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The “Critics” of 9/11 Truth. Do They Have a Case?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | September 13, 2011

The short answer to the question in the title is no.

The 9/11 truth critics have nothing but ad hominem arguments.

Let’s examine the case against “the truthers” presented by Ted Rall, Ann Barnhardt, and Alexander Cockburn.

But first let’s define who “the truthers” are.

The Internet has made it possible for anyone to have a web site and to rant and speculate to their heart’s content. There are a large number of “9/11 conspiracy theorists”.

Many on both sides of the issue are equally ignorant. Neither side has any shame about demonstrating ignorance.

Both sides of the issue have conspiracy theories.

9/11 was a conspiracy whether a person believes that it was an inside job or that a handful of Arabs outwitted the entire intelligence apparatus of the Western world and the operational response of NORAD and the US Air Force.

For one side to call the other conspiracy theorists is the pot calling the kettle black.

The question turns not on name-calling but on evidence.

The 9/11 Truth movement was not created by bloggers ranting on their web sites. It was created by professional architects and engineers some of whom are known for having designed steel high rise buildings.

It was created by distinguished scientists, such as University of Copenhagen nano-Chemist Niels Harrit who has 60 scientific papers to his credit and physicist Steven Jones.

It was created by US Air Force pilots and commercial airline pilots who are expert at flying airplanes.

It was created by firefighters who were in the twin towers and who personally heard and experienced numerous explosions including explosions in the sub-basements. It was created by members of 9/11 families who desire to know how such an improbable event as 9/11 could possibly occur.

The professionals and the scientists are speaking from the basis of years of experience and expert knowledge. Moreover, the scientists are speaking from the basis of careful research into the evidence that exists.

When an international research team of scientists spends 18 months studying the components in the dust from the towers and the fused pieces of concrete and steel, they know what they are doing. When they announce that they have definite evidence of incendiaries and explosives, you can bet your life that that have the evidence.

When a physicist proves that Building 7 (the stories not obscured by other buildings) fell at free fall speed and NIST has to acknowledge that he is correct, you can bet your life that the physicist is correct.

When fire department captains and clean-up teams report molten steel–and their testimony is backed up with photographs–in the debris of the ruins weeks and months after the buildings’ destruction, you can bet your life the molten steel was there.

When the same authorities report pumping fire suppressants and huge quantities of water with no effect on the molten steel, you can bet your life that the temperature long after the buildings’ destruction remained extremely high, far higher than any building fire can reach.

When the architects, engineers, and scientists speak, they offer no theory of who is responsible for 9/11. They state that the known evidence supports neither the NIST reports nor the 9/11 Commission Report. They say that the explanation that the government has provided is demonstrably wrong and that an investigation is required if we are to discover the truth about the event.

It is not a conspiracy theory to examine the evidence and to state that the evidence does not support the explanation that has been given.

That is the position of the 9/11 Truth movement.

What is the position of the movement’s critics? Ted Rall says: “Everything I’ve read and watched on Truther sites is easily dismissed by anyone with a basic knowledge of physics and architecture. (I spent three years in engineering school.)”

Wow! What powerful credentials. Has Rall ever designed a high rise steel building? Could Rall engage in a debate with a professor of nano-chemistry? Could he refute Newton’s laws in a debate with university physicists? Does Rall know anything about maneuvering airplanes? Does he have an explanation why 100 firefighters, janitors, and police report hearing and experiencing explosions that they did not hear or experience?

Clearly, Ted Rall has no qualifications whatsoever to make any judgment about the judgments of experts whose knowledge exceeds his meager understanding by a large amount.

Ann Barnhardt writes: “I gotta tell you, I’ve just about had it with these 9/11 truthers. If there is one phenomenon in our sick, sick culture that sums up how far gone and utterly damaged we are as a people, it is 9/11 trutherism. It pretty much covers everything: self-loathing, antisemitism, zero knowledge of rudimentary physics and a general inability to think logically.” She goes down hill from here.

Amazing, isn’t she? Physics professors have “zero knowledge of rudimentary physics.”

Internationally recognized logicians have “a general inability to think logically.” People trained in the scientific method who use it to seek truth are “self-loathing.” If you doubt the government’s account you are antisemitic. Barnhardt then provides her readers with a lesson in physics, structural architecture and engineering, and the behavior of steel under heat and stress that is the most absolute nonsense imaginable.

Obviously, Barnhardt knows nothing whatsoever about what she is talking about, but overflowing with hubris she dismisses real scientists and professionals with ad hominem arguments. She adds to her luster with a video of herself tearing out pages of the Koran, which she has marked with slices of bacon, and burning the pages.

Now we come to Alexander Cockburn. He is certainly not stupid. I know him. He is pleasant company. He provides interesting intellectual conversation. I like him. Yet, he also arrogantly dismisses highly qualified experts who provide evidence contrary to the official government story of 9/11.

Cockburn avoids evidence presented by credentialed experts and relies on parody. He writes that the conspiracists claim that the twin towers “pancaked because Dick Cheney’s agents–scores of them–methodically planted demolition charges.”

Little doubt but there are bloggers somewhere in the vast Internet world who say this. But this is not what the professionals are saying who have provided evidence that the official account is not correct. The experts are simply saying that the evidence does not support the official explanation. More recently, an international team of scientists has reported finding unequivocal evidence of incendiaries and explosives. They have not said anything about who planted them. Indeed, they have said that other scientists should test their conclusions by repeating the research. After calling experts “conspiracy kooks,” Alex then damns them for not putting forward “a scenario of the alleged conspiracy.”

Moreover, not a single one of the experts believes the towers “pancaked.” This was an early explanation that, I believe, was tentatively put forward by NIST, but it had to be abandoned because of the speed with which the buildings came down and due to other problems.

Unlike Rall and Barnhardt, Cockburn does refer to evidence, but it is second or third-hand hearsay evidence that is nonsensical on its face. For example, Cockburn writes that Chuck Spinney “tells me that ‘there ARE pictures taken of the 757 plane hitting Pentagon–they were taken by the surveillance cameras at Pentagon’s heliport, which was right next to impact point. I have seen them both–stills and moving pictures. I just missed seeing it personally, but the driver of the van I just got out of in South Parking saw it so closely that he could see the terrified faces of passengers in windows.’”

If there were pictures or videos of an airliner hitting the Pentagon, they would have been released years ago. They would have been supplied to the 9/11 Commission. Why would the government refuse for 10 years to release pictures that prove its case? The FBI confiscated all film from all surveillance cameras. No one has seen them, much less a Pentagon critic such as Spinney.

I have to say that the van driver must have better eyes than an eagle if he could see expressions on passenger faces through those small airliner portholes in a plane traveling around 500 mph. Try it sometime. Sit on your front steps and try to discern the expressions of automobile passengers through much larger and clearer windows traveling down your street in a vehicle moving 30 mph. Then kick the speed up 16.7 times to 500 mph and report if you see anything but a blur.

Cockburn’s other evidence that 9/11 truthers are kooks is a letter that Herman Soifer, who claims to be a retired structural engineer, wrote to him summarizing “the collapse of Buildings 1 and 2 succinctly.” This is what Soifer, who “had followed the plans and engineering of the Towers during construction” wrote to Alex: “The towers were basically tubes, essentially hollow.” This canard was disposed of years ago. If Alex had merely googled the plans of the buildings, he would have discovered that there were no thin-walled hollow tubes, but a very large number of massively thick steel beams.

Cockburn’s willingness to dismiss as kooks numerous acknowledged experts on the basis of a claim that a van driver saw terrified faces of passengers moving at 500 mph and a totally erroneous description in a letter from a person who knew nothing whatsoever about the structural integrity of the buildings means that he is a much braver person than I.

