NOVANEWS

• Palestinians fight to preserve Lifta, as Israeli developers seek to build luxury housing on the village’s remains

• Schoolgirls and doctors beaten and tortured in Bahrain raids, ‘They beat and slapped me and called me whore and dirty Shia’

• The Neverending Story: Updates on the fantasies, falsehoods, and fear-mongering about Iran’s nuclear program

• Pizzarotti should follow in Deutsche Bahn’s footsteps

• Lupe Fiasco raps about Gaza, discusses Obama and the War on Terror on the Colbert Report

• Israel admits to forcing 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank using administrative trick

• Money for Mondoweiss: The Chicago challenge

• Exhibit C(UNY): How the lobby works

• How the ‘temporary weave’ of Zionism is starting to fray at the edges

• Jeffrey Wiesenfeld’s political nexus

Palestinians fight to preserve Lifta, as Israeli developers seek to build luxury housing on the village’s remains

May 11, 2011

Kate

Video: Uncertainty stalks Palestinian village
AJ 11 May — Lifta faces uncertain future despite Israeli court’s ruling against land sale — In the outskirts of Jerusalem, the village of Lifta is the last deserted Palestinian village still standing in modern day Israel. On Wednesday, the Jerusalem District Court said the lands of Lifta should not be offered for sale to real estate developers, but Israel’s land authority could act otherwise. Israel is concerned that allowing Palestinians to return would set a precedent for other refugees to return to their ancestral homes inside Israel. And that – the Israeli government believes – would undermine it as a Jewish state. Nisreen El-Shamayleh reports from Lifta.
Israeli Arab towns get new street names but West Bank wall still divides city
Haaretz 11 May — For many years the Israeli Arab town of Baka al-Garbiyeh defied all GPS and map-reading capabilities. Most of the streets in the town, to the east of Hadera, never had names – except for the main road, which for some reason was called Weizmann Street. But about a month ago a committee changed all that and gave names to the streets. That’s how the main street became known as Al-Quds Street, which crosses Palestine Street (the street that leads to the West Bank ). Palestine Street does not, however, reach Baka al-Sharkiyeh, the adjacent community on the other side of the Green Line; it is cut off by the ugly separation wall.

And more news from Today in Palestine:

Israel admits it covertly canceled residency status of 140,000 Palestinians / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 11 May –Document obtained by Haaretz reveals that between 1967 and 1994 many Palestinians traveling abroad were stripped of residency status, allegedly without warning …The Center for the Defense of the Individual said that “mass withdrawal of residency rights from tens of thousands of West Bank residents, tantamount to permanent exile from their homeland, remains an illegitimate demographic policy and a grave violation of international law.” It noted that an unknown number of Gaza residents had lost residency rights in a similar manner, but that the exact number was still a secret the center vowed to uncover.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-admits-it-covertly-canceled-residency-status-of-140-000-palestinians-1.360935
Erekat: Israel’s cancelation of Palestinian residency is a ‘war crime’
Haaretz 11 May — …”This policy should not only be seen as a war crime as it is under international law; it also has a humanitarian dimension: we are talking about people who left Palestine to study or work temporarily but who could not return to resume their lives in their country with their families,” Erekat added. The top PA official also pointed out that the document revealed by Haaretz was evidence that “Israel’s actions violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that ‘everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country’.”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-israel-s-cancelation-of-palestinian-residency-is-a-war-crime-1.361079
Venture lets Palestinians buy piece of West Bank
RAMALLAH (Reuters) 11 May — Palestinians can make a political statement and a financial return by buying a piece of the West Bank in a new venture designed to anchor their ownership of the Israeli-occupied territory. With the aim of “putting Palestinian land in Palestinian hands,” the TABO project seeks to promote broader ownership of the West Bank by making land more affordable and encouraging formal registration of land holdings in official title deeds. Though the Palestinians claim to know who owns every hill and valley in the West Bank, only a third of the territory occupied by Israel since 1967 has formal title deed, or “tabo” in Arabic. Palestinian and Israeli activists say that loophole has reduced the legal risks to Israel of settling the territory opening the door to what they describe as a land grab that has undermined Palestinians’ hopes of founding an independent state.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110511/wl_nm/us_palestinians_land
Court protects Palestinian homes, for now
Ynet 11 May — Palestinian homes in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Bustan are not to be demolished until plans are finalized and approved for the park that is to be established in their stead, the Jerusalem District Court ruled Wednesday. Mayor Nir Barkat is promoting the plans, which require the demolition of 22 illegally built homes. In exchange, the Arabs who reside in these homes will receive permits to build new homes legally on the other side of the neighborhood, at their expense. In addition, the 66 other homes in the neighborhood will be legalized retroactively.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4067176,00.html
Israel freezes West Bank fence near major settlement bloc
Haaretz 11 May — Israel has frozen the construction of the West Bank separation fence near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc over budget concerns, Army Radio said on Wednesday, adding that Defense Ministry documents showed construction could resume in late 2012 … The cost of completing the said section is estimated at around NIS 5 billion … Two fences are actually slated for construction in the area, essentially to surround Gush Etzion on both sides. But such a fence would also pen in 30,000 Palestinians, who therefore lodged the High Court petition.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-israel-freezes-west-bank-fence-near-major-settlement-bloc-1.361039
Group petitions court against Israeli construction on Palestinian land
Ynet 11 May — Yesh Din, a human rights advocacy group, has petitioned the Supreme Court to order the state to halt illegal construction on Palestinian-owned land near Migron Outpost. It was claimed in the petition that three permanent illegal buildings have been constructed near the outpost.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4067213,00.html
The indigenous become squatters – Jillian Kestler-D’Amours
UMM AL-HIERAN (IPS) 9 May — As plans to demolish a Palestinian Bedouin village to make way for a new, Jewish-only town move forward in the Negev desert, the Bedouin residents have submitted a motion for the right to appeal to the Israeli high court. Located about thirty minutes from the major town of Beer Sheva, Umm al-Hieran is one of many so-called ‘unrecognized’ Bedouin villages peppering the Negev area that don’t receive basic services or infrastructure from the Israeli state. In 2004, the Southern District Planning Committee unveiled its master plan, which involved completely demolishing the village — forcibly evicting 150 families and approximately 1,000 residents — and building the Jewish community of Hiran in its place.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55538
Amniyr closed for week following demolitions
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 11 May — A military closure order over the village of Amniyr in the southern West Bank was renewed until Monday following the demolition of 12 tent homes earlier in the week, observers said. A group from the Christian Peacemaker Teams said the first military order was issued on May 6 when the demolitions of the homes were carried out. It was the third time the homes have been taken down.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=386658
Gaza
Israeli forces, tanks cross into Gaza
PressTV 11 May –Israeli soldiers apparently entered the Palestinian territory from Karni crossing on Wednesday and advanced hundreds of meters toward the east of Gaza City. According to Press TV’s correspondent in Gaza, Israeli soldiers dug a series of holes in the area and filled them with explosives. Israeli soldiers then blew up the explosives, causing loud explosions in the area, our correspondent added. Israeli officials claim that the troops were searching and destroying “possible tunnels” in the area that could be used by Palestinian resistance fighters to enter Israeli posts and capture Israeli soldiers. But analysts believe the Israeli attack aimed at provoking Palestinian fighters into firing on Israeli troops, which could have escalated the situation.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179435.html
Sole Gaza crossing opened after 2-day closure
West Bank, (Pal Telegraph) 11 May — Israeli occupation authorities opened Wednesday Karem Abu Salem crossing partially after two day of closure because of the Jewish holidays. Raed Fatouh, Gaza crossing official, said that Israeli authorities opened Karem Abu Salem crossing to allow the entry of 280 vans loaded with aids and goods for agricultural, commercial, and transportation sectors including 40 vans carrying cement and gravels for international projects in Gaza Strip. Fatouh added that one van carrying flowers will be exported to abroad via Karem Abu Salem crossing.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/economics/pal-economics/9149-sole-gaza-crossing-opened-after-2-day-closure.html
Detention / Court actions
Judge remands teen despite suspicions that soldiers beat him
Haaretz 11 May — An Israeli military judge extended the remand of a 15-year-old Palestinian on Sunday despite suspicions that the boy was badly beaten by soldiers. The reason for the extension was that the court was closed for Memorial Day and Independence Day. The boy, a resident of Bil‘in who can only be identified as A.H., was arrested on Friday on suspicion of throwing stones during the weekly protest against the separation fence, which cuts across the village’s lands … The record of the hearing confirmed that “the court observed a sizable number of bruises covering the suspect’s face, forehead and chin. Furthermore, the suspect’s left wrist was bandaged.” … But none of the soldiers claimed the boy had tried to resist arrest, so his injuries are thus far unexplained, Keinan noted. He therefore told the prosecution to come to the next hearing with answers that would explain the boy’s injuries, and said prosecutors might want to consider having the Military Police examine the soldiers’ behavior.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/judge-remands-palestinian-teen-despite-suspicions-that-soldiers-beat-him-1.360944
Hamas collaborator gets second jail term
Ynet 11 May — The Haifa District Court sentenced a resident of Umm al-Fahm to five years behind bars for contacting and conspiring with a Hamas operative, and receiving money and instructions from him to locate a secret cache for weapons and money in Israel. Khalid Agbaria, 52, was arrested in August 2010 not long after serving a six-year prison sentence for similar offenses that undermine Israel’s national security.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4067218,00.html
Prosecution appeals sentence for settler who beat Palestinian teen
Ynet 11 May —  The State Attorney’s Office has filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against the Jerusalem District Court’s decision to sentence Zvi Struck, a settler convicted of kidnapping and assaulting a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, to a year and a half in prison. The State Attorney’s Office claimed in the appeal that the punishment “is not appropriate for the severe, cruel, humiliating and frightening acts that he committed against the teen.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4067189,00.html
Activism / Solidarity / BDS
Video: Israeli army fires on Gaza demonstration at Erez Crossing
ISM 10 May — The Israeli army fired on 50 Palestinian and international activists protesting the Israeli-enforced closure of the “buffer zone” at Erez Crossing in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip today. The demonstration, organized by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, was joined by activists from the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip. Led by farmers and other Beit Hanoun community members, it was forced to withdraw by machine-gun fire after nearing the Israeli wall and its gun towers at 11:45 am. As protesters retreated, bullets struck the ground around them.
http://palsolidarity.org/2011/05/18239/
Latest news from US Boat to Gaza
10 May — Dear friends, We are in the final push to launch The Audacity of Hope on its trip to Gaza with the international Freedom Flotilla — Stay Human, and we need your support and help more than ever … We have purchased our boat, which will carry at least 50 people, and it is now being prepared for the voyage. Our passengers are raising the money they each will need to get to the port of embarkation and to cover their personal expenses.  They are organizing their local support groups and preparing a press blitz.  (There’s no better story than one with a local angle).
http://endtheoccupationblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/latest-news-from-us-boat-to-gaza.html
Video: Onadekum (Calling you) — DARG Team
3:15 minutes – One of Vittorio’s favorite music that he was always singing in Gaza with children, young and elder. DARG Team couldn’t find any thing better of reviving Vik’s memory on one of his best tunes and instruments … so Long Live Palestine, Long Live Gaza, Long Live Vik and Onadekom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq7J4TUpdng&feature=share
Ahava promotional campaign on Twitter jammed with BDS messaging
EI 11 May — The Stolen Beauty campaign focusing on a boycott of Ahava cosmetics, which are illegally manufactured in the occupied West Bank using Palestinian natural resources, has launched a culture jamming initiative currently underway on Twitter … So many people have responded to this call, that I can’t see any tweets that AREN’T about BDS and Israel’s rights abuses when searching #AHAVAreborn on Twitter.
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/maureen/ahava-promotional-campaign-twitter-jammed-bds-messaging
Pizzarotti should follow in Deutsche Bahn’s footsteps / Stephanie Westbrook
Mondo 11 May — Italian construction firm Pizzarotti is stupefied, bewildered, stunned. In an article on today’s Corriere della Sera, Italy’s top newspaper, covering Deutsche Bahn’s withdrawal from the Israeli project for a high-speed train line that cuts through the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Michele Pizzarotti said “We are astonished to find ourselves involved in these protests.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/05/pizzarotti-should-follow-in-deutsche-bahns-footsteps.html
Anniversary of the Nakba
The Nakba: Marking 63 years after a catastrophe
IMEU 11 May — Palestinian narratives. “We thought it would be a matter of weeks, only until the fighting died down. Of course, we were never allowed to go home.” Nina Saah, Washington, DC  “My family’s farm of oranges, grapefruits and lemons, centuries old, was gone.” Darwish Addassi, Walnut Creek, California  “Those of us who left unwillingly in 1948 are plagued with painful nostalgia. My house in West Jerusalem is an Israeli nursery school now.” Inea Bushnaq, New York, New York
http://imeu.net/news/article0020878.shtml
Video: Gaza gearing up for Nakba Day
Yousef al-Helou, Press TV, Gaza 10 May — Palestinians in Gaza have started to mark the 63rd anniversary of ‘Nakba’ or ‘catastrophe’, a term Palestinian refugees use to describe their expulsion from their homes and towns when Israel was created on occupied Palestinian territories. “We are returning” is the motto of this exhibition, which aims to highlight the Plight of Palestinian refugees who say that their right of return is a sacred right.
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2011/05/we-shall-return-to-our-land.html
Israeli army prepares for Nakba Day
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma‘an) 11 May — Israel’s army is “preparing to face the possibility of a third Palestinian intifada outbreak” Israeli military official Galey Zahal told the country’s Army Radio on Wednesday morning.  He cited Facebook groups calling for a popular uprising on May 15 … Zahal told the station that while troops were preparing, they felt risks were generally low, on account of security coordination with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which would “forbid the expansion of these protests.”
Palestinians seeking to commemorate the day in Israel, however, face a fine of three times the event’s cost, doubling if it is violated again within two years.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=386687
Refugees
Violence hurting Palestinians in Syria
NAIROBI, 11 May 2011 (IRIN) – Continuing violence in Syria has affected the delivery of aid to Palestinian refugees, raising concerns about the impact on 30,000 people in Dera‘a and surrounding areas, including 120 patients who receive insulin, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said. “UNRWA has attempted to send urgent medical supplies to Dera‘a but this has not yet been possible,” said Christopher Guinness. “UNRWA has expressed its concerns to the government of Syria and hopes the resumption of normal operations will be possible soon.” The agency has 118 schools across Syria teaching 66,000 pupils; 23 primary health centres, six community rehabilitation centres and 15 women’s centres.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=92683
Political / Diplomatic / International
Barak presents plan for Palestinian accord
Ynet 11 May — Israel ready to take ‘brave steps’, defense minister says ahead of Netanyahu’s speech before Congress — Defense Minister Ehud Barak revealed his plan for an accord with the Palestinians on Tuesday, hinting at the points Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to present in his upcoming speech before the US Congress and President Barack Obama … Barak added that these conditions have been Israel’s demands since the year 2000.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4066949,00.html
Obama may preempt PM’s Congress speech with his own plan
Reuters 11 May — WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama could deliver a major policy speech as early as next week laying out his new Middle East strategy following the US killing of Osama bin Laden and amid ongoing upheaval in the Arab world, US officials said on Wednesday. A key sticking point is whether Obama, who gained a boost in global stature with the death of the al-Qa‘ida chief last week, will use also his coming address to present new proposals for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, a source familiar with the administration’s internal debate said.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?ID=220102&R=R1
Palestinians’ Fayyad could keep PM job
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) 11 May — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, facing heavy international pressure, is leaning toward retaining his prime minister in an emerging Palestinian unity government, officials close to Abbas said Wednesday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110511/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_palestinians_prime_minister
Quartet backs Abbas, Fayyad-led government
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 10 May — The Quartet trusts President Mahmoud Abbas because he is committed to the peace process, head of mission Gary Grappo told Ma‘an on Tuesday … “The Quartet’s stance is statehood with an agreement first instead of unilateral options.” Grappo said the Quartet was in full support of Palestinian unity, but noted bias for caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=386483
Hamas: Delegations to Cairo Saturday to form govt
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 11 May — Hamas leader Salah Al-Bardawil said delegations from Fatah and Hamas will go to Cairo on Saturday to form the new transitional Palestinian government.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=386782
Palestinian PM urges Arab donors to meet wage bill
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) 11 May — The Palestinian Authority appealed to Arab countries Wednesday to pay the salaries of 155,000 government workers after Israel decided to suspend the transfer of tax funds to the PA. “We say to our Arab brothers: save us. We need your help more than any time before. It is the moment of truth,” Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told a news briefing in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110511/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_arabs_1
Hamas: Recognizing Israel jeopardizes rights
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 11 May — Hamas will accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, but will maintain its refusal to recognize Israel, party leader Mahmoud Az-Zahhar told Ma‘an on Wednesday. Speaking with Ma‘an radio, the official said that Hamas was ready to recognize a Palestinian state “on any part of Palestine,” for the first time publicly steering away from prior Hamas demands that the modern Palestinian state must be established “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” … The Hamas leader said that recognizing Israel would jeopardize the right of return for Palestinian refugees who have been exiled from the land since 1948 when Israel was recognized by the United Nations. If only Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are considered citizens of a Palestinian state, he continued, “what will be the fate of the five million Palestinians in the diaspora?”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=386651
Rally in Gaza calling for swift transition
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) — Hundreds of Palestinians came out en masse calling for leaders to protect the fragile reconciliation process, in a Wednesday afternoon rally in Gaza City. The demonstration started in front of the Abu Khadra government headquarters building and saw protesters march toward the Square of the Unknown Soldier in the center of Gaza City. Civil society groups, scouts and police joined in the event, walking side-by-side in a sign of internal unity.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=386821
Protest a tough sell among Palestinians
LA Times 11 May — The reasons for the reluctance to hit the streets, many conclude, are that Palestinians are cynical about prospects of ending the Israeli occupation and skeptical their leaders can make the difference.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-palestinians-protest-20110511,0,1434984.story
Zoabi: Israel fears Palestinian unity
Ynet 11 May — Balad MK says Israel views Fatah-Hamas reconciliation as threatening, ‘strives to deepen rift between Palestinian people’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4067316,00.html
Mesha‘al: Every Arab has a duty to stand by Egypt until it recovers
MEMO 11 May — The leader of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Khaled Mesha‘al, met on Monday, May 9th, with representatives of Egypt’s Coordinating Committee of the Revolution … The newspaper said that Mesha‘al expressed concern and sadness over the events of Imbaba and urged the revolution’s youth to bring an end to the sectarian strife. He said that the most important motivation behind the completion of the Palestinian reconciliation was that they couldn’t let down Egypt’s revolution. Moreover, he emphasized the need to restore Egypt’s regional role … Mesha‘al stressed that Hamas does not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab country and that rumours about the presence of Hamas elements in demonstrations during the Egyptian revolution are not true.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2330-meshaal-every-arab-has-a-duty-to-stand-by-egypt-until-it-recovers
Egyptian activists gear up for Third Intifadah
CAIRO, May 10, 2011 (IPS) – Following the February ouster of Egypt’s longstanding President Hosni Mubarak, calls have been circulating in Egypt and throughout the region for a ‘Third Intifadah’ to begin May 15. “Unlike the first two Palestinian uprisings, the proposed Third Intifadah is meant to involve the entire Arab world,” Egyptian journalist and political analyst Abdelhalim Kandil told IPS. It began with the appearance of a Facebook.com page in early March calling for a ‘Third Intifadah’ against the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=55576
Turkish Center helps raise funds for Carmel forest
JPost 11 May — Head of organization unaffiliated with Ankara gov’t says, “our friendship with Israel, Jewish people goes back for centuries to 1308”
http://www.jpost.com/ArtsAndCulture/Entertainment/Article.aspx?ID=220105&R=R1
Other news
Gov’t to build Ethiopian village?
Ynet 11 May —  The government is planning to establish a new Ethiopian-style village in the western Negev, whereimmigrants from the African nation will live, farm and operate guesthouses — turning the site into a tourist attraction.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed support for the idea, which was brought forth by Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, and has asked his advisers to research ways to bring the initiative to life.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4067317,00.html
Obama’s half brother visits Israel
Ynet 11 May — Jewish Mark Ndesandjo meets with chief rabbi, agrees to press Obama to release Jonathan Pollard
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4067143,00.html
Analysis / Opinion / Human interest
Hollow ‘reconciliation’ in Palestine / Ali Abunimah
AJ 9 May — By deciding to join the US-backed Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas risks turning its back on its role as a resistance movement, without gaining any additional leverage that could help Palestinians free themselves from Israeli occupation and colonial rule. Indeed, knowingly or not, Hamas may be embarking down the same well-trodden path as Abbas’ Fatah faction: committing itself to joining a US-controlled “peace process”, over which Palestinians have no say – and have no prospect of emerging with their rights intact. In exchange, Hamas may hope to earn a role alongside Abbas in ruling over the fraction of the Palestinians living under permanent Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115962939402933.html
The unbearable Israeli lightness of arresting Palestinians / Amira Hass
Haaretz 11 May — A senior IDF officer signed an administrative detention order full of mistakes in its contents and with many whiteout erasures. Is an arrest without trial for six months such a trivial matter that it doesn’t require checking of the details? — It began with what dozens of Palestinians experience every month: In the middle of the night, there are kicks on the door or shouts behind it and the house is inundated with soldiers aiming rifles. This time the rifles were aimed at a girl of 14 and her 67-year-old grandmother who are visiting an aunt of 53 and her 22-year-old daughter at their home in El Bireh. Afterwards the young women related that the soldiers “barked” orders, questions and threats.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/the-unbearable-israeli-lightness-of-arresting-palestinians-1.361106
Remember Beita . . . Remember Awarta / Reham Alhelsi
[Another village treated to collective punishment like Awarta later] 13 Apr — The story of Beita is the story of many Palestinian villages, the story of many Palestinians. But Beita is also the story that is seldom told and, although Beita occurs over and over again, it is seldom remembered … On 8:30 of the morning of 06.04.1988 a group of Zionist colonists from the Zionist colony of Elon Moreh stopped outside the Palestinian village of Beita. The group consisted of children and their armed guards … while the villagers argued, the guard Aldubi began shooting again and killed Hatem Fayez Ahmad Jaber (22 years). According to the residents, one of the settler children, Tirza Porat, tried stopping Aldubi from shooting. She grabbed his arm and told him that what he was doing was terrible. It was then that he shot her … The Israeli occupation forces had decided that Beita was to be blamed for the death of the settler girl, although no Palestinian owned a gun and she was killed by one of the settler guards, and that Beita was to be punished. A curfew was imposed and the village school was turned into a detention centre and hundreds of residents were detained from their homes. One Beita resident, Isam Abdel Halim Mohammad, 15 years, was shot dead by the IOF as he fled the village during the detention raid. On that same day, tens of olive trees were uprooted and 5 Palestinian homes were blown up.
http://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/remember-beita-remember-awarta/
Israel is getting away with robbing Palestinian taxes / Amira Hass
Haaretz 11 May — Once again, Israel is showing everyone who the real man is here. It is busy carrying out (yet another ) robbery in broad daylight of $105 million from the Palestinians. And as usual, it is going off without a hitch. The sum that is being stolen consists of customs duties on Palestinian imports that were collected at border crossings under Israeli control …  We all know that the robber will not be punished. The robber will even get encouragement in the form of an emergency budget for the PA, put together by the United States and Europe. That budget will then enable them to make even more political demands of the Palestinians.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-is-getting-away-with-robbing-palestinian-taxes-1.360975
Israel’s new laws promote repression / Neve Gordon
+972blog 11 May — As Arabs across the region struggle for freedom and democracy, Israeli law seems to be headed in the opposite direction …  On the one hand, the book of laws under which Israel’s citizenry live is — with the exception of a handful of significant laws that privilege Jews over non-Jews — currently very similar to those used in most liberal democracies, where the executive, legislative and judicial powers are separated, there are free, fair and regular elections, and the citizens enjoy basic rights – including freedom of expression and association … However, on the other hand, the Israeli military law used to manage the Palestinians are similar to those deployed in most Arab countries, where there is no real separation of powers and people are in many respects without rights. Even though there has been a Palestinian Authority since the mid-1990s, there is no doubt that sovereignty still lies in Israeli hands.
http://972mag.com/israels-new-laws-promote-repression/
Christian Zionism: Theology that legitimates oppression / Tony Campolo
The most serious threats to the well-being of the Palestinians in general, and to the Christian Palestinians in particular, come not from the Jews, but from Christian Zionists here in the United States.  They are armed with a theology created in the middle of the 19th century by a disaffected Anglican clergyman named John Nelson Darby in Plymouth, England.  With this theology, called “Dispensationalism,” they argue that according to their interpretation of Genesis 15:18-21, the Holy Land should belong exclusively to the Jews.
http://blog.sojo.net/2010/05/19/christian-zionism-theology-that-legitimates-oppression/
On Israeli Memorial Day, suicide, fratricide, and accidents remain top causes of soldier deaths / Max Blumenthal
9 May — On Israel’s Memorial Day observances for “fallen soldiers and victims of terror attacks,” the Defense Ministry’s commemoration unit claimed that 183 Israelis “were killed in the line of duty or in terror attacks since last year’s Remembrance Day,” according to YNet. The number appears to represent a wild exaggeration that is inconsistent with past statistics documenting the number of Israeli soldiers killed annually in combat operations versus those who died by suicide or in accidents. In recent years, suicide has been either the leading cause or among the leading causes of deaths in the Israeli army. While I was having lunch in Tel Aviv last summer with my friend Ruth Hiller, a founder of the Israeli anti-militarization group New Profile, she told me that around 50 percent of Israelis buried in military cemeteries had died through suicide, accidents or fratricide.
http://maxblumenthal.com/2011/05/on-israeli-memorial-day-suicide-fratricide-and-accidents-remain-top-causes-of-soldier-deaths/
Reflection from Taybeh / Maria C. Khoury
PNN 11 May — Green is such an amazing color during the spring time every year in Taybeh since everything blooms and all the hills and valleys reflect the deep beauty Mother Nature has granted to the highest mountain region in Palestine … I sort of like green only because it is part of the beloved Palestinian flag but it is sometimes difficult to mention that green was selected as a drink label to reflect the mother Earth and not Hamas when the Taybeh Brewing Company selected to launch its first nonalcoholic beverage a few years ago.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10018&Itemid=58
Only 16 years old and has already invented 6 devices
Hiba Lama – PNN Exclusive 10 May — Hadeel Naser, only 16 years old, but her dreams are big, the Israeli four-year long siege on the Gaza Strip and poverty did not stop her from being a scientist and a premier inventor, something Naser wanted to do since early childhood. Eight inventions, including a one that she has a patent for from Washington; “I have little and my dreams are big, this is a problem because it restricts my production ability, I want to make more experiments and invent new things but because of the siege and lack of raw materials it restricts my ambition.”
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10013&Itemid=56
IMEU: Some short profiles of Palestinian-Americans
http://imeu.net/enws/palestinian-americans.shtml
www.theheadlines.org (archive)

