Bahrain abducts two senior clerics
Press TV – April 11, 2011
Bahraini forces have abducted two senior clerics as the government is putting more pressure to suffocate anti-regime protests.
The Saudi-backed Bahraini forces arrested clerics Sayyed Mohammad al-Alawi and Sheikh Abdul Adim al-Mohtadi in the capital Manama on Monday. It comes after the Bahraini government dismissed 30 doctors and 150 health ministry workers for supporting anti-government protests, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Meanwhile, police stormed schools on Monday and arrested teachers ahead of a planned strike.
Earlier, Bahraini authorities expelled 16 Lebanese nationals from the country. The move came after the leader of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, voiced support for the Bahraini protesters.
Bahraini people have been demanding an end to the two-century-long rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty since February 14. Scores of protesters have been killed and many others gone missing since the beginning of the revolution.
Bahraini forces have reinforced a massive armed crackdown on the uprising with the help of Saudi, the UAE and Kuwaiti troops.
Municipality: Israel shelled drinking water tank in Gaza city
Palestine Information Center – 11/04/2011
GAZA — The Gaza municipality accused the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) of targeting sources of potable water in Gaza city during the military escalation a few days ago.
It said in a statement on Monday that an IOF army tank fired a shell at the 12-meter high Mintar water tank, which fell inside and polluted it.
The municipality said that it had to stop pumping water from there to inhabitants of eastern Shujaia suburb causing a water shortage problem.
It said that water was pumped from another well to the suburb to alleviate the water crisis, which is still affecting the populace.
The municipality charged Israel with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by targeting the citizens’ water sources, and asked the world community to assume its responsibility in bridling the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Army fires on Palestinians planting olive trees
International Solidarity Movement | April 10, 2011
Bullets and tear gas were fired upon Palestinians and internationals whilst they planted olive trees on the land legally owned by the village of Iraq Burin yesterday.
The popular committee asked for a group of internationals to assist them in planting olive trees on the village land which is close to an army out post and the illegal Israeli settlement of Bracha. The trees were successfully planted even under the aggressive presence of the Israeli Army.
As the trees where being planted one army jeep came close and was a looming presence as local people took the chance to go further into the land to pick “akoub” (a plant used for cooking.)
After some 20 minutes, another jeep turned up, and the heavily armed soldiers started moving towards the people. One of the soldiers was seen aiming his gun directly at one of the boys.
When one boy, who in a symbolic act of resistance, threw a stone towards the soldiers in the far distance, they responded by firing shots and tear gas directly at the people, who had to run and duck to avoid being hit. More shots where fired at the youth but it is not clear if they were live or rubber coated steel bullets. However, what was clear was the completely disproportionate use of weapons and force on people partaking in a peaceful act of planting trees.
Despite the dangerous aggression of the Israeli army all 50 olive trees were planted on the hillside and three in the local cemetery – one for each of the boys that were killed in the village in the last year. On 19th March 2010, 16-year-old Muhammed Qadus, together with his cousin Asaud Qadus were shot and killed by the Israeli Army during a peaceful demonstration. On the 27th January this year, 19-year-old Oday Maher Hamza Qadous was shot dead by a settler on the hilltop just outside the village.
Strike paralyzes Kashmir amid tensions
Press TV – April 9, 2011
The people of Indian-administered Kashmir have gone on a complete shutdown strike in response to the killing of a Muslim cleric in the Himalayan valley.
The strike paralyzed much of the region as most shops, businesses, schools and offices in Srinagar and other major towns were closed on Saturday, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The strikes are in protest at the killing of Muslim cleric Moulavi Shoukat Ahmad Shah on Friday. He was killed and several others were injured in a powerful explosion outside a mosque in Srinagar.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, a Pakistan-based Kashmir group has blamed it on “Indian agencies.”
The prominent leader was a well-known supporter of the separatist movement, which wants independence from India.
The region’s influential separatist politicians have described the killing as an “attack on the Kashmiri freedom movement.”
“It’s nothing but a conspiracy to deprive us of our religious and political leaders,” said a Muslim cleric and an influential moderate separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
“The killing has broken our back. We will expose those responsible,” said Yaseen Malik, head of the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front.
Kashmiri protesters chanted anti-Indian slogans and threw stones during clashes with Indian troops in several towns across the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley over the past 24 hours. This comes as there have been almost daily demonstrations against Indian rule in the region since June 2010, when security forces killed a teenage protester.
Since then violent street protests and crackdowns have left more than 110 people dead.
Kashmir lies at the heart of more than 60 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both countries claim the region in full but have partial control over it.
Political analysts say the frequent street protests of the past two years are giving new life to the Kashmir liberation struggle.
New Delhi has been repeatedly criticized for resorting to force rather than finding a diplomatic solution to the dispute.
The conflict in Kashmir has left tens of thousands of people dead over the past two decades.
2 dead, 18 injured in Cairo’s protest
Press TV – April 9, 2011
At least two people have been killed and 18 others injured as thousands of Egyptians are calling for trial of ousted President Hosni Mubarak clashed with security forces in Cairo’s’ Liberation Square.
On Saturday, security forces faced off with Egyptian protesters, who converged onto the iconic square to ask for the immediate prosecution of Mubarak and his henchmen, AFP reported.
The protest turned violent as anti-riot police fired into the air, the report added.
The angry crowd on Saturday promised to remain relentless in the pursuit of their demands, including the social reforms and the prosecutions of former regime figures.
They also want the Egyptian army to hand over power to a civilian government as part of the promised reforms.
The protests come weeks after Mubarak handed over power to Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which is headed by Defense Minister Gen. Mohammed Tantawi.
Activists demand the release of political prisoners, the lifting of a 30-year-old state of emergency and the disbandment of the military court.
The emergency law, in place since former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated and Mubarak assumed power, allows authorities unfettered power to arrest people without charge and ban protests.
Over 500 activists detained in Bahrain
Press TV – April 8, 2011
The Bahraini Center for Human Rights (BCHR) has announced that the number of detained opposition activists in the Persian Gulf state has exceeded 500.
According to BCHR, 17 women are also among the detainees and 18 other activists are reportedly missing, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Since the beginning of the uprising in Bahrain dozens of anti-government protesters have been killed and many others have gone missing. The bodies of the missing are frequently found days after.
The head of BCHR, Nabeel Rajab, says now one in every 1,000 Bahraini is in detention for political reasons.
Witnesses say regime forces are conducting house to house searches to detain opposition activists.
Six opposition leaders have also been arrested and the Manama government has so far refused to provide any information on their fate.
The opposition leaders, five Shia and one Sunni, were rounded up on March 17.
Among the opposition leaders is Hassan Mushaima, the head of the Haq party, who returned to Bahrain from Britain in mid-February after Manama dropped charges against him.
His family members say Saudi troops were among Bahraini forces taking part in the arrest operation.
Reports coming from Bahrain suggest that regime forces backed by Saudi troops have intensified their crackdown on opposition figures and anti-government protesters.
Corrie lawsuit challenging Israeli impunity
Nora Barrows-Friedman, The Electronic Intifada, 8 April 2011
Several Israeli soldiers testified at the witness stand in the Haifa district court earlier this week, as trial hearings continued in the case of Corrie vs. the State of Israel. As the trial drags on, years after Rachel Corrie’s killing, Israel’s impunity is being challenged and carefully cross-examined.
Eight years ago last month, 23-year-old American solidarity activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an armored US-made Caterpillar D9 bulldozer in Rafah, at the southern edge of the occupied Gaza Strip.
Wearing a fluorescent orange vest and wielding a bullhorn, Corrie attempted to defend the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home by the Israeli military along the Philadelphi corridor, a wide swath of land in Rafah at the border with Egypt in which hundreds of homes were demolished from 2002-2004, according to field reports from Human Rights Watch.
