Sabbah Report

Anti-Semitism: Zionist myth v truth and reality

2010-03-14T21:30:56Z

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

There are two definitions of anti-Semitism in its Jewish context. One was born in real history and represents a truth. The other is part and parcel of Zionist mythology and was invented for the purpose of blackmailing non-Jewish Europeans and North Americans into refraining from criticising Israel or, to be more precise, staying silent when its leaders resort to state terrorism and demonstrate in many ways their absolute contempt for international law.

Anti-Semitism properly and honestly defined is prejudice against and loathing and even hatred of Jews, all Jews everywhere, just because they are Jews.

Anti-Semitism as defined by Zionism, the colonial, ethnic cleansing enterprise of some Jews, has come to mean almost all criticism of Israel's policies and actions, in particular its oppression of the Palestinians, and, also, criticism on the basis of revelations from the documented truth of history which expose Zionism's propaganda for the nonsense it is. Put another way, anti-Semitism as defined by supporters of Israel right or wrong is anything written or said by anybody that challenges and contradicts Zionism's version of events. In effect Zionists say, "If you disagree with us, you're anti-Semitic."

As a blackmail card to silence criticism of Israel and prevent informed and honest debate about who must do what and why for justice and peace in the Middle East, Zionism's false charge of anti-Semitism has worked wonderfully well to date. Why? In the long (and still present) shadow of the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, a European crime for which, effectively, the Arabs were punished, there are few things Westerners in public life, politicians and media people especially, fear more than being accused of anti-Semitism.

Unable to refute the substance of documented and objective messages of challenge and criticism, Zionism's policy always was, and still is, to shoot the messengers with false charges of anti-Semitism.

For complete understanding of what anti-Semitism is and is not, it's necessary to know what Zionism is and is not.

Zionism claims to be the nationalist movement of the Jews, all Jews everywhere. If this was so, the assertion that anti-Zionism is almost by definition a manifestation of anti-Semitism might appear to have a degree of credibility. But this Zionist claim does not bear examination.

As I document in detail in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, the truth is that from Zionism's foundation in 1897 until the Nazi holocaust, its colonial enterprise was endorsed and supported by only a tiny minority of the world's Jews and was opposed by many of them.

Also true is that from Israel's unilateral declaration of independence in 1948 until the final countdown to the 1967 war, most Jews of the world had no great affinity with Israel. That changed when most Jews believed – because they were conditioned by Zionism and the mainstream Western media to believe – that poor little Israel was in danger of annihilation. In that light Israel's stunning victory was a source of great pride for most Jews of the world.

Though most Jews didn't and still don't want to know it, the truth was different. The Arabs did not attack first and were not intending to attack. The 1967 war was one of Israeli aggression.

Today much of what supporters of Israel right or wrong claim to be anti-Semitism is actually anti-Israelism, which in my view is best described as anti-Zionism. And contrary to the assertions of Zionism's spin doctors, anti-Zionism is not by definition anti-Semitism.

Short or long, any discussion of anti-Semitism should include the fact that Zionism needs it. The first to acknowledge this was none other than Theodore Herzl, Zionism's founding father. In one of his diaries, not published until 1962, Herzl wrote the following:

"Anti-Semitism is a propelling force which, like the wave of the future, will bring Jews into the promised land. Anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow – and so do I."

He was right. Without the anti-Semitism unleashed by Adolf Hitler in his Germany and Nazi occupied Europe, Zionism's colonial enterprise would have been doomed to failure for lack of enough Jewish support.

Today Zionism needs anti-Semitism or what it can present as anti-Semitism to go on justifying its policies and actions.

Any discussion of anti-Semitism should also take note of the words of Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel's longest serving Director of Military Intelligence. In his book Israel's Fateful Hour, he wrote: "I believe it was a damaging error on Menachem Begin's part to insinuate that criticism of Israel is a manifestation of anti-Semitism." In the same book Harkabi gave this warning:

"Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world."

From the early 1980's when those words were written, Israel's "misconduct" has been the prime cause in the rise of what Zionism presents as anti-Semitism but which is actually anti-Israelism/anti-Zionism. Today the biggest danger to the Jews of the world is, as Harkabi warned, that anti-Israelism/anti-Zionism will be transformed into anti-Semitism, with the consequence at some point of another great turning against Jews.

My own view is that such a catastrophe will happen unless the citizens of the mainly Gentile Western world among whom most Jews live are made aware of the difference between Judaism and Zionism. As I have previously written and never tire of repeating, knowledge of this difference is the key to understanding two things.

One is why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist (opposed to Zionism's still on-going colonial enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form anti-Semitic.

The other is why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the hardest core Zionist few in Israel.

In my analysis, the day when citizens of the Western world understand those two things and what anti-Semitism is and is not, is the day that will mark the beginning of the end of Zionism's freedom and ability to impose its will on the Palestinians, the whole of the Arab world and the governments of the major Western powers, and to remain above and beyond international law.

* 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

Anti-Semitism: Zionist myth v truth and reality is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Anti-Semitism: Silencing The Messenger Of Truth With Canada's "Hate Provisions"

2010-03-14T21:30:42Z

Misuse of "antisemitism" illustration by Carlos Latuff

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

As an American living under Bush's Military Commission's Act, I feel a bit unnerved when charged with "allegations" of hate crimes issued by Canada's Council on Human Rights, "allegations" made by an unidentified group against the editors of "Peace, Earth and Justice," (PEJ Internet publications), and specifically against certain unidentified authors for articles claimed to be anti-Semitic. One might expect from a democratic government that the accused would be notified of such charges, be provided with the details of the allegations, and offered an opportunity to rebut the points raised.

But no. The charges are made, the Council brings the charges to the editors who are prone to protect the publication by removing the articles, and the goal of the group bringing the charges is accomplished — silencing the messengers who raise issues of significance that can no longer be seen or read. Such is democracy and the free press in the 21st century.

Thank God for our last domain of free speech, the Internet, and in this instance the Internet publication Dissident Voice. On May 28th, 2007, Kim Petersen wrote "When Monopolization of the Media Fails, then Squash Freedom of Speech." It is there that I found out that I was charged before the Council on Human Rights with anti-Semitism by a Mr. Harry Abrams with the support of the B'nai B'rith of Canada. .

Since neither the Canadian Government or the accusers have seen fit to notify me that I am charged with a "hate crime," I am forced to present my case before the public lest Council members and others made aware of these accusations assume that the allegations are true, a conclusion that could result from such slanderous allegations and cast aspersions on my personal and professional character.

Let me undertake my own defense by quoting from "The Nizkor Project" of the League of Human Rights of B'nai B'rith Canada. "The international community has recognized the need to deal with human rights violations and hate propaganda under the law. The foundation of Canada's hate laws can be found in several international treaties which Canada has ratified. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, established the basic principles upon which subsequent anti-racist legislation would be based, including legislation designed to afford identifiable groups protection against racist attacks. Hate propaganda, the promotion of hatred against identifiable groups, became a criminal offense in Canada in 1970 (Criminal Code, Sections 318-320)." Additionally, Canada adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1966, a convention that requires states "to criminalize hate propaganda and other activities which promote racism."

Canada's acceptance of these international laws and conventions indicates that the state is sensitive to its various populations and the potential for discrimination that can be brought against them. As the Nizkor Project notes: "The premise underlying Canada's anti-hate laws is that in a democratic society, identifiable groups must be protected against racism, including its verbal manifestations, in order not to limit their basic freedoms and thereby their full participation in Canadian society." I agree with Nizkor's assertion that the catalyst for this legislation might well have been the experience of Nazism, "that unchecked racism and hate propaganda could lead even a highly educated, cultured and democratic society to justify the most heinous crimes against humanity."

Now let me turn to the actual sections of the Criminal Code that are applicable here: Section 318: Advocating Genocide and section 319: Defining Genocide. "The criminal act of 'advocating genocide' is defined as supporting or arguing for the killing of members of an 'identifiable group' – persons distinguished by their colour, race, religion or ethnic origin. The intention would be the destruction of members of the targeted group. Any person who promotes genocide is guilty of an indictable offence, and liable to imprisonment…" Section 319 defines genocide as "any acts committed with intent to destroy an identifiable group – such as killing members of the group, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction."

Section 319(3) makes explicit acceptable defences that prohibit conviction based on the following: "statements in question are established to be true; were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds it was believed to be true; ….; were expressed in good faith and intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada."

I provide this background to establish this profound truth: my article published by PEJ, "The Hamas Challenge to Israel," provides a disturbing picture of a Prime Minister in Israel who has undertaken, with the collaboration of a distinct minority of like mind, a concerted effort to commit genocide against an identifiable group, the Palestinians, because of "race, ethnicity, and religion," by "promoting the killing of members of the group" and "deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction."

The article was not written specifically for Canadians or any state, but rather to make known to the community of nations the reality of the actions undertaken by Sharon and his government (and subsequently by Ehud Olmert and his administration). Every statement in the litany of accusations made against this man has been substantiated by scholars, journalists, resolutions by the UNSC and the UNGA, and even the International Court of Justice. Nothing in the article condemns the Jews as a people; indeed, the article sympathizes with the Jews as they, like Americans under Bush, must endure racist actions of the Israeli government acting in their name.

The article is in every particular a graphic defense of the Canadian Criminal Code against hate, but hate perpetrated by a hard core Zionist group (See for example statements by Olmert's colleague Avigdor Lieberman) that has aligned itself with the Olmert government to inflict genocidal acts against the Palestinians. Books have been written on this subject. It is not my invention. (See for example, Dr. Uri Davis' Apartheid Israel, Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Cook's "The Rape of Palestine," and most recently this week, Richard Falk's "Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust."). I believe that publication of the article provided Canadians with documentable evidence of these heinous acts, information beneficial to the public if they are to become sensitized to the plight of Palestinians and Arabs living within their state. They are the ones at risk. Only through the availability of such information can the Islamophobic hysteria present in America and Canada be blunted.

I will end this piece with two passages from the article in question, an article you cannot now read because an unidentified group has made insidious allegations against this writer, one of a number, without providing him (or them) his due rights before the law, a most slanderous and clandestine way to silence voices one does not wish to hear.

"Shouldn't it be clear by now, today, that Israel and its obedient partner in war crime, the United States, has no intention of seeking peace with the Palestinians? How else maintain an unending war of terror? How else fuel division, hatred, vengeance, retaliation and destruction than to systematically strangle by slow, insidious suffocation the rights of a people declared openly in a mutually accepted Universal Declaration of Human Rights? How else continue expansion and acquisition of another's land than to foster violence with violence and cry aloud to the world your pain even as the cries and torment of the Palestinians are muffled behind a Wall of Fear Sharon leaves as his memorial to a life time of savagery and death?"

"When this Wall of silence is breached, when the truth is made manifest, what the world will see and what Jews around the world will see, is that Sharon has destroyed the moral fiber of Judaism. What Jews suffered under the boots of Nazi Germany – the humiliation, torture, powerlessness, and fear – impressed on them by a racist nation arrogant in their superiority, the Israelis now inflict on the hapless people of Palestine."

* 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

Anti-Semitism: Silencing The Messenger Of Truth With Canada's "Hate Provisions" is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Anti-Semitism: Zionism's Indispensable Alibi

2010-03-15T06:32:20Z

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

Operations Ezra & Nechemia: The Aliyah of Iraqi Jews

Although Zionism typically represents itself as the solution to anti-Semitism, the truth is less flattering. In fact, hostility toward Jews is indispensable to the cause of Jewish nationalism. If anti-Semitism didn't exist, Zionists would have to invent it. And in many cases that is precisely what they have done.

Contrary to the widespread perception that Zionism opposes anti-Semitism, its adherents have occasionally revealed a more ambivalent attitude to Jew-hatred. In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, prophetically wrote in his Diaries, "Anti-Semites will become our surest friends, anti-Semitic countries our allies." Even the suffering inflicted on European Jewry by the Nazi holocaust doesn't seem to have unduly tempered such cynicism. In 1995, Jay Lefkowitz, an American government official, told the New York Times Magazine, "Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews- reminds them who they are."

If Zionist extremists can't provoke the desired level of anti-Semitism to advance their goals, they are even prepared to fake it. A 1952 article in Davar, the official organ of Mapai, the party of the then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, suggested sending a team of saboteurs "to help redeem Jews" from the countries where they are "absorbed in sinful self-satisfaction."

"The task of these young men," the article explained, "would be to disguise themselves as non-Jews, and, acting upon the brutal Zionism, plague these Jews with anti-Semitic slogans, such as 'Bloody Jew,' 'Jews go to Palestine,' and similar 'intimacies.'"

Lest anyone doubt that the Israeli government would ever contemplate carrying out such a cynical plot to encourage Jews to move to Israel, the "rescue" of about 125,000 Iraqi Jews in the early 1950s involved far worse acts. "In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews," wrote former CIA officer Wilbur Eveland in Ropes of Sand, "the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel."

Whatever about posing as "Arab anti-Semites," one might think that Zionists would draw the line at a post-Holocaust sponsorship of Nazism. Yet this is exactly what a leading Canadian Zionist organization has been accused of. "In the 1960s, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) paid John Garrity, a small-time mercenary, to build up the fledgling Canadian Nazi Party," reveals Ezra Levant in Shakedown. When the embarrassing truth emerged, it was justified by the CJC as an attempt to learn more about neo-Nazism. However, the real purpose, according to the Jewish Canadian writer, was to provide "a pretext for the addition of 'hate' laws to the criminal code."

While "hate" sounds like something that all decent people would condemn, one man's hate may be another man's righteous indignation. Zionists, for example, tend to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and, therefore, as something that could be considered a "hate crime."

But are Professors Mearsheimer and Walt engaged in hate propaganda by documenting the harmful influence of the Israel lobby over US foreign policy? Or is former US President Jimmy Carter a "bigot" for comparing the Israeli occupation of Palestine to apartheid South Africa? Are the survivors of the USS Liberty who refuse to remain silent about Israel's deliberate attack on their ship merely motivated by hatred of Jews? Is Professor Norman Finkelstein a "self-hating Jew" for exposing the Holocaust Industry's corruption of history and memory in the service of an extortion racket? And is UN special rapporteur Richard Falk also "self-hating" for likening Israel's actions against the besieged Gazans to what the Nazis did to Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto?

In each of these cases, by no means an exhaustive list, the charge of anti-Semitism, rather than serving to protect Jewish people from defamation, has been used to obscure Zionist crimes.

However, as Zionist criminality becomes increasingly transparent, there will most likely be a sharp rise in anti-Semitism worldwide. No doubt much of it will be the result of genuine, albeit misdirected, anger as the extent of Zionist crimes against humanity becomes more widely known. But considering Zionism's history of faking attacks on Jews, we can expect at least some of this "hate" to be the work of Jewish extremists who disingenuously claim to be fighting anti-Semitism.

Perhaps it's time for those who are genuinely concerned about combating hatred in the world to heed the words of Israel Shahak. As the great Israeli humanist concluded in his classic Jewish History, Jewish Religion, "Although the struggle against antisemitism (and of all other forms of racism) should never cease, the struggle against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism … is now of equal or greater importance."

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

Anti-Semitism: Zionism's Indispensable Alibi is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Bashing Islam is Freedom of Speech Criticizing Israel is a Hate Crime

2010-03-14T18:12:56Z

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

"We sent thee not, O! Muhammad, save as a mercy to all the people. Say, O! Muhammad: "It has but been revealed unto me that your God is the One and Only God: will you, then, surrender yourselves unto Him?" (Qur'an: 21: 107-108)

There is only one "Absolute" form of Free Speech in the west, the freedom and right to bash Islam, stomp, shoot, and flush the Holy Qur'an down the toilet, and portray Islam's beloved Prophet Muhammad (p) in the most vile manner in all forms of "art".

Freedom of Speech is an ever changing and evolving right that depends on time, person, place, method of delivery, issue, and people involved. Since the time of Socrates who was prosecuted for corrupting young minds to today's blasphemous attacks on Islam, the Quran, and Islam's Prophet; freedom of speech has always been defined and determined by those in power.

Bashing Islam is not new. In fact it began during the Prophet's own lifetime by those who rejected his message in Arabia only to be followed by Christians, Jews, and followers of other faiths. Saint John of Damascus (7th – 8th C) while ironically working as an administrative officer for the Muslim ruler of Damascus wrote that the Prophet Muhammad (p) was a "false prophet…heretic…an Anti Christ." Such attacks continued throughout historical Christian Europe by men such as Martin Luther, Voltaire, Dante, to , right wing European parties, to the U.S. by such men as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey (who called Allah (God) Satan), and politicians. Bashing Islam has become a respectable political and money making cottage industry.

Thus it's not surprising that 9/11 opened the flood gates for a wider multitude of westerners who inflame and further incite hatred of Islam. Such vileness arises out of total ignorance of Islam and the historical innate fear of the "other". The West fears what it does not know. In Europe, especially, fear of an Islamized Europe has conveniently morphed into a political agenda against the immigration of the "other", mainly people of color who immigrate to Europe from formerly European colonized nations.

It is inexplicable to describe the West as civilized when such uncivil behavior toward those of a different faith or color permeates a significant portion of the population. If civilization is based on education then such people must be hailed as arrogant, racists, supremacists, and ignorant fools.
The Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks as part of an art exhibition entitled "Dog in Art" decided to follow in the footsteps of the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard (who drew cartoons depicting Muhammad as a terrorist) and drew a cartoon of the Prophet with the body of a dog. While the public rationale is freedom of speech, the underlying motive is pure racism. But freedom of speech in the west depends on who you offend. Offending Jews, discussing the Holocaust, criticizing Israel's brutality against the Palestinians is either attacked as "Anti-Semitic", or met with jail time while the western kosher media quashes such "free speech". God forbid such a cartoonist would draw a similar cartoon of Moses (p), a Jew with a swastika as a tail, or of the Crown Prince of Spain. (Spanish cartoonist fined for royal dishonour", UK Telegraph, Nov. 14, 2007)

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote of Freedom or Speech, "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

The European Union Human Rights reports on Racism and Xenophobia annually reports that racism against Muslims and people of color in Europe is an ever increasing problem. While the E.U. and Sweden have laws on "hate crimes", which I consider these foul cartoons to be, they seldom if ever prosecute the perpetrators of such hate crimes if the intended victim is Islam or Muslims. On the contrary such politicians and artists are applauded and welcomed in the U.S. (Salman Rushdie, "The Satanic Verses", in the White House), by Conservative Christians and Pro Israeli lobbies, think tanks, and the mainstream Pro Israel media as idols of free speech. Yet in Europe and the U.S. if the perceived crime is "Anti Semitic" governments are in the fore front to decry and prosecute such "hate crimes".

When Israel is portrayed in a negative light in the Arab media due to its murderous occupation of Palestinians and constant theft of their land both European and U.S. governments immediately and publicly condemn such actions as hateful and anti Semitic, but when Islam's Prophet is subjected to vile hate it is considered "freedom of speech". It is a fine line and slippery slope between what is considered free speech and blasphemy. Didn't the Nazis use hateful cartoons of Jews as part of their propaganda for the "final solution?

It is this double standard and hypocrisy by western governments that inflames the Muslim world against their policies and practices, especially with respect to Israel's invasions and genocide against Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Criticizing Israel for its illegal occupation, inhumane siege of Gaza, massacring Gaza's children, demolishing thousands of homes, destroying hospitals, clinics, schools, churches and mosques, depriving the population of food, water and medicine, it's massive abuse of human rights and defiance of International laws, and much more is unacceptable, censored, hateful, and strongly defended by western governments and the media as "Israel's right to self defense", a right that its victims are denied.
Muslims are strictly forbidden from carrying out any violence or calling for death threats against the perpetrators of hate against the Prophet. The Holy Quran forbids such violence and directs Muslims to endure and be patient as the Holy Prophet endured during his lifetime.

"And, whenever they heard frivolous talk, having turned away from it and said: "Unto us shall be accounted Our deeds, and unto you, your deeds. Peace be upon you – [but] we do not seek out such as are ignorant [of the meaning of right and wrong]." (Quran: 28:55)

"Believers (Muslims), stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others toward you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is well-acquainted with all that you do." (Qur'an 5:8)

The European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR) and the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) condemned the death threats issued by Al Qaeda and other small extremist groups against Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist, and Ulf Johansson editor in chief of the paper that published his cartoon of the Prophet with a body of a dog. Such hate must be met with patience and a strong educational outreach program to tell the truth about Islam and its beloved Prophet Muhammad (p).

Perpetual racism, arrogance, and ignorance of Islam in the west are the combustible ingredients for assured mutual destruction of our planet. The lack of any sacredness in the west that belies the misguided application of free speech against the "other" rests on the premise that if I hold nothing sacred and I damn my own faith and religious figures then I have the right to damn yours and if you are civilized like me you will accept such racist rantings as free speech. That is the rational of fools who've surrendered their superficial intellect to misguided stupidity.

It's not enough that the west has annihilated, bombed, and committed holocausts across the globe against the "other"; now the "other" must endure the verbal and written bombs upon their faith, culture, and traditions.

What conceivable civilized aim can be achieved by denigrating a Prophet of 1.6 Billion Muslims? Why aren't Muslims retaliating with the same vile hate against Judeo-Christian religious founders such as Moses and Jesus, peace be upon them both, or the Torah and Gospel? Because Muslims believe and revere these two prophets and the original holy revelations they received.

The least that can be expected from "civilized" people who wish to criticize a faith is to have a working knowledge on the subject to confer some credibility for their critique. Such knowledge of Islam is sorely missing in the West, thus such critiques are frivolous and meaningless.
Both the Danish and Swedish cartoonists who drew the vile cartoons of the Prophet were unknown entities until they entered racist contests concocted by two small papers in a competition to defame and demonize a most exalted person. After the controversy these two men achieved the celebrity status that has eluded them for decades.

But what of this man, Muhammad (p), who for centuries became the object of racist depictions by people who knew nothing about him in Christian Europe and in the U.S. (Read: "Muhammad in Europe", by Minou Reeves)

The British Historian Michael H. Hart in his book: "The 100: Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History" chose Muhammad (p) as the most influential human being in history. He wrote:

"My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular level."

The famous French writer, poet, and politician Alphonse le Lamartine (1790-1869) in his book, "Histoire De La Turque", wrote of Muhammad (p):

"If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad"?  The renowned Professor of Comparative Religion Karen Armstrong wrote a book in 2006 entitled "Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time"

There are endless biographies, books, speeches and statements on Prophet Muhammad (p) by renowned authors around the world that exalt his person, his unshakeable spiritual beliefs, morality, ethics, compassion, mercy, and extraordinary leadership.

Sadly in America's educational system the study of cultures, world religions, history, and geography are sorely lacking. Such a vacuum can only lead to further misunderstanding and conflict between religions and peoples

"There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions."
–Hans Kung, Catholic Theologian

The foundation for a peaceful world is the knowledge that all humanity is equal in the eyes of God and in human laws and that human nature is the same throughout time, place, and geography. The secret is simple: R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is he who is the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted with all things. (Qur'an: 49:13)

* Mohamed Khodr M.D., M.P.H. 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.

Bashing Islam is Freedom of Speech Criticizing Israel is a Hate Crime is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

American Humanitarian Hypocrisy; Armenian Genocide

2010-03-14T12:37:29Z

Armenian Genocide Map

By Dr. Elias Akleh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The hypocrisy of the American legislators has never stopped to amaze me. On Thursday March 4^th The House Foreign Affairs Committee had approved, by 23 to 22 votes, a non-binding resolution to condemn WWI-era massacre of Armenians on the hands of the Ottoman troops that began in 1915 as an act of planned genocide.

Acknowledging, recognizing, and condemning genocides, ethnic cleansings, massacres, and even killing of one human is the duty of all countries of the world. Yet ignoring or recognizing genocide for political gains is a very shameful hypocrisy.

This was not the first time the Committee had voted on this issue, but the resolutions were blocked from moving to the House floor for full voting. The American administration feared adverse effects on the diplomatic relationship, especially the military cooperation, between the US and Turkey that might have devastating effects on the American interests in the region including its alleged war on terror, its occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and the Iranian alleged nuclear threat.

First in 2000 the House Committee had approved a resolution to recognize the Armenian massacre as genocide. President Clinton, at the time, succeeded in persuading the Republican speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, to withdraw the measure before the full House could vote on it. In October 2007, the Committee, again, passed a similar resolution by 27 to 21 votes. The American administration, then, was still relying heavily on Turkish military bases for quick delivery of supplies to its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, noted that about 70% of all air cargo sent to Iraq passed through or came from Turkey, as did 30% of fuel, and virtually all the new armored vehicles designed to withstand mines and bombs. Avoiding the use of the world genocide, President Bush danced around the subject saying: "We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915, but this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror."

So what motivated members of Committee to pass the resolution for the third time although Representative Dan Burton reminded them that "We have troops in the field, and we run the risk of losing a base of operation in Turkey" ?

Turkey, as any observer can notice, had lately shifted its foreign policies. Although a Middle Eastern country Turkey longed to become a member of the EU, but unfortunately transferring your eastern roots to the west seemed to be a difficult matter. After so many years of applying for membership to EU, and adopting all the imposed harsh conditions to become a member besides serving NATO for 58 years, Turkey finally recognized that the EU will not accept Turkey especially after admitting many of the old Warsaw countries (e.g. Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia among others) so easily. It seems that Turkey, finally, contented to remain Middle Eastern and decided to re-establish its position in the region.

The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, focused on internal economic and social improvements. The public debt as percentage of annual gross domestic product declined from 74% in 2002 to 39% in 2009. Turkey has become the seventeenth strongest economical power in the world. In April 2006 the government announced a social security reform package including free medical services for everyone under the age of 18 regardless of whether they pay premiums to any social security organization or not. This is an improvement the US, the richest country in the whole world, has not yet implemented for its citizens.

Erdogan improved Turkish political relations with its old adversaries and its neighbors. Through an aggressive plan of allowing use of Kurdish language and reverting original Kurdish names to their cities Erdogan ended the quarter-century-long conflict with the Kurds. He also improved relationships with Greece, Armenia, and Iraq. Abdullah Gul became the first Turkish head of state to visit Armenia and first to visit Iraq in 33 years. Last August 31^st Turkey and Armenia signed a protocol in Zurich to improve relations between the two countries. In Iraq Turkey signed 48 trade agreements.

Erdogan had significantly improved Turkish diplomatic relations with Syria. Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, travelled to Turkey for the first official visit by a Syrian President in 57 years. In late 2004 Erdogan signed a free trade agreement with Syria, and in 2009 visa restrictions between the two countries have been lifted. Erdogan had also functioned, although for a brief period, as a mediator in indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria.

Asserting its position in the Middle East Turkey decided to play a more active role in the political affairs of the region. Erdogan has established a trilateral pact with Iran and Syria. He also expressed political support for Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas in their resistance of Israeli occupation. He faced Israeli president, Shimon Perez, in Davos conference January 2009 and severely criticized Israel's December 2009 onslaught against Palestinian civilians in Gaza before walking out in protest over Perez's lies. This stand gained Erdogan huge popularity in the Arab and Moslem population.

Turkey had a change of heart, and decided to walk the path of freedom from Western influence. Turkey decided to become an independent and a major player in the Middle East in solidarity with its Arab neighbors. Turkey had committed the ultimate sin, in the eyes of the West and Israel, when it sided with Syria and Iran, and especially when it opposed and criticized Israel something many leaders, especially the Arabs, did not dare to do.

It was decided that Erdogan's government has to go before it becomes any stronger!!!

The Turkish "Zaman" newspaper reported on Jan. 3^rd 2009 that Israel plans to overthrow Erdogan's government because of his support for the Palestinian cause. It revealed that Israel provides support for opposition Turkish forces to topple the government. This was confirmed when the government arrested 49 military officers planning a coup. The newspaper confirmed that Israel helped in 1997 the Turkish neo-conservative to topple the then coalition government headed by Necmettin Erbakan. The Israeli war ministry leaked to the media in 2007 a report stressing the need to oust Erdogan's government through a similar plan.

Zionist conspiracies against Turkey started way back in June of 1896 when Sultan Abdel Hamid refused to sell Palestine to Zionist Herzl. Since then, and up to the present, Zionists schemed to embarrass and to weaken successive Turkish governments. This started with the Armenian genocide in 1915.

After WWI the Allied forces occupied large parts of the Ottoman Empire. Financing and arming Anatolia Armenian French Zionists incited the Armenians to revolt against the Empire to establish an independent Armenian state. The Armenians attacked The Turks, destroyed their cities and killed their women and children. Yet their revolt was brutally crushed by the "Young Turks Revolution", who also toppled Abdul Hamid's empire. It was revealed later that the "Young Turk Revolution" was actually a Jewish takeover (Jewish Young Turks) that was financed and armed by the Zionist Israelite Community of Salonika to topple the Ottoman Empire and to get rid of influential rich Armenians. This was revealed through letters to "The London Times" between June and August of 1911 under the title of "Jews and the situation in Albania". See also "The Jewish Genocide of Armenian Christians" by Christopher Jon Bjerknes.

Although the reports of Lieutenants Emory Noles and Arthur Sutherland, who were sent by the American administration to investigate the situation in Turkish Anatolia, reported massacres on both sides, only the Turkish massacres of Armenians were publicized.

Another chapter of the Zionist war against Turkey is being played. Israel tried to belittle Turkey when Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon publicly humiliated Turkey's ambassador in front of press cameras. The extremist Zionist Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman was sent to Greece, to Cypress and to Azerbaijan to inflame old hostilities against Turkey. A Turkish military coup attempt had failed and its planners, 49 military officers, were imprisoned. Ignoring real historical events American Foreign Affair Committee, under the influence of AIPAC, passed its resolutions notably by very narrow margins, to condemn what was termed Armenian Genocide.

The question that begs itself here is what moral grounds this Committee has earned to pass such resolution? On what ethical basis do they condemn one genocide and not others? What about the genocide of 40 million American Indians to establish the US? What about the nuclear genocide of Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the killing fields of Vietnam and Korea, the aerial bombing of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the present genocides of millions of Moslems in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq?

Jews, and AIPAC in specific, should remember the genocide of 110 million Africans, victims of 113 years of slave industry, by Jewish slave traders, the genocide of 35 million Kulaks by Russian Jewish Cheka agents in 1932, the genocide of 100 million Christians including their priests between 1920-1940 by the Jewish Bolshevik Commisars under the leadership of Jewish Kaganovich, Stalin's brother-in-law, the Zionist expulsion and genocide of 16 million ethnic Germans from Silesia and the Volga at the end of WWII, and the still ongoing 62 years Zionist Israeli genocide of Palestinians. More Zionist Jewish genocides can be found here.

The term Armenian Genocide refers to the total of 1.5 million Armenians killed in an alleged systematic campaign by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey acknowledges that hundreds of thousands of Armenians, as well as Turks and other nationalities, were killed during WWII, but denies that it was a planned genocide.

This is so much fuss about past historical events that could not be changed. Yet one hopes that we would learn from them to prevent any further future genocidal crimes. Today the whole world is faced with an ongoing four years old audacious, premeditated, deliberate, and systematic genocide of 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Zionists and Israeli leaders meet annually in what they call Herzliya Conference to strategize more effective genocidal methods against Palestinians. Would these Hippocratic leaders do anything about this genocide?

* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the "Nakba" of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the "Nakseh" of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.

American Humanitarian Hypocrisy; Armenian Genocide is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Who's to blame for the Iraq war?

2010-03-14T16:01:59Z

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

This month marks the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Despite the passage of time, there is still much confusion, some of it deliberate, about why America made that fateful decision. The following questions are intended to clarify who's to blame for the Iraq war.

1. Ahmed Chalabi, the source of much of the false "intelligence" about Iraqi WMD, was introduced to his biggest boosters Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz by their mentor, a University of Chicago professor who had known the Iraqi con man since the 1960s. Who was this influential Cold War hawk who has an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) conference centre named in his honour?

2. In 1982, "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s" appeared in Kivunim, a journal published by the World Zionist Organization, which stated: "Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel." Who wrote this seminal article?

3. "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," a report prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, recommended "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq-an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." Which then member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board was the study group leader?

4. A November 1997 Weekly Standard editorial titled "Saddam Must Go" stated: "We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it's time to start thinking the unthinkable." The following year, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, published a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a "hazard" to "a significant portion of the world's supply of oil." The co-founders of PNAC were also the authors of the "Saddam Must Go" editorial. Who are they?

5. In Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, published by AEI Press in 1999, he argued that Clinton policies in Iraq were failing to contain the country and proposed that the US use its military to redraw the map of the Middle East. Who was this Mideast adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003 to mid-2007?

6. On September 15, 2001 at Camp David, the Deputy Defense Secretary attempted to justify a US attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan because it was "doable."
In the lead-up to the war, he said that it was "wildly off the mark" to think hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify a postwar Iraq; that the Iraqis "are going to welcome us as liberators"; and that "it is just wrong" to assume that the United States would have to fund the Iraq war. Who is this chief architect of the Iraq war?

7. On September 23, 2001, which US senator, who had pushed for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that there was evidence that "suggests Saddam Hussein may have had contact with bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network, perhaps [was] even involved in the September 11 attack"?

8. A November 12, 2001 New York Times editorial called an alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague an "undisputed fact"? Who was the columnist, celebrated for his linguistic prowess, who was sloppy in his use of language here?

9. A November 20, 2001 Wall Street Journal op-ed argued that the US should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism, claiming, "Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped al Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction." Who is the professor of strategic studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University who made these spurious claims?

10. George W. Bush's January 2002 State of the Union address described Iraq as part of an "axis of evil." Who was Bush's Canadian-born speechwriter who coined the provocative phrase?

11. "Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power"? Who is the longtime editor of Commentary magazine who made this assertion in a February 2002 article titled "How to win World War IV"?

12. Which Pentagon Defense Policy Board member and PNAC signatory wrote in the Washington Post on February 13, 2002, "I believe that demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk"?

13. "If we win the war, we are in control of Iraq, it is the single largest source of oil in the world. We will have a bonanza, a financial one, at the other end, if the war is successful." Who is the psychiatrist-turned- Washington Post columnist who tempted Americans with this illusory carrot on August 3, 2002?

14. In a September 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "The Case of Toppling Saddam," which current national leader claimed that Saddam Hussein could be hiding nuclear material "in centrifuges the size of washing machines" throughout the country?

15. "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990-it's the threat against Israel." Despite this candid admission to a foreign policy conference at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002, he authored the National Security Strategy of September 2002, which provided the justification for a preemptive war against Iraq. Who was this member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board?

16. According to a December 7, 2002 New York Times article, during Secretary of State Powell's efforts to negotiate a resolution on Iraq at the United Nations, this Iran-Contra conspirator's role was "to make sure that Secretary Powell did not make too many concessions to the Europeans on the resolution's wording, pressing a hard-line view." Who was this senior director of Near East and North African affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration?

17. Who was Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, until he was indicted for lying to federal investigators in the Valerie Plame case, who drafted Colin Powell's fraudulent February 5, 2003 UN speech?

18. According to Julian Borger's July 17, 2003 Guardian article titled "The spies who pushed for war," the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP) "forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel" to provide the Bush administration with alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq. Who was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who headed the OSP?

19. Which British-born professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, whose 1990 essay "The Roots of Muslim Rage" introduced the dubious concept of a "Clash of Civilizations," has been called "perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq"?

20. Apart from their key role in taking America to war against Iraq, what do the answers to questions 1 to 19 all have in common?

Answers: 1. Albert Wohlstetter 2. Oded Yinon 3. Richard Perle 4. William Kristol and Robert Kagan 5. David Wurmser 6. Paul Wolfowitz 7. Joseph Lieberman 8. William Safire 9. Eliot Cohen 10. David Frum 11. Norman Podhoretz 12. Kenneth Adelman 13. Charles Krauthammer 14. Benjamin Netanyahu 15. Philip Zelikow 16. Elliott Abrams 17. Lewis "Scooter" Libby 18. Douglas Feith 19. Bernard Lewis 20. They are all Jewish Zionists.

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

Source: Islam Times

Who's to blame for the Iraq war? is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Dubai Investigation Exposes Israeli Ops in USA

2010-03-13T07:01:18Z

By Michael Gillespie* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

An ongoing investigation by the Dubai Police force into the assassination of a high-level Hamas official in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in January has drawn back the curtains of secrecy and deception to reveal yet again the contours of Israel's massive and ever-expanding espionage operations in the United States.

The murder of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in his room at the Al Bustan Rotana, a 275-room five-star luxury hotel, in Dubai on January 19 has been widely perceived to be a Mossad operation involving, by the most recent count, 27 suspects traveling on fraudulently obtained and falsified European or Australian passports. In late February and early March, the plot thickened suddenly and significantly when major US media outlet reports connected the crime and many of those involved in it to the USA and to corporations based in the USA and Israel and revealed that some of the suspected assassins, apparently members of a Mossad kidon team, had entered the USA after leaving Dubai.

ABC News reported on February 24 that Dubai police had identified 15 new suspects as part of a ring that killed Al Mabhouh.

"Fourteen of the suspects purportedly used credit cards from META Bank, a regional American bank, to pay for hotel rooms and travel arrangements. … Dubai police linked META Bank to a New York-based company called Payoneer, which provided prepaid MasterCard credit cards issued by META Bank. According to its Web site, Payoneer has a research and development center in Tel Aviv," reported ABC.

The TV network report noted that some of the additional suspects played a central role in the crime while others were accused of "'providing prior logistical support and preparations to facilitate,' making a series of trips to Dubai in advance" of the assassination.

The New York Times reported on March 1 that, "At least two suspects in the killing of a Hamas official in a hotel here in January traveled to the United States afterward, according to a person familiar with the investigation."

"One suspect traveling on a British passport arrived in the United States on Feb. 14; the other used an Irish passport and arrived on Jan. 21, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case. He did not say where the men entered the country, and added that there was no known record of their leaving," wrote Robert F. Worth in a story filed from Dubai.

Worth's report noted that if the suspected assassins who entered the U.S. presented foreign passports, they would have been photographed and finger printed upon arrival.

The Wall Street Journal's Chip Cummins filed a similar report from Dubai on the same day attributing the information to "people familiar with the situation" and "records shared between international investigators." In many previous news reports from Dubai information about the investigation had been attributed to Dubai's Police Chief Lt. Gen. Dhahi Khalfan Tamim.

Neither report explored the rather remarkable news that the suspect carrying a British passport in the name Roy Allan Cannon was confident enough to travel on the falsified document more than three weeks after the assassination and to present it upon arrival in the USA, where passport controls are generally assumed to be most stringent.

"At one time it was possible to produce false identity documents with little or no regard for what is referred to as backstopping as data bases at national points of entry were unsophisticated and were generally unlinked to any central sources of information. That has all changed in the past eight years. European and American passports in particular can all be verified from central data bases that include information that is also drawn from other public record sources," wrote former CIA officer Philip Giraldi in a February 25 column for Antiwar.com.

On March 3, Al Jazeera TV reported that Tamim, "said he would ask the Dubai prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the head of Mossad [Meir Degan]."

Tamim's investigation, which has been described by Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble as "thorough," has seriously inconvenienced and embarrassed the Israeli government and its espionage organization.

The Money Trail

The Independent Monitor contacted MetaBank's corporate headquarters in Storm Lake, IA to ask why an Iowa bank would provide credit cards to 14 suspected members of a death squad.

MetaBank's Lisa Binder, Vice President for Investor Relations and Corporate Communications responded via telephone and e-mail with a statement saying, in part, "The Meta cards in question were issued in conjunction with a Meta Payment Systems program, not at a retail bank location. Meta Payment Systems, which has issued more than 150 million prepaid cards, markets its payroll cards through various Program Managers─in this case, Payoneer─to offer reputable US companies network branded payroll cards with which American companies can pay expatriates, employees and contractors of their company who live in the US and in foreign countries. The cards in question were 'loaded' by the companies using direct deposit for payroll, disbursements, and other compensation."

The Independent Monitor attempted to contact Payoneer offices at 410 Park Avenue in New York City but found that the only phone answered at Payoneer headquarters was a customer support line for Payoneer's Birthright Israel customers.

Birthright Israel provides first time educational trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18 to 26. The program sends "thousands of young Jewish adults from all over the world to Israel as a gift in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants' personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people," according to the organization's website.

Funding for Birthright Israel is "provided by our partners: private philanthropists through The Birthright Israel Foundation; the people of Israel through the Government of Israel; and Jewish communities around the world (North American Jewish Federations, Keren Hayesod and the Jewish Agency for Israel). …

"Taglit-Birthright Israel requires that all participants pay their deposit through Payoneer. … If you lose your Payoneer card while in Israel, it can be immediately blocked and will be replaced with a new card within 24 hours. … You will not need to contact your bank back home or worry about making many calls. One call to our Customer Support center and you are all set," says the www.birthright.payoneer.com website.

Payoneer's Birthright customer support center declined to provide the Independent Monitor with contact information for Payoneer founder and CEO Yuval Tal or for Payoneer corporate communications/media relations personnel.

"Since the assassination, Tal has been shielded by a wall of public relations representatives and does not respond to media requests for comments. … Tal's public relations representatives in New York have refused to comment on his past and relations with Israel's intelligence agency Mossad," wrote Abbas Al Lawati, a staff reporter for Gulf News.com on March 3.

"Tal is referred to by his associates in Israel as 'an outspoken Israeli patriot' despite having lived in New York for over ten years. In a 2006 Fox News interview about Israel's summer war on Lebanon, Tal was presented as a 'special ops commando' on Fox and Friends, and stated that 'this is a war Israel cannot (afford to) lose,'" wrote Al Lawati.

Payoneer's website proclaims that the company is "a registered MasterCard Merchant Service Provider (MSP), and partner with MetaBank or Choice Bank Limited to deliver our services. Privately held, our funding partners include Greylock Partners, Carmel Ventures, and Crossbar Capital."

The Independent Monitor found that all three of Payoneer's funding partners are venture capital firms that have offices in or strong connections to Israel.

Charlie Federman, Managing Partner of Crossbar Capital, previously co-founded BRM Capital in 1999, headed its New York office, and served as a Managing Director of the Israel and New York based fund until 2007. BRM Group, headquartered in Herzliya was founded by Nir Barkat, mayor of occupied Jerusalem.

Carmel Ventures is also headquartered Herzliya. Greylock Partners, founded in 1965, "operates in a number of global centers of innovation, including Boston, China (Beijing), India (Bangalore), Israel (Herzliya) and Silicon Valley. … Current Greylock portfolio companies include Data Robotics, Digg, Facebook, Imperva, LinkedIn, Palo Alto Networks, Pandora, Picarro, Redfin, Workday and ZipCar," according to the firm's website. Greylock's investment activities in Israel were launched in 2002 by partner Moshe Mor, who "served six years in the Israeli Army as a Captain in the Military Intelligence branch."

Tal almost certainly possess information that could be of value to U.S. law enforcement and counter-intelligence investigators, but whether their political masters, many of whom have been effectively co-opted by Israel, will allow U.S. investigators to pursue any sort of meaningful investigation is an open question. Thus far there has been little to indicate that U.S. officials are seriously interested in investigating the funding of travel expenses and hotel accommodations of suspected Israeli assassins through U.S. corporations, despite the reported entry of at least two of the suspects into the U.S. on fraudulent, falsified passports.

When the Independent Monitor contacted the Department of State (DoS) for comment about the news reports, a DoS press officer declined to comment and referred questions to the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press offices. A DoJ press officer also declined to comment and referred questions to a DHS press officer who has not responded to an e-mail message sent on March 5.

The Sayanim Network

Any substantive U.S. investigation of the suspected Dubai killers' connections to the USA would likely focus on members of the Mossad's worldwide network of sayanim, diaspora Jews who provide a wide variety of services to the Israeli intelligence and special operations agency. In his books, By Way of Deception (1990) and The Other Side of Deception (1994), former Mossad field officer or katsa Victor Ostrovsky described the sayanim network.

"Sayanim─assistants─must be 100 percent Jewish," wrote Ostrovsky in 1990.

The Mossad's helpers, chosen because they are well placed, willing, and able to provide valuable assistance to Israeli agents, are businessmen, doctors, lawyers, judges, prosecutors, police officers, intelligence officers, politicians, government bureaucrats, university professors and administrators, media professionals, information technology specialists, any occupation, profession, or position in which a sayan might prove useful in support of Israeli espionage operations.

Though they do not live in Israel, their first loyalty is to Israel. They do whatever Mossad officials, field officers, or assassins ask of them in behalf of Israel against the enemies of Israel or those who are seen as opposed to Israeli policies.

"Often the loyalty of sayanim is abused by katsas who take advantage of the available help for their own personal use. There is no way for the sayan to check this," wrote Ostrovsky.

"The one problem with the [sayanim] system is that the Mossad does not seem to care how devastating it could be to the status of the Jewish people in the diaspora if it was known. The answer you get if you ask is: 'So what's the worst that could happen to those Jews? They'd all come to Israel? Great,'" wrote Ostrovsky.

"A sayan will rent a car or pass money to a kidon with no questions asked," said Gordon Thomas, author of Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad (1999) in a report by Alun Palmer of the Mirror (UK) on February 18. Thomas, who has estimated that there are at least 20,000 sayanim in the US and Great Britain, writes that all Mossad assassinations are authorized by the office of the prime minister of Israel.

The illegal use of U.S. banks and credit card companies to fund the movements and other expenses of a Mossad death squad in the Middle East indicates an alarming expansion of Israeli espionage operations on US soil and reveals to an unprecedented extent the foreign intelligence agency's penetration of major U.S. financial institutions, developments that limn the breadth, depth, and success of the Mossad's desperate efforts to expand and consolidate Israel's malignant influence over the Washington foreign policy establishment and sway within a broad range of U.S. institutions, despite growing popular opposition to Israel's the brutal and patently illegal occupation of Palestine and the punishing siege of Gaza.

The Myth, Cult, and Culture of Redemptive Violence

The supposed clash of civilizations, the conflict between the putatively modern Western Judeo-Christian tradition and radical Islam, the Bush administration's Global War on Terrorism later rebranded by the Obama administration as Overseas Contingency Operations, and the suppurating wound that is Israel's long-running illegal occupation and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine are evidence of a retrograde social and political dynamic that now threatens the continued progress and future of human civilization. That dynamic is epitomized by the myth, cult, and culture of redemptive violence.

"The myth of redemptive violence defends the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace. It is one of the oldest stories in the world. It misappropriates the language, symbols and scriptures of Christianity. Its God is the tribal God worshipped as an idol. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is not unconditional love of enemies but their elimination. Its salvation is not a new heart but a successful foreign policy. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous. And it is immensely popular," writes Dr. Walter Wink, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City.

Wink might have added that while Christian scripture is tainted by the myth of redemptive violence, the Hebrew Old Testament scriptures, attached at the spine of the Holy Bible to the New Testament, are Christianity's primary source of the pernicious mythology of redemptive violence. Only about 10 percent of the New Testament is devoted to Jesus' teachings about the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, the kingdom of Heaven, the happiness of peacemakers, and forgiveness and mercy as moral and spiritual imperatives.

True religion opposes violence as a technique of social evolution, but many Christians have been and are today all too willing and ready to embrace Hebrew Old Testament teachings that glorify war and the wholesale slaughter of innocents and ascribe such acts to the commands of a wrathful God that is both vengeful and violent. The popularity of the myth of redemptive violence in the West and the attitudes and policies it engenders in political and economic spheres of activity severely undercuts the supposed moral superiority of Western modernity and culture in relation to other traditions and cultures.

U.S. leaders often attempt to justify their wars with self-serving declarations that they are fighting for peace.

"One day the Iraqi people will understand that we came in peace," averred Secretary of State Colin Powell in March 2003 as U.S. troops advanced on Baghdad after a devastating and enormously destructive "Shock and Awe" air assault on the city.

If the status of a civilization can be accurately gauged by the fairness of its courts and the integrity of its judges, resort by national leaders to extra-judicial killings conducted by intelligence agency death squads is emblematic of the West's glorification of war and ruinous reversion to militarism─autocratic, cruel, and savage. Rigidly ultranationalistic Israel, more an army and an espionage agency with a country than a country with an army and an espionage agency, clearly intends to be the West's model and instructor in this regard.

A feature article by Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman published in the Washington Post on March 4 quoted Jonna Mendez, who worked for the CIA for 27 years and became the agency's chief of disguise. Mendez "believes the Dubai perpetrators took the fallout into account, all of it: the TV footage, the blown aliases and the head shots. The agents, she said, clearly knew they were under surveillance─they had simply decided it was unavoidable and a price worth paying.

"'You can be sure they knew they were being surveilled. Likewise, they would assume that the documents they were using would be made available after the fact,' said Mendez. 'What does this mean? It means it didn't matter. The faces and the documents that were captured by the cameras will probably never be seen again.'

"The fact that the perpetrators had to take the identities of real people rather than simply invent false identities is a symptom of the new world facing modern-day spies, one of databases and traceable passport information, she said.

"The real agents likely don't resemble the faces in the photos, she said … And if they do, plastic surgery, dental implants and hair grafts can ensure they are unrecognizable afterward.

"'Steal the identity, disguise the participants, be ready on the other side with another set of identities and documents, and embrace and conceal the protagonists on their return,' she said.

"'With that goal in mind this may, in fact, be the operation of the future,'" wrote Friedman.

Thinking Americans have an increasingly clear choice.

They can join the cult of redemptive violence, kneel before a Zionist tribal God of vengeance, and watch their country and its culture revert to the law of nature as militarism runs amok and Israeli spies and assassins, protected by corrupt and co-opted political leaders, roam America at will.

Or they can embrace and actively support not the savagery of assassins but the rule of law. They can cultivate the wisdom, insight, and foresight that are indispensable to the endurance of nations. They can persevere in their efforts to elect honest, wise, and progressive leaders. And they can continue to strive to live up and into the noblest ideals of their religions.

* Michael Gillespie, in addition to his regular freelance work for Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, is also a contributing editor and the Des Moines, IA correspondent for The Independent Monitor, the national newspaper of Arab Americans, published by Sami Mashney in Anaheim, CA.

Source: DV

Dubai Investigation Exposes Israeli Ops in USA is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Peaceful protest in Israel can lead to arrest

2010-03-13T07:01:18Z

By Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

THIS week, when I return to my village in the occupied West Bank, I face possible arrest by Israel for engaging in nonviolent protests against abusive Israeli policies opposed by our own government.

This prospect is difficult after 29 years of living in the United States, where such activities are fully protected. It was this openness that attracted me to the U.S. I became a proud citizen and pursued work not only in my profession but also as a human rights advocate.

Over the years, I gave hundreds of talks and participated in many vigils and protests, mostly against the war on Iraq and for justice and equality in Israel/Palestine. The activities always involved people of all backgrounds.

When I moved back to Palestine in early 2008, I continued to engage in these activities. I teach and have helped to establish a master’s program in biotechnology at Bethlehem University. I also pursue my passion of educating others on human rights and engaging in civil resistance through protests and vigils.

On March 1, shortly after I left my village near Bethlehem for a visit home to the United States, the Israeli army invaded the neighborhood and surrounded our house at 1:30 a.m. My mother, sister and wife, terrorized for no reason, told the military I was out of the country but would be “happy” to talk to them upon my return.

The soldiers delivered a note demanding my appearance in a military compound five days later — a date I have missed because my ticket was scheduled for a few days later. I thus face the likelihood of arrest, administrative detention or worse when I go back.

My story is just a minor manifestation of a disturbing pattern. As civil resistance against Israel’s West Bank apartheid wall and settlement activities have increased, there has been an escalation of Israeli repression of nonviolent protesters.

Nonviolent resistance to colonization and occupation are consistent with international law and U.S. policies. President Barack Obama has stated that settlement activities in the occupied territories must stop as a prelude to ending the occupation that started in 1967. Yet, Israeli authorities continue settlement activities apace, while intensifying attacks against peaceful vigils and protests against this indefensible behavior.

Obama also gave clear encouragement to nonviolent Palestinian demonstrators in his Cairo speech, yet has remained silent as nonviolent demonstrators have been seized in recent weeks by the Israeli military.

Bethlehem has suffered significantly because of Israeli actions. The district is squeezed now by illegal Israeli settlements and military installations on three sides. Bethlehem’s 130,00 residents have access to only 20 percent of the original land of the district. The settlers, protected by the Israeli military, now want to build a settlement in the only remaining open side of Bethlehem — to the east in an area called Ush Ghrab.

The people of my village, Beit Sahour, are known for a history of nonviolent resistance, including a tax revolt in 1988 against the Israeli military government. We are a town with limited resources, comprised of 70 percent Christians and 30 percent Muslims, but have a highly educated middle class with more than 300 holders of doctorates among the population of 12,000.

Having lost so much land, and being well-informed and connected to the outside world, we decided to nonviolently resist the additional Israeli encroachment on our town. The Israeli response relied on brute force. Our first prayer vigil was attacked while a Lutheran priest was leading us in prayer.

As a member of the committee that organized the vigil and another peaceful event a week later, I was targeted. An Israeli officer warned me not to participate and threatened me, noting he knew I was planning to come home to the U.S. for a lecture tour.

Given that the Israeli government receives billions in U.S. military aid, my taxes and yours at work, our government should defend those of us who engage in nonviolent protests. I was encouraged last week, therefore, in meeting with the office of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that his office will pursue my concerns with the State Department and the Israeli government.

While I fear for myself, I am more worried for other activists who do not have the minimal protection of a U.S. passport. And, I am terribly worried for our future as we are squeezed into smaller and smaller apartheid-like Bantustans.

We will not be deterred from nonviolent protest. Despite being let down by numerous governments, we look to the United States and elsewhere in the international community to help defend us from abusive and violent responses to nonviolence.

* Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh is a tireless activist for Palestinian human rights who returned to his hometown of Beit Sahour in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and now teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale Universities. He is now president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People in Beit Sahour, a suburb of Bethlehem. The author of Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle.

Call to action: Contact the State Department at 202-647-6575 or email them by clicking here: http://bit.ly/aoJVMp

Ask the U.S, State Department to intervene with Israel to keep Dr, Qumsiyeh safe and out of jail.

Peaceful protest in Israel can lead to arrest is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tweet Digest for 2010-03-13

2010-03-12T22:01:00Z

Who's to blame for the #Iraq #war? | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/1jdPx
#French protest import of #Israeli #settlement goods http://ow.ly/1iZM2
Norman Finkelstein: Truth and Consequences in #Gaza http://ow.ly/1iZe8
#Israel aims its nuclear warheads at #Europe http://ow.ly/1iYXS
U.S. gave #Israel green light for East #Jerusalem construction – http://ow.ly/1iYTU
#Israeli Soldiers Brutalizing #Palestinian #Children http://ow.ly/1iYRa
#Video: How Can The U.S. Support #Israel When It Continues To Violate International Law? Helen Thomas http://ow.ly/1iYMg
#Dubai Investigation Exposes #Israeli Ops in #USA | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/1iSyk #mossad
Peaceful protest in #Israel can lead to arrest | Sabbah Report | http://ow.ly/1iRGJ

Tweet Digest for 2010-03-13 is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

US / Israel: The Special Relationship An Entangled Alliance

2010-03-13T07:56:52Z

Interview With Jeff Gates By Press TV.

To restore national security requires a reappraisal of the U.S.-Israeli "special relationship." Jeff Gates is A widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide.

Part 1:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgxHi5AS3L4

Part 2:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn-78xAW0Sw

Part 3:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbc9FTIcTZY

US / Israel: The Special Relationship An Entangled Alliance is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Welcome to Israel, Joe!

2010-03-13T07:01:23Z

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

When he visited the Middle East, then Senator Barack Obama had a rude awakening. He was on the ritual visit for American presidential candidates to Israel, which usually consist of touring sites of significance to Jews and declaring support for the state of Israel. This is important for American politicians who pay homage to an influential pro-Israel lobby, and it was even more important for President Obama. His background, his middle name, his father's religion and his associations with Arabs and Muslims made him a target of critics who claimed he would be soft on security.

So, with a yarmulke upon his head, Barack Hussein Obama recited prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. But before his prayers could transcend the clouds and make it up to heaven, Obama was reminded just what he was getting into. In the crowd of onlookers and media that had formed around him, a heckler yelled out, "Jerusalem is ours, Obama. Jerusalem is not for sale, Obama."

Though it is doubtful that the unidentified heckler was Binyamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli prime minister, the same message was sent to the Obama administration this week from the Israeli government. After months of disagreement with the Israelis over their settlement policy, Vice President Joe Biden became the highest ranking Obama administration official to visit Israel and he was greeted by the announcement of 1,600 new settlement homes in occupied East Jerusalem.

Welcome to Israel, Joe.

Whether from hecklers or through government declarations the message from Israel to Washington is clear: we'll take what we want and you cannot stop us.

The problem is the message from Washington to Israel has been far too ambiguous. The Israeli government, addicted to gobbling up Palestinian land, is taking every opportunity to exploit this ambiguity and embarrass American and Palestinian officials while they are at it.

Some argue that the Obama administration made a strategic mistake by raising expectations before guaranteeing full Israeli compliance with a settlement freeze. They are only partially right. The Obama administration was, in fact, right to raise expectations and capitalize on a wave of good faith resulting from a historic election welcomed around the world and in the Middle East in particular. The strategic mistake, and a big one at that, was the failure to apply the necessary pressure on Israel to force compliance with a full settlement freeze.

It has been said that to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results is insanity. Why then should the United States expect anything other than continued Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and in Jerusalem without applying the necessary sanctions to modify Israeli behavior? It is very clear, given the insulting announcement that the Israelis greeted Vice President Biden with, that asking them politely is simply not working.

For two decades of "peace process" the United States has failed to pressure Israel and, low and behold during this time period, settlements have only grown in size and population. In the last 20 years, the number of settlers on occupied Palestinian land has doubled and walls have been built around these Israeli colonies creating a near inextricable reality.

If this doesn't change, nothing will stop Israel from completing its colonial project and the world will continue to live with an apartheid state in its midst.

The tools for change have always been in Washington but domestic politics have always made selecting to use these tools unpopular choices. The U.S. Congress is staunchly pro-Israel and looks at the Middle East blindly following the whims of influential pro-Israel lobbies.

Therefore, the Executive Branch will have to take unilateral steps to change the tone. The president has multiple tools at his disposal through the State Department, like the American vote in the Security Council, for example, which has been the single veto on nearly 40 occasions to save Israel from condemnation.

Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to be visiting DC at the end of this month; interestingly President Obama is conveniently scheduled to be traveling at the same time. Wouldn't it be fitting for the White House to take a page from Israel's book and announce a halt to U.S. support while the Israeli prime minister is in Washington?

Maybe, just maybe, if we communicated with the Israelis through a method they are familiar with they will finally get the message.

* Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center.

Welcome to Israel, Joe! is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

America To The Rescue, (Not) Again

2010-03-13T07:01:25Z

By Sam Bahour* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

We are told that President Obama has taken a leap of political faith in trying to bridge a final peace settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. The United States' new weapon is "proximity talks": if either side fails to meet American expectations, the US will squarely and publicly lay blame. If this was a sitcom it would be the opportune time to crack up laughing; regretfully this is not the case. Real people – whole generations – of Palestinians are on the verge of being locked into another decade of protracted and violent military occupation. Many Israelis' lives and hopes are at stake as well.

It has been reported in Ha'aretz that President Obama submitted a letter of commitment to the Palestinian side to get these indirect "proximity talks" off the ground. The letter notes, "Our core remains a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian State with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967." This is not the first time a US administration has used its creativity in creating new terminology to deal with the conflict instead of relying on the time-tested body of international law that provides the keys to real progress. In the past, in place of "independent state" the US has attached such adjectives to the word "state" as "contiguous," "viable," "economically viable," "territorial continuity," and the like. In his use of words, President Obama has just picked up where the failures of past administrations left off.

International law clearly defines what an independent state is and any attempt to redefine it is an act of bad faith.

Israeli failed state

The timing of the US move toward new talks is rather conspicuous as well. Israel is proving itself to be a 'failed state'; a 'rogue state' which has become a liability to its allies. How are its leaders greeting this latest move?

None other than Israeli Ministry of Defense, Major General Ehud Barak, who was behind the failed Camp David peace talks back in 2000 and the 2008/2009 onslaught in Gaza, recently made a bold statement while addressing a policy conference in Israel. He said, "If, and as long as between the Jordan and the sea, there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic … If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don't, it is an apartheid state." (Herzliya Conference 2/2/2010)
Yes, even Israel's currently serving top brass is using the "A" word. Only a short few years ago, any Israeli politician would shiver at someone making the comparison between Israeli actions against Palestinians and South African Apartheid.

Another round of US diplomatic acrobatics is just what is needed to introduce a new red herring.

Palestinian leadership

The Palestinian leadership has historically failed to understand that the US' "special relationship" with Israel will require countering through much more serious mobilization, organizing, and activism to complement their diplomatic efforts. After the utter failure of the US-sponsored (and micro-managed) Oslo peace process, anyone treating the US as a neutral mediator must be suffering from some form of delirium, all the more so if they are Palestinians.

The US has armed Israel to the teeth, including allowing it to develop a deadly arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons, not to mention their turning a blind eye on Israel's outright refusal to sign the non-nuclear proliferation treaty.

The US funds Israel to the tune of $7 million a day, every day!

The US has used its UN Security Council veto power in the service of covering up for Israeli war crimes spanning from Beirut to Gaza.

The US congress regularly passes non-binding resolutions that incite and provoke more violence against Palestinians. The most recent of these embarrassing resolutions was one that dismissed out-of-hand the findings of the UN's fact-finding mission led by world renowned Jewish and Zionist Judge Richard Goldstone.

The US took sides in this conflict long ago and any backroom negotiations are bound to produce the same results as previous attempts – a reflection of the might is right equation on the ground today in the Holy Land. If anyone should know better, it should be the Palestinian leadership.

A Way Out

Negotiations do not always need to be doomed to failure. There is a way the US could play a positive role if they could free themselves from the bear hug the Israeli lobby has on the US political system.

The internationally recognized reference point of international law is the only guiding light that can produce an equitable (not necessarily just) resolution to the conflict. The occupation started in 1967 is merely one part of the problem. The refugees created when Israel was established in 1948 are another, as is the institutional discrimination against non-Jews in Israel. International law addresses all these problems.

For starters, before trying to find the button to solve all issues in one push (a strategy that has failed multiple times) the US could demand that those items that are absolutely clear in international law be acted upon.

All elements (and there are plenty) of the 1967 Israeli occupation that can be ended should be immediately ended. The siege on Gaza, Jewish-only settlements, the separation barrier built on Palestinians lands, draconian restrictions on Palestinian movement and access, etc., should be removed or ended immediately, so that genuine peace talks can begin in earnest to resolve this historic catastrophe once and for all.

Allowing Israel to hold every piece of the conflict hostage until some yet-to-be found final status resolution is reached is a recipe for more of the same death and destruction.

President Obama has taken the leap; let's hope he finds some remaining Palestinian ground to land on. Given his new commitment, if he fails, I wonder if he is willing to lay blame where it duly resides for Israel's continued rogue action–in Washington D.C.

* The writer is a Palestinian-American business consultant living in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.

Source: TPM

America To The Rescue, (Not) Again is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Two humiliations – Can Obama live with a third?

2010-03-13T07:01:27Z

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

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

Amazing! While in Israel, an American vice president explicitly condemns an Israeli decision to build yet more homes, 1,600 apartments, in occupied Arab East Jerusalem. "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem," Joe Biden said. "It's the kind of step that undermines the trust we need". Yes, but…

They were only words. And they call to mind a comment made by Uri Avnery, the grandfather of the Israeli peace movement, in a piece he wrote for Tikkun on 23 September 2009, after President Obama's call for a complete freeze had been rejected by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

"There's no point in denying it", Avnery wrote. "In the first round of the match between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama was beaten… In the words of the ancient proverb, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Netanyahu has tripped Obama on his first step. The President of the United States has stumbled." And Netanyahu had won in a big way. "Not only did he survive, not only has he shown that he is no ‘sucker' (a word he uses all the time), he has proven to his people – and to the public at large – that there is nothing to fear: Obama is nothing but a paper tiger. The settlements can go on expanding without hindrance. Any negotiations that start, if they start at all, can go on until the coming of the Messiah. Nothing will come out of them."

Whether or not Netanyahu himself had advance knowledge of the decision to humiliate Biden is not the point. It is that Biden and so Obama were humiliated, the president for a second time. And that begs my headline question – Can he, Obama, live with a third humiliation?

If the history of previous American attempts to give life to a peace process is a good guide, Obama will have no choice but to live with a third humiliation, and no doubt others, at least for a while. An explanation of why is offered in the Epilogue of the forthcoming Volume 3 of the American edition of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. (The Epilogue is titled Is Peace Possible?) Explaining why Obama moved so quickly with his demand for a total settlement freeze, I put it this way:

He knew something that all American presidents know about when serious initiatives for peace in the Middle East can and cannot be taken. (I know what that something is because one of them told me a few months after events had denied him a second term in office). Any American president has only two windows of opportunity to break or try to break the Zionist lobby's stranglehold on Congress on matters to do with Israel/Palestine.

The first window is during the first nine months of his first term because after that the soliciting of funds for the mid-term elections begins. (Presidents don't have to worry on their own account about funds for the mid-term elections, but with their approach no president can do or say anything that would cost his party seats in Congress. In Obama's case that is going to be an extremely critical consideration because of the Democrats' loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat, on 19 January 2010, to a Republican who had demonstrated his ability to read from Zionism's script during the campaigning).

The second window of opportunity is the last year of his second term if he has one. In that year, because he can't run for a third term, no president has a personal need for election campaign funds or organised votes.

And that calls to mind the words of an eminent Arab-American, actually a Palestinian-American, who knew Obama very well and, before the race for the White House entered its final, decisive stage, had private conversations with him. A few months before Obama's victory, this gentleman said to a very dear friend of mine, "Don't expect any real pressure on Israel from Obama until he is well into his second term."

I am inclined to the view that after the mid-term elections of a second term, Obama could indeed be the president to do whatever is necessary to bring Zionism to heel in order to best protect America's own real interests. But the prospects of him winning as second term don't look very good at the moment.

Two humiliations – Can Obama live with a third? is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Zionism Unmasked: The Dark Face Of Jewish Nationalism

2010-03-13T07:01:30Z

By Dr. Alan Sabrosky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering that "Israel is not like other countries." Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the "Zionist" label on it.

Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbors. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g., the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya's had the Mau Mau, etc.).

But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews (secular or observant) against the goyim (everyone else), who are either possible predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be under any electable government (a point I'll develop in another article).

The differences between Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and that of other countries and cultures here I think are fourfold:

1. Zionism is a real witches' brew of xenophobia, racism, ultra-nationalism, and militarism that places it way outside of a "mere" nationalist context — for example, when I was in Ireland (both parts) I saw no indication whatsoever that the PIRAs or anyone else pressing for a united Ireland had a shred of design on shoving Protestants into camps or out of the country, although there may well have been a handful who thought that way — and goes far beyond the misery for others professed by the Nazis;

2. Zionism undermines civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries in a way that other nationalist movements (and even ultra-nationalist movements like Nazism) did not — e.g., a large majority of American Jews, including those who are not openly dual citizens, espouse a form of political bigamy called "dual loyalty" (to Israel & the US) that is every bit as dishonest as marital bigamy, attempts to finesse the precedence they give to Israel over the US (lots of Rahm Emanuels out there who served in the IDF but NOT in the US armed forces), and has absolutely no parallel in the sense of national or cultural identity espoused by any other definable ethnic or racial group in America — even the Nazi Bund in the US disappeared once Germany and the US went to war, with almost all of its members volunteering for the US armed forces;

3. The "enemy" of normal nationalist movements is the occupying power and perhaps its allies, and once independence is achieved, normal relations with the occupying power are truly the norm, but for Zionism almost everyone out there is an actual or potential enemy, differing only in proximity and placement on its very long list of enemies (which is now America's target list); and

4. Almost all nationalist movements (including the irredentist and secessionist variants) intend to create an independent state from a population in place or to reunite a separated people (like the Sudeten Germans in the 1930s) — it is very rare for it to include the wholesale displacement of another indigenous population, which is far more common of successful colonialist movements as in the US — and perhaps a reason why most Americans wouldn't care too much about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians even if they DID know about it, is because that is no different than what Europeans in North America did to the Indians/Native Americans here in a longer & more low-tech fashion.

The implications of this for Middle East peace prospects, and for other countries in thrall to their domestic Jewish lobbies or not, are chilling. The Book of Deuteronomy come to life in a state with a nuclear arsenal would be enough to give pause to anyone not bought or bribed into submission — which these days encompasses the US Government, given Israel's affinity for throwing crap into the face of the Obama administration and Obama's visible affinity for accepting it with a smile, Bibi Netanyahu's own "Uncle Tom" come to Washington.

The late General Moshe Dayan, who — Zionist or not — remains an honored part of my own Pantheon of military heroes, allegedly observed that Israel's security depended on its being viewed by others as a mad dog. He may have been correct. But he neglected to note that the preferred response of everyone else is to kill that mad dog before it can decide to go berserk and bite. It is an option worth considering.

*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

Zionism Unmasked: The Dark Face Of Jewish Nationalism is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Addameer Press Release: International Women's Day 2010

2010-03-13T07:01:33Z

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association – 8 March 2010

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association marks International Women's Day 2010 by honoring, commemorating and saluting Palestinian women political prisoners and detainees in their steadfast resistance against Israeli colonial occupation and struggle towards securing the right of Palestinians to self-determination.

An estimated 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested and detained since 1967 under Israeli military orders, which govern nearly every aspect of life in the occupied Palestinian territory today, including more than 750 Palestinian women arrested by Israel between the years 2000-2009. While the call to end violence and arbitrary detention against women around the world should take place 365 days a year, Addameer would like to take a moment today to reflect upon and recognize the plight of Palestinian women and their unique experiences of colonial violence within Israel's prison system and unlawful regime of colonial occupation.

As of March 2010, there remain 34 Palestinian women held in Israel's prisons and detention centers, including three women held under administrative detention, eight women held pending trial and 23 women serving a sentence of imprisonment, of whom five are serving life (including multiple life) sentences. Both of the prisons that hold the majority of Palestinian female detainees, HaSharon and Damon Prisons, are located outside the 1967 occupied territory, in direct contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which provides that, as an Occupying Power, Israel must detain residents of the occupied territory in prisons inside the occupied territory. The practical consequence of this unlawful transfer is that many prisoners have difficulty meeting with their Palestinian defense counsel and do not receive family visits as their attorneys and relatives are most often denied permits on "security grounds" not disclosed to them.

In addition, both HaSharon and Damon Prisons lack a gender-sensitive approach and, as such, female prisoners detained there suffer from harsh imprisonment conditions and interlocking systems of oppression which are enacted through medical negligence, denial of education, denial of family visits, solitary confinement, and overcrowded cells. A majority of these cells are infested with insects, dirty, and lack adequate ventilation and natural light. Personal health and hygiene needs are rarely addressed by the Israeli Prison Service, even in cases involving the detention of pregnant female detainees.

Other forms of abuse perpetrated against Palestinian women detainees and prisoners include numerous forms of sexual harassment, namely: threats of rape (in some cases threats of rape are made towards the detainee's family members), sexually degrading insults, and invasive body/strip searches used as a method of punishment. These occurrences are a fundamental part of Palestinian women's prison experiences and should be understood as a common and systematic form of racial and gendered State violence.

Moreover, research has shown that Israel's prison authorities use these forms of sexual harassment to deliberately exploit Palestinian women's fears by playing on patriarchal norms as well as gender stereotypes within particular customs of Palestinian society. Accordingly, occurrences of sexual harassment are a sensitive issue for Palestinian women and their families; this vulnerability makes these measures especially effective tools for interrogators, and is compounded by the lack of available post-assault resources.

Addameer submits that Israel's routine practice of strip searching female prisoners and detainees as a method of punishment violates both international human rights and humanitarian law, including the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which stipulates in Article 7 that: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment…". Similarly, Article 3(1)(c) of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) forbids"outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment".

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association condemns the use of all measures of abuse Israeli actors use against female prisoners and detainees, and calls for the immediate release of all Palestinian political prisoners held unlawfully outside the occupied Palestinian territory. Addameer further calls for an immediate stop to Israel's practices of sexual violence, including strip searches and invasive body searches, shackling of pregnant women during labor, and use of threats and/or other forms of sexual assault. In addition, Israeli authorities, in particular the Prison Service, must meet their obligations under the UN Minimum Standard Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and ensure that all subjects under Israeli jurisdiction are granted their full rights to formal education for girls under the age of 18, (including access to books and study materials inside the prisons), nutritional diet programs, especially for pregnant detainees, health care including specialized gynecological services, hospital/doctor visits when required, dental care, and open family visits (especially for mothers of minors). Of particular importance, Addameer demands that female prisoners and detainees be provided unhindered access to religious, cultural and gender sensitive social services, including trained Arabic-speaking women specialist in the field of social work, psychology and counseling. It is important to note that these rights and services must be administered only by Palestinians; as such, the Israeli authorities and the Israel Prison Service must grant full, unhindered access to Palestinian programs and service providers in this regard.

On International Women's Day 2010, Addameer stands in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners and detainees who remain strong in their resistance against Israel's colonial occupation regime, and asks the international community for its continued support and solidarity all year round.

For more information on female prisoners, please visit: www.addameer.info or contact:

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
PO Box 17338, Jerusalem
Tel: +972 (0)2 296 0446
Fax: +972 (0)2 296 0447

Email: info@addameer.ps

Addameer Press Release: International Women's Day 2010 is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Najla Said reads of her teenage visit to Gaza [Video]

2010-03-13T07:01:35Z

Najla Said, playwrite, reads from her play, of her life changing visit to Gaza as a teenager, with her Palestinian activist writer father, the late Edward Said, after he learned he had leukemia. (New York City Ethical Culture

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEMrmRCbvA0

Hat tip: Ram

Najla Said reads of her teenage visit to Gaza [Video] is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Does Israel hope to spark a new wave of suicide bombing?

2010-03-13T07:01:37Z

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Stuart Littlewood* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"The suicide bomber wrote that he began to live the day he came to know he was to die. Where did he get this passion to kill?"
- Mahesh Bhatt

Here in the civilised West we hate suicide bombers with a passion.

We're taught that the proper way to blow fellow humans to smithereens is to do it from 40,000 feet.

Or failing that, send Apache helicopter gun-ships at street level firing their laser-guided missiles and 30mm cannon.

Or failing that, turn loose our main battle tanks to shred and vaporize the "enemy", reduce their homes to rubble with DU shells and spread birth defects for generations to come.

Nowadays we don't even have to leave home to do it. We can train our really brainy chaps to steer armed drones to the target from the comfort of an armchair.

B-52s, F-16s, Apaches, drones and tanks… that's the ticket. Awesome hardware gives any murky mission a moral superiority that gets nods of approval from the governing élite in the drawing rooms of London and Washington.

What is not acceptable is delivering the high explosive in person, all the way to the target, and looking your enemy in the eye as you push the detonator. That simply isn't cricket.

"There can be no justification, under any circumstances, for taking innocent lives through terrorism." Those were the very words used by Liberal Democrat Party leader Charles Kennedy in 2004, when he sacked British MP Jenny Tonge from her front-bench spokes job for suggesting she might consider becoming a suicide bomber herself if she had to live through the situation the Palestinians were in.

Statistics from Israel's B'Tselem make the Palestinians' situation clear. Between 2000 and the start of Israel's "Cast Lead" blitzkrieg on Gaza in December 2008, the Israelis' vast standing army, equipped with the most advanced weaponry American money can buy, killed 4,790 Palestinian civilians in their homeland. Of these, 952 were children.

Yes, 952 young Palestinian lives horribly snuffed out and their parents desolated…

In response Palestinians, with their garden-shed weapons, killed 490 Israeli civilians, including 84 children. In this vicious game of murder the Israelis were leading the Palestinians by 11 to 1.

Those were the "circumstances" in which Kennedy sacked Jenny Tonge.

Terrorism most foul

During the Cast Lead onslaught – the foulest act of state terrorism for decades – Israel slaughtered at least 350 more children, and Gaza has been under daily attack ever since. So the "most moral army in the world" must have blown to bits, shredded, incinerated or smashed with snipers' bullets at least 1,400 youngsters in the last nine and a half years. The numbers left maimed and crippled don't bear thinking about.

In their study Palestinian Suicide Bombers: A Statistical Analysis Sean Yom and Basel Saleh found that many Palestinian suicide attackers had been on the receiving end of violent encounters with the Israeli military resulting in injury to themselves, or arrest, or a close family member being killed.

From October 2000 through March 2004, over 2,800 Palestinian fatalities and 25,600 non-lethal injuries were inflicted by the IDF. Revenge, often fuelled by deteriorating economic prospects and the imposition of harsh policies, provided recruiters with a ready supply of volunteers. Persuading individuals not to support or participate in violence would necessarily involve "improving the structural health of Palestinian society".

Fat chance of that. Israeli policy is to grind the Palestinians into poverty and helplessness, to take away everything they own and let them rot in a Zionist-prepared hell. Far from allowing the health of Palestinian society to improve, they tighten the screw of oppression further. In the period covered in the study they deliberately destroyed some 4,700 Palestinian homes while continuing their normal programme of slaughter, dispossession, abduction and all the other atrocities they are famed for.

Since 1967, according to ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), Israel has demolished in total 24,145 homes in the Occupied Territories including 4,247 (a UN figure) destroyed during Operation Cast Lead. Palestinians tend to have large families. Consider how many homeless have been created.

Professor Robert Pape's comprehensive analysis Dying to Win, based on his work for the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism, advances the idea that suicide terrorism exerts coercive power "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland… The bottom line, then, is that suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign occupation"

Occupation includes control of territory, as in Gaza, not necessarily military occupation.

And of course, when it comes to Israel, we're not talking about a democracy but a vile ethnocracy.

Religion has little to do with it. Pape dismisses the often-repeated view that Islam is the root of the problem. "Rather, the taproot is American military policy". And the notion that Islamic fundamentalism is bent on world domination is "pure fantasy"

Many suicide bombers are simply motivated by the desire for revenge. According to one researcher, harsh state repression "should not be perceived only as a reaction to suicide bombing" but "often precedes and is a major cause of suicide bombing."

One Saturday night in 2001 Saeed Hotari blew himself up at the entrance to a disco in Tel Aviv, killing 21 teenagers and injuring 132. Hotari was one of nine children from a poor Palestinian family living in Jordan and had been in the West Bank for two years hoping to find a better life. He left a message saying: "If we don't fight, we will suffer. If we do fight, we will suffer, but so will they."

The disco bombing was cited by the Israeli government as one of the reasons for building the Apartheid Wall.

In 2003 a female Palestinian lawyer, Hanadi Tayseer Jaradat, aged 29, killed 21 civilians at Maxim restaurant in Haifa. She acted to avenge the killing of her brother and a cousin (some sources say her fiancé) by Israeli security forces.

Surgeon Abdel Aziz Rantissi, co-founder of Hamas, warned: "Israelis will have no stability and no security until the occupation ends. Suicide bombers are Israel's future." Rantissi was assassinated in 2004 in a helicopter attack on his car. A mother and her five year-old daughter were killed in the attack and four other bystanders wounded.

How much can a person take before snapping?

Arrest, detention without due process, constant humiliation, homelessness, unemployment and other family suffering at the hands of the IDF are not the only spur. Yahya Ayyash, nicknamed "the Engineer" and regarded as the Father of Suicide Bombing, became Hamas's chief bomb maker and for several years topped Israel's most wanted list. From a relatively well-off family, he gained a BSc in electrical engineering at Birzeit University and planned to study for a Master's degree in Jordan but the Israeli authorities wouldn't allow him to.

Thwarted in his life's ambition Ayyash joined Hamas. "Don't get sore, get even" might have been his motto. He used household chemicals to manufacture an explosive brew called Mother of Satan. His devices were used in a number of "massacres" and he quickly achieved hero status, narrowly escaping capture many times. It is claimed he was responsible for the deaths of around 90 Israelis, a high price for the occupier to pay for robbing this youngster of his rights to travel and study – rights we in the West take for granted.

Eventually in 1996 Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, eliminated Ayyash by persuading a relative to give him a rigged mobile phone that exploded when he used it. 100,000 people are said to have turned up at the funeral. 40 more Israelis were then killed in retaliatory bombings.

Yet Israelis still revel in targeting Palestinian students. Five years ago they forcibly removed four Birzeit University students from their studies in the West Bank and unlawfully sent them back to the Gaza Strip. All four were due to graduate by the end of that academic year.

There was an outcry from around the world and the Israeli military agreed to let them return to Birzeit, but only on condition that they signed a guarantee to permanently move back to the Gaza Strip after completing their studies. This revealed for all to see Israel's plan to separate the West Bank from the Gaza Strip, even though the two areas are internationally recognized as one integral territory. Under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within a single territory. Ten years ago around 350 Gaza students were studying at Birzeit, but today there are almost none and the racist regime blocks Gaza students from reaching the eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank.

It was no surprise to learn last Christmas that Berlanty Azzam, a fourth year Business Administration student from Gaza studying at Bethlehem University, was suddenly "deported" by the Israeli military back to Gaza. Berlanty, a Christian girl, had lived in the West Bank since 2005 and resisted all temptation to visit her family home in Gaza in case she was prevented from returning to Bethlehem.

The 21 year-old was only a few weeks from graduating when she was arrested after attending a job interview in Ramallah. In a deliberate attempt to rob her of her degree the most moral army in the world blindfolded and handcuffed her, loaded her into a jeep, drove her to Gaza and dumped her in the darkness late at night.

In the case of another university honours student in her final year, Israeli soldiers frequently rampaged through the Bethlehem refugee camp where she lived, ransacking homes and arbitrarily arresting residents. They took away her family one by one. First her 14-year-old cousin and best friend was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while she sat outside her family home during a curfew.

Next the Israelis arrested her eldest brother, a 22 year-old artist, and imprisoned him for 4 years. Then they came back for her 18-year-old brother. Then they came again to take her youngest brother – the 'baby' of the family – just 16. These were the heartbreaking circumstances (Mr Kennedy please note) under which this student was studying for her degree.

Luckily she had the guidance of caring university teaching staff to keep her on the straight and narrow. The most moral army in the world may have robbed her brothers of an education, but she was determined to complete hers.

Although Palestinians take their education seriously not all students cruelly obstructed by the Israelis react as Yahya Ayyash did. However, there must be a limit to how much injustice and frustration a young person can take before he/she snaps.

Modern suicide bombing appears to have started in 1980 in the Iran-Iraq war when an Iranian youngster exploded himself against an Iraqi tank, but it was Hezbollah's devastating attacks two years later in Lebanon which attracted world attention. US forces and the Israeli invader were soon expelled. The technique was then exported throughout the Middle East and beyond.

The threat of suicide bombing has receded in the Holy Land while Israeli military atrocities escalate. The regime's leaders, seeing the Israel brand image plummet, are now pulling every dirty trick imaginable – even to the point of trying to annex sacred Islamic heritage sites – in a frantic bid to provoke a third initifada (uprising) and cast themselves once again as the victims of terror. Something has to give. Many Palestinians will snap, and no-one will be surprised to see another Ayyash emerge.

Here in the West few of us can fully comprehend what turns a bright, intelligent person into a suicide bomber. But then, we don't have a jackboot on our throat. We don't have our front door battered down in the middle of the night by military thugs, our family abducted, our home bulldozed and our land confiscated.

The moral to the story is surely this. You mess with other people's rights and freedoms, and trample on their dreams, at your peril.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

Does Israel hope to spark a new wave of suicide bombing? is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv

2010-03-13T07:01:39Z

The Sequel to the Video YouTube Censored:

Max Blumenthal and Jesse Rosenfeld interview young Tel Aviv residents about Iran, Obama and right-wing laws limiting the speech rights of their Palestinian-Israeli neighbors. The shocking responses reflect the deepening of racist and authoritarian trends in Israeli society. This is the sequel to "Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem," the video banned by YouTube, Vimeo and the Huffington Post after topping 400,000 hits.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze5dbxPO8cU

Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Life in the Gazan "Buffer Zone"

2010-03-13T07:01:41Z

By Pam Rasmussen* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Saber Az-Za'aneen, coordinator of the Local Initiative Committee in Beit Hanoun, speaks at a protest in Gaza's buffer zone. Photos: Pam Rasmussen

When I wrote last, I was still in Cairo, beginning to lose hope. However, shortly after, a friend at the UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) was miraculously able to get me into Gaza through Israel's Erez Crossing. In a shockingly quick two days, I was in! Among my first activities was this protest….

The Israelis call it the "buffer zone." Gazan NGOs often call it the "hot zone." But to the Palestinians who live near this wide swath of land alongside the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, it is fertile land where their children played and they made a decent living by raising wheat and olives. That is, until Israel declared the land off limits to Palestinians.

The so-called "buffer zone" is a military no-go area that extends along the entire northern and eastern Gazan border with Israel, as well as its southern border with Egypt (known as the Philadelphi Corridor). The creation of a 50-meter-wide buffer zone was agreed to as part of the security arrangements included in an interim Palestinian-Israeli agreement signed in 1995. Following the start of the second Intifada in September 2000, the area of the buffer zone was increased to 150 meters wide. In May 2009, the Israeli military scattered thousands of leaflets warning residents to maintain a distance of at least 300 meters from the border or risk being fired upon. In reality, however, the buffer zone can extend up to two kilometers (1.2 miles) at its widest point in North Gaza.

As a result, the area once known as the most bountiful in the Gaza Strip in terms of the families it supported or fed has become a no-man's land – a killing field where Palestinians have been targeted for venturing past the invisible, amorphous demarcation line – or sometimes, for simply being too close and rousing the Israelis' suspicions. Since the end of the Israeli military offensive in January 2009, the UN estimates that five civilians have been killed and 20 injured in incidents involving Israeli gun and tank fire in areas near the buffer zone. Three of the fatalities and at least four of the injured were children.

For Saber Az-Za'aneen, a former field worker for a human rights agency and now the full time coordinator of the Local Initiative Committee in Beit Hanoun (in the northern Gaza Strip), it was the deaths of children that drove him to finally fight back.

Saber Az-Za'aneen

He ticks off the incidents that he says finally made him realize that Palestinians had to overcome their fear and fight back. There were four children walking near the agricultural college (the only one in Gaza and now in ruins) … another three children tending their sheep … another three playing in the shadow of their home … a mother and her four children eating breakfast at their kitchen table. (In the latter case, an Israeli drone killed a suspected resistance fighter, then bombed a nearby house for good measure). Last September, a 14-year-old boy was killed while walking with his father.

The Israeli military has said it needs the buffer zone to make it more difficult for resistance fighters to fire rockets and mortars into the Jewish state and set off explosives near the border wall. "What determines our actions are the threats. It's not right to place the blame on Israel; the [Palestinian] farmers should blame the militants and the terror organizations," an Army spokeswoman said.

Once a plush scene of rolling olive, citrus and pomegranate groves, much of the border region (accounting for 30-40 percent of Gaza's arable farmland and a significant number of water wells) is now just a barren landscape. According to a recent Save the Children UK study, up to 70 percent of households living near the buffer zone have been either temporarily or permanently displaced at least once since 2000, primarily as a result of house demolitions and fear for the families' personal safety. In addition, 50 percent of the families have lost their source of income or livelihood during the same period. As a result, 42 percent of those families have changed their residence.

"To protect 45 families in Sderot (the Israeli town closest to the Israel's southern border with Gaza), it has destroyed every aspect of life for 45,000 people here," said Az-Za'aneen. "They have driven us from the land we have farmed for decades, and made our children frightened of something as simple as playing in their back yard."

Only 9 percent of respondents in the Save the Children UK survey said they felt secure in their neighborhood, compared with 55 percent of respondents among the general population in Gaza.

In September 2008, Az-Za'aneen began organizing weekly marches of local farmers and their families into the no-go zone – protests that continued, despite the Israeli Army's use of live ammunition in retaliation, until the 22-day invasion in December 2008-January 2009. Az-Za'aneen launched them once again a month ago. "Our goal is to reinforce the farmers' steadfastness, to give them the courage to keep planting and harvesting their olives despite the Israelis' threats," he said.

Farmers march in the buffer zone.

Az-Za'aneen's model was the weekly marches in protest of the Apartheid Wall being built in the West Bank, which have attracted extensive publicity due to the participation of international activists. However, due to the almost complete prohibition of travel in and out of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, international participation in Beit Hanoun is limited to the few volunteers (primarily with the International Solidarity Movement) who manage to enter Gaza with aid convoys. During the most recent protest, the group of about 50 protesters managed to plant a Palestinian flag about 50 meters from the barrier wall near the Erez Crossing into Israel (the closest residents have managed to get in ten years) before shots from the guard tower rang out, forcing them back.

Eva Bartlett asks the Israeli guards not to shoot, explaining that the marchers are unarmed and peaceful.

"It is important for internationals to show both Palestinians and Israel that despite the fact that our governments indirectly support the ongoing blockade, the Palestinians are not alone, " said Eva Bartlett, a Canadian human rights advocate and freelance writer who arrived in Gaza with the third Free Gaza boat in November 2008. "The Israelis continually make and break their own rules, and they must be exposed."

And so it goes … every week, trying to push a little farther. The Israelis may shoot, but the Palestinian's connection to the land and their history, is stronger.

* Pam Rasmussen is a peace activist and communications professional from Maryland who will make her third trip to the Gaza Strip this year, with the Gaza Freedom March. She will be working in Gaza for the first half of 2010, helping various NGO's better communicate their stories to the Western world. She can be contacted at peacenut57@yahoo.com.

Source: Truthout

Life in the Gazan "Buffer Zone" is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Gordon Brown's Shocking – "It was the right decision" [Video]

2010-03-13T07:01:43Z

A commentary by Anthony Lawson on Gordon Brown's statement to The Iraq Inquiry on March 5th, 2010:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wmx-iQHI4I

Reference Birth Defects:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

Depleted Uranium:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4207.htm

Gordon Brown's Shocking – "It was the right decision" [Video] is a post from: Sabbah Report. Get Daily Newsletter, follow on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.