The Corner Report

The September 2007 shooting in Baghdad left 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians dead

"It really invigorates your belief in our court system" -- Bill Coffield, Evan Liberty's lawyer

A US judge has dismissed all charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians in a crowded Baghdad intersection in 2007.

District Judge Ricardo Urbina said on Thursday that US justice department prosecutors improperly built their case on sworn statements that had been given under a promise of immunity.

Urbina said the government's explanations were "contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility".

The September 2007 shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad.

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The National

By Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent

December 31. 2009

NAZARETH // The biggest effect for Israel’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of its assault on Gaza last winter has been to smash any remaining illusions that there is a future for the minority in a Jewish state, the community’s leaders have agreed.

They say that minority voters have almost completely abandoned Zionist parties, even left-wing ones, believing that none is really interested in a peaceful solution to the country’s conflict with the Palestinians.

That was reflected in February, one month after Operation Cast Lead ended, in the lowest turnout ever posted by the Palestinian minority in an election. Only 53 per cent voted, down more than 25 percentage points since the mid-1990s, in the more optimistic Oslo period.

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The National

ByJonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent

NAZARETH // The debate reverberating in the human rights community one year after Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip is not about whether Israel committed war crimes during its attack last winter, but whether and how its political and military leaders can ever be brought to book.

The problems were highlighted this month when an arrest warrant was issued in Britain for Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister during the war, after it was mistakenly believed she was visiting.

The British government responded with anger and promised to change the law to ensure future restrictions on the use of “universal jurisdiction” powers that grant British courts the right to try suspected foreign war criminals.

Human rights experts mostly agree that Israel extensively violated the rules of war during its three-week operation, known as Cast Lead. The consensus was formed early on, as organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch carried out investigations. Their findings were backed by testimonies from Israeli soldiers.

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Standing up for Palestinians is not anti-Semitic because Palestinians are a Semitic people.

By Sonja Karkar

They came one cold December day. Not fearless warriors but fearsome hoardes hell-bent on destruction of the genocidal kind that leaves no room for regeneration. That was one year ago in Gaza.

The attack shocked a complacent world into finally seeing Israel’s merciless ferocity against the Palestinians already hounded, herded and imprisoned in compounds throughout their land, if not actually driven out. More than sixty years of Western devotion to Israel’s security was blown wide open as truth shattered spin in three weeks of carnage and devastation.

Dead bodies do not lie and neither do the maimed and the disfigured. Thousands have been left to make sense of the horrors they saw and the hollow aftermath to which they have been abandoned. Landscapes of rubble as far as the eye can see are still testament to the homes once standing in villages and towns, the homeless now huddled in tents while they wait one year on for materials to re-build. Little food, contaminated water, rationed fuel and electricity and the barest of medical supplies are just more of many cruel and wanton deprivations pushing Palestinian society to the limits of endurance.

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Those pesky drivers of Gaza! (Photo: Via Google/file)

By Ramzy Baroud

Those pesky taxi drivers of Gaza are always circulating rumours. One story that made the rounds during the first Palestinian uprising in 1987 claimed that an Arab army crossed the Sinai desert to save Palestinians from the daily killings and protracted state of siege which caused untold suffering for civilians.

The army in question would change from time to time, but the focus inevitably returned to Egypt. The rumour of an Egyptian military intervention persevered through the years, and it registered deeply in Palestinian psyche, especially among those living in Gaza.

My father, as many in his generation, fought in the Egyptian army and the Palestinian Liberation Army. Following defeat in the war of 1967, he was hauled along wounded and dead Egyptian soldiers across Sinai, as well as on a floating army bridge over the Suez Canal under intense Israeli aerial bombardment. As a child, I once accompanied him on a journey to an impoverished neighborhood in Cairo to look for an Egyptian war buddy of his. When we found out that he was long dead, my father wept. Confused and scared among the ailing buildings, I too cried. Indeed, the bond between Egyptians and Palestinians is historical, everlasting, cemented in blood, sweat and tears.

Yes, everlasting, despite the responses of the Egyptian government to the more recent suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

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Gaza Freedom March activists chant slogans in front of Egyptian riot police during a protest at the center of Cairo, Egypt on Thursday, Dec. 31, 2009.

Organizers of the "Gaza Freedom March" report the death of a French citizen from injuries sustained at the hands of security forces during a demonstration in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Marie Renee died in the Cairo Hospital. She was traveling with a French delegation of approximately 300 nationals, Ma'an news agency reported.

The French delegates had earlier been camped out on the grounds surrounding the French Embassy in Cairo, reportedly flanked by two lines of Egyptian police.

Hundreds of activists with the "Gaza Freedom March" have continued demonstrations and sit-ins in Cairo to protest the Egyptian government's refusal to allow them to cross the border into the besieged Gaza Strip.

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Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar [MaanImages]
Gaza – Ma’an – Hamas has not ruled out a prisoner exchange with Israel, one of the movements top leaders said upon returning from talks on the issue in Damascus.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahhar told Ma’an, “Hamas did not close the door on the Shalit deal.

Hamas is demanding that Israel release some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza.

Zahhar said Hamas is still holding internal consultations on the prisoner deal, and other issues, including reconciliation with Fatah, and the steel wall Egypt is building on the border with Gaza.

He said the wall issue had been raised with the Egyptian government.

Zahhar returned to Gaza on Thursday via the Rafah border crossing along with Hamas officials Khalil Al-Haya and Nezar Awad Allah.

Earlier, Reuters news agency reported that Hamas rejected Israel’s terms for a swap in a message relayed to a German mediator on Wednesday night.

The terms, according to recent reports, were to have approximately 100 of the 450 named prisoners whose release is a condition of the swap, sent to the Gaza Strip or elsewhere in the Middle East, effectively exiling the men and women from their places of origin.

Hamas officials, however, told the mediator they were willing to continue talks and asked to start a fresh round of mediated talks next week, Reuters reported.

The reply came after Hamas officials met in Damascus to form a final decision on the Israeli offer.

"The consultations will continue and the negotiations will continue. We cannot say that the deal has reached a dead end. And we cannot say that (the talks were) concluded by a deal," Hamas leader Ayman Taha told Reuters.

Also on Thursday the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported that Israel is still refusing to release 22 senior Palestinian prisoners, including Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Ahmad Sa’adat, and two of the leaders of Hamas' military wing in the West Bank, Ibrahim Hamad and Abdullah Barghouthi.

In addition, Israel is refusing to free another 15 accused militants from the West Bank, seven from Gaza, 44 from East Jerusalem, and 20 Palestinians living inside Israel.
Maan News

The United Nations independent expert on Palestinian rights has again called for a threat of economic sanctions against Israel to force it to lift its blockade of Gaza, which is preventing the return to a normal life for 1.5 million residents after the devastating Israeli offensive a year ago.

“Obviously Israel does not respond to language of diplomacy, which has encouraged the lifting of the blockade and so what I am suggesting is that it has to be reinforced by a threat of adverse economic consequences for Israel,” Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, told UN Radio.

“That probably is something that is politically unlikely to happen, but unless it happens, it really does suggest that the United States and the Quartet and the EU [European Union] don’t take these calls for lifting the blockade very seriously and are unaffected by Israel’s continuing defiance of those calls,” he said, referring to the diplomatic Quartet of the UN, EU, Russia and US, which have been calling for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

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By Gideon Levy

This highway has told the whole story. They pave a road, expropriate Palestinian land and the High Court of Justice approves the expropriation, in its words, "provided that it is done for the sake of the local population."

Afterwards they prevent the "local population" from using the road, and finally they build a wall with drawings of creeks and meadows so we don't see and don't know that we are driving on an apartheid road, that we are traveling on the axis of evil.

Apartheid? What are you talking about? It's just a freeway to the capital, because that's how we like it best. Going (quickly) along with the occupation and feeling like there is none. That way the highway has fulfilled another secret national wish - that they get out of our faces.

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By Pepe Escobar

BEIJING - For all the rhapsodies on the advent of the New Silk Road, it may have come into effect for good last week, when China and Central Asia got together to open a crucial Pipelineistan node linking Turkmenistan to China's Xinjiang.

By 2013, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong will be cruising to ever more dizzying heights courtesy of gas supplied by the 1,833-kilometer Central Asia Pipeline from Turkmenistan - operating at full capacity. The pipeline will even help China achieve its goals in terms of curbing carbon emissions.

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More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Operation Cast Lead, but author says the war damaged Israel's standing in international public opinion [EPA]

By Ali Abunimah

One year has passed since the savage Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, but for the people there time might as well have stood still.

Since Palestinians in Gaza buried their loved ones - more than 1,400 people, almost 400 of them children - there has been little healing and virtually no reconstruction.

According to international aid agencies, only 41 trucks of building supplies have been allowed into Gaza during the year.

Promises of billions made at a donors' conference in Egypt last March attended by luminaries of the so-called "international community" and the Middle East peace process industry are unfulfilled, and the Israeli siege, supported by the US, the European Union, Arab states, and tacitly by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, continues.

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Israel declared a 10-month suspension of settlement construction in the West Bank earlier this month

Israel has approved a plan to promote the construction of 14 structures in northern settlement of Kiryat Netafim in the occupied West Bank, the Haaretz newspaper says quoting a radio station.

The defence ministry on Tuesday approved the Kiryat Netafim construction plans to legalise the construction of 14 structures, the paper quoted Army Radio as saying on Wednesday.

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A year after the war, many displaced families still live in tents GALLO/GETTY]

By Safa Joudeh in Gaza

One year has passed since the beginning of Operation Cast lead, Israel's 22-day military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip and suspended is a word that best describes daily life in the Strip; the internal reconciliation process, peace talks with Israel, and most importantly, reconstruction being halted until further notice.

On the street, conversations shift between two topics: The first is the 'internal peace process' between rival parties Fatah and Hamas. The other is a possible, even partial opening of the borders by Israel to allow rebuilding to begin; a topic alluded to casually with much cynicism and little hope.

Israeli ground and air raids between December 27, 2008 and January 17, 2009 left extensive damage and mass devastation in its wake.

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Photo by AFP

By Ayman Mohyeldin

However one looks at it…rest assured the people of Gaza, their institutions, civil society, and military factions have survived and defied isolation, siege and war no matter who I would have profiled.

Are they resilient? Defiant? Suffering? Weakened? Conservative? Militant? Victorious? United? There isn’t a single lens through which you can view the Palestinian people of Gaza, their suffering or their struggle.

A report that I did recently generated some criticism for looking at an unidentified Palestinian faction’s capabilities to manufacture rockets in Gaza.

The report did not identify a particular faction making the rockets. The interview featured ‘Abu Obeida’ the spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, the Izzedeen Al Qassam Brigades. The group manufacturing the rockets profiled in the report is not necessarily related to Hamas.

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Simply stated, without U.S. support, none of this could go on. (Google)

By Jeremy R. Hammond

One year ago today, Israel launched 'Operation Cast Lead', a murderous full-scale military assault on the small, densely populated, and defenseless Gaza Strip. The operation resulted in the massacre of over 1,300 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians, including hundreds of children.

This includes only those killed directly by military attacks. The actual casualty figure from Israel’s policies towards Gaza, including the number of deaths attributable to its ongoing siege of the territory, is unknown.

The official pretext for the operation given by Israel and parroted unquestioningly in the Western media is that Israel had to respond with force as an act of self-defense against to an onslaught of rocket attacks against southern Israel from Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza.

Even if this were true, nations acting in self-defense against armed attacks must respect international law designed to protect civilians in time of war. Israel flagrantly violated the Geneva Conventions and other relevant treaties governing the use of force during the course of its operation, committing numerous war crimes.

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The 10-months suspension of settlements announced recently does not include east Jerusalem [AFP]

Israel housing ministry has approved plans to build almost 700 new apartments in three Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem.

Palestinian officials as well as the United States were quick to condemn Monday's move as incompatible with efforts to restart the stalled peace process.

"The Palestinian Authority strongly condemns the new decision to build in east Jerusalem and wonders whether there is a freeze of settlement activity or an intensification of it," Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said.

"The American administration needs to realise that the policies of the Israeli government embody settlements and not peace and that their choice is settlements and not peace."

The White House called for Israel and the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible and for Israel to halt the construction of new homes.

"The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem," Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.

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Gaza's humanitarian crisis not a 'natural disaster' but a 'deliberate policy', author says[

By Ben White

As the one year anniversary of Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip is marked, it is vital to re-examine Operation Cast Lead within the wider context of Israel's approach to both Gaza and the Palestinians.

There is a danger that the scale of the devastation and the international protests which followed the war can deflect attention from the broader Israeli policies of collective punishment and deliberately-engineered socio-economic collapse.

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Haaretz

By Gideon Levy

Today offers us an ironic conjuncture of commemorations: the fast of the 10th of the Hebrew month of Tevet and the first anniversary of Operation Cast Lead. On the day of the fast, which commemorates the Babylonian siege on Jerusalem, few Israelis are thinking about Gaza, under Israeli blockade for twice the time ancient Jerusalem was besieged. On the anniversary of the attack on Gaza, few people are doing any real soul-searching.

One way or another, the year since December 27 was a year of shame for Israel, greater shame than any other time. It is shameful to be Israeli today, much more than it was a year ago. In the final tally of the war, which was not a war but a brutal assault, Israel's international status was dealt a severe blow, in addition to Israeli indifference and public blindness to what happened in Gaza.

Even those who still believe that the attack was justified and necessary, that the firing of Qassam rockets would not have been halted except by such a cruel attack, cannot ignore the political and moral price extracted from Israel because of its violence. Its image in the world, not in the eyes of its citizens, is much uglier than a year ago.

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Special forces of the Israeli army killed three Palestinians in the West bank [EPA]

Israeli soldiers have killed six Palestinians in two separate incidents.

Three of the deaths occurred when Palestinians trying to cross the security barrier from the Gaza Strip into Israel were shot on Saturday, news agencies reported citing a Palestinian medical source.

Palestinian medics and sources said the other three Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers during a West Bank raid.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians suspected of trying to infiltrate from Gaza, which is governed by Hamas.

However, a Hamas security source said the three were apparently civilians collecting scrap metal in an industrial zone near the Israeli border.

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threatened another massive war against the Gaza Strip as the impoverished enclave continues to suffer in the aftermath of the devastating January offensive.

Israeli planes have been dropping thousands of leaflets across Gaza, warning Palestinians against cooperating with the resistance fighters based in the coastal sliver.

The leaflets also threaten Gazans with a new attack just ahead of the first anniversary of Israel's 22-day onslaught against the Palestinian territory.

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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Jerusalem center for social and economic rights (JCSER) said Wednesday that Israel intends to establish a new infrastructure for the Old City in occupied Jerusalem, noting that this two-year project is aimed at Judaizing the whole city and putting more economic pressure on Jerusalemites to force them to leave.

The center affirmed that merchants in the Old City told it that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) informed them about this project and ordered them to close their stores for long months.

The JCSER noted that this project has nothing to do with improving the infrastructure for the Palestinians living inside the holy city but it is related to a complex network of tunnels under the city.

It added that this project includes a plan to install over 150 new surveillance cameras in all alleys and streets of the Old City as well as inside the tunnels and in the vicinity and walls of the Aqsa Mosque.

http://tinyurl.com/ylabae7

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Jerusalem center for social and economic rights (JCSER) said Wednesday that Israel intends to establish a new infrastructure for the Old City in occupied Jerusalem, noting that this two-year project is aimed at Judaizing the whole city and putting more economic pressure on Jerusalemites to force them to leave.

The center affirmed that merchants in the Old City told it that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) informed them about this project and ordered them to close their stores for long months.

The JCSER noted that this project has nothing to do with improving the infrastructure for the Palestinians living inside the holy city but it is related to a complex network of tunnels under the city.

It added that this project includes a plan to install over 150 new surveillance cameras in all alleys and streets of the Old City as well as inside the tunnels and in the vicinity and walls of the Aqsa Mosque.

http://tinyurl.com/ylabae7

By NEVE GORDON

"Why," I have often been asked, "haven't the Palestinians established a peace movement like the Israeli Peace Now?"

The question itself is problematic, being based on many erroneous assumptions, such as the notion that there is symmetry between the two sides and that Peace Now has been a politically effective movement. Most important, though, is the false supposition that Palestinians have indeed failed to create a pro-peace popular movement.

In September 1967 – three months after the decisive war in which the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem were occupied – Palestinian leaders decided to launch a campaign against the introduction of new Israeli textbooks in Palestinian schools. They did not initiate terrorist attacks, as the prevailing narratives about Palestinian opposition would have one believe, but rather the Palestinian dissidents adopted Mahatma Gandhi-style methods and declared a general school strike: teachers did not show up for work, children took to the streets to protest against the occupation and many shopkeepers closed shop.

Israel's response to that first strike was immediate and severe: it issued military orders categorising all forms of resistance as insurgency – including protests and political meetings, raising flags or other national symbols, publishing or distributing articles or pictures with political connotations, and even singing or listening to nationalist songs.

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Israel's parliament has begun hearings on the theft of human organs from Palestinians, Israelis and foreign workers without their relatives' permission.

Israeli health officials testified on Wednesday that Israeli authorities harvested organs from the dead bodies of Israelis and Palestinians in the 1990s for transplant purposes.

The testimony came three days after the government admitted to the practice, following previous denials.

Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from Jerusalem, said Wednesday's hearing was not the first time Israeli officials have had to face difficult questions in parliament about the organ theft issue.

"What we tended to see in the past was officials trying to skirt around the issue, really not wanting to confirm or deny that organ theft took place," she said.

"What we had on Wednesday was a very public admission by an Israeli official that organ theft was in fact taking place.

"But the health ministry said it was a practice that happened in the past and is no longer a problem."

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The 'Saddam must go' campaign, begun in a Kristol and Kagan editorial.

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

'One reason neocons have been able to sow so much mischief is that they feed into deeply embedded American beliefs about democratism and 'chosenness.'" -- Paul Gottfried.

Americans feeling let down by Barack Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan should take careful note of those who welcomed yet another “surge.” It might help them to identify the source of their seemingly endless wars.

