Palestine's topics - tribe.net

R.I.P. and Heaven inshallah.

Sami — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:47:00 GMT

R.I.P. to the 2,976 Americans who lost their lives on 9/11 and
R.I.P. to the 48,644 Afghans and 1,690,903 Iraqis that paid the ultimate price for a crime they did not commit.
And to Millions of Palestinians who experience 9/11 everyday for the last 63 years.

Your 9/11 is our 24 by 7 Affair....

Sincerely,
Sami

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Jerusalem: 5,000 Years of Arab History

NoName — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:16:29 GMT

Time for this great article again. Originally posted by another Palestinian on another tribe:

Jerusalem: 5,000 Years of Arab History

By Lima Nabil
Feb 6, 2003, 01:41

• The City and Its Inscriptions
• The Arab Jebusites Were the First to Have Settled There
• Doubts Are Cast on the Alleged Kingdom of Israel

A press article published in the Jordanian daily Al-Rai,
Written By Lima Nabil

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities on earth and the monuments left behind by its original Jebusite inhabitants, who once belonged to a Canaanite tribe of the early Arabs having immigrated from the Arabian Peninsula, now bear witness to the Arab origins of this city 5,000 years ago.

From their fortification, they erected the strong walls around it out of fear for their valuable gem from the avarice of the invaders who continuously attacked the city ever since those times. Hence came the beginnings of ancient Jerusalem, with its walls, alleys and old shops. There it stands on top of one high mountain, with the odour of the sea spreading all around it and the roaring waves heard from the tops of its homes constructed close to each other. Also, through the minarets of its mosques, and the towers of its churches, its name was heard aloud; whether it was God Salem, of Canaanite origins, or the City of Peace; the former having been repeated frequently in the inscriptions of Ras Shamra (Ugarit), which was one of two godsSahar and Salemmost favoured by the early inhabitants and described as the two gods of day and night; along with other names having appeared in Egyptian texts. Thus, the city of Jerusalem dates back to such ancient eras as the Bronze, Iron, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Ages to reach the brightest stages during the age of the Islamic civilization. The history of the city tells us at length that the very beginnings of settlement in this city were in the period of the fourth millenium BC and that the existence of the Jebusites had preceded the advent of David or the so-called Kingdom of Israel, if it ever existed. The Israelis themselves do not deny what their excavations have recently revealeda Canaanite water system was discovered and up to the present, no traces have ever been found of Solomon, his kingdom, or his temple. Further, notwithstanding the excavation operations that started at the turn of this century at the hands of scores of scientists, scholars, researchers and expeditions, what has so far been discovered are ruins or relics of many civilizations or cultures, in particular the Islamic civilization, whereas the excavations undertaken by the Israeli authorities for decades, particularly in the area adjacent to Haram esh-Sharif (the Holy Sanctuary), in search of the ruins of the Temple of Solomon have resulted in nothing.

This and many other pieces of information having been established by both Arab and Western scholars are expected to be published soon in a book of three volumes by the end of the current year. The intended book, to be entitled JerusalemFive Thousand Years, will be considered one of the important documents revealing the history of this holy city, along with a code of inscriptions from Jerusalem.

The initiator of this idea, the implementation of which is now being supervised by Professor Dr. Zaidan Kafafi, the Dean of Scientific Research and Postgraduate Studies at the Yarmouk University, is Dr. Naser Eddin Al-Asad, President of the Royal Academy for Islamic Civilization Research, Al Al-Beit Foundation.

For the purpose of publishing the first volume of this book/document, to be entitled, Jerusalem Before Islam, a number of archaeologists, historians and researchers from Jordan, Europe and the United States of America have been called on to contribute to this work, with directions to such writers to adopt a proper and honest scientific approach, that is, to present the relevant scientific information in a purely impartial manner, and to produce their research papers based on archaeological and historical sources.

That is what Dr. Kafafi has announced in the Jordanian Al-Rai daily, indicating that this volume is about to be completed. Section one will explore the land and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the naming of the city, its people and the Arab Jebusites, who existed in Jerusalem long before the so-called Kingdom of Israel, if it ever existed. Section two explores Jerusalem in the old historical sources, especially the Egyptian and Assyrian sources. Section three details the ruins of Jerusalem through the ages, beginning from the fourth millennium BC until the advent of Islam. This section also contains research papers on the methodology of the scientific research regarding the ruins of Jerusalem and a chronological sequence of the history of this city.

Professor Dr. Kafafi adds that after reviewing the submitted research papers, he found that certain scholars, namely Exil Knauf, a German national and a professor at Bern University, believe that no such kingdoms of David and Solomon ever existed. Dutch researcher Margaret Steiner, working at Leidt University, holds the same opinion.

As Dr. Kafafi confirms, the said book will reflect the scientific reality of the city of Jerusalem and will present impartial scientific information, away from all prejudice, by reliable and objective international scientists.

Arab Jerusalem stands for a history that extends through time over more than 5,000 years. Thus, Jerusalem through the ages started at what time?

All the results of the organized archaeological activities during the last century and until today indicate that the city of Jerusalem had been inhabited from the period of the fourth millennium BC until the present time, although the nature of the dwellings and the inhabitants had differed from one period to another. For example, the remains obtained from the end of the fourth millennium BC were represented in a group of holes drilled in natural rock inside of which broken pieces of pottery were found that date back to the early Bronze Age, namely the fourth millennium BC. In addition, such broken pottery, relics of homes, had been found comprising one spacious room constructed in natural rock, with the wall inside being enclosed by a line of stone protruding from such wallthe purpose of which stones was perhaps for sitting on. Archaeologists suggest that there must have existed relics dating back to the Middle Bronze Age, namely the period between 20001550 BC in such areas as Jabal Al-Zaitoun (Mount of Olives), Silwan village, and through the extension of the Valley of the Kidron. The cave situated underneath the site of the Dome of the Rock might have belonged to this period. Researchers believe that the excavations of Kenion and Shiloh in Jerusalem proved that the city had been fortified during the eighteenth century BC, as a wall of 3 metres thickness was discovered, which had been strengthened with stone supports in tower form, especially in the area overlooking the water spring. As the east side of the old city was very steep, a group of mastabas (Arabic for stone benches) had been constructed to be utilized by the inhabitants during that period, and Kenion believed that such stone benches could have been the ones mentioned in the Bible by the name mellos, claimed to have been constructed by David and repaired by Solomon and Ezekiel.

Over the period representing the end of the Bronze Age (approximately 15501200 BC), a mention of Jerusalem was made in the letters of Tel el-Amarna around 1400 BC. The information contained in those letters gave the impression that the city at the time had been rich in its resources and its leaders had made attempts to seize control of some of the neighbouring cities. Silvester Sallers excavations in the Jabal Al-Zaitoun (Mount of Olives) area in 1954 uncovered a tomb that was rich in archaeological finds. Previously, in 1935, Dimitri Bramki discovered a water well with several archaeological finds dating back to the period 15501200 BC. In addition to these and other items, a number of stone structures were found dating back to the above-noted period comprising a number of mastabas (stone benches) of different heights making up a huge elevated construction on the south-east side of Jerusalem. It had been built using stone and engraved its name thereon. This period was followed by the Bronze Age and thereafter by the Iron Age. Did Jerusalem, however, withstand and survive through those ages or not?

What was discovered about this stage was very much in favour of the existence of a Canaanite city that had prospered over the last stage of the Bronze Age and excavations could uncover further information on this stage.

As for Jerusalem in the Iron Age (approximately 1200539 BC), archaeological and historical sources provide us with much information. Excavations made by the Israelis in Jerusalem have revealed the existence of a city prior to the period of King Davids reign, but they believe that such excavations have not provided a clear picture of the Jebusites, who had owned the city before that time. Moreover, remains obtained from the 10th century BC have so far been rare and scattered; in the north-east corner of the city, archaeologist Kenion uncovered stone benches made in the form of steps along with a double wall. A number of archaeologists have attempted to attribute the area constructed in mastaba (stone bench) form and some columnar relics to the time of King David, relying on the content of biblical texts (II Samuel, 5:7 and II Kings, 8:1) more than their interpretation of archaeological finds. Such archaeologists believe that it was only at the time of King Solomon that the administrative and general buildings had been transferred to the Haram esh-Sharif (Holy Sanctuary) area; in any case, no evidence has been found to support such claims.

The city of Jerusalem reached the climax of its prosperity during the period of both the eighth and seventh centuries BC, at which time the fortification slope already noted had been transformed into an artificial hill on top of which a number of private houses had been constructed. In addition to these, in the same locality, a number of dummies had been found that might have been connected to a set of different religious beliefs. This finding could indicate a change or alteration of religious belief at the time. Furthermore, one of the most important phenomena characterizing this period was the water system; a group of canals drawing water from the Jihon spring to the Pool of Kings was discovered. Among these structures, the so-called Well of Warren was also discovered, of which no date had been established owing to the lack of archaeological evidence or such evidence having been destroyed by the excavator.

In this context, we should not forget to make mention of King Hezekiahs Tunnel and the inscription found in this tunnel. Archaeologists believe that the said tunnel dates back to the eighth century BC, and many Israeli archaeologists tend to claim that the widest area of the city was located on the western side of King Hezekiahs Tunnel. They attributed this to two factors: the first being the Assyrian attacks on Palestine, particularly on the northern side thereof; and the second being the independence of pagan cities along the Palestinian coast, resulting in emigration of a group of people to Jerusalem.

Around the year 579 BC, the city of Jerusalem had fallen to Nebuchadnezzar, the Chalddean King, and was destroyed. A few relics from this period had been found, especially around the south-eastern area, comprising a number of stone benches having been formed from the backfill resulting from the debris of the city.

Hellenistic and Roman Civilization Roots in Relation to Jerusalem

Around the year 332 BC, Alexander (III) of Macedon (Alexander the Great) was able to seize control over the east Mediterranean region, and from the mixture of the two (east and west) civilizations emerged the roots of a new civilization that was called Hellenism. As far as the city of Jerusalem is concerned, it is known that the information we have received about it from the middle of the fifth century BC up to the second century BC is scant, except for a very limited amount of historical writings, such as the letter of Aristas. It seems, however, that after the Maccabean revolt, Jerusalem had become an independent city around the year 164 BC, and began to expand towards the west; however, the findings of archaeological excavations indicate that the area of Jerusalem had been reduced during the time of the Persian reign, and was restricted to the south-eastern part of it to what is known by the boundaries of King Davids city.

It is known that the south-eastern side of the Tell (Hill), Davids City, was surrounded by walls having been constructed in earlier periods and reused by the end of the 13th century BC. However, it had undergone certain additions at the time of King Nehemiah around the mid-fifth century BC. These walls had been uncovered by the excavations made by MacLuster and Duncan during the first half of this century, and rediscovered through the excavations by Kenion and Shiloh, who had both dated these walls and towers back to the second and first centuries BC.

In addition to these walls and towers, excavations have uncovered a number of important archaeological remains and finds from this period, such as engraved stones.

Then the Roman period witnessed the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman conqueror Pompei in the year 63 BC, and thereby opening a new page in the history of this city. Thus, what is known is that the Romans had installed, during the period 37-40 BC, King Herod over Palestine, all except for the Hellenistic cities. This king had established direct connections with the Roman emperor, and had given soldiers and gifts to him. However, after his death, his kingdom was divided among his three sons. This situation, however, did not last very long, as the whole of Palestine had become a Roman State after the year 44 CE (Common Era).

In the year 66 CE, a revolt broke out in Palestine against the Roman reign, which revolt was crushed by Titus in the year 70 CE. After this revolt was put down, the tenth division of the Roman army remained in Jerusalem, which became a mere camp for this division owing to the destruction it had suffered. When Hadrian, the Roman emperor, took power, he established a new city in the place of the old Jerusalem, and he wanted to include in the plan thereof a Roman structure along with all the Roman urban institutions. He named all these institutions Elia Capitolina. All this had occurred in the year 130 CE. As a result, a revolt broke out from the year 132 CE until 135 CE. It was known as the Bar Kokba Revolt as attributed to the commander thereof, and had resulted in the Romans eliminating the last existence of Jews in Palestine, particularly after the fall of the Masada fortress, located south-east of the Dead Sea, to the Romans.

The period 135 CE to 324 CE was considered a period of peace, quiet and reassurance throughout Palestine. Construction works were very active and cities prospered, including Jerusalem, with its temples, theatres, streets, horse-racing tracks and bridges over rivers and valleys having been built for construction of roads to connect cities.

Jerusalem in Relation to the Byzantine Period
The Byzantine period started with King Constantine the Great recognizing Christianity as the official religion of the Roman State in the year 324 CE. He had built his new capital, Constantinople, on a village situated on the Bosphorus Strait known by the name of Byzantium. Constantines mother, Helena, visited Jerusalem and ordered the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the Church of Bisharah (Annunciation) in Nazareth. A group of other churches found in Jerusalem had been built through the eras after the time of Emperor Constantine in the year 549 CE, and they had been built mostly according to the plan known as basilican style, comprising three corridors, the widest of which was the middle one, ending in what is known as a curve or mihrab (niche)-like structure.

In addition to religious structures, fortifications have been discovered, especially those dating back to the year 446 CE, having been incorporated into the citys wall on the southern side thereof, which were uncovered for the first time during the excavations by Plas and Dickey during the period 1894 and 1897 CE. Furthermore, successive excavations throughout the cities have uncovered a network of streets that can be crossed in most directions. As for the residential quarter, it came to be constructed as per a pre-developed plan. In addition to the houses, there were streets, alleys and a main forum.

The last of the buildings constructed during the Byzantine period was the Golden Gate or the Triumphal Arch, having been built by Emperor Hercules in the year 629 CE, when he had regained the cross from the hands of the Persians who occupied Jerusalem in the year 614 CE.

Islamic Jerusalem has such a magnificent and bright history, with its mosques and minarets still standing as witnesses to this civilization. Has the Zionist imperialist of today, however, been able to obliterate this great civilization?

Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab entered Jerusalem as a conqueror when Safronius had surrendered to him the keys to the city in the year 637 CE. This period was marked by an active movement of construction works, especially during the reign of the Umayyad State (661750 CE), at which time Al-Aqsa Mosque (691 CE) and the Dome of the Rock (711-713 CE) were built. In addition to these, a number of administrative buildings had been constructed on the southern side of the Haram esh-Sharif (Holy Sanctuary).

During this period, namely the reign of the Umayyad State, the city, like other countries of Bilad Ash-Sham (Greater Syria), had suffered an earthquake in the year 747 or 749 CE. As a result, the city was destroyed and the only structure that had survived the quake was the Dome of the Rock. Architectural remains from the time of the Abbasid State were rare.

Then, in the year 1033 CE, Jerusalem suffered another earthquake. It is worth mentioning in this context that the Christian buildings had not suffered any destruction by the Muslims but remained intact without any change. The best proof of this fact is the finds in the south-eastern side of the Haram esh-Sharif (Holy Sanctuary).

On 15 July 1099 CE, the city of Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders; however, after it was liberated, it had become a part of the Ayyoubid Kingdom (11871250 CE). Thereafter, it was made part of the Ottoman State (15171917 CE), and throughout these periods, Jerusalem maintained a Muslim oriental character.

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No jew roots in Jerusalem, say top israeli archeologists

NoName — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:19:43 GMT

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Top Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein has denied the existence of Jewish roots in the city of Jerusalem, contrary to Israel’s claims that have prompted continued Judaization of the city.

Finkelstein, a professor at Tel Aviv University, said Jewish archaeologists have failed to unearth historic sites to support some of the stories in the Torah. Among those stories are the Jewish Exodus, the forty-year wandering in the Sinai desert, and Joshua’s victory over the Canaanites.

He also said there was no archaeological evidence that concludes that the alleged Temple of Solomon ever existed.

For his part, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University Raphael Greenberg said that the Israelis should have found something after digging for six weeks in the City of David in East Jerusalem’s Silwan district, but have found nothing in two years of continuous excavations.

Prof. Yoni Mihrazi, an independent archaeologist who has worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed with Finkelstein’s findings, saying that top settler organization Elad had not stumbled upon even a banner saying “welcome to the city of David”, given that claims were made to have been relying on sacred texts to guide them in their work.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7iPBlfG0HELPl1bLBC3jEHfEfncxWsut8Wiq59wubt82e5pc512RN%2bKKN383fDtiO1eOJ75vLXXiNrOxQRkcY4B3aPKLUEYBtns%2b7%2frwEPyY%3d

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

zionist loser deleted my post on other tribe!

Araby — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 04:02:05 GMT

Until when are we going to tolerate these zionist losers censoring the truth?

The zionist moderator of the loser zionist tribe "mideast politics" deleted my post when I rebuked a zionist loser for making a disgusting remark about Palestinians!

Get rid of these zionist losers!

posted in Palestine - 2 replies

Who is Samira and who made "her" moderator?

NoName — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 01:22:35 GMT

I just noticed the name of "Samira" as moderator of this tribe. I wrote asking "her" about this since we had requested Samir as moderator. Is "tribe.net" playing games with us?

p.s., I just checked and a "Samira" has just joined the tribe. Was "she" joined just in order to be made a moderator? So that Sami is denied? Are they playing a game with us?

posted in Palestine - 4 replies

New moderator: When will tribe.net respond?

NoName — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 21:57:42 GMT

I sent a request to help@tribe.net to appoint Sami as moderator of this tribe and quoted the thread (below) as they ask. It has been several days with no response from them. Why? Do they only respond when zionist losers appoint moderators for zionist-loser tribes? I know tribe.net is controlled by zionists but usually they try and keep a fig leaf to pretend there is some freedom of speech here, so what happened to the fig leaf?

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

New Moderator

Sami — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 07:36:54 GMT

Saddened to see Steven leave.

I would like to nominate my kind self to become the new moderator of this tribe.

Thanks.

Sami;

posted in Palestine - 6 replies

Israel “Celebrates” Founding by Slaughtering Palestinians Again

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:14:04 GMT

[While I do have important differences with the organization this article comes from, the Spartacist League, they do write some pretty good articles. -Steven Argue]

Israel “Celebrates” Founding by Slaughtering Palestinians Again

For Arab/Hebrew Workers Revolution!

For a Socialist Federation of the Near East!

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/index.html

In a wave of protests, thousands of Palestinians from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank gathered at Israel’s borders on May 15 to mark the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe.” This is what Palestinians call the anniversary of the founding of Israel in 1948 and the war with Arab states, when hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes and land—many to squalid refugee camps where they and their descendants live to this day. Israeli troops celebrated the anniversary in their own customary way by gunning down demonstrators, killing over a dozen and injuring scores more.

Ever since Israel was established in 1948 in accordance with a United Nations partition plan, Palestinians have been treated as untermenschen (subhuman), subjected to deadly cycles of war and terror, repeatedly robbed of their land and driven into ghetto-like enclaves. The drive for a “greater Israel” was inherent in the establishment of the Zionist state. Today, the entire West Bank, which Israel occupied along with the Gaza Strip as a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, is dotted with military outposts, checkpoints and fortified settlements. Zionist settlers repeatedly rampage in the West Bank. That area is crisscrossed by “bypass roads” that are off-limits to Palestinians, who are walled off in towns and villages where water and other necessities of life are scarce.

Two and a half years ago, the Zionist butchers—armed with U.S. warplanes, helicopters and missiles—slaughtered more than a thousand Palestinians and wounded thousands more in the Gaza ghetto. When a flotilla of volunteers carrying medicine, construction supplies and other goods defied the Israeli blockade of Gaza last year, elite naval units blasted away at the 700 passengers in international waters, killing nine people.

Workers internationally must take up the defense of the besieged Palestinian people and demand: All Zionist troops and settlers out of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights! For immediate removal of all anti-Arab fortifications! Down with the blockade of Gaza!

Obama Backs Zionist Terror

President Barack Obama last week repeated Washington’s long-held position in favor of a supposed “two-state solution” in which the Palestinians would be granted a rump state consisting of Gaza and part of the West Bank. Obama proposed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations based on the borders existing before the 1967 war, supplemented with land “swaps.” What that means was shown in secret documents released early this year (the so-called “Palestine Papers”) revealing the details of years of such “negotiations.” The documents describe how former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni told Palestinian negotiators that land swaps should involve separating Arab villages from Israel and annexing them to an eventual Palestinian state. Tens of thousands of Arabs could lose their Israeli citizenship under this scheme.

In presenting the U.S. government’s position, Obama used language that was meant to appeal to Arab audiences in the Near East and North Africa, a region that has been swept by a series of protests and uprisings. His particular choice of words enraged Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he was about to arrive in Washington for talks with the White House. The Israeli government insists that final control of the territory seized in 1967 must remain in the hands of Israel. This has long been the consensus of all bourgeois parties in Israel, including the Labor Party.

Obama then took the occasion of a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—the main Zionist lobby—to reassure Tel Aviv that the U.S. would not waver in its support to Israel. The White House has made this clear by opposing a planned UN resolution in favor of a Palestinian state. To defend its interests in the oil-rich Near East, U.S. imperialism each year pumps some $3 billion in military aid to Israel and another $1.3 billion for Egypt’s military, relying as well on the Saudi monarchy and the despots ruling the Persian Gulf states. Down with U.S. aid to Israel, Egypt!

At the heart of the Palestinian question is the impossibility of achieving national justice for geographically interpenetrated peoples within a capitalist framework. Both Palestinian Arabs and Hebrew-speaking Israelis lay claim to a small portion of the Near East. Key to the creation of a nation of Hebrew-speaking people in Palestine was the rise of the Nazis in Germany, which caused massive waves of Jewish emigration both before the Holocaust and again after World War II. The Zionists had appealed directly to British imperialism, which controlled Palestine militarily, to sponsor a so-called “Jewish homeland.” The British rulers, anti-Semitic to the core, agreed because they saw this as a way to further their divide-and-rule schemes in the Near East, at a time when the British Empire was in sharp decline. The European-derived Jewish settlers were supplemented by an influx of Oriental Jews fleeing Arab countries.

As we explained in “Birth of the Zionist State, Part Two: The 1948 War” (WV No. 45, 24 May 1974):

“It was clear that the establishment of an independent nation-state, either by Palestinian Arabs or the Jews, would occur in Palestine only at the expense of the other nation. When national populations are geographically interpenetrated, as they were in Palestine, an independent nation-state can be created only by their forcible separation (forced population transfers, etc.). Thus the democratic right of self-determination becomes abstract, as it can be exercised only by the stronger national grouping driving out or destroying the weaker one.

“In such cases the only possibility of a democratic solution lies in a social transformation.”

So long as the national principle prevails, the oppression of the Palestinians by the massively armed Zionist state will only deepen. The only way to achieve an equitable solution to the conflicting national claims of the Palestinian and Hebrew-speaking peoples is through the overthrow of capitalist rule in Israel and the surrounding Arab states, where millions of Palestinians languish. The national emancipation of the Palestinians—including the right of all refugees and their descendants to return to their homeland—necessarily entails workers revolutions to shatter the Zionist state from within and to sweep away the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where more than half the population is Palestinian, as well as the Syrian Ba’athist and Lebanese regimes.

The Arab working masses must be broken from Islamic fundamentalism and bourgeois nationalism, and the Israeli workers must be broken from the Zionist consciousness that politically binds them to their Israeli exploiters. We have no illusions that this is an easy task, but the alternative is the perpetuation and deepening of the misery of the Palestinians and continual threats of military conflict, with a nuclear-armed Israeli state prepared to obliterate its neighbors, whatever the consequences. Israel is a class-divided society, with high income disparities. Sephardic Jews, though overwhelmingly under the sway of right-wing and religious parties, suffer widespread discrimination and poverty.

Revolutionary Marxists fight to forge workers parties throughout the region in political combat against all forms of nationalism and religious reaction. Down with the oil sheiks, emirs, kings, colonels and Zionist rulers—Workers to power! For a socialist federation of the Near East!

Bankrupt Arab Nationalism

The outlines of what Washington sees as a “solution” in Israel/Palestine were laid out in the 1993 Oslo “peace” accords between Israel’s Labor Party government of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Brokered by then-president Bill Clinton, the deal established the Palestinian Authority as the Zionists’ police auxiliaries in the Occupied Territories, giving it some limited powers in the West Bank and Gaza. We noted at the time that the accord “does not offer even the most deformed expression of self-determination” (“Israel-PLO Deal for Palestinian Ghetto,” WV No. 583, 10 September 1993).

The Oslo accords led directly to the doubling of the settler population in the Occupied Territories by the end of the decade. Most significantly, the Palestinians became even more marginalized from Israel’s economy as the Israeli capitalists increasingly resorted to the use of migrant labor from Asia and elsewhere.

The political bankruptcy of the PLO and the increasingly desperate situation the Palestinians faced set the stage for the rise of reactionary Islamic groups like Hamas. In 2006, Hamas won a Palestinian parliamentary election and then seized power in Gaza in a military conflict with Palestinian Authority forces. Presented by some in the Western left as a paragon of resistance to Zionist rule, Hamas in fact was initially promoted by the Israeli rulers as a counterweight to secular Palestinian nationalists. Israel set up conservative “Village Leagues” in the Occupied Territories where the Islamic Association, a front group of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and predecessor of Hamas, gained prominence. The Zionist government also funded welfare programs to help the Islamists win a base among the poor. Israel broke relations with Hamas in the fall of 1989 after discovering that Hamas had killed two Israeli soldiers.

Recently the new Egyptian military regime brokered a “reconciliation” agreement in Cairo between Fatah, the dominant party in the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza. Twelve smaller organizations, ranging from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on the left to the hardcore reactionaries of Islamic Jihad, also signed on. The agreement calls for holding new elections and forming a coalition government, allowing the Palestinian parties to present the UN in September with the basis for declaring in favor of the semblance of a Palestinian state. In fact, this is more in the nature of bargaining over the terms of oppression of the Palestinians, who would remain locked down in their desperate ghettos.

The unity agreement has been hailed in the U.S. by the Workers World Party as bolstering “the struggle for a free Palestine” and providing an “unmistakable sign of the importance of the Arab revolution that has swept the Middle East and North Africa” (Workers World, 9 May). The WWP’s political cousins in the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) also hailed the Cairo agreement, posting it on its Web site and writing a May 12 article attributing the pact to the “Egyptian revolution” and “a Palestinian youth-led movement…inspired by the revolutionary uprisings” in North Africa.

The WWP/PSL’s support to the unity pact is but the latest expression of the petty-bourgeois and bourgeois nationalism they have long promoted in the Arab countries and elsewhere in the Third World, by which they act as apologists for brutal capitalist regimes. The pro-Palestinian rhetoric of the capitalist rulers of the Arab states—which have long had their own modus vivendi with the Zionist rulers—is a cynical means to divert popular discontent at home into a show of opposition to Zionism. Thus, forces in Syria linked to strongman Bashar al-Assad bused “Nakba Day” protesters to the normally off-limits border of the Golan Heights, which Syria lost to Israel in 1967. This came as Assad’s military and security forces have for weeks unsuccessfully sought to drown in blood the almost daily mass protests sweeping the country.

Contrary to the myth of Arab unity behind the Palestinian cause, the bourgeois Arab regimes have been ruthless enemies of Palestinian national emancipation. When Arab armies went to war with Israel in 1948, it was not to liberate the Palestinians but to seize territory allotted to the Palestinians under the partition plan. Between 1948 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and Gaza respectively, brutally repressing the Palestinians, who remained politically dispossessed. In 1970, Jordanian King Hussein carried out the “Black September” massacre of some 10,000 Palestinians—with the acquiescence of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist idol Gamal Abdel Nasser. From the oil sheiks of the Gulf emirates to the bankers of Beirut and the bonapartists of Cairo and Damascus, the ruling classes of the Near East are subordinated to the imperialists, subject to the dictates of the world capitalist market and ultimately dependent on the U.S. and other capitalist powers for their own survival.

For Proletarian Internationalism!

The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt during what has been dubbed the “Arab spring” have been dominated by class-collaborationist coalitions ranging from viciously anti-woman Islamic fundamentalists to bourgeois liberals and reformist leftists. In the name of “national unity,” the proletariat, whose strike actions had contributed to the downfall of Tunisia’s Ben Ali dictatorship and Egypt’s Mubarak regime, has remained politically submerged as a class. In Libya, the “coalition” of Islamists, tribal leaders, CIA stooges and defectors from Qaddafi’s regime appealed for imperialist military intervention and, aided by NATO bombs, has provided the ground troops.

In Egypt, the same military that had been the backbone of the Mubarak regime came forward openly as the governmental power, arresting and torturing hundreds of leftists, worker militants and others. The same military rulers who won plaudits for arranging the Palestinian “unity” agreement had earlier set their forces against Egyptians trying to march to the Gaza border on “Nakba Day” in solidarity with the Palestinian masses. Women and Coptic Christians are increasingly besieged by reactionary fundamentalists. This is the reality behind what the WWP, PSL and others call the “Egyptian Revolution.”

Revolutionary Marxists fight for the proletariat to emerge as a contender for power in its own name, independent of all bourgeois political forces. A socialist revolution in Egypt, with its large, militant working class, could open a vista of national and social liberation for the oppressed Palestinian masses, and, extending a hand of working-class solidarity to the Hebrew-speaking proletariat of Israel, could help lay the basis for shattering the Zionist garrison state of Israel from within through Arab/Hebrew workers revolution. Throughout the region, internationalist workers parties must be forged. By linking the struggle for socialist federations of the Near East and North Africa to the fight for proletarian power in the U.S. and other imperialist centers, such parties will open the way for a world society free of poverty, national oppression and war.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

terrorist natanYAHOO thinks we're stupid like him!

NoName — Wed, 25 May 2011 01:53:47 GMT

Terrorist natanYAHOO thinks we're stupid like him to buy the garbage he spews to the americans. He doesn't want to move an inch in Jerusalem, he won't let Palestinian refugee come back to their Homeland, he won't get out of the militarily occupied "west bank," and he won't talk to a Palestinian government that includes the democratically-elected Hamas BUT

he tells the americans he will make "painful" concessions for peace with Palestinians!

HA HA HA

Maybe the americans are stupid to believe him, but we, PALESTINIANS, are not.

I am telling you there won't be peace with a yahoo like this one. He will be out of "office" in the terrorist state of izra-hell in due time, but the Palestinians will still be in Palestine.

Eventually, there will be a Palestinian state, FREE of zionazi garbage, whether the yahoO or any zionazi or any american agrees or not! The Palestinians are prepared to wait.

Mark these words!

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

May 15 - If I forget thee Jerusalem . . .

NoName — Sun, 15 May 2011 08:52:02 GMT

We shall never forget Jerusalem no matter what jew or zionazi does to our Palestine homeland!

!5 May 1948 - the day the scum took our homeland and they still garbage on it.

We will triumph over them no matter how long it takes.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Palestinian reconciliation - worrying to izra-hell

NoName — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:18:08 GMT

Palestinian factions in reconciliation bid

Fatah and Hamas agree to form interim government and fix general election date following talks in Cairo.

Thursday, 28 Apr 2011

http://english.aljazeera.net/

Fatah, the Palestinian political organisation, has reached an agreement with its rival Hamas on forming an interim government and fixing a date for a general election, Egyptian intelligence has said.

In February, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and a member of Fatah, called for presidential and legislative elections before September, in a move which was rejected by Hamas at the time.

"The consultations resulted in full understandings over all points of discussions, including setting up an interim agreement with specific tasks and to set a date for election," Egyptian intelligence said in a statement on Wednesday.

The deal, which took many officials by surprise, was thrashed out in Egypt and followed a series of secret meetings.

"The two sides signed initial letters on an agreement. All points of differences have been overcome," Taher Al- Nono, a Hamas government spokesman in Gaza, told the Reuters news agency.

He said that Cairo would shortly invite both sides to a signing ceremony.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Gaza, Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, said: I think we are optimistic because ... there is [an] official agreement between Hamas and Fatah, and I think we now have [an] impressive jump to the Palestinian unity.

"Maybe it does not come as a shock because I think it came as a fruit of long talks and discussion.

"I think that today we came very close to this agreement, we have finished some points. It is like [an] outline draft and I think it will be a good beginning.

"Maybe after that we will start on how to implement this agreement to be translated and practised on the ground."

'Geopolitical situation'

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said: "It is important news ... the geopolitical situation wasn't exactly helpful [to reconciliation] and then we went through six months of upheavals, certainly sweeping through Egypt.

"At the end, you could say that President Abbas has lost his patron in Egypt, which is President Mubarak, and Hamas is more on less facing almost similar trouble now, with Bashar Al-Assad [Syria's president] facing his own trouble in Damascus.

"So with the US keeping a distance, Israel not delivering the goods on the peace process and the settlements, it was time for Palestinians to come together and agree on what they basically agreed on almost a year and a half ago."

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, said on Wednesday that Abbas could not hope to forge a peace deal with Israel if he pursued a reconciliation accord with Hamas.

"The Palestinian Authority must choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There is no possibility for peace with both," he said.
In his televised statement, Netanyahu said Israel could not accept Hamas as a negotiating partner because it "aspires to destroy Israel, it says so publicly, it fires rockets on our cities, it fires anti-tank rockets on our children."

He said that the surprise announcement of a reconciliation deal "exposes the Palestinian Authority's weakness". And on Thursday, Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister said the deal marks the "crossing of a red line". Lieberman warned that the accord could lead to the militant group's takeover of the Fatah-run West Bank.

But top Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdaineh said the reconciliation did not concern Israel.
"The agreement between Fatah and Hamas movements is an internal affair and has nothing to do with Israel. Netanyahu must choose between a just peace with the united Palestinian people ... and settlements," Abu Rdaineh said.

Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros reported from Ramallah that "a lot of people would say that this was really an empty kind of ultimatum, what peace process or what peace deal is prime minister Netanyahu actually talking about?

"The peace process, took very much of a hit in the last few months. There has been no peace process taking place between the Palestinian Authority and Israel because of Israel's insistence to keep building on land that is being negotiated on.

"So I think many months back, the PA and Fatah decided to take their own route away this peace process, away from US mediation and try it really go it alone."

The US is reviewing further reports on details of the reconciliation, and while it supports Palestinian reconciliation, Hamas remains "a terrorist organisation which targets civilians", Tommy Vietor, US National Security Council spokesman, said.

"To play a constructive role in achieving peace, any Palestinian government must accept the Quartet principles and renounce violence, abide by past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist."

Hamas does not recognise Israel as a state.

'Bitter split'

Fatah holds power in the occupied West Bank while Hamas, which won the last parliamentary election in 2006, routed Abbas' forces in 2007 to seize control of the Gaza Strip.

Rawya Rageh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Cairo, said: "This effectively will be ending a bitter split that Palestinians have been witnessing since 2007. Rageh said the deal was expected to be signed next week and would be attended by Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Damascus.

Nicole Johnston, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said: "One of the main civil society groups here is calling on all Palestinian factions to head down to the main square in Gaza City, that's the square of the unknown soldier, to begin the celebrations.

"It seems certainly in Gaza that there's a need for some good news. It's been a pretty rough month here in a lot of respects, an escalation of violence with Israel, the kidnapping and murder of a foreigner.

"So really, this kind of news ... is call for celebration." Wednesday's accord was first reported by Egypt's intelligence service, which brokered the talks.

In a statement carried by the Egyptian state news agency MENA, the intelligence service said the deal was agreed by a Hamas delegation led by Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of the group's politburo, and Fatah central committee member Azzam al-Ahmad.

Al-Ahmad and Abu Marzouk said the agreement covered all points of contention, including forming a transitional government, security arrangements and the restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to allow Hamas to join it.

Speaking on Egyptian state television, al-Ahmad said a general election would take place within a year.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior member of Hamas, said all prisoners with a non-criminal background would be released.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

I try this non zionazi tribe - for while!

NoName — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 21:50:47 GMT

well, the zionazis r now controlling all mideast tribes, with zionazi "brent" shi*ing the "politics" tribe and "adam" shi*ing the "conflict" tribe. This one here called "Palestine" is dead but at least ruled by "stephen", non zionazi. I try this one for while, if it stays dead, I ignore tribe completely.

Can we make this tribe work? Or zionazis will occupy all ways to speak on here?

posted in Palestine - 3 replies

For Joint Arab-Jewish Class Struggle to Smash Zionism!

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:16:47 GMT

For Joint Arab-Jewish Class Struggle to Smash Zionism!

Israeli Apartheid & Palestinian Oppression

http://www.bolshevik.org/

Shulamit Aloni is a former leader of Israel’s liberal Meretz party who served as education minister in Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor-led government in the early 1990s. Her ideological commitment to Zionism has not, however, prevented her from candidly discussing the Israeli state’s brutal treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In one report, Aloni describes traveling on one of the “Jewish only” roads that crisscross the West Bank:

“Wonderful roads, wide roads, well-paved roads, brightly lit at night—all that on stolen land. When a Palestinian drives on such a road, his vehicle is confiscated and he is sent on his way.
“On one occasion I witnessed such an encounter between a driver and a soldier who was taking down the details before confiscating the vehicle and sending its owner away. ‘Why?’ I asked the soldier. ‘It’s an order—this is a Jews-only road’, he replied. I inquired as to where was the sign indicating this fact and instructing [other] drivers not to use it. His answer was nothing short of amazing. ‘It is his responsibility to know it, and besides, what do you want us to do, put up a sign here and let some antisemitic reporter or journalist take a photo so he that [sic] can show the world that Apartheid exists here?’…
“Indeed Apartheid does exist here.”

—“Yes, There is Apartheid in Israel,” CounterPunch, 8 January 2007Aloni is of course dismissed by Zionists as a “self-hating” Jew, but this smear (and its equivalent—“anti-Semitic”) to describe those who object to Israeli crimes is increasingly losing impact. The ritual incantations—that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East,” that it possesses “the most moral army in the world,” etc.—become more ludicrous with each atrocity.

Norman Finkelstein’s defense of Palestinian rights and his exposure of what he terms the “Holocaust Industry” have always been particularly galling to America’s powerful “Israel Lobby.” In an outrageous act of academic censorship, Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University in 2007 after arch-Zionist Alan Dershowitz orchestrated a grotesque slander campaign against him. But such desperate measures have failed to reverse the shift in popular opinion, as Finkelstein himself recently observed in an interview:

“If you are, as I am quite frequently, speaking at college campuses in the United States, it’s quite clear that support among Jews for Israel has dried up.
. . .
“You’ll find there is a handful of people that you might call the Hillel faithful, who will still have some public events in support of Israel, but barely anybody shows up for them, and when critics of Israeli policy speak, the ‘Hillel faithful’ no longer really show up to protest, to demonstrate, to shout down, to hand out leaflets, because they realize how isolated they are.”

—“It Wasn’t a War,” ZNet, 5 August 2010
Peter Beinart, former editor of the New Republic, a journal well known as an apologist for Israeli crimes, offended many of his erstwhile allies when he observed that in the U.S. today there is “an American Zionist movement that does not even feign concern for Palestinian dignity and a broader American Jewish population that does not even feign concern for Israel.” Beinart blamed the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its ilk, for whom “the Holocaust analogies never stop, and their message is always the same: Jews are licensed by their victimhood to worry only about themselves.” He also observed that rather than checking their liberalism at Zionism’s door, “many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead” (New York Review of Books, 10 June 2010).

However, the traffic has not been entirely one way. In “The Lede,” a New York Times blog, Robert Mackey reports that some leading figures in the European far right are lining up in support of Israel:

“Geert Wilders, whose anti-immigrant party supports the government of the Netherlands, said in a speech this month in Tel Aviv, ‘Jews need to settle Judea and Samaria,’ using the ancient Hebrew name for the West Bank. He added, ‘Without Judea and Samaria, Israel cannot protect Jerusalem.’
“Mr. Wilders told Reuters, ‘Our culture is based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism and [the Israelis] are fighting our fight.’ He added, ‘If Jerusalem falls, Amsterdam and New York will be next.’
“During his trip to Israel, Mr. Wilders also met with Israel’s most prominent settler, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, as Radio Netherlands reported.
“The day after Mr. Wilders spoke in Tel Aviv, a delegation of anti-immigrant politicians from Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Britain and Sweden toured West Bank settlements. Arutz Sheva, a settler news organization, observed: ‘Sixty-five years after the defeat of the Third Reich, a senior delegation of European right-wing politicians toured Samaria Monday in support of the Jews who live there, whom they see as a bridgehead in the struggle against a common foe—Islamic jihadism and expansionism.’”
. . .
“The settler spokesman David Ha’ivri, who helped host the European delegation, told Arutz Sheva: ‘If these European leaders—with their ties to anti-Semitic groups and their past—come around and declare that Israel has a right to exist securely in all of the areas under our control, and that Europe has a moral responsibility because of the crimes of their past, then I believe that we should accept their friendship.’ Calling their statements of support for the settlements, ‘the strongest possible tool in the war against anti-Semitism,’ Mr. Ha’ivri added:
“‘No skinhead cares what [Anti-Defamation League Chairman] Abe Foxman has to say, but if Filip Dewinter and Heinz-Christian Strache make these statements they will have real impact. For that reason I am considering appearing with them in their countries for pro-Israel rallies.’”
One important factor in Israel’s diminishing popular support is its brutality toward the residents of the tiny Gaza Strip. The international wave of mass protests that began in December 2008 when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched “Operation Cast Lead,” a 22-day assault against Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants, reflected widespread revulsion at Zionist bullying and relentless cruelty. Gazans had already been under siege since 2006 after displeasing the Israelis and their U.S. sponsors by voting for the Islamist organization Hamas. The response of Tel Aviv, in the words of Israeli government advisor Dov Weisglass, was to “put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger” (Observer [London], 16 April 2006). With help from its imperialist patrons and the Mubarak regime in Egypt, Israel imposed a full blockade on this tiny sliver of land, halting all exports and most imports. While Israel claimed to permit “basic humanitarian supplies” to enter the territory, this apparently did not include pasta, light bulbs, shoes or blankets.

Documents obtained by the Israeli human rights group Gisha revealed the equations used by the Israeli government to calculate the amount of food, fuel and other supplies necessary to keep the population alive at a near-starvation level. This is eerily reminiscent of the Nazi blockade of the Warsaw Ghetto, where occupation authorities also calculated the minimal nutritional requirements of their victims. Not a single mainstream bourgeois English-language news source reported Gisha’s sensational revelations (see “Put the Palestinians on a Diet,” MediaLens.org, 17 November 2010).

Cut off from the outside world, Hamas was incapable of meaningful armed resistance, and could only resort to occasionally launching crude homemade rockets into adjacent Israeli territory. Compared to the pain inflicted on Gaza, Israel suffered minimal casualties: a total of 16 Israelis (all, unfortunately, civilians) were killed between 2004 and the start of “Operation Cast Lead” (Economist, 19 September 2009). Tel Aviv had fully anticipated such attacks prior to unilaterally pulling out of Gaza in 2005. In a 20 May 2004 interview with the Jerusalem Post, Arnon Soffer, the architect of the withdrawal plan, suggested that the problem could be managed by inflicting collective punishment on Gaza’s population:

“the Palestinians will bombard us with artillery fire—and we will have to retaliate. But at least the war will be at the fence—not in kindergartens in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
“…we will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed and houses will be destroyed….
“…The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”

—quoted in “The Carnivores and the Ivy League Apologist,” CounterPunch, 9 December 2004In March 2008, Israel’s deputy defense minister, Matan Vilnai, warned that the Palestinians faced a “holocaust” if homemade rockets continued to land in Israel (Guardian [London], 5 March 2008). Hamas observed a ceasefire for several months in an attempt to induce Israel to gradually lift the blockade. But the siege continued unabated, and when the ceasefire ended on 4 November 2008, the resumption of rocket attacks was seized on by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as the pretext for a policy of “kill and kill and kill.” “Operation Cast Lead” was not a “war” but a one-sided blitzkrieg against an impoverished and essentially defenseless population. As the Economist (10 January 2009) observed: “Gazans have long felt they lived in an open prison; now they are trapped in a shooting gallery.” Civilian ministries, food-processing factories, sewage treatment plants and electricity stations were all targeted for destruction. The IDF finally ended its murderous vendetta in January 2009, after killing 1,400 Palestinians (40 percent of whom were women and children). Of the 10 Israeli soldiers who were killed, at least four were felled by “friendly fire.”

Despite the ferocity of the assault, Hamas was not destroyed, so the blockade was further tightened, making everyday life for average Palestinians in Gaza even worse. Unemployment stands at almost 40 percent, and 80 percent of Gaza’s residents are dependent on food aid for survival (Independent [London], 10 October 2010). Most of this aid is distributed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), while other agencies avoid Gaza because U.S. law makes it a crime to provide money, material goods, training or services to individuals or groups that are in any way affiliated with Hamas. Since Hamas is the actual civil authority in Gaza and the chief source of employment, this makes providing assistance almost impossible. Moreover, serious tensions exist between UNRWA and Hamas, largely because of UN complicity in Israeli crimes.

Zionist Pirates of the Mediterranean: A ‘Strategic Liability’?
In May 2010, when the local director of UNRWA, John Ging, welcomed the flotilla of nine boats from Ireland, Turkey and Greece that sought to break the siege, he was partly motivated by what the Economist (29 May 2010) termed a desire “to preserve his beachhead of foreign influence.” Israel had previously permitted a flotilla to dock in Gaza in August 2008, so nothing unusual was expected.

This time, however, the Israeli leadership decided to punish those who dared demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinians. Even before the flotilla departed, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, ludicrously insisted that “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” and denounced the aid shipment as a “provocation intended to delegitimise Israel.” When IDF commandos executed nine activists aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara while it was still in international waters, outraging tens of millions around the world, Ayalon brazenly defended this hideous crime and cynically denounced the flotilla as an “armada of hate and violence in support of the Hamas terror organisation” (Le Monde diplomatique [English], July 2010).

However, statements from those who witnessed the horror revealed what really happened:

“Greta Berlin, a representative of the Free Gaza Movement, said that she and her fellow activists were watching the live stream from the Mavi Marmara when the assault took place. ‘We saw them come off the helicopter, we saw them turn around, look at each other and then shoot. We were speechless watching this,’ she said.
“Hanin Zoabi, an Arab-Israeli member of the Israeli parliament, was aboard the Mavi Marmara. [She] said: ‘It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this [voyage] but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.’”

—Financial Times [London], 1 June 2010Protests against the Zionists’ piratical assault were even more massive than those of a year and a half earlier, particularly in Turkey. Israel has long cultivated extremely close relations with Turkey, involving joint military exercises and extensive arms sales. Israel’s bombing of an alleged Syrian “nuclear reactor” in 2006 was approved by both Washington and Ankara. While constantly invoking the Nazi holocaust against European Jewry to justify Zionist crimes, Israel has cynically refused to acknowledge the Turkish genocide of Armenians during World War I.

As Washington’s attempt to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into stable client states floundered, the Turkish bourgeoisie (which was a reliable U.S. vassal throughout the Cold War and still hosts an important American airbase at Incirlik) has sought to chart a more independent course in the region. On the eve of the flotilla assault, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced that, with the help of Brazil, it had hammered out an agreement to restrict Iran’s enrichment of uranium. The Obama administration welcomed this initiative at first, presumably anticipating an Iranian rejection, but became incensed when Tehran responded positively. The U.S. not only moved to block implementation of the deal, but also pushed for a new round of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran. This, along with popular outrage at the flotilla massacre, pushed the AKP into hardening its stance toward Israel and moving closer to Iran and Syria.

America’s imperial strategists are concerned that the rupture of the Ankara-Tel Aviv axis represents another blow to U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. Anthony Cordesman, a well-connected military analyst in Washington who vocally supported the IDF’s 2008-09 rampage in Gaza, commented that Israel’s disregard for the geopolitical implications of its attack on the flotilla posed the question of whether it was becoming a “strategic liability” for its patron: “It is time Israel realized it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test [sic] the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews” (“Israel as a Strategic Liability?,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2 June 2010).

Israeli Apartheid: If the Shoe Fits…
It is not only the egregious actions of Tel Aviv that have put Zionists on the defensive. The energetic campaign of a new generation of Palestinian solidarity activists and the burgeoning “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) movement (see accompanying article), which took off in 2005, has also had a significant impact. By focusing attention on the indisputable parallels between apartheid in South Africa and Israel, the BDS campaign has embarrassed and enraged the Israeli establishment and its apologists.

In a diatribe against pro-Palestinian activists, the ardently Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) whines: “affirmation that Israel practices apartheid defies logic and poses a basic question: Why, out of all the countries in the world in which national, religious or ethnic minorities claim discrimination, is Israel selected for the apartheid label?” (“Israel and Apartheid: The Big Lie,” 29 August 2005).

In Afrikaans, “apartheid” means “apart-ness” or “separate-ness”—a translation that literally renders Israel’s “separation fence” an “apartheid fence” (or Apartheid Wall, as Palestinian activists more aptly call it). In 1973, the United Nations defined apartheid as: “Any legislative measures or other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups.” An apartheid regime was defined as one which denies a particular group “the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression” (www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/resins.htm).

Apartheid South Africa’s white rulers actively sought to emulate Israeli methods of control in the Occupied Ter-ritories:

“South Africa’s army chief, Constand Viljoen, visited Israel’s occupied territories in the spring of 1977, marveling at the Israeli checkpoint system and the searches of Arabs conducted by soldiers at each roadblock. ‘The thoroughness with which Israel conducts this examination is astonishing. At the quickest, it takes individual Arabs that come through there about one and a half hours. When the traffic is heavy, it takes from four to five hours,’ he observed admiringly. In addition to studying how Israel controlled the movement of Palestinians, the SADF [South African Defence Force] was also interested in Israel’s battlefield training methods and sent twenty-two members of the army to Israel to study the IDF’s combat school with the goal of establishing a replica in South Africa.”

—Sasha Polakow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, 2010Collaboration between apartheid South Africa and Israel extended far beyond population control techniques, as Polakow-Suransky documents. In 1975, then-Israeli defense minister (and current Israeli president), Shimon Peres, offered to sell South Africa nuclear missiles:

“On March 31, 1975…the Israeli delegation formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal—the same missiles that were readied for use during the Yom Kippur War. South Africa’s leaders yearned for a nuclear deterrent—which they believed would force the West to intervene on their behalf if Pretoria were ever seriously threatened—and the Israeli proposition put that goal within reach. Excited by the offer on the table, R. F. Armstrong, chief of staff of the South African Defence Force (SADF), wrote an enthusiastic memo analyzing the benefits of nuclear weapons for South Africa’s defense strategy.”
. . .
“Israel’s offer of nuclear missiles, code-named ‘Chalet,’ came up again two months later, on June 4, when Peres and [then South African defense minister, P. W.] Botha held a second meeting in Zurich. Now the discussion turned to warheads. Minutes from the June meeting reveal that Botha expressed interest in buying the Jerichos if they came with ‘the correct payload,’ and that ‘Minister Peres said that the correct payload was available in three sizes.’ Armstrong’s exclusive focus on nuclear-armed Jerichos in his March 31 memorandum makes clear that Botha was talking about nuclear warheads when he asked for ‘the correct payload.’ Eventually Botha backed out of the deal—due to its high costs and the fact that planning for nuclear weapons in South Africa was only in its early stages—and the nuclear transfer never occurred. The abortive deal in 1975 was only the beginning of Israeli-South African cooperation on nuclear missile technology, however: a decade later, the two countries would begin work on a secret testing range along South Africa’s rugged Indian Ocean coast.
“Nuclear missiles notwithstanding, the Israelis were extremely eager to sell anything and everything to Pretoria, including weapons from third parties. South Africa conveniently used Israel as an intermediary to buy arms from countries off limits to them because of embargoes.”

—Ibid.Secret collaboration on nuclear weaponry continued until at least 1989, two years after Tel Aviv had ostensibly imposed military “sanctions” on Pretoria.

Zionists in the United States were acutely aware of the South Africa-Israel axis. In the 1980s, ADL chief Irwin Suall turned his organization into a vigorous opponent of the anti-apartheid movement:

“[Suall] believed that the greatest threat to Israel emanated from the Soviet Union and the American left. As a result, Suall’s fact-finding department shifted its focus from white supremacists and Aryan nationalists to every imaginable left-leaning organization in the country—from pro-Nicaraguan Sandinista groups to the anti-apartheid movement. Suall’s ace fact-finder was a man named Roy Bullock.”
. . .
“As the anti-apartheid campaign turned its attention to Israel’s links with South Africa, the ADL entered the propaganda fray, publicly attacking Nelson Mandela’s ANC [African National Congress] with arguments that mirrored those of the hard-line security officials in Pretoria. In May 1986, ADL national director Nathan Perlmutter co-authored an article arguing, ‘We must distinguish between those who will work for a humane, democratic, pro-Western South Africa and those who are totalitarian, anti-humane, anti-democratic, anti-Israel and anti-American. It is in this context that the African National Congress…merits a close, unsentimental look.’
“The ADL also became involved in the Israeli-South African propaganda war in a more covert manner, dispatching Bullock to attend the meetings of U.S.-based anti-apartheid groups, collect their publications, and take down the license plate numbers of leaders’ cars—including visitors such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.”

—Ibid.In addition to his work for the ADL, Bullock also filed several reports every month for South African intelligence.

Ethnic Cleansing & ‘Jim Crow’ Segregation in Israel
The existence of Israeli apartheid in the Occupied Territories is so obvious that it is acknowledged by various mainstream liberals, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and John Dugard, the special rapporteur for the UN Commission on Human Rights. After the 2008-09 Gaza massacre, South African parliamentarians told the Israeli ambassador that IDF abuses “made [South African] apartheid look like a Sunday school picnic” (Le Monde diplomatique [English], August 2009). Comments on the issue by Condoleezza Rice—who aided and abetted Israeli and U.S. imperialist war crimes as a member of the Bush administration—infuriated many American rightwingers:

“And for the past year and a half, Rice has repeatedly undermined the administration’s credibility by making statements suggesting that Israeli security checkpoints set up to prevent terrorists from entering Israel and blowing themselves up are somehow analogous to the mistreatment of Southern blacks under the Jim Crow laws.”

—Joel Himelfarb, Accuracy in Media, 31 March 2008It is important to note, however, that these bourgeois worthies all carefully restrict their criticism to the IDF-ruled Occupied Territories, as distinct from “democratic” Israel proper. This echoes the well-rehearsed Zionist claim that while 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation may endure certain inequalities, Israel’s 1.3 million Arabs are “equal citizens.” Apartheid within Israel is less obvious partly because it is more long-standing and well entrenched, as Jonathan Cook, a leftwing British journalist based in Nazareth, observed in a talk he delivered in the West Bank village of Bilin:

“Certainly, it is true that apartheid in the territories is much more aggressive than it is inside Israel. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the apartheid under occupation is much less closely supervised by the Israeli civilian courts than it is in Israel. You can, to put it bluntly, get away with much more here. The second, and more significant, reason, however, is that the Israeli system of apartheid in the occupied territories is forced to be more aggressive and cruel—and that is because the battle is not yet won here. The fight of the occupying power to steal your resources—your land, water and labour—is in progress but the outcome is still to be decided….
“In Israel, by contrast, apartheid rule is entrenched—it achieved its victory decades ago. Palestinian citizens have third or fourth class citizenship; they have had almost all of their land taken from them; they are allowed to live only in their ghettoes; their education system is controlled by the security services; they can work in few jobs other than those Jews do not want; they have the vote but cannot participate in government or effect any political change; and so on.”

—“Israel’s Big and Small Apartheids,” CounterPunch, 26 April 2010The 8 November 2010 New Statesman notes: “The Mos-sawa Centre, an organisation that lobbies for equal rights in Israel, maintains that there are at least 20 laws that discriminate against Israeli Arabs. The US state department accepts that ‘institutional, legal and societal discrimination’ exists.” As a result, Israeli Arabs, who constitute 20 percent of the population, occupy only 3 percent of the land. Israel was consolidated in the late 1940s through a process of ethnic cleansing and war with surrounding Arab states. Ninety percent of the land owned by 750,000 Palestinian refugees was confiscated under the so-called “Absentees’ Property Law,” as was much of the land owned by the 180,000 Palestinians who remained within Israel. Access to this nationalized land requires vetting by quasi-governmental organizations like the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund, which ensure that the land is held in trust for world Jewry (i.e., off limits to Arab “citizens”). In “democratic” Israel more than 700 communities (rural kibbutzim and suburban moshavim) bar non-Jews from residence (Canadian Press, 26 April 2010). As most Israelis prefer to live in larger urban centers like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the chief purpose of the majority of these sparsely populated outposts is to stake an administrative claim to most of the inhabitable land and resources.

Land confiscations within Israel continue to this day, with government agencies routinely declaring Arab villages “illegal” before razing them to the ground. A stark example of this is the plight of the growing Bedouin population in the arid Negev desert, most of whom live in “unrecognized villages” deprived of all services, including water and electricity. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly warned his cabinet last year that “different elements will demand national rights within Israel—for example, in the Negev—if we allow for a region without a Jewish majority” (“Israel plans mass forced removals of Bedouin,” ZNet, 6 August 2010). In the Bedouin village of al Araqib the houses—mostly wooden shacks and concrete homes—were knocked down twice, first by bulldozers and later by 1,500 police. After uprooting 850 olive trees, the Zionist authorities designated the land of al Araqib a “peace forest” to be administered by the Jewish National Fund. The government’s objective is to force the Bedouin into seven deprived townships, but so far 90,000 of them (half the total) have resisted pressure to move.

Similar “Judaization” campaigns are underway both in the heavily-Arab region of Galilee and various urban centers. The Israeli cabinet has proposed “strengthening” Lod (a city near Tel Aviv populated by 20,000 Arabs and 45,000 Jews) by increasing its Jewish population while harassing Arab residents. Seventy percent of Arab homes have been declared “illegal,” not only posing the potential danger of demolition, but also ensuring that they are deprived of many municipal services, including street lighting and garbage removal (Economist, 16 October 2010). Local authorities also recently finished constructing a three-meter high wall to separate Jewish districts from Arab ones. Lod’s Arab suburbs are cordoned off to prevent their growth, while no comparable restrictions apply to Jewish expansion. Several gated estates reserved for religious Zionists have recently been built across the city. In Safed, a city in northern Israel, residents have been barred from renting rooms to Israeli Arabs—even though 1,350 Arabs are enrolled at a nearby college. A courageous 89-year-old Holocaust survivor defied this ruling, only to be threatened with having his house set on fire and declared a traitor for “returning the Arabs to Safed” (Independent [London], 15 November 2010).

State-sanctioned discrimination means reduced access to jobs and social services for Israeli Arabs. Per capita spending on education is as much as nine times greater for Jewish students than for Arabs, and there are no state-funded Arabic-language universities (ZNet, 9 September 2009). Employment discrimination, particularly for better paying jobs, accounts for the fact that the average per capita income of Israeli Arabs in 2009 was roughly a third of that of Jewish Israelis—$6,756 and $19,150 respectively (“Israel’s Domestic Ticking Time Bomb,” Middle East Monitor, June 2010). Arabs comprise less than 10 percent of government employees, a figure likely to decline further if recent proposals to give preference to IDF veterans are implemented. Social mobility is further constrained by reactionary laws which prohibit all Israelis from marrying outside their respective religious group, or with Arabs living in the Occupied Territories or “enemy Arab states.”

While Arabs are allowed to vote, establish political parties and become members of the Knesset (MKs), the Israeli parliament, these rights are limited by the fundamental framework of the Zionist state, which is based on the negation of Palestinian national rights. Israel’s Declaration of Independence proclaimed it a “Jewish and democratic” state. In 2007, the Israeli Arab MK Azmi Bishara was stripped of his parliamentary immunity for advocating a non-racial democracy and defending the right of Palestinians and Lebanese to resist Zionist aggression. Three Arab parties were banned from running in the February 2009 elections because they had opposed the assault on Gaza (ZNet, 14 January 2009). The Knesset recently voted to strip the parliamentary privileges of Hanin Zoabi, the Israeli Arab MK who participated in the May 2010 flotilla and told the truth about the bloodbath she witnessed. Zoabi was viciously harassed by her “peers” and denied the right to leave the country or hold a diplomatic passport (“Israel’s Shrinking Minority Rights,” Foreign Policy in Focus, 4 November 2010).

The current Israeli coalition government has taken reactionary anti-Arab and anti-democratic legislation to new depths. One Israeli Arab MK commented: “In this Knesset…anything that’s anti-Arab can pass, even if it says the sun rises in the west” (Economist, 30 May 2009). The most notorious example is the so-called “loyalty oath” bill requiring new citizens to pledge allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic” Israel. In addition to denying Palestinian refugees any right of return, the legislation sets the stage for a “transfer” (i.e., ethnic cleansing) of Israeli Arabs—a policy associated with Avigdor Lieberman’s fascistic Yisrael Beitenu party and the ultra right, but which even “left” Zionists hold to be potentially necessary. In October, Israeli security forces staged a massive, five-day “training” drill simulating the forcible relocation of Israeli Arabs to a new Palestinian “state” (“Israeli Forces Test Transfer Scenario,” ZNet, 15 October 2010).

The underlying connection between apartheid practices within the Green Line (the pre-1967 border) and those in the Occupied Territories is evident in Israel’s two-tier nationality and citizenship laws. Most states make no distinction between citizenship and nationality—someone who is a citizen is also a national. The Zionist ruling class does not recognize “Israeli” as a nationality so that, in fulfillment of its self-definition as the “Jewish state,” the collective “nation” of Jews around the globe have rights that supersede those of people whose families have resided within Israel’s borders for centuries. This is accomplished by creating two categories of citizenship: one for “Jewish nationals” and another of lesser status for “Arab nationals.”

The Law of Return makes immigration all but automatic for any Jew around the world who wishes it (although devising criteria to distinguish members of the “Jewish nation” has proven extremely difficult, and the definition has undergone numerous revisions throughout Israel’s history). The Citizenship Law, for non-Jews, decrees that Palestinians expelled by force in 1948 have no right to return to their homes and land. These legal distinctions underlie the practices of apartheid and are both integral to the foundation of the Zionist state and essential to its maintenance. The myth of a global “Jewish nation” and the negation of rights for the Palestinians are two sides of the same Zionist coin.

The uncomfortable parallels with South Africa have, on occasion, been mentioned by leading Israeli politicians. In a 2003 interview with Haaretz, Olmert (then deputy prime minister) observed:

“More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against ‘occupation,’ in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle—and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state.”

—13 November 2003Four years later Olmert warned: “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished” (Haaretz, 29 November 2007). Defense Minister Ehud Barak offered an even blunter assessment: “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic.…If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state” (Guardian [London], 3 February 2010).

Such statements, while accurate, do not signal any openness on the part of Israel’s rulers to recognize the national rights of the Palestinians. For them the “two-state solution” formula negotiated by Rabin and Fatah’s Yasir Arafat in the 1993 Oslo Accords was never more than an agreement that the Palestinian Authority would police Gaza and the 20 percent of the West Bank in “Area A,” leaving Israel in charge of the rest of the territory of the West Bank (“Areas B and C”). “Final status” negotiations were deliberately dragged out by an endless series of new Zionist demands and provocations, most recently Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish” state.

‘Judaization’ of the West Bank: Zionist Struggle for Lebensraum
Since 1993 the Jewish settler population has more than doubled, reaching 300,000 in the West Bank and nearly 200,000 in East Jerusalem (Economist, 26 September 2009). A Zionist settler, reflecting the ambition of Israeli state policy, commented: “What Arab East Jerusalem?...Today it’s all Jewish” (Economist, 6 March 2010). About 270,000 Arabs remain in East Jerusalem, but the district is becoming less Palestinian every day. The Wall has separated it from other West Bank cities, and citizenship papers for Arabs are regularly revoked: “Israel, since occupying [East Jerusalem] in 1967, has stripped more than 14,000 native Palestinians of their residency rights, including a good 5,000 in the past two years” (Economist, 14 August 2010). Today, the settlements, attendant infrastructure and Jewish-only connecting roads cover an estimated 42 percent of the West Bank.

The cumulative effect, as Jeff Halper points out, is to pre-empt any possibility of even a marginally viable Palestinian “state”:

“Israel’s concentration of settlers in strategic blocs in East Jerusalem and the West Bank destroy any Palestinian territorial contiguity, and do so even if Israel removes the dozens of tiny settlements within the densely populated Palestinian ‘cantons.’ Those settlement blocs have already been incorporated into Israel proper through the construction of some twenty-nine major Israeli highways, meaning that Israel has expanded organically from the 1967 Green Line to the border with Jordan. Even if the Separation Barrier is dismantled, the entire country has been fundamentally reconfigured; there is simply no more room for a coherent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state.”

—“Breaking the Vessels,” MRZine, 19 November 2009This voracious settlement building is integral to the Zionist drive for Lebensraum and the creation of a “Greater Israel.” In carving up the West Bank into a series of small, impoverished and disconnected cantons, Zionist planners made sure that Palestinians were deprived of the richest agricultural land, natural resources and water. The hilltop settlements scattered across the rural West Bank constitute an auxiliary military force—armed and sanctioned by the state—which routinely engages in the harassment, brutalization and dispossession of Palestinians. The Israeli ministry of agriculture reports that some 500,000 Palestinian-owned olive trees have been bulldozed, burned down or uprooted since 2000 (Economist, 17 October 2009). Many Palestinian farmers actually live in their orchards or among their herds of sheep to prevent settlers from seizing them. Three-quarters of the output of West Bank quarries is controlled by Israel (ZNet, 11 May 2009), as is 89 percent of its water resources (CounterPunch, 15 October 2010).

The fertile farmland, abundant raw materials and strategic mountain water aquifer of the Jordan Valley, an area that constitutes 30 percent of the West Bank, are deemed vital for Israeli capitalism. Netanyahu’s recent assertion that “Israel will never cede the Jordan valley” (Economist, 27 November 2010) is explained by the following comment made by former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001: “Is it possible today to concede control of the hill aquifer, which supplies a third of our water?...you know, it’s not by accident that the settlements are located where they are” (Jamil Hilal [ed.], Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two State Solution). After almost a half century of Israeli occupation, the Palestinian population of the Jordan Valley has shrunk from over 200,000 to fewer than 60,000. Many of those who remain have fled to the town of Jericho because Zionist intimidation has made it impossible to eke out a living in the rural areas. In 2010, the Israeli army posted “danger” signs in front of the camps of Jordan Valley Bedouin, who lacked residency permits, declaring the area a military firing zone (Economist, 27 November 2010).

Some 9,000 settlers claim jurisdiction over 90 percent of the valley, and, backed by the IDF, use their control of water resources to pressure what remains of the indigenous population. Without sufficient water, Palestinian farmers’ land is scorched, its meager produce uncompetitive. Since 1967, Palestinians have been forbidden from drilling new wells, while Jewish settlers are free to drill as many as they like, thereby diverting water from the mountain aquifer to feed their own agro-export plantations (Irish Times, 1 October 2010).

In other areas of the West Bank, particularly those cut off by the Wall or adjacent to the Green Line, settlements are not constructed as scattered militarized outposts, but rather as massive urban blocs largely populated by recent Russian Jewish immigrants. This land has also been expropriated from its Palestinian owners; but unlike in other areas of the West Bank, the agency formally in charge of land transfer, the Land Redemption Fund, has major investments from big Israeli capitalists looking for high returns (New Left Review, July-August 2006). Hundreds of Israeli enterprises do a brisk business in providing goods and services to the settlements. Those that have set up production in the various “industrial zones” benefit from cheap (expropriated) land, tax perks and weak labor law enforcement. Increasingly, Israeli-owned enterprises in the West Bank are hiring only Jewish labor. The occupation has also provided considerable impetus for Israel’s highly profitable arms and “homeland security” industries, which form the bedrock of the country’s ballyhooed high-tech sector. In 2006, Israel’s military exports reached a value of $3.4 billion, the fourth highest in the world (ZNet, 29 September 2010).

Palestinian Authority: Zionists’ Quislings
The Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank has been grotesquely complicit in the occupation. When the Oslo agreement was signed in 1993, Fatah (the most significant component of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]) was widely disdained by many working-class Palestinians who had made heroic sacrifices and suffered brutal Israeli repression, only to see their supposed PLO “liberators” arrive from Tunis to set themselves up with villas and black sedans. The noxious mixture of corruption, profiteering, repression and collusion which characterized this period was personified by two of the most senior members of Fatah: Muhammad Dahlan, who ran the reviled Preventive Security Force in Gaza; and former Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, whose family business raked in profits by selling Israel the cement used to build the Apartheid Wall (Economist, 15 March 2009). When Fatah lost the 2006 Palestinian elections to Hamas, its attempt to overturn the result (with the support of U.S. and Israeli authorities) set off a small-scale civil war in the summer of 2007 that resulted in the eviction of Fatah from Gaza.

Today, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rules a fifth of the West Bank (“Area A”) essentially by decree, exercised through an appointed “emergency government” headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Although Fayyad’s party won only 2 of 132 seats in the 2006 election (Economist, 14 August 2010), his extensive background working for the IMF and World Bank qualified him as the best figure to ensure a “stable” West Bank (i.e., heavily policed and open for business). The American military (with the assistance of Canadian, British and Turkish personnel) has trained tens of thousands of new Palestinian security officers in Jordan. Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who oversaw the project for the U.S., candidly described the plan to the House of Representatives as “truly important to advance our national interests, deliver security to Palestinians, and preserve and protect the interests of the state of Israel” (Al Jazeera [English], 8 February 2010). One of the primary ways that this new force has sought to carry out its mandate is by keeping close tabs on all political activity and collaborating with Israeli forces in quelling protests against rampant land theft and settlement construction. Some 40 demonstrations occur weekly, mostly out of sight of the international media in the rural areas (Economist, 22 May 2010). Activists in Ramallah who attempted to protest the Zionist assault on Gaza were met with savage repression. Journalist Naela Khalil recounted:

“Every time people went to the Manara [Square] for a demonstration, security forces prevented them. They beat them and threw tear gas. Prevented people from going to the checkpoints. We are normal people and they came to beat us. These things slowly add up.”

—Le Monde diplomatique [English], April 2010Despite this shameful record of collaboration, Israeli security forces do not entirely trust the quisling PA, and continue to routinely patrol the area around its headquarters in Ramallah (Economist, 22 May 2010).

PLO Kapos Propose ‘Reform & Development’
The petty-bourgeois nationalists of the PLO have always advocated the creation of an independent capitalist Palestine and, since 1974, they have projected this as existing side by side with Zionist Israel. Lacking significant military capacity, the PLO leadership sought to achieve its objective through diplomatic maneuvers, initially with the Arab regimes, and subsequently with the United States and Israel. The destruction of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s removed the PLO’s chief diplomatic and military ally, and left Arafat and his cabal to settle for a perspective of building an “independent” Palestine on whatever Bantustans the Zionists were willing to concede.

In 2007, Abbas and Fayyad imposed a series of austerity measures in the West Bank as part of a “Palestinian Reform and Development Plan” (PRDP). The PRDP was drawn up in collaboration with imperialist institutions like the World Bank and the British Department for International Development (DFID), which pledged to put $7.7 billion into a “PRDP Trust Fund” headquartered at the World Bank, to be disbursed if and when the plan was implemented. Aiming to foster an “enabling environment for the private sector” as the “engine of sustainable economic growth” (“Palestine in the Middle East: Opposing Neoliberalism and US Power,” MRZine, 19 July 2008), the PRDP has provided cover for one of the most savage attacks on the public sector ever witnessed in the Middle East. The PA committed to cut the state workforce by 21 percent—a total of almost 40,000 jobs—while freezing salaries at a time of double-digit inflation. These measures are particularly punitive because Israeli capitalists drastically reduced the number of Palestinian workers employed within the Green Line after the first and second intifadas. Millions more Palestinians have been affected by the removal of subsidies for electricity and water, a matter of life and death for the 50 percent of West Bank Palestinians who live in poverty.

Palestinian workers have sought to resist the PRDP attacks. On 5 December 2008, public-sector workers launch-ed a strike and demanded an end to the wage freeze and cuts in subsidies. The strike achieved little, however, in part because of the union leadership’s political subservience to Fatah. A similar problem undermined a major Palestinian labor action a decade ago when teachers fought for higher wages. The leadership of that strike, which bypassed the traditional Fatah-allied union structure, faced severe repression, and dozens of teachers were arrested. Strike action continued intermittently until the onset of the second intifada in 2000 created so much political pressure for “national unity” that the teachers returned to work (Ibid.).

According to PRDP planners, gutting the public service and lowering living standards by slashing subsidies will kick start “development” by swelling the ranks of unemployed Palestinian workers who will then find jobs in the new industrial zones and parks that are expected to spring up on the edges of Palestinian cantons. The idea is that Palestinian, Israeli and other Mid-Eastern capitalists can hire workers at low wages without having to worry about labor laws, environmental regulations or safety standards. Despite its connection to Fatah, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) has not been granted the right to represent workers in the industrial zones. Movement in and out is to be jointly controlled by Israeli and PA security forces. In May 2008, a “Palestine Investment Conference” was attended by over 1,000 delegates, including Abbas, Fayyad and other PA bigwigs, wealthy expatriate Palestinians from Europe and North America as well as Arab capitalists. The conference was sponsored by Palestinian business groups from the West Bank and Gaza (including the Arab Bank and Bank of Palestine), foreign corporations (CISCO, Intel, Coca Cola and others) and imperialist agencies (USAID, the British DFID and the French Development Agency). Israeli capitalists were also quietly encouraged to attend.

The process of laying the groundwork for developing a capitalist Palestinian quasi-statelet necessarily legitimizes and normalizes the structures of occupation. The land on which the projected Jenin Industrial Estate (JIE) is to be built was twice confiscated—first from Palestinian farmers in 1998, when the PA initiated the project, and again in 2000, by the Israeli military to build their Apartheid Wall (which is to form the estate’s northern border). Another element in the plans for an “independent” capitalist Palestine is the grotesquely misnamed “Corridor for Peace and Prosperity,” a project for an agro-industrial “free trade” zone in the Jordan Valley, premised on acceptance of the wholesale appropriation of resources, water and land that has already occurred. This program aims to convert remaining small-scale Palestinian farmers into day-laborers and subcontractors for agro-business.

Given the very bitter fruit of previous “liberation” struggles and the ugly realities of the quisling PA’s ambitions to administer a future splintered Bantustan on behalf of the Zionist oppressors, it is hardly surprising that many Palestinians are exhausted, demoralized and infuriated. Even within Fatah there is enormous anger at the current predicament. When a delegate from Jenin who attended the PLO’s sixth “general assembly” in 2009 (the first in 20 years) commented that negotiations had led nowhere and proposed, “We must go back to the guns and throwing stones,” the PA’s ambassador to Japan responded: “Resistance has many forms and colours. One is economic development, which I believe is the only way” (Economist, 8 August 2009).

Many working-class Palestinians are dismayed by the prospect of “economic development” under continued Israeli occupation that will serve to enrich a thin stratum of Palestinian capitalists. In Qalandia, an impoverished refugee camp near Ramallah, one family expressed their predicament to a visiting reporter:

“[Muhammad Abdullah Ahmad] Wahdan long ago dismissed the dream that the PA could help him recover the lands of citrus and olives that his family were driven from during the creation of Israel 6 decades ago. Now, after losing a son to the struggle…he is wary of any more sacrifice for the Palestinian leadership. As she served us refreshments, Wahdan’s wife said that these are the people who ‘put our kids under the cannon fire.’
“Wahdan said: ‘This particular class of the bourgeoisie exploited the people who fought the struggle. We did this for their benefit. They were the ones who got something out of it.’ Wahdan’s 15-year-old grandson Anas, sitting under a large portrait of his martyred uncle, added: ‘They wanted us, with no weapons, to [make the] sacrifice. Their kids have cars and villas, they own phone companies. There’s no equality between someone like that and someone like me, who lives in a house that’s falling apart, and whose father may or may not have enough money to bring bread or have clothes.’
“And if he and his friends should voice their displeasure? ‘We’ll be told, “Well, you’re just refugee camp kids,”’ said Anas’s friend Munir….Refugee-camp teenagers like these once fuelled the resistance to occupation. Not now, said Munir: ‘All that anger has been absorbed by depression.’ Perhaps some day, that anger will again rises [sic]. But for now, said Anas: ‘People say “I’m exhausted, and rocks will not liberate me.”’”

—Le Monde diplomatique [English], April 2010The complete political bankruptcy of the PA’s petty-bourgeois nationalist leadership was dramatically illustrated by its attitude to the Goldstone Report on the Gaza assault commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council. Despite being an avowed Zionist, South African jurist Richard Goldstone delivered a clear indictment of numerous Israeli war crimes. Yet Abbas and the PA did not seek to press the UN Security Council to act on the report because they did not want to make trouble for the Obama administration. Ali Abunimah, the well-informed co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website, has suggested that a more important factor may have been Abbas’ business interests (“Abbas helps Israel bury its crimes in Gaza,” ZNet, 2 October 2009). Telephone companies have long provided senior PA leaders with substantial revenue streams. When the report was released, Wataniya Mobile—a joint venture between Gulf investors and the Palestinian Investment Fund, which is closely associated with Abbas’ son—had already applied for control of a new share of the radio spectrum. The Israeli authorities apparently indicated that the application would be approved if the PA abandoned efforts to advance the report (Independent [London], 1 October 2009).

Managing Palestinian Oppression
Despite everything, Palestinians in the West Bank continue to courageously defy settlers, the IDF and the Palestinian security service on a daily basis. Tel Aviv, Washington and Ramallah are all concerned that, if the population is pressed too hard, the situation could spin out of control and potentially destabilize the entire region. Washington’s foreign policy establishment worries that Israeli intransigence could soon extinguish all illusions in any possibility of an eventual “two-state” solution, a development that could have negative repercussions for American hegemony in the Middle East. U.S. Lieutenant General Dayton has warned that the loyalty of the PA security forces—the supposed nucleus of the military apparatus of a future Palestinian state—cannot be taken for granted: “There is perhaps a two-year shelf life on being told that you’re creating a state, when you’re not” (Le Monde diplomatique [English], April 2010). Many Palestinians have, of course, already lost faith in the PA leadership and its plans. After the murderous Israeli intervention in Gaza, the mouthpiece of British finance capital reported:

“Over the past year, scores of Palestinian intellectuals and analysts have been writing about the demise of the two-state solution—and a raft of opinion polls last year showed that more and more Palestinians were calling for a single, binational state shared by Israelis and Palestinians, a concept that is vehemently opposed by Israel.”

—Financial Times, 21 January 2009The publication of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in 2007 represented the increasing influence of “realists” relative to liberal and neo-conservative Zionists within American foreign policy circles. (For a Marxist assessment of the “Israel Lobby,” see “Imperialism, Zionism & the Middle East,” 1917 No.29, 2007.) The occasional public expression of frustration with Israeli policy by senior American government and military figures reflects growing tension between Washington and Tel Aviv. When Netanyahu ostentatiously announced the construction of 1,600 more Jewish homes in East Jerusalem on the eve of a visit by Joseph Biden in March 2010, the U.S. vice president complained: “This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace” (Guardian [London], 5 July 2010). American General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command (Centcom), who is currently running the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, offered an even blunter assess-ment to the U.S. Senate:

“The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbours present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in [Centcom’s] AOR [Area of Responsibility]….The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favouritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of US partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaida and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilise support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.”

—Le Monde diplomatique [English], April 2010Petraeus’ concerns about Israeli recklessness apparently led him to suggest that the Occupied Territories should be placed under Centcom’s area of responsibility—which would be a major affront to Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, America’s Zionist propagandists dismiss any suggestion that U.S. military difficulties in the Muslim world are related to its support for Israel. As Abe Foxman of the ADL put it: “This linkage is dangerous and counterproductive” (Ibid.).

There has long been a range of opinion within the American ruling class over Israel’s role as chief gendarme in the Middle East. For the first two decades of Israel’s existence, the U.S. State Department was dominated by “Arabists” who feared that too close a relationship with Tel Aviv could inflame Arab nationalism, damage relations with the Arab regimes and ultimately endanger U.S. control of the region’s petroleum deposits. On three separate occasions in only seven years, Washington threatened Israel with sanctions. The first was in May 1949:

“In that month, the United States demanded that Israel allow the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, regardless of the cause of their flight and not even pending the conclusion of a final settlement. On May 29, 1949, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, James McDonald, conveyed a very sharp letter from President Truman to [Israeli Prime Minister David] Ben-Gurion which made an explicit threat of severe sanctions if Israel did not adjust its policies. This was accompanied by the suspension of a promised loan.
“In June 1949, Israel succeeded in conveying the impression that it was about to heed the pressure but asked for time to deal with some technical aspects of the request. In the meantime, conflicts broke out in different parts of the globe as the cold war began to heat up; hence, until the end of Truman’s administration, that pressure was never attempted again.”

—Ilan Pappé, “Clusters of History: U.S. Involvement in the Palestine Question,” in Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé, Gaza in Crisis, 2010In 1953 the Eisenhower administration suspended aid when Israel inflamed Arab opposition by unilaterally embarking on the National Carrier Project to divert water from the Jordan River. The biggest showdown came in 1956, when Israel collaborated with France and Britain in an attempt to seize the Suez Canal from Egypt. Eisenhower feared that the military intervention of the Zionists, in league with the region’s former colonial masters, could radicalize the Arab masses and open the door for increased Soviet influence. American pressure forced Tel Aviv to make a humiliating retreat from the Egyptian Sinai, and compelled London and Paris to acknowledge the U.S. as the pre-eminent imperialist power in the Middle East (Ibid.).

Israel’s easy victory in 1967 over the combined Arab armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the “Six Day War” represented a turning point in U.S.-Israeli relations. Under the Nixon Doctrine, Israel became the main pillar of U.S. policy in the Middle East, although the traditional “Arabist” aim of maintaining a free flow of oil was not abandoned. The Arab states’ rhetorical support for Palestinian rights and occasional acts of defiance (e.g., the 1973 oil embargo) were accepted in Washington as necessary to maintaining some domestic legitimacy for these brittle autocratic regimes.

Israel, America’s Mid-East watchdog, is the top recipient of U.S. foreign “aid”—some $3 billion annually. Egypt, where U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was overthrown by mass protests in February that were touched off by the fall of Tunisian dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali the previous month, has long been the second largest recipient. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States are also important American clients. In 2010, the Arab regimes in the Gulf “embarked on one of the largest re-armament exercises in peacetime history,” with an order for $123 billion in U.S. weapons (Financial Times, 20 September 2010). The overturn of Mubarak has enormous implications for the rest of America’s Arab vassals:

“Obama abandoned America’s protege for vague promises of democracy, but his considerations were also practical: He presumably judged that Mubarak’s regime is a lost cause and that it’s better to be on the winning side. Obama’s position must worry the leaders of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which fear similar uprisings at home and now recognize that the Americans will throw them under the bus.”

—Haaretz, 31 JanuaryWhile feigning concern about the plight of the Palestinians, none of the Arab regimes really cares about them. Jordan and Egypt have a long history of oppressing Palestinian refugees and complicity in the Israeli occupation. In 1970, the infamous “Black September” massacre of Palestinian fighters by Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy drove the PLO into Lebanon. The Egyptian military, which lost territory to Israel in 1967, has served as the gate-keeper of Gaza ever since the Sinai was returned in 1977. One of the first acts of the military junta set up after Mubarak’s removal was to pledge to continue this unpopular policy.

U.S.-Brokered ‘Peace Process’ Fraud
The last time an American administration seriously pressured Israel to make some concessions to Palestinians was in 1991, when George Bush Senior leaned on Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to cease expanding Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and actively pursue “peace talks.” U.S. Secretary of State Jim Baker told Shamir that if building in the settlements did not stop, the U.S. would withdraw $10 billion in loan guarantees. Baker’s ultimatum created a major political crisis for the Israeli ruling class, which resented Washington’s dictates but could not afford to lose imperialist sponsorship. Many influential members of the Israeli bourgeoisie decided in the 1992 elections to dump Shamir and back the Labor Party, led by “dovish” Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin was no dove—he had overseen the repression of the first intifada and personally ordered Israeli troops to “break the bones” of stone throwing teenagers—but he was shrewd enough to make short-term tactical concessions in order to strengthen Israel’s position in the long term. The 1993 Oslo “peace” accord he signed with Arafat, which was supposed to open the door to Palestinian statehood, in fact reduced the PLO to little more than a Zionist auxiliary, and freed Tel Aviv to continue creating “facts on the ground.”

Today things are entirely different. In return for Netanyahu’s assent to a mere 90-day freeze on settlement building, the Obama administration promised to request no further freezes; to approve Israel’s continued occupation of the Jordan Valley; and to agree to Israeli control of the borders of any future Palestinian “state,” security guarantees, increased “aid,” advanced weapons systems, a regional security pact against Iran and a year’s veto of any UN Security Council resolutions detrimental to Israel. The U.S. also signaled that it was prepared to recognize “subsequent developments” since Oslo, widely interpreted as a reference to the influx of settlers into the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The shift in U.S. policy over the past 20 years is commonly attributed to the machinations of an all-powerful “Israel Lobby” in Washington. But the reality is more complex. U.S. policy has always been calculated in accordance with its own perceived imperial interests, including factors often cited by the “realists” themselves—in particular the fragility of America’s “moderate” Arab clients. These concerns have been validated by recent events in Tunisia and Egypt. Emboldened by the first Gulf War and the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union, the U.S. was prepared in the early 1990s to lean on the Israeli bourgeoisie in pursuit of a broader vision of a “New World Order.” The Obama administration, in contrast, is licking its wounds after a series of humiliating setbacks for U.S. imperialism, and does not seem inclined, at least in the short run, to want to risk alienating its foremost regional ally. At the same time, the U.S. has an interest in maintaining the pretense that some sort of “peace process” is still alive, as Robert Satloff, of the pro-Zionist Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explained:

“it is still important that the administration create a functioning diplomacy between Israelis and Palestinians—not because serious observers believe a near-term breakthrough is in sight but because an active and ongoing diplomacy denies both critics and naysayers an opportunity to make mischief. Furthermore, it frees the administration to inject international urgency into the Iran issue.”

—“Biden’s Israel Visit and its Aftermath: The Importance of Maintaining Strategic Direction in U.S. Middle East Policy,” PolicyWatch No.1642, 15 March 2010The U.S., which has sanctioned every Zionist crime for years, cynically manages the “peace process” as a means to “free” itself for operations in the region, including against Iran. The negotiations are a charade in which the main players know in advance that the final result must correspond to Israeli wishes. This gives the whole process a very peculiar character: Israel refuses to participate in “negotiations” unless the outcome is stipulated in advance. The PA leadership, which has given up on achieving any semblance of the nationalist project they long espoused, understands the situation but continues to participate, partly to avoid vindicating Hamas and other “critics and naysayers.” But pressure is building, and Fayyad has occasionally floated the possibility of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood (Haaretz, 18 December 2010).

While such talk by the PA is often seen as a defiant response to Israeli intransigence, implementation would amount to sanctifying the “facts on the ground,” thus accomplishing de jure what Abbas and Fayyad have striven for de facto: a capitalist Palestinian quasi-statelet made up of a welter of micro Bantustans sprinkled across the West Bank. A unilateral bid of this sort would spare the PA the ignominy of officially abandoning the struggle for Palestinian national rights (especially the right of return), without requiring the Zionists to make territorial concessions. The PA may hope that a unilateral declaration would give it the upper hand over Hamas, but it could end up providing the Israeli ruling class with a destination for the “final transfer” of its Arab population.

Hamas: From Quietism to Resistance
The political bankruptcy of the PLO has enabled the Islamists of Hamas to pose as principled and uncompromising defenders of Palestinian national interests simply by upholding the right to resist occupation. While Hamas is on the receiving end of unrelenting diplomatic and military hostility from both the Zionists and the imperialists, its political program amounts to little more than an Islamist version of the policy that led the PLO to abject complicity. The forerunner of Hamas, the Islamic Center, was established as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood when Gaza was still under Cairo’s control. After Gaza’s seizure by Israel in 1967, the Islamic Center promoted reactionary religious revivalism with a “quietist” political focus on rooting out “un-Islamic” behavior, while largely abstaining from resistance to the occupation. Organizations linked to the Center provided the only social welfare and healthcare services available to Gaza’s residents. Israeli authorities supplied funding and assistance to the Center as a counterweight to the dominance of secular, left-nationalist trends in Palestinian politics.

With the outbreak of the first intifada, the Islamists, facing marginalization, established the “Islamic Resistance Movement” (Hamas) as their political arm. The 1988 charter of Hamas (routinely invoked by Zionists today) combined bourgeois nationalism with the reactionary anti-Semitism of the Brotherhood and called for the establishment of sharia law across Palestine. In condemning the Oslo accords and championing the right of return, Hamas positioned itself to grow rapidly when the PLO leadership took over administration of the PA.

Control of smuggling across the border is a vital source of income for the Hamas leadership, which takes a cut from everything transported. The group also gets funding from Palestinian businessmen and Arab capitalists in the Gulf and receives practical support from the Muslim Brotherhood. These connections, while providing a lifeline, have also made the Hamas leadership reluctant to destabilize the existing social order. In January 2008, when its engineers in Gaza successfully detonated charges that opened the wall separating the Rafah camp from Egypt, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians streamed across the border to obtain food, water, medicine and other necessities. The Mubarak regime pressured Hamas to restore the wall, which it promptly did.

Hamas has sought to identify a “resistance culture” with Islamic morality. In Gaza, its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has prohibited pop music, torched resorts for allowing girls and boys to swim together and instructed restaurateurs and hoteliers to segregate unmarried men and women. Hamas, like Fatah before it, combines armed resistance and “pragmatic” diplomacy, with the former tending to condition the latter. Only by creating a viable military apparatus does the Hamas leadership expect to gain a place at the negotiating table and win diplomatic support from the Arab states. But today Hamas possesses even fewer military resources than the PLO of the 1970s.

Before the Israeli “withdrawal” from Gaza in 2005, Hamas relied heavily upon suicide bombings, including indefensible—and counterproductive—attacks on Israeli civilians. Since then, Hamas has resorted to firing home-made rockets into Israel. As neither tactic made a dent in the Zionist fortress, Hamas has attempted to strike some sort of deal with Tel Aviv. Ahmed Yousef, the group’s deputy foreign minister, insists that “Hamas is very close on recognition of Israel….We show all sorts of ideological flexibility on this” (Economist, 1 August 2009). Hamas, which has made several offers of a unilateral ceasefire, is prepared to uphold all previous agreements made by the PLO with Israel (including Oslo) and accept the 1967 borders. Yet Israel and the “Quartet” (Russia, United States, European Union and United Nations—which are supposedly working to promote the “peace process”) have demonized and isolated Hamas to demonstrate that no act of resistance, however minor, will go unpunished.

Zionists, Arab Rulers & Imperialists: Oppressors of the Palestinians
There are three interlocking facets of Israeli apartheid/Palestinian oppression: the denial of the right of return for the victims of Zionist ethnic cleansing in 1948; the ongoing occupation and effective colonization of the West Bank and Gaza that began in 1967; and the special oppression of those Arabs who, remaining on their ancestral lands, are now within the borders of the Israeli state. All three injustices are expressions of the Zionist character of Israel, a state born in a wave of bloody pogroms which can only be maintained by denying any genuine expression of Palestinian self-determination. At every step, one or another imperialist power has provided military, diplomatic and financial support to Tel Aviv in pursuit of broader strategic considerations. Under American sponsorship, Israel has developed into a formidable garrison state, with advanced conventional armaments as well as nuclear “weapons of mass destruction.”

Yet it is not only the Zionists and imperialists who have committed historic crimes against the Palestinians—neighboring Arab rulers also sought to carve out pieces of Palestinian territory for themselves, whether in secret collaboration with Zionist leaders (as the Hashemite monarchy did in 1948) or through open warfare with Israel (in 1948, 1967 and 1973). They also have a record of brutally repressing Palestinian refugees on their territory. Both Jordan and Egypt, after reaching an accommodation with the Zionists, have provided important support for the continuing occupation.

Without sufficient military capacity to create an independent capitalist state by force, Palestine’s nationalist leaderships, both secular and Islamist, have sought to substitute a combination of symbolic acts of armed struggle, diplomatic maneuvers and appeals to the Arab elites and imperialist power brokers who share responsibility for the Palestinians’ present situation. The PA’s wretched collusion with the Zionist occupation in the name of “economic development” is an entirely logical product of this bankrupt program.

A strategy for Palestinian liberation must begin by identifying the agents that possess both the objective interests and potential social power to successfully challenge not only the Zionist oppressors, but the entire complex web of imperialist domination in the Middle East. Viewed from this angle, the problem with moralistic appeals to the “international community” to come to the aid of the desperately oppressed Palestinians (which is the basis of the current campaign for “boycotts, divestments and sanctions”—see accompanying article) is immediately apparent.

Settler Colonialism’ in South Africa & Israel
Many ostensibly Marxist groups involved in promoting the boycott campaign invoke South Africa as a positive example of what can be achieved even within the parameters of capitalism. Equating the common practice of apartheid in both societies, and their common origins as “settler-colonial states,” they argue that a strategy that apparently succeeded in South Africa should eventually prove successful in Israel/Palestine.

There are, however, important differences between the forms of apartheid in South Africa and Israel, which represent two variants on a spectrum of settler-colonialist practices over the past several centuries. At one end (in the U.S., Australia and Canada), European settlers eradicated most of the native population and forcibly isolated the remainder in impoverished “reservations.” At the other end of the spectrum, in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), a tiny stratum of white settlers super-exploited the indigenous population. Israel and South Africa, which both fall somewhere between these two extremes on the scale of “settler colonialism,” are only roughly analogous to one another. The distinctions between them derive from the different ways in which class questions have intersected democratic and national ones during the course of capitalist development.

South African apartheid grew out of the requirements of British mining interests at the end of the 19th century. After expropriating the land of the indigenous African population (thereby destroying the basis of their pastoral, pre-capitalist economy), the colonialists consigned them to the role of migrant laborers hired only for short-term contracts and forbidden to settle in the vicinity of their jobs. Administered by a complex system of pass laws, the intent was to create a massive low-wage, socially atomized and politically disenfranchised labor force.

For most of the 20th century, apartheid proved to be a stable and extremely profitable arrangement for South African capital and international investors. The white ruling class used their ownership of the means of production and the political framework of apartheid rule as a means of extracting super-profits. White workers enjoyed the status of a super-privileged labor aristocracy, with a guaranteed monopoly of skilled jobs and artificially high living standards at the expense of black workers. The enormous expansion of the South African economy in the 1960s undermined the foundations of the apartheid system by creating more demand for stable, skilled labor than the white population could supply. The migrant labor system gradually became an impediment to growth, and by the 1980s white capital had become dependent on the labor of six million increasingly restive black workers.

In liberal and social-democratic mythology, apartheid rule was replaced by the “rainbow democracy” of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) as a result of the “isolation” of South Africa through morally-guided boycotts, divestments and sanctions. There was indeed significant divestment, and western capitalist governments did impose various forms of sanctions on the apartheid state. But liberal accounts leave out both the geopolitical changes that turned South Africa into a liability for the imperialist “free world” cabal that had long embraced it as a reliable ally against the Soviet Union, and more importantly, the domestic class dynamics that propelled the process. The ultimate result, a system of neo-apartheid presided over by the ANC, turned out to be a betrayal, rather than a triumph, for the masses who bore the burden of the anti-apartheid struggle.

Appeals by the bourgeois-nationalist ANC to Britain, the U.S. and other “democratic” imperialist powers to pressure the apartheid regime for reform went unheeded for decades as South African investments produced ample returns for international capital, and the apartheid regime served as a vital bastion of “Free World” anti-Communism on the African continent. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the South Africans conducted military and covert operations against left-nationalist forces in the region, particularly in Angola where the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) regime was backed by Cuban troops and Soviet military assistance. In November 1975, Cuban and MPLA forces defeated a South African armored column headed toward Luanda to overthrow the “People’s Republic.”

The defeat of the vaunted apartheid military by a predominantly black force was a major factor in sparking a rebellion in Soweto seven months later, which in turn ignited a wave of mass social struggle that the white supremacist regime in Pretoria was unable to suppress. A series of successful militant labor actions in the 1980s that won significant wage gains and spurred the rapid growth of powerful black-centered trade unions dampened enthusiasm for investment in South Africa. The inflexibility of the hidebound racists who controlled the apartheid regime posed the possibility of social revolution in South Africa, a prospect that terrified both the white rulers and their imperialist sponsors. This led the Reagan administration to shift from “constructive engagement” (i.e., across-the-board support for the white supremacists) to the pursuit of an accommodation with the ANC to rein in the radicalizing black masses. The more sophisticated elements among the South African bourgeoisie recognized that the advantages of stabilizing the labor pool, expanding social investments and granting formal political equality for all citizens outweighed any reason to cling to the unsustainable apartheid system.

The celebrated “end” of apartheid came as a deal between Mandela’s ANC and Prime Minister F.W. de Klerk’s National Party which guaranteed the property and privileged position of the white ruling class. The “Tripartite Alliance” of the ANC, South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) sold their followers a vision of “democratic” capitalism which would free them from the burdens imposed by white supremacy and offer a road out of poverty. But racial exploitation is inextricably fused with South African capitalism, and in guaranteeing the latter, the new “black faces in high places” agreed to maintain a form of neo-apartheid.

While important gains were achieved—the legal edifice of official racism was abolished, universal suffrage was granted and black political leaders took the helm—neither the social order nor the state apparatus protecting it changed fundamentally. The vast majority of South African wealth is still held by the white bourgeoisie, and their state machine remains committed to the defense of privilege and inequality. The chief beneficiaries of the promised economic “redistribution” under the ANC-dominated government (which to this day maintains a close economic relationship with Israel) have been the thin layer of black petty-bourgeois careerists who occupy executive positions in corporations or the civil service. Instead of the white-supremacist regime of yesteryear, today it is the Tripartite Alliance that breaks strikes and unleashes police terror on rebellious township youth. What has not changed is that white incomes are still, on average, seven times that of blacks, just as they were in the 1980s (Economist, 5 June 2010).

The South African experience powerfully vindicates one of the central theses of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution:

“With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses.”

—The Permanent Revolution, 1931“Progressive” forms of capitalism, traditionally promoted by petty-bourgeois nationalists and Stalinists, are simply pipe dreams. What was tragically absent in South Africa was a proletarian vanguard party that could have led the oppressed masses in ripping out the capitalist roots of the apartheid system. A revolutionary leadership would have necessarily been based on the black working class and other victims of white supremacy, and openly espoused as its goal the creation of a black-centered workers’ government. In pursuit of this objective, it would have also had to win over a “fifth column” of whites to the side of proletarian insurgency, not least to paralyze the SADF, as we pointed out at the time:
“In the present situation—barring a massive and powerful military intervention from outside the borders of the apartheid slave state—the SADF can only be defeated with the active collaboration of at least a fragment of the white conscripts. And this can only be achieved by a revolutionary party built on a program of class struggle, in opposition to every variety of class-collaborationism and nationalism.”

—1917 No.1, 1986The aspirations of the founders of the Zionist colonial-settler project were very different than those of the rulers of apartheid South Africa. Yet the separate trajectories of South African and Israeli capitalist development demonstrate the enduring relevance of Trotsky’s program of permanent revolution: in neither society can basic democratic and national demands be meaningfully achieved short of proletarian social revolution.

Israel’s citizenship laws are premised on the Zionist proposition that the Jewish population of every country on the planet is part of a single distinct “nation.” The Zionist claim to the Palestinians’ land was based on biblical mythology:

“[Zionists] believe that these people—their ‘nation,’ which must be the most ancient—wandered in exile for nearly two thousand years and yet, despite this prolonged stay among the gentiles, managed to avoid integration with, or assimilation into, them. The nation scattered widely, its bitter wanderings taking it to Yemen, Morocco, Spain, Germany, Poland, and distant Russia, but it always managed to maintain close blood relations among the far-flung communities and to preserve its distinctiveness.
“Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, they contend, rare circumstances combined to wake the ancient people from its long slumber and to prepare it for rejuvenation and for the return to its ancient homeland. And so the nation began to return, joyfully, in vast numbers. Many Israelis still believe that, but for Hitler’s horrible massacre, ‘Eretz Israel’ would soon have been filled with millions of Jews making ‘aliyah’ [ascent] by their own free will, because they had dreamed of it for thousands of years.
“And while the wandering people needed a territory of its own, the empty, virgin land longed for a nation to come and make it bloom. Some uninvited guests had, it is true, settled in this homeland, but since ‘the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion’ for two millennia, the land belonged only to that people, and not to that handful without history who had merely stumbled upon it. Therefore the wars waged by the wandering nation in its conquest of the country were justified; the violent resistance of the local population was criminal; and it was only the (highly unbiblical) charity of the Jews that permitted these strangers to remain and dwell among and beside the nation, which had returned to its biblical language and its wondrous land.”

—Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish PeopleWhile few leading Zionists actually took such biblical claims seriously, enormous energy was invested in promoting them after Israel’s creation. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion organized fortnightly study circles in his home where professional historians, Bible interpreters and political figures gathered to work out the details of a patently false but politically convenient “national statement”:

“This national statement, which was simplified into a useful and popular slogan for the Zionist movement, was entirely the product of an imaginary history grown around the idea of the exile. Although most of the professional historians knew there had never been a forcible uprooting of the Jewish people, they permitted the Christian myth that had been taken up by Jewish tradition to be paraded freely in the public and educational venues of the national memory, making no attempt to rebut it. They even encouraged it indirectly, knowing that only this myth would provide moral legitimacy to the settlement of the ‘exiled nation’ in a land inhabited by others.”

—Ibid.The Zionist myth serves to justify the historic crimes against the Palestinians while also obscuring the actual record of Jewish struggles. For centuries Jews resisted vicious segregation and discrimination throughout Europe and fought for political equality and social integration within the nations of which they were a part. Many leading figures in the socialist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were secular Jews who identified their fight for liberation with the broader struggle against class exploitation and other forms of social oppression. While Zionism held little appeal for working-class Jews and most Jewish intellectuals in this period, many capitalist politicians (including overt anti-Semites) regarded it as a useful counterweight to Marxism:

“in a 1920 article, ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism’, [Winston] Churchill wrote that Trotsky hated Zionism because it thwarted ‘his schemes of a world-wide communistic state under Jewish domination.’ For Churchill, Zionism helped thwart Trotsky, directing ‘the energies and the hopes of the Jews in every land towards a simpler, a truer, and a far more attainable goal’.”

—Lenni Brenner, The Iron WallThe Zionist project was only realizable through the consistent direct and indirect assistance of imperialist states. British support was essential for the establishment of a Zionist presence in “mandate” Palestine, a territory carved out of the Ottoman Empire in the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement. The famous Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 read:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

—cited in Christopher Sykes, Cross Roads to IsraelIssued five days prior to the October Revolution, the declaration was intended to undercut Jewish support for the Bolsheviks, who were intent on terminating Russian participation in World War I. In an August 1919 memorandum, Balfour was somewhat more candid about his attitude toward Palestinian rights: “in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country.” Balfour considered Zionism to be “of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land” (Ibid.).

Among the less publicized episodes in the history of Zion-ism was the attempt to assist the Nazis in solving Germany’s “Jewish problem” through mass emigration to the Holy Land. In 1938, Ben-Gurion, who subsequently founded the IDF, stated: “If I knew that it was possible to save all the children in Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second—because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people” (quoted in Tom Segev, The Seventh Million). Ben-Gurion was also worried that the savage brutality of the Nazis’ Kristallnacht pogrom might stir the “human conscience” of other governments and lead them to open their doors to Jewish refugees fleeing Germany. If that were to happen, Ben-Gurion warned, “Zionism is in danger” (Ibid.). He needn’t have worried: even after the horrors of the Nazi holocaust against European Jewry were exposed at the end of World War II, the “democratic” imperialists refused to accept any significant number of desperate Jewish “displaced persons.” Most of those who sought refuge in Palestine did so not out of Zionist conviction, but because they had no other option.

The Zionists sought to construct a purely Jewish state in which the immigrant settler population not only owned the means of production and occupied all professional and politically significant posts (as in South Africa), but also comprised the entire labor force. Rather than seeking to exploit the indigenous population, the Zionist policy was to exclude them—expressed by Shimon Peres as “maximum space, minimum Arabs” (maximum shetah, minimum aravim) (Le Monde diplomatique [English], March 2010). The expansionist dynamic of Zionism inherent in an ideological commitment to “Eretz Israel” aimed at conquering land and resources (e.g., the Jordan Valley) for an exclusively Jewish capitalist state.

The Zionist project was therefore much closer to the white settler colonialism of North America and Australia than that of South Africa—the indigenous peoples were viewed as an obstruction to be removed. The minority of Palestinians who managed to remain on their ancestral lands after 1948 undermined the legitimacy of the Zionist claim by serving as a reminder of the ethnic cleansing that accompanied Israel’s birth. The conquest of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 brought millions more Palestinians under Israeli administrative authority.

In the 1980s the Israeli ruling class began hiring large numbers of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza as menial, low-paid laborers in Israel. At one point there were at least 100,000 (and perhaps as many as 200,000) migrant Palestinians employed inside the Green Line. With the outbreak of the first intifada, Palestinian labor was largely replaced by Russian immigrants and workers from East Asia. After the second intifada, work permits were no longer issued to Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. Today Israeli capital employs some 20,000 Palestinians in West Bank industrial parks and another 10,000 in settlement construction.

Zionism has produced a geographically compacted Hebrew-speaking nation, with a common culture, language and political economy. The exclusion of Palestinian labor from Israel’s economic life means that for the most part Israeli capitalists exploit Jewish workers. In Israel, as in all capitalist societies, the most fundamental division is that of social class. However, there are other deep and potentially explosive fault lines within Israel’s Jewish population—most notably between the European-derived Ashkenazim and the generally less educated and darker skinned Sephardim from the Middle East and North Africa. The Sephardim, who are forced to compete for lower-paid jobs with Israeli Arabs, provide the popular base for the most virulently chauvinist religious parties, especially Shas.

Another increasingly significant division is between secular Israelis and the ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredi). Half of Haredi men do not work, but instead enjoy significant state subsidies for devoting themselves to religious studies. The misogynist religious ideology of the Haredi has produced a birthrate many times higher than the national average, and some elements of Israel’s ruling class are expressing concern that the Haredi (many of whom reject Zionist ideology on theological grounds) are a drag on “competitiveness.”

While Jewish Israeli workers are privileged relative to their Israeli Arab counterparts, they are not part of a closed color-caste with the sort of grotesque disparity in living standards that characterized South African apartheid. The allegiance of Jewish workers to Zionist ideology is a form of false consciousness through which the grievances and frustrations arising from capitalist social relations are displaced onto targets which bear no responsibility (i.e., Palestinians). The reactionary attitudes prevalent among Jewish workers in Israel are comparable to the toxic mix of flag-waving xenophobia and religious irrationality embraced by plebeian supporters of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party in the U.S.

Since the late 1970s, the Israeli ruling class has been systematically attacking working-class living standards to boost flagging profitability. During the 1980s, a massive privatization of state-owned industry was pushed through while redistributive tax and transfer payments were curtailed. In the 1990s, as education and healthcare were semi-privatized, many Israelis were forced to pay to supplement increasingly meager state services. The Sharon government followed this up with yet another round of harsh austerity:

“The recession, coupled with a sharp increase in military spending due to the intifada, occasioned six rounds of budget cuts and structural economic changes between September 2001 and September 2003. In overall monetary terms, the state budget was cut by nearly 20 per cent. In broader political-economic terms, the cumulative effects of the fiscal austerity and structural changes were greatly detrimental to the interests of the working class. Levels of employment, wages, unionization, social services and retirement plans declined, while employers benefited greatly from increased labour ‘flexibility’ and lower wage-costs and taxes.”

—Yoav Peled, “Profits or Glory,” New Left Review, September-October 2004Jewish workers were told that any attempt to improve their situation posed a danger to national “security”:

“The chairman of the Manufacturers Association in Israel said that because of the struggle with the Palestinians, because of the intifada, Israelis have to learn that they cannot expect an increase in the minimum wage, or perhaps even they should expect a decrease in the minimum wage, meaning that the security constraints are used as a justification to stifle social struggle.”

—Shir Hever interviewed by Paul Jay, “The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation,” TheRealNews.com, 6 July 2010As conditions have worsened for those at the bottom of the Zionist pyramid, it has been a different story at the top. According to the 2009 Merrill Lynch World Wealth Report, “Between 2005 and 2007, Israel produced more millionaires per capita than any other country” (reported in New Jersey Jewish Standard, 19 June 2010). The growth in social inequality and the increasing concentration of wealth prompted Yuval Steinitz, Israeli finance minister, to remark: “The fact that the Israeli economy is controlled by 30 families does not constitute corruption. But it does cause economic problems and damages competition” (Haaretz, 2 May 2010).

Cuts in social services and the shortage of jobs and affordable housing within Israel have pushed many working-class Jews into the burgeoning settlement blocks near the Green Line. Unlike the fascistic zealots who populate the hilltop settlements throughout the interior of the West Bank, most of these settlers are enticed by the subsidized wages, cheap housing and comparatively generous social services:

“‘But even if they didn’t come here for ideological reasons,’ said the spokesman for the Settlers’ Council with confidence, ‘they won’t give up their homes so easily.’ The mechanisms that incorporate people into the colonial process, making them settlers despite themselves, occasionally emerge into the open. In 2003, the mayor of Betar Illit [another large settlement], Yitzhak Pindrus, went so far as to tell the reporter that the ultra-orthodox were sent to the Occupied Territories against their will, to serve as ‘cannon fodder’.”

—Gadi Algazi, “Offshore Zionism,” New Left Review, July-August 2006The more ideologically motivated settlers used as foot soldiers in the continuing campaign to dispossess the Palestinians are also, in many cases, ruthlessly exploited by their Zionist employers. In the settlement of Mod’in Illit, religious proscriptions are judiciously used by software companies to wring super-profits from low-paid ultra-Orthodox women:

“‘Although many are mothers of six, they miss fewer days of work than a mother of two in Tel Aviv’, an Imagestore project director in Mod’in Illit told a journalist. ‘These women have no issues. They just work. No smoking or coffee breaks, chatting on the phone, or looking for vacation deals in Turkey. Breaks are only for eating, or pumping breast milk in a special room. Some women can pop home, breast-feed and come back.’”
. . .
“Personal conversations in the work room of Matrix’s development centre are forbidden, not only between men and women, but among the women. ‘They pay you for eight hours of work,’ says Esti [one of the workers], ‘so they expect you to work. If someone is talking too much…someone else will tell her, “Hey, that’s gezel [a religiously-infused term for stealing]”, as though we are taking from the company. Once we asked if we could take a break of five minutes for prayer, but the Rabbi said that the ancient Sages didn’t take a break but would call out the Shma‘ while working, and thus we can put off the prayer until after the working day.’”

—Ibid.

Not Jew Against Arab, But Class Against Class!
The Jewish Israeli and Palestinian peoples, interspersed within a single geographical territory, both have a right to self-determination. Yet under capitalism, one people can only exercise this right at the expense of the other. For more than 60 years, the Israeli ruling class has viciously oppressed the Palestinians—expelling most from their land, disenfranchising those who remained and corralling those in the occupied West Bank into tiny Bantustans. Today there is little talk among either Islamists or secular nationalists of “driving the Jews into the sea” and reclaiming the entirety of Palestine. Even if such a project were feasible (which it is not, given the enormous disparity in the existing balance of forces), it would only mean reversing the terms of oppression.

The walls of the Zionist fortress cannot be breached by any combination of symbolic guerrilla actions and diplomatic maneuvers with corrupt Arab rulers and their foreign patrons. The PLO’s willingness to forfeit Palestinian national rights in exchange for policing the residents of a tiny and unviable capitalist mini-state has completely discredited it. The leaders of Hamas have signaled they are open to negotiating a similar arrangement, although Israel has thus far refused any contact because of their militant posture.

The only way the right of self-determination can be equitably realized for both Palestinians and Jewish Israelis is through the creation of a new egalitarian economic order linking the countries of the Middle East in a Socialist Federation. This requires the overthrow of not only the odious Zionist state but also imperialism’s Arab clients and the Iranian theocracy. Only through the establishment of institutions of working-class rule—collectivized property and international planning—can the resources of the region be employed for the benefit of all the peoples of the Middle East. And only within that framework will it be possible to achieve a just division of the land claimed by both the Palestinian and Jewish Israeli nations.

The Zionist state—armed to the teeth with hundreds of nuclear weapons and backed by the American military colossus—must be smashed if such a revolutionary transformation is to be achieved. Jewish workers, subjected to increasing pressure from their rulers in recent years, have a great deal to gain by escaping from this militarized prison state within which they are assigned the roles of wage slaves and cannon fodder.

The Zionist behemoth can only be destroyed through proletarian revolution from the inside. This requires the construction of a bi-national Leninist-Trotskyist party in Israel-Palestine, intransigently committed to the defense of Palestinian national rights. A revolutionary workers’ party would side militarily with any Palestinian resistance to Zionist repression, while opposing indiscriminate attacks on Jewish civilians and making no political concessions to bourgeois-nationalist, Islamist or other petty-bourgeois misleaders.

It is a profound mistake to view the Jewish working class as one large undifferentiated reactionary mass. There has always been a layer of Jewish Israelis who have had the courage to oppose the crimes of their rulers. While mercilessly combating all variants of Zionism as inherently reactionary and anti-working class, Marxists must seek to develop connections with the more advanced elements of the Jewish proletariat and find ways to intervene in their conflicts with the Zionist master class.

The struggle to build a vanguard party rooted in both communities that is committed to the creation of a bi-national workers’ state within a Socialist Federation of the Middle East will be an extremely difficult one. But there is no other historically progressive solution to the poisonous morass that imperialism and Zionism have created. Only a perspective of joint class struggle by Jewish and Palestinian workers against Zionist tyranny can lay the basis for the equitable resolution of the deep-seated national antagonisms and open the road to social emancipation for all the exploited and oppressed peoples of the region.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

not for nothing . . .

NoName — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 04:33:33 GMT

. . . we call them zionazi

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Facebook silenced me

Alex — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:17:45 GMT

Just recently I found out that my Facebook account has been disabled for either a photo I had or group I was in. I was an admin in 2 anti Israel groups and I would regularly send out messages. I don't know if it was the JIDF that reported me, but all suspicion does point to them.

posted in Palestine - 3 replies

Defend the Palestinians Against Zionist State Terror!

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:11:36 GMT

For Proletarian Internationalism, Not Appeals to Imperialism!

Defend the Palestinians Against Zionist State Terror!

On Boycotts, Disinvestment and Sanctions

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/963/palestine.html

The following article is reprinted from Workers Hammer No. 211 (Summer 2010), newspaper of the Spartacist League/Britain, section of the International Communist League.

Particularly since the Zionist rulers’ massacre on the Gaza aid flotilla, many defenders of the oppressed Palestinians have renewed their calls for “boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions” (BDS) against Israel. As revolutionary internationalists, we support time-limited trade union actions against the Israeli state. An example is the Swedish dock workers’ action boycotting Israeli ships and goods coming from or destined for Israel from 22 to 29 June in protest against Israel’s attack on the “Freedom Flotilla.” In general, we are in favour of the trade unions refusing to handle military goods being shipped to Israel, which would be a blow not only against the Zionist rulers but also against the British, U.S. and other imperialist ruling classes.

But while we support the proposed action of the Swedish dockers, we oppose the political strategy of the reformist union bureaucracies that initiated it. While raising the supportable demand for lifting the blockade of Gaza, the call for the Swedish workers action also demands that “Israel pays respect to international law” and calls for “a general blockade of Israeli goods until the rights of the Palestinian people are guaranteed and the blockade of Gaza is lifted.” In a similar vein, a recent statement signed by British union leaders Tony Woodley, Dave Prentis, Billy Hayes, Bob Crow and Mark Serwotka says: “We call on the British government and the European Union to suspend the EU-Israel association agreement and to end their support for the blockade and collective punishment of the men, women and children of Gaza. We call for support for a policy of boycott of Israeli products, disinvestment from Israeli companies and sanctions against Israel until justice for the Palestinian people has been achieved” (Guardian, 5 June).

We are politically opposed to standing boycotts and to campaigns for disinvestment and sanctions against Israel, which are counterposed to the international working-class struggle on which the liberation of the Palestinians is premised. BDS campaigns serve to promote illusions in the benign nature of other capitalist powers—not least British imperialism—relative to Israel. If successful, boycott campaigns would hurt the working class of Israel, both Hebrew-speaking and Arab, causing mass layoffs and weakening its social power, which can and must be mobilised to smash the Zionist state from within through socialist revolution.

The reformist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) supports the strategy of BDS and explains its broad aims in an article titled “The Fight Against Israeli Apartheid” in Socialist Worker (19 June) which says:

“The BDS strategy is to seek international support and solidarity until Israel complies with international law: that means Israel must end the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza and apply its own laws equitably and universally to Jew and to Arab alike.

“BDS is about building an international movement to isolate Israel economically, culturally and academically. It is about persuading artists, writers, and performers not to work in Israel—following the examples of Gil Scott-Heron, Elvis Costello and others. It is about identifying Israeli products that are imported into Britain—not just those produced by settlements on illegally confiscated Palestinian resources—and pressing importers and outlets not to stock them. It is about gathering from supermarket shelves all products illegally produced in the West Bank and presenting them to the managers to help them avoid prosecution for selling stolen goods.”

The article notes that “BDS is NOT about boycotting individual Israeli scholars or academics,” but is an “institutional boycott.” In the face of a vicious Zionist outcry against British unions which had called for academic boycotts of Israel in 2006 we wrote: “The Spartacist League and the Spartacus Youth Group call for the defence of the UCU [University and College Union] and other unions and organisations against the Zionist backlash and recognise that the boycott campaign is motivated out of solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians” (Workers Hammer No. 196, Autumn 2006). At the same time, we noted that:

“The university unions’ boycott, which is part of the wider divestment campaign against Israel, represents an appeal to the supposed morality of British and European academic institutions and funding bodies to sever any links with the brutally oppressive and murderous Israeli regime. The problem with this is that the universities in Britain are no less attached to the British state than they are to the Israeli state in Israel. And the British imperialist state is no less bloody than the Israeli state.”

From India to Kenya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, British imperialism has left a trail of carnage around the globe throughout its history. The present bloody mess in the Near East is itself the legacy of the “divide-and-rule” machinations of British imperialism when it was the dominant world power.

Appealing to the blood-soaked British imperialists, Socialist Worker (5 June) put forward a call that “We must force Britain to break all links with Israel, including shutting down its embassy.” The notion that the British government, corporations or campus administrations (or for that matter, the EU or the UN) can be “persuaded” to promote economic and social justice is ludicrous. But the programme of the SWP rests on the myth that British imperialism can be pressured into acting on behalf of the oppressed and perpetuates the very illusions in imperialist “democracy” that Marxists seek to destroy. As we said in “Zionist Backlash over ‘Boycott Israel’” (Workers Hammer No. 196, Autumn 2006):

“Why not call for a boycott of all British consumer goods, protesting the British rulers’ brutality against the oppressed Catholic minority in Northern Ireland, not to mention British imperialism’s role in the subjugation of Iraq and Afghanistan? Not only does this promote illusions in the ‘democratic’ and ‘civilised’ nature of other capitalist powers and corporations which the campaign seeks to dissuade from doing business with Israel, such a campaign is actually anti-working class.”

Boycotts and Apartheid South Africa

The “boycott, disinvestment and sanctions” campaign is consciously modelled on the campaign for disinvestment from and sanctions against apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. Writing in the Guardian (10 January 2009), Naomi Klein argued that “The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.” The disinvestment campaign against South Africa in Europe and North America was centrally promoted by the bourgeois-nationalist African National Congress (ANC). It was based on a claim that South African capitalism could be fundamentally reformed through pressure from “democratic” imperialist powers such as the U.S. and Britain. In fact, it was not disinvestment, but the mass social struggles of the black and other non-white toilers, centred on the working class, which brought an end to direct white-supremacist rule in South Africa. The significant wage gains won by black class struggle and the instability caused by a growing strike movement deterred investment in South Africa.

At the time, our organisation uniquely told the truth: that disinvestment was at best an empty moral gesture; that if foreign companies did withdraw substantial productive assets this would hurt black workers and weaken the powerful black union movement; and, most crucially, that it was obscene to look to U.S. imperialism and its British junior partner as a force for “democracy” anywhere in the world. The disinvestment that did occur largely took the form of overseas corporations signing over their interests to local subsidiaries, which often treated their workers even more brutally. Indeed, 1989 saw strikes by black oil and rubber workers in South Africa against such disinvestment schemes. As we wrote in “Black Workers Strike Against ‘Divestment’ Union-Busting” (Workers Vanguard No. 486, 29 September 1989), “The only kind of ‘divestment’ that will benefit the exploited and oppressed will be proletarian revolution, and the expropriation of these riches by a black-centered workers government as part of a socialist federation of southern Africa.” That remains no less true today, as ANC leaders like Jacob Zuma continue to serve as black front men for a neo-apartheid capitalist system whose fundamental character, including enormous disparities between racial groups, has remained intact.

For a Socialist Federation of the Near East!

The Spartacist League and other sections of the International Communist League intervened into the recent protests against the Zionist attacks on the flotilla to express our solidarity with the Palestinian masses and to put forward the only perspective—international socialist revolution—that can put an end to Palestinian national oppression. The myriad peoples of the Near East will not know peace, justice or prosperity until bourgeois rule in the region is overthrown through a series of socialist revolutions. As revolutionaries in Britain, solidarity with the oppressed in neocolonial countries means first and foremost opposing our own ruling class and fighting to bring down British imperialism through socialist revolution at home.

The hideous oppression of the Palestinians today, including the siege of Gaza, is an expression of the barbaric rule of capitalist imperialism and Zionist nationalism. For more than 60 years, Palestinians have suffered under the jackboot of Zionist Israel—an oppression that has intensified since the 1991-92 counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the USSR, which acted as a counterweight to U.S. imperialism internationally, deprived the late Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) of crucial diplomatic and financial support, paving the way for the ignominious 1993 U.S. imperialism-sponsored Oslo “peace” accords, establishing the Palestinian Authority as the Zionists’ police auxiliaries in the Occupied Territories. In an article headlined “Israel-PLO Deal for Palestinian Ghetto” we wrote that this deal “does not offer even the most deformed expression of self-determination” and “would place the PLO’s seal on the national oppression of the long-suffering Palestinian Arab masses” (Workers Hammer No. 137, September/October 1993 [reprinted from WV No. 583, 10 September 1993]). It was this betrayal by the secular-nationalist PLO that paved the way for the rise of reactionary Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the Palestinians.

Since Oslo, one “peace” accord after another has been heralded as opening the door to Palestinian national emancipation. In reality, Zionist oppression of the Palestinians has only intensified, leading to ever deadlier cycles of terror against the Palestinian population. Israel’s rulers have increasingly driven the Palestinians into bantustan-like enclaves demarcated by a heavily guarded wall and sliced up by Zionist settlements, checkpoints and bypass highways. Gaza is little more than a concentration camp: an impoverished, devastated strip where 1.5 million Palestinians are trapped, surrounded by the sea, an electrified fence and a wall sealing its border with Egypt. All Zionist troops and settlers out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem!

Both the Palestinian and Hebrew-speaking nations have the right to self-determination, but because the two nations are geographically interpenetrated, self-determination for one can only be achieved by denying it to the other. Under capitalism, every “solution” to the Palestinian national question either perpetuates the oppression of the Palestinian Arab people or envisions a reversal of the terms of oppression, denying the legitimate national rights of the Hebrew-speaking people. In situations of interpenetrated peoples, a democratic solution to the national question can be achieved only through socialist revolution, because only the proletariat in power has an interest in resolving national antagonisms and can begin to meet the material needs of all working people.

We make a distinction between the Hebrew-speaking nation living in Israel and the Zionist state. This is counterposed to the view of the Zionists, and indeed of the Islamic fundamentalists, who equate the Zionist state with the Hebrew-speaking people. The Zionist state is not only a catastrophe for Palestinians—it is also a deathtrap for Jews. Some 25 per cent of citizens live in poverty and income disparities are higher than in Egypt and Jordan. Sephardic Jews, though overwhelmingly under the sway of right-wing and religious parties, suffer widespread discrimination and poverty. The Palestinian Arabs, nominally “citizens” who constitute 20 per cent of Israel’s population, are consigned to segregated, impoverished areas and low-paid, unskilled jobs.

Israeli society is not a seamless reactionary mass. Despite widespread support in Israel for the Gaza blockade, there have been demonstrations against the brutal killings on the flotilla, including a 6,000-strong rally in Tel Aviv on 5 June. It is the false consciousness of religion and Zionist nationalism and racism—in the face of pervasive anti-Semitism—that is the glue binding the Hebrew-speaking proletariat to its Israeli ruling-class enemy. As long as Zionist oppression of Palestinians continues, Israeli Jews will continue to be a target of hatred and outrage by the more than 100 million Arabs who surround them. It is only the working class of Israel—Hebrew and Arab—that has the capacity to destroy the Zionist citadel from within.

As Marxists, we fight to bring the class question to the fore. The only road to social and national liberation for the Palestinians—including the right of all refugees and their descendants to return to their homeland—and all the other peoples of the Near East lies through common class struggle by the Arab, Hebrew-speaking and other working classes of the region. For the Palestinians, this means recognising the right of the Hebrew-speaking people to national self-determination. In turn, breaking the Hebrew-speaking workers from their Zionist rulers requires that they champion the national rights of the Palestinians. We have no illusions that winning the Hebrew-speaking proletariat to this perspective will be an easy task. Indeed, it will likely require the victory of socialist revolution in one of the other Near Eastern states to break the Hebrew-speaking proletariat from Zionist chauvinism. This task is not made easier by the criminal indiscriminate terror bombings carried out by Islamic forces against Israeli civilians, which drive the Hebrew-speaking population further into the arms of the Zionist rulers.

At the same time, the solidarity of the Arab masses with the oppressed Palestinian people must be directed towards proletarian revolution against their own Arab rulers, who, whether bourgeois nationalists or Islamic traditionalists, are fundamentally the political agents of Western imperialism. If this does not happen, the intense and justifiable hostility against Israel and its American protector will serve to further strengthen the forces of Islamic fundamentalism, which posture as the “radical” opposition to the mainly pro-Western Arab regimes. We look to the proletariat of the region more widely, such as in Egypt, which has been a centre of working-class strikes and protests over the past several years. With some 50 per cent of the Palestinian population living outside the Occupied Territories—in Jordan, Lebanon, Israel—the national liberation of the Palestinians demands a perspective of socialist revolution throughout the Near East, including within Israel, the most powerful and economically advanced country in the region. It is vital to forge revolutionary Marxist parties throughout the Near East to unite the proletariat—Arab, Persian, Kurdish and Hebrew, Sunni and Shi’ite, Muslim and Christian—in struggle against imperialism and to smash the Zionist garrison state from within and sweep away the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Syrian Ba’athist bonapartists and the capitalist rulers of Lebanon through socialist revolution. For a socialist federation of the Near East!

Our proletarian internationalist perspective is counterposed to those reformists who tail Islamic fundamentalism, such as the SWP. Socialist Worker (10 January 2009) ran an article titled “Hamas’s History of Resistance,” enthusing over Hamas as the “bearer of a tradition of Palestinian resistance.” Islamic fundamentalists like Hamas and Islamic Jihad are vile anti-Jewish and anti-Christian religious bigots who seek to enslave women and extirpate any manifestations of social progress. Hamas is descended from the clerical-fascist Muslim Brotherhood, which became particularly prominent in Egypt in the late 1940s. Under the slogan “communism=atheism=liberation of women,” the Muslim Brotherhood mobilised a terror campaign against Communists and other secular forces. Hamas preaches the social segregation of women, the wearing of the hijab (Islamic headscarf) and anti-woman sharia law. Far from embodying a “history of resistance,” Hamas was initially supported by Israel as a counterweight to the secular-nationalist PLO. Carrying out attacks on secularists and Communists, the Islamists engaged in neither political nor military struggle against Israel.

With the beginning of the first Intifada in 1987, the Islamists feared that if they stood aside they would lose their following. Hamas was founded in the spring of 1988 as an Islamist political movement with an armed wing. Hamas sought to fuse the national struggle, previously a secular movement containing a leftist component, with reactionary Islamic fundamentalism. It was only in the autumn of 1989, after discovering that Hamas had killed two Israeli soldiers, that Israel broke relations with the group.

The Arab bourgeois regimes have always been enemies of Palestinian national liberation. When the Arab armies went to war with Israel in 1948, it was not to “liberate” Palestine but to carve it up among themselves. Between 1948 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively. And the Palestinians there remained politically dispossessed and subject to brutal repression. In the decade following the 1967 war, nearly 50,000 Palestinians were slaughtered by Arab governments, including some 10,000 militants killed by the Jordanian monarchy in the 1970 Black September massacre.

The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which laid the basis for the liberation of the tsarist empire’s many subjugated peoples, was a beacon of liberation for the oppressed throughout the world, inspiring anti-colonial revolts throughout the Near East. This legacy continued despite the Stalinist degeneration of the USSR. In 1958, Iraqi workers led by the multinational Iraqi Communist Party—which included Muslims, Jews and Christians, Arabs and Kurds—fought to make a revolution and came to the brink of power. However, this and other revolutionary opportunities were betrayed by the Kremlin and the Stalinist-led Communist parties, subordinating the proletariat to an alliance with “progressive” bourgeois nationalists, who, once in power, launched a blood-bath against the Communist-led workers.

What is necessary is the forging of revolutionary Marxist parties throughout the Near East, built in opposition to all forms of nationalism and religious fundamentalism, and committed to the struggle for socialist revolution, which, on an international scale, can finally open the door to human equality and liberation. The conquest of power by the proletariat in the Near East does not complete the socialist revolution, but only opens it by changing the direction of social development. But that social development can be consolidated only through the international extension of the revolution, particularly to the advanced, industrialised imperialist countries.

Defence of those subjugated by the imperialists around the globe demands the pursuit of class struggle in Britain, the U.S. and other imperialist centres, pointing towards a proletarian struggle for power. The Spartacist League/Britain, section of the International Communist League, is committed to the fight to forge a multiethnic revolutionary workers party to lead the proletariat in the struggle to sweep away British imperialism through socialist revolution.

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New Tribe, Friendship With The People of Vietnam

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:59:42 GMT

Friendship With The People of Vietnam
http://tribes.tribe.net/vietnamfriendship

This is a group in solidarity with the people of Vietnam.

The U.S. War of Aggression in Vietnam started with the first U.S. advisors in 1955 and ended with the military defeat of the United States in 1975 by Vietnamese communist forces. In that time the U.S. occupation of southern Vietnam and massive bombardment of the north killed three million people. In the early years the U.S. refused to allow elections because the communists would have won and instead set-up a series of puppet dictatorships through coup d’etats and other intervention.

The U.S. murdered three million Vietnamese because the people disagreed with the U.S. occupation of their country. Over 50,000 U.S. soldiers died as well, many drafted, in a war that did not represent their interests. In addition, the U.S. government knowingly exposed the people of Vietnam and U.S. soldiers to the deadly poison of Agent Orange. Agent Orange continues to kill and disable the Vietnamese people to this day. Likewise, unexploded ordinance continue to kill with 10,529 people and injured 12,231 in Vietnam since 1975 (as of July 2009).

The victory of Vietnamese communist forces over the U.S. imperialist occupation in 1975 brought an end to U.S. mass murder in Vietnam, reunified the country, and brought gains that had already been implemented in the north like land reform and a socialist economy. While this was an improvement for the people of Vietnam, a key drawback was the fact that the Stalinist leadership was repressive and apposed real workers’ democracy.

This is a group that recognizes the right of the Vietnamese to run their country as they see fit and calls for U.S. reparations to the Vietnamese people including to the sick and dying affected by Agent Orange, victims of unexploded ordinances, and for clean-up.

Friendship With The People of Vietnam
http://tribes.tribe.net/vietnamfriendship

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Oakland Picket Blocks Israeli Ship!

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 05:02:04 GMT

For International Workers Solidarity Action to Defend the Palestinians
Oakland Picket Blocks Israeli Ship!

http://www.internationalist.org/oaklandpicketzimship1006.html

Mass picket of hundreds on the Oakland docks blocked the unloading of Israeli ZIM line ship June 20.

JUNE 21 – Yesterday mass pickets at the Port of Oakland (California) blocked the unloading of an Israeli ship, the ZIM Shenhen. They were protesting the May 31 Israeli massacre of activists aboard a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. More than 800 demonstrators showed up before dawn at Pier 58 for the day shift picket lasting from 5:30 until 9:30 a.m. Demonstrators chanted, “Free, free Palestine – Don’t cross the picket line,” and “An injury to one is an injury to all – the Israeli apartheid wall will fall.” Longshoremen refused to cross the line, and after management demanded an immediate arbitration ruling, the arbitrator sided with the workers. Hundreds of protesters returned for the evening shift, but by then the company had given up on calling in a shift. So the picketers succeeded in blocking the unloading of the Zim Lines freighter for 24 hours. This is the first time an Israeli ship was blocked in a U.S. port, and gives a big boost to efforts for international workers actions against the murderous Zionist regime.

The Oakland action was organized by an ad hoc Labor/Community Committee in Solidarity with the People of Palestine including the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, several Palestinian solidarity groups, the Bay Area ANSWER Coalition and area labor activists. It was formed after the executive board of the San Francisco-Oakland Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) two weeks ago passed a motion condemning Israel’s deadly raid and “call[ing] for unions to protest by any action they choose to take.” The Local 10 motion cited the ILWU’s commendation of the South African dock workers union for its February 2009 action refusing to unload an Israeli ship in the port of Durban, the decision of the Swedish Port Workers Union to refuse to handle Israeli ships and cargo (scheduled to start June 23), and the appeal by the Palestinian Trade Union Movement calling on dock workers worldwide to take action against the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

The “labor/community picket” of the Israeli container ship at the Port of Oakland docks was endorsed by the Oakland Education Association, and built by appeals from the San Francisco Labor Council and Alameda County Labor Council who condemned the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and sent out notices urging Bay Area unionists to join the lines. Solidarity statements hailing the Oakland action were received from the Cuban Labor Federation (CTC), Labor for Palestine, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and fired Liverpool dockers, among others. The PGFTU message to the Oakland picket said that this action was “something we have longed for and expected,” recalling the “historic and massive action on the docks in 1984, when you acted to boycott the apartheid regime in South Africa.” The action of ILWU Local 10 longshoremen to boycott the Nedlloyd Kimberley was later cited by Nelson Mandela as a key event propelling solidarity with the South African struggle internationally.

The June 20 picket was reported on local television (KTVU) and in articles in today’s San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune, as well as wire service reports. Significantly, news of the picket was picked up by the web site of the right-wing Zionist Jerusalem Post and the popular Israeli Internet news site Ynet News, which also carried a video of the action. It is useful to bring to the attention of the Israeli public that the murderous actions of the Zionist regime have a price. Certainly the Israeli authorities were well aware of it, as the Israeli consul in San Francisco called up the SF Labor Council to complain about its support for the picket.

We have called on unions internationally to carry out labor boycotts of Israeli ships, planes and cargo in protest against the latest massacre by the Zionist butchers. While the action on the Oakland docks was called by labor/community activists, it had wide union support and participation. The Oakland Tribune article noted, “The longshoremen’s union largely cooperated with the picket line. No workers tried to cross it.” San Francisco-Oakland Local 10 of the ILWU has a long history of solidarity action, including boycotting cargo to and from the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and the death-squad regime in El Salvador. It also hosted an October 2007 Labor Conference to Stop the War and introduced the motion that led to the historic May Day 2008 Pacific Coast-wide ILWU port shutdown against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many of those who marched on the picket yesterday called for a boycott of Israeli goods by consumers, as well as divestment and sanctions. We have noted elsewhere (see our article “Israel’s Gaza Flotilla Massacre: Bloody War Provocation”) that the “BDS” campaign is oriented toward pressuring imperialist governments to take action against Israel. A real struggle against Zionist occupation and oppression of the Palestinians must be directed against the Israeli government, and its imperialist backers who are enemies, not neutrals or potential allies, of the Palestinian people. As ILWU Local 10 executive board member and labor solidarity activist Jack Heyman noted at a June 5 protest against the Israeli attack:

“Simply petitioning or pressuring the Obama administration for justice is illusory, it’s not going to work. Every U.S. government since the creation of the state of Israel has given that government a blank check.... And it’s not going to happen by consumer boycotts either.”

“The Swedish dock workers, who stood strong against the apartheid regime, have just announced yesterday, that they will strike against every Israeli ship in Sweden. That is the kind of action that is needed to oppose the oppression by the Zionists against the Palestinian people. Workers have the power. We need to exercise that kind of power today, just as we did in 1984 against the ship from South Africa.”

The Zionist attack on the Gaza aid flotilla and cold-blooded murder of nine activists on the Mavi Marmara provoked disgust around the world. A host of unions and labor federations have issued statements denouncing the Israeli action to one degree or other, including the International Confederation of Trade Unions (the former ICFTU, which was organized to support the imperialists’ anti-communist Cold War against the Soviet Union), which called for an “investigation,” and the World Federation of Trade Unions, which called on unions to carry out a three-day strike in the world’s ports against shipping to and from Israel. But whatever illusions in the reformability of capitalism and “their” governments the labor bureaucrats promote, the boycott of the Israeli ship at the Oakland docks underscored the power of international labor solidarity and pointed to the urgent need for workers action against the Zionist Murder Inc. ■

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Defeat Israeli/U.S. War on Palestinians!

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:35:54 GMT

For International Workers Solidarity Action –
Defeat Israeli/U.S. War on Palestinians!

Israel’s Gaza Flotilla Massacre:
Bloody War Provocation

http://www.internationalist.org/israelflotillamassacre1006.html

In the early morning hours of May 31, Israeli commandos seized a flotilla of ships in the Mediterranean carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, the Palestinian territory devastated by the Israeli military a year and a half ago. The Israel “Defense” Force sent an armada of navy gun ships to stop the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which had set sail from Cyprus with over 700 unarmed anti-occupation activists and some 10,000 tons of supplies including medical supplies, used clothing, toys, milk powder, as well as building materials – all excluded by the Israeli blockade which has sealed off the Gaza Strip for over three years. At least nine of the passengers were killed by the commandos, while 57 were wounded. Israeli authorities grotesquely claimed its killers engaged in “self-defense” against “lynching” by passengers armed with “life-threatening means,” including “deck furniture.” But IDF commandos confirm that the Israeli forces opened fire even before they hit the deck, and photos show that wounded Israeli soldiers were cared for by ship doctors. All but one of the dead were shot at close range, their bodies riddled with bullets. These were executions, and the Israeli ship seizure was state terrorism.

All this took place in international waters, at least 60 miles from Gaza. The Zionist state of Israel carried out a clear act of piracy on the high seas. The slaughter touched off an outpouring of anger around the globe. Since the aid flotilla was organized in Turkey and the dead were Turkish, tens of thousands converged on Taksim Square in Istanbul to protest the Israeli outrage. There were huge protests as well in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt, in Pakistan, Malaysia and other largely Muslim countries. In London, thousands demonstrated outside the Israeli embassy; thousands more protested in Paris and elsewhere across Europe. In New York, over 1,500 showed up in Times Square on a few hours notice on May 31, while hundreds came out in cities from Chicago to San Francisco and Los Angeles. The protests brought together Turks, Arabs, leftists, and many Jewish demonstrators (including in Israel) outraged over the massacre. The Internationalist Group joined the NYC protest with signs proclaiming, “Gaza Supply Ship Massacre = Bloody Israeli War Provocation,” “Israel Out of Gaza and the West Bank – Defend the Palestinian People!” and “Defend Gaza – Defeat Israeli-U.S. War on Palestinians!”

Imperialist rulers felt obliged to issue mild criticisms of the Israeli government’s brazen actions. German chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “shocked” at the deaths and that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was “not helpful.” French president Nicholas Sarkozy criticized Israel’s “disproportionate” use of force. U.S. president Barack Obama’s reference to the deaths on the Gaza flotilla as “tragic” set off a torrent of vituperation from right-wingers and hard-line Zionists. But Washington mainly concentrated on making sure a United Nations Security Council resolution didn’t explicitly criticize Israel. The diplomatic tut-tutting was followed by a feigned dispute over who was to carry out an “impartial investigation” of events, the U.N. or Israel! Aside from the absurdity of the Zionist mass murderers investigating themselves and the notion that the imperialist powers that dominate the U.N. could possibly be “impartial,” what’s to investigate? Whether the Israelis shot before or after meeting resistance is irrelevant. Any and all efforts to repel the marauding Zionist killers were utterly justified. We salute the activists who heroically sought to defend the ship and its passengers against the Israeli terrorists.

The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call to break the murderous Israeli blockade of Gaza! We warn against illusions that the imperialists will somehow come to the aid of the beleaguered Palestinian population. Particularly for the U.S., of which Israel has for decades been a “strategic ally,” but also for the other imperialist powers, the Zionist state serves the role of a gendarme to police a vital region against the semi-colonial peoples of Asia and Africa (as well as a supplier of paramilitary mercenaries in Latin America). It is to the world working class that we look to defend Gaza and the Palestinian masses, both in the Occupied Territories and in Israel itself. In the face of this latest bloody crime we call on the workers movement to boycott cargo, ships and planes to and from Israel while fighting for Arab-Hebrew workers revolution in Palestine and a socialist federation of the Middle East.

For International Workers Solidarity Action to Defend the Palestinians

In response to the December 2008 Israeli assault on Gaza, the IG and LFI issued a “call for action by the international working class in defense of Gaza and the Palestinian people, including efforts to break the siege.” We added:

“Impotent consumer boycotts of Israeli goods or Israeli academics do not target the Zionist rulers or their imperialist backers, whereas a refusal by transport workers to unload Israeli ships or planes is the kind of class action that could send a powerful message to the racist rulers.”
–“Zionist Mass Murder: Break the Siege, Defend Gaza!” (31 December 2008), reprinted in The Internationalist No. 28, March-April 2009

In fact, in February 2009 dock workers in Durban, South Africa carried out such an exemplary action, boycotting the Israeli ship Johanna Russ. In response to the recent Israeli massacre of the Gaza aid flotilla, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) instructed its members “not to allow any Israeli ship to dock or unload in any South African port.” This call was taken up by a dozen Palestinian labor organizations who called on dock workers unions worldwide to block Israeli maritime trade, demanding an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

At the same time, the Swedish Port Workers Union issued a notice that it would blockade all Israeli ships and cargo to and from Israel for a period now set for the week of June 22-29. The Swedish dockers earlier played a leading role in boycotting cargo to and from apartheid South Africa and the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. On June 9, the Norwegian Transport Workers Federation went further and called for a two-week blockade of the country’s ports to Israeli ships and cargo beginning June 15. Similar actions are under discussion by dock workers federations and local unions elsewhere in Europe and the U.S., posing the possibility of wider internationally linked workers boycott action. In line with this, on June 20 a picket of an Israeli Zim line ship has been called for the Port of Oakland, California.

Trotskyists look to independent working-class action that has the power to combat Israeli crimes and point the way to bringing down the murderous Zionist regime through proletarian revolution. Reformist leftists, in contrast, almost unanimously call for action by the imperialist governments, as if they could somehow become potential allies of the oppressed Arab masses.

In the United States, Socialist Action (S.A.) circulated a statement by the United Secretariat (USec), with which it is fraternally related and which falsely claims to be the continuity of Trotsky’s Fourth International. The June 1 USec statement declares that “Everywhere where the solidarity movement is not yet strong enough to compel governments to break in practice with the Israeli state, people should take matters into their own hands with massive boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns.” The International Socialist Organization (ISO), approvingly quotes an organizer of the Free Gaza Movement saying, “The U.S. government has to be put under pressure to act in a responsible manner and stop the double standard it always applies to Israel” (Socialist Worker, 1 June). The ISO also pushes the boycott-divestment-sanctions campaign:

“The BDS movement is a people's initiative, based upon both consumer and worker-end boycotts of Israeli goods and services, while asking people to deprive Israel of the immunity it has enjoyed while committing its crimes. It consciously models itself upon the same movement which helped defeat apartheid in South Africa.”

The movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel arose in response to a 2005 call by a number of Palestinian “civil society organizations.” Pressed to the wall by relentless Zionist repression, many in occupied Palestine desperately call for any and all solidarity action. In the imperialist countries, particularly on university campuses, campaigns for “BDS” have sometimes become a referendum on opposition to vs. support for Zionist Israel and its crimes. The boycott campaign in the West is an expression of moral outrage, but at bottom it is aimed at enlisting imperialist rulers. “BDS” activists hope that the Gaza flotilla massacre could be the event, as Ali Abunimah wrote on the website Electronic Intifada (4 June), “spurring governments to follow the lead of their people and take unprecedented action to check Israel's growing lawlessness.” This perspective is deeply disorienting, in several ways, to a real struggle against the oppression of the Palestinian people.

For one thing, “BDS” implies that the supposedly democratic imperialist countries are less culpable than Zionist Israel. Yet the victims of U.S. imperialism number in the many millions (3-4 million dead in Korea, 2-3 million in Indochina, close to 1 million killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and counting), vastly outnumbering the numbers slaughtered by the Israeli military and paramilitary settlers in Palestine. So why not refuse to buy any products made in the United States, refuse to hire American faculty, call for U.N. and European Union sanctions against the U.S., etc.? “BDS” also implies that a “mass movement” could pressure the imperialists into defending the Palestinian Arab people. This is an illusion, particularly in the case of the United States, whose alliance with Israel is strategic. Israel is a key element in Western domination of the Middle East, including vital oil supplies and trade routes, which also benefit the European imperialists. No amount of popular pressure will change that.

If Washington pushes that Tel Aviv to lighten up on the repression, it will only be a slight modification at most. The Palestinians will still be caught in a Zionist vise. Consumer boycotts notoriously have little effect – and who buys Israeli matzo or chocolate anyway? Moreover, anyone who thinks the Pentagon will stop buying Israeli software for its computers or stop hiring Israeli mercenaries to train its paramilitary death squads in Latin America is dreaming. Getting a few pension funds and imperialist corporations not to invest in Israel won’t starve Israeli businesses of funds. But even if by some miracle they did, and Israel became an international pariah, this won’t stop the Zionist butchers. They are junior partners and allies of imperialism, but Israel’s capitalist rulers have their own reactionary interests and agenda. They are perfectly capable of turning on their patrons in Washington, like when Israeli jets and gunboats napalmed and torpedoed the U.S.S. Liberty, evidently out of pique over U.S. neutrality in the 1967 war.

The boycott, sanctions and divestment campaign also distorts what happened in South Africa. That effort was launched by the African National Congress, which calculated that pressure from U.S. and European imperialists would get South Africa’s racist rulers to make democratic reforms. It didn’t happen. The apartheid regime couldn’t be reformed, and it was not brought down by Americans refusing to buy krugerrands or Citibank not investing in South Africa. In fact, as Trotskyists warned at the time, to the extent that sanctions and boycotts had an effect, it was to increase the exploitation and weaken the South African black proletariat, particularly miners and metal workers, whose militant strikes were a key factor in ending apartheid. The other principal factor was that, as a result of the counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union, the South African Communist Party (which played a dominant role in the ANC and the black workers unions) was deemed less of a threat. So the Western imperialists and South African capitalists decided to cut a deal with Nelson Mandela.

Moreover, while the end of apartheid brought formal democratic gains (“one person, one vote”) and put in office a black majority government, the class oppression of black and colored working people in South Africa has not only not diminished, it has actually increased the inequality and poverty. Who has benefited is a tiny layer of black professionals who climbed aboard the capitalist gravy train. Should a Palestinian pseudo-state come about as the result of imperialist pressure, the beneficiaries will not be the impoverished masses living in the giant slum of Gaza or in West Bank ghettos like Ramallah, but a gaggle of Palestinian capitalists who will exploit Palestinian labor on behalf of Israeli capital. Palestinian refugees will still be unable to return to their homes and lands stolen by the Zionists in 1948 and since. And the corruption of legendary proportions that infused the Palestinian Authority under Yasir Arafat and his successor as P.A. president Mahmoud Abbas is only a foretaste.

Trotskyists do not call for consumer boycotts, capitalist divestment and imperialist sanctions against Zionist Israel, nor did we against Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s, apartheid South Africa in the ’80s or Haiti under the military junta in the ’90s, for the same reason we do not call today for U.S. aid to earthquake-ravaged Haiti: imperialism is not a policy but a system – it cannot be pressured into aiding the oppressed, it must be overthrown. We demand an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza and defend efforts to break it. Likewise, we demand an end to all U.S. aid to Israel, some $7 million a day. We demand that the Israeli army (and U.S. military advisers) get out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that the Zionist settlements be dispersed, that all Palestinian refugees have the right to return, that Palestinian prisoners be released. But the key to freeing Palestinians from a century of Western imperialist and Zionist domination is to mobilize the international working class (including Palestinian Arab and Hebrew-speaking workers in Israel) which alone has the power to sweep away the Zionist rulers and their imperialist overlords. ■

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1 That is, the Zionist rulers will stop at nothing, even suicidal measures. In the Judean struggle for liberation against the Roman empire, a sect of Jewish merchants and nobility, the Zealots, who had been expelled from Jerusalem after killing other Jews, took refuge by seizing the Roman fortress at Masada. As the Romans were about to retake Masada in the year 73, the Zealots murdered their own families and then committed collective suicide. Today Israeli soldiers end their basic training by climbing the mount and taking the oath, “Masada shall not fall again.” For the raid on the Gaza flotilla, the Israeli prison service mobilized its elite Masada unit, a hit squad notorious for provoking jail riots and executing Palestinian prisoners.

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Free Vanunu! Let Him Leave Israel!

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:28:02 GMT

Thrown Back in Prison

Free Vanunu! Let Him Leave Israel!

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/960/vanunu.html

On May 23, Mordechai Vanunu, the whistle-blower who spent 18 years in prison for exposing the extent of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, began serving a three-month prison sentence that stems from his December 29 arrest for meeting with a Norwegian woman in Jerusalem. Despite serving his entire prior sentence, Vanunu remains barred from talking to non-Israelis and going near airports, ports and embassies, subject to 24-hour surveillance and prevented from leaving the country.

Following his December arrest, Vanunu was sentenced to six months of “community service” in overwhelmingly Jewish West Jerusalem. Fearing his life would be threatened by right-wing Israelis who consider him a “traitor,” Vanunu requested that his sentence be served in predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem. When the court rejected his request, Vanunu declined to carry out his community service. On May 11, he was sentenced to prison once again.

The vindictive, blood-soaked rulers of the Zionist state will not rest until Vanunu, a former technician at the Israeli nuclear weapons facility in Dimona, is forever silenced for having revealed that Israel had upwards of 200 nuclear warheads. This arsenal, built up with the active support of the French and then the U.S. imperialist powers, was enough not only to incinerate every Arab capital but to bomb major cities in the Soviet Union as well.

Vanunu was born to a Sephardic Jewish family that emigrated from Morocco to Israel, where he experienced discrimination at the hands of the European-derived Ashkenazi establishment. As a student at Beersheba’s Ben-Gurion University, he joined protests against Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and actively fought for the rights of Palestinian and Bedouin students. Fed up with the Israeli garrison state, Vanunu left the country in 1986 and later converted to Christianity while in Australia.

In 1986, he was kidnapped in Italy by the Israeli Mossad secret police, thrown into a desert prison in Ashkelon and sentenced by a secret military court. In prison, Vanunu was given the kind of treatment Israel’s rulers reserve for those they deem “subhuman”—the Palestinians imprisoned within the electric fences that surround Gaza, those confined behind the concrete walls and checkpoints of the West Bank, the thousands who languish in Israel’s prison torture chambers. He spent more than eleven years in solitary confinement, entombed in a six-by-nine cell in a high-security complex built for Palestinians.

When Vanunu walked out of prison in April 2004, he said that he was “proud and happy to do what I did.” He was arrested later that year and, in 2007, he was sentenced to another six months’ imprisonment. He remains defiant, declaring before he was dragged away to his cell last month, “You didn’t get anything from me in 18 years; you won’t get anything in 3 months. Shame on you, Israel.” Defenders of the Palestinian people and opponents of capitalist repression everywhere must take up the call to free this courageous opponent of Zionist terror and demand that he be allowed to leave Israel.

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Zionist Massacre at Sea

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 16:24:20 GMT

Defend the Palestinians!

Down With Blockade of Gaza!

Zionist Massacre at Sea

All Israeli Troops, Settlers Out of the Occupied Territories!

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/index.html

JUNE 1—“This was murder.” These three words, spoken by Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement, captured the horror perpetrated by elite naval units of the Israeli Zionist state when they descended from Black Hawk helicopters onto a civilian ship in international waters and began blasting away at its 700 passengers, mainly Turkish citizens, in a pre-dawn raid yesterday. At least nine people aboard the Turkish Mavi Marmara—the lead ship in a six-ship “Freedom Flotilla” carrying medicine, construction supplies and other goods to Gaza—were killed and dozens injured. Survivors of the attack were hauled off to prison in Israel or deported. We demand that the prisoners be freed, now!

The passengers aboard the aid flotilla were carrying out a courageous act of defiance of the Israeli embargo of the Gaza Strip, imposed in 2007 in order to collectively punish the Palestinian population for voting the Islamist Hamas into power. Gaza was already little more than a huge concentration camp, surrounded on all sides by an electrified fence, the sea or a fortified border with Egypt. But the embargo vastly deepened the misery of the 1.5 million people of Gaza, who now overwhelmingly rely on paltry food packages from United Nations relief agencies for survival. Israel slaughtered upwards of 1,300 Gaza residents—many of them women and children—beginning in late 2008, as round-the-clock air assaults followed by a ground invasion of over 10,000 troops reduced much of the Gaza ghetto to ash and rubble. And just today, an Israeli airstrike killed three people in Gaza.

The Israeli government has denounced the flotilla participants as “violent extremists” and “terrorists.” The chauvinist capitalist rulers of the Zionist garrison state deem any defense of the subjugated Palestinian people as “terrorism.” In this, they also take a cue from their American imperialist patrons, whose “war on terror” has been used—by the U.S. and other capitalist governments—to justify massacres and state terror against the oppressed around the world. In fact, the so-called “terrorists” in the flotilla included European parliamentarians and a retired U.S. diplomat as well as prominent authors and filmmakers. Israeli claims that the commandos opened fire only after being attacked by passengers are countered by numerous eyewitness accounts and belied by video taken at the time of the assault. In any case, as Greta Berlin put it, “People had the right to defend themselves against soldiers armed with machine guns.”

From San Francisco and New York to Europe and the Near East, people took to the streets in outrage over the massacre. The Spartacist League is joining in the protests, as are sections of the International Communist League in Europe. In Istanbul, Turkey, demonstrators tried to storm the Israeli consulate. We say: Down with the starvation blockade of Gaza! Defend the Palestinian people! All Israeli troops and settlers out of the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem!

Unrestrained terror against the Palestinians by the Israeli ruling class and its fascistic “settler” auxiliaries has always been a given. But in recent years, Israel’s rulers have also made a point of targeting Western supporters of the Palestinians. In 2003, two activists of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) were killed at the hands of Israeli forces: 23-year-old American Rachel Corrie was crushed by a bulldozer as she tried to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home, and 21-year-old British photojournalist Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by Israeli troops as he tried to protect children in Gaza’s Rafah refugee camp. Yesterday in the West Bank, Emily Henochowicz, a 21-year-old American, had her left eye blown out by troops as she protested against the Mavi Marmara massacre.

Not surprisingly, the Israeli massacre has provoked condemnation from numerous governments, not least the Erdogan regime in Turkey, an unofficial sponsor of the flotilla. These same capitalist regimes have shown themselves equally as capable as the Israeli bourgeois rulers in perpetrating atrocities against ethnic, religious and national minorities. As for the imperialists, Britain and France laid the basis for the continuing misery of the Palestinians and other peoples of the Near East in the period between the two world wars, when they brutally suppressed anticolonial uprisings and set one people against another.

For its part, the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama refuses even to slap Israel on the wrist. Washington has been the chief arms supplier to the Zionist state for decades, shelling out several billions of dollars a year. On the eve of the Israeli blitzkrieg in Gaza, then- presidential candidate Obama made clear in a visit to Israel that his administration would continue to give the Zionist state a blank check for its anti-Palestinian terror.

A prominent chant at the May 31 New York protest was: “Obama, it’s past time—stop Israeli war crimes!” But the Obama administration is not about to stop Israeli war crimes or, more to the point, its own. Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, it is U.S. imperialism that is the main enemy of the world’s workers and oppressed masses. Today it continues to perpetrate massacres against the peoples of Afghanistan and Pakistan on a regular basis. And only months after Washington seized on the earthquake in Haiti to send in 20,000 troops to re-occupy that tiny and impoverished black country, the government of Jamaica carried out a police massacre of dozens of slum dwellers in Kingston at the behest of the U.S. rulers. Down with U.S. aid to Israel! U.S. imperialists—hands off the world!

Israel’s attack on the civilian aid flotilla serves to underscore the futility of attempts by various reformist leftists to lobby the “democratic” imperialist powers to pressure Israel to tamp down its murderous repression. Suppression of the Palestinian people has been intrinsic to the Zionist cause from its inception in Europe in the latter half of the 19th century, as it set itself the ersatz messianic mission of conquering “a land without people for a people without a land.”

Notwithstanding the intentions of some of the earliest socialist-minded Jewish immigrants in Palestine, what the Zionist project has always meant in practice was the driving out of one people from the land and its replacement by another. Decades of land-grabbing were followed by the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1947-48 and the ghettoization of those Arabs who remained in the new state of Israel. The conquest of the Occupied Territories in 1967 fueled dreams of a “Greater Israel” and the further displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which is now surrounded by a wall and riddled with military checkpoints. The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu includes such figures as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who openly advocates “transfer”—the genocidal expulsion of all Palestinian Arabs.

American anti-Zionist academic Norman Finkelstein captured something when he described Israel, in a May 31 interview with Russia Today TV, as “a lunatic state with between two and three hundred nuclear devices that is threatening war daily against Iran and against the Hezbollah in Lebanon.” It is notable that the massacre on the Turkish ship came only two weeks after the U.S. and Israel denounced a deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil to provide Iran with fuel for its nuclear reactors. While Washington seeks to beef up the imperialist economic embargo against Iran, Israel continues to talk openly of bombing the country. Such threats underline that Iran needs nuclear weapons to defend itself against the imperialists and their junior partners.

Israel/Palestine is a prime example of the genocidal logic of bourgeois nationalism, particularly as played out in the context of its interpenetrated peoples. The national emancipation of the Palestinian people—including the right of all refugees and their descendants to return to their homeland—necessarily entails workers revolutions to shatter the Zionist state from within and to sweep away the neighboring capitalist ruling classes of Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, which themselves lord it over sizable Palestinian populations. Only within the framework of a socialist federation of the Near East will the national rights of both the Palestinian Arab and the Hebrew-speaking peoples, as well as of the Kurds and myriad others, be ensured.

Notwithstanding the growing entrenchment of ultra-chauvinist and religious reaction among sections of the Hebrew-speaking population and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism within the Palestinian and other Arab populations, the countries of the Near East are class-divided societies. Notably, Egypt has witnessed a rising tide of workers protests and strikes in recent years. In the face of massive sympathy among Egyptians for the Palestinians, the regime of Hosni Mubarak, which has ruled under a state of emergency for decades, actively collaborates with the Zionist rulers in enforcing the blockade of Gaza.

The solidarity among the peoples of the Near East with the oppressed Palestinian people must be directed toward proletarian revolution against their own rulers, who, whether bourgeois nationalists or Islamic traditionalists, are fundamentally instruments of Western imperialism. Revolutionary struggle in Iran and the Arab countries would serve in turn to aid in breaking the Hebrew-speaking working class, which includes a large number of downtrodden and impoverished Sephardic Jews, from the intoxication of Zionist chauvinism. Meanwhile, fully one-fifth of the population of Israel consists of Palestinian Arabs who have been subjected to blatant discrimination since the birth of the Zionist state in 1948.

The class interests of the workers of Israel lie in smashing the Zionist capitalist state and sweeping away their exploiters. But for this to happen, the class principle must prevail. What is necessary is the forging of multinational, multiethnic Marxist workers parties throughout the Near East, built in opposition to all forms of nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Such parties are the indispensable instruments to lead a successful fight for socialist revolution, which, on an international scale, can finally open the door to human equality and liberation.

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If Israel Were Cuba

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 17:39:31 GMT

If Israel Were Cuba

By Steven Argue

The U.S. has carried out terrorism against Cuba, including CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles blowing-up a civilian airliner, Cubana flight 455, killing all 73 people on board. The U.S. shelters this terrorist from justice.

In addition, the U.S. has kidnapped Cubans who had infiltrated counter-revolutionary terrorist groups. These people, Gerardo Hernández, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino, and Fernando González, have become known as the Cuban five. They were simply trying to stop the kind of terrorism carried out by Luis Posada Carriles, but they now sit in American prisons with long sentences.

By any sense of the definition, the U.S. has carried out state sponsored terrorism and harbors and protects terrorists. Is this not the same argument that the U.S. and Israel use to carry out an economic blockade of Gaza? So does Cuba not have the right to blockade the United States and enter vessels headed for the U.S. on the high seas, killing people as they go, to carry out an economic blockade of the United States? Taking the logic of a Palestinian hating Zionists to its conclusion, they have every legal right to do so.

Unfortunately, both the Gazans and the Cubans are victims of economic sanctions as well as terrorism. The Gazans suffer far more terrorism from the government of Israel than any Palestinian extremists have ever returned. And they face an economic blockade that doesn't allow in needed food, medicine, and building materials. A blockade where heroes who try to break it are shot by the Israeli military. And, while dishing out that kind of terror, that same government attempts to portray an entire people as terrorists.

Of course the comparison of Israel and Cuba is absurd. While the U.S. and Israel prevent needed medical supplies from getting into Gaza and Cuba; Cuba has the opposite outlook, and has even offered Cuban doctors for victims of Katrina as well as for poor rural areas of the US. Cuba would never attempt to cut off needed food and medicine to any people.

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Zionist Repression by the "Only Democracy" in the Middle East

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:05:21 GMT

Palestine
ElJidar Lazem Yinhar - ‘The Wall Must Fall!

Socialist Struggle Movement (CWI in Israel/Palestine)

http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4119

One thousand people demonstrated on Friday 19 February, in the Palestinian village Bil`in, in the occupied West Bank, marking 5 years of persistent struggle and weekly demonstrations by the village against the Israeli Separation Fence, which annexes 50% of their land (about 2 km) for the benefit of the adjacent large ultra-orthodox settlement, Modi`in-`ilit.

The demonstrators managed to bring down two sections of the fence, and even wave the Palestinian flag on top of a military post right behind it. The military responded in less violence than the usual, due to the increased media attention this week, and "sufficed" with a firing a barrage of tear gas to a range of hundreds of meters (including hitting young children), in addition to rubber-coated steel bullets, and deploying the ‘Skunk’-stench liquid (a special Israeli police invention, which sticks on clothes and skin for days).

A military spokesperson claims the damage to the fence is estimated at hundreds of thousands of Shekels. Unfortunately, it is likely that the Israeli government will pour more tax-payers money into maintaining the Wall.

The Socialist Struggle Movement - CWI in Israel/Palestine - participated in past years’ protests, where possible, in demonstrations against the Fence in Bil`in, as well as at other areas in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel. In the recent demonstration, we organized a block within the march towards the fence, held placards with slogans in the Arabic and Hebrew languages - such as, "Solidarity will defeat Occupation, Oppression and Poverty" and "Dismantle the Wall, Checkpoints, and Settlements; End the Occupation".

We also shouted slogans in Arabic, Hebrew and English languages, including: "No fence will help - the occupation is terror", "Netanyahu and Barak - we won’t stop with the struggle", "This is not a security fence - this is a licensed theft of land", "In Bil`in and Sheikh-Jarakh [East-Jerusalem neighborhood] - We’ll struggle and won’t runaway", "The government of the elites trampling on families - in Bil`in and in Sderot", "Invest in jobs, not in occupation and settlements" and "Soldiers, what do you guard? Real-estate areas for settlers", etc.

We received warm responses from other demonstrators, and attracted some Palestinian and Israeli demonstrators, who marched along with us.

International symbol of struggle

Bil`in has become an international symbol for the wider popular struggle against the Fence/Wall, bringing together not only international activists for solidarity support, but also an exceptional number of Israeli-Jewish people who participated in the weekly demonstrations. This happens despite regular anti-democratic attempts by the Israeli police to block Israeli demonstrators from reaching Bil`in, and parallel efforts by the state to deport international activists. Participation of Israeli demonstrators has been promoted from the inception of the struggle, as a strategic principle by the Popular Committee of the village.

In the face of growing military repression of the struggle in Bil`in, and generally in the West Bank, which would justify the residents democratically organizing their own self-defence, the villagers insist on waging a "non-violent struggle" to defend themselves, but nevertheless they are heavily repressed.

Any resistance to the fence is repressed by "the only democracy in the Middle East", under various pretexts, such as the "illegality" of protests (following a declaration of a "closed military zone"), or "stone throwing" by the village youth during clashes with the military (sometimes initiated by military undercover infiltrators), or the damaging of the fence by the protesters. Almost all protests against the Fence/Wall, within the West Bank, are dispersed with brutal violence, usually including rubber-coated steel bullets and other sorts of lethal bullets, various sorts of tear gas grenades, shock grenades, Skunk stench fluid, etc.

Last April, the military killed one of the villagers, Bassem "Phil" Abu-Rahme, in response to his calls to an officer to restrain repression. Bassem joined the lengthened list of such fighters from other villages who died in the wider struggle against the Wall since its beginning in 2002.

Ever since June, the Israeli military and the Shabak (General Security Service - the Israeli secret police), conducted waves of arrests in Bil`in and the neighboring struggling village Ni`lin. About 40 of the 1,800 Bil`in residents, including several leaders of the struggle and some teenagers, were arrested during night raids by Magav (‘Border Guard’, military wing of the Israeli police). Some of them are still held in an Israeli military prison.

But Bil`in can also be proud of some partial achievements, so far. In September 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court, which explicitly supports the construction of the Wall, ordered the military to plan a new route, as it did previously to soften the resistance in a few other areas where a serious struggle has developed. The court could not ignore the fact that the current route not only surrounds an existing settlement, but also a vast stolen territory for future real-estate assets for the settlement. Last week, official measurers came in to effect in the area to prepare for the relocating of the route. This is an important achievement. Yet, even the new route will restore only a third of the land stolen from the village, and of course, the fence will remain.

Political impasse

The anniversary demonstration began with a series of speeches by the visiting mayor of Geneva and by Palestinian politicians, including Prime Minister Salam Fayad (an extreme neo-liberal, formerly a World Bank and IMF official) and the leftist liberal Mustafa Barghouti. Bil`in is a traditional stronghold of Fatah, and yet the scene showed the gloomy political vacuum facing Palestinian working people and the poor.

What is the connection of these leaders to the popular Palestinian struggle? Fayad may speak in support of the struggle against the Wall, but, at the same time, he urges the Palestinian President, Mahmoud `Abbas, to re-engage in negotiations with the current far-right and warmongering Israeli government of Netanyahu, with Fayad disregarding the de-facto stepping up of the colonialist settlements project and the ongoing escalation in oppression of Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere.

With the background of the understandable strong mood for Palestinian unity, it is hard to tell the differences of agenda between the secular political parties (Hamas was not visible at the protest), as these forces hardly put forward any distinct programme. Unfortunately, the organizations to the left of Fatah remain a reduced shadow of the Palestinian leftwing organizations of 20 years ago, during the first intifada and up till the fall of the USSR and the period of the Oslo Agreements, which pushed mass organizations into complete political bankruptcy. To see where this process ends up, anecdotally, some youth demonstrators from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) claimed they were actually promised payment by their organization for participating in the event.

Explosions to come

This struggle is far from being over. The gigantic Fence/Wall, which is presented by the Israeli ruling class demagogically as a "Security Fence", is one of the heavy mechanisms of the occupation. Its origins are to be found during the Oslo Agreements. The then Israeli Prime Minister, Rabin (later assassinated) stated: "We have to decide on separation as a philosophy. There has to be a clear border".

The Wall serves to deepen national divisions and to complicate further the conflict. It also serves the Israeli ruling class in annexing land, with the aim of imposing future borders. Behind the Wall, a cantonized and military-controlled giant prison is developing, on a model similar to the Gaza Strip, except that it is far more dissected. It includes elitist enclaves of settlements, with separate infrastructure, and, in some cases, with nests of Israeli fascist-Kahanists, terrorizing the Palestinian population daily. The impossible conditions forced on West Bank Palestinians, who are left "outside" the Wall, are, in fact, ‘urged’ to relocate "inside" the Wall, which benefits Israeli ruling class demographic ambitions.

A third Intifada is eventually inevitable. This is clear to growing sections of the Israeli ruling class, and to some international imperialist leaders, who try to promote once more a neo-colonial ‘peace’ arrangement, under the mask of a new, semi-puppet, Palestinian state, as an "exit strategy", to ‘defuse’ the conflict. As the tragic example of Gaza indicates, particularly after last year’s Israeli army intervention massacre, even if the Israeli ruling class, at some point (and this is unlikely, at the present stage) decides to make the concession of pulling out settlements and military bases, and from a formal presence within the Wall, the Israeli regime can still unleash hell upon the population. And even if the Palestinian Authority in the future should be defined, on paper, as a ‘State’, the conflict will not be resolved. It cannot be ended because the Israeli capitalist regime and its imperialist backers will not allow a genuinely independent Palestinian state at Israel’s backyard.

Any resistance to the Fence is repressed by the Israeli state
Building up the struggle

Only a return to the mass popular struggle offers a way out for the Palestinians, to gain concessions and eventually to topple down the occupation and to end national oppression. But without farsighted political leadership for the Palestinian working class and poor and land workers, any such uprising will not meet the objective of freeing Palestinians from oppression.

There is an urgent need for genuine leftwing forces, unions, and popular committees to join together to form a new broad political party in the occupied Palestinian Territories, as an alternative to the rightwing, dead-end of Fatah and Hamas. The disappointment felt by many Palestinians towards these the traditional Palestinian parties and forces clear the way for such an initiative. This should be based around a socialist programme, with a class approach, aiming to unite in struggle the Palestinian and Israeli working class, while demanding genuine equal national rights. At the same time, there is the vital task of expanding the CWI in the area, and to create a new Marxist fighting organization within the occupied Palestinian Territories. This is promoted by the Socialist Struggle Movement.

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Vanunu Slams Nobel War Prize

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:40:09 GMT

Vanunu Slams Nobel War Prize

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/955/vanunu.html

The International Communist League has always honored and defended former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. In 1986, Vanunu exposed to the world that the Israeli Zionist rulers had produced enough nuclear weapons and delivery systems not only to incinerate every Arab capital but to bomb major cities in the Soviet Union as well. For his service to humanity, he was kidnapped in Italy by Israeli Mossad agents, whisked back to Israel, tried before a secret military court and then locked away in prison for 18 years—12 of them spent in solitary confinement.

Now, Vanunu has ripped the veil of hypocrisy from the bourgeoisie’s venerated Nobel Peace Prize, for which he had been nominated. In a February 24 announcement, Geir Lundestad, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, revealed that for the second consecutive year Vanunu wrote letters “where he stated explicitly that he did not want to be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. The reason he gave was that Simon [sic] Peres had received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Peres he alleged was the father of the Israeli atomic bomb and he did not want to be associated with Peres in any way.” In one of these letters, Vanunu wrote that “Peres was the man who ordered the kidnapping of me in Italy.”

Shimon Peres, whose paternity of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is well documented in his 2007 authorized biography by Michael Bar-Zohar, shared the 1994 “peace” prize with his fellow Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat for their role in negotiating the 1993 Oslo accords. This imperialist-brokered pact was portrayed as laying the foundation for a Palestinian “mini-state” in part of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. In fact, it has led only to greater oppression, impoverishment, terrorization and degradation for the Palestinians. For his part, Peres, an early supporter of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, has the blood of countless Palestinians on his hands. He was Israel’s prime minister twice, and during his second reign ordered the 1996 attack on a UN refugee camp near the southern Lebanese village of Qana in which over 100 civilians were slaughtered.

Vanunu is the first nominee to request that his name be withdrawn from consideration. But in 1973, Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho refused to accept the “peace” prize. It had been jointly awarded to him and Henry Kissinger, the National Security Advisor for the U.S. imperialists, who had the blood of over three million Vietnamese on their hands. In refusing to remove Vanunu’s name from the list of nominees, Lundestad made clear that Vanunu had little chance of winning. Not surprising, since the award is a model of Orwellian “war is peace” Newspeak.

Peace Prize recipients have included Elihu Root, U.S. Secretary of War during the Spanish-American War through which the U.S. colonized Cuba and Puerto Rico and then occupied the Philippines, slaughtering up to a million people; Charles Dawes, architect of the imperialist victors’ reparations that bled Germany following World War I; Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler, an early supporter of Italian fascist Benito Mussolini and Hitler’s Nazis; United Nations general secretary Dag Hammarskjöld, who was involved in the assassination of Congo nationalist Patrice Lumumba; Menachem Begin, who had been a leader of the Zionist terrorist Irgun which carried out bloody slaughter and mass expulsions of Palestinians in the 1940s; and U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who came to office with appeals for “ethnic purity” and engineered U.S. imperialism’s funding and arming of the reactionary, woman-hating Afghan mujahedin in their war against the Soviet-backed Afghan government.

The most recent honoree is U.S. Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama, who seemed to be rewarded for not being George W. Bush, though his acceptance speech differed little from a Bush presentation, except for its sophistication. Obama invoked the virtues of a “just war” in defense of a barbaric occupation that has resulted in the deaths of untold thousands of Afghans and the pounding of villages through aerial bombardment. He also took the occasion to rattle sabers at capitalist Iran and the North Korean deformed workers state for their work toward developing nuclear capability in defiance of imperialist threats and sanctions.

Since his release from Israel’s dungeons in 2004, Vanunu has been barred from leaving the country, talking to non-Israelis, going near airports and is under 24-hour surveillance. Last December he was placed under house arrest after meeting a Norwegian woman in a Jerusalem hotel (see WV No. 950, 15 January). As Vanunu recently wrote to a Norwegian journalist, “What I want now, I need now, is freedom, passport, not any awards.” Hands off Mordechai Vanunu! Let him leave Israel!

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Email the racist zioNazi pig!

ArabianPalestinian — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:46:10 GMT

Have you heard the racist nonsense that the zioNazi pig avigdor liberman is spouting against the Palestinians?

email him your opinion of a pig like him.

Here is his email address:

aliberman@knesset.gov.il

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

~*~

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:18:56 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI54UauUtSk

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

The message about Ban Ki Moon

Sat, 16 May 2009 23:22:27 GMT

Friends: The message about Ban Ki Moon requesting Israel's expulsion from the UN appears to be a hoax, and I apologize for sending it out without checking.

With regards,
Steven

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Labor joins Netanyahu coalition as evidence of war crimes in Gaza mounts

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:28:09 GMT

Labor joins Netanyahu coalition as evidence of war crimes in Gaza mounts
By Chris Marsden
26 March 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/isra-m26.shtml

The decision of the Labor Party to join the rightist coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu allows Likud to form a government. If all of Labor's Knesset members maintain their support for the move, Netanyahu will have 66 to 67 seats in the 120-member parliament and will be sworn in as prime minister Tuesday.

Labor will sit in the Knesset as part of the most right-wing government in Israel's history. It has joined the government despite Likud being explicitly opposed to a two-state solution and the stated goal of establishing of a Palestinian state, the nominal political difference separating Labor from the overtly right-wing parties. Even Kadima, the party established by Ariel Sharon, refused to join the coalition unless Netanhyahu at least formally endorsed a two-state policy. Likud's other major coalition partner is the far right Yisrael Beiteinu of Avigdor Lieberman, who is in favour of the ethnic cleansing of Israeli Arabs. Lieberman has been appointed as Netanyahu's foreign minister.

Likud won one seat less than the Kadima party of outgoing Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, but was asked to form a government by President Shimon Peres because the rightist parties enjoyed an overall majority. But Netanyahu was urged by the Obama administration in the United States and by the European Union to strive to include either Kadima or Labor, so his government could be depicted as being less extreme than it is.

Labor will do more than provide a fig leaf for the continued support by the major powers and the complicity of Washington's Arab allies in Israel's offensive against the Palestinians. Party leader Ehud Barak will personally spearhead attacks on the Palestinians and any hostile moves that are made against Iran, retaining the post of defence minister he occupied in the outgoing coalition government with Kadima.

Barak's horse-trading with Netanyahu also secured Labor four cabinet portfolios in addition to defence: industry, trade and labour, agriculture, and welfare and social services, and one position as minister-without-portfolio. As well as heading the Israeli military, Labor will play a key role in imposing austerity measures on the working class. The chairman of the Histadrut trade union federation, Ofer Eini, secured an agreement to take part in all socio-economic discussions in tripartite "round-table" arrangements with the government and the employers.

Barak's decision won the support of a narrow majority of Labor's central committee and Tuesday's party convention, where 680 delegates voted to join while just 507 voted against. He was opposed by a group of Labor MKs, headed by Amir Peretz and Shelly Yachimovich, but afterwards Yachimovich said that she "respected the outcome." Cabinet Minister Yuli Tamir, one of the founders of Peace Now, has merely stated that she had not yet decided if she will vote with the government.

Labor's joining the coalition was entirely predictable. Its undeserved reputation as the "party of peace" was already in ruins after its direct participation in military assaults such as the July war against Lebanon in 2006 and January's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that claimed the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, including 300 children and 116 women. The Israeli siege left the territory in ruins, with more than half of Gaza's 27 hospitals and 44 clinics damaged by Israeli bombs, according to the World Health Organisation. Labor's support has collapsed as a result, dropping from 19 to just 13 Knesset seats, as the party fell into fourth place, eclipsed by Yisrael Beiteinu.

Even as the final preparations for Netanyahu taking office are being made, the demands for Israel to face war crimes charges relating to Operation Cast Lead, waged directly under Barak's leadership, are growing.

Israeli newspapers have published the testimony of soldiers detailing atrocities in which they participated or that they witnessed in Gaza. The United Nations human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, has issued a report declaring that Israel's siege of Gaza "would seem to constitute a war crime of the gravest magnitude under international law," describing the Israeli campaign as a "massive assault on a densely populated urbanized setting" that subjected civilians to "an inhumane form of warfare that kills, maims and inflicts mental harm."

He listed war crimes such as the "targeting of schools, mosques and ambulances" and the use of white phosphorus shells in densely populated neighbourhoods. The war on Gaza was not legally justified and could constitute a "crime against peace," he argued, the principal charge against the Nazi leaders tried at Nuremberg.

A report by human rights advocates who visited Gaza after the war accuses Israeli soldiers of shooting children, bulldozing a home with a woman and a child inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians to enter one day earlier.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel has accused the army of repeatedly violating its own ethics code, and possibly international law, by impeding the evacuation of the sick and wounded and by endangering medical teams operating in Gaza.

A month-long investigation by the Guardian newspaper has compiled detailed evidence of war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive, including the use of Palestinian children as human shields. Medics and ambulance men were targeted when they tried to tend to the wounded, and sixteen were killed. The Guardian also cites evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft, "said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target."

Netanyahu's government will continue this campaign to destroy Gaza and to secure the permanent annexation of much of the West Bank to Israel. Labor's own fig leaf for participating in the coalition, Likud's agreement that it will work for peace with its neighbours and respect Israel's existing agreements, was exposed yesterday when it was revealed that Netanyahu has struck a secret deal with Lieberman to enable further settlement construction on the West Bank. Army Radio said that the plan to build on land known as E1 had been agreed upon, even though it did not appear in the official document relating to the coalition agreement.

The aim is to build 3,000 new homes starting from the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim so as to create contiguity between the settlement and Jerusalem, preventing Palestinian construction between East Jerusalem and Ramallah. The isolation of East Jerusalem, the putative capital of a Palestinian state, would make any agreement on the question of permanent borders impossible. Regarding Iran, the Jerusalem Post revealed on March 16 that the coalition agreement between Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu puts the fascistic Lieberman "in charge of Israel's strategic dialogue with the United States on issues such as Iran.... The joint American-Israel strategic dialogue committee is where key decisions are made regarding both countries' policies toward the emerging nuclear threat, and on other key strategic issues in meetings twice a year."

"Kadima officials were surprised by the appointment and said it proved more than ever that Netanyahu's government would be dominated by Lieberman," the Post commented.

The government will also be charged with a historically unprecedented assault on the living standards of the Israeli working class.

Fitch Ratings has said that Israel's economy will contract by 1.5 percent in 2009 and that its budget deficit will reach 7 percent. Israel's ratio of debt to gross domestic product could rise to 90 percent by the end of 2010 from 77 percent now and could potentially undermine Israel's creditworthiness.

The Bank of Israel has reported that the main index of economic indicators dropped for a seventh consecutive month in February, indicating "a continuation of the economy's drift toward a recession." This is translating into a steep growth in unemployment. In February almost 20,000 workers were laid off, the highest monthly increase in Israel's history, leading to a number of bitter labour disputes.

The situation now facing both the Israeli and Palestinian people poses grave dangers. The Zionist project of forging a nation-state in which the Jews of the world would supposedly find liberty, equality and social justice has failed. Established through the dispossession of the Palestinians, Israel has been maintained ever since through brutal wars and repression, while internally social divisions have become ever more acute.

Today, the state that was supposed to offer a home to the people who suffered the Holocaust is viewed as an international pariah and the perpetrator of obscene war crimes. It is ruled by a government that spans the official political spectrum and that is in a state of undeclared war with the majority of its own citizens. The only way forward is through the development of a new socialist and internationalist political movement to unite Arab and Jewish workers in a struggle against all the region's ruling elites and their imperialist backers and for the creation of a United Socialist States of the Middle East.

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Israeli troops detail Gaza atrocities as demand grows for war crimes probe

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 20:16:53 GMT

Israeli troops detail Gaza atrocities as demand grows for war crimes probe
By Bill Van Auken
21 March 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/isra-m21.shtml

The publication of testimony by Israeli soldiers detailing atrocities in which they participated or that they witnessed has lent further weight to the growing demands for an international war crimes tribunal to investigate the three-week Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip last December and January.

The testimony, published Thursday and Friday in the Israeli dailies Haaretz and Maariv, came from a group of soldiers and officers participating in a military training course at the Oranim Academic College in Tivon in February. The director of the program, Danny Zamir, invited them to discuss their experiences in Gaza. He recounted that he was "shocked" by what he heard, including reports of random shootings of unarmed civilians and generalized contempt for Palestinian life, and reported the matter to the Israeli Defense Forces command.

Now, weeks later, and with no indication that the IDF has carried out any serious investigation, the publication of sections of the discussion's transcript has triggered an uproar in Israel. The Israeli government has long promoted the myth that its army's conduct is based on a strict code of ethics and blamed the massive Palestinian casualties in Gaza—more than 1,400 killed—on Hamas, claiming that its fighters used the civilian population as "human shields."

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak reiterated this position in a radio interview Friday, declaring, "We have the most moral army in the world."

The atrocities testimony grabbed headlines in Israel at precisely the moment in which prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, of the right-wing Likud Party, is maneuvering to bring Barak, a leader in the Israeli Labor Party, into his cabinet, with the aim of giving his government a more "moderate" cast. The testimony, however, provides yet more evidence that Barak, who as defense minister directed the attack on Gaza, is guilty of war crimes.

The stories told by the soldiers who participated in Israel's Operation Cast Lead, however, provide a very different picture of the "morality" of the IDF. Several of them expressed frustration and remorse over the killing spree in Gaza.

A squad commander identified as "Aviv" testified on the orders his unit was given in occupying houses in the densely populated center of Gaza City. "We were supposed to go in with an armored personnel carrier called an Achzarit [literally, "cruel"] to burst through the lower door, to start shooting inside and then ... I call this murder ... in effect, we were supposed to go up floor by floor, and any person we identified—we were supposed to shoot."

Senior officers, he continued, argued that such actions were justified because anyone who had not fled the area was, by definition, a "terrorist."

"I didn't really understand," the squad commander continued. "On the one hand they don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault."

After he convinced his commanders to allow him to warn occupants of the houses to evacuate or be killed, he confronted opposition from soldiers in his unit. He recalled them telling him, "We need to murder any person who's in there," and "Any person who's in Gaza is a terrorist."

He said that the general attitude among the troops was that "inside Gaza you are allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no reason other than it's cool ... to write ‘death to Arabs' on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can."

Aviv recounted an incident in which a company commander spotted an old woman walking down the road. "In the end, he sent people on the roof, to take her out with their weapons ... I simply felt it was murder in cold blood."

Interrupted by the course director Zamir, who asked why she was shot, Aviv continued: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn't see any weapon. The order was to take the person out, that woman, the moment you see her."

Another soldier, "Ram," who was with an operations company in the Givati Brigade, told of occupying a house and holding the family that lived there prisoner for several days before being ordered to release them.

"There was a sharpshooters' position on the roof," he recalled. "The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go, and it was okay and he should hold his fire and he ... he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders." Ram added: "I don't think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to ... I don't know how to describe it ... the lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way."

The same soldier also testified on how the military prepared troops for the indiscriminate killing in Gaza by bringing in army rabbis who presented the siege of Gaza as a "religious mission."

"Their message was very clear," he said. "We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war."

The reporter who broke the story in Haaretz reported Friday that the military command had responded with an exercise in "damage control" that centered on an attempt to "witch hunt" the school director Zamir and intimidate the soldiers who had spoken out.

Haaretz carried another story Friday indicative of the "morality" of the IDF. It reported on T-shirts designed by a fabric-printing shop in Tel Aviv for Israeli army units, each with their own unit slogan and design.

"A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription ‘Better use Durex,' [referring to a brand of condoms], next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him," according to the report. "A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, ‘1 shot, 2 kills.'"

The reporter explained that the designs and slogans were chosen by soldiers after completing their training, but approved by their commanding officers.

On Thursday, as the transcripts of the soldiers' testimony was being published in Israel, the United Nations human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories issued a report declaring that Israel's siege of the densely populated Gaza Strip "would seem to constitute a war crime of the gravest magnitude under international law."

Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, described the Israeli campaign as a "massive assault on a densely populated urbanized setting" in which Gaza's entire civilian population had been subjected to "an inhumane form of warfare that kills, maims and inflicts mental harm."

Falk's report listed among Israel's war crimes the "targeting of schools, mosques and ambulances" and the use of white phosphorus shells (which cause horrific burns) in densely populated neighborhoods.

Falk added that the war on Gaza was not legally justified and therefore could constitute a "crime against peace," the principal charge against the Nazi leaders tried at Nuremberg.

In his report, Falk cited newly updated figures for casualties from the 22-day Gaza operation issued by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. The human rights group has compiled a list, including names, with a total of 1,417 victims. Among those killed, the rights group reports, were 926 civilians—including 313 children and 116 women—255 police officers and 236 Palestinian fighters. The total number of Israelis killed in the siege was 13, several of them by "friendly fire."

Given that Israel—like the United States—has refused to sign the Rome accords setting up the International Criminal Court, Falk suggested that the United Nations set up a special tribunal to consider charges.

Meanwhile, a group of 16 judges and legal scholars, many of them former members of tribunals formed to hear charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia, Darfur, Rwanda and East Timor, issued an open letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security Council Monday entitled "Find the truth about Gaza war." The letter called for the formation of an international commission to investigate violations of international humanitarian law "by both sides."

The letter declared, "The events in Gaza have shocked us to the core," and called for the commission to "provide recommendations as to the appropriate prosecution of those responsible for gross violations of the law."

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Netanyahu tapped as prime minister

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:59:24 GMT

Israel: Netanyahu tapped as prime minister
By Bill Van Auken
21 February 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/feb2009/isra-f21.shtml

Israel’s President Shimon Peres Friday called upon Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party to form a new government after a group of right-wing parties representing 65 seats in the Knesset backed his designation as prime minister.

Netanyahu, who previously held the prime minister post between 1996 and 1999, delivered an acceptance speech in which he charged Iran with seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and described it as “the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence.” He painted a bleak picture of Israel’s future, warning that the global economic crisis threatened to wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs.

He made no mention of negotiating a settlement with the Palestinians. In the past, Netanyahu has opposed any concessions aimed at furthering the so-called “two-state solution,” comparing a Palestinian state as a danger akin to the Nazis.

In 2005, Netanyahu resigned as Israel’s finance minister in protest over then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan to withdraw Israeli troops and settlements from the Gaza Strip. He has subsequently called for the “liquidation” of Gaza’s Hamas-led elected government.

The Likud leader appears to have emerged as the primary political beneficiary of an election held February 10 in the shadow of Israel’s 23-day blitzkrieg against the Gaza Strip, which claimed the lives of more than 1,300 Palestinians, a third of them children.

His Likud Party gained 27 seats in the 120-member Knesset, 1 less than the Kadima Party, led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Placing third was Yisrael Beitenu led by Avigdor Lieberman, a semi-fascist ex-nightclub bouncer from Russia who has advocated the forced expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel and suggested that Israel should conduct a nuclear attack on Gaza.

Peres tapped Netanyahu to form a government because of the backing he enjoyed from Lieberman and a bloc of right-wing religious parties. No other party represented in the Knesset indicated support for a Kadima-led government.

Yet in his speech, Netanyahu urged Kadima’s Livni and Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, to join him in forming a “broad national unity government.”

Lieberman conditioned his own support for Netanyahu on the formation of such a “national unity” government. His party, while pursuing a virulently racist policy towards the Palestinians, is opposed to the religious parties, whose support would be required for a hard-right coalition.

For her part, Livni rejected joining a Likud-led coalition together with the religious parties.

“Today the foundations were laid for an extremist right-wing government under the leadership of Netanyahu,” she told Kadima members. “We have not been elected to give legitimacy to this extreme right-wing government…and will head to the opposition.”

Nevertheless, she accepted Netanyahu’s invitation for talks Sunday on a possible coalition. Earlier, Kadima indicated it would have no problem forming a coalition with Lieberman’s semi-fascist party and with Likud itself, providing Kadima was in control. Kadima has also floated the idea of a rotating premiership, reprising a scheme utilized after the 1984 election, in which Labor’s Peres and Likud’s Yitzhak Shamir alternated in power.

Contradicting Livni’s vow to go into opposition, another leading Kadima member, Dalia Itzik, the speaker of the Knesset, came out in support of a coalition with Likud. "I hope we will now be able to form a broad government, in which Kadima will be a serious leader,” she said. “We didn't achieve so much in order to sit in opposition. I am the last one to say that I don't want a unity government.”

Similarly conflicting responses have come from the Labor Party, with sections of the media reporting that Barak is in favor of a grand coalition—in which he would presumably maintain his defense portfolio—while others in the party leadership argue that joining the government would spell the party’s death knell as it completes its protracted liquidation into the Israeli right. These elements advocate staying in the opposition in hopes of reaping the benefits of an anticipated breakdown of a Netanyahu government.

Palestinian representatives reacted with hostility to the choice of Netanyahu. Hamas, the ruling Islamist party in the Gaza Strip, said that Israel had picked its “most extremist and most dangerous” leader to head the new government. “Hamas doesn't differentiate between Netanyahu and Livni, they are all hostile toward the Palestinian people and they are all terrorists,” Hamas official Ismail Radwan told the Al-Jazeera news network.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank told the AFP news agency, “We will not deal with the Israeli government unless it accepts a two-state solution and accepts to halt settlements and to respect past accords.”

This would effectively rule out negotiation with any possible government as none of the leading Israeli parties— Kadima, Likud, Yisrael Beitenu or Labor—meets these qualifications. All of them supported the onslaught against the people of Gaza. All of them have defended Israel’s existing settlements in the occupied West Bank as well as the wall that has been imposed upon Palestinian territory there, and all of them have routinely broken past agreements.

Just two weeks ago, the Israeli military—of which Labor’s Barak is the titular civilian chief—designated 425 acres near a settlement south of Jerusalem as so-called state land, allowing it to be expropriated from the Palestinians for the building of more settlements and security corridors.

While Netanyahu proclaimed the results of the February 10 election as a decisive victory for the Israeli “right”—a term that has an increasingly indistinct meaning as the entire official political spectrum shifts rightward—he has no apparent enthusiasm for forming a government with the 65 Knesset members of the most right-wing and religious parties.

In large measure, this is out of concern that such a government—resting upon parties that explicitly reject any negotiations with the Palestinians—would create political friction between Israel and Washington, upon which the Zionist state is economically and politically dependent to the tune of more than $3 billion in military aid every year.

With the inclusion of Kadima and potentially Labor, the illusion that the Israeli state is committed to continued negotiations towards a “two-state solution” can be better maintained, even as it pursues right-wing militarist policies that preclude any meaningful negotiated settlement.

What is certain is that any coalition government patched together under the leadership of Netanyahu—or for that matter Livni, who clearly still hopes to out-maneuver the Likud leader over the next few weeks—will be one of extreme instability and crisis.

It will preside over continuing aggression against the Palestinians and neighboring states, as well as a deepening economic crisis, as Israel’s export markets in Europe and the US collapse, driving up unemployment and exacerbating the country’s already intense social inequality.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Hamas victory on the horizon!

ArabianPalestinian — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:00:08 GMT

In the name of the thousands of martyrs of Palestine who were murdered by the zioNazi terrorists!

Yes, just as happened in the summer of 2006 in Lebanon, the terrorist zioNazis are close to a beating in Ghaza.

I told you (in March 2008) this would happen if the bloody terrorist zioNazis ever did the stupidity of invading Ghaza by land:

http://freepalestine.tribe.net/thread/cdc79dc2-cce7-460c-ad78-44efa82c04d9

and now they did it. Already the zioNazi war machine has withdrawn, with its tail between its legs, from Khan Yunis in the south of the Ghaza Strip.

Yes, they have murdered hundreds and have used banned weapons and massacred and killed and destroyed and wiped out whole families in their genocidal war, but now looms their comeuppance. The zioNazi project is at the end of its life and the stupid zioNazi "jewish state" will eventually disappear.

When tribe.net censored my and my friends' posts that exposed the zioNazis and when they deleted our tribe (Free Palestine End Zionism) people said to re-create it, but we refused, and I did not bother to post on a zioNazi joke like this tribe.net for all these months. But for that pathetic act of lying censorship on the part of tribe.net I asked for one thing in return: the end of this terrorist "state of israel" and Hamas in Ghaza has started the ball rolling in that direction!

Look at the map. Ghaza looks like a gun pointing northwards towards the so-called "state of israel," and Ghaza will be the gun to finish off this terrorist crap of "israel" and save this planet from the vile zioNazis!

Victory to the Palestinian Resistance!

posted in Palestine - 14 replies

SOUTH AFRICA--Workers refuse to offload ship with Israeli goods

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:56:17 GMT

[Courtesy of anarkismo.org]

South Africa-Palestine: Victory for Worker Solidarity
Friday February 06, 2009 16:22
By Congress of South African Trade Unions - Palestine Solidarity Committee

6 February 2009

The Congress of South African Trade Unions is pleased to announce that its members, dock workers belonging to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) achieved a victory last night when they stood firm by their decision not to offload the Johanna Russ, a ship that was carrying Israeli goods to South Africa. This, despite threats to COSATU members from sections of the pro-Israeli lobby, and despite severe provocation.

The Johanna Russ, flying an Antigua flag, is owned by M. Dizengoff and Co., an established "pioneer of the modern era of shipping business in the Middle East" and shipping agent for the ironically named Zim Israel Navigation Company. (Ironic because, last year, the same SATAWU members refused to offload the Chinese ship An Yue Jiang, which was carrying arms and ammunition destined for Robert ugabe's army.)

The worker action last night took place despite attempted subterfuge on the part of the owners of the shipping company. There was an attempt to confound the plan by arriving earlier than originally scheduled, which was 8 February. Dates for the berthing of the Johanna Russ were changed constantly. Yesterday morning, SATAWU members were told that the ship would dock this morning (Friday) at 02:00. Thanks to the vigilance of the dock workers, SATAWU discovered that the ship had docked on Wednesday morning and was due to be offloaded last night at 21:00. But the vigilant workers were on guard and immediately they realised that it had docked, they then refused to handle it, despite pressures from management. SATAWU members maintained their refusal to offload the ship and also attempted to ensure that scab labour would not be used.

A few hours after berthing, at 23:00, the Johanna Russ sneaked out of the Durban Harbour.

From the beginning of this action, COSATU workers remained resolute about their position and were convinced that, following the recent Israeli massacres in Gaza, they will take determined action against Israel. Israel's terror included flagrant breaches of international law, the bombing of densely populated neighbourhoods, the illegal deployment of chemical white phosphorous, and attacks on schools, ambulances, relief agencies, hospitals, universities and places of worship.

COSATU has now decided to intensify its efforts in support of the struggles of the Palestinian people. The worker victory in Durban yesterday spurs COSATU members on to more determined action in order to isolate the Apartheid state of Israel. Other Cosatu unions are currently in discussion about how they might also give effect to Cosatu resolutions on boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including a refusal to handle Israeli goods, and continuing pressure on our government to sever diplomatic and trade relations
with Israel.

The momentum against apartheid Israel has become an irresistible force. We are proud to stand with the millions around the world who say `Enough is enough'. They are doing what we asked them to do when we faced the apartheid regime in our own country.

COSATU and the PSC call on all people of conscience to join us in boycotting Israeli products and institutions until a just, democratic state, with equal rights for all comes into existence in Palestine. This is just the beginning of a solidarity campaign which will continue until the demands of the Palestinian people have been won.

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Lebanese aid ship assaulted

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:03:35 GMT

Efforts to break the siege thwarted, Lebanese aid ship assaulted

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4708&Itemid=1

Gaza / PNN – As part of the maritime campaign of nonviolent resistance the Popular Committee against the Siege in Gaza was ready to greet a Lebanese boat carrying humanitarian supplies.

Instead of welcoming the ship, chairman of the committee and member of the Legislative Council, Jamal Al Khudari, called this afternoon for urgent international intervention to free the vessel and crew.

An Israeli aircraft flew overhead as a warship circled the Lebanese boat as it was en route to the Gaza port. Besides opening fire on the shores of the Strip the Israelis forced the aid shipment away from Gaza and into the Israeli port of Ashdod. The passengers are now being interrogated by Israeli forces.

Al Khudari said earlier that the lives of the crew were in danger after the Israelis destroyed the communication devices on board while the boat was still at sea.

“The voyage of the ship was nonviolent and legal,” said Al Khudari on Thursday. “It comes as part of our civil resistance.”

The Lebanese ship had been inspected in Cyprus with documentation proving that medical and relief aid are on board for the besieged Palestinian people.

Al Khudari sadi, “The occupation is trying to prevent the ship in order to deliver a message to the others that the gateway to Gaza is closed, that this method of breaking the siege is closed. This movement was strong in working to give freedom of movement to the Palestinian people.”

The independent Legislative Council member added that the Israeli practices and arbitrary measures confirm there is no intention to lift the blockade.

Al Khudari noted that the nonviolent resistance has struggled for over a year to lift the siege and will not stop now.

Five voyages have arrived in Gaza since August with just as many forced back.

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New Moderator

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:07:10 GMT

Hi everyone,

This group is in need of a new moderator to let new members in. I'm willing to do it. Tribe staff will make me moderator if people agree in this thread.

Thanks, Steven

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Israel bombs Gaza-Egypt border

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 08:04:48 GMT

Israel bombs Gaza-Egypt border
By Julie Hyland
29 January 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/gaza-j29.shtml

Israeli warplanes bombed Gaza's border with Egypt early Wednesday morning. The attack was reportedly in response to a remote-control bomb blast at a security fence in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, which killed an Israeli Defence Forces tracker and wounded three soldiers.

Later that day, the Israeli Air Force fired a missile at a Palestinian militant, Hussein Abu-Shamaya, as he rode his motorbike. A Palestinian farmer was also reported to have been killed when Israeli Defence Forces troops opened fire after the bomb attack.

The assault underscores that, as far as Israel is concerned, the unilateral cease-fire it announced last week means it can resume its incursions into the Gaza Strip as and when it likes.

The cease-fire was implemented following the "Memorandum of Understanding" signed by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and outgoing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Focusing on a pledge of US assistance in ending arms smuggling over the Egypt-Gaza border, the memorandum effectively made safeguarding Israeli security by the US and the "international community" a precondition for any resumption of talks on a Palestinian state and gave carte blanche for Israel to resume attacks on Gaza at any time.

Livni declared then, "It is true that even after the fighting ends, we reserve our right to act to defend ourselves against those activities in Gaza, including weapons smuggling and build-up of military capabilities." Appearing before the New York-based World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem on Wednesday, she spoke in the same spirit. "Israel is going to act according to a new equation. We are not going to show restraint anymore," she said. "We need to change the rules of the game until they learn that the rules have changed and the equation has changed."

Livni's remarks were made as the Obama administration dispatched former Senator George Mitchell to the Middle East for negotiations with Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

European Union chief Javier Solana also arrived in the Middle East Tuesday for talks. On Monday, the EU announced emergency aid worth more than $70 million to help rebuild Gaza in the wake of Israel's 22-day bombardment, which killed 1,300 and wounded thousands more.

The EU is the largest global donor to the Palestinians, but its aid pledge comes with strings attached. EU foreign ministers meeting on Sunday with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority made clear that aid delivery depended on the formation of a "consensus" government in Gaza, which means that Hamas must accepts the leading role of Fatah and adopt its stance towards Israel.

"We believe that Palestinian reconciliation behind President Mahmoud Abbas is fundamental to progress," said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency.

Speaking on a tour of Gaza, EU humanitarian aid chief Louis Michel claimed that Hamas bore "overwhelming responsibility" for the devastation of Gaza and warned there would be no dialogue with the "terrorist" movement until it gave up violence and recognised Israel.

EU offers border patrols
Fatah has insisted that rebuilding monies should go through its Palestinian National Authority. PNA Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki said, "There is only one Palestinian National Authority. It is solely legitimate, chosen by the people and headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, and that authority not only has authority in the West Bank, but also has authority in the Gaza Strip."

In truth, Fatah has little authority in Gaza, especially after it stood by while Israel bombarded the strip. But some European leaders hope that Hamas, with Arab pressure and the promise of aid, could be made to cede to Fatah.

Egypt is currently brokering talks to this end. Talks were held between a Hamas delegation and Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman on Sunday. Afterwards, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he hoped a February 28 international donors' conference on Palestinian reconstruction would facilitate a "government of national reconciliation."

Urging the EU to move quickly on its pledges, he said, "We need to force the Israelis to negotiate and also tell them to open crossings and to give Palestinians a chance to live in a normal way."

Israel has continued to refuse to deal with Hamas. During discussions on January 21, Livni told EU ministers that "what is needed is a coalition against terror and not something that ends by an agreement with them."

Both Israel and Egypt continue to block all but the most essential supplies into the Gaza Strip. Cassandra Nelson of the relief agency Mercy Corps said an EU grant last year to create jobs in light construction had to be amended because cement and steel rods could not be imported. The imposition of similar rules would prevent any effective rebuilding of the territory.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that "truckloads of humanitarian aid are sitting in Egypt," unable to cross the border due to Israeli and Egyptian restrictions.

Israel insists that Egypt must effectively police its border with Gaza, especially the tunnels.

The US is currently engaged in navy patrols of the Red Sea to prevent weapons smuggling and has also sent the Army Corps of Engineers to the Egyptian Sinai desert with advanced machinery to help locate tunnels on the Gaza border. Egyptian troops have been undergoing training with the equipment in Texas.

The EU has also said it will expand its monitors on the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which was closed in 2007. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier committed five German border experts to help patrol the crossing, and several European countries, including France and Britain, have offered naval vessels to patrol the Red Sea.

Egypt has so far formally ruled out the stationing of foreign powers on its soil. Referring to the Israeli-US Agreement, Foreign Minister Gheit said the two countries can "do what they wish with regard to the sea or any other country in Africa," but "when it comes to Egyptian land, we are not bound by anything except the safety and national security of the Egyptian people and Egypt's ability to protect its borders."

Calls for European "clout"
There is growing dissatisfaction within ruling circles over Europe's tail-ending of Washington in the Middle East. Writing in the Guardian, former Conservative Party chairman and European Commissioner Chris Patten opined, "If Europe is to write more cheques," it should "insist on some political movement."

"It is time to question Europe's historic role of financing the failure of policies laid down in Israel and the US," Patten suggested, calling for support for a Palestinian unity government.

Toby Vogel, on EuropeanVoice.com, complained that the "EU's Middle East policy appears indistinguishable from that of the US."

"It may be the main backer of the Palestinian authority and the leading supplier of humanitarian aid to Gaza, but that has not translated into real diplomatic clout."

France especially has been attempting to mark out a more assertive European stance in recent weeks, utilising the period of transition from the Bush presidency to Obama. President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he intends to host an international conference in Paris in the coming months to "advance stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks."

On Tuesday, Sarkozy met with the father of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit—who holds dual Israeli-French citizenship—at the Elysee Palace. Sarkozy had invited Noam Shalit to Paris during his visit to Israel last week to update him on the "latest developments in the diplomatic efforts to secure his son's release."

According to reports, France had pressed the EU foreign ministers meeting for a resolution that would have enabled the reopening of the Israeli-Gaza crossing points without the presence of Fatah representatives.

Haaretz correspondent Barak Ravid reported that Israel, which regarded it as a softening of the EU line on the exclusion of Hamas, had brought "intense diplomatic pressure" to bear to block the move.

"The Czech Republic, the current holder of the EU presidency, together with Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, worked together to push the French initiative off the agenda," he reported.

The meeting also ruled out a call from Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb for the EU to consider revising its ban on direct talks with Hamas, which it, following the US, has so far proscribed as a terrorist organisation.

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Washington bears guilt for Gaza war crimes

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:44:37 GMT

Washington bears guilt for Gaza war crimes
29 December 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/pers-d29.shtml

The Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza is a war crime for which not only the government of Israel but also that of the United States bears full responsibility.

The relentless bombing campaign, which in its first 48 hours has left at least 300 dead and 1,000 wounded, is a deliberate slaughter of innocent civilians and an act of state terror. The toll of casualties, many of them women and children, is certain to rise. As Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenaz put it, "This is only the beginning."

The pretense that this assault is an act of retaliation for the recent scattered rocket attacks that have been carried out against Israeli territory from inside Gaza is preposterous. Israel, with the collaboration of Washington, has been preparing the current bombing campaign and threatened ground assault for months, under the cover of the supposed cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas-led administration.

"These people are nothing but thugs," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe, who insisted that Israel was only acting to "defend itself" against "terrorists."

This is the official story that is largely echoed by the mass media and endorsed by the leadership of the Democratic Party.

Few bother to point out that not a single Israeli was killed by the homemade rockets that supposedly justified Israel launching its Gaza bombardments and killing 300 (one Israeli died in a rocket attack afterwards.) Such a disproportionate response is hardly an aberration. During the last eight years, barely a score of Israelis have died in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza. During the same period, Israeli forces have killed nearly 5,000 Palestinians.

Nor is there much concern over the fact that Israel chose to launch its bombing in the most crowded and desperately poor urban area on the face of the earth precisely at the hour that schoolchildren were making their way home. Under these conditions, ritualistic US statements urging Israel to "avoid civilian casualties" amount to mocking the victims.

Having maligned an entire people as "thugs," the White House has given the green light for a bloodbath. More importantly, it has provided the indispensable resources for carrying out this crime, assuring Israel more than $3 billion a year in US military aid and supplying the IDF with the deadly tools of its trade—F-16 fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters, TOW and Hellfire missiles and the fuel and spare parts needed to keep them in operation.

The dispatches from inside Gaza provide a graphic accounting of what Washington got for its arms and money.

Safa Joudeh, a freelance journalist in Gaza City, writes: "There were piles and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you looked at them you could see that a few of the young men were still alive, someone lifts a hand, and another raises his head. They probably died within moments because their bodies were burned, most had lost limbs, some of their guts were hanging out and they were all lying in pools of blood."

Ewa Jasiewicz reports from Gaza: "We saw a bearded man, on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care unit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting downwards. A spasm coherent with a spinal chord injury. Would he ever walk again or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six months, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to show us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was making stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds."

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz carried a report from its correspondent on the scene: "Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue, screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent."

The New York Times, hardly known for its sympathy for the Palestinians, acknowledged: "Still, there was a shocking quality to Saturday's attacks, which began in broad daylight as police cadets were graduating, women were shopping at the outdoor market, and children were emerging from school.

"The center of Gaza City was a scene of chaotic horror, with rubble everywhere, sirens wailing, and women shrieking as dozens of mutilated bodies were laid out on the pavement and in the lobby of Shifa Hospital so that family members could identify them. The dead included civilians, including several construction workers and at least two children in school uniforms."

This is not self-defense; it is premeditated mass murder. The aim of the "shock and awe" campaign, as the assault on Gaza is widely described in Israel, is similar to that conducted by the US against Iraq—regime change.

Neither the Zionist regime nor Washington accepted the victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian election—hailed by the Bush administration (before the results were known) as part of a flowering of democracy in the Middle East wrought by American militarism.

In response, the US and its Israeli ally did their best to provoke a Palestinian civil war and military coup and, when this proved ineffective in ousting Hamas from power in Gaza, subjected the territory's one-and-a-half million people to relentless collective punishment. They imposed a siege that choked off supplies of food, medicine, potable water and electricity, condemning masses of people to poverty, unemployment, hunger and disease. The present killing represents a qualitative escalation of this merciless policy of making life for the people of Gaza so intolerable that the Hamas regime would fall.

The New York Times Sunday gave a concise analysis of the real relationship between the Israeli blockade and the rocket attacks from Gaza. The siege, it stated, had led to "the near death of the Gazan economy," adding, "While enough food has gone in to avoid starvation, the level of suffering is very high and getting worse every week."

Hamas had entered a cease-fire with Israel in a bid to reopen trade and alleviate this suffering. While the rocket attacks, supposedly Israel's main concern, fell "dramatically in the fall to 15 to 20 a month from hundreds a month," the Times noted, "Israel said it would not permit trade to begin again because the rocket fire had not completely stopped..." It was this intransigence that led to the collapse of the Israeli-Hamas cease-fire.

From the outset, Israeli actions have been motivated not by concerns for security, but rather by political aims. In the first instance, there is the desire to oust the Hamas administration in Gaza. Also in play are the desires of the Zionist establishment and military to offset the humiliation they suffered in Lebanon in 2006.

For Washington, support for and direct complicity in Israeli war crimes is bound up with a wider strategic policy of creating a new order in the Middle East, one designed to assure undisputed US domination of the region and its oil wealth. Israel represents the junior partner in this bloody venture and is allowed to satisfy its aggressive appetites because they are seen as furthering US imperialist interests.

Regime change in Gaza is viewed by US policymakers as a steppingstone to similar changes elsewhere, particularly in Syria and Iran. Indeed, the unfolding events in Gaza foreshadow a broader intervention in the Middle East and the threat of a new war against Iran.

It is not, it must be noted, merely a question of the US and Israel. The assault on Gaza has enjoyed the direct or tacit support of the Arab bourgeois regimes, in the first instance that of Egypt, which has set up machineguns on its border with Gaza to shoot down fleeing Palestinians. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has likewise offered justifications for Israel's crimes.

The Bush administration has pursued its policy in the Middle East with relentless violence for the past eight years. There is no indication, however, that it will fundamentally change with the transfer of the White House to President-elect Barack Obama in less than a month.

Obama has maintained a discreet silence on Gaza, while consulting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from his vacation home in Hawaii. His aides have complacently insisted that there is "one president at a time" and it would be inappropriate for the advocate of "change we can believe in" to voice an opinion on the slaughter being carried out with US-supplied warplanes, bombs and missiles.

Elements of the Zionist establishment in Israel have voiced suspicion about Obama's policies, and there have been some suggestions that his approaching January 20 inauguration may have played a role in the timing of the Israeli assault.

It strains credulity, however, that Israel would have carried out its actions without prior consultations not only with the Bush administration, but with the Obama camp as well. Rather than trying to push through its Gaza attack out of fear of a less sympathetic environment in Washington after Obama enters the White House, it is far more likely that the Israeli government was doing Obama a favor by carrying out a crime that he supported before he had to take public responsibility for it.

The reality is that the Democratic president-elect has sworn to maintain US support for Israel and has repeatedly defended Israel's "right to self-defense," including during its criminal war against Lebanon in 2006 and in regard to its repeated attacks on Gaza. He has likewise promised to maintain the US pledge of $30 billion in arms aid to Israel over the next decade.

Those he has chosen as his top aides—the congressman and former Israeli citizen Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff and his former presidential rival Hillary Clinton as secretary of state—are known for having criticized the Bush administration for being insufficiently supportive of Israeli aggression.

During the election campaign last summer, Obama made a trip to the southern Israeli town of Sderot, which had been a target of rocket attacks from Gaza, to provide an explicit justification for the kind of assault now being waged.

"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that," Obama said during the visit. "And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing." He uttered not a word of sympathy for the Palestinians and gave no indication of what actions he expected from parents in Gaza who have watched their children torn to pieces by US-supplied bombs and missiles.

Meanwhile, Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issued a statement providing an explicit endorsement of the Israeli bombing campaign. "When Israel is attacked," she said, "the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally."

The response of Obama and the Democrats to the ongoing atrocity in Gaza represents a stark warning. Far from representing a last gasp of militarist aggression on the part of the lame duck Bush administration, the assault on Gaza is an indication of the shape of things to come.

The coming to office of the new Democratic administration will not spell an end to the crimes associated with US imperialism, but rather their continuation. Driven by the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression, American militarism will play an ever more prominent role in Washington's desperate struggle against its rivals for the domination of dwindling markets and vital resources.

The struggle against war and the fight to hold accountable the authors of war crimes from Iraq to Gaza can be advanced only through the independent mobilization of the working class in a new mass political movement based upon a socialist program.

Bill Van Auken

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Ongoing shift to the right in Israeli politics

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:54:13 GMT

Livni’s election and the ongoing shift to the right in Israeli politics
By Jean Shaoul
26 September 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/isra-s26.shtml

Tzipi Livni, foreign secretary in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima-Labour coalition government, narrowly won the vote for the leadership of the Kadima party after her predecessor was forced to resign over mounting allegations of corruption.

Livni has been presented almost universally by the media as a candidate untainted by corruption, someone who can restore faith in Israeli politics and the best chance of securing a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. In reality the entire Kadima election contest, Livni’s own politics and the broader situation in Israel heralds a further rightward shift within ruling circles, escalating the danger of a Middle East war and presaging explosive class conflicts in Israel itself.

With a bitterly divided party, Livni now faces the daunting task of uniting Kadima under her leadership and persuading all its coalition partners to accept her as prime minister. She has six weeks to try to form a government. Should she fail to do so, then a general election must be called within three months. That, on the basis of opinion polls, would result in a victory for Benyamin Netanhayu’s Likud party.

Despite tendering his resignation, Olmert remains for the meantime as caretaker prime minister.

Whatever happens regarding the formation of a new government, three main political parties, Kadima, Labour and Likud, are united on the fundamental issues: a state based upon religious exclusivity that operates in the interests of a narrow financial elite committed to expansionism, militarism and the suppression of the Palestinians and its own working class, and which survives courtesy of its sponsor in Washington.

President Shimon Peres, the architect of the Oslo Accords who renounced his long-term membership of the Labour Party in 2005 to join Sharon and his Kadima party, but has since jumped ship, greeted Olmert’s formal resignation as prime minister with nothing but praise for the corrupt politician.

“I respect the dignified manner in which [Olmert] is transferring authority,” Peres said. “This is not an easy decision, and I am sure it was not a simple thing for him to do.” He thanked the outgoing prime minister “for his service to the nation and state during many years of public activity, as mayor of Jerusalem, government minister and prime minister.”

“Israel’s security and the well-being of its citizens stood at the centre of the prime minister’s activity,” he continued. He rejected the assertion that the current government was not among the “country’s greatest,” describing Olmert in a radio interview as “one of the best prime ministers that there has been.”

Peres then said he intended to begin meeting immediately with the heads of various Knesset factions in order to set a date for forming a new government and a timetable for Olmert’s gradual departure from office. “Israel faces serious, complex challenges to its security, economy and society. All of these demand continuity of leadership,” the president said.

Livni’s political history gives some indication of the character of any government that might be formed under her leadership. The 50-year-old comes from an ultra-right-wing family. Her parents were fighters in the Irgun, the terrorist organisation responsible for atrocities against the Palestinians—most notably Deir Yassin—and the British in the 1940s and the precursor of today’s Likud party. For two years, Livni herself was an agent of Mossad, Israel’s notorious secret service that specialises in kidnappings, assassinations and skulduggery in the interests of the Zionist state and on behalf of Western imperialism.

She worked as a lawyer before entering the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, as a member of Likud in 1999 after its then leader Benyamin Netanyahu had done his best to torpedo the Oslo agreement that was supposed to have established a Palestinian state and thus end the long-running conflict.

Livni was a fervent supporter of Ariel Sharon, whose provocative actions in September 2000 precipitated the last Palestinian uprising and the subsequent savage military repression by Israel. She joined Sharon’s cabinet in 2001 when he won the elections. She supported his dismemberment of the Palestinian Authority, the isolation and virtual imprisonment of PLO leader and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, the expansion of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the building of the militarised “Security Wall” that has grabbed much of the best land for Israel.

In 2005, she supported Sharon’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza, aimed at securing Washington’s support for Israeli expansion in the West Bank. She was one of the first to quit the Likud and with Olmert join Sharon’s breakaway Kadima party. For this, she was rewarded with the third place on the Kadima list that ensured her re-election to the Knesset in the 2006 elections.

When Olmert was appointed caretaker prime minister in the wake of Sharon’s stroke that left him in a coma in January 2006, and Kadima later won the largest number of seats in the already scheduled elections, he appointed her foreign secretary in his Kadima-Labour coalition cabinet.

Despite the attempts to portray her as a dove, she has firmly resisted any measures that will ease Israel’s relations with the Palestinians or pave the way for a Palestinian entity. She supported Israel’s war in 2006 against Hamas in Gaza, its threats against Iran and attacks on Syria.

She incurred the wrath of Israel’s far right over her position on the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, when she called for a negotiated ceasefire and the deployment of an international force in South Lebanon to keep the peace. Her attempts to reach a deal with Syria are also vehemently opposed by the far right, which refuses to cede an inch of territory conquered in the 1967 war.

Far from being a peace move, however, the purpose of the deal is to secure an end to Syria’s close relationship with Iran and its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. This would serve to isolate Iran diplomatically in the event of an assault by Israel, with US backing. Alternatively such a deal would force Iran to accept US hegemony in the region.

In May last year, Livni called for Olmert’s resignation in the wake of the publication of the Winograd Commission’s interim report into the handling of the disastrous Summer 2006 war against Lebanon and challenged him to a leadership contest if he did not. Despite this, she stayed on in his cabinet when he refused to resign.

Insofar as she counts as a dove within official Israeli politics, this is because she does not espouse the transfer of the Palestinian population out of Israel and the occupied territories as some right-wing politicians do.

She has led the talks with the Palestinians and favours a two-state solution to the Palestinian question, but on terms that are totally unacceptable to the Palestinian people—a policy many Israeli politicians would prefer to openly jettison were it not for Washington’s need to maintain the support of its Arab allies in its pursuit of the region’s oil resources.

The Kadima leadership election in which Livni squeaked into first place was precipitated by Olmert’s resignation. He had been a lame duck prime minister ever since Israel’s defeat by Hezbollah in 2006. His political standing was further compromised by the recent humiliating exchange of hundreds of prisoners for the bodies of the two soldiers who were the official pretext for the war.

Olmert’s name is, in addition, synonymous with graft and corruption going back to the 1970s and particularly during his period as mayor of Jerusalem in 1993-2003. He has been dogged by corruption scandals since coming to power in 2006 and is currently facing investigation into six separate incidents. Recent polls showed that he had approval ratings of only 14 percent and three out of five Israelis thought he should resign. Half of those polled considered him corrupt.

Livni’s main opponent in the leadership contest was Shaul Mofaz, deputy prime minister and transport minister in Olmert’s cabinet. A career soldier, he had been appointed chief of the general staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in 1996 during Netanyahu’s premiership. Mofaz predicted that Israel’s policies would provoke a response from the Palestinians and prepared the IDF for intense guerrilla warfare in the West Bank and Gaza.

He was responsible for the brutal and aggressive tactics against the Palestinians that included house demolitions, detentions and targeted assassinations following the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada. According to a book by two Israeli journalists, Mofaz gave orders to kill 70 Palestinian militants per day. He oversaw the military offensive in Jenin in April 2002, raids in the Gaza Strip, and the continued isolation of Yasser Arafat.

When Mofaz left the IDF in 2002, he joined the Likud party and almost immediately became defence minister under Sharon. Mofaz’s support for an agreement with the Palestinians presupposed the “liquidation” of Arafat and the elimination of any opposition to Israel from militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. He was reappointed as defence minister after the 2003 elections, even though his recent position in the IDF disqualified him from seeking election to the Knesset in the elections.

Initially, Mofaz rejected Sharon’s invitation to join his new party, Kadima, in November 2005 and instead announced his candidacy for the leadership of Likud. But he soon withdrew from both the leadership race and the Likud to join Kadima.

He is one of the most bellicose members of the Olmert government against Iran. Last June he said that “if Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective. Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable.”

This was the most explicit threat against Iran from a member of the Israeli government and one which, if carried out, would plunge the whole region into war. Mofaz also said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “would disappear before Israel does.”

Mofaz’s remarks came as he and several other senior members of the Kadima Party were preparing for a leadership contest in the event of Olmert being forced to step down. In his bid for the Kadima leadership, he courted the most right-wing elements both within and outside the party. It s a measure of just how right-wing Kadima is that Mofaz lost by just 431 votes to Livni. She won 16,936 votes over his 16,505 on a low turnout.

Kadima, little more than the personal vehicle for Sharon’s political ambitions and those of a small coterie around him, is bitterly divided and the narrowness of her victory leaves Livni in a weak position.

After at first indicating that he would seek a recount, citing election irregularities, Mofaz conceded defeat and, rather than serve under Livni, quit the government. Another deputy prime minister, Haim Ramon, a former Labourite who defected to Kadima in 2005, is thought to be on the point of leaving Kadima.

Livni had hoped to persuade Olmert to declare himself temporarily incapacitated,which would have automatically made her acting prime minister for 100 days, but to no avail.

To survive, she needs the support of at least 61 members of parliament, which means making sordid backroom deals with the right-wing forces that she purports to oppose. She has appealed to all the existing partners in the coalition to remain under her leadership and invited other parties to join, including the Likud party—an offer Netanyahu immediately rejected.

At the moment, Livni has the support of Meretz, the left of centre party, and eight members of the Pensioners Party, a total of 38 members. The survival of the coalition depends, therefore, upon Labour’s continuing support. Here, Livni has already run into difficulties.

Labour leader Ehud Barak has repeatedly called for an emergency unity government with Kadima and Likud. When Netanyahu refused to countenance that, Barak and the Labour party forced Kadima to get rid of Olmert in order to forestall an early election.

Even after her election, Barak pointedly snubbed Livni and met first with Likud leader Netanyahu, who controls 12 seats in the Knesset, to see if he could work out a power sharing Likud-Labour government.

Netanyahu, for his part, has also held talks with the ultranationalist and religious parties to seek their agreement for an immediate general election.

Barak’s price for remaining in the Kadima coalition includes changes to the recently agreed 2009 budget, Livni’s agreement not to call an election before 2010, the removal of the justice minister, Daniel Friedmann, whose judicial reforms Labour has opposed, and the scrapping of his proposals.

Another coalition partner is Shas, the largest ultra-orthodox party, which has 12 seats in the Knesset and represents impoverished Sephardi Jews from North Africa and the Middle East. It has demanded the restoration of child allowances for large families that form the basis of its support, an end to any deal with the Palestinians based upon some limited sharing of Jerusalem as their capital and no curbs on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Nearly all the ultranationalist and religious parties have indicated their support for an early election.

Whether Livni is able to form a new government or a general election is called, working people in Israel face the domination of an even more right-wing regime than the present one.

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New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:20:01 GMT

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate [oil pipeline] interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama and McCain are proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO THE BIPARTISAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN!!!!

NO TO OBAMA and MCCAIN'S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

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Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:03:47 GMT

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

By Steven Argue

In a July 14, 2008 New York Times Op Ed, Barack Obama says:

"As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."

In other words, he does not plan to get all of the troops out of Iraq and he will only get most of the troops out in two years. And what does he explain he will do with these troops? Redeploy them. Redeployed where? His rhetoric has been clear: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

Obama goes on to call for a surge in Afghanistan as well as war in Pakistan:

"Ending the war [in Iraq] is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan [...] As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters [...]"

U.S. intervention has also been very bad for the people of Pakistan. It is US intervention that has kept a long series of dictators in power there. The US has no right to intervene against those fighting that dictatorship that it labels "terrorists". Likewise, it is US intervention in support of a long series of Pakistani dictators that is the cause of Bhutto's death, brutal repression against the majority, exploitation, and poverty, all of which has resulted in rebellion against the Pakistani government. The US has already harmed the Pakistani people enough with massive aid to dictators and would do more harm by sending in troops.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROPOSED MILITARY INTERVENTION IN PAKISTAN!

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama is proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO OBAMA”S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

In addition, at AIPAC, Obama’s speech laid the groundwork for war with Iran:

“The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. [...] The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

A war on a major oil producing nation under the imperialist excuse of weapons of mass destruction. Sound familiar? Bush would have a good case for a charge of plagiarism against Obama.

And what will the Iranians think of more imperialist intervention?

In 1953 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and put the brutal dictatorship of the Shah in power. Mossadegh had plans to nationalize the Iranian oil fields, a plan that would have taken a good chunk of the oil profits out of the private control of major international oil companies. Such nationalizations have greatly helped people in other countries, such as Venezuela, where oil wealth is used to better the conditions of the poor and provide needed programs like healthcare.

The CIA sponsored overthrow of the Mossadegh government paved the way for 26 years of dictatorship under the U.S. backed Shah. Freedom of speech did not exist under the Shah, and the CIA participated in the torture of political opponents to the Shah. Meanwhile, U.S. oil corporations made massive profits from Iranian oil while the vast majority of the Iranian people lived in extreme poverty and did not benefit from the oil wealth.

The Iranian people rightly saw the Shah as a puppet of U.S. imperialism, and finally overthrew his dictatorship in 1979. Unfortunately, repression was so bad under the Shah that the only place that people could organize opposition was in the Mosques. This gave the Mullahs a tremendous advantage in taking control of the revolution. The Islamic nature of the revolution led to a deterioration of women's rights and socialists, many of whom had naively supported the Islamic Revolution, were executed by the clerical fascist state.

Despite the brutal nature of the new Iranian government, in that respect the same as the old regime the U.S. had supported, the U.S. was not satisfied. The new regime nationalized the Iranian oil fields under government control. In addition, the new government was full of anti-imperialist rhetoric and took American hostages; a natural result of 26 years of U.S. imposed dictatorship and exploitation. The U.S. government hated the Iranian revolution most for nationalizing the oil, and they feared that the Iranian Revolution may become an influence for similar anti-imperialist revolutions in the region.

As a result, the U.S. encouraged then ally, Saddam Hussein, to send Iraqi troops to invade Iran. During the war, the U.S. armed both sides, but most armed Iraq and provided Iraq with military intelligence. The Iraqi invasion of Iran began on September 22, 1980 and the war continued until 1988. As a result of the war, between half million and a million and a half people died. This U.S. support to Iraq also helped enable Iraq to murder between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign of 1988. At the time, the U.S. corporate media was silent about this crime, and only exposed it later when U.S. alliances changed.

So U.S. intervention against Iran imposed decades of dictatorship, repression, war, exploitation, poverty, and, just in the Iran-Iraq war alone, the deaths of around a million Iranian people. Like Iraq, U.S. troops on the ground in Iran will not be treated as liberators.

The Iranian working class has many scores to settle with their Iranian rulers, but as bad as the current regime in Iran is, Iranians need only look across the border into Iraq to see that U.S. occupation will be much worse. War, a puppet capitalist regime, a million dead, torture, millions of refugees, and an occupier mainly interested in privatization to loot resources. As Iraq shows, there is no liberation at the hands of U.S. occupation. And as the CIA’s Shah showed; there is no liberation under a U.S. imposed puppet. Only anti-imperialist socialist revolution can begin to solve the problems faced by women, ethnic minorities, and the working class of Iran.

NO TO OBAMA’S THREATS AGAINST IRAN!

U.S. HANDS OFF IRAN!

On Iraq, Obama has never promised to fully withdraw. In a debate in September 2007, when asked if he would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013 Barack Obama said "I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out." ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07).

The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal.

In addition, Obama has directly supported the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq by voting in the Senate to fund it. If it were not for the Democrat votes in congress, the recent $162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have never passed.

This most recent New York Times Op Ed from Obama continues on with a pro-war position. Obama is clear. He wants a gradual redeployment of the majority of troops to fight other wars while calling for continuing to keep some troops fighting in Iraq.

On Blackwater mercenaries fighting in Iraq, Obama also refuses to support a ban, and promised to continue to use Blackwater when he becomes president (Democracy Now!, June 2, 2008).

The US government has no right to be in Iraq murdering, torturing, and humiliating their people while making massive profits for the military industry and other contractors. The U.S. is attempting to privatize Iraqi oil to eliminate Iraqi control over this most important resource and give U.S. and British oil companies control over the oil. The puppet government the US has set up is a death squad government that should not be protected by U.S. troops. Continued occupation of Iraq is a continued attempt to subvert the national will of the Iraqi people and it must end immediately, yet Obama's plan is to only leave, partially, after a couple years, and this, assuredly, only after the oil law has been passed and oil ownership handed over to the multi-nationals. This, as Obama's own use of the term "redeployment" indicates, will free U.S. troops up for other oil wars.

NO TO OBAMA’S “PHASED REDEPLOYMENT”!

U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!

U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD!

Another major cause for war in the Middle East is U.S. military support to the racist regime in Israel. Obama promises to continue this practice. At AIPAC Obama promised:

“Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO.”

This despite Israel’s recent war of aggression against Lebanon, a war that, if it were not for the heroic resistance of Hezbollah fighters, would have ended in another Israeli occupation like Israel’s brutal occupation of Lebanon that took place in the 1980’s. That occupation included crimes against humanity committed by Israeli and allied Christian Phalangists when they massacred thousands of Palestinians in cold-blood at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps.

In addition, Obama’s speech made no reference to the suffering faced by the Palestinian people as a result of the creation and continuation of the Jewish state. Israel is a state that created a homeland for one people, through force and violence, by denying the homeland of Palestine’s original inhabitants. Also missing from Obama’s speech was the brutal blockade currently being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza. Obama expressed zero sympathy for the Palestinians and other Arabs, only promises to supply Israel with the weapons to kill more Arabs.

Massive U.S. military aid helps keep the repressive governments of Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in power. Instead of promising more U.S. military aid, that aid should be cut off to better allow the people of the Middle East to decide their own future.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROMISE OF BILLIONS TO ISRAEL!

Another indicator of where Obama stands on imperialist war is how he sees the past wars of the United States. Of H. W. Bush and his war on Iraq Obama recently stated, "I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm." (Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008)

Leading up to that war, Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi Ramaila oil fields. Iraq saw this as theft. In addition, the Kuwaiti monarchy went against OPEC quotas and increased oil production by 40%, bringing down the price of oil on the world market, something Saddam Hussein called economic warfare.

Before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was, at that time an ally of the United States in the wars against Iran and the Kurds. He had received massive U.S. military backing in those wars. When he assembled troops on the Kuwaiti border, US ambassador April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein and told him, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

Saddam Hussein saw this as a green light from his powerful U.S. ally to invade Kuwait. Soon after, he did.

But Saddam Hussein was set up by the United States because the U.S. wanted a war. The reason for this was to prop up the profits of the military industrial complex. The Soviet Union had just fallen, and the military industries needed an excuse to keep spending billions of dollars of our tax dollars on the military.

Saddam Hussein was the perfect boogie-man to meet their needs. The U.S. corporate media pointed out that he had murdered tens of thousands of Kurds, never mentioning why they were silent when the operations were taking place with weapons supplied by the United States.

The U.S. corporate media also claimed that premature babies in Kuwait had been taken out of incubators and left to die so that the incubators could be shipped back to Baghdad. The whole story was a complete fabrication, and the corporate media even admitted it after the war, but the lie served its purpose in swaying many people who otherwise questioned going to war for the repressive Kuwaiti monarchy.

In addition, President H.W. Bush claimed as reason for war, "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression." This was based on supposed Pentagon satellite photos. Yet, from commercial satellite photos acquired by the St. Petersburg Times, this was proven to be a lie, the desert Bush senior and the Pentagon referred to was nothing but empty desert.

While playing up false stories of baby killers and the new Hitler that was going to march across the Middle East, the U.S. corporate media ignored Kuwait’s theft of Iraqi oil as well the historic claim of Iraq to Kuwait, with Kuwait being a construct of British imperialism to divide the territory and limit Iraqi access to the sea.

In addition, the U.S. corporate media completely ignored the repressive nature of the Kuwaiti monarchy that U.S. troops were sent to fight and die for. The vast majority of those living in Kuwait were denied the right to vote and other more basic rights. This included women and people labeled foreigners, many of whom had been in Kuwait for generations. Some who had ancestors in Kuwait prior to 1920 were even denied Kuwaiti citizenship. Palestinian workers built modern Kuwait, but they were kept in second class status. This situation was so bad that many Palestinians aided the Iraqi troops and saw them as a liberation army. After the U.S. re-installed the monarchy, most Kuwaiti Palestinians were driven out of Kuwait.

For women in Kuwait the Iraqi invasion also brought hope. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Under Saddam Hussein, over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They were allowed to drive. Iraqi women could even freely criticize men. In addition, Iraqi women had the right to work and control their own funds. This was in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive monarchy of Kuwait where women had / have no rights what-so-ever.

In carrying out the war to defend the Kuwaiti monarchy the U.S. used depleted uranium (DU) weapons that have contaminated Iraqi water, soil, and food with radiation. This radiation has caused large numbers of birth defects and other diseases for the Iraqi people. In addition, U.S. soldiers were not given protection and, as a result, became ill in massive numbers with the symptoms of radiation poisoning. Like Agent Orange poisoning in Vietnam, the military brass pretended they had no clue to the cause of this illness that became dubbed “Persian Gulf War Syndrome”. Yet this was later exposed as a lie when reports were made public warning the military brass of the health risks of DU weapons before the war.

Government demographer Beth Osborn Duponte lost her job when she estimated the civilian loss of life in Iraq to be around 83,000, 13,000 directly from U.S. bombing and another 70,000 civilians dead as a result of U.S. targeting of civilian necessities such as water treatment facilities, medical facilities and supplies, and the electric power grid.

In addition, Duponte estimated deaths of Iraqi troops to be around 40,000. Many of the Iraqi troops killed were buried alive. In defense of U.S. actions Col. Lon Maggart said, "People somehow have the notion that burying guys alive is nastier than blowing them up with hand grenades or sticking them in gut with bayonets, well it's not."

So Obama has no problems with Bush targeting civilians, irradiating U.S. troops and the Iraqi people, burying people alive, lying to the American people, and re-installing a repressive monarchy in Kuwait. In addition, Obama wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan, send troops into Pakistan, is already threatening Iran with war, will never fully pull out of Iraq and only promises to pull out most troops in two years after an extended gradual re-deployment of troops to other wars, will continue to use murderous Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq, and promises billions in military aid to Israel. Enough said.

Obama will be nominated the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party on August 24-28 at the Democrat Party National Convention (DNC). In opposition to the DNC convention, protests are being organized, with organizers stating:

"On August 24-28, the ruling elite and their defenders will converge in Denver Colorado, in an attempt to recuperate the gains of global social movements and produce another myth of progress. Lip service to global warming, the economic crisis and the war will endow them with the magic to spread amnesia across the hearts and minds of North America... Outside those doors, however, so many will exclaim, smash and sing a harmonious ‘no.’...”

In addition, there will be protests at the equally pro-war Republican National convention being held September 1-4 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Although virtually ignored by the corporate press, there are other presidential candidates who are running in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans who are for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. These include Cynthia McKinney running on the Green Party ticket, Brian Moore of the Socialist Party, Gloria La Riva on the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket, and Róger Calero on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Corporate controlled elections and media assure that these authentic anti-war candidates will not get elected, but these candidacies do help expose people to positions of politicians not controlled by corporate interests and the pro-war Democrat Party machine. In addition, through some of these campaigns, more people become exposed to socialist ideas and the ideas of class struggle methods to bring about change.

A vote for Obama or McCain is a vote for war! So that's what, in active terms, you're really voting for when you vote Democrat or Republican. Those of us voting for third parties in order to try to help build the kinds of parties and ideas that would really bring change, and those of us refusing to vote in order to not participate in such a blatantly rigged system, neither will change the country through these up-coming elections either, but at least we won’t be dumb enough to vote for own oppressors and exploiters that are waging imperialist war. And we will not be drawn into making apologies for imperialist war politicians like Obama. Instead, we will have the sense to be working for something different.

And those of us in unions should be angry that our hard earned union dues are being squandered on the Democrat Party when that money should instead be put into stronger strike funds to strengthen our ability to fight for better contracts, for socialized medicine, and for bigger strikes against the wars.

Build the Anti-War Movement! For More Strikes for Immediate Withdrawal Like the May 1st ILWU Anti-War Strike That Shut Down 29 Ports! Support Soldiers Refusing to Fight Including the 10,000 U.S. Soldiers Who Have Gone AWOL! Build the Socialist and Anti-Imperialist Movements! U.S. Hands off Iran! U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan Now!

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
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US longshore union leader slams Obama on Israel

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:12:07 GMT

US longshore union leader : "don't vote for Obama"

SHORT VIDEO OF JACK HEYMAN'S COMMENTS ON OBAMA AT PERMANENT REVOLUTION WEEKEND SCHOOL IN LONDON

Try either of the links below for the video

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=2202

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2202

Also from Jack Heyman, see:

Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/0de5539d-06be-406e-a4a8-e45eaef28b9f

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

Distributed by Liberation News:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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US Academic Deported and Banned for Criticising Israel

Mon, 26 May 2008 22:01:08 GMT

by Toni O'Loughlin

JERUSALEM - Norman Finkelstein, the controversial Jewish American academic and fierce critic of Israel, has been deported from the country and banned from the Jewish state for 10 years, it emerged yesterday.Finkelstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor who has accused Israel of using the genocidal Nazi campaign against Jews to justify its actions against the Palestinians, was detained by the Israeli security service, Shin Bet, when he landed at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday.

Shin Bet interrogated him for around 24 hours about his contact with the Lebanese Islamic militia, Hizbullah, when he travelled to Lebanon earlier this year and expressed solidarity with the group which waged war against Israel in 2006. He was also accused of having contact with al-Qaida. But Finkelstein rejected the accusations, saying he had travelled to Israel to visit an old friend.

“I did my best to provide absolutely candid and comprehensive answers to all the questions put to me,” he told an Israeli newspaper in an email exchange.

“I am confident that I have nothing to hide. Apart from my political views, and the supporting scholarship, there isn’t much more to say for myself: alas, no suicide missions or secret rendezvous with terrorist organisations. I’ve always supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. I’m not an enemy of Israel.”

Finkelstein is one of several scholars rejected by Israel in the increasingly bitter divide in academic circles, between those who support and those who criticise its treatment of Palestinians.

Last year, Israel’s most contentious “new historian”, Ilan Pappe, left his job as senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa after he endorsed the international academic boycott of Israeli institutions, provoking the university president to call for his resignation.

Finkelstein was also refused tenure last year at Chicago’s DePaul University for attacking several staunch Israel supporters and academics such as Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said the deportation of Finkelstein was an assault on free speech.

“The decision to prevent someone from voicing their opinions by arresting and deporting them is typical of a totalitarian regime,” said the association’s lawyer, Oded Peler.

“A democratic state, where freedom of expression is the highest principle, does not shut out criticism or ideas just because they are uncomfortable for its authorities to hear. It confronts those ideas in public debate.”

Finkelstein said he was held in a cell and encountered “several unpleasant moments with the guards” and that eventually he borrowed the mobile phone of another detainee and called a friend who in turn called a lawyer.

Although entitled to appeal against the entry ban, Finkelstein said he would not contest it.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/26/9193/

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Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo

Fri, 16 May 2008 18:21:45 GMT

[See link for citations. My answer to those who say the U.S. isn't doing enough in the Congo other parts of southern Africa: it is already doing too much –Steven Argue]

Gertler’s Bling Bang Torah Gang
Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo (Part 1)

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/gertlers-bling-bang-torah-gang/

by Keith Harmon Snow / February 9th, 2008

Maurice Tempelsman is one of the top funders of the Democratic Party who has funded Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Templesman was the unofficial ambassador to the Congo (Zaire) for years, but a new Israeli-American tycoon has replaced him. In the world of bling bling and bling bang, some things change, some stay the same. The CIA, the MOSSAD, the big mining companies, the offshore accounts and weapons deals—all hidden by the Western media. The holocaust in Central Africa has claimed some six to ten million people in Congo since 1996, with 1500 people dying daily.1 But while the Africans are the victims of perpetual Holocaust, the persecutors hide behind history, complaining that they are the persecuted, or pretending they are the saviors. Who is responsible?

For Israeli-American Dan Gertler, business in blood drenched Congo is not merely business, it is a quest for the Holy Grail. Young Dan Gertler goes nowhere—does nothing—without the spiritual guidance of Brooklyn-born Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Leibovitch, a personal friend of Condoleeza Rice.2 Gertler and Leibovitch are two of the principals behind a diamond mining company, Emaxon Finance Corporation, involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Gertler and gang won the majority rights to the diamonds from the state mining company, Société Minière de Bakwange, MIBA, found near the government-controlled town of Mbuji-Mayi, the rough diamond capital of the world.

Emaxon Finance Corp. has apparently out-maneuvered diamond competitors, especially the big rivals Energem and De Beers. Energem is one of the many shady mining companies connected to Anthony Teixeira, a Portuguese born businessman now residing in South Africa whose daughter married Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. The warlord’s deadly battle in Congo in March 2007 was a bid between rival agents—Jean-Pierre Bemba and Joseph Kabila—to be the black gatekeeper for the mining cartels run by dynastic families like Templesman, Oppenheimer, Mendell, Forrest, Blattner, Hertzov, Gertler and Steinmetz, and for companies like NIKANOR, whose stock prices rose early in July 2006 in expectation of a July 30th “win” for Joseph Kabila.3 Africa Confidential called President Kabila’s 2003 visit to the Bush White House a “coup” for the Israeli diamond magnates Dan Gertler and Beny Steinmetz.

Canadian-based Energem, formerly DiamondWorks, is owned by British mercenary Tony Buckingham and its director/shareholders include Mario and Tony Teixeira, J.P. Morgan, and Gertler’s partner Israeli-American Beny Steinmetz (50%).4 Through subsidiary Branch Energy, the Energem-DiamondWorks gang has perpetuated war in 11 African countries.5 In December 2007, Energem re-launched itself on the London Stock Market with the newly laundered image of a renewable energy company. Regarding diamonds, it said only it “had decided to give up exploration rights in the Central African Republic.”6 The Energem spokesman explained that Tony Teixeira “had a clean bill of health” etc., etc. Of course, Energem “quit” the C.A.R. because Jean-Pierre Bemba marched his troops into C.A.R., where they raped and pillaged widely.7 Energem is still operating in Congo, but Dan Gertler is the new, unofficial ambassador to the Congo for the George W. Bush gang.

Gertler and partners like Beny and Danny Steinmetz, Nir Livnat, Chaim Leibovitz and Yaakov Neeman run a hornet’s nest of companies involved in African hotspots, including: Dan Gertler International (DGI), Steinmetz Global Resources, International Diamond Industries, NIKANOR and Global Enterprises Corporate.

“Dan Gertler is ‘the new kid on the block,’” writes Yossi Melman in Israel’s Haaretz news. “Bold, sophisticated, brutal, he is an adventurer with a short fuse.” Haaratz confirmed that Dan Gertler owns a complex network of interconnected companies, often registered in offshore tax havens and involved in India, Russia, Belgium and the United States, and that Dan Gertler is looking to God for guidance.8

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

“In the diamond industry,” Melman wrote, “Gertler is considered something of an odd bird. He maintains few ties with the other merchants and is not very sociable… Alongside his business affairs, most of his energy is channeled into matters of faith. He is a donor to religious institutions and from time to time makes a pilgrimage to the rabbi he most admires, Rabbi David Abuhatzeira, from Nahariya, in order to consult with him and receive his blessing. Gertler is surrounded mostly by religious people and laces his speech liberally with praise to God.”8

In 2003, Condoleeza Rice, then Assistant to President Bush for National Security Affairs, introduced Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch to U.S. official Jendayi Frazer, a Harvard Kennedy School affiliate and former National Security Council agent focused on Africa. On December 6, 2006, Frazer, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was one of seven special Bush delegates sent to the inauguration of Congo’s newly installed President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa.9

When Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch and their friends visit the luxury Gertler villa in Lumumbashi, the capital of Katanga, Congo’s large southern province, their kosher meals arrive by private plane from Kinshasa. The special executive jet that flies their kosher meals a few hundred miles over the roadless Congo costs some $US 23,000 per trip.10

The average income for Congolese citizens each year—if they survive it—is about $95. Shootings at mining facilities and diamond mines are common, land is stolen from Congolese people, strikes are crushed by security forces that companies are partnered with, and black overseers of state terror routinely arrest and torture any vocal opposition—and sometimes disappear them—in support of white bosses. The Société Minière de Bakwange—MIBA— and the diamond fields of Mbuji-Mayi in Congo have a long history of bloodshed backed by Western powers, including Israel, from the beginning.11 Amnesty International points out that not a single state agent has ever been prosecuted for the extrajudicial executions of suspected “illegal” miners in Mbuji-Mayi.12

After a century of exploitation and slavery, we find MIBA consistently withholding payment of salaries to starving Congolese laborers and middle managers for months at a time. April and May 2007 saw strikes and protests leading to the Kabila government’s arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of trade union organizers like Leon Ngoy Bululu; police have also shot protestors.13 So-called ‘illegal’ diamond workers—disenfranchised local Congolese people forced into “criminal” activities to survive—were summarily executed on MIBA concessions in Mbuji-Mayi. MIBA security guards have also been sniping unemployed diamond miners.14

Meanwhile, Dan Gertler’s kosher meals depart Kinshasa, the capital of the big Congo, through the arrangements of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila, high priest of the Chabad of Central Africa. Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila has been a Kinshasa Rabbi since 1991, and he was a spiritual force who survived the terrorism of the old dinosaur, Mobutu Sese Seko, the way most elites did: by working with him. Rabbi Bentolila is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Global Emissary Network, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and his wife Miriam is the sister of Rabbi Mena’hem Hadad, a high priest in Brussels.15

“Kosher does not mean that a Rabbi blesses the food,” Rabbi Betolila corrected me, “but rather that the food was supervised by a Rabbinical Thora [sic] authority who sees that the ingredients were in accordance with the laws of Kashrut expressed in the Bible (Leviticus and Deuteronomy).”16

Dan Gertler often flies people into Congo, on his private jet, for sacred Jewish rituals. For the Bar Mitsvah of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila’s son Binyamin Avrahim in June 2005, guests included eminent Rabbis, Hassidic singer Yoni Shlomo and special orchestra Yossef Brami, all arriving in “special flights” from Israel, New York and Brussels. The reception was held at the luxurious and exclusive Memling Hotel. Joseph Kabila sent a sizeable delegation but did not attend: his closest advisers provided a blessing on his behalf.17

The Gertler, Steinmetz and Templesman interests are advanced in part through the support of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Kinshasa—le Comité de la Communauté Israélite—that is tightly coordinated with the power structure in Kinshasa to exert influence and assure control of Israeli-Belgian-Anglo-American interests over the geopolitical arena.

From June 26-30, 2007, the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa received a visit from the Israeli Ambassador Yaakov Revah, director of the Africa Department of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Revah also flew to Lumumbashi for meetings with Dan Gertler and his agents, including Moishe (Moses) Katumbi, the Governor of Katanga, and they most likely enjoyed a lovely, $23,000 kosher meal sent from the Chabad in Kinshasa.18 The Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa maintains very intimate political relations with President Joseph Kabila’s PPRD party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy. On March 1, 2006, in a formal ceremony, the President of the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa, Ashlan Piha, was awarded the Congo’s Medal of Civil Merit.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET

Before his assassination on January 16, 2001, Laurent Desire Kabila—the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—made a deal with the Gertler gang that would play out in favor of the current President Joseph Kabila and, it seems, be a central factor in relation to both Congo’s ongoing war and the bloody warlord’s battle in Kinshasa in March 2007.19

Back in 2000, former Congolese president Laurent Kabila offered a monopoly on Congolese diamonds, and 88% of the proceeds, to Gertler’s International Diamond Industries (IDI) in exchange for Israeli military assistance to his new government.20 Top Congolese military officials apparently flew to Israel in 2000 to negotiate the deal. Gertler pledged military assistance to President Laurent Kabila through top Israeli officials.21

The original Gertler-Kabila deal fell through after Laurent Kabila was assassinated for not cooperating with the Great White Fathers of industry (January 2001), but Gertler and Leibovitch and their disciples formed another company, Dan Gertler International, and advanced their Congo plan.22 By 2002 Gertler’s company was the leading exporter of Congolese gems, controlling a diamond mining franchise worth about $US 1 billion annually.23

In 2003, the mighty Congolese diamond parastatal Societe Miniere De Bakwanga (MIBA)—which has been forever controlled by the Great White Fathers in Belgium, Israel and America—signed an exclusive contract with Gertler’s startup company, Emaxon Finance International. The deal involved Israeli’s Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Organization (SIBAT), and high-level Israeli defense and intelligence officials. Gertler and his buddies reportedly bribed Congolese officials and Angolan generals who, on and off, have commanded Angolan Army troops protecting Kinshasa, Congo’s capital.21,24

Security for mining operations in Congo is provided by exclusive security companies like Overseas Security Services (OSS) one of the many DRC interests of Belgian billionaire tycoon Philippe de Moerloose. A member of the Kinshasa elite, de Moerloose supplies jets and other presidential toys to DRC President Kabila. In 2006, President Joseph Kabila’s campaign helicopter was at the centre of a legal battle involving Philippe de Moerloose.25 De Moerloose’s companies operated in Mobutu’s Zaire from at least 1991, backing state terrorism and Western corporate plunder that was rendered invisible by the Western media. De Moerloose is also an adviser to European Union (EU) Commissioner—and diamantaire—Louis Michel.

Dan Gertler and Philippe de Moerloose were, reportedly, the only two white men who attended the wedding of Joseph Kabila and the two clearly share interests in “security” provided by OSS at MIBA and elsewhere in Congo. The April 2003 secret agreement signed between the Gertler/Steinmetz company Emaxon Finance and the Kabila government involved MIBA and two de Moerloose companies, OSS-Congo and Demimpex, and other firms.

Overseas Security Services (OSS) operations are apparently grounded in the experience of top expatriate security operatives formerly involved with the biggest security firm in Mobutu’s Zaire.26 According to OSS public relations materials, “these persons have a not unimportant experience in the safety of this country.”26 Providing mine security, body-guard and protection services, OSS operates in Burundi, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Dubai, South Africa, Republic of Congo (Brazzavile) and Belgium, placing them in cahoots with all sides warring and plundering eastern Congo today.27

Emaxon Finance International is a real gem, one of these octopuses of mining tangled up with interlocking companies and subsidiaries based in specious geographical offshore “tax havens” that work to shield from prosecution people who are responsible for money laundering, weapons and drugs operations, assassinations and other terrorism.

NIKANOR is registered as an Isle of Man (UK) company, an offshore tax haven that helps to conceal criminal activities and maximize profits. NIKANOR directors include Dan Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research under Madeleine Albright. NIKANOR partners include Mende and Moshe Gertner [sic], Israeli property tycoons with vast holdings in London who control 22 percent of NIKANOR. Another partner is Israeli-born Nir Livnat, managing director of Johannesburg-based Ascot Diamonds, a member of the Steinmetz Group of Diamond Companies, and a principal involved in numerous U.S.-based businesses from Miami to New York.28

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Back in 2001, when the Gertler enterprises surfaced in dirty diamond deals, public relations was handled by Lior Chorev, the “Special Strategic and Communications Consultant” to International Diamond Industries (IDI), and Chorev continued in this role to support Dan Gertler businesses.29 Today, Lior Chorev is partnered with the brothers Yuval and Eyal Arad as director-owners of the Israeli marketing and public relations firm, ARAD Communications.30

“We do work for Mr. Gertler on some of his business issues,” said Lior Chorev.31 ARAD’s many clients include Dan Gertler companies, Los Angeles-based Coral Diamonds and an Israeli aeronautics weaponry manufacturer producing Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles (UAVs)—robotic weapons and intelligence platforms like those being used against the people of Congo today.32 As a political strategist, Lior Chorev has worked for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.33 He has also participated in Israel-NATO defense planning conferences.34

Dan Gertler is close to Israeli politicians, especially Avigdor Lieberman, head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, and he is very close to diamantaire Beny Steinmetz, a good friend of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Gertler’s inseperable friend, Chaim Leibovitz, is also very close to Lieberman, and was “a regular fixture” in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offices.35

Beny Steinmetz is considered to be one of the richest billionaires in Israel. The Steinmetz Group, controlled with his brother Daniel, is one of the biggest clients of the de Beers diamond syndicate. Steinmetz is also involved in an Israeli real estate group that purchased the assets of the British Haslemere real estate company for $1.46 billion. Steinmetz’s real estate partners include the billionaire Israeli investors David and Simon Reuben, and the Saudi Arabian Olayan Group, an investment company that is deeply connected with Bechtel Corporation.36 The Steinmetz web site map of operations hides their involvement in war-torn Congo.37

Seems Dan Gertler’s land grabs and exclusion in Congo have a lot in common with the current crimes against humanity being committed by Israel through its illegal partition in the Middle East. On January 3, 2008, the Jerusalem Post reported that Lior Chorev was an integral part of past Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s advisers, and he was recently quoted to say that even though Sharon did not get to finalize Israel’s final borders (he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2006), the route of the security fence—which he decided—would ultimately serve as the basis for the border and as Sharon’s lasting legacy.38

“He felt he needed to set the border because he didn’t trust the younger generations,” Chorev was quoted to say. “He knew the fence route by heart and the reason for every stretch of land being on one side or the other.”38

In 2003, the U.N. Panel of Experts on war in Congo revealed that Emaxon Finance International is controlled by Israeli diamond traders Chaim Leibovitz and Dan Gertler.39 Emaxon lists as its address an office in Montreal, Canada, but Emaxon’s majority shareholder is listed as FTS Worldwide, a nebulous global corporation whose business address is that of a firm of lawyers, Mossack Fonseca & Company, in Panama City. FTS Worldwide is registered with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to lawyer Andre Zolty of Geneva Switzerland. A copy of the MIBA-Emaxon contract was signed on 13 April 2003 by Israeli-Americans Yaakov Neeman and Chaim Leibovitz.40

Yaakov Neeman is a founding partner of Herzog, Fox and Neeman, Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s top law firms, and he has held Israeli government cabinet and ministerial positions.41 Neeman is on the Advisory Board of Markstone Capital Group, a very influential group of investment bankers, with Eli Hurvitz. On the board of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries with Eli Hurvitz is Northrup-Grumman director Philip Frost.42 Both Philip Frost and Maurice Templesman are top-level councilors for the American Stock Exchange. Eli Hurvitz sat on the International Advisory Counsel of Harvard University’s Belfer Center, 2002-2005, during the period when the Belfer Center and their intelligence operative Robert Rotberg formalized the “Kimberley Process” to officially whitewash blood diamonds.43 Yakov Neeman is also a governor of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency for Israel.

One of the main objectives of the Kimberley Process, and the Harvard Belfer Center’s role, was to protect the South African Oppenheimer and De Beers diamond cartels and their leading buyers and agents like Maurice Templesman and Beny Steinmetz.44 Added to those diamond industry firms whitewashed by the Kimberley Process are all the Zionist diamond dealers and cartels that have risen like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Holocaust.

The Israeli-American enterprises of the Gertler/Steinmetz gang have proliferated and today are major shareholders or owners of diamond concessions in Congo’s Kasai province and copperbelt concessions in Katanga. The copperbelt is the big money in Congo. Copper prices recently hit an all time high due to monopoly control by corporations and new applications in transportation, aerospace and weaponry. Cobalt is used in dye and paint processes for manufacturing. More importantly, it is elemental to superalloys used for tank armor, spacecraft, turbines, ship hulls, ship hulls, blast furnaces, refineries, petroleum drilling rigs, nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Like coltan, or columbium-tantalite, cobalt is also used in cell phone batteries. The Katanga copperbelt is also rich in germanium, a rare metal used in optical fibers, infrared lenses and telecommunication satellites.45

The entire military-industrial-prisons complex revolves around minerals like cobalt, niobium and heterogenite (cobalt oxide), yet the truth about what happens to African people in lands taken over by these mining companies is hidden by the corporate media. More and more land is being stolen, more and more atrocities committed, with less and less transparency, and less and less accountability, and fewer and fewer voices for the voiceless. And, as usual, there are always a lot of empty promises.

THOUGH SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS

Over the past fifty years, elite Israeli nationals have perpetrated conflict and injustice in Africa, fueled by and for minerals. Operatives associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services—the Mossad—maintain strategic criminal syndicates in competition and in partnership with other syndicates involving men like Philippe De Moerloose, Louis Michel, Viscount Etienne Davignon, John Bredenkamp and Tony Buckingham.

Israeli trained shock troops became Mobutu’s bodyguards, with Mossad advisers. According to a report by the American Jewish Committee: after 1980 “Mossad agents, military emissaries, and a small group of private businessmen… replaced diplomats as Israel’s main interlocutors with African leaders and political (mainly opposition) groups.” The report cites rising involvement of private defense and security interests, especially in Angola, DRC and Central Africa Republic, since 1992.46

Israeli operatives and “businessmen” appear everywhere there is egregious suffering and dispossession. Dan Gertler’s forays into the bloody world of diamonds involve Israeli arms dealers Yair Klein, who is reportedly wanted by the U.S. for training Medellin drug-cartel militias in Colombia, and Dov Katz.47 Klein was convicted by Israel (1991) for his involvement with groups that targeted and assassinated Colombian politicians, journalists, and police. Jailed in Sierra Leone in 1999, Klein was a field representative for Gertler in war-torn Sierra Leone and Liberia. Gertler also mingles with the Russian Military Brotherhood, a group of “retired Russian generals whom Gertler describes as good friends.”48,49

Retired Israeli Defense Forces Colonel Yair Klein reportedly organized arms for diamonds networks in Sierra Leone and Liberia after President Charles Taylor was deposed. In 1999, Klein was arrested in Sierra Leone on charges of smuggling arms to the rebel Revolutionary United Front.50 The U.N. also documented collaborations between Sierra Leone’ rebels and Lazare Kaplan agent Damian Gagnon; Lazare Kaplan International is one of the organized crime syndicates of Jewish American Maurice Templesman.51

The Steinmetz Group of companies are also involved in the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone, along with Energem (formerly DiamondWorks), the company described above that is connected to the white mercenaries depicted in Hollywood’s Blood Diamond propaganda film.52 In December 2007, local people in Sierra Leone struggling to gain the smallest livelihood from their own resources were shot by police during peaceful protests against the Steinmetz-controlled Koidu Holdings site. It’s the same old local people’s story happening everywhere. These were people from communities driven off their own land by mining companies that promised the world, cajoled the trusting people, and gave nothing after. The Steinmetz gang called in the local paramilitary, a curfew was imposed and people were shot; the police, as usual, falsely claimed that protesters were armed.53

Like most mining mafias in Africa, the Israeli octopus—organized crime syndicates, offshore subsidiaries, interlocking directorships and affiliated mercenaries—has gripped the very heart of Congo like an octopus grips and stuns its prey. Mining regulates the pulse of Congo, and foreign mining companies with their black sell-out agents are sucking the blood out of the people and the wealth out of the land.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Beyond the intriguing Jewish rivalry for diamonds in the heart of darkness, this tale takes a chilling turn with the involvement of certain German firms and New York City lawyers. NIKANOR, another Gertler/Steinmetz company of dubious origins operating in DRC, has a subcontract with the notorious ThyssenKrupp conglomerate, a company comprised of two former Nazi weapons manufacturers linked to the New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, to Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., Lehman Brothers, Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan, DuPont and IBM, in the great Nazi-American money plot.54

These companies were all behind the Jewish Holocaust. The infamous German Krupp firm is the industrial corporation that collaborated with former CIA director Allen Dulles and former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Clients of the Dulles brothers’ law firm Sullivan and Cromwell included Adolph Hitler.54 Ted Terry, one of the senior counselors of the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell today, is also a director of a philanthropy called the Harold K. Hochschild (HKH) Foundation, named for the mining magnate behind AMAX, a company operating in the copperbelt in Zambia, but whose parent company, Phelps Dodge, operates in Katanga, Congo. Harold K. Hochschild was close to the CIA, and he appears to have backed the Katanga succession in the 1960’s just as Dan Gertler in recent years backed the reorganization of power in Congo by force. Sullivan and Cromwell was also the law firm for AMAX. 55,56

Brown Brothers Harriman & Company (BBH) was the primary Wall Street connection for German companies and the U.S. financial interests of Fritz Thyssen, an early financial backer of the Nazi party. BBH bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, steel, fuel, coal, and U.S. treasury bonds to Germany. These were used to build Hitler’s war machine, and the ties proliferated even after the Nazi concentration camps began churning out skeletons. The horrors of the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Buckenwald became public knowledge long before they became public outrage. It is the same story for Congo.

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD

There are no records or statistics of the numbers of people brutalized or killed in the diamond or cobalt mining areas, like Kolwezi, Mbuji Mayi, Tshikapa, Banalia, or Kananga in DRC, or Ndola in Zambia, and many of the victims of security abuses will never be known.

When Gertler and Steinmetz and their buddies came to Congo it was soon clear that they had to challenge Zimbabwean tycoons John Bredenkamp and Billy Rautenbach—two cronies of dictator Robert Mugabe involved in pillaging Congo and Zimbabwe for decades. The United Nations Panel of Experts on DRC named both men for plundering copper and cobalt from Katanga, and both deal globally in weapons. Bredenkamp is one of the fifty richest men in England and he reportedly owns a mansion several doors down from Margaret Thatcher’s residence in London.

On November 7, 2007 it was reported that Dan Gertler was instrumental in putting together a deal in which Katanga Mining Ltd. would buy rival NIKANOR for $2.1 billion and merge their adjacent mine projects in Congo to form the world’s largest cobalt company. Also announced was a joint venture between the Central African Mining & Exploration Company (CAMEC) and another Gertler-controlled firm called Prairie International Limited.

The CAMEC/Prairie joint venture will exploit DRC’s Luita copper processing facility, develop the Mukondo Mountain cobalt mine—called the world’s richest cobalt mine—and work on “other” exploration properties. Prairie is majority owned by the family of Dan Gertler. CAMEC is connected to Zimbabwean/South African/British tycoon Billy Rautenbach.57 The DRC government effectively banned controversial Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach from the country by declaring him persona non grata in July 2007, but this doesn’t seem to stop him from getting what he wants. Rautenbach is also wanted in South Africa on 300 charges of fraud, corruption and theft.

Rautenbach is a former motor car rally driver who controls a business empire in Southern and Central Africa through a British Virgin Islands company called Ridgepoint Overseas Development Limited. In 1998, the short-lived President of Congo, Laurent Kabila, named Rautenbach the managing director of La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines), one of Africa’s biggest cobalt mines, the Katanga properties of the Union Miniere de Haut Katanga formerly developed by the Belgian colonial government. Rautenbach today is one of the Africa’s largest exporters of heterogenite (cobalt ore) from the DRC through his Congo Cobalt Company (CoCoCo), but he also has shares in two other lucrative DRC mining firms—Boss and Mukondo—which reportedly earn over US$100 million a month.58

While there has been a lot of Western media fanfare over the Kabila governments’ supposed “independent” review of mining contracts, little substantive change can be expected.59 Structural factors exploit the Congolese people and lands and benefit white businessmen, arms dealers, bankers, and their embraceable black agents. Big business benefits from perception management articles well-placed in media to give the impression that the international system is just, that there are watchdogs, checks and balances.

However, while the DRC and the World Bank present a propaganda front about their ostensible attention to mining reform and the new mining code, NIKANOR—Mining Journal reports—“is in the advantageous position of having entered into a post mining-code contract, ‘which makes us [NIKANOR] relatively comfortable’”60 In other words, the mining review is a sham, it may force some changes, but it will be cosmetic at best.

Dan Gertler and the Steinmetz Group’s partner Jewish-American Nir Livnat is also a director of Anglovaal Mining with Rick and Brian Menell and Basil Hersov of the South African Menell and Hersov dynasties.61 Hersov has been named as a beneficiary of fraud and racketeering involving British BAE Systems weapons deals with shady offshore companies.62

The octopus of South African connections is a story in itself, with links to top officials from Britain to Canada, like Canadian Senator J. Trevor Eyton, and offshore mining companies involved in all the big money (diamonds, gold, petroleum, cobalt) and big corporations with interlocking directorships: Coca Cola, Nestlé, General Motors, and the Bush-connected Barrick Gold Corporation. Barrick, of course, is partnered up with the Oppenheimer/De Beers firm Anglo-American Corporation at six sites in Africa, including Congo.

Rick Menell is a director of Bateman Engineering—owned by Benny Steinmetz—the junior partner of the NIKANOR projects in Katanga. Britain’s Earl of Balfour is a director of both Bateman and NIKANOR. Menell is also the director of Teal Exploration and Mining, whose directors include Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique; Murray Hitzman, a Clinton administration official with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1994-1996); Hannes Meyer, who worked with Anglo-Gold Ashanti in Congo, 1999-2006, when militias in Ituri were funded to get the gold out. Teal Exploration also has ties to Anvil Mining and Anglo-American Corporation.63

Brian Menell, Nir Livnat’s associate on the board of Anglovaal, is on the board of Energem (formerly DiamondWorks) with Tony and Mario Teixeira. The Livnat connection ties Teixeira into networks that have supported both Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba in Congo’s bloody wars. Energem is also involved in the trans-Uganda-Kenya pipeline, along with Nexant, a subsidiary of the deep intelligence and defense insider Bechtel Corporation.64

Brian Menell is also on the board of First Africa Oil, which operates in seven African countries, and First Africa Oil director John Bentley is a director of Osprey Oil and Gas, whose directors include Carol Bell, a director of the Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank. Bentley is also on the board of Adastra Minerals—formerly America Mineral Fields (AMF, AMFI, AMX), a company based in 1995 in Hope, Arkansas—and set up by Robert Friedland and Max and Jean-Raymond Boulle, notable “friends of Bill” Clinton. Since 1995, American Mineral Fields has been involved in Brazil, Russia, Norway, Zambia, Angola and the DRC. A criminal backer of the war in DRC, Jean-Raymond Boulle, who holds 36.4 % of the company stock, was the former General Director of De Beers in Zaire, part of the Templesman alliance of terrorism under the Mobutu regime.65,66

The Gertler/Steinmetz interests apparently curry huge favors with Congo’s number two most powerful man, Augustine Katumba Mwanke, one of Joseph Kabila’s closest allies and financiers, former Governor of Katanga (1998-2001) and director of Australia’s Anvil Mining. The UN Panel of Experts (2002) cited Mwanke for illegal arms deals and plunder of Congo: Mwanke negotiated arms purchases through Belgian banks and the DRC mining company MIBA.67 Reportedly, Mwanke personally clears $US 1,000,000 a day through his interests in Katanga mining deals.68

Anvil Mining has been involved in massacres in DRC.69 Anvil directors include former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth L. Brown, who served at U.S. embassies in Brussels, Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa. Brown was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (1987-1989) under George Schultz and George H.W. Bush and Director of Central African Affairs (1980-1981). The former top internal intelligence and security chief of the United Nations Observer’s Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been worked for Anvil mining in Katanga since 2006.70

THOU SHALT NOT RAPE AND PLUNDER

Gertler/Steinmetz interests have also been jostling for copper and cobalt concessions with Kinross-Forrest Group. Gertler has bought up or invested heavily in companies just to close them down. George Forrest also made the UN hit list of Congo’s looters and Forrest and his three sons helped bankroll Joseph Kabila’s 2006 election “victory”.71 George Forrest’s daughter is reportedly married to the son of Louis Michel. Malta and George Forrest are controlling directors in Katanga Mining Limited.

Born as Entreprise Générale Malta Forrest, the Belgian Forrest interests have been pillars of exploitation in Congo since at least 1922, when they launched mining operations in Katanga. Forrest’s Katanga Mining directors include: three Canadians; Congo’s Jean-Claude Masangu Mulongo, a former Governor of DRC and high official at the IMF and World Bank; and the current Governor of the Central Bank of DRC. The Forrest dynasty has munitions factories in Belgium and Kenya, and has partnered with OM-Group, in Ohio [USA], dealing in Congo’s cobalt and coltan. Forrest International also operates in Europe, Burundi—involving him on both sides of Congo’s bloody war—and the Middle East.72 Forrest interests in DRC include aviation, foods, plantations, construction, logging, copper and cobalt mining. Forrest companies are enmeshed in the coltan plunder in eastern Congo.

Katanga is the world’s richest mining metropolis, part of the vast copper belt that stretches across northern Zambia and southern Congo—and the home to unprecedented human misery due to state orchestrated repression and communities overrun with toxic mining, tuberculosis, cancers, immune disorders, racial discrimination and slavery. The Zambian copperbelt concessions over the border involve many of the same companies and interests mentioned above, and others.73

Workers and communities in and around these mines suffer all the standard treatable maladies (typhoid, malaria, tetanus, polio, malnutrition) as well. However, such stories are off the agenda for the North American, European, Japanese, Australian and Israeli media corporations providing the mainstay of English language indoctrination meant to instill racial superiority and a vast ignorance and obliviousness that leaves westerns populations shaking their heads and wringing their hands and clicking their tongues, while all the while wondering “what is to be done?” It does not cross people’s minds that their own hands are dirty, that their own consciousness has been falsified, as all the raw materials from Congo enrich the lives of people in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel.

The immediate capital investment required for just one Gertler project in Katanga—the Komoto Oliveira Virgule (KOV) project—is reportedly $US 1.8 billion dollars, income to kick start billions of dollars of unused equipment mothballed in the middle Mobutu era. There are rumors that Bechtel is involved, but the KOV project involves ThyssenKrupp AG as a minor player.74

The Krupp firm is one of several German firms involved in the plunder in eastern Congo, exploitation which involves the DeutscheGesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit—GTZ—a “German technological cooperation agency” whose Supervisory Board has representatives of four Federal [German] Ministries.75 Krupp industries use coltan and cobalt for superalloys.76 Dr.-Ing. Ekkehard D. Schultz, a ThyssenKrupp director, is also a director of Bayer AG, the Germany firm whose subsidiary H.C. Starck was named for its involvement in the ongoing illegal plunder of coltan and cassiterite (tin) in eastern Congo. NIKANOR director Jay Pomrenze is also a consultant for the Deutsche Bank.77 Certain German and U.S. firms benefit from the military occupation of Rwandan-backed warlord Laurent Nkunda in North Kivu, DRC, where Nkunda controls the Lueshe niobium mine “owned” by Gesellschaft fuer Elektrometallurgie GmbH, a subsidiary of New York-based Mettalurg Group.78,79

HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER

Dan Gertler’s grandfather, Moshe Schnitzer (d. November 2007), was known in Israel as “Mr. Diamond;” in youth he joined the pre-state underground organization Etzel (Irgoun), an Israeli military cell self-defined as an “untra-nationationalist Jewish militia,” but one that committed acts of terrorism in service to the Israeli cause.8 Moshe Schnitzer assumed a major role in the Africa-Israeli diamond trade in the 1950’s in a partnership business called Schnitzer-Greenstein. Schnitzer later founded the Israel Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv in 1960, which today brings Israel $14 billion annually in blood business, and is the country’s second-largest industry, but Israel’s top export. King Leopold III of Belgium decorated Schnitzer in recognition of his activities favoring the close relationship of Belgium, Israel and the DeBeers diamond cartels, and Schnitzer was also President of the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in Israel.80

The diamond jewelry trade in the United States is more than $30 billion annually, and 99%—everything that is not synthetic or artificial diamonds—involves blood diamonds and the above organized crime syndicates. Israel buys more than 50% of the world’s rough diamonds, and the U.S. buys two-thirds of these. The diamond factories are located in Nethanya, Petach Tikvah, Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Jerusalem, and other cities around the country, but most of the offices were in Tel Aviv in the financial district on Ahad Ha’am Street.81 Dan Gertler’s father, Asher Gertler, and his uncle, Shmuel Schnitzer, manage the original family business, and Shmuel is Vice-Chairman of the Belgian-based World Diamond Council—the entity that spends more money promoting the false image of “conflict-free” diamonds than it does helping any of the people dispossessed or brutalized by the diamond industry.48

On August 16, 2007, Rabbi Bentolila in Kinshasa received a communication asking: “What does the Torah say about men exploiting other men for vast profits while other men are starving and dying all around them? Is there some hierarchy to the Torah that suggests, for example, that black people or Africans are lesser beings, and therefore not to be a concern where profound profits are being made?”

There was no reply from Rabbi Bentolila, he was apparently busy readying for another Bar Mitsvah in Belgium. Unfortunately for Dan Gertler and his spiritual advisers, the Torah says that a Jew can keep a slave, but a Jew kept as a slave must be redeemed, and that—an empty, foolish justification for exploiting innocent people—is how religion falsifies spirituality.

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Sixty Years On, Palestinians Mourn Loss of Homeland

Fri, 09 May 2008 01:13:55 GMT

by Alistair Lyon

While Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinian refugees mourn the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) when they lost their homeland. Often ignored in Middle East peace talks, they cling to a “right of return.”

Alia Shabati was 12 when she fled Jewish attacks on her village of Kabri, captured a few days after Israel’s creation.

Now a matron of 72, wearing a flowery blue dress and white headscarf, her memories of Kabri in today’s northern Israel are vividly intact, unlike the village, which was wiped off the map.

“We had houses and land,” Shabati said in the living room of her modest dwelling in the alleys of Beirut’s Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp. “We had olives, grapes, prickly pears and dates. We had orchards and fields. Now what do we have? Nothing.”

Her life story encapsulates the bitterness of dispossession and exile familiar to about 4.5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants in squalid camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the occupied West Bank and Gaza, or in a wider diaspora.

For Shabati, who has lost three of her 11 children, her tale is unique. “What I tasted, no one has tasted,” she said.

Her father was killed by British forces during a Palestinian revolt in 1936, shortly after she was born.

Twelve years later, she fled Kabri with her mother, brother and grandmother, along with other women and children, after an attack by Jewish Haganah forces. Her uncle and several other relatives who stayed behind were among those killed.

Shabati recalls walking exhausted from one village to another, finding safety nowhere, until the Kabri survivors crossed the border into Lebanon and were taken to Syria.

ETHNIC CLEANSING?

The fate of Kabri was part of what Palestinians — and some Israeli scholars — say was systematic ethnic cleansing ordered by Zionist leaders to clear the way for the Jewish state.

Israel rejects this, saying the refugee problem resulted from a war launched by Palestinians opposed to the U.N. partition plan adopted on November 29, 1947, and by Arab states which invaded as soon as the British Mandate expired on May 15, 1948.

The upshot was that of the nearly 1.4 million Arabs who lived in Palestine in 1947 more than 700,000 had been displaced from their homes by 1949, according to a consensus view.

Before fighting began in late 1947, about a million Arabs and 600,000 Jews lived in what was to become Israel. Israel emerged with 78 percent of Mandate Palestine. The U.N. plan, rejected by the Arabs, would have given it 56 percent.

At 12, Shabati may have only dimly grasped the conflict over her homeland, but she soon felt what it was to be a refugee.

Among the hardships and humiliations along the way, she remembers how some Syrian villagers began picking brides from her bedraggled group, until a policeman scolded them for abusing their guests. “We felt as if knives were striking us,” she said.

After seven years in a refugee camp in Syria, Shabati got married and came to Burj al-Barajneh, on the edge of Beirut, where she raised a family with her husband, a yoghurt vendor.

Their 23-year-old son Mohammed was killed fighting Israeli troops who invaded Lebanon to drive out PLO guerrillas in 1982. His brother Ali, 24, was killed in 1985 when Lebanese Shi’ite Amal militiamen assaulted Palestinian camps in Beirut.

Shabati dreams of going back to Kabri, even if she had to live in a tent again. “I’d walk, as long as I could return,” she said, scorning a query on whether she would consider moving to an eventual Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

LEBANESE RESTRICTIONS

Palestinians are treated worse in Lebanon than other Arab countries such as Jordan, where they have full citizenship, and Syria, where they enjoy civil but not political rights.

“They have had a particular history of subjection to violence and massacre, and of marginalization and exclusion by the Lebanese authorities through legal and other means,” said Yezid Sayigh, a Palestinian scholar at Cambridge University.

Shabati’s 35-year-old son Idriss said Lebanese laws that bar Palestinians from 70 professions had hit a raw nerve after he realized his son could not hope to become a lawyer or a doctor.

“You can’t live your life as a citizen here,” he complained.

Lebanese restrictions on refugees, slightly eased by the current government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, were designed to deter the mainly Sunni Muslim Palestinians from settling permanently and upsetting Lebanon’s sectarian balance.

Israel firmly opposes letting any refugees return to their original homes, on the grounds that this would effectively destroy the Jewish state by threatening its Jewish majority.

The PLO has accepted the conciliatory wording of an Arab League peace plan calling for a “just and agreed solution” in line with a U.N. resolution proposing return or compensation for refugees willing to live at peace with their neighbors.

“At the end of the day, everything is negotiable,” said Basel Aql, a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization and former adviser to the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat.

Aql, whose family fled the coastal city of Jaffa in 1948, acknowledged that refugee interests had not been fully taken into account — “not because we willingly gave up our right to return, but the balance of power was such that the question of refugees did not have priority on any of the agendas.”

WISHES IGNORED

Refugees have rarely been consulted about their wishes and have had little say in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks over the past 15 years aiming for a two-state solution, Sayigh said.

“The tendency is to regard them as an actual or potential obstacle to peace,” he said, adding that this attitude was not confined to Israel or its staunch ally, the United States.

“A chunk of the Palestinian leadership has also treated them as potential trouble-makers, who might wreck a peace deal.”

For now a final peace agreement seems remote, but many Palestinians yearn for some Israeli admission of responsibility for what they see as the historic injustice done to them.

“You need to acknowledge what happened in 1948,” said Reem Kelani, a British-based singer who has recorded many traditional Palestinian songs. “If you don’t want to apologize, just acknowledge it, and then just maybe we could start something.”

Palestinians in the camps or the diaspora should mark this month’s anniversary by reaffirming their identity, she said. “To me, it’s celebrating the Palestinian cultural narrative before, during and after 1948. It’s not just about victimhood.”

In recent years, camp conditions have worsened everywhere as UNRWA, the cash-strapped agency that helps Palestinian refugees, becomes less able to provide adequate health and education.

“Palestinian refugees now, more than at any time in the last 60 years, face a serious decline in services,” said Sayigh.

“They are going to become once again the most vulnerable community by every indicator,” the Palestinian academic added. “We are looking at the re-emergence of a true under-class.”

Edited by Sara Ledwit

© 2008 Reuters

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Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:49:11 GMT

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

The Democrats and Republicans are the paid agents of the oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on global warming (the single biggest threat to the future of humanity and a healthy planet).

The Cool Earth Party is being established on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism. We call for an end to the dictatorial power of the wealthy through the nationalization of major industries and for the establishment of a planned economy run to meet human and environmental needs. This socialist society must be established within the framework of full democratic freedoms and multi-party proportional democracy. To be truly Democratic all parties running in elections will be legally guaranteed equal time in the media, big campaign spending will be outlawed, and electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections) will be eliminated.

Upon taking power the Cool Earth Party will establish a system of socialized medicine for the United States, end all U.S. military occupations of other countries, end U.S. military aid to repressive governments, and nationalize the auto and energy industries to carry out immediate emergency measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cool Earth Party
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EGYPT--General Strike this Sunday, April 6!

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:33:39 GMT

Egyptian opposition groups are calling for a one-day, nationwide strike on April 6. The strike is directed against the brutally repressive Egyptian government; the strike movement responds to the rising costs of food, which is a worldwide phenomenon now, and poor wages for Egyptian workers. The opposition has called for ceasing all economic activity on Sunday, which is reportedly a workday in the Muslim world. In response, the Egyptian government has removed taxes on *some* foods, which suggests that in general, food is taxed in Egypt. The government also banned political rallies in mosques.

* * *

[From www.arabisto.com]

April 6th General Strike in Egypt Draws Together Diverse Groups Using
Newest Technologies

April 02, 2008 05:15 PM
By Courtney C. Radsch

Cairo, Egypt (for arabisto.com) - Using FaceBook, blogs, SMS,
independent media and good old fashion word-of-mouth, activists and
workers in Egypt are preparing to stage a countrywide general strike
on April 6. Calling it the "Egyptian Intifida" supporters are calling
for civil disobedience, asking everyone to stay home from work and not
buy anything; demonstrations of solidarity planned for embassies
around the world. The strike is aimed primarily at protesting the
rising cost of bread and other basic necessities and to demand
increased wages. Networks and event invitation have appeared on
FaceBook. The "General Strike in Egypt" FaceBook group has more than
54,000 members, an event another 2000 confirmed). The cyberspace
activism coupled with on-the-ground grassroots organizing promises to
test the political efficacy and continued relevance of the Egyptian
activists blogosphere and cyber-activists following a government
crackdown on Kifaya and Muslim Brotherhood over the past year that
seemed to take some of the wind out of the sails of cyber-activism.

The text of the document from [which] all this activity apparently
springs is as follows:

"All national forces in Egypt have agreed upon the 6th of April to be
a public strike. On the 6th of April, stay home, do not go out; Don't
go to work, don't go to the university, don't go to school, don't open
your shop, don't open your pharmacy, don't go to the police station,
don't go to the camp; We need salaries allowing us to live, we need to
work, we want our children to get education, we need human
transportation means, we want hospitals to get treatment, we want
medicines for our children, we need just judiciary, we want security,
we want freedom and dignity, we want apartments for youth; We don't
want prices to increase, we don't want favoritism, we don't want
police in plain clothes, we don't want torture in police stations, we
don't want corruption, we don't want bribes, we don't want detentions.
Tell your friends not to go to work and ask them to join the strike."
It was signed by and supported by the Al-Karama Party, the Al-Wasat
Party, the Labor Party, Kifaya, the Bar Association, Educational
Workers Movement, University Professors, Grain Mill Workers and of
course the Ghazl Al-Mahala workers. The U.S. Embassy in Cairo,
however, does NOT support it and has threatened to fire anyone who
misses work on Sunday.

The primary event is the workers strike in Ghazl el-Mahalla, with
several strikes planned in solidarity with the workers and organized
through the blogosphere. Hossam's 3arabawy is, as usual, a central
information node about the strike, as is Manalaa's Bit Bucket. (There
may or may not be a demonstration in Tahrir). The national press,
however, has been silent, while the independent and English language
press seems to portray it primarily as another worker's strike rather
than as something larger (though it was interesting to see the Daily
News Egypt quote a blog on the front page - clearly showing that they
have become legitimate information sources here as they have in the
U.S.) Kifaya is on board with the strike - though the movement has
been pronounced dead by many it seems to be struggling to resurrect
itself - as is, of course, the leftist/socialist bloggers, although
their activities have been focused on giving workers logistical and
media relations support rather than leading demonstrations or strikes.
This is a tactical move designed to protect the workers and their
indigenous efforts from accusations by the government that they are
being co-opted by the blogger activists and thus tainted by
association. It seems that rather the cyber-activists have found
renewed inspiration in the activism of workers and sympathetic
university students to reenergize and unify their political activism.
One group that is conspicuously absent from the milieu, however, is
the Muslim Brotherhood. ...

Read the whole story:
<http://www.arabisto.com/p_blogEntry.cfm?blogID=7&blogEntryID=1010>

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Hamas is vindicated!

ArabianPalestinian — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:23:54 GMT

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7%2b82koqdSofaVNDg69ybyl8hzE5PulaUDynKJOw%2fQhf%2btsCSZ%2fQosOZ3kwTRWEmi6axk93lRSNafBpYitua5QYzVb7znrs7t3YvBtigSa8kQ%3d

Vanity Fair: Abbas, Dahlan conspired with Israel, US, to topple Hamas

[ 04/03/2008 - 01:12 AM ]

The famous American magazine Vanity Fair has publishing a meticulously-researched expose showing that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, his aide Muhammed Dahlan actively conspired with the Bush administration to topple the democratically-elected government of Hamas and engineer civil war in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In a lengthy article in the magazine’s latest issue, Vanity Fair said it obtained “confidential documents” corroborated by sources in the US and Palestine, which lay bare a covert American operation, approved by the President Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war

According to the magazine, the plan was for forces led by Dahlan and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power.

The following are excerpts from the article:

"We were sitting in Abbas's office in Ramallah, and I explained the whole thing to Condi. And she said, 'Yes, we have to make an effort to do this. There's no other way."

"Walles and Abbas both knew what to expect from Hamas if these instructions were followed: rebellion and bloodshed. For that reason, the memo states, the U.S. was already working to strengthen Fatah's security forces. "If you act along these lines, we will support you both materially and politically," the script said. "We will be there to support you." Abbas was also encouraged to "strengthen [his] team" to include "credible figures of strong standing in the international community." Among those the U.S. wanted brought in, says an official who knew of the policy, was Muhammad Dahlan."

"Abbas, one official says, agreed to take action within two weeks. It happened to be Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast during daylight hours. With dusk approaching, Abbas asked Rice to join him for iftar—a snack to break the fast. Afterward, according to the official, Rice underlined her position: "So we're agreed? You'll dissolve the government within two weeks?" "Maybe not two weeks. Give me a month. Let's wait until after the Eid," he said, referring to the three-day celebration that marks the end of Ramadan. (Abbas's spokesman said via e-mail: "According to our records, this is incorrect.") Rice got into her armored S.U.V., where, the official claims, she told an American colleague, "That damned iftar has cost us another two weeks of Hamas government."

"Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as "a good, solid leader." In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as "our guy."

"With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever."

“Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup. Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand.

“It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says. The botched plan has rendered the dream of Middle East peace more remote than ever, but what really galls neocons such as Wurmser is the hypocrisy it exposed. “There is a stunning disconnect between the president’s call for Middle East democracy and this policy,” he says. “It directly contradicts it.”

“Dahlan worked closely with the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and he developed a warm relationship with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, a Clinton appointee who stayed on under Bush until July 2004. “

“Dahlan says he warned his friends in the Bush administration that Fatah still wasn’t ready for elections in January. Decades of self-preservationist rule by Arafat had turned the party into a symbol of corruption and inefficiency—a perception Hamas found it easy to exploit. Splits within Fatah weakened its position further: in many places, a single Hamas candidate ran against several from Fatah.

“Everyone was against the elections,” Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush. “Bush decided, ‘I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian Authority.’ Everyone is following him in the American administration, and everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, ‘The president wants elections.’ Fine. For what purpose?”

The elections went forward as scheduled. On January 25, Hamas won 56 percent of the seats in the Legislative Council.

Few inside the U.S. administration had predicted the result, and there was no contingency plan to deal with it. “I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming,” Condoleezza Rice told reporters. “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing.”

“Everyone blamed everyone else,” says an official with the Department of Defense. “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?”

“In public, Rice tried to look on the bright side of the Hamas victory. “Unpredictability,” she said, is “the nature of big historic change.” Even as she spoke, however, the Bush administration was rapidly revising its attitude toward Palestinian democracy.

“Washington reacted with dismay when Abbas began holding talks with Hamas in the hope of establishing a “unity government.” On October 4, 2006, Rice traveled to Ramallah to see Abbas. They met at the Muqata, the new presidential headquarters that rose from the ruins of Arafat’s compound, which Israel had destroyed in 2002.

“America’s leverage in Palestinian affairs was much stronger than it had been in Arafat’s time. Abbas had never had a strong, independent base, and he desperately needed to restore the flow of foreign aid—and, with it, his power of patronage. He also knew that he could not stand up to Hamas without Washington’s help.“

“At their joint press conference, Rice smiled as she expressed her nation’s “great admiration” for Abbas’s leadership. Behind closed doors, however, Rice’s tone was sharper, say officials who witnessed their meeting. Isolating Hamas just wasn’t working, she reportedly told Abbas, and America expected him to dissolve the Haniyeh government as soon as possible and hold fresh elections.

“Weeks passed with no sign that Abbas was ready to do America’s bidding. Finally, another official was sent to Ramallah. Jake Walles, the consul general in Jerusalem, is a career foreign-service officer with many years’ experience in the Middle East. His purpose was to deliver a barely varnished ultimatum to the Palestinian president.

“We know what Walles said because a copy was left behind, apparently by accident, of the “talking points” memo prepared for him by the State Department. The document has been authenticated by U.S. and Palestinian officials.

“We need to understand your plans regarding a new [Palestinian Authority] government,” Walles’s script said. “You told Secretary Rice you would be prepared to move ahead within two to four weeks of your meeting. We believe that the time has come for you to move forward quickly and decisively.”

The memo left no doubt as to what kind of action the U.S. was seeking: “Hamas should be given a clear choice, with a clear deadline: … they either accept a new government that meets the Quartet principles, or they reject it The consequences of Hamas’ decision should also be clear: If Hamas does not agree within the prescribed time, you should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency and form an emergency government explicitly committed to that platform.”

Walles and Abbas both knew what to expect from Hamas if these instructions were followed: rebellion and bloodshed. For that reason, the memo states, the U.S. was already working to strengthen Fatah’s security forces. “If you act along these lines, we will support you both materially and politically,” the script said. “We will be there to support you.”

Abbas was also encouraged to “strengthen [his] team” to include “credible figures of strong standing in the international community.” Among those the U.S. wanted brought in, says an official who knew of the policy, was Muhammad Dahlan.

“There was still no sign that Abbas was ready to bring matters to a head by dissolving the Hamas government. Against this darkening background, the U.S. began direct security talks with Dahlan.”

“He’s Our Guy”

“In 2001, President Bush famously said that he had looked Russian president Vladimir Putin in the eye, gotten “a sense of his soul,” and found him to be “trustworthy.” According to three U.S. officials, Bush made a similar judgment about Dahlan when they first met, in 2003. All three officials recall hearing Bush say, “He’s our guy.”

They say this assessment was echoed by other key figures in the administration, including Rice and Assistant Secretary David Welch, the man in charge of Middle East policy at the State Department. “David Welch didn’t fundamentally care about Fatah,” one of his colleagues says. “He cared about results, and [he supported] whatever son of a bitch you had to support. Dahlan was the son of a bitch we happened to know best. He was a can-do kind of person. Dahlan was our guy.”

Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who had been appointed the U.S. security coordinator for the Palestinians in November 2005, was in no position to question the president’s judgment of Dahlan. His only prior experience with the Middle East was as director of the Iraq Survey Group, the body that looked for Saddam Hussein’s elusive weapons of mass destruction.

In November 2006, Dayton met Dahlan for the first of a long series of talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Both men were accompanied by aides. From the outset, says an official who took notes at the meeting, Dayton was pushing two overlapping agendas.

“We need to reform the Palestinian security apparatus,” Dayton said, according to the notes. “But we also need to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.”

Dahlan replied that, in the long run, Hamas could be defeated only by political means. “But if I am going to confront them,” he added, “I need substantial resources. As things stand, we do not have the capability.”

The two men agreed that they would work toward a new Palestinian security plan. The idea was to simplify the confusing web of Palestinian security forces and have Dahlan assume responsibility for all of them in the newly created role of Palestinian national-security adviser. The Americans would help supply weapons and training.

As part of the reform program, according to the official who was present at the meetings, Dayton said he wanted to disband the Preventive Security Service, which was widely known to be engaged in kidnapping and torture. At a meeting in Dayton’s Jerusalem office in early December, Dahlan ridiculed the idea. “The only institution now protecting Fatah and the Palestinian Authority in Gaza is the one you want removed,” he said.

Dayton softened a little. “We want to help you,” he said. “What do you need?”

Dahlan did not hesitate to voice his exasperation. “I spoke to Condoleezza Rice on several occasions,” he says. “I spoke to Dayton, to the consul general, to everyone in the administration I knew. They said, ‘You have a convincing argument.’ We were sitting in Abbas’s office in Ramallah, and I explained the whole thing to Condi. And she said, ‘Yes, we have to make an effort to do this. There’s no other way.” At some of these meetings, Dahlan says, Assistant Secretary Welch and Deputy National-Security Adviser Abrams were also present.

The administration went back to Congress, and a reduced, $59 million package for nonlethal aid was approved in April 2007. But as Dahlan knew, the Bush team had already spent the past months exploring alternative, covert means of getting him the funds and weapons he wanted. The reluctance of Congress meant that “you had to look for different pots, different sources of money,” says a Pentagon official.

A State Department official adds, “Those in charge of implementing the policy were saying, ‘Do whatever it takes. We have to be in a position for Fatah to defeat Hamas militarily, and only Muhammad Dahlan has the guile and the muscle to do this.’ The expectation was that this was where it would end up—with a military showdown.” There were, this official says, two “parallel programs”—the overt one, which the administration took to Congress, “and a covert one, not only to buy arms but to pay the salaries of security personnel.”

But there are also important differences—starting with the fact that Congress never passed a measure expressly prohibiting the supply of aid to Fatah and Dahlan. “It was close to the margins,” says a former intelligence official with experience in covert programs. “But it probably wasn’t illegal.”

Legal or not, arms shipments soon began to take place. In late December 2006, four Egyptian trucks passed through an Israeli-controlled crossing into Gaza, where their contents were handed over to Fatah. These included 2,000 Egyptian-made automatic rifles, 20,000 ammunition clips, and two million bullets. News of the shipment leaked, and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, an Israeli Cabinet member, said on Israeli radio that the guns and ammunition would give Abbas “the ability to cope with those organizations which are trying to ruin everything”—namely, Hamas.

Avi Dichter points out that all weapons shipments had to be approved by Israel, which was understandably hesitant to allow state-of-the-art arms into Gaza. “One thing’s for sure, we weren’t talking about heavy weapons,” says a State Department official. “It was small arms, light machine guns, ammunition.”

Plan B

The State Department quickly drew up an alternative to the new unity government. Known as “Plan B,” its objective, according to a State Department memo that has been authenticated by an official who knew of it at the time, was to “enable [Abbas] and his supporters to reach a defined endgame by the end of 2007 The endgame should produce a [Palestinian Authority] government through democratic means that accepts Quartet principles.”

Like the Walles ultimatum of late 2006, Plan B called for Abbas to “collapse the government” if Hamas refused to alter its attitude toward Israel. From there, Abbas could call early elections or impose an emergency government. It is unclear whether, as president, Abbas had the constitutional authority to dissolve an elected government led by a rival party, but the Americans swept that concern aside.

Security considerations were paramount, and Plan B had explicit prescriptions for dealing with them. For as long as the unity government remained in office, it was essential for Abbas to maintain “independent control of key security forces.” He must “avoid Hamas integration with these services, while eliminating the Executive Force or mitigating the challenges posed by its continued existence.”

In a clear reference to the covert aid expected from the Arabs, the memo made this recommendation for the next six to nine months: “Dahlan oversees effort in coordination with General Dayton and Arab [nations] to train and equip 15,000-man force under President Abbas’s control to establish internal law and order, stop terrorism and deter extralegal forces.”

The Bush administration’s goals for Plan B were elaborated in a document titled “An Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency.” This action plan went through several drafts and was developed by the U.S., the Palestinians, and the government of Jordan. Sources agree, however, that it originated in the State Department.

The early drafts stressed the need for bolstering Fatah’s forces in order to “deter” Hamas. The “desired outcome” was to give Abbas “the capability to take the required strategic political decisions … such as dismissing the cabinet, establishing an emergency cabinet.”

The drafts called for increasing the “level and capacity” of 15,000 of Fatah’s existing security personnel while adding 4,700 troops in seven new “highly trained battalions on strong policing.” The plan also promised to arrange “specialized training abroad,” in Jordan and Egypt, and pledged to “provide the security personnel with the necessary equipment and arms to carry out their missions.”

A detailed budget put the total cost for salaries, training, and “the needed security equipment, lethal and non-lethal,” at $1.27 billion over five years. The plan states: “The costs and overall budget were developed jointly with General Dayton’s team and the Palestinian technical team for reform”—a unit established by Dahlan and led by his friend and policy aide Bassil Jaber. Jaber confirms that the document is an accurate summary of the work he and his colleagues did with Dayton. “The plan was to create a security establishment that could protect and strengthen a peaceful Palestinian state living side by side with Israel,” he says.

The final draft of the Action Plan was drawn up in Ramallah by officials of the Palestinian Authority. This version was identical to the earlier drafts in all meaningful ways but one: it presented the plan as if it had been the Palestinians’ idea. It also said the security proposals had been “approved by President Mahmoud Abbas after being discussed and agreed [to] by General Dayton’s team.”

On April 30, 2007, a portion of one early draft was leaked to a Jordanian newspaper, Al-Majd. The secret was out. From Hamas’s perspective, the Action Plan could amount to only one thing: a blueprint for a U.S.-backed Fatah coup.”

posted in Palestine - 3 replies

"anti-semitism" is excuse to censor Palestinians

Araby — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:53:49 GMT

http://freepalestine.tribe.net/photos/417fd104-45d7-434a-a2d9-2b7c7c6203ff

This cartoon expresses the truth brilliantly! This is how zionists and americans silence the free expression of truth about Free Palestine--they smother it with the accusation of "anti-semitism."

Just like tribe.net did to censor and delete my tribe "Free Palestine End Zionism." They accused my tribe falsely of "anti-semitism." Because I am semite, I guess they are trying to say "anti-Jewish." But since the tribe was NOT anti-Jewish." it is obvious they want to censor anti-zionism under excuse of "anti-Jewish."

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Gaza Under Siege By Ralph Nader

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 02:08:03 GMT

The world’s largest prison—Gaza prison with 1.5 million inmates, many of them starving, sick and penniless—is receiving more sympathy and protest by Israeli citizens, of widely impressive backgrounds, than is reported in the U.S. press.

In contrast, the humanitarian crisis brought about by Israeli government blockades that prevent food, medicine, fuel and other necessities from coming into this tiny enclave through international relief organizations is received with predictable silence or callousness by members of Congress, including John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

The contrast invites more public attention and discussion.

Israel has militarily occupied Gaza for forty years. It pulled out its colonials in 2005 but maintained an iron grip on the area—controlling all access, including its airspace and territorial waters. Its F-16s and helicopter gunships regularly shred more and more of the areas’ public works, its neighborhoods and inflict collective punishment on civilians in violation of Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

As the International Red Cross declares, citing treaties establishing international humanitarian law, “Neither the civilian population as a whole nor individual civilians may be attacked.”

According to The Nation magazine, the great Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, reports that the primitive rockets from Gaza, have taken thirteen Israeli lives in the past four years, while Israeli forces have killed more than 1000 Palestinians in the occupied territories in the past two years alone. Almost half of them were civilians, including some 200 children.

The Israeli government is barring most of the trucks from entering Gaza to feed the nearly one million Palestinians depending on international relief, from groups such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The loss of life from crumbling health care facilities, disastrous electricity cutoffs, gross malnutrition and contaminated drinking water from broken public water systems does not get totaled. These are the children and their civilian adult relatives who expire in a silent violence of suffering that 98 percent of Congress avoids mentioning while extending billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel annually.

UNRWA says “we are seeing evidence of the stunting of children, their growth is slowing…” Cancer patients are deprived of their chemotherapy, kidney patients are cut off from dialysis treatments and premature babies cannot receive blood-clotting medications, reports Professor Saree Makdisi in the February 2, 2008 issue of The Nation.

The misery, mortality and morbidity worsens day by day. Here is how the commissioner-general of UNRWA sums it up—“Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and-some would say-encouragement of the international community.”

Amidst the swirl of hard-liners on both sides and in both Democratic and Republican parties, consider the latest poll (February 27, 2008) of Israelis in the highly respected newspaper—Haaretz: “Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less that one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks. An increasing number of public figures, including senior officers in the Israeli Defense Forces’ reserves have expressed similar positions on talks with Hamas.”

Hamas, which was created with the support of Israel and the U.S. government years ago to counter the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has repeatedly offered cease-fire proposals.

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posted in Palestine - 0 replies

PFLP slams the statements of Rice in Ramallah

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:32:53 GMT

PFLP slams the statements of Rice in Ramallah
http://www.imemc. org/article/ 53257

Tuesday March 04, 2008 23:21 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) slammed on
Tuesday the statements of the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza
Rice, during meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank
city of Ramallah.
PFLP

The PFLP stated that Rice "acquitted the leaders of Israel and the
commanders of its army from the crimes they are committing against
the Palestinians people, while the Israeli army is using US-donated
fighter-jets and shells". The spokesperson said that the US is
misleading the international community and is ongoing with its
support to Israel and its occupation to Palestine.

He added that the US is acting in order to divide the Palestinians
people into "good and bad groups" in order to obstruct any efforts
that aim at uniting the Palestinians.

The spokesperson called on the Palestinian leadership not to
surrender to US pressures to resume "the mirage of peace talks with
Israel under false US promises and delusions".
The PLFP stated that the Palestinian people need to be united now
more than ever in order to counter the Israeli and American plans to
keep them separated in order to protect the occupation and its
policies in Palestine.

Also on Tuesday, Sami Abu Zuhri, the Hamas movement spokesperson,
stated that Rice's statement which accuses Hamas of escalating the
violence as fiving a green light to Israel to continue its attacks
against the Palestinian people, the resistance and Hamas movement.
Abu Zuhri added that the comments were made by Rice to sway world
opinion and to cover up Bush's crimes, because according to Abu
Zuhri, Bush gave his blessing for the attacks on Gaza during his
visit to the region on January.

The Hamas official asked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to
listen to Rice regarding resuming talks with Israel. Halting talks
with Israel is a natural and much needed response to the Israeli
attacks on Gaza Abu Zuhri added.

During her visit, Rice failed to condemn the recent Israeli attacks
against the Gaza Strip which started on Wednesday and continued
through Monday . During the military assault, 120 Palestinians were
killed and over 300 were injured, a large number of the casualties
including women and children.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Killed While They Played Football, The Child Victims of Israel’s Revenge on Gaza

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:53:06 GMT

by Donald Macintyre

Four boys playing football have been killed in Gaza by Israeli air strikes, according to Palestinian officials, as Israel responded to the death of a man from a barrage of rocket attacks with a bloody escalation of violence.

At least 16 Palestinians - including the four children - were killed yesterday as Israel responded to the deadly attacks the previous day.

While the Israeli military said it had been targeting militants and rocket-launching squads, the officials said the boys were playing football close to their homes in Jabalya, northern Gaza.

A relative, Ahmed Dardouna, 42, said the family had located the bodies of the boys - reportedly two brothers and their cousins - at a local hospital after they failed to return home. Rocket fire from militants into Israel continued during the day lightly injuring two Israelis and forcing the Israeli Interior Minister, Avi Dichter, to take cover during a visit to the border town of Sderot. His bodyguard was one of those injured, in a rocket attack launched before the minister arrived. Four rockets reached Ashkelon, 12 miles north of Gaza.

Palestinian officials said that while the majority killed were militants, 10 civilians were among the total of at least 27 killed over the past two days - seven of which were children.

They said that one Palestinian was killed and four wounded in a helicopter attack on a police roadblock 150 yards from the home of the de facto Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.

Although Mr Haniyeh is said to have gone into hiding and was not at home at the time, the attacks were locally interpreted as a warning to Hamas’s political leadership because the coastal area of the Beach refugee camp where he lives is not used for launching rockets.

The latest outbreak of violence began on Wednesday when an airstrike killed five militants, described by Hamas as “five of our best fighters”, as they drove in a van in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis.

Hamas claimed responsibility for a subsequent and unusually heavy retaliatory barrage of more than 40 Qassam rockets, one of which killed a 47-year-old father of four at the Sapir College in Sderot.

Israel swiftly responded with a series of air strikes beginning on Wednesday, killing two other children aged 10 and 11, according to Palestinian officials. A missile attack on the Ministry of Interior building on Wednesday evening killed a baby, Mohammed al-Burai, living nearby and caused severe destruction at the adjacent offices of the Oxfam-funded Palestinian Medical Relief Society.

Oxfam said the missile destroyed £15,000 of drugs in the pharmacy, a disabled centre catering for 400 chronically ill patients, an ambulance and a generator needed during the frequent power cuts in Gaza. Oxfam said last night: “We call on all parties to end military action which affects civilians and targets civilian infrastructure.”

The Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, yesterday hinted at the possibility of a large-scale ground operation in response to the Qassam fire, saying: “We must prepare for continued escalation… We are not eager [to carry out such an operation], and not shying away from it. Israel will reach the perpetrators and Hamas will pay a price for its actions.”

But the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who met the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Tokyo, where he is on an official visit, said there were no “magic formulas” to eliminate rocket fire. He added: “We are suffering painful blows, but are returning more painful blows. We will continue fighting in order for the danger to the residents to end.”

One of the Palestinians killed was Hamza al-Haya, the son of a senior Hamas Palestinian legislative council member, Khalil al-Haya, and said by the Islamic faction to have commanded a rocket-launching squad in northern Gaza. Visiting the morgue at Gaza, Mr Haya said: “I thank God for this gift. This is the 10th member of my family to receive the honour of martyrdom.”

There were unconfirmed reports that a fifth child was also killed in Jabalya last night. As the Palestinian Foreign minister, Riyad al-Malki, condemned both the Qassam attacks and the Israeli military actions, Nabil Abu Rdeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, said yesterday’s air strikes “meant only one thing: the Israeli government… aims to destroy the peace process”.

Ms Rice said: “I am concerned about the humanitarian condition there and innocent people in Gaza being hurt. We have to remember that the Hamas activities are responsible for what has happened in Gaza.”

Palestinians claimed the air strikes included the use of F16s and Apache helicopters.

© 2008 The Independent

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/29/7386/print/

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Hamas declares victory in Ghaza's Jabalia area

ArabianPalestinian — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:31:11 GMT

Hamas has declared victory in the northeast area of Jabalia, in northern Ghaza (Gaza), after the zioNazis of "israel" withdrew their terrorist "troops" today, Monday, March 3, 2008.

Here is the link in Arabic

http://www.palestine-info.info/ar/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s79IGvhd8LWaQ4nPFIJwZTTTOFKGqPAO2v9KCMx0wgA8GIbkTxgUNYRla3ikFtl4SkdjP%2bmPRAg9QnJFMxiwIHdC3GOKFyKRk6tQ2cKut%2fEok%3d

The Hamas declaration stated that the zioNazi terrorists were unable to confront the Qassam Brigade fighters of the Palestinian Resistance in the attempt to overrun Ghaza, and withdrew their terrorists.

The Hamas announcement regarded this wirthdrawal as indicative of the forthcoming failure of the planned zioNazi land attack on Ghaza.

News agencies had earlier reported that more than 110 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including many children, were murdered by american-made "israeli" military airplanes in air raids on several Ghaza targets.

Hamas considers these air attacks attempts by the zioNazi terrorists to make up for the failure of land operations against Palestinian Resistance fighters.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

"Tribe" Backs Anti-Palestinian Racists

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:58:49 GMT

Message from "Free Palestine End Zionism" moderator:

This is being sent to you because you were a member of my tribe, Free Palestine End Zionism. I would like you to know that I was notified today by a representative of tribe.net that my tribe was "anti-semitic" and that they removed it!

I am sending this so you will know why the tribe does not exist any more and so you will bear witness to the evident censorship and lack of the freedom of speech on tribe.net, plus the fabricated excuse to silence my tribe.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

If you are on the side of justice ...

Araby — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:19:47 GMT

If you are on the side of justice, if you support the freedom of oppressed people, if you feel that the usurpation of the culture of other societies is a crime, if you agree that resistance against those who occupy and steal your lands, uproot your trees and crops, and destroy your home is all a fair goal to strive for, then you should support the Palestinians in their dream of freeing their homeland from the zionist occupiers. Please join and support this tribe:

Free Palestine End Zionism

tribes.tribe.net/freepalestineendzionism

------------
Here is the tribe's description:

Free Palestine End Zionism

This tribe is dedicated to the goal of a free Palestine--free of Zionist occupation and free of Zionism. We believe that the "Jewish State of Israel" should come to an end and a non-religious, pluralistic, secular State of Palestine should replace it, open to all citizens, of all faiths, Muslim, Christian and Jewish.

You are welcome to join this tribe and to post your comments, or what you may have found on the Internet that furthers the Cause of a Free Palestine and an end to Zionism. If anything is posted from the Internet, please provide the URL source. If you write your own comments, please be civil.

The moderator will remove all comments that are destructive, posts that are false or anti-Palestinian, or that use foul language. If a member persists in such behavior that member will be removed.

tribes.tribe.net/freepalestineendzionism

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

New Tribe: Free Palestine End Zionism

Araby — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:46:41 GMT

Free Palestine End Zionism

This tribe is dedicated to the goal of a free Palestine--free of Zionist occupation and free of Zionism. We believe that the "Jewish State of Israel" should come to an end and a non-religious, pluralistic, secular State of Palestine should replace it, open to all citizens, of all faiths, Muslim, Christian and Jewish.

You are welcome to join this tribe and to post your comments, or what you may have found on the Internet that furthers the Cause of a Free Palestine and an end to Zionism. If anything is posted from the Internet, please provide the URL source. If you write your own comments, please be civil.

The moderator will remove all comments that are destructive, posts that are false or anti-Palestinian, or that use foul language. If a member persists in such behavior that member will be removed.

http://tribes.tribe.net/freepalestineendzionism

posted in Palestine - 2 replies

Hamas warns zioNazis about their threats

ArabianPalestinian — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:50:16 GMT

Hamas: Israel will pay high price if Hamas leaders are harmed

[ 11/02/2008 - 06:47 PM ]

GAZA, PIC-- Hamas Movement has made it sound and clear to the Israeli occupation government on Monday that it will strongly retaliate to any Israeli attempt to kill Hamas political leaders, and that the Movement will use all possible means in this regard.

The Movement also warned the Israeli occupation government of paying a high price for any foolishness it might commit [against Hamas political leaders], adding that the response of Hamas will be unprecedented and with all available means.

Hebrew media outlets had earlier reported that the Israeli occupation government decided to assassinate Hamas political leaders inside and outside occupied Palestine, asserting that the legitimate PA premier Ismail Haneyya was on the assassination list.

In a press statement he issued and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, the spokesman of Hamas Movement in Gaza Strip, described the Israeli threats against high-ranking Hamas officials as "serious escalation", underlining that Hamas's reaction to any Israeli attempt against its leaders will be "painful and unprecedented".

Abu Zuhri also deplored the international silence towards the Israeli "official war crimes", adding that the Israeli occupation government was publicly threatening to kill Hamas political leaders, yet, he added, the international community appeared unconcerned with those threats.

"This [the international passiveness towards the IOA threats] isn’t acceptable in Hamas, and it will push us to use all available means in confronting this occupation", underlined Abu Zuhri.

However, the spokesman stressed that the Israeli threats frighten neither Hamas nor the Palestinians, asserting, "We will continue on the path of resistance in defense of our people and in defense of our legal rights". He also advised the Israeli occupation government to think twice before carrying out any "foolish acts" of this kind.

Furthermore, the Hamas official revealed that the Hamas political leaders were taking all possible security measures to thwart the Israeli threats, but he asserted that such measures don’t affect the role of those leaders in the Palestinian arena.

Abu Zuhri noted that the Israeli threats should spur the Arab and Muslim Ummah to mobilize their energies in confronting the Israeli occupation, and not to give it a chance to isolate the Palestinian people especially that the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people is politically, military, and financially supported by the USA.

Barak beats drums of war:
On Monday, Israeli war minister Ehud Barak ordered his occupation army to prepare for a "full-scale" military operation in the Gaza Strip, alleging that the operation aims at reducing number of Palestinian locally-made rockets fired on Israeli colonies.

In a report he presented to the foreign and security committee in the Israeli Knesset (parliament), Barak asserted that Israel will take all necessary measures to restore calm and security to Sderot and other Israeli colonies adjacent to Gaza Strip.

But he acknowledged that stopping the Palestinian rockets will take time, adding that the IOF attacks on Gaza Strip will "bear their fruits" regardless of the time it takes.

Barak also revealed that the offensive on Gaza is very near but "it won't take place in the few coming days".

Shaul Mofaz, the former Israeli war minister, didn’t rule out the possibility of reoccupying the entire Gaza Strip, saying, "this will be the last option".

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7MOre5psORr4zCh1d%2bMEk6%2bThPKmto1s9K57apSAOLnkF8SxirfJTw%2fODoT8zHWOUxs%2fAm9BOLxwVITj6sAkrdS080JTgnMKdard7VZaf0rc%3d

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Hamas declares "israel" a terrorist entity

ArabianPalestinian — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:16:35 GMT

Hamas: IOA is a terrorist institution that plans new massacres in Gaza

[ 10/02/2008 - 06:27 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement has described, on Sunday, the Israeli occupation government as a "terrorist institution," asserting that the latest Israeli threats of assassinating Hamas leaders reflect the "terrorist mentality" of the Israeli occupation.

The Movement also charged, "The Israeli threats unveil a planned Israeli racial cleansing campaign to liquidate the Palestinian issue and to enhance the concept of the 'Jewish state' which was endorsed by the Annapolis and Paris conferences."

Fawzi Barhoum, the official spokesman of Hamas Movement in Gaza Strip, warned that the Israeli occupation government "poses a real threat not only to the Palestinian people but to the entire region in the shadow of the unlimited US political and military support".

Barhoum also accused the US administration of being "partner of the Israeli occupation in its war against the Palestinian people and their legal rights," explaining that the latest Israeli threats of killing Hamas leaders came after the series of visits made by the US officials to the region.

In this regard, Barhoum urged the international community to protect the Palestinian people against those US-Israeli schemes, saying that the passive stand on the part of the international community and the Arab and Muslim world towards those plans is no longer justified.

In a related matter, Israeli war minister Ehud Barak disclosed that his army was carrying out "secret" operations inside Gaza Strip without announcing them, in allusion to the assassination attempts that targeted a number of Hamas leaders and resistance fighters in Gaza Strip.

Barak uttered his remarks during a visit he paid in the company of his deputy Matan Velnai to the Israeli colony of Sderot where both of them were badly received by the Israeli settlers there.

After the Israeli settlers chanted slogans against him, Barak was forced to acknowledge that his army was carrying out "secret" revenge operations against Gaza Strip.

A couple of days ago, two Palestinian fighters from the Popular Resistance Committees survived an assassination attempt after they stepped out of their vehicle moments before a bomb planted in the vehicle exploded.

The PRC accused local agents working for Israel of planting the bomb.

The legitimate PA security forces in Gaza Strip foiled a number of bombing attempts at the hands of Fatah elements and former PA security forces with the aim to destabilize Gaza Strip.

But the most serious event was the attempt of a Fatah-affiliated group to assassinate PA premier Ismail Haneyya, which the PA security forces thwarted and arrested the supposed suicide bomber.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s736Ilcps5xftVThDD9%2fdCuRsxmWxy9Z9vGIzcep29ZJRScGN2KZRz5wLViFJ%2fyzkGH7KphEcpcDLa8LG5HlGXNWfqBdPyp%2bOMvVsgXws6M%2bo%3d

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Non-Zionist Jews condemn chief zioNazi racist rabbi

ArabianPalestinian — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 12:55:26 GMT

Here is a condemnation of that racist zioNazi rabbi from a non-zioNazi Jewish group. The article about the racist zioNazi rabbis appears after this one in the list of threads on this tribe.

Non-Zionist Jews blast Israel’s chief rabbi for racist remarks

[ 05/02/2008 - 02:37 AM ]

Neturei Karta, an international society representing non-Zionist Orthodox Jews, has blasted recent remarks by Yoni Metzger, Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, in which the rabbi called for the deportation of the people of Gaza to the Egyptian Sinai desert.
In a statement circulated to the press earlier this week, Neturei Karta called Metzger’s remarks “vicious and provocative.”

“Yona Metger is not an authentic rabbi, despite the fact that he carries the title of ‘Chief Rabbi.’ Chief rabbis of the Zionist state only carry legitimacy in the eyes of the Zionist Jews. His status as a rabbi is not unlike the leadership of Theodor Herzl, who also wore a beard.”

The group reasserted its ideological stand that the Zionist state of Israel lacked religious and moral legitimacy from the Orthodox Jewish perspective.

“The state of Israel is an illegitimate rouge regime whose very existence is leading the world to World War III. Palestinians have an inherent right, guaranteed under international and moral law, to return to their land in historic Palestine and to establish their independent state in the entire Holy Land, which was forcefully taken from them by the Zionists. Indeed, many Gazans are refugees who were expelled from other areas of Palestine by the Zionists ever since 1948.”

The statement lashed out at the rabbinic establishment in Israel, describing state-paid rabbis as “stooges of Zionism.”

“ Chief rabbis of the Zionist state, whether Metger or anyone else, are merely very well-paid stooges of the Zionists and serve their Zionist masters without regard for the welfare of the Jewish people, the Palestinians, or any other nation in the world.”
The statement went on: “Chief rabbis, and other rabbis, who support the existence of the Zionist state, are wicked emissaries of Evil. Such ‘rabbis’ promote hatred and war, and use their coercive powers to demand subservience of Jews to the Zionist enterprise. This description of such people has been the long-standing position of authentic rabbis for the last century.”

The statement stressed that advocates of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, whether Metzger or others, don’t represent the Jewish religion.

“Yona Metzger, like all Zionist rabbis, expresses feelings of cruelty and inhumanity which originates in his loyalty to the cult of Zionism, is perfectly prepared to sacrifice Jewish lives on the altar of his idolatry, the state of ‘Israel.’ Any moral person would much prefer to see the Zionist warmongers, including Metger, removed from the Holy Land. Metger and all Zionist rabbis don’t represent the Jewish religion.”

Neturei Karta, which means “Guardians of the City, urgently appealed to the leaders of the world, especially the great powers, to stop supporting the Zionist regime.

“Many nations believe that supporting Zionism shows friendship to the Jewish people. This is incorrect! True friendship to the Jewish people can be demonstrated by saving all the peoples of the Middle East, including Jews, from the bloodthirsty machinations of the dangerous state of ‘Israel’ and by dismantling the Zionist regime entirely.”

In an interview with the British Jewish weekly last week, the Jewish News, Metzger was quoted as saying that Palestinians could have a nice country in Sinai.

“Take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains, buses and cars, like in Arizona. This will be a solution for the poor people; they will have a nice country, and we, the Jews, shall have our country and we shall live in peace.”

Metzger also reportedly said that he would discuss the “matter” with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, adding that he thought the idea would find popularity among Israelis.

Neturei Karta is a Haredi Orthodox Jewish group with thousands of adherents all over the world. It was created in 1935, mainly as a reaction to the emergence of Zionism among European Jewry.

The group opposes Zionism and calls for the peaceful dismantling of the state of Israel in the belief that Jews are forbidden to have their own state until the coming of the Messiah. Moreover, Neturei Karta views Israel’s violent and often criminal behavior vis-à-vis the Palestinians, e.g. systematic persecution, ethnic cleansing, house demolition and land theft, as decidedly incompatible with the moral teachings and ideals of Judaism.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7erxVxFujGSMWeHXrTVKfiP9V2Xz6iOYcb2o%2bDHCWuYVsS2YBgErRhk1oNQm7YLFZ1Dt5urDWQvuWrbMEhbjlGjXki0%2fngJfxujIwfS6UL20%3d

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Edge Of Sports: An Egyptian soccer star shames U.S. sports millionaires.

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:06:30 GMT

Edge Of Sports: An Egyptian soccer star shames U.S. sports millionaires.

In a world where mainstream media dumb down news reportage with inane sports metaphors, sometimes it takes sports to remind us of the gravity of the actual news. While the press acts like extras on Gossip Girl as they assess the latest machinations of Bill, Barack and Hillary, a soccer player has alerted the world to a humanitarian catastrophe.

Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Aboutreika of the Al-Ahly Pharoahs is the player who stepped up to this task. It’s a safe bet that Pharoah mania isn’t exactly sweeping the States. It’s also probably true that most readers don’t know Mohamed Aboutreika from Muhammad Ali, but the two men share more than a name.

After scoring in the Egyptian national side’s 3-0 victory over Sudan in the African Nations Cup, the player known as the Smiling Assassin lifted his jersey to reveal a T-shirt that read, “Sympathize with Gaza.”

For such a simple slogan, the reaction has been profound. Aboutreika received a yellow card for breaking world soccer’s ruling body FIFA’s year-old rule against political sloganeering on the pitch, and a suspension may be in the works. But then the unexpected: The confederation was flooded with emails from fans and even reporters expressing their support for Aboutreika’s actions.

“He is a good player and he belongs to all Arab and Muslim nations, and he reflected what is in our hearts,” journalist Ahmed Gamal wrote to FIFA. “We are asking you, in the name of human rights, to cooperate with us and support him. Please do not even think about any suspension for him, because your tournament will be fake and the whole Muslim world is supporting him. Please don’t make that mistake. We are all sympathizing with Gaza.”

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16356

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

zioNazi chief rabbi wants ethnic cleansing of Palestinians!

ArabianPalestinian — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:39:02 GMT

The article politely calls this racist monster "Nazi-like," but I have a better word for him: he is zioNazi! Another proof of the accuracy of my description: zionist nazis are zioNazis!

Israel’s Chief Rabbi calls for ethnic cleansing of non-Jews in Palestine

[ 29/01/2008 - 12:40 AM ]

From Khalid Amayreh in occupied E. Jerusalem

A leading Israeli rabbi has called for ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians who have been living in Palestine from time immemorial.

The rabbi, Yona Metzger, who holds the official title of Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in Israel, was quoted Monday as saying in an interview with the British Weekly, the Jewish News, that the Palestinian people could have a "nice country" in the Sinai desert.

“Take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains, buses and cars, like in Arizona. This will be a solution for the poor people-they will have a nice country, and we (the Jews) shall have our country and we shall live in peace.”

Metzger also reportedly said that he would discuss the “matter” with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, adding that he thought the idea would find popularity among Israelis.

The rabbi also suggested that Muslims had no right to Jerusalem, saying that Muslims had Makka and Medina, and that Jerusalem belonged solely to Jews.

Metzger’s remarks were dismissed by Muslim scholars in the West Bank as “hateful, mendacious and racist.”

“This Nazi-like rabbi should know very well that Palestine belongs to the Palestinians and that that he and other Zionists should return back to Eastern Europe and the Khazar region,” said Abdul Ja’abari, Professor of Sharia and Islamic studies at the Hebron University.

“Those who seek to banish us from our motherland shall themselves be banished.”

Ja’abari described Metzger’s remarks as “hateful, mendacious and racist.”

“If this man who calls himself rabbi had a modicum of morality and justice, he would call for the repatriation of these refugees back to their former homes and villages from which they were expelled when the hateful Israeli state was established.

“He claims to be a follower of the Torah of Moses, but as far as I know the Torah prohibits oppression and prohibits injustice and prohibits stealing people’s land and property.”

Sheikh Mousa Hroub, another Muslim scholar from the Bethlehem region, called Metzger “ignorant of both religion and history.”

“He should know that present-day Palestinians have more spiritual and biological connections with Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Ibrahim (Abraham). He should also know the Arab presence in Palestine preceded the Jewish presence by at least a thousand years. So what is that ignorant rabbi talking about?

Hroub also dismissed Metger arguments that Muslims have Mekka and Medina as holy places and that Jews had Jerusalem.

“I am not against Jews praying in Jerusalem or San Francesco. This is not a problem. But to say that Muslims and Christians should be treated as second–class citizens and second-class worshipers is totally unacceptable.

“This is like saying that the Christians had the Vatican and don’t need other places like Bethlehem and Nazareth. It is nonsense.”

Zionist rabbis in general normally hold radical and even racist views toward non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular.

A few weeks ago, an Israeli rabbi named David Batsri referred to Arabs as “donkeys” who he said were created by the Almighty in a human shape in order to work and carry out certain tasks.

Such blatantly racist remarks are made routinely by Zionist religious leaders in Israel where society continues to drift toward religious and nationalist chauvinism.

Not all rabbis accept these extremist views, enforced by the persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In fact, some rabbis spearhead the struggle for human rights in the occupied territories. They argue that Israel’s behavior are incompatible with the authentic teachings of Judaism.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7qPf1%2bSD9ApYzhVuudH6DGpsYfYGShHHGbMb7vA77GTINQSBPVdVYXvwwYa73iIMKOWhGVI9hyUB%2bhbh9UKnt7HMujfgRMaLtFTJOgwgQ8KU%3d

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George Habash never surrendered Palestinian rights

ArabianPalestinian — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:17:47 GMT

George Habash, a leading Palestinian figure and founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has died in Amman at the age of 83 (82 according to some sources). Below is the reaction of Hamas, the legitimate government of Palestine. It is interesting because Hamas is always accused in the west of being an "islamist" or "islamic fundamentalist" movement that does not tolerate "dioverse opinions," whereas George Habash was a Christian Palestinian.

See a photo of George Habash at
http://freepalestine.tribe.net/photos/c746fafe-7d89-4627-8603-7980d330eb5d

Hamas mourns death of George Habash, describes him as national leader

[ 27/01/2008 - 10:28 AM ]

AMMAN, (PIC)-- Hamas mourned the death of George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and described him as a "national leader" who refused all attempts to surrender the Palestinian people's national rights.

Habash, 83, was the PFLP secretary general from the establishment of the Front in 1967 until 2000, when he gave up the post as his health faltered. His successor, Abu Ali Mustafa, was assassinated by Israel in Ramallah one year later. Ahmad Saadat, the current PFLP secretary general, is held in Israeli prison on charges of planning the assassination of former zionist tourism minister Rahba'am Ze'evi, in retaliation for the murder of Abu Ali Mustafa.

The PA caretaker government, headed by Premier Ismail Haneyya, also mourned the death of Habash and extended condolences to the leaders and members of the PFLP along with the Palestinian people in general.

Haneyya issued a separate statement mourning Habash and hailing his struggle in defense of Palestine.

The PFLP had issued a statement declaring that its founder and former secretary general had died in one of Amman's private hospitals after long suffering from a heart ailment.

Rabah Mahana, the politburo member of the PFLP, said that the Front would accept condolences over the death of Habash in Gaza.

PA chief Mahmoud Abbas declared three-day mourning in the PA where Palestinian flags would be flown at half-mast.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7HlDf38qvrf5kBXUEX5Ch3h3KhOsZse9RN1UvAVD3C6VzTRn3k9mFHHKwr4QOj9b2wITwh5qQexUNamfjCE7lNXzaWIPE1vtMtgB6%2bNhSM4I%3d

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Irrepressible: Creative genius of the Palestinian people!

ArabianPalestinian — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 08:00:58 GMT

Irrepressible: Creative genius of the Palestinian people!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008, marked another popular Palestinian Uprising (Intifadah) of a kind, when the repressed and tormented Palestinian people in Ghaza (Gaza) broke free of the zioNazi Jewish prison imposed on them for the last eight months.

The whole world had deliberately forgotten the downtrodden Palestinians, as they suffered under one of the worst examples of collective punishment since the Nazis tried to break resistance to their occupation of, and rule over Europe during the Second World War by using the same tactics.

But the Palestinians had enough. Tens of thousands of them blasted through the border and pored into neighboring Egypt, and went on shopping sprees for the essentials of life that for so long had been denied them by the zioNazi Jews. The stunned regime of Egypt could not stop them so it pretended to welcome them.

Shortly after, the orders from the criminal government of George Bush and its zioNazi Jewish overlords in occupied Palestine came to the lackey Egyptian regime to close the border. Egyptian "security" tried but could not.

The Palestinians of Gaza outwitted the Egyptians and breached other border points. Now, the Egyptian regime has called for talks between Hamas, the legitimate government of Palestine, and the usurper "Palestinian Authority" of the West Bank to come up with some kind of a solution to save the face of the Egyptian regime. This, when for months neither the Egyptian regime nor the "Palestinian Authority" had condescended to even talk to Hamas, let alone the criminal White House or the terrorist zioNazi Jews of occupied Palestine.

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Americans order Egypt regime to close Gaza border

ArabianPalestinian — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:52:24 GMT

The latest news (reported by aljazeera.net) is that the criminal government of the United States has told its lackey regime that controls Egypt (under Husni Mubarak) to close the border that Palestinians in Ghaza (Gaza) had breached in order to break the zioNazi blockade forced on them for the last eight months.

The word is that the zioNazis were mortified that the Palestinians were managing to free themselves from the collective punishment the zioNazis imposed on them. Of course, the criminal U.S. government hastens to do the zioNazi bidding.

Meanwhile, the representative of the criminal U.S. government in the United Nations continues to block any attempt by that body's Security Council to issue a resolution calling for the fascist blockade to be removed from Ghaza.

I suppose these assorted criminals do manage to sleep at night despite the evil they inflict on their fellow human beings in Palestine.

Tired old planet!