Before I call architects kooks whose careers were spent building steel high rises, I would want to know a lot more about the subject than I do. Before I poke fun at nano-chemists and physicists, I would want to at least be able to read their papers and find the scientific flaws in their arguments.

Yet, none of the people who ridicule 9/11 skeptics are capable of this. How, for example, can Rall, Barnhardt, or Cockburn pass judgment on a nano-chemist with 40 years of experience and 60 scientific publications to his credit?

They cannot, but nevertheless do. They don’t hesitate to pass judgment on issues about which they have no knowledge or understanding. This is an interesting psychological phenomenon worthy of study and analysis.

Another interesting phenomenon is the strong emotional reactions that many have to 9/11, an event about which they have little information. Even the lead members of the 9/11 Commission itself have said that information was withheld from them and the commission was set up to fail. People who rush to the defense of NIST do not even know what they are defending as NIST refuses to release the details of the simulation upon which NIST bases its conclusion.

There is no 9/11 debate.

On the one hand there are credentialed experts who demonstrate problems in the official account, and on the other hand there are non-experts who denounce the experts as conspiracy kooks.

The experts are cautious and careful about what they say, and their detractors have thrown caution and care to the wind. That is the state of the debate.

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September 14, 2011 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Torture—a very British tradition

By Simon Basketter | Socialist Worker | September 13, 2011

The instructions were simple. “Get up you fucking bastard”, “Get up you fucking ape” screamed the soldiers, followed by kicks and punches. Sometimes the blows came from multiple fists and boots.

Getting up meant squatting, half leaning against a wall, arms pointing straight out. This is known as a stress position.

The British army made ten Iraqi hotel workers spend days like this. Even if they stayed in position they were beaten, had urine poured over them or were forced to drink it. They had their heads covered with hoods.

It is torture and it was systematic. It is what being “questioned” by the occupying forces in Iraq really meant.

By the end of this ordeal, hotel worker Baha Mousa was dead. One soldier later remarked, “We kicked him to death”.

British soldiers inflicted “violent and cowardly” assaults on Iraqi civilians, according to a public inquiry into the killing published last week. The Gage inquiry concluded that an “appalling episode of serious, gratuitous violence” by the British army killed Baha.

Baha died within 36 hours of being taken into British military custody. He received 93 external injuries, including a broken nose and also internal injuries including fractured ribs.

He died from asphyxia.

The case is an indictment of military culture. It shows the vicious treatment that the army doled out to civilians it interrogated.

Robbed

The torture of Baha Mousa began when the army raided a hotel in Basra, Iraq, on 14 September 2003. Baha had only been working at the hotel for about two weeks. It was one of three jobs that he had in order to support his family.

The army arrested ten workers in the raid—and soldiers robbed the safe. A number of those arrested were kicked and their heads were held in flushing toilets. Much worse was to come.

Soldiers took the ten away with instructions not to use hoods—because a TV crew had turned up outside. But they beat the prisoners again before reaching the detention centre. Once there, the ordeal began in earnest. Prisoners recalled being beaten to force them to dance “like Michael Jackson”.

The inquiry heard evidence that they were scalded with boiling water, urinated on, kicked, punched and sleep deprived.

One recalled how he was given a bottle in which to urinate. When he asked for a drink on the third day, the contents of this bottle were poured into his mouth.

A soldier also grabbed his face through the sandbags and tried to force his fingers into the detainee’s eyes.

Others were given scalding water to drink and cold water was poured over their heads. One heard Baha Mousa shouting and screaming, saying, “I’ll die”, “my nose”, “I’m bleeding”.

The soldiers had a competition to see who could kick a prisoner the hardest.

The report notes that one prisoner “had petrol rubbed under his nose, water poured over his head and a lighter held close to his head, with the obvious intention of causing him to think petrol was about to be ignited.”

And so it continued. “For almost the whole of the period up to Baha Mousa’s death… the detainees were kept handcuffed, hooded and in stress positions in extreme heat and conditions of some squalor,” the report said.

The inquiry was also played a video of one soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, screaming at the prisoners and calling them “fucking apes”.

Payne became the first member of the armed forces to be convicted of a war crime when he pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating civilians at a court martial in 2006.

The soldiers put on a show where they made the prisoners into a “choir”—by beating them till they screamed. “Towards the end of the second day they were all in so much pain that he only had to poke them to get them to make a noise,” said former soldier Gareth Aspinall in the report evidence. “When visitors came across they also found it funny.”

On one occasion, soldiers held a “free for all” where a number of them attacked all the Iraqis at once. In between the beatings, prisoners were questioned. They had done nothing wrong.

Failed

The report names 19 soldiers as having assaulted prisoners—although the inquiry has not been able to identify several others. It says that Colonel Jorge Mendonca, the unit’s commander, “bears a heavy responsibility for these events”. Retired appeal court judge Sir William Gage accepted that Mendonca did not know that the abuse was going on.

But he said Mendonca failed by not knowing “precisely what conditioning involved”.

The report does not say that there was systematic torture of Iraqi prisoners. But it does point out that Baha’s death wasn’t a one-off incident.

Gage puts the blame at the door of individual soldiers and officers, as well as on poor internal communications. He condemns the “loss of discipline and a lack of moral courage” that meant soldiers did not report the abuse.

Soldiers repeatedly lied about what went on. Time and time again, soldiers claimed not to remember what they had seen or done.

That amnesia went right to the top.

Killing

Senior commanders were apparently ignorant of a ban imposed in 1972 on the use of five torture techniques, including hooding, stress positions and sleep deprivation.

While highly critical of the evidence of a number of soldiers, and of the lies told about the Iraqis’ detention, Gage ruled that there was no cover-up of Baha’s death.

After Baha’s killing, the government claimed that hooding of prisoners had stopped, which it hadn’t, and that it wasn’t used for interrogations, which it was.

The report says that while the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had provided inaccurate information, neither it, the civil service, nor ministers had intended to mislead. Instead the inquiry condemns the “corporate failure” of the MoD.

This included then armed forces minister Adam Ingram’s claim that he was “not aware of any incidents in which UK interrogators are alleged to have used hooding as an interrogation technique”.

But Ingram had been sent a memo explaining what had happened to Baha Mousa. Ingram claimed, “It certainly would not have been within my power to remember everything that I had been informed.”

The report also notes the memory loss of then Labour defence secretary Geoff Hoon. It says, “His answers suggested that he had not perhaps fully grasped the respect in which his response turned out to have been inaccurate.”

The report provides evidence that soldiers were trained in what are essentially torture techniques. This, combined with a culture of racism and violence, explains why torture was so commonplace.

Private Stuart MacKenzie of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment was one of those guarding Baha. Just days before the hotel raid, MacKenzie wrote in his diary, “Found 3 Ali Babas at WTP7, beat them up with sticks, filmed it. Good day so far.”

The inquiry concludes only that there should be better training for what the army calls “the harsh approach”. And it proposes the army drops teaching methods to “maintain the shock of capture” and “prolong the shock of capture”.

The government immediately rejected this, claiming that lives could be put at risk unless the army could deploy all “necessary” techniques.

The inquiry has shone a light on the brutality of the war in Iraq. But it has left the establishment untouched, the command structure and the politicians blameless. That is not justice.

September 14, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

The Israeli Litmus Test

Ambassador Shapiro’s Revelations

By ALISON WEIR | September 14, 2011

While many Americans may believe that US policies are designed to address American needs, America’s new Ambassador to Israel explains that this is far from the case.

In a recent speech before the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), Ambassador Daniel Shapiro clarified what drives US policies:

“The test of every policy the Administration develops in the Middle East is whether it is consistent with the goal of ensuring Israel’s future as a secure, Jewish, democratic state. That is a commitment that runs as a common thread through our entire government.”

Shapiro went on to say:

“This test explains our extraordinary security cooperation, our stand against the delegitimization of Israel, our efforts on Iran, our response to the Arab Spring, and our efforts on Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

US funding of Israel and its weapons industry

Shapiro elaborated:

“Israel will receive over $3 billion in U.S. funding for training and equipment in the coming fiscal year.  This assistance allows Israel to purchase the sophisticated defense equipment it needs to protect itself, by itself, including the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.  Our assistance has also helped boost Israel’s domestic defense industry.”

On top of this, Shapiro pointed out,

“Congress, at the request of President Obama, provided $205 million to accelerate production and deployment of the Iron Dome short-range missile system, a project to which I devoted particular attention during my tenure at the White House.”

Shapiro failed to note that this system competes with American defense firms, causing still further job loss for Americans, who have a higher unemployment rate than Israel.

Shapiro said that one of his first visits as Ambassador to Israel was to see an Iron Dome battery deployed near Ashkelon, where he “had very moving visits with the victims of rocket attacks in Ashdod.” Palestinian rocket attacks have killed approximately 20 Israelis. There is no report that Shapiro has visited the victims of Israeli shelling attacks on Gaza, where over 1,400 have been killed.

Opposing international initiatives

Shapiro said:

“The test of our policy – that it advances Israel’s status as a secure, Jewish, democratic state – also explains our commitment to vigorously battle against those who would attempt to isolate or delegitimize Israel in the international community.”

As a result, Shapiro said, the US withdrew from the South African conference on racism in Durban and vetoed UN efforts on Israel (which otherwise would have passed).

Currently, he said, the administration is “doing everything we can” to oppose the Palestinian bid for UN membership to come later this month. “We are taking our opposition to capitals around the world.”

This campaign is reminiscent of previous pro-Israel campaigns, including the original pressure brought by Israel partisans in 1947 on the UN General Assembly to pass a recommendation to give over half of Palestine to a Jewish state.

Policies on Iran based on Israeli concerns

Shapiro went on to say:

“The test of our policy – to advance Israel’s status as a secure, Jewish democratic state – explains our persistent efforts and the President’s determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“Since 2009, the United States has led the world in imposing the toughest sanctions ever against Iran, through U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929, through the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions and Divestment Act, and through additional sanctions imposed by European and other partners beyond those mandated by the U.N. Security Council…  We are working to increase pressure on Iran through additional means, and have taken no option off the table.”

Twenty years ago similar pressure on Iraq created a humanitarian catastrophe in which, according to the World Health Organization, over 5,000 children under the age of five died each month from “embargo-related causes.”

Arab Spring actions predicated on Israeli interests

Shapiro explained that concerns for Israel also drive the US administration’s actions regarding the Arab Spring:

“The test of our policy explains President Obama’s original outreach to the Muslim world, and his response to the Arab Spring.

“Israel’s interests were not served by the deep anger felt toward the United States in many Muslim communities, and the President made clear that those who would accept his outstretched hand must do so knowing that the United States will remain a fierce defender of Israel’s legitimacy and call on others to build their own connections with Israel.

“As the unprecedented events of the Arab Spring have unfolded, we have recognized the opportunity presented by the possible emergence of more open, transparent, peaceful, and democratic governments, who will make better neighbors, while remaining vigilant about the risks these changes could present.  We know the stakes for Israel are high, and in a situation where neither of us can control outcomes, we are working closely together to chart a common strategy.” 

Shapiro said that US support for a “two-state solution” is also based on Israeli desires, explaining that he and the Administration are “convinced that a two-state solution is the only way to guarantee Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.” Therefore, he said, the administration’s “vigorous pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace” also meets the pro-Israel test.

Need to bolster pro-Israel ties among Jewish Americans

Shapiro spoke of the close allegiance that most Jewish Americans feel for Israel, but expressed concern that “much research has shown that growing numbers of younger American Jews feel disconnected, or at best ambivalent, toward Israel.  Valuable programs like Birthright have exposed many to this connection, but many more have not been reached.”

He said that “a stronger commitment to Zionist education for American Jewish youth could do much to strengthen bonds that we want to be even stronger in the next generation, but may not be if left untended.”

Helping Israeli finances even further

Shapiro said that “one of the most fruitful opportunities for deepening ties” between Americans and Israelis is in the economic sphere:

“There are approximately one dozen American-Israel Chambers of Commerce throughout the United States, based in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.   These organizations are run and organized by Americans who care deeply about the U.S.- Israel relationship and strive to facilitate U.S.-Israel business connections.”

Shapiro pointed out:

“In 2010 alone the U.S. imported $21 billion of Israeli goods and services; that’s 10 percent of Israel’s GDP.   American companies and their representatives here directly employ about 60,000 Israelis; that’s fully 2 percent of Israel’s entire workforce. This figure does not include the many thousands more that are supported by American companies here as subcontractors or in downstream businesses.

“American companies have opened two-thirds of all foreign R&D facilities in Israel and brought in nearly 60 percent of all foreign direct investment.  In 2011, American companies have acquired ten Israeli startups to the tune of $1.5 billion dollars, not just for their products, but to establish leading international R&D centers tapping into the greatest asset of Israel’s people, their brainpower.  American-sourced venture capitalism provides more than half of all money for nascent technology companies to get off the ground.

“Just as other Diaspora communities are often in the lead in promoting economic ties with their countries of origin, many of these projects began because of Jewish-American ‘champions’ of corporate interaction with Israel.”

Ambassador Shapiro failed to mention that Israel’s current account balance is 29th in the world; the U.S. comes in at 196th.

1973 War and Shapiro’s personal ties to Israel

In his speech, Ambassador Shapiro recounted his personal history “for the insights it can give us about the connection of the American Jewish community to the U.S.-Israel relationship.” He stated:

“I am a proud member of our Jewish community in Washington, DC, active in a Conservative synagogue and the Jewish day school that my children attend and where my wife, Julie, worked for many years. And my profound respect for the State of Israel and its remarkable achievements stems from a lifetime of exposure to the extraordinary people who brought Theodore Herzl’s Zionist dream to life.”

Shapiro explained that his close attachment to Israel began in 1973 when he was four years old and his family spent a fall semester in Israel. They were there during the war in which Egypt and Syria tried to retrieve land that had been taken by Israel seven years before.

While Ambassador Shapiro didn’t go into this, there is a close US connection to the 1973 war, called by Israel and US media the “Yom Kippur War.”

Before and during this war, Saudi Arabia called on the US to pressure Israel to return the lands that it had taken and held since 1967, in violation of international law. Instead, Henry Kissinger arranged a massive airlift of US weaponry to Israel, saving Israel from losing the war.  This support led to the oil embargo against the US that caused a deep depression and cost thousands of Americans their jobs.

As historian Donald Neff later wrote, this boycott, induced by Kissinger’s weapons to Israel, left “economies around the world shattered and many individuals living poorer lives.” Neff wrote that while “Kissinger admitted, ‘I made a mistake,’ skeptics might wonder whether it was a mistake, or wanton disregard of U.S. interests during a passionate effort to help Israel.”

