Noam Chomsky had once observed an insightful nature of such 'conspiracies', as the open shared natural goals stemming from the very nature of its definition, which could therefore, no more be termed a conspiracy than both GM and Ford endeavoring to maximize their profits at all cost be termed a 'global corporate conspiracy'.

I have always added to that, the equally un-remarkable observation that a hungry lion anywhere in the world pouncing upon a lamb is similarly no global conspiracy by the world's lions to eat up all the lambs on the planet. That is just the nature of the bestial predators when its 'might defines right'. The higher cerebral concepts of 'right', 'wrong', 'moral', 'immoral', etc., do not even exist among any primal predators, for these only behave according to their nature. Pious platitudes, if they could be argued by the lion or the snake for instance, would in fact only be disseminated to the lambs and the mice to make them an even easier morsel to acquire!

The only thing that occasionally deters such exercise of primacy is a collective natural response like the one observed in the 'Battle at Kruger' park. Indeed, the quest for the holy grail of extracting voluntary servitude from the masses of mankind is the key idea of cultivating a willingly compliant public in order for the illuminated ones becoming their stewards for life. In Bertrand Russell's' timeless characterization, to extract voluntary servitude such that: "

Thus we observe that from Plato to Nietzsche, from the philosopher-king to the 'Ubermensch', all have argued the necessity of ruling upon the sheepish masses as the 'divine' imperative of the 'enlightened ones'. Indeed, Zbigniew Brzezinski even sub-titled his seminal book "The Grand Chessboard" with its egotistical subtitle "American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives", merely extending that idea of 'Ubermensch' rule from the most 'enlightened ones', to the most powerful sole-superpower!

The same theme exists among the 'Chosen Peoples', to deem their primacy upon the goyim their inherent nature, their divine destiny. The 'Ubermensch' are suckled these lessons in their mothers milk to acquire those imperatives across generations in perhaps the same way as the generations of corporate executives and CEOs who inherently know that they need to continually enhance the valuation of their company's stock performance in a capitalist system.

So, when these 'divine' ubermensch creatures who are beyond good and evil, behave in their primal predatory natural manner across time and space, across evolution or creation, are they being 'conspiratorial'?

In the Chomsky-Ebrahim nomenclature, perhaps not.

In the Ron Paul nomenclature, it is merely a shared 'Conspiracy of Ideas'  in which 'CFR exists, the Trilateral Commission exists', and that, it is only 'an ideological battle' wherein:

These are real things, it's not somebody made these up, it's not a conspiracy, they don't talk about it, and they might not admit about it, but there has been money spent on it …

According to such legalism, smart conspirators, if powerful enough, could affect the enaction of conducive federal statutes, or prevent the enaction of adverse ones, that would enable them to get away with many morally reprehensible systems and acts. The Federal Reserve System for instance, falls into this category. A legalized extortion racket to enslave the public in perpetual debt for the issue and supply of their own national currency. Similarly, bootlegging is a federal crime one decade, a respectable business the next! And internationally, it is the enaction of laws under WTO which defines what is criminal and what isn't - not the raping and harvesting of developing nations that goes on under its conspiratorial rubric!

Thus suffice it to say, the word 'conspiracy' even has legal semantics, albeit rather limited. It is limited because it is easy to circumvent an abhorrence and call it legal when the king makes the laws.

But the multitudinous connotations of this word do not stop there. It also has a 'tin-hatted' or 'kookish' implication in furtherance of the devilish art of political science based state-craft. This was indeed implied by Congressman Ron Paul in his afore-quoted speech when he stated regarding the North American Union: "

In fact, some of the best cloaking devices for clandestine covert-operations and hidden agendas have been invented by the most brilliant minds - here is one exposition for instance from Ezra Pound: "invent two lies and have the public keep arguing which one of them might be true". Another is by Leo Strauss - the erudite teacher of the majority of the neo-cons - called "Noble Lies". A third by the White House, often referred to as "plausible deniability", okay may be it was invented by the DIA, the grand-daddy of all intelligence agencies. This thinly-veiled euphemism for deception to protect the leadership if things go badly in covert-operations became public knowledge during the Iran-Contra scandal, the televised coverage of which had gripped the American nation for months, including myself. And this wasn't just a rogue operation with ad hoc deniability cover by patriotic agents as most in the public are led to believe. Deniability is official government policy vis a vis any covert operation dating back to President Truman's signing of NSC 10/2. That directive made the introduction of 'plausible deniability' a requirement for CIA's clandestine operations in case they were ever blown while still active. Below is an excerpt from

'Management of Covert Actions in the Truman Presidency

Lastly, we also have the 'limited hangout' and 'modified limited hangout' conspiracies to mislead the public in case 'plausible deniability' for governmental wrong-doing doesn't work. This modus operandi of accepting partial mea culpa for something less consequential in order to mask the more egregious crimes was amply demonstrated by Richard Nixon during the waning years of his presidency. A good description of it with excerpts from the Nixon tapes planning the red herrings is on Wikipedia.

It should now be self-evident that while still active, or while mileage is being extracted from a clandestine operation recently concluded, or some egregious wrong-doing, all references to it must be squashed or dismissed, inter alia, by labeling them as kookish 'conspiracy theories'. And when blown, to have the cover story ready for 'plausible deniability', and/or some version of 'limited hangout'. What are these if not real conspiracies to mask real clandestine covert-operations and wrong-doings?

Thus, if it is axiomatically asserted that there is no such thing as a real conspiracy theory, then that really works wonderfully in the interest of the cloak-makers because it makes one forget the perspectives of history.

And this complex Machiavellian deception game behind alleging 'kookishness' bears exposing fully: invent two or more lies, not just one, and keep the good hearted well meaning peoples in the 'populist democracy' occupied debating which one of them might be true, for it would hardly matter what conclusions they reached. And wherever they ended up, to perhaps yank one of the lies from underneath them by conclusively showing it to be false thus conveniently demonstrating a baseless 'conspiracy theory' in order to keep that notion alive in the public imagination. This consequently delegitimizes in the public mind serious researchers' efforts in uncovering any covert-operation while its secrecy is of paramount necessity. Afterwards, after faits accomplis, after statute of limitations expiring, it makes little difference if historians and con-fession artists make a pecuniary gain peddling what is inconsequential history to the newer evolving realpolitik du jour. The recognition of this self-evident truth of the matter and its utility to Machiavellian statecraft was boldly narrated even in the New York Times (Ron Suskind, Oct. 17, 2004):

Cass R. Sunstein of Harvard Law School, the man who is today President Obama's Information Czar in the White House, in his 2008 paper titled Conspiracy Theories, called this process of the creation of diabolical red herrings, introducing 'beneficial cognitive diversity' through 'cognitive infiltration'. The paper has to be read in its entirety in order to be appreciated for its brazen and open appeal to Machiavelli.

