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Israeli occupation forces round up 14 including foreigners, journalists

Palestine Information Center – 11/04/2010

AL-KHALIL — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) rounded up 14 civilians in Beit Ummar, north of Al-Khalil, on Saturday night including foreign activists and journalists.

Local sources told the PIC that the IOF troops severely beat up participants in a march that headed to farmers’ lands near the village after firing teargas bombs and stun grenades at them.

They added that the soldiers blocked the foreign activists, farmers and anti-settlement campaigners from reaching the lands threatened with confiscation near Beit Ayan settlement and arrested 14 one of them including two journalists and six foreigners.

A similar demonstration was organized by the Irak Burin villagers south of Nablus on Saturday with the participation of foreign activists to protest Israeli confiscation of their land east of the village.

Eyewitnesses said that the massive march headed to the mountain threatened with confiscation, noting that the participants hoisted the photos of two martyrs who were killed by IOF soldiers a few weeks ago during protest demonstrations.

The village of Irak Burin is the target of systematic attacks on the part of settlers in nearby settlements of Yitzhar and Brakha, which were built on village land. The settlers wish to expand their settlements at the expense of the village land.

April 11, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Israel shuts off water to Jordan Valley farms

Ma’an – April 11, 2010

Bethlehem – Four days after an Israeli minister threatened to restrict the West Bank’s water supply, Israeli authorities closed off the main water source used for agriculture in a Jordan Valley village on Sunday, committee members and lawyers said.

The Bardalah village’s farmers could stand to lose not only profit, but the land’s viability, and have protested the decision.  Fathi Ikdeirat, campaign coordinator for Save the Jordan Valley said “the decision threatens to destroy tens of thousands of agricultural farmlands, greenhouses, citrus and palm trees, particularly as its the season for vegetable harvesting and when fruits bloom.”

The main water source is located in the residential part of the village and supplies the northern Jordan Valley and surrounding illegal Israeli settlements with water, he added.

Ikheirait said the Israeli water company Mokorot built three aquifers since the 1970s, dispensing 5,000 cubic meters of water per hour, largely benefiting the nearby settlements as “Bardalah only gets 65 cubic meters of water per hour before they stopped pumping water. The last aquifer was built two years ago underneath the village.”

“We hear the sound of water passing through the pipes in the middle of the village, but we can’t drink from it or use it. The water pipelines extended by the Israeli water company is separating the village into two sections,” he added.

Dozens of farmers protested against Israeli procedure in the Jordan Valley, and demanded that a swift resolution be found before they sustain considerable loses in their crops and yield, which they depend on for their income and livelihood.

Nader Thawabteh, a lawyer in Bardalah who represents its residents, said the Israeli water company has accused village residents of stealing water “as an excuse to cease pumping water to us. We categorically deny this.” The lawyer added that the amount of water pumped into the village was reduced over five years from 150 cubic meters per hour to the current 65 cubic meter allowance, and “now it is totally shut down.”

The village’s farmers have appealed to the Palestinian Authority and international organizations to re-pump water into their farms.

Bardalah is home to 1,900 residents, the majority of whom rely on agricultural work on 300 dunums of greenhouses for their income. Approximately 3,000 greenhouses and land require irrigation, while 200 sustain crops that do not need watering.

On Wednesday, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau threatened to restrict the West Bank water supply if no sewage treatment plants were installed in the area, a UN alert warned. The official reportedly told Israel’s Army Radio that “They get clean water from us, and in return they give us sewage. This destroys nature, and I would also say that this is the way that wicked people behave.”

According to a 2009 B’Tselem report, a joint 2007 study by Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority Environment Unit, Water and Streams Department in the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the environmental-protection staff officer in the Civil Administration, only 81 of 121 settlements in the West Bank were connected to wastewater treatment facilities.

“The result is that 12 mcm of wastewater from settlements is treated, while 5.5 mcm flows as raw wastewater into West Bank streams and valleys,” the report said.

Landau, however, told radio personnel that the amount of sewage treated in areas under PA control totals only five percent, compared to approximately 70 percent in Israeli settlements.

B’Tselem’s study found, however, that “During more than 40 years of occupation, Israel has not built advanced regional wastewater treatment plants in the settlements to match those inside Israel.”

Although the Civil Administration prepared connections in the conduit for collecting Palestinian wastewater, no village has yet been connected to it, due to Palestinian refusal to cooperate in projects that may legitimize settlements.

April 11, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Leave a comment

Radiation leakage in Delhi panics nuclear establishment

The News | April 11, 2010

NEW DELHI: The discovery of at least nine powerful Cobalt-60 sources of nuclear radiation, which have fatally infected five people in a West Delhi industrial area, has sent shock waves among the local population as well as nuclear establishment in India.

Experts fear that many more people might have been exposed to strong radiation and would be in need of immediate medical attention.

