The Corner Report

Pulse

By Jeff Halper

The Israeli attack on Gaza in December 2008/January 2009 was not merely a military assault on a primarily civilian population, impoverished and the victim of occupation and besiegement these past 42 years. It was also part of an ongoing assault on international humanitarian law by a highly coordinated team of Israeli lawyers, military officers, PR people and politicians, led by (no less) a philosopher of ethics. It is an effort coordinated as well with other governments whose political and military leaders are looking for ways to pursue “asymmetrical warfare” against peoples resisting domination and the plundering of their resources and labor without the encumbrances of human rights and current international law. It is a campaign that is making progress and had better be taken seriously by us all.

Since Ariel Sharon was indicted by a Belgian court in 2001 over his involvement in the Sabra and Chatila massacres and Israel faced accusations of war crimes in the wake of its 2002 invasion of the cities of the West Bank, with its high toll in civilian casualties (some 500 people killed, 1,500 wounded, more than 4,000 arrested), hundreds of homes demolished and the urban infrastructure utterly destroyed, Israel has adopted a bold and aggressive strategy: alter international law so that non-state actors caught in a conflict with states and deemed by the states as “non-legitimate actors” (“terrorists,” “insurgents” and “non-state actors,” as well as the civilian population that supports them) can no longer claim protection from invading armies. The urgency of this campaign has been underscored by a series of notable setbacks Israel subsequently incurred at the hands of the UN. In 2004, at the request of the General Assembly, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Israel’s construction of wall inside Palestinian territory is “contrary to international law” and must be dismantled—a ruling adopted almost unanimously by the General Assembly, with only Israel, the US, Australia and a few Pacific atolls dissenting. In 2006 the UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that “a significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force by the IDF against Lebanese civilians and civilian objects, failing to distinguish civilians from combatants and civilian objects from military targets.” together with the harsh criticism of the UN’s Goldstone report on Gaza accusing the Israeli government and military again of targeting Palestinian civilians and causing disproportionate destruction, has made this campaign even more urgent.

=> Read more!

Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, criticized the bureaucratic process the Goldstone report has been going through.

A United Nations expert warns of efforts to "bury" a report by the world body's fact-finding commission on the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip last January.

Ahead of a Friday vote in the UN General Assembly on a proposed extension for Israeli and Palestinian authorities to investigate the Gaza war crimes charges, Richard Falk criticized the bureaucratic process the report has been going through.

"I think its part of the wider effort basically to bury the recommendations of the Goldstone report, unnecessarily delaying the implementation of its recommendations," the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories told Ma'an news agency.

=> Read more!

The son of Ethan Bronner, NYT's Jerusalem bureau chief, is serving in the Israeli army.

By Jonathan Cook

A recent assignment of mine covering Israel's presumed links to the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh provoked some more thoughts about the New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner. He is the Jerusalem bureau chief who has been at the centre of a controversy since it was revealed last month that his son is serving in the Israeli army. Despite mounting pressure to replace Bronner, the NYT’s editors have so far refused to consider that he might be facing a conflict of interest or that it would be wiser to post him elsewhere.

Last week, when suspicion for the assassination in Dubai started to fall on the Mossad, a newspaper editor emailed to ask if I could ring up my “Israeli security contacts” for fresh leads. It was a reminder that Western correspondents in Israel are expected to have such contacts. The point was underlined later the same day when I spoke with a leftwing Israeli academic to get his take on Mabhouh’s killing. I had turned to this Ashkenazi professor because he counts many veterans of the security services as friends. At the end of the interview, I asked him if he had any suggestions for people in the security services I might speak with. He replied: “Talk to Eitan Bronner. He has excellent contacts.” Naively, I asked how I could reach this expert on the veiled world of the Israeli security establishment. Was he employed at the professor’s university? “No, ring the New York Times bureau,” he responded increduously. Oh, that “Eitan”!

=> Read more!

NABLUS, (PIC)-- Tens of Israeli military vehicles escorted 500 Jewish settlers on an unwelcome visit to the Nabi Yousef or Joseph tomb in Nablus city at dawn Thursday.

The settlers offered prayers and left behind slogans in Hebrew after sabotaging a nearby school, locals reported.

Citizens feared that security militias loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the former PA chief, had made a secret agreement with the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) to facilitate such visits.

They said that those militias disappeared shortly before arrival of settlers, which point to a certain kind of coordination with the IOA. They also noted that the Ramallah authority did not condemn such visits.

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

Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin

GAZA, (PIC)-- Irish foreign minister Micheal Martin arrived in Gaza Strip on Thursday on a brief visit during which he is scheduled to visit hospitals, schools and devastated areas.

The crossings department said that the minister, who is heading a 10-member delegation, was received on arrival by officials of the UN office in Gaza.

The minister in a terse statement on arrival noted that his visit to Gaza was the first of its kind across the Rafah crossing and that he wanted to tour Gaza to see for himself what the conditions in the Strip are.

=> Read more!

By Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 February 2010

The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas official in Dubai, almost certainly by a death squad dispatched by Israel's Mossad, is by no means the first such aggression against the sovereignty of another state. While Israel has literally gotten away with murder thousands of times, was this one killing too far?

Israel has a long, bloody history of murder, sabotage and outright terrorism all over Europe, in Beirut, Tunis, Amman, Damascus and now Dubai. And that is just what we know about. All of this is allegedly in "self-defense" against "terrorism" even though the Zionist movement in Palestine invented the sort of modern terrorism for which the Middle East became known. It started with countless Zionist bomb attacks on Palestinian civilians from the 1930s, often in markets and cafes, the bombing of the King David and Semiramis hotels in Jerusalem in the 1940s claiming dozens of innocent lives, and the murder of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. These crimes, on top of the long history of massacres of Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs over the past six decades, were all worn as badges of honor by Zionist leaders including Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir who later became prime ministers.

=> Read more!

By George S. Hishmeh – Washington

There is increasing doubt in the Arab World and elsewhere that Israel is seriously interested in negotiating peace with its neighbors the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. That doubt has once again emerged in the wake of its ill-conceived policies and bloody actions of late which Israel mistakenly believes will give it more security and longevity and offers it the chance of usurping additional Palestinian properties.

Every time the Palestinians and the Israelis seem ready to resume peace negotiations Israel takes advantage of the near-calm atmosphere in the region and undertakes some expansionist move that nip in the bud hopes of peaceful co-existence with the Arabs. That happened more than a year ago when it invaded the Gaza Strip while Syria was on the verge of opening peace negotiations with Israel under the auspices of the Turkish government, a long-time ally of the Israeli government led at the time by Ehud Olmert.

Again, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just completed a colorless first year in office, towed the same line of his discredited predecessor. His only achievement has been in compelling a weak-kneed Barack Obama to abandon his demand for a total freeze on Israeli expansionist policies, a U.S. position conveyed privately to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. As a result, the Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem are now being mercilessly evicted, and some 3,000 apartments in the occupied West Bank are being completed.

=> Read more!

Palestinian Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

Open Letter to the International Geographical Union (IGU)

As geographers, faculty, students, and people of conscience, we are profoundly dismayed by IGU’s decision to hold its July 2010 regional conference in Tel Aviv, in violation of the widely endorsed Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. We are equally troubled by IGU’s response [1] to the open letter issued by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), which urged the Executive Committee to relocate the upcoming regional conference out of Israel [2].

PACBI’s letter was a compelling reminder that Israel’s academic establishment (and geography in particular) is implicitly and explicitly complicit with the Israeli state’s colonial, discriminatory, and oppressive policies towards Palestinians. As important social institutions they advance, sustain, and provide the intellectual and moral justification for Israeli actions against Palestinian people and their representatives both within Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories. It is noteworthy that “no Israeli university or academic union has ever taken a public position against the occupation, let alone against Israel‘s system of apartheid or the denial of Palestinian refugee rights.”[3] PACBI underlines the prevailing, and deeply disturbing role of Israeli Universities in developing the very weapons and military doctrines used against Palestinians. Moreover, they highlight the tragic irony of geographers holding a conference about “Bridging Diversity in a Globalizing World” in a country built on urban destruction and gradual ethnic cleansing, a state which defines itself as an exclusively Jewish state, not a state of all its citizens, one that continues to violate human rights with total impunity and stands accused of war crimes for its latest offensive in Gaza [4].

=> Read more!

By not challenging the Israeli foreign minister over the use of fake passports, Europe failed to lead him exactly where he wanted to go.

Europe and the US are more than willing to accuse Iran of developing a nuclear weapons programme with no proof, but hide behind the lack-of-proof excuse to avoid calling out Israel over forging passports and carrying out extra judicial assassinations.

By Marwan Bisharan

When Europe's blood pressure went up over the use of fake European passports in the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, changed his line from ambiguity to deniability. There is no proof of Israeli involvement, he retorted. And that is that.

My guess is that Lieberman had to 'cut the ambiguity' because the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, does not want to further exacerbate tensions with its European allies against the backdrop of continued illegal Jewish settlements and a deadlocked 'peace process'.

But Lieberman, the eccentric former nightclub bouncer, is dying to take responsibility for the assassination of Israel's "enemy combatant" to borrow from the Pentagon's dictionary.

Or, to paraphrase one of Hollywood's epics, A Few Good Men, " ... he's pissed off that he has to hide behind all this ... he wants to say that he made a command decision and that should be the end of it".

=> Read more!

Parents want case to highlight events that led to American activist's death under Israeli army bulldozer

Peace activist Rachel Corrie died while protesting in front of a bulldozer trying to destroy a Palestinian home in Rafah in March 2003. Photograph: Denny Sternstein/AP

By Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

The family of the American activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago, is to bring a civil suit over her death against the Israeli defence ministry.

The case, which begins on 10 March in Haifa, northern Israel, is seen by her parents as an opportunity to put on public record the events that led to their daughter's death in March 2003. Four key witnesses – three Britons and an American – who were at the scene in Rafah when Corrie was killed will give evidence, according the family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein.

The four were all with the International Solidarity Movement, the activist group to which Corrie belonged. They have since been denied entry to Israel, and the group's offices in Ramallah have been raided several times in recent weeks by the Israeli military.

Now, under apparent US pressure, the Israeli government has agreed to allow them entry so they can testify. Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig, will also fly to Israel for the hearing.

=> Read more!

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 22 February 2010

A fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Martin Kramer, has called for "the West" to take measures to curb the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide.

Kramer, who is also a fellow at the influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), made the call early this month in a speech at Israel's Herzliya conference, a video of which is posted on his blog ("Superfluous young men," 7 February 2010). [See video above]

In the speech Kramer rejected common views that Islamist "radicalization" is caused by US policies such as support for Israel, or propping up despotic dictatorships, and stated that it was inherent in the demography of Muslim societies such as Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. Too many children, he argued, leads to too many "superfluous young men" who then become violent radicals.

Kramer proposed that the number of Palestinian children born in the Gaza Strip should be deliberately curbed, and alleged that this would "happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies to Palestinians with refugee status."

Due to the Israeli blockade, the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are now dependent on UN food aid. Neither the UN, nor any other agencies, provide Palestinians with specifically "pro-natal subsidies." Kramer appeared to be equating any humanitarian assistance at all with inducement for Palestinians to reproduce.

He added, "Israel's present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim -- undermine the Hamas regime -- but if they also break Gaza's runaway population growth, and there is some evidence that they have, that might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men." This, he claimed, would be treating the issue of Islamic radicalization "at its root."

The 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, created in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, defines genocide to include measures "intended to prevent births within" a specific "national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

=> Read more!

CAIRO — The Zionist Israeli occupation authorities have decided to place two historic mosques in the occupied West Bank on a list of alleged Jewish heritage sites, drawing immediate rebuke from Palestinians and Israelis alike, and setting off clashes in the Palesstinian city of Al Khalil (Hebron).

"This announcement is an act of aggression against the cultural and religious rights of the Palestinian people," Hamdan Taha, director of the Palestinian Tourism Ministry's Antiquities Department, told the independent Maan News Agency on Monday, February 22.

Hawkish Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu announced Sunday, February 21, adding Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil (Hebron) and Bilal Mosque in Bethlehem to a list of 150 so-called Jewish heritage sites that would be renovated to reconnect Israelis to their history.

=> Read more!

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Movement of Hamas on Monday strongly denounced the Palestinian Authority (PA) for allowing some of its officials to sell Palestinian real estate in occupied Jerusalem to Israelis as treason against the Palestinian people.

Spokesman Fawzi Barhoum added that this treasonable act confers legitimacy on occupation in the Palestinian land and poses a real threat to the holy sites.

Barhoum stressed that this dangerous precedent entails an urgent move to confront those traitors who trade with Palestinian rights and constants.

=> Read more!

A damaged house in Beit Sahour, 2001.

A small piece of Palestinian land, targeted by settlers, highlights the main phenomena in the Israeli occupation.

Posted by Ben White. Feb. 21, 2010

In the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, famous for its civil disobedience campaign against the Israeli occupation in the 1980s, a new struggle is taking place.

Ush al Ghrab ('Crow's Nest') is a small piece of land being targeted by a group of Jewish settlers and their allies. The area had previously served as a military base, before being evacuated in 2006. Since then, local Palestinians and international NGOs have sought to make the most of the space, in a community whose natural expansion is prohibited by Israeli colonisation. In recent times, right-wing Jewish settlers have targeted the area as a site for a possible new settlement ('Shdema').

Mazin Qumsiyeh is a professor, author, and Beit Sahour resident. He's also taking a lead in local non-violent resistance to the settlers' attempted takeover. "The Bethlehem area is now surrounded by settlements -- to take this area will be finishing off the district." Qumsiyeh's fears are borne out by the statistics: only a fragmented 13 per cent of the Bethlehem district is available for Palestinian use.

=> Read more!

Israel's foreign minister is likely to face tough questioning from his British and Irish counterparts in Brussels over the alleged use of forged European passports by men who murdered a Hamas official in Dubai last month.

Avigdor Lieberman will be in the Belgian capital on Monday as the UAE continues to point the accusing finger at Mossad, Israel's secret service, for deploying the hit squad that killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel on January 19.

Dubai police say at least 11 suspects in the killing of al-Mabhouh used altered British, Irish, French and German passports.

Britain, Ireland and France have already summoned Israeli diplomats to seek information on possible Israeli involvement.

=> Read more!

Aghanistan government officials say at least 33 civilians have been killed in a Nato attack on a convoy of vehicles in Uruzgan, a province in the country's south.

Nato confirmed that it fired on Sunday on a group of vehicles that it believed contained fighters, only to discover later that women and children were in the cars.

Isaf, Nato's force in Afghanistan, did not provide a figure of how many died.

=> Read more!

Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly authorized the assassination of senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh early January in Tel Aviv.

According to a report published by Times Online Netanyahu held a meeting with Mossad chief Meir Dagan in early January inside the briefing room of the headquarters of the spy agency where "some members of a hit squad" were also present.

Citing Mossad sources, the report said "as the man who gives final authorization for such operations, Netanyahu was briefed on plans to kill Mahmoud al-Mabhouh."

Sources said Mossad had received intelligence that the Hamas commander was planning a Dubai trip and they started preparing for an operation to assassinate him.

=> Read more!

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim

Dubai says new evidence, including credit card payments and phone calls made by suspects, confirms the involvement of Israel's spy agency in the recent assassination of a top Hamas official.

"Dubai police have information confirming that the suspects purchased travel tickets from companies in other countries with credit cards carrying the same names we have publicized (in the passports)," the Arabic-language Al Bayan daily quoted Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim as saying on Saturday.

Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his room in a luxury Dubai hotel on January 20, a day after arriving in the emirate.

Dubai Police issued arrest warrant for the 11 suspects, including 10 men and a woman, saying the passports they used to enter the United Arab Emirates were issued in European countries.

Six of the suspects carried British passports; three others had Irish passports, while the other two possessed French and German documents.

Dubai police on Thursday called for the head of Mossad to be arrested, if the spy agency was proven to be behind the murder.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119118&sectionid=351020202

GAZA, (PIC)-- Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called on the countries whose passports were used by the Mossad in Dubai operation to prosecute the perpetrators and those who gave orders especially Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a press release, spokesman Abu Zuhri said that the information revealed by the British Sunday Times newspaper on Netanyahu’s approval of the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh is consistent with what his Movement had already stated about the Mossad’s responsibility for the crime.

He noted that the Mossad cannot carry out any operation before taking the OK from the Israeli premier.

Abu Zuhri also strongly denounced the UN for not including the crime of assassinating one of Hamas senior officials in Dubai in its monthly report on the situation in the Middle East and accused the UN of covering up the Israeli "terrorism".

=> Read more!

By Victor Ostrovsky (Excerpt pp. 86-9)

Alan's lecture was followed by one on technical cooperation between agencies, in which we learned that the Mossad had the best capability of all for cracking locks. Various lock manufacturers in Great Britain, for example, would send new mechanisms to British intelligence for security testing; they in turn sent them on to the Mossad for analysis. The procedure was for our people to analyze it, figure out how to open it, then send it back with a report that it's "impregnable."

After lunch that day, Dov L. took the class out to the parking lot where seven white Ford Escorts were parked. In Israel, most Mossad, Shaback, and police cars are white, although the head of Mossad then drove a burgundy Lincoln Town Car.) The idea was to learn how to detect if you were being followed by a car. It's something you practice again and again. There's no such thing as you see in the movies or read in books about little hairs on the back of your neck standing up and telling you somebody is behind you. It's something you learn only by practice, and more practice.

=> Read more!

The British political system is paralysed by the Israeli Lobby. Like in the USA, British national interests are sacrificed for the sake of dirty Zionist cash. If Britain wants to liberate itself from the Zionist grip and have any prospect of a future, it must move fast and clean the entire list of Zionist infiltrators from its political ranks, Government offices and strategic positions. I am not talking here about Jews. By no means do I mention ethnicity or race. I am talking here about a political and ideological affiliation. Considering Zionism is a murderous, racist, expansionist ideology, it is natural to stress that people who are affiliated with Israel and Zionism must be removed immediately from any political, government, military or strategic posts and so on.

By Gilad Atzmon

London is ‘angry’ over the use of stolen identities by the Dubai assassins and points its finger at the Jewish state and its notorious Mossad espionage agency. The Israeli ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, was summoned yesterday (Thursday, Feb. 18) by the foreign minister to “share information”. In practice Britain has stopped short of accusing Israel of involvement in the scandalous assassination, however to signal its displeasure the Foreign Office ignored an Israeli plea to keep the summons secret. "Relations were in the freezer before this. They are in the deep freeze now," a British official told the Guardian.

The British anger at Israel would be a positive signal in the right direction if we were not aware of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband investing enormous efforts trying to amend Britain’s ethical stand just to appease Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and other Israeli leaders. The British Foreign Ministry’s reaction could almost be deemed a revelation, were we able to forget that just five weeks before Israel launched its lethal criminal attack against Gaza, David Miliband visited Sderot, an Israeli town on the Gaza border to offer his support. "No country can accept constant bombardment of its citizens”, Miliband told the people of Sderot. He then continued “Israel should, above all, seek to protect its own citizens". It was that foolish statement by Britain’s Foreign Secretary that made us all complicit in Israel’s flattening of Gaza. Bearing these facts in mind, it is rather unlikely that the Israeli Ambassador to Britain was sweating while ‘sharing information’ with the chief aid to the British Foreign Secretary.

=> Read more!

The Mossad has built itself a formidable reputation for killing enemies of Israel [AFP]

For more than half a century, the Mossad has been blamed for numerous killings around the world, and is often at the centre of conspiracy theories, including those surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 1998 Lockerbie bombing and the 911 attacks in the US.

David Ben-Gurion called the Mossad Israel's first line of defence

While some of its actions have been celebrated within Israel, the organisation has at times come under criticism for disrespecting the sovereignty of other nations and has been accused of violating international law.

Meshaal survived the Mossad assassination attempt and is currently in Syria [AFP]

The Mossad was established in 1951 by David Ben-Gurion, the then prime minister of newly-formed Israel, who set out that the intelligence apparatus would provide the "first line of defence" at a time when Israel, he said, was "under siege by its enemies".

It eventually adopted a verse from the Book of Proverbs: "Without guidance do a people fall, and deliverance is in a multitude of counsellors" as both a motto and a warning to its enemies.

While the secretive organisation forms one of three intelligence entities - Shin Bet (internal security) and military intelligence are the other two - its director reports directly to the prime minister.

=> Read more!

By Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 19 February 2010

Despite Israel's oppressive tactics against it, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has marked additional victories with many institutional investors divesting from or blacklisting Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems. One of the largest Dutch pension funds told The Electronic Intifada today that it is selling off its shares in Elbit.

The wave of divestment follows campaigning by Palestinian organizations and international solidarity activists to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation.

=> Read more!

By Khalid Amayreh

The murderous assassination by the Mossad of Mahmoud al Mabhuh in Dubai a month ago confirms and reasserts the criminal nature of the Israeli state. The criminal act, however, shouldn’t surprise Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular, even though it might raise some eyebrows in some corners around the world.

We know too well that Israel is a murderous state ruled by a Nazi-like clique of veteran war criminals, irrespective of their titles and ranks. Murder and terror have always formed the Israeli political discourse from day-1. Indeed, there is an umbilical relationship between Israel and criminality. This relationship has been affirmed and reaffirmed time after time after time. Hence, it would be strikingly naïve to even imagine that Israel would one day change the color of its skin.

Having said that, I believe that the latest murder in Dubai should remind us of some of the fundamental principles pertaining to this long conflict with this nefarious entity.

First, the resistance movements should re-assert their deterrence vis-à-vis the Zionist regime. True, for certain objective reasons, we can’t expect organizations such as Hamas to respond militarily to every Israeli crime. That is obviously beyond Hamas’s ability. Hamas, after all is a relatively small resistance group whose main strategy is to make the continued occupation of our homeland as costly to the occupier as possible. However, Hamas and other resistance movements should strive as much as possible to create and maintain a semblance of deterrence in order to force the insolent Zionists to think twice before embarking on the next murderous assassination.

=> Read more!

By SASAN FAYAZMANESH

In the 1979 Revolution in Iran the liberal forces made a fatal mistake: they adopted the old dictum of the enemy of my enemy is my friend and allied themselves with just about every force that opposed the tyrannical rule of the shah. The result was helping to replace one form of despotism for another: monarchy for theocracy. A similar mistake seems to be made today. Many liberal elements are once again allying themselves with anyone who opposes the current regime in Iran, including the same “Western” countries that nourished the despotic rule of the shah in the first place.

For decades these countries, particularly the US and Israel, helped the shah to deprive Iranians of their most basic rights and freedoms. With the assistance of these countries, the demented despot silenced all opposition to his rule, built and expanded his notorious secret police, made his opponents disappear, and filled Iran’s dungeons, particularly the infamous Evin prison that is still in use, with political prisoners. He had them tortured, mutilated, and executed. The US, Israel and their allies, had no problem with these violations of basic human rights in Iran as long as the “son of a bitch” was “their son of a bitch” and made them a partner in the plunder of the wealth of the nation.

=> Read more!

Apparently Wiesel has taken it upon himself to direct the governments of the world

By William A. Cook

Earlier this month, the Wiesel Foundation for Humanity published, as an advertisement, an open letter to the President of the United States and the leaders of France, Russia, Britain and Germany, a letter carried by the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. The issue eliciting the need for such a public letter, essentially a letter written to the world, stood boldly as a heading: “How Long Can We Stand Idly By And Watch The Scandal In Iran Unfold?”

