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Broadcasting Israel-friendly “democratic values” to the Middle East (with American taxpayers’ money)

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | April 23, 2011

Norman J. Pattiz, American radio mogul and chairman of the U.S. government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Middle East Committee, founded Radio Sawa, which successfully “used music as a tool to attract a younger audience” — it’s listened to by over 42% of youth in a number of Arab countries, including Egypt. But how many of the 75% of Radio Sawa listeners who consider its news “reliable and credible” know this about its “founding father”?

Pattiz is also on the national board of the Israel Policy Forum, which is “committed to a strong and enduring U.S.-Israel relationship and to advancing the shared interests of the United States and the State of Israel.” Its Israeli Advisory Council is comprised of prominent figures from Israel’s military and intelligence establishment, mostly notably David Kimche, who was once described as “Israel’s leading spy and would-be Mossad chief.” According to a Washington Report profile, “The ‘man with the suitcase,’ as Kimche became known by colleagues in Israel, would appear in an African country a day or two before a major coup, and leave a week later after the new regime was firmly in control, often with the aid of Israeli security teams.”

While Pattiz’s efforts helped foster a more positive attitude toward the the United States among the region’s youth, former BBG Chairman Jim Glassman, later appointed Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, was responsible for the “subtle work” of promoting “democratic change” through the use of social media networking.

Walter Issacson, Glassman’s successor as BBG chairman, commends its efforts to promote “a more hopeful, democratic world.” In a Feb 8, 2011 piece in Foreign Policy entitled “From Samizdat to Twitter,” Issacson writes:

Alhurra TV, the U.S.-funded international broadcaster, has also come of age during the crisis. Daily visits to Alhurra.com increased 540 percent between Jan. 23 and Jan. 30. Over the past few days, leaders of Egyptian opposition parties –Wafd, Ghad, and the Movement for Change (Kefaya) — have sought out the station to bring their messages to its viewers.

The United States finances Alhurra and other international broadcasters to support exactly the long-term goals of democracy and respect for civil society that are at the heart of protesters’ demands across the Middle East. It’s what the United States has been doing for 70 years, and what it needs to keep doing.

Issacson is also president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, whose board of trustees not only includes a close-knit network of advocates of democracy promotion in the Middle East such as Madeleine Albright, Condoleeza Rice and Vin Weber, but also staunch supporters of Israel, including major Obama backers James Crown and Margot Pritzker.

April 23, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

New America Foundation facilitating Iran’s Green Movement

March 16, 2010


New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program Director Steve Clemons and Former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James K. Glassman

April 23, 2011 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

In service of Israel’s interests Neocons promote regime change in Syria

Tony Cartlucci | Activist Post | April 23, 2011

It is no secret that Syria has been marked for regime change for at least two decades. In a 2007 speech given by General Wesley Clark regarding what he called a US “policy coup,” he relayed a 1991 conversation between himself and then Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz indicated that America had 5-10 years to clean up old Soviet “client regimes,” namely Syria, Iran, and Iraq, before the next super power rose up to challenge western hegemony.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Clark was again passed plans drawn to implement regime change throughout the Middle East, specifically to attack and destroy the governments of 7 countries; Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Lebanon and Libya. In 2002, then US Under Secretary of State John Bolton, would add Syria to the growing “Axis of Evil.”

In a recent CNN article, acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner stated, “We’re not working to undermine that [Syrian] government. What we are trying to do in Syria, through our civil society support, is to build the kind of democratic institutions, frankly, that we’re trying to do in countries around the globe. What’s different, I think, in this situation is that the Syrian government perceives this kind of assistance as a threat to its control over the Syrian people.”

Toner’s remarks come after the Washington Post released cables indicating the US has been funding Syrian opposition groups since at least 2005 under the Bush administration and was continued under Obama. To suggest America is promoting any conceivable form of democracy in Syria, when it itself is ruled by a monopolistic corporate oligarchy within which special interest driven agendas transcend presidential administrations is tenuous if not scandalous. It is quite clear that Wolfowitz’ agenda back in 1991 had long ago leaped from the drawing board and into practice, undermining the Syrian government through sanctions and seditious, foreign funded “civil society” networks.

What has ensued in Syria during the also admittedly US-funded “Arab Spring” is a puppet show of sorts, where Obama feigns surprise and confusion over what to do about Syria’s unrest. As the violence escalates, the propagandists predictably argue that Obama is doing “nothing” as Syrians yearn for “true democracy and freedom.” Undeniably, however, the US has fueled the unrest from the very beginning and most certainly is far from doing “nothing.”

In a recent AFP report, Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, stated that the “US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments.” The report went on to explain that the US “organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there.” Posner would add, “They went back and there’s a ripple effect.”

The ripple effect of course are the uprisings themselves, facilitated by yet more aid, equipment, and the complicity of the corporate owned media, disingenuously portraying the events as “spontaneous,” “genuine,” and “indigenous.” […]

With the preplanned operation to effect regime change in Syria already well underway, propagandists and co-conspirators like Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member Elliot Abrams disingenuously berates Obama for standing idly by. In a recent article published on the CFR’s website, Abrams argues that “the Obama Administration should be in no “bind” or “quandary” about Syria,” citing “200 peaceful protesters now dead in the streets of Syria’s cities.”

Abrams also brings up Iran, and that collapsing Syria’s Assad regime would be a step toward isolating and collapsing Iran as well. (Syria under Asad is “Iran’s only Arab ally, able and willing to trans-ship arms to Hezbollah and through Hezbollah control Lebanon and give Iran a border with Israel.”) Also of interest, Abrams reconfirms reports that Libya indeed was amongst one of many nations that supplied fighters to Iraq, funneled through Syria he emphasizes, in an oafish attempt to bolster his argument for removing Assad from power. These fighters were drawn from eastern Libya, where many of them now are part of the US-backed rebellion against Qaddafi.

Abrams’ propaganda and similar pieces are meant to create a strategy of tension to herd the people into their political camps, create the illusion of debate, and justify an already foregone conclusion – regime change in Syria. Abrams concludes his piece by stating that the US “should side clearly with the people of Syria, who want an end to the Asad nightmare.” Quite obviously, the US already has. Just as one sitting through a bad play they already know the ending of, we too are made to endure a poorly performed act put on by puppet politicians as the corporate-financiers coax us through another leg of their agenda.

April 23, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israeli Apartheid and The Nakba

By alawson911 | March 16, 2010


There can be absolutely no doubt that Israel has created an inhuman, illegal and utterly disgraceful Apartheid state, and the international community will never be able to excuse itself if it takes no action against this blatant, ongoing and in-plain-sight crime against humanity.

April 22, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Libya and Gaza: Double Standards in Conflict Reporting at The New York Times

By Ed Moloney | The Broken Elbow | April 20, 2011

Excerpts:

Hats off to The New York Times for being one of the first, if not the first, to report last Friday that Col. Gaddafi’s forces in Libya have been firing cluster bombs into residential neighborhoods of Misurata, the sole city in western Libya still in rebel hands, thereby escalating the possibility of major civilian carnage.

Deployment of the weapon, along with ground-to-ground rockets, represents a significant intensification in the two-month old crisis in Libya sparked by the so-called Arab Spring of democratic rebellions that have surged through the Middle East.

The Libyan uprising, however, is the only one of these insurrections that has seen direct Western military involvement and it was the apparent threat to civilian life of the sort reported this weekend by the NYTimes and other media outlets that brought that about. Following an allegedly bloodcurdling threat from Gaddafi in early March to exact revenge against the citizens of Benghazi, the eastern city that has been the epicenter of the revolt, the United Nations Security Council authorised the use of force to protect civilians.

Justifying US involvement in the NATO-led bombing campaign against Gaddafi’s forces that followed, President Barack Obama said: “If we waited one more day, Benghazi . . . could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.’’

Gaddafi’s use of cluster bombs clearly increases the danger to Libya’s civilian population. The munitions, which contain many smaller, shrapnel-packed bomblets are designed to shower wide areas with deadly explosives. On the battlefield they can cut down scores of soldiers at a time but in heavily populated urban neighborhoods the weapon can kill and maim on a massive scale. As The NYTimes put it, describing the deployment of the weapon along with rockets:

Both of these so-called indiscriminate weapons, which strike areas with a dense succession of high-explosive munitions, by their nature cannot be fired precisely. When fired into populated areas, they place civilians at grave risk.

The dangers were evident beside one of the impact craters on Friday (in Misurata), where eight people had been killed while standing in a bread-line. Where a crowd had assembled for food, bits of human flesh had been blasted against a cinder-block wall.

The NYTimes’ report came just as other media outlets, such as The Boston Globe, were beginning to offer a platform to more skeptical analyses of the rationale for war in Libya. These pointed out that not only did Gaddafi not threaten a civilian massacre in Benghazi – this claim was made instead by rebels – he had offered an amnesty to those who threw their weapons away and even offered rebels an escape route to Egypt. The use of cluster bombs, however, tilts the balance the other way, strengthening the view that Gaddafi is prepared to kill his own people in order to survive. […]

So how did The New York Times cover the deployment of white phosphorous by the IDF in Gaza? Again by way of contrast, the best way to start answering that question is perhaps to look at how one its European rivals covered the same story. The paper in question is The Times of London. […]

The Times can sometimes rise majestically to the occasion. Its coverage of Israel’s deployment of white phosphorous was one such instance. The paper’s first story appeared on January 5th [2009] under the headline ‘Israel rains fire on Gaza with phosphorous shells’ and two days later, on January 8th, followed that up with a story about the horrifying injuries caused by WP, while noting that the IDF’s official denials that the weapon was in use and identifying the shells as being of US origin: “There is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians, causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorous against civilians is prohibited under international law”. Another story on January 12th provided more detailed evidence of widespread civilian casualties caused by the weapon.

On January 15th, The Times reported that the UNWRA complex in Gaza had been hit by white phosphorous shells and that the UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-Moon had protested to the Israeli government (a counter claim by Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert that his forces had been forced to reply to Hamas attacks was not supported by Goldstone). It continued in terms that left little doubt the paper believed the Israelis to be liars: “The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorous shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.”

So how did The New York Times compare to its British equivalent? I did a search of the paper’s website and archive and trawled Lexis-Nexis for references in the paper to white phosphorous during Operation Cast Lead. In total there were just five reports and with the exception of the last article, filed after the Israelis had withdrawn from Gaza, the NYT’s references to WP were perfunctory, repeated IDF and Israeli government explanations for its use and made little if any mention of the death and injury caused to Gazan civilians.

The first was a story on January 11th by Ethan Bronner, the Jerusalem bureau chief for the NYT since March 2008. Although the subject had been well reported by The Times of London and other European newspapers up to a week beforehand, Bronner devoted just one sentence to WP in a report that led with Israel’s warnings to Gaza residents about a planned escalation of its incursion. Although Bronner also reported signs of growing international criticism of Israeli tactics and the dangers posed to Gazan civilians, the reference to WP was a meager one that carried echoes of the IDF’s line on its use. He wrote: “Human rights groups are also concerned about the Israeli use of white phosphorous, which creates smoke on a battlefield, at low altitudes or crowded areas, because it can burn like a kind of napalm.”

The second report came on January 16th, five days later and dealt with the shelling of the UNWRA complex. The article dwelt on Israeli doubts about the UN’s neutrality and complaints about its “institutional bias”, carried the IDF claim that its shelling was in response to Hamas fire and devoted just two paragraphs in a 1600 word article to the use of White Phosphorus.

Bylined Isabel Kershner, the story had this to say about the weapon:

Citing agency representatives who were present during the attack, Mr Gunness (a UNWRA spokesman) said three white phosphorous shells had hit the compound, causing fires that raged for hours, an allegation to which the Israeli military did not respond.

White phosphorous is a standard, legal weapon in armies, long used as a way to light up an area or to create a thick white smoke to obscure troop movements. While using it against civilians, or in an area where many civilians are likely to be affected, can be a violation of international law, Israel has denied using the substance improperly. On Wednesday, Hamas fired a phosphorous mortar shell into Israel, but no-one was hurt.

On January 22nd, the day after Israel withdrew from Gaza, The New York Times carried two pieces on WP, one by Ethan Bronner and Alan Cowell which reported that Israel had established a military investigation “to look into the issue” of alleged misuse of WP following allegations reported in what an IDF spokesman called “the foreign press”. It was the first admission by the paper that Israel’s use of white phosphorous had angered and incensed international opinion.

A second piece, solely by Ethan Bronner, finally put a human face to the consequences of white phosphorous use and reported on the ordeal of the Abu Halima family. Five members of the family, four children and their father, had perished in a WP attack over two weeks earlier and the incident had been widely reported, both in The Times of London and other European outlets, but it was only now that The New York Times was giving the story any coverage.

Bronner quoted Sabah Abu Halima, the surviving widow, at length and also doctors who had treated survivors and had seen the horrific injuries up close. One doctor said that in a few cases the damage done by WP was so acute that “seemingly limited burns led to the patients’ deaths.” Sabah Abu Halima’s grief was so profound, she said she wanted to see Israel’s foreign minister and president “burn like my children burned”.

It was a good piece of reporting that well reflected the horrors visited upon Palestinian civilians by Israeli white phosphorous. But it came far too late, like the horse that bolted the stable. It also smacked of catch up by the Gray Lady, as if someone in the New York HQ had realized that the paper really ought to say something about the matter given the level of international concern over Israel’s behavior in Gaza. But by this stage the horse had galloped several fields away.

It could be said in the paper’s defense that The New York Times was hampered, as was all the media, by Israeli government restrictions on media access to the Gaza war zone. Reporters like Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner couldn’t actually report from the ground, could not see the evidence or lack thereof for themselves and couldn’t get to speak to victims like Sabah Abu Halima, much less look into her eyes as she voiced her allegations. All their reports, bar the second Bronner piece on January 22nd, carried the Jerusalem dateline. Only when the IDF had evacuated could Ethan Bronner get into Gaza to speak to Palestinians.

That all sounds reasonable except for one thing. Like the NYT, The Times of London’s reports were all datelined Jersualem and for its detailed coverage of events on the ground in Gaza the paper seemingly relied on local stringers. And it managed to report in considerable detail both the use of WP and the devastating injuries being caused. So what about The New York Times? Did the paper have someone on the ground in Gaza and if so, why didn’t its coverage match its English counterpart?

Well yes, the paper did have someone on the ground in Gaza. Her name was Taghreed El-Khodary, a Palestinian journalist and she was the paper’s local correspondent, able to go places and speak to people inaccessible to Bronner and Kershner. On January 19th, 2009, she featured in a lengthy readers’ Q&A session reported in the Lede blog on the NYT website where she was asked about evidence that she had seen about the use of WP. She replied, inter alia: “I could find evidence of the use of white phosphorus bombs……As a result, we wrote about the use of the phosphorus. Israel used white phosphorus in densely populated areas.”

Ms El-Khodary may well have written about white phosphorous but if so, her reports about its use, the evidence she had found and her assertion that the weapon was used in “densely populated areas” never appeared in her paper, at least no edition available in any archive that I could search.

In all of this, it may entirely be a coincidence that the NYT’s Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner has what many would see as a major conflict of interest. He is married to an Israeli citizen and his son is a soldier in the Israeli army. Philip Weiss in his Mondoweiss blog reported on The New York Times response when Bronner’s background became known: “When it broke the news last year, Electronic Intifada said that it was a conflict of interest; and the newspaper’s public editor concurred; he said that Bronner should be reassigned to some other beat. The Times’ executive editor, Bill Keller, has kept Bronner in Jerusalem, presumably hoping that the issue dies down and no one says anything about it.” (Taghreed El-Khodary resigned when the NYT refused to reassign Bronner and spoke of her “disappointment” at the paper’s decision). The NYT’s other Jerusalem-based correspondent Isabel Kershner is an Israeli citizen.

Perhaps it is unfair to suggest that such considerations would or could affect how a journalist covers a particular story or how a newspaper should regard his or her stories. But put it this way. If CJ Chivers was a Libyan citizen, or was married to one, and had a son who was fighting for the rebels in Benghazi and all this was known to the world, would The New York Times have been just as quick to publish his story about Gaddafi’s use of cluster bombs, just as confident that it could weather the inevitable controversy?

April 21, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Bruce Cockburn “Call it democracy”

Canadian singer / songwriter Bruce Cockburn performs his classic song “Call It Democracy” live on Canadian Television. In it, he characterizes the International Monetary Fund as a global parasitic banking oligarchy bent on reducing the 3rd world to poverty stricken heaps.

April 20, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

New database reveals weapons to Israel, impact on Palestinians

By Josh Ruebner | Mondoweiss | April 20, 2011

Last week, Congress finally got around to finalizing the 2011 budget, which included a record-breaking appropriation of $3 billion in military aid to Israel (not including an additional $415 million in Pentagon funding for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense projects).This money was the third installment of a ten-year Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United States and Israel to provide Israel with $30 billion in U.S. military aid from 2009-2018, an annual average increase of 25% over previous levels.

It is well-known that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid and that U.S. weapons provided to Israel make the United States intricately, deeply, and comprehensively complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians. However, until now, the extent of U.S. weapons transferred to Israel and the direct relationship between these weapons and Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians has been difficult to detail.

Not any longer. To coincide with Tax Day, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation launched a new website: How Many Weapons to Israel? to catalogue and quantify the types, values, and quantities of U.S. weapons transferred to Israel between 2000-2009. Even for someone like myself who works everyday to challenge U.S. military aid to Israel and follows the issue closely, the results of our research are eye-popping. The sheer magnitude of weapons given to Israel is staggering; the devastation caused to Palestinians by these weapons is heart-breaking. Our research shows that during the past decade, the United States provided Israel with more than 670 million weapons and related equipment, valued at nearly $19 billion, through three major weapons transfer programs.  In our database, we detail more than 500 different weapons categories, along with the value and quantity of each type of weapon transferred to Israel.

How Many Weapons to Israel? paints a disturbing picture of the extent to which the United States is saturating Israel with weapons.  Take just one example: in the last three years alone, the United States has provided Israel with enough ammunition (47 million pieces) to kill every Palestinian in the Occupied Territories more than ten times over!  What a truly frightening thought.

If Israel were using these weapons for their intended purpose under U.S. law, which is restricted to “legitimate self-defense” and “internal security,” then perhaps these weapons transfers would raise only fiscal concerns.  However, How Many Weapons to Israel? also makes clear the moral and political implications of arming Israel.

From September 2000-December 2009, roughly the same period during which the United States transferred these weapons to Israel, the Israeli military killed at least 2,969 Palestinians who took no part in hostilities, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. How Many Weapons to Israel? demonstrates the direct correlation between Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians and types of weapons provided to it by the United States.  Returning to the example of ammunition, the database reveals that Israel killed 1,931 unarmed Palestinians, including 735 children, with small arms gunfire.

The US Campaign launched this website, as part of its ongoing organizing campaign to end U.S. military aid to Israel, to provide incontrovertible and irrefutable evidence that Israel is misusing U.S. weapons to commit grave human rights abuses against Palestinians in violation of U.S. and international law.

With easy-to-use slideshows and spreadsheets, the US Campaign intends for How Many Weapons to Israel?to be used by activists to raise awareness about the moral and political costs of arming Israel with our tax dollars.

This new website is designed as a complement to our sister website How Much Military Aid to Israel? which reveals the budgetary trade-offs involved in arming Israel.  On that website, viewers can use our interactive map to find out how much money their city, county, Congressional district, and state provide in weapons to Israel, and which unmet social needs could be funded instead with this money.

Both websites are designed as interactive tools for activists to use in their communities to educate people about the financial, moral, and political costs of transferring weapons to Israel. Activists can also sign up to receive an organizing packet from the US Campaign to be a part of our ongoing campaign to end U.S. military aid to Israel.

And, after viewing these websites, if you are as outraged at this misuse of our taxes as I am, then you can join with me in “offsetting” the estimated $21.59 you just gave Uncle Sam for weapons to Israel this year by making a tax-deductible contribution to support the work of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

~

Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 350 organizations working to change U.S. policy toward Palestine/Israel to support human rights, international law, and equality.  He is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service.

April 20, 2011 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

The Israeli Lobby’s Poisonous Influence on US Policy

By Stephen Lendman | April 19, 2011

In his powerful 2006 book titled, “The Power of Israel in the United States,” James Petras explained the enormous Jewish Lobby influence on US Middle East policies. Often harming American interests, they’re pursued anyway because of its grassroots and high-level control over government, business leaders, academia, the clergy and mass media since at least the 1960s.

As a result, anyone challenging Israeli policy risks being intimidated, blackmailed, smeared, pressured, removed from positions of authority, or called a national security or terrorist threat, leaving them vulnerable to unprincipled ostracization, persecution or worse.

Among America’s 52 Conference of Major American Jewish Organization(s) (CPMAJO), the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is the oldest, founded in 1897.

Established by B’nai Brith in 1913, perhaps the Anti-Definition League is best known.

However, in terms of its influence over US Middle East policies, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) stands out. Calling itself “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby,” it’s represented Israeli interests since founded in 1953, then incorporated in 1963 as a division of the American Zionist Council (AZC), its precursor.

In 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered AZC to register as the foreign agent of the Jewish Agency for Israel (responsible for Israeli immigration) under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). In 1963, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigated AZC’s stealth Jewish Agency funding. Weeks later, AIPAC was incorporated, replaced AZC, was later granted tax exempt status retroactive to 1953, refuses to register as an foreign Israeli agent, and gets away with it.

Today, masquerading as a domestic lobby, it’s a stealth foreign Israeli agent, supporting policies harming US interests. Calling itself “America’s leading pro-Israeli lobby,” its web site says it “works with both Democratic and Republican political leaders to enact public policy that strengthens the vital US-Israel relationship.”

In fact, functioning as a virtual fifth column, it’s poisoned the body politic since exempted from operating lawfully. As a result, as part of the destructive Israeli Lobby, it has virtual veto power over war and peace, trade and investment, multi-billion dollar arms sales, and all Middle East policies under Democrat and Republican administrations alike.

Ralph Nader calls Washington corporate occupied territory. It’s also Israeli Lobby-controlled, including AIPAC, assuring what Israel wants, it gets, but not without independent voices denouncing its poisonous influence.

Included are Jewish organizations against Zionism, a topic addressed in a previous article, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/jews-against-zionism.html

It discussed Zionism’s hidden history, as well as opposition groups, including:

— True Torah Jews Against Zionism;

— Not In My Name;

— Jewish Voice for Peace;

— Brit Tzedek V’Shalom;

— Tikkun;

— Satmar;

— Jews Against Racist Zionism; and

— Neturei Karta International.

With like-minded organizations and individuals, they oppose a racist, extremist, undemocratic, militant ideology, relying on belligerence, occupation, repression and dispossession, contrary to core Judaic dogma, principles and tradition. They believe it harms all Jews worldwide, and that peace, reconciliation, and co-existence aren’t possible until it’s repudiated and rejected.

Confronting AIPAC

The Anti-AIPAC Group’s Facebook page calls itself:

“against Zionist lobbying installed in the United States, in particular linked to AIPAC….(an organization) constitut(ing) a danger to peace in the world because it imposes its goals (ahead) of the shared interest(s) of America….”

Founded in 1951, the American Friends of the Middle East remains an active anti-Israeli lobby.

Founded in 1980, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) calls itself the nation’s largest Arab-American grassroots civil rights organization. According to the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, a pro-Israeli front group, ADC is “very active (in) anti-Israeli political causes.”

Founded in 1982, the Council for the National Interest (CNI) “encourage(s) and promote(s) a US foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values, protects our national interests, and contributes to a just solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” CNI aims “to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of foreign countries and their partisans.”

That position got CNI labeled an anti-Israeli lobby.

An earlier article on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) can be accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/10/anti-defamation-league-demagoguery-and.html

It says “hundreds of groups….organize and participate in various anti-Israeli activities,” falsely claiming they spread propaganda and don’t promote peace.

ADL’s top 10 include:

(1) Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER)

Formed post-9/11, it’s been activist against war, imperialism, bigotry, and represents other issues, including civil and human rights, and support for Palestinian equity and justice.

(2) Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

It’s “committed to comprehensive public education on the rights of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin, and to full restitution of all their confiscated and destroyed property,” according to international law.

(3) Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

In defending civil liberties, freedom of religion, diversity, tolerance, and democratic freedoms, it combats hate groups vilifying Islam and Muslims.

(4) Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA)

It “promotes awareness and understanding” of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict “through educational programs for North American Christians….FOSNA seeks reconciliation between people of the Holy Land in a vision of peace based on principles of a just peace,” including “the urgency of ending US support for Israel’s illegal military occupation.”

(5) If Americans Knew (IAK)

Its mission is “to inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media.” It believes conflict resolution and justice depends on revealing truths, ones major US media sources suppress, supporting the worst of Israeli lawlessness.

(6) International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

A Palestinian-led initiative, it’s committed to resisting Israel’s occupation, oppression, domination, and apartheid through nonviolent, direct-action methods.

(7) Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)

It seeks equity, peace, security, and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians alike, through “grassroots organizing, education, advocacy, and media.” It’s the only US Jewish organization providing a voice for Jews and their allies, who believe that Middle East peace is only possible “through justice and full equality” for Jews and Muslims alike.

(8) Muslim American Society (MAS)

As a religious, charitable, social, cultural, and educational group, its mission is to “move people to strive for God, consciousness, liberty, and justice, and to convey Islam with utmost clarity.”

(9) Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

By “visualiz(ing) the Palestinian struggle,” it opposes apartheid and occupation through protests, memorials, and other ways, highlighting their plight against Israeli aggression and occupation.

(10) US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USCEIO)

It’s a “diverse coalition working for freedom from occupation and equal rights for all by challenging US policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Based on human rights and international law, it seeks peace, justice, and conciliation by “chang(ing) the US role,” the essential way to do it.

Move Over AIPAC: Building a New US Middle East Policy Conference

Convening in Washington from May 21 – 24, coinciding with AIPAC’s annual meeting, it highlights a “time for a new foreign policy,” replacing AIPAC’s-controlled one. Access its web site for more information, including how to attend, through the following link:

http://www.moveoveraipac.org/about-us/

Over 50 peace and justice groups are participating sponsors, “bring(ing together) activists and concerned citizens from around the country to learn” about AIPAC’s destructive influence on US Middle East policy, and “how to strengthen an alternative that respects the rights of all people in the region.”

Organizational Endorsers and Partners include:

— American Jews for a Just Peace;

— American Friends Service Committee: Pacific Mountain Region;

— Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights;

— Build Bridges Not Walls;

— Citizens for Justice in the Middle East;

— Citizens for Palestinian Self-Determination;

— Coalition for Palestinian Rights;

— CODEPINK: Women for Peace;

— Global Exchange;

— If Americans Knew;

— Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions USA (ICHAD-USA);

— Middle East Children’s Alliance;

— Rachael Corrie Foundation;

— Stop AIPAC;

— United for Peace and Justice; and

— dozens more.

Speakers include, Helen Thomas, Ralph Nader, Ali Abunimah, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, Phyllis Bennis, former Senator James Abourezk, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Laila El Haddad, Anna Baltzer, and many others.

A Final Comment

AIPAC is a malignancy in America, lobbying for:

— regional wars and occupation;

— Gaza’s siege;

— Palestinian persecution, exploitation, disempowerment, and isolation; denying them their fundamental guaranteed rights under international law;

— Israeli’s Apartheid Wall;

— dispossession and illegal settlements;

— neutralizing Israel’s adversaries;

— subsidizing Israel lavishly with annual billions of dollars and latest weapons and technology; and

— overall placing Israel’s interests over America’s, a scandalous agenda nearly the entire Congress and every administration endorse.

Returning America’s agenda to sanity starts with expunging this corrupting influence, replacing it with a new moral ethic for peace, reconciliation, co-existence, and equal respect for the rights of everyone abroad and at home.

~

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

April 19, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israel appropriating historical sites for colonial ends

Sarah Irving | The Electronic Intifada | 18 April 2011

Orthodox Jews walk past Israel’s wall near Rachel’s Tomb in the occupied West Bank. (Inbal Rose/MaanImages)

Moves by the Israeli government and settler movement to appropriate historical sites undermine Palestinian cultural rights and highlight how Israel exploits archaeological claims for colonial ends.

Last spring, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Bilal Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem to be “Israeli national heritage sites.” As The Electronic Intifada has reported since, the State of Israel seems to have two approaches to Palestine’s ancient sites. If, like the sites Netanyahu claimed or the remains at Sebastia, they fit into Israeli narratives about the Jewish history of the region, they are appropriated, renovated and incorporated into “archaeological parks.” If, like excavated finds and important buildings in Gaza, they highlight ancient Philistine or more recent Islamic periods of history, they can be bombed along with Gaza’s residents, or simply allowed to decay as vital conservation chemicals are excluded by the blockade. As an American-accented tour guide, overheard in Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif in October 2010, put it: “Having worked on two or three archaeological digs here [in Jerusalem], I can tell you that if anything is between 200 and 500 years old, it just gets tossed. It’s nothing.”

It’s against this setting that in October 2010, while researching a guidebook to Palestine, I found myself increasingly confused about a number of historical sites scattered around the occupied West Bank. None of them had the religious and historical importance of the Ibrahimi Mosque or Rachel’s Tomb, but they had their own place in Palestinian history and architecture. They were places mentioned in Palestinian tourism publications such as the locally-published Alternative Tourism Group travel guide Palestine and The Palestinians, the official Palestinian Authority Ministry of Tourism website, Jericho Municipality’s tourist listings or the “Places to Visit” section of the PA’s diplomatic mission to Japan website. This implied that they were recognized by Palestinian sources as being part of the country’s heritage. But the information about them was hazy, as if their existence was being acknowledged but at the same time they weren’t being incorporated into the itineraries of the growing Palestinian cultural tourism industry. Palestinian tour organizers I spoke to dismissed my inquiries, saying only that “I’ve never been there” or “we don’t take groups there.” There was, I soon found, a very good reason for this.

The first site that mystified me is a cluster of remains south of Jerusalem, close to the recently-expanded highway that runs through the occupied West Bank desert toward Jericho and the Jordan River. This comprises three buildings (or groups of buildings), only one of which was visible from the main road. This is an Ottoman caravanserai (most of the building is 16th century, although it may have older Mamluk elements), where merchants and their baggage-trains once took refuge for the night on the bandit-ridden road. It’s known as the Khan al-Ahmar or, in the way that many buildings in Palestine pick up Biblical names, as the Inn of the Good Samaritan, a reference to one of Jesus’ parables.

The other two buildings in the cluster are the monasteries of St. Euthymius and St. Martyrius, both founded in the fifth century. Along with other cells, monasteries and lavras (groups of isolated hermits’ dwellings) of the Desert Fathers, these are some of the most ancient Christian monasteries in existence and immensely important to Palestine’s historical, architectural and religious heritage. In the 2008 edition of The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide From Earliest Times to 1700, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Professor of New Testament at the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise, Jerusalem refers to the Monastery of St. Euthymius as a “forlorn ruin surrounded by graceless factories.” The factories Murphy-O’Connor mentions are those of Mishor Adumim, the industrial section of the sprawling and illegal settlement of Maale Adumim, which is a key part of Israel’s division of the occupied West Bank into unviable bantustans. Assuming that Murphy-O’Connor, researching the 2008 edition of his guide, saw it “forlorn” and abandoned in perhaps 2007, St. Euthymius’ monastery was not to remain a “ruin” for much longer.

Maale Adumim is apparently, like some of the Etzion Bloc settlements (which are increasingly selling themselves as wine tourism destinations), seeking to add heritage tourism to its economic activities. In 2009 an invitation to the opening of a “mosaic museum” at the Inn of the Good Samaritan was circulated around Israeli ministries and media. “On Behalf of the Head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories,” it offered a range of activities at the 4 June launch, including tours by “Civil Administration’s Staff Officer of Archeology and Antiquities.” Tellingly, descriptions of the attractions on offer emphasized Second Temple-era and Byzantine Christian remains, but made no mention of the Ottoman and possibly earlier Islamic buildings of the caravanserai which is the core of the Khan al-Ahmar site. If there was ever any doubt on the subject, Israeli archaeology was exposed as being entirely complicit with the occupation, sidelining Palestine’s Islamic heritage, appropriating its Christian sites (and in doing so also sidelining Palestine’s own historic Christian communities) and highlighting its Jewish remains above those of the main other cultures which have enriched this land.

The website of the Maale Adumim settlement offered an insight into the activities at the three sites over the last couple of years. It declared that “The Municipality of Maale Adumim is developing the Good Samaritan’s Inn and the hills surrounding it as a tourist complex, aiming to meet the demand for modern tourism services without losing the site’s unique ancient nature” (“The Good Samaritan Inn”). The site details plans for “restoration of the existing building to accommodate incoming groups, including a praying and religious studies section. Development will include a motel and restaurant modeled in an authentic ‘khan’ style.” In the future, a 150-room “ecological hotel” will be built on the cliffs overlooking the site.

By February 2011, the final pieces fell into place when the website of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) declared “New Sites’ Opening – The Inn of The Good Samaritan and more.” The INPA runs nature reserves and archaeological parks in both Israel and the occupied West Bank, including the one at Sebastia, which was previously reported on by The Electronic Intifada. According to the website, the Inn of The Good Samaritan, and the Euthymius and Martyrius monasteries are due to open to the public in July 2011. In addition, the mosaic museum and archaeological remains at these sites will also be opened to tourists. The entrance fees for the sites will pour into Israeli state coffers and, as they are situated within a settlement and will very possibly be run by settler staff, Palestinians will most likely be denied even the privilege of paying the 21 shekel ($6 US) ticket price to the Israeli occupation authorities to visit their own heritage.

A second example lies in the green, intricately curving hills of the central West Bank. On the road between Ramallah and Nablus, near the village of Luban al-Sharqiya and the small town of Sinjel, is Khirbet Seilun, or Tel Shilo. The layers of habitation deposits at the tel (an archaeological term referring to a hill made up of centuries of building remains) show that people have lived there since at least the Canaanite Bronze Age, and there are significant Roman, Byzantine and Islamic remains. Khirbet Seilun is regarded as sacred by some Jews because is has been identified by some historians as the Biblical Shiloh, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept for a period on its travels north from Mount Sinai. Excavations in the early 1980s uncovered remains from the Canaanite and Israelite periods, but nothing resembling the Tabernacle, the building which may have housed the Ark at Shiloh. More recent archaeological digs have been controversial because they have uncovered a spectacular Byzantine mosaic which some settlers want to move so they can continue searching for the Israelite sacred remains they believe lie beneath the three Byzantine churches and two small mosques on the site.

Unlike the Khan al-Ahmar and monasteries of St. Euthymius and St. Martyrius, a visitor center at Tel Shilo is already functioning. Rather than being managed by the INPA, the Tel Shilo site is run by the extremist settlers of Shiloh who, journalists and human rights groups report have been responsible for innumerable attacks, including shootings and arson, against neighboring Palestinian villages and olive farmers. The Shiloh settlement was founded in the 1970s by the Gush Emunim terrorist group, which exploded car bombs against the mayors of several Palestinian cities in 1980, seriously injuring Bassam Shakaa, then mayor of Nablus (see “Shiloh: An Obstacle to Peace,” Time, 13 February 1978 and Nur Masalha, Imperial Israel and the Palestinians, 2000, p 123). Shiloh and the archaeological remains it has appropriated are now marketed as a destination for pilgrimages and religious tourism but, perhaps unsurprisingly given the beliefs of the settlers here, some non-Jewish tourists report being turned away.

Controversy over the archaeological heritage of Khirbet Seilun looks set to escalate. Last month, The Jewish Press reported that the Israeli government had authorized large-scale new excavations at the site. The aims of the excavations were explicitly said by the paper to be “to showcase the life and times of ancient Israel,” which suggests that the archaeologists carrying them out have specific intentions as to what they will find – or not find (“New archaeological effort seeks to unearth Mishkan’s secrets,” 23 March 2011). The article did not name the director of the new excavations, but previous digs at Khirbet Seilun have been led by Rachel Ehrlich, a hard-line settler who, in a profile on one Christian Zionist website, was described as being “determined to put the site [of Shiloh] on the map [as] the place where the people of Israel first entered the land, where religious life for the Jewish people was centered for the 369 years the Tabernacle stood there” (“Uncovering our Past, Christian Friends of Israel Communities).

Tzofia Dorot, the manager of the Shiloh visitor center, made some telling comments to The Jewish Press about the importance to settler public relations of Israel’s appropriation of heritage sites. She claimed that Shiloh has been “seeing more and more local and foreign visitors” and that three companies with proposals for a “major visitor center” had visited the settlement. This activity occurred in spite of the skepticism from archaeologists about whether Dorot’s “headline-making discoveries” were really likely to be made.

Tzofia Dorot’s comments to The Jewish Press illustrate why the expropriation of Palestinian heritage sites – whether by the State of Israel or by settler groups acting as its proxies – has a significance well beyond the loss of individual buildings or artifacts. In the eyes of settlers and their supporters, in Israel and beyond, stealing Palestinian archaeological and architectural heritage isn’t just about attracting tourists with open wallets. It’s about asserting settler claims to the land, by emphasizing Jewish history over and above that of the peoples and faiths who came before and after them in Palestine. It is also about presenting the Jewish people as the legitimate custodians of Palestine’s Christian heritage, diverting attention from Israeli oppression of the world’s oldest and longest-lived Christian communities and reinforcing misconceptions about the Palestinian struggle as a religious rather than anti-colonial movement. As Dorot sees it, the international “effort to discredit and delegitimize our connection to the Land of Israel is gathering steam.” Thus, showing settler archaeology to gullible tourists, she believes, will be vital in countering “the international community’s clamoring for Israel to make concessions.”

Meanwhile, Palestinian heritage organizations such as PACE and Riwaq are increasingly using models of community participation to raise awareness of the value of archaeological remains and the importance of protecting them (Ghattas J. Sayej, “Palestinian archaeology: knowledge, awareness and cultural heritage, Present Pasts, Vol 2, 2010). In Jerusalem, the Centre for Jerusalem Studies and Emek Shaveh are fighting official and settler expropriation of cultural and historical sites. But defending Palestine’s cultural heritage from the Israeli state and settlers is still low on the priority list.

Archaeologists, including Hamdan Taha, director-general of the PA’s Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, have voiced their concerns. And in March 2010 Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Tunisia submitted a provisional agenda item on Netanyahu’s claims at the Haram al-Khalil and Rachel’s Tomb to the UNESCO executive board meeting, noting that “much of the settlement enterprise is concentrated around archaeological areas where Israel makes claims of exclusive heritage, including the settlements of Shilo, Bet El and Kiryat Arba” (see UNESCO Executive Board, Hundred and eighty-fourth session, Item 37 of the provisional agenda, 19 March 2010 [PDF]). After initial failure to reach an agreement, UNESCO declared that it “regretted” Israel’s inclusion of the Haram al-Khalil and Bilal ibn Rahmeh Mosque on a list of its heritage sites and urged it to remove it; it also “regretted” Israel’s “unilateral actions” regarding historical sites in Jerusalem; no mention was made of Tel Shilo (see UNESCO Executive Board, Hundred and eighty-fifth session, Decisions adopted by the executive board, 19 November 2010 [PDF]). But much greater international recognition of and opposition to Israel’s cultural colonialism is needed, if Palestine’s heritage is to be preserved, both for its cultural significance and economic potential.

~

Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She now writes full-time on a range of issues, including Palestine. Her first book, Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was published in January 2010. She is currently working on a new edition of the Bradt Guide to Palestine and a biography of Leila Khaled.

April 18, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Bahrain: Breaking the silence

In Focus | April 17, 2011

Part 1

Part 2

April 18, 2011 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

International Solidarity Movement Committed to Staying in Gaza

18 April 2011 | ISM GAZA

Following the murder of our comrade and friend Viktor, we, activists of the International Solidarity Movement, would like to reiterate our commitment to remaining in Gaza. We will continue to work with and live among the Palestinian population as we continue the work which Vik was so committed too.

In these days of mourning, Palestinians have organized numerous memorials for Vik; they constantly remind us how sorry they are to have lost him, of how they loved him, his closeness, his affection, and his indignation at what is happening here in Gaza. We know that the group that perpetrated this horrible crime does not in any way represent the Palestinian society. The Palestinians of Gaza are our friends, our colleagues, and our reason for being here; we will continue to stand by their side.

As we had done when Vittorio was with us, we will continue to stand alongside the Palestinian people, we will continue to struggle against the occupation, we will continue to accompany farmers to their lands along the border, we will continue to participate in demonstrations, and we will continue to tell the world what happens here in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. We think that Victor would agree with Che Guevara when he said, “Don’t cry for me if I die, do what I was doing and I will live on in you.” The best way to honor Vik is to continue the work that he was doing. In particular we will soon begin crewing a boat whose mission is to monitor the violation of human rights in Palestinian waters. This boat will have its maiden voyage on April 20: Vik had strongly backed this project and he had enthusiastically participated in its realization. Vik has been an inspiration to all of us, we all hope to live up to his example. In a documentary about him, Vik said he would have liked to be remembered by Nelson Mandela’s quote; “A victor is merely a dreamer who never stops dreaming.” Your dreams are our dreams; we will never forget you, Vik.

Contact Persons:
Adie Mormech (In Switzerland, English and French) 0041799407215
Inge Neefs (In Gaza, English, French, Dutch) 00972597738436
Silvia Todescini (In Gaza, Italian) 00972595447660
Mohammed Al Zaeem (In Gaza, Arabic) 00972597355082

April 18, 2011 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Netanyahu, King of the Hill

SAMI JAMIL JADALLAH | Veterans Today | April 18, 2011

True we are a Republic with elected president and members of both houses, Senate and House of Representatives (not House of Lords). However when it comes to the “people’s houses” there is no president, there is only a King, and the King is always the Israeli Prime Minister. Welcome to America’s Knesset. So far Israel has cost the US tax payers over $ Trillion ($1,000,000,000,000,) just imagine what this $ Trillion could do for our country, in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Montana, Michigan, Vermont and New Hampshire not to mention all the other states.

In two separate statements coming out of Tel-Aviv and Tel-Aviv West (Washington-DC) both the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and House Speaker John Boehner announced that Bibi Netanyahu is invited to speak before a Joint Session of Congress, an honor that is afforded to very few heads of state. For Netanyahu this will not be the first but his second time before a Joint Session, the first was on July 10, 1996. Bibi is the fourth Israeli prime minister invited to speak at the Joint Session of the American Knesset.

John Boehner who represents a poor and “working class district” much run down, can only hear the “cash register” as he announced through his spokesman “America and Israel are the closest of friends and allies, and we look forward to hearing the Prime Minister’s views on how we can continue working together for peace, freedom and security”.

Nancy Pelosi also an ardent and loyal Zionists seconded the statement of John Boehner as she “Looks forward to the Prime Minister’s address to the Joint Session during this critical time in history for the Middle East”.

For his part Bibi Netanyahu announced to his Likud members that his speech before the Joint Session of Congress will cover two fundamental issues and priorities for Israel stating “The two most important are, first of all, Palestinians recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people and the second principle is real security arrangements on the ground”.  Of course Netanyahu said nothing and will say nothing about ending the Jewish Occupation that began in 1967, will say nothing about the eviction and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, will say nothing about house eviction and house demolitions to make room for “Jewish Settlers” and will say nothing about the 600 “security checkpoints” with daily humiliations of Palestinians choking their freedom and economy. Only Israel can ask for things (Chosen People) but not the Palestinians, they can only accept what the Jews give them.

Of course Netanyahu knows he is at home in the American Knesset, with political support far more than he has in the Israeli Knesset where he is often hounded by the opposition, as opposed to the American Knesset where members of both houses will wait in line to kiss his ring if not his behind.  In the words of Aluf Benn “they love him there or at least scared of the lobby that supports him”. Of course we all know that AIPAC, the American Jewish Party is the majority party in the American Knesset that counts on 90 Senators among its members and counting on some 300 members of the House as members also. The American Jewish Party is the true majority party in the American Congress with no apposition, and if there is an opposition, no one dares to speak up.

Netanyahu’s invitation to the Joint Session is orchestrated to thwart international efforts by the Palestinians to gain official recognition in the UN for a Palestinian State within 67 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital, an effort that will for sure be opposed by the American Knesset if not by the White House.

To preempt this effort, Netanyahu will most likely announce a limited deployment of the Occupation Army from the West Bank, a deployment similar to the one that took place in Gaza, making sure the areas evacuated by the Jewish Army are put under siege, increasing the number of security checkpoints. Of course there is never any talks of evacuating the settlements (Israel for sure will ask the American Knesset compensation exceeding $2 million dollars for each person evacuated and at least $5 million for each “trailer caravan” evacuated, making sure Israel milk the American tax payers as it expand settlements and as it evacuate “illegal settlements” and with the American Knesset more than happy to foot the bill for and on behalf of poor American tax payers who are held hostage by the American Jewish Party and its members in Congress.

Of course Netanyahu knows he is the Boss in the American Knesset and he wants Barack Obama to know that very well. When it comes to the American Knesset, it is Bibi, the Israeli Prime Minister and not the President of the United States that has a say so.

Obama who is often being accused by Israelis and their partners in the US and among Zionist and Christian Evangelical circles as Anti-Israeli and Anti-Semite and lacking birth credential to become the president of the United State, notwithstanding that his entire Middle East team is made up of Israeli loyalists if not agents. And as president has the most “Zionists” in his cabinet and his inner circles of advisers.

It is this close circle of Zionists that made it impossible for Barack Obama to deliver on his promise in Cairo to bring about peace, and it is this close circle of Israel loyalists that has backtracked on the issue of settlements, offering Israel tens of billions to stop moving few trailer caravans with one F-35 for each Israeli caravan removed from the West Bank.

Don’t worry about Barack Obama, he does not have what it takes to bring about peace in the Middle East based on a two state solution one is Israel and the other is Palestine within 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. No one sitting in the White House dares to announce such principle and continues to remain president of the United States for 24 hours, and President Obama knows that too.

That is why the Palestinian leadership must and could not count on the US supporting their demands to the UN General Assembly and for sure the US will not dare even abstain and will for sure “Veto” such a resolution. It vetoed the UN Security Council Resolution calling for an end to the Israeli settlements, and does Ramallah really think that Washington with its American Knesset could support an independent free state in Palestine? We all must remember, the US was never a fair and honest broker, and the US was never fully committed to Israel ending its Occupation that began in 1967, and the US not only gives political support to Israel at the UN it also gives it money and weapons to keep its occupation and to use such weapons to kill and murder innocent Palestinians as it did in its War on Gaza and as it continues to use American weapons and planes to bomb Palestinians on a daily basis. As long as there is an American Knesset in Washington forget about the US being a partner in any peace in the Middle East. The US must first be free from Israel before it can bring freedom to the Palestinians.

~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sami Jamil Jadallah is born in the Palestinian city of El-Bireh (presently under Israeli Military and Settlers Occupation). Immigrated to the US in 62. After graduating from high school in Gary, Indiana was drafted into the US Army (66-68) received the Leadership Award from the US 6th Army NCO Academy in Ft. Lewis, Washington. Five of us brothers were in US military service about the same time (Nabil-Army), (Lutfi-Marines), (Sam-Army) and (Taiseer-Marines) with two nephews presently with US Army. Graduated from …Read Full Bio

April 18, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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