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Israeli court rejects appeal of Palestinian hunger strikers

Press TV – May 7, 2012

Israel’s Supreme Court has turned down an appeal requesting the release of two Palestinian prisoners, who have been on hunger strike for more than two months.

According to their lawyer, judges on Monday ruled that their hunger strike was not a reason to release them from administrative detention despite their being in life-threatening condition.

Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla began refusing food on February 29 in protest to their administrative detention, a controversial practice used by Tel Aviv, which allows Israeli authorities to hold people, mostly Palestinians, without charge or trial indefinitely.

Diab has been in custody for nine months while Halahla has been detained since June 2010.

“I believe what the court is doing here is trying to break the will of both prisoners so they will back down in their hunger strike,” said their lawyer Jamil Khatib, adding that the two men, however, intend to “continue their strike to the end.”

“Israeli courts do not handle administrative detention in a positive way. It shows that the intelligence services have the final word,” he added.

The Israeli group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has condemned the court’s decision, describing it as “a death sentence” for both men.

An estimated 1,600 to 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, who began an open-ended hunger strike on April 17 to protest against Israel’s administrative detention rules, the use of solitary confinement, maltreatment of sick detainees, and difficulty in securing family visits and strip searches that are imposed on visitors.

According to an April 1, 2012 report published by the non-governmental Palestinian prisoner support and human rights association, Addameer, at least 4,610 “political” Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli jails.

Addameer figures show 322 of the Palestinian prisoners are administrative detainees.

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May 7, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Clinton urges India to cut Iranian oil

Al Akhbar – May 7, 2012

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a plea to energy-starved India on Monday to reduce its Iranian oil imports, as Washington struggles to get Asia’s economic powerhouses on board with its sanctions.

A US ban on Iranian oil is due to come into force at the end of June, with countries potentially facing sanctions if they continue to trade with the Islamic republic.

New Delhi has been hesitant to back the ban and is planning to trade in currencies other than dollars, therefore avoiding US sanctions.

Clinton told a town hall meeting in the eastern city of Kolkata that there’s an adequate supply in the market for India to find alternative sources of oil.

She noted India has taken some steps to reduce its imports from Iran, but said the US wants to see more.

“If there weren’t an adequate supply… we would understand, but we believe that there is adequate supply,” she said.

India, with an economic growth rate of about 7 percent, has an insatiable need for oil. About 9 percent of its oil imports are from Iran, though officials say it has reduced its dependency on Iranian oil in recent months.

“We appreciate what has been done and, of course, we want to keep the pressure on Iran,” Clinton said.

India remains dependent on the imports, and Iran is its second largest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia.

India and Iran reached an agreement earlier this year that would allow India to pay for about 45 percent of the purchases in rupees.

Tehran would then use the Indian currency to buy goods from Delhi.

Clinton said the US remained focused on putting global pressure on Iran.

“We believe, at this moment in time, the principle threat is a nuclear-armed Iran,” she said. “We need India to be part of the international effort.”

Clinton will head to Delhi later Monday, where she is expected to press India to push ahead with an economic program that would open the way to US conglomerates such as Walmart entering the fragile market.

The prime minister’s chief economic adviser said last month that no new reforms were likely before the next election in 2014.

(Al-Akhbar, AFP)

May 7, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Democracy suffers in NATO-backed Syrian fighting

By M.D. Nalapat | Global Times | May 6, 2012

Today, more than 14 million voters in Syria will have the chance to select among several thousand candidates for 250 parliamentary seats.

Cities across the country are plastered with posters of the candidates, with many adopting an Obama-sque “Change we can believe in” slogan.

However, the armed groups that have been backed by the NATO powers for the past 15 months have rejected the polls, and are showing their hostility by targeting candidates for assassination, usually by the use of explosives.

Since the armed uprising began, several thousand members of the security forces and their family members have been killed by the insurgents, who themselves have lost thousands of their own.

However, those relying on Western media are told that every such death has been caused by the security forces, ignoring the deadly violence that is being unleashed in the country by groups of armed mobs.

We have seen this before, in Libya, where tens of thousands of people have died so far as the result of externally backed civil war. In that country, those willing to kill regime elements were given training, cash and weapons.

Today, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing the same assistance to those seeking to use deadly force against the government in Damascus.

Although Syria President Bashar al-Assad has announced a raft of reforms, including new media laws and the right to form political parties, each such announcement has been met by an escalation in violence, which has rendered null the ceasefire brokered by UN envoy Kofi Annan.

Since mid-April, there have been numerous ceasefire violations by the insurgents, with the Alawi, the Muslim sect to which the Assad family belongs, and the Christian community the main target of the insurgents. Syria is the home of the Patriarchate of Antioch, the oldest church in Christendom.

For reasons not clear, the triumvirate of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have joined hands with the NATO powers to back the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has been the greatest beneficiary of the Arab Spring.

Today in Syria, one can see women across the country dressed as they please. Were the Brotherhood to take control, this freedom might soon be replaced with the obligation to wear the chador (full veil). Already in Egypt and in Tunisia, the secular ethos of the country is rapidly giving way to Saudi-style conservatism.

While European members of NATO are opposed to Islamic conservatives in their own countries, in the Arab world, they favor such elements over those who are secular. The result is a galloping conservatism across the Arab world.

Clearly, the NATO powers are aware that the more hardline local regimes are, the less chance that they will be able to compete with the US and the EU.

Rather than support the process of democratization in Syria, the NATO powers have joined hands with regional powers to train, arm and provide cash to the armed opposition, thereby fomenting a violent civil war in the country.

The 11 percent of the population that are Alawi and the 9 percent of Syria’s 24 million people that are Christian are terrified that they will become the target of ethnic cleansing. As for the majority Sunni community, more than two-thirds are moderate, with less than a third favoring the conservative Wahabbi-Salafi faith.

We have seen this before, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, where the US backed religious extremists to fight the USSR. The effects of that mistake are still creating harmful ripples across the region.

Today, rather than support secular elements and encourage the transition to democracy, NATO is backing armed groups that create mayhem across the country, groups that overwhelmingly follow an extremist ideology.

Of course, there are exiled Syrians who have congregated in Paris to provide a moderate face to the armed struggle. However, these people control nothing, only those with guns do.

And these days, more and more guns are flowing into Syria, as NATO seeks regime change not through the ballot but through the bomb.

The author is director and professor of the School of Geopolitics at Manipal University in India. He visited Syria last month as part of an Indian delegation.

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May 7, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran welcomes Tajik proposal for railroad link to China

Press TV – May 6, 2012

Iran’s Minister of Road and Urban Development Ali Nikzad says Tehran welcomes a proposal by the Tajik government to connect the Iranian rail network to the city of Kashgar in China via Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

In a meeting with the visiting Tajik Minister of Transportation and Communications Nizam Hakim Oaf on Sunday, Nikzad said the 392 kilometers (km) long rail corridor will connect Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China.

“It will increase trade exchange and export volume, reduce transit costs among these countries and facilitate the transport of cargo and passengers in the region,” he added.

The Iranian minister also pointed to the 15,000 km railroad tracks in Iran, saying the country’s railroads are currently connected to Turkmenistan through Gorgan city, to Iraq via Shalamcheh border crossing, to Azerbaijan through Astara port city, and also to Afghanistan through Khaf-Herat railroad.

The Tajik minister, for his part, said the most complicated part of the project is a 270 km-long section that includes 16 km of tunnels and 47 bridges, and needs about USD 8-10 million for every kilometer of the line.

He added that the first phase of the project is 335.4 km and will cost USD 169.5 million while the second phase needs USD 96.4 million in investment. The final stage, Hakim Oaf said, which includes building anti-avalanche structures, will cost USD 30 million.

The Tajik minister of transportation and communications is currently in Iran to take part in a two-day international conference dubbed “South Khorasan, Transit and Development of East Axis.” The event will open in Iran’s eastern city of Birjand on Monday, April 7, attended by participants from 18 countries.

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May 6, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

State of Israel Dispossesses Negev Bedouin

By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | May 6, 2012

Not content with dispossessing nearly 1 million Israeli Palestinians during the Nakba through exile and theft of their land, Israel is repeating this Original Sin against the Negev Bedouin, who’ve lived in their homes for decades.  The State now intends to expel the Bedouin from these settlements, where they’ve lived for several generations, and to appropriate the land for itself.  In many cases, there are plans hatched with the Jewish National Fund and Israel Lands Authority to Judaize the Negev by creating new Jewish settlements to replace the Bedouin.

There are indigenous tribal members who are fighting back with every means at their disposal.  But the odds and long and the deck is stacked.  Every legal appeal has been repelled by a judiciary that many liberal Zionists like to claim stands as a bulwark against the worst excesses of rampant Israeli nationalism.  This particular issue shows the limits of such optimism.

nuri el okbi
Nuri el Okbi, Negev indigenous activist, imprisoned for ‘being Bedouin without a license’

Ben Gurion University Prof. Oren Yiftachel provides historical background to this struggle:

Since its foundation, the State of Israel refuses to recognize Bedouin ownership over ancestral lands in the Negev.  Most of the Bedouins did not register their lands in 1921, as was required by one of the British laws; but neither did most other residents of Mandatory Palestine, including Jewish ones, carry out such registration. Sixty years later, the State of Israel made cynical use of this lack of registration to order to register most Bedouin lands as “State Lands”, thus making the Bedouins into “invaders” or “squatters” on their own ancestral land.

Some of the Bedouins have tried to challenge the system of dispossession. Notable among them is Nuri el-Okbi, long-time dedicated human rights activist. In recent years, Nuri and his brothers are conducting a series of law suits against the state, demanding restoration of the lands taken from them in the fifties.

A few weeks ago, a ruling rejecting the claims of the el-Okbis was made in an important case – one in which for the first time a professional support team was involved, including attorney Michael Sfard, geographer Oren Yiftachel and other experts. The proceeding lasted three years, during which dozens of witnesses testified and hundreds of documents and expert reports [were] submitted, attesting to the el-Okbis’ ownership of the land.

The judge, however, chose to render a harsh, confrontational ruling, sticking to earlier precedents and concluding that any land which had not been registered in 1921 is ipso facto the property of the state. The court relied mainly on legal precedents, hardly referring to the evidence presented. Therefore, it is very important to lodge an appeal to the Supreme Court – the only body which is empowered to overturn precedents and strike out in a new direction.

At such a hearing, the judges would not be able to ignore the rich materials submitted by the el-Okbi Tribe, and the new legal arguments presented. In addition, such an appeal would strengthen the struggle of tens of thousands of Bedouins, who at this very moment are struggling against government plans to evict them to existing townships.

The government’s plan is based on the wrong assumption that Bedouins have no land ownership rights, and a Supreme Court appeal is now the only way to stop these draconian plans. Therefore, it is highly important to lodge an appeal on the el-Okbi Land Case, and make it clear that the Bedouin community is determined to struggle for their basic human rights – specifically to change a legal ruling which causes severe and completely undeserved damage to a large section of Israel’s citizen body.

Gush Shalom adds:

After a legal struggle lasting three years, the Be’er Sheba District Court rejected the appeal of Nuri al-Okbi, veteran activist for the rights of the Negev Bedouins. El-Okbi’s plea for recognition of ownership over the Al-Araqib lands, from which he and his family were evicted in 1951, was rejected out of hand by Judge Sarah Dovrat. The ruling has wide implications for Negev Bedouins in general, implying an overall denial of their rights over ancestral lands.

Further information

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May 6, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s Role in Crafting the “Strategic Asset” Myth

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | May 6, 2012

From the Cold War to the War on Terror, Israel and its partisans have stressed the Jewish state’s role as a strategic asset to the United States in the Middle East. A recent Haaretz article, however, provides further evidence that this claim is little more than a self-serving myth.

In the article titled “David Ben-Gurion’s diary invites a rethink of Benzion Netanyahu’s extreme Zionist image,” Israeli historian and journalist Tom Segev reveals that the current Israeli Prime Minister’s late father offered his propaganda services to Ben-Gurion’s government on at least two occasions. Writes Segev:

In 1956, Netanyahu proposed that Ben-Gurion employ him as a public diplomacy (hasbara) functionary, in the guise of a history professor, at one of the universities in America. He sought to work under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office, and tailor his activity to its policy.

Ben-Gurion’s diary notes Netanyahu’s experience in such “public diplomacy”:

He told of a series of meetings with American statesmen, among them Dean Acheson, who had been secretary of state in the Truman administration. It seems that he spoke with them primarily about the danger of Soviet penetration of the Middle East.

The diary doesn’t record whether or not Netanyahu got the job, but from 1957 to 1968 he worked as a professor in Dropsie College in Philadelphia. If his 1956 propaganda proposal had been turned down, it certainly didn’t deter him from trying again:

In June 1968 Netanyahu paid another visit to Ben-Gurion, by then in retirement, and once again proposed a plan for Israeli propaganda in America. We must take action against the American left, he said referring to what was then called the New Left. Almost all are communist Jews, Netanyahu told Ben-Gurion, and once more proposed concentrating Israeli propaganda on the danger of Soviet penetration of the Mideast: If the Soviet Union takes over the Middle East, it will control the United Nations, he suggested arguing, and praised two of the Israel supporters he had found on the right flank of the Republican Party: Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon.

But if Israel really had been such an obvious strategic asset to the U.S. during the Cold War, there wouldn’t have been any need for Netanyahu and other hasbara agents to remind the Americans of Israel’s usefulness in countering “the danger of Soviet penetration,” would there?

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May 6, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t hold your breath for Fukushima’s radiation toll

By Tilman Ruff | The Conversation | March 13, 2012

A year can be a long time in politics. But for the radioactive particles released from Fukushima’s damaged nuclear reactor, a year is just a moment in their life of hundreds or thousands of years.

So, what is the radiological situation at Fukushima one year after the disaster?

Thankfully, despite more than 9,000 aftershocks since the disaster – including more than 10 rating above seven on the Richter scale – there have been no major fires or explosions since March 2011 that could cause further catastrophic releases of radioactivity.

But the extensively damaged plants are still unstable and highly radioactive. This has restricted access and clean-up efforts, which will need to go on for many decades.

Though Japanese authorities declared they’d achieved a “cold shutdown” in December, an arbitrary definition was used: coolant water temperature was less than boiling, pressure inside the reactors was not raised, and the release of radioactive materials from the first layer of containment was below a specified level. But it didn’t mean the nuclear reaction inside the reactors had been stably shut down.

Investigations

A number of investigations (some of which are still ongoing) have highlighted inadequacies in the design, prevention and response measures to deal with such a disaster. There is also a high level of dysfunction, cover-up, collusion and corruption in the nuclear industry – including its regulation and oversight.

How, for example, could sea walls designed to withstand a tsunami of only 5.5 metres be acceptable on a coast battered by a 38 metre tsunami in 1896 and a 29 metre tsunami in 1933?

How could cooling pumps, back-up generators and control systems not be required to be located on high ground?

How could spent fuel ponds, filled with vast amounts of long-lived radioactivity, safely be placed right of top of reactors? And without any special containment structures?

Independent, peer-reviewed research provides strong evidence that radioactive emissions from the Fukushima plants began after the earthquake and well before the tsunami struck. This is contrary to claims by TEPCO, the power company involved, and the Japanese government that it was the tsunami and not the earthquake that irrevocably damaged the Fukushima nuclear plant.

If leaks did begin as a result of the earthquake, as the evidence strongly indicates, this has profound implications for nuclear reactors everywhere – not only those located on coasts, within reach of tsunamis.

Poor protection

Serious gaps in measures to protect the population have also become evident.

One of the important protective health measures, which should be taken for those who have been or are likely to be exposed to significant reactor fallout, is the administration of stable iodine shortly before exposure, or within 24 hours. This blocks the uptake of radioactive iodine into the body, which causes thyroid cancer.

Yet the government admitted, in its June 2011 report to the IAEA, that because of dysfunctional decision-making, iodine was not administered to anyone in Fukushima, despite supplies reportedly being available.

Exposure to radiation

We now know the computer-based system designed to guide evacuations and sheltering (known as the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information or SPEEDI system) correctly predicted the initial path of the heaviest Fukushima fallout. The results were delivered to the government but not acted on, resulting in the people of some towns moving right into the path of the fallout.

Detailed mapping of the population’s radiation doses (from contaminants in the air, water and food) is still not publicly available. But hundreds of thousands of people still live in areas where they will receive doses higher – in some case several tens of times higher – than the world-wide recommended levels of no more than 1 milliSievert (mSv) of additional exposure per year.

The most contaminated areas were re-categorised by the Japanese government in December 2011. Residence is not precluded in areas where inhabitants would face radiation doses between 20 and 50 mSv per year.

Astonishingly, evacuation is not recommended from areas where residents are likely to be exposed to doses of up to 20 mSv per year. Even in the “bad old days” of the Soviet Union, those anticipated to receive more than 5 mSv annually after the Chernobyl disaster were resettled as a matter of priority. And those likely to receive more than 1 mSv annually had resettlement rights.

What happens next?

On January 26, 2012 the Japanese government released a roadmap of planned environmental remediation activities, to be completed over the following two years.

But the value of such measures has likely been oversold. Plans to remove the topsoil of farmland, for instance, will erode the viability of farming. And the problem of where to store, and how to isolate, vast amounts of contaminated material remains a major challenge.

One group particularly at risk of health harm is the large and growing number of workers required to help control, shut down and clean up the damaged nuclear plants.

By early December, more than 18,000 men had participated in clean-up work in Fukushima. These largely unskilled, inadequately trained, ill-equipped and poorly monitored day labourers performed the bulk of the dirty and dangerous work. Much of the contracting of these workers is dominated by criminal “yakuza” networks.

Even before the disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi complex was staffed by 1,108 regular employees and 9,195 day labourers. On average, the contracted day labourers receive two- to three-times the radiation dose of a regular worker but are not included in utility statistics. And there is no compulsory, centralised system for tracking cumulative radiation exposure or health outcomes of these workers.

Radiation levels are not always monitored. But when they are, and a labourer is known to be near the maximal permitted dose for workers, they may be sent away. The maximum dose is normally 20 mSv per year, but this was raised to 250 mSv after the Fukushima disaster. After the workers are despatched, there’s nothing stopping them from then going to work another nuclear plant.

On top of the many other health problems that the Fukushima disaster has caused, thousands of additional cancer cases will likely be diagnosed, but these will take some years to emerge.

This means, of course, that much of the radioactive fallout from Fukushima will continue to indiscriminately harm health for many generations to come.

– Tilman Ruff is an Associate Professor, Disease Prevention & Health Promotion Unit, Nossal Institute for Global Health at University of Melbourne.

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May 6, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Nuclear Power | , , , | 1 Comment

When NATO/US European ABM becomes a threat, it will be dealt with

By John Robles | Voice of Russia | May 4, 2012

On Thursday, at an international conference held in Moscow, attended by senior NATO and US officials, in the most unequivocal and harshest terms possible, the Chief of the General Staff, Army General Nikolay Makarov, laid out Russia’s position on the US’ plans for European missile defense, saying that a pre-emptive strike is possible on UN/NATO missile elements if the situation becomes aggravated. However he did add that this is an extreme solution according to RIA-Novosti.

Quote: “The placing of new first strike weapons in the south and the north-west Russia in order to counter ABM missile defense components, including the deployment of “Iskander” missile batteries in the Kaliningrad region, represent one of the possible options for the destruction of missile defense infrastructure in Europe.” Said General Makarov.

General Makarov stated that taking into account the; “…destabilizing nature of their missile defense system, namely the creation of the illusion of a first-strike-disarming capability to which a response can not be made, a decision on the preemptive use of existing weapons will be made during the exacerbation of the situation.”

NATO and the US have refused to cooperate on equal terms with Russia on ABM elements in Europe, in particular ignoring Russia’s proposals for a sectoral approach to missile defense. Agreements had been reached between Russia and NATO to cooperate on the draft European missile defense system at the summit in Lisbon in 2010, but due to the U.S. refusal to provide binding legal written guarantees as to the non-targeting nature of the system being deployed, meaning against Russia’s nuclear deterrent, the situation has continued to worsen. US claims at being open to cooperation are based on verbal promises which can in no way be taken seriously.

On Thursday the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Anatoly Serdyukov also commented on the situation saying that talks on European missile defense between Moscow and Washington are close to being at a dead end.

The International Conference organized by the Ministry of Defense and titled “The factor of Missile Defense in the the Formation of a New Security Zone” was attended by over 200 military representatives, professionals and experts from 50 countries, including 28 NATO member countries, and representatives of China, South Korea, Japan, the CIS countries and the Organization of Collective Security Treaty.

At the conference, while addressing U.S. and NATO officials, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said: “We can’t just reject the distrust that has been around for decades and become totally different people… Why are they calling on me, on my Russian colleagues, to reject distrust? Better look at yourselves in the mirror.” He later said Russia would not plan any retaliation unless the United States goes through with its plans and takes the third and final step and deploys defense elements in Poland which is estimated to happen no earlier than in 2018.

Soon after General Makarov’s statements, and most likely due to them, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated that the U.S. is ready to redouble efforts to find a compromise with Russia on missile defense.

When asked to respond to General Makarov’s comments Toner said; “I think we will redouble efforts to find a compromise on this issue and will strive for mutual understanding. Cooperation on missile defense exists and we intend to continue it for many years. We also intend to continue the search for a compromise.”

And in a move that in my opinion smells of censorship, the State Department official urged American journalists not to construe the comments made by Makarov as a return to the cold war era although the US through its actions is doing everything possible to keep the cold war era alive, unarguable proof being the very continued existence of NATO as a block.

According to Russian media the Deputy Head of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, has stated that the European missile shield would be unable to protect Europe from a possible missile strike by Iran.

Mr. Gerasimov stated the following: “Elements of the US missile shield deployed in Romania are unlikely to be able to protect Southern Europe from any missiles launched from the South. As for the elements in Poland, they would be unable to protect Europe from any potential missiles coming from the South.”

What no one seems to be remembering when discussing the ABM shield is the phased approach and the fact that the West has and continues to refuse to provide the Russian Federation with written guarantees regarding the fact that, as the West claims, the shield is not directed against nor does it pose a threat to the strategic defensive or offensive military capabilities of Russia.

The phased approach is important to note because what it calls for is a strengthening and improving of all of the elements of the system once they are in place, in other words, an empty Trojan Horse is placed in the optimum location and is to be filled for attack at a later date, elements which are not a threat to Russia today will be when later phases are complete.

Ellen Tauscher, US Special Envoy for Strategic Stability and Missile Defense, summed it quite nicely in a conference posted on the US Department of State web site when she said; “It (missile defense cooperation) presents an opportunity to put aside the vestiges of the Cold War thinking, and move away from mutually assured destruction, toward mutually assured stability. At the same time, (she presents a contradiction) the United States is committed to all four phases of the European Phased Adaptive Approach.” It is the later phases that will nullify Russia’s strategic potential.

She also states: “… we cannot agree to pre-conditions outlined by the Russian Government. We cannot agree to any limitations on our missile defense deployments.” This means that there are plans in place or the potential should be available to direct elements against Russia, as those are the only limitations sought by the Russian side.

Lastly she states that: “… we are able to agree, however, to a political statement that our missile defenses are not directed at Russia,” which has been the problem all along as the Russian Federation rightfully and justifiably has requested, time and time again, written guarantees as to what has been said verbally. What is the use, in reality, of a “political statement”? Politics change like the weather and the US, for all its short recorded history has pathologically gone back on political statements.

Lastly the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, again re-stated Moscow’s offer to jointly operate the ABM shield with NATO. He said a jointly run European missile defense system “could strengthen the security of every single country of the continent” and “would be adequate for possible threats and will not deter strategic security.”

Maybe it’s time for the US to let go of its cold war thinking? IT seems as if the biggest threat to regional, if not global security at present, is NATO itself.

Have a nice day.

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May 6, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: Afghan pact with US will only increase violence

Al Akhbar | May 6, 2012

Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday denounced a new strategic pact signed between Afghanistan and the United States, saying it would give rise to instability in the neighboring country.

“Iran is concerned about the strategic pact signed between Afghanistan and the US,” ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.

“Not only will the strategic pact not resolve Afghanistan’s security problems, but it will intensify insecurity and instability in Afghanistan,” he said.

His remarks came after US President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a deal with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, guaranteeing that occupying US forces will remain in the country after the majority withdraw in 2014.

However the deal, reached after months of painstaking negotiations, states that the US does not seek permanent military bases in Afghanistan as it has in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.

Mehmanparast said on Sunday the solution to establishing security in Afghanistan was for foreign forces to leave.

He also said the pact was a source of “concern” for Iran as “the status of US military bases in Afghanistan is unclear and the security duties of US forces lack transparency.”

Iran regularly criticizes the presence of Western forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and in the Arab Gulf countries, calling for their immediate departure.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

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May 6, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

London Olympic rockets left unguarded

Military rockets left unguarded outside a block of flats in London
Military rockets left unguarded outside a block of flats in London
Press TV – May 5, 2012

Amateur video posted on the internet shows military rockets left unguarded outside a block of flats in Bow, East London, as Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) prepares to deploy missiles on top of flats in London during the 2012 Olympics.

The video was posted by journalist Brian Whelan who lives in Bow Quarter, London. The video shows unguarded military rockets with nobody around.

The unguarded military rockets were part of the MoD’s security plans for the London Olympics. Earlier this week, the MoD confirmed that six sites, including two residential blocks of flats, would be tested as launch pads for missile systems in order to combat air threats during the Olympics.

Local residents have expressed their anger over the plans saying they were not consulted and questioning why the MoD did not build a missile base instead of using residential flats as a missile base.

Experts have also expressed concerns over the security risks for people. Military liaison officer Lieutenant Colonel Brian said flats could be targeted because of missiles deployed on their roof tops.

Furthermore, experts have called into question the usefulness of the missiles saying they would be useless in poor weather because the missile systems rely on the operator being able to see the target.

Writing on his blog, Whelan also described how these missiles work. The missile battery is the HVM A5 Missile System. Whelan revealed that only a small number of A5 missiles were fired in trials and even two malfunctioned during trials.

May 5, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Solidarity and Realpolitik: My Response to Jeff Halper

By Susan Abulhawa | Palestine Chronicle | May 4, 2012

Some years ago, I was on a panel with three men, Jeff Halper among them, at a Sabeel conference in Pennsylvania. Each panelist was asked to give their vision for a solution to the ‘Palestine/Israel conflict’.  Because I was sitting at the end of the table, I was the last to speak.  I listened to each one of my fellow participants lay out different versions of a two-state solution, each more depressing than the other, each with irrelevant nuances (all previously articulated by Israel, by the way) on how to make the refugee problem just go away.  They spoke the tired talk of land swaps, compromise, several surreal highways that bypass humanity for miles on end, and more creative solutions designed to circumvent the application of human rights where Palestinians are concerned.

When my turn came, I spoke of Palestinians being accorded the same basic rights that apply to the rest of humanity, including the right to return to one’s home after fleeing a conflict.  I spoke of equality under the law regardless of religion.  I spoke of a construct that would prevent one group from systematically oppressing another.  I spoke of human dignity and the universal right to it.  I spoke of equal access to resources, including water, regardless of religion.

I will never forget Jeff Halper’s response, which he was eager to voice even before I had finished speaking.  He began with a smile, the way an adult might smile at the naive remarks of a small child.  He needed to give me a lesson in reality, and proceeded to tell me, in the patronizing way of someone who knows best, that my vision lacked “how shall I say it… Realpolitik”.

I did not waiver then, nor have I since, on my position that Palestinians are not a lesser species who should be required to aspire to compromised human dignity in order to accommodate someone else’s racist notions of divine entitlement.

That said, I do not consider Jeff Halper racist and I acknowledge the mostly positive impact he has had in bringing attention to one of Israel’s enduring cruelties, namely the systematic demolition of Palestinian homes as a tool to effectuate ethnic cleansing of the native non-Jewish population.  But in my view, that does not entitle him to speak of what Palestinians should or shouldn’t do.  I also don’t think it qualifies him as an anti-zionist when he clearly accepts the privilege accorded to Jews only.  After all, Jeff Halper is an American from Minnesota who made aliyah (Israel’s entitlement program that allows Jews from all over the world to take up residence in my homeland, ultimately in place of the expelled natives). Perhaps is it my lack of Realpolitik, but I cannot reconcile embracing the very foundation of zionism on one hand, and calling oneself an anti-zionist on the other.

In a recent interview on Al Jazeera’s website with Frank Barat, he did just that.  He also laid out a dismal scenario for the future of Palestinians, based on what Israel is very likely plotting, namely the annexation of Area C and the pacifying of the Palestinian Authority (also likely) with economic incentives and mini Bantustans they can call a state.  But he missed the mark, repeatedly, when it came to Palestinians themselves, as if he sized us all up with a glance and decided he was not impressed. Despite the burgeoning nonviolent resistance taking place all over Palestine, in various forms ranging from demonstrations, significant solidarity campaigns, hunger strikes, and more, he says that “[Palestinian] resistance is impossible” now.  At best, he trivializes the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is the first coordinated nonviolent movement of Palestinians inside and outside of Palestine that has also managed to inspire and capture imaginations of individuals and organizations all over the world to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.  Again, my lack of Realpolitik here, but to me, creating a situation where it is possible to force the implementation of human rights and restore dignity to Palestinian society is in itself an end.  Jeff Halper seems unable to consider anything other than a negotiated agreement to be an end.