It occurred to me as I read this piece, signed by a bevy of Nobel Prize winners, that something was missing, some subtext that was not enunciated, some “second prayer” as Mark Twain noted in his satire “The War Prayer,” penned in 1904-5, a second prayer unuttered that accompanies the first. Twain’s satire castigated the government of his day for the needless wars they inflicted on defenseless people as it began America’s quest for empire. He chastised the “sheeples” of his day who drank in the sacred words of their ministers of war who joined the government in its “holy” quest to bring enlightenment to the pagan hordes that lived in distant lands across the seas. That second prayer Twain delivered through an emissary of “the Throne—a message from Almighty God.”

Apparently Elie Wiesel has taken it upon himself to direct the governments of the world in his quest for domination of the mid-east, especially the “cruel and oppressive, irresponsible and senseless, the shameless” regime that dictates the affairs of the Iranian State. Hence the letter:

We the undersigned urgently appeal to you and the other leaders of the world, to use your prestige and power to put an end to this outrage. The situation in Iran is not improving; in fact, it is worsening every day. The cruel and oppressive regime of “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad, whose irresponsible and senseless nuclear ambitions threaten the entire world, continues to wage a shameless war against its own people. Human rights violations have now attained new levels of horror.

=> Read more!

The United Nations says Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal and the stalemated peace process must commence.

Under Secretary General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe, in a briefing to the Security Council, said on Thursday that Tel Aviv's continued settlement activities are in clear violation of its international obligations.

While noting what he said were legitimate Palestinian security concerns, Pascoe stressed that sustainable security will best be achieved by intensified cooperation, the continued empowerment of the Palestinian Authority's security efforts and performance, and the curtailment of incursions by the Israeli military into the Palestinian areas.

The UN, he said, remains deeply concerned at the current stalemate in the Middle East peace process and voiced hope that both the Israelis and the Palestinians will accept a proposal put forward to restart talks.

The Palestinian Authority has conditioned the resumption of peace talks to a complete freeze in Israel's settlement expansion, while Tel Aviv has ignored such calls.

Another point Pascoe stressed was the poor quality goods entering Gaza through the Israeli crossings.

"Sufficient materials to restart civilian reconstruction are still not entering Gaza through the Israeli crossings," he said and expressed disappointment that there has been no satisfactory Israeli response to the UN's proposal to "complete stalled projects for housing, schools and health facilities."

presstv.com

the Brown Daily Herald

Columbia's Rashid Khalidi called the Fatah-Hamas split "venemous."

By Sarah Forman

Published: Friday, February 19, 2010

Palestine faces enormous challenges that have only worsened over the past 20 years, and achieving stability and independence from Israeli occupation is becoming more and more unlikely, Rashid Khalidi, professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia, told a full MacMillan 117 Thursday night.

“A two-state solution looks a lot further off today than it did in the 1990s,” he said, listing off the major ways in which life for Palestinians has worsened.

“In spite of all of these vicissitudes,” he said, Palestinians have an “extraordinary solidarity of society” and general cohesiveness, so they may just escape their “very, very grim future.”

=> Read more!

GAZA, (PIC)-- Ismail Radwan, a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, said on Thursday that his movement, from the outset, had no doubt that the Mossad were behind the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

He added that with all the evidence immerging from Dubai and the fact that the UK, France and Ireland summoned Israeli ambassadors in their respective countries to question them about the use of forged European passports in the assassination of Mabhouh were new evidence of the involvement of the Mossad if there was ever any doubt in the first place.

Radwan called on those countries whose passports have been used in the assassination to punish Israel by declaring Israel a terrorist state and by trying Israeli war criminals in the international criminal court.

He concluded by saying that the crime of assassinating Mabhouh is another crime added to the long list of Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

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

On top of political failure, the regime of Abbas and Fayyad has now to contend with charges of moral degeneracy and criminality, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah

Fahmi Shabana, a high-ranking Palestinian Authority (PA) intelligence officer, had been warning the Ramallah leadership that corruption was rampant throughout the PA regime and that effective steps had to be taken immediately to stem its tide. However, very few people in the PA hierarchy took him seriously.

One of the main reasons for ignoring Shabana's warnings had to do with the fact that the problem, in its multi- faceted forms, was so widespread that stemming it would be a formidable task the execution of which could seriously destabilise the PA and undermine its public image.

Last week, Shabana, who has been until recently in charge of the Anti- Corruption Department in the PA regime, made serious revelations that would indict a number of PA officials for decidedly criminal behaviour, including sexual misconduct, financial embezzlement, breach of trust, nepotism, favouritism, graft, misappropriation of public funds and indulging in behaviour unbecoming a public official.

In an interview with the rightwing Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, and later with the Israeli Television Channel 10, Shabana disclosed two main cases of corruption. He revealed that unnamed Fatah officials embezzled much of the $3.2 million bribe given by the US to Fatah ahead of the 2006 legislative elections. The money had been intended to enhance Fatah's image and boost its chances of winning. Some of the sum was used as "inducements" to make young people vote for Fatah. However, the bulk of it evaporated, using the words of one Fatah official from the Hebron region.

=> Read more!

The Israeli apartheid wall on the outskirts of Jerusalem, while Israeli settlements are seen in the background

Rather than meeting the Palestinian negotiating demand for a freeze on settlements, Israel is grabbing yet more land for Jewish-only urban expansion, writes Saleh Al-Naami

From his balcony, Gamal Hussein, 30, surveys the horizon and is filled with anguish and gloom. Hussein has lost his farmland in the mountains that stretch west of his village Shaqba, west of Ramallah in the centre of the West Bank. The Israeli army confiscated his farm as part of a land grab to expand the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Sefer, near the village.

The seizure allocates more land to the settlement after orders were made by the Israeli Ministry of Interior to expand it into a city. Although Palestinian villagers there already lost 50 per cent of their land when the settlement was created in 2000, they have lost another 30 per cent now to make room for its expansion into a city.

The land grab is not all the villagers have to worry about. This settlement-cum- city is populated by ultra-Orthodox Jews who are known for their high fertility rates (an average family has eight members). This means that Israeli authorities will continue to expand the settlement under the pretext of "natural growth". Accordingly, more Palestinian land in the area will be usurped for this purpose.

=> Read more!

Newly identified: the mummies of Tutankhamun's parents and grandmother Tiye

The real cause of Tutankhamun's death has finally been discovered, reports Nevine El-Aref

Journalists from across the globe flocked yesterday morning to the foyer of the Egyptian Museum, desperate to catch a glimpse of the mummies of King Tutankhamun's parents and grandmother.

Eighty-eight years after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb the enigma of the 18th Dynasty, one of the most powerful royal houses of the New Kingdom which included Akhenaten as well as the boy king, is finally being unravelled.

"The Amarna period is like an unfinished play. We know its beginning but have never succeeded in discovering its end," Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), told reporters at the press conference held at the Egyptian Museum. "Now, using modern scientific technology and DNA analyses of five New Kingdom royal mummies, 70 per cent of the history of the Amarna period has been uncovered and several perplexing questions answered.

=> Read more!

Murder in Dubai

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh - the victim of British collusion with Israel?

Thursday, 18 February 2010

How could the Arabs pick up on a Mossad killing, if that is what it was? Well, we shall see -- Robert Fisk

Collusion. That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies. At 3.49pm yesterday afternoon (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source – impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi – to say that "the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?"

The voice – I know the man and his origins well – wants to talk. "There are 18 people involved in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Besides the 11 already named, there are two Palestinians who are being interrogated and five others, including a woman. She was part of the team that staked out the hotel lobby." Two hours later, an SMS arrives on my Beirut phone from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It is the same source.

"ONE MORE THING," it says in capital letters, then continues in lower case. "The command room of the operation was in Austria (sic, in fact, all things are "sic" in this report)... meaning the suspects when here did not talk to each other but thru the command room on separate lines to avoid detection or linking themselves to one another... but it was detected and identified OK??" OK? I ask myself.

=> Read more!

British-born Israeli Paul John Keeley denies any involvement in the killing on Israeli Channel 10 television

British PM Brown calls in police to investigate alleged identity theft by Mossad as Israeli envoy asked to explain how passports were in killers' hands. Assassination team now thought to number 18, including two women

By Kim Sengupta, Ben Lynfield and Donald Macintyre

Thursday, 18 February 2010

The international furore over the assassination of a senior Hamas official sharply escalated yesterday with claims that he had been lured to Dubai by the Israeli intelligence services.

Security sources say that Mahmoud al-Mabhouh had changed his travel plans, leaving behind his bodyguards, for a "meeting" which may have been organised by Mossad, who had been tracking him for days before his death.

The killers' use of European passports has led to widespread calls for investigation, and the repercussions for Israel over its alleged involvement in the murder began yesterday, with Gordon Brown announcing an inquiry to be held by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

=> Read more!

Dubai police named 11 people suspected of involvement in the killing of a Hamas official [AFP]

"The time for promises and talk of revenge is done. Now is the time for action" --Khaled Meshaal, Hamas leader

Interpol, the international police agency, has placed 11 members of an alleged hit squad suspected of assassinating Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas commander, at a luxury Dubai hotel last month, on its most-wanted list.

Interpol issued the red notices, its highest-level alert, on Thursday on the request of Dubai authorities.

Interpol said it had reason to believe the suspects had stolen the identities of real people, using them as aliases to commit the murder.

Interpol's "red notices" are not international arrest warrants but are put out after national authorities issue a warrant to help with finding suspects so they can be arrested or extradited.

=> Read more!

As Israeli soldiers we hang our heads in shame over last year's attack on Gaza's civilian population. Dialogue, not war, is needed

By Arik Diamant and David Zonsheine

February 17, 2010 "The Guardian" posted at Information Clearinghouse

The Israeli media marked the one-year anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, the war on Gaza, almost as a celebration. The operation is recognised almost unanimously in Israel as a military triumph, a combat victory over one of Israel's deadliest enemies: Hamas.

As combat soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), we have serious doubts about this conclusion, primarily because hardly any combat against Hamas took place during the operation. As soon as the operation started, Hamas went underground.

Most casualties were inflicted on Palestinians by air strikes, artillery fire, and snipers from afar. Combat victory? Shooting fish in a barrel is more like it. Operation Cast Lead consisted essentially of bombing one of the most crowded places on earth, striking civilian targets such as homes, schools and mosques, and ultimately leaving a trail of more than 1,300 casualties, mostly civilians, over 300 of whom were children. As soldiers of the IDF reserves, we bow our heads in shame against this hideous attack on a civilian population.

=> Read more!

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The media has headlined good economic news: fourth quarter GDP growth of 5.7 percent ("the recession is over"), Jan. retail sales up, productivity up in 4th quarter, the dollar is gaining strength. Is any of it true? What does it mean?

The 5.7 percent growth figure is a guesstimate made in advance of the release of the U.S. trade deficit statistic. It assumed that the U.S. trade deficit would show an improvement. When the trade deficit was released a few days later, it showed a deterioration, knocking the 5.7 percent growth figure down to 4.6 percent. Much of the remaining GDP growth consists of inventory accumulation.

More than a fourth of the reported gain in Jan. retail sales is due to higher gasoline and food prices. Questionable seasonal adjustments account for the rest.

Productivity was up, because labor costs fell 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter, the fourth successive decline. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose. Productivity increases that do not translate into wage gains cannot drive the consumer economy.

=> Read more!

By CARL GINSBURG

The demise underway in America today sees many games in play and many players at fault. What’s plain is that the scramble for money is fierce – 2009 brought record profits - and the fallout is very severe, especially for millions of young people who are entering adulthood per the terms of The Great Marginalization. Chris Farrell, economics reporter for NPR’s Marketplace, told audiences on February 12 that “variable pay” – a term for stagnant base pay -- is now well established in the U.S. “Keeping a tight lid on wages is not going to change,” said Farrell. “Get used to it.”

The sheer magnitude of the demise Farrell and others describe is staggering and nothing planned or proposed by this government at this time will have any meaningful effect except to increase it. We are rapidly approaching a sobering statistic: 100 million Americans – one- third the population -- living at twice poverty or less, which translates into $43,000 a year gross for a family of four, or less, which translates into less than $3,000 per month take home for a family of four, or less. These numbers courtesy a recent report out from Brookings Institution.

