The Corner Report

Demonizing Islam, Alienating Muslims, Harming US

It’s the Muslims whose sensitivities are being trampled on, Gulamhusein Abba writes

By Gulamhusein A. Abba

The so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy is drummed up by anti-Islam, anti-Muslim and anti-Obama religious fanatics and right wing politicians, each with their own agenda.

The anti-Islam and anti-Muslim forces want to indelibly link in the minds of Americans the 9/11 tragedy with Islam, in an effort to demonize Islam and Muslims. They are shamelessly exploiting the 9/11 tragedy for this purpose.

Two main reasons are cited for the opposition to the “Ground Zero Mosque”. The most loudly proclaimed one is that the building of the “mosque” would desecrate hallowed Ground Zero, hurt the feelings of the families of the 9/11 victims and would be a slap in their face. The second objection voiced is the fear that the mosque could become one from which radical Islam is preached and where the seeds of terrorism are sown.

The project

First, the question of location and sensitivity.

There is no reason whatsoever for the sensitivities of any of the families of the 9/11 tragedy victims, or of anyone else for that matter, to be ruffled by the founders of the Corduba Initiative going ahead with the Park51 Project (mischievously dubbed The Ground Zero Mosque}

Before approving or opposing the project, it is important to know what exactly the project is.

What is going to be built is not a mosque as such. There will be just a prayer hall in a part of a Cultural Center. This building will not be on Ground Zero but will be two blocks away and will not even be seen from Ground Zero. The Center will have a library, gym, auditorium, swimming pool, culinary school and restaurant.

Further, it will also include an auditorium to engage large audiences, sophisticated classroom spaces, general spaces and world-class facilities for all New Yorkers to benefit from.

It will also host events to facilitate "multifaith dialogue" and will have a September 11th memorial and quiet reflection space where people of different faith traditions and beliefs, sacred and secular, can find quiet time and solace.

Yes, it will include a prayer hall, a “mosque” to be used by Muslims to offer their prayers. This will take up only a small portion of the final space. Muslim prayer services have been held daily at 51 Park Place, the site of the proposed Center, since late 2009. The developers hope to expand services and facilities in the coming months to meet the needs of an expanding Muslim population. (There are probably one million Muslims in the tri-state area and several hundred thousand in New York City).

The project planners are going to build on property they have lawfully owned for several years.

What is in works is a complete renovation of an existing building that used to be Burlington Coat Factory and which was damaged by debris falling on it from the 9/11 attacks.[...] Read more!

Islamophobe's Past in Germany: Terry Jones Accused of 'Spiritual Abuse' at Cologne Church

Spiegel

By Yassin Musharbash and Dominik Peters

US fundamentalist pastor Terry Jones, who wants to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, ran a church in the western German city of Cologne until last year when members of the congregation expelled him. Former members have spoken of his hate-filled sermons and insistence on "blind obedience."

The world is holding its breath -- and it's all down to a tiny Christian fundamentalist church in Florida.

Next Saturday, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Rev. Terry Jones and his colleagues plan to burn hundreds of copies of the Koran on the church's property in Gainesville, Florida.

The White House has condemned the plan, and Muslim organizations around the world have warned of the consequences should the Koran-burning go ahead. But the church is sticking to its plans.

Naturally the radical Islamophobes know very well that their deliberate provocation could trigger potentially violent protests and riots. But they have washed their hands of any responsibility. "Let's just make one thing clear," the wannabe Koran-burners write on their blog. "A small church, in a small town, down a back road, burning copies of its own books, on its own property, is not responsible for the violent actions anyone may take in retaliation to our protest."

Terry Jones, the man behind the action, is the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, a church that manages to attract a Sunday congregation of just 50 people, members of the radical fringe of the evangelical movement. Jones, a 58-year-old former hotel manager with a distinctive mustache, is also the author of a polemic book titled "Islam Is of the Devil."[...] Read more!

The Misnomer of the Peace Talks

There simply can be no genuine peace with justice where there is no will for it.

By John Chuckman

I don't know how anyone given the task could draw a map of Israel: it is likely the only country in the world with no defined borders, and it actually has worked very hard over many decades to achieve this peculiar state.

It once had borders, but the 1967 war took care of those. It has no intention of ever returning to them because it could have done so at any time in the last forty-three years (an act which would have been the clearest possible declaration of a desire for genuine peace with justice and which would have saved the immense human misery of occupation), but doing so would negate the entire costly effort of the Six Day War whose true purpose was to achieve what we see now in the Palestinian territories.

As far as peace, in the limited sense of the absence of war, Israel already has achieved a kind of rough, de facto peace without any help from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have nothing to offer in the matter of peace if you judge peace by the standards Israel apparently does.[...] Read more!

Kairos and Christian Advocacy in the 'Holy Land'

Kairos: 'A Moment of Truth: A Word of Faith, Hope and Love'.

By Timothy Seidel

Much is said about Palestine-Israel. There is no shortage of reporting, analysis, and opinion. And there is no shortage of expressions of personal commitments to ‘peace’. One need only glance at recent headlines to discover this, especially with another push to reinvigorate the ‘peace process’.

But there is also much that is not said. For example, in many reports of Israel’s attack on an aid flotilla headed to Gaza earlier this year there was a glaring absence of a back story. Why are basic relief supplies needed in Gaza?

No reference to Israel’s occupation of Gaza. No reference to the fact that the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza—the majority of whom are refugees—live in what is essentially the world’s largest open-air prison. No reference to the denial of access to needed services and economic opportunity with over 70 percent living in poverty, dependent on food aid.[...] Read more!

Why is Union Money Going Abroad?: Washing Away Labor's War Stain

By STANLEY HELLER

Organized labor is joining with the NAACP in a “One Nation” jobs rally in Washington on October 2nd. No doubt they will be expecting anti-war folks to flock to it. Lots of peace organizations have already done so.

Trouble is the rally has no obvious peace focus at all. Look at the One Nation Working Together website. The demands are for jobs, education and equality for all. Nothing about peace even as a way to pay for jobs. Nothing about peace even though many, many unions have passed anti-war resolutions. Now there is a formation called “the Peace Table” that’s getting anti-war groups involved in the march, but what is “The Table” getting in return? Is it the poor relation allowed to come to the party as long as it stays out of sight?

