The Corner Report

As much as Beck and Palin might want it to remain White, America will not be White much longer, because the world is not White. The World is mostly Brown. And the Brown World wants and deserves to have as much as America has. And it is increasingly coming here to get it. You can wish and want and yearn for the good old days all you want, but Jose, Shian, and Hassan are on their way. Their fathers, brothers or uncles are already here, all have Green Cards or US Citizenship, and they have filled out all the necessary forms thankfully printed by the INS in many of their own languages and dialects. You can choose to welcome them as Americans into the community pool of prosperity, or you can sit and stew in your broken down RV in the trailer park of ignorance and intolerance.

It must be very hard for Beck's White America to sleep these nights!

By Bahmani

The recent event put on by Glenn Beck this past weekend, showed me a lot about that portion of middle America that has been getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Yet the middle of these Americans seems to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Boy Oh Boy the world sure has changed for them! What used to be a porcelain complexioned rosy cheeked European immigrant, has shockingly morphed into a range of brown and yellow skinned slant and slit eyed, bushy and dark browed, beard and mustachioed horde of freaking heathens!

It must be very hard for Beck's White America to sleep these nights!

The reality that the world may have shifted since World War II's liberation of Europe, or the last time they looked East past the Statue of Liberty, is sinking in faster than the Titanic.

Proof of this paranoid panic attack is Beck's brilliant simple solution. According to Beck all of this is easy to fix. Restock.. I mean Restore America.

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By John Pilger

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, "Propaganda," published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the "intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society" and that the manipulators "constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country." Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism "public relations."

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women's liberation, he made cigarettes "torches of freedom." In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically-elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit company's monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a "liberation."

Bernays was no rabid right winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that "engineering public consent" was for the greater good. This was achieved by the creation of "false realities," which then became "news events." Here are examples of how it is done these days:

False Reality: The last US combat troops have left Iraq "as promised, on schedule," according to President Barack Obama. TV screens have filled with cinematic images of the "last US soldiers" silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.

Fact: They are still there. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases. American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces' assassinations. The number of "military contractors" is currently 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.

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Protesters say former British PM should be prosecuted for his role in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By The Associated Press

Copies of ex-British PM Tony Blair's book displayed at a bookshop in London on Sept. 1, 2010.

Protesters hurled shoes and eggs Saturday at Tony Blair who held the first public signing of his memoir amid high security in Ireland's capital.

Hundreds more people lined up to have their books autographed - evidence that the divisions left by Blair's decade as British leader have yet to heal.

Blair's new book, A Journey, is a best-seller, but it has angered opponents of his policies, especially the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

About 200 demonstrators chanted that Blair had blood on his hands as the former prime minister arrived at a Dublin bookstore. Shoes, eggs and other projectiles were thrown at Blair as he emerged from a car, but did not hit him. A flip-flop could be seen lying on the roof of a BMW in Blair's motorcade.

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By JAMES ABOUREZK

I can still remember in the 1950s when, in Rapid City, South Dakota, a black African diplomat tried to get served in a Rapid City restaurant. He was asked to leave. After the newspaper reported the story, the owner of the restaurant said if he had known the guy was a diplomat, he would have served him instead of throwing him out.

When we think back, it wasn't that long ago that blacks were not allowed to sit in restaurants, but were, instead, asked to go around to the kitchen to get served out of the back door. That was a time when blacks were not allowed to buy homes in white neighborhoods. I spent part of my youth visiting my older sister and her family in West Virginia. There, blacks were told they could only sit in the balcony of movie theaters, a place expressly reserved for them should they want to enjoy a film. There were white only drinking fountains in public places, such as bus stations. And, of course, we all remember who had to sit in the back of the bus.

I have not yet heard anyone on television making the comparison between how blacks were treated in the god awful days of segregation and how Muslims are being treated by some of our political leadership today.

I remember when the Cold War came to an end. That was when the Zionist movement lost an enemy--the Soviet Union--and had to look around for another group to hate. That's when the demonization of Muslims--and Arabs--began. The pro-Israeli propagandists, aided and abetted by the mainstream media, leaned heavily into the Arab and Muslim population, making them the villains. It was easy then, as the Arabs, either in the Arab world or in the United States were not well organized, so they didn't fight back. That failure to resist has cost them, as has the actions of some--Al Qaeda for example--which made it easier to hate them.

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Caught between Washington and his own people, the PA president has no meaningful room for manoeuvre, writes Khaled Amayreh from the West Bank

The prevailing disputation over the right of Muslim Americans to build a community centre and mosque a short distance from the site of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks has garnered plenty of headlines in the past few days. The controversy calls for an honest reappraisal of the precise position of Muslim Americans in the United States. The altercation has polarised US public opinion and raised tension in the Arab and Muslim world.

"It saddens me to think that people don't understand what building this mosque on hallowed ground really represents," pontificated Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, infamous running mate of 2008 Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain, and an iconic figure of the war-mongering neoconservatives and discredited Republican far-right.

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By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO

A substantial racist uproar is taking place in conservative America, particularly in right-wing radio and television. Reactionary pundits are drawing increased attention to plans to build an Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan, near Ground Zero. Republicans and conservatives have long been known to harbor racist views of Islam, although they’re hardly alone in this. Many on the right frame the entire religion as radical, fundamentalist, and a threat to national security. In light of this pattern, there’s little surprising about the right’s most recent attack on Muslim Americans as a secret, under the radar threat.

Islam has at times been portrayed on the right as the bedrock threat to American cultural values, and Muslims are depicted as uni-dimensionally set on overthrowing Christianity, enslaving the American public, and imposing “Sharia law.” The last warning about “Sharia law” – repeated by pundits like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh – among many others – comes off as extremely ignorant, considering that the term “Sharia” itself means Islamic law. One should take the warnings of those who use the phrase “Sharia law” about as seriously as someone who masquerades as a legal scholar while talking about the importance of “American law law.”