After years of legal proceedings, Rachel Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig, were able to bring soldiers who were on duty that day in Rafah into the Haifa district court. Hearings began in March 2010 and continued in September, November and earlier this week.
The Corries are suing the Israeli military for one dollar in damages, but, more significantly, are charging those responsible with the wrongful death of their daughter and criminal negligence.
Eyewitness testimony from fellow International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists, supported by photographic evidence, shows that Rachel was crushed underneath the massive blade of a bulldozer and died shortly afterwards. The Israeli military and its defense team argues that Rachel’s death was an accident, that the bulldozer driver didn’t see her and that it was not the blade that killed her but perhaps a pile of rubble that was dropped on her body by the bulldozer as it was razing the land.
Saturated throughout the soldiers’ testimonies is the unwavering argument that all Palestinians in that area were considered armed and a danger to the military unit, and that the military orders had a strict shoot-to-kill policy as they demolished homes. They infer that because this was a closed military zone, Rachel and the other activists with the ISM put themselves at risk and therefore the soldiers and their commanders cannot be responsible for her killing.
But what fails to be addressed by the judge is how and why the soldiers and their armored bulldozers were there in the first place. The soldiers driving the bulldozers and their commanders operated from orders to destroy houses along the Philadelphi corridor — the name Israel gives to the strip of land it has used as a buffer zone– starting in 2002 and continuing throughout the next two years, displacing thousands of residents. Human Rights Watch reported that after the homes were demolished, a steel wall was constructed along the Philadelphi corridor (“Razing Rafah,” 17 October 2004). The demolition of Palestinian homes is a violation of Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons … is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”
Israel, which is a signatory to the convention, contends that the law “does not apply to its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” according to a detailed report by Amnesty International (“Document – Israel and the Occupied Territories: Under the rubble: House demolition and destruction of land and property,” 17 May 2004).
Amnesty International adds “Whether it justifies such action on grounds of ‘military/security needs’ or whether such action is imposed as a form of collective punishment, or whether carried out in enforcement of planning regulations such large-scale forced evictions are inconsistent with the realization of the right to adequate housing. The obligation of the state under international law is that it must refrain from forced evictions.”
The occupying forces had been willingly engaged in layered violations of international law — violations that Rachel Corrie and her fellow activists attempted to confront and remediate.
S.R., a unit commander in the Israeli army who gave his testimony on Wednesday and was obscured by screens so the Corries could not see his face, stated that “none of the houses [in the area being razed] had anyone living inside … They were all being used as positions for terror activities.”
This blanket statement is untrue; the home that Rachel died trying to protect was inhabited by the Nasrallah family. Neither Dr. Samir Nasrallah, a pharmacist, nor his family members living in the home, were ever charged by the Israeli military with “terror activities.” Dr. Nasrallah was obviously never a threat to the Israeli military or its government, as Israel even allowed him to travel to the United States on a speaking tour with the Corries — something that would never be allowed for any Palestinian accused of being linked with such activities.
When I attended a round of hearings last September, another military training leader brazenly stated to the courtroom that “during war, there are no civilians.” Craig Corrie told me then that this admission was a shock to the family and to their supporters in the courtroom, but not a surprise given the attitude of the Israeli military since its inception.
This was not a war in Gaza; this was — and still is — an aggressive, lethal and unequal military occupation meted out against Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.
Human Rights Watch states that more than 2,500 homes were destroyed in Gaza from 2000-2004, as the Israeli military implemented its so-called “buffer zone” policies after the breakout of the second intifada. The buffer zone is a 300-meter-wide militarized no-go area near the boundary with Israel which has since taken 35 percent of Gaza’s total agricultural land — and the lives of more than 100 Palestinians who have been shot and killed since March 2010.
Attending this week’s hearing were members of the Corrie family, activists, journalists and legal observers from the the US embassy, the National Lawyers Guild, Human Rights Watch, Al-Haq, Avocats Sans Frontieres, Amnesty International, Yesh Din and other Palestinian, Israeli and international human and civil rights organizations.
In a press release, Zaha Hassan of the National Lawyers Guild stated that “[i]t has been eight years now and Rachel’s family and all of us who are attending the trial in support have been waiting for an answer to the question of why the unit commander ordered the bulldozer driver to move forward directly over the location where Rachel stood yelling into a blow-horn” (“National Lawyers Guild Free Palestine Subcommittee to Observe Resumption of Trial Brought by Family of Slain Peace Activist Rachel Corrie,” 4 April 2011).
Hassan added: “Justice demands that these questions be answered and that those responsible for her death be held to account.”
The judge, Oded Gershon, admitted proudly in court on Wednesday that he had been a military judge earlier in his career. It remains to be seen whether his potential proclivity toward defense of military policies will influence the final decision in the Corrie case, but the entire process sets an incredibly important precedent.
Israeli soldiers responsible for the demolition of homes and the killing of Palestinians and internationals are now being brought inside courtrooms. Military mandates are being meticulously scrutinized. Cracks in the solidified Israeli military system of impunity are starting to appear, and the Corries are determined to widen those cracks so that other bereaved families can seek justice, too.
The next round of hearings begins on 22 May, and the courtroom will once again be packed. For the Corries, and the family members of countless Palestinians awaiting true justice from the occupier state since 1948, the legal process may be tedious and excruciating but it is vital. And long overdue.
~
Nora Barrows-Friedman is an award-winning independent journalist, writing for The Electronic Intifada, Inter Press Service, Al-Jazeera, Truthout and other outlets. She regularly reports from Palestine.
For summaries of the hearings, and for more information, visit the Rachel Corrie Foundation website at rachelcorriefoundation.org.
Despite Ceasefire Declared by Palestinian Factions, Israel Bombards More Areas In Gaza
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – April 08, 2011
Despite the fact that the Palestinian factions, including the Hamas movement, in Gaza declared a ceasefire with Israel starting Thursday midnight, the Israeli army bombarded several areas, and carried out a number of aerial attacks in Gaza.
The decision was made following talks between different Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, and talks held by the Hamas-led government in Gaza with a number of Arab and international parties.
The ministry of interior in Gaza said that the decision was made to curb any future Israeli assaults against Gaza.
The Israeli strikes had resumed on Thursday afternoon after a Palestinian shell hit a bus in southern Israel seriously wounding one student.
The al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and stated that it came in retaliation to the assassination of three Qassam leaders identified as Ismail Lubbad, Abdullah Lubbad, and Mohammad al-Dahya.
The three were killed in an Israeli Air Strike in Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
On Thursday, the Israeli army killed three Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than 40 others, including children.
Nabil Abu Rodeina, spokesperson of President Mahmoud Abbas, said that the escalation against Gaza is unjustified and that Abbas contacted several world leaders urging them to intervene.
Police training programs twin US-Israeli racism
Hira Mahmood and Wafa Azari, The Electronic Intifada, 7 April 2011
The racism of the American “war on drugs,” especially in the south, is notorious. So is the racism faced daily by Palestinians. In Atlanta, a university program allows these two manifestations of racism to feed off each other and community activists are organizing to shut the program down.
On the evening of 21 November 2006, the Atlanta Police Department’s recently disbanded Red Dog Unit killed Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old Black resident of the northwest Atlanta neighborhood of English Avenue. As she sat in her home watching television, several Atlanta policemen bashed in her front door to execute their fraudulently obtained “no-knock” search warrant. After firing 39 shots, the police officers handcuffed Johnston, placed a dime bag of marijuana on her and vacated her home, leaving her to bleed to death there (Ernie Suggs, “City to Pay Slain Woman’s Family $4.9 million,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 16 August 2010).
