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Netanyahu denies reports of Israel agreeing to peace talks along ’67 borders

Al-Akhbar | July 18, 2013

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied Thursday previous reports stating that Israel had agreed to a proposed formula for new peace talks with the Palestinians under which the border of their future state would be along lines that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.

An Israeli official had previously said on Thursday that Israel was open to talks based on the 1967 borders, but with agreed land swaps and Palestine recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state.”

The denial comes as a blow to US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been working for the past six months to restart peace talks between Israel and Palestine.

Kerry had urged Israel on Wednesday afternoon to carefully consider a 2002 peace initiative approved by the Arab League.

“Israel needs to look hard at this initiative, which promises Israel peace with 22 Arab nations and 35 Muslim nations – a total of 57 nations that are standing and waiting for the possibility of making peace with Israel,” he had said.

The plan, put forward by Saudi Arabia at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002, offered full recognition of Israel but only if it gave up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and agreed to a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees. Softening the plan three months ago, a top Qatari official raised the possibility of land swaps in setting future Israeli-Palestinian borders.

Speculation had been rife that Kerry, now in the region for his sixth time since March in an effort to revive peace talks that deadlocked in 2010, may be close to a breakthrough.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was conferring with Palestinian leaders on Thursday to decide whether to accept Kerry’s proposals for renewing talks with Israel.

Kerry said on Wednesday after talks with Abbas in neighboring Jordan that gaps between the sides had “very significantly” narrowed. An Arab League committee endorsed Kerry’s proposals for resuming peace talks, saying they “provide the ground and a suitable environment to start negotiations.”

However, the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are considered illegal under international law, is still to be resolved. Palestinians are refusing to return to negotiations without a freeze on settlement activity, as Israel has greenlighted the construction of hundreds of settlement homes in the past several months.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

July 18, 2013 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Netanyahu reminds EU that Israel is above the law

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Al-Manar | July 17, 2013

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed a European Union directive requiring member states to boycott Israelis living in the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

In an emergency meeting on Tuesday, Netanyahu pledged: “We will not accept any outside diktat about our borders.”

“This issue will be decided only in direct negotiations between the sides,” he added.

The directive included conditions for future contacts between the EU and the Zionist entity.

Netanyahu said that EU was taking steps unilaterally, while paying less attention to urgent regional matters such as the Syrian conflict and Iran’s nuclear problem.

“I would expect those who truly want peace and stability in the region would discuss this issue after solving more urgent regional problems such as the civil war in Syria or Iran’s race to achieve nuclear weapons,” he said.

“As the Prime Minister of Israel, I will not allow the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria, on the Golan Heights and in Jerusalem, our united capital, to be harmed,” Netanyahu added.

The meeting was held at the Prime Minister’s office in al-Quds. Those in attendance included Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett and Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin.

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July 17, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Israel’s Nuke Arsenal Off-Limits

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | July 15, 2013

On CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, host Bob Schieffer devoted more than six minutes of a ten-minute interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the topic of Iran’s alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapon, with Netanyahu explicitly threatening to attack Iran if it crossed his personally drawn “red line” on the level of permitted refinement of nuclear fuel.

Nowhere during that interview – or in the major news articles that I read about it – was there any reference to Israel’s own rogue nuclear arsenal or how destabilizing it is for one religious state possessing nukes to threaten to attack another religious state lacking a single nuke. The imbalance in this nuclear equation is so breathtaking that you might have thought it would be at the center of a testy Q-and-A. Instead it was nowhere.

Netanyahu also was allowed to denounce Iran as “apocalyptic” without any question about Netanyahu’s own frequent references to Israel facing “existential” threats. Indeed, Israel’s attitude toward using nuclear weapons is sometimes called the “Samson Option,” recalling the Biblical hero who destroyed himself along with his enemies. So, again, you might have thought Schieffer would pounce on Netanyahu’s self-serving remark. But, nah!

In other words, it was a typical day in the life of mainstream U.S. journalism, a profession which purports to be “objective” – meaning it should treat all parties to a dispute equally – but, of course, isn’t.

An “objective” interview or article would have included at least some reference to Israel’s nuclear arsenal and the question of whether Israel has the unilateral right to wage war (or even threaten war) against another country, with the particular irony that Israel is accusing Iran of pursuing a course that Israel has already taken.

But it is expected now that “objective” U.S. journalists will avert their eyes from a reality that Israel would prefer not to mention. In the real world of U.S. journalism, “objectivity” means following the bias of the powers-that-be and framing issues within the conventional wisdom.

In the CBS interview, Netanyahu also was allowed to take a free shot at Iran and its president-elect, Hassan Rowhani, who was disparaged by Netanyahu as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” whose strategy is to “smile and build a bomb.”

Netanyahu was given free rein, too, to demand that President Barack Obama demonstrate “by action” that he stands with Israel in its military threat against Iran. Those demands “should be backed up with ratcheted sanctions,” Netanyahu said. “They have to know you’ll be prepared to take military action; that’s the only thing that will get their attention.”

(It might be noted here that the United States has lots and lots of nuclear weapons and indeed is the only nation to have actually used them in warfare against other human beings. Meanwhile, Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.)

Netanyahu seemed perturbed that the Obama administration is hoping to reach an accommodation with President-elect Rowhani that would involve Iran accepting new safeguards on its nuclear program in exchange for relaxed economic sanctions.

The New York Times reported that “a senior [Obama] administration official” told reporters on Friday that Rowhani’s more moderate tone suggested he was “going in a different direction” from his predecessors and might be interested in reaching a broad settlement with the West.

In the CBS interview, Netanyahu was signaling that any accommodation with Iran – beyond one that would demand Iran’s total capitulation on its right to process uranium at all – is unacceptable to him. The U.S. press corps then repeated Netanyahu’s hard-line remarks without any of that troublesome context regarding Israel’s possession of an undeclared nuclear arsenal, considered one of the world’s most sophisticated.

That the U.S. press corps routinely fails to provide that sort of context is clear evidence that the principle of “objectivity” is one that is selectively applied, which would seem to negate the very notion of “objectivity.”

~

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

July 16, 2013 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Palestinian Babies and the Banality of Israeli Racism

By Roger Sheety | Palestine Chronicle | July 9, 2013

A June, 2013 speech by Bill Clinton honoring war criminal Shimon Peres has highlighted the extent to which Israeli anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab bigotry has become acceptable within Western mainstream discourse.

In a racist echo of Golda Meir, who once admitted that she had trouble sleeping because of the number of Palestinian babies being conceived, Clinton said:  “No matter how many settlers you put out there [in the West Bank], the Palestinians are having more babies than the Israelis as a whole….  You’ve got an existential question to answer.”

Clinton, who was reportedly paid $500,000 to publicly share his hatred of Palestinian babies, couched his bigotry as part of a speech on “peace” and the bankrupt “two-state solution.”  Said Clinton:  “If you don’t have a vision of where you want to wind up, bad things are going to happen sooner or later….  You have a better chance if you are driven by a vision of peace and reconciliation.”  In plain language, if Israel does not return a mere 22 percent of the 100 percent of Palestinian land it stole, it will soon (horror of horrors) be overrun with Palestinian children.

Clinton’s racist comments, reported worldwide by mainstream media mostly without irony, were also an extension of current U.S. President Barack Obama’s own fear and hatred of Palestinian children, which he expressed clearly in May of 2011 to the delight and cheers of his American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) audience in Washington:

“Here are the facts we all must confront.  First, the number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories.  This will make it harder and harder—without a peace deal—to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state.”

For Palestinians, of course, neither Clinton’s nor Obama’s morally abhorrent remarks come as a surprise since they have long been accustomed to Israeli racism and its accompanying violence and brutality.  Racist terms like “demographic bomb” and “demographic threat” are so common in Israeli media and discourse that they barely register any protest in the so-called “Jewish and democratic state.”

We are not talking about Israeli soccer fans thuggishly chanting “death to Arabs” at sporting events (a common occurrence these days), but rather racist incitement from the highest elected officials.  Both Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance, have used the phrase “demographic threat” in public statements regarding Palestinian citizens of the state.  In 2003, as finance minister, Netanyahu would say, “If there is a demographic problem, and there is, it is with the Israeli Arabs who will remain Israeli citizens” (“Netanyahu:  Israel’s Arabs are the real demographic threat,” Haaretz, December 18, 2003).

Similarly, Peres would publicly muse in 1977 on the “problem” of the growing Palestinian population of Jerusalem:  “I do not want to wake up one morning to discover that Jerusalem is subject to the demographic fate of [the] Galilee” (“Israel’s Geographic-Demographic Threat to Identity,” Royal United Services Institute News Brief, January, 2011).  Ehud Olmert, as well, in a speech to the Knesset in 2007, would speak in alarming tones of a pending “demographic battle drowned in blood and tears.”

In 2009, Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Atias would instigate hatred against Palestinian citizens of the state and justify apartheid in a speech to the Israel Bar Association.  “I see [it] as a national duty to prevent the spread of a population that, to say the least, does not love the state of Israel,” said Atias.  Speaking in particular against the Palestinian population of the Galilee, he added:  “If we go on like we have until now, we will lose the Galilee.  Populations that should not mix are spreading there.  I don’t think that it is appropriate [for Arabs and Israeli Jews] to live together” (“Housing Minister:  Spread of Arab population must be stopped,” Haaretz, July, 2009).

