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Israel shuts down Palestinian groups in Jerusalem

By Maureen Clare Murphy | The Electronic Intifada | 18 November 2011

The recent forced closures of Palestinian nonprofit organizations in Jerusalem are an example of the Israeli authorities’ continued attacks on the city’s Palestinian identity and their attempts to maintain control over occupied East Jerusalem, according to local human rights groups.

“The purpose is to control and undermine the role of Palestinian civil society and [its] efforts in Jerusalem,” Rashad Shtayyeh, the activities coordinator at the Civic Coalition to Defend Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), told The Electronic Intifada by email.

“Also, [this Israeli policy] tries to restrict anything that might help in protecting the Palestinian identity in Jerusalem, as a part of the Israeli Judiazation project in occupied Jerusalem,” Shtayyeh explained.

On 25 October, Israeli police presented closure notices to four Jerusalem-based organizations — Shua’a Women’s Association, al-Quds Development Foundation, Saeed Education Center and Work Without Borders — for a one-month period.

Given thirty minutes to leave

Dr. Nufuz Maslamani is the director of the Shua’a Women’s Association, a group that was founded in 2008 with the goal of empowering women in Jerusalem to achieve their social, political and economic rights. She told The Electronic Intifada that Israeli police gave volunteers at the association thirty minutes to leave their office before they locked the door.

“I said, ‘Why do you want to close it?’ I said that we are a women’s association and that we are working with women, with gender issues. [The police officer] said, ‘No, you are doing activities for the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP],” Maslamani explained.

“As always, they have a lot of reasons to close any association, to stop anyone who is working in Jerusalem. They continue their policy to make Jerusalem empty of the Palestinian people. This is their policy. That’s why they closed the association,” she said.

Maslamani said that the closure has already had a negative impact on the Palestinian women and children who take courses through the association.

“This is really a problem because we now have women who are taking computer courses, and other courses. These women feel that they have a purpose and that they can do anything,” she said, adding that she feared the one-month closure order would be arbitrarily extended.

“The most dangerous thing is that the Palestinian people can’t live or do what is right for them. This is our right, to continue our lives in Jerusalem, as all women and people in the world.”

History of closures in Jerusalem

According to the Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), since August 2001, the Israeli authorities have closed approximately 28 organizations serving the Palestinian community in Jerusalem, including the Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) former headquarters in the city, the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce and the Arab Studies Society.

In 2009, the Israeli authorities also banned numerous Palestinian cultural and educational events scheduled to celebrate the declaration of Jerusalem as the “Capital of Arab Culture” for that year.

“The closure of these and other Palestinian institutions are part of a broader policy through which the Israeli authorities seek to stifle Palestinian development in Jerusalem and increase the strength of Israel’s occupation over East Jerusalem,” explained Shtayyeh. “These closures relate to the overarching policy that includes violations of housing rights, revocation of residency, and ultimately results in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem.”

Most Palestinians living in East Jerusalem have residency rights, not full Israeli citizenship, since they refused to take Israeli passports on principle shortly after Israel began occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

As such, Palestinian Jerusalemites have the right to live and work in Israel yet are denied other provisions that come with full Israeli citizenship. For instance, unlike citizenship, permanent residency is only passed on to a person’s children if certain conditions are met, including most notably proving that one’s “center of life” is in Jerusalem.

Since 1967, it is estimated that more than 14,000 identification cards have been revoked from Palestinian Jerusalemites, who have thereby lost their residency rights and the ability to live in the city.

Widespread attack on human rights groups

The Jerusalem-area closures come as the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is expected to pass two new bills that would make it harder for human rights groups in the country to receive funding from foreign governments.

On 13 November, the Israeli Ministerial Committee on Legislation voted in favor of two new bills. The first, officially known as the Associations Law (Amendment — Banning Foreign Diplomatic Entities’ Support of Political Associations in Israel), would bar human rights groups from receiving donations of more than 20,000 NIS (roughly $5,400) from foreign state entities.

The second bill, an amendment to the Israeli Income Tax Order, would make funding from foreign state entities to Israeli nongovernmental organizations subject to a 45 percent taxation rate. This is more than three times more than the taxation rate incurred by private organizations.

On 10 November, 18 human rights groups in Israel, including Adalah — the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Arab Association for Human rights, released a statement condemning the bills.

“This is not the first time Knesset members target foreign funding as a way to silence civil society and human rights organizations. The bills are a part of a calculated policy to silence voices of dissent and criticism and go hand in hand with attempts to restrict Israel’s judicial system, media outlets and activists,” the statement reads (“NGOs in Israel: Urgent call regarding severely restrictive funding bills,” 10 November 2011).

“A vibrant civil society is an essential part of a healthy democracy,” the statement adds. “These organizations promote transparency, public debate and accountability regarding government policy, and ensure essential protection of more vulnerable communities.”

According to the Mossawa Center, a group representing Palestinians in Israel, the bills would have the biggest impact on organizations working for the rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

“Many Israeli NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] do not receive funding from the Israeli government because of their work with the Palestinian Arab minority. They are forced to rely on foreign state entities, like the EU and European government-sponsored organizations, for a majority of their funding,” Mossawa explained in a statement (“The Mossawa Center calls on the international community to condemn bills that restrict funding for human rights organizations in Israel,” 16 November 2011 [PDF]).

“While the NGO bills directly hinder the ability of Arab and human rights NGOs to operate independently within Israel, right-wing organizations that violate international law by supporting settlements in the West Bank are not limited in the proposed legislation,” Mossawa adds. “Most right-wing organizations are funded by the state and/or foreign private donations, which the bills’ sponsors do not consider foreign interference. It is clear that the proposed legislation would conceal the state’s human rights violations and advance the government’s right-wing agenda without impediment.”

Protected under international law

In Jerusalem, CCDPRJ’s Rashad Shtayyeh explained that “East Jerusalem is incontrovertibly recognized under international law as an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory over which the Palestinian people are entitled to exercise their right to self-determination.”

Indeed, the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honor, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs.”

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also stipulates that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

In his email to The Electronic Intifada, Shtayyeh explained that these protected rights — as well as freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly — are regularly denied to Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

“We call upon the international Community, the United Nations and the European Union to take responsibility to uphold their obligations towards the protected persons under occupation in Jerusalem,” he said. “We demand that the international community obliges the Israeli government to refrain from closing the Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem.”

November 18, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Tested on Palestinians, Perfected on #OWS Protesters: Introducing the LRAD Sound Cannon

By Max Blumenthal | Al-Ahkbar | 2011-11-18

Yesterday, the New York Police Department deployed a strange new weapon against the tens of thousands of demonstrators who converged downtown for the largest protest in Occupy Wall Street’s two month history: the LRAD sound cannon. NYPD officers reportedly blasted Occupy protesters with rays from the LRAD cannon while they sang the American national anthem near Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park (photos here), establishing an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that lasted throughout the evening.

Designed and manufactured by the San Diego-based LRAD Corporation, which was formerly known as the American Technology Corporation, the Long Range Acoustic Device sound weapon is the latest innovation in crowd suppression technology. It is portable and powerful, capable of transmitting a focused ray of 140 decibels of sound at a crowd of people, generating painful cranial vibrations so profound ear plugs become useless. According to LRAD promotional material, the sonic weapon “provides military personnel with a powerful, penetrating warning tone that can be followed by clear voice broadcasts in host nation languages to warn and shape the behavior of potential threats.”

In June, LRAD sold $293,000 worth of its 100X and 500X sound canon systems to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The contract was part of Israeli Army Commander Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi’s investment in $35 million in suppression systems in anticipation of widespread unrest in the occupied West Bank that would supposedly be prompted by the Palestinian Authority’s statehood bid at the United Nations.

The Israeli Army has refined the use of LRAD systems on the civilian population of Palestinian villages engaged in the unarmed popular struggle against Israel’s illegal military occupation. Demonstrators in the village of Beit Ummar have been repeatedly assaulted by Israeli forces armed with LRAD systems, including on October 7, when the Israeli army used the LRAD to attack unarmed demonstrators protesting against the abuse and isolation of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

I first visited the Beit Ummar area in the spring of 2009, joining a group of international and Israeli activists as they protected the village’s farmers from fanatical Jewish settlers from the colony of Bat Ayn, who had repeatedly assaulted them as they attempted to work their fields. As soon as I arrived I witnessed a group of Jewish children from Bat Ayn charge down a hill while chanting, “Death to Arabs!” at the farmers.

