Author: Haim Bresheeth

EDITOR: The struggle against a Palestinian State continues unabated

Despite the total failure of Abbas and his attempts at the UN, Israel and the Israeli Lobby in the US are just as aggressive as they were in September, doing all they could to discredit the Palestinian claims. It is interesting that the Israelis, having taken Palestine over militarily, having made most of them refugees which are denied return, and having oppressed millions of Palestinians for many decades, are now speaking of the idea of two states, which is what they supposedly support, as some disaster which needs to be avoided at all costs. After all, they have spent the last seven decades making sure it doesn’t happen… only some fools in the White House still believe, or pretend to believe, that this is a viable idea!

To hear American Jews speaking of the Palestinians ‘need to prove they are ready for a state” is enough to give one a heart attack, or make some feeble-minded people anti-Semitic. To read Barak, responsible for so many dead Palestinians, including some he murdered with his own hands, telling Palestinians that they have again failed his test, is even worse!

Barak: Israel won’t accept Palestinian state that perpetuates Mideast conflict: Haaretz

At Union for Reform Judaism conference near Washington, Defense Minister says supports formation of viable, democratic Palestinian state through direct peace talks with Israel.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
Israel won’t accept a Palestinian state that is created through unilateral diplomatic moves and which seeks to perpetuate the ongoing Mideast conflict, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Thursday.

Speaking at the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial conference near Washington DC, Barak, who is due to meet U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday, indicated that while he supported the creation of a viable and democratic Palestinian state.

However, he said, Israel would not “agree to the creation of a Palestinian State, if the raison d’être of that Palestinian State is to continue the conflict, and to deny our basic national rights.”

“I believe that an agreement – based on [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s] Bar Ilan and Knesset speeches, President Obama’s two speeches from May of this year and the Clinton parameters – can still be achieved – and thus, saving us the alternatives which are much much worse,” the defense minister said, reiterating that Israel would “not accept unilateralism.”

In reference to the final borders of the Palestinian state, Barak said that “Israel’s own final borders which require major painful concessions will include the large settlement blocs creating a solid Jewish majority within that line and an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state on the other.”

The defense minister also spoke of a recent wave of contentious legislation in the Israeli parliament, saying that while he understood the concern shared by U.S. Jews, he “will stand rock solid against any attempt to curb freedoms or undermine our democracy.”

“I will not allow politicized, targeted legislation to undermine the value of the supremacy of the law. The only Jewish democratic state in the world must remain exactly that: a Jewish and democratic state!” Barak said.

The defense minister went on to address the so-called Arab Spring and its possible effect on Israel, saying “Israel is in close proximity to what has been described as a historic political earthquake”, adding that on “the hazy horizons lurks an unstable, unpredictable global economy.”

“Across the Middle East – in under a year – regimes have fallen and dictators continue to be disposed of. Are we looking at the beginning of a democratic Middle East? Or will the Arab spring turn into a stormy Islamist winter?” he asked.

Barak also referred to the possible effects turmoil in Egypt may have on its peace treaty with Israel, saying: “Whatever the outcome, respecting and maintaining the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel is a strategic necessity; good for Egypt, good for Israel, and good for the entire region.”

In his opening comments, the defense minister, shying away from such hot-button defense issues like Iran, complimented the American reform Jewish community, saying: “Your presence and voice is essential to our decision making. It gives us all one more perspective, and one more view to think about. We welcome the debate and value your input.”

“The intense love between Am Yisrael [the Jewish people] and Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] has not subsided”, he declared.

“The State of Israel will continue to invest in that love and understanding. I look forward to many more years of also sitting down and listening to you, continuing the important dialogue between the people of Israel and the reform Jews of America,” he said, adding that it was “an honor and a privilege to be surrounded by the loud and proud family of the Reform Movement of America.”

Also addressing the conference on Thursday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said that the Palestinians needed to prove they deserve an independent state before on is recognized, criticizing what he said was a Palestinian culture of “resentment.”

U.S. Jewish lawmaker: Palestinians have to prove they deserve a state: Haaretz

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor criticizes Palestinian ‘culture of hate,’ says ‘so-called’ Arab Spring poses risk to Israel’s peace treaties.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
The Palestinians need to prove they deserve an independent state before on is recognized, a leading U.S. lawmaker said on Thursday, criticizing what he said was a Palestinian culture of “resentment.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor made the comments during the Reform movement’s biennial conference at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland south of Washington DC, which was participated by 6,000 U.S. Jews, including rabbis, Reform movement officials, lay leaders, and students.

Addressing the week-long conference on Thursday, the Republican leader discussed what he called the Palestinian “culture of resentment and hatred,” adding: “As we say in Hebrew, Am Israel Chai, and what people of Israel want is to live in peace. If Palestinians want to live in a state of their own they must demonstrate they are worthy of state.”

Cantor also addressed the “so-called Arab Spring,” saying the popular unrest movement brought disappointment and Islamism and that, “to put it mildly, presents challenges for interests to the U.S. and raises questions whether they’ll preserve peace treaty with Israel.”

The prominent lawmaker also took an apparent jab at the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, who raised controversy by linking the raise of anti-Semitism to the unsolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “Any justification of any form of anti-Semitism must not be tolerated or condoned,” Cantor added.

Another speaker addressing the conference was Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky, urged participants to commit themselves to programs related to Israel.

“It is you, American Jews, who discovered the way to strengthen the Jewish identity – by visiting Israel,” he said, adding: “It’s very important to strengthen institutions of Reformed movement in Israel.”

Union for A stall at the Union Reform Judaism Biennial Conference, Dec. 15, 2011 Natasha Mozgovaya
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However, the Jewish Agency chief made it clear he expected U.S. Jews to support such programs, saying: “You think I am criticizing Israel government? I am criticizing you!” adding: “It’s up to you to support these institutions.”

Sharansky also addressed concerns among U.S. Jews regarding a recent series of controversial Knesset bills, assuring conference participants that “there is no chance there will be passed legislation undermining legitimacy of your movement.”

“There is legislation you don’t like and most of them I don’t like,” he said, “but to say there is no democracy in Israel? Does it mean lawmakers can’t propose bills I don’t like? But which of the legislation that made you mad passed? Some was stalled, some blocked by the Prime Minister or stuck at the Supreme Court. That’s real democracy,” he added.

Concluding his remarks, Sharansky reiterated the Israeli demand for an immediate release of Jonathan Pollard, saying he was “aware that this is a complicated matter for the American Jewish community.”

“But today when there is a growing consensus in favor of Pollard’s release amongst former Pentagon and CIA officials, legal authorities, the Israeli government, and American Jewish leaders, the time has come to vigorously and loudly demand his freedom,” Sharansky added.

“Twenty six years is more than enough. Your great leader, Rabbi Alexander Schindler visited Pollard regularly and called on the President to release him. He said Pollard had indeed committed a crime, but his punishment was excessive and the time had come for his relapse. If this was true 12 years ago, how much more so is it true today?” he asked.

Reform movement shows political diversity

With 5 days of speeches, training, study, prayer, music and schmoozing, the various areas of the building housing the Reform movement’s conference this week mirrored the diversity of discourse among American reform Jews.

There were more traditional panel’s, like Thursday’s session with the Weekly Standard’s conservative editor Bill Kristol and RAC, Director Rabbi David Saperstein (“Kristol agreed after all President Obama’s record on Israel is not all bad”, Rabbi Saperstein noted ironically after the debate),

Other sessions, however, bore a slight resemblance to the “occupy” movement camps, with young people sitting on the floor in the hallways, vigorously discussing social, political and communal issues.

In yet another hall, participants wandered between the long rows of booths filled with Judaica and prayer shawls (especially colorful for women, with matching yarmoulkes), babies’ bibs with “Future lawyer” or “little mensch” on it; representatives promoting “Birthright”, Jewish college “Alpha Epsilon Pi” fraternity to trips to visit the Jewish community in Cuba; web sites meant “to help your community grow” and even pianos.

Irvin Ungar, publisher and antiquarian book seller, brought to the conference his 8,800 dollars book – splendid Haggadah by Arthur Szyk. It’s not the first Jewish event this year where he tries to find buyers for a costly project, but he says it’s his personal mission, “to make Szyk, who was the leading anti-Nazi voice after he came to the U.S. in 1940, and was forgotten after his death, famous again.”

Movie director Nathan Lang came from San Antonio for a different reason – to convince community leaders to attend a screening his new documentary, “God in the Box”.

Lang and his crew went across the country with a big black booth that people were invited in to talk about what God means to them. Later, theologians, pastors, rabbis, historians were asked to explain why people see today the God as they see him (Why not her? Why should the young black woman see the God as an old white man, as one of the participants complained).

Lang, himself a member of a Reform congregations, says the making of the movie made brought him closer to tradition again – but, as many Reform Jews, he explains it’s a very different connection to it than following a strict set of rules.

“I am not a particularly religious person – and it’s great I am allowed to feel comfortable with my spirituality without being required it go every week to the synagogue or eat particular food,” Land said.

“But I love being Jewish, it’s part of my heritage”, he said. “This film made me realize that we hear a lot in the news about religious extremes – while the majority are just common people, spiritual people, who don’t make news because they don’t protest in front of the abortion clinic.”

And no, he hasn’t been to Israel yet, but would love to go.

Another biennial participant, Jessie Weiser (26) from Boston, may serve as a foil to the claim that Reform movement is just a step from a total assimilation. Her parents are reform Jews, and now, when they still live in Phoenix, Arizona, while she lives in Boston, Massachusetts, but she is as deeply involved as they are – and they love to share news about the new community projects and initiatives.

For her, as one might guess, the first priority isn’t Israel, but finding some creative ways to engage youth like herself. And no, she doesn’t feel the Reform movement is “Judaism lite”.

“You might not be demanded to do certain things, but you are committed on a very deep level, and there is real richness to your Judaism experience – when you combine the social justice and tradition, there is something truly magnetic and vibrant”, she said.

Rabbi David Saperstein said this Biennial was marked by a leadership transition – Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who led the Union for Reform Judaism since 1996, is succeeded by Rabbi Rick Jacobs (who got from Rabbi Yoffie one short advice – to “change everything”).

“This is a major transition in the life of the movement,” Rabbi Saperstein told “Haaretz.”

“We are welcoming a new leader, a new visionary. Three previous leaders had a major impact on the development of the movement. Rabbi Eisendrath puts an emphasis on a social justice, Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler made Israel a much bigger part of the Reform movement’s life and worked on an outreach to bring more people to the meaningful Jewish life,” Saperstein said.

“Rabbi Yoffie stressed youth engagement, the camp system, Israel trip program, got us focused on Torah studies. Now every stream has outreach program to mixed families, many to gay families. Rick is deeply committed to engaging young people, bringing them into a community in a more profound way, not only for one trip,” he added,

This biennial features some prominent speakers – House Majority leader Eric Cantor, Israeli defense Minister Ehud Barak – and Friday, President Barack Obama will address the gathering.

One of the most thought provoking speakers at the conference was Rabbi Richard G. Hirsch, recipient of the Eisendrath Award, who pondered in his remarks on the Jewish identity, relationship between Israel and the Diaspora and the potential role of the Reform movement in the future in both worlds.

“Why does Diaspora Jewry need Israel?” he asked. “If Jewish identity is contracted to a religion only, or limited to a personalized religious expression without a sense of Jewish peoplehood, we run the risk of being reduced to another American religious sect. The Jewish soul cannot flourish without the Jewish body. Without the closest ties to the Jewish land, Jewish culture and the Hebrew language, Jewish identity will disintegrate. Without our presence in force in the State of Israel, Israel would be incomplete, just as without Israel we would be unfulfilled”.

“Why does Israel need the Diaspora?” he continued. “If in America a process of “religionization” is contracting Jewish identity, in Israel a process of “nationalization” is contracting Jewish identity,” Hirsch added.

“Yes, there is assimilation in Israel. Assimilation in Israel leads to what has been defined as post-Zionism—the desire of many for Israel to be a normal state like all other states. The post-Zionists tend to be indifferent to the weakening ties to world Jewry and the Jewish heritage,” rabbi Hirsch said, adding: “Reform Judaism potentially has a key role to play in this process.”

“Of all groups in Jewish life, we are capable of having our feet planted firmly in both worlds—Israel and the Diaspora, peoplehood and modernity. Israel desperately needs a strong viable movement of liberal Judaism in order to counter the benighted trend toward extremism among the ultra-Orthodox and the trend toward right-wing radical religious and political positions among the so-called Zionist Orthodox. Even though the majority of Israeli Jews define themselves as secular, in reality most of them observe Jewish life-cycle events and holidays such as the Passover seder. For those in search of meaning and purpose in an enlightened framework, Progressive Judaism represents not a rejection but a reinvigoration of Judaism. That is why our movement is expanding significantly and why we are destined to become an increasingly vital factor in Israeli society,” he said.

Rabbi Hirsch compared Israel to Broadway and the Diaspora- to Off-Broadway and called for a deeper involvement of the movement in Israel.

“Can we continue to consider ourselves as an authentic world movement if we thrive only in a non-Jewish environment and not in a Jewish environment? In order for our American movement to have the proper commitment and identity as Jews, it needs to help nurture the Israel and World movements. Is Israel an exemplary society? NO! But neither is American society. Does the Israel reality seem far distant from the dream? To be sure. But would the Jewish people be better off today if there were no Jewish state, if we lived only with the dream of the biblical prophets?”

Palestinian envoy’s wife ‘forced back to Jerusalem during cancer treatment’: Guardian

London ambassador says Israeli refusal to renew wife’s residency papers led to trip that hastened her death
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
Samira Hassassian, who died this year of cancer. Photograph: Guardian
Israeli authorities made the wife of the Palestinian ambassador in London interrupt a course of chemotherapy in order to return to Jerusalem or risk losing her residency rights, a trip that hastened her death from cancer, her family claim.

Samira Hassassian was infected by a virus on her plane journey back to London in May and died three months later, aged 57. Her husband, Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian envoy to the UK since 2005, said the Israeli government had extended her Jerusalem identity papers in 2010 for a year after she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in late 2009, but refused to grant a second extension this year, although the disease had by then metastasised to her bones and she was several weeks into intensive chemotherapy.

“They forced her to go back,” Hassassian said. “The doctors had told me she had maybe until the end of the year, so this trip just expedited the process, but it also caused her pain and suffering.”

The Israeli embassy in London denied that Hassassian had been refused a second extension. A spokesperson said an extension was granted by the minister of interior, although by then she was already back in Jerusalem.

“If there is a health issue there is no question that she would have had to travel. There is no such policy. It is the strangest allegation I think I’ve ever heard,” the spokesperson said.

Samira Hassassian’s London oncologist, Professor Paul Ellis, wrote a medical opinion to support her appeal for an extension on March 29, saying: “She is right in the middle of very intensive treatment and it is definitely not a good time for her to travel. There is the potential for significant infection and she is also extremely disabled by fatigue and nausea.”

The embassy spokesman confirmed that a copy of Ellis’s letter was in interior ministry files but said it had been unnecessary as an extension was not in doubt. He also suggested that Manuel Hassassian had insisted his wife return unnecessarily to Jerusalem for political motives.

“What kind of husband sends his wife on such a trip when her health and life are at stake? This really is quite low,” the spokesman said.

Hassassian said the decision to return was taken by his wife, a US-trained chemist, lecturer in business studies and patron of Palestinian cinema. He says she was determined not to lose what she saw as her rights.

“As far as she was concerned, she was not going to die. She saw herself as battling with cancer. But to force her to go back or lose her rights was inhuman,” Hassassian said.

The Israeli embassy claims Samira Hassassian had gone to Jerusalem to seek a second opinion from Hadassah hospital. Her family say she had consulted doctors there so that her condition could be assessed while she was in Jerusalem but that was not the aim of the trip and she would not willingly have broken off a course of chemotherapy to make the journey.

Samira Hassassian’s daughter, Nadine, said the ailing woman had tried for several weeks to persuade the Israeli consulate in London to grant a second extension.

“She sent a letter but got no response. They never got in touch with the doctors. On the phone, they told her it wouldn’t work. She has to go back to Jerusalem,” she said. Manuel Hassassian said that after that, his wife had tried going to the consulate in person, but was not allowed in.

In the face of the Israeli refusal to grant a medical extension, the family said Samira felt she had no choice but return to Jerusalem or lose her East Jerusalem identity papers and the travel documents that those papers entitled her to, and potentially lose the right to return to Jerusalem to live. She flew to Jerusalem in April and returned to London in May, dying on August 19.

Palestinians from East Jerusalem living abroad have to return every two years to renew their residency rights. After seven years overseas those rights are revoked permanently even if the Palestinian involved was born in the city to a family with historical roots there. The rules date back to the 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem, when Palestinian residents were given the status of residents rather than citizenship. They have the option of applying for Israeli citizenship, but many refuse for political reasons, seeing it as recognition of the annexation.

Palestinians and Israeli civil rights groups describe the bureaucracy surrounding residency rights as a weapon in Israel’s efforts to reduce the Palestinian population of the fiercely contested city and undermine future challenges to its sovereignty there.

“This has been the consistent policy of Israeli governments, leftist and rightist alike,” Sarit Michaeli, of human rights organisation B’Tselem, said. “I lived for 11 years in London and in the US but when I moved back as an Israeli Jew I was able to renew all my residency and citizenship rights. Had I been a Palestinian that would have been impossible.”

The Israeli revocation of residency rights has waxed and waned over the years. It reached a peak in 2008 with nearly 4,600 revocations, according to B’Tselem, but last year the number was only 191. It is unclear whether the decline reflects a less rigorous enforcement of the policy or whether fewer Palestinians now meet the criteria.

Civil rights groups say that the physical isolation of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank by a security barrier has also served to reduce its Palestinian population, as have the discriminatory granting of building permits and the demolition of houses without permits.

Hassassian said after his wife’s burial he made a point of returning her Jerusalem identity papers and laissez-passer to the Israeli interior ministry.

“They have their papers back now,” he said. “They know she does not exist any more.”

 

 

EDITOR: The turning of the screw

After years of increasing legal oppression under the Netanyahu regime, during which human rights have been systematically undermined and eradicated, one tends to assume that we may already be at the very trough of this grave offensive, but each week proves we will be driven much deeper, and that new inventions will make last week seem so much nicer. Today we are told about a new measure to be imposed against the Palestinian population – a law to forbid calling for prayer by the use of mosque loudspeakers. Nothing serious, really. “There’s no need to be more liberal than Europe”, says Netanyahu, when asked about the planned measure. What is it in comparison to the already existing measures limiting the freedom and activity of most Palestinians?

In the early 1930s, under the Nazi regime in Germany, Jews were becoming habituated to the daily erosion and removal of their rights, by more and more bizarre legislation. When the laws removed their rights to visit cinemas, theatres and sport facilities, to travel in most trains, study or teach at universities, and later, even the use of park benches, none of those laws and regulations seemingly threatened their life directly. So what, if you cannot sit on park benches, thought some of them, and continued with their daily struggle for survival. Actually, when one is not allowed to use park benches, one’s life may already be over – though one just doesn’t know it yet – as history indeed demonstrated so horribly.

So what, indeed, if one cannot use loudspeakers to call for prayer? Surely life can go on? Actually, those who do not learn from the history of the Holocaust and other genocides, may in this instant live to regret this slight against human rights, may live to experience much worse and deadly depredations, exactly because they have not fought against each of these measures as they came. It is clear to anyone with eyes to see, that Israel is doing all it can to make life for Palestinians totally unbearable, for the sake of getting rid of them – of every last one of them. The methods they use are unfortunately not new or original, as we can see.

Some will be really enraged to read such lines as these. What, comparing Israel to Hitler’s Germany? Surely this is wrong? Is Israel not a democracy?

What is wrong, deeply wrong, is not to correctly identify the dangers to life and existence in any given moment, when it may be possible to act against these threats. If Israel is using methods which have been used before by extremely cruel and inhumane regime, it is because it is a cruel and inhumane regime, for millions of Palestinians, prisoners of its illegal and vindictive policies. What is also very wrong, is when a whole society, one defining itself as a ‘Jewish democracy’ (as if democracy has a religious affiliations…) is facing such measures with equanimity and indifference, week after week, as they intensify and multiply. Most Germans in the 1930s reacted in the same manner to the laws and regulations dehumanising Jews, because they did not believe that Jews were their equals, or should have full human rights. Most Israelis, likewise, do not see Palestinians as their equals, or as people who should have full human or political rights. History has showed to us that once dehumanisation is enshrined in law and social practice, the road to greater and more horrific crimes is open, and the likelihood of such crimes occurring is much increased.

So let us mark this day. Let us remember that not only was this weekend another brutal period in which Israel has again killed defenceless civilians in Gaza, and a prominent Palestinian demonstrator, Mustafa Tamimi, standing up for his right to condemn the continued destruction of his country, but also a day on which that small and supposedly insignificant infraction of freedom was announced – the right to call for Muslim prayer by the use of mosque loudspeakers.

Let us also remind European racists, who also believe in such or worse infractions against Moslems in their own lands, and do not for a moment consider this worthy of note, that if a colonial conquest and subjugation of their country came to a point during which church bells were outlawed, that it is most likely they would also rise against an inhuman and unjustified act of cultural and political brutality.

That Israeli Jewish society has been degraded to the point that it seems to need and justify such extreme measures, is certainly not a sign of its great resilience and democratic tradition, but of the very opposite – of the corrosive and toxic takeover by undemocratic, racist and inhumane tendencies which have brought death and destruction to so many Europeans, and more than anybody else, to millions of Europe’s Jews.

Netanyahu backs law to ban loudspeakers at mosques: Haaretz

‘There’s no need to be more liberal than Europe,’ PM says of move that would ban loudspeakers in calls to prayer.
By Barak Ravid
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday voiced support for a law that would ban mosques from using loudspeaker systems to call people to prayer.

The so-called Muezzin Law, propsed by MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu ) applies to all houses of worship but the practice is prevalent only in mosques.

“There’s no need to be more liberal than Europe,” Netanyahu said in reference to the law during a meeting of his Likud ministers.

After intense pressure from Likud ministers Limor Livnat, Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, who harshly criticized the bill, Netanyahu announced that he was postponing the scheduled debate in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation.

Michaeli has said hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens routinely suffer from the noise caused by the muezzin’s calls to prayer.

“The bill comes from a worldview whereby freedom of religion should not be a factor in undermining quality of life,” she said.

Netanyahu made similar comments to the Likud ministers.

“I have received numerous requests from people who are bothered by the noise from the mosques,” he said. “The same problem exists in all European countries, and they know how to deal with it. It’s legitimate in Belgium; it’s legitimate in France. Why isn’t it legitimate here? We don’t need to be more liberal than Europe.”

Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said there was no need for such a law and that it would only escalate tensions.

“None of the ministers came to Netanyahu’s defense or supported his position,” said one minister who participated in the meeting.

Netanyahu realized he would not be able to muster a majority in support of the law among his Likud ministers, and announced that the bill would be removed from the agenda of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which convened a few hours after the Likud meeting.

Netanyahu added, however, the matter would be debated over the coming days and that the bill would be brought before the ministerial committee next week.

International Society for Justice Research: Working for Social Injustice?: PACBI

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) is deeply disturbed by the decision of the International Society for Justice Research (ISJR) to hold its 14th Biennial Conference at the College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS) in Israel in September 2012. We urge the ISJR to relocate this conference to another country that does not embody injustice through maintaining a regime of occupation, colonialism and apartheid [1], as Israel does. We also appeal to all members of ISJR to refrain from participating in the conference if it is convened in Israel.

As scholars, you are acutely aware that Israel has flouted international law for several decades.  Since the hegemonic world powers are actively complicit in enabling and perpetuating Israel’s colonial and oppressive policies, we believe that the only avenue open to achieving justice and upholding international law is sustained work on the part of Palestinian and international civil society to put pressure on Israel and its complicit institutions to end this oppression.

In 2004, inspired by the triumphant cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, and supported by key Palestinian unions and cultural groups, PACBI issued a call for the academic and cultural boycott of institutions involved in Israel’s occupation and apartheid [2]. We wish, in our letter to you, to stress the importance of this Palestinian call, and underscore the rationale for the global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, of which PACBI is a main member.

The 2004 Palestinian call appealed to the international academic community to, among other things, “refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions” [3]. Following this, in 2005, an overwhelming majority in Palestinian civil society called for an all-encompassing BDS campaign based on the principles of human rights, justice, freedom and equality [4]. The BDS movement adopts a nonviolent, morally consistent strategy to hold Israel accountable to the same human rights and international law standards as other nations. It is asking the international academic community to heed the boycott call, as it did in the struggle against South African apartheid, until “Israel withdraws from all the lands occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem; removes all its colonies in those lands; agrees to United Nations resolutions relevant to the restitution of Palestinian refugees rights; and dismantles its system of apartheid.” [5]

Your decision to hold a conference in Israel will violate the Palestinian call for boycott by specifically contravening clause 1 of the “PACBI Guidelines for the International Academic Boycott of Israel,” in which it calls for a boycott of:

Academic events (such as conferences, symposia, workshops, book and museum exhibits) convened or co-sponsored by Israeli institutions. All academic events, whether held in Israel or abroad, and convened or co-sponsored by Israeli academic institutions or their departments and institutes, deserve to be boycotted on institutional grounds. These boycottable activities include panels and other activities sponsored or organized by Israeli academic bodies or associations at international conferences outside Israel. Importantly, they also include the convening in Israel of meetings of international bodies and associations. [6, emphasis added]

In light of this, convening a conference held at a complicit Israeli institution would constitute a rejection of the appeal from over 170 civil society organizations that comprise thePalestinian BDS movement.

You must be aware of how disingenuous and ironic it is to hold a conference in Israel on social justice while ignoring the demands and voices of people seeking freedom, equality and justice. This is even more pronounced due to the fact that your host institution, COMAS, is not only indirectly complicit in Israel’s violation of international law and human rights, as some Israeli institutions, but is directly so.

