Month: July 2012

July 6, 2012

EDITOR: Rest assured, the next war is coming soon…

It has been some time since Israel has initiated a fresh war – an unusual situation, you would agree. So, worry no more – Israel is preparing for the next round. Apart from the attack on Iran, always around the corner,  they are now gearing up for another attack on Lebanon – after all, they have not destroyed Lebanon since 2006, so another destructive war must be due. What a world we live in, in which this aggressive and arrogant state can attack just about anyone with total impunity?

Senior IDF officer: Israel is preparing for the next Lebanon war: Haaretz

Officer says instability in Syria could ignite violent confrontation with the Lebanese army, says ‘Goldstone report will pale in comparison to what will be here next time.’
By Gili Cohen | Jul.05, 2012

The Israel-Lebanon border, July 5, 2012. Photo by Yaron Kaminsky

Six years after the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, the IDF is saying openly that Israel is preparing for another Lebanon war.

The commander of the IDF’s 91st Division, Brigardier-General Hertzi Halevy told journalists on Thursday, “We understand that there is more than one factor, whether this is Lebanese, or whether it will come from somewhere else, that can ignite the border here.”

The 91st Division, part of the Northern Command, and responsible for the front with Lebanon, sees developments in Syria as one of the factors that could upset the calm that has prevailed in the region since the war. The collapse of the Syrian regime may also bring with it an increase in Jihadi or Hezbollah operatives, who may try to carry out targeted attacks in the area.

Already, Northern Command intelligence says certain areas of the border between Lebanon and Syria are “lawless zones,” which enable the transfer of more advanced weapons into the region. The IDF has stated that there are some 60 thousand missiles in Lebanon, ten times more than there were in the country during the first Lebanon war. Hezbollah has the capability to launch a large quantity of rockets in a short period time, and this could cause significant damage on the Home Front.

In IDF simulations of what a third Lebanon war would look like, ground maneuvers in villages that are considered bastions of Shiite Hezbollah become particularly important. “The next war will be different, and therefore we should stop it as quickly as possible, in order to make things easier for the home front. This means carrying out a very strong attack against Lebanon, and the damage will be enormous,” says a senior officer in the Northern Command.

“The Goldstone report will pale in comparison to what will be here next time. There is no choice but to fight against the enemy where he is, and that is in the heart of a populated area. ”

Despite Halevy’s warnings against Hezbollah violence in the north, the majority of violent incidents have actually been taking place on the initiative of the Lebanese army, which has aimed its arms at the IDF. Only last week an unusual incident occurred on the Hasbani River, near Ghajar. A group of eight soldiers, who were on patrol in the area with the company commander, identified five fighters from the Lebanese Army, together with RPG launchers and snipers. In a subsequent investigation, a tracker reported that a commander from the Lebanese force had instructed his fighters to harm IDF soldiers. In response, the IDF advanced the tank force in the area as a cover, sending a strong message to the UNIFIL force in the area that the IDF would respond harshly in case of any fire from the Lebanese army.

In practice, the forces serving in the region must practice restraint: Official policy dictates that the IDF must not open fire first, except for extenuating circumstances. Nevertheless, recent violent events have occurred only with the Lebanese army, and not with Hezbollah.

“When things happen with the Lebanese army, it is preferable to solve them with an M16, and not with F-16s,” a senior official in the area explained.

The Northern Command point out that reconstruction work in Bint Jbeil, the site of a major battle during the 2006 war, was only completed a few months ago. The next confrontation, they point out, will cause even more damage. In the event that the situation would erupt, said Halevy, “the IDF is preparing seriously and professionally for another Lebanon war. The response will need to be sharper, harder, and in some ways very violent. The next war will be with very heavy exchanges of fire on both sides, and so both need to make every effort to stop this happening. In the Goldstone Report, the community and the world tended to get confused and think that this can be done in a nicer way. It cannot be nice. Without the use of great force, we will find it difficult to achieve the aim, and the enemy should also know that. ”

Presbyterian Church in U.S. votes to boycott Israeli settlement goods: Haaretz

Move comes a day after Presbyterian General Assembly narrowly voted down a proposal to divest from three companies that do business with Israel.

By Natasha Mozgovaya | Jul.06, 2012 | 9:30 PM
Presbyterian General Assembly July 5, 2012 (AP)

People listen to a session of the 220th General Assembly (2012) of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on Thursday, July 5, 2012, in Pittsburgh. Photo by AP

On Friday, divestment supporters in the the Presbyterian General Assembly received some good news as the assembly passed a resolution to boycott settlement goods (“Ahava” cosmetics and “Hadiklaim” products), and also voted to accept a recommendation to create an option for individual pension holders not to chose to invest in Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett Packard stock, as “choice of conscience” – to be voted on at the next General Assembly in 2014.

Sydney Levy, Jewish Voice for Peace Director of Advocacy congratulated the Presbyterian Church (USA) for its decision: “This vote signifies the mainstreaming of boycott as a way to oppose illegal Israeli settlements, and the Israeli occupation overall. This accomplishment is despite heavy-handed fear-mongering by the Jewish establishment that included threatening the future of interfaith cooperation and raising the specter of anti-semitism. The truth is, growing numbers of Jewish groups and individual Jews of conscience support some form of boycott and/or divestment as a strategic tactic to pressure Israel to end the human rights abuses of the 45-year-old occupation of Palestinian people and land.”

On Thursday. the Presbyterian General Assembly. the largest Presbyterian group in the United States, voted narrowly to defeat a proposal to divest from three companies that do business with Israel. After an hours-long debate that took place late Thursday, the assembly voted 333-331, with two abstentions, to reject the divestment plan.

July 4, 2012

EDITOR: Who poisoned Arafat?

Now that Al Jazeera has proven the likelihood of Arafat’s poisoning by Plutonium, it remains to find out who poisoned him. Well, like is any detective novel, one needs to first find out who would be benefiting from his death, and who would be in a position to carry out this poisoning. As Plutonium is only available to nations with a nuclear reactor that cuts down the number of suspects… No prizes are offered for the right answer.

Arafat’s widow calls to exhume his body: AlJazeera English
 
A nine-month investigation suggests that the late Palestinian leader may have been poisoned with polonium.
04 Jul 2012
It was a scene that riveted the world for weeks: The ailing Yasser Arafat, first besieged by Israeli tanks in his Ramallah compound, then shuttled to Paris, where he spent his final days undergoing a barrage of medical tests in a French military hospital.Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV.A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.More importantly, tests reveal that Arafat’s final personal belongings – his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh – contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element. Those personal effects, which were analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, were variously stained with Arafat’s blood, sweat, saliva and urine. The tests carried out on those samples suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.“I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids,” said Dr. Francois Bochud, the director of the institute.

The findings have led Suha Arafat, his widow, to ask the Palestinian Authority to exhume her late husband’s body from its grave in Ramallah. If tests show that Arafat’s bones contain high levels of polonium, it would be more conclusive proof that he was poisoned, doctors say.

“I know the Palestinian Authority has been trying to discover what Yasser died from,” Suha Arafat said in an interview. “And now we are helping them. We have very substantial, very important results.”

In part two of our documentary, Suha Arafat calls for her late husband’s body to be exhumed

Unsupported polonium

The institute studied Arafat’s personal effects, which his widow provided to Al Jazeera, the first time they had been examined by a laboratory. Doctors did not find any traces of common heavy metals or conventional poisons, so they turned their attention to more obscure elements, including polonium.

About the institute

The study of Arafat’s medical file and belongings was carried out at the University Hospital Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The university’s Centre of Legal Medicine is considered one of the best forensic pathology labs in the world.

It has studied evidence for the United Nations in East Timor and the International Criminal Court in the former Yugoslavia, and it investigated the death of Princess Diana, among other well-known personalities.

It is a highly radioactive element used, among other things, to power spacecraft. Marie Curie discovered it in 1898, and her daughter Irene was among the first people it killed: She died of leukemia several years after an accidental polonium exposure in her laboratory.

At least two people connected with Israel’s nuclear program also reportedly died after exposure to the element, according to the limited literature on the subject.

But polonium’s most famous victim was Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian spy-turned-dissident who died in London in 2006 after a lingering illness. A British inquiry found that he was poisoned with polonium slipped into his tea at a sushi restaurant.

There is little scientific consensus about the symptoms of polonium poisoning, mostly because there are so few recorded cases. Litvinenko suffered severe diarrhea, weight loss, and vomiting, all of which were symptoms Arafat exhibited in the days and weeks after he initially fell ill.

Animal studies have found similar symptoms, which lingered for weeks – depending on the dosage – until the subject died. “The primary radiation target… is the gastrointestinal tract,” said an American study conducted in 1991, “activating the ‘vomiting centre’ in the brainstem.”

Scientists in Lausanne found elevated levels of the element on Arafat’s belongings – in some cases, they were ten times higher than those on control subjects, random samples which were tested for comparison.

The lab’s results were reported in millibecquerels (mBq), a scientific unit used to measure radioactivity.

