Articles

Zio-Nazi Gestapo and Hollywood–Joined at the hip
June 23, 2011
USA
NOVANEWS     A stunning new book by authors Joseph Gelman and Meir Doron documents in great detail, facts about ...Read more
Syria FM vows to ‘forget Europe exists’ amid growing sanctions
June 23, 2011
Syria
NOVANEWS Haaretz Syrian Foreign Minister Waleed Moallem on Wednesday accused European officials of interfering in Syria’s affairs, a few days ...Read more
Former Zio-Nazi Gestapo's intelligence chief: Arab spring is “good for IsraHell”
June 23, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS   In a panel held as part of the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, former Zio-Nazi Gestapo's Amos Yadlin said ...Read more
A Coptic Christian’s reasons for backing the Muslim Brotherhood
June 23, 2011
Egypt
NOVANEWS     Rafik Habib likes to finish his days at a Costa Coffee shop near his home in Rehab ...Read more
Jewish umbrella group regrets US decision on Pollard
June 23, 2011
Campaigns
NOVANEWS jpost.com   In rare move, Conference of Presidents leaders say “pursuit of justice should be tempered with compassion, we ...Read more
Irked by Warnings, British PM Tells Military Leadership to Shut Up About Libya
June 23, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS antiwar.com Warnings from top British military officials, including Navy Chief Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope have cautioned that the Libyan War ...Read more
McCain-Kerry Bill Would OK Libya War for One Year
June 23, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS by John Glaser, In an attempt to thwart growing discontent with the war in Libya, two top senators on ...Read more
Cost of Wars a Rising Issue as Obama Weighs Troop Levels
June 23, 2011
USA
NOVANEWS NYT WASHINGTON — President Obama will talk about troop numbers in Afghanistan when he makes a prime-time speech from ...Read more
International Women’s Peace Service
June 23, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS International Human Rights Volunteers Needed in Palestine The  International  Women's Peace Service (IWPS) is a small team of international female human-rights ...Read more
Collaborating with Outlaws
June 22, 2011
Palestine Affairs
NOVANEWS By Amira Hass Of all places, it is in Azzariyeh, east of Jerusalem, that one can really learn to ...Read more
A Funny Thing Happened Today as Unity FM Bows to Atzmon’s Blackmail
June 22, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS   FRIDAY, 17 JUNE 2011 and York Against War Invite Atzmon to Speak Despite Opposition Locally Atzmon Wants to ...Read more
Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury Reprimanded
June 22, 2011
United Kingdom
NOVANEWS   Activist slams Archbishop Rowan Williams Angry Holy Land Christians tell him “We need advocates for the truth.” by Stuart ...Read more

Zio-Nazi Gestapo and Hollywood–Joined at the hip

NOVANEWS

 


 
A stunning new book by authors Joseph Gelman and Meir Doron documents in great detail, facts about the life of legendary Zionist Hollywood producer, Arnon Milchan. Facts that even his closest friends will find surprising: namely, that before Hollywood, Mr. Milchan was one of the most daring and productive secret agents that Zio-Nazi gestapo had ever fielded. Working through a mysterious and little-know intelligence unit, the LAKAM, and guided by legendary Zio-Nazi  spy-masters Benjamin Blumberg and Rafi Eitan, Confidential, The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan describes a world of billion-dollar weapons transactions, secret bank accounts, and a web of front companies around the world established by Milchan for the purpose of obtaining the super-sensitive technology and materials for Israel’s nuclear weapons program, from the mid 1960’s to the 1990’s.
“Arnon is a special man. It was I who recruited him…When I was at the Ministry of Defense, Arnon was involved in numerous defense-related procurement activities and intelligence operations… His activities gave us a huge advantage, strategically, diplomatically and technologically… In my present position as president, I am restrained from recommending any single individual for our highest defense-related honor, but undoubtedly, Arnon Milchan is worthy of such an acknowledgement, and that’s as close to a recommendation that I, as President, can give.”
Shimon Peres
President of Israel
Confidential, the story of a genuine IsraHell James Bond, is published by Gefen Books, and is currently available for pre-sale at www.gefenpublishing.com

 

Syria FM vows to ‘forget Europe exists’ amid growing sanctions

NOVANEWS

Haaretz

Syrian Foreign Minister Waleed Moallem on Wednesday accused European officials of interfering in Syria’s affairs, a few days after the Union’s foreign minister met to to discuss further sanctions against individuals and firms with links to President Bashar Assad and his government.

“To European officials, I say: stop interfering in Syrian affairs and stop encouraging chaos and strife,” Moallem said in a press conference in Damascus.

Moallem accused EU officials of relying on “distorted foreign media reports” regarding the crisis in Syria. “We will forget that Europe exists on the map, and we will look north, south, east and west for deeper relationships,” Moallem said.

More than 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 detained since protests demanding greater freedoms and the ouster of Assad erupted in March, according to local human rights groups.

The Syrian government has repeatedly blamed the unrest on foreign infiltrators and terrorist groups.