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Interview by Khalid Amayreh

Nayef Rajoub, 52, is one of the most popular Islamic leaders in Occupied Palestine. His courageous promotion of Palestinian rights, including the right of return for Palestinian refugees, has attracted the unwanted attention of the Israeli security services. He has served a total of eight years in Israeli jails, mostly on trumped-up charges such as "incitement against the Israeli state". Indeed, Mr. Rajoub was released from an Israeli jail only a few weeks ago, having served nearly 50 months for the "crime" of taking part in the 2006 Palestinian elections. In Al-Khalil (Hebron), Rajoub won more votes than any other candidate. The elections were given the go-ahead by both Israel and the US in the hope that Fatah would win. However, when Hamas won a landslide victory, the US and most other western countries, as well as America's puppet regimes in the Middle East, were hostile towards the new Palestinian government, resulting in the imposition of a financial siege (followed by a total siege on Gaza) intended to make the occupied territories ungovernable by the new Islamist rulers.

On behalf of Middle East Monitor, Khalid Amayreh spoke with Nayef Rajoub in his office in the town of Dura in the southern West Bank.

Khalid Amayreh: How do you see the Palestinian cause 20 years from now?

Nayef Rajoub: I believe the Palestinian Authority of Ramallah will keep on walking along the fruitless path of concessions and surrender until there is nothing or very little left in terms of Palestinian rights. Israel might agree to give the PA a Kafkaesque state that is bereft of dignity, viability and sovereignty.

As to when the conflict will be over, nobody can say for sure, but I am certain that the conflict won't be over until the disappearance of the ideology of Zionism that makes Israel a colonialist state. This is not wishful thinking; Zionism carries within it the seeds of its own demise and Israel is a state based on the dispossession of another people. It is, therefore, based on oppression and injustice. As such, its lifespan will not be very long.

KA: Do you see any possibility of coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine?

NR: As long as Zionism is the ideology underpinning Israel, coexistence is impossible. How can we coexist with a community which insists on enslaving and tormenting us? Besides, Zionists - Jews and non-Jews alike – do not want coexistence; they want Jewish supremacy in Palestine and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, the Palestinians.

KA: But hasn’t the South African scenario proved that coexistence is possible between previously irreconcilable communities?

NR: The South African comparison is inherently wrong. Israel is an entity that is based on ethnic cleansing and land theft and it won't accept majority rule under any circumstances, unlike the South Africans.

KA: Given the weakness of the overall Arab position, do you think that Israel might resort to committing a major provocation, such as demolishing Al-Aqsa Mosque?

NR: Yes; if the Palestinian Authority and Arab states continue with this policy of capitulation, including conspiring with Israel and the US against the Palestinians’ legitimate rights, this will embolden the Zionist establishment and make Israel embark on more daring crimes, of which the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque could be one.

KA: Do you think the time for the peace process has passed by in light of the chronic failure of that process to-date?

NR: What is erroneously called "the peace process" is actually a series of Israeli diktats imposed on the Palestinians, who have been reduced to the status of a vanquished supplicant begging for whatever Israel condescends to give. Unfortunately, this situation is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, at least until the Muslim Ummah can generate enough will in the international community to do something more positive.

KA: What do you mean by "something more positive"?

NR: To get into a position whereby we are negotiating from a position of strength; doing so from a position of weakness ends up as begging.

KA: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has warned that he will switch to a one-state solution strategy if Israel keeps building Jewish colonies in the West Bank, especially in East Jerusalem. What do you think of this?

NR: This is a clear acknowledgement that the folly known as "the peace process" has failed. The PA has been indulging in futile gestures and failure for the past 20 years. This also shows that the US is not really serious about finding an agreement that will put an end to the Arab-Israel conflict.

I don't think a unitary state, or threats to establish such an entity, have a real chance of success under the present circumstances. Israel will not allow an Arab majority to determine the direction of such a state, besides which the Palestinian-Arab side is not strong enough to force Israel to accept a democratic solution.

KA: Does the Islamic movement in Palestine believe in the possibility of creating a viable state in the West Bank within the 1967 borders?

NR: No, not under the current circumstances, given the weakness of the overall Arab position and because of America’s collusion and alliance with Israel.

KA: If you were in the PA President’s shoes, what would you do?

NR: I think that anyone in that position has to agree to abandon principles; I wouldn’t be prepared to do that, so I would never be PA president.

KA: If you had known in 2006 what you know now, would the Islamic movement still have participated in the legislative elections?

NR: Yes, we would. We knew from the very beginning that our path wouldn't be lined with roses. We had to take part in the elections in order to stop the avalanche of corruption and concessions to the Zionists. To put it simply, someone had to stop the rot.

KA: Who is responsible for the national rift between Fatah and Hamas?

NR: The people responsible for the rift are those who didn't respect the outcome of the elections. They are Fatah, the US, the EU and Israel, in addition to the Arab regimes at America's beck and call.

KA: The US and its allies insist that Hamas must recognise Israel before the Islamic movement can be accepted as a legitimate political player. Would Hamas recognize Israel under any conceivable circumstances?

NR: It is both unreasonable and illogical to ask the victims to recognise the legitimacy of their tormentors. It is Israel that must first recognise Palestinians’ legitimate rights, including the right to self-determination and the right to freedom.

KA: How do you view the so-called Egyptian document which is aimed at achieving reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas?

NR: The document is a recipe cooked up by Fatah and Egypt intended to serve Fatah’s interests. What Palestine needs is unconditional reconciliation.

In addition, I would like to say that what the PA is doing in the West Bank, namely the unrelenting persecution of Hamas, underscores Fatah’s lack of seriousness about achieving national reconciliation.

KA: Fatah accuses Hamas of subservience to Iran. Is that true?

NR: Hamas is not subservient to any earthly power except the Palestinian people. Any other suggestion or insinuation should be understood in the context of propaganda against the Islamic movement.

Besides, the Palestinian cause is the cause of all Arab and Islamic peoples. Hence, it is the religious duty of all Muslims and Muslim states to support the Palestinian cause. It is far from dishonourable for Arab and Muslim states to support our steadfastness, whereas it is truly dishonourable to throw oneself into the lap of our enemies.

Source: Middle East Monitor

Islamophobia

On Tuesday July 13, the French National Assembly will vote on a Bill banning the wearing of the so-called “burka” (or face veil) in public. The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which has monitored the situation of Muslims in France since before the banning of head coverings in French schools in 2004, is now warning that a vote in favour of the Bill would herald a “new era of state sponsored Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism,” and that French Muslims are “increasingly insecure about their freedom to practice their religion in their own country.”

The Bill, which is proposed by France’s right-wing government, would impose a total ban on the wearing of the Muslim women’s head-dress in public. Women seen wearing it will be ordered by police to remove it, and arrested if they refuse to do so. They would then be subject to a €150 fine, or forced to attend a “citizenship course” to be re-educated on French values. Men accused of forcing women to cover their faces will face a year’s imprisonment or a €30,000 fine. If the Bill is passed, as is likely, considering that left-wing opposition parties have supported it, the law would come into effect early next year.

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I might have guessed it. CNN has fired one of its senior Middle East editors, Octavia Nasr, for publishing a twitter – or twatter in this case, I suppose – extolling Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon, calling him "one of Hizbollah's giants whom I respect a lot".

Well, he wasn't Hizbollah's man, but no matter. He was definitely a giant. A man of immense learning and jurisprudence, a believer in women's rights, a hater of "honour crimes", a critic of the theocratic system of government in Iran, a ... Well, I'd better be careful because I might get a phone call from Parisa Khosravi, who goes by the title of CNN's "senior vice president" – what these boss types do or what they get paid for their gutless decisions I have no idea – who said this week that she had "had a conversation" with Nasr (who'd been with the company for 20 years) and "we have decided that she will be leaving the company".

Oh deary, deary. Poor old CNN goes on getting more cowardly by the hour. That's why no one cares about it any more. That can't be said about Fadlallah. The Americans put it about that he had blessed the suicide bomber who struck the US marine base in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 service personnel. Fadlallah always denied this to me and I believe him. Suicide bombers, however insane we regard them, don't need to be blessed; they think they are doing God's duty without any help from a marja like Fadlallah. But anyway, Washington used Saudi money to arrange a car bombing to assassinate Fadlallah in 1985. It missed Fadlallah. But it killed more than 80 innocent people. I do wonder what Ms Khosravi would have thought of that. No comment, I guess.

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Free-Times

By Corey Hutchins

With a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face outside a Columbia bar, Republican S.C. Sen. Jake Knotts called Lexington Rep. Nikki Haley, an Indian-American Republican woman running for governor, a “raghead” several times while explaining how he believed she was hiding her true religion from voters.

“She’s a fucking raghead,” Knotts said.

He later clarified his statement. He did not mean to use the F-word.

Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.

“We got a raghead in Washington; we don’t need one in South Carolina,” Knotts said more than once. “She’s a raghead that’s ashamed of her religion trying to hide it behind being Methodist for political reasons.”

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Harvard Prof. Henry “Skip” Gates' attempt to blame the trans-Atlantic slave trade largely on Africans and to absolve Europe and America of their historical crimes is a “moral and intellectual absurdity.” The U.S. owes a debt to African Americans, and to lots of other people. “The nation reaped enormous wealth on the backs of unpaid or underpaid black and brown labor, from imperial adventurism and conquest abroad.”

By Tim Wise

This article originally appeared on Tim Wise’s web site,The Red Room [1].

“The United States was built by the labor of the enslaved.”

As a writer, there are times when you have something to say, and yet no particular "hook" upon which to hang the missive you are burning to release. In these moments, it is often best to wait, to hold on to the material you find so compelling, secure in the knowledge that soon enough something will happen--some personal experience or news event--that will render the intended screed relevant at long last.

Apparently, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. believes not in this sagacious advice. To wit his recent essay[2] for the New York Times, in which he addressed the issue of reparations for slavery, imparting therein the completely unoriginal and long-recognized wisdom that Africans were implicated in the enslavement of their continental peers. This, to Gates, is a revelation of monumental proportions, which demonstrates the complexity of the slavery issue, and implacably muddies the matter of who should pay whom for the damage done. Resolving this last point is, Gates wants you to know, far more difficult than the apparently simple-minded who clamor for repair might believe.

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By ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ

TUCSON HIGH SCHOOL: As I prepare to speak to an innovative class here about Indigenous philosophies, the students begin their class in the following manner:

In Lak Ech – Tu eres mi otro yo – You are my other self. I am you and you are me. If I hurt you, I hurt myself. If I hate you, I hate myself. If I love and respect you, I love and respect myself.

Students here, part of Tucson Unified School District’s highly successful Mexican American Studies (MAS) K-12 program (the largest in the nation), are taught this and other Indigenous concepts, including other ways of measuring time (Aztec & Maya calendars). Not coincidentally, academically, MAS students – many of who were doing poorly prior to entering this program – consistently outperform their peers, and it is virtually a college-bound factory.

State capitol, Phoenix, Arizona: 518 years after Columbus initiated the theft of a continent, Arizona’s state superintendent of schools, Tom Horne has just declared, via the passage of HB 2281, that Indigenous peoples and Indigenous knowledge are [still] outside of Western Civilization.

In his relentless campaign against Ethnic Studies, the would-be governor has just engineered the passage of a new draconian state law that seeks to ban the teaching of ethnic studies [by withdrawing its funding]. This is the same state that recently passed the racial profiling SB 1070 law; the primary targets would be Mexicans and Central Americans with Indigenous features, suspected of being “illegal aliens.”

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Posted by Stephanie Condon

This Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday widely celebrated in the United States on May 5, Republican Sen. John McCain is taking heat for his position on an Arizona immigration law that has angered Latinos across the country.

The liberal political action committee Americans for America launched three radio ads today that are critical of Arizona's new immigration law, the Huffington Post reports, and one ad takes aim at McCain for calling the law a "good tool."

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This time, the violence will take on a distinctly religious theme.

By Dr. Ahmad Yousef

The Israelis are instigating a Jewish holy war staged in Jerusalem; and they are playing a superb game of propaganda painting the Palestinians as the “real” fundamentalists, despite the fact that the Knesset has more active right-wing political parties than any state in the civilized world. It’s a strategy that has caught the West by surprise as they continue to react with template disappointment.

Successive governments have supported colonization for decades; yet Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s recent moves have all but dispelled the façade of a secular rationale. Unfettered, expedited settlement construction in Jerusalem, with images of soldiers traipsing through Islam’s third holiest site in army fatigues, mark a new low for the Israelis; yet equally indicate a new level of brazen physical and psychological aggression that will result in a new intifada.

Netanyahu and the extreme right feel it is time to goad Palestinian Christians and Muslims into reacting with force (which has happened with minor riots in the past few weeks). Much of the Arab and Islamic worlds are limited to flaccid objections, following in the footsteps of the United States and the European Union who similarly are not interested in punitive measures. The Bibi Plan, therefore, is for Palestinians to rebel, face overwhelming military might, and lose Jerusalem once and for all under the premise of security concerns.

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By ROBERT JENSEN

After a recent talk on racism and other illegitimate hierarchies at a diversity conference in Dallas, I received a letter from one of the people who had attended that asked “why you feel it necessary to perpetuate and even exacerbate the divisiveness of language when addressing a group of people assembled to learn how to live better together and be more accepting of differences?” He suggested that by being so sharply critical, I was part of the problem not the solution.

Calls for diversity and inclusiveness from people with privilege (such as a white man with a professional job living in the United States) are meaningful only when we are willing to address the systems and structures of power in which inequality and discrimination are rooted. But because such a critique strikes many people as too radical, crafting a response to those who want to avoid that analysis is crucial to the struggle for progressive social change. Below is my letter to him.

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Indian Country Today Mar 12, 2010

WINNIPEG, Manitoba – An ad on a buy-and-sell Web site that characterized Native boys as animals and offered to ethnically cleanse them from the city has sparked a blaze of outrage and prompted a First Nations leader to initiate an investigation by city police and Canada’s Human Rights Commission on a hate crime allegation.

The ad, headlined “Native Extraction Service,” appeared on www.UsedWinnipeg.com on March 3 and 4.

Underneath the headline was a photo of three Native teenagers and the text: “Have you ever had the experience of getting home to find those pesky little buggers hanging outside your home, in the back alley or on the corner???

“Well fear no more, with my service I will simply do a harmless relocation. With one phone call I will arrive and net the pest, load them in the containment unit (pickup truck) and then relocate them to their habitat.

“It doesn’t matter if they need to be dropped off on Salter (Street, in Winnipeg’s North End) or the rez, I will go that extra mile. The North End of Winnipeg is where many city dwellers of First Nations descent live.

“My service is free because I want to live in the same city you do, a clean one,” the ad said.

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A few months ago, as I was flipping through the many channels late one night, a show entitled “On the Wings Of Eagles” caught my attention. This show, which was really nothing more than a “paid advertisement” from a coalition of Born Again Christian and Jewish Zionists, was being shown over and over again on many different channels. They tried to present this as a “sort of documentary” of a mission of mercy.

As I watched this show, it began to sink in what their mission was. They were collecting money ($250 to bring ONE Jew from the former USSR to Israel) to help “airlift Jews” from the former USSR “home” to Israel. They kept showing footage of new Russian immigrants landing at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport and being greeted as “New Israeli Citizens” coming home. The narrator of the program made it seem that these “Jews” (I use this term with a great amount of reservation since it is widely known that more than 50% of these so-called Jews are not Jews at all) were being delivered from Pharaohs grip all over again!

As I watched I was bombarded by calls to call the 800 number and make a donation of $250 for every Jew that I want to bring “home” to Israel and fulfill God’s will. The narrator kept on emphasizing that this is one way of pleasing God and that he would bestow MANY blessing on those that helped with this worthy cause…After about 30 minutes, I decided to call the 800 number and have some “fun" . . .

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“We indigenous people say we are not poor, we are impoverished because our access to our land and territories and resources have been curtailed very drastically by states and also corporations, and therefore we’ve become poor. We should not be materially poor, but we are also saying that we are very rich in culture and also in knowledge in terms of how to address the issues of natural resources management.” -- Ms. Vicki Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

By Gale Courey Toensing
Indian country today

NEW YORK – The world’s 370 million indigenous peoples suffer disproportionately high rates of poverty, health problems, crime, unemployment, human rights abuses, and their cultural, and in some cases, physical survival are threatened with extinction, according to the first ever United Nations report on the issues.

“State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples” stresses that land rights, self-determination, and the principles of free, prior and informed consent are necessary for the survival of the world’s indigenous peoples both in developed and developing countries.

The report includes a number of alarming statistics:

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Pentagon Supplier for Rifle Sights Says It Has 'Always' Added New Testament References

By JOSEPH RHEE, TAHMAN BRADLEY and BRIAN ROSS

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.

U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.

One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

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In banning minarets, Switzerland has exposed how fake the rights and freedoms of the West really are for minorities, writes Ramzy Baroud*

So this is how democracy works?