Polonium is present in the atmosphere, but the natural levels that accumulate on surfaces barely register, and the element disappears quickly. Polonium-210, the isotope found on Arafat’s belongings, has a half-life of 138 days, meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months. “Even in case of a poisoning similar to the Litvinenko case, only traces of the order of a few [millibecquerels] were expected to be found in [the] year 2012,” the institute noted in its report to Al Jazeera.

But Arafat’s personal effects, particularly those with bodily fluids on them, registered much higher levels of the element. His toothbrushes had polonium levels of 54mBq; the urine stain on his underwear, 180mBq. (Another man’s pair of underwear, used as a control, measured just 6.7mBq.)

Further tests, conducted over a three-month period from March until June, concluded that most of that polonium – between 60 and 80 per cent, depending on the sample – was “unsupported,” meaning that it did not come from natural sources.

‘It was a crime’

Doctors in Lausanne, and elsewhere, also ruled out a range of other possible causes for Arafat’s death, based on his original medical file, which Ms. Arafat also provided to Al Jazeera. Their examination ruled out many of the other causes of death that have been rumored over the last eight years.

Read more

Q&A: Suha Arafat

Explainer: What is polonium?

“There was not liver cirrhosis, apparently no traces of cancer, no leukemia,” said Dr. Patrice Mangin, the head of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Lausanne University. “Concerning HIV, AIDS – there was no sign, and the symptomology was not suggesting these things.”

Dr. Tawfik Shaaban, a Tunisian specialist in HIV and one of the doctors who examined Arafat in his Ramallah compound, confirmed that there were no signs of the disease.

Their conclusions, of course, were based on documentation rather than firsthand examination. Doctors in Lausanne had hoped to study the blood and urine samples taken from Arafat while he was at Percy Military Hospital in France. But when she requested access, the hospital told his widow that those samples had been destroyed.

“I was not satisfied with that answer,” Ms. Arafat said. “Usually a very important person, like Yasser, they would keep traces – maybe they don’t want to be involved in it?”

Several of the doctors who treated Arafat said that they were not allowed to discuss his case – even with Ms. Arafat’s permission – because it was considered a “military secret.” And most of his onetime doctors in Cairo and Tunis refused requests for interviews as well.

With those avenues of inquiry closed, Arafat’s body itself would be the last remaining source of conclusive evidence. Exhuming it would require approval from the Palestinian Authority; shipping bone samples outside of the West Bank would require permission from the Israeli government.

Whatever the outcome, Ms. Arafat said she hopes further tests would “remove a lot of doubt” about her husband’s still-mysterious death.

“We got into this very, very painful conclusion, but at least this removes this great burden on me, on my chest,” she said. “At least I’ve done something to explain to the Palestinian people, to the Arab and Muslim generation all over the world, that it was not a natural death, it was a crime.”

A conclusive finding that Arafat was poisoned with polonium would not, of course, explain who killed him. It is a difficult element to produce, though – it requires a nuclear reactor – and the signature of the polonium in Arafat’s bones could provide some insight about its origin.

Report: Arafat was poisoned by radioactive substance: Haaretz

According to a report by Al-Jazeera, Swiss experts found high levels of polonium, a highly radioactive element, in Arafat’s personal belongings.

By Haaretz | Jul.03, 2012 | 9:45 PM |  10

Yasser Arafat

Arafat’s death on November 11, 2004, has generated no small number of conspiracy theories Photo by Reuters

Eight years after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Al-Jazeera network published on Tuesday findings of an investigation which attempts to shed light on the circumstances of his death. According to the report, Swiss experts found high levels of polonium, a highly radioactive element, in his personal belongings.

Arafat’s death on November 11, 2004, had generated no small number of conspiracy theories, including poisoning by Israel and even HIV.

Al-Jazeera’s report cites experts from the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, who examined Arafat’s belonging. “Tests reveal that Arafat’s final personal belongings – his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh – contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element,” Al-Jazeera reported.

The tests that were conducted in Paris immediately after Arafat’s death found no evidence of poisoning. Al-Jazeera’s research indicated that Arafat was in good health until falling suddenly ill in October.

In 2005, Haaretz reported that Israeli experts who analyzed the report drawn up by the medical team that treated Yasser Arafat in Paris say that the most likely possibility is that he was poisoned in a dinner meal on October 12, 2004.

Hebron: Border Police officer kicks Palestinian child, 2012: BTselem

June 2012

A B’Tselem video volunteer documented an Israeli Border Police officer kicking a Palestinian child while another officer held the boy. The incident took place on the 29th of June 2012 near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in Hebron’s H2 area. The child, Abd a-Rahman Burqan, who is nine years old, lives with his family near the parking lot used by Israeli vehicles outside of the Tomb. The video shows a Border Police officer ambushing a child from around the corner. As the child walks past, the officer grabs him by the arm and says: “why are you making trouble?” The officer then drags the child, who is screaming, on the ground for a few seconds. A second Border Police officer then appears and kicks the boy. The officer then lets the child go. He runs away, and the two Border Police officers leave the scene as well. The incident was filmed by a volunteer in B’Tselem’s camera distribution project, from inside his home. The volunteer told B’Tselem that he began to film when he noticed the officer hiding behind the wall. B’Tselem will refer the case to the Justice Ministry’s Department for the Investigation of Police.

July 2, 2012

EDITOR: Israel tries to save its subcontractor in Palestine…

As the PNA is running huge debts, in its corrupt and inefficient operation, so crucial for the continuation of the Israeli occupation, Israel rallies to help the dog it has done so much to subdue… Ironically, the PNA has no right to demand help on its own.

Israel sought to borrow $100 million from IMF to prevent collapse of Palestinian Authority: Haaretz

Request was turned down because Palestinian Authority is not a state, and cannot ask the IMF for help on its own.

By Barak Ravid | Jul.02, 2012
Yuval Steinitz Benjamin Netanyahu Stanley Fischer Haim Shani - Tomer Appelbaum - 23022012

From left: Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, PM Benjamin Netanyahu, BoI governor Stanley Fischer and c’tee chairman Haim Shani. Photo by Tomer Appelbaum

By Avi Issacharoff | Jul.02,2012 | 12:48 AM |  12

Israel recently asked the International Monetary Fund for a bridge loan of a $100 million dollars that it planned to transfer to the Palestinian Authority to help prevent its financial collapse, but the IMF turned down the request.

The PA, which is not a state, cannot ask the IMF for help on its own. The plan therefore, was for Israel to take the loan on the Palestinians’ behalf, have the PA repay the loan to Israel, and Israel would repay the IMF.

The IMF rejected the Israeli request, however, saying it did not want to set a precedent of a state taking a loan on behalf of a non-state entity.

Israel’s approach to the IMF began to take shape during the IMF’s annual conference in Washington in mid-April. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met during the conference with Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and the two discussed the PA’s serious financial crisis.

According to a senior Israeli official, Fayyad explained to Fischer that the euro crisis in Europe and the financial crisis in the United States made it impossible for Western nations to increase their financial assistance to the PA. At the same time, Arab states were not transferring funds that they had promised, and Palestinian banks were refusing to extend any more credit to the government due to its inability to make debt payments.

This economic squeeze was giving the PA a serious cash-flow problem that was making it hard to pay salaries to government workers, particularly to security personnel. Salaries are being paid late, and many only get half their salaries when they are paid.

Fayyad told Fischer that the PA needed $100 million to make its payments for the coming year and asked him to help the Palestinians get a bridge loan from the IMF. Since the PA is not a state and not a member of the IMF, it cannot qualify for a loan, even if its circumstances might merit it.

Fischer discussed the matter with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and got a green light to proceed.

“Netanyahu is interested in preventing a situation whereby the PA collapses financially, which is liable to have a very negative impact on the West Bank security situation,” a senior Israeli official said.

Fischer approached IMF officials and suggested that Israel would take the loan from the IMF and would in turn loan the money to the Palestinians. The PA would pay Israel back, and Israel would forward the money to the IMF.

The IMF considered the request, but in the end, refused it, saying that the proposal was against its regulations and was liable to set a problematic precedent.

Despite the refusal, Fischer and Fayyad are trying to find an alternate solution.

Fischer and Fayyad know each other well from the period when the two of them worked at the IMF from the end of the 1990s until 2001. During those years Fayyad was the IMF representative to the PA and Fischer was the fund’s deputy director. Both ended their terms at the IMF at about the same time; Fayyad was named finance minister in the PA government and Fischer went to the private sector, becoming Bank of Israel governor in 2005.

In 2011, when Fischer was contending for the post of IMF director after the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was caught up in a sex scandal, Fayyad publicly supported Fischer.

Former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir dies aged 96: Guardian

Shamir, who earned reputation as uncompromising opponent of Palestinian statehood, has died after long illness

Yitzhak Shamir

Yitzhak Shamir, the former Israeli PM, who has died aged 96. In 2001 he was awarded his nation’s highest honour, the Israel prize. Photograph: Michel Lipchitz/AP

Former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, who earned a reputation as an uncompromising opponent of Palestinian statehood, has died aged 96.

The former soldier, spy and statesman died at a nursing home in Herzliya after a long illness. In a statement announcing his death, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu paid tribute to his “deep loyalty to Israel“.