The College has a program of “security studies” whose students have, according to the college’s website, a distinct option of involvement in the Israeli security agencies [7]. Furthermore, COMAS has a “Research and Development Institute for Intelligent Robotic Systems,” which, according to its own testimony, “has set itself the goal of creating robot-powered applications particularly for the military and security forces” [8].  By participating in conferences at such an institution, your Society lends its legitimacy to COMAS, allowing it to conduct business as usual and, worse, whitewash the crimes of the Israeli state by making the state appear like a center of learning and bastion of liberalism and academic freedom. This, of course, is in addition to the primary concern that you would be ignoring the call of an overwhelming majority of Palestinians who face oppression and injustice on a daily basis.

The Israeli academy is not only deeply implicated in providing the ideological rationale and “scientific” basis for Israel’s colonial policies, but, as you can see in the case of COMAS, is also a full partner in maintaining the military and security infrastructure of a state that is practicing forms of colonialism, occupation and apartheid.

Israel subjects Palestinians to a cruel system of dispossession and racial discrimination
Perhaps you are not familiar enough with Israel’s practices, widely acknowledged as violations of international law. If this is the case, then we hope you will reconsider your planned event after thinking through some of Israel’s trespasses. Your conference would function as a whitewash of these practices, making it appear as though business with Israel should go on as usual. Concretely, Israel routinely violates Palestinians’ basic human rights in some of the following ways:

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip live under a brutal and unlawful military occupation.  Israel restricts Palestinians’ freedom of movement and of speech; blocks access to lands, health care, and education; imprisons Palestinian leaders and human rights activists without charge or trial; and inflicts, on a daily basis, humiliation and violence at the more than 600 military checkpoints and roadblocks strangling the West Bank.  All the while, Israel continues to build its illegal wall on occupied Palestinian land and to support the ever-expanding network of illegal, Jewish-only settlements that divide the West Bank into Bantustans. The International Court of Justice in its historic 2004 advisory opinion concluded that Israel’s wall and colonies built on occupied Palestinian land are illegal [9].
Palestinian citizens of Israel face a growing system of Apartheid within Israel’s borders, with laws and policies that deny them the rights that their Jewish counterparts enjoy.  These laws and policies affect education, land ownership, housing, employment, marriage, and all other aspects of people’s daily lives.  In many ways this system strikingly resembles Jim Crow and apartheid South Africa.
Since 1948, when Zionist militias and later Israel dispossessed more than 750,000 Palestinian people in order to form an exclusivist Jewish state, Israel has denied Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right to return to their homes and their lands.  Israel also continues to expel Palestinian communities from their lands in Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev).  Today, there are more than 7 million Palestinian refugees still struggling for their right to return to their homes, like all refugees around the world.
In Gaza, Palestinians have been subjected to a criminal and immoral siege since 2006.  As part of this siege, Israel has prevented not only various types of medicines, candles, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee and chocolate, but also books from reaching the 1.5 million Palestinians incarcerated in the world’s largest open-air prison [10].

Could you possibly hold a conference in such a state with a clear conscience?

The Necessary and Important Consideration of Academic Freedom

The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights defines academic freedom to include:

the liberty of individuals to express freely opinions about the institution or system in which they work, to fulfill their functions without discrimination or fear of repression by the state or any other actor, to participate in professional or representative academic bodies, and to enjoy all the internationally recognized human rights applicable to other individuals in the same jurisdiction. The enjoyment of academic freedom carries with it obligations, such as the duty to respect the academic freedom of others, to ensure the fair discussion of contrary views, and to treat all without discrimination on any of the prohibited grounds. [11, emphasis added]

Keeping in mind the validity of this definition, we are keenly aware of the importance of the academic freedom of the individual, but also recognize that such freedoms should not extend automatically to institutions. Judith Butler has called on us to question

the classically liberal conception of academic freedom with a view that grasps the political realities at stake, and see that our struggles for academic freedom must work in concert with the opposition to state violence, ideological surveillance, and the systematic devastation of everyday life. [12]

It is incumbent on academics to develop such a nuanced understanding of academic freedom if we are to call for social justice and work alongside the oppressed in their struggles.

The Israeli academy is not the bastion of dissent and liberalism it is purported to be by those who seek to defend Israel, and, in doing so, attempt to delegitimize the call for academic boycott.  The vast majority of the Israeli academic community is oblivious to the oppression of the Palestinian people–both inside Israel and in the occupied territory–and has never fought to oppose the practices and policies of their state. In fact, they duly serve in the reserve forces of the occupation army and as such are either perpetrators of or silent witnesses to the daily brutality of the occupation.  They also do not hesitate to partner in their academic research with the security-military establishment that is the chief architect and executor of the occupation and other forms of oppression of the Palestinian people. A petition drafted by four Israeli academics merely calling on the Israeli government “to allow [Palestinian] students and lecturers free access to all the campuses in the [occupied] Territories, and to allow lecturers and students who hold foreign passports to teach and study without being threatened with withdrawal of residence visas,” was endorsed by only 407 out of 9,000 Israeli academics – less than 5% of those who were invited to sign it [13].

This is without mentioning academic collusion in the various institutional structures of oppression, such as support of the military (as in the case of COMAS), building universities on dispossessed Palestinian land, or practicing forms of discrimination against Palestinian students. All this and more, make Israeli academia deeply complicit in the practices and sustenance of occupation, colonialism and apartheid.

We, therefore, call upon members of the ISJR to press for the conference venue to be changed.  In the event that this demand is not met, we urge a widespread boycott of this conference.  No self-respecting professional body, and especially not one that professes to speak about social justice, should wish to ally itself with a regime of apartheid!
Sincerely,
PACBI
www.pacbi.org
pacbi@pacbi.org

[1] In its most recent session in Cape Town, South Africa, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine concluded that, “Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid,”
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/sessions/south-africa.
[2] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869
[3] Ibid
[4] http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52
[5] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=86
[6] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1108
[7] www.bdsmovement.net/files/2011/02/EOO23-24-Web.pdf
[8]
http://www.colman.ac.il/English/TeachingResearch/research_institutes/intelligent_robotic_systems/Pages/default.aspx
[9] http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?pr=71&code=mwp&p1=3&p2=4&p3=6&ca
[10] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7545636.stm
[11] UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “The Right to Education (Art.13),” December 8, 1999, http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/ae1a0b126d068e868025683c003c8b3b?Opendocument.
[12] Judith Butler. “Israel/Palestine and the Paradoxes of Academic Freedom.” in: Radical Philosophy. Vol 135. pp. 8-17, January/February 2006. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/articles/israel-palestine-paradoxes-of-academic-freedom/ (Accessed on December 10, 2011)
[13] http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=792

Continue reading December 12, 2011

EDITOR: Ban the truth!

It seems that even in the state department, some people have not lost their marbles under Israeli pressure. To find one is a miracle, to find one who is Jewish is a double miracle! So, now the Israel Lobby is asking for the Ambassador to Belgium’s head. Will Obama relent? Of course, if he does not do what he is told, they might call him an anti-Semite also – quite an electoral disaster if they do!

U.S. won’t dismiss official following anti-Semitism comment: Haaretz

Envoy to Belgium comes under fire after linking Israel’s policies to spread of anti-Semitism in the Mideast; U.S. official: Ambassador was expressing his own views.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
The United States won’t take action against the American envoy to Belgium over his recent and controversial comments on anti-Semitism, a top U.S. official said on Monday.

The statement was made following a demand by some Jewish groups and others that United States President Barak Obama take action against Howard Gutman, after the latter had told a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union that Israel’s political positions serve as an explanation for anti-Semitism amongst Muslims.

“A distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” Gutman, who is Jewish, reportedly told those gathered, going on to argue that “…an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty will significantly diminish Muslim anti-Semitism.”

His remarks drew criticism from several Jewish organizations that called on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to rebuke him. On Sunday, two Republican presidential contenders went further, calling for Gutman’s resignation.

On Monday, however, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner indicated that the Administration stood behind Gutman, saying that “the ambassador was expressing his views on an issue. He subsequently issued a statement expressing regret if his remarks were taken out of context. He then said that he does condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms and in fact pointed to his own family history as a testament to that.”

“This administration has consistently stood up against anti-Semitism and efforts to
delegitimize Israel and will continue to do so,” Toner added.

Toner was referring in his comments to a statement released by Gutman on Sunday, in which he stressed that he condemned anti-Semitism “in all its forms”, adding: “I deeply regret if my comments were taken the wrong way. My own personal history and that of my family is testimony to the salience of this issue and my continued commitment to combating anti-Semitism.”

EDITOR: Newt is let out the asylum…

Read the interview below, and watch it on the link, to discover why Newt is sitting in what looks like either a corridor in an asylum, or the way to the airlock on the Internal Jewish Space Station. He is really of his rocker, but do not forget he is also a leading candidate for the US presidency. They said a black man could not become president, and they were wrong, so maybe a lunatic can also become US president?

In his interview, he seems to have improved on Golda Meir, who when asked about the Palestinian people, have answered: “There are no Palestinians”. This intellectual giant goes even further. This may be a way of resolving many of the world’s problems – denying their existence!

“Crisis? What crisis?

Afghanistan? Where is that?

Iraq? Is that a rack for iPods?”

You see, it is all possible if you just try!

Newt Gingrich: Palestinians are an ‘invented’ people: Haaretz

U.S. Republican presidential candidate differs with official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.
By Natasha Mozgovaya
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich thrust himself into controversy on Friday by declaring that the Palestinians are an “invented” people who want to destroy Israel.

The former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives predictably sided with Israel in its decades-old dispute with the Palestinians but took it a step further in an interview with the Jewish Channel.

The cable station posted online its interview with Gingrich, who has risen to the top of Republican polls with voting to start early next year to pick a nominee to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

Gingrich differed with official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic,” he said.

Gingrich along with other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected.

Gingrich said the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians’ governing body, the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, represent “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”

The U.S. government has sought to encourage the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel but has labeled Hamas as a terrorist group.

Palestinians tell Gingrich to learn history after ‘invented people’ claim: Guardian

Officials in West Bank and Gaza say Republican presidential hopeful is cheaply trying to win the pro-Israel vote in US

Palestinian officials have reacted with dismay after the Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said Palestinians were an “invented” people.

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, said Gingrich was denying “historical truths”.

Gingrich said in an interview with The Jewish Channel that Palestinians were not a race of people because they had never had a state and because they were part of the Ottoman empire before the British mandate and Israel’s creation.

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state, [it was] part of the Ottoman empire,” he said in a video excerpt posted online. “I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places.”

Fayyad demanded Gingrich “review history”. He said: “From the beginning, our people have been determined to stay on their land.”

Fayyad’s comments were carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. “This, certainly, is denying historical truths,” he said.

Gingrich’s statements struck at the heart of Palestinian sensitivities about their national struggle. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician, said Gingrich had “lost touch with reality” and his statements were “a cheap way to win [the] pro-Israel vote”.

A spokesman for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called Gingrich’s statements “shameful and disgraceful”. “These statements … show genuine hostility toward Palestinians,” the spokesman said.

Gingrich calls Palestinians ‘invented’ people: Al Jazeera English

Republican presidential hopeful defends Israel and says Palestinians are Arabs who “had a chance to go many places”.
Last Modified: 10 Dec 2011

”]Republican White House hopeful Newt Gingrich has stirred controversy by calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who could have chosen to live elsewhere.

The former House of Representatives speaker, who is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidential race, made the remarks in an interview with the US Jewish Channel broadcaster released on Friday.

Asked whether he considers himself a Zionist, he answered: “I believe that the Jewish people have the right to a state … Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century,

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab
community.

“And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic.”

Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment in 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.

Israel, founded amid the 1948 Arab-Israel war, took shape along the lines of a 1947 UN plan for ethnic partition of the
then-British ruled territory of Palestine which Arabs rejected.

More than 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their lands by Zionist armed groups in 1948, in an episode Palestinians refer to as the Nakba or “catastrophe”.

‘Irrational hostility’

Gingrich’s comments drew a swift rebuke from a spokesman for the American Task Force on Palestine, Hussein Ibish, who said: “There was no Israel and no such thing as an “Israeli people” before 1948.

“So the idea that Palestinians are ‘an invented people’ while Israelis somehow are not is historically indefensible and inaccurate.

“Such statements seem to merely reflect deep historical ignorance and an irrational hostility towards Palestinian identity and nationalism.”

Sabri Saidam, adviser to the Palestinian president, told Al Jazeera, “This is a manifestation of extreme racism and this is a reflection of where America stands sad, when Palestinians don’t get their rights…this is sad and America should respond with a firm reaction to such comments that, if let go, more of which will come our way,”

“Let me ask Newt Gingrich if he would ever entertain the thought of addressing Indian Americans by saying that they never existed, that they were the invention of a separate nation, would that be tolerated?”

“Let’s also reverse the statement; let’s put ourselves in “the shoe of Jews who are listening now. Would they ever accept such statements being made about them?”

Saidam said, “I think it’s time that America rejects such statements and closes the door to such horrendous and unacceptable statements.”

Gingrich also sharply criticised US President Barack Obama’s approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying that it was “so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit.”

He said Obama’s effort to treat the Palestinians the same as the Israelis is actually “favouring the terrorists”.

“If I’m even-handed between a civilian democracy that obeys the rule of law and a group of terrorists that are firing missiles every day, that’s not even-handed, that’s favouring the terrorists,” he said.

He also said the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, share an “enormous desire to destroy Israel”.

The Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, formally recognises Israel’s right to exist.

President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the UN.

Gingrich, along with other Republican candidates, are seeking to attract Jewish in the US support by vowing to bolster Washington’s ties with Israel if elected.

He declared his world view was “pretty close” to that of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and vowed to take “a much more tougher-minded, and much more honest approach to the Middle East” if elected.

PA officials dismayed by Gingrich comment on ‘invented’ Palestinians: Haaretz

Saeb Erekat says comment by U.S. Republican presidential candidate is ‘despicable’; Hanan Ashrawi says Gingrich’s ‘very racist comments’ show he was ‘incapable of holding public office.’

Palestinian leaders said on Saturday U.S. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich had invited more conflict in the Middle East by calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who want to destroy Israel.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, described his comments in an interview as “despicable”. Hanan Ashrawi, another top official, said Gingrich’s “very racist comments” showed he was “incapable of holding public office.”

What do you think about Gingrich’s comment on ‘invented’ Palestinians? Visit Haaretz.com on Facebook and share your views.

“This is the lowest point of thinking anyone can reach,” Erekat, a close advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters. Such comments served only to “increase the cycle of violence”, he added.

“What is the cause of violence, war in this region? Denial, denying people their religion, their existence, and now he is denying our existence,” said Erekat, for years a leading figure in peace talks aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

In an interview on Friday with the Jewish Channel, Gingrich predictably sided with Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians, who are seeking a state of their own on land occupied by Israel in a 1967 war.

But the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives departed from official U.S. policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel.

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire” until the early 20th century, said Gingrich, who has risen to the top of Republican polls with voting to start early next year to pick a nominee to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.

No “contribution to peace”

“I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs, and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic,” he said.

There are around 11 million Palestinians around the world, Palestinian officials say. They include refugees and their descendants who left or were forced to flee their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel. More than 4 million of them live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The 1948 war erupted after Arab states rejected a UN plan that would have divided British mandate-ruled Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

Gingrich along with other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster U.S. ties with Israel if elected.

He said both the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority, which receives financial backing from the United States, represent “an enormous desire to destroy Israel.”

While Hamas remains committed to armed “resistance” and will not recognize Israel, the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah states that only peaceful means can deliver Palestinian statehood and its security forces cooperate with Israel

Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, said Gingrich’s remarks harked back to days when the Palestinians’ existence as a people was denied by Israelis such as Golda Meir, prime minister from 1969 to 1974.

“It is certainly regressive,” she said. “This is certainly an invitation to further conflict rather than any contribution to peace.”

“This proves that in the hysterical atmosphere of American elections, people lose all touch with reality and make not just irresponsible and dangerous statements, but also very racist comments that betray not just their own ignorance but an unforgivable bias,” she said.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the Gingrich remarks “were grave comments that represented an incitement for ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has long forsworn violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the United Nations.

Gingrich said he would be willing to consider granting clemency to Jonathan Jay Pollard, who has been serving a life prison term since 1987 for passing U.S. secrets to Israel. Successive U.S. presidents have refused Israeli entreaties to free him.

“If we can get to a point where I’m satisfied that there’s no national security threat, and if he’s in fact served within the range of people who’ve had a similar problem, then I’d be inclined to consider clemency,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich sharply criticized the Obama administration’s approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying it is “so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit.”

Israel must refrain from launching Gaza offensive: Haaretz Editorial

Before the Israel’s air force and the tanks rush once more toward Gaza, carrying out an operation whose beginning is known but not its end, it is essential to examine the possibility of establishing a cease-fire in different ways.
The counting of rockets and missiles being fired at the south and close to central Israel has become a permanent ritual, a sort of scale on which the degree of calm is measured. But the suffering and difficulties experienced by the residents in the areas where the missiles strike cannot be quantified.

The mini war in which the IDF kills “senior” figures in Gaza’s terrorist groups and the residents of the south receive a predetermined dose of missiles in response, has become an inseparable part of the routine reality which, we are told, is unavoidable.

If we are to judge by the statements of IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, the solution lies in an extensive military operation that would ensure another period of calm, like the one which followed Operation Cast Lead.

It appears some have forgotten the fact that Cast Lead failed to destroy terrorism, and that the pinpoint assassinations of “senior” figures on the Palestinian side leads to their immediate replacement.

Indeed, the frustration and the suffering in the south reinforce the tendency to act in great force in the Gaza Strip. However, when the government imposes, justifiably, responsibility on Hamas for what happens in the Strip, theres is no reason not to channel that power assignment into an avenue for a solution.

Israel and Hamas already have indirect negotiations, mostly through Egypt, on a number of issues. The Shalit deal is clear proof that it is possible to reach specific agreements with Hamas, but it is not the only one.

In the past Israel has managed to achieve unofficial agreements with the group on cease-fires, and set the terms for their implementation. It is fair to say that Hamas, too, has much interest in maintaining calm. The negotiations on unity with Fatah, the Palestinian aspiration to gain international recognition, and the possibility that the leadership of Hamas will have to find an alternative to Damascus for refuge, may serve as serious motives for reaching a tacit understanding with Israel.

Before the Israel’s air force and the tanks rush once more toward Gaza, carrying out an operation whose beginning is known but not its end, it is essential to examine the possibility of establishing a cease-fire in different ways.

The residents of the south shouldn’t pay the price of a military operation in Gaza.

 

EDITOR: JNF stinks even for Zionists!

Read and enjoy – not only is the JNF acting illegally for many decades, stealing land from the Palestinians, but it also is rotten to the core, as you would expect. This organisation, the heart of the Zionist project, is the dragon’s teeth – it is more pernicious than the army and the police together, and has committed crimes even before the Balfour declaration!

Seeing the forest and the trees: The untold story of the Jewish National Fund: Haaretz

Revelations from JNF minutes: billions of shekels hoarded in its coffers, millions wasted on legal conflicts, trees planted on disputed land. Not to mention the fate of Holocaust victims’ assets.
By Uri Blau
A Jew purchased an apartment in Carmiel, on Jewish National Fund ‏(JNF‏) land. No problem. Twenty years go by and Mohammed who lives in Dir al-Assad … comes to buy an apartment.”

This may sound like the some sort of ethnic joke, but that’s how JNF world chairman, Effie Stenzler, a member of the Labor Party, chose to speak recently before the members of his board.

“The Jews sells him the apartment for a tidy sum,” Stenzler continues. “He goes to the Israel Lands Administration ‏(ILA‏) and says, ‘I’m Mohammed. I want you to register this apartment in the Tabu [Government Lands Registry Office] in my name.’ They say to him, ‘Wait a minute − you’re an Arab, we can’t do that because it’s written that JNF doesn’t sell to Arabs, doesn’t lease to Arabs.’ And then there was the trick that worked until 2004, and according to this trick the ILA, without telling anyone … took land registered in the name of JNF, transferred it to another building and then registered that building in JNF’s name … But then an Arab came to that building and then they had to do it again …”
The tale of “Mohammed and the Apartment” is quoted from the minutes of the JNF board meeting in July. The organization claims that the quote “is part of a description of a very complicated bureaucratic problem created by the ILA in regard to the registration of apartments. After discussions with the attorney general and the court, the solution to the problem was found and JNF has been acting accordingly.”

Thus, JNF transfers to the ILA property on which there are buildings where Arabs have purchased apartments, and receive other land in return. Specifically, the records of that July meeting show that each year, three or four such property exchanges are carried out, and that some 25 have been made since the arrangement was formulated in 2008.
Lately, JNF has been busy dealing with numerous legal and personal disputes.

Founded 110 years ago following a decision by the fifth Zionist Congress, with the aim of acquiring lands for Jews in Palestine, the organization has in recent times been identified more with forests and forestation − to the point where many see it as a “green” organization.

Hundreds of pages of court records, a flood of correspondence between lawyers and arguments involving JNF board members have been devoted in the last two years to deciding who will control this body, which oversees 13 percent of state lands ‏(2.5 million dunams, or 625,000 acres‏) and is not subject to oversight by the state comptroller or the treasury.

Battling over ‘treasure’

Following a delay that was agreed upon last Thursday among all parties involved, the JNF General Assembly ‏(whose composition is identical to that of the Zionist General Council, with 192 members‏) will on January 4, 2012 elect 37 members of the organization’s board, from which the chairman will be selected. After that, perhaps, the legal sagas that have overshadowed JNF’s operations for the past year and a half will come to an end, and it will become clear whether chairman Stenzler ‏(who has served for the past five and a half years‏) will be reelected or if he will be replaced by former Laborite Prof. Shimon Sheetrit, now affiliated with Ehud Barak’s Atzmaut faction.

In an earlier legal round between the two in October, Stenzler earned a victory − on points, at least − when Judge Avraham Yaakov of the Petah Tikva District Court ruled that Sheetrit and other Atzmaut representatives, including Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Shalom Simhon, had to resign from their faction-related positions in the World Zionist Congress ‏(the body above JNF‏) because they had originally been appointed to these positions as representatives of Labor.

For his part, Sheetrit has been concerned that Stenzler’s reelection as JNF chair is assured, and that he, Sheetrit, will not be eligible to run at all.

In any event, to understand what sort of “treasure” this battle has revolved around, it is instructive to return to the July 2010 and February 2011 JNF board meetings, at which David Lazarus, director of the organization’s financial division, spoke of JNF’s general financial situation. In recent years, JNF has had an annual budget of NIS 650 million; half of that is designated to pay salaries, administrative expenses and so on, and the rest is for other activities. The data indicate that even though in 2009 there was a decrease in donations to JNF ‏(NIS 96 million, compared to NIS 112 million the previous year‏), its financial situation was excellent, since its income far exceeds its expenditures.

Thus, for instance, in 2009, JNF had income totaling NIS 1.133 billion, the vast majority from land holdings, compared to NIS 972 million in 2008 − meaning a surplus in the organization’s coffers of hundreds of millions of shekels per year. The total value of JNF lands is estimated at NIS 6.2 billion; the ILA administers more than half of these properties; its subsidiary, Himanuta, administers the rest.

“The income and moderate expenses have created what JNF calls a ‘budget reserve.’ The reserve should amount to something like NIS 2 billion,” said Avraham Duvdevani, then co-chairman and currently chairman of the WZO, said in September 2010. “This is a well-kept secret,” he told the members of the JNF board, “and it must be preserved with maximum secrecy, otherwise the government will covet this money and we have experience with this already from the past.” ‏(The secret leaked out shortly afterward nonetheless, and was reported upon by Shuki Sadeh in a January 2011 report in TheMarker‏).

Board member Moshe Yogev proposed at that meeting that JNF “take [the reserve], before it’s taken from us, to build the fence with Egypt.”

Among the organization’s fears were the ability to fulfill future financial commitments: In 2008, these commitments totaled NIS 1.971 billion, and a year later they had crossed the NIS 2-billion mark. Stenzler sought to reassure the board and promised to guard the coffers.

“The subject of the reserve is something that needs to be closely watched, that’s true,” he said, “but we also must remember that we promised employees their pension rights with what we called a ‘floating charge’ ‏(shi’abud tzaf‏). This ensures both the JNF’s future and the future of the workers’ pensions, because this is insured and secure money.”

Indeed, it appears that JNF has trouble parting with funds that have accumulated in its coffers, even if these are assets that belong to Holocaust victims and their descendants.

‘JNF foot-dragging’

“I am writing to request that you personally intervene immediately and put an end to JNF’s foot-dragging in regard to complying with the directives of the Law on Holocaust Victims’ Assets.”

These words were written by Yaron Jacobs, head of the Company for the Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets ‏(known by the Hebrew name Hashava‏), in January to Stenzler, whose organization holds tens of millions of shekels worth of such assets. Later in the letter, Jacobs’ language was more pointed: Since 2006, he wrote, “Hashava has systematically maintained contact with JNF on various matters with the aim of upholding the law and obtaining the Holocaust victims’ assets currently held by JNF … Unfortunately, despite the pleasant atmosphere at most of the meetings … satisfactory progress was not made in solving these problems and in returning all of the assets to the company.”

Jacobs stressed also that “JNF is holding a lot of funds that belong to victims, in a manner that runs counter to the law’s instructions. This situation is intolerable and requires an immediate solution.”

Unfortunately, he added, “JNF is not in any hurry. The restoration of the assets is occurring very slowly, with various obstacles being placed in the company’s way, in an appropriate manner.”

By contrast, he explained, for the victims’ descendants, time is racing by, as many of them are elderly themselves. Jacobs also explained that assets for which descendants are not found are supposed to be used to help Holocaust survivors, and “if we are unable to obtain the assets in the near future, there will no longer be anyone to help.”
Jacobs was complaining about the failure to transfer NIS 67 million, equivalent to the value of 57 plots of land belonging to victims, which JNF transferred to the ILA in the past. He noted that some in the JNF wanted to transfer the value of the lands according to their worth at the time of purchase − i.e., before the founding of the state − and not according to their present value, which is 10 times higher. He said the company finds itself receiving from the JNF “offers that are low and inexplicable.”

Jacobs also wrote that the JNF had a debt of NIS 12 million to the company, and that “on this subject too all kinds of unworthy ‘compromise’ or bargaining proposals have been made.”

His letter said that JNF had been seeking to charge handling fees for the transferred funds, and to receive from the company and victims’ descendants a commitment not to sue JNF for assets that it would be transferring.

Stenzler reported on the letter at the JNF board meeting in February, according to the minutes. “So far, JNF has transferred NIS 99 million to Hashava,” he said. “In addition, JNF has transferred another 141 plots of land to the company.”

Stenzler noted that Hashava had a new director general at that time, and that the latter had sent a letter “in which he says that JNF still has to transfer funds and so on, in a tone that I didn’t like very much, to put it mildly, because JNF, the members of the board − we were the first ones to say that the funds should be transferred. Moreover, all of the directors general who dealt with him always noted the fact that JNF was ready to go above and beyond the letter of the law with them … Therefore I did not like the style of this letter.”

The fact that only about half of JNF’s annual budget is designated for its activities did not deter board member Nissan Chilik from cynically remarking, “We have to understand [Hashava]: They need the money because they waste four times as much in administration than they actually return.”

However, not everyone present liked this attitude. Board member Reuven Shalom proposed “making a distinction between what we need to give, and their [Hashava’s conduct. We need to give what the Holocaust survivors deserve, and they need to behave properly.”

Chilik: “But they should have used more delicate language.”

Shalom: “We are not a commercial body or something like that. We are a body of the Jewish people … the approach has to be a ‘public’ one.”

Avraham Roth, a founder of Hashava and its chairman until 2008, says JNF was among the first to cooperate with the company, and he describes the transfer of funds and assets on its part since then as “reasonable.” When asked if its conduct went beyond the letter of the law, as Stenzler said, he says: “No, in accordance with it.”

Still, Roth adds, “The fact that things still aren’t settled with the JNF six years after the law was passed is quite unbelievable. It’s inconceivable that the JNF is still holding property of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. The survivors are dying, the heirs are getting to the end of their lives, and they have all the time in the world.”

A source that is knowledgeable about the issue says Jacobs’ letter in January appears to have “done the job,” because in recent months the parties have returned to negotiations and “significant progress toward a solution” has begun.

JNF says in response that, “As soon as the matter [concerning Hashava] reached the desk of the JNF chairman, Effie Stenzler personally got involved in handling it, in full cooperation with the company and with the company director general, Yaron Jacobs. JNF was a leader in this realm, and deserves a medal for the way it acted with the company … when, for example, it transferred close to NIS 100 million in funds and property for survivors and over 100 assets worth a lot of money. This massive process is now nearing its end.”

On transparency

Stenzler declared firmly at the September 2010 meeting: “It is incumbent upon us for the organization to be completely transparent,”

However, it seems that when it comes to internal organizational affairs as well, this transparency is not always total. For example, at the February meeting, board member Yigal Yasinov, who is considered Stenzler’s rival, said: “I do not regularly receive emails … [or regular] mail. I didn’t even receive an invitation to the last board meeting, I didn’t get the agenda for today’s meeting and I know there are other letters that didn’t go out … I want to get all the material from the past four months, because I did not receive it. I did not receive protocols, or any other mail at all. Invitations to ceremonies I do receive … I get only mail which is unimportant, all the junk mail.”

It seems that Stenzler himself is not always keen on media transparency − as regards, for example, one of the more sensitive JNF activities: planting trees on lands in the south, whose ownership is a matter of dispute with the Bedouin population. This mostly concerns land in the area of Al-Arakib, a village north of Be’er Sheva that has been destroyed numerous times in clashes with police and property inspectors, because its inhabitants refuse to be evicted and claim ownership of the land.

In May, after telling the board about the extensive media coverage of the affair abroad and the number of emails he receives as a result, Stenzler added: “I must thank the spokespeople, our media people, our public relations people, who are doing everything to see that this matter doesn’t develop in the local media … In the media in Israel it hasn’t [yet] made any waves, thank goodness.”

About the matter itself, he said: “This is an area that we are taking so that others, neither Jews nor non-Jews, will take it − not Bedouin or anyone else.”

In August last year, according to minutes of a meeting, he explained: “We have learned from our experience in recent years that wherever there is a tree planted it is almost impossible to seize control of the land … Not for nothing did the ILA agree to increase the budget, because it understands that JNF helps to keep property.”

At the same meeting, board member Yitzhak Krichevsky offered another idea for how to deal with the problem: “Go to Sinai and see how Egypt took over the Bedouin,” he suggested. “There is no democracy there. We’re playing in the courts, with democracy. Go to Sinai. You won’t see a single Bedouin around there.”

But there are other voices making themselves heard in JNF as well. At the meeting in May, board member Alon Tal said that the affair is “a very serious public relations failure by the JNF … The pictures of JNF foresters and other pictures that were publicized of tractors demolishing buildings are what stick with people, and the JNF appears to be a partner to a crime. Our representatives abroad didn’t know how to answer these charges and lost the battle over our reputation in Australia, the United States and other places.”

Another member, Or Karsin, spoke in even stronger terms: “I will say what I think, even if it might sound like Don Quixote,” she said, explaining that she didn’t feel right that “people are being put up against trees … Placing trees in a position of war versus an Israeli population, citizens of the State of Israel, is a very serious thing, and it is very difficult to see these pictures and hear these voices.”

JNF said in response that this article has been based on “a collection of partial documents and partial truths that present a distorted and false picture. In regard to Al-Arakib, JNF is acting solely in accordance with the court decisions, and what the chairman meant by his remarks is that it is good that the media in Israel is not influenced by the world campaign that is fed by lies against Israel and against JNF, and that the media in Israel is behaving responsibly, and sees and knows that not a single tree was planted in the area in question.”

Continue reading December 9, 2011

EDITOR: Countdown to war continues

Seumas Milne in the Guardian never misses. His piece today is aimed at the immoral and illegal war against Iran, which has already started covertly, and is about to become a major military campaign by Israel, Us and UK, the unholy alliance of western aggressives.

War on Iran has already begun. Act before it threatens all of us: Guardian

Escalation of the covert US-Israeli campaign against Tehran risks a global storm. Opposition has to get more serious

Iranians carry honorary coffins and pictures of a Revolutionary Guards commander killed in an explosion at the Alghadir missile base. Photograph: Reuters
They don’t give up. After a decade of blood-drenched failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, violent destabilisation of Pakistan and Yemen, the devastation of Lebanon and slaughter in Libya, you might hope the US and its friends had had their fill of invasion and intervention in the Muslim world.

It seems not. For months the evidence has been growing that a US-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France. Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.

The attacks are not directly acknowledged, but accompanied by intelligence-steered nods and winks as the media are fed a stream of hostile tales – the most outlandish so far being an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US – and the western powers ratchet up pressure for yet more sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

The British government’s decision to take the lead in imposing sanctions on all Iranian banks and pressing for an EU boycott of Iranian oil triggered the trashing of its embassy in Tehran by demonstrators last week and subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London.

It’s a taste of how the conflict can quickly escalate, as was the downing of a US spyplane over Iranian territory at the weekend. What one Israeli official has called a “new kind of war” has the potential to become a much more old-fashioned one that would threaten us all.

Last month the Guardian was told by British defence ministry officials that if the US brought forward plans to attack Iran (as they believed it might), it would “seek, and receive, UK military help”, including sea and air support and permission to use the ethnically cleansed British island colony of Diego Garcia.

Whether the officials’ motive was to soften up public opinion for war or warn against it, this was an extraordinary admission: the Britain military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked US attack on Iran – just as it did against Iraq eight years ago.

What was dismissed by the former foreign secretary Jack Straw as “unthinkable”, and for David Cameron became an option not to be taken “off the table”, now turns out to be as good as a done deal if the US decides to launch a war that no one can seriously doubt would have disastrous consequences. But there has been no debate in parliament and no mainstream political challenge to what Straw’s successor, David Miliband, this week called the danger of “sleepwalking into a war with Iran”. That’s all the more shocking because the case against Iran is so spectacularly flimsy.

There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report once again failed to produce a smoking gun, despite the best efforts of its new director general, Yukiya Amano – described in a WikiLeaks cable as “solidly in the US court on every strategic decision”.

As in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, the strongest allegations are based on “secret intelligence” from western governments. But even the US national intelligence director, James Clapper, has accepted that the evidence suggests Iran suspended any weapons programme in 2003 and has not reactivated it.

The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the US – which also has forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region – Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.

Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the US and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens who exactly?

As Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, said recently, if he were an Iranian leader he would “probably” want nuclear weapons. Claims that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel because President Ahmadinejad said the state “must vanish from the page of time” bear no relation to reality. Even if Iran were to achieve a nuclear threshold, as some suspect is its real ambition, it would be in no position to attack a state with upwards of 300 nuclear warheads, backed to the hilt by the world’s most powerful military force.

The real challenge posed by Iran to the US and Israel has been as an independent regional power, allied to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas movements. As US troops withdraw from Iraq, Saudi Arabia fans sectarianism, and Syrian opposition leaders promise a break with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of proxy wars is growing across the region.

A US or Israeli attack on Iran would turn that regional maelstrom into a global firestorm. Iran would certainly retaliate directly and through allies against Israel, the US and US Gulf client states, and block the 20% of global oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Quite apart from death and destruction, the global economic impact would be incalculable.

All reason and common sense militate against such an act of aggression. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, said last week it would be a “catastrophe”. Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, warned that it could “consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret”.

There seems little doubt that the US administration is deeply wary of a direct attack on Iran. But in Israel, Barak has spoken of having less than a year to act; Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has talked about making the “right decision at the right moment”; and the prospects of drawing the US in behind an Israeli attack have been widely debated in the media.

Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilisation than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the US, Israel and Britain who think otherwise. And the threat of miscalculation and the logic of escalation could tip the balance decisively. Unless opposition to an attack on Iran gets serious, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.

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 Iran state television displays ‘downed U.S. surveillance drone’: Haaretz

WATCH: Revolutionary Guard top officer tells Fars news agency that military experts are ‘well aware how precious the technological information of this drone is.’

Iraninan state television displayed what it said was a downed U.S. surveillance drone on Thursday, days after U.S. officials expressed concern that Tehran would be able to glean information about a classified military program.

According to the semi-official Fars news agency, in the televised segment, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Forces Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iranian forces uncovered the aircraft as it was about “to infiltrate our country’s airspace for spying missions.”

“[A]fter it entered the Eastern parts of the country, this aircraft fell into the trap of our armed forces and was downed in Iran with minimum damage,” Hajizadeh told Fars.

According to the Iraninan military official, the drone was “equipped with highly advanced surveillance, data gathering, electronic communication and radar systems,” saying that “this kind of plane has been designed to evade radar systems and from the view point of technology it is amongst the most recent types of advanced aircraft used by the U.S.”

“The technology used in this aircraft had already been used in B2 and F35 planes,” Hajizadeh added, saying the “aircraft is controlled and guided through satellite link and land stations in Afghanistan and the United States.”

“Military experts are well aware how precious the technological information of this drone is,” Fars quoted Hajizadeh as saying.

U.S. envoy: Washington closely coordinating with Israel on Iran: Haaretz

Ambassador Dan Shapiro rebuffs previous claims by U.S. officials that Israel would not alert Washington ahead of a strike on Iran.

U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said Thursday that Washington has been fully cooperating with Israel when it comes to the Iran and its nuclear program.

“There is no issue that we coordinate more closely than on Iran,” Shapiro said during a briefing to reporters in Tel Aviv.

Shapiro’s comments come against the backdrop of uncertainty regarding the U.S.-Israeli coordination on a possible strike on Iran.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that he did not know whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it decided to take military action against Iran.

Shapiro, however, discounted these claims and asserted the close cooperation between Israel and the U.S.

“We believe Iran is pursuing a military nuclear capability and we are determined to stop it,” he added.

He also noted that Quartet envoys are due to arrive in Jerusalem next week and meet Israeli and Palestinian officials.

“We emphasize that the parties need to talk directly,” he urged.

Commenting on the recent elections in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood’s significant gains, Shapiro said that the U.S. expects that the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty will be respected after elections in Egypt as well.

The RQ-170 has been used in Afghanistan for several years. U.S. officials acknowledge that the military lost control of one of the stealthy drones while it was flying a mission over western Afghanistan. The official IRNA news agency has said that Iran’s armed forces shot it down.

On Monday, U.S. military officials said that they were concerned that a stealthy surveillance drone that crashed in Iran could give Tehran the opportunity to glean information about the classified program.

But experts said Monday that even if the Iranians found parts of the unmanned spy plane, they will likely get little from it. And since it probably fell from a high altitude, there may be very few large pieces to examine.

U.S. officials have rejected that claim.

EDITOR: Not good enough…

You have been forgiven for thinking that it is not possible to be more supportive of Israel than President Obama was. Well, you were wrong… read below to enjoy yourself with what Americans call politics. This is the annual festival “who is more extreme in support of mad Israel”, which is celebrated every year around this time, in the US Congress. It isa lot of fun.

U.S. presidential candidates slam Obama’s Israel, Iran policy at Republican Jewish Coalition: Haaretz

GOP presidential hopefuls accuse Obama administration of being soft on Iran and hard on Israel; Gingrich, Bachmann say would move U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Republican presidential candidates took to the stage at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum in Washington on Wednesday, criticizing U.S. President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy, particularly his record on Israel and Iran.

Presidential hopefuls addressed the audience one by one at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington DC, presenting their views on the economy, health care, foreign policy in general and the Middle East in particular, and then answered questions from the audience.

Republican Ron Paul, not known as a supporter of Israel, was not invited.

Since the departure of Herman Cain from the race, most of the attention has been focused on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Romney seemed much more focused and concise in his responses – but Gingrich got much more applause from the audience.

Most of the responses were familiar to the audience from the earlier debates, and the rhetoric almost seemed to be taken from Obama administration officials’ speeches with “unshakeable commitment to Israel.” Indeed, this time, the Jewish audience got a concentrated dose of support for Israel.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who recently lost some points in polls to Newt Gingrich, took time to criticize Obama’s Middle East policies.

“He visited Egypt, Syria – no, not Syria – Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey. He even offered to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yet in three years in office, he hasn’t found the time or interest to visit Israel, our ally, our friend,” to which the audience replied with enthusiastic booing.

“Over the last three years President Obama has instead chastened Israel,” Romney continued.

“In his inaugural address to the United Nations, the president chastised Israel but had almost nothing to say about Hamas launching thousands of rockets into Israel’s skies. He’s publicly proposed that Israel adopt indefensible borders. He’s insulted Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. And he’s been timid and weak in the face of the existential threat that Israel faces from Iran. These actions have emboldened Palestinian hard-liners, and they’re now poised to form a unity government with terrorist Hamas. And they feel they can bypass Israel at the bargaining table,” he said.

“President Obama has immeasurably set back the prospect of peace in the Middle East,” he added.

Romney declared that his future policies “could not be more different. I will travel to Israel on my first foreign trip. I will reaffirm, as a vital national interest, Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. And I want the world to know that the bonds that exist between Israel and the United States are unshakable. I want every country in the region that harbors aggressive designs against Israel to understand that their ambition is futile and that pursuing it will cost them very dearly.”

Referring to Iran, Romney said, “I would not meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He should be excluded from diplomatic society. In fact, he should be indicted for the crime of incitement to genocide under Article III of the genocide convention. And on my watch, Iran’s ayatollahs will not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons. A nuclear-armed Iran is not only a threat to Israel; it’s a threat to the entire world. Our friends must never fear that we will not stand by them in an hour of need, and our enemies should never doubt our resolve.”

Romney went on to say that the U.S., “Should treat the Iranian diplomats, business people, and leaders like the pariah they are as long as they’re pursuing nuclear weaponry.”

He asserted that the U.S. should engage in covert and overt activities to encourage voices of dissent, in Iran, adding that, “Ultimately regime change is what’s going to be necessary.” He also expressed his support for both military action and sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich discussed the recent controversial speech given by the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium on anti-Semitism.

“This is an administration which, frankly, should be firing the ambassador to Belgium, who gave a stunningly anti-Semitic speech,” Gingrich said. “This is an administration which, frankly, should be reprimanding the Secretary of Defense for an insulting performance the other day.”

He also criticized Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s speech at the Saban forum last week, where he called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to “get to the damn table.” Gingrich described the speech as “outrageous.”

“Panetta is a fine domestic politician, but his speech was outrageous. How about saying to Hamas, give up violence and come to the table? How about saying to the PLO, recognize Israel and come to the table? This one-sided continuing pressure that says it’s always Israel’s fault, no matter how bad the other side is, has to stop. The fact that Secretary Clinton would talk about discrimination against women in Israel, and then meet with Saudis? ” he said.

Gingrich also said that “in a Gingrich administration, on the opening day, there will be an executive order about two hours after the inaugural address. We will send the Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as of that day.”

On Iran, Gingrich promised to fund “every dissident group” and to sabotage Iran’s oil supply, to promote the regime change which, he argued, in the long run is the only rational policy.

Texas Governor Rick Perry accused the Obama Administration of a “torrent of hostility” toward Israel. “It seems to be a natural expression of this administration’s attitude toward Israel”, he said. Perry also tried to modify his remarks in one of the previous debates on “zeroing out” foreign aid, including aid to Israel”. “Strategic defensive aid to Israel under a Perry administration will increase,” he said.

Former Pennsylvania
Senator Rick Santorum said, “We have to make it very clear to Iran that the United States – the United States, I didn’t say Israel, because it’s in our security interest – will stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, period. We cannot sit and hope to contain Iran. We need to say very clearly that we will be conducting covert activity to do everything we can to stop their nuclear program.”

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman said that, for him, “All options are on the table. And it means that when Israel strikes up that conversation, as I believe they will, you better be prepared to remember and put in place what that relationship and what that alliance actually means.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann who spoke last concentrated mostly on criticizing Obama, saying he’s been “ambiguous with Iran,” mentioning his weakness and appeasement policies “emboldened Palestinians to seek statehood at the UN,” which she called ‘the most overrated organization in the world.”

She also promised, if elected, to move the Embassy to Jerusalem, and recognize annexation of any settlements Israel would chose to annex.

“President has delegitimized Israel by describing Israel as a 60 year old occupation”, she said. “He abandoned prior U.S. policy that Israel is entitled to defensible borders, the former Administration’s commitments who said no right of return for the Palestinian so-called ‘refugees.’ He calls them to return to the indefensible borders. I guarantee you without any reservation: I will never call for dividable Jerusalem.”

On Iran, Bachmann said “our options are diminishing by the day. The President will stand with Occupy Wall Street – but he won’t stand with Israel. We have to accelerate covert operations and cyber operations in Iran. We must order the CIA director to do every effort necessary to stop the Iranian bomb. The Pentagon must prepare a war plan.”

Republican Jewish coalition CEO Matt Brooks concluded the event saying “you’ve witnessed history today: the next president of the U.S. was on this stage.”.

The Democratic National Council quickly arranged a response call with Robert Wexler, former member of Congress from the Democratic Party and the president of the Washington-based S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East, who called the Republican presidential hopeful attacks on President Obama a “theater of the absurd,”, listing joint military joint exercises, military assistance, and help with the Israeli Embassy in Cairo crisis as examples of cooperation between the current U.S.administration and Israel.

Wexler responded also to what seemed to be the leitmotif of the Republican attacks – weak leadership of President Obama. Mentioning the killing of Osama Bin-Laden, Wexler said this and others are “examples of solid presidential leadership.”

Continue reading December 8, 2011

EDITOR: Dangerous Vacuum Threatens the Middle East

In few weeks we shall be marking three years to the barbarous invasion and destruction of Israel in Gaza, on December 28, 2008. The 22 day attack has caused the death of over 1400 Palestinians, over 440 of them children, and the mass eradication of Gazan infrastructure. Since then, Israel has continued its blockade of Gaza, and life there is at its lowest ebb ever. Despite the removal of Mubarak after the January 25 revolution, the SCAF junta have continued to support the Israeli blockade, though on slightly easier terms. Movement in and out of Gaza is still not possible, and this illegal imposition on the human rights of the almost two million residents makes Gaza the largest open-air prison on earth, as well the one of densest population centres everywhere.Gaza is a massive war crime continuously perpetrated by Israel.

Israel could not have done this without the criminal collaboration of the western governments: US, UK, the EU, Canada and Australia. This group has not only backed Israel in its crimes in Gaza, but made sure that Israel is well provided financially and militarily, as well as diplomatically, and can continue to break international law as it pleases. The illegal apartheid wall, the continued piratical behaviour in the Mediterranean, the covert attacks against the Iranian nuclear installations and personnel, and the preparation for massive bombing in Iran, not to mention the daily iniquities imposed on the Palestinians in their own country, and the continued illegal settlements and land theft on massive scale – all these infractions of international law have been protected by the most powerful bloc in history, against the people of Palestine, as well as the Arab world, part of the west’s unwise and immoral support of the forces of reaction in the region, forces installed by western intrigue and covert as well open action, and serving its interests, mainly those of energy consumption and strategic control.

This is hardly secret or unknown. Every one in the Arab world understands this, as well as everyone in the developing world. For the population in the west, the situation has been normalised for such a long time, by media and politicians friendly to Israel and doing its bidding, that most people do not even notice the iniquity, not to mention illegality of such policies, and consider them to be ‘the order of things’. This situation, however, may well be at an end, and about to change.

Most people in the west have also not questioned Capitalism, the banks, and their governments financial stability until the latest crisis has ended all certainties, has transferred most of the value produced by the many into the hands of the very richest few, and has enslaved the western populations, and those elsewhere, for decades to come. The Great Provider, western Capitalism, is seen to be the tool enslaving huge populations, making tens of millions homeless and jobless, and wiping out the future prospects of billions of human beings. The decline of western Capitalism is also the decline and fall of the west, the demise of its stranglehold over the planet and its resources, the criminally-insane raping of earth, a by-product of centuries of imperialism and colonialism. It may take a long time to replace, a long time to develop a system which is more humane and planet friendly, but this painful process has started. The Arab Spring, a stunning social process of social and political liberation, is part of the series of changes we are now facing, struggling to understand and internalise. The west has not given up on its control, despite (and because of) such changes, and fights to reverse and derail them, with limited success. A complicated world has turned even more complex. Capitalism has lost its grip and its power base in the population.

Within Israel itself, the summer of 2011 has brought about a most interesting development – the so-called ‘tents protest movement’, demanding ‘social justice’, in a timely connection to the Arab Spring as well as to the global anti-capitalist protest movement now growing. Unfortunately, the movement seems to have come to an early and quiet death, as it so carefully avoided the issues of Palestine and justice for the Palestinians, as well as any peaceful resolution of the conflict in Palestine between the Zionist colonial project and the indigenous population. So much for political protest which tries very hard to depoliticise itself… A grand opportunity not seized by the Israeli population of connecting to the people of the Middle East, rather than shooting at them.

This is a dangerous time. Israel and its fascist leaders are sensing the change and are freaking out, preparing for more grabs and bolder infringements, nastier attacks against the people of Palestine, always hoping for the chance to bring about the second Nakba, and the completion of removing the people of Palestine from their country, and making it  Arabrein. The latest spate of anti-democratic, fascist and racist legislation in Israel is part of this change, pointing towards the direction in which Israel is headed. This is a period in which they feel they can get away with more crimes, as the world focuses its gaze on the coming decades of economic gloom. This is the most dangerous period for the Middle East and for Palestine, but also for the people of Israel.

Protesters in Israel and West Bank face increasing restrictions, report finds: Haaretz

Annual assessment released by Association for Civil Rights in Israel cites various means employed to silence participants in social protests, as well as in anti-occupation demonstrations.
By Gili Cohen
In its annual assessment of human rights in Israel and the territories, scheduled for release today, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel points to increasing efforts to restrict freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Among other issues, the State of Human Rights Report 2011 cites various means employed to silence participants in the social protest movement that began in the summer and claims that democratic debate in the country has been increasingly restricted in the face of the protest.

According to the report, some protesters were arrested and released only after promising “not to attend demonstrations in the near future,” while others were summoned to conversations with police officers or Shin Bet security service agents, who warned them about the possible consequences of their behavior. The report’s authors noted that despite regulations requiring police officers to wear a uniform with an identification badge at all times, increasingly officers confronted protesters without wearing badges and sometimes even with their faces concealed (for example, while dispersing a demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah, during the demolition of homes in al-Araqib and also in Lod, while serving eviction notices in Silwan and while evacuating Havat Gilad ). The authors point out that part of the reason for the obligation of police officers to identify themselves is to deter the abuse of authority.

According to ACRI, the Israeli authorities deprive Palestinians living in the territories of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly by declaring all demonstrations, even nonviolent ones, as illegal gatherings. As such they are dispersed by security forces using means such as tear gas, water jets, a sonic device known as “the scream” that emits an intolerably loud, high-pitched sound and “the skunk,” with its payload of foul-smelling liquid, in addition to the use of force.

The report documents several instances of political activists in Israel and the West Bank being summoned by security officials to “warning talks.” They include an Israeli Arab who is active in Tarabut-Hithabrut, An Arab-Jewish Movement for Social & Political Change. He was called in for a police interview but was instead questioned by a Shin Bet agent about his political views and in connection to a demonstration he attended. In another case, an Israeli Arab university student was questioned about his political activities after taking part in a protest against Operation Cast Lead. A third example involved two activists from Anarchists Against the Wall who after their arrest were visited by a female Shin Bet agent who told them the agency was aware of their activities and would step in if they broke the law.

The report was critical of recent bills that have been submitted to the Knesset that the authors characterized as jeopardizing the basic freedoms that are the core of democracy, including the freedom of expression, assembly, thought and opinion. These draft laws include the “boycott law,” which permits sanctions against supporters of an anti-Israel boycott and “discriminates against people holding certain political views and greatly hurts a legal, legitimate and nonviolent means of protest”; the Naqba Law, which makes it possible to deprive organizations that oppose the core principles of the State of Israel of funding and “does great damage to the freedom of political expression, to artistic freedom and to the right to demonstrate,” according to the report.

The report also addresses issues including human rights violations against minors and foreign nationals being held in detention facilities in Israel and the territories, and the silencing of social rights in Israel.

Jewish settlers attack Salem village in Nablus: OCCUPIEDPALESTINE

DECEMBER 3, 2011
NABLUS, (PIC)– Dozens of Jewish settlers under military protection savagely attacked Saturday morning Salem village east of Nablus city and assaulted its Palestinian farmers.
Eyewitnesses said that settlers from Elon Moreh and Gideon settlements opened fire at the village’s famers and attempted to steal herds of cattle from them.
They added that a large group of the village’s young men rushed to the area and bravely fended off the settlers who retreated amid the protection of Israeli soldiers.
Dozens of Palestinian young men are still guarding their village’s borders while the fleeing settlers are standing along a bypass around the village in an attempt to launch another attack.

Egyptian election results ‘disturbing’ says Israel’s defence minister: Guardian

Early successes for Muslim Brotherhood prompt Ehud Barak to voice fears that international treaties will not be respected

Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, has said that initial results from Egypt’s parliamentary elections are “very, very disturbing”.

Few official results have been released from the first round vote, but leaked counts point to a clear majority for Islamist parties led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barak said he hopes Egypt’s first parliament to be seated after the ousting of Hosni Mubarak will respect international treaties, including its shaky 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

Israel’s main fear is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been cool to the peace treaty and has close ties with the ruling Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip. The election is being held in stages and the final outcome won’t be known until next year.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Lior Ben Dor, said Israel is not surprised by the Muslim Brotherhood’s initial election gains and is convinced the Israel-Egypt peace treaty will remain intact.

“We respect the election results in Egypt. This is the Egyptian people’s choice,” Ben Dor said.

In a statement on a Hamas website, top Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said that “the Egyptian people have voiced their confidence in the Islamists … We do believe that Egyptian support in the future will be more for our cause.”

Israeli journalists are censoring themselves: Haaretz

Israeli journalism’s dereliction of duty began long before now, and before we declare war on those outside who would do us harm, we should first look deep within.
By Gideon Levy
Hundreds of Israeli journalists will gather in Eilat today for their annual professional conference. They have little to be proud of. It’s true that threats hangs over this conference, the threat of politicians to injure journalistic freedom, the threat of the economic crisis to harm the media and the threat of technology to eliminate print journalism, but Israeli journalism’s dereliction of duty began long before this frightening twilight hour. And what they face today is entirely their own fault.

Before we declare war on those outside who would do us harm, we should first look deep within.

For many years, until just recently, Israeli journalism enjoyed great liberty. Military censorship contracted significantly; unacceptable institutions like the Editors’ Committee effectively ceased to exist and the pressures placed on journalists were negligible.

In addition, most branches of the media were in good shape economically. It is ironic that Israeli journalism is falling down on the job precisely in such excellent circumstances. Come the day of reckoning it will be found wanting for these years of blindness, complacency and extreme nationalism.

Israeli journalism censors itself to the point of harm. Part of it has become a means of entertainment while inciting our more base passions. Part of it now appeals to emotions, not reason, and deals with trivial rather than important issues, taking part in the campaigns of denial and obfuscation. No one asked this of it, it did so on its own. It often turned propagandist, too. Journalism hasn’t been conscripted. It signed up itself.

The journalistic tom-toms were beating before the most recent wars, calling in unison for another ferocious assault. The media lined up in support of every war, offering no criticism. That came only afterward, when it was too late to repair the damage. Israeli journalists authorized nearly every transgression, and many forgot the difference between public diplomacy and journalism.

The images the world saw of Operation Cast Lead, for example, were not the ones shown to Israelis. Some of the military correspondents liken themselves to spokesmen. Nowhere else in Israeli journalism is criticism of the establishment so lax.

The version of events offered by the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Office is always victorious and often the only version available. Its delegitimization campaigns against such organizations as Breaking the Silence and Anarchists Against the Wall received full cooperation from the media. No Israeli journalists have been allowed into the Gaza Strip for five years, and no one utters a word in protest.

Israeli journalism is the senior partner to the delegitimization campaign against the Palestinians; it is the most important tool for maintaining the occupation. It isn’t an issue of right and left, it is a betrayal of its purpose. It broadcasts false fears, from “all of Gaza is booby-trapped” on the eve of Operation Cast Lead to “Iranian weapons are smuggled through the tunnels” to the lie of calling that one-sided assault a war.

Israeli journalism adopts every military euphemism in the book and collaborates with the distortion of reality. There’s nothing like Israeli journalism when it comes to saving people from moral qualms over what is being done in their name.

Journalists serve unholy goals with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, too: When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas presented his borders proposal to the Quartet last week, it was barely reported. Israeli journalism swallows whole the government’s claim of there being “no partner” for talks, and to hell with the truth.

It called the Mavi Marmara activists “terrorists” and labeled the Gaza-bound aid flotilla a “threat.” Any justified criticism of Israel is immediately branded as anti-Israeli, not to mention anti-Semitic.

Any “friend of Israel” is a friend of wars and the occupation. Israeli journalism practices the religion of the military and sanctifies the ritual of death. The same is true for social issues: It practices the rites of the rich (until recently) and turns away from need.

The list goes on. The media can also claim many accomplishments, such as courageously investigating numerous scandals and fighting steadfastly against corruption and the threats to democracy. But at the end of the day, at the end of the years of darkness, we are at least partly responsible for more than a few of the ills that are now rising against us to silence us.

EDITOR: Iran Bombing kept quiet!

You may be forgiven for not knowing that the Iranian nuclear facility at Isfahan was partly destroyed by a ‘mysterious blast’ late three weeks ago, as this was hardly evident in media reports in the west. The exception is Israel, where it was widely reported with ‘a nod and a wink’ attitude. While the original report was far from openly admitting this was Mossad’s handiwork, the report today in Haaretz comes much closer. Will the further planned bombing also be kept quiet by western media? One wonders.

Report: Mysterious blast in Iran’s Isfahan damaged key nuclear site: Haaretz

London Times quotes Israel intelligence officials as saying that satellite images show this week’s reported blast in Isfahan was ‘no accident.’
By Yossi Melman
A mysterious blast which reportedly rocked Isfahan in western Iran on Monday damaged a key nuclear facility in the city, the Times of London reported on Wednesday.

On Monday, Haaretz sited Iranian media as reporting that an explosion was heard near Isfahan, home to a uranium conversion plant operational since 2004.

According to reports by the semi-official Fars news agency, frightened residents called the fire department after the blast, forcing the city authorities to admit there had been an explosion. Residents reported that their windows shook from the explosion’s force.

At first, Iranian officials denied the reports, with the governor of Isfahan later alleging that the blast was caused by an accident that had occurred during a nearby military drill.

However, a report in the Times on Wednesday alleged that the blast had not been a military accident, and that the city’s nuclear facility was damaged.

The report quotes Israeli intelligence officials who based their conclusion on updated satellite images showing smoke billowing from the direction of the conversion plant.

According to the Israeli sources, there was “no doubt” that the blast had damaged the nuclear facility, and that the explosion was not an “accident.”

“This caused damage to the facilities in Isfahan, particularly to the elements we believe were involved in storage of raw materials,” one source told the Sunday Times.

It must be noted that the Times report was not confirmed by any other source.

The Isfahan plant went into operation in 2004, taking uranium from mines and producing uranium fluoride gas, which then feeds the centrifuges that enrich the uranium.

Since 2004, thousands of kilograms of uranium flouride gas were stockpiled at Isfahan and subsequently sent to the enrichment plant in Natanz.

Commenting on the report of an explosion in Isfahan, U.S. State Department Spokesman Mark Toner said Monday, “We don’t have any information at this time other

than what we’ve seen in the press as well. But certainly we’re looking into it.”

“As you know, we’re somewhat limited in our ability to glean information on the ground there, but we’re certainly looking into it,” Toner added.

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said in a television interview on Tuesday that if Israel attacks Iran, it will be dragged into a regional war.

According to Dagan, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas will respond with massive rocket attacks on Israel. In that scenario, Syria may join in the fray, Dagan said on the television program “Uvda”.

 Is Israel behind a recent string of “mishaps” in Iran? Join the discussion on Haaretz.com Facebook page.

Report on the Sunday Times (only available to paying customers…)

Iran: explosion in Isfahan reported: Guardian

Widely conflicting reports emerge of apparent explosion in the north-east of Isfahan near where nuclear facilities are located
Saeed Kamali Dehghan

Conflicting reports have emerged from Iran over an explosion heard in the central city of Isfahan, close to the country’s sensitive nuclear facilities.

Iran’s semi-official Isna news agency quoted a judiciary official in Isfahan, saying that an explosion had been heard.

“We heard a sound similar to that of an explosion but we have received no reports about its causes and the consequences so far,” said Gholamreza Ansari, in quotes carried by Isna. He said the explosion did not appear to be of any significance.

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency was one of the first media organisations to report the explosion, saying it was heard at 2.40pm local time (1110 GMT). Fars quoted the deputy governor, Mehdi Ismaili, as confirming a sound that the news agency reported was loud enough to be heard across the city. The agency, however, removed the article from its website sometime later.

Ismaili then spoke to another semi-official agency, Mehr, denying his quotes as reported by Fars. “I have heard no sound whatsoever in Isfahan,” he said. Ismaili also told the Irna state news agency that he had not spoken to Fars in the first place.

Several residents of Isfahan told the Guardian that they had heard a loud blast. One said that it rattled the windows of their home.

Isfahan is home to Iran’s uranium conversion facility (UCF), which operates under IAEA surveillance. Iran’s main uranium enrichment facilities are situated in the city of Natanz to the north-east of Isfahan, where many of the country’s centrifuges are installed. In recent years, Iran’s nuclear activities at Natanz have been at the centre of an international dispute.

Earlier this month, a huge explosion at a missile base in the west of Tehran killed more than 30 members of Iran’s revolutionary guards, including Major General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, a senior commander described as the architect of the country’s missile programme.

In recent years, Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes have experienced a series of setbacks in what has been widely seen as a covert war against the Islamic republic.

Images Show Devastation at Iran Base After Blast: NYT

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: November 29, 2011

The large, deadly explosion at an Iran military base in Iran on Nov. 12, which Iranian authorities have called an accident that set back research work there by a few days, appears to have been far more devastating than their description suggested, according to an analysis of newly released commercial satellite images of the blast site.

Speaking of Blast, Iranian Describes Work on Weapons (November 17, 2011)
Blast Kills Commander at Iran Base (November 14, 2011)

The images reveal vast destruction and chaotic disarray across a sprawling complex composed of more than a dozen buildings and large structures.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington, made the satellite images public Monday, along with an analysis of the damage. “It was pretty amazing to see that the entire facility was destroyed,” Paul Brannan, the report’s author, said Tuesday in an interview. “There were only a few buildings left standing.”

It was impossible to determine from the images whether the explosion had been a simple accident or an act of sabotage.

The force of the explosion was so great that it shook windows in many surrounding towns, according to Iranian news sites and witnesses quoted at the time. But no photographs of the blast damage were released by the Iranian government, which has become increasingly sensitive about its military capabilities as tensions escalate with the West over its missile and nuclear programs.

The base, set in an isolated patch of Iranian desert ringed by a security cordon, is about 30 miles west of Tehran and three miles west of the town of Bidganeh.

The explosion is already known to have killed 17 members of the armed forces, including a founder of the country’s missile program, Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, presided over a vast state funeral for General Moghaddam and 16 other members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps two days after the explosion. The showy memorial service underscored General Moghaddam’s importance.

Hassan Firouzabadi, the Iranian military chief of staff, said on Nov. 16 that the blast occurred while researchers were working on weapons capable of delivering Israel a “strong punch in the mouth.” He also said their research would result in only a “short-term delay of a few days.” But it was hard to reconcile his appraisal with the obliteration seen in the satellite image.

The spy-satellite business, once a secretive monopoly of advanced nations, went commercial starting more than a decade ago. Today, a new generation of civilian satellites can peer down from orbit to see objects on the ground as small as two or three feet wide — enough to distinguish between a car and a truck.

Last week, on Nov. 22, a commercial satellite operated by DigitalGlobe snapped an image of the stricken base. It showed that most of its buildings had been destroyed or extensively damaged.

In its analysis, the Institute for Science and International Security noted that some of the destruction may have resulted from subsequent demolition of buildings and the removal of debris that may have occurred. But it also discounted that possibility.

“There do not appear to be many pieces of heavy equipment such as cranes or dump trucks on the site, and a considerable amount of debris is still present,” the report noted. “About the same number of trucks are visible in the image after the blast as in an image from approximately two months prior to the blast. Thus, most of the damage seen in the Nov. 22, 2011, image likely resulted from the explosion.”

In the interview, Mr. Brannan said that the institute’s sources indicated that the blast occurred while rocket engineers were performing a volatile procedure with a missile engine.

His report called the work integral to “a major milestone in the development of a new missile.”

 EDITOR: PA is to be paid by the boss, after some delays…

So after over a month of delaying the VAT repayments to the PA, a delay which is of course illegal – but exactly is still legal in Israel apart from racial hatred and apartheid – the boss has decided to pay the sub-contractor in Ramallah, after said employee of the Israeli regime has pulled out from the UN campaign. Payment for services rendered.

This is the tactic which keeps the PA in check – both weakened and humiliated, unable to pay its workers and for services in the PNA areas. This is a reminder who the boss is, and what happens when you displease the boss…

Israel okays handover of Palestinian tax money to PA: Haaretz

Following cabinet decision, top official tells Haaretz that Israel would consider future fund freezes if Palestinians continue UN statehood bid, form government with Hamas.
By Barak Ravid
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top cabinet ministers approved the handover of $100 million in tax money to the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday, despite the vocal opposition of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The FM’s reason for wanting to hold the tax collection money was the possibility of it being used by a Palestinian unity government that would include Hamas – a terrorist organization in control of the Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, Netanyahu appeared close to a decision, saying at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that he was considering releasing the money and that the cabinet would convene over the coming days to discuss the matter.

Netanyahu said he decided to go back on his decision to freeze the tax money due to the suspension of Palestinian activities at the UN, coupled with the fact that a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation does not appear to be on the horizon.

Lieberman was quick to respond at that meeting: “I have heard numerous infantile remarks about it being their money – as if with the money, they are free to murder or preach for the murder of Jews,” the foreign minister said at a meeting of his Yisrael Beiteinu faction.

Nevertheless, Lieberman did back down on Sunday from the threats he made last week. “We will vehemently oppose the release of the funds,” he said. “We won’t quit the government and we won’t create a crisis, but we will do everything we can to prevent the money from being transferred.”

On Wednesday, the decision was finally made, with the forum of eight ruling that Israel would both transfer the withheld October tax funds as well as refrain from delaying taxes collected for the month of November.

A senior Israeli official said that Netanyahu’s cabinet would consider freezing tax collection funds in the future if the Palestinians continue unilateral attempts for recognition at the United Nations or in the case of the formation of a unity cabinet between Fatah and Hamas.

Israel would track the money’s use, and in the event that the funds are funneled toward terrorists, it will cut those amounts from future transactions, the official indicated.

Writing in a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday, leading columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote that Israel would be wise to transfer the money to the PA, arguing that Netanyahu had to bolster moderate forces in the Arab world in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings.

EDITOR: Some Israelis are not totally mad…

You don’t have to be the former head of the Mossad to realise that bombing Iran will not go unpunished, and that the attack on Israel will be vicious. But it seems he is quite lonely with this knowledge, not shared by either politicians or the public there – the agenda of attack on Iran seems to be universally accepted without doubt or hesitation.

Former Mossad chief: Israeli strike on Iran will lead to regional war: Haaretz

Meir Dagan said in a television interview that a military strike will result in massive rocket attacks from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said in a television interview on Tuesday that if Israel attacks Iran, it will be dragged into a regional war.

According to Dagan, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas will respond with massive rocket attacks on Israel. In that scenario, Syria may join in the fray, Dagan said on the television program “Uvda”.

Dagan also followed up on recent public comments that he made on the topic, after which he was criticized for speaking out on, saying that the Prime Minister, Defense Minister and Finance Minister cannot prevent him from speaking his mind. “We are not living in an undemocratic country; in democratic countries, even people like me have the right to express their opinions,” Dagan said.

Dagan added that such a war would take a heavy toll in terms of loss of life and would paralyze life in Israel. These comments were in response to a recent remark by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in which he claimed that if a war breaks out between Israel and Iran, it would result in no more than 500 dead Israelis.

“A war is no picnic, but in any scenario there won’t be 50 thousand or 5,000 or even 500 dead,” Barak told Israel Radio in an interview three weeks ago, on November 8. Barak also attacked Dagan’s outspokenness on the Iran issue. “The way in which this discussion has taken place, by including those who previously held high positions, was sometimes despicable.”

Barak added, “When the head of the Mossad unprecedentedly brings journalists to Mossad headquarters and instructs them to oppose the prime minister… I think that is very serious behavior. I would have expected him to act intelligently, without manipulations.”

It was announced earlier on Tuesday that Dagan will lead a group that will endeavor to immediately alter the system of government in Israel.

Maariv reported Tuesday that the group is operating without much publicity, backed by a group of leaders in the fields of business, culture and law that has already begun to raise funds.

Former IDF Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, businessman Gad Zeevi and Herliya Interdisciplinary Center President Professor Uriel Reichman have already joined the new group.

Iceland becomes first Western European country to recognize Palestinian state: Haaretz

Icelandic parliament approves measure on United Nations’ annual day of solidarity with the Palestinian people; Palestinians reaffirm bid for UN membership.

Iceland’s parliament voted on Tuesday in favor of recognizing the Palestinian Territories as an independent state, the first Western European country to do so according Iceland’s foreign minister. The measure passed symbolically on the United Nation’s annual day of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The vote paves the way for formal recognition by the small north Atlantic island, which led the way in recognizing the independence of the three Baltic states after the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.

“Iceland is the first Western European country to take this step,” Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson told Icelandic state broadcaster RUV. “I now have the formal authority to declare our recognition of Palestine.”

Palestinian UN observer Riyad Mansour read a message from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at UN headquarters on the occasion of the day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. He reaffirmed the Palestinian’s bid for UN membership, saying it should complement peace negotiations, provided that Israel is prepared to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 borders.

Abbas said the Palestinians are not seeking “to delegitimize Israel” by applying to join the UN “but to delegitimize its settlement activities and the seizure of our occupied lands.” He added that sanctions imposed on them by Israel because the Palestinians won membership in UNESCO are “unjust” and that Israel has no right to withhold their customs and tax revenues.

The Icelandic parliament resolution allowing for the recognition of a Palestinian state within the pre-Six Day War borders of 1967 was decided by 38 votes in the 63-seat.

“At the same time, parliament urges Israelis and Palestinians to seek a peace agreement on the basis of international law and UN resolutions, which include the mutual recognition of the state of Israel and the state of Palestine,” said the resolution, proposed by the Icelandic foreign minister.

It also called on all sides to cease any violence and recalled the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

Iceland’s recognition, however, is expected to amount to a little more than symbolic step as the Palestinian Authority strives to get United Nations recognition. Its quest for a seat at the international body has so far failed.

EDITOR: Israel and SCAF have a lot in common…

It is nice to find out that the gas canisters used to bamboozle the Cairo protesters have Hebrew markings…

Gassing the revolution: The US origins of Tahrir’s tears: Ahram online

The liberal use of US-manufactured tear gas on protesters in recent days has raised questions about its public health effects – and who is actually ordering its use
Ahmed Feteha, Michael Gunn, Thursday 24 Nov 2011

Egyptian security forces are digging deeper into their budget with each volley of increasingly fatal US-made tear gas they launch at demonstrators.
The human cost of the violent crackdown in central Cairo is increasingly clear — among the 39 fatalities reported to date, several are said to have died of asphyxiation caused by tear gas.

But the financial background to the use of crowd control weapons raises questions about the extent of Washington’s financial assistance to Egypt’s military and how this might filter down to the ministry of interior.

The USA is the biggest arms supplier to Egypt, providing an average of US$1.3 billion in military and law equipment every year since 2000.

Records from the US Department of State show the US supplied $1.7 million of “toxicological agents” — “including tear gases and riot control agents” — to Egypt in 2010.

This was the largest dispatch of such agents in at least 10 years.

In 2009, the US supplied 33,000 units of ‘tear gas and riot control agents’ worth $460,000. It did not supply in 2007 nor 2008, but gave 17,000 units worth $240,000 in 2006, documents show.

This assistance, however, was granted to the military, and it is not clear whether it was then channelled to the ministry of interior.

The Central Security Forces (CSF), Egypt’s riot control machine, is a division within the Ministry of Interior, but is closely tied to the armed forces, as its troops are conscripted through the military then transferred to CSF.

“The military’s arming includes tear gas and riot control weapons. The ministry of interior supposedly buys its own weaponry through other channels,” Mahmoud Kotri, a retired brigadier general who wrote a book suggesting radical police reforms, told Ahram Online.

Kotri confirmed that when the current minister of interior, Mansour El-Essawy, was appointed in March he issued explicit instructions to CSF not to carry live ammunition when confronting protesters.

This directive apparently included a ban on shotguns. Kotra explained these weapons were formerly used to fire tear gas canisters via an ad-hoc launcher. El-Essawy’s instructions probably forced CSF to acquire new types of gas bombs and new ways of launching them, says Kotri.

Nevertheless, doctors on Tahrir Square treating the injured say they have seen many protesters hit by live ammunition, including shotgun wounds.

Kotri believes that a third party might be involved in the shootings

“No MOI official in his right mind would order the use of live ammunition. Not after what happened in January and the former security leadership currently on trial for killing protesters — it just doesn’t add up,” he says.

Protesters and medical staff in Cairo have also expressed concern about the kind of gas being deployed by security forces.

Speaking to Ahram Online at the field hospital in Qasr El-Dobara church behind Tahrir Square on Monday night, volunteer doctor Lilian Sobhy said their improvised clinic had seen 290 patients in 24 hours, the majority with breathing problems.

“Some in contact with the gas are suffering from a severe burning sensation in the lungs,” Sobhy said. “This is not normal gas and these are not normal symptoms.”

Others, however, claim the symptoms — serious though they are — are no different from those caused by extreme exposure to CS gas in the past.

A former police officer told Ahram Online a colleague of his in the CSF was exposed to tear gas used by Egyptian border guards on Palestinians who broke through Rafah crossing in 2008.

He said the army’s gas was “unbearable and different from that used by CSF”.

Given the impressions above, many questions arise.

Is this a new kind of gas? If so, what is its nature? Is it designed use on civilians or is it a much more powerful assault tool used for military purposes? Who provided such weapons to the CSF? Was it the army, or did it get them through other channels?

For its part, the Armed Forced issued Communiqué’ no. 83 on their official Facebook page denying that it had used “gases” on protesters.

The 2010 supply of “Toxicological Agents, Including Chemical Agents, Biological Agents, and Associated Equipment”, which includes tear gas from the United States, which came under the auspices of ‘foreign defence assistance’, comprised 94,000 unspecified units.

Figures suggest the vast majority of these ‘units’ were tear gas canisters.

A crude calculation, made by dividing the aid sum by the number of units, shows the cost of a single tear gas canister may be around $18. Other, much-higher, figures have also been touted.

On Wednesday night, Amr El-Leithy, a prominent TV anchor, estimated the price of a single canister at $48, but did not give a source for this figure.

Eyewitnesses on the frontline in Cairo have reported hundreds of volleys of tear gas in the six days since the crackdown began.

Canisters found on the battle-scarred streets around Tahrir Square bear the manufacturing stamp of Combined Systems Inc (CSI), a US-based firm that provides equipment to military forces and law enforcement agencies around the world.

Among CSI’s investors is the Carlyle Group — an asset management firm which once counted former US President George Bush Snr among its advisors.

CSI produces its ‘riot control devices’ under its law enforcement brand name, Combined Tactical Systems (CTS), a firm headquartered in Jamestown, Pennsylvania.

CTS’s website — www.less-lethal.com — displays what it calls the company’s “full line of chemical irritant and smoke munitions”.

Demonstrators have gathered three common types of gas canister with the following serial numbers and catalogue descriptions:

#4230 – CS Smoke

#6230 – CS Smoke – marketed as an ‘outdoor grenade’

#3321 – Long-range CS Smoke – effective for 137 metres

A catalogue on the company’s website displays the latest devices, but the dates of manufacture and design of some of the canisters show Egypt’s Central Security Forces are using older, often-expired versions.

Instructions on gas canisters say they should not be used after expiry, which is five years after the manufacturing date. Some cans found near Tahrir have a manufacture date of 2001. The Minister of Interior has admitted using expired canisters but said this only means that they would be “less effective.”

All the canisters above unleash CS gas — a standard riot control agent — but CTS also makes canisters that use CN gas, a more toxic formulation that takes longer to disperse and can cause disorientation and fainting.

Other media have reported finding CR gas canisters around Tahrir — an agent that medical experts say can cause pulmonary, heart and lung problems among those subjected to intense exposure.

CR gas is banned for military use under the Paris Convention on Chemical Warfare of 1993 but several governments still use it against their own people and, allegedly, those under their military occupation. These governments include the United States, Sri Lanka and Israel, as well as Egypt.

Gas manufacturer CTS has been linked with the ‘non-lethal’ weapons used by Israeli forces that have been unleashed on Palestinian protesters, reportedly causing several deaths due to asphyxiation.

Its supply to the Israeli market might suggest why several canisters found in Cairo with CTS numbers and designs also have Hebrew markings.

Continue reading November 29, 2011