In 2004 France banned headscarves and school principals chased after young "defiant" Muslim girls who continued to cover up in school. Now, following a national referendum, Switzerland has banned minarets, because minarets also somehow symbolise oppression. Thanks to the dedicated action of the far-right Swiss People's Party (SVP), Alpine skies will be free of that menace that would spread intolerance and taint the splendour of Swiss architecture.

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New York Times

Urs Flueeler/Associated Press In the village of Amsteg, Switzerland, a poster promoting the ban on minarets became the site of competing messages on Monday.

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

When Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a ban on construction of minarets in a referendum on Sunday, they surprised some pollsters and disappointed many European leaders, including those of their own government, who opposed the ban and now must find a way to implement it.

A day after nearly 58 percent of Swiss voters supported the ban, Europe found itself thrust into another round of soul-searching precipitated by yet another clash over integrating — or not integrating — a swelling Muslim population.

In France, where similar debates have focused not on architecture but on how some Muslim women dress, Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister, was quick to condemn the results of the Swiss referendum.

“I am a bit shocked by this decision,” Mr. Kouchner said on a French radio program on Monday. “It is an expression of intolerance, and I detest intolerance. I hope the Swiss will reverse this decision quickly.”

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Al Ahram

Clockwise from top left: pro-veil demonstrations in France; "Stop-the-minaret" campaign logo in Switzerland; The Economist cover story on "Eurabia"; a symbolic illustration depicting veiled women on the French flag; a BBC map showing the number of Muslim populations in Europe, hijab -martyr Marwa El-Sherbini; a mosque in Switzerland

Is Europe in the grip of a new wave of Islamophobia? Gihan Shahine investigates

It was not something she did or said. Rather, it was just the way she looked and her manner of dress that cost her her life. Veiled Egyptian pharmacist Marwa El-Sherbini was innocently playing with her three-year-old son in a park in Dresden in Germany when a Russian-German man suddenly called her "a terrorist" among other things.

El-Sherbini called the police and took the matter to court, where she ended up being fatally stabbed by the same man as she prepared to give evidence. El-Sherbini's husband was also stabbed as he tried to protect her, and he was then shot and critically wounded by a police officer who reportedly mistook him for the attacker.

=> Read more!

Al Ahram

Clockwise from top left: pro-veil demonstrations in France; "Stop-the-minaret" campaign logo in Switzerland; The Economist cover story on "Eurabia"; a symbolic illustration depicting veiled women on the French flag; a BBC map showing the number of Muslim populations in Europe, hijab -martyr Marwa El-Sherbini; a mosque in Switzerland

Is Europe in the grip of a new wave of Islamophobia? Gihan Shahine investigates

It was not something she did or said. Rather, it was just the way she looked and her manner of dress that cost her her life. Veiled Egyptian pharmacist Marwa El-Sherbini was innocently playing with her three-year-old son in a park in Dresden in Germany when a Russian-German man suddenly called her "a terrorist" among other things.

El-Sherbini called the police and took the matter to court, where she ended up being fatally stabbed by the same man as she prepared to give evidence. El-Sherbini's husband was also stabbed as he tried to protect her, and he was then shot and critically wounded by a police officer who reportedly mistook him for the attacker.

=> Read more!

Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan

AMSTERDAM — Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan plans to sue Rotterdam City Council and Erasmus University following their decision to sack him over accusations of backing the Iranian regime.

"I will not have my credibility damaged this way," Ramadan, a world famed philosopher and theologist, told the NRC Handelsblad daily on Wednesday, August 19.

The Rotterdam City Council and Erasmus University dismissed Ramadan from his position as integration adviser and visiting professor respectively.

They cited his "Islam & Life" program airing on Iran's Press TV as the reason for the decision.

“"Although there is no doubt about the personal effort of Tariq Ramadan, both boards find this indirect relation with this repressive regime or even to be associated with it, not acceptable," the city of Rotterdam said in a statement.

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By Alan Philps

One of the most popular items on YouTube, the video-sharing website, is a slickly produced clip called Muslim Demographics. Since it was posted in March it has attracted more than 10 million viewers, a score usually reserved for content of a more salacious nature. Far from it: this is a statistics-laden preview of the coming apocalypse, when Europe falls to the silent, swordless jihad of Muslim immigration.

@body arnhem:The authors of the eight-minute video do not declare themselves, but the content indicates that it is the work of an American Christian evangelical organisation using the supposed fate of Europe as a call to raise the alarm in the US before it goes the way of the Old Continent.

It is frightening stuff, intoned over a soundtrack of scary music. Because European women do not have enough babies, the continent is dying out; its fertility rate has already dropped below the point of no return. The wellhead of western civilisation is culturally dead, and only Muslim immigration keeps the place from becoming a desert.

Among the video’s more startling “facts” is that the German government has itself predicted that Germany will become a Muslim state by 2050. Half of all babies born in the Netherlands are Muslim. The Muslim population of Britain exploded thirtyfold in 30 years.

There is one problem: most of the statistics are implausible or downright wrong. The film declares, for example, that Muslim women in France have a total fertility rate of 8.1 children, against the French average of 1.8. Data on the religion of mothers are not collected in France, but if this astounding figure were true it would make French Muslim women the most productive in the world. The world record for fertility is held by Niger, at 7.15, while Algeria and Morocco – from where most French Muslims come – have a rather modest average of 2.38.

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US soldiers have been encouraged to spread the message of their Christian faith among Afghanistan's predominantly Muslim population, video footage obtained by Al Jazeera appears to show.

Military chaplains stationed in the US air base at Bagram were also filmed with bibles printed in the country's main Pashto and Dari languages.

In one recorded sermon, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, is seen telling soldiers that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him".

"The special forces guys - they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down," he says.

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"Zionism is racism because it rejects unity of mankind by depicting Palestinians as inherently inferior, like “worms”, having “genetic defects.”"