Schoolgirls and doctors beaten and tortured in Bahrain raids, ‘They beat and slapped me and called me whore and dirty Shia’

May 11, 2011

Seham

Schoolgirls ‘beaten’ in Bahrain raids
In a secretly filmed interview, 16-year-old tells how she was severely beaten as Gulf kingdom cracked down on protests.
And more of the latest news from the Arab uprisings:

Bahrain
Doctor – ‘They beat and slapped me and called me whore and dirty Shia’
Emailed testimony of a consultant and family physician detained during Bahrain’s crackdown on medical professionals. State security forces have routinely commandeered health centres to search, investigate, and arrest medics.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/they-beat-and-slapped-me-and-called-me-whore-and-dirty-shia-2281617.html
Another Bahraini rights activist detained
Saudi-backed Bahraini forces have arrested another rights activist as the Manama regime continues its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. Mahdi A’aya was arrested in the northern village of Barber on Monday, a week after regime thugs set his house ablaze.
http://jnoubiyeh.com/2011/05/another-bahraini-rights-activist.html
Bahrain: Activist Bears Signs of Abuse
(Washington, DC) – A prominent rights activist who was active in Bahrain’s pro-democracy street protests appeared before a special military court on May 8, 2011, bearing visible signs of ill-treatment and perhaps torture, Human Rights Watch said today.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/05/10/bahrain-activist-bears-signs-abuse
Bahrain should set up torture investigation body -HRW
DUBAI, May 11 (Reuters) – Bahrain should suspend prosecution of civilians in military courts and set up an impartial commission to look into allegations of torture during a clampdown on those involved in street protests, a U.S-based rights group said.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/bahrain-should-set-up-torture-investigation-body–hrw

Bahrain expels Reuters correspondent (Reuters)
Reuters – Bahrain said on Tuesday that it was expelling the Reuters correspondent in the Gulf kingdom.

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110510/wl_nm/us_bahrain_reuters
Bahrain fires 300 workers, rights group says detainee tortured (Reuters)
Reuters – Bahrain’s state oil company fired nearly 300 employees for taking part in a recent pro-democracy strike and a U.S.-based human rights group said a prominent activist appeared to have been tortured in detention.
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110511/wl_nm/us_bahrain

In Bahrain, a candlelight vigil can land you in jail
SITRA, Bahrain — In the back alleys and streets of this Shiite Muslim town, a police crackdown looms at any hour of the day, but never more so than at nightfall, when even innocuous civil disobedience can lead to jail and perhaps torture.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/10/113997/in-bahrain-a-candlelight-vigil.html?storylink=addthis#ixzz1Lzc4PsTF
AFL-CIO, “Terminate the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement”
On January 11, 2006, the United States signed into law the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which entered into force between the United States and Bahrain on August 1, 2006. In light of the ongoing brutal repression of peaceful protest carried out by the police and armed forces of Bahrain and the Gulf Cooperation Council (the latter at the invitation of former), the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) urgently calls on the United States government (USG) to serve notice of its withdrawal from the FTA upon the government of Bahrain (GoB), pursuant to Article 21.5.2. The U.S. simply should not provide preferential trade treatment to a country that has and continues to engage in well-documented widespread and serious violations of human rights, including labor rights, of its citizens and residents. In the interim, the USG must immediately enter into consultations with the GoB under Article 15.6 of the FTA and insist that it end its ongoing campaign to punish trade union activity and to cease all forms of discrimination against trade unions and union activists. To date, several trade union leaders have been arbitrarily detained and investigated, and hundreds of rank and file union members and workers have been fired for participating in strikes and pro-democracy demonstrations. Indeed, a recent high-level delegation by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) warned that “the government has clearly decided to try and destroy [the trade unions],” which “have been at the forefront of the movement for dialogue, peace and reconciliation.” Failure to intervene now to support workers and their democratic institutions would make a mockery of the labor protections included in the FTA.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/aflcio100511.html
Bahrain Crackdown Ignored By West
The fate of Bahrain’s protest movement is a stark reminder of how Western and regional power politics can trump reformist yearnings, even in an Arab world convulsed by popular uprisings against entrenched autocrats. Bahrain is not Libya or Syria, but Western tolerance of the Sunni monarchy’s crackdown suggests that interests such as the U.S. naval base in Manama, ties to oil giant Saudi Arabia and the need to contain neighboring Iran outweigh any sympathy with pro-democracy demonstrators mostly from the Shi’ite majority.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/bahrain-protests-news_n_859393.html
Bahrain topples its own people,  Pepe Escobar
March 14, 2011, will go down in history as the infamous day when the House of Saud launched – with full United States backing – a vicious counter-revolution designed to smash the Gulf chapter of the great 2011 Arab revolt. (See Exposed: The US/Saudi Libya deal Asia Times Online, April 2, 2011).
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME11Ak01.html
Egypt
Amr Moussa’s vision for Egypt
WEYMOUTH: Officials in Washington are concerned about the change in Egypt’s relationship with Iran.
AMR MOUSSA: Iran is not the natural enemy of Arabs, and it shouldn’t be. We have a lot to gain by peaceful relations — or less tense relations — with Iran.
WEYMOUTH: The U.S. is focused on the nuclear issue.
AMR MOUSSA: The nuclear issue in the Middle East means Israel and then Iran.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/amr-moussas-vision-for-egypt/2011/05/09/AF36AxbG_story.html
Arab League chief: Hamas not a terror group
Amr Moussa tells Washington Post, ‘The view that Hamas is a terrorist organization is a view that pertains to a minority of countries, not a majority’.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4066728,00.html
‘Egypt should seek end to Gaza siege’
Egypt’s presidential candidate Amr Moussa says the country should put pressure on Israel to lift the crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179203.html
The new Egypt: tell the Zionists to keep weeping for Mubarak

“On 15 May, the annual commemoration of the creation of the state of Israel and the expulsion of Palestinians, known as Nakba, Egyptians plan to march to Palestine under the slogan “Cairo’s liberation will not be complete without the liberation of Al-Quds [Jerusalem].”   Following Egypt’s January 25 Revolution, Egyptians are pushing for some of the country’s foreign relations policies to change, especially those related to Israel and Palestine. Aid or protest convoys to Gaza were frequently stopped or arrested during the Mubarak era by the ousted president’s regime, and now for the first time since the revolution thousands of activists are planning to march to the Rafah border town.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-egypt-tell-zionists-to-keep-weeping.html
Egyptians to mark Nakba with a march to Palestine
This article first appeared on Gaza TV: On 15 May, the annual commemoration of the creation of the state of Israel and the expulsion of Palestinians, known as Nakba, Egyptians plan to march to Palestine under the slogan “Cairo’s liberation will not be complete without the liberation of Al-Quds [Jerusalem].”
Egyptians to mark Nakba with a march to Palestine
Meshaal: Every Arab has a duty to stand by Egypt until it recovers
The leader of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Khaled Meshaal, met on Monday, May 9th, with representatives of Egypt’s Coordinating Committee of the Revolution; The Free Egypt Coalition, The Coalition of the Revolution’s Youth, and The Revolution’s Board of Guardians. During the two hour meeting, Meshaal expressed happiness to meet with the revolution’s leaders. He was accompanied by several members of Hamas’ Political Bureau.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2330-meshaal-every-arab-has-a-duty-to-stand-by-egypt-until-it-recovers
Egypt extends Mubarak’s detention
Ousted president’s detention extended by 15 days as ex-tourism minister is jailed for graft for five years.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/201151013737898368.html
Egypt jails second former cabinet minister
Zoheir Garranah sentenced for squandering public funds days after ex-interior minister got 12 years for graft.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/20115109584640242.html
Egypt detains ‘mastermind’ behind Cairo sectarian clashes
Egyptian authorities have arrested the “mastermind” behind the sectarian violence in Cairo that killed 12 people, the cabinet said.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/10/148578.html
Egypt Copts demand justice following violence
Egyptian authorities have already arrested more than 200 people in connection with Sunday’s sectarian violence that left 12 people dead. And they say they have caught the man who sparked it. Ali Yassin Mohamed will face a military court. Al Jazeera’s Jamal Es-Shayel reports on how the clashes are resonating throughout the capital, Cairo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMUto61Yq6I&feature=youtube_gdata
Inside Story: Egypt’s clash of religions
Inside Story, discusses with Michael Mounir, a Coptic activist and lobbyist; Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a correspondent at Democracy Now!; and Rabab El-Mahdi, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLRalq0COnA&feature=youtube_gdata

Salafis in Egypt
“In recent decades, the term “Salafi” has been used to label groups that advocate a literal reading of Islam and seek to revive the lifestyle of the Salafor early Muslims. In Egypt, Salafism is more a school of thought, rather than an organization with a hierarchy. The roots of the school can be found in Saudi Wahhabism, which first emerged in the 18th century in the Arabian Peninsula. Since the 1970s, Saudi Arabia has been spreading such fundamentalist ideas in Egypt by exporting radical books and financing certain Salafi activities. Egyptians working in the Gulf and then returning to Egypt have also helped to spread such views.  Under Mubarak, Salafis generally kept a low profile and remained out of politics, although they were used by the former regime to counter the Muslim Brotherhood.   During the 25 January revolution, Salafi scholars denounced protests as un-Islamic and warned Muslim youths against engaging in the uprising, but the hard-line Muslims became visible once Mubarak and his security apparatus fell. They were emboldened to stage more protests along sectarian lines. Some went further, announcing the formation of political parties to compete in the parliamentary elections slated for September.  Some observers allege that the sudden emergence of Salafis is orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, which seeks to abort the Egyptian revolution for fear that the same revolutionary model would be reproduced on its soil.  Younis expects that after the Imbaba incident, the army will deal a blow to such radical groups. However, he voiced fears that giving the military a free hand in uprooting Salafis might threaten the prospects for a transition to civil democratic rule.”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/salafis-in-egypt.html
Tantawi
Are you kidding me? You can’t have it both ways.  You want a revolution in Egypt? You can’t have one with Tantawi as the leader. An Egyptian revolution would require the removal of the Egyptian military council which serves by order of the US/Israel.  You want to remove all appointees of Mubarak?  Don’t start with the Ministry of Agriculture.  You will get there later. Start with the Military Council.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/tantawi.html
Israel’s (dirty) role in Egypt

This is a very widely read article by a widely read writers in Al-Masri Al-Yawm.  It talks about suspicion in Israel’s dirty hands in Egypt to sabotage the the Egyptian uprising.  Welcome to the new Egypt.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/israels-dirty-role-in-egypt.html

New Board for Egypt’s TV and Radio
I was reading the names of the new board for Egyptian TV and Radio services.  Amazing what a radical shift from the old regime.  The new names are almost all fierce anti-Zionist.  On another note, Zionists are still weeping over the fall of Mubarak.  Oh, weep some more and more.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-board-for-egypts-tv-and-radio.html
`Ala’ Al-Aswani
This Egyptian novelist writes about the sectarian crisis in Egypt.  He also writes about the Israeli sabotaging role in the new Egypt.  It has been a delight as of late to read the Egyptian press.  They write about how Israeli leaders would get whatever they wanted from Egypt (in terms of policies and actions) simply by making a phone call to their puppet Mubarak.  It is great for us hopeful for a progress in the Egyptian uprising that Mubarak was a puppet for Israel/US/Saudi Arabia.  The new state will have to break with those policies or it will be confused with the old regime.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/ala-al-aswani.html
A very special birthday indeed
Last May 4th was former / Ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s 83 birthday and for sure it was a special birthday not only for him but for the rest of the country this year. For the first time since decades we are president’s/ruler’s birthday free and it feels good. We were not enforced to celebrate our presidents’ birthdays in their early presidential terms , their birthdays came when they were turned in to idolized pharaohs by their entourages. In the early days of Mubarak , in early 1980s he promised that he would not be like Nasser or Sadat and  that his wife would not make us get sick from the first lady’s role “Egyptians complained from the role of Jihan Sadat”. In late 1980s Gamal Mubarak stood in the line to get his passport checked in his way to London like any other Egyptian citizen.
http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/05/very-special-birthday-indeed.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EgyptianChronicles+%28Egyptian+chronicles%29
Egypt tries to erase Hosni Mubarak’s name
A judge rules that the ousted president’s name be removed from all public institutions. But when the letters are removed, a mark often remains, just as his imprint lingers in the words of those tortured by his police and in allegations of corruption. They say he dyes his hair no more, jet-black sheen turning white. He lies in a hospital bed. Out of view so long that he seems to have become invisible. But it is his name they want to erase, as if it had never been painted on signs, chiseled into marble, whispered in fear.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/GeKG6K35GOA/la-fg-erasing-mubarak-20110511,0,4134470.story
Cairobserver: cool new blog
Cairobserver focuses on the modern architectural heritage of Cairo. Check it out for a discussion of why the current renovation of the Cairo train station is a disaster. I also completely agree with the suggestion that the NDP building’s burnt outer shell be saved and incorporated into future plans for the building, as a striking reminder of the revolution (and the people’s anger).
http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/5/11/cairobserver-cool-new-blog.html
New Hope on the Nile
A new, post-Mubarak Egypt has given both Egyptians and other Arabs alike, hope that Egypt can once again reclaim its role as the focal point from which Arab culture and politics emanate. The opening up of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza and the active promotion of a unity government in the Palestinian Territories are both indications that this is slowly happening. However, Egypt’s regional affiliation is not only with the Middle East, but extends towards its riparian partners along the Nile as well. And on that front, events in the immediate months after the fall of Mubarak indicated that an Egypt in transition, unable to take firm political positions, could be taken advantage of by upstream Nile riparian countries that have for years tried to gain the rights to greater use of the Nile’s water flows. On February 28th, 2011, Burundi became the sixth country to sign the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (NBCFA; which was initially signed by four countries On May 14, 2010, and a fifth on May 19) giving the signees the majority needed to ratify it and overturn the existing Agreements of 1929 and 1959 that were agreed upon between Egypt and Sudan.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1556/new-hope-on-the-nile
Libya
Libya rebels ‘take key airport’
Libyan rebels capture the airport in the besieged city of Misrata, driving back troops loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi, reports say.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-africa-13363782
Libya says NATO hit children commission building
TRIPOLI, May 10 (Reuters) – Libyan officials took foreign journalists on Tuesday to see what they said was the result of a second NATO strike in just over a week on a government building housing the high commission for children. The old colonial building, situated in Tripoli’s Dahmani neighbourhood, was completely destroyed but there were no immediate reports of casualties. The officials said the NATO strike occurred on Monday night and involved a missile.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/libya-says-nato-hit-children-commission-building
Rebels say fighting in Tripoli, govt denies it
TUNIS, May 9 (Reuters) – A Libyan opposition newspaper said on Monday rebels were leading an uprising in the suburbs of Tripoli after being supplied with light weapons by defecting security service officers; the government denied the report.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/rebels-say-fighting-in-tripoli-govt-denies-it

Libya rebels ‘push back troops’
Rebels in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata say they have pushed pro-Gaddafi troops back from its outskirts towards the capital, Tripoli.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-africa-13341143
Gaddafi’s cousin denies house arrest report
CAIRO, May 10 (Reuters) – A cousin of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi denied on Tuesday a report that the Egyptian authorities had placed him under house arrest in Cairo. On Sunday, the rebel Brnieq website, citing a reliable source, said Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam Benghazi was in the Cairo district of Nasr City and the authorities planned to seize his funds and property and deport him to Benghazi. “Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam denied what was mentioned in Brnieq, published in Benghazi, that he was under forced detention in his office,” Gaddaf al-Dam said a faxed statement.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/gaddafis-cousin-denies-house-arrest-report
Libyan Migrants’ Boat Sinks: Witnesses Say Ship With 600 Aboard Sunk Near Tripoli
MILAN — An overcrowded ship carrying up to 600 people trying to flee Libya sank just outside the port of Tripoli, the U.N. refugee agency said Monday, citing witness accounts. Aid officials were still trying to confirm the fate of those people after the vessel broke apart Friday in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, UNHCR spokeswoman Laura Boldrini said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/libya-boat-sinks-migrants_n_859440.html
EU to open Benghazi office to back Libya rebels
The European Union plans to open an office in the rebel-held Libyan city of Benghazi to facilitate assistance to the rebel council based there, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/eu-to-open-benghazi-office-to-back-libya-rebels-2282270.html
Injured fighters can’t wait to get back to the hell of the front line
Abdulfatah Albusefi can’t walk but he insists that he can fight. A sniper’s bullet shattered the 27-year-old’s pelvis less than three weeks ago during the siege of Misrata. He had to be helped on to the fishing boat in Benghazi that will take him back to the fighting.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/injured-fighters-cant-wait-to-get-back-to-the-hell-of-the-front-line-2281623.html
Libyan rebels caught in an uneasy lull
Rumors of renewed fighting with Kadafi’s troops abound in Ajdabiya. The stalemate born of NATO’s airstrike aid continues with no end in sight. Rumors of renewed fighting circulate in the mostly abandoned city of Ajdabiya in eastern Libya, even without any recent pitched battles between rebels and forces loyal to longtime leader Moammar Kadafi.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/rfU8ZInOwWs/la-fg-libya-deadlock-20110510,0,4293128.story
Syria
Syria ‘deports reporter to Iran’
Broadcaster al-Jazeera says journalist Dorothy Parvaz has been deported from Syria to Iran, raising fresh concerns for her safety.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-middle-east-13366036
Wikileaks: Embassy/Damascus: ‘Focus on Shiaa’/Sunni divide to “destroy Assad’s image”
Without crossing the sectarian redlines, the Embassy strongly urges more focus on Syria’s strong relationship with Iran and Hezbollah, while focusing on the Shiites attacks on the Arab world. We believe that it should emphasize the financial support provided by the Iranian government to Hezbollah’s violent attacks on the Arabs. The message that “Syria simply carried out the wishes of the Shiites in Iran” should destroy Bashar’s local & regional image and complicate his attempts to present himself as a ‘Sunni’ Arab leader… Syria’s refusal to participate constructively in the Arab League mission in Lebanon (though Syria is the honorary president of the League this year) also provides a point of weakness for exploitation of public diplomacy. These atmospherics will strengthen the messages of Egypt and Saudi Arabia …”
http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2011/05/wikileaks-embassydamascus-focus-on.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+friday-lunch-club+%28%22friday-lunch-club%22%29
Syrian forces release 300 people in Banias-group
AMMAN, May 10 (Reuters) – Syrian forces released on Tuesday 300 people who had been arrested in Banias since tanks stormed residential areas in the coastal city last week, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Water, telecommunications and electricity have been restored, but tanks remain deployed in major streets, the Observatory said. Another 200 people, among them pro-democracy protest leaders, remained in jail, the group said.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/syrian-forces-release-300-people-in-banias-group
‘House-to-house raids’ in Syrian cities
Protest organisers and participants targeted in overnight raids, activists say, as gunfire reported near Damascus.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/201159103011741192.html
Syrian forces arrest writer during protest-rights group
AMMAN, May 9 (Reuters) – Syrian security forces dispersed a small pro-democracy demonstration in the centre of Damascus on Monday, arresting an opposition writer and several students, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Ammar Mashour Dayoub, a writer who had called for political reform in Syria, was among 150 people who assembled in Arnous Square in Damascus in a night rally demanding the lifting of military sieges on Syrian cities that had defied the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, the Observatory said in a statement.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/syrian-forces-arrest-writer-during-protest-rights-group
Assad’s brother tops Syria sanctions list
EU names 13 Syrian officials on sanctions list, including a brother and influential cousin of president Bashar al-Assad.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/201151083236550487.html
‘Kuwait to replace Syria’ for UN body bid
Western diplomats say Kuwait will replace Syria as a candidate for a seat on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/05/2011510171246332265.html
“Makhlouf Says Syria Will Fight Protests Till ‘the End’”
Rami Makhlouf and the arrogance of power. Buthaina Shaaban, in yesterday’s interview with Shadid, managed to evoke a bit of humility while explaining that the Syrian regime was winning in the struggle with the opposition. Rami Makhlouf cannot conceal the puffery of power. He threatens Israel and the region. Syria’s enemies will make hey out of this. It is true that if Syria collapses into civil war the entire region will suffer, but to use it as a threat against the very same people from whom you are asking indulgence and understanding is not a wise psychological tactic.
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=9686&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Syriacomment+%28Syria+Comment%29
The Syrian Ruling Mafia
The with Rami Makhluf by Anthony Shadid in the New York Times is repugnant.  It reveals the Syrian ruling group as a mafia.  First, this is a man who speaks on behalf of a government that he is not–in theory–a member of.  A cousin of the president is his only “official post”.  Like all Arab leaders, he offered Israel the notion that “apres mois le deluge” for Israel.   He did not even hide that.  The other implication of this notion that a fall of the regime presents Israel with insecurity, is an admission that the preservation of the regime in Israel’s interest.   US/Israel view on Syria (and this is based on information and not analysis on my part) is that preservation of the regime with Bashshar severely weakened is the preferred option.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/syrian-ruling-mafia.html
SyriaNow, “Syria: To Amend Article 8 of the Constitution, But Not to Allow the Establishment of Religious Parties”
The Lebanese newspaper Al-Bana’a reports that, according to sources close to the decision-making circles in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad will soon announce the amendment of Article 8 of the Constitution, which limits the country’s leadership to the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, so as to include all parties affiliated with the Progressive National Front in the leadership, and the opening of this front to include new parties, broadening participation in the leadership of the country. However, the sources stressed the commitment of all the fundamental forces, beginning with President Assad himself, to not allow the establishment of religious parties in Syria, and to preserve the constitutional clause which requires all political forces and parties to be secular, in order to prevent the exploitation of religion and the use of it in the political game and the tearing up of the fabric of national unity of Syria.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/syria090511.html
‘Surge’ in weapons sales to Syria
Arms exports to Syria from neighbouring states are reportedly on the rise since the unrest in the country began in March. Lebanon and Syria share an often porous border and some experts say that not all the arms being smuggled across it are for self-defence. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reports from Beirut where various weapons are available on the black market.

Young protest leader sees civil war emerging in Syria
A Syrian schoolteacher who has become a protest leader in the town of Tel Kalakh, near the Lebanon border, tells the Monitor in a rare interview that he expects civil war in Syria.
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/3l_TknePNxA/Young-protest-leader-sees-civil-war-emerging-in-Syria
Jordanian solidarity with Syrian people
I read that a few hundreds of Jordanians have been demonstrating in support of the Syrian people.  I am suspicious of this crowd and fear that Jordanian mukhabarat may be involved.  If this crowd is truly in favor of solidarity with the Syrian people they would be protesting against their own lousy monarchist regime.  This is like Saudi propagandists who write in support of protests in Syria.  Who are you fooling??
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/jordanian-solidarity-with-syrian-people.html
sorry
“… The presenter of ‘News at Eight’ in the French television channel’ bulletin on Sunday night said that “The images of the protests in Syria have caused confusion & controversy, and that Reuters “apologized to France2 because it provided it Saturday evening with “images that were from Reuters’ Lebanon’s old  archive with captions indicating they were fromSyria …”
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/sorry.html
In Brief: Violence hurting Palestinians in Syria
NAIROBI 11 May 2011 (IRIN) – Continuing violence in Syria has affected the delivery of aid to Palestinian refugees, raising concerns about the impact on 30,000 people in Dera’a and surrounding areas, including 120 patients who receive insulin, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=92683
Yemen
Yemen forces fire on Sanaa march
Yemeni security forces open fire on protesters marching against President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the capital, Sanaa, killing at least one person, medics say.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-middle-east-13365828
Yemen jets bomb anti-Saleh tribal areas -tribesmen
SANAA, May 10 (Reuters) – Yemeni air force planes on Tuesday bombed rural areas where tribesmen demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh live, the tribesmen said, a sign that violence gripping the fractious state may be escalating.
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/yemen-jets-bomb-anti-saleh-tribal-areas–tribesmen

What is happening in Yemen?
Live coverage on Aljazeera Arabic.   It seems that troops shot at protesters approaching the prime ministerial headquarters.  Now there are news that protesters are advancing towards the prime ministerial headquarters and the radio building.  Yemenis are rejecting the GCC initiative with their blood.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-is-happening-in-yemen.html
Osama
Osama Bin Laden Mission Agreed In Secret 10 Years Ago By U.S. And Pakistan
The US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil similar to last week’s raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, the Guardian has learned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/osama-bin-laden-mission-us-pakistan_n_859574.html
Bargining over Osama’s wives
It has been just over a week since US special forces killed al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan. Pakistan may allow American investigators to question his three widows, arrested by Pakistani forces shortly after the unilateral US raid. After days of hard talk coming from both sides, the US and Pakistan have signalled a willingness to co-operate. Al Jazeera’s Imtiyaz Tyab reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FbzfoxodFM&feature=youtube_gdata
Bin Laden son calls burial at sea ‘humiliating’
Bin Laden son: Bin Laden’s swift burial at sea, in what his son called a violation of Islamic custom, has stirred anger.
http://rss.csmonitor.com/%7Er/feeds/world/%7E3/Yj4eiiTQsTM/Bin-Laden-son-calls-burial-at-sea-humiliating
Mosques Vandalized After Osama Bin Laden’s Death
Muslim-Americans in Louisiana’s Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area reported the defacement of a local mosque by a man in a blue pickup truck, the most recent incident in a string of possible hate crimes following the killing of Osama bin Laden. According to police reports, a white male was seen tampering with the doors of a local mosque on Monday, and raw pork was found hanging from the door handles after his departure. Adherents of Islam do not consume pork, which they consider unclean. Although members of the mosque will not press charges, police have said the incident could be classified as a hate crime.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/10/mosques-vandalized-osama-bin-laden-death_n_860307.html
Al Jazeera World: I knew bin Laden
Ahmad Zaidan, Al Jazeera’s Islamabad correspondent, speaks to people who knew Osama bin Laden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaEZRraliTU&feature=youtube_gdata
Op-ed/Analysis
Noam Chomsky: “The U.S. and Its Allies Will Do Anything to Prevent Democracy in the Arab World”
Speaking at the 25th anniversary celebration of the national media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, world-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky analyzes the U.S. response to the popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. “Across the [Middle East], an overwhelming majority of the population regards the United States as the main threat to their interests,” Chomsky says. “The reason is very simple… Plainly, the U.S. and its allies are not going to want governments which are responsive to the will of the people. If that happens, not only will the U.S. not control the region, but it will be thrown out.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/11/noam_chomsky_the_us_and_its
Arab Spring or Arabian Summer?
After over a decade-long search, the Obama administration is gloating over the murder of the Western world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, making him the third Reagan-supported criminal (after Saddam Hussein and Augusto Pinochet) to die since the turn of this century. As the United States celebrates the death of its staunchest enemy and steals the world media’s attention from the bloody protests in Syria and Yemen, the ‘Arab Spring’ perseveres into its fourth month.
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1544/arab-spring-or-arabian-summer
Israeli general claims that Arab revolutions threaten security and stability
The people’s revolutions sweeping the Arab world “undermine stability and add possible threats” to the state of Israel, according to the Zionist state’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz. The stability of the wider region is also at risk, he claimed. Speaking during a Remembrance Day Ceremony on 8th May, General Gantz said that although “the events erupted out of repression and desperation and raise hope… the Israel Defence Forces must be ready to address a growing variety of challenges on every front and possibly all fronts”.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2327-israeli-general-claims-that-arab-revolutions-threaten-security-and-stability
GCC consultative summit
I was watching the footage of the opening of the GCC consultative summit.  Saudi King looks pretty done by now: which makes me look forward to the era that will succeed him; an era full of chaos possibilities, as Prince Talal recently suggested.  House of Saud’s division will only deepen especially as King `Abdullah caused an irreparable damage to the Sudayri gang by naming its most despised and detested member, Prince Nayif, as third in line.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/gcc-consultative-summit.html
GCC expands
This is quite amazing: that the GCC will now expand to include Morocco and Jordan.  It is clear: Saudi Arabia (and US) wants to draw a distinction between Arab monarchies (which it views as virtuous and in no need for reform) and the Arab republics (which it views as corrupt and in need of reform).   The expansion shows US and Jordanian nervousness (the King of Morocco is too out of it to know anything from anything).  It should be renamed: The Arab Monarchist Council, or the Arab Tyranny Council.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/05/gcc-expands.html

The Neverending Story: Updates on the fantasies, falsehoods, and fear-mongering about Iran’s nuclear program

May 11, 2011

Nima Shirazi

On October 26, 2004, Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, conducted an interview for his book “Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States” (published three years later) with Shlomo Brom, a researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. Brom spoke of the Israeli government and military’s use of “worst-case scenarios” to advance its own propaganda. “It’s much easier to give worst-case scenarios,” he said. “It usually serves the personal interest of the planner. Because if you are giving the worst-case prophecy, then when it is not realized, everyone is happy. No one remembers it. But when it is realized, you can always say, ‘I told you so.'” Parsi writes that Brom, who had previously served as director of the Strategic Planning Division in the Planning Branch of the General Staff of the IDF, “had been part of the Israeli intelligence apparatus when it systematically overestimated, and at times exaggerated, Iran’s nuclear capabilities.” He quotes Brom as admitting,

“Remember, the Iranians are always five to seven years from the bomb. Time passes but they’re always five to seven years from the bomb.” (p. 167)

It has been over four months since I wrote, “The Phantom Menace: Fantasies, Falsehoods, and Fear-Mongering about Iran’s Nuclear Program,” a time-line of false U.S., Israeli, and European assertions regarding the supposed inevitability and immediacy of a nuclear-armed Iran, hysterical allegations that have been made repeatedly for the past thirty years.  Whenever new predictions and claims about Iran’s nuclear program are released, I have added updates to my original piece.
To read all 35 updates, click here.
Here are the latest:

UPDATE XXXIII: Israeli Fear-Mongering about Iran Faces a Barak-lash

May 4, 2011 – Sometimes Ehud Barak has trouble staying on message. Last year in Herzliya, he warned of Israel becoming an apartheid state like South Africa, a usually verboten analogy among Zionist officials, unless a viable Palestinian state is created soon. “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic,” Barak said. “If this bloc of millions of ­Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.” Whoops.
This time around, however, Barak pulled the rug out from under Israel’s favorite scare tactic. The former Israeli Prime Minister/current Minister of Defense/Deputy Prime Minister told Ha’aretz today that even “[i]f Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons, it is unlikely to bomb Israel,” thereby undermining one of the Netanyahu administration’s main propaganda lines that a nuclear-armed Iran (if one ever were to exist) would represent an immediate “existential threat” to the self-proclaimed Jewish state.
According to Ha’aretz, Barak voiced his opinion that “Israel should not spread public panic about the Iranian nuclear program and responded to a question about whether he thought Iran would launch a nuclear attack on Israel by saying, “Not on us and not on any other neighbor.”
Just a few days ago, on May 1, both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli President Shimon Peres repeated their dire warnings and tired talking points about the supposed Iranian threat. Speaking at the opening ceremony of Holocaust Memorial Day at Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to Jewish victims of Nazi genocide, Netanyahu and Peres both “stressed Iranian nuclear aspirations as an existential threat to Israel,” with Netanyahu declaring that “Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are working openly for the destruction of our people.” He continued, “We cannot place our fate in the hands of others,” and then warned that, “when Israel and the Israel Defense Forces say, ‘Never Again,’ they mean precisely that.” Going for broke, Netanyahu just started making things up. “[T]oday, new enemies are rising, and as they deny the Holocaust, call for the destruction of our people,” he said, “those wishing to destroy the Jewish state” are “arming themselves with nuclear weapons in order to realize those ambitions.” Naturally, he threw in the “existential threat” canard: “The threat to our existence isn’t a theoretical one, it cannot be minimized, it stands before us, before all of humanity, and it must be stopped,” he bellowed.
Peres went even further, stating, “Iran’s fanatic leadership is a danger to the entire world. It is not only a threat to Israel. It is a threat to any household, anywhere. It is a real risk to the fate of humanity.”
Drawing a bogus parallel from Nazi intentions to Iranian ones has long been a mainstay of Israeli fear-mongering despite its obvious absurdity.
Meanwhile, during his Ha’aretz interview, Barak explained, “I don’t think in terms of panic,” continuing,

“What about Pakistan, some political meltdown happens there and four bombs wind up in Iran. So what? So you head for the airport? You close down the country? Just because they got a shortcut? No. We are still the most powerful in the Middle East.”

This is not the first time Barak has made such comments. In April 2010, Barak told Israel Radio, “Right now, Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel. If Iran becomes nuclear, it will spark an arms race in the Middle East. This region is very sensitive because of the oil flow; the region is important to the entire world. The fact that Iran is not an immediate threat, but could evolve into one, means that we can’t let ourselves fall asleep.”
The previous month, Barak told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel at this time.” Barak then elaborated that “Iran has the potential to develop into an existential threat on Israel, and we are working to prevent that.”
A month before that, Barak, while speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in February 2010, said plainly, “I don’t think that the Iranians, even if they got the bomb, they are going to drop it immediately on some neighbor. They fully understand what might follow. They are radicals but not total meshuganas.” He continued to explain his belief that the Iranian leaders “have quite sophisticated decision-making process and they understand realities.”
In September 2009, Barak, who was then the head of the Labor party, told Israeli dailyYedioth Ahronoth that “Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel.” Later in the interview, he repeated this assessment, saying, “I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel,” continuing, “Israel is strong, I don’t see anyone who could pose an existential threat.” Barak also stated, “Right now, Iran does not have a bomb. Even if it did, this would not make it a threat to Israel’s existence. Israel can lay waste to Iran.” In a direct rebuke of the oft-heard Netanyahu refrain, Barak said plainly, “I don’t think we are on the brink of a new Holocaust.”
Still, in his remarks to Ha’aretz today, Barak made sure to tread familiar fear-mongering ground by stating his belief that the Iranian leadership could not necessarily be trusted not to do something crazy (they are bearded Muslims after all).
“I don’t think that anyone can say responsibly that these ayatollahs, if they have nuclear weapons, are something you can rely on, like the Politburo or the Pentagon,” Barak said. “It’s not the same thing. I don’t think they will do anything so long as they are in complete control of their senses, but to say that somebody really knows and understands what will happen with such a leadership sitting in a bunker in Tehran and thinking that it’s going to fall in a few days and it is capable of doing it? I don’t know what it would do.”
Clearly, according to Barak, only governments run by Western white people are mature and rational enough to have nuclear weapons. Also, the idea of the Iranian leadership “sitting in bunker in Tehran” is ridiculous enough without Barak’s wishful thinking about the potential collapse of the Islamic Republic thrown in (though it is clear that the deliberate inference is to make a mental connection with the Führerbunker beneath Hitler’s New Reich Chancellery in Berlin). Additionally, the idea of the Iranian leadership detonating a nuclear weapon (that they don’t even have) in order to fend off regime change in a blaze of radioactive glory is complete nonsense. “I think we are seeing the beginning of the end of the dictatorships in the Arab world, including the Iranian one,” he said, demonstrating his apparent misunderstanding of how the Iranian governmental system actually works.
Beyond that, there is ample evidence that Iran, which maintains a strict “no first strike” policy, is not prone to act rashly with regard to military aggression, especially against countries with superior capabilities and nuclear arsenals. In October 2008, Congressional foreign policy advisor Gregory Aftandilian, speaking at a Center for National Policy event titled “A Nuclear Middle East,” noted that Iran is “not stupid” and “has a long history, thousands of years, of statecraft,” concluding simply, “Tehran is not suicidal.”
In a reasonable and realistic critique of Jeffrey Goldberg’s Israeli propaganda puff piece, Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation wrote last year, “Iran has shown itself to be a strategic, rational, albeit ruthless, calculator of its interests — not an irrational, suicidal nation.” Center for American Progress reporter Matt Duss and national security analyst Andrew Grotto also agree that Iran is neither a “suicide nation” nor a “martyr state.” Late last year, a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks revealed that Australia’s top intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA) viewed “Tehran as a sophisticated diplomatic player” which was not “liable to behave impulsively or irrationally.” A report in the Sydney Morning Herald quoted ONA chief Peter Varghese as saying, “‘It’s a mistake to think of Iran as a ‘rogue state’.”
Iranian government and military officials have long stated that they will act militarily in self-defense only if their country is attacked, never preemptively or preventatively, and have never issued threats about initiating aggression against another nation.
Despite the hysterical (and strikingly racist and Islamophobic) claims of opportunistic serial liars like Goldberg (who has warned of Iran’s “theologically driven, eliminationist anti-Semitism”), Netanyahu (who accused Iran’s leaders of belonging to a “messianic apocalyptic cult”) and Alan Dershowitz (who claimed Iran had “demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice millions of their own people to an apocalyptic mission of destruction”), even the United States government concurs with assessments that Iran is a rational actor on the world stage, concerned only with national self-defense rather than aggressive military offensives.
In April 2010, in a statement before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, Defense Intelligence Agency director Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess stated, “Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external threats, particularly from the United States and Israel. Its principles of military strategy include deterrence, asymmetrical retaliation, and attrition warfare.” He added that Iran is “unlikely to initiate a conflict intentionally or launch a pre-emptive attack.” The intelligence report delivered to Congress that day in conjunction with Burgess’ testimony also revealed the assessment that Iran maintains a “defensive military doctrine, which is designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities,” and followed that “Iranian military training and public statements echo this defensive doctrine of delay and attrition.” This identical position was reaffirmed this past March in Burgess’ 2011 testimony before the Armed Services Committee.
A month earlier, in his “Statement for the Record on the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,” Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper declared that the official judgment of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies is that “Iran’s nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran. Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran‟s security, prestige and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear program.”
So, will Barak’s candor temper Netanyahu’s rabid bellicosity in days to come? Unlikely. But are his comments a welcome break from the constant Chicken Littlesque doomsday hysteria that seems to define Israeli hasbara? Yes, they are. As such, get ready to see a whole new level of fear-mongering trotted out by both Israel and the U.S. in the near future in order to wash away the frustrating and inconvenient truths spoken by Barak today.
*****
UPDATE XXXIV:
May 8, 2011 – It’s been a bad week for Iran hawks. Not only has Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak repeated his long-held assessment that a theoretical nuclear-armed Iran would not pose an imminent or existential threat to Israel, but former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, recent scourge of the ‘Bomb Iran’ crowd, has again made things even more difficult.
Speaking at a senior faculty conference at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Friday – his first public appearance since leaving the Israeli spy agency – Dagan called the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
Ha’aretz reported:

Dagan said that Iran has a clandestine nuclear infrastructure which functions alongside its legitimate, civil infrastructure. It is the legitimate infrastructure, he said, that is under international supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Any strike on this legitimate infrastructure would be “patently illegal under international law,” according to Dagan.

Dagan emphasized that attacking Iran would be different than Israel’s successful air strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981. Iran has scattered its nuclear facilities in different places around the country, he said, which would make it difficult for Israel to launch an effective attack.

Dagan also claimed, according to Ha’aretz, that “there is proof that Iran has the capability to divert its nuclear activities from place to place in order to take them out of the watchful eye of international supervision and intelligence agencies.”
When the consequences of an Israeli air strike were brought up, Dagan stated, “It will be followed by a war with Iran. It is the kind of thing where we know how it starts, but not how it will end.”
Furthermore, in an interview with the Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth published this week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil El Araby outlined numerous policy changes since the ouster of long-time U.S.-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak. In addition to fully supporting (and largely responsible for) the new reconciliation between Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas and working to end the illegal siege of Gaza, El Araby also noted the Egyptian initiative to normalize foreign relations with Iran – a move Iran has been open to for quite some time.
When Weymouth attempted to provoke El Araby into saying something negative about potential Egyptian-Iranian relations by asking if “a big Hezbollah cell [was] aimed at Egypt a few years ago,” the Foreign Minister was unfazed. He replied:

“They are not an enemy. If you want me to say it — Iran is not an enemy. We have no enemies. Anywhere.”

Weymouth then suggested that if Egypt restored its diplomatic relationship with Iran, it would thereby jeopardize its “strategic” relationship with the United States. El Araby, again, didn’t take the bait nor did he accept the premise of Weymouth silly suggestion, answering:

“This concept of opening up and turning a new page does not affect our relations with the United States or anyone. Your closest friends and allies — the U.K. and France and Germany — all have diplomatic relations with Iran. I don’t see the problem. All your allies have relations with Iran.”

In response to the new Egyptian policies, the Los Angeles Times’ Jeffrey Fleishman writes, “This new agenda has angered Israel and is an indication that Egypt’s emerging diplomacy will test allies and enemies on sensitive matters that could upset the balance of power in the region.” Clearly, any shift in the balance of regional power would frustrate and worry both the United States and Israel, since it would inherently weaken their long-established hegemonic hold on the Middle East. As such, Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel Radio that the recent Egyptian developments “do not bode well.”
Poor little Israel, things just don’t seem to be going their way these days.
*****
UPDATE XXXV:
May 8, 2011 – In response to Dagan’s recent comments about the stupidity of an Israeli assault on Iran, Reuters reports:

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon denied Dagan’s views would affect government decision-making. But he took the former spymaster to task for undermining the Israeli and U.S. strategy of threatening attacks in order to deter Iran and keep other world powers serious about crisis diplomacy.

“For the Iranian regime to be persuaded to give up its nuclear capability, it has to be presented by the choice between getting a bomb and surviving, and such statements do not help present Iran with such a dilemma,” Yaalon told Israel Radio.

Yup, there you have it. It appears Israel is publicly admitting to being an existential threat to Iran. ‘Do what we say,’ Israel warns, ‘or we’ll annihilate you.’ Oh, the zirony.
And let us recall that Chapter 1, Article 4, Paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter declares quite clearly that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” (emphasis mine)
Moreover, Dagan has received support from other former Israeli intelligence officials.Ha’aretz reports tod ay that two other past Mossad chiefs, Danny Yatom and Ephraim Halevy, as well as MK Shaul Mofaz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, also oppose an unprovoked Israeli attack on Iran. In contrast, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Dagan “should not have shared that opinion with the public at large” and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz “agreed, saying he believed Dagan to have been an outstanding Mossad chief but he should have kept the remarks to himself.”
Indeed, telling the truth in public is not always welcome in official Israeli circles since it sometimes has the unfortunate effect of damaging worn-out warmongering and propaganda.
At the end of the Reuters piece, Yaalon is quoted again. “I hope that the Iranians see an Israeli conspiracy in this. That could help,” he says.
Don’t worry, Moshe, the Iranians have long seen this. So has everyone else. And it hasn’t helped you yet. But, hey, it’s only been thirty years.

Pizzarotti should follow in Deutsche Bahn’s footsteps
May 11, 2011 02:16 pm | Stephanie Westbrook

Italian construction firm Pizzarotti is stupefied, bewildered, stunned.

In an article on today’s Corriere della Sera, Italy’s top newspaper, covering Deutsche Bahn’s withdrawal from the Israeli project for a high-speed train line that cuts through the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Michele Pizzarotti said “We are astonished to find ourselves involved in these protests.”

Pizzarotti, through a joint venture with Israeli Shapir Engineering, has been contracted to build tunnels in section C of the planned A1 train route from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv; section C starts in the Latrun enclave and ends at Cedars Valley, both in the occupied West Bank.

Michele Pizzarotti can’t seem to understand what all the fuss is about. “We are not the project leaders, we entered into the Israeli high-speed rail as mere executors of a project designed by others, which has already been modified by the Israeli Supreme Court. We had no idea there were complications with the peace process.”

Complications indeed. The German Minister of Transport defined the project as “problematic” from a foreign policy perspective and “possibly in violation of International Law,” leading to the withdrawal of Deutsche Bahn.

In addition to the easily rebutted justifications presented by Pizzarotti during a recent meeting with the Italian CoalitionStop That Train, including having no role in planning the route, the limited environmental impact of tunnels and that the firm is only working on the end of the tunnel on the Israeli side of the Green Line, the Corriere della Sera article included two new gems.

“[T]he railroad could connect Ramallah and be used by Palestinians, and in our construction sites we provide work to Arab technicians and workers.”

The idea that the train would some day link Ramallah, a sort of “railroads for peace,” has often been trotted out by Israeli officials looking to defend the extraterritorial railway. However, as Who Profits pointed out on their Facebook page, in an interview with Israel’s Channel 7 (Hebrew) last August, Minister of the Environment Gil’ad Ardan candidly stated that “reports of a new train line between Ramallah and Gaza, via Ben Gurion Airport, were premature… This is not due to become reality anytime soon, it was only a legal requirement that permitted land confiscations across the Green Line for the needs of the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem train.”

The Pizzarotti construction site as a jobs-for-“Arabs” vehicle would be laughable, if it weren’t so sad. In the Bidu enclave, the area hardest hit by the planned rail route, unemployment is 70%, or twice the average for the West Bank, due to access to Jerusalem, their traditional economic center, being cut-off by the Apartheid Wall – built on Palestinian land. In addition, a document on the Philippines Overseas Employment Office web site shows Pizzarotti wasn’t exactly recruiting “Arabs”.

When asked by Corriere della Sera if they would be following in Deutsche Bahn’s footsteps, Michele Pizzarotti replied, “Not only would that be a disaster for us, because we have already invested 70 million in machinery, but it would also be pointless: the work would continue just the same via our Israeli partner.”

If their Israeli partner had the necessary know-how to build Israel’s longest tunnel, Pizzarotti wouldn’t be involved in the first place. The massive tunnel boring machines used by Pizzarotti have, in fact, never been used before in Israel and partnering with experienced foreign contractors was a formal requirement in some contracts. (See the 28-page report on the A1 Train line from Who Profits)

The Italian Coalition Stop That Train, a network of over 80 associations, is working to convince Pizzarotti to pull out of the project. On Monday a campaign was launched to “Declare Your City Pizzarotti-free”, with a sample resolution to be presented in city and provincial councils throughout Italy excluding Pizzarotti from contracts for public works. The same tactic, drawing on a EU directive that allows for exclusion of companies “guilty of grave professional misconduct,” was used in the campaign against French multinational Veolia, who’s involvement in the light rail project in occupied East Jerusalem has cost the company $10 billion in lost contracts.

And change.org has just recently launched a petition calling on Pizzarotti to “end their involvement with this rail line”.

Lupe Fiasco raps about Gaza, discusses Obama and the War on Terror on the Colbert Report

May 11, 2011

Adam Horowitz

Sorry, this is a few days old at this point, but still worth posting. Lupe Fiasco performed his song Words I Never Said on the Colbert Report on Monday night. The song received attention, even before Fiasco’s album Lasers ever came out, in part for the following lyrics:

Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit
Thats why I aint vote for him, next one either…

Colbert’s interview with Lupe Fiasco discussing the war on terror, racism in Chicago and the need to criticize Obama is after the jump:

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Israel admits to forcing 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank using administrative trick

May 11, 2011

Adam Horowitz

In Saree Makdisi’s 2008 book Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation he makes the important point that while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict receives the most international attention at times of great violence, the occupation can actually be best understood by looking at the daily challenges of Palestinian life under Israeli control. He describes in detail the “legal” and administrative mechanisms Israel has constructed to dispossess Palestinians of their land in order to expand its control through settlements, restricted roads, curfews and other laws which limit or bar Palestinian freedom of movement.

Today, Akiva Eldar reports in Haaretz on a newly discovered Israeli operation to strip West Bank Palestinians of their residency rights, which once again demonstrates Makdisi’s point. Eldar explains:

Israel has used a covert procedure to cancel the residency status of 140,000 West Bank Palestinians between 1967 and 1994, the legal advisor for the Judea and Samaria Justice Ministry’s office admits, in a new document obtained by Haaretz. The document was written after the Center for the Defense of the Individual filed a request under the Freedom of Information Law.

The document states that the procedure was used on Palestinian residents of the West Bank who traveled abroad between 1967 and 1994. From the occupation of the West Bank until the signing of the Oslo Accords, Palestinians who wished to travel abroad via Jordan were ordered to leave their ID cards at the Allenby Bridge border crossing.

The article continues:

If a Palestinian did not return within six months of the card’s expiration, their documents would be sent to the regional census supervisor. Residents who failed to return on time were registered as NLRs — no longer residents. The document makes no mention of any warning or information that the Palestinians received about the process. . .

The Central Bureau of Statistics says the West Bank’s Palestinian population amounted to 1.05 million in 1994, which means the population would have been greater by about 14 percent if it weren’t for the procedure.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat responded to the Haaretz report saying that the policy should be considered a war crime and amounts to “a systematic policy of displacement in order to gain land for the expansion of more settlement-colonies and to change the demographic composition of the occupied Palestinian territories.”

Stories like this are a useful reminder that the ongoing displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people is a daily, and often mundane, affair, which is not to say that the results are any less devastating. As Makdisi writes after describing the story of one Palestinian family torn apart through a similar administrative obstacle:

Encounters like the mediated one between Sam Bahour and the Israeli soldier-administrator in Beit El may not be spectacular: since they occur on an individual and intimately personal scale, they are usually played out silently and invisibly. But, since they are the very tissue and fabric of which Israel’s military occupation is made, they cumulatively set the stage for the more overt acts of violence surrounding them. Such violence does not always assume the form of large-scale combat. Much more often, the Israeli project of claiming land and, whenever possible, clearing it of Palestinians, takes palce in an endless chain of small, invisible,  almost – but quite – banal episodes, the background music of the occupation, whose real significance only becomes apparent when it is cumulatively assessed.

Money for Mondoweiss: The Chicago challenge
May 11, 2011

Jennifer Bing

Adam speaking at a house party in Evanston, IL.

Chicago likes a good competition every now and then. We are on the third coast, have two baseball teams, contests for our architecture, and even sent a community organizer to the White House. We have a growing community that wakes up and has our coffee while reading our daily newsfeed from Mondoweiss.

During the last week of April we hosted Adam Horowitz, of Mondo fame, to the windy city. He charmed audiences at area colleges and universities and told the Mondo story of fame and fortune (well, at least the early phase) to house parties held in activist homes in Evanston, Hyde Park, and Oak Park. We may not have the big bucks of the California or New York fundraising pros, but we were able to raise over $3000 to show our support for the daily hard work Adam and Phil provide to us in the land of Lincoln. We hope that the 3 million readers who come to Mondoweiss each year will join us and make a pledge to keep this important community alive and flourishing. And for those other city folk who like a urban challenge – plan a tour for Phil and Adam and see if you can top our $3000.

Exhibit C(UNY): How the lobby works

May 11, 2011

Alex Kane

The New York Times reports today that “pressure continued to mount on Tuesday for the resignation or removal” of Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, the City University of New York (CUNY) trustee who attempted to nix Tony Kushner’s honorary degree.

But there’s a big roadblock in the way:  right-wing Israel advocates who pour money into CUNY are warning against any move to remove Wiesenfeld. The Times:

One of CUNY’s biggest donors, Larry Field, a real estate developer in Los Angeles, also criticized the notion. Mr. Field, who gave $30 million to Baruch over the past decade, said he strongly agreed with Mr. Wiesenfeld on Israel, though he also supported the Kushner degree. “I would make a bigger stink over that,” he said, referring to Mr. Wiesenfeld’s possible departure.

No doubt there’s more donors that share Field’s view.

Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, writes on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia atalexbkane.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

How the ‘temporary weave’ of Zionism is starting to fray at the edges

May 11, 2011

Max Ajl

Max Blumenthal wrote here earlier that

The suicide rate has been particularly high among Ethiopian members of the Israeli army. By 1997, six years after an airlift brought the second wave of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel, Ethiopian soldiers accounted for 10 percent of army suicides — but comprised only four tenths of a percent of the army. Racism was a key factor in the epidemic. One soldier’s suicide note read: “Every morning when I get to the base, six soldiers are waiting for me who clap their hands and yell, `The kushi [black] is here.’”

Such visceral racism is shocking, like something out of the American South circa 1935. It may also be shocking to some that Zionist ideology leads to racism even against Jewish blacks. But it does – from its genesis Zionism was an outgrowth of European race-thinking, and developed as a white supremacist ideology. It is useful to bring these facts to the attention of an American Jewish community in deep denial about what is going on and has been going on in Israel. But there is a sense in which this kind of thing is low-hanging fruit, although still well-worth picking.

That is because parading this racism to provoke, rightfully, revulsion, slides by the question of what Zionism does in Israeli society. And that question leads to another important question: how does Zionism function in American society, and where might cracks appear in the solid block of organized American Jewish support for Zionist practice and Israeli militarism?

After all, in both America and Israel, people hate for different reasons, and some might be convinced to let go of their hate easier than others. Some people profit off their hate, while others die for it.

There is a difference between the Mizrahi hatred of the Palestinian who reminds him of his ancestry and who is just below him on the Israeli income-status ladder, and the Ashkenazi casual hatred which finds it easier to simply pretend Palestinians don’t exist, votes en bloc in favor of liberal “peace-camp” Israeli politicians who mysteriously are never able to offer genuine peace, and only when Palestinians start making a ruckus, as in the barrage of rockets out of Gaza when the people there were dying and besieged, notes their presence. Having noticed the natives, and perturbed at their rattling of the bars of their cage, these same Ashkenazis that speak piously of peace, vote for Meretz, and mourn for Rabin shrug when white phosphorus fills the Gazan sky.

In Israel, Zionism is the social glue holding together a society in which the Ashkenazi over-class composes just 25 percent of the population and even within Israel is ruling over a majority that it covertly or overtly despises or that its forefathers sprayed with pesticide, as the Ashkenazi founders did to the Iraqi immigrants when they arrived in Israel. Never mind the population of the West Bank and Gaza, or the camps of the Levant, who they bomb, starve, and torture under the banner of superiority and to justify their theft of the land. Nearly all Jewish Israelis believe in Zionism.

But most of the land has now been stolen, and Zionism now does different things for different people. Israel is the 2nd most unequal industrialized economy in the world, and racism keeps the rabble focused on the foreign enemy and not on the domestic one keeping them poor.

This phenomenon is similar to how American Islamophobia keeps working and middle-class Americans focused on the external enemy, The Arab – not coincidentally the one Israel is destroying and oppressing – and not focused on the fact that the new robber-barons of Wall Street are destroying the fabric of American society while Madison Avenue bank accounts grow fatter and fatter and working class Americans die and die again in the wars that keep the arms companies plush with contracts.

Of course, not everything is the same. For one thing, Israel needs Zionism more than America needs Islamophobia. The problems there are vaster, the racist disparities more glaring, the situation of Israel more perilous.

For example, the Israeli economy is doing even worse than the American one, at least, if we use measures like Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Israeli GDP per capita as a percentage of American GDP per capita peaked at 62 percent in 1975 and has been declining since then, and will doubtless continue to decline due to Israel’s devotion to an accumulation model based on military Keynesnianism and capital-intense investment – although the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange continues to do fine, and that is what the people running Israeli society pay attention to, not the rising poverty and striking stratification afflicting Israeli society, nor the ongoing suffering of the people the Israeli elite profit from torturing.

That Israel is both an industrialized economy as well as a society barely teetering on the edge of being a developed country is an odd phenomenon, and I don’t know if it should be discouraging or encouraging to people like Dan Senor, who has lately been touting the wonders of the Israeli economy, or to the America Firsters who, nooses just recently stowed in the attic, staff the online battalions of the Palestine electronic solidarity movement and rage over America’s 3 billion dollars of “money” sent to Israel, which has “plenty” of money.

They should rage, and that military aid should be cut off, but we should know what it is we want to cut off and why it is sent in the first place. It matters why we rage.

For one thing, money is not really what is sent.

What are ultimately sent are American arms alongside a 750 million dollar bundle of cash that Israel spends buying weapons from weapons manufacturers many, of which are owned by American capital anyway – most of the biggest Israeli companies are listed on the NASDAQ and are mostly owned by American investors, which is why from 2001 to 2006 92 percent of the movements in the TASE (Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange) were “explained” by movements in the NASDAQ. As Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler explain, “since the two asset classes share similar owners, have similar sources of earnings, and float in similar pools of liquidity, there is really no reason why they shouldn’t move together.”

As long as the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ continue to do fine, Israel will keep on making rich Americans richer and poor Americans poorer. In the meantime, Palestinians will struggle and suffer under savage siege and occupation, and Ethiopian immigrants will get treated like human filth, even while American Zionist organizations, staffed with the deliberately ignorant, plaster their pamphlets with pictures of Israel’s multiracial society as though they were Benetton ads, incidentally diversity-talk that Senor, whom I recently saw lecture, also likes quite a lot.

One thing that Senor said that struck me was that there are people from more than 70 countries involved in oppressing Palestinians. This was supposed to be a point of pride, hearing from the horse’s mouth that there is a world-wide Jewish conspiracy to oppress the Palestinians. Don’t tell Senor, but the notion of a world-wide Jewish people is a Zionist invention, and it won’t last.

Aware that American Zionism, always a temporary weave, could be starting to fray at the edges, Peter Beinart, working the home-front, is anxious that some American Jews once were not part of that conspiracy, and is worried that American Jewish support for Israel, which cements the economic links I just described above – Zionism functions in not totally different ways in both the American and Israeli contexts – is fleeting.

In a somewhat coded way of expressing these anxieties, he has written a column headed off like this:

Stowed away in the attic of American Jewish life lies this uncomfortable truth: Well into the 20th century, many American Jews opposed the creation of a Jewish state. Many Reform Jews were anti-Zionist because they feared a Jewish state would raise questions about Jewish loyalty to the U.S. Many Socialist Jews were anti-Zionist because they believed the proletariat should unite across religious and ethnic lines. Many Orthodox Jews were anti-Zionist because they believed that returning Jews to the land of Israel was God’s job, not man’s. Even when Jews began arriving in Palestine in large numbers, prominent Jewish intellectuals like Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Henrietta Szold, the founder of the American Jewish women’s organization, Hadassah, and Judah Magnes, the American-born founder of Hebrew University, argued for the creation of a secular state in which neither Jews nor Arabs would have pride of place.

Put aside his mis-understandings of Buber and Magnes. Are we supposed to consider the devolution of the American Jewish community into open support for a militarized regime founded on ethnic cleansing and carrying out a sustained military occupation a good thing? Why should it be an “uncomfortable truth” that once the American Jewish community did not support Israel?

Beinart goes on to write of how Israel’s ethnocratic character “inevitably privileges its Jewish citizens over its non-Jewish ones.” Yet, all is A-OK: “Israel was created not merely to be a Jewish democracy, but to be a Jewish refuge.” So the Jewish insurance-patch of land in cis-Jordan justified the creation of differentiated citizenship, ongoing occupation, and originary ethnic cleansing?

Beinart should be aware that Jewish identitarian support for Israel is a fact that was created historically and it will be un-created historically. The fact that one time Jews were not a power elite, fully integrated into the American over-class with political inclinations to match,  and were once worried about persecution, concerned about social justice, and took their religious ideals and beliefs seriously is not history which should be shamefully stowed in the attic. It’s something of which to be proud. It suggests that Zionism is not coded into the Jewish DNA.

Does Beinart believe otherwise?

And is Beinart embarrassed that his ancestors were working-class shtetl dwellers who were the victims and refugees from pogroms? And if so, why? Why would Beinart be embarrassed that there was a time in American history when Jews were not oppressors? And what’s wrong with trying to return to that time, if this time with hands bloodied? If there are Jews who insist on retaining their identity as oppressors, perhaps we should leave them to it and work with others to break apart the bonds linking American Jewish identity to Israeli militarism and Israeli militarism to American power in the Middle East? After all, do lower-class or middle-class American Jews – that is, most American Jews – want to be part of a “people” whose identity was forged with Palestinian blood?

Jeffrey Wiesenfeld’s political nexus

May 11, 2011

Anonymous

The Jeffrey Wiesenfeld-West Bank settlers’ axis should be no surprise. It is standard NY politics.

In 1994, Brooklyn assemblyman Dov Hikind picked George Pataki for governor and Carl McCall for comptroller. That was huge politically. And so the buzz around Hikind mushroomed. 1994 also brought an end to Democratic control of Congress.

By the spring of ’95, Hikind was throwing a fundraiser on the Inteprid, and word got out that Newt Gingrich would be making a special appearance. But in the end he didn’t. And the reason was Jerusalem and Hikind’s settler ties. Hikind’s wife, Shani Hikind, was an executive with the Jerusalem Reclamation Project.

The JRP was involved in the Good Friday takeover of St. John’s Hospice back in 90 in Jerusalem (covered by Jeffrey Goldberg here). At the time, that was even too much for Christian Zionists. Mindful of the fact that he was was holding a constitutional office in the line of succession, Newt never appeared at the Hikind bash.

NY pols are a different story. Wiesenfeld was appointed to the CUNY board by Pataki in 1999. These days, Hikind is just another hack.

As for Kushner, welcome to the big leagues. NY’s Jewish population is graying and praying, in the words of Mitchell Moss. And that means conformity, IF you are looking for recognition from the “community”.

To crib Chaucer, Kushner’s parfait gentil knight thing has a smaller audience and fewer takers within NYC’s jewish population.