Shapiro explained that the 1973 war had a major impact on his family:

“By the end of the war, and even more so, by the end of our stay, our family’s relationship with Israel had been utterly transformed, from a solid but light connection to the deepest of bonds.  Throughout the remainder of my childhood, family dinner conversations turned easily to events in Israel, from the thrill of the peace with Egypt to the anguish of the Lebanon War [initiated by Israel; fatalities were approximately 25:1 Lebanese to Israelis].  The ample bookshelves in my parents’ home grew laden with studies in Zionism, Jewish history, and Israeli literature.

“A product of the Reform Movement, I nurtured my own connection to Israel primarily through summer camp experiences at the Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, an unlikely setting for some of the most innovative Jewish and Zionist education to be found anywhere.

“These experiences led me to spend half a year after high school in Israel on a Reform Movement program, living with an Israeli family in Jerusalem, studying at Hebrew Union College, traveling widely throughout the country, and volunteering on Kibbutz Yahel in the Arava.

“I returned for my sophomore year of college at Hebrew University, supplementing my studies with work as a waiter at the wedding hall in the Beit Knesset HaGadol and long walks in Rehavia, where my girlfriend – who is now my wife of 19 years – took an apartment.

“In the years since, I have made Israel, its history and people, its quest for peace and security in the Middle East, and its relationship with the United States, the centerpiece of my academic studies at Brandeis and Harvard, my work on Capitol Hill, and my service in the Clinton and Obama Administrations.”

Shapiro emphasized that in many ways his story is not unique, stating that “it is impossible to deny the special connection that most in the American Jewish community feel for Israel…. wherever they fall on the political spectrum, and whatever their views on American policy, Israeli policy or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the vast majority of American Jews care deeply about Israel…”

Shapiro said that he is deeply honored that President Obama has entrusted him with the “task and responsibility of strengthening and deepening” US ties to Israel.

Shapiro concluded:

“… as a committed Jewish American, with deep roots in the American Jewish community and warm bonds of affection with Israel, I will have an opportunity to draw on those associations to help make the U.S.-Israel relationship, strong as it is, even stronger in the years ahead.”

Alison Weir is Executive Director of If Americans Knew and President of the Council for the National Interest. She can be reached at contact@CNIonline.org.

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September 14, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Being in Time

By Gilad Atzmon | September 14, 2011

Time Banking and Social Changes

(A talk given at the ‘Palestine, Israel, Germany- The Boundaries of Open Discussion Conference’, Freiburg 11th September 2011)

Dear ladies and gentlemen.

I will begin my talk with an unusual confession. Though I was born in Israel, in the first thirty years of my life I did not know much about the Nakba, the brutal and racially driven ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in 1948 by the newly born Israeli State. My peers and myself knew about a single massacre, namely, Deir Yassin but we were not at all familiar with the vast scale of atrocities committed by our grandparents. We believed that the Palestinians had voluntarily fled. We were told that they had run away and we did not find any reason to doubt that this had indeed been the case.

Let me tell you that in all my years in Israel, I have never heard the word Nakba spoken. This may sound pathetic, or even absurd to you — but what about you? Shouldn’t you also ask yourself — when was the first time you heard the word Nakba? Perhaps you can also try to recall when this word settled comfortably into your lexicon. Let me help you here — I have carried out a little research amongst my European and American Palestinian solidarity friends, and most of them had only heard the word Nakba for the first time, just a few short years ago, whilst others admitted that they had only started to use the word themselves three or four years ago.

But isn’t that a slightly strange state of affairs? After all, the Nakba took place more than six decades ago. How is it that only recently it found its way into our symbolic order?

The answer is, in some respects, quite a straightforward one: to be in the world means to be subject to changes and transformations. It entails grasping and reassessing the past through different present realisations. History is shaped and re-shaped as we proceed in time. Accordingly, we seem to understand the Palestinian expulsion and plight through our current understanding of Israeli brutality: In the light of the destruction Israel left behind in Lebanon in 2006, followed by our witnessing of the genocidal crimes performed in Gaza in ‘Operation Cast Lead’, and observing the footage of the IDF execution of peace activists on the Mavi Marmara — we have subsequently, managed to amend our picture of the scale of the 1948 Palestinian tragedy. As we grasp more fully what the Israelis are capable of — we are also able to re-construct our vision of Israel’s ‘original sin’ i.e. the Nakba. We are able to empathise more deeply with the expelled Palestinians of 1948 via our current evolving comprehension of Israel, the Israeli, ‘Israeli-ness’, Jewish nationalism, global Zionism, and the relentless Israeli lobby.

The meaning and significance of it becomes clearer — the past is far from being a precisely sealed off set of events with a fixed meaning, pre-decided for us by a fixed viewpoint and then closed off from further debate. Instead, our understanding of the past is shaped and transformed, constantly, as we progress and grow in knowledge and experience. And, as much as our current reality is shaped by our world vision — our past too, is shaped, re-shaped, viewed and re-viewed by the narratives we happen to follow at any given time.

This is the true meaning of ‘being in time’; this is the essence of temporality, and this is what historical thinking is all about. People possess the capacity to ‘think historically’– to be transformed by the past — but also to allow the past to be constantly shaped, and re-shaped, as they proceed towards the unknown.

Deir Yassin Remembered

But here is an interesting set of historical anecdotes that deserve our attention: Indeed, one may be left perplexed on learning that — just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945 — the newly-formed Jewish state ethnically cleansed the vast majority of the indigenous population of Palestine (1948). Just five years after the defeat of Nazism — the Jewish state brought to life racially-discriminatory return laws in order to prevent the 1948 Palestinian refugees from coming back to their cities, villages, fields and orchards. These laws, still in place today, were not categorically different from the notorious Nuremberg race Laws. One may also be totally perplexed to find out that Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Museum, is located on the confiscated land of a Palestinian village Ein Karem, next door to Deir Yassin, which is probably the ultimate symbol of the Palestinian Shoa.

One may wonder what is the root cause of this unique institutional lack of compassion that has been exhibited and maintained by Israel and Israelis for decades. One might expect that Jews, having been victims of oppression and discrimination themselves, would locate themselves at the forefront of the battle against evil and racism. One might expect the victims of discrimination to resist inflicting pain on others.

Yet, some deeper and far more general questions come to mind here — how is it that the Jewish political and ideological discourse fails so badly to draw the obvious and necessary moral lessons from history and Jewish history in particular? How is it that in spite of ‘Jewish history’ appearing to be an endless tale of Jewish suffering, the Jewish State is so blind to the suffering it inflicts on others?

On the face of it, what we see here is a form of alienation from historical thinking. Israeli historian Shlomo Sand has noted that Rabbinical Judaism could be realised as an attempt to replace historical thinking: instead of history, the Torah provided Rabbinical Judaism with a spiritually-driven plot. It conveyed an image of purpose and fate. However, things changed in the 19th century. Due to the rapid emancipation of European Jewry together with the rise of nationalism and the spirit of Enlightenment, assimilated European Jews felt bound to redefine their beginnings in secular, national and rational terms. This is when Jews ‘invented’ themselves as ‘people’ and as a ‘class’: like other European nations, Jews felt the urge to possess a coherent narrative about themselves and their history.

Inventing history is not a crime – people and nations often do it. Yet, in spite of the rapid process of assimilation, Jewish secular ideology and politics failed to encompass the real meaning of historical thought and historical understanding. Indeed, the assimilated secular Jew was very successful in dropping God and other religious identifiers. And yet, at least politically, the assimilated Jew failed to replace divinity with an alternative Jewish anthropocentric secular ethical and metaphysical realisation.

Temporality and Alienation

I only recently understood that the ‘Jewish Identity political discourse’ is not only foreign to history; not only is it actually antagonistic towards historical thinking, but it is also detached from the notion of temporality.