By Habib Siddiqui

Part 1:

The subject of racism is a very touchy one for both its current and former practitioners. It was thus expected that some western countries with nasty past records of racism would boycott the UN racism conference in Geneva, scheduled for April 20, 2009. A couple of days before the event, the USA announced that it would sit out the Geneva forum. Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands soon followed suit. Through their boycotting the session they have sent a blatant message endorsing racism.

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NABLUS - Israeli military bulldozers demolished eight Palestinian houses southwest of Nablus Wednesday morning, witnesses said.

The demolitions are the first following a wave of eviction and demolition notices handed out by Israeli authorities to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in March and April.

Ghassan Doglus, the head of a local committee against settlements, said that bulldozers backed by soldiers invaded the Jetit area, near Aqraba village and began destroying buildings.

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"Israel is indeed a racist state!'

By Gilad Atzmon, Apr 21st, 2009

What we saw yesterday at the UN Anti Racism Forum was crude collective institutional Islamophobic racism in its making, a coordinated show of rabid western chauvinism. A bunch of European diplomats behaving as a herd of sheep, exhibiting complete denial of the notion of freedom of speech and the culture of debate.

Israel is indeed a racist state!

Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish state’. Though Jews do not form a racial continuum, their national state’s legislation is racially orientated. The Israeli legal system is discriminatory towards those who fail to be Jews. As if this is not enough, the Israeli army proves to be murderous towards the indigenous inhabitants of the land.

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Ben Zion Netanyahu, left, with his son, Israel's new prime minister.

By Ira Glunts

This weekend the Israeli daily, Ma'ariv, published an interview in Hebrew with Professor Ben Zion Netanyahu, the 99-year-old father of the new Israeli prime minister.

The elder Netanyahu is known for his outspokenness and extreme right-wing views--and he did nothing to contradict his reputation. He decreed that the only solution to the conflict with the Palestinians is the use of military force. He stated that he would not return the Golan Heights to Syria because "you do not return land." He also explained that in his view it is impossible to compromise with Arabs. The Prime Minister's father further opines that the Turks used brutal deadly force to suppress the Arab population and that should be an example to Israel in dealing with Arabs whose nature dictates that they live in a state of perpetual war.

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"From above they said it was permissible (to kill any Palestinians in Gaza), because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn't fled" -- IOF soldier

By Amos Harel

Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon. Since 1998 the program has prepared participants for what is considered meaningful military service. Many assume command positions in combat and other elite units of the Israel Defense Forces. The program's founder, Danny Zamir, still heads it today and also serves as deputy battalion commander in a reserve unit.

The previous Friday, February 13, Zamir had invited combat soldiers and officers who graduated the program for a lengthy discussion of their experiences in Gaza. They spoke openly, but also with considerable frustration.

Following are extensive excerpts from the transcript of the meeting, as it appears in the program's bulletin, Briza, which was published on Wednesday. The names of the soldiers have been changed to preserve their anonymity. The editors have also left out some of the details concerning the identity of the units that operated in a problematic way in Gaza.

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Geert Wilders has threatened to defy the ban on him

A Dutch MP who called the Koran a "fascist book" says he still plans to travel to the UK despite being banned on public security grounds.

Freedom Party MP Geert Wilders was invited to show his controversial film - which links the Islamic holy book to terrorism - in the UK's House of Lords.

But Mr Wilders, who faces trial in his own country for inciting hatred, has been denied entry by the Home Office.

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By V.G. Smith
10 February 2009

While Israeli tanks and bombs hit Gaza, a sales video for an apartment tower in Tel Aviv, 40 miles north of Gaza City, pitches the "Neve Tsedek White City Residence." As photos roll, the voice describes the tower in the heart of the "vibrant cosmopolitan city" of Tel Aviv; it cites "luxurious apartments," even a penthouse designed by Armani Casa, Milan, a "sophisticated lobby, lounge, and business rooms" for new enterprises. Sharing the same Mediterranean coast, Gaza City and Tel Aviv offer a brutal display of contrasts.

There is no need for conference rooms in Gaza, since 80 percent of inhabitants live under the poverty level, and 38 percent are unemployed. No call for penthouses by Armani, Milan, in Palestinian houses destroyed by US-supplied F16s. No sophisticated lobby for shelter, but refugee camps and darkened homes without electricity. While residents of the "White City" tower will enjoy sea views, Gaza inhabitants experience a blockade and see gunboats that occasionally fire "practice" shots inland, which last year killed a family picnicking on Gaza Beach. Where is the truth about these two towns?

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By Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Bethlehem University

Well before the recent murderous Israeli attacks on Gaza, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Northern Command leader Gadi Eisenkot stated that "We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases…This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized." ("IDF plans to use disproportionate force in next war," by Amos Harel, Haaretz, October 5, 2008).

The same report stated that Colonel (Res.) Gabriel Siboni authored a report through Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies backing Eisenkot's statements stating that the answer to rocket and missile threats from Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip is "a disproportionate strike at the heart of the enemy's weak spot, in which efforts to hurt launch capability are secondary...."

Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence service, wrote in the Israeli press that the government “could have stopped the rocket attacks long ago by lifting its siege of Gaza. But [] Israel has a broader interest — to ensure that it is the Fatah party .. and not Hamas that is politically dominant in the Palestinian territories. If Israel's goal were to remove the threat of rockets from the residents of southern Israel, opening the border crossings would have ensured such quiet for a generation. But the real objectives of the operation include preserving Fatah's status as the sole sovereign in the Palestinian Authority (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/04/israel-gaza-invasion-troops-hamas/print)

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Commentary by Saree Makdisi

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- In three weeks of incessant bombardment, Israel killed or injured more than 6,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, and a third of them children.

It pushed the territory it has militarily controlled for four decades (and for the welfare of whose population international law holds it legally accountable) even deeper into deliberately engineered, even fine-tuned, misery.

