Headlines for March 3 - March 9

A Stand For Justice


Diplomat: I can no longer represent Israel
Ilan Baruch says he quit because "Israel's foreign policy is wrong," pointing to the Palestinian issue.

Should this trend continue, he warned, Israel will turn into a pariah state and face growing de-legitimization.


Palestine accuses UNSC of double standard as its people''s right to freedom being ignored
Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour on Friday accused the Security Council of double standard as it seeks to protect the rights of people in the Middle East, especially in Libya these days, and turns a blind eye to the Israeli practices in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.


Egypt considers easing Gaza blockade, says diplomat
Working with Israel, former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak greatly restricted the movement of people and goods out of the coastal strip after Hamas militants seized power in Gaza nearly four years ago. Mubarak was ousted last month.


Egypt's ambassador promises big change in policy towards Gaza



Britain to upgrade status of Palestinian delegation to 'mission'



Denmark to upgrade status of Palestinian representation to 'mission'
Denmark to upgrade status of Palestinian representation to 'mission'


IDF is preparing for mass civil uprising in West Bank
Photo by: AP

Senior officers now serving, or who once served, in the West Bank say they have long felt there is no way to effectively contend with a widespread, nonviolent civil uprising. During the first intifada which begain in 1988, the IDF used live rounds on protestors. 40000 children alone were maimed, hundreds were killed. At the end of that intifada in 1993, the first suicide bombings occurred, right after the Baruch Goldstein massacre.


"Hebron" Settlers Take One More Piece of Land in Al Bweireh
After CPT asked to see the official permission to level this land for the settlers, the Israeli security guard showed a yellow scrap of paper with a paragraph written in Hebrew. When one CPTer insisted this was not an official document, the security guard made no effort to defend himself.


Israel: No Palestinian peace deal possible now
In related news, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics reported that settlers began building up to 500 apartments and homes in the West Bank after a 10–month moratorium on settlement construction expired in late September.


Former AIPAC Staffer Loses Lawsuit
In his civil suit, Rosen sought to prove that receiving secret government information and distributing it was regarded as acceptable practice by AIPAC and therefore that the lobby’s claim that when Rosen did so he acted beneath AIPAC’s standards was defamatory. To prove this point Rosen listed other cases in which AIPAC officials allegedly received classified information.

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Report: Mubarak's sons received millions of dollars for backing Israeli gas sales



George Galloway: Gaza war as bad as WW2
Speaking to LSE students on Monday, the former Respect MP called Israel an “apartheid” state and compared scenes in Gaza after Operation Cast Lead to those in the Second World War.


Extradited to L.A., the Abergils Get Ready To Face the Music
The Abergil brothers, whom federal prosecutors label one of “the most powerful crime families in Israel,” face an indictment that alleges a trail of drug dealing, murder, money laundering, racketeering and extortion, as they hopscotched from Belgium to Thailand, from Jerusalem to Miami, to Malaga in Spain, and myriad locations around the globe, including, of course, Los Angeles.





Kissinger asks Obama to release spy for Israel
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is urging President Barack Obama to release an American convicted of spying for Israel 24 years ago.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, Kissinger wrote to Obama, "I believe justice would be served by commuting" Jonathan Pollard's life sentence. This story was evidently removed at the time of this writing.


NPR ‘appalled’ by former exec’s comments -
Also, Ron Schiller doesn't appear to interject when the two men make outlandish comments about Jews controlling the media and laughs when they jokingly refer to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."


Mubarak Regime ‘Provoked’ Attacks on Christians
Analysts say there is growing evidence that Egyptian security forces planned attacks on Christian churches and clergy, or allowed them to happen. The apparent purpose of the attacks was to reinforce the idea to sympathetic Western governments that without Mubarak, radical Islamist groups would gain a foothold in Egypt and wage a holy war on its Christian community.


Israel to 'finally' impose sanctions on Iran



Pennsylvania Cuts 40,000 From Low-Income Insurance Program
Meanwhile, the billions in US taxpayer dollars flow freely each year to Israel.


Why Is Israel Aid Exempt From Cuts?
It no longer comes as much of a surprise that the average Democrat or Republican will rule that Israel aid cuts are off the table -- while supporting cuts in programs like Head Start, which educates poor children, or WIC, which provides nutrition assistance to disadvantaged women and their infants. (See this list of the proposed GOP aid cuts for the rest of FY2010).

...AIPAC produced a letter for the Republican first-termers to sign in which they pledged that, no matter what else they cut, Israel would be exempt. And almost immediately, 65 of the 87 Republican freshmen signed on.


Where were the calls for a no-fly zone when Israel attacked Gaza, asks George Galloway
As Western powers look for an excuse to intervene in Libya, George Galloway, interviewed by the BBC, asks where were the calls for a no-fly zone when Israel attacked Gaza. Would the West call for a no-fly zone to support the rebels if there was a revolution in Saudi Arabia?


Do Neocons Want Democracy?
Maintaining the window dressing for their racket is always job one, even ahead of their Israel-first ideology.


Democracy in Egypt
I actually don’t have a problem with recognizing and promoting US interests in the region, but my concern is, inevitably, that it will turn out to be all about Israel yet again given the conjunction of McCain, Lieberman, and Kagan.


Uncle NED Comes Calling by Philip Giraldi



Rather Than Defend Obama, J Street Is Now Pushing Him
Conference organizers say that more than 50 members of Congress were in attendance, a good turnout for a young organization, although significantly fewer than the numbers seen at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual national conference, where more than half of Congress attends the dinner.

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GOP Slogan for 2012: Who Lost The Empire?

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