here with my mother, sisters and brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother.”-Mark 3: 31-35
“What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8
Being just means correct, true, accurate, right and fair.
Merciful is to have, feel and show compassion, that sense of viscerally feeling the pain of another and being moved to help.
Being humble is knowing yourself; the good and the bad, for both cut through every human heart.
1. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f8fafee-e366-11de-8d36-00144feab49a.html
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory”
Producer “30 Minutes with Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”
Gunmen from the Palestinian Islamist group Jund Ansar Allah (‘Soldiers of the Companions of God’) walked near a mosque after the Friday prayers in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on August 14, 2009. The group says that Hamas has betrayed its Islamist ideals.
Said Khatib/AFP/Newscom/File
“Al Qaeda-inspired groups in Gaza ‘think big’ and are regularly plotting large-scale attacks,” says the report, coauthored by a former deputy director of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service. It also quotes an anonymous member of one of these groups as saying his operatives are “waiting to carry out a big jihadistoperation dedicated to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden.”
Mr. Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization, now believed to be hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, has long used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a cause célèbre for their fight against the West. But it has yet to establish authoritative operations in either the West Bank or Gaza, where both Hamas – the Islamist organization that rules the coastal territory – and its militant rivals are focused more on Israel than the vision of global jihad symbolized by Bin Laden.
While the existence of a global terrorist network under Al Qaeda’s control is a matter of debate, the formation of an “Al Qaeda in Palestine” would be a propaganda coup for both the Al Qaeda brand and local militants that share its ideology, analysts say. But for the Gaza-based groups, such an alliance could severely compromise their capabilities and long-term survivability.
“The biggest beneficiary of any recognition would be Al Qaeda itself,” says Scott Sandford, a Washington-based researcher on militant Islam and contributor to Jihadica, an online clearinghouse for materials from jihadist websites. “But I don’t think Al Qaeda could offer them a whole lot in terms of logistics. Because if it [recognition from Al Qaeda] were to happen, Hamas would attack that particular group aligned with Al Qaeda immediately.”
The WINEP report said that an Al Qaeda in Palestinian affiliate is unlikely to form because most Palestinians committed to violent resistance put national interests ahead of religion – keeping them focused on Israel rather than a broader fight.
Hamas, an Islamist nationalist movement, limits its activities to the Palestinian arena, preferring to attack Israel and rejecting Al Qaeda-style calls for global jihad against the West. It has cracked down heavily on the territory’s growing extremist organizations since taking control of Gaza in 2007.
The new groups, of which there are about half a dozen, claim to practice what is known as “Salafism,” or the observance of Islam in the manner of the Prophet Mohammad in the seventh century. Local Salafis say Hamas, which limits its militant activities to Israel and has so far failed to implement strict Islamic law in Gaza, has betrayed its Islamist credentials.
Salafi groups have grown in strength in recent years amid rising poverty and a crippling Israeli siege on Gaza.
In August last year, an organization calling itself Jund Ansar Allah (“Soldiers of the Companions of God”) openly challenged Hamas by declaring an Islamic emirate from a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. A nightlong gun battle between the two groups resulted in approximately 30 dead, including a number of Hamas security forces.
Since then, Salafis have largely been in hiding – and threats to retaliate against Hamas have yet to crystallize.
“The Salafi groups in Gaza very much went underground after the shoot-out. There were a number of threats that they would seek revenge for the attack, but none of them were actually implemented,” says Mukhamair Abusaada, a Gaza-based political analyst and professor at Al-Azhar University. “My assumption is that Hamas sent a very strong message when it attacked their mosque in Rafah: that if you challenge their rule, they will deal with it in a very massive, bloody way.”
But the threat remains, analysts say. And while these groups have yet to establish official ties with Al Qaeda – the WINEP report claims Al Qaeda itself is skeptical of their abilities and sustainability – it doesn’t mean they aren’t inspired to carry out dramatic attacks, particularly against Israel, says Mr. Sanford.
“If these groups could carry out an attack, they would do it,” Sanford says. “But it’s a matter of getting past the security measures the Israelis have put in place, as well as Hamas surveillance.”
“They have had successful operations in the past – they kidnapped Alan Johnston and helped capture [Israeli soldier] Gilad Shalit. So they definitely have the military training to carry out a spectacular attack.”
[SEE: Lebanon United against US Plan to Punish “Anti-American” Media ; Israel Cuts Off Trees in Lebanon under UNIFIL Eyes ; Israel accuses Hizbullah of planting explosives near border ; For the West, ‘Game Over’ in Central Asia]
A report in Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday said initial suspicion that Hizbullah was raising funds by smuggling cocaine was raised in May 2008 when around 8.7 million euros in cash were found in the luggage of four Lebanese men at Frankfurt airport.
A further 500,000 euros were found in the apartment of one of the suspects in the Rhineland Pfalz town of Speyer.
Two Lebanese men were arrested in October 2009 when customs officers and federal criminal police agents raided a house in Speyer, the magazine said.
According to Der Spiegel, suspicion is that family members have been regularly moving millions of euros raised in the European cocaine trade, via Frankfurt to Beirut.
Those receiving the money in Lebanon are said to be members of a family with contacts with the highest levels of the Hizbullah command, including leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
A close relative of the suspects has rejected all the allegations, the magazine said.
By: Peter Chamberlin
Up until now, the United States has been able to exert control over most of the earth just by controlling the narrative that reflects popular opinion about the war on terror. Whatever government spokesmen or reporters have said happened on a particular day, was what really happened; it was validated by popular consent. The ability to shape people’s thoughts and opinions is a power that every tyrant has dreamed about. Global trust in the good intentions of the people of the United States moves individuals and entire nations to give American leaders the benefit of the doubt, even when common sense cautions against it.
Until fairly recently, popular opinion did not often call into question the American or allied version of events. Widespread civilian “collateral damage” from air strikes and disagreements between the Pakistani and American military have opened the door to questions about the very nature of this war and the leadership, or lack thereof, displayed by Western decision-makers.
The US has decided that to win the war in Afghanistan, it must attack its closest ally in the war, because allegedly, Pakistan is the state sponsor of the Afghan Taliban. The Pak Army refuses to fight all the militants in Pakistan at one time, because their numbers are so great and tribal connections run so deep that it would be suicidal. American leaders claim that such a nationwide Pakistani offensive is the only way that the war can be won. Pakistan, on the other hand, maintains that the US, India and Israel are the state sponsors of the “Pakistani Taliban” terrorist outfit which is waging war against the people of Pakistan. Since the United States controls the narrative, the whole world holds Pakistan accountable for all the terrorism in the world, no matter whether it is true or not.
Now is a good time to question American motives and CIA dishonesty as the primary source of problems in this war. Obama’s minor investigation into agency shortcomings demonstrated during the underwear bombing incident, the destruction of the CIA drone center in Khost and the scathing NATO report on US intelligence shortcomings (“Fixing Intel”), on the heels of the Eric Holder investigation of CIA torture—all of these ongoing problems scream of an out-of-control spy agency. We have entrusted the CIA to lead this intelligence-driven war and time after time, the ego-maniacal spooks have consistently dropped the ball.
But the CIA has done much worse than merely fumbling their appointed tasks, they have demonstrated malice and outright criminality in their multi-layered covert war, which goes far beyond targeting any real or imagined enemy, as the plan moves forward to wage war against the entire human race, in order to accomplish their Imperial goals. Obama touched on the problem indirectly when he said someone “took their eye off the ball,” but he did not pursue the idea to its obvious conclusion—a lot of people “took their eyes off the ball,” all at the proper time to make the “al Qaida” plan work. Clearly, there are assets in key security positions who facilitated the Yemen attack, just as there were complicit facilitators who made the 911 attacks happen. It is no coincidence that there seem to be crossovers between militant groups and the security agencies which are tasked with pursuing them. This is because the militant groups are all children of various intelligence agencies, most of them working under contract for the CIA, knowingly or not, at some point.
Pakistan is allegedly the “epicenter of terrorism,” but if that was true, then why do most terror attacks in the world happen in Pakistan? Do not forget that the CIA provides 50 percent of the ISI’s budget. The ISI is a primary American contractor, as is India’s RAW. Western popular opinion fully accepts the American/Indian narrative, that only Pakistan sponsors terror. This ignores revelations by former Indian spy chiefs, who have confirmed that India did sponsor thousands of terrorists within Pakistan in the past, under a program called “Counterintelligence Team X,” but this allegedly ended in 1998.
Contrary to Indian and American statements, India is still a primary state sponsor of terrorism within Pakistan, but Western apologists help hide that fact, because the CIA is a partner in the current operations. In the past, India’s RAW and the CIA have been adversaries. Up until the era of the India/US nuclear agreement that hostility prevailed between the agencies.
The ongoing controversy over American spy David Headley is not the only public embarrassment that RAW has suffered at the CIA’s hands. In 2004, RAW spy chief Rabinder Singh was caught obtaining documents for the CIA and meeting with a female agent at a local motel.
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He escaped to the US, where he was located in New Jersey in 2006. The Indian government tried to extradite him, appealing the charges against him, he claimed that he quit the agency and fled to the United States after being ordered to “participate in an assassination plot against a senior religious Sikh leader.”
Sometime after the extradition papers were filed, the following document was posted on the Internet. That document, called Summer Offensive Report was on the operations of “Counterintelligence Team X,” Singh had formerly ran the “Counterintelligence Team J,” which terrorized the Sikhs in Punjab. The Report gives no clue as to who ran the “X” Team, but the name Alok Tiwari comes-up in another paper, titled “Operation Blue Tulsi.”
The Summer Offensive Report claims to describe Indian/Israeli operations against Pakistan in 2004, centered around the town of Wana. A new operation did begin in Wana that year, the beginning of the “Pakistani Taliban” (TTP) project. That operation began with the killing of Nek Muhammad on June 17. Arguably, it probably began in with the Ilyas Kashmiri attack upon Musharraf. After being picked-up by the security services, the former Pakistani Special Forces commando/militant was captured was allegedly tortured until his release in early ’04. The experience left him a shattered man and he retired from the jihad until 2007.
The guided missile attack that killed Nek set in motion the events that would bring Baitullah Mehsud to power. He inherited a ready-made army from his cousin Abdullah Mehsud, which formed the hardcore Uzbek center of the TTP. After his sudden release from Guantanamo to Afghanistan in 2002, Abdullah suddenly amassed thousands of Uzbek and Northern Alliance fighters and became endowed with millions of dollars in cash and tons of the most advanced weapons.
Until now, researchers have consistently charged that the Pakistani Taliban were sponsored by India and Israel, but have had nothing to prove this other than photos of tons of Indian/Israeli/American arms. The following from Summer Offensive Report reinforces those charges:
“The summer offensive includes establishment of 57 training camps in Occupied Kashmir, East Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Assam to train and launch terrorists inside Pakistan. Trainees are generally drawn from the Indian hatched dissident groups of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), Jiye Sindh Mohaz (JSM), Jiye Sindh Students Federation (JSF) and Balochi nationalists and other nationalist groups from various parts of Sindh, Balochistan and Tribal Areas.
For Pakistan RAW centers at London, Dubai, Iran, and South Africa operate against Pakistan jointly with Israeli MOSSAD.
India has opened Consulates (IOC’s) in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, besides having an oversized diplomatic mission in Kabul.
Kandahar and Jalalabad are near the borders of Pakistan, which insinuates many things. The ongoing Wana operation is being fed cash, weapons and ammunition indirectly by RAW operatives under cover of Al-Qaeda. MOSSAD and AMMAN have also contributed heavily towards the funding and material requirements for these operations. The direct result of this was the effective slaying of 121 Pakistani regular infantry soldiers on Nov 8th’2004, just 3 days after the infusion of war material and assistance in logistics and planning operations of the tribals by operatives of RAW.
The summer offensive of RAW includes working on ethnic, regional, parochial and secular themes, which include Sindhu Desh Movement in Sindh, Saraiki Movement in Punjab, Tribal Balochis in the name of Greater Balochistan and taking advantage of Northern Alliance Government in Afghanistan and using its tentacles at Kabul, Jalalabad, Khost, Kandahar and Spin Boldak, the tribals in Waziristan and Balochistan are continuously being kept activated for fomenting trouble – while Taliban and Al-Qaeda are getting the blame and Pakistan gets the rap for “not doing enough” by US and “FRIENDLY” Afghan authorities.
After the Indian consulate in Karachi was wound up. RAW started maintaining contacts in their sources/links in Pakistan through their consulates at Zahidan and Dubai. Most of the staff at Indian Consulate in Zahidan is from intelligence/security organisations including RAW, Intelligence Bureau and Military Intelligence. The sizeable cover staff in their Embassy at Dubai under the pretence of tourist traffic. The set-ups are dedicated units mainly responsible for promoting ethnic unrest in Pakistan. They continue to provide financial and material support to various regionalist/sectarian parties in Sindh and Balochistan
UAE is being used as a launching pad for terrorist activities in Pakistan. Agents are getting hold of young, disgruntled elements and after carrying out their proper brainwashing, they are dispatched to Dubai. Indian Consulate in Dubai is issuing temporary passport to these activists for getting training/briefing. After completion of their formal training, they are launched into Pakistan to carry out their terrorist/sabotage activities.”
About the content:
I checked the Fata timeline and found the following—The Report claimed that “121” soldiers were killed near Wana in a large attack sometime between Nov. 4 and 8, 2004–the timeline doesn’t list anything like that, but it does report that 140 soldiers and scouts were killed in or near Wana between March 16 and Dec. 9, 2004.
Beginning in November, the Report list dozens of rocket, mortar and land-mine/IED attacks around Wana.
The report author claims that the Indian embassy in Zeheden is the source of attacks in Iran, attacks that have probably been attributed to “Jundullah.” Jundullah did begin around Wana in ’04. The Report also mentions Amman, Jordan as a participant with Israel in the Wana effort. The suicide bomber who recently targeted the CIA drone base in Khost, Afghanistan was a Jordanian intelligence officer, related to King Abdullah, from the same hometown as “al Qaida in Iraq” leader Abu Musab Zarqawi. The Jordanian attacker was sent by Hakeemullah Mehsud, the commander of the Tehreek e-Taliban Pakistan, from Wana. It was a revenge attack for the killing of Baitullah.
Vodpod videos no longer available.more about “CIA Khost Bomber and Hakeemullah Mehsud“, posted with vodpod
Another document, which continues the alternative narrative since 2006 is the report titled, “Operation Blue Tulsi,” which began in early 2001, marking the start of Israeli/Indian operations against and within Pakistan.
By mid 2001 eyebrows were being raised over R&AW and Mossad’s cooperation and in July 2001 Janes Information Group reported that RAW and Mossad are cooperating to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism. At the same time the Balochistan Liberation Army rose out of dead like a second incarnation and Balach Marri a Moscow graduate declares himself as the leader of BLA. Within weeks in Balochistan numerous training camps sprouted with each camp reported to be training up to a hundred militants. Agents from RAW, Mossad and CIA operating in Afghanistan started moving in.
In mid 2001 reports appeared that Special Operations Division of Mossad, also known as Metsada, specializing in assassinations and sabotage, has been based in India since May 2001 to train RAW operatives and Mossad and Shin Bet or Shabak were operating a number of teams in Indian Held Kashmir and were also operating a delicate spy network from Indian soil. In July 2001 RAW increased its budget for Indian consulates in Afghanistan by nearly 10 times.
Late in 2002 US and India signed an agreement on cooperation in disarming Pakistan’s nuclear assets and the two-player offensive team of OperationBlueTulsi found a third partner in the form of CIA. As a result of this deal Abdullah Mehsud was freed from Guantanamo Bay and returned to Pakistan with millions of dollars in cash.
By mid 2004, the government had ample evidence that BLA and some Baloch leaders were conspiring against the government, aided by foreign countries.
On 13 August 2004, the Chief Minister of Baluchistan, Jam Muhammad Yousaf is quoted by The Herald (Sep 2004-Karachi) as saying: “Indian secret services (RAW) are maintaining 40 terrorist camps all over the Baloch territory”.
Jan. 1, 2005 was the starting date. The local agents got the signal and the operation started with the ominous rape of a female doctor in Sui on 2 January 2005.
As expected the incident created headlines all around and culprits not being found created a widespread indignation. This was shortly followed by the firing of hundreds of small rockets at gas installation in Sui on 7 January 2005 which put a hole in the supply of gas to the rest of the country for an entire week.
Starting March 2007…,the numbers of ‘Pakistani Taliban’ in Swat surged and just their ammunition and their military hardware did. Some of this hardware was more advanced to what the Pakistani soldiers used.
A portion of this military hardware ended up in the ill-fated Lal Masjid. While intelligence and military were busy keeping Musharraf’s seat safe in Pakistan, a new political game started in the UAE.
Rehman Malik enthusiastically started pursuing the goal of National Reconciliation Ordinance. He became instrumental in the final deal between Benazir Bhutto, US and Pervez Musharraf and NRO.
Near the end of 2007, the intelligence and the military were convinced that a conspiracy had been hatched in the country with the sole aim of removing Musharraf from power.
The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto, simultaneous riots throughout the country, terrorist activities occurring in every province, all of this had considerable similarities to the Bush Administration-backed Color Revolutions. In order to keep Musharraf in power the government kept giving into one demand after the other. As a result Rehman Malik becomes head of Interior Ministry, Yusuf Raza Gilani becomes the Prime Minister of Pakistan and sweeping changes are made in the security and intelligence community. Still, the government saw the war finally over when in one move Gilani puts ISI under the Interior Minister on 27 July 2008.
The entire Wana-centric destabilization plan can be seen in the so-called Tehreek Taliban Pakistani movement, the Punjabi-Taliban influence and the leadership succession. In addition, it traces the roots of the entire “Islamist” psyop that grew from CIA/ISI operations against the Soviets and the Iranians. Anti-Shia sectarian terror outfits were formed in Pakistan, then sent into Afghanistan, where they slaughtered both Soviets and Shiites. After the Soviet defeat, they turned against the Iranian-sponsored Northern Alliance troops, before being fought to a standstill by the forces of legendary rebel leader
Ahmed Shah Mahsoud.
(Mahsoud was eliminated by a suicide bomber on September 10, 2001, his forces taken over by Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum with the aid of one Amrullah Saleh, who is now the head of the Afghan secret police (NDS) and might be working for Iran.)
In ’07 the British operation in Helmand, Afghanistan, which had been centered around recruiting the brother of militant Mullah Dadullah, Mansoor was merged with the Indian/American/Israeli hotbed of terrorism in S. Waziristan. Baitullah was promoted to top dog in the militant hierarchy, as Benazir Bhutto was killed and Mansoor Dadullah took the blame. The Afghan Taliban transferred Dadullah’s forces to Mehsud, conferring legitimacy upon the operation, Mullah Omar not yet realizing that Baitullah was really anti-Taliban.
Mehsud’s Swat operation under radical disc jockey, Mullah Fazlullah, was the opening front of the Wana-trained forces against the Pakistani Army. It is no coincidence that there was not a single Predator attack against Fazlullah’s forces, and all drone attacks from that point on were against Baitullah Mehsud’s main adversary, Mullah Nazir in Wana. Nazir was the head of the Pak Army supported tribal lashkars who had run the Uzbeks of Mehsud out of Wana.
In 2008 Bush signed a secret order authorizing operations inside Pakistan and the Pakistani Army secretly acquiesced to American Predator show attacks upon former Guantanamo alumni. This provided a means to keep up the show for the American audience. It also opened the door to covert commando strikes in conjunction with action by the Pakistani Taliban.
The rest is history. On August 6, 2009, Baitullah Mehsud was mistakenly killed by an American guided missile, tracking a Pakistani-planted transmitter. It is likely that the CIA was tricked into killing Pakistan’s primary enemy. Ten days later, the tribal rival of Mehsud, Maulvi Nazir, who very likely had planted the tracking device, is killed by black-clad Special Forces type commandoes near Wana; probably payback from the United States.
The “AfPak” zone of conflict is a land of smoke and mirrors intended to put-on a show and simultaneously obscure the action on the ground. Beginning in 2007, the action obscured was a covert Indian/American war upon the people of Pakistan.
All the usual voices will chime in here, saying—“We didn’t create al Qaida; we didn’t sponsor Abdullah Mehsud, or Baitullah; we don’t create terrorists”! No matter how much they yell, the truth remains to be seen in these militants and their actions. After his release from Guantanamo, Abdullah Mehsud did not kidnap or kill Americans; he went straight after America’s greatest competitor, the Chinese. Likewise, in the case of Abu Musad al-Zarqawi, the leader of “al Qaida in Iraq,” after his release from Jordanian prison, his victims were usually Iraqi Shiites, not Americans. After being captured, abused and then released, both of these guys went after our enemies, no matter what the press has reported otherwise. Were they brainwashed, “Manchurian candidates,” or were they merely paid-off? US Rep. Mark Kirk has raised the issue that most of the militant leaders in southern Afghanistan were formerly held at Guantanamo and Bagram. Is that also a coincidence, or by design? “Islamists” are primarily a product of the intelligence agencies.
American/Israeli/Indian/Iranian/British hands are all extremely dirty after taking a walk on Dick Cheney’s “dark side” in Pakistan and they owe a heavy penalty to both Pakistan and Afghanistan for what they have done there. It is high time to drag all the spooks out of their closets and air their dirty linen to the world. Only such a complete CIA housecleaning as this will redeem the United States of America in the eyes of the world. Anything less would do no good at all, and would also be a grave insult to those who have fallen in our poisonous shadow.
peter.chamberlin@hotmail.com
[If the following report is what it claims to be, a declassified RAW document, then it spells-out the Mossad/RAW/CIA plot against Pakistan, that many of us have been trying to expose. Someone with intelligence background should check it out.]
MOSSAD / RAW / Mi-4 (MORAM)
Foreign Intelligence Unit (13)
Operations Desk
Though the peace offensive (confidence building measures) through the Composite Dialogue process continues, RAW continues to actively engage in its power play to rock the boat and encircle the enemy. Method of two-prong attack—“Peace through dialogue and war through RAW”— is running superbly.
Tactics of the dragon policy.
Pakistani Intelligence agencies are employing Hindus and even Muslims as militants who cross into India.
In retaliation to the unending terrorist pursuits of Pakistan; RAW and MOSSAD had conceived the summer offensive a year ago. Modus operandi has been successful – brief on operational tactics follows:
Intelligence has successfully taped known international drug and mafia dons against Pakistan. CIT ‘X’ and some international crooks with people of Indian origin pay Pakistan in the same coin. CIT ‘X’ is effectively training agents for covert operations in Pakistan. Under the Vajpayee government, the CIT ‘X’ and other sensitive organizations were authorized to strengthen contacts with ‘sleeping agents’, and recruit new front men to carry out covert operations in Pakistan.
We have also engaged all possible international criminals and mercenaries, including Afgans for covert purposes during LK Advani’s tenure in the Home Ministry. Just before the Indian parliamentary elections, officials have met the international criminal council “somewhere” in South East Asia and assured Indian Government’s continued support. CIT ‘X’ is actively involved in drug trafficking to finance its covert operations.
Illegal poppy is being cultivated in bulk in Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Uttar Pradesh. Dharamshala as a result has become one of the most infamous centers of drugs in Himachal Pradesh. Drug barons have close links with their Afghan counterparts and completely controlled and continuously monitored by various intelligence agencies. According to current statistics, 25 per cent of Indian poppy is being diverted into illegal markets worldwide. The booming poppy crop in Himachal Pradesh and Northeast region has led to deployment of local refining laboratories to make heroin. India today stands as the fifth largest country in the world in the production of illicit opium. Laos is 4th with 20 metric tons and has direct tie up with RAW and internal drug barons. Some people of Indian origin living in Surinam and Holland have been engaged to facilitate Indian agencies in drug trafficking. Under the benign patronage of CIT ‘X’, the ‘business’ of drug trafficking is flourishing, and the money earned is accounted for and is being directed towards covert activities in Pakistan.
The summer offensive includes establishment of 57 training camps in Occupied Kashmir, East Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Assam to train and launch terrorists inside Pakistan. Trainees are generally drawn from the Indian hatched dissident groups of Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), Jiye Sindh Mohaz (JSM), Jiye Sindh Students Federation (JSF) and Balochi nationalists and other nationalist groups from various parts of Sindh, Balochistan and Tribal Areas.
Offensive under Diplomatic Cover.The MOSSAD hand
Most of the Indian Embassies/Consulates around the world are being used as dens for hatching RAW plots. The set-ups are grouped together on regional basis under one head, known as the RAW center. This includes the espionage efforts as well as the subversion, sabotage and terrorism oriented operations. For Pakistan RAW centers at London, Dubai, Iran, and South Africa operate against Pakistan jointly with Israeli MOSSAD. However, for its summer offensive, RAW, in a joint effort with MOSSAD has laid out a whole network around Pakistan, to ensnare it in a trap and tighten the noose around it through destabilization.
India has opened Consulates (IOC’s) in Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, besides having an oversized diplomatic mission in Kabul.
Kandahar and Jalalabad are near the borders of Pakistan, which insinuates many things. The ongoing Wana operation is being fed cash, weapons and ammunition indirectly by RAW operatives under cover of Al-Qaeda. MOSSAD and AMMAN have also contributed heavily towards the funding and material requirements for these operations. The direct result of this was the effective slaying of 121 Pakistani regular infantry soldiers on Nov 8th’2004, just 3 days after the infusion of war material and assistance in logistics and planning operations of the tribals by operatives of RAW.
Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS). The IRANI involvement:
Iran, having contiguous borders with Pakistan, is a hotbed of intrigues and constant source of support and inspiration to RAW functionaries. The Indian Embassy at Tehran and Consulates in Zahidan, Mashhad and Bandar Abbas are actively engaged in establishing links with disgruntled elements of Balochistan and Sindh for destabilizing these provinces. Iran also serves as a base for fomenting sectarian trouble in Pakistan. Irani intelligence has been providing reliable information and support to RAW operations by using disgruntled Shia elements in Pakistan.
This intelligence model is a improvement on the practices of MOSSAD, which has infiltrated several Jewish agents into the occupied territory of Palestine as Muslims. These agents practice Islam like any ordinary Muslim. They say prayers in mosques, observe fast during Ramadan, and mingle into local Muslim population just to wait for the appropriate time to strike. During the armed struggle in former East Pakistan, Indian army regulars, after they were physically made to look like Muslims and taught Bangla, were pushed into East Pakistan to fight as Mukti Bahini against the Pakistan Army.”
The summer offensive of RAW includes working on ethnic, regional, parochial and secular themes, which include Sindhu Desh Movement in Sindh, Saraiki Movement in Punjab, Tribal Balochis in the name of Greater Balochistan and taking advantage of Northern Alliance Government in Afghanistan and using its tentacles at Kabul, Jalalabad, Khost, Kandahar and Spin Boldak, the tribals in Waziristan and Balochistan are continuously being kept activated for fomenting trouble – while Taliban and Al-Qaeda are getting the blame and Pakistan gets the rap for “not doing enough” by US and “FRIENDLY” Afghan authorities.
After the Indian consulate in Karachi was wound up. RAW started maintaining contacts in their sources/links in Pakistan through their consulates at Zahidan and Dubai. Most of the staff at Indian Consulate in Zahidan is from intelligence/security organisations including RAW, Intelligence Bureau and Military Intelligence. The sizeable cover staff in their Embassy at Dubai under the pretence of tourist traffic. The set-ups are dedicated units mainly responsible for promoting ethnic unrest in Pakistan. They continue to provide financial and material support to various regionalist/sectarian parties in Sindh and Balochistan
UAE Angle:
UAE is being used as a launching pad for terrorist activities in Pakistan. Agents are getting hold of young, disgruntled elements and after carrying out their proper brainwashing, they are dispatched to Dubai. Indian Consulate in Dubai is issuing temporary passport to these activists for getting training/briefing. After completion of their formal training, they are launched into Pakistan to carry out their terrorist/sabotage activities.
To cripple the economy of Pakistan, RAW has taken it upon itself the responsibility of pumping fake currency into Pakistan through various illegal means. RAW and various Indian and Foreign Intelligence Agencies have also been patronizing various local dissident groups in Pakistan. As mentioned, the prominent ones are – Sindhi Desh Movement in Sindh, Saraiki Movement in Punjab and tribal Balochis in the name of Greater Balochistan.
To fan flames of Sindhi Desh Movement, subversive literature, published from Bombay and Jammu eg, Sindh Sujag, Sindh Rises; Sindh Parcham, Sangat and lot of other subversive material is being pumped into Sindh clandestinely. With regard to support for the Saraiki Movement, it is worth mentioning that we are morally and materially supporting the Saraiki Movement in southern Punjab. Regional Political Parties like Saraiki Suba Mahaz, Pakistan Saraiki Party and Saraiki Sahilya Sangam are being effectively sponsored. Their operators in southern Punjab are being supported by accepting Saraiki as the second state language in Indian-held Punjab. All India Radio/TV are regularly broadcasting various Saraiki programmes. Subversive literature in huge quantity is being published on the subject.
The success of RAW/MOSSAD/MOIS activities is reflected in the fact that a section of respected and influential intellectuals have started voicing for the cause of Punjab/Punjabis from the platform of World Punjabi Congress. This has effectively started the trend of widening the gulf of misunderstanding among various provinces of Pakistan.
RAW is also involved in sponsoring Balwaristan Movement. It is being organised under Abdul Hamid, self-styled chairman of his own faction of Balwaristan National Front (BNF) based in Delhi. The Front is working for the independence of Northern Areas. It has been inculcating into Pakistan and highly subversive material from abroad.
Conclusion
Pakistan has been effectively engaged in for a long hot summer as the summer offensive continues. Despite fencing the LoC with a highly sophisticated system of monitors and sensors, and reducing infiltration to 92%, India on the diplomatic front must continue to persist in blaming Pakistan for “cross-border terrorism” and “infiltrating militants” while it foments trouble deep inside Pakistani economic and military centers. It should be noted that the problems created by Pakistan in the state of Jammu and Kashmir tend to hurt Pakistan more on the economic, military and diplomatic front.
The key to lasting peace is not merely on the diplomatic approach but by making genuine efforts to encircle and balkanize the Pakistani economic and military establishment, thereby giving India the command and control of influencing Pakistani and as an extension Chinese foreign policy.
[I wish these spooks would settle on one lame explanation and leave it at that, but the more convoluted the better; one that keeps going through kaleidoscopic changes is even better. Now they come-up with this curious story of a Jordanian doctor that the agency has allegedly “flipped,” but it turns-out that he is secretly one of Osama’s boys. Now comes the really curious part, this doctor is supposedly from the same little town in Jordan, Zarqa, that previously produced “super-terrorist” Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. You remember the dead super-terrorist leader of the fictitious “al Qaida In Iraq,” who didn’t even know how to fire an automatic weapon?
Both of these terrorists were arrested in Jordan and subjected to CIA persuasion until they gave-in (which means that they were broken by brainwashing), before being sent to Afghanistan. The fact that both of them began anti-American operations after this either means that CIA brainwashing doesn’t work or that they were trained by the CIA to attack those targets. The story of Abdullah Mehsud, after he was released from Guantanamo Bay, is almost identical to these Jordanian tales. You would think that the CIA wouldn’t be so sloppy.]
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The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was an al-Qaeda triple agent, US media reports say. He is said to have been a doctor from Jordan who was arrested by Jordanian intelligence a year ago. He was then reportedly recruited by the Jordanians and CIA – who thought they had successfully turned him – and given a mission to find al-Qaeda leaders. He is believed to have been working undercover in Afghanistan for weeks before detonating a bomb at a CIA base. The attack at Forward Operating Base Chapman was the worst against US intelligence officials since the US embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983. The news about the bomber’s identity came as a report was published in which the top US military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Maj Gen Michael Flynn, sharply criticised the work of US intelligence agencies there. He said that at present, US intelligence in Afghanistan was still “unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US and allied forces operate and the people they are trying to protect and persuade”. The report, which was published by a think tank, the Center for a New American Security, cites one officer’s remarks that the US was “clueless” due to its lack of useful intelligence about the country. Changing sides On the suicide bomb attack, the Washington Post quoted two former US government officials as saying that the alleged attacker had lured the CIA officers into a meeting with a promise of new information on al-Qaeda’s top leadership. The reports named him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old al-Qaeda sympathiser from Zarqa, Jordan, arrested by Jordanian intelligence over a year ago.
His specific mission was thought to be tracking down al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The CIA has declined to comment on the reports. Jordanian intelligence believed they had brought Humam al-Balawi over to their side and sent him to Afghanistan to infiltrate al-Qaeda, US network NBC says. According to Western intelligence officials quoted in the reports, Humam al-Balawi called his handlers last week to arrange a meeting at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, where he said he would relay urgent information about Zawahiri. Once inside the base, the reports say, he blew himself up killing seven CIA employees and his handler, whom Jordanian media have named as Ali bin Zeid. Questions were raised after the bomb was detonated in the base’s gym last week about how the attacker could have managed to pass through security. The Washington Post says he was picked up in a car outside the base and driven in without being thoroughly searched. A US official, also a former CIA employee, told the Associated Press news agency that such people were often not required to go through full security checks, in order to help gain their trust. “When you’re trying to build a rapport and literally ask them to risk [their lives] for you, you’ve got a lot to do to build their trust,” he said. Drone base A Taliban spokesman quoted on al-Jazeera’s website said Humam al-Balawi was a double agent who had misled Jordanian and US intelligence services for a year. Forward Operating Base Chapman, a former Soviet military base, is used not only by the CIA but also by provincial reconstruction teams, which include both soldiers and civilians. The airfield is reportedly used for US drone attacks on suspected militants in neighbouring Pakistan. The CIA has not released the names of the officials killed nor details of their work because of the sensitivity of US operations. But the head of the base, reported to be a mother-of-three, was among those killed. The BBC’s Mark Mardell in Washington says the CIA will be deeply embarrassed that the bomber was able to work so closely with the agency and with such high level officials. |
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By Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff
BEIRUT: Fatah commander in Lebanon Brigadier Sultan Abu al-Aynayn on Sunday accused external parties of seeking to “export” fundamentalists to refugee camps across Lebanon. “We have taken measures to prevent Al-Qaeda from infiltrating Palestinian refugee camps after we received information that external parties were seeking to export extremists, particularly from Iraq,” Abu al-Aynayn said in an interview withAFP.
“We have received information that external parties are seeking to stir up tension inside the camps by sending some fundamentalists from Iraq and other countries,” he added.
On Sunday, calm was restored to the restive Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh following clashes between the mainstream Fatah Movement and Islamist group Jund al-Sham.
Armed clashes erupted Saturday in Ain al-Hilweh between militants from Fatah and Jund al-Sham, leaving one person wounded.
Machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades were used in the clashes, forcing dozens to flee the camp.
After around half an hour, the joint security committee inside the camp intervened to stop the fighting as contacts managed to put an end to the clashes amid a state of tension that prevailed in the camp after rival fighters refused to withdraw from the streets.
Mounir al-Maqdah, who commands the main Palestinian police force in Ain al-Hilweh, said the clashes were contained after a meeting for the camp’s security committee. He said the fighting erupted when Jund al-Sham members fired at a Fatah bureau in the camp, located on the outskirts of the coastal city of Sidon.
The camp’s security committee ordered the deployment of security forces across the camp in order to maintain stability.
However, traffic inside the camp was minor and very few pedestrians were seen on the streets of Ain al-Hilweh.
On Sunday, the Lebanese Army reopened the two main northern entrances of the camp, after they had shut them down during the clashes.
Palestinian sources inside the camp expressed fears that the scenario of the northern Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp would be repeated in Ain al-Hilweh. Nahr al-Bared was reduced to rubble following 106 days of fighting between the Lebanese Army and the Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam.
Lebanese security sources, however said such fears would not become a reality if various Palestinian factions “remain aware of the challenges.”
Palestinian sources inside the camp said Lebanese security forces have warned factions not to mess with Lebanon’s security. – With agencies
by Gil Ronen
(IsraelNN.com) A delegation of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace (RCP) met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mr. James Cunningham, today and called for a reassessment of the entire U.S. policy vis-à-vis the Israelis and Palestinians. The rabbis told Ambassador Cunningham that it was time to try the Biblical approach to the dispute over the Land of Israel.
"The past 17 years have proven without a shadow of a doubt that every square inch ceded by Israel to the Palestinians was transformed into a platform of hatred and terrorism," RCP Director Rabbi Avrohom Shmuel Lewin told the ambassador. "In other words, the ‘land for peace’ formula in the Israel-Palestinian context, besides being a formula that goes against the Divine will, is ineffective, obsolete, and an exercise in futility. Most of all it is a dangerous policy that only leads to bloodshed and instability in the region and harms vital American interests in the region as well," Lewin said.
‘Land for peace doesn’t work’
The delegation was headed by Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, Chairman of the RCP, who is also the Rabbi 
"It’s all a play of words, there is no peace process." 
of Central Tel Aviv where the US embassy is located. Rabbi Gerlitzky presented the ambassador with the Halachic (Jewish legal) ruling signed by over 350 prominent rabbis in Israel that it is forbidden to give up even one inch of territory controlled by Israel today because it will bring bloodshed and instability to the region.
"In the name of the overwhelming majority of rabbis in Israel," he said, "we request of you Mr. Ambassador, to convey our Halachic message to President Barack Obama that it is time for a complete reversal and reassessment of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The ‘land for peace’ policy never worked and harms U.S. interests in the region and the world at large."
The ambassador was visibly moved by Rabbi Sholom Gold, a leading rabbi in Jerusalem, who described the suffering that the Jewish People have endured ever since the implementation of the Oslo Accords and the agreements that followed. "It’s all a play of words, there is no peace process," he said. "From the day that we started conceding and withdrawing we did not have one day of rest and peace. Why should our enemies want to make peace with us when they see that with terrorism they get what they want? Even the U.S., Israel’s supposedly best friend, sides with them in demanding a freeze and evacuation of settlements. Is the triumph of Arab terror one of American interests?" Gold asked.
Going Biblical
"Who knows, Mr. Ambassador, maybe this is your defining moment."
Rabbi Dov Lior, the Rabbi of Kiryat Arba-Hevron, said: "G-d gave the US the power and influence to affect the rest of the world and supporting Israel is the key to America’s success."
Ambassador Cunningham told the rabbis that he does not see how the problem can be solved “without taking into consideration the Palestinians,” to which Rabbi Gold remarked: "Ever since we started taking the Palestinians into consideration the situation only worsened."
The ambassador asked the rabbis, "So what is your solution to the problem?"
Rabbi Gerlitzky replied: "You must switch the entire approach to the situation. We all believe in the Holy Bible and up until now we tried every formula except for that which is delineated in the Bible. Let’s try it and who knows, Mr. Ambassador, maybe this is your defining moment, that G-d Almighty has placed you in this capacity in order to precipitate a new course which will bring a true peace to the entire region."
Ø See A Comparison Between India’s evidences and Pakistan’s proof of Indian terrorism inside Pakistan
Ø China Has Strong Evidence Of Indian Terror Involvement In Tibet & Western China
Ø Musharraf showed a photograph to US ambassador Baitullah Mehsood was seen coming out of one of the Indian ‘diplomatic’ missions in Afghanistan
Ø Pakistan’s Interior Ministry & Foreign Office are mysteriously quiet on ridiculous Indian evidence
Ø Use of Indian currency in all parts of Afghanistan is encouraged, another sign of how US is trampling on Pakistan’s security interests in the region
South India’s Vaigai Chemical Industries and Indian Ordnance Factories provide arms and explosives to terrorists in Pakistan. Evidence of Indian-origin combustible chemicals has been found in western Pakistan. The mysterious fire that gutted Karachi’s business district is not possible without the use of such material. India has already launched a two-front secret war against both China and Pakistan.
By MAKHDOOM BABAR
Editor-in-Chief
The Daily Mail of Pakistan
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U.S. – Israeli Complicity in Terror Plots Exposed, FBI, Media Cover-Up Flight 253 Plot |
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Uncomfortable facts are emerging from the terror plot on Delta Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit High-level help in yet another terror plot is emerging, along with U.S. F.B.I. and D.O.J. cover-up of the facts and outright involvement. History is rife with examples of intelligence agencies setting up terror plots – sometimes with unintended victims and consequences – and the Delta 253 terror plot is the latest such plot to have gone wrong.
Evidence is mounting of U.S. and Israeli complicity [link] in this latest plot. The father Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab of the young terrorist, is an accomplished Nigerian banker [link] and ran the national arms industry (DICON) in patnership with Israel, Nigeria has extensive intelligence links to Israel [link]. The young man, son of the above, who tried to blow up the plane is a 23 year old Nigerian named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; he has attended the British International School, Lome, Togo and studied engineering at the University College, London and was a master’s in international business degree student at the Dubai campus of an Australian University[link]. A wife of his father, is from Yemen, and frequently travels to the United States, and Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab holds a Nigerian passport with a mutiple entry visa to the United States, which is valid until June 2010. The young man fell out with his father, and chose to visit Yemen and mix with islamist terrorists, to join with those he believed to be at the opposite end of his father’s allegiences (money, USA, banking, arms industry). He will not have known that those terrorists in Yemen are supported [link] by Israel’s MOSSAD. From there the young Mutallab sent a text message to his family in Nigeria renouncing them, which led his father, who is received as a VIP by the U.S. embassy in the capital Abuja, to visit that embassy to alert the U.S. of his son’s activities in Yemen, on November 19. As a result this information is shared by the U.S. embassy with U.S. agencies, resulting in the son being placed on a terror watch list. For this reason, the son cannot show that passport or he would be unable to board the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, where he flew after returning via Nigeria from Yemen. (It is claimed by U.S. media that in Yemen he even met up with some of those released[link] without charge from Guantanamo. 92% of those held and tortured by the U.S. for many years, were innocent of any terrorism, 6% were involved with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and at most 2% were said to have anything to do with Al-Qaida. We can trust the U.S. to have released any real terrorists, and to continue to hold any innocents.) Instead of thus trying to fly on his compromised passport, the disheveled and poor-looking Mutallab is escorted by an expensively clothed Indian-looking man of around 50 years of age, who tells the boarding gate check box that Mutallab is a Sudanese and needs to board without a passport, and that “we do this all the time.” Mutallab is silent and obedient, the Indian does all the talking. The check in staff at the gate, naturally refuses, but takes the pair away to see their superior to deal with this case, and the entire conversation up to that point was overheard, unfortunately for the conspirators as it turns out, by successful Michigan lawyer Kuret Haskell, who is sitting a few feet away with his wife Lori, on their way home to the U.S. after a visit to Africa. Naturally, as all things at European airports, all movements of all people are recorded on CCTV video, so it would be easy to track and identify the “Indian” accomplice of the bomber-to-be. Yet, as happened in London with the infamous 7/7 bombings, this material appears to be withheld from media and the public, and we are told to believe “authorities” there that there is no Indian and no accomplice. Remarkable too is that these security companies involved with European airports are often Israeli, and run by ex-military or ex-MOSSAD Israeli agents, on the pretext that the threat is from islamist terrorists, an area Israel has experience with, but which then does not allow for checks against Israeli MOSSAD “false flag” operations, with ever tighter measures implemented against the public. Meanwhile while the public is subjected to ever more discomforts and irrational fake security measures whilst keeping the terror threat alive, but military jets, private aircraft, and CIA-rented aircraft freely enter and leave European and other airports, often without any security checks or searches, with “VIP” passengers thus able to enter and leave countries often without any visa, as we learnt from the “extra-ordinary” rendition of U.S. abducted prisoners through Europe. Back to the terror plot under examination. Shortly after the young Mutallab terrorist and his wealthy VIP “Indian” handler disappeared down the corridor to see higher-ups, the passengers along with the Haskells, boarded the flight. As there was no delay for departure to wait for the terrorist, it is evident that clearing the terrorist with the higher-ups took a matter of a minute or so – the “Indian” obviously has a high-level pass (CIA, MOSSAD or high level security clout). Then the flight proceeds over the Atantic Ocean with no peculiar events, except for one man sitting somewhere in front of row 19 – the row the young terrorist is seated in – who films much of the flight on his cam corder, always facing back wards toward the terrorist, whom he is recording with extensive video footage. This passenger too, we are not told about, are not to ask about, and we do not get to see his video. In a CNN News program [LINK], passenger Richelle Keepman states, “There was a man that, when we first took off, I noticed about 10 seats ahead of us to the left-hand side. He had a camcorder. I thought maybe this was his first flight and [he] was just excited. And then, when the actual incident occurred, I looked up, and he was the only one standing and filming the entire thing.” In another CNN article [LINK], she states, “I don’t know why he was standing up [when] we were supposed to be seated, and he was filming it.” The Haskells are sitting 8 rows behind, in row 27. Kurt Haskell does not notice the young terrorist again until shortly before landing, when passengers have already been instructed to buckle up for landing. A stewardess walks past mumbling something about the smell of smoke, and sure enough fire flames errupt from around the seat of the young Abdul-Mutallab, who is subdued immediately by passengers, the small and now wounded man offering no resistance. Throughout this incident however, the man continues recording the terrorist, calmly and without interruption. Very unusual behaviour, as observed by many other passengers on board this flight. Then the pilot comes onto the intercom, somewhat nervously, to briefly announce an immediate landing, and the plane is floored, but then remains on the tarmac for 20 minutes before anyone is allowed to leave. This 20 minute delay, is only something that can happen at a U.S. airport, the inefficiency of security and systems in the U.S. are well known to the world, both pre-9/11 and after it. Anywhere else in the world, such an aircraft with a subdued terrorist on board, would be evacuated immediately, and anywhere else in the world, passengers would be told to leave all baggage behind. Not so in the U.S.A. After that 20 minute delay putting all passengers at danger of further fire as it had not been established that the aircraft was safe or that the fire had not spread out of sight into the skin of the craft or toward the fuel tanks, or bombs that may be stashed and detonate, the passengers are made to sit with all their luggage for around six hours as they are slowly interviewed by FBI agents and others. After around an hour, dogs that arrived, sniffing for explosives, loved the smell of explosive substances in an Indian looking man’s bag (Haskell confirms this Indian is much younger than the one in Amsterdam, who was not on board the flight) and this Indian is taken away in handcuffs. Yet, after this too, we no longer can hear any information about this Indian or what happened to him. After that incident, an FBI officer makes an extraordinary announcement [LINK] to the passengers, which Haskell recounts to popular alternative media investigative journalist Alex Jones during an extensive interview [link] also detailing his FBI [link] interview, moving them to another location for the remaining 5 hours, and out of sight. Although very important and reliable witnesses with essential testimony, the Haskells are not contacted for several days. Then the FBI pays a visit [LINK] to their law offices, show them various photographs, attempt to impeach them, and fail to produce any video from Holland or anywhere else for that matter, fail to show full body photographs of the terrorist, only facial shots. They clearly are fishing for how much the Haskells saw, and not for the (Indian [link]) accomplice(s) [link], at least one of which is obviously working with the full protection of the authorities. CONCLUSIONS Other parts of the story can be guessed at or surmised, for example, that the “Al-Qaida”claims [link] are the work of MOSSAD with its agents in the CIA, and are designed to garner public support for stepped up U.S.-Israeli involvement in the recent war between the Yemeni government and those terrorists, which have consistently been supported by London and covertly by Israel. Or that the young terrorist thought he would really be blowing himself up and that the well dressed 50-ish year old Indian escort of his was a high-level “Al-Qaida” officer sent to help him and that he was really on a jihad mission and destined for Paradise. Or even that he was hypnotised [LINK] or drugged. That his handlers knew full well that smoke and burns would only result as they ensured the device would not work (a would-be suicide-bomber can never test their equipment in advance, for obvious reasons), and that they would have a wall-to-wall TV worldwide coverage of the ongoing threat of Al-Qaida, terrorism, and of the “need” to take away further liberties in order to defeat it. The timing of the latest terror threat could not be more convenient for the US terror and war industry: only two weeks prior president Obama was refused an extension and expansion[link] of the infamous Patriot Act rushed in after 9/11 and since then used extensively forspying [link] on the American populace. At the time the administration was only granted a 60 day extension until February. The broadcast of a “live” terror attack on an American aircraft will ensure that the CIA gets everything they ask for next time round. It will also boost the calls for a direct American involvement in Yemen, where the Obama administration has started a proxy war through Saudi Arabia, and it will give the security industry the green light for installing the body scanners they trialled in various countries amidst concerns of invasion of privacy. Amsterdam Schiphol has already announced their immediate deployment – this news item incidentally also notes a dutch investigation concluded that it was American security officials at Schiphol, who cleared the passengers to board the flight. The cat is now literally out of the bag and cannot be put back. The awareness of people of all walks of life, like the Haskells, who are able to observe and think logically, ensures that sound conclusions are drawn on at least some issues such as this one. Several gaping holes are blown in the official version of events: the failure to produce the airport security video from Amsterdam Schipol, the “video passenger” on the plane, and the disappearing Indian(s). This awareness offers some faint glimmer of hope that one day enough people will put their trust, support and money into true news media networks such as Mathaba to stay informed rather than continue to swallow the misleading disinformation and continuously forgive the 3-letter money slave media (MSM) networks for their repeated and ongoing failures to cover news and issues that matter. Mathaba urges any other witnesses at the airports at Amsterdam and Detroit as well as any passengers or crew from the Northwest Airlines flight, or anyone else with direct information to come forward via our secure contact form and to share that. Mathaba is the only news agency with a secure contact form so that witnesses and whistle-blowers can provide information without fear of being traced by their government, terrorists, or hackers. General contact is also available. We ask that you supply your contact details so that we can follow up and verify, and assure you that we honor the journalist tradition of confidentiality – whatever is told to us in confidence or not to be on the record, is not disclosed. We hope that more good citizens will come forward to back up existing testimonies or offer any further information that may help. Note: For those wanting to delve deeper into the details of facts, opinions and logical deductions surrounding this case, the links in the article above serve as good starting points for further research. Mathaba Report |
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  COULD TERROR WAR BE RESPONSE BY GOP AND ISRAEL AGAINST THREATS TO THEIR GLOBAL PLANS?
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor (STORY CONTINUALLY UPDATING WITH BREAKING NEWS!) When nothing adds up, its time we starting looking at what we know. Our recent terrorist, now dubbed “the crotch bomber” is another dupe. He could have been working for anyone, drugged, brainwashed or simply influenced, maybe by crazy Arabs, maybe by the Mossad, maybe by the CIA. We only know the game is falling apart. We do know a couple of things. Dad, back in Nigeria, ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His “banking” is a cover. Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones who planned this? According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen were released from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known terrorist there, without trial.
With all the hoopla about trials in New York, not a word is said when top level terrorists are released to Saudi friends of the Bush family who let them go. We are now fighting these two Bush friends in Yemen. They are running a major insurgency there. We have been using Cruise missiles and our jets to attack their bases in the last weeks. CBS NEWS LEARNS CIA HAD ADVANCE INFORMATION ON DETROIT TERRORIST
THE CIA OFFICIAL STATEMENT CIA admits broad information during the November interview, information not acted on in any responsible way but failed to understand that the terrorist they were warned of in November was the one they had been tracking since August.
CIA, ISRAEL AND YEMEN It is claimed by groups claiming to be Al Qaeda in Yemen that the Detroit attack was in retaliation to US attacks on bases in Yemen run by Al Qaeda leaders released by Bush. The government of Yemen, as reported in the BBC , says that the Al Qaeda terrorists, led by those released by Bush, are really Israeli agents though they have organized attacks against US targets:
With continual reports from Pakistan that India and Israel have been involved in terrorst attacks against US supporters there and the recent reports that the Detroit bomber was assisted by an Indian while boarding in Amsterdam and partially confirmed reports that a second bomber, an Indian, was arrested and taken from the plane in Detroit. MILive broke this story in the US which originated with Reuters:
In another interview on Inside Edition, Haskell described what happened:
An earlier CBS news report today stated:
Thus, in another set of coincidences, the system put in place after 9/11, meant to prevent the misuse of student visas for terrorist acts, single, Islamic engineering students tied to religious extremists being a risk factor in that area, failed totally. Picture the November 19 interview. A poor taxi driver comes to the US embassy: “My son, he is hanging around with a rough crowd. He says he wants to blow something up!” No, wait, that was someone else. Picture the November 19 interview. One of the richest people in the world, head of a major bank, cabinet minister, head of the national armaments industry, close associate of the US Ambassador and someone known around the world makes an appointment to come to the US embassy. He wouldn’t have met a clerk. The US Ambassador himself would have arranged for the highest ranking officer in the embassy hold the interview. Mr. Muttalab would have been greeted by the ambassador when he came to the embassy. MUTALLAH MEETS WITH CIA CHIEF OF STATION IN NIGERIA, NOVEMBER 19 We have confirmed that Mutallah met with the CIA chief of station in Nigeria. Imagine this person of great power and influence, with friends at the highest levels of the CIA and Mossad. When he came to announce his son may be a terrorist, he was a loving father asking for help? He would have made this points:
Were any of this true, this is what would have been said. Were any of what we have been told true, none of what we saw in Detroit could have happened. What we know is that something very different than this really happened. Go ahead and Google “muttalab, nigeria, bank, mossad, defense”
Let’s look at the Wayne Marsden report on the failures at the airport in Amsterdam along with direct ties between this case and the shoe bomber Richard Reid:
Marsden points out the well established family ties to Yemen thru his wife. He further points out how Israel managed to bring the terrorist son of Mutallab through multiple airport security obstacles with the same ease the United States shephered a known terrorist through a visa process. What we hadn’t seen is how much this process had been tested during the “shoe bomber” episode.
JUST THE FACTS: Let’s review what we know thus far:
WHERE THE STORY IS GOING We keep going back to 2007. Why were these terrorists released to Saudi custody? Why did Saudi Arabia release them soon afterward? With the 2nd major terrorist front in the world being Yemen and the terrorist operation there under the control of released Bush detainees, there is reason for suspicion. While we have all of these facts, easily verifiable, we have a much stronger case against the Bush Administration or Israel than Al Qaeda. There is no real evidence that Al Qaeda would be operating in Yemen without American or Saudi help and even, as stated by the Government of Yemen, direct material assistance from Israel. Why would such a thing be done, something against all reason unless terrorism itself was part of a larger regional plan and a “war on terror” was only a ruse. When Pakistan comes to us and says that Israel and India are involved in terrorism there and we ignore it, is it because it isn’t credible or because the US government has been involved, as we seem to be involved in Yemen? WHY THE STORY HAS TO GRIND TO A STOP OR….”THE WHOLE DIRTY MESS WILL COLLAPSE” Why are we satisfied to take one person into custody, one person who ties to so many irregularities and ask nothing else? As with 9/11 and so many other seeminly impossible times when so many things go wrong that only great power and the cooperation of many agencies in many countries could make it possible, why do we ask nothing. We have a major investigation in Nigeria, not only of the father and his connections to Israel but our own embassy and why they left this visa alone when the individual was a known terrorist. How could this terrorist travel to Yemen to meet with an organization run by former detainees released by Bush and his Saudi friends, former detainees that Yemen claims are working for israel? How could he do this and be allowed to return to Nigeria, a country whose intelligence services are tied to Israel and trained by Israel. They would have known in a second. How did this terrorist enter the Netherlands without showing a passport? Try it. You will meet lots of Dutch people who will keep you in a small room for hours, days even. It is absolutely impossible. People are picked up in the EU while in passport control for non-payment of child support. I am being told they can’t find a terrorist? We haven’t begun to discover how he got past security equipment and screening. It isn’t like he isn’t the highest profile potential terrorist who has entered Nigeria in decades. He is Islamic, young and traveling alone. Ask any young Islamic traveler how many times they have been searched. Is is on a terrorist watchlist. This is like the “no fly list” on steroids. You aren’t just denied flight, you are put under immediate surveillance. If he had shown his passport, it would have shown him entering Yemen, a known terrorist training ground. This would have stopped him also. With the Bush administration releasing terrorist leaders and shepherding them back into their former profession, with our embassy, State Department, Homeland Security and every other organization we spent so many billions of dollars to “coordinate” all failing, is there, just perhaps, a minor sign of conspiracy? I would call President Obama to account for failures to discover what appears to be a conspiracy of his predecessor but, as the GOP blogs that fill the internet are working overtime to obscure the facts and place the blame on Obama alone, there could be no greater proof of non-involvement.
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| IS ISRAEL CONTROLLING PHONY TERROR NEWS? | ||
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Who says Al Qaeda takes credit for a bombing? Rita Katz. Who gets us bin Laden tapes? Rita Katz. Who gets us pretty much all information telling us Muslims are bad? Rita Katz? Rita Katz
 is the Director of Site Intelligence, primary source for intelligence used by news services, Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA. What is her qualification? She served in the Israeli Defense Force. She has a college degree and most investigative journalists believe the Mossad “helps” her with her information. We find no evidence of any qualification whatsoever of any kind. A bartender has more intelligence gathering experience.Nobody verifies her claims. SITE says Al Qaeda did it, it hits the papers. SITE says Israel didn’t do it, that hits the papers too. What does SITE really do? They check the internet for “information,” almost invariably information that Israel wants reported and it is sold as news, seen on American TV, reported in our papers and passed around the internet almost as though it were actually true. Amazing.
Do we know if the information reported comes from a teenager in Seattle or a terror cell in Jakarta? No, of course not, we don’t have a clue. Can you imagine buying information on Islamic terrorism from an Israeli whose father was executed as a spy by Arabs?
It is quite likely that everything you think you know about terror attacks such as the one in Detroit or whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead comes from Rita Katz. Does she make it all up? We don’t know, nobody knows, nobody checks, they simply buy it, print it, say it comes from Site Intelligence and simply forget to tell us that this is, not only a highly biased organization but also an extremely amateur one also.
Is any of this her fault, Ritas? No. She is herself, selling her work. The blame is not Site Intelligence, it is the people who pass on the information under misleading circumstances.
Imagine if a paper carried a story like this:
Reports that Al Qaeda was responsible for bombing the mosque and train station were given to us by an Israeli woman who says she found it on the internet.
This is fair. Everyone should be able to earn a living and information that comes from Israel could be without bias but the chances aren’t very good. In fact, any news organization, and most use this service, that fails to indicate that the sources they use are “rumored” to be a foreign intelligence service with a long history of lying beyond human measure, is not to be taken seriously.
Can we prove that SITE Intelligence is the Mossad? No. Would a reasonable person assume it is? Yes.
Would a reasonable person believe anything from this source involving Islam or the Middle East? No, they would not.
SITE’s primary claim to fame other than bin Laden videos with odd technical faults is their close relationship with Blackwater. Blackwater has found site useful. Blackwater no longer exists as they had to change their name because of utter lack of credibility.
What can be learned by examining where our news comes from? Perhaps we could start being realistic and begin seeing much of our own news and the childish propaganda it really is.
Propaganda does two things:
1. It makes up phony reasons to justify acts of barbaric cruelty or insane greed.
2. It blames people for things they didn’t do because the people doing the blaming really did it themselves. We call these things “false flag/USS Liberty” incidents.
Next time you see dancing Palestinians and someone tells you they are celebrating a terror attack, it is more likely they are attending a birthday party. This is what we have learned, perhaps this is what we had best remember.
From an AFP article on Site Intelligence:
Rita Katz and S.I.T.E. are set to release yet another “aL-Qaeda” tape
Despite a massive manhunt by the world’s intelligence agencies, BL seems to evade their combined efforts, staying on the run. But he still has time to drop into his recording studio and cook up a fresh tape for the likes of Rita Katz and her outfit called S.I.T.E. SITE is staffed by TWO people, Katz and a Josh Devon.
WASHINGTON (AFP) The head of the Al-Qaeda network Osama bin Laden is expected to release a taped message on Iraq, a group monitoring extremist online forums said Thursday. The 56-minute tape by the hunted militant is addressed to Iraq and an extremist organization based there, the Islamic State of Iraq, said the US-based SITE monitoring institute, citing announcements on “jihadist forums.”
It said the release was “impending” but did not say whether the message was an audio or video tape. Despite a massive manhunt and a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head, he has evaded capture and has regularly taunted the United States and its allies through warnings issued on video and audio cassettes.
Source: ME Times
Yes, despite a massive manhunt by the world’s intelligence agencies, BL seems to evade their combined efforts, staying on the run. But he still has time to drop into his recording studio and cook up a fresh tape for the likes of Rita Katz and her outfit called S.I.T.E. SITE is staffed by TWO people, Katz and a Josh Devon.
Yet these two individuals manage to do what the ENTIRE combined assets of the world’s Western intelligence can’t:
Be the first to obtain fresh video and audio tapes from Al-Qaeda with Bin Laden making threats and issuing various other comments. If BL appears a bit “stiff” in the latest release, that’s because he is real stiff, as in dead.
How is it that a Jewish owned group like S.I.T.E. can outperform the world’s best and brightest in the intelligence field and be the first to know that a group like al-Qaeda is getting ready to release another tape?
How is it possible that Rita Katz and S.I.T.E. can work this magic? Maybe looking at Katz’s background will help:
Rita Katz is Director and co-founder of the SITE Institute. Born in Iraq, her father was tried and executed as an Israeli spy, whereupon her family moved to Israel [the move has been described as both an escape and an emigration in different sources]. She received a degree from the Middle Eastern Studies program at Tel Aviv University, and is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic. She emigrated to the US in 1997.
Katz was called as a witness in the trial, but the government didn’t claim she was a terrorism expert. During the trial it was discovered that Katz herself had worked in violation of her visa agreement when she first arrived in America in 1997.
She also admitted to receiving more than $130,000 for her work as an FBI consultant on the case. |
By Uri Blau
Haaretz.com
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, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, who came to Israel this week for his first visit since his appointment. It was Mitchell who authored the 2001 report that led to the formulation of the road map, which established a parallel between halting terror and halting construction in the settlements.
The official database, the most comprehensive one of its kind ever compiled in Israel about the territories, was recently obtained by Haaretz. Here, for the first time, information the state has been hiding for years is revealed. An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements – about 75 percent – construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.
Click here to view the secret Defense Ministry database on illegal construction in the territories. It should be noted that the information is given in Hebrew
The data, it should be stressed, do not refer only to the illegal outposts (information about which was included in the well-known report authored by attorney Talia Sasson and published in March 2005), but to the very heart of the settlement enterprise. Among them are veteran ideological settlements like Alon Shvut (established in 1970 and currently home to 3,291 residents, including Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun); Ofra (established in 1975, home to 2,708 residents, including
former Yesha Council spokesman Yehoshua Mor Yosef and media personalities Uri Elitzur and Hagai Segal); and Beit El (established in 1977, population 5,308, including Hagai Ben-Artzi, brother of Sara Netanyahu). Also included are large settlements founded primarily for economic motives, such as the city of Modi’in Illit (established in 1990 and now home to 36,282 people), or Givat Ze’ev outside Jerusalem (founded in 1983, population 11,139), and smaller settlements such as Nokdim near Herodion (established in 1982, population 851, including MK Avigdor Lieberman).
The information contained in the database does not conform to the state’s official position, as presented, for instance, on the Foreign Ministry Web site, which states: “Israel’s actions relating to the use and allocation of land under its administration are all taken with strict regard to the rules and norms of international law – Israel does not requisition private land for the establishment of settlements.” Since in many of the settlements, it was the government itself, primarily through the Ministry of Construction and Housing, that was responsible for construction, and since many of the building violations involve infrastructure, roads, public buildings and so on, the official data also demonstrate government responsibility for the unrestrained planning and lack of enforcement of regulations in the territories. The extent of building violations also attests to the poor functioning of
the Civil Administration, the body in charge of permits and supervision of construction in the territories.
According to the 2008 data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, approximately 290,000 Jews live in the 120 official settlements and dozens of outposts established throughout the West Bank over the past 41 years.
“Nothing was done in hiding,” says Pinchas Wallerstein, director-general of the Yesha Council of settlements and a leading figure in the settlement project. “I’m not familiar with any [building] plans that were not the initiative of the Israeli government.” He says that if the owners of private land upon which settlements are built were to complain and the court were to accept their complaint, then the structures would have to be moved somewhere else. “This has been the Yesha Council’s position for the past years,” he says.
You’d never know it from touring several of the settlements in which massive construction has taken place on private Palestinian lands. Entire neighborhoods built without permits or on private lands are inseparable parts of the settlements. The sense of dissonance only intensifies when you find that municipal offices, police and fire stations were also built upon and currently operate on lands that belong to Palestinians.
On Misheknot Haro’im Street in the Kochav Yaakov settlement, a young mother is carrying her two children home. “I’ve lived here for six years,” she says, sounding surprised when told that her entire neighborhood was built upon private Palestinian land. “I know that there’s some small area in the community that is in dispute, but I never heard that this is private land.” Would she have built her home on this land had she known this from the start? “No,” she answers. “I wouldn’t have kicked anyone out of his home.”
Not far away, at the settlement’s large and unkempt trailer site, which is also built on private land, a young newlywed couple is walking to the bus stop: 21-year-old Aharon and his 19-year-old wife, Elisheva. They speak nearly perfect Hebrew despite having grown up in the United States and having settled permanently in Israel just a few months ago, after Aharon completed his army service in the ultra-Orthodox Nahal unit. Now he is studying computers at Machon Lev in Jerusalem. Asked why they chose to live here of all places, they list three reasons: It’s close to Jerusalem, it’s cheap and it’s in the territories. In that order.
The couple pay their rent, NIS 550 a month, to the settlement secretariat. As new immigrants, they are still exempt from having to pay the arnona municipal tax. Aharon doesn’t look upset when he hears that his trailer sits on private land. It doesn’t really interest him. “I don’t care what the state says, the Torah says that the entire Land of Israel is ours.” And what will happen if they’re told to move to non-private land? “We’ll move,” he says without hesitation.
A complicated problem
Even today, more than two years after concluding his official role, Baruch Spiegel remains loyal to the establishment. In a conversation, he notes several times that he signed a confidentiality agreement and so is not willing to go into the details of the work for which he was responsible. He was appointed by Shaul Mofaz to handle several issues about which Israel had given a commitment to the United States, including improving conditions for Palestinians whose lives were adversely affected by the separation fence, and supervision of IDF soldiers at the checkpoints.
Two years ago, Haaretz reporter Amos Harel revealed that the main task given Spiegel was to establish and maintain an up-to-date database on the settlement enterprise. This was after it became apparent that the United States, as well as Peace Now’s settlement monitoring team, was in possession of much more precise information about settlement construction than was the defense establishment, which up to then had relied mostly on information collected by Civil Administration inspectors. The old database had many gaps in it, which was largely a consequence of the establishment preferring not to know exactly what was going on in this area.
Spiegel’s database contains written information backed up by aerial photos and layers of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data that includes information on the status of the land and the official boundaries of each settlement. “The work took two and a half years,” says Spiegel. “It was done in order to check the status of the settlements and the outposts and to achieve the greatest possible accuracy in terms of the database: the land status, the legal status, the sector boundaries, the city building plan, government decisions, lands whose ownership is unclear. It was full-time, professional work done with a professional team of legal experts, planning people, GIS experts. And I hope that this work continues, because it
is very vital. One has to know what’s going on there and make decisions accordingly.”
Who is keeping track of all of this now?
“I suppose it’s the Civil Administration.”
Why was there no database like this before your appointment?
“I don’t know how much of a focus there was on doing it.”
Why do you think the state is not publicizing the data?
“It’s a sensitive and complex subject and there are all kinds of considerations, political and security-related. There were questions about the public’s right to know, the freedom of information law. You should ask the officials in charge.”
What are the sensitive matters?
“It’s no secret that there are violations, that there are problems having to do with land. It’s a complicated problem.”
Is there also a problem for the country’s image?
“I didn’t concern myself with image. I was engaged in Sisyphean work to ensure that, first of all, they’ll know what exists and what’s legal and what’s not legal and what the degree of illegality is, whether it involves the takeover of private Palestinian land or something in the process of obtaining proper building permits. Our job was to do the meticulous work of going over all the settlements and outposts that existed then – We found what we found and passed it on.”
Do you think that this information should be published?
“I think they’ve already decided to publish the simpler part, concerning areas of jurisdiction. There are things that are more sensitive. It’s no secret that there are problems, and it’s impossible to do something illegal and say that it’s legal. I can’t elaborate, because I’m still bound to maintain confidentiality.”
Dror Etkes, formerly the coordinator of Peace Now’s settlement monitoring project and currently director of the Land Advocacy Project for the Yesh Din organization, says, “The government’s ongoing refusal to reveal this material on the pretext of security reasons is yet another striking example of the way in which the state exploits its authority to reduce the information at the citizens’ disposal, when they wish to formulate intelligent positions based on facts rather than lies and half-truths.”
Following the initial exposure of the material, the Movement for Freedom of Information and Peace Now requested that the Defense Ministry publish the database, in accordance with the Freedom of Information law. The Defense Ministry refused. “This is a computerized database that includes detailed information, in different cross-sections, regarding the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria,” the Defense Ministry said in response. “The material was collected by the defense establishment for its purposes and includes sensitive information. The ministry was asked to allow a review of the material in accordance with the Freedom of Information law, and after consideration of the request, decided not to hand over the material. The matter is pending and is the subject of a petition before the Administrative Affairs Court in Tel Aviv.”
Ofra, Elon Moreh, Beit El
The database surveys settlement after settlement alphabetically. For each entry, it notes the source of the settlement’s name and the form of settlement there (urban community, local council, moshav, kibbutz, etc.); its organizational affiliation (Herut, Amana, Takam, etc.), the number of inhabitants, pertinent government decisions, the official bodies to which the land was given, the status of the land upon which the settlement was built (state land, private Palestinian or Jewish land, etc.), a survey of the illegal outposts built in proximity to the settlement and to what extent the valid building plans have been executed. Beneath each entry, highlighted in red, is information on the extent of construction that has been carried out without permission and its exact location in the settlement.
Among all the revelations in the official data, it’s quite fascinating to see what was written about Ofra, a veteran Gush Emunim settlement. According to a recent B’tselem report, most of the settlement’s developed area sits on private Palestinian land and therefore falls into the category of an illegal outpost that is supposed to be evacuated. The Yesha Council responded to the B’tselem report, saying that the “facts” in it are “completely baseless and designed to present a false picture. The inhabitants of Ofra are careful to respect the rights of the Arab landowners, with whom they reached an agreement regarding the construction of the neighborhoods as well as an agreement that enables the private landowners to continue to work their lands.”
But the information in the database about Ofra leaves no room for doubt: “The settlement does not conform to valid building plans. A majority of the construction in the community is on registered private lands without any legal basis whatsoever and no possibility of [converting the land to non-private use].” The database also gives a detailed description of where construction was carried out in Ofra without permits: “The original part of the settlement: [this includes] more than 200 permanent residential structures, agricultural structures, public structures, lots, roads and orchards in the old section of the settlement (in regard to which Plan 221 was submitted, but not advanced due to a problem of ownership).” After mentioning 75 trailers and temporary shelters in two groups within the old settlement, the database mentions the Ramat Zvi neighborhood, south of the original settlement: “There are about 200 permanent structures as well as lots being developed for additional permanent construction, all trespassing on private lands.” Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan responds: “I am not familiar with that data.”
Another place where the data reveals illegal construction is Elon Moreh, one of the most famous settlements in the territories. In June 1979, several residents of the village of Rujib, southeast of Nablus, petitioned the High Court, asking it to annul the appropriation order for 5,000 dunams of land in their possession, that had been designated for the construction of the settlement. In court, the government argued, as it did regularly at the time, that the construction of the settlement was required for military needs, and therefore the appropriation orders were legal. But in a statement on behalf of the petitioners, former chief of staff Haim Bar-Lev asserted that, “In my best professional judgment, Elon Moreh does not contribute to Israel’s security.”
The High Court, relying on this statement and the statements of the original core group of settlers of Elon Moreh, who also argued that this was not a temporary settlement established for security purposes, but a permanent settlement, instructed the IDF to evacuate the settlement and return the lands to their owners. The immediate consequence of the ruling was to find an alternative site for construction of the settlement, on lands previously defined as “state lands.” Following this ruling, Israel stopped officially using military injunctions in the territories for the purpose of establishing new settlements.
The lands that were originally taken for the purpose of building Elon Moreh were returned to their Palestinian owners, but according to the database, also in the new site where the settlement was built, called Har Kabir, “most of the construction was done without approved, detailed plans, and some of the construction involved trespassing on private lands. As for the state lands in the settlement, a detailed plan, no. 107/1, was prepared and published on 16/7/99, but has yet to go into effect.”
The Shomron regional council, which includes Elon Moreh, said in response: “All the neighborhoods in the settlement were planned, and some were also built, by the State of Israel through the Housing Ministry. The residents of Elon Moreh did not trespass at all and any allegation of this kind is also false. The State of Israel is tasked with promoting and approving the building plans in the settlement, as everywhere else in the country, and as for the plans that supposedly have yet to receive final validity, just like many other communities throughout Israel, where the processes continue for decades, this does not delay the plans, even if the planning is not complete or being done in tandem.”
Beit El, another veteran settlement, was also, according to the database, established “on private lands seized for military purposes (In fact, the settlement was expanded on private lands, by means of trespassing in the northern section of the settlement) and on state lands that were appropriated during the Jordanian period (the Maoz Tzur neighborhood in the south of the settlement).”
According to the official data, construction in Beit El in the absence of approved plans includes the council office buildings and the “northern neighborhood (Beit El Bet) that was built for the most part on private lands. The neighborhood comprises widespread construction, public buildings and new ring roads (about 80 permanent buildings and trailers); the northeastern neighborhood (between Jabal Artis and the old part of the settlement) includes about 20 permanent residential buildings, public buildings (including a school building), 40 trailers and an industrial zone (10 industrial buildings). The entire compound is located on private land and has no plan attached.”
Moshe Rosenbaum, head of the Beit El local council, responds: “Unfortunately, you are cooperating with the worst of Israel’s enemies and causing tremendous damage to the whole country.”
‘One giant bluff’
Ron Nahman, mayor of Ariel, was re-elected to a sixth term in the last elections. Nahman is a long-time resident of the territories and runs a fascinating heterogeneous city. Between a visit to the trailer site where evacuees from Netzarim are housed and a stop at a shop that sells pork and other non-kosher products, mostly to the city’s large Russian population, Nahman complains about the halting of construction in his city and about his battles with the Civil
Administration over every building permit.
Ariel College, Nahman’s pride and joy, is also mentioned in the database: “The area upon which Ariel College was built was not regulated in terms of planning.” It further explains that the institution sits on two separate plots and the new plan has not yet been discussed. Nahman confirms this, but says the planning issue was recently resolved.
When told that dozens of settlements include construction on private lands, he is not surprised. “That’s possible,” he says. The fact that in three-quarters of the settlements, there has been construction that deviates from the approved plans doesn’t surprise him either. “All the complaints should be directed at the government, not at us,” he says. “As for the small and communal settlements, they were planned by the Housing Ministry’s Rural Building Administration. The larger communities are planned by the ministry’s district offices. It’s all the government. Sometimes the Housing Ministry is responsible for budgetary construction, which is construction out of the state budget. In the Build Your Own Home program, the state pays a share of the development costs and the rest is paid for by the individual. All of these things are one giant bluff. Am I the one who planned the settlements? It was Sharon, Peres, Rabin, Golda, Dayan.”
The database provides information attesting to a failure to adhere to planning guidelines in the territories. For example, an attempt to determine the status of the land of the Argaman settlement in the Jordan Rift Valley found that “the community was apparently established on the basis of an appropriation order from 1968 that was not located.” About Mevo Horon, the database says: “The settlement was built without a government decision on lands that are mostly private within a closed area in the Latrun enclave (Area Yod). There was an allocation
for the area to the WZO from 1995, which was issued as in a deviation from authority, apparently on the basis of a political directive.” In the Tekoa settlement, trailers were leased to the IDF “and installed contrary to the area’s designation according to a detailed plan? and some also deviate from the boundaries of the plan.”
Most of the territories of the West Bank have not been annexed to Israel, and therefore regulations for the establishment and construction of communities there differ from those that apply within Israel proper. The Sasson report, which dealt with the illegal outposts, was based in part on data collected by Spiegel, and listed the criteria necessary for the establishment of a new settlement in the territories:
1. The Israeli government issued a decision to establish the settlement
2. The settlement has a defined jurisdictional area
3. The settlement has a detailed, approved outline plan
4. The settlement lies on state land or on land that was purchased by Israelis and registered under their name in the Land Registry.
According to the database, the state gave the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and/or the Construction and Housing Ministry authorization to plan and build on most of the territories upon which the settlements were constructed. These bodies allocated the land to those who eventually carried out the actual construction of the settlement: Sometimes it was the Settlement Division of the WZO and other times it was the Construction and Housing Ministry itself, sometimes through the Rural Building Administration. In several cases, settlements were built by Amana, the Gush Emunim settlement arm. Another body cited in the database as having received allocations and being responsible for construction in some of the settlements is Gush Emunim’s Settler National Fund.
Talmud Torah
@Text: Regular schools and religious schools (Talmudei Torah) have also been built on Palestinian lands. According to the database, in the southern part of the Ateret settlement, “15 structures were built outside of state lands, which are used for the Kinor David yeshiva. There are also new ring roads and a special security area that is illegal.” Kinor David is the name of a “yeshiva high school with a musical framework.” The sign at the entrance says the yeshiva was built by the Amana settlement movement, the Mateh Binyamin local council and the
WZO settlement division.
The data regarding Michmash also make it very clear that part of the settlement was built on “private lands via trespassing.” For example, “In the center of the settlement (near the main entrance) is a trailer neighborhood that serves as a Talmud Torah and other buildings (30 trailers) on private land.”
On a winter’s afternoon, a bunch of young children were playing there, one of them wearing a shirt printed with the words “We won’t forget and we won’t
forgive.” There were no teachers in sight. A young woman in slacks, taking her baby to the doctor, stopped for a moment to chat. She moved here from Ashkelon because her husband’s parents are among the settlement’s founders. When her son is old enough for preschool, she won’t send him to the Talmud Torah. Not because it sits on private land, but just because that’s not the type of education she wants for him. “I don’t think there’s been construction on private land here,” she said. “I don’t think there ought to be, either.”
In the Psagot settlement, where there has also been a lot of construction on private land, it’s easy to discern the terracing style typical of Palestinian agriculture in the region. According to the database, in Psagot there are “agricultural structures (a winery and storehouses) to the east of the settlement, close to the grapevines cultivated by the settlement by trespassing.” During a visit here, the winery was abandoned. Its owner, Yaakov Berg, acquired land from the Israel Lands Administration near the Migron outpost and a new winery and regional visitors’ center is currently under construction there.
“The vineyards are located in Psagot,” says Berg, who is busy with the preparations for the new site. From the unfinished observation deck one can see an enormous quarry in the mountains across the way. “If I built a bathroom here without permission from the Civil Administration, within 15 minutes, a helicopter would be here and I’d be told that it was prohibited,” Berg complains. “And right here there’s an illegal Palestinian quarry that continues to operate.”
The politicians did it
Kobi Bleich, spokesperson for the Ministry of Construction and Housing: “The ministry participates in subsidizing the development costs of settlements in Priority Area A, in accordance with decisions of the Israeli government. Development works are carried out by the regional councils, and only after the ministry has ascertained that the new neighborhood is located within an approved city plan. This applies throughout Israel as well as in the areas over the Green Line. Let me emphasize that the ministry’s employees are charged with implementing the policies of the Israeli government. All of the actions in the past were
done solely in keeping with the decisions of the political echelon.”
Danny Poleg, spokesperson for the Judea and Samaria district of the Israel Police: “The issue of the construction of police facilities is the responsibility of the Ministry of Internal Security, so any questions should be addressed to them.”
The Internal Security Ministry spokesman responds: “And for construction by the police is allocated by the Israel Lands Administration in coordination with the Internal Security Ministry. There is no police station in Modi’in Ilit, but a rapid response post for the local residents on land allocated by the local authority. The land in Givat Ze’ev was allocated by the local council and the police station is located within the municipality. The road to the police headquarters was built by the Housing and Construction ministry and is maintained by the local council.”
Avi Roeh, head of the Mateh Binyamin regional council (whose jurisdiction includes the settlements of Ofra, Kochav Yaakov, Ateret, Ma’aleh Michmash and Psagot): “The Mateh Binyamin regional council, like the neighboring councils in Judea and Samaria, is coping with political decisions regarding the manner of the the communities’ expansion. However, this does not remove the need for proper planning procedures in order to expand the settlements in an orderly manner and in accordance with the law.”
For its response, the WZO sent a thick booklet, a copy of which was previously sent to attorney Talia Sasson in response to her report. “Settlement in Judea and Samaria, as in Israel, has been accompanied by the preparation of regional master plans,” says the booklet. “Steering committees from various government ministries, the Civil Administration and the municipal authorities were involved in the preparation of these plans? The (settlement) department worked solely on lands that were given to it by contract from the authorities in the Civil Administration and all the lands that were allocated to it by contract were properly
allocated.”
The Civil Administration, which was first asked for a response regarding the database more than a month ago, has yet to reply
Two Hamas members, who were injured during Saturday’s blast in Beirut’s southern suburbs, were arrested for further investigation amid a report that their questioning led to new information on the explosion.A security source told al-Liwaa daily in remarks published Friday that the judiciary was able to collect evidence from the scene of the blast in Haret Hreik despite the obstacles facing investigators and the delay in their arrival to the area.
The source said that the culprits have most probably links with the target of the blast.
Informed sources also told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that the investigation didn’t drop the assumption that the bomb was inside a package.
Lebanese Military Judge Rahif Ramadan asked military police to hear the testimonies of Hamas members and more witnesses living in the area, the sources said.
Al-Hayat said Ramadan put one of the injured Hamas members under arrest in the military hospital and the other in the military police headquarters.
The newspaper’s sources refused to divulge more information on the men’s testimonies, only saying that “new facts have led to their arrest.”
A supporter holds a picture of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah
Tha leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement accused Egypt on Sunday of “choking off an entire people” by building an underground barrier designed to obstruct tunnels which provide a lifeline for the blockaded enclave.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told a crowd of tens of thousands who had gathered for the Ashura religious ceremony that Cairo should be condemned if it continued installing the steel barrier.
He said that it would tighten the blockade imposed by Tel Aviv on Gaza since Hamas defeated a Western-backed coup bid by Fatah in 2007.
Tensions between Egypt – where most Muslim citizens are Sunni – and Hezbollah, backed by traditionally Shi’ite Iran, have been running high since last year when Mr Nasrallah accused Cairo of complicity with Israel in its siege of the Gaza strip.
He said: “In addition to the siege, there has been news about the construction of a steel wall to terminate the thin veins which are giving some life and some hope to Gaza.
“We call on the government in Egypt and the leadership to stop the wall and flooding the tunnels and to end the siege otherwise it should be condemned by all Arabs and the Muslims.”
Meanwhile, over 400 solidarity activists travelling with George Galloway’s aid convoy to Gaza began a hunger strike on Sunday after Cairo refused to allow the convoy to dock in Nuweiba port.
Free Gaza Movement spokeswoman Alice Howard said: “Volunteers on the convoy are on a hunger strike and will only take fluids until the Egyptian side gives them the nod.”
Ms Howard said that the hunger strike had begun at 11.25am on Sunday, marking the first anniversary of Israel’s devastating Cast Lead offensive against Gaza.
[Who remembers Abdullah Mehsud, the original creator of the so-called Pakistani Taliban, the TTP? How about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was not in Guantanamo, but was a guest for an extended stay with the Jordanian secret police? Wherever the United States wants to invade next, one of these former prisoners appears, to start another major militant movement, which inevitably justifies American military intervention. While we were concerned about an Israeli airstrike on Iran and a US invasion of Pakistan, or a new incursion into one of the “Stans,” Obama, Israel and the Saudis came-up with this new front. Keep in mind two things–the guys we are launching airstrikes upon are Shia, who have nothing to do with Sunni “al Qaida,” and the actual “al Qaida” guys rounded-up by the Yemenis have all been linked to the Mossad by hard physical evidence. Mossad is “Al Qaida in Yemen.”]
Obama orders tougher airline security as Cuban prison returns to haunt him
By Rupert Cornwell
REUTERS
The leader of al-Qa’ida in Yemen, Nasser al-Wahaishi, 2nd right, his deputy Said al-Shihri, 2nd left, the group’s field commander, Mohammed al-Oufi, right, and the group’s commander, Qassim al-Raimi, left, in a rare video
Bluntly admitting a “systemic failure” of US security procedures, President Obama last night ordered a report within 48 hours on what went wrong to allow a young Nigerian student to come within an ace of blowing up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day.
In his strongest statement on the incident – one of the most perilous terrorist threats since the 11 September attacks – Mr Obama acknowledged both human and systemic mistakes that had led to a “catastrophic” breach of security.
“When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been, so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred,” the President said in Hawaii last night, where he is on a Christmas break with his family. “I consider that totally unacceptable.”
Mr Obama’s stark words are a measure of how the almost successful attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is sending shockwaves far beyond the US. It leaves little doubt that Yemen, where the attack appears to have been planned, will become a de facto third front in America’s “war on terror” after Afghanistan and Iraq. It could also further delay the President’s promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
New details leave little doubt of the gravity of the attempted bombing. According to experts, the 80 grams of PETN explosive concealed in Abdulmutallab’s underwear could have ripped a hole in the plane’s side as it approached Detroit airport. The device was twice as powerful as the one used by the convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid on a transatlantic flight in December 2001.
The affair has ignited a furious political debate over US anti-terrorist procedures, with Republicans assailing the Obama administration for the system’s failure to identify Abdulmutallab as a risk, despite a host of pointers.
Among these, critics say, are the suspect’s purchase of a single ticket with cash, the fact that he was making the long journey from Nigeria to the US without luggage, and the warning given to the US authorities, including a CIA official, by Abdulmutallab’s father that his son had developed alarming extremist leanings. But it is the Yemen connection that is causing the most concern, and reinforcing doubts about the wisdom of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
It now seems that at least two detainees from the prison who were released to Yemen are part of the al-Qa’ida affiliate group – called al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula – that has claimed responsibility for the attack. They are Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, a field commander, and Said al-Shihri, said to be the group’s deputy leader, who was transferred by the Bush administration to the Saudi authorities and released in 2007. Abdulmutallab, 23, was living in Yemen between August and December this year, and has told investigators it was there that he was supplied with the device he tried to detonate. Earlier this month, the White House announced its intention to transfer the bulk of Guantanamo detainees to an empty prison in northern Illinois, and resettle most of the rest in third countries. That remains the plan, officials say. But of the 200-odd prisoners remaining at Guantanamo almost half are from Yemen – and only last week six Yemenis were sent back to their own country, even though it is a hotbed of al-Qa’ida activity.
According to top Yemeni officials, up to 300 al-Qa’ida militants could be based there, some of whom may be plotting new attacks on Western targets. “Of course there are a number of al- Qa’ida operatives in Yemen, and some of their leaders. We realise this danger,” Yemen’s Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, told the BBC.
Mr Abu Bakr al-Qirbi insisted that for all its weaknesses, and its wars with Shia rebels in the north and separatists in the south, Yemen’s central government was committed to the conflict with al-Qa’ida. But, he said, it was not getting enough support from the West.
“We have to expand our counter-terrorism units and this means providing them with the necessary training, military equipment,” he said. The US, Britain and the EU could all help out, he added.
However the immediate priority for the Obama administration – and a prime reason for the President’s forceful words last night – is to regain control of the political fallout of the incident, amid accusations that, with its focus on healthcare reform, it took its eye off the terrorist ball.
“I don’t believe we’ll ever have more advance warning of an attack on America,” one anti-terrorist specialist said yesterday, incredulous that Abdulmutallab’s US visa had not been revoked, and that he was not on a list that would have stopped him boarding a US-bound plane.
Officials say that the father’s warning alone was not enough of a red flag. But Mr Obama has ordered a full review of the watch-list system, as well as an increase in the number of air marshalls on incoming international flights. But that has not defused the issue in the ferociously partisan political climate here. Republicans see fresh opportunity to paint Mr Obama as weak on terrorism, and will carry the offensive into Congressional hearings on the bombing attempt, set for next month.
| America Needs Pakistan?s Help – Again Part IV | ||
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The Israel/India Alliance Below is the fourth installment in a 5-part series written forOpinion Maker by Jeff Gates, author of Guilt By Association.In April 2009, Tel Aviv signed a $1.1 billion agreement to provide New Delhi an advanced tactical air defense system developed by Raytheon, a U.S. defense contractor. That agreement confirmed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier announced: “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation….”
In May 2009, Israel delivered to India the first of three Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) shifting the balance of conventional weapons in the region by giving India air dominance over Pakistan.
Israel has overtaken Russia as India’s chief arms supplier as New Delhi announced $50 billion in defense modernization outlays from 2007 to 2012. The fast emerging fact patterns suggest there is far more implied for Pakistan in this “special defense relationship” than meets the eye.
In August 2008, Ashkenazim General David Kezerashvili returned to his native Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Tel Aviv-provided arms and military training provided by Israel Defense Forces. That crisis ignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia, key members of the Quartet (along with the EU and the UN) pledged to resolve the six-decade Israel-Palestine conflict.
Little was reported in mainstream media about the Israeli interest in a pipeline across Georgia meant to move Caspian oil through Turkey and on to Eurasia with Tel Aviv a profit-extracting intermediary undercutting Russia’s oil industry. Nor did mainstream media report on the self-reinforcing nature of serial well-timed crises that emerged in a compressed time frame.
For example, on August 7, 2008, the ruling coalition led by Asif Ali Zarderi called for a no-confidence vote in Parliament on President Parvez Musharraf just as he was scheduled to depart for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. On August 8, heavy fighting erupted overnight in South Ossetia while the heads of state of both Russia and the U.S. were in Beijing.
What other crises were then unfolding? But for pro-Israeli influence inside the U.S. government, would our State Department have backed the corrupt Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, leading to record-level poppy production involving Karzai’s brother? Is the heroin epidemic presently eroding Russian society traceable to Israel’s fabled game theory war-planners who are infamous for disabling their targets from the inside out?
Three months after the crisis in Georgia, a terrorist attack in Mumbai renewed fears of nuclear tension between India and Pakistan. When the Mumbai attackers struck a hostel managed by Chabad Lubavitch, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect from New York, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced from Tel Aviv: “Our world is under attack.”
See: “Israel and 9-11”
By early December, Jewish journalists were arguing that Israel must “fortify the security of Jewish institutions worldwide.” In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security continued its policy of dispersing U.S. taxpayer funds to protect synagogues and Jewish community centers.
Pre-Staged Plausibility
Soon after “India’s 9-11” was found to include personnel recruited from Pakistan’s western tribal region, President Zardari announced an agreement with Taliban tribal chiefs to allow Sharia law to govern a swath of the North West Frontier Province where Al Qaeda members reportedly reside.
The perception of Pakistani cooperation with “Islamic extremists” created the impression of enhanced insecurity and vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. That perceived threat was widely reported by mainstream media as proof of the imminent perils of “militant Islam.”
With religious extremists portrayed as operating freely in a nuclear-armed Islamic state, Tel Aviv gained traction for its claim that a nuclear-Islamic Tehran posed an “existential threat” to the Jewish state. Meanwhile Israel’s election of an ultra-nationalist governing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu further delayed resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
More delay ensured more extremism and gained more media traction for those marketing a perpetual “global war on terrorism” and its thematic counterpart, The Clash of Civilizations. After the assault in Mumbai, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni argued: “Israel, India and the rest of the free world are positioned in the forefront of the battle against terrorists and extremism.” By its exclusion, Pakistan was implicated as harboring terrorists.
Few Americans understand that Pakistan is dominantly Sunni and, unlike Iran’s Shi’a, abhors theocratic rule and the religious extremism common to Al Qaeda as well as the assorted strains of fundamentalism found among the Taliban. Game theory war planning suggests that Pakistan, not India, was the target of India’s 9-11. As with our 9-11, the strategic objective was not the event itself but the anticipated reaction—and the reactions to that reaction.
Advised by legions of Ashkenazim, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s October 2009 mission to Pakistan was a diplomatic disaster. Right on cue, a terrorist attack in Peshawar killed dozens just as she arrived in Islamabad. Abrasive, arrogant and aloof, our top diplomat reinforced Pakistani concerns that their nation is surrounded by hostile forces.
Clinton’s behavior fueled fears that the government of Pakistan is being set up for portrayal as a “failed state” by ultra-nationalist Jewish advisers to a nation—the U.S.—it has long considered a friend. When Barack Obama hosted the prime minister of India for his first state dinner, the anxiety level in Pakistan was heightened—particularly among those familiar with the dominance of Ashkenazi advisers in the Obama White House.
Societal Conflict—By Consensus
Meanwhile, India’s oligarchs continued to amass wealth and influence at a record pace as the caste system maintained its stranglehold on Hindu society. By 2007, India’s 40 billionaires had amassed a combined wealth of $351 billion, up from a combined wealth of $170 billion just since 2006. Though New Delhi cites the success of its high-tech sector and its “Bollywood” film industry as signs of a burgeoning middle class, the reality is far from reassuring.
As in Russia where the wealth from privatization migrated to a small cadre of dominantly Ashkenazi oligarchs, a similar oligarch-ization is ongoing in India. While maintaining a vast underclass of “untouchables” mired in grinding poverty, India’s policy making elite gravitated to an economic model that traces its U.S. roots to the University of Chicago where Barack Obama taught for 11 years while he was being groomed for political office.
The “Chicago Model” advances in plain sight behind an implied assumption that financial freedom is an appropriate proxy for personal freedom. Despite facts confirming that wealth and income are concentrating at record rates worldwide, this “consensus” model insists that nations vest their faith in the infallibility of unfettered financial markets.
As that finance-fixated mindset morphed into the “Washington” consensus, the U.S.-dominated international financial institutions imbedded this narrow worldview in law worldwide. As with ordinary Russians, ordinary Indians see their rising prosperity dominated by an caste oligarchy that steadily amasses outsized wealth along with disproportionate political influence.
As wealth concentrates, democracies become unworkable; as income concentrates, markets become unsustainable. Those profiled in Guilt By Association and the forthcoming Criminal State series are skilled in displacing facts with what targeted populations can be deceived to believe. Today’s money-myopic “consensus” traces its roots to a subculture within a subculture within a subculture whose belief in the unbridled pursuit of money preempts all other values. http://criminalstate.com/guilt-by-association/
The India-Israel alliance has inflicted on the economy of India the same paradigm that is systematically disabling the U.S. economy—from the inside out—while creating record gaps in wealth and income. Pakistan has an opportunity to resist the embrace of this flawed model and, by so doing, inspire other nations—including the U.S.—to devise a sensible path forward.
Next in the series: When Will Israel Assassinate Barack Obama?
An author, educator, attorney, merchant banker and adviser to policy-makers worldwide, Jeff
 Gates served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (1980-87) prior to consulting 35 foreign governments. A Vietnam veteran, he is author of Guilt By Association, The Ownership Solution and Democracy at Risk. Seewww.criminalstate.com. |
| [SEE: Israel seeks pipeline for Iraqi oil]
[Widely discredited in the last years of his life, as a lunatic, conspiracy nut, Mossad (former?) agent, for his crazy, off-the-wall predictions, Vialls got some things exactly right, like the Israeli/American/British conspiracy to get Iraqi oil into Israeli hands. The following 3-part pre-Iraq war report spells-out Zionist intentions to enrich the shitty little state that masquerades as a “democracy.” These plans extend to last year’s Georgian/Russian eruption. Since then, the plan has been up in the air, as the Zionist cabal that runs America figures out a new plan to rearrange the world to Israel’s liking.
In early March 2001, a leading European intelligence agency received disturbing news from its most senior and trusted agent in Tel Aviv. Aware of growing international resistance to its ruthless and murderous suppression of the Palestinians, the Israeli Cabinet had met to discuss the limited ways in which it could proceed with its plans to annex the rest of Palestine, with or without the support of principal ally America, or the “International Community”. At the time, the Israeli Cabinet had no idea that the subject matter of its March meeting would later become one of the prime reasons for the September attack on the World Trade Center.
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[SEE: Yemen seizes ‘Israel-linked’ cell ; Trial of spies for Israel’s Mossad to start next week ; Yemen arrests ‘Israel’ militants October 6, 2008]
ISRAEL DENIES OPERATING ISLAMIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONBBC Middle East
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence. Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group’s links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen. The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.
Israel’s foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as “totally ridiculous”.
“A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services,” Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.
“Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings,” he added.
The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.
Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell – led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani – whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the Yemeni president’s statement was without foundation.
“To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories,” Igal Palmor said in remarks reported by AFP.
Israel will begin distributing its entire population with gas masks in two months, though no reason has officially been given by the Israeli government.
No indication or threat has been made against Israel from any country that an attack is planned. No country in the Middle East is believed to be likely to engage in chemical or biological warfare with Israel, either.
The gas mask distribution has, however, raised questions as to Israel’s potential plans to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Such an attack could cause an unconventional response from Iran. Iran’s chemical and biological weapons capabilities are currently not known.
Rumors in the Middle East abound that Israel is preparing to rein in Hezbollah through another war on Lebanon. Hezbollah, however, is also not believed to hold any chemical or biological weapons.
The only country in Israel’s region currently believed to have access to a major chemical or biological weapons program is Israel itself, though the country unlikely to utilize them in an attack.
Despite the lack of a viable threat, Israel will begin issuing the gas masks to each of its residents in February. The Israel Defense Forces will manage the distribution. The IDF have engaged the Israel Postal Company to aid in the distribution, a departure from the use of Home Front Command for previous distributions.
In addition to the gas masks, children eight years and younger will receive, for the first time, the Mamtek gas mask.
“We are the only country in the world that produces gas masks for children, and the children’s gas mask we produce is the only one in the world that supplies prime defense for this age group,” Col. Yosi Sagiv,head of the Gas Mask Administration of the Home Front Command, told bacelonanews.net. “All that is left is to hope that it will not be necessary to experience first hand how well these gas masks work,” he said.
HASBAYA: Lebanese anti-aircraft guns opened fire on four Israeli fighter planes that were violating its air space on Tuesday, the military said.
“The army’s anti-aircraft guns fired in the direction of four Phantom-type enemy Israeli planes that had been overflying the (southeastern) Hasbaya region at low altitude since this (Tuesday) morning,” an army spokesman said. [If the IDF was trying to obtain intel on Hezbollah movements within Lebanon it would use drones or more capable aircraft. The fact that it is flying these ancient dinosaurs over Lebanon is indication that they are there to hopefully be shot down.]
By mid-morning the planes were still conducting their exercises in the region, he added. The army publishes almost daily reports of Israeli violations of Lebanese air space. But it rarely opens fire unless the Israeli planes fly within range of its guns.
Israeli infringements of Lebanese airspace are a breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the devastating 2006 war between Israel and Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Israel argues that the overflights are necessary to monitor what it says is massive arms smuggling by Hezbollah in breach of the same resolution.
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| December 28, 2009
A fully pre-meditated international crime of genocide has been taking place during the last 62 years in the heart of the Arab World. The victims are the Palestinian people especially those in the Gaza Strip. The assassin is the worst ever terrorist group deceptively called the Israeli Defense Forces under the leadership of the theocratically most racist “god’s chosen” deceitfully self-proclaimed “democratic Jewish-only” Israel. Israel had been created, financed, armed, and politically protected by, mainly, British and American rapture-vision-obsessed Talmudist power elites consisting of profit-seeking financiers and military-industrial complex. In December 2008 this Israeli Terrorist Forces added another war crime to its long list of war crimes against the Palestinians since 1948. One more time the international political community had become an accomplice to one more Israeli war crime either by being a passive silent witness or by becoming an active participant and protector of Israeli war criminals. One more international war crime had been perpetrated against the Palestinians. It is an international crime since multi political regimes; Israeli, American, European and even Arab governments, had joined in this crime that is STILL GOING ON up to this very minute. For almost the last three years Israel had subjected Gaza to an illegal economic siege, which in itself constitutes a crime against humanity. Israel had, and still is, preventing the entry into Gaza of vital life sustaining products such as food stuff, fuel, medicine and needed medical equipment, water purification equipment and many building materials. This is a genocidal crime using hunger and thirst as weapons. Starting late December of 2008 and for continuous 22 days Israeli terrorist army had perpetrated a genocidal war crime against Gaza Palestinians. The Israeli army, known to be the fourth powerful army in the world, attacked unarmed civilian Palestinians of Gaza comprising mostly of children, women, and old people. There was no regular army in Gaza to face the well equipped, well trained to murder Israeli army. Only few male civilians, who took it on themselves to carry the light arms they could obtain to resist the Israeli war criminals in order to protect their own families. The Israeli military radio station announced that half of the Israeli air force had conducted 2500 air sorties dropping a total of 1,000,000 KG of explosives on the civilian families of Gaza. This is not counting the shells fired by the artillery and tanks. They had used high precision GPS-guided bombs to destroy vital locations such as the UN food warehouse and schools, government buildings, hospitals and medical clinics, religious buildings and civilian institutions. From his observation of the video taped explosions in Gaza, the British weapons expert Dy Williams concluded that the Israeli army had used DIME bombs to guarantee murder of victims, Phosphorous bombs producing 900 centigrade degrees of heat, and DU bombs producing 5,000 centigrade degrees of heat, that is equal to the heat of the sun surface. The Israeli soldiers, themselves, had admitted and boasted to “Breaking The Silence” organization of committing war crimes in Gaza. These included, among many, the deliberate murder of civilians including women and children, using civilians as human shields, shelling homes after hording groups of civilians inside, destroying and vandalizing properties and civilian homes, and writing hate and racial graffiti on walls. Israeli criminal leaders were not satisfied with mere destruction of Gaza infrastructures, contaminating agricultural land and water, and murdering some 1500 Palestinians. They had carefully chosen the most lethal weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that will cause the death of Palestinians, who survived the attack, and the death of their future born generations. Besides their devastating environmental contamination effects the Israeli bombs were found to have long lasting reproductive toxic, carcinogenic, genotoxic, fetotoxic and pathogenic effects on humans. A study titled “Craters Gaza 2006/09 and respectively WP Bomb Gaza 2009”published on www.newweapons.org was done by Prof. Mario Barbieri CNR, Rome, Prof. Maurizio Barbieri, University of Rome, and Prof. Paola Manduca, University of Genova. They analyzed dirt samples from four bomb craters in Gaza, and residual components of spent Israeli bombs. Their analyses found unusual concentrations of Molybdenum (male sperm toxicant), copper, nickel, cadmium and Mercury (carcinogenics), Tungsten (genotoxic and fetotoxic), Zinc and Manganese (carcinogenic and fetotoxic) Aluminium (fetotoxic and pathogen affecting nervous system and kidneys), and Cobalt (DNA repair inhibitor and mutagenic). Even now, after a year of the Israeli barbaric war crimes against Gaza, the Israeli air force bombards life vital centers, while the Israeli army use bulldozers to raze fertile farm lands, destroy crops, and shoot farmers. The Israeli attack boats have become worse than the Somali pirates. They attack and sink Palestinian fishing boats. They fire at, kidnap, and confiscate international humanitarian aid materials loaded on boats of “Free Gaza” organizations. In a blatant violating of all international laws and a disdain to all humanitarian appeals the terrorist Israeli state had severely tightened its military siege against the Gaza Strip after the end of its last onslaught in January 2009. Palestinians in Gaza are living without clean drinking water, bare minimum food, without electricity, and without the necessary medical supplies. This is a real holocaust. A holocaust is the premeditated plan to exterminate masses of people (such as the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza), whether through gassing, incendiary phosphorous, DU and WMD bombs, hunger and thirst, or any other means leading to mass death. Instead of coming to the aid of Palestinians the UN reverted to its old tactic of blaming the Palestinian victims and Ban KI-moon requesting a permanent cease fire. In its meeting the UN had totally ignored the Palestinian elected Hamas government; a major part of this conflict. Rather it listened to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who humiliatingly begged the UN for help, promising to do “everything” to secure peace. In an indirect way he blamed Hamas government and did not even criticize Israel’s aggression. The UNSC issued Resolution 1860 that ignored realities of Israeli genocide of Palestinians, exonerated the Israeli terrorists, blamed the Palestinian victims (as usual) and equated them with the Israeli terrorist army. It stressed the urgency of and called for an immediate durable ceasefire leading to full withdrawal of Israeli forces. It called for efforts to prevent alleged illicit trafficking of arms into Gaza (but not the sale of arms to Israel). Thus denying the Palestinians any means of defending their lives against terrorist Israel. It misrepresented the conflict as a humanitarian crisis by calling the international community to provide humanitarian aid to alleviate the suffering of Gazans. This is not a humanitarian crisis; an Israeli occupation. It is a political conflict with grave humanitarian consequences. This is a genocidal holocaust of 1.5 Palestinians through thirst, starvation and use of WMD. THIS IS BLATANT NAKED WAR CRIMES. Ban Ki-moon was sent to visit Gaza after the Israeli onslaught. He cared only to check the bombed UN warehouse and schools but not the civilian sufferings. He cared more about buildings than humans. He later expressed his “pleasure”that Israeli leaders had agreed to meet with UN representatives to discuss precautions that further “accidental bombing” of UN facilities could be avoided. Thus meeting with Israeli war criminals has become a UN pleasure. He stated, further, that he would close any investigation into Israel’s war crimes. Whatever Israel bombs and destroys Western donors volunteer to pay for. These donor countries pledged $4.5 Billion for Gaza reconstruction on the condition that such money is paid to Abbas’ Palestinian Authority and not Hamas. After a whole year of the onslaught, Gaza Palestinians had never received one cent of that money, and no reconstruction had even started. Most of the money had gone into the private pockets of Abbas’ gang and to his security forces. After the failure of Israeli siege of Gaza and its onslaught on the Strip to destroy the democratically elected Hamas government The Western countries stepped in to produce harsher measures. In February 2009 experts from nine Western countries (US, UK, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Norway) met in Copenhagen to discuss ways of combating alleged weapons smuggling into Gaza. Their main concentration was to use Egypt as a land front to further tighten the siege against Gaza, specifically to target the underground tunnels Gazans use to smuggle in food stuff, goods, and fuel. They also decided to send NATO warships into the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf to intercept alleged weapon smuggling from Iran to Gaza. At the end of January 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a frigate with helicopters to the waters off Gaza to combat arms smuggling into Palestinian territories. He ordered his Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to coordinate closely with the US and EU to come up with more effective ways to fight arms smuggling on land and sea. Sarkozy said: “We have pledged to help Israel and Egypt with all the technical, military, naval and diplomatic ways to help end the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.” British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, issued an order to deploy the British Navy to the region to help fight weapons smuggling. “We’ll send Royal Navy to help fight weapon smuggling” He stated courageously. Latest British scandal came this month when its Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said that UK is urgently looking into reforming its laws to protect Israeli war criminals, such as Tzibi Levni, from being arrested. Germany sent end of January border police exports and equipment to detect and destroy tunnels in Gaza Strip. German Deputy Interior Minister, August Hanning, claimed that Egypt had requested the detection equipment and the technical skills. The newly elected American President at the time Barak Obama had also sent American vessels into the region to board all suspected vessels of smuggling weapons. He also had asked the Gulf States, especially Saudi Arabia, to help combat arms smuggling. The US had sent surveillance cameras and underground sound sensors to Egypt to be installed on the border with Gaza. Recently the US Army Corps of Engineers had constructed treated steel plates and is helping Egypt install them as an underground wall on the Gaza border to prevent tunnel digging. While denying Palestinians acquire any arms for self defense the US and EU member states are major arms exporters to Israel. According to figures from Brussels the European Union member states authorized the export of €200 million in arms exports to Israel in 2007, with France far and away the Israel’s biggest European weapons supplier. According to the EU’s 2008 report on arms export licenses, published in December for the 2007 calendar year and consolidating the accounts that member states must annually submit, 18 member states authorized a total of 1,018 such licenses to Israel worth €199,409,348. The US is the largest arms exporter to Israel. Successive American Administration had sold Israel the latest and most technologically and most devastating weapons. According to Amnesty International the US had provided Israel with $8.3 Billion worth or weapons between 2004 and 2007. In 2002 the US granted Israel $21 Billion worth in military aid. Israel’s 2006 war against Lebanon and its 2008/09 war against Gaza were carried using American weapons. Still Obama’s administration had delivered late last January 14,000 tons of weapons to Israel delivered by the German cargo ship, Wehr Elbe, to Israeli port of Ashdod. Recently, peace prize winner, President Obama has signed off $2.775 Billion in further defense aid for Israel, a part of the $30 Billion over 10 years. Last Monday 12/21 Obama has approved a defense spending bill that includes $2.2 Million in funds for Israel’s missile defense program, more than double what was approved last year. All this while American economy is collapsing, housing crisis is exacerbating, and unemployment rate is rising. It seems for Obama administration the Israeli citizen is more important than the American tax payer. Also refer to my article“Arming Terrorist Israel”. EU and US don’t mind breaking their own laws for the sake of arming terrorist Israel. Under Criterion 2 of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports, Member States are supposed to “deny an export license if there is a clear risk that the proposed export might be used for internal repression, or be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian laws”. Israel is proved to commit both offenses. The US breaks three of its own arms export laws; US Arms Export Control Act (P.L. 80-829), Foreign Assistance Act (P.L. 97-195), and the Leahy Law (Foreign Ops Appropriation Act). With such extraordinary consorted international efforts and the use of such amassed technical and military powers one would imagine that Israel, EU and US are fighting a war against a great global enemy not impoverished and starved civilians trying to survive on a small and narrow war-scorched strip of land. The reality is that this international power is fighting the resisting spirit of these people against colonial occupation. They are afraid that such spirit may spread over and impede their own occupation in the region. To destroy this spirit these Western governments are willing to unconditionally support terrorist Israel financially, militarily and politically, on the expense of their citizens tax payers despite their own economic crises and joblessness. The worst accomplices in this international crime are the Arab governmental regimes, who are supposed to protect their Palestinian brothers from such a holocaust. Rather than united in one nation, one government, one military, and one economy Arab leaders had, instead, asserted the division of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Thus they keep themselves weak and vulnerable to foreign occupation, interference and control that can be overtly and covertly seen in almost every Arab state. The Arab League is just a tool to keep the leaders in a chaotic disagreement unable to make any national decision. For the last 61 years they have watched Palestinian land gradually gobbled by the Zionist occupation and had not taken any significant action to free Palestine. Rather they spend their Billion oil money in buying obsolete weapons to rust in the desert. Finally they stopped financing Palestine freedom fighters and surrendered the penniless Palestinian Authority to the merciless manipulation of the pro-Israeli Western donor countries. While some had completely withdrawn from the Arab/Israeli conflict, others like Jordanian and Egyptian regimes had actively contributed to the suppression of all forms of Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. During the Israeli 22 days onslaught on Gaza Arab leaders kept coming up with unreasonable excuses for not convening an urgent summit meeting. When they finally did meet, they, as usual, agreed to disagree on how to deal with the Israeli aggression. They finally begged the UN to interfere. Such delay gave Israelis longer time to murder more Palestinians and destroy more homes. The Arab League, later on, issued a resolution calling for breaking Israel’s siege of Gaza, yet they donated money to Abbas’ security forces, controlled by American general Dayton, to oppose the democratically elected Hamas government. Instead of feeding the starving Palestinians in Gaza the League is spending $50 Million to protect the lives of endangered marine turtles on 8000 square meters coast land off Al-Arish in Egypt. What a humanitarian gesture! Like all colonial puppet local regimes, the present Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and his thugs, had hijacked the Palestinian leadership and offered Palestine and its people on the Israeli alter to glorify a genocidal god and his chosen people. My previous articles ( here and here) discuss the betrayal of the present Palestinian Authority. This betrayal was recently exposed by Israeli audio and video recording of these so-called Palestinian leaders urging the Israelis to attack Gaza to finish off the elected Hamas government regardless of any Palestinian casualties. Abbas and his PA had also tried to muffle Goldstone’s Report about Israel’s crime. Besides crushing dissidents and any form of pro-Palestinian solidarity, Jordan has become a training campground for Abbas’ security forces under the supervision of the American General Keith Dayton. Dayton had established a twin sister of the American School of Assassins to suppress Palestinian resistance. It was reported that about four thousands trainees of this School were ready to enter and control Gaza after the anticipated destruction of Hamas government. Besides suppressing and robbing its own citizens for the last 28 years, Hosni Mubarak’s Egyptian regime has played the most active role, second to Israel, in opposing elected Palestinian government and in the destruction of Gaza and starving its people. To ease Mubarak’s conscious for participating in such genocide of his Arab brothers his regime is paid a handsome $2 Billion in the form of American Aid. Mubarak’s regime has committed crimes against humanity by fully participating in the Israeli siege against Gaza. Rather than helping the next door homeless and hungry Arab brothers of Gaza Strip the Mubarak’s regime preferred to send, last May, an airplane full with humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka on the opposite side of the globe. This regime was a stubborn obstacle in the face of every international solidarity movement and organizations, who tried to break the siege against Gaza. The regime blocked the entry of thousands of tons of badly needed food aid to Gaza; letting them rot in the desert heat, and finally burn them as spoiled food. Under the deceptive banner of “fighting arms smuggling into Gaza” it erected the most sophisticated surveillance equipment to detect and prevent life-sustaining materials delivered to Gaza through tunnels. This month, December 2009, Egyptian Mubarak’s regime, with the help of American Army Corps Engineers, is building an underground steel wall to block tunnel digging, and is running underground pipes to flood the existing tunnels with sea waters. Egyptian regime has opposed the elected Hamas Palestinian leadership and sided with the Western puppet Abbas, whose presidency has expired. It has sabotaged all reconciliation attempts between the two Palestinian factions by imposing harsh conditions against Hamas government and altering the text of agreements before signature. The Egyptian policy towards their Palestinian brothers in Gaza, many of whom carry Egyptian citizenship, was reflected in the confession of its Foreign Minister, Ahmad Aboul-Gheti, in 11th of November 2008 when he stated that Egypt was closing Rafah Crossing with Gaza to punish a Palestinian faction (Hamas). Opening the Crossing, in his opinion, constitutes recognition of Hamas’ legitimacy. Unlike the silence over the Holocaust during WWII conscientious citizens of these same international criminal governments are actively mobilized to act against terrorist Israel and the genocidal policies of their governments. Through Breaking Gaza Siege Campaigns many of them, such as Viva Palestina and The Hope convoys, are delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. They have also organized boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns to boycott companies that sustain Israeli occupation on Palestine such as Motorola and Caterpillar, as well as academic and cultural boycott of all Israeli academic and cultural institutions, all of them are supported by the Israeli government. The effects of these campaigns had penetrated the blindly pro-Zionist American congress, where on December 18th Representatives Jim McDermott and Keith Ellison are seeking signature on a “Dear Colleague” letter to President Obama criticizing Israel’s siege of Gaza. Representatives Jim Moran and Bob Inglis are also seeking signatures on another “Dear Colleague” letter to Secretary of State Clinton urging her to pressure Israeli government to end the ban on student travel from Gaza to the West Bank. This week protests are organized in major countries around the world in US, UK, France, Turkey, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Poland, Denmark, Greece, Jordan, and occupied Palestine (Israel), commemorating the first anniversary of the Israeli onslaught against Gaza. Under the Principle of Universal Jurisdiction we are witnessing Western courts issuing arrest warrants against Israeli leaders (Tzibi Livni) and army generals (former military chief Moshe Yaalon and General Doron Almog) for committing war crimes. International lawyers are filing for more arrest warrants against more Israeli war criminals. Soon Israeli leaders will be chased across the globe as war criminals the same way Israel had chased German Nazis as war criminals. |
Frankly, if the Obama administration was involved with Bush, as it seems they are, then the Bush/Cheney “disinformation” attack dogs would be leashed. They are not. Thus, Bush and Cheney should be targeted for investigation.
