Secret Erik Prince/Blackwater Tape Exposed
By Jeremy Scahill | Rebel Reports | May 3, 2010
Erik Prince, the reclusive owner of the Blackwater empire, rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban journalists from attending and forbids recording or videotaping of his remarks. On May 5, that is exactly what Prince is trying to do when he speaks at DeVos Fieldhouse as the keynote speaker for the “Tulip Time Festival” in his hometown of Holland, Michigan. He told the event’s organizers no news reporting could be done on his speech and they consented to the ban. Journalists and media associations in Michigan are protesting this attempt to bar reporting on his remarks.
Despite Prince’s attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater. The people of the United States have a right to media coverage of events featuring the owner of a company that generates 90% of its revenue from the United States government.
In the speech, Prince proposed that the US government deploy armed private contractors to fight “terrorists” in Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, specifically to target Iranian influence. He expressed disdain for the Geneva Convention and described Blackwater’s secretive operations at four Forward Operating Bases he controls in Afghanistan. He called those fighting the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan “barbarians” who “crawled out of the sewer.” Prince also revealed details of a July 2009 operation he claims Blackwater forces coordinated in Afghanistan to take down a narcotrafficking facility, saying that Blackwater “call[ed] in multiple air strikes,” blowing up the facility. Prince boasted that his forces had carried out the “largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history.” He characterized the work of some NATO countries’ forces in Afghanistan as ineffectual, suggesting that some coalition nations “should just pack it in and go home.” Prince spoke of Blackwater working in Pakistan, which appears to contradict the official, public Blackwater and US government line that Blackwater is not in Pakistan.
Prince also claimed that a Blackwater operative took down the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W Bush in Baghdad and criticized the Secret Service for being “flat-footed.” He bragged that Blackwater forces “beat the Louisiana National Guard to the scene” during Katrina and claimed that lawsuits, “tens of millions of dollars in lawyer bills” and political attacks prevented him from deploying a humanitarian ship that could have responded to the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunami that hit Indonesia.
Several times during the speech, Prince appeared to demean Afghans his company is training in Afghanistan, saying Blackwater had to teach them “Intro to Toilet Use” and to do jumping jacks. At the same time, he bragged that US generals told him the Afghans Blackwater trains “are the most effective fighting force in Afghanistan.” Prince also revealed that he is writing a book, scheduled to be released this fall.
The speech was delivered January 14 at the University of Michigan in front of an audience of entrepreneurs, ROTC commanders and cadets, businesspeople and military veterans. The speech was titled “Overcoming Adversity: Leadership at the Tip of the Spear” and was sponsored by the Young Presidents’ Association (YPO), a business networking association primarily made up of corporate executives. “Ripped from the headlines and described by Vanity Fair magazine, as a Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier and Spy, Erik Prince brings all that and more to our exclusive YPO speaking engagement,” read the event’s program, also obtained by The Nation. It proclaimed that Prince’s speech was an “amazing don’t miss opportunity from a man who has ‘been there and done that’ with a group of Cadets and Midshipmen who are months away from serving on the ‘tip of the spear.’” Here are some of the highlights from Erik Prince’s speech:
Send the Mercs into Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria
Prince painted a global picture in which Iran is “at the absolute dead center… of badness.” The Iranians, he said, “want that nuke so that it is again a Persian Gulf and they very much have an attitude of when Darius ran most of the Middle East back in 1000 BC. That’s very much what the Iranians are after.” [NOTE: Darius of Persia actually ruled from 522 BC–486 BC]. Iran, Prince charged, has a “master plan to stir up and organize a Shia revolt through the whole region.” Prince proposed that armed private soldiers from companies like Blackwater be deployed in countries throughout the region to target Iranian influence, specifically in Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia. “The Iranians have a very sinister hand in these places,” Prince said. “You’re not going to solve it by putting a lot of uniformed soldiers in all these countries. It’s way too politically sensitive. The private sector can operate there with a very, very small, very light footprint.” In addition to concerns of political expediency, Prince suggested that using private contractors to conduct such operations would be cost-effective. “The overall defense budget is going to have to be cut and they’re going to look for ways, they’re going to have to have ways to become more efficient,” he said. “And there’s a lot of ways that the private sector can operate with a much smaller, much lighter footprint.”
Prince also proposed using private armed contractors in the oil-rich African nation of Nigeria. Prince said that guerilla groups in the country are dramatically slowing oil production and extraction and stealing oil. “There’s more than a half million barrels a day stolen there, which is stolen and organized by very large criminal syndicates. There’s even some evidence it’s going to fund terrorist organizations,” Prince alleged. “These guerilla groups attack the pipeline, attack the pump house to knock it offline, which makes the pressure of the pipeline go soft. they cut that pipeline and they weld in their own patch with their own valves and they back a barge up into it. Ten thousand barrels at a time, take that oil, drive that 10,000 barrels out to sea and at $80 a barrel, that’s $800,000. That’s not a bad take for organized crime.” Prince made no mention of the nonviolent indigenous opposition to oil extraction and pollution, nor did he mention the notorious human rights abuses connected to multinational oil corporations in Nigeria that have sparked much of the resistance.
Blackwater and the Geneva Convention
Prince scornfully dismissed the debate on whether armed individuals working for Blackwater could be classified as “unlawful combatants” who are ineligible for protection under the Geneva Convention. “You know, people ask me that all the time, ‘Aren’t you concerned that you folks aren’t covered under the Geneva Convention in [operating] in the likes of Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan? And I say, ‘Absolutely not,’ because these people, they crawled out of the sewer and they have a 1200 AD mentality. They’re barbarians. They don’t know where Geneva is, let alone that there was a convention there.”
It is significant that Prince mentioned his company operating in Pakistan given that Blackwater, the US government and the Pakistan government have all denied Blackwater works in Pakistan.
Taking Down the Iraqi Shoe Thrower for the ‘Flat-Footed’ Secret Service
Prince noted several high-profile attacks on world leaders in the past year, specifically a woman pushing the Pope at Christmas mass and the attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, saying there has been a pattern of “some pretty questionable security lately.” He then proceeded to describe the feats of his Blackwater forces in protecting dignitaries and diplomats, claiming that one of his men took down the Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at President Bush in Baghdad in December 2008. Prince referred to al-Zaidi as the “shoe bomber:”
“A little known fact, you know when the shoe bomber in Iraq was throwing his shoes at President Bush, in December 08, we provided diplomatic security, but we had no responsibility for the president’s security—that’s always the Secret Service that does that. We happened to have a guy in the back of the room and he saw that first shoe go and he drew his weapon, got a sight picture, saw that it was only a shoe, he re-holstered, went forward and took that guy down while the Secret Service was still standing there flat-footed. I have a picture of that—I’m publishing a book, so watch for that later this fall—in which you’ll see all the reporters looking, there’s my guy taking the shoe thrower down. He didn’t shoot him, he just tackled him, even though the guy was committing assault and battery on the president of the United States. I asked a friend of mine who used to run the Secret Service if they had a written report of that and he said the debrief was so bad they did not put it in writing.”
While the Secret Service was widely criticized at the time for its apparent inaction during the incident, video of the event clearly showed another Iraqi journalist, not security guards, initially pulling al-Zaidi to the floor. Almost instantly thereafter, al-Zaidi was swarmed by a gang of various, unidentified security agents.
Blackwater’s ‘Forward Operating Bases
Prince went into detail about his company’s operations in Afghanistan. Blackwater has been in the country since at least April 2002, when the company was hired by the CIA on a covert contract to provide the Agency with security. Since then, Blackwater has won hundreds of millions of dollars in security, counter-narcotics and training contracts for the State Department, Defense Department and the CIA. The company protects US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and other senior US officials, guards CIA personnel and trains the Afghan border police. “We built four bases and we staffed them and we run them,” Prince said, referring to them as Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). He described them as being in the north, south, east and west of Afghanistan. “Spin Boldak in the south, which is the major drug trans-shipment area, in the east at a place called FOB Lonestar, which is right at the foothills of Tora Bora mountain. In fact if you ski off Tora Bora mountain, you can ski down to our firebase,” Prince said, adding that Blackwater also has a base near Herat and another location. FOB Lonestar is approximately 15 miles from the Pakistan border. “Who else has built a [Forward Operating Base] along the main infiltration route for the Taliban and the last known location for Osama bin Laden?” Prince said earlier this year.
Blackwater’s War on Drugs
Prince described a Narcotics Interdiction Unit Blackwater started in Afghanistan five years ago that remains active. “It is about a 200 person strike force to go after the big narcotics traffickers, the big cache sites,” Prince said. “That unit’s had great success. They’ve taken more than $3.5 billion worth of heroin out of circulation. We’re not going after the farmers, but we’re going after the traffickers.” He described an operation in July 2009 where Blackwater forces actually called in NATO air strikes on a target during a mission:
“A year ago, July, they did the largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history, down in the south-east. They went down, they hit five targets that our intel guys put together and they wound up with about 12,000 pounds of heroin. While they were down there, they said, ‘You know, these other three sites look good, we should go check them out.’ Sure enough they did and they found a cache—262,000 kilograms of hash, which equates to more than a billion dollars street value. And it was an industrialized hash operation, it was much of the hash crop in Helmand province. It was palletized, they’d dug ditches out in the desert, covered it with tarps and the bags of powder were big bags with a brand name on it for the hash brand, palletized, ready to go into containers down to Karachi [Pakistan] and then out to Europe or elsewhere in the world. That raid alone took about $60 million out of the Taliban’s coffers. So, those were good days. When the guys found it, they didn’t have enough ammo, enough explosives, to blow it, they couldn’t burn it all, so they had to call in multiple air strikes. Of course, you know, each of the NATO countries that came and did the air strikes took credit for finding and destroying the cache.”
December 30, 2009 CIA Bombing in Khost
Prince also addressed the deadly suicide bombing on December 30 at the CIA station at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. Eight CIA personnel, including two Blackwater operatives, were killed in the bombing, which was carried out by a Jordanian double-agent. Prince was asked by an audience member about the “failure” to prevent that attack. The questioner did not mention that Blackwater was responsible for the security of the CIA officials that day, nor did Prince discuss Blackwater’s role that day. Here is what Prince said:
“You know what? It is a tragedy that those guys were killed but if you put it in perspective, the CIA has lost extremely few people since 9/11. We’ve lost two or three in Afghanistan, before that two or three in Iraq and, I believe, one guy in Somalia—a landmine. So when you compare what Bill Donovan and the OSS did to the Germans and the Japanese, the Italians during World War II—and they lost hundreds and hundreds of people doing very difficult, very dangerous work—it is a tragedy when you lose people, but it is a cost of doing that work. It is essential, you’ve got to take risks. In that case, they had what appeared to be a very hot asset who had very relevant, very actionable intelligence and he turned out to be a bad guy… That’s what the intelligence business is, you can’t be assured success all the time. You’ve got to be willing to take risks. Those are calculated risks but sometimes it goes badly. I hope the Agency doesn’t draw back and say, ‘Oh, we have to retrench and not do that anymore,’ all the rest. No. We need you to double down, go after them harder. That is a cost of doing business. They are there to kill us.”
Prince to Some NATO Countries in Afghanistan: ‘Go Home’
Prince spoke disparagingly of some unnamed NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan, saying they do not have the will for the fight. “Some of them do and a lot of them don’t,” he said. “It is such a patchwork of different international commitments as to what some can do and what some can’t. A lot of them should just pack it in and go home.” Canada, however, received praise from Prince. “The Canadians have lost per capita more than America has in Afghanistan. They are fighting and they are doing it and so if you see a Canadian thank them for that. The politicians at home take heavies for doing that,” Prince said. He did not mention the fact that his company was hired by the Canadian government to train its forces.
Prince also described how his private air force (which he recently sold) bailed out a US military unit in trouble in Afghanistan. According to Prince, the unit was fighting the Taliban and was running out of ammo and needed an emergency re-supply. “Because of, probably some procedure written by a lawyer back in Washington, the Air Force was not permitted to drop in an uncertified drop zone… even to the unit that was running out of ammo,” Prince said. “So they called and asked if our guys would do it and, of course, they said, ‘Yes.’ And the cool part of the story is the Army guys put their DZ mark in the drop zone, a big orange panel, on the hood of their hummer and our guys put the first bundle on the hood of that hummer. We don’t always get that close, but that time a little too close.”
Blackwater: Teaching Afghans to Use Toilets
Prince said his forces train 1300 Afghans every six weeks and described his pride in attending “graduations” of Blackwater-trained Afghans, saying that in six weeks they radically transform the trainees. “You take these officers, these Afghans and it’s the first time in their life they’ve ever been part of something that’s first class, that works. The instructors know what they’re talking about, they’re fed, the water works, there’s ammunition for their guns. Everything works,” Prince said. “The first few days of training, we have to do ‘Intro to Toilet Use’ because a lot of these guys have never even seen a flushed toilet before.” Prince boasted: “We manage to take folks with a tribal mentality and, just like the Marine Corps does more effectively than anyone else, they take kids from disparate lifestyles across the United States and you throw them into Paris Island and you make them Marines. We try that same mentality there by pushing these guys very hard and, it’s funny, I wish I had video to show you of the hilarious jumping jacks. If you take someone that’s 25 years old and they’ve never done a jumping jack in their life—some of the convoluted motions they do it’s comical. But the transformation from day one to the end of that program, they’re very proud and they’re very capable.” Prince said that when he was in Afghanistan late last year, “I met with a bunch of generals and they said the Afghans that we train are the most effective fighting force in Afghanistan.”
Prince also discussed the Afghan women he says work with Blackwater. “Some of the women we’ve had, it’s amazing,” Prince said. “They come in in the morning and they have the burqa on and they transition to their cammies (camouflage uniforms) and I think they enjoy the baton work,” he said, adding, “They’ve been hand-cuffing a little too much on the men.”
Hurricane Katrina and Humanitarian Mercenaries
Erik Prince spoke at length about Blackwater’s deployment in 2005 in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, bragging that his forces “rescued 128 people, sent thousands of meals in there and it worked.” Prince boasted of his company’s rapid response, saying, “We surged 145 guys in 36 hours from our facility five states away and we beat the Louisiana National Guard to the scene.” What Prince failed to mention was that at the time of the disaster, at least 35% of the Louisiana National Guard was deployed in Iraq. One National Guard soldier in New Orleans at the time spoke to Reuters, saying, “They (the Bush administration) care more about Iraq and Afghanistan than here… We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, but almost all of our guys are in Iraq.” Much of the National Guard’s equipment was in Iraq at the time, including high water vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators.
Prince also said that he had a plan to create a massive humanitarian vessel that, with the generous support of major corporations, could have responded to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tsunamis across the globe. “I thought, man, the military has perfected how to move men and equipment into combat, why can’t we do that for the humanitarian side?” Prince said. The ship Prince wanted to use for these missions was an 800 foot container vessel capable of shipping “1700 containers, which would have lined up six and a half miles of humanitarian assistance with another 250 vehicles” onboard. “We could have gotten almost all those boxes donated. It would have been boxes that would have had generator sets from Caterpillar, grain from ADM [Archer Daniels Midland], anti-biotics from pharmaceutical companies, all the stuff you need to do massive humanitarian assistance,” Prince said, adding that it “would have had turnkey fuel support, food, surgical, portable surgical hospitals, beds cots, blankets, all the above.” Prince says he was going to do the work for free, “on spec,” but “instead we got attacked politically and ended up paying tens of millions of dollars in lawyer bills the last few years. It’s an unfortunate misuse of resources because a boat like that sure would have been handy for the Haitian people right now.”
Outing Erik Prince
Prince also addressed what he described as his outing as a CIA asset working on sensitive US government programs. He has previously blamed Congressional Democrats and the news media for naming him as working on the US assassination program. The US intelligence apparatus “depends heavily on Americans that are not employed by the government to facilitate greater success and access for the intelligence community,” Prince said. “It’s unprecedented to have people outed by name, especially ones that were running highly classified programs. And as much as the left got animated about Valerie Plame, outing people by name for other very very sensitive programs was unprecedented and definitely threw me under the bus.”
Obama Renews Sanctions on Syria for a Year
Al-Manar TV – 04/05/2010
President Barack Obama Monday renewed US sanctions on Syria for a year, accusing Damascus of supporting what he called “terrorist” groups and pursuing missile programs and weapons of mass destruction.
There had been no expectation that Obama would lift the measures, but the renewal came at an especially sensitive time in often tense US-Syria relations, despite efforts by the administration to return an ambassador to Damascus.
The United States has also recently accused Syria and Iran of arming Hezbollah with increasingly sophisticated rockets and missiles, which it says are undermining stability in the region.
Obama said in a message to Congress renewing the sanctions imposed by former US president George W. Bush in 2004, that the Syrian government had made “some progress” in suppressing the infiltration of foreign fighters bound for Iraq. But he added that its “continuing support for terrorist organizations and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
Obama also called on Syria to demonstrate “progress” in the areas that Washington says justify sanctions, to allow them to be lifted in future.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the risk of sparking a regional war if he supplies long-range Scud missiles to Hezbollah. “President Assad is making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region,” she told a pro-Israel group. Her remarks followed claims by Israeli President Shimon Peres in April that Syria was supplying Hezbollah with Scud missiles. But Syria has dismissed the accusations and warned Washington against taking Israel’s claims seriously.
Some US lawmakers have seized upon the accusations to argue against any rapprochement between Washington and Damascus.
In February, Obama nominated career diplomat Robert Ford as the country’s first ambassador to Syria in five years, but his appointment has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
Bush declared a national emergency regarding Syria on May 11, 2004, and imposed economic sanctions over charges it was a state sponsor of terrorism. They were extended in 2006, tightened in 2007 and renewed the following year.
Monday’s action marked the second renewal of the sanctions regime by Obama.
Israel’s Stasi watch over Imams
By Jonathan Cook in Jaffa | The National | May 4, 2010
Job interviews for the position of imam at mosques in Israel are conducted not by senior clerics but by the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, a labour tribunal has revealed.
Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajwa, 36, is fighting the Shin Bet’s refusal to approve his appointment as an imam in a case that has lifted the lid on Israel’s secret surveillance of the country’s Islamic leaders.
At a hearing last month, a senior government official admitted that 60 undercover inspectors were employed effectively as spies to collect information on Muslim clerics, reporting on political opinions they expressed in sermons and relaying gossip about their private lives.
Sheikh Abu Ajwa took his case to the tribunal after the Shin Bet rejected him three years ago as the imam of a mosque in Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, despite his being the sole candidate. He was told after a security clearance interview that his views were “extremist” and too critical of Israel, even though an imam is not officially defined as a security-related position.
“During one interview with the Shin Bet, they told me they had been collecting information on me since I was 15,” Sheikh Abu Ajwa said.
“I am the first imam ever to challenge the Shin Bet’s role in our appointments. It’s important to win a precedent-setting ruling from the courts to stop this kind of interference.”
Michael Sfard, a human rights lawyer representing Sheikh Abu Ajwa, said that, as far as it could be determined, no similar vetting of rabbis took place before their hiring.
“This sort of surveillance relating to a non-security position like an imam comes straight out of the era of the Stasi police in East Germany or the McCarthy period in the United States,” he said.
The traditional independence of the local Islamic authorities was removed at Israel’s creation in 1948, when the government confiscated almost all waqf property — endowments of land and property used for the benefit of the Palestinian Muslim community — removing the main source of income for clerics, the Islamic courts and charitable services.
According to experts, as much as a fifth of Palestine’s cultivated land was waqf property before 1948. Israel passed most of it to Zionist organisations like the Jewish National Fund or sold it to developers.
Responsibility for hundreds of mosques, cemeteries and other holy sites, meanwhile, was handed either to the religious affairs ministry or to Islamic boards of trustees appointed by the government.
Today, most imams and all Islamic judges must submit to a security clearance interview before being awarded a state salary.
Israel’s Arab minority, one fifth of the population, have long charged that many of its Muslim leaders are little more than government placemen, whose Islamic learning takes second place to their co-operation with the authorities.
Sabri Jiryis, a historian of Israel’s early years, has noted that the boards of trustees repeatedly rubber-stamped government decisions to sell off Islamic property to developers. Most notoriously Jaffa’s board approved in 1971 selling an Islamic cemetery in Tel Aviv on which the Hilton hotel was built.
Sheikh Abu Ajwa said: “In Jaffa, the government appointed many clerics because they had proved their loyalty, though not to other Muslims. They sold off our property — but you can’t sell what belongs to Allah.”
Jaffa, which was once the commercial capital of Palestine, today has a population of nearly 50,000 residents, of which two thirds are Jewish and the rest Muslim.
The sheikh has been preaching at the seafront Jabalya mosque, one of six in the town, since he was 19, making him reportedly the youngest person to serve as an imam in Israel’s history. He qualified as an imam at an Islamic college in the Israeli Arab city of Umm al Fahm in 1998.
The local community universally backed him as the new imam when his predecessor retired three years ago, but he cannot be officially recognised, and is ineligible for a salary, without the interior ministry’s approval.
As part of his application, he was interviewed by a Shin Bet officer named “Dror” who, he said, waved at him a folder of confidential information collected by undercover inspectors. “We will decide who is the next imam,” Dror told him, according to Sheikh Abu Ajwa. The sheikh was asked mainly about his political opinions and demonstrations he had attended.
The Shin Bet’s assessment, revealed to the tribunal, was that Sheikh Abu Ajwa’s appointment “may jeopardise security and peace in Jaffa”. In addition, the agency told the Haaretz newspaper that the sheikh “has had a long involvement in hostile activity, which manifested itself in incitement against the state and its Jewish citizens”.
Sheikh Abu Ajwa said this was a reference to his position as the leader in Jaffa of the popular northern wing of the Islamic Movement. Its leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, has raised the hackles of Jewish officials both by running a campaign warning of Israel’s intentions to take over the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and by promoting a boycott of parliamentary elections.
The head of the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, warned in 2007 that his agency’s role was to prevent any activities, including democratic ones, that worked against the interests of a Jewish state.
Yaakov Salameh, the head of the religious minorities department at the interior ministry, told the tribunal last month that his inspectors collected information on Muslim religious leaders, including rumours about their private lives, such as whether they had had an affair or beat their children. The information was then handed to the Shin Bet, which assessed whether they were suitable to be appointed.
Mr Sfard said it was an “extraordinary” admission, given that under Israeli law the criminal records of candidates for religious appointments could only be considered if the applicant agreed to the information being handed over.
David Baker, a spokesman for the prime minister’s office, which is responsible for the Shin Bet, refused to comment on whether the appointment of rabbis followed the same procedures as those for imams.
Sheikh Abu Ajwa observed that many rabbis, particularly those in the settlements, said “very extreme things but no one spies on them. In fact, they have full government support.”
He admitted he was outspoken in his sermons, but said he had never broken any laws and never advocated violence. “I talk about our Palestinian identity and criticise the policies of the state in its treatment of us as a minority,” he said. “These are very sensitive things that they want to prevent us from talking about.”
During one Shin Bet interview, he said, he had been told: “We know everything about you, we are always watching you.”
The goal of such interviews was often to recruit Muslim clerics to become informers themselves, he added.
Soldiers Level Mosque Near Rafah, Settlers Torch Mosque Near Nablus
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 04, 2010
Israeli soldiers invaded an area in Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, leveled the Al Dahniyya mosque and uprooted farmlands on Tuesday at dawn. Local sources reported that the mosque was leveled to the ground after several armored military vehicles and bulldozers invaded Rafah.
Also in Rafah, soldiers uprooted farmlands near the Yasser Arafat Airport east of Rafah. Several military bulldozers and armored vehicles bulldozed farmlands and opened fire at random in Al Dahniyya area. The vehicles, originally stationed at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) military post, advanced 800 meters into the area and placed sand hills.
Also on Tuesday at dawn, a group of fundamentalist settlers torched the main mosque of the Al Lubban Al Shariyya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. The settlers attacked the mosque approximately at 3 A.M., rounded up several copies of the Holy Koran in one place and set them ablaze. The fire caused excessive damage to the property of the mosque, including its ceiling, its fans and walls. Its 450 square meters of carpet and eight air conditioners were burnt also.
This is the third mosque to be torched by the settlers this year as the settlers torched a mosque in Yasuf village near Salfit and another mosque in Huwwara town, near Nablus.
Photo credit Maan Images/Wissam Nassar
###
Al-Manar TV
… According to the town’s mayor, Jamal Daragma, this is not the first time the village was targeted by settlers: “In the past they also smashed windows, uprooted olive trees, damaged houses and property. At least once a week settlers come in, riot and harm the village.”
The town is located next to three Israeli settlements: Shilo, Ma’ale Levona, and Eli. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli occupation army could not immediately confirm or deny the report.
On April 14, a mosque in Huwara near Nablus was desecrated by settlers who scrawled Hebrew graffiti and a Star of David over the walls. Two cars were also torched during the incident.
In December, settlers vandalized another mosque in the northern West Bank village of Yasuf, torching Muslim holy books and spraying hate messages in Hebrew. The incident triggered clashes between villagers and Israeli occupation troops. Israeli police arrested youths from the settlement of Yitzhar, but no one was charged.
Will Obama adopt a dangerously simplistic peace plan?
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 3 May 2010
 |
A peace plan brought to the Obama regime is hardly a “bold gesture.” Pete Souza/White House |
A new conventional wisdom is rapidly taking shape that the United States can resolve the 130-year-old conflict in Palestine by advancing its own peace plan. Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former US Congressman Stephen Solarz outlined such a plan in The Washington Post recently, and argued that President Obama could boost its prospects with a “bold gesture” — a trip, to Jerusalem and Ramallah in the company of Arab and other leaders to unveil it (“To achieve Mideast peace, Obama must make a bold Mideast trip,” 11 April 2010).
Strong supporters of Israel have pushed back that “imposing peace” would not work, but few Palestinian voices have been heard. Indeed, from a Palestinian perspective, this idea is dangerously simplistic, and more likely to deepen festering injustices and fuel, rather than resolve conflict.
The “comprehensive solution” Brzezinski and Solarz propose is nothing of the kind because the conflict cannot be reduced to a mere border dispute between Israel and a putative Palestinian state. They propose for example “a territorial settlement based on the 1967 borders, with mutual and equal adjustments to allow the incorporation of the largest West Bank settlements into Israel.”
This is deceptive; the West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute just 22 percent of historic Palestine between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, in which Palestinians formed the overwhelming majority prior to their expulsion and flight as Israel was created in 1948. Official Palestinian acceptance of the two-state solution was a concession unprecedented in the history of any nation because it involved surrendering the 78 percent of the country on which Israel was established. To demand that Palestinians further divide the remainder represents no compromise by Israel. It merely ratifies Israel’s systematic colonization of West Bank land since 1967 in flagrant defiance of international law.
The proposed “land swap” to compensate Palestinians for annexed Israeli settlements is illusory. The majority of the half million Israeli settlers are concentrated in and around Jerusalem — the heart of the would-be Palestinian state. Yet the lands that Israel might consider handing over in compensation are small barren tracts far away from population centers. If there are such lands that could compensate the French for Paris, the British for London or Americans for New York City, then there might be lands that Palestinians could accept instead of Jerusalem.
Even more devastating to Palestinian rights, Brzezinski and Solarz float “a solution to the refugee problem involving compensation and resettlement in the Palestinian state but not in Israel.” This they call “a bitter pill” but argue that “Israel cannot be expected to commit political suicide for the sake of peace.”
Palestinian refugees have an internationally-recognized legal right to return to their homes and lands, but Israel has always denied this on the sole grounds that Palestinians are not Jews. Thus Gaza, where 80 percent of the population are refugees, is essentially a holding pen for humans of the “wrong” ethno-religious group. Would Brzezinski and Solarz be so sanguine about accommodating Israel’s discriminatory character if its grounds for refusing the return of refugees was that they had the “wrong” skin color?
I write from downtown Pretoria, once the all-white capital of the South African apartheid state, which also argued that ending white rule would be “political suicide.” The notion that people of different groups cannot or should not mix is belied by the vibrant multiracial reality in the streets of Pretoria outside my window today.
And precedents for the actual return of refugees abound. Under the US-brokered 1995 Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnia war, almost half a million refugees and internally displaced persons returned home with international assistance, to areas that had become dominated demographically and politically by members of another ethno-national community — an enormous achievement in a country with a total population of 3.5 million and deep traumas as a result of recent war.
Other than Israel’s discriminatory aversion to non-Jews it is difficult to see why Palestinian refugees could not also return to their lands inside Israel, the vast majority of which remain uninhabited.
By endorsing Israel’s self-definition as a “Jewish state,” Brzezinski and Solarz not only ratify the violation of the fundamental rights of refugees, but consign another 1.4 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to permanent second-class status within an increasingly intolerant and ultranationalist Israel. A more likely outcome than “two states living side by side in peace” is that Palestinian citizens of Israel will come under increasing threat of expulsion to the Palestinian state — in other words, a new round of ethnic cleansing.
The vision of a truncated, demilitarized mini-state in no way fulfills basic Palestinian aspirations and rights and would bring no more peace or dignity than the bantustans which apartheid South Africa tried to establish for its black citizens to forestall and delay demands for equality and democracy. Nor would a trip by Obama do anything to revive shop-worn ideas that have gained little real support either among Palestinians or Israelis since they were first proposed at the failed Camp David summit in 2000.
Margaret Thatcher once said that partitioning South Africa to create separate black and white states would be like “trying to unscramble an egg,” and could lead to tremendous bloodshed. It is time to recognize that this truth also applies to Palestine/Israel and to seek political solutions similar to the one here, or the settlement in Northern Ireland, that embrace rather than attempt to deny diversity, equality and justice for all who live in that land.
Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.
Peoples’ Destinies at the Mercy of False Reports
By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban | May 3, 2010
The rumors spread by Israeli president Shimon Peres in his statement to Mossad-linked media outlets about a Syrian role in providing Hezbollah with Scud missiles and the official American reaction to these rumors bring to mind the spectacle of Colin Powell, who served under both war makers, Bush senior and Bush junior, in the UN Security Council in 2003. He held a small glass container and claimed in front of the whole world that biological weapons the size of that container would endanger the lives of millions, that there was no doubt that Iraq was deceiving international inspectors and that the United States’ patience with Iraq was over.
I recall Security Council meetings in February 2003, when the then French Foreign Minister, Dominique de Villepin made his famous speech in defense of extending the mandate of international inspectors. When former international U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix asked for six more months to complete inspections and provide the final findings to the Security Council. He gave evidence that Iraq was cooperating fully in facilitating inspections and affirmed that the mission was capable of completing its work in six months.
I remember how a number of European foreign ministers said, without the slightest sense of responsibility, that the system was no longer acceptable, even for days, that Saddam has been deceiving them for over twelve years and that the international community should put an end to that deception. I was in the Security Council hall hosting those historic meetings, looking at their faces and knowing that they were absolutely certain that they were mouthing lies and that they were using legitimate fear of nuclear weapons as a pretext to launch war on Iraq, destroy it and return it to the Middle Ages, as James Baker told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tareq Aziz in January 1991.
Here we are, more than seven years after those Security Council meetings, and after a devastating war in which Bush and his clique of neo-conservatives were responsible for killing over a million unarmed civilians in Iraq. Now that Powell has left the public stage and became capable of telling the truth about what he knew and believed then, he acknowledges that what he told the Security Council was not true. Some people see in this ‘a virtue’ indicating the greatness of democracy instead of bringing to account those responsible for fabricating those lies.
Now, days after Shimon Peres unleashed his lie, one of his ministers hastened to repeat Baker’s threats about Israeli attacks to destroy Syria’s bridges, roads, power generation plants and “returning it to the stone age”. The media also caught the lie and promoted it during the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington two weeks ago. The statement is a stark lie, and merits derision rather than a response. Scud missiles are tens of meters long; and every missile needs a huge truck to carry it. Moreover, a small country like Lebanon in whose airspace reconnaissance drones fly on a daily basis, cannot hide them. Moreover, technical experts know that launching a Scud needs time and effort and collective work which is not compatible with the type of battles in which Hezbollah engages in its defense of Lebanon against Israeli attacks.
The mere circulation of this lie raises doubts about its objectives. Without bothering to ask Israel to provide any evidence of its allegations, Assistant Secretary of State Geffrey Feltman said it would be an “incendiary, provocative action” if it turned out to be true; and that the United States has a “full range of tools” available to make Syria reverse any delivery of ballistic missiles to Hezbollah.
Two American representatives put forward a draft resolution to tighten sanctions against Syria. Representatives Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Mark Kirk, R-Il, known for their extreme hostility to Arabs, said in a statement that providing Hezbollah with these missiles “destabilizes the Middle East and is an existential threat to Israel and the independence of Lebanon”.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S expressed deep concern about reports of certain missiles being transferred to Syria and the possibility of then transferring them to Hezbollah. She saw in sending an ambassador to Syria “a tool that we believe can give us extra leverage, added insight, analysis, information with respect to Syria’s actions and intentions”. She pointed out Washington’s “long list of areas that we have discussed with the Syrians, and we intend to continue pushing our concerns” which include hosting Palestinian radicals and feeding the violence in Iraq. The statements of Clinton, Feltman and the two representatives are parrot repetitions of statements made by Netanyahu and other Israeli extremists about Syria without bothering about the possibility that these lies will be blown off in the future.
It is clear that the Scud lie and the parrot statements came to cover for the failure of the Obama administration to face the intransigent Netanyahu government which rejected all American calls to stop settlement or move towards just and comprehensive peace. At this particular time the Scud lie was fabricated in order to divert attention from the truth which has become abundantly clear: Israel is the only obstacle to peace in the Middle East. It also came to undermine the positive developments achieved in the Syrian American relations under the Obama administration. Sine Obama became president, and whenever he made a real and sincere effort to improve relations with the Muslim world through normalizing relations with Syria and defending justice in Palestine, the Israelis come out with a story either of ‘allowing terrorists to enter Iraq’ or ‘feeding Palestinian extremism’ or arming Hezbollah, in order to put an end to any real development of these relations.
The world realizes now that Israel is the enemy of peace in the Middle East. It promotes barbaric wars against the Arabs and prevents achieving any stability in the relations between the United States and the Arab and Muslim worlds. Extremist Israelis and their allies in the United States invent lies which lead to war and human suffering. They are responsible for tarnishing the image of the United States, shedding the blood of its soldiers and wasting its money on wars against the Muslim world. They are responsible for harming both the American people and the peoples of our region by promoting such naked lies.
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban is the Presidential Advisor for Political and Media Affairs with the Rank of Minister in Syria. She has been a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985. Before assuming her current ministerial position, Dr. Shaaban occupied the post of Director of the Press Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Syria. She received her PhD in English Literature from Warwick University in the UK in 1982 and joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an advisor in 1988. Since then, she has represented Syria as a spokeswoman on the international level. In 2005, Dr. Shaaban was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and in the same year, was presented with the ‘Most Distinguished Woman in a Governmental Position Award’ by the Arab League. Dr. Shaaban has published four books, and contributed to numerous others.
Iran wants US nukes dismantled
Press TV – May 3, 2010
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the United States should dismantle its nuclear bases around the world as a step to create a nuke-free world.
“Nuclear weapons stationed in military bases in the US and those in its allied countries such as Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands must be dismantled,” President Ahmadinejad said in an address before the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday.
“Those who used nuclear weapons for the first time in history are the most detested and disgraceful people in the world,” he said, adding that nuclear arms are “the most disgusting and shameful kind of weapons in the world.”
The United Sates, despite being a signatory to the NPT, is the “main suspect” responsible for the stockpiling, spread and the threatening of other nations with nuclear weapons, the Iranian president said.
Ahmadinejad noted that “possessing nuclear weapons is nothing to be proud of,” while criticizing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for adopting a double standard toward nuclear-armed countries and those seeking nuclear energy.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opening the nuclear non-proliferation review conference in New York, said the world expected nuclear-armed states to “act” on disarmament.
Ahmadinejad, who is the only head of state attending the summit, said world powers should set a deadline to create a nuke-free world, calling on the UN to rebrand the NPT as the “Disarmament NPT.”
The Iranian president, who described as “hazardous” the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons by world powers, criticized the United Nations for its inability to establish sustainable security for the world against nuclear weapons. He stressed that nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation have not materialized, saying that the US should be blamed for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. World powers, he said, should live up to their obligations under the NPT.
Ahmadinejad also provided a comprehensive resolution to strengthen the non-proliferation treaty:
– Nuclear disarmament should be put at the core of the NPT mandate through “transparent binding and effective mechanisms.”
– The establishment of an independent, international group to fully materialize Article 6 of the NPT; including planning and supervising nuclear disarmament and preventing proliferation.
“All these nuclear weapons should be eliminated within a timetable set by this group.”
– The introduction of legally binding, comprehensive security guarantees, without discrimination or preconditions until the achievement of full nuclear disarmament by nuclear-armed states.
– The immediate termination of all types of research, development or improvement of nuclear weapons and their related facilities.
– The adoption of a legally binding instrument on the full prohibition of production, stockpiling and improvement proliferation, maintaining and use of nuclear weapons.
– The suspension of membership in the IAEA board of governors for states that use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.
“The presence of such members has allowed the agency to deviate from conducting its authorized missions.”
– The secession of all kinds of nuclear cooperation with non-signatories of the NPT and the adoption of effective punitive measures against all those states which continue to cooperate with such non-member states.
– Considering any threat to use nuclear weapons or any attack on peaceful nuclear facilities as a breach of international law.
– Immediate and unconditional implementation of the resolution adopted by the 1995 Review Conference on the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
– Collective effort to reform the structure of the (UN) Security Council as its current structure mainly serves the interests of nuclear weapons states.
Al-Qaeda Terror Tape Proven Fraudulent Once Again
Paul Joseph Watson | Prison Planet | May 3, 2010
The announcement by New York authorities that there is no evidence to support an apparent claim of responsibility for Saturday’s attempted car bombing by a Pakistani based Taliban group underscores once again how Pentagon front groups are releasing fake and misleading “Al-Qaeda videotapes” in crass PR stunts to justify the expansion of the “war on terror” under Obama.
As soon as Fox News reported that “the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the bomb plot,” we smelled a rat, especially as the so-called video claiming complicity was released by the Pentagon front group SITE, founded by the daughter of an Israeli Mossad spy.
“A text in gold letters on a black background at the start of the video congratulates Muslims for the “jaw-breaking blow to Satan’s USA.” As the speaker recites the message, images of the slain militants referred to flash across the screen. English subtitles are provided at the bottom of the screen,” stated the report.
“If you were a real terrorist group who wanted to appear fearsome and mighty, would you really release a statement claiming responsibility for an “attack” that amounted to little more than a car full of fireworks that killed nobody, injured nobody, and was an abject failure?” we asked on Sunday. “This claim of responsibility holds about as much credibility as if Barney the Purple Dinosaur had made a video saying he did it.”
Indeed, the original Fox News story has now been significantly watered down after New York police, as well as Mayor Bloomberg, publicly dismissed foreign complicity in the botched bombing.
“Although a Taliban bomb maker has claimed on the Internet… we have no evidence to support this claim,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
“There is no evidence that this is tied in with Al-Qaeda or any other big terrorist organization,” Bloomberg told reporters at a press conference held in Times Square.
How were we able to predict that the credibility of the videotape would soon crumble? Because for the last four years we have documented how groups like SITE and the closely affiliated IntelCenter have been caught red-handed releasing old, re-hashed, and even outright fraudulent “terrorist confession tapes” and claiming them to be both genuine and new.
SITE is nothing more than a contractor for the U.S. government, receiving some $500,000 a year annually from Uncle Sam, the majority of which is paid for by U.S. taxpayers. The group was founded by Rita Katz, the daughter of an executed Israeli spy. Katz has worked closely with the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security.
SITE’s website content was found to be largely copied from the U.S. State Department. “SITE’s “Terrorism Library, on cursory investigation, looks to be a straight data scrape from the U.S. Department of State’s Patterns of Global Terrorism – 2003, Appendix B,” notes SourceWatch.
Everything about SITE indicates that it is nothing more than a dummy organization being used by the military-industrial complex to release staged Al-Qaeda videotapes as part of the ongoing propaganda offensive to justify the brutal, pointless and manufactured war on terror.
SITE miraculously were able to obtain the highly suspicious September 2007 Bin Laden video tape before it was released by the so-called Al-Qaeda group who had made it. A month before the release of this tape, SITE’s sister organization IntelCenter was caught adding its logo to a tape at the same time as Al-Qaeda’s so-called media arm As-Sahab added its logo, proving the two organizations were one and the same.
SITE has been positively endorsed by Blackwater USA, the infamous military contractor co-founded by former Navy Seal Erik Prince that was found to have been involved in several massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians.
SITE’s continued existence relies on fleecing the American taxpayer by way of contracts with the U.S. government and constantly invoking and hyping the hugely exaggerated threat of alleged Al-Qaeda groups in the Middle East.
Having been caught once again releasing a suspicious video in which Middle Eastern terrorists claim responsibility for something that investigators say they had no involvement in, Americans really need to start asking hard questions about why their tax dollars are being thrown at such a dubious outfit, not to mention how investigations into acts of terror are being confused and hampered by frivolous claims of responsibility that turn out to be baseless.
The fact that the corporate media still treats such videotapes with presumed authenticity, despite the fact that they have been proven fraudulent on almost every occasion, tells you everything you need to know about the role of the establishment press in propping up the mirage of the war on terror.
Of course, now that foreign involvement has been dismissed, it’s almost guaranteed that the amateurish botched bombing attempt in Times Square will now be blamed on “homegrown extremists” and used to increase the purge of any and all dissent against big government, bolstering efforts to censor and silence passionate but peaceful criticism on talk radio and the Internet, a move being heartily cheered by liberals who cried foul when they were called traitors for criticizing the invasion of Iraq under Bush.
Settlers devise new strategy to scare away Palestinian neighbors
By AMIRA HASS | Haaretz | May 3, 2010
Some settlers are employing a new strategy to get Palestinians evicted from their land in the northern region of the Jordan Valley, Haaretz has learned. A number of settlers, some of whom are residents of the Maskiot settlement, set up a “protest” tent next to a tent belonging to Bedouin herdsmen near Wad el Maleh, on private Palestinian land. Last Thursday, after the Palestinians complained to the civil administration, both the Israelis and Palestinians there were handed decrees declaring the area a closed military zone, signed by brigade commander Yochai Ben-Yishai.
The Israelis left, but so did the Palestinians, who had lived on the site for over 40 years. Security forces told Haaretz that although the military decree was short-term and was meant to prevent friction between the Bedouin family and the settler group, the Palestinians have not yet returned to their land for fear the settlers will return as well. Members of a committee for popular struggle in the Jordan Valley fear settlers will use the same method elsewhere, acting on the assumption that the authorities would only chase them off the land if it meant local Palestinians would be forced to move as well.
The family told activists from the Machsom Watch human rights group, who visited the site Tuesday and Thursday, that the settlers stayed up late at night and played loud music, and that the settlers’ dog was harassing their herd. They went to the local IDF District Coordination Office to complain, they said, but both the DCO representatives and soldiers who eventually came to the site told them that the settlers could stay there as long as the Palestinians did.
Activists from Machsom Watch told Haaretz that the settlers themselves told them as much, claiming their move was a “protest” because the Bedouin “can pitch tents wherever they like.”
Last Thursday, a large military, police and civil administration force arrived to deliver the closed military zone decrees to both campsites. Some Palestinian residents and popular struggle committee members who were present protested the decrees; one was arrested, as police claimed he attacked a settler. The activist, who denies the charges, was released on bail and ordered to appear in court within a month. By noon, the Palestinians had disassembled their tent and left for their winter campsite.
The IDF Spokesman’s Office issued the following response: “The two tent encampments under discussion were erected last week. None of the parties involved had well-founded claims to the land. In order to separate the parties and out of concern that lives were in danger, the brigade commander issued a closed military area order – but only for a 50-meter radius surrounding the site and for a few hours. After the order was issued, they left the tents on their own, without the use of force.”
Settlers take over Beit Safafa home
Ma’an – 03/05/2010
A Jewish settler squatting in a Palestinian home in Hebron in 2006 [MaanImages/Mamoun Wazwaz]
Jerusalem – East Jerusalem residents of the Beit Safafa neighborhood said Israeli police accompanied a group of settlers into the area Sunday night, where they took over a family home and set up dozens of flags overnight.
Witnesses described a moderate police presence entering the neighborhood south of the Old City. Officers reportedly entered the home and forced the two elderly residents to evacuate the building, after which at least a dozen settlers moved in.
Upon the eviction of the family, one man described, “the settlers started dancing in the yard,” and immediately began installing strings of Israeli flags around the building.
Muhammad Ibrahim Salah, resident of a nearby building and son of the man evicted on Sunday, said the eviction threatens the lives and livelihoods of at least 40 men, women and children who live on family land around the targeted building. He said the home is in the center of the family lands, where other buildings belonging to the family also stand. Sahal explained that he was worried about the fate of other buildings.
An Israeli police spokesman said he would look into the report.
On 28 April, residents said settlers evicted two elderly Palestinians from the Salah family, with an order issued by the Israeli High Court. It was not immediately clear whether the couple had moved back into the home, or if a second family was targeted.
Hajj Ali Ibrahim Salah, 99, and his wife Sheha Hassan Ali, 90, said they had lived in the home for their entire married lives, noting settler court action “started in 1993, when settlers first alleged that they bought the land where our house is built.”
The elderly man insisted that his late father bought the home with valid legal papers.
Ongoing antagonism
In October 2009, the Salah family reported being attacked by 12 settlers, though Israeli media reports at the time said the number was six while police said three.
Witnesses said the settler group pulled up to the home in a car, carrying an eviction order for the family home of Ali Ibrahim Salah and his children – the same home of the on Sunday night eviction.
At the time, Salah said the buildings sheltered 55 residents, 30 of whom were under the age of 12 and include his children, Ismail, Mohammad, Mahmoud, Ahmad. He said the settlers claimed they bought the homes from their Armenian owners.
An argument erupted as the settlers demanded the family get out of their home. One of the settlers, reportedly all in their 50s, was armed with a gun, and fired on the family members. Sources said between one and four Palestinians were injured.
The Israeli online news site Ynet said the middle-aged extremists fled the scene after the shooting, but were later found and arrested.
An Israeli police spokesman had a different version of the incident, saying, “Three Jewish people came to the home in Beit Safafa to deliver the eviction order to the family then fighting erupted. It seems one of the Jewish people opened fire with his personal weapon and injured one of the Arab residents in the hand… then the Jewish people fled the scene driving their car.”
PFLP: No US guarantees received by PLO
Ma’an – 03/05/2010
Bethlehem – No written or oral guarantees on a settlement halt have been received by the PLO from the US or the Arab Follow-Up Committee, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said Monday, prompting the group to call for an end to peace talks.
The movement’s Executive Committee further said no assurances were put forward as far as reference points for talks, making them a dangerous endeavor in which Palestinians had a lot to lose.
In its statement, the group called on President Mahmoud Abbas to “respect the decision of national consensus and refuse to bow to pressure,” and ultimately postpone talks until such assurances could be made.
The PFLP said US promises “made for the media cannot be taken seriously” and do not fall within the PLO’s decisions or national consensus on refusing to enter peace talks until a full settlement halt in land occupied by Israel in 1967 was achieved.
The decision by the Arab Follow-Up Committee to endorse entering talks “would only serve Israeli interests,” the PLFP wrote, adding that the movement rejects any decision to recommence negotiations with Israel.
Hamas calls move ‘cover for Judization’
Responding to a second report, this time in Israel’s English language daily The Jerusalem’s Post, Hamas official Salah Al-Bardawil called the PA agreement to return to peace talks a cover for Israeli to “Judaize” Jerusalem, and mistreat of Palestinian prisoners.
The report was based on a news conference hosted by Israel Land Fund founder Aryeh King on Sunday, where the builder told reporters that nearly 200,000 new Israeli-only housing units are tipped for construction in East Jerusalem.
“If Jerusalem doesn’t expand, and expand eastward, it will become the Gaza Strip,” King was quoted as saying by the daily.
A statement issued by Al-Bardawil said Israel’s practices in the occupied part of the city ensure that negotiations will “encourage Israel to commit more crimes against the Palestinians and their rights.”
Al-Bardawil further said Israel had “succeed in convincing [President Mahmoud] Abbas to press on with talks, which only lead to further land confiscation.”
Abbas announced on Sunday that the PLO endorsed re-entering US-brokered indirect talks with Israel, sanctioned a day prior by the Arab League during a Cairo summit convened to discuss the future of peace talks.
Featured Video
Marandi: US attacked world’s largest gas field & Iran declares economic war
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Why the UK, the EU and the US Gang-Up on Russia
By James Petras :: 03.20.2018
Introduction: For the greater part of a decade the US, the UK and the EU have been carrying out a campaign to undermine and overthrow the Russia government and in particular to oust President Putin. Fundamental issues are at stake including the real possibility of a nuclear war.
The most recent western propaganda campaign and one of the most virulent is the charge launched by the UK regime of Prime Minister Theresa May. The Brits have claimed that Russian secret agents conspired to poison a former Russian double-agent and his daughter in England, threatening the sovereignty and safety of the British people. No evidence has ever been presented. Instead the UK expelled Russian diplomats and demands harsher sanctions, to increase tensions. The UK and its US and EU patrons are moving toward a break in relations and a military build-up.
A number of fundamental questions arise regarding the origins and growing intensity of this anti-Russian animus.
Why do the Western regimes now feel Russia is a greater threat then in the past? Do they believe Russia is more vulnerable to Western threats or attacks? Why do the Western military leaders seek to undermine Russia’s defenses? Do the US economic elites believe it is possible to provoke an economic crisis and the demise of President Putin’s government? What is the strategic goal of Western policymakers? Why has the UK regime taken the lead in the anti-Russian crusade via the fake toxin accusations at this time?
This paper is directed at providing key elements to address these questions. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Allowing US to use UK bases amounts to participation in war: Araghchi
- Iran War Is Accelerating the End of US Dominance
- FBI Resumes Buying Americans’ Location Data Without Warrants
- IDF threatens ‘elimination’ for Russian leaders who ‘wish Israel ill’
- Attacks on enemy energy facilities not over yet, strikes ongoing: Iran
- US dragged by Israel into ‘unlawful war’ with Iran – Gulf state
- Israel’s War on Iran’s Grid: How the South Pars Strike Turned Energy into a Weapon
- War on Iran to impose trillion-dollar ‘Israel First Tax’ on US citizens: Araghchi
- The State Is Socializing the Cost Of the Iran War
- Seyed M. Marandi: U.S. Attacked World’s Largest Gas Field & Iran Declares Economic War
- If Americans Knew
- Trump: Israel attacked Iranian gas field without US knowledge. No more such attacks!
- America’s friends must help extricate it from an unlawful war
- Democratic Nat’l Committee’s Kneejerk Backing of Israel Is Political and Moral Failure
- Major revelations from former counterterrorism chief Joe Kent’s extensive interview
- More than half of Palestinian child detainees have no charges
- Grieving Parents in Iran Spend Every Night at the Graves of Their Children, Killed by U.S. Strike
- War on Iran spins out of control, Palestine struggles – Not a ceasefire Day 160
- How ignorance, misunderstanding and obfuscation ended Iran nuclear talks
- Israeli media reports grotesque settler attack in West Bank
- UK security adviser attended US-Iran talks and judged deal was within reach
- No Tricks Zone
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
- New Study: A Century Warming Of 1.1°C Is ‘Commonplace’ And ‘Not Unusual’ During This Interglacial
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
Aletho News 