It wrecked much of what was left of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure after months of siege and years of isolation from the outside world; it smashed thousands of family homes, schools, offices and mosques; it obliterated the personal property of tens of thousands of refugees -- many of whom have now lost two or three homes in succession to Israeli bombs.

Israel’s primary justification for the bombardment of Gaza was that it was intended to stop Palestinian rockets fired into Israeli territory.

But Israel failed to accomplish a single one of its declared objectives. It failed to stop the firing of rockets from Gaza. It failed to stop smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border. And it failed, even in the short run, to bring security to Israel’s own population.

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AL-HAQ ALERT
REF.: 7.2009E
9 February 2009

On 2 February 2009, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported the findings of an “investigation” into an incident in which, that morning, “a Palestinian gunman opened fire at an IDF Patrol Force near the Community Yatir [sic], south of Hebron.” As a result of the investigation, the Israeli military Central Command “assumes” that the “terrorist,” who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, “was intending to execute a terror attack against Israeli civilians.”

After a full field investigation, Al-Haq has determined serious factual inaccuracies and false assumptions in the Israeli authorities’ version of events, and reports the following findings:

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By Linda S. Heard
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Israelis go to the polls next Tuesday (fEB. 10) to choose a new leader. Ahead is Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-wing hard-liner who has little time for the two-state solution, was vehemently against Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and, who, for years, has been banging the drums of war against Iran. This silver-tongued, ruthless individual is highly dangerous. Choosing him is tantamount to choosing war. What are they thinking?

Successive Israeli governments have proved over and over again that they’re not interested in relinquishing land for peace. Instead, “peace process” has become nothing more than a carrot held up as balm for Palestinian discontent and to appease the international community. Israelis have lived in a state of conflict for so long it has become the norm. For most, the status quo is safe and familiar.

Peace would hurtle them into unknown territory. Peace would mean Israel could no longer paint itself as the eternal victim. Peace would erode the emotion felt by its international supporters. Peace would pressure Israel to abide by international laws and conventions and would remove cover for its nuclear weapons program. In short, if peace were ever to reign, tiny Israel would no longer be in the spotlight; no longer of importance on the world stage. Over the decades, Israel has become addicted to its drug of choice: raw military power that shapes its identity, allows it to be a law unto itself and punch above its weight.

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"Another Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache, stated that she was not worried about negative ramifications the Israeli onslaught on Gaza might have on the way the Obama administration would view Israel. She said 'You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can't criticize Israel."

The Israeli spokesman, Nachman Abramovic demonized Palestinian children stating "They may look young to you, but these people are terrorists at heart. Don’t look at their deceptively innocent faces, try to think of the demons inside each of them … I am absolutely certain these people would grow to be evil terrorists if we allowed them to grow… would you allow them to grow to kill your children or finish them off right now? … Honest and moral people ought to differentiate between true humans and human animals. We do kill human animals and we do so unapologetically. Besides who in the West is in a position to lecture us on killing human animals. After all, whose hands are clean?"

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Haaretz

Netanyahu would offer something else. First, he is a faithful representative of an authentic "Israeli" view - an almost complete distrust of Arabs and the chance of reaching peace with them, mixed with condescension and dehumanization. Second, he will finally arouse the world's rage towards us, including that of the new U.S. administration. Sadly, this may be the only chance for the kind of dramatic change that is needed.

By Gideon Levy

Benjamin Netanyahu will apparently be Israel's next prime minister. There is, however, something encouraging about that fact. Netanyahu's election will free Israel from the burden of deception: If he can establish a right-wing government, the veil will be lifted and the nation's true face revealed to its citizens and the rest of the world, including Arab countries. Together with the world, we will see which direction we are facing and who we really are. The masquerade that has gone on for several years will finally come to an end.

Netanyahu's election is likely to bring the curtain down on the great fraud - the best show in town - the lie of "negotiations" and the injustice of the "peace process." Israel consistently claimed these acts proved the nation was focused on peace and the end of the occupation. All the while, it did everything it could to further entrench the occupation and distance any chance of a potential agreement.

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Did Olmert, with one telephone, call turn around US foreign policy agenda? (AP)

By Ramzy Baroud

One cannot emphasize enough the stranglehold Israel's lobbying infrastructure has on US foreign policy. The events of recent weeks undoubtedly attest to this. "The special relationship" that has been historically fostered between the US and Israel in fact, is often a relationship of leverage, manipulation and intimidation, and often leads to the US supporting actions or resolutions that stand at complete odds with the interests of the American people.

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Netanyahu is widely tipped to become
Israel's next prime minister

Benyamin Netanyahu, widely tipped to become Israel's prime minister after elections next week, has vowed to topple the Hamas movement in Gaza, calling the Palestinian group an "Iranian proxy".

Addressing the annual Herzliya security conference on Wednesday, Netanyahu said: "In the end of the day there will be no choice but to remove the Iranian threat in Gaza.

"There will be no escape from toppling the Hamas regime which is the Iranian proxy in the Gaza Strip," he said. "This is the real threat we are facing.

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The greater role of extremist religious groups in the army came to light last week when it emerged that the army rabbinate had handed out a booklet to soldiers preparing for the recent 22-day Gaza offensive.

Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, said the material contained messages “bordering on racist incitement against the Palestinian people” and might have encouraged soldiers to ignore international law.

By JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth.

Extremist rabbis and their followers, bent on waging holy war against the Palestinians, are taking over the Israeli army by stealth, according to critics.

In a process one military historian has termed the rapid “theologisation” of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. They answer to hardline rabbis who call for the establishment of a Greater Israel that includes the occupied Palestinian territories.

Their influence in shaping the army’s goals and methods is starting to be felt, say observers, as more and more graduates from officer courses are also drawn from Israel’s religious extremist population.

