Sabbah Report

How Much Military Aid to Israel…Do You Provide?

2010-02-09T16:57:17Z

Between 2009-2018, the United States is scheduled to give Israel–the largest recipient of U.S. aid–$30 billion in military aid. Through its illegal 42-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, Israel misuses U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. law to kill and injure Palestinian civilians, destroy Palestinian civilian infrastructure, blockade the Gaza Strip, and build illegal settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem.

How much of this total will your community provide? Is this a good use of your tax dollars? What else could your taxes be used for in your community? Find out on the interactive map below.

(Click on any state to check the figures)

Source: http://www.aidtoisrael.org/
Get the map code to embed on your blog from here!

How Much Military Aid to Israel…Do You Provide? is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Will Obama Opt for War on Iran?

2010-02-08T18:58:56Z

By Dr. Stephen Sniegoski* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Two articles, one by anti-war conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan and the other by neoconservative Daniel Pipes, deal with the issue of Obama moving toward war on Iran for political reasons. In "Will Obama Play the War Card?," Patrick Buchanan points out that this option is certainly a political temptation for Obama especially since Congress is pushing him in that direction. Buchanan cites Congress' effort to impose very stiff sanctions on refined petroleum exports to Iran as a move toward war.

[On January 28, 2010, the U.S. Senate passed by voice vote the "Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009" (S. 2799). The bill now goes to conference committee to be reconciled with a similar bill from the House of Representatives, the "Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act" (H.R. 2194), which passed the House in December 2009. Because of the similarity of the two bills and the strong bipartisan support in both Houses of Congress, a final bill incorporating the essence of the Senate bill is almost guaranteed to be passed by both houses of Congress. The Obama administration has expressed objections, but there is no indication that Obama would dare to veto the final bill-and given the overwhelming congressional support, any presidential veto could be easily over-ridden.]

"Senate bill 2799," Buchanan writes, "would punish any company exporting gasoline to Iran. Though swimming in oil, Iran has a limited refining capacity and must import 40 percent of the gas to operate its cars and trucks and heat its homes." He argues that "cutting off a country's oil or gas is a proven path to war." And he cites the examples of Japan attacking the US in 1941 after the US embargo on oil supplies and Israel attacking Egypt in 1967 after Nasser threatened to close the Straits of Tiran through which Israel received 95 percent of its oil. While the implementation of the current sanctions would not cause Iran to attack the United States, it certainly would increase tensions and help to lead to war. Iran will certainly try to get around the sanctions and any American naval efforts to prevent gasoline from entering Iran could precipitate war.

"The Senate," Buchanan writes, "is trying to force Obama's hand, box him in, restrict his freedom of action, by making him impose sanctions that would cut off the negotiating track and put us on a track to war."

Buchanan also hits the mark by pointing out that "U.S. interests would seem to dictate supporting those elements in Iran who wish to be rid of the regime and re-engage the West. But if that is our goal, the Senate bill, and a House version that passed 412 to 12, seem almost diabolically perverse." The sanctions obviously will tend to unify the country behind the regime. Of course, the neocon/Israel goal is not to bring in the reformers-who also tend to support the Palestine resistance and seek to develop nuclear power-but to destabilize the country by war. This can best be achieved by keeping the demonized Ahmadinejad in power.

In the second article, "How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran," neocon Daniel Pipes naturally encourages Obama to opt for war. "He [Obama] needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a light-weight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.

"Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy Iran's nuclear-weapon capacity."

Pipes candidly admits that the imposition of "crippling" sanctions on Iran would not contribute to a peaceful settlement but would help to put the United States "on an escalator to confrontation that could lead straight to war."

Pipes correctly observes that "Obama's attempts to 'reset' his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics." There are no simply no easy answers for the economic problems that beset America.

Now Pipes is obviously not out to help Obama, but what he says about the political benefits of war are certainly true. If Republican Party leaders were half-way intelligent, they would realize that pushing the country to war is not in their political interest. But the Republican Party is not called the "stupid party" for nothing, and it is in the thrall of the neoconservatives-at least indirectly, since the neocons control Murdoch's Fox News and strongly influence the popular right-wing radio broadcasters such as Rush Limbaugh. Republicans already did irreparable damage to their party by giving whole-hearted support for the war on Iraq, so the Republicans are quite likely to snatch defeat from the hands of victory.

Pipes presents something on the order of the spurious claim of Saddam's super dangerous WMD to justify the need for a US bombing attack on Iran. "Eventually, they [Iran] could launch an electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies." Of course, an Iranian electromagnetic pulse attack is highly theoretical. A high altitude explosion would cause damage to electronic communication devices (a nuclear atmospheric test explosion 800 miles from Hawaii in 1962 knocked out a small percentage of the island's civilian electronic devices) but that it would disrupt all communications devices to the point of preventing a devastating counter strike is highly questionable. Perhaps China, Russia, and the US possess the capability of developing a weapon that could deliver a knockout blow that would prevent nuclear retaliation (though tests to determine this with certitude would seem almost impossible to conduct), but the likelihood that Iran could do this or would dare to take such a risk would seem very remote compared to threats from other countries against the US that would increase every time the US made an unprovoked attack on another country-the more the US engages in allegedly preventive wars, the more likely it is for a fearful nuclear power to launch a preventive war against the US.

Despite the fantasy aspect of an Iranian electromagnetic pulse threat, it is reasonable to believe that such a claim, if publicized widely, could resonate with a substantial proportion of the American public and help to cause the US to launch a preventive war. In fact, this would seem to be the element that is currently lacking in the existing war propaganda -the American people have not yet been made to believe that Iran really threatens the US homeland.

* Dr. Stephen J. Sniegoski is a historian and author of The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel.

Will Obama Opt for War on Iran? is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Israeli Zionists Shout 'Hitler Was Right!'

2010-02-07T18:22:55Z

On Friday 25-12-09, about 250 demonstrators (Israeli peace activists) were walking and drumming down Hanevi'im st. in Jerusalem, as part of a weekly non-violent demonstration against the occupation of Palestinian houses by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian Neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah (in East Jerusalem). These are some of the responses they encountered on the way.

Warning: NSFW!

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3gKcpeFCb4

Israeli Zionists Shout 'Hitler Was Right!' is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tweet Digest for 2010-02-07

2010-02-07T22:01:00Z

#Christmas Day Crotch Bomber Tied to #Israel, #FBI | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14Khz #ICTS #Mossad 15:19:20
Time for an #American #Intifada? | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14Jie #Exodus #Zionism #Israel 12:22:47
Rethinking "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14Im0 #obama #palestine #israel 09:42:46
Please, Mr. President, Stop Talking Nonsense | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14Igq #obama #palestine #israel 09:22:24
#Palestinian running for #Texas governor – Farouk Shami for Texas Governor http://ow.ly/14Ig3 09:21:47
Deputy #Israeli FM Ayalon shakes hands with #Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal – http://ow.ly/14IfD 09:21:07

Tweet Digest for 2010-02-07 is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Gaza in Plain Language [Video]

2010-02-07T17:52:37Z

I hope you will reserve nine minutes and 41 seconds of your time to look at this video.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFK5TNcmEmg

It really is time that the story of what is being done to the oppressed people of Gaza gets as wide a coverage as possible, in these days of overt and blatant mainstream-media bias for Zionist Israel.

If it arouses your anger and compassion as much as it did mine, when reading Joe Mowrey's fine essay and editing this video, please share it with as many people as you can.

The article "Gaza in Plain Language", by Joe Mowrey, first published by Dissident Voice (http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/gaza-in-plain-language/).

Video editor: Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson) is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn't find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

Gaza in Plain Language [Video] is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Christmas Day Crotch Bomber Tied to Israel, FBI

2010-02-07T12:15:11Z

By Jeff Gates* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The Christmas Day "terrorist" is the latest in a series of staged incidents meant to make The Clash of Civilizations appear plausible and "the war on terrorism" rational.

The storyline does not hold together. Not even a little bit. As usual, the source of this media-fueled fear campaign traces directly to Tel Aviv-with a supporting role by the FBI.

How did a young Nigerian Muslim without a passport "slip through" security at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport? Not only did his itinerary feature an illogical travel route, he paid cash for a high-priced last-minute ticket and boarded without checked baggage. How?

ICTS International, the security screening company at Schiphol, was founded by former members of Shin Bet, Israel's civil security agency, and Israeli executives in charge of El Al security. ICTS had already proven its expertise in mounting this type of operation.

In December 2001, Richard "The Shoe Bomber" Reid "slipped through" ICTS security at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Huntleigh USA, an ICTS subsidiary, shared responsibility for security at Logan International Airport in Boston where hijackers for two of the four 911 jets "slipped through" airport security. It gets better.

The Crotch Bomber told U.S. authorities that radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki counseled him on the incident. Born and raised in New Mexico, Al-Awlaki moved to Yemen in 2004 after advising the two 911 hijackers who trained in San Diego. He also advised U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan who is charged with shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009.

It's not yet clear whether FBI agents were monitoring the Nigerian while he too was advised by Al-Awlaki. If not, that would be an anomaly in a repetitive pattern of FBI complicity.

FBI agents not only monitored Major Hasan and Al-Awlaki before the Fort Hood shootings, they also monitored the San Diego hijackers while they were advised by Al-Awlaki. It gets better.

Though the Nigerian was foiled while trying to ignite 80 grams of PETN, an explosive sewn into his underwear, that amount was barely enough to dislodge the arm on his seat – of course that assumes it could have been ignited.

Without a blasting cap, this "terrorist incident" was doomed to failure even before he "slipped through" security. Could this get even better? Oh yeah.

We were told about his father alerting the C.I.A. station chief in Lagos However we were not informed that his father, a banker, oversaw a Nigerian defense firm that hired Israeli Defense Forces personnel to train Nigerians-in security.

Nor were we told that, for decades, Nigeria has been a central hub for Israelis laundering the proceeds of their transnational organized crime. That's not all.

The Iraq War Connection

Four days after 911, San Diego special agent Steven Butler came to the San Diego home of Iraqi-American Munther Ghazal, the Iraqi closest to Saddam Hussein then living in the U.S.

That's the same day Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz proposed in a principal's meeting at Camp David that the U.S. should invade Iraq. Iraq?!

Agent Butler paid rent and cashed checks for the two San Diego hijackers while they were being advised by Al-Awlaki. What did Butler want to know? Was Ghazal funding Mel Rockefeller with whom he had traveled to Iraq in 1997.

While in Baghdad, they confirmed that Saddam Hussein had mothballed Iraq's WMD program after the 1991 Gulf War-and was prepared to negotiate his departure without this war. That was four years before 911. The FBI has yet to interview Mel Rockefeller.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects are once again profiting off the misery of both sides in a "Clash" that they played a key role in creating. It was Jewish Zionist Bernard Lewis who first coined the term, The Clash of Civilizations.

Only later was Harvard professor Samuel Huntington branded with that premise when his book by that name was published in 1996, five years before 911.

Israeli-American Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security (aka the rabbi's son), now promotes firms that manufacturer highly intrusive body scanners that are terrific for spotting crotch bombers unless, of course, an Israeli firm is in charge of security.

News reports suggest that the stock of body-scanning firms soared $3 billion in value after this latest "terrorist" incident. Imagine the glee among clients of the Chertoff Group.

Meanwhile the U.S. has been transformed from the wealthiest nation to the world's largest debtor. Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz projects a $3 trillion tab for a war based on fixed, flawed and outright fabricated intelligence-every cent of it borrowed, including $700 billion in interest.

Tel Aviv: The Common Source of Terror

That's not all. Controlling shares in ICTS are held by Menachem Atzmon, board chairman since 2004. While treasurer of Israel's long-dominant Likud Party, Atzmon was convicted of campaign finance fraud. His co-treasurer, Ehud Olmert, resigned as Prime Minister in 2008 after being acquitted of fraud amid multiple corruption charges.

Did I forget to mention that ICTS was also handling security for London's bus system when the U.K. was targeted for its terrorist attack? Did I neglect to note that six months prior to the Shoe Bomber's flight on American Airlines, Richard Reid was stopped at Schiphol while boarding an El Al flight to Tel Aviv. Shin Bet allowed him to board so he could be monitored in Israel.

Did the Israelis inform their loyal ally about Richard Reid? What do you think?

Remember the October 1983 truck bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut that left 241 Americans dead? A former Mossad case officer conceded they had a description of the truck. Did our ally tell us? What do you think?

Our withdrawal from Lebanon left the field open to those who specialize in displacing facts with what targeted populations (including our own) can be deceived to believe.

Recall our belief in Iraqi WMD? Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda? Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories? Iraqi yellowcake uranium from Niger? Iraqi meetings in Prague? All were false. All were traceable to Tel Aviv. Are you still having trouble connecting the dots?

As the U.S. sinks into bankruptcy, we are ridiculed abroad for failing to acknowledge the obvious: Americans have long been the target of a fraud operated by Israelis, pro-Israelis and those supportive of their goals for the region.

What better way to wage war on the U.S. than from within? How else can Israel expand except by duping its super power ally to wage wars for Greater Israel? Never mind the cost in blood and treasure. As an ally, the U.S. is easily portrayed as guilty by association.

Those promoting the Crotch Bomber scare are part of the problem. In the Information Age, this latest false flag operation is typical of how treason proceeds in plain sight yet, to date, with impunity. Those media outlets marketing this latest lie are an enemy within.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, merchant banker, educator and consultant to governments worldwide; served for seven years as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. He is the author of Guilt by Association, Democracy At Risk and The Ownership Solution. See his website Criminal State

Christmas Day Crotch Bomber Tied to Israel, FBI is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Time for an American Intifada?

2010-02-07T17:31:29Z

By Jeff Gates* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

During the 1960 Christmas season, Americans flocked to the theaters to see Exodus, a 3-1/2 hour epic film featuring handsome freedom fighters and a riveting romance amidst the heroic triumph of Jewish Destiny over Arab Evil Doers. Set against a Yuletide backdrop of Biblical prophecy, moviegoers marveled as exiled Jews returned to their fabled promised land, a staple of popular culture to which Americans are first exposed as children in "Sunday school."

Many moviegoers failed to realize that Exodus was not fact but fiction. Even now, few Americans realize the storyline was adapted for the screen from a 1958 novel by Leon Uris. The biggest bestseller since Gone with the Wind-a novel set during the Civil War of the 1860s-the filmadaptation was directed by Hollywood icon Otto Preminger. The blockbuster's stars included a young Paul Newman with his leading lady a blond Eva Marie Saint.

The cast included character actor Lee J. Cobb and Peter Lawford, married to Pat Kennedy, a sister of John F. Kennedy who was elected president the same year. By then, Lawford was a famous member of pop culture's high profile "Rat Pack" that included singer Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Joey Bishop. Italian crooner Sal Mineo, then a teen heartthrob, received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a Jewish émigré.

An Oscar should have been awarded to Israel and its supporters for portraying this extremist enclave as a legitimate nation-state when, in reality, its founding traces to an alluring storyline. Forty-five years after the release of Exodus, American naiveté was again targeted by Jewish storytellers to induce the U.S. to war in the Middle East-only this time for real.

Then as now, Americans are easily swayed by sympathetic portrayals of an enclave granted nation-state recognition by President Harry Truman, a Christian-Zionist. The Missouri Democrat had famously read the Bible cover-to-cover five times by age 15. Truman was a True Believer in the same way that fundamentalist Christians believe-truly believe-that their Messiah will not return until the "Israelites" recover their ancestral home.

Preying on similar beliefs, Republican George W. Bush, another Christian-Zionist president, was induced with phony intelligence to wage war in Iraq. The false intelligence was traceable to Israelis, pro-Israelis or assets developed for that purpose. That invasion had long been a priority goal of those who believe-truly believe-in their right to an expansionist Greater Israel.

Yet as Shlomo Sand chronicles in The Invention of the Jewish People (2009), the historical evidence is scant either for an exile or an "exodus." As with the movie, the return of a "Jewish People" to a Jewish homeland is "a conscious ideological composition" meant "to claim a higher cultural lineage" than what can be supported by the facts.

In lieu of the novel-writing skills of Leon Uris, the Zionist narrative featured Biblical archeologists such as William F. Albright who, in the 1920s, traveled to the Holy Land to excavate artifacts that would, as Sand puts it: "reaffirm the Old Testament and thereby the New."

By interpreting his finds in Christian-Zionist terms, Albright and his colleagues not only unearthed Biblical "facts" that shaped the Sunday school curriculum, they also helped pre-stage the perceived legitimacy of a Jewish people returning from exile to a Jewish homeland. As Sand points out, if there was no exodus, how can there be a return? If there is no "Jewish People," how can there be a homeland?

Yet these widely held beliefs remain the premise underlying Israel's expansionist agenda and its rationale for heaping six decades of abuse on Palestinians who have lived there for centuries.

Political Expedience or Biblical Prophecy?

White House counsel Clark Clifford cautioned Truman that his reelection was unlikely absent the funding that Jewish-Americans-with Israel's recognition-were eager to provide. In early May 1948, General George C. Marshall, Truman's Secretary of State, argued vigorously against recognition. Strong objections were also heard from the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Marshall, the top-ranked U.S. military officer in WWII, was outraged that Clifford put domestic political expedience ahead of U.S. foreign policy interests. Marshall told Truman that he would vote against him if he extended sovereign status to an enclave of Zionist terrorists, religious fanatics and what Albert Einstein and Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt called "Jewish fascists." Marshall insisted that State Department personnel never again speak to Clifford.

In March 1948, a Joint Chiefs paper titled "Force Requirements for Palestine" predicted the "Zionist strategy will seek to involve [the U.S.] in a continuously widening and deepening series of operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives." Those objectives included an expansionist agenda for Greater Israel that envisioned the taking of Arab land, ensuring armed clashes in which the U.S. was destined to become embroiled.

The Joint Chiefs listed Zionist objectives as:

- Initial Jewish sovereignty over a portion of Palestine,
- Acceptance by the great powers of the right to unlimited immigration,
- The extension of Jewish sovereignty over all of Palestine,
- The expansion of "Eretz (Greater) Israel" into Transjordan and portions of Lebanon and Syria, and
- The establishment of Jewish military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.

Akin to the fictional portrayal in Exodus, those Zionists lobbying Truman assured him they would remain within the initial boundaries. We now know that was a lie. They also promised that the Zionist state would not become what it quickly became: a theocratic and racist enclave-albeit widely marketed by pro-Israeli media as the "only democracy in the Middle East."

To remove all doubt as to the extremist goals of the Zionist project, the Joint Chiefs assessment added ominously:

"All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders. The program is openly admitted by some leaders, and has been privately admitted to United States officials by responsible leaders of the presently dominant Jewish group–the Jewish Agency."

Deceit from the Outset

A beguiling combination of Hollywood fiction, manipulated beliefs and outright lies remain at the core of this entangled alliance and the U.S.-Israeli "special relationship." The deceit deployed to advance the hegemonic goals of the Zionist project remains obscured by an undisclosed media bias reinforced by a widespread pro-Israeli influence in popular culture. As with the 1960 film, the ongoing manipulation of thought and emotion lies at the core of this duplicity a half-century later.

In The Persuasion Explosion (1985), author Art Stevens reports that Exodus was a public relations ploy launched by Edward Gottlieb who sought a novelist to improve Israel's image in the U.S. The name Uris originates with Yerushalmi, meaning "man of Jerusalem." The film rights to Exodus were sold in advance of the book's publication. Translated into dozens of languages, this masterpiece of mental and emotional manipulation quickly became a global phenomenon as its created favorable impressions of Israel.

The rewards are real for those who offer aid and comfort to this trans-generational deceit. When Truman's campaign train traversed the nation as part of a 1948 whistle-stop tour, grateful Jewish nationalists refueled his campaign coffers with a reported $400,000 in cash ($3.6 million in 2010 dollars). Those funds helped transform his anticipated loss into a victory with support from pro-Israeli editorial boards that-after recognition-boosted Truman's sagging popularity.

The Creation of Reliable Assets

Clark Clifford was rewarded with his career goal when he emerged as a top-paid Washington lawyer. After proving himself a pliable personality, he remained a reliable asset. During the G.H.W. Bush presidency, his combination of political prominence and perceived credibility provided cover for a massive bank fraud involving the Bank of Credit and Commerce International aided by Roger Altman, his Ashkenazi law partner.

In 2009, Hollywood released an action thriller (The International) starring Clive Owen and a similar storyline involving the International Bank of Business and Credit. Neither Clifford nor Altman had experience in banking when their law firm enabled what prosecutors charged was a global criminal operation.

Media reports described the BCCI scheme as the largest bank fraud in history. This $20 billion transnational operation even featured the requisite Hollywood component: Clifford's protégé was married to Lynda Carter, the star of Wonder Woman, a 1970s fantasy-adventure television series.

The real fantasy in this long-running geopolitical fraud lies in why U.S. lawmakers continue to befriend and defend a "nation" that has for so long-and so consistently-deceived and betrayed its most loyal ally. As a badly miscast Eva Marie Saint asked in her most memorable line in Exodus: "When will it ever end?"

The greatest wonder will be if, based on facts confirming the depth and duration of this duplicity, those lawmakers urging continued support for Israel are not charged with treason. [See: "How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy" http://criminalstate.com/2009/07/how-the-israel-lobby-took-control-of-us-foreign-policy/]

To restore its national security, the U.S. must shake off its entangled alliance with this extremist enclave. "Shaking off" is the literal translation of "intifada." Those who know the true facts behind this trans-generational deception are quickly reaching the conclusion that the recognition of this enclave as a legitimate state was key to this ongoing fraud. Others may be waiting for the movie, American Intifada.

