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Obama assures Jewish Conference: US support for Israel is ‘unshakeable’

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | December 17, 2011

In a speech given to the Conference of Reform Jews in the US on Friday, President Barack Obama assured the audience that his administration was doing more than any previous administration in US history to serve the cause of Israel, and that US support for the Jewish state is ‘unshakeable’.

President Obama made the speech in the global context of increased isolation of Israel due to its ongoing violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, lack of compliance with its obligations as an Occupying Power under international law, and disregard for past signed agreements with the Palestinians which forbid the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and call for withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Just prior to giving the speech at the conference, President Obama met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The two did not discuss the recent upsurge in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and against Christian and Muslim holy sites. According to a spokesperson for Obama, the two discussed ‘regional security’.

In his speech to the conference audience of several thousand Reform Jews, Obama stated, “It’s hard to remember a time when the [U.S.] administration gave more support to the security of Israel. Don’t let anyone to tell you otherwise. It’s a fact.”

Some political pundits have claimed that President Obama, in this talk, has launched his campaign for the Jewish vote for his re-election in 2012. Jews make up around 2% of the US population.

In a debate last week, all of the Republican candidates for President reiterated their strong support for Israel and Israeli policies.

President Obama also said in his talk Friday, “We stand with Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. America’s commitment and my commitment to the security of Israel is unshakeable.”

He did not address the issue of a contradiction between a state defining itself as both a theocracy (Jewish state) and a democracy. He stated that peace between Israel and the Palestinians could not come from outside, but would have to be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. But the US President made no mention of the US military and financial aid provided each year to Israel – an aid package larger than any other US aid package in the world, which Palestinian leaders say is a major hindrance to peace negotiations, as it shows extreme US favoritism toward one side in the conflict.

December 18, 2011 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Dangerous lies: US Media Outlet Falsely Accuses Venezuela of Terrorist Plot

Correo del Orinoco International | December 16th 2011

This week Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on friends and allies to “be attentive” after mainstream media outlets in the United States released uncorroborated evidence accusing Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran of holding “secret meetings” in Mexico to plan terrorist attacks against “US interests”.

While President Chavez readily dismissed the “lies” produced by Spanish-language media corporation Univision, a documentary released by the company late last week is now being used by right-wing members of the US Congress to demand Venezuela be formally designated a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.

UNIVISION: USING A LIE AS AN EXCUSE

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez referred to Univision´s recently-released documentary “La Amenaza Iraní”, or “The Iranian Threat” in English, and explained that “television shows were broadcast on US networks claiming that Venezuela is scheming terrorist attacks with Iranian terrorists against the United States”.

“They are using a lie as an excuse to attack us”, Chavez affirmed, and “we must be attentive”.

Commenting on the timing of the documentary´s release, Chavez questioned Univision´s “assault” on Venezuela and Cuba, key members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), just days after Caracas successfully hosted the founding summit of the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (Celac).

Univision´s “The Iranian Threat”, which cites uncorroborated evidence of “Iranian backed money-laundry and drug-trafficking cartels that are used to back Islamist networks and training camps in Venezuela and elsewhere”, also accuses acting Venezuelan Consul in Miami Livia Acosta Noguera of being “very receptive” to terrorist plots in 2006 when she was Cultural Affairs Officer at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico.

A follow-up article on Univision.com affirms that Noguera used her time in Mexico to “cultivate relations with Mexican leftist groups such as Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and ally to presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador”.

The news company added that the Venezuelan diplomat “was linked to activists and directors from the Cuban and Iranian embassies in Mexico and with a group of students and professors of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) who worked in a supposed cyber attack towards the United States”.

According to Univision, Noguera “was very receptive” when Cuban diplomats, secret agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and undercover reporters in Mexico City talked of “cyber attacks” that would harm “US interests and undermine the US in Latin America”.

Such an attack, sponsored by Iran and facilitated by Venezuela and other non-US allies in the region, could prove “worse than September 11th (2001)”, affirmed Univision´s “The Iranian Threat”.

In comments to the press, US State Department Spokesman Mark Toner called the Univision documentary “very disturbing”, though he regretted the US Government has “no information to ascertain” the information in the report, “right now”.

UNIVISION: INFLUENCING US POLITICS

Univision, which sold for $ 13.7 billion back in 2007, now belongs, in part, to Israeli American media mogul Haim Saban. Currently Univision´s Chairman, Saban sparked controversy in 2007 after telling Israeli daily Haaretz, “When I see (Iranian President) Ahmadinejad, I see Hitler”.

In a May 2010 profile published in The New Yorker, writer Connie Bruck noted that Saban´s “greatest concern is to protect Israel by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship”.

According to Bruck, Saban´s self-defined “three ways to be influential in US politics” are “make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets”.

Apart from his role as Chairman of Univision, Saban is a major contributor to both ruling US parties (Democrats and Republicans) and is the financial support behind the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee´s (AIPAC) Saban National Political Leadership Training Seminar, both of which stand firm with Isreal against Palestine and regional power Iran.

US CONGRESS BACKS ATTACK

Responding to claims in the Univision documentary, and based on other “unnamed sources”, members of the US Congress last week issued an open letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding Venezuela be formally designated a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.

According to Republican Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), “under President Chavez, the Venezuelan government has established a growing alliance with state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Cuba and provided support for terrorist organizations such as the FARC in Colombia”.

“Since 2007”, Ensign claims, “Venezuela has conducted weekly Tehran-Damascus-Caracas flights without proper controls and customs inspections”.

Republican Senator George LeMieux (R-Florida) shared Ensign´s concerns, telling Congress “folks get off the plane in Venezuela, and who knows where they go”.

LeMieux, who failed to cite the source of his claims, added, “Iran has now sent shock troops to Venezuela” and asked the Obama administration to pay more attention to “the gathering storm that is Venezuela”.

Venezuela does not run a weekly flight to Tehran from Caracas. The Venezuelan airline Conviasa, does have a weekly commercial flight from Caracas to Damascus, which is subject to all normal controls of any other commercial airline.

Pressuring Clinton, Ensign affirmed, “It’s no secret to the US people that Venezuela wishes harm to the United States. What is a secret is how many more ties to terrorist organizations and State Sponsors of Terrorism does Venezuela need to be declared a State Sponsor of Terrorism”.

Other senators signing the letter to Clinton include: Robert Bennett (R-UT), Scott Brown (R-MA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Jim Bunning (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), James Risch (R-ID), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

The Congress members presented no evidence other than rumors and uncorroborated reports to back their dangerous claims against Venezuela.

TRADING PARTNERS

If successful, ongoing attempts to demonize Venezuela could have negative effects on the economy since being designated a “State Sponsors of Terrorism” means increased restrictions on bi-lateral trade with the United States and a ban on receiving US economic assistance. Venezuela does not, however, receive any official economic assistance from the US government, although US agencies provide substantial funding to anti-Chavez groups working to oust the Venezuelan President.

Though  the Bolivarian revolution has made significant progress towards political and economic independence, Venezuela´s economy is still largely dependent on the US as its major purchaser of oil and principal source of consumer goods. It is precisely because of its historical dependence on the US that the Venezuelan government has sought  to diversify the country´s  bi-lateral trade relations by partnering with, among many others, Iran.

One example of strengthening trade relations between Venezuela and Iran is found in the rural Venezuelan state of Cojedes, where some 2,000 low income families now live in the Ezequiel Zamora urban housing complex designed and built by Iranian construction firms.

After heavy rains displaced some 100,000 Venezuelan families in late 2010, Iran also committed to using its expertise in housing development to build 50,000 homes across Venezuela.

December 17, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Cameron Argues that Britain is actually Christian

By Gilad Atzmon | December 17, 2011 

The BBC reported today that  PM David Cameron has said that the UK is a Christian country “and we should not be afraid to say so”.

In a speech in Oxford on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, the prime minister called for a revival of traditional Christian values to counter Britain’s “moral collapse”.

“We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so, Cameron told the audience at Christ Church.

However, Cameron failed to explain the bizarre fact that 80% of his Tory MPs are actually Conservative  Friends of Israel (CFOI).  Cameron also failed to explain why  a ‘Christian country’ abolishes its precious universal jurisdiction law just to appease the Jewish lobby. Cameron also should open our eyes and explain to us why exactly a Christian country followed orders from a Jewish Lobby group and arrested Sheikh Raed Salah.

If we are a Christian country, why did we launch a criminal war based on a ‘dossier’ that was compiled in Tel Aviv? Also, is the fact that Lord Levy was chief fundraiser for the Labour Government a mere coincidence?

If we are a Christian country, as Cameron suggests, someone had better explain to us all how is it, that we have succumbed to ‘eye for an eye’ political doctrine instead of self search for  compassion and empathy in the spirit of Christ.

I can only suggest to Cameron that before preaching to us, he himself had better  reflect on his own words,  he should  contemplate over this country’s traditional Christian values and counter  his own Government’s  ‘moral collapse’.

December 17, 2011 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

‘New Yorker’ editor tells American readers one thing– and Israeli readers something else

By Philip Weiss on December 15, 2011

In The New Yorker that came out Monday, David Remnick wrote that Newt Gingrich’s goal is the Jewish “vote.” He didn’t say it once, but four or five times (emphasis mine):

Late last week, as part of a Republican pander-fest for the Jewish vote… Newt Gingrich… called the Palestinians an “invented” people…

The Palestinian vote will not decide swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, or, above all, Florida; a considerable shift in the Jewish vote could.

Gingrich and his fellow Republicans have sensed a potential softening in the Jewish vote. In 2008, only African-Americans were more solidly behind Barack Obama, who, according to exit polls, won seventy-eight per cent of the Jewish vote. But the Republicans are hoping to woo at least the more conservative sector of Jewish Americans—those who feel that Obama has been too hard on Benjamin Netanyahu.

Chemi Shalev of Haaretz, the leading Israeli newspaper, then interviewed Remnick about his story and ran an interview Tuesday. Here’s Shalev’s first question and the beginning of Remnick’s answer. Emphases mine.

Q. How do you view the extraordinary presence of Israel in the Republican race?

Remnick: Well, it’s not unprecedented. Israel even figures into things like New York mayoral races, as if the New York mayor had a foreign policy. So it’s not surprising that it would make an appearance to some degree or another, but you’re right, it’s a larger one this time around.

The reason is very simple: it is the hope of the Republican Party that the criticism of Obama regarding the Middle East and Netanyahu and everything related to it will somehow translate into a softening Jewish vote, that last time gave Obama 78%, second only to the African American community.

The Republicans won’t get a majority [of the Jewish votes] but they hope to get more votes in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and especially Florida. And I think they are also hoping to see if they can get some money from the obvious corners in the Jewish community. It’s not a secret to them that in terms of campaign contributions, Jewish Americans give quite a lot of money.

Remnick has been a leading voice on the issue in the last year, but in his New Yorker piece he is obfuscating, and the reason is obvious; Remnick is concerned that talk about Jewish money will arouse anti-Semitism in the United States. NPR’s Robert Siegel did the same obfuscation last May. These men don’t trust their audience. I’m reminded of Tom Friedman’s interview with Ari Shavit in 2003, in which he said that the Iraq war was the war that a neoconservative “elite” wanted, something he wasn’t going to write in his column: “I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.”

The question of why Republicans are pandering on Israel is not a trivial question, it’s an important one. A lot of us, including Remnick, went into this business because we thought the American people had a right to know.

December 15, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Israel lobby cutout urges US to provide Syrians with ‘means of self-defense’

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | December 13, 2011

Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the think tank created by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “do AIPAC’s work but appear independent,” has yet another one of its modest proposals for Washington:

Because the FSA is an increasingly important player that will likely influence the outcome of events in Syria, the United States and its partners should make contact with its members and learn as much as possible about the group. Questions concerning its nature, its potential as an armed force, and the role of Islamists can be resolved through such contact as well as intelligence work. If the results are positive, then the FSA should be assisted wherever outside aid would be both possible and effective. Arms, advice, training, and money could be provided through clandestine channels, if nothing else. These modest steps could help provide the Syrian people with a means of self-defense, give the United States additional influence on the situation, and put further pressure on the regime and its forces, perhaps hastening the conflict’s end.

If Washington had any sense, or the independence to act on it, they’d tell WINEP to get their masters in Tel Aviv to “help” the Syrian people themselves if they are so concerned about their welfare.

December 13, 2011 Posted by | Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Who will watch the watchdog?

The pro-Israel NGO behind NATO’s war on Libya is targeting Syria

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | December 10, 2011

On December 2, the Geneva-based UN Watch welcomed that day’s “strong condemnation” of Syria by a UN Human Rights Council emergency session, and its establishment of a special rapporteur to monitor the situation there following what it called “a global campaign to create the post by a coalition of prominent democracy dissidents and human rights groups” led by UN Watch itself. The non-governmental organization, whose self-appointed mandate is “to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter,” expressed regret, however, that the UNHRC resolution “paid special deference” to Syria’s “territorial integrity” and “political independence,” decrying the provision as “a clear jab at NATO’s intervention in Libya, and a pre-emptive strike against the principle of the international community’s responsibility to protect civilians under assault.”

On the same day, UN Watch delivered a speech to the Human Rights Council plenary session in which it denounced the UN Security Council’s “shocking silence on Syria’s atrocities,” calling on it to take “urgent action to protect the civilian population before thousands more are beaten, tortured and killed.” It also urged UNESCO to reverse its recent decision to elect Syria to two human rights committees. Submitting that day’s UNHRC resolution to UNESCO’s Executive Board, the NGO demanded that they “expel the Assad government from those panels immediately.” The statement went on to berate the UNHRC for its “longtime policy, and that of the old Commission, of turning a blind eye to Syria’s gross and systematic violations.” Also “wrong and harmful,” in UN Watch’s view, was the UN body’s “policy of supporting Syria’s cynical and transparent ploy each year to condemn Israel for alleged violations of human rights, which should not be repeated this March.”

For those familiar with the NGO’s unmistakable governmental ties, it will come as no surprise that UN Watch could downplay Israel’s extensively documented human rights abuses as “alleged” while at the same time confidently asserting that “the facts are clear” regarding Syria’s “gross and systematic violations of human rights.” As Ian Williams, a former president of the United Nations Correspondents Association, wrote in a 2007 Guardian opinion piece, “UN Watch is an organization whose main purpose is to attack the United Nations in general, and its human rights council in particular, for alleged bias against Israel.”

Founded in 1993 under the chairmanship of Ambassador Morris B. Abram, the former US permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, UN Watch is affiliated with the American Jewish Committee. Described by one expert on US-Israeli relations as “the foreign policy arm of the Israel lobby,” the AJC also takes a keen interest in the UN’s alleged bias against Israel. According to a 2003 article in the Jewish Daily Forward, a “sustained effort” by the lobby’s foreign policy arm resulted in the United States “embarking on the most comprehensive campaign in years to reduce the number of anti-Israel resolutions routinely passed by the United Nations General Assembly.”

In February, UN Watch organized 70 “rights groups” to send a letter to President Obama, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, and UN Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against Libya by invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post at the time, the NGO’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, said that “the muted response of the US and the EU to the Libyan atrocities is not only a let-down to the many Libyans risking their lives for freedom, but a shirking of their obligations, as members of the Security Council and the Human Rights Council, to protect peace and human rights and to prevent war crimes.” Despite the unsubstantiated nature of its allegations,” UN Watch’s “Urgent Appeal to Stop Atrocities in Libya” proved sufficient to get Libya suspended from the Human Rights Council before being referred to the Security Council, and ultimately provided the spurious justification for NATO’s eight-month “humanitarian” bombing of the country.

Undoubtedly the most significant signatory of the UN Watch-sponsored letter was Carl Gershman, president of the “misnamed” National Endowment for Democracy. Funded by American taxpayers but outside Congressional oversight, the Endowment has been meddling in other countries’ internal politics since its inception in 1983. As Allen Weinstein, NED’s architect and first acting president, famously told the Washington Post in 1991, “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” A lot of what NED does today can also be understood by observing its longtime president’s career path. A former head of the neo-Trotskyite Social Democrats-USA who steadily evolved into neoconservatives, Gershman is no stranger to pro-Israel lobbying, having worked in the research department of the Anti-Defamation League in 1968 and served on the governing council of the American Jewish Committee in the early 1970s.

