The Corner Report

My peace, O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude,
And my Beloved is with me always,
For His love I can find no substitute,
And His love is the test for me among mortal beings,
Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate,
He is my "mihrab", towards Him is my "qiblah"
If I die of love, before completing satisfaction,
Alas, for my anxiety in the world, alas for my distress,
O Healer (of souls) the heart feeds upon its desire,
The striving after union with Thee has healed my soul,
O my Joy and my Life abidingly,
You were the source of my life and from Thee also came my ecstasy.
I have separated myself from all created beings,
My hope is for union with Thee, for that is the goal of my desire.

Comment
By Michael T. Klare

In a remarkable evocation of the strategic environment of 2025, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a government intelligence service, portrays a world in which the United States wields considerably less power than it does today but faces far greater challenges. The assessment, contained in Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (dni.gov/nic/NIC_home.html), was released November 20 and is intended to be read by President-elect Obama's transition team as well as the general public. "Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor," the council notes, "the United States' relative strength--even in the military realm--will decline and US leverage will become more constrained."

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By Sean Penn

Soon to be Vice President-elect Joe Biden was rallying the troops: "We can no longer be energy dependent on Saudi Arabia or a Venezuelan dictator." Well, I know what Saudi Arabia is. But having been to Venezuela in 2006, touring slums, mixing with the wealthy opposition and spending days and hours at its president's side, I wondered, without wondering, to whom Senator Biden was referring.

Hugo Chávez Frías is the democratically elected president of Venezuela (and by democratically elected I mean that he has repeatedly stood before the voters in internationally sanctioned elections and won large majorities, in a system that, despite flaws and irregularities, has allowed his opponents to defeat him and win office, both in a countrywide referendum last year and in regional elections in November). And Biden's words were the kind of rhetoric that had recently led us into a life-losing and monetarily costly war, which, while toppling a shmuck in Iraq, had also toppled the most dynamic principles upon which the United States was founded, enhanced recruitment for Al Qaeda and deconstructed the US military.

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GAZA – Piles of sand and mud began popping up in front of houses in Rafah last week. The traditional signs of home renovations or construction, the neighborhood wondered about the reasons behind these piles, since no construction materials have come into Gaza for months.

On closer inspection it becomes obvious that the piles cannot be construction materials, since the sand is not the same color of the sand from Gaza’s abandoned settlements, from where most material has been salvaged.

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When will Israel wake up to its gruesome legacy, asks Khaled Amayreh



From top left: Israeli settlers teach their children to kill Palestinians; the Khaled Ibn Al-Walid Mosque, threatened by Jewish fanatics; a Muslim cemetery desecrated by settlers

Unconcerned about arrest by the police or prosecution by the Israeli justice system, fanatical Jewish settlers in the Palestinian town of Hebron (Al-Khalil) have been attacking Palestinians, damaging and ransacking their property, exactly like Nazi thugs did to Jewish-owned property in Germany 80 years ago.

The settlers, who claim to be acting in the name of true Judaism, espouse a messianic doctrine advocating violence and terror against non- Jews in Israel-Palestine for the purpose of creating a pure Jewish kingdom that would be ruled by Halacha, or Jewish religious law.

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Hope is eternal, but so too appears the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, writes Ramzy Baroud*

When Gaza's electricity is in working order, most Palestinians in the impoverished and overcrowded Strip huddle around their television screens. It's neither "American Idol" nor "Dancing with the Stars" that brings them together. It's the news.

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By Kranti Kumara and Keith Jones
27 November 2008

The police investigation into the synchronised September 29 bombing attacks in Malegaon, a city in the west Indian state of Maharashtra, and Madosa, in the neighbouring state of Gujarat, has rattled India’s political establishment.

The police have thus far arrested 11 people, while indicating that others, potentially many others, may yet be implicated in what they have termed an “extensive” Hindu-extremist terror network.

The arrested include a lieutenant colonel attached to the Indian Army’s Military Intelligence Corps and a retired army major. Two of the suspects, a Hindu sadhu (holy man) and a sadhvi (holy woman), have long-standing and extensive contacts with prominent politicians and businessmen. All of the alleged principals in the bombing plot have ties to one or more of India’s major “Hindu-nationalist” organisations: the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the official opposition in India’s parliament, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council), and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS.

