Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Headlines for August 5 - August 11

A Stand For Justice


A Cakewalk Against Iran by Philip Giraldi
A resolution (HR 1553) is making its way through Congress that that would endorse an Israeli attack on Iran, which would be going to war by proxy as the US would almost immediately be drawn into the conflict when Tehran retaliates. The resolution provides explicit US backing for Israel to bomb Iran, stating that Congress supports Israel’s use of "all means necessary…including the use of military force." The resolution is non-binding, but it is dazzling in its disregard for the possible negative consequences that would ensue for the hundreds of thousands of US military and diplomatic personnel currently serving in the Near East region.


Hebron: "Settlers Heat up the Air in Al Bweireh"



At-Tuwani: Palestinian fence damaged in village
This property damage is just the last of several ongoing provocations
carried out by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers which Palestinian
communities in the South Hebron Hills have committed to respond to with
nonviolent resistance


Report: U.S. downgrades Saudi arms deal over Israeli concerns
The Wall Street Journal said Monday that the United States had signed on to sell dozens of F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, but that details in the final deal had been negotiated to quell Israeli concerns over the possible exchange.


Eyes on the Skies Over Bushehr Nuclear Reactor
Iranian and Russian nuclear scientists and officials have announced Bushehr's reactor will soon be receiving its first shipment of nuclear fuel 36 years after construction first began on the project.

This claim may be quietly fueling speculation that a military strike on Iran by Israel - or the U.S. - may be imminent.


Will Israel Really Attack Iran Within a Year?
Based on dozens of interviews the Atlantic correspondent conducted in recent months with Israeli, American and Arab officials, Goldberg came to the conclusion that the likelihood of an Israeli strike has crossed the 50 percent mark. And Israel might not even ask for the famous "green light" from the U.S. - or even give couple of false pre-attack alerts, so that Washington won't try to stop the unilateral operation......Israel is trying to convey the message not only through the official channels - Israeli military intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin visited Chicago recently to meet with the billionaire Lester Crown, one of Obama’s supporters, and asked to him to convey Israel's concerns to the American President, Goldberg reports.


Russia Ready to Launch Iranian Nuclear Power Plant
The Iranian state owned FNA news service reports that the head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency Sergei Kirienko will visit Iran in late August to attend a ceremony to inaugurate the country's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr.


Homeless Take On Israeli Forces
A bruising battle of will is taking place between Israeli security forces and Palestinians recently made homeless after two Palestinian villages were razed and hundreds left homeless.



Israel Threatens to Pull Out of UN Gaza Probe
EM - Israel threatened on Tuesday to pull out of a UN probe into its deadly flotilla raid to keep the panel from grilling its troops, as the defence minister told another inquiry the fleet was a "planned provocation."


No Blank Checks for the GOP — or Likud by Patrick J. Buchanan
is startling to learn 47 House Republicans just signed on to H.R. 1553 declaring unequivocal “support for Israel’s right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran … including the use of military force.”

These Republicans have just given Tel Aviv a blank check for a pre-emptive war that Israel, unless it uses its nuclear weapons, can start but not finish. Fighting and finishing that war would fall to the armed forces of the United States



U.S. Funding for Israeli Missile Defense Programs Reaches New High
Our government must protect Israel at all costs, even as its own citizens go hungry. Thank Israel's lobby.


Israel/Gaza: Wartime Inquiries Fall Short
Israeli military investigations into the Gaza war have brought some results over the past 18 months but fall far short of addressing the widespread and serious allegations of unlawful conduct during the fighting, while Hamas has announced no serious investigations whatsoever, Human Rights Watch said today.


The Tears of Gaza Must Be Our Tears
Let me name those who send these tanks and fighter jets to bomb the concrete hovels in Gaza with families crouching, helpless, inside, let me name those who deny children the right to a childhood and the sick a right to care, those who torture, those who carry out assassinations in hotel rooms in Dubai and on the streets of Gaza City, those who deny the hungry food, the oppressed justice and foul the truth with official propaganda and state lies.


Israel accuses US of bias over State Department caution



Libya to fund Gaza homes after Israeli freed
A rare deal between foes Israel and Libya to free an Israeli photographer will let Libya underwrite the rebuilding of 1,250 Gaza Strip homes destroyed in Israel’s offensive there last year, UN officials said on Tuesday.




Swedish activists get ready to set sail for Gaza
Solidarity activists at a meeting in Stockholm announced on Wednesday that a major flotilla will attempt to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza before the end of the year.


Sending a Canadian boat to Gaza is moral thing to do



UN names Israeli, Turk to Gaza flotilla probe
The U.N. has named representatives of Israel and Turkey to a high–profile panel that will look into Israel's deadly commando raid on a Gaza–bound aid flotilla.



U.S. bomb shelter advice misses mark says Israel
A warning to U.S. citizens traveling to the Red Sea resort of Eilat that they should locate the nearest bomb shelter should properly apply to the next–door Jordanian resort of Aqaba, an irked Israel said on Sunday.




Student from Gaza tells story of deportation
Imagine being held at a security checkpoint for seven hours, told you can't return to where you have lived for the past four years, blindfolded, handcuffed and dropped at the border of a rough neighborhood in the middle of the night.


'Not enough evidence to convict suspected Jewish terrorist Pearlman'
A Petah Tikva judge on Monday refused a police request to extend by eight days the remand of Chaim Pearlman, a settler suspected of having murdered four Palestinians and wounded several more, on the grounds that "I haven't seen any substantial evidence that could serve to convict Pearlman."


UN Chief May Be Heading for Showdown with Israel
When the Israeli government gave its blessings to a U.N. panel of inquiry probing the military attack on a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza last May, there was widespread speculation that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon may have struck a backdoor deal over its mandate.


Shuhada Street: Keeping the quiet (when there’s no peace to be kept)
The soldier shrugged. “We can’t let CPTers walk on this street. That’s the order we’ve been given.”


Polish court orders alleged Israeli spy extradited
An alleged Israeli spy will be extradited from Poland to Germany within 10 days to face charges linked to his suspected involvement in the slaying of a senior Hamas operative in Dubai earlier this year, a Polish appeals court ordered Thursday.


Older Gazans recall Israelis, youth sees only army
This generational split slices through families across Gaza, where older people remember when jobs in Tel Aviv and contact with Israelis were a short drive away, while those under 25 have grown up locked in, seeing little from Israel but fighter planes and bombs.


Israeli nuclear whistleblower out of prison again
An Israeli nuclear whistleblower who spent 18 years behind bars was released from jail Sunday after serving an additional three months for violating his release terms.


Israel threatening to quit UN probe into flotilla
Israel threatened Monday to pull out of a U.N. inquiry into a deadly raid on a Turkish flotilla heading for Gaza, after the U.N. chief said there is no agreement that the panel would refrain from calling Israeli soldiers to testify.




Tony Judt, author of 'Postwar,' dies at 62
He so angered supporters of Israel that he was removed from the editorial board of The New Republic even as his wife, Jennifer Homans, continued to serve as the magazine's dance critic. In 2006, Judt was scheduled to speak at the Polish Consulate of New York, but the event was canceled after the consulate received phone calls from the Anti–Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.

"Apparently, the line you take on Israel trumps everything else in life," Judt told the Financial Times in 2007.



U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece. America's falling to pieces as we shovel billions to the Middle East to make it a safer place for Israel.


Jewish Leaders Enter Fray Over Islamic Center Near Ground Zero
All three Jewish groups issued statements affirming the right of Rauf and his allies to build the center. But the ADL, unlike the others, said it was opposed to the construction. “This is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right,” the ADL said.


Speak No Evil by Philip Giraldi
surely Clemons knows that Ross and Makovsky are leading members of the Israel Lobby. Ross, who is currently at the National Security Council, has been described as “Israel’s lawyer” while Makovsky is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. They are gatekeepers whose purpose in life is to protect Israel from any and all criticism. To suggest that as policymakers they have been focused on doing what’s best for the United States and its citizens is contradicted by their personal histories and their recorded statements. That they receive a free pass and even a pat on the head from Clemons and others is precisely why US foreign policy is as dysfunctional as it is.


Mayor Bloomberg’s Monumental Folly by Patrick J. Buchanan
But the issue here is not religious tolerance. There are a hundred mosques in New York City.

The issue here is the appalling insensitivity, if not calculated insult, of erecting a mosque two blocks from a World Trade Center where 3,000 Americans were massacred by Islamic fanatics whose Muslim religion was integral to their identity and mission. Not sure I agree with Pat on this one, but the comments are interesting.


Lebanon: We'll reject U.S. military aid if weapons can't be used against Israel



China is a barometer on whether Israel will attack nuclear plants in Iran
China’s defiance irks the US to the point that American officials are now openly critical of Beijing. Perhaps the US knows something about Israel’s intentions toward striking Iran that China doesn’t. A prime opportunity for Israel to strike Iran would be this fall, just before the US elections when politicians are most prone to support Israel despite its actions.


Syria, Iran underline support for Lebanon against Israel



Lebanon: US military aid halt is 'unwarranted'
"We will address the concerns that congressional leaders have rightfully raised about what happened recent and what it's potential implications are," Crowley said. "But nonetheless we continue to support our assistance programs to Lebanon."
I would think Congress would have more important things with which to concern itself. Such as things having to do with AMERICA.


Israel-Lebanon border clash has Israel complaining of Hezbollah's influence - Yahoo! News
“In a way, the Israelis are shooting themselves in the foot with their criticism of the Lebanese Army,” says Timur Goksel, a university lecturer in Beirut and former official with the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in south Lebanon. “They had been saying for years that they want the Lebanese Army to deploy along the border [to replace Hezbollah] and now [that they have]... they are saying they’re terrorists.” Israelis will complain about anyone that doesn't bow down and kowtow to them.


Ongoing action alert: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions
CPT-Palestine invites you to join us, Palestinians, and people from all over the
world in boycotting
Israeli goods and cultural events, divesting from all companies that profit from
the occupation of Palestine, and pushing for international sanctions on Israel.


Hezbollah accuses Israel of Hariri assassination
The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah militants presented aerial reconnaissance footage Monday that he said implicates Israel in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.



Israel Fights Isolation With New Measures
In other, quieter ways, Israel is trying to re-establish its credentials as a country that abides by international law and respects human rights. re-establish? When has Israel ever abided by international or humanitarian law? Ridiculous. Good luck with it!


Decline of the Middle Class as Metaphor for the Decline of America
America's falling to pieces as we shovel billions to the Middle East to make it a safer place for Israel.


Governments Go to Extremes as the Downturn Wears On
Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further — it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation and sending working parents scrambling to find care for them. America's falling to pieces as we shovel billions to the Middle East to make it a safer place for Israel.


Camden Closing Library System
New Jersey's most impoverished city will close all three branches of its public library at year's end unless a rescue can be pulled off. America's falling to pieces as we shovel billions to the Middle East to make it a safer place for Israel.


Social Security in the red this year
Social Security will pay out more this year than it gets in payroll taxes, marking the first time since the program will be in the red since it was overhauled in 1983, according to the annual authoritative report released Thursday by the program's actuary.
America is getting poorer as we continue to shovel billions to the Middle East to Israel and others in order to make the world a safer place not for us, but for Israel. Because, our support for Israel actually endangers us. It was the sole motivation given by the mastermind of the 911 attacks, Khaled S. Mohammed.


The Mosque and Us
Before it became a cause célèbre for Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich and other rank opportunists, before the Anti-Defamation League sullied a once-noble reputation by siding against religious liberty, before the tweets and satellite trucks spun this all out of control, the plan to turn an eyesore of an empty building two blocks from Ground Zero into a mosque and Islamic center was embraced as a sign of true healing.


Arab Majority Backs Nuclear Iran
A new poll shows that the percentage of the Arab world that thinks a nuclear-armed Iran would be good for the Middle East has doubled since last year and now makes up the majority. You'll note that the critic of the poll who was cited in this article is from the WINEP, a thinktank associated with AIPAC, Israel's lobby. Naturally they're going to try to refute this poll's findings; it goes against their propaganda effort to paint the Arab world as in opposition to Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.


American VIP humiliated at airport
Prof. Donna Shalala, who served as the US Secretary of Health and Human Services for eight years under Clinton and is currently the president of the University of Miami, was held for two-and-a-half hours at Ben Gurion Airport during which she underwent a humiliating security debriefing because of her Arab last name – all this despite the fact that her hosts notified the airport ahead of time that she is a VIP. The fact that Shalala arrived in Israel as part of an official delegation of the heads of universities fighting against the academic boycott against the Jewish State also seemed not to help her.


Obama Administration Presses Palestinians To Enter Direct Talks With Israel
although the United States declined to use the term “pressure,” Palestinian officials and Israeli diplomatic sources briefed on talks with the P.A. said the administration had a clear message. Abbas and his negotiators were told by Obama and by Middle East special envoy George Mitchell that direct talks are the only game in town and that any expectation for Israeli concessions could be realized only after entering talks. A joke.


Iran Holocaust-denying website angers Israel






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