American detained for `interfering` with Israeli military
03/02/2010
Ramallah – Ma’an – A 27-year-old American woman was detained along with two Palestinians by Israeli forces during a night raid in the village of Bil’in on Wednesday.
All three were taken to the border police station, an organizer said. An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the detentions.
Forces broke into the home of Abed Al-Fattah Burnat, 27, then surrounded the home of Ashraf Abu Rahma. International and Palestinian activists were alerted of the raid and went to the location to film the event.
Witnesses said the home was declared a closed military zone by army officials, who demanded reporters and activists stay 50 meters away from the door. Organizers said the group moved 50 meters back, but soldiers continued to harass photojournalist and B’Tselem volunteer Hamdi Abu Rahameh, 22.
The Israeli military said Rahameh is a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and said he was detained for failing to move back from the home after soldiers declared it a closed area.
As soldiers detained the young man, an American activist known locally as “Stormy” attempted to intervene.
The military said the American woman “interfered” in the work of the Israeli army and attempted to “prevent Israeli soldiers from carrying out their duty.” They also said the actions of the woman caused rioting in the area. They confirmed her arrest and transfer to the Israeli police.
US Consulate officials said they were looking into the incident.
Another Palestinian resident of Bil’in, Ashraf Abu Ramhe, was later detained near the village mosque. Upon his detention, Israeli soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded him, ushering him into a car with a gun pointed at his head, Popular Committee organizers said.
The army also confirmed the arrest of Ramhe.
International peace activists have been staying overnight in the village of Bil’in since the Israeli army began night raids into the village, initially following each Friday’s demonstration against the separation wall being constructed on village lands.
Night raids became more regular during the fall of 2009, and now occur almost nightly, villagers say. Activists and photojournalists work to document the raids and treatment of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces.
In January, a Czech woman working on solidarity projects with Palestinians via the International Solidarity Movement was detained from her home in Ramallah during a night raid and deported the following day.
Night raid in Nablus
In addition to the raids of Bil’in and Ni’lin, sources reported Israeli forces operating in Nablus, where they detained one man, identified as 22-year-old Shurahbil Awwad.
The young man was taken from his home in the Al-Makhfiyeh area in the west of Nablus before sunrise.
Saudis raid Yemen despite Houthi pledge for peace
Press TV – February 2, 2010
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Saudi airstrikes continue to target northern Yemen despite Houthis pledging to meet the key condition of not attacking Saudi Arabia set by the Yemeni government.
Houthi fighters said Tuesday that Saudi warplanes had been bombarding the country’s north, including the Al-Saqin district.
According to the fighters, Saudi forces poured rockets and artillery shells on border areas.
The fighters offered an initiative to end a nearly six-month conflict when they announced a “withdrawal from Saudi territory and ending the war,” the office of leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said in a statement.
He called on both Sana’a and Riyadh to end the conflict, which has so far claimed the lives of countless civilians and displaced thousands of others in the beleaguered northern villages.
Al-Houthi offered on Saturday to accept the government’s five-point truce terms, if the government halts military attacks on the north.
However, the government rejected the offer, pointing to a sixth condition stipulating a Houthi pledge not to attack Saudi Arabia.
Despite the pledge to meet the sixth condition, Riyadh continues to attack Shia-populated areas in the Yemeni north.
Israel junket: ‘live penetration raids in Arab territory’
By Philip Weiss | January 31, 2010
Below is an ad that was in Haaretz lately for the Ultimate Mission to Israel. The trip is a red-meat propaganda trip of a retro-masculine character–”live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory”– pitched to American professionals, accountants, doctors, lawyers. The fascination is not just the disgusting events–”observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court”–but that the ad is pitched to wealthy American Jews, and also apparently, the Modern Orthodox. Those groups overlap in the Status Quo Lobby, as it’s called, AIPAC. These are Jews who are deeply enmeshed in the American political process: note the meetings with senior Cabinet officials and the emphasis on Israel’s “struggle for survival.” The ad follows the jump.
Experience a dynamic and intensive eight day exploration of Israel’s struggle for survival and security in the Middle East today: “a military, humanitarian, historical, judicial, religious, and political reality check.”
Mission Highlights
- Briefings by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet.
