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Hamas deplores Egyptian army for unfounded accusations against it

Palestine Information Center – 12/08/2013

GAZA — The Hamas Movement strongly denounced a senior Egyptian army commander for claiming that the investigations revealed the involvement of Hamas individuals in the Sinai events.

DataFiles-Cache-TempImgs-2013-2-images_News_2013_08_12_Abu-Zuhri_300_0This came in response to recent remarks made by the commander of Egypt’s second field army in Sinai Ahmed Wasif, in which he accused Hamas, without stating any evidence, of what had happened in Sinai.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri stressed that such accusations are blatant lies that include no numbers or names as usual.

“The Movement categorically denies that its members are involved in the Sinai events, and expresses its regret that such remarks were made in an attempt to reverse the equation and falsely convince the Egyptian people that the enemy is Hamas and not Israel,” Abu Zuhri underlined.

August 12, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu urges increased US pressure on Iran, Rouhani regrets “warmongering group” blocking constructive talks

Aletho News | August 7, 2013

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday evening urged increasing pressure on Iran relating to her nuclear program and warned that “if the pressure will drop, nothing would deter Iran from achieving its nuclear goals” according to Israeli media reports.

During a meeting with a delegation of 36 American congressmen headed by Congressman Steny Hoyer, Netanyahu claimed that though Iran’s president said pressure wouldn’t help, in the last two decades pressure was the only thing that helped.

Addressing Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s speech regarding the nuclear issue, Netanyahu said in a Tuesday statement that pressure on Iran had, in fact, been effective.

“Iran’s president said that pressure won’t work. Not true! The only thing that has worked in the last two decades is pressure,” the prime minister stressed.

“And the only thing that will work now is increased pressure. I have said that before and I’ll say it again, because that’s important to understand. You relent on the pressure, they will go all the way. You should sustain the pressure”.

In its latest measure against Iran, the US House of Representatives last Wednesday approved a bill to impose tougher sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports and financial sector.

The bill, which must be approved by the Senate and signed by President Barack Obama to become law, seeks to cut Iran’s oil exports by one million barrels per day over a year.

Meanwhile, Press TV reports that in his first press conference since he took office on August 4, Rohani expressed regret that the “warmongering group” in the US opposes constructive Tehran-Washington talks by serving the interests of “a foreign regime.”

The Iranian chief executive said Iran is closely monitoring all measures taken by the United States and will respond properly to Washington’s “practical and constructive” moves. He further expressed the Islamic Republic’s readiness to hold talks with any country within the framework of Iran’s national interests.

August 7, 2013 Posted by | Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanon: Who Is Behind the Attacks on Hezbollah?

By Ibrahim al-Amin | Al-Akhbar | August 5, 2013

For 25 years now, Hezbollah has been engaged in a war with many powerful intelligence outfits from around the world. These intelligence agencies have devoted tremendous resources to collect information on the party, in addition to pursuing both its civilian and military activities, not to mention carrying out assassinations against its cadre and leadership.

Israel has played a key role in these efforts, but it is hardly alone. After the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005, Hezbollah was subjected to the most ferocious campaign against it, with former US ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman admitting before Congress that Washington spent $500 million to undermine the party’s image.

After the outbreak of the Syrian uprising and Hezbollah’s open declaration of its involvement in the country’s fighting, the campaign intensified, with mounting threats to the party and its supporters that they may be subjected to revenge attacks.

First, the Resistance’s Dahiyeh stronghold was shelled with rockets. Similar attacks followed on many towns and villages in Baalbeck and Hermel. These were followed by roadside bombs targeting Hezbollah members on the main Lebanese highway to Syria, culminating in the massive Bir al-Abed blast in the heart of Dahiyeh.

Hezbollah is in a state of high alert due to the fact that it has been forced to fight simultaneously on two fronts. This has prompted Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah to tell the party’s cadre that they must be prepared for attacks that may involve both Syrian and Lebanese groups, without dropping their guard against their main enemy – Israel.

On the eve of Hezbollah’s engagement in the battle of Qusayr, it initiated a plan that involved:

– a series of practical steps to prevent the killing of Lebanese civilians held by the Syrian opposition in the north of the country;

– securing areas that may become targets of reprisals, including the border areas, Beirut, and South Lebanon.

The question today is: Who thought up an adventure of this kind against the Resistance? I wonder whether they thought about the party’s reaction.

Who are these people? Are they groups within the Free Syrian Army or the Salafi al-Nusra Front? Are they jihadi elements in Lebanon active in the North and Bekaa? Could they be Palestinians who have abandoned their cause to work as agents serving another agenda?

Who is helping them inside Lebanon? What are the Internal Security Forces (who take orders from the Future Party) doing about it? They seem to care little about people’s safety and are mainly concerned with collecting information on the Resistance.

In any case, Hezbollah has surprised friend and foe on more than one occasion in their intelligence capabilities. So, will the Resistance surprise us again by revealing who is behind these attacks?

