Headlines for November 18 - November 24

A Stand For Justice


Israel planes hit Gaza targets after rocket fire
At least four people, three women and a boy, were hurt in one attack in the central Gaza Strip when an uninhabited building close to where they were standing collapsed after being hit, local residents said.




Liar, Liar by Philip Giraldi
His administration’s retreat from any confrontation with Israel in an attempt to make a recalcitrant Netanyahu conform even to minimal standards of behavior confirms what all the world already knows: Israel will act and the United States will follow, even if those actions will inflict grave damage on the American people and on the US national interest.

And what will that mean for the United States? It means that the decision about going to war for the US is essentially controlled by Israel because Tel Aviv can start a conflict with Iran at any time that will quickly draw Washington in. Those who think that the White House still is managing the situation are completely naïve. There is no indication that the Obama administration has warned Israel against bombing Iran because the US has no cards to play, having ruled out exerting any sort of economic or military pressure on Netanyahu. And there should be no doubt that an attack by Israel on an Iranian nuclear facility would trigger Iranian retaliation and immediate calls in Congress and the media to support Tel Aviv, leaving the president no option but to enter the conflict.

...So if you doubt that the United States is tied hand and foot to Israel in terms of its ability to take independent action in the Middle East, just listen to what Dennis Ross, Joe Biden, and Eric Cantor are saying. Does it sound like they are articulating policies beneficial to the US? Read on for more treason in our government. Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counterterrorism official.


Israeli soldiers who used Palestinian boy, 9, as a human shield avoid jail
Majed was among dozens of men, women and children who were sheltering in a basement when the soldiers forced him to open a bag at gunpoint, according to the boy's affidavit, given to Defence for Children International (DCI), which filed a complaint against the Israeli army.


'I saw Ariel Sharon murder 2 Palestinian toddlers in Lebanon'
Dutch media this month published articles accusing Ariel Sharon of murdering Palestinian children in Lebanon. Former officials who worked with Sharon said the publications were false. The Israeli foreign ministry called the claim "a modern blood libel."


U.S. ready to offer Israel written guarantees if it restarts peace talks



Qaeda-linked group threatens Israelis, in Hebrew



AIPAC Gets Down and Dirty in Pushback vs. Defamation Suit
former AIPAC staffer and now liberal columnist M.J. Rosenberg sees more to it. According to Rosenberg, if Rosen proves that his operations, including going to a foreign official to warn him about the investigation, were all part of AIPAC’s standard operating procedures, “that would mean that AIPAC is not a domestic lobbying organization at all, but something very, very different.”




US Taxpayers Footing the Bill for Israeli 'Refugee Resettlement'
Just remember this when you see all of the continued poverty in the US as more and more people are forced to use food stamps in order to survive; this is just another one of the costs of Israel to the American taxpayers.


'US no longer sees Israel as an asset'
Rivlin’s remarks provide a good reference point for how average Israelis view the growing tension between Jerusalem and Washington, which is being fed by a burgeoning movement within the US to paint Israel as a liability, both ethically and politically. It's about time! Too bad Congress hasn't followed suit. YET.


Israeli bill could threaten future peace deals



U.S. and Israel: Still No Consensus on Pressuring Iran
An open disagreement between Israel and the Pentagon in recent weeks has highlighted the dilemma President Barack Obama faces in making progress on Iran. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday poured cold water on last week's suggestion by Israeli Prime Minister that the only way Iran can be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons is for the U.S. to threaten military action. Military action, Gates warned, would solve nothing; in fact it would be more likely to drive Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Somebody needs to tell Israel to fight its own battles. Let us get our troops out of there first, as, they most certainly would pay the price for any such action.

And thank you, Mr. Robert Gates, for putting the interests of our country, America, FIRST.


ISRAELI SOLDIERS DETAIN FIVE PALESTINIAN SCHOOLBOYS IN SOUTH HEBRON HILLS
These kinds of incidents are the evidence of the Israeli military escort’s failure to protect the children from settler’s violence. In the last school year, the children were attacked 19 times, they waited for the escort 53 hours and they missed almost 27 hours of classes.


IDF officer suspected of blocking probe into Gaza civilian death
Sergeant S. was part of a combined force of Givati and armored brigades which had entered a built up area when it identified a group of around 30 Palestinians walking toward them, apparently after being ordered by the IDF to evacuate their homes in a neighboring area.

A deputy battalion commander ordered troops to fire warning shots toward the group - but not at them. Soon after the order was given, two Givati Brigade soldiers joined the troops. One of them, S., opened fire, killing the two women.


Jewish groups push for pardon of worst spy against US
Insiders associated with the push, which resulted last week in a congressional letter to President Obama asking for clemency for the American Jew convicted in 1987 of spying for Israel, say the main factor was one man: David Nyer, an Orthodox activist from Monsey, N.Y.

Nyer, working under the auspices of the National Council of Young Israel and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, repeatedly called dozens of congressional offices and pressed Jewish groups asking for a leader to take on the case of Pollard... Yet another example of the treason on Capitol Hill. Read on.


Abbas insists on Jerusalem in settlement freeze



U.S. bars Palestinian statehood moves in U.N. agencies
At a meeting of the International Telecommunications Union last month in Mexico, the Palestinian delegations tabled a motion designed to secure them the rights of a member state, said Sulaiman Zuhairi, a senior Palestinian official.

"We could have gone to voting and got what we wanted," he said, saying it was endorsed by around 50 countries and was on track to pass with the backing of an additional 40 states.


U.S. official: Israel must refrain from East Jerusalem construction during freeze
The official added that President Barack Obama had committed in an oral message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last April that the U.S. expects both sides to refrain from "actions that would seriously undermine trust," including in East Jerusalem, and would respond with "steps, actions, or adjustments in policy" to any such provocative actions as long as negotiations are underway.

The U.S. administration has defined "actions that would seriously undermine trust" as including major housing announcements, demolitions, or evictions in East Jerusalem


Israel says no building freeze in Jerusalem
Israel insisted Thursday it would keep building homes in disputed east Jerusalem, threatening to hold up a U.S.–proposed settlement construction moratorium designed to renew deadlocked Mideast peacemaking.




Israel condemns Web list of Gaza soldiers
Israel's military on Friday condemned the publication of names and photographs of 200 Israeli soldiers on a website that called them "war criminals."

If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.


Israel and U.S. struggle to conclude settlement pact
The latest snag concerned a pledge that Israel says U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made to provide the country free of charge 20 F–35 stealth warplanes worth $3 billion.

Politicians said Washington was backtracking and now wanted some sort of payment for the coveted fighter aircraft.

"It looks like the free stealth fighters have slipped," said Benny Begin, a minister from Netanyahu's Likud party who is opposed to the proposed U.S. deal, warning that Washington was setting a trap to extract major concessions later down the line.

We have to bribe them to stop breaking the law. Other nations (Iraq, namely) would've been invaded for such behavior.


Evidence of Iran Nuclear Weapons Program May Be Fraudulent
An IAEA official told Seymour Hersh that the Israelis were behind the revelation of the sites and two journalists from Der Spiegel reported the same thing. So did an adviser to an Iranian monarchist group, speaking to a writer for The New Yorker. That episode was not isolated, but was part of a broader pattern of Israeli cooperation with the MEK in providing intelligence intended to influence the CIA and the IAEA. Israeli authors Melman and Javadanfar, who claimed to have good sources in Mossad, wrote in their 2007 book that Israeli intelligence had "laundered" intelligence to the IAEA by providing it to Iranian opposition groups, especially the NCRI. Read it.


Israeli soldiers walk free in Gaza human shield case
"It's purely for international consumption," Horton told AFP.

"It's to look like you're doing something busy after the Goldstone report, in order to get the UN off your back. It's not a genuine attempt to enforce the law or to send a message that this is not appropriate conduct for the army to engage in."




With settlement deal, U.S. will be rewarding Israel's bad behavior
It was only a little over a year and a half ago that the Obama administration demanded a freeze on Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, including even the "natural growth" of existing settlements. At the time, the administration called settlement activity "illegitimate" and appeared ready to go to the mat with Israel to show just how strongly the United States believed that settlements impede peace.

But now, the administration says it is prepared to pay off Israel to freeze only some of its settlement activity, and only temporarily. For the first time in memory, the United States is poised to reward Israel for its bad behavior.


An American Bribe that Stinks of Appeasement By Robert Fisk
Three billion dollars for three months is one billion dollars a month to stop Israel's colonisation. That's half a billion dollars a fortnight. That's $500m a week. That's $71,428,571 a day, or $2,976,190 an hour, or $49,603 a minute. And as well as this pot of gold, Washington will continue to veto any resolutions critical of Israel in the UN and prevent "Palestine" from declaring itself a state. It's worth invading anyone to get that much cash to stage a military withdrawal, let alone the gracious gesture of not building more illegal colonies for only 90 days while furiously continuing illegal construction in Jerusalem at the same time.


Israel’s ashkenazi elite, not Russian immigrants, are responsible for the country’s ever increasing racism



Palestinians, Syria condemn Israel referendum law
In Damascus, the foreign ministry said "Syria totally rejects this Israeli measure which changes nothing to the fact that the Golan is Syrian territory and cannot be part of any negotiations."

The legislation, which was backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, passed with 65 Knesset members in favour and 33 against, and no abstentions.

It requires any government signing a peace agreement that cedes territory in east Jerusalem or the Golan, or any other sovereign territory within Israel itself, to secure either approval of parliament or hold a national referendum.




Gazans shocked at how many neighbors, coworkers, officials are 'spying' for Israel
Rumors and panic reached a fever pitch over the summer when the government began arresting people while shrouding the campaign in secrecy. Because officials wouldn’t say why anyone was arrested, people arrested for other crimes were sometimes falsely branded collaborators, a charge that carries a high price in Gazan society.


A Special Place in Hell-Israel News
Before coming to America recently, I'd heard warnings from friends in the U.S. Jewish community that the very mention of J Street would spark nasty arguments, attempts to silence dissenting opinions regarding Israeli policies, behind-the-scenes sabotage by powerful pro-settlement donors and organizational professionals, perhaps cancellations of events. I had been warned, as well, that it was already too late.


George Galloway. Blasts Ottawa for its policies on Israel and Afghanistan
"The Palestinians decided long away they will not go into the museum of ex-nations," he said to broad applause.




Israel must hold poll on any peace plan withdrawal after Knesset vote
Any peace deal involving withdrawal by Israel from annexed territory in East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights will need to be ratified by a national referendum under legislation approved by the Israeli parliament late last night.


Palestinian official: Western Wall not Jewish
"This wall has never been a part of what is called the Jewish Temple," the report claimed. "However, it was Islamic tolerance which allowed the Jews to stand before it and cry over its loss."




Ex-AIPAC Official Threatens to Uncover Mass Spying at Israel lobby
Rosen says his actions were common practice at the organization. He said his next move is to show that AIPAC, Washington’s major pro-Israeli lobbying group by far, regularly traffics in sensitive U.S. government information, especially material related to the Middle East.

“I will introduce documentary evidence that AIPAC approved of the receipt of classified information,” he said by e-mail. “Most instances of actual receipt are hard to document, because orally received information rarely comes with classified stamps on it nor records alerts that the information is classified.”


Israel stakes out lonely position on Jerusalem
no other government recognizes Israel's 43–year–old annexation of east Jerusalem, and the Palestinians are increasingly vocal about insisting that what Israelis universally call "neighborhoods" are in fact illegal "settlements.".....On Tuesday, bulldozers started clearing land for 1,000 new housing units to expand Har Homa's population by a quarter. What might not have drawn much attention several years ago, however, drew reprimands this month from the U.S., the Palestinians and other countries.






The Rise, Then The Fall of GOP’s ‘National Rabbi’
In surreptitiously recorded conversations between Balkany and SAC Capital representatives that were played during the trial, Balkany boasted of his political connections. “Every six weeks, a different senator from Washington comes to my house for lunch or dinner,” he said on the tapes, citing such present and past senators as Orrin Hatch, Joseph Lieberman, Arlen Specter, Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus.

There’s little cause to assume that Balkany is exaggerating. The catalog of boldface political players gives a hint as to the level of Balkany’s access, carefully cultivated through years of donations.

His power, Sheinkopf said, came from “his ability to raise money, which gave him access, which gave him the ability to deliver things for his community that some thought were not possible to do. He was a great bundler. Money matters in politics; he was able to raise it.”

....A January 2000 Daily News report found that Balkany was charging Jewish families for his help in accessing child day care vouchers for low-income families. The report raised suspicions that applications submitted via Balkany received special consideration from the city as families elsewhere got put on long waiting lists. More than half the vouchers went to four heavily Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhoods, and the number going to the Brooklyn ZIP code in Boro Park where Balkany’s school and several others he helped were located was about five times the number of vouchers distributed in Manhattan and the Bronx combined. Balkany was never charged in this case.

This is why ALL campaign financing must be ABOLISHED. This is NOT what the Founding Fathers had in mind for this country. Our representatives are supposed to be working for EVERYONE, not just the highest bidders. This is bullshit of the highest order.


Terror Expert Emerson Feels His Own Heat Over Finances
“Emerson is a leading member of a multi-million-dollar industry of self-proclaimed experts who spread hate toward Muslims in books and movies, on websites and through speaking appearances,” the report claimed.

In its wide-ranging article, The Tennessean reported that while the IPTF is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt charity, it in fact distributes almost all of its contributions to SAE Productions, a for-profit company that Emerson founded in 1994 and continues to control, as he does the IPTF.

Citing publicly available tax filings, the paper reported that Emerson’s foundation paid $3,390,000 to SAE in 2008 — the foundation’s only significant expenditure. It was the Emerson-controlled for-profit firm that then made all expenditures on the foundation’s behalf.

....“Of all those of us who labored in the vineyard in trying to help the Jewish people, there is no one who stands higher in the pantheon of honor than Steve Emerson,” said Bialkin, a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, “for all of us — those of us who are hard-liners — feel this guy is worth his weight in gold.”



And now you know why Emerson is allowed to get away with this.


Bush Lies - Not Just To Us, But To Himself
The good news is that Cheney is gone and that Adm. Mullen is still around.

The bad news is that Adm. Fallon was sacked for making it explicitly clear that, "We're not going to do Iran on my watch," and there are few flag officers with Fallon's guts and honesty. Moreover, President Barack Obama continues to show himself to be an invertebrate vis-à-vis Israel and its neocon disciples.


Al-Qaeda’s Christian Massacre — Aiding and Abetting the Occupation of Palestine
The massacre of Iraqi Christians at Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad also makes one wonder about claims that the group has “a great sense of timing.” The slaughter of Catholic Mass-goers occurred just one week after church leaders from across the Middle East had forcefully condemned Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.


Mystery of Who Funded Right-wing "Radical Islam" Campaign Deepens
The DVDs, 28 million in all, were a boost to Republican candidates who were trying to paint Democrats as weak on terrorism -- and they arguably helped fuel the anti-Muslim sentiment that boiled over in the "ground zero mosque" fight last summer. The film, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War With the West," was widely criticized for its cartoonish portrayal of Muslims as modern-day Nazis.

But who put up the money to send out all those millions of DVDs?

Clarion, which has strong links to the right-wing Israeli group Aish HaTorah and is listed in government records as a foreign nonprofit, would never say


Eric Cantor and the Provoking of American Anti-semitism
Essentially what Cantor did was tell the leader of a foreign country that he will protect that country from the official policies of the President of the United States–the person charged by the Constitution to carry out the nation’s foreign policy. Actually, the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have been supplying just this sort of protection for a very long time. But they have always done so surreptitiously. What is different with Cantor is that he has done this quite publically, letting us all know about it in a notice on his official stationary.


PM asks for Pollard’s Release as Part of Freeze Deal
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the US to release Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard as part of a series of gestures made to Israel in an effort to restart peace talks with the Palestinians, sources with knowledge of the talks told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend.



Israeli wanted by Colombia released in Russia
He was sentenced in absentia to nearly 11 years in prison for his role in the 1980s training of far–right paramilitary groups responsible for mass murder and widespread land theft during a more than decade–long reign of terror across Colombia's countryside.

And who better to do that than an Israeli?


New Museum on Independence Mall Is a Sign That Jews Have Arrived
It is, therefore, a measure of how far American Jews have come, how much anti-Semitism

has declined and how secure the Jewish community now feels that if any such fears were expressed, no notice whatsoever was taken of them. The new museum, in its prime location and through its eye-catching building, makes a bold statement. Nobody who walks the mall can miss it.





Shapiro: Administration Opposes Palestinian State Declaration Via U.N.
What was on the minds of the Jewish leaders?

A bevy of issues ranging from Iran sanctions, to delegitimization of Israel, to unilateral Palestinian steps (where Shapiro told Morton Klein of the ZOA that the administration opposes a move to ask the UN Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state, although he did not explicitly say the U.S. would veto it).





Ex-AIPAC official got at least $670,000 from donors
The latest episode of the AIPAC spy scandal turned sordid last week, with the pro-Israeli lobby releasing its deposition of fired official Steven J. Rosen in which he confesses he engaged in extra-marital sex and watched pornography on his office computer.

But largely buried beneath such tawdry details was an admission arguably far more damaging to Rosen’s drive to prove the organization ruined his professional life: that major Jewish donors supported him with hundreds of thousands of dollars during the four years after his dismissal in May 2005.



Occupation Is the Issue; BDS Is a Distraction
a mobilization to oppose the Global BDS movement is now the highest priority of the pro-Israel community.

.....“The BDS campaign is working hard to brand Israel. We must now work to brand the BDS movement as deceptive and destructive.” And we have a new and coordinated effort that includes the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, with initial funding in the millions of dollars, with roughly the same goal: Denounce BDS. Once again (yawn), Israel as embattled victim.




Jewish settlements targeted in divestment campaign
Pension funds in Norway and Sweden have divested themselves of holdings in some firms involved in building in settlements or helping to erect Israel's contentious West Bank separation barrier.

European activists are cranking up pressure on companies by exposing the West Bank ties and picketing stores that sell settlement goods. And some major U.S. churches are questioning companies as a precursor to possible divestment.




Columbia Student Group Drops Sponsorship of Gaza Talk Under Pressure
J Street U’s national director, Daniel May, who introduced Ging at the Columbia event, took exception to the notion that Ging’s views are beyond the pale. If an event with Ging is considered illegitimate, May said, “then we are effectively saying that any criticism, any questioning of the effectiveness of Israel’s policies, is illegitimate.”

Fascists strike again.


Sarah Palin, Neocon
A great article out this week by former CIA Philip Giraldi deals with a recent letter Sarah Palin penned to Congress, evidently on behalf of her Neocon puppetmasters


Pope's praise of Pius dismays Holocaust survivors
"The decisive thing is what he did and what he tried to do, and on that score, we really must acknowledge, I believe, that he was one of the great righteous men and that he saved more Jews than anyone else," Benedict said, offering perhaps his most sweeping praise of Pius' papacy to date.




Purposes to All in Tents: Four Films About Bedouins in One
The film opens with the four directors reading facts about the Bedouin community of Israel over sepia-tinted footage of Bedouins shuffling through the desert. As one says, in 1948, the year of the Jewish state’s founding, his community was told, “Keep living on your land as you did during the British Mandate.” Whether due to migration or other reasons left somewhat ambiguous, Israel’s 2008 Goldberg Commission found that 70,000 Bedouins living in the Negev in 1948 had, by 1951, dwindled to 12,750.

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