Although UN Watch purports to believe in the United Nations’ mission to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” the pro-Israel NGO bears significant responsibility for inducing a devastating war on the current generation in one Arab country already this year and is clearly determined to repeat the carnage in another. As long as UN Watch’s motto of “Monitoring the United Nations, Promoting Human Rights” continues to obscure its real mission of “Manipulating the United Nations, Promoting Israel’s Interests,” the warning of a Roman poet becomes increasingly pertinent: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

~

Maidhc Ó Cathail is a political analyst and editor of The Passionate Attachment.

December 10, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

STL Not Interested in Evidence Implicating Israel

By Omar Nashabe | Al-Akhbar | December 7, 2011

The controversial tribunal investigating the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri continues to refuse looking into claims Israeli had role in the crime despite mounting evidence.

“The submission made by Attorney Marwan Dalal in October does not obligate us in any way,” an official of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) told al-Akhbar Monday by telephone from The Hague.

He was referring to the memorandum which Dalal, introducing himself as “an attorney and citizen of the State of Israel,” presented to the tribunal, in which he made the case that the Israelis may have been involved in Hariri’s murder.

“Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has employed investigative procedures that are consistent with international standards,” the official continued, “and the investigations led to the collection of sufficient evidence to charge the four individuals (Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Hussein Oneissi, and Assad Sabra) with the crime of assassinating Hariri.”

Asked whether the criminal investigations carried out by the International Independent Investigation Commission since 2005, and by the STL prosecutor’s office since 2009, had considered the mere possibility that the Israelis may have been involved in the crime, the official answered “No.”

After a pause, he added: “There was no need. The results of the investigations pointed to the four individuals and did not indicate any Israeli involvement in the crime.”

But why hasn’t the possibility of Israeli involvement been taken seriously since the start of the probe, or since the STL prosecutor’s office was established?

And professionally speaking, isn’t one supposed to avoid reaching conclusions before investigations have been completed?

The official avoided answering these two questions by reiterating that Bellemare adheres to international standards.

However, the STL did confirm that it has made no attempt to gather information from occupied Palestine about possible Israeli involvement in the 14 February 2005 car-bombing that killed Hariri.

This came in the form of a written answer provided on Monday by the STL’s official spokesman, Marten Youssef, to a question submitted by al-Akhbar.

He was asked: Given that any exchange of information between the STL and the Israelis would require an agreement between the two sides, did the STL ask Israel to sign a cooperation agreement with it, and if so, when, and with what outcome?

The reply was: “No. Israel was never approached by the STL to sign a cooperation agreement. The STL only has cooperation agreements with Lebanon and the Netherlands. ”

Youssef noted that any information about the investigators’ work – including whether or not they had visited Israel or met Israeli officials to seek information related to the Hariri assassination – would have to be provided by the prosecutor’s office.

He said he had passed on al-Akhbar’s questions in this regard. There had been no reply by press-time.

But the topic about which Bellemare is reluctant to respond was discussed at length last year by Israeli security and intelligence analyst Yossi Melman.

He wrote in the daily Haaretz on 23 November 2010: “The UN commission’s resources have been relatively limited…The potential countries that have spy agencies with the necessary technology is also limited, and includes the National Security Agency in the United States, British, and French intelligence, and undoubtedly, Israeli intelligence.”

If that is the case, and seeing as the STL has officially said it has no cooperation agreement with Israel, then Melman’s report would appear to reveal that Bellemare and his team have been violating STL rules, and that Israeli officials have been violating Israeli law.

Two observations need to be made in this context:

First, Israeli intelligence would not cooperate with any foreign party, or provide it with information about monitored or intercepted communications in Lebanon, except under clear orders from the highest Israeli political authorities.

Secondly, it is – at the very least – unlikely that the motives for this ‘irregular’ cooperation can be separated from the conclusion reached by Bellemare’s investigation, namely that Hezbollah officials were involved in Hariri’s assassination.

