How NATO Killed Qaddafi Family Members
NOVANEWS
Anatomy of a Murder: How Many Times Must a Parent Bury a Child?
by Cynthia McKinney
Well, in the case of Muammar Qaddafi it’s not only twice: once for his daughter, murdered by the United States bombing on his home in 1986, and again on 30 April 2011 when his youngest son, Saif al Arab, but yet again for three young children, grandbabies of Muammar Qaddafi killed along with Saif at the family home.
Now, I watched Cindy Sheehan as she bared her soul before us in her grief; I cried when Cindy cried. Now, how must Qaddafi and his wife feel? And the people of Libya, parents of all the nation’s children gone too soon. I don’t even want to imagine.
All my mother could say in astonishment was, “They killed the babies, they killed his grandbabies.”
The news reports, however, didn’t last more than one half of a news cycle because on 1 May, at a hastily assembled press conference, President Obama announced the murder of Osama bin Laden.
Well, I haven’t forgotten my empathy for Cindy Sheehan; I haven’t forgotten my concern for the children of Iraq that Madeleine Albright said were OK to kill by U.S. sanctions if U.S. geopolitical goals were achieved. I care about the children of Palestine who throw stones at Israeli soldiers and get laser-guided bullets to their brains in return. I care about the people of North Africa and West Asia who are ready to risk their lives for freedom. In fact, I care about all of the children — from Appalachia to the Cancer Alley, from New York City to San Diego, and everywhere in-between.
NATO BOMBING TRIPOLI – AFP/ AL JAZEERA
On 22 May 2011, I had the opportunity to visit the residence of the Qaddafi family, bombed to smithereens by NATO. For a leader, the house seemed small in comparison, say, to the former Clinton family home in Chappaqua or the Obama family home. It was a small whitewashed suburban type house in a typical residential area in metropolitan Tripoli. It was surrounded by dozens of other family homes.
I spoke with a neighbor who described how three separate smart bombs hit the home and exploded, another one not exploding. According to the BBC, the NATO military operations chief stated that a “command and control center” had been hit. That is a lie. As anyone who visits the home can see, this home had nothing to do with NATO’s war. The strike against this home had everything to do with NATO adopting a policy of targeted assassination and extra-judicial killing — clearly illegal.
The neighbor said he found Saif Al-Arab in his bedroom underneath rubble; the three young grandchildren were in a different room and they were shredded to pieces. He told of how he picked up as many pieces as he possibly could. He told us that there are still pieces there that he could not get. He asked us to note the smell — not the putrid smell of rotting flesh, but a sweet smell. I did smell it and thought there was an air freshener nearby. It smelled to me of roses. He asked me why this was done and who was going to hold NATO accountable.
Muammar Qaddafi was at the house. But he was outside near where the animals are kept. It is a miracle that he survived. From the looks of that house and the small guest house beside it, the strike was a complete success if the goal was to totally and thoroughly demolish the structure and everything inside it.
NATO wants us to believe that toys, items and clothing, an opened Holy Koran, and a soccer board game are the appointments found in military command and control offices. I wonder if we could find such articles in NATO’s office in Brussels.
The opened Holy Koran seemed to be frozen in time. In fact, there was a clock dangling from its cord — dangling in space. And indeed, for the four young people in that house at the time of NATO’s attack, time had stopped.
The concussion from the bombs were so great that eerie tile on the walls and floors of the home had been knocked from the walls. Black burn marks scorched the walls. The force broke a marble or granite countertop. The bathtub was literally split into two parts. Shards of the bomb were everywhere. I wondered if the place was now contaminated with depleted uranium.
Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
The Qaddafi home is a crime scene — a murder scene. The United States prisons are full of men and women who are innocent — even on death row. I wonder where the guilty who are never prosecuted go.
Now, if the International Court of Justice were really a repository of justice, it would be investigating this crime. Instead, it is looking for yet another African to prosecute. We in the United States are familiar with this: on our local news every night, we are saturated with photos of Black and Brown criminals with the implication being that White people don’t commit crime. The moment the face of someone arrested is not shown, then we know that the culprit is White. It’s the unwritten code that we people of color all live by wherever in the world we might happen to be. Global apartheid is alive and well and exists on many levels.
I left the house sick in my heart. As I was about to depart, the neighbor begged me, asked me over and over again, why had this happened? What had they done to deserve this? He seemed to not want me to leave. Honestly, I think I was his little piece of America, his little piece of President Obama and I could help him to understand why this course of action was necessary from my President’s point of view. He said NATO should just leave them alone and let them sort out their problems on their own.
I did leave his presence, but that man’s face will never leave me.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”
In response to my previous article, I received the following quite about Buddha from Shiva Shankar who excerpted Walpola Rahula’s What The Buddha Taught:
… The Buddha not only taught non-violence and peace, but he even went to the field of battle itself and intervened personally, and prevented war, as in the case of the dispute between the Sakyas and the Koliyas, who were prepared to fight over the question of the waters of the Rohini. And his words once prevented King Ajatasattu from attacking the kingdom of the Vajjis. …
… Here is a lesson for the world today. The ruler of an empire publicly turning his back on war and violence and embraced the message of peace and non-violence. There is no historical evidence to show that any neighbouring king took advantage of Asoka’s piety to attack him militarily, or that there was any revolt or rebellion within his empire during his lifetime. On the contrary there was peace throughout the land, and even countries outside his empire seem to have accepted his benign leadership. …
Please don’t allow special interest press and war mongering gatekeepers of the left to blot out the tragedy unfolding in Libya. Please don’t allow them to take away our chance to live in peace throughout our land and with countries inside and outside our hemisphere. Congress should vote to end NATO’s action in Libya and barring that should assert its Constitutional prerogatives and require the President to come to it for authorization of this war. And then, Congress should heed the wisdom of the people of our country who are against this war and vote for peace.
Source: Dissident Voice
Fatal Fight vs. Cabala Cabal
NOVANEWS
By Captain Eric H. May, Ghost Troop CO
“Interesting scenario, rather bold and challenging to the elite. I admire your courage and forthrightness; however, it is not always a healthy approach to certain discreet matters. I cannot help to wonder why The Powers That Be have allowed you to carry on so far.” – Michael “Doc” Stovall
Prologue: Petro Plots
“A secretive Cabal running American foreign policy is undermining American democracy” – COL Larry Wilkerson
HOUSTON, 5/27/11 — Michael “Doc” Stovall accurately assessed my perilous path in his response to an article I wrote over the 2004 Labor Day weekend. Rense.com originally published Embedded Code Broken? Next 911 On September 27?. Something about Stovall spooked Jeff Rense, who posted then pulled his comment on the same day.
Six months earlier, Ghost Troop had succeeded in its first9/11-2B mission against the nation’s first post-9/11 false flag operation. The willing target had been BP in Texas City, just south of the Bush League and Big Oil capitol of Houston. We were lucky to be headquartered in the Bayou City, my hometown, as well, or we probably wouldn’t have detected and deflected the petro-plot to put Toxic City on the U.S. hit list:
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Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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Now York City, New York
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Texas City, Texas
When I wrote the Rense.com article, Bonesmen Bush and Kerry were campaigning, while the FBI was warning that a terror attack was likely before the election. As a matter of fact, they had concocted that false flag cover story only hours after Ghost Troop interdicted their Texas City 9/11-2B attempt.
BP Amoco Plant Explosion Investigation Under Way, 3/30/04
TEXAS CITY, Texas – Bruce C. Clawson, the Texas City emergency management director, said an internal investigation was under way, following a heightened security alert from recent reports that refineries in this area might be targeted by terrorists.
“That was one of our first concerns” with the blasts, Clawson told the Texas City Sun in Wednesday’s editions. “But there is no indication of that, none at all.”
As for our prediction of a Houston 9/11-2B false flag attempt, we were right to within 24 miles and 24 hours, just as we had been with Texas City six months earlier. Without the Ghost Troop infowar campaigns, both incidents likely would have been mammoth attacks, not minor ones.
Military Intelligence operatives CDR Brian Klock and LTC Gordon Fowkes posted their vision for a Houston 9/11-2B on a billboard in 2008.
Thief Blamed For Pipeline Explosion, 9/27/04
NEW CANEY, Texas — Investigators are looking for the thief who stole a piece of construction equipment and caused a pipeline explosion that forced the evacuation of hundreds of people in Montgomery County. The explosion happened when someone punctured the 6-inch diameter underground line with a trackhoe. Police said the equipment was stolen by someone who knew how to use it.
Alex Jones filmed his spontaneous interview of me at a Crawford, Texas antiwar rally on 3/20/04, the first anniversary of the invasion and ten days before the BP, Texas City false flag attempt. John Stadtmiller interviewed me via telephone on 4/1/04, two days after the BP, Texas City false flag attempt. Someone must have spooked them, too:
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Both discussed the 9/11 and 9/11-2B attacks with me.
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Both destroyed the interview tapes and transcripts.
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Both disrupted Ghost Troop missions afterwards.
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Both denounced Ghost Troop as Cointelpro scum.
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Both dismissed callers and guests who mentioned Ghost Troop.
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Both deserved my treason charges for aiding a 9/11-2B attempt on 1/31/06:
Nuclear attack warning story dismissed, 2/2/06
Basing his information on a report from a man claiming to be a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, show host Greg Szymanski reported that Texas City was likely the target for a government-led nuclear attack. The report quickly made the rounds via e-mail and blog sites. On Wednesday, people could see unmarked black trucks and sport utility vehicles bearing government license plates near crews setting up what appeared to be satellite or radar gear on the beach. The crews were wearing shirts embossed with the words, “Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team.”
Doc’s Deadly Diagnosis
On 9/8/04, Captain May wrote:
Welcome to my world, Ghost Troop. Please read and enjoy the kindest death-threat, or perhaps friendliest warning, that I’ve received yet! I guess this is a ghostly treat after we spent the weekend spooking the War Cabal by busting up their code — and it serves the bastards right! Boo!
On 9/7/04, Michael L. Stovall wrote:
Interesting scenario, rather bold and challenging to the elite. I admire your courage and forthrightness; however, it is not always a healthy approach to certain discreet matters. I cannot help to wonder why The Powers That Be have allowed you to carry on so far.
Having been involved with people in the highest of places, with those of considerable shaker ability, I would have suspected you would have been silenced by now. They play hard ball all the time, they play by their own rules, and they change the rules to always win, period. This is my personal direct observation; been there, done that, fact of life.
I might sincerely encourage you to reconsider the reason for your continued activity, and ask whether you suspect they have something in mind for you. These folks are smart, have a lot of smart people around them, and have incredible resources. They wrote the story before Sun Tzu ever hit the ground. Nothing happens unless they approve it, plan it, and activate it. They own the football and the football field, and they move the goal posts at any time they deem it necessary.
While I wish to encourage you, frankly, I fear for your future. Hard-hitting tactics such as you are using are not appreciated by those in higher places. I guess now I would just have to encourage you to publish your work, since you have already made a public statement. It does not guarantee one’s safety, as you must surely know, but occasionally there is safety in remaining in public view.
I regretfully moved to safer ground, fearing for the safety of family and friends. I watched peers who didn’t do so, and all have disappeared from the radar screen. That my friend is a sobering real-world scenario. I too had to come face to face with TPTB, and it was costly for me, so I speak to you with an experienced voice. I am getting old now, and do not have not much left to lose, so I offer up what little I have left: I offer you Peace my friend. You will need all our prayers for safety and guidance. — Kindest regards, Doc Stovall
On 9/7/2004, Captain May replied:
I thank you for the email. I agree with you that the dangers of being Ghost Troop commander are real enough. Candidly, I entered the infowar understanding that I likely would not come out of it alive, as you may see for yourself if you will read the Ghost Troop Introduction. I particularly recommend its July ’03 Letters, since they will show you just how much of a bother I have been to the powers that be. You can find even more invidious material in my Aljazeerah.info publications:
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5/3/2004: US Corporate Media Still Dangerous
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5/7/2004: 3/7 Cavalry, Tragedy and Travesty (Republished, 4/18/11)
I can only hope that the ladies and gentlemen who form the Establishment will permit this true soldier of the Republic to fulfill his brief, minor mission of ensuring that the dead of the Battle of Baghdad are not deprived of their due honors, and that the USA is not subjected to another contrived “terror” attack. Those are my humble ambitions, and I have none other. Candidly, I’d very much like to just fade out of the picture, back to my private life of humanities and martial arts; I don’t find the two contradictory. — With gratitude for your advice and concern, Captain May
Epilogue: Essential Evidence
These are the documented infowar campaigns of Ghost Troop, 3/7 Cyber-Cavalry, and its infowar allies of individuals and groups who have fought before us, with us and after us. I salute them all as part of the extended family of The Holy Horde!
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3/30/04: Texas City, TX, BP refinery explosion
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4/19/04: Sears Tower, Chicago, IL, false flag attempt
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9/26/04: New Caney, TX, pipeline explosion – the alert
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7/28/05: Texas City, TX, BP refinery explosion
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1/31/06: Texas City, TX, BP refinery false flag attempt
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2/1/06, Morganton, NC, Synthron Chemical explosion
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5/3/06: Sears Tower, Chicago, IL, false flag attempt
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7/2/06: Baytown, TX, Exxon Mobil refinery explosion — the alert
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7/19/05: Beirut, Lebanon, Israeli false flag attempt against Orient Queen
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10/18-19/07: Portland, OR, TOPOFF-4 false flag attempt
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2 /16-17/09, Chicago, IL, Stimulus Bill false flag attempt
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7/30/09: Bryan, TX, El Dorado Chemical fire — (1) alert (2) analysis
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7/31-8/14/09: Ft Leavenworth, KS false flag attempt against Kansas City
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11/6-11/10: USA, Biden/Netanyahu nuclear reactors false flag attempt
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11/26/10, Portland, OR, “Tree Bomber” false flag attempt
ALS patient Captain May with his dear friend, thought criminal Dr. Fredrick Toben, in 2010
Remember the U.S.S. Liberty and Crew this Memorial Day
NOVANEWS
On June 8, 1967 the terrorist Jewish state of Israel launched attacks against the U.S.S. Liberty which killed 34 U.S. sailors and Marines. The U.S. government ordered pilots flying American fighter jets that were on their way to rescue their fellow Americans from this vicious attack of Biblical ferocity to return to their carriers and let their fellow American sailors and Marines die. The politicians did this for the benefit of their own political careers.
This Memorial Day we need to take stock of this very disgusting, cowardly and revealing act of Israeli aggression and murder. We need to make certain we all learn the real lessons this war crime is teaching us. If we don’t, we’re letting those 34 Americans die in vain and we will allow Israel to continue its destruction of the United States via sacrificing our troops in Israel promoted wars and draining our finances through billion dollar hand outs the politicians give them.
The key lesson is Israel has far too much power over American politicians. Political whores in both parties sell-out American military personnel and America herself to please their string-pulling Israeli overlords to selfishly promote their own political careers. If they refuse, the Israel lobby will do all they can to see to it that they will lose in the next election. This is why Congress and the White House are unAmerican and kosher. This is why American sailors, airmen, soldiers and Marines are being sent off to wars for the benefit if the Jewish state of Israel. This is why one Jewish “U.S.” Senator, Chuck Schumer, actually believes and openly said that he’s on a mission from God to be Israel’s protector in the U.S. Senate! Not one “journalist” questioned him about his priority of Israel, not America, first.
To help seal the fear of Israel they use the Bible. The Bible teaches all sorts of Jewish superiority. One fear based Bible threat is found at Isaiah 60:12 which plainly teaches that God said, “For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.” Another is found at Genesis 12:3which has God saying to Abram, aka Abraham, which is taken to apply to Israel, too, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” This is nothing but psychological warfare plain and simple. And U.S. politicians appear to fall for it! U.S. Representative Michelle Bachmann recently said to the Republican Jewish Coalition, “I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States. . . [We] have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play. And my husband and I are both Christians, and we believe very strongly the verse from Genesis, we believe very strongly that nations also receive blessings as they bless Israel. It is a strong an beautiful principle.” Do we really need politicians who believe in curses and hexes???
The only thing that will help free us of the deep rooted Hebrew/Jewish superstitions found in the Bible which are causing so much misery and suffering in the world is our God-given reason. Our God-given reason teaches us to reject such deadly nonsense. God-given reason united with belief in God is Deism. And as the Deist Benjamin Franklin warned, “Hear Reason or she’ll make you feel her.”
Pakistan Next Worldwide Threat to Humanity?
NOVANEWS
Will Pakistan be the Next Worldwide Threat to Humanity and Our Way of Life?
by Earlaiman
PAKISTANI TALIBAN ATTACK ON MEHRAN NAVAL BASE
The Pakistan Observer asserts that the recent attack on the Pakistani Mehran Naval Base was conducted by “…professionals and fully trained terrorists backed and supported by foreign authority and intelligence network. ”
They further observe that “…The modus operandi of the terrorists was exactly like a secret operation conducted by commandos or Special Forces of a superior country behind the enemy line. There is little or no re-thinking that the action was designed, financed and supported by one or possibly two enemy of Pakistan with a greater objective… “ and that “…Officials are surprised to learn that several terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Turkestan Islamic Movement (TIP) and other groups are hitting only Pakistan and its strategic friends. ” Foreign Hand Behind PNS Mehran Base Attack in Pakistan
ATTACK ON PAKISTAN MEHRAN NAVAL BASE
When you consider that al Qaeda was at the time of its inception an Osama bin Laden led asset of the CIA,created under the auspices of George H. W. Bush, then Director of the CIA, whose family had been long-time intimate business and social associates of the bin Laden family, and that although Osama bin Laden is probably dead by one means or another by now, there is little evidence that the situation between the CIA and “al Qaeda” has changed, it is not too difficult to figure out who the writers are referring to whom they describe as “foreign authority and intelligence network”.
Al Qaeda has been named as the source of manpower for a lot of the “terrorism” which has taken place in the world lately, from the attack on the USS Cole to the downing of the towers in NY City and the hole in the Pentagon, an attack in Mumbai, a London subway bombing, as well as a few badly botched and rather farcical “attempts” at blowing up things and people with shoe and underwear bombs.
When you consider who all of these various “terror attacks” and “attempted terror attacks” benefit, who created and controls al Qaeda, and with whom the CIA works most closely in conjunction, it does not take a helluva lot of brainpower to connect a few dots and figure out who is behind all of this and why.
I think we can look forward to more “terrorist” activity in Pakistan, perhaps some more in India, a lot of voiced concern about the **“safety of Pakistani nuclear weapons stocks,” and a number of similar arguments all pressing the point and purpose of sending Western troops into Pakistan for whatever purposes, or provoking war between India and Pakistan which will accomplish the same ends… to destroy Pakistan as a viable player in World and Middle Eastern International affairs.
A plethora of additional reading material on this topic, ranging from the Raymond Davis covert activities and murder affairs, to plain and simple pre-attack, “prepare the public for another military misadventure” saber rattling, can be found under the “People who read this article also read:” section in Pakalert, an Online News website.
Most of it points to the same conclusions I have presented here.
Read them and decide for yourself whether it is worth dashing right down to your nearest local Army recruiter and signing up… or just digging a big hole in your back yard, reinforcing it with a heavy concrete roof, stocking it with some water, a few cases of beer and some grub, and laying low for a while.
Your choice!
And/or… you can just as easily do nothing about it, relax, pour another, and wait… until the stuff gets into the fan.
Comment:
Homeland Security Launches “If You See Something, Say Something™” Campaign at Indy 500
NOVANEWS
Secretary Napolitano Announces “If You See Something, Say Something™” Campaign Partnership with Indianapolis 500
INDIANAPOLIS—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today joined Indianapolis Mayor Gregory Ballard, Indiana State Homeland Security Advisor and Emergency Manager Joe Wainscott, and Indianapolis Director of Public Safety Frank Straub to announce a new partnership to bring the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) “If You See Something, Say Something™” public awareness campaign to the Indianapolis 500—an effort that will help ensure the safety and security of fans, employees, and race crews by identifying and reporting suspicious activity.
“Security is a shared responsibility and every citizen plays a critical role in identifying and reporting suspicious activities and threats—particularly at large events such as the Indianapolis 500,” said Secretary Napolitano. “Bringing the ‘If You See Something, Say Something™’ campaign to the Indianapolis 500 is an important part of the Department’s ongoing efforts to engage the American public in our state, local and national security efforts.”
The “If You See Something, Say Something ™” campaign—originally implemented by New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and now licensed to DHS for a nationwide campaign—is a simple and effective program to engage the public and key frontline employees to identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to the proper transportation and law enforcement authorities.
The Department of Homeland Security originally partnered with the state of Indiana on the campaign in January 2011. The “If You See Something, Say Something™” campaign partnership with the Indianapolis 500 will feature both print and video materials—including an “If You See Something, Say Something™” public service announcement with Indianapolis 500 Driver Graham Rahal.
Over the past year, DHS has worked with its federal, state, local and private sector partners, as well as the Department of Justice, to expand the “If You See Something, Say Something ™” campaign and the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative—an administration effort to train state and local law enforcement to recognize behaviors and indicators related to terrorism, crime and other threats; standardize how those observations are documented and analyzed; and expand and enhance the sharing of those reports with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and DHS—to communities throughout the country.
Partnerships with the “If You See Something, Say Something ™” campaign have recently been launched by the Washington State Ferries, The City of Los Angeles, AEG Worldwide, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League (NFL), as well as in Colorado, Minnesota and New Jersey, more than 9,000 federal buildings nationwide, Walmart, Mall of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the general aviation industry, and state and local fusion centers across the country. Secretary Napolitano also previously released the “If You See Something, Say Something ™” public awareness video, available here.
In the coming months, DHS will continue to expand the “If You See Something, Say Something ™” campaign nationally to help America’s business, communities and citizens remain vigilant and play an active role in keeping the country safe.
Encircling Russia with US Bases
NOVANEWS
by Stephen Lendman
In 1991, after the Soviet Union dissolved, everything changed but stayed the same. As a result, today’s stakes are far greater, presenting much larger threats to world peace.
In America, neocons are still dominant. Obama is more belligerent than Bush, waging four wars and various proxy ones. The Israeli Lobby, Christian Right, and other extremist elements drive them. Conflict is preferred over diplomacy.
Congressional majorities support Washington’s imperial agenda, including global militarization against potential challengers and America’s main rivals – China and Russia, encircling them belligerently with bases and strategic weapons. It’s a policy fraught with danger.
NATO has 28 member states, including 10 former Soviet Republics and Warsaw Pact countries. Prospective new candidates include Georgia, Ukraine, and potentially others later to more tightly encircle Russia and China.
At the same time, the Middle East and parts of Eurasia have been increasingly militarized with a network of US bases from Qatar to Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond – a clear breach of GHW Bush’s promise to Mikhail Gorbachev that paved the way for unifying Germany in 1990 and dissolving the Soviet Union.
Washington’s promises, of course, aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, a hard lesson many nations later learn painfully.
Moreover, the Pentagon has an expanding network of 1,000 or more global bases, including secret and shared ones for greater control. In fact, at a time no nation threatens America, trillions of dollars are spent anyway for what military planners call “full spectrum dominance” over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.
Encroaching Belligerently Near Russia’s Borders
In late summer 2009, Obama suspended Bush administration plans for interceptor missiles in Poland and advanced tracking radar in the Czech Republic, both NATO members. Purportedly targeting Iran and other “rogue states,” they, in fact, very much aimed at Russia, what new ones will do when installed.
At issue is assuring first strike capability, preventing or diminishing retaliation if America attacks Russia or China, a potentially catastrophic possibility under any scenario, but especially if nuclear war erupts.
For now, according to Obama, Washington will pursue “stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies,” including Poland and the Czech Republic. Tactics alone may change, not hardline imperial policies.
Last September, Defense Secretary Gates explained a four-phase missile shield plan, including deploying Aegis class warships in the Eastern Mediterranean equipped with SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles and anti-satellite interceptors, followed by upgraded land and sea versions when available.
Moreover, stationing SM-3s in Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland were announced. Last summer, in fact, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors and about 100 US troops were sent to eastern Poland, close to Russia’s Kaliningrad region, 200 miles from its border.
This same capability was installed in the Persian Gulf, including supplying regional allies with longer range Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile systems, the strategy being to have in place impenetrable interceptors from the Baltic to the Arabian, Black and Red Seas.
In addition, a warning system is planned for the Czech Republic and other countries as well as centrally controlled missile interceptors – from Southern and Eastern Europe through the Middle East to close to Russia’s borders, too close perhaps for comfort.
Instead of abandoning Bush’s scheme, Obama’s plans a far more extensive, sophisticated, flexible, mobile system to be developed through 2020. Included is nearly doubling the number of Aegis class warships to 38 by 2015, equipped with state-of-the-art missile interceptors.
As a result, America’s front line capability will shift from Eastern Germany through the Middle East to the Black Sea and other strategic waterways to the Caucasus and Russia proper, encroaching on Moscow with new Eastern European bases in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.
It represents the most significant US presence there since WW II. Currently, only limited troop numbers are involved up to 150 or so permanently, but expect an expanded presence ahead.
Last March, in fact, Secretary of State Clinton said Washington will deploy missile interceptor elements and F-16s in Poland. Russia expressed concern, Dmitry Rogozin, its permanent NATO representative, saying US plans complicate dialogue regarding creating a joint European anti-ballistic missile system, adding:
“Mrs. Clinton’s statement contradicts the foundational relationship (between the) Russian Federation and NATO signed in 1997, (stipulating) that NATO must not strengthen the military structure close to the borders of Russia.”
A Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement also expressed concern, saying:
“We have known about plans regarding (an) anti-ballistic missiles system long ago and we plan to (react in response) in the network of the EuroABM project. As for the idea of (US) Air Force base deployment, it requires an additional explanation.”
In late April, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reacted as well, saying:
“The expansion of NATO infrastructure towards our borders is causing us concern. NATO is not simply a political bloc. It is a military bloc. No one cancelled the agreements on how the bloc reacts to external threats. It is a defense structure,” but it’s acting aggressively.
In a post-G-8 Summit press conference, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said:
“I am not satisfied with the American side’s reaction to my proposals and with NATO’s reaction in general. Why? Because we are wasting time. Even though I spoke about the year 2020 yesterday as a deadline, (the) year when the construction of a four-stage system of the so-called adaptive approach ends. After 2020, if we do not come to terms, a real arms race will begin.”
Perhaps much sooner as he’s gotten no assurances that Russia isn’t being targeted. As a result, he added:
“When we ask for the name of the countries that the shield is aimed at, we get silence. When we ask if the country has missiles (able to strike Europe), the answer is no.”
So “who has those type of missiles” interceptors wish to deter? “We do. So we can only think that this system is being aimed against us.”
He and other Russian officials worry about it expanding to Ukraine and Georgia with missile interceptors, attack aircraft, and US troops on its borders, threatening its security.
Obama in Poland
On May 28, Obama met with Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, discussing, among other issues, reaffirming a US military presence with “American boots on the ground,” including a permanent aerial detachment of F-16s and C-130 transport planes.
White House national security official Liz Sherwood-Randall said:
“What we will be doing is rotating trainers and aircraft to Poland so they can become more inter-operable with NATO. It will be a small permanent presence on the ground and then a rotational presence that will be more substantial.”
On May 28, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said:
“To the east of the Oder River (dividing Germany and Poland), American forces will appear, and this at a time when America is reducing its overall military presence in Europe.”
In fact, redeployment with interceptor missiles, other offensive weapons, and boots on the ground close to Russia’s borders, not reduction, is planned, what clearly has Moscow officials alarmed.
On May 29, however, Obama disingenuously downplayed those concerns, reaffirming mutual defense and inviting Russia to participate in European missile defense plans, saying:
“I am very proud of (America’s) reset process (with Russia). We believe missile defense is something where we can cooperate with Russia….This will not be a threat to the strategic balance.”
Concerned Russian officials very much disagree, Vladimir Putin’s earlier sentiment likely again being discussed.
In February 2007, in response to US planned missile defense then, he said:
“NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders. (It) does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represent a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have a right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”
At the time, his comments drew a storm of US media Russia bashing, as well as an article by this writer titled, “Reinventing the Evil Empire,” saying:
Russia is back, proud and re-assertive, not about to roll over for America, especially in Eurasia. For Washington, it’s back to the future with a new Cold War, but this time for greater stakes and much larger threats to world peace.
It’s especially true during economic hard times, especially with austerity policies addressing them when social stimulus is needed, provoking spreading discontent for change.
As a result, Western powers may invent threats to distract people, waging greater war for imperial dominance, Russia and China perhaps directly threatened this time.
US Congress Becomes a Mob of Mindless Cheering Sycophants
NOVANEWS
Anyone who has ever been a delegate to a decision-making gathering like a national Democratic or Republican national nominating convention, knows this drill.
by James M. Wall
Scenes like the one above evoked veteran Jewish activist Uri Avnery to write this harsh description in his weekly Israeli-based column, Gush-Shalom:
It was all rather disgusting.
No one has said it better, nor with greater passion. It was, most certainly, as Avnery described in painful detail, a disgusting exhibition of congressional subservience to the leader of a foreign power.
This Congress is also guilty of a despicable act of defiance of the President of the United States, who is currently engaged in delicate negotiations to find peaceful solutions to the Middle East quagmire.
The American mainstream media found nothing out of the ordinary as the US Congress enthusiastically embraced the words of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, in a refutation of the long-standing American understanding that “partisanship stops at water’s edge”.
In this instance it was not a partisan deviation. It was, instead a total capitulation of both parties to a foreign leader who stood before the members of Congress and ignored the ugly and costly results his own country’s policies have brought to both the Middle East and to the United States.
It was, indeed, disgusting.
Avnery, a veteran of Israel’s Irgun who also fought in the 1948 war that created the state of Israel, watched the spectacle on television from his home in Jerusalem. This is how he expressed his disgust:
There they were, the members of the highest legislative bodies of the world’s only superpower, flying up and down like so many yo-yos, applauding wildly, every few minutes or seconds, the most outrageous lies and distortions of Binyamin Netanyahu. . . .
The sight of these hundreds of parliamentarians jumping up and clapping their hands, again and again and again and again, with the Leader graciously acknowledging with a movement of his hand, was reminiscent of other regimes. Only this time it was not the local dictator who compelled this adulation, but a foreign one.
Avnery writes that while Bibi’s speech was “finely crafted”, it can be summed up in one word, No.
NO return to the 1967 borders. NO Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. NO to even a symbolic return of some refugees. NO military withdrawal from the Jordan River – meaning that the future Palestinian state would be completely surrounded by the Israeli armed forces. NO negotiation with a Palestinian government “supported” by Hamas, even if there are no Hamas members in the government itself. And so on – NO. NO. NO.
The aim is clearly to make sure that no Palestinian leader could even dream of entering negotiations, even in the unlikely event that he were ready to meet yet another condition: to recognize Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” . . .
Netanyahu, along with his associates and political bedfellows, is determined to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state by all and any means. That did not start with the present government – it is an aim deeply embedded in Zionist ideology and practice.
Franklin Lamb, an American retired diplomat, now working in Washington and in Beruit, Lebanon, knows the American political scene from the inside.
Dr. Franklin Lamb
Lamb is a former Assistant Counsel of the US House Judiciary Committee. He has been a Professor of International Law at Northwestern College of Law in Oregon, earned his Law Degree at Boston University and his LLM, M.Phil, and PhD degrees at the London School of Economics.
He is currently the director of Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Beirut-Washington DC.
Lamb wrote an analysis for the Dubai-based site, My Catbird Seat, which examines the speech before the US Congress where members enthusiastically embraced Netanyahu and the policies of his right-wing Israeli government.
He also identified, however, potential signs of hope among what could be a growing number of congressional staff members who reacted quite negatively to Netanyahu’s speech.
His conclusion:
The effects of the Arab Spring are being felt in both Houses of Congress as well as in numerous support agencies such as the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress”.
Staffers with whom Lamb has communicated “understand that the Arab Awakening of 2011 is an historic game changer”, a change with which these staffers “are often deeply sympathetic and supportive.”
Lamb’s investigation also led him to conclude that “virtually all Congressional staffers who objected to Netanyahu’s appearance before Congress expressed rejection of his following assertions as ludicrously false”.
Those statements were applauded by those members of Congress so limited in their knowledge of the narrative Netanyahu was selling, that they believed him. Those few who did know the assertions were false, also applauded, on demand.
Here is the “ludicrously false” Netanyahu list Lamb found in his discussion with staff members:
“Of 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.”
“Throughout the millennial history of the Jewish capital, the only time that Jews, Christians and Muslims could worship freely, could have unfettered access to their holy sites, has been during Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.”
“In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.”
“In recent years, the Palestinians twice refused generous offers by Israeli prime ministers to establish a Palestinian state on virtually all the territory won by Israel in the Six-Day War.”
“We have helped the Palestinian economic growth by removing hundreds of barriers and roadblocks to the free flow of goods and people, and the results have been nothing short of remarkable.”
“The Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel.”
“They (Palestinians) continue to educate their children to hate.”
“A nuclear armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”
Lamb also found that the applause moments that “erupted” during the speech, according to two staffers who work with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, were organized by AIPAC.
AIPAC, as it always does with visiting Israeli officials, edited Netanyahu’s speech to identify points that assured “most favorable local consumption”. These points were marked as “applause lines”.
Key Members such as Eric Cantor (R-VA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV) were designated as floor leaders and were seated in strategic locations in the Chamber.
Once Bibi began his speech, the floor leaders would leap up at the indicated cue phrases and begin to applaud enthusiastically.
Anyone who has ever been a delegate to a decision-making gathering like a national Democratic or Republican national nominating convention, knows this drill.
I have served as floor whip for several Democratic conventions. From those experiences, I can report that it works this way: the delegate chief in the trailer calls in and instructs the whip, “Lift up the signs and cheer”.
(A young man named Tom Donilon, who now has a much bigger assignment as Barack Obama’s National Security advisor, was in one of those trailers, relaying instructions to me during Jimmy Carter’s second nominating convention.)
During Bibi’s speech, the Big Four of Cantor, Hoyer, Schumer and Reid, had their carefully marked speech text. When they jumped up to cheer and applaud, all members of Congress followed their lead. Failure to do so could be costly in the next primary election.
MJ Rosenberg writes this weekend about a 1988 experience he had as a Senate staffer. The story appears on the blog, Political Correction, a “Project of Media Matters Action Network”.
(Media Matters was initially created by David Brock, the former right wing political operative, who repented of his role as the “attack dog” against Bill and Hillary Clinton. The current issue of New York magazine has the detailed account of Brock’s conversion and his repeated apologies to the Clintons.)
Rosenberg begins:
It was in 1988 and I was a foreign policy aide to Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). One February day, Levin called me into his office to say that he was disturbed at a quote he saw in that day’s New York Times. An article quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir saying that he rejected the idea of withdrawing from any of the land Israel captured in the 1967 war:
Mr. Shamir said in a radio interview, ”It is clear that this expression of territory for peace is not accepted by me.”
Levin instantly understood what Shamir was saying. He was repudiating UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 (which Israel had helped draft) which provided for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent [1967] conflict” in exchange for peace and security. Those resolutions represented official U.S. and international policy then, and they still do.
But, in 1988, Shamir tried to declare them null and void. Levin asked me to draft a letter to Secretary of State George Shultz stating that it was the view of the Senate that the U.N. Resolutions remained the policy of the U.S. whether Shamir liked it or not.
In great detail, Rosenberg continues with the story of his exciting journey through the jungle warfare that is the Israel Lobby, the Congress, the media (most notably, the New York Times‘ William Safire), and the White House.
Rosenberg concludes by linking his 1988 experience to this past week’s Congressional craven conformity to Israel:
So what’s the moral? It is this: Criticizing Israel is dangerous business. On what other issue would a New York Times columnist call a Senate staffer and threaten to destroy his career? None. And why was a New York Times columnist acting as if he was working for the Israeli government? Safire wasn’t a journalist that day; he essentially was a representative of the Israeli government.
Accordingly, is it any wonder the whole Congress abased itself the other day by jumping up and down and hurling love at Netanyahu? Who wants to mess with an 800-pound gorilla? Certainly not members of Congress.
We conclude this narrative of a nation’s legislative leaders as they wander in the wilderness with a short clip of the Bibi Netanyahu performance before the US Congress.
The picture above of the Congress applauding for one of 29 times is from Palestine Uprooted. The picture of Franklin Lamb is from My Catbird Seat. The clip of parts of Netanyahu’s performance before Congress is from C Span and is available on Youtube.
Dorothy Online Newsletter
NOVANEWS
Dear Friends,
The first three items of the seven below furnish information about political and social affairs. They are followed by several reports of events and end with information about Palestinian women political prisoners, first in a video and then in a flyer distributed by the Bay Area Women in Black.
Item 1 reports that the Arab League backs Palestinian membership bid at the UN.
Item 2 informs us that Israel is putting more money into the institution of higher learning in Ariel than in other institutions, with the intention of encouraging more students to attend classes in West Bank institutions.
Item 3 tells us that Netanyahu urged Canada’s PM to thwart G8 support for 1967 lines.
Item 4 contains 3 brief reports by the CPT of incidents in the Hebron area.
In item 5 David Shulman writes about the “Beauty of Defiance,” describing this weekend’s demonstration at Ras al-Amud.
This is followed by Joseph Dana’s video of police using tasers against demonstrators at the demonstration depicted by David Shulman.
The final item is additional information about Palestinian women political prisoners, first in a video, and then in a brochure that Bay Area Women in Black hand out.
That’s it for tonight.
Dorothy
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1. BBC,
May 29, 2011
Arab League backs Palestinian membership bid at UN
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13586799
Mahmoud Abbas is pressuring Israel to return to the negotiating table
The Arab League says it will seek full UN membership for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The decision was made at a meeting in Doha attended by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr Abbas had reiterated his determination to seek UN recognition in September unless Israel began negotiations on a “substantial basis”.
US-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled for months.
A statement issued by the Arab League monitoring committee on Saturday said it “supports the appeal to the UN asking that Palestine, within the 1967 borders, becomes a full-fledged state” of the international organisation.
Mr Abbas had told the meeting: “Our option is still negotiation, but it seems that because of conditions imposed by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu… we have no choice but to use the UN to get recognition of our state.
“We are serious in our decision to use the UN, it is not manoeuvring. We will do it unless Netanyahu accepts to begin negotiations today on a substantial basis.”
Basis for talks
In a keynote policy speech on 19 May, US President Barack Obama issued a clear call for Israel and the Palestinians to use the borders existing before the 1967 Six Day War, with land swaps, as the basis for talks.
However, he made it clear that an appeal to the UN for full membership for Palestine would be a mistake.
Mr Netanyahu rejected President Obama’s proposal outright, saying the Jewish state would be “indefensible” if it returned to the 1967 borders, which would exclude dozens of Jewish settlements.
He also rejected the idea of dividing the city of Jerusalem. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their capital.
On Friday, UN General Assembly president Joseph Deiss said that a Palestinian state would need the support of all five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council to be recognised.
Correspondents say this seems unlikely, although even as a symbolic gesture the move could make Israel look politically isolated.
==================
2. Haaretz,
May 29, 2011
Enrollment at Israeli university in West Bank expected to grow at fast pace
Council for Higher Education gives priority funding ‘to institutions in outlying areas and in national priority zone including the capital, Jerusalem.’
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/enrollment-at-israeli-university-in-west-bank-expected-to-grow-at-fast-pace-1.364636
By Asaf Shtull-Trauring
Tags: West Bank
The Council for Higher Education has decided that the number of students funded by the state at the Ariel University Center of Samaria in the settlement of Ariel will be allowed to grow to a much greater extent than at many other colleges.
For example, the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem will only get funding for eight new student positions over six years. Sapir College in Sderot will get funding for 484 additional students, as will Western Galilee College. The Academic College of Tel Aviv will be allocated funds for 962 new students.
The Ariel University Center will be allowed to grow by about 1,600 students.
“I was greatly disappointed to hear about the allocation of quotas, which on the face of it is a surrender to the politicians,” said former Sapir College President Zeev Tzahor. “Sapir College, which is in the most sensitive location in Israel, on the outskirts of Sderot, is receiving a much smaller quota supplement [484] than the Tel Aviv College and less than a third of Ariel’s.”
The council’s plan is part of a reform program set up last year that includes a six-year undertaking to increase budgets at the country’s schools of higher education.
The expected growth in student funding in Ariel is consistent with a statement last year by the chairman of the council’s Planning and Budgeting Committee, Manuel Trajtenberg. He said 55 percent of the new student positions would be created in the north and south of the country, 30 percent in Jerusalem and at Israeli schools in the West Bank, and only 15 percent in the center of the country. He called this “a dramatic change in priorities.”
Most of the colleges – schools of higher education including Ariel that are not considered full universities – will receive funding for the addition of between 300 and 700 students.
The allocations to Israeli institutions in the West Bank were not mentioned in the council’s announcement on new student positions. Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who is also council chairman, said priority would be given “to institutions in outlying areas and in national priority zone including the capital, Jerusalem.” Among other announced priorities were school subjects deemed import to national economic planning, including science and engineering.
“The criteria are very clear, and based on them, institutions get points, and the Ariel University Center apparently meets the criteria,” the council’s Planning and Budgeting Committee said. It said Ariel is located in a national priority zone, and apparently the teaching of priority subjects there also boosted the school’s point score, thereby expanding funding for additional students.
The Ariel University Center said: “Our assessment is that we got a larger quota [of students] because we greatly stress science and engineering, as well as students from outlying areas. The third [explanation] is that we are a university for all intents and purposes.” The school noted that it has 12,000 students, most of whom pay university-level tuition rather than what colleges charge.
“Our budget allocation is as if we were a college, and the correction [the additional council’s funding] that was made is not a complete step, it is a correction. We hope this is a sign of things to come,” the school added. The council’s Planning and Budgeting Committee made it clear that the additional funds are not connected to a possible upgrade of the Ariel school to full university status.
Among other colleges, funding will be increased to add 657 students at Tel Hai College near Kiryat Shmona. Ruppin College will get 902 student positions funded. Jezreel Valley College will receive 570 new student positions.
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3. Haaretz,
May 29, 2011
Netanyahu asked Canada PM to thwart G8 support for 1967 borders
G8 statement would have supported Obama’s policy that Israeli-Palestinian talks should be based on 1967 lines with land swaps.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-asked-canada-pm-to-thwart-g8-support-for-1967-borders-1.364635
By Barak Ravid
Tags: Israel news Benjamin Netanyahu Barack Obama
At the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper thwarted an announcement Friday by the G-8 countries that would have supported U.S. President Barack Obama’s statement that talks between the Palestinians and Israel should be based on the 1967 borders with exchanges of territory.
The G-8 countries – the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada – met in France on Thursday and Friday to discuss the situation in the Middle East.
Obama presented his Middle East policy to the G-8 as an alternative to a unilateral Palestinian move to seek support for statehood in the United Nations General Assembly in September, and to clarify to the Palestinians that the international community takes a dim view of the Palestinians’ move to win statehood in the United Nations.
According to a senior government official in Jerusalem, Israel was concerned over the implications of a specific mention of support for Obama’s call for negotiations based on the 1967 borders and exchanges of territory, so the prime minister’s bureau and the Foreign Ministry began working on the matter as early as the middle of last week.
The Foreign Ministry instructed its envoys in the various capitals to ask that the G-8’s concluding statement emphasize three things: that a Palestinian state will arise only through direct negotiations, not through a unilateral move in the United Nations; opposition to Hamas-Fatah reconciliation as long as Hamas rejects the Quartet’s conditions; and opposition to a mention of the issue of 1967 borders and exchanges of territory. However, there was concern over whether inclusion of the latter issue could be prevented, the official said, because at least seven out of the eight G-8 countries supported including it.
Tuesday, after Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, he telephoned Harper, who heads a rightist government under whose leadership Canada has become one of Israel’s greatest allies.
The senior government official said Netanyahu told Harper that mentioning the issue of the 1967 borders in the statement, without mentioning the other issues, such as Israel as a Jewish state or opposition to the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, will be detrimental to Israeli interests and a reward to the Palestinians.
“The prime minister is in constant contact with various leaders in moving ahead the diplomatic process,” Netanyahu’s bureau said.
Since a decision on the statement requires consensus, Canada’s efforts led to a release of the statement without reference to the 1967 borders.
The statement released expressed general support for the Obama speech, but called for the establishment of a Palestinian state through negotiations, not unilaterally, and for Hamas to accept the Quartet’s conditions.
Harper said Friday that he thought the statement issued was “balanced.” He also said it was important not to “cherry-pick” Obama’s statement. “I think if you’re going to get into other elements, obviously I would like to see reference to elements that were also in President Obama’s speech. Such as, for instance, the fact that one of the states must be a Jewish state. The fact that the Palestinian state must be de-militarized.”
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman spoke over the weekend with Canada’s foreign minister, John Baird, and thanked him for Canada’s position during the G-8 deliberations. “Canada is a true friend of Israel and with a realistic and proper view of things, it understands that the 1967 borders do not conform to Israel’s security needs and with the current demographic reality,” Lieberman said.
===================================
4. CPT Hebron cptheb@palnet.com
RELEASE
Settlers burn ancient olive trees in Tel Rumeida
by Esther Mae Hinshaw
27 May 2011
At 4:30 p.m. on 27 May 2011, CPT received a call that settlers set fire to olive orchards on the Abu Haikel property in Tel Rumeida. By the time Paulette Schroeder, Laurens van Esch, and Esther Mae Hinshaw arrived at the Abu Haikel house, the fire had almost gone out.
One of the Abu Haikel sons took the CPTers to the scene of the fire. As some of the trees were still smoldering, a Palestinian fireman from the Hebron Municipality continued to monitor the scene. The fireman reported that soldiers had taken all of their new fire hoses and given them old hoses to use. Later, when the CPTers asked the soldiers to return the new equipment to the last remaining fireman, they did not respond.
The fire affected sixteen ancient olive trees, some more than a thousand years old, in an area of almost two dunum (one-half acre). The soldiers from the post nearby yelled at the CPTers to leave the field, but CPTers called out to them that they were on land belonging to the Abu Haikel family, who had invited them to be there. When the CPTers continued to take pictures, the soldiers took no further action.
Asked whether the trees would one day produce olives again, the son responded, “No, they’ve burned them for the last seven years.”
Photos of the Abu Heikels’ burnt fields and olive trees are available at http://cpt.org/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=23097&g2_page=1.
========================
Soldiers detain and abuse 14-year-old boy; new documentary describes Israeli imprisonment of Hebron minors
24 May 2011
On 10 May 2011, fourteen-year-old A.* was returning from a football (soccer) match with two other friends to his home near Bab il Baladiye, the entrance to the Old City. Some younger boys were throwing rocks at the Bab il-Baladiye checkpoint and when soldiers emerged from behind the wall to deal with the stone throwers, they grabbed A.
For the next six hours, A. remained blindfolded in the soldier camp, wrists bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs. One soldier kicked him and kept yelling at him to admit he had thrown stones, which A. steadfastly denied. Around 3:00 in the morning, a soldier who spoke Arabic arrived, told the other soldiers that A. had NOT been among the boys throwing stones, and brought him to the Palestinian police station, where A.’s uncle worked. He slept there until his mother came to pick him up at 7:00 a.m. the next morning.
When CPTers visited A. on 13 May to fill in the details of his story, his eighteen-year-old brother, K., told them that he had many more stories to share of soldiers abusing teenage boys in the area, usually after they had been accused of throwing stones. In at least two instances, the boys in question had been standing in an area talking when the soldiers grabbed them and sent them to Ofer prison, “They choose the ones that seem weak; I don’t know why,” K. told the CPTers. One friend, who, according to K. is “absolutely nonviolent,” was picked up by soldiers and falsely accused of a knife attack. After a harsh interrogation by the police, the friend was sent to Ofer. He found his six months in prison not as bad as he thought it would be, but he had to repeat a year of school afterwards.
K. also related other instances of soldier abuse. About a year ago, he, A., and three other friends were walking on Shalala Street when soldiers lined them up against the wall and began beating them. If they tried to raise their heads, the soldiers slapped them. When they eventually let the five boys go, soldiers told them that if they ever saw them on the streets after 8:00 p.m., they would be arrested. K. and several of his friends said Israeli Russian, Druze, and religious soldiers are the most likely to beat Palestinians.
Gerry O’Sullivan, a former member of the Ecumenical Accompaniers in Hebron and friend of CPT’s Hebron team, recently created a documentary about the arrests and imprisonment of minors in the Hebron area titled, “Stolen Children; Stolen Lives.” It is available in two parts on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zaeERjVReE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9mDscNEws4&feature=related
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CPT releases video of Palestinian testimonies about settler attack in Tuba
Tuba, South Hebron Hills, West Bank
Link to video: http://ow.ly/4YT6B
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has released a video of Palestinian testimonies about the recent settler invasion of the village of Tuba. On 16 May, shortly before midnight, Israeli settlers invaded Tuba, damaged property, and stole and injured several sheep belonging to the Ali Awwad family.
Members of the Ali Awwad family reported that they counted seven masked settlers, who entered the village throwing rocks with slingshots. Besides stealing seven sheep, the settlers beat the sheep and injured several, including one which lost an eye. Two of the sheep were so badly injured that the family had to slaughter them the next morning. In addition, the settlers overturned three large water tanks, damaged fences and a goat pen, punctured a storage tent and three sacks of yogurt, and destroyed the ventilation pipe of an outhouse.
Although the family called the Israeli police the night of the attack, the police did not come to Tuba until two days later. Tuba residents saw Israeli soldiers near the village immediately following the settler invasion. But when the Palestinians tried to speak with the soldiers, the soldiers were not able to communicate in Arabic and left the village.
Christian Peacemaker Teams and Operation Dove have maintained an international presence in At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills since 2004.
—
CPT-Palestine in At-Tuwani,
South Hebron Hills
Twitter @cptpalestine
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5.The Beauty of Defiance–Ras al-Amud
David Shulman
http://www.en.justjlm.org/470
The Israeli-Palestinian struggle against the settlement in Sheikh Jarrah
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By adminPublished: 28/05/2011
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“Solidarity” in Ras al-Amud, May 27, 2011. By: Oren Ziv, Activestills
May 27, 2011
We gather at 4:00 outside the settlers’ multi-story stone building opposite the old police station at Ras al-Amud, on the Mount of Olives. This was the week of Netanyahu’s speech before Congress; if, utterly unlikely as this may be, there is anyone in the world who failed to notice that he was lying through his teeth, then Wednesday’s official ceremony unveiling the new settlement here in East Jerusalem should be enough to remove the veil. He used the word “peace” many times, in most cases meaning “war.”
It is hot, dusty, dry, and from the start I’m thirsty, and it keeps getting worse. I’m also a little high on the mood of the crowd: I sense a savvy toughness, a clarity of purpose, and I feel the rage. The lines are lucidly drawn. Some 20 to 30 settler children, boys and girls, and a few adults line the rooftop overlooking the street and the activists milling just below them; sometimes the children spit at us, or spray us with water (not unwelcome in the fierce heat), and sometimes they sing or chant, as if to mimic the rhymed slogans we’re shouting to the beat of the drums. They hang a sign down from the roof: “refuah shlemah, Speedy Recovery,” the implication being that we are mad, perhaps suffering from some kind of mass psychosis. Perhaps they’re right. Would Jews demonstrate against other Jews, even if the latter are out-and-out thieves?
But not only Jews are here to demonstrate today; there are many Palestinians, far more than in most of the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations, and they’re up front in the thick of it, facing the police. There’s a large underground parking area beneath the massive stone apartments; we’ve taken our stand on the path leading up to it, so settler cars entering or leaving are having rather a hard time. At one point one of them, surrounded by activists, suddenly accelerates, plowing through the crowd; people leap to the side; miraculously, no one is hurt. The police bark and push and shove at us, trying vainly to clear a way. It all takes time, a long time, as the tension slowly mounts, reaching toward a climax, though there are also moments of anomie and perplexity, and the weariness of boredom, thirst, and heat.
A Palestinian boy, maybe 12 years old, takes the megaphone and boldly leads the chanting for a few minutes, half in Arabic, half in Hebrew, the languages running together on his tongue: la l’ihtilal, ken le-meri ezrahi, “No to Occupation, Yes to Civil Disobedience.” I like the sound of it, coming from him. Civil disobedience is what is called for in the extreme conditions of Israel-Palestine 2011—and with it relentless provocation, a constant seeking of the point of friction, giving no inch. The police seem bewildered, out of their depth: what are they supposed to do with these 200 demonstrators? I can see the two commanders hesitating, uncertain; they’re not much of an enemy, this time round; for once they don’t seem eager to arrest us. Maybe—just a guess, or wishful thinking- the senior one, who carries himself with a certain dignity, doesn’t really like defending these fanatical settlers. Still, we prod them, taunt them, we call them a “settlers’ police” (all too true), we tell them they have the right and, indeed, the duty to refuse illegal orders, we spill over the line they are trying to hold, and finally we do what many have done before us, in Gandhi’s India, in Alabama and Mississipi, in the Vietnam years, in Tibet—we sit down on the approach road, blocking access to the building and its parking lot, and wait, arms looped together, for the police to pry us loose and drag us away.
It takes some time. The usual happiness washes over me. There is really nothing quite so sweet as doing the right thing. I am, at last, or again, one with myself and almost at peace with the world—apart from the tormenting thirst and the occasional drizzle of spit from above. We’re packed together in an ungainly mass. Profound equality, communitas, like a physical force, binds us together in the face of what is about to come. But I’m not thinking about the future now. This moment is enough. I need nothing more.
Of course the ranks ahead of me are rapidly thinning out, for the police have begun their attack; they grab whatever part of the body presents itself first, head, feet, arms, buttocks, they struggle to separate us one from another—it isn’t easy—and they drag us, one by one, sometimes punching us for good measure, yelling curses, to the side of the road which, of course, must be kept open for the settlers at all costs. I can’t see the larger scene very well from my small piece of paradise on the ground, but I hear the shouts and cries and the steady roar of the drums, and I can see the soldiers’ black boots getting closer and closer, the first couple of rows gone by now, only two or three meters left, they will be on me in a moment, I really ought to be afraid but nothing seems capable of shattering my eery peace. I’m a little worried about Eileen, who is standing somewhere near the edge of the street; I can’t see her, I hope she’s not within range of the blows the border police are showering with evident abandon, as if finally freed from irksome constraint.
Perhaps, I think, I’ll be able later to write about that peacefulness and explore it further; I know I’m not the only one to feel it. Eileen will say later, when it’s over: “That moment all of you sat down was beautiful and powerful.” She’s right about that. Maybe that’s why, as she says, I love it so. Let’s say a hundred of us were sitting there, defiant, ready to be pummeled or dragged away or arrested. Clearly we didn’t have to explain it to anyone, least of all to ourselves, because the rightness of it was perfectly evident, and, after all, we’ve done such things before, many times, and by now we’ve learned what had to be learned—above all the lesson of action, saying “no” not in words but with our bodies, again and again, as long as it’s necessary to do so until some day we win. But even that thought is not right and not needed, these days we’re not thinking much about winning. I smile at Tehila, just behind me, remembering our arrest in south Hebron just a month or so ago—her first time. But the smile is because I have just realized that we are doing this precisely because we can’t know where it will lead or what effects it will have, and I have just remembered the verse from the Bhagavad Gita which says that human beings are given the right to act but should never consider the fruits of action—it is enough that it is good, godly, and intrinsically humane.
There’s quite a lot of tugging and tearing and poking and grabbing and punching, and to my surprise I am swept, as if by a whirlpool, away from the center and toward the curb, since by now the soldiers and police have cleared just enough space for one of the settler cars to struggle through, and they’ve apparently tired of the struggle against these interlaced arms and legs and heavy bodies. I guess I was lucky. Someone just a yard or two away was not: they shot him with a Taser, and he fell, clutching his right chest, his eyes racing wildly in their sockets, his body twitching a little, hardly conscious. I rush over, but before I can begin to dredge up my medic’s instincts, Daniel is there, cradling his head in his arms; Daniel is a doctor, with the doctor’s assurance. We call an ambulance, but within a few minutes our friend comes to, sits up slowly, even more slowly tries to stand. Tasers are dangerous; they hit you with an electric shock that can kill. My son Misha warned me some months ago that we’d be likely to encounter them one of these days, and today it happened, my first time. Our wounded activist, uncowed, rejoins the others still sitting on the road.
There are arrests, of course—six, to the best of my knowledge; but when they try to arrest one of the Palestinians, the activists swirl around and manage, with much difficulty, to extricate him from the clutches of the police. One minor victory. Meanwhile, while I was busy, many things have happened. Uli, my former student, comes week after week to hold up a black flag with a pirate’s skull and bones; some have found this banner enigmatic, though Uli says its message is self-evident, a perfect emblem of the settlers’ ways. Today one of the settlers manages to snatch it and tear it off the pole, which now, I have to admit, looks a little forlorn. Maybe it’s become a Buddhist flagpole, supporting the deep emptiness of all that is. Then Uli’s cellphone rings, and on the line is a former girlfriend of his, whom he describes as a nihilist or anarchist, utterly apolitical; and by a strange twist such as turns up regularly in Israel, this woman happens to be the sister of one of the settlers inside the building, and the sister’s children are with the former girlfriend and are supposed to be taken “home”, if a stolen piece of Palestinian land counts as home. What to do? Uli doesn’t want the children to be traumatized: “Wait an hour,” he suggests.
And then—when? Some two hours or more have gone by– it’s over. The police drive off with their captives. Eileen sees Palestinian children grasping stones and broken shards of ceramic in their fists. This is a new danger, worse than anything that has happened so far. She goes over to try to calm them, and others join her, and it works–or maybe the boys decide rightly by themselves. No tear gas or rubber bullets today.
On the main road just beside us, while we’re still embroiled in the melée, drums beating, people screaming, a Palestinian car, brightly decorated with white ribbons, with bride and groom inside, painfully threads its way past this battle zone, somehow avoiding the jeeps of the Border Guards that block the way. Will they make it in time to the wedding?
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position, how it takes place
When someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
along…
The Auden poem happens to be about us, Eileen and me: we spent this morning in Tel Aviv shopping for Misha’s wedding. Should I be feeling guilty for this great joy, this pleasure, when I could have been in south Hebron or Silwan or Nabi Saleh, when I could have bound up the wounds of the suffering and tried, at least, to free the slaves? No, I should not. But you know—it’s utterly impossible to make sense of these sharp transitions. It’s crazy. One moment we’re having our espresso in Tel Aviv, and the next we’re here with the police and the settlers and the dust and the drums and the pain and the unanswerable questions and the hopelessness and the dread. Whatever god invented the world we inhabit didn’t think things through. I wish Him a speedy recovery.
The largest government-supported extreme right-wing settlement in East Jerusalem, or: Why is it important to come to the demonstration in Ras Al-Amoud?
==========================
6, Joseph Dana
Watch Israeli police use stun guns on demonstrators
Police use stun guns on protestors
http://972mag.com/author/josephd/
Sunday, May 29 2011Independent commentary from Israel & the Palestinian territories
AboutSaturday, May 28 2011|Joseph Dana
WATCH: Police use stun guns for first time on Jewish protesters
A demonstration against the settler takeover of East Jerusalem was held in the neighborhood of Ras al-Amud yesterday afternoon. The demonstration was organized by members of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity group, an Israeli led nonviolent protest movement based in Jerusalem. Days before the demonstration, a new and illegal Jewish settlement was inaugurated in Ras al-Amud with name of Ma’ale HaZeitim.
Yesterday’s demonstration was a nonviolent exercise of the right to protest the illegal Israeli act of creating new settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli police reacted with excessive and violent force against the chanting Jewish protesters. For the first time, police used electronic stun guns against protesters who, locked arm in arm and sitting peacefully, refused to move from the entrance to the settlement. You can clearly see the use of the stun guns in the first video at minute 1:35. The second video provides a fuller picture of the demonstration. Six protesters were arrested in the course of the protest. One claims her hand was broken by police.
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7. Palestinian Women Prisoners
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j148dOhCBtY&feature=share
2. Flyer with information about Palestinian Women prisoners which the Bay Area [San Francisco Bay Area] Women in Black distribute.
http://www.bayareawomeninblack.org/PDF%20Files/WomenInPrison_21May11.pdf
NATO air strike kills 12 children, two women
NOVANEWS
Reuters
An air strike called in by NATO-led troops in southern Afghanistan killed 12 children and two women, Afghan officials said on Sunday, one of the worst civilian death tolls by foreign forces in months.
A U.S. Marine base came under fire from insurgents in Taliban stronghold of Helmand on Saturday, the Helmand governor said in a statement, leading the base to call for help from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
”ISAF’s air strike took place on two civilian houses. Unfortunately 14 innocent civilians were killed and six civilians wounded,” the Helmand governor’s statement said.
It said seven boys, five girls and two women were among the dead. Three children were among the six wounded, it said.
An ISAF spokesman in Kabul said: “We are aware of the reports that alleged civilians were killed yesterday in Helmand.” He said an assessment team had been sent to the area and would issue its findings shortly.
The mistaken killing of civilians by foreign troops, usually during air strikes or “night raids,” is a major source of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers, and complicates efforts to win support from ordinary Afghans for an increasingly unpopular war.
On Saturday, Karzai ordered the Defense Ministry to take control of so-called “night raids,” saying Afghan troops should be carrying out the sensitive operations themselves.
Afghans say the raids, carried out in darkness on houses suspected of harboring insurgents, often lead to civilian casualties.
Residents and local officials from Helmand’s Nawzad district, where the air strike took place, said the attack began at around 11 p.m. local time (0630 GMT) on Friday night.
Bereaved male relatives cradled the bodies of several young children on Sunday, who were wrapped in bloody sheets and placed side to side, and brought them in the back of a truck to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, Reuters pictures showed.
”My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed … the Taliban were far away from my home, why was my house bombed?” relative Noor Agha told Reuters.
The NATO air strike comes at a time of high anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan and days after deadly protests by thousands of people against a night raid by NATO troops in which four people, including two women, were killed.
Twelve people were killed during those violent protests and clashes with police in usually peaceful northern Takhar province and more 80 were wounded.
In February, four days of joint operations by Afghan and foreign troops killed 64 civilians in the eastern Kunar province, including many women and children.
That assault followed a NATO rocket attack last July which killed 39 civilians, almost all women or children, in Helmand.
Under a plan agreed by NATO leaders in Lisbon last year, foreign troops will begin handing over security responsibilities to Afghan troops from July, with a plan to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
Despite the presence of some 150,000 foreign troops, violence in Afghanistan last year reached its deadliest phase since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001, with record casualties on all sides. This year is following a similar trend.
The Taliban this month announced the start of a long-awaited “spring offensive” vowing to carry out attacks, including suicide assaults, on foreign and Afghan troops and government officials.
Obama–Despite Costs, US Has ‘Obligation’ to Back pro-Democracy Protesters
NOVANEWS
Antiwar.com
In a speech which also included insistences that he is still concerned about the struggling US economy, President Barack Obama declared total support for pro-democracy rallies across the Middle East and North Africa.
Obama shrugged off concerns about the spiraling budget deficit, insisting that the US has “an obligation” to support democracy worldwide, and that the US must always “leave room” in the budget for such expenditures.
The US has been secretly funneling money to a number of opposition movements in the region, but traditionally only those opposed to dictators who are at odds with US policy in the region. When protests have erupted in pro-US dictatorships, the administration has been, and is likely to remain silent.
Likewise, the commitment to “support” democracy has already been used by the administration as a pretext for one illegal war in Libya, and French officials have suggested Libya might set a precedent for comparable NATO invasions throughout the region. Though President Obama seemed confident he would find the money to pay for what is at its core an increasingly interventionist policy, the official tendency to dramatically underestimate the cost of such advertures is likely to leave open the question of exactly how the US is supposed to afford all these illusory “obligations.”
Egypt-Gaza border opening leaves Palestinians disappointed
NOVANEWS
McClatchy
RAFAH, Egypt — Mufid al Masry, 46, was so excited about his first trip to Egypt that he couldn’t sleep the night before he set out for the Rafah border crossing, which Egypt’s ruling military council ordered opened Saturday under new hours and fewer restrictions for Palestinian travelers.
So when Egyptian border guards rejected him, citing security concerns, Masry grew belligerent as other Palestinians at the terminal watched in sympathetic silence. An officer ordered him to stop shouting, which only made Masry angrier.
“I’ve been locked in Gaza for the past seven years and just wanted a breath of fresh air!” he said. “If you were locked up for seven years, wouldn’t you be yelling like me?”
The Egyptian government’s decision to permanently open its border with Hamas-controlled territory was heralded – or feared – as a sign of a new Egypt, one willing to risk U.S. and Israeli rebukes to provide a lifeline to Gaza’s 1.5 million residents and to break from the policies of toppled President Hosni Mubarak.
But Saturday’s landmark opening of the Rafah crossing ended with a fizzle.
By dusk, just 400 Palestinians had crossed into Egypt, and another 30 were turned back because their names appeared on a security “blacklist,” according to a senior Egyptian border officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to make public statements. About 150 Palestinians returned to Gaza from Egypt.
The numbers weren’t much different from a normal day when the crossing was open, sporadically, under Mubarak’s rule. And despite the council’s announcement that the border would receive travelers from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., local officers said they didn’t have the manpower to keep the station open past 5 p.m.
To many Palestinians familiar with the crossing, it was business as usual: long waits, uncertain chances of passage, and condescending Egyptian guards. They dismissed the military council’s announcement as little more than propaganda to convince detractors that the Mubarak era was over.
“It’s no honor to enter Egypt!” a Palestinian man at the border taunted the officer who turned him back. The officer grew enraged, and started shouting at other Palestinian travelers.
Dr. Said Batran, 48, a Palestinian-Danish surgeon, has flown to Egypt from Denmark six times in the past two months, all to no avail, because he wasn’t able to pass through the Rafah crossing.
This time, he brought his sister, Latifa, 58, who lives in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, and they said their reason for travel was urgent. They needed to check on their mother, whose leg was amputated because of a blood clot, and their sister, who’s struggling to raise her 11 children since their father was killed in recent fighting in Gaza.
“Our sister cries day and night, but we can’t do anything for her. She can’t come here and we can’t go there,” Latifa said.
They sat under a shade tree, waiting for their names to be called for entry.
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 …” Batran counted, flipping through his passport to show how many Egyptian visas he had. There were 19 in all, since 2006. “I never succeeded.”
Among the lucky 400 who passed with little complication was a political activist who gave his name as Abu Nader. Unlike the desperate travelers who cited medical and business reasons they should be allowed into Egypt, Abu Nader said he just wanted the thrill of new environs.
“I want to cross into Egypt to shave and have dinner. Why not, if the border’s open?” Abu Nader, 42, said.
Mohamed Zorob, his wife and young daughter were among those who crossed in the other direction: from Egypt to Gaza. They’re all Palestinian residents, but Zorob has business in Egypt and holds an Egyptian passport, so even before Saturday he didn’t face the same obstacles as others.
Still, he recalled, in the old days there was a mad scramble to Rafah when it opened every few months. The tight border control led to a proliferation of black-market visas that could help Palestinians’ chances of crossing.
“Before, if you didn’t have a permit, you’d look for someone to bribe,” Zorob said. “They could get you a Malaysian visa for up to $1,000 or $2,000 and you could pass that way.”
With the new rules in place, his family faces no restrictions and he has the proper permits to travel back and forth, a luxury he acknowledged that few other Palestinians enjoy.
“Now I can go to Egypt for a weekend,” Zorob said.
Under the new rules, which are basically the same as those Egypt followed before 2007, Palestinians without a visa can stay for a month if they meet certain criteria. Women and children face no restrictions, but Palestinian men between the ages of 18 and 40 must get a permit saying they need to cross into Egypt for education or medical reasons.
Men over 40 are exempt from the restrictions, unless their names are flagged as security risks. Some Palestinians complained that the list was compiled by the old regime, and shouldn’t be heeded.
Egyptians are still banned from crossing, except by special government permission and generally only if the applicant has family ties to Gaza. Foreigners such as American or European aid workers also require special permission to cross, including a letter from the embassy of their home country.
Majdi Abu Dakka, 43, a lawyer from Gaza, expected no problem crossing Saturday. He’s above the age restriction and had an Egyptian visa, which shouldn’t even have been necessary under the new rules. But, once again, he was held up at the crossing, his temper rising as each hour ticked by.
Just as Abu Dakka was about to despair, an Egyptian border officer approached him with a smile.
“You’re OK,” the officer told him, gesturing for him to join the arrivals line.
Abu Dakka didn’t budge.
“You can go, you can go,” the officer repeated, nudging him.
Abu Dakka nodded and stood firm, clearly enjoying the chance to move in his own time.
Group of 12 Nazi settlers severely beat elderly Palestinian shepherd
NOVANEWS
An elderly Palestinian shepherd, Hamad al-Kett, 67, was admitted to the hospital on Friday with a fractured skull, internal bleeding, and bruising throughout his body, after he was attacked and beaten by a group of 12 Nazi settlers south of Nablus.
The incident took place in Madama village, near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank. According to eyewitnesses, Nazi settlers came by foot from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar, a small outpost established by Nazi extreme right-wing Nazi settlers in the middle of several Palestinian populated areas and far east of the 1967 armistice line.
Al-Kett was found by relatives and taken to the hospital in Nablus, where he remains in critical condition.
According to the acting charmain of the Madama Village Council, Eyhab al-Kett, “Hamad was herding his sheep in the southern region of the village, when he was attacked by Nazi settlers who tried to take the sheep from him. The old man tried to resist them, so they took advantage of the fact that he was alone and old and brutally assaulted him.”
Over 400,000 Nazi settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law. Most moved there within the last fifteen years, after the Oslo Agreement was signed between the Zionist regime and the Palestinian puppet Authority, which forbade such transfer of civilian populations onto land acquired by the use of military force.
Settler attacks on Palestinians have been on the rise in the northern West Bank, after the February murder of a family in their beds in Itamar Zioniost illegal settlement in that area. Although Zio-Nazi police accused a Palestinian teenager of the murder, his family claims that he was at home recovering from an operation and was not physically capable of carrying out the attack. They and other Palestinians in the area say that the murder in Itamar may have been a criminal act carried out by Zionist, not by Palestinians.








RehmatMay 29, 2011 – 2:15 pm
“It is essential that we strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies the Zionism, by all disguised and secret plans,” – David Ben Gurion, first Prime Minister of Zionist entity.
“The metamorphosis of tiny Israel from a midget to a giant is in the making. The grand design of Judiac-Zionist expansionist doctrine is to seize all the oil-rich lands from the shores of the Euphrates to the banks of the Nile,” – John Mitchell Henshaw, The American Mercury magazine, 1968.
Pakistan is unique among the world nations which, like IsraHell, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, to name a few, were created by the Western colonial powers after the WW I. Pakistan was established as the result of over 40 years of non-violent struggle carried out by the Muslims of Indian sub-continent against the British colonialists. During the last few months this struggle, over one million Muslim men, women and children were slaughtered by the Hindu and Sikh mobs while tens of thousands of Muslim women were either victims of rapes or abducted and forced to convert to Skhism by the criminals. Most of these women ended up as prostitutes in Mumbai and other Indian cities.
Hindu racist leaders, to this day, have not accepted the partition of Indian sub-continent. India with the help of USSR, IsraHell, the US and Afghanistan has waged three major wars on Pakistan and were able to dismember the country into two – Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971. Since Pakistan achieved the distinction of being the only Muslim country which has joined the ‘Nuclear Club of Nine’ – the India-IsraHell-US trio has been funding and training the terrorist groups in Pakistan’s two strategic provinces – Balochistan (bordering Afghanistan and Iran) and the Frontier (bordering Afghanistan).
Some of the terrorist groups in Balochistan, such as the ‘Baloch National Movement (BNM)’, were created by KGB during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan – in order to punish Islamabad for its support for the Mujahideen groups fighting the Red Army. After the demise of USSR – the BNM withered out due to lack of funds. Later the group was resurrected by CIA and Mossad. The US Jewish lobby groups have created a PR group called ‘Friends of Balochistan’ – just like they created the ‘Save Darfur’, whose funds were diverted to IsraHell for building housing projects for Nazi settlers on Arab stolen lands……..
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/vultures-over-pakistan/