Panic gripped Mayapuri industrial locality after news broke out that exposure to a ‘mysterious shining object’ had resulted in the emergence of strange symptoms in the owner of a scrap shop who was admitted to hospital on 4th April.  India’s scientific community was alerted once the doctors diagnosed the symptoms as a result of exposure to strong doses of nuclear radiation. Nuclear and medical experts from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and the Narora Atomic Power Plant in Uttar Pradesh were rushed to the site to scan the area and help doctors confirm the diagnosis.

Cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope of Cobalt was confirmed as the source of radiation.

According to the experts, this is not the first incident when radioactive material has found its way to the unauthorised places in India raising the specter of it being used in nuclear terrorism.

Security at Indian nuclear facilities has been breached time and again when nuclear material was stolen from nuclear installations. As late as Nov 2000 Indian Police seized 57 pounds of Uranium and arrested two persons for illicit trafficking of radioactive material. Lack of security at the Indian nuclear plants was underscored recently when on 25 Nov 2009 some rogue elements at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karnataka, laced the drinking water with Tritium , contaminating at least 90 employees.

Death of a nuclear scientist, under mysterious circumstances at Kaiga in Jun 2009 has further raised the issue of security of personnel at the highly sensitive nuclear reactors of India, particularly those chosen to remain outside of the IAEA scrutiny.

The discovery of clandestine radioactive material in Delhi only serves to highlight the poor state of affairs at the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the authority for controlling the security of radioactive material in India , say analysts.

April 11, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

Why are American Jewish groups so intent on defending illegal Israeli settlements and other human rights violations?

By Sydney Levy and Yaman Salahi

A coalition of nearly 20 Jewish groups, ranging from the right-wing David Project and the Jewish National Fund to the liberal J Street, is distributing a misleading statement condemning a Student Senate bill at UC Berkeley. The ground-breaking bill calls for divestment from companies that profit from the perpetuation of the Israeli military occupation in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. They refer to the bill as “dishonest” and “misleading” and “based on contested allegations.”

Yet it is their letter that is both dishonest and misleading.

The bill, available here, is based on extensive, footnoted research.

Yet this coalition of Jewish groups does not contest any of the facts. Without offering any evidence, they dismiss findings by reputable organizations like the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. Instead of condemning these human rights violations, they prefer to misinform the public by suggesting that it is somehow wrong to “take sides” against universally recognized injustice. In so doing, they effectively defend illegal Israeli settlements and the Israeli military occupation that continues to disrupt everyday features of Palestinian life: education, health care, economic life, and art and culture.

Further, they claim that the Berkeley bill calls on the University “to divest exclusively from Israel.” They imply that the bill calls for divestment “from any company doing business with Israel.”

But this is simply not true.

The Berkeley bill focuses specifically on the Israeli occupation, not on Israel. While a vibrant and necessary debate on the merits of a total boycott and divestment from Israel continues around the world, it is not at issue here.
In reality, the bill divests only from two American companies that make money by equipping the occupation, General Electric and United Technologies – but no Israeli companies. It also announces an intention to divest from any company – whatever the nationality, and only after further research – that similarly profit from the occupation.

These groups choose to deliberately misreport the language of the bill, which refers specifically and exclusively to companies that:

a) provide military support for or weaponry to support the occupation of the Palestinian territories or b) facilitate the building or maintenance of the illegal wall or the demolition of Palestinian homes, or c) facilitate the building, maintenance, or economic development of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories;

By condemning the humane and ethical policy of what is essentially morally responsible investment, do these groups mean to encourage investing in companies that provide the weapons of occupation, build the settlements of colonization, and render thousands of innocent Palestinians homeless?

They claim that the bill “unfairly targets the State of Israel.” But Israel is the country building the settlements and administering the occupation. And it is one of the world’s best known human rights abusers that is not already sanctioned by the United States –which provides Israel with over $3 billion annually. Who else should the bill address?

There is no reason not to name Israel when it violates human rights, but these groups suggest that students should instead pass a bill with no teeth, a bill that merely condemns human rights violations in general without referring specifically to Israel. But it is absurd to suggest that students do not already condemn those violations in the abstract-or have not already worked to apply similar standards to countries like Sudan and South Africa and will not apply them similarly to other countries in the future. The bill merely applies widely held principles to a particular situation.

In effect they are calling on students not to apply the same principles applied elsewhere to Israel. These groups want us to ignore reality and to allow Israel to be the one and only human rights violator that escapes accountability and condemnation. Perversely, they themselves are guilty of singling out Israel in order to defend occupation and the unjustifiable oppression of the Palestinian people.

The statement acknowledges no wall, no home demolitions, no Israeli settlements, no Palestinian suffering. All of these, the letter calls “discrete incident[s] without consideration of the larger picture.” How many more decades of occupation and dispossession will it take for our nation’s major Jewish organizations to issue a statement calling these injustices what they are, an inhumane and morally indefensible system of occupation?

By reducing these coordinated events to isolated incidents, they diminish their significance, aid the settlement efforts, and obstruct Palestinian freedom and human rights.

Most perniciously, they refer to the bill as “marginalizing Jewish students on campus who support Israel.” The fact that they mention only Jewish students and not other students who might hold similar political positions reveals the true meaning of this statement: This is an intellectually dishonest and misleading accusation of anti-Semitism that cannot be taken lightly. The bill does not target any students: it only targets corporations that facilitate occupation.

/In fact, the Berkeley bill was co-authored by an Israeli Jewish student on campus and is supported by many Jews who have testified in favor of the bill and have written thousands of letters of support to the student senators.

Ironically, these groups’ statement actually marginalizes both Jews and non-Jews who oppose the Israeli occupation. It especially harms American and Palestinian students who may be harmed by such investments when studying, conducting research, or visiting relatives in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The misinformation campaign targeting UC Berkeley follows the same script that was used to defame similar efforts by the Presbyterian Church in 2008, which endeavored to ensure that it was “invested only in peaceful pursuits.”

Then, a similar coalition accused the Presbyterian Church of “one-sidedness” and in much more explicit terms, anti-Semitism. In other words, they re-cast the very idea that one should be “invested only in peaceful pursuits” in Israel-Palestine as biased or racist.

This year the Presbyterian Church is considering divestment from Caterpillar because of the company’s refusal to take responsibility for the destruction its bulldozers create in the West Bank and Gaza. The Simon Wiesenthal Center cast all logic aside and accused the church of engaging in “nothing short of a declaration of war on Israel.” This kind of hyperbolic language is untrue, harms civil discourse, and only serves to hamper the efforts of those rightfully opposed to the demolition of Palestinian homes and the uprooting of Palestinian orchards.

Now in Berkeley, a constellation of Jewish organizations has regrettably mobilized its resources to stand in the way of yet another progressive victory. The letter’s deliberate distortions call into question whether the signers would support any method of monitoring, discouraging, and preventing Israeli human rights violations.

Instead, the letter’s signers suggest that Americans should act with their hands tied behind their backs, without the full toolkit of nonviolent resistance tactics that have been an essential part of all successful human justice movements.

However, not engaging in morally responsible investment when faced with the clear findings of human rights organizations and the international community would be morally indefensible.

Choosing to do something about Israel’s human rights violations does not require turning a blind eye to other injustices in the world as these groups suggest; but refusing to take action because of other examples would indeed turn a blind eye to this one. Now is the time to support Palestinian freedom and human rights. Berkeley students have done the right thing. Others should follow suit and divest from the occupation, as part of their general commitment to ethical investment policies.

April 10, 2010 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Israel, a New Decade

By Ran HaCohen | April 10, 2010

I turn on the television just before dinner. Prime-time. An Israeli series: “The Pilots’ Wives” (“Meet the Women behind Our Heroes”, said the promo), interrupted occasionally by a commercial depicting a soldier missing his mother’s soup (“disclaimer: the actor is not a soldier”). After the series, a short public service broadcast showing a group of young men, each in turn boasting his military service, until they notice one of them – a violent zoom-in – keeps quiet; the message is clear. Then the news, with at least one public relations item pushed by the military: “teen-age girls eager to become fighters”, “a remote-control watch-and-shoot system on the Gaza fence”, “a unique glimpse into a top-secret air-force base” or the like. Not to mention the real news, be it about the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iran, or even the billions of terrorists disguised as miserable African refugees allegedly waiting on the Egyptian border to inundate Israel: all these issues, and many more, are predominantly managed and framed by the military.

The military service has been made a major issue in Israeli public discourse. Not that the army is short of soldiers: on the contrary, the number of recruits requesting “to serve their country” in combat units is at record level. Nevertheless, uniting the nation around the military as the ultimate good is a goal in itself, especially when it implicitly excludes the Israeli-Palestinians, who are not conscripted. Thus the stage and screen actor Itay Tiran was removed from Israel’s official propaganda website when someone noticed he had not served; And, following the Zeitgeist, “national left-wing” playwright Shmuel Hasfari said he would refuse to work with Tiran “just like with any murderer or rapist.”

Most Israeli artists are careful not to express themselves critically about Israel’s policies, definitely not to say a word against the country’s deep militarism and racism; Scander Kobti, co-director of Ajami, nominated for an Academy Award in Best Foreign Language Film, caused a scandal just for saying he didn’t “represent Israel” in Hollywood (“I cannot represent a state that doesn’t represent me”, the Israeli-Palestinian claimed) – even that is more than the selectively sensitive Israeli ear can bear. Every Israeli is expected to be an ambassador abroad – no wonder that in a highly popular Israeli reality show just a few years ago, candidates competed on who would best represent Israeli propaganda abroad (a former Israeli army spokesman was among the judges). Remember it next time you talk to an Israeli: especially outside Israel, you might hear not the truth, but the official state propaganda. Though many Israelis sincerely believe the two are identical.

The deep racism of the Israeli psyche is on the rise. The 1990s, at least in hindsight, marked some liberalization of the public discourse; the first decade of this century crushed it, and now the mildly critical, left-liberal discourse hardly exists in the mainstream. No wonder the liberal left has just 3 seats out of 120 in the Knesset; all the other parties are various shades of right-wing, far right, or fascism (except the small outcast “Arab” parties). The racist mindset can be observed in the most trivial daily situations, like my elderly neighbor, when told I saw someone peeping at my window the other night, instinctively reacting with a single question: “Have you seen whether it was a Jew or an Arab?”

Ever more often, when I mention the Netherlands, I am told that all the Dutch were anti-Semitic and collaborated with the Nazis; my already ritualized reaction – that my grandparents and my mother owe their lives to Dutch Christians who risked their own lives to save them – is met with a shrug, expressing something like “don’t challenge my precious prejudice” or “don’t be so naïve, we all know everybody hates us.” And this is not just the case of Holland: from Sweden to Ethiopia, from Turkey to Argentina, no matter how Jewish-friendly (and Israel-friendly) a nation has been historically, Israelis are encouraged to view all non-Jews (“Goyim” is the pejorative term used uncritically by most Hebrew speakers) as inherently anti-Semitic and therefore anti-Israeli. Every criticism of Israel’s policy is automatically dismissed as yet another incarnation of an endemic, incurable hatred of Jews. Just like anti-communism was the national religion of the USA during the Cold War, the fanatic belief in an eternal world-wide anti-Semitic conspiracy is the true national cult of Israel. The voices portraying even President Obama as anti-Semitic are just one undertone in an ear-deafening choir of incitement against every dissenting voice, within or without.

The younger generation knows little else. How could it? As the Jerusalem Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan shows, Israeli schoolbooks – their text, maps, and pictures – are inherently racist, especially against Arabs; but whereas the racism was sophisticatedly disguised in the 1990s schoolbooks, in the last decade it’s overt and explicit. Arabs are consistently represented as primitive, threatening, and untrustworthy; the Palestinian narrative is either distorted and denied, or simply ignored. The Occupation, says Peled-Elhanan, is never mentioned, the Green Line does not exist; many Israelis no longer know what it means, let alone where it is.

Even the language retreats: if the term “occupied territories” sounded rather neutral just a few years ago, when even Ariel Sharon used the term “occupation”, now the sickening euphemism “liberated territories” has made a comeback. At the same time, hypocrisy and double-standards are cultivated: right-wing parties outside Israel are regularly termed “extremist”, “xenophobic” or “racist”, terms never applied to much more extreme Israeli parties. Official Israel is shocked and outraged by naming a street in Ramallah after a Palestinian terrorist Ayyash (assassinated by Israel in 1996); At the same time, the Israeli far-right leader Ze’evi (assassinated by Palestinians in 2001), whose main political platform was ethnic cleansing (“transfer”) of all Palestinians, has several streets, three promenades, two settlements, a highway, a bridge, and an army base named after him, and a law to commemorate him and even educate future generations with his “legacy.”

Is It Too Late?

This is the present atmosphere in Israel – one of a rising, violent nationalist self-righteousness, especially among the younger generation. A recent poll shows that while 35% of Israelis over the age of 30 said they would vote for right-wing parties, this number almost doubled for youths up to the age of 29, and stood at 61%.

Does this mean there is no chance for peace? A difficult question. Despite all of the above, polls also show 60% support among the general public for removing the majority of settlements. As always, this 60% majority of Israeli Jews overwhelmingly believes it is a minority – only a third of respondents said such an evacuation had the support of the Israeli majority. This last figure – the majority being persuaded it is actually a minority – is one of the greatest achievements of the official Israeli brain-wash, and has been consistent for many years.

One can therefore understand Zeev Sternhell’s call on Obama’s Washington to implement an imposed solution: “Were Israeli society prepared to pay the price for peace, its government would not be fanning the flames of conflict […] The conclusion is that […] the only solution is an imposed one”, writes the prominent Israeli political scientist. This is no rosy scenario either, needless to say. In clear imitation of Nazi calls to try the German politicians who signed the “humiliating” Treaty of Versailles (1919), the Israeli right-wing has already demanded to “put Oslo criminals on trial” for signing the Oslo Accords. One can recall European history and imagine how Israeli fascists would react to an “imposed peace.” Luckily, they are just a minority; but given the current atmosphere in Israel, as well as the demographic advantage of the right-wing (Orthodox Jews have much more children), it might not remain a minority for long. Time, if there still is any, is running out.

April 10, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Leave a comment

Israel’s Pentagon Papers

By Bernard Avishai | TPM | April 9, 2010

Common sense tells you that the Israeli military, charged with keeping Israeli citizens as safe as possible, should have the right to keep operational plans secret; and that the government–acting within bounds set by the judiciary–should have the right to censor any stories about such plans and prosecute the people who leak them. But what if the military, acting as an occupation force, is itself violating bounds set by the judiciary, and its actions are arguably making citizens less safe? What if a whistle-blower leaks documents to a journalist, who then uses them to write a story questioning the legality or efficacy of the military’s actions? What if the story is itself passed by the censor, but the government opens an investigation into the journalist’s sources?