So many complex semantics for the simple term 'conspiracy theory' - it's not just mere nomenclature - that this overview of its usefulness to statecraft was necessary in order to situate anything with such a bombastic title as 'The Capitalist Conspiracy', in its proper social-political-legal-conspiratorial context.

And an equally insightful and rational response to this question of long enduring conspiracy for world domination, is added to the motivational mix by G. Edward Griffin in the video below:

Thus, Griffin aptly noted: "The New World Order Is Not New", but a common objective borne of natural inclination to primacy which apparently transcends time, space, geography and race. It naturally increases in its scope in proportion to the vistas of power it acquires. And it automatically attracts to its cause the coterie of sycophants and useful idiots essential in realizing its overarching agendas. It is helped along, as W. Cleon Skoussen uncannily observed in his commentary in 'The Naked Capitalist':

'The real value of Tragedy and Hope … [is the] bold and boastful admission by Dr. Quigley that there actually exists a relatively small but powerful group which has succeeded in acquiring a choke-hold on the affairs of practically the entire human race. Of course we should be quick to recognize that no small group could wield such gigantic power unless millions of people in all walks of life were -in on the take- and were willing to knuckle down to the iron-clad regimentation of the ruthless bosses behind the scenes. As we shall see, the network has succeeded in building its power structure by using tremendous quantities of money (together with the vast influence it buys) to manipulate, intimidate, or corrupt millions of men and women and their institutions on a world-wide basis.' (pg. 6)

Subsequent manipulation of global events through statecraft machinations become trivial when one has already taken over the state's machinery and its many essential instruments of policy-making. The upshot of it all is that it becomes a moot point what label one might give to this empirical predatory behavior. Zbigniew Brzezinski even openly proclaimed its pertinence to statecraft in the very first sentence of his book mentioned earlier: 'Hegemony is as old as mankind'. The undeniable fact remains that world-government has been a long historical passion of oligarchs! The quest for the hegemony of the entire world has been their natural enduring conspiracy for world government. And it is finally coming to its grand fruition in our own time as most useful idiots still mindlessly chatter on about 'conspiracy theories'.

Until now.

The mainstream media's favorite scapegoat, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, resurfaced on Saturday amidst reports that he called the attacks of September 11, 2001 "a big lie." According to the immediate and rabid response of virtually every Western news network around, this was simply the latest insane claim of the same raving madman who has previously threatened to wipe a foreign state off the map and denied the Holocaust.

Yet, as with those other mistranslated or misunderstood statements, this new claim hardly stands up to even the most cursory scrutiny, as it has been reported with little accompanying context and comparison. According to a translation by Reuters, Ahmadinejad, addressing the staff of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, stated that, "The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan." PressTV translated the President as saying that the circumstances of 9/11 were a "big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan."

Most of the press, including CBS, Huffington Post, and Fox, ran with an Associated Press report by Ali Akbar Dareini entitled, "Iran's Ahmadinejad: Sept. 11 attacks a 'big lie'" while CNN and Ha'aretz reprinted the AP with some slight variations like using the headline "Ahmadinejad Calls 9/11 'A Big Fabrication'."

Robert Mackey, writing for The New York Times editorialized that Ahmadinejad told Iranian intelligence officials that the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City was "staged."

By reporting that he called 9/11 a "lie" or "fabrication," the press has completely subverted the meaning of Ahmadinejad's actual statement. Headlines and ledes like the ones printed by the mainstream media give the intentionally misleading interpretation that Ahmadinejad claimed that 9/11 didn't actually happen. But the full quote obviously reveals something quite different. The events of 9/11 – that hijacked airplanes were flown into buildings, killing tens of hundreds of people – is not questioned or denied by Ahmadinejad in these statements. The attacks, in and of themselves, are not debated or disputed. What Ahmadinejad says is that the event itself was the result of, as PressTV reports, a premeditated "scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure," that was subsequently used as an excuse to justify the so-called "War on Terror" and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

In short, President Ahmadinejad does not claim that 9/11 itself is a lie. He never has. In May 2006, in a letter written directly to George W. Bush, Ahmadinejad states, clearly and unequivocally,

"September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies."

Ahmadinejad's words echo those of his predecessor, President Mohammad Khatami, who in the wake of the attacks declared, "On behalf of the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic, I denounce the terrorist measures, which led to the killing of defenseless people, and I express my deep sorrow and sympathy with the American people." Furthermore, Iran was one of the first countries to hold candle-light vigils in solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the attacks.

What Ahmadinejad does claim, however, is that the official story of the events – publicly memorialized in the publication of the US government-sponsored The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) – is dubious, incomplete, and may very well have been the result of well-calculated misinformation and deliberate action (or, perhaps, inaction on previously obtained intelligence) by the US government. This is neither a new revelation for Ahmadinejad nor for the world community in general. In his letter to Bush, Ahmadinejad wrote,

"Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren't those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?"

In questioning the job done by American intelligence agencies, and questioning the US government's official version of events and responsibility, in the lead-up to September 11th, the Iranian President isn't alone.

Esfahan is Half the World, and Half the World Questions the 9/11 Story

To read the hysterical reports about his recent 9/11 comments questioning the accepted story of the event, one would think that Ahmadinejad is voicing roundly rejected, widely unpopular, and insanely outrageous conspiracy theories, devoid of any reasonable evidence or public support. This is hardly the case.

In fact, Ahmadinejad is in the company of more than half of planet Earth, half of New Yorkers, and almost half of all Americans. His views are not particularly uncommon, let alone unique. They surely don't demonstrate a lunatic fringe viewpoint, but rather an opinion well within the public discourse, though not often discussed by Western media.

Whereas the 9/11 Commission was officially "created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002…to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks," a plurality of the public believe this goal was not successfully accomplished and have doubts about the Commission's findings.

An August 2004 Zogby poll, conducted right after the Commission's report was made public and just days before the Republican National Convention was held in Manhattan, found that over 49% of New York City residents and 41% of New York State citizens say that at least some US government officials "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act."

Another Zogby poll from May 2006 found that 42% of Americans believe that "the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks" and said "there has been a cover-up." Another ten percent of respondents were unsure. The same poll found that 44% of Americans believe that "the Bush Administration exploited the September 11th attacks" in order to advance its own foreign policy agenda in the Middle East, namely, "to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Furthermore, 45% of those polled agree that "so many unanswered questions about 9/11 remain that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success," while eight percent remain "unsure."

A Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll from July 2006 discovered that "More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East."

The next year, in May 2006, a Rasmussen poll revealed that "overall, 22% of all voters believe the President [sic] knew about the attacks in advance," while "a slightly larger number, 29%, believe the CIA knew about the attacks in advance."

Between May 2002 and October 2006, polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News found that upwards of 79% of the American public believed that "When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States," members of the Bush Administration were either "mostly telling the truth but hiding something," "mostly lying," or "not sure." In those four and a half years, the number of respondents convinced that the government was "mostly lying" grew by 20%.