Source: Opinion Maker

Time for an American Intifada? is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Rethinking "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"

2010-02-07T06:30:33Z

Illustration bh Carlos Latuff

By William A. Cook* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Five decades ago, the "Pied Piper of Tucson," a psychopathic killer, roamed the streets of this Southwest city seeking, seducing and killing teen-aged girls. Strangely, teenagers throughout the Tucson area that knew of his lawless and abnormal behavior kept silent, saying nothing to parents or police. More strange still, this short and stocky Pied Piper stuffed his boots with paper to appear taller, strutted cockily about mimicking teen talk and charismatically charming his prey. Parents and police had only one word to explain the silence, "inexplicable." Joyce Carol Oates wrote "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" about this mass murderer, though the story focused not on the psychopath but on the teenagers who aided and abetted his crimes. Paralleling their complicity was the awareness by parents and authorities of the victims' fascination and attraction to the mystery of death and romance bound together in the mesmerizing tales that lured them into the psychopath's lair. Fascinating how potential victims can find attraction in the fate that stalks them by seeing no evil, hearing no evil yet walking hand in hand with the evil.

"Where are you going, where have you been" might well be an epitaph for the United States, as its latest victim, the Obama administration, courts the crimes of the Bush administration in its continuation of torture, rendition, illegal wire-tapping, hiring of terrorists (euphemized as mercenaries) as military support, use of white phosphorus, DIME, depleted uranium, drone aircraft to kill the innocent, invasion of countries at will in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and unconditional support for the terrorist state of Israel that ignores the American peoples' cry for change against on-going illegal crimes that flaunt international law and show case that disdain in its ruthless siege of Gaza.

For as far back as the Pied Piper stalked the streets of Tucson, a series of Israeli administrations have spurned the international community, illegally stealing land, mercilessly killing Palestinians, invading neighboring states, confiscating and occupying their land, laying claim to their water, claiming immunity from international law and literally compelling the successive administrations in the United States to acquiesce to their crimes. How like the citizens of Tucson, to ignore the reality that seduced their children because their silence was "inexplicable."

How long can the American people ignore the reality of America? We accept the lies that entice, the lies of the supposed "friend" in the mid-east, the only democracy, the one who has been with us all these years, 'our' westernized neighbor that thinks and behaves like we do, a veritable "Pied Piper" courting America, luring America, seducing America, a sick romance built on victimization that requires constant attention to alleviate the fear of annihilation by the enemies that surround it.

Even now the seducing continues. The generosity, the kindness and compassion of Israel in its state of the art medical field station brought to Haiti is promoted to emphasize its on-going concern for universal care, care delivered thousands of miles from home; yet no mention is made of the calculated decimation of the Gazan population that has been under siege for three years deprived of medicines, operating hospitals, sufficient water and food, with waste running in the streets because sewage plants have been destroyed, a place only yards away from Israel. Gaza is a human made disaster; Haiti was leveled by Nature's force. Nature's power is indifferent to the consequences of its force, so too it seems is the Zionist government of Israel.

Oates' story compels the reader to explore the mystery that allows for silence in the wake of perversion, a complicity of indifference to another's pain and suffering lest we become immersed in its brutality, lest by investing in openness to the reality that exists, by speaking out against the amoral and abnormal behavior, by condemning the acts and the silence, we put ourselves at risk and become the victim. How long can we ignore the malignity that invades our consciousness, how long can we turn our backs on the brazen complicity of our representatives as they bow and scrape before their masters of deceit, how long can we close our eyes to the reality of the abominations executed in our name?

It is, after all, America that has invaded Iraq illegally and caused thereby the deaths of upwards of a million and a half people; it is America that feeds the Israeli war machine the illegal weapons and stock piles them awaiting the next invasion against the defenseless people of Gaza; it is America that has abandoned rule by law to mimic the extrajudicial executions of the Zionist powers, to imprison people without charge, to hold them indefinitely for years at a time, to torture them against international law; it is America that allows and defends Israel's illegal use of collective punishment against the Gazan people making it in all these instances complicit in war crimes condemned by the United Nations and the International Courts. This from a country founded on rule by law and human rights.

Where is America going? Perhaps we know because we know where it has been; it lives in a world that Tadeausz Borowski understood: "The world is ruled by neither justice nor morality; crime is not punished nor virtue rewarded, one is forgotten as quickly as the other. The world is ruled by power and power is obtained with money. To work is senseless, because money cannot be obtained through work but through exploitation of others. And if we cannot exploit as much as we wish, at least let us work as little as we can. Moral duty? We believe neither in the morality of men, not in the morality of systems." This hideous and degrading picture of the human animal Borowski painted at Auschwitz. Humankind without benevolence, without compassion, lacking empathy, lacking mercy: inexorable, ruthless, and malevolent, a savage, brutal animal devoid of morals, oblivious to justice.

* William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of The Rape Of Palestine: Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied, Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy and The Chronicles Of Nefaria. He can be reached at: wcook@laverne.edu.
www.drwilliamacook.com

Rethinking "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Please, Mr. President, Stop Talking Nonsense

2010-02-07T17:22:42Z

By Alan Hart* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

At a town hall meeting in Tampa, Florida on 28 January, President Obama explained what in his view had to happen if there is to be a two-state solution which would see Israel and the Palestinians living side by side in peace and security. He said, "Both sides are going to have to make concessions".

My own view is that Israel's still on-going colonization of the occupied West Bank has destroyed the prospect of a two-state solution on any basis the Palestinians could accept. But for the sake of discussion I'll pretend that is not necessarily so.

Israel is not required to make concessions. Israel is required to accept and implement UN Security Council resolutions which call for an end to its occupation and, more generally, to cease regarding itself as being above and beyond international law.

The Palestinians made the concession necessary from their side long ago.

There were three related reasons why Yasser Arafat and his mainstream PLO leadership colleagues decided that they had got to compromise with Israel if their people were ever to obtain a minimum but just about acceptable amount of justice.

The first was the reality of the existence of the nuclear-armed Zionist state – not a legitimate existence (as the true story of its creation proves) but a fact of life.
The second was the knowledge that the Arab regimes were never going to fight Israel to liberate Palestine, and, would collude with Zionism-and-America to prevent the PLO becoming an effective resistance movement in terms of guerrilla activities.
The third was the realisation that all the major powers of the world were committed to Israel's existence inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war.

It took the pragmatic Arafat six long years, from 1973 to 1979, to sell the idea of compromise with Israel first to his Fatah leadership colleagues and then to the Palestine National Council (PNC), the highest decision-making body on the Palestinian side. And it was a mission that Arafat knew from the start could cost him his credibility with his own people and perhaps even his life. Why? Because he was asking them to accept what most thought was "unthinkable" – recognizing and thus legitimizing Israel's existence inside its pre-1967 borders in return for only 22% of all the land the Palestinians were claiming.

In fact the full extent of the concessions Arafat persuaded his leadership colleagues to accept and be prepared to make went even further than that. Though they could not say so in public until they had something concrete to show for their policy of politics and compromise, they accepted, and Israel was informed, that the Palestinian right of return would have to be limited to the territory of the Palestinian mini-state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem its capital or the whole of Jerusalem an open, undivided city and the capital of two states.

At the end of 1979, shortly after Arafat had persuaded the PNC to endorse his policy of politics and compromise with Israel, I had the first of many meetings with him. His comment on the PNC vote – 296 for his policy and only four against – was this: "How far we have travelled in six years. No more this silly talk of driving the Jews into the sea. (A statement Arafat and his Fatah colleagues never made). Now we are prepared to live side by side with them in a mini-state of our own. It is a miracle."

It was the miracle of Arafat's leadership. What he needed thereafter was an Israeli partner for peace. At a point it seemed that Israeli Prime Minister Rabin might be the partner, but he was assassinated by a Zionist zealot. The assassin was not de-ranged. He knew exactly what he was doing. Killing the peace process Arafat's policy of politics and compromise had set in motion.

There are no more concessions the Palestinians can make for peace. President Obama's statement that they must is absurd and obscene. Unclear is whether he was speaking out of ignorance of real history or from Zionism's script.

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

Please, Mr. President, Stop Talking Nonsense is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tweet Digest for 2010-02-06

2010-02-06T22:01:00Z

#Zionism Laid Bare | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14zIg #israel 18:14:17
Witch Hunt At The Jerusalem Post ~~ New #Israeli Fund Under Fire – http://ow.ly/14yhF 15:57:08
#NYT's #Israel Editor's Sticky Situation | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14y6D 15:40:31
In the West Bank's stony hills, #Palestine is slowly dying – http://ow.ly/14xxE #israel 14:06:58
#Palestine's impossible dream | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14wJV #rawabi 12:25:52
A Palestinian Mandela | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14wyF #Barghouti #palestine #israel 12:02:42
Citizen's Arrest of War Criminals Tony #Blair and George W. #Bush | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/14wpt 11:41:31
#Israel Admits To Illegally Using White #Phosphorus Shells In #Gaza Offensive Last Year, Reprimands Those Involved – http://ow.ly/14lPJ 22:45:13
The #UN publicly praises #Israel!! UN chief can't judge if 2Gaza probes are 'credible' http://ow.ly/14lO8 22:43:48
#Israel warns #Syria it would lose future #war – http://ow.ly/14lKG 22:41:12
#Zionist #lobby: "Gang of 54" Congressmen Slammed for Censuring #Israel – http://ow.ly/14lIF 22:39:41
#Italy's prime minister links #Gaza war to #Holocaust – http://ow.ly/14lAN 22:32:33
#Israeli #Organ Trafficking and #Theft: From #Moldova to #Palestine – http://ow.ly/14lpr 22:25:33
Top #US #anthropologist: #Israel a "pariah" over unethical & criminal organ transplant tourism – http://ow.ly/14lnH 22:24:33
#Israeli left needs to wake up before it's too late – http://ow.ly/14ll9 #palestine 22:22:33
#Muslim #inventions that shaped the modern world – http://ow.ly/14liO 22:21:15
Raze Illegal Buildings – Unless They Are #Jewish | http://ow.ly/14l4x #israel #palestine 22:12:20
#Jewish Anti-Occupation Activists Send Forceful Message to #Israel | http://ow.ly/14l3S #palestine 22:11:39
#Jewish #Settler Violence Continues Throughout The Occupied West Bank | http://ow.ly/14l20 #palestine 22:10:53
#Israel threatens force over #Iran #nuclear standoff | http://ow.ly/14kZv 22:08:19

Tweet Digest for 2010-02-06 is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Zionism Laid Bare

2010-02-06T11:26:15Z

By Kathleen Christison* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The essential point of M. Shahid Alam's book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece. From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, "You have the light, but you have no humanity. Seek humanity, for that is the goal." Alam, professor of economics at Northeastern University in Boston and a CounterPunch contributor, follows this with an explicit statement of his aims in the first paragraph of the preface. Asking and answering the obvious question, "Why is an economist writing a book on the geopolitics of Zionism?" he says that he "could have written a book about the economics of Zionism, the Israeli economy, or the economy of the West Bank and Gaza, but how would any of that have helped me to understand the cold logic and the deep passions that have driven Zionism?"