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On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinan People
UN Headquarters , New York, 24 November 2008

Mr. Chairman,
Mr. Secretary-General,
Excellencies,
Brothers and Sisters,

It is with mixed emotions that I join you today to observe the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People at this event organized by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. As you know, Solidarity is a concept that is central to my work as the Assembly President. I want to thank the Committee for its dedicated efforts to rally our solidarity with the Palestinian people, pursuing the mandate entrusted to it by the General Assembly.

Today we recall that, 61 years ago this month, the General Assembly adopted the historic resolution 181, calling for the creation of a Jewish State and an Arab State. The State of Israel, founded a year later in 1948, now celebrates 60 years of its existence. Shamefully, there is still no Palestinian State to celebrate.

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UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Broackman calls for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions against Israel and its Apartheid policies of oppression of the Palestinian people.

UNITED NATIONS - Nov. 24, 2008 - United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said the international community should consider using boycotts, divestments or sanctions to pressure Israel to improve its treatment of the Palestinians.

The Nicaraguan diplomat also compared the situation in Israel to South Africa two decades ago.

“Although different, what is being done against the Palestinian people seems to me like a version of the hideous policy of Apartheid. That can not, should not, be allowed to continue,” said Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann.

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Al Ahram

By Amira Howeidy

It has been 31 years since Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat broke ranks with Arab states in their boycott of Israel, travelling to Jerusalem on a "peace" mission that others saw as "normalisation". Since then most Arab states came to recognise Israel officially or unofficially. Gone are the days when the Arabs boycotted international events because of Israel's participation or representation.

Hosting Israeli pundits and spokespeople on Arab television is also no longer taboo. The top news channel Al-Jazeera regularly gives airtime to Israelis. So much has changed since Sadat's 1977 "historic" visit that Israel's recent defensive posture has gone unnoticed by the Arab media. On 19 November, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni announced that her country will boycott the UN "Durban II" conference slated for next April in Geneva for fear it would be too critical of Israel.

Now it is Israel, not the Arabs, that is boycotting conferences it cannot face. In October 2006, Livni boycotted a UN-sponsored democracy conference in Doha because a delegation from Hamas was participating. And in February 2005, Israel boycotted the oral hearings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of Israel's annexation wall built on occupied Palestinian land. Today, Israel is pulling out of international efforts to eradicate racism, discrimination and intolerance.

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This Associated Press story was published in Haaretz

Power returned to large parts of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Wednesday when Palestinian workers figured out a way to use car batteries to help restart the territory's sole power plant.

Special batteries normally used to help run the plant died earlier this week, preventing it from restarting after Israel allowed limited amounts of fuel into the impoverished coastal enclave.

A director at the plant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the workers devised a solution to the problem by hooking generators up to 170 car batteries.

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Dutch and English unite to slaughter Pequots in 1637

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

"Thanksgiving is not just a twisted fable, and the mythology it nurtures is itself inherently evil." The holiday is rooted in the massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indians, and has been used to justify America's history of genocide, slavery and scores of wars against weaker peoples. "The Mayflower's cultural heirs are programmed to find glory in their own depravity and savagery in their most helpless victims, who can only redeem themselves by accepting the inherent goodness of white Americans."

Nobody but Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. It is reserved by history and the intent of "the founders" as the supremely white American holiday, the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. No Halloween of the imagination can rival the exterminationist reality that was the genesis, and remains the legacy, of the American Thanksgiving. It is the most loathsome, humanity-insulting day of the year - a pure glorification of racist barbarity.

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Gazans wait to buy bread

GAZA - Israel allowed truckloads of food and fuel into the Gaza Strip on Monday, easing momentarily a crippling blockade of the coastal territory.

Head of the Products Coordination Committee for the Gaza Strip Ra’ed Fattouh said that 30 trucks carrying food were allowed into the Strip through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Twenty of the trucks were sent by international organizations, including the United Nations, which had been forced last week to suspend a food aid program for 750,000 Gazans due to the Israeli siege. Another ten trucks containing dairy products were shipped into the area by private sector firms.

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~~~PREVENTING PEOPLE FROM PRACTICING THEIR RELIGION IS A VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL LAW~~~

A Catholic church in Gaza

GAZA – The Catholic faithful in Gaza had no mass on Sunday when Israel barred a senior church envoy and several priests from entering the Strip.

In a statement the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said Papal Nuncio in Israel Archbishop Antonio Franco and priests Shawki Baterian and Humam Khzouz arrived at the Erez border crossing at 8:15 on Sunday morning expecting to be permitted to enter the Strip.

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By Luciana Bohne

On Saturday last, I had an intimate dinner party for close friends. In the conduct of their lives, they are unimpeachable. They are earnest progressives. They read The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, and all the other enlightened sources that 8% of Americans read. They have targeted me steadfastly with 30 years of random and pinpointed acts of kindness.

Yet, between me and them, across the candle-lit table, flickers the recurring image of another scene: a photograph I have seen of children in Gaza doing their homework to the light of a kerosene lamp. The photographer might have been Caravaggio had he lived today and painted with the camera: a flame at the center of the table, the pathos of the earnest children’s faces encapsulated in chiaroscuro at the outer margins.

In the light and yet not of it.

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Shifa hospital is being forced to run incubators off old generators amid the power shortages [AFP]

Gaza's biggest hospital forced to run on faulty generator amid Israeli blockade.

Kidney patients cannot get the treatment they need amid the power cuts [AFP

Patients at the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip could die if Israel continues to prevent fuel and essential supplies to the territory, doctors have told Al Jazeera.

Shifa hospital in Gaza City is using a faulty generator to operate essential equipment since Gaza's main power plant restricted supplies due to a lack of fuel from Israel.

"Officials both here at the hospital and from the Red Cross describe the situation as critical," Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said.

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A number of editorials in Israeli newspapers over the last two weeks have celebrated the fact that the November 5th elections resulted in a record number of Jewish legislators elected to the U.S. Congress.

According to the Jerusalem Post, there are now 45 Jewish legislators serving in the US Congress – 32 Congress members and 13 Senators.

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The Red Cross says the diets of those living in the impoverished Gaza Strip are deteriorating

Donald Macintyre reveals the contents of an explosive report by the Red Cross on a humanitarian tragedy

The Israeli blockade of Gaza has led to a steady rise in chronic malnutrition among the 1.5 million people living in the strip, according to a leaked report from the Red Cross.

It chronicles the "devastating" effect of the siege that Israel imposed after Hamas seized control in June 2007 and notes that the dramatic fall in living standards has triggered a shift in diet that will damage the long-term health of those living in Gaza and has led to alarming deficiencies in iron, vitamin A and vitamin D.

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By Reuters

Gaza faces a humanitarian "catastrophe" if Israel continues to prevent aid reaching the territory by blocking crossing points, the head of the main UN aid agency for the Palestinians said on Friday.

Karen AbuZayd, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the human toll of this month's sealing of Gaza's goods crossings was the gravest since the early days of a Palestinian uprising eight years ago.

"It's been closed for so much longer than ever before... and we have nothing in our warehouses... It will be a catastrophe if this persists, a disaster," said AbuZayd, whose agency is the largest aid body providing services to Palestinian refugees.

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Moshe Feiglin is known as "the Hitler of Israeli politics." He openly calls for "induced emigration" of Palestinians, that is, ehtnic cleansing and genocide; placing non Jewish inhabitants of historic and occupied Palestine under such harsh military occupation until they can no longer endure the persecution and leave; resume intensive Judaisation of "the territories," including the destruction of Christian and Muslim holy places; and dislodging itself from the peace process since this process is "incompatible with the rules and teachings of the Torah and Talmud."

Khaled Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem shudders at the drift to fascism in Israeli politics

With Israeli Jewish society drifting towards right-wing extremism, especially with regard to the Palestinian issue, Israeli political parties contesting the upcoming elections, slated to take place on 10 February, are radicalising the tone of their public discourse in the hope of wooing as many potential voters as possible to their respective agendas.

The Kadima and Labour parties, erstwhile coalition partners, are escalating their rhetoric against the Palestinians, with ministers and former ministers calling for the resumption of assassinations of Palestinians.

Nevertheless, the most dangerous and problematic right- winger, dubbed by some Israeli intellectuals in Israel as the Hitler of Israeli politics, is Moshe Feiglin, who advocates the ethnic cleansing or extermination of non-Jews in Israel-Palestine Old Testament-style.

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GAZA'S TRIBULATIONS: clockwise from top; the blockade continues, as Palestinian children demonstrate in a darkened Gaza City; Palestinian workers load a truck with fuel smuggled into the Rafah refugee camp along Egypt's border; relatives of Ahmed Al-Helo mourn his death; Israeli tanks cross into Gaza

With Israel's breach of the ceasefire in Gaza, Saleh Al-Naami laments yet another example of Israeli-PA collusion which victimises Hamas

Hassan Karim, 34, has been making the rounds of real estate offices in the hope of finding an apartment to rent in the western part of Gaza city. He is doing all in his power to move out of the Shajaiya neighbourhood in the eastern part of the city where he and his family currently live. It has become too risky to stay there now that the Israelis have reverted to attacking border areas of Gaza adjacent to Israel. "It took a full year for my daughters to recover from the trauma they experienced from the quaking of our house during the last wave of Israeli bombardments," he told Al-Ahram Weekly, adding that one of his daughters feared that if they remained where they lived under those conditions she would suffer a nervous breakdown.

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Iraq's security pact with Washington hardly signals an end to the country's woes, writes Salah Hemeid

After months of tireless negotiations, tough bargaining and countless drafts, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker signed a security pact on Monday that will allow thousands of US troops to stay in the country until the end of 2011. The signing took place a day after the Iraqi cabinet approved the deal.

The agreement has been hailed by both Baghdad's government and the Bush administration as a "historic" deal, necessary to help sustain stability and security until Iraq is able to build its own army and police force. Officially renamed the Agreement on the Withdrawal of US Troops instead of the original Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), it determines the role of US military forces after their UN mandate expires on 31 December.

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Iraqis say the walls have fostered sectarian divisions in Baghdad and should be demolished

By Ahmed Janabi

As the Iraqi parliament continues to debate the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa), residents of Baghdad are urging the government to tear down the walls which separate their neighbourhoods.

Iraqis say the walls were designed to consolidate sectarianism and establish a number of cantons; now that security has improved, they say, there is no reason to allow the walls to stand.

Maysoon Abd al-Hamid, a 57-year-old engineer from Adhamiya, says the walls are a nightmare.

"I cannot believe this is happening to us in the 21st century ... we are living in a roofless prison, caged in like animals. The walls have cut our neighbourhoods and redrawn the map of our capital."

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Life in Gaza: Ash-Shaboura refugee camp

GAZA – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to keep Israel’s borders with the Gaza Strip closed on Wednesday, continuing a two-week-long strict blockade.

The renewal of the blockade was a rejection of calls by senior United Nations officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

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A baby in Shifa hospital in Gaza struggles against illness and lack of medicines and electricity.

By Cherrie Heywood

RAMALLAH, Palestine - Israel has imposed a virtual news blackout on the Gaza Strip. For the last ten days no foreign journalists have been able to enter the besieged territory to report on the escalating humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's complete closure of Gaza's borders for the last two weeks.

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By Remi Kanazi, The Electronic Intifada, 19 November 2008

James Zogby isn't just an Arab American with an opinion. He is the president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a well-known writer, and an esteemed leader within the Arab American community. Many non-Arab Americans highly regard his analysis and look to his articles as a resource to understand the Middle East.

This is precisely why his latest article, "Rahm Emanuel and Arab Perceptions," published by The Huffington Post, is so disturbing. In the piece, Zogby tries to calm the fears of Arab Americans about United States President-elect Barack Obama's first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, to White House Chief of Staff. Zogby expressed shock and dismay that his constituency, once euphoric over the election of Obama, was now sending him angry and cynical letters. Zogby described the emails and calls to his office as "troubled and troubling -- because much of the reaction was based on misinformation and because of what the entire episode reveals about the larger political dynamic."

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By JONATHAN COOK

The latest tightening of Israel’s chokehold on Gaza – ending all supplies into the Strip for more than a week – has produced immediate and shocking consequences for Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants.

The refusal to allow in fuel has forced the shutting down of Gaza’s only power station, creating a blackout that pushed Palestinians bearing candles on to the streets in protest last week. A water and sanitation crisis are expected to follow.

And on Thursday, the United Nations announced it had run out of the food essentials it supplies to 750,000 desperately needy Gazans. “This has become a blockade against the United Nations itself,” a spokesman said.

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Citigroup has posted losses for the past four financial quarters

Citigroup, one of the world's biggest banks, is to cut about 50,000 jobs as the bank struggles with heavy losses amid the current financial crisis.

The cuts come on top of a further 22,000 job losses announced by the firm in October, of which it said 13,000 have already gone.

The company said on Monday its workforce is being reduced by about 20 per cent from a peak of 375,000 in 2007.

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GAZA – Israeli tanks and bulldozers invaded the southern end of the Gaza Strip, near the city of Rafah at 9am on Tuesday and began razing agricultural lands.

Three tanks and two bulldozers breached the Gaza border and went 50-100 meters into the An-Nahdah neighborhood east of Rafah, just meters away from the ruins of Gaza International Airport. Bulldozers remained in the area at press time.

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AL KHALIL (Hebron) – Israeli forces launched a wide-scale arrest campaign against Palestinian youth in the West Bank before sunrise on Tuesday.

More than 30 individuals were taken, mostly from the Al-Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron in the southern West Bank, and mostly men under thirty.

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By MARTHA ROSENBERG

Americans may be buying their Christmas gifts at Oriental Trading this year and rationing household Kleenex but the fur industry thinks mink can be part of the recessionary tableau.

"There is simply no room for purchasing frivolous pieces that will only be worn once," says the Fur Information Council of America (FICA) website.

But non-frivolous fur, it goes on to say, is a versatile investment that can be worn with "jeans on a Saturday afternoon," and as "a warm alternative to carry you to the office" Monday through Friday.

At least in Wasilla, Alaska.

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By Saleh Al-Naami

Contrary to habit, last Tuesday Mazen Saada, 33, came home early bringing his four children their favourite sweet. Usually they are already asleep when he comes back. Saada, who resides in the eastern neighbourhood of Moghazy Refugee Camp in central Gaza, did not spend long with his children. As field commander with the Ezzeddin Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, Saada received a call informing him that tens of Israeli special units had crossed into Gaza with air cover. The units were heading towards a site where six resistance fighters serving under his command were taking position east of neighbouring Deir Al-Balah city.

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GAZA – Seventy percent of the Gaza Strip is blacked out on Sunday night after Israel blocked deliveries fuel for Gaza’s power plant for the fifth consecutive day, a high-ranking Palestinian energy official said.

Kan’an Ubeid, the deputy chief of the Palestinian Energy Authority, said in a press conference in Gaza that in addition to the shutdown of the diesel-fueled power plant, the electric network bringing in power from Israel collapsed due to increased pressure on the system.

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The UN mandate covering the presence of US forces in Iraq expires on December 31

Iraq's cabinet has approved a security pact which allows about 150,000 US troops to remain in the country for another three years, a government spokesman has confirmed.

The draft Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) was passed by the cabinet on Sunday and will now be sent to parliament for their approval

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By Abed Shana

GAZA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed four militants in the Gaza Strip on Sunday and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he had commissioned a plan for military action in the Hamas-run territory if rocket attacks on Israel persist.

"I ordered security chiefs to present their proposals to me as soon as possible so that an orderly plan of action could, if necessary, be brought to the decision-makers in the government for approval," Olmert told his cabinet, in broadcast remarks.

Olmert said Israel could not tolerate rocket salvoes during a "so-called calm".

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By Amira Hass

GAZA - Israel's policies in the Gaza Strip are strengthening the stance of extremists there, the director of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the coastal territory, John Ging, told Haaretz last week. By not easing restrictions at crossings into the Strip during the months of the cease-fire, Israel bolstered extremists' claims that the closures represent a political, rather than security-related move.

"The extremists claimed that the Israeli closure is not related to the rockets. We said that wasn't true, we said the illegal firing of Qassams must stop, that they have no justification," Ging said.

"But the stance has been strengthened in recent months that the closure is political and not security-related. There were several months of tahadiyeh [cease-fire], but no easing at the crossings. This failure to ease the crossings was political."

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Fawzia al-Kurd in the tent where she now sleeps
Fawzia al-Kurd has been living in the tent since she was evicted on Sunday

By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Jerusalem

Fawzia al-Kurd, 52, raises her black cloak to show the bottoms of the pyjamas she is still wearing several days after she and her wheelchair-bound husband were forced from the home he had lived in for five decades.

She had no time to change or gather her possessions when the Israeli police arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning.

In borrowed shoes, she shows us around the tent that she now calls home near the single-storey, two room house in East Jerusalem.

Jewish Israelis who had already moved into the extension the Kurd family had built for their son, have now taken over the rest of the flat.

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Karzai has always insisted that his government is ready to hold talks with 'Afghan Taliban' who have no al-Qaeda links

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said he will go to "any length" to protect Mullah Omar, the fugitive leader of the anti-government Taliban, in exchange for peace.

Karzai said in Kabul on Sunday he would offer the protection even if it meant defying Afghanistan's international partners, who could remove him from his job or leave the country in disagreement.

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Emanuel, left, was Obama's first post-election
appointment

Rahm Emanuel, US president-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, has apologised to an Arab-American group for comments made by his father that disparaged Arabs.

Benjamin Emanuel was reported as telling an Israeli newspaper about his son last week: "Obviously, he will influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he?

"What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House."

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