A September 2008 World Public Opinion survey, asked "16,000 people in 17 countries who they thought was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington." The results showed that "majorities in only nine of the 17 countries believed that al-Qaida was behind the attacks." In response, WPO director Steven Kull stated,

"Broadly, I think what this tells us is that there is a lack of confidence in the United States around the world. It is striking that even among our allies, the numbers that say al-Qaida was behind 9/11 do not get above two-thirds, and barely become a majority. So this is a real indication that the United States is not in a strong position to, in a sense, tell its story. The American narrative is not as powerful in the world today."

Evidence aside, the mainstream media presents Ahmadinejad's recent statements as if they represent an outlandish theory based upon nothing more than paramount insanity.

Wiping Context Off the Map

Disingenuously reporting that Ahmadinejad called 9/11 a "big lie" without exploring the context his statement, notably his claim that 9/11 was used as a "pretext" to carry out the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, is much akin to headlines announcing that Ahmadinejad threatens to "wipe out" Israel without presenting the statement in full. For instance, a Jerusalem Post article from December 12, 2006 and entitled "Ahmadinejad: Israel will be 'wiped out'" states in the first paragraph that the Iranian President "vowed once again that Israel would be 'wiped out.'" Only later in the piece does writer Herb Keinon reproduce the entire quote, which reveals a contextually vital qualification:

"The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom…[elections should be held among] Jews, Christians and Muslims so the population of Palestine can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner."

Similarly, press reports from the previous fall, which sparked the entire "wiped off the map" fiasco, failed to tell their readers the whole story. In that speech, analyst Arash Norouzi explains, "Ahmadinejad declares that Zionism is the West's apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the "Zionist regime" was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets." Apparently, in his reading of history, Ahmadinejad was simply reiterating the suggestions of Zionism's founder Theodor Herzl. In chapter 2 of his 1896 manifesto, Der Judenstaat, Herzl wrote,

"We [Jews] should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence."

Ahmadinejad reminded his audience that, while the eventual weakening or complete dissolution of America's hegemony over the Middle East via its colonial-settler garrison state may be unthinkable or unimaginable to some, "as Khomeini predicted, other seemingly invincible empires have disappeared and now only exist in history books." He listed the Shah's tyrannical monarchy in Iran, the repressive and expansionist Soviet Union, and the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, as examples of "regimes that have collapsed, crumbled or vanished" in only the past three decades. In conclusion, Ahmadinejad repeated Khomeini's prescient view that the political demise of the Zionist government of Israel would soon follow: "The Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

Of course, all we've ever heard from Western press reports is that Ahmadinejad threatened to "wipe Israel off the map," an idiom that doesn't even exist in the Persian language, and that was the end of the discussion.

Confusing "Pretext" with "Pretense"

When Ahmadinejad speaks about historical events acting as pretexts to subsequent injustices, he is not claiming that the first event never happened, but simply stating that the event served to justify what followed. This pretext, then, is the exploitation of terrible tragedies as an excuse, motive, and ostensible reason ascribed to explain what historically occurred next. Using horrific events to nefarious advantage is what Naomi Klein has essentially defined as "The Shock Doctrine." This is what Ahmadinejad has spoken about when he uses the term "pretext," which is why, in his speech on Saturday, he stated that "Depredation, bullying and killing the reality of humanity are the outcomes of the capitalist way of thinking."

Unfortunately, the media has decided to equate the term "pretext" with "pretense" and insist that they are both identical synonyms for a claim, invention, myth, fabrication, or lie. With this in mind, it is easy to see how the demonization campaign of Ahmadinejad has been so successful.

This deliberate misinterpretation is not at all new. Even though it is commonplace in the press to insist that Ahmadinejad is a virulent anti-Semite who believes the Nazi holocaust never happened, this is an absurd suggestion unsupported by the facts.

When, at last April's Durban II conference, Ahmadinejad addressed the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 by stating, "As was the case after World War II, armies occupied other territories and people were transferred from territories…In reality, under the pretext of compensating for the evil done in the name of xenophobia, they in fact set up the most violent xenophobes, in Palestine."

He continued, "The Security Council made it possible for that illegitimate government to be set up. For 60 years, this government was supported by the world. Many Western countries say they are fighting racism; but in fact support it with occupation, bombings and crimes such as those committed in Gaza. These countries support the criminals."

The media reported that Ahmadinejad called the holocaust a myth, which promoted a pre-staged walkout by attending European delegations. But the usage of the word "pretext" is obvious to anyone willing to actually read.

Ahmadinejad's Durban II comments repeat remarks he previously wrote back in early September 2006, in a letter sent to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In it, Ahmadinejad stated, "World War II came to an end with all its material and moral losses and its 60 million casualties. The death of human beings is tragic and sad. In all divine religions and before all awakened conscience and pure nature of mankind and the sense of right and wrong, the life, property and honor of people, regardless of their religious persuasion and ethnic background, must be respected at all times and all places."

By accepting the 60 million death toll of World War II, how could Ahmadinejad be denying the mechanized ethnic cleansing of millions of European Jews? He continued,

"Honorable Chancellor

I have no intention of arguing about the Holocaust. But, does it not stand to reason that some victorious countries of World War II intended to create an alibi on the basis of which they could continue keeping the defeated nations of World War II indebted to them. Their purpose has been to weaken their morale and their inspiration in order to obstruct their progress and power. In addition to the people of Germany, the peoples of the Middle East have also borne the brunt of the Holocaust. By raising the necessity of settling the survivors of the Holocaust in the land of Palestine, they have created a permanent threat in the Middle East in order to rob the people of the region of the opportunities to achieve progress. The collective conscience of the world is indignant over the daily atrocities by the Zionist occupiers, destruction of homes and farms, killing of children, assassinations and bombardments.

Excellency, you have seen that the Zionist government does not even tolerate a government elected by the Palestinian people, and over and over again has demonstrated that it recognizes no limit in attacking the neighboring countries."

If Ahmadinejad's point still isn't clear, he elaborates:

"Using the excuse for the settlement of the survivors of the Holocaust, they encouraged the Jews worldwide to migrate and today a large part of the inhabitants of the occupied territories are non-European Jews. If tyranny and killing is condemned in one part of the world, can we acquiesce and go along with tyranny, killing, occupation and assassinations in another part of the world simply in order to redress the past wrongs?"

The question is not whether the holocaust happened or not, rather, it is how that horrendous tragedy has been exploited in order to justify the establishment of a "Jewish State" in Palestine and rob indigenous Palestinians of their own rights to self-determination. The issue is not to call history into question, but rather to explore the consequences of historical acts.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad has always made a stark distinction between Jewish people and Zionists. He has said on numerous occasions that his opposition to a Jewish State is a political and ideological one, and not to be confused with a violent ultimatum or military threat to the Israeli people. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said that Iran has "no problem with people and nations" and that Iran does "not have any confrontation with anyone. We seek relations based on respect and justice." Even more specifically, in a 2008 CNN interview with Larry King, he stated quite clearly that "we don't have a problem with the Jewish people."