And at most, it is not unlikely that Israeli intelligence could have collaborated with Western agencies in the hi-tech fabrication of electronic evidence for Bellemare to base his indictment on.

December 7, 2011 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

A Revolution Against Resistance?

By Ibrahim al-Amin | Al-Akhbar | December 4, 2011

The foreign powers intervening in Syria to bring down President Bashar Assad want to speed things up. This has compelled oppositionists to show their hand, stripping them of yet more cards.

It has long been clear that the most influential bloc in the Syrian offshore opposition had effectively joined forces with an American-led western alliance that is hostile to Arab resistance aimed at liberating occupied territory – whether from Israeli or American occupation.

The bulk of these groups used to flaunt their patriotism by accusing the regime of not wanting to recover the Syrian territory occupied by Israel.

But on Friday, the Syrian National Council’s chief spokesman, Burhan Ghalioun, was forced (and there is no other explanation for it) to come clean about the nature of the payback required of the Syrian opposition by its US, Turkish, Gulf, and European supporters.

Ghalioun told the The Wall Street Journal in an interview that under a new opposition-led government, “there will be no special relationship with Iran…Breaking the exceptional relationship means breaking the strategic military alliance.” He added that “Hezbollah after the fall of the Syrian regime will not be the same.” Describing the relationship between the Syrian regime and Iran as “abnormal,” Ghalioun said an SNC-led government would oversee a broad reorientation of Syria’s foreign policy towards an alliance with the principal Arab powers. Syria would remain committed to recovering the occupied Golan Heights from Israel, albeit via negotiations rather than resorting to armed conflict.

What do His Excellency President Burhan Pasha’s remarks mean?

They explain why the word ‘Israel’ was not mentioned in the political program issued by the Syria National Council (SNC). They explain why this program, and the vast majority of statements made by SNC leaders, focus on the domestic situation in Syria, deeming it a priority unconnected to any regional questions. It explains why they speak in general terms of the need for political, economic, and social reconstruction in the manner of March 14 in Lebanon – i.e. in the manner of the unseated Hosni Mubarak, who, along with Zine al-Abidine Ben-Ali, used to justify his foreign policy by claiming he was putting his country’s interests ”first.”

Very well. Burhan Pasha is telling us what he, and a good number of those working for governments belonging to the foreign alliance opposing the regime in Syria, secretly think. They oppose the idea of resistance to liberate the land, and in practice want to achieve peace with Israel. He is telling us that the Camp David, Wadi Araba, and Oslo models provide the right means for dealing with the Israeli occupation. In other words, he is promising his people the same things that the Egyptians, the Jordanians, and the Palestinians have suffered for the past three decades as a consequence of this isolationist approach. It is an illusory isolationism, and amounts in practice – as in the case of the Lebanese Right – to deferring to the US-led alliance which safeguards Israel’s interests in the region.

Burhan Ghalioun means to say that the Syrian people do not attach undue importance to their sovereignty, independence, or broader Arab national identity. Burhan Pasha is telling us that the New Syria wanted by the Syrian people is one that will aim to indulge the US in Iraq and the region, to relieve Israel of the burden of a Northern Front and the Lebanon and Gaza fronts, and to put the Gulf states – with the US behind them – at ease on two counts. First, with regard to their obsession about the relationship that has evolved between Iran and Syria. Secondly, about the aftermath of Iraq’s impending liberation from the US’ occupation forces and its dominant influence over political decision-making in the country.

There is no need to read between the lines of what Ghalioun said, as some reports sought to do, or add any explanations. He made clear that his outfit will take Syria out of the regional alliance of which it is an essential part – the alliance comprising the resistance and its supporters – and into another alliance, the one currently striving to topple the current regime in Syria. The latter opposes the resistance, and defers to the US and Israel’s demands to deny support to the forces of resistance in Lebanon and Palestine. As for Ghalioun’s desire to turn to the ‘international community’ to recover the Golan Heights, that simply replays the tune of all who sought peace as supplicants, and thus negotiated agreements that brought shame and poverty to over 100 million people.