Until recent years, the notion that Zionism was a benign, indeed a humanitarian, political movement designed for the noble purpose of creating a homeland and refuge for the world's stateless, persecuted Jews was a virtually universal assumption. In the last few years, particularly since the start of the al-Aqsa intifada in 2000, as Israel's harsh oppression of the Palestinians has become more widely known, a great many Israelis and friends of Israel have begun to distance themselves from and criticize Israel's occupation policies, but they remain strong Zionists and have been at pains to propound the view that Zionism began well and has only lately been corrupted by the occupation. Alam demonstrates clearly, through voluminous evidence and a carefully argued analysis, that Zionism was never benign, never good—that from the very beginning, it operated according to a "cold logic" and, per Rumi, had "no humanity." Except perhaps for Jews, which is where Israel's and Zionism's exceptionalism comes in.

Alam argues convincingly that Zionism was a coldly cynical movement from its beginnings in the nineteenth century. Not only did the founders of Zionism know that the land on which they set their sights was not an empty land, but they set out specifically to establish an "exclusionary colonialism" that had no room for the Palestinians who lived there or for any non-Jews, and they did this in ways that justified, and induced the West to accept, the displacement of the Palestinian population that stood in their way. With a simple wisdom that still escapes most analysts of Israel and Zionism, Alam writes that a "homeless nationalism," as Zionism was for more than half a century until the state of Israel was established in 1948, "of necessity is a charter for conquest and—if it is exclusionary—for ethnic cleansing."

How has Zionism been able to put itself forward as exceptional and get away with it, winning Western support for the establishment of an exclusionary state and in the process for the deliberate dispossession of the native population? Alam lays out three principal ways by which Zionism has framed its claims of exceptionalism in order to justify itself and gain world, particularly Western, support. First, the Jewish assumption of chosenness rests on the notion that Jews have a divine right to the land, a mandate granted by God to the Jewish people and only to them. This divine election gives the homeless, long-persecuted Jews the historical and legal basis by which to nullify the rights of Palestinians not so divinely mandated and ultimately to expel them from the land. Second, Israel's often remarkable achievements in state-building have won Western support and provided a further justification for the displacement of "inferior" Palestinians by "superior" Jews. Finally, Zionism has put Jews forward as having a uniquely tragic history and as a uniquely vulnerable country, giving Israel a special rationale for protecting itself against supposedly unique threats to its existence and in consequence for ignoring the dictates of international law. Against the Jews' tragedy, whatever pain Palestinians may feel at being displaced appears minor.

The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians that came as the result of Zionism's need for an exclusivist homeland was no unfortunate consequence, and indeed had long been foreseen by Zionist thinkers and the Western leaders who supported them. Alam quotes early Zionists, including Theodore Herzl, who talked repeatedly of persuading the Palestinians "to trek," or "fold their tents," or "silently steal away." In later years, the Zionists spoke of forcible "transfer" of the Palestinians. In the 1930s, David Ben-Gurion expressed his strong support for compulsory transfer, crowing that "Jewish power" was growing to the point that the Jewish community in Palestine would soon be strong enough to carry out ethnic cleansing on a large scale (as it ultimately did). In fact, the Zionists knew from the start that there would be no persuading the Palestinians simply to leave voluntarily and that violent conquest would be necessary to implant the Zionist state.

The British knew this as well. Zionist supporter Winston Churchill wrote as early as 1919 that the Zionists "take it for granted that the local population will be cleared out to suit their convenience." In a blunt affirmation of the calculated nature of Zionist plans and Western support for them, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, like Churchill another early supporter and also author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which promised British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, wrote that Zionism "is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land." It would be hard to find a more blatant one-sided falsity.

Alam traces in detail the progression of Zionist planning, beginning with the deliberate creation in the nineteenth century of an ethnic identity for Jews who shared only a religion and had none of the attributes of nationhood—neither a land, nor a common language or culture, nor arguably a common gene pool. Here Alam covers briefly the ground trod in detail by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand, whose book The Invention of the Jewish People, appearing in English just months before Alam's book, shattered the myths surrounding Zionism's claim to nationhood and to an exclusive right to Palestine. But Alam goes further, describing the Zionist campaign to create a surrogate "mother country" that, in the absence of a Jewish nation, would sponsor the Zionists' colonization of Palestine and support its national project. Having gained British support for its enterprise, Zionism then set about building a rationale for displacing the Palestinian Arabs who were native to Palestine (who, incidentally, did indeed possess the attributes of a nation but lay in the path of a growing Jewish, Western-supported military machine). Zionist propaganda then and later deliberately spread the notion that Palestinians were not "a people," had no attachment to the land and no national aspirations, and in the face of the Jews' supposedly divine mandate, of Israel's "miraculous" accomplishments, and of the Jews' monumental suffering in the Holocaust, the dispossession of the Palestinians was made to appear to a disinterested West as nothing more than a minor misfortune.

Addressing what he calls the "destabilizing logic" of Zionism, Alam builds the argument that Zionism thrives on, and indeed can survive only in the midst of, conflict. In the first instance, Alam shows, Zionism actually embraced the European anti-Semitic charge that Jews were an alien people. This was the natural result of promoting the idea that Jews actually belonged in Palestine in a nation of their own, and in addition, spreading fear of anti-Semitism proved to be an effective way to attract Jews not swayed by the arguments of Zionism (who made up the majority of Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) to the Zionist cause. Early Zionist leaders talked frankly of anti-Semitism as a means of teaching many educated and assimilated Jews "the way back to their people" and of forcing an allegiance to Zionism. Anti-Semitism remains in many ways the cement that holds Zionism together, keeping both Israeli Jews and diaspora Jews in thrall to Israel as their supposedly only salvation from another Holocaust.

In the same vein, Alam contends, Zionists realized that in order to succeed in their colonial enterprise and maintain the support of the West, they would have to create an adversary common to both the West and the Jews. Only a Jewish state waging wars in the Middle East could "energize the West's crusader mentality, its evangelical zeal, its dreams of end times, its imperial ambitions." Arabs were the initial and enduring enemy, and Zionists and Israel have continued to provoke Arab antagonism and direct it toward radicalism, to steer Arab anger against the United States, to provoke the Arabs into wars against Israel, and to manufacture stories of virulent Arab anti-Semitism—all specifically in order to sustain Jewish and Western solidarity with Israel. More recently, Islam itself has become the common enemy, an adversary fashioned so that what Alam calls the "Jewish-Gentile partnership" can be justified and intensified. Focusing on Arab and Muslim hostility, always portrayed as motivated by irrational hatred rather than by opposition to Israeli and U.S. policies, allows Zionists to divert attention from their own expropriation of Palestinian land and dispossession of Palestinians and allows them to characterize Israeli actions as self-defense against anti-Semitic Arab and Muslim resistance.

Alam treats the Zionist/Israel lobby as a vital cog in the machine that built and sustains the Jewish state. Indeed, Theodore Herzl was the original Zionist lobbyist. During the eight years between the launch of the Zionist movement at Basel in 1897 and his death, Herzl had meetings with a remarkable array of power brokers in Europe and the Middle East, including the Ottoman sultan, Kaiser Wilhelm II, King Victor Emanuel III of Italy, Pope Pius X, the noted British imperialist Lord Cromer and the British colonial secretary of the day, and the Russian ministers of interior and finance, as well as a long list of dukes, ambassadors, and lesser ministers. One historian used the term "miraculous" to describe Herzl's ability to secure audiences with the powerful who could help Zionism.

Zionist lobbyists continued to work as assiduously, with results as "miraculous," throughout the twentieth century, gaining influence over civil society and ultimately over policymakers and, most importantly, shaping the public discourse that determines all thinking about Israel and its neighbors. As Alam notes, "since their earliest days, the Zionists have created the organizations, allies, networks, and ideas that would translate into media, congressional, and presidential support for the Zionist project." An increasing proportion of the activists who lead major elements of civil society, such as the labor and civil rights movements, are Jews, and these movements have as a natural consequence come to embrace Zionist aims. Christian fundamentalists, who in the last few decades have provided massive support to Israel and its expansionist policies, grew in the first instance because they were "energized by every Zionist success on the ground" and have continued to expand with a considerable lobbying push from the Zionists.

Alam's conclusion—a direct argument against those who contend that the lobby has only limited influence: "It makes little sense," in view of the pervasiveness of Zionist influence over civil society and political discourse, "to maintain that the pro-Israeli positions of mainstream American organizations . . . emerged independently of the activism of the American Jewish community." In its early days, Zionism grew only because Herzl and his colleagues employed heavy lobbying in the European centers of power; Jewish dispersion across the Western world—and Jewish influence in the economies, the film industries, the media, and academia in key Western countries—are what enabled the Zionist movement to survive and thrive in the dark years of the early twentieth century; and Zionist lobbying and molding of public discourse are what has maintained Israel's favored place in the hearts and minds of Americans and the policy councils of America's politicians.

This is a critically important book. It enhances and expands on the groundbreaking message of Shlomo Sand's work. If Sand shows that Jews were not "a people" until Zionism created them as such, Alam shows this also and goes well beyond to show how Zionism and its manufactured "nation" went about dispossessing and replacing the Palestinians and winning all-important Western support for Israel and its now 60-year-old "exclusionary colonialism."

* Kathleen Christison is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and co-author, with Bill Christison, of aPalestine in Pieces: Graphic Perspectives on the Isreli Occupation, published last summer by Pluto Press. She can be reached at kb.christison@earthlink.net.

Zionism Laid Bare is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

NYT's Israel Editor's Sticky Situation

2010-02-07T17:15:26Z

Ethan Bronner and Susan Chira

Ethan Bronner's Conflict With Impartiality

By Alison Weir* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Ethan Bronner is the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief. As such, he is the editor responsible for all the news coming out of Iasrael-Palestine. Iact is his job to decide what gets reported and what doesn't; what goes in a story and what gets cut.

To a considerable degree, he determines what readers of arguably the nation's most influential newspaper learn about Israel and its adversaries, and, especially, what they don't.

His son just joined the Israeli army.

According to New York Times ethics guidelines, such a situation would be expected to cause significant concern. In these guidelines the Times repeatedly emphasizes the importance of impartiality.

This is considered so critical that the Times devotes considerable attention to "conflict of interest" (also called "conflict with impartiality") problems, situations in which personal interest might cause a journalist to intentionally or unconsciously slant a story.

The Times notes that family affiliations may cause such a conflict; as an example, it explains that a daughter's high position on Wall Street could be problematic for a business reporter.

In situations where such a familial affiliation is considered significant, the journalist may be moved to a different area of reporting.

Ethan Bronner's situation, therefore would appear to be sticky, at the very least. It is difficult to imagine that a son fighting for the foreign nation an editor is charged with covering does not constitute such a potential conflict with impartiality. Apart from Mr. Bronner signing up with the Israeli military himself, it is difficult to imagine a clearer example of familial partisanship.

Yet, to date, Bronner and the Times have refused to address his situation. Foreign Editor Susan Chira (who may also have family allegiances to Israel) has declined to comment, other than refer people to her curt response to Electronic Intifada, which had asked her whether it was true that Bronner's son was in the Israeli military:

"Ethan Bronner referred your query to me, the foreign editor. Here is my comment: Mr. Bronner's son is a young adult who makes his own decisions. At The Times, we have found Mr. Bronner's coverage to be scrupulously fair and we are confident that will continue to be the case."

If that were, indeed, the case for Bronner's reporting, there would undoubtedly be less concern from outside observers. There are numerous instances of accurate reporting by both Israeli and Palestinian journalists; familial and personal affiliation do not necessarily or always result in flawed journalism.

However, while both Chira and Bronner may believe he has been "scrupulously fair" in the years that he has been the paper's top editor on Israel-Palestine (before assuming his current position as Jerusalem bureau chief in March 2008, he had been deputy foreign editor overseeing the region for four years), a number of studies and analyses contradict this contention.

- In 2005 a study by If Americans Knew found that the Times had covered Israeli children's deaths at a rate over seven times greater than it had reported on Palestinian children's deaths – even though Palestinian children's deaths had occurred first, in far greater numbers, and there was considerable evidence that Palestinian young people were being killed intentionally by official Israeli forces.

- Princeton Professor Emeritus Richard Falk and media critic Howard Friel undertook a meticulous analysis of the Times' coverage of the issue; the title of their book indicates their findings: "Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East." Among others things, Falk and Friel discovered that the Times had failed to report the essential fact that all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

- A 2006 study published in the Electronic Intifada revealed that during the previous six years there had been 80 reports by respected international organizations detailing human rights violations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of these, 76 had been primarily critical of Israel, and four had been primarily critical of Palestinians. The study found that the Times had reported on two of the reports for each, giving readers an exceedingly distorted view of the real situation.

- In a recent announcement expressing concern at Bronner's apparent conflict of interest, media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) stated that "Bronner's reporting has been repeatedly criticized by FAIR for what would appear to be a bias toward the Israeli government," detailing specific examples.

Shifting the Blame

Several years ago the San Francisco Jewish Bulletin published an article exploring Jewish student journalists' views on how to report on Israel-Palestine. Several said that they would find it difficult to report negative aspects about Israel, one interviewee saying that he would try to avoid printing such news. If that proved impossible, he said, he would then try to find a way "to shift the blame."

New York Times' news coverage often seems to follow this pattern. When the Gaza massacre of December-January is reported, Gazan rockets are inevitably mentioned. However, the fact that these largely home-made projectiles have killed far fewer Israelis in the eight years they have been used (under 20) than Israeli forces killed in a few minutes during the invasion is virtually always omitted. Likewise left out is the fact that their use began only after Israeli forces had invaded Gaza on a number of occasions, killing and injuring numerous civilians.

The Times consistently reports Israeli actions as retaliatory, despite the fact that, according to an MIT study, in at least 96 percent of ceasefires and periods of calm it was Israeli forces that had first resumed violence. In the conflict that began in fall of 2000, Israeli forces killed over 140 Palestinians before a single Israeli in Israel was killed, 91 Palestinian children (major cause of death, gunfire to the head) before a single Israeli child was killed.

An example of Bronner's Israel-centric reporting is a November, 2009 report on prisoners. Bronner notes that the Israeli soldier captured by Palestinians (the only Israeli prisoner held by Palestinians) is "bespectacled and boyish-seeming," while failing to mention that many of the over 7,000 Palestinians prisoners held by Israel are equally bespectacled and boyish-seeming – in fact, 300+ are not just boyish, they are children.

While Bronner includes personal information about the Israeli prisoner, he includes very few facts about Palestinian prisoners; for example, that hundreds have never been charged with a crime and that those whom Israel has found "guilty" were tried in military courts under military law in a military occupation of Palestinian land that much of the world deems illegal. While Bronner's story contains considerable mention of "terrorism," it fails to report that Israeli forces killed over a thousand Gazan civilians; Palestinians killed one Israeli civilian.

Interestingly, connections to the Israeli military may not be rare for journalists covering the Middle East for US media.

From left, Linda Gradstein, Jeffrey Goldberg and Isabel Kershner

The husband of NPR's longtime correspondent for the region, Linda Gradstein, was a sniper in the Israeli army (and may still be a reserve officer). "Pundit" Jeffrey Goldberg, who appears throughout the media, immigrated to Israel, became an Israeli citizen, and served in the Israeli military. (It is unknown whether he is still in the Israeli reserves; it is possible he received a dispensation from this requirement.)

The New York Times' other major correspondent from the region, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli citizen. While there is universal compulsory military service in Israel, we have been unable to confirm that Kershner herself and/or her family members have been or are in the Israeli military.

Breaking the silence

Recently, the Israeli organization "Breaking the Silence" published 96 testimonies by female Israeli soldiers. They describe a pervasive pattern of violence, harassment, theft, and humiliation practiced by Israeli forces against Palestinian men, women, and children. Below are excerpts:

"We caught a five-year-old… the officers just picked him up, slapped him around and put him in the jeep. The kid was crying and the officer next to me said 'don't cry' and started laughing at him. Finally the kid cracked a smile – and suddenly the officer gave him a punch in the stomach. Why? 'Don't laugh in my face' he said."

"…it's boring, so we'd create some action. We'd get on the radio, and say they threw stones at us, then someone would be arrested… There was a policewoman, she was bored, so okay, she said they threw stones at her. They asked her who threw them. 'I don't know, two in grey shirts, I didn't manage to see them.' They catch two guys with grey shirts… beat them. Is it them? 'No, I don't think so.' Okay, a whole incident, people get beaten up. Nothing happened that day."

"…two of our soldiers put him [a Palestinian child] in a jeep, and two weeks later the kid was walking around with casts on both arms and legs…they talked about it in the unit quite a lot – about how they sat him down and put his hand on the chair and simply broke it right there on the chair."

An officer described soldiers shooting to death a nine-year-old as he was trying to run away: "They shot in the air, as they say – shot in the air in the lungs…"

In their testimonies, these soldiers emphasize that mistreatment of Palestinian civilians is widespread, routine, and known to everyone. Both the Israeli and the Palestinian press have published excerpts.

Yet, New York Times Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner has so far failed to report this information about Israeli forces.

And his son has just joined up.

* Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew and a board member of the Council for the National Interest (CNI). For more information on Ethan Bronner and his upcoming speaking tour on college campuses, join IAK'S email list. Alison can be reached at contact@ifamericansknew.org

Sources:

The New York Times Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism. This also states: "Companywide, our goal is to cover the news impartially… and to be seen as doing so. The reputation of our company rests upon that perception…"

"Susan Chira, New York Times Foreign Editor, confirms, excuses Bronner's conflict of interest," Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines," Jan. 27, 2010

"New York Times fails to disclose Jerusalem bureau chief's conflict of interest
Report," The Electronic Intifada, January 25, 2010

"New York Times' Ethan Bronner's Conflict of Interest: Conversation with Bronner and Alternative News Sources" AlisonWeir.org, January 26, 2010

"Off the Charts: Accuracy in Reporting of Israel/Palestine – The New York Times," If Americans Knew, 2005

"Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East," Richard Falk, Howard Friel; ZNET Interview, May 31, 2007

"The New York Times Marginalizes Palestinian Women and Palestinian Rights," Electronic Intifada, Nov. 17, 2006

"Does NYT's Top Israel Reporter Have a Son in the IDF?" FAIR, January 27, 2010

"Killing Palestinians doesn't count: Is a ceasefire breached only when an Israeli is killed?" CounterPunch, January 29, 2009

"Reigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End?" Huffington Post, January 6, 2009

Remember These Children

B'TSELEM – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

"The Coverage–and Non-Coverage–of Israel-Palestine," The Link, July-August 2005, Vol 38, Issue 3

"Jewish journalists grapple with 'doing the write thing'" Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, Nov. 23, 2001

"Prisoner Swap Appears Near in the Mideast," Ethan Bronner, New York times, Nov. 23, 2009

"Political prisoners in Israel-Palestine," If Americans Knew

Addameer Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association

"Israel, Hamas in mutual gestures on prisoners," Reuters, Sept. 30, 2009.

"Female soldiers break their silence," YNET, Jan. 20, 2010 (According to its website, "Ynetnews is part of the prominent Yedioth Media Group, which publishes Yedioth Ahronoth – Israel's most widely-read daily newspaper)

"Testimonies of Israeli Female Soldiers Regarding Violations Against Palestinian Civilians," International Middle East Media Center, January 30, 2010

"BREAKING THE SILENCE: Women Soldiers' Testimonies," 136-page booklet by the Israeli Breaking the Silence organization

Source: Counterpunch

NYT's Israel Editor's Sticky Situation is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Hypocrisy in Haiti

2010-02-06T11:24:41Z

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Aijaz Zaka Syed* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Israeli hypocrisy would be comical, if its consequences weren’t so tragic. These days, Israeli media and Israel’s powerful friends in the US media have been tomtomming about the noble help and rescue mission Israelis have undertaken in the remote, quake-hit Haiti.

Doubtless, the catastrophe that has hit Haiti is truly mindboggling and terrifying. The all-round devastation is difficult to describe in words. This is perhaps how our world would look like when the End comes. And one hates to make a political point out of this terrible, terrible human tragedy. But you can’t help it when you come across the kind of hypocrisy that Israel displays in Haiti. While the people it has locked away in their homes in Gaza and across the Palestinian territories live in most despicable conditions and crave for basics such as food, water, electricity and just about everything else, the magnanimous Israel is sending aid and medical teams to help the luckless people of Haiti. Can there be a more stunning example of hypocrisy and  double standards?

I am not even remotely suggesting that Israel shouldn’t help the calamity-hit people of Haiti. In fact, given the magnitude of the tragedy, every one of us should do his or her bit for the unfortunate people.

Lest the US media preoccupied with Israel have failed to notice, Arab and Muslim countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Iran, Kuwait, Morocco and many others too have reached out to Haiti, sending the much-needed aid soon after the massive earthquake rocked the poor nation. Despite its tiny size, the UAE has been quick to act through Red Crescent and even independently, just as it always has in the past. But you don’t get to hear about them on Fox News or CNN because Arab countries are not crowing about their actions. Perhaps, it’s time they should. In any case, when it comes to fighting propaganda war and handling media, Arab and Muslim countries have never been a match to Israel and its many lobbies and think tanks.

Just Google and see how bloggers are praising Israel for its mission in Haiti even as they blast the oil-rich Arab and Muslim countries for not giving a damn or a dime for the needy in Haiti.

This despite the plane loads of relief and aid supplies Muslim countries have sent. This is just one instance how shockingly ill-equipped Arab and Muslim countries are for modern warfare of media and diplomatic battles for hearts and minds. But this is not about what the Arabs are doing to help Haiti. This is about the ludicrous double standards of the state that claims to be the only ‘democracy and civilized society’ in the Middle East.

If the Israelis have reached out to the Haitians by swiftly dispatching a medical team, it’s laudable. But why those moved by a tragedy on the other side of the world can’t see what’s been happening right under their noses for years?

It’s indeed good to see that Israelis are after all human and can be moved by human suffering. But I wonder why the same Israeli hearts run dry of the milk of human kindness when it comes  to Palestinians.

Help for the helpless Haitians is welcome but what about those languishing in Gaza? As Israeli writer Akiva Eldar argues in a courageous piece in Haaretz, “the remarkable identification with the victims of the terrible tragedy in distant Haiti only underscores the indifference to the ongoing suffering of the people of Gaza. Only a little more than an hour’s drive from the offices of Israel’s major newspapers, 1.5 million people have been besieged on a desert island for two and a half years. Who cares that 80 per cent of the men, women and children living in such proximity to us have fallen under the poverty line? How many Israelis know that half of all Gazans are dependent on charity, that Operation Cast Lead created hundreds of amputees, that raw sewage flows from the streets into the sea?”

Why aren’t there more voices like that of Akiva Eldar from within Israeli society against the victimisation and persecution of Palestinians? Why don’t more Israeli journalists and commentators protest against the inhuman treatment of Palestinians, whose only crime is that they were born at a wrong time in a wrong country? They are as guilty as the Jews had been seven decades ago when the Nazis sent them to their death. Why can’t yesterday’s victims see the tragic irony and incongruity of their actions against today’s victims? As Akiva Eldar has the moral courage to point out, if Haiti is a natural disaster, “the one in Gaza is the unproud handiwork of man. Our handiwork!”

Israeli media is full of heart-warming, feel-good stories about the brave IDF soldiers and medical teams saving lives and rescuing babies in the Caribbean island. But how many Israelis care about the babies and infants dying for lack of critical food and medicines in Palestinian territories under their occupation? How many care about pregnant women, critically injured men dying after endlessly waiting at Israeli checkpoints?

The Israeli concern for people in the devastated Haiti is very touching. But how many Israelis care two hoots about the thousands of Palestinian families living in open, in the ruins of their  former homes?

Israel’s bombing blitz on Gaza last year destroyed 60,000 homes, 3,500 of them totally turned into rubble. More than 1500 people, nearly half of them women and children, were killed in the war that started the day after Christmas in the land that gave birth to Christ.

And much of the surviving population in the limbo that is Gaza cannot go back to living, nor can it rebuild its homes and demolished city. The Israeli blockade of the Strip means nothing, including construction material and the promised aid by the international community, can get into Gaza.

Isn’t this a mockery of humanity and the so-called international community that while this population languishes under a lockdown in the largest prison on the planet, Israel sends food and medicines to the people on the other side of the world? Can there be a more breathtaking example of injustice? As Akiva Eldar says, “the images of Israeli doctors in Haiti cannot blur Israel’s ugly face.”

When will the world break its silence to end this charade in the Holy Land? When will the world act to stop Israel’s oppression? How long will the poor Palestinians have to carry this heavy cross that the West has forced on them?  Any answers?

* Aijaz Zaka Syed is Opinion Editor of Khaleej Times and can be reached at aijaz@khaleejtimes.com .

Hypocrisy in Haiti is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Palestine's impossible dream

2010-02-06T10:11:36Z

Lavish, unrealistic plans for Palestinian development are a dangerous alternative to the struggle for independence

Artists' sketches of the proposed new city, Rawabi, which is six miles north of Ramallah and hopes to attract young professionals. It includes apartment blocks, olive trees and shaded walkways. Photograph: Public Domain

By Yousef Munayyer* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Recently I received a very impressive full-colour booklet printed on expensive paper advertising a development project. The ambitious plan is to build a new Palestinian city, "Rawabi", in the West Bank.

The glossy images inside are not of the Palestine I know. The bulldozers are not demolishing homes, they are breaking ground to make room for the new city. Suited, Palestinian elites appear in lush boardrooms with international partners. The white, symmetrical buildings, typical of hilltop Israeli settlements, are instead part of the scale-model of the future development.

It's crafted for secular, western investors. Women pictured do not wear the traditional headscarf common among most Palestinian women, and the longest beard belongs to an Orthodox Christian priest. The booklet also portrays a Palestine sans occupation: independent and capable of securing investments.

The reality is radically different; Israel occupies the West Bank and blockades Gaza. Israel continues to control the West Bank through checkpoints and roadblocks that often arbitrarily close. Water is disproportionately dominated by a settler class that is privy to Jewish-only roads.

Rawabi may not even succeed. Its plot is surrounded by Israeli settlements and the roads which will connect it to other cities have not been approved by the ultimate authority over the territory: the Israeli government. Rawabi, itself, is not problematic. Rather the growing, fanciful discourse that it fits into, a discourse that emphasises development before independence, is the greater cause for alarm. This is evident in a new document by the Palestinian Authority (PA) entitled Palestine: Moving Forward about the vast institutions the PA seeks to develop to "establish the state of Palestine in two years." (Hussein Ibish discussed it here on Cif yesterday.)

But given the realities of occupation, the same realities ignored in the shiny Rawabi booklet, one has to ask: "Moving forward towards what, exactly?" With little change on the political front, exacerbated by expanding settlements, home demolitions in Arab East Jerusalem, and Israeli statements about retaining settlements deep inside the West Bank and controlling the Jordan Valley, it is hard to imagine these conditions foster a move forward at all. Instead, the development initiatives, in the actual political context, move Palestinians in three directions, and none of them are toward freedom from occupation:

1. Sedation – The development narrative temporarily assuages Palestinians who have long been living under occupation. Success stories about growth, increased wages, drops in unemployment and the sight of new buildings being put up in the centre of town eases people away from desperation. Israel facilitated this, to the extent that it suited their security, by permitting limited room for Palestinian development and growth in Palestinian cities in the West Bank. The measly economic success makes Palestinians hope for a brighter future despite the occupation. The masses were pulverised to the point that they have begun accepting the false choice between moderate quality of life and political freedom/self-determination.

2. Dependency – While most states wish they could escape the dependency curse, the institution-building initiatives outlined by the PA seem endanger the future economy of perpetual dependence. The economy in the West Bank is already highly dependent on Israel. Severed unnaturally from what was historically one economy, the West Bank will depend on Israel into the future. With no achievable state in sight to undergird the independence of a Palestinian economy through policy, Palestinian development is inevitably going to hit a glass ceiling structured by Israel interests.

Additionally, the document indicates that executing these plans requires exorbitant international investment. Only 25% of the costs are already funded, whereas 51% await international donor and investment money. International money comes with international strings. For a nation trying to achieve liberation, compromised economic independence will undoubtedly yield compromised political independence, making the struggle for a just resolution to the Palestinian question more difficult. Any state that accepts significant external support for domestic institution building should be concerned about its independence in the future – for stateless Palestine the concern should be even greater.

3. Division – The plan includes an important yet inconspicuous footnote regarding Gaza. Plans for Gaza's development will be implemented "after the Palestinian National Authority has the ability to do so". Until a political solution to Palestinian division is reached, development plans will go on in the West Bank and not in Gaza. Since such a deal seems remote, and the continuation of Palestinian division suits the interests of Israel, the dominating power, it is unlikely that change for Gaza is near. Therefore, the groundwork is laid for an increasing gap between the quality of life for Palestinians in Gaza and those in the West Bank, and also between a small, elite business class that stands to benefit from some projects and the majority of the Palestinian population that does not. The economic differences will permeate political and cultural dialogue as Palestinians in the West Bank will seek to live, while Palestinians in Gaza will seek to survive.

Development is not a bad thing. Every nation aspires to develop and build its political, economic and cultural institutions. However, a Palestinian national strategy of development that ignores the context of occupation and divorces itself from the struggle for independence is not only naive and irresponsible, but it may have dangerous implications for the future of Palestine and its people.

* Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center.

Palestine's impossible dream is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

A Palestinian Mandela

2010-02-06T09:01:08Z

By Matt Beynon Rees | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The most important man in Palestinian politics is neither president nor prime minister. He doesn't shuttle between meetings at the US ambassador's residence and the Israeli foreign ministry. In fact, he doesn't go anywhere. He's in an Israeli jail.

Marwan Barghouti, 50, is serving five life sentences handed down by an Israeli court for the murders of a number of Israelis and a foreigner between 2000 and 2002. Though Barghouti was a leader of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the rival group Hamas is demanding his release in return for the freedom of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped and held in the Gaza Strip. The release of Barghouti, who's sometimes called "the Palestinian Nelson Mandela," is a key sticking point in negotiations between Israel and Hamas over Shalit. Israeli officials are prepared to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many who killed Israelis in terror attacks. But Barghouti is among a coterie of senior Palestinian politicians Israel doesn't want to give up.

Why is that so important? Because many Palestinians see Barghouti as a leader who can reunite them, at a time when they're deeply divided — Fatah against Hamas, Gaza against the West Bank, pro-Iranian against pro-US. A fluent Hebrew-speaker, he has a record as favouring the old Oslo peace accords with Israel, while refusing to eschew violence, which he regards as the right of an occupied people. That makes many Palestinians feel he'd lead them toward peace with a firmer hand than their current leadership, which they often see as weak in the face of American pressure and apparent Israeli intransigence.

Could Barghouti do it? Well, this tiny, bustling, barrel-chested charmer had the power to break the Palestinians apart with the second intifada. Perhaps he retains the street cred to do the job in reverse.

Most journalists explain the onset of the intifada's violence in 2000 with tales of faltering peace talks or "provocative" visits to the Aqsa Mosque compound by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon. I'd sum it up differently. With two words: Marwan Barghouti.

When Yasser Arafat returned to govern the Palestinians in 1994, he divided his leadership. The "Outside" leaders, who returned from decades in Lebanon and Europe, sewed up all the best jobs in the ministries and the security establishment. With disdain, Palestinians called them "the Tunisians," after their last place of exile.

The "Inside" leadership, in turn, felt cheated. They had lived through the occupation and been jailed during the tough years of the first intifada, which they, after all, had headed and which had been the point of pressure that led to Israel's willingness to make a peace deal at all. Barghouti headed the Inside leaders. Born in Kobar, this small, welcoming village in a glen near Ramallah, he co-founded the Fatah youth movement in his teens, was first arrested by Israel at 18, and was key to the first intifada, which began in 1987. (He was deported to Jordan by the Israelis and coordinated the intifada from there.)

This gave him greater support among ordinary Palestinians, who knew and respected him, as opposed to the unknown or, at best, distant figures of the Outside leadership. Yet, under the Oslo Accords, leaders like Barghouti were stymied. Arafat put Outsiders in control of all the cash, jobs, and favours.

Outside the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah in November 1997, I chatted with Barghouti alone. He made some remarks that I simply scribbled in my notebook and attributed to a combination of bluster, bluff and sour grapes.

"The Inside leadership still feels they don't have what's coming to them," Barghouti told me in his rapid speech. "Former intifada leaders, who were very important, are nothing now. Not one of them is in the leadership of the Authority. The people who lived through the intifada will insist on freedom. As a result, maybe the intifada will be renewed, but maybe this time with more violence."

In the end, Barghouti became so disenchanted with Arafat's regime that, when violence broke out in September 2000, he took hold of the uprising and used it to bring the entire Oslo edifice crashing down on Arafat's regime. His thinking: If Oslo were destroyed, the Outside leaders would lose their power and Arafat would have to  turn to Barghouti.

His comments outside the Palestinian parliament came back to me, and in the early days of the intifada I understood why the Israelis and Palestinians had been engulfed in violence that eventually cost thousands of lives: Arafat didn't handle Barghouti right.

The Israeli prime minister at the start of the intifada, Ehud Barak, understood that. In talks with Arafat just before he was defeated by Sharon in February 2001, Barak demanded that the Palestinian chief rein in Barghouti, who was leading bloody, daily demonstrations at Israeli checkpoints. Barak later said that Arafat turned to his aides, shrugging: "Who does he mean? Who's he talking about?" said Arafat, who simply didn't want to discuss his upstart rival, according to Barak.

Barak later described Arafat's reaction as "bullshit." It was. Arafat knew Barghouti's importance better than anyone. The reason Israeli leaders balk at Hamas's demand for Barghouti's release is because they know it, too.

A Palestinian Mandela is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Citizen's Arrest of War Criminals Tony Blair and George W. Bush

2010-02-06T08:40:28Z

By Anthony J. Hall | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Professor Boyle's intervention with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute the Bush War Cabinet for international crimes is welcome news. Professor Boyle's meticulously documented charges come shortly after news of a reward being set up in Great Britain for those who attempt citizens' arrests of crebibly accused war criminal, Tony Blair.

http://www.arrestblair.org/

All over the world, citizens are mobilizing to take action to demand accountability from those who have been committing with impunity the highest order of international crime. About a year ago I joined this global movement. At an invited presentation hosted by the Sociology Department at the University of Winnipeg in March of 2009, I proposed that George W. Bush should be arrested during his forthcoming speaking engagement in Calgary Alberta. I began the paper by criticizing the ICC for focusing all its attention on prosecuting African war lords while ignoring the blatent criminality being displayed at the highest levels of the feeding chain of military, political and economic power. The presentation went more of less viral on the Internet.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article159233.html#article159233

Professor Boyle's intervention significantly increases the pressure that some of us have being trying to place on the ICC to enforce international criminal law against credibly accused war criminals in not only in Africa, but also in North America, Europe and Israel.

When I first presented these ideas at the University of Winnipeg, my host, Professor Heidi Rimke, and I were confronted by an organized group who surrounded us after my presentation and tried to associate my words with Nazi symbols. This surprising tactic spoke to me of the desperation and intellectual bankruptcy of the lobby seeking to prevent a real discussion of these vital matters strictly on their merits. Fortunately, there was a fairly strong reaction in Winnipeg and beyond that drew attention to the inappropriateness, to say the least, of such tactics to divert attention away from the need to address the culture of impunity that is permitting state-sponsored terror to proliferate in the name of the fraudulent Global War on Terror. As Professor Boyle indicates, this pattern of war crimes at the top is continuing and even accelerating during the presidency of Barack Obama.

http://www.911blogger.com/node/19897
http://uniter.ca/view/discuss/734/

As important as it is to show support for US and British-based initiatives to enforce the rule of law on the highest order of criminality, I humbly suggest that Canadians might want to get involved in similar initiatives unfolding in Canada. When George W. Bush came to Calgary, law enforcement officials ignored my efforts along with those of Lawyers Against War to provide them with evidence that the former US president had violated international law as well as the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

When it became apparent that police would not adhere to the Nuremberg Principles by arresting Bush, my friend and colleague, Splitting The Sky, attempted a citizen's arrest.

An Attica Brother and Mohawk activist, Splitting The Sky had come to Calgary carrying a letter from his lawyer, the former US Attorney-General Ramsay Clark, outlining the case why the former US president should be arrested. We held a press conference the day before Bush's visit to inform the media of the existence of that letter.

Instead of arresting Bush the police arrested Splitting The Sky. The authorities jailed him and and charged the Mohawk activist with obstructing justice. STS's trial is scheduled to take place in Calgary Alberta in early March of 2010, which as I write these words is only about five weeks away. The local media, including the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, has covered up the arrest and the circumstances behind it right up to this day. I lodged a formal complaint with the Ombudsman of the CBC, Vince Carlin, complaining about the public broadcaster's biased and unprofessional coverage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62a53enMtA0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIj9wGZyWM8
http://www.splittingthesky.net/
http://www.warcriminalsout.com/prof_hall_letter_to_cbc_ombudsman.html

Since the arrest of STS former US Congresswoman, Green Party presidential candidate and international anti-war activist, Cynthia McKinney, has been outspoken in calling attention to the importance of the STS-Bush case. Last November, for instance, Ms. McKinney addressed an international conference entitled "Criminalizing War" at Kuala Lumpur. Standing on the podium beside British MP, George Galloway, Ms. McKinney drew attention to the Canadian proceedings that she placed in the context of the history of COINTELPRO dirty tricks aimed at destroying the American Indian Movement

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/47554

I have continued the agenda that Splitting The Sky and I started after he telephoned me about one year ago to inform me that George W.Bush was coming to Calgary in his first public speaking engagement following his presidency.

http://blip.tv/file/3015093
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16377

Along with Splitting The Sky, I attended the Bush-Clinton speaking event in Toronto. I wrote about that episode in a widely disseminated article that appeared on many web sites, including that of Paul S. Graham of the Winnipeg Peace Alliance.

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/paul-s-graham/10d849dd7b02445aaec5a793223af835

Unlike the United States, Canada is a member of the International Criminal Court. If the government of Canada truly respected the jurisdiction and mission of this new and still untested court, it would have made sure that credibly accused war criminals George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and other members of the Bush War Cabinet were arrested when they have touched down on Canadian soil during previous months. But given the present composition of the Canadian government, there is no chance that it will respect international criminal laws that some of its own members, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, could and should be accused of violating.

Moreover all of those police officers who failed to arrest George Bush when they were presented with the possibility of doing so became complicit in violations of international law, including the Nuremberg Principles. Following orders does not provide a legitimate defense for officials who fail to uphold the rule of law when it comes to the responsibility of dealing with the highest order of international crime. Again and again we see evidence that the rule of law does not apply to those at the top of military, corporate, political and financial chains of command. Under these circumstances the idea that we live in societies governed by the rule of law has become a sad hoax.

The severity of the dangers that surround us as the 9/11 Wars continue kill and maim millions and on the frontiers of empire and to subvert our governments and societies here in the imperial heartlands of North America, Europe, Japan and Australasia has been well explained by Professor Boyle as well as by Canadian professors Peter Dale Scott, John McMurtry, Graeme MacQueen, Michael Keefer, and Michel Chossudovsky among others. Yesterday Professor Scott's most recent observations on the lawlessness that permeates the highest levels of our governments was published at

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17300

Founder of the Peace Studies Centre and the Peace Studies program at McMaster University, Professor MacQueen, has added his voice to the mix. He has emphasized the importance for the peace movement of understanding "fraudulent trigger incidents." Prof. MacQueen argues that key elements of the peace movement have gone astray. He accuses some of his fellow activists of refusing to research the case being developed of one of the world's most vital and determined movements of civil society and falling back on uncritical acceptance of what he calls the "government explanation" of the 9/11 Wars. See:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUISz8Uwh6A
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY9IlDDpvzc
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Bte5ULPD8
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCzHeCCDp74&feature=related

* Anthony J. Hall is Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge

Citizen's Arrest of War Criminals Tony Blair and George W. Bush is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

The Source of the Economic Crisis: A Chicago State of Mind

2010-02-07T17:02:10Z

By Maidhc Ó Cathail* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Worried about the global economic crisis? It's all in your head, says a leading financial expert.

And that's the problem, according to Jeff Gates, author of the highly-regarded Democracy At Risk: Rescuing Main Street From Wall Street, a sequel to The Ownership Solution: Toward A Shared Capitalism For The 21st Century. The latter book was described by one reviewer as "the best book on economics for a generation," and praised by Ralph Nader as "a Capitalist Manifesto, a blueprint for spreading the benefits of capitalism more equitably."

Gates, a former counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (1980-87), identifies the source of the current economic crisis as a "shared mindset" into which we have been induced to put our faith, to the grave detriment of the majority – but to the immense benefit of a very few.

While the events of September 2008 on Wall Street may have come as a shock to many – not least those who suddenly found themselves out of work or on the streets – they were "perfectly predictable" to a close-knit group of "financial sophisticates," Jeff Gates maintains.

But is there any evidence that this was a deliberate fraud?

"Systems analysts offer an acronym ("POSIWID") to identify systemic flaws: the purpose of a system is what it does," Gates says.

"In financial systems, results are downstream of the 'Chicago model' – a shared mindset from which today's results flow. Over the past half-century, this market-fundamentalist perspective evolved into the 'Washington' consensus to emerge as the guiding principle of the World Trade Organization (WTO) now taking this model to global scale."

What exactly does he mean by the "Chicago model"?

"At the core of this worldview lies a premise whose purpose is easily stated: 'maximize financial returns and – trust us – all else will be fine.' Faith in that perspective ensured today's results," Gates explains.

"As this 'Chicago' frame of mind gained the force of law through the 'law and economics' movement, the result became a globalized operating system best described as 'money-on-autopilot.' There lies the blame for this collapse – in that narrow 'consensus' perspective."

The "law and economics" movement referred to by Gates also traces its origins to the University of Chicago. As key opponents of financial regulation, this movement was heavily funded by the same Olin Foundation that also supported neoconservatism through its funding of neocon think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.

This "Chicago" state of mind, Gates argues, had far-reaching consequences that could have been easily foreseen by its advocates. "The results of this purpose-driven 'operating system' were guaranteed to concentrate wealth and income and thereby undermine both democracies and markets. By equating personal freedom with financial freedom, we were induced to freely embrace the very forces that now jeopardize freedom," Gates says.

"Nowhere in this operating system is there any provision for the values essential to the long-term health of communities: fiscal foresight, civil cohesion and environmental sustainability. Money is the only value granted a voice."

Jeff Gates' latest book, Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War, traces the corruption that plagues American politics to a network who "share an ideological bias sympathetic to Israel." It should be read by concerned citizens everywhere, but especially in the United States, where the "Chicago" mindset has been most deeply embedded in its economic and foreign policy-making.

Endorsed by former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck and Illinois Congressman Paul Findley (1961–1983), Guilt by Association identifies those who have promoted aggressive economic and foreign policies that have been "ruinous" not only to America's reputation but also to "moderate and secular Jews." The latter, Gates points out, are often unfairly portrayed as "guilty by association" with the behaviour of these "elites and extremists."

Who are these "elites and extremists," and how do they make America appear "guilty by association"?

"When waging unconventional warfare, Defense Secretary Robert Gates points to the perilous role of 'the people in between.' Thus, for instance, while pro-Israelis induced the U.S. to wage war in Iraq with false and flawed intelligence, 'the people in between' created, promoted and reported intelligence 'fixed' around that pre-determined goal," Gates explains.

"In the financial domain, 'the people in between' are securities bundlers, rating agencies and, most fundamentally, those who induce "the mark" (the public) to put their faith in the financial premise that enables this ongoing fraud.

"All flows downstream from a 'consensus' perspective – regardless whether the deception is a shared belief in Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or a consensus faith in the infallibility of unfettered financial markets. The modus operandi is identical – the displacement of facts with beliefs."

Perhaps not coincidentally, the intellectual roots of neoconservatism can also be traced to Chicago, where University of Chicago Professor Albert Wohlstetter's cadre of students included Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. Wohlstetter himself had been a protégé of another University of Chicago Professor, Leo Strauss. Considered to be the "intellectual godfather" of the neocons, Strauss significantly advocated a "philosophy of deception."

Through their failure to identify the source of the problem, government responses to the ongoing economic crisis will only make matters worse, maintains Gates.

"Lawmakers seek to solve a systemic problem well downstream of its source. By piling on more interest-bearing debt without addressing the underlying problem, they are unleashing long-term financial forces destined to make a bad situation worse – at a staggering cost," he says. "We can anticipate stagnation and inflation while 'the people in between' continue to amass more assets (at distressed prices) and collect more interest on more taxpayer-secured debt. The pace is poised to quicken in this policy-enabled redistribution of wealth – from the bottom to the top."

* Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan.

The Source of the Economic Crisis: A Chicago State of Mind is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tweet Digest for 2010-02-02

2010-02-02T22:01:00Z

In the Wake of War: #Gaza One Year On [#video] | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/134ih 20:48:46
New Palestinian Charter Drops Mention Of #Zionism, Sparking Questions http://ow.ly/13303 19:59:22
The Media Propagandists | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/12YC1 #hasbara #lobby #zionist #israel 17:41:36
#Israeli #Shin Bet #spies uncovered in South African Airports working for EL AL airlines [#Video] | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/12Wpr 16:14:20
#eBook: #Christian #Zionists – On the road to #Armageddon (Dr. Stephen R. Sizer) | http://bit.ly/976wjy 15:41:55
#Blair survives Iraq Inquiry without a scratch | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/12I6t #iraq #Chicot #war 23:39:21
Why We Petition For #Palestinian Civil Rights in #Lebanon | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/12Gqe #palestine #refugees 22:26:08

Tweet Digest for 2010-02-02 is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

With Blair-Bush Lies, Muslims Died

2010-02-02T17:53:55Z

Bush and Blair

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"For wicked men are found among my people; they lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap; they catch men"
- Jeremiah 5:26-29, (Bible: Old Testament)

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

For 100 years the Arab and Muslim world have known that when it comes to European and American imperialistic designs on the Middle East there are two separate universes with separate political, economic, racial, and legal standards. With self assured arrogance, hypocrisy, and double standards western powers reserved the "right of might" to inflict devastating invasions, occupations, mass murders, ethnic cleansing and the Anti-Jewish cleansing of Europe by gifting a land, without ownership or right, to European Jews who proceeded to emulate European colonialism to attack and ethnically cleanse an innocent people from their land. Israel was born by England's illegal gifting of a foreign land and subsequently immorally supported by the United States at the expense of a hapless population living under the most dire and brutal of occupations.

Throughout the history of their imperialistic, colonial designs those western powers and Israel, the fate of the indigenous populations was never an issue or matter of concern to these warring states. From the Native Americans, North and South, to Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Asians, and the Aborigines of Australia and New Zealand, their lives, history, religion, culture and language were fodder for extinction to satisfy the economic greed of western powers.

In 1917, a simple typed letter of 68 words signed by Lord Balfour, foreign minister of England and addressed to the Jewish banker, Lord Rothschild, proscribed Palestine, still under Ottoman rule, "a national homeland for the Jews." It became known as the "Balfour Declaration" and used a manifesto by Zionists to justify their illegal, immoral, and genocidal design on Palestine.

"In Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country…Zionism, be it right or wrong, is rooted in age-old traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."
- Lord Balfour, UK Foreign Minister

From David Lloyd George ("We have the right to bomb niggers"), Prime Minister of England 1916-1922 – to Lord Arthur Balfour, UK Foreign Minister 1916-1919 and author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration – to President Truman – to the current Vice President of the United States, Joseph Biden, all have declared themselves to be "Zionists"

Not since World War II has one western leader, not even one, ever been charged or prosecuted for war crimes against humanity. While Holocaust museums are being erected around the world, often at tax payers expense, not one single museum in a western capital, with the exception of Latin America, has ever been built to memorialize the genocides against African Americans, Latinos, Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Asians, and Aborigines – all victims of imperial holocausts.

These days in London an "inquiry", not trial, named after its chair, the Chicot Inquiry, has been looking into the reasons and justifications that led to the massively illegal war and devastation of an innocent nation, Iraq.

So far, former British government officials have presented evidence that the war was "illegal", did not have support from the U.N., nor from the entire world except for UK and US, – that Tony Blair had been told that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that intelligence was "sexed up" and manipulated to justify Blair's war crimes against Iraq.

Blair launched his war crime against Iraq with the same zeal, lies, and fear mongering propaganda used by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Pau Wolfowitz. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense, called by Time Magazine, the "Architect" of the Iraq War, was asked in a Vanity Fair interview, May 2003, why was the Iraq War based on Saddam's alleged possession of WMD's. This time, he actually told the truth. Wolfowitz stated:

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

As a second reason he stated that the war gave the U.S. the opportunity to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia where Saudi hostility against the presence of the troops was high.

Tony Blair's lies to the British people, despite their immense opposition to the war, and to Parliament have been aptly documented. But this arrogant war criminal, ironically a MidEast "peace envoy", told the Chicot Inquiry that he did not lie about his justifications for war and unconscionably stood by his false assertions for the devastating illegal war. He was unrepentant and unremorseful for the millions of dead, injured, and displaced Iraqis. Nor was he unrepentant for the sacrifice of British soldiers. In true narcissistic and pathological fashion he said he would make the same decision to invade Iraq again today. Even Saddam's death wouldn't have stopped their messianic psychosis to invade Iraq. Got to do it for Oil and Israel.

Blair quotes that reveal a pathological liar with no conscience but possessing a hypocritical racist soul, much like all Israeli leaders, including today's war criminal du jour, Netanyahu.

"Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die and some will be innocent. And we must live with the consequences of our actions, even the unintended ones."

"Ridding the world of Saddam would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane."

"The document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."
-Foreword to UK Government dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction

Tony Blair's arrogant testimony to the Chicot Inquiry is a blatant genocidal example of a western leader trying to justify the unjustifiable. Both Blair and Bush knew beforehand that Iraq had no WMD's and that their falsified intelligence came from an alcoholic liar ("Curveball") and Iraqi dissident, Ahmad Chalabi, whose lies gave Blair and Bush the weapons for mass destruction of Iraq. The British Intelligence even plagiarized statements from a U.S. PhD student's thesis on Iraq which included the outrageous claim that Saddam can launch WMD's within 45 minutes.

Blair in true contempt to truth and history used Bush's fallback position that 9/11 changed their outlook on world affairs and became their pretext for a world "war on terror". Blair's testimony showcased that the best defense was a good offense.

The U.N., Fourth Geneva Convention, I.C.C., and International Laws were created by western powers and thus easily manipulated and selectively applied by them to the third world and not to themselves who self ascribe the right to devastate in the name of self defense, even pre-emptively. Using such logic any nation can invade another pre-emptively if it can manufacture hysteria, lies and self perceived threats to itself. Thus China is totally justified to invade Taiwan, Russia can invade Poland and the Czech Republic given America's deployment of missile defense systems, Cuba can invade the U.S., Turkey can invade Armenia and so on.

Within this cabal of righteous powers is Israel, a nation born out of violence, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing; a nation that has repeatedly launched pre-emptive wars using the western mantra of "self defense". Israel, a state unlike any other that commits genocides with total impunity daring the world to criticize much less consider prosecuting its leaders for documented crimes against humanity, as evidenced by the Goldstone Report.

Not satisfied with the bloodshed in Iraq, Blair has the audacity to call for the same devastation of the Muslim nation du jour, Iran, thereby joining the Israeli motivated policy of "next stop, Tehran". Iran, like Iraq, poses no threat to either, the west or Israel, even if it does possess nuclear weapons. Would Iran commit suicide or would it insanely nuke Israel thereby committing a holocaust against Palestinians, the very people Iran loves and defends? Would it destroy Jerusalem, while causing massive nuclear radiation in the entire region and risking massive nuclear retaliation from Israel, a state in possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons and a non-signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty? Blaming, then bombing Muslims seems to be Blair's, Obama's, and Israel's policy. Nuclear Israel, demonstrably a criminal nation, is untouchable while non-nuclear Muslim nations are bombable. Justice lies in the eye of the criminal.

TRUTH has always been the enemy of western civilization and in due time will be its undoing.

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
- Professor Samuel Huntington, author of Clash of Civilizations

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

With Blair-Bush Lies, Muslims Died is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

In the Wake of War: Gaza One Year On

2010-02-02T17:15:12Z

This film is based on interviews and filming we did in December in Gaza, in the run up to the anniversary of Operation Cast Lead. In the Wake of War is testimony-based, telling but some of the stories of survival, tragedy, and ongoing hardship in Gaza – with no effective action to end the blockade, no reconstruction, no accountability.

In the Wake of War can be viewed on our website: http://www.map-uk.org/regions/opt/media/view/-/id/79/

Alternatively, on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzXdF95F1SE

This film is the first in a series of short films which we will release over the course of 2010. The next film, focusing on the blockade of Gaza, will be released in February.

Andrea Becker
Head of Advocacy
Medical Aid for Palestinians
andrea.becker@map-uk.org

In the Wake of War: Gaza One Year On is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.