He enumerates all that is wrong with internal Palestinian issues.  Of course there are problems. We know our leadership is doing little more than pick up the trash and keep people in line while Israel steals more and more of our land.  We are not happy about it either.  But he seems to suggest that he, along with other Israelis I presume, have been carrying the burden of resolving this conflict.  In one instance he says:

“We’ve (I assume Israeli leftists?) brought this to governments, we’ve raised public awareness, we’ve had campaigns, we’ve done this for decades, we’ve made this collectively, one of two or three really global issues. But without Palestinians we can only take it so far.”

Then he adds:

“I am trying to challenge a little bit my Palestinian counterparts.  Where are you guys?”

If I read this correctly (and I will grant the benefit of the doubt that it was not meant as it reads), then he clearly sees himself at the forefront of the Palestinian struggle where his Palestinian counterparts are disorganized, haphazard, or not present.  He even suggests that at this crucial time, “Palestinians have to take over,” further supporting the suggestion that Palestinians are not at the helm of the resistance.

He also asserts that importing Jews from all over the world to live in colonies built on land confiscated from private Palestinian owners is “not settler colonialism”.  What is it then?

But back to his strange assertion that Palestinians “should take over” (from whom?), he describes an instance where he refused to participate in the global march to Jerusalem because the Palestinian organizers (who took over?) did not want to include the world “Israel,” the name of the country that denies our very existence and seeks in every way to eradicate us.  Is it that Jeff Halper wants “Palestinians to take over” as long as Palestinians do so in a way that does not offend the sensitivities of the very people deriving privilege at their expense?  That is not how solidarity works.

I don’t presume to tell Israelis what they should or should not do but I would like to see Israelis concentrate on their own failures rather than ours.  I would sure like to hear those who have made aliyah acknowledge that it was not their right to do so; that making aliyah is a crime against the native people who have been and continue to be forcibly expelled to make way for those making aliyah. I would like to hear an apology. The trauma that Palestinians feel is very much part of the Realpolitik and it is not unlike the trauma in the Jewish psyche.  It comes from the same humiliation and anguish of not being considered fully human. Of being treated like vermin by those with the guns. If Halper truly understood that, perhaps dropping the word “Israel” – a word that hovers over the rubble of our destroyed homes and suffuses the pain at our collective core – would have been a no brainer expression of solidarity.

– Susan Abulhawa is the author of Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury 2010) and the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine (www.playgroundsforpalestine.org).

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May 5, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

‘Israel threatened to take down world in nuclear Armageddon’

Press TV – May 5, 2012

Israel is the only regime that has threatened to obliterate all world countries in a “nuclear Armageddon,” if its existence is put in jeopardy, a political analyst tells Press TV.

In a Friday interview, Mark Glenn, from The Crescent and Cross Solidarity movement, lashed out at Israel for its nuclear stockpile, sayingTel Aviv is the only regime that “has threatened to take the entire world down in a nuclear Armageddon in the instance that her precious experiments in Jewish self-rule in the Middle East ceases to materialize.”

“There is no other country in existence today that has basically told the entire world that if we are going to go down we are going to take the rest of the world down with us,” he added.

Even Israel’s most prominent military professor, Martin Van Creveld, has once alluded to such nuclear ambitions by Israel and confirmed that Tel Aviv has several hundred atomic warheads and rockets targeted at all directions — mostly at European capitals — and that Tel Aviv is ready to take the entire world down before the regime itself ceases to exist, Glenn pointed out.

The analyst expressed regret that the nuclear threat from Israel looms over the world, while Tel Aviv continues to use its mainstream media outlets to level allegations against other countries, accusing them of possessing non-civilian nuclear programs.

Israel is widely believed to be the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Tel Aviv began building its first plutonium and uranium processing facility, Dimona, in the Negev desert in 1958.

Former US President Jimmy Carter has stated that Israel has a nuclear arsenal that includes between 200 and 300 warheads. Decades of recurrent reporting and aerial footage have also established the possession of atomic arms by Israel.

Under its official policy of nuclear ambiguity, Tel Aviv neither confirms nor denies the possession of nukes and refuses to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or allow inspections of its nuclear facilities.

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May 5, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , , , , | 10 Comments

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