Organizers with the Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia (MEIA-G) read a newspaper article about the court proceedings following Johnston’s brutal murder, stumbled upon a brief note about the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) and wondered what it was and how was it connected to Johnston’s death.
MEIA-G was established in February 2009 after an unprecedented mobilization in response to the 23-day-long Israeli assault on Gaza. Hundreds rallied in the streets of Atlanta in solidarity with the Palestinian people, vowing to organize to support them in their struggle for liberation. After launching MEIA-G, we endorsed the 2005 Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions and identified GILEE as our primary campaign target.
Housed in Georgia State University’s (GSU) Criminal Justice Department, GILEE is a police exchange program whereby high-ranking Georgia police officers travel to Israel to learn counter-terrorism tactics from the Israel national police. Conversely, Israeli police officials travel to Atlanta every two years to learn Georgia’s drug enforcement tactics such as those employed against Johnston, Tremaine Miller, Pierre George and countless other African-American victims of police abuse and aggression. Through GILEE, the Israeli police adopt these tactics and employ them on Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians residing in the occupied West Bank.
While GILEE has relationships with several international police agencies, its relationship with the Israeli police is the most intimate and most troubling. Israel is one of the most brazen violators of human rights and international law in the world. Israeli police, in their execution of the racist and discriminatory policies of the Zionist government, have been and are a major source of these violations. MEIA-G hopes to keep the brutal police methods and tactics employed by the Israeli police from being adopted and implemented in Atlanta. To do this, MEIA-G seeks to expose and shift the practices of both the Atlanta and Israeli police by eliminating this exchange program, the aim of which is to proliferate repressive police tactics internationally.
Alongside 18 campaign endorsers and more than 1,200 individual supporters, the MEIA-G and GSU’s Progressive Student Alliance have built, cultivated and sustained a growing coalition organizing to eliminate GILEE from GSU and ultimately from Atlanta.
While the collaboration between the US military and the Israeli military is well-documented, social justice activists in the US are just now beginning to uncover the depth of collaboration between US and Israeli police forces. These collaborations further underscore the extent of the “special relationship” between the US and Israel, and their similar needs, as European settler-colonial projects, for elaborate systems of social control to manage the troublesome “undesirables” in their midst.
The US south has a particularly troublesome history of managing “undesirables.” With the formal abolition of slavery after the Civil War, a critical social question arose: how would the Georgia elite maintain its wealth and power in a society dependent on cash crops like “King Cotton” that relied upon a cheap, controllable and stable labor force? Policing provided the answer: newly established law targeting such activities as vagrancy and loitering were used to arrest and incarcerate southern Blacks. In short, prisons replaced plantations and police officers replaced plantation overseers (see Angela Davis, Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons and Torture, pp. 7-18).
Both the US and Israel are rooted in outside colonial forces invading a territory with the goal of possessing the maximum amount of natural resources — namely land — while erasing its indigenous population. In both cases, the US and Israeli militaries were created to engage the “external” threats of the unconquered indigenous populations, while their police forces were created to maintain control over the conquered indigenous populations (and other subjugated peoples like enslaved Africans) absorbed and “internalized” within these nation-state projects.
The US boasts the highest incarcerated population in the world — more than two million persons, including more than 800,000 Blacks. This does not include those on parole, on probation or unable to be employed because of a criminal record. Policing plays an integral role in not only surveiling, controlling and intimidating communities of color but also in funneling people into prisons. With such an exorbitant national incarceration rate, what do Georgia police officials like current Atlanta Police Department Chief of Police George Turner, former Chief of Police Richard Pennington and current Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director — all of whom have sojourned in Israel for the GILEE training — have left to learn about terrorizing and controlling these communities?
The Zionist project of confiscating the most amount of Palestinian land with the least amount of indigenous Palestinians remaining has one vital flaw. Evidenced in more than 60 years of resistance and resiliency to occupation, apartheid and genocide, Palestinians continue to resist the Zionist program of ethnic cleansing. Following the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, the Israeli state was tasked with controlling that pesky, residual population throughout historic Palestine. Under the guise of counter-terrorism, it is the Israelis’ sophisticated social control mechanisms that Georgia police officials learn to inflict upon Georgia residents.
The Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange operates within a public university but is largely funded by private donations, including donations from corporations and former graduates of the program. The extent of private support for this program is symptomatic of neoliberalism transforming public institutions in a way that compromises their integrity. GILEE does not reflect the desires of the Georgia State University community as evidenced by the opposition to the program voiced by numerous students, faculty and community members.
The director of the GILEE program is Dr. Robert Friedman, Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at GSU. Dr. Friedman serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), an Israeli organization that has actively opposed human rights groups and acted as an apologist for the Israeli security apparatus. Boaz Ganor, founder and executive director of the ICT, serves as a board member for the GILEE program.
Another highly influential, and controversial, Israeli politician — Avi Dichter — has visited Atlanta to meet with Georgia law enforcement officials as part of GILEE. Dichter has been charged with extrajudicial killings, war crimes and other human rights violations by the Center for Constitutional Rights for the 2002 air strikes on Gaza. The meetings between Israeli and Georgia officials, the unknown specificities of the training program, and the large infiltration of money into the GILEE program from unknown sources are all being done under the auspices of Georgia State University, a public institution.
Activists throughout the US are beginning to uncover more and more police exchange programs in which US law enforcement officials travel to Israel to learn “counter-terrorism” tactics. Campaigns organizing to shut them down continue to take root. We have a political obligation to expose these programs, highlight how they impact oppressed communities in the US and close them as we build a more just world free of racist violence in both the United States and Palestine.
Hira Mahmood is a student activist and BDS organizer studying English literature at Georgia State University.
Wafa Azari organizes with the Movement to End Israeli Apartheid-Georgia. Currently residing in Atlanta, she was born and raised in Oujda, Morocco.
Female protester killed in Bahrain
Press TV – April 7, 2011
A female protester has reportedly been killed in Bahrain’s crackdown as the government is putting more pressure on anti-government demonstrators.
Khadijah Al Abdulhayy has died from suffocation in the village of Sanabis, a Press TV correspondent reported on Thursday.
Her death comes after the killing of Seyyed Hamid al-Mahfood by the Bahraini regime forces after he went missing late Tuesday.
Mahfood’s body was found in a bin in the village of Sar, a few kilometers west of the capital Manama on Wednesday.
Dozens of anti-government protesters have been killed and many others gone missing since the beginning of the uprising in Bahrain.
Bahrain’s leading Shia opposition group Wefaq said over 450 opposition activists, including 14 women, have been also arrested since the uprising began in the country in mid-February.
Bahrainis have been demanding an end to the two-century-long rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty since February 14.
In March, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait deployed their troops to Bahrain to reinforce a massive armed crackdown on the popular uprising.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday it is worried about the growing abuses by the Bahraini regime against its citizens who are seeking political reforms and a voice in the government.
More than 100 women arrested in Awarta village
Ma’an – 07/04/2011
NABLUS — Israeli troops stormed a Palestinian village early Thursday, arresting more than 100 women in what local officials said was part of the ongoing investigation into the murder of five settlers in March.
Hundreds of troops entered Awarta — the village adjacent to Itamar, an illegal settlement where the murders took place — shortly after midnight and imposed a curfew after which they began rounding up the women, local council head Tayis Awwad said.
Officials told Ma’an that men and women were taken in the raids, which involved house-to-house searches in the early morning. Some of the women, witnesses said, were in their 60s, and many were taken by force.
Soldiers continued to conduct house-to-house searches through the night, the officials added. Palestinian security sources confirmed the report.
This was the fourth intensive raid of the village where scores were detained, the first coming the day after an unidentified attacker stabbed to death five members of the Fogel family, including two children and an infant.
But Thursday’s raid marked the first time they had arrested any women, Awwad said.
In the wake of the murders, Awarta has been the center of a massive manhunt. The village was put under military closure, and a curfew was imposed for five days between March 12 and 16. Some 40 men were detained during the closure, and since then two more mass roundups were reported.
Those detained have been questioned and subjected to DNA testing, officials said last week.
So far no one has been charged, with the military refusing to comment on the operation.
The Detainees’ Center in Nablus condemned the overnight arrest raid.
The mass detentions, a statement from the center said, were illegal and arbitrary and “go against the human rights of the residents.”
Awarta was the second village put under closure overnight, with locals in the Tubas area saying the Israeli army, backed by military bulldozers, entered the village of Aqaba where two homes were demolished.
‘CIA involved in Yemen repressions’
Press TV – April 6, 2011
Interview with Ali al-Ahmed, director of Institute of Gulf Affairs in Washington.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen has not been held responsible for the death of even one American for the past five years, yet the US continues to play the al-Qaeda card and provide the country’s regime with military aid.
In an interview with Press TV, Ali al-Ahmed, director of Intitute (Persian) Gulf Affairs (IGA) in Washington, shares his views on US military aid to Yemen, the exaggerated al-Qaeda connection, and optimal outcomes. The following is a transcript of the interview.
Press TV: What is your reaction toward the Pentagon state secretary saying there is no decision yet in stopping military aid to Yemen and of the US assertion that US weapons are not being used against demonstrators?
They have been used; it is not honest to say that they have not. We know that (there are) special units the US and CIA have been training; perhaps they have not directly taken part in the shooting and killing of demonstrators personally. However, they have displaced other forces, meaning that they freed other forces to do that. There is a direct link between US aid to Yemen and the killings of hundreds of demonstrators.
Press TV: Yemen is a very divided society as you and other analysts have mentioned previously; however, a lot of Yemenis have united for this revolution. Was the US essentially pressed in a corner — not having a choice, but to continue to provide military aid to Yemen?
No I don’t believe that. Saleh is sustaining al-Qaeda to use it as a bargaining chip with Saudi Arabia and the US. Once Saleh is outside of the palace, al-Qaeda’s threats will diminish greatly and the US knows this very well; however, they have not called on Abdullah Saleh to resign until recently, for which they want a transfer of power.
Focusing on supporting the people is going to be the best way for the US to diminish the threat of al-Qaeda – supporting these demonstrators. And instead of sending weapons they should send humanitarian aid. They should allow the people to govern their own country in reflection of what the people want, which is not dictatorship. That is the best tool to fight terrorism.
Press TV: What about US negotiations with the opposition?- There is a story that Riyadh may be getting involved in hosting negotiations of some sort. Do you see potential for success through these negotiations? Or is it simply too late for Saleh?
I think it is too late for Saleh to be part of any future plans for Yemen. I am worried and wary of any Saudi role in Yemen because so far, history has proven that Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen has been a negative one. They have supported violence and bombed the country as everybody knows. So they are not a neutral player here. I think other countries, like Egypt, Syria — or Qatar even — would be a better choice.
It is a question that I’ve always asked – the US has been able to bring in coalitions to wage wars and they have not worked to building any coalition to mediate peace between Arab countries with Arab and Muslim majority populations. And that is disturbing.
The US could get a lot accomplished in terms of winning hearts and minds by becoming the peacemaker in Yemen and the other countries in the region. Instead of sending weapons, they could be sending in a delegation with authority, who would mediate between the enemies in the role of a broker just like they did when they mediated the treaty between Egypt and Israel, which was led by Jimmy Carter. Why not mediate between the enemies so that we can have a government that is responsible for the wishes of its people (and) not to the whim of a dictator and his family?
Press TV: Why are the US and a coalition involved now in Libya, but not in Yemen? All this talk about the al-Qaeda bogeyman in Yemen; certainly the al-Qaeda factor is considered highly important to the US, isn’t it?
Well, there is a threat of al-Qaeda in Yemen, but I think it has been exaggerated tremendously and so far, al-Qaeda in Yemen has not been able to kill a single American in the past five years so we are not really talking about something that is of catastrophic importance.
In Yemen we don’t need to have war. What you need is to apply political pressure on Yemeni parties to come and speak to each other to collaborate in building a government that is modern and responsible to its citizens. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do that and it would definitely be cheaper than dropping bombs on people like what happened last year in Yemen or what is happening now in Libya.
So there is a cheaper alternative with a much more positive outcome for the US. Rather than flying military jets, the US could be flying in peace envoys to bring the parties together and Yemenis would be shy and embarrassed by the fact that there is an American trying to get them to talk to each other to make peace for them. This is a far better position for the US.
Press TV: You speak of peace envoys being a better choice for the US in Yemen…
It revolves around a Saudi connection. John Brennan in the White House is the American architect of US foreign policy in Yemen and was the former CIA chief in Saudi Arabia so he is influenced by the desires of the Saudi monarchy. He is why we see the Yemen situation getting worse; an American official designing US policy heavily tied to Saudi wishes. His policy is solely been to support Abdullah Saleh and that’s all – he should be removed.
The solution is to talk to every party and they are not weak. In fact, Saleh is one of the weaker players. US policy right now is a failure.
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From the Archives
Israel Is A Genocidal Society
The Israeli Political Spectrum From The “Liberal Left” To The Far Right, Is United In Genocide
The Dissident | May 5, 2026
… The fundamental issue of Israel is not Benjamin Netanyahu, but the fact that Israel is overwhelmingly a bloodthirsty, war-ready, genocidal society.
Historian Zachary Foster has documented that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis have supported every Israeli war since the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, writing:
2006
86% of the Israeli adult population justified “the IDF operation in Lebanon against Hizbollah,” or 2006 Lebanon War, in which Israel killed 1,191 people, the vast majority civilians according to HRW (Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher)2008-2009
82% of the Israeli public thought that the 2008-9 war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 1,417 Palestinians, the vast majority civilians.) Note that the % of Jewish Israelis who supported the war was even higher2012
90% of Israeli Jews supported war on Gaza ( in which Israel killed 160 Palestinians, 66% civilians)2014
95% of Jewish Israelis believed the war on Gaza was justified (in which Israel killed 2,310 Palestinians, 70% civilians)2021
72% of Israelis believed the war on Gaza should continue (as of May 21) after Israel had already killed 250 Palestinians in Gaza, vast majority civilians. The % of Jewish Israelis who supported killing more Palestinians was much higher.2024
A January poll found 95% of Jewish Israelis thought the Israeli military was using either the “appropriate” amount of force or “too little” force in Gaza at a time when Israel had already killed >25,700 Palestinians in Gaza.2024
In September, 90% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Lebanon (in which Israel killed 800+, including hundreds of civilians)2025
In March, 82% of Israeli Jews supported the forced expulsion of residents of Gaza, Israel’s main goal in it’s genocide & war on Gaza.2025
In June, 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the war on Iran known as the “twelve day war”2026
On March 4, 93% of Israeli Jews expressed support for the war on Iran. 97% of “right-wing” Jewish Israelis support it, compared with 93% in the center and 76% on the left.
The overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis also have openly genocidal views towards Palestinians.
Polls in Israel have shown that:
- 84% of the (Israeli )public gives the IDF an excellent or very good grade regarding the moral conduct of the army
- 75% of Jewish Israelis agree with the idea that ‘there are no innocents in Gaza.’
- A vast majority of Israeli Jews – 79 percent – say they are ‘not so troubled’ or ‘not troubled at all’ by the reports of famine and suffering among the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The fundamental problem in Israel is Zionism, not Benjamin Netanyahu. – Full article
Blog Roll
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