A Stand For Justice
Thirty-Nine Congressmen Can’t Be Wrong by Philip Giraldi
For those who think it inconceivable that a large number of congressmen might petition seeking clemency for a convicted foreign spy who did enormous damage to the United States, think again. Pollard has recently obtained the services of Barney Frank and thirty-eight other Democratic congressmen who have signed on to a letter coordinated with a number of Jewish groups. They apparently believe that the poor guy has suffered enough in service to his country, which is of course Israel, making one wonder why American politicians should feel the pain. But no matter, as we all know where the faux compassion comes from. Treason, folks. If you care about this country, you just have to read the whole thing. Then do something about it.
Israel: US too consumed by WikiLeaks to talk peace
Israel's defense minister said Tuesday the U.S. has halted talks with Israel about curbing West Bank settlement construction and resuming peace talks with the Palestinians because Washington is distracted by the WikiLeaks release of secret documents.
Cui bono - who benefits -- from Wikileaks? Who is sitting pretty and smug, with Julian Assange singing Netanyahu's praises?
Israel upset by Argentina Palestinian recognition
Argentina's foreign minister, Hector Timerman, said Monday that in view of stalemated peace efforts, "the time has come to recognize Palestine as a free and independent state."
Netanyahu Forces an Obama Mideast Retreat
"I know what America is," Benjamin Netanyahu, then an opposition politician, told Israeli settlers in 2002. "America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction." And in the last few months, Prime Minister Netanyahu has proved his point by walking back President Obama's call for a freeze in Israeli settlement construction so much so that the Administration on Tuesday essentially gave up and took it off the table.
America is not the land of the free, not when it is ruled by Israel.
Palestinian protest leader's case sparks scrutiny
The target of such unprecedented interest was Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, a leader of Palestinian protests against Israel's West Bank separation barrier who has been feted by some in the international community, from European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, as a courageous defender of human rights.
Israel views the West Bank school teacher as an instigator of violence and wants to keep him in prison, even though he has completed his yearlong sentence. Israel says the demonstrations are violent riots since some of the marchers routinely throw stones at Israeli troops.
.......Carter and fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, part of a group of former leaders known as The Elders, on Monday condemned the attempt to keep Abu Rahmeh in prison. Carter said his "example of nonviolent resistance against the occupation is a model that others should follow."
Abbas: Last resort — I'll ask Israel to take over
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has warned he may dissolve his self–rule government and ask Israel to resume full control of the West Bank if troubled peace talks fail.
Iran makes arrests over nuclear scientist killing
"The three spy agencies of Mossad, CIA and MI6 had a role in the (attacks) and, with the arrest of these people, we will find new clues to arrest other elements," Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi was quoted as saying on state television's website.
Defense for Children International: Urgent Appeal - Shooting of children collecting building gravel
'Promised land for organized crime'
"It is fair to assume that many known OC figures hold valid tourist visas to the United States and travel freely," Cunningham wrote, adding that the embassy "has developed an extensive database and placed lookouts for OC figures and their foot soldiers." He did not elaborate.
Cables Belie Gulf States' Backing for Strikes on Iran
Covert war against Iran's nuclear aims takes chilling turn
The assassination had the hallmark of well-practised professionals. The explosives were shaped to focus the blast and fire a hail of projectiles into the car at an individual target, with minimal "collateral damage". The targets were obviously carefully chosen and the attack would have required weeks of surveillance. So even if local assassins were involved, the questions of who trained and funded them and assigned the targets would remain.......Stuxnet does not bear fingerprints, but a western military source recently told the Observer that it was an Israeli creation.
WikiLeaks Exposes Israeli Mafia’s Growing Influence by Justin Raimondo
Take, for example, this excerpt from a cable dated May 15, 2009 — entitled "Israel, A Promised Land for Organized Crime?" – sent by our embassy in Tel Aviv, which deals with the rising influence of Israeli organized crime The bottom line here: Israel's organized crime syndicate is free to roam the US on visas. And if they commit crimes against Americans, they can hightail it back to Israel to avoid extradition, as so many of them evidently do. And anyway, even if they out and out KILLED Americans, what would our government do about it? Well, what did our government do about the murder of Rachel Corrie, or the men aboard the USS Liberty? ZERO.
After new setback, Obama Mideast plan in doubt
A top aide to the Palestinian president, Yasser Abed Rabbo, went so far as to question Washington's ability to broker a deal, asking how the Americans could possibly "make Israel accept a fair solution" when they couldn't even make it limit its settlement activities.
Palestinians seek unilateral statehood recognition
Winning a majority in the U.N. General Assembly would presumably be an easier task, but obtaining recognition by the U.N. Security Council would be the bigger prize, yet much harder to obtain because of a likely U.S. veto. Washington has traditionally blocked measures that Israel considers hostile.
Argentina: Palestine is free and independent state
Argentina announced Monday that it recognizes the Palestinian territories as a free and independent state within their 1967 borders, a step it said reflects frustration at the slow progress of peace talks with Israel.
Palestinians: Israel has chosen West Bank settlements over peace
The United States should openly blame Israel for the "collapse" of the peace process, a senior Palestinian official said on Thursday, in one of the bleakest assessments yet on Middle East peace efforts.
New Israeli plans to build near East Jerusalem show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not want to resume peace talks, Palestinian officials said.
Without land, Gaza farmers grow crops on roofs
The Israeli imposition of a "buffer zone" along Gaza's borders swallows at least a third of Gaza's farmland and renders lethal any border regions farmers try to access. This land formerly produced wheat, barley and a variety of fruits and nuts; it was Gaza's food basket.
U.S. drops push for Israel settlement freeze
there were some concerns about the size of the incentives the United States offered Israel –– which Israeli sources said included 20 F–35 stealth fighters worth $3 billion –– for only a temporary extension.......Three Latin American nations –– Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay –– declared recognition of a Palestinian state at the weekend, drawing Israeli condemnation.
Israel to blame for "collapse" of talks: Abbas aide
"It's time for the American administration to tell the world that Israel holds the responsibility for the collapse of this peace process," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "Israel has chosen settlements and not peace," he told Reuters.
Israel east Jerusalem policy threatens peace: EU
The EU report said that since the start of November, east Jerusalem settlement planning had resumed "very intensively" and warned that such a policy, combined with curbs on Palestinian building and increased demolitions and evictions in the sector, were having "serious humanitarian consequences."
.....Israel's attempts to exclusively emphasise the Jewish identity of the city were threatening to "radicalise the conflict, with potential regional and global repercussions."
And the report warned of the EU's increasing concern about Israel's "use of archaeology as a political–ideological tool" in a bid to cement the Jewish state's hold over the entire city.
US lawmakers blast Brazil's Palestinian move
Ros–Lehtinen, set to chair the panel come January, said "responsible nations" would wait to take such a step until Palestinians return to direct talks with Israel and recognize its "right to exist as a Jewish state."
Why is this a matter for Capitol Hill? Do not our 'representatives' have anything better to do than to shill for a foreign nation? They seem to do an awful lot of that for the nation of Israel.
Rep. Ackerman Cheers Obama's Shift in Peace Process
Instead, Ackerman now suggests focusing on Iran, which he sees as the biggest Middle East problem. Here, he is once again on the same page as Netanyahu.
Israeli rabbis tell Jews not to sell homes to Arabs
Obtained by Reuters ahead of its planned publication in synagogues and religious journals, the letter quotes warnings by ancient sages that living with non–Jews can lead to "sacrilege." Other concerns for property values are also raised.
Racist much?
Israel decides to ease Gaza export ban
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas in Gaza, described the decision as a "propaganda manoeuvre" and urged public opinion not to be "deceived ... and to keep up the international pressure on the occupation."
Human Rights and Humanitarian Relief Groups Urge Rebuilding Plan for Gaza
In a report entitled "Gaza Repair Strategies," the nongovernmental organizations propose a concerted effort of small-scale home repairs that offers viable, safe, and dignified repair options. The strategy is designed to enable Gaza residents to move toward regaining their lives and livelihoods until a permanent political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be reached.
Why we walked out
Students across the US are protesting a public relations campaign that brings soldiers from the Israeli army to speak on campuses. These tours are an attempt to justify recent war crimes committed by the army and are coordinated by various organizations, the most well-known being the Zionist organization StandWithUs.
Ireland 'blocked' weapons to Israel
After the Israel-Lebanon war, the Israeli military said it needed to restore its depleted ammunition stocks, but the cable from James Kenny, the US ambassador to Ireland at the time, indicates that the Irish government was making it increasingly difficult for Israel-bound US weapons shipments to pass through its airport.
Parsing a Palestinian Poll on Peace, With Prejudice
if you’re the Zionist Organization of America, what’s in your headline is whatever distortion of the data you’re discussing that you think you can get away with.
YouTube - Let Us Call On Israel To STOP SHOOTING CHILDREN! Congressman Brian Baird
Congratulations for Rep. Baird for having the courage to stand up for justice, and stand up to Israel and its goons who preside over Capitol Hill.
Uprooting the Bedouins of Israel
The Jewish National Fund’s objective, however, is not altruistic, but rather to plant a pine or eucalyptus forest on the desert land so that the Bedouins cannot return to their ancestral homes. The practice of planting forests in an attempt to Judaize more territory is by no means new. Right after Israel’s establishment in 1948, the JNF planted millions of trees to cover up the remains of Palestinian villages that had been destroyed during or after the war. The objective was to help ensure that the 750,000 Palestinian residents who either fled or were expelled during the war would never return to their villages and to suppress the fact that they had been the rightful owners of the land before the State of Israel was created.
Turkey, Israel in bid to overcome crisis
"Some say we should turn a new page... An apology must be offered first, compensation must be paid first," Erdogan said Sunday in a speech in Sivas, central Turkey, Anatolia news agency reported.
