The Truth Will Set You Free

I'm Back

2014-12-06T13:49:00.001-05:00

Hello, friends.

I'm back, after a very long hiatus, some of which I spent, more recently, blogging out of the closet, if you will, on Facebook (yes! of all places!), as MY REAL SELF, the disclosure of which I will leave for another occasion.

But, I won't be blogging here. I have a new site: SHAREverything.com

I hope that you'll join me there as you did here, sharing with me and the world the benefit of your insights and experiences.

Much Love,

QRS

Mossad pulls off Boston Marathon attacks

2013-04-16T00:41:00.002-04:00

Let us ponder the conspiracy, which point to Mossad in its use of deceptive tactics involving the special access to plant the explosives that killed the few innocents and maimed over a hundred victims.

Boston Marathon attack is, as I put it, America's equivalent of 7/7/2005 attack in London.

One surprising thing about the attack is, it was barely military-grade in terms of the depth of the explosives that would amass the kill counts. This contrasts the 2002 Bali attack that killed and maimed the inordinate number of Australian victims.

I doubt the FBI and the White House, being compromised enough as is through their relationship with Israel, give a shit when they know or suspect, upon discovery, Mossad is involved in the attacks, the past and the present, whether directly or indirectly. Indirect means using the patsy (i.e. useful idiot) through the fronts to plant the bombs as the smokescreen.

As the motto of the Mossad makes clear of their clandestine agenda to induce the coming tyranny of the New World Order, which is headquartered in the State of Israel, "By way of deception, Thou shalt do war."

* * * *

Of the MOSSAD, the Israeli intelligence service, the SAMS officers say: "Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."

- U.S. Army SAMS dossier, mentioned by the neo-conservative newspaper Washington Times on September 10, 2001 (one day before the terror attacks, manned by the remote control to hijack and steer the aircrafts to crash into the intended targets; Flight 93 was likely destined to hit the dome of the U.S. Capitol). Preserved Washington Times article.

U.S. Army Officers - 'Mossad May Blame Arabs' - American Free Press

Former MI6 chief on Mossad's ruthless and cunning ways: 'U.K. didn't always feel safe sharing intelligence with Israel'

The confession of how They want to destroy America, by any means necessary to establish Oppression and Tyranny through the art of Deception, Treason and Murder:

"Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away." - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, supposedly said to the Jewish supporters following the visit to the convicted traitor Jonathan Pollard's jail cell, circa 2002. (Overheard by the ex-CIA agent.)

* * *

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister [Binyamin Netanyahu] as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor." (Context: Ex-IDF Israeli-American overheard through the "grapevine" the meeting with the Israelis, spoken in Hebrew, on readying the execution of 9-11 attacks at the Jewish cemetery in New Jersey, in 2000.)

* * *

Asked tonight what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, ''It's very good.'' Then he edited himself: ''Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.'' He predicted that the attack would ''strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.''

- New York Times, September 12, 2001: A DAY OF TERROR: THE ISRAELIS; Spilled Blood Is Seen as Bond That Draws 2 Nations Closer

* * *

How Israeli Zionists Control United States of America, as Benjamin Netanyahu admits in the videotape secretly recorded with the record light turned off.

Sad as the recent event is, America will always be in the dark, so long as they purposefully and cheerfully, through self-deception, ignore the complicity of the Mossad and its network of terrorists.

Proof Israel Did 9-11.

9-11 - A date awaited by the Rabbinate for the past 400 years?

2011-04-12T01:41:00.006-04:00

The following diatribe is from a Christian Zionist site at http://www.etpv.org/2001/gosea.html

In it, the writers, who appear to be Dispensationalist in their outlook, mention that Rabbis in Israel have been awaiting the date of 9-11 for the past 400 years. The date of 9-11-1999 (Rosh Hashanah) began the period of the "Judgement of Nations", whic culminated in the September 11th, 2001 attack. Other dates, covering events such as the death of Syria's Assad and the Camp David Accords are also mentioned, which should interest anyone who has been keeping track of the odd "coincidental" dates that seem to accompany recent disasters and other significant world events.

September 11 of the Year One in the Jewish calendar is the birth date of Adam.

The 6000th anniversary of Adam's creation is September 11, 1999.

The following is a long essay, so for those who wish to skim, the more interesting passages are in boldface.

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God's Seasons
Nancy White - Billye Brim

EXCERPTED FROM NANCY WHITE'S INP-TEAM NEWSLETTER:

"Two Days--And Watching the Moeds (God's Appointed Times)" By Billye Brim (copied from The Glory Watch, Autumn 2001.)

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SEPTEMBER 11, 1999--SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 --JUDGMENT OF NATIONS BEGINS.

A long anticipated prophetic time period began on Rosh Hashanah, September 11, 1999. Since then, God's moeds are fast ticking off one by one, right on schedule.

WHAT IS A MOED?

The first mention of this Hebrew word is in:

Genesis 1:14 "And God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons (moedim or moeds), and for days, and years."

(The sun, moon, planets, & stars are for signs & seasons, days & years of the appointed times.)

Moed means: "appointed time, fixed time; appointed place or meeting."

God is an eternal being not limited by time. But for His redemptive dealings with man, He cut out a portion of Eternity, so to speak, and called it Time. Time's end was predetermined from its beginning. Time is marked with moeds--God's foreordained appointments.

Leviticus 23:2, 4 "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, 'The moeds of the LORD, which you shall proclaim holy convocations, these my moeds...

"These are the moeds of the LORD, holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their moeds (appointed times)'."

You may want to read Leviticus 23 and mark your Bible where it is used so you can realize the impact of how God was designating appointed times--fixed dates one can circle on a calendar--in His great redemptive plan.

Passover (Pesach), Pentecost (Shavuot), and Tabernacles (Succot) are marked out in Leviticus 23. We already have seen how Passover & Pentecost have known great redemptive fulfillment (through the life of Jesus).

Tabernacles is yet to be revealed to the world at large when the nations will be required to worship the king through the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem. (Zechariah 14:16 & 17.)

God is a sign-giving God. But one has to know how to read His signs--how to watch His calendar. How to watch moeds prophesied throughout the word of God. How to watch date patterns in the history of Israel.

God's signature often appears in an event in relation to the DATE of the happening.

For instance, the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. On November 9, 1938, Hitler's government broke the windows of almost every German synagogue and viciously beat any Jews who tried to protect their sanctuaries. Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass, tested how the world would react and fueled the progression of the horror of the Holocaust.

Communism reared its ugly head of power on the back of Lenin's so-called "October Revolution". But it was only an October revolution by the Julian, or Old Style, calendar that was used in Russia.

In 1918, the Soviet government adopted the Gregorian or New Style calendar. Therefore the dates of the revolution, October 24 - 25, 1917 translate to November 5 - 6, 1917. The Soviet government annually celebrated communism's triumph on the November dates.

(Note: Under Russia's President Putin, November 2000, they have returned to the celebration of the old communist dates. Putin said this was to honor their forefathers, or else their lives would have been lived in vain.)

So--near the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and the 70th anniversary of Communism, a judgment fell, not at the hands of an army or of an earthly super-power, but at the hand of God. (The Berlin wall fell at the appointed time.)

THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGED

For some time before the day arrived, I heard biblical scholars and Jews talking about the importance of Rosh Hashanah, September 11, 1999.

Rosh Hashanah is literally translated Head of the Year, and is the beginning of the civil new year as marked on God's calendar in Leviticus 23:24 and Numbers 29:1.

Numbers 29:1 "And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. For you it is a day of blowing the trumpets..."

(The Hebrew calendar is not like ours, so the seventh month would be in September. Blowing the trumpets, known as the Feast of Trumpets, is a 9-11 call to alert the people to prepare their hearts for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement for the nation, a day of national repentance.)

Early in 1999, the Lord spoke to me and said, "Something is going to happen in Israel in September. And I want you to be there."

It was September 9, 1999, that we learned about the property in Migdal. Just a few days later, Lynne Hammond, Walter & Lucy McKee, and I took off for Israel to see the hotel on the Sea of Galilee and to pray about whether it was God's will and His purpose for us to acquire it.

On that trip we visited Torah scholars in Jerusalem and asked them about Rosh Hashanah, September 11, 1999. Why all the talk about it?

Jewish scholars from various groups gave us the same answer. Their eyes lit up as they told us the sages had been waiting for this day for 400 years!

SEPTEMBER 11, 1999--THE YEAR THAT EVERYTHING CHANGES-- BEGINNING OF THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS

"What does it mean?" I asked. They told us that it marks the beginning of "the year that everything changes". That it marks the time of the beginning (of the conclusion) of the "judgment of the nations".

The next summer on June 10, 2000 as I stood preaching, someone handed me a note. It said that Hafaz al Assad, the ruler of Syria, had just dropped dead during a telephone conversation with the president of Lebanon.

I thought of Assad's hatred for Israel and his driving ambition to regain the Golan. I thought of how Prime Minister Barak and the world were beating a path to Assad's door to try to make a deal on the Golan.

But most of all, I thought of what the Jewish scholar said about the judgment of the nations. Later, I realized that Assad died on Pentecost, (Shavuot)--and, perhaps, even more telling--on the 33rd anniversary of the day that he lost the Golan to Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

So--the next time I was in Israel, I went to one of my Jewish sources, (those involved in rebuilding the Temple), and asked, "Do you think Assad's death on such a date (one of God's moeds) had to do with the judgment of the nations?"

He gestured in the affirmative with an action of his head and hand that I have observed only among the Jews.

END OF THE 2 DAYS--(2000 YEARS)-- OF THE DIASPORA

He verbally answered my question with a question, "What do you think about the 2 days ending on the day the Camp David II accords fell apart?"

"What!" I exclaimed. "The two days ended? When? How can you tell?"

You see I had been preaching about the 2 days of Hosea chapters 5 & 6 for almost 15 years. I knew they were 2000 years in length and we were generally at the end of the time-frame. But every time I preached it, I knew I had no idea exactly when they began, and when they would end.
Briefly, to catch you up on the teaching...

(scriptures added so you can see the context)

HOSEA'S PROPHESY OF THE SCATTERING

Hosea 5:1-3, 14-15 "Hear this O priests! Take heed O house of Israel! Give ear, O house of the king! For yours is the judgment, because you have been a snare to Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor.

"The revolters are deeply involved in slaughter (sacrifice of the innocents). Though I rebuke them all, I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from Me; For now, O Ephraim, you commit harlotry. Israel is defiled."

"For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even, I, will tear them (like a lion tearing them) and go away; I will take them away, and no one will rescue them.

"I will return again to My place till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek my face; In their affliction, they will earnestly seek Me."

REVIVAL AT END OF THE 2ND DAY--BEGINNING OF THE 3RD DAY:

Hosea 6:1-2 "Come, and let us return to the LORD; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up. After 2 days, He will revive us. On the 3rd day, He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight.

"Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD, His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the latter and former rain to the earth."

THE TWO DAYS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Peter, the Apostle to the circumcised (Jews), wrote two letters to believers among the Jewish Diaspora (I Peter 1:1. II Peter 3:1)

Peter reveals that a period of time will elapse between his departure and the coming of the Lord, a long time during which false prophets will appear. Peter points to the prophetic books of the Hebrew Scripture to know the time of the fulfillment of the promises (1:19-21; 3:2)

KEY TO UNLOCKING THE TIME FRAME OF THIS PROPHECY:

He then points out the KEY to unlocking the timing of the prophecies:

II Peter 3:8 "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

The Jewish believers knew which prophets that Peter was referring to, and that the prophets spoke of the days in relation to the length of the Diaspora. They knew immediately that it was a reference to the Prophet Hosea.

(Jesus and all the prophets set the Ingathering of the Diaspora as the key to the timing of the setting up of the millennial kingdom.)

I have since learned that Hosea was one of the most relied upon prophets as the Jews looked to know the TIME of the Messianic redemption.

In Hosea 4, 5, and 6, God deals with the sins and the resulting punishment-- the scattering-- or as translated into Greek, the Diaspora of His people.

Deuteronomy 28:64 prophesied that the scattering would be "from one end of the earth even unto the other."

The prophets warned of the scattering long before it occurred. But with every warning of the scattering, the Diaspora, there was a promise of an Ingathering before the coming of the Messianic Kingdom.

Hosea gave a picture of inescapable punishment.

Hosea 4:17: "Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone."

In some ways, Ephraim is still joined to idols--but things will be sorted out soon, as the nations are judged for their idolatry and their jealousies are purified by fire. A righteous remnant is among them.

GOD SCATTERS BOTH HOUSES IN THE DIASPORA

Hosea shows that both houses would fall-- the house of Israel as well as the house of Judah.

Hosea 5:5 "The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore, Israel & Ephraim stumble in their iniquity; Judah also stumbles with them. With their flocks & herds, they shall go to seek the LORD, but they will not find Him; He has withdrawn Himself from them."

THOUGH GOD SCATTERED, HE PROMISED THEIR RESTORATION

(Hosea 5:14-15 and Hosea 6:1-3. Scriptures previously quoted in this article, follow in this sequence.

Because God withdrew from them, He tore them in pieces like a lion for their abominations and left them to be scattered till their punishment was fulfilled. Then he promised to raise them up after 2 days (2000 years).

On the 3rd Day, the Millennial reign, He promised to raise them up to live in His sight as a mighty restored nation.)

Ephraim was shredded till he was not easily identifiable, but Judah though torn, kept the earmark of the Sabbath. Therefore, everyone identified the Jews, the southern house as Israel, forgetting that Ephraim was the northern house.

So--I had preached all of this. But I did not know how to determine the end of the 2 days--until that day when the Jewish scholar asked me, "What do you think of the 2 days ending on the exact day the Camp David II accords fell apart?"

CAMP DAVID II AND THE FASTS OF TAMUZ AND AV

US President Bill Clinton convened a Middle East summit at Camp David in Maryland in July 2000. Israeli Prime Minister Barak, Yasser Arafat, and Clinton arrived on July 11 and talks to salvage the ill-advised --for they were opposite to the revealed will of God in the Scriptures--Oslo accords began.

On July 20, however, President Clinton's spokesman announced, "The summit has come to a conclusion without reaching an agreement."

July 20, 2000 on the Jewish calendar was the 17th of Tamuz--or as it is known "the fast of Tamuz".

WHAT IS THE FAST OF TAMMUZ?

(Note: There is a counterfeit "fast" to every God appointed fast. When Israel sinned by putting idols dedicated to devils into the Temple, the fast of Tammuz evolved. Jewish women wept for Tammuz--a pagan practice.

No wonder destruction followed them through the centuries during the "fast of Tammuz". Instead of calling upon Jehovah, they were worshipping the Queen of Heaven and her son, the counterfeit savior, Tammuz. This dates back to the idolatrous religion of Egypt.

During this time, the temple of God became a temple to idols. The Jewish priests began to worship the sun and faced toward the east.

Since the Jews began this practice in God's Holy Temple--is it any wonder that today, the men of Islam worship toward the rising of the sun on this very spot where the Jews allowed the pure worship of God to degenerate into idolatry? Legal ground was given to devils at that time, and they still inhabit the Temple Mount, though that spot belongs to Jehovah, and His Shekinah Glory is also there. It can be seen at the Wailing Wall.

Ezekiel 8:14-16 (Ezekiel's vision of the desecration of the Temple)

"Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north: and behold, to my dismay, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then He said to me: 'Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, and you will see greater abominations than these.

"So He brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house; and there, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about 25 men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces were toward the east, and they were worshipping the sun toward the east."

So the "fast of Tamuz" was a heathen practice, and as long as Israel keeps this fast, destruction will continue to plague them. Surely God has something better, as we shall see, through His appointed moeds.

Ramadan, the Muslim fast in November is another example of this. Fasting or observing a "holiday" empowers the spirits of the god you worship to inhabit you. Ramadan lasts an entire month, and it culminates in a "day of destiny" when special powers or visions are imparted.

Another example is Christmas. Christians honor the birth of Jesus and that is good. Pagan practices enter in, however, if we are not alert to the history of this day. Every Holy Day of Jehovah has a pagan counterfeit. In paganism, babies are sacrificed on Christmas, to mock the birth of the Savior.

We must ask ourselves, "Do we worship Jesus, or the spirit of "Christmas?' If we worship "Christmas" instead of the Savior, a spirit of greed and competition enters. A time that should be joyful becomes a worrisome time of rush and feeling like we have to give and get expensive gifts or we have failed.

This Christmas, Let's keep our eyes on God's gift, Jesus, and not let our joy be stolen. God loves a cheerful giver--if we are unable to give cheerfully, we might as well not give. Refuse to be condemned or controlled by the world's spirit of Christmas, which is not the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

It is interesting that November begins with Halloween, the end of October. Halloween is the "birthday of Satan". To celebrate Halloween is to give demons legal ground into your soul & your family. The first 2 weeks of November are high days of Satanic activity. Is it a coincidence that Ramadan begins during this time period?

God's true MOEDS-- Passover, Pentecost, & Tabernacles--must be re-instated fully by Christians & the Jewish people.

The history of other fast days (holidays), not given to Moses, need to be re-examined by both Christians & Jews.

Jesus was in the temple during the "Feast of Lights" (Hannukah). It is not wrong to celebrate these days if our hearts are pure, and we realize the true significance of the holiday, and we worship the true God.

We have just celebrated Thanksgiving, the time to be thankful for God's blessings. In a history book that I read about, secularist historians wrote that the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians (not to God) for saving them from starvation. There is an active element in our society that tries to take the glory from Jehovah, stripping all references to God out of our educational system.

Satan has a counterfeit for all of God's Moeds--appointed times --given as signs through the sun, moon, & stars. --End of Note.)

(Back to Billye Brim's article.)

FAST OF AV--TISHA B'AV

I also want to point out here that August 10, 2000 was the 9th of Av on the Jewish calendar--also known as the Fast of Av, or Tisha b'Av.

For many years, the Jews have fasted--not feasted--on these 2 dates: Fast of Tammuz & Tisha b'Av, because of their biblical and historical significance. They have fasted in mourning.

(Note: If God's true Moeds--appointed times: Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles are observed--who needs these other fast days?

It is okay to remember the days of past destruction. But without coming to God in true repentance and acknowledging his true moeds--all these other fastings are in vain and in fact, they compound the problem, because they give honor to the god of destruction, not the God who brings salvation.

Zechariah 8 mentions both fasts --fast of Tamuz & fast of Tisha B'av.

On precisely the same date, the 9th of Av, both the First and the Second Temples were destroyed. On that same date, other tragic events have befallen the Jews: In 1290, they were expelled from England; in 1492, they were expelled from Spain, in 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was shot leading to WWI and WWII with its atrocities.

The first recorded biblical happening on the 9th of Av was when the Jews received the report of the 10 spies at Kadesh Barnea and they refused to possess the Promised Land. (Numbers 13). The rabbis teach that their lack of faith resulted in the subsequent tragedies on that date.

As to the 17th of Tamuz, Babylon and Rome besieged Jerusalem and breached the walls on the 17th of Tamuz. The first biblical occurrence on the 17th of Tamuz was when Moses saw the golden calf and smashed the tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments.

(Note: this first occurrence of 17th of Tammuz was a celebration of idolatry by the Israelites, a throw-back to the gods of Egypt. It angered Moses to the point of dashing the 10 commandments of stone.)

The Torah scholar (my Jewish source) said to me, "The talks fell apart on exactly the date the 2 days ended."

"How do you figure that?" I asked.

"It's easy." And again he answered me with a question. "How long has it been since the Second Temple was destroyed?"

I knew Titus the Roman destroyed it in 70 AD Doing a little subtraction, taking 70 from 2000, I answered, "It has been 1930 years."

"Right," he replied. "And how long were we without a Temple in the Babylonian captivity?"

"Seventy years," I said.

"Right, now add it together."

This time I added the 70 years after the Babylonian destruction and scattering, to the 1930 years since the Roman destruction and scattering. "2000!" I exclaimed.

"That's right." he replied. "Two Days."

Another long-awaited moed was fulfilled and recorded right before the world's eyes through the cameras and print of the media.

(July 20, 2000, President Clinton of the USA, Arafat of Palestinian Authority, & Barak of Israel. No agreement to salvage the peace Oslo accords could be made--the 2000 years were up. Even though the nations try to keep Israel from its destiny--they will not be able.)
(end of article by Billye Brim)

SUMMARY OF FACTS ABOUT SEPTEMBER 11TH:

It is interesting that September 11, 1999, Rosh Hashanah, had been anticipated by rabbis who studied the scriptures, for 400 years. This date marked the beginning of the judgment of the nations.

Billye Brim who had gone to Israel to buy the hotel on the mountain of Migdal, visited with Ariel Sharon during those days in September, 1999, and he read Ezekiel 36 in her presence. He said "This is being fulfilled this day."

Ezekiel 36:1 "And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel."--

This passage is too long to print here but every serious student should read it. God says because the mountains of Israel have been claimed by the nations of the world and Israel has been slandered, that Israel is to prophesy to the mountains, and God will reap judgment on the nations who have falsely claimed Israel's territory.

There is a condition here--The prophets must prophesy to the mountains in order for God to reap the judgment on their enemies. God said he would not vindicate them because of their goodness, but to vindicate His Name.

Ezekiel 36:22 "Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord God: 'I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, BUT FOR MY HOLY NAME'S SAKE, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went."

Ariel Sharon is a man of the book, and God led him to read this portion of scripture to Billye Brim who was in the process of buying a mountain in Israel to give back to Israel as God's Prayer Mountain in the Galilee! The moed date, was either September 11 or September 13, 1999.

September 11-13, 2000 marked the beginning of the current intifada in Israel. The uprising had already been planned by the Palestinians, but they started it officially when Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount. The PA conveniently blamed it on his visit. This date is significant--it was one year from the date that Ariel Sharon and Billye Brim read this passage and prophesied to the mountains.

September 11, 2001, brought America into the picture more solidly, by giving America a wake-up call. America has a chance to shine as never before. We must defend the mountains of Israel and quit giving them away. We must pray for our leaders to stay in the right lane, so that our nation remains a sheep nation. Satan's plan is to make us a goat nation.

Our leaders are supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state--which is well & good ONLY if the Palestinians would leave Israel alone. However, the mindset of Islam, the Arab nations, and Arafat and his followers is to totally annihilate Israel. The planned Palestinian state would engulf Israel and strangle her, except for divine intervention.

America will be judged severely by God for dividing the land and giving it to the enemies of Israel, if this situation is not turned around. Let's continue to press into prayer for our leaders that they will be in the center of God's perfect will, which is for them to stand strong in behalf of Israel.

PRAY OUR LEADERS STAY CLOSE TO GOD

Proverbs 21:1 "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; like rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes."

The demise of Mt. Seir or Edom is promised in Ezekiel 35. Edomites are the descendents of Esau, Jacob's twin brother. They have hated Israel all these years. God promises to destroy them because they have not repented of their hatred and that they continue to shed the blood of Israel even after "their (Israel's) iniquity came to an end".

Ezekiel 35:5 speaks about the END of Israel's iniquity, which is the end of the Diaspora, the end of the 2 days of being scattered.

So let us all read Ezekiel 36 and begin prophesying to the mountains of Israel: "O mountains of Israel, Hear the Word of the Lord...." Godly Jews have this chapter memorized, and they do prophesy to the mountains.

This prophesying can bring judgment on America---but we all know that 9-11 was a wake-up call for major repentance. God does not want to destroy America--He wants us to repent and stand for His covenant. He wants us to Arise & Shine His Light to the nations. He wants us to stand with Israel.

September 11, 2001 was 2 years after September 11, 1999, "the day everything changed" and the judgment of the nations began. Three years in a row: 1999, 2000, & 2001, September 11 has been significant.

The Oslo accords were signed September 11-13, 1993 at Camp David, 7 years before the current Islamic intifada began in Israel.

The 7- year peace treaty ended specifically on time. It was the beginning of the current uprising--the time of Jacob's trouble has begun.

3. INP-Team letter. Summary of this issue

I Corinthians 10:32 "Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God." Three people groups to watch. God deals with all of them in the end-times.

Dear INP-Team,

In order to understand current world events, it is necessary to understand God's Covenant with Israel, both from the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament writers.

One of the purposes of INP-Team newsletter is to watch the fig tree, Israel, and to share understandings about her place in prophecy.

In this issue, we have shared about God's Moeds, appointed times for specific things to take place, from Billye Brim's teachings. I do not know Billye personally, but I have followed her ministry for many years. I have learned you can go to the bank with her teachings--which are always backed up with the specific prophecy in the Old Testament or a New Testament insight.

In the 70's, Billye says that the Lord showed her I Corinthians 10:32, which is quoted as the heading for this letter. She said that the Holy Spirit said to her: "If you will remember this verse of scripture, it will keep your end-time doctrine straight."

To finish this teaching on God's covenant with Israel, I have gathered the following scriptures with comments. Although this lengthens this newsletter, it is a completion of the picture--which is necessary in order to co-ordinate the New Testament teaching with the Old.

I hope it turns on a light for those of you that think the church has replaced Israel. In one way, we have, but in another way--we have not. For either Israel or the church to have a superior attitude is an error. God's plan encompasses both.

God is showing us the mystery of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. It includes all His promises to both spiritual & natural Israel. The church is an interlude in the history of Israel. We find our true significance when we see the over-all plan.

Ephesians 1:7-10 "In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom & prudence. Having made known to us the MYSTERY of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself,

"That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth--in Him."

Read with understanding. The future of our nation depends on it.

Blessings to all who read. Nancy White

"GOD'S COVENANTS WITH ISRAEL--OLD & NEW"

Here is Moses' song which was to be taught to the children of Israel as a witness against them...

Deuteronomy 32:1-44. The song was to be passed down from generation to generation as a witness against Israel from God. If Israel would be faithful to sing the song of Moses, they would know the truth about God's covenant with them. It was a prophecy by Moses concerning the latter days of Israel.

Deuteronomy 32:1-15 --God's blessing is upon Israel while they have no other gods but Jehovah.

PROSPERITY CAUSED ISRAEL TO TAKE BLESSINGS FOR GRANTED
Deuteronomy 32:15-20 --The prophecy about Jeshurun.

--'Jeshurun'--another name for Israel, meaning 'upright, blessed, nourished by God'--will get fat and take his covenant blessings lightly. Fat implies rich, lazy, proud in prosperity, & unconcerned about holy character & covenant with God. Fatness takes blessings for granted.

"But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: you are waxed fat, you are grown thick; you are covered with fatness;

"Then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger.

IDOLATRY CAUSED THEM TO FORGET JEHOVAH

"They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not--gods that came newly up, whom your father feared not. Of the Rock that begat you, you are unmindful, and you have forgotten God that formed you.

"And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward--self-centered self-willed--generation, children in whom is no faith."

THE CHURCH, "A FOOLISH NATION", PROPHESIED BY MOSES

Deuteronomy 32:21 "They have moved me to jealousy, with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with 'those which are not a people' ; I will provoke them to anger with 'a foolish nation'.

"For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them...."
(Who is this foolish nation that will provoke Israel to jealousy-- this people who are not a people? --It is the church, the body of Christ.)

ISRAEL'S ZEAL FOR GOD, NOT ACCORDING TO KNOWLEDGE

Romans 10:1-4 "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge.

"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

"For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes."

ALL HAVE HEARD, BUT ALL HAVE NOT OBEYED

Romans 10:16-18 "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, 'Lord, who has believed our report? So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, truely, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.'

(The world has heard the gospel of Jesus Christ--as well as the song of Moses. These are the 2 witnesses in the earth: The Old and the New Covenant--The Law of Moses & The Law of The Spirit of Life Through Jesus Christ.)

ISRAEL, A DISOBEDIENT & GAINSAYING PEOPLE

Romans 10:19-21
"But I say, 'Did not Israel know?'
"First Moses said, 'I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are not a people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.' But Isaish is very bold and he said, 'I was found of them that did not seek me; I was made manifest (openly shown) to them that did not ask after me.

"But to Israel he said, "All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

HAS GOD CAST AWAY ISRAEL?

Romans 11:1-5 "I say then, Has God cast away his people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away his people which he foreknew.

"Don't you know what the scripture said about Elijah? How he made intercession to God against Israel, saying 'Lord, they have killed your prophets, and digged down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.'

"But what was the answer God gave to Elijah? 'I have reserved to myself 7000 men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace."

THE REMNANT WITHIN ISRAEL CAN SEE GOD'S PLAN

Romans 11:7-12 "What then? Israel (as a whole) has not obtained that which he sought for, but the election has obtained it, and the rest were blinded.

"according as it is written: 'God has given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day.

"And David said, 'Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them; Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always.'

ISRAEL'S UNBELIEF BROUGHT SALVATION TO THE GENTILES

"I (Paul) say then, 'Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather, through their fall, salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them is the riches of the Gentiles, how much more will be their fulness?"

If the world has prospered during the diminishing of Israel--Think about this: the nations will really be blessed when Israel reigns in the fulness of its covenant blessing.

But first, God must clean house.

THE ROOT OF ISRAEL IS HOLY

Romans 11:13 "For I speak to you Gentiles...if by any means I may provoke to emulation (jealousy) them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump (sprout, root) is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches."

GENTILES IN COVENANT ONLY BECAUSE OF GOD'S NEW COVENANT WITH ISRAEL

Jesus said, 'I am the vine, and you are the branches."

The root of the vine is God's covenant with the children of Israel. The Gentile branches have no covenant except as they abide in the vine (Jesus) who is rooted in Israel's covenant. Any church doctrine that denies God's everlasting covenant with Israel is a false doctrine.

ISRAEL WAS BROKEN OFF BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF

Romans 11:18-24 "Boast not against the branches...because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also does not spare you.
"Behold, therefore, the goodness & severity of God--on them which fell --severity, but toward you, goodness.

ISRAEL TO BE GRAFTED BACK INTO THE GOOD OLIVE TREE

"Otherwise, you also shall be cut off. And they also, if they quit abiding in unbelief, they shall be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in AGAIN....For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted into the good olive tree--How much more shall they which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?"

MYSTERY: THE BLINDNESS OF ISRAEL IS JUST TILL THE FULNESS OF THE GENTILES IS COMPLETED.

Romans 11:25 "For I would not, brothers, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in."

FULNESS OF THE GENTILES

What is the fulness of the Gentiles? The Gentiles, the nations of the world, are brought into and partake of the blessing of the knowledge of God's Covenant with Israel through His Son, Jesus Christ.

"Whosoever will, let him come, let him drink of the water of life, freely."

Also, the Fulness of the Gentiles is when the nations have run their course in the plan for the ages. It is the end of the Times of the Gentiles and the beginning of the dispensation of the Fulness of Times when all nations have been purged and Israel is restored to its covenant blessings both spiritually & physically.
The Fulness of the Gentiles is the bringing of the Gentiles into the church as part of the plan of God.

The Times of the Gentiles is Gentile world dominion until Israel as a whole accepts Christ, and the kingdom is fully restored to Israel.

JERUSALEM TO BE TRAMPLED BY THE GENTILES TILL THE TIME OF THE GENTILES IS FULFILLED.

Luke 21:24 (Jesus speaking:)

"And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the Times of the Gentiles be fulfilled"

Idolatrous Israel was abhorred by God, divorced, and dispersed through the Gentile nations, losing their identity as Israel. But through God's Son, Jesus Christ, Israel is being restored and once again brought into marriage relationship with God. Jerusalem was to be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the dispensation of Israel's Dispersal & Divorcement was finished--The end of the 2nd day.

GOD REMARRIES ISRAEL THROUGH HIS SON, JESUS-- WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HIS BRIDE.

Ephesians 5:32 "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

ISRAEL'S MAKER IS HER HUSBAND

Isaiah 54:3-5 "You shall break forth on the right hand and on the left; and your seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.
'Fear not; for you shall not be ashamed, neither be confounded, for you shall not be put to shame. For you shall forget the shame of your youth, and you shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood anymore.

"For your Maker is your husband; the LORD of Hosts (angelic armies) is His name; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. The God of the whole earth shall He be called."

(Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead bodily--He is Creator, Redeemer, One with the Father.)

DATE SETTING?

Some Christians believe that the Feast of Tabernacles, The Year of Jubilee, 1997, marked the end of the Times of the Gentiles, which was a period of 2700 years., more or less. There is a period of around 700-800 years between the dispersal of Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BC, the Babylonian Captivity of Judah in 586 BC and the destruction of Jerusalem, 70 AD

Hence the 2000 years + 700-800 = approximately 2700-2800 years of banishment, give or take a few years. I don't have the exact information about this.
(This date for the drawing to a close of the Times of the Gentiles, Tabernacles 1997, does not conflict with September 11, 1999 which marks the beginning of the judgment of the nations. These are transitional periods. In retrospect, you can set dates, because history bears it out.

Jesus said no man would know the hour of His second-coming, except the Father himself--so we are not setting dates on that. We just know it is nearer than it was 2000 years ago, and that the time seems to be very soon.)

ISRAEL RESTORATION MINISTRIES

Many Israel restoration ministries have moved to Israel, and are working to bring salvation to both Jews & Arabs. Jerusalem now has many born again believers who are claiming the land for Israel and for the Lord.

The Tabernacle of David is being rebuilt through the praises of His people. Christians who visit Israel to worship & prayer walk the land are part of this movement.

Romans 11:26-29 "And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written. 'There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

"As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts & calling of God are without repentance."

GENTILES OBTAINED MERCY THROUGH ISRAEL'S UNBELIEF
---NOW ISRAEL RECEIVES MERCY THROUGH GENTILES ---
ALL A PART OF GOD'S PLAN TO HAVE MERCY ON ALL.
Romans 11:31-36

"Even so, these also have not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

"O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and His ways are past finding out!
"For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsellor? O who has first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
"For Of Him, and Through Him, and To Him, are all things: To Whom be Glory forever. Amen."
(end of chapter 11).

HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT--RENEW YOUR MIND SO THAT YOU CAN PROVE THE PERFECT WILL OF GOD.

Romans 12:1 THEREFORE--"I beg you, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

"And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God!!"

THE NEW COVENANT--THAT NOT ANY SHOULD PERISH

God's Perfect Will is for all men to be saved! He is not willing that any perish.
Let us pray and work as never before to win the lost people groups to Christ--no matter what their ethnic background is. God loves the Jew, He loves the Muslim, He loves dispersed Israel that is now being ingathered. He loves the whole world. He desires all to come and be saved.

THE ANGELIC CONFLICT--A WAR BETWEEN GOOD & EVIL
Judgments are in the earth today. Also, Satan desires to destroy God's Plan for the Kingdom of God to reign over the earth. There are conflicting purposes in this struggle for dominion. One plan enslaves, and the other plan sets free.
Prayers of the saints can hold back the destruction of nations so that more people will come into the freedom of the knowledge of the Kingdom of God--which is Righteousness, Peace, & Joy in the Holy Ghost.

World Wars I & II were Satan's plan to destroy Israel and the people of God.
World War III has also been planned. The world is ultimately in God's hands ---but we are His hands on earth. He will allow what we allow.

He promises to redeem Israel, not only spiritually, but physically. (Romans 11 and Ezekiel 36.)

BOTH HOUSES OF ISRAEL HAVE FAILED & DESERVE PUNISHMENT
Both houses of Israel, Ephraim & Judah, screwed up royally--but God has not forgotten His promises. He will be made holy in the eyes of all nations. The nations who sneer and say Israel's God is weak--they will have a rude awakening soon.
The messengers of Jesus Christ see this coming, but their cry is "Grace, Grace"--"God have mercy on your people. Thank You that You remember Your covenant with us."

Zechariah 14:1 "Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all nations to battle against Jerusalem ....
"THEN-- the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle...."

GOD WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE

Zechariah 9:11-13, 16 "Because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free...Return to the stronghold (the fortress of safety), you prisoners of hope. Even today, I declare that I will restore double to you.

"For I have bent Judah, which is my bow, and I have fitted the bow with Ephraim, and I have raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and made you like the sword of a mighty man."

"The LORD their God will save them in that day, as the flock of his people. For they shall be like the jewels of a crown, lifted like a banner over His land--For how great is its goodness, and how great its beauty..."

RESTORATION OF JUDAH & ISRAEL

Zechariah 10:1-5 "Ask the LORD for rain in the time of the latter rain. The LORD will make flashing clouds; He will give them showers of rain, grass in the field for everyone... (spiritual rain as well as physical.)

"For the idols speak delusion, and those who have a spirit of divination envision lies, and they tell false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore the people (of Judah & Ephraim) are like sheep. They are in trouble because there is no shepherd.

"My anger is kindled against the shepherd, and I will punish the goatherds (those who tend the goat nations).

"For the LORD of hosts will visit His flock, the house of Judah, and will make them as His royal horse in the battle.

From him, (Judah) comes the cornerstone, (Jesus), and from him, the tent peg, and from him, the battle bow. From him, (Lion of Judah) comes every ruler together.
"They shall be like mighty men, who tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle.

"They shall fight because the LORD is with them. And the riders on horses shall be put to shame." (in front of those who ride God's royal war-horse.)

Remember this passage says Judah is His royal war-horse.

JEHOVAH'S PROMISE TO HOUSE OF JUDAH & HOUSE OF JOSEPH:
Zechariah 10:6-12

"I will strengthen the house of Judah. And I will save the house of Joseph.
"I will bring them back, because I have mercy on them. They shall be as though I had not cast them aside: for I am the LORD their God. And I will hear them.
"Those of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as if with wine. Yes, their children shall see it and be glad; Their heart shall rejoice in the LORD.

"I will whistle for them and gather them; And they shall increase as they once increased.

"I will sow them among the peoples. And they shall remember Me in far countries; they shall live with their children, and they shall return.

EGYPT & ASSYRIA WILL BE JUDGED

(The land of Assyrian empire is the present day Iran and Iraq, strongholds of Allah. Assyria is the nation that originally conquered Ephraim.)

" I will bring them back from the land of Egypt, (Judah's dispersal) and gather them from Assyria (Ephraim's dispersal ). I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon, until no more room is found for them....

"The pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart.
"So I will strengthen them in the LORD, and they shall walk up and down in His Name, (Yahweh, Jehovah)" says the LORD."

ISRAEL'S CURSE AMONG THE NATIONS TO BE REMOVED

Zechariah 8:13 "And it shall come to pass that just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Do not fear. Let your hands be strong."

THE REPENTANCE THAT GOD REQUIRES IN ORDER FOR ISRAEL TO BE BLESSED:

Zechariah 8:15-17 "So I am determined to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. "Do not fear. These are the things you shall do:

1) Speak each man the truth to his neighbor. (QUIT LYING).
2) Give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, & peace. (GOVERNING AUTHORITY THAT GIVES JUSTICE TO ALL)
3) Let none of you think evil in your heart against your neighbor. (LOVE GOD AND LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR)
4) And do not love a false oath." (GET RID OF IDOLATRY) (False oath--initiation vows into secret societies-- Let your yes be 'yes' and your no be 'no'. Anything more is sin.)

" 'For all of these things are things that I hate,' says the LORD."

RIGHTEOUS NATIONS WILL PURSUE THE JEWS' FAVOR

Zechariah 8:23 "Thus says the LORD of hosts: 'In those days, 10 men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you..."

God wants to bless the children of Israel: both Jews & Ephraim. Aliens or strangers to the covenant are adopted or grafted in when they embrace the God of Israel and His promises. No one with a repentant heart is excluded.

THEY ALL-- (THE WHOLE WORLD)-- WILL BEHOLD HIM WHOM THEY HAVE PIERCED--JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD-- who died for the sins of all mankind, not just Israel.

John 3:16 "For God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."
Our responsibility is to get into that place of blessing through repentance and obedience--and to hang on to the promises of the covenant.

It is to turn from every unclean thing--practices that bring destruction such as: killing of innocents (abortion), perversions, homosexuality, and dabbling with the occult through entertainment, false oaths, learning the depths of Satan. (Harry Potter is a prime example.)

God will judge the nations for these practices. The Judgement has begun.
Study the covenant to Israel--it is fulfilled in the New Covenant. God promised to write His word in our hearts, and He has! ----------------

If you pray alone, you are the power of one; each person you add to the equation is a power of 10: first added & then multiplied. The glory of God is manifest in corporate worship--which is the highest form of prayer. We are looking for prayer partners...people who have a vision for the glory of God to be manifest in the earth.

Nancy White www.internationalnetworkprayerteam.org

Actual police report on the "Dancing Israelis", dated 9-11-2001

2011-01-30T21:40:00.002-05:00

Below are copies of the actual police report on 9-11's "Dancing Israelis", dated 9-11-2001. Copies may be viewed by clicking on the images and clicking again to enlarge. The PDF file of the same report is at this link.

Abu Yazan – The 27th of December, a day I will never forget

2010-12-30T02:24:00.025-05:00

I feel like sharing my story with my friends to show how much terror Israel has brought to us….

That day I was walking in the street with a friend of mine in the middle of Gaza City…we were laughing at some jokes he was saying…and all of the sudden we heard the roaring of the Israeli F16s…It is normal in Gaza to hear such things, so we did not pay much attention to that, we kept moving with our jokes….Then with a glance, an explosion happened in a police station that was around 150 meters away from us.. We went running to the place when another explosion took place followed by a third, then a fourth, a fifth, we didn’t know what was happening but we didn’t hesitate to keep on going to the first place bombed…We had our hands over our ears because the explosions never ended, it was very loud to the limit you think that you are the one being hit with those rockets.

When we arrived at the police station, this is exactly what we saw.. On the door there were two officers lying on the ground injured, when I told the man, “I am going to save you just hang on,” he said, “leave me and get inside”.. I didn’t know what was happening inside, so I went with my friend and with 15 other people following us…We found over 40 bodies lying on the ground dead and about 250 others were injured, most of them had bad injuries…

We left the dead and started to take the survivors out of the place fearing that the Israeli F16s would bomb the place for another time… Most of the survivors were in bad shape, while I was carrying the people, I reached to a person who was badly injured but he looked like he was dead to me, his body was all burned.. he was saying, “ashhad an la elah ela allah, ashhad an mohammed rasool allah”…and that’s what made me notice that he was alive…I just moved towards him and in a hurry tried to take him out of the place, I grabbed him by the hand but the problem was that his hand was not part of his body anymore…I tried from his leg and the same thing happened, his leg just slipped out of his body, so I was there looking at him and knowing that he has no hope. “What shall I do?!” I was saying in a loud voice, I didn’t know how to carry him because each part of his body was a piece and I had to take him out of that place…I had three other people coming towards me and shouting very loud, “lets get him out of here quick,” and that’s what we did…

After like fifteen minutes we took all the survivors and the bodies out of the place, we all left, and after 5 minutes…the Israeli airplanes just hit the place again…we all were praying that we don’t get hit while we were inside… I moved to the hospital with the last ambulance to see what was happening and believe me what I saw was really disgusting and awful… Bodies all lying on the ground… the white suit of all the doctors turned out to red as if they are working in a grocery… This is the day where I decided to work and tell the world about Palestine and about the crimes Israel commits against Palestinians…

And every Palestinian has his own story, because no one stayed at home that day…everyone wanted to take a role in rescuing the injured. Source

Two Years After Gaza War, Gaza Remains Sealed-Off, Suffering Continues

Two years after Operation Cast Lead: Gaza Remains Sealed-Off from outside World, Impunity for War Crimes Prevails
Ahmed Zourob receives dialysis treatment at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Because of the siege, his level of treatment is inadequate and he can no longer obtain the medication he needs (PCHR)

PCHR Report on Gaza War, Monday, 27 December 2010 11:30

December 27, 2010, marks the two-year anniversary of the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s 23 day offensive on the Gaza Strip. This offensive – the single most brutal event in the history of the occupation – was characterised by systematic violations of international law. Its aftermath has been characterised by pervasive impunity.

In total, 1,419 Palestinians were killed. 83% of the dead – the overwhelming majority – were civilians, the so-called ‘protected persons’ of international humanitarian law. A further 5,300 were injured, and public and private property throughout the Gaza Strip was extensively targeted and destroyed.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) notes that in the two years since the offensive there have been no concrete steps taken towards the fulfilment of victims’ legitimate rights to the equal protection of the law and an effective judicial remedy. Customary international law and the treaty-based obligations which all States have entered into are unequivocal: if a war crime has been committed, those responsible must be investigated and prosecuted in accordance with international standards. They must be held to account.

Numerous reports of international and national human rights organisations – including those of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (the ‘Goldstone Report’), the Independent Fact-Finding Mission mandated by the Arab League, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – concluded that war crimes were committed in the Gaza Strip, and noted that criminal accountability must be the legal consequence.

The Goldstone Report detailed explicit mechanisms to ensure such criminal accountability. As required by customary international law, genuine domestic investigations must be initiated. After six months, if these investigations failed to comply with international standards, the Security Council – acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter – must refer the situation to the International Criminal Court.

It is now two years since the offensive, and no effective domestic investigations or prosecutions have been initiated.

As PCHR has documented, Israel has systematically failed to ensure accountability. In the two years since Operation Cast Lead, the actions of the Israeli authorities have been characterised by a desire to shield those responsible from justice. Only three soldiers have been convicted of committing offensive-related crimes. One soldier was sentenced to seven-months in jail for the theft of a credit card. Two other soldiers were convicted of using a 9 year old boy as a human shield. They were given a 3 month suspended sentence.

This is an insult to victims and to the universal rule of law.

The international community’s response has been silence; through inaction they have implicitly endorsed Israel’s actions during Operation Cast Lead and the impunity that has followed. They have implicitly endorsed the systematic and widespread commission of international crimes.

The rule of law, and victims’ rights, have been sacrificed in the name of politics.

This situation must not be allowed to prevail.

The consequences of impunity are evident in the continuing and escalating violations of international law committed in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The consequences of impunity are evident in the fact that the entire Gaza Strip continues to be subject to an illegal closure. For over 3.5 years, 1.7 million people have been collectively punished and cut off from the outside world. Impunity, and the international community’s failure to prevent this ongoing crime, has resulted in the distinct possibility that the closure will become institutionalised, and effectively endorsed by the United Nations and the international community.

The consequences of impunity are evident in the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank; in the continued construction of the Wall; and in the house demolitions and evictions carried out in occupied East Jerusalem.

Equally, the consequences of sacrificing the rule of international law in the name of ‘political progress’ are evident in the abject failure of the Oslo process.

It is imperative that the international community fulfil its legal obligations, and ensure respect for international law. Those suspected of committing international crimes must be investigated and prosecuted. Israel must be held responsible for its internationally wrongful acts.

Impunity serves only to encourage continued violations of international law. Without accountability, how can the civilians of the Gaza Strip feel safe again?

British secret file confirms israeli nukes

A newly released British document confirms that Israel has possessed nuclear weapons for more than three decades.

Secret files released by Britain's National Archives said on Wednesday that British officials feared Tel Aviv would use its nuclear weapons in case of another war with Arab countries in the region.

Israel, which is considered as the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, has never confirmed or denied that it has produced nuclear warheads. It has also refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has also adamantly rejected international inspection of its nuclear facilities.

Former US President Jimmy Carter acknowledged for the first time in May 2008 that Tel Aviv has 150 nuclear warheads in its arsenals.

In 1986, Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, leaked the news that Israel had between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons.

Vanunu was a former worker at the country's Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert.

In May 2010, the UK's Guardian newspaper said secret South African documents reveal that in 1975, Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the then-apartheid regime in South Africa.

According to documents obtained by the newspaper, a secret meeting between the then-Israeli defense minister, Shimon Peres, and his South African counterpart, P.W. Botha, ended with an offer for the sale of warheads “in three sizes.”

The Guardian claimed that those “sizes” referred to conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.

Israel has initiated several wars in the region in its 60-year-old history of occupation of Palestinian territories in the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Source
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israel's genocidal aggression on Gaza revisited

By Khalid Amayreh

The Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip two years ago, which lasted for three weeks, was pornographically criminal and graphically genocidal. Israel knowingly and deliberately targeted innocent civilians, including children, using state-of-the-art machines of death.

Entire families were simply exterminated at the pretext that a member was involved with the resistance. Homes, hospitals, mosques and other public buildings were obliterated. Even terrified and thoroughly terrorized people raising white banners were mercilessly riddled with bullets.

The sheer criminality of the Israeli army gave the impression that Israeli soldiers were probably trying to mimic Old Testament savagery by murdering men, women, and children, and by destroying and annihilating all that breathe!!

The genocidal onslaught on Gaza is sufficient to render Israel an illegitimate state. No state under the sun, Jewish or otherwise, should behave in such a nefarious manner and remain legitimate.

Don't mention the holocaust. In the final analysis, since when did Israel have the right to utilize one holocaust in order to commit another? Or use it as red herring to divert attention from its genocidal atrocities against its victims?

To cover her crimes against humanity, Israel used her effective lying machine to the fullest. It claimed that Israel was coming under attack from Gaza and that it was merely exercising self-defense.

Such a claim, coming from a country that is based on mass murder, ethnic cleansing and land theft, is very much analogous to an imagined claim by the Third Reich that it was forced to deal stringently with Jews because SS soldiers had been coming under attack from Jewish resistance fighters at Ghetto Warsaw.

I am making this comparison because as soon as Israel ostensibly left Gaza in 2005, it imposed a hermetically tight blockade on the coastal enclave, turning it into the largest open- air prison in the world. Gazans were tormented and savaged and starved in manners unseen since Ghetto Warsaw, or probably the great Ukrainian starvation under Stalin.

Israel simply wanted Gazans to die unwept and as quietly as possible. However, when Gazans found out that they had nothing to lose; they decided to die standing on their feet, rather than walking meekly to the Israeli slaughterhouse.

Israel rained death on Gaza for 21 consecutive days, hoping to get the people of Gaza to crawl on their hands and feet, begging for mercy from an army that combined all the elements of barbarianism and brutality of the Wehrmacht, Gestapo and SS combined.

However, much of the so-called international community kept up looking on as Gaza was being killed and raped as if these abominations were occurring on a distant planet.

There is no doubt the pornographic apathy with which the so-called civilized world related to the shameful Israeli aggression in Gaza two years ago represented an all-time low in the world's morality.

What else can be said of powerful states, some of which are considered cornerstones of the international system, which related to the attempted lynching of nearly 2 million Gazans by merely saying that "Israel has the right to defend itself."!! What kind of fornication with language is this, coming from the President of the most powerful nation on earth?

To be sure, moral depravity was by means the lot of an evil empire that allowed itself to be transformed into a big whore by Israel and her supporters. Many other countries betrayed and continued to betray Gaza, including countries that shamelessly claim to be Arab and Islamic.

Unfortunately, the passage of two years since the clouds of death were hovering over Gaza has not brought any solace. The brutal ugliness of a manifestly fascist Israel is as conspicuous as ever. And Israel continues to gang up on Gaza, barring the victims of the 2008-2009 aggression from rebuilding their homes by preventing building materials from getting through into Gaza.

It is true that the overall humanitarian situation in Gaza is slightly better in comparison to what it was two years ago. However, it is also true that whatever improvement there has been is not a result of Israeli magnanimity but rather a cynical attempt to enhance her tarnished image.

This is why the free-minded people of the world must stay focused on Gaza lest Israel decides to reactivate her genocidal instincts and gang up on Gaza's children again.

We must not allow ourselves to forget the cardinal fact that the murder of Palestinian children has always been a well-guarded Zionist tradition. Unfortunately, there is no evidence whatsoever suggesting that the Zionist entity is about to forgo this evil but intrinsic tradition which for most Zionists constitutes a way of life.

Youth groups paint murals in to mark Gaza war

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Two youth groups in Gaza marked the second anniversary of Israel's war on the Strip by painting murals on the walls of the destroyed government compound in Gaza City.

The Cultural Club and Free Spectrum organized the activity, commemorating the 22-day offensive which left more than 1,400 dead and injured over 5,000.

Israeli airstrikes targeted the compound of ministerial buildings several times during the war.

Free Spectrum coordinator Mohammad Al-Herbawi said the painting expressed Palestinians' demand "to live in dignity and freedom like other nations around the globe. We are asking all the free people around the world to stand by our people until they gain their freedom."

Al-Herbawi called on Palestinian leaders to unify, and to end the national division, which he said encouraged Israel to commit more crimes against unarmed Palestinians.

Many murals were painted, depicting scenes of Palestinian suffering, and condemning the war and Israel's siege of the coastal enclave.

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israeli secret report on inhumane conditions of detainees disclosed

GAZA, (PIC)-- Haaretz newspaper published a confidential report prepared by the Israeli association of jurists revealing the tragic and inhumane incarceration conditions which the Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in solitary cells are living in.

The report pointed out that hundreds of Palestinian detainees were locked up over the past years in solitary confinement and most of them were leaders of prisoners.

The Israeli activists who made the report worked as official inspectors sent by the association of jurists to visit Israeli prisons and meet with Palestinian detainees.

According to the report the isolation cells in all Israeli prisons, especially in Ayalon and Shikma jails, are like the cells of dungeons, small, infested with insects, smelly, cold, without windows and totally unsuitable for humans.

The report pointed out that the isolation of detainees from other prisoners in solitary for a long period of time has psychological effects on them and many of them develop mental problems inside these cells.

In another incident, the same newspaper said that about 90 percent of Palestinian prisoners being interrogated by the Shin Bet security apparatus are prevented from consulting with an attorney, according to a report published by the public committee against torture in Israel and the Palestinian prisoners' society.

The Shin Bet refused in the past to provide data on the numbers of prisoners who are prevented from meeting with a lawyer, but Haaretz quoted the Shin Bet as saying that it has legal clearance to keep certain detainees from lawyers.

According to this report, during prolonged periods when prisoners are kept from meeting with lawyers, the Shin Bet utilizes interrogation methods that run contrary to international law, Israeli laws and Israeli commitments to avoid such methods.

Among these interrogation methods are tying prisoners for a long time to a chair with their hands behind the back, sleep deprivation, threats usually of harming family members, humiliation and being kept for long periods in unsanitary cells.

The report said that the numbers of those whose right to an attorney was blocked between 2000 and 2007 ranged between 8, 379 to 10, 773 detainees.

Two Years after the Massacre: A Letter from Gaza

2010-12-28T00:00:00.008-05:00

By Various Authors - Gaza, Palestine

We the Palestinians of the besieged Gaza Strip, on this day, two years on from Israel's genocidal attack on our families, our houses, our roads, our factories and our schools, are saying enough inaction, enough discussion, enough waiting – the time is now to hold Israel to account for its ongoing crimes against us. On the 27th of December 2008, Israel began an indiscriminate bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The assault lasted 22 days, killing 1,417 Palestinians, 352 of them children, according to main-stream Human Rights Organizations. For a staggering 528 hours, Israeli Occupation Forces let loose their US-supplied F15s, F16s, Merkava Tanks, internationally prohibited White Phosphorous, and bombed and invaded the small Palestinian coastal enclave that is home to 1.5 million, of whom 800,000 are children and over 80 percent UN registered refugees. Around 5,300 remain permanently wounded.

This devastation exceeded in savagery all previous massacres suffered in Gaza, such as the 21 children killed in Jabalia in March 2008 or the 19 civilians killed sheltering in their house in the Beit Hanoun Massacre of 2006. The carnage even exceeded the attacks in November 1956 in which Israeli troops indiscriminately rounded up and killed 275 Palestinians in the Southern town of Khan Younis and 111 more in Rafah.

Since the Gaza massacre of 2009, world citizens have undertaken the responsibility to pressure Israel to comply with international law, through a proven strategy of boycott, divestment and sanctions. As in the global BDS movement that was so effective in ending the apartheid South African regime, we urge people of conscience to join the BDS call made by over 170 Palestinian organizations in 2005. As in South Africa the imbalance of power and representation in this struggle can be counterbalanced by a powerful international solidarity movement with BDS at the forefront, holding Israeli policy makers to account, something the international governing community has repeatedly failed to do. Similarly, creative civilian efforts such as the Free Gaza boats that broke the siege five times, the Gaza Freedom March, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and the many land convoys must never stop their siege-breaking, highlighting the inhumanity of keeping 1.5 million Gazans in an open-air prison.

Two years have now passed since Israel’s gravest of genocidal acts that should have left people in no doubt of the brutal extent of Israel’s plans for the Palestinians. The murderous navy assault on international activists aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea magnified to the world the cheapness Israel has assigned to Palestinian life for so long. The world knows now, yet two years on nothing has changed for Palestinians.

The Goldstone Report came and went: despite its listing count after count of international law contraventions, Israeli “war crimes” and “possible crimes against humanity,” the European Union, the United Nations, the Red Cross, and all major Human Rights Organizations have called for an end to the illegal, medieval siege, it carries on unabated. On 11th November 2010 UNRWA head John Ging said, “There's been no material change for the people on the ground here in terms of their status, the aid dependency, the absence of any recovery or reconstruction, no economy…The easing, as it was described, has been nothing more than a political easing of the pressure on Israel and Egypt.”

On the 2nd of December, 22 international organizations including Amnesty, Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid, and Medical Aid for Palestinians produced the report ‘Dashed Hopes, Continuation of the Gaza Blockade’ calling for international action to force Israel to unconditionally lift the blockade, saying the Palestinians of Gaza under Israeli siege continue to live in the same devastating conditions. Only a week ago Human Rights Watch published a comprehensive report "Separate and Unequal" that denounced Israeli policies as Apartheid, echoing similar sentiments by South African anti-apartheid activists.

We Palestinians of Gaza want to live at liberty to meet Palestinian friends or family from Tulkarem, Jerusalem or Nazareth; we want to have the right to travel and move freely. We want to live without fear of another bombing campaign that leaves hundreds of our children dead and many more injured or with cancers from the contamination of Israel’s white phosphorous and chemical warfare. We want to live without the humiliations at Israeli checkpoints or the indignity of not providing for our families because of the unemployment brought about by the economic control and the illegal siege. We are calling for an end to the racism that underpins all this oppression.

We ask: when will the world’s countries act according to the basic premise that people should be treated equally, regardless of their origin, ethnicity or colour – is it so far-fetched that a Palestinian child deserves the same human rights as any other human being? Will you be able to look back and say you stood on the right side of history or will you have sided with the oppressor?

We, therefore, call on the international community to take up its responsibility to protect the Palestinian people from Israel’s heinous aggression, immediately ending the siege with full compensation for the destruction of life and infrastructure visited upon us by this explicit policy of collective punishment. Nothing whatsoever justifies the intentional policies of savagery, including the severing of access to the water and electricity supply to 1.5 million people. The international conspiracy of silence towards the genocidal war taking place against the more than 1.5 million civilians in Gaza indicates complicity in these war crimes.

We also call upon all Palestine solidarity groups and all international civil society organizations to demand:

- An end to the siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of their exercise of democratic choice.

- The protection of civilian lives and property, as stipulated in International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law such as The Fourth Geneva Convention.

- The immediate release of all political prisoners.

- That Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip be immediately provided with financial and material support to cope with the immense hardship that they are experiencing.

- An end to occupation, Apartheid and other war crimes.

- Immediate reparations and compensation for all destruction carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces in the Gaza Strip.

- Boycott Divest and Sanction, join the many International Trade Unions, Universities, Supermarkets and artists and writers who refuse to entertain Apartheid Israel. Speak out for Palestine, for Gaza, and crucially ACT. The time is now.

Signatories:

General Union for Public Services Workers
General Union for Health Services Workers
University Teachers' Association
Palestinian Congregation for Lawyers
General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
General Union for Agricultural Workers
Union of Women’s Work Committees
Union of Synergies—Women Unit
The One Democratic State Group
Arab Cultural Forum
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
Association of Al-Quds Bank for Culture and Info
Palestine Sailing Federation
Palestinian Association for Fishing and Maritime
Palestinian Network of Non-Governmental Organizations
Palestinian Women Committees
Progressive Students’ Union
Medical Relief Society
The General Society for Rehabilitation
General Union of Palestinian Women
Afaq Jadeeda Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Deir Al-Balah Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Maghazi Cultural Centre for Children
Al-Sahel Centre for Women and Youth
Ghassan Kanfani Kindergartens
Rachel Corrie Centre, Rafah
Rafah Olympia City Sisters
Al Awda Centre, Rafah
Al Awda Hospital, Jabaliya Camp
Ajyal Association, Gaza
General Union of Palestinian Syndicates
Al Karmel Centre, Nuseirat
Local Initiative, Beit Hanoun
Union of Health Work Committees
Red Crescent Society Gaza Strip
Beit Lahiya Cultural Centre
Al Awda Centre, Rafah

israel warlike on wartime anniversary

israeli military chief, speaking on the anniversary of Israel's deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip, says his forces are ready for a new war on the besieged enclave.

Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said on Monday in Tel Aviv, "We see the Hamas as responsible for the situation in Gaza and we take him (Hamas) as accountable for that. We don't want to escalate the situation but we will be ready for any development," the Associated Press reported.

The comments came in apparent reference to home-made projectiles, reportedly flown from Gaza, which are seldom known to have caused any casualties or considerable damage to Israeli properties.

Under the pretext of responding to the rocket attacks, Israel's military launches regular disproportionate attacks on Gaza, not refraining from inflicting human or material losses.

On Sunday, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in the east of the southern city of Khan Younis in the strip, AFP reported. Earlier in the month, at least five people were killed by an Israeli aerial assault on the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza.

Ashkenazi said earlier in December that "the next round (of fighting) will be extensive," Israeli website Ynetnews had reported.

The December 2008-January 2009 operations killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, inflicting a damage of above $1.6 billion on the coastal sliver's economy.

The war either destroyed or badly damaged thousands of homes in Gaza, putting the enclave on a long road to recovery amid a strict siege, which has been in place since mid-June 2007.

The United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict has found Tel Aviv guilty of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the deadly operation.

The report by the UN mission blamed Israel for deliberate targeting of civilians and using white phosphorus bombs in residential areas, notably on the UN Relief and Works Agency compound in the Gaza City as well as two Gaza-based hospitals.

Source

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Jesus is Palestinian and why it matters

2010-12-27T16:10:00.019-05:00

by Jehanzeb Dar

Because of modern alarmist reactions to the word “Palestine,” many non-Arabs and non-Muslims take offense when it is argued that Jesus was a Palestinian (peace be upon him).

Jesus’ ethnicity, skin color, and culture often accompany this conversation, but few people are willing to acknowledge the fact he was non-European. A simple stroll down the Christmas aisle will show you the dominant depiction of Jesus: a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white man.

Islamophobia and anti-Arab propaganda have conditioned us to view Palestinians as nothing but heartless suicide bombers, “terrorists,” and “enemies of freedom and democracy.” Perpetual media vilification and demonization of Palestinians, in contrast to the glorification of Israel, obstructs us from seeing serious issues such as the Palestinian refugee crisis, the victims of Israel’s atrocious three-week assault on Gaza during the winter of 2008-2009, the tens of thousands of homeless Palestinians, and many other struggles that are constantly addressed by human rights activists around the world.

To speak from the perspective of the Palestinians, especially in casual non-Arab and non-Muslim settings, generates controversy because of the alignment between Palestinians and violent stereotypes. So, how could Jesus belong to a group of people that we’re taught to dehumanize?

When I’ve spoken to people about this, I’ve noticed the following responses: “No, Jesus was a Jew,” or “Jesus is not Muslim.” The mistake isn’t a surprise to me, but it certainly is revealing. Being a Palestinian does not mean one is Muslim or vice versa. Prior to the brutal and unjust dispossession of indigenous Palestinians during the creation of the state of Israel, the word “Palestine” was a geographic term applied to Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians, and Palestinian Jews. Although most Palestinians are Muslim today, there is a significant Palestinian Christian minority who are often overlooked, especially by the mainstream Western media.

That dominant narrative not only distorts and misrepresents the Palestinian struggle as a religious conflict between “Muslims and Jews,” but consequentially pushes the lives of Palestinian Christians into “non-existence.” That is, due to the media's reluctance to report the experiences and stories of Palestinian Christians, it isn’t a surprise when white Americans are astonished by the fact that Palestinian and Arab Christians do, in fact, exist. One could argue that the very existence of Palestinian Christians is threatening, as it disrupts the sweeping and overly-simplistic “Muslim vs. Jew” Zionist narrative. To learn about many Palestinian Christians opposing Israeli military occupation, as well as Jews who oppose the occupation, is to reveal more voices, perspectives, and complexities to a conflict that has been immensely portrayed as one-sided, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim.

Yeshua (Jesus’ real Aramaic name) was born in Bethlehem, a Palestinian city in the West Bank and home to one of the largest Palestinian Christian communities. The Church of the Nativity, one of the oldest churches in the world, marks the birthplace of Jesus and is sacred to both Christians and Muslims. While tourists from the around the world visit the site, they are subject to Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks. The Israeli construction of the West Bank barrier also severely restricts travel for local Palestinians. In April of 2010, Israeli authorities barred Palestinian Christians from entering Jerusalem and visiting the Church of Holy Sepulchre during Easter. Yosef Zabaneh, a Palestinian Christian merchant in Ramallah, said: “The Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank doesn't distinguish between us, but treats all Palestinians with contempt.”

Zabaneh’s comments allude to the persistent dehumanization of Palestinians, as well as the erasure of Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims. By constantly casting Palestinians as the villains, even the term “Palestine” becomes “evil.” There is refusal to recognize, for example, that the word “Palestine” was used as early as the 5th century BCE by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. John Bimson, author of “The Compact Handbook of Old Testament Life,” acknowledges the objection to the use of “Palestine”:

The term ‘Palestine’ is derived from the Philistines. In the fifth century BC the Greek historian Herodotus seems to have used the term Palaistine Syria (= Philistine Syria) to refer to the whole region between Phoenicia and the Lebanon mountains in the north and Egypt in the south… Today the name “Palestine” has political overtones which many find objectionable, and for that reason some writers deliberately avoid using it. However, the alternatives are either too clumsy to be used repeatedly or else they are inaccurate when applied to certain periods, so “Palestine” remains a useful term…

Deliberately avoiding the use of the name “Palestine” not only misrepresents history, but also reinforces anti-Palestinian racism as acceptable. When one examines the argument against Jesus being a Palestinian, one detects a remarkable amount of hostility aimed at both Palestinians and Muslims. One cannot help but wonder, is there something threatening about identifying Jesus as a Palestinian? Professor Jack D. Forbes writes about Jesus’ multi-cultural and multi-ethnic environment:

When the Romans came to dominate the area, they used the name Palestine. Thus, when Yehoshu'a [Jesus] was born, he was born a Palestinian as were all of the inhabitants of the region, Jews and non-Jews. He was also a Nazarene (being born in Nazareth) and a Galilean (born in the region of Galilee)… At the time of Yehoshu'a's birth, Palestine was inhabited by Jews-descendants of Hebrews, Canaanites, and many other Semitic peoples-and also by Phoenicians, Syrians, Greeks, and even Arabs.

Despite these facts, there are those who use the color-blind argument: “It does not matter what Jesus’ ethnicity or skin color was. It does not matter what language he spoke. Jesus is for all people, whether you’re black, white, brown, yellow, etc.” While this is a well-intentioned expression of inclusiveness and universalism, it misses the point.

When we see so many depictions of Jesus as a Euro-American white man, the ethnocentrism and race-bending needs to be called out. In respect to language, for instance, Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of “The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus,” emphasizes the importance of understanding that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not English, and that his words, as well as his worldview, must be understood in light of Middle Eastern language and spirituality. Douglas-Klotz provides an interesting example which reminds me of the rich depth and meaning of Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi words, especially the word for “spirit”:

Whenever a saying of Jesus refers to spirit, we must remember that he would have used an Aramaic or Hebrew word. In both of these languages, the same word stands for spirit, breath, air, and wind. So ‘Holy Spirit’ must also be ‘Holy Breath.’ The duality between spirit and body, which we often take for granted in our Western languages falls away. If Jesus made the famous statement about speaking or sinning against the Holy Spirit (for instance, in Luke 12:10), then somehow the Middle Eastern concept of breath is also involved.

Certainly, no person is superior to another based on culture, language, or skin color, but to ignore the way Jesus’ whiteness has been used to subjugate and discriminate against racial minorities in the West and many other countries is to overlook another important aspect of Jesus’ teachings: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Malcolm X wrote about white supremacists and slave-owners using Christianity to justify their “moral” and “racial superiority” over blacks. In Malcolm’s own words, “The Holy Bible in the White man's hands and its interpretations of it have been the greatest single ideological weapon for enslaving millions of non-white human beings.” Throughout history, whether it was in Jerusalem, Spain, India, Africa, or in the Americas, white so-called “Christians” cultivated a distorted interpretation of religion that was compatible with their racist, colonialist agenda.

And here we are in the 21st century where Islamophobia (also stemming from racism because the religion of Islam gets racialized) is on the rise; where people calling themselves “Christian” fear to have a black president; where members of the KKK and anti-immigration movements behave as if Jesus were an intolerant white American racist who only spoke English despite being born in the Middle East. It is astonishing how so-called “Christians” like Ann Coulter call Muslims “rag-heads” when in actuality, Jesus himself would fit the profile of a “rag-head,” too. As would Moses, Joseph, Abraham, and the rest of the Prophets (peace be upon them all). As William Rivers Pitt writes:

The ugly truth which never even occurs to most Americans is that Jesus looked a lot more like an Iraqi, like an Afghani, like a Palestinian, like an Arab, than any of the paintings which grace the walls of American churches from sea to shining sea. This was an uncomfortable fact before September 11. After the attack, it became almost a moral imperative to put as much distance between Americans and people from the Middle East as possible. Now, to suggest that Jesus shared a genealogical heritage and physical similarity to the people sitting in dog cages down in Guantanamo is to dance along the edge of treason.

Without acknowledging Jesus as a native Middle Eastern person — a Palestinian — who spoke Aramaic — a Semitic language that is ancestral to Arabic and Hebrew — the West will continue to view Islam as a “foreign religion.” Hate crimes and discriminatory acts against Muslims, Arabs, and others who are perceived to be Muslim will persist. They will still be treated as “cultural outsiders.” Interesting enough, Christianity and Judaism are never considered “foreign religions,” despite having Middle Eastern origins, like Islam. As Douglas-Klotz insists, affirming Jesus as a native Middle Eastern person “enables Christians to understand that the mind and message” of Jesus arises from “the same earth as have the traditions of their Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers.”

Jesus would not prefer one race or group of people over another. I believe he would condemn today’s demonization and dehumanization of the Palestinian people, as well as the misrepresentations of him that only fuel ignorance and ethnocentrism. As a Muslim, I believe Jesus was a prophet of God, and if I were to have any say about the Christmas spirit, it would be based on Jesus’ character: humility, compassion, and Love. A love in which all people, regardless of ethnicity, race, culture, religion, gender, and sexual orientation are respected and appreciated.

And in that spirit, I wish you a merry Christmas. Alaha Natarak (Aramaic: God be with you).

The author blogs at Muslim Reverie. He recently wrote a chapter in "Teaching Against Islamophobia" on the demonization of Muslims and Arabs in mainstream American comics.
List of Palestinian Localities destroyed after the (1948) creation of "israel"
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Written by an atheist^

Meet the Oppressed - The People of the Year in the Middle East

2010-12-26T16:06:00.012-05:00

By RANNIE AMIRI, CounterPunch

The 2010 Middle East People of the Year are:

The Palestinians in Gaza, desperate to let the world know that nearly two years after the end of the 2008-2009 war, the cruel embargo on the territory persists; the siege by air, land and sea continues; and the impoverished population is still held captive in their land.

The Bahraini Shia, the island’s indigent and marginalized majority, ruled by the wealthy Sunni al-Khalifa royal family who routinely orders an imported security service to round up and torture democracy and human rights advocates. Excluded from government, the public sector and law enforcement by overt sectarian discrimination, they have risked life and limb to protest their disenfranchised state.

The Egyptians, who have suffocated under a repressive U.S.-backed regime that has governed by Emergency Law for 30 years and stifled the freedom of expression, assembly and press. The inability to replace their parliamentary representatives by a fair ballot this year makes voting a cruel reminder that the “status quo” is the only candidate ever up for election.

The Iraqis, who endured seven years of occupation and a few daily hours of electricity under a blistering summer sun as unrelenting as the explosions, bombings and suicide attacks that wracked cities and killed thousands. The simple will to stroll on neighborhood streets, take a trip to the market, drop the children off at school or attend Friday prayers are testaments to bravery that should put Iraqi politicians only interested in retaining power to shame.

The Saudi Ismaili, Shia and Sufi Muslims, harassed, arrested and jailed for practicing their religion or demanding the right to do so. The doors of their mosques have been sealed shut by the Interior Ministry as has the potential for civic and socioeconomic advancement. They are the “apostates” denied basic dignities enjoyed by other citizens.

The Yemenis of Saada governorate, who became the malnourished “internally displaced” refugees caught in the country’s long civil war. Pummeled by Saudi airstrikes to the north and shelled by Yemen’s army from the south, they suffered famine and destruction in a humanitarian catastrophe ignored by the world.

The 2010 Mideast People of the Year? The Oppressed.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator.

Egypt building watchtowers near Gaza

Egypt is building surveillance towers along the border with the Gaza Strip as part of its measures to step up restrictions on the besieged coastal enclave.

Egyptian security officials said on Saturday that the first of the steel and concrete towers, measuring almost 100 feet (30.5 meters) in height, near the Rafah Crossing, is almost completed, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz reported.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the structures were being built to improve the monitoring of movements along the border.

Cairo is also constructing an underground steel wall to disrupt a network of tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, which the Palestinians use to import basic food items and other supplies into the blockaded territory.

Egyptian authorities regularly fill the tunnels with gas or flood them with water and the underground lifelines are frequently bombed by Israeli fighter jets.

The construction of the steel wall and observation towers has caused tension between Egypt and other countries in the region.

In 2009, Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah criticized Egypt over the construction of the underground steel wall, saying it would "terminate the thin veins, which are giving some life and some hope to Gaza."

Israel has imposed a crippling land and sea siege on the Gaza Strip for over three years, pushing the densely-populated coastal sliver, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians, to the verge of starvation.

Source

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♥ M E R R Y ♥ C H R I S T M A S ♥

2010-12-24T18:28:00.035-05:00

(flac / mp3)

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JEWISH APPOINTEES COULD END FREE INTERNET

2010-12-19T15:12:00.059-05:00

By Harmony Daws
14 Dec 10

A Talmudic scholar is in charge of whether the internet remains a free and open forum and whether big internet providers can shuttle unpopular sites into the bandwidth slow lane. This does not surprise. Our last article defends Helen Thomas’ maligned but truthful (flac / mp3) statements about Jewish power and dominance in America. Here is further evidence. On December 21, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski will be meeting with the four other politically appointed commissioners to vote on his Dec. 1 proposal for “net neutrality.” Many Americans immediately cried foul about the proposal, knowing it will endanger free speech and falls far short of any real guarantee of equal access for all viewpoints.

As the Jewish Forward reports, power over government regulation of the internet “which affects the flow of information and culture, the growth of the economy and the future of communications, education and democracy itself — rests largely in the hands of Julius Genachowski, a 48-year-old Jew from Long Island with knowledge of Talmud and an appointment to one of the most critical policy posts in Washington.” Forward tells us Genachowski is “proud and open about the cultural component of his Judaism” and was raised by Lithuanian parents who fled Germany. Genochowski’s brother is president of the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, and his cousin is a rabbi and CEO of the Orthodox Union’s Worldwide Kosher Division. His great uncle even served in the Israeli Knesset. Genachowski attended Orthodox day school as a boy and attended a Talmudic academy for high school, winning the Talmud award. After graduation, he spent a year studying Gemara (Talmudic commentary) in Jerusalem. Today, Forward says, he attends a conservative synagogue weekly.

Genochowski’s Talmudic streak was evident in his recent proposal on regulating the internet. In a speech December 1, Genachowski outlined what he called the “rules of the road” for regulation. They included an obligation of transparency for ISPs, the prohibition of ISPs from blocking content, gutting “unreasonable discrimination” on the flow of internet traffic, and allowing providers to charge different prices for different amounts of broadband use and different speeds.

The chairman’s proposal has been called a “pretend net neutrality” scheme that threatens internet free speech and democracy. The chairman claims to oppose letting (or making) big companies give faster service to some websites over others. But Save the Internet Coalition and others analyze that his proposal would let big companies split the internet into fast and slow lanes.

Genachowski and the FCC may give AT&T, Comcast and other big companies some real incentive to do just that. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps—who will cast a deciding vote on Dec. 21—recently preached to a Columbia University journalism audience that “forcing openness” (controlling media content) is so important that “we should just do it and get it over with.”

As most news followers know, Copps this week argued for a “community values test” in order for media outlets to stay licensed. Copps wants to require media to hire ethnic quotas, and he also wants media to have to check with the government about their upcoming programs. (It stands to reason that if they refuse, the FCC can pressure their internet providers to put them in the slow lane or otherwise penalize them.) Copps and others certainly want FCC regulation to go in the direction of content supervision.

He told the BBC, "We are not producing the body of news and information that democracy needs to conduct its civic dialogue, we're not producing as much news as we did five, 10 years, 15 years ago and we have to reverse that trend or I think we are going to be pretty close to denying our citizens the essential news and information that they need to have in order to make intelligent decisions about the full direction of their country.”

Wait, he said “we” aren’t producing news for “our citizens?” I don’t remember the Founding Fathers writing “direct news media” into the jobs for the state or federal government.

Copps’ words prompted Congressman Joe Barton to demand, “I hope ... that you do not mean to suggest that it is the job of the federal government, through the Federal Communications Commission, to determine the content that is available for Americans to consume.” Barton and my readers should know that this is exactly what Copps and other powerful information appointees do want. Copps responded to Barton’s letter by saying he is not in favor of a reinstated Fairness Doctrine, but he does want diversity of media; and that’s exactly why he wants more regulation—“shorter license renewal periods, more detailed reporting requirements, and more specific public interest obligations for broadcasters.” Copps claims this is within the boundaries set by the Communications Act of 1934 which created the FCC.

Five—just five!—commissioners appointed by the President (not the American people) run the Federal Communications Commission for five-year terms. They are tasked with regulating interstate and international communications by all types of media: TV, satellite, cable, wire and radio. This gives them tremendous potential power to squash free speech on the airwaves and online. As political appointees, they are not even as accountable to Americans as elected officials. This means that freedom of speech via modern media—which is the foundation and sustainment of our democracy—is in a very dangerous position.

Cass Sunstein and Shepherding American Minds

Like Genachowski, another politically appointed Jew with great power in this arena is Cass Sunstein, who works as Obama’s “information czar.” He administrates the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He has publicly stated his desire for a reformulation of the First Amendment so it is no longer seen as supporting a “free marketplace of ideas.” In his book Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech, Sunstein declares that government should regulate media so as to “reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views.” In 2008, Sunstein advocated criminalizing conspiracy theories. He suggests, "Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories."

With incredible boldness, Sunstein has declared his desire that websites be forced to post the opposing viewpoint from their own. Of course, it is unlikely that leftist anti-white sites like Racialicious.com will be forced to publish the views of white supremacists! No, it is politically incorrect views that will be forced to provide a platform for the opposition. Sunstein, like so many supremacist Jews driven bring “tikkun olam” (to repair) the Gentile world, feels that Americans shouldn’t decide what media to imbibe. He is worried about “the growing power of consumers to “filter” what they see.” He fears that conservative Americans could stop exposing themselves and their children to liberal propaganda against the civilization built by white Christian males and their devout, stay-at-home wives.

Sunstein complains in a 2001 Boston Review column: “As a result of the Internet and other technological developments, many people are increasingly engaged in a process of “personalization” that limits their exposure to topics and points of view of their own choosing.” Oh, horrors. To Sunstein, it’s a bad thing that I can select classical music and soft Hawaiian love songs as my music of choice and only read news about the government. In his world, I should definitely be exposed to death metal and ESPN updates. More importantly, I should be unable to select media sources with which I agree—at least, if they are conservative, Christian or only white.

(Hmm, that brings up a paradox. Sunstein wants “diversity” on the internet, but he and other liberal Jews don’t seem to care much about diversity among the selectors of diversity. They aren’t exactly crying out for more evangelical Christians appointed by Obama! They aren’t afraid that Jews are unfairly overrepresented, being present in the US Senate at six and a half times the extent of their presence in the general population.)

Here is Sunstein’s curriculum:

In a heterogeneous society, such a system [a “well-functioning system of free expression”] requires something other than free, or publicly unrestricted, individual choices. On the contrary, it imposes two distinctive requirements. First, people should be exposed to materials that they would not have chosen in advance. Unanticipated encounters, involving topics and points of view that people have not sought out and perhaps find irritating, are central to democracy and even to freedom itself. Second, many or most citizens should have a range of common experiences. Without shared experiences, a heterogeneous society will have a more difficult time addressing social problems and understanding one another.

Sunstein reasons that the government’s job is to keep public spaces open for all kinds of expression. Parks have to be open for speeches and protests even if the neighbors want peace and quiet. In the same way, websites are public spaces that must host diverse viewpoints. He seems to ignore the fact that websites, like books, are unique creations of their author. They are not public; they are private. If a person only wants to read Ann Coulter, that doesn’t mean Coulter should be forced to print Al Franken on every second page! But Sunstein thinks that should happen on the internet. Heaven forbid people be allowed to keep their cherished beliefs and surround themselves with like-minded thinkers. At least, not if they’re conservative, religious “fundamentalists” or otherwise an intellectual threat to the Jewish agenda for America.

This Jewish commissioner is deeply worried about “group polarization,” in which blacks tend to watch certain TV shows and whites another; this allegedly fractures social groups in a negative way. Sunstein sounds awfully like social engineers who dream of a golden brown society where the heterogenic uniqueness of various religious, ethnic and social groups has been watered down into one deliciously moldable mass. In North Korea—the opposite end of the spectrum from American freedoms—that has certainly happened. No one can think for himself. Everyone looks and lives the same, imbibing exactly the same government radio blared from public speakers, watching the same government-run TV shows, consuming the selection of “diversity” that is sanctioned by the greatest “information czar” of all, Kim Jung-Il.

Sunstein frets, “If the public is balkanized, and if different groups design their own preferred communications packages, the consequence will be further balkanization, as group members move one another toward more extreme points in line with their initial tendencies.” Human nature being what it is, he may be right. But government control is no solution.

If you want to know what happens when government runs the media, watch National Geographic’s documentary on North Korea. It streams on Netflix. Seriously, watch it. Government control of media has never led to greater diversityof available viewpoints. That is, of course, because government is much much smaller and less diverse than the population and also because government tends to be corrupt. In the case of the American government, we have a third problem: Our government and traditional media are largely run by intelligent, ambitious, and committed activist Jews who desire to undermine white Christian society (link to past article). The Talmud on Genochowski’s bedside table teaches that Gentiles and especially Christians run society counter to God’s will; Jews must rule them and thus pave the way for the coming of the true messiah (anti-Christ). The Christians’ Messiah is an evil impostor, and Gentiles themselves are hopelessly and intrinsically inferior to the Chosen Race. They are relentlessly and irrationally “anti-Semitic,” and their animalistic passions must be controlled by Jewish Noahide laws.

All Americans should be tremendously concerned that Talmudic Jews are running our information universe—just as Israelis would have reason to worry if a Bible-believing, evangelical Christian were in charge of their media world. These two identities are fundamentally opposed. Unfortunately, only Jews seem aware of that fact. Only one of the fighters knows he is in the ring. The other is oblivious that a fight is even going on.

Take Action!

The FCC will make its final decision on December 21. Save the Internet Coalition asks us to sign a petition to Michael Copps and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Also, call your Congressmen at 1-877-851-6437 toll-free with this message provided by the Coalition:

“More than 1.9 million Americans have expressed support for Net Neutrality at Congress and the FCC. They want control over the Internet to remain in the hands of the people who use it every day. Please stand with the public by protecting Net Neutrality once and for all.”

It is very important that all lovers of freedom trumpet the fact that federal Jewish appointees are attempting to take away our free speech. It could well be that these Jewish conspirators, fearing that Jews could receive blame for a very unpopular FCC initiative, might decide the country and internet are not quite ripe for takeover and the potential anti-Jewish backlash is not worth the risk.

Harmony Daws is a writer for National Prayer Network. To greater understand the illogic behind hate laws, read her article “Top Eleven Reasons You Should Fight Hate Laws.”

Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative watchdog organization.

TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview Rev. Ted Pike on this subject. Call (503) 631-3808.

The freedom-saving outreach of Rev. Ted Pike and the National Prayer Network is solely supported by sale of books, videos and your financial support. All gifts are tax-deductible.

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EZE_KIEL!

Family takes stock after mass Lod demolition

2010-12-18T15:37:00.060-05:00

By Anne Usher flac mp3

"LOD, israel" (Ma'an) -- The 67 members of the extended Abu Eid family assessed the remains of their six concrete homes on Wednesday, two days after police in Lod demolished them amidst sheets of rain and blustery winds.

The six buildings were among more than 100 in the city under immediate demolition orders, following a fall Knesset decision to destroy an estimated 4,000 illegal housing structures in a plan said to cost millions of shekels.

A dozen other homes have been bulldozed in previous years, sparking periodic protests by hundreds of Arab residents. Yousef Asfour, coordinator with Amnesty International’s Israel branch, said an earlier incident in October saw two homes in the same neighborhood of the mixed Jewish-Arab city bulldozed.

The most high-profile demolition to date was Monday's demolition of the entire Abu Eid family compound.

Most of the extended family members said they were home at around 8 a.m. when an estimated 500 police officers in tactical gear stormed the courtyard of the compound, broke through doors and quickly turned the men, women and children out into the season's worst storm without shoes or jackets. Police made no arrests.

Eleven-year-old Odei was home alone with his 12-year-old sister when police broke through his door. “They pointed rifles at me and said ‘don’t move,’” he related. Once outside, he said, "I was wet and cold. They were like gangsters,” he added of the young police in face-concealing riot gear.

All that remained after the five-hour bulldozing operation was chewed-up grey concrete, bent fans, broken air-conditioners and furniture beneath rubble. A paddock containing goats was partially broken and nearly half of what the family said was 100 animals went missing.

Family members said they were not allowed to rescue of their possessions and watched as refrigerators were destroyed and food was thrown to the floor. Five allege that they were shoved or kicked, including Shareen, 27, who is three months pregnant and had re-entered her home to try to assist her mother.

Sinam, a mother of seven, claims that officers took gold jewelry she had in safekeeping to use as dowry for her two engaged daughters. A ring with precious stones was returned, she said, but a gold chain remains missing.

Thirteen-year-old Noor claims he watched as a soldier threw his puppy – tied up and barking – and then shoot it in the stomach. “I came over and it was dying,” he said quietly as other boys noted his tears that morning.

Lod’s police chief and mayor declined multiple requests for comment.

Contesting demolitions

The family claims the six houses and small office destroyed Monday were built more than 50 years ago. Each family said it had been paying rent for decades to a state-owned company to use the land, but was only allowed to build up to 100 square-meter homes since it was zoned as agricultural.

As the family grew, it requested but was declined approval to expand their houses. Expansions were nonetheless made and retroactive permits sought. After many court appeals, family members were told to expect the demolitions at the end of December.

Some 30 homeowners in same area have received notices that their houses will also be bulldozed at the end of the month.

Families whose homes are demolished are asked to pay the municipality for the steep cost of the action or be jailed; some Arab residents in Lod have taken to demolishing their own homes because it is cheaper.

Arab homes principal target in larger plan

It is a scene being repeated across Israel with increasing frequency. Some 42,000 Arab homes built without required permits are threatened with demolition: 13,000 could be carried out at any time and 30,000 are at some stage in local courts, said Ameer Makhoul, director of Ittijah, a Palestinian civil society organization.

Last year, 165 of these homes were bulldozed, Amnesty International said.

“It’s the same story for all the mixed cities: destruction and construction,” said Busayna Dabit, a project coordinator with the New Israel Fund and a Ramle resident. These “mixed” cities also include Haifa, Yaffa and Acre.

More than two-thirds of Arabs in Ramle and nearby Lod are living in illegally built houses. Hundreds have demonstrated periodically in Lod, where, the roughly 27,000 Arabs represent a third of the population.

The phenomenon is pervasive across Israel, from targeting Arab homes in mixed cities to the homes of Bedouins in the unrecognized villages. A collection of some 40 small population centers the villages house an estimated 40 percent of the Bedouins in the Negev, have been settled locations for decades and in some cases used as seasonal encampments for centuries. The areas are not demarcated on maps, receive no water, electricity, road repair or other municipal services.

In Shameer, an unrecognized village of some 4,000 Bedouins near Lod, virtually every home has been issued a demolition order. A portion of the houses, however, are being legalized under a master plan that involved negotiations between the city, the Israeli Land Authority and Shameer’s inhabitants, including amounts that the government will pay as compensation.

Next door, some 13 families in the neighboring village of Dahmash, are awaiting a court order to determine not only the fate of their homes - which are also under demolition orders - but whether Lod or the adjacent city of Ramle will be forced to absorb them into their municipalities, or whether a plan it has drawn up to make its residences legal retroactively will be approved.

The roughly 600 residents of Dahmash say the government told its original families to move there after they were forced off their lands from 1951 through the mid-1980s. While some houses have stood for more than 60 years – and one pre-dates the war – no municipal services, such as water, electricity or sanitation, have been provided to its residents. After three Dahmash children were killed crossing the railroad tracks on foot, the village won a recent court fight to bus them to schools in Ramle.

The Dahmash residents facing expulsion have been told to seek housing Ramle’s Juarish neighborhood, where thousands of Arabs were concentrated after the 1948 War of Independence but have never been given residential building licenses because the city has not registered their names.

National and local officials are intentionally not granting Arab-Israelis planning rights to allow them to develop any land, charged Amnesty International’s executive director for Israel, Itay Epshtain. “It is a form of diminished citizenship because a lot of the services you depend on are at the municipal level.”

Emek Lod’s leader, Minache Mosche, denies that Dahmash exists.

“There is no settlement or village by the name of Dahmash and there never has been one,” he said. He claimed that, with the exception of one pre-war house, there was nothing on the land except for two farm storage buildings until illegal construction of homes began in 1990.

Asked where the villagers should move, Ramle mayor Yoel Lavi said: “It’s a free market. You can buy everywhere.” “They are poor in culture, poor in behavior. No ambition.”

The cost

A kilometer away from the Abu Eid family, the wreckage of the homes of nine other families whose homes were destroyed in 2008 remains visible, across some railroad tracks from where one of the sons of a former homeowner now sleeps in a lot with dozens of sheep and his car repair shop.

The Wihwah brothers and five of their neighbors paid 15,000 shekels altogether to wreck their own homes two years ago after receiving an initial demolition order in 2003. The owners of the other two homes “didn’t think they would come,” said Telal. One week later, each had to pay 90,000 shekels when the police carried out the demolitions.

Talal said his family had to pay 250,000 shekels ($69,624) in back city taxes, despite not having received municipal services. He and his brothers say they are afraid to open bank accounts, out of fear that the city would confiscate any deposits.

“It’s very painful to look at these stones,” said Ahmad, one of his two brothers. “My grandfather owned this land. Now, I suffer from claustrophobia.”

Anne Usher is a freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv. She has written for The Christian Science Monitor and Ynet since moving to Israel and is a former editor for Cox Newspapers. Her bio is at anneusher.com

demolished 47 Palestinian structures in one week

CAIRO, (PIC)-- OCHA, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, issued a report Saturday documenting 47 Palestinian-owned structures that were ripped down in the West Bank's Area C in one week for allegedly missing building permits.

43 of those structures destroyed in the period Dec. 8 to 14 were erected in housing complexes in areas announced to be closed military zones, known also as “shooting zones”, the report said. The area is under Israeli security and civil control.

Israeli authorities sparked the widest-ranging demolition process in the Nablus village of Kirba Tana with 29 buildings crushed, 11 of them residential structures, 17 barns, an elementary school, ejecting 61 people from their homes, including 13 children. 100 others were affected. “This was the third time since 2005 this village was subjected to intense demolition activity,” OCHA reported.

The lives of 960 people and 4,000 animals in the Al-Khalil area were affected after 14 wells were destroyed. Four fruit and vegetable stands were knocked down in the Jordan valley affecting four families.

Israeli authorities issued orders to stop construction on six buildings in the area, four of them in the Dir Abu Mishaal village in Ramallah.

46 people constituting four families in that time span were evicted from their homes near the Ramallah village of Al-Mughayyir, because their rural compound fell in a closed military zone. The Israelis demolished two other homes in east Jerusalem, affecting two families and fourteen people.

Farmer: Settlers burned my sheep alive

NABLUS (Ma’an) -- A farmer said he watched a group of settlers in the northern West Bank gather his sheep and set them on fire Saturday afternoon.

When he returned to the area, he told officials, he found 12 sheep burned alive, five with severe burns and two others that were only lightly burned. "I've lost at least $12,000," he said, calling the act abominable.

Mayor of Aqraba, the village near where the attack took place, Jawdat Bani Jabir, identified the farmer as 40-year-old Samir Muhammad Bani Fadl.

Fadil said he was out pasturing his sheep in the eastern part of the village when a group of armed settlers approached him in a white car and asked him to come and speak with them. Feeling threatened, in an area where rights organizations recorded a ballooning number of settler attacks and vandalism during the month of October, Fadil fled and watched the group from an adjacent hill.

According to the farmer's testimony, the settlers gathered all the sheep into an area thick with brush, and set fire to the bushes.

Mayor Jabir called the attack vicious, and blamed the residents of the settlements encircling the area: Maale Efraym, Itamar, and Hetzit.

"Fadil has nine daughters who depend on him and he has sustained a deep loss today," the mayor said, calling for an inquiry into the incident.

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official in charge of following up with settlement activities in the northern West Bank, condemned the attack demanding pressure on Israel by the international community to quell settler violence.

A Bethlehem Christmas wish

2010-12-17T12:48:00.005-05:00

Saed Bannoura writing from Portland, the US, Live from Palestine, 16 December 2010

More than 2,000 years ago, a miracle happened in Bethlehem and the prophet of peace, love and forgiveness was born. Now Bethlehem, as well as every other Palestinian city, town and refugee camp, still lives under occupation and oppression. If am allowed to make some wishes for this Christmas this is what they would be:

I wish that the spirit of this Christmas will make world leaders become unable to lie, unable to stand in front of TV cameras, in conferences, and tell one lie after another.

I wish that US President Barack Obama, who was seen as a symbol of change and hope, will come back to his senses and tell the truth.

I know politicians and truth are on opposite ends of the spectrum and rarely can they be on the same side. But it's Christmas after all and maybe we will have our own miracle today and world leaders will not be able to lie anymore.

We all know the Ten Commandments and what they instruct us to do or not to do, but maybe presidents and government officials are brainwashed before they take office in order to fit their new positions, in which they must lie to their people and to the whole world with a nice smile on their faces.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, yet Bethlehem -- the place where I was born and raised my whole life before moving to the United States several years ago -- is not witnessing peace, and the star that the shepherds followed more than 2,000 years ago is fading away.

Bethlehem is also the place where an undercover Israeli soldier shot me five times in my chest and back, and kicked me repeatedly until I lost consciousness. It was the place where the last words I heard from my oppressor were: "After all that I did, you are still alive?" I guess by living, even with injuries that require me to use a wheelchair, I am disappointing him. So living, along with loving my country and my people, is what I will continue to do, and real peace is what I will continue to seek.

Christmas is near, in Bethlehem and everywhere else around the world, and this means that we will continue to hear world leaders and politicians standing, once again, in front of the cameras and lying.

We will hear talk of peace and justice, but in Palestine we will continue to witness crimes and occupation.

"Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9). Leaders must not be among those blessed, because while they claim to seek peace, in truth they are only motivated by political gains and the next round of elections.

Due to the fact that I do not believe that there is a living leader who does not lie on a daily basis, I want to send my message to ordinary people who live their lives, day by day, trying to make ends meet.

The hope and change is in you, not in world leaders. You are the salt of the earth, you have the power to tell your elected politicians that it is about time to stop lying.

Tell them we do not want another Christmas lie, we want a real Christmas truth, not even a miracle, just the truth.

Let our Christmas message be a message of real peace and real love, the message of love that Jesus brought to the world, and the wisdom he spoke of. Maybe then peace will prevail, occupation will end and the people can live together in justice and equality.

Saed Bannoura is a Palestinian journalist who helped create the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC.org) in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, and currently works as the center's Editor-in-Chief. Despite having been shot and paralyzed by Israeli special forces in 1991, Saed Bannoura has spent his adult life working for peace and justice through nonviolence.

Source

Sayyed Nasrallah: Let Us Combine Forces, Face STL Indictment, Protect Lebanon

2010-12-16T01:53:00.013-05:00

15/12/2010 On the tenth evening of Ashura Wednesday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah delivers a political speech, unlike his eminence’s earlier speeches on the occasion, which primarily focused on the religious aspects and the lessons that can be drawn from the martyrdom of Imam Hussein son of Imam Ali peace upon them.

Sayyed Nasrallah began his speech by stressing the Greater Israel project has ended. “The fundamental issue in our region is the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the plots being set with Palestine being the focus. For Israel in our present time, there are certain notions that have ceased to exist. There is no longer a so called Greater Israel project due to perseverance, sacrifices, and the resistance, but certainly not because the positive quality of the Israelis. On the 25th of May 2000, the final nail was put in Israel’s project.”

The Hezbollah chief also said that Israel can neither impose its conditions nor declare war anymore. “Israel’s image that used to terrify this region can’t even scare children today. The 2006 victory of the resistance in Lebanon and the steadfastness of the Gazans have dealt a death blow to Israel’s project. These are two achievements by the resistance and the camp that backed it, and whoever was on the other side of the conflict lost with Israel despite international and some regional support.”

Sayyed Nasrallah, however, warned that “this does not mean that Israel has become weak and can be removed (from the region). Israel still possesses many elements of force, but it is not the Israel that had plans of establishing the Greater Israel. It is seeking to rebuild its force and reinforce its home front. However, Israel has been moving fast towards Judaizing Palestine and declaring a Jewish state. Israel’s project has become limited to historic Palestine, excluding Gaza, so as to establish its identity. Israel is working on this; it is increasing its military forces. Even in Lebanon today, and as a result of intense coordination between the Lebanese army and the resistance, several sophisticated spying equipment and cameras relaying day and night pictures to Israel, have been dismantled on the Sannine and Barouk Mountains. Israel found itself in front of three options: The first is to go to negotiations and settlement; but this is not what Israel seeks because it does not will to make concessions. The second is to go to war, with Lebanon, Syria, Iran, or Gaza or maybe all of them. Israel knows that going to war on any front would be adventurous. Therefore, everything we hear today from Israel’s side is mere psychological war. The third option is to maintain a status quo pending regional and international changes that may help Israel in going to war or going to settlement. Israel prefers the third option to make use of time and finalize all steps to Judaize Palestine. Yet, the Israelis say that this would also give Israel’s enemies more time to gain more strength. This is true. The Israelis as well as some in Lebanon have been raising the issue of Hezbollah’s growing force not to mention Syria and Iran’s. For the Israelis, this is a really serious conflict because their future is at stake. However, Israel’s real option is sedition; Muslim-Christian strife in Egypt, Sunni-Shiite strife and Arab-Kurd strife in Iraq. The most dangerous of the aforementioned is the Sunni-Shiite strife.”

His eminence reminded that [head of Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee] Shaul Mofaz had warned the Arab world a few days ago against what he called the Shiite threat or the Shiite epidemic. “He called for alliance between Israel and whom he calls moderate Arabs against the Shiite danger. He told the Sunnis he wanted to make an alliance with them against the Shiites. Mofaz seems to have forgotten what he did to the Sunnis. Every massacre Israel committed in Palestine was against Sunnis, all of the displaced Palestinians were Sunnis, those whom Israel eliminated from the face of earth were Sunnis, the thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails are Sunnis, and those whom Israel had fought in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and part of Lebanon were Sunnis. Impudent Mofaz has his reasons to make such an appeal.”

Sayyed Nasrallah called to beware of what Israel and the US are planning for this region. “Shiites and Sunnis alike share the responsibility to stand up to this threat. This requires accuracy and understanding of the background of what has been happening in the region and the world. It is also the responsibility of the Christians in the east whose mere existence is being aimed at. Israel and the US do not care about the Christians in the east; they only care about their interests. I tell some Christians in Lebanon who imagine that Sunni-Shiite strife would give them power in Lebanon, that they are mistaken. The Israelis want the existence of Christians in the region to end and want to weaken the Muslim presence here. In this context, we understand what lies behind the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and the indictment being prepared to accuse Hezbollah members or leaders in martyr Rafiq Hariri’s assassination.”

The Hezbollah leader revealed that in 2006, news reports stated that the international investigation was inclined to accuse Hezbollah in the murder. “In 2008, I was directly told about this; it is not a secret. However, we did not take any action because we give heed to this country. When I received a request for a one-year truce, I understood that such an indictment was in the making. Never did we seek any justification to take over the country or turn against the Taef Accord. If we had sought such justification, we had one since 2008. The indictment issue has become serious and it constitutes the foundation of a plot against Hezbollah and the resistance in Lebanon. It is irrational to stay silent until the issuance of the indictment. I am sure that the STL will face something more difficult than Wikileaks. Our obligation stipulates that we explain the situation as a whole and we have been doing this for months. We indicated that the investigation is politicized because investigators insist on ruling out the Israeli involvement hypothesis despite the evidence we provided. We do not want tension in the country, but we also have to defend Lebanon and the resistance.”

The secretary general reminded that when former head of the international investigation Detlev Mehlis, he used to rely on a former German intelligence officer called Gerhard Lehman. “This corrupt man was responsible for leaking investigation reports. Lehman has sold document here in Lebanon, and the people who bought those documents handed them to me. He sold them for 50 or 70 thousand dollars. I was made an offer to buy everything that concerns the investigation for a million dollars; perhaps I was wrong to refuse and maybe they will be leaked in the future. They are protecting the false witnesses, not the Mohamad Zuheir Siddiq type of witnesses, but those who fabricated them, like Mehlis, Lehman, and some Lebanese political and security leaders. Tonight, the Cabinet did not vote on how to deal with the false witnesses’ issue. Tonight, the government was protecting them and those who fabricated them.”

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed Hezbollah does not tolerate injustice. “If we wanted to take advantage of this and turn over the table we would have done so, but we did not. We adhere to this country but we don’t want anyone to aggress the resistance. No one should expect that we want to annul the UNSC resolution, but initiatives can suspend UN resolutions. Syria was targeted for four years for a reason. The objectives were thwarted by the steadfastness and perseverance of Syria and the resistance. Today they are pointing the finger at Hezbollah, also for purposes like damaging the image of the resistance and its allies, thus driving a wedge between Hezbollah and its Sunni and Christian allies to isolate the party and then attack it. Let us thwart these goals. Let us review the work of the international investigation and its flaws in the past five years.”

His eminence suggested that “since the March 14 bloc say they don’t know anything about the investigation, why do they insist on defending the false witnesses? We don’t seek to try those behind the false witnesses, we want the truth. We regard the Syrian-Saudi effort with great hope to find a way to avoid internal tension and we should all work together to back this effort and find a solution before the issuance of the indictment. A major decision has been taken for this country. We should all combine forces to confront the indictment and its aftermath, and protect the country.”

“Tomorrow, we take to the street to renew allegiance to Imam Hussein. Tomorrow will be different and exceptional in attendance. Tomorrow, the world is waiting to see your faces, your eyes, your fists, and your resolve. Our attendance tomorrow will reflect our commitment to righteousness, resistance, our fixed standards, and to protecting our Palestine. We will tell the world that the Israeli drums of war will not scare us, and we shall confront conspiracies. Tomorrow we will tell the world that we are the resistance society that trusts God and is sure of victory in the end.”

Source

Pakistan floods: No food, no homes, no help

2010-12-15T10:12:00.006-05:00

Travelling to one of the areas of Pakistan worst affected by this summer's devastating floods, Jane Corbin finds a community struggling to cope.
People displaced from flooded areas wait for relief food in their camps

By Jane Corbin, Dadu 7:00AM GMT 12 Dec 2010

The water stretched as far as the eye could see, with only the tops of trees showing that the Dadu in Sindh had once been a fertile and productive agricultural plain.

But, after 30 years of visiting and reporting from Pakistan, I found the sight of the flooded city of KN Shah even more shocking and surreal.

Some 200,000 people once lived there. Now half of them had fled - and the rest were stranded in what remained of the city after it was inundated by water. Gaunt men on rooftops gestured wildly at us, as animals and children clustered around them above the swirling muddy waves.

Concrete walls, collapsed bridges and broken electricity pylons reared out of the flood water which must have been 10 feet deep.

The World Bank estimates the floods that struck Pakistan in July and August have caused nearly $10 billion worth of damage to the infrastructure of a country already deep in debt.

Five months later, huge areas of the country are still stricken, and farming families who once provided for themselves and for others through the crops they grew are reduced to the status of helpless supplicants, still unable even to make a start on rebuilding their lives and livelihoods.

My first sight of the havoc the floods have wrought was from a Pakistani Navy hovercraft, as with a camera crew and accompanied by a leading doctor I travelled the area by the only means possible.

Along the flooded streets, electric cables sparked menacingly and iron girders lurked below the surface to snag boat propellers.

Back in October, no helicopter could land here either, and the navy commandos urged me to beware of poisonous snakes, which would drop from the trees above.

I had come to KN Shah with Dr Shershah Syed, a surgeon from Karachi, who was responding to an SOS call to bring desperately needed medicines to the city. As we landed on a patch of high ground, people clustered around and although it was clear that many were sick it was equally clear that what they really needed was food.

An emaciated woman held out a limp and scrawny baby and demanded rice. She said they had eaten nothing all day.

The doctor set up a clinic at the landing point where people bring children suffering from diarrhoea. In the wake of the flood, disease has spread: across Pakistan there have been 99 cases of flood-borne cholera, 15 deaths from dengue fever and many more among young children from diarrhoea.

As small navy dinghies arrived and commandos started unloading bags of rice, people who had heard that food was on its way ran towards us.

Lieutenant Zeeshan Yousuf Zaidi, the officer in charge, pushed them quickly into a line, afraid the situation would spiral out of control even though people were weak and looked dejected.

"They are desperate for food," he said. "This is only the third time we have been able to come over here – the problem is it's so remote."

Apart from the navy boats there was no sign of any government relief effort. The Navy is popular and saved many lives during the flood, but the people here, as elsewhere in Pakistan, say the government abandoned them.

"There's no proper distribution system," one man told us. "Some people get more than they need but we're not getting enough."

Along a narrow embankment which stretched for miles above the waters, thousands of people were living with their animals, without proper shelter or regular food.

The shocking fact about events in Pakistan is that even now, almost two months after this journey in late October, so little has improved. Large areas of Sindh remain under water. Tents, long lines of white canvas along the embankments, have been erected for the many families made homeless as an estimated 1.6 million houses countrywide were damaged or destroyed by the flood waters.

But, as the chill of winter sets in, there are still an estimated 600,000 families without even emergency shelter.

The Pakistani government announced last month that it would spend a further 200 milloion rupees (£1.5 million) rehabilitating flood victims in Dadu, and insists it is doing all it can to help the victims.

But even proud supporters of the country like Dr Shershah, a social campaigner who received his medical training in Britain and vowed to improve conditions in Pakistan, find the apparent failure of the institutions of government hard to take.

It is individuals like him, from Pakistan's growing but frustrated middle class, who are driving much of the relief effort.

On a tiny patch of land in the water we discovered a group of women and children huddled in a washed-out compound. They had fled here from their own village as the floods rose and their men took the animals to higher ground.

The women were weak, hungry and above all afraid – this is bandit country and criminals roam in boats at night looting what little people have left.

"We are all alone," Sherbano said as she held her sick mother's hand. "We have no food or water, the men just abandoned us."

The women were dangerously anaemic. Poor labourers, weakened by constant childbearing and lack of food even before the flood, they were now on the edge of starvation.

"This is the result of decades of government failure," said Dr Shershah. "It is criminal to have a country with an atomic bomb, yet where such poor people live."

Today KN Shah remains under three feet of water and community leaders say the government is still failing to help them. The UN has delivered food in recent weeks but has warned that Dadu faces a protracted emergency well into next year. There still aren't enough tents, despite government promises to provide them. So saturated is the soil that it could take another three to six months for the waters to subside.

Near the town of Sukkur the camps set up for some flood victims are full of landless labourers like Maluk Sheikh and his wife Gholamee – her name means "slave", an indication of her status in this feudal society. They worked for their landlord for a share of the crop and were already in his debt. Now their village and fields are flooded and they won't be able to grow rice for a year.

Their story revealed another failure by the government. There were 17 family members in the camp, desperate for the compensation which had been promised to the married men in each household: 20,000 rupees (£150) for each family, equivalent to four months' wages for a labourer.

Yet securing their entitlement was not simple and there were widespread complaints that this system was open to abuse. I heard several reports of bank guards demanding bribes to help people get access to their cash.

At a school near the camp hundreds of men battled to get through the gates – held back by sweating policemen with big sticks.

"They are taking 3,000 rupees (£22) from us to get to the front of the queue," protested one man, who didn't want to give his name. "I've been coming here for 15 days and haven't got a penny."

Others crowd round with similar stories to tell of corruption as they tried to obtain their so-called "watan card" – exchangeable for money in an ATM cash machine.

Pakistan has the biggest electronic identity card system in the world and it was incongruous to see barefoot men wearing rags having their photographs and thumb prints taken by high-tech scanners.

Because he had lost his identity card, Maluk could not prove where he was from, and so his plea for compensation was rejected until he could obtain a new ID. His father Ghulam's application was approved, however, enabling him to return to his village, 80 miles away.

Days later they and their family waded through water to what was left of their homes, carrying beds and trunks on their heads, with babies strapped to the women's backs. The walls of their house were still standing but the roof and all the contents had been washed away. The family would need food aid for at least a year, just to survive.

"I will be able to stay in my village now and try and rebuild our lives, thanks to the watan card," said Ghulam Haider. "Without it we were in a hopeless situation."

Their desperate plight is being repeated all over Pakistan as foreign donors prove reluctant to give to a country with a reputation for militancy and corruption, and the Pakistan government struggles to cope in the aftermath of the floods. So far less than half the UN's appeal for nearly $2 billion in aid has been met.

"The world's attention is waning but millions still need assistance," said Baroness Amos, the former British minister who is now the UN official in charge of humanitarian and emergency aid and visited the relief effort last week. "The world must not close its eyes to the needs of Pakistan's people."

Source

Pakistan floods: disaster is the worst in the UN's history

Hunger and Anger in Afghanistan

2010-12-13T01:47:00.004-05:00

By KATHY KELLY, AntiWar

The Obama administration has announced the imminent release of a December Review which will evaluate the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The military has yet to disclose what the specific categories for evaluation will be. Yet many people in Afghanistan might wish that hunger along with their anger over attacks against civilians could top the list.

In Afghanistan, a nation where 850 children die every day, about a quarter of the population goes hungry. The UN says that 7.4 million Afghans live with hunger and fear of starvation, while millions more rely on food help, and one in five children die before the age of five.

"Do you think we like to live this way?" an Afghan man asked me, last October, as he led us toward a primitive tent encampment on the outskirts of Kabul. "Do you see how we live? The cold and the rain are coming. How will we protect our children?" He flicked his forefinger on a weather-beaten blanket covering a tent. The blanket immediately ripped.

Standing next to him was a man who quietly handed me three crumpled photos, never lifting his eyes from the ground. The spokesperson identified the man as his cousin. The first picture showed his cousin’s ruined home. A U.S. aerial bombardment had destroyed the dwelling. The next pictures were of two bloodied children. "All of his children were killed," the spokesperson said. "All his family, his wife, his five children, by an attack from the air." He went on to explain that they had been goat herders in the San Gin province of Afghanistan. They were happy with their lives, selling yoghurt and fattening their animals. A Taliban fighter had come to their village at night. The U.S. apparently wanted to kill this fighter, but instead they destroyed his cousin’s family. "We couldn’t stay there," the spokesperson said, pointing to a picture of the debris that was once his cousin’s home. "We were afraid we might be hit again, so all of us left. We are four families."

Inside one of the tents, a young mother welcomed me to sit down on the only available cushion. It appeared that they slept on the ground. The families share one pot over a fire pit, and a few utensils. They also have access to a water pump. Near their area is a tent where they join for prayers, and also one that is used for classes. One man begged us to tell the authorities that they have no medicines in the camp and that many of the children are ill.

Days earlier, in a far more comfortable setting, students at the Bamiyan University, located in the central, mountainous province of Bamiyan, had prodded us to comprehend their anger. In a straw poll, several dozen were unanimous in stating that they want the U.S. to leave their country. Several insisted that most U.S. people don’t understand or care about the impact of U.S. warfare in Afghanistan. An engineering student held up a copy of the Time magazine cover which showed a young Afghan woman whose nose was horribly mutilated, allegedly as punishment for defying men in her family. Time‘s accompanying headline announced that the story would explain why U.S. troops must remain in Afghanistan. "Do Americans care more about noses than fingers?" the student asked. "Who will cover the stories about fingers that are cut off?!" I felt embarrassed not to know what he was talking about. Several weeks later, I read a New York Times article about a trial taking place at an army base in Washington State. The article shed light on the student’s question. A U.S. Staff Sergeant from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was charged with leading a conspiracy to randomly target and kill unarmed Afghan civilians. He and four other soldiers faced murder charges. The staff sergeant is alleged to have planted evidence to cover up the murders and to have carved fingers off corpses which he kept as war souvenirs.

Although the U.S. military forbids soldiers to mutilate corpses and go on killing sprees that target civilians, the U.S. occupying forces in Afghanistan have bragged, in recent weeks, about increased capacities to kill with ever more invulnerable weapons. A company of 16 Abrams tanks was recently delivered to Afghanistan. "We’ve taken the gloves off," said an unnamed U.S. military official, "and it has had huge impact." (Washington Post, November 19, 2010) The 68-ton tanks fire high explosive, white phosphorus and anti-personnel shells that can destroy a house a mile away. Each tank costs 4.3 million dollars and uses 3 gallons of jet fuel per mile.

The Pentagon is also sending 12,500 XM25 Individual Air Burst Weapons to Afghanistan, one to each infantry squad and Special Forces team in Afghanistan. The XM25 gun can fire a projectile that will travel the length of eight football fields. "When fired, the projectile is designed to explode directly above a target," says the Army Times, "raining shrapnel down on an enemy crouched behind cover."

In a report to the November 2010 NATO conference held in Lisbon, 29 aid groups working in Afghanistan warned that the increases in air attacks, the use of night raids, and the destruction of civilian property contributes to "rapidly deteriorating" security for most Afghans and a rise in civilian casualties. People who flee from U.S. attacks face food insecurity, loss of income, lack of health care, and homelessness. The aid groups’ report is entitled "Nowhere to Turn." Increasingly, Afghans living in war zones have nowhere to hide.

Commenting on impoverishment and displacement caused by military offensives, a Pakistani op-ed recently compared hunger and anger to two live wires. When the wires touch, they create an incandescent and uncontrollable flash.

It’s hard to imagine the extent of explosive popular rage that would result if the shoe were on the other foot, if U.S. people were subject to aerial bombing, night raids, destruction of civilian homes, displacement and starvation. In reality, the live wires of hunger and anger could exist in our lives too; we could be angry, very angry, about this war, angry enough to make it a political issue. But if our hunger were for an end to the war, if our hunger even signaled a desire to rethink and repent our murderous policies, if we honestly sought forgiveness from Afghan civilians who’ve borne the brunt of our war of choice, then perhaps an uncontrollable and incandescent flash of fairness and peace could govern our future.

Seven reasons why STL is illegitimate

2010-12-13T01:44:00.004-05:00

A press conference in Lebanon has raised questions about the legitimacy of the US-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

Hariri was killed in a massive car bombing in the Lebanese capital of Beirut on February 14, 2005.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) was set up in May 2007 on an apparent mandate from Beirut to investigate the murder. The tribunal is expected to announce its findings by the end of 2010 amid allegations that it is going to accuse members of the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has rejected the allegation, warning that the plot was part of "a dangerous project that is targeting the resistance."

Political analysts have warned that such indictments are meant to sow discord in Lebanon.

The recent conference, which addressed issues surrounding the performance of the tribunal, was attended by Mohammad Raad, the head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, and Dr. Salim Jreissati, a Lebanese judge and former member of the Lebanese Constitutional Council.

The first topic to be discussed at the event was, “Article 52 of the Lebanese Constitution considers the president as the only person with the authority to enter negotiations with the aim of signing agreements between Lebanon and international parties.”

This is while in the case of Hariri's assassination, his successor Prime Minister Fouad Siniora led negotiations authorizing the establishment of the court, which was sent to the cabinet based on a petition signed by members of parliament's majority bloc.

The motion was later endorsed by cabinet ministers an official Lebanese agreement without being put to a vote in parliament.

The conference provided seven reasons why the tribunal was a political court, which had failed to observe the barometers of pursuing justice, contravened the Lebanese Constitution and promoted the interests of international powers instead of Beirut.

1. Unlawful and illegal establishment of the Hariri tribunal, which violates Article 52 of the Lebanese Constitution and failure to obtain parliamentary approval.

2. Failure to observe the principle of confidentiality in preliminary investigations and the selective and political leakage of information and arguments to the news outlets listed below:

The Kuwaiti Al-Siyasa on May 21, 2005 and on March 28, 2009
The French Le Figaro on August 19, 2006
The German Der Spiegel on May 23, 2009
The Saudi Elaph website on July 8, 2009
The French r Le Monde on February 14, 2010
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on November 23, 2010

3. Requesting the telephone contact data of all Lebanese citizens and their exchanged text messages and failing to limit their request to suspected individuals.

4. Changing and modifying the courts internal regulations in violation of the provisions of its agreement with Lebanon and compelling Lebanon to offer information about individual who were not suspects.

5. Infringement on the country's independence and sovereignty through requesting information that could endanger Lebanon's national security. The interference and activities of the tribunal's investigative committee was of such massive scale over the past five years that any portion of the country's security and political information cannot be kept from alien reach.

In this regard Detlev Mehlis, Serge Brammertz, Daniel Bellemare, who each led the investigation for some time, and the other employees of the court's investigative committee, were from different countries, could have accessed any information about Lebanon.

6. The use of unreliable evidence under the pretext that in acts of terrorist it is impossible to access credible and legal evidence. In this regard, Bellemare told the Lebanese news website NOW Lebanon that evidence alone holds little value but when put together, they form an unquestionable theory.

7. The courts defective performance and the suspicious affiliation of its members to certain foreign intelligence institutions. The court operated on the theory that Syria is the prime suspect in the case and four Lebanese security officials, who had good relations with Syria, were detained for four years and Syrian officials were interrogated.

But suddenly the court changed its stance, targeted other people and another group and released the four detained officers without any explanation.

Why is it the despite Israel's repeated terrorist attacks in Lebanon and its involvement in regional conflict, does the court refuse to lay suspicion on Israel or interrogate its officials?

Additionally, the court has refused to include Israel in its investigations depute its infiltration of the Lebanese telecommunications network and its direct control over it.

Source

America Rebuilds (PBS 2002) Shameless Treachery

2010-12-12T20:23:00.004-05:00

This video is reduced mostly from the 1 1/2 hour "America Rebuilds" PBS VHS, released in 2002.

Desperation in Pine Ridge

2010-12-11T21:18:00.011-05:00

Melanie McBee
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation photo by Aaron Huey
I am a 27 yr. old Oglala Lakota woman, originally from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. I was fortunate enough to have been adopted by a stable, Christian family who had my best interests at heart. Most children from Pine Ridge are not so blessed. Pine Ridge is situated in the southwest corner of South Dakota, and is the eighth largest reservation in the United States. The unemployment rate is 85% and 97% of the population are living below the federal poverty level. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average, and has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the western hemisphere.

Alcoholism, addiction, violence, and suicide predominate in this once tranquil place. Although my family educated me on the statistics, I was hardly prepared when in 1997-98, I went to live there. I was mortified by the alcoholism. These people...MY PEOPLE were committing a slow suicide by the huge amounts of alcohol they were consuming. This was no longer just another statistic to me; it became my reality, the place I woke up to every day. Many of these families are living without necessities like running water, electricity, sewer, heat--even food, diapers, and formula. Despite these things--they somehow always seem to find the money to drink, or to buy a can of hair spray to huff, or a can of paint to sniff.

My people are stealing from each other to drink, committing burglaries to drink, and begging for money from others to be able to buy just one can of beer. I have a brother who was also under foster care off of the reservation, and at 7 yrs. old the tribe came and took him back, so he was then forced to live on the reservation with his Indian family. When I chose to live there, I became very close with him. He told me that he wished that I would leave, because it would be better than to subject myself to the lifestyle on the reservation. He expressed deep seated regret that he was carelessly pulled from a financially, spiritually, and emotionally stable home and returned to the reservation. He did everything in his power to make me miserable when I lived there, so that I would just leave. He was robbed of the wonderful opportunities he could have had. Why - Racism. My nation would rather force the children to continue to live with instability, alcoholism, and violence, than to have them adopted by the “whites.”

Being a sovereign nation, nothing can be done through state social services--and the government doesn't want anything to do with us, unless, of course, it is to make themselves look good. The tribe will cast an alcoholic into treatment, based on another alcoholic’s word--but they will not remove an obviously neglected child from their cockroach infested home. I firsthand, have witnessed my blood, my family, the future generation of children--being abused physically, and emotionally. These children are not being given even a fighting chance of a beginning in life.

This past summer, the same brother I mentioned telephoned me in a drunken stupor, and told me that if I didn't come and get him, he was going to commit suicide. I had two other close family members commit suicide, of course I decided I needed to go and help him. At 2:00 am, my husband and I loaded up our two small children, and what we would need into our van, and we left from Minnesota to Martin, South Dakota to pick up my brother. Upon arrival, the first thing we observed was the housing, which horrified my husband, and reminded me of the desolation of my people.

My baby nieces were crying because they were hungry, their diapers had not been changed in what had to have been a day, they were dirty, and running around with no shoes on, despite the glass on the ground--they had no clothes on, and had a look of utter misery, and bewilderment on their little precious faces. YET their mothers were in the back yard drinking at ten in the morning. NO CHILD should have to live this way--I just wanted to take these children, and bring them home, but I couldn't---what's worse, these children will grow up believing that the things that they witness, and endure are normal. I was powerless to do anything for these children--I wanted to embrace them, and take them home with me.

Upon finding my brother, we also found a house full of my drunken relatives. My granddaughter (in Native custom) whom was a little older than my own baby of 6 months, was crawling around with no clothes, shoes, and a horribly soiled diaper--with cockroaches, dirt, cigarette ashes, and beer cans on the floor--narrowly avoiding being stepped on. The baby's mother who is my niece is 16, and drunk right along with everyone else. For them, this lifestyle is completely commonplace.

I know of children 5years old, molesting 3 month old babies--fathers molesting children, mothers molesting children--every form of incest there is, has, and will continue to take place there-- I have watched family members die of alcohol poisoning, or cirrhosis--I've watched them have to have limbs removed because of their irresponsibility in taking care of their diabetic needs--because they would rather concentrate on where their next beer is coming from, or who can get meth, or a gun.

When I first went there at 16 to visit, everyone was so excited to meet me, and then they started telling me that I didn't belong there, because I wasn't really a true Native, because I was raised with white people. Then they told me that I didn't belong with my white family, that I belonged there with them. I was called an "apple" red on the outside, and white on the inside, to them I was, and still am--a wannabe Native. The racism, even against their own, is unbelievable.

Men, beating their women are a normal occurrence here, as are beatings and stabbings amongst family. A majority of these things can be directly linked to alcohol--yet there's an liquor store in downtown Martin and gas stations that sell liquor. There is Whiteclay, Nebraska selling liquor just off reservation boundaries. Natives, knowing full well the alcoholism rate, are selling alcohol to their own. I have seen people call the tribal police on someone for liquor violation, just to sneak alcohol into their own house.

There are dirty tribal police that have raped women that they were supposed to be taking to the tribal jail, or offer to not take them to jail for sexual favors. These things constitute every day life on the reservation, and although these things happen in other places, I believe that the plight of my people should take precedence over the third world countries the government is claiming to help.

read comments..

h/t The French Connection

The israeli Culture Of Drinking Urine

2010-12-11T05:05:00.014-05:00

Issa Qaraqe’e, the Palestinian Minister of Detainee Affairs, revealed that Israeli soldiers urinated on two Palestinian minors who they had kidnapped, then jailed, forced to drink urine from a toilet, tortured and filmed while they were completely naked.

Minister Qaraq’e said that lawyer Hibah Masalhah visited the kids Mohammed Tariq Abed El-Latif Mekhemar, 13 years old, and Mohammad Naser Ali Ridwan, 13 years old, at the Rimonim prison. After her visit she stated that the Israeli occupation soldiers had forced both kids, Mekhemar and Radwan, residents of Beit Ur in the district of Ramallah, to drink the urine from the toilet. The soldiers then urinated on their faces while laughing and mocking them, another soldier shot pictures of the kids while they were naked.

Attorney Masalhah who met the kids in the Rimonim prison added that the children were arrested by the “Israeli border police” (an IDF unit of criminals and drugs dealers who are mostly Druze) near the apartheid wall in the village of Beit Ur (where they live) on Route No. 443, in July 2010. The IDF soldiers beat the children harshly, using guns and kicking them with their military boots on all over their bodies, then covered their eyes, tied them up and transferred them to a jewish colony near the village of Beit Ur. Masalhah said that the IDF soldiers took the children to a toilet and placed them naked in one room and put the air conditioner on cold.

The children told their lawyer Masalhah that the IDF soldier did not give them water and food, and when they asked for water, the IDF urinated over their faces and ordered them to open their mouths to drink. They then forced them to drink the water in the toilet seat and took some pictures.

The children spent two days naked in the toilet room at the squatter colony without food and water and they forced repeatedly to drink urine during their staying. They were forbidden from sleeping or putting their clothes on.

On the third day, the kids were transferred from the toilet at the “Benjamina” colony (Beit Il military base) where they were interrogated from 10 at night until 3 in the morning and after that they were transferred to the Ofer military jail, where they spent three months before being transferred to the Rimonim jail.

The lawyer stated that the children are suffering deep psychological stress due drinking the urine of the IDF and being filmed naked while the soldier were urinating over their faces and bodies.

It should be noted that many stories have been released in the past about IDF soldiers forcing Palestinian youths to drink their urine. In Hebron, the IDF soldiers stationed on Palestinian rooftops were urinating and dropping their feces in water tanks. Several families were infected with typhoid as a result; I know personally from the Jaber and Abu Monshar families which were infected with typhoid after drinking water contaminated with IDF feces and urine, and many more cases were related to me.

Click here to read more about the Israeli Culture Of Drinking Urine, click here to see video clip about Israeli culture of drinking urine.

This disgusting story is not an isolated incident. 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 8 years ago I reported about such incidents in Hebron. I was told in Hebron stories where soldiers would take the sandwiches from children going to school or from workers and return them after having shat into them. Others have reported about similar stories from all over Palestine. When they israel destroyed Jenin in 2002, the soldiers defecated and urinated into photocopiers, printers, computers, such behavior is also known from house invasions and the destruction of public and private premises throughout Palestine. Most of the squatter colonies release their untreated waste water onto Palestinian fields and villages what has as a result that the groundwater is contaminated in most of the West Bank. These disgusting stories repeat so often that it becomes obvious that drinking urine and eating feces is an important part of jewish culture. Where did these israeli soldiers, who are all boys and girls from jewish families, learn to defecate into water tanks, into office equipment, on food, learn this, if not at home, where the culture is jewish? Why would all the squatter colonies let their waste water run untreated onto Palestinian villages and fields if it was not their culture to swim in fecal matter?

Israel espouses jewish customs and heritage, and obviously all these European jews want to teach us their culture, their custom of swimming in fecal matter, of eating feces and drinking urine. I can only say that all Palestinians find this jewish culture and heritage plain disgusting. It would be better if they kept their sickening culture to themselves and their shit-eating friends in the USA and elsewhere, for example by serving feces and urine at the receptions of their “embassies”.

Source

The Carmel wildfire is burning all illusions

2010-12-10T23:05:00.004-05:00

The forests burning in northern israel were planted over destroyed Palestinian villages.

"When I look out my window today and see a tree standing there, that tree gives me a greater sense of beauty and personal delight than all the vast forests I have seen in Switzerland or Scandinavia. Because every tree here was planted by us."

-- David Ben Gurion, Memoirs

"Why are there so many Arabs here? Why didn't you chase them away?"

-- David Ben Gurion during a visit to Nazareth, July 1948

Four days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to place thousands of migrant workers in a prison camp deep in the Negev Desert because, as he claimed, they pose a "threat to the character of [the] country," a burning tree trunk fell into a bus full of Israeli Prison Service cadets, killing forty passengers. The tree was among hundreds of thousands turned to ash by the forest fire pouring across northern Israel, and which now threatens to engulf outskirts of Haifa, Israel's third-largest city. Over the last four days, more than 12,300 acres have burned in the Mount Carmel area, a devastating swath of destruction in a country the size of New Jersey. While the cause of the fire has not been established, it has laid bare the myths of Israel's foundation.

Israelis are treating the fire as one of their greatest tragedies in recent years. A friend who grew up in the Haifa area told me over the weekend that he was devastated by the images of destruction he saw on TV. His friend's brother was among those who perished in the bus accident. Though he is a dedicated Zionist who supported Netanyahu's election bid in 2008, like so many Israelis, he was furious at the response -- or lack of one -- by the government. "Our leaders are complete idiots, but you already know that," he told me. "They invested so much to prepare for all kinds of crazy war scenarios but didn't do anything to protect civilians from the basic things you are supposed to take for granted."

On 3 December, Netanyahu informed the country, "We do not have what it takes to put out the fire, but help is on the way." To beat back the blaze, Bibi has had to beg for assistance from his counterpart in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and Israel's American and British patrons. Israel is a wealthy country which boasts to the world about its innovative spirit -- its US-based lobbyists market it as a "Start-Up Nation" -- but its performance during the forest fire revealed the sad truth: its government has prioritized offensive military capacity and occupation maintenance so extensively that it has completely neglected the country's infrastructure, emergency preparedness and most of all, the general welfare of its citizens.

Beyond the embarrassing spectacle of Turkish supply planes landing in Tel Aviv just six months after Israeli commandoes massacred Turkish aid volunteers on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, or the confessions of impotence by the hard-men Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, the fire exposed a terrible history that had been concealed by layers of official mythology and piles of fallen pine needles.

"There are no facts"

Among the towns that have been evacuated is Ein Hod, a bohemian artists' colony nestled in the hills to the north and east of Haifa. This is not the first time Ein Hod was evacuated, however. The first time was in 1948, when the town's original Palestinian inhabitants were driven from their homes by a manmade disaster known as the Nakba.

Most of the original inhabitants of Ein Hod, which was called Ayn Hawd prior to the expulsions of '48, and was continuously populated since the 12th century, were expelled to refugee camps in Jordan and Jenin in the West Bank. But a small and exceptionally resilient band of residents fled to the hills, set up a makeshift camp and watched as Jewish foreigners moved into their homes.

In 1953, a Romanian Dadaist sculptor named Marcel Janco convinced the army not to bulldoze Ein Hod as it did the scores of nearby Palestinian towns it had ethnically cleansed five years prior. He proposed establishing an art commune to generate tourism and contribute to the culture of Zionism. Today, the rustic stone homes that once belonged to Palestinians are quaint artist studios, while the village mosque has been converted into an airy bar called Bonanza. Visitors to the town are greeted at the entrance by Benjamin Levy's "The Modest Couple in a Sardine Can," a sculpture depicting a nude woman and a suited gentleman in a sardine can, which was unveiled by Israeli President Shimon Peres in 2001.

After the catastrophe of 1948, the original Palestinians of Ayn Hawd set up their own village three kilometers away from what is today known as Eid Hod. For decades the villagers resisted attempts to dispossess them and were surrounded by a fence during the 1970s to prevent them from expanding according to natural growth. But they finally won official recognition in 2005. This meant that for the first time since the establishment of Israel they could receive electricity and trash service. Meanwhile, more than forty other Palestinian villages inside Israel remain "unrecognized." The 80,000 or so residents of the villages, which lay mostly in the Negev desert, are tax-paying citizens of Israel. However, they have few rights; their homes are routinely demolished to make way for Jewish settlements and they are deprived of basic services.

I visited both Ein Hod and Ayn Hawd in June. When the residents of the Jewish village Ein Hod saw me filming, they reacted with a mixture of suspicion and hostility. "I know what you're doing!" an elderly woman sneered at me, insisting that I not film her. Inside the bar, I asked patrons if the place was in fact a converted mosque. "Yeah, but that's how all of Israel is," a woman from a nearby kibbutz told me as she sipped on a beer. "This whole country is built on top of Arab villages. So maybe it's best to let bygones be bygones."

I provoked another annoyed reaction when I began filming a tour guide leading a group of elderly Israelis around the village. Speaking in Hebrew, the guide told the tourists as she took them through the art studios that they were inside "third generation houses" -- forget the Arabs who lived in them for hundreds of years. In the studios I noticed that much of the art being produced was Judaica kitsch for sale to foreign tourists -- generic shtetl scenes from the long lost, distant world immortalized in films like Fiddler on the Roof.

Later, before taking her group to the town's Hurdy Gurdy museum, the guide mentioned a "welcoming committee" that vetted potential residents. Presumably this was how Ein Hod kept the pesky Arabs down the road from returning home. That and the Absentee Property Law of 1950 which placed all "abandoned" Arab property in the hands of the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Land Administration, a provision that consolidated what the exiled Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament Azmi Bishara called "the largest armed robbery in history."

During a break, the tour guide pulled me aside and demanded to know who I was. It was clear the villagers had grown wary of curious outsiders. Introducing herself as Shuli Linda Yarkon, a PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University, the tour guide told me she the leading authority on Ein Hod. She said I had to allow her to review all the footage I shot. She claimed that this would ensure that I not mistranslate words she used like kibbush, a Hebrew term that means "conquest" but is commonly used to refer to the occupation of Palestine.

"So what about the conquest you mentioned?" I asked her. "Why didn't you tell the tourists who lived in the houses before 1948?" Visibly irritated, Yarkon remarked, "I've concluded after years of research that there are really no facts when you discuss this issue. There are only narratives." She assured me that Ein Hod's Jewish population maintained excellent relations with the expelled residents: "Go ask them. They will tell you how they feel."

So I did. After following a winding dirt road around a hillside for several kilometers, I was inside Ayn Hawd, the Palestinian village. There was no installation art here, just ramshackle houses, dirt roads, a mosque with a tall minaret and lots of kids playing in the streets. Almost immediately some of the town's residents appeared from their homes to greet me. Abu al-Hisa Moein, a village council member and schoolteacher, invited me to spend the rest of the afternoon with his family on a patio beside his home, which appeared newer and more stately than those of his neighbors. He told me his ancestors arrived in the village more than 700 years ago from what is now Iraq. His relatives who were expelled to Jenin in 1948 told him they would be too angry to even lay eyes their former homes with the new occupants inside. When I mentioned the bar built into the old mosque, Moein shook his head in disgust. "It's very bad. It's an insult," he said.

Moein took me inside his home for a tour, showing me the spacious, immaculately clean parlor and the picture window with a sweeping view of the valley below. He had built the whole place, he said with pride. Down a hall, his 13-year-old daughter, Ansam, was reclining on the floor of her room reading John Knowles' classic bildungsroman, A Separate Peace. She leapt to attention when I entered and spent the next ten minutes showing me her library of literature. With night setting in, Moein and his family took me back on the patio. There, he unfurled a map of Mandate-era Palestine and ran his fingers over the names of scores of villages destroyed on the coast between Jaffa and Haifa by Zionist forces in 1948. He pointed to towns like Kafr Saba, Qaqun, al-Tira and Tantura, the site of a horrific massacre of unarmed Palestinian prisoners on the beach just one month after the Deir Yassin massacre. Moein was a history teacher, but Israel had forbidden him from discussing these events in his classroom, and is in the process of criminalizing any public observance of them.

As darkness blanketed the hills, I realized that I had lost track of time. I told Moein that I needed to get back to Tel Aviv. With that, his wife rushed into the house and gathered a bundle of grapes she had picked from a tree in the family's yard, packing it for me in some tupperware from their kitchen. Then Moein walked me to my car and hugged me goodbye.

Redeeming the land

By now, both Ein Hod and Ayd Hawd are nearly empty. Most of their residents have fled for safer ground while the thousands of pine trees planted to provide Ein Hod's artists with a sense of solitude are reduced to ash. As the trees burn, the fire exposes another dimension of Israel's foundation that it has attempted to bury.

The pine trees themselves were instruments of concealment, strategically planted by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) on the sites of the hundreds of Palestinian villages the Zionist militias evacuated and destroyed in 1948. With forests sprouting up where towns once stood, those who had been expelled would have nothing to come back to. Meanwhile, to outsiders beholding the strangely Alpine landscape of northern Israel for the first time, it seemed as though the Palestinians had never existed. And that was exactly the impression the JNF intended to create. The practice that David Ben Gurion and other prominent Zionists referred to as "redeeming the land" was in fact the ultimate form of greenwashing.

Described by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe as "the quintessential Zionist colonialist," the first director of the JNF, Yossef Weitz, was a ruthless ideologue who helped orchestrate the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. Weitz notoriously declared "It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples ... If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us ... The only solution is a Land of Israel ... without Arabs ... There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the Palestinian Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth and the old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one tribe."

After Weitz's wishes were fulfilled, the JNF planted hundreds of thousands of trees over freshly destroyed Palestinian villages like al-Tira, helping to establish the Carmel National Park. An area on the south slope of Mount Carmel so closely resembled the landscape of the Swiss Alps that it was nicknamed "Little Switzerland." Of course, the nonindigenous trees of the JNF were poorly suited to the environment in Palestine. Most of the saplings the JNF plants at a site near Jerusalem simply do not survive, and require frequent replanting. Elsewhere, needles from the pine trees have killed native plant species and wreaked havoc on the ecosystem. And as we have seen with the Carmel wildfire, the JNF's trees go up like tinder in the dry heat.

But it seems that nothing can stop the JNF's drive to "green" the land. Even in the parched Negev desert, the JNF is advancing plans to plant one million trees in a plot called "GOD TV Forest." To accomplish the highly unusual feat of foresting a desert, the Israel Land Administration has ordered the expulsion of the Bedouin unrecognized village of al-Araqib, home to hundreds of Israeli citizens who have lived in the area for more than 100 years and who have served in the army's frontline tracker units.

The Israeli government has tried time and again to force the people of al-Araqib into an American Indian reservation-style "development town," but they have refused. The village has been razed to the ground by bulldozers on eight occasions, but each time the residents have rebuilt their homes, hoping to outlast a ruthless campaign to destroy their way of life.

What about the strange name for the proposed forest? It is a reference to GOD TV, a radical right-wing evangelical Christian broadcasting network that hosts faith-based fraudsters like Creflo Dollar and rapture-ready fanatics like Rory and Wendy Alec.

And why is GOD TV bankrolling the JNF's ethnic cleansing campaign in the Negev desert? According to its website, "GOD TV is planting over ONE MILLION TREES across the Holy Land as a miraculous sign to Israel and to the world that Jesus is coming soon."

In his 1970 short fiction story "Facing the Forest," the famed Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua portrayed a mute Palestinian forest watchman who burns down a JNF forest to reveal the hidden ruins of his former village. Forty years later, as the JNF forests around Mount Carmel burn, right-wing Israeli lawmakers have demanded a search for the Arab who must have sparked the blaze, even though there is no firm evidence about the cause of the fire. Michael Ben Ari, a extremist Member of Knesset from the National Union Party, called for "the whole Shin Bet" -- Israel's domestic intelligence agency -- to be mobilized to investigate what the right-wing media outlet Arutz Sheva said "may turn out to be the worst terror attack in Israel's history."

Source

Judaism Is Not The Problem

2010-12-10T16:21:00.005-05:00

A Position Paper

That's the principal raison d'etre of this post. Ideally, it will serve as a handy reference for future online discussion and debate, so that a simple link to this page will obviate forever the hassle of having to repeat my position on this issue. It's been adapted from a comment posted at ZioFascism.net about a month ago and later made into a post by the consistently reasonable, never-afraid-to-tussle-with-idiocy site owner. The link might even be useful to you in the same way and for the same reasons, depending on your own position.

My position on the problems we face -- from the standpoint of the Palestinian Solidarity Movement, anti-Zionism and as an anti-war realist who understands how central Israel and Zionism is to the post-9/11 war agenda -- and how those problems should be addressed, i.e. how the fight should be fought and what constitutes effective activism, is different to that of the ever-emergent fringe element of the anti-Zionist community, and everything I do and write is premised on that position. I consider my position to be uncontroversial given the facts. I don't accept that a focus on Zionism is 'anti-Semitic', and I would loosely describe it as the mainstream position of the informed anti-war majority: that is, those who identify as anti-Zionists as readily as they do anti-war, anti-corporate and anti-everything else.

On the fringe is another element, borne of illogic. The twisted sibling of its sane counterparts, it's a munted child of the Internet and the limitless free-flow of information it has afforded us. Cast in a crucible of fear, outrage and vitriol is a minority who, faced with a sudden and even traumatic dose of the truth, represent living evidence that being well-informed doesn't necessarily leave a person better equipped. In this category are the likes of Prothink, Adam Austin, Brendon O'Connell et al, who come across as borderline if not outright racists. It's doubtful that they 'hate' anyone anymore than the next person, but their reckless bullshit makes them liabilities to the movement and leverage for the enemy regardless of their real potential to do harm, just as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "inflammatory" rhetoric has been a cornerstone of the pro-war narrative, misrepresented by the lying Western media and used to convince the masses that preemptive war is not only justified but the only sane and reasonable response.

This element is a fringe minority for a reason: its views fall apart under the weight of scrutiny, truth, sanity and reason, so there are no notable or credible voices within it, only a slew of low-profile players. The limitations built into movements this warped and dysfunctional serve as a glass ceiling that can't be broken even by its most credible and charismatic proponents, a kind of natural law that prevents toxic ideology from contaminating mainstream dissentience. Dr David Duke is an example, even if today he's a source of accurate information, and less a fringe nutter than an honest broker who refuses to be filtered and burdened by political correctness. Either way and regardless of his future accomplishments, he'll never win another local election or be taken seriously as an author, and while his tidbits and factoids may be useful to some, sadly he'll always discredit the individuals and groups that he associates himself with (just ask professors Walt and Mearsheimer). The reality and corrosiveness of this guilt-by-association effect is what makes the fringe element of anti-Zionism the major obstacle to the mainstreaming of the movement at large, which has never been more ripe for it.

O’Connell says:

“zionism” is not the problem - “judaism” is.

Judaism wasn’t behind the 9/11 attacks; Zionism was. Almost all the visible perps (and accessories after the fact) were secular Zionists. Very few were religious Jews. Silverstein, Lowy, the Israeli players and the majority of the neocon cabal were secular Jews. Some were religious Christian Zionist gentiles, some were religious Jewish Zionists, and others like Cheney and Rumsfeld were just Zionists. The Zionist media was and is for the most part secular; it’s predominantly Jewish, but it can’t rightly be characterized as being religiously Judaic. The broader Israel lobby (or the Jewish lobby, or the Zionist Power Configuration as James Petras calls it) is not about religion; it’s about politics. The common thread here, the one thing the 9/11 perps, the neocon hawks, the Jewish media, the Israeli elite, AIPAC, PNAC, WINEP, AEI, JINSA, Hudson et al all have in common is a passionate attachment to the state of Israel; that’s Zionism.

Most 9/11 researchers would agree that the 9/11 attacks (and the subsequent bombings in Bali and Britain) were carried out to make Israel’s business a global enterprise. Islamic terrorism, a practically exclusive Israeli preoccupation, would now be an American problem and a European problem -- the world's problem. A manufactured fear of radical Islam would sweep the globe and the only winner would be Israel. The global “war on terror”, brainchild of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, would go on to be Israel’s most profitable export and the U.S. would fight two disastrous wars in the Middle East for Israel with a third (Iran) on the agenda. It was a simple con — problem, reaction, solution — with Israeli regional hegemony the ultimate goal. That’s Zionism.

A stronger and greater Israel would become an immediate to mid-term certainty with the right people in the White House and a pliable U.S. Congress. A solid platform on which to foster global sympathy for, and solidarity with, Israel's Islamic problem would last well into the long term, propped up by ongoing false flag terror in Bali, Iraq, London, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere to water the seed and consolidate the terror meme kicked off by the trauma and outrage of 9/11. All of this has served and facilitated one thing almost exclusively: the legitimization and fulfillment of political Zionism.

Judaism may have benefited indirectly from 9/11, insofar as a sympathetic light had been lit over Israel and the Jews in stark contrast to the darkness cast over Islam, and in the new media-cultivated climate of fear and sense of ever-impending terrorism, the specter of the Holocaust - invaluable propaganda fodder and political leverage for Israel - had become that much easier to invoke. But these two latter factors have been used more in the service of Zionism than Judaism, as we see play out over and over in the post-9/11 media pantomime.

Fighting Judaism: A Fool's Errand

It doesn’t make sense to wage war on Judaism. The statement "I am an anti-Judaic activist", if ever uttered with a straight face, will certainly come from the lips of a fool. The anti-Judaic Brendon O’Connell is a rabid Christian nutjob who proposes that we embark on a religious war that is doomed to fail. As a relative neophyte to the Palestine issue and not being much of a reader, he had his mind blown by a book about Judaism by Michael Hoffman sometime in 2009. In the context of his devout faith and identification with Christianity, he proceeded to build an entire worldview from the narrow standpoint of the education he'd received from the book, regarding the problems that threaten humanity, how they came about and a viable way to craft himself an us-and-them outlook that made sense. At least, that's how it seems to have unfolded to those of us who have watched his development from early 2007 to the present. 2010 saw O'Connell stumble into a series of colossal fuck-ups with serious real-life implications which, with the help of a few sensational but baseless claims and some outright lies, earned him the staunch support and admiration of a small following of White Nationalist types and other assorted fringe-dwellers impressed by his getting-arrested skills. Thus, an anti-Judaic Christian warrior was born.

The reasons why a war on Judaism is doomed to fail are obvious to me personally and, I would think, to anyone of a driver's-license-and-above intelligence level. The shame here is in knowing from the outset that I'm not writing for an intelligent readership but for the stupid people, and on purpose, and that now smart people will know that I argue with stupid people. Let this sentence be a disclaimer for the smart people, that it's not meant for you and to go no further, but in the interests of spelling it out for the O'Connells of the world, here are some of those reasons.

Firstly, there is simply no popular support for a war on Judaism - or even peaceful anti-Judaic activism - and that is as it should be. Judaic fundamentalism is the product of a nasty, supremacist doctrine and people are starting to see that it plays a major role in Israel’s bad behaviour, but at the end of the day what we face is economic and political power, on a global scale -- religion has almost nothing to do with that. Railing against Judaism simply doesn't address any of the actual problems we face. And importantly, the racist, supremacist elements of Judaism legitimised by the holy books of the religion are embraced only by a minority, albeit by some very powerful and influential Israeli political figures. Corrosive Judaic values do make their way into Israeli policy and manifest directly as action, but it would be accurate enough to say that this is an almost exclusively Israeli phenomenon. Religious American Jews painted with the same brush as their Israeli counterparts would suffer unjustifiably under the punishment that would be meted out to them by angry anti-Judaics, being that their values and identities are defined by totally different philosophical stuff. The average American Jew harbours no sense of superiority over the goyim and the few that are aware of the Talmud's evil side view it as irrelevant, archaic and even laughable. Simply put, Jewish supremacism is almost entirely absent in the diasporas of developed countries like Australia, Britain, Canada and the U.S.

Christians should be readily able to understand the significance of subtle differences in religious interpretation and how dramatically it affects one's thinking and behaviour. Most of them are modern religious realists who carry around more complex worldviews than those prescribed to them by biblical fairy tales like the story of Adam and Eve, a real life parting of the sea, and literal interpretations of parables that should obviously not supplant real history, i.e. people walking on water and turning it into wine. Christian realists can expect us to infer for ourselves the discernment and pragmatism that flavors their religious beliefs, and in the absence of aberrant behaviour there's no reason why Western diaspora Jews shouldn't be afforded the same courtesy. To summarise, outside Israel the contemporary Jew is in most cases perfectly normal and reasonable (leaving aside their natural proclivity toward abhorrent political ideologies like Zionism, which, to be fair, is just as prevalent in Christians as it is in Jews, and just as common among the non-religious). They're no threat to our way of life. Outside Palestine, Jews are not the problem.

To demonstrate the truth of this by way of a simple thought experiment, consider a scenario in which all the world’s Jews - both religious and secular - were rounded up, put into camps and taken out of the picture, as Brendon O’Connell and others have publicly advocated. Elite gentiles would rush in to fill the power vacuum in every sector of society without there even being a bad day on the stock market. You wouldn’t even hear a sucking sound. Global capitalism wouldn’t skip a beat; the Fed, the IMF and the rest of the global banking system would remain in place; Monsanto would still be patenting genes; Big Pharma would still be profiting from our heart disease and cancer, fueled by an incentive to keep us that way (literally making a killing); powerful weapons manufacturers with more money than most third world economies would still have a vested interest in war (and the banking cartel which owns them would be, as they've always been, more than happy to loan our governments, particularly the U.S. government which spends as much on weapons as the rest of the world, debt-created money at interest in order to get it straight back from the U.S. defense budget when the government blows it all on the high tech weaponry peddled by the cartel's military arm - genius, really). There would be no systemic changes whatsoever in the advent of a wholesale Jewish roundup, and this is true regardless of what one believes about the origins of the system's core structure. I, for one, have been satisfied by ample evidence that modern banking started as a largely Jewish enterprise, but I see no reason why saying so should be controversial. I see no reason why Jews shouldn't be proud of their historic role in it, just as they celebrate the history of Jewish ownership and control of Hollywood and other industries. But regardless of the extent to which Jews created and founded the modern institutions adopted by the West, the fact remains, plainly and self-evidently, that it's our system now and it would quite effortlessly survive the total and sudden disappearance of the world's Jews, down to the very last one.

Secondly, you can’t outlaw ideas, much less eradicate them (they're bulletproof, remember) but you can phase out or even outlaw certain behaviour, systems and practices on moral and ethical grounds, without seriously compromising individual freedom and liberty. (Actually, I believe forcible and prohibitive action undertaken by outside authority is only justifiable when it benefits freedom and liberty and the greater good, because law and prohibition is by definition an infringement on personal freedom, but that's going in another direction.) South African apartheid is an example of this: an unjust and un-sane system, vast, established and held together with the glue of entrenched power transformed for the greater good by a massive imposition of will from within and without.

History has shown that efforts to suppress religious freedom go hand in hand with tyranny and always fail. Those of us who know a bit about Judaic extremism -- and any other truth worth knowing -- can and should use every opportunity to show the others its true colours, especially in light of the Zionist media campaign to vilify Islam, but making war on it and it alone will go nowhere. It's about as viable (and desirable) and every bit as ludicrous and futile as trying to eradicate Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam -- all of which have their own nutty fringe groups which hold extremist views just (or nearly) as repugnant as those we've seen come from leading rabbis of the Jewish faith.

In any case, it's beyond debate that putting people in detention camps against their will is not how an enlightened society would deal with its problems, and given that the idea is to do better than is being done to us, it's aeons away from a viable solution. It's both laughable and despicable. We were all born into economic and political slavery; enslaving others physically should be the last thing on our minds.

Thirdly and most importantly, the people focusing exclusively on Judaism are sabotaging the burgeoning anti-Zionist movement by making us all out to be racist nutters. Sometimes, it's because they actually are racist nutters, representing for Palestine and fucking up our game. Most of the no-such-thing-as-an-innocent-Jew crowd use the word 'Judaism' as a euphemism for all Jews, religious and secular, which is evidenced by their suspicion and contempt for non-religious Jews. After all, even if a Jew isn't Judaic, surely they are infused with Jewish values. Paranoia is rife because, even if there were a way to distinguish the religious from the secular it couldn't be seen from behind a computer. Even in person, you can never be sure; perhaps the parents are Jewish, it's better to be safe than sorry. This is the problem faced by the 'anti-Judaic activist', the slippery slope of idiocy combined with paranoia and the inevitable outcome of fighting religion, which can only exist as ideas inside people. Astute observers of the anti-Judaic activist will always spot this dilemma and see racism, bigotry, hate and 'anti-Semitism'.

What's for certain is this: the only way to make this approach succeed -- that is, this war against Judaism -- is to mainstream it, which has fuck all chance of happening because it is innately nonsensical, invasive, futile, authoritarian, illogical and fascist. Normal people (that is to say, the average human being, mentally and socially conditioned with Western values) intuits a lack of logic and an ugliness in the idea (if I may be so presumptuous as to speak on behalf of that group for the duration of the rest of this sentence). 9/11 truth is an example of a fringe group that has consolidated itself into a global movement with real credibility, and despite the spirit of truth, justice, compassion, honour, transparency, righteousness, non-partisanship, tolerance, blindness to colour and general energy of goodness that it engenders it has moved at a snail's pace and is far from the breakout threshold of real political clout. With that in mind, consider the likelihood of a movement borne of twisted logic, dense minds, paranoia and a negative energy establishing itself to the same degree.

More likely, the nascent and ill-conceived push for a war against Judaism and/or Jews will remain what it is: nothing more than dead weight dragging at the heels of the compassion-based, common sense-oriented pro-Palestine, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist movement. And as long as this movement which does make sense and which is compatible with the antiwar, anti-corporate, environmental and 9/11 movements can be written off as "hate", racism and "anti-Semitism" through its association with that aberrent part of itself, it will always be easily marginalised by Zionism and its footsoldiers for being the cancer and nothing but, and nothing more than the aberration that characterizes the minority fringe. The armies behind the pro-Israel agenda being pushed by the media and our governments are already containing our movement this way pretty effectively with imagined "hate" and in the absence of any real "anti-Semitism", although people are clearly growing tired of the old anti-Semitism canard and wising up to its arbitrary use by apologists for Israeli crimes. The rise of the fuckwit brigade, this cancerous aberration, will only hand to the propagandists what they've been having to make up all this time.

So besides the fact that targeting Judaism and Jews in general (and rounding them up for internment in "rehabilitation" camps) is a violent, fascist fantasy that couldn't possibly be taken seriously by anyone other than a crazed lynch mob, it makes no sense, simply won’t work, and not only that, it’s doing far more harm than good. The let’s-genocide-the-Jews crowd are working for the other side, whether they know it or not.

Zionism

Focusing on Zionism does make sense. Anti-Zionism is a natural corollary to the anti-war movement. That most of the peace movement, spearheaded by liberal Zionist gatekeepers, has been slow to catch on to that obvious fact doesn't make it any less true. It simply doesn’t make sense to be anti-war and pro-Zionist, especially given the key roles of American Zionists and the broader Israel lobby in pushing, planning, and overseeing both post-9/11 wars in the Middle East. And there is no such thing as non-racist Zionism. Zionism is by definition a racist enterprise which can only express itself through land theft, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and the displacement of indigenous Palestinians to make way for Jewish-only settlements. Neither is there any such thing as legal Zionism, since almost all that it entails contravenes international law.

For all these reasons, anti-Zionism is an idea whose time has come. The only things between it and the mainstream are fragile lies and an ongoing media propaganda campaign pushing hard in the other direction. Hippies, leftists, activists and bleeding hearts who march and write and agitate for peace, equality and minority rights but support the Israeli state are left with the impossible task of reconciling the staggering hypocrisy of their views, so conscientious anti-war, anti-corporate, and/or human rights advocates are obligated to renounce Zionism in order to conform to the values that define them as people -- either that or be forced to bask naked in their own hypocrisy. Campaigners for peace who support occupation, land theft, displacement and apartheid - and the inevitable cost of that - are about as useful as tits on a bull and have nothing to stand behind but sleight of hand and subterfuge.

Anti-Zionism is a legitimate, honourable and viable movement. It's growing rapidly and progressing nicely, thanks to Israel’s own manifestly evil policies in Palestine and abroad: the 2006 Lebanon war, the 2008-9 Gaza massacre, the Dubai hit and Mossad passport fraud, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla incident, and the emerging truth about the USS Liberty, Israeli spying and 9/11. Along the way, people are learning about the history of Palestine and the illegitimate state of Israel, the early Jewish terrorism upon which it was founded and Israeli false-flags like the Lavon Affair. They’re waking up to the Jewish supremacism behind Israeli policy and starting to take a closer look at Judaism, which informs Zionism today but for the most part precluded any idea of the legitimacy of a Jewish state until it became convenient in the 1940s.

The dominant ideology that has shaped the U.S. war agenda for at least the last 20 years is Zionism, and with the focus shifting to Iran, that is becoming harder and harder for the anti-war movement to ignore. Fortunately, Zionism is destined to fail; Israel is well on its way to disappearing from the map altogether, and once that happens the game changes forever. The global capitalist system (the aforementioned banking system, Monsanto, Raytheon etc) will still be in place, but that’s why our work should have a broader focus. I myself have a particular disdain for Israel, Zionism and Jewish power so I choose to focus most of my attention on that, but I also meet with the local chapter of the Zeitgeist Movement because as far as I’m aware, the Resource Based Economy (RBE) model is the only viable alternative to the profit-oriented, debt-based monetary system (i.e. global capitalism). The Rothschildian corporate banking / fractional reserve / money-as-debt scam is the biggest con in history, but it’s the monetary system itself that has inverted our values and put profit above sanity (example I; example II). Monetary reform and public control of the banking system isn’t going to cut it in the end, although it would certainly be a good start. It would clear the way for the implementation of an RBE or something similar, by dismantling the most entrenched criminal power structure on the planet.

The stakes are too high for us to allow sanity and reason to be pushed to the fringes, and to make the mistake of throwing good negativity at bad negativity. This is a serious game for those of us who believe that a better life on Earth is worth fighting for, and perhaps the only thing worth a fight. Even if you suspect as I do that ultimately this thing is just a ride, an illusion, that nothing real can ever be damaged or killed and that consciousness will emerge unscathed no matter what, we're still on the ride and so are our children. Suffering is still hell. Experience will always arise out of thought and become real by our actions and choices, and the power of that creative process has become such that it will also determine the quality of the ride for all of our poor, hapless cohabitants. Their fate is in our clumsy hands. We've dreamed up devices and methods capable of destroying all life on Earth, and we can't even be trusted not to do it. We're so stupid that it could happen by accident, and nearly has. It's happening by accident right now. As individuals we're slaves to entrenched power and yet it feels as if no-one is in control. If we don't think and act out of love and let it characterise everything we do, the future will be a living nightmare. As trite and corny as it might sound, love is the key -- that much is certain.

NATO blackmailing Russia with drugs

2010-12-10T08:51:00.005-05:00

NATO is using Afghanistan's opium as a threat to the Russia to force Moscow into cooperating with the alliance in the Afghan war, a US analyst says.

“There is a certain very real blackmail being imposed on Russia that the country is targeted for a kind of an opium war,” Jeff Steinberg from Executive Intelligence Review said on Wednesday.

“NATO wants to send this message to Moscow that “cooperation with NATO on resupply and logistical support for Afghanistan operation might result in a curtailment of some of those drug flows which are for Russia,” Steinberg said in his interview with Press TV.

“Since the US invasion of Afghanistan back in 2001, there has been an eruption of opium and heroin flows from Afghanistan, through Central Asia, into Russia,” he went on to add.

Steinberg referred to the Russian anti-drug program study which shows that every year 100,000 Russians are dying from overdosing on heroin and opium coming out of Afghanistan.

He, however, argued that since the economic and financial crisis has prompted NATO members to reduce their military capabilities, “so the threat that NATO represented on the border of Russia, may be seen as a diminishing threat.”

“NATO is becoming more and more of a paper tiger, especially, as their mission in Afghanistan goes from bad to worse,” Steinberg added.

Source

Russian TV Show Tracks Down israeli Neo-Nazi In Kyrgzstan

2010-12-10T06:13:00.012-05:00

israeli neo-nazi gang
The leader of a Tel Aviv based neo-Nazi gang who 'eluded' Israeli intelligence for years was arrested, Friday, after a Russsian investigative television show found him “living openly” as a law student in Moscow.

Dmitri Bogotich led a gang of 8 members between the ages of 16 and 21 known as 'Patrol 36', made up of Russian immigrants to Israel who were actually neo-Nazis. The targets of their multiple hate crimes in Tel Aviv, carried out between 2005 and 2007, were not Jews, however, but Africans and other non-white immigrants, homosexuals and homeless people. They also painted swastikas on a synagogue in Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv.

In an interview with reporter Orly Vilnai Federbush in 2008, Bogotich bragged about how his gang beat "dirty blacks" and "some gay guy”, and said he believed Arabs should be killed. He also talked about how he could live without fear of extradition in Russia, and that Israeli authorities had not even issued an arrest warrant for him. In fact, they had not issued such a warrant, and it was only after a Russian TV show tracked Bogotich down and exposed him as the leader of 'Patrol 36' that any authorities, Russian or Israeli, made an effort to arrest him.

The gang, and others like it, have been a source of embarassment for Israeli authorities, who have worked to bring in over one million Russian (and former Soviet Republic) Jews since 1991. But some Israeli officials and rabbis have questioned whether all of the immigrants are actually Jewish – one former interior minister claimed that half of the one million immigrants are not Jewish. This has resulted in discrimination against Russians inside Israel on one side, while on the other side, it has led to a right-wing movement among Russian immigrants led by current Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who believes in the expulsion of Palestinians from inside Israel.

Dmitri Bogotich served as an Israeli military officer while he was leading the gang in 2006 and 2007, working in the Occupied Territories during the day and carrying out beatings in Tel Aviv at night.

According to Israeli authorities, Bogotich will be extradited to Israel to face charges along with the other 7 members of the gang, who were arrested in Israel shortly after Bogotich fled to Russia in 2007.

Source

Starving For Food, Thirsting For Freedom

2010-12-09T04:09:00.045-05:00

By Thor Halvorssen

When a natural disaster strikes, the world receives a "sudden call" that it must act immediately. Most recently, the floods in Pakistan revealed the dynamism of the international community. However, when a government erodes democracy and violates human rights to the point of creating a humanitarian crisis, the world is often silent.

Today in Darfur, the death toll continues to mount. An estimated 400,000 have perished since 2003 from violence, disease, malnutrition, and lack of clean water.

We know that this tragedy is not a product of natural disaster. These deaths result directly from the (war with and) loathsome policies of Omar al-Bashir's government in Khartoum, not from an unforeseeable "act of God."

Sudan, 2003
As this calamity unfolds, it must be acknowledged as the latest in a long line of man-made humanitarian crises. The Sudanese regime now, among other ghastly prescriptions, deprives Darfurians of food -- just as over the past century, tens of millions of people starved to death not because of ill luck but because of bad governance.

In what is a deadly irony, most of these starvation victims died under dictatorships that trumpeted the good they could do for their fellow citizens -- governments that promised to "serve the people."

It might seem ironic that a strong and controlling state apparatus could fail to meet its citizens' most basic need to eat. Yet these governments -- whether communist, fascist, or just plain autocratic -- shared a similar feature: they rejected individual rights and limited the ability of their citizens to provide for themselves by controlling their mobility, access to resources, property rights, freedom of information and their ability to associate with others in mutual cooperation. While promoting the idea that they could help the masses, authoritarians let the individual members of such masses suffer -- or even starve.

Democratic governments and NGOs must remember that humanitarian relief should help the starving, but it must also do more. It must help alter the very conditions that lead to famine in the first place.

To establish the link between autocratic government and devastating famine, one need only look at some of the deadliest mass starvations of the 20th century.

In the Soviet Union between 1921 and 1922, some 9 million people starved to death under Vladimir Lenin's government; in Soviet Ukraine between 1932 and 1933, as many as 10 million people starved to death in Stalin's Holodomor; in Axis-occupied Greece during the 1940's, 300,000 people starved to death under Nazi policy; in British-administered Bengal in 1943, some 3 million starved to death as a result of colonial rule; as many as 2 million died in Vietnam during World War II as a result of Japanese occupation; in communist China between 1958 and 1962, between 10 and 30 million people died during the famines caused by Mao's "Great Leap Forward;" in Cambodia beginning in 1979, 1.5 million starved following the failed policies of the Khmer Rouge; a military dictatorship in Ethiopia presided over a famine in 1984 that took the lives of more than 1 million; and an estimated 2 million starved to death during the 1990s in totalitarian North Korea.

All these regimes were dictatorships regardless of how they came to see themselves -- as people's revolutions, democratic revolutions, or enlightened occupiers. The economic and social development that they claimed to pursue should never have been used as justification for violating basic freedoms and the right to life. And in some instances, such as the Ethiopian famine, the West addressed this with well-meaning "We Are the World" songs and charity initiatives as if it were some kind of natural catastrophe as opposed to an utterly avertable, man-made tragedy that should have marshaled the world to pressure the Ethiopian despot.

The 20th century reveals that the only long-term sustainable deterrent to man-made humanitarian crises is the realization of democracy, rule of law, and human rights. Preventative steps must be taken to avert man-made famine and it can start with development aid.

The Swedish government, one of the largest donors to the developing world, has been exemplary in reengineering its approach to foreign assistance. It balances immediate humanitarian concern with long-term solutions to provide better government.

As one Swedish government memo (available to the public) describes it, "The aims of Sweden's engagement in partner countries are to contribute to development and poverty reduction. The scope and direction of Swedish aid, however, depend on how democracy issues are handled by the partner country."

Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden's minister for development cooperation, states that "Sweden must be loyal to certain fundamental values and principles and to the individuals in the country concerned, though not necessarily to the partner country's government."

As a human rights campaigner, I am sensitive to the fact that many development professionals want to avoid politics altogether. However, the empirical mountain of dead bodies caused by autocratic political systems shows that this is ineffective. Craig Johnstone, the Deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, made the following observation at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2009:

"Taking care of people and protecting people in totalitarian regimes is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. It's difficult because if you don't become an advocate with the governments on behalf of the people then you are a party to the human rights violation yourself."

Nevertheless, as Johnstone observed:

"If you push so hard that you are kicked out of the country, as happens to us from time to time in some of the countries we've talked about, you are forced to abandon the very people whose hope you are charged with maintaining. We have to find a balance."

When NGOs try to persuade repressive governments to improve their rights records it usually becomes a shame game portrayed as a "violation of sovereignty" by the tyrant in question. Governments are better equipped than NGOs to provide regimes with incentives to respect human rights, as with offshore carrots and sticks, they don't need to worry as much about getting "kicked out." However, few states actually use their leverage. A painful reminder of this was the widely publicized visit by U.S. Secretary of State Clinton to China last February. She made clear to her hosts and the press that economic matters and trade -- not human rights -- were at the forefront of the U.S agenda. Shamefully, this attitude has been replicated in more than a dozen trouble spots by the Obama administration.

Young victims of Stalin's Holodomor - a government-created famine
In light of government hesitancy, NGO advocates can have an especially important role when it comes to development. They must pressure donor governments to link aid to human rights -- especially when such aid is all about political objectives such as in the case of Egypt and more than a dozen African countries. The Swedish government is taking a leadership role that should be emulated by all Western governments and praised by development NGOs.

Amartya Sen teaches that an open society with democracy and good governance is one where famine finds it nearly impossible to take root. In societies like Sudan where such values are not upheld, human health, especially an empty stomach, can't be sufficiently addressed.

Thor Halvorssen is president of the Human Rights Foundation and founder of the Freedom Forum.

Venezuela's 'Animal Farm'

Bread shortage worsens in Gaza

Haiti cholera likely from UN troops, expert says

2010-12-08T19:45:00.002-05:00

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A contingent of U.N. peacekeepers is the likely source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed more than 2,000 people, a French scientist said in a report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux, who studied the outbreak for the Haitian and French governments, concluded that there was no doubt that the cholera originated in contaminated water next to a U.N. base outside the town of Mirebalais along a tributary to Haiti's Artibonite river.

"No other hypothesis could be found to explain the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in this village ... not affected by the earthquake earlier this year and located dozens of kilometers from the coast and (quake refugee tent) camps," he wrote in a report that has not yet been publicly released.

The AP obtained a copy from an international official who released it on condition of anonymity. Piarroux declined in an e-mail interview to discuss his findings.

The French Foreign Ministry confirmed that Dr. Renaud Piarroux's report has been completed and sent to officials in Haiti and at the United Nations. France commmissioned the report at Haiti's request.

The report calls for a further investigation of the outbreak and improved medical surveillance and sanitation procedures for U.N. peacekeeping troops.

Many Haitians suspect that the Nepalese troops were the source of the outbreak, and anger at the troops sparked a week of violent riots, but the French scientist's report is the first scientific study linking the base to cholera.

Piarroux said in his report that he cannot prove there was cholera inside the base. But he also said that septic tanks and pipes that would have helped to confirm the presence of the bacteria were no longer at the base when he visited.

Nepalese troops earlier confirmed they had replaced a leaking pipe, which contained a foul-smelling runoff that the U.N. denies was human waste, between two visits by an AP reporter in October.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier confirmed that the strain of cholera bacteria in Haiti matched one from South Asia, a region that includes Nepal, but the U.N. denied its troops were to blame and said it was more important to focus on fighting the outbreak than on its origin.

U.N. officials said Tuesday there is still no conclusive evidence that the peacekeepers caused the infection.

"We have neither accepted nor dismissed his findings, as it's one report among others," U.N. mission spokesman Vincenzo Pugliese said. "The Nepalese contingent in Mirebalais is just one piece of the cholera puzzle, since there is no conclusive evidence at this point that the Nepalese camp was or was not the source of the epidemic."

Since it emerged in late October, the disease has spread throughout much of the country and sickened at least 100,000 people. The U.N. says up to 650,000 people in Haiti could get cholera over the next six months.

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JEWISH APPOINTEES COULD END FREE INTERNET

By Harmony Daws 14 Dec 10

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Starving For Food, Thirsting For Freedom

Haiti cholera likely from UN troops, expert says

By Harmony Daws
14 Dec 10