EDITOR: Netanyahu the Liar

So now Sarkozy and Obama tell us they also know what everyone else knows for decades – the Netanyahu is a born liar… what is disgusting is not that they know this and pretend otherwise, but that they (and other western leaders) are bending over trying to please the most extreme right of Israeli politics. They are about to bomb Iran and start a new devastating conflict in the Middle East, due to the famous liar. And that, unfortunately, is the truth.

This morning, there are already 100,000 links on Google, if you feed the search term: “Netanyahu is a liar”… Now all we have to wait for is Sarkozy’s denial, which will come soon…

Report: Sarkozy told Obama he ‘can’t bear’ Netanyahu the ‘liar’: Haaretz

American and French presidents overheard when their microphones were accidentally left on after a press conference at the G20 summit.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told U.S. President Barack Obama last week he was fed up with dealing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and considered him a liar.

Sarkozy made the comment during a private conversation with Obama during a G20 summit in the French riviera town of Cannes last week and the remarks were overheard by a small number of journalists but not initially reported.

“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama during a frank exchange where the U.S. president took him to task for backing a Palestinian request for membership of the UN cultural heritage agency UNESCO.

A Reuters reporter was among the journalists present and can confirm the veracity of the comments, which were relayed by a French internet outlet on Tuesday.

Obama said he had to deal regularly with Netanyahu even if Sarkozy was fed up with the Israeli leader, according to the translation of a French interpreter during their Cannes exchange.

In their quest for statehood recognition, the Palestinians have requested membership of the over-arching United Nations system, in addition to its Paris-based UNESCO subsidiary.

France voted in favor of a UNESCO request that succeeded but said last week it would abstain in any vote on membership of the over-arching UN system, which Washington has vowed to veto. Paris and Washington are urging renewed peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Sarkozy tells Obama Netanyahu is a “liar”: Reuters

(Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a liar” in a private conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama that was accidentally broadcast to journalists during last week’s G20 summit in Cannes.

“I cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation.

“You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you,” Obama replied, according to the French interpreter.

The technical gaffe is likely to cause great embarrassment to all three leaders as they look to work together to intensify international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

The conversation was not initially reported by the small group of journalists who overheard it because it was considered private and off-the-record. But the comments have since emerged on French websites and can be confirmed by Reuters.

Obama’s apparent failure to defend Netanyahu is likely to be leapt on by his Republican foes, who are looking to unseat him in next year’s presidential election and have portrayed him as hostile to Israel, Washington’s closest ally in the region.

Pushing Netanyahu risks alienating Israel’s strong base of support among the U.S. public and in Congress.

Netanyahu’s office declined immediate comment.

Obama and Netanyahu have had a rocky relationship as U.S. efforts to broker a Middle East peace deal have foundered, with the U.S. president openly criticizing Jewish settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It was unclear why exactly Sarkozy had criticized Netanyahu. However, European diplomats have largely blamed Israel for the breakdown in peace talks and have expressed anger over Netanyahu’s approval of large-scale settlement building.

PALESTINIAN WORRIES

During their bilateral meeting on November 3, on the sidelines of the Cannes summit, Obama criticized Sarkozy’s surprise decision to vote in favor of a Palestinian request for membership of the U.N. cultural heritage agency UNESCO.

“I didn’t appreciate your way of presenting things over the Palestinian membership of UNESCO. It weakened us. You should have consulted us, but that is now behind us,” Obama was quoted as saying.

The October 31 UNESCO vote marked a success for the Palestinians in their broader thrust for recognition as a sovereign state in the U.N. system — a unilateral initiative fiercely opposed by Israel and the United States.

As a result of the vote, Washington was compelled to halt its funding for UNESCO under a 1990s law that prohibits Washington from giving money to any U.N. body that grants membership to groups that do not have full, legal statehood.

Obama told Sarkozy that he was worried about the impact if Washington had to pull funding from other U.N. bodies such as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and the IAEA nuclear watchdog if the Palestinians gained membership there.

“You have to pass the message along to the Palestinians that they must stop this immediately,” Obama said.

The day the conversation took place, the Palestinians announced that they would not seek membership of any other U.N. agency.

Sarkozy confirmed that France would not take any unilateral decisions when the U.N. Security Council discusses a Palestinian membership request, a debate expected later this month.

“I am with you on that,” Obama replied.

Report: Sarkozy calls Netanyahu ‘liar’: YNet

Microphones accidently left on after G20 meeting pick up private conversation between US, French presidents. Sarkozy admits he ‘can’t stand’ Israeli premier. Obama: You’re fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day!

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly told US President Barack Obama that he could not “stand” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that he thinks the Israeli premier “is a liar.”

According to a Monday report in the French website “Arret sur Images,” after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.

The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington’s strong objection to the move.

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: “I cannot stand him. He is a liar.” According to the report, Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”

The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders’ microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public.

The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press, who were still in possession of headsets provided by the Elysée for the sake of simultaneous translation during the G20 press conference.

“By the time the (media) services at the Elysée realize it, it was on for at least three minutes,” one journalist told the website. Still, he said that reporters “did not have a chance to take advantage of this fluke.”

The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that journalists present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the embarrassing comments. A Reuters reporter was among the journalists present and can confirm the veracity of the comments.

A member of the media confirmed Monday that “there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue.”

He added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct.

EDITOR: Countdown to madness continues…

Two events are now leading the news, clearly unrelated – the financial crisis and the preparations for attacking Iran by Israel, the US and UK. There are some interesting connection between both crises, though.

In a world which has seemingly lost any semblance or pretense of rationality, where the market has replaced reason, it is also befitting that the powerful will be able to roam from war to war with impunity. The three countries intending to bomb Iran have been doing this kind of thing with impunity for many decades, and have established a pattern which seems to be acceptable to all – they are above and beyond any laws, and beyond reason itself, have the right to annul and ignore legislation of any kind, and will not stand accused in any type of court, even their own…

If there was necessary any further proof of the deep crisis in which humanity finds itself at this frightening juncture, then the two crises emerging from the same type of diseased thinking are it. The world economic system, or put simply, capitalism, has never been more sick than it is now, because the market has taken over any other consideration, and it will bring down hundreds of millions, if not billions of ordinary human beings. In the Middle East, everyone knows what Israel is doing is both mad and immoral, not to say illegal, but instead of controlling the pariah, the strongest countries join it in crime. It is indeed a bleak time to live through, and evidence of the corrupt and hopeless state of the current political arena. The IAEA report below is about a country 9Iran) which may get nuclear weapons, but the same organisation is avoiding looking at a country (Israel( that has them for decades, with total impunity. How cynical is that?

Obama must stop Netanyahu, Barak from attacking Iran: Haaretz

If Obama is opposed to a military solution, then he must stop the duo of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, before it is too late.
By Akiva Eldar
Some six months before a devil incarnate shot Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the back in order to stop the peace process, two American politicians stabbed him in the neck. In May 1995, at the height of the fragile negotiations on the interim peace agreement, the two welcomed Rabin to Washington with a fatal legislative initiative. The Republican candidate for the presidency, Bob Dole, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, proposed recognizing united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and requiring the administration to move the U.S. Embassy there. Yigal Amir hoped that his assassin’s bullets could save Israel from the threat of peace; the Republicans hoped that their law would save several million dollars from the pockets of the Jewish donors.

Sixteen years after the assassination, “peace” is considered almost a dirty word in Israel. On the eve of elections in the United States, the fate of Israelis is once again serving as a ping pong ball in the hands of American politicians. The explosion of the peace process over the Jerusalem issue has made way for the Iranian nuclear plan.

There is a good reason why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wont to describe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Hitler. How can the leaders of countries that did not prevent the murder of six million Jews object to the right of Israel to defend itself from the deadly foe who wishes to destroy the Jewish state?

Gingrich, who has joined the race for the Republican candidate for the presidency, declared at the week’s end that if the Israeli prime minister reaches the conclusion that the country is in danger, no American president could doubt it and expect Israel to sit with its arms folded and face the danger of another Holocaust. One of his rivals for the candidacy, Rick Perry, then hastened to announce that if Israel decided to attack Iran, he would demand that the United States stand behind it.

What do they have to lose? If this is a false threat designed to goad the United States into exerting more pressure on Tehran, they can wave their support. If a military assault is a new version of the last war in Iraq, they will be able to place the blame on President Barack Obama.

Escalating oil prices in the wake of a military confrontation in the Middle East, in the midst of a difficult winter and an extreme economic crisis, will be a boost to the Republicans. If Obama sits by idly, they will pull out his pictures from the much-publicized meeting of the United Nations’ Security Council, which adopted his call for reducing the nuclear arsenal throughout the world. Who remembers that they did not open their mouths and utter a sound when “their” president, George Bush, with his own hands every half year, signed an order to delay the law for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital? Election considerations of the kind that distance Obama from any hint of disagreement with Netanyahu over the negotiations with the Palestinians are not merely immoral, they are also not effective. Numerous public opinion polls carried out over the years at the instigation of Jewish organizations have shown that the attitude toward Israel is at the bottom of the voting considerations of Jewish Americans in presidential elections – far behind economics, health and the war in Iraq.

A recent analysis conducted by experts at the Gallup polling company attributes the drop in Jewish support for Obama to the Jews’ lack of satisfaction from his economic performance. In a survey of the American Jewish Committee, 73 percent of the Jewish respondents defined themselves as liberal or moderate, and only 25 percent as conservative. This ratio has barely changed over the past decade.

The Americans are reiterating that Iran’s nuclear program is a worldwide problem. The members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee pointed out the special significance of Obama’s vision and action on behalf of a world without nuclear weapons. The president replied modestly that this was not an estimation of his achievements, but rather a call to action. He surely did not mean watching from the situation room in the White House how the Israeli Air Force goes into action against Iran.

If the Americans are so fearful of “a second Holocaust,” and feel that they have exhausted the diplomatic option, will they kindly go into action against Iran themselves? If Obama is opposed to a military solution, then he must stop the duo of Netanyahu and [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak, before it is too late.

IAEA due to expose Iranian nuclear weapons design and testing facility: Guardian

The UN nuclear watchdog will unveil details of an advanced warhead blueprint and a site where it may have been tested, reports say

The International Atomic Energy Agency is due to circulate its latest quarterly report on Iran on Wednesday. It is a confidential document distributed to member states but it is traditionally leaked within seconds. This time, because of the renewed talk of military action, particularly in Israel and Britain, it is being pre-leaked.

The Washington Post has an article this morning suggesting the IAEA now believes that Iran is on “the threshold” of making a nuclear warhead small enough to be put on top of a ballistic missile.

The article talks about a device called an R265 generator, which it describes as follows:

The device is a hemispherical aluminium shell with an intricate array of high explosives that detonate with split-second precision. These charges compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.

According to David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security (Isis) R265 is the code-name for a warhead design I described in a November 2009 article with a two-point detonation system.

The name apparently refers to the 265mm radius of the fissile hemispheres in the warhead. This is how I understand it works: the aluminium shell contains an array of channels filled with explosive which end in explosive pellets. Those pellets simultaneously explode to initiate a high-explosive hemisphere that crushes the fissile core, triggering the chain reaction. Each of the two hemispherical systems is set off by a single point of detonation.

The IAEA has already alluded vaguely to this device in its May 2008 quarterly report on Iran, which points to the central piece of evidence, described as follows:

Five page document in English describing experimentation undertaken with a complex multipoint initiation system to detonate a substantial amount of high explosive in hemispherical geometry and to monitor the development of the detonation wave in that high explosive using a considerable number of diagnostic probes.

In the 2009 article, I reported that the IAEA was investigating the role of a ‘Russian weapons expert” in developing this device. This morning’s Washington Post article names him as Vyacheslav Danilenko, “a former Soviet nuclear scientist who was contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran’s Physics Research Centre”. This was the name I was given in 2009, but on condition I not use it, and as I was unable to track him down to hear his version, I didn’t. The Washington Post quotes unnamed officials as saying Danilenko had insisted he had been under the impression he was providing assistance for civilian engineering projects.

The other element of the IAEA report that has been pre-leaked is a report that Iran has built a bus-sized steel chamber at Parchin for testing the high explosive arrays necessary for making an implosion device.

Parchin, a vast military and munitions centre, has been a suspect site since 2004, when some US officials told journalists they believed it was been used to test high explosives for an implosion device. At the time, Albright produced an Isis analysis of the site with Corey Hinderstein, concluding it was “a logical candidate for a nuclear weapons-related site” but cautioned that the evidence was ambiguous.

Albright says now that some US officials became convinced in 2004 that Iran was about to conduct a “cold test” of a nuclear warhead at Parchin, using a surrogate material for the fissile core, but the test never happened.

IAEA asked for access to Parchin and was allowed to visit a small part of the site in January 2005 and more in November 2005, but it reported in February 2006 that its inspectors had found nothing untoward.

The steel vessel which will reportedly be discussed in Wednesday’s report had not previously been identified by Albright and could be in a different part of the Parchin, but he warned that impressions based on satellite images can be misleading, and that the reality on the ground can be less clear cut.

The note of caution was reinforced last week when there was a flurry of reporting that the IAEA had found a site in Syria which had been intended as an uranium enrichment plant. But the site, the Hasaka spinning factory, turned out to be a textile factory all along.

What is certain is that after Wednesday, it will be the IAEA and its credibility that will become the centre of the political battle. Iran’s foreign minister has already rejected the nuclear weapons report as “counterfeit”, and Tehran is expected to launch an offensive against the agency’s director-general, Yukiya Amano.

For those countries which have faith in the IAEA’s reporting and analysis, the question will remain of what to make of the findings. They do not quite add up to a smoking gun. They suggest that while research on weapons did continue after 2004, it was largely restricted to computer modelling rather than building things and blowing them up. There is no evidence that Iran has decided to make a nuclear weapon, just that it appears to looking at the technical options should it one day make that decision, and meanwhile amassing an uranium stock that potentially provide the fissile cores for its warheads.

Palestinians say Israel imposing steep court fees to prevent lawsuits: Haaretz

Palestinians who lost family members in the Israeli offensive in Gaza say they cannot seek compensation due to near-impossible barriers placed by Israel.

Dozens of Palestinians who lost relatives in an Israeli military offensive in Gaza three years ago have been forced to put their compensation claims on hold, saying Israel has placed near-impossible barriers to proceeding with their cases.

Israeli restrictions prevent Gazans from entering Israel to testify, undergo medical exams or meet with their lawyers. But the biggest obstacle, the victims say, are steep court fees that can reach tens of thousands of dollars.

“The victim must pay for justice,” said Gaza resident Mohammed Abdel-Dayim, whose son and three nephews were killed during a military assault. “Israel should be ashamed.”

Israel says the fees prevent frivolous lawsuits. They say they are imposed on many foreigners – not just Palestinians – because they don’t have local assets that the state could seize to cover legal fees and other court costs.

But Palestinians say the costs are part of a strategy to protect Israeli soldiers. If the fees aren’t reduced, lawyers representing Palestinians say they will have to drop most cases.

Abdel-Dayim is suing Israel over the deaths of four relatives: His son was a volunteer medic who died when Israeli tank fire struck the ambulance he was driving. Three nephews were killed the next day when Israeli shelling struck a mourning tent where the family was grieving.

An Israeli court asked Abdel-Dayim to post 22,000 dollars in court fees, or just over 5,000 dollars per victim. His annual income is under 6,000 dollars.

About 1,000 Gazans have prepared cases seeking compensation, mostly alleging wrongful deaths during Israel’s offensive in the territory, according to their lawyers.

Some 1,400 Gazans were killed during the three-week Israeli operation, including hundreds of civilians. Israel launched the offensive in December 2008 in response to heavy Palestinian rocket fire. Thirteen Israelis also died in the fighting.

Israel says Gaza’s Hamas rulers are responsible for the civilian casualties, claiming the militant group endangered civilians by firing rockets from near schools and residential areas.

In civil suits in Israel, the losing party must pay legal fees and court costs of the winning side. Because foreign nationals could bolt without paying, Israeli courts often demand a security deposit. The money is returned to plaintiffs who win their cases. The sum of the guarantee is left to individual judges.

For example, in July, Judge Nehama Munitz of the District Court in the northern city of Nazareth demanded a 5,500 dollars deposit from each of 42 Gazan plaintiffs in a case involving the bombing of the Abdel-Dayim mourning tent, according to legal documents. Mohammed Abdel-Dayim’s share was 22,000 dollars.

She said the fees are justified by the expensive and time-consuming investigative process, and dismissed claims of a financial barrier.

“The plaintiffs did not prove that they are unable to afford the expense of the court guarantee, and/or did not claim this in their brief,” she wrote in a court document obtained by The Associated Press.

Tameem Younis, a lawyer representing the families, is now appealing. If the fees aren’t reduced, “we will have to cancel the claims,” he said.

Iyad Alami of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which takes on many cases, said they have raised money for some of the most important petitions, including a planned case where some two dozen members of the Samouni clan were killed after fleeing to what they thought was a safe house.

Nitzan Eyal, a spokeswoman for Israel’s courts system, said the fees are set based on the chances of success.

“The lower the chances of the claim, the higher the justification for charging the plaintiff a court deposit to ensure the legal expenses of the defendant,” she said.

Israelis, in contrast, typically don’t have to pay up front because the courts can put liens on their properties. Likewise, families of victims from friendly nations often don’t pay.

Hussein Abu Hussein, attorney for the American parents of Rachel Corrie, who was killed in Gaza in 2003 when she was run over by a military bulldozer, did not pay a deposit in their civil suit against Israel. He said it was waived because the U.S. and Israel enforce each others’ court rulings. Israel and the Palestinians have no such understanding.

Michael Karyanni, a law professor at Israel’s Hebrew University, said the legal fees appeared excessive, given the impoverished circumstances of many Gazans. Some 40 percent of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents live on less than 2 dollars a day, according to UN figures.

“The Supreme Court has said in one of its judgments that the court needs to be sensitive to the financial abilities of the plaintiff, but I don’t think from what I’ve seen that there is any kind of a serious attempt to have the costs be proportional to the plaintiff’s ability,” Karyanni said.

Israelis point out the practice of seeking upfront guarantees is also accepted in Europe. In the Netherlands, for instance, plaintiffs must pay 800 euros to 1,400 euros depending on the size of the claim. But the Dutch system lowers the fee to just 71 euros for indigent or low-income plaintiffs.

Karyanni said in Israel, only in rare cases have plaintiffs successfully appealed to reduce the fees. In general, Israel says the system is fair to Palestinians.

“The fact that Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel routinely petition Israeli courts demonstrates more than anything else the stature of our courts,” said government spokesman Mark Regev.

In the last two years, Palestinians won about 6 million dollars in damages from the state, according to the Israeli Justice Ministry.

In August, Israel’s Defense Minister settled a case related to the Gaza offensive out of court, paying about 137,000 dollars to the family of a mother and daughter who were shot dead while waving white flags.

In the Iraq war, by contrast, Iraqis cannot claim civil damages from the U.S. under a 2008 agreement. In Afghanistan, the U.S. offers compensation to citizens when their property is damaged, but it’s unclear whether they can claim damages for deaths or injuries caused by the U.S.-led military alliance.

There are no known cases of Israelis suing in Palestinian Authority courts for damages, said Palestinian spokesman Ghassan Khatib.

There is hardly any reason to test the system that way: Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli lawyer who represents victims of Palestinian violence, said some 150 cases against the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority were pending in Israeli courts.

The Palestinian government defends itself in these cases, and so far, there have been no rulings against the authority, Darshan-Leitner said. She said Israelis had also successfully sued Gaza’s rulers, the militant Islamic group Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings. But it has been impossible to recover damages.

In other cases, Israelis have turned to U.S. courts, either because of joint American citizenship or under “crimes against humanity” laws. The Palestinian Authority has reached settlements in at least two cases, Darshan-Leitner said.

For most Gazans, just getting to the courtroom is a challenge. Under restrictions imposed in 2002 at the height of violence between Palestinians and Israel, Palestinians have 60 days following an incident to file an initial letter of complaint with the Defense Ministry. After that, they have two years to take those claims to court.

Gazans are allowed into Israel only in rare cases, such as medical emergencies, and the state does not allow video testimony from Gaza, said Israeli attorney Michael Sfard, who frequently represents Palestinians in Israeli courts.

Israelis are also banned from entering Gaza, which means lawyers cannot meet clients and state doctors cannot give certified medical exams to verify claims.

The Israeli Arab advocacy group Adalah has filed a petition to allow Gazans entry permits to Israel for their legal proceedings. A court ruling is expected in the next few months.

“It’s impossible to conduct a trial at all under these circumstances,” said Sfard.

EDITOR: The tail wagging the dog?

Who is controlling whom in this shocking development? Surely the US can control Israel, its paid dog? Well, it does not look like it.

Leave alone the obvious fact that Washington would like to pretend it cannot control Israel, so is not responsible for its mad dog… apart from the whole set-up being carefully planned over the last few years, and ignited over the last week as the final episode in this western-controlled drama, it is also true that the US does not wholly control Israel. What comes to mind is the Dr. Frankenstein scenario – the US has built its creature of monstrosity over a long period, thinking it is in full control, but the creature has its own ideas and its own priorities… There is no doubt that this is so.

However, it is still amazing that Israel is so successful in directing and highjacking western agendas, especially at times which are as fraught as the current juncture, with the world economy hanging by its teeth from the Eurozone cliff – even at such times, the main western nations are ready to do Israel’s bidding, believing it to be in their interests, a bit like they did in 1956. Good luck to us all.

U.S. military official: We are concerned Israel will not warn us before Iran attack: Haaretz

Senior U.S. military official tells CNN U.S. ‘increasingly vigilant’ over military developments in Iran, Israel; says ‘absolutely’ concerned Israel may attack Iran nuclear facilities.

U.S. officials are concerned that Israel will not warn them before taking military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, a senior U.S. military official said Friday.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the CNN network that although in the past, U.S. officials thought they would receive warning from Israel if it did take military action against Iran, “now that doesn’t seem so ironclad.”

The U.S. is “absolutley” concerned that Israel is preparing an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and this concern is increasing, CNN reported the official as saying.

The U.S. has increased its “watchfulness” of Iran and Israel over the past few weeks, U.S. Central and European Commands, which watch Iranian and Israeli developments respectively, are “increasingly vigilant” at this time, according to the official, and a second military official who also spoke with CNN.

The military official emphasized that the U.S is concerned about the risk a strike against Iran could pose for American troops in Iraq and in the Persian Gulf, according to the CNN report.

The official also said that the U.S. does not intend to follow a military action against Iran, CNN said.

This past week, reports have surfaced regarding Israeli military action against Iran. A senior Israeli official said Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action against Iran.

On Friday, President Shimon Peres said that he believes Israel and the world may soon take military action against Iran. His comments followed

As the drumbeat of reports about possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities intensified, an International Atomic Energy Agency report, to be released next week is expected to reveal intelligence suggesting Iran made computer models of a nuclear warhead and other previously undisclosed details on alleged secret work by Tehran on nuclear arms, diplomats told The Associated Press on Friday.

 Iran warns US to avoid clash over nuclear programme: Guardian

Iranian foreign minister says America has ‘lost its wisdom and prudence’ as tensions mount over Tehran’s enrichment efforts
Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and Ian Black
The Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said his country was ‘prepared for the worst’. Photograph: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters
Iran has warned the US not to set the two countries on a collision course over Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, as diplomatic tensions reflected growing concern that the Middle East might be on the verge of new conflict.

The Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, spoke amid reports that the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has been trying to rally support within his country for an attack.

The Guardian revealed that the UK was advancing contingency plans for joining American forces in a possible air and sea campaign against military bases in Iran.

The revelations led to Nato insisting on Thursday that it would play no part in any military action, and provoked the rebuke from Salehi, who insisted that any attack by either Israel or the US would provoke immediate retaliation. He also accused Washington of recklessness.

“The US has unfortunately lost its wisdom and prudence in dealing with international issues,” he told reporters during a visit to Libya. “Of course we are prepared for the worst, but we hope that they think twice before they put themselves on a collision course with Iran.”

In a separate interview with a Turkish newspaper, Salehi claimed Tehran was ready for war with Israel. “We have been hearing threats from Israel for eight years. Our nation is a united nation … such threats are not new to us,” he said. “We are very sure of ourselves. We can defend our country.”

The pressure on Iran has been building since allegations surfaced of a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. The White House insists Tehran was behind the plot, but the Iranian regime has denied that.

The episode added to US concerns about Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme and the increasing belligerence of its regime. Intelligence suggests that some of the Iranian centrifuges that can produce weapons-grade uranium are being hidden inside a fortified military base in Qom, about 100 miles south-west of Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Authority will next week deliver its latest bulletin on Iran’s nuclear programme and is expected to provide fresh evidence of covert plans to engineer warheads.

The Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, said to be one of those pushing for an early attack on Iran, was in London on Thursday for talks with David Cameron’s national security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, the foreign secretary, William Hague, and the new defence secretary, Philip Hammond.

Hague said the meeting had given them a chance to discuss “shared concerns such as … the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear programme”. Downing Street said “all options are on the table” for dealing with Iran unless it truly abandons any plans to arm itself with nuclear weapons.

Though Britain says its policy on the issue has not changed, the Guardian disclosed that British military planners were now having to turn contingency plans into practical steps, such as considering when to deploy Royal Navy submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles to the region, in case Barack Obama bows to pressure to launch missile strikes against Iranian bases.

Although Iran has insisted it is only developing nuclear energy, Whitehall officials believe the regime will have hidden all it needs to build weapons inside fortified compounds within 12 months – adding a sense of urgency to diplomatic efforts.

The Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called for political and diplomatic efforts to resolve the growing crisis. He insisted that Nato would not be drawn into any military action.

“Let me stress that Nato has no intention whatsoever to intervene in Iran, and Nato is not engaged as an alliance in the Iran question,” he said.

Villy Søvndal, the new Danish foreign minister,said he could not see any circumstances in which his country would join a military effort against Iran, as it had done in Libya and Afghanistan. “The difference between Libya and Iran is that I could never imagine a UN resolution behind a military attack on Iran. There would be no regional backup. That would be one of the most impossible military missions.

“Of course, you can bomb some buildings and equipment and maybe you could delay for a period of one or two years. But I can no see any situation in which Denmark would participate. It would produce so much instability … you could also end in a situation where you strengthen the present Iranian regime.”

In Israel, the row over whether to launch strikes against Iran continued, with Netanyahu reportedly ordering an investigation into alleged leaks of plans to attack nuclear facilities.

According to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida, the main suspects are the former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet, respectively Israel’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies. Netanyahu is said to believe that the two chiefs, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, wanted to disrupt plans being drawn up by him and Barak to hit Iranian nuclear sites.

Both Dagan and Diskin oppose military action against Iran unless all other options – primarily international diplomatic pressure and perhaps sabotage – have been exhausted.

In January the recently retired Dagan, a hawk when he was running the Mossad, called an attack on Iran “the stupidest idea” he had ever heard. The Kuwaiti newspaper has a track record of running stories based on apparently high-level leaks from Israeli officials.

Even well-informed Israeli observers admit to being confused about what is going on behind the scenes.

“It seems that only Netanyahu and Barak know, and maybe even they haven’t decided,” said Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, both respected writers for the newspaper Haaretz.

“While many people say Netanyahu and Barak are conducting sophisticated psychological warfare and don’t intend to launch a military operation, top officials … are still afraid.”

The debate in Israel intensified further on Wednesday when Israel test-fired a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Iran.

 Iran’s nuclear ambitions have already started a war with west – a covert one: Guardian

A secret campaign of surveillance, sabotage, cyberattacks and assassinations has slowed but not stopped Tehran’s programme
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The covert war on Iran’s nuclear programme was launched in earnest by George Bush in 2007. It is a fair assumption that the western powers had been trying their best to spy on the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Iranian revolution, but the 2007 “presidential finding” put those efforts on a new footing.

Bush asked Congress to approve $400m for a programme of support for rebel ethnic groups, as well as intelligence gathering and sabotage of the nuclear programme. Part of that effort involved slipping defective parts such as centrifuge components into the black market supply to Iran, designed to blow apart while in operation and in so doing bring down all the centrifuges in the vicinity. The UK, Germany, France and Israel are said to have been involved in similar efforts. Meanwhile, western intelligence agencies stepped up their attempt to infiltrate the programme, seeking to recruit Iranian scientists when they travelled abroad.

That espionage effort appears to have paid dividends. In 2009, the US, British and French intelligence agencies were able to confirm that extensive excavations at Fordow, a Revolutionary Guard base near the Shia theological centre of Qom, were a secret uranium enrichment plant under construction. The digging had been seen by satellites, but only human sources could identify its purpose. Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy were able to reveal Fordow’s existence at the UN general assembly in September 2009, a diplomatic setback to Iran. Russia, which had been Iran’s principal protector on the world stage, was furious with Tehran at having been taken by surprise.

It is harder to gauge the impact of sabotage. Olli Heinonen, the former chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: “I never saw any direct evidence of sabotage. We could see that they had breakages but it was hard to say if those were the result of their own technical problems or sabotage. I suspect a little of both.”

Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, complained to the press in 2006 about sabotage but vowed that Iran would overcome the challenge by making more of the centrifuges and other components itself.

But it was impossible to make everything at home. The computer systems which run the centrifuge operations in Natanz, supplied by the German engineering firm Siemens, were targeted last year by a computer worm called Stuxnet, reportedly created as a joint venture by US and Israeli intelligence. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad conceded that Stuxnet had caused damage, and last November, Iranian scientists were forced to suspend enrichment to rectify the problem. A few days later, however, the centrifuges were working once more.

The black operations have not been confined to hardware and computer systems. They have also targeted Iran’s scientists. In July 2009, an Iranian nuclear expert called Shahram Amiri vanished while on a pilgrimage to Mecca. A year later, he surfaced in the US claiming he had been abducted by American agents, and in July 2010 he returned to a hero’s welcome in Tehran.

US officials said he had been a willing defector who had been paid $5m for his help, but who had since had a mysterious change of heart. There have since been claims Amiri had been an Iranian double agent all along. The truth is unclear.

Other attempts to remove Iran’s scientists have been blunter and bloodier.

Starting in January 2010, there were a series of attacks in Tehran on Iranian physicists with links to the nuclear programme. The first target was Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a physicist and lecturer at the Imam Hussein university, run by the Revolutionary Guards. He was on his way to work when a bomb fixed to a motorbike parked outside his house exploded and killed him instantly.

In November that year, assassins on motorbikes targeted two Iranian scientists simultaneously as they were stuck in morning traffic. In both cases, the killers drove up alongside their targets’ cars and stuck bombs to the side. Majid Shahriari, a scientist at the atomic energy organisation, who had co-authored a paper on neutron diffusion in a nuclear reactor, was killed.

The other target, Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani, suspected by western officials of being a central figure in experiments on building a nuclear warhead, was only injured. Three months later he was promoted to the leadership of the nuclear programme.

A third scientist, Darioush Rezaeinejad, was killed in an attack in July this year, when gunmen on motorbikes shot him in a street in east Tehran. He was initially described in the Iranian media as a “nuclear scientist”, but the government later denied he had any involvement in the programme.

Iran has blamed the attacks on the Israeli secret service, Mossad, and in August sentenced an Iranian, Majid Jamali-Fashi, to death for his alleged involvement in the Ali Mohammadi killing. He had confessed to being part of a hit-team trained in Israel, but it appeared likely he had made the confession under torture.

Despite the millions spent, stalled machines and deaths of leading scientists, Iran has steadily built up its stockpile of enriched uranium to 4.5 tonnes – enough for four nuclear bombs if it was further refined to weapons-grade purity. At most, the covert war has slowed the rate of progress, but it has not stopped it.

BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!

Israel Navy intercepts Gaza-bound aid vessels; no injuries reported: Haaretz

Naval forces board two Gaza-bound ships after they failed to heed orders to turn around or dock in Egypt or Israel; ships being led to port of Ashdod.

The Israel Navy on Friday afternoon intercepted two boats that approached the coast of the Gaza Strip with the intent to violate Israel’s naval blockade of the territory.

After the boats failed to heed calls to turn around or dock in Egypt or Israel, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz ordered naval forces to board the ships. Nobody was injured during the boarding of the ships, a military source said.

“The Israel Navy soldiers operated as planned, and took every precaution necessary to ensure the safety of the activists onboard the vessels as well as themselves,” an IDF statement said.

The boats were carrying supplies and 27 international pro-Palestinian activists.

Activists in Gaza and Ramallah said they lost radio contact with the ships shortly after 1 p.m.

The IDF said that the navy had contacted the Gaza-bound ships and informed them that Gaza is under a maritime security blockade. The IDF told the ships they could turn around or dock in the Egypt or at Ashdod, where the goods they were carrying would be transferred to Gaza after being inspected.

The ships did not heed that call and continued towards Gaza.

IDF forces did not expect to face violent resistance from the activists on the ships.

Israel’s navy has intercepted similar protest ships in the past, towing them to Ashdod and detaining participants. Israel says its naval blockade of Gaza is necessary to prevent weapons from reaching militant groups like Hamas, the Iran-backed group that rules the territory. Critics call the blockade collective punishment of Gaza’s residents.

Israel’s government has said the activists can send supplies into Gaza overland.

In May 2010, nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists were killed when they resisted an Israeli operation to halt a similar flotilla. Each side blamed the other for the violence.

The incident sparked an international outcry and forced Israel to ease its land blockade on Gaza, which was imposed in 2006 and tightened, with Egyptian cooperation, after Hamas seized control of the territory the following year.

Militants in Gaza have fired thousands of rockets into Israel in the past decade, and now have much of southern Israel in range.

Speaking after prayers at a Gaza City mosque, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, addressed the passengers aboard the boats, saying, “Your message has been delivered whether you make it or not.”

“The siege is unjust and must end,” Haniyeh said.

On Thursday, the Obama administration warned U.S.citizens on the boats that they may face legal action for violating Israeli and American law. The activists include Americans and citizens of eight other countries.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S.was renewing its warning to Americans “not to involve themselves in this activity.”

The U.S., like Israel and the European Union, considers Hamas a terrorist organization.

 

 

 

 

EDITOR: Israel vs The Universe!

The speed of events is certainly intensifying, to a point it is almost dizzying. The UN bid by Abbas has started a series of Israeli reactions which are really off the scale, as well as carefully designed to inflame and increase tension in the region, in a buildup to the grande attack on Iran, the Israeli project now sold to the USA and UK, these famous protectors of humanity and democracy.

Ever since 2005, Israel has stoked the anti-Iranian issue, increasing the fire under the west’s bum, and building up to total conflict, which is the only condition Israel feels comfortable with. The readiness of most states in the UN to award Palestine a full status is sending Israel off the horizon, into the blue yonder of nuclear war in the Middle East. This is preferable to facing the simple facts of the Palestine issue, and going along with reality, for a change. This Israel cannot do – not just Mr. Netanyahu, or Mr. Barak, but all the other leaders of Israeli parties and factions.

But what is amazing about this turn of events is not just the Israeli madness, overreaction and aggression, but the fact that they have managed to persuade the main western powers to fight their wars for them, and even thank Israel for being allowed to do so… That the USA and UK are now gearing up to attack a non-nuclear nation, in the interest of a nation with over 300 nuclear weapons, which they are protecting from international agencies and the arm of the law. They will be bombing a country which has not attacked others, in order to protect one which does nothing else but attack other countries and nations. This must be the height of international morality.

They will do so not just for the Israelis, of course, but also in the interest of derailing the Arab Spring, or what is left of it. They are doing just fine – with Egypt under a military Junta, with Libya in the hands of undemocratic militias, and with Syria about to collapse – not bad for one summer… they will be showing who is boss, to avoid confusion in the future.

And after all that, Americans will again wonder, why does no one but Israel love them? They really haven’t got the slightest.

UK military steps up plans for Iran attack amid fresh nuclear fears: Guardian

British officials consider contingency options to back up a possible US action as fears mount over Tehran’s capability
Nick Hopkins
Iranian nuclear technicians in protective wear. Photograph: Mehdi Ghasemi/AP
Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles over the coming months as part of what would be an air and sea campaign.

They also believe the US would ask permission to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the British Indian ocean territory, which the Americans have used previously for conflicts in the Middle East.

The Guardian has spoken to a number of Whitehall and defence officials over recent weeks who said Iran was once again becoming the focus of diplomatic concern after the revolution in Libya.

They made clear that Barack Obama, has no wish to embark on a new and provocative military venture before next November’s presidential election.

But they warned the calculations could change because of mounting anxiety over intelligence gathered by western agencies, and the more belligerent posture that Iran appears to have been taking.

Hawks in the US are likely to seize on next week’s report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is expected to provide fresh evidence of a possible nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

The Guardian has been told that the IAEA’s bulletin could be “a game changer” which will provide unprecedented details of the research and experiments being undertaken by the regime.

One senior Whitehall official said Iran had proved “surprisingly resilient” in the face of sanctions, and sophisticated attempts by the west to cripple its nuclear enrichment programme had been less successful than first thought.

He said Iran appeared to be “newly aggressive, and we are not quite sure why”, citing three recent assassination plots on foreign soil that the intelligence agencies say were coordinated by elements in Tehran.

In addition to that, officials now believe Iran has restored all the capability it lost in a sophisticated cyber-attack last year.The Stuxnet computer worm, thought to have been engineered by the Americans and Israelis, sabotaged many of the centrifuges the Iranians were using to enrich uranium.

Up to half of Iran’s centrifuges were disabled by Stuxnet or were thought too unreliable to work, but diplomats believe this capability has now been recovered, and the IAEA believes it may even be increasing.

Ministers have also been told that the Iranians have been moving some more efficient centrifuges into the heavily-fortified military base dug beneath a mountain near the city of Qom.

The concern is that the centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium for use in weapons, are now so well protected within the site that missile strikes may not be able to reach them. The senior Whitehall source said the Iranians appeared to be shielding “material and capability” inside the base.

Another Whitehall official, with knowledge of Britain’s military planning, said that within the next 12 months Iran may have hidden all the material it needs to continue a covert weapons programme inside fortified bunkers. He said this had necessitated the UK’s planning being taken to a new level.

“Beyond [12 months], we couldn’t be sure our missiles could reach them,” the source said. “So the window is closing, and the UK needs to do some sensible forward planning. The US could do this on their own but they won’t.

“So we need to anticipate being asked to contribute. We had thought this would wait until after the US election next year, but now we are not so sure.

“President Obama has a big decision to make in the coming months because he won’t want to do anything just before an election.”

Another source added there was “no acceleration towards military action by the US, but that could change”. Next spring could be a key decision-making period, the source said. The MoD has a specific team considering the military options against Iran.

The Guardian has been told that planners expect any campaign to be predominantly waged from the air, with some naval involvement, using missiles such as the Tomahawks, which have a range of 800 miles (1,287 km). There are no plans for a ground invasion, but “a small number of special forces” may be needed on the ground, too.

The RAF could also provide air-to-air refuelling and some surveillance capability, should they be required. British officials say any assistance would be cosmetic: the US could act on its own but would prefer not to.

An MoD spokesman said: “The British government believes that a dual track strategy of pressure and engagement is the best approach to address the threat from Iran’s nuclear programme and avoid regional conflict. We want a negotiated solution – but all options should be kept on the table.”

The MoD says there are no hard and fast blueprints for conflict but insiders concede that preparations there and at the Foreign Office have been under way for some time.

One official said: “I think that it is fair to say that the MoD is constantly making plans for all manner of international situations. Some areas are of more concern than others. “It is not beyond the realms of possibility that people at the MoD are thinking about what we might do should something happen on Iran. It is quite likely that there will be people in the building who have thought about what we would do if commanders came to us and asked us if we could support the US. The context for that is straightforward contingency planning.”

Washington has been warned by Israel against leaving any military action until it is too late.

Western intelligence agencies say Israel will demand that the US act if it believes its own military cannot launch successful attacks to stall Iran’s nuclear programme. A source said the “Israelis want to believe that they can take this stuff out”, and will continue to agitate for military action if Iran continues to play hide and seek.

It is estimated that Iran, which has consistently said it is interested only in developing a civilian nuclear energy programme, already has enough enriched uranium for between two and four nuclear weapons.

Experts believe it could be another two years before Tehran has a ballistic missile delivery system.

British officials admit to being perplexed by what they regard as Iran’s new aggressiveness, saying that they have been shown convincing evidence that Iran was behind the murder of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi in May, as well as the audacious plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, which was uncovered last month.

“There is a clear dotted line from Tehran to the plot in Washington,” said one.

Earlier this year, the IAEA reported that it had evidence Tehran had conducted work on a highly sophisticated nuclear triggering technology that could only be used for setting off a nuclear device.

It also said it was “increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military-related organisations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”

Last year, the UN security council imposed a fourth round of sanctions on Iran to try to deter Tehran from pursuing any nuclear ambitions.

At the weekend, the New York Times reported that the US was looking to build up its military presence in the region, with one eye on Iran.

According to the paper, the US is considering sending more naval warships to the area, and is seeking to expand military ties with the six countries in the Gulf Co-operation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Israel led by a right-wing, myopic government: Haaretz Editorial

If Israel had a sober and responsible, peace-seeking leadership, it would welcome the PA’s membership in UNESCO and even its upgraded status in the United Nations.
A week after Avigdor Lieberman declared Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas an “obstacle to peace,” it turns out the foreign minister is not alone in the campaign to eliminate the Palestinian interlocutor. Shortly after Israel signed the deal to free soldier Gilad Shalit and revealed the PA leadership to be an empty vessel, the forum of eight senior ministers decided on Tuesday to embark on a campaign to punish the PA leadership.

The government took advantage of the PA’s acceptance as a full member of UNESCO – the United Nations cultural organization – as well as its efforts to become a member of other UN agencies, to declare a retaliatory action that will further undermine Abbas’ position. The forum decided to move ahead with the construction of 2,000 housing units in the settlements and in East Jerusalem, and to withhold more than NIS 300 million in taxes that Israel has collected for the PA, money intended to pay the salaries of PA employees ahead of the Muslim feast of Id al-Adha. The forum also decided to begin the process of revoking senior PA officials’ VIP documentation.

The UN envoy to the region, Robert Serry, told Haaretz this week that the perpetuation of the status quo will lead to the dismantling of the PA and to “throwing the keys back to Israel.” This gloomy prediction, which has the army very concerned, doesn’t worry the government. On the contrary, the eight senior ministers’ decision shows that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is following the path of Lieberman, who is calling for the severing of ties with the PA.

The political elimination of Abbas and his partners will lift international pressure on Netanyahu to freeze construction in the settlements, and will release him from the need to begin negotiations based on the 1967 borders. The takeover of the West Bank by terror groups – and the process of turning it into a clone of the Gaza Strip – will allow the government to occupy the territories again and do whatever it wants there. Such a development will amplify the influence of Iran and radical Muslim organizations, and will magnify the threat to Israel’s security.

If Israel had a sober and responsible, peace-seeking leadership, it would welcome the PA’s membership in UNESCO and even its upgraded status in the United Nations. Unfortunately, and distressingly, Israel is being led by a right-wing, myopic government.

An attack on Iran would be disastrous: Guardian

Britain must resist US pressure for military action. Even if Iran had nuclear weapons, engagement is the only course to take
Richard Norton-Taylor
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visits a nuclear enrichment facility south of Tehran. Photograph: HO/Reuters/Corbis
“Would a British prime minister ever refuse a plea from a US president to join America in a controversial military operation?” This was the response, rhetorical and unanswerable as far as they were concerned, by Whitehall mandarins whenever they were asked why Tony Blair agreed to invade Iraq. It was not a matter of whether the invasion was wrong or right; it was that the occupier of 10 Downing Street would simply not turn down such a request from the White House.

For the US, Britain could offer not only political and “moral” support but a juicy physical asset – Diego Garcia, the base conveniently placed for American bombers, on the British Indian Ocean Territory.

This is what so worries Whitehall, and Britain’s top brass in particular – a growing fear that Barack Obama will find it difficult to oppose increasing pressure for military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities within the next 12 months. British military commanders may be gung-ho, perennially optimistic and eager to please their political masters. They are also pragmatic, fully aware of the potential failure as well as the catastrophic consequences of such military action. And it would be hard for anyone to defend the legality of such pre-emptive strikes.

Amid such death and destruction what would be the end game, and the battles on the way? US and British military commanders have for years warned of the disasters that would follow missile strikes on Iran.

Iran’s forces may not be up to much but, with the help of Hamas and Hezbollah, they could wreak havoc. British and US troops in Afghanistan would be exposed to even greater danger than they are now – their bases in the Gulf, notably in Qatar and Bahrain, would be easy targets. The Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf, the canal through which more than 50% of the world’s oil is shipped, would be closed. What would arise from the ashes?

Some may say that is a price worth paying to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The suggestion is that there is a “window” now that would enable Israel on its own to strike Iran’s nuclear sites. Next year, the “window” would be left open to the US (and the UK) before Iran’s nuclear weapons reached the point of no return.

Such reasoning, if this is what it can be called, is that of the dangerous fool. How crushed and devastated would Iran have to be before it could no longer restart a nuclear programme, even one just involving fissile material as a weapon for terrorists?

Israel is fast developing its arsenal, giving it a nuclear “triad” – weapons that could be delivered by land and air, and by submarines.

That’s fine and understandable because Israel is not Iran – unstable, unpredictable, under a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wants to create havoc across the Middle East. So runs the argument.

Why attack, or even threaten to attack, a country whose leaders are increasingly worried, more worried, about the state of the economy and internal dissent than any perceived threat from Israel? Iran is a far more sophisticated and divided society than the picture generally painted in the west.

An attack on Iran would halt and reverse moves to reform. The Arab spring would become an Arab winter with disastrous consequences for US and European interests as well as Arab societies, including Saudi Arabia. The alternatives are many – to continue to apply economic sanctions, a policy of carrot and stick, but with much more emphasis on the carrot. Embraces are far more difficult to withstand than attacks.

Engagement with Iran is essential even if it continues to appear determined to possess nuclear weapons, or the ability to produce them – “the art, but not the article”. It is status, after all, rather than military practicality, that led Blair to keep the Trident nuclear missile system for Britain, according to his autobiography.

If the pressure continues to mount, we can only hope there are enough influential voices left in Whitehall to tell the prime minister, and in Washington to tell the president: “No!”

Continue reading November 4, 2011

EDITOR: Israel prepares violence again

As the Israeli leadership prepares to act violently, not for the first time, it also prepares the media campaign. As usual, Israel blames the Palestinians for the violence is is about to mete out to them. In order to get the focus away from the UN and ‘peace talks’ (sic) they will now find a reason to start large scale violence so as to derail this last limp attempt to restart the talks. You have been told, so do not be surprised… Ron Prosor’s speech in the UN is part of the ground preparation so as to be able to blame Palestine. How many times did this happen before? This cynicism is sickening.

Israel to UN Security Council: Support for Palestinian statehood will only lead to Mideast violence: Haaretz

Speaking before the UNSC, Israeli envoy Ron Prosor calls PA bid for recognition ‘march of folly,’ adding that peace must be achieved through direct negotiations.

Support for the Palestinian bid for statehood in the United Nations spells instability and violence for the Middle East, Israel’s UN envoy said in an address before the UN Security Council, adding that the only path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is through direct negotiations.

Calling the move a “unilateral initiative,” Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor said the initiative would only raise unrealistic expectations that would eventually lead to “instability and potentially, violence.”

“Members of the international community should be clear about their responsibilities: You vote for it, you own it. All those who vote for unilateral recognition will be responsible for its consequences,” Prosor added.

The Israeli envoy also rejected the notion that Israel’s settlement activities were the main obstacle to Mideast peace, saying that “our conflict was raging for nearly a half century before a single settlement sprung up in the West Bank.”

“From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arab World did not lift a finger to create a Palestinian state. And it sought Israel’s annihilation when not a single settlement stood anywhere in the West Bank or Gaza,” he added, saying that “issue of settlements will be worked out over the course of negotiations, but the primary obstacle to peace is not settlements.”

Instead, Prosor suggested the main obstacle for Mideast peace was the “Arab world’s refusal to acknowledge the Jewish People’s ancient connection to the Land of Israel — and the Palestinian’s insistence on the so-called right of return.”

“Today the Palestinian leadership is calling for an independent Palestinian state, but insists that its people return to the Jewish state,” Prosor said, adding that such a “proposition that no one who believes in the right of Israel to exist could accept because the only equation in political science with mathematical certainty is that the so-called right of return equals the destruction of the State of Israel.”

“The idea that Israel will be flooded with millions of Palestinians is a non-starter. The international community knows it. The Palestinian leadership knows it. But the Palestinian people aren’t hearing it. This gap between perception and reality is the major obstacle to peace. The so-called right of return is the major hurdle to achieving peace,” he added.

Consequently, the Israeli UN envoy urged the international community to reject the Palestinian bid for statehood, saying that the only true path to peace had to be direct negotiations, instead of an imposed solution.

“Israel’s peace with Egypt was negotiated, not imposed. Our peace with Jordan was negotiated, not imposed. Israeli-Palestinian peace must be negotiated. It cannot be imposed,” he said, adding that the “Palestinian’s unilateral action at the United Nations is no path to real statehood. It is a march of folly.”

Abdullah’s comments came just as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman severely criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, calling him the “greatest obstacle” to Mideast peace.

“If there is one obstacle that should be removed immediately, it is [Abbas],” he said. “If he were to return the keys and resign, it would not be a threat, but a blessing.”

Israeli officer loses command, a month after death of protester: Guardian

Action against officer in charge of army unit that killed Palestinian in Qusra was taken due to ‘a number of incidents’
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

The commander of an Israeli army unit whose soldiers shot dead a Palestinian protester just hours before president Mahmoud Abbas called on the United Nations to recognise a Palestinian state has been relieved of his post.

The lieutenant in the Haruv battalion, who has not been named, had a history of disciplinary transgressions. The death of 34-year-old Essam Oudah in the West Bank village of Qusra was not thought to be the main factor in the action against him. “The officer was dismissed from his command due to a number of operational and disciplinary incidents,” an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) statement said.

Oudeh was killed after Palestinian men rallied to protect the village from a feared incursion by nearby settlers. The village had formed a defence committee following the vandalising of one of Qusra’s mosques by settlers last month – an attack condemned by the US and European Union.

On 23 September, the day Abbas submitted the Palestinians’ formal request to be admitted as a full state to the UN, warnings were broadcast from Qusra mosques that settlers were approaching.

Hundreds of men and youths streamed to the edge of the village. The Guardian, which was present for the standoff between villagers and settlers, saw no stone throwing or physical confrontation from either side before the Israeli army began firing teargas at the Palestinians.

Later that day, an IDF statement said a “mutual rock hurling incident … incited a violent riot, during which Palestinians hurled rocks at security personnel”. The army opened fire with live bullets, injuring three Palestinians, including Oudeh who subsequently died. The army launched an investigation.

According to a report on the Israeli Ynet news website, the army inquiry concluded the incident was an “operational failure” and that the commander had made an error of judgment in ordering troops to open fire. The officer told investigators his team felt threatened and outnumbered, according to Ynet. The IDF declined to comment beyond a brief statement. The commander is to remain in the IDF, but not in a combat role.

An Israeli settler and his infant son were killed on the same day after Palestinians threw rocks at their car near Hebron, causing it to overturn.

EDITOR: The Fascist speaks out…

Lieberman is an angry man, for many reasons. He was against the deal with Hamas, and would like to start the second Nakba now, as well as nuke Iran, and maybe few other countries. He is a busy man. He has time for bombing everyone, expelling everyone. If he ever gets to the top job in Israel, you will have to go into your nuclear bunker…

Lieberman urges Abbas to resign, calls him ‘greatest obstacle’ to peace process: Haaretz

FM voices vehement opposition to proposal to free Fatah prisoners as gesture to Palestinian President, adding that anyone who succeeds Abbas would be better for Israel.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the “greatest obstacle” to regional order, telling reporters in Jerusalem it would be a “blessing” if the Palestinian leader were to resign.

“If there is one obstacle that should be removed immediately, it is [Abbas],” he said. “If he were to return the keys and resign, it would not be a threat, but a blessing.”

“The only thing that interests Abbas is to inscribe himself in the history books as he who brought about the Palestinian state and the reconciliation with Hamas,” Lieberman added. “Anyone who succeeds him would be better for Israel. If Abu Mazen goes, there would be a chance to reignite the peace process.”

Referring to the report in Haaretz earlier Monday regarding the defense establishment’s recommendation that Israel release Fatah prisoners as a gesture to Abbas, Lieberman said he had never heard of such a proposal and would oppose the move vehemently.

“I don’t know of any such recommendation, and I completely oppose every gesture,” he said. “I would not agree in any way if recommendations such as these were brought to cabinet.”

Lieberman added that there are plenty of Palestinians with whom Israel can hold dialogue, besides Abbas. “There is no lack of Palestinians who studied in the West,” he said, ” educated people with Western values with whom we can talk.”

Haaretz reported earlier Monday that the Israel Defense Forces’ General Staff believes Israel should make a series of gestures to the Palestinian Authority to reduce the damage caused to the PA by last week’s deal for the return of Gilad Shalit.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advisers vehemently oppose the idea, as do several members of his forum of eight senior ministers, arguing that Abbas “should be punished” for his unilateral bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state.

“We don’t want the Palestinian Authority to collapse,” one adviser said, “but if it happens, it won’t be the end of the world.”

Next month, the IDF will give the government a list of the gestures it recommends, including releasing additional Palestinian prisoners and perhaps transferring additional parts of the West Bank to Palestinian security control. The army considers it necessary to help Abbas regain the upper hand in his ongoing battle with Hamas for control of the territories.

Israel’s intelligence agencies all concur that the Shalit deal, in which Hamas obtained the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one kidnapped soldier, bolstered the Islamic organization at the PA’s expense.

One senior Israeli official told Haaretz that Abbas thinks the deal was deliberately intended to strengthen Hamas and weaken him, in order to punish him for his UN bid.
One of the IDF’s proposals relates to the second stage of the Shalit deal, in which Israel will free another 550 prisoners of its own choosing. While the list has not yet been drawn up, it seems that most will be low-level terrorists belonging to Abbas’ Fatah party, and the army deems the Fatah affiliation critical.

The army also proposes that Israel release additional prisoners beyond these 550 as a gesture to Abbas in honor of Id al-Adha, the Muslim holiday that falls in another two weeks.

Another proposal is to transfer part of what is known as Area B – areas of the West Bank that, according to the Oslo Accords, are under Palestinian civilian control but Israeli security control – to Area A, which is under full Palestinian control. Most of the territory the army favors transferring is in the northern West Bank, between Jenin, Nablus and Tul Karm, as this area has few Israeli settlements.

A fourth idea is returning the bodies of slain terrorists to the PA. That was supposed to have happened a few months ago, but was canceled at the last minute on orders from Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Senior PA officials have said in recent days that the principal gesture they want from Israel is the release of Fatah terrorists who have been imprisoned since before the 1993 Oslo Accords. They also said they have had several discussions with Israel recently about transferring additional territory to Area A, but all have gone nowhere.

In the past, Barak has voiced support for far-reaching gestures toward Abbas. But Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has consistently opposed the idea and Netanyahu is unenthusiastic. Thus, when the army proposed gestures to the PA in the run-up to last month’s UN bid, with the goal of calming the atmosphere and preventing an explosion, the government rejected the proposal.

With the Shalit deal concluded, the IDF is hoping the government will be more amenable. But given Jerusalem’s anger at Abbas’ statehood bid, that seems doubtful.

The issue is further complicated by uncertainty over Abbas’ intentions – a question on which both government officials and intelligence professionals are split. Some believe that Abbas has no interest in resuming negotiations with Israel, preferring to pursue his case at the UN and among the international community in the hope of forcing concessions on Israel. Members of this camp see no point in making any gestures to him.

The IDF, in contrast, thinks Israel must make substantial gestures to bolster Abbas. Minor steps – like dismantling unmanned roadblocks or releasing Palestinian prisoners convicted of crimes other than terrorism – won’t suffice, it argues.

The senior Israeli official said the army’s concerns were on full display at a briefing for Barak last week given by Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, the coordinator of government activities in the territories. Dangot, he said, expressed great concern over the messages he has been getting from senior PA officials recently – namely, that Abbas is depressed and threatening to resign in light of the impasse in negotiations, the boost the Shalit deal gave Hamas and the fear that his UN bid will fail even without an American veto, given his difficulties in recruiting the necessary nine votes in the Security Council.

Over the last two weeks, the Israeli official said, several of Abbas’ advisers, including his chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, have urged him to disband the PA and hand responsibility for the territories back to Israel. This has strengthened the army’s view that gestures to bolster Abbas are needed.

Netanyahu’s advisers, however, don’t take Abbas’ resignation threats seriously, noting that such threats tend to recur frequently. “There’s nothing new in this,” said one. “He threatens all the time.”

Continue reading October 24, 2011

EDITOR: The one against the ten thousand!

One prisoner is well known – an Israeli soldier with a name, a picture, a history, a movement behind his release, a whole nation clamoring for his release for long years. On the other side there are ten thousand prisoners, many of them young children and boys, judged by illegal military courts of an illegal and brutal occupation.

On the one hand is the soldier of the occupying army, on the other people fighting for freedom. Why is it that we only know Gilad Shalit’s name? Because this is what the western media wants us to know. You cannot put it more delicately – it would be lying. Hundreds of the jailed Palestinian prisoners are on a hunger strike due to the way they are treated – no danger the western politicians will intervene here…

So, while (almost) the whole of Israel celebrates the return of their soldier, Netanyahu has slipped another clanger – a new town to be built at Givat Hamatos in East Jerusalem, completing the cutting off of the Arab Palestinian population from the rest of the Occupied Territories. Of course, the US, UN and EU have all remonstrated, but that is just hogwash – they will now shut up, like they did every time more houses were announced, and the town will be built with their financial and political support. Nothing new there.

But while the western governments are beholden to Israel’s aggressive interests of stealing more land, and curtaining more Palestinian lives, their populations are becoming ever more supportive of Palestine, having learnt the tricks of their biased governments when it comes to Israel. Only this week such a politician, Liam Fox, was unseated as the full range of his improper actions and relations has been exposed> His close ‘friend’ Adam Werritty, was the darling of the Israeli Lobby in the UK, screwed into the floor of BICOM, and an open advocate of any support for Israel’s policies one can think of. While it good that he and Fox were exposed and gotten rid of, there are tens of others, not just in the Tory party, but in the other two main parties: MPs and ministers who continued to support Israel even as it attacked Gaza in December 2008, who go there on visits funded by BICOM, who get financial support of their campaigns, and who are there to support Israel’s interests when needed. They are for sale, like the US Congress, and they put in  a vote or a good word when required. This is how legislation which allowed the temporary arrest of suspected Israeli war criminals was doctored to allow them entry to the UK, for example. If one even so far as mentions the many tentacles of the Israeli Lobby, one is immediately blamed for anti-semitism or called self-hating Jew, but this standard approach has now worn off, is no longer effective, and does not frighten most people. Israel is now understood to be beyond the pail, a pariah state which puts itself above the law, any law, including its own legislation.
It may be quite infuriating for the rest of us to see Israel getting off scot-free, whatever brutality it enacts; however, its time is now over, and its extreme acts of disregard for all other people, and especially for the Palestinians under its boot, are evidence of its desperation, not of great strength.

Gilad Shalit deal opposed by families of Palestinian prisoners’ victims: Guardian

Israeli PM tells families he ‘shares their pain’ but is obliged to bring home every Israeli soldier ‘sent to protect our citizens’
Chris McGreal in Jerusalem

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has told the families of Israelis killed by some of the 1,027 Palestinian prisoners due to be swapped for the captured soldier Gilad Shalit that he “shares their pain in seeing their loved ones’ murderers freed” but had little choice.

Netanyahu justified the deal with Hamas in a letter delivered shortly before the relatives of victims of suicide bombings and other attacks asked the high court in Jerusalem to block the exchange. Shalit, 25, has been held incommunicado in Gaza for more than five years.

Netanyahu said he knew “the price was very heavy” for relatives of the victims. He added that the decision was among the most difficult he had ever made, because he lost a brother in the conflict with the Palestinians.

But he said he “was faced with the responsibility of the prime minister of Israel to bring home every soldier who is sent to protect our citizens”.

Critics say the agreement with Hamas is not only a concession to terrorists but will encourage the Palestinians to abduct more soldiers. Some say it is little different from a deal opposed by Netanyahu two years ago before he became prime minister.

Palestinians being freed include the founders of Hamas’s armed wing and the organisers of suicide bombings and other attacks in which scores of Israeli civilians, including children and teenagers, were killed. They include the bombings of a Jerusalem pizza restaurant frequented by families, a Tel Aviv nightclub popular with young Russian immigrants and a Netanya hotel.

There were angry scenes inside and outside the high court where the proceedings were repeatedly interrupted by family members yelling objections to the deal with Hamas.

Shvuel Schijveschuurder, who lost his parents and three siblings in a suicide bomb at a Jerusalem pizza restaurant 10 years ago, shouted at Shalit’s father, Noam, telling him to hang a black flag on his home because “this is a day of mourning”.

Schijveschuurder was arrested last week after vandalising the memorial to the assassinated Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who reached the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians. He painted “release Yigal Amir” – the name of the Jewish extremist who murdered Rabin – on the memorial.

Yossi Zur asked the high court to block the release of the Palestinians who killed his son and 16 other people in a suicide attack on a bus in Haifa in 2003 because it would only encourage further attacks..

“From our experience with past deals, and sadly we have a lot of experience, we know how many Israelis will be killed as a result of the release of these terrorists. I am here to protect my children who are still alive,” he told Israeli television.

Shalit’s father said they sympathised with the victims’ pain, but asked the court not to interfere in the agreement. “Not implementing the deal will not return the murdered loved ones while, on the other hand, it would sentence Gilad to death.”

The president of the high court, Dorit Beinisch, said he recognised the government’s agreement with Hamas meant the negation of legal decisions to jail the Palestinian prisoners. “The moral and legal difficulty is laid out before us … we are sitting among our own people. There is no need to explain the painful history and the very difficult dilemmas we face.”

The government told the court that the exchange is a political matter which it is authorised to carry out, as recognised by the failure of legal challenges in similar cases before.

“The court has refused, time after time, to interfere with the release of prisoners as part of a deal reached through political negotiations,” the government told the court.

A ruling was expected on Monday evening. If the court does not block it, the handover will take place in stages. Israel will first release 27 Palestinian women prisoners. Shalit, a corporal who was promoted to sergeant major while in captivity, will then be moved from Gaza in to southern Israel, possibly directly through one of the crossings between the two territories or briefly via Egypt. Israel will then release 450 male prisoners to Gaza and the West Bank, aside from a small number destined for exile in Turkey and other countries in the region.

The remainder of the 1,027 Palestinians are to be freed in the coming weeks.

Netanyahu, his defence minister, Ehud Barak, and senior military officers will greet Shalit at an air force base in the south of the country. He will undergo a medical examination and then be flown to his parents’ home in Mitzpe Hila, near Israel’s border with Lebanon.

Shalit was captured by Palestinians who tunnelled from Gaza into Israel and killed two other members of his tank crew before snatching him.

Fresh questions over company that funded Adam Werritty’s jet-set life: Guardian

Pargav set up just before Liam Fox’s charity was closed and paid for the self-styled adviser’s flights and five-star hotel bills
The multimillionaire Australian businessman who gave £104,000 to Liam Fox’s Atlantic Bridge charity and provided office space for his best man Adam Werritty has hosted the new defence secretary, Philip Hammond, at a number of fundraising dinners.

Michael Hintze, a hedge fund owner and major Tory party donor, provided Werritty with free office space at the plush headquarters of his £5bn CQS hedge fund and allowed Fox and Werritty to travel on his private jet.

Hammond lists him on the MPs’ register of interests as a donor several times, although his spokesman yesterday said the hospitality before and after the election had been properly registered, and openly declared.

As the Liberal Democrats indicated they will use Fox’s resignation to speed up the introduction a register of lobbyists, it emerged that the company set up to support Werritty’s jet-set lifestyle was created days before regulators demanded that Atlantic Bridge, which had been paying for Werritty’s flights around the world, suspend all its activities.

The Guardian has discovered Pargav Ltd, which paid for Werritty to travel the world first class and stay at the most exclusive five-star hotels, was founded on 25 June last year – just eight days before the Charity Commission demanded that Atlantic Bridge’s activities “must cease immediately”.

Pargav, which received £147,000 in donations from Tory party supporters and businessmen, was founded at offices of the same accountancy firm that audited the charity.

The revelation raises questions as to whether Atlantic Bridge’s trustees, who were led by Fox until May 2010, set up Pargav after they got wind that the watchdog was about to force the suspension of the charity, which was run by Werritty.

A Charity Commission spokesman said it would have allowed the trustees of Atlantic Bridge to see the details of its report a “couple of weeks” before it was completed on 5 July 2010.

There was a further blow for Werritty last night when the City of London police confirmed that its economic crime unit is considering whether to launch an investigation into allegations that the lobbyist may have committed fraud. Police may decide to investigate whether Fox’s long-term travel companion profited from misrepresenting himself as an official adviser to the former defence secretary. If an investigation is launched it is likely to centre on whether Werritty was gaining pecuniary advantage by misrepresentation by handing out business cards embossed with the logo of House of Commons portcullis and describing him as an “adviser to Rt Hon Dr Liam Fox MP”.

Defence business people who claim they were misled by Werritty, including Dubai-based private equity boss Harvey Boulter, are understood to be pressing police to launch a full-scale investigation. Boulter said he passed on financially sensitive information to Werritty only because he was led to believe Werritty was an official government adviser.

Werritty has been accused of seeking to misrepresent himself to a string of foreign generals, business people and even overseas heads of state.

Hintze was at a Buckingham Palace reception for prominent Australians last Thursday when he learned that further details of his involvement with Werritty were to be made public.

That night, Lord Bell, the PR man who helped Lady Thatcher win three elections, assisted Hintze to leak full details of Werritty’s funding to the media. The next day, Fox resigned as defence secretary.

The sole director of Pargav is Oliver Hylton, one of Hintze’s closest aides and the manager of his charitable foundation that paid the donations to Atlantic Bridge. Hylton has said he was “naive” to sign the documents that allowed Werritty to create Pargav, which also sought donations from private equity boss Jon Moulton and companies linked to the defence industry.

Both Pargav and Atlantic Bridge gave their registered addresses as the offices of accountants Kingston Smith at 60 Goswell Road, central London.

Also registered at that address was Security Futures, a global risk consultancy which counted both Werritty and Hylton on its board until it was wound up last year. The company secretary of Security Futures was Tory MP Iain Aitken Stewart, a close friend of Fox and Werritty.

One of the key donors to Pargav has been Michael Lewis, who is a former vice-chairman of Bicom, an organisation that lobbies on behalf of Israel. He has donated £13,832 to Atlantic Bridge and £5,000 to Fox. Bicom has been linked to Werritty, and paid for the 33-year-old’s flight and hotel bills when he attended a conference in Israel in 2009 to speak about Iran.

Bicom’s former communications chief is Lee Petar, who left the lobby group to set up PR outfit Tetra Strategy a few years ago. Emails seen by the Guardian show Petar had been working to arrange a meeting between Werritty and private equity boss Harvey Boulter in Dubai in June. An invoice seen by the Guardian shows Petar received thousands of pounds from Boulter for help setting up the meeting and for PR advice.

Jon Moulton, the private equity tycoon who bought Reader’s Digest and has donated £400,000 to the Tories, has given £35,000 to Pargav.

He said Fox requested he pay money into the company. “After the election, I was asked by Dr Fox to provide funds to a non-profit group called Pargav involved in security policy analysis and research and after obtaining written assurances as to its activities I provided personal funding to Pargav,” Moulton said.

“Neither I, nor any of my associates, have sought or received a benefit of any form from Pargav. I have not received an account of Pargav’s activities, nor have I been involved at all with Pargav, since funding. I will not be doing this again.

Other donors to Pargav include Tamares Real Estate – an investment company owned by Tory donor and Bicom chairman Poju Zabludowicz – and the Good Governance Group (G3), a private investigations company staffed by former MI6 officers and founded by Andries Pienaar, a South African who once worked for the security giant Kroll.

The concerns over Werritty’s funding come as the Guardian reveals that ministers held meetings with corporate officials on more than 1,500 occasions in the first 10 months of the coalition government.

The Charity Commission’s report into the Atlantic Bridge, published on 26 July last year, said the primary objective of the charity, which was supported by George Osborne, William Hague and Michael Gove, appeared to be “promoting a political policy [that] is closely associated with the Conservative party”.

It said “current activities must cease immediately” because “the activities of the charity have not furthered any of its other charitable purposes in any way”. The Atlantic Bridge was finally dissolved last month.

Kingston Smith accountants did not respond to requests for comment.

Continue reading October 17th, 2011

EDITOR: A climate of pogrom builds up in Israel

Like in the Russia of the 1880’s, a climate of hatred and fear is building up across Israel, with the burning of mosques, racist graffiti, racist attacks and a multitude of racist events. The government is quite cool about all this, as they stand behind the phenomenon – not behind each nasty racist event, but behind the nasty climate of fear and loathing towards the Palestinian Arabs, either in Israel or in the Occupied Territories. Israel has become what South Africa once was – a society geared up to disable any opposition to its racist rule, and to spread hatred towards the ‘other’, being, like in South Africa, the native of the land, the indigenous population.

That this cancerous growth is spreading at the same time that the ‘tent protest’ is waning is also not an accident. While the tent protesters were careful to avoid any reference to the greatest injustice Israel has ever created, in their fight for justice, it would have been more difficult to spawn this campaign of hate during the ascendancy of the tent protest. Now it is much easier. After a ‘summer of hope’, follows the winter of racism.

Israel sees increasing incidents of anti-Arab hate graffiti: Haaretz

Hate-graffiti reported across Israel after Tuba-Zangaria mosque arson last week; Police Commissioner meets with Muslim, Christian community leaders after tense weekend in Jaffa.

Jaffa was quiet on Sunday following a tense weekend in which vandals spray-painted slogans such as “Death to Arabs” in two cemeteries – one Muslim and one Christian – and hurled a Molotov cocktail at a synagogue.

Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino sought an urgent meeting with the leaders of Jaffa’s Muslim and Christian communities on Sunday, and the meeting was quickly set for that evening in Jaffa. By the time it occurred, police had also learned about similar graffiti in nearby Bat Yam, along with new slogans such as “There will be no Arabs on Maccabi Haifa” (a soccer team) and “Death to Russians.” But Bat Yam residents say this graffiti is more than two weeks old.

Police said that ever since last week’s torching of a mosque in Tuba-Zangaria, in northern Israel, they have been receiving reports of hate-graffiti from all over the country.

Prior to their meeting with Danino, Jaffa leaders met among themselves to formulate a list of demands they planned to present to him with the goal of bolstering security in the city. They agreed that the city’s Arabs felt threatened, and some even said they feared Arabs would soon be attacked en route to prayers at local mosques.

Danino prepared by receiving a briefing on the investigation from Tel Aviv and Jaffa police officers. The police’s current thinking is that even though one of the spray-painted slogans was “price tag,” a phrase usually associated with right-wing extremists, the vandalism was not ideologically motivated, but was rather the work of local hoodlums, possibly soccer fans.

Danino opened his meeting with Jaffa’s leaders by telling them, “I was born in Jaffa and spent much time there as a child. I’m very familiar with the city’s coexistence and fabric of life.”

He then said the force has have recently been working to “bolster policing and service in Arab communities.”

“We view the incident that took place here as a grave one,” he said. “The incident will be dealt with at the highest level; we’ll make every effort to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Our top people will be devoted to this matter. I ask the community to continue to aspire to coexistence and a shared life while upholding law and order.”

The community leaders said afterward that they would prefer less talk and more action.

Earlier yesterday, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai also met with leaders of Jaffa’s Arab community and denounced the cemetery vandalism harshly.

“I expect the hands of those who commit such acts to be chopped off,” he said, speaking figuratively. “But our job as public figures is to sit together and resolve the issues, as we have invested enormous efforts in recent years in maintaining life as usual here. The Jaffa public was always more mature than all the extremists, and we’ll find a way to return to normal, despite the provocations.”

Sheikh Saliman Setel, who heads the Islamic Movement in Jaffa, termed the meeting with Huldai positive and pledged to do his best to calm tempers in the city.

“For now, the situation is calm; there’s nothing special happening,” he said. “We don’t want this to be temporary. Such things happen every year or two, and it’s not acceptable to anyone. We live in coexistence; we don’t want problems. Just as we respect everyone’s holy sites, we want others to respect our holy sites.”

Empire – Palestine state … of mind: YouTube

Watch this comprehensive examination of the international effort to stop the Palestinians from having their state.

In Jaffa, Israeli racism towards Arabs is routine: Haaretz

The problem in Jaffa is not that some kids scrawled ‘Death to the Arabs’ on a grave, but the racist treatment Arabs receive on a daily basis; Israel’s Arab minority is treated as an enemy.

A meeting between the head of the Israel Police and a group of Arab notables is never something that sounds good. I come to the well-kept community center in the Arab Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa where the meeting is to take place. A Christian notable with a huge gold cross comes through the door while a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian checks with the tall reporter from the Ynet website as to what exactly is going on.

Then in comes Israel Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino, with an entourage of other senior police officials. As Danino smiles, spokesman’s office staff try to get the reporters and cameramen out of the room. “I came for a private talk. No media,” the police commissioner announces, as if the substance of this whole meeting isn’t media-related.

Ahmed Abu-Kutub, who is the event operations director at the Tel Aviv Hilton hotel and has worked there for 30 years, stands outside. He came to the community center for his son, who is a reporter for an Arabic language website called Yaffa48.com. “How will this help?” the Hilton employee asks, referring to Danino’s visit. He was offended by the graffiti discovered on Muslim and Christian graves in Jaffa over the weekend, calling it a serious matter.

“We grew up with Jews. To me, you’re a human being. That’s how we were taught at home. A person has died. What do you write on his grave? All kinds of nonsense?” Abu-Kutub remarked.

“It’s all racism. That’s the government and the police,” Abu-Kutub’s son, the reporter, says but Ahmed responds: “How are the police guilty?”

I make my way to the Jaffa protest tent encampment, which is one of the most impressive institutions to come out of this summer’s protests. It was exciting to see how important it was to the Arab and Jewish leadership of the Jaffa encampment to be in touch with leadership from the Hatikvah quarter protest camp. It’s the beginning of solidarity as great as the social protest struggle itself.

I seek out someone to interview there and am referred to Samer Kassem, who was photographed on video being beaten by police in a clip that provided shocking Internet footage a few days ago. His story never made headlines because people are more shocked by symbols than people whose ribs police fracture. The incident occurred while police were evicting Kassem from an abandoned house in which he was squatting with his sister.

“When they came to evict us from there, I started packing. I knew [the house] was just a temporary solution. I asked the officer one question. ‘Do you have an eviction order?’ Then he called over the Yassam [special forces police] and said: ‘Take care of him.'”

Samer works in home remodeling and sees the irony in his situation. “I make homes beautiful, but I have no place to live,” he says.

I ask him how he can work with broken fingers. His ribs hurt him a lot more, he replies.

The real problem in Jaffa is not that a few kids scrawled “Death to the Arabs” on a grave, but rather the racist treatment accorded the Arabs on a daily basis. It’s a fact that this minority here is related to by the media and the state as the enemy. The Israeli establishment simply relates to Arabs here with violence and racism, even if it is elegantly concealed to a greater or lesser extent.

Israel Police arrest suspect in Galilee mosque arson: Haaretz

Man detained within hours of the incident, which police believe may have been a ‘price tag’ attack carried out by extreme right-wing Jews; suspect denies involvement.

Israel Police have arrested a man suspected of involvement in the torching of an Upper Galilee mosque earlier this week, it emerged on Thursday.

The suspect arrested just hours after the attack, but a gag order was slapped on all investigation details immediately following the incident. The suspect was brought before the court for a hearing on his remand Thursday, where an attorney representing the suspect said his client disavowed any link to the incident.

Legal representation to the suspect is provided by the Hanenu organization, which provides legal counseling to those prosecuted over acts committed during military service in the West Bank and as part of right-wing political activity.

The mosque in the village of Tuba-Zanghariyya, a Bedouin town of some 5,500 people two kilometers east of Rosh Pina, was attacked at about 2:30 A.M. on Monday morning. The mosque’s interior was seriously damaged, and many holy books were destroyed by the blaze.

Police suspect that extreme right-wing Jews carried out the arson as a “price tag” operation, referring to vandalism and revenge actions initiated by activists, usually against Palestinians, following terror attacks or state demolitions in settlements or outposts.

On Wednesday, the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Yated Ne’eman condemned the arsonists who torched the Tuba-Zangariya mosque, saying said the “din rodef” law applied to them, meaning it is permitted to kill them to prevent them from endangering others.

“Jews don’t burn mosques, period,” the newspaper’s editorial said. “…no shadow of justification can be found for harming a Muslim mosque. This is an insane, dangerous act.”

Palestinian security prisoners across Israel to join PFLP in hunger strike: Haaretz

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine launched hunger strike on September 27 to protest isolation of senior Palestinian prisoners.

Security prisoners in all Israeli prisons plan to announce on Monday that they are joining the hunger strike declared by jailed activists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the hundreds of other prisoners who have identified with them, including Israeli Arab security prisoners.

The hunger strike was launched on September 27 to protest the isolation of several senior Palestinian prisoners, among them the PFLP’s general secretary, Ahmad Saadat.

An announcement released on Sunday by inmates in the Gilboa Prison said that security prisoners had decided to join the strike until their demands were met, among them a halt to the policy of solitary confinement and the upholding of prisoners’ rights, which they said had been won after a difficult struggle that took place over many years.

The Israel Prison Service has been conducting talks with prisoner leaders in every prison in an effort to prevent any collective decision. The IPS said that the policy on solitary confinement is set by the political echelons, but that one suggestion – that all prisoners in solitary confinement be kept in the same guarded area of the prison – may be acceptable to the prisoners.

The prisoners’ demands have started to garner support outside the prisons. There are solidarity marches scheduled for tomorrow in several cities in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Solidarity Committee for Prisoners has declared Friday to be a day of solidarity with the hunger strikers.

Continue reading October 10, 2011

EDITOR: The US is making sure there is no Two States solution

As if the two-state solution was still a faint possibility, the US has stepped in in order to make sure it cannot ever take place… by depriving the PA of its income, it makes sense for the PA to end the show, and to return the keys to Israel. Now Israel can look after the territories, and also pay for it. To continue to play the US/Israel game is a crime, and does no longer fool the Palestinian people or anyone else.

In the meantime, It has become safer for war criminals to travel to Britain. And why not? A country itself involved in so many war crimes, is the natural place for war criminals to visit safely.

Minister: All 2011 USAID projects halted: Ma’an News

Published Friday 07/10/2011

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — All projects by the US international assistance agency in the Palestinian territories funded under its 2011 budget have been halted, the minister of economy in the West Bank said Friday.

Hasan Abu Libdeh said funding for USAID projects stopped after the US Congress blocked transfer of some $200 million in funds in August. Implementation will continue for a few weeks until the funds run dry, he said.

The project freeze relates to funding for infrastructure work, specifically for “roads, water, health and other projects related to building the capacities (of the Palestinian Authority),” Abu Libdeh told Ma’an.

Dozens have already lost their jobs related to projects earmarked for blocked funds, he said.

US lawmakers put a hold on the aid in September after President Mahmoud Abbas went ahead with his bid for membership of the UN despite US and Israeli opposition.

A US official told Ma’an that USAID had not halted its programs.

“We are working with the Congress to remove Congressional holds with respect to the release of (the 2011 financial year’s) assistance for the Palestinians,” the official said.

“The lifting of the holds is necessary for programs to continue as planned. Ongoing programs will continue until funds are exhausted.”

US officials are in “frequent contact with our Palestinian partners to explain the holds on our assistance and their implications for our programs in the West Bank and Gaza,” the official added.

The Obama administration is exerting huge efforts to overturn the freeze on funds, officials say, and Israel has also warned that it supports continued aid to the Ramallah-based Palestinian government.

“We think it is money that is not only in the interest of the Palestinians, it is in US interest and it is also in Israeli interest and we would like to see it go forward,” State Dept. spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Abu Libdeh, the minister, said he was officially informed of Congress’ move by a senior USAID delegate, and that it was unclear whether there will be US government funding for Palestinian projects in 2012.

The PA, which exercises limited rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has often failed to pay its 150,000 employees on time and in full and remains reliant on foreign aid to fill a deficit projected at $900 million this year.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank say that financial problems threaten the state-building program overseen by Salam Fayyad, the prime minister in the West Bank.

The 27-member European Union, the PA’s single biggest funder, has said that it will continue funding the West Bank government.

Muslim and Christian graves desecrated in Israeli city of Jaffa: Guardian

Militant Jewish settlers smash tombs and spray stones with graffiti on Yom Kippur and firebomb is thrown at synagogue

Jaffa, south of central Tel Aviv, where graves were desecrated on Yom Kippur. Photograph: Gil Cohen Magen / Reuters/Reuters
Dozens of gravestones have been desecrated at Muslim and Christian cemeteries and a firebomb thrown at a synagogue in Jaffa, Israel, on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

At least five tombs were smashed and around 20 others sprayed with Hebrew graffiti, including ‘Death to Arabs’ and ‘Price Tag’ – a slogan used by militant Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and their supporters.

The “price-taggers” have vowed to avenge any move by Israel to uproot West Bank settlement outposts built without Israeli government permission, and have set fire to mosques and vandalised both Israeli and Palestinian property.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a firebomb thrown on to the roof of a synagogue in the Jaffa area caused no damage or casualties. He said an investigation had been launched and that patrols had been stepped up.

A few dozen Israelis and Palestinians turned out in a show of protest against the attacks and a local councillor blamed settlers. Jaffa is the ancient part of Tel Aviv, with a mixed Jewish and Arab population, including Christians and Muslims.

“All these extreme settlers are doing different activities and they are not paying a price for anything,” said Sami Abu-Shehadi, a member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality council. “Settlers have been saying that they want to bring the conflict inside [Israel] and this is exactly what they are doing now,” he said.

Rosenfeld said there was no initial indication the suspects were settlers or settler supporters, and that there was also a possibility that they might be football hooligans.

Israeli president Shimon Peres condemned the vandalism. “The desecration of graves is a forbidden and criminal act that defames our honour and is contrary to the moral values of Israeli society,” he said.

On Monday, a mosque in a Bedouin village in northern Israel was set on fire and graffiti sprayed on its walls in an attack authorities have blamed on hardline Jewish settlers. The attacks have drawn broad condemnation from Peres and other Israeli leaders, and the country’s chief rabbis visited the scene in a bid to calm tensions.

In 2005 a Jewish couple were charged for throwing a pig’s head into a Tel Aviv mosque in an attempt to derail Israel’s pullout from Gaza, which went ahead in August of that year.

In 2008 riots erupted in the coastal city of Acre in northern Israel when Jews accosted an Arab man who drove his car into a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood during Yom Kippur when all traffic halts and the country shuts down for 24 hours.

Sleep easy, war criminals
Britain’s insulting new rules on arrest warrants will only encourage Israel’s view of itself as above international law

Israel has violated innumerable UN resolutions and international laws over the past 50 years without any sanction being incurred – whether legal, economic, political or military. Most blatant is its disregard for the overwhelming opinion of the international court of justice in The Hague, which in 2004 declared the erection of a wall through the occupied territories to be unlawful. If you add the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, continued extension of illegal settlements, forced evictions and house demolitions, requisition of water resources, Gaza blockade and illicit use of cloned passports to facilitate an assassination outside Israel, anyone might be think that this is a state that regards itself as above the law.

The creation of international crimes with universal jurisdiction was accomplished after years of negotiation and careful deliberation for one purpose: to ensure there could be no hiding place or safe haven for the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes against humanity. In practical terms it means that no matter where the offence took place, nor who the victims were, nor who carried out the acts, a judicial process could be invoked to prosecute those responsible. Examples of such cases are genocide, war crimes and torture.

The ICJ itself made clear in the wall case that the obligation to prosecute is the concern of all states. The problem is that no state has been willing to take on this task vis-a-vis Israel other than on a very muted diplomatic level. Lawyers acting for individuals in Palestine have been forced to do so themselves.

In 2009 Westminster magistrates court issued an arrest warrant for Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister at the time of Operation Cast Lead, which caused an estimated death toll of 1,400 in Gaza. Britain’s Labour government hierarchy fell over itself rushing to the Israeli authorities, not about the deaths but to apologise for the warrant.

A dramatic incident occurred as Livni was about to appear on Israeli television during the invasion. The interviewer Shlomi Eldar recognised a name that appeared on his mobile – Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian doctor who had courageously and steadfastly given services without fear or favour equally to Israelis and Palestinians. “They shelled my house. They killed my daughters. What have we done? Shlomi, I wanted to save them but there are dead. They were hit in the head. They died on the spot. Allah, what have we done to them?” Three of his daughters and his niece had just been killed by Israeli forces. The call was broadcast and transmitted round the world. The whole story of the operation as the doctor witnessed it is told in his acclaimed book I Shall Not Hate.

There could be no question that this admired physician was associated with Hamas or terrorism, or even a hostile thought. Only two possibilities make sense: a deliberate attack, or an indiscriminate one that did not afford proper protection for civilians. In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict found that the Israelis – and Hamas – had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. While the leader of the mission had second thoughts about part of the conclusions in April this year, the other three distinguished members of the panel did not, and the Foreign Office maintained its support for the report and did not wish to see it withdrawn. In any event none of this relates to a failure to accord civilians proper protection.

In September the British government changed the ground rules by providing the director of public prosecutions with the power of veto over private applications for arrest warrants (in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act). It is an insult to the courts to insinuate that they cannot be trusted to assess the requisite threshold for issuing a warrant. In 10 years only two out of 10 such applications had been granted. We are dealing here with arrest, not charge.

The DPP made clear in January that he would consult the attorney general if approached for approval. The attorney would then decide whether it was in the public interest to prosecute. Such a decision would normally not arise until all relevant evidence had been assembled so that an overview could be made on the twofold test of evidential adequacy and public interest. To essentially assess that there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction at the start is to pre-empt the whole process and makes a mockery of the concept of universal jurisdiction.

It is therefore highly unlikely that any prosecutions of consequence will ensue either at the instigation of the government itself or of an individual – as Livni’s meeting with William Hague in London this week demonstrated. Given the British government’s lacklustre performance in this field when it comes to nations or individuals who are seen to be unacceptable (eg Pinochet, where it took a Spanish magistrate to act), those in positions of command and responsibility at times when war crimes are committed can now rest easily in their beds.

 Tzipi Livni spared war crime arrest threat: Guardian

Foreign Office declares that the Israeli opposition leader enjoys temporary diplomatic immunity as she is on a ‘special mission’

The Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni has avoided the possibility of prosecution in a British court for war crimes after the Foreign Office declared that she enjoys temporary diplomatic immunity.

A private application for a warrant to arrest the former foreign minister during her visit to London was made on Tuesday and had been under consideration by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC.

But the announcement that the Foreign Office had issued a rarely heard of certificate that she was on a “special mission” infuriated Palestinian activists and human rights groups.

Legislation passed earlier this year requires the DPP to give his consent to any private prosecution for war crimes launched in courts in England and Wales to prevent politically motivated cases and to ensure that there was “solid evidence”. Under what is known as universal jurisdiction, war crimes committed anywhere in the world can be tried in UK courts.

The arrival of Livni was a significant test case. In late 2009, an arrest warrant was issued for Livni on the grounds she had been a member of the Israeli war cabinet that sanctioned the assault on Gaza in which more than a thousand Palestinians were killed. On that occasion she cancelled her visit.

In a detailed statement, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) revealed that it had received a fresh application for an arrest warrant on Tuesday. “No concluded view has been reached on whether there is sufficient evidence to support a realistic prospect of conviction against Ms Livni.”

On Thursday, it added, the CPS had been served with a certificate by the foreign secretary, William Hague, declaring the Foreign Office “has consented to the visit to the UK of Ms Livni as a special mission”.

“Special mission” immunity status, the CPS said, could not be challenged.

The private prosecution application had been brought on behalf of an unnamed Palestinian police officer whose brother, also a police officer, was killed during the first day of the attack on Gaza in 2008.

The case was handled in London by Daniel Machover of the solicitors Hickman and Rose. A joint statement with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said: “The DPP … has been blocked from any arrest decision … but not on the basis of a lack of evidence. The only reason given by the DPP is the retrospective grant of diplomatic immunity to Ms Livni by the British foreign secretary on the basis of a ‘special mission’.

“The government has abused the law in order to ensure that Ms Livni escapes accountability. Ms Livni is not a member of the Israeli government, but the leader of the opposition. This action exhibits a serious and worrying disregard for the rule of law, and appears to be in violation of the UK’s international obligations.”

Hague said: “It was an appalling situation when political abuse of our legal procedures prevented people like Ms Livni from travelling legitimately to the UK. We have dealt with this urgently as we promised to on coming to office.

“The UK will continue to honour our international obligations and make sure that people who have committed some of the most awful crimes – wherever in the world they took place – can be brought to justice in our courts.”