And does organized labor deserve automatic support while it has a big war stain on its collar, the stain from the support its leaders give to Israeli Apartheid? They support it in two ways, by opposing the growing BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement against Israel and by buying huge amounts of Israel Bonds. No sooner had Richard Trumka taken over command of the national AFL-CIO than he ran to a Jewish Labor Committee denouncing Israel “bashing” and any thought of boycott. Go to the JLC website and see how RWDSU and AFT leaders give cover to Israel for its crimes on the Mavi Marmara. Yet, words are secondary. The biggest help to Israeli Apartheid comes from union member dues and pension money going to State of Israel Bonds.[...] Read more!

Khaled Mesh’al Lays out New Hamas Policy Direction

This is the most recent interview with Khaled Mesh’al who, since 1996, has been the Chairman of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Political Bureau. After the assassination of Hamas leader Abdul ‘Aziz Rantisi in 2004, Mesh’al became the overall leader of the movement.

In this interview with the Jordanian Al-Sabeel newspaper in July 2010, Mesh’al lays out the policy direction of Hamas on a number of critical issues: negotiations with Israel, international relations, Jews, Christians, women, among other issues. The interview – which was conducted over many hours – has been received as significant in the Arab world and is regarded as a clear indication of positions that Hamas wants to pursue, especially with regard to future attitudes towards Israel. It is an important piece articulating, in their own words, the perspectives of Hamas’ leaders, and is critical reading for all observers of the Middle East, and all policy-makers for whom the Middle East is important. The Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC) translated this interview into English to make it accessible to a wider audience, and allow for greater understanding – especially in the English-speaking world – of the political perspectives of a movement which has become one of the most important role-players in the Middle East today.

On negotiations

Do you reject, in principle, negotiations with the enemy? If negotiations could not be conducted with the enemy, is it possible to do so with a friend? Does Hamas reject the principle of negotiations outright, or do you reject its form, conduct and results?

This is definitely a thorny and sensitive issue, and many people prefer to avoid any discussion of it, and tend not to take any clear position on it for fear of negative reactions or misinterpretations. The sensitive and critical nature of this issue is compounded by the dark shadows that are cast as a result of the bitter experiences of Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli negotiations. People are influenced by these experiences, and are extremely sensitive towards the idea of “negotiations”, particularly with regard to the collective mind and mood of the nation. There is now, in many quarters, loathing for and aversion towards the concept of negotiations. This is quite understandable and natural, but this does not preclude tackling the issue thoroughly and sorting through matters carefully so as to set every detail into context, God willing.

It is indisputable that negotiating with the enemy is not rejected, either legally or rationally; indeed, there are some stages during a conflict among enemies when negotiations are required and become necessary. Both from a rational perspective and from legal logic, it is true that negotiations as a means and a tool may be acceptable and legitimate at certain points in time, and rejected and prohibited at other times; that is, it is not rejected in itself nor is it rejected all the time.

In Islamic history, in the era of the Prophet (peace be upon him), and in subsequent ages – at the time of Salahuddin [Saladin], for example – negotiation with the enemy was conducted, but within a clear framework and a specific philosophy, within a context, vision, rules and regulations governing this negotiation. This is in stark contrast to the wretched approach taken by those negotiation professionals who consider it a way of life and the sole strategic option in the service of which all other options are ruled out.

If resistance itself, honourable and esteemed as it is, is a means and not an end, does it make sense to make negotiations an end, an only option and a constant approach, rather than being a means and a tactic to fall back on when necessary and when the context requires it?

The concept in the Qur’an is clear, when God Almighty says: “And if they incline to peace, incline (you also to peace), and trust in God.” This implies that negotiation is acceptable, reasonable and logical for us as advocates of a just cause when the enemy is forced to resort to it, when they come to us ready for negotiation and for paying the price, and to respond to our demands. However, if we seek it desperately and consider it our only option, then we will be the ones paying the price. Those who are forced to negotiate are those who usually pay the price. Hence God Almighty says in another verse: “Do not weaken and call for peace when you have the upper hand.”[...] Read more!

Jeff Gates: When Will We See the Next Mass Murder?

By Jeff Gates

The concerns of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are misplaced. The legitimacy of Israel is no longer threatened. It’s already lost. Long gone. Kaput.

Nation states are shared states of mind. The mindset in Iceland differs from India. Israel is the most unlike of all. Founded by extremists and terrorists, it’s been downhill ever since.

Psychopaths want to be loved. That’s why they’re so charming, albeit only superficially. They’re also pathological liars, egocentric, callous and remorseless.

Those qualities have long been familiar to Israel’s neighbors, particularly the Palestinians. After WWII, Harry Truman was charmed into treating this extremist enclave as an ally.

That decision may well go down in history as America’s greatest mistake.[...] Read more!

Get-a-clue-istan: Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin & Clear Denial

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

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

By Bahmani

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

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

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

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

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

Pilger: Flying The Flag; Faking The News

By John Pilger

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

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

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

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

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

Iraq War: Costs People Pay

By Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents

A devastated land and a demolished life there in Iraq unmask one face of a 21st century Naked Imperialism (title of a book by John Bellamy Foster, editor, Monthly Review). And, the Iraqi and the American peoples pay most for the politico-military adventure.

The Human Cost of the War in Iraq, A Mortality Study, 2002-2006 (Bloomberg School of Public Health, Maryland, and School of Medicine, Baghdad) estimated that 654,965 or 2.5% of the Iraqi population has died in this war. Death rates were 5.5/1,000/year pre-invasion and overall, 13.2 for the 40 months post-invasion while the post-invasion violent death rate was 3.2 deaths/1,000/year in March 2003-April 2004, 6.6 in May 2004-May 2005, and 12.0 in June 2005-June 2006. Air strikes caused about 13 percent of deaths. “Between 200 million to one billion small-caliber rounds of ammunition or more have been expended … by the U.S. forces.” Marc Herold, an economist on the independent Iraq Body Count (IBC) believed that thousands of deaths may go unreported. A UN report in September 2006 also stated that Iraqi civilian casualties have been significantly under-reported. A study found that the number of journalists killed from 2003 to 2007 was 112. Of them 90 were Iraqis. The number, according to another count, goes up to141, 94 by murder and 47 by acts of war. The number of Iraqi physicians murdered since the invasion was 2,000. An Opinion Research Business survey estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths up to August 2007.[...] Read more!

5 Jaw-Dropping Stories In Wikileaks' Archives Begging For National Attention

By Nick Turse

Many files, beyond the Afghan War Diary and the 'Collateral Murder' video, continue to hide in plain sight on Wikileaks’ Web site

In December 2008, I received an email message from Julian Assange -- the now world-famous public face of the whistleblower organization, Wikileaks. I don’t recall why or how it came about, but he invited me to join a counterinsurgency "analysis team" alongside a number of other academics, journalists and analysts.

The idea was to offer us embargoed material, much as Wikileaks recently did with the files of the Afghan War Diary -- a 6-year archive of tens of thousands of classified military documents, dealing with the U.S. war in Afghanistan -- giving the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel advance access to the documents. The reason for doing so was because Wikileaks had released a number of important U.S. military counterinsurgency manuals in the preceding months, but few reporters had shown much interest in them. Operating in a media environment where breaking the story is key and the fear of being scooped limits the amount of time and energy publications are willing to invest on documents sitting out in public, Assange carried out a trial run of a strategy that served Wikileaks exceptionally well this year.

I never wrote anything on the embargoed counterinsurgency manuals and the "analysis team" either petered out or gave up on me. But just as was the case then, today there are many files, beyond the much-publicized Afghan War Diary and the "Collateral Murder" video of a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter mowing down people in Baghdad in 2007, that continue to hide in plain sight on Wikileaks’ Web site. Below are just five examples of the types of documents available at Wikileaks.org that deserve in-depth analysis and national media attention:[...] Read more!

God announces Palestinian state in Uganda

In an interview this week with Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi, omnipresent Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev (see previous post) addressed the difficulty of defining the border between Israel and Palestine without knowing “what’s going to be on the other side” and whether whatever it is will recognize the Jewish state.

Deftly skirting Rattansi’s interjection that the Palestinians had already recognized Israel in 1993 by saying he would “answer that in a second” despite the fact that it was not a question, Regev continued: “How can we agree to a border unless we know what’s the nature and the character of the society on the other side of the border?” As for the nature and character of the Jewish state, comparable spiritual exclusivity on the other side of the fence such as an Islamic Republic of Palestine would presumably not merit comparable insistence by Regev of the state’s utter democracy.[...] Read more!

Israeli spokesman on Mid-east talks

Returning to America

By Ken O’Keefe

I will be returning to America in the next 36 hours as a publically accused “terrorist operative”, according to the Israeli military that is. It will be interesting to see how my birth nation will handle me. Especially because I headed to Gaza aboard the Freedom Flotilla in order to “train a commando unit for Hamas” (according to Israel). But before I was venturing to train commando units I was already on the US “terror watch list”.

To be honest, having the two greatest purveyors of terrorism and propaganda accuse me of “terrorism” is a massive compliment. Living as we do in George Orwell’s 1984, where black is white and white is black and the truth is nothing but a word, being a “terrorist” is a great thing. You see in this New World Order kind of world those with power speak a language in which words mean the opposite of what they seem. So when Israel and America say they want “peace”, that is Orwellian double-speak for “we are gonna bomb the bastards and steal their resources come hell or high water.”
[...] Read more!

The elephant in the room

Will there ever be a seat at the negotiating table for Ismail Haniya?

Excluding Hamas from current and future Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations is an exercise in futility, Larbi Sadiki writes

Sidelining Hamas in any process to craft genuine peace between Israelis and Palestinians is a glaring omission tantamount to ignoring an elephant in the room.

Whether it is Obama's or the UN's negotiating room, pretending something of that size absent is an exercise in futility. Hamas is definitely an elephant with many tales. Telling some of these tales recounts the Islamist movement's rise to power against all odds. [...] Read more!

Who does he think he is fooling?

Martin Indyk would have us believe this handshake signifies more than just a photo opportunity [AFP]

Robert Grenier deconstructs the political rhetoric of former United States ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk. Grenier was the CIA's chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. He was also the director of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre.

For those of us who watched the process from close range in those years, it was obvious that Ross, Indyk and the others saw their jobs as consisting of a two-part process: Find out what the Israelis want, and then help them get it.

The latest piece of 'analysis' of the misnamed Israeli-Palestinian 'peace process' from Martin Indyk, recently aired by the New York Times Op-Ed page, simply leaves me slack-jawed.

On the surface, Martin's views appear to be the soul of pedestrian reasonableness. Cutting across the grain of current informed opinion, the former stalwart of the powerful pro-Israeli (one might more accurately say pro-Likud) US lobbying juggernaut AIPAC lists four reasons why we should be optimistic about the prospects for the direct peace talks in which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas finally has been coerced into participating.[...] Read more!

Obama has Signalled his Coming Complete Surrender to Zionism and its Lobby

He did it with seven words. “Ultimately the U.S. cannot impose a solution.”

By Alan Hart

He was speaking at the White House the day before the start of the new round of direct talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, after he had met with them and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. (In my last post I anticipated Obama saying at the point of his complete surrender that “America can’t want peace more than the parties.” He also said that – ahead of schedule!)

Today there is a growing number of seriously well informed people of all faiths and none (including me) who believe there will only be peace if it is imposed.

Among those who have dared to say so in public is one of the most eminent Jewish gentlemen of our time, Henry Siegman. A former national director of the American Jewish Congress, he is president of the U.S./Middle East Project, which was part of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1994 until 2006 when it was established as an independent policy institute. He is also a research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Programme of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. During his more than 30 years of involvement in the Middle East peace process, he has published extensively on the subject and has been consulted by governments, international agencies and non-governmental organizations involved in the peace process. In a comment piece for the Financial Times on 23 February 2010, (quoted in Conflict Without End? the Epilogue to Volume 3 of the American edition of my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews), he wrote this:[...] Read more!