Ghalioun also referred in his interview with the American paper to his SNC’s relationship with the Free Syrian Army. He spoke of an agreement to “focus their operations on the protection of civilians and not to perform offensive attacks.” Can we therefore await explanations from him of what is happening on the ground? He went on to declare: “We do not want, after the fall of the regime in Syria, armed militias outside the control of the state.” He might do well in this regard to consider the experience of Libya, during and since the overthrow of the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi. He could then teach his students courses on Creative Chaos in the Cause of the Caliphate, by the learned scholar Bin-Belhadj.

Ibrahim al-Amin is editor-in-chief of al-Akhbar.

December 6, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

UN Watch statement on Syrian human rights situation reveals pro-Israel motivation

By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | December 6, 2011

In a December 2 letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council, UN Watch wrote that

the Security Council must end its shocking silence on Syria’s atrocities. It must take urgent action to protect the civilian population before thousands more are beaten, tortured and killed.

A few lines later, the NGO undermined its purported concern for Syrian civilians when it condemned the UN Human Rights Council for

its policy of supporting Syria’s cynical and transparent ploy each year to condemn Israel for alleged violations of human rights, which should not be repeated this March.

The letter did not mention, however, that UN Watch is affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, a key component of the Israel lobby.

In February, the pro-Israel NGO organised 70 non-governmental organisations to send letters to President Obama, E.U. High Representative Catherine Ashton, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against Libya invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine.

Clearly buoyed by that “humanitarian” success in North Africa, UN Watch is now determined to “protect” Israel’s nearer Arab neighbours.

December 6, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Nuclear experts reject IAEA Iran report

Press TV – December 6, 2011

Several nuclear experts have repudiated the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s nuclear program, saying it is misinformed, misleading and merely a hype created by the media, Press TV reports.

In its November 8 report, the IAEA accused Tehran of activities aimed at developing nuclear weapons before 2003 and speculated that these activities “may still be ongoing”.

Robert Kelley, former IAEA director and nuclear engineer, says he was “quite surprised” by the lack of new information in the report, further stressing that the report is “highly misleading.”

Kelley says the IAEA report draws its material from a single source, a laptop computer. The laptop, he says, was allegedly supplied to the IAEA by a Western intelligence agency, “whose provenance could not be established.”

Tehran has rejected the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”

“There is nothing (in the IAEA report) that indicates that Iran is really building a bomb,” says Greg Thielmann, former State Department and Senate Intelligence Committee analyst.

“Those who want to drum up support for a bombing attack on Iran sort of aggressively misrepresented the report,” Thielmann adds.

On Saturday, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said the IAEA report bore greater resemblance to a “PR exercise than a serious nuclear effort.”

Churkin cited the manner in which the report “was played up in the media and then leaked to the press, containing very little information,” about Iran’s nuclear program, as proof of this public relations maneuver.

In its November 18 resolution against the Islamic Republic, the IAEA Board of Governors voiced “deep and increasing concern” about Tehran’s nuclear program, and called on Iran and the IAEA to intensify dialogue to resolve the dispute over the Iranian nuclear energy program.

The resolution, however, stopped short of reporting Iran to the UN Security Council or setting Tehran a deadline to comply.

The United States, Israel, and some of their allies accuse Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program and have used this pretext to push for the imposition of sanctions as well as to call for an attack on the country.

Iran, however, refutes such allegations as “baseless” and maintains that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has every right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

In addition, the IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but has never found any evidence indicating that Iran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

December 6, 2011 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

A point for the Israel lobby theory, from Panetta

By Philip Weiss on December 5, 2011
panetta
‘Defense’ Secretary Leon Panetta

One of the big arguments against the Israel lobby theory is that our Middle East policy is driven by the military industrial complex. And so the Iraq war was a war for oil and military spending. This cynical materialist theory (spawned by Eisenhower in ’61) dismisses my cynical theory of history (spawned by realists in 2006), which turns on ideology and religion– that many of the war’s proponents wanted to make Israel safer by invading a country that had attacked Israel.

Well when I was in Cairo recently Issandr El Amrani, who largely agrees with me, said that if American corporate interests really were driving policy in the region, why not have a robust arms race among all the feuding countries there? Why not foster an arms race between Israel and Iran and Egypt– that would be great for profits! End the treaty between Israel and Egypt, let Egypt militarize itself even more…

But we don’t foster an arms race. And Leon Panetta explicitly does not want an arms race. From the Defense Secretary’s conversation with Kenneth Pollack at the Saban Forum Friday:

MR. POLLACK: …What do you think the consequences of Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon would be and why do you – (inaudible)?

SEC. PANETTA:… once Iran gets a nuclear weapon, then they’re not – you will have an arms race in the Middle East.  What’s to stop Saudi Arabia from getting a nuclear weapon?  What’s to stop other countries from getting nuclear weapons in that part of the world?  Suddenly we have an escalation of these horrible weapons that, you know, I think create even greater devastation in the Middle East.

So a key for all of us – for all of us is to work together – together – to ensure that that does not happen.  We have made good progress in these efforts.  We continue to make good progress in these efforts.  That’s where we ought to continue to put our pressures, our efforts, our diplomatic, our economic, experts working together to make sure that that does not happen.

December 5, 2011 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Iran captures ‘lost’ U.S. spy drone — the first remote hijacking?

By Paul Woodward | War In Context | December 4, 2011
Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone

The Los Angeles Times reports:

A drone that Iranian officials claimed to have shot down may be an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance aircraft that went missing over western Afghanistan late last week, according to U.S.-led forces in that country.

“The operators of the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status,” NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said in a statement.

Iranian media reported Sunday that the country’s armed forces had shot down a U.S. drone that they said violated Iranian airspace along the eastern border. Iran borders Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east.

An Iranian military official quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency said the aircraft suffered minor damage and was in the possession of the armed forces. He identified the aircraft as an “RQ170″ type drone and said Iranian forces were “fully ready to counter any aggression.”

When the existence of the RQ-170 first entered the public domain after it was photographed in Afghanistan, it quickly got dubbed the “Beast of Kandahar.”

As a highly classified stealth aircraft the question was: why would the US be flying a drone designed to evade radar when the Taliban have no radar? Speculation suggested that its areas of operation were more likely over Pakistan and perhaps spying on nuclear facilities in Iran.

In May this year the Washington Post reported that this aircraft had indeed been used to “fly dozens of secret missions deep into Pakistani airspace and monitor the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed.”

So how did the operators manage to lose such valuable piece of equipment last week? Someone fell asleep at the wheel? Very unlikely during such a critical intelligence operation. A technical malfunction? Maybe, but in such an event it would seem more likely that the aircraft would have crashed and been destroyed.

Another possibility is that “lost control” is another way of saying hijacked. In other words, U.S. remote pilots lost control as Iranians took control.

There may be a connection with another drone story — this one about a drone that Israel lost.

Late last month, Richard Silverstein “revealed” that an Israeli drone brought down over Southern Lebanon by Hezbollah had been booby-trapped and later unwittingly taken to a weapons depot where it was remotely detonated. It was a story so implausible that it seemed like Israeli intelligence could only feed it to a scoop-hungry blogger since most journalists simply wouldn’t take it seriously.

If the story was indeed an Israeli fabrication then it was probably concocted in order to cover up a much more important story: that Hezbollah has managed to refine its tools of electronic warfare to a point that puts in jeopardy all of Israel’s drone missions over Lebanon.

If that was the case this would have serious consequences since it is widely assumed that in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, reprisal attacks on Israel from Lebanon would swiftly follow. In such a situation, Israel could not afford to have lost one of its most valuable intelligence gathering tools — the means on which it might depend to prevent missile strikes on Tel Aviv.

In other words, if Israel’s ability to defend itself from attacks from Lebanon has been significantly degraded, it might need to be a bit more cautious about threatening to attack Iran.

Israel is flying less sophisticated drones than the RQ-170, but even so, whatever skills Hezbollah has been acquiring in its counter-drone operations it has very likely been sharing with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

Might this provide part of the explanation about how the U.S. lost and Iran found a drone that supposedly went “missing”?

December 5, 2011 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

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