August 5, 2013 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Alarmism and the “Time is Running Out” Canard

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | July 31, 2013

The following is the 76th update to my comprehensive, ongoing compendium of constant predictions and prognostications regarding the supposed inevitability and imminence of an alleged Iranian nuclear weapon, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past three decades.

Citing the latest hysterical analysis of Iran’s nuclear program by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), David Albright’s Washington D.C.-based propaganda outfit, the Jerusalem Post exclaims that “Iran is expected to achieve a ‘critical capability’ to produce sufficient weapon-grade uranium by mid-2014, without being detected.”

While pretending to advocate merely for a stricter IAEA inspection regime and the limiting of the number of centrifuges Iran is allowed to install and operate, Albright & Co. cry that Iranian progress “is unlikely to be prevented simply by instituting better inspections, whether through increased inspection frequency, remote monitoring, or even implementation of the the Additional Protocol.” The report laments that, if the United States and Israel don’t launch an illegal, unprovoked military assault on Iran “out of fear of facing international opposition,” consequently “Iran could have time to make enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear weapons.”

Thus, the alarmists of ISIS conclude that “IAEA inaction or caution could make an international response all but impossible before Iran has produced enough weapon-grade uranium for one or more nuclear weapon.”

Meanwhile, a recent Al Monitor report exposes the agenda dripping from ISIS’ analysis. Earlier this month, IAEA Deputy Director Herman Nackaerts explained to reporter Barbara Slavin that “‘we would know within a week’ whether Iran was diverting uranium from declared sites and seeking to enrich it to weapons grade level.”

Nackaerts, who is also head of the IAEA’s Department of Safeguards, said that “[t]here are two to six IAEA inspectors on the ground in Iran every day…covering 16 Iranian facilities. On average, he said, that means that an inspector visits Iran’s enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow once a week. If there are suspicions about any improper activities, they can go more often, he added.

In order to sufficiently hand-wring about the Iranian program, “ISIS has recommended that inspections should increase to at least twice per week at Iran’s enrichment facilities.”

Evelyn Gordon. Yes, really.

As expected, neoconservative Likudnik warmongers over at Commentary Magazine are licking their lips and using Albright’s nonsense to bolster their calls for mass murder and war crimes. Writing today, contributing blogger Evelyn Gordon calls the ISIS report the “best argument I’ve yet seen for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities imminently.” Gordon is an American émigré to Israel, former Jerusalem Post reporter and current Visiting Fellow at the extreme right-wing Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

“Time is running out,” Gordon declares, echoing so many uninformed voices before her. In March 2006, NPR‘s national security correspondent Mara Liasson insisted on Fox News that “time is running out. Pretty soon, Iran is going to have the bomb.” By early 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed, “We have time, but not a lot of time.” The following year, a Weekly Standard opinion piece co-authored by Kristol declared, “Time is running out” and called “for Congress to seriously explore an Authorization of Military Force to halt Iran’s nuclear program.” Soon thereafter, Commentary Magazine‘s Jonathan Tobin warned that, without the United States issuing an explicit military threat, “time may soon run out on any chance for the West to stop Iran,” while this past March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eloquently stated that “whatever time is left, there’s not a lot of time.”

“In short,” Gordon concludes, “either military action is taken in the coming months, or a nuclear Iran will be inevitable. There is no more time to waste.”

In truth, it’s time to hit the snooze button.

August 1, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Arabs, Beware the “Small States” Option

By Sharmine Narwani | Al-Akhbar | 2013-07-29

At the heart of all politics lies cold, hard opportunism. New circumstances, changed alliances and unexpected events will always conspire to alter one’s calculations to benefit a core agenda.

In the Middle East today, those calculations are being adjusted with a frequency unseen for decades.

In Egypt and Syria, for instance, popular sentiment is genuinely divided on where alliances and interests lie. Half of Egyptians seem convinced that deposed President Mohammed Mursi is the resident US-Israeli stooge, while the other half believe it is Egypt’s military that is carrying out those foreign agendas.

In Syria the same can be said for Syrians conflicted on whether President Bashar al-Assad or the external-based Syrian National Council (SNC) most benefits Israeli and American hegemonic interests in the region.

But Egyptians and Syrians, who point alternating fingers at Islamists or the state as being tools of imperialism, have this wrong: Empire is opportunistic. It has ways to benefit from both.

There is another vastly more destructive scenario being missed while Arabs busy themselves with conspiracies and speculative minutiae: A third option far more damaging to all.