What, then, if the journalist, cooperating with the investigation, hands over documents in an agreement that stipulates that they could not be used to prosecute the source, if found? And what, nevertheless, if the government finds the whistle-blower and charges her under laws written, not to deal with the press, but to prevent espionage for a hostile foreign government? What if the government refuses to renounce the option of arresting the journalist for holding prohibited documents–so he remains in London, refusing to return to the country?

THIS, IN A nutshell, is the troubling case of a young woman, Anat Kam, who allegedly (well, apparently) leaked documents from the office of the Central Command to Haaretz journalist Uri Blau, showing that the IDF systematically issued operational guidelines to its soldiers quite different from regulations the courts have required. The latter decreed that the military may not simply engage in targeted assassination in the occupied territories; that, rather, soldiers must at least try to take Palestinian suspects alive, and not unreasonably endanger innocent bystanders during search operations. Blau’s original piece exposed how the IDF ignored these bounds. He explored cases where Palestinians who might have been arrested were killed, as were bystanders.

Haaretz–which, as if more proof were needed, is emerging as a great world newspaper–is defending its journalist with all of its force. I won’t attempt to compete with its morning edition, that gives any patient reader the full picture, including this editorial, arguing how military intelligence broke the deal it made with the paper, and this follow-up by Blau.

I will, however, make one point the paper does not make, about the efficacy of targeted assassinations themselves. Presumably, these are justified, and the regulations issued to facilitate them justified, because occupation forces preempt attacks on Israeli civilians by getting the bad guys before they get us. I have no doubt that, in some cases, this preemption has saved lives. But what if, on the whole, the opposite is true, that shooting preemptively and recklessly raises the likelihood of violence against Israelis.

ANYONE WHO GIVES this a moment’s thought must see this is at least possible. An old friend of mine, the University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym, carefully studied all 138 suicide bombings between September 2000 and mid-July 2005. He concluded that, in the vast majority of cases, the suicide bombers themselves–whatever their “ideological” predispositions, or the groups that claimed responsibility–had lost a friend or close relative to Israeli fire. They acted, he wrote, “out of revenge.”

Which is precisely why the newspaper was as justified in exposing these secret documents as the Times and the Post were justified in publishing the Pentagon Papers. Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar connected the dots this morning when he wrote that he expects the real story of how the Al-Aqsa Intifada got started is buried somewhere in similar documents–the ones we have not yet seen–documents pointed to by Kam’s leaked ones, testifying to the IDF’s vendetta culture:

Right now, hundreds of clerks and officers are sitting in the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the army lacking the courage to contact a journalist and divulge that the ministers or commanders in charge are endangering their children’s future.

Some are keeping to themselves the real story behind the big lie peddled by Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz and Moshe Ya’alon – the falsehood that “Yasser Arafat planned the intifada,” which gave rise to the disastrous “there is no partner” ideology. The real story, of course, is contained in documents stamped with the words “Top Secret.”

I expect we will soon hear stories about Kam’s youth, or ingenuousness, or flakiness, which all may be as true as Daniel Ellsberg’s depressions. None of this changes the importance to Israeli democracy of airing the question of whether targeted assassinations as practiced and sanctioned by the IDF command are either morally acceptable in a country of law or will make any of us sleep more safely, even if not more soundly.

April 10, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

U.S. Banks Hid Risk by Lowering Debt Before Reporting, WSJ Says

By Chris Peterson and James Gunsalus | Bloomberg | April 9, 2010

U.S. banks masked their true risk levels by temporarily lowering debt before reporting it, the Wall Street Journal said, citing data provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and 13 other banks all understated the amount of debt used to pay for securities trades by cutting them by an average of 42 percent at the end of five quarterly periods; the debt levels were then boosted midway through each quarter, the newspaper said.

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., spurred in part by excessive borrowing, in 2008, banks have become more concerned that reporting high debt levels could jeopardize share prices and credit ratings, the Journal said. While not illegal, the practice can distort investors’ impression of risk being taken by banks, the report said.

Hong Kong-based spokespeople for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Citigroup declined to comment on the Fed data or the report. Banks not identified in the report confirmed that they temporarily cut borrowings at the end of a quarter and some noted their regulatory filings tell investors debt levels can rise and fall during the quarter, the Journal said.

Regulation of the financing activity data documented by the New York Fed falls under the auspice of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. brokerage watchdog, the report said, citing an unidentified official at the Federal Reserve Board. The New York Fed declined to comment, it said.

The SEC has inquired with about 24 large financial firms about the practice, indicating the agency is interested in finding accounting techniques that could mask a firm’s risk- taking, according to the Journal.

Fed data that captures the accounting shows it has occurred periodically since recording started in 2001, though not as consistently as in 2009, the paper said.

To contact the reporters responsible for this story: Chris Peterson at cpeterson@bloomberg.net; James Gunsalus at jgunsalus@bloomberg.net

April 10, 2010 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | Leave a comment

Scotland’s First Minister calls for Israel trade rethink

By Robyn Rosen | JEWISH CHRONICLE | April 8, 2010

Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, has called for legal action and a review of trading relationships with Israel after David Miliband announced that Britain formally blamed the country for cloning UK passports during the Dubai operation.

Mr Salmond replied to a question on BBC’s Question Time last week, about the decision by the Foreign Secretary to expel an Israeli diplomat. The expulsion followed an investigation into the cloning of up to 15 British passports, in the operation leading to the killing of a Hamas leader in Dubai in January.

Mr Salmond said that Mr Miliband’s actions were “not enough”.

He said: “Friendly countries don’t steal the passports of other countries’ citizens and use that as part of an arrangement to assassinate their political enemies. And therefore it has to be treated in the context of the seriousness of what the Foreign Secretary believes that Israel have been doing.

“Stealing peoples’ passports – and indeed the assassination – must be a criminal offence. Surely, if the Foreign Secretary has now identified to his satisfaction that Israel is responsible, then he should be thinking of legal action.

“In terms of the relationship with the Israeli government, it should be more than expelling a diplomat, there should be implications, for example in trading relationships.

“You can’t have normal relationships if you believe another country has been involved in what Israel has been involved in, according to the Foreign Secretary.

“But certainly, whatever measures you take, it cannot just be a diplomatic dance.”

The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) have welcomed the comments and hope they will lead to the cancellation of an exhibition due to be held in the Scottish Parliament later this month.

The exhibition, highlighting Israel’s contribution to medicine, science and technology, is organised by the Scottish Friends of Israel and sponsored by MSP Ken McIntosh.

A petition by Sofiah Macleod of the SPSC has already been lodged with the Scottish Parliament, denouncing the exhibition as a “shameless PR exercise” and calling for its cancellation.

She said: “Hosting this exhibition in the Scottish Parliament potentially implicates all of us in a whitewashing of Israeli crimes.”

But a Scottish Parliament spokeswoman said: “Members are fully entitled to sponsor exhibitions in the parliament which have relevance to their parliamentary or constituency roles.”

Myer Green of the Scottish Friends of Israel said: “Alex Salmond’s comments are a very serious condemnation of Israel which leave me feeling somewhat uncomfortable.

“The exhibition may well trigger certain motions in parliament which will attract anti-Israel commentary. But the appropriate people have approved the exhibition. We simply want to make people aware of Israel’s exceptional contribution to society.”

April 10, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Students erect Israeli wall on US campus

Ma’an/Agencies – 10/04/2010

Bethlehem – For eight hours on Thursday, students at Princeton University in the US were greeted by a 16-foot wall, made of wood and Styrofoam, representing Israel’s separation wall, local media reported.

The Daily Princetonian, a college newspaper, reported Friday that the display was a protest by the Princeton Committee on Palestine and Amnesty International against the wall, which weaves in and out of the occupied West Bank.

PCP and AI members spent months planning, building, and painting the wall, which was marked with the words “peace not apartheid.”

PCP president Yoel Bitran told the publication that the group wanted to “give Princeton students the opportunity to imagine what it would be like to grow up or go to school in a place surrounded by a prison of concrete and metal.”

He said that while “most students understand that Israel’s policies in the occupied territories are fundamentally wrong,” the group aims to “help people understand the suffering of Palestinians and realize the urgency of doing something about it.”

“We hope to let people know that there is a strong and growing movement for Palestinian rights at Princeton … and that being part of this historic struggle is possible right here,” Bitran added.

Jeffrey Mensch, president of Tigers for Israel, a pro-Israel student group, dismissed the protesters’ claims, according to the report.

He told the Princetonian that the group was “concerned about the absurd claim that Israel’s security fence, instituted to prevent suicide terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, constitutes an ‘Apartheid Wall.'”

April 10, 2010 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

US to retain 90 nukes on Iran border

Press TV – April 10, 2010

US B-2 bomber dropping a B61 thermonuclear bomb

As Washington and Moscow sign a new arms reduction treaty, skepticism arises in Turkey as to whether those cuts will include US atomic warheads stored in the country.

US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Prague on Thursday, which requires both sides to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 1,550, or about one-third below current levels.

This is while the Obama administration has revised US policy on atomic weapons, as part of a new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that, among other things, is said to be aimed at reducing the US stockpile.

But silence over anticipated US plans to withdraw nuclear bombs deployed in the Incirlik Air Base in southern Anatolia, has left many speculating on whether Washington has any intentions to remove the weapons at all.

When asked about a possible US move to withdraw its nuclear weapons from five European countries, including Turkey, Turkey’s Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said that Ankara had no information about such plans.

“No information has been officially announced,” Gonul told reporters on Wednesday.

The US has positioned a total of 200 B61 thermonuclear gravity bombs in Turkey, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany since the Cold War. Turkey is believed to be hosting 90 bombs at Incirlik Air Base.

On April 2, The Times reported that the United States may remove tactical nuclear weapons deployed in five NATO member European countries, including Turkey.

However, the possibility of the White House seriously considering a decision to withdraw the B61 gravity bombs seems unlikely, as it has not consulted Ankara on the issue so far.

In the latest NPR, while the Obama Administration has reduced the threat of using nuclear weapons against signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has excluded NPT signatory Iran from threat reduction.

During the release of the current NPT today, the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “the NPR has a very strong message for both Iran and North Korea, because whether it’s in declaratory policy or in other elements of the NPR, we essentially carve out states like Iran and North Korea that are not in compliance with NPT.”

“Basically, all options are on the table when it comes to countries in that category,” he elaborated.

Washington, which accuses Iran of having the “intention” of developing nuclear weapons, is leading a push for a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran at the United Nations Security Council in a bid to hinder the nation’s drive for a nuclear energy program.

Iran, as a signatory of NPT, insists that it neither believes in atomic weapons, nor, as a matter of religious principles, does it intend to acquire nuclear or other weapons of mass-destruction.

April 10, 2010 Posted by | Militarism | Leave a comment

Evidence That Iran Is Developing Nukes? Don’t Expect Any This Time Around

By Mark R. Crovelli | April 8, 2010

Scarcely a day goes by anymore without some cocksure Israeli cabinet member or loudmouthed American “diplomat” sounding the alarm that Iran is covertly trying to develop nuclear weapons. We hear ominous warnings that the Western world will suddenly be at risk of complete annihilation by those crazy Ayatollahs, should they succeed in their quest to develop the bomb. “No one will be safe!” they cry, “Because, in addition to being hell-bent on incinerating Israel in a nuclear holocaust, those lunatic Iranians might even launch nuclear strikes against other Western countries! We have to crush and kill the Iranians right now, before they finish building their bombs – even if that means making the United States the single most despised country in the world.”

What is extremely interesting, however, is that none of the pundits, Knesset members, presidents, congressman, or foreign lobbyists ever bother to tell us how they know that Iran is trying to build a bomb in the first place. They don’t bother to do this, quite frankly, because there is absolutely no evidence that the Iranians are trying to build nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Commission, which is charged with monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities (and to which the Iranians voluntarily submit, unlike the Israelis), has adduced not one shred of evidence that Iran has diverted any uranium for any non-civilian purposes. Not one of the 16 American intelligence agencies has adduced any evidence whatsoever that the Iranians have restarted their nuclear weapon program after having voluntarily halted it in 2003. Not a single person in the whole world has adduced any evidence that the Iranians have acquired the technological know-how to be able to build a nuclear weapon, and some prominent people even doubt that they could ever acquire the know-how, even if they wanted to.

In other words, the members of the political class in the United States and Israel once again feel free to make fantastic and terrifying claims about a Middle Eastern government in order to convince us of the need to invade and kill more people who have not attacked us. This time, however, the political class hasn’t even given us the courtesy of manufacturing a false trail of evidence in order to convince us of their claims. The political classes’ contempt for the American and Israeli citizenry is apparently so overweening this time around that they haven’t even deigned to cook up a few juicy lies about, say, aluminum tubes, to substantiate their allegations of Iran’s intention to develop and use nuclear weapons.

The political class in America has apparently learned its lesson from the reign of George II when it comes to fabricating evidence to induce needless wars. Serving up false evidence can get a politician into trouble if it looks like he is intentionally trying to mislead the public into dying and killing for pointless or idiotic reasons. Given this, why risk fabricating evidence if you don’t have to? If your electorate is stupid or gullible enough to believe anything you, a lying politician, say, why not simply omit evidence altogether? Far better is to simply make fantastic and unsubstantiated claims today, and, when those claims inevitably get exposed as utterly false at some point in the future, simply assert that “everyone” thought they were true. The American public is not asking for any evidence of Iranian ambitions to produce nuclear weapons, so why go out of your way to supply it to them?

Without a trail of traceable lies and false evidence there is no way to indict any specific politician. In fact, the politicians involved in this sort of underhanded manipulation can use the exposure of the truth to their advantage as well. For, once exposed, they can wring their hands and publicly lament that “everyone” was misled so badly. “Woe is us!” they will cry out, “We were all misled! This just proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we need to spend more tax money on intelligence gathering to avoid this kind of mistake in the future” However, don’t expect them to explain how “everyone” got the erroneous idea into their heads in the first place, and don’t expect them to use the opportunity to end the pointless and murderous war they have already started. Most of all, don’t expect them to apologize for all the dead American soldiers and foreign civilians that their war will produce.

The emergence of this form of evidence-free war rationalization is an ominous sign, because politicians only pull this chicanery if they think they can get away with it. In any sane and reasonable nation, politicians know that there must be compelling and explicit reasons for people to send their children abroad in order to kill and die. Politicians in reasonable nations who are contemplating blowing up lives, fortunes and foreign people feel obligated to provide evidence to their own people that they must sacrifice and suffer for some good reason. That the current gaggle of politicians in Washington is providing no such evidence while still threatening to attack Iran, means that politicians believe that the American people are gullible, stupid or indifferent almost to the point of insanity. And it looks as though they are right. To not demand evidence of grave, imminent and real harm before going off to kill and die means that American soldiers are blindingly obedient to the point of being without conscience and without brains. To have no moral objection in invading a foreign nation that has never attacked you and has no intention of attacking you, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, is not only morally reprehensible beyond comprehension, but a sign that the most Americans are in fact just as stupid and gullible as the politicians are hoping.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for any evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons in order to justify a new war in the Middle East. The lesson’s been learned: faked evidence will only get you into trouble, and real evidence…well, there isn’t any.