Just to be extra clear, Ahmadinejad declared, "We are opposed to the idea that the people who live there should be thrown into the sea or be burnt," reiterating his belief in self-determination of all people based upon elections: "We believe that all the people who live there [in Israel and Palestine], the Jews, Muslims and Christians, should take part in a free referendum and choose their government."

Even during his widely lambasted Durban II speech, Ahmadinejad clearly demarcated the distinction between the 19th century colonial ideology of Jewish nationalism and the Jewish religion, stating, "The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces."

Despite the fact that Ahmadinejad called for an "end to Zionism," countless news agencies erroneously reported that he sought the "destruction of Israel," and numerous commentators, including British ambassador Peter Gooderham, called these remarks "anti-Semitic."

In his piece about Ahmadinejad's 9/11 statement on Saturday, The New York Times' Robert Mackey, reminded his readers about comments made by the Iranian President during an International al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day rally on September 18, 2009, a national celebration in solidarity with the Palestinian people and in opposition to Zionism. Mackey, who refers to Quds Day as "Iran’s annual anti-Israel day," writes that Ahmadinejad told the crowd that "The pretext for the creation of the Zionist regime is false…It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim." Again, the pretext of the holocaust is not at all the same thing as a lie.

The holocaust, as an historical occurrence admitted to by its own perpetrators in Europe and widely described as the systematic and mechanized murder of millions of Jews, is not being called a lie in this statement. Considering that the indigenous people of Palestine bear no responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Nazis, the consequences of the holocaust, however, as it was used to justify the creation of Israel in Palestine, is what Ahmadinejad states is based on a "mythical claim." This becomes quite clear by listening to the very next line of Ahmadniejad's speech, unreported by Mackey or anyone else in the Western press: "The occupation of Palestine has no connection with the issue of the holocaust."

Later in the Quds Day speech, Ahmadinejad once again made sure to distinguish between Judaism and Zionism:

"The Zionists have no faith. It is a big lie that the Zionists should be considered tantamount to the Jews or the Christians. Zionists are not Jews nor Christians, and, rather, the Zionists seek to destroy all the values brought about by the divine prophets…the basis of Zionism is to destroy human culture and human values and the values of all nations."

Iran itself has an ancient community of over 25,000 Jews, the second largest Jewish population in the Middle East after Israel itself. Along with Ahmadinejad, Siamak Morsadegh, the Jewish Iranian legislator and community leader, has criticized Israel's policies towards Palestinians, especially in Gaza, saying it showed "anti-human behavior…they kill innocent people," and continuing that the Jewish community in Iran does "not recognize a government or a nation for the Zionist regime."

"A New Pearl Harbor"

That Ahmadinejad – along with millions and millions of others around the world – would find the official story of 9/11 suspicious is not without good cause.

A year before the September 11, 2001 attacks, neocon think tank Project for a New American Century, published a 90-page manifesto for a imperially dominant American Empire, urging "that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces." Among its aims, the report, entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century, calls for the United States to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars" and achieve "a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity."

PNAC's members, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Eliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Norman Podhoretz, John Bolton, Scooter Libby, and Richard Perle, believed that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." Maybe those many PNAC members who, later that year, were subsequently appointed to top level positions in Bush's new administration didn't want to wait that long for such a galvanizing moment in order to pursue their own agenda of unilateral preemptive invasions of Middle Eastern countries.

When Ahmadinejad speaks of 9/11 as involving a "complicated intelligence scenario and act," shouldn't the media perhaps contextualize his statement by discussing the exaggerated and manipulated 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident which was largely responsible for launching the American military campaign in Vietnam, the 1954 Israeli false flag operations known as the Lavon Affair conducted against Egypt, or the planned, but never implemented, Operation Northwoods scheme in 1962 concocted by the U.S. Department of Defense to instigate a war with Cuba (one of the plans consisted of hijacking an airplane and blaming the new Castro regime).

IranAffairs' Cyrus Safdari reminds us of "Emad Salem, an undercover FBI informant who had infiltrated the group that carried out the first WTC bombing back in 1993. He was smart enough to record his conversations with the FBI. Turns out, he specifically warned the FBI of the bombing, and offered to replace the bomb material with a harmless substance, but the FBI said no." What about the completely bogus, but thoroughly hyped, "Newburgh bomb plot" to bomb synagogues in Riverdale, NY and fire a missile at a US military jet, which was entirely set up by FBI informant Shahed Hussain.

What about the 2007 statement by National Medal of Science laureate Lynn Margulis in which she referred to 9/11 as a "new false-flag operation, which has been used to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as unprecedented assaults on research, education, and civil liberties"? Or former CIA Middle East operative Robert Baer, who has written, "Until we get a complete, honest, transparent investigation – not one based on 'confession' extracted by torture – we will never know what happened on 9/11." Or former senior CIA official Bill Christison, who wrote that there is a "strong body of evidence showing the official US government story of what happened on September 11, 2001 to be almost certainly a monstrous series of lies." What about the other CIA officials who question the official story?

What about the Guardian report from November 1, 2001 which revealed that, according to French intelligence officials, "Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent"?

What about the mysterious collapse of Tower 7, Able Danger, the failure to scramble jets, the myriad National Security experts denied, ignored, or censored from the 9/11 Commission report, deception and non-cooperation by the Department of Defense, whistle-blowers like Coleen Rowley, supposed short-selling and text message warnings, or the five dancing Israelis seen watching and videotaping the attacks from New Jersey's Liberty State Park across the Hudson River?

What about the British intelligence report, entitled "Responsibility for the terrorist atrocities in the United States," which purports to provide evidence that "Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001, yet begins with the following disclaimer: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law"?

What about the BBC report, entitled "The investigation and the evidence," which concludes, "There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks…At best the evidence is circumstantial."

What about the evidence that, in no verified audio or video tapes, has bin Laden actually claimed responsibility for the attacks, yet has even been quoted as stating, "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act…we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed."

What about the fact that Osama bin Laden is, to this very day, not specifically wanted in connection with the 9/11 attacks, according to FBI's own Most Wanted List?

As a result, is there not plenty of dubious information and spurious evidence surrounding the official story of the September 11 attacks to warrant some sort of suspicion, regardless of what you may personally think actually happened? In this way, with his recent comments, President Ahmadinejad has given voice to the majority of the world. But clearly, for fear they might stumble on some uncomfortable truths, it appears easier for the mainstream media to decontextualize his statements and label him a crackpot conspiracy theorist who is a danger to the American way of life, thus leading the United States down the path to attacking a third Middle Eastern country, than to do its own job.

By misrepresenting the country of Iran, its people, its system of government, its culture, its religion, its elected and unelected leaders, the Western press has already set the stage for an attack on the Islamic Republic. Because of the media's sensational and propagandistic reporting, 71% of Americans already believing that Iran currently possesses nuclear weapons. 90% think that the power of Iran's military poses either a critical or important "threat to U.S. vital interests" (despite the fact that Iran's military budget that is literally one hundred times smaller than that of the US). 59% of American citizens even support unilateral, preemptive US military action against Iran regardless of whether economic or diplomatic efforts achieve the government's desired effect.

Perhaps, as was seen with the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, the press is doing exactly what the US government wants it to do.

*****

Contact him at wideasleepinamerica@gmail.com.
–
Wide Asleep In America
Brooklyn, NY
http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com

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Vienna – Kawther Salam – March 8 2010, International Women’s Day.

March 8 is a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women, but also it is a day to remind the governments which have enacted more laws that violate women's rights, that they must review these laws, which for example allow the labor offices to force these women into contracts where the labor of women is sold cheaply, 690 Euro monthly for a 45 hour week, far under the level of poverty, and 30% of their salary is deducted once the women are rented out, according to what I was told. These "contracts" and the how these women (and men) are bullied into them correspond to the definition of forced labor set forth in the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, ratified by Austria on 07.06.1960. Quote:

For the purposes of this Convention the term "forced or compulsory labour" shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily. Click here to read the law.

The convention states some explicit exceptions of this definition, such as military service and community services in certain qualified cases, but the kind of activity to which these people are forced have nothing to do with these stated exceptions.

In Vienna, unemployed women (and also men) are bullied by the labor office into "contracts" with companies which in turn rent them out to anybody needing a cheap worker. It is not clear if the bad deal of these women forced into virtual slavery has to do with labor laws which have been passed by the governments of the European Union in the wake of the economic crisis that swept global markets and led to the continuing collapse in the domestic and international economy, or if has to do with changing the statistical data about unemployment in Austria in order to make them look more favorable to the government. In any case, if these assumptions are right or wrong, the Austrian laws forbid forced labour. The Austrian penal code deals with slavery, forced labour and similar crimes in sections 104 to 106 in the chapter about "Human Trafficking".

On the basis of the Austrian laws, but also taking in account the expectations of citizens, it is very important to raise this issue at the International Women's Day, regardless of whether raising this issue will be satisfactory or unsatisfactory to the concerned authorities. We insist on raising the women issue in several successive reports, until it reaches the ears of the authorities, who will hopefully introduce changes and solutions in the best interest of the people.

Based on what I have been told and personally seen, I must ask if the labor offices have been turned into business projects which effectively sell the labour of women to other companies, and very cheap.

• Is the labour office forcing women back under the reign of feudal lords and slavers?Are the psychological pressure and the overt threats against women brought into such relations, such as the threat to terminate unemployment or welfare benefits, as done by the employees at the labor office and these companies every day against women, in line with Austrian laws and the aspirations of a democratic society?
• Can it be "legal" to force an elderly lady who obviously is incapable of work due to constant shaking of all her body into "work" for one of such companies?
• How can one qualify the threat to terminate benefits because a woman announces a visit to the doctor?
• Are the methods of psychological pressure and threatening women to cut their allowance of subsidy implied by labor workers against women in accordance with the laws of Austria? Which are the provisions of Austrian law on the prevention of transfer of women and citizens into forced labour relations?

In light of the data available to me, the labor office force threatens women with withholding benefits if they dare to protest against being bullied into "labor" relations in certain companies under the pretext helping them to look for work – these "measures" are always represented as "courses" where people are supposed to learn how to find work, as I know from many conversations. The labour office usually rejects to the wishes of women to choose a profession or line of work which they think suits them best, and instead they are "made" saleswomen, nail polishers and hairdressers, to be rented out.

I was greatly disappointed when I visited one such company which runs a program to process women over 50 sent to them by the labour office. One of the women I saw there was a woman over 60, all her body was trembling, she had to cough whenever she moved. I asked an "instructor" what kind of work they would find for this woman. I also asked her for her opinion about selling women in the work market?

This sick woman was a client of the social office, as, according to the new laws, the social office now submits their clients to the work office to "help them look for work", and the labour and welfare offices work together. In most countries of the world, even the undeveloped countries, there is a separation between the employment (labor) offices and the offices of social affairs, for very obvious reasons, but in Austria, and apparently the EU the situation is different. In the EU the social cases, the sick people and the elderly are under threat to have their benefits withheld if they do not do whatever the labour offices want from them.

During a visit to another company which holds such "courses", I saw some of the bums usually standing around at Karlsplatz, a meeting place for the bums and drug addicts of the city, clearly not labour office clients. I wonder what kind of work these people will able do, but the presence of people who are obviously unable to work hints at another problem which I have been told in my conversations, but which I can not confirm: corruption and collusion between these companies and government officials to milk the social and employment welfare system.

In this company the "clients" are allocated to do small work according to the whims of the company. At the beginning of the interview, the "instructor" asks the client which work they would like to do? After that, the client is told that they can’t offer them this kind of work, and then pressure and bullying begins, and continues until the "client" chooses whatever work they are offered, usually selling, cleaning, menial office work and other similar occupations. The "instructor" never forgets to remind the attendants that they will file a negative report about them if she or he does not do whatever they are told, "chooses" whatever they are "offered". People are "asked" to sign a paper, under threat of a negative report or course.

According to what I was told, people are pooled for a month after signing their "agreement" with the company, and they are "trained" during this time to do menial work. After this, the company which runs the program starts renting them out. The only obvious "benefit" to the government is that people who are in such programs are not considered as unemployed, but are still financed by the office of labour. This changes (falsifies ?) the statistics significantly. As of February 2010 there were about 400.000 people officially registered as unemployed in Austria, and about 82.000 of these persons were in such programs. It appears that welfare clients, people who are traditionally classified as unemployable for various reasons, are being included in such programs with the intension of "bettering" the long-term unemployment statistics.

For the people who are included in such programs, their personal situation is such that they are forced for up to 8 months into a pseudo-labour relation where they are pooled with others for 45 hours per week at 690 Euro monthly, and, if they are rented out, 30% of the salary is deducted, as my sources told me, an income far under poverty level, which is set at about 950 Euros monthly for a working week of 38,5 hours in Austria. I could not understand what economic sense it makes to the government to falsify its unemployment statistics by forcing people into such programs, as the full costs for these women and men are still being born by the government. According to my information, people in such programs are kept for the first 30 days as "course participants", and are thereafter run as employed in the employment statistics, while still being paid in full from the unemployment or social money of the government. If a woman in such a pool completes the 8 months without having been rented out, she will automatically return to labour office, probably only to be included in the next pooling program.

If a woman included in such a program can be rented out, it probably means that they will be paid at under market prices, what gives no incentive to the "renter" to keep her in his employ beyond the end of the pooling program, what also means that the woman will also find her way to the labour office. Based on the observation that the participants forced into such pooling programs are actually paid by the government, the official statistic of only 400.000 unemployed can be assumed to be far lower than the real number of people unemployed in this country, because this is a category of people who are neither in "courses" nor "unemployed" proper.

For the companies running these programs, the benefit seems obvious. According to what I was told, they get to cut for themselves the difference between 690 Euros (what is paid to the clients) and about 900 Euros, and it is possible that they are paid a sum on top of that. I understand that in Austria such pooling and pseudo-capacitation programs are run by a few big companies, what assures them handsome profits based solely on the number of people unemployed. A very simple calculation would indicate that running such a pooling program with 1.000 participants can leave net profits of about 120.000 Euros per month.

Another important factor in the revenue stream of such companies, which are widely called parasites ("Schmarotzerfirmen") by Austrians, seems to be corruption. Even without leveling the accusation of activities which would qualify legally as corrupt, their activity is questionable at best as the deteriorating labour statistics demonstrate. Still, a case which became widely known in the Austrian corporate media is the now-defunct company "Venezia", which was caught in a scandal which implicated ministerial employees in transferring funds to this company for non-existent invoices.

I was told in personal conversations that in the case of courses of German for foreigners (all foreigners must by law attend German courses in Austria), most legitimate language institutes have no chance of getting contracts from the government, as these contracts are given to a few big companies, and this has to do with what I understood to be a "60:40" arrangement, meaning a 40% kickback. I understood from the person who told me this that it was general knowledge among institutes offering language courses. I am not in a position to confirm this information.

Some questions are:

• Are women (and men) led into forced labor in companies which work for the labour office?
• Which is the relationship between the labor office and these companies beyond the formal contract?
• Who are the owners of those companies?
• Are they from circles closes to politicians, political parties in power and employees in the labor offices and ministries?
• Have any of these companies achieved positive results towards ending the problem of unemployment?
• Does the labor office use these companies to falsify the statistical data about unemployment, or can this charge be easily refuted with verifiable information?
• How exactly would such a falsification of statistics happen if it was true?
• Is the falsification of unemployment statistics a violation of any law?
• Why has the Austrian corporate media avoided these issues until now, instead opted for running a show which suggests that everything is well?

The answers for these questions will be followed in a future article.

I was told by acquaintances that I should abstain from writing this report as it would bring nothing at best, and that it could even bring me troubles. I think that it is important to report on these issues because women (and men) should not be treated like garbage in a country which presents itself as a civilized, democratic country, because always women are those who suffer the most from deteriorated social conditions, because I believe that not only citizens but also the government should act according to the law, anywhere. I find that this is an issue so big and important that the mass media, which have far more resources than I, should have a deep and abiding interest in bringing some clarity into this issue, which is not only about women rights, but also about human rights and democracy.

Murder in Dubai by Edna Spennato

Murder in Dubai

The following eleven voices from different countries show views on Palestine after the breakdown of Zionism, written in 2030, three years after the State of Israel had collapsed.

1. Shlomo Berge: "Three years ago, the last war in the region ended. We as Israelis never knew how real peace would feel like, because we were told that there will always be anti-Semites who want to exterminate us. In a way, the way things went was inevitable. We just saw no other solution and were backed by so many countries in our violent delusion. I remember from kindergarten and school how our army was glorified as was the defense against the enemies. Gaza 3 changed a lot of that. While in Gaza 1 and 2 some thousands of Palestinians were killed, Gaza 3 reduced the population by about 20 percent. Of course there had been many outcries, but Israel was used to face opposition and to preserve what was called 'self-defense'. Things then happened very quickly: riots and terror attacks from Palestinians inside Israel led to their expulsion by the army. When the settlements in the West Bank were attacked, the army went all the way and cleared the West Bank completely from the Arabs, claiming that the enemy wanted to make the region 'judenfrei', i.e. free from Jews. There was a huge celebration when Israel was finally freed, a little like back in 1967. As Israel had pre-emptively struck Iran with small nuclear bombs and also invaded Syria and Lebanon, there was no power left to immediately threaten us. The US had already weakened all other powers in the region. Only international rejection became really harsh and massive and Israel finally left the United Nations, stating that the anti-Jewish Nazi spirit in the UN countries was unacceptable and that nobody was to tell Israel what to do to save its existence. By that time, about four million people had been killed by Israel, while about 40.000 Zionist soldiers and some Jewish civilians were killed. Although the number of enemies had increased, nobody dared to attack the Zionist state, because Israel openly threatened to drop more nuclear weapons as it had done in Iran. But instead of having peace, Israel fell into a civil war. Some settlers tried to take over large portions of land declaring they represented the real Israel. Several Jewish groups launched terror attacks while Jews from many countries entered and claimed land and property. The army split up into several factions and soon we had no more government. There were hundreds of dead Jews every day and nobody could help us. Whoever tried to analyze the situation was called an anti-Semite, because allegedly Jews were seen as the perpetrators of all evil which is an old anti-Semitic cliché. People did not distinguish between Jews and Zionists. Many Jews were not perpetrators, but as non-Zionists they were not accepted as real Jews by the people in power. It was such a shame. The militias just had way too many weapons. It was chaos. Far more than a million Jews left the country in despair. In the end, the Palestinians just came back and founded the Democratic Republic of Palestine. They were the only ones left to run the country."

2. Lubna Younis: "I lost my whole family in the second Nakba, when the Zionists drove us out of Nablus to stop all resistance and terror attacks forever. I was just a child then, but I remember how the missiles flew and the tanks came in. The Zionists called it a 'transfer' and said it was to reach peace from the terrorists, but like in 1948 they killed many of the men in combat age. I played outside when a bomb destroyed our home. Everybody inside was dead. Such a typical Palestinian story ever since 1948. The neighbors took me with them to Jordan. Unlike 1948, the exile of the second Nakba only lasted for five years. The Zionists had no more targets and so they started killing each other. In the end, the whole country was devastated. You know, in the 5000 years of the history of this country it never faced such a destruction. Olive trees need decades and centuries to grow and so many thousands of them were pulled out of the ground. Pollution and the wall also helped in ruining the beautiful landscapes. Nothing like this had ever happed to this country before and never was the local population forced out like that. When the Zionists used up their weapons against themselves and when the government broke down in the Civil War, the United Nations sent troops to Dimona to make sure nobody uses nuclear weapons again. It was enough that some of them had been used against Iran. Then, when it was quiet, we just returned to our homes and villages. There were several waves of people returning, also from the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and other places. Today, a majority of 70 percent Palestinians live in Palestine, Muslims, Christians, Jews and atheists. The rest are former Israelis, the survivors of the Civil War minus the emigrants. Many went back to where they or their parents originally came from, the USA, Russia and other places. More than a million Jews moved during the Civil War and many others after the establishment of Palestine. Of course we persecuted the war criminals among the remaining Jews, but in the end only three or four thousand were put into jail. Some incidents of lynch mobs are known, but the new authorities were strictly against that and cooperated with the UN. (By that time the UN headquarters had already moved to Europe.) We wanted to stop all extra-judicial killings, we just had enough of all that. We then rebuilt our cities and villages and kind of resumed our history in a way that we had been deprived of since the days of Lawrence of Arabia. Nobody talks about terrorism anymore, all the borders are open now, and soon all Arabs will have a shared currency. It is good now, no more killing, and yet we still mourn the millions of victims. At least, so we want to think, all these people did not die in vain. But sometimes it is hard to recall all this horror. Every year, we commemorate the dead of all sides including the European Holocaust in the Count Bernadotte Congregation Hall in Jerusalem."

3. Umm Midian: "I belong to the very few Israeli Jews who have always been in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people. I lived in Israel then and I live much better in Palestine now. There was a huge fear that the Arabs would kill all Jews once the army would not defend them anymore. But it turned out that ironically the Jews in the country have never been as secure as they are now. Many Arabs felt honest sympathy when they saw how Jews killed Jews by the thousands, despite the fact that millions of Arabs and Muslims had been killed by the Zionists before. Racist Zionism was the original problem, there is no more doubt about that today, even in the US. Nobody seems to want to talk about Zionism anymore, as if the Zionists had come from outer space and then disappeared again like extra-terrestials. Of course the Zionist perpetrators were and are taken to account by their victims. This is normal and it is a matter of justice. But the fear of a heavy revenge proved to be unwarranted. Maybe deep in their hearts the Zionists thought: since we have been so brutal with them on a regular basis, they just have to hate us and give us exactly what we gave to them. But they forgot that those Arab and Muslim victims are no Zionists, they do not follow this logic."

4. Theodor Madden: "By the time Israel fell apart I worked in the US Foreign Office. They were difficult years ever since it came out that 9/11 was an inside job, orchestrated by parts of our own government. You remember the conspiracy theory according to which Islamic terrorists did the job. When the voices of architects and firemen got louder, asking how three buildings could collapse like that against all laws of physics, the pressure got really hard. Then there were many other unsolved questions, e.g. about the much too small hole in the Pentagon building, the lack of remains, the suspicious drills, strange facts about the so-called terrorists and so on. The government should just have provided answers. Instead, the Patriot Act was used against the critics. And we lost so many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan and spent so many billions of dollars. Why? All this was originally linked to 9/11 without any logic. People started asking what we were trying to accomplish in the countries we attacked. So we were almost paralyzed when Israel targeted Iran unilaterally, when it expelled the Palestinians and when it started destroying itself physically. There was nothing at all the US could have done to prevent this. What should we have done? Send in troops into a civil war zone? To support whom? Our own country was about to collapse and this is actually still possible, although rather unlikely, because we brought all our troops back home now. The situation thus has deescalated for us. Moreover, we do not send weapons to what is now Palestine and do not pay the Egyptians and other regimes any more money, which saves billions of dollars. The whole arms industry is in decline and we do not really care after this nightmare. My personal opinion is that we should have arrived at this conclusion soon after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I personally never was an adherent of Zionism, but of course it was a shock to see our close ally Israel breaking down like a house of cards. The good thing is that there are many fewer weapons in the region now. We never thought that stability could be so cheap, financially speaking. We had to give up our hegemony of the oil fields and strategic places, but we are learning to appreciate the new possibilities that go with regional stability. We don't have the choice, anyway, I guess."

5. Agathe Mengel: "As a German politician it has always been clear to me that we had to stand by the side of Israel and there is nothing we have to be sorry for! The constant rocket-fire and anti-Semitism forced Israel to defend itself. The collapse of the State of Israel is a catastrophe, because it was a safe haven for all the Jews in the world. This is why we have recognized the new state only because the EU has made this decision and we could not have opposed it. It is beyond question that the German history has made the State of Israel necessary. Anti-Semitism is still very strong in the world and Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East. It may be true that there have not been any combat actions observed in the region for three years, but this can change any time. We certainly did not make a mistake here in Germany when we supported Israel, because we have a responsibility."

6. Yossi Feinsand: "I am one of the survivors of the Civil War and I admit that I used to be an ardent Zionist before this war. But in the end I recognized that we were the ones who made the biggest mistakes. I feel betrayed by my parents, schools, politicians, and media. They always told us we cannot be wrong and that it is an old anti-Semitic cliché that the Jews are the guilty ones. But it is we who were guilty in Palestine! Not because we were Jews, but because we were Zionists. It developed into a racist ideology not much better than Nazism, if at all. How many people did we kill? Millions. It started when we came from abroad, made our state without any agreements and at the same time expelled the indigenous population. We were told in our schools that we are special, the chosen people, eternal victims, and that we need a strong army to fight our vicious enemies. Today I live in Jerusalem among all these 'enemies' and they are much nicer than what we used to be. As Zionists, we actually projected all of our own faults onto the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims. We accused them of hostility when we were hostile. We called them violent while being violent. We held Islam to be an evil religion, because we as Zionists acted in an evil way. We claimed they want to take our land and what we did was take their land. Why did our friends not stop us? I feel so ashamed and can only say how proud I am to be a Palestinian now. I tell my story to everyone and even learned Arabic to do so. Wherever I come I receive so much affection and friendship that it makes me cry. How generous my fellow countrymen are, how great also the Islamic religion. They do not torture me, they all forgave me and I have nothing to fear in my great country, in Palestine!"

7. Naser Ateeq: "Like every Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Human Rights advocate I am more than happy that the long Zionist nightmare finally has ended. And it is clear to the world now what the 'conflict' was all about. They had taken our land and expelled us, killing many, and most of the world had called our legitimate resistance 'terrorism' and turned us from victims to perpetrators, because the weakest always become the scapegoat. Why did they not learn from the German history? But in the end the world saw the real face of Zionism and now they are quiet at last and we got our land back. Now we must face our own demons, because we do not want to make the same mistakes and project our traumas onto others. One of the taboos of our Palestinian society is, for example, child abuse. It has always been normal for our fathers to beat the children. And society has covered it up. Parents used to be like gods, beyond justice. Even for driving a car you need a license, but children can be raised by every idiot. This must stop now! The problems of our society were not all produced by Israel. By beating our children we have destroyed ourselves and by oppressing our sisters, because they are women, we also did wrong. We have had a damned pasha society and some even derived this sinful behavior wrongly from the Qur'an or the Bible. Some groups have killed and threatened Jewish civilians and there is no excuse for that, not occupation, not anything. We have killed collaborators and showed that we can also be killers, just like them. And we witnessed lynch mobs, even if they were few, after the collapse of the Zionist state. All this must stop immediately and without condition. No more killing! No more oppression! No more beating of our beloved and helpless children! In many respects, we are completely retarded and backward. 'Takhalluf' is the Arabic word for that, in case you have forgotten. A lot of all that is claimed to be Islamic, but I don't believe that. Fortunately, we are a democratic society now. It did not astonish me that in our second free elections the Islamic parties have lost their majority. They have their place and they are important, but Palestine has always been open to all faiths and so it is only normal that the Democratic Party has won the last elections. In it we find all currents in the good manner of Bir Zeit campus society in its best days. There are even some people in it who used to be in the collaborator party of Fatah."

8. Muna el-Missiry: "Egypt profited so much from the new time. Not only because the borders to Palestine and ALL other Arab countries plus Iran are open now, but we also got rid of the unwanted regime, even without a military coup. Like in some other Arab countries the Islamists started with a big success after Gaza 3. They are the only popular currents that were able to gain a huge block of voters, because they represent our main religion and because they are not as corrupt as other trends, especially those affiliated with the West. But then, like in Palestine itself, the peoples recognized that a liberal society in the end works better and that it does not deny religion, anyway. We will not forget that it was the Islamists who opened all the borders, in their quest to restore Islamic unity and the 'umma', i.e. the universal Muslim community. Traveling educated us Egyptians, us Arabs and Muslims a lot and we had hungered for that. Of course, not all of our problems have ceased with the disappearance of the Zionist state, but a lot of them really have. The falcons in Arab countries cannot take Israel as a pretext for weapon-trade and sternness anymore, and indeed we do not feel threatened, especially since the US has completely withdrawn all its troops from the region. Today I can travel from Cairo to Jerusalem in only a few hours, without a visa! In fact, I went there only two weeks ago to help rebuild the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque which were heavily damaged in the last years of the Zionist Civil War."

9. Yousuf Sharif: "Since we threw our king out of the country, Jordan faces much more than a renewal. People call it a rebirth. Everything seems possible now. We have a free press and nobody has to fear anything when speaking out against injustice. Jordanian kings have a long history of collaboration with the Zionists and this chapter is closed now forever! Every Palestinian in Jordan – that is about 70 percent of the population – is free to return to Palestine. Most of them don't, because they found a home in Jordan and they can travel to Palestine whenever they want. Only the victims of the second Nakba returned with an overwhelming majority."

10. Gulamhusein: "I am now an old man of 102 years. I was born in Bombay. For most of my life there I lived in terror, what with ghastly Hindu-Muslim riots breaking out on a regular basis. To make matters worse we had the British occupying our land, our beloved India, and lording it over us. Under the leadership of Gandhi we mounted a movement to drive them out and we ultimately did. Even as we gained independence in India, Palestinians lost more than half of their land to an Israeli state imposed on them by the international community, many members of which had their arms twisted to vote for the UN partition resolution. There followed a massacre of Palestinians. I simply could not understand how the Jews, who had suffered so much under the Germans and others, could inflict so much death, destruction and misery on the Palestinians so as to be able to create a Jewish state of their own on the land the Palestinians had occupied for centuries. Nor could I understand how those living in Israel, and even more puzzlingly, those living in other countries, could believe the Israeli propaganda that the Palestinians were trying to take their land and drive them into the sea when the truth was that the Jews were taking Palestinian land and trying to drive the Palestinians, if not into the sea or the Jordan River, then out of what used to be their land. It took me some time to learn and understand that not all Jews were complicit. Many were, from the start, opposed to Zionism. It was only the Zionists who were to blame and, even most of the Zionists believed and acted as they did because the truth was hidden from them and they were fed lies from childhood. As time went on, more and more of these came forward and said so. The Nakba of 1947/48, the 1967 War, the 2009 Israeli invasion and destruction of Gaza, and the failure of the international community to come to the aid of the Palestinians, take suitable action against Israel for its violations of international law and end Israel's illegal and brutal occupation of West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights, left me shaken, and almost destroyed my faith in justice. I wondered if Palestinians would ever get justice. But history, as life, takes strange and unexpected turns. After the Civil War, the Palestinians, who had been driven out of their lands, started coming back from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and even from far away countries. The Israelis feared that the Palestinians would do unto them as they had done unto the Palestinians. But the Palestinians, the majority of them Muslims, remembered their beginnings. Their Prophet and his followers (the Muslims), had been persecuted and tortured for years by the Meccans and had ultimately been driven out of Mecca. Years later, the Muslims marched triumphantly back into Mecca, led by Prophet Muhammad. At that moment, the Meccans hid, fearing that the Muslims would be vengeful and there would be a massacre. But Muhammad had ordered the returning Muslims that there was to be no looting or pillaging, no killing, no rape, no taking of slaves. And there was none. – In the three years that have elapsed since the collapse of Israel there has been a great change. There is, at last, peace in the region. The inhabitants of the Democratic Republic of Palestine — Jews, Muslims, Christians, no matter what their faith or ethnic origin – live in peace and harmony, as of old. The phony "war on terror" has ended. I never imagined this day would come. Nor did millions of others. But come it did, three years to this day. It is a miracle. As is my being alive at 102 years!"

11. Dana Azulai: "At the beginning of the Civil War my parents got killed in a bombing. I had just finished school by the time and did not know how to carry on. I was in despair. When my relatives in Canada invited me to come to them, I accepted their offer gratefully. They took care of all the formalities and, luckily, it all worked out rather quickly. Despite the fact that Israel had gained a very bad reputation in world, due to the 'transfer' of the Arabs, the attacks on Iran and the Civil War, I was well-received by most of the Canadians, and treated in a friendly way. I also found a job very soon. But despite all of that I never really felt well. The weather and the landscape are so much different and also the mentality of the people. When the Civil War was over I certainly thought about returning. But then the Palestinians founded their state and my dream to go back home, was soon over. Surely, the Palestinians would not allow the return of Jews. Besides, how could I voluntarily go to a land that was now governed by our enemies? But I still was in touch with some friends, who had stayed in Israel and who had survived. They, too, were afraid after the new state was built. But in the course of time they reported about the reconstruction work and about the peaceful coexistence. It was not so easy for me, but the country, that now called itself the Democratic Republic of Palestine, was my homeland. I missed my friends, the Mediterranean Sea, the sun, and everything. So half a year ago I returned. I was astonished about the fact that it was so easy. I just had to prove that I was born in the territory of what today is Palestine and immediately got my papers. It is not easy to be back. I am always confronted with what my people did to the Palestinians and to themselves. But I am happy that I ventured to do it."

# 10 written by Gulamhusein Abba (www.anis-online.de/1/rooms/gulamhusein/index.htm), # 11 written by Sabine Yacoub, www.sabine-yacoub.de, all other entries by Anis
http://www.anis-online.de/2/literatur/2030.htm