NY rabbi, sons accused of sexually abusing girls
The 58–year–old father and his 21–year–old son fled to Israel two days ago and are wanted for questioning in the case, police said. They were apparently driven to the airport by the mother.
Israel = haven for criminals.
State Dep’t reporters continue to be rambunctious about Israel announcing 625 new houses for Jews
Video: Reporters challenge State Department on Israel
Imams, rabbis in Brussels to improve Muslim-Jewish ties
He also suggested that the EU impose on its members and officials a code of behavior that would sanction those who made anti-Semitic and racist remarks. Will Israel too be sanctioned for its anti-Semitic (Arabs are Semites too) and racist remarks of its leaders, rabbis, and legislation ? Doubtful.
New WikiLeaks revelations show Ireland limiting complicity in US arms transfer to Israel
Helen Thomas says Zionists control U.S. foreign policy - KansasCity.com
“I can call a president of the United States anything in the book, but I can’t touch Israel, which has Jewish-only roads in the West Bank,” Thomas said. “No American would tolerate that — white-only roads.”
ei The Carmel wildfire is burning all illusions in Israel
The pine trees themselves were instruments of concealment, strategically planted by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) on the sites of the hundreds of Palestinian villages the Zionist militias evacuated and destroyed in 1948. With forests sprouting up where towns once stood, those who had been expelled would have nothing to come back to. Meanwhile, to outsiders beholding the strangely Alpine landscape of northern Israel for the first time, it seemed as though the Palestinians had never existed. And that was exactly the impression the JNF intended to create.
Carmel inferno proves Israel can't afford war with Iran
Yahoo Video: Bittersweet Remembrance Sunday for Palestinian veterans
Short clip of Palestinian Arab veterans who served for the British in WWII.
AP Exclusive: Jailed Palestinian atheist sorry
A Palestinian atheist jailed for more than a month for sharing his anti–Islam views on the Internet has apologized for offending Muslims, and a Palestinian military spokesman said he expected "positive" developments in the case.
Israel recruits citizen advocates in Europe
Israel has instructed its embassies in 10 European countries, including the UK, each to recruit 1,000 members of the public to act as advocates for its policies in a new public relations offensive. Europeans beware.
Gulf leaders want Iran to respond to peace efforts
A communique issued by the six leaders at the end of a two–day summit in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, said they wanted the dispute over Iran's nuclear program to be resolved through "peaceful means" and make the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.
Kind of goes against the Wikileaks cables.
Yvette Cooper calls for Israeli settler labelling on food imports
Labour is opposed to boycotting Israeli goods but Cooper believes consumers should be informed whether products are produced by illegal settlers.
FOLLOW-UP ALERT ON ISRAEL’S POLICY OF NEAR-STARVATION FOR GAZA
It is of major significance that explicit Israeli calculations for the amount of food, animal feed and poultry to be allowed into Gaza can be seen, starkly laid out in black and white. One of the calculated quantities is “breathing space”: the number of days that supplies will last in Gaza. The concept of “breathing space” for Gaza, dictated by the Israelis, is chilling; yet, the media appear happy to look the other way.
The Limits of a Coalition Without AIPAC
So here is where the administration’s efforts to engage the Jewish community on START stand: On the one hand, the White House and congressional Democrats were successful in creating a remarkable Jewish coalition in support of the treaty, which spans from J Street to ADL. On the other hand, without the lobbying power of AIPAC, this coalition isn’t even close to showing lawmakers what Jewish power really means.
Leaks Hint at Chance, Risk of Coalition Against Iran
“These leaders now have to hide following these comments,” Parsi said. “They are really going to have to pull back from the brink, and the primary reason is that this is a policy that is at odds with what their populations want.”
Parsi said the main reason that these strong sentiments were only revealed now is that these Arab leaders, though heads of authoritarian regimes, were keeping their Iranian saber rattling to themselves because it puts them at odds with public opinion in their own countries.
Another Mosque Project Seeks Support, This Time With Jewish Help
Asked why his group decided to spend the first night of Hanukkah with a Syrian-born imam and his flock to support their bid to build a mosque in the rolling hills of the Temecula Valley in California’s Southwestern Riverside County, Eric Greene replied, “We remember when there were protests in this country against synagogues being built.”
WikiLeaks cables: Don't trust Israel on Iran
Senior Turkey official says Israel behind WikiLeaks release
“One has to look at which countries are pleased with these," Celik was quoted as saying. "Israel is very pleased. Israel has been making statements for days, even before the release of these documents.”
Wikileaks: Saudis 'chief funders of al-Qaeda'
Why wasn't Saudi attacked after 9/11? Do you believe for one moment that without Saudi funding, those attacks would have been able to proceed? Not likely. One would've thought it was Iraq that funded 9/11, or even Iran. Who is driving our policy here? Who benefitted from our invasion of Iraq? The United States? Whose number 1 enemy did we depose? Israel's. So while we're bogged down fighting Israel's enemies (next comes Iran), our real foes get away with murder, incitement, and the funding of terror against US citizens and soldiers.
Wikileaks: Israel in the list of countries not clamping down on terror funding
ABC Nightly News just ran a Wikileaks story exposing terror funding during which they showed documents exposing bank transactions from countries not clamping down on this funding. I spied some transactions from Tel Aviv in the list (a few times) of the document but yet no mention of this in the report or any other that I can find in the Google News index.
UN investigating reported device blast in Lebanon
The U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon says it is investigating a blast reportedly caused by the detonation of an Israeli device spying on Hezbollah's private telecommunications network.
Denounced as a traitor the Holocaust survivor who rents rooms to Israeli-Arabs
Israel's extreme rightwing foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has advocated the compulsory "transfer" from the country of Israeli-Arabs, who make up about 20% of the population. The government wants non-Jewish citizens to pledge loyalty to the Jewish state.
Tzvieli insists he will not bow to pressure over his tenants. "Most residents of Safed are a mixture of religious and secular and are tolerant and open," he said. "It's just here in the old city, where the extremists live, that I am in a minority."
mossad was this the chief's last hit - Telegraph
Last Monday, a thousand miles further east in the Iranian capital, Tehran, it appears that the kidon put both of those skills into practice, killing a top nuclear scientist and critically injuring a second as they drove through the rush-hour traffic. .....To assist in the attack, Persian-speaking Mossad deep cover agents have been steadily infiltrating Iran for years. How exactly they helped the hitmen flit in and out of the country remains a secret.
Mossad and Iran's nuclear scientists Part II
Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Guardian's Iran correspondent in exile, has pointed me towards this Wikileaks cable from the US embassy in Tel Aviv. It is dated May 2009 and says:
In November 2008, Israeli crime boss Yaakov Alperon was assassinated in broad daylight in a gruesome attack on the streets of Tel Aviv, only about a mile away from the Embassy. According to several media accounts, a motor scooter pulled up alongside Alperon's car and the rider attached a sophisticated explosive device with a remote detonator to the car door. The bomb killed Alperon and his driver, and injured two innocent pedestrians. The hit was the latest in a series of violent attacks and reprisals, and indicated a widening crime war in Israel.
The interesting point here is that this is exactly how the two Iranian nuclear scientists, Majid Shahriari, and Fereidoun Abbasi, were attacked last Monday morning.
Israel on Iran So wrong for so long
According to various Israeli government predictions over the years, Iran was going to have a bomb by the mid-90s -- or 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2005, and finally 2010. More recent Israeli predictions have put that date at 2011 or 2014.
Israel fears 'flood' of migrants threatens state
In a speech to parliament last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a "flood" of illegal migrants. "It is threatening the jobs of Israelis, and it is threatening the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel," he said.
The supreme irony here is that it is the Jewish groups here in America that are squarely behind the effort to grant amnesty to illegals in America, by their own admission. Yet, it's another standard for Israel. Ironically, many of these immigants are from Sudan, another celebrated cause of American Jews.
Hezbollah says it found Israeli spy device
Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group said Friday that it discovered an Israeli device spying on its private telecommunications network.
The device exploded, apparently detonated remotely by the Israelis, when it was found near the village of Majdel Silim, about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the border with Israel, Hezbollah said in a statement.
Covert war against Iran's nuclear aims takes chilling turn
Time magazine last week claimed to have been given details of the attack from "a western intelligence expert with knowledge of the operation" and asserted that it "carried the signature of Israel's Mossad".
Hezbollah has 50,000 rockets: report
The Times quoted a Pentagon official expressing concern over the Hezbollah arsenal, in response to a series of leaked diplomatic cables on the issue.
which neocon in the Pentagon was it? Name names.
IWW supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement in support of Palestinian Rights
This vote makes the IWW the first union in the US and the third union in Canada to officially support the Palestinian United Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.
ei Boycott roundup French companies to drop out of Jerusalem rail project
In a significant victory for the global Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, French companies Veolia and Alstom have dropped out of the Jerusalem light rail project due to sustained pressure from Palestine solidarity groups. The companies were contracted by the Israeli government to construct and manage the tramway linking Jerusalem to several illegal Israeli settlement colonies in the occupied West Bank.
WikiLeaks founder: Netanyahu believes exposé will aid Mideast peace
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday defended his disclosure of classified U.S. documents by singling out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an example of a world leader who believes the publications will aid global diplomacy. A little strange his praise of Israel. IT kind of goes against the premise of the whole Wikileaks operation, or at least the premise that the public is led to believe.
WikiLeaks: Saudi proposed force to crush Hezbollah
BUSTED – WIKILEAKS WORKING FOR ISRAEL Veterans Today
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Headlines for November 25 - December 1
A Stand For Justice
URGENT APPEAL. More children collecting building gravel have been shot and wounded in Gaza. Please lodge a protest.
The Special Relationship with Israel: Is It Worth the Costs?
When Benjamin Netanyahu was chosen as Israel’s prime minister in 1996, a handful of prominent American neoconservatives prepared for him a policy document entitled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The authors, several of whom would obtain influential posts in the George W. Bush administration, recommended an aggressive stance towards Syria, confrontation with Arafat, an effort to “wean” the Lebanese Shia away from Hezbollah, and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In his recent book Israel and the Clash of Civilizations, Jonathan Cook traces these recommendations to themes worked up by several right-wing Israeli strategists in the 1980s. The Israelis were proposing that Jerusalem cement its status as the Mideast’s dominant power by fomenting sectarian and ethnic strife in the surrounding states.
.... American backing of Israel has been a major, if not the sole, factor in making the United States a target of Muslim terrorists. This is invariably what such terrorists say, whether in custody or at liberty, and no one has explained plausibly why they would misrepresent their motivations.
.... While America’s freely elected leaders bear the ultimate responsibility for the decision to invade Iraq, it should not be forgotten that Israeli officials were pressing for the invasion every step of the way, giving speeches before Congress, writing op-eds, appearing on television.
.....One important consequence of a “special relationship” with Israel is that Israel will work to ensure that its enemies become enemies of the United States. To the extent it succeeds, the United States will have fewer friends and more enemies.
...The affection implicit in the special relationship flows in one direction only. The Washington Post reported recently on a poll of CIA officers. They ranked Israel dead last among allies for intelligence cooperation with the United States. The same story noted that American counterintelligence officials, pointing to aggressive Israeli spy operations on U.S soil, ranked only Russia and China as more serious intelligence threats. Our 'special relationship' with Israel has cost us Americans dearly - in many ways. This piece is long, but a must read.
Israeli gunfire wounds four Gazans: medics
Israeli soldiers on Sunday shot and wounded four Palestinians as they searched for building materials near Gaza's border with Israel, medical sources said
60 Israeli professionals speak out at violence against children
The issues raised in the letter reflect concerns held by DCI-Palestine, which has documented 22 cases of children who report being mistreated by the arresting authorities since 8 October 2010. The age of the youngest child reporting mistreatment is seven years.
Israeli fire wounds Gaza child: officials
The boy was shot in the leg as he foraged for building materials near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, the officials said.
Figures provided by Geneva–based rights group Defence for Children International show that in the six months between March and October this year, 14 teenage gravel–pickers were wounded by Israeli fire –– with those injured being shot in an area ranging from 50 to 800 metres from the border.
Israel police under fire for abusing east Jerusalem children
Israeli police were accused of "flagrant violations" of the law Thursday over their harsh and at times violent treatment of Palestinian children suspected of stone–throwing in east Jerusalem.
Israel condemned over Bedouin village demolition Amnesty International
Amnesty International has condemned the Israeli authorities following the demolition of a Bedouin village in southern Israel for the seventh time since July.
...“The fact that the village has been demolished seven times in four months shows that this is not some administrative mistake but a conscious Israeli government policy of dispossession.”
....As in previous demolitions, no eviction or demolition order was presented to the inhabitants. Israeli authorities have previously detained residents and their supporters when they demanded to see a demolition order.
CPT Palestine: Help!
Because of your support, we were able to continue to
work with non-violent Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Today, Palestinian shop-keepers sell their wares in the old city of
Hebron, and refuse to be driven out of their homes by harrassment from
Israeli settlers and soldiers. This year, people living in the village
of At-Tuwani succeeded in gaining access to electricity and running
water. These successes are made possible by organized Palestinian
activism, and CPT is honored to work with and support our Palestinian
partners.
WikiLeaks shows Netanyahu supports land swaps
I'll believe it when I see it.
Israel razes east Jerusalem home
Shortly afterwards, some 15 Jewish settlers, accompanied by dozens of police, took over a house in another part of the district, an Israeli peace activist told AFP.
...Meanwhile, Israeli troops in the Jordan Valley on Wednesday destroyed at least two Palestinian buildings used to house livestock and a tent in Massua near the border with Jordan.
Aid Groups Decry Blockade on Gaza
Nasma died four months later, on October 16, after Israeli authorities failed to issue her with a permit to leave the strip in time for treatment in an Israeli hospital. Her case is being held up by human rights groups as evidence that Israel's "relaxation" of the blockade has in fact offered little improvement to the lives of Palestinians trapped in Gaza.
In a report issued on Tuesday, a coalition of 22 international NGOs and human rights groups have accused Israel of failing to make good on its June promises.
Israel primed to attack a nuclear Iran
US officials repeatedly expressed concern about conflicting assessments by their Israeli counterparts, some of whom admitted their own estimates should be treated with caution: one diplomat noted that Israeli assessments from 1993 onwards had predicted Iran would possess an atomic bomb by 1998 at the latest. Israel=Chicken Little. Our government finally wising up?
Iran blames Israel after nuclear scientist killed
Iran's president accused Israel and the West of being behind a pair of daring bomb attacks that killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another in their cars on the streets of Tehran on Monday. He also admitted for the first time that a computer worm had affected centrifuges in Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Israel unveils new residential plan near East Jerusalem
Israel on Wednesday revealed plans to build new homes on West Bank land it has annexed as part of its Jerusalem boundaries, a move likely to further hamper any resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.
The plan to build 625 homes in the urban area of Pisgat Zeev adjacent to Arab East Jerusalem was approved by an Israeli Interior Ministry committee last week, some two years after it was originally proposed, Israel Radio said.
Memories and maps keep alive Palestinian hopes of return
Aerial photographs taken by first world war German pilots are combined with mandate-era and Israeli maps supplemented by digitally enhanced satellite images that record old tribal boundaries, neighbourhoods and even individual buildings. Most striking are the hundreds of Arab villages that were destroyed or ploughed under fields, as well as postwar Jewish settlements and suburbs. The Abu Sitta family lands, for example, are now owned by Kibbutz Nirim, near the border with Gaza.
Hamas vows to honor Palestinian referendum on peace with Israel
The Islamist Hamas movement, whose charter advocates the elimination of Israel, would accept the outcome of a Palestinian referendum on a future peace treaty with Israel, its Gaza leader said on Wednesday Another myth put forth by pro-Israeli propagandists flushed down the toilet: Hamas wants or intends to 'drive the Jews into the sea', ie that Hamas seeks to annihilate or conquer all of Israel.
Who Voted for More War? by Philip Giraldi
as it is Thanksgiving, it is perhaps appropriate to ditch the gloom for just one day and look on the bright side. There has been no war against Iran in spite of the best efforts of Graham, McCain, Lieberman, Palin, the Israel Lobby, and the mainstream media. That is largely due to the intelligence community’s having developed a backbone in its 2007 Iran NIE, but it is also the product of alternative media sites like Antiwar.com that make sure that the downside of yet another military adventure is made clear to an increasingly well informed and vocal public. Antiwar has a stable of staff and contributors who put in long hours to produce unique content for the site, reflecting a wide range of viewpoints even if neocons are not generally welcome, thank you very much. On Thanksgiving I personally want to thank the many contributors whom I read and listen to every week: Justin Raimondo, Kelley Vlahos, Scott Horton, Ivan Eland, Chuck Pena, Jeff Huber, Jim Lobe, Gareth Porter, Paul Craig Roberts, and so many others. And I particularly will drink a toast later today to my fellow former spooks who have done so much to rip the veil of secrecy that surrounds the National Security State and its bankrupt policies: Ray McGovern, Michael Scheuer, and the Christisons. Floreat in aeternum! Thank you too, Mr. Giraldi, for your tireless efforts to protect America!! God love ya.
Exclusive: Leaked Cable Reveals US-Israeli Strategy for Regime Change in Iran
Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and the Central Intelligence Agency, who served for eighteen years in Turkey, believes Dagan's comment that Israel will have to "invest time and effort ourselves” in dealing with Iran was, in essence, a veiled threat.
"It is essentially setting up a situation in which the threat of Israel acting alone becomes a wedge issue to force the US to do something so that it will be able to manage the situation rather than respond to Israeli initiatives," Giraldi told Raw Story on Sunday. "It pushes Washington into planning a military strike to force the Israelis to stand down on their own plans."
Amnesty report: Dashed Hopes
five months
later, there are few signs of real improvement on the ground as the ‘ease’ has
left foundations of the illegal blockade policy intact. In order to have a positive
impact on the daily lives of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom
are children, Israel must fully lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
...the International Committee of the Red Cross has recently confirmed that the
blockade constitutes a collective punishment of the entire civilian population
of Gaza and is in clear violation of international humanitarian law........Palestinians’ freedom of movement including to travel, work, study and
visit family members abroad continues to be denied. This PDF doesn't seem to open in Firefox but will open in Internet Explorer.
Hamas PM: We're ready for referendum on peace deal
Hamas would respect any peace deal reached between Israel and Western–backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, provided it is approved in a global Palestinian referendum, the top Hamas official in Gaza said Wednesday.
In a rare news conference for foreign media, Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Gaza's Hamas government, staked out seemingly pragmatic positions. He said Hamas seeks dialogue with the West and wants to be "part of the solution, not the problem."
Haniyeh said such claims are part of a disinformation campaign meant to prepare the ground for future attacks on Gaza.
"There is no such thing as al–Qaida in Gaza," Haniyeh said, adding that "the Palestinian resistance does not work outside the borders of Palestine."
Haniyeh said his government is also monitoring and attempting to rein in Gaza's homegrown zealots, but trying to avoid confrontation.
Germany asked U.S. to force settlement freeze on Israel, WikiLeaks cables show
According to a telegram published by the whistleblowing website, two weeks before Israel's inner cabinet decided on a settlement construction freeze in November 2009, a senior German government official urged the United States to threaten Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if he did not agree to a moratorium, Washington would withdraw its support for blocking a vote on the Goldstone Report at the United Nations Security Council.
China calls on Israel to immediately end all settlement activity in occupied territory
China on Tuesday called on Israel to immediately stop all settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory in order to revive the peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Israel train line plan draws Palestinian ire
"This shows not only Israel's short–term illegal activities in terms of settlement expansion, but its long term planning and execution of colonial projects that aim at nothing less than ending the two–state solution,"
Iran 'smuggled arms' to Hezbollah on ambulances
I wonder if this is one of those planted cables discussed in other articles of this news batch? Cui bono - who benefits?
Noodging and Good Timing Are Behind New Push for Release of Pollard
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, the former U.S. Navy analyst who has spent 25 years in prison, part of a life sentence, the longest ever for spying for an ally.
Congressional staffers described Nyer as “relentless,” and he eventually struck gold: Massachusetts Democratic congressman Barney Frank, who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Banking Committee, agreed to sign on. That prompted a total of 39 signatures, all by Democrats, on the letter sent to Obama.
I wonder if Mr. Frank realizes just how severe the damage was that Jonathan Pollard's treason caused.
Bring on the transparency
These examples are just the tip of an iceberg. Hundreds of millions of dollars in Israeli taxpayer money and U.S.tax exemptions, mostly hidden from public view, are the driving force of the settlement enterprise
Poll: Most Israeli Jews believe Arab citizens should have no say in foreign policy
The study also revealed that almost half of the Jewish Israelis polled would be bothered to have an Arab neighbor No, they're not racists or anything....
Shouting To Be Heard
And while our struggle within the Jewish world is personal and painful for us, we know that it is actually Palestinians whose voices need and deserve to be heard. A lasting peace will only be possible when Palestinians are seen as truly equal and their claims no longer ignored — whether in Jewish community forums across North America, or at the diplomatic negotiating table with Israel.
U.S. Students Group Calls to Boycott an Israeli Hummus Brand
Activism 101 with Colonel Ann Wright
At Rice, Colonel Wright discussed her opposition to the violence used by the Israeli Navy to seize the six ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31. She gave an explicit, first-hand account of her experience on board 'The Challenger,' a ship which was filled with journalists who attempted to document Israeli soldiers' raids on the flotilla.
Tuk-tuks, cheap fuel edge out donkey carts in Gaza
Tuk–tuks started appearing on Gaza's streets in significant numbers several months ago, with demand driven by cheap smuggled fuel. Once the first tuk–tuks were imported, their advantages quickly became apparent, generating more demand.
Carnations from Gaza allowed over the border
Israel has granted permission for the export of strawberries and carnations from Gaza. The move is partly because the Dutch government is supporting the Palestinian farmers and growers. The produce will only be allowed onto the European market.
Vermont group offers anti-apartheid pledge, and more
I stand with Nelson Mandela, Palestinian civil society and people of conscience around the world in support of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS) against corporations, business interests, and academic and cultural institutions that are complicit in or profit from Israeli apartheid and occupation of the Palestinian territories.
WikiLeaks exposé: Israel tried to coordinate Gaza war with Abbas
In a June 2009 meeting between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and a U.S. congressional delegation, Barak claimed that the Israeli government "had consulted with Egypt and Fatah prior to Operation Cast Lead, asking if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas."
"Not surprisingly," Barak said in the meeting, Israel "received negative answers from both."
Did The US Supply Israel With Information Enabling Murder Of Hamas Officials?
Wikileaks: Israel Assessed Abbas as Weak, Unpopular
In 2007, then-opposition leader and current Prime Minister Netanyahu told US lawmaker Gary Ackerman that Abbas was a "nice man who means well," but that Israeli and US efforts would be better focused on undermining Hamas.
Wikileaks: Israel Says Turkeys Prime Minister "Simply Hates Israel"
Israel says WikiLeaks shows 'consistency' on Iran
Israel expressed satisfaction on Monday after the mass release of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, saying it proved the Jewish state's position on Iran was consistent –– in public and in private.
Cui bono - who benefits?
Galloway Stirs Up Montreal News
Canadians, Galloway said, should stop treating Israel like a “legitimate member of the international community and start treating it like the international rogue terrorist state that it has become.”
Nearly two million Palestinians have been pushed from their home and currently live in the “open-air concentration camp” in the Gaza strip, said Galloway.
Shouting ‘Fire’
The incident began when the leadership of Temple Beth Avodah in Newton Centre, Mass., acceded to the demands of what the congregation’s rabbi characterized as a “small, influential group” within the Reform congregation, by canceling a planned event at the synagogue with J Street’s president. This assuredly was not American Judaism’s finest hour.
Is Wikileaks being manipulated by an intelligence service?
There are a number of bloggers – some of them informed writers with credibility, some of them uninformed, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nutters – who think the answer is “Yes”. More to the point is that no less a figure than Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, thinks the answer could be “Yes”. He said so in an interview with PBS’s Judy Woodruff and also in a subsequent BBC World Service (Radio) interview. To Judy Woodruff he said:
“The real issue is, who is feeding Wikileaks? They’re getting a lot of information which seems trivial, inconsequential, but some of it seems surprisingly pointed… The very pointed references to Arab leaders could have as their objective undermining their political credibility at home, because this kind of public identification of their hostility towards Iran could actually play against them at home…It’s a question of whether Wikileaks are being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments… I have no doubt that Wikileaks is getting a lot of the stuff from sort of relatively unimportant sources, like the one that perhaps is identified on the air. But it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives.” Interesting.
GORDON DUFF “WIKI-MURDERS” IN IRAN, SIGNAL “FALSE FLAG” TERROR Veterans Today
Iran is being “set up” through terrorist attacks timed to make any military action in the region immediately look like Iran “out of control.” More attacks on scientists and their families are planned until international tensions are high enough for a “false flag” terror attack on the United States to seem plausible.........There is now little doubt that Wikileaks is an intelligence operation managed from Tel Aviv, carrying out Israeli foreign policy. The most recent “leaks” have successfully reset the diplomatic stage in the Middle East, exposing undercurrents of animosity against Iran while destroying American diplomatic credibility. Very interesting, if true.
WikiLeaks: Netanyahu Warned U.S. Iran 'Months Away' From Nuclear Bomb
the U.S. diplomat quoted in the classified cable said in response to the premier's warning that Netanyahu's estimate was likely unfounded and meant to pressure Washington into action against the Islamic Republic.
Oceans of Blood and Profits for the Mongers of War
Total losses for Lebanon in 2006 came to an estimated $3.6bn, for Israel $1.6bn - so Israel won hands down in terms of money, even if its rabble of an army screwed everything up on the ground. But among those who paid for this were American taxpayers (funding the Israelis) and European taxpayers, Arab potentates and the crackpot of Iran (funding Lebanon). So the American taxpayer destroys what the European taxpayer rebuilds. It's the same in Gaza; Washington funds the weapons to blow up EU-funded projects and the EU rebuilds them in time for them to be destroyed again. But boy oh boy, in the Lebanese war, US arms manufacturers make a packet - and so, to a lesser extent do the Iranian and Chinese missile dealers. The cost of Israel to the American taxpayers, and that includes all peripheral costs including continued aid to Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan for keeping peace treaties with Israel or because of the damage Israel has wrought upon them, and the costs of the Iraq war - all of this money has been drained out of the US economy, could have fed and housed millions of Americans many times over, could have provided free health care many times over. Instead, thanks to the overwhelming influence of the Israeli lobby on our government, we are going broke. America is becoming a third world nation in order to prop up a nation based on religious supremacism, one that routinely violates international and humanitarian law, and one that practices a form of apartheid. And given that, the Israelis are starting to seed a new host: China. This doesn't begin to address the political ramifications our support for Israel has cost us. It was the main reason given by the 911 mastermind, Khaled Shaikh Mohammed.
Der Spiegel: US officials called Ahmadinejad 'Hitler'
If WikiLeaks Is a PsyOp, Whose PsyOp Is It?
Selective disclosure and cherry-picking intelligence can be even more useful than simply fabricating evidence. The authenticity of the diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks hasn’t been challenged. But one might wonder whether there’s a particular spin that the disclosures are meant to convey. Could be why Israel is so pleased at the latest Wikileaks release.
If we aren’t going to bomb, we have to deter
The only way to prevent this scenario is through a sweeping military operation. Only one country has the power to take on an operation of this scale; it is the country with the most at stake and the greatest interest in preventing this new world disorder. That country is the United States. Israel wants us to attack Iran for them, like we did with Iraq.
WikiLeaks cables: Qatar okays use of airbase for U.S. attack on Iran
Qatar agreed to allow the United States to use a base on Qatari soil to bomb Iran, according to a report in the newspaper Al-Arabiya based on secret diplomatic cables published by the website WikiLeaks.
Israel, U.S. tense as WikiLeaks set to release classified bilateral communiques
According to the senior Israeli official, the U.S. Embassy said that the documents were not highly classified, but the administration did not know the precise content of the cables.
Unexpectedly, Israel Welcomes WikiLeaks Revelations
Why Are We Still in Korea? by Patrick J. Buchanan
To broker peace in Palestine, Obama began his presidency with a demand that Israel halt all new construction of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Today, as his price for a one-time-only 90-day freeze on new construction on the West Bank, but not East Jerusalem, “Bibi” Netanyahu is demanding 20 F-35 strike fighters, a U.S. commitment to a Security Council veto of any Palestinian declaration of independence, and assurances the U.S. will support a permanent Israeli presence on the Jordan river. And the Israelis want it all in writing.
This, from a client state upon which we have lavished a hundred billion dollars in military aid and defended diplomatically for decades.
Israeli Airport Security
Steve Clemons has a useful post about GOP demands for Israeli-style airport security in place of the TSA’s strip-’n'-grope regime. Not only would it be more expensive than TARP, and quite probably impractical, but as Stephen Walt writes to Clemons, there’s a bigger question going unaddressed here:
Am I the only person who sees the irony in the recommendation that the US adopt the Israeli approach to airline security? The proper question to ask is: why do we suddenly need greater airport security?
Could it be because we’ve gradually adopted Israel’s approach to the Middle East too? Our support for Israel is the reason we were attacked on 911 in the first place.
The Democracy Agenda is Over
One other notable aspect of these stories has been the reaction of neoconservatives. I mentioned Jennifer Rubin and David Frum in the piece. But The Washington Times‘ Eli Lake and The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg have also rushed to point out that Wikileaks proves “that it is not just Israel that seeks to pull America into a fight with Teheran.” This is a red herring. No one with any familiarity with the region would doubt that other Arab nations are uncomfortable with Iran’s ascendency. The problem with an American strike on Iran isn’t that it would be in Israel’s interest, it is that it is not in the American interest. Adding King Abdullah doesn’t make a hill of difference. Why should Uncle Sam muscle up on his behalf?
A Dangerous Link
There are safer ways for the Obama administration to prove its unquestioned support for Israel’s security.
Really? And why should he have to do that at all? He was elected to serve the AMERICAN PEOPLE.
A Look at the Franken Files
On the Senate floor, however, Franken has been less active on issues relating to the Jewish community and Israel. He did not co-sponsor any of six recent bills in support of Israel, including one “calling for the immediate and unconditional release” of Gilad Shalit (Resolution 571) and another opposing the Arab League trade boycott of Israel (Bill 1671). He also did not cosponsor Bill 3821, protecting Jewish students from discrimination on the ground of religion under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — which has not yet come to a vote. Franken’s official website also does not mention Israel or anti-Jewish discrimination, and does not include a section on Israel or anti-Semitism. This may be because most of his focus in his first two years has been directed toward issues relating directly to Minnesotans. Franken, for example, lists “Agriculture and Rural Issues” at the top of his agenda on his official website.
Oh dear, how dare Franken put the interests of his constituents over the interests of a foreign nation! The nerve.
Now We Know. America Really Doesn't Care About Injustice in the Middle East
It's not that US diplomats don't understand the Middle East; it's just that they've lost all sight of injustice. Vast amounts of diplomatic literature prove that the mainstay of Washington's Middle East policy is alignment with Israel, that its principal aim is to encourage the Arabs to join the American-Israeli alliance against Iran, that the compass point of US policy over years and years is the need to tame/bully/crush/oppress/ ultimately destroy the power of Iran.
There is virtually no talk (so far, at least) of illegal Jewish colonial settlements on the West Bank, of Israeli "outposts", of extremist Israeli "settlers" whose homes now smallpox the occupied Palestinian West Bank – of the vast illegal system of land theft which lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian war. And incredibly, all kinds of worthy US diplomats grovel and kneel before Israel's demands – many of them apparently fervent supporters of Israel – as Mossad bosses and Israel military intelligence agents read their wish-list to their benefactors.
A good read.
WikiLeaks Israel warned U.S. not to arm Arab states against Iran
Netanyahu is quoted as warning that should Iran get the bomb despite U.S.-led efforts to curb its uranium enrichment, Arab powers could shift loyalties from Washington to Tehran.
Turkish foreign minister to hold talks in US
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu starts a four–day visit to the United States Saturday for talks on bilateral ties and regional issues, the foreign ministry said Friday.
Armed members of Jewish Defense League forced way into Paris museum
The BDS France Campaign- On Sunday November 21, 2010, more than 30 members of the Jewish Defense League forced their way into the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, which was showing an exhibition of photographs from Gaza taken by Kai Wiedenhöfer. Armed, wearing helmets and hoods in some cases, group members tried to reach the basement exhibition room in order to vandalize the photographer's work, but were prevented from doing so by the museum security staff.
Hariri visits Iran to lobby for stability
Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al–Hariri visits Iran on Saturday, seeking its help to prevent political tensions turning violent if a U.N.–backed tribunal indicts Hezbollah members for killing his father.
Iran condemns leaks on Arab calls for attack
"We don't give any value to these documents," Ahmadinejad told a news conference "It's without legal value. Iran and regional states are friends. Such acts of mischief have no impact on relations between nations." Wikileaks = psyops?
Is Israel's Mossad Targeting Iran's Nuclear Scientists?
This is why it's likely it was the Israelis behind the Hariri assasination. The Israelis were the first terrorists in the Middle East (Irgun and Stern gangs) and the Arabs simply have learned from them.
Iran Scientist Killed by Bomb Worked on Atomic Project
Shahriari was a member of a regional scientific program known as Sesame, which includes Israel as a member, according to the project’s website. He succeeded Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, an Iranian scientist who also died in an attack, the Tehran-based Asre-Iran website, which is close to the government, said today. Ali-Mohammadi, a professor of elementary particle physics, was killed in January by a bomb planted outside his home in Tehran.
Israeli firms see a global market for their anti-terrorism know-how
"We might be a small country, but we're not small in this business," said Hefetz, director of the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute, a quasi-government business promotion group that this month organized the Homeland Security Conference, Israel's first expo for domestic security providers.
.....More than 400 Israeli companies export about $1.5 billion annually in domestic security goods and technology, including biometric devices, tear gas canisters, anti-intrusion systems, airport screening machines, explosives detectors and remote-controlled vehicles. How much terror is manufactured by Israel to further its massive anti-terrorism business?
Turkey 'won't be silent' if Israel strikes Lebanon
"Does (Israel) think it can enter Lebanon with the most modern aircraft and tanks to kill women and children, and destroy schools and hospitals, and then expect us to remain silent?" Erdogan said at a conference organised by the Union of Arab Banks.
"Does it think it can use the most modern weapons, phosphorus munitions and cluster bombs to kill children in Gaza and then expect us to remain silent?
"We will not be silent and we will support justice by all means available to us."
WikiLeaks Israel's Security Concerns Often Clash With U.S. Interests
Gilad's "typically frank" remarks lend credence to the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus, then CENTCOM Commander, before the Senate Armed Service Committee in March. Petraeus articulated several reasons why U.S. and Israeli interests did not necessarily coincide. The Arab-Israeli conflict, according to Petraeus, "present[s] distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests," and "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel." Petraeus went on to describe how Israel's ongoing conflicts spurred recruitment efforts for al-Qaeda and increased Iranian influence in the region.
Russians Refuted US Claim of Iranian Missile Threat to Europe by Gareth Porter
The Russians maintained that even assuming favorable conditions, Iran would be able to begin a program to develop ballistic missiles that could reach Central Europe or Moscow only after 2015 at the earliest.
The Russians denied, however, that Iran has such an intention, arguing that its ballistic missile program continues to be directed toward “regional concerns” – meaning deterring an attack on Iran by Israel.
Iran's military looks to the sky as new priority
Still, Iran clearly is trying to close security gaps around nuclear sites – including Iran's main uranium enrichment lab – and blunt the edge that the Pentagon and Israel gain from drone technology. Iranian commanders now view drones as a critical tool, including to monitor the U.S. 5th Fleet based across the Gulf in Bahrain.
WikiLeaks Files Threaten Egypt's Role as Mideast Mediator
WikiLeaks Lesson: Deception Part of Middle East Diplomacy
then there's the revelation, from Israeli officials, that a number of U.S. allies in the Gulf feel that their views are so routinely ignored by Washington that they have taken to relaying messages via Israel, which they know has the ear of those in power in the U.S. But any sense of strategic intimacy between Israel and even these most conservative Arab regimes is undercut by the cables' revelation that Israeli officials have constantly questioned some of the goodies included in U.S. arms sales to those regimes, making clear their suspicion that such weapons could one day be turned against Israel.
“There is no anti-Semitic sentiment in Iran”
If you don’t believe in Moses and Jesus, you are not Muslim
Islamic theologian Mohsen Rabbani, director of “Fundacion Cultural Oriente”, describes religious similarities between Jews and Muslims.
“We believe that Moses and Jesus are great prophets. If you don’t believe that, you are not Muslim. We believe in Abrahamic religions. We view them as brothers. We as Muslims believe in Prophet Moses. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country where religious minorities have the same freedoms, occupy high positions, are free to operate on the market, in the economy, and have their representatives in the parliament. We consider ourselves first Jews, then Christians, and only after that, Muslims.” Great article.
Israel torn on U.S. arming Arabs against Iran: WikiLeaks
Shapiro declines an Israeli request to review the U.S. report on planned Middle East arms sales before its submission to Congress, as it contained secret intelligence assessments.
The Obama administration announced last month it would go ahead with the $60 billion deal with Saudi Arabia. A Pentagon official, Alexander Vershbow, told reporters at the time: "Israel does not object to this sale."
Israel approves detention center for migrants
other officials said authorities cannot let thousands of economic migrants enter illegally each year, take jobs from Israelis and dilute the country's Jewish character.
The supreme irony here is that it is the Jewish groups here in America that are squarely behind the effort to grant amnesty to illegals in America, by their own admission. Yet, it's another standard for Israel. Ironically, many of these immigants are from Sudan, another celebrated cause of American Jews.
Is Glenn Beck After the Wrong Billionaire?
It’s kindly old Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. He has six channels on my cable system alone. He actually pays Republican presidential contenders to pontificate on air. He owns The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London and a major Hollywood movie studio. But he doesn’t pull anyone’s strings, does he? Nah.
URGENT APPEAL. More children collecting building gravel have been shot and wounded in Gaza. Please lodge a protest.
The Special Relationship with Israel: Is It Worth the Costs?
When Benjamin Netanyahu was chosen as Israel’s prime minister in 1996, a handful of prominent American neoconservatives prepared for him a policy document entitled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The authors, several of whom would obtain influential posts in the George W. Bush administration, recommended an aggressive stance towards Syria, confrontation with Arafat, an effort to “wean” the Lebanese Shia away from Hezbollah, and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In his recent book Israel and the Clash of Civilizations, Jonathan Cook traces these recommendations to themes worked up by several right-wing Israeli strategists in the 1980s. The Israelis were proposing that Jerusalem cement its status as the Mideast’s dominant power by fomenting sectarian and ethnic strife in the surrounding states.
.... American backing of Israel has been a major, if not the sole, factor in making the United States a target of Muslim terrorists. This is invariably what such terrorists say, whether in custody or at liberty, and no one has explained plausibly why they would misrepresent their motivations.
.... While America’s freely elected leaders bear the ultimate responsibility for the decision to invade Iraq, it should not be forgotten that Israeli officials were pressing for the invasion every step of the way, giving speeches before Congress, writing op-eds, appearing on television.
.....One important consequence of a “special relationship” with Israel is that Israel will work to ensure that its enemies become enemies of the United States. To the extent it succeeds, the United States will have fewer friends and more enemies.
...The affection implicit in the special relationship flows in one direction only. The Washington Post reported recently on a poll of CIA officers. They ranked Israel dead last among allies for intelligence cooperation with the United States. The same story noted that American counterintelligence officials, pointing to aggressive Israeli spy operations on U.S soil, ranked only Russia and China as more serious intelligence threats. Our 'special relationship' with Israel has cost us Americans dearly - in many ways. This piece is long, but a must read.
Israeli gunfire wounds four Gazans: medics
Israeli soldiers on Sunday shot and wounded four Palestinians as they searched for building materials near Gaza's border with Israel, medical sources said
60 Israeli professionals speak out at violence against children
The issues raised in the letter reflect concerns held by DCI-Palestine, which has documented 22 cases of children who report being mistreated by the arresting authorities since 8 October 2010. The age of the youngest child reporting mistreatment is seven years.
Israeli fire wounds Gaza child: officials
The boy was shot in the leg as he foraged for building materials near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, the officials said.
Figures provided by Geneva–based rights group Defence for Children International show that in the six months between March and October this year, 14 teenage gravel–pickers were wounded by Israeli fire –– with those injured being shot in an area ranging from 50 to 800 metres from the border.
Israel police under fire for abusing east Jerusalem children
Israeli police were accused of "flagrant violations" of the law Thursday over their harsh and at times violent treatment of Palestinian children suspected of stone–throwing in east Jerusalem.
Israel condemned over Bedouin village demolition Amnesty International
Amnesty International has condemned the Israeli authorities following the demolition of a Bedouin village in southern Israel for the seventh time since July.
...“The fact that the village has been demolished seven times in four months shows that this is not some administrative mistake but a conscious Israeli government policy of dispossession.”
....As in previous demolitions, no eviction or demolition order was presented to the inhabitants. Israeli authorities have previously detained residents and their supporters when they demanded to see a demolition order.
CPT Palestine: Help!
Because of your support, we were able to continue to
work with non-violent Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Today, Palestinian shop-keepers sell their wares in the old city of
Hebron, and refuse to be driven out of their homes by harrassment from
Israeli settlers and soldiers. This year, people living in the village
of At-Tuwani succeeded in gaining access to electricity and running
water. These successes are made possible by organized Palestinian
activism, and CPT is honored to work with and support our Palestinian
partners.
WikiLeaks shows Netanyahu supports land swaps
I'll believe it when I see it.
Israel razes east Jerusalem home
Shortly afterwards, some 15 Jewish settlers, accompanied by dozens of police, took over a house in another part of the district, an Israeli peace activist told AFP.
...Meanwhile, Israeli troops in the Jordan Valley on Wednesday destroyed at least two Palestinian buildings used to house livestock and a tent in Massua near the border with Jordan.
Aid Groups Decry Blockade on Gaza
Nasma died four months later, on October 16, after Israeli authorities failed to issue her with a permit to leave the strip in time for treatment in an Israeli hospital. Her case is being held up by human rights groups as evidence that Israel's "relaxation" of the blockade has in fact offered little improvement to the lives of Palestinians trapped in Gaza.
In a report issued on Tuesday, a coalition of 22 international NGOs and human rights groups have accused Israel of failing to make good on its June promises.
Israel primed to attack a nuclear Iran
US officials repeatedly expressed concern about conflicting assessments by their Israeli counterparts, some of whom admitted their own estimates should be treated with caution: one diplomat noted that Israeli assessments from 1993 onwards had predicted Iran would possess an atomic bomb by 1998 at the latest. Israel=Chicken Little. Our government finally wising up?
Iran blames Israel after nuclear scientist killed
Iran's president accused Israel and the West of being behind a pair of daring bomb attacks that killed one nuclear scientist and wounded another in their cars on the streets of Tehran on Monday. He also admitted for the first time that a computer worm had affected centrifuges in Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Israel unveils new residential plan near East Jerusalem
Israel on Wednesday revealed plans to build new homes on West Bank land it has annexed as part of its Jerusalem boundaries, a move likely to further hamper any resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.
The plan to build 625 homes in the urban area of Pisgat Zeev adjacent to Arab East Jerusalem was approved by an Israeli Interior Ministry committee last week, some two years after it was originally proposed, Israel Radio said.
Memories and maps keep alive Palestinian hopes of return
Aerial photographs taken by first world war German pilots are combined with mandate-era and Israeli maps supplemented by digitally enhanced satellite images that record old tribal boundaries, neighbourhoods and even individual buildings. Most striking are the hundreds of Arab villages that were destroyed or ploughed under fields, as well as postwar Jewish settlements and suburbs. The Abu Sitta family lands, for example, are now owned by Kibbutz Nirim, near the border with Gaza.
Hamas vows to honor Palestinian referendum on peace with Israel
The Islamist Hamas movement, whose charter advocates the elimination of Israel, would accept the outcome of a Palestinian referendum on a future peace treaty with Israel, its Gaza leader said on Wednesday Another myth put forth by pro-Israeli propagandists flushed down the toilet: Hamas wants or intends to 'drive the Jews into the sea', ie that Hamas seeks to annihilate or conquer all of Israel.
Who Voted for More War? by Philip Giraldi
as it is Thanksgiving, it is perhaps appropriate to ditch the gloom for just one day and look on the bright side. There has been no war against Iran in spite of the best efforts of Graham, McCain, Lieberman, Palin, the Israel Lobby, and the mainstream media. That is largely due to the intelligence community’s having developed a backbone in its 2007 Iran NIE, but it is also the product of alternative media sites like Antiwar.com that make sure that the downside of yet another military adventure is made clear to an increasingly well informed and vocal public. Antiwar has a stable of staff and contributors who put in long hours to produce unique content for the site, reflecting a wide range of viewpoints even if neocons are not generally welcome, thank you very much. On Thanksgiving I personally want to thank the many contributors whom I read and listen to every week: Justin Raimondo, Kelley Vlahos, Scott Horton, Ivan Eland, Chuck Pena, Jeff Huber, Jim Lobe, Gareth Porter, Paul Craig Roberts, and so many others. And I particularly will drink a toast later today to my fellow former spooks who have done so much to rip the veil of secrecy that surrounds the National Security State and its bankrupt policies: Ray McGovern, Michael Scheuer, and the Christisons. Floreat in aeternum! Thank you too, Mr. Giraldi, for your tireless efforts to protect America!! God love ya.
Exclusive: Leaked Cable Reveals US-Israeli Strategy for Regime Change in Iran
Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and the Central Intelligence Agency, who served for eighteen years in Turkey, believes Dagan's comment that Israel will have to "invest time and effort ourselves” in dealing with Iran was, in essence, a veiled threat.
"It is essentially setting up a situation in which the threat of Israel acting alone becomes a wedge issue to force the US to do something so that it will be able to manage the situation rather than respond to Israeli initiatives," Giraldi told Raw Story on Sunday. "It pushes Washington into planning a military strike to force the Israelis to stand down on their own plans."
Amnesty report: Dashed Hopes
five months
later, there are few signs of real improvement on the ground as the ‘ease’ has
left foundations of the illegal blockade policy intact. In order to have a positive
impact on the daily lives of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom
are children, Israel must fully lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
...the International Committee of the Red Cross has recently confirmed that the
blockade constitutes a collective punishment of the entire civilian population
of Gaza and is in clear violation of international humanitarian law........Palestinians’ freedom of movement including to travel, work, study and
visit family members abroad continues to be denied. This PDF doesn't seem to open in Firefox but will open in Internet Explorer.
Hamas PM: We're ready for referendum on peace deal
Hamas would respect any peace deal reached between Israel and Western–backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, provided it is approved in a global Palestinian referendum, the top Hamas official in Gaza said Wednesday.
In a rare news conference for foreign media, Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Gaza's Hamas government, staked out seemingly pragmatic positions. He said Hamas seeks dialogue with the West and wants to be "part of the solution, not the problem."
Haniyeh said such claims are part of a disinformation campaign meant to prepare the ground for future attacks on Gaza.
"There is no such thing as al–Qaida in Gaza," Haniyeh said, adding that "the Palestinian resistance does not work outside the borders of Palestine."
Haniyeh said his government is also monitoring and attempting to rein in Gaza's homegrown zealots, but trying to avoid confrontation.
Germany asked U.S. to force settlement freeze on Israel, WikiLeaks cables show
According to a telegram published by the whistleblowing website, two weeks before Israel's inner cabinet decided on a settlement construction freeze in November 2009, a senior German government official urged the United States to threaten Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if he did not agree to a moratorium, Washington would withdraw its support for blocking a vote on the Goldstone Report at the United Nations Security Council.
China calls on Israel to immediately end all settlement activity in occupied territory
China on Tuesday called on Israel to immediately stop all settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory in order to revive the peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Israel train line plan draws Palestinian ire
"This shows not only Israel's short–term illegal activities in terms of settlement expansion, but its long term planning and execution of colonial projects that aim at nothing less than ending the two–state solution,"
Iran 'smuggled arms' to Hezbollah on ambulances
I wonder if this is one of those planted cables discussed in other articles of this news batch? Cui bono - who benefits?
Noodging and Good Timing Are Behind New Push for Release of Pollard
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, the former U.S. Navy analyst who has spent 25 years in prison, part of a life sentence, the longest ever for spying for an ally.
Congressional staffers described Nyer as “relentless,” and he eventually struck gold: Massachusetts Democratic congressman Barney Frank, who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Banking Committee, agreed to sign on. That prompted a total of 39 signatures, all by Democrats, on the letter sent to Obama.
I wonder if Mr. Frank realizes just how severe the damage was that Jonathan Pollard's treason caused.
Bring on the transparency
These examples are just the tip of an iceberg. Hundreds of millions of dollars in Israeli taxpayer money and U.S.tax exemptions, mostly hidden from public view, are the driving force of the settlement enterprise
Poll: Most Israeli Jews believe Arab citizens should have no say in foreign policy
The study also revealed that almost half of the Jewish Israelis polled would be bothered to have an Arab neighbor No, they're not racists or anything....
Shouting To Be Heard
And while our struggle within the Jewish world is personal and painful for us, we know that it is actually Palestinians whose voices need and deserve to be heard. A lasting peace will only be possible when Palestinians are seen as truly equal and their claims no longer ignored — whether in Jewish community forums across North America, or at the diplomatic negotiating table with Israel.
U.S. Students Group Calls to Boycott an Israeli Hummus Brand
Activism 101 with Colonel Ann Wright
At Rice, Colonel Wright discussed her opposition to the violence used by the Israeli Navy to seize the six ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31. She gave an explicit, first-hand account of her experience on board 'The Challenger,' a ship which was filled with journalists who attempted to document Israeli soldiers' raids on the flotilla.
Tuk-tuks, cheap fuel edge out donkey carts in Gaza
Tuk–tuks started appearing on Gaza's streets in significant numbers several months ago, with demand driven by cheap smuggled fuel. Once the first tuk–tuks were imported, their advantages quickly became apparent, generating more demand.
Carnations from Gaza allowed over the border
Israel has granted permission for the export of strawberries and carnations from Gaza. The move is partly because the Dutch government is supporting the Palestinian farmers and growers. The produce will only be allowed onto the European market.
Vermont group offers anti-apartheid pledge, and more
I stand with Nelson Mandela, Palestinian civil society and people of conscience around the world in support of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS) against corporations, business interests, and academic and cultural institutions that are complicit in or profit from Israeli apartheid and occupation of the Palestinian territories.
WikiLeaks exposé: Israel tried to coordinate Gaza war with Abbas
In a June 2009 meeting between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and a U.S. congressional delegation, Barak claimed that the Israeli government "had consulted with Egypt and Fatah prior to Operation Cast Lead, asking if they were willing to assume control of Gaza once Israel defeated Hamas."
"Not surprisingly," Barak said in the meeting, Israel "received negative answers from both."
Did The US Supply Israel With Information Enabling Murder Of Hamas Officials?
Wikileaks: Israel Assessed Abbas as Weak, Unpopular
In 2007, then-opposition leader and current Prime Minister Netanyahu told US lawmaker Gary Ackerman that Abbas was a "nice man who means well," but that Israeli and US efforts would be better focused on undermining Hamas.
Wikileaks: Israel Says Turkeys Prime Minister "Simply Hates Israel"
Israel says WikiLeaks shows 'consistency' on Iran
Israel expressed satisfaction on Monday after the mass release of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, saying it proved the Jewish state's position on Iran was consistent –– in public and in private.
Cui bono - who benefits?
Galloway Stirs Up Montreal News
Canadians, Galloway said, should stop treating Israel like a “legitimate member of the international community and start treating it like the international rogue terrorist state that it has become.”
Nearly two million Palestinians have been pushed from their home and currently live in the “open-air concentration camp” in the Gaza strip, said Galloway.
Shouting ‘Fire’
The incident began when the leadership of Temple Beth Avodah in Newton Centre, Mass., acceded to the demands of what the congregation’s rabbi characterized as a “small, influential group” within the Reform congregation, by canceling a planned event at the synagogue with J Street’s president. This assuredly was not American Judaism’s finest hour.
Is Wikileaks being manipulated by an intelligence service?
There are a number of bloggers – some of them informed writers with credibility, some of them uninformed, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nutters – who think the answer is “Yes”. More to the point is that no less a figure than Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, thinks the answer could be “Yes”. He said so in an interview with PBS’s Judy Woodruff and also in a subsequent BBC World Service (Radio) interview. To Judy Woodruff he said:
“The real issue is, who is feeding Wikileaks? They’re getting a lot of information which seems trivial, inconsequential, but some of it seems surprisingly pointed… The very pointed references to Arab leaders could have as their objective undermining their political credibility at home, because this kind of public identification of their hostility towards Iran could actually play against them at home…It’s a question of whether Wikileaks are being manipulated by interested parties that want to either complicate our relationship with other governments or want to undermine some governments… I have no doubt that Wikileaks is getting a lot of the stuff from sort of relatively unimportant sources, like the one that perhaps is identified on the air. But it may be getting stuff at the same time from interested intelligence parties who want to manipulate the process and achieve certain very specific objectives.” Interesting.
GORDON DUFF “WIKI-MURDERS” IN IRAN, SIGNAL “FALSE FLAG” TERROR Veterans Today
Iran is being “set up” through terrorist attacks timed to make any military action in the region immediately look like Iran “out of control.” More attacks on scientists and their families are planned until international tensions are high enough for a “false flag” terror attack on the United States to seem plausible.........There is now little doubt that Wikileaks is an intelligence operation managed from Tel Aviv, carrying out Israeli foreign policy. The most recent “leaks” have successfully reset the diplomatic stage in the Middle East, exposing undercurrents of animosity against Iran while destroying American diplomatic credibility. Very interesting, if true.
WikiLeaks: Netanyahu Warned U.S. Iran 'Months Away' From Nuclear Bomb
the U.S. diplomat quoted in the classified cable said in response to the premier's warning that Netanyahu's estimate was likely unfounded and meant to pressure Washington into action against the Islamic Republic.
Oceans of Blood and Profits for the Mongers of War
Total losses for Lebanon in 2006 came to an estimated $3.6bn, for Israel $1.6bn - so Israel won hands down in terms of money, even if its rabble of an army screwed everything up on the ground. But among those who paid for this were American taxpayers (funding the Israelis) and European taxpayers, Arab potentates and the crackpot of Iran (funding Lebanon). So the American taxpayer destroys what the European taxpayer rebuilds. It's the same in Gaza; Washington funds the weapons to blow up EU-funded projects and the EU rebuilds them in time for them to be destroyed again. But boy oh boy, in the Lebanese war, US arms manufacturers make a packet - and so, to a lesser extent do the Iranian and Chinese missile dealers. The cost of Israel to the American taxpayers, and that includes all peripheral costs including continued aid to Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan for keeping peace treaties with Israel or because of the damage Israel has wrought upon them, and the costs of the Iraq war - all of this money has been drained out of the US economy, could have fed and housed millions of Americans many times over, could have provided free health care many times over. Instead, thanks to the overwhelming influence of the Israeli lobby on our government, we are going broke. America is becoming a third world nation in order to prop up a nation based on religious supremacism, one that routinely violates international and humanitarian law, and one that practices a form of apartheid. And given that, the Israelis are starting to seed a new host: China. This doesn't begin to address the political ramifications our support for Israel has cost us. It was the main reason given by the 911 mastermind, Khaled Shaikh Mohammed.
Der Spiegel: US officials called Ahmadinejad 'Hitler'
If WikiLeaks Is a PsyOp, Whose PsyOp Is It?
Selective disclosure and cherry-picking intelligence can be even more useful than simply fabricating evidence. The authenticity of the diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks hasn’t been challenged. But one might wonder whether there’s a particular spin that the disclosures are meant to convey. Could be why Israel is so pleased at the latest Wikileaks release.
If we aren’t going to bomb, we have to deter
The only way to prevent this scenario is through a sweeping military operation. Only one country has the power to take on an operation of this scale; it is the country with the most at stake and the greatest interest in preventing this new world disorder. That country is the United States. Israel wants us to attack Iran for them, like we did with Iraq.
WikiLeaks cables: Qatar okays use of airbase for U.S. attack on Iran
Qatar agreed to allow the United States to use a base on Qatari soil to bomb Iran, according to a report in the newspaper Al-Arabiya based on secret diplomatic cables published by the website WikiLeaks.
Israel, U.S. tense as WikiLeaks set to release classified bilateral communiques
According to the senior Israeli official, the U.S. Embassy said that the documents were not highly classified, but the administration did not know the precise content of the cables.
Unexpectedly, Israel Welcomes WikiLeaks Revelations
Why Are We Still in Korea? by Patrick J. Buchanan
To broker peace in Palestine, Obama began his presidency with a demand that Israel halt all new construction of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Today, as his price for a one-time-only 90-day freeze on new construction on the West Bank, but not East Jerusalem, “Bibi” Netanyahu is demanding 20 F-35 strike fighters, a U.S. commitment to a Security Council veto of any Palestinian declaration of independence, and assurances the U.S. will support a permanent Israeli presence on the Jordan river. And the Israelis want it all in writing.
This, from a client state upon which we have lavished a hundred billion dollars in military aid and defended diplomatically for decades.
Israeli Airport Security
Steve Clemons has a useful post about GOP demands for Israeli-style airport security in place of the TSA’s strip-’n'-grope regime. Not only would it be more expensive than TARP, and quite probably impractical, but as Stephen Walt writes to Clemons, there’s a bigger question going unaddressed here:
Am I the only person who sees the irony in the recommendation that the US adopt the Israeli approach to airline security? The proper question to ask is: why do we suddenly need greater airport security?
Could it be because we’ve gradually adopted Israel’s approach to the Middle East too? Our support for Israel is the reason we were attacked on 911 in the first place.
The Democracy Agenda is Over
One other notable aspect of these stories has been the reaction of neoconservatives. I mentioned Jennifer Rubin and David Frum in the piece. But The Washington Times‘ Eli Lake and The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg have also rushed to point out that Wikileaks proves “that it is not just Israel that seeks to pull America into a fight with Teheran.” This is a red herring. No one with any familiarity with the region would doubt that other Arab nations are uncomfortable with Iran’s ascendency. The problem with an American strike on Iran isn’t that it would be in Israel’s interest, it is that it is not in the American interest. Adding King Abdullah doesn’t make a hill of difference. Why should Uncle Sam muscle up on his behalf?
A Dangerous Link
There are safer ways for the Obama administration to prove its unquestioned support for Israel’s security.
Really? And why should he have to do that at all? He was elected to serve the AMERICAN PEOPLE.
A Look at the Franken Files
On the Senate floor, however, Franken has been less active on issues relating to the Jewish community and Israel. He did not co-sponsor any of six recent bills in support of Israel, including one “calling for the immediate and unconditional release” of Gilad Shalit (Resolution 571) and another opposing the Arab League trade boycott of Israel (Bill 1671). He also did not cosponsor Bill 3821, protecting Jewish students from discrimination on the ground of religion under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — which has not yet come to a vote. Franken’s official website also does not mention Israel or anti-Jewish discrimination, and does not include a section on Israel or anti-Semitism. This may be because most of his focus in his first two years has been directed toward issues relating directly to Minnesotans. Franken, for example, lists “Agriculture and Rural Issues” at the top of his agenda on his official website.
Oh dear, how dare Franken put the interests of his constituents over the interests of a foreign nation! The nerve.
Now We Know. America Really Doesn't Care About Injustice in the Middle East
It's not that US diplomats don't understand the Middle East; it's just that they've lost all sight of injustice. Vast amounts of diplomatic literature prove that the mainstay of Washington's Middle East policy is alignment with Israel, that its principal aim is to encourage the Arabs to join the American-Israeli alliance against Iran, that the compass point of US policy over years and years is the need to tame/bully/crush/oppress/ ultimately destroy the power of Iran.
There is virtually no talk (so far, at least) of illegal Jewish colonial settlements on the West Bank, of Israeli "outposts", of extremist Israeli "settlers" whose homes now smallpox the occupied Palestinian West Bank – of the vast illegal system of land theft which lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian war. And incredibly, all kinds of worthy US diplomats grovel and kneel before Israel's demands – many of them apparently fervent supporters of Israel – as Mossad bosses and Israel military intelligence agents read their wish-list to their benefactors.
A good read.
WikiLeaks Israel warned U.S. not to arm Arab states against Iran
Netanyahu is quoted as warning that should Iran get the bomb despite U.S.-led efforts to curb its uranium enrichment, Arab powers could shift loyalties from Washington to Tehran.
Turkish foreign minister to hold talks in US
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu starts a four–day visit to the United States Saturday for talks on bilateral ties and regional issues, the foreign ministry said Friday.
Armed members of Jewish Defense League forced way into Paris museum
The BDS France Campaign- On Sunday November 21, 2010, more than 30 members of the Jewish Defense League forced their way into the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, which was showing an exhibition of photographs from Gaza taken by Kai Wiedenhöfer. Armed, wearing helmets and hoods in some cases, group members tried to reach the basement exhibition room in order to vandalize the photographer's work, but were prevented from doing so by the museum security staff.
Hariri visits Iran to lobby for stability
Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al–Hariri visits Iran on Saturday, seeking its help to prevent political tensions turning violent if a U.N.–backed tribunal indicts Hezbollah members for killing his father.
Iran condemns leaks on Arab calls for attack
"We don't give any value to these documents," Ahmadinejad told a news conference "It's without legal value. Iran and regional states are friends. Such acts of mischief have no impact on relations between nations." Wikileaks = psyops?
Is Israel's Mossad Targeting Iran's Nuclear Scientists?
This is why it's likely it was the Israelis behind the Hariri assasination. The Israelis were the first terrorists in the Middle East (Irgun and Stern gangs) and the Arabs simply have learned from them.
Iran Scientist Killed by Bomb Worked on Atomic Project
Shahriari was a member of a regional scientific program known as Sesame, which includes Israel as a member, according to the project’s website. He succeeded Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, an Iranian scientist who also died in an attack, the Tehran-based Asre-Iran website, which is close to the government, said today. Ali-Mohammadi, a professor of elementary particle physics, was killed in January by a bomb planted outside his home in Tehran.
Israeli firms see a global market for their anti-terrorism know-how
"We might be a small country, but we're not small in this business," said Hefetz, director of the Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute, a quasi-government business promotion group that this month organized the Homeland Security Conference, Israel's first expo for domestic security providers.
.....More than 400 Israeli companies export about $1.5 billion annually in domestic security goods and technology, including biometric devices, tear gas canisters, anti-intrusion systems, airport screening machines, explosives detectors and remote-controlled vehicles. How much terror is manufactured by Israel to further its massive anti-terrorism business?
Turkey 'won't be silent' if Israel strikes Lebanon
"Does (Israel) think it can enter Lebanon with the most modern aircraft and tanks to kill women and children, and destroy schools and hospitals, and then expect us to remain silent?" Erdogan said at a conference organised by the Union of Arab Banks.
"Does it think it can use the most modern weapons, phosphorus munitions and cluster bombs to kill children in Gaza and then expect us to remain silent?
"We will not be silent and we will support justice by all means available to us."
WikiLeaks Israel's Security Concerns Often Clash With U.S. Interests
Gilad's "typically frank" remarks lend credence to the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus, then CENTCOM Commander, before the Senate Armed Service Committee in March. Petraeus articulated several reasons why U.S. and Israeli interests did not necessarily coincide. The Arab-Israeli conflict, according to Petraeus, "present[s] distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests," and "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel." Petraeus went on to describe how Israel's ongoing conflicts spurred recruitment efforts for al-Qaeda and increased Iranian influence in the region.
Russians Refuted US Claim of Iranian Missile Threat to Europe by Gareth Porter
The Russians maintained that even assuming favorable conditions, Iran would be able to begin a program to develop ballistic missiles that could reach Central Europe or Moscow only after 2015 at the earliest.
The Russians denied, however, that Iran has such an intention, arguing that its ballistic missile program continues to be directed toward “regional concerns” – meaning deterring an attack on Iran by Israel.
Iran's military looks to the sky as new priority
Still, Iran clearly is trying to close security gaps around nuclear sites – including Iran's main uranium enrichment lab – and blunt the edge that the Pentagon and Israel gain from drone technology. Iranian commanders now view drones as a critical tool, including to monitor the U.S. 5th Fleet based across the Gulf in Bahrain.
WikiLeaks Files Threaten Egypt's Role as Mideast Mediator
WikiLeaks Lesson: Deception Part of Middle East Diplomacy
then there's the revelation, from Israeli officials, that a number of U.S. allies in the Gulf feel that their views are so routinely ignored by Washington that they have taken to relaying messages via Israel, which they know has the ear of those in power in the U.S. But any sense of strategic intimacy between Israel and even these most conservative Arab regimes is undercut by the cables' revelation that Israeli officials have constantly questioned some of the goodies included in U.S. arms sales to those regimes, making clear their suspicion that such weapons could one day be turned against Israel.
“There is no anti-Semitic sentiment in Iran”
If you don’t believe in Moses and Jesus, you are not Muslim
Islamic theologian Mohsen Rabbani, director of “Fundacion Cultural Oriente”, describes religious similarities between Jews and Muslims.
“We believe that Moses and Jesus are great prophets. If you don’t believe that, you are not Muslim. We believe in Abrahamic religions. We view them as brothers. We as Muslims believe in Prophet Moses. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country where religious minorities have the same freedoms, occupy high positions, are free to operate on the market, in the economy, and have their representatives in the parliament. We consider ourselves first Jews, then Christians, and only after that, Muslims.” Great article.
Israel torn on U.S. arming Arabs against Iran: WikiLeaks
Shapiro declines an Israeli request to review the U.S. report on planned Middle East arms sales before its submission to Congress, as it contained secret intelligence assessments.
The Obama administration announced last month it would go ahead with the $60 billion deal with Saudi Arabia. A Pentagon official, Alexander Vershbow, told reporters at the time: "Israel does not object to this sale."
Israel approves detention center for migrants
other officials said authorities cannot let thousands of economic migrants enter illegally each year, take jobs from Israelis and dilute the country's Jewish character.
The supreme irony here is that it is the Jewish groups here in America that are squarely behind the effort to grant amnesty to illegals in America, by their own admission. Yet, it's another standard for Israel. Ironically, many of these immigants are from Sudan, another celebrated cause of American Jews.
Is Glenn Beck After the Wrong Billionaire?
It’s kindly old Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. He has six channels on my cable system alone. He actually pays Republican presidential contenders to pontificate on air. He owns The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London and a major Hollywood movie studio. But he doesn’t pull anyone’s strings, does he? Nah.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Wikileaks: Israel in the list of countries not clamping down on terror funding
ABC Nightly News just ran a Wikileaks story exposing terror funding during which they showed documents exposing bank transactions from countries not clamping down on this funding. I spied some transactions from Tel Aviv in the list (a few times) of the document but yet no mention of this in the report or any other that I can find in the Google News index.
Stay tuned, maybe an independent agency will pick up this story, as one would expect in any case involving negative publicity for Israel. Our media would be most unlikely to touch it.
Stay tuned, maybe an independent agency will pick up this story, as one would expect in any case involving negative publicity for Israel. Our media would be most unlikely to touch it.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
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.
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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