For instance, in a recent Washington Post opinion piece, William Kristol described Obama’s West Point speech as “encouraging.” It was “a good thing,” he said, that Obama was finally speaking as “a war president.”

But if the comments on the Post website are anything to go by, few ordinary Americans take Kristol’s armchair warmongering seriously anymore. After all, as one poster quizzically asked, “A column by William Kristol the neocon that was wrong about everything from 2000-2008?”

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President Mahmoud Abbas [MaanImages]

BETHLEHEM – Ma’an – President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview published on Tuesday that he stopped a third Palestinian intifada from occurring during the Israeli offensive against Gaza last winter

Speaking to New York’s Wall Street Journal, Abbas also said he would not allow another uprising to take place as long as he stays in office.

“I will not allow a new intifada. As long as I'm in office, I will not allow anybody to start a new intifada. Never never. But if I leave, it's no longer my responsibility and I can't make any guarantees. It could happen,” he said.

“It's not my business to follow up. I promise and I can do. And I already promised and I did during the invasion of Gaza. At that time everybody asked me to go to a third intifada, but I prevented anybody from doing it.”

In the interview he also denied reports that the CIA is working closely with PA security forces who torture detainees.

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Dissident Voice

By James Petras

Obama want to see a stop to settlements: Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions.
– Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, May 2009

What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements … is unprecedented, there has never been a precondition, it’s always been an issue within negotiations.
– Hillary Clinton, BBC, November 1, 2009 (my emphasis)

The US administration understands what we have always said … that the real obstacle to negotiations is the Palestinians (calling for a freeze on settlements).
– Israeli Minister of Science and Technology Daniel Hershkowitz, November 1, 2009 (my addition)

America, stop sucking up to Israel!
– Gideon Levy, Israeli journalist, Haaretz, November 1, 2009

US Zionists are sticking it to America, 24/7.
– Anonymous Staff Official, Washington D. C., October 31, 2009

Introduction

The discussion of Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) in the US political system revolves around several essential issues, including:

1. The claims by the ZPC that it represents Jewish opinion and values as well as its authority to speak for the interests of the American people.
2. Measuring the power of the ZPC and determining its influence over policy, appointments and political institutions.
3. The question of whether the ZPC is a legitimate part of the US political system, another lobby, or something very different, an unregistered agent of a foreign power (Israel).
4. The scope and depth of the ZPC influence in US politics beyond the focus on its “lobbying” in Washington on a “single issue”.
5. The organizational weapons and techniques utilized by the ZPC to maximize influence and deny voice and influence to critics of Israel and itself.
6. The similarities of the organizational linkages of the Israel-Zionist relationship to the Russian – Stalinist Communist Parties of the 1930’s.

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Harvested organs were alleged to have been used by the military and in public hospitals

The practice is said to have ended in 2000.

Israel has admitted that it harvested organs from the dead bodies of Palestinians and Israelis in the 1990s, without permission from their families.

The admission follows the release of an interview with Jehuda Hiss, the former head of Israel's forensic institute, in which he said that workers at the institute had harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers.

In the interview, which was conducted in 2000 when Hiss was head of Tel Aviv's Abu Kabir forensic institute, he said: "We started to harvest corneas ... Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family."

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who conducted the interview, told Al Jazeera on Monday that Hiss had said the "body parts were used by hospitals for transplant purposes - cornea transplants. They were sent to public hospitals [for use on citizens].

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By Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today

KENT, Conn. – The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation has taken the next step in the long struggle to restore its federal recognition.

Tribal attorneys submitted two combined petitions with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York at the end of November.

The first asks a three-judge panel to rehear the nation’s appeal of a ruling by U.S. District Court Senior Judge Peter Dorsey that upheld the BIA’s decision to rescind the nation’s federal acknowledgment. The panel dismissed the appeal in October.

The second asks for an en banc hearing by the full nine-judge court.

The ongoing case centers on the BIA’s unparalleled decision in October 2005 to strip the nation of the federal acknowledgment the agency itself had granted in January 2004.

The reversal came in the wake of a fierce and coordinated campaign of political opposition to the nation’s acknowledgment that was exerted on federal decision makers by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Gov. Jodi Rell, the entire Connecticut congressional delegation, and others.

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The US provided firepower and intelligence to help the Yemeni government launch a series of deadly raids against suspected al-Qaeda bases in the country, the New York Times has reported.

Barack Obama, the US president approved the military and intelligence support after receiving a request from the Yemeni government, the newspaper reported late on Friday, citing officials familiar with the operations.

Yemeni security officials said that at least 34 suspected al-Qaeda fighters were killed on Thursday in the raids, which targeted sites in the southern province of Abyan and in the district of Arhab, which lies northeast of the capital Sanaa.

Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, denied that the US launched missiles during the raids.

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This is a continuation of a terrible legacy that goes back decades.

By Ramzy Baroud

A just and peaceful solution to the protracted Palestinian-Israeli conflict is only possible when the US ceases to block every attempt made towards it.

This assertion might raise many questions, for example, just how is one to define a just and peaceful resolution? And for what reasons would the US obstruct such a possibility, considering that stability in the Middle East is, or at least should be a top American priority?

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Analyst says apologies to Israel over arrest warrants undermine British judiciary.

More than half of the 1,400 Gazans killed during Operation Cast Lead were civilians

By Daud Abdullah

David Miliband, the UK's foreign secretary, has apologised to his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, after the humiliation and embarrassment caused by the issuing of a warrant for the arrest of Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister.

The arrest warrant was issued over Livni's suspected war crimes role during Israel's war on Gaza, but was later withdrawn after she cancelled her visit to London.

Miliband also promised to begin work immediately to change UK laws to ensure that no such warrants would be issued for Israeli officials in the future. As an added sweetener to the act of contrition, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, also personally called Livni to assure her she would always be welcomed to visit the UK.

All of this is easier said than done. Already there is a huge outcry in Britain over the mere thought of changing UK laws or reneging on treaty obligations simply to protect Israeli officials involved in the serial breach of international law.

In their deluded fantasy the Israelis claim that the judicial order in London will seriously impair bi-lateral relations between London and Tel Aviv, jeopardise the Middle East peace process and undermine Britain's image in the region.

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Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:11:23 GMT
The speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Aziz Dweik

The Palestinian Legislative Council speaker says the the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has no constitutional authority to extended the tenure of Mahmoud Abbas as acting chief of the Palestinian Authority.

"The PLO's central council violated all political norms when it took such a step and interfered in the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC),” Aziz Dweik told Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite news channel on Wednesday.

“The solution to discord over Abbas' term extension lies in one of these two things: either to task legal experts with in-depth study of the matter or to resolve it through a national reconciliation agreement," he added.

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The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem [MaanImages]

BETHLEHEM - Hundreds of right-wing Jewish Israelis are expected to descend on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Thursday, groups told the Jerusalem Post.

A report published on Tuesday in the Israeli daily cited an unnamed group of activists saying they hoped hundreds would show up for a day of organized tours and prayers at the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The event is being termed a “mass pilgrimage” honoring the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

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We must 'oppose U.S. military and economic aid for Israel.'

By Labor for Palestine

(Open Letter from U.S. Trade Unionists to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: Boycott Apartheid Israel; December 2009)

"Sanctions alone cannot eradicate apartheid; that task is ultimately left to the people of South Africa themselves. But economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land." --Richard L. Trumka, June 23, 1987

"We call on other workers and unions to . . . do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free." -- Congress of South African Trade Unions, February 3, 2009

"We urge all international trade unions to heed the call of Palestinian civil society, including the trade union movement, by endorsing BDS. We further urge all trade unions and trade union federations to sever their links with the Histadrut, a Zionist organization that has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel's occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination, and that has justified and applauded Israel's war crimes in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009." -- Palestinian Trade Union Movement Unanimously Confirms Support for BDS, November 25, 2009

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Complete withdrawal of US from Iraq is prerequisite for a free country. (Zoriah.net)

By Nicola Nasser – West Bank

Nowhere it is more obvious than in Iraq that the existence of an election law, elections themselves and the constitution they are based on are not indicators of democracy or legitimacy, because these mechanisms are merely symbols of the antithesis of the mechanisms of democracy as practiced back home by the U.S. occupying power.

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Palestinians inspect the damage done to a mosque that was set on fire in WB. (Via NYT)

By Dallas Darling

When Jewish extremists in Palestinian territory attacked a mosque and set fire to Muslim holy books and prayer carpets, it was reminiscent of the cremation of the Strasbourg Jews. Only in this case, it is the cremation of Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, and it includes their dream of an independent state and self-determination. Several days earlier, extremists also set fire to Palestinian houses and vehicles and burned a grove of olive trees in a village near Bethlehem.

In 1349, six-hundred-and-sixty years ago, Jacob von Konigshofen wrote that over 2000 Jews were burned on a wooden platform in their cemetery. They had been blamed for the widespread horrors of the Black Death. Europeans were searching for the causes of the Black Death, when rumors spread Jews had poisoned water wells. It was in Strasbourg, a city along the Rhine River, where Jews were rounded-up, detained, and cremated. After killing the Jews, the Strasbourg Council seized all of their cash and possessions. All debts to those who were cremated were canceled.

