Articles

What were They Thinking? Suspicions will Inevitably Grow about the Extermination of Osama bin Laden
May 4, 2011
USA
NOVANEWS   by crescentandcross     Dave Lindorff This Can’t Be Happening According to the brief announcement made by President Barack ...Read more
Oppressing West Bank Palestinian Children
May 3, 2011
Human Rights
NOVANEWS   by crescentandcross     by Stephen Lendman The Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations is a Beirut, Lebanon-based organization ...Read more
White House: We Lied the First Time
May 3, 2011
USA
NOVANEWS Source–Economicpolicyjournal.com Politico is reporting that the White House is re-spinning the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden: ...Read more
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ISM activists released after 48 hours without charge
May 3, 2011
Campaigns
NOVANEWS This afternoon two British men and a Swedish woman were released after being held for 48 hours in an ...Read more
Bin Laden (and his sponsors): any political significance?
May 2, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS The question remains whether there is any political significance to his death.  It is clear that Al-Qa`idah has largely ...Read more
"The anti-zionism of fools"
May 2, 2011
ZIO-NAZI
"The anti-zionism of fools"  WATCH The Arabs and the Holocaust from Danny Bermant on Vimeo. A fascinating discussion of the Arab reaction to the ...Read more
Osama Bin Laden Reportedly Killed in Pakistan
May 2, 2011
Pakistan & Kashmir
NOVANEWS by James Buchanan A recent news article reports “Osama bin Laden, the glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks ...Read more
GALLOWAY ELECTION TIME: SADAM, ASSAD,GADDAFI & ME
May 2, 2011
Campaigns
NOVANEWS Sunday, 1 May 2011 George Galloway condemns NATO's murder of innocent children in Libya George Galloway this morning expressed ...Read more
SHALOM MISS YAKOV: MIGHT IS RIGHT
May 2, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS Monday, 2 May 2011   The death of Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden was an evil man.'' IS ...Read more
ANTHONY LAWSON: NO-FLY ZONE OVER GAZA — PETITION
May 2, 2011
Gaza
NOVANEWS No-Fly Zone Over Gaza — Petition from Anthony Lawson on Vimeo.   Petition written by Dr. Mohamed Khodr http://www.petitiononline.com/p181p194/petition-sign.html ...Read more
TIME IS RIPE FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT
May 2, 2011
Politics
NOVANEWS GILAD ATZMON  It is slightly embarrassing for me to admit that sometime  Zionists are actually well ahead of our ...Read more
Drama in London
May 2, 2011
Politics
By: Gilad Atmon A panel discussion titled ‘Zionism, Jewishness and Israel’ will take place at The University of Westminster - Cavendish Campus on Tuesday May the 3rd, from 6:30pm ...Read more

What were They Thinking? Suspicions will Inevitably Grow about the Extermination of Osama bin Laden

NOVANEWS

 
by crescentandcross

 

 

Dave Lindorff

This Can’t Be Happening

According to the brief announcement made by President Barack Obama last night, the operation in Pakistan by US Navy SEAL special forces was a well-planned hit job.

“They took care to avoid civilian casualties,” the president said of the top-secret night-time raid by helicopter on a highly secure compound near a military base in Abbottadad, a city only about an hour’s drive drive from, Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital city. He added, “After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.” (Since that presidential statement, there has been some backing and filling coming from the CIA, claiming Osama defended himself with a weapon, and thus had to be shot, but we’re talking about a relatively untrained guy who was caught by surprise in bed by crack Special Forces officers with night-vision equipment and wearing body armor. The idea that they “had to” kill him is ludicrous. They didn’t even try to keep him alive, shooting him two times in the head.)

Not for long though. After “double-tapping” bin Laden–that is a military term for shooting someone twice in the head to make certain that a person is truly dead–his body was taken out of Pakistan by the departing SEAL raiding party, and reportedly buried (dumped) at sea.

According to the Washington Post, the US wanted to “prevent the creation of a shrine” to the late leader of Al Qaeda and alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks. “We don’t want a bunch of people going to the shrine forever,” the Post quoted one unidentified official as saying.

This is supposed to be “closure”?

Think about it a moment. The US had the living Osama bin Ladin in their hands, or at least trapped in a room last night! After almost 10 years, they had successfully cornered the guy who allegedly managed to mastermind the biggest, most disasterous attack on the US in the modern history of the country–perhaps of all time–a coordinated aerial assault on the financial and military hearts of the world’s most powerful country, carried out with nothing but box cutters–an attack which managed to neutralize the mightiest air defense system in the world! And instead of bundling him into an orange jump suit, putting a bag over his head and bringing him in for interrogation, like they’ve done to hundreds of other lesser captives in the so-called decade-long “War on Terror,” they “double-tapped” him on the spot? No stun grenade? No disabling gas? No shot to the legs or groin. It’s reported that they had already “secured” the rest of the grounds, so it’s not like the guy was going anywhere.

What were they thinking?
Osama’s secrets get another kind of water-boarding treatment

Given the trove of information he could have been induced to provide in custody about US terrorism vulnerabilities, about his far-flung terrorist organization and its future plans, I have to think the only conceivable answer is they had to have been thinking that this guy would have some pretty embarrassing things to say about the US and its dirty “War.”

There has been considerable controversy surrounding bin Laden’s and Al Qaeda’s origins, with news organizations such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, the Guardian and Der Spiegel, among others, all reporting that he had received funding, training and weapons during the 1980s from the CIA, which was reportedly using him as a conduit for supporting Arab volunteers fighting against the Soviet military forces occupying and fighting in Afghanistan. The US has denied these claims, but the evidence is rather convincing that for at least some time, bin Laden was considered “our guy.” How embarrassing if he were to confirm that at a trial! How embarrassing if he went further, and said that his relationship with the CIA had extended beyond the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan.

But the potential for US discomfort with a living, talking Osama bin Laden goes well past his early relationship with the CIA. Shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan in October, 2001, US forces, having toppled the Taliban government in Kabul, appeared to have surrounded and trapped bin Laden and his supporters in the mountains of Tora Bora. Then, suddenly, the siege was called off, and US forces were largely pulled out of the country, to join forces that were being assembled in Kuwait and the UAE in preparation for a war that the Bush/Cheney administration was secretly gearing up for against Iraq–a country that had nothing to do with 9-11, and that posed no threat to the US or its allies. How embarrassing for Washington if bin Laden were to tell about how close he had been to capture back then, only to suddenly find that he and his men were being given a free pass to escape to Pakistan!

And then there is the matter of 9-11 itself.

One doesn’t have to be a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist, conjuring up all kinds of ideas about the attacks being an “inside job” planned by some nefarious cabal of plotters within the US, to believe that the true story of how those attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were able to go off so flawlessly has yet to be told. The 9-11 Commission has been thoroughly discredited as a cover-up, even by its own members. My own reporting has confirmed that the FBI lied to that commission about not having the flight recorders of all four of the planes involved. (By the way, while I’m on that, isn’t it amazing that the flight recorder from the crashed Air France jumbo jet that went down in mid-Atlantic enroute from Brazil to France in 2009 was just found in over a mile of water two years after it went down, and more than a year and a half after its beacon had gone dead, yet not one of four of these bright orange hardened devices was ever found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, even as searchers were finding minute bits of easily burned human tissue and bone fragments?) There is also the mystery of the Israeli Mossad agents who, according to reports in the Jewish Forward newspaper, were observed filming the attacks from across the Hudson River and who were also seen apparently celebrating as the buildings came down, and who were later captured in their van by New Jersey police, only to be released under State Department pressure, and flown safely to Israel. There are the curious put options that were placed on a few companies that were certain to have their shares tank after the attack–American and United Airlines, and several of the financial companies that had offices in the Twin Towers–puts that were arranged through the investment bank Alex Brown, whose chairman, until 1998, was a guy, A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard, who at the time was a high-ranking member of the CIA. The commission never even tried to find out who placed those incredibly prescient puts and who collected on them.

Would bin Laden have had anything to say about who or about which intelligence agencies might have had advance knowledge of his plans before the 9-11 attacks?

We’ll never know.

He is now crab bait at the bottom of the Indian ocean somewhere.

Terminating Osama bin Laden might have offered brief primal satisfaction to a tribal element in the US that likes to mindlessly chant “USA, USA!” at particularly gruesome moments of American military mayhem, but the deliberate in situ execution of this particular villain, and the subsequent rapid and thorough obliteration of his mortal remains, has only ensured that, like the Kennedy assassination, the King murder, and the disappearance of Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, Osama bin Laden will become a permanent mystery and source of endless conspiracy theorizing.

And the mystery of 9-11, and how it was possible for a few guys armed with some box-cutting razors and with limited flying skills to destroy the financial center and a big chunk of the military headquarters of the most powerful nation in the world, will be that much harder to solve.

On the available evidence, the powers that be in Washington seem to have wanted it that way.

Oppressing West Bank Palestinian Children

NOVANEWS

 
by crescentandcross

 