“We have reached the point where a critical mass of religious soldiers is trying to negotiate with the army about how and for what purpose military force is employed on the battlefield,” said Yigal Levy, a political sociologist at the Open University who has written several books on the Israeli army.

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Feb 3, 2009 7:52pm GMT

GAZA - Egypt is considering opening its border crossing with the Gaza Strip to allow in reconstruction materials blocked by Israel after its 22-day offensive, Hamas said on Tuesday following a round of talks in Cairo.

Egypt is trying to broker a longer-term truce in the Gaza Strip under which both Israel and Hamas would hold their fire.

Hamas has demanded that Israel lift its blockade of the enclave, but the Jewish state so far has balked at letting in materials like glass, steel and cement needed for reconstruction.

Israeli officials assert that these materials could be used by Hamas to build rockets, bunkers and smuggling tunnels. Israel has conditioned fully lifting its blockade on the release of a soldier captured by Gaza militants in a 2006 cross-border raid.

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While Gaza burned under the weight of thousands of tons of bombs and missiles, the hardships of Palestinians in the West Bank were all but forgotten. While the sat fixated upon the systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army further tightened the levers of occupation in the West Bank.

Settlements have expanded incredibly during the year 2008, despite the signature of the so-called ‘Annapolis Peace Process’ that entitled Israel to freeze the settlement building in the West Bank.

Within the past weeks, hundreds of Palestinians West Bankers have been arrested and detained by Israeli forces, darkening the latest Israeli prisoner release of last December.

While non-violently demonstrating against the massacre in Gaza, 6 Palestinians throughout the West Bank were shot dead by the Israeli forces during the past few weeks.

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3 February 2009

Michael Warschawski

No way we will call it a war! What Israel is perpetuating in Gaza is a genocidal operation, targeting a civilian population without distinction. I am not in the habit of using the term "genocide" lightly, and I have often criticized those who have abused it’s use. However, when artillery and fighter planes are bombarding the center of one of the most densely populated cities in the whole world, I cannot avoid speaking about genocidal intentions.

Several years ago, the whole Gaza Strip, with its one and a half million residents, was declared by Israeli leaders a "terrorist entity" and therefore had no right to exist. The siege imposed on Gaza by Israel, with the active support of Egypt and the Western states, did not break the population or push it to accept a Quisling-like leadership imposed by Israel and the USA. On the contrary, it dramatically strengthened the popularity of the Hamas party and its democratically elected government. According to the neo-conservative strategy, when one fails to "convince" a people to vote according to the wishes of the self-appointed masters of the world, you eradicate the people itself, by civil wars (Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq) and by military interventions (Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine). Gaza delenda est!

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]

GAZA - Israeli F16 fighter jets bombed the borderline between the Gaza Strip and Egypt south of the city of Rafah, and an alleged training camp for Palestinian fighters near the city of Khan Younis on Tuesday evening.

Witnesses reported that the American-made warplanes fired at least one missile in Rafah, and also reported the sound of a massive explosion.

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A mural in Derry, Northern Ireland commemorates solidarity between Palestinians and Irish nationalists. (Ali Abunimah)

The Electronic Intifada
2 February 2009

By Ali Abunimah

US President Barack Obama's appointment of former Senator George Mitchell as his new Middle East envoy is a good choice. Mitchell showed even-handedness uncharacteristic of US officials when he led a fact-finding mission to the region in 2000.

Had its recommendations been followed -- cessation of all violence and a full freeze of Israeli settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land -- the peace process might have made progress. Mitchell, who is already in the Middle East, helped broker the 1998 Belfast Agreement, the key to ending decades of strife in Northern Ireland. Because of historical similarities, that peace agreement is an important precedent for Palestinians and Israeli Jews.

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Benny Morris

Published on January 16, 2004

Survival of the Fittest?
An Interview with Benny Morris

By ARI SHAVIT

Note: Benny Morris is the dean of Israeli 'new historians', who have done so much to create a critical vision of Zionism--its expulsion and continuing oppression of the Palestinians, its pressing need for moral and political atonement. His 1987 book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, chronicled the Zionist murders, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing that drove 600,000-750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, thus refuting the myth that they fled under the orders of Arab leaders. A second edition of this book is due out this month, chronicling even more massacres, and a previously unsuspected number of rapes and murders of Palestinian women. Thus Morris continues to provide crucial documentation for Palestinians fighting the heritage of Al-Nakba, "The Catastrophe."

But in an astonishing recent Ha'aretz interview, after summarizing his new research, Morris proceeds to argue for the necessity of ethnic cleansing in 1948. He faults David Ben-Gurion for failing to expel all Arab Israelis, and hints that it may be necessary to finish the job in the future. Though he calls himself a left-wing Zionist, he invokes and praises the fascist Vladimir Jabotinsky in calling for an "iron wall" solution to the current crisis.

Referring to Sharon's Security Wall, he says, "Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another." He calls the conflict between Israelis and Arabs a struggle between civilization and barbarism, and suggests an analogy frequently drawn by Palestinians, though from the other side of the Winchester: "Even the great American democracy could not have been created democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history."

*****************

Benny Morris says he was always a Zionist. People were mistaken when they labeled him a post-Zionist, when they thought that his historical study on the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem was intended to undercut the Zionist enterprise. Nonsense, Morris says, that's completely unfounded. Some readers simply misread the book. They didn't read it with the same detachment, the same moral neutrality, with which it was written. So they came to the mistaken conclusion that when Morris describes the cruelest deeds that the Zionist movement perpetrated in 1948 he is actually being condemnatory, that when he describes the large-scale expulsion operations he is being denunciatory. They did not conceive that the great documenter of the sins of Zionism in fact identifies with those sins. That he thinks some of them, at least, were unavoidable.

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10-year-old Mona Samouni describes how she became one of the very few survivors of the Samouni extended family, after an attack on the densely populated area of Zeitoun

Warning: Contains footage that some viewers may find distressing