Archive for March, 2010
March 23, 2010
By David Cronin, Inter Press Service News
BRUSSELS, Mar 22, 2010 (IPS) – Diplomats representing the European Union (EU) have drawn up a new plan for strengthening their relations with Israel despite the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Spain, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, is eager that work proceeds on formally upgrading the Union’s political and commercial ties with Israel over the next few months.
Although both the EU and Israel had agreed in 2008 to undertake steps designed to integrate Israel into the Union’s economy, work on this dossier has partly stalled because of the subsequent war in Gaza. But a confidential paper written by Spanish officials suggests that fresh discussions should soon be opened with Israel so that the upgrading process can regain its momentum.
Continues >>
Tags:European Union, expansion of illegal settlements, Israel, Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, Russell tribunal on Palestine, violations of international law
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
March 22, 2010
Andy Worthington, The Huffington Post, March 21, 2010
Friday marked the seventh anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, but by now, it seems, the American people have become used to living in a state of perpetual war, even though that war was based on torture and lies. Protestors rallied across the country on Saturday, but the anti-war impetus of the Bush years has not been regained, as I discovered to my sorrow during a brief U.S. tour in November, when I showed the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and myself) in New York, Washington D.C., and the Bay Area.
Continues >>
Tags:Andy Worthington, Bush Administration officials, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, illegal invasion of Iraq, Obama, prisoners at Guantánamo, Tony Blair, use of torture, war, war in Afghanistan
Posted in Afghanistan, Commentary, Iraq, torture, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war, War Criminals | 1 Comment »
March 22, 2010
BBC News, March 22, 2010
US drone attacks are being stepped up along the Afghan-Pakistan border
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Missiles fired by a suspected US drone have killed at least five people in north-western Pakistan, officials say.
The missiles hit a militant hideout in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan area near the Afghan border, officials said.
They said the identities of those killed were not known.
North and South Waziristan are known sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. The US has recently stepped up drone attacks in the region.
Hundreds of people, including a number of militants, have been killed in scores of drone strikes since August 2008.
Pakistan has publicly criticised drone attacks, saying they fuel support for militants, but observers say the authorities privately condone the strikes.
The American military does not routinely confirm drone operations, but analysts say the US is the only force capable of deploying such aircraft in the region.
Tags:Pakistan, people killed, US drone
Posted in Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | 1 Comment »
March 21, 2010
Netanyahu Vows to Continue East Jerusalem Construction
Last week’s declaration of victory in the ongoing Israel row by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have been a short-lived win, and media claims that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “bowed” to US demands appear to be premature.
In his most recent public comments, Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated that he would like to see the “indirect talks” with the Palestinian Authority resume, but that he absolutely would not ever agree to restrict construction in occupied East Jerusalem, the issue upon which the talks have stalled.
With Netanyahu on his way to the US for AIPAC’s policy conference, and expected to focus his visit on pressing President Obama for more advanced weapons with which to attack Iran, it was widely expected that the Netanyahu government would try to defuse the tensions over the East Jerusalem move, which US officials considered a public insult.
And indeed the tensions do seem to be dying down, though the only thing resembling a concession made by the Netanyahu government was to implement a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy wherein the Israeli government would continue to expand settlements in East Jerusalem with impunity but would stop publicizing them at inopportune times.
But even if US-Israeli relations return quickly to normalcy, there appears to be no rapprochement forthcoming with the PA. This may serve as a recipe for the Obama Administration to default back to chastising the Palestinians for “refusing” negotiations (just two weeks after they agreed to those negotiations, only to see them torpedoed by the most recent construction), but it seems unlikely that it will restart the peace talks.
Tags:East Jerusalem, expanding settlements, Israel, Obama administration, PM Benjamin Netanyahu, United States
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, Zionism. | Leave a Comment »
March 21, 2010
| The White House is considering housing international terrorism suspects at Bagram air base, as is done at Guantanamo Bay.
The U.S. military recently opened this new prison at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, but the facility remains controversial in Afghanistan because of cases of detainee abuse at the former prison there. (Saeed Shah / MCT / February 11, 2010) |
By David S. Cloud and Julian E. Barnes
Reporting from Washington
The White House is considering whether to detain international terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said, an option that would lead to another prison with the same purpose as Guantanamo Bay, which it has promised to close.
The idea, which would require approval by President Obama, already has drawn resistance from within the government. Army Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and other senior officials strongly oppose it, fearing that expansion of the U.S. detention facility at Bagram air base could make the job of stabilizing the country even tougher.
Continues >>
Tags:Afghanistan, Bagram air base, detaing suspects, Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal, United States
Posted in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA | Leave a Comment »
March 21, 2010
By Jason Groves, Mail Online, March 19, 2010
Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq.
The former Prime Minister tried to keep the public in the dark over his dealings with South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation.
Mr Blair – who has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007 – also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq’s neighbour Kuwait.
In an unprecedented move, he persuaded the committee which vets the jobs of former ministers to keep details of both deals from the public for 20 months, claiming it was commercially sensitive. The deals emerged yesterday when the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments finally lost patience with Mr Blair and decided to ignore his objections and publish the details.
Continues >>
Tags:commercial deals, Tony Blair, UI Energy Corporation
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March 21, 2010
By MATTHEW BARAKAT (Associated Press Writer)
The Washington Post, March 21, 2010
WASHINGTON — Thousands of protesters – many directing their anger squarely at President Barack Obama – marched through the nation’s capital Saturday to urge immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
At least eight people, including activist Cindy Sheehan, were arrested by U.S. Park Police at the end of the march, after laying coffins at a fence outside the White House. Friday marked the seventh anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
“Arrest that war criminal!” Sheehan shouted outside the White House before her arrest, referring to Obama.
At a rally before the march, Sheehan asked whether “the honeymoon was over with that war criminal in the White House” – an apparent reference to Obama – prompting moderate applause.
Continues >>
Tags:Cindy Sheehan, invasion of Iraq, Matthew Barakat, President Barack Obama, protesters, Ralph Nader, wars
Posted in Afghanistan, Commentary, Iraq, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
March 20, 2010
by Maidhc Ó Cathail
Although Zionism typically represents itself as the solution to anti-Semitism, the truth is less flattering. In fact, hostility toward Jews is indispensable to the cause of Jewish nationalism. If anti-Semitism didn’t exist, Zionists would have to invent it. And in many cases that is precisely what they have done.
Contrary to the widespread perception that Zionism opposes anti-Semitism, its adherents have occasionally revealed a more ambivalent attitude to Jew-hatred. In 1895, Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, prophetically wrote in his Diaries, “Anti-Semites will become our surest friends, anti-Semitic countries our allies.”
Even the suffering inflicted on European Jewry by the Nazi holocaust doesn’t seem to have unduly tempered such cynicism. In 1995, Jay Lefkowitz, an American government official, told the New York Times Magazine, “Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews— reminds them who they are.”
Continues >>
Tags:anti-Semitism, Jay Lefkowitz, Maidhc Ó Cathail, Professor Norman Finkelstein, Zionism.
Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized, Zionism. | Leave a Comment »
March 19, 2010
Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report, March 19, 2010
Corporate media pretend U.S.-Israeli relations are in “crisis,” just as they have many times in the past. It’s all a charade, a play for national and international audiences. In real crises, relationships are called into question. But there has never been any question about who is in charge of this “partnership”: Israel. And don’t you dare forget it.
Freedom Rider: Israel Is Boss
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“The Obama administration, like every other presidential administration in the last sixty years, does what Israel wants it to do.”
The United States may invade and occupy Iraq, undermine elected presidents in Haiti and throw its weight around in numerous ways in numerous parts of the world. Yet there is one country it does not dare to confront. Of course, the nation in question is Israel.
Tags:Israel, Margaret Kimberley, Mossad agents, murder of Mahmoud al-Mabouh, Obama administration, stealing the Palestinian land, U.S.-Israeli relations, United States
Posted in Commentary, crime, Palestine, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
March 19, 2010
By Dr Alan Sabrosky, Redress, March 12, 2010
Alan Sabrosky considers the characteristics that differentiate Jewish nationalism from other nationalisms, highlighting in particular its intrinsic extremism, its xenophobia, racism and militarism, its undermining of civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries and its propensity to hatred and racial exclusivity.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering that “Israel is not like other countries”. Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the “Zionist” label on it.
| “…whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews (secular or observant) against the goyim (everyone else)…” |
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Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbours. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g. the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya’s had the Mau Mau, etc.).
But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews (secular or observant) against the goyim (everyone else), who are either possible predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be under any electable government (a point I’ll develop in another article).
Continues >>
Tags:Dr Alan Sabrosky, extremism in Jewish nationalism, Jewish nationalism, Zionism.
Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized, Zionism., Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
Peace and Justice Post 
European Union Boosts Israel Ties, Ignores Illegal Settlements
March 23, 2010By David Cronin, Inter Press Service News
BRUSSELS, Mar 22, 2010 (IPS) – Diplomats representing the European Union (EU) have drawn up a new plan for strengthening their relations with Israel despite the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Spain, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, is eager that work proceeds on formally upgrading the Union’s political and commercial ties with Israel over the next few months.
Although both the EU and Israel had agreed in 2008 to undertake steps designed to integrate Israel into the Union’s economy, work on this dossier has partly stalled because of the subsequent war in Gaza. But a confidential paper written by Spanish officials suggests that fresh discussions should soon be opened with Israel so that the upgrading process can regain its momentum.
Continues >>
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Tags:European Union, expansion of illegal settlements, Israel, Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, Russell tribunal on Palestine, violations of international law
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »