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Brethren Church Leader Deported from Israel

By Kawther Salam • Jan 27th, 2010 

In early January 2010, On Earth Peace, an agency of the Church of the Brethren reported that the executive director Bob Gross was detained and deported by Israeli authorities when he arrived at the Tel Aviv airport as part of a Christian peacemaking delegation meant to build connections with Israelis and Palestinians who are working for a non-violent resolution to their conflict.

The deportation of Mr. Gross is not the first and it will not be the last. It also has nothing to do with terrorism or the security of Israel, but it has to do with the daily crimes of genocide committed by the Israeli occupation against the Palestinians in their own homeland, cities, towns and villages in the West Bank. It is all about the crimes which the Israeli occupation does not want the international delegations to see or to report about.

Mr. Gross stated in an interview which he gave to me by Email that he had previously visited Palestine and Israel on April 2002, November 2004, January 2006, and January 2008.

According to on Earth Peace report, the deportation of the executive director of On Earth Peace is part of a pattern of excluding from Israel any visitor who seeks peace and security for both Palestine and Israel. This has the effect of blocking peacemaking efforts by churches and other groups, and sets back the hopes of a constructive Middle East peace.

The full text of an interview with Director Bob Gross is below.

Q: Had you ever visited Palestine and Israel before?
Gross: Four times before, April 2002, November 2004, January 2006, January 2008.
Each time I was with a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation. In 2004, 2006, and 2008, I was the delegation leader. In those trips, we were in Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, and the South Hebron Hills. We met with Israeli, Palestinian and international peacemakers, and with Palestinian families, as well as one Israeli couple.

Q: Would you describe your trip since you were stopped by the Israeli customs officer and until your deportation?

Gross: I probably would not have been stopped at passport control, except that I was travelling with my colleague, who was to co-lead the delegation with me.  Her name is not Alice Bartlett, but she has asked that her real name not be used so that any publicity about this trip will not affect her later efforts to travel in the Middle East. She is Egyptian-American, and has an Egyptian last name.  For this reason alone, she and I were stopped and asked to wait for questioning rather than being allowed to enter Israel.

We were made to wait in a room in the arrival hall of the Tel Aviv airport, and we were each questioned separately for 5-10 minutes.  Then we waited for an hour or so, then my colleague was questioned again for about 30 minutes.

Later they took us to find our checked bags, and searched both our checked and carry-on bags very thoroughly, and searched us with very close body searches (with clothes on).

After 9.5 hours, they called my colleague in and told her they were not going to allow her into Israel, and would ban her for 10 years.  A few minutes later they called me in, and asked me for names of my Palestinian and Israeli contacts.  I would not give them any names.  They also said that I would need to sign a paper saying that I would not enter the “Palestinian territories” while in Israel.  I did not sign this paper.  So they denied entry for me also, with a 10-year ban.  They took photographs and electronic fingerprints of each of us, and took us to gather our bags to wait for being moved to the jail.  However, it was another two hours — 12 hours in all — before they took us to the jail.

Q: How did they treat you? How was the comportment of the israeli officers in general and towards you?
Gross: They treated us OK.  They were not harsh and did not mistreat us, but they exercised complete control and authority, treating us sometimes as if we were a nuisance, sometimes as if we were dangerous, sometimes as if we were dishonest.

Q: How many hours did the Israelis “investigate” you?
Gross: 9.5 before deciding to deport us.

Q: What kind of questions did they ask you?
Gross: Always the first question was, “What is the purpose of your visit to Israel?”
We answered that question truthfully, but briefly, and they seemed to know there was more we were not saying.
I was asked where I had travelled in Israel/Palestine on my earlier visit, and what I did.  As I said above, in the last interrogation they asked for my contacts names and information.
I don’t know all of the questions my colleague was asked, because we never had a chance to talk about what we each had been asked without being overheard, so we did not talk about that while we were being held.

Q: Which was the silliest question, and what did you answer?
Gross: Maybe it was when they said I should give them the names of some of my contacts in Israel and Palestine, so they could call them and ask whether I should be trusted.

Q: How did you spend your night at the Israeli airport jail?
Gross: I was in the cell from 5 pm to 5 am.  There was one other prisoner there, also being deported.  He was Muslim, from Morocco, and had lived and worked in the Netherlands for many years.  He was denied entry simply because of who he was, it seemed.

We talked some, and I slept some in the evening, since I had spent two nights on air-planes by that time, and was tired.  They brought us some kind of sandwich and tea for supper.  As it happened, my cell-mate snored very loudly, and so it was hard to sleep that night.  I slept only a little, and then got up and prepared to leave.  Just walked back and forth, looked out the windows, sat on the bed, and waited.

Q: Would you explain me your feelings during your stay in jail?
Gross: I was concerned for my colleague, who was in a different cell, and so I could not talk with her. I was relieved to be out of the waiting and to know what their decision was, even though it was for deportation.

Q: How many people do you think were illegally jailed in Israel at the same time with you?
Gross: One additional person was brought in after midnight, so there were three of us in my cell, and there was one person in the cell with my friend.  I don’t know how many others.

Q: Did you sign any papers during the investigation, or before your deportation?  What did you sign exactly? What was the justification given by the Israelis for your deportation?
Gross: I don’t remember signing anything.

Q: Which was your reaction when they notified you of your deportation? What did you say or ask?
Gross: I was not surprised, and I did not ask anything.  I was not willing to agree to their terms, and so I knew they would not allow me in.

Q: What is your message for Israel after this tragic deportation?
Gross: Israel will not be made secure by expelling persons who seek peace and security for both Palestine and Israel.

Source

January 27, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Google’s Deep CIA Connections

By Eric Sommer | The People’s Voice | January 26, 2010

The western media is currently full of articles on Google’s ‘threat to quit China’ over internet censorship issues, and the company’s ‘suspicion’ that the Chinese government was behind attempts to ‘break-in’ to several Google email accounts used by ‘Chinese dissidents’.

However, the media has almost completely failed to report that Google’s surface concern over ‘human rights’ in China is belied by its deep involvement with some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet:

Google is, in fact, a key participant in U.S. military and CIA intelligence operations involving torture; subversion of foreign governments; illegal wars of aggression; and military occupations of countries which have never attacked the U.S. and which have cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

To begin with, as reported in the Washington Post and elsewhere, Google is the supplier of the customized core search technology for ‘Intellipedia, a highly-secured online system where 37,000 U.S. spies and related personnel share information and collaborate on their devious errands.’

