Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Pakistan denies Taliban link to Times Square bomb suspect

Investigators dismiss US claims that Faisal Shahzad was working under direction of Pakistani Taliban

Saeed Shah | guardian.co.uk | 11 May 2010

Pakistani investigators have found no evidence to support American claims that the failed Times Square bomber was working under the direction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Guardian has learned.

Senior officials in Washington – including the attorney general, Eric Holder, and John Brennan, the White House’s special adviser on counterterrorism – have said that the suspected bomber, Faisal Shahzad, conspired with militants in Pakistan, but a Pakistani security official with knowledge of the investigation said: “No Taliban link has come to the fore.”

The interrogation of Muhammad Rehan, a friend of Shahzad who was arrested last week outside a radical mosque in Karachi, has not yielded a link to the Pakistani Taliban or any other militant group. Rehan, a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad extremist group, remains the only suspected link found between 30-year-old Shahzad and the militant underworld in Pakistan.

Officials in Islamabad are perplexed and angry at statements from Washington about Shahzad’s links with the Pakistani Taliban, believing that the US is exploiting the issue to apply pressure for new military offensives in Pakistan’s tribal border area with Afghanistan, in the north Waziristan region.

“We have not found any involvement of Rehan [in the New York attempted bombing]. He didn’t introduce Faisal Shahzad to the Pakistani Taliban,” said the security official.

“There are no roots to this case, so how can we trace something back?”

An FBI team which flew into Pakistan after the arrest of Shahzad was allowed to question Rehan on Sunday. More than a dozen other suspects taken into custody in Karachi have been released, but the investigation is continuing, so new leads could yet emerge.

Rehan’s arrest as he left prayers at the Karachi mosque was seized on by the international press as evidence of Shahzad’s involvement with Pakistani militant groups. It emerged that Rehan and Shahzad had last year taken a 1,000-mile road trip from Karachi to Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal area, raising further suspicions.

However, Pakistani investigators have found that Rehan was not a very active member of JEM, a violent group primarily against India and with no history of global activities. He knew Shahzad because he is related to Shahzad’s wife… Full article

May 12, 2010 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | 1 Comment

Erdogan: We are working together with other countries to break Gaza siege

Palestine Information Center – 12/05/2010

ISTANBUL — Turkish premier Recep Erdogan said that his country is working alongside other countries to break the Israeli unjust siege on the Gaza Strip and to rebuild what was destroyed during the war. This came during his meeting on Monday in Istanbul with a delegation representing a number of European civil organizations including the European campaign to end the siege and the Palestinian return center. Erdogan stressed that breaking the blockade on Gaza is a priority for him and Turkey and that he is working with other countries to end it. The delegation discussed with the premier the avenues to end the siege and the importance of the Turkish role in the region.

The two parties also talked about Israel’s new membership in the organization for economic cooperation and development and the need to oblige Israel to lift its blockade on Gaza and respect human rights as a precondition for accession into any international body.

Director of the Palestinian return center Majid Al-Zeer criticized the international community for rewarding Israel for committing massacres and crimes against humanity with allowing it to join international organizations without having to meet the minimum human rights commitments. Zeer also called for more European parliamentary efforts to isolate Israel internationally until it ends its unjust siege on Gaza and stop all its crimes against Palestinians, asserting that any attempt to strengthen the position of Israel internationally would encourage it to commit more crimes and violations.

In the same context, MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular committee against the siege, hailed the Turkish premier for his strenuous efforts to break the blockade on Gaza and alleviate the suffering of its people. Khudari said in a press release on Tuesday that Turkey has always adopted admirable positions toward the Palestinian people, especially its ongoing effort to end the blockade and support poor families, graduates, and the unemployed. The lawmaker denounced Israel for arresting Turkish human rights activists who provide humanitarian services for the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Under the coordination of the Free Gaza Movement, numerous human rights organizations, including the Turkish relief foundation (IHH), the Perdana global peace organization from Malaysia, the European campaign to end the siege, and European institutions will send later this month three cargo ships loaded with reconstruction, medical and educational supplies. At least five passenger boats with over 600 people on board will accompany the cargo ships. These passengers include members of parliament from around the world, UN officials, human rights and trade union activists, as well as journalists who will document the largest coordinated effort aimed to confront Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza.

May 12, 2010 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | 3 Comments

Vanunu Sentenced To Three Months

By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 12, 2010

Israeli sources reported that Nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, was sentenced, Tuesday, to three months imprisonment after he refused to perform community service in West Jerusalem, fearing harassment from fundamentalist Jews.

Yet, the Israeli Prosecution argued further than that and claimed that Vanunu can still harm the state’s security.

The Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem declined Vanunu’s request to perform community service in occupied East Jerusalem, and the court insisted that his service should be in West Jerusalem.

Israel’s Ynet News reported that attorney Dan Eldad of the state prosecution told its reporter that the court tried all venues to prevent sending Vanunu to jail “but had no other choice”.

His new case at the court brought back claims made against him 24 years ago, when he was first arrested for revealing information about Israel’s Nuclear Reactor where he worked.

Eldad told the Ynet that Vanunu knows information that, if revealed, could “jeopardize Israel’s security”. He also claimed that Vanunu “repeatedly violated the terms of his parole”, as he spoke to the media and other groups “in violations to the terms of his release”.

Vanunu was sentenced to six months imprisonment in 2008 for holding a meeting with foreign nationals, as this issue was seen as a breach of the conditions of his parole.

Vanunu, who converted to Christianity after he was released, served 18 years behind bars, including 11 years in solitary confinement as Israel did not want him to communicate with other prisoners. Upon his release, he was ordered to remain in Israel, and was ordered not to enter the Palestinian territories or talk to the press.

Vanunu was born in Marrakesh – Morocco on October 14 1954. He declared his opposition to Israel’s nuclear program and to all sorts of Weapons of Mass destruction.

After talking to British press in 1986 about Israel’s Demona reactor where he worked, the Israeli security drugged and kidnapped him after he was lured to Italy by a spy working for the Mossad.

He was then secretly sent to Israel and an Israeli court quickly convicted him in a closed session. Vanunu has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

May 12, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties | 1 Comment

Israel imposing occupation tactics on its Palestinian citizens

Ben White, The Electronic Intifada, 11 May 2010
Ameer Makhoul

Last Thursday, in the early hours of the morning, a Palestinian community leader’s home was raided by Israeli security forces. In front of his family, the wanted man was hauled off to detention without access to a lawyer, while his home and offices were ransacked and property confiscated.

While this sounds like an all-too typical occurrence in West Bank villages such as Bilin and Beit Ummar, in fact, the target in question this time was Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and head of the internationally-renowned nongovernmental organization network Ittijah.

After being snatched last week, Makhoul’s detention was subject to a court-enforced gagging order, preventing the Israeli media from even reporting that it had happened. This ban was finally lifted yesterday, as Israeli newspapers were being forced to report on angry protests by Palestinians in Israel without explaining the specific provocation.

It turned out that another Palestinian citizen of Israel, Balad party activist Omar Said, had also been arrested, and interrogated by the Shin Bet since the end of April. Now, both Makhoul and Said are to be charged with espionage and “contact with a foreign agent” — namely, Hizballah. On Monday night, hundreds of demonstrators rallied in Haifa to protest against what they call “an escalating campaign to crack down on Israel’s Palestinian citizens.”

The gagging order recalls the Anat Kam case, where for several months it was forbidden to report that the former soldier was under house arrest and being investigated by the Shin Bet for “leaking classified military information.” The facts about Kam were first circulated by bloggers and campaigners, something repeated in Makhoul’s case (including the Facebook group “Free Ameer Makhoul & Omar Said“).

The night raids, interrogations and charges are not isolated incidents — indeed, Makhoul had been prevented from leaving the country in April, according to an order by the interior minister. Days later, a West Bank Palestinian nonviolent resistance organizer, Iyad Burnat, was also banned from traveling at the Jordan crossing, en route to, among other things, a conference on the Geneva conventions.

Several examples now point to an uncomfortable reality for the self-proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East”: practices that have long been routine in the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza are being used in Israel to suppress dissent and limit civil liberties. The green line is increasingly blurry.

There are the Sheikh Jarrah protests, where marches and rallies against the eviction of Palestinians from their homes have been targeted by the police, including the arrest of an organizer at his home — only for him to be released without charge and no evidence presented. Then there is the trend towards repressive legislation, with the so-called nakba law making its way through the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, that will ban state funding for any group that marks the expulsions of Palestinians in 1948.

Two weeks ago, a new bill was proposed by more than a dozen cross-party members of Knesset (MK), which would outlaw any organization “if there is a reasonable basis to conclude that the organization is providing information to foreign bodies or is involved in lawsuits abroad against senior officials in the government in Israel and/or officers in the Israeli army regarding war crimes.” Adalah, one of the groups specifically targeted, stated: “Only a state that commits prohibited acts would be interested in such legislation.”

Arab members of the Knesset are also increasingly under attack. MKs Mohammad Barakeh and Said Naffaa have had their parliamentary immunity stripped so that they can face criminal proceedings, with the chair of the committee which deals with immunity issues reported to have suggested that “a serious decision” would have to be made as to “whether or not these parties can continue to sit in the Israeli parliament, even while they operate against the country.”

More recently, a trip by Arab MKs to Libya has been greeted by attempts to “strip the members of their immunity,” with MK Michael Ben-Ari declaring “an historic opportunity to abolish once and for all the immunity and rights of Knesset members who hate Israel and denigrate the state.”

At the heart of this and other cases against Palestinian citizens is contact with the wider Arab world. According to Adalah, the “charge of meeting a foreign agent” is so broad that it criminalizes “almost any Arab who establishes legitimate relations with political and social activists in the Arab world.”

So why is this happening now? First, it is the latest manifestation of a deteriorating atmosphere in Israel, with political dissent and human rights groups under attack. Depressingly, there is considerable support among Jewish Israelis for this kind of crackdown: one poll found that 57.6 percent of respondents “agreed that human rights organizations that expose immoral conduct by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely.”

Second, there is also a specific focus on Israel’s Palestinian minority. Three years ago, it was revealed that the Shin Bet intended to “thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law.” This is no doubt in part a response to the kind of developments Makhoul talked about in January when I met him in Haifa: how “this generation” of Palestinian citizens “has grown up with October 2000 [when Israeli police killed 13 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Israel]. The green line disappeared — in terms of thinking, behavior, and consciousness.”

Hussein Abu Hussein, the lawyer for both Makhoul and Said, stressed the role of someone like Makhoul in being a prominent advocate internationally for “the need for accountability” – in other words, “the state has enough reasons to stop this voice.” Mohammad Zeidan, of the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), says that the arrests are “clearly political.” He believes that for some in Israel, the work being done by nongovernmental organizations and Arab parties on the international level is “crossing a red line” — “they want to remind us that this is not a democracy.”

Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer whose articles have appeared in the Guardian’s “Comment is free,” where this essay was originally published, The Electronic Intifada, the New Statesman, and many others. He is the author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide (Pluto Press). He can be contacted at ben A T benwhite D O T org D O T uk.

May 12, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israeli religious forces on the march

By Marwan Bishara | Al-Jazeera | May 10th, 2010

If the number of religious Zionists in the Israeli army continues to grow, it will take a miracle to evacuate Israel’s illegal settlements in the context of a two-state solution, argues Marwan Bishara.

File 2534

As the Israeli Palestinian ‘peace process’ marches in place, religious-Zionism is marching into the leadership of the Israeli army, rendering an improbable peace mission impossible.

If as expected their number continues to increase at the same rate, no future Israeli leader will be able to evacuate Jewish settlements in the context of a peace agreement.

The radicalisation of Israeli society and polity is evident not only in the most right wing government in the country’s history, but also in the make up of its professional military.

Recent revelations in the Israeli media show how the Israeli military, which was once a bastion of ‘secular Zionism’, is slowly but surely falling under the influence of extreme religious Zionism with a wider role for radical rabbinical chiefs.

The disproportionately high numbers of religious-nationalists in elite units and the combat officer corps is transforming the Israeli military and its relationship to the occupation and illegal settlements.

Dramatic increase

In 1990, the year before the peace process started between Israel and its neighbours, two per cent of the cadets enrolled in the officers’ course for the infantry corps were religious; by 2007, that figure had shot up to 30 per cent.

Moreover, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz:

“This is how the intermediate generation of combat officers looks today: six out of seven lieutenant colonels in the Golani Brigade are religious and, beginning in the summer, the brigade commander will be as well. In the Kfir Brigade, three out of seven lieutenant colonels wear skullcaps, and in the Givati Brigade and the paratroopers, two out of six. In some of the infantry brigades, the number of religious company commanders has passed the 50 per cent mark – more than three times the percentage of the national religious community in the overall population.”

Worse still, according to the Israeli Peace Now organisation, the number of religious nationalists continues to grow at a worrying rate.

Its sources estimate that “more than 50 per cent of the elite combat units now are drawn from the religious nationalist sector of Israeli society”.

Professor Stuart Cohen of Bar Ilan University estimates that during the second intifada (2000-2002) the overall number of religious Zionist soldiers – as defined by those who wear knitted caps, or kippah seruga – in the infantry units may be roughly twice their proportion of the Jewish male population as a whole.

Many of these soldiers live in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Some live in so-called ‘illegal outposts’, which the International Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) insists on dismantling and which Israel considers ‘unlawful’ according to its own narrow standards.

And increasing numbers live in the so-called “illegal outposts”, or those new Jewish settlements considered illegal by the International Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) and according to Israel’s own narrow standards.

Despite Israel’s commitment under the 2003 ‘roadmap for peace’ to evacuate tens of these outposts, they remain standing and are even expanding.

A ‘higher authority’

Clearly, many of those who live in the settlements cannot be expected to help evacuate their own homes if such a time comes. And they are making it known.

Recently, soldiers in the infantry brigade waved placards with the slogan “we did not enlist in order to evacuate Jews” as they paraded in Jerusalem to mark the end of their training.

A number of rabbis have issued religious edicts against such evacuations.

Most of these religious Zionist settlers see settlement in the occupied West Bank (using their biblical names Judea and Samaria) or the overall “land of Israel”, which includes the territories occupied in 1967, as a religious duty.

Although Ariel Sharon, a former Israeli prime minister, succeeded in evacuating the marginal Gaza settlements in 2005, it is doubtful that any such evacuation from the tens of small scattered settlements in the West Bank is possible.

The nationalist religious camp is making it clear that the ‘word of God’ as they see it, takes precedence over the secular leadership.

Reportedly, the top military brass is quite fearful of such a scenario.

Soldiers and settlers

Lately, there have been reports about tensions between the Israeli military and some of the most violent settlers as the military tries to reign in some of their more extreme provocations.

In general, however, the military has been the settlers’ best friend and defender in the occupied territories.

And despite increased settler violence and vandalism against adjacent Palestinian towns and villages, the occupation army has been no less than complicit in the daily harassment of Palestinian residents and farmers.

Many settler-soldiers seem to deploy around their settlements, allowing them to man check points and harass and humiliate Palestinians at road blocks, turning the country’s military into their own private militias.

In the process, Palestinians find themselves held hostage by an Israeli government that has neither the will, nor increasingly the capacity, to deal with the settlement issue – the engine of violence and the terminator of the two state solution.

Eventually, they will march straight into a destructive religious war that is far harder to contain in or outside the ‘Holy Land’.

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

Senate unanimously approves measure to audit the Fed

Bill would have Fed disclose names of bank recipients of emergency loans

By Ronald D. Orol | MarketWatch | May 11, 2010

WASHINGTON — A compromise measure requiring the government to conduct a one-time and unprecedented audit of the Federal Reserve’s emergency-response programs was unanimously approved Tuesday by the Senate as part of sweeping bank reform legislation.

The amendment also calls for releasing the names of institutions that received in total more than $2 trillion in loans from the central bank during the peak of the financial crisis.

The provision received a vote of 96-0, with support following a compromise reached late Thursday.

“This makes it clear that the Fed can no longer operate under the kind of secrecy it has been operating under,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the measure’s author.

The legislation is attached to sweeping bank-reform legislation under consideration on Capitol Hill. It would need to be reconciled with a more expansive audit-the-fed provision approved in the House last December.

The Senate measure would — for the first time in the central bank’s 95-year-history — require a Government Accountability Office audit of the financial institutions that borrowed from the Fed during the financial crisis.

In addition, the legislation would require the Fed on Dec., 1, 2010, to put on its Web site all of the recipients of the central bank’s emergency assistance between December 2007 and the date of the statute’s enactment.

Sanders agreed to make several changes to the legislation to garner the support of the Obama administration and wavering senators who had concerns with the original measure. With the changes, Sanders obtained the support of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., which he said was important to bringing on board other senators needed to obtain the 60 votes necessary for passage.

The legislation originally would have left open the possibility of future audits, however, Sanders eventually compromised to stipulate that it would be a one-time audit. The measure’s house counterparty, which was introduced by long-time Fed opponent, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, permits continuing periodic audits.

The Senate measure originally would have required the names of bank recipients of the Fed’s emergency lending to be posted within 30 days of the reform bill’s approval, but the section was later changed so that the names need only be posted on Dec. 1, 2010. The original measure would have required posting of names annually.

With the compromise language, the GAO is also prohibited from conducting studies on the Fed’s interest rate policy. This change was in response to concerns from the Fed and others that such studies would impact the central bank’s independence when it came to monetary policy such as whether to raise or lower interest rates.

It also prohibits the GAO from auditing the Fed’s so-called normal discount window lending. However, it does permit an audit of the discount window emergency lending programs, such as Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, in response to the financial crisis. The discount window is a government lending facility through which commercial banks and, in response to the crisis, investment banks borrowed reserves.

The GAO would be required to begin its Fed audit within 30 days of enactment and completed within a year.
House vs. Senate on audit the Fed

The House measure’s language is much shorter, yet in its brevity it gives the GAO leeway to conduct continuing periodic audits of a wide-range of issues beyond the Fed’s financial crisis response.

The Senate bill is more specific. The House bill says the GAO “may” post the names of recipients of Fed emergency loans where the Senate bill requires the GAO to do so. The Senate measure instructs the GAO to look into conflicts of interest at the Fed, while the House bill doesn’t provide any such instructions.

The measure has the backing of senators with wide-ranging political backgrounds, including Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. It seeks to make clear that the audits won’t interfere with the Fed’s monetary policy.

Backers pointed out that no scrutiny would be placed on transcripts and minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings, through which the central bank sets policy on interest rates.

“We should allow the GAO to audit the Fed since they have moved far beyond their traditional role of monetary policy,” said Grassley.

The Fed has argued that it would weaken its traditional independence and hamper its ability to protect the financial system. The central bank argues that institutions would be afraid to borrow from the discount window when they need to because they would be stigmatized as troubled firms, and the result would be a more troubled economic situation.
Next up: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The Senate is expected next to vote on a controversial measure introduced by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would end the government’s control of mortgage finance giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae within two years of the enactment of the overall bank reform legislation.

Fannie and Freddie have been under government control since September, 2008. The measure, which has broad Republican support, would cap the amount of assets held on the entities books to 95% of the mortgage assets it owned at the end of the prior year. The measure would also have the entities pay state and local taxes.

However, Dodd is opposed to the measure arguing it is reckless because it doesn’t provide any alternative structure for the entities.

Ronald D. Orol is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Washington.

###

See also:

Senate Rejects Vitter’s Audit the Fed Amendment 37-62

By RonPaul.com on May 11, 2010

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, put forward an amendment that would have mirrored Ron Paul’s tough Audit the Fed language, but the Senate rejected it today. The vote was 37 to 62.

Before the vote, Vitter appealed for support: “I urge all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to support both amendments to have full openness and accountability and transparency with all the protections that are included against politicizing individual Fed decisions.”

May 11, 2010 Posted by | Aletho News, Corruption, Economics | Leave a comment

EU Open to Iran Nuclear Talks

DPA | May 10, 2010

Brussels – The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Monday she was ready to give direct talks with Iran another chance, while warning that United Nations sanctions against its nuclear programme could be adopted “very rapidly.”

Turkey, which currently sits on the UN Security Council as a non- permanent member, last week suggested the EU could have another shot at finding a compromise with Tehran in order to avert new UN sanctions.

Speaking in Brussels at the end of regular monthly talks between the EU’s foreign ministers, Ashton said those sanctions were only “four to six weeks away.”

But she added that “if Iran wishes to contact me directly to propose that we have real discussions on the issue of nuclear weapons capability, (I would) be pleased to discuss that with my 3+3 colleagues and to move forward.”

The so-called 3+3 includes EU’s France, Germany and Britain, as well as Russia, China and the United States.

A spokesman said that during a meeting which followed on from the foreign ministers’ talks, Ashton asked Ankara’s top diplomat Ahmet Davutoglu to help arrange a meeting with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeid Jalili.

Davutoglu later told reporters that after meeting Ashton and later speaking on the phone with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, he was “positive and optimistic.”

“Our efforts will continue in the coming days and I hope that these diplomatic efforts will help to solve the problem without having to resort to any type of sanctions,” the Turkish foreign minister stressed.

Ashton’s predecessor, Javier Solana, negotiated with Iran on behalf of the 3+3 for years, but never succeeded in convincing the country to subject its nuclear programme to international scrutiny.Ashton, who took office last December, has so far not been asked by the six-country group to continue Solana’s work.

She stressed the negotiations could restart on the condition that they focus only “around the specific and only subject … of nuclear weapons for Iran.”

The EU’s foreign policy supremo said the international community is still following a “twin track” approach with Iran, meaning that it is open to dialogue while at the same time preparing for stronger sanctions if no positive signals came from Teheran.

“We are supporting the process at the (UN) Security Council on new restrictive measures. I believe a proposal will be adopted very rapidly,” she said.

“They are expecting to bring in some kind of resolution over the coming weeks,” she added. “So I anticipate we are talking about the next four to six weeks, though I can’t be certain at this stage.”

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said negotiations would continue throughout May at the UN to convince China, a permanent Security Council member with veto powers, to back the move.

“At the beginning of June, it will be possible to discuss a resolution,” Frattini indicated.

May 11, 2010 Posted by | Aletho News | 1 Comment

Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections

Left Claims Ban is “Patriotic”

By Jonathan Cook | May 11, 2010

The only three Arab parties represented in the Israeli parliament vowed yesterday to fight a decision by the Central Elections Committee to bar them from running in next month’s general election.

In an unprecedented move signalling a further breakdown in Jewish-Arab relations inside Israel, all the main Jewish parties voted on Monday for the blanket disqualification. Several committee members equated the Arab parties’ vocal support for the Gazan people with support for terrorism.

The decision follows the arrest of at least 600 Arab demonstrators since the outbreak of the Gaza offensive and the interrogation by the secret police of dozens of Arab community leaders. The three parties — the National Democratic Assembly, the United Arab List and the Renewal Movement — have seven legislators out of a total of 120 in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

The elections committee barred all three from putting up candidates for the Feb 10 election on the grounds that they had violated a 2002 law by refusing to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and by supporting a terrorist organisation.

Ahmed Tibi, the leader of Renewal, denounced the decision as “a political trial led by a group of fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs”.

A petition against the disqualification will be heard by a panel of Supreme Court justices this week.

Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Adalah legal rights group, which represents the Arab parties, noted that the disqualification motion had been introduced by far right-wing parties.

Such parties include Yisrael Beiteinu, which campaigns for the country’s 1.2 million-strong Arab minority to be stripped of citizenship.

“It is absurd that the committee is backing a motion from racist parties in the Knesset to exclude the Arab parties whose platform is that Israel must be made into a proper democracy treating all its citizens equally.”

The elections committee is composed of representatives from all the major parties. Although it has voted for disqualification of Arab candidates before, it is the first time both that the left-wing Labor Party has backed such a motion and that all the Arab parties have been included in the ban.

Mr Jabareen accused the right-wing parties of exploiting the war atmosphere. Labor’s secretary general, Eitan Cabel, called his party’s conduct in voting for the disqualification “patriotic”.

All the Arab parties have harshly criticised the attack on Gaza. This week Mr Tibi described Israeli actions as “genocide”, while Ibrahim Sarsour, of the United Arab List, said Israel was seeking to “eliminate the Palestinian cause”.

In the past, Arab Knesset members have also upset their Jewish colleagues by travelling to neighbouring Arab states, defying a change in the law to prevent such visits.

Following the vote on the ban, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, suggested his party had additional goals: “The next battle is making [the National Democratic Assembly] illegal because it is a terrorist organisation whose objective is harming the state of Israel.”

Mr Lieberman and other legislators have been hounding the NDA for years, chiefly because it is led by Azmi Bishara, an outspoken proponent of equal rights for Arab citizens. Israeli secret police forced Mr Bishara into exile two years ago, accusing him of treason after the 2006 Lebanon war.

During the 2003 election, when the committee barred the NDA and Mr Tibi from running, the decision was overturned by a majority of the Supreme Court. But few of the justices from that hearing are still on the bench.

“There are reasons to be fearful,” Mr Jabareen said. “The Supreme Court is also susceptible to the current war atmosphere and its authority has been greatly eroded over the past year. It has been forced on to the defensive over claims from the Right that its decisions support the Left.”

If the ban is upheld, some Arab representation in the Knesset is likely to continue. The joint Arab and Jewish Communist Party is allowed to stand, and the three major Jewish parties include one or two Arab candidates on their lists, though not always in electable positions.

Meanwhile, Israeli police admitted they arrested about 600 people involved in protests against the Gaza offensive, some of them for stone-throwing. Adalah lawyers said more than 200 people, most of them Arab, were still in jail.

“We’re talking about mass arrests,” said Abeer Baker, adding that Israel was exploiting a 30-day window before an indictment had to be filed to hold suspects without producing evidence.

In addition, the Shin Bet, Israel’s secretive domestic security service, has called in dozens of Arab leaders for interrogation. Ameer Makhoul, head of the Ittijah organisation, which promotes Arab causes in Israel, was detained last week. He said a security official who interrogated him threatened to jail him over demonstrations he helped to organise in support of Gaza.

“The officer called me a rebel threatening the security of the state during time of war and said he would be happy to transfer me to Gaza,” Mr Makhoul said.

Haaretz, a leftist Israeli daily newspaper, has called the interrogations “intimidation tactics to prevent legitimate protest”.

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

Shin Bet deports Spain’s most famous clown upon arrival in Israel

Ben Gurion Airport security officials detain Ivan Prado for six hours, accusing the Spanish entertainer of ties with Palestinian terror groups.

Barak Ravid | Haaretz | 09 May 2010

Ivan Prado, the most famous clown in Spain, did not expect to be put on a return flight back to Madrid soon after arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport late last month, after spending six hours with officials from the Shin Bet security service and the Interior Ministry. The officials accused Prado of having ties to Palestinian terror organizations.

Foreign Ministry officials, meanwhile, say the incident caused grave damage to Israel’s image in Spain.

Prado, director of the International Clown Festival in Galicia, arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on April 26 with a Spanish national of Arab origin. They planned to go to Ramallah to help organize a similar festival, but at passport control Prado was taken aside by a Shin Bet officer who asked him about his planned visit to the West Bank and about his connections to various Palestinian organizations. He and his female companion were held for six hours, during which they were questioned repeatedly, and their passports were confiscated.

They were sent back to Spain after an Interior Ministry official informed them that they would not be permitted into Israel.

After Prado returned to Madrid he launched a media campaign denouncing Israel and comparing the situation of Palestinians in the West Bank with Jews in Poland.

The incident sparked tension between the Israeli Embassy in Madrid and the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, prompted by questions to the embassy from Spanish journalists and fueled by the diplomats’ anger at the Foreign Ministry’s explanation that Prado was turned away at the airport “for security reasons.”

The Shin Bet issued a statement to Haaretz lacking significant details about the reasons behind the decision. “We recommended to the Interior Ministry to prevent his entry into Israel after the findings of the security check produced suspicions about him,” the statement said. “The man declined to provide complete information to the security people, especially in regard to his links with Palestinian terror organizations.”

May 11, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | 2 Comments

Israeli official says East Jerusalem building to continue

Ma’an – 11/05/2010

Bethlehem – Israel will continue building housing units in occupied East Jerusalem and its outskirts, an Israeli cabinet official said Monday, with no timetable announced to avoid derailing proximity talks, Israeli media reported.

Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio, cabinet secretary Zevi Houser said construction in the occupied part of the city “will start soon” and that “construction in Jerusalem is going on as normal.”

Houser’s comments contradicted recent Israeli government statements that a slow-down in construction, particularly in the East Jerusalem illegal settlement of Ramat Shlomo, would be enforced in a bid to encourage Palestinian officials to remain in US-brokered proximity talks, which were derailed in March when the settlement expansion was announced.

President Mahmoud Abbas called on US to respond to reports that another settlement in occupied Jerusalem was underway, defying alleged US guarantees that all settlement construction would be halted for the duration of indirect talks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson, Nir Hefez, told the Army Radio that “a timetable for construction in East Jerusalem will be arranged in order to avoid diplomatic embarrassment,” referring to Israel’s announcement in March during US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the region in a bid to kick start talks.

Meanwhile observers in the Jordan Valley reported dozens of trucks loaded with construction materials entering the illegal Israeli settlement of Nahal Maskyyot, followed by trucks full or workers building homes despite a government freeze on Sunday.

May 11, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »