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Nagasaki further voices protest against “new” type of nuclear test by U.S.

Xinhua | September 25, 2012

OSAKA — Japan’s southwestern city of Nagasaki expressed its outrage and protest against a new type of nuclear test conducted for the sixth time in August by the United States, local press reported on Tuesday.

The report said that the United States conducted the nuclear test, which simulated a nuclear blast using intense X-ray beams and checked how plutonium would react, at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico on August 27.

The sixth test caused further condemnation by the city, following last week’s protest against the fifth new type of nuclear test which was reportedly carried out between April and June this year.

According to the report, Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue sent a letter of protest, dated September 24, to U.S. President Barack Obama, saying that the people of Nagasaki, who have been calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons, cannot restrain their resentment after encountering reports about a further test despite their protest.

“As a representative of an atomic-bombed city strongly protest again,” the mayor said.

The letter also urged that the United States make sincere efforts to stop any nuclear tests, adding that the country should fulfill its leadership role in achieving a world without nuclear weapons.

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September 25, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel lobbyist hints that ‘Pearl Harbor’ may be needed to get US into war with Iran

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | September 25, 2012

Last Friday, during question time at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy policy forum luncheon on “How to Build US-Israeli Coordination on Preventing an Iranian Nuclear Breakout,” the director of research at the pro-Israel think tank hinted that a Pearl Harbor-type attack might be necessary to get the United States to go to war against the Islamic Republic.

“I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough,” said Patrick Clawson, who also heads the Washington Institute’s Iran Security Initiative, in response to a question about what would happen if negotiations with Tehran fail. “And it’s very hard for me to see how the United States … uh … President can get us to war with Iran.”

As a consequence, Clawson said he was led to conclude that “the traditional way [that] America gets to war is what would be best for US interests.”

Intriguingly, he went on to recount a series of controversial incidents in American history — the attack on Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Lusitania, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the blowing up of the USS Maine — that US presidents “had to wait for” before taking America to war.

“And may I point out that Mr. Lincoln did not feel he could call out the federal army until Fort Sumter was attacked,” Clawson continued, “which is why he ordered the commander at Fort Sumter to do exactly that thing which the South Carolinians had said would cause an attack.”

“So, if in fact the Iranians aren’t going to compromise,” the Israel lobbyist concluded with a smirk on his face, “it would be best if somebody else started the war.”

Note: Clawson begins his answer around the 1 hour 15 minute mark.

September 25, 2012 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Abla Saadat: A Palestinian Stateswoman marked by “Terrorism”

By Christof Lehmann | No Spin News | September 24, 2012

Abla Sa’adat, the Chairwoman of the Palestinian Women Organizations and wife of the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) visited Denmark. I met Abla Sa’adat at a meeting where she told a group of mostly young Danes about Palestine. Had one expected an Abla Sa’adat who conforms with the dehumanizing stereotyping of Palestinians by Israeli and western politicians and main stream media, one would have been surprised by the depth and complexity of Abla Sa ‘adat, her perception of the Palestinian problems and possible solutions.

Behind the veil of the “terrorist” stereotype one discovers an Abla Sa’adat who is a true stateswoman, humanist, human rights advocate, an advocate for international law, justice and peace, the wife of a long term prisoner of war and political prisoner, as well as a mother and grandmother who puts the systematic dehumanization and stereotyping of Palestinians to shame.

In spite of the Hamas – Israeli negotiated prisoner exchange earlier this year, Abla Sa’adat states, more than 5.000 Palestinians remain in prison under administrative detention. She is active in organizations which advocate Palestinian prisoners rights. It is not for personal reasons, so she states, that she is using her husband, PFLP Secretary General Ahmad Sa’adat as an example for how Israel systematically terrorizes politically active Palestinians and their families, but because due to her own experience she knows his case best and because his case is representative of those of thousands of other prisoners and their families.

On the other hand, who would blame Abla Sa’adat for wanting to advocate for her illegally detained husband, the father of her children and grandfather to her grandchildren. At a recent appearance of Ahmad Sa’adat in an Israeli court he was denied physical contact with Abla and his newborn granddaughter Mayar. The destruction of politically active Palestinian families family ties and the destruction of Palestinians’ family systems is systemic and systematic.

After the PLO signed the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established, the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories within the 1967 borders has not improved and the Israeli governments have systematically avoided adhering to the provisions of the Oslo Accords. Contrary to improvements, the reality of the matter is that: Israel has confiscated more land, increased its infringements on Palestinians’ water rights, built more settlements and settler only roads and railways, built the so called “security wall” which isolates Palestinian West Bank villages in micro enclaves, continued a policy that devastates Palestine’s economy; Israel continues to illegally arrest and detain Palestinians under illegal forms of imprisonment, the use of torture is endemic, the use of disproportionate military force is well documented, and these items only touch the surface of the daily violations of the Oslo Accords. According to the Oslo Accords Palestinian prisoners should have been released from prison. Israel did not adhere to this provision either.

What Palestinians gained by signing the Oslo Accords can be described with a few words. The right to establish a Palestinian Authority, which is utterly dependent on the goodwill of Israel. The political factions have gained the privilege to compete with each other for the Presidency over the self-administrated Zionist genocide on themselves while splitting the PLO, rendering it in a state of internal conflict rather than fighting for the liberation of Palestine. In other words, the PLO was entrapped in the glory of Presidency over its own destruction and the destruction of Palestine.

It is within this context one has to understand the arrest and detainment of Ahmad Sa’adat. Israel demanded that the Palestinian Authority arrest him for “terrorism,” and the Fatah led PA made sure that he was arrested and detained. The tragic irony of the situation is that the Oslo Accords resulted in the Palestinian Authority arresting and detaining the Secretary General of the PFLP Ahmad Sa’adat on behalf of Israel, and that Israeli pressure and US and British complicity since have resulted in Sa’adat being imprisoned in an Israeli prison and not, as initially, in a Palestinian prison with US and UK military guards. In fact each and every detail of Ahmed Sa’adat’s imprisonment is in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the Conventions against the use of Torture and other bodies of international law. Ahmed Sa’adat was sentenced to thirty years in prison for being the Secretary General of the PFLP, which is designated as a “terrorist organization” by the USA, Israel and the E.U. He has spent years on end in isolation.

Prior to his arrest Ahmed Sa’adat was elected to the Palestinian parliament. Abla Sa’adat explained that 22 members of parliament are currently imprisoned in Israeli prisons, many of them in isolation. The occupation is in fact preventing the functioning of Palestine’s democratic institutions.

Isolated prisoners are locked up for 23 hours a day. For one hour they can leave their cells and spend their time in an indoor yard, in shackles and hand-cuffs, without the possibility to exercise. There is absolutely no contact to other prisoners. Ahmed Sa’adat was isolated for three years before he was granted ” the privilege” to have his first visitor. Other families, Abla Sa’adat said, have been waiting ten years before they could see their imprisoned husband or father for the first time. Many can not even visit their relatives even if they are granted permission because road blocks and bureaucracy make it impossible to get to the prison and back.

Both Amnesty International, the Red Cross and lawyers complained that this form for imprisonment constitutes torture as well as a breach of the Geneva Conventions, but to no avail. Israel disregards these organizations and laws as well as it has disregarded almost any of the UN Resolutions pertaining Israel, Palestine or the Situation in the Middle East. Ironically, Israel is claiming the legitimacy of the state of Israel from the very organization whose resolutions it systematically disregards.

The impact of isolation and sensory deprivation on prisoners is well documented in numerous and comprehensive scientific studies. Even short term isolation for one to two weeks has a significant impact on a prisoners ability to concentrate, on memory, and general psychological well-being. Longer term and long term isolation for months to years on end have a devastating effect on the human being. Already after a few weeks most isolated prisoners experience several of the following symptoms.

  • Loss of the ability to concentrate

  • Loss of the ability to think coherent thoughts.

  • Loss of short and long-term memory.

  • Visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations, such as the sensation that the entire cell is driving like a train carriage or rotating.

  • Severe mood disorders.

  • Severe dissociative symptoms or dissociative disorders.

  • Suicidal ideas and increased prevalence of suicide attempts and death due to suicide compared to non-isolated prisoner populations.

  • Symptoms of learned helplessness.

  • Inability to participate as an active part of a legal defense.

  • And a cohort of other, severe symptoms.

It is for very good, science-based reasons that long term isolation is internationally recognized as torture. Israel is systematically using isolation to psychologically and physically destroy politically active Palestinian prisoners.

While the systematic and wide spread use of long-term isolation has a devastating effect on the prisoners themselves has a devastating effect on the isolated prisoners family systems as well. Spouses who have not seen one another for years on end risk growing strangers to one another. Children who are infants when a parent is imprisoned often see their father or mother for the first time when they are teens. It is impossible to remedy the lack of early attachment and the lack of a possibility to to know ones parents or ones children intimately or at least to such a degree as a normal imprisonment allows, which is devastating enough.

One of the long term prisoners, Nabeel Barghouti was imprisoned for 30 years. His wife who was pregnant when he was imprisoned gave birth to a son, Fahdi. At the age of 16 his son decided that the only way to see his father was to become a prisoner. After his arrest and imprisonment he fought for the right to be imprisoned under conditions that made it possible for him to see his father. Incidents like these are not extraordinary, although they are extraordinarily tragic.

At a visit, Ahmad Sa’adat would have been unable to recognize his own son on a photograph had it not been for the fact that the boy held a trumpet and that he knew that his son is playing the trumpet. Abla Sa’adat’s worst concern about her husband, she said, is not that he is breaking down mentally. Naturally the long term isolation has set its marks but he is determined in his struggle for liberation. What concerns her most is that she can see, that her husband is suffering the physical effects on the body which long term prisoners in Israel are suffering.

It took a months long hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners to finally end all long-term isolation of Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s prison industry; and it is a prison industry, in the literal sense of the word. E.U. Subsidies per prisoner exceed Israel’s costs per prisoner per day, and there are other methods such as fines which make it a lucrative business for Israel to hold as many prisoners as possible.

Years ago, Abla Sa’adat recalled, she was arrested while her husband already was imprisoned. Who would take care of the children? Israel is systematically using illegal forms of arrest and imprisonment to terrorize and destroy politically active families, and those who help targeted families in coping risk being targeted too.

The Stateswoman in Abla Sa’adat came out when she raised concerns about the targeting and imprisonment of Palestinian children. Stateswoman in the true sense of the word, as a politician, a revolutionary, as well as a mother for her own children, and a politician who has a motherly love for the plight of the children of Palestine and families with children.

Children are regularly arrested, beaten, shot at and killed for protesting the occupation. Many of them are provoked into conflicts with the occupation forces. Tanks rattling near school buildings for hours, stressing the children and making it impossible for them to follow a normal schedule are just one of hundreds of ways to provoke the throwing of a stone. The response can be everything from being beaten, arrested and imprisoned, injured or killed.

Abla Sa’adat draws attention to the fact that the international conventions and laws which regulate the rights of imprisoned children are also systematically circumvented or ignored by Israel. Besides that the child prisoners have become a lucrative form of income for Israel. The fines are high and children are often not released before the fine is paid.

Another way of destroying Palestinian family systems is the placement of children who are sentenced to house arrest with family members so far away from their parents that road blocks and daily chicane makes it impossible for the parents to maintain contact with the children.

Abla Sa’adat is drawing attention to the fact that the prevalence of psychological disorders among Palestinian children is extremely high. In fact, the prevalence of psychological disorders is extremely high in the general Palestinian population, regardless which age group one studies. Many of these psychological problems are caused by the occupation, and the prevalence of trauma-related problems is staggering.

A 1996 Study by Save the Child documented that most children internalize the conflict with the occupation. The violent problem-solving models are then transferred into the family system and into school teacher relations, leading to immense pedagogical problems. The violent problem solving models are also transferred to child on child relations. Children growing up under such conditions are, as adults, prone to use violent problem solving models. The effect is not only felt in the resistance against the occupation. In fact, the effect is more likely to manifest in spousal abuse, child abuse, proneness to the use of violence to settle family disputes, political disputes, financial disputes, and so forth. This internalization during childhood has an all pervasive and devastating effect on all levels, individual, family, community level, and in the halls of government.

The Oslo Accords, says Abla Sa’adat, have not brought any improvements for Palestinians and the debate among Palestinian factions to abandon the Oslo Accords and all subsequent agreements is finally being seriously debated among the factions.

Abla Sa’adat made a point of clarifying that she has nothing against Jews in Palestine or anywhere else. Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Secular people have been living in Palestine for centuries. The often used propaganda, that Palestinians want to drive the Jews back into the sea, she states, has nothing to do with reality. Her cause and the cause of the Palestinian liberation is not directed against Jews but against Zionism and Zionists. There is a difference, she states, between Jewish families who have been living in Palestine for centuries, and those who came and still are coming to Palestine to steal Palestinian land and evict or murder Palestinians.

A two State solution, says Abla Sa’adat, is the very minimum and it would be difficult to implement. She asks, if a Palestinian state should be established within the borders of 1967, what about those families who have been refugees since 1948? The most realistic solution would be, she said, to establish one secular state in all of Palestine. One secular, democratic state for Jews, Christians, Muslims and Secularists within all of the Palestinian territories. The greatest obstacle to the establishment of such a state is, that Zionists insist on a Jewish State, where Muslims, Christians and Secularists alike have no place, and if at all, then as second class citizens.

With a Middle East on fire, with a Libya that has fallen into the hands of Islamic extremism, and with Syria under attack from western sponsored extremists and Al Qaeda associated organizations from throughout the world, with Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., the USA, NATO member states and Israel sponsoring and backing the extremists’ subversion of Syria, Abla Sa’adat, who is widely decried as “terrorist,” sounds like one of the most reasonable Middle Eastern voices of moderation I have heard since the onset of the so-called Arab Spring. If Abla Sa’adat is marked by terrorism, it is because a lifetime of enduring the terror of the Zionist occupation is as imprinted in her as it is in every Palestinian.

* Dr. Christof Lehmann, a life time peace activist, psychologist, and advisor in behavior, finance, economics and politics.

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September 25, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestine Abandonned By Its Own Leadership? Letter From Paul Larudee to Al Awda List

The OtherSite | September 24, 2012

Introduction by Gabi Weber

Paul Larudee, the co-founder of Free Palestine Movement and one of the leading Pro-Palestinian activists in America, posted the following text on Al Awda list. It seems as if BDS has given up on the most essential Palestinian principles.

While BDS was initially defined as opposition to colonisation of all Arab land, the current BDS statement merely opposes only the colonisation of Arab land occupied in 1967.

The following text raises serious questions. Perhaps one of our  readers can provide the answers.

Dear friends,

It is with great sadness that I must propose withdrawal of al-Awda endorsement from the BDS Campaign led by the BNC until the change in its mission statement has been corrected and until a public explanation is provided for the reasons for the change as well as the procedure by which the change was implemented.  A more transparent public explanation of BNC finances is also recommended.

Obviously, this is not a proposal to stop boycott, divestment and sanctions.  However, BDS actions and practices do not require endorsement of a particular movement.  Everything that undermines the racist Zionist state deserves our support.  Nevertheless, under no circumstances can we support any statement or action that legitimates such a state, which is the problem with the BNC-led BDS Campaign.

As I reported on July 10, the original BDS mission statement reads:

“1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall”

In fact, it still reads that way on one part of the website: http://www.bdsmovement.net/call.  Unfortunately, that part of the website is historical, and reports what the original mission statement was when it was issued in 2005 (when al-Awda endorsed it), and not what it is today, which is found at http://www.bdsmovement.net/bdsintro, which reads:

“1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall” (emphasis added)

When did this wording change?  By what procedure was it amended?  Were endorsers like al-Awda consulted or even notified about the change?  What was the reason for the change?

1.  When did the wording change? 

Sorry, but I have no idea about this, and I doubt that anyone else on this list does, either.  This is problematic.  How can a change of this magnitude be made without the permission of its endorsers?  How can endorsers be made to say something that they never endorsed?  This is deception at its worst.

2.  By what procedure was the statement amended?

One would think that such a change would require a proposal to and ratification by the governing committee of the BNC.  However, there is no evidence that such a procedure was observed.  Lacking evidence to the contrary, we must conclude that it was amended unilaterally by someone with control over the website.

3.  Were endorsers like al-Awda consulted or even notified about the change?

Again, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it appears that the change in language was introduced in the most surreptitious way possible, so as to avoid notice.  One is reminded of the way the British territory of Gibraltar was enlarged by moving the boundary stones at night.

4.  What was the reason for the change?

This is the most troubling part of the problem.  A clue may be found in the following video, posted by Gilad Atzmon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVT6abeaGas&feature=plcp

Another clue comes from BDS Campaign founder Omar Barghouti’s book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. In the introduction, Barghouti describes the goal as widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;”> text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;”> “>”ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands [occupied in 1967] and dismantling the wall” (p. 6).  On page line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;”> font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;”> “>49, Barghouti says that “BDS calls for ending Israel’s 1967 military occupation of Gaza, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and other Arab territories in Lebanon and Syria.”

Obviously, Omar Barghouti is entitled to his views.  Perhaps he “is genuinely convinced that the ‘Zionist colonization’ of ‘all Arab Land’ applies only to land invaded in June 1967. However, is he the one behind the unauthorized changes in the BDS mission statement?  This is a question that needs to be answered, and I believe that the similarities between his statements and the amendment of the BDS mission statement justify the asking of that question without prejudice to the possibility that a satisfactory explanation might exist.  Justice must presume innocence until proven otherwise.

Finally, according to Gilad Atzmon, some Zionist right wing sources name George Soros and his Open Society Institute as helping to fund BDS and some of its member organizations.  We know that Soros is a “soft” Zionist and wants to preserve a Jewish state.  Is his funding or that of any other funding organizations a reason for the change in the mission statement?  A full disclosure of funding sources and amounts, as well as any and all conditions of funding is needed.  In addition, the use of those funds, including line item amounts, is needed in order to demonstrate accountability.

I again wish to express my sorrow at bringing these matters to your attention.  I hope that my concerns are unjustified.  However, I also hope that you will agree that this is an issue that must be addressed.

Paul Larudee

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September 24, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey: AKP loses public support on Syrian policy

Rehmat’s World | September 24, 2012

Some readers will be surprised to know that Erdogan’s regime-change in Damascus policy has nothing to do with AKP’s moral support for the Syrian Sunni majority. It’s based on greed for the Middle Eastern petro-dollars. Since last year, AKP leaders have received huge investment promises from rich regional American puppet rulers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar in return for distancing from Iran, Iraq and Syria. On April 29, 2011, Al-Arabiya News reported that Riyadh had promised to invest $600 billion in Turkey’s agricultural and manufacturing sectors in the next 20 years. Turkish companies are looking forward to grab some contracts from Qatar’s $170 billion investment in infrastructure, stadium and hotel projects ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

However, Turkey’s booming economy has failed to maintain AKP’s earlier popularity among its voters. AKP’s knee-jerk foreign policy toward some of Turkey’s Muslim neighbors is costing the party in a big way. The latest poll shows AKP’s popularity among its committed Islamist voters has dipped to its lowest point. The results of an August Andy-Ar survey shows that only 18.3% of respondents said they favored Ankara’s handling of sectarian violence in the Arab world especially in Syria – while 67.1% Turks disapproved AKP’s Syrian policy. The overall AKP support dropped from 49.2% in July to 46.7% in August.

Damascus and several independent think tanks and political analysts have blamed Turkey for running a proxy war on behalf of US-Israel. Bashar Al-Assad in a television speech had blamed Ankara for bloodshed in Syria and ridiculed Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu for proposing  UN-backed buffer zones along Turkish-Syrian border.

American political and military strategists have come to the conclusion that American dominance of Middle East is on a rapid decline – leaving the Zionist regime alone to survive in the heart of an anti-Zionist Muslim world. This was the very reason the US State Department gave birth to the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2008. The plan to destabilize the Muslim world was cooked-up during a meeting in New York city by the CIA, Mossad and several Zionist Jewish heads of  social networking sites to implement the ‘New Middle East’ project. In July 2012, Gabriel M. Scheinmann, a visiting Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), admitted that the Zionist entity is in fact the winner of the Arab Spring.

In order to counter Iran’s rise as the regional power , the US pushed Ankara to lead the Arab Sunni Muslim majority against Shia Iran with the help of western poodles like Saudi and Qatar ‘royals’. However, with the election of Dr. Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt, Erdogan’s dream of becoming the leader of Sunni Arab has gone down the drain. Egypt, with the largest Arab population in the region – has always held a strategic position in the region. Last week, Morsi irked Washington by asserting that the bloody confrontation in Syria cannot be resolved without the active participation of Iran – which has been the views of both Russia and China for a long time.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s opposition party, Republican People’s Party (CHP), is very critical of AKP’s Syrian policy. He recently said that the AKP’s policy on Syria “was short-sighted and has already collapsed”.

Some Turkish analysts believe that if Bashar al-Assad is not removed from power by the pro-Israel rebel groups in the next month or so – the AKP will reverse its policy on Syria in order to shore-up its declining vote bank.

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September 24, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The racism behind a two-state solution

By Haidar Eid | Ma’an | September 24, 2012

Much has been said and written about the Oslo Accords and the Geneva initiative. The signatories claim that these much debated documents in principle opened up new possibilities for ‘cooperation’ between what has for so long seemed to be irreconcilable positions.

Yasser Abed Rabbo and Yossi Beilin, the signatories of the Geneva Initiative, for example, believe that “the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the establishment of two-states.” And, in what sounds like a warning, the latter adds that the window for a two-state solution will not be available indefinitely and Israel will be forced to deal with the “demographic threat” imposed on it by the Palestinians in historic Palestine.

This article, on the contrary, maintains that the two-state solution under present conditions denies the possibility of real coexistence based on equality. This is because both the Geneva document and the Oslo accords accept the Zionist consensus and, for the first time in the history of the conflict, seek to legitimize Israel as a Jewish state in historic Palestine.

In both of these documents, therefore, Israel would appear to have been confirmed as the “state of all the Jews” and never “the state of all of its citizens”. The logic of separation implicit in these documents implies some fundamental contradictions and begs certain serious questions.