Balkanization of Key Mideast States

At a June 19 event at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger touched upon an alarming new refrain in western discourse on Mideast outcomes; a third strategy, if all else fails, of redrawn borders along sectarian, ethnic, tribal or national lines that will shrink the political/military reach of key Arab states and enable the west to reassert its rapidly-diminishing control over the region. Says Kissinger about two such nations:

“There are three possible outcomes (in Syria). An Assad victory. A Sunni victory. Or an outcome in which the various nationalities agree to co-exist together but in more or less autonomous regions, so that they can’t oppress each other. That’s the outcome I would prefer to see. But that’s not the popular view…First of all, Syria is not a historic state. It was created in its present shape in 1920, and it was given that shape in order to facilitate the control of the country by France, which happened to be after UN mandate…The neighboring country Iraq was also given an odd shape, that was to facilitate control by England. And the shape of both of the countries was designed to make it hard for either of them to dominate the region.”

While Kissinger frankly acknowledges his preferred option of “autonomous regions,” most western government statements actually pretend their interest lies in preventing territorial splits. Don’t be fooled. This is narrative-building and scene-setting all the same. Repeat something enough – i.e., the idea that these countries could be carved up – and audiences will not remember whether you like it or not. They will retain the message that these states can be divided.

It is the same with sectarian discourse. Western governments are always warning against the escalation of a Sunni-Shia divide. Yet they are knee-deep in deliberately fueling Shia-Sunni conflicts throughout the region, particularly in states where Iran enjoys significant influence (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq) or may begin to gain some (Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen).

“Seeding” Sectarianism to Break Up States

If ever a conspiracy had legs, this one is it. Stirring Iranian-Arab and Sunni-Shiite strife to its advantage has been a major US policy objective since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.

Wikileaks helped shed light on some of Washington’s machinations just as Arab uprisings started to hit our TV screens.

A 2006 State Department cable that bemoans Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s strengthened position in Syria outlines actionable plans to sow discord within the state, with the goal of disrupting Syrian ties with Iran. The theme? “Exploiting” all “vulnerabilities”:

“PLAY ON SUNNI FEARS OF IRANIAN INFLUENCE: There are fears in Syria that the Iranians are active in both Shia proselytizing and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. Though often exaggerated, such fears reflect an element of the Sunni community in Syria that is increasingly upset by and focused on the spread of Iranian influence in their country through activities ranging from mosque construction to business. Both the local Egyptian and Saudi missions here, (as well as prominent Syrian Sunni religious leaders), are giving increasing attention to the matter and we should coordinate more closely with their governments on ways to better publicize and focus regional attention on the issue.”

Makes one question whether similar accusations about the “spread of Shiism” in Egypt held any truth whatsoever, other than to sow anti-Shia and anti-Iran sentiment in a country until this month led by the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood.

A 2009 cable from the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia continues this theme. Mohammad
 Naji al-Shaif, a tribal leader with close personal ties to then-Yemeni President Ali Abdallah 
Saleh and his inner circle says that key figures “are privately very skeptical of Saleh’s
 claims regarding Iranian assistance for the Houthi rebels”:

Shaif told
 EconOff on December 14 that (Saudi Government’s Special Office for
 Yemen Affairs) committee members privately shared his view that Saleh was providing false or exaggerated
 information on Iranian assistance to the Houthis in order to
 enlist direct Saudi involvement and regionalize the conflict. Shaif said that one committee member told him that “we know
 Saleh is lying about Iran, but there’s nothing we can do 
about it now.”

That didn’t stop Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lying through her teeth to a Senate Committee a few short years later: “We know that they – the Iranians are very much involved in the opposition movements in Yemen.”

US embassy cables from Manama, Bahrain in 2008 continue in the same vein:

“Bahraini government officials sometimes privately tell U.S. official visitors that some Shi’a oppositionists are backed by Iran. Each time this claim is raised, we ask the GOB to share its evidence. To date, we have seen no convincing evidence of Iranian weapons or government money here since at least the mid-1990s… In post’s assessment, if the GOB had convincing evidence of more recent Iranian subversion, it would quickly share it with us.”

Yet as Bahraini rulers continue to violently repress peaceful protest in the Shia-majority state two years into that country’s popular uprising, their convenient public bogeyman mirrors that of Washington: Iranian interference.

Washington was extremely quick to activate anti-Shia and anti-Iran narratives as the Arab uprisings kicked off. Barely three months into 2011, the US military ran a secret exercise to fine-tune a “storyline” that perpetuates differences between Arabs and Iranian, Sunni and Shia.

Here are some of the premises and questions included in CENTCOM’s Arabs versus Iranians exercise. (Note: The exercise refers to Iranians as “Persians.”)

Premise: “The Arab-Persian dynamic is a divide. History, religion, language and culture simply pose too many obstacles to overcome.”

Premise: “A general Arab inferiority complex relative to Persians means that many Arabs are fearful of Persian expansion and hegemony throughout the Middle East. In their minds, the Persian Empire has never gone away and it is more self-sufficient than most Arab states.”

Premise: “Barring a “clash of civilizations” – i.e., a modern crusades, Islam vs Judeo-Christians, warfare between the West/Israel vs Arabs/Persians – there does not appear to be a scenario where Arabs and Persians will join forces against the US/West.”

Question: “Is it appropriate to frame the discussion as Arab-Persian or is Sunni-Shia a more appropriate framework?”

Question: “Assuming a schism, what could unite Arabs and Persians, even temporarily?”

These narratives assume two things: that the division between Iranians and Arabs is a fact and that the greater unity of the two groups in the wake of the Arab uprisings is a potential threat to U.S. interests. Hence the worried question: What could unite them, even temporarily?

“Small States” Weaken Arabs

As manufactured conflict increases in the region, options too diminish. Because of the strategic importance of the Middle East and its vital oil and gas reserves…because of the desire to maintain stability in key states that safeguard US interests like Israel, Jordan, NATO-member Turkey, Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf…open-ended conflict in multiple states is, simply put, undesirable.

Over the course of the Syrian conflict – and certainly in the past year when Assad’s departure looked less likely – the West, through media and “pundit” intermediaries, has often floated the idea of dividing the state into several smaller parts along sectarian and ethnic lines. While framed as a means to “prevent further conflict,” this idea actually follows the American experiment of Iraqi federalism that effectively sought to carve Iraq into three distinct Sunni, Shia and Kurdish zones.

Forget that you cannot find five non-Kurdish Syrians or Iraqis of credible national renown who would back the idea of fragmenting their nation. This is distinctly a Washington vision. Or rather, a western one, with Israeli fingerprints all over it.

Israel’s vision of “Small States”

In 1982, as Israel warmed up its operation to invade multi-sect Lebanon, Israeli foreign ministry strategician Oded Yinon inked a master plan to redraw the Mideast into small warring cantons that would never again be able to threaten the Jewish state’s regional primacy:

“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan.”

“Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run.”

“Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.”

“There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority.”

Beware the Artificial Break-up of States

As opposed to western narratives about Arab “revolutions” heralding the arrival of “freedom and democracy,” the Russians took a more cautious view of events.

As early as February 2011, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that revolutions across the Arab world could see fanatics coming to power, leading to “fires for years and the spread of extremism in the future.” The breaking up of states in the aftermath of these events, he says, is a distinct possibility:

“The situation is tough. We could be talking about the disintegration of large, densely-populated states, talking about them breaking up into little pieces.”

The Russians were right. The Americans – dangerously wrong.

The Mideast will one day need to make region-wide border corrections, but to be successful, it must do so entirely within an indigenously determined process. The battles heating up in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere are a manifestation of a larger fight between two “blocs” that seek entirely different regional outcomes – one of these being the borders of a new Middle East.

The first group, a US-led bloc aggressive in its pursuit of maintaining regional hegemony any which way, is using fiction and carefully-spun divisive narratives to sway populations into accepting “cause” for new western-backed borders. These borders will divide nations along sectarian, ethnic and tribal lines to ensure ongoing conflict between the newly minted states, and “redirecting” them from the vastly bigger imperial threat. A unified Mideast, after all, would naturally turn against the universally reviled Empire, with Israel’s borders being the first on the chopping board. And in this climate, western-fomented border revisions will be dramatically more chaotic than Sykes-Picot ever was.

The second bloc (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia, China and a smattering of independent groups/states) which opposes western-Israeli hegemony does not have the means or ability to impose border solutions except in their own direct geographical base, which looks increasingly like a line drawn from Lebanon to Iraq (and not accidentally, where most of the chaos is currently channeled). Theirs is a defensive strategy, based largely on unwinding divisive plots, minimizing strife and warding off foreign-backed insurgencies, through military means if necessary.

In this bloc’s view, Sykes Picot will be undone, but within an organic process of border corrections based on regional consensus and rational considerations. In truth, this bloc is focused less on redrawn borders than it is on dousing the fires that seek to create the harmful divides.

Arabs and Muslims need to start becoming keenly aware of this “small state” third option, else they will fall into the dangerous trap of being distracted by detail while larger games carve up their nations and plunge them into perpetual conflict.

~

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

July 29, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Thousands of Syrian police who joined the rebels are on U.S. payroll

WorldTribune | July 25, 2013

WASHINGTON — The United States has been paying thousands of Syrian police officers who deserted the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Officials said the administration of President Barack Obama has approved tens of millions of dollars to pay the salaries of police officers who joined the rebels. They said the officers were working to maintain order in rebel-controlled territory, mostly in northern Syria.

“There are literally thousands of defected police inside of Syria,” Assistant Secretary of State Rick Barton said. “They are credible in their communities because they’ve defected.”

In an address to the Aspen Security Forum on July 19, Barton, responsible for State Department stabilization operations, did not say how many Syrian police deserters were on the U.S. payroll. He said the officers were receiving about $150 per month, a significant salary in Syria.

The address marked a rare disclosure of direct U.S. aid to Sunni rebels in Syria. Congress has approved more than $50 million for the Syrian opposition, much of which has not been spent.

Barton said the police officers remained in their communities despite their defection from the Assad regime. He said the U.S. stipend was meant to ensure that they stay on the job.

“We’d rather have a trained policeman who is trusted by the community than have to bring in a new crowd or bring in an international group that doesn’t know the place,” Barton said.

Barton said the rebel movement was awaiting a range of non-lethal U.S. equipment. He cited night vision systems and medical supplies.

July 26, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Nasrallah: EU giving “legal cover” for an Israeli war on Lebanon

Al-Akhbar | July 25, 2013

The European Union is paving the way for Israel to justify a war on Lebanon, Hezbollah’s general secretary said late Wednesday, two days after the 28 member states issued a decision to put Hezbollah’s military wing on its terror list.

“EU countries should know they are giving legal cover for Israel to launch any war on Lebanon because Israel can claim it is waging war on terrorists,” Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech at the annual iftar ceremony held by the Women’s Committee of Islamic Resistance Support Association of Hezbollah.

“These countries make themselves undeniable allies during any Israeli aggression on Lebanon, on the resistance and on any target for the resistance [in the country],” Nasrallah added.

The EU 28-member bloc agreed Monday to blacklist Hezbollah’s military organization as a terrorist group following years of relentless US and Israeli pressure.

The EU cited accusations that the powerful Lebanese Shia movement was behind a bus bombing in Bulgaria last year which killed five Israelis and their driver, as well as the party’s involvement in the Syrian conflict.

Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the Bulgaria bombing.

Last month a new socialist-led Bulgarian government backed away from the claims of the previous administration, saying that the EU could not justify blacklisting Hezbollah solely based on the little evidence produced to implicate it in the crime.

“It is important that the (EU) decision be based not only on the bombing … because I think the evidence we have is not explicit,” Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin had told national state radio BNR.

Nasrallah noted that the EU’s official statement will be issued within days and the party will see then what is to be discussed.

He also posed the question to the EU of why the union hadn’t considered placing Israel’s army on its terror list.

“[The EU] repeatedly admits that Israel occupies Arab land but hasn’t implemented international resolutions for ten years. The whole world has witnessed the Israeli massacres,” he said.

Nasrallah advised the member states to reconsider the decision, stating that it is doomed to fail and that “the decision wasn’t worth the ink it was written with.”

The EU’s blacklisting of Hezbollah’s military wing is merely the result of external pressure and interests, he said, instead of being based on values and principles. He added that the effect of the decision is nothing but psychological.

“In this country, resistance fighters fought the Israeli occupation, endured a lot of pressure and sacrificed martyrs. Then you come to those who are the sons of these people and say they are terrorists. This is abuse to fighters, to their people and to their successive governments,” Nasrallah stated.

“This decision aims at making us bow, at forcing us to step back and be afraid. But, I tell you that all you will get is failure and frustration,” he said, adding that anyone who thinks the resistance will be undermined by the decision is either “ignorant or delusional.”

The General Secretary hinted jokingly at having members of Hezbollah’s military wing in Lebanon’s new government, assuring viewers that the resistance has gained credibility among people in Lebanon and the Arab and Muslim world.

“The most important thing for the Lebanese resistance is to get the support of its people and to express their will, pride and view in defending their land and their sovereignty,” he said.

“The Resistance will remain and will be victorious by God’s will,” Nasrallah concluded.

July 25, 2013 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How the Israel Lobby Trained a Diplomat

By Paul R. Pillar | Consortium News | July 22, 2013

David Rieff’s commentary on Samantha Power’s confirmation hearing is a trenchant account of some of the worst in what we see in the process of confirming nominees for senior positions. Even by the standards of such hearings, Power’s performance was notably obsequious.

This was an abuse of the process by the nominee, in the sense that in a proceeding ostensibly intended to learn more about the nominee we did not learn much at all except that she really, really wants the job of ambassador to the United Nations and is willing to shape her testimony in whatever way it takes to get the job.

Rieff cites the experience of Robert Bork as the master lesson for all subsequent nominees on the need to trim their views if they expect to get confirmed. That history is no doubt a factor, but to understand the pathologies of the confirmation process we should take note of the variety of ways in which that process gets abused. Many of those ways are not the work of nominees, but in at least one respect, as Power’s case illustrates, they induce from nominees’ behavior that only adds to the dysfunction.

A conspicuous and recent abuse was the attempt to cripple the work of the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by refusing to bring any nominees for those bodies to a vote in the Senate. Threats from the Senate majority leader about exercising a so-called nuclear option won a temporary reprieve from that tactic, although there is no assurance we won’t see it revived, and the chances are it will be.

One of the participants in that tactic, Senator Lindsey Graham, later acknowledged that the nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “was being filibustered because we don’t like the law. That’s not a reason to deny someone their appointment. We were wrong.”

Even when the objective is not to cripple an agency or effectively vacate the law that created it, it has become commonplace for the confirmation process to be the vehicle for pursuing policy agendas that have nothing to do with the nominee. This is at best an irrelevance and a drag on the process. It becomes abuse when confirmation votes may be determined by it.

The same Sen. Graham started crossing this line last week when he used questioning of Admiral James Winnefeld, nominated for another term as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to push the idea that the Iranian regime is still an awful and extreme beast despite the election to the Iranian presidency of Hassan Rouhani.

At one point Graham said “this will determine how I vote for you” before asking whether Winnefeld thought Rouhani is a “moderate.” Even setting aside the issue of the substantive validity of what Graham was harping on, why should a military officer’s view on this question determine his fitness to serve as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs?

Nominees, especially those already serving in the Executive Branch, have somehow to make their responsiveness to questions not run afoul of policies that have already been set by the president, and not to make it seem that they are getting ahead of the president, forcing his hand, or openly criticizing him. And yet senators repeatedly and knowingly put nominees in that difficult position.

At the same hearing last week of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John McCain did so with General Martin Dempsey, nominated for another term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. McCain tenaciously tried to get Dempsey to say that the administration’s policy on Syria was one of “inaction.”

We should hope that the nation’s senior military officer is giving his best advice in private to the president on military aspects of an important problem such as Syria, and we should expect that officer not to offer discordant characterizations of the president’s policy in public. We should also hope that senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee see the job of chairman of the Joint Chiefs in similar terms, regardless of their views about Syria or any other substantive issue.

The inherent vulnerability of nominees makes the confirmation process a vehicle for showing who’s boss. This is a form of abuse that goes beyond senators who do the voting, and it gets back to how Power conducted herself. Specifically, it gets to her comments about Israel, which as Rieff puts it were “so stridently one-sided as to be almost wholly indistinguishable from the talking points of Israeli diplomats.”

The now well-known background to this is an interview more than a decade ago, in which Power suggested that to quell Israeli-Palestinian violence at that time the United States should consider deploying a large protective force even though this might mean “alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import.” The constituency in question, as is its custom, denounced Power as anti-Israeli.

Power’s later means of retaining her confirmability in the face of such accusations was to disavow, totally and tearfully, her own observations. A key event was a meeting with American Jewish leaders at which, according to the meeting’s organizer, she “became deeply emotional and struggled to complete her presentation as she expressed how deeply such accusations had affected her.”

This sequence has made Samantha Power a more valuable commodity to the Israel lobby than if she had never made any comments to offend the lobby in the first place. Sustaining the lobby’s power depends on repeated demonstrations of submission to that power. The lobby could not have gotten a better demonstration of submission than to have the nominated chief U.S. diplomat at the United Nations abandon all evidence of any independent thought on the issues concerned and to make herself indistinguishable from Israeli diplomats.

Besides making for more dysfunction in the confirmation process, this kind of response from a nominee, as when Power said at her hearing that the United States has “no greater friend in the world” than Israel, badly distorts the larger public discourse on important issues. To appreciate how much it is distorted, we have to listen to distinguished and experienced people who are not up for a confirmation vote, do not expect to be in the future, and thus can voice their observations in an honest and untrimmed manner.

One such person is retired Marine Corps General and former Central Command head James Mattis, who last weekend explained some of the cost to the United States of the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel,” said Mattis.

Moderate Arabs “who want to be with us,” he said, restrict their support for the United States because they “can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t want to show respect for the Arab Palestinians.”

July 24, 2013 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah gets “terrorist” label for fighting al-Qaeda

By Dr. Kevin Barrett | Press TV | July 23, 2013

On Monday, the European Union formally labeled Hezbollah a “terrorist” group.

Why?

Because Hezbollah has gone to war with al-Qaeda.

But wait a minute – wasn’t al-Qaeda supposed to be the worst terrorist group in the world? Isn’t the West leading a “global war on terror” whose main target is al-Qaeda? Shouldn’t the West be thanking Hezbollah, and showering it with rewards, for turning against global terrorist enemy number one?

Apparently not.

Al-Qaeda is now the West’s darling in Syria. So anybody who resists al-Qaeda – as Hezbollah recently decided to do – is a “terrorist.”

The irony doesn’t get any thicker than that.

US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the EU’s move. Kerry argued that Hezbollah is indeed a terrorist organization because it “has deepened its support” for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. What Kerry didn’t say is that Assad is fighting an insurgency led by al-Qaeda.

Translation: John Kerry supports al-Qaeda. He even says that anyone who opposes al-Qaeda is a terrorist.

This comes after Republican leader John McCain sneaked across the Syrian border to join al-Qaeda a little over a month ago.

In today’s USA, al-Qaeda apparently enjoys bipartisan support.

As an American Muslim, I am confused about what my government wants me to believe and say.

I have always opposed al-Qaeda. Does that mean I am a terrorist? Will Homeland Security agents arrest me and send me to Guantanamo because I don’t like al-Qaeda? Will Guantanamo’s cells soon be filling up with anti-al-Qaeda Muslims like me? Will they experiment on us with torture and brainwashing techniques designed to “reform” us by turning us into al-Qaeda supporters?

I supposed I had better say something nice about al-Qaeda quickly, before DHS agents show up on my doorstep.

So listen to me, NSA wiretappers: I am not THAT opposed to al-Qaeda! I think Bin Laden gave some wonderful speeches in his day! (I’m talking about the real Bin Laden, who died in December 2001 – not the fat imposter of the December 2001 “confession video,” or the short, skinny imposter with the jet-black beard who helped re-elect Bush in 2004.)

I even agree with al-Qaeda’s expressed desire to throw the Zionists and Crusaders out of the Islamic world. If you don’t believe me, I can show you my bumper-sticker. It reads: “End the Crusades – give Palestine back!”

So if you are listening to me, NSA wiretappers (if?!) please note that I am not an anti-al-Qaeda fanatic or an anti-al-Qaeda radical or an anti-al-Qaeda extremist.

I am an anti-al-Qaeda moderate.

I am one of the “good Muslims” – the kind you don’t need to cage, torture, or extra-judicially execute.

Really!

But I must be honest with you. I do have a few little problems with al-Qaeda.

One problem is al-Qaeda’s 1998 fatwa telling Muslims that “killing the Americans and their allies-civilians and military-is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”

I am a Muslim. I am also an American civilian. Does that mean I have an “individual duty” to kill myself?

From my point of view, that was an amazingly stupid fatwa.

Al-Qaeda’s claim that killing civilians is okay seems stupid and un-Islamic. Yes, I know the Americans and Israelis kill vast numbers of civilians. But we Muslims have higher standards.

Will the American and European governments label me a terrorist because I oppose killing civilians?

I would not put it past them. Orwell could take lessons from these people.

In any event, the EU’s blacklisting Hezbollah is not the first pro-al-Qaeda move by the West.

Al-Qaeda, which means “the (CIA) database,” was created by the CIA with help from its Saudi and Pakistani stooges. Its original purpose was to fight the Russians in Afghanistan on behalf of the US. Since then, it has continued to harass the Russians while smuggling drugs for the CIA.

In 2001, it generously offered its services as a bogeyman for the Zionists and the military-industrial complex, by failing to clearly and unambiguously state that 9/11 was obviously an inside job. Subsequently, al-Qaeda has turned increasingly toward attacking Muslims in an effort to incite sectarian strife and weaken the Islamic world.

Every one of those activities has furthered Western – and especially Zionist – policy goals.

No wonder the West loves al-Qaeda. No wonder they think that anyone who opposes al-Qaeda is a terrorist.

It is hard to imagine how Western hypocrisy on the subject of terrorism could sink any lower.

Will the West start hiring al-Qaeda fighters to staff airport security checkpoints? Will Obama appoint Ayman al-Zawahiri as his next Homeland Security chief? Will the US military bring Syrian al-Qaeda chief Abu Mohammad al-Julani to tour US military bases and load him with stinger missiles, as they did with Tim Osman (a.k.a. Osama Bin Laden) in the 1980s?

Will they decide to provide al-Julani with nuclear weapons?

I wish all of this were just satire. But it is impossible to satirize the West’s “war on terrorism.” The reality is always more absurd than any conceivable product of the imagination.

July 23, 2013 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah Slams Aggressive EU Decision: Written by US Hands with Zionist Ink

Al-Manar | July 23, 2013

Hezbollah expressed in a statement issued Monday evening firm rejection of the European Union’s decision to put its military wing on the list of terrorism, and considered it as “aggressive, unjust decision written with Zionist ink.”

Hezbollah sees, in the EU bowing to pressures of the US administration and the Zionist entity, a serious return to compliance with White House dictates. “It looks as if the decision was written by American hands with Zionist ink and the EU had only to put its seal for approval,” Hezbollah’s statement said.

Hezbollah considers that this unjust decision does not reflect the interests of the peoples of the European Union “and comes in contrast with its values and aspirations that support the principles of freedom and independence, which it had always advocated.”

Reactions over the European Union’s decision to put Hezbollah’s military wing on terror list varied between welcomes and condemnations.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi denounced the decision, stressing it serves the interests of the Zionist entity.

Iran “strongly denounces the (EU) decision… and believes (it) is in line with the illegitimate interests of the Zionist regime,” the Iranian FM was quoted as saying by official media.

“The European Union, due to lack of correct judgment about the regional crisis, took this wrong decision,” Salehi said.

The action, he added, is “against the Lebanese people since Hezbollah has put up a legitimate defense against the Zionists’ aggressions,” he added.

For his part, Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour has called for an emergency cabinet session to take a stance from the decision.

In remarks to several newspapers published on Tuesday, Mansour said: “The cabinet should hold an extraordinary session because this issue is linked to (Lebanon’s) political life in general and would have repercussions” on the country.

“We should take the appropriate decision,” he added.

He warned that Israel would now find an EU-backed excuse to hit Hezbollah bases in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, chairman of the Higher Shiite Council Abdul Amir Qabalan condemned the European Union’s decision.

“We consider the EU decision an act of terrorism, and we call on the European Union to abolish this decision because it reflects injustice and avoidance,” Qabalan said.

US, Israel Welcome Move

On the other hand, US Secretary of State John Kerry praised the EU decision, saying the move was a “strong message” to the party.

“We applaud the European Union for the important step it has taken today,” Kerry said in a statement.

“With today’s action, the EU is sending a strong message to Hezbollah that it cannot operate with impunity, and that there are consequences for its actions, including last year’s deadly attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, and for plotting a similar attack in Cyprus,” he added.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the decision sends a strong message that Hezbollah “cannot operate with impunity.”
He added that it should have an impact on Hezbollah’s fundraising, logistical activities and “terrorist plotting on foreign soil.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also praised the decision, saying it reflects efforts made by the Zionist entity on many fronts to blacklist Hezbollah.

July 23, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US, Israel launch joint aerial drill

Press TV – July 21, 2013

The United States and Israel have begun a joint aerial drill. According to a statement by the Israel military the two-week “Juniper Stallion 13” aerial exercise began Sunday morning.

An undisclosed number of F-15 and F-16 fighter jets from both sides are participating in the training event. It’s held at Uvda Base in the southern Negev Desert, during which pilots will practice air-to- air combat maneuvers, mid-air refueling, bombing runs and other missions.

The United States European Command (EUCOM) is involved in the aerial war games which will focus air-to- air combat maneuvers, mid-air refueling, bombing runs and other missions.

The exercise comes after a two-day visit to Israel on July 14 by EUCOM’s Commander General Philip M. Breedlove.

“The combined exercise is designed to improve the interoperability and cooperation between the Israeli and U.S. air forces, and has been planned for more than a year,” an Israeli military source told Xinhua.

The U.S. is Israel’s biggest ally and international supporter. It supports Tel Aviv financially, militarily and diplomatically. Washington is providing billions of dollars of military aid to Tel Aviv annually.

During Fiscal Year 2013, the U.S. is providing Israel with at least $8.5 million per day in military aid.

Meanwhile Times of Israel has reported that “Israel would receive $3.4 billion in total military aid under the 2014 U.S. budget proposal sent to Congress by President Barack Obama”. The proposal is inclusive of “$3.1 billion in general military aid for Israel, similar to 2013, plus a separate request for $220 million to finance the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system.”

“Obama’s 2014 proposal also allocates $96 million for joint U.S.-Israel research and development projects, including the David’s Sling and Arrow missile defense systems. The overall budget proposal that Obama submitted to Congress on Wednesday totalled $3.8 trillion.”

The If Americans Knew website (http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html) reports that “Beginning in 2007, the U.S. has increased military aid by $150 million each year. Beginning 2012, we will be sending Israel $3.1 billion a year (or an average of $8.5 million a day) and will continue to provide military aid at that level through 2018. U.S. tax dollars are subsidizing one of the most powerful foreign militaries.”

In Israel’s last two wars on the Gaza Strip alone, Operation Cast Lead (27 December 2008- 18 January 2009) and November 2012, hundreds of civilians, including many women and children were killed.

In addition to financial and military aid, the U.S. has vetoed over 40 UN resolutions that have been critical of Israel and its policies towards Palestine.

July 22, 2013 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Kurdish leader says Syria Kurds not after forming own government

Press TV – July 21, 2013

A senior Syrian Kurdish leader has rejected earlier reports that Kurds are planning to establish an independent Kurdish government in northern Syria.

China’s Xinhua news agency on Sunday quoted Salih Muslim, the leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), as saying, “There is no intention among the Kurds to form their own government, nor to secede from Syria.”

On Saturday, Qatar-based al-Jazeera news network quoted Muslim as saying that Syria’s Kurds were planning to create a “temporary autonomous government to administer their regions in the north.”

The Syrian government has granted the Kurds a certain level of autonomy since 2012 and they are now controlling security of the region.

In recent months, Kurdish fighters, who are opposed to foreign interference in Syria, have been battling foreign-backed militants in the north.

This comes as clashes continued between PYD-linked Kurdish militants and foreign-backed Takfiri militants around several villages in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey on Saturday.

The Kurdish militants took control of a checkpoint and also seized light weapons, ammunition, a vehicle mounted with a heavy machinegun, and a mortar launcher.

On July 17, the Kurdish fighters took control of the town of Ras al-Ain in the border province of Hasakah, forcing out the al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Foreign-sponsored militancy has taken its toll on the lives of many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, since March 2011.

Western powers and their regional allies including the Israeli regime, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supporting anti-Syria militant groups, including al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

July 21, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment