NOVANEWS
Lieberman: ‘There won’t be another building moratorium’
During visit to Golan Heights foreign minister adamant that Israel will not be pressured, says pressure must be put on Palestinians.
Jpost.com–Israel will not accept another moratorium on building in the West Bank, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Thursday in a speech in the Golan town of Katzrin.
He reportedly added that Israel will not be pressured, but that pressure should rather be put on the Palestinians.
“No one can accept a situation in which we cannot build in Gilo or Har Homa. We will not accept any additional freeze – not for three months, not for a month, and not for a day. Whoever wants to pressure us should pressure the other side. As far as we are concerned, a long-term interim agreement should be discussed, because a permanent agreement is impossible.”
Lieberman also said that Syria is not a partner for peace, because it supplies weapons to Hizbullah and other terrorists.
“Everyone asks, ‘Is Syria a peace partner?’ Only a political hypochondriac can say Syria is a peace partner, especially under the current regime,” Lieberman said during his visit.
He suggested that the world read a French report on the transfer of weapons from Syria to Hizbullah and mentioning the presence of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Damascus.
“Israel’s historic right to be located in the Golan Heights is known to everyone,” Lieberman said.
Rep. Ros-Lehtinen: House Can Push Obama Into More Hawkish Foreign Policy
Foreign Affairs Committee Will Enhance US Hostility Towards Many Nations
by Jason Ditz,
November 10, 2010
Antiwar.com–The presumptive incoming head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R – FL) today said she believes that the new Republican-dominated House, and her committee in particular, will be able to push President Obama into an even more hawkish foreign policy.
“I think it strengthens the president’s hand,” said Ros-Lehtinen saying that a “tough Congress” would allow the president to be more overtly hostile to Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela, whom she called “rogue regimes.”
Rep. Ros-Lehtinen also suggested that the new Congress could allow a more “hard line” position with respect to China, making a number of additional demands against the nation with regards to its human rights violations.
A number of returning GOP Congresspersons have suggested that they will try to out-hawk President Obama, pushing for more war funding and keeping the wars going as long as possible. This may put them in conflict with the incoming Tea Party Republicans, who campaigned around financial responsibility, not foreign policy, and will find it difficult to argue simultaneously for a balanced budget and for runaway war spending.
Muslims say Obama failing to keep Cairo promises
A man holds placards during a protest against President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Indonesia, in Jakarta November 9, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Dadang Tri
By Alexander Dziadosz and Sarah Mikhail
CAIRO | Wed Nov 10, 2010
CAIRO (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s pledge on Wednesday to strive for better relations with the Muslim world drew skepticism in Cairo, where last year he called for a new beginning in the Middle East after years of mistrust.
In a visit to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, Obama acknowledged more needed to be done to repair ties with the Muslim world.
“As soon as Obama took over, he said he would do this and that — a lot of things. But he still hasn’t met a single goal,” said Saad Zaki Khalil, 56, who was selling cigarette lighters in central Cairo.
Seventeen months after Obama’s Cairo University speech, al Qaeda is still threatening the West, peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians remain stalled over the issue of West Bank settlements and U.S. troops remain in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many in the Middle East believe that Washington’s tight alliance with Israel makes it impossible to end the suffering of the Palestinians, breeding cynicism among Arab Muslims toward U.S. intentions in the region.
“It’s all speeches — in the end the same American politics, and Jewish politics, continues,” said Cairo retiree Mohamed Abdel. “This is why nothing since Obama’s Cairo speech has translated into action with Arab nations.”
Obama quoted from the Koran in his June 2009 speech in the Arab world’s most populous city as he strove to show that Western ideas and Islam shared common principles and that nurturing differences plays into the hands of Islamist radicals.
In Jakarta on Wednesday, he repeated that America was not at war with Islam, was determined to bring security to Afghanistan and would spare no effort to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
“I personally had higher expectations for change” after the 2009 speech, said Cairo lawyer Hatem Khalil. “It’s ignorant to believe Obama will solve the Palestinian case… I also agree that if the U.S. takes out all its military from Iraq in one phase the country will collapse — but I think that with Egypt, more needs to be done.”
Obama’s Jakarta speech emphasized democracy and Indonesia’s progress in bridging racial and religious divides, but Cairo University politics professor Hassan Nafaa said Arab states had moved away from democratic reform since the Bush administration.
Nafaa said Obama did not mention the recent record of Arab governments on political reform though his upbeat remarks about Indonesia’s vibrant democracy were seen as a veiled reference to autocratic Muslim countries to emulate the Asian country.
In Egypt, a decades-old state of emergency remains in force and opposition groups say they are muzzled and their activities curtailed. President Hosni Mubarak, 82, has not yet said if he will seek a sixth six-year term in office next year.
“We knew a while ago that Obama does not want to pressure the Middle East states that are friends with the United States,” Nafaa said.
“And this is because he fully realizes he has economic and political interests with those states and pressuring them will not lead to any outcome, as previous pressure from former President George Bush failed to bring any change.”
With no govt, Iraqis struggle to find jobs
By Serena Chaudhry
Reuters–RAMADI, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Roula Abdullah braved checkpoints, often run by death squads or al Qaeda, and fierce fighting in Iraq’s restive western town of Ramadi to teach her students English for 7-1/2 years after the U.S.-led invasion.
These days her biggest worry is how many of her students — all of them women — will get jobs when they graduate.
“When the student graduates as a teacher, she stays at home because there is no job for her,” Abdullah, who has been teaching English for more than 30 years in Ramadi, said. “There is no government, so how can a student get a job?”
Since a March 7 poll, incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been locked in a battle with former premier Iyad Allawi to see who can form a coalition government.
Maliki is getting closer to securing the support he needs, but the long vacuum in leadership has slowed down crucial economic development projects and diverted attention away from providing Iraqis with key essential services.
Unemployment is officially at 15 percent in the nation of 30 million, but the real rate is believed to be 30 percent. The ranks of people with no way of making a decent living threatens political stability and may also provide a ready stream of angry young men to feed militias and insurgent groups.
Iraqi security officials say insurgent groups like al Qaeda are having trouble finding recruits ideologically driven to join their ranks. Instead, they have been offering money. If the continuing violence is any indicator, those moves are effective.
Noor al-Bayyati, a recent information technology graduate from a Baghdad University, said young people were desperate.
“Young people like me, when they are in need of money to look after their families and to be able to live … may drift into militant activities if the money is right,” said the 23-year-old, who works as a taxi driver because he has been unable to find a job in his chosen field.
“If the government invests in infrastructure projects and brings life back to many factories, jobless people will have a chance to work.”
INVESTMENT NEEDED
Badly bruised by decades of war and isolation, Iraq has been slow to get back on its feet as the sectarian war unleashed by the invasion begins to fade. The country needs massive investment in every sector.
Its power stations are decrepit and provide just a few hours of electricity a day, broken railway lines and rusty locomotives dot the desert, and it needs 1 million new homes for its people.
Foreign investment has started to flow into Iraq’s oil sector, but development elsewhere has been slow.
Iraq, which depends on oil exports for 95 percent of government revenues, has a five-year economic development plan in which it aims to create 3 to 4 million new jobs by 2014. The plan aims to diversify the economy through public-private partnerships and foreign investment.
“The five-year plan, from 2010-2014, is focused on the unemployment issue,” Mehdi al-Alak, a deputy planning minister and head of the statistics office, said.
“If the plan is executed in a proficient way, it will help employ 3 million people and will end unemployment.”
Alak said at least 25 percent of Iraqis between the ages of 16 and 29 were unemployed.
While foreign investors have shown growing interest in Iraq, the lack of progress in the political arena and continuing insecurity has made them pause on the sidelines. The state remains the biggest employer.
At Ramadi’s Institute for Preparatory School Teachers in Iraq’s Sunni heartland of Anbar, where Abdullah works, 120 students graduated last year. Few have been able to find jobs, their teachers say.
“Five years (worth of) students have graduated from this institute, and they graduated as English teachers but until now they haven’t been able to get jobs to be English teachers in primary schools,” Abdullah said. (Additional reporting by Khalid al-Ansary; Editing by Michael Christie and Lin Noueihed)
Pakistan slams American support for Indian seat at UN Security Council
The government said in a statement Wednesday that President Barack Obama’s recent vow to back India’s bid was “incomprehensible.”
Pakistan and India are regional rivals who have fought three wars since 1947, two over the disputed region of Kashmir.
Islamabad does not like anything that increases India’s standing and power in the world.
U.S. support for New Delhi does not mean it will join the five permanent Security Council members anytime soon.
For India to join, the council would have be radically reformed, something that could take years to bring about.
Source: AP News
Despite new ban on work in settlements, the Palestinians are building them
AP News–It’s a startling fact: The workers building Israel’s West Bank settlements have generally been Palestinians — even though Palestinians widely consider these communities a toxic threat to their dream of an independent state.
Now comes a twist: earlier this year, the Palestinian government passed a law forbidding work in the settlements — and its determination to stamp out the phenomenon is being sorely tested in recent weeks, as a settlement building boomlet has emerged in the West Bank.
With the Palestinian economy facing double-digit unemployment, the issue has sparked some soul-searching and debate.
“It is immoral for us — totally immoral for us — to work in settlements,” said Economics Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh, an enthusiastic supporter of the law which passed in April and bans Palestinians from such work.
Abu Libdeh said the ban — which imposes fines of up to $14,000 and jail time of up to five years for violators — will eventually be enforced. But for now, he said, the government is holding off while it searches for ways to help workers switch jobs.
About 21,000 Palestinians currently work in settlements, either in construction, agriculture or industry. Their ability to return to the settlements in recent years — after a period of violence from 2000-2005 which saw the two peoples separated almost completely — has been key to the mini-revival of the Palestinian economy.
But it is also helping the settlements prosper and expand.
Some 300,000 Israelis live in more than 120 settlements across the West Bank — almost a threefold increase over two decades of peace negotiations. Another 180,000 live in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their capital.
In the settlement of Ariel on Wednesday, Palestinian laborers readily admitted they were torn between politics and paychecks.
Dozens of them mixed cement, laid bricks and arranged red tiles on the roofs of 48 new apartments at a dusty construction site in what is already a town boasting 19,000 residents.
Most work eight-hour shifts five days a week and earn between $35 and $55 per day — which is somewhat less than what Israeli workers would cost, but more than what is generally available to Palestinians in the West Bank. There, similar jobs usually pay $25 per day in the Palestinian cities and $15 in rural areas.
Sitting inside a yellow tractor, Abed Abdel-Karim, 41, said he’d been working in settlements for 15 years. He said they threaten the future Palestinian state but said he has no other way to earn a living.
He acknowledged it was a problem, “but it’s not my job to fix it … I’m married and have kids. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I just want to pay my bills.”
Palestinians have opposed the settlements since Israel captured east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war. Supported by most of the world community, they consider the West Bank occupied territory and say moving Israeli civilians there violates international law. Israel calls it disputed territory and says it can build there until a peace deal is reached.
The settlements emerged as a hugely contentious issue in the U.S.-led peace talks launched in September. It was Israel’s decision to end a 10-month moratorium on new construction that caused the talks to grind to a halt just weeks later.
Now there are hundreds of new units in various stages of construction — and Palestinians, just as before, are at the heart of the enterprise, despite the ban.
Palestinian Labor Minister Ahmed Majdalani said that one way the government is trying to combat the phenomenon is the creation of an investment fund aimed at supporting large-scale construction projects and other Palestinian employers.
The fund, announced in May, is hoping to tap international donors, but so far the only moneys have come from the Palestinian Authority itself — $5 million, or a tenth of the $50 million target.
Even if the fund takes off, Palestinian companies will likely continue to pay less than Israeli ones. But Majdalani said he’s counting on national pride and fear of punishment to entice workers away from settlements.
“We don’t consider the difference in pay a justification for anyone to go work in the settlements — not nationalistically, politically or morally,” he said.
Another possible solution for the Palestinian workers is the planned city of Rawabi, which will be built from the ground up for 40,000 residents; but this massive project remains on hold because Israel has not given builders permission for a key access road.
At the construction site in Ariel, 32-year-old Abdel-Jaber Bouzia was doubtful any of these schemes would work. He did not fear the legal ban on working in the settlements and could hardly imagine their removal.
“Maybe after a million years,” he said, shoveling sand into a rumbling cement mixer. “Or on Judgment Day.”
What do the settlers say?
Settler spokeswoman Aliza Herbst noted that some settlements themselves ban Arab labor, sometimes due to security concerns, but it remains attractively cheap and abundant.
She said she supports the Palestinian government’s efforts because she would prefer employers were freed of the financial temptation and hired Jews instead.
“I hope they succeed,” she said.
US Military Destroying Hundreds of Civilian Homes in Kandahar
Military Bulldozing Houses in Oft-Occupied Zhari District
by Jason Ditz,
November 10, 2010
Antiwar.com–The Obama Administration made much of the Kandahar offensive’s success hinging on winning hearts and minds to the side of the occupation forces. As usual this goal is falling by the waysde as the military actually arrives on the scene, as civilians in the Zhari District are up in arms at the military’s actions.
The district has been seen as a key target for the offensive, but locals are complaining that the US military, having occupied the district with little resistance, has proceded to bulldoze homes and farm fields en masse, with hundreds of homes destroyed and a large number of people rendered homeless.
Officials insist that the tactics are necessary because the homes are potentially being used as hiding places by insurgents, but the scorched earth tactics aren’t making them any friends among the local population of the tiny farming district.
Indeed, these claims that the offensive is necessary to bring the district under control must ring hollow among locals, who have seen NATO forces occupy them no less than six times since 2001, each time claiming it was a major victory that amounted to a turning point in the war. But each time these offensives end, the troops leave, and the Taliban return. This time the locals may be quite grateful of that, as the Taliban are at least not demolishing their homes.
US Air Strikes Continue to Soar in Afghanistan
1,000 Separate Strikes Launched in October Alone
by Jason Ditz,
November 10, 2010
Antiwar.com–Since taking over the war effort, Gen. David Petraeus has turned the Air Force loose across Afghanistan, giving them free rein to launch an almost ridiculous level of air strikes. These strikes have continued to rise, and with them the number of civilians being killed in the NATO occupation.
In September NATO warplanes launched 700 separate attack missions, nearly a three-fold increase from the previous year. Even that looks to have been the tip of the iceberg, however, as October’s toll shows at least 1,000 separate attacks.
Air strikes had actually been falling during Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s tenure, as several embarrassing attacks killing scores of innocent civilians convinced the general that the strikes were doing more harm than good and ordered a huge number of restrictions on the use of strikes, keeping them far away from the civilian population.
The restrictions actually did slow the increase in the number of civilian killings, but officials complained it was doing damage to troop morale, and General Petraeus’ takeover has meant a paring down these rules. Exactly how many more strikes can possibly be launched on a monthly basis remains to be seen.
Pentagon: Foreign Intervention ‘Last Resort’ in Terror Fight (???!!!)
Official Insists US Prefers to ‘Help’ Other Countries Take the Lead
by Jason Ditz,
November 10, 2010
Antiwar.com–US Principal Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for International Security Affairs Joseph McMillan, in comments today in Algiers, claimed that the US prefers to see foreign military intervention as a “last resort” in the global war on terror.
“It is my view that the problem of terrorism is best dealt with by the countries that are the most affected. Intervention by outsiders, especially the use of force by outsiders, needs to be a last resort,” insisted McMillan.
This may come as something of a surprising position for a top Pentagon official to take, given the amount of direct intervention and use of force the US is currently engaged in across the planet, but seemed centered at reassuring the nations in the region of US support, though not direct military interference, in the battle against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
This is likely more a pragmatic position than an ideological one, as the US is already fighting two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is dramatically escalating its fight against al-Qaeda and other militants in Pakistan and gearing up for an increasing battle against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Between this, the long-standing US military presences across the globe and the constant threats to attack Iran, the Pentagon simply wouldn’t have the manpower to spare to have troops roaming the Sahara hunting AQIM. At the moment officials prefer to just throw money at the nations in the area and let them tackle the issue as best they can.
NATO to Investigate as Troops Kill Three Civilians in Helmand
NATO Says Civilians Died During Combat
by Jason Ditz,
November 10, 2010
Antiwar.com–NATO says it is “looking into” the circumstances through which its troops accidentally killed three civilians and wounded another during “combat operations” in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.
NATO’s report on the incident provided no additional details of how the deaths happened, but it appears to have happened in the Sangin District, which US troops recent took control of after years under British occupation.
Tensions between US and British troops have grown over their different styles of handling Sangin, with US troops complaining the British weren’t aggressive enough and British troops saying the US was making too many enemies in the region.
Recently released Pentagon statistics have showed that the number of civilians being killed by US troops have risen considerably since Gen. David Petraeus took control over the Afghan War. His predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, made numerous not-entirely-successful efforts to reduce the civilian toll, efforts which led to complaints that he was harming troop morale.
Gang suspected of attacks on Arabs in Jerusalem
Young men have reportedly been roaming in and around Independence Park seeking Arabs to attack, trying to identify them by their accent.
Haaretz–Two Arabs have been attacked on central Jerusalem’s Hillel Street recently, near the place where a Chilean tourist was assaulted last week, mistaken for an Arab.
The tourist, Jose Toledo, was moderately injured Thursday after he was attacked by a group of young men as he was walking through the capital’s Independence Park.
Young men have reportedly been roaming in and around Independence Park seeking Arabs to attack, trying to identify them by their accent. Haaretz has learned of two attacks over the past two weeks, and the stabbing of an Arab in July.
Annan Yagmor, 21, of Silwan, said that on Saturday night he was approached by a group of men in Independence Park as he was walking home. They asked him for a cigarette, accompanied him a short way, jumped him and beat him. He said they wanted to see his ID card and shouted “Arab, Arab.” They also sprayed him with tear gas.
Adem Sabih said he was similarly attacked on October 31 in the same area, by 20 or 30 skullcap-wearing young men. They asked him his name and then jumped him; one shouted “kill that Arab.” He said he was smashed in the head with a rock several times before he could flee.
Jerusalem City Councilman Meir Margalit said it appeared that “a gang of thugs,” some with large knitted skullcaps and others with black skullcaps, were terrorizing East Jerusalem Arabs. He said he could not “shake the feeling that if the situation were reversed, if Jews were being attacked by Arabs, the authorities’ response would be different.”
The Chilean media has been in an uproar over the attack on Toledo by what he said was a gang of youths who thought he was an Arab. Members of Chile’s parliament have also protested, and Israel’s ambassador to Santiago, David Dadon, was summoned Tuesday to the Chilean Foreign Ministry for clarifications.
The incident was widely reported in South American media outlets.
According to the Chilean press, Toledo, 43, was attacked as he was walking through Independence Park by eight young men who injured him in the head and eyes. According to the reports, he was hospitalized over the weekend.
Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno said in a statement he expected Israel to explain the incident.
Two Chilean members of parliament raised the issue, claiming that it was one of a series of cases in which Chileans of Arab descent had been attacked on visits to Israel.
Unable to ignore the protests, the Chilean Foreign Ministry summoned Dadon to meet with the director general of the consular section, Carlos Klammer, who asked Dadon to obtain information urgently on the events leading up to the attack.
The case also provoked anger in Chile’s Jewish community, which released a statement yesterday protesting the summoning of the Israeli ambassador to the Foreign Ministry. The president of the Chilean Jewish community, Gabriel Zaliasnik, criticized what he said was the way a criminal incident had become political. He said that “even before the details were known, certain members of parliament said this was a racist incident.”
The incident was also publicized outside Chile. According to Peruvian radio, “A Chilean tourist was cruelly attacked in Jerusalem because he was believed to be an Arab.” Venezuelan newspaper El Universal reported extensively on the incident and Dadon’s summons to the Foreign Ministry, as did newspapers in Argentina, Equador and other countries.
The Chilean press quoted Dadon as saying that it was “absurd” to think Toledo had been attacked because he looked like an Arab, because “half the population in Israel looks Arab, because they are of Eastern origin, and the other half look like Chileans.”
Dadon was also quoted as saying the park had seen violent incidents in the past when men had been attacked because they were suspected of being gay.
“The incident has been blown up here out of all proportion also by members of parliament of Palestinian extraction who took advantage of it to accuse Israel of racism after it was reported that he might have been attacked because of an Arab appearence,” Dadon told Haaretz yesterday. “Following our swift and tough response, the matter was immediately removed from the media’s agenda.”
Report: Egypt aided Israel’s assassination of top Gaza militant
Time Magazine claims Egyptian intelligence tipped Israel off ahead of the arrival of a senior Army of Islam militant as part of its attempts to thwart terror activity in Sinai.
Egypt assisted in the recent assassination of a high-ranking Gaza militant, Time Magazine reported on Thursday, saying Cairo was prompted to aid Israel as a result of its desire to damage Hezbollah’s efforts in the Sinai Peninsula.
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Palestinians gathering around a destroyed car after an explosion in Gaza City, Nov. 3, 2010. |
Photo by: AP |
Mohammed Nimnim, 37, a senior member of the Army of Islam, an extremist group that kidnapped British reporter Alan Johnston in March 2007, was killed when his car exploded outside a police station in Gaza City over a week ago.
Israel initially refused to comment on the attack but the Israel Defense Forces later confirmed it had carried out a joint operation with the Shin Bet security service.
The IDF spokeswoman referred to Nimnim as a “ticking bomb”, saying he was part of an al Qaida-linked group that was planning attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
On Thursday, however, Time magazine quoted security sources as saying that Egyptian intelligence had managed to get word of the intended plot against U.S. forces in the region from Army of Islam operatives captured in Sinai.
Referring to the significance and rarity of such an intelligence exchange between the two states, a security source was quoted by Time as saying that Egypt was “helping much more.”
As to the reason for the uncommon cooperation, Time cited Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s animosity toward terror activity in the Sinai Peninsula, specifically in the wake of Egypt’s uncovering of a major Hezbollah terror ring in the area last year.
In April of 2009, Egypt announced that a cell of 49 men with links to Hezbollah were planning attacks aimed at destabilizing the country. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, rejected the accusations but confirmed over the weekend that the group had dispatched a member to Egypt – a rare acknowledgment that the Lebanese militant group was operating in another Arab country.
In his first comments on the accusations, Mubarak told Lebanon’s prime minister during a phone call on Sunday that Egypt “will not allow anyone to violate its borders or destabilize the country.”
Abbas: Mideast peace is more important than settlement building
Speaking at ceremony marking anniversary of Arafat’s death, Abbas reiterates Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Achieving Middle East peace is more important than building more settlements, Israel Radio quoted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as saying on Thursday, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to seize the opportunity to strike a final-status deal.
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Mahmoud Abbas speaking during a press conference in Ramallah, Oct. 28, 2010. |
Photo by: AP |
Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, relaunched at a Washington D.C. ceremony in early September, have been stalled over Israel’s refusal to further extend its moratorium on settlement building, which expired on September 26.
More recently, freshly released plan to build 1,300 new apartments in and around Jerusalem have brought U.S. President Barack Obama and Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet on a collision course, with Obama saying Tuesday that such plans were “never helpful”.
A day earlier, the U.S. State department said Washington was “deeply disappointed” by Israel’s plans to build in the settlements.
Following the U.S. criticism, Netanyahu’s office issued a statement, insisting that “Jerusalem is not a settlement. Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel” and that “Israel has never accepted upon itself restrictions of any kind on construction in Jerusalem.”
However, speaking at a Ramallah rally commemorating the sixth anniversary of the death of former PLO chief Yasser Arafat, PA President Abbas said that peace was more important than building more settlements and from what he called “narrow interests,” such as maintaining Netanyahu’s right-leaning coalition.
“The children of Israel and Palestine must be taste the flavor of coexistence, stability and mutual respect, before missing out on such an opportunity,” Abbas said, reiterating the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The Palestinian president also said a final-status agreement would not be signed before all of the Palestinian prisoners would be released from Israeli jails.
“I challenge anyone who says we did not implement all our obligations,” he said. “We met all our obligations, but Israel did not implement even one of its obligations.”
He criticized U.S. and Israeli statements that he would be taking unilateral action by going to the UN Security Council to complain against Israeli settlements in the West Bank or demand recognition of the June 4, 1967 lines as the borders of a future Palestinian state.
“I said we will go to the Security Council and they started saying that it was a unilateral action even before I went,” he said.
“Israel is doing unilateral actions daily in its construction of the separation wall and the settlements, but this is not called unilateral,” he added.
Earlier on Thursday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, referring to Netanyahu’s standoff with the Obama administration, saying he “congratulated and supported the prime minister for his stance on the building issue.”
“The demand to cease construction in Gilo and Har Homa are unreasonable. Not for three months, not for one day” the FM said, adding that anyone who was “seeking to pressure into an agreement would be better off pressuring the other side.”
The Parcel Bomb Plot – Al-Qaedas Gift to Israel
By Maidhc Ó Cathail
While Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) may have claimed responsibility for the parcel bomb plot, it’s worth considering how this latest Yemen-linked terror scare has been a gift to their avowed enemies.
A mere two weeks before the discovery of mail bombs addressed to “two places of Jewish worship in Chicago,” Rupert Murdoch sounded prescient as he received an award from the Anti-Defamation League for his support of Israel. “The terrorists continue to target Jews across the world,” declared the media mogul in his acceptance speech. “But they have not succeeded in bringing down the Israeli government—and they have not weakened Israeli resolve.”Equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, the Fox News owner smeared the growing worldwide condemnation of Israel’s rogue behaviour as an “ongoing war against the Jews.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, a frequent London house guest of Murdoch and a likely recipient of his political contributions, was quick to make hay of the foiled plot. Briefing the cabinet on his impending address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, the Israeli Prime Minister told them that it would be “held against the background of reports about the attempt to attack the Jewish community in Chicago.”
Linking the parcel bomb plot to some of the most iconic terrorist attacks of the post-9/11 era, Netanyahu saidthat “it does not matter if the target was a synagogue in Chicago or a railway station in Madrid, London, Mumbai or Bali.” Deftly associating his increasingly isolated government with the victims of those attacks, the Israeli Prime Minister proclaimed: “We are facing a growing wave of terrorism by extremist Islam.”
Netanyahu, never one prone to understatement, offered this analysis of the unsuccessful attempt to use desktop printers as terror weapons: “It is growing in the scope and brazen gall of its attacks, in the weapons with which it is arming itself, and in the sweeping objectives of the leaders of global terrorism.”
He then assured his colleagues that “one of the main issues” he would be addressing in New Orleans with American Jewish leaders was “the steps that the civilized and free world must take in order to stop this wave that threatens us all.”
Needless to say, those “steps” are unlikely to include an end to the 43-year occupation and colonisation of the West Bank or a lifting of the 4-year blockade of Gaza.
An American apologist for Israel’s self-appointed guardian of “the civilized andfree world” took a similar line. Joel Pollak, a Republican candidate in the midterm elections, released a statement condemning the attempted terror attack, saying he would be spending the Jewish Sabbath in West Rogers Park “in solidarity with the people of the 9th congressional district who were the direct targets of Al Qaeda terror.” Sounding a lot like Netanyahu, Pollak attempted to rally his constituents by telling them, “We must not stop fighting to eradicate the twin evils of terror and hatred.”
Again, we can take it as read that the “terror and hatred” Americans are being urged to combat only applies to Israel’s enemies.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly, which describes itself as “the leading geopolitical newsletter,” has even attempted to implicate Israel’s current enemy number one, Iran. The next issue, for subscribers only, promises to reveal “how the al Qaeda air package plot fit [sic] into the selective partnership between Tehran and al Qaeda and homes in on the areas where their schemes dovetail.”
