Articles

Pakistan and NATO Trade Fire Near Afghan Border
May 18, 2011
Pakistan & Kashmir
NOVANEWS   Reuters   ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani soldiers exchanged fire with two NATO helicopters that crossed into Pakistan’s airspace ...Read more
China is Pakistan’s ‘best friend’: Gilani
May 18, 2011
Pakistan & Kashmir
NOVANEWS   Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has hailed China as his country’s ...Read more
Argentina’s Jewish community wins injunction against Google over anti-Semitic websites
May 18, 2011
Campaigns
NOVANEWS by crescentandcross   DAIA request for the injunction lists some 76 websites which it says are ‘highly discriminatory,’ including some ...Read more
Report: Uzi Arad leaked secret info to media
May 18, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS Former Zionist National Security Council head Uzi Arad leaked sensitive information to the media, and then resigned to avoid ...Read more
US, EU considering more pressure on Syria
May 18, 2011
Syria
NOVANEWS       Washington – The United States and European Union vowed Tuesday to take additional steps against Syria ...Read more
Limited Kinetic Action: Gates Denies US ‘At War’ With Libya
May 18, 2011
Libya
NOVANEWS   antiwar.com   Speaking today on 60 Minutes, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates denied that the US was actually ...Read more
Uprisings in Syria Appear to Be The Work of Foreign Agitators
May 18, 2011
Syria
NOVANEWS By Keith Johnson On April 29, this writer interviewed Jonathan Azaziah, a prolific journalist and researcher specializing in international ...Read more
Muslim Offers Forgiveness for White Supremacist Who Shot Him in the Face
May 18, 2011
Campaigns
NOVANEWS   by crescentandcross     Dallas Morning News Rais Bhuiyan saw Mark Stroman and his gun in the reflection of ...Read more
Historian writes of ‘pleasure’ at murder of pro-Palestinian activist
May 18, 2011
Gaza
NOVANEWS   Not that Vik needs anyone's defense, and so there's no need to respond to the specific claims, but ...Read more
A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter
May 18, 2011
Middle East
NOVANEWS This is what modern, occupying Israel is doing What military rule looks like in Egypt Israel has head in ...Read more
Israel’s Doomed Fate
May 18, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
NOVANEWS Gilad Atzmon “There will be no return– time has come to tell Palestinian refugees they will not be returning ...Read more
Can the UN be trusted to grant long overdue statehood to Palestinians?
May 18, 2011
Palestine Affairs
NOVANEWS   Hamas don’t think so… Do you? by Stuart Littlewood Dr. Mahmoud al- Zahar One of Hamas’s top men, Mahmoud al-Zahar, ...Read more

Pakistan and NATO Trade Fire Near Afghan Border

NOVANEWS

 


Reuters
 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani soldiers exchanged fire with two NATO helicopters that crossed into Pakistan’s airspace from Afghanistan early Tuesday, the Pakistani Army said, as United States senators increased calls in Washington to suspend or put conditions on billions of dollars in American aid to Pakistan.

The firefight, in which Pakistan said two of its soldiers were wounded, was the latest episode in a rapidly deteriorating relationship between the United States and Pakistan after the Navy Seal raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2.

That Bin Laden was discovered at a compound not far from the capital has heightened American distrust of Pakistan, while the raid inflamed Pakistani sensitivities over sovereignty.

Since then, the Obama administration and its allies in Congress have scrambled to keep tensions from spinning out of control and provoking Pakistan to shut down transit routes into Afghanistan that supply United States troops there.

Those tensions were laid bare on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as Democrats and Republicans voiced anger and bewilderment at providing $3 billion a year in aid to Pakistan, only to have that nation’s leaders criticize the United States for violating Pakistan’s sovereignty during the raid on Bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad, a small city about 75 miles by road from the capital that is home to a major military academy.

“Americans are getting tired of it, as far as shoveling money in there to people who just flat don’t like us,” Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, said at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing to review Pakistan policy.

The committee’s chairman, John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, fresh off the plane from a 24-hour visit to Islamabad to meet with senior Pakistani leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari and Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief of staff, reported on his efforts to smooth ties, including an agreement to return to the United States the tail of an American helicopter damaged in the raid.

But many senators were not in a conciliatory mood. Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, complained that Pakistan was playing a “double game” by accepting American aid and fighting terrorists that threatened Pakistani government targets, but also supporting proxy forces in Afghanistan that killed American troops. “They are both a fireman and arsonist in this regional ongoing conflagration,” he said.

Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said it was time for Congress to put conditions on the military and economic aid, doling out assistance only if Pakistan met certain benchmarks in combating militants. “Most of us are wanting to call time out on aid until we can ascertain what is in our best interest,” he said.

Separately, five Senate Democrats, including Dianne Feinstein of California, chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday urging them to re-evaluate security aid to Pakistan.

Despite the anger on both sides, the Americans would like to maintain Pakistani cooperation as they try to wind down the war in Afghanistan, and Pakistan would like to keep aid flowing from the United States, which has amounted to more than $20 billion in the past decade.

When asked at Tuesday’s hearing about the impact of suspending aid to Pakistan, Gen. James L. Jones, President Obama’s former national security adviser, warned, “I would counsel against what might be a very tempting thing to do, but it might have long-term consequences that we would then have to deal with.”

American officials fear the exchange of fire on Tuesday will provide yet another irritant for both sides. NATO officials could not immediately confirm whether the helicopters had indeed entered Pakistan’s airspace, but said they were looking into the episode, which took place at Admi Kot Post in the North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan.

An American military official said the Pakistanis were injured by a rock slide, not gunfire.

Pakistani military officials said the NATO helicopters came about 400 yards into Pakistani territory. The Pakistani Army “lodged a strong protest and demanded a flag meeting,” it said in a statement, referring to a meeting between officials from Pakistan and NATO on the border.

China is Pakistan’s ‘best friend’: Gilani

NOVANEWS
 

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has hailed China as his country’s best friend, as relations between Islamabad and Washington remain strained.“We are proud to have China as our best and most trusted friend, and China will always find Pakistan standing beside it at all times,” Gilani said on Tuesday as he began his visit to China, AFP reported. 
“We appreciate that in all difficult circumstances, China stood with Pakistan. Therefore, we call China a true friend and a time-tested and all-weather friend,” he added.
Gilani’s remarks come as Pakistan has come under severe criticisms from the US over allegations of protecting al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was allegedly killed by the US special forces on May 1.
Islamabad has voiced outrage at the “unilateral action” the United States carried out without Pakistan’s permission, saying the attack has violated the country’s sovereignty.
US Senator John Kerry, who has just returned from a visit to Pakistan, said US lawmakers have threatened to cut billions of dollars in aid to the South Asian country. Kerry has demanded Pakistan to do more to fight terrorism.
Meanwhile, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Tuesday that “Pakistan has made very important contributions in international counter-terrorism cooperation.”
China is the main arms supplier to Pakistan. The two sides are expected to sign a series of cooperation agreements during Gilani’s visit to China.

Argentina’s Jewish community wins injunction against Google over anti-Semitic websites

NOVANEWS

by crescentandcross

 

DAIA request for the injunction lists some 76 websites which it says are ‘highly discriminatory,’ including some which deny the Holocaust.

Haaretz

The umbrella organization of Argentina’s Jewish community, DAIA, has won an injunction against Google, preventing the world’s most popular search engine from “suggesting” anti-Semitic and racist websites to its users.

The presiding judge at the Buenos Aires court, Dr. Molina Portela, also ruled that Google cannot run adverts on these websites, which are illegal under Argentine law.

The DAIA request for the injunction listed some 76 websites which it described as “highly discriminatory,” including some which deny the Holocaust took place. The common denominator of the sites, said the DAIA on its website, “is the incitement to hatred and the call to violence.”

Report: Uzi Arad leaked secret info to media

NOVANEWS

Former Zionist National Security Council head Uzi Arad leaked sensitive information to the media, and then resigned to avoid being indicted, Channel 10 reported Tuesday evening.

Prime minister announces national security advisor has asked to end his term, says he is reviewing an overseas capacity for him together with Foreign Minister Lieberman, who blocked Arad’s appointment as London ambassador.

According to the report, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Shin Bet officials informed Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein that Arad was responsible for the breach.

Weinstein asserted that Arad’s disclosure of the confidential details was a slip of the tongue, and decided not to prosecute him.

In July 2010, the Shin Bet was requested to investigate a leak of sensitive security information that originated in the Prime Minister’s Office. In addition to Arad, who failed the lie detector test, communications advisor Nir Hefetz and Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser were also investigated. Both Hefetz and Hauser were found to be speaking the truth.

The investigation came to a close, and in February Arad announced his resignation and intention to return to the academic sector. But new evidence uncovered by the Shin Bet paint a new picture: Arad was the one responsible for the leak that damaged Israel’s ties with a significant ally.

It remains unclear which national security information was leaked. Elements involved in the case said after the investigation was exposed that “apparently it wasn’t a one-time event, but a series of sensitive leaks.” Other sources linked the Shin Bet query to the leak that touched upon a meeting between Netanyahu and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev regarding the sale of Russian missiles.

When the investigation became public knowledge, the Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu did not instruct the Shin Bet to use a lie detector, but asked to find out how the national security data was leaked.

“We are not in the habit of addressing investigation matters, even when the claims are fundamentally false and full of inaccuracies,” the Prime Minister’s Office responded in a statement. “As it was previously stated, Dr. Uzi Arad has asked of his own accord to resign at the end of his second term.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the request, and acknowledged his significant contribution to Israel’s National Security Council… and his strict devotion to its rules and policies.”

The Justice Ministry said in response that Arad took responsibility for the events leading to the publication of secret information but denied doing it deliberately and later announced his retirement.

US, EU considering more pressure on Syria

NOVANEWS

 

 


 

Washington – The United States and European Union vowed Tuesday to take additional steps against Syria if President Bashar al-Assad’s regime does not end the brutal repression of protesters.

‘We discussed additional steps that we can take to increase pressure and further isolate the Assad regime,’ US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, standing beside EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton after their meeting in Washington.

The US and EU have already enacted sanctions against Syrian officials following the crackdown against protesters that has left hundreds dead. Those sanctions stopped short of targeting al-Assad.

Ashton said the US and EU are ready to take further actions if al-Assad’s government refuses to change course, and will look to see where sanctions can be strengthened.

‘We’re all very aware that the situation is so grave that it’s now in a situation where we need to consider all of the options,’ Ashton said. ‘And I think there will be a number of moves in the coming hours and days that you will see.’

Syria has faced widespread international condemnation for using force against demonstrators seeking political reforms.

‘They have embraced the worst tactics of their Iranian ally, and they have refused to honor the legitimate aspirations of their own people in Syria,’ Clinton said. ‘President Assad talks about reform, but his heavy-handed, brutal crackdown shows his true intentions.’