Temporality is inherent to the human condition: ‘To be’ is ‘to be in time’. Whether we like it or not, we are doomed to be hung between the past that is drifting away into the void, and the unknown that proceeds towards us from the future.

Through the present, the so-called ‘here and now’, we meditate on that which has passed away. Occasionally we hope for forgiveness; and sometimes we are cheered by a pleasing memory. At other times we become angry with ourselves for not having reacted appropriately at some moment in our past. And from time to time we may recall a sensation of love.

In the present we can also envisage the future, and in the awareness of that presence we may sense the fear of the unknown. But we can also experience waves of happiness and optimism when the future seems to smile at us.

More often than not, we draw lessons from the past. But far more crucially important and interesting perhaps, is the idea that an imaginary future can easily re-write, or even re shape the past.

I will try to elucidate this subtle idea through a simple and hypothetical yet horrifying war scenario:

For instance, we can easily envisage a horrific situation in which an Israeli so-called ‘pre-emptive’ attack on Iran could escalate into a disastrous nuclear conflict, in which tens of millions of people in the Middle East and Europe would perish.

I would guess that amongst the few survivors of such a nightmarish imaginary scenario, some may be bold enough to say what they ‘really think’ of the Jewish state and its inherent murderous tendencies.

The above is obviously a horrific fictional scenario, and by no means a wishful one, yet such a vision of a ‘possible’ horrendous development should restrain Israeli or Zionist aggression towards Iran.

But as we know, this hardly happens — Israeli officials threaten to flatten and nuke Iran all too often.

Seemingly, Israelis and Zionists around the world fail to see their own actions within a historical perspective or context. They fail to look at their actions in terms of their consequences. From an ethical perspective, the above ‘imaginary’ scenario could or should prevent Israel from even contemplating any attack on Iran. Yet, what we see in practice is the complete opposite: Israel wouldn’t miss an opportunity to threaten Iran.

My explanation is simple. The Jewish political and ideological discourse is foreign to the notion of temporality. Israel is blind to the consequences of its actions; it only thinks of its actions in terms of short-term pragmatism. Within the Jewish political discourse the time arrow is a one-way road. It goes forward, yet it never turns the other way. There is never an attempt to revise the past in the light of a possible future. Instead of temporality, Israel thinks in terms of an extended present.

But Israel is just part of the problem. The Jewish lobby is also blinded to the immanent disaster it brings on Diaspora Jews. Like Israel, the lobby only thinks in terms of short term gain. It seeks more and more power. It never looks back , and neither does it regret.

To sum up, the notion of temporality is the ability to accept that the past is ‘elastic’. The notion of temporality allows the time arrow to move in both directions. From the past, forward, but also, from the (imaginary) future, backward. Temporality allows the past to be shaped and revised in the light of a search for meaning. History, and historical thinking, are the capacity to re-think the past. Ethics is bounded with temporality, for ethics is the ability to judge and reflect on issues that transcend beyond the ‘here and now’. To think ethically is to produce a principled judgment that stands the test of time.

Looking at the Past

To a significant extent then, the ability to revise one’s perspective on, and understanding of the past, is the true essence of historical thinking — it allows us to reshape our comprehension of the past through an awareness of an imaginary future perspective, and vice versa. To think historically becomes a meaningful event once our past experience allows us to foresee a better future.

Revisionism then, is imbued in the deepest possible understanding of temporality, and therefore inherent to humanity and humanism. And it is obvious that those who oppose proper and open historical debate are operating not only against the foundations of humanism, but also against ethics.

And yet, in Israel some lawmakers insist that commemoration and historical debate of the Nakba should become illegal. And, interestingly enough, Jewish anti Zionists also oppose any attempt to deconstruct or revise Jewish past. I, for instance, have been criticised recently for being an ‘anti Semite’ for suggesting that Zionism is not colonialism. In case you do not know, this conference was under severe pressure mounted by some leading Jewish anti Zionists who insisted on preventing any discussion about the history of Jewish suffering.

But I guess that it is pretty clear by now that my philosophical outlook is not very flattering to Jewish political and ideological discourse. Yet, the truth must be spoken: Jewish political discourse openly opposes any form of revisionism. Jewish politics is there to fix and cement a narrative and terminology.

Though the Zionist ideology presents itself as a historical narrative, it took me many years to grasp that Zionism, Jewish identity politics and ideology were actually crude, blunt assaults on history, the notion of history and temporality. Zionism, in fact, only mimics an historical discourse. In practice, Zionism like other forms of Jewish political discourse, defies any form of historical discussion. Thus, those who follow the Zionist and Jewish political ideologies are doomed to drift away from humanism, humanity and ethical conduct. Such an explanation may throw light on Israeli criminal conduct and Jewish institutional support for Israel.

Self-Reflection Is Overdue

Inventing a past, as Shlomo Sand suggests, is not the most worrying issue when it comes to Israel and Zionism. People and nations do tend to invent their past.

However, celebrating one’s phantasmic past at the expense of others is obviously a concerning ethical issue. But in the case of Israel the problem goes deeper. It is the attempt to seal the yesterdays that led to the collective ethical collapse of Israel and its supporting crowd.

However, as much as I enjoy bashing Israel and Zionism, I will also have to ask you to self-reflect. Sadly enough, Israel is not alone. As tragic as it appears to be, America and Britain also managed to willingly give up on temporality. It is the lack of true historical discourse that stopped Britain and America from understanding their future, present and past. As in the case of Jewish ‘history’, American and British politicians insist on a banal, binary and simplistic historic tale regarding WWII, The Cold War, Islam, and the events of 9/11. Tragically, the criminal Anglo-American genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan, AKA ‘The War against Terror’, is a continuation of our self-inflicted blindness. Since Britain and America failed to grasp the necessary message from the massacres in Hamburg and Dresden, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, there was nothing that could stop English-speaking imperialism from committing similar crimes in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

And what about you, my dearest Germans. What about your past? Are you free to look into your past and to re-shape your understanding of it as you move along? I don’t think so. Your history, or at least some chapters of it, are sealed by some draconian laws. Consequently, you, the younger generation, do not attempt to grasp the true ethical meaning of the holocaust. Clearly, Germans do not understand that the Palestinians are actually the last victims of Hitler, for without Hitler, there wouldn’t be a Jewish State. Your young generations fail to see that the Palestinians are certainly victims of a Nazi-like ideology, which is both racist and expansionist. Let me also advise you, if any of you feel guilty about anything to do with your past, it should be the Palestinians whom you should care for. The fact that Germany is detached from its past clearly explains German political complicity in the Zionist crime. It certainly explains why your government provides Israel with a nuclear submarine every so often. But it also explains why you may remain silent when you find out that Yad Vashem is built on Palestinian land stolen in 1948.

But it isn’t just Israel, Zionism, Britain, America and Germany. Let us look at ourselves, the supporters of Justice in Palestine. Even within our movement, we have some destructive elements who insist that we shouldn’t dare to touch our past: in the last month, Café Palestine Freiburg and the organiser of this conference were subjected to relentless attack by some established elements within the Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist movement. They were demanding that the conference should drop me because I am a ‘holocaust denier’. Needless to say, I have never denied the Holocaust or any other historical chapter. I also find the notion of ‘holocaust denial’ to be meaningless, and on the verge of idiotic.

However, I do indeed insist, as I did here today, that history must remain an open discourse, subject to changes and revision, I oppose any attempt to seal the past, whether it is the Nakba, Holocaust, the Holodomor or the Armenian genocide. I am convinced that an organic and ‘elastic’ understanding of the past is the true essence of a humanist discourse, universalism and ethics.

I clearly don’t know how to save Israel from itself, I do not know how to liberate Jewish anti Zionists from their Judeo centric ideology; but as far as America, Britain, Germany, the West, and us here today are concerned, all we have to do is to revert to our precious values of openness.

We must drift away from a restrictive, monolithic Jerusalem, and reinstate the ethical spirit of pluralist Athens.

September 14, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Hamas lawmaker: UN bid serves Obama, Israel

Ma’an – September 14, 2011

GAZA CITY — Palestinian lawmaker Salah Bardawil says the bid to join the UN is a “tactical move” that supports President Barack Obama’s next election campaign.

Bardawil, of Hamas, warned that the move would “set the borders for a Jewish country,” therefore contributing to normalizing recognition of “the state of occupation and its borders.”

The move would amount to the “criminalization and elimination of Palestinian resistance.”

He added that the step was a mistake akin to the signing of the Oslo Accords.

September 13, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions campaign against Israel

INfocus | 09-11-2011

September 13, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | Leave a comment

What State Do Palestinians Want?

‘Two state solution’ legitimizes Israel as a racist state

By Mahmoud N. Musa | Palestine Chronicle | September 12, 2011

Before Palestinian politicians go to the General Assembly of the United Nations to ask for recognition of their nominal state, they have to answer this question: Is this what the Palestinian people want?

In a poll conducted by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion, pcpo.org, (poll number 169, published February 1st, 2010) conducted in Gaza, and available in Arabic and English, question 39 asked the following from a representative sample:

“There are lots of strategic concepts for the resolution of the conflict in the region and the self-determination of the Palestinian people. What is your evaluation to each of the following?”

1. One democratic state on the soil of the whole historic Palestine, in which all its citizens should enjoy the same rights without religious, racial or gender discrimination. 62.5%.
2. Two states, one Palestinian, the other Israeli, live in peaceful coexistence side by side as good neighbours (in conformity with the resolution of the Palestinian National Council of 1988 and the UN Resolution No 242). 36.8%.
3. I don’t know.0.7%.

Another poll was conducted by Middle East Consulting (middleeastconsulting.com) in the West Bank and Gaza and published on their website in February 2007, asked the following question: “Do you support or oppose a one-state solution in historic Palestine where Muslims, Christians and Jews have equal rights and responsibilities?” 70.4% approved and 29.6% opposed.

It is reasonable to expect that refugees and Palestinians in Israel would approve the one-state solution with higher rates for reasons we will elaborate below.

Why do Palestinians Support the One Democratic State?

In our discussions with Palestinians, these are some of the responses we received, they ranged from the pragmatic to the moral, and the importance of each varied from one person to another.

First, most people stated the obvious reality: there is no land to have a viable state. There is the geographic separation of the West Bank and Gaza; settlers control much of the West Bank making it non-contiguous. Furthermore, such a state would be economically controlled by Israel and dependent on outside assistance.

Second, even if all the area of the West Bank becomes available, other sources of tension such as Jerusalem and the other holy places, borders, over five hundred thousand settlers, natural resources including water and coastal natural gas, will persist and continue to be a source of tension that may lead to hostilities.

Third, the “two state solution” legitimizes Israel as a racist supremacist state that will continue to be a source of tension in the region and a supporter of international neo-colonialism.

Fourth, a “Palestinian state” considerably weakens the ability of refugees to return to their original homes. This also exposes the Palestinians in Israel to the possibility of being cleansed out, in order to create a truly Jewish state. This puts us in the difficult position of answering the question: “If you want a state for yourselves, why do you deny the same to the Jew?” In asking for two states, are we not contributing to apartheid?

Fifth, some of the Palestinians we discussed this issue with remembered the aim of the revolution in the 1960’s as the “Liberation of Man and Land” not just the creation of an entity no matter how insignificant that may be. Some recalled the resolution of the fifth congress of the Palestinian National Council in January 1969 that stated: “to establish a free and democratic society in Palestine for all whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews.” (See Documents for Palestine 1969, Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut, 1970, page 589.) This probably was the only action taken proactively and without capitulation to outside pressure or as a reaction to what Israel did.

Sixth, some of the respondents see the diversity of religions and cultures as a source of enrichment for Palestine and the whole region provided all believe in equality and solidarity. They support the concept of a religious and cultural home for Jews. Such a state would be a source of support of a culture of democracy and human rights for the whole region of West Asia and North Africa that includes all Arab countries together with Turkey and Iran.

Seventh, going with the grain of history. The era of the nation-state is passing; it is changing to the multinational state and regional organizations. Humanity has for long known identity, such as ethnicity and religion, as the source of conflict and solidarity. It is now moving to universal values, such as equality and human rights, as the focus of political contention and solidarity. The One Democratic State will shift the struggle from that over territory to a struggle for values.

Eighth, the political, military and economic elites who are calling for separation are continuously working and will continue to cooperate with their Israeli counterparts. This same stratum wants the mainstream Palestinian and Jewish communities to be separate.

In January 2004, Ahmed Qurae, then prime minister of the Palestine Authority, threatened to call for a bi-national state. A leader of the Democratic Front (name withheld) and its current representative on the executive committee of the PLO was interviewed on Al-Jazeera network for his opinion. He replied that he does not agree because the Palestinian elites are not at the level of the Israelis. This gentleman reminds one of the Romans who would rather be first in a small village than be the second in Rome. He wants to continue exercising his authority in an insignificant quasi-state. However, he needs to answer the question: How can the power-imbalance between two peoples destined to share this small land be corrected? The proposed Palestinian entity is by and for the privileged few and does not serve the interests of most Palestinians.

Addressing the International Community

Some of the peoples and governments who are supporting the two-state solution believe that this constitutes Palestinian independence from Israeli colonialism; however, please recognize that our experience is not the colonialism that many of you experienced. The situation of Palestine/Israeli is that of settler-colonialism. Such conflict has never been and cannot be resolved by separating the indigenous population from the colonialists. Separation can only be done artificially and possibly forcefully and will lead to perpetual tension because the physical and human geography of this small piece of land is totally intertwined. Please understand that this presumed entity is a trap with the flag being the bait. What we would like to you to do is boycott and sanction Israel till it agrees to equal political, social, economic and cultural rights to all who live in historic Palestine and also allow all Palestinian refugees to return to their original homes.

We say to the General Assembly of the United Nations: Those 33 members of your assembly, who are mostly Europeans or Latin American countries who were under the control of the United States, who voted to partition Palestine in November 1947 need to acknowledge that their action brought untold misery to the whole region. You should not persist with this disastrous mistake. Instead, you need to vote for one-state in historic Palestine.

The decision to call for one-state or two-states affects all Palestinians, be they living in the West Bank, Gaza, Israel or are refugees. A referendum should be conducted, after a reasonable period of discussion, on the course to be taken. In the meantime, the Palestine Authority should refrain from acting on behalf of Palestinians.

– Professor Mahmoud N. Musa teaches global politics at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Paris. His most recent book is Contesting Global Values: Transnational Social Movements Confront the Neoliberal Order ( AuthorHouse, 2011).

September 13, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Cluster bombs: Drop today, kill tomorrow

By Sara Ibrahim | Moqawama | September 12, 2011

July war 2006, the 33 day war “Israel” launched on Lebanon was a bitter memory in the diary of every Lebanese. “Israel” killed 1,200 civilians, one third were children.

Thousands of homes were destroyed, 50 schools were shattered not to mention the roads and bridges that turned into rubble.