- Briefing by officers in the IDF Intelligence and Operations branches.
- Inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings.
- Live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory.
- Observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court.
- First hand tours of the Lebanese front-line military positions and the Gaza border check-points.
- Inside tour of the controversial Security Fence and secret intelligence bases.
- Meeting Israel’s Arab agents who infiltrate the terrorist groups and provide real-time intelligence.
- Briefing by Israel’s war heros who saved the country.
- Meetings with senior Cabinet Ministers and other key policymakers.
- Small airplane tour of the Galilee, Jeep rides in the Golan heights, water activities on Lake Kinneret, a cook-out barbecue and a Shabbat enjoying the rich religious and historic wonders of Jerusalem’s Old City.
- Five-star accommodations at the Sheraton Plaza Jerusalem (Glatt Kosher);
- Three meals a day (all Kosher);
- Luxury bus transportation and knowledgeable tour guide;
- A dedicated Executive Communications Center at the hotel;
- Personal cell phone for each participant.
Haiti an example of dictatorships that rely on Israeli weapons
Originally published in Ha’aretz/Hebrew, penned by Nirit Ben-Ari. This translation is from the February 1 WW4 Report: “Haiti and the Jews: Forgotten History.” Excerpt:
But it seems the Israeli involvement in the nation was not always so positive. On Dec. 27, 1982, the US newspaper Christian Science Monitor reported that since 1968 Israel had sold weapons to two Haitian dictators-Francois Duvalier, who became president in 1957; and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, who succeeded him in 1971. The two, known as “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc,” controlled and terrorized the country with a private army. On March 27, 1983, the New York Times reported that Israel was among the few countries that had agreed to sell weapons to Baby Doc, and provided him with the long-term payment arrangement that he requested.
Paul Farmer, who would serve as President Bill Clinton’s deputy UN representative to Haiti, previously reported that Gen. Prosper Avril, the head of the military junta that took power in Haiti in 1988, received temporary asylum in Israel in 1990. Avril was the head of Baby Doc’s notorious “Presidential Guard,” and a US court ruled that he was responsible for “scandalous human rights violations.” He would later serve prison time in Haiti for his crimes.
In 1990, four years after Baby Doc was ousted from power, the popular priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president of Haiti-in the first democratic elections the nation had seen. But in 1991 he was deposed in a military coup. Britain’s The Independent newspaper reported Oct. 14, 1991 that about 2,000 Uzi and Galil machine-guns from Israel were sent to Haiti in the weeks prior to the coup-with diplomats claiming the weapons went to military units especially loyal to the coup-plotters.
According to an Aug. 1, 2005 report in Jane’s Intelligence Review, weapons of Israeli origin were being smuggled through Florida and ending up with armed gangs in Port-au-Prince in this period-some in collaboration with the junta, and some opposed.
The Israeli Defense Ministry did not issue any reaction by publication time.
Now, as Israeli doctors and nurses work around the clock at the hospital that was established in Haiti, one can only hope that Israel’s contribution to the suffering nation will now focus on saving lives, and not on weapons shipments.
US citizen charged with abusing 18 Haitian boys
Press TV – February 1, 2010
Additional charges have been leveled against an American national once indicted for abusing Haitian boys he was supposed to be helping.
Douglas Perlitz, 39, founded and operated a home and school for needy children in Haiti, known as Project Pierre Toussaint.
But he was arrested in his home in Colorado in September 2009 after a federal grand jury indicted him on 10 counts related to the abuse of nine boys over a period of 10 years.
Prosecutors on Thursday pushed an additional nine counts against Perlitz, bringing the number of his abuse victims to a total of 18.
The American national, who lived in Haiti for years, is accused of enticing the boys into sexual acts with promises of food and shelter, and with gifts, such as cell phones and cash.
According to the new indictment in Federal District Court in Connecticut, Perlitz offered money to one of the boys and assured him that he would not be expelled from school even if he failed his classes.
He allegedly gave another boy and his family money and other benefits, and in another case, offered a television, shoes, clothes and meals to another boy, demanding sexual acts and silence in return.
Those who refused to cooperate with Perlitz were denied benefits, the indictment added.
Douglas Perlitz, scheduled to appear in federal court in New Haven on Tuesday, would face a maximum of 30 years in prison and fine of $2.5 million if convicted.
Murder of Hamas commander in Dubai may enlarge confrontation with Israel
By Emad Drimly, Saud Abu Ramadan
GAZA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) — Hamas officials as well as observers expected on Saturday that the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Islamic Hamas movement commander in Dubai on Jan. 20, ” would sooner or later move the battle between Hamas and Israel outside the Palestinian territories.”
They said the ambiguous assassination of al-Mabhouh might be “a new turn” in the military confrontation between Hamas and Israel, that could develop to mutual avenge attacks in some Arab and foreign countries. Hamas has directly accused the Israeli Mosad ( foreign intelligence) for being behind his death.
Observers close to Hamas said that the movement hasn’t yet expressed full commitment to a declared ceasefire with Israel after last winter’s “Cast Lead” Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, adding that al-Mabhouh’s murder in Dubai “would oblige Hamas to respond to his killing.”
Mustafa al-Sawaf, a Gaza-based political analyst, specialized in Hamas affairs expected that “Hamas response to the killing of al-Mabhouh, who has a high-ranking position in Hamas armed wing, would be equal to an assassination of a senior Israeli leader.”
“Although Hamas response to the killing of al-Mabhouh would be linked to certain political and military considerations in the field, but I still believe that the movement would keep the demand of revenge in order to re-account itself among its supporters,” said al-Sawaf.
He added that the assassination’s circumstances and the place where it occurred “would be a justification to open a new field of confrontation and adopt a new strategy of attacking Israeli targets abroad, which will be contrary to its strategy that focuses on fighting Israel in the Palestinian territories.”
Al-Sawaf explained that this shows Israel is able to infiltrate the security of the Arab countries by targeting Hamas leaders who live abroad. “Israel sends a message to Hamas that it can carry out more assassinations abroad against Hamas prisoners who will be released after the prisoners swap is finalized.”
Hamas has deliberately calmed down the confrontation with Israel by stopping homemade rocket attacks from Gaza at southern Israel after the end of January 2009 Israeli war on Gaza, which has left more than 1,440 people killed and 5,000 wounded.
Hamas officials said that al-Mabhouh, who was killed by an electric shock in Dubai, is one of the founders of Izzedien al- Qassam Brigades, Hamas armed wing in the Gaza Strip in 1988. Since then, al-Mabhouh has been living in Syria.
When he arrived in Dubai, a day before he was killed, he was holding a fake Syrian passport. Leaders in Hamas said that he was in charge of arming Hamas movement abroad over the past several years.
Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal’s calls for immediate revenge hours after al-Mabhouh was killed shows the importance of the man, where Hamas strongman in Gaza Mahmoud al-Zahar had on Saturday warned Israel of conveying the battle outside the Palestinian territories.
“We have maintained that the confrontation between us and the Israeli enemy be in the occupied land,” said Zahar. “Israel wants to change the rules of the game and to open the international field for battles so it will be responsible for this,” Zahar told reporters during a visit to a Jordanian-run hospital in Gaza.
He also said that “Hamas can reach its targets in any place.” However, he emphasized that Hamas “is keeping the game inside the occupied Palestinian land,” where he called on Arab states that have ties with Israel “to assess and rearrange these relations over the crimes that Israel commits.”
Meanwhile, Abu Obeida, spokesman of al-Qassam Brigades said that “when Hamas threatens to revenge, it means what it says,” adding that “the movement will revenge for the blood of the leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The Zionist enemy will never escape from the punishment.”
The spokesman declined to say when and where the response will be, but said “the gun-battle with the occupation is opened and complicated. The resistance will find the proper time and place for the response,” adding “This response will not contradict with the current political strategy of the movement.”
However, Naji Shurab, the political science teacher at the Gaza- based al-Azhar University ruled out that Hamas would immediately respond to the killing of al-Mabhouh, adding “any Hamas response would be tied to delicate political and regional considerations.”
“The killing of al-Mabhouh was an Israeli message to Hamas to pressure on the movement to drag it to the circle of escalation to justify another large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip,” said Shurab.
Spanish judge to probe Gitmo torture claims: Report
AFP | 1/31/2010
MADRID: Spain’s top investigating judge Baltasar Garzon is to probe suspected torture and ill-treatment of inmates at the US prison of Guantanamo Bay, the daily El Pais reported yesterday.
The paper gave no sources and the report could not be immediately confirmed officially.
It said Garzon would be acting on complaints lodged by a number of associations, focussing on one prisoner, Ahmed Abderraman Hamed, who has Spanish nationality. Three other detainees, Moroccan Lahcen Ikasrrien, Palestinian Jamiel Abdulatif al-Banna and Libyan Omar Deghayes would also be concerned as they had links with Spain, El Pais said. In 2005, Spain declared itself competent to investigate any crime committed abroad, but after diplomatic problems the scope of the inquiries was reduced in 2009.
Spanish courts can now deal only with cases that have a clear link with Spain, or cases that are not being investigated in countries where the offences are alleged to have been committed.
El Pais said Washington had not replied to a request made seven months ago from Madrid as to whether it was investigating the allegations now being taken up by Garzon.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister Riyad al Malky said in Madrid last week that Spain had agreed to accept a Palestinian Guantanamo Bay detainee. The unnamed man will be transferred to Spain in early February along with another man whose nationality has not been confirmed.
Argentina reveals secrets of ‘dirty war’
Buenos Aires, Jan 29 (IANS/EFE) Argentina has disclosed the secrets of the ‘dirty war’ waged against the left by the country’s military regime 1976-83.
The secret files of Battalion 601, described as the ‘brain’ that coordinated killings, kidnappings and other abuses, contains the identities of both military and civilian personnel who played a role in the repression.
The declassification of the documents began with an order from Argentine President Cristina Fernandez Jan 1.
The documents presented before the federal Judge Ariel Lijo for review contain data on 3,952 civilians and 345 army personnel who worked for Battalion 601, said Ramon Torres Molina, director of the National Archive of Memory.
The battalion’s civilian operatives included everyone from college professors to people who worked as porters, concierges and maintenance men at apartment buildings.
They were used to collect information and to infiltrate guerrilla groups and human rights organisations, with those assigned to infiltration duties given aliases with initials matching those of their real names.
The civilian agents were classified by grades corresponding to military ranks and the most proficient could aspire to the equivalent of colonel.
Torres, who refused to divulge any names until Judge Lijo finishes reviewing the documents, said the intelligence structure was created in the early 1970s and that it survived until 2000, when Battalion 601 was disbanded and its remaining 500 or so civilian operatives dismissed.
Some former commanders of the unit have died and others have been criminally charged, but many military and civilian veterans of the unit are at large, the archive director said.
The archive continues to thumb through more than 4 million digitised pages and thousands of dossiers in search of information about the crimes of a regime that left more than 30,000 ‘disappeared’.
Village children gassed while taking refuge from military
International Solidarity Movement | 29 January 2010
Over 20 village residents – including 14 children – were targeted by Israeli soldiers in a volley of tear gas and rubber coated bullets as they took refuge in the Tamimi family house in An Nabi Salih. The residents were not part of the weekly demonstration and children from surrounding houses had gathered there for safety. One boy was hit in the stomach with a gas canister. Five people, children and elderly women, were taken away in ambulances and treated for injuries including tear gas asphyxiation.
Earlier, near 12:30PM, Israeli soldiers blocked the non-violent demonstration as they attempted to reach a spring recently taken by settlers from the near-by Jewish-only Hallamish settlement. Demonstrators slowly advanced a few meters and sat down. Israeli and international activists joined in solidarity. This tactic was repeated many times until soldiers began firing tear gas canisters directly at the demonstrators. As soldiers surrounded the village, shooting tear gas from three sides, a water cannon shooting foul smelling waste-water was deployed.
Just after the water cannon emptied its tanks, the Tamimi house was fired on.
As tear gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets flew through windows of the house, Red Crescent and activist volunteers responded to the attack, helping women and children outside to safety. In all, nine women, one man and 14 children were caught inside during the attack.
The same house was targeted one week ago when tear gas and sound grenades broke through the windows. Seven people were gassed but no injuries were serious. As the women and children exited the house, soldiers told them to go back in. They refused due to large amounts of tear gas lingering inside and the soldiers hit them. One woman was arrested.