Michael Oren, the current Israeli Ambassador (and chief propagandist) to the U.S., would even write a lengthy and deeply racist article published in Commentary magazine in 2009, titled “Seven Existential Threats,” and which included the sub-heading “The Arab Demographic Threat.”  He would opine in a grave, apocalyptic voice that “the Palestinian population on both sides of the 1949 armistice lines is expanding far more rapidly than the Jewish sector and will surpass it in less than a decade.”

This trend must not continue, continues Oren, because “Israel, the Jewish State, is predicated on a decisive and stable Jewish majority of at least 70 percent.  Any lower than that and Israel will have to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state.  If it chooses democracy, then Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist.”

Israeli academics and intellectuals, too, have joined the racist chorus of incitement and, simultaneously, of justification of war crimes against Palestinians.  So Benny Morris, for example, after documenting the destruction of Palestine, the massive ethnic cleansing, the theft of land, and the massacres and rapes of innocents, would then vindicate every crime of the Zionist colonial-settler state from 1948 to the present.

“There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing,” said Morris in a 2004 interview with Ari Shavit.  “That is what Zionism faced [in 1948].  A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians.  Therefore it was necessary to uproot them.  There was no choice but to expel that population.  It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads.  It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.”

Then, jumping ahead six decades, he refers to Palestinian citizens of the state, who were not ethnically cleansed, in typically racist terms:  “The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb.  Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us.  They are a potential fifth column.  In both demographic and security terms they are liable to undermine the state” (“An interview with Benny Morris,” Counterpunch.org, January, 2004).  Morris would thus set the stage for future ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, including the current operation in the Naqab (“Negev”) where tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouin have been targeted for forcible removal from their ancestral lands.

Furthermore, these terms, once used exclusively against Palestinians, are now also utilized by both Israeli officials and citizens to shamelessly incite hatred against African asylum seekers, as well as African Jews who are, nominally, citizens of the state.  As reported by Haaretz in 2010, for instance, Netanyahu said, the “flood of illegal workers infiltrating from Africa [was] a concrete threat to the Jewish and democratic character of the country.”  Without skipping a beat, he would then associate asylum seekers with smuggling of drugs, terrorism, and general decadence, and so justifying the building of yet another apartheid wall to keep out the unwanted (“Netanyahu: Illegal African immigrants—a threat to Israel’s Jewish character,” Haaretz, July, 2010).  See, in addition, the superb work of David Sheen who has meticulously documented recent shockingly fanatical anti-African marches in Tel Aviv, organized and led by elected Israeli officials and community leaders, in dozens of official reports, interviews, and video testimonies (www.davidsheen.com/racism/).

It is impossible to imagine Clinton, Obama, or any major political figure for that matter, talking about any other national, ethnic, or religious group in such unapologetically racist terms.  Would either have made analogous comments regarding, for example, indigenous South Africans during the days of South African Apartheid?  Or against North American First Nation peoples today?  Would an Australian or Canadian housing minister ever speak about a minority group within their countries with the same unabashed hatred as Ariel Atias?  Had they done so, the response of Western liberal pundits and intellectuals would have been swift and indignant—and rightfully so.

Ethnic cleansing, land theft, destruction of hundreds of ancient towns and villages, massacres, military occupation, and apartheid over six and a half decades in Palestine are all deeply tied together with Israeli/Zionist racism.  Indeed, Israeli bigotry has often been and continues to be used to sanction and sanctify Israeli crimes against humanity; thus do attitudes and actions simultaneously fuel and feed off each other.  That even supposed progressives have adopted Israeli attitudes towards Palestinians in their public statements as their own (with little or no controversy), and therefore also excusing Israeli crimes, shows the vile depths to which mainstream media discourse has sunk.

July 10, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tony Blair hired ex Israeli army intelligence officer

By Gilad Atzmon | July 7, 2013 

English: Sept. 2: (l-r backs to camera): Presi...

The Telegraph reported today that “Tony Blair has hired a former Israeli army intelligence officer to work in his private office, despite his role as Middle East peace envoy.”

Lianne Pollak, who has led intelligence teams in the Israel Defence Forces, was recruited as a private consultant between October 2012 and April this year.

The 30-year-old Israel was previously a policy adviser to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, working with security agencies and senior officials.

The former British prime minister is the envoy to the Middle East for the Quartet – the group that represents the US, Russia, the United Nations and Europe.

His role includes encouraging development in Gaza and the West Bank and helping to forge a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, having been appointed when he left Downing Street in June 2007.

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July 7, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Palestinians dubious of Kerry’s “real progress” in peace plan

Al-Akhbar | June 30, 2013

A top Palestinian official said on Sunday that there had been no breakthrough in marathon American-led efforts to revive direct peace talks, but US Secretary of State John Kerry said there had been “real progress.”

The statements come just as Israel announced that it might implement monetary incentives to encourage people to move to an illegal settlement in the West Bank.

“It was a positive and profound meeting with [Palestinian] President (Mahmoud)Abbas but there has been no breakthrough so far and there is still a gap between the Palestinian and Israeli positions,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters after Kerry finished talks in Ramallah with Abbas, his third meeting in as many days.

But Kerry, however, insisted he had held “very positive” discussions with both sides since starting his intense shuttle diplomacy in Jerusalem on Thursday evening, in a high-profile bid to draw the two sides back into direct negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.

And he said that with “a little more work” the start of final status talks “could be within reach.”

“I am pleased to tell you that we have made real progress on this trip and I believe that with a little more work, the start of final status negotiations could be within reach,” Kerry told reporters at Ben Gurion airport just before leaving for Brunei.

“We started out with very wide gaps and we have narrowed those considerably,” he said, describing them as “very narrow.”

“We have some specific details and work to pursue but I am absolutely confident that we are on the right track and that all the parties are working in very good faith in order to get to the right place.”

Asked if Israel’s settlement building had hampered efforts to achieve a breakthrough, he said: “The answer is no, there are any number of obstacles, but we are working through them.”

“We have to have the courage to stay at this and to make some tough decisions,” he said.

Kerry, who has over the last four days spent a total 13 hours in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and another six with Abbas, said he would return to the region without saying when.

“I’m going to come back because both leaders have asked me to,” he said.

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu insisted that Israel was not blocking a return to negotiations.

“We are not putting up any impediments on the resumption of the permanent talks for a peace agreement between us and the Palestinians,” he said in remarks communicated by his office.

He also pledged to put any agreement to a referendum, saying it will be “submitted to the people for a decision.”

But Israel’s army radio said Kerry’s marathon efforts had so far failed to coax the sides back into direct negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.

Abbas is pushing Israel to free the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners, to remove roadblocks in the West Bank and to publicly agree to make the lines that existed before the 1967 Middle East war the baseline for negotiations.

Army radio said that Netanyahu was willing to consider just the first two conditions — but only after talks were under way.

So far, Israel has flatly refused to countenance any return to the 1967 lines.

Palestinian officials appeared pessimistic about Kerry’s chances of achieving a breakthrough.

“Netanyahu and his government are not serious about establishing a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, they speak of a state without clear borders, and we need clarity according to international resolutions,” said Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior official of Abbas’s ruling Fatah party.

“We are ready to resume negotiations according to our clear guidelines,” he told Voice of Palestine.

“Even with regards to the prisoners’ issue, Israel did not provide any clear answer. We want a serious process to be launched,” he said.

In another move likely to spark tension, army radio said an Israeli committee was poised to push through a big discount for buyers of nearly 1,000 new homes which are due to be built in annexed east Jerusalem.

The plan, which will offer prospective buyers a huge discount on 930 new homes to be built in Har Homa, will be discussed by Jerusalem municipality’s finance committee on Monday, army radio and Maariv newspaper reported.

If approved, the plan will lower the price of each new home by $27,500 in a move which will be funded by the housing ministry.

Har Homa is located on east Jerusalem’s southern outskirts, and construction there is likely to have a serious impact on the sector’s boundary with the rest of the West Bank, analysts say.

Jerusalem councilor Elisha Peleg, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, made no effort to hide his delight.

“The temporary suspension of construction in east Jerusalem is over, despite the visit of Secretary of State Kerry,” he told army radio.

“There is no reason to halt construction any more, because it is now proved that stopping construction in east Jerusalem has not brought about a renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians but has caused a severe shortage of housing,” he said.

Last week, on the eve of Kerry’s arrival, another local committee gave final approval to build some 70 homes in the same area.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said it showed which side was blocking a return to the negotiating table.

“This is Netanyahu’s response to everything Kerry said, to his ideas and to all his efforts,” Erakat told AFP.

“We on the Palestinian side tried every possible effort to help Kerry succeed but it is obvious today … that Netanyahu is putting an obstacle in front of Secretary Kerry’s efforts.”

“Netanyahu alone is responsible for ruining Kerry’s efforts and trying to abort his mission and destroying the two-state solution which is supported by the entire international community.”