Agencies such as the so-called ‘National Security Agency’ have also purchased servers using Google-supplied search technology which processes information gathered by U.S. spies operating all over the planet.

In addition, Google is linked to the U.S. spy and military systems through its Google Earth software venture. The technology behind this software was originally developed by Keyhole Inc., a company funded by Q-Tel http://www.iqt.org/ , a venture capital firm which is in turn openly funded and operated on behalf of the CIA.

Google acquired Keyhole Inc. in 2004. The same base technology is currently employed by U.S. military and intelligence systems in their quest, in their own words, for “full-spectrum dominance” of the planet.

Moreover, Googles’ connection with the CIA and its venture capital firm extends to sharing at least one key member of personnel. In 2004, the Director of Technology Assessment at In-Q-Tel, Rob Painter, moved from his old job directly serving the CIA to become ‘Senior Federal Manager’ at Google.

As Robert Steele, a former CIA case officer has put it: Google is “in bed with” the CIA.

Google’s Friends spy on millions of Internet Users

Given Google’s supposed concern with ‘break-in’s to several of its email accounts, it’s worth noting that Wired magazine recently reported that Google’s friends at In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA, are now investing in Visible Technologies, a software firm specialized in ‘monitoring social media’.

The ‘Visible’ technology can automatically examine more than a million discussions and posts on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and so forth each day. The technology also ‘scores’ each online item, assigning it a positive, negative or mixed or neutral status, based on parameters and terms set by the technology operators. The information, thus boiled down, can then be more effectively scanned and read by human operators.

The CIA venture capitalists at In-Q-Tel say they will use the technology to monitor social media operating in other countries and give U.S. spies “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,” according to spokesperson Donald Tighe. There is every possibility that the technology can also be used by the U.S. intellligence operatives to spy on domestic social movements and individuals inside the U.S.

Finally, there is a curious absence from the statements emanating from Google – and from U.S. media reports – of any substantive evidence linking the Chinese government with the alledged break-in attempts to several Google email accounts. Words like ‘sophisticated’ and ‘suspicion’ have appeared in the media to suggest that the Chinese government is responsible for the break-ins. That may be so. But it is striking that the media has seemingly asked no questions as to what the evidence behind the ‘suspicions’ might be
It should be noted that the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies have a long history of rogue operations intended to discredit governments or social movements with whom they happen to disagree.

To see how far this can go, one need only recall the sordid history of disinformation, lies, and deceit used to frighten people into supporting the Iraq war.

Whether the attacks on Google email originated from the Chinese government, from the U.S. intelligence operatives, or from elsewhere, one thing is clear: A company that supplies the CIA with key intelligence technology; supplies mapping software which can be used for barbarous wars of aggression and drone attacks which kill huge numbers of innocent civilians; and which in general is deeply intertwined with the CIA and the U.S. military machines, which spy on millions, the company cannot be motivated by real concern for the human rights and lives of the people in China.

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Source

January 26, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

The Drone Surge

Today, tomorrow, and 2047

By Nick Turse

One moment there was the hum of a motor in the sky above. The next, on a recent morning in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a missile blasted a home, killing 13 people. Days later, the same increasingly familiar mechanical whine preceded a two-missile salvo that slammed into a compound in Degan village in the tribal North Waziristan district of Pakistan, killing three.

What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration. And since a devastating Dec. 30 suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace. In Pakistan, an “unprecedented number” of strikes – which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike – have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public “secret” war of modern times.

In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, for years in short supply and tasked primarily with surveillance missions, have increasingly been used to assassinate suspected militants as part of an aerial surge that has significantly outpaced the highly publicized “surge” of ground forces now underway. And yet, unprecedented as it may be in size and scope, the present ramping up of the drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

Today’s Surge

Drones are the hot weapons of the moment and the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review – a soon-to-be-released four-year outline of Department of Defense strategies, capabilities, and priorities to fight current wars and counter future threats – is already known to reflect this focus. As the Washington Post recently reported, “The pilotless drones used for surveillance and attack missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are a priority, with the goals of speeding up the purchase of new Reaper drones and expanding Predator and Reaper drone flights through 2013.”

The MQ-1 Predator – first used in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s – and its newer, larger, and more deadly cousin, the MQ-9 Reaper, are now firing missiles and dropping bombs at an unprecedented pace. In 2008, there were reportedly between 27 and 36 U.S. drone attacks as part of the CIA’s covert war in Pakistan. In 2009, there were 45 to 53 such strikes. In the first 18 days of January 2010, there had already been 11 of them.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force has instituted a much publicized decrease in piloted air strikes to cut down on civilian casualties as part of Afghan War commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy. At the same time, however, UAS attacks have increased to record levels.

The Air Force has created an interconnected global command-and-control system to carry out its robot war in Afghanistan (and as Noah Shachtman of Wired’s Danger Room blog has reported, to assist the CIA in its drone strikes in Pakistan as well). Evidence of this can be found at high-tech U.S. bases around the world where drone pilots and other personnel control the planes themselves and the data streaming back from them. These sites include a converted medical warehouse at Al-Udeid Air Base, a billion-dollar facility in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar where the Air Force secretly oversees its ongoing drone wars; Kandahar and Jalalabad Air Fields in Afghanistan, where the drones are physically based; the global operations center at Nevada’s Creech Air Base, where the Air Force’s “pilots” fly drones by remote control from thousands of miles away; and – perhaps most importantly – at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, a 12-square-mile facility in Dayton, Ohio, named after the two local brothers who invented powered flight in 1903. This is where the bills for the current drone surge – as well as limited numbers of strikes in Yemen and Somalia – come due and are, quite literally, paid.

In the waning days of December 2009, in fact, the Pentagon cut two sizable checks to ensure that unmanned operations involving the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper will continue full-speed ahead in 2010. The 703rd Aeronautical Systems Squadron based at Wright-Patterson signed a $38 million contract with defense giant Raytheon for logistics support for the targeting systems of both drones. At the same time, the squadron inked a deal worth $266 million with mega-defense contractor General Atomics, which makes the Predator and Reaper drones, to provide management services, logistics support, repairs, software maintenance, and other functions for both drone programs. Both deals essentially ensure that, in the years ahead, the stunning increase in drone operations will continue.

These contracts, however, only initial down payments on an enduring drone surge designed to carry U.S. unmanned aerial operations forward, ultimately for decades.

Drone Surge: The Longer View

Back in 2004, the Air Force could put a total of only five drone combat air patrols (CAPs) – each consisting of four air vehicles – in the skies over American war zones at any one time. By 2009, that number was 38, a 660 percent increase according to the Air Force. Similarly, between 2001 and 2008, hours of surveillance coverage for U.S. Central Command, encompassing both the Iraqi and Afghan war zones, as well as Pakistan and Yemen, showed a massive spike of 1,431 percent.

In the meantime, flight hours have gone through the roof. In 2004, for example, Reapers, just beginning to soar, flew 71 hours in total, according to Air Force documents; in 2006, that number had risen to 3,123 hours; and last year, 25,391 hours. This year, the Air Force projects that the combined flight hours of all its drones – Predators, Reapers, and unarmed RQ-4 Global Hawks – will exceed 250,000 hours, about the total number of hours flown by all Air Force drones from 1995-2007. In 2011, the 300,000 hour-a-year barrier is expected to be crossed for the first time, and after that the sky’s the limit.

More flight time will, undoubtedly, mean more killing. According to Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the Washington-based think tank the New America Foundation, in the Bush years, from 2006 into 2009, there were 41 drone strikes in Pakistan that killed 454 militants and civilians. Last year, under the Obama administration, there were 42 strikes that left 453 people dead. A recent report by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based independent research organization that tracks security issues, claimed an even larger number, 667 people – most of them civilians – killed by U.S. drone strikes last year.

While assisting the CIA’s drone operations in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, the Air Force has been increasing its own unmanned aerial hunter-killer missions. In 2007 and 2008, for example, Air Force Predators and Reapers fired missiles during 244 missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, while all the U.S. armed services have pursued unmanned aerial warfare, the Air Force has outpaced each of them.

From 2001, when armed drone operations began, until the spring of 2009, the Air Force fired 703 Hellfire missiles and dropped 132 GBU-12s (500-pound laser-guided bombs) in combat operations. The Army, by comparison, launched just two Hellfire missiles and two smaller GBU-44 Viper Strike munitions in the same time period. The disparity should only grow, since the Army’s drones remain predominantly small surveillance aircraft, while in 2009 the Air Force shifted all outstanding orders for the medium-sized Predator to the even more formidable Reaper, which is not only twice as fast but has 600 percent more payload capacity, meaning more space for bombs and missiles.

In addition, the more heavily-armed Reapers, which can now loiter over an area for 10 to 14 hours without refueling, will be able to spot and track ever more targets via an increasingly sophisticated video monitoring system. According to Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, the first three “Gorgon Stare pods” – new wide-area sensors that provide surveillance capabilities over large swathes of territory – will be installed on Reapers operating in Afghanistan this spring.

A technology not available for the older Predator, Gorgon Stare will allow 10 operators to view 10 video feeds from a single drone at the same time. Back at a distant base, a “pilot” will stare at a tiled screen with a composite picture of the streaming battlefield video, even as field commanders analyze a portion of the digital picture, panning, zooming, and tilting the image to meet their needs.

A more advanced set of “pods,” scheduled to be deployed for the first time this fall, will allow 30 operators to view 30 video images simultaneously. In other words, via video feeds from a single Reaper drone, operators could theoretically track 30 different people heading in 30 directions from a single Afghan compound. The generation of sensors expected to come online in late 2011 promises 65 such feeds, according to Air Force documents, a more than 6,000 percent increase in effectiveness over the Predator’s video system. The Air Force is, however, already overwhelmed just by drone video currently being sent back from the war zones and, in the years ahead, risks “drowning in data,” according to Deptula.

The 40-Year Plan

When it comes to the drone surge, the years 2011-2013 are just the near horizon. While, like the Army, the Navy is working on its own future drone warfare capacity – in the air as well as on and even under the water – the Air Force is involved in striking levels of futuristic planning for robotic war. It envisions a future previously imagined only in sci-fi movies like the Terminator series.

As a start, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the Pentagon’s blue skies research outfit, is already looking into radically improving on Gorgon Stare with an “Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance-Infrared (ARGUS-IR) System.” In the obtuse language of military research and development, it will, according to DARPA, provide a “real-time, high-resolution, wide area video persistent surveillance capability that allows joint forces to keep critical areas of interest under constant surveillance with a high degree of target location accuracy” via as many as “130 ‘Predator-like’ steerable video streams to enable real-time tracking and monitoring and enhanced situational awareness during evening hours.”

In translation, that means the Air Force will quite literally be flooded with video information from future battlefields; and every “advance” of this sort means bulking up the global network of facilities, systems, and personnel capable of receiving, monitoring, and interpreting the data streaming in from distant digital eyes. All of it, of course, is specifically geared toward “target location,” that is, pinpointing people on one side of the world so that Americans on the other side can watch, track, and in many cases, kill them.

In addition to enhanced sensors and systems like ARGUS-IR, the Air Force has a long-term vision for drone warfare that is barely beginning to be realized. Predators and Reapers have already been joined in Afghanistan by a newer, formerly secret drone, a “low observable unmanned aircraft system” first spotted in 2007 and dubbed the “Beast of Kandahar” before observers were sure what it actually was. It is now known to be a Lockheed Martin-manufactured unmanned aerial vehicle, the RQ-170 – a drone which the Air Force blandly notes was designed to “directly support combatant commander needs for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to locate targets.” According to military sources, the sleek, stealthy surveillance craft has been designated to replace the antique Lockheed U-2 spy plane, which has been in use since the 1950s.

In the coming years, the RQ-170 is slated to be joined in the skies of America’s “next wars” by a fleet of drones with ever newer, more sophisticated capabilities and destructive powers. Looking into the post-2011 future, Deptula sees the most essential need, according to an Aviation Week report, as “long-range [reconnaissance and] precision strike” – that is, more eyes in far off skies and more lethality. He added, “We cannot move into a future without a platform that allows [us] to project power long distances and to meet advanced threats in a fashion that gives us an advantage that no other nation has.”

This means bigger, badder, faster drones – armed to the teeth – with sensor systems to monitor wide swathes of territory and the ability to loiter overhead for days on end waiting for human targets to appear and, in due course, be vaporized by high-powered munitions. It’s a future built upon advanced technologies designed to make targeted killings – remote-controlled assassinations – ever more effortless.

Over the horizon and deep into what was, until recently, only a silver-screen fantasy, the Air Force envisions a wide array of unmanned aircraft, from tiny insect-like robots to enormous “tanker-size” pilotless planes. Each will be slated to take over specific war-making functions (or so Air Force dreamers imagine). Those nano-sized drones, for instance, are set to specialize in indoor reconnaissance – they’re small enough to fly through windows or down ventilation shafts – and carry out lethal attacks, undertake computer-disabling cyber-attacks, and swarm, as would a group of angry bees, of their own volition. Slightly larger micro-sized Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems (STUAS) are supposed to act as “transformers” – altering their form to allow for flying, crawling, and non-visual sensing capabilities. They might fill sentry, counter-drone, surveillance, and lethal attack roles.

Additionally, the Air Force envisions small and medium “fighter-sized” drones with lethal combat capabilities that would put the current UAS air fleet to shame. Today’s medium-sized Reapers are set to be replaced by next generation MQ-Ma drones that will be “networked, capable of partial autonomy, all-weather, and modular with capabilities supporting electronic warfare (EW), CAS [close air support], strike, and multi-INT [multiple intelligence] ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] missions’ platform.”

The language may not be elegant, much less comprehensible, but if these future fighter aircraft actually come online they will not only send today’s remaining Top Gun pilots to the showers, but may even sideline tomorrow’s drone human operators, who, if all goes as planned, will have ever fewer duties. Unlike today’s drones, which must take off and land with human guidance, the MQ-Mas will be automated, and drone operators will simply be there to monitor the aircraft.

Next up will be the MQ-Mb, theoretically capable of taking over even more roles once assigned to traditional fighter-bombers and spy planes, including the suppression of enemy air defenses, bombing and strafing of ground targets, and surveillance missions. These will also be designed to fly more autonomously and be better linked-in to other drone “platforms” for cooperative missions involving many aircraft under the command of a single “pilot.” Imagine, for instance, one operator overseeing a single command drone that holds sway over a small squadron of autonomous drones carrying out a coordinated air attack on clusters of people in some far off land, incinerating them in small groups across a village, town, or city.

Finally, perhaps 30 to 40 years from now, the MQ-Mc drone would incorporate all of the advances of the MQ-M line, while being capable of everything from dog-fighting to missile defense. With such new technology will, of course, come new policies and new doctrines. In the years ahead, the Air Force intends to make drone-related policy decisions on everything from treaty obligations to automatic target engagement – robotic killing without a human in the loop. The latter extremely controversial development is already envisioned as a possible post-2025 reality.

2047: What’s Old is New Again

The year 2047 is the target date for the Air Force’s Holy Grail, the capstone for its long-term plan to turn the skies over to war-fighting drones. In 2047, the Air Force intends to rule the skies with MQ-Mc drones and “special” super-fast, hypersonic drones for which neither viable technology nor any enemies with any comparable programs or capabilities yet exist. Despite this, the Air Force is intent on making these super-fast hunter-killer systems a reality by 2047. “Propulsion technology and materials that can withstand the extreme heat will likely take 20 years to develop. This technology will be the next generation air game-changer. Therefore the prioritization of the funding for the specific technology development should not wait until the emergence of a critical COCOM [combatant command] need,” says the Air Force’s 2009-2047 UAS “Flight Plan.”

If anything close to the Air Force’s dreams comes to fruition, the “game” will indeed be radically changed. By 2047, there’s no telling how many drones will be circling over how many heads in how many places across the planet. There’s no telling how many millions or billions of flight hours will have been flown, or how many people, in how many countries will have been killed by remote-controlled, bomb-dropping, missile-firing, judge-jury-and-executioner drone systems.

There’s only one given. If the U.S. still exists in its present form, is still solvent, and still has a functioning Pentagon of the present sort, a new plan will already be well underway to create the war-making technologies of 2087. By then, in ever more places, people will be living with the sort of drone war that now worries only those in places like Degan village. Ever more people will know that unmanned aerial systems packed with missiles and bombs are loitering in their skies. By then, there undoubtedly won’t even be that lawnmower-engine sound indicating that a missile may soon plow into your neighbor’s home.

For the Air Force, such a prospect is the stuff of dreams, a bright future for unmanned, hypersonic lethality; for the rest of the planet, it’s a potential nightmare from which there may be no waking.

January 25, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Lebanese media warns of ban if US hits out at Hezbollah TV

DPA | January 23, 2010

Beirut – The National Lebanese Council for Audio-Visual Media and the Lebanese Press Association on Saturday urged the United States to reverse a decision to take ‘punitive measures’ against a satellite broadcaster run by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

The Council hinted that it will resort to banning from Lebanese airwaves US-networks such as Cable News Network (CNN) and others financed by the US.

Council head Abdel Hadi Mahfouz said that if the US bill against Hezbollah’s al-Manar television was adopted, ‘we as an independent council can cut off transmissions of US-based stations such as CNN and (US-backed Arabic satellite channel) al-Houra by asking cable distributors in Lebanon not to air such channels.’

‘We have expressed our refusal for such a legal measure against al-Manar and other channels which the US has listed as Arab terrorist entities,’ said Mahfouz.

The US House of Representatives passed a bill in December 2009 calling for ‘punitive measures’ against Middle East television networks, including al-Manar, seen to be fueling anti-US sentiment.

The bill was adopted in a decisive 395 to 3 vote against media outlets that broadcast ‘anti-American incitement to violence in the Middle East.’

The networks listed in the bill include Al-Aqsa, the television station of the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas, which broadcasts from the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah’s al-Manar.

Hezbollah’s  al-Manar broadcasts from Beirut. It was launched in 1991. In 2004 it was banned from broadcasting in the US, France, Spain and Germany.

January 24, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israeli forces detain three journalists across the West Bank

23/01/2010 20:18

Nablus – Ma’an – Israeli forces detained three journalists in separate incidents across the West Bank, as they compiled news reports near settlements on Saturday.

Al-Quds TV representatives said that a journalist and a cameraman were detained near the illegal settlement of Ariel, south of Nablus.

Correspondent for Al-Quds TV Mus’ab Al-Khatib, 25, and Ahmad Al-Kilani, 23, who works for Pal Media, were arrested whilst preparing a news report about a university near the settlement that was recognized recently by Israeli authorities.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers detained a Pal Media journalist on Saturday reporting on a demonstration organized by farmers from the At-Tuwani village to protest the recent destruction of an olive grove near the Israeli settlement outpost of Havot Ma’on, the Christian Peacemaking Team said in a statement.

” While Palestinian farmers, accompanied by internationals, were planting olive trees, fifteen settlers approached the area, some carrying slingshots,” the statement read.

“Israeli soldiers and police also entered the area. The soldiers informed the Palestinians that the area was a closed military zone, showing them a map that encompassed a large area south of Havat Ma’on outpost. Police arrested the journalist, saying he had violated the closed military zone order.”

January 23, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones

By Paul Lewis | The Guardian | 23 January 2010

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­”routine” monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates UK airspace, has been told by BAE and Kent police that civilian UAVs would “greatly extend” the government’s surveillance capacity and “revolutionise policing”. The CAA is currently reluctant to license UAVs in normal airspace because of the risk of collisions with other aircraft, but adequate “sense and avoid” systems for drones are only a few years away.

Five other police forces have signed up to the scheme, which is considered a pilot preceding the countrywide adoption of the technology for “surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering”. The partnership’s stated mission is to introduce drones “into the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies” across the UK.

Concerned about the slow pace of progress of licensing issues, Kent police’s assistant chief constable, Allyn Thomas, wrote to the CAA last March arguing that military drones would be useful “in the policing of major events, whether they be protests or the ­Olympics”. He said interest in their use in the UK had “developed after the terrorist attack in Mumbai”.

Stressing that he was not seeking to interfere with the regulatory process, Thomas pointed out that there was “rather more urgency in the work since Mumbai and we have a clear deadline of the 2012 Olympics”.

BAE drones are programmed to take off and land on their own, stay airborne for up to 15 hours and reach heights of 20,000ft, making them invisible from the ground.

Far more sophisticated than the remote-controlled rotor-blade robots that hover 50-metres above the ground – which police already use – BAE UAVs are programmed to undertake specific operations. They can, for example, deviate from a routine flightpath after encountering suspicious ­activity on the ground, or undertake numerous reconnaissance tasks simultaneously.

The surveillance data is fed back to control rooms via monitoring equipment such as high-definition cameras, radar devices and infrared sensors.

Previously, Kent police has said the drone scheme was intended for use over the English Channel to monitor shipping and detect immigrants crossing from France. However, the documents suggest the maritime focus was, at least in part, a public relations strategy designed to minimise civil liberty concerns.

“There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a ‘good news’ story to the public rather than more ‘big brother’,” a minute from the one of the earliest meetings, in July 2007, states.

Behind closed doors, the scope for UAVs has expanded significantly. Working with various policing organisations as well as the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the Maritime and Fisheries Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Border Agency, BAE and Kent police have drawn up wider lists of potential uses.

One document lists “[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial driving” as future tasks for police drones, while another states the aircraft could be used for road and railway monitoring, search and rescue, event security and covert urban surveillance.

Under a section entitled “Other routine tasks (Local Councils) – surveillance”, another document states the drones could be used to combat “fly-posting, fly-tipping, abandoned vehicles, abnormal loads, waste management”.

Senior officers have conceded there will be “large capital costs” involved in buying the drones, but argue this will be shared by various government agencies. They also say unmanned aircraft are no more intrusive than CCTV cameras and far cheaper to run than helicopters.

Partnership officials have said the UAVs could raise revenue from private companies. At one strategy meeting it was proposed the aircraft could undertake commercial work during spare time to offset some of the running costs.

There are two models of BAE drone under consideration, neither of which has been licensed to fly in non-segregated airspace by the CAA. The Herti (High Endurance Rapid Technology Insertion) is a five-metre long aircraft that the Ministry of Defence deployed in Afghanistan for tests in 2007 and 2009.

CAA officials are sceptical that any Herti-type drone manufacturer can develop the technology to make them airworthy for the UK before 2015 at the earliest. However the South Coast Partnership has set its sights on another BAE prototype drone, the GA22 airship, developed by Lindstrand Technologies which would be subject to different regulations. BAE and Kent police believe the 22-metre long airship could be certified for civilian use by 2012.

Military drones have been used extensively by the US to assist reconnaissance and airstrikes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But their use in war zones has been blamed for high civilian death tolls.

January 23, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

EFF Plans Appeal of Jewel v. NSA Warrantless Wiretapping Case

Court Rules That Mass Surveillance of Americans is Immune From Judicial Review

San Francisco – 01/21/10 – A federal judge has dismissed Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of AT&T customers challenging the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans’ phone calls and emails.

“We’re deeply disappointed in the judge’s ruling,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “This ruling robs innocent telecom customers of their privacy rights without due process of law. Setting limits on Executive power is one of the most important elements of America’s system of government, and judicial oversight is a critical part of that.”

In the ruling, issued late Thursday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker held that the privacy harm to millions of Americans from the illegal spying dragnet was not a “particularized injury” but instead a “generalized grievance” because almost everyone in the United States has a phone and Internet service.

“The alarming upshot of the court’s decision is that so long as the government spies on all Americans, the courts have no power to review or halt such mass surveillance even when it is flatly illegal and unconstitutional,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “With new revelations of illegal spying being reported practically every other week — just this week, we learned that the FBI has been unlawfully obtaining Americans’ phone records using Post-It notes rather than proper legal process — the need for judicial oversight when it comes to government surveillance has never been clearer.”

Jewel v. NSA is aimed at ending the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and holding accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it. Evidence in the case includes undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA. That same evidence is central to Hepting v. AT&T, a class-action lawsuit that’s currently under appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

For the judge’s full order:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jeweldismissal12110.pdf

For more on warrantless wiretapping and NSA spying:
http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying

Contacts:

Kevin Bankston
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
bankston@eff.org

Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy@eff.org

Related Issues: NSA Spying

Related Cases: Jewel v. NSA

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January 23, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Clinton’s Hypocritical Internet Freedom Speech

By Liu Dong | Global Times | January 22 2010

Unfettered cyber freedom is merely an impractical slogan, a Chinese expert on world politics told the Global Times Thursday.

“In the US, a country that boasts its Internet freedom, governmental supervision virtually infiltrates across the nation, and its influence further extends to worldwide servers,” said Wang Yizhou, deputy chief of the Institute of World Politics and Economy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “The information-searching via Google and the online chatting through Windows Live Messenger are all under stringent surveillance, and the relevant agencies are tasked with compiling backups.”

Wang was responding to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who made a speech Thursday on Internet freedom at the Newseum in Washington and called on China to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the alleged cyber attacks on Google and other US companies.

Google said January 13 that more than 20 users’ accounts were subjected to a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” originating in China in mid-December. The company later declared that it no longer would censor its Chinese language google.cn site and wanted to talk with Beijing about offering a legal, unfiltered Chinese site.

“I hope that refusal to support politically motivated censorship will become a trademark characteristic of American technology companies,” Clinton said, referring to the Google farce. “It should be part of our national brand. And when their business dealings threaten to undermine this freedom, they need to consider what’s right, not simply the prospect of quick profits.”

Earlier Thursday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said that “the Google incident should not be linked to bilateral relations (between China and the US) otherwise that would be over-interpreting it.”

“The Chinese government encourages the development of the Internet in China, but there must be observance of Chinese law,” He said. “If Google or other foreign firms have any problems in China, these should be resolved according to Chinese law, and the Chinese government is willing to help resolve their problems.”

“Clinton’s so-called Internet freedom is a freedom that is dominated by the US,” Yu Wanli, an expert on international studies at Peking University, told the Global Times. “Ten of the 13 root name servers in the world are located in the US. They are the top hierarchy of the Internet, which means by controlling them, the US can define the freedom of the Internet. How can Clinton guarantee you a freedom if her country has the power to unplug you?”

January 22, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Israel withholding NGO employees’ work permits

Amira Hass | Ha’aretz | 20 January 2010

The Interior Ministry has stopped granting work permits to foreign nationals working in most international nongovernmental organizations operating in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, Haaretz has learned.

In an apparent overhaul of regulations that have been in place since 1967, the ministry is now granting the NGO employees tourist visas only, which bar them from working.

Organizations affected by the apparent policy change include Oxfam, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, Terre des Hommes, Handicap International and the Religious Society of Friends (a Quaker organization).

Until recently, the workers would register with the international relations department at the Social Affairs Ministry, which would recommend the Interior Ministry to issue them B1 work permits. Although the foreign nationals are still required to approach the Social Affairs Ministry to receive recommendations to obtain a tourist visa, the Interior Ministry is aiming to make the Ministry of Defense responsible for those international NGOs and also requiring them to register with the coordinator of government activities in the territories (COGAT), which is subordinate to the Ministry of Defense.

Foreign nationals working for NGOs had understood they would receive a stamp or handwritten note alongside their tourist visa, permitting them to work “in the Palestinian Authority.” Israel is refusing work visas to most foreign nationals who state that they wish to work within the Palestinian territories, such as foreign lecturers for Palestinian universities and businessmen.

Israel does not recognize Palestinian Authority rule in East Jerusalem or in Area C, which comprises some 60 percent of the West Bank. The NGO workers say they’ve come to believe that the new policy is intended to force them to close their Jerusalem offices and relocate to West Bank cities. This move would prevent them from working among the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem, defined by the international community as occupied territory.

The organizations fear the new policy will impede their ability to work in Area C, whether because Israel doesn’t see it as part of the Palestinian Authority or because they will eventually be subjected to the restrictions of movement imposed on the Palestinians. Such restrictions include the prohibition to enter East Jerusalem and Gaza via Israel, except with specific and rarely obtained permits; and prohibition to enter areas west of the separation fence, except for village residents who hold special residency permits and Israeli citizens.

One NGO worker told Haaretz that the policy was reminiscent of the travel constraints imposed by Burmese authorities on humanitarian organizations, albeit presented in a subtler manner.

NGO workers told Haaretz that they had been informed by the COGAT official that a policy change was forthcoming, as early as July 2009. When a number of them approached the Interior Ministry in August to renew their visas, they found that their applications had been submitted to a “special committee.” They were not told who constituted this committee, and had to make do with a “receipt” confirming that they had submitted the request. The workers said the tourist visas they received differed from each other in duration and travel limitations, and surmised from this that the policy has not been entirely fleshed out.

Latest in a series of steps

A number of NGO workers who spoke with Haaretz voiced deep apprehensions about having to submit to the authority of the Defense Ministry. The groups are committed to the Red Cross code of ethics, and therefore see being subjugated to the ministry directly in charge of the occupation as problematic and contradictory to the very essence of their work.

Between 140 and 150 NGOs operate among the Palestinian population. Haaretz could not obtain the exact number of foreign nationals they employ.

The new limitations do not apply to the 12 organizations that have been active in the West Bank prior to 1967. Those groups, which include the Red Cross and several Christian organizations, were registered with the Jordanian authorities.

The new move by the Interior Ministry is the latest in a series of steps taken in the last few years to constrain the movement of foreign nationals in the West Bank and Gaza, including Palestinians with family and property in the occupied territories. Most of those who have been effected are nationals of countries with which Israel has diplomatic relations, especially Western states. Israel does not apply any similar constraints on citizens of the same countries traveling within Israel and West Bank settlements.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the only relevant authority empowered to approve the stay of foreign citizens in the Palestinian Authority is the coordinator of government activities in the territories. “The Interior Ministry is entrusted with granting visas and work permits within the State of Israel. Those staying within both the boundaries of Israel and the Palestinian Authority are required to secure their permits accordingly,” the ministry said.

“Recently, a question was raised on the issue of visas granted to those staying in the Palestinian Authority and in Israel, as it transpired that they spend most of their time in the PA despite having been provided with Israeli work permits,” the statement continued. “The matter is under intense discussions, with the active participation of the relevant military authorities, with a view to finding the right and appropriate solution as soon as possible.”

January 20, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Ma’an journalist enters week 2 in detention

Ma’an | 19 January 2010

As journalist Jared Malsin wrapped up one week in detention today, a Tel Aviv district judge indicated there were grounds for appealing an expulsion order issued last Tuesday.

District Judge Kobi Vardi sought further clarification of the explanation offered by the Israeli Attorney General’s Office that Malsin was denied entry for “refusing to cooperate” during an eight-hour interrogation at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

On Monday, Ma’an lawyer Castro Daoud filed additional information in response to allegations by the Attorney General’s Office, and insisted that Malsin be brought out of the airport to attend a hearing on the matter. Daoud argued that Malsin has a right to a full defense and, at the least, to be present at his own hearing.

The attorney general had requested that no hearing be scheduled, saying Malsin’s presence in court would complicate efforts by the Ministry of the Interior to deport the journalist, since moving him off airport property requires a change in visa status.

Daoud further contested the attorney general’s explanation, arguing the listed reasons for denial of entry do not constitute valid legal justifications, and that they certainly do not trump the unprecedented violation of press freedom that would accompany Malsin’s deportation.

According to court documents filed on Thursday evening, signed by an Israeli interrogator, Malsin was denied entry for “refusing to cooperate” and for violating visa terms.

Disturbingly, the documents also reveal that interrogators had gathered online research into the journalist’s writing history, which transcripts indicate included news stories “criticizing the State of Israel,” among other allegations he authored articles “inside the [Palestinian] territories.”

See the following for more information:

On the reaction of international press associations:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=254583
On Jared’s fight to overturn the deportation order:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=254021
On the timeline of Jared’s detention and questioning:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=254589

For further inquiries, please contact:

George Hale (English)
+972(0)52.785-4907
Raed Othman (Arabic)
+972(0)59.925-8705
Nasser Lahham (Hebrew)
+972(0)59.925-8704

For the most updated version of this news release, click here:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=253864

January 19, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Proposed Web video restrictions cause outrage in Italy

Philip Willan | IDG News Service |01.15.2010

New rules to be introduced by government decree will require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization from the Communications Ministry similar to that required by television broadcasters, drastically reducing freedom to communicate over the Web, opposition lawmakers have warned.

The decree is ostensibly an enactment of a European Union (EU) directive on product placement and is due to go into effect at the end of January after being subjected to a nonbinding appraisal by parliament.

On Thursday opposition lawmakers held a press conference in parliament to denounce the new rules — which require government authorization for the uploading of videos, give individuals who claim to have been defamed a right of reply and prevent the replay of copyright material — as a threat to freedom of expression.

“The decree subjects the transmission of images on the Web to rules typical of television and requires prior ministerial authorization, with an incredible limitation on the way the Internet currently functions,” opposition Democratic Party lawmaker Paolo Gentiloni told the press conference.

Article 4 of the decree specifies that the dissemination over the Internet “of moving pictures, whether or not accompanied by sound,” requires ministerial authorization. Critics say it will therefore apply to the Web sites of newspapers, to IPTV and to mobile TV, obliging them to take on the same status as television broadcasters.

“Italy joins the club of the censors, together with China, Iran and North Korea,” said Gentiloni’s party colleague Vincenzo Vita.

The decree was also condemned by Articolo 21, an organization dedicated to the defense of freedom of speech as enshrined in article 21 of the Italian constitution. The group said the measures resembled an earlier government attempt to crack down on bloggers by imposing on them the same obligations and responsibilities as newspapers.

The group launched an appeal Friday entitled “Hands Off the Net,” saying the restrictive measures would mark “the end of freedom of expression on the Web.” The restrictions would prevent the recounting of the life of the Italians in moving pictures on the Internet, it said.

The decree was also criticized by Nicola D’Angelo, a commissioner in the Communications Authority, which would be likely to play a role in policing copyright violations under the new rules. The decree ran contrary to the spirit of the EU directive by extending the rules of television to online video material, D’Angelo said in a radio interview.

He also expressed concern at the requirement for government authorization for the uploading of videos to Internet. “Italy will be the only Western country in which it is necessary to have prior government permission to operate this kind of service,” he said. “This aspect reveals a democratic risk, regardless of who happens to be in power.”

Other critics described the decree as an expression of the conflict of interests of Silvio Berlusconi, who exercises political control over the state broadcaster RAI in his role as prime minister and is also the owner of Italy’s largest private broadcaster, Mediaset.

They said the new copyright regulations would prevent Internet users from sharing snippets of popular TV shows or goals from the Italian soccer league, currently viewed online by millions of people.

Mediaset has successfully sued YouTube to obtain the removal of its copyright material, in particular video from the reality show “Big Brother,” from the online video-sharing platform. A judge in a Rome civil court ordered the removal of the material last month, and the new decree is seen as providing further protection for Mediaset’s online commercial interests.

Alessandro Gilioli, who writes a blog on the Web site of the weekly magazine L’Espresso, said the decree was intended to squelch future competition for Mediaset, which was planning to move into IPTV and therefore had an interest in reducing the number of independent videos circulating on the Web.

“It’s the Berlusconi method: Kill your potential enemies while they are small. That’s why anyone doing Web TV — even from their attic at home — must get

ministerial approval and fulfill a host of other bureaucratic obligations,” Gilioli wrote. He said the government was also keen to restrict the uncontrollable circulation of information over the Internet to preserve its monopoly over television news.

Paolo Romani, the deputy minister responsible for drafting the decree, insisted the text simply adopted the recommendations of the EU directive but said the government was prepared to discuss modifications. The decree did not intend to restrict freedom of information “or the possibility of expressing one’s ideas and opinions through blogs and social networks,” Romani told the ANSA news agency.

January 19, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

US tax-exempt organization seizes Jewish women that choose assimilation

By Yaniv Reich on January 16, 2010

Where to begin? Regular readers of this blog will undoubtedly know about the severe problem of Israeli racism against Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. But this story leaves even me incredulous.

Meet Yad L’Achim (Hand to Brothers), a Jewish NGO whose goals, as described on their website, are to “fight with intensity for both the Russian Jewish immigrant who has become a regular at the missionary center in Afula and the Jewish woman who is married to an Arab. There are no ‘lost causes.’ Yad L’Achim will continue its rescue activities, together with its efforts at Jewish outreach, as long as the problem of missionaries and Jewish-Arab marriage persists.”

Founded by Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifshitz, this organization has a US branch, Yad L’Achim Peylei Israel, based in Brooklyn and listed with the IRS as a public charity to which one can give donations with 50% tax deductibility.

Lifshitz explains the organization’s motives in more detail on his chairman page:

“To our great sorrow, the phenomenon of Jewish girls getting involved with Arabs has reached startling proportions. . . . I’m sure you’ll find the information presented here to be eye-opening. It’s important that you not only become aware, but that you get involved. We must all raise our voices to demand legislation that puts an end to missionary activity and assimilation in Israel!

Jewish girls are not free for the taking and must not become enslaved to Arab men.”

The level of racist hatred on the website is simply mind-blowing.

The organization’s background page, for example, describes their focus on assimilation and their dedicated Anti-Assimilation Department.

This department deals with women and teenage girls who have become involved with Arab men. In most cases, these relationships lead to marriage, which then deteriorate into violence. Among the many serious problems that result from such relationships is the identity of the children. They are Jews, but are raised as Arabs. Thus, entire generations are being lost to the Jewish people.
[…]
Though it was once thought that this could not be a problem in a Jewish country, not even for the secular, the tragic facts show an increasing number of Jewish girls getting involved with foreign workers and, even more so, with Arab men. Indeed, Yad L’Achim gets some 1,000 calls a year reporting such cases.

Our Anti-Assimilation department responds to all such calls.

Military adventurism to “rescue” Jewish girls from assimilation

A number of these thousand calls per year result in “military-like rescues from hostile Arab villages and setting the women up in ’safe’ houses around the country, where they can build new lives for themselves.”

In the description of these military methods, the website explains how “Yad L’Achim’s activists literally risk their lives to rescue the women from hostile villages. These operations are organized and run by veterans of elite IDF combat units and require careful planning.”

When we press [“H”, the head of Yad L’Ahim’s rescue unit] for some insight into what it’s like to enter hostile Arab villages to extract Jewish women, he prefers to speak of the team effort that contributes to Yad L’Achim’s success.

A: “I’m not alone in this,” says H., a former member of an elite combat unit in the Israeli army. “There’s a whole team of volunteers who work with me. Each member of the team plays a crucial role. In some cases they receive a just few hours’ notice. They leave their families and businesses and put all their energies into getting a Jewish woman out of an Arab village, at risk to their own lives.”

Q: What’s it like in the moments before they enter the village?

A: “Before we get to that point, I’ve sat with our staff and pored over updated maps of the area. We have to be able to get in and out of the village, together with a frightened Jewish woman who often has a child or two. We’ve got to know all the routes in and out of the village and be prepared for all eventualities. Only when we have all the answers do we embark on our mission.

“Many times these preparations take place under pressure, but we have to keep our cool and act responsibly.

“On the instructions of Harav Shalom Dov Lipshitz [founding chairman of Yad L’Achim], at the moment we enter the village we all say together, quietly, chapter 121 in Tehillim, which begins, ‘I raise my eyes upon the mountains; whence will come my help?’We say the last verse – ‘G-d will guard your departure and your arrival, from this time and forever’ – out loud. This gives us a feeling of confidence that we will succeed in our mission.”

Q: Does he have a recent story he can share with us?

“Two weeks ago, the hotline at our Jewish Women Rescue Division received a call from Umm el-Fahm, the Arab town in the Galilee. On the line was a hysterical young woman who had married an Israeli Arab and was desperate for a way out. She grew up in a town in central Israel, where she met the man and, against the advice of friends and family, married him and even converted to Islam. Once she took that fateful step, she was expected to be completely subservient to her husband, in keeping with Islamic practice.

“In the hospital, after giving birth to her baby, she met a Jewish woman who could see that she was in distress and slipped her a piece of paper with the number of Yad L’Achim’s hotline. One day, an opportunity presented itself and she called. During the course of the conversation, it emerged that she had one day a month when she was allowed to leave home – the 28th, when the National Insurance Institute deposited her welfare payment into her bank account. We decided that that would be the day of the rescue.

“On the designated day, we showed up at Umm el-Fahm in three cars, one to do the rescue, and the other two to provide back-up. Based on a predetermined signal we identified the young woman, dressed from head to toe in Arab garb, with her baby in her arms. In order not to raise suspicions, she had left home with nothing but several layers of clothes on the baby.

“She entered the rescue car and we sped out of town. We took her to an apartment in a secret location that was equipped with food and clothing for mother and child, as well as warm, supportive social workers.

“Despite the difficulties and dangers, the rescue is the easy part. Then comes the rehabilitation.”

Q: Why does H. continue to put himself in danger in these missions?

A: “It’s impossible to stand by when you see the kind of danger a young Jewish woman is in,” he answers, challenging the rest of us to do our part as well in rescuing these women in distress and their children.

Is this legal? According to Tsipora Gutman, the official in charge of Jewish-Arab marriages in Yad L’Achim headquarters in Bnei Brak, the answer is sensitive but everything gets approved by Yad L’Achim’s legal department.

‘Some thing worth knowing’, according to these racists

How serious of a problem is this (in the lunatic minds of these fundamentalists)?

The website’s “Some things worth knowing” provides their answer.

“It’ll never happen to me,” we like to say. But experience shows that it does happen, in the finest of families, and young girls should be made aware of the facts before they get involved in such relationships.

Blood is thicker than water, and if the man is Muslim or Christian, sooner or later he will seek to undermine the relationship.

It’s important to understand that the Koran relates to a husband’s treatment of his wife very differently from Western norms. What a western woman would regard as a breach of her rights, Muslim women find perfectly acceptable.
[…]
It should also be stressed that children who are born to a Jewish mother and a Muslim father suffer from a serious lack of basic identity. They are Jews in the eyes of the Arabs, and stigmatized, but have no knowledge of their Judaism.

Elsewhere, the website publishes an interview with Shifra, one of Yad L’Achim’s social workers. She explains to concerned Jewish parents how to prevent their lovely Jewish daughters from falling victim to predatory Arab men.

Q: Jewish outreach workers of ours who man a booth in a major city in Israel report seeing young Jewish girls regularly entering cars of Arabs and going with them into Arab villages. Can you help us understand what leads these girls to engage in such dangerous behavior?

A: They are in distress, mostly on an emotional level. Some were victims of abuse as children, others witnessed violence at home between their parents. Many are the “black sheep” of the family and have never felt accepted at home. They grew up feeling that their parents didn’t understand them and didn’t love them. Unfortunately, such girls have low self-esteem and little confidence.

Many come from a low socio-economic background; all their friends have the latest-generation cell phones and new clothes, while they have nothing. These girls connect up with Arab men who are seeking to “have a good time” in a way that isn’t acceptable in traditional Arab society.

Even so, the girls don’t understand the danger they’re getting into?

In the beginning there’s a lot of denial. They tell themselves, “Nothing will happen to me,” “He’s not like the others,” or “Why be racist?” Things are good for them at the start, and they don’t think about the long-term. Their Arab suitors pamper them, buy them things, drive them around in fancy cars and make their drab lives much more interesting.

Q: Give us an idea of the scope of the problem. How many girls in Israel are involved with Arab men?

A: At Yad L’Achim we’re getting more than 100 calls a month for help. The phenomenon, I’m sorry to say, is only getting worse. And we know that those who are crying out to us for help are just a drop in the bucket.

Q: Tell us about the rescue operations from Arab villages.

A: These rescues are coordinated with the army, police and welfare agencies. They don’t always involve extricating a girl from a remote Arab village. Sometimes it can be a girl or a woman trapped in an apartment in the center of Haifa or Tel Aviv-Jaffa, which have large Arab populations.

In the Arutz Sheva article on one of Yad L’Achim’s recent “rescues”, the recent story is told of a Jewish mother escaping from Gaza with her children, who would be re-given Hebrew names now that they live in Israel. The organization carefully coordinated this escape with the army and with Interior Minister Eli Yishai (Shas party).

One IDF official told Yad L’Achim: “I donate to your organization regularly and I feel that it is in that merit that I was privileged to be able to participate in this rescue today.”

Ending tax-deductible support for such overt racism

Although I am no expert on non-profit tax law, I would be willing to wager that the activities of this NGO fall well outside the acceptable range of activities granted charity status by the IRS. As always, I encourage people to conduct their own research into this organization and its shady activities. And if you find out anything interesting, please leave a comment and/or write me directly. I would love to know more about this disgusting group.

Source

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January 17, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

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