Despite all that, the people were able to move on with grand perseverance. With the blessings of the mighty fighters and with the people’s support the Divine victory was sowed.

However this is just the beginning of the “Israeli” belligerence.

At the end of the war, “Israel” had to take revenge. It dropped around 4 million cluster bombs over South Lebanon, mostly during the last 72 hours of the war.

Around 500,000 of those munitions did not explode, and have killed or seriously injured some 213 civilians and 52 de-miners since the war ended. 98% of the victims are civilians.

The reason why many sub-munitions didn’t explode, at least not immediately, was because “Israel” used many old stocks that went decades and decades back.

Unexploded cluster bombs are dangerous in part because their condition is unknown, they might be fully armed and ready to detonate, not armed and relatively harmless, or partially armed. If they are armed, they may or not be capable of firing, adding to their unpredictability.

When cluster munitions are dropped, the bombs can be spread intentionally or unintentionally over a large area, leaving a larger threat to civilians.

Although “Israel” discharged the largest number of cluster bombs in 2006, it used them earlier.

“Israel” used cluster munitions in its 1978 and 1982 incursions into Lebanon. The two-decade-old unexploded sub munitions from “Israeli” campaigns have continued killing and injuring civilians, with over 200 civilian casualties recorded between 2000 and 2005.

Moqawama.org had a special interview with a victim of cluster bombs in South Lebanon.

Ali Suleiman a 52 year old and father of 5, witnessed the pain of the “hidden devil” has he called it. “I was in my land in Arabsalim watering my olive trees and thinking about how much I missed my sons abroad, when suddenly I hear something explode. It was a matter of seconds and I saw blood on my hand and I could see no more. I knew I was injured badly by the “hidden devil”, the cluster bomb!” he said.

He fell on the ground and the pain started in his head then down his face, “I felt like needles were being hammered in my eyes”, he said.

“My wife came to check on me and found me lying on the ground, with all the blood she saw, she thought I was dead.”

The doctors said that Ali was moved to the hospital on time, had he been delayed a bit more he wouldn’t have made it due to the blood he lost.

Ali woke up in the hospital when he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything, it was hard for him to absorb what was happening. He was later informed that he lost an eye and the other was injured badly and needed 3 months of treatment.

“I couldn’t breathe; it was hard for me to take a breath. All I was thinking about was the fact that I may not see my wife, my children and grandchildren again. I may not be able to see my land, my home, my family. I may not be able to work again,” he cried.

After 3 months Ali did see again, the doctors managed to save his eye. “When I came back home, I knelt on the ground and thanked God for his mercy. I thanked God for having mighty fighters that were defending us from the antagonism of the Zionists”!

Ali survived yet many others couldn’t make it. Many farmers died before stepping on their land again due to the fact that it was contaminated. Many children lost the chance to run again, or write again, or even hear again. Many dreams were broken and many ambitions were stolen. These are the lives of the victims of the “hidden devils”!

~

A Cluster-Bomb-Free Lebanon?

Moqawama

Today, Monday, marks the opening of the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

9:20 a.m., the buses took off to South Lebanon, where representatives of 109 countries as well as journalists headed to the demining center and the Lebanese Welfare Association for the Handicapped’s center in Nabatiyeh and Sarafand respectively, for a live experience on the topic.

Out of the 109 countries that have joined the convention, 61 – including Lebanon – are “states parties,” meaning they have signed and ratified the convention, which requires countries to declare and destroy stockpiles of cluster munitions, clear contaminated areas, and assist survivors and affected communities.

According to the Lebanon Mine Action Center, the army-headed division that is supervising the cleanup, 67 percent of contaminated land has been cleared. They aim to have the country free of cluster munitions by 2016.

Today, Monday, the opening of the conference will take place at the UNESCO Palace, where it will be launched under the patronage of President of the Lebanese Republic Michel Suleiman, which will be followed by a series of workshops and seminars to tackle the subject.

September 12, 2011 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

John Gross denies existence of molten metal

John Gross, one of the lead engineers of the NIST report is quesitoned about the existance of molten steel at the WTC building, the collapse of Building 7, and also explains how the NIST report did not do any analysis concerning the physical collapse of all three buidlings. John Gross was asked to come speak at the University of Texas at Austin by the Phil. M. Ferguson fund.

September 12, 2011 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

At the UN, the funeral of the two-state solution

Ilan Pappe | The Electronic Intifada | 12 September 2011

We are all going to be invited to the funeral of the two-state solution if and when the UN General Assembly announces the acceptance of Palestine as a member state.

The support of the vast majority of the organization’s members would complete a cycle that began in 1967 and which granted the ill-advised two-state solution the backing of every powerful and less powerful actor on the international and regional stages.

Even inside Israel, the support engulfed eventually the right as well as the left and center of Zionist politics. And yet despite the previous and future support, everybody inside and outside Palestine seems to concede that the occupation will continue and that even in the best of all scenarios, there will be a greater and racist Israel next to a fragmented and useless bantustan.

The charade will end in September or October — when the Palestinian Authority plans to submit its request for UN membership as a full member — in one of two ways.

It could be either painful and violent, if Israel continues to enjoy international immunity and is allowed to finalize by sheer brutal force its mapping of post-Oslo Palestine. Or it could end in a revolutionary and much more peaceful way with the gradual replacement of the old fabrications with solid new truths about peace and reconciliation for Palestine. Or perhaps the first scenario is an unfortunate precondition for the second. Time will tell.

A substitute dictionary for Zionism

In ancient times, the dead were buried with their beloved artifacts and belongings. This coming funeral will probably follow a similar ritual. The most important item to go six feet under is the dictionary of illusion and deception and its famous entries such as “the peace process,” “the only democracy in the Middle East,” “a peace-loving nation,” “parity and reciprocity” and a “humane solution to the refugee problem.”

The substitute dictionary has been in the making for many years describing Zionism as colonialism, Israel as an apartheid state and the Nakba as ethnic cleansing. It will be much easier to put it into common use after September.

The maps of the dead solution will also be lying next to the body. The cartography that diminished Palestine into one tenth of its historical self, and which was presented as a map of peace, will hopefully be gone forever.

There is no need to prepare an alternative map. Since 1967, the geography of the conflict has never changed in reality, while it kept constantly transforming in the discourse of liberal Zionist politicians, journalists and academics, who still enjoy today a widespread international backing.

Palestine was always the land between the river and the sea. It still is. Its changing fortunes are characterized not by geography but by demography. The settler movement that came there in the late 19th century now accounts for half of the population and controls the other half through a matrix of racist ideologies and apartheid policies.

Peace is not a demographic change, nor a redrawing of maps: it is the elimination of these ideologies and policies. Who knows — it may be easier now than ever before to do this.

Exposing Israel’s protest movement

The funeral will expose the fallacy of the present Israeli mass protest movement, while at the same time highlight its positive potential. For seven weeks, mostly middle class Israeli Jews have protested in huge numbers against their government’s social and economic policies.

In order to keep the protest as large a movement as possible, its leaders and coordinators do not dare to mention occupation, colonization or apartheid. The sources of evil for everything, they claim, are the brutal capitalist policies of the government.

On a certain level they have a point. These policies disabled the master race of Israel from fully and equally enjoying the fruits of Palestine’s colonization and dispossession. But a fairer division of the spoils will not ensure normal life for either Jews or Palestinians; only the end to looting and pillage will.

And yet they also showed skepticism and distrust in what their media and politicians tell them about the socio-economic reality; it may open the way for a better understanding of the lies they were fed about the “conflict” and their “national security” over so many years.

The funeral should energize us all to follow the same distribution of labor as before. Palestinians urgently need to solve the issue of representation. The progressive Jewish forces in the world have to be more intensively recruited to the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and other solidarity campaigns.

Intifada at the proms

The recent disruption of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performance at the prestigious BBC Proms in London shocked the gentle Israelis more than any genocidal event in their own history.

But more than anything else, as reported by senior Israeli journalists who were there, they were flabbergasted by the presence of so many Jews among the protesters. These very journalists kept depicting in the past the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and BDS activists as terrorist groups and extremists of the worst kind. They believed their own reports. To its credit, the mini-intifada at the Royal Albert Hall at least confused them.

Putting one state into political action

In Palestine itself the time has come to move the discourse of one state into political action and maybe adopt the new dictionary. The dispossession is everywhere and therefore the repossession and reconciliation have to occur everywhere.

If the relationship between Jews and Palestinians is to be reformulated on a just and democratic basis, one can accept neither the old buried map of the two-state solution nor its logic of partition. This also means that the sacred distinction made between Jewish settlements near Haifa and those near Nablus should be put in the grave as well.

The distinction should be made between those Jews who are willing to discuss a reformulation of the relationship, change of regime and equal status and those who are not, regardless of where they live now. There are surprising phenomena in this respect if one studies well the human and political fabric of 2011 historic Palestine, ruled as it is by the Israeli regime: the willingness for a dialogue is sometimes more evident beyond the 1967 line rather than inside it.

The dialogue from within for a change of regime, the question of representation and the BDS movement are all part and parcel of the same effort to bring justice and peace to Palestine. What we will bury — hopefully — in September was one of the major obstacles in the way to realizing this vision.

The author of numerous books, Ilan Pappe is Professor of History and Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter.

September 12, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Palmer Report: Failure all round

By Graham Usher | Al-Ahram | September 8, 2011

On 2 September Turkey expelled its Israeli ambassador as a first response to Israel’s refusal to apologise for the killing last year of nine Turkish activists by Israeli commandos on a ship trying to breach its naval blockade on Gaza.

The sanction followed the premature publication by the New York Times of an oft-postponed United Nations report into the raid, the so-called Palmer Report, named after its head, ex-New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer. It had been set up to mend the rift between the erstwhile allies. Its leak served only to tear them apart.

The Palmer Report contained few surprises. It called the commandos’ action on the Turkish ship “excessive and unreasonable”, condemned the loss of life as “unacceptable” and found Israel’s treatment of passengers on the ship “abusive”.

But, critically, it said Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza was a “legitimate security measure to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with international law”, a conclusion at odds with a 2010 fact-finding mission by the UN Human Rights Council which found both raid and blockade illegal under international law.

Both Israel and Turkey had issues with Palmer. But it was clear which side felt exonerated. Palmer’s judgement on the legality of the blockade proved “Israel has a right to defend itself,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on 4 September. Turkish President Abdullah Gul shrugged. “The report is null and void for us,” he said.

As well as downgrading diplomatic and military ties, Turkey will now support victims of the raid by taking legal action against the responsible Israeli commandos and officials, in both local and foreign courts. It would also challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza at the International Court of Justice.

The descent in Turkish-Israeli relations to their lowest point in 30 years is due to multiple failures: but the principle losers are likely to be Ankara, whose attempted policy of rapprochement with Israel turned out to be barren; and the United States, whose influence over even its allies in the Middle East seems to diminish by the month.

For over a year the Turkish government resisted its own public opinion in search of an Israeli apology. It acted with restraint partly due to American pressure, anxious that its two allies in the Eastern Mediterranean bury their difference. But caution was also counseled by the changes wrought by the popular uprisings in the Arab world.

A year ago Turkey seemed ready to risk confrontation with Israel over the flotilla. It had close ties to Syria and Iraq, and warming relations with Iran. The Arab uprisings have blown those ties away. Ankara is now on the verge of imposing sanctions on Damascus for the brutal suppression of its own people, and opposes Iran and Iraq over their support for Syrian President Bashir Al-Assad.

In such ferment Turkish diplomats believed normalisation with Israel was better than a cold war. They worked tirelessly with their Israeli counterparts to craft carefully worded Israeli apologies for the raid, approved by Netanyahu, only to have them sunk by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon: both ruled out an apology because “honour is a strategic asset,” said Yaalon.

The final straw apparently was Netanyahu’s call last month to postpone publication of the Palmer report for another six months, only to then see it leaked to the New York Times. The Turks are convinced the leak was done by Lieberman and Yaalon to scupper all chance of reconciliation. “Israel isn’t serious,” said a Turkish diplomat.

Turkey had been outmaneuvered. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli officials think its threat to take the issue of the Gaza blockade to the ICJ is a “pistol firing blanks”. They may be right. It is certainly difficult to see the ICJ issuing an advisory opinion against the blockade after a UN report, set up by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, found it “legal”.

The Obama administration was also outdone. It was the main driver behind the Palmer report, partly to eclipse the earlier UN Human Rights Council report, but mainly to give time for Turkey and Israel to repair ties. Palmer is not about “accountability”, said a UN source. “It’s about getting Turkey and Israel in the same room together”.

Turkey remains a key state for Washington, not only as NATO’s eastern front against Iran (on the day sanctions were declared against Israel, Turkey agreed to deploy an early warning radar as part of a NATO defence system whose aim is to “shield” Europe from Iranian missiles). It is perhaps the pivotal power for building a regional coalition against Syria.

In America’s eyes, Turkey’s spat with Israel over the raid weakened both goals. United States President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the Israeli government “to go the extra mile” for peace with Turkey, including by apologising for the deaths of the nine activists, said Turkish and Israeli sources.

Netanyahu initially said this was impossible for reasons of coalition: it was a spurious claim because, although Lieberman opposed any apology, he said he would not leave the government over it. The Israeli premier then told Clinton that with social protests mushrooming in Israeli cities, bowing to Turkish “dictates” would weaken him in Israeli opinion. That’s when Palmer appeared in the New York Times.

Not for the first time Israel seems ready to sacrifice long-term strategic ties on the altar of short-term domestic tactics. Not the first too the Obama administration has had to wipe Israeli spit from its eyes and tell everyone it was rain.

September 12, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Jewish Defence League in France Organising Militia to West Bank in September

By Sergio Yahni | Alternative Information Center | 12 September 2011

The Jewish Defence League in France published an ad on 3 September calling on activists with a military background to join a solidarity trip to “Judea and Samaria” between 19-25 September 2011.

JDL_france

According to the notice, published on the website of the Jewish Defence League (JDL), the trip “is intended for those with military experience in order to assist our brethren struggling with the attacks of the Palestinian occupiers and thus to contribute to the security of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria”.

The JDL is a radical right-wing movement founded in the United States by Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1968. Members of the JDL were involved in violent actions in the United States, including the 1985 murder of the regional director of the Arab American Committee against Discrimination, Alex Odeh. In 2001 the organization was defined as a terrorist group by the US federal authorities after a connection to the murder of Republican Congressman from California, Darrell Issa, was discovered.

The French branch of the JDL was founded in 2000 under the name “Liberty, Democracy and Judaism”. In 2002, Channel 2 France published a piece which exposed that members of the French group were undergoing military training.

After the immigration of Rabbi Kahane to Israel, and Israeli branch of the JDL was established under the name Kach (this is the way). The movement was banned in 1988 and in 1994, after the slaughter in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque,the movement was defined as a terrorist organization.

The enlistment of activists with a military background to assist the settlers represents a serious escalation of the activities of radical settler groups.

Translated to English by the Alternative Information Center (AIC)

September 12, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

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