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UN Council wants end of zioNazi collective punishment

ArabianPalestinian — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:33:53 GMT

UN Human Rights Council calls for immediate lifting of Gaza Siege

[ 25/01/2008 - 11:33 AM ]

A QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE BELOW:

The Council recognized that the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza Strip, including closing the border crossings and cutting the supply of fuel, food and medicine, constitutes a collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians and leads to disastrous consequences.

GENEVA, (PIC)-- The United Nations Human Rights Council Thursday expressed its grave concern at Israel's repeated military attacks carried out in the Palestinian territories, particularly in Gaza, which resulted in loss of lives and injuries among Palestinian civilians, including women and children.

It called for international action to pressure Israel into allowing fuel, food, medicine and other essential items to be sent to the Gaza Strip and to reopen the border crossings.

The session was called by 21 of the council’s 47 members, and a resolution criticising Israel was tabled by Pakistan and Syria on behalf of the Islamic and Arab blocs. The United States and Israel were not present for the session, an AFP reporter on the scene noted. Neither country is a member of the council but both can attend as observers.

In a resolution adopted by the Council, 30 votes in favor, one against (Canada) and 15 abstentions, the Council expressed its deep concern about “the series of incessant and repeated Israeli military attacks and incursions,” which it said had killed and injured many Palestinian civilians.

The resolution also called for an immediate lifting of the siege imposed by Israel and the immediate protection of civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory. The Council recognized that the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza Strip, including closing the border crossings and cutting the supply of fuel, food and medicine, constitutes a collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians and leads to disastrous consequences.

The resolution also requested the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to report to the Council, at its next session, on the progress made in the implementation of this resolution.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7kfrUp3e%2f7QUdE%2biJ2AyROTgnzcgv2vTYKyt5dDygvAfTiZZalSZJJBIk0wwL5QAUBAPMf1Zmr%2fRrEezafQjSevbtlnpp8P5uXjzrF17zt5M%3d

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Israel: a cancer on Jewish conscience

ArabianPalestinian — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:44:57 GMT

Israel: a cancer on Jewish conscience

[ 25/01/2008 - 01:38 AM ]

Comment by Khalid Amayreh in E. Jerusalem

In his rabid efforts to impose socialism on independent Ukrainian farmers (the Kulaks), Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered his Red Army to completely cut off Ukraine from the rest of the world. All roads were sealed, all border crossings were closed. Nothing was allowed to go into or come out of the country. Farmers were searched and looted of food and fuel.

Then, soon, Ukrainians began dying of hunger, cold and sickness in great numbers.

The genocide reached its heights in the winter of 1932-1933 when Stalin's Jewish aide, the notorious mass murderer Lazar Kaganovitch, was dispatched to the Ukraine to accelerate the process of extermination of millions of farmers, middle-class businesspeople and intellectuals. By this time, Ukrainians, facing one of the harshest man-made famines in history, were forced to eat pets, dogs, boots and belts, plus bark and roots. According to some sources, parents even ate infant children.

It is true the situation in Gaza is not identical to the great Ukrainian famine. However, it is also true that the present nightmare in Gaza is menacingly exacerbating by the hour and if the world doesn't stop the Nazi-minded Israeli leadership sooner than later, Gaza will certainly become an updated version of the Ukrainian genocide.

We must not take chances. Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, as well as the rest of the ruling class in Israel are more or less trying to emulate Kaganovitch and Genrich Grigorivic Yagoda, another Soviet Jewish mass murderer who probably killed or caused the death of more people than Hitler ever did.

But unlike Kaganovitch and Yagoda, who didn't seek to hide their genocidal campaigns, Olmert is lying through his teeth about Israel's genocidal designs against Gaza's 1.5 million blockaded inhabitants. His claims that Israel will not allow a humanitarian crisis in Gaza are as valid as a veteran whore's pretensions about her unscathed chastity.

There is no doubt that Israel is effecting a slow-motion genocide in Gaza. This is evidenced from the shocking state of dilapidation and destitution overwhelming the tormented enclave which has been reduced to the largest open-air concentration camp in the world.

According to Karen Abu Zayd, Commissioner-General for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, the closure of Gaza by Israel is without precedent.

"Palestinians are effectively incarcerated. The overwhelming majority can't leave or enter Gaza. Without fuel and spare parts, public health conditions are declining steeply as water and sanitation services struggle to function. The electricity supply is sporadic and has been reduced further along with fuel supply in these past days. UNICEF reports that the partial functioning of Gaza City's main pumping station is affecting the supply of 600,000 people. Medication is in short supply and hospitals are paralyzed by power failures and the shortage of fuel for generators. Hospital infrastructure and essential pieces of equipment are breaking down at an alarming rate, with limited possibility of repair or maintenance as spare parts are not available. Concrete is in such short supply that people are unable to make graves for their dead. Hospitals are handing out sheets as funeral shrouds."

Abu Zayd is a great human being and she deserves all praise for her heroic efforts to mobilize the international community to stop the Gaza catastrophe before it blows up irreversibly in the face of the world.

However, it is amply clear that he measured description of the Gaza nightmare is a huge understatement of reality, because Gaza is dying thanks to the sustained genocidal blockade the children, grand children and great grand-children of the holocaust are imposing on these helpless and thoroughly tormented Palestinians.

On Wednesday, 23 January, tens of thousands of penned-in and starved Gazans poured into Egypt after gunmen blasted through the Israeli-built wall separating the Egyptian and Palestinian halves of Rafah. One TV station described the moving outpouring of humanity in Rafah as the "world's greatest prison escapade."

The scene of men, women and children pouring through the breaches on foot, by car, or in donkey carts to buy food and other staples and essential goods suggested that Gaza is really facing an extremely difficult situation bordering on an attempted genocide.

The frozen indignation had to be vented. The powder keg had to go off. Only the imbeciles, like George Bush, were surprised by the turn of events.

This is what happens when you pen-in a million and a half human beings in crowded prison, without food, without fuel, without electricity and without hope, while telling a morally-desensitized world that "I am not going to allow a humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

As the wall came tumbling down in Gaza, it is imperative that Palestinians and their supporters, the millions of free-minded men and women around the world, including many conscientious Jews who value freedom and justice, don't underestimate the evil intentions and designs of the Zionist entity.

Israel, an evil state ruled by evil politicians who have no regard for morality and humanity. As such, this state will not just sit down and let the Palestinians enjoy a rare moment of triumph, however small and costly it may be.

Barak and Olmert are simply too nefarious and too Satanic to allow a smile to appear on the innocent faces of Gaza children.

This is why it is very likely that Barak, a man who possesses the evilness of Adolph Hitler and the callousness of Joseph Stalin, will try to carry out a new massacre or spate of assassinations to "balance the formula."

Indeed, Israel has already said that it will tighten the blockade of Gaza and is pressuring the Egyptian government to collude with Israel in order to further torment and starve the helpless Gazans.

Israel simply wants to make sure that Palestinians suffer and die as quietly as possible in order not to provoke the moral conscience of the world. Israel thinks, probably rightly, that a quiet genocide is an unwept genocide that would eventually vanish into oblivion and allow the perpetrators to get away with minimal incriminations.

But, nay, we must never allow ourselves to suffer quietly or indeed die quietly. We must leave no stone unturned until we mobilize the conscience of the world against this evil state that claims to be Jewish but is thinking , behaving and acting like the Gestapo, SS and Wehrmacht.

We must mobilize all free men and women in the four corners of the world in order to prevent Israel from turning Gaza into another Auschwitz, another Treblinka, another Bergen Belsen, or another Theresienstadt. We must cross all the red lines if necessary in order to prevent a possible Gaza holocaust from occurring.

The heroic men and women who blasted the wall of shame in Rafah deserve all admiration. We salute them for their sublime act of moral defiance in the face of brute force and moral callousness.

We salute them for flying in the face of cool political calculations. May they live to see the banners of freedom flutter Occupied Jerusalem.

Finally, it is important that we, the peoples of the world who refuse to be enslaved by the promiscuous New World Order, understand that the battle of Gaza is everyone's battle. It is a battle for the soul of humanity, it is a battle for the moral conscience of the world. It is a battle for light versus darkness, justice versus oppression and truth versus mendacity.

It is a battle that we must not allow ourselves to lose.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7M7czZ2m03XgmSpxqN56wnffacpvTOIMujgfkq2Yk7fvBKSfJq0kg%2btYJzajVsQnfMxusMPVEbME7b7guEfYmdReWmJeRYQ6NafE7ogxorOQ%3d

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DEMONSTRATIONS TO BREAK THE SILENCE ON GAZA!

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:32:24 GMT

For Immediate Release
January 23, 2008

UPDATED LISTING OF DEMONSTRATIONS TO BREAK THE SILENCE ON GAZA!

The following is a partial listing of emergency protests taking place over the next few days in the US, Europe and Australia. If you are planning your own protest for Gaza, please write to info@al-awda.org so we can post information about your action on our website http://al-awda.org .

Anaheim, California: Saturday, January 26, 1 PM 512 S. Brookhurst St. Between Orange Ave. & Broadway

Champaign, University of Illinois at Urbana: Tuesday January 22, 11 AM at the Quad

Charlotte, North Carolina: Saturday January 26, 4 PM Forum, Charlotte Energy Solutions, 337 Baldwin Ave; Organized by Charlotte Action

Chicago, Illinois: Tuesday January 29, 5 PM at the Lakeshore Theater, 3175 North Broadway (at benefit for the Friends of the 'Israeli Defense Force'). Initiated by ISM. Call 773-463-0311 for more information.

Cleveland, Ohio: January 26, 2 PM at Cleveland's Market Square at W. 25th & Lorain Avenue, across from the West Side Market - March to West 25th and Franklin

Costa Mesa, California: Friday, January 25, 5-7 PM, vigil at Bristol & Anton

Edinburgh, Scotland: Wednesday January 23, 5.30 PM at the foot of the Mound, Princes Street.

Glasgow, Scotland: Friday January 25, 5.30 PM George Square.

London, England: Thursday January 24, 6 PM and Saturday January 26, 4 PM Opposite 10 Downing Street, Whitehall.

Melbourne, Australia: Details to be posted.

Montreal, Canada: Wednesday January 23, 5 PM, Phillips Square, Saint Catherine Street opposite The Bay department store (Metro McGill) and Friday January 25, 2:00 PM
De Maisonneuve Boulevard corner of MacKay Street, Montreal (Metro Guy-Concordia) .

New York, New York: Friday January 25, 3 PM, and Saturday Janusary 26 1 PM - both at the 'Israeli' Embassy, 43rd St. and 2nd Ave.

Paris, France: Wednesday January 23, 5:30 PM at the Palais de l'Elysee.

Phoenix, Arizona: January 26, 6:30 PM Downtown Tempe, at the corner of Mill Ave and University Drive.

San Diego, California: Friday January 25, 3:00 - 5:30 PM downtown corner of Broadway and Front Street.

San Francisco, California: Friday, January 25, 4-6 PM, Israeli Consulate, 456 Montgomery St. (near California).

Seattle Washington: Friday January 25 4 PM, Westlake Park, 4th & Pine streets.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Saturday January 26, 12 Noon at 12th & Phillips

St. Paul, Minesota: Friday January 25, 4:15-5:30 P.M., Corner of Summit and Snelling Aves

Toronto, Canada: Friday January 25, 5 PM Israeli Consulate at 180 Bloor St. West

Washington DC: Friday January 25, 4 PM at the Israeli Embassy, 3514 International Dr. N.W.

BREAK THE SILENCE ON GAZA!
DON'T DELAY! TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, calls on its chapters, supporting organizations and individuals to organize to break the silence about the ongoing Israeli war crimes being committed against Palestinians in Gaza. Organize street actions and protests, and community meetings and delegations to religious leaders and educators. Call and write the media and your congressional representatives.

People of the world watch in horror as the racist state of Israel, with the support and encouragement of the US government, engages in a genocidal project to eliminate the indigenous Arab people of Palestine.

The world community has denounced the government of 'Israel' for using its military for the purpose of collectively punishing the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, a clear war crime and violation of the 4th Geneva Conventions. The only power plant in Gaza was shut down today leaving the 1.5 million inhabitants without electricity, water, or any functional medical facilities.

Palestinians continue to endure starvation, aerial bombings, US CIA interventions, and Israeli army brutality. This murderous endeavor has caused the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians and the already fragile economy of Gaza has been decimated.

NO FOOD, NO WATER, NO BREAD!

We appeal to all people living in the US:

SPEAK OUT TO DEMAND ONCE AND FOR ALL AN END TO THE SIEGE OF GAZA AND THE OCCUPATION OF ALL OF PALESTINE!

ORGANIZE STREET ACTIONS AND PROTESTS, CALL AND WRITE THE MEDIA AND YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES.

ORGANIZE COMMUNITY MEETINGS AND DELEGATIONS TO RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND EDUCATORS.

DONATE TO HELP THE PEOPLE IN GAZA!

For information to contact your congressional representatives, go to
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home

For writing to the media, go to http://newslink.org for contact information.

To make a donation to help the people in the Gaza Strip go to http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and simply follow the instructions. Please indicate that your donation is for the GAZA EMERGENCY FUND.

BREAK THE SILENCE ON GAZA!
DON'T DELAY! TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW:http://al-awda.org

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Please support the Palestinians!

ArabianPalestinian — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:00:22 GMT

Please support the Palestinians!

Free and conscientious people everywhere, please raise your voices in support of the Palestinians!

Something remarkable has just happened in Gaza. After eight months of nazi-like collective punishment by the zionists (hence zioNazis), the Palestinians in Ghaza (Gaza) breached the economic and life-curtailing siege imposed on them and entered neighboring Egypt to bring much needed medical and food supplies that the zioNazis have been blocking.

Because the zioNazis and their bankroller, the criminal government of the united states, wants to break the Palestinian Resistance against occupation, the most atrocious blockade had been imposed on the Palestinians in Ghaza. Much like the collective punishment that the nazis imposed on cities and towns in Europe during the Second World War, in order to break the resistance to nazi occupation. It has to be said that the bl;ockade was imposed with the connivance of the regime in Egypt and that of the so-called Palestinian "Authority" in the West Bank, which continues to play along with empty "peace" promises. Why empty? Because while they talk of peace, the zioNazis of "israel" continue to seize Palestinian lands and to build racist, (jewish-only) colonies and roads on Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

But the Palestinians, in a popular uprising, breached the blockade in Ghaza. They should be hailed for their act of freedom. They should be supported in their effort to assert their desire to be free, like the rest of the people of this tired planet.

Please, support the Palestinians in their resistance to occupation and their longing for freedom in their homeland!

Please raise your voices and march everywhere in support of the freedom of Palestinians!

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Palestinians break zioNazi siege in Gaza!

ArabianPalestinian — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 17:26:06 GMT

Mishaal: The mass entry of Gazans into Egypt a popular decision

[ 24/01/2008 - 12:08 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Khaled Mishaal, the head of the Hamas political bureau, stated in the opening meeting of the "Palestinian national conference" on Wednesday in Damascus that the mass entry of thousands of Palestinians into the Egyptian territories through the Rafah crossing was not a factional but a popular decision.

Mishaal stressed the need for holding more popular activities and events until the siege ends, calling on the Arab and Islamic peoples to continue their popular outrage in the face of the Zio-American siege.

The Hamas political leader called for agreeing on a new strategy based on five elements including resolving the controversy that the liberation comes first before the state and the land before the authority and to give priority to the resistance as the basis of this strategy.

The Hamas leader confirmed that the Arabs are capable of breaking the siege imposed on the Gaza people, recalling that Egypt is not bound by the agreement made in Europe on the Rafah crossing because it did not participate in that meeting.

The Hamas leader pointed out that an Arab ministerial meeting would be held on 27th of January in Cairo, urging the Arab leaders to table a concise draft resolution through their foreign ministers calling for lifting the siege on Gaza.

The Hamas leader also called on the Arab leaders to stand alongside Egypt, since it has borders with Gaza, to encourage it to open the Rafah crossing and to support it in the face of the Zio-American pressures in order to get the siege lifted.

The Hamas leader strongly rejected the allegations saying that the resistance rockets fired from the Gaza Strip are the reason behind the suffocating siege, stating: "The siege was before and after the firing of rockets; We stopped firing rockets many times, but the siege has not come to end; we ceased the resistance tactically for several months and times, but the aggression and occupation continued and our brave prisoners were not released from the Israeli jails."

In response to what was stated by the PA about its readiness to run Gaza crossings, the Hamas leader said that the Palestinian government headed by premier Ismail Haneyya are willing to discuss this issue with the PA leadership in Ramallah and with Egypt to agree on how to manage these crossings, underlining that Hamas wants to control nothing, but it seeks freedom and relief for the Palestinian people.

- etc.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7%2fmsmH81n0hxglQqnP7mkgqoZs3gkfaF5kM8AVDqmqRoGK8h3JUplsTJgb9Cr6i7hsreQRyRWe4uMy0Z1FAMs%2fLjC3VlcDmVNXCMhelyoIfg%3d

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he called me "anti-semitic" - so what?

NoName — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:01:13 GMT

he called me "anti-semitic" - so what?

just because I told this jew who stole our head-dress that he is thief -- also thief for stealing our land (Palestine) and stealing our culture and food (like hummus and falafel) -- he says I am "anti-semitic" !

as my friend on this tribe said: SO WHAT?

have you ever noticed how if you criticize jew, he starts WHINING about "anti-semitic"? So, what? is his god yahwa going to strike me dead?

boring whine!

not only they steal our land, they also whine when we call them thieves! but they ARE thieves!

"anti-semitic" so what?

"anti-semitic" ha!

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

want to see what jews are doing to Palestinians?

NoName — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:19:14 GMT

look here:

http://rafah.virtualactivism.net/news/todaymain.htm

is this what their god yahwa approves?

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:18:48 GMT

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/13/18472076.php

Today, in an attempt to smear me, posts have gone up all over the internet accusing me of being an anti-Semite. Pieces of the following essay are posted with other words inserted that are not my own. In addition, accusations have been made that I have attempted to delete the following essay from the public record. To contradict this smear tactic, and to prove that opposing Zionism is not anti-Semitic, I am reposting the entire essay in full.

I wrote the following essay early in 2001 as part of a discussion on the violence and repression taking place in Israel at the time. Yet, the essay is still entirely relevant, because it takes a historical look at the roots of the conflict, and discusses how the Zionist movement has been harmful to both Arabs and Jews alike.

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism (Part 1)

In this mailing: Pro-zionist Letter on Israel from Becky Johnson and Response by Steve Argue.

Letter to Editor,

You have to go back and read your history books. Palestine was the name the British gave to the mandate they took over (in typical British imperial fashion) from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Palestinians at the time included everyone who lived there, including the Jews. Palestine ceased to exist when Israel was formed in 1948. The plan
from the UN was to have the state of Palestine right next to Israel. But all the Arab neighbors (and the Arab population within the borders of the new state of Israel) rejected this two state solution and responded by out and out war waged on the Israelis.

The Palestinians (Arabs who live or lived within the boundaries of Israel) didn't even start to call themselves that until 1968--- twenty years after the establishment of Israel. Basically the concept of Palestine is a manufactured one to drum up support for these Arabs and to decrease support for Israel by the claim that Israel is on THEIR land.

Remember, the Arabs and muslims [sic] who did not flee in 1948, but stayed in Israel have full citizenship, have freedom to practice their religion, own property, vote, have representation in the Knesset, and compose 18% of the population.

There is no Palestine. And there never was except as a British invention.

---Becky Johnson

Steven Argue responds:

Actually, history is one of my strong points. You state that I need to consult my history books, yet you make statements that are inarguably historically incorrect. Palestine was in existence as a recognized territory of the Ottoman Empire long before British control and even before the beginnings of Jewish colonization by the Zionist movement.

These inhabitants of the region also had Arab nationalist sentiments that opposed the control of the Ottoman Empire before the creation of the Zionist State and have since opposed many of the U.S., French, and British imposed kings, crown princes, emirs, sheiks, etc. that Zionists like to claim represent the aspirations of the Arab people.

Your attempt to deny a people of even the name of their homeland is consistent with an ideology that denies an entire people of the right to their homeland. The fact that bloody repression and horrible discrimination has driven the majority of Palestinians from large parts of their homeland without the right of return is not enough. The Zionist movement wants to wipe away the rightful name of the land they have conquered by re-writing history and denying there ever was a Palestine.

From its beginnings in the eighteen hundreds the Zionist movement had little concern for the Arab inhabitants of the Palestinian land they would settle. Instead, they appealed to imperialist powers as potential allies against the Arab people in setting up their Zionist state. For example, Zionist leader T. Herzl stated around 1897: "If his majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could undertake to regulate Turkey's finances. For Europe, we would constitute a bulwark against Asia down there; we would be the advance post of civilization against barbarism. As a neutral state, we would remain in constant touch with all of Europe, which would guarantee our existence" (Rodinson, "Israel a Colonial Settler State?").

By being “neutral”, Herzl is obviously referring to the Zionist dealings with powers of Europe, and not to the colonial "barbarians" already in and around the land he would settle and conquer.

An Arab leader in Jerusalem named Nassif Bey al-Khalidi who tried unsuccessfully to work out an agreement between Arabs and the Zionist movement warned the Zionists with the following statement, "Be very careful, Messieurs Zionists, governments disappear, but peoples remain. The Jewish immigrants came to Palestine believing it to be a desolate, sparsely inhabited country. They were too busy with their own business and too ignorant of Arabic to notice what was going on around them. Since it was the Turks who ruled Palestine, they turned all their attention toward the Turks. This did not make them popular with the Arabs" (Neville Mandel, "Chapters of Arab-Jewish Diplomacy 1918-1922").

The Jewish immigrants never became integrated in any way with the native Arab population. This was true economically, politically, socially, and linguistically. These Jewish immigrants were so separate from the Palestinian people that they were only Palestinian to the extent that they were physically living in Palestine.

It took the weakening of the Sultan during the First World War for Europe (specifically England) to move in and grant the colonial framework for Jewish colonization that aimed itself at the goal of an exclusively Jewish state. This framework was set forth in a British political charter in November 1917 called the Balfour Declaration which stated, "His Majesty's government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

Within this framework an exclusive Jewish state was the stated goal of all but a small minority in the Zionist movement, a goal that obviously would be at the expense of the Arab people already living in Palestine. In order to placate the Palestinians, however, the Balfour declaration stated, "It should be clearly understood that nothing should be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

While Britain was trying to placate the Arabs, Zionist leader Jabotinsky was very clear on Zionist intentions, stating in 1923 in his Book the "Iron Wall", "There can be no discussion of voluntary reconciliation between us and the Arabs, not now, and not in the foreseeable future. All well meaning people, with the exception of those blind from birth, understood long ago the complete impossibility of arriving at a voluntary agreement with the Arabs of Palestine for the transformation of Palestine from an Arab country to a country with a Jewish majority. Each of you has some understanding of the history of colonization. Try to find even one example when the colonization took place with the agreement of the native population."

In understanding the existence of a Palestinian people and the struggles yet to come, Jabotinsky went on to state, "They have the precise psychology we have. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux upon his prairie. Each people will struggle against colonizers until the last spark of hope that they can avoid the dangers of conquest and colonization is extinguished. The Palestinians will struggle in this way until there is hardly a spark of hope."

Jabotinsky's view, and the policy that would later be carried out against the Palestinians, could not be made any clearer than his following statement from the same writing: "We can not give any compensation for Palestine, neither to the Palestinians nor to the other Arabs. Therefore a voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the native population. Therefore it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall through which the Arab population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy."

In explaining the differences between Zionist factions in dealing with the Palestinians Jabotinsky stated, "Force must play its role - with strength and without indulgence. In this, in this there are no differences between our militarists and our vegetarians. One prefers an Iron Wall of Jewish bayonets; the other prefers an Iron Wall of English bayonets."

On these issues Rabbi Judas L. Magnes, President of the Hebrew University Jerusalem wrote, "by definition a Jewish state means that Jews will govern other people, other people who live in this Jewish state…Jabotinsky knew this long ago. He was the prophet of the Jewish state...In his early writings he said: 'Has a people ever been known to give up its territory of its own volition? Likewise, the Arabs of Palestine will not renounce their sovereignty without violence.'"

On the morals of Jabotinsky's plans and his desire to extinguish all hopes of the Palestinian people he is as clear in the "Iron Wall" as Hitler is of his intentions in "Mein Kampf" with Jabotinsky stating: "To the hackneyed reproach that this point of view is unethical, I answer 'absolutely untrue.' This is our ethic. There is no other ethic. As long as there is the faintest hope for the Arabs to impede us they will not sell these hopes - not for any sweet word nor for any tasty morsel, because this is not a rabble but a people, a living people. And no people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions, except when there is no hope left, until we have removed every opening visible in the Iron Wall."

In 1940 Jabotinsky states in "The Jewish War Front": "Since we have the moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of the Arabs, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay. Herr Hitler has recently been enhancing the popularity of population transfer."

While the Arabs of Palestine were extremely tolerant of the Zionists who were moving in to take their land and their hopes, the Zionist movement was never interested in forming any sort of alliance with the Arab people. Instead, the Zionist movement from its inception was openly anti-Arab and pro-imperialist, even though those same imperial powers were the same ones who were carrying out pogroms against the Jews in the ghettos across Europe. This pro-imperialist policy included close relations with the pogromist leaders of anti-Semitic Czarist Russia who murdered tens of thousands of Jews, and later Zionist support and deals that aided the fascist death camps of Nazi Germany.

Jews, in fact, are victims of Zionism along side Arabs. From the beginning of Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 the Zionist movement lent their support to the Nazis, support which lasted until at least 1944 when they aided Hitler's "final solution" in Hungary killing 800,000 Jews. On the surface, the idea of Zionist relations with the Nazis may sound illogical and seem made up. Those relations, however, are well documented.

Hitler seized power in 1933 with a clear fascistic program that called for the annihilation of all socialists, communists, labor leaders, and Jews. Despite this fact, the Zionist Federation of Germany sent the Nazi Party a memorandum on June 21, 1933 stating: "…a rebirth of national life such as is occurring in German life … must also take place in the Jewish national group. On the foundation of the new [Nazi] state, which has established itself on the principle of race, we wish to fit our community into the total structure so that for us, too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible…." (Brenner, Zionism, pg. 48)

The policy of supporting Hitler was later upheld at the World Zionist Organization Congress in 1933, where a motion to take action against Hitler was defeated 240 to 43. Thus, the Jewish boycott of the German economy at a time of economic weakness and vulnerability was broken with the World Zionist Organization's Anglo Palestine Bank resuming trade. In fact, the World Zionist Organization became the principal distributors of Nazi goods in Northern Europe and the Middle East.

Feivel Polkes was a member of Zionist leader Jabotinsky's Haganah militia. He was sent by Jabotinsky to Berlin to inform Nazi leader Adolf Eichman of his intention to spy for the S.S. in exchange for the release of the money of German Jews for use on the Zionist project. Zionist Feivel told Nazi Eichman, "Jewish Nationalist Circles are very pleased with the radical German policy, since the strength of the Jewish population in Palestine would be so far increased thereby that in the foreseeable future the Jews would reckon upon numerical superiority over the Arabs" (Brenner, "Zionism" pg. 99).

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, felt so fond of the Zionist movement and their close working relations that he wrote a 12 part report in Der Angriff (The Assault) praising the Zionist movement, and ordered a medallion struck with a swastika on one side and the Zionist Star of David on the other.

Collaboration included an agreement in Hungary between Zionist agent Dr. Rudolph Kastner and Nazi leader Adolph Eichman. Under the 1944 agreement the Nazis would murder 800,000 Hungarian Jews without Zionist interference and with complete silence from the Zionist movement. In exchange, 600 prominent Jews would be freed from Hungary. The Nazis then opened up a Rescue Department in Hungary headed by Kastner. These facts were exposed by a survivor named Malchiel Greenwald who was subsequently sued by the Israeli government, sued by the same leaders that had fashioned the deal made by Kastner in the first place.

Kastner's collaboration with the Nazis was confirmed with the Israeli court stating, "The sacrifice of the majority of the Jews, in order to rescue the prominents was the basic element in the agreement between Kastner and the Nazis. This agreement fixed the division of the nation into two unequal camps, a small fragment of prominents, whom the Nazis promised Kastner to save, on the one hand, and the majority of Hungarian Jews whom the Nazis designated for death, on the other hand." (Judgment given on June 22, 1955, Protocol of Criminal Case
124/53 in District Court, Jerusalem; cited in Ralph Schoenman’s “Hidden History of Zionism”)

The Zionists subsequently ignored a plan drawn up by the resistance that could have saved many, if not most, of Hungary's Jews. The Zionist silence and lack of action against Nazi atrocities in fact characterizes their stance throughout the entire holocaust. A plan, complete with maps, was drawn up that would blow-up railroad tracks to the death camps and crematoria and airdropped ammunition to the 80,000 Jews in Auschwitz. Part of the plan also included the parachuting of saboteurs to blow up the Auschwitz facility that was murdering 13,000 people a day. Had the Zionist movement not been so intent on fighting the Arabs, rather than the real anti-Semite butchers of Europe, they could have gathered the resources to carry out such operations. Likewise, Great Britain and the United States could have carried out the proposed measures as well, but chose not to save the Jews, and felt no pressure from the silent Zionist movement to do so.

This caused Rabbi Weismandel, who had drawn up the plans against Auschwitz, to ask of the Zionists in July 1944, "this special message to inform you that yesterday the Germans began deportations of Jews from Hungary. … The deported ones go to Auschwitz to be put to death by cyanide gas. This is the schedule, of Auschwitz from yesterday to the end: Twelve thousand Jews - men, women and children, old men, infants, healthy and sick ones, are to be suffocated daily. And you, our brothers in Palestine, in all the countries of freedom, and you ministers of all the Kingdoms, how do you keep silent in the face of this great murder. Silent while thousands upon thousands, reaching now to six million Jews, are murdered? And silent now, while tens of thousands are still being murdered or waiting to be murdered? Their destroyed hearts cry out to you for help as they bewail your cruelty. Brutal, you are and murderers, too, you are, because of the cold bloodedness of the silence in which you watch, because you sit with folded arms and do nothing, although you could stop or delay the murder of Jews at this very hour. You, our brothers, sons of Israel, are you insane?" (Shoenman, "The Hidden History of Zionism?")

The Zionists also opposed the immigration of Jews to other countries where they could escape extermination. Explaining their policy of pressuring Great Britain and the United States not to adopt immigration policies that would have saved the lives of Jews, Zionist leader Ben Gurion stated in 1938, "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I would opt for the second option" (Brenner, "Zionism", pg. 149).

The ability of the Zionist movement to sacrifice the lives of millions of Jews for the settling of Palestine had a consistent inner logic. That logic speaks volumes. While some of the first victims of these Zionist madmen were the Jewish people, the Palestinians were next. And today, the continued Zionist mistreatment of the Palestinian people is one of the biggest threats to the lives of Jewish people because some of the Arab victims of Zionism now do not differentiate between the crimes of Zionism and the Jewish people. In addition, the Israeli government aided in the formation of the anti-Semitic organization Hamas, and today uses their suicide bombings against civilians as a way to gain sympathy and support in the Zionist war against the Palestinian people (more on this later). Objectively, the Zionist capitalist state is, in fact, the common enemy of both Jews and Arabs.

In the 1940s Jews were only one third of the population of Palestine. The Arab majority had not yet been driven from their land. The British, in considering their entire imperial interests in the Middle East and their need for good relations with Arabs had backtracked from their original support of a Jewish state in Palestine. Thus the Zionist minority carried out a war of independence against Britain in order to set up the Jewish state. The Palestinian people, the majority of the population, were not consulted by the Zionists on what kind of future they would like to have for their homeland and had little involvement in the war, although a few did side with British forces.

After independence from the Britain in 1948, the Zionist state began a massive expropriation of Palestinian land that has not ended. Becky Johnson's claim that, "the Arabs and Muslims who did not flee in 1948, but stayed in Israel have full citizenship, have freedom to practice their religion, own property, vote, have representation in the Knesset, and compose 18% of the population" is so utterly untrue as to defy common sense. Besides defying the facts, which we shall establish, I ask why most of an entire people would voluntarily flee the land in which they had built flourishing towns, a rich agriculture, and a vibrant cultural life with nowhere else to go? The short answer is that they did not flee voluntarily. They had met the "Jewish bayonets" of Zionist Jabotinsky's "Iron Wall". To deny this fact comes in on the same level as those who deny the Holocaust of Europe.

The humiliating conditions of the Palestinian people were recently observed by former anti-Apartheid fighter Archbishop Desmond Tutu who wrote:

"I have been very deeply distressed by my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young police officers prevented us from moving about.

"On my visit to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and homes?

"I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: 'Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews.'

"My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?"

Although the Israeli government claims that Palestinians have the right to own property, this is a lie. Ever since 1948, Palestinians in Israel do not have the right to own land, because their land is often confiscated by force for Hebrew speaking settlement and agriculture. Water rights have been systematically cut off and diverted away from Palestinian lands and given to stolen Hebrew owned lands. Palestinian laborers are then denied by law the right to work the Hebrew owned agricultural lands, although they are sometimes illegally employed as cheap labor with no labor rights.

Palestinians do not have the right to freely travel. Reminiscent of chattel slavery, Palestinian families are often separated by Israeli officials who commonly do not grant necessary permits for Palestinians to enter neighborhoods or towns where wives, husbands, or children live. In contrast, the Hebrew speaking population has full rights to travel.

Palestinians often do not have the right to keep their own homes, which are often confiscated or bulldozed. The bulldozing of houses is a common punishment of families whose children are accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Recently, in Jenin, houses were bulldozed with people inside, an act that besides killing people, also made an estimated 4,000 people homeless.

Palestinians do not have the right to freedom of speech and regularly face arrest, torture, and even death for their political views. Even Hebrew speakers who support rights for Palestinians, or an end to Israeli wars, have, at times, had their press shut down by the Israeli government, or had their demonstrations attacked and beaten by Israeli soldiers.

Palestinians do not have the same right to an education as Hebrew speaking people, based on the fact that higher education is paid for through the forced military inscription of Hebrew speakers, while Palestinians are generally excluded from the military. While most Palestinians can’t serve, so-called “Israeli Arabs” have the choice of serving, but it would, in fact, make no sense for Palestinians to serve their military, since humiliation, brutality, and outright terror against Palestinians is a part of every day duty for an Israeli soldier. Likewise, few blacks served in the Apartheid military of South Africa. In Israel, this is used to deny Palestinians their right to education.

Those Palestinians who are then driven out of what was once Palestine usually are not allowed to return, while Jews who have never set foot in Israel are granted automatic citizenship, with the exception of two Jewish supporters of Palestinians named Ralph Shoenman and Mya Shone, who have the honor of not being allowed into Israel because of their excellent writings. Those Palestinians who are forced from Israel are often bombed by Israel in their refugee camps or massacred in other ways. In the 1982 case of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, Palestinians were rounded up and systematically slaughtered in the thousands by Israeli troops and their Phalangist Militia allies.

As survivor Mrs. Sersawi testified in a Belgium appeals court on the Israeli governments war crimes:

"The Lebanese forces militia [Phalangists] had taken us from our homes and marched us up to the entrance of the camp where a large hole had been dug in the earth. The men were told to get into it. Then the militiamen shot a Palestinian. The women and children climbed over bodies to get to this spot, but we were truly shocked by seeing this man killed in front of us and there was a roar of shouting and screams from the women. That's when we heard the Israelis on a loudspeaker shouting, 'give us your men.' We thought, 'thank God, they will save us.'

"We were told to walk up the road to the Kuwaiti Embassy, the women and children in front, the men behind. We had been separated. There were Phalangist Militiamen and Israeli soldiers walking alongside us. I could still see Hassan (her husband with whom she was 3 months pregnant) and Faraj (her brother-in-law). It was like a parade. There were several hundred of us. When we got to Cite Sportif, the Israelis put us women in a big concrete room and the men were taken to another side of the stadium. There were a lot of men from the camp and I could no longer see my husband. The Israelis went around saying 'Sit, sit.' It was 11 AM. An hour later we were told to leave. But we stood outside amid the Israeli soldiers, waiting for our men.

"Some men came out, none of them younger than 40, and they told us to be patient, that hundreds of men were still inside. Then about 4 PM an Israeli officer came out. He was wearing dark glasses and said in Arabic: 'What are you waiting for?' He said there was nobody left, that everyone had gone. There were Israeli trucks moving out with tarpaulin over them. We couldn't see inside. And there were jeeps and tanks and a bulldozer making a lot of noise. We stayed there as it got dark and the Israelis appeared to be leaving and we were very nervous. But when the Israelis had moved away, we went inside. And there was no one there. Nobody. I had been only three years married. I never saw my husband again."

Sabra and Shatila are only one of the massacres of people done by the Israeli government in the past 54 years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Today, all of the Palestinian towns of historic Palestine are either occupied by Israeli troops who are killing people, or surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks who are poised to attack. While Israeli troops are claiming that they are only killing combatants, Human Rights Watch has documented the following crimes in Jenin alone: murders of civilians including children, the old, and the disabled; summary executions; the bulldozing of houses with people in them; and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.

The cities of Ramallah and Jenin have been laid to waste by the Zionists just as the Nazis smashed the towns of Guarnica and Lidice in the name of collective punishment. Likewise, the heroic resistance of Palestinian fighters in the face of superior military force is reminiscent of the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto and Vilna.

The Israeli offensive will not stop those willing to do suicide missions against civilians, attacks that are futile attempts to combat the genocide Palestinians face. The Israeli offensive does the opposite, in deepening the conditions that created suicide bombers in the first place. The anger created is by escalated Israeli murder is actually more likely to increase the number of tragic attacks on Hebrew speaking civilians. At the same time, Israel has not targeted the main base of the suicide bombers, Gaza, where Hamas is heavily organized. In fact, the murderous Israeli repression really isn't meant to stop attacks on Hebrew speaking civilians because these bombings by Hamas actually play right into the Zionist government's aims and objectives in dividing Arab and Hebrew speaking peoples, diverting international sympathy for the Palestinian cause, and potentially pushing for a “final solution” against the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority, who the Israeli government consistently blame for the attacks by Hamas.

Hamas is an anti-Semitic fundamentalist religious organization that killed 150 Israeli civilians through suicide bombings between 1994 and 1998 alone. From its beginnings as the Mujama in the 1970s to this day, Hamas does not face the same kind of repression as any other Palestinian group. In addition, Hamas reportedly receives $28 million dollars a year from another key U.S. ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. and the Saudi Arabian monarchy work together closely to systematically loot Saudi Arabia's oil resources for the profits of U.S. oil monopolies, while the vast majority of the Saudi people live in poverty. In addition, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Hamas worked together closely in the U.S. war drive to destroy the left progressive PDPA government that held power in Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992. This was a war where the U.S. government and Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars of military aid to Osama Bin Laden and the Islamic fundamentalists of the Mujahedin who were waging a holy war against the advances in women's rights, including women's literacy, that were occurring under the PDPA government. Tactics of the Mujahedin included throwing acid in the faces of women liberated from the veil and murdering women for teaching little girls how to read and write. Fearing a Mujahedin government right on its border, and defending the PDPA government from U.S. aggression, the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979. Although these Soviet troops were invited by the Afghan PDPA, U.S. propaganda called this a “Soviet invasion”.

An estimated 100,000 of the Islamic fundamentalists who fought in Afghanistan were recruited by the CIA outside of Afghanistan. Hamas participated in this activity. As John Cooley from ABC news pointed out on March 13th, 1996 in the International Herald Tribune:

"A key Hamas organizer was Abdallah Azzam. He was a tough, brilliant and charismatic Palestinian from Jordan. He supervised training for the CIA's Afghan guerrillas in Peshawar, Pakistan, where a car bomb killed him in 1989. In the earlier 1980s he toured the United States, recruiting Arab-Americans for the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan."

Just as the United States used Hamas against the Afghani people and the leftist PDPA government, Israel has used the religious fundamentalists of Hamas as a club against the socialist and secular nationalist movements in Palestine that Hamas has violently opposed. It is those secular and socialist movements that Israel has seen as more of a threat in terms of winning the masses of people, including Hebrew speakers, over to positions of sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinians. Hamas's suicide bombers against civilians instead serve Zionist interests in driving a larger wedge between Palestinians and Hebrew speakers, people who will need to unite against their common oppressor and killer, the Israeli Zionist government.

Early Israeli support for Hamas included in 1978 the granting of Mujama charitable status in Gaza while other organizations, especially political organizations as Mujama was, could not get such status. In 1979, Israeli collusion with the Mujama movement set up the Islamic University of Gaza, whose anti-PLO and anti-socialist slogan was: "How can uncovered women and men with Beatle haircuts liberate our holy places?" Students who did not tow the Islamic line were disciplined through brutal beatings and sometimes had acid thrown in their faces. In addition, Mujama mobs were allowed to violently attack and burn down PLO controlled institutions at a time when other street demonstrations were not allowed or tightly controlled by the Israeli authorities.

In 1979 the Mujama movement burned the Palestinian Red Crescent Society's (PRC) building to the ground. In response, the PRC issued the following statement, "The tacit approval of the authorities, if not their actual connivance in what happened, was displayed in their attitude of non-interference. While they usually display great alertness to combating even peaceful demonstrations of young students within schools, here they stood indifferently watching a violently destructive demonstration march to its objectives."

In 1988 Hamas was formed out of Mujama. While PLO supporters were organizing mass demonstrations in the streets, Hamas was instead focusing on shooting Israeli soldiers. Despite this fact, Hamas had top-level meetings with the Israeli government while that same government would not even meet with the PLO. Milton Edwards in "Islamic Politics In Palestine" noted the relationship:

"The relationship between Hamas and the Israeli authorities was, however, at the strongest during the second year of the Intifada. The Israelis had been quick to extend legitimacy status to Hamas in an attempt to marginalize the PLO. Leaders of Hamas were regularly filmed at meetings with top-level Israeli officials and the message the Israelis were sending out was that they regarded Hamas as the type of people with whom they could work…

"In addition the Israelis continued turning a blind eye to large amounts of money coming into the country destined for Hamas coffers, while at the same time stopping the flow of PLO funds in support of the
Intifada."

In 1994, Hamas began its indiscriminate attacks on Hebrew speaking people through suicide bombings. Those suicide bombings had been stepped up by Hamas in the beginnings of the Intifada 2 uprising in September 2000, but then ended due to an agreement between Arafat's Palestinian Authority and Hamas. While this agreement was in effect world attention became focused on the gunning down of Palestinian children by Israeli sharp shooters on the West Bank. For the Zionist government this was becoming a public relations disaster.

Israeli Prime Minister Sharon needed a new provocation he could use as propaganda to escalate the war against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). To create this provocation he took action to end the truce between the P.A. and Hamas on ending the suicide bombings of civilians. On November 23rd Israeli security forces assassinated Hamas leader Mahmud Abu Hunud. On November 25th, 2001 right-wing Israeli journalist Alex Fishman accurately observed in the "Yediot Achronot", "Whoever gave the green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line."

Of course no one but Sharon could have given the green light for such an important operation. Sharon's provocation against the Hamas anti-Semites had its intended affect. Within days Hamas resumed attacks against Israeli civilians. In March a Hamas bomber killed 25 civilians in the Passover attack that was then used by Sharon as his excuse to attack the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority while leaving the Hamas stronghold of Gaza untouched.

The U.S. government's massive military support to the Zionist State and, to a lesser extent to the repressive Saudi Arabian monarchy, is responsible for the bloodshed in Palestine. The racist state of Israel currently receives 300,000 dollars per hour in U.S. military and economic aid. The F-16 bombers and Apache and Cobra helicopters used in the latest attacks are just some of the weapons used to kill Palestinians that are made in the United States.

Socialists stand for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and all of the crowned princes, sheiks, emirs, and Islamic fanatics of the Middle East. We understand that these U.S. policies are the policies of both the Democrat and Republican Parties. Imperialist policy isn't the result of some misunderstanding by these parties of the wealthy. Instead, the repressive and genocidal policies of U.S. imperialism flow from the drive for profits by the rapacious U.S. capitalists that rule America and much of the world. From this understanding, socialists know that the only way we will get a just foreign policy, fair treatment of workers and the poor, and sound ecological policies, is through a socialist revolution in the United States.

---Steve Argue, for Liberation News

posted in Palestine - 2 replies

zioNazis will pay price of their crimes

ArabianPalestinian — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 06:01:30 GMT

Taha: Zionist occupation to pay the price for its crimes

[ 19/01/2008 - 10:23 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Ayman Taha, one of the senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, has warned that the Israeli occupation authority would pay dearly for its crimes against the Palestinian people.

Taha, in a press release on Saturday, said that the Palestinian resistance's preliminary retaliation of firing home made rockets was only "the beginning of our natural response to those crimes".

"Resistance will continue as long as occupation continues and we will not surrender", he emphasized

Taha said, "We refuse to be dragged into a battle the time and place of which are determined by the Zionist enemy. We will be the ones to determine the time and place of the battle."

The Hamas leader said that the escalating Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip was aimed at pressuring the Palestinian people into accepting Zionist dictates.

He questioned the Arab and Islamic silence vis-à-vis such crimes, adding that such silence was tantamount to "collusion".

The Israeli occupation has trekked all means to end Palestinian resistance and failed, Taha underlined, adding that his Movement was prepared for any IOF invasion of the Strip. He said that any such invasion would be met with greater reprisals.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7pYpqzlEatjEQkUrxY1AseTa8okXSoTCQpN7L1mAnSFZIRZKluuBPVtFvFiQo6d6UBkSG4SejyF4R8irMjGfnrKh1R%2bVE0g8frj1kK%2f46He8%3d

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

No peace with these criminal zioNazis!

ArabianPalestinian — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 06:42:19 GMT

22 Palestinians massacred by zioNazis in two days
-----------------

Thursday 17 January 2008 (09 Muharram 1429)

by Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News —

GAZA CITY, 17 January 2008 — An Israeli airstrike killed three civilians including a teenager in Gaza Strip yesterday. The attack comes a day after the massacre of 19 Palestinians on Tuesday.

Yesterday’s victims — a 13-year-old boy, his father and uncle — were killed when an Israeli missile hit their car in Gaza City, medics said.

Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal told reporters in Damascus yesterday that the Gaza massacre confirmed the futility of negotiating with Israel.

“This shedding of Palestinian blood will shorten the existence of Israel and will destroy it,” Meshaal said.
“No peace with the killers and no security for the criminals.”

Meshaal charged that the eight-day Middle East tour by the US president “gave cover to this massacre,” and he called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to halt the “absurd” peace talks. “Every day you are humiliated (by the Israelis) and you emerge (from talks) empty-handed,” he said.

The missile strike followed the killing of a top Islamic Jihad commander in the occupied West Bank. Another three people were seriously wounded in the strike, while another four Palestinians were wounded in two Israeli raids in the north of the impoverished territory, medics said.

In an early morning gunbattle near the town of Jenin in the northern West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead 40-year-old Walid Obeidi after surrounding his house in the village of Qabatiya, security officials said. Palestinian sources confirmed that Obeidi — the West Bank chief of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing — was killed by the Israelis.

Many shops stayed shut in the Gaza Strip yesterday after a call by Hamas for three days of mourning and a day-long general strike. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa condemned the latest Israeli attack, telling reporters it “raises question marks over the future of efforts to advance Arab-Israeli peace.”

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=105753&d=17&m=1&y=2008

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Won't anyone stop the murderous zioNazis?

ArabianPalestinian — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:52:45 GMT

Khater: Gaza massacre practical translation to Bush-Olmert understandings

[ 16/01/2008 - 11:24 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Senior Hamas political leader and member of the Movement's political bureau, Sami Khater, said on Wednesday that the IOF brutality in Gaza Strip was "practical translation" of the understandings between Israel and the USA.

In an exclusive statement to the PIC, Khater held the Israel, the USA, and the PA leadership fully responsible for the bloody IOF attacks against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza Strip.

He also underlined that all options are open before the Palestinian people to retaliate to those atrocities, adding that the visit of US president George W. Bush encouraged Israeli premier Ehud Olmert and provided him with the political cover to carryout those heinous crimes.

Moreover, Khater asserted that the weak and unpatriotic stand of the PA leadership in Ramallah city had encouraged Bush to provide Israel with political cover, especially after PA chief Mahmoud Abbas publicly condemned the Palestinian resistance.

He also deprecated the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and described it as "futile", urging the PA leadership and the Palestinian negotiators to stop all forms of contacts with the Israeli occupation government in the shadow of the continuous IOF aggression on the Gaza Strip that left dozens of Palestinians martyred and tens others seriously wounded.

"The PA-Israeli negotiations are helping the IOF troops to justify their crimes in Gaza Strip", Khater pointed out, adding that Olmert plans to escalate the military aggressions on Gaza with the aim to bail himself out of the current political crises that threaten his coalition government.

In this regard, the Hamas's leader explained that the withdrawal of the "Israel Beituna" party, which is chaired by hardliner Avigdor Lieberman, from the Israeli cabinet, in addition to Olmert's fears over the results of the Winograd report will push him (Olmert) to escape forward in order to avoid early election bid.

But Khater also blamed the Arab regimes and other Muslim states for taking an "unwarranted" passive stand vis-à-vis the relentless IOF crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza Strip and the West Bank, highlighting that Arab disunity and weakness helped Israel to continue its military aggressions and settlement plans in occupied Palestine.

"The Arab states that have received Bush should have asked him to stop the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people and to pressure him into halting US political support to those heinous crimes", Khater emphasized.

Finally, Khater said that the Israeli military aggressions will only strengthen the Palestinian people in the steadfast Gaza Strip, and that the IOF troops' atrocities won't break the determination of the Palestinian people regardless of their intensity.

http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s761v81EyoXm1mqMLPDGny%2f%2bYlLniyAdFv1tFmgIp5IBftgGlWsWIMvRI0zpaRYxwSD8DIhj7QZA0XUZP0Ww7L0tI6HRnZyzEXibKJ6Vf5tio%3d

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Is this group dead . . .

ArabianPalestinian — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:29:32 GMT

or what? Not much happens here.

posted in Palestine - 6 replies

Palestine Protests Biased UN Reporting

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 23:44:19 GMT

UNITED NATIONS - The Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations has lodged a formal protest against the continued “misrepresentation” of facts in recent U.N. reports on the Israeli-occupied territories.

“There has been a tendency in several reports to portray the prevailing situation (in the occupied territories) as more of a conflict between two equal sides — the Israeli and Palestinian — rather than actually one of occupation,” says Ambassador Riyad Mansour, in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The “skewed” reporting, including “certain language usage that overlooks the existence of this occupation, is unacceptable,” he says, virtually accusing the U.N. Secretariat of trying to undermine the Palestinians by its misreporting.

Mansour’s letter to the secretary-general also says: “For sometime now, the delegation of Palestine has been troubled by misrepresentations in several U.N. reports in the recent period, including some issued by the secretary-general, that have had the effect of skewing the context of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

He points out that Palestinian territories are under an “occupying power”, namely Israel, which is bound by clear obligations under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law.

The Palestinians, he points out, are an occupied people, “whose most basic and inalienable rights are being systematically and gravely violated and who are entitled to protection under international law.”

The charges against the U.N. Secretariat follow an accusation by the U.N.’s former Middle East envoy, Under-Secretary-General Alvaro de Soto, who said the world body, including the U.N. Secretariat, was, wittingly or unwittingly, undermining the goal of a Palestinian state.

In a 52-page confidential report to the secretary-general last June, de Soto accused former Secretary-General Kofi Annan of “hampering” de Soto’s efforts to maintain regular political contacts with Hamas leaders.

De Soto said he has little or no faith in the Middle East Quartet — a group comprising the United States, European Union, the U.N. and Russia — which is said to provide a political “shield” for the United States and the EU to bankrupt the Palestinian government.

“Even-handedness has been pummeled into submission,” said de Soto, whose official title was U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process.

He also said that Ban and Annan provided political cover to the United States and the European Union in their efforts to marginalise Hamas despite its electoral victories in the occupied territories.

In his letter to Ban Tuesday, Mansour also challenges the “misleading information” in a report by the Secretariat to the Security Council.

The report says that “a particularly worrying trend is the increasing resort to suicide attacks in places, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Somalia.”

But according to statistics provided by several agencies and international organisations, including the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, he said, Israeli civilian deaths from suicide attacks have steadily decreased: from 24 in 2005, to 10 in 2006 and 5 in 2007.

“We are troubled by statements that are totally false,” the letter notes.

Asked for an official response, U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told IPS that Under-Secretary-General John Holmes, U.N. emergency coordinator, in his presentation to the Security Council Tuesday, corrected any misleading impression that could be given by a sentence in a report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

Haq said the report was intended to say that suicide attacks are a feature in an increasing number of countries.

“The point that the report wishes to make is that such attacks are being carried out in an increasing number of countries (including Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Somalia)”.

“It was not the U.N.’s intention to assert that there has been an increase in the actual number of suicide attacks in the countries mentioned,” he added.

Addressing the Security Council Tuesday on the deteriorating humanitarian situation in conflict zones, Holmes told delegates that “the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in Gaza, is reaching the limits of what is bearable for any community.”

“The combination of access restrictions, even for humanitarian deliveries, economic deprivation, Israeli military incursions and aerial attacks, and intra-Palestinian violence, is driving the civilian population into a situation where the risk of provoking even more violence and tragedy is only too evident,” Holmes warned.

© 2007 Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/21/5367/

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DEPENDENCY AND DENIAL IN PALESTINE

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:38:59 GMT

An Editorial by DesertPeace

We are addicted. Yes, we as 'modern man' have become addicted. Not to a drug or any form of mind altering substance, but to something we all take for granted... ELECTRICITY...

We use it without even realising it most times... it is an integral part of our very being. Just what happens when there is a power outage? First thing we notice are the lights going out... thereby the nickname 'Blackout'....

But it's more than just the lights.... it's just about everything we depend on for survival... radio, television, hot water for those without solar heaters, refrigeration, cooking, air conditioning, heating, the list is endless... just think about it.

What happens when that power is intentionally turned off to an entire section of the population? It is, in effect, DENIAL of the existence of that population. It is, in reality, attempted murder, as there are many that depend on electricity for the operation of life saving devices. What makes this situation even worse, is despite these moves being in violation of International Law, they have the support of the United States government. Without their backing and approval this could not be done. Without their backing and approval, Israel and Palestine would be engaging in a true quest for peace, not the farce that will take place in Annapolis next month.

Even the Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz on Monday ordered the defense establishment to reevaluate the decision to partially restrict Israel's supply of electricity and fuel to Gaza in response to the incessant rocket fire by terror groups emanating from that territory.

What Israel is doing is turning the Gaza Strip into a modern day Warsaw Ghetto. The nazis denied life to the Jews, Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians.

THIS MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE

AMERICA MUST NOT SUPPORT THESE NEWEST ATROCITIES

PALESTINE FOR THE PALESTINIANS!

http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/10/dependency-and-denial-in-palestine.html

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Palestinian travel explorations?

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:55:34 GMT

Hello, it's my 1st time in the Holy Land, and I'm looking for Palestine travel tips. Where are some wonderful spots to visit? Does anyone know of any dancers here too? Thanks!
Leila

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Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 13:49:00 GMT

Pro-War Democrats Battle for the Presidency

By Steven Argue

Every four years the American people are subjected to the farce of bourgeois democracy, a “democracy” where only the candidates chosen by the very wealthy have any chance of being elected. That season of nicely dressed pathological liars and false hopes is now upon us.

Since the corporate media of the United States has long ago abandoned any semblance of reporting on anything of substance about candidates such as voting records and actual political views, it is up to the journalists of the left press and Indy-media to do so.

A front-runner in the race is pro-war Democrat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton has voted for every war the United States has carried out since she came into office in 2000. Those pro-war votes include the Iraq war. She also voted to take away our civil liberties by supporting the “Patriot Act” and its renewal. Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, pounds the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. In addition she voted for the anti-immigrant wall.

In her recent successful run for Senate Hillary Clinton amassed more than 22 million dollars, making her the biggest campaign finance recipient running for Senate in the country. Her money came from such corporate interests as drug and hospital conglomerates, Wall Street finance interests, real estate developers, and rightwing corporate media mogul, Rupert Murdoch.

Barack Obama

Another front-runner and “rising star” of the Democrat Party is Barack Obama. Like Hillary Clinton, Obama has voted for the Patriot Act by voting to renew it in 2006. He also voted for the racist anti-immigrant wall as well as the “guest worker” program that denies immigrants rights, but allows them to come to this country to be exploited and under-paid. Obama also voted for the so-called “Class Action Fairness Act” that makes it harder for the people to sue corporations.

One might think that Obama, as a black man in racist America, might have something to offer on issues dealing with the suffering caused by the racist police state, mass incarceration of the poor, lack of healthcare, and dramatic drop in the standard of living of the multi-racial working class and poor. Instead Barack Obama plays into racist stereotypes, blaming the victims of racist America rather than the corporate criminals, stating:

"Such wisdom might help us move beyond ideological bickering and serve as the basis of a renewed effort to tackle the problem of inner-city poverty. We could begin by acknowledging that perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock. . ." Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, pps. 255-256

The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system. Yet the best thing to do according to Barack Obama is for black girls to stop having children out of wedlock.

In his book Uncle Obama not only lets this racist system off the hook, but he praises one of the worst anti-working class reforms of the Clinton administration stating, "we should also acknowledge that conservatives-and Bill Clinton-were right about welfare as it was previously structured." Bill Clinton’s welfare reform has caused homelessness, hunger, and less access to other basic necessities for the poor in America, but Barack Obama says Bill Clinton and the conservatives were right.

Both Obama and Clinton have voted for war appropriations. The fact that they both decided at the last minute to vote against war appropriations in the most recent vote on supplemental war appropriations is a symptom of the fact that the war has not gone as planned. The war has not gained the desired oil loot for U.S. corporations and has caused a number of growing problems for U.S. imperialism including internal dissent in the United States. And while Clinton and Obama have finally voted against war appropriations this time, their pro-war Democrat Party garnered plenty of other votes to keep the imperialist war going.

In his book, Barack Obama makes clear his support for the billions being squandered on lining the pockets of the military contractors stating, “given the depletion of our [military] forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher [Pentagon] budget in the immediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment.” (Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p 307).

Joe Biden

Another Democrat candidate is Joe Biden. Unlike many Democrat presidential candidates that have tried to distance themselves from the war that they voted for to begin with, in the most recent vote on war appropriations Joe Biden voted with the majority of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate putting billions of dollars towards the continued U.S. imperialist slaughter of the Iraqi people.

John Edwards

Another presidential candidate with a pro-war record is John Edwards. Edwards voted for the war against Iraq and campaigned as a vice presidential candidate on the pro-war John Kerry ticket. At that time both candidates defended their votes for the war. John Edwards has since apologized for his vote for unprovoked military aggression and mass murder (without using that wording and without recognizing that his vote for war was a criminal act).

Yet when Edwards was running for the position of vice president in 2004 this what he had to say on his pro-war vote:

“We need to stick to this [defending their Iraq war votes]. We should stand by our votes, say we would vote that way again. If you admit a mistake, it shows weakness in time of war. That's what the Republicans want us to do.” (John Edwards's changing tune on the Iraq vote, Scot Lehigh, The Globe, April 17, 2007)

Bill Richardson

Another candidate trying to paint himself as an antiwar candidate of the people is presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Richardson doesn’t call for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but instead calls for a slow withdrawal. In the early 1990s he did vote against the U.S. war to reinstate the anti-woman pro-U.S. corporate oil monarchy in Kuwait, but later said he regretted that vote. In addition Richardson is a strong supporter the pro-corporate anti-worker NAFTA, GATT, and WTO.

As U.N. Ambassador under Clinton, Richardson enthusiastically endorsed and continued the brutal sanctions against Iraq. When asked in a recent interview on KUNM (a Santa Fe public radio station) as to whether or not the deaths of half a million Iraqi children due to the sanctions was worth it he answered "yes".

On the death penalty Richardson, like many Democrats, says it is a good thing. Hundreds of inmates in the United States have had their convictions overturned as a result of new DNA evidence being brought to light, with some of these being death penalty cases. Still prosecutors have fought against the use of DNA evidence to overturn old convictions, even when the lives of innocent people are on the line. In racist America, death penalty juries are always more likely to convict because all who oppose the death penalty are excluded from these juries, making them juries that are more biased towards supporting the prosecution. Blacks often face all or mostly white death penalty juries. These are juries likely to contain a number of people who think that all Black people are criminals, making these jurors incapable of weighing the evidence and understanding the concept of reasonable doubt even in those rare circumstances when the evidence is fairly presented.

Why would anybody support the death penalty being carried out by a system that has been proven to make so many mistakes? The answer lies in the fact that the death penalty is an instrument of terror used by the American ruling class against the working class, poor, and people of color. On the one hand when such innocent people are executed it has no importance to the likes of Joe Biden because to them the lives of the poor and people of color are cheap. But for the ruling class, the added bonus of the death penalty is when it is used in political cases to silence dissent such as with the executions of Nicola Sacco, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, the Haymarket martyrs, and the threatened execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. As governor, the fact that Bill Richardson has no problem with the death penalty means that he already has blood on his hands.

Dennis Kucinich

Likewise Dennis Kucinich is portraying himself as the standard bearer of peace, love, and liberalism, but has voted in favor of the frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The resolution Kucinich voted for falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the eyewitnesses said. For instance eyewitness William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him. When Mumia came on the scene, we [Singletary and another man] were on the police radio trying to radio for help." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)

In the last presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself up as an anti-war candidate of the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich, “Supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”

So Kucinich advocates more frugal and efficient spending on imperialist terror and murder.

This is the same position taken by two U.S. generals waging the war in Iraq. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq General Stanley McCrystal complained, "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority begun to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!"

Similarly General Richard Mayers commented on precision-guided munitions, "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!"

The contradiction here was purely limited to the difference between the pure profiteering of the military industrial complex and the desire for actual cost effective results for imperialist victory on the battlefield.

Dennis Kucinich spoke to a gathering of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action claiming, "We [he and the congress] did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the Administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy. Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy."

Yet that is exactly what Kucinich and the rest of the congress, with the exception of California Democrat Barbara Lee, agreed to with their votes authorizing Bush’s endless war on the world. The entire Democrat Party in both the Senate and Congress, with only one exception, voted for Bush's war.

Since a different vote was later taken authorizing the US war in Iraq, the most practical application of this vote by Kucinich was to authorize the US war in Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to Kucinich’s vote for war Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote on March 2002:

“When U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about an "endless war," some took it as mere political speech, or rhetoric designed to gain the top spot on the evening network news. I did not. "W" is an agent of his class, the wealthy oil merchants of the land, and his intentions are to press for an ever-wider war in all corners of the earth, to make the world safe for capital exploitation and unbridled commerce. This will eventually become a war that reaches into a slew of countries in the Middle East, on behalf of the rich and powerful elites who rule. Make no mistake: this is a war that has nothing to do with democracy. The U.S. enters the region, armed to the gills, not to defend democracies, but to defend theocracies; to defend kings, princes and sultanates; to defend U.S. access to vast oil resources in the region.” Mumia Abu-Jamal

The U.S. war in Afghanistan has in fact killed tens of thousands of civilians and brought the Afghan nation back to the chaos of fragmented warlord rule last seen after the various U.S. trained and financed Mujahideen forces defeated the Soviet backed PDPA government.

The day after the September 11 attack this author wrote:

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen (from which the Taliban were later formed). With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing woman for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2002

Kucinich, the “peace candidate”, as much as he may now want to deny it, voted for the war in Afghanistan and played his part in making it happen.

On the war in Iraq Kucinich now states, "There is only one way in which the United States will withdraw from Iraq, prior to the end of President Bush's term: Congress must vote to cut off funds." (Rep. Kucinich, The Huffington Report) This position not only ignores the role of the people of the United States, Britain, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere rising up and resisting the war and imperialist occupations, but it is also is being put forward by a politician that voted for the war in Afghanistan, wants a leaner meaner imperialist military, voted for the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and who has worked hard to bring the anti-war movement back into the pro-war Democrat Party.

Some may argue that Kucinich is not perfect, but he’d make a better president than Bush. Yet it is unlikely that Kucinich has any intention of winning the presidency. His role is one of bringing the anti-war movement and others who are breaking from the establishment and the twin parties of war and racism back into the fold of the pro-war Democrat Party. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).

Yet that tent Kucinich speaks of is one that, despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for the “responsible” politicians of the Democrat Party.

It is such "responsible" politicians, including Kucinich, that voted in their vast majority to back the racist legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. It is outrageous that that the Democrat party would vote in its House majority to condemn a French city for daring to make an issue of this racist legal lynching, while at the same time doing nothing about the liar and killer, Bush. But then again that should be no surprise either since the Democrat Party voted in its majority for the war in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton

In a press conference on August 21, 2006 George Bush Jr. finally admitted what Liberation News has been pointing out since before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Yet Bush had used a supposed connection as a pretext for the U.S.’s unprovoked aggression against Iraq. In addition, Bush Jr. also admitted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Most of the Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, Hillary Clinton included, supported going to war with Iraq. Today Hillary Clinton has no remorse for that murderous decision stating, "Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since. No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq Vote, CNN.Com

In trying to let themselves off the hook many Democrats claim that Bush “did not fairly represent intelligence”. Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren’t their fault because they were lied to by Bush not only make them look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Clinton, however, is worse in not even distancing herself from this “justified invasion” and “weapons of mass destruction” lies.

While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they might not be in the mess they are now.

Yet for Bush Jr. and Hillary Clinton Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish by force a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats to try to rethink, or at least distance themselves from, the Bush policies they have supported.

Just as Liberation News opposes the U.S. occupation and corporate looting of Iraq, we also denounced the starvation blockade that was carried out through the UN by the Bill Clinton administration. That blockade, partially due to the capitalist nature of the Iraqi economy under Saddam Hussein, cost the lives of about a million people, many of them children. While a socialist economy like that of Cuba could have made sure that everyone in Iraq had food, blame for this mass murder should also be put on the Bill Clinton administration. Likewise, it was this Clinton starvation blockade that also weakened Iraq for the Bush invasion.