 
2cu-wnerbdkob9ajb.jpg

by Stephen Lendman


The Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations is a Beirut, Lebanon-based organization engaged in “strategic and futuristic studies on the Arab and Muslim worlds, (highlighting) the Palestinian issue.”
In spring 2010, it published a Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group (BPAPPG) study, including the widespread detention of Palestinian children titled, “Under Occupation: A Report on the West Bank,” discussed below.
Under military occupation, Palestinian children are treated like adults. Each year, about 700 are arrested, brutally interrogated, and prosecuted in military courts, denying them justice.
Since 2000 alone, over 7,000 have been brutalized. On January 31, 2011, 222 Palestinian children were imprisoned, 34 aged 12 – 15. Some at times are 10 or younger. At age 16, they’re considered adults in violation of international law.
Israel, in fact, brazenly repudiates children’s rights and welfare, treating them like adults, in violation of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, its Principle 1 saying:
“Every child, without exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to (fundamental human and civil) rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family.”
They’re entitled to special protections and opportunities to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and socially in a healthy normal way under conditions of freedom and dignity – including their right to life, an adequate standard of living, healthcare, education, leisure, safety and peace, what Israel denied them for over four decades.
Instead, they’re taken to military detention centers, harshly interrogated for days without access to lawyers or family members. In fact, parents and siblings rarely know where they’re held or whether they’re alive or dead.
Moreover, they’re mistreated, beaten, terrorized, usually tortured, hooded, denied food and water for prolonged periods as well as access to toilets and washing facilities, exposed to extreme heat and cold, painfully shackled, and deprived of sleep for several days, often in the shabeh position.
It consists of hands and legs bound to a small chair, at times from behind to a pipe affixed to the wall, painfully slanted forward, hooded with a filthy sack, and played loud music nonstop through loudspeakers.
NGOs like the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Adalah and DCI-Palestine report widespread abuse. In 2009, a sample of 100 sworn affidavits revealed:
– 69% of them were beaten, kicked, slapped, or otherwise abused;
– 49% were threatened;
– 14% held in solitary confinement;
– 12% threatened with sexual assault, including rape; and
– 32% forced to sign confessions in Hebrew most don’t understand.
As a result, from 2001 – 2010, over 645 complaints were filed against Israeli Security Agency (ISA) interrogators, citing mistreatment and abuse. So far, no criminal investigations resulted, even for the most extreme cases.
Based solely on soldiers’ testimonies and coerced confessions, children are usually charged with stone-throwing, whether or not true. To assure lesser sentences and fines, usually two to six months confinement, 81% plead guilty. Otherwise, they’ll be remanded for extended periods, tried and convicted in kangaroo proceedings, nearly always siding against them.
Mahmoud K’s experience was typical, a 15-year old boy from Bethlehem. He was taken to court shackled hands and legs. Wrist restraints were only removed during proceedings, conducted in Hebrew (with translation by an Israeli soldier). Intimidating security guards filled the room.
Mahmoud pleaded not guilty to throwing a Molotov cocktail. He was detained four months prior to trial. Two other arrested boys signed confessions, naming him, retracted when they came to court. Both said they were abused, threatened and coerced to go along. The entire proceeding lasted an hour. It hardly mattered as guilty as charged nearly always follows.
Heading to school, another 16-year old youth was arrested for not having his ID card. Afterward, he was beaten, sent to Etzion detention camp, handcuffed, blindfolded, and beaten again brutally to get him to confess to stone-throwing and reveal names of other children with him at the time.
During interrogation, his head was immersed in cold water, then hot, then the toilet. Later moved to Adorim camp, he was again beaten, tortured, held in solitary confinement for 34 days, then on “restrictive order” at Telmond Prison, in violation of Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stating:
“No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment….
No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily….
Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect…. (and)
Every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance….”
CRC also mandates detention as a last resort for the shortest possible time. Israel does it preemptively, repressively, and irresponsibly to harass, abuse, inflict bodily and emotional harm, torture or kill – legalized by authorities decades ago, including harming children with:
– bad food and unsafe water;
– poor healthcare or lack of it;
– bad sanitation and hygiene;
– insect infested cells;
– cramped and crowded conditions;
– inadequate air and light;
– insufficient clothing, blankets and other protections;
– no play or recreation;
– isolation from the outside world;
– no family visits;
– the absence of counselors and specialists;
– detention with adults, some violent;
– solitary confinement;
– verbal, physical and sexual abuse; and
– no education.
Against adults and children alike, including women and girls, nothing is too brutal or extreme. For example, one 15-year old said he was stripped naked, forced into an extremely painful position, then burned by lit cigarettes to make him confess.
Others are tortured to collaborate. A 10-year old said “They beat me on various parts of my body with plastic hoses. I had to have a surgical operation to have a platinum transplant in my arm. They kept me naked for a whole night, handcuffed and blindfolded; and I was not allowed to go to the toilet for two days!”
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, 95% of children are tortured, 85% to confess under duress and sign Hebrew documents they can’t read or understand.
Israel brazenly violates international law, including in how they treat young children. In fact, harassing, intimidating, threatening, cuffing, shackling, abusing, torturing and denying due process breaches Fourth Geneva, the UN Torture Convention, and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
They’re inviolable legal standards Israel doesn’t give a damn about when it comes to Palestinian Arabs. Why should they when international community leaders raise no accountability issues.
A Final Comment
In the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel’s March Newsletter, Mahd Bader, a human rights law attorney, headlined, “Secret Prison for UFOs,” saying:
Facility 1391 is Israel’s Guantanamo. Officially it doesn’t exist. Detainees aren’t told where they’re held. They’re kept in darkened cells, brutally interrogated, and denied outside contact. On January 11, 2011, Israel’s Supreme Court again “demonstrated its conservative nature with respect to human rights in general and the rights of weak population sectors in particular,” effectively approving the facility’s existence, its location still secret.
In fact, Israel is prohibited from having secret detention facilities. Those existing should be closed or revealed. Instead, the Court performed a “balancing act (with) legal hair-splitting and zigzagging. (It) chose to take the complex, meandering and superfluous road of ‘appropriate balance’ and, after examining the clashing interests and rights,” avoided respecting international and Israeli law.
As a result, it ruled that detainee rights and their families are indeed violated. “However, the infringement is proportional….since the State has suggested an arrangement (to) minimize it.” No details were published or consideration for how often authorities do what they please, freely violating Court decisions with impunity.
Nonetheless, the State agreed “not to hold in this facility citizens of Israel or residents of the occupied territory unless high military officials order it. Moreover, those detained will only be for a short time. Even though the Military Judge Advocate General and Ministry of Justice supervise the facility, many questions and problems remain unanswered.
Also consider “for whom is that unknown detention facility intended if the State” won’t use it for Israeli Arabs or Palestinians? Why is it needed and kept secret? How short is “very short,” and why does any court tolerate illegal practices? No satisfactory answers were provided.
Given today’s extremist Court and Knesset, especially regarding Muslims, offers more proof that “Israel is knowingly and surely sliding towards a dark and oppressive regime.”
Today Arabs are persecuted. Tomorrow others. Soon anyone resisting state authority, no matter how oppressive and lawless. Ahead, Bader sees what he calls a “Jewish phobiocraticstate,” targeting anyone within or outside the law.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

White House: We Lied the First Time

NOVANEWS

Source–Economicpolicyjournal.com


Politico is reporting that the White House is re-spinning the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden:
The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces.

Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden’s wives was killed in the raid and that bin Laden was using her as a human shield before she was shot by U.S. forces…

At a televised White House briefing Monday afternoon, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said bin Laden joined in the fight that several residents of the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound put up against the Navy SEALs during the 40-minute operation.

“He [bin Laden] was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in. And whether or not he got off any rounds, I quite frankly don’t know,” Brennan said.

At a Pentagon briefing earlier in the day, a senior defense official said bin Laden used a woman as a human shield so he could fire shots. “He was firing behind her,” the official said.

In another background briefing early Monday morning, a senior administration official also said bin Laden put up a fight. “He did resist the assault force. And he was killed in a firefight,” the official said.

However, during a background, off-camera briefing for television reporters later Monday, a senior White House official said bin Laden was not armed when he was killed, apparently by the U.S. raid team.

Another White House official familiar with the TV briefing confirmed the change to POLITICO, adding, “I’m not aware of him having a weapon.”

As Lew Rockwell has pointed out, it is standard operating procedure for the government to spin any capture/killing of a prized enemy in a manner that paints the enemy in the most unfavorable light. Thus, the story that bin Laden used a female shield in an attempt to protect himself during the raid. It turns out this story was completely fabricated.

It’s being re-spun because in this day of video cameras on every cell phone, the public knows that U.S. military personnel did not attack without cameras on their helmets. The failure to release the raid video, along with the dumping of bin Laden’s body at sea, is leaving a highly suspicious public and Obama has a presidential race to run with the killing of bin Laden as the centerpiece. In order to counter the highly suspicious public, the White House is contemplating releasing the kill video. But first they have to spin out the original story of bin Laden using one of  his wives to shield him, since the video would contradict that version of events.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ISM activists released after 48 hours without charge

NOVANEWS

This afternoon two British men and a Swedish woman were released after
being held for 48 hours in an Israeli prison. The three activists who
are with the International Solidarity Movement had been staying in the
Palestinian village Izbet al-Tabib when over 60 Israel soldiers and a
bulldozer arrived on Sunday afternoon with the intention of building a
fence through a section of the village, annexing agricultural land.
The three were charged with being in a closed military zone; however
at the time of the arrests, the military provided the individuals with
no paperwork to support this and the charges against them were
subsequently dropped. All three activists sustained injuries during
their arrests: Rufus from the UK was hit in the face with a gun,
causing severe cuts and bruises; Lisa from Sweden was kicked in the
head and a woman in her 60s volunteering with the Michigan Peace Team
was hospitalised with a head injury and two broken wrists, she was
released from hospital yesterday but is awaiting surgery.
The small village of Izbet al-Tabib is situated south of Qalqilya next
to highway 55 which connects illegal Israeli settlements in the West
Bank. Under the pretext of preventing stones being thrown from the
village onto the highway, Israeli Civil Authorities planned to build a
fence separating the village from the highway, annexing a portion of
the village’s agricultural land. The villagers challenged this
decision in the Supreme Court, however their petition was rejected and
Israeli forces arrived in the village on Sunday morning to begin
levelling the land. International activists joined with villagers in
peacefully protesting the construction.  Villagers also erected a
protest tent on the land which was forcibly removed and confiscated by
the army early on Monday morning.
The village of Izbet al-Tabib, which consists of 45 structures and is
home to 247 residents, was built in the 1920’s and is located entirely
in area C according to the 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo II). Israeli
authorities do not recognize the village and 32 out of its 45 houses,
as well as its school, have been served demolition orders in recent
years. Izbet al-Tabib is the fifth poorest village in the West Bank
and villagers have already lost 45% of their land due to the
construction of Israel’s Separation Barrier.
For more information contact ISM media on 00972597606276
— PLEASE FORWARD THIS UPDATE WIDELY

Bin Laden (and his sponsors): any political significance?

NOVANEWS

The question remains whether there is any political significance to his death.  It is clear that Al-Qa`idah has largely been put out of commission since the US invasion of Afghanistan.  It is clear that Bin Laden, and even maybe Al-Dhawahiri, don’t have operational links with their followers.  It is clear that many of Bin Laden’s lieutenants were either captured or killed and that he lost the nucleus of the organization.  It is also clear that a small (terrorist in this case) organization can inflict a lot of harm on civilians, if that is what it wants to do.  But it is also clear that the danger of Al-Qa`idah after Sep. 11 was transferred to copy cats: groups and gangs that don’t have direct links with Bin Laden and his lieutenants but who are inspired by the deeds of the mother organization, so to speak.  But what is not yet acknowledged here in the US is that Bin Laden is a product of horrific US policies in the Cold War: of their alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.  

The people in Pakistan and Afghanistan would be relieved today: not because they hated Bin Laden (many do sympathize with him only to spite the US), but because scores of Afghans and Pakistanis have been killed over the years during the campaign to get and kill Bin Laden.  Remember that time in late 2001 when the US incinerated a convoy there because “a tall dark man” was seen getting into one of the cars.  The US intelligence analyst on the scene assumed that there were no tall people other Bin Laden.   But the factors that produced Bin Laden and Al-Qa`idah are still there: the US is still very tempted to arm and fund fanatical groups if they think it is politically convenient for US “national security interests.”  Look at that lousy Libyan Transitional Council: there are fanatics in the ranks and I assume that we will hear from some of them, especially once they declare the victory of their “holy cause.”  The coverage on US TV news was celebratory:  I bet that Americans don’t know that this man and his lieutenants once shared a cause with US covert operations against the Soviet Union.  

Of course, as is the case in such affairs, the US news media focus on the skills and heroism of US special forces and intelligence agents.  For weeks we now will be served dishes of reports about the competence of US special teams.  Only later will some one reveal (as was the case in the capture of Saddam Husayn) that there was no military skill in the operation: that someone came forward to net the $25 million for Bin Laden.  But that will come later.  The disturbing part of all this was the coverage of Saudi news channel Al-Arabiyyah (news station of King Fahd’s brother-in-law): the coverage was somber with a tinge of sadness.  They had a Saudi “expert” on extremist movements and he came on and said that Bin Laden fought back ferociously and that he resisted before being killed.  

This is like how Saddamists were so embarrassed how their leader was captured and they created stories about how he did not resist or die.   How did the Saudi expert know that? It seems that the Bin Ladenites will now be busy inventing a story of heroism for Bin Laden, just as they invented a bogus story about his heroism in Afghanistan.  Bin Laden won’t be missed (or should not be missed): not in the East and not in the West.  And that idiot Isma`il Haniyyah of Hamas is only confirming Western suspicions and Zionist allegations that all Islamists are alike.  This will be his own doing: he just rendered a great service for Zionist propaganda.  His remark will now be available in 34 languages and Israeli occupation embassies will circulate special brochures containing his lousy remarks in which he paid tribute to Bin Laden.

Expect a book or two to be published with titles like: Hamas and Bin Laden or the Unholy Alliance between Hamas and Al-Qa`idah, etc.  But Hamas deserves what its get: the lousy Fath organization is now replaced with a lousy branch of the lousy Muslim Brotherhood.  On Aljazeera: the coverage is rather less somber than Al-Arabiyyah but they had Saudi journalist (oh, yes.  Forgot to tell you. Ever since Qatar and Saudi Arabia entered into the Arab counter-revolution alliance Saudi propagandists are now invited on Aljazeera), Jamal Khashuqji (who edited Al-Watan newspaper and now will be directing a new news channel owned by yet another oil prince–Al-Walid bin Talal in this case).  But the anchor did not ask Khashuqji (who now poses as one of many Wahhabi “liberals”) about his PERSONAL CONNECTION WITH BIN LADEN.  

This guest once fought with Bin Laden and worshiped him for years.  And then the anchor asked him this question: he asked how Bin Laden turned to violence against civilians when he was not like that before.  What was that? When was Bin Laden opposed to violence?  When he recruited (on behalf of US and Saudi covert operations) an army of Islamsit fanatics, crazies, and terrorists?  Bin Laden made life more difficult for all Muslims (and for all if you consider the travel effects of Sep. 11):  my mother hates him for what he did to the image of Muslims worldwide, not to mention his callous justifications of the murder of civilians (Muslims including).  US is desperate for a victory and this one will be a chance, although the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are going terribly for the US.  Obama yesterday basically signed the death sentence of the Pakistani president for thanking him for his role.  How dumb is that? Even if he thought to falsely claim that the US did not violate Pakistani sovereignty near the capital of Pakistan.  

Public opinion surveys will soon give a tremendous boost to Obama, who may have increased his chances for re-election.  I mean, no one in the Republican camp can now accuse him of pacifism or of reluctance to bomb and kill.  Obama has proven that he can outdo Bush, in wars and bombings and killing, etc.  Tell that to those who voted for him.  On the Muslim side, I can report to you that wild conspiracy theories are already circulating on Twitter and Facebook and Arab websites: it will be like the conspiracy theories about Sep. 11.  People are saying that either he was not killed, or that the US had him for a long time, or that he was dead even on Sep. 11.

Those unfounded conspiracy theories trouble me: because we–as leftists–need to distinguish between crazy and non-crazy conspiracy theories.  So in sum, not much will change in the world after this announcement because Al-Qa`idah has been largely weakened since Sep. 11.  Ayman Adh-Dhawhiri has no chance of reviving the fortunes of Al-Qa`idah: he not only has to protect himself but he has the charisma of a cucumber and the speaking skills of Sa`d Hariri (and he is as boring as the latter).  

"The anti-zionism of fools"

“The anti-zionism of fools”

 WATCH
The Arabs and the Holocaust from Danny Bermant on Vimeo.

A fascinating discussion of the Arab reaction to the holocaust between Gilbert Achcar and Tom Segev, hosted at the Jewish Book Week. Achcar is at his best. Tom Segev however disappoints. He is an extremely generous writer, but every time I hear him talk I am disappointed. The Zionist defensiveness that he holds back when he writes returns in his on stage persona. You can hear him looking for imaginary opportunities to challenge Achcar for being “soft” on antisemitism. Worse is his recycling of Zionist historical disinformation, like the disturbing claim that Nasser wasn’t ready to make peace with Israel. It is unimaginable that he doesn’t know the truth. Achcar was very considerate in holding back on the history of the alliance between Zionism and the most pro-Nazi and reactionary Arab figures. I prefer more confrontation.

One point that Achcar makes that was never mentioned in the video is that the emblematic status of War World II as the supreme “good war” and the holocaust as the ultimate evil is a uniquely Northern perspective. It is not widely shared in the South and for goods reasons, as so many other atrocities compete on the imagination. That is something Jews need to hear from scholars like Achcar. Because by acknowledging Christian Europeans for their acknowledgment of the holocaust, Jews pay for their social mobility with a subtle form of holocaust denial themselves, the denial that the holocaust was not an isolated event, but the culmination of a history of European racism that is still far from over, even when Jews are no longer its victims.

Osama Bin Laden Reportedly Killed in Pakistan

NOVANEWS

by James Buchanan

A recent news article reports “Osama bin Laden, the glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that murdered thousands of Americans, was killed in an operation led by the United States, President Barack Obama said Sunday.”

And if you believe that it would take ten years for a superpower to hunt down someone who pulled off a major terrorist attack against them, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn, I’d like to sell you.

Bin Laden was the Boogeyman justifying a trillion dollar per year Defense budget, laws that undermined the Bill of Rights and “justified” our continued occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

It’s not clear how much -if any- of the al Qaeda story, we’ve been told is true. Was bin Laden the leader of a faction of fighters, who helped drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, who later turned against the West? Was bin Laden, an actor, who played a terrorist for the CIA? Did the CIA kill that actor when his usefulness was done?

We do know that an ex-president of Italy Francesco Cossiga and a former director of the US Army War College, Dr. Alan Sabrosky have both said that the 911 attack was an “inside job” by the CIA and Mossad. Israel was caught red-handed trying to recruit Arabs for a Mossad-run al Qaeda cell in Palestine. How hard would it have been for the Mossad to create al Qaeda cells in Egypt and Saudi Arabia to recruit the 911 hijackers?

Most likely, bin Laden’s body was taken from the freezer, he was being stored in, and thawed out this week so Barack Obama could have some spectacular headline to take public attention off his birth certificate –especially after that colossal blunder in which the nine editing layers in the Adobe pdf were accidentally left active and not “flattened out”.

There could be other reasons at work for bin Laden’s death to be announced at this time. The quagmire in Afghanistan is definitely getting worse, and it might be time to declare victory and beat a hasty retreat. We definitely can’t afford three wars at one time, which is exactly what we’re juggling right now.

If Obama is going to steal the Lybian oil fields, it might be good to shut down the Afghan war before we put boots on the ground in Lybia.
The only thing I can say for certain about “our” foreign policy is that very little the government tells us is the truth, and the beneficiaries are invariably Big Oil or Israel, and never the American public.

GALLOWAY ELECTION TIME: SADAM, ASSAD,GADDAFI & ME

NOVANEWS

Sunday, 1 May 2011

George Galloway condemns NATO’s murder of innocent children in Libya

George Galloway this morning expressed his outrage at the NATO air attack which killed Gaddafi’s youngest son, Saif Al Arab, and three of Gaddafi’s grandchildren in a Tripoli suburb.”This was a cold-blooded targeted attack on a residential house in the suburbs of Tripoli,” said George Galloway who is campaigning in Glasgow for election to the Scottish Parliament. “It beggars belief that this was not a deliberate attempt to assassinate Gaddafi, in the full knowledge that innocent children would be killed in the process.

This is a total breach of UN resolution 1973 which authorised action to protect civilians – not kill them.”NATO sorties are now being used to commit war crimes. Both nationally and internationally the cry must go up for NATO’s military actions to be halted immediately and a ceasefire declared. And David Cameron must answer straight, not fudge as he has been doing all day, whether attacking so-called command and control facilities allows the deliberate targeting of Gadaffi and his family, with no regard whatever to the innocent men, women and children who are incinerated as a consequence.”

SHALOM MISS YAKOV: MIGHT IS RIGHT

NOVANEWS

Monday, 2 May 2011

 

The death of Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden was an evil man.” IS OBAMA AN EVIL MAN ” He directed and encouraged the killing of thousands of innocent people ” THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE HE KILLED IS PATNETICALLY SMALL BY THE STANDARD OF US PRESIDENT MISS YAKOV” from many faiths and backgrounds.” IF YOU REFARING TO 911ATTACK ACCORDING TO THE FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE, DR ALAN SABROSKY HE SAID IT WAS ‘ INSIDE JOB BY THE CIA AND MOSSAD’.

He claimed to defend Muslims, but his actions !! simply brought devastation and misery to countless Muslims across the world.

His death should not be mourned.” WHY THE ARAB SAY LA SHAMATA FI ALMOOT”The movement he created, Al-Qaeda, is marginalised and despised the world over. The wave of rebellion sweeping the Arab world owed nothing to a man who led his followers into a dead-end of nihilistic destruction and religious bigotry.

For the millions struggling for freedom from dictatorship and foreign oppression, bin Laden offered nothing. ”DID YOU OFFER ANYTHING”But, by his deeds, bin Laden aimed to drive a wedge between the Muslim and non-Muslim world.” THE WEDGE WAS THEIR FOR THE LAST 100 YEAR” He set out to provoke a bloody reaction, and Bush and Blair ” POOR BUSH & BLAIR, IF WE SET TO PUNISH THEM HONESTLY WE WOULD NEED THE SADISTIC CREATIVITY OF THE OLYMPIAN GODS ” played right into his hands. Bin Laden would have perversely seen this as a victory of sorts.

Instead of responding to the events of 9-11 as an act of criminality, focusing all resources on pursuing the culprits, Bush and Blair invaded two countries, destabilised many more, and provoked an ugly tide of anti-Muslim racism. All of this gave succour to bin Laden’s narrative that the West was really engaged in a war against Islam. ” IS THAT NOT TRU MISS YAKOV”.

The consequence has been to destabilise the world to a degree that bin Laden could not have imagined in his wildest dreams. How many more bin Laden’s have been created by this disastrous ‘war on terror’? ” YOU TELL US”

Dear Miss Yakov

Arabs and Muslims are human and you should treat them as such, regardless of whether  they are Partisans or opponents of Sheikh Osama Bin Leaden. We condemn the killing of a HOLY WARRIOR’S or a Muslim and Arab person, and we ask God to bestow his mercy upon him.


* ALL COMMENT IN BLU IS BY SHOAH ADMIN

TIME IS RIPE FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT

NOVANEWS
GILAD ATZMON

 It is slightly embarrassing for me to admit that sometime  Zionists are actually well ahead of our favourite  intellectuals in understanding the depth of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It is not that they are more clever, they are just free to explore the conflict without being subject to the tyranny of ‘political correctness’, also being proud  nationalist Jews- they do not need  the approval of the Jewish left thought police.

I have recently come across a short Haaretz article by Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua*.

Yehoshua is a proud Zionist, He believes in the right of his people to dwell on Palestinian land.  He is also convinced that the Jewish state is the true meaning of contemporary Jewish life. I guess that Yehoshua loves himself almost as much as I despise everything he stands for and yet, I have to confess, he seems to grasp the depth of the Israeli Palestinian conflict’s parameters  slightly better than most  solidarity activists I can think of.

In his Haaretz article Yehoshua stressed that Zionism was “something original and one of its kind  in human history- A folk arrived  at the homeland of another folk attempting to replace the old identity with a new/old  identity”. Yehoshua  also counters the faulty colonial paradigm and practically repeats my own theses almost  word by word. “There was also no (Zionist) attempt to impose a colonial regime, since the Jews had no (mother) state that could have sent them to perform a colonial conquests like in the case of England or France.” 

Yehoshua, is certainly correct here, as much as some amongst us are contend to argue that Zionism is a ‘colonial project’ and Israel is a ‘settler State’, such a position has no ground and cannot be supported factually or historically. The Colonial paradigm is simply a fantasy that is clumsily imposed on our discourse in a desperate attempt to make the Israeli/Palestinian conflict meaningful within a decaying Marxist discourse. 

Yehoshua  continues, the Israeli/Palestinian  conflict will not be resolved because it’s a totally unique conflict  in human history. “There is no historical precedence for a nation that decides to return to its ancient homeland and  establish its sovereignty there.” Whether the conflict will be resolved or not is indeed a crucial question. I am not so sure that Yehoshua knows the answer or even can contemplate a reality in which the Jewish State belongs to the past. However, Yehoshua is obviously correct in his reading of the uniqueness of the Zionist history. We are dealing  here with an exceptional and unprecedented national aspiration driving by racist impetus. But Yehoshua takes it further. “Thus,” he says, If we all accept that the modern return of Jews to Zion is a unique event in human history – then the Palestinian people, unlike any other people, had  to face a totally unique phenomenon.” If we accept that Zionism is an abnormal political ideology and practice, then, Palestinian nationalism  (that is defined by  negation to abnormality) must be also a unique to say the least.

I must admit that Yehoshua’s stand is well argued and totally valid. However, it means that all comparative  models  such as the colonial paradigm are doomed to crash. Jewish nationalism doesn’t fit into any available template, it formulates a model of its own. 

According to Yehoshua, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not really about territorial issues. “Territorial issues can be resolved” he says.  “In our conflict, both sides, struggle over national identity of the whole country.” Yehoshua offers here a very interesting insight that cannot be uttered within the boundaries of the Left discourse. For both parties, especially the Palestinians, he says,  “it is unclear what is the size of the people it is up against, is it only the Israelis or is it also the Jewish Diaspora as a whole.” Yehoshua raises here an issue I myself have been stressing for years. It is far from being clear to anyone (including  Israelis and Jews) where Israel ends and the Diaspora starts. It is also far from being clear where the Israeli ends and the Jew starts. I guess that for most contemporary Jews it is even far from being clear anymore where Zionism ends and Judaism starts. In the contemporary Jewish world there are no clear dichotomies. We are dealing with a spineless elastic metamorphic identity that shapes itself to fit every possible circumstances. This may explain how come the Jewish state can dually operate as an oppressor and a victim simultaneously.

The Israelis, according to Yehoshua are also subject to a similar confusion. They also cannot figure out whether it is just the Palestinian people they are up against or is it the whole Arab nation or even the entire Muslim world.  For Yehoshua, the conflict “lacks a clear demographic boundaries. This fact alone creates an initial deep distrust between the two peoples that prevents a possible solution.”

Yeshoua is far from being a brilliant mind, yet, he manages to analyse the conflict correctly just because he is free to think out of the Leftist box. Being a proud Israeli Jew he is free to say what he thinks without the need to appease half a dozen so-called ‘progressive’  Jews.  Yehoshua’s analysis makes a lot of sense to me though we draw the complete opposite conclusions. I believe that ti the Palestinian solidarity discourse  better liberate itself of any form of  dogmatic political thinking. It is about time  and look at the conflict for what it is.  We must engage in a true plural debate and emancipate ourselves of any traces of rigid and anachronistic thinking.

Drama in London

By: Gilad Atmon

A panel discussion titled ‘Zionism, Jewishness and Israel’ will take place at The University of Westminster – Cavendish Campus on Tuesday May the 3rd, from 6:30pm – 8:00pm.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160038250722935

As one may imagine, the Zionist operators in Britain are not happy about the meeting at all: ‘Green Engage’, a Zionist anti-BDS campaign group launched an immediate campaign, soon after the announcement of the panel. Far from being surprising, within hours, they were joined by Tony Greenstein  and  the so called Jewish ‘anti Zionist’ network.

The original panel was supposed to include John Rose, Ghada Karmi, Alan Hart and myself.  

The venue as well as the panelists (except myself funnily enough) came under severe pressure that verged on abuse: one of the panelists admitted to the organisers that he had received twelve phone calls from different Jewish ‘anti-Zionist’ activists, who insisted that — ‘for the sake of Palestine’– no one should share a stage with Gilad Atzmon.

Now, interestingly enough, when I asked the panelist whether any Palestinians had actually called to preach for the ‘sake of Palestine’ — the answer was a resounding negative. I guess  that Jewish ‘anti Zionists’ know better than everyone what is good for Palestine, they are chosen after all. 

John Rose and Ghada Karmi pulled out, and that is understandable: not many can endure such a level of abuse – as we learnt recently, Judge Goldstone has also surrendered, and by doing so, has severely damaged his credibility and reputation.

In the early days I myself struggled a lot: on a daily basis I would hear from one  ‘progressive’ Jew or another who I should like and who I should hate.  Being a rebel, I never followed any of these ‘instructions’. It took me years to develop a very thick skin, to believe in myself and to believe in ethical thinking. And, having done so, I am now happier and free, and I continue in the spirit of humanism and resistance.

Resisting Zionist tactics then, the organisers of the event and the venue are undeterred, standing strong, and determined to continue with the original plan:  a list of Palestinian intellectuals and journalists stepped immediately in place of Ghada and John. I advised the organisers not to publish their names for the time being, simply to save them from the unnecessary irritation, annoyance and abuse.  However, I myself made sure that they are fully aware of the possible trouble ahead.

This event is promising to be a turning point — The relentless attempts by Jewish political bodies to gate-keep the discourse needs to be confronted and exposed.  

And I guess that what we see here proves beyond doubt my arguments regarding the duplicity that is tragically manifested all too often by different bodies and individuals within the Jewish ‘anti-Zionist’ network.

Come and support freedom and intellectual exchange 

Panel Event: Zionism, Jewishness and Israel

Time:            Tuesday, May 3 · 6:30pm – 8:00pm

Location: University Of Westminster – Cavendish Campus

A panel discussion examining Israeli Criminality in the wake of the Goldstone Retract.

Alan Hart, Gilad Atzmon and others

 

(Facebook event Announcement)

“Despite the huge pressures from certain Zionist and “anti-zionist” groups, John Rose and Ghada Karmi have pulled but have been replaced with a number of other high profile and brilliant speakers.

A lot of criticism has been mounted about the fact that the event is putting “Jewishness” into the debate with Zionism and Israel. The fact that Israel calls itself the “Jewish State” warrants that we as rational, critical individuals must at least enquire and question what this may mean.

This is not anti-semitic nor racist, and in fact every religion has been subject to these criticisms and enquiries, and in a truly democratic society, any exclusive belief that posits itself as the truth must be scrutinised and put under the spotlight.”