This brutal repression of a non-violent demonstration and targeting innocent bystanders comes as the Israeli government attempts to squash the popular resistance through illegitimate arrests and disproportionate force.
According to one An Nabi Salih resident, the demonstration’s goal was to reach a spring taken by Israeli settlers, but the over all motivation for ongoing demonstrations is to stop the constant advance of the Hallamish settlement onto Palestinian land. Residents say that since 1977 the settlement has taken half of the village’s farm-land, burning or cutting down trees tended by the village for generations.
Approximately six weeks ago, a group of Halamish settlers took over the spring located in privately owned Palestinian land in between the village and the settlement. Since then, and despite the fact that ownership of the land undisputed, the army began preventing Palestinians from accessing the area.
Researcher: Israel destroyed Palestinian books
Tens of thousands of Palestinian books destroyed after Israel’s establishment, Ben-Gurion University researcher says
Ynet | January 28, 2010
Israel plundered and destroyed tens of thousands of Palestinian books in the years after the State’s establishment, according to a doctoral thesis to be submitted next month by a Ben-Gurion University researcher.
In an interview with the researcher published on al-Jazeera’s website Thursday, he claimed that Israel destroyed the Palestinian books in the framework of its plan to “Judaize the country” and cut off its Arab residents from their nation and culture.
According to the doctoral dissertation, Israeli authorities collected tens of thousands of Arab books in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and other towns that were home to Arabs. Israeli officials proceeded to hand out about half the books, while destroying the second half, characterizing them as a “security threat,” the researcher said.
In his al-Jazeera interview, the researcher claimed that, based on Israeli archives, IDF troops plundered the books from the homes of Palestinians expelled during the “Nakba” and handed them over to authorities. The State proceeded to establish a library in Jaffa and other towns for the books, he said.
‘Cultural massacre’
The researcher told al-Jazeera that according to documents he possesses, Israel destroyed 27,000 books in 1958, claiming that they were useless and threatened the State. Authorities sold the books, most of them textbooks, to a paper plant, he said.
“This was a cultural massacre undertaken in a manner that was worse than European colonialism, which safeguarded the items it stole in libraries and museums,” the researcher charged.
He added that some books were sold at discounted prices to Arab schools, while the others were transferred to the Hebrew University’s library in Jerusalem.
The researcher estimated that about 6,000 Palestinian books are currently available at the National Library at Hebrew University. However, he claimed that many other books in Arabic, English, and French were not recorded, charging that most of them are being held in the library’s warehouses and cannot be accessed.
US Troops Kill Kabul Imam in ‘Unfortunate Incident’
Protests in Afghan Capital as NATO Expresses Regret
By Jason Ditz | January 28, 2010
Mohammad Yonus, the imam of the Paktia Kowt Mosque in the Afghan capital city of Kabul, was killed today by American troops while sitting in his car.
Yonus was reportedly in his car with three of his sons waiting for his other son to arrive. A US convoy saw the parked car and decided it was a “threatening vehicle,” opening fire and killing Yonus. His sons were not injured in the shooting.
Locals said the convoy did not even stop after the shooting, and identified the attackers as American. Yonus was rushed to the hospital but died of his injuries shortly thereafter.
The killing sparked protests in front of a military base in Kabul, and once again brought attention to the growing problem of civilian killings by the international forces in the nation.
NATO spokesmen called the killing an “unfortunate incident” and expressed regret over shooting the imam. They promised that his family would receive an undisclosed amount of money to compensate them for the killing.
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Secret document reveals plans for civil war in Lebanon, Israeli false flags, and invasion
By Randi Nord | Geopolitics Alert | April 5, 2019
Beirut – During his visit with US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, Lebanese President Michael Aoun reportedly received a US-Israeli document detailing plans for creating a civil war in Lebanon with covert false flag operations and possible Israeli invasion.
Although the source of the document is Israeli and created in partnership with Washington, no one knows who presented it to Aoun. The Lebanese TV station, Al-Jadeed, initially reported the document on Lebanese TV and a video on its website. Geopolitics Alert translated the report for this article. … continue
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