Today, while the U.S. occupation of Iraq has murdered well over 655,000 people and the U.S. starvation blockade of Iraq murdered a million or more, the U.S. government and its puppets in Iraq had the nerve to put Saddam Hussein on trial, and execute him, for propaganda purposes. Yet the worst crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were also carried out when he was directly backed by the United States. In the 1980’s the U.S. was giving massive military assistance to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein commit genocide against Kurds and carry out a bloody war with Iran at a time when Saddam Hussein was being used as an asset of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Likewise the CIA helped Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party come to power, supplying them with the names of 5,000 socialists and labor leaders that the Ba’athists subsequently rounded up and executed.

Yet to those who claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be a chance for the U.S. to finally set things straight and set up a democracy in Iraq, Liberation News responded before the U.S. invasion saying:

“In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields. This helped the Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping them in Iraq. This money helped pay for free healthcare and education. As such this was a socialist measure carried out by Saddam Hussein’s capitalist government. It was also a measure that stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations. For both reasons socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while those measures infuriated the imperialists...

“While defending Iraq against imperialist attack and supporting their right to defend themselves socialists also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have their own scores to settle with him. Yet any government set up by a US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to steal...”

“U.S. imperialism will never solve the question of women’s liberation in the Middle East. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women. Iraqi women are allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They are allowed to drive. Iraqi women can even freely criticize men. In addition Iraqi women have the right to work and control their own funds. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights what-so-ever.

“The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to benefit the people with social programs. Likewise they love governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants. Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a lack of health care. The billions of dollars the U.S. will squander on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit the working class and poor of the United States instead.” -From Liberation News: What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq

What was predicted is reality. Those predictions were not from a crystal ball. They were accurate because they were based on the past behavior of U.S. imperialism. Today in Iraq the U.S. has set up a puppet Islamic government with functioning death squads and torture chambers. Socialists have been excluded from participating in elections and unarmed demonstrators have been shot down and murdered in the streets by U.S. troops and troops of the puppet Iraqi government. The puppet Islamic government also opposes women’s rights and women’s rights have deteriorated dramatically since the U.S. invasion. The rebuilding of basic infrastructure, such as electricity, has lagged way behind what was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein after the massive U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 1992.

With the exception of the privatization of Iraqi oil, all of the predictions have shown themselves to be true and the only reason that Iraqi oil isn’t completely under the direct control of U.S. oil monopolies now is because of the union resistance of 23,000 organized oil workers as well as the general resistance by the Iraqi people to the idea of Iraq’s resources being looted by U.S. corporations.

For the working class in the United States there is ever growing frustration with a war that is costing many lives and billions in dollars while needed programs for healthcare, jobs, the environment, and disaster relief do not get the funding they need. Just as the new imperialist masters of Iraq have shown a criminal lack of interest in the rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, so too they left the people of New Orleans.

Yet for the ruling class their failure in Iraq is not in the murderous, undemocratic, and anti-woman puppet regime they have set up and the money that has been squandered in doing it, but in the failure of that regime to deliver the stability needed to acquire the oil loot. They complain that oil production in Iraq is below prewar levels and the occupation by U.S. and British troops serve as targets for the insurgency.

The words of Hillary Clinton, an icon of Democratic Party liberalism, makes abundantly clear that what she opposes is not the oil war itself, but the fact that Bush is not winning it:

“Let us not confuse the leadership’s failures with either the remaining mission in Iraq or the war on terrorism or with our support for our troops. What we have here is a failure of leadership to accomplish that mission. What was hailed as our shortest war has now become one of our longest. What was hailed as a model of democracy teeters on the brink of complete anarchy. What was the leadership that quickly claimed credit for success has been lethargic in the face of misjudgments and setbacks.” Hillary Clinton

As a result of imperialism’s failure in Iraq some Democrats that voted for the war like John Kerry have called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of this year. Yet the Kerry-Feingold plan actually calls for keeping troops in Iraq that are "critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces." The Kerry-Feingold plan also calls for "an over-the-horizon" troop presence in the region that could come to the aid of a failing puppet government in Iraq as well as intervene elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. (Lawmakers begin Bitter Debate on U.S. Troop Withdrawal Plan for Iraq, FOXNews, online report, June 2, 2006)

Hillary Clinton even opposed the Kerry-Feingold plan and voted against it arguing against any withdrawal timeline.

Unlike Hillary Clinton and the leading Democrats, Liberation News sees nothing good that can come from the continuation of the U.S. war against Iraq. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is doing nothing for anybody except the capitalists that are profiting from the war and the tax dollars of the American people. We call for no support to the Democrats and we demand: Iraq to the Iraqis! U.S. Out Now!

Liberation News calls for ending the war through building the mass movement in the streets; striking against arms producers; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks; and building towards a general strike against the war. Likewise we support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war. We support students, such as those at UC Santa Cruz that have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. And we call for building the socialist movement to end imperialism through socialist revolution.

The Role of Peace Action (Formerly Sane / Freeze)

Hillary Clinton’s record is clearly pro-imperialist war. Yet the group “Peace Action” gives Hillary Clinton the passing grade of voting for peace 89% of the time. Other Democrats are given similar scores by these political hacks.

“Peace Action” is deceiving the anti-war vote. Why? Because Peace Action is a pillar of the status quo that sees no alternative to delivering votes to what they see as the “lesser evil” Democrat Party, even when the Democrats are equally pro-war. This strategy has made “Peace Action” an obstacle to peace and a pillar of the status quo of war.

Every few years the ruling class of the United States parades its selected representatives in front of the American people to give us the chance to vote for their so-called “lesser” and “greater evil” representatives in the Democrat and Republican Parties. The corporate media and liberal pro-war groups like “Peace Action” ignore the real anti-war candidates and back pro-war Democrats by misrepresenting their records to the people.

Liberation News urges all of the super-exploited workers that go door to door raising money for the Peace Action bureaucracy to quit your meaningless jobs and look for better work while looking for ways to hook up with the real anti-war/anti-imperialist movement that is marching in the streets. Likewise we urge all of the liberal and leftist minded people that give money to Peace Action to stop doing so and instead participate in the mass anti-war movement in the streets with your bodies, minds, and your money if you can afford it.

No to the twin parties of war and oppression! Yes to the independent organization and mobilization of working people!

Obama, Clinton, and Richardson, Supporters of Racist Israel

Hillary Clinton, like many Democrats, has pounded the war drum for the racist Zionist state of Israel even louder than the Republicans. The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars in military aid every year and Senator Clinton’s vote backs that money for death. Israel is a racist settler state established in 1949 that has denied the original inhabitants, the Palestinians, many basic rights, often including the basic right to live. Besides denying Palestinians the same rights to travel, jobs, housing, and education as allowed Jews, the racist and religious Zionist State has used massacres and other forms of terror, wars, and torture to drive out the original Palestinian inhabitants.

Likewise Israel is always at war with its Arab neighbors. Israel’s recent attack against Lebanon where their aerial bombardment of the civilian population murdered 1,150 people and destroyed vital infrastructure is only the latest such terrorism by Israel. Yet Hillary Clinton recently told a pro-Israel rally “We will stand with Israel because Israel is standing up for American values as well as Israeli ones.”

She’s got it wrong, the mass murder and racism of Israel are in league with the values of American ruling class, as has been seen in Iraq, but these are not the values of the American people.

Claims of Israel being the victim, bombing and invading Lebanon on the pretext of two Israeli soldiers taken prisoner do not hold water in light of the fact that Israel is holding 2,000 Lebanese prisoners in their torture chamber dungeons from their previous invasion of Lebanon. In addition numerous reports say those two Israeli soldiers were captured in Lebanon, not in Israel. Those reports are from such sources as AP, Hindustan Times, and AFP.

On Israel “anti-war” Richardson shares Hillary Clinton’s views stating, “I am firmly committed to one of the United States' closest and most important allies - the State of Israel. Throughout my career, I've steadfastly supported Israel, obtaining a consistently pro-Israel voting record in Congress and defending Israeli interests as Ambassador to the United Nations.”

Barack Obama also backs racist Israel stating, “The United States and Israel share important interests - promoting a peaceful Middle East, combating terrorism, and encouraging reform in the Arab and Muslim world.” Likewise as a senator he has backed the massive military aid the United States gives Israel every year and says he will continue this policy as president stating he will, “insist on fully funding military assistance to Israel”.

For Socialist Democracy!

Let me be clear on this point, Obama and Clinton, and the rest of the pack will not betray us. They cannot betray us because they were never with us. Under the current politics most Americans would never have heard their names if they were on our side.

A truly democratic society would eliminate corporate control of the elections by nationalizing the corporate media and allowing all candidates equal access to the airwaves, cable, and print. Likewise a truly democratic society would carry out a sweeping “campaign finance reform” through the nationalization of the means of production (using that wealth for human and environmental needs rather than decadence and deception).

Up against the likes of Hillary Clinton, with her millions of dollars in corporate bribes, a sympathetic corporate media, growing police state, and increasing electoral fraud, it will take a socialist revolution to bring democracy to the United States.

How we can all resist:

Tell the truth!

Build the mass movement in the streets!

Strike against arms producers!

Become ungovernable!

Hot cargo war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks!

Build towards a general strike against the war!

Support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist this war!

Drive military recruiters off campus!

No tolerance or excuses for the pro-war, racist, and capitalist Democrat Party!

Build the socialist movement to end imperialism, racism, environmental destruction, and capitalism!

End U.S. imperialism through socialist revolution!

Subscribe to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Most Palestinians Killed in Israeli Raids were Civilians, Amnesty Says

Thu, 24 May 2007 21:26:00 GMT

by Donald Macintyre

JERUSALEM -More than 320 civilians were among a threefold increase in the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces last year, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group’s 2007 report says that over half of the more than 650 Palestinians killed in 2006 were civilians, 120 of them children and young people under 18. Amnesty defines civilians, “as people that are reasonably supposed never to have been involved in armed operations”.

While Amnesty said that dozens of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank it pointed out that most of the increase resulted from aerial and artillery bombardments in Gaza after the abduction of the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in late June and in response to increased Qassam rocket fire on Israel. These included, for example, the shelling of a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun which killed 17 members of the Athamneh family.

The report said 21 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians militants in the same year, the lowest figure since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.

Amnesty also accused soldiers and settlers of committing “serious human rights abuses, including unlawful killings against Palestinians mostly with impunity”. Although it said settler attacks on farmers in the West Bank had decreased, they were continuing.

It said that, at times, security forces were present at such incidents and did not intervene. It also accused the security forces of often only opening investigations after the cases had been highlighted by journalists and human rights groups.

The Israeli military said yesterday it did its utmost “to avoid harming innocent people… in contrast to terror organisations that do their utmost to harm innocent civilians”.

It rejected what it called “the attempt to equate terror organisations” with a “democratic state that acts within the confines of the law to exercise its right to defend itself, its sovereign territory, and civilians against terror organisations”.

Israeli troops launched a rare raid into the southern Gaza Strip early yesterday, briefly detaining seven Palestinians on the outskirts of Khan Yunis. The detainees were later released. Palestinian medics said that seven people, including a pregnant woman and a teenage boy, had been injured in two further air strikes on suspected Gaza militants yesterday.

© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/24/1434/print/

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

No Human is Illegal- March for Immigrant Rights this May Day

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:46:43 GMT

www.mayday2007.org/

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

It looks like the THIRD Intifadah is about to begin

ArabianPalestinian — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 08:45:17 GMT

As long as the zioNazi terrorists mess with the Aqsa Mosque, you can be sure the Third Palestinian Intifadah will shortly begin.

The lie about repairing pathways and such at the Aqsa site only fools the western mis-media and those who are pro zioNazi. The rest know exactly what the zioNazis are doing. They have been digging under the mosque to search for the so-called "temple" foundation. But the digging is jeopardizing the Mosque on top and it is in danger of collapse. So the zioNazis are trying to cover up for their deceit with so-called repairs.

For almost FORTY years (since June 1967) when the heathen zioNazis first trampled Jerusalem with their criminal feet they have been digging to find their so-called "temple" and so far they have found NOTHING. There is no such "temple." There never was any such "temple." Why can't they give the truth a chance and stop their criminal terrorism?

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Detained Palestinian dad may be freed

Bissicat — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:23:28 GMT

Detained Palestinian dad may be freed

Bail set; family held by U.S. for 3 months to get hearing
10:08 AM CST on Friday, February 9, 2007

By FRANK TREJO / The Dallas Morning News
frtrejo @dallasnews.com

An immigration judge in Dallas set bail at $30,000 Thursday for a Palestinian businessman from Richardson who, along with his wife and children, was detained for three months.

The ruling means that Salaheddin Ibrahim, 37, could be released as early as Friday from federal custody in Haskell, Texas. He then would await the outcome of a yet-to-be scheduled asylum hearing for him and his family.

A brother of Mr. Ibrahim said that friends, relatives and supporters contributed enough money for his release and intended to post his bond early today.

Initially after Thursday morning's bail hearing, there was confusion over whether Mr. Ibrahim could be immediately released. His attorneys said that the government could legally continue to hold him for 30 days or more if they decided to appeal the bail ruling.

But according to Carl Rusnok, a Dallas spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the fact that both the government and Mr. Ibrahim's attorney reserved the right to appeal the decision should not affect his release.

"The way I understand it, is that he can be released after he posts bond, assuming he posts bond," Mr. Rusnok said.

Dallas lawyer John Wheat Gibson maintained that Mr. Ibrahim should have been released without bond. He said the government was trying to "get even" with his client for the embarrassment generated last week by news stories that Mr. Ibrahim's pregnant wife and children, ranging in age from 5 to 15, had been held in a jail-like center near Austin since their arrest Nov. 2.

Mr. Ibrahim's wife, Hanan, and the children were released Saturday and returned to their Richardson apartment.

Mr. Gibson emphasized that he believes the continued detention of Mr. Ibrahim, after his family's release, is an example of the "institutional racism" that exists in U.S. immigration policy toward Arabs.

Mr. Rusnok, the ICE spokesman, declined to discuss additional details of the Ibrahim case because it is ongoing.

But during the hearing, ICE lawyer Margaret Price argued that Mr. Ibrahim posed a flight risk and noted that a handgun had been found in the family's apartment when they were arrested. She urged that Mr. Ibrahim be held without bail.

The Ibrahims, who arrived in the U.S. in 2001 on valid visas, applied for political asylum because of the violence they faced in their homeland. During their asylum hearing in 2003, Mr. Ibrahim described years of harassment, threats and beatings from Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

The family's request for asylum, however, was denied, and the Ibrahims were ordered deported. Efforts by Mr. Gibson to have the case reopened and reconsidered were denied.

On Nov. 2, ICE agents went to the Ibrahim home and took the family into custody for violating the deportation order, except for the couple's 3-year-old daughter, Zahra, who was born in the U.S. and is a citizen. While the family has been in custody, Mr. Ibrahim's brother, Ahmad, has cared for her.

One week ago, the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered the family's asylum case reopened and reheard in Dallas immigration court, citing changed conditions in their homeland. Those conditions included worsening violence between rival Palestinian groups.

No date for the new asylum hearing has been set.

The detention of Mrs. Ibrahim and her children at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, had helped draw attention to the controversy that facility has attracted for holding families. Earlier this week, state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, filed a resolution urging the Department of Homeland Security to consider alternatives to locking up children.

During Thursday's bond hearing, Mr. Gibson argued that his client should be freed without bond because he posed neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

But Ms. Price, the government's lawyer, said bond should be denied.

"A loaded weapon, thousands of dollars in cash, and passports were found in the apartment," Ms. Price said.

When pressed by Judge James Nugent, Ms. Price acknowledged that she did not know how much money was found at the apartment and also that Mr. Ibrahim had never been charged with any violation of gun laws.

Mr. Gibson said that the handgun agents found belonged to Ahmad Ibrahim and was found in a locked case on the top shelf of a closet.

Also during the hearing, Mr. Gibson noted that one reason the family had been held in detention for so long was that Jordan, the country that issued the Ibrahims temporary passports, had declined to issue them travel documents.

After the proceedings, Ahmad Ibrahim maintained that his brother "should have been released without bond. That's a very high bond."

He also said it makes no sense to suggest that his brother is a flight risk.

"He wants to stay in this country. That's the whole idea, that he wants to stay in America," Ahmad Ibrahim said.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

EXCLUSIVE: Hunger-Striking Palestinian Professor Sami Al-Arian Speaks Out In First Broadcast Interview of His Four-Year Imprisonment

Bissicat — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:08:24 GMT

EXCLUSIVE: Hunger-Striking Palestinian Professor Sami Al-Arian Speaks Out In First Broadcast Interview of His Four-Year Imprisonment

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/07/1546227

In a Democracy Now! exclusive, Sami Al-Arian speaks to us from prison where is on a hunger-strike. The Palestinian professor and activist’s case has been one of the most closely watched – and controversial – post-9/11 prosecutions in the United States. Al-Arian has been jailed despite a jury's failure to return a single guilty verdict. In the four years since his arrest, Sami Al-Arian has never conducted a broadcast interview - until now. [includes rush transcript]

Sami Al-Arian has been in prison for the past four years. The Palestinian professor and activist was found not guilty over a year ago of 17 charges against him yet he remains in jail and the US government seems unwilling to release him.

Al-Arian’s case has been one of the most closely watched – and controversial – post 9/11 prosecutions in the United States. A respected computer science professor at the University of South Florida, Al-Arian was a leading member of the Muslim community and one of the most prominent Palestinian academics and activists in the US.

In February 2003, he was arrested and accused of being a leader of the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Justice Department handed down a sweeping 50-count indictment against him and seven other men, charging them with conspiracy to commit murder, giving material support to terrorists, extortion, perjury, and other offenses.

At the end of the trial in December 2005, the jury failed to return a single guilty verdict. Al Arian was acquitted on eight of seventeen counts against him and the jury deadlocked on the rest. Four months after the verdict, he agreed to plead guilty to one of the remaining charges in exchange for being released and deported. At his sentencing, the judge gave Al-Arian as much prison time as possible under a plea deal - 57 months. His release date was set for April 2007.

But just over two weeks ago, a judge found him in contempt for refusing a second time to testify before a grand jury in Virginia in a case involving a Muslim think tank. The date of his release could now be extended by as much as 18 months because of the ruling. Al-Arian, who is a diabetic, began a hunger strike in response.

In the four years since his arrest, Sami Al-Arian has never conducted a broadcast interview - until now. In a Democracy Now exclusive, we spoke with Sami Al-Arian from prison. He called us yesterday from the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia. He began by describing where he was being held.

* Sami Al-Arian, speaking from prison.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
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AMY GOODMAN: In this Democracy Now! exclusive, we speak with Sami Al-Arian from prison. He called us yesterday from the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia. He began by describing where he is being held.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I am in, I think, somewhere in central Virginia in a jail called Northern Neck Regional Jail. I think it's somewhere in the country, and it's a very small jail. I hear it's privately owned and that they hold the federal prisoners on contract. I think there are less than 500 prisoners. I’m in a part, which is not very big. It’s about twelve cells with twenty-eight people. And that's what it’s called. It’s a part.

AMY GOODMAN: And why are you being held there right now?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I’m being held on contempt charges. And, you know, that's why I’m on a hunger strike.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us when you went on hunger strike?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yeah, I started on January 22nd, about sixteen days ago.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, I believe that freedom and human dignity are more precious than life itself. In essence, I’m taking a principled stand, that I’m willing to endure whatever it takes to win my freedom. I’m also protesting the continuous harassment campaign by the government against me because of my political beliefs. This campaign was supposed to have ended when we concluded the plea deal last year, but unfortunately it hasn't. And if you’d like, I can elaborate further on that.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, please do.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: OK. Well, you know, after two-and-a-half years in pretrial detention with Guantanamo-like conditions, mostly under 23-hour lockdowns, followed by a six-month trial with eighty witnesses, including twenty-one from Israel, thousands of documents, phone interceptions, physical surveillance, websites, hearsay evidence, anything and everything they could think of, preceded by twelve years of investigations, tens of millions of dollars, some even say over $80 million spent on this investigation, with ninety-four charges against me and my co-defendants and with my defense only being four words -- “I rest my case” -- how did the jury see it? They gave them zero convictions.

Unfortunately, however, the judge stopped the deliberations, because of a distressed juror, and they ended up with some hung counts, although they were mostly ten-to-two in my favor. What happened was that the government had the power to retry me on these hung counts. My attorneys had prior commitments and would have left, which meant I probably would have to hire a new legal team and wait perhaps for another year or more for a new trial.

Meanwhile, in my attorneys’ judgment, the government was desperate to settle after its total defeat. I was, at the time, perplexed, because I wasn't sure what offense I would plea to. But one of my attorneys said that even if there was none, we had to invent one to get you out. I authorized them to explore this option, and they concluded a deal with essentially time served and deportation, were I to plea to giving some services to people associated with an organization on their terrorist list. And if you’d like, I could go over quickly and briefly --

AMY GOODMAN: Yes. Go through what your plea agreement was.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yeah. Well, number one, that I sponsored a researcher in 1994 and ’95 to come to the United States to conduct research and edit a magazine, which he certainly did. Two, that I wasn't candid or forthcoming when interviewed by a journalist in November ’95 -- and don’t ask me why this is an offense. And three, that I helped my brother-in-law to get out of prison when he was detained on secret evidence between ’97 and 2000. These are the only three things that --

AMY GOODMAN: That was Mazen Najjar?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: That was Mazen Al-Najjar, that’s correct. My main concern with this deal was that the judge got out of hand, because association is constitutionally protected. And everyone kept saying that this was just a face-saving way for the government to end this, and no one is going to object. And, indeed, you know, no one did.

Amy, during the plea negotiations, the government wanted a cooperation provision, which I totally ruled out. I told my lawyers that if they insisted, then to break off all these negotiations and proceed to a new trial. The government immediately took this off the table and never raised it again.

Now, they want me to testify before a grand jury in Virginia, which is contrary to our agreement of no cooperation. We also believe that this is either a perjury or contempt trap. See, back in August of 2000, I was also subpoenaed before an immigration court, and I was asked if I believe in the freedom of Islam through violence. My answer was one word: no. But this was nonetheless one of the counts against me, which the jury acquitted me of. Now, I have been held in contempt for the total of over a month last year, and then that grand jury expired. Then they reconvened another grand jury this year, and I have been held now in contempt since January 22nd. That's why I’m on a hunger strike.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain this case that they’re asking you to testify before a grand jury about?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, I’m not really sure, because I don’t believe that -- I think it's just a justification to ask me whatever they want. You know, one of the prosecutors, who’s been after me for some time, although he’s not even from Florida -- he’s from Virginia -- had said to one of my attorneys that, “OK, if Sami wants to tell his story, we're going to give him the opportunity to tell his story.” I mean, I’m not sure what that meant. But the context of which, that there is an ongoing investigation of some of the think tanks and charities in Virginia, and they want me to -- they want to ask me about them, which I really haven't had any relationship with any of these since ’92 or ’93. I mean, it's been a long time, and I think it's just a pretext to hold me either in contempt or charge me with perjury, because whatever I’m going to say, they’re going to say, “You lied.”

AMY GOODMAN: And so, how does it work? If you refuse to cooperate, how long is your jail sentence without the refusal, and what happens now?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I’m told that on civil contempt charges, it is really in the hands of the judge. The judge has the power to lift this tomorrow, if he wants to. It is not supposed to be punishment. It’s supposed to be coercion. It can go for six months, renewed two more times, which is up to eighteen months. And after that, the government can even charge you with criminal contempt, which really has no limit on how much, so this really could go on for years and years if they really want to do it. And I think it’s politically motivated, so it might very well be the case.

AMY GOODMAN: Sami Al-Arian is speaking to us from prison in Virginia in this first broadcast interview since his arrest four years ago. We’ll return to this Democracy Now! exclusive in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to our exclusive conversation here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report, the conversation with the jailed Palestinian professor and activist Sami Al-Arian. It's his first broadcast interview since his arrest in February of 2003. He talked about the conditions of his imprisonment.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, in about a couple of weeks, it would be my fourth anniversary, so it will be four years, and it has been, you know, a difficult situation, difficult ordeal. The first twenty-three, twenty-four months, I was basically in a federal penitentiary in a section of the prison called the special housing unit, which is pretty similar to Guantanamo-like conditions. I would call it Guantanamo-plus, the “plus” being giving one phone call a month and visitation by the family behind glass.

Other than that, it's pretty much the same: very restricted, extremely restricted; physical searches and strip searches almost daily at the time, until the judge put a stop to it; in terms of availability to any outsiders, it's almost nonexistent; no phone calls allowed. Very difficult treatment within the prison system. I remember in the first couple of months, they wouldn’t even -- you have to be shackled, obviously, every time you leave your cell. And when I meet with my lawyers, they would refuse even to carry my stuff. I would carry it on my back, you know, and try to balance myself while I walk almost half a mile between my cell and where my lawyer was. So it wasn’t --

AMY GOODMAN: You mean, your back being perpendicular to the floor?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Exactly. Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: You'd be bent over at a ninety-degree angle, to keep your documents on your back?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: That’s right. For two months, I had to carry my legal stuff on my back, because they would refuse to carry it, and I was handcuffed from the back, so I cannot carry it myself. And that took place over the past, you know, couple of years, and then I was transferred, you know, during my trial for fifteen months in a county jail, and I was the only prisoner -- by the way, when I was in the federal penitentiary, I was the only pretrial person in the whole 5,000-inmate complex, because the prison officials kept telling me, “We’re not equipped for pretrials,” because I had all kinds of problems trying to listen to the conversations, they wouldn’t take me to the computers, and all kinds of problems that, you know, your show will not even be enough for me to account them and to go over them.

But after that, shortly before my trial, during my trial and post-trial, I was for fifteen months in a county jail, and I was put in the female section. I was the only man in the female section. And because, of course, it’s a female section, the whole part, the whole area, I was there by myself. I would hear females; I wouldn’t see them. And then, still, I was in my cell for twenty-three hours locked down, although all the other cells were empty. There was no reason really for me to be in a cell for twenty-three hours, but that’s the kind of treatment I was getting.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you recently filed a protest with the judge about the latest conditions that you’re in?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I have, and I explained to him, you know, for instance, I’ve been -- in the past nine months I’ve been to nine different prisons. I mean, I don't understand it. You know, I go from -- when the grand jury expired last year, you know, at the end of the year, I was transferred to Atlanta for a couple of weeks, and they knew, because the prosecutors and my lawyers were saying that a new grand jury will be convened, and the same thing -- we’ll go over the same thing again. And nevertheless I was sent to Atlanta for a couple of weeks, again under 23-hour lockdown, in a very small cell with two or three people and with a roach- and rat-infested environment. You know, the rat actually ate my diabetics tack one night. And it was very difficult, because in one hour -- and then they let 200 people out at one time; in one hour you’re supposed to get a shower, make a phone call, do whatever you want, and obviously have to wait in line on each and every one of them. And there is really no reason for that.

And then, I was transferred to another prison in Petersburg, Virginia, in which I had clean clothes. They took the clean clothes and gave me dirty clothes and turnout clothes. And when I protested, you know, they started giving me obscenities. I had an undershirt, and it was almost twenty degrees, and they took the undershirt and they put it in the garbage. They took my sneakers. I mean, all this kind of a treatment, really which I call harassment, is uncalled for, because that undershirt, I bought from the government, you know. I didn’t come with it. I bought it from them.

AMY GOODMAN: Which meant that you -- once they took your t-shirt, it was very cold.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yeah. And you had to walk, you know, shackled, your legs shackled and your hands handcuffed, and you can't even do anything about it. I mean, everybody, every guard, not only had their shirt and their coat and their cap and their gloves, but we were walking in t-shirts in twenty degrees at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning for long distances, and were shackled. That means you cannot even run. You have to walk very slowly so you won't fall down.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Dr. Sami Al-Arian. He’s imprisoned now in Virginia. I wanted to ask you about the judge's comments, US District Judge James Moody, who said, “You are a master manipulator. The evidence is clear in this case: you were a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, I’m not really sure what motivated the judge to say what he said. He gave me the high end of the sentence, and he used language to justify that, which was basically acquitted conduct. You know, I was -- he was, in essence, rebuking the findings of the jury, which I believe is unconstitutional. I mean, the evidence was very clear. When one of the jurors was asked later, you know, “How did you -- why did you fail to convict this guy?” And he looked him in the eye and said, “There was no evidence.”

OPERATOR: You have one minute left to talk.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: And then, he asked him back, “What would it have taken you to convict him?” He looked him back and said, “Evidence.” I mean, what evidence was there -- I mean, the freedom of association and freedom of beliefs, I think this is not a crime. A crime is, have I done anything that would have convicted me in a court of law with a jury of my peers, and the facts are very clear. They said no.

AMY GOODMAN: The judge also said your children attend the finest universities this country that this country has to offer, while you raise money to blow up the children of others.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Again, this was count two in my indictment, and the jury acquitted me on this.

OPERATOR: You have fifteen seconds left to talk.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I will have to call you back.

AMY GOODMAN: And with that, the line cut. Sami Al-Arian did call us back. Before we go to the second part of that interview, we're going to go right now to Sami Al-Arian's attorney. Sami Al-Arian’s attorney is Peter Erlinder, and he joins us now from Minneapolis. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Peter Erlinder. Peter, can you hear me?

PETER ERLINDER: Can you hear?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I’ll ask -- I will ask the cameraman in Minneapolis to repeat the question. But I would like to -- why don’t we go back to the Sami Al-Arian tape, which is the second part of the interview, and then we'll talk with the attorney who is now representing Sami Al-Arian. The second part of the interview was conducted just a few minutes after the line cut off. Sami Al-Arian called us back and continued the conversation.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. Dr. Sami Al-Arian?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Hi, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. So you face fifty-seven months prison, which was the sentence the judge gave you, despite a request of prosecutors and defense attorneys for a lower sentence. But it is extended because of your refusal to cooperate with the [inaudible]?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Correct. I mean, even in the fifty-seven months, you don’t serve fifty-seven months. You serve about 85% of them, which would have meant that I would be released in the middle of April of this year. Now, this is thing is tolled, and I would have to serve whatever the contempt sentence would be, which is up to the judge, and that, as I said, could be as long as eighteen months. And in the meanwhile, I’ll be waiting to serve the rest of my sentence, when that sentence is up.

AMY GOODMAN: And then you'll be deported?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Where will you go?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I don't know. I’m a Palestinian. I am homeless, and my family is still looking for a country. And that effort has stopped now, because we don't know when I’ll be leaving. And my attorneys and my family were trying to find me a country before this thing started back in September.

AMY GOODMAN: Where is your brother-in-law, who was deported?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: He is in the Middle East. He is trying to live a peaceful life. I mean, he’s in a friendly country of the United States. So, and he’s trying to resume basically his life, after his ordeal.

AMY GOODMAN: Sami Al-Arian, can you talk about your activism? I mean, it might surprise some to hear that in 2000 you campaigned not just for President Bush, but with President George W. Bush in Florida. The photographs are there, and he met your children.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yes. Well, a lot of people only get part of the story. You know, the story obviously started with the struggle for civil rights in this country for Arabs and Muslims after the use of -- the intensive use of secret evidence in the late ’90s. And I was part of a group that came together, a coalition that came together trying to fight this. And we were approaching Congress almost on a -- you know, for me, sometimes on a weekly basis, traveling and trying to talk to them about this practice and the unconstitutionality of it. And we approached both campaigns, the Democrats and the Republicans, trying to do something about it. We had legislation in Congress trying to outlaw and ban the use of secret evidence.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean by “secret evidence”?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, at that time, the government had the power -- and obviously it had expanded tremendously after the PATRIOT Act -- to introduce evidence that the defendant has absolutely no knowledge of. And they present it to the judge, and the judge will look at it from, you know, only one side and will make a determination. And we thought that was unconstitutional, that the person has -- due process says that you have to look at the evidence and cross-examine the witnesses, and then the judge would make a determination based on both sides.

And we were pretty successful, you know. We got it passed through the Judiciary Committee, which was chaired by Henry Hyde at the time, and I had a good relationship with him. And, as I said, we approached both campaigns. And basically, my interest was basically a single issue at the time. You know, I wasn’t interested in Middle East politics. I wasn’t interested in how they deal with, you know, the different things in the world. We were interested to see which campaign would support this legislation, so we can at least get that victory for civil rights in this country.

The Gore campaign was lukewarm, because they were part of legislation that was executing this policy. The Bush campaign embraced us. And he said -- I mean, he talked in the second debate about how, you know, unjustly it is to use “racial profiling,” he called it, in the name of secret evidence. And we endorsed him based on that promise. And indeed, he was going to keep his promise. A lot of people don’t even know that on 9/11 itself, at 3:00 that afternoon, had 9/11 not taken place -- I mean, the events -- he would have announced something as far as banning the use of secret evidence, and the Republican congress was ready to pass that legislation if the President gave them that sign. But, you know, I am pretty critical of the policies of the Republican congress and the Bush administration, as far as many, many other issues, especially after 9/11.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve said that the issue has moved from secret evidence to no evidence.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: That’s right, exactly. I mean, what’s happening now is the -- I mean, you just mentioned about the judge, and what evidence did the government have in order to link us to any of these murders? I mean, that’s why I’m totally perplexed by the judges. You know, and I think it has to do probably with the local coverage. You know, this case was covered immensely in the area. If you go to one of these local papers, you may find a thousand articles on me for the past, you know, dozen years or so. And there is linkage to the university that I was working in. That’s why I said from the beginning that this is a politically motivated persecution.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean “linkage to the university”? You mean the University of Southern Florida?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yeah, yeah, the University of South Florida. Well, I can talk a little bit about it, which probably will be something that no one heard before. The university was very much involved in this plot against me. As you may already know, I had been a target for many years by some groups to get me fired from the university. This effort intensified after 9/11. They found a sympathetic ear in the current president of the university, who orchestrated a board vote to dismiss me.

AMY GOODMAN: And that president was?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Her name is Judy Genshaft. Naturally, you know, I fought back and actually won both in state and federal courts. But as the university was on the verge of being censured by the American Association of University Professors, that the president offered a large settlement, almost $1 million for me in order to resign. That happened around the third week of August in 2002. But then, she said that she needed to clear that with the board’s chairman, the board of trustees chairman, who also happened to be a fat cat Republican. The chairman of that board objected, because of the anticipated political fallout, and immediately contacted his friend, who appointed him to the position, the former governor of Florida. The governor indicated that he’d take care of the matter, but needed some time. So the university, within three days of offering me this large settlement, they came back and sued me in court in order to fire me. Meanwhile, the government contacted the White House and the former attorney general to take care of the matter. And I could see from the grand jury that it had [inaudible] tremendously in August and September and October. And as the word goes, now we know the rest of the story.

AMY GOODMAN: And the governor at the time of Florida was?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: The brother of the President, Jeb Bush. Oh, by the way, I mean, if you remember in the 2004 campaign, there was a very heated campaign between the current senator of Florida, Martinez, and the former education commissioner and the former [inaudible] president, Castor, Betty Castor, you know.

AMY GOODMAN: The former president of USF, your university.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yeah, and they [inaudible] around me, and then, at the time, they asked Bush, Jeb Bush, you know, “Do you know this guy?” He said, “I never met him in my life.” And we met four times. Not only we met four times, but he sent me a written letter, which is in evidence in the government’s possession, and the guys -- I mean, politicians just say whatever, you know, they think will give them [inaudible] with the public without, unfortunately, any relation to the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: And he met you four times around what issue? Around a substantive issue or around you campaigning for him?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: In 2000 -- I didn’t campaign for Jeb Bush, but, I mean, we talked to him. I met with him three times in 2000 and one time in 2001. And in 2001, actually, I told him that the margin of victory in Florida was really due to us, because we campaigned, and in our estimation we gave push, you know, for good or bad -- people could claim, blame me for that -- maybe a margin of about 14,000 votes.

AMY GOODMAN: And when you say “us,” you mean?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I’m talking about the Arab and Muslim community in Florida. And, again, we were focused on secret evidence. We were not focused on other issues. And he said, “Can you prove it to me?” I said, “Yes, I can prove it to you.” And, you know, and so, we had this kind of discussion, and actually at the time, I think the meeting was in Orlando in the summer of -- I think in April or May of 2001.

AMY GOODMAN: That was a very close race between Martinez and Castor, the university president of your university, and could decide the balance of -- it was thought at the time -- of the Senate.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: That’s right. And unfortunately --

AMY GOODMAN: You were featured prominently in the campaigns.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: -- I was somehow in the center of this campaign, you know, and we were exploited, basically. I mean, he wanted to trash her by using me in order to win that seat.

AMY GOODMAN: That is the interview that we're bringing you with Sami Al-Arian, our exclusive talk with him in jail in Virginia. When we come back from break, we'll speak with his attorney, we’ll go back to the final part of the interview, and then speak with Sami Al-Arian's daughter, Laila.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Before we go back to the third part of our interview with Sami Al-Arian, I want to bring in his attorney to talk about some of the legal aspects of the case. Peter Erlinder represents Sami Al-Arian in the latest contempt charges against him. He joins us from Minneapolis, where he's a professor at the William Mitchell School of Law. Welcome to Democracy Now!

PETER ERLINDER: Good morning, Ms. Goodman. How are you?

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Can you start off just by explaining, in the jury verdict -- seventeen charges against Sami Al-Arian -- he was either acquitted or the jury deadlocked on every single one. Not found guilty in any of the charges against him?

PETER ERLINDER: That’s correct. The jury found him not guilty of approximately half of the charges and the more serious charges, and then with the charges in which they weren’t able to reach a verdict, they had voted ten-to-two in favor of acquittal, and they were still deliberating at a time that the judge ended the deliberations. So it's quite clear that the evidence against Dr. Al-Arian was extraordinarily weak.

And your listeners should know that his defense consisted entirely of the First Amendment. There were no witnesses, no evidence. Sami didn’t testify and his lawyers, Linda Moreno and Bill Moffitt, stood before the jury and simply said that everything this man has done is protected by the Constitution of the United States. And the jury agreed.

AMY GOODMAN: So, the judge hands down a sentence of -- what was it? -- fifty-seven months.

PETER ERLINDER: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: Above the request of the prosecutors?

PETER ERLINDER: The prosecution had agreed that Dr. Al-Arian essentially should have been released shortly after the plea agreement in May of 2006, and that he would voluntarily leave the country, and he would be assisted by the Justice Department in doing that. However, when we appeared at the sentencing hearing on May 1, 2006, the judge launched into what could only be called a diatribe, in which he accused Sami publicly of all of the offenses that the jury had acquitted him of. And then he used that as a justification to reject the prosecution recommendation on the sentence and to sentence Sami to the maximum allowable under the guidelines.

Had the sentence been two or three months longer, it clearly would have been an unconstitutional sentence based on recent Supreme Court cases. We are now in the process of filing a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court, challenging the judge's use of acquitted conduct in this situation, too. And so, we’ll be asking the Supreme Court to decide whether this expansion of the sentence was imposed constitutionally or whether a judge, rather than a jury, can make determinations like this.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, in the plea agreement that Dr. Al-Arian reached with the state, he talked about non- cooperation, part of it.

PETER ERLINDER: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: What does that mean? And how is it that he has now been called to testify before a grand jury?

PETER ERLINDER: Well, there's an assistant US attorney named Kromberg in the Eastern District of Virginia who actually has a pattern of calling before the grand jury or calling to his office Arab and Muslim defendants who have been acquitted. He then asks them questions and, based on what his interpretation of the truth is, then indicts them for lying either to the grand jury or lying to him as a federal official. And we understood that that was the tactic and the ploy used by this person, Kromberg. So our advice was that Dr. Al-Arian should not testify. And beyond that, the law in the Fourth Circuit, which is where the Eastern District of Virginia is located, makes absolutely clear that a non-cooperation clause in a plea agreement means that a defendant should not be called before a grand jury, either, or be required to cooperate in any way. So the request itself, we believe, was against the law and is against the law, and we’re going to be appealing that to the Fourth Circuit, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this case in relation to the Chicago case, where both Salah and Ashqar were just acquitted. And the attorney for Ashqar was also the attorney for Al-Arian, William Moffitt, who told the New York Times the government wants to use these cases to turn the fight for Palestinian rights in the Middle East into a battle of criminal law in an American courtroom.

PETER ERLINDER: Well, Bill Moffitt, of course, is a well-known criminal defense lawyer for whom I have great respect, and he is correct about that observation. But what happened, both in Sami Al-Arian’s case and the case in Chicago, is that lawyers for the defendants told the jury the truth about the political motivations for these prosecutions. And when people in the United States, fair-minded folks who understand what the First amendment means and what freedom of speech mean and what freedom of association mean, hear the details of the government manipulation of these cases, they respond in extraordinary ways, as the jury did in Tampa, as did the jury in Chicago. And this is not a new phenomenon. Several of the other lawyers in the Chicago case are National Lawyers Guild members, as am I, as are a number of the other lawyers, including Lynne Stewart, who you know, who have been fighting this. And the successes have come when the lawyers have made clear to the juries the political underpinnings of these prosecutions, which of course is what’s motivating them.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Erlinder, I want to go back to the end of the interview with Sami Al-Arian from this Virginia jail, speaking to us from Virginia. At the time of his arrest, Al-Arian was a leading member of the Muslim community in South Florida, one of the most prominent Palestinian academics and activists in the United States. In September 2001, invited to be a guest on the O’Reilly Factor, under the impression he was going to be discussing Arab American reactions to 9/11. Instead, the host, Bill O'Reilly, spent the interview accusing him of supporting terrorism. O’Reilly concluded by saying, “If I was the CIA, I’d follow you wherever you went.”

Beginning the next day, the University of South Florida, where Al-Arian worked, was barraged with hundreds of threatening letters and emails. Thirty-six hours after the interview the university put him on paid leave. He was arrested a year and a half later and has been in prison ever since. In my conversation with Dr. Al-Arian from prison yesterday, I asked him about the media’s role in his ordeal and whether it all began with Bill O’Reilly.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: No. It actually started long before Bill O’Reilly, and if you know John Sugg has been -- who is a journalist, used to be in Tampa, now in Atlanta, I think, a senior editor of an alternative newsweekly, he has been tracking this. And I think there’s another journalist, Eric Boehlert who wrote about this. This media campaign has been going on now since 1994. And the same media people who have been after me since 1994 were the instigators to Bill O'Reilly. And I didn't know that, of course, at the time, but I know it now. There is a group of people who present themselves as terrorism experts, who have been after me. And, I mean, their names are very well known. I don't need to recite them here for you, but they are very well known. Anybody can look them up.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re referring to, for example, Steven Emerson?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: That's one of them.

AMY GOODMAN: And he represents what group?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, a lot of them are referred to as basically Likudniks in this country. I mean, I am sure now, you know, with the neocons, a lot of people know now more about them than they used to as of ten years ago. I mean, you got the guy from Philadelphia, Pipes, and others. And so, I don't need to go through all these names, but they have been part of that group who are trying to basically say that the interest of Israel, this country, is the same as the interest of America, which we totally reject that.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a few more minutes. What about your family? You plea bargained, you say, to spare your family another trial?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Not only that. You know, I’ve been away from my family for four years, and my two youngest children are in need of me. This is the most critical time of their life, and I need to be a part of their lives before they grow up. And that was the major consideration for me, to end this, is to be with them. And now the government wants even to delay it further. That’s why, you know, I’m not going to [inaudible] -- that happened. And, as I said earlier, to me, freedom is more precious than life itself, and if I have to sacrifice, I will sacrifice. But I will not give in.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, your children now are what age?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Well, the three older ones are in college or graduated and working. And I got the two younger ones, one in middle school and one in high school, twelve and sixteen.

AMY GOODMAN: When you are deported, will they go to where you are?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: The two youngest ones will go with me, yes. The other ones, obviously, are going to stay here, because they have established lives here.

AMY GOODMAN: And your wife?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: My wife will be with me. And she has been with me throughout this. And I couldn't ask for a better partner in my life.

AMY GOODMAN: Could they convene one grand jury after another and keep you in jail forever?

SAMI AL-ARIAN: No. They can't do that. I’m told that they can do it up to two times. But, obviously, they always have a gun at your head, because they can go also, after they’ve done with the civil contempt, they go for criminal contempt. And the problem with the criminal contempt is that the proof is not very difficult, because all what they have to do is that you refuse to obey the court's order, and then there is no limit on how much you can be sentenced in a criminal contempt. So this could be an open-ended struggle.

AMY GOODMAN: Your final thoughts, as you speak to us from jail in Virginia, to share with this audience here in the United States, but also all over the world.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: Yes. I just want to say how grateful I am for really thousands of people who have looked at this case and have concluded that this was unjust and this is politically motivated. And I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart, because I receive letters almost on a daily basis, and notes and pictures and books and letters of support and prayers.

OPERATOR: You have one minute left to talk.

SAMI AL-ARIAN: I would like to thank them and take this opportunity basically to thank them. And I would like them to continue the struggle, because the struggle in America has not ended. It’s been a continuous line for civil rights in this country from early on until now, and I think we are going to win. They just have to hold on, be patient and steadfast and, as the President says, stay the course.

AMY GOODMAN: Sami Al-Arian, speaking in his first broadcast interview since his arrest and imprisonment four years ago.

Laila Al-Arian is Sami Al-Arian's eldest daughter. She’s a graduate of Columbia University Journalism School here in New York. She joins us in the firehouse studio. And we're still joined by Peter Erlinder, Dr. Al-Arian's attorney, speaking with us from Minneapolis. Laila, your father is now entering his third week of a hunger strike, has lost more than fifteen pounds now. How is that affecting your family?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: We’re very worried about his health. He’s a diabetic, as was stated before. And, you know, we’re just worried about how this is going to affect him, and at the same time we're trying to support him and we’re fasting ourselves as much as we can. And there’s now seventy-five people around the country that are also fasting in solidarity. So, it's definitely a tough time for us.

AMY GOODMAN: He has been in something like nine jails? How does that affect you? And are you able to see him, are you able to visit him?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Where he is now in Warsaw, Virginia, we have visited him. We have a one-hour visit once a week, so we usually drive from D.C. about two hours.

AMY GOODMAN: But do you touch?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: No. We can’t. It’s behind glass and through the telephone. But every time he’s moved to a different prison, we’re extremely worried about him. Usually he’s moved under horrible circumstances. He’s shackled. He’s deprived of food and water sometimes. He’s treated horribly by, you know, some of -- and told racist statements by some racist court marshals, who -- I’m sorry -- people who are in charge of transporting him. So it's usually just a horrible nightmare for all of us, and just trying to get a hold of him and to find out where he is is also a big ordeal.

AMY GOODMAN: How old were you when he was first arrested? And what is your understanding of his case?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: I was twenty-one when he was first arrested. I was a senior in college, about to graduate. And he ended up missing my graduation. Me and my older brother and younger sister, who’s twenty-one, are very much aware of what's going on. And we've been, you know, his advocates for the past four years as much as we can. And we just see this as the government criminalizing political speech and association. It's un-American. And that’s sort of my core understanding of my father’s case.

AMY GOODMAN: You went on to journalism school, to Columbia Journalism School. How has this affected your view of what is now your profession as a freelance journalist?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Well, as my father mentioned in his interview, the media has definitely played a big role in our case. There's a ten-year smear campaign by the Tampa Tribune locally that ended up affecting some couple of jurors that held out at the end and also the judge, clearly, through his comments. So it's definitely made me more skeptical as a journalist, which I think is what journalists should be: skeptical and cynical of the official government line. And I see my father's case as no different. The reporting in it is no different than the reporting of weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq war. It’s just a failure by, unfortunately, many journalists to question the official government line and to move beyond accusations to look for evidence.

AMY GOODMAN: Judge Moody said to your father, “Your children have attended the finest universities of this country, and you advocate blowing up other people's children.” Your response?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: What’s interesting is that the judge actually took that line from a government witness, who was discredited on the stand for lying and for embellishing on his resume. So that goes to show you where he’s getting his cues from: from a discredited government witness who was a spy in the Muslim community. So, obviously, I think the government used those words -- I mean, excuse me, the judge used those words to really try to hurt my father, and it didn't work. I mean, he just ended up looking undignified in the end.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Erlinder, as we speak to you in Minneapolis, you're the attorney for Dr. Al-Arian now. Can Dr. Al-Arian just be held indefinitely? Could they convene one grand jury after another -- he'll refuse to cooperate -- and he just gets extended prison terms?

PETER ERLINDER: Well, the grand jury civil contempt process can't go on forever. His civil contempt is reviewed as a matter of course every six months. And then, I believe it’s two terms of the grand jury, which would be thirty-six months that it would be possible to continue this. But as Dr. Al-Arian mentioned, then after that, criminal contempt charges could be brought.

And I want to make it absolutely clear that tomorrow, Attorney General Gonzales could release him. There are no pending charges against him. The Justice Department already agreed that he should have been released last May, and with a single stroke of a pen, a single phone call, Attorney General Gonzales could live up to the bargain that the Justice Department made last spring and allow Sami to get on with his life. This is purely an act of executive branch hubris. This is not the law; this is politics.

AMY GOODMAN: Laila, your uncle was deported, Mazen Al-Najjar. Your father, at the end of this, is going to be deported. What does this mean to you?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Unfortunately, it's just the story of Palestinians now. I mean, no other people are stateless the way Palestinians are. And, you know, my father came to this country at the age of seventeen, an idealist. He really believed, and still does to a certain extent, in American democracy and the ideals of this country, and his children do, too. And this is the only country all five of his children have ever known. So it really is heartbreaking to see that the cycle of stateless Palestinian refugees keeps continuing, and it really needs to stop.

AMY GOODMAN: What kind of support have you gotten?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: We’ve gotten tremendous support, especially locally in Tampa from the progressive Christian community there, and we’re really grateful for their efforts. They’ve spearheaded the rolling hunger strike in support of my father. And they’ve really been for us the past four years, writing letters, trying to meet with members of Congress and the Justice Department. So, as my father said, we're very grateful for their help. And, you know, we’ve also received national support from different organizations and from some members of the Muslim community. So it's been really tremendous. And internationally even, we receive a lot of emails and letters from people all over the world who are closely watching this case.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Erlinder, in terms of the legal community and how these cases fit into the climate in this country, and the whole issue that Dr. Al-Arian brought up, a campaign that he was involved in when he was free, the issue of secret evidence.

PETER ERLINDER: Well, actually Dr. Al-Arian and I were two of the founding members of the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom that the Lawyers Guild initiated with the purpose of stopping the use of this secret evidence. And in litigation over a period of years, David Cole, who is a professor at Georgetown, and others were successful in having the secret evidence thrown out of twenty-two cases in a row, I believe, and we were just on the verge of having Congress repeal the secret evidence law when 9/11 happened, as Dr. Al-Arian mentioned .

AMY GOODMAN: How has this affected your decisions in your life, Laila Al-Arian?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: I think it's just been a very, very difficult time for us. But I think at the same time it's made us better people. It’s made us more empathetic. You know, we're constantly watching what's going on to victims all over the world, victims of oppression. And it's made us strong advocates for justice.

AMY GOODMAN: When your father is deported, your mother and younger siblings will go?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Will you stay here?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: I think so. I think me and the older siblings, we have a life here. We have careers. My two siblings are in academia, I’m a journalist. So, we’re pretty firmly rooted here. We'll definitely be traveling back and forth.

AMY GOODMAN: And the website to get more information about your father?

LAILA AL-ARIAN: To get more information about my father's case, it's www.freesamialarian.com.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you for being with us, Laila Al-Arian and Peter Erlinder, attorney for Dr. Al-Arian, speaking to us from Minneapolis.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Palestinian family being detained in TX

Bissicat — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 17:01:49 GMT

Court asked to free Palestinian family

Separated for three months, all Ibrahims want is to be together

12:00 AM CST on Friday, February 2, 2007

By DIANNE SOLÍS and FRANK TREJO / The Dallas Morning News

The fight for freedom for a Palestinian family left stateless after a deportation order heated up Thursday with the filing of federal court documents in Dallas and Austin seeking the family's release.

For the last three months, 37-year-old Salaheddin Ibrahim has been held in a detention facility in Haskell while his 34-year-old wife, Hanan, and four of their five children are hundreds of miles away in a detention center in Taylor, Texas.

Attorneys for the Ibrahims filed two writs of habeas corpus Thursday challenging the government's justification to hold the family in detention.

"The government will have three days to explain why they are in detention," said Theodore N. Cox, one of the New York attorneys representing the Ibrahims.

Kathy Colvin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Dallas, declined Thursday to comment on the case.

The family was arrested Nov. 2 in a 5:30 a.m. raid at their Richardson apartment during an immigration enforcement action known as Operation Return to Sender. The arrests came more than two years after the family's request for asylum was denied.

But now authorities appear to be at a loss as to where to send them because the Ibrahims are officially without a country.

They came to the U.S. with business and tourist visas on Sept. 30, 2001, from the violence-torn West Bank. To return there, they would have to go through Israel or Jordan. Their temporary Jordanian passports have expired. And Israel traditionally has not allowed Palestinians to return home through that country.

The Ibrahims' plight is the most recent in a series of cases involving stateless Palestinians searching for countries to return to.

"Often [immigration officials] will release them after 90 days because there's no realistic chance of deporting them," said San Francisco immigration lawyer Marc Van Der Hout of the National Lawyers Guild.

Separated family

Salaheddin Ibrahim, in a phone interview Thursday from his detention center near Abilene, said that if he had known he and his family would spend time in jail he would never have brought them to America.

"Even in my dreams I never thought this would happen," Mr. Ibrahim said. "The situation is bad in my country, that is why we came here. But I never would leave if I thought we would be in jail even for one day."

From fiscal 2001 through 2005, only two Palestinian asylum cases were granted, according to Department of Justice statistics. Twenty-eight were denied.

Mr. Ibrahim, who ran his own wholesale clothing business, hasn't seen any of his detained family members since the raid.

Adding to the drama is Mrs. Ibrahim's pregnancy. Now five months along, she is reluctant to leave her children to seek prenatal care, provided by federal authorities, Mr. Cox said, adding that her younger children have become "hysterical" when she has tried to leave to see a doctor. They fear their mother will not return, the attorney said.

Her 5-year-old daughter, Faten, is in a cell with her mother, and the other children are in two other cells, Mr. Cox said. Mrs. Ibrahim's 8-year-old daughter, Maryam; 14-year-old daughter, Rodaina and 15-year-old son, Hamzeh, are detained with her at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor.

Making the facility's 5 a.m. roll call has become more strenuous for Mrs. Ibrahim as her pregnancy advances, said Joshua Bardavid, another attorney for the Ibrahim family. "She is forced to stand up, and it is very difficult," he said.

Mrs. Ibrahim's 3-year-old daughter, Zahra, was not taken in the November raid because she was born in the U.S. and is a citizen. She is staying with her uncle, Ahmad Ibrahim, in Dallas and believes her family is at the doctor.

"There is a right for family unity, under immigration law," Mr. Bardavid said. "The government is doing the exact opposite. We have a 3-year-old orphaned from her parents. We have five others in a converted maximum-security prison."

Two weeks ago, Ahmad Ibrahim tried to brighten his brother's spirits by bringing Zahra for a visit to the Rolling Plains Regional Jail and Detention Center in Haskell. While Mr. Ibrahim was happy to see his child, he was pained by the farewell. The little girl cried and did not want to leave.

"She broke my heart," Mr. Ibrahim said.

Detaining children

The 512-bed Hutto facility in Taylor, just northeast of Austin, has drawn rancor for the detention of immigrant children. It was converted into a detention center in May 2006 for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

Families were placed there after outcry over the federal government's so-called "catch-and-release" policy with certain illegal immigrants. In the past, certain illegal immigrants would be given an immigration hearing, and then, in many cases, wouldn't show up.

A 2007 government fact sheet on Hutto says it was established "to provide a detention facility in which families could remain together while awaiting their proceedings." Federal immigration officials, however, wouldn't explain why Salaheddin Ibrahim was separated from his family.

"I'm not going to comment on the Ibrahims when there is pending litigation," said Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman in Dallas.

Thursday's requests for writs were filed in the U.S. Northern District Court in Dallas on behalf of Mr. Ibrahim and the U.S. Western District Court in Austin on behalf of his wife and children.

The lawyers argue that the family did not receive a so-called "bag and baggage letter" from ICE. The notice would have ordered them to appear before officials at a certain time and place for detention or deportation. The only notice the family got that deportation was imminent was when a team of immigration officers knocked on the door of their Richardson apartment and took them into custody, the family attorneys contend.

They also contend that the family's detention is unjustified because the family was not removed during the 90 days after the final order of deportation was issued. That order was on Aug. 24, 2004.

"The fact that they chose not to detain Petitioner [Mr. Ibrahim] during this time is not the fault of the Petitioner, as Petitioner lived openly at the address on file with Respondents [immigration officials]," one of the writs states.

Mr. Ibrahim is described in the legal documents as a "stateless male" who was born in Kuwait but isn't a Kuwaiti citizen. (In some countries, citizenship is not guaranteed through birth.) Mrs. Ibrahim is described as a "stateless female" who was born in the West Bank. The "stateless" children were born in Jordan and the West Bank.

The petition seeking the release of the children also notes that, in addition to being traumatized by being held in a jail-like setting, they are being deprived of an equal access to education.

Lawyers for the family hope they will be able to avoid a prolonged legal fight.

"We're cautiously optimistic right now. Today was a significant development," Mr. Cox, the attorney, said.

Mr. Cox and Mr. Bardavid are not requesting a halt of the deportation order. Mr. Cox said that the Ibrahims are prepared to go to any country that will take them, and that they have applied to 54 countries to take them, including the Vatican.

"Of course, staying in the U.S. would be preferable," Mr. Cox said.

Staff writer Paul Meyer contributed to this report.

dsolis@dallasnews.com; ftrejo@dallasnews.com

posted in Palestine - 2 replies

Students beaten for being Palestinian

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:25:11 GMT

By Nicole Colson | February 2, 2007 | Pages 1 and 2

SEVERAL PALESTINIAN students were abused and beaten in an attack at a Greensboro, N.C., college that highlights the wave of racism against Arabs and Muslims.

As many as 15 members of the Guilford College football team used their fists, feet and brass knuckles in the assault on three Palestinian students, according to court documents. The Palestinian students were called “terrorists” and “sand niggers” as they were beaten.

“It was the most horrific experience of my life,” one of the victims, Omar Awartani, a student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who was visiting friends at Guilford, told the Greensboro News-Record. “This was a horrible, unprovoked hate crime.”

Awartani reportedly suffered a concussion and broken jaw, and had trouble walking on his own for several days after the attack. Guilford student Faris Khader--an exchange student from Ramallah--suffered a concussion and broken nose, and fellow exchange student Osama Sabbah received a concussion and nerve damage to his hand.

So far, five football players have been charged with assault and ethnic intimidation, and the FBI has begun an investigation to determine if the attack was a hate crime.

Many students at Guilford--a small, liberal college with a Quaker tradition--reacted with outrage. A walkout from classes was organized last week in solidarity with the victims, and students are wearing T-shirts saying, “I don’t feel safe here,” and “Hate crimes happen at Guilford College.”

The question of how such an incident could take place at a school that Newsweek last year singled out as “hottest for social conscience” has led some to label the attack as a case of “rampaging jocks.”

But the rising tide of racism against Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. has led to an increase in hate crimes across the country. Last year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported that hate crimes against Muslims rose 30 percent in 2005 to 1,972 reported incidents. A CBS poll found that that 45 percent of Americans now have a negative view of Islam--higher than immediately following the September 11 attacks.

Such bigotry--endorsed on a regular basis by politicians of both parties--has had real consequences.

In the Detroit area, several mosques and Shia-owned businesses have been vandalized in recent weeks, including one mosque covered with graffiti reading “Go home 9-11 murderers." Other mosques have been vandalized in Northern California, and one in Newark, N.J., was set on fire in what many suspect was a hate crime.

As Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the University of California at San Bernadino, told the Christian Science Monitor, “What we have here is a climate where Islamophobia is not only considered mainstream, it’s considered patriotic by some, and that’s something that makes these kinds of attacks even more despicable.”

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

YouTube - Stop the Israeli Apartheid ..Music By 'Sting'

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:37:41 GMT

This can be hard to watch. But important to see.

Peace and blessings to all.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ILH022wjcZI

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

The Need for the De-Zionization of America (and Israel)

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 00:50:13 GMT

By Wendy Campbell

Al-Jazeerah, December 21, 2006

The inspiration for this article came from watching a program on C-SPAN featuring a panel discussion sponsored by a Zionist Jewish-dominated, Islamophobic think-tank, The Hudson Institute, and the subject matter was "The Need for the De-Ba'athification of Iraq".

The panelists seemed to be Iraqi puppets hand-picked by Zionist Jews, for they spouted typically Zionist misleading analogies and agendas.

The most obvious reason for this impression was how one of the panelists kept saying the need for the de-Ba'athification in Iraq is the same as how there was and still needs to be a complete de-Nazification of Germany. This is a false analogy as I will explain later in this article.

Comparing "De-Nazification" to "De-Ba'athification" is a real give-away that "Jewish politics" is pushing the agenda for the "de-Ba'athification" of Iraq. "Jewish politics" has come to be exemplified by Zionism, a racist ideology calling for a Jewish supremacist state in all of Palestine (and parts of other countries neighboring Israel), and this is supposedly somehow "justified" by "The Holocaust" (the term coined to represent the persecution of many Jews at the hands of Nazis during WWII.)

Of course most Americans don't really know what Zionism is, which is not by accident. Jewish Americans prefer to keep the lid on that. But here is a website for you to check out to get up to speed on it: www.zionismexplained.org.

Zionists always compare anyone who challenges their agenda and ambitions as "Nazis" and of course "anti-Semites". They do this to attempt to deflect and suppress criticism of their crimes against humanity, as witnessed in Palestine, and now Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, with the help of "our" government. The Zionists, whether Neocons or Neolibs, Republicans or Democrats, want to expand that war into Iran and Syria as well.

Zionist-dominated media here in the US have pretty much successfully trained the American public to think that the Nazis were the ultimate "Bad Guys" in all of the history of mankind. However, if the US media was instead dominated by Armenians, I am quite quite sure the American public would be inundated for years upon years with movies, articles, books and school programs indoctrinating them about the evils of the Turkish government and we'd know every detail about the Armenian Holocaust. Or if our media was dominated by Cambodians, we'd face similar onslaughts of such indoctrination about their own version of Hitler, a man by the name of Pol Pot, who is barely ever mentioned in current US media. We'd all be totally aware of him and his party's genocide of up to 3 million people in Cambodia, but as it is, we are in the dark about that one. No, instead, we are constantly subjected to Holocaust indoctrination, and it's plain to see, that Neocons, who are mostly Jewish , as are the lords of Hollywood, are pushing for continuing the endless "war on terror" (state-sponsored terror against civilian-sponsored terror) from Palestine to Iraq to Iran to Syria and beyond. Again, war is state-sponsored terror, something they conveniently overlook. The "war on terror" is a preemptive war that was based on a pack of lies and 911, which many believe was an inside job by the Neocons in order curry American public support for their agenda to re-shape the Middle East to Israel's liking.

As many people realize by now, the so-called "war on terror", a concept pushed by the Neocons, beginning specifically with destroying Iraq, which actually morphed from Israel's war on Palestinians and Lebanon, and is planning to expand further beyond to Iran, Syria and other countries in the Middle East, was also the original brainchild of the NeoConservatives, a belligerent, imperialistic movement predominately led by Zionist Jews, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Scooter Libby, all of whom also qualify and act as Israeli-Americans. Prominent non-Jews in this movement include Cheney and Bush, a Christian Zionist puppet for the Israel-firsters. To go along with the Zionist agenda means lots of campaign money and a positive spin in the Zionized media on their administration and the "war on terror". Their agenda was all spelled out in their manifesto put out by PNAC (the Project for the New American Century). They really should have called it Project for the New Zionist Israeli Century, but the Neocons wanted the American public to back this ambitious plan for a "Greater Israel" so obviously they couldn't call it that. Besides, as I pointed out, most Americans don't even know what Zionism is and what Israel is really all about, and that is not just a coincidence. Many Americans still believe the Zionist propaganda in the Zionized mainstream media about Israel being "the only democracy in the Middle East", and "our greatest ally", although neither claim is true, which is evident upon further research.

If most Americans knew ( www.ifamericansknew.org ) the truth about racist, apartheid Israel and how much it costs them not only financially, but also in terms of security, they would demand a complete end to our government's support of such a state. PNAC also called for a "Pearl Harbor-style catastrophe" to jump-start the American public into allowing the Neocons to "let it roll" ? that is the endless wars on land-grabbing Israel's self-made enemies in the Middle East, so almost like clockwork, the events that happened on 9-11 mesmerized Americans into almost complete obedience to the plan as spelled out in Project for New American Century. This happened all so neatly and as dramatically as in a Hollywood action blockbuster, yet many smoking guns remain. Where there is smoke, there is often fire. Many people are connecting the dots between the mysterious obvious implosions of WTC, including building 7 (www.wtc7.net), and the Neocon agenda (which is also supported by Neoliberals such as Israeli-Americans such as Rahm Emanuel who played the recent Democratic race like he was betting on racehorses, hand-picked and supported them with lots of loot from his Israel-first supporters). For more interesting information on all of this, please visit http://www.anti-neocons.com and also http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh10142006.html

So here is how the comparison between Nazis and the Ba'ath Party is misleading.

First, let's start with the similarities: Germany and International Jewry were at odds with each other, mainly because of the finagling behind the scenes of International Jewry to get America to help England to defeat Germany during WWI in exchange for aiding Jews to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the goal of the newly-founded Zionist movement (which began in the 1890s, founded by Theodor Hertzl), as documented in the infamous Balfour Agreement, signed in 1917, addressed by Lord Balfour on behalf of England to Lord Rothschild on behalf of international Jewry. By getting America involved in WWI to help England to defeat Germany soundly, even though at that time, there was a ceasefire between the two nations, International Jews, such as Lord Rothschild, helped to create a hostile atmosphere for Jews in Germany.

The leading role that Jews played in the brutal Bolshevik Revolution in Russia at around the same time also played a part in anti-Jewish sentiments in Germany and some other countries. (Over 20 million non-Jews were killed in that war, but no one ever talks about that today. We only always hear about the "6 million" Jews who were killed during WWII.)

So under Nazi Germany, Jews were persecuted, along with many others. It wasn't just because they were Jewish in many cases. It was because of their politics. But unfortunately, Nazi Germany unfairly persecuted many innocent Jews, as we all know, rounding them up in concentration camps, working them hard to support the war effort and many died, especially during the end of the war when Germany was shattered, and food and medical supplies were cut off due to Allied bombing of railroads, bridges, roads. As in all wars, unfortunately many innocent people get killed, as even now in Iraq. Some say the figure is up to 650,000, but whatever it is, it is far too many when it comes to innocent victims.

Neocons and the NeoLibs, all Israel-firsters, don't really care that there's a bloody quagmire in Iraq. That suits them just fine and dandy. As far as their agenda is concerned, endless war in Iraq and all the countries in the Middle East, except for Israel, suits the Zionist agenda to debilitate and render helpless and weak the entire Arab world. It's safer for Israel that way, and allows Israel the free oil pipelines, the access to their neighboring countries' water supplies, and so on. Yes, Israel-firsters in our government are lobbying to have Americans pay for a free oil pipeline and free oil for Israel. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,940250,00.html and http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=332835&sw=Haifa+Mosul for confirmation of this plan. All of this is normally called theft, grand larceny, along with mass murder. It's certainly racist as well, exploiting and dominating other people who belong to another religion or ethnicity. Yet, Zionists think that the world owes them all this. They blame it on the Holocaust. The Holocaust made them do it.

Please note how Israel and their backers in the US never complain about Israel's WMD including over 250 nuclear warheads, nor Israel's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation agreement, which Iran has indeed signed. Why is it that Zionist Jews are only concerned with the security and welfare of Jews? Isn't that just a bit racist and self-centered? Exclusive? Hateful?

By the way, the war between England and Germany was originally about: guess what? Oil. Yes, largely, it was about who was going to control the oil resources in the Middle East. My, how some things never seem to change.

As you can see from the brief history lesson, WWI led directly to WWII. In other words, WWII was basically a continuation of WWI.

And by the way, the current "war on terror" is yet still basically growing out of WWII. However, basically the Arab countries' only real gripe with the US is how the US backs racist, apartheid, thieving, lying, murderous, ethnic-cleansing, genocidal Zionist (Jewish supremacist) Israel. Israel is the fly in the ointment. That is it in a nutshell. Not only would the Arabs love to sell us their oil (as Saddam Hussein has said, "What are we going to do, drink it?" No, of course, they have it to sell, and we have bought it at low prices that have not kept up with inflation.) We also get much of our oil from our neighbors Mexico and Canada, as well as other countries. Alaska has lots of oil waiting to be tapped. The war in Iraq is basically pushed by Israel-firsters in the US and in Israel who want to exploit the oil and water resources of Israel's neighbors to create a "Greater Israel". American politicians find it easier to go with the flow (the powerful Israel-firster lobbies and media) than to go against it. They get to keep their jobs and maybe even be a part of the wartime profiteering through corporations such as Halliburton and the Carlyle Group. You can expect Hillary Clinton and Obama Barack to follow the same status quo with unconditionally supporting the racist, apartheid Jewish state of Israel. I believe that Dennis Kucinich or Ralph Nader is our best bet for a positive step in the right direction.

So to get back to the similarity between Nazi Germany and the Ba'ath Party in Iraq and other countries such as Syria, I have explained the resentment that the Germans had towards Jews during WWI and WWII, and how it was politically motivated, not out of some blind xenophobia, or "anti-Semitism". The Ba'ath Party is also anti-"Jewish Zionist Politics" aka Zionism aka Jewish Zionist Supremacism aka Jewish Zionist aggression and exploitation of their resources and people.

But it's not just because organized Jewish politics is Jewish. Remember, many Jewish people do not consider themselves Zionists. A case in point can be seen in my interview with Rabbi Weiss in my documentary "Neturei Karta: Jews Against Zionism" available at amazon.com and at www.marwenmedia.com. Rabbi Weiss explains in fascinating detail the differences between Zionism and Torah-true Zionism.

The Ba'ath Party and others are against the belligerent behavior of Zionist Jews in political power both in the US and in Israel, from their leaders, think-tanks, and politicians to the land-grabbing Jewish settlers they support. Ever since Zionist Eastern European Jews established the colonialist, imperialistic state of Israel in 1948 with a massacring campaign of ethnic-cleansing of non-Jews who were living there, with the help of the UN who took it upon themselves to unilaterally give away Arab land that was not theirs to give away in the first place with no concern for the people already there, from day one Zionist Jews have been stealing more land, ethnically cleansing the land of non-Jews to make way for Jews and it still is happening to this day. Few Americans are fully aware of this. The Zionized mainstream America purposefully obfuscates this from view, with almost a complete blackout on the reality of what racist, apartheid Israel is all about or anything negative with regards to Israel. Thank God for Jimmy Carter and the many human rights activists around the world and thank God for the internet.

Israel could not get away with all of its crimes against humanity if it weren't for the unconditional support of "our" government, which seems to be almost taken over by Israel-firsters, many of them Israeli-Americans. This apparently has been accomplished by their elite position and status here in the USA, and in many other Western countries, that many Israel-firsters enjoy: deep pockets, lots of political power and influence as a result of the deep pockets, almost near control of the US media from the movies of Hollywood to books to newspapers and magazines, and an incredibly effective and focused networking and organizing ability as manifested in all the Jewish political action groups including the ADL (who smears all those who don't play along with Jewish Zionist politics aka Zionism as "anti-Semites" and "Nazis") to AIPAC to JINSA and the many "think-tanks" such as the Council for Foreign Relations, and yes, lest we forget the inspiration for this article, The Hudson Institute, which could be also described as a Judeo-fascist think-tank. Just one look at their website reveals how Islamophobic they are.

Let's take a look at what exactly the Ba'ath Party stands represents.

Their motto is "Unity, Freedom, Socialism". It is a pan-Arabic party, meaning it has a political presence in most Arab countries, calling for unity of Arab countries in a manner that is similar to the European Union, and now we see that there is a movement towards a US-Canada-Mexico union.

The Ba'ath Party is a nationalistic, secular, socialist party.

So what's wrong with all of that?

Plenty, according to Israel-firsters who see a union of all the Arab countries as a serious threat to their security and their own ambitious vision for a "Greater Israel" from the Euphrates to the Nile in the Middle East. In other words, Israel-firsters seek to imperialistically subjugate all of the people and resources of the Middle East to serve Israel's and Israel-firsters' lust for power and domination.

As you can see, there is very little, if any, real similarities between Nazis and Ba'athists. It's just that those who have and are threatening Arabs' and Iranians' national security happen to be predominately Jewish. If those pushing the "war on terror", the war on Iraq and now the war on Iran were Cambodian, the Ba'ath Party and Arabs would be anti-Cambodian politics. If it were Cambodians, it's unlikely the Cambodians be accusing their political enemies in Arab countries of being "Nazis" or "anti-Semites" if Jewish politics/Zionism were not part of the equation as they clearly are in this so-called "war on terror".

Basically, resource-poor Israel is a small, colonialist, apartheid, racist, imperialist entity artificially propped up with billions of American taxpayers' dollars flowing there annually, even trillions of our tax dollars by now, when you take into consideration the cost of the "war on terror" which would not likely be happening now were it not for inordinate influence of the Zionist Jewish Neocons and the Israel lobby, backed by Christian Zionists, who pushed it, all on a PACK OF LIES. The Israel-firsters want free oil pipelines from Iraq to Israel. They want the waters from Palestinian Territories and from Lebanon. They want, they want, they want. So they take, whatever they want with the backing of "our" government, even though they are committing blatant crimes against humanity and vile acts of vandalism. War is state-sponsored TERROR.

Obviously it is NOT in Americans' best interests to support such a criminal state and in doing so, our government is an accomplice to these crimes against humanity. No wonder America ties with Israel for being the two most unpopular countries in the world.

It's too bad the Zionist Jewish movement for creating a Jewish state in Palestine at the expense of the indigenous people ever happened. It ended up being at the expense of many innocent Jews as well in The Holocaust. Just think if Zionist Jews did NOT push for a racist Jewish state of Israel in Palestine, meddling with the war between England and Germany over control of the oil pipelines to the Middle East. The Holocaust might never have happened. Hitler would most likely not have targetted Jews. Palestinians would still be living peacefully in their ancestral homeland of Palestine (now also known as Israel).

Remember there was a ceasefire between England and Germany towards the end of WWI. If the Zionist Jews had never made the effort to rev it up again with the Balfour Declaration seeking a colonialist, racist, Jewish state in Palestine, and involving the US in WWI, there might never have been the persecution of Jews in Europe known as The Holocaust. There may possibly have never even been a WWII. England and Germany would have had to come to terms about working together on sharing the oil pipelines to the Middle East. The racist, apartheid Jewish state of Israel would not be there in the Middle East constantly aggravating the entire Middle East, and in the process involving the entire world, and especially the US, in endless wars.

Well, wishful thinking won't make it all go away. So what can we do now?

Stop the double standards! Seek the Truth and spread it. The Truth is that Israel, as a Jewish supremacist state, is a racist, apartheid country NOT WORTHY of US support at all. The fact is that the world needs to be de-Zionized, starting with both Israel and the US.

Zionism needs to be fully understood and recognized for the racist ideology that it is, and that it is at the root of the "war on terror" and is in fact creating it, for its own nefarious, greedy purposes, benefiting only the elites.

We the people of the United States of America must demand that our government stop all manner of support for the racist, apartheid state of Israel. The Zionist regime in Israel must dismantled in the same manner as the apartheid regime was dismantled in South Africa. Boycotts and sanctions are in order for Israel.

It all begins with the Truth. The Truth will set us all free. Spread the word.

Once Israel is pressured to transform into a true secular democracy, and re-named Palestine-Israel, with completely equal rights for all regardless of religion, ethnicity, race, creed, gender, or personal wealth, and including all the Palestinian refugees who must be allowed their inalienable Right to Return to their ancestral homeland of Palestine-Israel, the world will be a much better place.

"Freedom, Justice, Peace and Equality for All" is my motto. What is yours?

Let's make it happen.

Some suggestions on how this can be accomplished:

*Educate yourself and our fellow Americans about the truth about apartheid Israel, the "war on terror", the controversies around "The Holocaust" and the questions surrounding 911, because it's all related. Do your own research on the internet where you can easily cross-reference what you read to analyze independently and come to your own conclusions, not be fed the conclusions that the mainstream media makes for you to parrot back to yourself and others. Think outside of the box. Whatever conclusions you come to, you have a right to your opinion. This should not be a crime!

* Avoid mainstream media like the plague. It filters out important information you should know, and puts their own self-serving spin on everything.

* Be fearless. Refuse to be intimidated and manipulated by smear words ("hate-speech" in and of themselves) such as being accused of being an "anti-Semite" or a "Nazi" or even a "Holocaust-denier" if you have discovered some things that don't quite jibe with everything that Zionists claim about what happened to Jews in WWII.

* Be an independent thinker. Don't let anyone tell you how to think. Get the facts and come to your own logical conclusions and spread the word.

* Demand that our government stop sending any of our tax dollars or giving any political or diplomatic aid to apartheid Israel.

* Demand that our government give massive reparations to the Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan, and Lebanese people. In fact, re-direct any money that would have otherwise been earmarked for Israel and give it to these ravaged peoples.

* Demand equal opportunity and affirmative action in our media: truly, if affirmative action were ever needed, it is surely in our media. There should be a new governmental department that assures that people of all races, ethnicities, creeds, genders and beliefs are represented in our media AND our government. Currently Jewish Americans (also known as Israeli-Americans) hold far more positions in our media and our government in our country, the United States of America (which does NOT include Israel), than any other special interest group, especially when it's taken into consideration that Jewish Americans / Israeli-Americans are supposedly only a tiny fraction of our population, yet their special interests dominate our foreign policy, our media, and even much of our domestic policies.

* Demand an end to any of our tax dollars funding Jewish American/ Israeli-American's politically-motivated Holocaust propaganda in our public schools.

* Demand an end to any of our tax dollars funding Holocaust Museums and Memorials when those are arguably politically motivated organizations, pushing war-time propaganda and chauvinistically elevating Jewish suffering over all others, way over and above in proportion to others' suffering. The Holocaust museums and memorials are semi-religious, political institutions for Jewish Americans/Isrsaeli-Americans, used to indoctrinate and manipulate non-Jews into following the Zionist agendas, especially support of the racist, apartheid Jewish state of Israel.

* Demand separation of synagogue and state, as well as church and state.

* Demand the right to have the Nativity scene in public places where there is also a Jewish Menorah. After all, the Christmas tree is more of a pagan icon, where many even refer to it as a "Holiday Tree". The Menorah candalabra has uniquely religious significance to Jews only, whereas all peoples can and do enjoy the Christmas/pagan tradition of a Christmas tree with gift exchanging. However the Nativity Scene has specifically, uniquely religious significance for Christians at Christmastime. There is a majority of Christians in this country and if we want to have a Nativity Scene on the White House lawn and town squares we should be able to have one, along side the Jewish Menorah candelabra, without a doubt about it. By the way, the birth of Christ and Christianity has a positive, inclusive message about salvation for all humankind, whereas the Jewish holiday of Hannukah with its lighting of the Menorah candelabra is not inclusive, and celebrates a battle in which Jews were the victors. Definitely not an inclusive sort of commemoration now is it? By the way, it has been said by many that Jewish activists have intentionally elevated the status of Hannukah, a historically minor Jewish holiday, compared to other Jewish holidays, to a more major Jewish holiday in order to compete with Christmas. Most Jewish holidays could be summed up as "We had a battle. We won. Let's eat!" according to a Jewish teacher whose conducted a writing seminar I once attended. It would be funny if it weren't so true.

Jewish holidays do not celebrate unity with non-Jews, but rather they celebrate victory of Jews over non-Jews. Their entire mindset seems to be "We're OK. You're not OK." "We win. You lose." In the Zionized mainstream media, they try to put a positive spin on it. claiming that Hannakuh is about a victory for religious freedom, but it was a battle, and that is not inclusive. There are always two sides to a story. We rarely ever learn about the other side's point of view. That is the beauty of Jesus's message: Love is the answer, forgiving others, and turn the other cheek.

Zionist Jews seem to be trying to replace the Crucifixion of Christ with The Holocaust in American culture. Whereas Christians believe that Christ died for our sins to redeem all mankind and advocating forgiveness, Jewish Zionists keep claiming that "6 million Jews" were killed by non-Jews, particularly Nazis, and "the world let it happen", and that we must always be reminded that Jews are perpetually innocent victims whom perpetually we owe this and that to. Their motto: "Never forget!" is basically one of unforgiving revenge and everyone must keep paying them with free oil pipelines (courtesy of Iraqis and unwitting Americans) to free land (stolen from the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese) and Israel demands and receives billions of our tax dollars annually, Holocaust museums, memorials and school programs subsidized with out tax dollars to indoctrinate non-Jewish Americans to be obedient with regards to keep giving Zionist Jews and Israel free everything. JUST SAY NO to this immoral form of blackmail!

* Abolish anti-democratic American laws that benefit Israel and Zionists only such as the law that fines American companies if they choose to boycott Israel, and the law that permits people to give unlimited TAX-DEDUCTABLE amounts of money to Israel (apparently a WELFARE STATE as well as a terrorist state). Certainly there were no Americans laws fining American companies who boycotted apartheid South Africa. Au contraire!

* Revoke the special dual citizenship status available to Jewish Americans, where they can go to Israel and serve in the Israeli army or government and still retain full American citizenship! This is outrageous! In the past, anyone who did such things had their American citizenship REVOKED and that is the way it should be, re-instated again.

*Demand that people who are Jewish be allowed to be included as an ethnic group whose numbers can be counted when the US does a census of every ethnic group, which at this time is not allowable by law. After all, Jewish groups keep claiming they are a tiny minority in the US but they cannot prove it. Just like they cannot prove other numbers.

* Demand that our government impose sanctions and boycotts on apartheid Israel until their the racist Zionist regime is dismantled and Israel transforms from a racist, apartheid Jewish state into a true, secular democracy with completely equal rights for ALL regardless of religion, ethnicity, race or gender, including for all the Palestinian refugees who MUST be allowed their INALIENABLE Right to Return to their ancestral homeland of Palestine-Israel.

* Start a weblog spreading the Truth.

* Make documentaries about the Truth.

* Have an e-mail list where you forward e-mails about Truth to your e-mail group.

* Write articles for the internet and also try to get them published in the mainstream media, although as you know, the Zionized mainstream media suppresses the Truth about apartheid Israel and Zionism so the internet is your best bet, but keep on trying anyway with regards to the mainstream media.

* Support only political leaders who seek Truth, Freedom, Justice, Equality and Peace for ALL, such as Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader and Jimmy Carter. Don't get fooled by Democrats who try to tell you they are better than Republicans and are for equality and peace when they are truly enslaved to the Israel-firsters, such as Hillary Clinton and Obama Barrack. It doesn't matter if the candidate is a woman and/or Black--- what matters is if they are Israel-firsters, meaning they are truly racist against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and craven in their slavery to Zionist masters, just as bad as Bush and Cheney, but with a smiley face.

* Support pro-Palestinian human rights activists and groups such as If Americans Knew, the International Solidarity Movement, ANSWER, and others.

* Buy the films and books of pro-Palestinian human rights activists.

* Suppport the 911 Truth Movement!

* If you are politically and legally connected, see what you can do about citizens' arrests of the REAL perpetrators of crimes against humanity which took place on 911 starting with the most obvious suspects (you know who they are) See www.anti-neocons.com for more info. Also read "9-11 Evil" by Victor Thorne. Also visit: www.st911.org, www.911revisited.com , www.loosechange911.com, www.911blogger.com. There are many other websites that are dealing with this very important and very relevant subject matter.

* Be vigilant about our First Amendment and Freedom of Speech: call up Senators and Congressmen and tell them you do NOT support the bogus "hate-speech" laws that the ADL is trying to push through, which will basically criminalize anyone who criticizes Israel and Zionism. Tell them to do away with the special Department of Anti-Semitism while you're at it, because, again, the Zionist Israeli-Americans in our country are trying to criminalize any criticism of Israel, Zionism and those who wish to independently research "The Holocaust" who may come to some different conclusions than what the Zionists insist without backing up what they claim with irrefutable proof. Zionists imprision Europeans who have upon independently researching the Holocaust reach some different conclusions about certain claims by Zionists about the Holocaust. This outrageous attack on freedom of speech and thought is tyrannical, fascist and anti-democratic and must not be tolerated.

*Conscientious non-Zionist Jewish people might want to consider distancing Judaism once again from the current obsession with the Holocaust which focuses on only Jewish suffering and its use as a political propaganda tool to manipulate people into supporting the racist, apartheid Jewish state. Conscientious non-Zionist Jewish people might want to look at distancing Judaism from the racist notion of a Jewish state altogether. Conscientious Jewish people should turn in the ones among them who are guilty of murdering, thieving, bombing and lying. The Unibomber's brother turned him in, for the benefit of all.

*Conscientious non-Zionist Christians should reject the notion that Jesus and/or God are in the business of real estate and favor one group of people (Jews) over another (Palestinian Muslims and Christians) to live as equals in their ancestral homeland. This amounts to racial/religious persecution and Jesus would NEVER approve of that. It's also against the law in the US to discriminate against anyone because of their race, ethnicity or religion, with regards to real estate, so why should Americans be supporting the racist, apartheid state of Israel?

The idea of "rapture" is truly like a childish fairy-tale, and again Jesus would never approve of such a discriminatory idea. Although Jesus has said He is the way, He also would never reject anyone who follows The Golden Rule. Jesus is not a egomaniac that demands that He and only He be worshipped. His gift to the world was His Love, and acceptance of all as His children. He gave us free will to accept Him or reject Him, but He is always there for whoever wants to connect to Him and/ or Love. He does not reject anyone except those who are evil. One can be living in God's light if one lives a righteous life, as in practicing The Golden Rule, whether one believes in God or not. While I personally believe in Jesus Christ's divinity and His Word, I believe that Jesus is not a fascist who insists that others worship Him. I'm sure Jesus would agree that a holy Tibetan monk or peaceful, religious Jewish or Muslim person is also welcome to the Kingdom of God. The Golden Rule is a universal principle. True Christianity is inclusive. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samiritan, a man who helped someone from another tribe who was in need. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Jesus is there for those who reach out to Him. He does not condemn those who do not. He allows others to find their own path to God which in the end is Love. Also, conscientious Christian people should turn in the ones among them who are guilty of murdering, thieving, bombing and lying. The Unibomber's brother turned him in, for the benefit of all.

* Protest via phone calls and e-mails to editors and broadcasters whenever you see newspaper articles and TV shows containing hateful language with regards to Muslims and Arabs, which is unfortunately quite common.

* Protest the "war on terror", of course! War is the ultimate HATE-CRIME! Bring home the American troops NOW!

* Impeach Bush!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas season and let's pray for a peaceful, joyful New Year 2007 for ALL!

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Saddam Hussein the Adha Sacrifice

ArabianPalestinian — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 06:03:06 GMT

This tribe is not about Iraq but the subject is related. One or two people have already mentioned this, including one of Saddam Hussein's attorneys in an interview on Al Jazeera. It is worth recording here, because the irony of this is profound, and the joke is on the white house war criminal--or "pretzel choker," as one tribe member aptly dismissed him.

It is obvious that the white house war criminal and his puppets in Iraq wanted to humiliate Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqis, Muslims and Arabs who support him, by having him murdered on the eve of the Adha Feast. They all failed to realize how this will be seen by the millions of Muslims and Arabs who know what really is going on. Al-Adha means SACRIFICE. The Muslims celebrate the sacrifice Ibrahim (Abraham) was willing to make of his own son (Isma'il) at the request of God, and of God's supplying a lamb as a sacrifice for Ibrahim's son. By murdering Saddam Hussein on Al-Adha, the fools have consecrated him as a SACRIFICE for the Iraqis and the Muslims. Saddam Hussein's SACRIFICE of himself will be seen as symbolic, and these people, believe me, are heavy on symbols. The u.s. war criminals are always muddled and are always stupid, and always fail in what they do. Once again the joke is on them.

BTW, I am not a Muslim but a Christian Palestinian. It is also noteworthy that one of Saddam Hussein's final words were "Palestine is Arab." Not many u.s. mis-media reported that, but it will be remembered in the Arab and Muslim world. The u.s. defeat in Iraq is coming and war criminal "pretzel choker" will get it up his bottom choker. He had better prepare the helicopters on top of his billion-dollar "embassy" in the green zone fortress!

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Palestinians Stranded in Egypt

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 00:30:36 GMT

By Laila El-Haddad, AlterNet
Posted on December 18, 2006, Printed on December 20, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/45544/
Last week, I awoke to the persistent stammering of my 2-year-old son Yousuf: "I think today the crossing will open mama!" After we had waited at the border for over two weeks, Yousuf's prediction came true. Israel finally opened the border for a few hours.

Amidst chaotic crowds of thousands of stranded travelers, my son and I managed to squeeze through Gaza's Rafah crossing from Egypt to reach our home in the Gaza Strip.

However, the hardships persist for thousands of Palestinians on both the Egyptian and Gaza sides of the passage who were unable to cross during those fleeting hours. They now must wait until the Israeli government temporarily opens the border again.

The Rafah Crossing, the gateway to the world for 1.4 million Gazans, was shut by Israel in late June after Palestinians captured an Israeli soldier. It has been open only for a few days since.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the region last week. Her visit coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Gaza Agreement on Movement and Access she brokered. The agreement aimed to facilitate the movement of Palestinian people and goods and to lead to Palestinian control over Rafah Crossing after one year.

At the time, she proudly promised that it would "give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives."

The year has passed, and all our crossings, our air, our water, and our lives remain under Israeli control.

In fact, according to a November 30th UN OCHA report, the Israeli government has broken every single provision of the Agreement.

Israel began violating its commitments immediately, well before Hamas' election victory, refusing to allow supervised bus convoys between Gaza and the West Bank, or to speed the flow of vital goods into and out of Gaza.

Israel had also agreed not to close Rafah and other crossings due to security incidents unrelated to the crossing itself. For example, according to the Agreement, Palestinian rocket fire into Israel -- now largely ceased â€" does not constitute a valid reason for closing Rafah.

So why close Rafah? Countering Israeli accusations, senior European diplomats told both Israel's Jerusalem Post and Ynet News that there have been no major Palestinian violations of the agreement, and that weapons are not smuggled through the crossing. The European Union has monitors stationed at the crossing pursuant to the border agreement.

An Israeli military document leaked to the Israeli daily Ha'aretz in August suggested that the closure was intended "apply pressure" on Gaza's residents to return the captured Israeli soldier. This action, says the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, constitutes collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population, a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

But instead of holding Israel accountable, last week Secretary Rice praised Israeli Prime Minister Olmert for taking steps likely to "advance the peace processes in the region."

One week ago, upon hearing rumors of the crossing's imminent opening, we rushed there along with thousands of other stranded Palestinians. We waited for seven hours two days in a row, languishing in limbo, only to learn that the Israelis had closed the crossing again after a single hour.

We stood in the sun packed together like cattle, penned in between steel barriers on one end, and Egyptian riot police on the other.

"We've been waiting for 15 days. Only God knows when it will open -- today, tomorrow, the day after?" 58-year-old Abu Yousuf Barghut told me.

His wife wept silently by his side. "We went to seek treatment for him. My four children are waiting for me in Gaza. We just want to return home now, that's all." Nearby, a group of people tried to comfort a young girl with muscular dystrophy, who was screaming uncontrollably in her wheelchair.

Israel denies Gazans access to all other borders passages except Rafah. With Rafah closed, patients cannot get medical treatment, students cannot reach universities or work abroad, and family members are separated from one another.

Providing Palestinians with their most basic rights -- the right to move freely in and out of their own land -- is critical to furthering peace, and ensuring a viable Palestinian state.

Neither Israel, the U.S. government, nor the rest of the world, can imprison 1.4 million Palestinians, and expect that somehow, someway, their "problem" will disappear.

We certainly aren't going anywhere.

Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian journalist.

posted in Palestine - 3 replies

Worse Than Apartheid--must read!

ArabianPalestinian — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:14:58 GMT

A friend posted this article on another tribe. I think it says it all, and should be read by anyone concerned about the Palestinian issue. It is worth reading.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061218_worse_than_apartheid/

Worse Than Apartheid

Posted on Dec 18, 2006

By Chris Hedges

Israel has spent the last five months unleashing missiles, attack helicopters and jet fighters over the densely packed concrete hovels in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has made numerous deadly incursions, and some 500 people, nearly all civilians, have been killed and 1,600 more wounded. Israel has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians, destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, including its electrical power system and key roads and bridges, carried out huge land confiscations, demolished homes and plunged families into a crisis that has caused widespread poverty and malnutrition.

Civil society itself—and this appears to be part of the Israeli plan—is unraveling. Hamas and Fatah factions battle in the streets, despite a tenuous cease-fire, threatening civil war. And the governing Palestinian movement, Hamas, has said it will boycott early elections called by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, done with the blessing of the West in a bid to toss Hamas out of power. (Remember that Hamas, despite its repugnant politics, was democratically elected.) In recent days armed groups loyal to Abbas have seized Hamas-run ministries in what looks like a coup.

The stark reality of Gaza, however, has failed to penetrate the consciousness of most Americans, who, when they notice the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, prefer to debate the merits of the word “apartheid” in former President Jimmy Carter’s new book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” It is a sad commentary on the gutlessness of the U.S. press and the timidity of the Democratic opposition that most Americans are not aware of the catastrophic humanitarian crisis they bear so much responsibility in creating. Palestinians are not only dying, their olive trees uprooted, their farmland and homes destroyed and their aquifers taken away from them, but on many days they can’t move because of Israeli “closures” that make basic tasks, like buying food and going to the hospital, nearly impossible. These Palestinians, after decades of repression, cannot return to land from which they were expelled. The 140-plus U.N. votes to censure Israel and two Security Council resolutions—both vetoed by the United States—are blithly ignored. Is it any wonder that the Palestinians, gasping for air, rebel as the walls close in around them, as their children go hungry and as the Israelis turn up the violence?

Palestinians in Gaza live encased in a squalid, overcrowded ghetto, surrounded by the Israeli military and a massive electric fence, unable to leave or enter the strip and under daily assault. The word “apartheid,” given the wanton violence employed against the Palestinians, is tepid. This is more than apartheid. The concerted Israeli attempts to orchestrate a breakdown in law and order, to foster chaos and rampant deprivation, are on public display in the streets of Gaza City, where Palestinians walk past the rubble of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Economy, the office of the Palestinian prime minister and a number of educational institutions that have been bombed by Israeli jets. The electricity generation plant, providing 45 percent of the electricity of the Gaza Strip, has been wiped out, and even the primitive electricity networks and transmitters that remain have been repeatedly bombed. Six bridges linking Gaza City with the central Gaza Strip have been blown up and main arteries cratered into obliteration. And the West Bank is rapidly descending into a crisis of Gaza proportions. The juxtaposition of what is happening in Gaza and what is being debated on the U.S. airwaves about a book that is little more than a basic primer on the conflict reinforces the impression most outside our gates have of Americans living in a distorted, bizarre reality of our own creation.

What do Israel and Washington believe they will gain by turning Gaza and the West Bank into a miniature version of Iraq? How do they think people who are desperate, deprived of hope, dignity and a way to make a living, under attack from one of the most technologically advanced armies on the planet, will respond? Do they believe that creating a Hobbesian nightmare for the Palestinians will blunt terrorism, curb suicide attacks and foster peace? Do they not see that the rest of the Middle East watches the slaughter in horror and rage—its angry, disenfranchised young men and women determined to overcome feelings of impotence and humiliation, even at the cost of their own lives?

And perhaps they do see and understand all this. Israel and Washington probably do get the recruiting value of this repression for Islamic militants. But these Israeli attacks, despite the rage and violence they breed against Israelis and against us, also create conditions so intolerable that Palestinians can no longer reside on their land. More than 160,000 civil servants have not received full salaries for almost nine months. These government employees support families that number more than a million Palestinians. And a United Nations report states that more than two-thirds of Palestinians are now living below the poverty line. The unemployment rate is more than 50 percent. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry says 10,000 Palestinians have emigrated in the last four months and almost 50,000 others have applied to leave.

Israel, with no restraints from Washington, despite the Iraq Study Group report recommendations that the peace process be resurrected from the dead, has been given the moral license by the Bush administration to carry out what is euphemistically in Israel called “transfer” and what in other parts of the world is called ethnic cleansing. Faced with a demographic time bomb, knowing that by 2020 Jews will make up only 40 to 46 percent of the overall population of Israel, the architects of transfer, who once held the equivalent status in Israeli society of the Ku Klux Klan, have wormed their way into positions of power in the Israeli government.

Washington and Israel, I suspect, know the cost of this repression. But it is beginning to appear as though they accept it—as the price for ridding themselves of the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has installed in his Cabinet a politician who openly calls for the expulsion of the some 1.3 million Israeli Arabs who live inside Israel. Avigdor Lieberman’s “Israel Is Our Home” Party, part of Olmert’s governing coalition, proposes involuntary transfer in a region populated mostly by Arab citizens of Israel, shifting those people to a future Palestinian state that would include Gaza, parts of the West Bank and a small slice of northern Israel. All Israeli Arabs who continued to reside in the territory of transfer would automatically lose their Israeli citizenship unless they took a loyalty oath to the state and its Jewish symbols. The inclusion of Lieberman, the David Duke of Israel, into the Cabinet is an indication to most Palestinians that the worst is yet to come.

The debate over Jimmy Carter’s book, one that dishes up a fair number of Israeli myths about itself and states a reality that is acknowledged even by most Israelis, misses the point. The question is not whether Israel practices apartheid. Apartheid is a fond dream for most Palestinians. The awful question is rather will Israel be able to unleash a policy so draconian and cruel that it will obliterate a community that has lived on this land for centuries. There are other, far more loaded words for what is happening to the Palestinians. One shudders to repeat them. But unchecked, unstopped, the current wave of violence and abuse meted out to the Palestinians will echo down the corridors of history as one of the greatest moral and tactical blunders of the early part of this century, one that will boomerang on Israel and on us, bringing to our own doorsteps the evil we have allowed to be delivered to the narrow alleys and refugee camps in Gaza. When it was only apartheid, we had some hope.

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Carter wants to finish job creating peace in Mideast

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 01:21:03 GMT

"When I was president, I was working day and night to bring peace to Israel," says Jimmy Carter, 82, sitting in a hotel suite in New York. "When I went out of office I thought I had succeeded."

Almost 30 years later, the lasting peace Carter thought the 1978 Camp David Accords would lead to remains elusive.

But the 39th U.S. president hasn't given up. Through the Carter Center in Atlanta, Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, has worked to secure free and safe elections in the Palestinian territories.

And he is hoping his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (Simon & Schuster) will alert Americans to the reasons he believes peace has failed in the Middle East. I recently spoke to Carter about the book and his views on the Middle East. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.

Q: Why did you decide to write this book, and why now?

A: It became increasingly apparent to me that terrible things were happening in the West Bank in Palestine to the Palestinians that were not known or even acknowledged by much of the outside world, particularly the United States. So I thought it was time for there to be injected into the political discussions nationwide an assessment of what was happening in the Middle East.

Q: In the book, you talk about your first trip to Israel as a presidential hopeful and its emotional and spiritual importance for you as a Christian. Did you go to Palestinian territory then?

A: As a matter of fact, a lot of the territory I was in was the Palestinian territories -- all down the Jordan River Valley and a good portion up around Golan Heights. Those were Israeli-occupied territories. At that time, everyone expected the Israeli forces to withdraw from the occupied territories. ... Nobody dreamed that there would be a massive escalation of the Israelis to colonize, you might say, the entire area of the West Bank.

Q: Would you say a policy of strangulation is in effect?

A: Oh, there is.

Q: What role does the wall Israel is building play in this?

A: Really, what precipitated me to go back and talk to President Bush and to write this book was the first sight I had of the wall. I never saw the wall until I went over there in January of 2005 to cover the election of Yasser Arafat's replacement. And when I saw the wall I was horrified.

Q: Is that why you decided to put it on the book's cover?

A: Yeah. This wall was originally conceived by Yitzhak Rabin to be put along the border of Israel -- along Israeli territory -- to prevent cross-border raids by Palestinian terrorists. But when Rabin was assassinated, (Ariel) Sharon and (Benjamin) Netanyahu had the idea: Let's use the wall for a different purpose. Let's use it to confiscate Palestinian land. We won't build the wall on our border. We'll build the wall on Palestinian land. And we'll make tremendous intrusions to encompass settlements that already exist, and other areas on which we want to build settlements. So that's what they've done. As I point out, this wall plus the Jordan River Valley will form a circle around the entire West Bank, just as they have done already with Gaza. Gaza's completely surrounded by walls: It's only got two openings.

Q: Is the wall being built with American money?

A: They deny it, but who knows? We give Israel $10 million a day. George Bush senior withheld about $700 million from the Israelis because they used money to build settlements. And he threatened to stop all American aid if they didn't stop building the settlement between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. So they stopped it. Because of that threat. As soon as he left office ... they started building again.

Q: In some ways, it seems like this book is a study in the failure of states. For, as you reveal, both sides want peace here.

A: There really are two Israels. There is an Israel within its own borders that I would say exemplifies the best elements of Judeo-Christian tradition, with justice and peace and an absence of apartheid. It's a completely different Israel in the occupied territories. There you have a military regime, military courts. Information extracted from a prisoner under the force of torture is permitted as evidence. They put people in prison as young as 12 years, and they keep people under military detention for 180 days -- and they can extend that in 90-day increments. They try these people and convict them in military courts, and then they send them into Israel to prison.

Q: So what are your signs for hope? Is there anything now?

A: One sign of hope is what (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert had to say (last month, proposing a prisoner exchange, the closing of checkpoints and more in return for an end to violence, as well as offering to restart peace talks). I haven't seen the statement, but people told me about it. But the only real hope is for the United States to cast our lot with a clear majority of Israelis who want to see Israel exchange Palestinian land for permanent peace. A majority of Israelis have always voted that way. In every public opinion poll. After Rabin was assassinated, the right-wing leaders -- Netanyahu, Olmert and Sharon -- they rejected all previous agreements for peace. In fact, Sharon declared that the Oslo agreement was national suicide. And that rejection of a peace agreement put us back a ways.

Q: You also talk in the book about the power vacuum the United States has created by not engaging in the peace process since George W. Bush became president. What has this cost us?

A: It has cost us popularity, esteem, trust and respect, friendship throughout the Muslim world, throughout the Arab world. I think it has built up in a more intense way the violence against the United States, including terrorism. Every Arab knows that for the last six years, different from all previous presidencies, this administration has not made one single day of effort to have peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians to alleviate their plight.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/17/INGT8MV4SK1.DTL

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

DESPERATE PALESTINIANS NEED CANADA’S HELP SAYS McDONOUGH

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:48:34 GMT

HALIFAX (NS) - NDP Foreign Affairs and International Development Critic Alexa McDonough (Halifax) today expressed deep disappointment that the federal Conservative government has not yet responded to the UN’s recent $450 million emergency appeal for humanitarian aid for the Palestinians – the largest ever for the Palestinians.

“With two-thirds of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip living in abject poverty, the crisis is particularly crushing on children who make up about half of the population,” said McDonough. “Given this bleak picture, the federal government’s non-response to the UN emergency appeal is a disgrace!”

Exacerbating this already desperate situation is the Palestinian National Authority’s inability to pay its 160,000 employees, who support at least one million family members, as a result of the international boycott and Israel’s withholding of an estimated $500 million in tax revenues collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. To make matters worse, Palestinians face over 500 checkpoints, roadblocks and other restrictions on movement across the West Bank alone, severely limiting their access to jobs, markets, health services and schools.

“In their appeal, the twelve UN agencies and fourteen NGOs working with the Palestinians stress the growing number of people now unable to cover their daily food needs and the deterioration in basic services such as health care and education. If a political solution is not negotiated in the near future, poverty and desperation can only worsen, contributing to the further escalation of violence,” said McDonough.

“As a continuing advocate of the two-state solution for the Israeli and Palestinian people, it is more critical than ever that Canada contribute generously to the humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza and the West Bank,” said McDonough.

“This season of religious observances including Christmas, Hanukah and Ramadan provides the ideal opportunity for Canada to step forward and make a significant contribution to this largest ever emergency relief operation for impoverished Palestinians.”

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Jews against the occupation of Palestine

ArabianPalestinian — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 02:31:56 GMT

I posted this on the mideast conflict tribe but that tribe is rife with crazies and clowns who "refute" a serious point by attacking its poster or by diverting attention to trivial side issues. I really wish there would be a tribe that is active enough and serious enough to talk about Palestinian issues. Until then, here is the post:

Jews Against the Occupation

Mission Statement

QUOTE

Our Mission

Jews Against the Occupation is an organization of progressive, secular and religious Jews of all ages throughout the New York City area advocating peace through justice for Palestine and Israel. Our points of unity are as follows:

NO OCCUPATION IN OUR NAME

We as American Jews reject the Israeli government assertion that it is "necessary" to subjugate Palestinians for the sake of keeping Jews safe. We assert that security can only come from mutual respect, and that the occupation of Palestine is only worsening the position of Jews in the Middle East and around the world.

RESTORE HUMAN & CIVIL RIGHTS

The Israeli military fires bone-crushing rubber bullets and live ammunition at unarmed Palestinian civilians engaged in peaceful protest, failing to distinguish between peaceful and violent resistance. The Israeli government has been demolishing Palestinian houses and crops in the Occupied Territories, while allowing Jewish settlers -- many of them American -- to illegally occupy the same land.

END U.S. AID TO ISRAEL

The U.S. government provides more aid to Israel than to any other country—the vast majority of this is for military purposes. Billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have propped up the occupation and fueled the Israeli government’s war machine (as well as disguising the occupation’s true cost). This aid must end.

STOP ECONOMIC ATTACKS ON PALESTINE

The Israeli government has attacked the Palestinian economy by: closing Palestinian banks; imposing extreme taxes on business; withdrawing operating licenses; destroying industrial equipment; bulldozing farmland and banning fishing; restricting workers' movement; controlling the export of Palestinian goods; closing the borders of the Occupied Territories; and refusing to fund infrastructure like water and electricity -- even in Arab villages within Israel.

LET PALESTINIANS RETURN HOME

Thousands of Palestinians were driven out of their houses and off of their farms during and after the creation of Israel. They must be allowed to return to their homeland.

ANTI-SEMITISM VS. CRITIQUES OF ISRAEL

Jews Against the Occupation stands firmly against anti-Semitism and racism in all its forms. We see our historical struggle against anti- Semitism--a cornerstone of European white supremacist ideology--as inherently linked to all struggles against oppression. We therefore stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom.

Judaism is a cultural and religious identity, which must not be equated with Zionism, a political movement. Criticism of the state of Israel, its policies, or the idea of a Jewish state does not by itself constitute anti-Semitism. Dismissing critics of Israel or of Zionism as "anti-Semitic" is a means of stifling debate and masking the impact of the occupation.

END OF QUOTE

jatonyc.org/

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Yes, It's the Lobby: "Political Fear" Drives US Support for Israel

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:32:59 GMT

James Abourezk
Former US Senator from South Dakota
December 3, 2006

James Abourezk, formerly US senator from South Dakota, describes below what drives US Mideast policies. He is responding to Jeffrey Blankfort's rebuttal of Noam Chomsky's allegations.

Dear Jeff:

I just finished reading your critique of Noam Chomsky's positions in an e mail sent to me by Tony Saidy.

I had never paid much attention to Chomsky's writings, as I had all along assumed that he was correct and proper in his position on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But now, upon learning that his first assumption is that Israel is simply doing what the imperial leaders in the U.S. wants them to do, I concur with you that this assumption is completely wrong.

I can tell you from personal experience that, at least in the Congress, the support Israel has in that body is based completely on political fear—fear of defeat by anyone who does not do what Israel wants done. I can also tell you that very few members of Congress—at least when I served there—have any affection for Israel or for its Lobby. What they have is contempt, but it is silenced by fear of being found out exactly how they feel. I've heard too many cloakroom conversations in which members of the Senate will voice their bitter feelings about how they're pushed around by the Lobby to think otherwise. In private one hears the dislike of Israel and the tactics of the Lobby, but not one of them is willing to risk the Lobby's animosity by making their feelings public.

Thus, I see no desire on the part of Members of Congress to further any U.S. imperial dreams by using Israel as their pit bull. The only exceptions to that rule is the feelings of Jewish members, who, I believe, are sincere in their efforts to keep U.S. money flowing to Israel. But that minority does not a U.S. imperial policy make.

Secondly, the Lobby is quite clear in its efforts to suppress any congressional dissent from the policy of complete support for Israel which might hurt annual appropriations. Even one voice is attacked, as I was, on grounds that if Congress is completely silent on the issue, the press will have no one to quote, which effectively silences the press as well. Any journalists or editors who step out of line are quickly brought under control by well organized economic pressure against the newspaper caught sinning.

I once made a trip through the Middle East, taking with me a reporter friend who wrote for Knight-Ridder newspapers. He was writing honestly about what he saw with respect to the Palestinians and other countries bordering on Israel. The St. Paul Pioneer press executives received threats from several of their large advertisers that their advertising would be terminated if they continued publishing the journalist's articles. It's a lesson quickly learned by those who controlled the paper.

With respect to the positions of several administrations on the question of Israel, there are two things that bring them into line: One is pressure from members of Congress who bring that pressure resulting in the demands of AIPAC, and the other is the desire on the part of the President and his advisers to keep their respective political parties from crumbling under that pressure. I do not recall a single instance where any administration saw the need for Israel's military power to advance U.S. imperial interests. In fact, as we saw in the Gulf War, Israel's involvement was detrimental to what Bush, Sr. wanted to accomplish in that war. They had, as you might remember, to suppress any Israeli assistance so that the coalition would not be destroyed by their involvement.

So far as the argument that we need to use Israel as a base for U.S. operations, I'm not aware of any U.S. bases there of any kind. The U.S. has enough military bases, and fleets, in the area to be able to handle any kind of military needs without using Israel. In fact I can't think of an instance where the U.S. would want to involve Israel militarally for fear of upsetting the current allies the U.S. has, i.e., Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The public in those countries would not allow the monarchies to continue their alliance with the U.S. should Israel become involved.

I suppose one could argue that Bush's encouragement of Israel in the Lebanon war this summer was the result of some imperial urge, but it was merely an extension of the U.S. policy of helping Israel because of the Lobby's continual pressure. In fact, I heard not one voice of opposition to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon this summer (except Chuck Hagel). Lebanon always has been a "throw away" country so far as the Congress is concerned, that is, what happens there has no effect on U.S. interests. There is no Lebanon Lobby. The same was true in 1982, when the Congress fell completely silent over the invasion that year.

I think in the heart of hearts of both members of congress and of the administrations they would prefer not to have Israel fouling things up for U.S. foreign policy, which is to keep oil flowing to the western world to prevent an economic depression. But what our policy makers do is to juggle the Lobby's pressure on them to support Israel with keeping the oil countries from cutting off oil to the western nations.So far they've been able to do that. With the exception of King Feisal and his oil embargo, there hasn't been a Saudi leader able to stand up to U.S. policy.

So I believe that divestment, and especially cutting off U.S. aid to Israel would immediately result in Israel's giving up the West Bank and leaving Gaza to the Palestinians. Such pressure would work, I think, because the Israeli public would be able to determine what is causing their misery and would demand that an immediate peace agreement be made with the Palestinians. It would work because of the democracy there, unlike sanctions against a dictatorship where the public could do little about changing their leaders' minds. One need only look at the objectives of the Israeli Lobby to determine how to best change their minds. The Lobby's principal objectives are to keep money flowing from the U.S. treasury to Israel, requiring a docile Congress and a compliant administration. As Willie Sutton once said, "That's where the money is."

Jim Abourezk

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Carter: Israeli 'domination' over Palestinians is 'atrocious'

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 23:17:24 GMT

Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter called Israeli "domination" over Palestinians "atrocious" during an interview Monday on ABC's Good Morning America, RAW STORY has learned.

Appearing on the morning talk show to promote his new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, Carter dismissed criticism by some Democrats that his book comes down too harshly on America's key ally in the Middle East.

Robin Roberts told Carter that "many people find surprising that you come down a little hard on Israel, and that there have been some key Democrats who have distanced themselves a little bit from your view on Israel."

"In fact, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said 'it is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based suppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously,'" Roberts said. "What is your response to that?"

"Well, Robin, I have spent the last 30 years trying to find peace for Israel and Israel's neighbors, and the purpose of this book is to do that," Carter responded. "But you can't find peace unless you address the existing issues honestly and frankly."

Carter said that there was "no doubt now that a minority of Israelis are perpetuating apartheid on the people in Palestine, the Palestinian people."

Many Democrats are uncomfortable with Carter's use of the term "apartheid" to describe Israeli policies. Even Congressman John Conyers, the incoming House Judiciary Committee chairman known for his more liberal ideology, has criticized the term's usage.

"Conyers stated recently that the use of the term 'apartheid' in the book's title 'does not serve the cause of peace, and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting in death, is offensive and wrong,'" wrote Michael F. Brown for The Nation.

However, Brown, a fellow at the Palestine Center, noted that "Nobel Peace Prize recipient Bishop Desmond Tutu has made the same connection as Carter."

"I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa," Tutu wrote over four years ago.

On Good Morning America, Carter called Israel's occupation the "prime cause" of continuing violence in the Middle East.

"And contrary to the United Nations resolutions, contrary to the official policy of the United States government, contrary to the Quartet so-called road map, all of those things -- and contrary to the majority of Israeli people's opinion -- this occupation and confiscation and colonization of land in the West Bank is the prime cause of a continuation of violence in the Middle East," said Carter.

"And what is being done to the Palestinians under Israeli domination is really atrocious," Carter continued. "It's a terrible affliction on these people."

In his book, Carter argues that "peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens and honor its own previous commitments by accepting its legal borders."

posted in Palestine - 8 replies

Interesting...

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 05:41:36 GMT

http://www.devilducky.com/media/54107/

posted in Palestine - 0 replies

Palestinian militants offer truce

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 00:05:14 GMT

PALESTINIAN militant groups have offered Israel to stop firing rockets into the Jewish state in exchange for a cessation of all attacks on the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, an official said.

Islamic Jihad leader Khader Habib said the main Palestinian factions including the governing Hamas group, the rival Fatah of President Mahmoud Abbas and other smaller groups reached the understanding while meeting Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh today.

"For the good of the national Palestinian interest ... there is a position supporting calm (a ceasefire) by stopping rocket fire in return for an end to the aggression against our people in Gaza and the West Bank," Mr Habib said.

Mr Habib said a deal would only take effect after Israel agrees and actually ends military actions.

The offer was limited only to rocket firing and did not include other forms of attacks by militants such as cross-border attacks and suicide bombings.

posted in Palestine - 1 reply

Jerusalem: 5,000 Years of Arab History

ArabianPalestinian — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 05:44:41 GMT

Jerusalem: 5,000 Years of Arab History

By Lima Nabil
Feb 6, 2003, 01:41

• The City and Its Inscriptions
• The Arab Jebusites Were the First to Have Settled There
• Doubts Are Cast on the Alleged Kingdom of Israel

A press article published in the Jordanian daily Al-Rai,
Written By Lima Nabil

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities on earth and the monuments left behind by its original Jebusite inhabitants, who once belonged to a Canaanite tribe of the early Arabs having immigrated from the Arabian Peninsula, now bear witness to the Arab origins of this city 5,000 years ago.

From their fortification, they erected the strong walls around it out of fear for their valuable gem from the avarice of the invaders who continuously attacked the city ever since those times. Hence came the beginnings of ancient Jerusalem, with its walls, alleys and old shops. There it stands on top of one high mountain, with the odour of the sea spreading all around it and the roaring waves heard from the tops of its homes constructed close to each other. Also, through the minarets of its mosques, and the towers of its churches, its name was heard aloud; whether it was God Salem, of Canaanite origins, or the City of Peace; the former having been repeated frequently in the inscriptions of Ras Shamra (Ugarit), which was one of two godsSahar and Salemmost favoured by the early inhabitants and described as the two gods of day and night; along with other names having appeared in Egyptian texts. Thus, the city of Jerusalem dates back to such ancient eras as the Bronze, Iron, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Ages to reach the brightest stages during the age of the Islamic civilization. The history of the city tells us at length that the very beginnings of settlement in this city were in the period of the fourth millenium BC and that the existence of the Jebusites had preceded the advent of David or the so-called Kingdom of Israel, if it ever existed. The Israelis themselves do not deny what their excavations have recently revealeda Canaanite water system was discovered and up to the present, no traces have ever been found of Solomon, his kingdom, or his temple. Further, notwithstanding the excavation operations that started at the turn of this century at the hands of scores of scientists, scholars, researchers and expeditions, what has so far been discovered are ruins or relics of many civilizations or cultures, in particular the Islamic civilization, whereas the excavations undertaken by the Israeli authorities for decades, particularly in the area adjacent to Haram esh-Sharif (the Holy Sanctuary), in search of the ruins of the Temple of Solomon have resulted in nothing.

This and many other pieces of information having been established by both Arab and Western scholars are expected to be published soon in a book of three volumes by the end of the current year. The intended book, to be entitled JerusalemFive Thousand Years, will be considered one of the important documents revealing the history of this holy city, along with a code of inscriptions from Jerusalem.

The initiator of this idea, the implementation of which is now being supervised by Professor Dr. Zaidan Kafafi, the Dean of Scientific Research and Postgraduate Studies at the Yarmouk University, is Dr. Naser Eddin Al-Asad, President of the Royal Academy for Islamic Civilization Research, Al Al-Beit Foundation.

For the purpose of publishing the first volume of this book/document, to be entitled, Jerusalem Before Islam, a number of archaeologists, historians and researchers from Jordan, Europe and the United States of America have been called on to contribute to this work, with directions to such writers to adopt a proper and honest scientific approach, that is, to present the relevant scientific information in a purely impartial manner, and to produce their research papers based on archaeological and historical sources.

That is what Dr. Kafafi has announced in the Jordanian Al-Rai daily, indicating that this volume is about to be completed. Section one will explore the land and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the naming of the city, its people and the Arab Jebusites, who existed in Jerusalem long before the so-called Kingdom of Israel, if it ever existed. Section two explores Jerusalem in the old historical sources, especially the Egyptian and Assyrian sources. Section three details the ruins of Jerusalem through the ages, beginning from the fourth millennium BC until the advent of Islam. This section also contains research papers on the methodology of the scientific research regarding the ruins of Jerusalem and a chronological sequence of the history of this city.

Professor Dr. Kafafi adds that after reviewing the submitted research papers, he found that certain scholars, namely Exil Knauf, a German national and a professor at Bern University, believe that no such kingdoms of David and Solomon ever existed. Dutch researcher Margaret Steiner, working at Leidt University, holds the same opinion.

As Dr. Kafafi confirms, the said book will reflect the scientific reality of the city of Jerusalem and will present impartial scientific information, away from all prejudice, by reliable and objective international scientists.

Arab Jerusalem stands for a history that extends through time over more than 5,000 years. Thus, Jerusalem through the ages started at what time?

All the results of the organized archaeological activities during the last century and until today indicate that the city of Jerusalem had been inhabited from the period of the fourth millennium BC until the present time, although the nature of the dwellings and the inhabitants had differed from one period to another. For example, the remains obtained from the end of the fourth millennium BC were represented in a group of holes drilled in natural rock inside of which broken pieces of pottery were found that date back to the early Bronze Age, namely the fourth millennium BC. In addition, such broken pottery, relics of homes, had been found comprising one spacious room constructed in natural rock, with the wall inside being enclosed by a line of stone protruding from such wallthe purpose of which stones was perhaps for sitting on. Archaeologists suggest that there must have existed relics dating back to the Middle Bronze Age, namely the period between 20001550 BC in such areas as Jabal Al-Zaitoun (Mount of Olives), Silwan village, and through the extension of the Valley of the Kidron. The cave situated underneath the site of the Dome of the Rock might have belonged to this period. Researchers believe that the excavations of Kenion and Shiloh in Jerusalem proved that the city had been fortified during the eighteenth century BC, as a wall of 3 metres thickness was discovered, which had been strengthened with stone supports in tower form, especially in the area overlooking the water spring. As the east side of the old city was very steep, a group of mastabas (Arabic for stone benches) had been constructed to be utilized by the inhabitants during that period, and Kenion believed that such stone benches could have been the ones mentioned in the Bible by the name mellos, claimed to have been constructed by David and repaired by Solomon and Ezekiel.

Over the period representing the end of the Bronze Age (approximately 15501200 BC), a mention of Jerusalem was made in the letters of Tel el-Amarna around 1400 BC. The information contained in those letters gave the impression that the city at the time had been rich in its resources and its leaders had made attempts to seize control of some of the neighbouring cities. Silvester Sallers excavations in the Jabal Al-Zaitoun (Mount of Olives) area in 1954 uncovered a tomb that was rich in archaeological finds. Previously, in 1935, Dimitri Bramki discovered a water well with several archaeological finds dating back to the period 15501200 BC. In addition to these and other items, a number of stone structures were found dating back to the above-noted period comprising a number of mastabas (stone benches) of different heights making up a huge elevated construction on the south-east side of Jerusalem. It had been built using stone and engraved its name thereon. This period was followed by the Bronze Age and thereafter by the Iron Age. Did Jerusalem, however, withstand and survive through those ages or not?

What was discovered about this stage was very much in favour of the existence of a Canaanite city that had prospered over the last stage of the Bronze Age and excavations could uncover further information on this stage.

As for Jerusalem in the Iron Age (approximately 1200539 BC), archaeological and historical sources provide us with much information. Excavations made by the Israelis in Jerusalem have revealed the existence of a city prior to the period of King Davids reign, but they believe that such excavations have not provided a clear picture of the Jebusites, who had owned the city before that time. Moreover, remains obtained from the 10th century BC have so far been rare and scattered; in the north-east corner of the city, archaeologist Kenion uncovered stone benches made in the form of steps along with a double wall. A number of archaeologists have attempted to attribute the area constructed in mastaba (stone bench) form and some columnar relics to the time of King David, relying on the content of biblical texts (II Samuel, 5:7 and II Kings, 8:1) more than their interpretation of archaeological finds. Such archaeologists believe that it was only at the time of King Solomon that the administrative and general buildings had been transferred to the Haram esh-Sharif (Holy Sanctuary) area; in any case, no evidence has been found to support such claims.

The city of Jerusalem reached the climax of its prosperity during the period of both the eighth and seventh centuries BC, at which time the fortification slope already noted had been transformed into an artificial hill on top of which a number of private houses had been constructed. In addition to these, in the same locality, a number of dummies had been found that might have been connected to a set of different religious beliefs. This finding could indicate a change or alteration of religious belief at the time. Furthermore, one of the most important phenomena characterizing this period was the water system; a group of canals drawing water from the Jihon spring to the Pool of Kings was discovered. Among these structures, the so-called Well of Warren was also discovered, of which no date had been established owing to the lack of archaeological evidence or such evidence having been destroyed by the excavator.

In this context, we should not forget to make mention of King Hezekiahs Tunnel and the inscription found in this tunnel. Archaeologists believe that the said tunnel dates back to the eighth century BC, and many Israeli archaeologists tend to claim that the widest area of the city was located on the western side of King Hezekiahs Tunnel. They attributed this to two factors: the first being the Assyrian attacks on Palestine, particularly on the northern side thereof; and the second being the independence of pagan cities along the Palestinian coast, resulting in emigration of a group of people to Jerusalem.

Around the year 579 BC, the city of Jerusalem had fallen to Nebuchadnezzar, the Chalddean King, and was destroyed. A few relics from this period had been found, especially around the south-eastern area, comprising a number of stone benches having been formed from the backfill resulting from the debris of the city.

Hellenistic and Roman Civilization Roots in Relation to Jerusalem

Around the year 332 BC, Alexander (III) of Macedon (Alexander the Great) was able to seize control over the east Mediterranean region, and from the mixture of the two (east and west) civilizations emerged the roots of a new civilization that was called Hellenism. As far as the city of Jerusalem is concerned, it is known that the information we have received about it from the middle of the fifth century BC up to the second century BC is scant, except for a very limited amount of historical writings, such as the letter of Aristas. It seems, however, that after the Maccabean revolt, Jerusalem had become an independent city around the year 164 BC, and began to expand towards the west; however, the findings of archaeological excavations indicate that the area of Jerusalem had been reduced during the time of the Persian reign, and was restricted to the south-eastern part of it to what is known by the boundaries of King Davids city.

It is known that the south-eastern side of the Tell (Hill), Davids City, was surrounded by walls having been constructed in earlier periods and reused by the end of the 13th century BC. However, it had undergone certain additions at the time of King Nehemiah around the mid-fifth century BC. These walls had been uncovered by the excavations made by MacLuster and Duncan during the first half of this century, and rediscovered through the excavations by Kenion and Shiloh, who had both dated these walls and towers back to the second and first centuries BC.

In addition to these walls and towers, excavations have uncovered a number of important archaeological remains and finds from this period, such as engraved stones.

Then the Roman period witnessed the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman conqueror Pompei in the year 63 BC, and thereby opening a new page in the history of this city. Thus, what is known is that the Romans had installed, during the period 37-40 BC, King Herod over Palestine, all except for the Hellenistic cities. This king had established direct connections with the Roman emperor, and had given soldiers and gifts to him. However, after his death, his kingdom was divided among his three sons. This situation, however, did not last very long, as the whole of Palestine had become a Roman State after the year 44 CE (Common Era).

In the year 66 CE, a revolt broke out in Palestine against the Roman reign, which revolt was crushed by Titus in the year 70 CE. After this revolt was put down, the tenth division of the Roman army remained in Jerusalem, which became a mere camp for this division owing to the destruction it had suffered. When Hadrian, the Roman emperor, took power, he established a new city in the place of the old Jerusalem, and he wanted to include in the plan thereof a Roman structure along with all the Roman urban institutions. He named all these institutions Elia Capitolina. All this had occurred in the year 130 CE. As a result, a revolt broke out from the year 132 CE until 135 CE. It was known as the Bar Kokba Revolt as attributed to the commander thereof, and had resulted in the Romans eliminating the last existence of Jews in Palestine, particularly after the fall of the Masada fortress, located south-east of the Dead Sea, to the Romans.

The period 135 CE to 324 CE was considered a period of peace, quiet and reassurance throughout Palestine. Construction works were very active and cities prospered, including Jerusalem, with its temples, theatres, streets, horse-racing tracks and bridges over rivers and valleys having been built for construction of roads to connect cities.

Jerusalem in Relation to the Byzantine Period
The Byzantine period started with King Constantine the Great recognizing Christianity as the official religion of the Roman State in the year 324 CE. He had built his new capital, Constantinople, on a village situated on the Bosphorus Strait known by the name of Byzantium. Constantines mother, Helena, visited Jerusalem and ordered the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and the Church of Bisharah (Annunciation) in Nazareth. A group of other churches found in Jerusalem had been built through the eras after the time of Emperor Constantine in the year 549 CE, and they had been built mostly according to the plan known as basilican style, comprising three corridors, the widest of which was the middle one, ending in what is known as a curve or mihrab (niche)-like structure.

In addition to religious structures, fortifications have been discovered, especially those dating back to the year 446 CE, having been incorporated into the citys wall on the southern side thereof, which were uncovered for the first time during the excavations by Plas and Dickey during the period 1894 and 1897 CE. Furthermore, successive excavations throughout the cities have uncovered a network of streets that can be crossed in most directions. As for the residential quarter, it came to be constructed as per a pre-developed plan. In addition to the houses, there were streets, alleys and a main forum.

The last of the buildings constructed during the Byzantine period was the Golden Gate or the Triumphal Arch, having been built by Emperor Hercules in the year 629 CE, when he had regained the cross from the hands of the Persians who occupied Jerusalem in the year 614 CE.

Islamic Jerusalem has such a magnificent and bright history, with its mosques and minarets still standing as witnesses to this civilization. Has the Zionist imperialist of today, however, been able to obliterate this great civilization?

Caliph Omar ibn al-Khattab entered Jerusalem as a conqueror when Safronius had surrendered to him the keys to the city in the year 637 CE. This period was marked by an active movement of construction works, especially during the reign of the Umayyad State (661750 CE), at which time Al-Aqsa Mosque (691 CE) and the Dome of the Rock (711-713 CE) were built. In addition to these, a number of administrative buildings had been constructed on the southern side of the Haram esh-Sharif (Holy Sanctuary).

During this period, namely the reign of the Umayyad State, the city, like other countries of Bilad Ash-Sham (Greater Syria), had suffered an earthquake in the year 747 or 749 CE. As a result, the city was destroyed and the only structure that had survived the quake was the Dome of the Rock. Architectural remains from the time of the Abbasid State were rare.

Then, in the year 1033 CE, Jerusalem suffered another earthquake. It is worth mentioning in this context that the Christian buildings had not suffered any destruction by the Muslims but remained intact without any change. The best proof of this fact is the finds in the south-eastern side of the Haram esh-Sharif (Holy Sanctuary).

On 15 July 1099 CE, the city of Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders; however, after it was liberated, it had become a part of the Ayyoubid Kingdom (11871250 CE). Thereafter, it was made part of the Ottoman State (15171917 CE), and throughout these periods, Jerusalem maintained a Muslim oriental character.

posted in Palestine - 2 replies

Some things never change

bridgetmckenna — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 21:38:34 GMT

Recently I received an email from a woman I know who had noticed my membership in this tribe and similar ones. She felt she had to tell me that her brother and his family lived in Israel, and quoted from a recent letter he had sent:
_____

"The truth is that there was never an Arab country of Palestine and that Palestinian Arabs were never a nation. The truth is that Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab state or province. The truth is that in all of recorded history, only one people has ever made Palestine west of the Jordan a sovereign nation-state with Jerusalem as its capital: the Jews. So closely was Palestine associated with Jews, in fact, that in the years before Israel's birth, those who spoke of "Palestinians" were usually referring to the region's Jewish residents. Arab leaders rejected the notion of a unique Palestinian Arab identity, insisting that Palestine was merely a part of "Greater Syria." Not that they saw Palestine as much of a prize in any case. Until the Zionist enterprise got underway, Palestine was stagnant and mostly barren. Its Arab population was small and declining. With Jewish development, however, came economic opportunity and better living conditions, which, in turn, attracted huge numbers of Arab immigrants from beyond Palestine's borders."
______

Now I don't know about you folks, but meaning no disrespect to this person or her brother, that doesn't sound to me like a chatty letter to the folks at home; it sounds like something quoted out of a position statement or political pamphlet. I could be wrong, of course; I often am. I have a professional relationship with the person who sent me the quote, so I don't feel I ought to pursue an argument on the subject, especially given that I could never change her mind, but it just makes me so weary and sad.

posted in Palestine - 5 replies

zio-Nazi occupation forces admit human chain blocked shelling of Palestinian home

ArabianPalestinian — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:31:23 GMT

Nov 19, 2006, 11:30

Nazareth - An IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) spokesman on Sunday admitted that the Palestinian human chain led by Hamas political leader Sheikh Nizar Rayyan at a late hour Saturday, which extended into the early hours on Sunday, prevented the IOF warplanes from flattening the house of Mohammed Baroud, one of the commanders of the popular resistance committees' armed wing.

The Hebrew radio quoted the spokesman as saying that hundreds of Palestinians gathered over and round the house in Jabalia refugee camp last night that compelled the air force to abandon the mission.

He affirmed, however, that his army was adamant on destroying what he called the Palestinian resistance factions' "infrastructure".

Sheikh Nizar declared a campaign to protect the homes of resistance fighters in face of the systematic IOF destruction streak that started almost five months ago.

The Sheikh along with hundreds of Palestinians chanted anti-occupation slogans and expressed readiness to die rather than be humiliated.

He affirmed that the Palestinian masses would break the Israeli streak of devastation, pointing to the massive response to his call.

posted in Palestine - 0 replies