The Accord and the Initiative have legitimated apartheid. Both documents include a language that is, euphemistically, reminiscent of the series of laws known collectively as the Group Areas Act which forced the relocation of millions of non-white South Africans into racially-specific ghettos. It was created to split racial groups up into different residential areas.

Like in Apartheid South Africa, where the most developed areas were reserved for the white people, and 84 percent of the available land was granted to the same racial group, who made up only 15 percent of the total population, in Palestine even the 22 percent of the historic land on which an ‘independent state’ is supposed to be declared is, according to the Oslo accords, “disputed”.

In the South African case, the 16 percent of remaining land was then occupied by 80 percent of the population. But contrary to the Palestinian case, that was never given legitimacy by the leadership of the indigenous population.

How can you call for the implementation of Security Council resolutions asserting the right of return of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees to their lands in Israel, and at the same time maintain the exclusively Jewish nature of the state? To be fair, this contradiction also appears in the literature of the Palestinian Resistance Movement. Both Hamas and the PLO also fail to answer this question. Moreover, how does this solution solve the problem of racism and cultural oppression of the marginalized Palestinian citizens of Israel?

Furthermore, is the establishment of an independent state as the solution to the Palestinian problem even possible?

No Israeli position supports full statehood

The argument of Beilin and Abed Rabbo, and even that of the leadership of the PA, is that only negotiations can solve the problem. For ten years negotiations have not moved the Israeli position at all; the Camp David negotiations reached the impasse predicted by both the Palestinian left and the ant-Zionist Israeli left. Ehud Barak’s red lines in 1999, are now very well-known, and Netanyahu’s platform leads to nothing more than a canton for native Palestinians.

Of course Avigdor Lieberman’s advocacy of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine has won him more seats in the Knesset. Add to this the fact that the establishment of a Palestinian state is not mentioned in any of the clauses of the Oslo agreement, thus leaving the matter to be determined by the balance of power in the region. This balance tilts in favor of Israel, which rejects the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, in spite of its recognition of the PLO.

No Israeli party, neither Labor nor Likud, is ready to accept a Palestinian state as the expression of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination as defined by international law.

The Labor Party is prepared to negotiate with the Palestinians in order to give them an advanced form of self-rule that will be called a state, and through which the Palestinians will be enabled to possess certain selected features of ‘independence,’ such as a Palestinian flag, a national anthem, and a police force. Nothing more. This was Barak’s ‘generous’ offer in Camp David.

The Likud Party, on the other hand, is not prepared to give the Palestinians even these semblances of self-rule. Their vision of the future is rather that the Palestinians should be allowed to run their own affairs under strict and binding Israeli control.

Turning the blame

And lately, in a bizarre, ironic twist, Palestinians have been blamed for killing the two-state solution. Right-wing Israeli historian Benny Morris has given up on finding a solution to “the conflict… mainly due to the Palestinians’ consistent rejection of a solution of two states for two peoples.”

This is not unlike saying that blacks of South Africa are to blame for killing the Bantusan system. And they should be punished. “In the end, both sides of the Palestinian movement, the fundamentalists led by Hamas and the secular bloc led by Fatah, are interested in Muslim rule over all of Palestine, with no Jewish state and no partition.” And Palestinian leadership, according to Morris, “has no desire or intention of reaching a solution of two states for two peoples.”

The two- state solution is dead because “the Palestinian leadership and people will not be satisfied with 20 percent of the territory of Palestine. A state composed of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem will not satisfy them,” Morris says.

And when asked about the right of return, Morris claims that it “essentially requires the destruction of the Jewish state… the Palestinian discourse and the Palestinian objectives have not changed, and their actions, i.e. terror…”. It is Palestinians that are to blame because “[the] demonization is not equal on the two sides. In the Israeli education system, in general, there is no demonization of the Arab, [whereas,] there, the Jews are completely demonized. The Palestinian authorities are busy deeply implanting the demonization. The Palestinian people think we can be made extinct. We don’t think that about the Palestinians.”

The problem for Morris is that “[aside] from revenge, the Palestinians have absolute faith in the justice of their side, which derives in part from religious faith. What God commands, and what his interpreters on Earth say that God commands, is the definite truth. While the Jews are much more skeptical about this sort of interpretation, the Palestinians feel that justice is on their side and that God doesn’t want the Holy Land to be shared with another people….”. Edward Said and Frantz Fanon must be turning in their graves.

But facts on the ground tell another story. Settlement activity in the West Bank continues, as does the confiscation of land and the opening of zigzag roads to service the settlements. Notably, the number of Jewish settlers has risen from 193,000, when the Oslo Accords were signed, to 600,000. No Israeli government has ever been willing to commit itself to the complete evacuation of settlers from the West Bank.

Yet this is a basic pre-condition for the creation of an ‘independent Palestinian state’ impossible in light of Israel’s commitment to the settlers. In order to guarantee the security of the settlements and ensure their future development, Israel is bound to control the greater part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, in any future contingency it is certain that Israel will invoke its security needs to justify tightening its control over the Jordan Valley, thus, again, rendering the project of an independent Palestinian state impossible.

Jerusalem has suffered and is still suffering from the continuation of settlement activity, the building and expansion of Jewish neighborhoods, the confiscation of Jerusalem IDs, ethnic cleansing, and the policy of ‘facts on the ground’ which leave no room for future Palestinian control over the city.

In addition, Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are experiencing increasing difficulties especially in places like Lebanon and Syria, and are waiting for the day to return to Palestine and to be compensated for their confiscated property. This is a right guaranteed by UN resolution 194.