Stuart Littlewood: Hamas, Don’t Blow this Chance

Can the resistance exploit the fake talks, re-position itself and finally “come good”?

By Stuart Littlewood

Hamas “vows to step up attacks on Israel”, say reports in the western media.

Reading further, we learn that this escalation is either “a natural response to the crimes of the occupation” or a spiteful reaction to being left out of the talks.

Either way, Hamas surely knows better than to let such crude impressions be formed.

This is their golden opportunity. The eyes and ears of the world are focused on the Israel problem, and will re-focus every two weeks.

Instead of hurling threats of more violence, which only serve to reinforce opinion that Hamas is a terrorist organization, the words and deeds of the resistance movement should be carefully chosen to harmonise with the West’s values and beliefs.

This is Hamas’s chance to ‘educate’ the rest of the world as to the truth about the evil that stalks the Holy Land. It is perhaps a final window of opportunity to define the massive, decades-old injustice accurately.[...] Read more!

Enthusiasm for Palestinian Prime Minister isn’t Shared by Palestinians

Palestinian Authority security forces on Wednesday used force to prevent dozens of Palestinians in Ramallah from voicing their opposition to the US-sponsored direct talks with Israel.

By Ali Abunimah

Salam Fayyad’s embrace by the U.S. and Israel doesn’t change the fact that millions of Palestinians languish under occupation and in poverty.

Rabbi Kenneth Chasen is the latest to offer a glowing report of the Palestinian-state-in-the-making supposedly being built by Salam Fayyad, a political unknown until he was boosted from obscurity by the George W. Bush administration and installed as the unelected “prime minister” of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

But the booming businesses and sleek glass towers Chasen raves about in Ramallah are part of a mirage, a narrative in which a docile Palestinian leadership “reforms” Palestine from within, making little or no noise about the ongoing depredations of Israeli occupation.

Chasen may be pleased that Fayyad barely uses the word “occupation,” but that doesn’t make the occupation any less real for the millions of Palestinians who suffer under it. As B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, reported last month, Israeli settlements now control 42% of the West Bank. Virtually all of the Jordan Valley is off limits to Palestinians as Israel tightens its grip under the cover of a “peace process” that perpetually goes nowhere. In July alone, Israel demolished 141 homes and buildings belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, the highest number since 2005, according to Human Rights Watch.[...] Read more!

An Al Quds day letter to Tony Blair. From Lauren Booth, in Iran

Gilad Atzmon: I guess that Tony Blair’s sister in law, Lauren Booth, could easily use the phone and tell Tony what she thinks of him, his politics and his new memoir. However, being a peace activist she decided also to share it with the rest of us.

Dear Tony,

Congratulations on your political memoir becoming an instant bestseller. I’m in Iran and have the only copy in the country. I can tell you, its so fiercely fought over, it’s worth its weight in WMD’s. Note to Random House; have ‘A Journey’ translated into Farsi and Arabic asap, it’ll fly off the shelves in this part of the world.

Tony, yesterday I went the Al Quds day protest in Tehran. You may have heard of it? It’s the rally where Iranians gather to protest against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, including the Holy city of Jerusalem.

I’m being sarcastic by asking if you’ve heard of Al Quds day, because I know you have. It is after all your very worst nightmare right? It must be horrifying with the ‘world view,’ you express in your memoirs to watch scenes on the BBC news showing the precise meeting point of politics and Islam.

Personally I’ve never understood this fear of ‘political Islam’ it seems to me that religious people should always be educated on world events rather than kept in ignorance like say, Mid West Christian Zionists in the US who can’t even find their home city on a map of their state.[...] Read more!

Eggs, shoes hurled at Blair during book signing

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

By The Associated Press

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

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

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

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

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

Leaders in Hiding: Give Me That Old Time Racism

By JAMES ABOUREZK

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

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

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

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

Obama's Ridiculous Mid-East Summit

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

It has been impossible to read the agenda for the Oval Office summit between Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas without laughing out loud at the absurdity of its pretensions. The American plan was that President Obama would inform Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, representing the Palestinian Authority, that this is make-or -break time for a peaceful settlement. The US wants an agreement within a year, with the stipulations in this agreement to be phased in over a decade.

At issue: the illegal Jewish settlements, the status of East Jerusalem, the treatment of Palestinian refugees and final borders between Israel and a Palestinian state.

The man greeting Netanyahu and Abbas was no longer the icon of change who aroused the world with his address to Muslims in Cairo and who tasked former US Senator George Mitchell with setting the stage for a just settlement of issues that have remained unsettled for more than half a century.

Obama is now in poor political shape. The economy is spiraling down. The midterm elections loom as a possible bloodbath for Democrats in which they may lose at least one, if not both, houses in Congress. As the Israel lobby knows well, the Democrats crave Jewish money and Jewish votes. When it comes to Israel‘s interests the US Congress jumps to the Lobby’s commands. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech, laden with honorifics for Netanyahu, could be construed as a fund-raising appeal for her next lunge at the Democratic presidential nomination.

Gone was any notion of twisting Netanyahu’s arm, or trying to, as when the Administration criticized one illegal Jewish settlement four months ago and when vice president Biden relayed in Tel Aviv Gen. Petraeus’ concerns that Israel’s obduracy was imperiling US security interests in the region.

The lobby struck back, with political threats. By July, Dana Milbanke of the Washington Post described with unusual frankness Netanyahu’s next visit to Washington:

“A blue-and-white Israeli flag hung from Blair House. Across Pennsylvania Avenue, the Stars and Stripes was in its usual place atop the White House. But to capture the real significance of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, White House officials might have instead flown the white flag of surrender.” [...] Read more!

Sayyed Nasrallah: Mideast Peace Talks Are "Stillborn"

By Hussein Assi

Sept. 9, 2010
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said on Friday that the so-called Middle East peace talks were stillborn and doomed, stressing that Jerusalem cannot be the eternal capital of the illegal State of Israel.

His eminence said that the Israeli enemy is facing a lot of challenges, emphasizing that the American-Israeli scheme has failed and that the one representing the Resistance has won although the conflict didn’t reach its end yet.

While renewing commitment to the equation of “army, nation and resistance,” Sayyed Nasrallah said that Burj Abi Haidar incident was tragic and individual, condemning the reactions of some Lebanese politicians who chose to exploit it for political purposes. His eminence also reiterated that Hezbollah is not concerned with the international tribunal or with the UN probe.

Sayyed Nasrallah was speaking through a large TV screen while commemorating Al-Quds Day in Sayyed As-Shouhadaa’s complex in Beirut’s southern suburb.[...] Read more!

Amayreh: Who says there is no Jewish Nazism? Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: Palestinians should be Annihilated

By Khalid Amayreh

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

Who says there is no Jewish Nazism?

Ovadia Yosef is the spiritual leader of hundreds of thousands of haredi orthodox Jews who give him automatic and nearly absolute allegiance. This week, he lashed out at the Palestinians, saying that they should all be annihilated. “May God destroy them with a plague,” said the elderly rabbi.

Yosef’s remarks should be taken seriously as they seem to reflect a deepening grave phenomenon in the Israeli Jewish society. It is Jewish fascism, pure and simple. It is racist, virulent and violent.

Unfortunately, with the exception of a few sporadic voices, which criticized the rabbi for saying what he said, the Israeli society generally ignored the manifestly racist remarks, either out of apathy, or because they concurred with him.[...] Read more!

A Middle East Peace that Wreaks Havoc

By Ghada Karmi

With the odds stacked so strongly in Israel’s favour, Palestinians rightly view the US talks with dread

What an irony that the Palestinians’ arch-enemy, Israel, should also be their saviour. There is a real danger that the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks due to start on September 2 in Washington could yield a botched deal that falls far short of the needs of international law or elemental justice, and sets back the cause of Palestine for decades, if not for ever. Fortunately this will not happen as long as Israel’s obduracy can be relied on to save the Palestinians from such an outcome.

Time and again, when Israel was thrown a lifeline by Arab neighbours that could have ensured its legitimacy and security, its folly and greed lost it those opportunities. But, since they came at great cost to Palestinian rights, Israel’s obduracy had the perverse effect of safeguarding those rights. All peace proposals after 1967 were based on maintaining Israel as a regional power and forcing the Palestinians to settle for less than they were entitled to. They were repeatedly offered paltry settlements that legitimised Israel’s hold on most of their land and undermined their right of return. Had Israel agreed, the Palestinian cause would have been lost long ago.[...] Read more!

Claim for Native Title Threatens Jewish State

Half the Negev's Bedouin population live in unrecognised communities.

By Jonathan Cook - Hura, the Negev

Nuri al Uqbi's small cinderblock home in a ramshackle neighbourhood of Hura, a Bedouin town in Israel’s Negev desert, hardly looks like the epicentre of a legal struggle that some observers say threatens Israel's Jewish character.

Inside, the 68-year-old Bedouin activist has stacks of bulging folders of tattered and browning documents, many older than the state of Israel itself, that he hopes will overturn decades of harsh government policy towards the Negev’s 180,000 Bedouin.

For the past few months, Mr al Uqbi has been in court pursuing a case that has pitted his own expert witnesses against those of the state.

Mr al Uqbi claims the right to return to a patch of 82 hectares in the Negev, close to the regional capital, Beersheva, that he says has belonged to his family for generations. But as both the government and the judge in the case, Sarah Dovrat, seem to appreciate, much more is at stake.

Should Mr al Uqbi win his case, tens of thousands of Bedouin, who long ago had their properties confiscated, could be entitled to repossess their agricultural lands or seek enormous sums in compensation.

Theoretically, it might also open the door to claims by millions of Palestinian refugees scattered across the Middle East.[...] Read more!

Palestinians, Christians and Politics of Compassion

Will Christians fulfill the Good News in preventing US arms from reaching Israel?

By Dallas Darling

Even now as Presbyterian leaders prophetically issue statements calling for the U.S. to end its military aid to Israel unless Tel Aviv stops it settlement activities in occupied land that belongs to Palestinians, they might want to recall what Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer wrote in his book “The Politics of Compassion.” Nelson-Pallmeyer believed that most Christians and denominations in the U.S.-who by virtue of their affluence, power, privilege, and isolation-are not only entirely separated from the true biblical message, but isolated from the people in whom that message is most clearly embodied today. Clearly, it is the experiences of the poor and the oppressed, including their poverty, repression, forced migration, resistance, endurance, suffering, and hope, that better enables one to understand the Good News of salvation and liberation from unjust political, economic and social structures.(1)

While discussing the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Christian delegates and members of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church affirmed their previous position that the U.S. should withhold aid if Israel builds new West Bank settlements. Like other Christians and international organizations, the Presbyterian Church has also repeatedly claimed Israel is violating international law by expanding its settlements in occupied Palestinian land and in al-Quds. Earlier, Presbyterians voted to authorize “phased selective divestment in global businesses operating in Israel” due to Israel’s discriminatory policies toward Palestinians, a stance that has been softened because of pressure from pro-Israeli lobbies operating in the U.S. Still, the Presbyterian Church has made a courageous move claiming the U.S. must stop its annually multi-billion dollar military assistance to Israel.[...] Read more!

Hamas condemns 'direct talks'

Gazan supporters of Hamas rally to mark Al Quds day and to condemn new Palestinian-Israeli talks launched in Washington. Leaders at the Al Quds day rallies told supporters in Gaza that negotiations with Israel were 'pointless' [AFP]

Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters have rallied in the Gaza Strip to mark Al Quds day and to condemn the direct talks launched in Washington between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Friday's rally comes a day after armed groups said that they had joined forces to step up attacks against Israel, possibly including suicide bombings.

Al Quds day is an annual event on the last Friday of Ramadan, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and opposing Zionism.

"The negotiations that the Palestinian people have tried for over two decades are pointless negotiations, the Palestinian people never gained anything from them except the loss of their cause and their rights," Ismail Rudwan, a Hamas official, told a large cheering crowd.

"Therefore, we consider that participating in these negotiations is a crime and treason."

Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, held talks sponsored by the US administration in Washington on Thursday.[...] Read more!

Much ado to talk about nothing

The Gang of Four

So, the curtain is raised once again, the actors emerge, and the crowd applauds - it's the latest scene in the tragic comedy of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

As Barack Obama, the US president, welcomed his guests at the White House to unveil the resumption of direct "negotiations" between the Israelis and Palestinians, it was almost difficult not to feel a sense of déjà vu.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan, Benyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas all took it in turns to impress upon us the importance of "seizing this moment" to achieve peace. Each leader emphasised just how critical it was that this latest round of negotiations succeed; for, after all they "are all fathers, blessed with sons and daughters whose generation will judge them" - as President Obama so eloquently put it.

But then again so were Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, as were Bashar Al-Assad and Yitzhak Shamir. Yet peace remains as far fetched today as it was in Madrid and Camp David.

The question is why?[...] Read more!

Middle East talks set to continue

Like Uriel, the angel of prophecy pointing to John the Baptist in Leonardo's "Madonna of the Rocks," Hillary Clinton points to Netanyahu in this "direct talks" photo op.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders agree to meet in the region on September 14-15, and again every two weeks thereafter.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders have launched a new round of peace negotiations, holding their first direct talks in nearly two years at a US-sponsored summit in Washington DC.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Benyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, agreed on Thursday to meet again in the Middle East on September 14-15, and every two weeks thereafter.

George Mitchell, the US Middle East peace envoy, told reporters the initial meeting between the two sides at the US state department had been "long and productive", reflecting "good faith and seriousness of purpose".[...] Read more!

Settlement must stop

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal speaks during an open meeting with journalists about the Palestinian situation in Damascus

Direct negotiations might start, but Israel will continue on the ground to undermine peace, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah

The announcement this week that the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership has agreed to resume "direct talks" with Israel, virtually without any conditions, has generated a lot of consternation among the Palestinian people as well as within virtually all political groups.

A clearly embarrassed and frustrated PA has been struggling to justify and explain its decision that seems to have been taken under duress, as the Obama administration has been exerting pressure on a vulnerable leadership to refrain from placing "sticks in the wheels of the peace process".[...] Read more!

Abbas: The man and the politician

The Palestinian president was never meant to be a revolutionary leader but he must now rise to a historic challenge.
Lamis Andoni Last Modified: 01 Sep 2010 14:30

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has insisted that he will withdraw from direct talks with Israel if it does not extend its freeze on settlement building when it expires on September 26.

The pledge was intended to placate widespread opposition to the resumption of negotiations from within both Hamas and Abbas' own Fatah group. But his promises are unlikely to make a dent in the growing disillusionment with a 'peace process' many see as providing cover for continued Israeli expansion. And, coming after he backed down on his vow to boycott the talks without a prior Israeli commitment to extending the freeze, Abbas' words are lacking in credibility.

It is, in fact, the words of Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that today ring louder and clearer in the ears of Palestinians. "You don't need to worry. Nobody needs to teach me what it is to love Eretz Israel," he told Likud party members before leaving for Washington. His use of the term 'Eretz Israel' - meaning the land between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan - implies that he has no intention of giving up control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and, consequently, will not allow the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.

So, while Israelis may have nothing to worry about, Palestinians most certainly do and Abbas has failed to reassure even his own supporters that he will not succumb to Israeli and American pressure.

Mahmoud Abbas, right, was never supposed to be a leader in the mould of the late Yasser Arafat [...] Read more!

Alaska!

Back from vacation in the indescribably beautiful Alaska wilderness! May it remain wild in perpetuity!

Haniyeh: Direct talks will fail

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Gaza Premier Ismail Haniyeh said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority's decision to resume direct negotiations reflects a failed policy and will not succeed.

Speaking at Al-Khulafa Ar-Rashidin mosque in Jabaliya, Haniyeh said that negotiations would not restore rights or religious sites, and said the Palestinian people "should trust God, who will be an ally of the Palestinians."

The Gaza prime minister further said the Palestinian people were a "model for the Arab nations and Islamic countries," given their steadfastness through years of siege.[...] Read more!

And, Yet, He Indulges in Swine: The Muslim Obama

By WAJAHAT ALI

One wonders why only 20% of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim, considering the overwhelming evidence conclusively proving his slavish allegiance to Islam and utter disregard for Christianity.

After Obama's wishy-washy defense of Muslim Americans' freedom to build a community center, which includes a mosque, two blocks away from Ground Zero, a poll from the Pew Research Center reveals that nearly 20% of Americans -- up from 11% a year ago -- consider him a Muslim, and nearly 43% are unsure of his religion.[...] Read more!

Israelis Risk Jail to Smuggle Palestinians

It is illegal to transport Palestinians into Israel without a permit.

By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth

Nearly 600 Israelis have signed up for a campaign of civil disobedience, vowing to risk jail to smuggle Palestinian women and children into Israel for a brief taste of life outside the occupied West Bank.

The Israelis say they have been inspired by the example of Ilana Hammerman, a writer who is threatened with prosecution after publishing an article in which she admitted breaking the law to bring three Palestinian teenagers into Israel for a day out.

Ms Hammerman said she wanted to give the young women, who had never left the West Bank, “some fun” and a chance to see the Mediterranean for the first time.

Her story has shocked many Israelis and led to a police investigation after right-wing groups called for her to be tried for security offences.[...] Read more!

The Charade Announced: Latest Israeli No-Peace/Peace Talks For September

By Stephen Lendman

22 August, 2010
Countercurrents.org

On August 21, Haaretz writer Natasha Mozgovaya headlined, "Israel, Palestinians accept US invitation to direct peace talks," saying:

They'll "restart direct talks on Sept. 2 in a modest step toward forging a peace deal within 12 months to create a Palestinian state and peacefully end one of the world's most intractable conflicts."

Another grand illusion is assured, fudged to look real. Henry Kissinger coined the phrase "constructive ambiguity," meaning to give negotiations an appearance of progress. For others, it's putting lipstick on a pig or how Edward Said described the Oslo Accords and Declaration of Principles, saying:

"the fashion-show vulgarities of the White House ceremony, the degrading spectacle of Yasser Arafat thanking everyone for the suspension of most of his people's rights, and the fatuous solemnity of Bill Clinton's performance, like a 20th century Roman emperor shepherding two vassal kings through rituals of reconciliation and obeisance, (and) the truly astonishing proportions of the Palestinian capitulation."[...] Read more!

Amayreh: Netanyahu's 'easy Ramadan'

Israeli soldiers arrest a peace activist during a demonstration against the closure of three shops in the West Bank city of Hebron

While Netanyahu greeted Muslims around the world, bulldozers in Jerusalem were busy desecrating historic Muslim graves, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

As is customary, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued a formal statement last week wishing Muslims of the world -- and Israel's Muslim population in particular -- a blessed Ramadan.

The Palestinian Muslim community in Israel makes up more than 20 per cent of Israel's overall population but is subjected to systemic discrimination by Jewish authorities.

"We mark this important month [Ramadan] amid attempts to achieve peace talks with the Palestinians and to advance peace treaties with our Arab neighbours," Netanyahu said. He added: "I know you are partners in this goal and I ask for your support, both in prayers and in any other joint effort to really create a peaceful and harmonious coexistence."

Netanyahu's congratulatory words to Muslims were tinged with significant hypocrisy and chutzpah. Indeed, as he uttered his words, Israeli bulldozers were unearthing and crushing Muslim graves at the ancient Mamanullah Cemetery, located in West Jerusalem, not far from the former armistice line between the eastern and western parts of the city. There, thousands -- some say tens of thousands -- of Muslims are buried.[...] Read more!

Amayreh: Mosque and myth

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

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

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

Direct Negotiations and the Challenge Ahead

A fraudulent 'peace process' designed to kill time can no longer be tolerated.

By John V. Whitbeck

The U.S. government has now announced that direct Israeli-Palestinian will resume after a September 2 launch ceremony at the White House. In making this announcement, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated that this new round of negotiations should be "without preconditions", as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has insisted they should be. However, she also stated that both Mr. Netanyahu and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have agreed that the negotiations should be subject to a one-year time limit, which was not Mr. Netanyahu's preference.

Almost 17 years after the "Oslo" Declaration of Principles, with its five-year deadline for reaching a permanent status agreement, was euphorically signed on the White House lawn, why should anyone take this new "deadline" seriously or see any reason for hope in it?[...] Read more!

Ramadan Kareem from Netanyahu and Obama

The message of the bulldozers is clear..

By Jeff Halper

The day before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began, at 2:30 in the morning, workers sent by the Israeli authorities, protected by dozens of police, destroyed the tombstones in the last portion of the Mamilla cemetery, an historic Muslim burial ground with graves going back to the 7th Century, hitherto left untouched. The government of Israel has always been fully cognizant of the sanctity and historic significance of the site. Already in 1948, when control of the cemetery reverted to Israel, the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry recognized Mamilla "to be one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of [Saladin's] armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars. Israel will always know to protect and respect this site." For all that, and despite (proper) Israeli outrage when Jewish cemeteries are desecrated anywhere in the world, the dismantlement of the Mamilla cemetery has been systematic. In the 1960s "Independence Park" was built over a portion of it; subsequently an urban road was built through it, major electrical cables were laid over graves and a parking lot constructed over yet another piece. Now some 1,500 Muslim graves have been cleared in several nighttime operations to make way for.....a $100 million Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity, a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. (Ironically, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Center's Director, appeared on Fox News to express his opposition to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, because the site of the 9/11 attack "is a cemetery.")[...] Read more!

Ramadan in Aida Camp: Sitting, Waiting, Existing

Today in Aida Refugee Camp, people wait ..

By Rich Wiles

From the barred windows of a four storey house string runs across the narrow main street of Aida Camp, well above head height, to the caged fence atop the walls of Aida Camp Basic Boys School. Small plastic Palestinian flags hang down limply from the string. The outside walls of the school are adorned with political graffiti, and its two white metal doors are scarred by bullet holes. Two towers dominate this stretch of the street. One is tall and thin, and green lights glow from its minaret. The second tower, at the end of the street, looks much sturdier and is without damage from gunfire, unlike Aida Camp’s mosque. No lights glow from this tower and it is impossible to tell if anyone is inside or not. The small windows in the bullet proof glass at the top of the tower are covered by thick caging with just a small purpose-built rectangular hole in the metal, its width is sufficient to accommodate the barrel of a US-funded M-16 when the IOF who use this watchtower in the Apartheid Wall decide it is time to shoot at the camp. The facing wall of the four-story house provides testimony to the effectiveness of this practice.[...] Read more!

New York Times Spins UN Report on Gaza Suffering

21 Aug, 2010
By Jeremy R. Hammond

Ethan Bronner reports in the New York Times that a report on the situation in the Gaza Strip from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) says that anti-Israeli militants operate from the border areas in question, planting explosive devices, firing at Israeli military vehicles and shooting rockets and mortar rounds at civilians. But it argues that Israel has an obligation under international law to protect civilians and civilian structures.

Bronner devotes the first part of his article to noting the impact on a Palestinian family, whose “trees and wells were bulldozed”, noting “destroyed houses” surrounding the family’s “desolate fields”. He notes that, according to the report, 12 percent of the population “have lost livelihoods or have otherwise been severely affected by Israeli security policies along the border, both land and sea, in recent years”, and that “the restricted land comprises 17 percent of Gaza’s total land mass and 35 percent of its agricultural land”, but this is about the extent of his discussion with regard to the content of the report.

Most of the rest of the article is dedicated to offering the Israeli point of view and response to the release of the report:[...] Read more!

The Secrets in Israel's Archives

Evidence of ethnic cleansing kept under lock and key.

By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth

History may be written by the victors, as Winston Churchill is said to have observed, but the opening up of archives can threaten a nation every bit as much as the unearthing of mass graves.

That danger explains a decision quietly taken last month by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to extend by an additional 20 years the country’s 50-year rule for the release of sensitive documents.

The new 70-year disclosure rule is the government’s response to Israeli journalists who have been seeking through Israel’s courts to gain access to documents that should already be declassified, especially those concerning the 1948 war, which established Israel, and the 1956 Suez crisis.

The state’s chief archivist says many of the documents “are not fit for public viewing” and raise doubts about Israel’s “adherence to international law”, while the government warns that greater transparency will “damage foreign relations”.[...] Read more!

