EU: Put Rights at Heart of Migration Policy
NOVANEWS
Council Summit Should Endorse Approach Based on Human Rights Obligations
The EU talks a lot these days about promoting its values in the Middle East and North Africa. But when it comes to migrants and asylum seekers, those values are all too often thrown out the window.
Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher
(Brussels) – European Union (EU) heads of state meeting in Brussels later this week should put human rights at the heart of EU migration and asylum policy, Human Rights Watch said today. Migration is high on the agenda for the European Council summit on June 23 and 24, 2011, with external border control, free movement inside the EU, the Common European Asylum system, and migration cooperation with North Africa expected to be discussed.
The European Council meeting comes at a critical moment, Human Rights Watch said. Upheaval in North Africa has brought thousands of migrants and asylum seekers to European shores, and led to growing numbers of migrant deaths at sea. Efforts to reform common asylum rules and enhance solidarity within the EU remain largely stalled, while an emphasis on border enforcement has come at the expense of protecting migrants’ rights and access to asylum.
“The EU talks a lot these days about promoting its values in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Judith Sunderland, senior Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But when it comes to migrants and asylum seekers, those values are all too often thrown out the window.”
The EU currently falls short in five key areas that undermine its obligations to protect asylum seekers and migrants, Human Rights Watch said:
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The failure to reform the Dublin regulation, which requires asylum claims to be heard in the first EU state a migrant reaches. This places a disproportionate burden on states at the EU’s external borders, including Greece, which has a broken asylum system.
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The continued asylum crisis and the inhuman and degrading detention conditions for migrants in Greece, with EU assistance focused more on securing its border with Turkey than ensuring humane treatment for migrants.
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Insufficient efforts to prevent the deaths at sea of boat migrants fleeing Libya and other parts of North Africa. As many as 1,500 migrants have died trying to cross to Europe during the first six months of 2011.
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Limited resettlement by EU countries of refugees from North Africa, while Egypt and Tunisia continue to host hundreds of thousands.
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The use of readmission agreements, which facilitate the return of migrants and asylum seekers entering the EU to transit countries – such as Ukraine – that lack the will or capacity to guarantee them access to asylum and to treat them humanely.
The Dublin II Regulation
The council is expected to consider commission proposals to revise several parts of the common asylum system, including the Reception Directive, which covers assistance to asylum seekers, and the Procedures Directive, which deals with asylum procedures.
But efforts to reform the Dublin II regulation, based on the flawed premise that all EU member states share common standards and capacity to process and host asylum seekers fairly, remain stalled because of opposition from many EU governments, particularly those in the north that benefit from the status quo. In practice, it means that EU states at the front line face an unfair burden of having to process the claims of almost all migrant arrivals by land and sea, even if their asylum systems are not up to the task, Human Rights Watch said.
The Asylum Crisis in Greece
The asylum crisis in Greece vividly illustrates the regulation’s shortcomings, Human Rights Watch said. Because of Greece’s location, more than three-quarters of irregular migrants entering the EU by land in 2010 came through Greece. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has described the situation in Greece for migrants and asylum seekers as a “humanitarian crisis.” Greece approved only 11 out of the first 30,000 asylum applications received in 2010. The asylum backlog currently stands at around 47,000 cases, and reforms to the Greek asylum process are slow. Meanwhile, thousands of migrants and asylum seekers in Greece face routine detention in conditions that have been held by the European Court of Human Rights to be inhuman and degrading.
In January, the court ruled that Greece’s broken asylum system and detention conditions meant that Belgium’s transfer of an Afghan asylum seeker to Greece in 2009 had breached the prohibition on ill-treatment and had denied him an effective remedy. At least eight countries have already suspended transfers to Greece under the Dublin regulation as a result.
Commission pressure helped push Greece to reform its asylum system. In November 2010, the EU border agency, Frontex, sent border guards from other EU states to help reinforce Greece’s land-border with Turkey – along which Greek police stopped over 47,000 migrants and asylum seekers trying to enter Greece in 2010. But the EU has done little to tackle the abusive detention conditions faced by migrants who reach Greece.
“The EU seems to be far more concerned with keeping migrants and asylum seekers out of Greece, and out of Europe, than in the rights of those already there,” Sunderland said. “If the EU is serious in its commitment to the right to seek asylum, it needs to fix the Dublin rule and help Greece end its abusive detention of migrants.”
Deaths at Sea
Ensuring access to international protection in Europe also means doing much more to prevent deaths at sea, Human Rights Watch said. As many as 1,500 people have died in the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year in desperate attempts to reach European shores. Scores have died in reported shipwrecks and capsizings, most recently over 200 off the coast of Tunisia in early June, with hundreds more unaccounted for and presumed dead. Reports that military ships in the Mediterranean allegedly failed to assist a drifting boat in late March and early April, leading to the death of 63 sub-Saharan Africans from thirst and hunger, are particularly disturbing and underscore the need for a concerted and principled EU response to boat migration, Human Rights Watch said.
All ships in the Mediterranean should rescue overcrowded migrant boats without hesitation, and heed UNHCR’s call to presumptively treat all of these boats as needing rescue, rather than waiting until they are in distress, Human Rights Watch said. Italy and Malta need to step up their vital operations at sea, intensifying efforts to identify boats before they are in distress and accompany them to safe harbors.
European countries should also conduct sea evacuations of the most vulnerable civilians trapped in Libya, Human Rights Watch said. With Tunisia and Egypt already hosting hundreds of thousands of Libyans and others fleeing Libya, European countries should show solidarity by evacuating some of those trapped in Libya to Europe, where they should have access to asylum or temporary protection.
“If hundreds of people were dying on land instead of at sea, EU governments would call for common action,” Sunderland said. “Stepped up rescue operations could literally save hundreds of lives.”
Refugee Resettlement Needs
The EU should also increase its efforts to resettle recognized refugees from North Africa and elsewhere, by increasing national quotas and moving swiftly to put plans for a joint European resettlement program into operation. So far, European countries have offered to resettle some 700 refugees from North Africa and to relocate over 300 asylum seekers from Malta, reflecting the burden faced by the tiny island nation of arrivals by sea.
Only 14 European countries have resettlement programs, including Iceland and Norway, which are not EU members. Globally, only 6 percent of resettled refugees end up in Europe. About 90 percent go to the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Readmission Agreements
Enhancing control of Europe’s external borders is also on the agenda at the European Council meeting. A core part of the EU migration control strategy depends on readmission agreements, which facilitate deportation of migrants to the neighboring and other countries through which they travelled to enter the EU.
Returns under such agreements are only supposed to take place after asylum claims have been considered. Yet Human Rights Watch research for a December 2010 report has shown that migrants returned to Ukraine from Slovakia and Hungary under readmission agreements were unable to claim asylum before being removed, and then faced abuse in Ukraine.
More than half had been beaten and some credibly alleged they had been subject to torture in Ukraine. Most said the Slovak and Hungarian authorities had ignored their requests to apply for asylum. The report also found that Ukraine’s system was completely dysfunctional, unable to grant asylum to those found to be refugees. It also found that both Slovakia and Hungary had expelled unaccompanied migrant children to Ukraine, which lacks any special protection for them.
In a report in February, the European Commission acknowledged the potential for rights violations under readmission agreements and said it would monitor the treatment of those returned and hold member states who return migrants to abuse to account. The report’s proposal for a pilot post-return monitoring mechanism for Ukraine is positive, Human Rights Watch said. But the conclusion that the return of third country migrants to Ukraine “has worked” flies in the face of significant evidence that returnees face ill-treatment.
“Before returning anyone to a transit country, EU governments should be sure the person doesn’t need asylum and that they won’t face abuse there,” Sunderland said. “The commission should make sure that agreements with third countries have robust human rights protections and are subject to scrutiny and, if necessary, suspension.”
In Turkey, He Loves You, He Beats You
NOVANEWS
As told by Gauri van Gulik, researcher and advocate, Women’s Rights Division
Unlike some of the other women I spoke with, Hamiyet was not injected with poison, thrown from the roof or stabbed by her husband. But her story seemed just as desperate when she described the daily routine of abuse – thrashings that began on her wedding day, 24 years ago.
A 15-year-old bride, she lived with her in-laws who treated her like a slave, forcing her to cook and clean for their 12-person household. After she washed the laundry, her father-in-law slapped her hands with a stick, knowing it would hurt more as her hands were wet and cold.
Every evening, her husband beat her after he returned from work.
In the years that followed, he beat her when she was pregnant with each of their nine children. Once, he hit her in the stomach. He locked her in the bedroom and only allowed her to leave the house if he or his mother accompanied her – even to buy groceries. He forced her to haul stones and parts of trees to build a shed.
IN TURKEY, 42 PERCENT of women have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husband or partner, according to a study by a leading Turkish university. While the government can be credited with passing strong laws to protect women, these laws are rarely enforced, and additional protections are needed.
Hamiyet, a Kurdish woman with round cheeks and a friendly face, told me her story over Turkish tea and cookies. Her daughter, a nurse, sat beside her. Hamiyet described her husband’s rage and loss of control when he hit her, and how she sometimes feared for her life. Occasionally, she said, her husband would compliment her cooking, giving her hope that the abuse would stop. It didn’t.
Toward the end of our conversation, Hamiyet grew quiet and stared at the ground. In a low voice, she admitted that her husband raped her almost nightly.
At her daughter’s behest, four years ago Hamiyet went to the police.
SHE SOUGHT HELP from the police numerous times. They always sent her back home – even when she approached police officers in the hospital where she was treated after one of her husband’s attacks. Sometimes they laughed at her. Other times, concerned with preserving “family unity,” they tried to reconcile her with her husband. Once they even called him.
She finally asked a prosecutor to place a restraining order against her husband. But while she was in the prosecutor’s office, another man stood up and screamed, “Aren’t you ashamed to talk about your husband like this!”
She left without the order. Later, a non-governmental organization helped her get a protection order, but it was never enforced.
In Turkey, spousal abuse occurs across all regions and income levels. In an effort to combat this situation, beginning in the 1990s, the government passed a series of reforms designed to protect women. Under these reforms, police officers and courts can require abusers to move out of the home, stay away from the victim and their children, and stop contacting the victim.
But the laws exclude women who are unmarried, divorced, or in unrecognized religious marriages.
Furthermore, officials often fail to enforce these laws. During our research we interviewed, or accessed the case files of, 40 abused women. We found no instances in which officers checked on abused women weekly, as required. Even worse, we found that officers often didn’t respond to calls from women whose husbands returned home and threatened them.
Although the laws require shelters to be established for abused women, a shortage of shelters remains.
Having laws on the books that aren’t implemented can be more dangerous for women than having no such laws. Once an abused woman’s husband learns she’s sought police help, his anger could become deadly. In Diyarbakir, a woman named Fatma was murdered after she sought help from the police. Hamiyet told us that the beatings intensified after she went to the police, and that her husband began threatening their daughter.
THE BRIGHT SPOT in this situation is that Turkish women are organizing. Small, fierce women’s rights groups are leading women through the system and insisting that authorities help abused women. A nongovernmental organization, Van Women’s Association, gave Hamiyet legal assistance and helped her find a tiny apartment and move out of her home.
Human Rights Watch is helping these organizations press for change. We were present last month as ministers from countries all across Europe gathered in Istanbul to sign a new Council of Europe convention on domestic violence. Turkey signed the convention, and we’ll pressure the government to enforce it. We’re also working with government officials charged with creating police school curriculum, so officers can better protect abused women, and with the ministry of women and family.
Although Hamiyet found some help, a deep sadness came over me when she talked about her life – her situation seemed so desperate. True, she left her husband and is seeking a divorce, but he knew where she lived and was stalking her. The police were no help. She had very little money.
I tried to end our conversation on a lighter note, by noting how well her daughter was doing.
While describing her abuse, Hamiyet often needed to pause and collect herself, but at the mention of her daughter, one of her five surviving children, she started sobbing. She wanted a better life for her. The moment reinforced why I did this report – so that girls who grow up with family violence don’t have to repeat the pattern in their own marriages, or that if they do, they can successfully seek help.
Libya: Government Using Landmines in Nafusa Mountains
NOVANEWS
Placement of More Than 150 Antipersonnel Mines Confirmed
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Libyan rebels found and removed more than 150 of these antipersonnel landmines, the Brazilian-made T-AB-1, which government forces had placed north of Zintan in the Nafusa Mountains.
© 2011 Human Rights Watch
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These antipersonnel landmines pose a huge threat to civilians. More than 150 countries have banned landmines, but Libya continues to defy this global trend.
Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch
(Cairo) – Libyan government forces placed more than 150 antipersonnel landmines in at least one location in the Nafusa Mountains, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch visited the site, inspected mines that had been removed, and interviewed the rebel fighters who removed them.
“These antipersonnel landmines pose a huge threat to civilians,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “More than 150 countries have banned landmines, but Libya continues to defy this global trend.”
Human Rights Watch has confirmed government use of five types of landmines in six separate locations in Libya, including the use of antipersonnel and antivehicle landmines near Ajdabiya.
This is the first confirmed use of landmines in the Nafusa Mountains, in the far western part of Libya.
The mines found in the mountains are a Brazilian-made antipersonnel mine, the T-AB-1. The mines were placed about 10 miles north of the town of Zintan in a place called Khusha (coordinates N 32º 02.448′, E 012º 12.710′), apparently to defend government positions further north.
The T-AB-1 plastic antipersonnel mine has a low metal content and is therefore difficult to detect once placed, Human Rights Watch said. In addition to its antipersonnel properties, the T-AB-1 can be used as a fuze for an antivehicle mine with the same name.
When Libyan government forces placed the antipersonnel landmines remains unclear. Armed opposition forces in the Nafusa Mountains said that rebel fighters discovered the mines on or around June 1, 2011, and removed 169 of them. Human Rights Watch inspected the disassembled mines in Zintan.
The de facto opposition authority in Libya, the National Transitional Council, formally pledged on April 28 not to use antipersonnel and antivehicle landmines, and to destroy all landmines in its possession.
“We hope the rebels will respect their promise not to use landmines and will destroy all mines in their possession,” Goose said.
Government forces have placed T-AB-1 antipersonnel landmines in other areas during the conflict. In May, researchers from Amnesty International documented the use of the mine at two places in the Tammina neighborhood of Misrata, a residential area southeast of the city’s center.
Libya is one of 37 nations that have not joined the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. A total of 156 nations are parties to the treaty, and another two have signed but not yet ratified.
Brazil signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and became a State Party on 1 October 1999. Brazil ceased production and export of antipersonnel landmines in 1989. It has never used antipersonnel mines.
The Mine Ban Treaty comprehensively bans the use, production, and transfer of all antipersonnel mines, requires destruction of stockpiles within four years and clearance of mined areas within 10 years, and calls for assistance to landmine victims. In recent years, the only government forces that have continued to lay antipersonnel mines are Burma’s.
“The use of antipersonnel mines in the Libya conflict is endangering civilians and will continue to do so after the fighting has stopped,” Goose said.
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Libyan rebels found and removed more than 150 of these antipersonnel landmines, the Brazilian-made T-AB-1, which government forces had placed north of Zintan in the Nafusa Mountains.© 2011 Human Rights Watch
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These antipersonnel landmines pose a huge threat to civilians. More than 150 countries have banned landmines, but Libya continues to defy this global trend.Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch
“These antipersonnel landmines pose a huge threat to civilians,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “More than 150 countries have banned landmines, but Libya continues to defy this global trend.”
Human Rights Watch has confirmed government use of five types of landmines in six separate locations in Libya, including the use of antipersonnel and antivehicle landmines near Ajdabiya.
This is the first confirmed use of landmines in the Nafusa Mountains, in the far western part of Libya.
The mines found in the mountains are a Brazilian-made antipersonnel mine, the T-AB-1. The mines were placed about 10 miles north of the town of Zintan in a place called Khusha (coordinates N 32º 02.448′, E 012º 12.710′), apparently to defend government positions further north.
The T-AB-1 plastic antipersonnel mine has a low metal content and is therefore difficult to detect once placed, Human Rights Watch said. In addition to its antipersonnel properties, the T-AB-1 can be used as a fuze for an antivehicle mine with the same name.
When Libyan government forces placed the antipersonnel landmines remains unclear. Armed opposition forces in the Nafusa Mountains said that rebel fighters discovered the mines on or around June 1, 2011, and removed 169 of them. Human Rights Watch inspected the disassembled mines in Zintan.
The de facto opposition authority in Libya, the National Transitional Council, formally pledged on April 28 not to use antipersonnel and antivehicle landmines, and to destroy all landmines in its possession.
“We hope the rebels will respect their promise not to use landmines and will destroy all mines in their possession,” Goose said.
Government forces have placed T-AB-1 antipersonnel landmines in other areas during the conflict. In May, researchers from Amnesty International documented the use of the mine at two places in the Tammina neighborhood of Misrata, a residential area southeast of the city’s center.
Libya is one of 37 nations that have not joined the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. A total of 156 nations are parties to the treaty, and another two have signed but not yet ratified.
Brazil signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and became a State Party on 1 October 1999. Brazil ceased production and export of antipersonnel landmines in 1989. It has never used antipersonnel mines.
The Mine Ban Treaty comprehensively bans the use, production, and transfer of all antipersonnel mines, requires destruction of stockpiles within four years and clearance of mined areas within 10 years, and calls for assistance to landmine victims. In recent years, the only government forces that have continued to lay antipersonnel mines are Burma’s.
“The use of antipersonnel mines in the Libya conflict is endangering civilians and will continue to do so after the fighting has stopped,” Goose said.
The Pakistan Decapitation Papers – A Report on the Banality of Evil
NOVANEWS
Foreword 2011
Zahir Ebrahim |
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org
This Fourth Edition of The Pakistan Decapitation Papers is issued with a companion standalone Ebook The Poor-Man’s Guide to Modernity. It is recommended that the companion Ebook be perused simultaneously in order to comprehend the diabolical sub-text behind the systematic decapitation of Pakistan. The latter’s Chapter 7, Islam and Knowledge vs. Socialization, is perhaps the most pertinent to Pakistanis today. It examines a recipe which can potentially still enable the Pakistani peoples to extricate their ill-begotten nation – now so visibly being destroyed after years of staging by fifth columnists attired in their virginal bride’s dress across the board – from the jaws of ignominy.
That same recipe, if forcefully employed globally by the ordinary man and woman on planet earth against their own respective fifth columnists, irrespective of religion, caste, or creed, can in fact set the stage for a new world order that is suited to the pleasurable living of all ordinary human beings, instead of the present one being orchestrated by the elite which is only suited to the pleasurable living of the inhuman oligarchy.
This new Fourth Edition of the Pakistan Decapitation Papers that you now hold in your hands as a printed hardcopy, or, before your eyes as an Ebook, straightforwardly continues in its Volume 3 from where Volume 2 had left off. It is so painful for the author to continue to make these commonsensical and blatantly obvious observations on Pakistan and its peoples, that this is the last edition!
In this tenth year of 9/11, Volume 3 befittingly begins Chapter 1 by revisiting the New Pearl Harbor and the Who Dunnit question. The imperial misidentification of its culprits as the proverbial pirates in order to synthesize the Machiavellian “War on Terror” of the emperor, has been the final harbinger of the decapitation of Pakistan.
However, let the decapitation of Pakistan not all be blamed on the New Pearl Harbor. As this book is evidence, Pakistan was, first and foremost, destroyed by the active connivance of its own military, its own politicians, its own literati, its own press, its own fifth columnists, and by the silent apathy of its 180 million spectating public who are still to become the greatest victims of “imperial mobilization”. That fancy phraseology is Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s, from his layered 1997 blueprint for what’s happening along the “arc of crisis” in the “Global Zone of Percolating Violence” today, titled “The Grand Chessboard – American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives”. The preceding two phrases are also Zbigniew Brzezinski’s, respectively from a January 15, 1979 Time magazine article titled ‘IRAN: The Crescent of Crisis’, and from Brzezinski’s 1997 attempt at his own Mein Kampf.
This scribe’s 2003 unpublished book titled “Prisoners of the Cave” (available as an Ebook), had already systematically deconstructed Brzezinski’s statecraft. And the scribe’s 2011 Ebook “Poor-Man’s Guide to Modernity”, succinctly updates that analysis to match the empiricism of our times.
None of this is, or has been, rocket science. Nevertheless, to the “likkha-parrha jahils” (the super-learned peoples with college degrees) of modernity, in every nation, it evidently is rocket science. There is nothing this scribe can do about such “learned peoples” of any society. Even so, this volume addresses their “learnedness” once again. These are the very peoples who must experience a metanoia (a change of mind, a rebirth) in order to effectively lead the termination of the abhorrent conditions of our times. The rest of the public by themselves are merely putty in the hands of the demagogues otherwise, oft taken for a ride between bread and circuses on the one hand, and rioting for “revolution” and sloganeering for “democracy” on the other.
Chapter 1 of Volume 3 therefore, is intended to be a self-study tutorial for the “likkha-parrha jahils”, whether of Pakistan, or the Middle East, or the West. The learned reader is encouraged to visit the web links for the many voices cited therein in order to give due diligence to this subject which, from day one, has been wrapped in layers upon layers of deception. Only when the first principles of modern statecraft become apparent to the “likkha-parrha jahils”, only when the fundamental light bulb of insight into Machiavelli and the Hegelian Dialectic goes off in one’s head, shall the rest ever follow. Before then, one will inevitably remain chained by one’s neck as the proverbial prisoner of the cave (Plato) despite all of one’s fancy qualifications, titles, degrees, and lauded accomplishments. This is true irrespective of nationality, religion, sex, caste, or creed. And it is as true of Pakistanis and Middle Easterners as Americans and Europeans. All peoples today, despite our modernity and our information age, share a common constant companion – the new age of Jahiliya! In addition to the companion Ebook “A Poor-Man’s Guide to Modernity”, this ignoble fact is further demonstrated in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of Volume 3. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 comprise this scribe’s latest ripostes with various useful idiots and “likkha-parrha jahils” of Pakistan.
Chapter 8 is the anchoring chapter of this short and final volume of The Pakistan Decapitation Papers. Judge for yourself the sublime character of the ordinary Pakistani housewife turned activist that is narrated therein. Can one imagine just ten million activist home-makers like that in Pakistan, and in every nation on earth, coming out of their kitchens!
A nation can surely suffer its fools and still survive, but not its house negroes and fifth columnists. Nor the silence of its peoples. No nation and no peoples can survive its traitors, or an apathetic public drawn mainly to bread and circuses. It was the traitors who enabled the East India Company to colonize the indo sub-continent with treachery in the yesteryear. And it is the traitors who are enabling the owners of the former East India Company to colonize the world with treachery into a one-world government.
Therefore, to continue to describe what has been obvious to this scribe from the very day of September 11, 2001, and what was also visible to the few sighted – that 9/11 was an ‘Operation Canned Goods’ to launch “imperial mobilization” for the global Fourth Reich of the oligarchs – has already been a matter of “I told you so” for these past ten years. That is not just of zero consolation to this author, but is also of immense pain to see one’s own nation destroyed by the handful of slaves and house niggers carrying the White Man’s Burden for the white man!
In another day and age, all such house niggers and fifth columnists across the nations of the world, including in the United States of America, along with the puppetmasters behind the scenes, would hang from the tallest gallows many times over. That timeless hope, if there can ever be any consolation for what’s being inflicted upon the ‘lesser humanity’, is the last prayer on each and every lip as they struggle for their final breaths at the nightmarish altar of full spectrum tyranny.
Only the dead have seen the end of war. For those still living, the silent spectators, the unfortunate narrators unpeeling truths protective layers, the bullshit purveyors adding more obfuscating layers, and the henchmen niggers, the travails are only just beginning.
Perhaps God too sheds a tear for the living – the dead have already returned to it.
Zahir Ebrahim,
June 20, 2011
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United Kingdom False Flag Forecast, Summer 2011
NOVANEWS
By Abu Salem sofyan, Islamic Intelligence
Captain Eric H. May, Iconoclast Intelligence
WEDNESDAY, 6/22/11 — The often unspoken and officially unspeakable fear overhanging Europe this summer is that Israel will carry out a new 9/11 attack against it. The announcement last month that Interpol had created a nuclear terror unit inspired more fear than faith.
London intelligence insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity, inform us that Mossad is planning a false flag operation against the city’s new Olympic stadium for mid-August. August 12 is a day to mark, they say, since it will be one year before the 8/12/2012 opening of the London Summer Olympics. They add that young Pakistanis living in the poorest parts of London will be blamed, and that Scotland Yard has already prepared a long list of suitable suspects.
Like all good false flag plans, this one offers prizes to perpetrators, bounties to betrayers and fodder to fascists — all necessary to keep the cabal in cahoots. The Israeli Interlopers are already in Britain’s backyard, posing as guard dogs, while authorities pretend to be deaf dumb and blind about it all. It’s strikingly similar to 7/7 and 9/11:
London is Israel’s laboratory for 2012 summer Olympics
The current issue of Private Eye reports that Heathrow Airport will have shiny new equipment for screening passengers installed with the help of several Israeli firms as part of preparations for next year’s Olympic Games. The sporting event affords an opportunity to run a “live test” on the Total Airport Security System (TASS).
The Israeli false flag plan may include both the UK and the US simultaneously. The American government faces financial default in mid-August, and would welcome a major distraction. It may even be that a London false flag attack is part of a late-summer world war plan — the last two world wars began in late summer, after all. Multinational, multifaceted and multipurpose false flag operations aren’t rare, and have occurred in recent memory:
7/11/06: Half a day after the Mumbai train bombings, there was a train bombing scare in Chicago. A thousand terrified commuters thought that they were under attack, and more than a hundred were sent to area hospitals. On the same day the Bush Family and its retainers were assembling in Houston, ostensibly for Ken Lay’s funeral, The next day, while they praised and buried their crooked crony, Israel invaded Lebanon. The plot could have come right out of The Godfather.
10/18/07 started with a false flag alert to the Houston area petrochemical industry, followed four hours later by a nearby Dow Chemical explosion. Portland’s KBOO radio confirmed the news. They were interested because it was their last day in the ominous TOPOFF-4 radioactive bomb exercise, in which their city was ground zero. Thefirst assassination attempt against Benazir Bhutto happened between the Dow Chemical explosion and the KBOO news broadcast. That afternoon Houston’s petrochemical area was closed off for four hours because of aradioactive accident. At the same time Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff appeared in Portland to command the dirty bomb drill. It soon began to go live when a bomb alert from Chertoff’s entourage forced a downtown evacuation. In the middle of it all came a stark warning from Capitol Hill:
United States Democratic Congressman Slams Bush
“The truth is, Bush just likes to blow things up in Iraq, in the United States and in Congress!” — Representative Pete Stark, 10/18/07
Global military operations were certainly in action on both days. They included options for false flag attacks against Chicago, Houston and Portland as provocations for pulling the U.S. deeper into the quicksand war in the Middle East, probably beginning with an attack against Iran.
United Kingdom Secondary Targets
(London Is the Primary)
The Dover-Calais Passage: ICTS is the Israeli security company involved in both 9/11 and 7/7. French president Nicolas Sarkozy, identified as a Mossad Jewish sayan (helper) by the major French newspaper Le Figero, last year awarded ICTS the security contract for the Port of Calais in the North of France. This means that the English Channel cities of Calais and Dover are likely factors in any Israeli false flag plans against Northwest Europe.
Southampton has one of the biggest ports in Northern Europe for shipments to and from the United States. This makes it an ideal place to smuggle, store and finally ship nukes or dirty bombs to U.S. East Coast cities. Or to look at it the other way around, Southampton is a natural target for a U.S. East Coast false flag operation (cleared by the British government, of course) to engage an expendable UK city.
United Kingdom Muslims are a target, too. The outcome of Queen Elizabeth’s May visit to Northern Ireland has been a renewal of troublesome times in the Emerald Island, and a general rise in Irish/English tensions. Under ever-expanding “national security” and “anti-terror” powers, ethnic conflict is a fine trigger for domestic despotism. Did the queen’s Irish campaign aim to provoke the troubles of late spring in order to train forces for something more dire in late summer?
If the false flag happens expect:
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Reduction of Christian/Muslim relations.
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Repression of United Kingdom Muslims.
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Reneging on Muslim Olympics contracts.
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Restriction of Muslim Olympics workers.
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Revitalization of anti-Muslim jingoism.
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Retaliation against Pakistan and/or Iran.
What kind of devils prepare, perform and profit from such inhumanity against humanity? The same devils who have always done so. We described them as tyrants of terror and merchants of menace in our last article, in which we designated Chicago, Houston and Portland as the top three false flag targets in the USA.
God willing, we’ll post our next article Thursday or Friday. It will examine the German false flag danger, so worrisome that a German attorney recently officially filed: Warning Nuclear Terror Attack June 26, 2011, Berlin Olympia Stadium, FIFA Women`s Soccer World Cup.
(Al-Isra[17]:4)
“And We gave (clear) warning to the children of Israel in the Book, that twice would they do mischief on the land and be elated with mighty arrogance (And twice would they be punished)!”
The authors dedicate this article to the memory of anti-warrior Brian Haw, who kept a lonesome vigil for his slumbering country. Requiescat in pace.
Bahrain Sues to Suppress Police State Terror Truths
NOVANEWS
by Stephen Lendman
On June 14, London Independent writer Robert Fisk headlined, “I saw these brave doctors trying to save lives – these charges are a pack of lies,” saying:
The Khalifa monarchy “started an utterly fraudulent trial of 48 surgeons, doctors, paramedics and nurses, accusing them of trying to topple the tin-pot monarchy of this Sunni minority emirate.”
One of many Bahrain articles addressed this topic, accessed through the following link:Torturing Bahraini Doctors
Fisk said he witnessed medical heroism firsthand, “drenched in their patients’ blood, desperately trying to staunch the bullet wounds of pro-democracy demonstrators, shot in cold blood” by state security force thugs, a Khalifa monarchy specialty.
“The idea that (these doctors) are guilty of (state crimes) is not just preposterous. It is insane, a total perversion, (the) total opposite (of) truth….(Bahrain is) a Saudi palatinate, a confederated province of Saudi Arabia, a pocket-sized weasel state from which all journalists should in future use the dateline: Manama, Occupied Bahrain.”
On June 15, Independent writer Richard Hall headlined, “Bahrain ‘to sue over Independent reporting,’ ” saying:
The Khalifa monarchy “commissioned a UK-based law firm to file a case against The Independent for its reporting on the crackdowns on (internal) protests….”
Mainly directed against Fisk’s article, it also claims that:
“using columns, features and news to publish misinformation in repeated attacks on our people and rulers amounts to libel and will be treated as such in accordance with the law.”
The monarchy, of course, spurns international law and its own constitution, reigning daily terror since mid-February on pro-democracy supporters. In fact, every imaginable barbarity is being inflicted, including Obama administration supported cold-blooded murder, mass arrests, detentions, torture, and bogusly charging medical providers helping victims with baseless crimes.
Lawyers for London contributor David Banks asked, “Can Bahrain’s government sue the Independent for libel?” saying:
If it succeeds, it will defy “the well-established principle that governments cannot sue for libel,” instituted in 1993 by the House of Lords in the Derbyshire County Council v. Times newspapers case.
Two Times articles “questioned the propriety of investments for the Council’s superannuation fund. The authority sued for libel for the damage done to its reputation.” The lower court denied it. The Council appealed. Dismissing it, the House of Lords said:
“It was of the highest importance that a democratically elected governmental body should be open to uninhibited public criticism, and since the threat of civil actions for defamation would place an undesirable fetter on the freedom to express such criticism, it would be contrary to the public interest for institutions of central or local government to have any right at common law to maintain an action for damages for defamation.”
Since then, central and local governments weren’t able to sue for libel, knowing they’d be denied. However, Banks cautioned that Britain’s libel principle applies to UK “democratic governments,” not police state monarchies like Bahrain, dismissing legal standards to further their own lawlessness with impunity.
Nonetheless, it would “set a curious precedent” if British courts let UK libel laws protect unelected despots, but not their own governmental bodies.
However, while authorities themselves can’t sue, individuals may do so even if governments fund them. As a result, a Bahraini minister, perhaps one or more royal family members, or King Hamad, could file libel charges on their own, whether or not it could work. Facing incontrovertible evidence, that very much is in doubt.
Moreover, the “Reynolds defence” would apply – namely, that “The Independent was responsibly and fairly reporting matters of the highest public interest.”
Perhaps Bahrain aims more to intimidate than prevail by pursuing expensive proceedings it can afford better than publications, giving others pause on what they say.
Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) on Bahrain
On June 15, an IHRC action alert headlined, “Bahrain to Chair UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee whilst destroying its own heritage,” saying:
On June 19, Bahrain began chairing the 35th Session of The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO in Paris. At the same time, it’s been demolishing mosques, as well as ravaging its Shia majority with impunity.
Moreover, the Khalifa monarchy has systematically destroyed Bahrain’s culture for decades, including old buildings, palm tree huts, other traditions, and 21 ancient licensed mosques, including one over 640 years old.
Its membership on the World Heritage Committee is outrageous. Chairing it is intolerable. Write to Irina Bokova, UNESCO’s Director-General demanding its removal, expulsion, and censure for its actions.
Bahrain Expels Independent Journalist
On June 18, Finian Cunningham was deported for reporting critically on Bahraini abuses, despite living there for three years and covering the uprising from its mid-February inception.
In a June 12 interview, he said the monarchy’s call for “national dialogue” was hollow, cynical public relations, while reigning terror on its citizens. He also criticized Washington and Britain for turning a blind eye to its brazen abuses, including cold-blooded murder, torture, lawless arrests, and sham trials against innocent defendants.
Now in Belfast, he said:
“My lasting impression of Bahrain is not the brutish nation of its illegitimate rulers, but the bravery and decency of its ordinary men, women, and youths in their noble struggle for freedom.”
The night he left, he witnessed 150,000 in Sitra demanding legitimate freedoms. Despite months of police state terror, “(t)he people are stronger than ever and are more determined than ever to bring democracy and freedom to Bahrain.”
Western media and governments barely notice or care, supporting ruthless terror states like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain and many others, instead of condemning, isolating, sanctioning, and ending diplomatic and economic relations.
Bahrain also threatens arrests and prosecutions for anyone speaking freely with media sources regarding human rights abuses and denial of democratic freedoms. As a result, persons appearing on camera or known to speak openly face severe recriminations.
In fact, CNN reporter Amber Lyon said sources who spoke to her later disappeared, their family members explaining they’d been arrested or forced into hiding after security forces raided their homes and threatened them. Yet Article 10 of Bahrain’s Human Rights Act says:
“(E)veryone has the right of freedom expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”
The Khalifa monarchy, in fact, spurns fundamental human rights, governing despotically, targeting anyone challenging its authority ruthlessly.
On June 20, Independent writer Alistair Dawber headlined, “Bahraini leadership faces new claims that torture took place in hospital,” saying:
Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres – MSF) “alleges that (state) security forces…. regularly beat hospital patients who had injuries….sustained during the rallies that started in February.”
MSF, in fact, confirmed the existence of “a torture chamber maintained by Bahraini forces within the hospital. And it provide(d) fresh evidence that retribution was not limited to the alleged ringleaders of the protests.”
A Bahraini surgeon’s March 15 email to the British professor who trained him said:
“I am in the hospital exhausted and overwhelmed by the number of young lethally injured casualties. It’s genocide to our people and our hospital doctors and nurses are targeted for helping patients by pro-government militia.”
Two days later, Bahraini security force thugs stormed the hospital, reigning terror on pro-democracy patients and medical providers helping them.
On June 20, Bahrain 14Feb. Revolution said mentally disabled Hassan Nooh was maliciously held incommunicado for over two years.
On March 28, security forces stormed Nooh Yahya Abdalqahir’s home. He was out, and Hassan there at the time was seized to force his surrender. On March 29, Abdalqahir submitted to arrest. Hassan remains in custody. Family members know nothing, expressing concern because he can’t care for himself.
On June 19, Bahrain 14Feb. Revolution also said 70-year old Hasan Al-Sitri was murdered while walking in the Nuwaidrat area. Evidence showed his neck broken and a large wound on his back.
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued conflicting reports. One said he died naturally, another that he was struck with a heavy object, and a third that he fell during a confrontation with three men, hitting his head on rocks.
The Ministry also demanded family members sign a death certificate, claiming his death was “normal.” They refused, wanting an autopsy. It confirmed death from two blows with heavy objects, causing severe neck fractures.
A Final Comment
Bahrain is a lawless terror state. Its people wanting to live free are brutalized. Western media hardly notice. Washington offers wholehearted support. In early June, Obama met with crown prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa at the White House, the equivalent of welcoming a serial killer.
Afterwards he met with Hillary Clinton. She called Bahrain “a partner, and a very important one….and we are supportive of a national dialogue and the kinds of important work that the Crown Prince has been doing in his nation, and we look forward to it continuing.”
Unexplained was her support for preventing Bahraini democracy, no matter the body count to achieve it.
New Iranian Nuke “Fairytale” Uncovered
NOVANEWS
Arms Dealer, Terrorist Used to “Sell” Iran Nuke Fairytale
Bin Laden May Have Aided US in Nuke Recovery Attempt
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor
A shadowy figure, calling himself “Beecham” has contacted intelligence agencies in the west, claiming proof of Iran’s payment into a Swiss bank of 8.5 tons of gold. His claim, that this is payment for 3 missing American thermonuclear weapons is an old story, a fairly tale from the past, re-concocted to support an attack on Iran. “Beecham” is not who he says he is. We know his real name, a terrorist and arms dealer allowed to roam free because of his powerful friends. Today he is claiming he sold nukes to Iran. In 2003 he said he sold nukes to Saddam, another carefully scripted lie.
He really works for himself but his business partners are Tel Aviv and Saudi Arabia. This is why he is free despite enough evidence to jail him for many lifetimes.
Today, he is buying his way back into “good graces” by fueling the Iranian nuclear controversy, seeding blatant falsehood and wild conjecture to the security agencies. Soon, these lies will end up in the media, pushing a sick agenda, much as Wikileaks had done last year, in a last ditch attempt to draw America into a disastrous war with Iran before drawdowns in Afghanistan and disengagement from Iraq and the conflict in Libya make the likelihood of more American involvement in the region impossible.
After all, Iran was the target in the first place, planned well before 9/11 and, quite likely, the real intended target of the false flag 9/11 attacks. Sources confirming these hypotheses are multiplying like rabbits.
BACKGROUND
It has long been proven by every regulatory agency and two consecutive National Security Assessments that Iran has no nuclear weapons program. Despite this fact, President Obama, at the behest of Israel’s Benjamin Nethanyahu, continues to insist that, despite conclusive proof to the contrary, Iran should face international sanctions and perhaps even attack. Iraq suffered that same fate, killing untold hundreds of thousands there along with killing, wounding or disabling 400,000 Americans in the process.
Now an attempt has been discovered, an intelligence operation, fabricating evidence that Iran purchased 3 “missing” American nuclear weapons lost during the Gulf War. This is the second attempt to peddle this identical story, a “last ditch” effort to build on President Obama’s foolish bellicosity on Iran, his personal “kowtow” to the Israel lobby who have offered him an open account to finance his reelection campaign.
The extreme secrecy of the “broken arrow” incident itself is the “icing on the cake.” This means any and all briefings are so classified that when word leaks out, it will have that same “Colin Powell” smell about it:
“Believe me, I have seen the evidence, and we have solid proof…”
What most don’t know is that this exact same play was tried before, back in 2003 and it worked. The real “WMD” briefings that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq didn’t involve biological or chemical weapons. They were highly secret briefings that placed 3 missing nuclear weapons built by South Africa and Israel, weapons purchased by Britain and “misplaced,” into the hands of Saddam. While the press talked of “WMD’s,” the “big name” Pentagon and National Security Council gang, they and their selected congressional insiders, got private briefings.
They heard wild stories of missing nuclear weapons, stories no more real than the Hollywood depictions used to predispose public perceptions and fears.
This is really what Britain’s Dr. David Kelly came forward about and most probably why he died mysteriously, an impossible suicide, now a coverup that that is tearing Britain apart. He knew it was all lies. Moreover, he could prove it. He had to die.
KELLY’S STORY CHECKS OUT
These nukes existed, we tracked them, Dr. David Kelly arranged their shipment in 1990, and they disappeared. Intelligence reports out of Israel “proved conclusively” that Saddam bought them and was planning on using them. Yes, they existed. Yes, they were shipped from South Africa, we have interviewed the individuals who arranged the transit and accompanied the weapons, 9 in total, 6 to the US and 3 to Oman.
Yes, 3 went missing then but we know where they went. They went to Israel. One of them was sold to North Korea, their only successful nuclear explosion, in 2009. It matched, exactly, the 1979 Israeli test, same size, same design, same uranium source.
Now the same deal is being sold again, the first Gulf War coming back to haunt us all. Even some of the characters are the same, including the Rhodesian arms dealer tied to the first lost nukes, the top of the real conspirator list when the mysterious death of Lady Diana is examined. “Lady Di” worked to eliminate land mines from the planet. Our “friends” made millions selling land mines, particularly to Iraq and Iran during their decade long conflict.
HOW DO YOU LOSE 6 NUKES, BIN LADEN’S ROLE
Despite all the TV chatter about missing Soviet “suitcase nukes,” the real disasters have always been NATO. There have been semi-public admissions of several “misplaced” weapons tied to aircraft “incidents” over the years, off Spain and in Canada for instance. Back in 2007, the USAF “misplaced” a planeload of nukes. The public was informed they were recovered. A dozen mysterious deaths, accidents and suicides followed and a new command structure was created.
America lost 6 or more nukes in 1991 when a B 52G went down off Diego Garcia. Records show it dumped its nuclear cargo off Somalia. Past that, everything goes dark. Were they recovered? We are now told the US called on Osama bin Laden to help in the recovery of these weapons. Sources indicate the nukes were recovered by a South African group and moved inland through the port of Mombasa.
An unconfirmed report states that a 1998 recovery effort in Kenya and Tanzania involved staging “Al Qaeda” bombing attacks on the US embassies there. Sources have bin Laden working directly with the CIA in these attacks meant to provide cover for a “broken arrow” operation. Other confirmed reports supported by documents have bin Laden supporting CIA efforts in China as late as 2001. It was December of that year when the CIA reported the loss of bin Laden. As he is said to have died of natural causes, it is not believed that he is represented by a memorial “star” in the CIA lobby at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
BROKEN ARROW HISTORY
From a Veterans Today exclusive report from nearly a year ago:
There are nuclear weapons out there, maybe in terrorists hands, two or five, as many as seven or more. Iran and North Korea didn’t build them. North Korea’s nuclear program is a sham and Iran may simply be a scapegoat. Iran is not building nuclear weapons, they don’t possess the necessary centrifuges to enrich uranium. Using their available technology, a nuclear weapon could not be produced in a century.
However, the threat of nuclear terrorism is very real, the facts are there but America is sitting on the truth. Remember three names, Valerie Plame and Dr. David Kelly and Mordechai Vanunu. Plame was “burned” as an American spy, burned by the Bush administration. Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, “Scooter” Libby (Liebowitz) was convicted of the crime but received a pardon from President Bush.
Plame wasn’t looking for “yellow cake” uranium from Niger, she was looking for lost nuclear weapons. When she got close, she was destroyed and then silenced by the Justice Department. Dr. David Kelly was a weapons scientist in Britain until his very unexpected suicide while trying to report wrongdoing tied to missing nuclear weapons, wrongdoing he attributed directly to Prime Minister Tony Blair. A secret investigation currently being conducted has ruled his death a murder and top members of government, from Blair downward are being grilled about, not only this, but missing nuclear weapons, a subject newspapers are being threatened to stay silent on daily.
Mordechai Vanunu is a nuclear weapons specialist who worked at the illegal Dimona facility in Israel. When he fled the country and alerted the world about the nuclear program there, he was kidnapped, returned to Israel and put in solitary confinement for 18 years. He has been under house arrest or in solitary confinement after his release. He is currently locked in a small cell in a secret prison in Israel for talking to someone not on his official list of contacts.
These three people and a number of people behind them hold the key to the biggest story in recent years, a massive worldwide coverup so frightening it is treated almost as though it was involved secret UFO landings. Not everyone has all the information. Some key figures are waiting for the results of the investigations going on in London now, the findings of which will be above top secret.
Stories are leaking out and some have been reported over the years, labeled “conspiracy theory” but partially accurate, at least in some of the most frightening facts, but also filled with conjecture and wrong conclusions. The same stories went to all the major news sources along with documents and reliable first hand testimony from people like, well, Dr. David Kelly, murder victim.
There is nothing more dangerous than a journalist in love with their own ideas. Anything can be falsified, as we saw in the videos Israel released after the Mavi Marmara incident showing cheap special effects with people walking through walls. Any piece of paper, using simple technology, can be created with ease and any person interviewed can lie, most do, especially those with political or military careers. What has happened is that journalists in the United Kingdom and around the world have been receiving information, some from highly placed sources, first person testimony and much backed by documentation. The results haven’t been a solid conspiracy but a mosaic of facts, some proven, some very likely and some questionable.
As a reader, a citizen and a person concerned for the safety of family and friends, the information if shocking but incomplete. Let’s start with what we know.
THE STORY UNFOLDS
The story isn’t about politics as much as the international trade in weapons. As weapons, particularly the “mass destruction” kind, can alter history, the politics are sure to follow. We will start with Israel, the first “high threat” small nation to have nuclear weapons. A fact we know is that Britain, in the 1960s, sold a small amount of plutonium to Israel for use in experiments in nuclear weapon design. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan authorized this extremely illegal act. We also know that the CIA informed President Kennedy that Israel was building nuclear weapons at their “peaceful” Dimona reactor. Kennedy demanded to inspect the reactor, a demand refused. By far, the most likely reason for the killings of John and Robert Kennedy was their opposition to these weapons. All other reasons given, when even examined superficially, are simply silly.
What we do know for sure is that people who have held evidence on Israeli involvement in the Kennedy killings have been subjected to decades of well documented assaults, everything from stalking to murder of family members. Documentation on this is extensive and has long been in the hands of federal authorities up to and including the President of the United States.
There is considerable evidence that “Israeli Firsters” in the United States shipped significant amounts of plutonium to Israel. When the information leaked out, cover stories listing 6.5 tons were put out by Israel as part of their “junkyard dog” scare tactics. However, the figures on bomb production given to the British press by Mordechai Vanunu indicate that US produced fissionable material has made up the basis for Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
In addition, the Soviet Union is believed to have delivered tactical nuclear weapons to Israel in return for information supplied by Israeli spy, Jonathan Pollard, information such as launch codes, NATO battle plans, locations of American strategic weapons and the names of every CIA operative in the world. The US admits that 110 CIA agents lost their lives because of Israeli spying in the 1980s.
When the US took the Davy Crockett shoulder fired nuclear weapons out of service, some of these were transferred to Israel, though how, we have no idea. These were shown to US military officers on a “top secret” tour a few years ago and some familiar with out dated US weapons recognized them as American. The internet experts who continually rant on about the smallest nuclear weapon weighing three tons or more need to know that “Special Weapons Officers” regularly parachute with “nuclear munitions.”
During the 1970s, Israel and South Africa joined in a program to develop, not only nuclear weapons but biological and chemical weapons as well. Working closely with them were the following countries: Iran, Libya, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and North Korea.
We know for certain that ten nuclear weapons were built in South Africa, six of which were dismantled, one tested on September 22, 1979. Of the remaining three, one was detonated in North Korea on May 25, 2009. The three weapons, at the time in possession of Great Britain, 1991, were stolen and the whereabouts of the remaining two “Hiroshima sized” nuclear weapons is unknown. We also know, for certain, that Israel informed the Bush administration that these weapons were in the possession of Saddam Hussein, information that led to the invasion of Iraq. This information was totally false. Israel then told the US, while the invasion was on, that the weapons were being moved to Syria. This was also false, proven by US detection devices. Israel has since claimed these remaining nuclear weapons are either in Iran, Syria, Lebanon or Gaza.
A fact, Pakistan has never been involved in nuclear proliferation and Dr. A. Q. Khan is a patsy covering for another group at the demand of the United States. This is not conjecture.
When news services were told that 3 more nuclear weapons, thermonuclear W69 warheads, 3 or as many as 8, had “gone missing” from a damaged B-52 that crashed off Diego Garcia in 1990, few took it seriously, especially after vigorous denials by the United States. These weapons are plutonium based hydrogen bombs, out dated at the time, unstable and requiring regular servicing to replace the tritium gas necessary to trigger the second stage that makes these so much more deadly than simple fission devices.
The stories about these weapons have been reported in one variation or another for years with fact and fancy mixed to the point where no one takes this threat seriously. The stories of these missing American hydrogen bombs has been sent to every major news service in the world. Some don’t believe the stories and others have been threatened if they attempt to publish them. When we were told these weapons, three American hydrogen bombs, were ejected from a B-52 off the coast of Somalia we found the idea unlikely. When the names of those involved in the recovery, shipment and sale came up and we were able to directly verify many of the facts, we began to reconsider.
Aging hydrogen bombs are useless unless “recharged” every seven years, something only a nuclear state is capable of. However, they can be used for weapons such as the August 18, 2006 North Korean plutonium bomb that failed. North Korea is incapable of producing any plutonium, thus a plutonium bomb, especially one that proved ineffective, such as this one with an explosion of less than one kiloton, may have been a “Rube Goldberg” device made from an unserviced American weapon, in fact this is extremely likely. With North Korea exploding one fully verified nuclear weapon build by Israel and South Africa and an earlier failure that was certainly an aging unserviced device from another nuclear power, a pattern emerges. Some country is supplying North Korea with weapons to publicly test, for the purpose of creating political instability in the world.
Four nations are being actively investigated for these violations: South Africa, Pakistan, Israel and Iran.
There is no scientific proof, not available for publishing, that establishes the first plutonium device detonated by North Korea in 2006 as being an American W-69. However, intelligence agencies, since 1990, have scoured the planet offering nuclear triggering devices to any buyer, as part of sting operations. It is believed by many that Dr. A. Q. Khan of Pakistan assisted in this intelligence effort.
With a proper triggering device, even an aging W69 warhead could be converted from its thermonuclear state to a configuration similar to the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, but much more powerful.
CURRENT BRITISH EFFORTS
Britain’s concern is the Israeli/South African weapons, three of which it took into possession in 1990. Current Prime Minister David Cameron, then a member of parliament, was involved in the negotiations and Dr. David Kelly made the arrangements.
Funding authorizations were signed personally by Margaret Thatcher in a classified document referring to the bombs as “cylinders.”
We are told by informants tied to the highest levels of the British security services that the current closed hearings are not just to determine if who is responsible for the death of Dr. David Kelley, who we have also been informed was not just ready to inform on Tony Blair falsifying intelligence leading up to the war but on much wider areas.
The David Kelley “suicide” is one of the most famous in British history. Kelley is said to have killed himself after being attacked on the BBC for saying Tony Blair lied about WMD’s. Were people who know Tony Blair to have lied to have killed themselves, all of them, our planet might today be barren of human life entirely. Kelley’s involvement in South Africa was twofold. He investigated relationships between Russia and the Mossad in South Africa tied to, not only the manufacture of illegal germ warfare weapons but their use as well. The South Africa Truth Commission outlined instances where bio-weapons were deployed in Africa in a program involving Israel, Libya and Russia. The program which also developed a number of crop diseases is said to have relocated, not to Iraq as claimed, but to Israel. In fact, all of the programs said by Bush and Blair to have been in Iraq were, in fact, South African and later relocated in Israel. Iraq had used bio-weapons and gas but had purchased these weapons from brokers involved in Iran-Contra with ties to, not only South Africa and Rhodesia but Israel and the United States as well.
The South African Truth Commission also released in their report that the United States, not only purchased poison gas from South Africa but deployed it in Iraq, gas which may well have indirectly poisoned hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. Invoices for purchases of BZ gas by the United States and evidence of its use in Iraq are currently in the public domain.
THE KELLY DEATH
The Kelly death, though ruled a suicide despite the fact all forensic evidence indicated otherwise, was actually blamed on Iraq by Ahmed Chalabi, fabricator of much of the false evidence NATO troops followed across Iraq, from on imaginary sight to another in their fruitless search for weapons labs, a story outlined in the recent film, Green Zone. Kelley was found in a wooded area in Oxfordshire, an area 40 some miles outside London. Around the body were packets of harmless arthritis medications and a half filled bottle of Evian spring water. Autopsy results show a minuscule amount of medication in his body and injuries inflicted by a dull kitchen paring knife, injuries not potentially fatal. Kelly had told of being stalked by security services, of a recent break-in and how he had been warned to keep silent or he faced being “found dead in the woods somewhere.”
Informants who tie this murder to weapons of mass destruction, some to Israeli involvement and others to stolen nuclear weapons sold to North Korea, a crime Israel is suspected of, have amazing pedigrees. Nearly all are full fledged “James Bond” types from the highest levels of the intelligence services or directly tied to companies long involved in support of covert operations. This is a group of people who have “royals” on speed dial.
THE “BUSH-BLAIR” FACTOR
The missing nuclear weapons that Dr. David Kelly was directly involved in moving from South African and Israeli hands to British custody are one of the biggest secrets in recent history. That they were stolen and one of the weapons exploded in North Korea, a fact verified by western intelligence services, would be a security concern but is also a serious crime. Britain has a law called The Nuclear Explosions Act. This law states that if any “British resident” has knowledge of a nuclear explosion not involved in a war, they may be imprisoned for life, initially even without trial. The purpose of the law was to punish any British citizen or resident who got involved in trading nuclear weapons or hiding information.
One British citizen is at the center of this enquiry, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, tied to allegations that he had been briefed in 1997 about missing nuclear weapons and failed to act to recover them. Stories coming in list mysterious campaign donations, millions, from foreign arms dealers, not just to Blair but even earlier on, funding John Major’s campaign as well. The British “spooks” pressing stories on the papers, stories still largely suppressed, have much of Britain’s government involved in running interference for these illicit nuclear weapons.
Remember, there are two sets, one heading out of Oman, the “Hiroshima” sized nukes and the other out of Somalia. This is where it gets tricky. Word out of Somalia confirms, not only a possible recovery of nukes, done by a South African diving group claiming to be on a treasure hunt and more confirmations have prominent white South African politicians contacting sources for, not only triggers but special equipment to load and ship the weapons as well, dealing with companies known and backed by reliable testimony.
Another story says the US went after these nukes when they were shipping through Kenya and blew up an embassy blaming Osama bin Laden. No hard confirmations but they are expected. If this is true, everything Americans have been told about Al Qaeda is a total fiction, covering a “broken arrow” operation that has been ongoing for well over two decades.
AMERICAN SILENCE, NO INVESTIGATION, NO NEWS, NOTHING BUT COVERUP
When “lost nuke” recovery team leader Valerie Plame was framed by Republicans close to President Bush, was this to cover Bush or Tony Blair or Israel. The Plame “outing” puts the lost nukes in Israel. None of the other possible countries that could be holding the weapons would get White House protection. Plame got too close but couldn’t be murdered like Dr. David Kelly, not with a husband that had the kind of political connections that Plame has.
How many stories in the news have been nothing but cover for one half baked attempt after another to recover nuclear weapons that may be in South Africa, perhaps at the bottom of a mine with the Israeli nuclear arsenal rumored to be stored there? Remember when a B-52 filled with nukes showed up at Barksdale Air Force Base, all by accident, a “bent spear” misplaced nuke gambit supposedly a mutiny of top Air Force officials who refused to take part in moving these weapons forward to Diego Garcia? Ever wonder why such a story was never made into a movie of the week for the Hallmark Channel?
No, the end of the story isn’t here. Investigations are ongoing, only in Britain. We will never know what they reveal, well, that’s not true. I will get a call. Will I hear the truth?
Resistance: No warrant – no entry. No knock – no mercy.
NOVANEWS
by J. Bruce Campbell
Notice:
This is an American home. 4th Amendment in effect.
No warrant – no entry. No knock – no mercy.
America is a violent country. It was founded in violence, in revolution against a violent England. It expanded to its present size in just over a century by violent conquest. During that period, eighteen northern states invaded and conquered eleven southern states in an aggression that killed over six hundred thousand Americans. Whole cities and towns in the South were burned down.
Thirty-five years later, America invaded Cuba and the Philippine Islands and slaughtered a million and a half Filipinos, mostly civilians.
Fifteen years later, America invaded Europe. Twenty-five years later, America invaded Europe again along with China, North Africa and many Pacific islands. American soldiers slaughtered millions of Germans and Japanese, a quarter million of the latter in a few seconds.
Five years later, America invaded Korea. What else can we call it when one country puts its troops in another country? America killed many hundreds of thousands of Koreans and Chinese soldiers.
During this period, America overthrew elected governments in Latin America and Iran and waged secret wars all over the world. One of them culminated in the Vietnam War, which produced three million dead Vietnamese and about sixty thousand Americans, but it made some Americans very rich.
Today the world is confronted with an America that, without permission from the people or the Congress, is at war with most of the Moslem peoples. We are at (undeclared) war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen, as far as we know. Presently we shall also be at war with Syria, Somalia and Sudan. Iran, perhaps, after that. China and Russia are the ultimate targets of the Washington warlords.
Suffice it to say, America is a very violent country. Our primary business now is manufacturing and selling weapons of war.
The word “torture” used to be one that we would not expect to find in the same sentence with “America.” No longer. Today, America stands for torture, with centers for agony located all over the world.
You could figure out after watching THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO five years ago that army and CIA torture of Moslems is an experiment. The Jews who run our government and the Israeli government want to deprogram Moslems from their belief system. Innocent Moslems are tortured for years to get them to renounce Islam, which has not been successful. When the experiment runs its course, the victim, if he survives, is released without comment, apology or explanation. The victim is warned not to discuss or complain lest he be re-arrested.
At the same time as this was going on, the army and CIA developed a plan to vaccinate Moslems to eliminate what they call “the god gene.” To precipitate the vaccination program the army would release a disease such as flu. Then it would offer the vaccine to protect the population. The vaccine would render the potential freedom fighter harmless to Jewish and American aggressors, now essentially the same things.
Here
is a Pentagon scientist discussing the zombie-vaccine with military types who would put it to use. The army calls it “Fun-vax,” which is designed to vaccinate against Islamic fundamentalism by altering the victim’s DNA.
This is the mentality we are up against: Jewish fundamentalism, although it’s not just Jews. It’s Americans enforcing Jewish Rule, the most terrible combination in human history, a combination that has resulted in hundreds of millions of non-Jewish deaths since 1914.
American aggression has been guided by Jews since Woodrow Wilson was president, for virtually the whole of the 20th Century. That’s why we went to war against Germany twice in twenty-five years. That’s why we put Jewish monsters in charge of Russia, western Asia and parts of Europe. It’s why our Jewish-run government put Mao Tse-tung in charge of China. That’s why we put Jewish monsters in charge of Palestine. It’s why we are at war against Islam.
Now, I don’t know who Barack Obama is. I don’t know what he is, exactly. He’s probably a CIA agent representing the Brzezinski faction, which is why his entire history is falsified or a secret. That’s really the only possibility. He is reportedly a protégé of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Zbig Daddy is Polish and he doesn’t like the Israelis. I’d say this is behind Obama’s drastic attack on Netanyahu, whom he detests. It can be expected that America’s political Jews will remove Obama as an obstacle to Eretz Israel. Israel is supposed to get bigger, not smaller.
Obama is smart enough to know that he has little future, now that he has put the Zionists on the defensive with his demand that they return some stolen land to the Palestinians. He’s following the Brzezinski program of anti-Zionist provocation, something not seen since 1963, when Jack Kennedy did the same sort of thing to David Ben-Gurion over Israel’s horrifying nuclear warehouse. Brzezinski provoked the Soviets into invading Afghanistan by inventing and arming al-Qaeda.
This is the political environment in which the American resistance movement must operate, survive and eventually seize control. The police and federal anti-resistance apparatus is under the control of the CIA and the Mossad with the “fusion centers” or “information analysis centers,” designed to detect and neutralize any genuine resistance movement. The FBI’s got its civilian spook outfit they call “InfraGard,” which is the merger of amoral IT and other business executives with America’s number one domestic terrorist organization.
There is no legitimate basis for these centers of subversion. They must be dismantled by the resistance.
We can assume that non-violent resistance to federal tyranny will be modeled on activity by “Anonymous” and other groups in a loose network of anti-tyrant hackers which has shown the ability to get into the computers of the IMF, the US Senate, the FBI and the CIA, among many other high-powered companies and government agencies. “Anonymous” has declared cyber-war on all tyrants and has been engaged in battle for some time.
Because, however, America is such a violent country, as noted above, the resistance must be prepared to counter official violence with similar force. Peaceful and moral efforts such as hacking the computers of tyrannical agencies must be defended from violence. Due to the great size of the country and the logistics of defending resisters in far-flung locations, the defense will at first probably take the form of reprisals, which can be taken anywhere the tyrannical agency or privatized mercenary business has offices.
With the recent court decisions that forbid Americans from lawfully resisting warrantless home invasions by uniformed gangs, the mask is off our so-called legal system. The reason that police have become terrorists is because they are not sufficiently afraid of us. Most Americans have been disarmed mentally. This can be changed quickly by spreading the word to Americans that it is their duty to resist unwarranted deadly force with deadly force.
It will be the duty of the resistance to spread this word and to resist armed aggression with deadly force, i.e., to lead by example. The invaders are paid by us, which makes us the boss. When the boss doesn’t like what he sees, he makes changes. There must be an attitude adjustment in both the employer and the employee, to reestablish our proper relationship.
The resistance has to stand for healthy and constructive change in the nature of the American system. The system has been under the control of federalists ever since the adoption of the US Constitution in 1788. The Federalist Party lost power and died after the death of Alexander Hamilton, its founder, but its legacy lives to this day through the treacherous Constitution.
The main political goals of the resistance must be along these lines:
to nationalize the private company known as the Federal Reserve System;
to reestablish Congress as the supplier of debt-free currency, the US Note. Borrowing by the federal and state governments from private corporations and individuals must be prohibited in perpetuity;
to repudiate any part of the national debt that is the result of the Federal Reserve Act and profiteering by speculators – legitimate instruments such as US savings bonds to be paid in the new US Notes;
to decentralize power by replacing the federalist Constitution with an updated Articles of Confederation, withdraw from the federal government the power to tax, levy or conscript and to prohibit the forced redistribution of wealth;
to eliminate the dictatorial presidency and Supreme Court, neither of which was allowed under the Articles of Confederation, and produce a more rigorous Bill of Rights. States to be represented in Congress by appointed senators, the people by elected representatives;
to establish a defense against Jewish aggression, the underlying cause of America’s decline. Eliminate Jewish involvement in government, media, law, medicine and education and declare the rabbinical class a national enemy;
to demobilize the armed forces required for an aggressive foreign policy. The military industry be dismantled and converted to peaceful production of goods and services;
to investigate and prosecute all secret societies and organizations which have produced criminal government policies of aggression, theft and murder;
to prosecute war crimes as described in the War Crimes Act of 1996, which has no statute of limitations.
Keep in mind that all of the thousands of draconian laws and regulations that are strangling us today were allowed by just five out of nine men and women on the “Supreme Court.” This should persuade anyone that this ridiculous and arbitrary junta, which hijacked the 2000 presidential election, must be abolished forever.
Private monopolies in the legal and medical establishments would be abolished. The American Bar Association and the American Medical Association, among many others, have based their existence on a conflict of interest to the detriment of the American people. Their monopolies have benefited only their members, not the people.
These are some ideas for an American movement to resist and eventually overthrow the official and private forces of dictatorship that have been established for our control and destruction, which forces have already been successful in the murder and suffering of hundreds of millions of innocent people all around the world for the past one hundred years. It has been one hundred years since Edward Mandell House wrote a book he called Philip Dru: Administrator, published anonymously in 1911.
Colonel House not only selected Woodrow Wilson as the Democratic candidate in 1912; he created the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921 and urged the Democrat Party to make Franklin D. Roosevelt the Democratic candidate in 1932. House’s actions were responsible for the unprecedented loss of life and happiness which marked the 20th Century.
2011 is an appropriate year for the kick-off of a resistance movement to liberate us from the dark forces of murder, greed and theft whose headquarters are in the Masonic enclave known as Washington, DC.
The past one hundred years have shown that the sinister federal government must be abolished and replaced with a non-aggressive confederation of independent states.
Stealing Success Tel Aviv Style
NOVANEWS
Time to Put Brakes on Business as Usual and Take Israeli Hand Out of Our Pocket
by Philip Giraldi
By act of Congress, Israeli businesses can even bid on most American Federal and State government contracts just as if they were US companies…. so let’s take some steps to protect our economy from the information thieves from Tel Aviv and keep our money and jobs over here.
A curious op-ed “The Tel Aviv Cluster” by the reliably neoconnish David Brooks appeared in the New York Times on January 12th. Brooks enthused over the prowess of Israel’s high tech businesses, attributing their success in large part to Jewish exceptionalism and genius, which must have provided the ultimate feel good moment for Brooks, who is himself Jewish.
That Israel has a booming technology sector is undeniably true, but Brooks failed to mention other contributing factors such as the $101 billion dollars in US economic and military aid over the course of more than four decades, which does not include the additional $30 billion recently approved by President Barack Obama.
American assistance has financed and fueled Israel’s business growth while the open access and even “preferential treatment” afforded to Israeli exporters through the Israel Free Trade Implementation Act of 1985 has provided Israelis with the enormous US market to sell their products and services. By act of Congress, Israeli businesses can even bid on most American Federal and State government contracts just as if they were US companies.
Taking jobs away from Americans
Brooks was characteristically undisturbed by the fact that American taxpayer subsidized development of Israeli enterprises combined with the free access to the US economy and government contracts eliminates jobs and damages competing companies on this side of the Atlantic. And there is another aspect of Israel’s growing high tech sector that he understandably chose to ignore because it is extremely sleazy. That is the significant advantage that Israel has gained by systematically stealing American technology with both military and civilian applications. The US developed technology is then reverse engineered and used by the Israelis to support their own exports with considerably reduced research and development costs, giving them a huge advantage against American companies.
Selling secret U.S. technology to China
Sometimes, when the technology is military in nature and winds up in the hands of a US adversary, the consequences can be serious.
Israel has sold advanced weapons systems to China that are believed to incorporate technology developed by American companies, including the Python-3 air-to-air missile and the Delilah cruise missile. There is evidence that Israel has also stolen Patriot missile avionics to incorporate into its own Arrow system and that it used US technology obtained in its Lavi fighter development program, which was funded by the US taxpayer to the tune of $1.5 billion, to help the Chinese develop their own J-10 fighter.
AIPAC SHADOWS
Israeli spying on the U.S.
The reality of Israeli spying is indisputable. Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called “Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage.” The 2005 report states, “Israel has an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States. These collection activities are primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizable armaments industry.”
It adds that Israel recruits spies, uses electronic methods, and carries out computer intrusion to gain the information. The 2005 report concluded that the thefts eroded US military advantage, enabling foreign powers to obtain expensive technologies that had taken years to develop.
A 1996 Defense Investigative Service report noted that Israel has great success stealing technology by exploiting the numerous co-production projects that it has with the Pentagon. “Placing Israeli nationals in key industries …is a technique utilized with great success.”
A General Accounting Office (GAO) examination of espionage directed against American defense and security industries described how Israeli citizens residing in the US had stolen sensitive technology to manufacture artillery gun tubes, obtained classified plans for a reconnaissance system, and passed sensitive aerospace designs to unauthorized users.
An Israeli company was caught monitoring a Department of Defense telecommunications system to obtain classified information, while other Israeli entities targeted avionics, missile telemetry, aircraft communications, software systems, and advanced materials and coatings used in missile re-entry.
The GAO concluded that Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally.”
In June 2006, a Pentagon administrative judge overruled an appeal by an Israeli who had been denied a security clearance, stating, “The Israeli government is actively engaged in military and industrial espionage in the United States. An Israeli citizen working in the US who has access to proprietary information is likely to be a target of such espionage.” More recently, FBI counter intelligence officer John Cole has reported how many cases of Israeli espionage are dropped under orders from the Justice Department. He provides a “conservative estimate” of 125 worthwhile investigations into Israeli espionage involving both American citizens and Israelis that were stopped due to political pressure from above.
Recent Israeli activities – ignored by US press
Two recent stories that have been reported in the Israeli media but are strangely absent from the news on this side of the Atlantic demonstrate exactly what is going on and what is at stake.
The first story confirms that Israeli efforts to obtain US technology are ongoing. Stewart David Nozette, a US government scientist who was arrested on October 19, 2009 in an FBI sting operation after offering to spy for Israel has been waiting in jail to go to trial on espionage charges. New documents in the case were presented in the Federal court in Washington last week. The documents confirm that Nozette was a paid consultant for Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and it is believed that he passed to them classified material in return for an estimated $225,000 in consulting fees.
Examination of his computer by the FBI revealed that he was planning a “penetration of NASA” the US space agency and that he was also trying to crack into other scientists’ computers to obtain additional classified material. Other documents demonstrate that he was cooperating with two Israeli scientists who were administrators with IAI, Yossi Weiss and Yossi Fishman. Nozette made several trips to Israel without reporting them, which he was required to do because of his high security clearance. The FBI reportedly also has incriminating letters and other documents that were obtained from the computer.
The second story relates to the pending sale of twenty-five F-35 fighter planes to Israel. The F-35 is one of the most advanced fighter planes in the world. The $130 million planes would be purchased with US military assistance money, which means they would effectively be a gift from the US taxpayer. But Israel is balking at the sale reportedly because it wants to install some of its own local content in the aircraft.
The Pentagon has already made some concessions but is disinclined to grant approval for all the changes because to do so would require giving the Israelis full access to the plane’s advanced avionics and computer systems. Israel also wants to independently maintain the aircraft, which would also require access to all systems.
It would be nice to think that the Pentagon wants to keep the maintenance in American hands to preserve jobs, but the Defense Department has never cared about US workers before when the issue is Israel, and the real reason for the standoff is that Lockheed-Martin and the Pentagon both know that Israel will steal whatever it can if it gains access. It would then use the technology to market its own products at a price below that of US defense contractors.
Triple Whammy against Americans
The result would be a triple whammy for Uncle Sam: the expensive planes are given to Israel free, the technology is then stolen, and future sales vanish as our Israeli friends market their knock down versions of weapons systems reliant on the stolen technology.
So to David Brooks I would say that there is most definitely an economic surge taking place in high tech Israel, but it is less a miracle than the fruit of a long series of thefts and manipulations fueled by American tax money and the connivance of a Congress that is always willing to do favors for the country that it appears to love beyond all others.
I’m sure most Americans would wish the Israelis well and would applaud the prosperity that derives from their own industry and inventiveness but it is also time to put the brakes on business as usual and to take the Israeli hand out of our pocket. I’m sure Brooks’ job is pretty secure and well paid, but many Americans are out of work and suffering, so let’s take some steps to protect our economy from the information thieves from Tel Aviv and keep our money and jobs over here.
America’s Barbaric Death Penalty
NOVANEWS
by Stephen Lendman
Numerous organizations oppose capital punishment, including the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), an alliance of about 60 NGOs, bar associations, local bodies and unions, founded in May 2002. In 2003, it established October 10 as the World Day Against the Death Penalty.
On October 10, 2011, the 9th World Day seeks to raise awareness of the inhumanity of capital punishment from sentencing to execution. In fact, death row inmates endure horrific emotional and physical suffering under appalling conditions with little regard for their well-being.
Last year, the 8th World Day was “dedicated to the USA which executed 52 people and handed down 106 death sentences in 2009.” America is one of the few federalists countries empowering states with this right. Presently, 34 use it. The others opt out, Illinois the latest one abolishing it, although 10 retentionist states haven’t executed anyone for 10 or more years.
Amnesty International (AI) calls capital punishment “the ultimate denial of human rights. It is premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state. This cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is done in the name of justice.”
In fact, there’s nothing just about state-sponsored murder, especially against wrongfully accused victims. In America, they’re mostly poor Black and Latinos, denied due process and judicial fairness. The system, in fact, is rigged to convict even known innocent defendants, the most famous being Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Falsely convicted in July 1982, he’s been on death row for nearly 29 years. The Supreme Court repeatedly denied him a new trial despite clear prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, racial discrimination, perjured testimonies, and political intent to hold him culpable for a crime he didn’t commit.
Kevin Cooper is less well known, also languishing on death row despite his innocence, another victim of American injustice because he’s poor, Black, and easy prey. An earlier article on him can be accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/12/kevin-cooper-victimized-by-american.html
More about his case below and US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William A. Fletcher’s belief in his innocence.
The Chicago-based Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) aims to abolish it in America, hoping to grassroots activism will achieve it. The US is the only Western country still using it. In addition, since 1990, 30 countries abolished it, and among the 74 still executing, four are the main abusers – America, China, Vietnam and Iran.
Currently, about 3,200 US prisoners are on death row. In 1972, the Supreme Court (in Furman v. Georgia) said:
“the imposition and carrying out of the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, (and so) harsh, freakish, and arbitrary” to be constitutionally “unacceptable.” The decision voided 40 death penalty statutes, thereby commuting the sentences of over 600 death row inmates nationally.
In 1976 (in Gregg v. Georgia, Jurek v. Texas, and Proffitt v. Florida – collectively called the Gregg decision), the High Court reinstated the death penalty and let states impose it. The Court held that new death penalty statutes in these states were constitutional under the Eighth Amendment, even with cruel and unusual punishment clauses that should have banned them.
In Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court called the death penalty not inherently cruel, only “an extreme sanction, suitable to the most extreme of crimes.”
In fact, it’s extremely cruel and barbaric, flouting due process, judicial fairness and humanity, violating equal constitutional protection. It disproportionately affects people of color, the poor, and disadvantaged. It legitimizes state-sponsored murder, innocent as well as guilty prisoners affected. Moreover, it’s ineffective in deterring crime, and unconscionable in civilized societies.
In 2000, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on capital punishment after 13 prisoners were found innocent and released.
On January 11, 2003, two days before leaving office, he then cleared death row, commuting sentences for 163 men and four women to life imprisonment. He also declared a moratorium on future executions, saying:
“The facts that I have seen in reviewing each and every one of these cases raised questions not only about (their innocence), but about the fairness of the death penalty system as a whole. Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error: error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die.”
Calling Illinois’ death penalty system “arbitrary, capricious, and therefore immoral,” he ended his gubernatorial tenure by pardoning four men and issuing a blanket commutation for all state prisoners on death row, adding “The Legislature couldn’t reform it, lawmakers won’t repeal it, and I won’t stand for it – I must act.”
In January 2011, both Houses of Illinois’ legislature voted to end capital punishment, Gov. Pat Quinn officially abolishing it in March, saying it’s impossible “to create a perfect, mistake-free death penalty system.”
As a result, Illinois joined 15 other states and the District of Columbia (including New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Massachusetts) without capital punishment, what should have been abolished federally long ago.
Since 1976, after the death penalty’s reinstatement, over 1,250 US inmates have been executed, mostly in southern states, and more than 35% in Texas alone. During his six-year gubernatorial tenure, George Bush was a modern-day Pontius Pilate, a Texecutioner, a serial killer responsible for 155 “homicides,” showing his callous disregard for human life, evident globally as president.
Reasons to Oppose the Death Penalty
Its barbarism alone warrants banning it unconditionally. Other factors make it more convincing, including:
(1) Its application is racially biased with regard to defendants and victims, CEDP saying minority lives are less valued than whites. Blacks are about 12% of the population, but comprise 42% of death row prisoners. In Ohio, it’s over 50%, and in southern states like Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, North and South Carolina it’s more than 60%. Since 1776, America executed over 18,000 prisoners. Only 42 involved a white person for killing a Black, and according to AI, more than 20% of executed Black defendants were convicted by all-white juries.
(2) Poor people are unfairly affected, former Supreme Court Justice William O. Black quoted saying, “One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata in this society.” In other words, those able to afford good legal representation avoid death row. Over 90% charged with murder are poor, unable to pay for a proper defense, instead relying on inexperienced counsel or public defenders with little interest in their case.
(3) Death sentences condemn innocent victims to die. Since 1973, 123 people in 25 states were discovered innocent and released. And they may be the tip of the iceberg, many others less lucky because authorities won’t admit mistakes and often bogusly convict maliciously or for other unjustifiable reasons. Criminologist Michael Radlet explained that from 1900 – 1992, 416 documented cases of innocent people were convicted of murder or capital rape, one-third given the death sentence.
(4) Death penalty convictions don’t deter crime. For example, southern states have a higher murder rate than northern ones even though 80% of executions occur there.
(5) As the Supreme Court said in 1972, “the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.” Even with no hitches, it’s barbaric, but when botched it inflicts severe, sustained pain. As a result, in 2007, executions were on hold in over a dozen states, and botched ones put lethal injections under more scrutiny.
In 2005, The Lancet published a medical researcher team report, finding “that in 43 of the 49 executed prisoners studied, the anesthetic administered during lethal injection was lower than required for surgery. In 43 percent of cases, drug levels were consistent with awareness.” As a result, executions involved extreme pain, amounting to torture and still do willfully to inflict extra suffering.
Opposition to Capital Punishment
Last November 12 – 14, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty’s annual convention was held in Chicago, featuring anti-death penalty/anti-criminal injustice workshops, strategizing and discussions on abortion rights, and more, including opposition to life without parole (LWOP), other harsh sentences, police brutality, wrongful convictions, and other unjust acts.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights laws recognize the dignity of life and right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
On November 15, 2007 and again on December 18, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 62/149, proclaiming a global death penalty moratorium. Proposed and sponsored by Italy, its Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema said, “Now we must start working on the abolition of the death penalty.”
Resolutions, however, aren’t enough, especially given America’s attitude with the world’s largest prison population, a giveaway to its disdain for people of color, the poor and disadvantaged, many on death row unjustly.
Wrongfully Convicted Kevin Cooper
One of many, Judge William A. Fletcher addressed his case on April 12, 2010 in the inaugural Gonzaga University School of Law Justin L. Quackenbush lecture. Focusing on capital punishment, he asked: “Where have we been? Where are we now? And where do we go from here?”
Reviewing America’s modern history, he cited Furman v. Georgia (1972, cited above). Also, the 1976 Gregg decision (explained above). He then called America “unusual among industrialized nations,” only Japan and China among them retaining the death penalty. All European Convention of Human Rights signatories renounced it, including Western, many Eastern European states, and Central Asian ones.
In America, he discussed state differences and High Court decisions since Furman and Gregg. In Atkins v. Virginia (2000), it ruled executing a mentally retarded person unconstitutional. In Roper v. Simmons (2005), it prohibited executing anyone under 18 at the time the crime was committed. In Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), it extended its 1977 Coker v. Georgia ruling that held capital punishment for adult rape to include children.
Nonetheless, America’s death penalty system changed little since Gregg, empowering states to use it. Citing pro and con arguments, he “return(ed) to the theme of Furman” that struck down capital punishment nationally, the Court concerned that sentences were handed down capriciously, arbitrarily and unfairly.
Yale Law School Professor Charles Black, in his book “Capital Punishment, The Inevitability of Caprice and Mistake” called capital punishment fatally flawed, saying:
There are some “hanging prosecutors, hanging juries, hanging judges, and hanging governors. But, overwhelmingly, the trouble is not in the people but in the system – or nonsystem.”
From his own bench experience, Fletcher expressed similar concerns, citing Kevin Cooper’s case as one example. On May 11, 2009, he was among eight dissenters on a 27 US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel voicing opposition to his guilt, saying in a joint statement:
“There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform” the proper tests. It “also impeded and obstructed Cooper’s attorneys at every turn as they sought to develop the record.” Unreasonable testing conditions were imposed, as well as “refused discovery that should have been available as a matter of course, limited testimony that should not have been limited, and found fact unreasonably, based on truncated and distorted record.”
“The most egregious, but by no means the only, example is the testing of Cooper’s blood on the t-shirt for the presence of EDTA. (The district court) so interfered with the design of the testing protocol that one of Cooper’s experts refused to participate in the testing. (It let) the state-designated representatives (choose) samples to be tested.” Cooper’s experts were refused the right to participate in choosing samples or “even to see the t-shirt.”
Yet the test result showed “an extremely high level of EDTA in the sample that was supposed to contain Cooper’s blood. If that test result was valid, it showed that Cooper’s blood had been planted on the t-shirt, just as Cooper maintained.”
Fletcher knows that Cooper, a Black man, was bogusly convicted and imprisoned for a multiple homicide he didn’t commit. Yet since June 1983, he’s been incarcerated and is now on death row at San Quentin State Prison, CA, a victim of American injustice.
In his lecture, Fletcher called the police investigation “horrible in many ways, saying “in my view” he’s innocent “because the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department framed him.” In America’s criminal injustice system, it happens repeatedly, mostly affecting poor Blacks and Latinos.
University of Denver Professor Sam Kamin studied California Supreme Court decisions from 1976 – 1986 (a liberal period under Chief Justice Rose Bird). He learned that the Court found constitutional errors in 60% of capital cases it reviewed, 70% of which were “non-harmless,” resulting in an overall 42% reversal rate.
He then studied the 1986 – 1996 period (under Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas), when the constitutional error percentage was 55%. The Court, however, ruled most of them harmless, reversing only 4% of cases overall. As a result, nearly all innocent victims were denied justice, Fletcher believing the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was a key reason why, saying:
“If you have been wondering why Kevin Cooper is still on death row, a significant part of the answer is AEDPA,” adding, “Fifty years ago, a clemency plea to a governor in a capital case meant something. Governors took seriously their responsibility to decide whether a death sentence should be carried out.”
In recent decades, notably post-9/11, “clemency pleas have been a useless exercise. Governors, sensing political vulnerability….almost never grant” it. Further, “we know that poverty and race make a difference.” As a result, “racial minorities make up a disproportionate percentage of death row inmates.”
“To state the most alarming problem, there is not only a chance that we have executed, and will execute, (innocent) people….There is a virtual certainty that we have done so, and if the system remains as it is, that we will do so in the future.”
Under America’s capital punishment system, consistency and evenhandedness aren’t possible, or as Professor Black explained: The possibility of judicial fairness for accused minorities is as likely his “learn(ing) to speak decent Japanese by the end of the month.”
In his separate Furman v. Georgia opinion (1972), Justice Thurgood Marshall said if ordinary people knew all the facts in capital cases, they’d find it “shocking to (their) conscience and sense of justice,” and thus flatly unconstitutional.
Fletcher shares that view, adding:
“I think that sooner or later, probably not in my lifetime, but perhaps in some of yours, we will abolish the death penalty in this country. Perhaps, we, as a country, will eventually have seen enough” injustice, mostly affecting society’s poor, disadvantaged, and unwanted, Kevin Cooper a notable example.
Glenn Beck and Zionists to Rally in Jerusalem
NOVANEWS
by Bob Johnson
Religious zealot and religious/political con-man Glenn Beck will hold a rally to support Israel’s illegal occupation of the entire city of Jerusalem on August 24, 2011. Beck was “born again” after being fired from Fox News for offending Jews by making “inappropriate” references to “the Holocaust.” The Jewish community was so upset 400 rabbis signed an open letter to Beck’s bosses at Fox and placed it as a full page ad in The Wall Street Journal attacking Beck.
Included in the letter were signatures from Abe Foxman the leader of the anti-free speech Jewish organization the Anti-Defamation League as well as from a Christian clergyman Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance.
He was also attacked by organized Jewry in February when he said Reform Rabbis are similar to radicalized Islam. Based on his upcoming Jerusalem rally it appears Beck learned his lesson on who really runs the show and he’s doing all he can to please them.
To demonstrate that he is truly a sycophant for Israel and Judaism and hopefully redeem himself, Beck is organizing and holding the rally which is in support of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem as they make it a Jews only city.
Of course Beck will profit financially from this show of support for a Greater Israel. Already 600 prime seating spots have been sold out for $5,000.00 each! Beck also told his followers that travel packages are being put together. In all probability Beck will be getting a percentage of the sold travel packages, too.
Glenn Beck in Jerusalem wearing his numbskull cap
Beck talked about decency and goodness as reasons for people to attend the rally. It’s hard to see how Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians who don’t possess a tenth of the weapons Israel has and whose weapons don’t come close to the high-tech and very deadly American weapons the U.S. politicians pay for with the money from American tax payers which they take and then ship to the Jewish state.
The below and featured picture is of a Palestinian toddler who was murdered by the terrorist state of Israel using their U.S. weapons.
Judaism is based on military violence. The Old Testament is loaded with atrocities the ancient Hebrews/Jews committed against their neighbors and anyone who was a threat to the power of the Jewish clergy.
For example Hanukkah. Hanukkah is a celebration of the victory of the superstition and ignorance based Jewish clergy and their followers over their fellow Jews who wanted to break free of the “revealed” religion of Judaism and embrace the Greek way of valuing wisdom more than fear. The neoconservatives are equal to the Jewish clergy who killed their fellow Jews who wanted progress more than superstition.
Instead of backing the democracy movement in the Middle East known as the Arab Spring, Beck has decided whose side he is really on. He learned his lesson well and will do his very best to never offend the Jewish power structure. He sees the neoconservatives and Israel are not very happy with the Arab Spring so neither is he.
The most likely way to end the violence and unnecessary wars in the Middle East is for both sides to promote God-given reason. For example the Islamic side teaches children to hate Jews. This often gets a lot of attention from the Israel-firsters in the media. However, the media NEVER mentions Jewish teachings against all Gentiles such as is found at Leviticus 25:44-46 which teaches, “Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
A Palestinian child who was burnt alive by Israel and the U.S. weapons U.S. politicians give the Jewish state. (Picture from schema-root.org)
Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.”
Here is an Old Testament/Hebrew Bible teaching the Jews it OK for them to own heathens/Gentiles and their children as slaves.
This is revolting and very ungodly. But it does help us understand the mindset and sense of false superiority Israel and too many Jews exhibit. Hopefully God-given reason through Deism will help eradicate twisted “revealed” religious ideas and beliefs such as these.
Christians Flee Holy Land in Mass Modern Exodus
NOVANEWS
” Archbishop of Canterbury and his Zionist propaganda”
Shoah
Dateline Jerusalem: Christian Trail of Tears on the Move While Archbishop of Canterbury Plays Blame Game
by Eileen Fleming
In a recent BBC radio interview for the program “”World at One” the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed concerns about Christian minority populations all across the Middle East where life for Christians was “becoming unsustainable.”
The Archbishop is also organizing a conference to raise awareness of the “hemorrhaging of Christian populations from the Holy Land. The fact that Bethlehem, a majority Christian city just a couple of decades ago, is now very definitely a place where Christians are a marginalized minority. We want that to be a little bit higher on people’s radar. We want the public profile of the situation of Christians there to be better known. And we see that as of course part of a general hope to raise the profile of Christians in the region.”
The Archbishop noted that in the Little Town of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, Christians are now the “marginalized minority…It’s not ethnic cleansing exactly because it’s been far less deliberate than that I think. What we’ve seen though is a kind of Newtonian passing on of energy or force from one body to another so that some Muslim populations in the West Bank, under pressure, move away from certain areas like Hebron, move into other areas like Bethlehem. And there’s nowhere much else for Christian populations to go except away from Palestine.” [1]
In 1947, 20% of the total population of the Holy Land was Christian. Today, less than 1.3% of the total population of that troubled piece of real estate is Christian. Unless things change very soon, Holy Land churches will soon be nothing more than museums for the Christian Exodus coupled with their low birth rates may be the end of Christianity in the Holy Land.
In response to the Archbishops’ omissions, Rifat Odeh Kassis, Kairos Palestine Coordinator wrote:
“Your inaccurate and erroneous remarks cite Muslim extremism as the greatest threat facing Christians in Palestine and the primary reason for our emigration. Your statements about Bethlehem are particularly faulty and offensive especially when you say that the movement of Muslims into the Bethlehem area, where space is limited, is forcing Christians to leave.
“Equally shocking is how Your Grace managed, diplomatically –instead of being prophetic, as one would expect you to be, not to mention the Israeli occupation, the separation wall, Israel confiscation of Palestinian land, its policies that violate freedom of movement and worship (Palestinians in Bethlehem cannot, for instance, go to Jerusalem), or its brutal crackdowns on nonviolent protests as one of the major reasons that push not only Christians to emigrate, but also many other Palestinians.
Me at The Wall in Bethlehem, photo copyright Meir Vanunu
“We were hoping that Your Grace would have a different voice than the one in mass media and other right wing political parties, which exploit our sufferings to fuel some islamophobic tendencies and negative images about Islam. Indeed, this is what the Israeli occupation persistently tries to do. It demonizes Islam in a way that deflects blame from the repression levied by the state itself…in the Bethlehem area alone there are 19 illegal Israeli settlements (such as nearby Har Homa built on Jabal Abu Ghneim) and the wall that have devoured Christian lands and put Bethlehem in a chokehold…
“Since Your Grace did not meet or consult with any Palestinian Christians during your recent visit here, we are wondering why would you be suddenly interested to speak on our behalf? This troubles us…Finally, we would like to remind Your Grace that Christian Palestinians need advocates for the truth. It is the truth, and only the truth, that will lead to peace and justice in our home.” [2]
On my third of seven trips to Israel and Palestine since 2005, Hind Khoury, who was the delegate general of the Palestine Liberation Organization in France from 2006 through 2010, informed this reporter:
“The truth has been hidden, and it has been maneuvered by an oppressive and violent occupation.
“This occupation violates every single human right imaginable. Governments today are getting their own way to serve their own interests which are: money and power.
“It is ethnic cleansing that is happening in Jerusalem. Bethlehem is a ghetto, an island, an open-air prison! When the gate in Beit Jala is done, it will completely isolate Bethlehem from her sister city Jerusalem which is only three miles away.
“Before Hamas won the elections there were 370 checkpoints. There are now 25% more. Because of the moral bankruptcy of the PA, Hamas won the elections and they should not be feared. They have an open mind and open heart and many of them say: ‘Fight them with love.’
My view from a rooftop in Aida Camp, Bethlehem
“The International community put conditions on Hamas, but it is not about Israel’s existence we are speaking of, it is the existence of Palestine and Human Rights that must be addressed! The world is unbalanced and the polarization just increases the violence. Civil society must become responsible.”
In 2006, Reverend Chris Ferguson, Representative for the World Council of Churches said:
“I go to Bethlehem because of the Biblical injunction to visit the prisoners. In 2001, the World Council of Churches, the Middle East Council of Churches and others decided that the world ecumenical community was not doing enough about this conflict. Now, we have joined hands and are working together globally to mobilize the international society to demand policy change. The absence of settlers does not mean there is freedom in Gaza.”
He spoke those words seven months after the “Disengagement” in Gaza, which was nothing more than redeployment, for Israel has maintained total control and all access to Gaza by land, sea and air.
During the “disengagement” 25 of over 150 settlements were dismantled, and 8,475 of over 436,000 settlers [less than 2% of settlers] were evacuated.
As of October 2005, 12,800 new settlers had moved into the West Bank, which are 50% more settlers than were evacuated! Gaza is less than 6% of the Occupied Territories and that leaves 94% of Palestinian territories under the boot of the IDF.
During my 2006 visit to the Little Town of Bethlehem which is Occupied Territory, I met four of the newly elected members of Hamas, and for the fourth time I met the Mayor of Bethlehem, Victor Batarseh.
Mayor Batarseh spoke about the dire need for tourists and pilgrims to sleep and eat in Bethlehem for unemployment was well over 50% and the Bethlehem Municipality was borrowing money to pay its own employees.
The first time I met Mayer Batarseh was when he traveled to Orlando Florida, to meet with Mayor Buddy Dyer, with the hope to re-ignite The Twinning Agreement that was signed in May 2001 by the then Mayors of Bethlehem and Orlando.
The Twinning Agreement is a sister-pact that affirmed Orlando and Bethlehem would encourage tourism to the other and promote a global community.
I followed up on Mayor Batarseh’s visit with my own visit to Mayor Buddy Dyer’s office one week after the Mayors had met and I informed the Orlando Mayor’s public relations representative about an opportunity to help the city of Bethlehem. I was seeking the Mayors support in getting the word out about two events that were already scheduled and my involvement with Palestinian Children’s Welfare Fund which imported goods crafted by the artisans in Bethlehem that volunteers sold throughout the world and returned 100% of all proceeds back to the crafts people and helped support the children who endure in the refugee camps of the Holy Land.
Mayor Buddy Dyer did not even have the common courtesy to respond to any of my three follow up emails. I also informed The Orlando Sentinel about the opportunity for the Central Florida community to do something to make true the words of the Twinning Agreement without traveling all the way to the Little Town of Bethlehem in occupied territory. I got nowhere then, but I persist to be a voice of conscience.
During my March, 2006 trip to Bethlehem, Mayor Batarseh informed me:
“When the occupation is ended there will be peace. If the world boycotted Israel for six months they would comply with the UN Resolutions, which is all we want! There is state terrorism and Israel must be forced to recognize our right to exist. For the past ten years Hamas has worked with and helped the poorest of people, they have built schools and orphanages. The PA took the money but Hamas was providing the social services!
“Israel is a state built on religious beliefs. The US and EU and all the free world are against theocracies. But Israel has the right to do anything! The world needs to WAKE UP! If there is no peace in the Holy Land there can be no peace anywhere. End the occupation and there will be peace the very next day. All the terrorism in the world can be traced back to the Palestinian situation. All the money spent on weapons and war could eliminate world poverty.”
In 2006, I also met with four newly elected Hamas members but I still haven’t met any terrorists. Two had been elected to the Palestinian Parliament/PLC and two to the Municipality/local government. PLC Representative, Anwer M. Zboun, lives in the Abiet refugee camp and has a Masters Degree in Physics.
Zboun began with a smile and said, “We welcome you to our home and the Holy City of Bethlehem. We are suppose to be terrorists, are you afraid?
“We are a Palestinian resistance movement and we are not against any people. We are against the occupation. We want to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed. Hamas was born from the suffering of the Palestinian people and we belong to the global Muslim movement. It was on December 14, 1987 after an Israeli driver killed nine Palestinians that the first Intifada [uprising] began and the Islamic Resistance movement in Palestine was renamed Hamas.
“Hamas is a national liberation movement based on Sharia; Islamic Laws and Orders. Hamas is not against any religion. We are not a terrorist movement, but we resist the occupation. Christians voted for us for many reasons and they know we are faithful to this cause: that God knows better than we ourselves know what is for our benefit. We do not force anyone to believe as we do. The public and private schools both teach Islam and Christianity.
“In November 1988 Arafat issued a birth certificate for the Palestinian State and under religion he stated: ‘None.’ This is because we are a secular state. As Muslims and Christians we live together peacefully and our attitude is citizenship is for everyone. Everybody should have freedom of belief, traditions and a personal life. Hamas does not propose anything that contradicts Christianity.
“Our slogan is: Remove Suffering for everyone. The issue of Israel is about the occupation. We have no problems with religious beliefs; our problem is that Israel is illegally occupying our land. Since March 2005, we have honored a unilateral cease-fire. But Israel martyred 200 Palestinians, injured 1,200 and has detained 3,500. Many are under the age of sixteen. In the last two weeks Israel has killed twenty-five Palestinian and yet we have maintained the cease-fire. Israel does not recognize us and recognition takes both sides.
“Abbas has stated that we do recognize Israel, but there must be clear borders and Israel does not yet have them. The PA recognized Israel ten years ago but we Palestinians are detained in an open air prison. We resist the occupation, which is our right guaranteed under International Law. International Law demands Israel withdraw to the 1967 borders, release the prisoners, and stop the assassinations, illegal wall and home demolitions.
“Hamas defines terrorism as a violation of the rights of others and their property. Bush defined terrorism as evil. We are weak with resources and our voice is not heard in the West, only the voice of America and Israel gets press. America asked us to hold democratic elections and we did. We thank everyone who was involved in our transparent and democratic elections. We did what the USA asked and now they are punishing our people. Democracies are supposed to respect and not intervene in what others want.
“We had democratic and transparent elections and how are we rewarded? By the EU and the USA who have cut funds to the poorest of people who live under occupation. Hamas suggested that the International community monitor all the financial aid to assure that it went to the people and not to Hamas. We offered this suggestion to the world and we have been ignored.
“So now we look to the Arab and Muslim world to strengthen our local infrastructure and economy and hope to bring back investors. We know there are people in Europe and America who will not allow us to go hungry. We believe aid and support are in Gods hands and not governments.”
On 15 March 2006, I was in Nazareth and learned from Fuad Farah, Board member of Sabeel and the Chairman of the Orthodox National Council in Israel, that “90% of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, never even meet any Palestinian Christians!
“No Christians can live here anymore. They fled in ‘48 and their homes were destroyed in the ‘50’s for the settlers. Christians once were 20% of the total population of the Holy land, today we are less than 2% and maybe in thirty years there will be no Christians here if things do not change soon. There are more Christians in India and Syria than there are in the Holy Land!
“The reasons are many and include our low birth rate, migration due to lack of economic opportunities especially for the most highly educated, Muslim and Jewish fundamentalism, land confiscation and now Nazareth has become a retirement community because our young people all leave!”
I imagine if I were a young Palestinian with an opportunity to leave that troubled land; I would too and Palestinians all tell me that is exactly what the Israeli government hopes for!
In 2006, I also met BADIL [Arabic for Alternative] Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights.
The Founder, Muhammed Jaradat, grinned as he said, “I learned to speak English in prison, I was arrested first at 13 years old and spent a total of 5 ½ years in prison because I was a peace activist. I was arrested for winning a high school student union election in my village and charged with terrorism!”
“They said I was a gangster that I was against Israeli rights, but justice for Palestinians means justice for Israelis too! The issue of the right to return is the ultimate issue. The refugee issue is the core issue and since 1948, 800,000 Palestinians have been evicted from their homes and their families land.
“Two-thirds of Palestinian people are refugees. A democracy is supposed to be that the majority rules. But we have been told to SHUT UP about the refugee issue. If you really want to solve a problem you must attack the roots and that leads to the refugee issue.
“International Law, the Declaration of Human Rights and UN Resolutions all affirm the rights of refugees. For 57 years and 157 times the UN General Assembly has affirmed the right for refugees to return home, resettle with compensation or to choose a new country.
“The Israelis claim there is not enough room in the Holy Land but according to their own documentation in 2000, 86% of Israeli Jews live on 15% of Israel proper. 90% of state land is Palestinian land! The problem is not that there is not enough room, the problem is racism. I was born here but I am not a citizen of any country. They can revoke my residency at any moment.
“From 1989 to 1993 Israel absorbed 1.1 million new immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have illegally settled in the West Bank and Gaza. Historic Palestine is 26,000 square kilometers, about the size of Texas. The separation mentality has been at work since the 1930’s. Uniting this country with universal and basic human rights is the only way to success in the future. Israel has built the facts on the ground to not have two states. We are not stupid, we live under the harshest of conditions and we have survived. We have been divided into 28 different countries but we are united on the goal to achieve our human rights.
“The future depends on what happens to Palestinians and we are the legal owners of this land and Israel needs to get its nose down and realize they are living in the Arab world. Christian Zionists are the most destructive group of all and they want Israel to use their bomb. Who will they destroy? They will destroy themselves. The Dimona reactor is leaking and will cost more to remove than it did to build.” [3]
But that is another story that I told in BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010
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Christians in the middle east archbishop on world at one
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Kairos Palestine letter to Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of canterbury-London
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“Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory” by Eileen Fleming

