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The arrest warrants against Israeli leaders are indeed just a symbolic act.

By Gilad Atzmon - London

Senior officials in Israel confirmed reports on Monday that a British court issued a warrant against opposition leader Mrs. Tzipi Livni for her role in orchestrating Israel's military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last December.

British sources reported that though a British court had issued an arrest warrant for Livni over war crimes committed in Gaza, it annulled it upon discovering she was not in the U.K.

As many of us predicted for more than a while the tide is changing. Now Israeli political and military leaders are finally being chased.

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em>"I feel honest revulsion at the idea of a case where a judge has granted an arrest warrant and a politician gets on the phone and apologises," said Daniel Machover, a solicitor. "They have got to stay out of individual cases and legal decisions."

• Brown 'totally opposed' to attempted arrest of Israeli
• Lawyers reject 'safeguards' for visiting foreign leaders

Israeli former minister Tzipi Livni was phoned by Gordon Brown to say he ‘completely opposed’ a warrant for her arrest. Photograph: Gerard Cerles/AFP/Getty Images

The attorney general will be asked to approve warrants before suspected war criminals can be arrested in future under a plan being negotiated by the Foreign Office in response to the row over attempts to arrest Israel's former foreign minister.

The Guardian has learned that discussions have begun in Whitehall on creating "safeguards" in criminal cases against visiting foreign leaders – not just those from Israel. Lawyers involved said they were outraged by the proposed change.

Gordon Brown today threw his weight behind moves to change the law and telephoned Tzipi Livni, leader of the Israeli opposition, to say he "completely opposed" the warrant issued by a London magistrates court for her arrest for alleged crimes in relation to the war in Gaza. The warrant was withdrawn when it transpired that Livni was not in the UK, but triggered a huge diplomatic spat in which politics clashed head-on with the law.

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Zionist Israeli's illegal Apartheid Wall of Hatred snakes through Palestine and cuts up communities and areas into bantustans. In 2004, the international World Court deemed the wall and all settlements in the West Bank illegal.

BETHLEHEM – Just days before Bethlehem's busiest tourist season begins, Israeli authorities implemented a ban on foreign-passport holders traveling to Jerusalem on Palestinian buses.

On 11 December, Bethlehem tourists began to report being pulled off line 21, a route used predominantly by holders of East Jerusalem residency cards, as they stopped for inspection at the Jerusalem tunnel entrance into Israel.

For years, foreign-passport holders using public transportation could choose between the tunnel bus, which departs near Beit Jala, or Israel's military checkpoint 300, known colloquially as Gilo or Rachel's Tomb.

A high-ranking Israeli security official confirmed the policy change on Monday. "This issue is being resolved presently. Everything will be completed in a day or so, possibly even today," the official said, confirming that, for now, redirecting foreign-passport holders from the tunnel to checkpoint 300 is a matter of policy.

Palestinian Authority security sources said the phenomenon follows a unilateral decision by Israeli authorities made months ago to ban foreigners from the route.

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Abbas does not want a second term in office due to frustrations with Israel and the US

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has extended the mandates of both president Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas-dominated parliament until new elections are held.

The decision was made by PLO's Central Council at a meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday.

Qaid al-Ghul, a PLO representative said: "The PLO took the decision that president Abbas and the Legislative Council will continue their duties until the next election in accordance with the Basic Law."

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GAZA, (PIC)-- The Movement of Hamas stated Tuesday that Mahmoud Abbas’s speech before the central council of the Palestine liberation organization (PLO) is an attempt to pave the way for his return to the frivolous negotiations with the Israeli occupation.

In a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC), Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that Abbas’s speech included many points that need clarification especially his allegation about his adherence to the Palestinian constants.

Spokesman Abu Zuhri refuted this allegation, saying that Abbas publicly recognized the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation, which means a waiver of 80 percent of the occupied Palestinian land, and renounced the right of return when he talked about his approval to a just solution agreed upon in this regard with Israel.

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RAMALLAH – Official sources in the Fatah movement said they secured a promise from President Mahmud Abbas that he would not "make any surprise decisions" around whether or not to run for reelection in the next Palestinian vote.

The source said Abbas made the commitment front of the Fatah Central Committee, which met Tuesday in Ramallah. The committee reportedly took the comments as a sign that Abbas would not resign before elections are held.

Abbas was also quoted as telling the party's highest governing body that "there remain steps I can take, but I will discuss them at a later date."

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By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

The recent arrest warrant issued in London for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is more than justified.

This woman, along with two other Israeli leaders, Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, stood at the helm of the Israeli government that ordered, supervised and charted the genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip this time last year.

She was a chief participant in the decision-making process who also supervised the progress of the hideous massacre from the beginning to the end.

Needless to say, the decisions taken by Livni, and other suspected Israeli war criminals, did lead to the murder of more than 1440 people, including hundreds of innocent children whose lives were terminated by indiscriminate bombings from air, land and sea. This is in addition to the pornographic destruction of a huge part of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including tens of thousands of homes, mosques, and public buildings of every kind.

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Does Obama want to fool anyone?

By Mary Rizzo

Barack Obama is a very handsome man. He has the charisma of a showman. He speaks very well, and what's more, he can even dance. It's not clear whether that is sufficient criteria to make one into a president, oops, not "a" president but "The President", but it certainly was enough to get one elected for the position.

And yet, Obama is nothing if not humble. He recognised that he really didn't (yet) deserve the world's most important honour, the Nobel Peace Prize, but he also recognised last week that while he is “The President”, someone else is “The Boss”.

What does all of this mean in the big picture? Quite a lot, actually, because whether he deserves it or not, Obama is there, in the highest echelons of power and glory, getting the greatest achievement awards for being … handsome, charismatic and cool. Since the advent of widespread mass media, style has definitely overcome substance as the top priority, the winning attribute. As a matter of fact, the soul of commerce is advertising, and Obama has been selected to represent the “American Image” that wants to be loved once again, whether or not they deserve it.

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Berlanty is being persecuted by the illegal invader and occupier. (Photo: CNN/file)

By Stuart Littlewood – London

The dragged-out scandal of final-year Bethlehem student Berlanty Azzam's arrest and abduction - handcuffed and blindfolded – and subsequent dumping in Gaza in the middle of the night just weeks before she was due to complete her degree, has horrified the Christian world far beyond the walled-in, imprisoned city of modern-day Bethlehem.

Berlanty, a young Christian girl, is being persecuted and cruelly denied her inalienable rights by the illegal invader and occupier, just like any of her Muslim friends and neighbours.

She was snatched by the Israeli military while returning from a job interview in Ramallah. That was around six weeks ago. Since then she has been forced to kick her heels far from the University at this most important time in her studies.... and in her young life.

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Lilysussman’s Blog

Posted in Uncategorized by lilysussman on November 30, 2009

I was sitting on the deck overlooking the Red Sea. Israeli security officers (most who looked around 18 years old) had completed around two hours of questioning and searching me. They had pressed every sock and scarf with a security device, ripped open soap and had me strip extra layers. They asked me tons of questions–where are you going? Who do you know? Do you have a boyfriend? Is he Arab, Egyptian, Palestinian? Why do you live in Egypt? Why not Israel? What do you know about the ‘conflict’ here? What do you think? They quized me on Judaism,which I know nothing about.

Then they asked me to wait. Since they had asked for friends and families phone numbers I assumed they might be calling to verify my answers to questions or confirm I really had extended family in Tel Aviv. An announcement played over the sound system, interrupting my break in the sunshine. First in Hebrew, then Arabic, then in English. It was something along the lines of, ” do not to be alarmed by gunshots because the Israeli security needs to blow up suspicious passanger luggage.”

I went inside to check on my bag. I had left it unattended, where they instructed. It was still there so I went back outside.

Moments later a man came outside and introduced himself as the manager on duty. And then, “I’m sorry but we had to blow up your laptop. “

What….all my client case notes and testimony, writing, pictures, music and applications. Years of work. NO!!!! What?? Are you insane?? What were you thinking? THAT’S ALL MY WORK!?

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By Bar Ben Ari and Or Hirshauga, TheMarker Correspondents

Israel Border Police officers shot at an American student's laptop as she entered Israel via Taba, Egypt, two weeks ago.

Lily Sussman, 21, wrote on her blog that border police subjected her to two hours of questioning and searches prior to shooting her Apple Macbook three times. (See next posting.)

"They had pressed every sock and scarf with a security device, ripped open soap and had me strip extra layers. They asked me tons of questions?where are you going?" Sussman wrote, describing the experience.

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On Monday, Israel’s the chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, visited the West Bank village of Yasuf, where the local mosque was vandalized last week.

By ROBERT MACKEY

On Monday, Israel’s the chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Yona Metzger, visited the West Bank village of Yasuf, where the local mosque was vandalized last week.

Following up on a story The Lede discussed on Friday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that one of the two most senior religious leaders of Israel’s Jewish community paid a visit on Monday to the West Bank village of Yasuf, where a mosque was set on fire and covered with Hebrew graffiti last week. Israeli and Palestinian officials have blamed the attack on Israeli settlers.

According to Haaretz, Yona Metzger, Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, told residents, “I came here to expression my revulsion at this wretched act of burning a place holy to the Muslim people.” Agence France-Presse reported that that he drew an explicit comparison to Kristallnacht, the November 1938 attacks on Jewish synagogues and businesses in Nazi Germany. “Seventy years ago,” Rabbi Metzger said, “the Holocaust, the biggest tragedy of our history, began with the torchings of synagogues during Kristallnacht.”

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Tzipi Livni, Angel of Death of Gaza; Irma Grese, right, Angel of Death of Auschwitz

Israel has reacted angrily to an arrest warrant issued, and later withdrawn, by a British court against Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister, over her role during Israel's war on Gaza.

Speaking on Israeli army radio on Tuesday, Israel's ambassador to the UK urged Britain to change the law, which has allowed groups to pursue charges against non-citizens for alleged crimes committed outside the UK.

"The current situation has become intolerable, it is time that it change," Ron Prosor said.

"I am convinced that the British government will understand that it is time to react and not content itself with declarations."

Livni, who heads the opposition Kadima party, had been expected to travel to London but cancelled the visit due to what her office said was a scheduling conflict.

But a statement from the Israeli foreign ministry later indicated that a British court had issued a warrant for her arrest.

The UK's Guardian newspaper also said that it had established a warrant had been issued by Westminster magistrates' court.

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Livni served as Israel's foreign minister during the country's war in Gaza earlier this year [REUTERS]

A British court reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Israel's former foreign minister on charges relating to Israel's 22-day war on Gaza, before apparently withdrawing it after it was found she was not in the country.

Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima party, had been expected to travel to London this week for an event organised by the Jewish National Fund, followed by meetings with British government officials.

Livni cancelled the visit two weeks before the event was due to take place.

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The Israeli cabinet has decided to list some Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as "national priority zones".

The decision announced on Sunday entitles the communities built on land taken from Palestinians to millions of dollars of extra state funding.

The cabinet's move comes just weeks after Israel instituted a 10-month moratorium on new building permits in the settlements after months of US pressure.

The cabinet voted to approve a proposal to include settlements in the list of communities designated as national priority zones, which entitles them to credits worth $41 million.

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Remember September 11 by Carlos Latuff

"It's very good….Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)". – Response of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when asked on September 11, 2001 what the attacks meant for U.S.-Israeli relations.

Game theory war-planners rely on mathematical models to anticipate and shape outcomes with staged provocations. For the agent provocateur, the reactions to a provocation-as well as the reactions to those reactions-thereby become predictable within an acceptable range of probabilities.

With ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan poised to expand to Iran and Pakistan, it is time to take a closer look at how conflicts are catalyzed-by way of deception.

When Israeli game theorist Robert J. Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science, he conceded from Jerusalem, "the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel" has turned "Israel into the leading authority in this field." A professor at the Center for the Study of Rationality at Hebrew University, Aumann's Nobel lecture, titled "War and Peace," expounded on the rationality of war.

With a well-modeled provocation, a target's anticipated reaction can even become a weapon in the aggressor's arsenal. In response to the provocation of 9-11, how difficult was it to foresee that the U.S. would deploy its military to avenge that attack? With U.S. intelligence "fixed" by well-placed insiders around a predetermined goal, how difficult was it to anticipate that the reaction to 9-11 could be redirected to wage war in Iraq?

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By BEN HUBBARD

RAMALLAH, West Bank — A leader of the most persistent Palestinian protest movement against Israel's West Bank separation barrier was asleep in his home when troops broke down his door and arrested him.

Supporters of Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, a 38-year-old teacher, say his pre-dawn arrest on Thursday by dozens of troops is part of a recent, heavy-handed campaign by Israel to shut down a five-year-old movement that is the last source of unrest in the West Bank.

Since 2005, demonstrators led by Abu Rahmeh have marched every Friday from the West Bank village of Bilin to the nearby separation barrier that slices off 60 percent of the village land. Their acts of protest, which have also included chaining themselves to trees, have won praise from Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu and support among Israeli peace activists.

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Hamas: PA forces detain over 250 supporters

As part of the collaboration between the U.S., Israeli, and Abbas's Palestinian Authority, US General Keith Dayton trains PA forces to attack Palestinians who support Hamas.

GAZA – Hamas on Sunday accused the Palestinian Authority of stepping up detentions of its affiliates, lawmakers, and senior leaders in the West Bank as the Islamic movement's 22nd anniversary approaches.

On the ground, a large number of Abbas’s militia men raided Saturday evening the village of Saida, north of Tulkarem, and stormed and ransacked dozens of homes before kidnapping 20 Palestinian citizens including school students thought to be affiliated with Hamas.

Local sources told the Palestinian Information Cnter (PIC), that dozens of Abbas’s militia men boarding military vehicles invaded the village in a way more brutal than the Israeli incursions and started to deploy in the streets cursing and pushing citizens, and breaking into homes.

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KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza, Palestine -- The Movement of Hamas on Sunday called on the Palestinian people in the West Bank to move to defend their mosques against Israeli settlers’ attacks.

Hamas spokesman Hammad Al-Ruqub said that Israel’s arson attack on a mosque in the village of Yasuf, south of Nablus, reflected its enmity towards Islam and Muslims.

Spokesman Ruqub said that this crime comes in the context of Israel’s war on holy places and houses of worship as it did during its war on Gaza, accusing it of violating all international conventions and norms on the protection of holy shrines.

Jewish settlers had set fire to a mosque in the West Bank village of Yasuf on Friday and spray-painted racist remarks on its walls against Palestinians and Muslims in Hebrew.

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Haaretz

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent

Would any of the settlers who opposed the Civil Administration inspectors this week be living in the territories had the governments of Israel not established and encouraged them? Would the Gush Katif evacuees have moved to mobile homes in Ariel in the expectation of spacious permanent housing had the government clearly declared that this was forbidden - because the settlements will be evacuated in the near future for a peace agreement - and that evacuation-compensation money would not be paid to anyone who moves to the West Bank?

Do the settlers clashing with the forces of law and order not know that those who have committed crimes - from racist threats and blocking roads, to wholesale cutting down of trees, arson and beating and murdering Palestinians - have not been investigated or have been forgiven and forgotten with a wink?

The settlers' feeling of betrayal is natural. Haven't the state and its institutions taught us that the settler is superior to everyone else?

Yes. The settler, in fact, is us.

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Rabbis hand over Qurans to Palestinian authorities in Salfit [MaanImages]

NABLUS – Israeli forces on Sunday denied a group of rabbis entry to the northern West Bank village of Yasuf to visit its mosque which was set on fire by extremist Israeli settlers on Friday morning.

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As EU diplomats waste time arguing over words, Israeli occupation forces continue to demolish Palestinian homes. (Meged Gozani/Activestills)

By Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 9 December 2009

Israel started a preemptive campaign against a EU statement on the Middle East session even before it was formally presented for discussion by EU ministers this week on whether to adopt it. Israeli spokesmen expressed outrage at what they saw as an EU effort to "divide" Jerusalem, and claimed that the European position would "harm the peace process," as if it is only Israel that has been carefully protecting it from the harmful moves of others.

Despite the usual hype, the document, a version of which was published by the Israeli daily Haaretz on 2 December, does not contain much that should cause Israel any undue worry. It is no more than a fine tuning of long-stated, and ineffectual EU positions. The statement is of course "balanced" -- meaning it goes out of its way not to offend the Israeli occupier and lawbreaker -- and it is strewn with cliches and contradictions.

"The European Union calls for the urgent resumption of negotiations that will lead, within an agreed time frame, to a two-state solution, with an independent democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine, comprising the West Bank and Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side in peace and security with the State of Israel," the statement reads.

This sounds straightforward enough, but that's only the case if there are agreed upon definitions for the "West Bank" and "East Jerusalem," but this is not the case. Does the EU mean the West Bank and East Jerusalem as they existed the day before they were conquered and occupied by Israel on 4 June 1967? Reading through the rest of the statement does indeed indicate the opposite.

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Hizballah supporters cheer as Hassan Nasrallah delivers a speech in the southern suburbs of Beirut, May 2009. (Matthew Cassel)

By Matthew Cassel, Electronic Initifada

Last week Hassan Nasrallah delivered a speech over video link from an unknown location, as he frequently does. The leader of the Lebanese Shia Islamic resistance and political group Hizballah addressed the audience in Beirut to present the group's new manifesto, their first since 1985 when the group unveiled its initial open letter.

The new political document, however, contained few surprises for some observers like independent Lebanese journalist Bilal el-Amine. "It's not new for the people who have followed Hizballah over the past 20 years," he said. "The new document only formalizes Hizballah's process. [Unlike the 1985 letter] there is no call for an Islamic state which has been the de facto position for many years now; this shows their commitment to become an integral part of Lebanese society."

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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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Back-dropped by the Dome of the Rock Mosque, Ultra Orthodox Jews walk on a roof in Jerusalem. A row broke out between Israel and the European Union over a draft EU proposal that East Jerusalem should become the capital of a future Palestinian state as part of a Middle East peace deal

While there is an ideological shift in Israeli society towards the right, it is not the only reason why Jewish settlements are quickly being inhabited. Saleh El-Naami investigates

One month ago, Shamon Kara, who lives in the Hatikva Quarter in south Tel Aviv, sold his apartment quickly and left. His relatives told neighbours that he has relocated to the settlement of Beit Ebel, one of the Jewish settlements in northeast Ramallah in the middle of the West Bank. Kara, who had previously held moderate political views and always voted for Labour candidates, went to join more than 300,000 settlers living in Jewish settlements that were built on Palestinian land annexed by occupation forces.

In an interview with Israeli Radio, Kara revealed his reasons for moving to this settlement, explaining that they were fundamentally economic. The large financial incentives that the government gives Jews who choose to live in the West Bank were key to his decision, especially that he has been facing serious economic deprivation. He recently lost his job after the textiles factory where he worked in Tel Aviv shut down. Kara did not hide the fact that from now on he will support political parties on the right that call for Israeli control of the West Bank, to ensure that the immense economic benefits he currently enjoys are not taken away.

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The EU's policy statement on a future Palestinian state now needs to be acted on, writes Khaled Amayreh from occupied Jerusalem

A watered-down, though still strongly worded policy statement issued by EU foreign ministers this week has drawn ambivalent reactions from both Israel and the Palestinians, with the latter urging the EU to act on the document and not allow it to sink into irrelevance.

Adopted by European foreign ministers in Brussels on 8 December, the document reasserts the two-state solution, urging Israel to allow for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its future capital.

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Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize only days after announcing an increase in troops in the ongoing US-led war in Afghanistan. (Pete Souza/White House Photo)

By Sayed Dhansay, The Electronic Intifada, 11 December 2009

United States President Barack Obama has just accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo. His nomination had been controversial, not least because he is continuing and escalating two illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also because it was awarded to him at the beginning of his term, before he has proven a genuine willingness to promote peace.

Though his eloquent and moving speech in Cairo last June spoke of "peace," "mutual respect" and "new beginnings" with the Arab and Muslim world, his administration's foreign policy has thus far proven otherwise. The glaring contradiction between his words and actions are nowhere else more obvious than in his dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In his acceptance speech yesterday, President Obama quoted former US President John F. Kennedy's advice on attaining peace: "Let us focus on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions."

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By WILLIAM BLUM

All the crying from the left about how Obama "the peace candidate" has now become "a war president" ... Whatever are they talking about? Here's what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:

We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don't do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state.

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GAZA, (PIC)-- Hamas described the Israeli draft law binding any government to go to referendum before agreeing to withdraw from Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights as a referendum on something that it does not own.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said in a press release on Thursday that such a measure clearly displays Zionist arrogance in its worst form and violates the Palestinian and Arab rights other than international laws.

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By Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent, The National

NAZARETH // The fatal shooting by Israeli soldiers of an Israeli man earlier this week as he tried to scale a fence into the Gaza Strip was reportedly part of a drastic procedure the army was supposed to have phased out several years ago.

The Israeli media reported that Yakir Ben-Melech, 34, had bled to death after he was shot under the "Hannibal procedure", designed to prevent Israelis from being taken captive alive by enemy forces.

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UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd

December 10, 2009

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM -- Israeli police ordered outgoing UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd to leave an East Jerusalem home on Thursday during her last official visit as the head of the relief agency.

Ma’an’s reporter on the scene said AbuZayd left after police gave her five minutes to evacuate the premises of the house of the Al-Kurd family, as a Palestinian woman yelled, "We want our homes and our lands. We have no alternative."

Amidst Israeli police and soldiers, AbuZayd visited Palestinians recently evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem on International Human Rights Day. She spoke of Jerusalem as a “City of Dispossession.”

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Columbia President Alvaro Uribe (left) and Venezuela President Huge Chavez

Foreign Polocy
December 8, 2009

By Bernardo Alvarez Herrera

After Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's November deployment of 15,000 troops to the porous border with Colombia, some analysts have worried about the prospect of conflict between the two neighbors. It's not the first time our countries have had disagreements. And, as usual, Venezuela is being blamed in Washington for this dispute. Some go as far as to claim that Chávez has used the conflict with Colombia as a means to whip up nationalist fervor.

But this isn't about nationalism or petty disputes. As much as some in Washington want to think so, this is no mere spat between Colombian President Álvaro Uribe and our President Chávez. Those that say so just don't understand the context underlying the tensions between Colombia and Venezuela and the central role that Washington has played in them.

A case in point is the October military agreement signed between Bogotá and Washington that would give U.S. military personnel, intelligence officials, and defense contractors access to military bases on Colombian soil. This agreement's vague provisions and questionable motivations threaten regional stability and territorial sovereignty, alter the region's military balance, and threaten to push more of the violence and drug trafficking that is endemic to Colombia's conflict across its borders.

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The time for accountability is now.

By Stephen Lendman - Chicago

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is an "independent legal body dedicated to the protection of human rights, the promotion of the rule of law, and the upholding of democratic principles in the Occupied Territories." It issues frequent press releases, statistics, fact sheets, documents, and reports like its October 22, 2009 English version of "Targeted Civilians: A PCHR Report on the Israeli Offensive against the Gaza Strip (27 December 2008 - 18 January 2009)."

Its 184 pages comprise a comprehensive, conclusive, and damning account of Israel's war crimes, along with numerous others, including:

-- PCHR's "Through Women's Eyes" on the war's effect on women;

-- B'Tselem's "investigation of fatalities in Operation Cast Lead;"

-- Amnesty International's "Operation 'Cast Lead': 22 days of death and destruction;"

-- several Human Rights Watch reports, including "White Flag Deaths" and Rain of Fire: Israel's Use of White Phosphorous in Gaza;"

-- former UN Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine, John Dugard's "Independent Fact-Finding Committee (IFFC)....investigations of Israeli conduct during the war in Gaza;" and

-- the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)'s "Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict" - the prominent Goldstone report that has Tel Aviv and Washington officials scrambling to diffuse its extensive Israeli war crimes evidence. The report's conclusion was that:

"....the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing (humiliating and terrorizing) the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population."

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Zelaya has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa since September [AFP]

The ousted Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, is to leave the country for exile to Mexico, sources have said.

Zelaya, who was forced to leave the country by the Honduran military in a June coup, has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, since he slipped back into the country in September.

But a politician close to Zelaya told Reuters on Wednesday: "He is going to leave the country today. He is leaving of his own will".

A Mexican government source said that Zelaya would arrive in Mexico on Wednesday evening.

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Saad Hariri: 'I know I won’t win but I want to participate anyway..'

By Franklin Lamb - Beirut

'There is no obstacle to cooperation with any official in the new Lebanese unity government with the exception of Hezbollah,' Nicole Shampaine, the Director of the US Department of State's Near East Affairs Bureau Office for Egypt and the Levant 12/3/09.

Beirut: Lebanon’s first Sunday morning in December was cold, cloudy and rainy as this politically exhausted country’s’ new Prime Minister, Saad Eddine Hariri, donned a gray track suit, with matching Nike running shoes and joined hundreds of pro-Hezbollah runners, two dreamy Jordanian princesses and 33,000 others from 73 countries as well as all 18 Lebanese confessions for the annual ‘friendship first, competition second’, 42 km Beirut Marathon. Despite the weather, the atmosphere was warm as Christmas decorations were being hung with care across Lebanon in Christian, Shia, Sunni and Druze neighborhoods. Saad, telling race watchers on the sidewalks, “I know I won’t win but I want to participate anyway. We have to bring Lebanese together, and sport is a very important event that can bring them together actually passed on the 42 km course in favor of the 10 km event—but then, how many politicians anywhere, used to the good life, can even run two km these days.

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The 60th anniversary of UNRWA, which provides aid to Palestinian refugees, is a regrettable one. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

By Karen AbuZayd, The Electronic Intifada, 7 December 2009

Sixty years ago today the United Nations General Assembly voted into existence a temporary body known as UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA's task was to deal with the humanitarian consequences of the dispossession of some three quarters of a million Palestine refugees forced by the 1948 Middle East War to abandon their homes and flee their ancestral lands. Just two decades later, the 1967 war generated another spasm of violence and forced displacement, culminating in the occupation of Palestinian territory. Today, anguished exile remains the lot of Palestinians and Palestine refugees. The occupation of Palestinian land persists, there is no Palestinian state and the human rights and fundamental freedoms to which Palestinians are entitled under international law do not exist.

The occupation, now more than 40 years old, becomes more entrenched with every infringement of human rights and international law in the occupied Palestinian territory. Political actors hold in their hands the power to redress the travesties Palestinians endure. Yet, the approach has been, at best, to equivocate over the minutiae of the occupation -- a checkpoint here, a bag of cement there -- or, at worst, to look the other way, to acquiesce in or even support the measures causing Palestinian suffering.

From my perspective as the head of the agency mandated to assist and protect Palestine refugees, it is particularly vexing that the prevailing approach fails -- or refuses -- to accord the refugee issue the attention it deserves. Over 60 years, dispossession has faded from the focus of peace efforts. The heart of where peace should begin is absent from the international agenda, pushed aside as one of the "final status" issues, one which belongs to a later stage of the negotiation process. As forced displacements continue across the West Bank, as Palestinians are evicted from their homes in East Jerusalem, I ask a simple question. Is it not time for those engaged in the peace process to muster the will and the courage to address the Palestine refugee question?