Moallem stressed that “all Syrians” are welcome to take part in the national dialogue mentioned by Assad in a speech on Monday, and said that serious reforms would take place “within weeks.” In his address, Assad promised a package of reforms and a new constitution.

Meanwhile, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said that security forces raided dormitories at the University of Damascus. The security forces arrived after clashes erupted between students protesting in support of Assad and those calling for his resignation, activists said online.

A number of students were reportedly beaten and arrested in the raid. It is not possible to independently verify these reports as foreign journalists have been banned from entering Syria.

Former Zio-Nazi Gestapo's intelligence chief: Arab spring is “good for IsraHell”

NOVANEWS
 

In a panel held as part of the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, former Zio-Nazi Gestapo’s Amos Yadlin said IsraHell share the values protesters in the Arab world are fighting for.

Haaretz

Israel’s former Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin, said Wednesday that he believes the unrest in the Arab world would ultimately benefit Israel.

In a panel titled “Looking toward Tomorrow: Trends, Challenges and Decisions,” held during the second day of Shimon Peres’ Presidential Conference in Jerusalem, Yadlin said that “the long-term changes in the Arab world are a great opportunity for Israel… The values that they fought over in Tahrir Square are our values. The fact that Arabs are attacking their own regimes and not Israel is historic.”

Also at the panel, Cohen, from Goldman Sacks, said he does not expect the U.S. to go through another recession, and that the U.S. and Israel are vital players in the global economy. “The U.S. and Israel are producing high quality, high value added items that cannot be produced anywhere else,” he said.

Tzipi Livni, head of Kadima opposition party, said at the end of the panel that there is a Palestinian partner to negotiate with. “Those who state that we don’t have a Palestinian partner for peace are deceiving the nation,” she said. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, she added, “lacks vision.”

A Coptic Christian’s reasons for backing the Muslim Brotherhood

NOVANEWS
 

 

Rafik Habib likes to finish his days at a Costa Coffee shop near his home in Rehab City on the outskirts of Cairo. He drinks an espresso, reads the newspapers … and defends the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Islamist organisation needs little help from one man: surveys show it has support from at least 15 per cent of Egyptians. But Dr Habib is an exception. He is a Coptic Christian intellectual who crossed sectarian lines to join the Brotherhood’s newly established Freedom and Justice Party as third-in-command.

“A large segment of Muslims think it was a good step, except some Salafis,” he says in his sparse office dotted with 1970s furniture.

“But the Christian community in general has refused my choice, and especially my decision to join as a founder.”

Some of his detractors have said his position in the group is merely cosmetic, but Christians have been more vitriolic, calling it an act of treason.

For Dr Habib, 52, it was one of the most difficult political decisions of his life.

“It would have been much easier for personal reasons not to join the group, especially as a founder and vice-president,” he says. “I think joining the party is for the benefit of Christians in Egypt. If we don’t overcome the gap between Christians and Islamist movements, especially moderate ones, we have a problem.”

His decision came only a week after 12 people were killed and dozens injured when violence between Muslims and Christians erupted in the Imbaba neighbourhood of Cairo last month.

Sectarian clashes have become a concern in Egypt in the months since a popular revolution forced Hosni Mubarak to resign as president and hand power to a military council until elections are held, tentatively scheduled for September.

“Reconciliation can be found in shared identity as Egyptians. The Freedom and Justice party has an answer for that. Even though there is a distinction, we share an identity,” Dr Habib says.

He dates his first interaction with the Muslim Brotherhood to 1989, when he began research into Islamist movements. In 2004, that relationship deepened when Mohammed Mahdi Akef was the group’s supreme guide. Mr Akef allowed him access to the leadership of the organisation to explain how it works.

The result of those decades of study is that Dr Habib today believes the Muslim Brotherhood to be one of the most sophisticated groups in the country. Long gone, he says, are the days when it could be associated with its terrorist wing, known as the “secret apparatus”, and radical teachings of such members as Sayid Qutb, whose works inspired Al Qaeda.

“The important question when looking at a group is whether it has developed or not. I found in my study that they had. They try across history to preserve the basic beliefs of the group, rooted in Islam, and at the same time develop with society.”

A case in point are the views of Hassan Al Bannah, the primary-school teacher who founded the group in 1928. While he believed in democratic principles, he was against the idea of political parties because he felt they did not represent people well.

This month the Freedom and Justice Party was officially recognised by the government, the first time the Muslim Brotherhood has had a legitimate party to participate in politics.

“This shows that the group was able to accept different terms of democracy, to take new ideas and incorporate them into its thinking,” Dr Habib says.

But the most important part of his joining the group was his belief that Egypt is at its core a religious country. What this means is that many of the ideas of modern society – human rights, democracy, balance of power – can be derived from the teachings of Islam.

Dr Habib believes Christians and members of other religions, including Judaism, can coexist peacefully in an Islamic state under a Muslim president with a parliament made up of representative groups from society.

“The president of Egypt has a religious responsibility from the time of the pharaohs,” he says. The top position in the government should be filled by a Muslim because the government manages the building of mosques, printing of Qurans and other Islamic roles. The Coptic Church, however, performs the equivalent tasks itself and the government has no role in managing the machinery of that religion.

The president must belong to the religion of the majority to manage these issues. I think if the majority of the population was Christian, the same idea would be there.”

The platform of the Freedom and Justice Party is in many ways indistinguishable from that of other secular groups vying for power.

Its main priorities are establishing personal and political rights, running the country better and allowing free-market principles to rule the economy. Its foreign policy focuses on strengthening relations with other Islamic countries, including Iran, but also retaining its alliances with the US and western countries. The difference is that the group says these ideas originate in Islam.

That is not to say all Egyptians believe them. There are widespread suspicions, foremost among Christians and the youth groups that led the revolution, that the Muslim Brotherhood have a secret agenda to make the country gradually more conservative and to sideline minority groups.

Dr Habib deals with these fears every evening at the coffee shop.

“People come up to me and try to understand my choice, or they have questions,” he says. “Some of them disagree strongly, but in all cases, there is a chance for dialogue and understanding.

“This is an important time for these conversations. If not, Egypt will have big problems.”

Jewish umbrella group regrets US decision on Pollard

NOVANEWS




jpost.com
 

In rare move, Conference of Presidents leaders say “pursuit of justice should be tempered with compassion, we renew our plea for Pollard’s release.”

Richard Stone, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and conference executive vice president Malcolm Hoenlein expressed dismay and regret on Tuesday that Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard was not allowed to attend the funeral of his father Morris in Indiana the day before.

The statement criticizing the US administration, without mentioning it by name, was rare for the central coordinating body representing 51 national Jewish organizations on issues of national and international concern.

“We believe that this humanitarian gesture was warranted,” Stone and Hoenlein said. “It underscores the need for prompt action to release Jonathan Pollard after 25 years of imprisonment. His sentence is disproportionate to others who have committed similar crimes. Mr. Pollard has expressed remorse for his actions and has paid a heavy personal price as was witnessed today. The pursuit of justice should be tempered with compassion and we renew our humanitarian plea for his release.”

Hoenlein has said that there should not be public daylight between Israel and the United States, because it works against the interests of both countries and also against US president Barack Obama’s chances of achieving peace.

“When you say there shouldn’t be daylight, it doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be differences,” Hoenlein said in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post. “The differences should be dealt with as between friends and resolved quietly as friends. Once you go public, everybody gets locked into hardened positions.

“Two countries, no matter how close, will always have things come up where their particular interests don’t always coincide completely. But overwhelmingly they do… and the polls are just astonishingly positive. Almost two-thirds of the American people say they want the president of the United States to be a staunch supporter of Israel, and I think they don’t want to see an ally treated as the newspapers have reported.”

At a session about Pollard in the Knesset plenum, National Union MK Arye Eldad said that Knesset members should respond to what he called America’s cruelty by returning the invitation they received to the July 4 Independence Day party at the American Embassy in Tel Aviv with a note that they won’t participate in any American celebrations until Pollard is free.

Kadima MK Otniel Schneller disagreed with Eldad. He said the American government displayed “coldheartedness to the point of unfathomable wickedness” by not letting Pollard attend his father’s funeral, but that the MKs should still attend the celebration.

“It would be nice if the world’s model democracy was more sensitive to universal values of mercy, but we MKs, as representatives of Israel, must display our gratitude to our friends in America on their holiday.

“Beside our frustration, we must emphasize the common ground between our nations.?

Irked by Warnings, British PM Tells Military Leadership to Shut Up About Libya

NOVANEWS
antiwar.com

Warnings from top British military officials, including Navy Chief Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope have cautioned that the Libyan War is unsustainable for the nation beyond the next few months. Their efforts are aimed at selling parliament on bigger budgets, but are also raising growing questions about the war in general.

It is also just the latest in a growing number of breaks between Prime Minister David Cameron and his military leadership, with reports today that he lashed the leaders for criticism and told them “you do the fighting and I’ll do the talking.”
Britain’s military leadership has been pushing for escalation virtually since the war began, and has also been pushing back hard against Cameron’s calls to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July.
Cameron, for his part, has rejected the military’s demands for bigger budgets, saying they “always want more” no matter what they are given, and seems to be pushing for more tight control by the civilian government over the military’s pursestrings.

McCain-Kerry Bill Would OK Libya War for One Year

NOVANEWS
by John Glaser,

In an attempt to thwart growing discontent with the war in Libya, two top senators on Tuesday unveiled a resolution that would give President Obama the authority to continue operations there for one year.

The President did not seek congressional approval when he launched airstrikes on Libya on March 19, which in mid-May became illegal under the War Powers Resolution. Disregarding the legal advice of his top administration and military lawyers, Obama held last week that U.S. military operations in Libya are exempt from the requirements of the War Powers Resolution.
After various bipartisan attempts in Congress to effectively force the President to terminate all Libya operations absent the consent of the legislature, and after a provocative legal case laid against Obama for engaging in an illegal war, Senator John McCain and Senator Kerry have now introduced a resolution in order to validate Obama’s war in Libya before the growing opposition could stop him.
Given that such congressional opposition to Obama’s expansive application of executive authority has the full force of law behind it, and given the fact that it does represent the will of the people in this case, this resolution reveals an intention to prevent any challenge whatsoever to the Executive’s war-making powers.
This development comes as growing opposition to the Libyan war has begun to spill over into Afghanistan. The McCain-Kerry resolution was introduced one day before President Obama’s announcement on troop levels in Afghanistan. Democrats in Congress have been pressuring Obama for a full drawdown of troops, while the Republican Party has been voicing concerns with rising noninterventionist sentiment of late.
But with Afghanistan and apparently with Libya as well, this administration has demonstrated its determination to do whatever it takes to continue to break the law and conduct war without challenge.

Cost of Wars a Rising Issue as Obama Weighs Troop Levels

NOVANEWS


NYT

WASHINGTON — President Obama will talk about troop numbers in Afghanistan when he makes a prime-time speech from the White House on Wednesday night. But behind his words will be an acute awareness of what $1.3 trillion in spending on two wars in the past decade has meant at home: a ballooning budget deficit and a soaring national debt at a time when the economy is still struggling to get back on its feet.

As Mr. Obama begins trying to untangle the country from its military and civilian promises in Afghanistan, his critics and allies alike are drawing a direct line between what is not being spent to bolster the sagging economy in America to what is being spent in Afghanistan — $120 billion this year alone.

On Monday, the United States Conference of Mayors made that connection explicitly, saying that American taxes should be paying for bridges in Baltimore and Kansas City, not in Baghdad and Kandahar.

The mayors’ group approved a resolution calling for an early end to the American military role in Afghanistan and Iraq, asking Congress to redirect the billions now being spent on war and reconstruction costs toward urgent domestic needs. The resolution, which noted that local governments cut 28,000 jobs in May alone, was the group’s first venture into foreign policy since it passed a resolution four decades ago calling for an end to the Vietnam War.

And in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, said: “We can no longer, in good conscience, cut services and programs at home, raise taxes or — and this is very important — lift the debt ceiling in order to fund nation-building in Afghanistan. The question the president faces — we all face — is quite simple: Will we choose to rebuild America or Afghanistan? In light of our nation’s fiscal peril, we cannot do both.”

Demonstrators describing themselves as “angry jobless citizens” said they would picket the Capitol on Wednesday to urge members of Congress to use any savings from Mr. Obama’s troop reductions to create more jobs. The group sponsoring the demonstration, the Prayer Without Ceasing Party, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was “urging the masses to call their congressmen and the president to ensure that jobs receive a top priority when the troops start returning to America.”

Spending on the war in Afghanistan has skyrocketed since Mr. Obama took office, to $118.6 billion in 2011. It was $14.7 billion in 2003, when President George W. Bush turned his attention and American resources to the war in Iraq.

The increase is easy to explain. When Mr. Obama took office, he vowed to aggressively pursue what he termed America’s “war of necessity” (Afghanistan) and to withdraw from America’s “war of choice” (Iraq). He has done so; the lines on Iraq and Afghanistan war spending crossed in 2010, when the United States spent $93.8 billion in Afghanistan versus $71.3 billion in Iraq, according to the Congressional Research Service.

But the White House is keenly aware that the president is heading into a re-election campaign; with the country’s jobless rate remaining high, topping 9 percent, his poll numbers on his handling of the domestic economy have plummeted.

“Do we really need to be spending $120 billion in a country with a G.D.P. that’s one-sixth that size?” asked Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress, a policy group with close ties to the Obama administration. “Most Americans would be shocked to know that we’re spending that kind of money for jobs programs for former Taliban, and would wonder where are our jobs programs for Detroit and Cleveland?”

In 2010, Congress — at the Obama administration’s request — set aside $100 million to support programs in Afghanistan aimed at moving former insurgents off the battlefields and into the country’s mainstream economy. Those efforts — similar to what the Bush administration did in Iraq — have yet to bear much fruit; the 1,700 fighters who have enrolled in the reintegration program represent only a fraction of the estimated 20,000 to 40,000 Taliban insurgents, The New York Times reported Monday.

Most American aid bypasses the Afghan government and goes to international companies, a practice that, according to a June 8 report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, can undercut the Afghan government and lead to redundant and unsustainable donor projects. But Obama administration officials complain that the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai has, thus far, been unwilling to tackle corruption in any meaningful way, making it hard to argue that it should get more money directly.

In Washington, the argument over whether the United States should be building bridges in Kandahar or Cleveland is bound to grow even louder as the 2012 election campaign heats up.

After Senator Manchin made his speech on Tuesday calling for an end to nation-building in Afghanistan, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, took to the floor to rebuke him, calling Mr. Manchin’s remarks characteristic of the “isolationist-withdrawal-lack-of-knowledge-of-history attitude that seems to be on the rise.”

But in Mr. McCain’s own Republican Party, which has historically been more supportive of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than Democrats, there is clearly some queasiness about war spending during a period of economic distress.

Four years ago, Representative Ron Paul of Texas was the only Republican presidential candidate raising concerns about the costs of the Afghanistan or Iraq wars. But last week, Mr. Paul was joined explicitly by another contender, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah and the Obama administration’s former ambassador to China, who said that the cost of a continued military presence was a leading factor in his belief that a major troop drawdown should begin in Afghanistan.

“Very expensive boots on the ground may be something that is not critical for our national security needs,” Mr. Huntsman said.

Even when Mr. Obama does withdraw the bulk of troops from Afghanistan, Americans will still be footing the bill for years, argued William R. Keylor, an international relations professor at Boston University.

“The total cost of the war, the longest in American history and one that was paid for by borrowing rather than by increased taxation, should not be measured solely by the costs of financing the troops and the extensive aid programs administered by the State Department,” Mr. Keylor said. “It should also include long-term costs of the war, primarily veterans’ benefits for the returning soldiers, who will require medical and mental health services for many years to come. Long after the last troops depart from the country, that hidden part of the bill will come due.”

International Women’s Peace Service

NOVANEWS

International Human Rights Volunteers Needed in Palestine

The  International  Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) is a small team of international female human-rights activists in Palestine.

We:

  • provide accompaniment to Palestinian civilians (including farmers during the annual olive harvest),

  • document and non-violently intervene in human-rights abuses

  • support Palestinians in their non-violent resistance to end the Israeli military occupation and construction of the barrier throughout the West Bank.

IWPS is run entirely by volunteers, committed to peace and justice.

IWPS is currently inviting applications from women who would like to join our team of long-term volunteers.

Successful applicants will be invited to one of our 6 day training programs (European training scheduled Autumn 2011; US training scheduled Sept 2011) and will serve a minimum of one 3 month term in the West Bank, Palestine, as well as supporting our work outside of Palestine.

Applicants should be able to commit to further terms in Palestine of one to three months for a three year period.

Short term volunteers are also welcome to apply (through our usual application process) for minimum volunteer periods of 3 weeks

For more information and to download an application pack please go to: www.iwps.info or contact us on applyiwps@gmail.com

Please apply as soon as possible to be considered for the next training, as places are limited.

Technorati Tags: international solidarity, Israel, Palestine, Zionism

Related posts:

  1. The Palestine Papers, or How Everything You Thought You Knew about the Peace Process Was Wrong

  2. forget peace, just process

  3. International Day of Solidarity in Gaza greeted with more bullets in Beit Hanoun

  4. doctors in solidarity, doctors helping hasbara

  5. upcoming events: BDS and education on Tuesday

Collaborating with Outlaws

NOVANEWS

By Amira Hass

Of all places, it is in Azzariyeh, east of Jerusalem, that one can really learn to appreciate the activities of Palestinian law-enforcement authorities in cities like Ramallah and Nablus. In those cities, Palestinian security forces are seen as authority figures who are trying to protect and serve Palestinian citizens, not just as extensions of Fatah or subcontractors of the Israel Defense Forces or the Shin Bet security service.
Unlike Ramallah and Nablus, which are categorized as “A” areas, Azzariyeh and its neighbors Sawahra and Abu Dis are holed up in an enclave of type “B”, where the IDF does not allow the Palestinian police to be fully functional. The interim Oslo 2 agreement determines that the Palestinian Authority is responsible for maintaining public order in Area B, but in the same breath it limits the PA’s authority and the means by which it can protect the people from disruptions of public order. Almost every action taken by the Palestinian police in Area B requires IDF approval.
And Israel, which has no inhibitions about violating key clauses of the agreement, is particularly meticulous here: The number of police officers is limited, police are prohibited from moving from a makeshift police station in an apartment building to a proper one, they are not allowed to carry weapons or wear uniforms, and they are prohibited from bringing in reinforcements on their own to locate drug or weapons dealers or to deliver subpoenas. Is it any wonder that the Azzariyeh-Abu Dis enclave has become a place of refuge for the outlaws of the West Bank? Not that this enclave has not had its share of troubles. Since it was shut off by the wall in 2005, all its ties with its natural and immediate urban center, East Jerusalem, have been severed. The enclave’s isolation, and the impoverishment and despair to which it gave rise, are as painful as a fresh burn.
The artificial division between Areas A, B and C was supposed to be erased from the map, and dropped from the discourse, in 1999. Instead, Israel has sanctified and perpetuated it. The largest share – 60 percent – is designated Area C, meaning it is under full Israeli security and civil control. It is self-evident why Israel perpetuates the Area C classification. After all, it gives Israel a free hand to continue emptying that part of the West Bank of Palestinians and encourage more Jews to violate international law and settle there.
But what about Area B? Why does Israel insist that drug and weapons trafficking should flourish in an area several dozen meters away from Ma’aleh Adumim and some three kilometers from the Judea and Samaria District police headquarters – both of which sites, as is often forgotten, are violating international law due to their location on the land reserves of Palestinian villages? True, there is also unlicensed public transportation, unlicensed construction, environmental pollution – but the drugs and weapons trade dwarfs those violations. A similar situation exists in A-Ram, the hybrid city between Ramallah and Jerusalem that is also cut off from its past, its surroundings and its land by the wall. Just a hop, skip and jump (over a wall and barbed-wire fence ) away from Jerusalem, some 100,000 people have been left to fend for their own personal safety, a situation that can be reversed.
Is there some deliberate intention behind the painstaking adherence to a clause in an agreement that was supposed to be short-lived? That’s what many Palestinians have concluded. Some say the drugs and weapons dealers are collaborators, or potential collaborators, with Israel. This is why the Shin Bet and IDF are not allowing the Palestinian police to take action against them and why, according to them, Israeli security forces immediately find out about any Palestinian attempt to capture them. Some find here a strategic goal: The worse this intolerable situation gets in neighborhoods that are so close to the annexed Jerusalem, the greater the likelihood that the residents will leave and head over to Area A. In other words, it’s just another expulsion trick.
Listen to the Palestinians. The subjugated excel at analyzing the implications of their ruler’s actions. And if the Palestinians are wrong, then why will the IDF not let the Palestinian police operate freely?
 


 

 

Source: Haaretz, 22 June. 2011

 

A Funny Thing Happened Today as Unity FM Bows to Atzmon’s Blackmail

NOVANEWS

 

FRIDAY, 17 JUNE 2011

and York Against War Invite Atzmon to Speak Despite Opposition Locally

Atzmon Wants to Question Everything (especially the Holocaust) But Seeks Protection Through Censorship

Unity FM is a Muslim radio station in Birmingham run by Sami Ibrahim. He’s phoned me for interviews on a number of occasions in the past, so it was no surprise when I got the following text message at just gone 1 pm:

‘Today on Unity FM GILAD ATZMON @ 5.00 PLEASE CALL AND ASK YOUR QUESTION

Tel – 01217728892/07926843388 Or visit

I therefore rang Sami up and let him know that I considered Atzmon an anti-Semite not an anti-Zionist. Sami was understanding and said he’d welcome my putting Atzmon on the spot. Indeed he even offered to give me first shot and to call me at approximately 5.05 p.m. And Sami was as good as his word ringing me a couple of minutes later resulting in me having to ring him back.

Sure enough I was connected and listened to Atzmon begin his garbage. Sami then invited me to intervene, which I did. I asked what was quite a simple question, which was how Atzmon’s holocaust denial helped in any way support for the Palestinians. When Atzmon tried to duck and dive I quoted from his article ‘Truth, History, and Integrity’ accessed 13.3.10. where he wrote that

‘If, for instance, the Nazis wanted the Jews out of their Reich…, or even dead, as the Zionist narrative insists, how come they marched hundreds of thousands of them back into the Reich at the end of the war?’

Atzmon goes on to explain that ‘I have been concerned with this simple question for more than a while’. This absurd interpretation of the death marches leads him to ask the following:

‘If the Nazis ran a death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, why would the Jewish prisoners join them at the end of the war?’

It couldn’t be much clearer. There was no death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, on the contrary when the concentration camps were abandoned by the Nazis, their Jewish inmates were eager to join them. Clearly there could have been no exterminations there.

Atzmon then tried to respond to what he termed his ‘internet now radio stalker’ (apparently criticising the great man counts as stalking!) and when I began laying into him for his lies and duplicity, and I repeatedly asked him how holocaust denial had anything to do with support of the Palestinians, he tried to interrupt. Eventually Sami told me that it was time for the adverts and I would be brought back in after the interval. And the radio connection to my phone continued as I listened to Atzmon trying to defend the indefensible. But I wasn’t called. In fact no one was called. A phone-in programme had turned into a monologue. Atzmon doesn’t like criticism and is particularly bad at responding to it. When I phone in on another line I was told firstly there was a technical fault and then that Sami Ibrahim had decided just to interview him.

It became clear from this conversation with the staff member that Atzmon had insisted, if he was to continue allowing himself to be interviewed, that I not be allowed to call him to account and Sami Ibrahim had bowed to his dictat in order to allow the programme to continue. The result? No phone in programme!

Atzmon struck me though as a man who has ready very little about Zionism and what he has read he takes as gospel. One of the few books he has read is Shlomo Sand’s book ‘The Founding of the Jewish People’ an excellent book, though not unproblematic, which I have reviewed in a number of publilcations. The problem is that Atzmon doesn’t understand it and he thinks that because Palestinians are more genetically akin to the ancient Jewish farmers, that gives them the right to their land. But this is nonsense . The rights of the Palestinians derive from their position as an indigenous population being displaced by largely European settlers, regardless of their genes.

Likewise Atzmon believes that until 1927 Ben-Gurion believed in assimilating the Palestinians rather than expelling them and attributes the latter to a post-1927 Ben-Gurion. In fact expulsion was on the agenda from the moment the Zionist movement was born. Ahad Ha’am castigated his fellow Zionists as early as the 1890’s in This is not the Way and other essays. Jewish Labour and Land policies took shape from the early 1900’s as a reading of something like Ben-Gurion’s Rebirth & Destiny would confirm. Brit Shalom, the Zionist peace group was founded in 1925, by people like Arthur Ruppin. But despite being wholly ignorant Atzmon gives the air of someone who knows what he is talking about.

Which is why he fought shy of having to confront my criticism of his anti-Semitism and ignorance. Despite believing the holocaust is a ‘narrative’ rather than a fact, Atzmon was strangely reluctant to discuss this, preferring a monologue.

Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury Reprimanded

NOVANEWS

 

Activist slams Archbishop Rowan Williams

Angry Holy Land Christians tell him “We need advocates for the truth.”

by Stuart Littlewood


Archbishop Williams’s comments about Bethlehem were “particularly faulty and offensive”, according to Rifat Kassis, especially his claim that Muslims coming into the Bethlehem area, where space is limited, was forcing Christians to leave.

Kairos Palestine, the voice of Palestinian Christians, has given the Archbishop of Canterbury a strong ticking-off for remarks he made during a BBC interview.

Rifat Kassis, co-ordinator of Kairos Palestine, said he was “deeply troubled” by the Archbishop’s “inaccurate and erroneous remarks” about the situation of Christians in the Middle East. He called the Archbishop’s failure to mention the Israeli occupation and the regime’s oppressive policies “shocking”.

In a letter to the Archbishop he said: “We were deeply saddened by your declarations because we know that Your Grace is well informed… and you know very well that 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. You know well that only 13% of Bethlehem area is available for Palestinian use and the wall isolates 25% or the Bethlehem area’s agricultural land. Not to mention the situation of Christians in Jerusalem, which you know very well, since you should have received reports from the Anglican Bishop in the City whose residency permit was denied by the occupying power.”

Mr Kassis ended by saying: “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.”

Archbishop Rowan Williams

So what did Archbishop Rowan Williams say to the BBChttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13769747. that so infuriated his Palestinian brethren?

Apparently it was the way he talked about the ethnic cleansing of Christians referring to extreme pressure in Iraq while suggesting that the exodus of Christians from Palestine was due to “a much more un-dramatic but equally steady and strong pressure”.

Interviewer: “But that’s a strong term to use isn’t it, ethnic cleansing?”

Archbishop: “It is a strong term but I think not disproportionate where Iraq is concerned. The level of violence has been extreme.”

However, Williams seemed careful to avoid connecting the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ with Israel’s programme to dispossess and terrorise Palestinians.

The interviewer then asked:  “Do you think that the British government, other governments, should be more vocal in their support for Christians who you are seeing at the moment under great difficulty in a number of these countries?”

Archbishop: “Well to be honest I think at the moment there is quite a lot of support. And I can’t fault what’s been said by our government on this issue because I think the issue of religious freedom in general has very high priority in the Foreign Office at the moment. So I hope that continues.”

The truth is that the British Foreign Office is infested with pro-Israel placemen and has not lifted a finger for religious or any other freedoms in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Archbishop continued: “Also I think people in the West know perfectly well that if foreign powers take up the cause of a minority in another country it can be utterly counterproductive.”

Was he, by any chance, thinking about the foreign powers that implanted Jewish aliens in the Holy Land in 1947 and the running sore ever since?

He went on the say: “I think there are still perhaps too few people in this country who are aware of the haemorrhaging 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 marginalised minority. We want that to be a little bit higher on people’s radar… “

Interviewer: “Would you see what’s happening in Bethlehem as another example of what you’ve described as ethnic cleansing?”

Archbishop: “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.”

I’m sure that trapped and imprisoned Palestinian Christians will be relieved to hear that their misery is all down to Newtonian energy effects.

Archbishop Williams’s comments about Bethlehem were “particularly faulty and offensive”, according to Rifat Kassis, especially his claim that Muslims coming into the Bethlehem area, where space is limited, was forcing Christians to leave.

Are the Archbishop and his Anglican Church the ‘advocates for the truth’ so desperately needed?

It is not the first time the Archbishop has upset Palestinian Christians. For decades the Israelis’ game has clearly been to obstruct and paralyse Christianity in the Holy Land. When Palestine was under British mandate, Christians accounted for 20 per cent of the population. Sixty-three years of hostilities, dispossession, interference and economic ruination have whittled their numbers down to less than 2 per cent. At this rate there will soon be no Christians left in the land where Christianity was born.

And in November 2008, while Israel was planning its murderous assault against Gaza’s civilians (including the Christian community), the Archbishop of Canterbury was gallivanting with the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, on a visit to the former Nazi camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland to demonstrate their joint solidarity against the extremes of hostility and genocide.

“This is a pilgrimage not to a holy place but to a place of utter profanity,” said the Archbishop, “a place where the name of God was profaned because the image of God in human beings was abused and disfigured. How shall we be able to read the signs of the times, the indications that evil is gathering force once again and societies are slipping towards the same collective corruption and moral sickness that made the Shoah possible?”

Evil was again gathering its forces and corruption and moral sickness were on the rampage even as he spoke. And did the Archbishop and the Chief Rabbi afterwards go to sniff the stench where the name of God had been profaned in the ruins of the Gaza Strip and utter the same brave words?

Did they hell!

When the Church of England’s head honcho finally visited Gaza, the Israelis refused him access to the Strip but at the last minute allowed him into the shattered enclave for just one-and-a-half hours, enough time to show his face at the hospital and no more. He said nothing about his experience to the House of Lords where he has a seat and the support of a large gaggle of bishops.

This despite his claim to be “in a unique position to bring the needs and voices of those fighting poverty, disease and the effects of conflict, to the attention of national and international policy makers”, despite his declaration that “Christians need to witness boldly and clearly”, and despite his urging greater awareness of the humanitarian crisis to ensure that the people of Gaza are not forgotten.

The Archbishop’s website, however, did report how he hobnobbed with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, paid his respects to Yad Vashem and the Holocaust, and talked with the President of Israel. There was no mention of any similar get-togethers with senior Islamic figures, leaving a question-mark over his real commitment to inter-faith engagement.

The Archbishop’s agreeing to accept the hospitality of Jewish political and religious dignitaries while they squished his wish to carry out his Christian duties in Gaza, tells us a great deal.

So is the guy a closet Zionist like so many other so-called Christians?

I’m reminded of the he words of Desmond Tutu: “Where there is oppression, those who do nothing side with the oppressor.”

“Christianity destroyed not by Muslims but by Israel.”

The Archbishop has a chance to redeem himself with the international conference on Christians in the Holy Land he plans to hold next month. For two days I’ve been asking his press office for details of delegates, keynote speakers, etc but have received nothing.  We are left to speculate.

Outside the Irish Parliament. Left to Right: Alan Lonergan (SADAKA), Constantine Dabbagh, Fr Manuel Musallam, John Ging, Archbishop Theodosius Hanna

It would be nice if the conference were addressed by that excellent trio from the Holy Land Archbishop Theodosius Hanna (Greek Orthodox Church), Monsignor Manuel Musallam (Latin Catholic) and Mr Constantine Dabbagh (Executive Director of the Middle East Council of Churches)? These courageous spiritual leaders and human rights defenders toured Ireland last November to raise awareness of the situation in their homeland under Israeli military occupation and the plight of the dwindling Christian community. Their central message was simple: “We need only one thing, to be protected by the world against the crimes of Israel” (For details please see my article “No such thing as justice in the Holy Land“, 14 December 2010.)

Fr Manuel told members of the Irish Government:

“Christianity in the region has been destroyed not by Muslims but by Israel. Israel destroyed the church of Palestine and the church of Jerusalem beginning in 1948. Its not Muslims, has sent Christians in the region into a diaspora… Christians in Palestine are not suffering persecution, because we are not considered to be a religious community, but rather the people of Palestine. We have the same rights and the same obligations.

“We have spoken to Israel for more than 18 years and the result has been zero. We have signed agreements here and there at various times and then when there is a change in the Government of Israel we have to start again from the beginning. We ask for our life and to be given back our Jerusalem, to be given our state and for enough water to drink…  I have not seen Jerusalem since 1990.”

However, given the Anglican Church’s recent form, it wouldn’t surprise me if the conference is hosted by the CMJ (the Church’s Ministry among Jewish People). The CMJ is “propelled by devotion to God and the fulfillment of His promises to His people Israel”. In its statement of faith the CMJ says Christians have “a special responsibility to love, defend and share the Gospel with God’s historic, chosen People, the Jews”.
The CMJ’s attitude to the Israel-Palestine struggle is unhelpful to the Palestinians. For example…

  • Gentiles are “fellow-citizens with God’s people”…

  • CMJ rejoices that, after 2000 years… the Jewish people now, at last, have returned to the land from which the majority were dispersed in AD70…

  • CMJ recognizes that the State of Israel was set up as a result of a majority vote of the United Nations in 1947… However the Ministry does not hold any official position as to the appropriate location of the borders of the state.

That signifies approval for Israel’s continuing land-grab and lawlessness.  If CMJ recognizes the UN’s partition it should also accept the borders on which it was based.

According to Wikipedia, “CMJ has always adopted a Zionist position, and expressed the view that the Jewish people deserved a state in the Holy Land decades before Zionism began as a movement.”

The CMJ was adopted as an official ministry of the Church of England in 1995 and has been operating in the shadows ever since. It is, if you like, the Church of England’s Zionist wing.