=> Read more!

Israeli officials continue to congratulate themselves on a job well done.

By Ramzy Baroud

With the dreadful threat of yet another Israeli war in the Middle East looming, Israeli propaganda machine is likely to go into full gear.

In fact, trial balloons have already been sent out bearing supposedly unrehearsed comments by former Israeli Army general and current Minister Yossi Peled, suggesting that another war is on its way. More recently, Israel's ultra-right and unabashedly racist Foreign Minister Avigador Lieberman threatened to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in case of a war.

And so it begins.

=> Read more!

The Simon Wiesenthal Center should abandon its plan to build a facility on the site of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, Saree Makdisi says.

A Muslim cemetery near the construction site of the Museum of Tolerance in downtown Jerusalem. (Dan Balilty / Associated Press / February 10, 2010)

By Saree Makdisi

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's plan to construct an outpost of Los Angeles' Museum of Tolerance atop the most important Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem is temporarily in disarray. This presents an opportunity to call on the center to abandon this outrageous project once and for all.

The site in question is Ma'man Allah, or the Mamilla Cemetery, which had been in continuous use for centuries until 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or driven into flight and their private property, including Ma'man Allah, was handed over to Jewish users.

Like Muslim and Christian sites throughout Israel -- which, as a 2009 State Department report pointed out, implements protections only for Jewish holy sites -- the cemetery has long been threatened. Parts of it have been used as a roadway, parking lots, building sites and Israel's Independence Park. Among the trees in the park, Palestinian tombstones can still be seen, eerily and all too appropriately.

=> Read more!

A Reut Institute presentation calls on Israel to "attack catalysts" -- global peace and justice activists.

Related: The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall

By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 16 February 2010

An extraordinary series of articles, reports and presentations by Israel's influential Reut Institute has identified the global movement for justice, equality and peace as an "existential threat" to Israel and called on the Israeli government to direct substantial resources to "attack" and possibly engage in criminal "sabotage" of this movement in what Reut believes are its various international "hubs" in London, Madrid, Toronto, the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.

The Reut Institute's analyses hold that Israel's traditional strategic doctrine -- which views threats to the state's existence in primarily military terms, to be met with a military response -- is badly out of date. Rather, what Israel faces today is a combined threat from a "Resistance Network" and a "Delegitimization Network."

=> Read more!

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's foreign minister said on Wednesday the use of the identities of foreign-born Israelis by a hit squad suspected of killing a Hamas militant in Dubai did not prove the Mossad spy agency assassinated him.

"There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief," Avigdor Lieberman, asked about the operation and alleged passport subterfuge, told Army Radio.

But Lieberman did not deny outright Israeli involvement in the killing of Hamas's Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel last month, saying Israel has a "policy of ambiguity" on intelligence matters and there was no proof it was behind the assassination.

=> Read more!

]
From left to right, top row: Evan Dennings of Irish nationality, Gail Folliard of Irish nationality, James Leonard Clarke of British nationality, Jonathan Louis Graham of British nationality; middle row: Michael Bodenheimer of German nationality, Paul John Keeley of British nationality, Michael Lawrence Barney of British nationality; bottom row: Peter Elvinger of French nationality, Kevin Daveron of Irish nationality, Melvyn Adam Mildiner of British nationality, Stephen Daniel Hodes of British nationality.

DUBAI, (PIC)-- The police in the Emirate of Dubai has announced on Monday the arrest of two Palestinian citizens, including an officer in the Ramallah-based PA authority, involved in the killing of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh last month.

Eleven more European nationals, including six Britons, three Irish, one French, and one German were also accused of masterminding and executing the assassination.

"Soon we will issue arrest warrants against the 11 European suspects who used sophisticated technology to kill the victim. However, we don’t rule out the possibility that the Mossad (Israeli external intelligence apparatus) is behind the plan, but we shall wait till we arrest and interrogate the suspects to know who was really behind the assassination", said Dhahi Khalfan, the chief of police in Dubai.

He explained that the assassins arrived to the Emirate in three groups and left it within 24 hours, adding that passports of the killers were all genuine until otherwise proven.

He also revealed that the two arrested Palestinians were suspected of providing logistic support to the assassins identifying one of the Palestinians as a police officer in the Ramallah authority who had met with the leader of the group whose name is Peter, a French national.

The plan:
The Dubai police exhibited photos captured by the surveillance cameras installed in and around the hotel where the crime occurred, saying that the assassins succeeded in decoding the door key of Mabhouh's room, while he was outside, and waited for him inside it before they suffocated and killed him.

The police added that the suspects left some medicines next to Mabhouh's body in an attempt to deceive the police investigators, confirming that the plan was cooked in the room of Peter who booked a room adjacent to that of Mabhouh.

The police also revealed that the assassin group used hi-tech communication tools that couldn’t be intercepted by the Emirates communication channels, and they paid in cash for the hotel instead of credit cards.

"We know each one of them and where they live, but we will chase them through international channels after we published their names and photos", underlined Khalfan.

Hamas's reaction:
For its part, Hamas's political leadership asserted that the involvement of two Palestinians, including an officer in Ramallah authority, confirms that the security coordination between the PA and the Israeli occupation has "gone beyond borders".

"Initial information revealed by the police in Dubai proves that Abbas's security departments were extending the security coordination with the Israelis outside the Palestinian borders", said Dr. Ismail Radwan, one of Hamas political leaders in Gaza, urging the Ramallah authority to explain the involvement of its security officers in the assassination.

Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, the spokesman of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, hailed the efforts of Dubai police in identifying the killers, describing the revelation by Dubai police about the involvement of the Ramallah security apparatuses in the killing as "serious".

But Abu Zuhri confirmed that regardless of the nationality of the killers, Hamas still believes the Israeli Mossad was the party that masterminded the assassination of Mabhouh using a number of its agents to carry out the crime.

MP Dr. Salah Al-Bardawil, another Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip, asserted that the burden now is on Fatah faction to explain its stand regarding the findings of the Dubai police, stressing that the two Palestinian agents should be prosecuted.

He also urged the Dubai police to coordinate with Hamas Movement and to furnish it with the information surrounding the crime, explaining that Hamas Movement was the first party concerned about Mabhouh, and has the right to prosecute his killers.

Moreover, Bardawil invited the countries whose nationals were involved in the killing to surrender them to the authorities in Dubai so that justice could take its course.

According to Dubai police, the two Palestinians escaped to Jordan immediately after the crime, but they were arrested there and turned over to Dubai police.

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

Why are US taxpayers doling out $3 billion a year to a

By Stephanie Westbrook

A "regional economic power." That's how ANIMA, the Euro-Mediterranean Network of Investment Promotion Agencies encompassing 70 governmental agencies and international networks, described Israel in its January 2010 Mediterranean Investment Map. The report analyzed the economies of the 27 European Union countries as well as 9 "partner countries."

And who can argue. Touting an annual GDP growth rate around 5% for the years 2004 to 2008, Israel was also ranked 27 out of 132 countries in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report last fall. It ranked 9th for innovative capacity.

In the 2008 World Competitiveness Yearbook by IMD, Israel comes in 2nd for the number of scientists and engineers in the workforce. No other country in the world spends more on research and development as a percentage of GDP than Israel. Since the year 2000 it has hovered around 4.5%, or twice the average of OECD member countries.

I am not an economist, but I have to wonder why US taxpayers are doling out $3 billion a year in direct military aid to a "regional economic power."

=> Read more!

Jenny Tonge, for years a friend to Palestinians, has been betrayed and sacked.

By Stuart Littlewood - London

In another blow to British free speech the parliamentarian Baroness Jenny Tonge, a good friend to Palestinians for many years, has been betrayed by her party colleagues and sacked.

Jenny Tonge dared to comment on allegations circulating in the media about Israel harvesting human organs during their emergency rescue operations in Haiti. To prevent these allegations going any further, she said, "the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.”

The allegations included reports that the former head of Israel’s forensic institute admitted Israeli pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians and others without permission but this nauseating practice had ended in the 1990s. Yet Jenny Tonge’s remarks brought a storm of protest from her own colleagues as well as the Zionist rat-pack. One of them said: "She is misguided to call for any investigation. On this basis, there could be calls for an investigation to discover the ‘truth’ in the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Another said: "We understand why the idea would be offensive to the Jewish community."

=> Read more!

The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall

The Reut Institute

This report analyzes and provides a conceptual response to the erosion in Israel's diplomatic status over the past few years, which reached its peak with the Goldstone report . This attack possesses strategic significance, and may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years.

Executive Summary

1. In the past year Israel has been subjected to harsh global criticism, which reached its peak with the Goldstone report that investigated Operation Cast Lead. The erosion in Israel's diplomatic status following the report has become, in some places, a call undermining its right to exist.

2. The Reut Institute identifies a direct link between these recent events and the outcome of the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. We believe that recent military and political disappointments reflect a crisis in Israel's national security doctrine. There are two main generators of attacks on Israel's legitimacy. The Resistance Network - which operates on the basis of Islamist ideology and includes Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas; and the Delegitimization Network - which operates in the international arena in order to negate Israel's right to exist and includes individuals and organizations in the West, which are catalyzed by the radical left.

3. The significance of this strategic inferiority is that Israel lacks an effective response to the challenge it faces. It is therefore likely that Israel will continue to experience setbacks in attempts to secure itself as a democratic and Jewish state.

=> Read more!

Clinton ramps up rhetoric on Iran

Clinton has called on Tehran to reconsider
"dangerous" nuclear policy decisions

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said that Iran is heading towards a "military dictatorship" and warned it poses an international threat.

Clinton made her comments to students in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Monday as part of her Gulf tour seeking greater support for tough new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

"We see the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," she said, speaking at the Qatari branch of Carnegie-Mellon University.

The US is seeking to push Iran into curbing its nuclear ambitions, which it says are aimed at building a nuclear weapon.

Iran has repeatedly stated that its nuclear programme is purely to meet the country's civilian energy needs.

Watch Hillary Clinton's Middle East Town Hall meeting on Al Jazeera.

Related articles:
Zionist Daniel Pipes' final solution to "save Obama presidency": Bomb Iran
GROVELING IN FRONT OF AIPAC -- The Zionist power configuration in America: A Blatant Act of War
Chutzpah, They Name is Zionism

=> Read more!

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

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

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

=> Read more!

By Amira Hass

Something about 12-year-old Bassam caused two Israelis to smile. Two Palestinians noticed, but did not remember their smiles as being disparaging or arrogant. On the contrary. The Palestinians regarded the smiles as a rare moment in which two Israelis - and not just any Israelis, but military judges - realized how ridiculous the situation was.

There were three other Israelis present, who held back their cries as they watched the boy enter, faltering - the chains around his legs clanging against each other, the prisons service coat he wore much too big for him. These three women, of their own accord, go regularly to the caravans that house the Ofer military tribunal and take notes. Were it not for these three women, who eventually shared his story, Bassam would have become yet another hidden detail of a non-event. A non-event of the sort that takes place countless times, all the time. Without those non-events, it is impossible to comprehend what life is like under hostile rule.

=> Read more!

U.S> Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The United States should break Israel's blockade of Gaza and deliver badly needed supplies by sea, a U.S. congressman told Gaza students.

Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, also urged President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy to visit the Hamas-ruled territory to get a firsthand look at the destruction caused by Israeli's military offensive last year.

The Obama administration, like its predecessor, shuns Hamas because the Islamic militant group refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence.

Israel and Egypt have restricted access to Gaza since Hamas' victory in parliament elections in 2006 and tightened the blockade after Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007.

Israel allows humanitarian supplies and food into Gaza, but has kept out cement and other building supplies needed for reconstruction. Israel argues such materials could be diverted by Hamas for military use.

Baird, who has announced his retirement from Congress, told a group of Gaza students Sunday evening that the U.S. should not condone the blockade.

"We ought to bring roll-on, roll-off ships and roll them right to the beach and bring the relief supplies in, in our version of the Berlin airlift," he said, adding that the supplies could be delivered to U.N. aid agencies.

Associated Press http://tinyurl.com/yhwlps9

Some 15,000 troops, including US, Afghan, UK, Danish and Estonian forces have been mobilised [EPA]

Nato has expressed its "deep regret" over the loss of civilian lives in its offensive against the Taliban in the town of Marjah in southern Afghanistan.

Despite the deaths of 12 civilians, officials appeared pleased with the Marjah campaign's progress, with Afghan officials saying on Monday that almost total control of the area had been wrested from the Taliban.

=> Read more!

by James M. Wall

The Ma’man Allah cemetery is located within the grounds of West Jerusalem’s Independence Park.

The cemetery is of ancient vintage. It dates back to at least the 12th century. There are some archeologists who believe it may even date back to the time of the prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

Independence Park is, as its name suggests, a post-1948 addition to the city’s landscape. Modern tourist books give the cemetery only a passing glance.Ma’man Allah is disappearing, as one guide book suggests:

The chief attractive element of [Independence] park is the Lion’s cave which lies inside the park . . . This cave lies to the east end of the park which also houses an old Islamic cemetery in the grounds.

An “old Islamic cemetery” indeed. Ma’man Allah is much more than an “old Islamic cemetery”. It is rapidly becoming a purloined cemetery. And what does Israel’s Supreme Court have to say on the matter of the Case of the Purloined Cemetery?

On February 10, Israel’s highest Court gave final clearance to the city of Jerusalem and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, to build a complex with the grotesquely ironic name, the Center for Human Dignity-Museum of Tolerance.

Rabbi Marvin Hier. founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was invited by Democracy Now moderator Amy Goodman to appear on her program to discuss his organization’s museum. He declined to appear, but sent this message:

[The complex] is being built on Jerusalem’s former municipal car park, where every day for nearly half a century, thousands of Muslims, Christians and Jews parked their cars without any protest whatsoever from the Muslim community.

Columbia University professor and author Rashid Khalidi, whose ancestors are buried at Ma’man Allah, was a studio guest on Democracy Now. He has a different reading of the cemetery’s history.

RASHID KHALIDI: This is a cemetery where people have been buried since the twelfth century. People who fought with Saladin in the Crusades are buried there . . . Contrary to what Rabbi Hier said, that parking lot was built over part of a cemetery. The Israeli authorities are basically pushing ahead with the desecration of a cemetery that they have been, unfortunately, slowly nibbling away at for over three decades.

For full story got to http://tinyurl.com/yhg77g5

Ynet

The plot where the building will be built (Archive photo: Michael Kramer)

After court rejects their request to block building of 'Jews only' residential building in Ajami quarter, residents promise to fight decision, threaten to go to High Court. 'Apartments should be built for young people, not settlers,' says neighborhood council chairman, Kemal Agbaria
Vered Luvitch

Residents of Jaffa's Ajami quarter were disappointed to receive news that the court petition submitted by 27 local residents to prevent the building of a "Jews only" building in the neighborhood was rejected.

"The ruling is very distressing," said neighborhood council chairman Kemal Agbaria to Ynet on Thursday. "We are considering petitioning the High Court. The legal channel is one thing, but the public channel is no less important. We will prepare a battle plan. We are talking about waging war over our home. Apartments must be built for young people on the land, not for settlers," he said.

=> Read more!

Pulse

By M. Shahid Alam

Is the question of parallels between the USA and the USSR idle, even mischievous? Perhaps, it is neither, but, on the contrary, deserves our serious consideration.

During the Cold War, the USA and USSR were arch rivals, each the antipodes of the other. For some four decades, they battled each other for ‘survival’ and global hegemony, staring down at each other with nuclear tipped missiles, ready at the push of a button to consummate mutually assured destruction. What parallels could there possibly exist between such irreconcilable antagonists?

Dismissively, the skeptic might retort that their similarities start and end with the first two letters in their names. The USA won and the USSR lost the Cold War. With all four of the letters in its name, the USSR is dead and gone. Its successor state, Russia, now ranks a distant second behind the USA in military power, a position it retains only by virtue of its nuclear arsenal. Measured in international dollars, the Russian economy ranked eighth in the world in 2009, trailing behind its former client, India.

=> Read more!

Jerusalem – Ma'an – Several Palestinian shops inside Jerusalem's Old City in Damascus Gate face the threat of demolition after the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality inspectors handed down notices to owners and tenants on Wednesday.

The notices were given to Muhammad Abu Ad-Dab'at, owner of several shopes, and to tenants Mu’tasim Abu Rmeila, Samir Salayma, and Najati Ja’bari. All were given three days to evacuate the shops.

According to the owner’s son, Wael, Israeli municipality store-inspectors do not have the jurisdiction to hand down demolition notices, which is usually executed by license and building inspectors. He added that neither he nor his father or tenants received eviction orders from the Israeli High Court, in accordance with recent Israeli policy.

"We will try to stop the demolition by any means. We are ready to appoint engineers to survey the area in order to get license for the shops," he added.

The stores in question had originally been the blacksmith workshop of Wael's father for 60 years, when in 1982 an Israeli company for Jerusalem's development took control of the area, he said, his father divided up the workshop into stores. Wael said his father was threatned at the time to either sell the workshop or evacuate it by force, or to change the workshop into a commercial property.

Spokesman for the Jerusalem Municipality Stephan Miller confirmed that the stores were at risk, saying that an Israeli court had ordered the action.

An Israeli police spokesman said that he was not aware of any eviction or demolition warrants being handed down to the shop owners, despite municipality confirmation.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=261252

GAZA, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Two U.S. Democrat congressmen visited on Sunday the Gaza Strip to review the situation of the enclave that has been under Israeli blockade for more than three years, Hamas officials said.

Hamas said in a statement that Brian Bird and Nick Bilono, two Democrats, crossed into the Gaza Strip through Rafah border crossing between the enclave and Egypt.

The two U.S. congressmen, who were escorted by United Nations vehicles, visited areas which were bombarded by the Israeli army during last winter's "Operation Cast Lead" military offensive that lasted for 22 days.

During the Israeli war, more than 1,440 Palestinians were killed and over than 5,000 wounded, most of them civilians. According to Hamas official figures, more than 20,000 houses and constructions were destroyed.

It was not clear if the two congressmen would hold talks with senior Hamas officials in Gaza.

The United States and Europe list Hamas among the world's terrorist groups, and they have imposed an embargo on the movement since 2006.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-02/14/c_13175582.htm

By Khalid Amayreh

The Wiesenthal Center is notorious for its pro-Israeli propaganda. It publishes flagrant lies, exaggerations and half-truths which are often presented as “academic and objective facts.” However, in truth, many of these findings are actually fabrications. This recently came to light with the publication, in June 2009, of Hunting Evil, by British Author Guy Walters, in which he characterized Simon Wiesenthal as “a liar-and a bad one at that.”

Moreover, the Center is notorious for trying to hide facts that would expose Israel’s ugly face. For example, the center is now objecting to the appearance of Richard Goldstone, the South African Jewish judge who investigated Israel’s crimes in Gaza last year, at New York University.

In a statement, the Los Angeles-based Center reportedly urged NYU President John Sexton, to deny Goldstone a platform to tell students what Israel really did in the Gaza Strip.

=> Read more!

Israel and its supporters focus the world's attention on imaginary threats.

By Maidhc Ó Cathail

Chutzpah, a Yiddish word meaning 'shameless audacity,' has been famously defined as 'that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.' Considering Israel’s increasingly outrageous behaviour, perhaps it’s time for a new definition. The one that springs to mind is “that quality enshrined in a state, which having induced its ‘allies’ into a disastrous invasion of Iraq, then urges them to attack Iran.”

At a recent dinner in honour of visiting Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took yet another rhetorical swipe at Tehran. “Humanity stands before one of its most difficult tests since World War II,” Netanyahu intoned. “The radical Islamic regime threats [sic] the well-being of the state of Israel, the region, and all of humanity.”

Sounding more like an Israeli envoy than the head of a sovereign nation, Berlusconi responded, “My job is to make sure that world leaders do not commit the same error of the past, the error of indifference that brought about the greatest tragedy in history.”

In Defamation, a highly revealing 2009 documentary on anti-Semitism by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, Professor Norman Finkelstein noted this strategy of invoking past Jewish suffering to justify future wars. “The irony is that the Nazi holocaust has now become the main ideological weapon for launching wars of aggression,” said Finkelstein, the author of The Holocaust Industry. “Every time you want to launch a war of aggression, drag in the Nazi holocaust.”

=> Read more!

Democratically elected Hamas is the 'Unacceptable Face' of Palestine

By Stuart Littlewood – London

'O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!'

A few weeks ago, on the annual Robert Burns Night, these immortal lines from 1786 were being recited all over the world, but probably not in Palestine. The leadership there aren’t blessed with the gift of seeing themselves as the rest of the world sees them… a bit like the Israelis that way. The consequences for the Palestinians are tragic.

Fatah especially would do well to learn the lines off by heart. The next two go

'It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion!'

The poem addresses a louse, which seems appropriate enough.

We’ve heard a great deal about Fatah spreading security chaos, almost provoking a civil war, then collaborating with the US to recruit sinister battalions of “security” thugs with orders to crush all opposition, silence dissent, destroy Hamas and the welfare structure it provides, and force Palestinians to bend to Israel’s will.

=> Read more!

Marwan Bishara says Israeli, Arab and US statements could pave the way to conflict.

It is time to enforce a Middle East moratorium on threats, counter threats and war speculation and preparation.

Enough wars have been waged to keep the region busy for years in Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Pakistan and the latest escalation of war in Afghanistan this week.

Repetitive Israeli, Arab and American bellicose statements are banalising war and paving the way towards violent self-fulfilled prophecies.

=> Read more!

By Jonathan Cook

The revelation that the son of Ethan Bronner, the New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief, is serving in the Israeli military has highlighted an issue that should have been in the spotlight long ago. Ali Abunimah makes some important points about the NYT’s coverage of the Middle East on the Mondoweiss site. Although the paper has a Palestinian reporter in Gaza, Abunimah notes:

“[Taghreed] Khodary is allowed to report only on Palestinians. Neither she nor any other Arab reporter is allowed to report on Israeli Jews. While Jews/Americans may report on Palestinians, the converse is not true. Why is this? It must be – I assume – because there is an inherent, perhaps unacknowledged assumption that an Arab/Palestinian is or will be automatically biased against Israelis/Jews. Whereas, we are supposed to accept that in no case is a Jewish reporter who identifies with Israel biased even when his son has joined an occupation army that is raiding Palestinian refugee camps and communities dozens of times per week.”

Abunimah is right: there is a very strong assumption among editors in the Western media about who should be allowed to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and in what ways. But actually the bias in the Western media runs much deeper than Abunimah allows.

=> Read more!

By Alan Hart

Most Jews of the world (and probably many Gentiles) believe that Zionism is the return of Jews to the land promised to them by God. At the risk of offending some readers of all faiths for saying so, I must confess, and do so cheerfully, that I don’t buy this concept because the Gentile me does not believe in the God of organized, institutional religions. So, I say to myself, no God, no promise to Jews (or anybody else). In my perception of the scheme of things, God is the potential for good inside each and every one of us. God so defined is a prisoner within each of us and our prime task is to liberate this prisoner. But let’s put that to one side.

The Jews who “returned” in answer to Zionism’s call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. They were converts to Judaism long after the end of the Hebrew conquest and short-lived domination of much of Canaan, the name as in the Bible by which Palestine was first known to the world. They therefore had no legitimate claim on the land.

=> Read more!

Gale Courey Toensing Indian Country Today
This photo of Dheisheh refugee camp, which Mark Tilsen visited last summer, was taken a few years ago, but conditions in the camp are unchanged.

By Gale Courey Toensing

CAIRO, Egypt – An activist who traveled to Egypt on Christmas Day to participate in the Gaza Freedom March took along a case of Tanka Bars, hoping to distribute them to undernourished children in Gaza living under the Israeli government’s continuing siege.

But another repressive regime – the Egyptian government – blocked Mark Tilsen, a 26-year-old Oglala Lakota-Jewish man from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and 1,400 other international activists from entering the tiny Palestinian territory on the Mediterranean Sea.

“I still want to go to Palestine. I still want to go to Gaza. I still feel for the people of Palestine and their cause, and I still want to bring Tanka Bars to the hungry kids in Gaza who can use some protein,” Tilsen said from Cairo Jan. 4. He is the assistant director of marketing for Native American Natural Foods, which produces the bars.

Full story at Indian Country Today

Al Ahram

Is the UN preparing to bury the damning findings of the Goldstone Report on Israel's Gaza assault of one year ago, asks Amira Howeidy

Critics are accusing the UN of stalling legal action against Israel after an independent fact finding mission accused Israel of possibly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in its December 2008 to January 2009 assault on Gaza.

Dubbed after the name of the head of the mission, the 575-page long Goldstone Report submitted to the UN last September recommended that both Israel and Palestinian authorities undertake investigations into the accusations and follow up with action within six months. If the parties were to fail to meet international standards of objectivity in their efforts, then the UN Security Council (UNSC) should consider referring the whole matter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

An emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly on 5 November endorsed the report's recommendations and gave both parties a timeframe of three months to conduct investigations in accordance with international standards. Come 4 February, UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-Moon, upon receiving responses from Israel and Palestinian authorities, declared in a report to the General Assembly that, "no determination can be made on the implementation of the [UN General Assembly] resolution by the parties concerned."

While the secretary-general's vague response was welcomed in Israel, it proved controversial with human rights groups who have implied that the UN is preparing to bury the Goldstone findings. UN sources say that, in effect, Ban is giving both sides another three months to complete their reports.

=> Read more!

Jordanian protesters burning an Israeli flag at an anti-Israel protest in Amman last year. (Reuters)

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent

Israel is facing a global campaign of delegitimization, according to a report by the Reut Institute, made available to the cabinet on Thursday. The Tel Aviv-based security and socioeconomic think tank called on ministers to treat the matter as a strategic threat.

The report cites anti-Israel demonstrations on campuses, protests when Israeli athletes compete abroad, moves in Europe to boycott Israeli products, and threats of arrest warrants for Israeli leaders visiting London.

Reut says the campaign is the work of a worldwide network of private individuals and organizations. They have no hierarchy or overall commander, but work together based on a joint ideology - portraying Israel as a pariah state and denying its right to exist.

Reut lists the network's major hubs - London, Brussels, Madrid, Toronto, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley. The network's activists - "delegitimizers" the report dubs them - are relatively marginal: young people, anarchists, migrants and radical political activists. Although they are not many, they raise their profile using public campaigns and media coverage, the report says.

=> Read more!

RAMALLAH (PIC)-- A high-ranking official in the office of former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas revealed Thursday that Abbas sent a message to Israeli premier that he will resign if more scandals of his associates are revealed to the public.

Abbas's threats came after a report aired by Israeli TV channel 10 showing Rafeek Al-Husseini, the director of Abbas' office, in sexually harassing two women who applied for job at his office.

The channel also revealed, with genuine documents, that millions of dollars were embezzled from the PA budget by high-ranking PA officials in Ramallah city who withdrew those money sums from the PA accounts in Cairo and Amman.

The source also added that Mohammed Dahalan, the information officer in Fatah faction, held an emergency meeting with members of the faction's central committee to mull the suitable reply to the scandalous report but no information was made about the decisions taken in the meeting.

=> Read more!

Abbas will find himself in a defenseless corner.

By George S. Hishmeh – Washington

Inch by inch, the Palestinian president has apparently once again succumbed to American pressure. He is about to allow his junior officials to start so-called “proximity talks” with their Israeli counterparts to pave the ground for the resumption of peace negotiations, which broke down after Israel’s invasion of Gaza in December 2008.

On the other hand, Israel, which has stubbornly refused an earlier Israeli commitment to freeze all illegal settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories during peace talks, has meanwhile managed to escape scot free, thanks to its new protector, Barack Obama, who keeps “heap(ing) sticky-sweet praise on Israel.”

=> Read more!

However, not all Israeli assassinations are clandestine operations.

By Tammy Obeidallah

Amid the glamour of the world's tallest building, gold bars, man-made islands, casinos and fashion, a man lay dead in his hotel room. Preliminary reports would say he had been suffocated with a pillow; further investigation would determine that he was injected with poison.

Post-mortem photos of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, age 50, told a story the media would not tell: the tip of his nose blackened, red blotches covering his cheeks and jaw and a horrific indentation on one side of his nose testified of torture and a cruel execution.

Most news sources subliminally justified Al-Mabhouh’s murder in Dubai on January 20. He was described only as a “senior Hamas militant,” “founding member of Hamas’ military wing” or even “arch-terrorist.” As someone who was allegedly involved in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers in the 1980s and committed numerous other acts of armed resistance against Israel, he was undoubtedly a menace by western standards.

=> Read more!

By Stanley Heller

I was less than overwhelmed by Justice Goldstone's speech and remarks at Yale University on January 27th. I have no training in law, but found his presentation unfair to Palestinians.

Goldstone unfair to Palestinians? This will come as a shock to those who see the man vilified and threatened daily by apartheid worshipping scum. For instance on February 4th Harvard Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan Dershowitz called Goldstone a traitor to the Jewish people, an "evil, evil man". More about that putz later. On the 27th, a Rabbi Shmuli Hecht and an associate held a banner inside the Yale lecture hall equating the Goldstone Report and the (czarist forgery) the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Later this man (who looks little more than a teenager) who is the "spirtual advisor" to a Yale Jewish organization confronted Goldstone with a gaggle of nasty followers. For his incredibly condescending attitude see his own video here.

Goldstone's lecture was not about his recent report on Gaza, but on the general topic of "Accountability for War Crimes". He gave a short, but effective account of the development of the relatively new law of "crimes against humanity" and the responsibility of every state to punish it. He delved into the history of the International Criminal Court and mentioned what he said was the "ridiculous" Bush era law to "rescue" any American who might be bound over to the court.

For full story go to The Struggle

Salam Fayyad speaks at a conference on security and policy in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, on 2 February. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak urged Israelis and Palestinians to stop "the foreplay" and engage in direct peace negotiations. (Jack Guez/AFP)

By Ziyaad Lunat, The Electronic Intifada, 10 February 2010

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected on a platform of "economic peace" with Palestinians in the West Bank. He contended that developing the Palestinian economy, by providing Palestinians with jobs and a better living stands, would render the "problems" between Israelis and Palestinians "more accessible for solutions."

Salam Fayyad, the appointed Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister in Ramallah and a former International Monetary Fund official, was quick to follow with his own complementary plan last August. His policies recently earned praise from Israeli President Shimon Peres who called Fayyad a Palestinian "Ben Gurionist," in reference to Israel's founding prime minister. Economic peace won broad backing from the UN, European leaders as well as the administration of US President Barack Obama -- representatives of which form the self-appointed "Quartet" that dictates terms for the "peace process.

Tony Blair, the Quartet envoy for the Middle East peace process, characterized Fayyad as "absolutely first class -- professional, courageous, intelligent." Blair did not hold back praise for Netanyahu either, calling him a "peacemaker."

=> Read more!

By Linda S. Heard
Online Journal Contributing Writer

It’s surely ironic that the country that complains loudest about terrorism has assassination squads travelling the world in search of prey. The murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room last month is believed to have been carried out by members of the Mossad allegedly using Irish passports. And the fact that the Israeli government has declined to comment other than to falsely claim that Al Mabhouh was in the emirate to meet with Iranian officials speaks volumes.

Dubai’s police chief, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, has warned that an international arrest warrant will be issued in the Israeli prime minister’s name if it is proved that the crime was perpetrated by an Israeli hit squad. That would certainly be a logical course of action but it’s easier said than done.

Government-sponsored Israeli murderers are professional and have decades of experience. It’s highly unlikely that they would leave behind them a trail of hard evidence that would stand up in an international court of law.

Moreover, even if Benjamin Netanyahu’s name were to appear on an international arrest warrant, there would be very few countries, if any, willing to face Washington’s wrath by putting him behind bars.

=> Read more!

Pulse

Cartographic violence

By M. Shahid Alam

He who knows himself and others
Here will also see,
That the East and West, like brothers,
Parted ne’er shall be.
--Goethe[1]

In no other major civilization do self-regard, self-congratulation and denigration of the ‘Other’ run as deep, nor have these tendencies infected as many aspects of their thinking, laws, and policy, as they have in Western Europe and its overseas extensions.[2] These tendencies reached their apogee during the nineteenth century, retreated briefly after World War II, but have been staging a come back since the end of the Cold War.

For several decades now, critics have studied these Western tendencies under the rubric of Eurocentrism, a complex of ideas, attitudes, and policies, which treat Europe — when it is convenient — as a geographical, racial and cultural unity, but places Western Europe and its overseas extensions at the center of world history since 1000 CE.[3]

Unlike the garden variety of ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism emerged as an ideological project — shaped by Europe’s intellectual elites — in the service of Europe’s rising expansionist states, starting in the sixteenth century. It makes sweeping claims of European superiority in all spheres of civilization. In this worldview, only Europeans have created history over the past three thousand years, beginning with the ancient Greeks. In various accounts, this centrality is ascribed to race, culture, religion and geography.

The central organizing principle of Eurocentrism is the division of the world into unequal moieties: us and them, self and the Other. All those qualities that Western thinkers believe are emblems or sources of superiority are securely placed in the ‘us’ category; and their opposites are pinned on ‘them.’ The arrogance of this dichotomy is breathtaking.

=> Read more!

Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have expressed outrage over the Palestinian Authority’s interference in the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate election held a few days ago.

Many journalists accused the PA leadership of stealing the vote to ensure that Fatah members and security officers took control of the union.

The journalists said they would not cooperate with the newly-elected syndicate and urged the PA to cancel the vote and hold new a new vote.

Hani al-Masri, a prominent journalist from Ramallah, said there had been “no real supervision” during the voting for the syndicate’s general assembly.

About 300 “journalists” who participated in the election had nothing to do with journalism, he said. “Some of them were members of the Palestinian security forces, while most of the journalists who were registered as members of the syndicate’s generals assembly were actually employees of the Palestinian Authority or political activists,” he added.

=> Read more!

The countries round the Baltic have just begun to realise the extent of the pollution [GALLO/GETTY]

By Stephen Cole in Helsinki, Finland

The organisers of the Baltic Sea Action Summit in Helsinki say they are trying to save the most polluted body of water in the world.

Over the last century, the nine countries which border the Baltic Sea - a stretch of semi-enclosed body of water in Northern Europe - have poured tons of toxins, dioxins and various pollutants into the sea and watched as an environmental catastrophe unfolded.

"When I was a boy I could see the seabed far below me, the water was clean and there were fish," said Pertti Salolainen, the chairman of the Finnish foreign affairs committee and founder of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Finland.

"Now I can hardly see half a metre in front," he said.

Pertti has to pull the algae away to go swimming – the same algae which are suffocating the sea. The algae, phptosynthetic organisms that inhabit most marine habitats, bloom in the summer and in the winter drop to the bottom of the sea where they consume precious oxygen and kill other marine life.

It is not just algae lurking down there – the seabed hides some of Europe's darkest secrets.

=> Read more!

Tens of thousands of Palestinian books destroyed after Israel's establishment, Ben-Gurion University researcher says

Israel plundered and destroyed tens of thousands of Palestinian books in the years after the Zionist state's establishment, according to a doctoral thesis to be submitted next month by a Ben-Gurion University researcher.

In an interview with the researcher published on al-Jazeera's website Thursday, he claimed that Israel destroyed the Palestinian books in the framework of its plan to "Judaize the country" and cut off its Arab residents from their nation and culture.

According to the doctoral dissertation, Israeli authorities collected tens of thousands of Arab books in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and other towns that were home to Arabs. Israeli officials proceeded to hand out about half the books, while destroying the second half, characterizing them as a "security threat," the researcher said.

In his al-Jazeera interview, the researcher claimed that, based on Israeli archives, IDF troops plundered the books from the homes of Palestinians expelled during the "Nakba" and handed them over to authorities. The State proceeded to establish a library in Jaffa and other towns for the books, he said.

'Cultural massacre'

The researcher told al-Jazeera that according to documents he possesses, Israel destroyed 27,000 books in 1958, claiming that they were useless and threatened the State. Authorities sold the books, most of them textbooks, to a paper plant, he said.

"This was a cultural massacre undertaken in a manner that was worse than European colonialism, which safeguarded the items it stole in libraries and museums," the researcher charged.

He added that some books were sold at discounted prices to Arab schools, while the others were transferred to the Hebrew University's library in Jerusalem.

The researcher estimated that about 6,000 Palestinian books are currently available at the National Library at Hebrew University. However, he claimed that many other books in Arabic, English, and French were not recorded, charging that most of them are being held in the library's warehouses and cannot be accessed.

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3841252,00.html

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has scoffed at the blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying walls cannot force Palestinians to submit to external control.

"Gaza is surrounded on three sides; north, east, and south; to make it raise a white flag," Haniyeh said on Monday, insisting that Egypt's underground wall will fail to produce Cairo's desired effect. "The escalation of the blockade and the siege is aimed at toppling the (Hamas) government and bringing the Palestinians to their knees," he added.

The Gaza Strip has long been under siege by the Israelis, who have closed all Gaza crossings, preventing donated food and other basic needs into the area, which is home to some 1.5 million Palestinians.

The only border terminal not controlled by Tel Aviv is the southern Rafah crossing which is closed by the Egyptian government. Cairo also launches regular attacks on the Palestinians' cross-border tunnel network in the area, filling the "food and energy vessels" with gas and water.

Late last year, the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed Egypt was constructing a subterranean steel wall to stem the flow of goods into the coastal enclave.

=> Read more!

Palestinian ambulances are seen destroyed during Israel's offensive, south of Gaza City January 16, 2009.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has charged Israel with launching hundreds of attacks against Palestinian medical teams in 2009.

The aid group, also known as PRCS, said that the Israeli troops fired 15 times at ambulances in the West Bank and Gaza last year, killing one medical worker and wounding 10 more.

The PRCS also said that the Israeli troops obstructed its teams on 440 occasions in what the society denounced as "a blatant violation of international law."

=> Read more!

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Fatah leader Nabil Sha’ath

By Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah

The recent visit to the Gaza Strip by Fatah leader Nabil Sha’ath should be a welcome first step toward Palestinian national reconciliation.

Unlike many Fatah fanatics, who openly advocate an unending war on Hamas, Sha’ath has repeatedly displayed a great deal of moderation vis-à-vis Hamas, refusing to view the Islamic liberation movement as “the enemy” as many of the anti-Islamist elements within Fatah have been insisting.

To his credit, the veteran Fatah leader never harbored any illusions as to boundaries between inter-Palestinian troubles, such as the rift between Fatah and Hamas, and the fundamental conflict between the Palestinian people and Israel .

Unfortunately, it is these boundaries that some high-ranking Palestinian Authority (PA) operatives have sought to blur and obliterate in the service of Israel.

=> Read more!

Nir Barkat wants more than 200 Palestinian homes demolished.

By Jonathan Cook - Jerusalem

Jerusalem's mayor threatened last week to demolish 200 homes in Palestinian neighbourhoods of the city in an act even he conceded would probably bring long-simmering tensions over housing in East Jerusalem to a boil.

His uncompromising stance is the latest stage in a protracted legal battle over a single building towering above the jumble of modest homes of Silwan, a deprived and overcrowded Palestinian community lying just outside the Old City walls, in the shadow of the silver-topped al Aqsa mosque.

Beit Yehonatan, or Jonathan’s House, is distinctive not only for its height -- at seven storeys, it is at least three floors taller than its neighbours -- but also for the Israeli flag draped from the roof to the street.

=> Read more!

US-backed security operations in the West Bank reinforce bitter political divide.

Speaking before a House of Representatives subcommittee in 2007, (US Lt.-General Keith) Dayton described the project as "truly important to advance our national interests, deliver security to Palestinians, and preserve and protect the interests of the state of Israel".

By Jon Elmer in Bethlehem

Abu Abdullah has never been charged with a crime, but he has been arrested by Palestinian security forces so many times in the past two years that he has lost count.

He has been arrested at work, in the market, on the street, and, more than once, during violent raids by masked men who burst into his home and seized him in front of his family.

Deep in the heart of the Deheishe refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem, Abu Abdullah describes in detail the beatings he has endured in custody, the numerous cold, sleepless nights in cramped and filthy cells, the prolonged periods bound in painful stress positions, and the long hours of aggressive questioning.

"The interrogations always begin the same way," Abu Abdullah explains. "They demand to know who I voted for in the last election."

Allegations of misconduct have been made against Palestinian security services [GALLO/GETTY]

Abu Abdullah is not alone. Since Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's caretaker government took power in Ramallah in June 2007, stories like Abu Abdullah's have become commonplace in the West Bank.

The arrests are part of a wider plan being executed by Palestinian security forces - trained and funded by American and European backers - to crush opposition and consolidate the Fatah-led government's grip on power in the West Bank.

=> Read more!

Al Ahram

Tel Aviv's recent rhetoric is further proof that Israel cannot exist outside the cycle of perpetual war, writes Ramzy Baroud*

The Israeli military may be much less effective in winning wars than it was in the past, thanks to the stiffness of Arab resistance, but its military strategists are as shrewd and unpredictable as ever. The recent rhetoric that escalated in Israel suggests that a future war in Lebanon will most likely target Syria as well. While this doesn't necessarily mean that Israel intends on targeting either of these countries in the near future, it is certainly the type of language that often precedes Israeli military manoeuvres.

Deciphering the available clues regarding the nature of Israel's immediate military objectives is not always easy, but it is possible. One indicator that could serve as a foundation for any serious prediction of Israel's actions is Israel's historical tendency to be in a perpetual state of war. Peace -- real peace -- has never been a long-term policy.

=> Read more!

Al Ahram

The bodies of the famous five Palestinian siblings from the Baalusha family, following an Israeli air strike overnight in the Jabalia refugee camp, on 29 December 2008

Israel's vicious counter-campaign against the UN fact-based report on its war on Gaza continues as the time approaches when further action will be considered, writes Amira Howeidy

On Monday, 1 February, the Israeli media reported that the commander of the Israeli army's Gaza division, Brigadier General Eyal Eizenberg, and the commander of the Givati Brigade, Colonel Ilan Malka, were "disciplined" for authorising the shelling of a United Nations facility with white phosphorous during Israel's war on the Gaza Strip that started in December 2008 and lasted for 22 days.

During that onslaught the Israeli military killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, and wounded or maimed approximately 5,000. Israel destroyed at least 2,000 buildings in addition to significant sectors of Gaza's infrastructure. Besieged by the Israeli occupation since June 2007, the Strip's 1.5 million population is denied construction material -- in addition to adequate food, medical and energy supplies -- and has not been able to repair the damage since.

Known as Operation Cast Lead, the Gaza assault was Israel's seventh and latest war in the region. It stands out for its shocking brutality. The Israeli army's liberal use of white phosphorous munitions in densely populated areas meant that hundreds of Palestinian civilians were subject to the lethal chemical that burns flesh to the bone once in contact with oxygen.

=> Read more!

Al Ahram

Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh

Israel's assassination of a top Hamas official is clearly aimed at forcing the resistance group into a military response, writes Saleh Al-Naami

The ageing father of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, who was assassinated in Dubai two weeks ago, did not believe that his son died of a heart attack. "They killed him," he repeatedly stated.

In the beginning, the rest of Al-Mabhouh's family and Hamas leaders believed that he had died as a result of a stroke, as stated in a preliminary report by the Dubai police. It soon became apparent, however, that the intuition of the father was correct.

One week after his death, it was revealed that Al-Mabhouh was killed by a highly trained assassination unit. According to information gathered by the Dubai police and Hamas, a group of seven broke into Al-Mabhouh's room at the Rotana Al-Bustan Hotel the day he arrived from Damascus where he resided with his family. Al-Mabhouh had entered the emirate using an alias and forged passport.

The group of seven injected the Hamas leader with a poison that mimics the symptoms of a heart attack, leading Dubai police to believe his death was caused by a stroke. When it was revealed that the victim was a leading member in Hamas, and given the repeated suspicions of his father that Mahmoud was assassinated by Israelis, the police sent samples of Al-Mabhouh's blood to a laboratory in France. After the results confirmed traces of poison, Hamas officially announced that the Israeli Mossad killed Al-Mabhouh.

=> Read more!

Al Ahram

His political credibility wagered on the peace process, Palestinian President Abbas is not coping well with Israel's perpetual intransigence, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah

With the Obama administration effectively reneging on pledges to get Israel to freeze settlement expansion in the West Bank, or even abide by the outdated "roadmap" peace plan, Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas is finding himself in an increasingly unenviable position.

Abbas had been insisting all along that he wouldn't agree to resume talks with Israel unless the latter agreed to halt settlement expansion in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem. However, in recent weeks, the Palestinian leader has been signalling that he may return to the negotiating table virtually without conditions.

In an interview that appeared on Sunday 31 January on The Guardian website, Abbas was quoted as saying that he would be prepared to resume face-to-face talks with Israel if the latter froze all settlement construction for three months and accepted the borders of 4 June 1967. "These are not preconditions; they are requirements in the roadmap. If they are not prepared to do that, it means they don't want a political solution."

=> Read more!

By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank

Writing in the Ha’aretz newspaper on Thursday, 28 January, under the title “holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda,” the noted Israeli journalist Gideon Levy accused Israel of employing the holocaust memory as a Public Relations gimmick to divert attention from the savagery and brutality meted out to the Palestinians.

“When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we’ll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget.”

But Levy, like many other conscientious observers, knows this won’t help the Israeli goal of making the world forget the Palestinians, or more specifically what Israel has done and is doing to them.

“It won’t help much. Inter national Holocaust Remembrance has passed, the speeches will soon be forgotten, and the depressing everyday reality will remain. Israel will not come out looking good, even after the PR campaign.”

=> Read more!

Hamas has denounced the Palestinian Authority for the participation of the caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in an Israeli conference.

Fayyad addressed Israel's 10th annual Herzilya conference on Tuesday, following remarks by Tel Aviv's Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

"The Palestinian Authority's cooperation with Israel reached a political level and this is a serious indicator that this national side has connected its projects with Israeli interests and policies," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

The conference, organized by the Strategic Studies Institute, is held annually in Israel and contributes to decisions on Israeli policy and strategy relating to security and politics.

=> Read more!

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian government in Gaza submitted its official response to the office of the high commissioner for human rights regarding the recommendations of Goldstone report.

This came during a meeting between minister of justice Faraj Al-Ghoul and director of OHCHR in Gaza Curt Goering.

Minister Ghoul said that the government took many serious measures to implement its obligations toward the report such as the formation of a governmental committee to follow up the implementation of the recommendations mentioned in the report.

It also referred to the formation of an independent committee composed of international law experts in order to ensure the transparency and integrity of the actions taken.

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

By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON

The essential point of M. Shahid Alam’s book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece. From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, “You have the light, but you have no humanity. Seek humanity, for that is the goal.”

Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston and a CounterPunch contributor, follows this with an explicit statement of his aims in the first paragraph of the preface. Asking and answering the obvious question, “Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism?” he says that he “could have written a book about the economics of Zionism, the Israeli economy, or the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, but how would any of that have helped me to understand the cold logic and the deep passions that have driven Zionism?”

Until recent years, the notion that Zionism was a benign, indeed a humanitarian, political movement designed for the noble purpose of creating a homeland and refuge for the world’s stateless, persecuted Jews was a virtually universal assumption. In the last few years, particularly since the start of the al-Aqsa intifada in 2000, as Israel’s harsh oppression of the Palestinians has become more widely known, a great many Israelis and friends of Israel have begun to distance themselves from and criticize Israel’s occupation policies, but they remain strong Zionists and have been at pains to propound the view that Zionism began well and has only lately been corrupted by the occupation. Alam demonstrates clearly, through voluminous evidence and a carefully argued analysis, that Zionism was never benign, never good—that from the very beginning, it operated according to a “cold logic” and, per Rumi, had “no humanity.” Except perhaps for Jews, which is where Israel’s and Zionism’s exceptionalism comes in.

=> Read more!

Avigdor Lieberman

BETHLEHEM -- Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened Syrian President Bashar Assad and his family on Thursday, speaking at a business forum hosted by Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University.

"If you declare war on Israel, you and your family will lose your reign," he said, according to a statement circulated by the university, which is considered among the more right-wing institutions in Israel.

Lieberman was referring to a comment made yesterday by the Syrian president that Israel is not serious about its intentions to make peace with Damascus, as evidenced by "its conduct which is leading the region to war."

=> Read more!

The National

By Wafa Issa

DUBAI -- The Israeli prime minister would be at the top of the wanted list if the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, is behind the killing of a senior Hamas official who was found dead in a hotel in the city last month, the chief of Dubai Police said today.

Lt Gen, Dahi Khalfan Tamim told The National: “Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to assassinate [Mahmoud] al Mabhouh in Dubai. We will issue an arrest warrant against him."

He did not, however, assert that Mossad was definitively responsible for the killing.

Lt Gen Tamim had said the method used to kill Mr al Mabhouh, was a “Mossad method” but did not elaborate.

He added that Mossad “has carried out operations” in the past using similar procedures. Dubai Police had also earlier said only that the involvement of Mossad could not be ruled out.

Nearly 50,000 Palestinians from the West Bank are working in Israel – following the easing of restrictions on entering Israel under the “economic peace” promised by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister – and continue to have such contributions docked from their pay.

By Jonathan Cook
February 04. 2010

OCCUPIRED JERUSALEM -- Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than US$2 billion (Dh7.4bn) by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists revealed this week.

A new report, “State Robbery”, says the “theft” continued even after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994 and part of the money was supposed to be transferred to a special fund on behalf of the workers.

According to information supplied by Israeli officials, most of the deductions from the workers’ pay were invested in infrastructure projects in the Palestinian territories – a presumed reference to the massive state subsidies accorded to the settlements.

Complicit in the deception, the report adds, is the Histadrut, the Israeli labour federation, which levies a monthly fee on Palestinian workers, even though they are not entitled to membership and are not represented in labour disputes.

“This is a clear-cut case of theft from Palestinian workers on a grand scale,” said Shir Hever, a Jerusalem-based economist and one of the authors of the report. “There are no reasons for Israel to delay in returning this money either to the workers or their beneficiaries.”

=> Read more!

By George Friedman

This weekend’s newspapers were filled with stories about how the United States is providing ballistic missile defense (BMD) to four countries on the Arabian Peninsula. The New York Times carried a front-page story on the United States providing anti-missile defenses to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, as well as stationing BMD-capable, Aegis-equipped warships in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the front page of The Washington Post carried a story saying that “the Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future attacks by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern government officials.”

Obviously, the work is no longer “quiet.” In fact, Washington has been publicly engaged in upgrading defensive systems in the area for some time. Central Command head Gen. David Petraeus recently said the four countries named by the Times were receiving BMD-capable Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) batteries, and at the end of October the United States carried out its largest-ever military exercises with Israel, known as Juniper Cobra.

More interesting than the stories themselves was the Obama administration’s decision to launch a major public relations campaign this weekend regarding these moves. And the most intriguing question out of all this is why the administration decided to call everyone’s attention to these defensive measures while not mentioning any offensive options.

=> Read more!

Jamal Zahalka: 'There is a growing trend towards anti-democratic legislation.'

By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth

Leaders of the Arab minority in Israel warned this week that they were facing an unprecedented campaign of persecution, backed by the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, designed to stop their political activities.

The warning came after Said Nafaa, a Druze member of the Israeli parliament was stripped of his immunity last week, clearing the way for him to be tried for a visit to Syria three years ago.

In recent weeks legal sanctions have been invoked against two other Arab political leaders, following clashes with the Israeli security forces at demonstrations against the occupation, and pressure is growing for two more MPs to be investigated.

=> Read more!

Maan News

Al-Masri / Haniyeh [MaanImages]

GAZA – De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that reconciliation is a national necessity, speaking at a meeting with businessman Munib Al-Masri in Gaza City.

Welcoming Fatah leader Nabil Sha'ath, who arrived the same afternoon, Haniyeh asserted that Gaza "is open for all."

"We are talking about practical procedures and agreed-upon views concerning notes and procedures that would lead us to sign the Egyptian proposal, with which we would achieve a real conciliation to end division," Haniyeh said.

=> Read more!

The Independent http://tinyurl.com/yf7u956

When a United Nations report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone accused the Israeli military of using disproportionate force in its December 2008 Gaza incursion, the Israeli government rejected the findings as "flawed from A to Z", "biased" and "ludicrous".

But now significant cracks are opening in that facade of rejection. Last week, the Israeli government sent a document to the UN revealing that it had reprimanded two officers for firing artillery shells at a UN compound in Gaza where 700 Palestinian civilians were taking refuge. The document also claimed that Israeli military inquiries had found that the al-Badr flour mill in Gaza did not come under air attack in the operation, contradicting the Goldstone report which said the mill was attacked from the air. Yet it has since emerged that a bomb defused last year at the mill was of the sort commonly dropped by F-16 jets.

=> Read more!

The Independent http://tinyurl.com/yzrry6y

An Israeli soldier directs a tank outside the Gaza Strip in December 2008

Civilians 'put at greater risk to save military lives' in winter attack - revelations that will pile pressure on Netanyahu to set up full inquiry

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year's Gaza war, The Independent can reveal.

The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as "means and intentions" – whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon – as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter. A more junior officer who served at a brigade headquarters during the operation described the new policy – devised in part to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war – as one of "literally zero risk to the soldiers".

Palestinian boys carry their belongings through the ruins of a house after an Israeli air strike in 2008

The officers' revelations will pile more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to set up an independent inquiry into the war, as demanded in the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report, which harshly criticised the conduct of both Israel and Hamas. One of Israel's most prominent human rights lawyers, Michael Sfard, said last night that the senior commander's acknowledgement – if accurate – was "a smoking gun".

=> Read more!

Wednesday, 3 February 2010, 1:22 pm
Opinion: Michele Steinberg

Prof. Francis Boyle: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza
by Michele Steinberg

Jan. 27--``What we're seeing in Gaza now, is pretty much slow-motion genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in Gaza.... If you read the 1948 Genocide Convention, it clearly says that one instance of genocide is the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a people in whole or in part,'' stated Francis A. Boyle, professor of International Law at the University of Illinois in Champaign. ``And that's exactly what has been done to Gaza, since the imposition of the blockade by Israel; then the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians, two-thirds of whom were civilians, in Operation Cast Lead. And that also raises the element in the Genocide Convention, of murder, torture, and things of that nature.''
Download Financial Success Secrets
Search New Zealand Business
Related Stories on Scoop

* Open Letter to Francis Boyle 01/02/2010
* Prof. FA Boyle: The US Promotes Israeli Genocide 29/12/2009
* Latin America in Israel’s crosshairs 31/07/2009
* FA Boyle: US Strategy for Color Revolution in Iran 26/06/2009
* Former Rwandan Minister Guilty Of Genocide 24/06/2009

Results powered by search.scoop.co.nz More Related Stories >>>

Boyle spoke to {EIR} on Jan. 15, 2010, giving his assessment of Gaza, one year after the Israeli attacks. He stressed that he was speaking only for himself.

While the Israelis stopped the artillery bombardment and air strikes just before the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009, the deaths of Palestinians continue--from lack of medicines, infrastructure, clean water, and everything else that the world community--as shown in emergency aid to Haiti--{knows} is necessary to sustain human life.

But no international action has been taken to stop genocide in Gaza--despite the finding by the UN's Goldstone Report that Israel committed war crimes in the wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure, and in the killing of civilians, and despite the Jan. 21, 2010 letter by more than 50 members of the U.S. Congress to President Obama that due to ``the unabated suffering of Gazan civilians,'' he must press to end the Israeli blockade.

Similarly, according to Turkish Prof. Bulent Aras, there is almost no hope for a peace agreement, or for ending the growing isolation of Israel from the international community, unless Gaza is opened and reconstruction begins. Aras was speaking on a Jan. 14 conference call, sponsored by the Turkish SETA and New America Foundations in Washington, D.C. He was addressing the recent tensions between Israel and Turkey after the Israeli Foreign Ministry insulted the Turkish ambassador, and on the collapse of the Turkish-mediated Israel/Syria negotiations, which ended with the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

According to Boyle, the question of the Gaza opening must be immediately taken up by the Obama Administration. ``We need all the openings to Gaza, the crossings from Egypt and Israel, opened immediately. {Massive} provision of humanitarian assistance, medical supplies to Gaza--exactly what Obama's doing today, with respect to Haiti--I support that! But why aren't they doing it to Gaza? You have 1.5 million people over there.

=> Read more!

President needs dramatic gesture to change perception of him as lightweight ideologue, says Zionist ideologue

How to save the Obama presidency - bomb Iran
By Daniel Pipes
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear and whose policies I work against. But here is a way for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the US and its allies.

=> Read more!

www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=12076

By Victor Thorn – American Free Press

“His explosives couldn’t have blown up his own seat. Even if full power, it wouldn’t have worked.” These were the words relayed to me during a Jan. 2 interview with military analyst and counterinsurgency specialist Gordon Duff in regard to the attempt of Christmas Day underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab [sometimes referred to as Abdulmutallab] to ignite 80 grams of the explosive PETN on a flight destined for America. He also explained how the patsy’s country of origin, Nigeria, is clandestinely controlled by the Israeli army and Mossad.

These entities train the military, sell weapons, run the airports, and wield power over DICON (Defense Industries Corporation). Furthermore, Mutallab’s father is a Mossad partner and Israel’s No. 1 contact in Nigeria. As the former CEO of his country’s most influential bank and the man who ran their national arms industry, Mr. Mutallab also harbors extremely close relationships with the U.S. ambassador and CIA chief in Nigeria.

On Nov. 19, 2009, Mutallab supposedly felt so alarmed about his errant son’s behavior that he met with the CIA’s station chief in Nigeria. Duff describes the father in a Dec. 31 article for Veterans Today as “one of the richest people in the world, head of a major bank, head of the national armaments industry, and close associate of the U.S. ambassador,” as well as being a Mossad asset. Yet we’re to believe that nobody prevented his Yemeni-influenced “terrorist” son from boarding a plane ultimately bound for Detroit?

=> Read more!

The Israeli offensive left up to 1,400 Palestinians dead, many of them women and children [AFP]

IN DEPTH
Gaza's phosphorus legacy
UN releases Gaza attack photos
War crimes convictions after Gaza?
Video: Gaza speaks out on white phosphorus use

The Israeli army has disciplined two high-ranking officers for firing artillery shells at populated areas during the Gaza offensive last year, according to local media.

The Haaretz newspaper website said on Monday that a military inquiry concluded that a division commander and a brigade commander endangered human life by firing highly incendiary weapons towards a compound run by a UN aid agency.

But the Israeli military spokesman's office said the army had reprimanded Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg and Brigade Commander Ilan Malka for using artillery in built-up areas - and not for using white phosphorous weapons.

"With respect to exploding munitions containing white phosphorous, the Military Advocate General concluded that the use of this weapon in the operation was consistent with Israel's obligations under international law", the military office statement said.

However, the army does not dispute that white phosphorous was used in Gaza and has submitted its report to the UN.

=> Read more!