Meanwhile the Palestinian community in Israel is prevented from coexisting on an equal footing with Israeli Jews. Israel’s state policy against its Palestinian citizens amounts to Apartheid as defined by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, and ratified by United Nations General Assembly resolution 3068 (XXVIII) of 30 November 1973. Needless to say, the PA does not represent either of those two large segments of the Palestinian people.

One state

Defending a two-state solution is, therefore, an insult to the memory of those who fought for equality and justice not only in Palestine, but also in the American South and South Africa.

Thus we come to the inevitable conclusion that a sovereign, independent Palestinian state is, for the reasons mentioned above, unattainable. The question, therefore, is whether there is an alternative solution?

One alternative increasingly to be found in the writings and pronouncements of certain Palestinian intellectuals and activists is the idea of a secular-democratic state in Mandate Palestine in which all citizens are treated equally regardless of their religion, race or sex.

A secular, democratic state is one inhabited by its citizens and governed on the basis of equality and parity both between the individuals as citizens and between groups which have cultural identities. Inherent in such an arrangement is the condition that the groups living there are enabled to coexist and to develop on an equal basis.

This is summed up in Nelson Mandela’s last words at the end of his four hour statement to the court at the Rivonia Trial: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

This system is proposed here as a long-term solution that will need much nurturing, following the political demise of the project of an ‘independent Palestinian state’ as a result of the Oslo Accords, the siege of the Gaza Strip, and the occupation of the West Bank. The establishment of four Bantusans in South Africa was considered by the International Community to constitute a racist solution that could not and should not be entertained.

In order to bring that inhumane solution to an end, the Apartheid regime was boycotted academically, culturally, diplomatically and economically until it succumbed and crumbled into pieces. Nothing remains of the old ethnically cleansed South Africa or the impoverished Bantusans it had created; not the red carpets, nor the national anthems, or the security apparatuses.

This is what racist solutions come to; a corner in the dustbin of history — a museum for the gaze of new generations.

Haidar Eid is an independent political commentator and professor in the department of English literature at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza.

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September 24, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Libya attack a “catastrophic intelligence loss” for US

Al Akhbar | September 24, 2012

The attack that killed the US ambassador to Libya dealt a huge blow to US intelligence operations because CIA agents and contractors were among the Americans evacuated afterward, the New York Times reported late Sunday.

The CIA’s intelligence targets in unstable Libya included an Islamist militia that some have blamed for the September 11 attack in the eastern city of Benghazi and suspected members of al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate, the paper said.

More than two dozen Americans were rushed out of Libya after the attack that killed ambassador Chris Stevens, three other Americans and 10 Libyan security officers.

They included about a dozen CIA operatives and contractors monitoring a variety of armed groups in the city, the paper reported.

“It is a catastrophic intelligence loss,” it quoted an American official who has served in Libya as saying. “We got our eyes poked out.”

However, the paper quoted another official as saying the United States was still collecting information via other techniques such as informants, intercepting mobile phone conversations and use of satellite images.

“The United States isn’t close to being blind in Benghazi and eastern Libya,” the second official said.

The paper also said that contrary to initial accounts, a consulate annex that was also attacked was never meant to be a “safe house” for the CIA.

Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced an official review of security at the US mission in Libya.

President Barack Obama’s administration initially said it believed extremists had not really planned the attack in Libya but simply taken advantage of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islamic trailer to mix in and attack.

The White House for the first time Thursday described the assault as a “terrorist attack” and said it could have links to al-Qaeda.

But a Republican lawmaker, Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, cast doubt Sunday over whether the protests even happened.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

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September 24, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to step down

RT | September 24, 2012

A senior Hamas official has confirmed that the group’s leader, Khaled Mashaal, will not be seeking re-election. Mashaal will, however, remain a member of the Islamist party.

Mashaal, who has led Hamas from various Arab capitals since 1996, told a meeting of senior officials in Cairo last week that he had no desire to remain its chief and that his decision not to run in the election was final, a diplomatic source told the Jerusalem Post earlier Sunday.

“When Mashaal said he was not seeking re-election, a message was sent to him from the movement’s leaders, unanimously asking him to change his mind,” senior Hamas official Salal Bardawil told Ma’an news agency.

The diplomatic source told the Jerusalem Post that Mashaal was tired of policy changes from the group’s leadership.

“Mashaal has grown impatient with some of his Gaza officials who recently tried to undermine decisions he took on behalf of the group,” the source said.

The leader angered Hamas’ leadership earlier this year when he agreed that its main rival, the Fatah movement, could lead any future unity government.

Mashaal has made no public comment on his future leadership or on the Cairo meeting.

­The announcement comes after reports earlier this year that Mashaal will not seek re-election.

Khaled Mahaal has been the head of Hamas’s political bureau since 1996, after his predecessor, Mousa Abu Marzook, was arrested in the United States and imprisoned there for two years on suspicion of terrorism.

Mashaal was known as a vocal critic of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, often refusing to follow directives issued by the PA regarding ceasefires with Israel.

In 1997, the Hamas leader became the target of an assassination attempt by the Israeli intelligence service. Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists injected him with poison on a street in Amman, Jordan. They were later captured by Jordanian authorities. Jordanian King Hussein demanded that Israel hand over the antidote to save Mashaal, who was in a coma. Under growing political pressure and with US President Bill Clinton’s intervention, Israel did so, and its agents were released.

In 1999, Mashaal was expelled from Jordan, with authorities accusing him of illegal activities. He later moved to Damascus, where he stayed until the Syrian civil war intensified, forcing him to move to Qatar.

The date of the election of the next Hamas leader remains secret. Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s leader in the Gaza Strip, and Moussa Abu Marzouk, who headed Hamas in the early 1990s, were the top candidates to replace Mashaal, a source told Reuters.

September 24, 2012 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

OCHA: Israeli occupation destroys 13 houses weekly in West Bank

Palestine Information Center – 24/09/2012

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A UN report said that the occupation authority is continuing their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the current year.

The report issued by UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Palestinian territories OCHA revealed that the occupation has razed 465 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, including 136 houses, since the beginning of 2012, at the rate of 13 buildings per week compared to 12 buildings per week during the previous year.

According to the report, 676 Palestinians were displaced and rendered homeless as a result of these demolitions.

OCHA also reported that the occupation forces issued an order to seize six dunums of land in the village of Khader in the city of Bethlehem, South of the West Bank under the pretext that the land belongs to the occupation, and confiscated also 200 square meters of Palestinian land located near the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil city.

The UN organization’s weekly report added that the Israeli occupation forces handed over a new military order to confiscate 647 dunums of land belonging to eighty Palestinian families in the villages of Awarta and Burin in Nablus.

The Israeli army has ordered two weeks ago a halt to construction and repair works on 17 Palestinian structures in Khirbet Irza, located near a closed military zone in Tubas.

According to OCHA’s report, since 1967 the occupation army announced the allocation of nearly1 8 per cent of the occupied West Bank’s land for the establishment of closed military zones used for training its troops, which resulted in dramatically reducing the area of land available for housing for Palestinians.

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September 24, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

USAID looks for ways around Russian ban

By Veronika Krasheninnikova | RT | September 24, 2012

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs gave USAID until October 1 to shut its doors in Moscow. This is an excellent decision by the Russian Government. And Washington’s immediate and virulent reaction only confirms that Russia is right on target.

The New York Times next morning on the front page cited American officials who “quickly pledged to maneuver around the Kremlin.” Even before the public announcement, on Tuesday 18 September, US Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul and USAID leadership met with their Russian partners.

Grigory Melkonyants, deputy head of the Golos Association – one of the top recipients of USAID funding – confirmed after the meeting that the agency is “not going to leave Russia completely” and they are “brainstorming” about how to reorganize. In the meantime, Ambassador McFaul announced that “it will take at least a year” for USAID to exit Russia, according to Bloomberg News.

Brainstorming on how circumvent the Russian government’s decision – instead of how to pack up faster – is only one more demonstration of Washington’s utter disrespect for another country’s sovereignty. Indeed, there are a number of ways in which USAID can maneuver around its predicament.

Funding can be channeled directly from USAID headquarters in Washington to its Russian beneficiaries – no need to go through a Moscow office.

USAID funding can be redirected through a great number of other US institutions, beginning with the National Endowment for Democracy and its four mandated institutes; private funds such as MacArthur, Soros’s Open Society Institute, or Freedom House; universities’ Russia programs, etc.

To hide the American connection, USAID can channel funding through their partners in Ukraine, Poland or Georgia – for their very active operations in the Caucuses; in this case the money entering Russia will be Ukrainian, Polish or, God forbid, Saakashvili’s.

In October last year, USAID signed an agreement with Cisco Systems on joint 50/50 funding of Cisco Networking Academies for Public Service Program. Cisco and other major US corporations may continue running USAID programs.

A year ago Michael McFaul announced an initiative to create a new US$50 million fund, essentially an endowment for a private foundation established under Russian law for Russian civil society groups.

Washington may use any combination of these and other possibilities. One way to put an end to USAID activities in Russia is not only to close their Moscow office, but to insist on shutting down all USAID programs and funding for Russia. This is American taxpayers’ money – give it back to the American people, use it to help them pay mortgages instead of throwing families out of their homes.

Obviously, USAID cannot be allowed to stay in Moscow beyond the set date. This delay will only serve to build up additional infrastructure – people and organizations – to run operations remotely.

The main lament of the Western press has been about how hard USAID closure will hit the sick, disabled, mothers, newborns and other children that the agency helps. Well, let’s take a look at USAID leadership to see how well they are suited for healthcare services.

Director of USAID/Russia Charles North, according to its official biography is “a 2004 graduate of the National War College, with an MS Degree in National Security Strategy.”

Earlier North served as Senior Deputy Director of USAID’s Afghanistan and Pakistan Task Force, and helped launch a presidential initiative to support Mexico and Central America in battling organized crime and drug trafficking.

In Washington, Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia until last year was Douglas Menarchik: a 26-year career US Air Force officer, Vietnam veteran with 211 combat missions, assistant for terrorism policy at the Pentagon, where he developed the Defense Department’s Strategic Plan for Combating Terrorism, military advisor to the vice-president of the United States with a portfolio including terrorism and low intensity conflict. Earlier Menarchik was instructor at the Air Force Special Operations School, teaching combating terrorism and counter insurgency.

But that’s not all. If you check Charles North’s bio on USAID site, you will see a new “updated” version that excludes his National War College stint. However, a cached copy of his true biography is still available – and this snapshot shows the page as it appeared on September 14, 2012. Someone was cleaning house a few days before the public announcement.

Enough tales about healthcare dispensed by US military and national security cadre. USAID – out. Russia must take care of its own civil society, ill and disabled by itself instead of outsourcing it to Washington. Russia’s shutting USAID operations is also an excellent example for any other country where USAID operatives still work on “winning hearts and minds” of the local population.

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September 24, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Jewish atonement but not for Zionism’s crimes against the Palestinians

By Alan Hart | Aletho News | September 24, 2012

Yom Kippur, the Day Atonement, is the holiest day in the Jewish year. On BBC Radio 4’s Thought for Today, Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, explained the significance of the day for Jews. He said, among other things, “We apologize for all the wrongs we’ve done and we seek forgiveness.”

I had the impression from everything he said and the way he said it that his lordship was in no doubt that he was speaking from the top of the moral high ground. Up there his words may sound fine but they are out of touch with one of the most important aspects of reality.

The vast majority of Jews refuse to acknowledge that a terrible wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism, the terrible wrong being, and only starting with, the creation in Arab Palestine of a state for Zionist Jews mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing; a process which saw upwards of 700,000 Palestinians dispossessed of their land and their rights.

In that light, how can the chief rabbi claim that on the Day of Atonement Jews “apologize for all the wrongs we’ve done”? Either he doesn’t know that a wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism, in which case he sees no need for Jews to apologize for it and seek forgiveness; or he knows that a wrong was done but cannot, dare not, say so.

If there is ever to be a peaceful resolution of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, the process to bring it about will have to be kick-started by a significant majority of Jews everywhere acknowledging (1) that a terrible wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism in the name of all Jews; and (2) that the wrong must be righted.

In the view of this goy (me), Days of Atonement which ignore the need for Jews to be honest with themselves about Zionism’s crimes in Palestine are nothing but Jewish theater.

September 24, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

US, biggest warmonger in the world

By Dave Lindorff | Press TV | September 23, 2012

There is a massive deception campaign in the US and in its global propaganda, which seeks to portray the United States as a poor set-upon nation that would like world peace, but just has to keep a military stationed around the globe to “police” all the world’s “trouble spots.”

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

That truth is that the US is the biggest warmonger the world has ever known.

Let’s start with its budget. The US, in fiscal year 2012, budgeted a total of $673 billion for the military, plus another $166 billion for military activities of other government departments, such as the nuclear weapons program, much of which is handled by the Department of Energy, or the Veterans Program, which pays for the care and benefits of former military personnel. There’s also roughly another $440 billion in interest paid on the debt from prior wars and military expenditures. All together, that comes to $1.3 trillion, which represents close to 50% of the general budget of the United States — the highest percentage of a government budget devoted to the military of any modern nation in the world — and perhaps of any government of any nation in world history.

That spending also represents the world’s biggest percentage of national gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of all economic activity in a nation, devoted to the military. Looking at the other countries with big militaries — China, Russia, Britain and France, not only does one not even come close in terms of the percent of GDP spent on its military, but taken together, all of their military expenditures combined total less than half what the US spends by itself.

Since the late 1960s, the US government has engaged in a sleight-of-hand to hide the scale of its military spending from the American people. It has done this by adding to the federal budget the amount of money spent on Social Security and Medicare, the health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. This is not a correct accounting however, because both of those programs are actually funded by a separate payroll tax paid by employees and employers which are accounted for as trust funds with the money actually allocated to the accounts of the individual citizens who receive or will receive benefits from the programs. Using that fraud, the government and the politicians are able to claim that the US “only” spends 24% of the budget on military. Even that would be far above what is spent by any other nation in the world, but it is actually only half of what the US really spends as a share of its general budget.

One reason the US military budget is so huge is that the US operates some 900 bases abroad, in what amounts to a program of global empire. It is estimated that the cost of keeping those bases operating is about $250 billion. Empire costs a lot more than that though. There’s also the cost of operating a global fleet of ships, including incredibly costly aircraft carrier battle groups. That cost, surely in excess of $100 billion when the cost of the ships is factored in, doesn’t get broken out by the Pentagon.

Then, there is another way the US is the world’s biggest warmonger. This is in its role as the world’s biggest arms merchant. In 2011, the US sold more than $66 billion in arms to the rest of the world, often, as in the case of India and Pakistan, or India and China, or Israel and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, selling weapons to countries that are mutually hostile to each other or even, as in the case of India and Pakistan, in a state of active conflict along their border. That $66 billion — an all-time record for the US — was an astonishing and depressing 78% of the global arms market for the year. Russia was the second biggest arms dealer, selling only a paltry $4.8 billion in weapons to the rest of the world.

None of these weapons the US is selling makes either the US or the world any safer.

Indeed, two of the biggest recipients of US military “aid” and weapons sales are Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Saudi regime last year purchased $30 billion in arms from the US. Meanwhile the US has been providing Israel with $3 billion in outright military aid each year for years. Israel also buys billions of dollars in weapons from the US each year. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship and a promoter of instability within Syria, while it also props up dictatorships in countries like Yemen and Bahrain. In other countries, like Israel or Colombia, US aid encourages military actions which could lead to conflicts that would inevitably draw the US in as a participant.

The truth is that none of America’s military spending makes the US safer.

One doesn’t see fanatics traveling to Brazil or China or New Zealand to blow things up. One reason is almost certainly that those countries aren’t stationing their troops within other countries’ borders, and aren’t selling weapons to countries that threaten their neighbors.

The US government tells Americans that all that money they are spending on the military is designed to “protect” them from harm. In fact, the evidence over the years is that it is making Americans more vulnerable and less safe. Not only that, but the wars that the US has started over the years — in Indochina, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere — have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of young Americans (and of course to the deaths of millions of people in those countries, most of them civilians).

The truth is that a country that spends half of every tax dollar collected from its citizens on its military cannot hope to prosper. As President Dwight Eisenhower, a former top general in the US military who led US forces in World War II, once famously stated in a 1953 address to a group of newspaper editors:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

Most of the rest of the world isn’t fooled by American government accounting tricks. Being at the barrel end of the gun, people of other countries know how US military spending is a primary cause of war and terror in the world. But we Americans ourselves need to wake up to the massive damage that our military-obsessed political system is doing to our country, lest it ultimately destroys us. There is a clear reason that social programs in the US are threatened, that the economy is in a prolonged depression, that our education system is collapsing, and that our standing in the world has plummeted. It is our militarism, and the incredible amount of the national wealth that is being spent on it.

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September 23, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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