Playing the Never Again Card, Again

Tel Aviv portrays the Iranian reactor as an 'existential threat'.

By Jeff Gates

The phony intelligence used to induce our March 2003 invasion of Iraq has been dusted off. This time it's being deployed to take us into Iran.

Same scam. Same storyline. Same fraud—even featuring some of the same players.

Except that this time around their deception lacks the broader context required to gain traction for their phony content. That key difference makes today’s perpetrators far more transparent—for those willing to look.

Those foisting on us this latest fraud also face another challenge: Americans now realize it was Israel and its advocates who fixed that false intelligence around a Zionist agenda.

That realization adds combustibility to the facts now fueling Israel’s fast-fading legitimacy.

Each week brings new insights that undermine generally accepted truths about 911 and our response to that mass murder on U.S. soil. As the costs continue to rise in both blood and treasure, the credibility of those who sold us this “Clash” continues its steady decline.

One key player in this long-running fraud remains unfazed: mainstream media.

In March 2002, Israeli-American Jeffrey Goldberg published in The New Yorker a story alleging an alliance between the jihadists of Al Qaeda and the secular Baathists of Iraq. Though an impossible premise, his account made it appear plausible.

His collaborator was James Woolsey, a former Director of the CIA and an avid Zionist. Woolsey assured us that Iraqi intelligence officials met in Prague with Al Qaeda.

Woolsey’s intelligence was “sexed up” to sound credible. Now we know it was false. All of it.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

In the consistency and common source of this duplicity lies the perilous future of Israel and its fast-shrinking legitimacy as a nation state.

The fast-growing worldwide revulsion at all things Israeli suggests that this latest fraud may yet fail—though not for lack of trying.[...] Read more!

Trapped at Ground Zero

The controversy is a reminder of issues we need to urgently confront.

By Ramzy Baroud

The controversy over the right of Muslim Americans to build community center and mosque a short distance from the site of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is both strange and outright inappropriate. It should never be necessary for law-abiding Americans to justify exercising their right to freely practice their own religion. This right is in accordance to the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights that has constituted the foundation of American freedom for over 200 years.

But in the age of Guantanamo-like gulags filled with bearded Muslim men, such principles are disregarded. The very ideals that have been celebrated in the United States for generations are being trampled upon, violated and abused.[...] Read more!

Hamas Must Re-brand

Hamas must re-invent itself as a matter of urgency.

When Palestinians elected Hamas, sore losers Fatah set out to cause maximum trouble. The relentless pressures of occupation and bribery succeed in causing internal divisions and self-destruction. When an attempted coup was beaten off there were claims that Hamas "seized control" when it simply acted to enforce its legitimate authority.

By Stuart Littlewood – London

In the five years since I became interested in the conflict in Palestine, only two things of positive note have happened in the Occupied Territories.

The Palestinians held full and fair elections in 2006 to establish themselves as a democracy… and much good it did them.

And in Gaza these amazing people have resolutely survived a vicious land and sea blockade imposed by Israel and aided and abetted by the western powers as soon as those elections put Hamas into government. They have resisted almost daily air strikes and armed intrusions for four years and courageously withstood the cowardly Israeli blitzkrieg of 20 months ago.

And during all that time they have endured unending barbarity and betrayal, which would have brought a lesser nation to its knees. They have come through.[...] Read more!

Israel and the anti-Muslim blow-up

Post-9/11 Islamophobia continues to grow within Jewish communities in the US [Gallo/Getty]

By MJ Rosenberg

I don't know why I am at all surprised that the American Right - including the Republican Party - has decided that scapegoating Muslims is the ticket to success. After all, it's nothing new.

I remember right after 9/11 when the columnist Charles Krauthammer, now one of the most vocal anti-Muslim demagogues, almost literally flipped out in my Chevy Chase, Maryland synagogue when the rabbi said something about the importance of not associating the terrorist attacks with Muslims in general.

It was on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, but that did not stop Krauthammer from bellowing out his disagreement with the rabbi. Krauthammer's point: Israel and America are at war with Muslims and that war must be won.

It was shocking, not only because Krauthammer's outburst was so utterly out of place but also because the man was actually chastising the rabbi for not spouting hate against all Muslims - on the Day of Atonement.

The following year, the visiting rabbi from Israel gave a sermon about the intifada that was then raging in Israel and the West Bank.[...] Read more!

Understanding America's Class System: Honk If You Love Caviar

By Joe Bageant

August 18, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- How about them political elites, huh? Five million bucks for Chelsea Clinton's wedding, 15K just to rent the air-conditioned shitters -- huge chrome and glass babies with hot water and everything. No gas masks and waxy little squares of toilet paper for those guys.

Yes, it looks big time from the cheap seats. But the truth is that when we are looking at the political elite, we are looking at the dancing monkey, not the organ grinder who calls the tune. Washington's political class is about as upwardly removed from ordinary citizens as the ruling class is from the political class. For instance, they do not work for a living in the normal sense of a job, but rather obtain their income from abstractions such as investment and law, neither of which ever gave anybody a hernia or carpal tunnel. By comparison, the ruling class does not work at all.

Moneywise, Washington's political class is richer than the working class by the same orders of magnitude as the ruling class is richer than the political class. This gives the political class something to aim for. To that end, they have adopted the ruling elite's behaviors, tastes and lifestyles, with an eye on becoming members. Moreover, it is a molting process that begins with the right university and connections, and culminates in flying off to Washington with the rest of your generation's most privileged and ambitious young moths.

They make enough dough to at least fake it until they make it. Fifty-one of the 100 members of the US Senate are at the very least millionaires -- probably more than that, since multi-million million dollar residences and estates are exempt from the official tally. For instance in the House, Nancy Pelosi's net worth is either $13 million, or $92 million, depending upon who is counting. Why they bother to shave such large numbers is a mystery. Thirteen million, ninety two million, the difference is not gonna change our opinion of Nancy. Our opinion being that the broad is loaded. More than loaded. The comparatively poor members of Congress, like Barney Frank, are near millionaires. His publicly declared net worth is $976,000. For the life of me, I cannot see how they get by.[...] Read more!