Day by day Archive

May 14, 2010

Russia rebuffs Israeli rebuke over relations with Hamas: Haaretz

On Wednesday, Israel slammed Russian President Medvedev for meeting with Hamas leader Meshal in Damascus.
Russia on Thursday rebuffed Israel’s criticism of President Dmitry Medvedev’s meeting with the leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas this week.

Calling Hamas “a terror organization in every way”, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it was “deeply disappointed” that Medvedev met the group’s exiled leader Khaled Meshal during a visit to Syria this week.
Russia, the United States, European Union and the United Nations, make up a quartet of Middle East mediators. The U.S., EU and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist group. Russia insists that Hamas should not be isolated.

“Hamas…is a movement supported by the trust and sympathy of a significant part of Palestinians,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in a statement. “We have regular contacts with this movement.”
“It is known that all other participants of the Middle East quartet are also in some sort of contact with Hamas leadership, although for some unknown reason they are shy to publicly admit it,” Nesterenko said.
During the meeting with Meshal, Medvedev called for the quick release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip for nearly four years. Hamas later dismissed the Russian pressure and said Shalit would not be set free without an “honorable” prisoner exchange deal with Israel.

EDITOR: Zionism’s Lunatic Heart

You to read it to believe it. No, this is not the satire page of some left wing publication. It is the genuine article: Zionist freakish conspiracy-crazed, the-whole-world-is-against-us dyed in the wool lunacy. I raed that Obama is being carefully protected by the CIA from various white supremacist groups. Maybe the danger is coming from a different direction altogether? Maybe it is Jewish Zionist supremacists they should be watching?

Obama’s Plan to Destroy Israel: Israel National News

by Daniel Greenfield
Obama’s plan is to destroy Israel, and to do it by pushing Israel to the edge of the cliff and then over the cliff, says the writer. If you agree with this persuasive analysis, you can-or must- try to do something about it.
If there’s one thing that the Carter Administration can be given credit for, it’s creating the new wave of Islamist terrorism, both Sunni, operating out of Afghanistan, and Shiite, operating out of Iran. The Carter Administration cracked down on Israel and put its “faith” in Muslim terrorists, who then went on to wage war on America, even while Carter was in office. 28 years after Carter was removed from office, we’re in reruns again with the Obama Administration, which is not only following the Carter line, but whose plans greatly exceed it.

28 years ago, Wahhabi Sunni and Shiite terrorists were generally an afterthought when compared to the standard
Iran is to be our new best friend under this arrangement, Israel is to be our new best enemy.
USSR backed Marxist terrorist groups, such as the PLO.

Today, thanks in part to the Carter Administration, they control several countries and have designs on several more. From Pakistan to Afghanistan, from Gaza to Lebanon, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, the threat is very real and bigger than ever particularly as the race by both Sunni and Shiite groups to build and deploy nuclear weapons continues.

Like Carter before him, Obama has chosen to cut backdoor deals with the Mullahs in Iran, offering them power over Iraq and Afghanistan, in exchange for quieting things down enough to let him hang up a Mission Accomplished banner and pull the troops out. “Peace with honor”, preferably before the next election. The rape law for Shiites in Afghanistan, the push for a US funded Hamas/Fatah Unity government in the territories and the rising expansion of the Taliban are all fruits of this arrangement.

If Iran is to be our new best friend under this arrangement, Israel is to be our new best enemy.

Obama stacked the deck by deploying Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in a position that gave her an important title, but absolutely no power to go with it, while stacking the National Security Council and even the Pentagon with oil appointees in the pockets of the Saudis or his own left wing radical friends.

Israel electing a conservative government really put the ball into play, freeing up even more resources for attacking Israel. The strategy runs something like this.

The Obama Administration has broken down the Israel problem into two subsections, Israel itself, and American Jews.

Obama’s people have studied the problem and understand where Carter went wrong. Obama does not want to have the same image problems as Carter in the Jewish community. Should that happen, the Beloved Leader and his lapdog press are fully prepared to unleash a Chavez style hate-on targeting American Jews. But that would be inconvenient and messy. Even with the changing face of America, there are significant differences between the average American and European or Venezuelan, and what kind of ugliness they are willing to tolerate. So Obama’s people have split their attention in handling the two factors as two different problems.

American Jews – Obama has been clever about putting his Jewish appointees front and center. Like many minorities, some American Jews suffer from self-esteem problems that are soothed when they see a seeming acceptance. Of course what they fail to realize is that exploitation is not acceptance. And that Obama’s appointees are creatures of his backers, Nazi collaborators like Soros, who have nothing but contempt for Jews, individually or collectively.While outwardly courting Jews, Obama’s people have also been quietly shoving Jewish organizations and their leaders into a corner. Within the Jewish organizational world there has been a silent but deadly takeover of major Jewish groups by left wing radicals. Former alumni of the far left wing and anti-Israel groups like Breira or Coname in the 70’s have been elevated to key positions in such organizations as the UJA Federation. Behind the scenes any Jewish leaders who expressed even doubts about Obama during the primaries
The Beloved Leader and his lapdog press are fully prepared to unleash a Chavez style hate-on targeting American Jews.
were intimidated and silenced.

Much as with conservatives, a list has been drawn up of those figures who can be won over, and those who cannot. The ones who can be won over are described as “moderates”, the ones who cannot be won over are described as “extremists”.

Meanwhile a bevvy of left wing Jewish In Name Only groups have been organized to play their part. Key among them is the Soros funded J Street, a group created as an anti-Israel lobby meant to eventually replace AIPAC. Meanwhile AIPAC itself has been kept on the ropes with such things as the well timed Harman leak. The message once again is fairly clear, cooperate and keep quiet, or we’ll destroy you.

The multi-layered approach to American Jews can then be summed up as follows;

1.) Co-opt existing Jewish organizations and swing them to the left using old school 70’s leftists.

2.) Create new “progressive” organizations to appeal to a younger generation of ethnically Jewish youth detached from any actual identity. Have these organizations generate attacks on the Israeli government and pro-Israel Jews, while creating phony polls indicating that most American Jews are behind them and Obama.

3.) Silence and intimidate remaining Jewish organizations and leaders behind the scenes.

The overall idea is to keep a happy face pasted on American Jewry while the knives are out in the dark.

Israel – The basic understanding in the Obama Administration is that Israel Must Go. In the worldview of the more moderate Obama appointees, Israel is a destabilizing factor in the Middle East. To the more left wing Obama advisors, Israel is a Western imperialist colonialist state that must be destroyed in the name of revolutionary justice. To the Islamist mindset, Israel is a Kufir state that has no right to exist in the Dar Al Islam.While intractably hostile to Israel, the Obama Administration wants to avoid the kind of public confrontations that marked the Carter and Bush Sr administrations. Instead they would much rather model the way that the Clinton Administration waged a quiet war against Israel, removing one government, and forcing extensive concessions to terrorists, all the while keeping a happy face pasted on the whole affair.

On the one hand that means avoiding harsh public attacks on Israel, but keeping the pressure up for Israel to make extensive far reaching one sided concessions, to accept Saudi and Arab League “peace plans”, to legitimize Hamas as the new government of the Palestinian Authority, and to insure that Israel does not reply to any rocket or terrorist attacks.

There are two forms of quiet leverage that the United States has on Israel, the first is financial and the second is military.

On the financial side, the goal will be to bring down the Netanyahu government coalition by destabilizing Israel economically. This is the surest and most direct path to bringing down Israel’s conservative government and replacing it with a left of center coalition. The Obama Administration has a wide variety of tactics at its disposal for doing so, from the overt, such as targeting Israeli exports and imports, to the covert, that would involve targeting the Shekel. Additionally fundraising in the US could be investigated and groups such as the Jewish National Fund, prevented from raising money in the US. All of these have been in play before at one time or another.

On the military side, Obama’s people will make their non-existent efforts to stop Iran’s nukes conditional on more concessions to terrorists. Since Israel will never be able to make enough concessions and since Obama is working with Iran, rather than working to stop Iran’s nukes, this is a hollow charade.

Furthermore while Israel has already been locked out of the military technology pipeline for anything cutting edge, it still remains dependent on US military equipment for parts and supplies. The decades of US foreign aid have also served to create dependency. Unlike many other countries, including even Sweden, Israel does not have its own jet fighter. Israel’s Air Force is heavily dependent on US weapons, parts and equipment. Cutting Israel off, would leave the Israeli military dangerously vulnerable in the case of a war. This is an effective chokehold that has been used before to prevent Israel from attacking Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, as well as preventing Israel from carrying out a preemptive strike against its enemies before the Yom Kippur War.

The overall Obama policy will be to push Israel to the brink, using financial and military blackmail against the Netanyahu government, while maintaining control over American Jews to prevent any protests or backtalk.
…American Jewish groups will support Obama… some because they were created precisely for that purpose, and others because they have been hijacked, cowed or subverted.
The more Israel will offer, the more the Obama Administration will tighten the screws. No offer will be good enough, and Israel will be blamed for every breakdown in talks and every bit of violence that takes place. The media will portray Israel and particularly Netanyahu as extremist and intransigent. Hamas will be slowly whitewashed in the media, the same way that Arafat’s goons were, (assuming that they prove more willing to cooperate in creating a positive media image of themselves than Ahmadinejad is.)

The plan is to destroy Israel, and to do it by pushing Israel to the edge of the cliff and then over the cliff. Israel’s enemies will be getting top of the line US military equipment. Israel will not. Israel will be squeezed economically until the Netanyahu government collapses, leaving a weak left wing leader like Livni in charge of Israel, and in charge of acceding to the new Pharaoh’s demands.
Meanwhile so-called American Jewish groups will support Obama all the way, some because they were created precisely for that purpose, e.g. J-Street, and others because they have been hijacked, cowed or subverted.

That is the game plan and some of it’s coming. The rest is already here.

Continue reading May 14, 2010

May 13, 2010

EDITOR: The Dangers of Human Rights Activism in Israel The Israeli regime is using the weapon of gagging the press and media more than ever before, and on the whole the legal system is serving the government ends. However, all truth outs in the end, and despite the gag, now partially lifted, the bizarre case of Mr Makhoul and Dr. Omar Sayid has now come to light. Like the earlier campaign against the political leader of Balad, Azmi Bishara, this is a case of trumped-up charges of ‘espionage’ against human rights activists. It is not going to be the last one either. Israel has now waging war on human righs organisations, on media and political activists, on international peace and human rights supporters… the real struggle is only starting now to expose Israel’s daily crimes and atrocities. From Rachel Corrie to Tom Hurndell, Azmi Bishara to Anat Kamm, the many activists killed, maimed, jailed and abused, and to Mr Makhoul and Dr. Omar Sayid – they are all non-violent fighters for rights, equality and justice. Much of today’s blog is given over to this latest case of trying to snuffle protest and silence opposition to the growing Israeli repression.

Ameer Makhoul’s Gag Order: IOA

Posted by admin on May 11th, 2010 and filed under FEATURED NEWS STORIES, Israel, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. Image of the original gag order (Hebrew) was first published by Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam blog – 11 May 2010 www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/05/11/makhoul-secret-court-documents-gag-order-and-ruling-partially-lifting-it/ Ameer Makhoul’s gag order IOA Editor: In order to avoid misinterpretations, the following English translation was purposefully done on the literal side. It is factually accurate, even if the translator would have written it somewhat differently had the original text been written in English. [See notes in square brackets.] Police of Israel In Closed Doors Magistrate Court of Petach Tikva 22 April 2010 The Appellant – The State of Israel via the Israeli Police [Yakhbal-unit], Officer [rank] Sa’ar Shapira A request for a discussion in closed-doors and for the issuance of an order prohibiting publication – a security affair A request is hereby made to hold the discussion in closed-doors, in order to protect the security of the state and in order not to harm the investigation, in accordance with Section 68(b)(1)+(7) and also Section 68(c) of the Court Houses Law (combined version) 1984, and also a request to prohibit publication in accordance with Section 70(a) and (e) of the above law, and that for the following reasons: 1. The Israeli Police is conducting an investigation in which suspicions of security violations of contact with foreign agent and espionage, violations of Sections 114(a), 112(a) of the Penal Code of 1977, are being investigated. 2. Any publication about the investigation, or any detail of the investigation, may harm the security of the state, the investigation, obstruct or prevent evidence discovery to prove criminal violations and to investigate the truth. In view of the above, we are requesting that the honorable court will instruct to hold the discussion in closed-doors and for the issuance of an order prohibiting publication for 90 days, that will prohibit any publication on the matter of the investigation of file 151787/10 Yakhbal [unit], and any detail of the investigation, or its very existence, and all court discussions and decisions that took place or will take place in connection with the subject under investigation. Also, we are requesting that the order will instruct to prohibit any publication of the very filing of this request, its content, the very existence of the order, and any other publication that may result in the identification of the respondent, witnesses, suspects, and additional involved [parties] connected to the subject of the investigation, to the publication of their photographs, their addresses, and any other identifying detail. In order to effectuate the order, approval is requested to disseminate the fact of its existence to various media outlets, as necessary. For their information only (without publication by the media outlets that an order to prohibit publication of a security affair exists). [Rank] Sa’ar SHapira Yakhbal [unit] DECISION [Handwritten, at bottom, by Judge Einat Ron] After I heard the representatives of the appellant – and I was convinced that publication of this affair at this stage may harm the security of the state and the investigation in an actual manner, I found to accept the request as requested. An order to prohibit publication of this affair is hereby issued, on all that concerns the investigation on the matter of this affair, its content, [those] involved in it, and every detail related to them and could bring to their identification, as well as on request itself and its content – except the [annex?] to the request, in accordance with the judgment of the appellant. This order is for 30 days from today. Einat Ron, Judge Petach Tikva Magitrate Court 22 April 2010

Israel bows to pressure and admits arrest of rights activist: The Independent

By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem Tuesday, 11 May 2010 The Israeli authorities finally revealed yesterday that they had been holding a prominent Israeli-Arab human rights activist for several days and had accused him of spying for Lebanon’s Hizbollah guerrillas.

Amir Makhoul, the head of the Palestinian NGO Ittijah, was arrested in a dawn raid on his home last Thursday

Israel appeared to buckle under intense domestic pressure to release details of the case against Amir Makhoul after a gagging order issued by the courts had prevented the media from reporting details of the case. The order, which covered details including his identity, riled democracy advocates in Israel after a similar case last month involving the secret house arrest of an Israeli journalist. Mr Makhoul, the director of Palestinian non-governmental organisation (NGO) Ittijah, was arrested in a dawn raid on his home in the Israeli town of Haifa on Thursday last week. Israeli police said yesterday that they suspected Mr Makhoul and Omar Sayid, a member of the Arab political party Balad who was arrested on April 24, of spying for Hizbollah. Israel views Lebanon as an enemy state and fought a devastating month-long war against Hizbollah in 2006. In recent weeks, Israel has accused Hizbollah of obtaining Scud missiles from Syria. A lawyer acting for the two men said the charges had “no basis” and were merely a tool to clamp down on outspoken Israeli-Arabs, Palestinians who have taken Israeli citizenship. “Contacts with foreign agents has become a serious [tool] for criminalising Arabs in Israel,” said Hasan Jabareen, general director of the Adalah human rights organisation, and part of Mr Makhoul’s legal defence team. “Any contact, whether it is with human rights organisations or just social contacts, can be perceived by Israel as contact with foreign agents,” Mr Jabareen said, adding that lawyers had not been allowed to meet with Mr Makhoul. Mr Makhoul, whose brother Assam is a former member of Israel’s parliament, is a leading advocate on Palestinian rights issues, particularly within the Israeli-Arab community. Assam Makhoul told Ha’aretz newspaper that the family believed that Mr Makhoul had angered the Israeli authorities with his campaigns that fought the government’s “racist and discriminatory policies” towards Israeli-Arabs. Israel’s 1.5 million Arabs who took citizenship in 1948 when the country was formed remain a minority among the 7.5 million population, and have long claimed that they are treated as second-class citizens compared to Jewish Israelis; economic and educational standards for Arabs are much lower than in Jewish communities. Israeli police entered Mr Makhoul’s home at around 3am on 6 May. They searched his home, confiscating the family’s mobile phones, laptops and cameras, before taking him away for questioning. The family was given no explanation for the arrest, beyond unspecified “security” reasons. Ittijah’s offices were also searched. Prior to his arrest, Israel’s Interior Ministry issued an order banning Mr Makhoul from travelling abroad for two months because of security concerns. The arrest of the two men has inflamed tensions amongst the Arab-Israeli community. A demonstration was planned in Haifa to protest against the detentions. Several Palestinian and international rights bodies condemned the arrest, and said that Israel had “escalated” a sustained campaign against Arab rights groups. “In addition to arbitrary arrest and detention, Israeli authorities have met Palestinian human rights activism in recent months with a variety of measures, including raids, deportations, travel bans, visa denials and media attacks against nongovernmental organisations,” the groups said in a joint statement. Israeli NGOs have complained that they are witnessing a growing state-backed campaign to curb their freedom of operation, including a proposed new law that would strip many activist bodies of their NGO status. Right-wing activists have also stepped up their efforts to discredit organisations perceived as anti-Israeli. Because of the gagging order, Mr Sayid and Mr Makhoul’s arrest was initially only reported on blogs, while Israeli reporters made cryptic references to the case. The affair carried particular resonance in Israel, coming so soon after the case of Anat Kam, an Israeli whistle-blower who was placed under secret house arrest in December, but news of her detention was only made public at the end of March after Israeli newspapers dropped hints about the case.

About the Secret Empire that has decided to Criminalize Minority Dissent in Israel: The Only Democracy?

May 12th, 2010, by Assaf Oron No, this story does not come from the Occupied Territories, where residents are under a 43-year military rule and where wee-hour arrest raids are a routine occurrence. This comes from right inside Israel. Dr. Omar Sa’id, A Palestinian citizen of Israel and resident of Kafr Kana near Nazareth, was arrested by Israel’s secret police (known in English as Shin Bet and in Israel as Shabaak) two weeks ago. He is still in custody without access to a lawyer. Per Shin Bet request, the courts issued a gag order, with which the Israeli MSM complied. The Hebrew blogosphere has learned of the story a few days ago and ignores the gag. The gag was partially lifted Monday. This joins the better-known story of Ameer Makhoul, director of the Ittijah human rights group. The Shin Bet raided his Haifa home in the wee hours of May 6, kidnapped him, wreaked havoc and confiscated the family’s computers. He, too, is held incommunicado. That story, as well, has been gagged and the Israeli MSM doggedly obeys. Only on Monday, after a blogosphere frenzy led by the indomitable Richard Silverstein, did the Israeli press release oblique stories. A few hours later, shortly before a demonstration against the arrest took place in Haifa, the court partially lifted the gag and admitted that the two arrests are related. WTF?? More about the Arrested Men Dr. Omar Sa’id, A Palestinian citizen of Israel and resident of Kafr Kana near Nazareth, is a pharmacologist and entreprenur, co-founder and CEO of Antaki Center for Herbal Medicine. On April 25, en route to Jordan, he was arrested by Shin Bet. After interrogation he was transferred to police custody, where he is still held without access to a lawyer. Ameer Makhoul is director of the Ittijah organization, a coalition of Israeli-Palestinian civil society groups. Apparently he is also the brother of current Knesset Member Issam Makhoul (who survived a right-wing assassination attempt in 2004). Ameer Makhoul has been recently involved with the boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) movement, attempting to bring an end to the Occupation via nonviolent means. 2010: A Slew of Israeli Spook Scandals What’s up with Israel’s Secret Empire this year – and how much lower can Israel’s “Free press” sink? In January, the Mossad liquidates Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai. As world media place Mossad atop the suspect list, the Israeli media, that doggy-watch-dog of our “only democracy”, celebrates the feat. But – without saying Mossad did it. Only “the foreign press reports…”, a common refrain in Israeli MSM whenever they really want to gossip about something, but don’t want to get in trouble with the Secret Empire. So they sucked up to the immaculate execution and speculated wildly (and optimistically) about the great benefits to Israel and its fabled “deterrence power” that this assassination had restored. A few days pass, and the Dubai police rolls out pictures of 11 suspects, all with ties to Israel, and places them on the Interpol list. Friendly governments learn their passports have been forged. Israeli dual citizens learn their personal passports have been abused, placing them under direct threat of revenge. Then another 15 pictures released, with additional damaging details. The media celebration in Israel turns into a scapegoat-seeking and CYA exercise (“whose fault is this? We said it was a sloppy job from the start” etc.) Yet, I’ve heard several credible reports that on Purim this year, the most popular costume among Israeli teens and college gals was “Gail”, the assassin-assistant whose pretty passport picture circulated around the world. This brings us to March, when a new spook affair surfaces: rumors circulate in the Israeli blogosphere that Anat Kamm, a young journalist, is under house arrest with a gag order. I hear about it from fellow Seattelite and fellow progressive I-P blogger Richard Silverstein, who calls to seek my advice. He explains that Kamm is being indicted for stealing secret documents during her military service, and passing some of them after her discharge to an Israeli investigative journalist (for no payment). Silverstein feels she is a whistleblower who is being framed as a traitor via the way the Secret Empire treats her, including the gag order. The Israeli MSM obey the gag order; progressive bloggers post about it here and there, but here’s the catch: Kamm herself contacts them personally asking them to respect the order! The bloggers initially oblige, and one by one remove the story. At this point (mid-March) Richard feels that 1. Contrary to the perceptions of Kamm and her lawyer, respecting the gag actually makes her court prospects worse not better, and 2. The story itself – and the question whether Kamm is a whistleblower or a traitor – is a public issue, and the public should know about it. He calls me asking for my advice. Given that most of the details were total news to me, and that I was packing up to go to Israel on a Bar-Mitzva-laden visit, I couldn’t do much more than mumble lamely. Fortunately, Richard did what his heart told him, which was the right thing: he went out with the story and ultimately led to the gag’s implosion within a few weeks, even inside Israel. Right now, Kamm’s prospects still seem dim; the Shin Bet successfully framed her as a “traitor”, even though the documents she leaked were of the whistleblower kind: they showed how the IDF in the West Bank pissed all over Israel’s High Court ruling and continued to assassinate Palestinian targets even when a bloodless arrest was possible. The Israeli MSM, which towards the end of the gag complained loudly about it even as they obeyed, immediately turned to collaborate with the framing of Kamm, rather than open a debate about the true scandal. To be precise, the electronic media collaborated, while the printed press was split with two right-wing tabloids inciting against her, against the journalist (Uri Blau, arguably Israel’s top investigative journalist with a special knack for embarrassing the “security” Establishment) and even against his newspaper Haaretz, and with the centrist tabloid Yediot taking a more ambivalent stand. Blau himself is now in London; the Shin Bet will arrest him if he lands in Israel, an arrest that would violate a deal they struck with him and Kamm during the latter’s interrogation. Many speculate that Kamm herself was really the small fry, and that neutralizing the perennial scandal-finder Blau was the main goal. Anyway, in the aftermath of the Kamm story, one unanimous conclusion in the Israeli MSM conventional-wisdom was that gag orders on arrests have proven futile and only an idiot would try them again. Well, whadayaknow. A few weeks pass by, and not one, but two simultaneous arrests (not house arrest, real arrest) and gag orders. And not against a young person who prima facie did engage in wrongdoing (making illegal copies of secret documents) – but of well-known figures, an economic leader and a civic leader of the Palestinian-Israeli public. And the media obey yet again. What is this? A deliberate campaign by Shin Bet, to prove that indeed Israel is an Apartheid police state as its worst critics claim? I thought we Jews were supposed to be smart. I mean, forget for a second the human-rights, democracy and free-press teeny details. In many ways, it’s DAH STUPID that is scary here. What part of “Rebrand Israel” do these arrests fall under? And more importantly: Who the crap runs Israel nowadays? The Secret Empire that Snuggles Israel Israel is a pretty tiny nation, with a h-u-g-e secret apparatus: The Shin Bet, which runs the show in the West Bank and (to a lesser degree, but still more than you’d think) in Gaza – while keeping a friendly open eye on Israelis as well. The world-famous Mossad, whose “long hand” was what the Israeli MSM celebrated during these short happy days between the Dubai hit job and the appearance of pretty-Gail-passport-pics. The list doesn’t end there: The IDF toys with its own Shin-Bet-like operation in the West Bank (and formerly also in Lebanon). Known as Unit 504, its officers go around in civvies, recruit collaborators, etc. I escorted some of these creeps while serving in Lebanon in 1986. Our nuclear arsenal is of course, secret and off-limits, off-scrutiny to the common Israeli citizen or Israeli media. Under whose control? The military? A special unit directly reporting to the PM? I don’t know. But here are two agencies related to our little nuclear thingie one way or another: The Israeli outfit that recruited Jonathan Pollard was neither Shin Bet, nor Mossad. It was the “Bureau for Science Contacts”, a spook agency hardly anyone heard of till the Pollard affair broke out. Another less-known, but still notorious and extremely powerful secret agency, is known in Hebrew as MLMB (“Director of Security of the Defense Establishment”). This is essentially a one-man fiefdom, with the first director serving for nearly 40 years, and setting the agency’s trademark vindictive style. The MLMB played a key role in the Vanunu affair, and especially in Vanunu’s persecution since serving his “espionage” sentence. …and I bet there are more… A democracy cannot have such a disproportionate outsized Secret Empire. This in itself is mathematical proof, if you will, that Israel is not a democracy in the post-World-War-II sense. Add to this the lack of a constitution (mistakenly seen by some pro-status-quo commenters as a “triviality”), the inter-connectedness of the executive and legislative due to the parliamentary system (a mixed blessing: the check-and-balance becomes the power of coalition members to break it, but increasingly parties are bought off with ridiculously large numbers of ministerial posts), and last but not least, the fact that much of the judiciary began its career as military prosecutors and military judges – and the “democracy or not” debate is pretty much over. The Secret Empire wants an operation, it will get its operation regardless of what the government thinks. The Secret Empire wants a gag order, it will get its gag order no matter how outrageous. At least in the Kamm case, both judges who approved the gag and its extension were products of the military “justice” system. Consider also this: while, say, the CIA is under some sort of scrutiny however limited, and a large chunk of the CIA are publicly-known and publicly-accessible bureaus – the Israeli spooks are above the law and beyond reach. Until the late 1990’s we didn’t even know the name of the heads of Shin Bet and Mossad, let alone anyone else (unless you knew them personally; I personally know at least one Mossad agent, and a few more who seriously considered . The 1995 assassination of PM Rabin, a huge Shin Bet flop, led to the practice of making the heads’ names public and (supposedly) a bit more accountable. But they still take no one’s orders. Rather, as the years go by and our politicians become lamer and more corrupt, the head of Shin Bet is often the one dictating policy to the government rather than vice versa. A case in point is Yuval Diskin, the current Shin Bet chief. A few years ago he started a campaign framing civil-society groups of Israeli Palestinians as the enemy within. Going as far as stating that even actions which are considered legitimate in a democracy (lobbying for equality on a communal basis and not just a personal one; in truth our Arabs get neither), even such actions undermine the state. The arrests of Dr. Sa’id and Mr. Makhoul are a direct manifestation of Diskin’s world-view. Please make sure to contact your nearest Israeli embassy or consulate, and give them an earful of what you think about this. Oh, and join the Facebook group for Makhoul’s and Sa’id’s release. The gag and the MSM’s cowardice, though issues to deal with as well, pale in comparison to this escalating campaign to criminalize the leadership of Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Watch a video of Real News Network coverage of Makhoul and Sa’id’s case. (adapted from this Monday post on Daily Kos. Since then, the gag has been partially lifted, most probably due to the combined pressure of bloggers ignoring the gag and the Israeli-Palestinian community openly protesting the arrests.) Continue reading May 13, 2010

May 11, 2010

Demonstrators demand the freeing of Said and Makhoul

West Bank mosque fire ‘was most probably arson’: BBC

Holy books were also destroyed in the mosque fire
A West Bank mosque which was gutted by fire on Monday was most probably attacked by arsonists, Israeli fire-fighters say.
Officials believe arsonists broke into the mosque in Lubban al-Sharqiya, near Nablus, and set it on fire using paper.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has accused Jewish settlers of starting the fire, warning the attack could jeopardise peace talks due to begin.
Initial reports said an electrical short circuit may have caused the fire.
“The investigation showed in most probability that this was a case of arson,” the spokesman for Israeli fire service in the West Bank Capt Jacky Binyamini told the BBC on Thursday.
“It is important to note that the investigation was carried out in full co-operation with investigators from the Palestinian fire fighting services,” the spokesperson said.
A report by the fire-fighters is expected to be submitted to Israeli police on Thursday, reports said.
The investigation ruled out the possibility that there was an electrical short circuit that caused the fire, Israel’s Yehdiot Aharanot newspaper reported.
Israeli police say the investigation is still under way, and the cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
Abbas’ warning
The mosque is close to three Jewish settlements.
The attack came as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell returned to the region, attempting to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
“This criminal attack threatens efforts to revive the peace process,” said Mr Abbas in a statement earlier this week.
He pointed the finger of blame at Israel, adding that “the Israeli army protects the settlers”.
Hamas, which is opposed to peace talks with Israel, has said the mosque attack is “the first fruit of the pointless negotiations,” Reuters reported.
Israel had warned Palestinians in the West Bank that there is a risk of local settlers attacking homes in the area after the Israeli army demolished houses in a settlement near Nablus, Palestinian officials say.
The West Bank has seen a series of attacks on mosques in recent months.
Last month, another mosque in the village of Huwara near Nablus was vandalised by Hebrew graffiti. Palestinian residents blamed activists from three nearby Jewish settlements.
In January, Israeli police arrested settlers as part of investigations into an arson attack on a West Bank mosque in 2009.

Video: Ameer Makhoul, Omar Said -Israel lifts gag order on new arrests: The Real News Network

In the past two weeks the Israeli internal intelligence agency, the Shabak / Shin Bet, arrested two prominent Israeli activists in the middle of the night. The men are well known leaders of Palestinian organizations inside Israel but were arrested and prevented the right to see counsel under emergency regulations, akin to those Palestinians in the occupied territories are subjected to. The men were arrested under secret evidence and a gag order was issued to the Israeli press regarding their arrests. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to the men’s relatives, the legal organization representing them, and to one of them, prior to his arrest last week.

EDITOR: BDS takes hold in Israeli mainstream circles!

It is rather amazing how quickly the changes are taking hold. Akiva Eldar is explaining why botha the boycott and buying Palerstinian products is crucial. This was totally impossible a year ago!

Buy Palestinian products: Haaretz

By Akiva Eldar
Tags: Israel news Israel settlements Salam Fayyad
Suppose some Palestinian group managed to set up a new settlement on land abandoned by refugees of the 1967 war in the Jordan Valley. What would your average Israeli patriot have to say about an Israeli contractor who agreed to build it, or about Jewish workers clambering on Palestinian scaffolds? What an outcry we’d hear from the Israeli right about such traitors! Never fear, our forces would never allow the uncircumcised to fix even a peg in the occupied territory under absolute Israeli control (some 60 percent of the West Bank ). The imagined scenario of Jews building homes for Palestinians was created only for the sake of discussion – specifically of the protests in Israel against the ban recently imposed by the Palestinian Authority against Arabs working in the settlements.

It takes no small amount of audacity to threaten the Palestinians with harm to their economy if they refuse to continue building Israeli settlements on their own land. Only we are allowed to threaten boycotts every Monday and Thursday against countries that dare to criticize us. After all, we, as is well known, have the monopoly on patriotism. Remember the treatment the Etzel and Lehi underground militias meted out to Jewish girls who went to bed with British soldiers?

“Buy Israeli goods” is an important ethos – with emphasis on the word “Israeli.” Many Israelis, including this writer, and peace-seekers all over the world boycott products made in the settlements. But if Palestinian factory workers dare leave their jobs in the Barkan industrial zone in the West Bank, the president of the Manufacturers Association, Shraga Brosh, says he’ll make sure that the government closes off the Haifa Port to Palestinian goods.

The entire world, with our American friends at the forefront, insists that the beefing up of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem cannot be reconciled with the “two states for two peoples” solution. How can the Palestinian leadership be expected to stand by idly while 25,000 Palestinian workers put a stamp of approval on the occupation through their own labor and the sweat of their own brows? Just as the Paris Protocol – the economic agreement between Israel and the PA – does not obligate Israel to employ Palestinian workers in Kfar Sava, neither does it prohibit the Palestinians from imposing restrictions on Arabs working in Ariel.

The commotion over the PA’s economic campaign against the settlements indicates, more than anything else, how the colonialist mindset has been branded into Israeli consciousness. The protests over the threatened loss of the hewers of wood and drawers of water shows how hard it is to shake off the master-servant attitudes that have taken root over the last 43 years. The gap between the economies of Israel and the occupied territories, the security restrictions on entering Israel and movement within the territories, and the discrimination in favor of Israeli goods, have all forced the West Bank’s labor force into the settlements. The settlers have also become dependent upon this asymmetrical relationship between themselves and the natives: Why should they accommodate Chinese workers on their holy land if they can get cheap Palestinian laborers who go home at the end of the day.

If the government of Israel were genuinely interested in the partition of the land, it would follow in the PA’s footsteps and cut itself off from the settlers. In addition to freezing construction in the settlements, it would cancel the special benefits enjoyed by the industrial zones in the territories, which attract greedy entrepreneurs. Instead of encouraging settlement beyond the Green Line, the Israeli government would promote legislation for compensating those settlers willing to come home. Instead of hiding behind the self-righteous claim that it is providing livelihoods for thousands of indigent laborers, let the government open the Israeli markets to more goods and workers from the territories.

Meanwhile, what will happen to the workers who the Palestinian Authority will compel to leave the building sites, fields and factories that the settlers have established on the Palestinians’ land? Who is going to feed the tens of thousands of families whose breadwinners will lose their jobs? The Palestinian economics minister, Hassan Abu Libdeh, has promised that before the boycott regulations go into effect, the government of Salam Fayyad will help those who work in the settlements to find jobs within the PA. The boycott of settlement produce, he says, has already increased the consumption of goods manufactured by Palestinian plants as well as the demand for local labor.

The economic divorce of Palestinians from the Jewish settlements is an important step toward divorce from Israel’s occupation policies. Buy Palestinian.

Gideon Levy: Israel’s security measures? Don’t make me laugh: Haaretz

Has anyone ever heard of a supporter or benefactor of the most extremist of settlers being deported?
Gideon Levy
Who says Jewish humor has disappeared from Israel? Who says that even the state’s shadowiest organizations don’t enjoy occasional moments of levity, in between carrying out assassinations and foiling conspiracies? Israel’s ongoing fascistization, isolation, nationalism and militarism don’t make for much comic relief. So listen to what Barak Ravid reported in Haaretz on Thursday.
A Spanish clown – it sounds like the start of a joke – lands in Israel. Not just any clown, but Spain’s greatest, Ivan Prado. He expected to sail through passport control – a Spanish citizen, even a clown, needs no security authorization to enter the democratic State of Israel – claim his bags of tricks and continue to Ramallah.
He had planned, this joker, to establish an international clown festival in Ramallah, of all places. It was the mistake of a lifetime, a truly mad idea. First, what use do the Palestinians have for clowns from other countries? They have quite enough of their own, thank you. Anyway, what do they have to laugh about in Ramallah?
In the blink of an eye one of the Shin Bet’s finest appeared, a true guardian of Israel, to take this jester in for questioning about his links to “terror groups.” Prado, silly clown that he is, refused to answer. The Shin Bet agent (a clown of lesser renown ) apparently believed he had been chosen to save the day.
To make a long story short, after six hours of waiting miserably at Ben-Gurion International Airport Prado was informed by an Interior Ministry official, “You’re being expelled. Get on the first flight to Madrid, where there’s room for jokers like you.” With that, Prado transmogrified into a prophet of the apocalypse. After landing in Spain he began denouncing Israel to the local press, comparing the Palestinians’ plight with that of the Jews in wartime Poland. Just what we need, more Polish jokes.
The Israeli embassy in Madrid sent an urgent communique to Jerusalem: asking “What did you do?” The Foreign Ministry replied curtly, “security reasons.” Rage spread through the embassy, which sought a more substantive response with which to counter questions from the Spanish media, sure that a clown’s deportation for “security reasons” must be some kind of joke. But the Shin Bet security service and the Defense Ministry did not bother to reply. “The man declined to provide complete information to the security people, especially in regard to his links with Palestinian terror organizations,” the Shin Bet told Haaretz in response to a request.
A textual interpretation: Prado, as understood by the omniscient Shin Bet, clearly has links with terror groups, otherwise he wouldn’t want to establish a clown festival in Ramallah. Worse, he refused to speak about those links. Which “terror groups”? Islamic Jihad or the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades perhaps? Al-Qaida? Iran’s Quds Force? What links? Was the clown considering transferring Spain’s vast stockpiles of laughter to hostile elements? Joke bombs to the jihadists? A devastating punch line to Hamas? “You can laugh,” a Foreign Ministry official said afterward, “but the incident has already caused serious damage to Israel’s image abroad, which only increased when Israel failed to provide a serious explanation.”
Prado is not alone. Were the story not so inane, grotesque and infuriating we might hurt ourselves laughing. But dozens of foreign visitors have been similarly expelled in the past few months because they were suspected of sympathizing with the Palestinians – a grave offense indeed. These are people of conscience who came to express support for the Palestinians but were foiled by the airport’s thought police. The Jewish-American historian Norman Finkelstein was expelled for supporting a one-state solution to the Mideast conflict and believing that Israel has turned the Holocaust into an industry. But had he requested a new immigrant document he would have to receive one immediately, in accordance with the Law of Return. But to come to visit and dare to criticize? Send him back to America.
Likewise, three Swedish activists for a Jewish-Palestinian educational group were recently expelled, as was an American journalist who had worked for years for the Palestinian news agency Ma’an. Has anyone ever heard of a supporter or benefactor of the most extremist of settlers being deported? Please – don’t make the Shin Bet and the Interior Ministry laugh.

Continue reading May 11, 2010

May 9, 2010

HEY ELTON

by John Greyson

HEY ELTON from John Greyson on Vimeo.

Palestinian civil society has called on Elton John to respect its boycott call and cancel his June 17th concert in Tel Aviv. If he does so, he’ll be joining Santana and Gil-Scott Heron, who recently cancelled their spring concerts in Israel. This video suggests six reasons why Elton should join the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.

For more info, please visit:

bdsmovement.net

BNC (Palestinian BDS National Commitee)

pacbi.org

PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel)

bricup.org.uk

BRICUP (British Committee for Universities for Palestine)

quaia.org

QUAIA (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid)

EDITOR: New Heights of Israeli Chuzpah

After refusing to meet with the Elected (and unelected) representatives of Palestine for over a decade, Israel now discovered that indirect talks, that US invention on which they counted to delay a resolution forever, may not be successful after all, and the pressure may be too much for them to bear. So now they demand what they vetoed all along – direct talks. You couldn’t make it up!
The next demand will be that the talks be held in Yiddish, no doubt.

When the direct talks will fail, then Netanyahu can demand a return to indirect talks, and the cycle can start again.

Netanyahu: Mideast peace deal impossible without direct talks: Haaretz

PM echoes U.S. call to see proximity negotiations lead to direct contacts as soon as possible.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel expected the upcoming indirect negotiations with the Palestinians to lead to direct talks.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. envoy George Mitchell and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are preparing to enter indirect Middle East negotiations.
Senior U.S. officials have told their Palestinian counterparts that Washington also believes direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians must begin as soon as possible.

The Obama administration has informed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that it will not unveil mediation proposals or a Middle East peace plan before the start of direct, substantive talks between the two sides on final-status issues, a high-level Israeli official said.

On Saturday, the PLO Executive Committee announced that it had given the green light to Abbas to begin indirect negotiations with Israel. Abbas also met with U.S. special envoy George Mitchell to discuss the manner in which the so-called proximity talks would be conducted.
The United States welcomed the PLO’s decision as an important step in the peace process. “It is an important and welcome step,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. Mitchell will meet with Abbas again Sunday in Ramallah before returning to Washington.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Saturday after a meeting in Ramallah between Abbas and Mitchell that the discussions would be held over the four months allotted to address final-status issues such as borders and security arrangements. “The issues of Jerusalem and the settlements are part of the 1967 borders, so they will be discussed and negotiated,” Erekat said.

Erekat said that during their meeting, Abbas gave Mitchell a letter outlining the Palestinian Authority’s position on proximity talks and the issues it wants to discuss. Abbas would head the Palestinian negotiating team himself, Erekat said, adding that the Palestinians view the talks as aimed at “The end of the occupation and creation of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel along the 1967 borders.”

The talks appear to represent a U.S.-brokered compromise that meets both the Palestinian demand to address the issue of borders, and Israel’s condition to discuss security arrangements. Both Palestinian and Israeli negotiators recognize that the two issues are intimately linked, and that any proposal or statement on either matter is likely to significantly influence any resolution on the other.

Israel welcomes PLO decision
Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed the decision to resume peace talks, urging that they be held unconditionally and lead swiftly to direct negotiations between the two sides.

A statement from Netanyahu spokesman Nir Hefetz said the prime minister “welcomes the resumption of peace talks.”
Quoting Netanyahu, Hefetz added that “Israel’s position was and remains that the talks ought to be conducted without preconditions and should quickly lead to direct negotiations.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the U.S. administration expects Israel to do its part in facilitating U.S. efforts to advance the stalled peace process. “An essential condition for improving relations with the U.S. is taking steps that prove Israel is seriously committed to making decisions on the Palestinian issue once they reach the negotiating table,” Barak said at a conference at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.

“That will be judged by deeds, not by how much we smile at the White House. A comprehensive peace plan is needed, one that Israel stands behind. I’m not sure that that is possible with the current government,” Barak said.

“Without an agreement, we will be subject to international isolation, and we will suffer a fate similar to that of Belfast or Bosnia, or a gradual transition from a paradigm of two states for two peoples to one of one state for two peoples, and some people will try to label us as similar to South Africa. That’s why we must act,” Barak said. If both sides are willing to make brave decisions, he said, “it will be possible to get to direct negotiations and a breakthrough toward an agreement.”

In talks last week with Netanyahu and Barak, Mitchell asked that Israel make confidence-building measures over the next few weeks, both to build up PA institutions and encourage the Palestinians to shift more quickly to direct talks.

A senior official in Jerusalem said Israel would take such steps in the coming weeks, probably including the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, the removal of additional checkpoints and the transfer of certain West Bank areas to PA security control.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and veteran peace negotiator, said the Palestinians had received assurances from the U.S. concerning “settlement activities and the necessity to halt them.” He said the Obama administration had also promised to be tough in the event of “any provocations,” and guaranteed that all core issues would be put on the table.

The PLO decision came despite warnings from the rival Palestinian group Hamas, which said Friday that the move would only legitimize Israel’s occupation, Palestinian media reported.

“Absurd proximity talks” would only “give the Israeli occupation an umbrella to commit more crimes against the Palestinians,” Hamas reportedly said. “Hamas calls on the PLO to stop selling illusions to the Palestinian people and announce the failure of their gambling on absurd talks.”

Mid-East indirect peace talks ‘under way’: BBC

Indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have begun, the Palestinian chief negotiator has said.
Saeb Erekat spoke after a meeting between US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Mr Mitchell will mediate in the talks between the two sides.
The start of so-called “proximity talks” in March was halted after a row over the building of new Israeli homes in East Jerusalem.
Palestinians broke off direct peace talks after Israel launched a military offensive on Gaza in late 2008.
“The proximity talks have started,” Mr Erakat said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The talks went ahead a day after receiving the backing of leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
The PLO’s Executive Committee decided to back the talks after a three-hour meeting in the West Bank.

Has the IDF become an army of settlers?: Haaretz

When the time comes for disengagement, perhaps the state may decide to temporarily redeploy regular troops to the Border Police. It is doubtful whether it will be possible once again to rely on the IDF for that job.
By Amos Harel
Israel’s left may have already missed the opportunity to reach a permanent agreement with the Palestinians. A considerable part of the blame for the failure falls with the Palestinians, but during the missed years – the critical years since the Oslo Accords – something important happened on the Israeli side: The Israel Defense Forces underwent a change.

The army plays a critical role in carrying out an agreement (in withdrawing from territory and evacuating settlers ), but also in ensuring security stability after the agreement is reached. The trouble is that the IDF of 1993 is not the IDF of 2010. Here is what happened in the officers’ course for the infantry corps, the spearhead of the combat units, during that period: In 1990, 2 percent of the cadets enrolled in the course were religious; by 2007, that figure had shot up to 30 percent. And this is how the intermediate generation of combat officers looks today: six out of seven lieutenant colonels in the Golani Brigade are religious and, beginning in the summer, the brigade commander will be as well. In the Kfir Brigade, three out of seven lieutenant colonels wear skullcaps, and in the Givati Brigade and the paratroopers, two out of six. In some of the infantry brigades, the number of religious company commanders has passed the 50 percent mark – more than three times the percentage of the national religious community in the overall population.

This is a generation of commanders committed to its missions, the IDF and the state. It simply has roots in different areas than previous generations. If you glanced at the lists in the company commanders’ offices 20 years ago, you could have seen considerable numbers of fighters from the greater Tel Aviv area and coastal plain. This is of course a generalization that unfairly overlooks the exceptions, but the number of such soldiers today is negligible. A few years ago, a Golani battalion commander found that only one of his soldiers was a resident of Tel Aviv. Today, in a different capacity, a number of Tel Aviv residents serve with him – but all of them live “south of the Dolphinarium line,” referring to the city’s lower-income neighborhoods.

In terms of manpower, long-term processes have been set in motion. The decision by left-wingers and members of kibbutzim to abandon Training Base 1 (where officers’ courses take place ) in the wake of the first Lebanon war and the first intifada can be felt today among the brigadier generals, who are knocking at the doors of the General Staff in 2010. Many complain about how colorless the senior brass is today, something that can be partially explained by the fact that in the mid-1980s many recruits with potential waived their assignation to officers’ courses.

It is an open secret that in the IDF a certain sector of the population is divided mainly between Unit 8200 of Military Intelligence, the pilots’ course, the reconnaissance units and sometimes – with a world of difference – those who get a psychiatric exemption from service. These people will hardly ever go to Golani or Kfir. The abandonment of the combat infantry units will also be noticeable in the next 15 years in the General Staff.

The IDF has made mistakes in the territories and continues to do so, especially in the silent assistance it has given the illegal outposts over the years. But describing it as an army of occupation troops is foolish and overlooks the truth. The secular left-wing fell asleep on the job. The empty ranks it left in its wake have been filled by others. Even those who believe there is no choice other than a massive evacuation of the settlements should know that it will be extremely difficult to do this after the disengagement from Gush Katif.

In 2005, the evacuation was carried out because Ariel Sharon did not bat an eyelid and the military acted accordingly. The battalion commanders, for the most part, will obey orders next time as well, but it is hard to see how the company commanders who come from the settlements of Tapuah and Kedumim will answer the call to remove Jews from their homes. It is no surprise that the top IDF brass is so fearful of such a scenario.

When the time comes for disengagement, perhaps the state may decide to temporarily redeploy regular troops to the Border Police. It is doubtful whether it will be possible once again to rely on the IDF for that job.

Continue reading May 9, 2010

May 8, 2010

New film by Rachel Leah Jones, for Adalah

The film “Targeted Citizen” (15 minutes), produced by filmmaker Rachel Leah Jones for Adalah, surveys discrimination against the Palestinian citizens of Israel. With the participation of experts Dr. Yousef Jabareen of the Technion and Dr. Khaled Abu Asbeh of the Van Leer Institute, as well as Adalah attorneys Sawsan Zaher, Abeer Baker and Hassan Jabareen, inequality in land and housing, employment, education and civil and political rights are eloquently addressed. These interviews are reinforced by the contrasting informality of on-the-street conversations conducted by Palestinian comic duo Shammas-Nahas and punctuated by the hard-hitting rhymes of Palestinian rap trio DAM. The film’s theme song “Targeted Citizen,” written and recorded by DAM especially for Adalah, tells it like it is without missing a beat.

US envoy George Mitchell in Mid-East talks push: BBC

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has met Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to restart indirect talks.
The meetings come one day before the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) decides whether to proceed with talks.
Talks in March were delayed by a row over building in East Jerusalem. Washington has said it expects the so-called proximity talks within days.
Mr Abbas is to advise Mr Mitchell of the PLO decision later on Saturday.
Middle East peace talks have been stalled since 2008.
Shuttle diplomacy
In Jerusalem, President Peres told Mr Mitchell that Israel was committed to reaching a Middle East settlement, but stressed that the country’s security must be at the top of the agenda of any possible indirect talks.
Later on Friday, Mr Mitchell met Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and also Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni.
He then went to the West Bank to hold separate talks with Mr Abbas. No statements were made after the meeting.
The US envoy, who arrived in the region on Wednesday, has already seen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu twice.
Mr Abbas has said he wants the backing of the PLO, due to meet on Saturday, before committing to the indirect talks.
After the Arab League backed Palestinian participation in the talks last Saturday, Mr Abbas said he did not “want to lose hope”.
The Palestinians pulled out of talks in March after an announcement that Israel had approved plans for new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo during a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
The move caused deep strain in Israeli-US relations.
The Palestinian Authority’s formal position is that it will not enter direct talks unless Israel completely halts building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In November, Israel announced a 10-month suspension of new building in the West Bank, under heavy US pressure.
But it considers areas within the Jerusalem municipality as its territory and thus not subject to the restrictions.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, although Palestinians want to establish their capital in the east of the city.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Israel needs a new nuclear policy: Haaretz Editorial

The expanse between excessive weaponry and disarmament is not a slippery slope. Israel should enter it.
The Security Council’s permanent members this week reiterated an old call to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. The Arab states have no nuclear weapons – and when Iraq and Syria started developing them, the Israel Defense Forces attacked them. Therefore, this call is clearly directed at Israel, which is believed to possess such weapons, though its official position is that it only has a “nuclear option.”

The call was issued at a five-year Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, on the 40th anniversary of the treaty’s inauguration. It’s a sad celebration. North Korea has been making a mockery of the treaty for a decade and a half. Another member of the club, Iran, is developing nuclear weapons and challenging the council. Three states – India, Pakistan and Israel – are still refusing to join the NPT, which affords few privileges (such as using foreign nuclear material for domestic needs ) and numerous obligations (refraining from nuclear weapons, agreeing to supervision ).

India and Pakistan have even conducted nuclear tests and make no secret of possessing nuclear weapons. It may be for mutual deterrence, but there is no guarantee that the safety catch will remain on forever.

Egypt, which has always spearheaded demands for the region’s total nuclear disarmament, decided in the 1970s that it was incapable of taking Israel on in the nuclear arena. Anwar Sadat, who indicated when he came to Jerusalem that he chose peace with Israel in part because of the nuclear issue, took the “if we don’t have it, neither shall you” approach.

The peace agreement with Israel has not stopped Egypt from consistently demanding, for more than 30 years now, that Israel be disarmed of its alleged nuclear weapons. This demand is raised every autumn at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual conference in Vienna, and frequently in other international forums.

The Arab demand, and the world’s support for it, are nothing new. Nor is Israel’s response. Ever since the days of foreign minister Yigal Allon’s appearances at the UN General Assembly on behalf of Yitzhak Rabin’s first government, Israel has preferred saying “yes, but” to outright rejection. Yes, certainly, Israel would be pleased if a nuclear-free zone were established, but on condition that the region’s borders be defined so that it includes Iran (and Libya, and what about the nuclear weapons that may creep in from Pakistan? ), and that the region no longer be hostile.

In brief, if the Egyptians say that without disarmament there will be no peace, Israel says peace now, disarmament later. What Israel is prepared to give for peace is already a different issue.

However, the periodic demand for regional disarmament is different this time, on two counts: Israel describes the nuclear weapons Iran is expected to acquire as a threat to its survival, and U.S. President Barack Obama is passionately striving for a nuclear-free world, not merely region. In this situation, Israel must adopt a new policy – one that does not go as far as total and immediate disarmament, but does agree to freeze new nuclear activities.

The expanse between excessive weaponry and disarmament is not a slippery slope. Israel should enter it.

PLO convenes to discuss peace talks with Israel: The Independent

By Tom Perry, Reuters, Saturday, 8 May 2010
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) convened today and was expected to approve indirect peace talks with Israel, clearing the way for the first negotiations in 18 months.

The PLO executive committee, meeting in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, would approve a US proposal for indirect talks which will be mediated by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, committee members said.
The United States has sought to revive the peace process, calling the Middle East conflict a “vital national security interest”. However many doubt whether the latest US effort can succeed where years of diplomacy have failed.
The United States proposed the indirect talks as a way to break an impasse over Jewish settlement construction on Israeli-occupied land where the Palestinians aim to establish a state alongside Israel.

The United States said last week it expected the indirect negotiations, known as “proximity talks”, to move forward before Mitchell’s departure from the region, scheduled for tomorrow.
Mitchell is set to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later today.
“The (PLO) executive committee will approve proximity talks but we are against it,” said committee member Bassem al-Salhi of the People’s Party. The PLO is dominated by the Fatah faction led by Abbas. The Arab League last week approved four months of indirect negotiations.

Continue reading May 8, 2010

May 7, 2010

On Israel, Jews and Leaders Often Disagree: The New York Times

Stephen McGee for The New York Times
FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. — Criticizing Israel has long been the equivalent of touching a third rail in many Jewish families and friendships, relegating disagreements to a conversational demilitarized zone where only the innocent and foolhardy go.
Bob Maggid listens to a discussion about Israel in Farmington Hills. Many Jews have differing views on Israeli policies.
“You cannot really engage in that conversation,” said Phillip Moore, a teacher in this Detroit suburb who has embraced strong opinions on many topics in his life — on politics, education, even religion — but avoids the subject of Israel at gatherings of his Jewish relatives.

“You raise a question about the security forces or the settlements and you are suddenly being compared to a Holocaust denier,” said Mr. Moore, 62. “It’s just not a rational discussion, so I keep quiet.”

But the recent tension between the Obama administration and the Israeli government over the stalled Middle East peace process has put the questions underlying those long-avoided family discussions directly in the public spotlight. They have raised serious questions about whether the traditional leadership of the American Jewish world is fully supported by the mass of American Jews.

The issues arose last month when American officials openly rebuked Israel over the announcement of new housing plans in east Jerusalem, and are likely to grow as indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians, mediated by the Obama administration, resume this week. President Obama, working to ease those tensions, met on Tuesday with the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who had criticized the administration in an advertisement last month.

Many other prominent Jews, representing the conservative organizational leadership that has been the dominant voice of the Jewish community for decades, have also recently criticized the Obama administration’s pressure on Israel. Some have even accused the White House of sabotaging the foundations of the Jewish state.

Former Mayor Edward I. Koch of New York spoke for many stalwart Israel backers last Sunday when he told an angry crowd of 500 gathered outside the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan, in a videotaped statement, that President Obama’s demand for a settlement freeze in East Jerusalem was nothing less than an orchestrated effort “to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel.”

But while those voices have been strong and their message unmistakable, a newly outspoken wing of Israel supporters has begun to challenge the old-school reflexive support of the country’s policies, suggesting that one does not have to be slavish to Israeli policies to love Israel.

“Most Jews have mixed feelings about Israel,” said Rabbi Tamara Kolton of the Birmingham Temple, a secular humanistic congregation in Farmington Hills. “They support Israel, but it’s complicated. Until now, you never heard from those people. You heard only from the organized ones, the ones who are 100 percent certain: ‘we’re right, they’re wrong.’”

In the 2008 election, 78 percent of Jewish voters supported Mr. Obama, and surveys have suggested that most continue to back his policies.

In a survey taken after the diplomatic skirmish of March, the American Jewish Committee — the heart of the traditional mainstream — found little change in the level of Jewish support for Mr. Obama’s handling of relations with Israel. The survey found that 55 percent approved of his handling of Israeli relations, compared with 54 percent last year. (His disapproval rating rose five points, to 37 percent.)

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder of a Washington lobby known as J Street, the latest of several organizations representing the voice of liberal Jews who support Israel but not all its policies, said many people have long felt ignored or silenced by the pro-Israel establishment in the United States.

“People are tired of being told that you are either with us or against us,” he said. “The majority of American Jews support the president, support the two-state solution and do not feel that they have been well represented by organizations that demand obedience to every wish of the Israeli government. If you had taken their word for it, Obama should have gotten 12 percent of the Jewish vote. But he got 80. That should say something.”

Within the vast spectrum of opinion, though, American Jews continue to have strong attachments to Israel, and the recent tensions have produced intense, often angry, debate. The rancor led delegates at the annual convention of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella community relations group that includes almost all major American Jewish organizations, to adopt a resolution in February calling for a halt to “a level of uncivility, particularly over issues pertaining to Israel, that has not been witnessed in recent memory.”

Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, predicted that Mr. Obama’s approval ratings among Jews would soon reflect what he called “a deep distress” over his approach.

“People are angry,” he said. “Americans do not want peace shoved down the throats of the Israelis.”

But Professor Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist at Hebrew Union College in Manhattan who co-wrote a study last year charting a steep decline in attachment to Israel among younger Jews, said the younger and liberal-leaning are frustrated at being labeled “anti-Israel” or even anti-Semitic for expressing opposition to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

General ‘tried to cover up truth about death of Rachel Corrie’: The Independernt

Israeli war hero accused of suppressing testimony that could reveal what really happened to Gaza activist
By Ben Lynfield, Friday, 7 May 2010
Seven years after the American activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, evidence has emerged which appears to implicate Israel’s Gaza commander at the time, in an attempt to obstruct the official investigation into her death.

The alleged intervention of Major-General Doron Almog, then head of Israel’s southern command, is documented in testimony taken by Israeli military police a day after Ms Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003. The hand written affidavit, seen by The Independent, was submitted as evidence during a civil law suit being pursued by the Corrie family against the state of Israel.

Ms Corrie, who was 23 when she died, was critically wounded when a bulldozer buried her with sandy soil near the border between Gaza and Egypt. The American, wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and carrying a megaphone, was among a group of volunteers from the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement who over a period of three hours on that day had sought to block the demolition by Israel of Palestinian homes.

The Israeli military has maintained that its troops were not to blame for the killing of Ms Corrie and that the driver of the bulldozer had not seen her. It accused Ms Corrie and the ISM of behaviour that was “illegal, irresponsible and dangerous”. Three days after Ms Corrie’s death, the US state department announced that the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had promised the US President George Bush that the Israeli government would undertake a “thorough, credible and transparent investigation”.

But according to a military police investigator’s report which has now emerged, the “commander” of the D-9 bulldozer was giving testimony when an army colonel dispatched by Major-General Almog interrupted proceedings and cut short his evidence. The military police investigator wrote: “At 18:12 reserve Colonel Baruch Kirhatu entered the room and informed the witness that he should not convey anything and should not write anything and this at the order of the general of southern command.”

The commander was a reservist named Edward Valermov. He was in the bulldozer with its driver. In his testimony before he was ordered to stop, he told military police investigators that he had not seen Ms Corrie before she was wounded. Alice Coy, a former ISM volunteer activist who was near Ms Corrie during the incident said in an affidavit to the court that “to the best of my knowledge the bulldozer driver could see Rachel while pushing earth over her body.”

Hussein Abu Hussein, a lawyer for the Corrie family, said Major-General Almog’s alleged intervention blocked the possible emergence of evidence that could have determined whether Mr Valermov’s assertion that he did not see Ms Corrie was reasonable. “Do I believe him? Of course not. There is no doubt this was manslaughter,” Mr Abu Hussein said. “First of all we claim the state is responsible for the death of Rachel. And secondly we claim that the investigation was not professional.”

“When you, the state of Israel, fail as an authority to perform your function of having a credible investigation, when your standard falls from reasonable, objective standards than you have caused evidentiary damage,” Mr Abu Hussein said.

Contacted by The Independent, Major-General Almog, a hero in Israel for his role in the 1976 raid to rescue hostages in Entebbe, Uganda, denied ordering the bulldozer commander to desist from testifying. In 2005, the General narrowly escaped arrest in Britain on a war crimes charge for allegedly ordering the destruction in 2002 of 50 civilian homes in Rafah, where Ms Corrie was later killed. Major-General Almog was tipped off about the warrant and did not disembark at Heathrow, returning instead to Israel on the El Al flight.

Mr Valermov said in his testimony that the bulldozers, manned by two people, were ordered to continue their work despite the presence of the ISM protesters. He said that troops in an armoured personnel carrier threw stun grenades, used tear gas and fired shots towards the ground to scare the protesters away. “It didn’t help and therefore we decided to continue the work with all possible delicateness on the orders of the company commander” he said.

The testimony was interrupted after Mr Valermov said the driver of the bulldozer, named only as Yevgeny, said he did not know if Ms Corrie had been harmed by the shovel of the D-9. “It was only when we moved the D-9 backwards that I saw her. The woman was lying in a place where the instrument had not reached. As soon as we saw the harmed woman we returned to the central corridor, stood and waited for orders.” The soldier’s last statement before the order to stop speaking was: “My job was to guide. The driver cannot guide himself because his field of vision is not large.”

Another army document strongly suggests that Major-General Almog opposed the military police investigation. Dated 18 March 2003, a military police investigator petitioning a judge for permission to conduct an autopsy on Ms Corrie’s body said that “we arrived only today because there was an argument between the general of southern command and the military advocate general about whether to open an investigation and under what circumstances.” The judge granted the request provided the autopsy would be done in the presence of a US diplomat as the Corrie family requested. But the inquest was carried out by Israel’s chief pathologist without any US official being there, in apparent violation of the judge’s ruling.

Major-General Almog denied halting Mr Valermov’s testimony. “I never gave such an order, I don’t know such a document. I conducted my own investigation, I don’t remember what I found. There were 12,000 terrorist incidents when I was general in charge of southern command. I finished seven years ago, if they want to invite me [to testify] they know the address. I certainly didn’t disrupt an investigation, this is nonsense. In all of my service I never told anyone not to testify.”

Asked if he gave an order to harm foreign activists interfering with the army’s work, Major-General Almog responded: “What are you talking about? You don’t know what a general in charge of command is. The general in charge of command has 100,000 soldiers. What are you talking about?”

Moshe Negbi, legal commentator for the state-run Voice of Israel radio, said of Major-General Almog’s interdiction: “If a commander prevents a witness from testifying then it is disruption of an investigation, a criminal offence whose penalty is three years imprisonment.”

Craig Corrie, Rachel Corrie’s father, said the alleged intervention in Valermov’s testimony was “outrageous.”

“When you see someone in that position taking those steps you not only have to be outraged, you have to ask why is he covering up, what has he done that he needs to take these steps to cover it up?”

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said: “Any military police investigations are completely independent and cannot be influenced by outside sources.” The Israeli state attorneys handling the case declined to be interviewed. The trial is due to resume in September.

Rachel’s nightmare scenario

Before she became a political symbol, Rachel Corrie was an American student on a study-abroad programme. A member of a middle-class family from Olympia, Washington, she was attending college locally when she travelled to Gaza with the intention of initiating a twin-city project between Olympia and Rafah.

Arriving in Gaza in January 2003, she linked up with the International Solidarity Movement, and spent the next two months as an activist. In the weeks before her death she wrote a series of emails home to her friends and family that detailed her impressions of life in Gaza. “I have bad nightmares about tanks and bulldozers,” she told her mother. “I’m witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I’m really scared… This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop.”

The emails, which later inspired a play that appeared in London but was cancelled in New York and Toronto, end with an exchange with her father. “I am afraid for you, and I think I have reason to be,” he wrote. “But I’m also proud of you – very proud… But I’d just as soon be proud of somebody else’s daughter.”

Corrie died on 16 March 2003. Like the death of the British activist Tom Hurndall in similar circumstances a year later, it prompted an international outcry about Israel’s deeds in the Palestinian territories.

May 5, 2010

Obama and Iran, by Carlos Latuff

EDITOR: The Success of the BDS campaign is getting to Israel’s guts!

The following hysterical article is evidence not just of the state of irrationality that Israeli society and its elites are now in, but also very clear evidence of the success of the campaign, and all those who tols us for years that it cannot succeed (including our great friend Chomsky) should now seriously rethink their positions and join the BDS camp!

Break the Palestinian boycott: Haaretz

By Karni Eldad
The Mishor Adumim industrial zone in the West Bank is home to a cosmetics plant that sells 70 percent of its products to Palestinians. Recently, however, there has been a slight turnaround in relations between the factory and its customers. The Palestinian Authority ruled − in a presidential order, not the small-scale campaign of a few − to stop buying Israeli products manufactured east of the Green Line.

How is such an order enforced? Simple. The life of the factory sales manager is threatened, and he is then given an offer he can’t refuse: sell the factory at a ludicrous price, and we’ll transfer it to PA control, because we won’t be buying your products in any case.
Those who silently stood by as Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad burned Israeli goods made in the West Bank simply accepted the presidential decree. Moreover, the PA recently established a “National Honor Fund” to finance its boycott activities, to which it injects $150,000 a month. Whence the money? International donations meant to support political institutions.

Israel remained silent last month when the so-called “committee against distributing settlement goods” confiscated and destroyed 7.5 tons of watermelons grown in West Bank fields. Israel stays mum when the Arabs work to impose an economic embargo on settlement products, and when the PA imposes the same on Israeli mobile phone companies, which are not centered in the West Bank. It is indeed remarkable that the cellular boycott has been put in place exactly when the son of a high-ranking PA official is launching a company that will distribute the same services.

Amid the presidential order on settlement-made goods, Palestinians have been forbidden to work in the factories producing these goods or in construction in settlements. For now, the order applies only to new workers, but veteran employees have been offered one month’s pay from the PA as an incentive to quit.

In the wake of the accursed Oslo Accords, the 1994 Paris Protocol was signed, establishing interim economic ties between Israel and the PA. The boycott against settlement merchandise is a clear violation of this agreement, by which both sides pledged not to undermine the other’s economy.

The same agreement also determined customs and tax issues between Israel and the Palestinians. When a Palestinian individual or company imports merchandise from abroad, Israel collects customs taxes and transfers them to PA coffers. In total, more than $1 billion is collected annually. Reason dictates that in the case of such a flagrant violation of the Paris Protocol by the Palestinians, we should collect the money lost by Israeli companies due to the boycott by recouping it from customs money we transferred to the Palestinians. Such a move requires no law, only a modicum of national honor − and it’s a step that could bring the economic embargo to an immediate end. At a recent meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, Manufacturers Association President Shraga Brosh − hardly viewed as a staunch rightist − proposed another solution: barring the export of Palestinian goods from Israeli ports.

With Israeli manufacturers facing closure in the face of a Palestinian presidential order, I would expect to hear an outcry from lawmakers from every hue of the political spectrum. The Palestinians’ blatant violation of the Paris Protocol is an affront, but silence in the face of it is a crime.

UK ‘blocking’ Mossad return to London: The Guardian

Official reportedly prevented from taking up embassy post after Israel refuses to commit itself not to misuse British passports

The father of Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was assassinated in Dubai, with his photograph. Israel has never admitted any role in the killing Photograph: Hatem Moussa/AP

Britain has refused to allow Israel’s Mossad secret service to send a representative back to the country’s London embassy following the row over the killing of a Hamas operative by agents using forged UK passports.

Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported yesterday that the Foreign Office is digging in its heels because Israel is refusing to commit itself not to misuse British passports in future clandestine operations.

Neither Britain nor Israel gave any details of the embassy official who was ordered to leave the country in March after an investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency showed that the Mossad was behind the passport theft.

But the official was understood to be an intelligence officer who was known to the UK authorities and worked as official liaison with Britain’s MI6. There was no suggestion the officer was personally involved in the passports affair.

Israel has never admitted any role in February’s Dubai assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was described as a key figure in smuggling Iranian weapons into the Gaza Strip on behalf of the Palestinian Islamist movement. It has abstained from signing any material that might be construed as a confession.

Britain had made clear in public statements and private meetings with the Israelis that it expected formal guarantees that there would be no repeat of the passport cloning. The real documents belonged to Britons living in Israel.

Forged or stolen Irish, Australian, French and German passports were also used by the hit squad, whose operation – including the use of elaborate disguises – was extensively recorded by CCTV cameras in the emirate.

Israel conspicuously refrained from retaliating for the expulsion of the Mossad officer, apparently accepting that it was no more than a slap on the wrist before a return to business as usual.

The Mossad and MI6 are known to have a close working relationship especially over terrorism – despite political differences over the peace process, settlements and the Palestinians between the UK and Israeli governments. Iran’s nuclear programme is likely to be another high-priority issue of common concern.

Yediot reported that Israeli security officials were concerned about the breakdown in relations between the two agencies. “It is estimated that the affair will only be resolved, if at all, after this week’s UK general elections,” the paper said.

The Foreign Office said it had not been approached by the Israelis about a replacement for the expelled official. “However we look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like,” said a spokesman. “We have asked for specific assurances from Israel, which would clearly be a positive step towards rebuilding that trust. Any Israeli request for the diplomat to be replaced would be considered against the context of these UK requests.”

Israel yet to replace diplomat expelled in passport row: BBC

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January
Israel is yet to replace a diplomat expelled after forged British passports were used in the killing of a Hamas leader, it has emerged.
The Foreign Office said no request had been made to replace the official, but added that “specific assurances” would be sought from Israel if one was made.
The Israeli Embassy in London refused to comment on the situation.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in Dubai in January, allegedly by Israeli agents using forged foreign passports.
It is believed the fake passports – 12 of them British – were used in the plot to murder Mr Mabhouh, the founder of Hamas’s military wing, in his hotel room in Dubai on 19 January.
Dubai officials said they were “99% certain” that agents from Mossad, the Israeli secret service, were behind the killing.

We look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like
Foreign Office
The names and details on the UK passports used by eight of the 12 suspects belonged to British-Israeli citizens living in Israel – all of whom have denied involvement in Mr Mabhouh’s murder.
Their passports had been copied and new photographs inserted.
During the ensuing diplomatic row, in March, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were “compelling reasons” to believe Israel was responsible for the forgeries.
He said the misuse of British passports was “intolerable”.
Israel’s ambassador to London, Ron Prosor, said he was “disappointed”, but Israel confirmed there would be no tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsion.
Israel has previously said there is no proof it was behind the killing at a Dubai hotel.
The name of the expelled diplomat has not been released.
‘Specific assurances’
Several newspapers have reported that the person expelled was a Mossad representative and claimed that UK authorities are now preventing Israel from replacing the individual until it agrees not to use British passports in the same way again.
The Foreign Office said: “We have had no approach from the Israelis about a replacement. However we look to Israel to rebuild the trust we believe is required for the full and open relationship we would like.
“We have asked for specific assurances from Israel, which would clearly be a positive step towards rebuilding that trust. Any Israeli request for the diplomat to be replaced would be considered against the context of these UK requests.”
Dubai police said forensic tests showed Mabhouh was drugged with a quick-acting muscle relaxant and then suffocated.
Earlier reports had said he may have been strangled or killed by a massive electric shock.

US envoy George Mitchell meets Israel PM Netanyahu: BBC

“Proximity talks” were meant to have begun, but the start has been delayed
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the start of indirect talks with the Palestinians.
The three-hour meeting in Jerusalem was described as “good and productive” by the US state department.
But no announcements were made and Israeli officials have said the two are to meet again on Thursday.
Mr Mitchell is due to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday in Ramallah.
The meeting with Mr Netanyahu had been planned as the start of “proximity talks” but the Palestine Liberation Organisation has still to agree to them.
The PLO said it would meet on Saturday to finally decide if talks can proceed.
Mr Abbas has said the talks need to immediately grapple with the toughest issues at the heart of the conflict.
He said first on the agenda should be the borders of a future Palestinian state.
But the issue, connected to the building of Jewish-only neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, has been a stumbling block.
The talks were delayed in March by a row which strained Israeli-US relations.
The Palestinians pulled out after an announcement that Israel had approved plans for new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo during a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
Earlier Obama administration adviser David Axelrod said the issue of Jerusalem would come at the end of the programme for talks.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, although Palestinians want to establish their capital in the east of the city.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Continue reading May 5, 2010

May 4, 2010

Targeting Iran nuclear program, by Carlos Latuff

US envoy visits Israel for ‘indirect’ negotiations: The Independent

By Jeffrey Heller, Reuters, in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
President Barack Obama’s Middle East peace envoy arrived in Tel Aviv yesterday for expected indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks but Israel voiced doubt about any breakthrough without direct negotiations.

Hours before the US envoy, George Mitchell, flew into Israel, the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, conferred in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh about the upcoming US-mediated negotiations. Mr Obama’s peace efforts received a boost on Saturday when Arab states approved four months of “proximity talks”, whose expected start in March was delayed by Israel’s announcement of a settlement project on occupied land near Jerusalem.
An Israeli Defence Ministry strategist Amos Gilad said on Israel Radio that the indirect negotiations would begin on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when the envoy would hold talks with the Palestinian side. The executive committee of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was scheduled to meet only on Saturday to give the formal nod to start the negotiations.

The Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor described indirect talks as “a strange affair” after face-to-face peace negotiations stretching back 16 years.
There have been no direct talks for the past 18 months, a period that has included Israel’s Gaza war, the election of a right-wing Israeli government and entrenched rule in the Gaza Strip by Hamas Islamists opposed to the US peace efforts.

“I think it is clear to everyone that real talks are direct talks, and I don’t think there is a chance of a significant breakthrough until the direct talks begin,” Mr Meridor said.
“The talks will be held. The envoy, Mr Mitchell, will talk to us, to them. But the more we hasten to arrive at direct talks, the more we will be able to address the heart of the matter.”

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Mr Abbas, said the negotiations would show whether the Israeli government was serious about peace and “test the sincerity” of the Obama administration in pursuing Palestinian statehood.
“The truth is we are not in need of negotiations. We are in need of decisions by the Israeli government. This is the time for decisions more than it is the time for negotiations,” Mr Rdainah said.

In an interview published on Sunday in the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam, Mr Abbas said Mr Obama had given a commitment he would not allow “any provocative measures” by either side. Mr Abbas has long insisted Israel freeze Jewish settlement building before any negotiations resume, and he had rejected as insufficient a temporary construction moratorium that Mr Netanyahu ordered in the occupied West Bank last November.

EDITOR: Even the Right has noticed…

Moshe Arens might be right-wing, but stupid he is not. He admits some of the facts that others in the Israeli elite seems to be denying at all cost.

Let’s stop pretending: Haaretz

The administration in Washington is trying to force on Israel a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
By Moshe Arens
Tags: Israel US Israel news Middle East peace
It is almost a year now that a certain ritual has marked the public discourse between Washington and Jerusalem. Israel gets a good slap in the face and a few days later someone in Washington announces that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is rock-solid. The Israeli prime minister is demeaned in Washington and a day later he declares that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is firm as ever.

Anybody who has been involved in fostering the U.S.-Israeli relationship over the years, so important to both countries, knows that things are not as they have been for the past 50 years. The relationship, which on occasion is being described in Washington as “unshakable and unbreakable,” has for the past year been shaken up quite a bit. The administration in Washington is trying to force on Israel a peace settlement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a settlement that would involve Israel withdrawing to the 1949 armistice lines that were established after it repelled the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, which were attempting to destroy the newborn state.

They want to set the clock back, seemingly oblivious of the many wars and acts of terror that were launched against Israel in the years since then, the serious threats that are being directed against Israel at present, the dramatic changes that have taken place in the past 61 years, and the Jewish people’s internationally recognized rights to their ancient homeland. This bitter medicine needs to be taken by the people of Israel, it is argued, because it serves the interests of the United States, and in addition, the administration in Washington believes that it is also good for Israel.

For many years the differences between the United States and Israel were discussed in intimate forums and not taken public, in the common realization that venting in public the inevitable differences even among the best of friends would only harm the interests of both countries and give comfort and encouragement to their common enemies. Not since Dwight Eisenhower demanded that David Ben-Gurion withdraw the Israel Defense Forces from the Sinai and the Gaza Strip in 1957 has the White House openly challenged Israel. Now, the administration in Washington has no compunction about publicly airing its displeasure with Israel.

The recent visit of the U.S. vice president and the routine approval during his stay by a local planning body of construction plans in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem was turned into an “insult to the United States.” It was followed by an angry telephone call by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a subsequent attack on Israel in Clinton’s appearance on U.S. television.

In the interim, soothing words were heard from Washington until Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, where he was duly humiliated. Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist close to the White House, reminded Israel in a recent interview of the generosity of the United States in granting Israel $3 billion annually for military assistance while America contends with a severe economic crisis. What for years was seen in Washington and Jerusalem as assistance that served the interests of both countries is now being depicted as largesse for which Israel needs to express its gratitude by accepting American demands.

The Netanyahu government has chosen to act as if nothing has changed, and that the occasional signs of displeasure coming from Washington can be appeased by minor or temporary Israeli concessions. The result seems to be the opposite. The Israeli government is seen in Washington as disingenuous and attempting to outsmart the White House.

The time has come to stop pretending. Whatever chance that may exist to conduct productive negotiations with Abbas is being hampered by the demands being made on Israel by Washington. They only provide excuses for Abbas to refuse to enter serious negotiations until these demands are met. He cannot be expected to be less of a Palestinian than U.S. President Barack Obama. While objective difficulties exist in any case because of Hamas’ control of Gaza and Abbas’ tenuous position in Judea and Samaria, outside pressure only makes things more difficult. Peace cannot be imposed. There is little doubt that the administration in Washington will learn this lesson sooner or later.

US envoy Mitchell returns to Middle East: BBC

George Mitchell is back in the region but it is not clear when talks will start
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has returned to the region, attempting to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Israeli media say the proximity talks will resume on Wednesday.
However, Palestinian leaders are said to require the backing of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which will not meet until Saturday.
The Palestinian Authority has refused to attend the indirect proximity talks mediated by Mr Mitchell since March.
These were knocked off course by an announcement that Israel had approved plans for new homes in the East Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo during a visit to Israel by US Vice-President Joe Biden. The move caused deep strain in Israeli-US relations. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been stalled since 2008.
Constructive talks
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak.
They spoke for 90 minutes in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
An Israeli government statement said the talks had been “constructive” and had taken place “in a good atmosphere”.
During their meeting, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Mubarak “reviewed Egyptian and international efforts to prepare the ground for the indirect talks aimed at a two-state solution,” the Egyptian news agency Mena said.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said they had discussed “renewing the peace process and other regional and bilateral issues”.
Mr Netanyahu later discussed the peace efforts with US President Barack Obama in a telephone call, officials said.
According to the White House Mr Obama stressed the importance of “substantive” proximity talks and the need for direct contacts to start soon.
Mending ties
The Palestinian Authority’s formal position is that it will not enter direct talks unless Israel completely halts building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In November, Israel announced a 10-month suspension of new building in the West Bank, under heavy US pressure. But it considers areas within the Jerusalem municipality as its territory and thus not subject to the restrictions.
But reports suggest that an unofficial slowdown of approvals for major projects in East Jerusalem may have been instigated by Mr Netanyahu in an attempt to help mend relations with the US strained by March’s announcement.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. It insists Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital, although Palestinians want to establish their capital in the east of the city.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, among a Palestinian population of about 2.5 million.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Continue reading May 4, 2010