Palestinians have said they will not return to direct talks unless Israel completely halts settlement construction and accepts the 1967 lines as the basis for negotiations.

Although Israel has expressed a willingness to talk, it has insisted it would only do so if there were no such “preconditions”.

Kerry, who has made the elusive goal of Middle East peace a top priority, was on his fifth visit to the region since taking over the State Department in February.

“Kerry is willing to put in the legwork necessary to move this process forward in a meaningful way,” a US official said on condition of anonymity.

US officials have been tight-lipped about the substance of Kerry’s meetings, fearing that any public statements could put at risk his efforts.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

June 30, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu urges continued boycott of Iran

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Al-Akhbar | June 16, 2013

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday for nations to continue boycotting Iran over its nuclear efforts after the election of a new president widely hailed as a moderate.

Netanyahu said it was Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and not the newly elected president, Hassan Rohani, who set a nuclear policy that has been challenged by tough economic sanctions and the prospect of military action.

“The international community must not give in to wishful thinking or temptation and loosen the pressure on Iran for it to stop its nuclear program,” the right-wing Netanyahu told his cabinet, according to a statement released by his office.

Israel, the Middle East’s only only nuclear power, has threatened to strike Iran over its nuclear program. It is also believed to be behind a string of assassinations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists over the past several years.

“The greater the pressure on Iran, the greater the chance of bringing a halt to the Iranian nuclear program, which remains the greatest threat to world peace,” Netanyahu said.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, and its main ally Russia has repeatedly said that there is no evidence to suggest otherwise.

Netanyahu’s remarks come one day after Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon called for tougher sanctions against Iran regardless of who is elected as its new president.

“We must toughen the sanctions against Iran and make this country understand that the military option remains on the table to halt the progress of its dangerous nuclear program,” Israeli radio quoted Yaalon as saying on a visit to the United States Saturday.

(Reuters, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

June 16, 2013 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Israel approves nearly 300 new settlements to coincide with Kerry-Livni meeting

MEMO | May 9, 2013

As Israeli justice minister, Tzipi Livni, met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome on Wednesday, the Israel Civil Administration approved a plan to build 296 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beit El; an Israeli newspaper reported.

c_245_135_16777215_0_images_stories_edim_02_ep2(117)The newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, today described the decision as “A move which could be interpreted as an attempt to Judaize the West Bank.”

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon approved the construction of the new housing units in line with a promise the government had made to settlers. A previous Israeli government had promised to build 90 new housing units in the settlements in an attempt to prevent clashes during the eviction of the Ulpana settlement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously made undertakings to stop further settlement construction until next June when he met with Kerry, angering heads of settler groups.

According to the newspaper, Ya’alon met with heads of Jewish settlers on Tuesday and told them that construction would indeed continue. Netanyahu confirmed that there were delays in issuing construction bids due to errors, but that they would be issued soon.

Settlers hoped that the approval of new housing units would mean the beginning of further settlement plans in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In Rome, Livni hoped that “enthusiastic and determined” Kerry would move the peace process forward after four years of stalemate.

“We believe that re-launching the negotiations and achieving an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is in the Israeli interest, but yet there is a need for Secretary John Kerry’s efforts to create something new after four years of stagnation,” Livni said.

Kerry has been holding talks with Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab officials for months. The Israeli newspaper said that he is expected to meet Netanyahu and Abbas separately later in May.

The US Secretary of State said, “I think it is fair to say that we are working through threshold questions and we are doing it with a seriousness of purpose, which I think Minister Livni would agree with, has not been present for a while.”

Stressing the importance of achieving something as soon as possible Livni said, “We all believe that we are working with a short time span. We understand the imperative to try to have some sense of direction as rapidly as we can.”

Kerry has been mobilizing Arab support for Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in case he is obliged to offer concessions to Israelis in order to reach a peace deal. Kerry also hopes to set up foundations for a wider peace with the Arab states.

Recently, he achieved a diplomatic victory when the Arab league delegation in Washington announced an agreement to accept that a land swap deal could be reached between Palestinians and Israelis based on the 1967 borders.

May 10, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Israeli Math and the Return of the Holocaust Analogy: Steinitz: Iran “Equal to 30 Nuclear North Koreas.”

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | April 29, 2013

At the second annual Jerusalem Post Conference, held in New York City on Sunday April 28, a number of former and current Israeli officials offered new estimates about Iran’s nuclear progress, issued threats of war and pretended Israel is more powerful and militarily capable than it really is.

In other words, it was just another day of shameless and shameful Israeli propaganda; pathetic, jingoistic bluster meant to appeal to hawkish American donors, puff up Israel’s inflated sense of self, and attempt to boost its already non-existent credibility.

Former IDF intel chief Amos Yadlin said, “Even though Iran is on the way to crossing the line of Netanyahu, that doesn’t mean that they have the bomb,” which might be the most tediously self-evident comment made in recent memory, despite also relying on fact-free speculation. He also said that Israel could weather the consequences of a potential unilateral military assault on the Islamic Republic, but that, before that happens, “we must give more time for the other strategies that nobody takes credit for,” an apparent reference to Israeli-led covert murder operations and cyberwar.

Meanwhile, former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi also told the mouth-breathing attendees that Israel can effectively attack Iran and sustain the inevitable blowback. “We cannot allow this regime to have the bomb,” he said, before insisting that a recent multi-billion dollar U.S. arms sale to Israel “sends a signal” to Iran about Israel’s military capabilities and intentions.

The best comments of the day, however, were made by Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz. Calling an Iran with an atomic arsenal “equal to 30 nuclear North Koreas,” Steinitz’s stand-up routine didn’t disappoint. Not only was a “nuclear Iran” an “existential threat” to Israel, he said, it would also pose a “terrible threat” to all of the Middle East, Europe and the United States. Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica would apparently be spared the devastating scourge, however.

“Iran is problem number one of our generation,” Steinitz declared. He then launched into an embarrassingly repetitive rant about how Iran is the new Nazi Germany, an analogy so stupid and played out that even its most ardent champion Netanyahu hasn’t used it in a while. After praising Winston Churchill for his actions in the 1930s (which garnered a healthy round of applause from the crowd), Steinitz implicitly condemned other powers and political leaders for their past follies and failures, evoking the tired bromide equating diplomacy with appeasement.

“We shouldn’t repeat the same mistakes again,” he said, continuing:

This was Nazi Germany, a secular regime with a fanatical ideology. And here we are speaking about the Shiite Ayatollahs of Iran. Totally [religious] fanatical regime. There it was Europe, here it’s Iran. The Nazis spoke about the final solution for the Jewish people in Europe. They [Iranian leaders] are speaking about destroying the Jewish State in the Middle East. There are some differences. We have to learn from history. And so it never repeats itself exactly. And if there’s a lesson to learn from history, it’s not to repeat the same mistake again. And not to allow, come what may, the nuclearization of Iran.

He wasn’t finished.

Once at full capacity, the Iranian nuclear program, he claimed, will be able to produce 20 to 30 nuclear bombs each year and somehow decided that, “if Iran gets the first few bombs, in a decade or so they will have 100 nuclear bombs.”

This was “not an intelligence estimate,” he was quick to note, but rather was based on statements by the Islamic Republic itself, which makes literally no sense since Iran has never once stated any intention to build or acquire a single nuclear weapon.

For good measure, Steinitz also tossed around phrases like “global ambitions” and “a new era of Islamic hegemony,” because things like that – regardless of their sheer stupidity – play well with ignorant, racist audiences like the one assembled Sunday at the Times Square Marriott.

Dismissing sanctions as insufficient “to achieve our goal,” Steinitz demanded that “a very clear military threat” be made to Iran (ignoring, of course, that this is an undeniable violation of the UN Charter), “a credible threat that will make it crystal clear that they are paying something for nothing.”

“If there is a chance to resolve this problem without military action,” he said, it will only be because opponents of Tehran’s nuclear program “choose a big enough stick and wave it in their faces,” appealing to the Orientalist conception that Middle Eastern leaders only understand the language of force and will only kowtow to Western and Israeli demands when sufficiently fearful of potential violence.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who also spoke at the conference, tried to temper such alarmist rhetoric and dispel the notion that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel, one worthy of constant hysteria and attention.

“I think that we have exaggerated, for a long time, the potential threat of Iran possessing nuclear power,” he told the crowd.

Predictably, Olmert’s comments did not receive a positive reception; instead, he was heckled and booed.

May 1, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel gets fifth ‘nuclear-capable’ sub

RT | April 30, 2013

Israel has inaugurated its fifth Dolphin-class submarine, allegedly capable of launching cruise missiles with nuclear warheads. A German shipyard in Kiel has a contract to build a sixth sub “to ensure the security of Israel’s citizens,” the PM said.

The submarine has been baptized INS Rahav. Rahav is a demon, a cosmic sea monster, ‘Prince of the Sea’ according to the Talmud. It was also the name of a strange woman from Jericho who hid two Jewish scouts from the King of Jericho in the Book of Joshua, Old Testament.

After the submarine is fully equipped and passes all tests, it will cost $500 million and will enter service as possibly the most sophisticated and expensive weapon of the Israeli Navy. Delivery to the client is reportedly expected by the end of 2013.

The INS Rahav was built in northern Germany at the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft shipyard in Kiel. She is believed to be one of the most advanced and sophisticated diesel-electric submarines in the world.

“The INS Rahav is one of the most advanced submarines in the world,” said Israeli Defense Ministry in a statement on Monday, reported Jerusalem Post.

“It is a versatile platform which can adapt to many and varied missions. The fleet of submarines forms a long arm for the [Israel] Navy, the IDF, and the State of Israel,” the ministry said.

The inauguration ceremony has been attended by an Israeli delegation headed by the director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Military Affairs, Major General Udi Shani, the commander of the Israeli Navy, Rear Admiral Ram Rothberg, and a number of Israeli and German officials.

In June 2012, Der Spiegel reported that Germany is actually strengthening Israel’s nuclear capabilities. The magazine claimed that Dolphin-class submarines are equipped with hydraulic ejection systems that enable the underwater launch of Israeli Popeye Turbo SLCM long-range cruise missiles, believed to have nuclear warheads.

Israel’s Popeye cruise missile is believed to have a range of up to 1,500km and carry a 200kg payload, enough to fit in a nuclear warhead. The first launch of the missile was carried out in 2002 in the Indian Ocean.

Thus the German-built submarines are believed to be the backbone of the Israeli nuclear deterrent against Iran.

“The submarines are a strong, strategic tool for the IDF. The State of Israel is ready to act anytime, anywhere – on land, sea and air – in order to ensure the security of Israel’s citizens,” Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said according to the Associated Press.

Israel’s coastline in total, including islands, is a mere 273km, and it is no exaggeration to say that there is no other country with so many submarines to protect so short a sea border.

Germany started to deliver its Type 800 Dolphin-class submarines to Israel after the first Persian Gulf War.

The first two submarines were donated to Tel Aviv for free while the third came with a 50-per-cent discount, informs International Defense News. Berlin also shared about a third of the costs for the fourth and fifth submarines.

The fourth, the INS Tannin, opened the new generation of Dolphin II class submarines, capable of remaining submerged for long periods using cutting edge ‘air independent propulsion’ technology, which allows the engines of diesel-electric submarines to run without atmospheric oxygen.

In March 2012 Israel and Germany signed a contract for a sixth and the last Dolphin-II class submarine that will be delivered in several years. Berlin allocated about 135 million euro (US $175.8 million) of the overall 600-million-euro cost of the sub.

In December 2011 the Jerusalem Post reported that Israel invested about $27 million in a comprehensive structural overhaul and upgrade of the Dolphine I submarines at a shipyard in Haifa.

“The Germans can be proud to have secured the existence of Israel for many years,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Der Spiegel in June 2012.

According to Barak, the INS Tannin delivered May 3, 2012, became yet another “force multiplier in terms of the capabilities and strength of Israel’s defense forces.”

Commenting the delivery of INS Tannin, Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz specified that in conditions of growing strategic challenges in the Middle East Israeli’s Navy and its submarine fleet in particular represents a “defensive and fighting arm of deterrence.”

The “force multiplier” and “fighting arm” remarks of Israeli officials might as well point out that the alleged nuclear missiles in the possession of the state of Israel could be regarded not only as a shield, but as a sword as well.

Officially, Germany has always maintained that it doesn’t have the slightest idea about Israel’s military nuclear program and possible deployment of nuclear missiles on German-built submarines. However, according to Der Spiegel’s research, several former high-ranking German officials have never doubted Israel was putting nuclear missiles on its subs.

Former German State Secretary Lothar Ruhl told Der Spiegel last June that he had not only “always assumed that Israel would deploy nuclear weapons on the submarines,” but also discussed the issue with the Israeli military.

According to documents obtained by the newspaper, the German government was well aware of Israel’s nuclear program as early as in 1961. The latest evidence from German Foreign Ministry archives presented by the magazine last year dates back to 1977 and corresponds to a discussion on the nuclear issue between then-Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and then-German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

British MP and Vice-chairman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Jeremy Corbyn very much doubts that anyone who is willing to help Israel boost its nuclear capabilities is interested in reducing the risk of a nuclear catastrophe. He doubts that the supplies are even necessary.

“It’s very hard to see how these submarines that Germany is supplying to Israel can be solely for defensive purposes, because there is no sea-based threat to Israel and Israel needs to get on board with the rest of the region and talk peace and talk about the signature they’ve already given to the Mediterranean weapons of Mass Destruction free zone. The delivery of these submarines is yet one more ratcheting up of the danger”, he told RT.

Corbyn further believes that the weapons supplies are a badly concealed preamble to a wider European involvement in the world’s hottest crisis zones.

“Germany prides itself as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and on its non-nuclear status… But they’re also paying a very large amount of money to Israel’s defense costs by subsidizing the development and delivery of these submarines, and one just wonders if this isn’t part of a wider European military involvement in North Africa and the Middle East region.”

Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, despite continuing international pressure, claiming it would be against its national security interests. Though Israel is not officially recognized as a nuclear weapons state, it is believed to possess several hundred operational nuclear devices.

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May 1, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gantz Claims Zionist Entity Can Invade Iran

Al-Manar | April 17, 2013

The Israeli military chief claimed the Zionist entity can invade the Islamic Republic of Iran on its own.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Benny Gantz made the remarks in an interview on public radio in East al-QudsGantz (Jerusalem) on Tuesday, AFP reported.

“We have our plans and forecasts… If the time comes we’ll decide” on whether to take military action against Iran, he said.

Other Israeli officials made similar remarks, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister for Military Affairs Moshe Ya’alon.
Netanyahu said that US-engineered sanctions against Iran over its nuclear energy program might not be enough.

Ya’alon also said Iran’s nuclear energy program is the most dangerous threat to the world.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program with the Israeli regime repeatedly threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities based on the unsubstantiated allegation.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

April 17, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , | 9 Comments

Obama Doesn’t Seek Israeli Apology for American Youth’s Killing

By Dave Lindorff – This Can’t Be Happening! –  03/23/2013

The American media are full of glowing reports and praise for President Obama for “brokering” a detente between Israel and Turkey, two former allies who have been at loggerheads since May 31, 2010 when heavily armed Israeli forces boarded the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged vessel seeking to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza with non-military supplies, and killed nine unarmed peace flotilla activists.

In the deal arranged by the American president, Israel’s hot-head prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had ordered the raid, apologized “to the Turkish people” for “any mistakes that might have led to the loss of life or injury.”

It was a lame excuse for murder, but it appears that Turkey’s government was ready to bury the hatchet and, as a client state of the US, was also under some pressure from this country too.

It is interesting and indicative of the continuing power of the pro-Israel lobby in the US, that President Obama did not, as part of this brokered deal, bother to demand that Netanyahu include an apology, weak or otherwise, to the American people for the killing of an American national. For one of the nine people slaughtered by Israel in that raid, a 19-year-old young man named Furkan Dogan, was an American citizen — a son of Turkish parents, but born and raised to adulthood in the U.S.

Dogan’s death has never been protested or even investigated or questioned by the US government — an astonishing abrogation of this government’s oft-repeated promise to protect American lives. Indeed, in his first debate in the series of three presidential campaign debates with Republican Mitt Romney last fall, President Obama said, in his first answer to a question from the moderator, that his number on responsibility was to protect Americans.

Furkan Dogan in Turkey before he was killed on a peace voyage to Gaza by Israeli Defense Force boarders

Furkan Dogan in Turkey before he was killed on a peace voyage to Gaza by Israeli Forces

Not young Furkan Dogan, though.

As we reported in ThisCantBeHappening!, the unarmed Dogan, who was filming the IDF boarding of the Mavi Marmara, was beaten and kicked viciously on the deck by two IDF thugs, who then fired at him with their shotguns at point blank range.

As we also reported, the Turkish Council of Forensic Medicine conducted an official autopsy which concluded that Dogan had been killed by two shots to the face fired at close range — this as he lay already gravely wounded on the deck of the ship, having been already shot in the back, leg and foot.

This report, which was conveyed directly to the US Embassy in Ankara in July, 2010, was sat on, covered up and ignored, and went unreported. Turkey later relayed the autopsy report directly to the White House, and finally, when that elicited no response, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned it specifically himself during a state visit to Obama. The Turkish leader later expressed his surprise to reporters following his meeting with the president that the US had not protested the killing of one of its citizens. As he told reporters, ‘I asked President Obama whether the reason he showed no interest in one of his nationals being killed was because [the victim] was [ethnically] Turkish. He didn’t reply.’”

What a freaking outrage!

The idea that this president cannot demand even a mild apology from an Israeli prime minister for the brutal slaughter of an unarmed US citizen, even as he is brokering such an apology for the killing of nine Turkish citizens, is beyond appalling.

Equally, or perhaps even more appalling, is the complete failure of the US corporate media to mention this failure, even as they note that one of the nine killed was a “Turkish-American.”

Actually, he was more than that. He was an American, pure and simple. An American born in America, and you don’t get more American than that.

I guess if you think you have the right to kill US citizens without a trial, as Obama does, you probably figure you don’t have to demand apologies from foreign leaders who order their deaths, too.

The victims are just US citizens after all. No big deal.

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March 24, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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