In January 2011, settlers shot a Beit Ummar resident, 17-year-old Yousef Fakhri Ikhlayl in the head, leaving him brain dead. The settlers could not carry out their deadly violence without the protection of the Israeli Army, which invariably defends them while crushing unarmed protests in Beit Ummar with disproportionate force.

Beit Ummar has carried on its unarmed popular resistance struggle against impossible odds. The village has been severed in half by a settler bypass road, Highway 60, which occupied Palestinians are forbidden from traveling on. Numerous graves in the village cemetery were desecrated in order to build the Israelis-only highway. Not only are village residents surrounded by army pillboxes and preyed on by extremist settlers, they have been transformed into experimental gerbils in the global pacification industry’s laboratory of doom.

Having been tested on a defenseless, occupied population in Palestine, the LRAD made its grand debut in New York City yesterday, where local police forces targeted American citizens peacefully protesting against economic exploitation. The peculiar weapon system symbolizes the creeping Israelification of America’s local police forces and the Palestinianization of all who challenge the predations of a zero tolerant 1 percent master class.

As the blogger Ayesha Kazmi recently wrote to Occupy movement participants, “So welcome to the War on Terror. Your first lesson, if your views happen to counter the established narrative, expect to be dehumanised, then treated like a terrorist.”

November 18, 2011 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Has Anyone Seen Those Syrian “Deserters”?

Moon of Alabama | November 17, 2011

“Western” media are pushing the tale of Syrian Army defectors attacking Syrian security forces. Note that the only sources for these tales are “activists” in London and elsewhere.

I do not doubt that there are attacks on Syrian forces. I sincerely doubt that these are done by army defectors. Notice that these attacks started as early as April, more than half a year ago, at a time when no “western” media, despite the public evidence, wrote of armed rebellion at all, just of “peaceful protesters”. Only now are media reporting attacks by armed groups, but these reports are either fake or come without backing from any independent source:

Deserters from the Syrian Army reportedlycarried out attacks against the offices of the Syrian ruling Baath party in northwestern Syria on Thursday, a day after they claimed an assault on an intelligence base that Russia, Syria’s closest ally, said was bringing the country closer to civil war.The Syrian government did not mention either attack, which were reported by activists, citing the accounts of local residents, and their scale and effectiveness was not clear.

There has not been one bit of evidence that those who attack the Syrian forces are really army defectors. Any real army defectors would likely leave with heavier weapons and would be able to bring up more organized challenges than isolated road ambushes and a few shots against official buildings.

I find it much more likely that the attacks, if they happened at all, were committed by Sunni Syrians loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood or to the exiled former Baath functionaries Abdul Halim Khaddam and Rifaat al-Assad and under the tutelage of Qatari or Jordanian special forces. This of course with U.S. and Israeli support.

It increases the chance for a successful rebellion but I still regard that chance as quite small.

November 18, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Leave a comment

Iran raps IAEA for divulging names

Press TV – November 18, 2011

The Iranian envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has denounced the nuclear supervisory body for publicizing the names of Iran’s nuclear scientists, Press TV reports.

“The release of the names of the Iranian nuclear scientists by the agency has made them targets for assassination by terrorist groups as well as the Israeli regime and the US intelligence services,” Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh said in a letter to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano.

Soltaniyeh argued that disclosing the names of Iranian experts is a violation of the agency’s statute and the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.

Iran’s IAEA ambassador also described the agency’s report as politically-motivated and noted that Tehran reserves the right to seek consequential damages for any possible harm inflicted upon persons or property.

On November 8, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano released a report claiming that Iran had engaged in activities related to developing nuclear weapons before 2003, adding that these activities “may still be ongoing.”

Iran has dismissed Amano’s latest report on its nuclear program as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”

Several Iranian scientists have been assassinated since 2007, including Massoud Ali-Mohammadi and Majid Shahriari.

Professor Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, was killed by a booby-trapped motorbike in the Iranian capital in January 2010. The bombing took place near the professor’s home in the Qeytariyeh neighborhood of northern Tehran.

On November 29, 2010, unidentified terrorists attached bombs to the vehicles of Iranian university professors Majid Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi and detonated them. Professor Shahriari was killed immediately, but Dr. Abbasi and his wife sustained minor injuries and were rushed to hospital.

On December 2, 2010, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that the Mossad, the CIA, and the MI6 all played a role in those attacks.

November 18, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Non-Aligned Movement supports Iran’s nuclear rights

Press TV – November 18, 2011

Logo of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has stressed its support for Tehran’s nuclear rights following the release of the recent International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on Iran’s activities.

Iran has fully cooperated with the IAEA to dispel concerns over its nuclear activities, a NAM statement read on Friday.

The support comes on the heels of a November 8, IAEA report that claimed Iran had engaged in activities related to developing nuclear weapons before 2003 and that these activities “may still be ongoing.”

Iran has dismissed the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”

The 120 member states of NAM also urged against any pressure from third parties on the UN nuclear agency as it compromises the credibility of the IAEA, Press TV reported.

NAM further called for creating a nuclear-arms free zone in the Middle East, urging that an agreement must be signed by world nations under which any attack on nuclear facilities is banned.

The US, Israel and their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to convince the UN Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran.

This is while Israel, which is widely believed to possess over 300 atomic warheads, recently test-fired a new long-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. The three-stage Jericho-3 missile, capable of delivering a 750-kilo warhead, is estimated to have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers.

Tehran has categorically refuted the Western allegations, saying that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it has the right to acquire and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

November 18, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Hunger threatens millions in Afghanistan

Press TV – November 18, 2011

Aid agencies have warned that starvation threatens the lives of millions of people in Afghanistan in the aftermath of a widespread drought ahead of harsh winter weather.

A group of nine charity organizations warned on Friday that up to three million Afghans are facing hunger, malnutrition and disease following a severe drought that ruined their crops, Reuters reported.

Poor rains earlier this year destroyed 80 percent of wheat crops in the north Afghanistan, northeast and west of the country, facing the impoverished farmers with food shortages, the charities stated.

The group, which included Oxfam and Save the Children, also expressed concern that extreme winter weather would add to the Afghans’ plight, cutting off their access to vital food aid.

“Villagers are telling us that this year the drought has destroyed everything. Their food stocks are already low, and they are worried about how they will get through the coming months,” Oxfam’s country director Manohar Shenoy said in a statement.

“Time is running out to be able to provide communities with the help they most desperately need before a harsh winter makes many areas inaccessible. Snow is already falling and many mountainous areas are likely to be cut off within weeks,” he warned.

The pinch of starvation, as a heavy winter looms, has forced Afghan families to cut down on meals, migrate to neighboring Pakistan and Iran or borrow money to buy food. Schools have closed as more children have to work.

In October, the United Nations made an appeal for $142 million to help Afghanistan fight the drought crisis that has hit 14 of the country’s 34 provinces, but international donors have so far failed to fund more than seven percent of the required sum.

“Families are facing being cut off for winter without enough food and clean water,” said David Skinner, Save the Children’s Afghanistan country director.

Skinner warned that if aid efforts were not increased, children could die of hunger and the already high malnutrition levels in Afghanistan.

November 18, 2011 Posted by | Economics | Leave a comment

Israel Eyes Strong Ties with East African States

Al-Manar | November 18, 2011

Israel is looking at Africa’s east as an important strategic interest, and trying to step up ties with nations in the region under the name of “controlling the spread of Islamic extremists”.

The Associated Press reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosted the leaders of Uganda and Kenya earlier this week.

The Kenyan leader has said that the Zionist entity has promised to provide ‘security assistance’ to his country to help protect its borders.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said Netanyahu promised to help build “a coalition against fundamentalism,” bringing together the countries Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Tanzania. The African country also has said Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, has told him Israel is ready to make “everything available to Kenya” for internal security.

For the Israeli part, Netanyahu’s office refuses to comment on Odinga’s claims, while Peres’ office suggests the Kenyan leader has gone too far.

An official in the Peres’ office says he has boasted that Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world regarding homeland security and would be happy to share its expertise with any country fighting “global terror.” But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity says no specifics have been discussed.

Another Israeli official says an alliance with Kenya and other eastern African countries is natural.

An agency quotes Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev as saying: “We have joint interests and we believe that mutual cooperation can be beneficial to us all”.

Uganda and Kenya have been battling al-Shabab, a Somalia-based ‘al-Qaeda’ linked group.

According to AP, the Zionist entity also has intentions to build strong ties with the newly liberated South Sudan whose president has held a meeting with Netanyahu at the United Nations in September.

In Israel’s eyes, eastern Africa poses a potential hinterland where ‘al-Qaeda’ and other militants can potentially forge ties with similarly minded groups just to the north in Egypt and Gaza. Israeli officials already believe that Sudan is a pathway for smugglers providing weapons to militants in Gaza and the Sinai, and that ‘al-Qaeda’ linked groups in Egypt have been behind a deadly cross-border raid in August that killed eight Israelis.

The Zionist entity already has military ties with several African countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania and the Ivory Coast.

Relations with Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan have not yet reached that stage, though Israel’s “Defense” Ministry has given clearance for private Israeli security firms to operate in those nations, including some arms sales. Israeli defense officials say intelligence sharing is limited to a few close allies at this stage.

“The Ministry of Defense has excellent relations with a number of friendly nations in Africa, especially internal security and counterterrorism,” an official said, refusing to elaborate. He was not allowed to be identified under ministry regulations.

Israel has a long history of involvement in Africa, sending experts in agriculture and development, as well as military advisers and mercenaries, over the years.

November 18, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rebellion in the Air: Quan’s Quackery and Bloomberg’s Bullshit

By Dave Lindorff | This Can’t Be Happening | November 17, 2011

New York — The scripted excuses provided by mayors around the country to justify their police-state tactics in rousting peaceful occupation movement activists from their park-based demonstrations now stand exposed as utter nonsense, and, given their uncanny similarity in wording, can be clearly seen as having been drawn up for them by some hidden hands in Washington. the same can be said of the brutal tactics used.

If Mayor Jean Quan in Oakland, or Mayor Mike Bloomberg in New York, had been genuinely concerned about the health and well-being of the people in the encampments in their cities, they would not have dispatched police suited up in riot gear and armed with pepper spray and big clubs into the camps in the dead of night, as each did, and as other mayors are doing. They would not have used tear gas and guns firing projectiles like so called “bean bags” and rubber coated bullets, as police in Oakland reportedly did on several occasions — weapons that can cause severe injury and even death on occasion, especially when fired at close range.

They would not have stormed encampments that are known to have pregnant women, children and even babies living in them.

Rather, they would have come in during broad daylight, peacefully, and accompanied by health inspectors and other personnel who could to try to help solve any problems.

In Bloomberg’s case, if he really cared about the safety and well-being of the protesters, he would have long ago had the city set up a bank of port-a-potties near Zuccotti Park, so protesters could relieve themselves without having to foul the streets. And he would certainly not have barred demonstrators from setting up tents, forcing people, in increasingly harsh weather, including one heavy unseasonal snowstorm, to survive under plastic tarps laid on the cold flagstones over their sleeping bags.

If public safety were seriously an issue, as Quan, Bloomberg and the other mayors have also tried to claim, police would have been told not to direct vagrants and people with mental problems from around the city to head for Zuccotti Square, as New York’s Police Department was caught doing. Instead of acting like thugs and an occupying force penning in demonstrators, police would have worked out a coordinated system with demonstrators to help protect those in the park from any sexual predators or mentally unbalanced persons who might have entered the park to cause trouble.

Actually, the regions in and around the encampments have never been safer than they are now with all those demonstrators on hand. Take Center City in Philadelphia. The area on Dilworth Plaza and around City Hall has always been a scary place to find one’s self alone at night because so few people actually live there, making lone pedestrians up on the street or down in the tunnels of the train station or subways easy targets for muggers, rapists and thieves. The same is certainly also true of downtown Oakland and of New York’s financial district. If there have been crimes committed by people in the encampments, they are few and far between and mostly minor, and it is almost a certainty that overall crime and especially violent crime is down significantly in the areas where the protests are being staged.

There can be no real justification for the growing number of paramilitary police assaults against the occupation camps.

These coordinated assaults on the Occupation Movement are clearly happening not for the reasons stated, but because the ruling elites, particularly the powerful bankers and financiers on Wall Street, and the Obama administration in Washington, are frightened by the growing popularity of the protests, by the movement’s rapid spread to cities across the country, large and small, and to the resonance that chants like “We’re the 99 percent!” and “Banks got bailouts! We got sold out!” are having among the general population of the United States.

Bloomberg and Quan, and the mayors of other cities from Atlanta to Dallas to Portland to Seattle and back to Boston who have been unleashing their police forces on peaceful protesters in their jurisdictions, have been doing the movement a great favor by brutally attacking protesters’ right to demonstrate and present their grievances. The corporate media, which at first tried to ignore the occupations, have had to cover the assaults — even if they misreport them. And the images of idealistic young people being thrown on the ground, hammered with batons, and sprayed in the face with pepper spray, are deeply upsetting to most ordinary people. Workers are increasingly angered and aroused, and many are touched by the support for their struggles being manifested by the young student demonstrators.

And importantly, the enemy of the public is being given a face.

No longer is it just a bunch of unidentified and overly aggressive cops. Now it’s clear that it is the mayors, and whoever it is in the background who is giving them their marching orders, who are instructing the cops to go in and bust heads.

Mayor Bloomberg — a man reportedly worth $19.5 billion, up a staggering $1.5 billion over the last year while other Americans are becoming poorer — is in fact the perfect symbol of what is wrong with today’s America. Having this greedy “one per center” issue the marching orders to the police in New York makes it absolutely clear what this repression is about.

With this wave of assaults, the Occupation Movement is being forced to shift gears — to move out of the cramped spaces to which it has been confined and to become an uprising for economic justice, instead of just an occupation as an act of protest. Zuccotti has been reoccupied, but the movement is busting out of the police barricades that surround the square.

Perhaps a group of young musicians standing on a street corner at 66th and Broadway just off Lincoln Square in New York City, just off Lincoln Square in New York City, doing a “mic check” routine at 11 pm the evening after the police assault on Zuccotti Plaza, said it best with their sign, which read: “Nostalgia for the Student Protests of the Past Dies Here!”

The ’60s are over. It’s the ’10s now and rebellion is in the air.

November 17, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Dricks’ Nuclear Tricks

Half a Country and Half a World Away

By RUSSELL D. HOFFMAN | CounterPunch | November 17, 2011

Victor Dricks is up to his usual tricks.

Dricks is the Region IV Public Affairs Officer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).  He’s based in Arlington, Texas, nearly 1500 miles away from Southern California.  Half a country, and half a world away…

On Saturday the North County Times (nctimes.com ) published a commentary by Roger Johnson, asking for IMMEDIATE shutdown of San Onofre Nuclear Waste Generating Station. He got IMMEDIATE action:  On Monday the NC Times published Victor Dricks’ response!  Somehow he had heard about Roger Johnson’s commentary and must have worked weekends to counter it.  I wonder if he collected overtime pay or just comp time for his efforts?

At any rate, congratulations, Roger Johnson!  You’re scaring them!

Below … Roger Johnson’s excellent follow-up to Dricks’ drivel.

Our reactors can explode, just like theirs did.  Our spent fuel can burn, just like theirs did.

In fact, what happened at Fukushima Dai-ichi isn’t over, isn’t as bad as it can get, and isn’t being fully reported!  A recent busload of reporters, finally let in to “see” the plant for the first time since the accident, weren’t allowed off the bus, even though they were each dressed in full-body protective hazmat suits, to add to the 480,000 hazmat suits used so far at Fukushima Dai-ichi.

The NRC would have you, the public, FORGET FUKUSHIMA DAI-ICHI.  More than eight months after the tragedy, Dricks isn’t even close to spelling it right, and he won’t dare to give the NRC’s official estimate of how many people Fukushima Dai-ichi will eventually kill (cancer takes many years to develop).

Of course, the NRC doesn’t make such estimates.  It would be bad for business.

The NRC and the nuclear industry wants the public to think that our reactors, spent fuel pools, and dry casks are somehow less vulnerable, less dangerous, and better protected through better regulatory oversight than Japan’s were.

But it’s all lies.

Fukushima USA has nearly happened many times already:  At Brown’s Ferry in 1975, at Three Mile Island in 1979, at Davis-Besse in 2002, during an earthquake a few months ago at North Anna, from a tornado near Calvert Cliffs a few years ago, and so on.  It’s just a matter of time before a nuclear plant in America melts down, and there is a 2 in 104 chance it will be one of San Oofre’s and about a one in 25 chance it will be one in California — NOT counting any increased probability due to our nearby seismic faults and tsunami risks, or our aging/embrittlement issues, workforce issues, etc..  It assumes all other nuclear power plants are equally-poorly run, poorly built, poorly maintained, and have their own environmental risks that weren’t properly considered.  104 reactors.  104 mistakes.

The only way to significantly change the odds is to shut San Onofre down immediately and forever.  The longer the fuel has cooled, the safer it becomes, and the less of it we make, the less we have to protect and guard for millions of years.  Extremely toxic radioactive waste is created at San Onofre at the rate of about 500 pounds PER DAY.

Nuclear energy is a dangerous and costly mistake.  it can easily be replaced with cleaner alternatives.  Nuclear power is profitable for a select few, who use official mouthpieces such as Victor Dricks to lull the public into accepting the enormous and unnecessary risk nuclear power presents.

But Dricks’ lies can’t change the facts.  His resignation should be demanded by all citizens who want their paid servants to tell the truth.

~

Russell D. Hoffman lives in Carlsbad, California. He is an educational software developer and bladder cancer survivor, as well as a collector of military and nuclear historical documents and books. He is the author and programmer of the award-winning Animated Periodic Table of the Elements. He can be reached at: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

November 17, 2011 Posted by | Aletho News, Nuclear Power | Leave a comment

Police cracking down on media at OWS?

on November 17, 2011

Not only are police cracking down on the Occupy movement protesters but also on journalist. According to some reporters police have denied them access to cover the Occupy movement. In New York reporters with NYPD press passes are being physically removed from the scene and some even arrested.

November 17, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Video | Leave a comment

In case you don’t realise how dangerous the Israeli Lobby Is

By Gilad Atzmon | November 17, 2011

Israeli paper  Israel-Ayom reports today about a recent ‘Congressional bill’ that would require the “American administration to support Israel in a move deemed necessary to defend itself against the Iranian nuclear threat.”

Five Republican congressmen who visited Israel last week disclosed the bill.

The bill states an “expression of support for Israel’s right to defend its sovereignty and to protect the lives and safety of its citizens and use all necessary means to confront and eliminate the nuclear threat that emerges from the Islamic Republic of Iran, including use military force in the absence of other diplomatic means available in the near future.”

The initiator of the bill is Rep. Doug Lamborn (Colorado).

November 17, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Sanctioning Syria

The Long Road to Damascus

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | November 16, 2011

In 1996, an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, prepared “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” for incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In that seminal report, the Richard Perle-led study group suggested that Israel could “shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria.” Comprised mainly of American-based pro-Israel advocates, the group stressed, “Most important, it is understandable that Israel has an interest supporting diplomatically, militarily and operationally Turkey’s and Jordan’s actions against Syria, such as securing tribal alliances with Arab tribes that cross into Syrian territory and are hostile to the Syrian ruling elite.”

Although Netanyahu didn’t act on their advice at the time, Perle and two of his co-authors, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, found George W. Bush more receptive to “securing the realm” – for Israel – after September 11, 2001. Nine days after that “catastrophic and catalyzing event,” Perle signed a Project for a New American Century letter to President Bush, urging the United States to “consider appropriate measures of retaliation” against Iran and Syria if they didn’t “immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah” – whose presumably unforgivable crime was that it had “humiliated Israel by driving its army out of Lebanon.” Explaining the Bush administration’s subsequent decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Patrick Buchanan famously wrote in The American Conservative, “In the Perle-Feith-Wurmser strategy, Israel’s enemy remains Syria, but the road to Damascus runs through Baghdad.”

Notwithstanding Syria’s initial cooperation with the Israeli-inspired but American-fought “war on terror,” the Israel lobby ensured that there would be no long-term rapprochement between Washington and Damascus. A September 5, 2002 document, “Working to Secure Israel: The Pro-Israel Community’s Legislative Goals,” declared AIPAC’s intention to “sanction Syria for its continuing support of terrorism” by working “with Congress to pass the Syria Accountability Act.”

In October 2003, Representative Eliot Engel, who sponsored the legislation, proudly reported the bill’s imminent passage to the inaugural Jerusalem Summit, organized by Ariel Sharon’s government and its diehard American supporters (including the ubiquitous Perle) “to work out a joint strategy of resistance to the Totalitarianism of the Radical Islam, and to the moral relativism which in vain tries to placate this Totalitarianism by sacrificing Israel.” Confusing the ultimate target of the AIPAC-crafted legislation with Israel’s more southerly bête noire, the Jewish Democrat from New York informed the summit, “It’s no secret that the people on Lebanon’s southern border, the terrorists, Hamas, are wrecking [sic] havoc and causing all kinds of destruction and could be stopped tomorrow if Syria wanted it. This is Hamas, the group which blew up over 200 US marines. This is the group that goes out not only to destroy Israel, but would destroy the United States as well.”

With Iraq proving to be less of a “cakewalk” than America’s pro-Israel warmongers had breezily predicted, Syria managed to survive two Bush terms. The failure of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon to dislodge Hezbollah, however, added significantly to the impetus for regime change in Damascus. When Israel’s friends in Washington concluded that the Syrian corridor to Iran was “Hezbollah’s achilles heel,” Bashar al-Assad’s days were increasingly numbered. The Arab uprisings of 2011 provided them with their long-sought opportunity for “rolling back Syria.”

Writing in the Guardian, Alistair Crooke describes how the “great game” of “losing Syria” is currently being played out with the cooperation of the absolute monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the also predominantly Sunni secular Republic of Turkey; and France, arch-promoters of Libya’s NATO-backed “revolution” and Syria’s short-lived former colonial rulers, i.e. “set up a hurried transitional council as sole representative of the Syrian people, irrespective of whether it has any real legs inside Syria; feed in armed insurgents from neighbouring states; impose sanctions that will hurt the middle classes; mount a media campaign to denigrate any Syrian efforts at reform; try to instigate divisions within the army and the elite; and ultimately President Assad will fall.”

Enforcing those AIPAC-endorsed sanctions has been the happy task of the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Created in early 2004 after intensive lobbying by AIPAC and its associated think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the TFI unit has been aptly described as “a sharp-edged tool forged principally to serve the Israel lobby.” With David S. Cohen succeeding Stuart Levey as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in January 2011, a leading journalist on the Middle East was later prompted to call the position “a job which seems reserved for pro-Israeli neo-cons to wage economic warfare against Tehran.”

In recent days, Cohen’s TFI unit has been eagerly waging economic warfare against Damascus. Daniel L. Glaser, the Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing, has just completed a tour of Lebanon and Jordan to secure their compliance with economic sanctions against the Assad government. In Beirut, the U.S. Embassy announced that Glaser was pressing the authorities to “remain vigilant against attempts by the Syrian regime to evade U.S. and EU sanctions.”

In a recent policy alert, WINEP’s executive director, Robert Satloff, urged that “with the strategic opportunity of contributing to the demise of Iran’s premier Arab ally, Washington should be working overtime to act in defense of the Syrian people.” Considering the long road to Damascus pursued by Satloff’s fellow-travellers, it should be clear for which country regime change in Syria presents a “strategic opportunity.”

Maidhc Ó Cathail is a political analyst and editor of The Passionate Attachment.

November 16, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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