But how trustworthy is “the leading newsletter in this rarefied field”?
“Debka is prepared mostly by former Mossad operatives. A reliable stream of information,” Martin Peretz, the Islamophobic editor-in-chief of the staunchly pro-Israel New Republicassures us.
Ever since an Israeli firm let the Christmas Day crotch bomber “slip through” security at Schiphol Airport without a passport, a few influential voices with close ties to Israel have been instrumental in making Yemen “the new buzzword.”
Appearing on Fox News two days later, the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress, Senator Joe Lieberman, announced: “Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”
Within a week, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Saban Center in the Brookings Institution, had an op-ed in The Daily Beast titled “The Menace of Yemen.” Touting the botched Christmas Day plot as evidence of “the growing ambition of al Qaeda’s Yemen franchise,” Riedel called for “significant American support to defeat AQAP.”
Riedel’s employer, the Saban Center, is named after Haim Saban, the Israeli-American media mogul, who in 2002 pledged $13 million to found the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Two years later, Sabanadmitted tothe New York Times, “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.”
“The US may be walking into a bit of atrap,” warns Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert and doctoral candidate at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies.
That “trap” has been best described bya former CIA officer. “America’s misguided war on terror,” Philip Giraldi pointed out in a recent article, “is in fact a complete adoption of Israeli security paradigms without any regard for the actual threats that confront the US, making Israel’s many enemies also the foes of Washington.”
Israelmust be very grateful indeed for this latest terror scare. If Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula did not exist, they might have to invent it.
Maidhc Ó Cathail is a writer and educator. Born and raised in Ireland, he has been living in Japan since 1999. In
US soldier on trial for Afghan murders
Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs is flanked Tuesday by his attorney, Phillip Stackhouse, left, and investigating officer Col. Thomas P. Molloy.
A US soldier accused of leading a murder squad that killed and allegedly mutilated Afghan civilians for sport, has appeared before court.
Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs is at the center of an army war crimes investigation that involves around a dozen of his comrades.
The 26-year-old is accused of orchestrating the execution of three Afghan civilians in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province earlier this year, and changing the crime scenes to make them look like defensive combat.
In one such scenarios Gibbs hid behind a wall and threw a grenade at an Afghan man. He and his comrades then began firing at the man as though they had been attacked. After the man was dead, they planted a Russian-made grenade near his head.
Prosecutors say Gibbs and soldiers under his command also mutilated the bodies of their victims.
Army investigators say that they have been experienced great difficulties in obtaining evidence against the US soldier, as many eye-witnesses directly involved in the atrocities refused to testify.
The accused soldiers under Gibb’s command are all members of the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Division’s Stryker brigade at Forward Operating Base Ramrod.
Gibb’s court hearing ended inconclusively on Tuesday.
It will likely take prosecutors several weeks to decide if Gibbs should be sent to a full court-marital.
If charges are proved in a full court-martial, the crimes would be among the worst committed by US forces in Afghanistan.
Earlier in September, a similar court was held for 22-year-old Specialist Jeremy Morlock, who’s accused of taking part in the murders.
The US army, however, took the death penalty off the table in Morlock’s case.
The development came as the United Nations announced that Afghan civilian deaths have soared by over 30 percent in 2010, compared to the same period last year.
The invasion of Afghanistan was launched with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the country.
Nine years on, however, American and Afghan officials admit that the country remains unstable as civilians continue to pay the heaviest toll.
Iran plans to test own model of Russia S-300 missile
Medvedev banned delivery air defense system to Iran in September, saying it would violate expanded UN sanctions against the country imposed in June.
By Reuters
Iran has developed a version of the Russian S-300 missile and will test-fire it soon, the official news agency IRNA said, two months after Moscow cancelled a delivery of the sophisticated system to Tehran to comply with United Nations sanctions.
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A Russian-made S-300 missile |
Photo by: Kremlin |