On this regrettable 60th anniversary of the agency which I shall leave in less than one month, I wish to refocus the debate on the displaced and dispossessed, to put the refugees at the center of peace-making efforts. Make no mistake, not a single conflict of contemporary times has been resolved, no durable peace achieved unless and until the voices of the victims of those conflicts were heard, their losses acknowledged and redress found to injustices they experience. The precedents of recent peace-making efforts and the methodology of contemporary conflict resolution affirm that giving high priority to resolving dispossession and the plight of refugees is a necessity, an international obligation and a humanitarian imperative.

The Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is uniquely complex. Among its myriad dimensions, all of which require attention, the unresolved refugee issue is one of those most profoundly linked to the uncertainties of the regional situation and to the persistence of the conflict. Addressing it is, therefore, a sine qua non for making progress towards a negotiated solution. Failing to engage with the refugee issue and consciously shunting it to one side has served only to disavow the refugees' significance as a constituency with a prominent stake in delivering and sustaining peace. This has left many with a dangerous cynicism about the peace process, thus strengthening the hands of those who argue against peace itself.

I refuse, however, to conclude my time in office on a pessimistic note. Instead I urge that we take steps to engage the marginalized. Let us confound the cynics. Let us create alternative realities to disarm those who favor violence. I call on the peacemakers to acknowledge, in their rhetoric and their policies, the need to address Palestinian dispossession. Let symbolism and rhetoric give way to substance. On the 60th anniversary of UNRWA, I call on the international community and the parties to the conflict to acknowledge the 60-year-old injustice as a first step towards addressing the consequences of that injustice. Let us build facts in the mind to create facts of a just and durable peace on the ground.

Karen AbuZayd is Commissioner General for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The European Union said it had 'never recognised the annexation of East Jerusalem' [AFP]

European Union foreign ministers have agreed that Jerusalem should be the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state following two days of talks in Brussels.

The ministers dropped an earlier proposal by the Swedish EU presidency to explicitly support the idea of East Jerusalem as the eventual capital of Palestine.

The meeting adopted a text stating that Jerusalem should provide "the future capital of the two states," as part of a negotiated settlement.

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The Erez crossing, where people from Gaza cross into Israel for medical treatment. Many say they have been pressed to become informants. Photograph: AP

Israeli security agents held a Palestinian patient for three weeks without charge, interrogated him repeatedly and offered access to hospital care if he agreed to become an informant, the Guardian has learned.

The treatment of Abd al-Karim al-Atal, 28, is the latest in a series of cases over the past two years in which patients from Gaza referred for hospital treatment in Israel have been held without charge and pressed to become Israeli collaborators, human rights groups say.

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Ma'aleh Levona settlement - photo by google Earth

By Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC News

Illegal Israeli settlers escalated their protest against the Israeli government decision two week ago to freeze construction in illegal West Bank settlements.

On Monday morning scores of illegal Israeli settlers blocked a road leading to Jerusalem in protest of the freeze order by the Zinist government.

At least a hundred police officers were deployed at the Ma'aleh Levona settlement, northern West Bank, to protect the illegal state inspectors from the illegal settlers, Israeli media reported.

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By Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

The Land Research Center (LRC) of the Arab Studies Society in Jerusalem reported that the Israeli authorities conducted 187 violations in Jerusalem in November, and demolished 14 Palestinians homes in addition to issuing orders to demolish 170 homes.

The center prepares and publishes its reports in cooperation with the Civil Coalition to Defend Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem.

The LRC stated that it documented 187 violations against East Jerusalem including 186 violations against the Palestinian natives of the city.

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Attacks are rare in the Sadr City area, which is surrounded by US and Iraq troops [AFP]

At least eight people have been killed, mostly students, in a bombing at a school in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

Among the dead were six children between the ages of 6 and 12, an Iraqi police official said.

Monday's blast also wounded at least 41 others. The toll is expected to rise.

An interior ministry official confirmed the casualties.

The blast took place at Abaa Dhar School for boys, in Baghdad's Shia district of Sadr City, an area that has seen only infrequent attacks because it is encircled by US and Iraqi security forces and has its own neighbourhood security.

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Rasmussen said the summit must deliver 'significant and immediate action' on climate change [AFP]

The biggest climate meeting in history has opened in Copenhagen with hosts Denmark saying an unmissable opportunity to protect the planet was "within reach".

"The world is depositing hope with you for a short while in the history of mankind," Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister told delegates who are seeking to agree the first United Nations climate pact in 12 years.

Rasmussen said: "By the end, we must be able to deliver back to the world what was granted us here today: hope for a better future.

"The time for formal statements is over ... Copenhagen will only be a success if it delivers significant and immediate action."

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The blasts happened at Moon Market in
Lahore's Iqbal Town locality

At least 12 people have been killed and 75 wounded in twin explosions at a busy marketplace in the northeast Pakistani city of Lahore.

The blasts took place on Monday at the Moon Market in Lahore's Iqbal Town locality, a senior police official said.

Witnesses said ambulances and rescue teams had reached the blast site, and the injured were being shifted to a nearby hospital.

"[They were] bomb attacks, near simultaneous, but it is not clear if it was a planted bomb or detonated in a vehicle. At least seven people were killed," Mohammad Khalid, a senior Lahore police official, said.

One of the blasts hit the outside of bank and one was in front of a police area, another police official said.

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The National

Bedouins have to live in makeshift housing without electricity or water because the Israeli authorities do not officially recognise their communities in the Negrev desert. Ariel Schalit / AP

December 07. 2009

By Jonathan Cook

NAZARETH, ISRAEL // About 35,000 Bedouin residents of Israel’s southern Negev have been denied the right to hold their first local council election after the Israeli parliament passed a law at the last minute to cancel this month’s ballot.

The new law gives the government the power to postpone elections to the regional council, known as Abu Basma, until the interior ministry deems the local Bedouin ready to run their own affairs.

Legal and human rights groups say the move is an unprecedented violation of Israel’s constitutional principles. Taleb a-Sana, a Bedouin member of Israel’s parliament, has written to its speaker warning that “it is not possible to have democracy without elections”.

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Morales appears to have strengthened his grip on power with a landslide victory [EPA]

Evo Morales has claimed victory in Bolivia's presidential election after exit polls indicated he had easily won re-election with more than 60 per cent of the vote.

"This process of change has prevailed," Morales said on Sunday night from the balcony of the presidential palace in La Paz, where thousands of supporters shouted "Evo Again! Evo Again!"

Exit polls and a quick count gave Morales between 61 and 63 per cent of the vote, more than 35 percentage points ahead of his closest challenger, Manfred Reyes Villa, a former governor who picked up only 23-25 per cent.

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Arundhati Roy is an unusual Indian woman.

Listening to Grasshoppers; Field Notes on Democracy, Arundhati Roy, Hamish Hamilton, Penguin, India 2009, 240 pages, 499 rupees.

By Trond Øverland

Arundhati Roy is an unusual Indian woman. Instead of acting the graceful upholder of traditional values, she goes on challenging the hard core of establishment thinking. Roy is India's leading commentator on such evils as militaristic imperialist capitalism, Hindu-supported genocide of Muslims, and dam disasters. In her latest book, Listening to Grasshoppers; Field Notes on Democracy, she hammers at perhaps the most central of all contemporary sacred pillars, i.e. that of democracy, which in her words “have metastasized into something dangerous”.

Grasshoppers is a collection of essays on such recent events as the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, the 2006 visit to India by “the war criminal” U.S. President George W. Bush, the 2002 Gujarat carnage (between 2000-4000 Muslims slaughtered), the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament by "so-called" Pakistan-based terrorists, and the growing inequality in India (“the old society has curdled and separated into a thin layer of thick cream – and a lot of water …”).

A radical analysis of democracy runs through the book’s fiery chapters, like a river running from its mountainous source towards the ocean. Roy’s conclusion is disquieting: she is forced by the rationale of her facts and arguments to approve of violence as a means of people’s resistance to injustice. She observes with understanding that many of the poor are “crossing over … to another side; the side of armed struggle.”

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The anti-Semites have become anti-Muslims; same lady in a different robe.

By Uri Avnery – Israel

It would have been the epitome of political kitsch.

Binyamin Netanyahu and ten of his ministers were to hold a joint meeting with Angela Merkel and ten members of the German cabinet.

What for? To demonstrate Germany’s love for Israel.

At the last moment, Netanyahu announced that he was sick, and the meeting was canceled. I imagine that Netanyahu was not very sorry about this. What did he need it for? In any case the Israeli government is already getting from Germany anything it wants.

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Palestinian inspect a car damaged by settlers in Nablus [MaanImages]

NABLUS – Angry at their government over a slowdown in the expansion of West Bank settlements, illegal Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian vehicles and buildings and uprooted more than 50 trees on Sunday.

Illegal settlers set ablaze two warehouses, two cars, and a tractor belonging to Palestinian farmers in the northern West Bank village of Einabus near Nablus on Sunday morning.

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Two-years after she was beaten and raped by eight men, fourteen-year-old Samiya has yet to see justice.

Her story stands in contrast to Western claims that the lot of women in Afghanistan has improved since the US-led invasion.

Seven of the eight men who attacked Samiya were arrested, but her family believes their daughter's rapists have powerful connections and are looking for revenge.

Samiya and he family live in fear and her father, whose story Al Jazeera reported on two years ago, has been imprisoned by a local leader after he sought justice for his daughter.

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De facto government security forces [MaanImages]

GAZA – Israel’s supposed plan to continue the siege of Gaza even if its soldier is released is a continuation of the country’s offensive against the Palestinian people, a Hamas official said Saturday.

The comments, made by Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, followed Israeli media reports quoting officials close to the swap negotiations saying a prisoner exchange would not mean an end to Israel’s three-year blockade.

Abu Zuhri noted that there were “parties inside the movement that will study [the development] and evaluate” the Islamic movement’s response. Although an end to the siege has not been a condition of the soldier’s release, Israel tightened the blockade of Gaza following his capture, and many inside Gaza reasoned that a release would bring an ease to the closure.

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Morales enjoys a 60 per cent approval rating, much of which comes from Bolivia's indigenous majority [EPA]

Voters in Bolivia are preparing to head to the polls for presidential and congressional elections with Evo Morales, the nation's first indigenous president, expected to win a second term in office.

Surveys ahead of Sunday's vote indicated Morales had a lead of at least 30 percentage points over his closest rival and analysts predicted the president was likely to clinch a sweeping win.

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By ZOLTAN GROSSMAN

In just a few months, Afghanistan will surpass Vietnam as the longest single war fought by the United States in its history. In his West Point speech on December 1, President Obama denied that “Afghanistan is another Vietnam”--and in some senses he is correct. Vietnam in 1975 was a far more unified state--ethnically and politically--than Afghanistan ever has been. Afghanistan is far more mountainous and difficult to occupy, and is bounded by more artificially colonial borders than either Vietnam or Iraq.

But what Afghanistan has in common with both Vietnam and Iraq is its long history of resistance to foreign occupation—whether by Chinese, Japanese and French in Vietnam, the Turks and British in Iraq, or the British and Russians in Afghanistan--before the Americans ever arrived. This proud history is the main factor that has united Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic and sectarian groups in the past two centuries.

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By Alfred Warkentin – Montreal

All agree. Only America is important.

There's a current of opinion in the Middle East that says: "If you want peace, you don't want justice." Peace, peace, but there is no peace, despite decades of peace prizes. The record is dismal. The Nobel people count on President Obama doing more for peace in the future because of the prize awarded him. That too is a doubtful proposition.

Sometimes it is easier for decision makers in Washington to get the big picture from the sticks. Take a bus trip on Sherbrooke Street bus in Montreal. (I am, for the sake of clarity, condensing scenes, time periods and characters.)

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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence in a US jail for spying for Israel, has called on Israel to execute one Palestinian captive everyday until Shalit is freed, according to a report published in the Jerusalem post on Tuesday.

Pollard expressed his anger at the deal by which around 980 Palestinian captives will be freed in exchange for Gilad Shalit to two Likud activists who visited him in jail according to the paper and suggested that "Instead, Netanyahu should take the list of prisoners Hamas requested and kill one of them every day until they release Gilad from prison. He should not free terrorists, no matter what."

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/

Many Jews globally, including Israelis, are extremely critical of government policies.

By Stephen Lendman - Chicago

During Israel's war on Gaza, only 5 of 535 congressional members dissented on pro-Israeli resolutions.

On January 8, 2009, the Senate unanimously passed S 10: "A resolution recognizing the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks from Gaza and reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian (no peace) peace process."

On January 9, the House, by a 390 - 5 vote, passed HR 34 "Recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian (no peace) peace process." More on this below.

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The question that begs for answers is why does America hate us Palestinians?

By Dr. Haidar Eid - Gaza

The Palestinians have 'realized,' thanks to Hilary Clinton, that the US is biased towards Israel. According to the American Secretary of State, negotiations between "the two parties" should resume without preconditions. The Americans have even praised Netanyahu's "unprecedented concessions!" Gone is the sweet talk of the American president Barak Obama; gone is the euphoria following his "ground breaking" speech in Cairo university.

We are back to square one.

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Abdel Sattar Qassem outside his home in Nablus. (Marcy Newman)

By Marcy Newman, The Electronic Intifada, 27 November 2009

Abdel Sattar Qassem, a professor and author of numerous publications on Palestinian history and Islamic thought, is well-known for his pungent critiques of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). As a result he has been imprisoned by both the Israelis and the PA. Most recently his car was blown up as a warning from the PA. Marcy Newman spoke with Professor Qassem on behalf of The Electronic Intifada at his home in the Palestinian city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

Marcy Newman: When did you become politically active?

Abdel Sattar Qassem: At the American University in Cairo I wanted to be part of the revolution. I used to call it a revolution; I discovered later that it wasn't. I went to Beirut three times: in 1970, 1971 and 1972 to join a Palestinian faction. Each time I was disappointed and left without joining. I noticed that they were not true revolutionaries. They drove their cars in an arrogant way in the streets of Beirut, said bad things to Lebanese girls on the street. I thought those were not revolutionary morals. I noticed that so many of them went to bars. At that time I always thought that a revolutionary should be a clean guy. He should be somebody who sets an ethical example for others. I felt these people were not going to liberate Palestine. These people were going to surrender. So I spent four years in Cairo disappointed by the revolution.

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12 December 2009

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the regime will return to settlement construction after a "temporary" moratorium on new construction in the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu said on Tuesday that a 10-month settlement freeze he had earlier announced was only a "one-time, temporary" move, the Israeli media reported.

Israel has rejected all international demands for the permanent freeze on building settlements in the occupied territories.

"The future final-status accord in Judea and Samaria will be determined at the end of negotiations and not a day earlier," he added.

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The number of Arab residents of East Jerusalem Al-Quds stripped of their residency rights by the Israeli Interior Ministry strikes an all-time record.

Last year, the ministry revoked the residency of 4,577 Palestinian residents of the illegally annexed neighborhood, the Israeli daily Haaretz said on Wednesday, compared with the 8,558 Arabs stripped of their residency rights between 1967 and 2007.

The Israeli paper said the 2008 number is 21 times the average of the previous 40 years, and that it accounts for about 35 percent of all the Arabs who have lost their residency rights since the occupation of the Palestinian territory in 1967.

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Israel says the Palestinian dismay at the partial halt of settlement expansions should be the last issue of concern.

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said that Israel disregards Palestinians' opposition to its offer for a partial freeze on its settlement activity.

"The last thing that should interest us is the Palestinians' concern. Before the Palestinian issue, what should interest us are our friends in the world," Reuters quoted Lieberman as saying on Thursday.

Israel on Wednesday declared a 10-month moratorium on some settlement activity in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem Al-Quds.

The acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas has called for a full halt to settlement construction as a condition for reviving peace negotiations that have been suspended since December.

It "brings nothing new. Settlement activity will continue in the West Bank and Jerusalem [Al-Quds]," Abbas said, pointing to Israel's offer for a partial settlement freeze.

(Press TV)

There are currently more than 100,000
international troops in Afghanistan [AFP]

The US is to deploy an extra 30,000 troops to the war Afghanistan, Barack Obama has said unveiling his plans for turning around the eight-year long war in the country and pave the way for a US pull-out.

In a speech to the US naval academy in West Point on Tuesday, the US president set out what he said was a new strategy to bring the war to a "successful conclusion" and reverse the momentum of Taliban gains.

The deployment, he said, was in the "vital national interest" of the US, and would create a situation allowing the US to start withdrawing its troops in mid-2011.

"These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan," Obama told an audience of naval cadets.

The increased deployment will increase the US military presence in Afghanistan to around 100,000.

Key points of speech
--Additional 30,000 US troops will be sent to Afghanistan, to be deployed "the fastest pace possible" in the first part of 2010.
--US to begin to transfer of forces out of Afghanistan by July of 2011.
--Top priorities will be to strengthen Afghan army and police, so they can begin to take over responsibility for security.
--Obama also called for Nato allies to send additional troops.
--He said the war in Afghanistan was not only a test of Nato's credibility, but also crucial for the security of the world.
The commitment is being seen as a defining moment in the still relatively young Obama presidency and a political gamble that could weigh heavily on his chances for a second White House term.

In his speech he said that after extensive consultations he had determined that the extra deployment was essential to achieving US goals.

"Afghanistan is not lost, but for several years it has moved backwards," he said, pointing to increasing gains by Taliban fighters and deteriorating security across the country.

"I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Obama said.

The announcement follows a long-awaited and highly anticipated presidential review of US strategy in Afghanistan, as he spent more than two months consulting military leaders, ambassadors and national security advisers on his options.

White House officials have said the US is also expecting more troop commitments from Nato allies in Europe, with the alliance expected to make a statement on the issue on Friday.

Rapid deployment

Nato diplomats have said the US is asking alliance partners in Europe to add 5,000 to 10,000 troops to the separate international force in Afghanistan.

In depth
Videos:
Desertions undermine Afghan army
Afghanistan: 'Graveyard of empires'
The general's plan in Afghanistan

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