Limited Kinetic Action: Gates Denies US ‘At War’ With Libya

NOVANEWS

 

antiwar.com
 
Speaking today on 60 Minutes, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates denied that the US was actually “at war” with Libya, saying he prefers to think of it as a “limited kinetic action” against Libya.
At the same time, Gates conceded that if he was “in Gadhafi’s shoes” he would think of it as a war. The comments come two months after a UN resolution which authorized a “no-fly zone” that directly led to US and French attacks on Libya.
Interestingly enough, Gates had been critical of the “no-fly zone” calls in early March primarily because it would, by his own admission, mean a war against Libya. Now that the war is not only ongoing but mired in stalemate, its redefinition seems to be convincing no one.
This is not the first time the Obama Administration has tried to redefine the Libyan War as the Libyan “not-quite-a-war.” Shortly after the attacks began, officials were calling the conflict a “kinetic military action” as well.
In practice it is a distinction without a difference, but the Obama Administration isn’t doing so entirely without reason. With growing questions about the fact that the war is, as of next Friday, running afoul of the War Powers Act for not consulting Congress about a use of troops lasting 60 days or longer, an attempt to downplay the conflict as something minuscule could be part of a political effort to avoid debate.

 

Uprisings in Syria Appear to Be The Work of Foreign Agitators

NOVANEWS


By Keith Johnson

On April 29, this writer interviewed Jonathan Azaziah, a prolific journalist and researcher specializing in international Zionism. Azaziah is also a staff writer for Pakistan’s Opinion Maker and editor for Mask of Zion.

AFP asked Azaziah about the Salafi groups triggering Syria’s unrest. By all credible accounts they appear to be proxies of a more nefarious hidden hand manipulating this so-called peaceful revolution.

“It was clear that there was something violently wrong with these Syrian protests from the beginning,” said Azaziah. “In Syria, Assad enjoys an 80 percent approval rating. This is simply not the behavior of dignified Syrian people, who have rejected sectarianism and have offered their full support to the Lebanese resistance and Iran.”

Azaziah continued, “In reality, the protesters are split between two foreign-backed camps: the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which is being manipulated and ordered around by Jordan and Saudi Arabia—two of Israel’s greatest allies—and a more techno-savvy group of reformists which are being funded, guided and organized by the Reform Party of Syria, a U.S.-based organization led by Farid el-Ghadry. El-Ghadry is a Syrian exile, who is a proud member of AIPAC [American Israel PublicAffairs Committee] and is known for being the first Syrian to give a speech to the Israeli Knesset.”

The western voice of Syrian protests is Ammar Abdulhamid. According to Azaziah, “The mass media has already named him the Syrian Revolution’s spokesperson. But let’s not forget that Abdulhamid is a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, arguably the most influential Zionist think tank in the U.S.”

Azaziah concluded, “With these men—el-Ghadry and Abdulhamid—guiding the protests, coupled with the orchestrated chants of the Saudi-owned Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the more recent outcries of ‘Come Obama, come Israel, come take Syria, anything is better than Assad,’ it’s very clear who is behind these protests and why they began.”

Meanwhile, the march to Iran continues. As the West finishes up Libya, the next domino to fall could be Syria, Iran’s closest Arab ally and one of Israel’s most coveted prizes in its drive to create a Greater Israel. This long-held Zionist dream envisions a promised land that expands present day Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates, encompassing all of the Arab Mideast.

Oded Yinon, once a senior advisor at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, laid out the blueprints for this ambitious plan in his 1982 paper entitled A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s that identified Iraq and Syria as “Israel’s primary target on the eastern front.”

Now that Iraq is in chaos, the Zionists have trained their sights on Syria. Using the recent Arab uprisings as cover, Israel’s Mossad and its allies within the American and British intelligence communities have been working within the framework of foreign-funded “color revolutions” to incite violence, unrest and instability.

For several weeks, international media outlets have glamorized protests breaking out across Syria as grassroots resistance movements intent on taming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, these so-called peaceful demonstrators have been running amok on the streets of Dara’a and elsewhere, tearing down monuments, torching buildings and terrorizing citizens.

Violence culminated over the Easter holiday when upwards of 120 civilians were reported killed, allegedly by Syrian troops and militiamen. Almost immediately, the International Committee of Jurists—which has repeatedly turned a blind eye to Israel’s countless atrocities—threatened to indict Assad on war crimes.

The following Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice called on the United Nations to impose sanctions against the Syrian government in response to “outrageous and ongoing use of violence against peaceful protesters.” The request was denied after Russia and India voiced their objections, citing numerous reports of Syrian forces being killed by armed insurgents.

On April 19, a few days prior to the violence that erupted in Dara’a,  Bassam Abu Abdulla of the Al Watan news agency in Damascus said that the protests were the work of Salafi groups, a minority faction of fanatical provocateurs imported by the West.

Keith Johnson is an independent journalist and the editor of “Revolt of the Plebs,” an alternative news website that can be found at RevoltofthePlebs.com.

 

Muslim Offers Forgiveness for White Supremacist Who Shot Him in the Face

NOVANEWS

 
by crescentandcross

 

 

Dallas Morning News

Rais Bhuiyan saw Mark Stroman and his gun in the reflection of the window.

Then came the question a robber wouldn’t ask, Bhuiyan thought.

“Where are you from?”

“Excuse me?”

Within seconds, Bhuiyan, a store clerk, fell to the floor of the convenience store on Buckner Boulevard, bleeding profusely from a head wound from the gun blast. It blinded his right eye but miraculously didn’t damage his brain.

Stroman, a white supremacist, would later confess he was out for revenge against those of Middle Eastern descent in Mesquite and Dallas days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Already, Stroman had killed one Pakistani immigrant; two weeks later, he’d kill an Indian immigrant.

Now, Bhuiyan wants to forgive.

He’ll be asking for a stay of the July 20 evening scheduled execution of Stroman, and a stop to the “cycle of violence,” as he calls it.

“Sometimes, we human beings make mistakes out of anger,” said Bhuiyan, 37, in an interview Monday with The Dallas Morning News.

Stroman, a former stonecutter, was convicted of the Oct. 4 killing of Vasudev Patel, an Indian of the Hindu faith who owned a gas station and convenience store in Mesquite.

Stroman also confessed to the Sept. 15 Dallas killing of Waqar Hasan, an immigrant from Pakistan and a Muslim, in what is believed to be the first hate crime in the U.S. after the attacks. He was charged in the shooting of Bhuiyan, a Bangledesh immigrant, on Sept. 21.

Bhuiyan said his Islamic faith led him to realize “hate doesn’t bring any good solution to people. At some point we have to break the cycle of violence. It brings more disaster.”

Bhuiyan shows little sign of the shooting. A slim man with thinning hair and large, wide-set brown eyes, he can only see from his left one. He carries about 38 pellet fragments on the right side of his face, he said.

Bhuiyan said the event changed him and he now celebrates Sept. 21 as his new birthday because it was then he got his life back.

Bhuiyan has a full-time job in information technology but wants to return to college. Last fall, he contacted Dr. Rick Halperin, the director of the human rights education program at Southern Methodist University.

It was a coincidence that Halperin already knew many details of Bhuiyan’s story. Stroman had been corresponding with the professor, an anti-death-penalty activist, for two years.

Bhuiyan explained how the event had shaped his life, how he grew introspective about his faith and how he found answers to why he lived and others died.

The events, Halperin said, “raise questions about compassion and healing and the nature of justice.”

As for Bhuiyan, Halperin said, “I am amazed at the calm with which some can forgive the unforgivable.”

Hadi Jawad of the Dallas Peace Center said Bhuiyan’s actions serve as a lesson for others at a critical time for the nation and the world.

“With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, we need a narrative of compassion and healing. The world has gone through so much darkness,” Jawad said.

Halperin said that a stay of execution in favor of a lifetime sentence for Stroman will be difficult, but they are committed to trying. Stroman is scheduled to die by injection at about 6 p.m. in Huntsville, said a public information officer for the Texas Department of Corrections.

Within six months of Sept. 11, there were 1,717 incidents of harassment, violence or discriminatory acts against Muslims, or those perceived to be Muslims, according to the D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Bhuiyan said he still has fears he’ll be attacked again, particularly when he sees men with tattoos. Stroman had many. “I try to ignore them (fears), but I am a human being,” he said.

Bhuiyan is one of eight children, but he has no siblings or relatives in the United States. He and his former fiancée in Bangladesh went separate ways as he coped with his physical and psychological wounds. His parents wanted him to return home, but he “wanted to give it a fight.” And last November, he deepened his roots here by becoming a U.S. citizen.

He has prepared a petition drive for the stay of execution and is about to launch a website.

“You may not like me because of my skin color or because of my accent . . . but don’t hate me. We can educate people.”

Historian writes of ‘pleasure’ at murder of pro-Palestinian activist

NOVANEWS

 

Not that Vik needs anyone’s defense, and so there’s no need to respond to the specific claims, but I just wanted to register how pathetic this Jewish Chronicle article by Geoffrey Alderman is:

Few events – not even the execution of Osama bin Laden – have caused me greater pleasure in recent weeks than news of the death of the Italian so-called “peace activist” Vittorio Arrigoni.

On Thursday 14 April Arrigoni was murdered in Gaza by members of Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTJ), who had him strangled and then dumped his body in a deserted Gaza apartment. This same group had previously had him kidnapped in order – apparently – to compel the Hamas government of Gaza to release the group’s leader, Sheikh Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi.

Hamas was naturally having none of this, and launched a search for Arrigoni, whose murder may have been ordered to prevent discovery of the kidnappers, though it is just as likely that the deed was carried out merely as a routine (so to speak) quasi-judicial punishment for the crime of being a foreigner (i.e. a non-Muslim) in a Muslim land.

JTJ is an al-Qaida affiliate. Its precise history is necessarily obscure, but it seems to have originated in Iraq, where it has resorted to any means (including the use of chlorine gas) in the pursuit of its goal of turning Iraq, post-Saddam, into an Islamic state.

In Gaza it has sought to establish itself as an alternative government to that of Hamas. Its religious leader, al-Maqdisi, by birth an Egyptian, is credited amongst many other things with having orchestrated the murder of western tourists in Sinai in 2006. He is certainly the author of a fatwa enjoining the kidnapping and killing of tourists in countries ruled by what he and his followers would regard as “apostate” Muslim governments. At the beginning of March this year he was detained by Hamas, perhaps at the request of the Egyptian authorities.

But my concern is less with Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi than with Vittorio Arrigoni, whose killing was immediately pounced upon by the western media as an affront to the civilised world. Even Hamas felt impelled to associate itself with these encomia.

The Italian was described as a “peace activist.” But the truth is very different. Vittorio Arrigoni, a disciple of the International Solidarity Movement, had travelled to Gaza to assist in the breaking of the Israeli naval blockade. As a supporter of Hamas he was a consummate Jew-hater. His Facebook page contained not merely the customary insults aimed at Israel but explicit anti-Jewish imagery, which may have reflected in part his Catholic upbringing: one image, for example, shows Jesus under arrest by Israeli soldiers.

The death of a consummate Jew-hater must always be a cause for celebration. In this case, however, the benefit is compounded by the dissensions that it has sown within the wider Israel-hating and Jew-hating fraternities.

Some members of these fraternities, ignoring or (in one case) making a virtue of the complete absence of evidence, have actually accused Mossad of his murder, alleging (in the wake of the Goldstone Retraction) that Arrigoni alone knew “the truth” of Operation Cast Lead. The Zionists, according to this argument, having forced Richard Goldstone to withdraw his contemptible allegation that during Cast Lead Israeli troops deliberately targeted civilians, needed to silence Arrigoni lest “the truth” be told.

But what particularly caught my eye was the emotional plea for Arrigoni’s life posted on YouTube by Ken O’Keefe, the former US marine who has taken it upon himself to espouse the cause of Hamas and with whom I appeared on Press TV last year.

Arrigoni is not the first ISM activist to be murdered by Palestinian Arabs. In September 2007 Akram Ibrahim Abu Sba’ was killed in Jenin by members of Islamic Jihad. But in his video plea O’Keefe ignored this precedent, and engaged instead a typical rant not only against the Jewish state but against its Christian supporters. Whoever had kidnapped Arrigoni, he argued, had branded themselves as collaborators of Israel and of its Zionist enterprise. And he repeated the charge of collaboration in a further video made after the discovery of Arrigoni’s body.

The idea that JTJ – or indeed any fundamentalist Islamic group of the Salafist variety – would collaborate with Israel is too fanciful to merit attention. But in putting forward this argument O’Keefe has revealed himself as completely detached from reality.

During our Press TV discussion O’Keefe challenged me to a public debate. Naturally I accepted, and we subsequently fixed the date – 28 April 2011. This date has come and gone. But if we manage to reschedule the event I’ll let you know.

That whatever sub-sector of the British Jewish community reads Alderman, that his editor basically defends him, is also pathetic. That a Jew wrote this in a Jewish newspaper in ostensible defense of “Jews” is also pathetic. These are sick people, and it’s a good thing that the Jewish people is a Zionist invention. One wouldn’t want to have anything to do with these people.

But please don’t get in too much in a tizzy over the aestheticized bigotry of the frothing far-right. The reaction is also a mirror. By ripping into it you (rightfully) engage in judgment. But then “we” (including the Chronicle‘s more “liberal” readers) erect themselves above the fray. Extremists on both sides, what shall we ever do? And so on, perfectly exemplified in the Guardian’s comment section: that Alderman, what a loon, and so on. We are not supposed to exult publicly over the deaths of our victims and those who struggle alongside them. Instead, better to simply not notice, or, noticing, wring our hands over the sheer intractability of the situation.

I’m reminded of Amos Oz: “What will become of us all, I do not know. If there is someone with an answer, he would do well to stand up and speak. And he’d better not tarry. The situation is not good.” Over in the real world, some people have had answers: march towards the borders the Israel state maintains with violence. And over in the real world, three days ago J Street called Palestinian non-violence “violence.” There is truth in that lie. For Washington technocrats and the rulers of the world, violence is just code for resistance. And that’s one thing that’s never permitted.

One wouldn’t want the rabble to get the idea that they can change the world without the approval of their masters.

Technorati Tags: Gaza, ISM, Israel, Palestine, Vittorio Utopia Arrigoni, Zionism

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A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

This is what modern, occupying Israel is doing

Posted: 17 May 2011 05:32 PM PDT

As the Arab Spring comes to Palestine (massive non-violent protests against Israeli occupation and apartheid), some truths are being spoken by the very people who are behind the oppression:

Transgressions by the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian territories will be disclosed by a group of former soldiers in an internet campaign aimed at raising public awareness of military violations.
Video testimonies by around two dozen ex-soldiers – some of whom are identifying themselves for the first time – will be posted on YouTube. The campaign by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former soldiers committed to speaking out on military practices, launches with English subtitles on Monday.
Some of the former soldiers describe the “neighbour procedure”, a term for the use of Palestinian civilians, often children, as human shields to protect soldiers from suspected booby traps or attacks by militants. The procedure was ruled illegal byIsrael‘s high court in 2005.
Others speak of routine harassment of civilians at checkpoints, arbitrary intimidation and collective punishment.
Idan Barir, who served in the artillery corps, describes in his testimony how an officer forced Palestinian civilians to crawl in a “race” towards a checkpoint near Jenin in the West Bank during the 2000 olive harvest. Only the first three out of “teams” of eight were allowed to pass.
Another, Itamar Schwarz, says Palestinian homes were routinely ransacked in search operations. He describes the day of the World Cup final in 2002, when soldiers confined a Palestinian woman and child in the kitchen of their home for two hours while the unit watched the game in the middle of an operation.
Arnon Degani, who served in the Golani brigade, describes the distress of a young woman who tearfully pleaded to be allowed to pass through a Jenin checkpoint in order to sit an important exam. He gradually came to understand, he says, that the Israeli army’s intention was “to enforce tyranny on people who you know are regular civilians” and to “make it clear who’s in control here”.
“Part of the silence of Israeli society is to believe these are isolated and exceptional incidents. But these are the most routine, day-to-day, banal stories,” said Yehuda Shaul, of Breaking the Silence.
Identification of the ex-soldiers willing to speak out was important, he said, “so that Israelis understand that there are people behind these stories, that in a sense we’re all involved”.
The former soldiers were aware of the potential legal and social consequences of going public, Shaul added. “They understand that they risk being prosecuted for what they’re saying. But they’re doing it because it needs to be done.”

 

What military rule looks like in Egypt

Posted: 17 May 2011 05:09 PM PDT

 

Israel has head in sand and Zionist Diaspora mostly helping

Posted: 16 May 2011 10:28 PM PDT

The Zionist establishment is worried about global moves against it but note no mention, or even consideration, of ending the occupation. Presumably they’ll simply spend more on PR:

Israel’s current status at the United Nations is at an all-time low, Israel’s former UN ambassador, Prof. Gabriela Shalev, said yesterday at a session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Also speaking at the meeting, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy said that peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians are currently impossible.
“Israel has no chance of dealing with the Palestinian move in the General Assembly,” Shalev said, discussing the Palestinians’ expected declaration of statehood after a UN vote this September. “The United States is not interested in vetoing the UN’s recognition of a Palestinian state.” Shalev added that the UN is today the foremost place for activity against Israel.
Former Mossad chief Halevy said Israel’s “maneuvering space is growing narrower,” while the ability of the Quartet – the U.S., Russia, UN and European Union – to “affect the peace talks is diminishing.
“The existing situation is a non-starter,” he added, saying that what Israel has wanted for the last two years can’t now come to fruition: “We can’t reach a permanent peace deal because the person who would sign the deal is not the same person who would need to carry it out,” Halevy said.
Committee chairman MK Shaul Mofaz warned that Sunday’s Nakba Day clashes are a precursor to the events expected in September, when the Palestinian Authority intends to unilaterally declare a state in the UN.
“Israel’s government is hiding its head in the sand,” Mofaz said. “Without a peace initiative, events like the one on the Syrian border will recur in September.
“The changes here are tectonic,” he added. “The events are a precursor to the September events, which could come in waves against Israel’s population.”
Mofaz said Israel should not have waited for Sunday’s clashes to understand that the reality in the Middle East has changed.
“The present government, headed by Netanyahu, isn’t initiating anything,” Mofaz said, adding that the Israeli government must be prepared for any situation come September.

Evidence that world powers think always about oil

Posted: 16 May 2011 08:49 PM PDT

Confirmation:

Of the 251,287 WikiLeaks documents McClatchy obtained, 23,927 of them — nearly one in 10 — reference oil. Gazprom alone is mentioned in 1,789.
In the cables, U.S. diplomats can be found plotting ways to prevent state entities such as Gazprom from taking control of key petroleum facilities, pressing oil companies to adjust their policies to match U.S. foreign policy goals, helping U.S.-based oil companies arrange deals on favorable terms and pressing foreign governments to assist companies that are willing to do the U.S.’s bidding.

Israel’s Doomed Fate

NOVANEWS

Gilad Atzmon

“There will be no return– time has come to tell Palestinian refugees they will not be returning to the State of Israel,” writes Nahum Barnea, a prominent Israeli ‘liberal’ columnist

It is becoming clear that Israel lacks the means to cope with Palestinian resilience. Despite Israeli barbarism; despite sixty-three years of oppression, racial discrimination and mass murderous tactics– including the usage of WMD– the Palestinian people have remained determined to return to their land.

This week they reminded the Israelis, world Jewry and the rest of the world that the Palestinian cause is not going to fade away. If anything, in 2011, Palestinians seem more decisive, firm and united than their parents’ or grandparents’ generations.

Hence, it is almost amusing to follow the bizarre manner in which Israeli writer Barnea tries to convince himself otherwise, proclaiming “Their politicians told them it would happen. The clerics promised Allah’s help. Foreign sponsors provided flags and buses. They embark on their mission with the confidence that the Zionist project is destined to collapse. Another small push and the entire Land of Israel, from the Jordan to the Sea, will become Palestine.”

Whether Barnea grasps it or not, this is indeed the vision more and more Palestinians have in mind and this is exactly the vision I have in mind. This is the exact vision more and more people around the world envisage as a perfect solution, and clearly, this is the only ethical and universal solution to this bitter conflict: Israel will be Palestine. It will stretch from the river to the sea. And it will be a State of all its citizens as opposed to the racially exclusivist ‘Jews only’ State.

“I have news for you, my dear cousins*,” says Barnea in a condescending manner. “It won’t be happening – not in your lifetime…. Sixty-three years have passed since that war; the time has come to embrace other dreams.”

It doesn’t take a genius to gather that Barnea, like many other Israelis, expresses wishful thinking here rather than a reading of the reality on the ground.  As it happens – and more than a few of us detected it decades ago – Palestinians are at the forefront of a battle for a better world. The current regional Arab revolution is a mass call for justice, but also for justice in Palestine. As much as the world looks with admiration at young Muslims and Arabs making a change, it also becomes general knowledge that Israel is the biggest threat to world peace.  The Palestinian Right of Return is about to become an international priority issue, and Israel will be defeated on that front. The West wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice Israel on that issue: isolated and humiliated, Israel is going to struggle hopelessly against the entire region. And to clarify the matter, time is not exactly on the side of the Jewish State.

Israel has had sixty-three years to confront its original sin. It had a window of opportunity to repent, and open its border to the millions of refugees it so brutally expelled.  But now the window seems to have been closed. Israel has lost the chance to save itself from itself. And what we saw this week was just an introduction. Israel is about to face a tidal wave of Palestinian gatherings on its borders. Israel doesn’t possess the political or military means to deal with these emerging forms of non-violent resistance.

Barnea like many other Israelis loves Abbas: according to the Israeli columnist Abbas is “the most humane, lovely politician in the three governments currently serving in the Land of Israel.” However,  Barnea is disappointed to find out that even Abbas “gets carried away” when he declared on the eve of Nakba Day that no Palestinian leader will renounce the right of return: “the return is not a slogan…Palestine is ours.”

Barnea stresses that Abbas refrained from clarifying the question of how, and where this right will be realised, and whether it will be through compensation or physical return. Barnea concludes that “anyone could make what he wanted” out of Abass’ words.” But in fact Barnea is  wrong again. Abbas’ words were totally clear: there was no hidden message or even ambiguity in them. The return is not a slogan. For a while it was a universal and an ethical call. But as things stand this week, it is now becoming a call for a direct action. Barnea and most Israelis may still fail to grasp that today’s Middle East is a new entity all together.  It is united; it is firm, and it is far from timid. It is vibrant, and revolutionary, and fuelled by yearning for justice and freedom.  Israel is surrounded by a wall of fierce resistance. As far as the Jewish State is concerned, the countdown has begun.

Barnea ends his diatribe by telling his fellow Israelis that “those who wish to live in the sovereign, Zionist and democratic State of Israel have no other option but to keep telling the Palestinians: with all due respect, what’s in the past is in the past.”

Yet, a universal reading of Barnea’s suggestion surely also logically implies that the rest of us then, can also now relieve ourselves of the endless burden of Jewish exceptional suffering too: after all, Barnea did say, ‘what’s in the past is in the past.’ Accordingly then, if the Jews are not unique in their collective pain, nothing should stop the Israelis from opening a new page too, so they can cross the divide and build bridges with the indigenous people of the land; those whom they themselves ethnically cleansed and attempted to destroy. For if the burden of the past can, as Barnea suggests, lose its relevance or significance, Israel might as well live up to that, and turn its face to a brighter future and voluntarily invite the Palestinian refugees to return to their land. Such a move would mean an immediate end to the conflict.

But, needless to say, I do not hold my breath.

Yet, there is one crucial (currently hypothetical) question I must address: nowadays,  when it becomes clear that the Jewish state approaches its final phase,  how would  Israelis  who would like to return to Europe react to a Barnea-like  ‘no return’ statement if it were expressed by a European ‘liberal’ columnist?  How would Israelis or the rest of us react to the following:  ‘there will be no return-time has come to tell the Jews they will not be returning to Europe’?

Such a statement would clearly provoke outrage amongst many of us.

Yet sadly enough, we are all too used to hear similar statements from ‘liberal’ Israelis and Jews.

  • Cousins- a derogatory manner in which Israelis refers to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. I vow to explore this term and its origin in one of my next papers.

Can the UN be trusted to grant long overdue statehood to Palestinians?

NOVANEWS

 

Hamas don’t think so… Do you?


by Stuart Littlewood

Dr. Mahmoud al- Zahar

One of Hamas’s top men, Mahmoud al-Zahar, says he doesn’t trust the United Nations to hand statehood to the Palestinians. Dr al-Zahar notes in the almanar news website, that Bush promised an independent state and Obama can’t even stop the illegal settlement-building. There has been a long list of disappointments with the international community.

Asked whether Hamas was willing to accept the existence of the Zionist entity, al-Zahar replied: “The question is whether Israel is ready to accept the Palestinian state…”

It is interesting to see Dr al-Zahar speaking up more. A founder of Hamas and a member of its ‘politburo’, he is listed as the government’s foreign minister and was the Resistance movement’s first press officer back in 1987.

He’s regarded as a hard-liner.  But who wouldn’t be if he’d suffered as cruelly at the hands of the Israeli regime as this man. Al-Zahar was expelled in 1992 (along with ex- Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh) to South Lebanon and subsequently targeted for assassination. In 2003 an Israeli F-16 bombed his home killing his eldest son and seriously injuring his wife. In 2007 another Israeli air-strike killed his youngest son.

A strict Islamist, he was brought up in Egypt and is a surgeon by profession.

However, the failure of Hamas to re-write their charter in less threatening language and revise their diplomatic stance in the light of international realities, continues to place a question-mark over al-Zahar and his senior colleagues at this critical time in Palestinian affairs.

They can point to many instances of mis-quotation and mis-interpretation of what they’ve said, which the Israeli propaganda machine skillfully exploits, but the fact remains that they still have work to do if they wish to be seen occupying the moral high ground.

Their refusal to address the issue of the charter only encourages Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s preposterous sabre rattling. The Palestinian Authority must choose between a peace deal with Israel and one with Hamas, he now insists. “Peace with both is impossible, because Hamas aims to destroy the State of Israel and says that openly,” Netanyahu told the world on YouTube. “It fires missiles at our cities and at our children.

“I hope that the Palestinian Authority will make the right choice – that it will choose peace with Israel. The choice is in its hands.” Has any of Israel’s neighbours known peace? Nevertheless Netanyahu’s rants play well with the warmongers in Washington and London.

A few days later, in the Jerusalem Post, a senior official was rubbing it in. Israel would cut ties with the Palestinian Authority if it brought Hamas into government [even though Hamas won the 2006 elections and is the rightful authority]. “Abbas has to choose whether he wants peace with Israel, or peace with Hamas,” said the official. “He can’t have both. If he chooses peace with Hamas it will bury the peace process.”

But if Hamas accepted the Quartet’s three conditions – renounce violence, recognise Israel, and accept previous Israel-Palestinian agreements – it would be a different matter.

Reciprocal conditions are not required of Israel. If they were, there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place. But that’s not in the peacemakers’ script.

Worried by latest moves towards Palestinian unity and desperate to keep a wedge firmly driven between the main Palestinian factions – collaborators Fatah and resisters Hamas – Israel has once again decided to ignore its obligations and freeze the tax revenues it is supposed to transfer to the Palestinian Authority. Israel’s finance minister says it’s a “punishment” for Fatah’s signing a reconciliation agreement with Hamas.

Hamas an essential ingredient in the Middle East cake-mix

Is there is anyone in Washington, London, Brussels or Strasbourg who still doesn’t understand that a peace process promoted by dishonest diplomats will never work?

Omar Abdul Razek, Hamas’s finance minister, said when interviewed by Aljazeera in May 2006: “Which Israel would you want me to recognise? Is it Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates? Israel with the occupied Golan Heights? Israel with East Jerusalem? Israel with the settlements? I challenge you to tell me where Israel’s borders lie.”

The 1967 borders, suggested the interviewer.

“Does Israel recognise the 1967 borders?” asked Rezek. “Can you tell me of one Israeli government that ever voiced willingness to withdraw to the 1967 borders?”

That’s it in a nutshell.

To be sure, Hamas want rid of Israel altogether and seem convinced that the Zionist entity will eventually fizzle out or self-destruct and “vanish from the pages of time”, as Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and President Ahmadinejad so poetically put it. In the meantime Gaza’s prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, within days of being elected, offered long-term peace if Israel recognised Palestine as an independent state on the internationally accepted 1967 borders. Previously the PLO had foolishly “recognised” Israel without any reciprocal recognition by Israel. The Oslo Accords were supposed to take care of that by ending the Occupation and giving the Palestinians their independence. “What we’ve got instead are more settlements, more occupation, more roadblocks, more poverty and more repression,” he said.

Bush and Obama and all the other Western loud-mouths have consistently failed to deliver. So the question remains: why should Hamas renounce violence against a foreign power that violently occupies their homeland, bulldozes their houses at gun-point, uproots their beautiful olive groves, sets up hundreds of armed checkpoints to disrupt normal life and block access to the holy places, batters down villagers’ front doors in the dead of night, builds an illegal ‘separation’ wall to annex their territory, steal their water and isolate their communities, and blockades exports and imports to cause economic ruin?

Ismail Haniyeh told fellow Palestinians yesterday, on the 63rd anniversary of Nakba (the ethnic cleansing programme that drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes never to be allowed to return): “We will never recognize the [Israeli occupier]…There is no relinquishing the resistance program as the basic platform to achieve liberation…We will not relinquish the prisoners cause, and we will hold fast to all demands of the resistance in order to attain your freedom.

“Victory is coming. Your state is coming. And the refugees will return, and the occupation will reach its demise.”

Hamas chief Khaled Mesh’al last year rejected further negotiations as not being in the Palestinians’ interests, given the lopsided balance of power. “Negotiation in such conditions is a kind of fruitless gamble.”

These are some of the policy points he emphasized…

  • Hamas is a national liberation movement with resistance its main tool.

  • Its objective is ending the Zionist occupation and restoring Palestinian rights.

  • Hamas only employ “legitimate resistance” – i.e. against the enemy occupying Palestinian land and holy places. They do not attack the enemy’s allies who supply the weapons and munitions used to kill Palestinians. Nor do they extend resistance outside Palestine.

  • Peace cannot be made when one party is so powerful and the other so weak. Negotiation under these circumstances would only benefit Israel and would mean surrender.

  • Hamas do not recognise Israel. Doing so would effectively legitimise the Occupation and the rest of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. That would be unacceptable in terms of international law and human values.

  • Hamas have the legitimacy of the ballot box. There will be no peace in the region until the Powers deal with Hamas and respect their interests and rights and quit favouring Israel at Palestine’s expense.

Could red-blooded patriots out there object to these principles if robbed of freedom in their own country?

Tiny Gaza’s extraordinary people have somehow survived every criminal nastiness the Israelis could throw at them, and have been humiliated by the shamefully inaction of the international community. They have resisted daily air strikes and armed intrusions for five years and courageously withstood the devastating blitzkrieg of 28 months ago.

They have endured the sort of barbarity and betrayal that would have brought lesser people to their knees. I wonder if the British could have clung on through the dark days of the London blitz, which my family lived under, if they’d had nothing to fight with, no Spitfires and Hurricanes, and nowhere to run, and if in addition they’d had to contend with Nazi tanks in the streets, thousands of checkpoints, Nazi rifle butts smashing down their front doors, and the vile Nazi storm-troopers in their jackboots ransacking their homes and dragging off family members.

And if, all the time, the great international Powers of western Christendom had just looked on as spectators… not intervening, not helping. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

But the brutal dispossession and suffering of the Palestinian people has continued for decades. The freedom-preaching West still plays the pathetic spectator while death and misery stalk the streets of Palestinian towns and villages.  Today, as I write, breaking news reports are coming in from Global Research ca about another outrage on the high seas by lawless Israel. A Malaysia-flagged ship carrying a humanitarian cargo of urgently needed sewage pipes to Gaza for The Spirit of Rachel Corrie Mission has been fired on and stopped by Israeli vessels in international waters. Where are the brave boys of NATO’s Mediterranean fleet when you need them?

An Egyptian vessel is said to have supported Israel’s act of piracy. What price the “revolution”, the Arab Spring?

Back to the rather mysterious Dr al-Zahar. Israel can huff and puff about Hamas but it seems they’re here to stay, an essential ingredient in the Middle East cake-mix.

We in the West ought to know more about these Hamas people but we don’t want to hear it from a Zio-compliant media. Hamas, for their part, need to introduce themselves properly and professionally.

The Resistance have said they aim to win more friends internationally.  They’d better hurry if the bid for statehood is not to become another victim of US-Israeli blocking tactics.

2011 Copyright @ Stuart Littlewood