Mark R. Crovelli [send him mail] writes from Denver, Colorado.

April 9, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

A new political option for confronting Israel

Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, 9 April 2010

As more people recognize that the “peace process” has come to an unbridgeable impasse, there is debate. Some, especially those who prospered from the path of failed negotiations, argue that there is no alternative to continuing with the US-brokered “peace process.” Others intimate that a third intifada might be the solution and there have even been warnings of regional war. Others still suggest the Arab states should withdraw their eight-year old Arab Peace Initiative.

Neither war, nor an intifada — in the sense of a violent Palestinian response to Israel’s unrelenting violent aggression — are the only alternatives. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, recognized by foreign powers as the head of the Palestinian Authority, has constantly expressed strong opposition to any armed resistance against the occupier, and has frequently condemned and ridiculed resistance. And, after ignoring them for years, Abbas and his colleagues have lately started to endorse and even associate themselves with the nonviolent struggle of Palestinians in the West Bank, which are always met with Israeli aggression and brutality.

This however is not the only kind of nonviolence I see as a possible alternative: there is also a political option. It is important to recognize first that all efforts to settle the century-old conflict caused by the Zionist invasion of Palestine have failed because they were unjust, arbitrary, distant from legality, and did nothing to right fundamental wrongs.

A new political strategy would involve recognizing this basic shortcoming and demand a return to legality, in effect a return to the days before the 1991 Madrid Conference which launched the past two decades of futile “negotiations” and accelerated Israeli colonization.

The Arab States, including the Palestinians, could demand full implementation of Security Council Resolution 242 in the same manner as it was implemented on the Egyptian side leading to the total evacuation of all the Egyptian occupied territories including the removal of all illegally-built settlements on Egyptian soil. This significant precedent should apply to Syria’s occupied lands as well.

All the dubious formulas of Oslo, the Quartet, the Roadmap, Annapolis and the many other understandings should be dropped. The two-state solution should be dropped, too. Once the occupation ends and the Palestinians recover their territory they have the right then to establish their state on it independently from any Israeli or other foreign intervention. A Palestinian state on part of their historic homeland is not an Israeli gift. It is a right Palestinians alone can decide to exercise, if they so choose.

The Arab states should insist on a comprehensive deal ending the struggle along such lines in its entirety. What applied to Sinai should exactly apply to the Syrian Golan Heights the West Bank including Jerusalem as the situation exactly was before the Israeli invasion on 5 June 1967. And as all Israeli settlements were removed from Sinai and Gaza they should be removed from the West Bank and the Golan Heights if international law is to be applied.

The Arab States should not withdraw their peace offer. They should only amend it in accordance with the exact requirements of international law. They should not declare war on Israel but they should instead unite in demanding international justice in the United Nations — not the Quartet — in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions. They should not negotiate with Israel except through the United Nations apparatus. They should suspend any dealings with Israel until Israel complies with international legality and until justice is realized.

The same should apply to the issue of Palestinian refugees, whom Israel bars from returning home in defiance of international law, justice and common practice because of its totally illegal and immoral position that they are not Jews. International law does not permit such blatant racist discrimination, and Arabs are within their rights to demand it end in accordance with the law.

Under the prevailing circumstances all this may sound unrealistic. Perhaps so, but it seems that achieving Palestinian rights via the path of endless, unprincipled negotiations, or working with the occupation itself, has proven even more unrealistic and counterproductive. If the total closure of the road towards peace is not going to turn into uncontrollable violence this should be seriously considered.

Continuing to negotiate with no purpose and no hope of progress with an intransigent Israel only leads to the degradation of the Palestinian and consequently Arab standing and dignity. It also provides a convenient cover for continued Israeli colonization and judaization of Palestinian and Arab lands.

It is high time to admit that the peace process is dead; that Israel has so far manipulated it to consolidate the gains of its aggression; that exploiting Palestinian weakness and official Arab incompetence can only deepen the mistrust and the radicalization of Arab masses; and that the continued neutralization of the UN system is a recipe for growing violence and terror worldwide.

Arabs should offer Israel a choice of either becoming part of the region by respecting international law and implementing UN resolutions — which would also guarantee whatever legitimate rights and concerns Israelis have — or continuing in isolation if it chooses rejection, racism and intransigence.

Of course such Arab positions would be labeled as “radical” and “hard line.” The answer to that is simple: it is Israel’s insistence on its racist character and its defiance of the law that is radical, hardline and aggressive. Palestinian and Arab insistence on the implementation of UN resolutions that reflect a world consensus and universal rights could not be more moderate or reasonable.

Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations.

April 9, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Leave a comment

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