He said: “He was a paragon of loyalty to the land of Israel and the eternal values of the Jewish people.

“Yitzhak Shamir belongs to a generation of giants, who founded the state of Israel and fought for the freedom of the Jewish people in its land. He led Israel with deep loyalty to both the people and the land.”

As head of the right-wing Likud party, Shamir was prime minister between 1983-84 and 1986-1992. He was known for his firm opposition to the idea of trading occupied land for peace with the Palestinians.

Born in Poland in 1915, Shamir moved to Palestine in 1935. His mother and sisters were killed in the Holocaust.

He joined Lehi, a Jewish movement opposed to British mandatory authorities, and took over leadership after its founder was killed. Shamir was captured twice by British authorities but escaped from two detention camps and returned to resistance action.

After Israel was founded in 1948, Shamir joined the intelligence service Mossad before launching a political career. During his second term as prime minister, he ordered a military solution to the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in 1986.

He embraced the creation of a Greater Israel, encompassing all of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river.

Despite his ideology, he reluctantly took Israel into negotiations with its Arab neighbours, which paved the way for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process under his successors.

Following his defeat in the 1992 elections, Shamir retired from politics. In 2001, he was given his nation’s highest civilian honour, the Israel Prize.

EDITOR: You have to laugh… even if it is bitter laugh

It is funny, isn’t it? The Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv has been a UNESCO World Heritage site for years… this is a stretch of some houses built since 1916, in which some banks have their headquarters and rich people of Tel Aviv are languishing in Bauhaus buildings, so it obviously IS a world heritage! The birthplace of Christ so obviously isn’t! And this something that the two world powers, Israel and its junior partner, the USA, are against… Israel (and the USA) never knew what shame was, but now it also lost connection to the real world!

Palestinians win endangered world heritage status for Bethlehem church: Guardian

US ambassador condemns Unesco decision to grant protection for Church of the Nativity on site seen as Jesus’s birthplace

A Christian worshipper prays in the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Photograph: Mohamad Torokman/REUTERS

Unesco has granted endangered world heritage status and funding for repairs to the site seen as Jesus’s birthplace in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, despite objections from the US and Israel.

Israeli officials have questioned the need for Bethlehem to be registered as an endangered site and see Palestinian moves at Unesco and other UN bodies as an effort to embarrass Israel on the world stage.

Thirteen out of 21 members of the world heritage committee voted in favour of the move at a meeting in St Petersburg. The decision was met by a standing ovation. Six members voted against and two abstained.

The fourth-century Church of the Nativity, built over a grotto where Christian tradition says Jesus was born, needs repairs but the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is short of funds.

The Palestinian Authority’s request included part of the Pilgrimage Route, the path which tradition says Joseph and Mary took into the city in their trek from Nazareth 2,000 years ago.

Palestinians had pointed to what they describe as the dangers of Israeli occupation and cited in particular Israel’s 2002 siege of the Church of the Nativity, where militants took sanctuary during a Palestinian uprising. Violence has subsided in recent years and more than two million people now visit the church annually.

Independent experts sent by Unesco to examine the church recommended turning down the request, saying that while the church roof needed patching up the shrine could not be considered “to have been severely damaged or to be under imminent threat”.

Friday’s meeting in St Petersburg was attended by the Palestinian foreign minister. The Palestinian Authority has viewed its entry into Unesco as a strategic milestone before the broader international recognition it seeks for a future state.

“This gives hope and confidence to our people on the inevitable victory of our just cause,” said the prime minister, Salam Fayyad, in a statement following the decision.

“It increases their determination to continue efforts at deepening readiness for the establishment of an independent state of Palestine, with its capital in East Jerusalem within the 1967 borders,” Fayyad said.

“This is an irresponsible decision,” said Gideon Koren, Israel’s vice-president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites. The US ambassador to Unesco, David Killion, said he was “profoundly disappointed by the decision”.

The Palestinian government plans to register about 20 more sites with Unesco, including the ancient city of Jericho and the archaeological site of Sebastia, and has dismissed Israel’s accusations.

“Our goal is to preserve and safeguard these sites in spite of the threat from Israeli occupation,” Hanan Ashrawi, head of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s department of culture and information, said.

Last year, Unesco granted the Palestinians full membership, a decision seen at the time as a boost to their bid, since largely stalled, to win unilateral statehood recognition from the United Nations in the absence of peace talks with Israel.

Israel and the US, which subsequently cut off its $80m (£50m) annual funding of Unesco, condemned the decision, saying peace negotiations – which collapsed in 2010 – were the only path to a Palestinian state. (Writing by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Louise Ireland)